Tag Archives: Prostitution

by | July 22, 2015 · 9:40 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Northwest Dallas Hotel is ‘hub for drug use, prostitution and violent crime,’ Says City Hall”

The city of Dallas has had enough, and late Thursday filed suit against the owners of the motel that looks decent enough on the outside but is anything but on the inside, according to the City Attorney’s Office. The city wants the court to order the owners to clean it up immediately or face thousand-dollar-a-day penalties until the laundry list of problems are remedied.

In early December, two men were shot and another man was injured (after he jumped out a window to escape being shot) at the Orange Extended Stay Motel on Finnell Street in Northwest Dallas, near Northwest Highway and N. Stemmons Freeway. Several residents told our Naheed Rajwani at the time they feel unsafe at the Orange and that, perhaps, it was time to move away from the crime-ridden (and poorly reviewed) hotel. Said one woman, “I’m scared, and I don’t want to end up losing my life being in this area.”

She had good reason to be concerned: On May 30, someone was shot to death at the hotel.

The city of Dallas has had enough, and late Thursday filed suit against the owners of the motel that looks decent enough on the outside but is anything but on the inside, according to the City Attorney’s Office. The city wants the court to order the owners — Carrollton-based Dynasty Hotel Group — to clean it up immediately or face thousand-dollar-a-day penalties until the laundry list of problems are remedied.

“The relatively well kept facade of this business belies the abhorrent physical conditions, habitual drug offenses, and violent crime that have pervaded its interior and for which the property has become known,” says the suit, signed by Assistant City Attorney Melissa Miles.

For more: http://bit.ly/1KkzKtx

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Northwest Dallas Hotel is ‘hub for drug use, prostitution and violent crime,’ Says City Hall”

Filed under Crime, Hotel Industry, Maintenance, Management And Ownership

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by | October 9, 2014 · 9:04 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “W Hotel Chain Friendly to Prostitutes, New Jersey Couple’s Legal Filing Claims”

Anna Burgese says she was attacked early last year in the lobby of a South Beach W Hotel by drunken hookers80629236 who mistakenly believed she was competition. She and her husband say they hired undercover agents to visit W Hotels all over the country, according to Philadelphia Daily News, and found prostitution runs rampant.

The W Hotel chain openly allows prostitution in their facilities, a New Jersey couple claims in a recent legal filing obtained by the Philadelphia Daily News.

Anna Burgese of Medford, N.J., says she was attacked early last year in the lobby of a South Beach W Hotel by drunken hookers who mistakenly believed she was competition. The attack was captured on surveillance video.

As a result, Anna Burgese and husband Joseph say they hired undercover agents to visit W Hotels all over the country, according to the newspaper.

The legal filing claims that they found that prostitution runs rampant in the hotels and even found that a sex worker at one W Hotel “used the concierge desk to charge her cellphones and store her purse.”

For more: http://nydn.us/1w27joR

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “W Hotel Chain Friendly to Prostitutes, New Jersey Couple’s Legal Filing Claims”

Filed under Crime, Employee Practices, Guest Issues, Hotel Employees, Hotel Industry, Liability, Management And Ownership, Risk Management

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by | April 10, 2014 · 8:38 am

Hospitality Industry Risk Management Update: “Two Arrested at Flagstaff Hotel on Prostitution Charges”

“…When the officer asked where the woman got the money, she said it came from the men she sleeps with. The woman, who said she had just moved to Arizona from California, Image told the officer she became a prostitute a few weeks earlier because a friend told her it was a good way to make money. She said she placed an ad on Craigslist and charged the men who responded to it between $100 and $150 to have sex with her…”

An 18-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were arrested on prostitution charges at a Flagstaff hotel this week.

According to the police reports, two officers responded to the Quality Inn at 2500 E. Lucky Lane around 7 p.m. Monday after someone called Crimestop to report that several different men had been coming and going from a young woman’s room.

Officers knocked on the woman’s hotel room door and a man with disheveled and partially unbuttoned clothing walked out. He shouted, “It’s the cops” as he tried to walk away but was stopped by one of the officers.

