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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
Lev Trakhtenberg and two associates recruited Russian women to come to the US with the promise of legitimate jobs performing cultural dance shows, good pay, and housing accomnnodations. After arriving, the victims were forced to work in strip clubs and threatened physically and emotionally if they did not do as they were told. After one of the victims escaped, Trakhtenberg threatened to physically harm her family in Russia if they did not pay the money he claimed she owed. Between summer of 1999 and August, 2002 Trakhtenberg and his associates brought more than 25 victims to the US to work in his clubs. Victims worked dancing nude in clubs six days a week, for eight to ten hours a day. They were forced to pay $1,200 to Trakhtenberg. They had their passports and travel documents taken
Response and intervention
On March 10, 2005 Lev Trakhetenberg was sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to extortion. He faced two separate trials, one for the threat on the victim’s family, and another for his role in the trafficking ring that brought the victims to the US to work in clubs. In his second trial, for conspiring to force Russian women to dance in the clubs and the fees he charged them, Trakhtenberg was sentenced to 60 months in prison, and ordered to pay $66,380 in restitution. He also forfeited $25, 575. In August 2004, an associate, Sergey Malchikov, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit forced labor, visa fraud, immigration violations, and extortion. The third associate is Trakhtenberg’s wife, Victoria.