LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Legal Newsline) - The owner of an Arkansas hotel is accused of allowing the repeated rape of a six-year-old girl.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of a Jane Doe targets ESA Management, the owner of an Extended Stay America in Little Rock. The suit says the ESA there is a well-known spot for criminal activity including sex trafficking but staff there were negligent in preventing it.
Management should have been more alert considering the documented roles hotels play in sex trafficking, the suit says. This alleged negligence resulted in the girl being held against her will there for six months in 2018.
The girl's trafficker, who has been convicted of federal charges, repeatedly raped her during that time and sold her out to be raped by others, the suit says. She now has syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV.
ESA owed a duty of care to her by failing to inspect rooms rented for long periods of time that have significant foot traffic from non-registered guests, the suit says. The employees at the hotel were also not properly trained to identify the warning signs of sex trafficking, it adds.