For more: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/two-arrested-at-flagstaff-hotel-on-prostitution-charges/article_c972d69c-c073-11e3-bbe6-0019bb2963f4.html

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Risk Management Update: “Two Arrested at Flagstaff Hotel on Prostitution Charges”

Filed under Crime, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by | January 18, 2013 · 8:53 am

Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: Arkansas Hotel General Manager Arrested For “Promoting Prostitution At Property”; Rented Rooms Hourly To Accommodate Sex For Money

“…a serious crime because it’s such a spider web into other facets, robberies stem from this, assaults, rapes…Police say the activity not only violates state statutes regarding prostitution but violates the city’s Hotel Prostitution ringssexually oriented business ordinances…”

The general manager and employee of a Fort Smith hotel were arrested Tuesday (Jan. 15) for promoting prostitution in the business, according to police. A six-month investigation revealed general manager John Lee Rohlin, 42, and his employee Jonathan Richard Bean, 28, regularly rented rooms at the Season’s Inn on south Waldron to individuals by the hour to accommodate men and women engaging in sex for money, a police report states.

The arrests stunned guests Thursday afternoon. “It will be scary because it’s something illegal you know,” said Monsour Alhussain, a hotel guest. A confidential informant tipped off the police about the prostitution in June, according to police.

Both men were booked into the Sebastian County Detention Center and released on $1,500 bonds.

For more:  http://5newsonline.com/2013/01/17/hotel-employees-arrested-on-promoting-prostitution-charge/

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: Arkansas Hotel General Manager Arrested For “Promoting Prostitution At Property”; Rented Rooms Hourly To Accommodate Sex For Money

Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Labor Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership

Tagged as , , , ,

by | April 2, 2012 · 7:48 am

Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: "End Child Prostitution And Trafficking (ECPAT)" Seeks Hotels' Assistance In Fighting Internet Prostitution

End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT) has been trying to enlist the help of hotels in fighting prostitution by agreeing to:

CODE OF CONDUCT FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM

THE SIX CRITERIA

Suppliers of tourism services adopting the code commit themselves to implement the following six criteria:
1. To establish an ethical policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children.
2. To train the personnel in the country of origin and travel destinations.
3. To introduce a clause in contracts with suppliers, stating a common repudiation of commercial sexual exploitation of children.
4. To provide information to travellers by means of catalogues, brochures, in-flight films, ticket-slips, home pages, etc.
5. To provide information to local “key persons” at the destinations.
6. To report annually.

http://www.ecpat.net/ei/Programmes_CST.asp

Human trafficking is the second-largest organized crime in the world. The U.N. estimates more than one million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited each year in the multibillion dollar sex industry.

The ease with which traffickers can use the Internet to sell sex has changed the way the sex trade operates. Instead of working the streets, women and girls are increasingly being sold in hotels.

But ECPAT executive director Carol Smolinsky says many hotels have balked at some of the policies the organization asks them to follow.  “When a company signs the code of conduct it has to have a policy against sexual exploitation of children,” Smolinsky says. “Over these years it’s been frankly shocking to me that even the step of having a policy against sexual exploitation has been troubling shall we say for them.”
One of the requirements of the code is that hotels inform their customers of that policy.  “One problem we’re having in our industry is some of the things they’re asking the hotels to do,” says Joe Mcinerney, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. “Putting notices in the rooms… they feel that might be an intrusion into customers thinking that maybe there is a problem at that hotel.”

