Red Roof Inn has settled a landmark sex trafficking case mid-trial, resolving allegations by 11 women that they were exploited for years at hotels in Smyrna and Buckhead.
The national hotel chain isn’t disclosing the settlement terms and continues to deny claims that it participated in and benefited from pervasive sex trafficking at its locations on North Druid Hills Road in Buckhead and Corporate Plaza in Smyrna.
“Red Roof will continue to work with industry partners in the fight to eradicate sex trafficking and the exploitation of victims,” the company said in a statement provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The case was the first of its kind to reach trial, after similar cases in Georgia and other states settled before a jury was selected. Red Roof settled Tuesday night after the plaintiffs had finished presenting their evidence and the judge had rejected its request for a ruling in its favor.
Pat McDonough, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said it’s the first time that sex trafficking survivors got to publicly present all their evidence against a national hotel brand. He said his clients, who were trafficked between 2009 and 2018, are happy with the settlement, having each had a chance to tell their story in open court.
“They all had their voices heard,” McDonough told the AJC. “They’re pleased this is behind them. This is quite courageous on their part to do it.”
McDonough said the plaintiffs were able to show that Red Roof knew sex trafficking was happening on its properties and allowed it to continue. He said the plaintiffs hope their case will bring about change in the hospitality industry nationwide. Two of the plaintiffs were minors when they were trafficked and others were in their late teens and early twenties, he said.
“One of (Red Roof’s) corporate employees said he saw minor sex trafficking and the vice president told them to move those people to the back (of the hotel) so they could keep taking money from them while they made money from other guests that were complaining about it,” McDonough said. “It went all the way to the top. That’s all in the public record now.”
Red Roof said it “condemns sex trafficking in all forms.”
A former front desk worker at the Buckhead location testified early in the trial that 40% to 50% of the hotel’s clientele was sex traffickers and their victims. One of the plaintiffs testified that Red Roof staff never asked if she needed help, though it was obvious that she and others were being trafficked. She said Red Roof hotels were preferred by traffickers, who seemed to be more comfortable there than at other hotels.
A verdict would have been instructive for sex trafficking cases against hotels nationwide, Emma Hetherington, director of the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law told the AJC.
“If (Red Roof) can be held liable, then that sends a major message to hotels that society will not tolerate their participation in these ventures and that they need to end it,” she said.
Hetherington said the case was significant as it targeted a hotel chain as opposed to franchisees. She said hotel giants around the country have typically hidden behind franchisees in sex trafficking cases, claiming the franchisees are the ones who have knowingly benefited from trafficking ventures on their properties.
Red Roof made it clear while fighting the case that it shouldn’t be held liable as the plaintiffs were at least equally as responsible for what happened to them, Hetherington said. She said a 2018 report based on a survey of sex trafficking survivors showed that about 60% of them said their trafficking occurred at hotels.
“It makes sense that it often happens in hotels,” she said. “Hotels in many ways have pretty significant power to help prevent and end it.”
Buckhead clinician Anique Whitmore, who has interviewed more than 1,500 sex trafficking victims, testified during the trial that sex trafficking moved from the streets into hotels with online solicitation. She said it’s a myth that trafficking is hidden.
“It’s as clear as day as homelessness,” she testified. “You will see the malnourished body (of a victim), the scantily-clad way in which they’re dressed, the lack of eye contact, the inability to have their own voice and speak without permission. You see men looking at their watches, waiting to go up to the hotel room. You see men adjusting their belt and their zipper. You see women opening the door half dressed. You see pimps in their cars receiving money. You see and smell drugs in the environment. You see intoxicated, high women and men. You see weaponry.”
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