Daniela D, 22-year-old, and her now ex-boyfriend Ahmed T. are facing unflattering charges after the Vienna prosecutor Sonja Herbst accused them of forcing a 32-year-old woman into prostitution while taking her earned money from her. And to make their case even worse, this woman already escaped forced prostitution and was seeking help and shelter from the accused couple, back in February 2018.
The judge, Daniel Schmitzberger, has quite a tough job, and the trial started with him questioning Ahmed T. after he sent his ex-girlfriend out of the courtroom. 28-year-old Ahmed T. did not plead guilty as he told him that he doesn’t even know how he ended up in this whole situation.
He remembers that his girlfriend at the time asked him about her friend Vanessa and if he would mind that she stays at their place for a while, which he agreed to. The judge wanted to know if they asked their guest to bring some money to the table by helping them pay their rent. However, she stated that she had no money, so he didn’t push her at first. That was until he noticed that his girlfriend and their new roommate went shopping and bought a lot of things with the total value estimated at around a few hundred Euros. This seemed unfair to him, so he told Vanessa to move out, which she did in two weeks.
It turns out that Ahmed never actually spoke to their guest since she Venezuelan didn’t speak English, and the two women communicated using Spanish which he didn’t understand.
The judge asked him if he was aware that Vanessa was involved in prostitution at the time, however, the defendant didn’t know of this as he was spending most of his time at work. It also turns out that their guest had a dangerous group of people behind her, which would eventually threaten her parents as well.
The first defendant confirmed the story
The first defendant, Daniela D. confirmed this story, stating that she was involved in prostitution as well after she moved to Austria from Venezuela back in 2017, but she ran away from it shortly.
Later it turns out that the women knew each other from a beauty contest back in Venezuela, and that Daniela warned Vanessa what she was getting into prior to her arriving in Vienna regardless.
Also, it is found later through chat history on the first defendant’s Instagram profile that she warned her friend that the police were on the lookout for them since the group that brought them to Austria was caught at their meeting place and arrested.
During these two weeks, Daniela admitted that Vanessa was working as a prostitute, however, they didn’t bring clients to the boyfriend’s apartment where she was staying.
Before Vanessa’s questioning, the judge sent the ex-couple out of the courtroom. Vanessa admitted that she came to Austria because of the false advertised job offer for the waitress, however, she soon realized what she was getting into and that she had to work as a prostitute because she only allegedly had 1.700 Euros with her. When the prosecutor asked her why she didn’t buy a flight ticket and go back to Venezuela, she stated that Daniela asked for 60 Euros per day for her stay, which would result in her not having enough money for the return ticket, so she accepted Daniela’s offer and started working with her, claiming that she was afraid of the people above them.
At the end of this trial, Vanessa asked for 7.500 Euros from the two defendants, which she claims is the least amount that they took from her during her two-week prostitution career. Her legal representative also stated that Vanessa had no reason to lie about anything, however, the judge didn’t agree. He doubts that she was forced to do anything, and therefore, the defendants are freed of charges.
