Longtime Sonoma County attorney and former judicial candidate John LemMon was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of soliciting sex during a prostitution sting that netted 10 other suspects, police said.
LemMon, 50, was arrested at a Santa Rosa hotel around 11:30 a.m. after making a date with a fictional woman whose profile was posted on an adult web site several weeks ago as part of the under-cover operation, police said.
LemMon, who did not return calls Wednesday afternoon to his office or cellphone, had been communicating over several days with a Santa Rosa police detective posing as the woman online, police said.
He was booked into the Sonoma County Jail on a single misdemeanor count of suspected solicitation for prostitution, authorities said.
LemMon's arrest came as part of an extension of a multi-agency sting targeting potential clients of prostitutes.
He bailed out shortly before 5:30 p.m., posting bond for $1,000 bail, jail personnel said.
A Glen Ellen attorney who has practiced locally for two decades, LemMon was briefly a member of the Sonoma County District Attorney's staff in the early 1990s.
He also served on a panel of temporary judges for the Sonoma County courts from 1993 to 2011, and would have served a few days a year overseeing small claims trials and, possibly, debt collection cases, Court Executive Officer Jos?Guill? said.
LemMon ran for an open seat on the Superior Court in 2000, but trailed in the primary. That post later went to Judge James Bertoli.
He applied for a judicial appointment in 2001, under Gov. Gray Davis, and ran again for a seat on the Superior Court in 2010, citing qualities of compassion, decisivenes and fairness.
Patrick Broderick ultimately won that seat.
You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.
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