The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Faizal Bhimani, 45, of Bartonsville, was sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment by U.S. District Court Judge Malachy E. Mannion for sex trafficking and drug trafficking offenses. Authorities also said he warned suspects when police were staying at the hotel during the manhunt for convicted police killer Eric Frein in 2014.

Bhimani’s sentencing follows a two-week jury trial in Scranton in October 2020, which concluded with the jury returning guilty verdicts against Bhimani and co-defendant Nazim Hassam, along with two hotel companies, Om Sri Sai Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation, and the Pocono Plaza Inn hotel, formerly known as the Quality Inn, located in Stroudsburg.

Om Sri Sai Inc., a company that owned and operated a Howard Johnson hotel located in Bartonsville, and Faizal Bhimani, the general manager of that hotel, were both convicted of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion and aiding and abetting the same, and sex trafficking conspiracy, as well as drug trafficking conspiracy and managing a drug-related premises.

The jury also found the Pocono Plaza Inn guilty of managing a drug-related premises, and Nazim Hassam, part-owner and vice president of Om Sri Sai and managing shareholder of both hotels, guilty of drug trafficking conspiracy and two counts of managing a drug-related premises.

These convictions marked the culmination of a six-year joint investigation into sex trafficking, drug trafficking and violent crime in Monroe County by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. This case began in 2014 with an FBI investigation into the Black P Stone gang, a set of the Bloods that was responsible for gun violence and drug trafficking in Monroe County at the time.

More than 35 witnesses testified, with over 150 exhibits, that the Howard Johnson Hotel in Bartonsville was a safe haven for criminal activity between 2011 and 2019.

Bhimani, as manager, made rooms available for sex traffickers and drug dealers, and at times took payment directly from the proceeds of criminal activity. Bhimani also traded discounted and free rooms for sex, which traffickers would direct their victims to provide. Dozens of women were forced to conduct prostitution in the hotel.

Women who were addicted to heroin, crack or other controlled substances were provided with just enough drugs to keep them working, and pimps used their addictions and the threat of withdrawal to control them. Survivors testified that they were required to follow the traffickers’ rules, were forced to rely entirely on the traffickers for food, clothing, even hygiene products, and they were often punished for violations with violence, including sexual assault.

Several admitted sex traffickers and drug dealers testified to successfully evading detection by police thanks to warnings from Bhimani. The hotel allowed known criminals to check in under assumed names or even street names, and Bhimani and Hassam both took steps to obstruct police efforts to locate suspects.

Forty defendants have been convicted in federal court, many of whom trafficked women and drugs in the Bartonsville Howard Johnson and the Pocono Plaza Inn. Other defendants have been charged and convicted in state courts.

The investigation successfully dismantled the P Stones as well as a second gang, the Brick City Brims, and disrupted the activities of two more, the Blood Stone Villains and the Bloodhound Brims. Investigators seized multiple kilograms of heroin and cocaine, as well as quantities of fentanyl, cocaine base (“crack”), methamphetamine, marijuana and MDMA (“molly”), and took at least 10 illegal firearms off the streets.