Any person who:
(1) For purposes of prostitution or unlawful sexual intercourse, takes any person into, or persuades, encourages or causes any person to enter, a bawdy place, or takes or causes such person to be taken to any place against his or her will for such purposes; or
(2) Takes or detains a person against his or her will with the intent to compel such person, by force, threats, persuasions, menace or duress, to marry him or her or to marry any other person, or to be defiled; or
(3) Being parent, guardian, legal custodian or one standing in loco parentis of a person, consents to such person being taken or detained by any person for the purpose of prostitution or unlawful sexual intercourse; or
(4) For purposes of prostitution, takes any minor into, or persuades, encourages, or causes any minor to enter, a bawdy place, or takes or causes such person to be taken to any place for such purposes; is guilty of pandering.
A violation of subdivision (1), (2), or (3) is punishable as a Class 4 felony. A violation of subdivision (4) is punishable as a Class 3 felony.
Code 1950, § 18.1-204; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1980, c. 534; 1997, c. 555; 2014, cc. 649, 706; 2015, c. 395.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in
7
cases (
1 in the last 5 years), 1978–2025 · leading case:
Podracky v. Commonwealth, 662 S.E.2d 81 (Va. Ct. App. 2008).
Podracky v. Commonwealth, 662 S.E.2d 81 (Va. Ct. App. 2008).
· cites it 5× “3(B) is defined by statute as a crime, and Podracky makes no argument that he has a substantive due process right to violate Code §§ 18.2-355; 18.2-361; 18.2-374.1; 18.”
Timothy Ducharme v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 830 S.E.2d 924 (Va. Ct. App. 2019).
“3(E) states: Any person 18 years of age or older who uses a communications system, including but not limited to computers or computer networks or bulletin boards, or any other electronic means, for the purposes of soliciting any person he knows or has reason to believe is a…”
Brooker v. Commonwealth, 587 S.E.2d 732 (Va. Ct. App. 2003).
“3(B) provides: It shall be unlawful for any person over the age of eighteen to use a communications system, including but not limited to computers or computer networks or bulletin boards, or any other electronic means, for the purposes of soliciting any person he knows or has…”
Edwards v. Commonwealth, 243 S.E.2d 834 (Va. 1978).
· cites it 2× “2 Virginia Code §§ 18.2-355 through 18.2-360 are designed to prohibit illicit prostitution and procurement.”
Stewart v. Commonwealth, 303 S.E.2d 877 (Va. 1983).
“2-347 to -349 and §§ 18.2-355 to -358, punishing various types of prostitution-related conduct generally involving more than one person, could also reasonably be understood to indicate, however, at least in cases not involving third parties, an intention to address this type of…”
Antwone Linn Jackson v. Commonwealth of Virginia (Va. Ct. App. 2012).
“2-356 instead of -357, the Court noted the entire grouping of statutes of which they were a part, Code §§ 18.2-355 to 18.2-360, was “designed to accomplish the same purpose, to prohibit any act of exploiting the prostitution of a female.”
— Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-355(4) — 1 case
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.