352 – Empowering Change: Holding Hotels Accountable for Trafficking

Patrick McDonough joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to discuss his groundbreaking $40 million jury verdict against a hotel for enabling child sex trafficking and how this landmark case is changing accountability standards across the hospitality industry. Patrick McDonough Patrick J. McDonough is a nationally recognized attorney and advocate who leads the Sex Trafficking Division at Andersen, Tate & Carr. With a legal career marked by justice-driven leadership and deep community engagement, Pat has dedicated his life to representing survivors of sex trafficking and fighting systemic injustice. Before joining Andersen, Tate & Carr, Pat made history as the youngest District Attorney in the state of Georgia, where he pioneered the development of child advocacy centers, providing trauma-informed care and legal support to child victims of sexual abuse. In his legal practice, Pat has built a comprehensive, survivor-centered approach to litigation, assembling a national network of professionals to support clients from first contact through final judgment. His efforts have earned widespread recognition, being featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Outside the courtroom, Pat has raised over $1 million to support unhoused individuals and founded HomeFirst Gwinnett and the Gwinnett Reentry Intervention Program (GRIP). Key Points McDonough won a historic $40 million jury verdict in July 2025 against United Inn & Suites in Decatur, Georgia, marking one of the first TVPRA cases against a hotel to reach trial and verdict. The case involved a 16-year-old victim who was trafficked over 200 times in just 40 days, with hotel staff selling her condoms and ignoring obvious signs of trafficking. The verdict included $10 million in compensatory damages to make the victim whole and $30 million in punitive damages designed to send a message to the entire hospitality industry. Hotels cannot claim ignorance when red flags are obvious—if staff see what appears to be prostitution, they should call law enforcement regardless of whether they can definitively identify it as trafficking. Clear warning signs include high foot traffic with men going in and out of rooms every 20-30 minutes, scantily clad young women, large numbers of used condoms found during cleaning, and luxury cars visiting budget hotels. Hotel staff empowerment comes from the top—management must train employees and create a culture where staff are encouraged to report suspicious activity rather than just “rent rooms and make money.” Simple staff training on recognizing red flags and proper reporting procedures can prevent hotels from becoming trafficking hotspots and protect them from legal liability. McDonough has settled over 80 similar cases, but this verdict was particularly significant because the hotel refused reasonable settlement offers and chose to go to trial. Community members play a vital role in prevention by reporting unusual traffic patterns and suspicious activity to law enforcement, as it truly “takes a village” to combat trafficking. Resources Patrick McDonough at Andersen, Tate & Carr EHT187 – Why Is Labor Trafficking So Hard To Find? Transcript [00:00:00] Sandie Morgan: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. I’m Dr. Sandy Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Today I’m joined by attorney Patrick McDonough, partner at Anderson, Tate and Carr, and he leads their sex trafficking division. [00:00:35] Pat just won a $40 million jury verdict that sending shockwaves through the hotel industry. His 16-year-old client had been trafficked over 200 times in just 40 days while staff sold her condoms and ignored obvious signs. This case changes the rules for every hotel in America and reveals red flags that could be happening in your own community. And now here’s our interview. [00:01:13] Sandie Morgan: Patrick McDonough, I am thrilled to have you on the ending Human Trafficking Podcast. Welcome. [00:01:20] Patrick McDonough: Thank you so much. I’m, I’m thrilled to be here. [00:01:23] Sandie Morgan: I was so excited when I saw the headline that there was a $40 million judgment in a trafficking case. Tell me how you ended up in the courtroom where you were able to achieve that kind of result for a victim of human trafficking. [00:01:50] Patrick McDonough: Well, I met our survivor, probably five years ago, so it’s been a long journey, on a road to getting into trial, and I’ve probably settled a little north of 80 cases, and typically when you get really close to trial, that’s when they finally decide that they’re going to provide some type of compensation and you often are able to, to resolve the case. [00:02:13] But for whatever reason, this, hotel and kind of insurance company decided that they wanted to take us to task and, and, and really never offered anything that we would’ve even considered. So it gave us a great opportunity. There wasn’t a hard decision to make, like, you know, should we take the money or should we go to trial? [00:02:30] So we were able to just really go forward and try the case. And really, the most profound thing for me, I’ve been doing these cases now for six years, is, you know, we believe how to prove these cases and we believe our survivors and, and we believe we know how to prove the case. And, and obviously we’ve convinced a number of people to settle, but it, it’s really meaningful when we were able to talk to the jurors after the case, and like all the things that we had kind of believed over these years, they, they validated, and in fact, the defense attorneys would ask questions and things I think that they might’ve even believed. [00:03:04] They, you know, they, they did not believe, the jury didn’t believe. So it was very, very validating. [00:03:09] Sandie Morgan: Give me a couple of examples of, of what the jurors believed. [00:03:15] Patrick McDonough: So one of the big, kind of themes on the defense approach is they try to make it like a legal class, and they try to argue that one of the elements in this federal lawsuit is what they call participation in a venture. And so they would try to explain that as well to have. The trafficker participate in a venture with the hotel. [00:03:33] They almost make it sound like it has to be a party to a crime. Like the trafficker walks into the front of the hotel and like says, Hey, I’m gonna be in this back room trafficking somebody. And that’s not really what the law says. The law really says if the hotel knows this is going on or should know this is going on then and they’re taking money on it, they should be held liable or, or responsible. [00:03:54] But it’s been a constant fight with multiple defense attorneys really throughout the country. And it was just very nice when they, the defense attorney asked the jurors like, you know, what was it that proved participation in a venture? And all the jurors said, you know, it wasn’t one thing, it, it was the whole case. [00:04:09] It was the three different victims that we put up. It was the two police officers that said they had a bad reputation. It was the expert in how she explained it. So it, it was just one of those things that was very heart heartwarming that the case we put together, you know, the jury really u...

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352 – Empowering Change: Holding Hotels Accountable for Trafficking is an episode from Ending Human Trafficking Podcast by Dr. Sandra Morgan.

This episode is 30:16 long.

This episode was published on Aug 18, 2025.

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