Minnesota State Senator Justin Eichorn was arrested on Monday after allegedly attempting to solicit a minor for sex.
Eichorn, a 40-year-old Republican from Grand Rapids, communicated with an undercover detective believing they were a 17-year-old girl. He then arranged to meet her in Bloomington — a south suburb of Minneapolis — where he was arrested without incident, police announced Tuesday.
Eichorn is currently in custody but has not yet been formally charged. Bloomington police said felony charges of soliciting a person under 18 to practice prostitution are pending from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
“As a 40-year-old man, if you come to the Orange Jumpsuit District looking to have sex with someone’s child, you can expect that we are going to lock you up,” Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said in a statement, adding the investigation is ongoing.
In a short statement released Tuesday afternoon, Minnesota Republicans called for Eichorn to resign from his position in the state Senate.
“We are shocked by these reports and this alleged conduct demands an immediate resignation. Justin has a difficult road ahead and he needs to focus on his family,” the statement said.
Eichorn is married with four children, according to his Minnesota State Senate bio.
Eichorn was first elected to the Senate in 2016 and is currently in his third term. He was recently one of the authors of a Minnesota bill that would categorize so-called “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness that could be “serious enough to require prompt intervention.”
According to the authors of the bill, the syndrome is defined as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump,” and may be expressed by hostility or aggression toward the president or his supporters.
The bill has faced fierce backlash from Democrats, who have said it trivializes mental health care and shows “a dangerous level of loyalty to an authoritarian president.”