You Are Not Alone, and You Have Rights
If you were trafficked at the Red Roof Inn on Washington Boulevard in Jessup — or at any motel, hotel, or short-term rental in Howard County — we want you to hear something clearly before anything else in this page: what happened to you was a crime, not a choice. The people who took money from your exploitation can be held civilly answerable, separate from the criminal case the State of Maryland is already pursuing. We represent survivors, not the people who hurt them.
The criminal charges that came out of the Howard County Police Department’s investigation — two defendants, Zhongmei Zhang and Li Yu, each facing two counts of human trafficking and two counts of prostitution, after officers responding to a tip on July 17, 2019, found victims inside a room in the 8000 block of Washington Boulevard — opened the door. The civil door is yours, and it does not depend on whether the criminal prosecution ends the way you hope. We can pursue compensation from the people who facilitated the venture, the hotel that took the room money, and anyone else who benefited from what you were forced to endure, whether or not a single criminal conviction is ever obtained.
We know that reading this page is itself a hard step. Some of the things we discuss below may bring back things you would rather not remember. We will move carefully, and we will not push you to share anything you are not ready to share. The law gives you time. The law also gives you a long reach into the people and the companies that profited from your harm. We are here to use both on your behalf.
Who We Are When You Call
When you call our intake line, the voice on the other end is from a firm that has spent more than two decades in courtrooms in Texas and across the country fighting for people insurance companies would rather forget. Our managing partner, Ralph Manginello, has been a Texas-licensed trial attorney for 27-plus years, federal court admitted, a former journalist who went to law school to put the storytelling instinct to work for injured people, not against them. He carries the Texas Bar license, the federal admission in the Southern District of Texas, the membership in the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (which informs how he dissects an investigation, even when he is on the victim’s side), and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. Our associate attorney, Lupe Peña, is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He is fluent in Spanish, conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter, and now uses what he learned on the other side for the people who were on the other side of his desk. Hablamos Español. You can talk to us in the language you pray in.
We have seen what trafficking does to a human being. We have also seen what a civil case built the right way can do: take the profits out of the venture that hurt you, force accountability onto the people who should have stopped it, and put a financial floor under a life that has been damaged in ways the criminal docket cannot address.
What the Howard County Case Already Tells Us
Howard County Police have publicly described what they found on July 17, 2019: a tip about possible prostitution at the Red Roof Inn in the 8000 block of Washington Boulevard. Detectives investigated, learned that the illegal activity was occurring in one of the rooms, searched the room, and found two women inside. Two additional women were outside with one of the defendants. The police concluded the defendants had posted ads online, arranged appointments for the women, and kept all the money. The charges that followed were two counts of human trafficking and two counts of prostitution against each defendant.
The State of Maryland’s criminal filing is the beginning of the public record, not the end of your remedy. The same facts that supported those criminal charges — the online ads, the room, the cash flow, the pattern of recruitment and control — also support civil claims against the people who profited from your exploitation, including:
- The individuals who arranged or facilitated the venture.
- The hotel or motel that took the room revenue, with red flags ignored.
- Any online platform that hosted the advertising and profited from it.
- Any corporate parent, management company, or franchisor that controlled how the property was actually run.
A federal civil statute — the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, or TVPRA — gives survivors a direct cause of action against any person or entity that “knowingly benefits” from participating in a trafficking venture. We will discuss the TVPRA in detail below. Maryland’s own civil law also recognizes the tort of human trafficking and provides parallel remedies.
The federal civil remedy: “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)
Why We Are Writing This Page
This is not a general “human trafficking in America” page. The internet has plenty of those. This page is for you — the survivor, or the family member or friend reading on behalf of someone who cannot yet read it for themselves. We built it around the Jessup case because it is local, recent, and concrete, and because it raises every single legal question you are going to have: Who can I sue? What is the deadline? What if I was afraid to report? What if the trafficker has no money? What if the hotel says it had no idea? What if the criminal case ends without a conviction? What if the people who hurt me cross state lines, or advertised online, or paid for the room in cash?
We will answer all of those, in plain English, with the law underneath.
The Two Doors: Criminal and Civil
The first thing to understand is that the criminal case the State of Maryland is prosecuting and the civil case you can bring are two separate doors. They do not depend on each other.
