A 45-year-old woman was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of involvement in a sex trafficking plot involving a young woman at a Miami hotel.
The 15-year-old girl told police that she was walking her dog to the Aloft Miami Dadeland last Tuesday, August 13, when a woman approached her and started a personal conversation.
According to police, the woman told the teenager that she was a psychologist and the teenager began confiding in her about personal problems.
The woman, identified by police as Maria Duarte, allegedly offered the teen marijuana to smoke and alcoholic beverages. The teen accepted the marijuana but declined the alcohol, a police report said.
Throughout the day and the following day, police say the teenager returned to the hotel several times to visit Duarte in her hotel room after she offered him more marijuana.
On Wednesday, Duarte began taking photos of the teenager and sending them to a man named Pablo, according to a police report. Duarte allegedly told Pablo the teenager was 21 years old — even though he knew she was only 15 — and that she was willing to have sex with him. The teenager, however, said she did not want to have sex with anyone.
According to police, Pablo still came to the hotel room and had sexual intercourse with Duarte in front of the teenagers. Duarte even gave the teenager a cell phone to record the two of them and claimed that she was going to teach the teenager something, the report says.
Police said Duarte’s boyfriend, identified as Jason, also later came to the hotel room and Duarte ordered the teen to have sexual intercourse with Jason before leaving the two alone in the room, despite the teen expressing she was uncomfortable with the situation. Duarte went so far as to push the 15-year-old back into the room and told her to “make sure Jason is OK,” according to police.
The teenager told police that she went into the bathroom and when she came out, Jason was unmasked and asked her to have sexual intercourse with him.
When she refused, according to the teenager, Jason grabbed the back of her head and neck and tried to force her to perform oral sex on him.
The teenager said she discovered at the time that Duarte often traded sex for drugs to satisfy her drug addiction, the police report said.
On Sunday, Aug. 18, a detective came to the hotel and contacted Duarte about another matter, the report said. She was uncooperative and belligerent, police said.
Duarte was later arrested and charged with several offenses, including human trafficking of a child, lewd and lascivious exhibitionism of a child under 16, and lewd and lascivious assault, according to police.
She is being held without bail, the police report says.
