Lawsuit accuses Motel 6 of aiding in abuse
A woman who says she was routinely drugged, raped and trafficked as a teenager at a Motel 6 in Spring is suing the franchise owner and national chain, saying staff not only failed to protect her but helped facilitate her abuse.
The Harris County plaintiff is suing under Chapter 98, a Texas anti-trafficking law that allows people to hold businesses liable if they knowingly facilitate prostitution.
The now-closed motel identified Wednesday was the target of a 2017 nuisance suit by the Harris County Attorney’s Office for “harboring criminal activity” including sex trafficking.
A spokesperson for Motel 6 did not address the specifics of the lawsuit, but said the company has online programs and signage in place and it requires suspected trafficking be reported at its properties. The chain has terminated agreements with more than 100 motels that did not comply with its overall standards, the official said.
“We condemn all forms of human trafficking. Trafficking violates basic human rights and represents a global societal issue that multiple stakeholders must partner and work together to eradicate,” the spokesperson said.
The woman identified in court documents filed Tuesday as Jane Doe A.A. lives in Corpus Christi and comes from an affluent, highfunctioning family, the daughter of a physician, her lawyer said. When she was 17, she says the “older brother” of a schoolmate effectively recruited her, unwittingly, at a high school party when his “younger brother” introduced them. The “older brother” said he wanted to be her boyfriend, part of a pattern trafficking experts have seen play out at multiple high schools in the region. The older man then began drugging her and peddling her to johns at a regular rotation of Houston motels from 2015 to 2016.
At one point, officials at the Motel 6 relegated her to a room that was out of view, suspended housekeeping services and arranged for her to have sex with the manager, according to court documents.
Shortly after her 18th birthday the teen bolted out of a car toward a uniformed officer at a gas station to report what was happening. He took her to the hospital. She eventually moved home with her parents and began intensive in-patient substance abuse and trauma counseling, according to documents. Now 22, she plans to testify as the key witness in the prosecution of the man she says trafficked her.
“There is no question that Motel 6 is by far the biggest offender in the hospitality industry,” said Houston lawyer, Annie McAdams. “My team has screened thousands of cases and the trafficking location that comes up most frequently and with the most egregious circumstances is Motel 6.”
The spokesperson for Motel 6 responded: “Based on publicly available information about lawsuits, Motel 6 is among those with the fewest number of lawsuits (even including these filings) as compared to other brands.”
McAdams has championed cases against corporations she believes make it possible for pimps to continue exploiting vulnerable teens. Her firm has gone after Facebook, Loves and Flying J truck stops and Wyndham and La Quinta hotels.
She says it’s key to involve hotels in the effort to stop trafficking because they often turn a blind eye and facilitate a large proportion of pimps’ business. The National Human Trafficking Hotline found that 92 percent of the calls it received in 2014 involved reports of incidents at hotels.
“It’s not like people have to leave their home and go out on the street to buy sex anymore,” McAdams said. “They can order it to their hotel room from a computer.”
“Until we stop tech companies and hotels from facilitating these acts, this crisis will continue to grow.”
The lawsuit also cites other allegations of sex trafficking at Motel 6 locations in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Ohio and Oregon. The parent company, G6 Hospitality, LLC, settled a similar 2015 case with the City of Los Angeles involving trafficking allegations.