A federal jury awarded $164 million to a woman who says she was trafficked for sex at a Super 8 hotel on Old National Highway in College Park when she was 15 in 2020. The award against the hotel's owner, Lincoln Bancorp, LLC, includes $44 million in compensatory damages and $120 million in punitive damages.
Trial testimony described repeated stays at the hotel and signs of possible trafficking, according to CBS News Atlanta. The plaintiff, identified in court records only as J.R., said traffickers brought her there multiple times in 2020 and again in 2021. She testified that she stayed for weeks at a time, once sharing a room with as many as eight other victims while traffickers sold her for sex to multiple buyers a day. The case is styled J.R. v. Lincoln Bancorp, LLC.
A Teen's Plea for Help Went Nowhere
J.R. testified that she once asked a hotel employee for help escaping, but staff refused, CBS News Atlanta reported.
CBS News Atlanta also reported that a former motel housekeeper testified some employees were paid to act as lookouts, warning traffickers when police were present. The housekeeper also testified that employees rented rooms by the half-hour or hour specifically for sex. Attorneys argued that these patterns should have alerted management to possible abuse on the property.
Attorneys Say Hotels Had Every Chance to Act
Attorney Patrick McDonough said the evidence showed recurring, visible signs of trafficking over an extended period, according to CBS News Atlanta. He argued that hotels can train staff to recognize potential signs and respond, and that the evidence showed the hotel failed to act despite the presence of a child being trafficked on its property.
The College Park verdict is part of a broader series of lawsuits against Atlanta-area hotels alleging sex trafficking. Andersen, Tate & Carr, which represented J.R., described the verdict as the largest sex-trafficking verdict ever returned in the United States, according to attorneys quoted by CBS News Atlanta.
Not the First Big Verdict Against a Metro Atlanta Hotel
The College Park case follows a string of similar lawsuits against hotels across the Atlanta area. A federal jury previously found a Decatur hotel operator liable for the sex trafficking of a teenage girl, identified as J.G., who was exploited on the property for more than a month, according to 11Alive. That jury awarded her $10 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages, totaling $40 million.
Freedom United reported that J.G. was trafficked as a minor at the United Inn & Suites on Memorial Drive between 2018 and 2019, and that over 40 days she was exploited more than 200 times. A separate law firm account called the $40 million award the largest sex-trafficking verdict in U.S. history at the time, before the College Park judgment.
Earlier Verdicts and Hotel Warning Signs
According to The Independent, a federal jury awarded J.G. $40 million in the separate United Inn & Suites case in Decatur. Her attorneys said she was trafficked there between 2018 and 2019, when she was 16. The reporting describes the jury award but provides no later procedural update on the case. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign lists renting a room by the hour as a potential indicator for hospitality staff to consider. The agency cautions that indicators may point to a potential trafficking situation; they do not prove one.
Other Metro Atlanta Hotels Have Settled Similar Claims
Elsewhere in the region, a Days Inn in Stockbridge agreed to pay two survivors of child sex trafficking a combined $5 million to settle a federal lawsuit, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Those two survivors said they were 14 when they were sold for sex at the hotel in March 2013. In that case, as in the College Park suit, attorneys accused hotel staff of ignoring and, in some cases, facilitating the abuse.
