LEDESMABABY

You always hear, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Well, in this case, this part won’t.

It was a hot Las Vegas summer in June of 2019. My cousin and I joined two of her friends for a birthday weekend celebration. We had partied all day and were ready to go party more at a nightclub, I mean obviously, it’s Vegas! We had gotten on a couple of guest-lists at a couple of places and decided to go try LIGHT nightclub first. We got dolled up, put on our hottest dresses and heels to take on the Strip and all it had to offer.

We headed to the club and made our way through the casino to the door of the club. As we approach the guest-list line, a couple approaches us. This gave me an uneasy feeling for a couple of reasons, one being this lady was maybe in her mid-40s and the guy being, eh, maybe early 20s. Nothing wrong with couples dating older/younger. It was just something about them that gave me a weird feeling from the moment they approached us. She wasn’t really dressed for a club and he was very blinged-out in just jeans, a black t-shirt, and some sneakers. They approached us pretty aggressively, and I don’t mean physically, I mean like aggressively persistent.

They were just standing to the side at first, I hardly even noticed them until they walked up to us and asked if we would be interested in going half on a booth and bottle. She had the prices on her phone, showing us how much it would be if we split it. She was very persistent in sharing a booth with us and said that she knew someone that could get us a deal.
At first you think, “oh ok, cool!”

At this point, I made a comment to one of my girls and just said, “lets just go in ourselves since we’re on the guest-list, they’re weirding me out.” And she said that we should just see what they can do and if we aren’t down, then we can just ditch them. I wasn’t trying to complain so I just went along with it. Well…here is where it gets worse.

This lady who says she is going to get a deal starts asking all four of us questions to get to know us, luckily we gave fake names, but then she started asking where we were from and so on. This was like red flag #3 to me by this time. As we’re standing in line, still waiting for her to see if she could get a deal, she starts taking selfies and I don’t mean 1 or 2 selfies, I mean maybe like 6 or more. I stepped out of the camera by selfie #2 because something about her just wasn’t sitting right with me.

Still waiting in line, after she takes all of the unnecessary selfies, we notice this girl, maybe early 20s, that’s with this 50-something year old guy, who wasn’t there before, but all of a sudden just pops up. These two never said one word. They spoke for her and she seemed pretty out of it. They were all together. Another red flag.

This guy is standing behind the three of them, but in front of me and my girls. As we’re just standing there, wondering where they came from, I notice this 50-something year old guy standing with his hands crossed behind his back holding his phone. His phone was unlocked and here is when I knew we needed to GTFO (get the f—k out)! His phone had his messages open and there are two of the selfies this lady took of us all (i’m calling her something else in my head). F—ing gross!

My cousin and I noticed the pictures right away and at the same time, I remember we just gave each other this look of “wtf is going on?” We quietly turned to the other two to let them know what we just saw. We decided to not make a scene or make things worse, so we went into the club with them, to the table, and only accepted the first drink that was handed to us by the bottle server.

As we’re sitting in the booth, waiting for the right time to leave, here goes this lady again taking selfies, but this time she starts recording all of us, just us, she wasn’t in these. I turn my head so I wouldn’t be in it or at least barely be in it. I walk away and join my girls at the railing a couple feet in front of the booth, looking onto the dance floor, discussing how we were going to get out.

As we’re standing at the railing, my cousin had noticed the lady taking pictures of us from the entrance, which is like 100 feet away! Soo f—ing creepy! Now, we think they noticed how weird we felt because the 20-something year old guy came up to my cousin trying to get her to loosen up and dance with him. She kept declining and said she needed to go to the bathroom. This was it. This was our chance to run.

We all head up the steps to the bathroom, where there happened to be a security guard, we asked her where the exit was, she pointed, and we walked slowly at first so they wouldn’t think anything, once we got out of the club, we went straight for the Uber pick-up area and headed to a different place.

I share this to hopefully raise some sort of awareness that this truly happens to anyone, everywhere. And you may have known that, but you don’t truly understand until it happens to someone you know or to you. The signs that I gave are just from my own intuition. There are many more (listed below) to look out for and resources you can contact.

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Recognizing the Signs

• Is not free to leave or come and go at will
• Works excessively long and/or unusual hours
• Is living and working on site
• Is fearful, anxious, depressed, submissive, tense, or nervous/paranoid
• Exhibits unusually fearful or anxious behavior after bringing up law enforcement or immigration officials
• Shows signs of substance use or addiction
• Shows signs of poor hygiene, malnourishment, and/or fatigue
• Shows signs of physical and/or sexual abuse, physical restraint, confinement, or torture
• Has few or no personal possessions
• Is frequently monitored
• Is not in control of their own money, financial records, or bank account
• Is not in control of their own identification documents (ID or passport)
• Is not allowed or able to speak for themselves (a third party may insist on being present and/or translating)
• Claims of just visiting and inability to clarify where they are staying/address
• Lack of knowledge of whereabouts and/or do not know what city he/she is in
• Appear to have lost sense of time
• Shares scripted, confusing, or inconsistent stories
• Protects the person who may be hurting them or minimizes abuse