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El Paso Human Trafficking & Negligent Security Lawsuit Attorneys — Attorney911 Pursues Short-Term Rental Platforms and Property Owners Who Fail to Prevent Foreseeable Exploitation, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Undervalues Trafficking Survivors, We Preserve Booking Logs, Surveillance Footage and Prior Incident Reports Before They Are Overwritten, Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 98 Allows Survivors to Sue Those Who Knowingly Benefit from Trafficking, the Firm Has Recovered Millions for Catastrophic Injury Victims — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

June 22, 2026 31 min read
El Paso Human Trafficking & Negligent Security Lawsuit Attorneys — Attorney911 Pursues Short-Term Rental Platforms and Property Owners Who Fail to Prevent Foreseeable Exploitation, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Undervalues Trafficking Survivors, We Preserve Booking Logs, Surveillance Footage and Prior Incident Reports Before They Are Overwritten, Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 98 Allows Survivors to Sue Those Who Knowingly Benefit from Trafficking, the Firm Has Recovered Millions for Catastrophic Injury Victims — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911 - Attorney911

What You Are Facing Right Now

You read this because something has already happened. Maybe a family member disappeared into a hotel room she was told was safe. Maybe your child came home with a story that does not hold together and money you cannot explain. Maybe you survived and the case was closed, but the nights are not. The legal system that handled what happened to you treated it as a criminal matter, because trafficking is a crime. We treat it as what it also is: a civil wrong. That means a financial claim against the people who profited, the platforms that facilitated, the properties that looked away, and the systems that failed to act. It means a path to recovery that runs alongside the criminal docket, not behind it.

El Paso is not an abstract backdrop for this kind of case. It sits on Interstate 10, which federal law enforcement identifies as a primary artery for human trafficking and narcotics. The city is one of the largest international border crossings in the country. The transient population is enormous. Short-term rental inventory is heavy. The same geography that makes El Paso a logistics hub also makes it a corridor where people move through quickly, under observation by almost no one, and into harm. Local service providers work at capacity because of the volume of vulnerable people moving through, including domestic trafficking victims and unaccompanied minors.

Our firm takes these cases in El Paso and across Texas. Ralph Manginello has practiced personal injury law in Texas for more than 27 years, beginning his career as a journalist before becoming a trial lawyer, and has recovered more than $50 million for injured people across that span. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before joining us, which means he learned how adjusters set reserves, schedule IMEs, and run surveillance — and he now uses that knowledge for the injured. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. For a survivor or a family whose first language is Spanish, that is not a courtesy. It is the difference between being heard and being processed.

What the Law Actually Says (in Plain English)

A survivor of sex trafficking in the United States has two parallel legal tracks. The first is criminal: federal and state prosecutors charge the trafficker under statutes that carry decades in prison. The second is civil: the survivor, or in the case of a death the family, sues for money damages. The civil track does not depend on whether the trafficker is convicted. It does not depend on whether the survivor reports within a certain window. It depends on what the law lets a survivor recover, from whom, and for how long.

The Federal TVPRA Civil Remedy — 18 U.S.C. § 1595

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act contains the civil cause of action that almost every trafficking case we file invokes. Its language is dense, but the heart of it is short:

“An individual who is a victim of a violation of this chapter may bring a civil action against the perpetrator (or whoever knowingly benefits, or attempts or conspires to benefit, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in violation of this chapter) in an appropriate district court of the United States and may recover damages and reasonable attorneys fees.”
— 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a).

What this means, in the words we use across a kitchen table: the survivor does not have to prove the hotel trafficked her. She has to prove the hotel took money from a venture it knew or should have known was trafficking her. The room rate is the money. The receipt of that money, on a continuing basis, while red flags piled up at the front desk — that is the “knowingly benefited.” The law is written so the people with the money have a duty to look, not a license to look away.

The same statute gives a survivor ten years to bring the claim — and if she was a minor at the time of the trafficking, the ten-year clock does not start running until her eighteenth birthday. A survivor trafficked at fifteen can file until she is twenty-eight. That window exists because Congress understood how long it takes to escape, to recover, and to decide to sue.

Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code — Chapter 98

Texas gives survivors a parallel civil remedy. Chapter 98 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code allows a victim of trafficking to sue “a person who is a party to or who otherwise benefits from the venture” — including those who intentionally or knowingly benefit from participating in a venture the person knew or should have known engaged in trafficking. Texas also imposes joint and several liability among defendants the jury finds responsible. Chapter 98 sits on top of the broader Texas tort system and adds trafficking-specific causes of action. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003 sets the general two-year personal-injury statute of limitations, but trafficking claims under Chapter 98 carry their own timing rules, and the federal TVPRA’s ten-year window frequently controls. We evaluate both clocks in every intake.

Texas’s Comparative Fault Rule

Texas follows a modified comparative negligence standard under the broader tort system: a plaintiff who is more than 50% at fault is barred from recovering, and a plaintiff who is 50% or less at fault recovers reduced by her percentage. The standard applies broadly across Texas tort law. In a trafficking case the defense will argue comparative fault — that the survivor “consented,” that she was “old enough to know better,” that she “didn’t try to escape.” Those arguments are wrong as a matter of law in most trafficking contexts, and Chapter 98 actions have their own protection against that line. We prepare for it from day one.

FOSTA-SESTA and Online Platforms

The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, signed April 11, 2018, did two things that matter to a civil case. First, it amended Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to remove immunity for any civil claim under Section 1595 where the conduct constitutes sex trafficking. Second, it created a federal crime at 18 U.S.C. § 2421A for whoever uses a facility or means of interstate commerce to own, manage, or operate an interactive computer service with intent to promote or facilitate prostitution — with the aggravated version (promoting five or more persons, or reckless disregard of contributing to sex trafficking) carrying up to twenty-five years. The civil effect: when a website, classified-ad platform, or booking site benefits from trafficking, the old legal shield does not apply.

Who Gets Sued (and How We Find Them)

The instinct is to sue only the trafficker. We almost never stop there. A civil trafficking case names every layer of the system that profited from or enabled the abuse — because each layer carries its own insurance, its own judgment-proof analysis, and its own recoverable damages.

The Trafficker and the Trafficking Ring

The first defendant is the person or group who ran the venture. Civil claims against individual traffickers usually turn on hard evidence: messages, financial flows, witness statements, and corroboration from the criminal file. We work with prosecutors (with the survivor’s consent and within the limits of active investigations) to ensure civil discovery and criminal discovery do not undermine each other.

Hotels, Motels, and Short-Term Rental Hosts

The cases we file most often name a hotel, motel, or short-term rental property — the physical venue where the trafficking occurred. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a) and Texas Chapter 98, the question is whether the property knowingly benefited from the venture. Federal courts have now drawn a clear, practical line: renting rooms to a trafficker is not, by itself, enough. But continuing to rent those rooms after red flags have appeared — after staff have observed the cash payments, the no-housekeeping requests, the rotating companions, the same man checking in week after week — that is participation. The argument is built on what the staff saw, what the receipts show, and what the policies required. The strongest cases pair actual agency (the brand controls the booking system, training, and security protocols) with direct corporate negligence (negligent vetting, failure to warn, failure to act on complaints) and apparent agency (the brand held itself out as the entity the guest was trusting).

In El Paso, the properties most commonly implicated sit along the I-10 corridor, which law enforcement treats as a primary artery for human trafficking and narcotics. Budget and extended-stay brands with heavy weekly and cash business, where front-desk scrutiny is thin and housekeeping turnover is constant, are the recurring pattern.

Commercial Hospitality Brands

We name the brand when the evidence supports it. Major brands — Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, Choice, Motel 6 (G6 Hospitality), and similar — operate through franchise structures where the local franchisee owns the building and the brand licenses the flag. Naming both is the rule. The brand carries deeper pockets and broader insurance, but its liability turns on control: did it set the standards, control the reservation system, dictate training, and collect royalties from rooms it should have known were being used for trafficking? The franchisee/operator is almost always the easier target — they were at the front desk.

Online Platforms and Booking Sites

Under FOSTA-SESTA, an online platform that knowingly benefits from trafficking is no longer shielded by Section 230 immunity. We name platforms where classified ads, “dating” listings, or booking sites facilitated the venture. These cases require careful pleading of the § 1591 trafficking predicate — without it, the old immunity can snap back.

Property Owners and Commercial Landlords

When the property is owned by a separate LLC and operated by a different management company, we sue both. The owner may have known about prior incidents on the property and chosen not to act. The management company may have failed to implement basic security protocols. Each layer has its own insurance tower.

