A lawsuit filed in a Florida court claims that a gentlemen’s club hired an underage teenager suffering from severe disabilities to work at the establishment as a part of human trafficking.
NBC affiliate WFLA-TV reports that case, filed in Hillsborough County, claims that the Scores Gentlemen’s Club hired the 13-year-old after an alleged trafficker brought her in in September of 2017.
The suit claims the teen was a runaway and was a “developmentally disabled and severely emotionally disabled teenager” who was under the influence of an adult, Roberto Torres III, who sought to engage her in an “adult sexualized lifestyle.”
The lawsuit does not say if the club knew the victim’s actual age when she was hired. It claims that the victims performed acts on customers that included one-on-one sessions in private rooms.
A lawyer for the club issued a statement to the station saying the case had no merit because it doesn’t even mention Torres as a defendant.
“The inflammatory and accusatory tone of the Complaint, which never once names the Torres’, reveals the true goals of this Complaint, none of which represent any therapeutic or sincere effort to accomplish anything other than obtaining money,” Luke Lirot wrote.
