The shocking scale of sex trafficking allegations at Red Roof Inn hotels across the United States

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In one lawsuit centered on a Red Roof Inn in Kentucky, a 16-year-old girl said she was forced to have sex with at least 10-12 paying customers a day at the hotel, while “enduring brutal physical abuse, rape, exploitation, psychological torment, kidnapping, and imprisonment.” If these girls and women are being trafficked at a hotel, you will see the malnourished body, the way that they are dressed, the demeanor in which they walk, the lack of eye contact Anique Whitmore, expert witness at the Atlanta trial Another victim was trafficked for three years at Red Roof Inn hotels in Washington, DC, and Maryland, where she claimed staff witnessed her physically and verbally abused by her captors in public areas of the hotel. It added that those hotels “did not just tolerate prostitution, they knowingly chose to profit from it.” my pimps and hos love them some snacks to go with their smokes Jay Moyer, then-regional vice president of operations for Red Roof Inn Alan Borowsky, an attorney who has taken on dozens of cases relating to sex trafficking at Red Roof Inn, told The Independent that the scale and signs of prostitution were so obvious that the law required action to be taken. You just need to exercise reasonable diligence to not make money from human trafficking Steven Babin, an attorney with hundreds of clients who claim to have been victims of sex trafficking at Red Roof Inn Vanessa Cole, a general manager at one of the hotels between 2011 and 2012, said in her deposition that prostitution was a “consistent problem” that she reported “up the chain,” including to Moyer. Red Roof Inn itself conceded during the trial that hotels are on the “frontline” of combating sex trafficking, but it didn’t introduce training for years after the problem was widespread.