Omaha: An Indian man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in the US for sexually assaulting a minor girl after paying human traffickers at a hotel where he worked in Nebraska’s Omaha.
Kavankumar Patel (27), from Gujarat, who worked at the AmericInn, admitted that he used money from the hotel drawer to pay the traffickers to have sex with a minor at the hotel, as reported by NDTV.
Investigation into the incident started on January 6, 2025, when the police received a report of a theft and found evidence of sex trafficking. Officials from the Homeland Security Task Force and the Omaha Police Department then recovered two minor girls, aged 15 and 16, who had been brought to the AmericInn hotel from out of state to be sold for commercial sex.
“The two minor females reported that their traffickers had instructed that the minors must engage in sex with hotel staff for a reduced room rate or they would be kicked out of the hotel. Two hotel employees paid the trafficker to have sex with one of the minors, and a third hotel employee had sex with the other minor,” the US Attorney’s Office in Nebraska said in a statement.
The hotel employees then allegedly permitted the traffickers and minors to remain at the hotel for multiple days.
According to investigators, the traffickers would post online advertisements for commercial sex and arrange commercial sex acts involving the minor victims. The minors reported having little food and feeling like they had no choice but to engage in sex acts as directed, the attorney’s office said.
Patel, who was in the United States illegally, faces deportation after completing his prison sentence.
The others charged include the traffickers — Eduardo Jose Perdomo, Michel Martinez-Gonzalez and Alfredo Zambrano-Hurtado — and the two other Indian-origin hotel employees — Sumit Chaudhari and Vishal Goswami.
“The Homeland Security Task Force rescued these children from a living nightmare,” US Attorney Lesley Woods said.
