She wasn’t supposed to have anyone in her hotel room.

But there were noises coming from the room where a 14-year-old girl with a human trafficking history was being housed by child welfare services on Dec. 29, 2021. The hotel stay was part of a plan during the pandemic for at-risk youth.

Her social worker heard the commotion from his suite across the hall. He knocked on his charge’s door and made it clear she wasn’t to have visitors. Male voices responded with someone saying they were having “an orgy” and to “get out.”

Then, someone said he was coming out.

What happened next is what a judge called “an appalling group attack,” a violent swarming, beating and stabbing by seven people that left the social worker near death.

“This was a collective act of cowardice inflicted upon the victi

See Full Page