Woman forced into prostitution at Springdale motel

A developmentally disabled woman in her early 30s who has a “childlike mind” was forced to smoke crack and engage in prostitution at a Springdale motel, prosecutors said.

Ashely Embry, prosecutors said, took photos of the victim wearing provocative clothing and posted those photos on Backpage.com, so she could set up “dates” at an hourly rate.

Embry, 27, was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday and ordered to register as a sex offender when she is released.

“You were so selfish. You were so uncaring, and the actions you took are just reprehensible,” Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Jody Luebbers said. “She may not look like a child, but she is a child, and you just took advantage of her.”

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Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Jocelyn Chess said Embry “admitted that she knew the victim was slow.”

Embry referred to her as “retard,” Chess said.

"She took advantage of a victim who had a childlike mind," she said, explaining that mentally the woman is like a 10- to 12-year-old.

Luebbers said Embry held the victim captive at the motel, the Super 8 on Glensprings Drive, and “took complete advantage of (her) for your own gain.”

The victim was at the motel for several days. In a presentence report, which Luebbers read from, Embry claimed she told the victim she had to leave.

“It just wasn’t working out,” Embry said in the report. “She had a different way of working, and got into drama with people at the hotel and it always messed with my work.”

When Luebbers asked Embry about that statement, she responded: “I was surviving.”

Luebbers interrupted: “And you brought her down. You’re traumatizing her. You’re tormenting her.”

Later during the hearing, Embry – who pleaded guilty last month to a human trafficking charge – said she wanted to go to trial and that she “wanted the truth to come out.”

“I never took anything from this woman. I never did,” Embry said. “I did for her what was done for me.”

Her attorney, Scott Rubenstein, had earlier explained that Embry had been a victim of human trafficking in the past.

He said Embry was struggling with drug addiction.

“Addiction does horrible things to people. It changes the way people think and operate,” he told Luebbers. “The way she chose to deal with this and get through life was no way to live.”

Embry has several drug-related charges and convictions in recent years, most involving heroin.