Uber CEO must testify in sex trafficking suit, Gwinnett judge says

Uber’s CEO must testify in a lawsuit that contends the company is liable for the alleged sex trafficking of a 14-year-old girl, a Gwinnett County judge has ruled, saying it appears lower-level staff were kept in the dark about such matters.

The ride-hailing company denies liability in the case, filed in March 2025. The complaint, brought by a Butts County mother and her daughter, alleges an Uber driver transported the girl alone in the middle of the night to a house where she was drugged and raped over several days in November 2024. The company sought to shield its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, from being deposed, saying he “has no unique personal knowledge of any of the issues in dispute in this litigation.”

But Gwinnett County State Court Judge Emily Brantley, relying on the information presented in the suit to date, recently denied the company’s request. She said Khosrowshahi likely has relevant knowledge about Uber’s awareness of human trafficking hazards, including warnings from the FBI and U.S. senators, as well as the company’s related decisions, policy implementations, investigations and communications.

“Plaintiff has tried to obtain the information from lower-level employees, but it appears from the record that these employees were ‘kept in the dark’ regarding certain relevant matters pertaining to sex trafficking/assaults,” the judge wrote in an order last week.

Brantley also ordered Uber to hand over certain documents requested by the plaintiff in the case, including reports of sexual assault and human trafficking, denying the company’s request to prevent the disclosure of that information.

An Uber spokesperson did not respond Wednesday to questions about the case. The company previously said the details of the suit are “gut-wrenching” and said it is committed to helping combat human trafficking.

Its initiatives, for example, include partnering with Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and others in 2021 to raise awareness of human trafficking.

Michael Neff, an attorney for the plaintiffs, whose identities are shielded by the court, said it is significant that Uber’s CEO must testify as leaders of large companies are often protected from depositions. He said the information he’s seeking includes Uber’s knowledge of human trafficking risks and its study of measures to prevent transportation of riders for sexual exploitation.

“These rulings are important because they allow us to pursue answers about what Uber knew, when it knew it, and what decisions were made in response,” Neff said in a statement. “When children are at risk, safety decisions shouldn’t be hidden behind corporate layers.”

Neff said he’s not aware of any other human trafficking cases against Uber in which Khosrowshahi has been deposed. The executive was deposed in separate litigation over sexual assaults on Uber riders.

Uber previously sought to dismiss the Gwinnett suit, arguing in part that it owed no legal duty to the teenage rider, who alleged she was picked up alone from a deserted gas station at 1:40 a.m. and driven more than 30 miles to the Jonesboro home of a man who drugged and repeatedly raped her over four days.

The suspect, Thomas Bonner, is in the Clayton County Jail and is charged with rape, sodomy, sexual battery against a minor, aggravated child molestation and enticing a child for indecent purposes, jail and court records show. Bonner has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not respond Wednesday to questions about the prosecution.

Bonner, who is not a defendant in the civil case against Uber, was arrested by Clayton County police in November 2024, days after the girl said she was found at his home by police officers who tracked her down using details of the Uber ride.

The girl alleged she had been communicating online with Bonner, who convinced her to leave her home in the middle of the night and walk to a gas station where an Uber driver could pick her up.

A timestamped image of the Uber car entering the deserted gas station in Butts County to collect the child is included in the lawsuit. The complaint seeks to hold the company accountable for allowing the child to be transported without parental consent and at the request of an alleged sex trafficker.

“Uber and its driver profited from this trip,” the lawsuit said. “But for Uber’s involvement in delivering the girl to their attacker’s doorstep without question in obviously suspicious circumstances, none of this would have happened.”

The judge denied Uber’s request to dismiss the case at the earliest opportunity in November, finding the allegations sufficient to proceed.