The criminal case is the State of Maryland (through the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office) against the people who ran the venture. The State’s job is to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to seek a sentence. Your name in the criminal case is as a witness or a complaining party. The State’s lawyer represents the State, not you. The State cannot collect damages for you. The State cannot pay for the therapy, the lost wages, the medical care, the years you will spend rebuilding. The State’s verdict, even a guilty plea, even a long prison sentence, does not put a dollar in your pocket.
The civil case is yours, against the people and companies that hurt you or profited from your hurt. Your lawyer’s job is to prove the case by a lower standard of proof (more likely than not, not beyond a reasonable doubt) and to recover money damages. A civil case can move forward even if the criminal case ends in an acquittal, a hung jury, a dismissal, or a plea that spares you the burden of testifying. A civil case can also name defendants the State did not charge, including the hotel, the platform that ran the ads, the property owner, and the franchisor.
You do not have to choose one or the other. The two cases run on parallel tracks, and the civil case is often where the truth is finally aired in detail.
The Federal Civil Remedy: The TVPRA
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and its multiple Reauthorizations (TVPRA), create both criminal and civil liability. The civil-remedy provision is 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a), quoted above. It allows a victim to sue:
- The perpetrator — the trafficker.
- Anyone who “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.”
The “should have known” language is the doorway that lets us reach the hotel, the platform, and the corporate owners. It does not require the company to admit it knew. It requires the jury to find that a reasonable person in the company’s position would have known — that the red flags were so loud that looking the other way was itself a choice.
The TVPRA also provides a generous statute of limitations: ten years from when the cause of action arose, or ten years after the victim turns eighteen if the victim was a minor. That long window is a deliberate federal judgment that trafficking cases take years to surface, that victims need time to escape and stabilize before they can pursue a case, and that the proof must outlive the delay.
Maryland State Law and the Civil Remedy
Maryland criminal law defines human trafficking and assigns serious penalties. The Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force coordinates investigation and victim services across the state. But it is Maryland’s civil law that gives you a vehicle for damages, including:
- Common-law tort claims for assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conversion.
- Maryland’s general personal-injury statute of limitations, which generally gives an adult three years from the date of injury to file suit. (For a minor, the period is tolled in most circumstances.) The exact statute section and any specific trafficking-related SOL provision should be confirmed at the time of consultation, because Maryland’s statutory scheme has been amended and exceptions exist for certain latent injuries.
- Maryland’s recognition of civil claims for sex trafficking and forced labor, including claims against those who knowingly benefit from the venture.
- Maryland’s contributory-negligence law. Maryland is one of a small number of states that still follows pure contributory negligence — meaning that if a victim is found even slightly at fault, the recovery can be entirely barred. In trafficking cases, however, the contributory-negligence defense is generally unavailable as a practical matter. The doctrine requires a negligent plaintiff, and a trafficking victim is not negligent for being deceived, controlled, or coerced. We will address this with the specific facts of any case we accept.
The Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force operates under the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention, Youth, and Victim Services, and is tasked with coordinating state and local response to trafficking, including victim identification and service referrals.
Who Can Be Sued (The Real Answer)
A trafficking case is rarely about just one person. The lesson of the Howard County case is that the room, the platform, the cash, and the corporate brand are all part of the venture. Here is who we look at, in plain language, and why.
The Direct Perpetrators
The people who recruited you, moved you, advertised you, took the money, controlled the phone, threatened or assaulted you, or otherwise profited from the venture. In the Jessup case, the two defendants charged were alleged to have posted the ads, arranged the appointments, and kept the money. The criminal charges name them. The civil case can also reach any other individuals who participated — recruiters, drivers, “bottom” figures who supervised, security personnel, and anyone else who handled the cash or the bookings.
The Hotel, Motel, or Short-Term Rental
This is where the Jessup case is most instructive. The Red Roof Inn did not get into trouble as a defendant in the criminal case. The State charged the individuals. But the property took the room revenue. If the property knew, or should have known, that the room was being used for trafficking, federal and Maryland law allow the survivor to sue the property — and, where applicable, the corporate owner and the management company — for knowingly benefiting from the venture.
Hotels and motels in this region see trafficking red flags in predictable ways: cash payments for rooms, repeated refusal of housekeeping, heavy foot traffic, the same man checking in repeatedly with different young women, requests for rooms near exits, used condoms or drug paraphernalia in the trash, guests who appear frightened or controlled. The hospitality industry itself trains staff to recognize these patterns. When a property trains its people to see the signs and then ignores them anyway, the law treats that as knowledge.
