A woman has filed a federal lawsuit against five hotels in east Orange County and around the UCF area, saying she was forced to work as a prostitute while the hotel staff looked the other way.
The woman, only identified as Jane Doe, said she would spend weeks at a time at the Best Western, Village Inn Motel, Crossland Studios and Days Inn on East Colonial Drive, as well as the Crestwood Suites on University Boulevard, from 2012 to 2015.
The filing said staff at the hotels would give Doe a room secluded from other guests when possible, such as the top floor or the back of the building. It claimed they would watch as she brought dozens of men to her room, often past the front desk.
It said Doe, heavily addicted to drugs at the time, would have objects strewn about her room, some of them with strong chemical smells. At times, the man acting as her pimp would forbid the hotel staff from cleaning the room, she claimed.
“They had a duty to protect these individuals, and they failed in that do,” Lisa Haba, an attorney who specializes in representing victims of sex crimes and who filed the lawsuit, said. “Jane Doe was hurt more severely than a human being should ever have to encounter.”
Haba said the woman spent years undergoing medical treatments and therapy and has since turned her life around.
WFTV visited the five properties Friday. Four had either changed ownership or branding. None of them responded to requests for comment.
Wyndham, one of the hotel owners and defendants in the lawsuit, has a pamphlet on combating human trafficking on its website. It said it struck a new training partnership in 2019 and staff receive training at orientation and yearly refreshers.
Haba said it was still important to hold groups that profited off her client’s abuse accountable.
“Establishments who should have easily reported this to law enforcement instead turned a blind eye,” she said.
Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
