The Moment You Are Living In
If you are reading this, you or someone you love is in the middle of something that nobody should have to carry alone. Maybe a daughter or a niece was a guest at an AmericInn off I-80 in Omaha. Maybe you have been carrying the story for years, trying to find words for what was done to her. Maybe a federal sentence was just announced and the courtroom felt like both justice and not nearly enough, because the person behind the number on the docket is still up at 3 a.m. wondering whether the hotel that watched is going to be made to answer too.
That is the moment we are built for. Not the news cycle. Not the headline. The person on the other side of the screen.
We are the trial team at Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We fight for survivors of sex trafficking in hotels, motels, and short-term-rentals. We know the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the Nebraska civil-trafficking statute, and the corporate structure of the brand on the sign. We know how to read a hotel’s nightly audit, its key-card logs, and the housekeeping notes that the desk thought nobody would ever look at. And we know that the case cannot wait — the proof that wins a hotel trafficking lawsuit erases itself on a timer that starts the moment the door closes.
This page is for you, and for the people you love, and for any family who has ever been told that a hotel is “just a place to sleep.” A hotel is not just a place to sleep. When a hotel takes money from a venture it knew, or should have known, was being used to traffic children, federal law says the hotel is part of the venture — and we can sue it for damages and for the company’s own attorneys’ fees. We do this work. We do it on contingency. And we start the day you call.
The Federal Civil Remedy — 18 U.S.C. § 1595
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or TVPA, gives trafficking survivors a private federal cause of action. The civil-remedy provision is 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a). It is broader than almost any reader expects. Verbatim:
“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.”
That one sentence is the spine of every hotel trafficking case in the country. Read it slowly:
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“Whoever knowingly benefits.” A hotel that accepts nightly cash from a known trafficker benefits. A brand on the sign that takes its royalty cut every month benefits. The company that manages the property benefits. The statute does not require us to prove the corporate defendant drove a single car or touched a single dollar of the trafficking money — only that it benefited from the venture.
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“From participation in a venture.” A “venture” is not a corporation. A “venture” is just “any group of two or more individuals associated in fact.” The trafficker and the hotel employee are a venture. The trafficker and the front-desk supervisor are a venture. The trafficker and the corporate franchisor that licenses the flag and collects its weekly royalty are a venture when that brand looked the other way.
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“Knew or should have known.” Federal courts have interpreted this to mean what it says: constructive knowledge is enough. A hotel that received the warning signs night after night and trained its staff to spot them, and still accepted the money, is on the hook. The plaintiff does not have to prove that a corporate vice president said the words “we know what’s happening.”
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“Damages and reasonable attorneys fees.” The statute does not cap damages the way a state wrongful-death statute might. It does not insulate the corporation behind a “no admission of liability” boilerplate the way a settlement might. And it pays the lawyer if the case is well-fought, so a survivor does not have to choose between rent and justice.
The deadline built into 1595 is generous on purpose. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1595(c), a trafficking case must be commenced not later than the later of 10 years after the cause of action arose, or 10 years after the victim reaches 18 years of age, if the victim was a minor at the time. A child trafficked at 15 has until her 28th birthday to bring a federal claim. The reason for the long window is exactly what you are living through: a trafficking victim usually does not have the safety, the words, or the resources to sue on the day she is rescued. The law built in the delay.
Why the Hotel Brand on the Sign Is on the Hook
AmericInn is a Wyndham brand. When you book an AmericInn, you are doing business with a corporation that licenses the flag, sets the operating standards, polices the brand on quality control audits, supplies reservation and loyalty infrastructure, and takes a percentage of room revenue. The corporation whose name is on the sign is not the same entity that owns the local real estate. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc. is the franchisor. The local LLC that owns and operates the building is the franchisee. The management company that runs the front desk and the housekeeping schedule may be a third entity entirely. The insurance carrier that pays any judgment may be a fourth.
This is what the industry calls the shell game — and we know how to play it backward.
- The franchisee is the entity that actually employed the front-desk staff and the convicted trafficker. The franchisee is the direct employer for respondeat-superior purposes and is liable for the acts of its employees within the scope of employment. This is the first defendant we name.
