A DeKalb County hotel hit with a historic $40 million verdict in a civil case alleging it aided and profited off the sex trafficking of a 16-year-old girl must also face juries in two similar lawsuits, a federal appellate court has decided.
The United Inn & Suites on Memorial Drive was 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. The hotel was one of the three worst establishments in DeKalb for sex and drug crimes, two former county detectives testified in that landmark trial last year.
In a precedential ruling this week that has wide implications for the hospitality industry, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived three previously dismissed sex trafficking cases against Atlanta-area hotels, saying they should go to trial.
Two of those cases are against United Inn & Suites, filed by women who say they were trafficked there as 17-year-olds in 2017, when they were forced to have sex with about 45 men. The third case similarly accuses another hotel, the Hilltop Inn in Conley, of facilitating the sex trafficking of a 15-year-old girl. The plaintiffs’ identities are not public, pursuant to court orders.
“It is a win for survivors,” said David Bouchard, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the cases against United Inn & Suites. “It is an opinion that will ensure that more survivors will have their day in court.”
Lawyers for the hotels in the revived cases did not respond this week to inquiries about the ruling. Attorneys for United Inn & Suites in the case that went to trial last year declined to comment.
Georgia courts are leading the way
Dozens of sex trafficking lawsuits have been filed in Georgia against hotel owners and operators under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, or TVPRA. An amendment to that law in 2008 makes liable anyone who knowingly benefits from participation in a venture with sex traffickers.
These cases generally allege hotel owners and operators have allowed sex trafficking on their premises because they profit off the associated business.
Georgia is a hotbed of sex trafficking litigation, in part because of Atlanta’s status as a transportation and human trafficking hub. Last year’s $40 million verdict against United Inn & Suites was believed by plaintiffs’ attorneys to be the largest of its kind in the country.
The verdict was followed by million-dollar settlements in similar cases against the owners of Americas Best Value Inn Tucker and Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham in Stockbridge.
In 2024, a case brought by 11 women who claimed 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 2023.
In the cases revived this week by the 11th Circuit, there was enough evidence that the hotels intentionally facilitated the sex trafficking of minors for jurors to hold them liable, the court said.
For example, United Inn & Suites employees agreed not to clean rooms rented by sex traffickers and sold condoms to scantily clad teenage girls who were allowed into rooms without identification or reservations, the court said.
It said former employees of Hilltop Inn testified that sex and drug crimes were rampant there and one of the owners, Vic Amin, had instructed them to allow it because “we need the money.” Amin told a housekeeper, Joan Blackmon, the only way the hotel would make money was to “get these girls back up here working,” according to the housekeeper’s sworn testimony.
Matt Stoddard, an attorney for the plaintiff in the case against Hilltop Inn, said the testimony from former hotel workers was “unusually strong” evidence. He said the 11th Circuit’s ruling clarifies that even evidence that is much more circumstantial, such as a hotel employee turning a blind eye to obvious signs of sex trafficking, can be enough for a TVPRA case to make it to trial.
“I think that it will mean that a lot of victims get justice more swiftly,” he said. “What the opinion seemed to say more broadly … is that the types of evidence that are generally available when there’s been bad trafficking are enough that we would likely be able to talk to a jury most of the time.”
Millions of dollars are on the line
At trial last year, attorneys for United Inn & Suites argued it had nothing to do with sex trafficking, saying “vile criminals” and the “deplorable” websites they used for such “clandestine” activity were to blame.
Hotel owner Tahir Shareef testified that he can’t stop crime from occurring on his property but always cooperates with law enforcement when problems arise.
The plaintiff testified that 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. She said she spent about 40 days drugged and abused at the hotel, where she was forced to have sex with hundreds of men.
The jury deliberated for more than four hours before finding the hotel liable and awarding the plaintiff $10 million in compensation and an additional $30 million in damages designed to punish the hotel and deter others.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Pat McDonough, an attorney for plaintiffs in almost 100 civil sex trafficking cases, including those against United Inn & Suites, said all of those cases included evidence that would clear the 11th Circuit’s newly established bar for reaching trial. He said he’s confident the two revived cases against United Inn & Suites will also elicit large verdicts if they get to be decided by a jury.
“I think people are just fed up with businesses that literally turn a blind eye to profit off the backs of our children,” he said.
Hotels can take steps to avoid liability
The 11th Circuit’s ruling is binding across Georgia, Florida and Alabama. It is believed to be the first federal appellate court decision clarifying the trial evidence standard in TVPRA cases against hotel operators.
Naveen Ramachandrappa, an appellate attorney who argued for the Hilltop Inn case to be revived, said the 11th Circuit’s decision corrects a “worrying trend” among trial judges who concluded that such cases are legally deficient and can’t be presented to juries.
“I think it is really important,” he said. “It will be looked to, and it will be cited across the country.”
Melanie Miller, an Atlanta-based corporate trainer who runs a trafficking awareness and risk mitigation program for hotels and hospitality teams, said many hotel operators in Georgia don’t undertake that kind of training.
A proposed new state law would mandate such training if passed.
Miller said many hotel operators also don’t understand the TVPRA and how it has “fundamentally changed the industry’s view of exposure, liability and responsibility.”
“What courts have signaled is that they are taking trafficking very seriously,” Miller said. “What these legal opinions have made clear is that liability doesn’t come from a single moment; it comes from a pattern of missed opportunities to recognize and respond.”
In the trial against United Inn & Suites, the plaintiff’s lawyers said the hotel ignored a “be on the lookout” notice from the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office about the girl living on-site. They said the plaintiff’s traffickers chose the hotel for its complicit management, broken policies and untrained staff.
In 2018, DeKalb County cited the hotel for 447 code violations, court records show.
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com
“There is more than enough evidence to support an inference that United Inn was a sex trafficking-friendly hotel,” the 11th Circuit wrote in its ruling this week.
Bouchard said he’s looking forward to taking the two revived cases against United Inn & Suites to trial.
“I think a lot of people are curious about and want to know more about trafficking and how it happens,” he said. “And these cases, in some ways, are kind of ground zero.”
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