“The federal remedy, 18 U.S.C. § 1595, allows victims to sue any person or entity that ‘knowingly benefits’ from a trafficking venture — including hotels that take room revenue while ignoring obvious red flags.”
— A core principle of federal anti-trafficking civil liability
The Online Platform or App
Online platforms that publish commercial-sex ads have historically tried to hide behind federal communications-immunity laws. Congress carved out an exception in the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), passed in 2018, which restored the ability of trafficking victims to pursue civil claims against platforms that host ads. The FOSTA exception applies where the conduct at issue constitutes sex trafficking under federal criminal law.
If you were advertised on Backpage, Craigslist, a similar site, or an app, that history may be recoverable in discovery. Online platforms often retain records of accounts, payment, and communications — and they almost always have an internal compliance or trust-and-safety team that received complaints about the same advertisers before you ever appeared in their ad rotation. Those records are evidence.
The Property Owner, Management Company, and Franchisor
A hotel property is typically layered: a holding company owns the real estate, a management company runs the day-to-day operations, and a brand may license the flag. The right defendant is not always the one whose name is on the sign. We identify the correct entity by pulling the franchise agreement, the management agreement, and the entity that actually employed the desk clerk who handed over the key.
Anyone Else Who Benefited
The TVPRA’s “knowing benefit” language is broad on purpose. It reaches landlords who collected rent, financial institutions that processed payments, marketers who ran the promotions, and any other entity in the chain that took value from the venture while looking the other way.
The Statute of Limitations: Time, But Not as Little Time as You Think
People who call us are almost always afraid they have waited too long. Many of our clients were trafficked years before they found us. The law was written with that reality in mind.
- TVPRA federal civil claim: 10 years from the date the cause of action arose. If you were a minor at the time, 10 years from your eighteenth birthday — so until age 28. This is a generous, deliberate window.
- Maryland general personal-injury claim: typically three years from the date of injury, with tolling rules for minors and for cases where the injury was hidden. We will pull the specific Maryland statute and confirm the exact accrual rule for your case at the consultation.
- Discovery rule: Where you did not and could not reasonably have known the full nature of your injury or its cause, the limitations clock may not begin to run until you did know or should have known. This is critical in trafficking cases, where dissociation, fear, shame, and ongoing control often prevent victims from connecting the dots for years.
The key is not to let fear of the deadline prevent you from calling. The deadline is almost always further away than you think, and the act of calling starts the preservation process that protects the evidence before the deadline matters.
The Evidence That Disappears If You Wait
We send a litigation-hold and preservation letter the same week you sign with us. That letter is the single most important act of your case. It is the difference between a winnable case and a case that died quietly because the evidence was already gone.
Here is what we demand be preserved, and how fast each can otherwise be destroyed.
Hotel Surveillance Footage
The hallway and lobby video at a hotel is usually recorded over on a rolling loop — often as short as thirty days, sometimes shorter, depending on the property’s system. The video from the night you came in, the night you were advertised, the nights other women were seen at the property — that video is the single best corroboration of the pattern. It also can capture the front-desk interaction: the cash payment, the lack of ID check, the dismissive handoff of a key. Without that video, the hotel will say the camera was not pointed in the right direction, the tape had been overwritten, the system malfunctioned. A preservation letter sent the same week you call changes the legal consequences of that “loss” from innocent to sanctionable.
Property-Management-System Records
Hotels keep electronic records of every reservation, every key-card swipe, every room charge, every housekeeping visit, and every maintenance ticket. The system will show the same room entered dozens of times a night, the same folio paid in cash, the same housekeeping request declined for days. The system’s retention is set by the property and the brand. Without a hold, those records get archived or purged.
Police and Emergency Records
The Howard County Police Department and the Maryland State Police keep records of calls for service, arrests, incident reports, and criminal intelligence. These are public records, but they have to be requested, and a criminal case file can take time to access. We request them early, through proper channels, and we preserve the chain of custody so they remain admissible.
Forensic and Medical Records
A sexual-assault forensic exam (commonly called a “rape kit”) creates contemporaneous medical evidence. The kit may sit untested in a law-enforcement evidence room for years. Maryland has worked to expand testing of backlogged kits, and federal grant programs have funded the same. We work to ensure your kit, if one exists, is tested and preserved, and we obtain the resulting forensic report.