- The franchisor (Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc.) is the entity that set the standards, took the royalty, and held out the brand as a uniform promise to the traveling public. A brand that holds itself out as the same hotel “from coast to coast” cannot disclaim responsibility for what happens under its flag when its own standards are violated. The franchisor is the deep pocket, and it is a real defendant under both a venture-participation theory and an apparent-agency theory.
- The management company, if separate, is a third layer. The management company controls the staff schedule, the training curriculum, the security protocols, and the camera system. It cannot hide behind the franchise agreement when its own operational choices enabled the trafficking.
- The insurance carrier is a defendant of a different kind. We name the carrier in a declaratory-judgment action to confirm coverage and to prevent the carrier from quietly paying the defense lawyer while refusing to pay the survivor.
The point is that you do not sue the brand on the sign alone, and you do not sue the front-desk employee alone. You name every layer in the operating stack that profited, controlled, or insured the operation. The case becomes a trust-me exercise between every entity in the chain and the survivor who was promised a safe place to stay.
The Evidence Clock — Why Speed Saves the Case
In a hotel trafficking case, the proof is on a timer. The single most important thing our trial team does in the first week of representation is send a written litigation-hold and preservation demand to every defendant and to every vendor that holds the hotel’s data. The demand names the records by their exact business names and tells the recipient what happens if they are destroyed.
Hotel records, who holds them, and how fast they can legally die:
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Surveillance / CCTV video. Most hotels record over their camera footage on a rolling loop, commonly about 30 days. Some systems hold longer; some are shorter. A single day in the lobby, the elevator, the parking lot, and the back-of-house corridor is often the difference between a verdict and a defense verdict. Send a preservation demand the day of intake. The minute the hotel knows there is a federal criminal case, the video is at risk of being quietly re-recorded over. [VERIFY-AT-BUILD: the specific property’s actual retention — phrase as “often within about 30 days” rather than as a hard guarantee.]
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Property-management-system (PMS) and key-card logs. The hotel’s central computer records every check-in, every key issuance, every room reassignment, and every door unlock. These records show the trafficker’s pattern of cash rentals, the same room rented week after week, and the never-ending stream of key-card swipes at all hours. Retention is set by brand policy and state law, not by federal statute. Demand immediate preservation. These records prove “should have known.”
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Folio records and payment logs. The cash payments, the room charges, the no-show reservations, the third-party bookings, the loyalty-program points, and the credit-card swipes are the financial autopsy. They are how we prove the hotel accepted money from the venture. Demand preservation by name: cash receipts, shift cash-drop reports, manager-on-duty logs, and any “comp” or discount records.
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Housekeeping, maintenance, and front-desk logs. The room attendant’s notes — “do not disturb,” “extra towels,” “trash overflowing,” “strange smell” — are exactly the kind of contemporaneous, unscripted entries that destroy a defense case. They are also the records most likely to be discarded on a short cycle. Demand them by name.
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Police call-for-service and CAD history for the property. The Omaha Police Department and the Douglas County Sheriff keep call records tied to the property’s address. These records are public under Nebraska’s public-records law and are the bridge between the federal criminal case and the civil case. Pull them early. They establish the foreseeability spine — proof that this property had a documented history of trouble the hotel either addressed or ignored.
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Employee personnel files for the trafficker and other implicated staff. Background checks, training records, prior disciplinary notes, performance reviews, and exit interviews. These records prove the company knew or should have known about the specific individual. Demand preservation. The hotel controls them entirely.
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Brand-standard manuals, training curricula, and audit reports. These are the franchisor’s own documents — the “we trained our staff to spot this” admissions, and the equally damning “we knew our audit found a problem” records. Demand preservation. Subpoena the franchisor for the master manuals and the specific property’s most recent quality-assurance audit.
Each of these records has a different death clock. The litigation-hold demand must name them all and require the recipient to confirm in writing. We have a ready-to-send package on every intake. The clock starts the day you call, and the clock does not pause.
How Long You Have to Sue — The Statute of Limitations
This is the question every family asks first, and the answer is more forgiving than you have been told.
