Motel 6 Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Alleges Hotel Workers Ignored Warning Signs

Complaint alleges hotel workers accepted cash tips from the trafficker and denied seeing the girl when her relatives came searching for her.

A California woman has filed a lawsuit alleging workers at a Los Angeles-area Motel 6 ignored clear signs that she was being sexually exploited as a minor, including witnessing her trafficker beat her and refusing to call for help.

The complaint (PDF) was brought by a woman identified only as Jane Doe (HT-00040) in California Superior Court for Los Angeles County on September 16. It names various Hotel franchises doing business in the Los Angeles area as defendants.

Doe claims the same trafficker exploited her from age 16 until approximately 26, repeatedly using rooms at the Motel 6 in Carson, California, Best Western Plus Suites Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Travelodge by Wyndham LAX.

The filing is one of dozens of similar hotel sex trafficking lawsuits filed in recent years, alleging various underage girls have been trafficked through motels, hotels and apartment complexes across the United States.

Many of the claims state that employees at different locations knowingly allowed child sex trafficking to occur on their premises, sometimes actively participating in the sexual assault of young girls being held in rooms.

Hotel Sex Trafficking Allegations

According to the complaint, some of the hotel locations Doe was trafficked through failed to adequately train and supervise employees to recognize trafficking indicators, respond to violence and underage victims, investigate suspicious visitor patterns and escalate emergencies.

The lawsuit also alleges that Motel 6 employees specifically undertook anti-trafficking training, reporting and response programs, but the company failed to adequately ensure workers received and understood the training, verify compliance or maintain effective procedures for urgent reports and corrective action.

Doe claims her trafficker beat her outside the Carson Motel 6 after she earned only about $500 instead of the amount he demanded. Two housekeepers allegedly stood nearby and watched as Doe cried out, “Why are you beating me up so hard? I am just a baby,” but did not intervene, contact management or summon law enforcement.

About a week later, Doe says she approached one of those housekeepers, explicitly told the employee she was underage and needed help and asked to borrow a phone to call her aunt. According to the complaint, the housekeeper refused and walked away without seeking assistance.

The lawsuit also alleges Doe saw her trafficker give cash tips to the same housekeepers. Plaintiffs argue those payments, combined with frequent visitor traffic and the employees’ failure to intervene, suggest the workers knew what was happening and chose to ignore it.

The filing also claims Doe’s great-aunt went to the Best Western LAX looking for her and told employees she was a minor, but workers denied seeing her. Doe further alleges her trafficker tipped hotel staff with cash, while one male employee later solicited her for commercial sex despite knowing she was seeing numerous men each day.

At the Travelodge LAX, Doe says her great-aunt again came looking for her with a photograph. Although Doe was allegedly inside the hotel, workers failed to investigate or help locate her.

Doe says the abuse continues to affect her, causing flashbacks, sleep problems, difficulty eating and fear of intimate relationships. She also claims she left school in ninth grade, resulting in educational and financial losses.

“As a direct and proximate result of the trafficking, confinement, violence, sexual exploitation, hotel-related acts and omissions, and delayed rescue, Plaintiff suffered physical injury, fear for herself and her family, humiliation, loss of liberty, and severe psychological and emotional harm.”

— Jane Doe (HT-00040) v. Carson Hospitality Group Inc. et al.

The lawsuit raises allegations of human trafficking, aiding and abetting false imprisonment, battery, sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, premises liability, negligent training and operational supervision, negligent undertaking, false imprisonment, battery, sexual battery, interference with civil rights and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

It seeks compensatory and economic damages, punitive damages where legally supported, attorneys’ fees and other relief, as well as enhanced damages available under California law if Doe proves the required elements, including allegations involving a qualifying cover-up.

Motel Sex Trafficking Lawsuits

Doe’s complaint echoes allegations raised in a number of motel sex trafficking lawsuits, which claim hotel operators and national chains failed to adopt or enforce adequate safeguards to identify and stop the sexual exploitation of minors on their properties.

In April 2024, plaintiffs asked the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to centralize more than 100 hotel sex trafficking lawsuits before a single federal judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings.

However, the JPML declined to consolidate the cases, finding that differences among the hotel operators, circumstances surrounding individual trafficking incidents and other case-specific issues would make centralized proceedings inefficient.

As a result, the claims have continued moving forward individually in federal courts throughout the country.

One of the first motel sex trafficking cases believed to reach a jury ended in a $40 million verdict in July 2025. The case involved a survivor who alleged she was confined at the United Inn & Suites in Decatur, Georgia, for more than 40 days and raped for money more than 200 times.

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