The Broader Background

Texas has been at the front edge of anti-trafficking enforcement. The Texas Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force coordinates state-level regulatory enforcement and works alongside federal agencies. Texas law requires certain businesses to post trafficking awareness signs and to train employees who are likely to interact with trafficking victims. Those training mandates create discoverable records, and the absence of compliance with them is itself evidence of negligence.

What We Do From the Day You Call

Trafficking cases are won or lost on the first days of evidence preservation. Every record that proves the venue knew — the surveillance video, the key-card logs, the folio records showing cash payments and repeated short stays, the housekeeping refusal notes, the police call-for-service history — has a clock on it. Most of those records die within weeks or months unless someone orders them preserved.

The preservation letter goes out the same day you retain us. We name the hotel, the brand, the platform, and the property owner; we name the specific evidence categories (CCTV, key-card swipe logs, guest folios, housekeeping logs, incident reports, complaint histories); and we put every recipient on written notice of litigation hold. Failure to comply after that letter is the foundation of a spoliation argument — and in many jurisdictions, the jury is allowed to be told the missing records would have proven the plaintiff’s case.

We work in parallel with prosecutors where the survivor consents and where the criminal investigation will not be compromised. The two systems serve different purposes. Criminal prosecution puts the trafficker in prison. Civil litigation recovers money that funds the survivor’s recovery, holds the venue accountable, and creates the documentary record that prevents the next victim.

The Evidence Map (What Exists, Who Holds It, How Fast It Disappears)

The single most powerful evidence in a trafficking case is also the fastest-dying. We treat the evidence map the way an emergency-room triage nurse treats vitals — by the clock.

Surveillance video. Hotel CCTV is routinely overwritten on a rolling loop, often within thirty days, sometimes sooner. There is no federal statute that mandates a specific retention period; brand-standard manuals and property-level policies control. Once overwritten, the video is gone — unless a preservation letter reached the property first. This is why the letter goes out immediately.

Key-card access logs. Electronic key-card systems record every door opening. A door opened dozens of times a night, by different keys, at a single room is the smoking gun. Retention varies by system and by property; brand-level systems often retain longer than property-level CCTV, but not always. Preserve.

Guest folios and reservation records. The folio is the financial record: cash payments, no credit card on file, weekly rentals, the same name and the same room repeating. Folios also live under PCI-DSS retention rules for the payment data, but the broader guest record can be requested.

Housekeeping and maintenance logs. “Do not disturb” for days. Service refused. No request for fresh linens. A guest who never leaves the room. Housekeeping records are written contemporaneously and are the most underappreciated proof in the case.

Police call-for-service and incident history. The agency’s CAD (computer-aided dispatch) records and the incident history at the address are public records in Texas. A property with twenty calls in a year does not get to claim surprise.

Employee complaints and internal incident reports. The most direct evidence of actual notice. They survive only as long as the property keeps them — which is often short.

The trafficking ring’s own records. Phones, laptops, financial accounts, vehicles. These can be subpoenaed but are frequently in the hands of the criminal system. We work with prosecutors on timing.

The survivor’s medical and counseling records. Critical for damages (PTSD, depression, somatic injury from assault) and for the timeline of harm. These are HIPAA-protected and require the survivor’s authorization.

Pediatric records in minor-victim cases. A trafficking case involving a minor implicates mandated-reporter records from schools, hospitals, and CPS. They are sensitive and require careful handling.

Each record has its own clock. The fastest-dying category is CCTV. The most time-sensitive preservation target is the property-level footage. Our evidence team treats preservation as the first litigation step, not the last.

Insurance Tactics and How We Beat Them

We expect the defense. We know the playbook because Lupe Peña spent years inside the rooms where it was written.

Play 1: The Friendly Recorded Statement

An adjuster calls within days of the incident. The caller is warm, sympathetic, and asks the survivor to “just tell us what happened.” The call is being recorded. The questions are engineered to elicit answers that can later be used against the survivor — partial statements, hesitations, anything that suggests inconsistency. The counter: we tell survivors in plain language that they should not give a recorded statement to anyone — their own or any other insurance carrier — until counsel has reviewed the request. We schedule any necessary statement ourselves, in our office, with our questions, on our terms.