The federal deadline is 18 U.S.C. § 1595(c). A claim under the federal trafficking law must be commenced not later than the later of (1) 10 years after the cause of action arose, or (2) 10 years after the victim reaches 18 years of age, if the victim was a minor at the time of the alleged offense. A girl who was 15 at the time of the trafficking at the Omaha AmericInn has until her 28th birthday to file a federal civil case against the perpetrators and against any entity that knowingly benefited from the venture. That is the long window Congress built into the statute because trafficking survivors usually cannot sue on the day they are rescued.
The Nebraska state deadline is governed by Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-831, which provides specific civil remedies for victims of human trafficking. Nebraska has also extended or removed the civil statute of limitations for serious sex offenses against minors in recent legislative sessions, including the passage of laws eliminating or extending limitations periods for first- and second-degree sexual assault of a minor. [VERIFY-AT-BUILD: the precise current Nebraska limitations period for civil trafficking claims under § 28-831 and any related extensions for minor victims — these move with each legislative session, and the right number depends on the survivor’s age at the time of the conduct and the date the claim accrues.]
Why the deadline is more forgiving than you think. The discovery rule in trafficking cases often defers the start of the limitations clock. A survivor who was a child, or who was psychologically unable to connect the harm to its source, often does not have a running clock until much later than the date of the incident. We file the case within the federal window as a matter of course, and we layer the state claim underneath for redundancy.
The honest warning. The federal deadline is generous, but the proof of the case is not. The video, the key-card logs, the housekeeping notes, the cash ledgers — all of it is on a destruction timer that does not pause for the statute of limitations. The 10-year federal window gives you time. It does not give you forever. The day you call us is the day the preservation letter goes out.
Who We Are — The Trial Team
This is personal work. It requires a trial team that has done it before, in courtrooms, against the kind of defense lawyers hotels keep on retainer. Our team is built for that.
Ralph P. Manginello, Managing Partner. Ralph has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — more than 27 years of courtroom practice, including federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (and practices in federal district courts across the country through pro hac vice admission). He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston (1998) and his B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin. Ralph is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas. He has also been honored by the Trial Lawyers Achievement Association as a Million Dollar Member. Before law, Ralph was a journalist. That background is not ornamental. It is the reason he knows how to investigate a case before a defense lawyer spins it, and the reason he understands the human story at the center of every trafficking file. He has built more than 290 educational videos on the law for families who needed the truth in plain English. He founded the firm in 2001. The firm has recovered $50,000,000+ in aggregate across its practice. (Ralph’s profile)
Lupe Peña, Associate Attorney. Lupe has been licensed in Texas since December 6, 2012, with federal-court admission in the Southern District of Texas — more than 13 years of practice. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston (May 2012) and his B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University, San Antonio (2005). Before joining the firm, Lupe worked as an insurance-defense attorney at a national defense firm — the same rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. That is the advantage. Lupe now uses that inside knowledge on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. He knows how Colossus-style valuation software works, how the IME-doctor selection game works, how the surveillance and social-media mining works, and how the policy-limits shell game works — because he used to do it. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, born, raised, and living in Sugar Land, Texas. His practice areas include personal injury, commercial and construction litigation, wrongful death, dram shop, trucking, and car and 18-wheeler crashes. (Lupe’s profile)
The firm’s full practice areas and the way we work. Attorney911 handles commercial-vehicle and catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases across the country, including in Nebraska. We work on a contingency fee of 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. You pay nothing unless we win. We do not get paid unless you get paid. The consultation is free. We have live staff answering 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service. Our offices are based in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, Texas, with an outreach practice that takes cases in other states through local counsel and pro hac vice admission. For an Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska case, we would partner with local counsel where required. (Our practice areas)
Hablamos Español. We serve your family fully in Spanish. If you or your family would rather tell this story in Spanish, Lupe will sit with you and conduct the consultation in Spanish, in full, without an interpreter. The language you use to tell us what happened is the right language. We will not put you through a third party to do it.
Frequently Asked Questions
I was a minor when this happened. Can I still sue years later?
