Sex trafficking
New Jersey Sex Trafficking Lawyer for Survivors
Survivors of sex trafficking can bring civil claims not only against traffickers but against businesses that knowingly benefited from the trafficking, including hotels, motels and other companies that saw what was happening on their premises and continued to take the money. A federal statute creates that right, and a claim does not depend on anyone being criminally prosecuted.
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Why survivors rarely think this applies to them
Most people who were trafficked do not use that word about themselves, and that is the single biggest reason these claims are never brought.
“I was not kidnapped or chained up.”
Almost no trafficking looks like that. It usually runs on a relationship, a drug dependency, a debt, an immigration status, or a place to sleep. Coercion through need is the ordinary form, and the law recognizes it.
“I was not forced, I agreed to it.”
Consent obtained through force, fraud or coercion is not consent, and where the person was under eighteen no proof of force is required at all. Agreement extracted by someone controlling your housing, your money, your drugs or your children is not a free choice.
“It was my boyfriend.”
The most common trafficking relationship there is. Recruitment through a romantic relationship, sometimes over months, is a documented pattern and it does not put the conduct outside the law.
“I did things I am ashamed of.”
People who were trafficked frequently committed offenses while being trafficked, recruited others, or returned after leaving. None of that is unusual, none of it is disqualifying, and it is better raised on the first call than discovered later.
What a civil trafficking claim involves
A federal statute allows survivors to sue not only the trafficker but any person or business that knowingly benefited from participation in what it knew or should have known was a trafficking venture. That last part is what makes these claims viable, because traffickers themselves rarely have anything to recover.
New Jersey also has its own trafficking provisions, and a claim can involve both. A civil claim is separate from any criminal prosecution and does not depend on one having taken place.
Who is legally responsible
The businesses in these claims are usually not participants in the trafficking. They are companies that profited from it while declining to see it.
- Hotels and motels. The most common defendants. Rooms rented by the hour, cash payments, refusal of housekeeping, heavy foot traffic, visible signs of a minor, and staff who noticed and were told to leave it alone.
- Knowing benefit. The legal test is not participation in the trafficking. It is knowingly benefiting from participation in a venture that the business knew or should have known was trafficking.
- Failure to train or act. Whether staff received any training on recognizing trafficking, and what happened when they raised something.
- Franchisor responsibility. National hotel brands set standards, run training programs and receive complaints, and their relationship with a franchised property is part of the analysis.
- Other businesses. Transport, illicit massage businesses, strip clubs, bars and landlords, where the same knowing-benefit test can apply.
How institutions are held liable for sexual abuse in New Jersey
Where these claims arise
Neutral context about settings in which trafficking has been documented.
- Hotels and motels, including branded and franchised properties
- Illicit massage businesses
- Strip clubs and bars
- Truck stops and transport corridors
- Casino and resort areas
- Residential properties rented for the purpose
- Online advertising platforms
- Recruitment through romantic relationships, sometimes called the Romeo pimp pattern
- Recruitment through employment offers, including of people on work visas
If you were a minor
Where the person trafficked was under eighteen, the law does not require proof of force, fraud or coercion at all. Commercial sexual exploitation of a minor is trafficking as a matter of definition, regardless of what the young person said, agreed to or appeared to want.
This matters because a great many survivors of childhood trafficking spent years believing they had chosen it. They had not, and the law is unusually clear on this point.
What to do now
- Do not go back to premises to gather evidence. Nothing about a claim requires that, and safety comes before the case.
- Keep anything you still have, including phones and accounts, messages, photographs, hotel receipts, bus and rail tickets, and medical records from that period.
- Say on the first call if you are still in contact with anyone involved, or if you believe you may be at risk. It changes how everything is handled.
- Tell us if there are criminal convictions of your own from that period. There are recognized mechanisms in this area and they are better addressed openly.
Emergency and hotline numbers, including the New Jersey child abuse hotline, are at the foot of every page on this site.
What a claim can recover
Typically counseling and treatment, medical care, lost earnings and lost earning capacity, and the harm itself. Federal trafficking claims can also carry additional remedies not available in an ordinary civil case.
There is no fee unless a claim succeeds, and no cost to asking whether you have one.
How long do you have to file in New Jersey?
If you were abused as a child, you can generally bring a civil claim in New Jersey until your 55th birthday, or within seven years of realizing that your injuries are connected to the abuse, whichever of those is later.
If you were an adult when the abuse happened, the period is generally seven years from the incident, or seven years from the point at which you connected the harm to it.
New Jersey also ran a two-year lookback window, from December 1, 2019 to November 30, 2021, during which claims that had already expired could be brought regardless of age. That window has closed. It is worth being clear about, because people hear that it closed and conclude they have missed everything, when the ordinary deadlines above are separate and often still leave years.
Which of these applies to you, and when your seven years started, depends on facts specific to you. A short confidential call will tell you where you actually stand.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
Cases Joe has resolved
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$6.1 Million Recovery
for a woman who was sexually assaulted after being overserved alcohol.
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$4.5 Million Settlement
for a minor who was sexually abused as a student by a staff member at her public school.
Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstance. Every case turns on its own facts, and no result here predicts what any other case is worth.
Questions people ask
Can I sue a hotel for sex trafficking?
In many circumstances, yes. The federal statute allows claims against a business that knowingly benefited from participation in a venture it knew or should have known was trafficking. Hotels are the most frequent defendants because the signs are usually visible to staff.
The trafficker was never prosecuted.
That does not prevent a civil claim. Civil and criminal are separate systems, and the civil claim is decided to a lower standard of proof.
I have criminal convictions from when I was being trafficked.
This is common and it is not a barrier to speaking to someone. Raise it early so it can be handled properly.
I am not a US citizen.
A claim does not depend on immigration status. If status is a concern, say so on the first call, because there are specific protections in this area that are worth understanding before anything else happens.
What if it happened when I was a child?
No proof of force, fraud or coercion is required where the person was under eighteen, and New Jersey's deadlines for childhood abuse are considerably longer than most people expect.
I do not think of what happened to me as trafficking.
Most survivors do not. If someone else was receiving money or benefit from sexual acts you performed, and you were controlled by force, debt, drugs, housing or a relationship, that is worth one phone call regardless of the word used.
Will I have to face the trafficker?
A civil claim against a business does not require that. What any particular claim involves is explained before anything is filed.
What does racketeering have to do with trafficking?
Trafficking is rarely one person acting alone. It usually involves an arrangement between several people and businesses, each taking a part of the profit, and racketeering law exists to reach organized arrangements of exactly that kind rather than only the individual at the end of it. It is one route among several, and the federal trafficking statute is more commonly the basis of a civil claim.
If you are still reading
People usually read a page like this several times over several weeks before they contact anyone. That is normal, and there is no deadline on this page trying to push you. When you are ready, the call is free and it stays between you and Joe.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.