If you saw a doctor, a therapist, an urgent-care provider, or an emergency-room physician at any point during or after the trafficking, those records document injuries, infections, pregnancy, and psychological trauma. Medical records retention varies; we obtain them with the appropriate authorizations.
Online-Platform Records
Online platforms retain account records, ad-posting history, payment records, and internal compliance reports. We issue subpoenas and preservation demands to the platforms where the ads appeared. These records are some of the most powerful evidence in a trafficking case, because they establish the commercial nature of the venture, the volume of activity, the period of exploitation, and the platform’s knowledge.
The Defendant’s Own Records
The people who ran the venture kept records: phones, laptops, ledgers, text messages, social media, bank and money-service accounts. Federal prosecutors and civil plaintiffs both use the legal process to obtain those records. The phone or laptop may be in police evidence, or it may still be in the hands of a co-conspirator. Either way, the records exist. We do everything in our power to keep them from being lost or destroyed.
The Federal Records That Are Engineered to Outlive the Latency
The federal government built its record-retention rules for trafficking exactly because the disease takes years to show up. OSHA’s benzene standard, for example, requires thirty years of exposure-record retention; the medical-surveillance rule for asbestos requires thirty years of employment-plus-thirty. While trafficking is not an OSHA-regulated exposure, the principle is the same: the law assumes a long latency and forces proof to survive it. We apply the same logic to every category of record in your case.
How Much Is Your Case Worth?
We are often asked, before the client has told us much, “How much is my case worth?” The honest answer is: we do not know yet, and any lawyer who quotes a number before understanding the case is not someone you should trust. That said, the architecture of a trafficking case has known components, and we can walk you through the categories of damages that the law recognizes, so you understand the range.
Economic Damages
These are the objectively provable money losses. They include:
- Past and future medical expenses, including the cost of trauma-focused therapy, psychiatric care, and treatment for any physical injury or sexually transmitted infection.
- Past and future lost wages and lost earning capacity. Many trafficking survivors lose years of work and earning power. We work with forensic economists to calculate the present value of the lifetime loss.
- The cost of services the survivor would have provided to a household — childcare, cooking, transportation, household management — valued at what it would cost to replace.
- Out-of-pocket costs: relocation expenses, security measures, costs of obtaining new identity documents.
Non-Economic Damages
These are the human losses that no receipt can capture: pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium with a spouse or partner, the lifelong psychological burden of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and the disfigurement or injury that some trafficking survivors carry.
Punitive Damages
When a defendant’s conduct shows malice, fraud, gross negligence, or recklessness, the law allows punitive damages — punishment designed to deter the defendant and others. In a trafficking case, punitive damages are often substantial because the conduct is so egregious. The hotel that took the money and ignored the red flags; the platform that ran the ads and looked the other way; the individual trafficker who knew exactly what he was doing — each can be on the receiving end of a punitive award.
The Range in Real Cases
Trafficking case values depend on the duration of the exploitation, the severity of the injury, the number of defendants, the insurance and asset picture, and the forum. Published ranges from comparable federal civil-rights and trafficking cases run from the high six figures into the millions. The Maryland-based civil claims we handle have ranged widely depending on these variables, and we can speak in more specific terms once we understand the facts.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Civil Restitution in the Criminal Case
In addition to a civil judgment, the federal criminal system can order restitution to the victim, and Maryland’s restitution laws allow the same. We coordinate with the prosecutor to ensure the criminal restitution order captures the full measure of your economic loss. A civil judgment and criminal restitution are not mutually exclusive; both can be pursued.
The Insurance-Adjuster Playbook (and How We Beat Each Play)
The civil case may involve a hotel’s commercial general liability carrier, a franchisee’s primary policy, a personal auto or homeowner’s policy that denies coverage, or an umbrella carrier for a corporate defendant. Insurers defend these cases hard, because trafficking is the kind of allegation that can move a jury and because some of their policies contain exclusions they will try to weaponize. We expect the playbook. Here is what it looks like and how we counter each play.
Play 1: “We Never Knew”
The hotel’s first line is that the front desk had no idea. We counter with the preservation letter, the surveillance footage, the housekeeping records, the key-card logs, the prior complaints from other guests or staff, the brand’s own anti-trafficking training program, and the depositions of the desk clerks and the manager. Hotels are trained to spot these red flags. Once we show that the brand trains its people to see the signs, the “we had no idea” defense is an admission that the property skipped the very training it paid for.
