A DeKalb County hotel must pay $40 million to a woman who said she was forced to have sex with hundreds of men there as a 16-year-old, an Atlanta jury has determined in a landmark decision.
United Inn & Suites on Memorial Drive is the first hotel in Georgia to be found liable by a jury under a federal law that targets those who knowingly benefit from participation in a venture with sex traffickers. Until now, none of those cases in Georgia, and few nationwide, have made it to a jury.
“This is more than a legal victory, it’s a statement,” said Pat McDonough, an attorney for the plaintiff who also represents other sex trafficking victims suing Georgia hotels. “This verdict puts the entire hotel industry on notice: Businesses that ignore trafficking will be held accountable.”
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
The plaintiff’s lawyers said the verdict is believed to be the largest of its kind in the U.S. and will affect litigation across the country as hotels, insurers and attorneys are paying close attention.
David Bouchard, the plaintiff’s lead attorney, said his client was “beaming with pride” knowing her case will be precedential in a positive way for other sex trafficking survivors. He said the trial was an emotional roller coaster for her, following almost five years of litigation.
“By the end, she was extraordinarily pleased, grateful, excited and relieved,” Bouchard said Monday.
The verdict comes as the next trial in Georgia in a sex trafficking lawsuit is about to start July 21. That case, led by McDonough, alleges a 15-year-old was trafficked for sex at a Super 8 hotel in Tucker in 2015.
The seven jurors in the United Inn & Suites case deliberated for more than four hours Friday before awarding the plaintiff $10 million in compensation and $30 million in damages designed to punish the hotel and deter others.
The plaintiff, now in her 20s, testified her traffickers were assisted in late 2018 and early 2019 by the hotel’s night manager, who bought drugs from them, helped them switch rooms and warned them of unwanted attention.
As a teenager, she spent about 40 days drugged and abused at the hotel, which for years prior had done nothing to increase security, bolster staff or improve policies to curb an epidemic of commercial sex crimes there, her lawyers argued. They said the hotel ignored a “be on the lookout” notice from the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office about the girl living on-site.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Hotel owner Tahir Shareef testified he can’t stop crime from occurring on his property but said he always cooperates with law enforcement when problems arise.
Dana Richens, the hotel’s lead trial attorney, said she is evaluating its post-trial options, including appeals. She said the hotel had nothing to do with the plaintiff’s trafficking. She said that kind of “clandestine” activity is the fault of “vile criminals” and the “deplorable” websites they use to advertise girls and women for sex.
The hotel had reasonable security measures, including a 36-camera surveillance system, patrols by off-duty police officers and a midnight curfew, Richens said.
“There is simply no evidence that United Inn was in cahoots with (the plaintiff’s) traffickers,” Richens said. “There is no evidence that United Inn knew or should have known that (the plaintiff) was a minor being sex trafficked at United Inn.”
Bouchard said dozens of girls and women were trafficked for sex at United Inn & Suites. Two former DeKalb detectives testified about how they had investigated multiple incidents of commercial sex crimes at the hotel around the time the plaintiff was there, including child sex trafficking.
Bouchard said the plaintiff was groomed online by her traffickers, who chose the hotel because of its complicit management, broken policies and untrained staff.
Bouchard asked the jurors to award the plaintiff between $15 million and $25 million in compensation and $100 million in punitive damages, urging them to send a strong message to hotels nationwide.
“Those 40 days of trauma will be with her for the rest of her days,” he said of the plaintiff. “This should never have happened, but it did because of a hotel that allowed it.”
Bouchard said the hotel owner was preoccupied in 2017 with trying to sell it for $6.8 million and wanted high occupancy rates. He said the plaintiff’s traffickers rented multiple rooms for months, not bothering to hide their drugs, guns, cash, condoms and other telltale signs of illicit activity.
Two other sex trafficking lawsuits against United Inn & Suites were thrown out before trial by a federal judge in Atlanta in June 2024. The plaintiffs in those cases have appealed the rulings.
In June 2024, a case brought by 11 women who said they were trafficked at Red Roof Inn hotels in Smyrna and Buckhead settled in the middle of trial. Red Roof Inn had previously settled a related case on the eve of trial in November 2023.
McDonough, who has been involved in about 100 such cases, said he knows of one other that was decided by a jury, several years ago in Arkansas. He said the relevant federal law has been in play since 2008.
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