A 60-year-old Janesville man is wanted on a felony warrant after Olmsted County investigators say he agreed to pay $300 to meet someone he believed was a 16-year-old girl for sex, then abruptly backed out the morning he was supposed to show up at a Rochester hotel. Harold John Jewison never made it to the meeting, according to court documents, after sending a text message saying he thought it was a sting.
Olmsted County authorities issued the arrest warrant for Jewison in connection with a juvenile prostitution sting investigation, according to KROC-AM. The case began on August 4, 2026, when an Olmsted County Sheriff's Office detective posted a fake online advertisement on a prostitution website, featuring a photo of a fully clothed young woman with her face covered and a phone number attached. The detective posing behind that ad pretended to be a 16-year-old girl, per court documents cited by the station.
Text Messages Led to a Planned Rochester Meeting
Jewison allegedly began sending text messages to the number listed in the ad from a phone belonging to him starting August 4, 2026, per court documents. During those exchanges, he allegedly offered $300 to engage in sexual activity with someone he believed was a juvenile girl, according to the criminal complaint. He also allegedly remarked that he had previously sexually abused girls as young as 10 years old, the complaint states.
The detective and Jewison allegedly agreed he would meet her at a Rochester hotel on the morning of August 7, 2026. A joint surveillance team from the South-Central Minnesota Drug Task Force and the Southeast Minnesota Violent Crimes Enforcement Team set up outside Jewison's Janesville home ahead of the planned meeting, watching as he drove away from the residence that morning, according to the criminal complaint.
He Never Showed, Then Sent a One-Line Message
Jewison pulled off Highway 14 rather than continuing on to the hotel, court documents state, and never reported to the arranged meeting. He instead sent a message reading think it's a sting, according to the criminal complaint. Janesville sits in Waseca County along U.S. Highway 14, roughly 65 miles west of Rochester, a stretch of road that serves as a key regional corridor across southern Minnesota, according to Streets.mn.
A criminal complaint has since charged Jewison with one felony count of hiring or agreeing to hire a person reasonably believed to be between 16 and 17 years old for prostitution, according to court records reviewed by MN Crime, which reported the charge was formally filed in Olmsted County District Court on August 27, 2026. As of this reporting, it remains unclear whether authorities have located and arrested Jewison, and the allegations against him remain unproven in court.
What Jewison Could Face If Convicted
Under Minnesota Statute § 609.324, subdivision 1(a)(3), the charge Jewison faces carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both, according to the state's Revisor's Office. A conviction would also trigger mandatory registration on Minnesota's predatory offender registry, per the Mankey Law Office, a status that imposes long-term residential and employment restrictions.
The tactic used to build the case against Jewison reflects a strategy Rochester and Olmsted County law enforcement have relied on for more than a decade: posting fake advertisements on commercial sex websites to identify people attempting to buy sex online, according to the Demand Forum. Regional task forces like the ones that surveilled Jewison's home routinely help local sheriff's departments track suspects across county lines, per reporting from AM 1390 KRFO.
Minnesota's Safe Harbor Law Shapes the Enforcement Approach
Cases like this one are structured around Minnesota's Safe Harbor Law, enacted in 2011 and fully implemented by 2014, which designated sexually exploited youth under 18 as victims rather than criminal offenders. That law eliminated juvenile prostitution charges statewide and redirected police focus toward the adults attempting to buy sex, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, making Minnesota the first state in the country to pass comprehensive safe harbor protections for minors. Victim Services of Olmsted County now serves as the base for the Southeast Minnesota Regional Navigator under that system, connecting exploited youth across a dozen southeastern Minnesota counties with emergency housing and advocacy support, per Olmsted County government.
Jewison's case follows a string of similar prosecutions in the county. In June 2026, Twin Cities resident Troy Alvin Wagner pleaded guilty in Olmsted County District Court after a similar undercover sting in which officers posed as a minor, a case Hoodline previously reported. And in May 2026, 25-year-old Rochester resident Christian Santiago Duran-Ayala was sentenced to 51 months in state prison after being caught in a separate online child exploitation sting, following a plea agreement on child pornography and solicitation charges.