Play 2: The Fast Settlement With a Release Buried Under It

Within the first weeks, the carrier offers a small payment — enough to cover a few months of therapy, not enough to fund the lifetime of care the survivor will need. Buried in the paperwork is a release that extinguishes all future claims, including the federal TVPRA claim. The counter: we refuse to negotiate against a release. We negotiate the number first; the release comes only at the end of a fully negotiated, written agreement that the survivor understands. A release signed before the full extent of the harm is known can be set aside, but the litigation to do so costs the survivor years she does not have.

Play 3: The IME

The defense schedules an “independent medical examination” — almost always with a doctor who works for the carrier. The exam is supposed to be objective but is structured to produce a report that minimizes the injury. The counter: we prepare the survivor for the exam with the same care we would prepare a witness for cross-examination. We document in advance what was asked, what was tested, what was not. We secure treating-provider records that establish the diagnosis before the IME. If the IME doctor departs from standard of care in the exam itself, we use that at trial.

Play 4: Surveillance and Social Media Mining

The defense hires investigators to photograph the survivor in public, to monitor her social media, to look for any moment that looks like she is “doing fine.” The counter: we prepare the survivor for the reality of surveillance, advise her on what not to post, and make sure her treating providers document the difference between a good day and a functional recovery. A photograph of a survivor smiling at a niece’s birthday does not rebut a PTSD diagnosis.

Play 5: The Delay Game

The defense runs the clock. Continuances. Discovery extensions. Motions to dismiss that take eighteen months to resolve. Each month that passes is a month the survivor’s memory softens and her resources drain. The counter: we set aggressive case schedules, move for early trial dates where the rules allow, and prepare the case for trial from day one. Cases prepared for trial are cases that settle on terms the survivor chose.

Play 6: The “You Were a Willing Participant” Argument

In adult cases, the defense argues consent. In minor cases, the defense argues the survivor looked older than she was. Both arguments are doctrinally vulnerable — Chapter 98 and § 1595 cases have specific protections — but they are emotionally devastating to relive. The counter: we build the case so the survivor does not have to defend her own credibility alone. Documentary evidence, prior-complaint histories, and expert testimony carry the weight.

Damages — What a Case Like This Is Actually Worth

We do not promise numbers. We build the case file, retain the experts, and let the damages architecture speak for itself.

Economic Damages

Lost earning capacity from the time the survivor was trafficked forward. For a young woman pulled out of school at sixteen, that is a lifetime of projected wages, retirement contributions, and benefits that the career would have produced. The forensic economist builds the number from the same Bureau of Labor Statistics worklife tables used in wrongful-death cases elsewhere in our practice, adjusted for the survivor’s education, training, and labor force participation at the time of the trafficking.

Past and future medical expenses, including specialized trauma therapy, psychiatric care, and treatment for any physical injuries sustained during the trafficking.

Non-Economic Damages

Pain and suffering, mental anguish, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, loss of consortium where the survivor has a spouse, and the loss of enjoyment of life the trafficking took from her. In severe cases, including those involving minors, the trauma is permanent; the damages reflect that.

Hedonic Damages

Some jurisdictions recognize, as a separate head of recovery, the intrinsic value of the life the survivor would have lived. Whether Texas recognizes hedonic damages as a standalone category or folds them into non-economic damages depends on how the case is pleaded and tried; we evaluate the path in every intake.

Punitive Damages

Available in Texas against defendants whose conduct rose to gross negligence, malice, or knowing disregard. A hotel that received complaints about the same room, in the same week, with the same trafficking pattern, and continued to take the money — that is the fact pattern that supports a punitive award. The bar is high. We do not promise punitive damages; we build the record that lets a jury consider them.

Wrongful Death

If the trafficking led to a death — by suicide, by overdose, by violence, by medical complication of the abuse — the family brings a wrongful-death action. Texas’s wrongful-death statute and survival statute both run in parallel; the federal TVPRA’s beneficiary provisions and Chapter 98’s recovery also apply. The damages in a death case include the same economic and non-economic categories, plus the loss of the survivor herself.

Realistic Case Value

Civil trafficking cases against corporate defendants with insurance towers have resolved across a wide range. Settlements and verdicts are commonly reported in the high six figures to multiple millions; jury verdicts against operators and brands have reached eight figures. The Texas case value framework recognizes that the duration of the abuse, the age of the victim, the number of co-defendants, and the strength of the venue-knowledge evidence all move the number. We quote a range after intake, after the evidence preservation returns come in, and after the experts have modeled the damages — not before.

Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.

How Long You Have to Sue (the Clock on the Clock)

Federal and Texas law give trafficking survivors more time than most personal-injury plaintiffs, but the time is not unlimited.

Federal TVPRA — 18 U.S.C. § 1595(c). Ten years from the cause of action, or ten years from the victim’s eighteenth birthday if she was a minor at the time. A minor trafficked at fourteen has until she is twenty-eight.

Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003. The general Texas personal-injury statute of limitations is two years from the cause of action, but trafficking claims under Chapter 98 carry their own timing analysis that frequently aligns with the longer federal window. We analyze both.

Discovery Rule. In latent-injury cases, the cause of action does not accrue until the plaintiff knows, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should know, the injury and its cause. That is the rule most often applied in trafficking cases, where survivors often do not connect the harm to the venue until years after the abuse.

Statute of Repose. Some states impose an outer deadline that runs even before discovery. We evaluate repose in every case before we let a deadline pass.

The clock is real. The deadline to preserve evidence is shorter than the deadline to file. We calculate every clock the day you call.

What You Should Do (and Not Do) Right Now

Preserve your own records. Keep anything you have — text messages, screenshots, receipts, journal entries, medical appointment records, school attendance records. Do not delete anything.

Do not give a recorded statement. To any insurance carrier, even your own. The adjuster who calls is not your friend.

Do not post about the case. Social media is the first place the defense looks.

Do not sign anything. Not a release, not a settlement, not an authorization, not a request for records without counsel review.

Do get medical care. The medical record is the damages record. Therapy is both healing and proof.

Do call us. The first preservation letter needs to be on its way this week. The first call is free. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win.

What It Costs to Hire Us

No fee unless we win. Contingency representation: 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to verdict. Free consultation. 24/7 live staff — not an answering service. A real person answers the phone. We will travel to you. We will meet you at a hospital, a counselor’s office, your kitchen table, or wherever you are most comfortable.

Contact Attorney911 here.

If you prefer to read about the firm’s overall practice and the catastrophic injury work we do, start with our law practice areas and the brain injury practice area that covers the long-tail neurological harm trafficking cases leave behind.

What Happens in Federal Court

Most civil trafficking cases in El Paso are filed in federal court because the TVPRA claim requires it and because federal civil procedure provides more powerful discovery tools. The case begins with a complaint naming every defendant. We serve process. The defense answers or moves to dismiss. Discovery opens. We take depositions of hotel staff, brand executives, and the defense’s own retained experts. We subpoena records. We work with retained experts — human trafficking specialists who can testify about red-flag patterns, treating clinicians who can establish the PTSD diagnosis and its prognosis, and forensic economists who can build the lost-earnings model.

Federal court allows a jury trial. Most civil trafficking cases settle, but the ones that don’t are tried to twelve El Paso jurors who live and work in this community and who understand, more than most, what the I-10 corridor carries.

For more on the firm’s overall wrongful-death and catastrophic-injury practice — including the kind of long-tail loss-of-society damages that often accompany trafficking deaths — see our wrongful-death practice area.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I sue a hotel for what a trafficker did in one of its rooms?

Yes, in many cases. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a) and Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 98, a survivor can sue any business that knowingly benefited from the trafficking venture. The key word is “knowing.” A hotel that saw the red flags and kept renting the room can be held responsible. A hotel that genuinely had no idea, and that did not ignore obvious signs, faces a different case. The evidence preservation work at the start of the case — the key-card logs, the surveillance video, the housekeeping records, the prior complaint history — is what determines which side of that line your case falls on.

Do I have to have reported the trafficking to police to bring a civil case?

No. The civil case is independent of the criminal case. You can file a civil suit even if the trafficker was never arrested, never charged, or never convicted. The civil case uses a lower standard of proof than the criminal case. That independence is the reason civil trafficking cases exist — they are the path to recovery for survivors whose cases were never successfully prosecuted.

How long do I have to file a trafficking case?

Under federal law (the TVPRA), you have ten years from the cause of action, or ten years from your eighteenth birthday if you were a minor when the trafficking occurred. Texas has its own statute of limitations for personal-injury cases (generally two years), but trafficking claims under Chapter 98 and the TVPRA frequently run on the longer federal clock. The exact deadline in your case depends on your age, when you discovered the harm, and which statute controls. Do not assume you have time. Call us so we can calculate the clock.