Play 2: “She Consented / She Was There Willingly”
The criminal defense will make this argument in the criminal case, and the civil defense will echo it. We counter with the TVPRA’s framework, which defines trafficking in terms of force, fraud, coercion, and the exploitation of minors — not in terms of the victim’s appearance of compliance. The defense of consent is largely unavailable as a matter of law in a federal trafficking case, and a jury is well-equipped to understand the difference between an adult’s free choice and a person who was controlled by threats, debt, addiction, immigration status, or violence.
Play 3: “The Defendant Has No Insurance and No Assets”
A common defense is to point at the individual trafficker and say there is no money to recover. That is exactly why we sue the hotel, the platform, and the corporate defendants as well. The hotel’s commercial general liability policy, the platform’s errors-and-omissions coverage, the corporate parent’s umbrella, and the personal assets of any individual defendant are all potential sources of recovery. We investigate the entire structure from day one so that a defense lawyer cannot hide the money behind a single judgment-proof individual.
Play 4: “The Police Report Says Something Different”
The defense will try to use any inconsistency in the police report or the criminal discovery to impeach the survivor. We counter with the science of trauma memory, with the corroborating physical evidence, with the surveillance footage, and with the pattern evidence. The criminal case is decided by one standard; the civil case is decided by another. We do not let a defense lawyer weaponize the criminal process against the civil case.
Play 5: “It Happened Too Long Ago”
The deadline is rarely as short as the defendant claims. The TVPRA gives you ten years (or longer if you were a minor). Maryland’s discovery rule and tolling for minors extend the deadline in many cases. And the defense of laches requires the defendant to prove actual prejudice, which it rarely can when the evidence was preserved.
Play 6: “We Should Settle Cheap Before Anyone Looks”
The first offer from an insurance carrier will be low — often far below the case’s true value. The offer is calibrated to your fear, your financial pressure, and your desire to be done. We do not let the defense set the value of your case at the first conversation. We hold the line, build the proof, and present a case that forces the carrier to pay the real number or risk a verdict at trial.
The Proof: What It Actually Takes to Win
A civil trafficking case is proven by the same kind of evidence the criminal case uses, plus the additional financial and corporate records a civil discovery process unlocks.
- Eyewitness testimony: the survivor’s own account, in their own words, at their own pace.
- Corroborating witnesses: other victims, witnesses at the hotel, neighbors, family members, friends the survivor confided in, treating physicians and therapists.
- Physical evidence: forensic medical exams, photographs of injuries, surveillance footage, cell-phone location data, hotel key-card swipes, room folios, housekeeping records, the physical premises.
- Financial records: bank and money-service records, payment-app records, hotel folios, advertising revenue on the platform, royalty and franchise payments flowing up to the corporate defendants.
- The defendant’s own words: text messages, social media, recorded jail calls, statements to police, statements in the criminal case.
- Expert testimony: forensic economists, life-care planners, treating physicians and therapists, experts in the commercial sex industry, experts in hotel operations and franchise standards, human-trafficking investigators.
We build the proof in layers, so that even if one piece is challenged, the rest of the case holds.
The First 72 Hours: What We Do When You Sign With Us
The preservation letter goes out the day you retain us. It is addressed to the hotel and its parent company, the online platform, the law-enforcement agency that investigated, and any third-party data host that may hold records. It demands that every category of evidence identified in this section be preserved, with a specific reference to the case, the property, and the date range. The letter is also sent to opposing counsel and to the court once a case is filed, so that any later destruction is sanctionable as spoliation.
We open a litigation file, we lock down the evidence map, and we set a 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day action plan. We coordinate with the criminal prosecutor so that we do not interfere with the criminal case, but we also do not allow the criminal case to dictate the pace of the civil case. We obtain the medical records, the police reports, and the public filings in the criminal case. We schedule a comprehensive intake meeting with you, at a place you choose, with a counselor or advocate present if you wish, and we start building the timeline of what happened.
Confidentiality and Anonymity
We understand that you may not want your name in a public court file. We use every tool the law provides to protect your identity: filing under pseudonyms where appropriate, sealing sensitive records, requesting in-camera review of identifying information, and coordinating with the prosecutor on victim-witness protections. The federal system has tools like protective orders and pseudonyms for trafficking plaintiffs. Maryland state court has similar tools. The first priority is your safety; the second is the case.