For more:  http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Nun-Helps-Lead-Fight-Against-Hotel-Prostitution-145761575.html

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: "End Child Prostitution And Trafficking (ECPAT)" Seeks Hotels' Assistance In Fighting Internet Prostitution

Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Insurance, Liability, Management And Ownership, Privacy, Risk Management, Training

Tagged as , , , ,

by | · 7:48 am

Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: "End Child Prostitution And Trafficking (ECPAT)" Seeks Hotels' Assistance In Fighting Internet Prostitution

End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT) has been trying to enlist the help of hotels in fighting prostitution by agreeing to:

CODE OF CONDUCT FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM

THE SIX CRITERIA

Suppliers of tourism services adopting the code commit themselves to implement the following six criteria:
1. To establish an ethical policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children.
2. To train the personnel in the country of origin and travel destinations.
3. To introduce a clause in contracts with suppliers, stating a common repudiation of commercial sexual exploitation of children.
4. To provide information to travellers by means of catalogues, brochures, in-flight films, ticket-slips, home pages, etc.
5. To provide information to local “key persons” at the destinations.
6. To report annually.

http://www.ecpat.net/ei/Programmes_CST.asp

Human trafficking is the second-largest organized crime in the world. The U.N. estimates more than one million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited each year in the multibillion dollar sex industry.

The ease with which traffickers can use the Internet to sell sex has changed the way the sex trade operates. Instead of working the streets, women and girls are increasingly being sold in hotels.

But ECPAT executive director Carol Smolinsky says many hotels have balked at some of the policies the organization asks them to follow.  “When a company signs the code of conduct it has to have a policy against sexual exploitation of children,” Smolinsky says. “Over these years it’s been frankly shocking to me that even the step of having a policy against sexual exploitation has been troubling shall we say for them.”
One of the requirements of the code is that hotels inform their customers of that policy.  “One problem we’re having in our industry is some of the things they’re asking the hotels to do,” says Joe Mcinerney, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. “Putting notices in the rooms… they feel that might be an intrusion into customers thinking that maybe there is a problem at that hotel.”

For more:  http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Nun-Helps-Lead-Fight-Against-Hotel-Prostitution-145761575.html

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: "End Child Prostitution And Trafficking (ECPAT)" Seeks Hotels' Assistance In Fighting Internet Prostitution

Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Insurance, Liability, Management And Ownership, Privacy, Risk Management, Training

Tagged as , , , ,

by | January 27, 2012 · 6:59 am

Hospitality Industry Online Risks: Minnesota Hotel Manager Assists Police In Arrest Of Man Running "Online Escort Service At Hotel"

A 34-year-old Columbia Heights man is charged with promoting the prostitution of a 17-year-old girl – after a hotel manager found information about the man’s escort service online.

Samuel Cozart was charged Thursday in Ramsey County. According to the complaint, Cozart approached a man in the Days Inn Hotel in Roseville on Tuesday and asked where he could get fake identification for a girl staying with him.

The man happened to be the boyfriend of a hotel employee. So he told the hotel manager, who went online to investigate. The complaint says the manager found information about an escort service it seemed Cozart was running, and went to police.

Cozart’s attorney was in court Thursday and did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

For more:  http://www.keyc.tv/story/16610438/hotel-manager-leads-police-to-prostitution-arrest

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Online Risks: Minnesota Hotel Manager Assists Police In Arrest Of Man Running "Online Escort Service At Hotel"

Filed under Guest Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership, Training

Tagged as , ,

by | January 4, 2012 · 6:13 am

Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: Louisiana Hotels' "Business Centers" Used For "Online Prostitution"; Pictures And Ads Found On Computers

“…Prosecutors say a Houston man who had used a hotel business center to post online ads offering a woman for prostitution faces up to 10 years in prison…”

“… posted online advertisements for sexual services and reportedly kept all the profits his victims made…”

A Houston man has pleaded guilty to transporting a woman for commercial sex, the US Attorney’s Office says. In court, 30-year-old Jerald Bland admitted he transported a woman to Louisiana so she could engage in prostitution.

Bland, aka “Moe Betta”, was arrested following an undercover Houston Police investigation in March 2010. Officers discovered a camera containing pictures of women in sexually provocative poses and Bland flashing money.

Sentencing is scheduled for March 20, 2012. If convicted, Bland faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine. Upon release, he also faces a lifetime sentence of supervised release.