What if I was trafficked as a minor, and my parent took money from the trafficker?

This is one of the most painful and most common fact patterns we see. The civil claim runs against the venue, the platform, the brand, and the trafficker — not against the parent, whose conduct does not bar the survivor’s claim against the responsible parties. Many survivors do not come forward for years because of shame or fear about what a parent did or failed to do. The law gives them time. It also recognizes the survivor’s claim as her own.

Can I sue an online platform or classified-ad website?

Yes, in cases where the platform knowingly benefited from trafficking. FOSTA-SESTA, signed in April 2018, removed Section 230 immunity for civil claims under Section 1595 where the conduct constitutes sex trafficking. That means a website that hosted listings that facilitated trafficking, or that profited from advertisements tied to trafficking, can be sued in the right case. Pleading the trafficking predicate correctly is essential — without it, the old immunity can snap back.

What does “knowing benefit” actually mean?

It means the venue took money — room revenue, platform fees, advertising revenue, commissions — from a venture it knew, or should have known, was being used for trafficking. The “should have known” half is what makes red flags legally significant. When a hotel accepts cash for rooms rented by the same man night after night, with different young women, with refused housekeeping, with heavy foot traffic — and the staff see all of it and keep handing over keys — the law treats that as knowledge the venue does not get to disclaim.

What can I recover?

Economic damages (medical costs, lost earning capacity, future care), non-economic damages (pain and suffering, emotional harm, loss of enjoyment of life), and in cases of egregious conduct, punitive damages designed to punish the defendant and deter the next offense. In cases where the trafficking led to death, the family can also bring a wrongful-death action with its own damages framework.

How long will a trafficking case take?

Federal civil cases typically take eighteen to thirty-six months from filing to resolution, with most settling before trial. The length depends on the number of defendants, the complexity of the evidence, the court’s docket, and the defense’s willingness to negotiate. We prepare every case for trial from day one because cases that are ready for trial are cases that settle on the survivor’s terms.

What if the trafficker has no money?

Traffickers are often judgment-proof — they have no insurance, no assets, no recoverable wealth. That is exactly why we look past the trafficker to the venue, the brand, the platform, and the property owner. The corporate defendants carry layered insurance towers that the trafficker never had. The civil case is built around reaching those recoverable dollars, not around the person who caused the harm.

Will I have to testify in court?

Most civil trafficking cases settle before trial. If the case does go to trial, your testimony may be required, and we will prepare you for it in detail — far in advance, with the same care we use to prepare expert witnesses. You will not be alone in the courtroom.

Can I bring a case if I do not live in El Paso?

Yes. Trafficking cases are filed where the venue is located, where the harm occurred, or where the defendant does business. Our intake evaluates venue carefully; if your case does not belong in El Paso, we work with co-counsel or refer to a firm in the correct jurisdiction.

Is there a cost to talk to you about my case?

No. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win. The first call is the easiest call you will make.

The Path Forward

You have read this far because something in your situation matches what we have described. You do not need to decide anything today. You need to start the preservation clock and you need to speak with a lawyer who has done this before. Our firm has done this before. We have the federal civil practice experience, the bilingual intake capacity, the preservation infrastructure, the expert network, and the trial preparation to take a trafficking case from the first phone call through verdict.

Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A real person answers.

The call is free. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win.

Ralph P. Manginello has practiced personal injury law in Texas for more than 27 years. He was a journalist before he became a lawyer and brings that investigative discipline to every case. He is a Texas Bar member (#24007597), admitted in 1998, with federal court admission in the Southern District of Texas and membership in the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He was born in New York, raised in Houston, and has spent his entire Texas career fighting for injured people.

Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before joining us, which means he knows exactly how adjusters set reserves, schedule IMEs, and run surveillance. He is a Texas Bar member (#24084332), admitted in 2012, with federal court admission in the Southern District of Texas. He grew up in Sugar Land, is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, and is fully bilingual — he conducts entire client consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter.

We do not make promises we cannot keep. We do not manufacture victories. We build the record that lets a jury deliver the verdict, and we work the case so the survivor’s recovery is not held hostage by delay.

Hablamos Espanol. Llámenos al 1-888-ATTY-911. La consulta es gratis. No cobramos a menos que ganemos.

Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.

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