A Southfield hotel employee has been charged in connection with a human trafficking case, marking the first time Oakland County prosecutors say they have sought to hold hotel employees accountable for their role in such activity.

Chanel Rackard, of Southfield, was charged in February with human trafficking enterprise, accepting the earnings of a prostitute, embezzlement and maintaining a drug house. Rackard, who does not have an attorney listed in court records, allegedly embezzled less than $200 from Sonesta Simply Suites in Southfield and maintained hotel rooms that were frequented by people using drugs.

Rackard’s co-defendant, Antoine Fulgiam, of Detroit, is charged with human trafficking enterprise, procuring a person for forced commercial sexual activity, accepting the earnings of a prostitute, two counts of transporting a person for prostitution, assault with the intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, conspiracy to deliver or manufacture drugs. Fulgiam’s attorney, Richard Taylor, declined to comment on his charges.

A third co-defendant, Sherri Gress, of Detroit, is charged with human trafficking enterprise and conspiracy to deliver or manufacture drugs from March to October 2024. Gress’s attorney, George Chedraue, did not respond for comment.

This is the first time Oakland County prosecutors have charged a hotel clerk with human trafficking, said Assistant Prosecutor Cindy Brown, who heads up the department’s trafficking division.

“It’s not uncommon that we find that hotel clerks are involved to some extent. I’ve had cases where clerks have been paid by the trafficker to not cooperate with law enforcement,” Brown said. “We’ve had clerks who actually have cooperated, who will call law enforcement to say ‘we think somebody’s being trafficked.’ I’m not trying to say it happens at every hotel, but charging a clerk, this is newer.”

Assistant Prosecutor Jason DeSantis said some of Fulgiam’s texts with Rackard involved instructions about booking rooms and payments.

Prosecutors and police learned of one of the women being trafficked during their investigation and prosecution of another trafficking case from Auburn Hills, Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Detective Sgt. Matthew Peschke wrote in a search warrant affidavit.

A Southfield police officer also learned of it during an interview with Fulgiam about the making of crack cocaine. Fulgiam allegedly had told Detective Matthew Fair about drugs and prostitution at Southfield hotels.

“Fulgiam discusses his role in the prostitution of the girls, how he is their drug dealer, and the muscle,” Peschke wrote in the search warrant affidavit.

Going forward, Brown said, the prosecutor’s office hopes to look at charging “johns” — the men who pay for sex — who often may know a woman is being trafficked and continue to pay traffickers, as well as more hotel employees.

“It’s all about the money, so if people start realizing there’s some accountability from the ground up, it’s not just the traffickers that we should hold accountable or hotel clerks … but the johns themselves,” Brown said. “Because if we didn’t have people demanding it, there wouldn’t be an issue, right?”

In one case, Assistant Prosecutor Jasleen Singh said, a john gave them a video he had taken of a woman who was intoxicated to the point where she was “basically a rag doll” and her body was wracked with injuries.

“Sometimes the sex buyers, the circumstances are such that you have to be aware that something is not right. These women are drugged up, doped up, they’ve got track marks everywhere, poor hygiene,” Singh said. “You just can’t argue that you didn’t know.”

Not all hotel clerks are complicit in trafficking, Brown said.

She’s seen some cases where clerks kept logs of unusual things they noticed and handed them over to police.

But the incentive for helping traffickers is often money, she said.

“When you have somebody who’s not making a lot of money, if a trafficker says ‘I’ll give you $500 because I’m going to be here for a week,’ and keep your mouth shut, that’s a lot of money for somebody who might be making minimum wage or just a little bit above that,” Brown said. “So that’s a big incentive for them to not say anything or turn a blind eye to it.”