The Hotel in Particular: Why Hotels Are Increasingly on the Hook
The hotel industry has known for decades that its properties are used for commercial sex and trafficking. Major brands have anti-trafficking training programs. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has published training materials. State and federal task forces have reached out to the industry for partnership. The training is widespread. The question is whether the property follows its own training.
In a civil case against a hotel, we typically allege:
- The hotel knew or should have known that the room was being used for trafficking, based on the red flags its own staff had been trained to recognize.
- The hotel knowingly benefited from the venture by taking the room revenue.
- The hotel was negligent in its hiring, training, supervision, and security practices.
- The hotel’s brand-level policies created a foreseeable risk of harm to guests.
The federal appellate courts have begun to articulate the standards for these claims with increasing precision. We follow that case law closely and we build each hotel case around the specific control facts of the property.
The Online Platform in Particular: FOSTA and the Communications-Decency-Carve-Out
For years, online platforms hid behind a federal statute that protected them from civil liability for content posted by users. In 2018, Congress passed FOSTA, which carved out a specific exception for federal sex-trafficking claims. If the conduct at issue constitutes sex trafficking under federal law, the platform can be sued.
We pursue the platform claims aggressively. The platform’s own records — the ad history, the payment trail, the trust-and-safety complaints, the compliance reports — are some of the most powerful evidence in a trafficking case. We obtain them through civil discovery, and we use them to demonstrate both the platform’s knowledge and the volume of the venture.
What a Civil Case Can Actually Do for You
Money damages compensate for what the criminal system cannot. They pay for therapy that the State does not fund. They replace wages lost during exploitation. They fund relocation, education, and the long climb back to a stable life. They send a message to the people who profited that what they did has a price. They also create a public record that prevents the same individuals from quietly moving to the next motel and starting again.
A civil case does not erase the trauma. We do not promise that. But it can put a floor under your life, give you the resources to rebuild, and create accountability that the criminal docket alone cannot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do right now if I think I was trafficked in Jessup or anywhere in Howard County?
Your safety comes first. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you are safe, call our intake line at 1-888-ATTY-911 or use our contact page to request a confidential consultation. Do not delete your phone, your texts, your social media, or your email — those are evidence. If you can, write down what you remember: dates, places, names, license plates, room numbers, the websites where the ads appeared. Do not post about the case publicly. Then call us.
Can I bring a civil case even if the criminal case ends without a conviction?
Yes. The civil case uses a lower standard of proof than the criminal case. A civil case can be won on a more-likely-than-not basis, not beyond a reasonable doubt. You can also name defendants the State did not charge. Many of the strongest civil cases in this country have been brought when the criminal case ended in an acquittal, a plea to a lesser charge, or even a dismissal.
How long do I have to file a civil case in Maryland?
It depends on the specific claim and the specific facts. The TVPRA federal civil claim generally gives you 10 years from the cause of action, or longer if you were a minor. Maryland’s general personal-injury statute of limitations is typically three years, with discovery-rule and tolling rules that often extend the deadline in trafficking cases. The deadline is almost always further away than you think — but it is not unlimited. The sooner you call, the more options we have.
What if the trafficker has no money or has already been convicted and is in prison?
We still pursue the case. The point of the civil action is to reach the people and the companies that profited from the venture, not just the individual who ran it. The hotel’s insurance, the platform’s insurance, the corporate parent’s assets — these are the real targets. Even when the individual trafficker has nothing, a civil case can put real money on the table.
Do I have to testify in the criminal case to bring a civil case?
No. The civil case is yours to control. We can pursue the civil case whether or not you testify in the criminal case, whether or not the criminal case goes to trial, and whether or not the criminal case ends in a conviction. We do, however, want to coordinate with the prosecutor so that your civil case and your cooperation in the criminal case do not work against each other.
Can I remain anonymous if I file a civil lawsuit?
In many cases, yes. The federal courts and the Maryland state courts have tools to protect the identity of trafficking plaintiffs. We file pseudonyms where the court will allow them, we seal sensitive records, and we push for in-camera review of anything that could identify you. Your safety is the first priority.
What if the trafficking happened at a hotel that was franchised — does the brand have to answer?
Often, yes. The brand that licenses the flag, sets the standards, and collects the franchise fees can be a defendant, especially where the brand’s standards, training programs, and reservation systems touched the very practices that enabled the trafficking. The corporate structure is not a shield; it is a map of who can be reached. We identify the right entities from day one.
What if the trafficking was advertised online — can I sue the website?
