An Indian hotel staff member in Nebraska, Kavankumar Patel, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for paying for sex with a trafficked teen.
Patel and other hotel staff allegedly engaged in sexual acts with two trafficked minors, aged 15 and 16, who were brought to the hotel from outside the state.
The minors told authorities that their traffickers directed them to engage in sexual relations with the hotel staff for cheaper room rates.
Patel, who is originally from Gujarat, was sentenced for two counts of sex trafficking of a minor and faces deportation after completing his prison sentence.
He admitted to using hotel money to pay the traffickers to have sex with one of the minors.
The hotel staff permitted the minors and their traffickers to stay at the hotel for multiple days, and the traffickers posted advertisements for commercial sex from the hotel.
The crime came to light after the Omaha police department received a report of theft, and the Homeland Security Task Force and Omaha Police Department investigated and recovered the two minor females.
