The mother of a girl who disappeared from a Dallas Mavericks game in 2022 is suing a hotel chain after she allegedly trafficked and assaulted her, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Dallas County.
The 90-page filing alleges that Extended Stay America failed to protect teenage boys and fostered an environment ripe for human trafficking, and that hotel employees “failed to recognize the signs or did not see them.” “They chose to pretend and ignore what was going on.”
The girl, who was 15 years old at the time, went to the bathroom during a Mavericks game on April 8 and did not return, so her father reported her missing. According to the complaint, the boy was drugged, forced into prostitution and confined at an Economy Hotel in Oklahoma City. Illicit photos and sex ads of the girl were then leaked online, and she was found by police 10 days after her disappearance.
dallas morning news The teen's name is not being released because she is the victim of a sex crime.
Spokespeople for Extended Stay America and Dallas-based Provident Realty, which owns the franchise where the girl was found, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the lawsuit and Texas state documents. There wasn't.
A spokeswoman for Plano-based Aimbridge Hospitality, which manages the hotel, declined to comment, citing “ongoing litigation,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages.
“This case concerns an entity that knowingly profited from human trafficking,” Zeke Fortenberry, an attorney representing the girl's family, said in a statement. Fortenberry said companies are “putting profits before people, and that's unacceptable.”
According to the complaint, the man who trafficked the girl rented hotel rooms under false names and sometimes paid in cash. According to the complaint, women were forced to perform sex acts for money at the hotel, where men with assault rifles patrolled the hallways.
At least two people arrested in Oklahoma have pleaded guilty to human trafficking and child pornography charges in connection with the girl's disappearance. No one has been convicted in Dallas.
The lawsuit alleges that Extended Stay America officials knew that sex trafficking was occurring at the hotel and profited by allowing traffickers to rent rooms. There is. Management “failed to acknowledge that human trafficking was actually occurring at its hotels and failed to prevent it from occurring in the future,” the suit says.
A few days before she was found by police, the girl was met at the hotel entrance by a hotel employee and two men who allegedly participated in the human trafficking operation, according to the complaint. When the two men took the girl back to her room, she said the girl was “visibly upset and crying.” The employee “did not provide any assistance and returned to work behind the front desk,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit also alleges that Oklahoma City hotel staff were aware of sex trafficking allegations posted in internet reviews. People who claimed to have stayed at the hotel reported seeing “prostitutes everywhere,” according to court documents.
Mr Fortenberry previously said the police investigation into the girl's disappearance had been undermined. news. He said Dallas police ignored signs that she had been abducted, treated her as a fugitive and transferred her case to North Richland Hills, where she lives. The boy had run away from home once before.
A Dallas County grand jury last year declined to indict the man accused of luring her from the American Airlines Center and assaulting her at an unknown home, a move devastating to the family's pursuit of justice in Dallas' criminal system. The end has come, their lawyer said.
