A Portland teen who was sold for sex starting at age 13 has sued the Oregon Department of Human Services, alleging the agency failed to investigate a trafficking report and repeatedly ignored signs that she was being exploited. The teen, identified in court filings as A.G. and now 18 years old, says in the lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court that caseworkers had multiple chances to intervene and did not.
According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, A.G. met Domonique Williams near her Portland home when she was 13 and he was 28. Williams, prosecutors say, later trafficked her for nearly three years, pocketing money that adult men paid to have sex with her. Williams was on post-prison supervision at the time for a 2015 criminally negligent homicide conviction, per the same report.
The lawsuit says Portland police received a report in August 2022 that Williams was sexually abusing girls and trafficking one of them, and that A.G. herself reported being sexually assaulted near 82nd Avenue that same month — a stretch of the street the lawsuit describes as a well-known hotspot for prostitution and minor sex trafficking. A.G.'s attorneys allege DHS failed to assign an investigator to that trafficking report and violated its own policies by failing to screen and investigate it.
A Trail of Missed Warnings
The pattern allegedly repeated itself. In June 2022, A.G. visited an emergency room and was diagnosed with chlamydia; that November, according to the lawsuit, DHS again failed to properly screen concerns about her sexual abuse and exploitation. By then A.G. had stopped attending school and had begun acquiring tattoos her lawyers describe as sex-trafficking-associated markers — including the word “Hu$tle” on the back of her neck, a naked girl, the word “loyalty” and the phrase “pay me” inked on her arms, and Williams' money-sign symbol branded onto her face.
The lawsuit states that DHS staff contacted A.G. while she was recovering in the hospital from gunshot wounds. She was 15 when she was shot multiple times in her abdomen and shoulder near 82nd Avenue in November 2022, and was treated at a local hospital. Her attorneys say the harms of her exploitation left her with flashbacks, anxiety attacks and self-blame that persist today.
What the Lawsuit Seeks
A.G. is seeking up to $5 million in non-economic damages along with roughly $25,000 for counseling and other treatment, according to the lawsuit. Her lawyers said the systems meant to protect vulnerable youth failed her, and that she was exclusively trafficked to adult men for commercial sex. Attorney Ashley R. Cadotte said the failures should be highlighted and the responsible agencies held accountable, per the same report.
The Oregon Department of Human Services has vetting reports of child abuse and neglect as one of its core responsibilities. A DHS spokesperson declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, the report notes. Under Oregon law, any commercial sex act involving someone under 18 is automatically classified as child sex trafficking, without prosecutors needing to prove force, fraud or coercion, according to the Oregon State Legislature.
The Criminal Cases Against Her Traffickers
Williams pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse, using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, and other charges, and sexually assaulted A.G. himself, according to court records. He was sentenced in September 2025 to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty in Multnomah County Circuit Court to 15 felony counts, per the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office. Co-defendant Kai'Leif Newcomb was convicted of compelling and promoting prostitution and sentenced to 15 years, while three other men — James Alfonsi, Vladimir Tishenko and Cameron Caufield, ranging in age from 35 to 67 — were separately convicted for soliciting A.G. for commercial sex, according to the Chronicle. Those convictions capped a multi-agency investigation led by the Portland Police Bureau's Human Trafficking Unit.
A Pattern of State Liability
A.G.'s civil case lands amid mounting financial pressure on Oregon's child welfare agency. In January, a Multnomah County jury awarded $29.2 million against DHS after finding the agency liable for failing to investigate a Child Abuse Hotline call about a toddler who later suffered permanent, catastrophic brain injuries, according to reporting cited by the Oregon Journalism Project. In May 2025, DHS agreed to pay a record $40 million settlement to four former foster youth who suffered severe abuse after caseworkers ignored warning signs and failed to vet foster placements, per the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
Even so, Oregon's Tort Claims Act caps how much any single plaintiff can actually collect from a state agency — limiting personal injury recovery to $2,565,400 for the 2024–2025 fiscal year regardless of what a jury awards, according to the Oregon Judicial Department. Financial liabilities from state agency wrongdoing, led predominantly by ODHS child welfare claims, surpassed $60 million across the top 10 payouts between 2023 and early 2025, a trend that Oregon Public Broadcasting reports has sparked legislative concern over the solvency of the state's self-insurance fund.
DHS is also operating under a federal settlement reached in 2024 in the class-action case Wyatt B. v. Kotek, brought by Disability Rights Oregon and national advocates on behalf of thousands of foster youth. Governor Tina Kotek and DHS leadership agreed to up to 10 years of independent expert oversight over child welfare operations and abuse reporting under that deal. Separately, DHS discontinued a predictive algorithm at its central Child Abuse Hotline in June 2022 that had previously helped intake workers decide whether calls warranted formal field investigations, according to PBS News — a change in intake methodology that fell within the same window A.G.'s lawyers say her early reports were screened out.
A Corridor Under Watch
82nd Avenue, where A.G. was trafficked, sexually assaulted and later shot, has been the target of repeated Portland Police Bureau enforcement operations. Police conducted anti-trafficking missions along the corridor in July and November 2024, making dozens of prostitution procurement arrests while connecting endangered youth to victim advocates through partnerships with Safety Compass and PPB victim service units.
