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Cosmopolitan Motel Busted for Promoting Prostitution, Prosecutors Say

By Nicholas Rizzi | July 2, 2015 1:50pm
 Pakeerathan Subramaniam, 32, a clerk at the Cosmopolitan Motel, was arrested and charged with promoting prostitution.
Pakeerathan Subramaniam, 32, a clerk at the Cosmopolitan Motel, was arrested and charged with promoting prostitution.
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Flickr/nickallen

OLD TOWN — A clerk at a Staten Island motel where a woman was fatally shot in the head earlier this year was arrested last week for promoting prostitution, prosecutors said.

Pakeerathan Subramaniam, a 32-year-old clerk at the Cosmopolitan Motel, was arrested on Friday in an undercover NYPD sting operation, prosecutors said.

On three occasions — May 16, June 6 and June 26 — Subramaniam arranged for men to go up to a room in the 1274 Hylan Blvd. motel with a prostitute in exchange for cash, prosecutors said.

According to court papers, two of the women "were compelled/coerced by force to engage in prostitution."

Subramaniam was charged with two counts of promoting prostitution at his arraignment on Saturday, the Staten Island District Attorney's office said. He was released without bail and is due back in court on Sept. 10, according to online court records.

Subramaniam's lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

This isn't the first time the motel was in the limelight for crime.

In April, Michele Hernandez, 21, was fatally shot in the head inside a room at the motel after her alleged pimp got into an argument with a customer, police told DNAinfo New York at the time.

Her family told DNAinfo New York she didn't work as a prostitute and the incident started after the suspects tried to rob her for drugs she had inside the motel.