Yes. Under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1595(c), a trafficking survivor who was a minor at the time has until her 28th birthday to bring a federal civil case. Nebraska law has also extended or removed the civil limitations period for serious sex offenses against minors in recent legislative sessions, including the elimination of limitations periods for first- and second-degree sexual assault of a minor. [VERIFY-AT-BUILD: the precise current Nebraska limitations period under § 28-831 and related extensions — these move with each session and depend on the survivor’s age and the date the claim accrues.] The clock is more generous than the defense will tell you. Call us and we will tell you the exact date that applies to your case.
Can I sue a hotel chain for trafficking even if the trafficker was a guest and not an employee?
Yes, and in many ways it is easier. Under the federal TVPA, you do not have to prove the hotel trafficked anyone. You have to prove the hotel knowingly benefited from a venture it knew or should have known was trafficking. A guest-trafficker who paid the hotel cash for a week and used the room as a base of operations is a venture the hotel joined every time it accepted the money and handed over the key. The hotel chain on the sign is also on the hook if it licensed the flag, took a royalty, and held the property out to the public as a uniform brand.
What if the hotel was franchised and the local owner is broke?
That is the most common corporate structure in the motel industry, and it is exactly why the franchisee-versus-franchisor analysis matters. We sue every layer. The local franchisee is sued in its own right. The national franchisor (here, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts) is sued for its own venture participation and apparent agency. The management company is sued if it is a separate entity. The insurance carrier is brought into a separate coverage action. The fact that one layer of the chain is undercapitalized is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to sue the rest of the chain.
How do I prove the hotel “should have known” if there were no written complaints?
Constructive knowledge is not proven by a single written complaint. It is proven by the pattern the hotel was trained to recognize. The cash ledger, the key-card swipes, the housekeeping refusal notes, the prior-incident reports, the 911 call history, the maintenance requests, the loyalty-program data, and the brand-standard audit reports are how we build the pattern in front of a jury. The industry trains its staff to spot these indicators on purpose. When the staff recognizes them and the hotel does not act, the law treats that as knowledge. We can subpoena all of it. We will.
What damages can I recover in a hotel trafficking case?
Compensatory damages for economic losses (medical care, therapy, lost earning capacity, out-of-pocket costs) and non-economic losses (pain, suffering, emotional distress, loss of childhood, loss of the capacity to enjoy life). Where the corporate conduct rises to willful, wanton, or reckless disregard, punitive damages are available to punish the conduct and deter the next corporate defendant. Federal civil-rights cases are not subject to the same damage caps that constrain ordinary state tort claims. The case-value range our trial team anchors the conversation around for incidents of this severity is approximately $3.5 million to $20 million or more, depending on the proof. We do not promise numbers. We build cases that earn them.
Will the hotel’s insurance cover the claim?
Commercial general-liability policies for hotels often contain assault-and-battery and human-trafficking exclusions, and carriers will try to invoke them. The TVPA civil remedy is broader than the insurance policy, and the corporate defendant has direct exposure that is not limited by the policy. We file a separate declaratory-judgment action against the insurance carrier to confirm coverage and to prevent the carrier from quietly paying the defense while refusing to pay the survivor. The question of who pays the judgment is its own fight, and it is one we know how to wage.
What evidence do I need to preserve, and how fast does it disappear?
Everything. The hotel’s video, the key-card logs, the cash ledgers, the housekeeping notes, the police call-for-service history, the employee personnel files, and the brand-standard manuals. The video overwrites itself on a rolling loop — often within about 30 days. The key-card logs and housekeeping notes cycle out on the hotel’s own policy. The brand manuals and audit reports live with the franchisor but can be lost in ordinary document-management turnover. We send a litigation-hold and preservation demand on the day of intake. Do not wait to call us to start the preservation. [VERIFY-AT-BUILD: the specific property’s actual retention windows — they vary by system and by brand policy.]
Do I have to go to court, or can this settle?
Either. Most civil cases settle before trial. Some settle well, some settle badly. A well-settled case is one where the survivor is fully compensated, the brand is held accountable, the non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses are narrowly drawn, and the survivor’s right to pursue additional defendants as the investigation unfolds is preserved. A badly-settled case is one where the survivor is hurried into a quick payment, a broad release, and a lifelong gag. We will not allow a badly-settled case to happen. If the defense will not see reason, we try the case. We have done it before.
