Texas Woman Sues Wyndham Hotels for Negligence in Sex Trafficking Case

A Harris County native is suing Wyndham Hotels and associated businesses. She claims they did not stop her from being sex trafficked in 2019 out of one of its Dallas hotels. Although Texas regulations provide that hotel staff members should be taught to identify human trafficking, the case, which was filed in Harris County court, argues that hotel employees disregarded evident indicators of the crime.

The lawsuit says Hawthorn Love Suites was the scene of the trafficking. Daily cash payments, teenage females without luggage, a man almost twenty years older, condom wrappers, and several men entering and leaving the room for more than four weeks before the police intervened were among the several warning signals.

After the Houston Police came across an internet advertisement for prostitution under Jane Doe's identity, they notified the Dallas police, who subsequently arrested a 32-year-old trafficker. The case notes multiple client comments over years of prostitution at the hotel. Sure of these reviews received responses from hotel personnel, indicating awareness of the issue.

This is the second lawsuit against Wyndham Hotels for human trafficking in recent years as well as the second one against a Texas property in the past year. Three Wyndham hotels in the Houston region were sued in 2020 for like accusations. Wyndham awarded the Polaris Project, which opposes human enslavement, one million Wyndham Rewards Points that year.

Texas law holds hotels liable should they profit from human trafficking, including a 2009 regulation—besides, a statute of 2021 mandates annual training for hotel employees. Advocates caution, meanwhile, that there is a discrepancy between corporate policies and their execution, therefore endangering victims of trafficking.

Wyndham Hotels has not answered calls seeking comments.

‍