Man arrested for human trafficking in Austin area after SWAT standoff

Cortez Johnson, who had been previously arrested for human trafficking in Harris County and Louisiana, is accused of doing the same in the Austin area. He allegedly prostituted four women out of a South Austin Days Inn.

AUSTIN, Texas - Cortez Johnson, a man previously arrested for human trafficking in Harris County, Texas and Louisiana, was arrested for human trafficking in the Austin area Thursday.

A witness, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution, says it all began early Thursday morning. A woman was being beaten by Johnson on an exterior walkway at the Days Inn off of Ben White in South Austin. She ran to the hotel's office for help and asked they not call 911. Staff still called.

“That woman eventually made an outcry of human trafficking that she had been trafficked here in the Austin area,” said Sgt. Jay Swann, supervisor of the Austin Police Department's human trafficking unit.

Police say the woman was trafficked by Johnson for approximately a year and during that time they lived in various hotels.

“We believe that the victim was given a quota. She was required to go out and do a thousand dollars a night worth of sex acts and if she didn’t bring enough money back then she was beaten, food was withheld,” said Swann, explaining that the woman made a similar plea for help last month. “She’d been beaten badly, and came out, called police, and recanted, and said you know, ‘I didn’t really mean it.’”

It’s a problem Swann says the department's human trafficking unit encounters all too often.

“A lot of time human trafficking victims don’t view themselves as, or don’t recognize that they are in fact a victim,” he explained.

Thursday was a breaking point, however. Once police were called, Johnson barricaded himself and after a SWAT standoff he was taken into custody.

“It’s that repetitive process of trying to break the cycle,” Swann said.

The witness said he witnessed Johnson prostitute four women out of the Days Inn for roughly a month and a half. Johnson paid for the women’s rooms, took them out each night, and brought them back early in the morning. Men were often seen coming and going, yet police say only one Austin-area victim has spoken out so far.

“There may be others but again until I have an outcry,” Swann said. “These pimps and traffickers, they prey on the most vulnerable people in our society and it is frustrating.”

Swann says this is “just the beginning” of what the department expects will be a months-long investigation. He says there is another potential victim they have already identified in the Houston area.

Friday morning, detectives from the department's human trafficking division filed a first-degree felony continuous trafficking of persons charge against Johnson.