ATLANTA — It was an emotional day of testimony Tuesday in downtown Atlanta as a sex trafficking survivor sobbed.
She is one of 11 people who filed a federal lawsuit against Red Roof Inn locations in Buckhead and Smyrna.
The survivor told jurors how she should’ve been in high school enjoying the prom or homecoming, but instead, she was in Atlanta where a pimp controlled her life and forced her to do things that still haunt her today.
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Channel 2′s Michael Seiden was there for day five of this historic federal civil trial in Atlanta.
Tiffeny, a then 31-year-old Texas native, broke down on the stand as she told jurors about her situation that began in 2010 after a friend offered her a free flight to Atlanta where she planned to pursue a music career.
But she said as soon as she arrived, she was driven to an unidentified hotel where she was taken to a room to meet her friend Rebecca, another woman, and a pimp.
“Everyone seemed comfortable,” she testified. “Then this woman was taken into the bathroom where I could hear screaming and yelling and her head or body banging on the toilet. She came out roughed up.”
Tiffeny said she spent a week in Atlanta, then returned home to Texas until she got a call about another opportunity in the music industry.
As soon as she arrived, she said she and several other young girls were driven to the Red Roof Inn on North Druid Hills Road in Buckhead where they would stay for days.
“I don’t remember sleeping or eating. We worked around the clock. We were expected to earn at least $1,000 per day,” she recalled.
When asked what would happen if they didn’t hit their numbers, she replied, “You wouldn’t eat or you would be choked out or beat.”
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She said she escaped in May of 2011.
“This is beyond me,” she testified. “This is for the ones in it who don’t have a voice.”
Lawyers for the Red Roof Inn have denied the sex trafficking allegations.
The trial is expected to last at least four weeks.
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