MARYLAND (WBFF) — The routine, as outlined in court records, was simple, brazen, and repeated over and over for years, at a cluster of Maryland hotels on major thoroughfares some 30 miles northeast of Baltimore: A sex trafficker forced a woman to book hotel rooms in her name, and handed her cash to pay for them.
Dressed in a “seductive” manner, the woman would check in, walk to her alleged trafficker’s car to inform them of the room number, then return to the hotel to wait for clients the trafficker arranged, people who were paying for sex, according to a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The civil action accuses seven hotels in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania of enabling human trafficking.
From 2013 through 2016, the woman was trafficked repeatedly in the hotels, according to the 66-page lawsuit filed by the law firm Andreozzi and Foote, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Though she had visible bruises — injuries inflicted by her traffickers — and “showed signs of [poor] hygiene, health and nutrition,” none of the hotel operators or employees called police or tried to help the woman, according to the lawsuit. At the direction of her trafficker or traffickers, she declined housekeeping services but made multiple requests per day for additional towels and sheets.
An employee at one hotel, a Travelodge in Aberdeen, knew the woman was being trafficked, and used that knowledge to force the woman to have sex for money, the lawsuit alleges.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION (1)
Read the full story on the Baltimore Sun.
Local Story