Often, yes. Federal law (FOSTA) restored the ability of trafficking victims to pursue civil claims against online platforms that hosted the ads. We will obtain the platform’s records, including any internal compliance reports about the advertiser, and we will pursue the platform as a defendant.
Can I sue for the emotional harm even if I was not physically injured?
Yes. Trafficking is a psychological injury as much as a physical one. PTSD, major depressive disorder, anxiety, dissociation, and the lifelong effects of sexual exploitation are recognized in the law. We work with treating clinicians and forensic experts to document the harm, and we seek damages for the full measure of what the trafficking cost you.
Do I have to pay anything up front to hire your firm?
No. We handle trafficking cases on a contingency basis. There is no fee unless we win. We offer a free consultation. You can reach us at 1-888-ATTY-911, and the first conversation is confidential and at no cost to you.
What if I was a minor when the trafficking happened?
You have additional protections. The TVPRA’s statute of limitations runs from your eighteenth birthday, not from the date of the trafficking. Maryland’s tolling rules for minors also extend the deadline. There are also additional criminal and civil protections for minors that strengthen your case. We will walk through all of these at the consultation.
What if I do not remember everything that happened?
You are not alone. Many trafficking survivors have fragmented memory, dissociative episodes, or simply cannot remember every detail. The law does not require you to remember everything. The case is built from the corroborating evidence: the hotel records, the platform records, the financial trail, the witnesses, the medical records, the physical evidence. Your story is the spine, but the spine does not have to carry every detail.
What if I am afraid of retaliation from the people who hurt me?
We understand. Your safety is the first priority. We work with victim advocates and, where appropriate, law enforcement, to assess safety and to put protective measures in place. We can also seek court orders that prohibit the defendants and their associates from contacting you. You do not have to be alone.
What if the police already told me they cannot help?
The police do important work, but they are not the only avenue. Even when the criminal case has challenges, the civil case stands separately. A civil case can also reach defendants the police did not charge, including the hotel and the platform. We will look at the whole picture, not just the criminal file.
What if I am an undocumented immigrant?
You have rights. Federal trafficking law was written in part to protect undocumented victims, and there are visas and protections available to survivors who cooperate with law enforcement. Your immigration status does not bar a civil case, and a settlement or judgment can sometimes open the door to lawful status. We will walk through the immigration and confidentiality protections with you.
How do I get started?
Call 1-888-ATTY-911, or reach out through our contact page. The first conversation is free, confidential, and at your pace. You can also review our practice areas to learn more about how we work. If you would prefer to speak in Spanish, ask for Lupe Peña — he conducts the consultation in Spanish without an interpreter.
How We Approach the Case
We are trial lawyers, not settlement mills. We prepare every case as if it will go to a jury. That preparation is what makes the difference at the negotiating table. Insurance carriers and corporate defendants pay real money when they see a case built by a firm that has tried cases, that knows the evidence, and that will put a survivor on the stand in a way that respects her dignity and lands with a jury. The goal is justice; the mechanism is proof.
We do not promise outcomes. We promise work. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can promise is that we will know your case as well as you do, that we will preserve the evidence that others would let disappear, that we will identify every defendant who should be in the case, and that we will not stop until the case has reached the resolution it deserves.
The first call is free. The first preservation letter goes out the day you sign. There is no fee unless we win. We serve Maryland, we serve the country, and we serve you in the language you pray in.
Hablamos Español
Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, was born, raised, and still lives in Sugar Land, Texas. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch. He is fully fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. If you or your family is more comfortable in Spanish, we are ready.
Free Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win
We handle trafficking cases on contingency. There is no retainer, no hourly billing, and no surprise invoices. You pay nothing up front, and you pay nothing at all unless we recover for you. The free consultation is confidential and at no cost to you. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 to begin.
We Are Here When You Are Ready
Reading this page is a step. It is not the only step, and you do not have to take the next one today. But if you are ready, we are ready. We have spent more than two decades representing people who were failed by the systems that should have protected them. We are not the largest firm in the country, and we are not trying to be. We are a firm that returns calls, that knows the judges, that knows the defense bar, that knows the federal and Maryland statutes, and that knows how to take a case from the first phone call to a verdict or a settlement that pays for the years of rebuilding you deserve.
We also want you to know that we are not the only option. The Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force, the Howard County Police Department’s victim-services unit, the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888) all exist to help. We will work with any of these resources as part of your team.
You did not choose what happened to you. You are choosing what happens next. When you are ready, call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case.