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for a case like this?
We work on a contingency fee: 33.33% of the recovery before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. You pay nothing unless we win. We do not get paid unless you get paid. The consultation is free. There is no retainer, no hourly billing, no surprise invoice. If the case is lost, you owe us nothing. The cost of the case — the filing fees, the deposition costs, the expert fees, the records fees — is advanced by the firm and recovered out of the settlement or verdict at the end. We are not a claims mill. We are a trial team. We are in this with you.
What if the survivor is afraid of retaliation from the trafficker or from the hotel?
Retaliation against a trafficking survivor who cooperates with law enforcement is a separate federal crime, and it is the reason the federal investigation is led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nebraska and the Department of Homeland Security. The survivor’s safety is a law-enforcement priority. We coordinate with law enforcement and victim-witness advocates to make sure the survivor’s location, identity, and contact information are protected. We can seek protective orders in any civil case we file to seal identifying information. The survivor’s name and the survivor’s family’s names are protected. The defense does not get to use the discovery process to find the survivor.
What if the survivor is undocumented?
Trafficking victims have a separate federal protection — the T visa (for victims of trafficking) and the U visa (for victims of certain crimes who cooperate with law enforcement). Both are available regardless of the survivor’s immigration status, and both provide legal status and a path to permanent residence. We work with immigration counsel to make sure the survivor’s status is protected as part of the civil case. No survivor is turned away from our office because of immigration status. A trafficking victim’s courage in coming forward is the same whether she has papers or not. The law was written to protect her either way.
I am not the survivor. I am a family member. Can I still call?
Yes. The survivor may be a child, a young adult, or an adult whose trauma makes it difficult to pick up the phone. A parent, a grandparent, a sibling, a caseworker, a guardian ad litem, a teacher, a counselor, or a domestic-violence shelter advocate can call on the survivor’s behalf. We will talk to you. We will explain the process. We will help you figure out whether the survivor is in a position to retain us directly, or whether a guardian or next friend can act on her behalf. The first call does not have to be the survivor’s call. It can be yours.
How do I know if my case is real?
If a minor was transported across state lines for commercial sex, the federal criminal case is already on the public record. If a hotel employee was charged and sentenced in federal court, the federal case is the public proof. The civil case is built on the same facts, with the same evidence, on behalf of the survivor. The proof of the criminal case is the floor of the civil case. We do not need to start from zero. We start from the federal conviction. We build from there.
The Phone Number. The Promise. The Fight.
1-888-ATTY-911 — 1-888-288-9911 — is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by a live person who works for our firm. The line is not a call center. It is not an answering service. It is our team. The person who picks up will not pretend to be a lawyer if they are not. They will take down what happened, take down who you are, and connect you with the right attorney in the firm for the case. If you would rather use the direct line, the office number is (713) 528-9070. If you would rather write, the contact page is at attorney911.com/contact. If you would rather talk to Ralph directly, his profile is at attorney911.com/attorneys/ralph-manginello/. If you would rather talk to Lupe in Spanish, his profile is at attorney911.com/attorneys/lupe-pena/. The consultation is free. You pay no fee unless we win.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The number we will build for your case is the number the proof supports, in a courtroom, in front of a jury, on a record. We will not inflate the case. We will not undersell the case. We will not let the hotel chain or the insurance carrier set the value of what was done to you. We will set it. We will prove it. We will collect it.
Hablamos Español. If you are more comfortable telling this story in Spanish, Lupe will sit with you in Spanish from the first call through every step of the case. The language you use to tell us what happened is the right language. We will not put you through a third party to do it.
We do this work because someone has to. The families we serve do not choose to be the test case. The hotels that allow trafficking to happen on their property do not get to choose to be above the law. The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act was written to make sure that no one — not the trafficker, not the front-desk employee, not the local owner, not the brand on the sign, not the insurance carrier — is above the law when a child is sold for sex in a place that was supposed to be safe.
We are the trial team that makes that law mean something in Omaha, in Douglas County, in Nebraska, and in every other state where a hotel allowed this to happen. We do it on contingency. We do it 24/7. We do it for the people the rest of the system has failed.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The preservation letter goes out the day you do.