A federal jury has awarded $164 million to a woman who was trafficked for sex as a teenager at a Georgia Super 8, delivering a massive verdict that could carry consequences far beyond one hotel.
According to CBS News Atlanta, the jury found Lincoln Bancorp LLC, the operator of the Super 8 on Old National Highway in College Park, liable and awarded the survivor $44 million in compensatory damages along with $120 million in punitive damages. Her attorneys have described the judgment as the largest sex trafficking verdict in U.S. history.
The survivor is identified in federal court records only as J.R. to protect her privacy. Federal court docket records show that she filed her lawsuit against Lincoln Bancorp in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in August 2025.
According to 10 Tampa Bay’s reporting on the verdict, J.R. was 15 when the trafficking began in 2020. Evidence presented during the three-day trial showed that traffickers repeatedly brought her to the hotel during 2020 and 2021, sometimes keeping her there for weeks or months. Her attorney, Jonathan Tonge, said J.R. testified that she was sold for sex between seven and 15 times per day and assaulted hundreds of times while she was 15 and 16.
“The $44 million is the best the civil justice system can do to represent how big the harm is,” Tonge said.
The testimony also focused heavily on what hotel workers allegedly saw and how they responded.
According to CBS News Atlanta, J.R. told jurors that she once approached a hotel employee while trying to escape and asked for help getting to a train station. She testified that the employee would not help her and refused to allow her to use the hotel’s phone because the worker knew she was connected to the traffickers.
A former housekeeper offered additional testimony about conditions at the property. CBS News Atlanta reported that the former employee testified that some hotel workers were paid to serve as lookouts for traffickers and would warn them when police appeared. The housekeeper also alleged that rooms were rented for periods as short as half an hour or an hour for sex.
Tonge told 10 Tampa Bay that two housekeepers testified about what they described as daily activity at the property. He also said the hotel produced a trafficking training document that it claimed workers had received, while the two housekeepers testified they had never seen or heard about the document.
For J.R., taking the witness stand meant describing what happened to her in front of a courtroom filled with strangers.
“She owned the courtroom,” Tonge said. “Everybody in there had to listen to her, and the jury heard her, and they heard what happened to her, and they heard how it affected her, and that’s, that’s what the verdict represents.”
Tonge also recalled J.R. telling the courtroom, “I feel judged by everybody in this room.”
“Yeah, I mean, it, it takes an incredible amount of courage and, and it’s just, yeah, I mean, I, I can barely describe like how impressed I am with the way that she did that and how eloquent she was when she did it,” he said.
According to Tonge, J.R. is now 22, has two children, and is pursuing a degree. He said she has also expressed interest in helping other trafficking survivors prepare for the difficult process of testifying.
Lead attorney Patrick McDonough said the case was not centered on expecting hotel employees to detect a single ambiguous sign of trafficking. Instead, he said the evidence presented to jurors involved repeated warning signs over a prolonged period.
“This was not a case about expecting hotel employees to recognize a single subtle warning sign,” McDonough said, according to CBS News Atlanta. “The evidence showed that there were repeated, visible indicators of trafficking over an extended period. Hotels are uniquely positioned to recognize these signs, train their employees, and take action. When businesses instead benefit financially while vulnerable people are exploited, there must be accountability.”
The legal mechanism behind cases like J.R.’s is significant. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1595, trafficking survivors can bring civil actions not only against perpetrators, but also against parties that knowingly benefit financially or receive something of value from participating in a venture they knew or should have known was engaged in conduct violating federal trafficking law. The statute permits survivors to recover damages and reasonable attorneys’ fees.
J.R.’s case is also not the only litigation involving Lincoln Bancorp. Federal court records show other trafficking related lawsuits filed against the company, including cases brought by plaintiffs identified as N.N. and T.H. in 2025. Those are separate proceedings, and the allegations in them should not be treated as established findings simply because lawsuits were filed.
Another federal case filed in June 2026 by Evanston Insurance Company names Lincoln Bancorp and several trafficking plaintiffs, including J.R., in an insurance coverage dispute.
McDonough said the $164 million verdict should serve as a warning to the hospitality industry about ignoring evidence of exploitation.
“This verdict sends a powerful message that hotels cannot turn a blind eye when children are being trafficked on their property,” McDonough said. “Our client was a child. She deserved protection, and instead, according to the evidence presented in this case, the people who could have helped her failed her. Her courage in coming forward and telling her story made this verdict possible, and we hope it helps drive meaningful change throughout the hospitality industry.”
Tonge said he hopes the $120 million punitive portion of the award creates a financial incentive for hotels to intervene rather than ignore suspected trafficking.
“We’ve always thought that, that the companies that allow this to happen will start, you know, start doing the right thing. When it’s more expensive to let it happen than it is to stop it. And it’s not hard to stop it. You can pick up the phone and call the police, you know,” he said.
“I hope that the industry sees this verdict and they start to decide, this is an expensive problem and start stopping it.”