Read more: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/local/120103-man-pleads-guilty-in-sex-trafficking-case#ixzz1iUwAekmu

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Crime Risks: Louisiana Hotels' "Business Centers" Used For "Online Prostitution"; Pictures And Ads Found On Computers

Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Labor Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership, Privacy, Risk Management, Technology

Tagged as , , ,

by | December 16, 2011 · 7:03 am

Hospitality Industry Crime Prevention: Montana Police Task Force Trains Hotel Employees To Look For Evidence Of Drug And Prostitution Activity

Employees are taught to look for signs such as people who pay only in cash, give false vehicle information or don’t let housekeeping into their rooms for long periods of time.

The task force recently began implementing a program in which hotel and motel employees are trained to look for evidence of illegal drug activity coming from rooms, and to know who to call if they see something suspicious.

The recent arrests of three people suspected of running a prostitution operation in a room at the TownHouse Inn was a result of a tip made by an employee of the hotel to the Central Montana Drug Task Force.

The employee was trained by Sgt. Chris Hickman of the Great Falls Police Department, a member of the multi-agency task force, to recognize signs of suspicious behavior. While it was initially suspected that the three individuals were running a drug operation, Hickman said he was glad that officers were able to shut down the alleged prostitution as a result cooperation from hotel staff.

 According to Hickman, police are pursuing three active cases because of tips from cooperative lodging employees in Great Falls, but an unfortunate by-product of that cooperation can sometimes be a sullied reputation for the business if a tip leads to a publicized arrest.

For more:  http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20111214/NEWS01/112140311/Great-Falls-program-netted-prostitution-ring-relies-hotel-staff-tips

Comments Off on Hospitality Industry Crime Prevention: Montana Police Task Force Trains Hotel Employees To Look For Evidence Of Drug And Prostitution Activity

Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Labor Issues, Liability, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Training

Tagged as , , , ,

by | April 20, 2011 · 6:37 am

Hospitality Industry Security Risks: "Extended-Stay" Hotels Can Be "Havens For Crime" Unless Extra Security Measures Are Implemented Including Use Of Off-Duty Police Officers And Criminal Record And Sex Offender Background Checks

Extended-stay hotels make up about 10 percent of the hotel industry, said Joe McInerney, president of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

“…the list of crimes reported at a Value Place extended-stay hotel included prostitution, drug sales, methamphetimine manufacture, heroin use, drug overdoses, child pornography, theft and a rape.

“…City officials and hotel leaders met April 4 and hashed out an agreement…. The hotel agreed to employ an off-duty Arnold police officer 24 hours a day. The hotel already was checking to make sure potential guests weren’t sex offenders, but will now check for other criminal offenses, as well….”

City officials were fed up and threatened to revoke the hotel’s business license. But a recent agreement to curtail crime at the 124-unit hotel is working, authorities say.

“By word of mouth, one tells the other this is a place where you can set up shop and be unencumbered,” Unrein said. Police had been called to Value Place about 230 times since it opened, Unrein said. That’s more than triple the number of calls to the city’s three other hotels combined, he said.

Problems reached a head this month. The hotel is offering a free hotel room where an Arnold police officer can live and have allowed police dogs to roam the halls this month, said Gina-Lynne Smith, president of Value Place.

The chain has a hotel in St. Charles. Police get more calls for service at that hotel than others in town, but it’s certainly not a nuisance, said Sgt. Todd Wilson of the city’s police department.

The hotels are not popular everywhere. Subdivision residents in Oakand Park, Fla., launched a campaign to keep a Value Place from being built nearby. So far, they have succeeded.

Their guests range from those who can’t afford a lease to professionals away from home for a temporary job assignment or extended training.

Kell Stovall of Memphis, an estimator for a roofing company, said he is spending his third week at the Arnold Value Place. He plans to move to an apartment at the end of the month.

He considered staying elsewhere after hearing about the hotel’s history but opted not to leave because he hasn’t had any problems. He said police officers knock on his truck windows to check on him when he talks on his phone on the hotel’s lot.

For more:  http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_76aae994-5d06-5e84-aaf6-5d7f13adc180.html

2 Comments

Filed under Crime, Guest Issues, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Theft, Training

Tagged as , , , ,