Entrapment in Florida: When a Sting Crosses the Line

Police can hand you an opportunity to commit a crime. What they cannot do is manufacture the crime — and the criminal — and then arrest you for it. The line between the two is called entrapment.

You were arrested in an undercover operation. Maybe a detective posed online as someone selling sex. Maybe an informant kept pushing you to find him drugs. Either way, the crime you are charged with did not exist until law enforcement created the setting for it, and you want to know whether that matters. Sometimes it does. The defense is called entrapment, and the Florida Legislature codified it in section 777.201, Florida Statutes.

Read this article and learn what the entrapment statute actually says, what you must prove and what the State must prove, and where the defense comes up most often in Polk County courtrooms.

What does Florida’s entrapment statute say?

The statute is short. Section 777.201, Florida Statutes (2022), reads as follows:

(1) A law enforcement officer, a person engaged in cooperation with a law enforcement officer, or a person acting as an agent of a law enforcement officer perpetrates an entrapment if, for the purpose of obtaining evidence of the commission of a crime, he or she induces or encourages and, as a direct result, causes another person to engage in conduct constituting such crime by employing methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such crime will be committed by a person other than one who is ready to commit it.

(2) A person prosecuted for a crime shall be acquitted if the person proves by a preponderance of the evidence that his or her criminal conduct occurred as a result of an entrapment. The issue of entrapment shall be tried by the trier of fact.

Note the two moving parts. Subsection (1) defines what entrapment is: government inducement that creates a substantial risk of ensnaring a person who was not ready to commit the crime. Subsection (2) tells you who proves it and by what standard: the defendant, by a preponderance of the evidence, with the question decided by the trier of fact — usually the jury.

How does the defense actually work?

The controlling case is Munoz v. State, 629 So. 2d 90 (Fla. 1993). In Munoz, the Florida Supreme Court held that section 777.201 adopted the “subjective” test for entrapment and broke that test into three questions.

First, did an agent of the government — an officer, an informant, or anyone working with law enforcement — induce you to commit the offense charged? On this question you carry the burden, by a preponderance of the evidence. Inducement means persuasion: repeated requests, appeals to sympathy or friendship, escalating pressure. It is more than being asked once.

Second, were you predisposed to commit the offense — that is, were you ready and willing to commit it without persuasion, just waiting for the opportunity? Here the burden shifting matters. Once you produce evidence that you were not predisposed, the burden shifts to the State to prove predisposition beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, under Munoz the State’s predisposition evidence must show you were disposed to commit the crime before, and independent of, the government’s contact with you. The government cannot spend weeks talking you into something and then point to your eventual “yes” as proof you wanted to do it all along.

Third, entrapment is ordinarily a jury question, but not always. Where the material facts are not in dispute, a judge can find entrapment as a matter of law. That is exactly what the supreme court did for Mr. Munoz himself.

What is entrapment not?

Merely providing an opportunity. Can you claim entrapment because an undercover detective posted the ad, answered the phone, and named the price? The answer is “no.” This is so because the statute requires methods of persuasion or inducement that create a substantial risk of catching a person “other than one who is ready to commit it.” A person who answers an ad, negotiates quickly, and shows up with cash has — in the State’s telling — demonstrated that he was ready. The Munoz court, quoting the United States Supreme Court, put it plainly: officers who “merely afford opportunities or facilities for the commission of the offense” have not entrapped anyone.

So the fight is almost always over predisposition. Evidence that hurts you: prior similar conduct, initiating the contact, eager and immediate acceptance. Evidence that helps you: no criminal history, repeated refusals, attempts to back out, an officer or informant who kept pushing after you said no, pressure aimed at sympathy, friendship, or hardship. Save every message. In a sting case the entire chat log — not the State’s excerpt of it — is where inducement and predisposition live.

What about truly outrageous police conduct?

There is a second, narrower doctrine. In Munoz, the supreme court held that although the legislature eliminated Florida’s old “objective” entrapment test when it enacted section 777.201, it cannot stop the courts from reviewing egregious law enforcement conduct under the due process clause of article I, section 9 of the Florida Constitution. When police conduct crosses that line — the court pointed to a case in which law enforcement itself manufactured the crack cocaine it then sold — a judge can bar the prosecution as a matter of law, and your predisposition does not matter. These cases are rare. The subjective test under section 777.201 is where most entrapment defenses are fought.

Where does entrapment come up in Polk County?

Undercover solicitation stings, more than anywhere else. Section 796.07(2)(f), Florida Statutes (2022), makes it a crime to “solicit, induce, entice, or procure another to commit prostitution, lewdness, or assignation.” A first violation of the soliciting provision is a first degree misdemeanor; a second violation is a third degree felony; a third or subsequent violation is a second degree felony. § 796.07(5)(a), Fla. Stat. (2022). Polk County law enforcement regularly runs large, well-publicized undercover operations aimed at exactly this offense — detectives post the ads, run the text conversations, and wait in a motel room off US 27 or along the I-4 corridor while arrest teams stand by. Dozens of people are charged at a time, and those cases are prosecuted at the courthouse in Bartow.

Also common: controlled drug buys arranged by confidential informants — who are often working off their own charges and have every incentive to push a reluctant target — and online chat stings in which officers pose as buyers, sellers, or someone they are not. In each of these, the government is a participant in the crime from the first message. That does not make every sting case an entrapment case. It does mean the raw communications deserve a line-by-line review before anyone talks about a plea.

The crime you are charged with did not exist until law enforcement created the setting for it. Whether that is a legal defense depends on inducement and predisposition, and the record on both is built — or lost — early. If you were arrested in a sting in Polk, Highlands, or Hardee County, get counsel on the file while the chat logs, recordings, and reports can still be put to work.

Legally reviewed by Tonmiel Rodriguez — last reviewed July 20, 2026.

Tonmiel Rodriguez is a criminal defense attorney in Bartow and is Board Certified in Criminal Trial Law by The Florida Bar. He defends solicitation, prostitution sting, drug, and other criminal cases across Polk, Highlands, Hardee, Osceola, and Hillsborough Counties. If you were arrested in an undercover operation and believe you were pushed into a crime you were not looking to commit, call The Rodriguez Law Office at (863) 774-4556.