Defendants Brandon Washington and Maria Georgianna Palm are charged with various crimes arising out of their scheme to recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, obtain, and maintain vulnerable women, and to perform commercial sex acts for their financial benefit via threats of force, fraud, and coercion.
The United States of America filed a motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Defendant Brandon Washington’s expert, Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller.
The Government asked the Court to exclude the testimony of Lehmiller as an expert for several reasons: First, he is not qualified to educate the jury on the topic of sex trafficking, or commercial sex work. Second, he failed to comply with Rule 16(b)(1)(C)(iii) by failing to identify the opinions he will offer. Third, his proposed testimony will attempt to define the law, or it is irrelevant and not likely to assist the jury in deciding the facts in this case. And fourth, it violated Rule 403 because his proposed testimony is substantially outweighed by the danger it would confuse and mislead the jury.
Psychology Expert Witness
Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller is a social psychologist, author, and senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. Lehmiller received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Purdue University. He has authored books such as Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life and The Psychology of Human Sexuality (third edition published in 2023). The Psychology of Human Sexuality is a textbook that is used in college classrooms around the world. He has also published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on sexual behavior, marginalized and stigmatized relationships, casual sex, and consensual non-monogamy.
While Lehmiller’s disclosure suffered from some deficiencies, primarily the lack of specific opinions, the Court did not find them so limiting as to warrant exclusion. The fact remains that he did identify the subject-matter topics he proposed to testify about. In essence, he provided notice of his expert opinions in summary fashion via general categorizations.
Next, the Government suggested that Lehmiller’s testimony will impermissibly attempt to define the law and usurp the role of the Court by defining coercion or sex trafficking concepts. The Court will not tolerate this practice from any expert or the Government’s expert. Lehmiller will be permitted to provide testimony about the voluntary adult sex-worker subculture. He will not be permitted to define legal terms or attempt to tell the jury what the law is. Nor will he be allowed to opine on what he believes constitutes illegal coercion, or define what situations constitute “voluntary” sex work from “exploitation” or “trafficking” or attempt to redefine statutory terms.
It appeared to the Court that Lehmiller’s expert disclosure was timely, and the Government has been provided with adequate notice and is not claiming surprise. Moreover, there are no allegations that the defense seeks to introduce undisclosed areas of his testimony.
Moreover, the Government is free to attack Lehmiller’s qualifications or the lack thereof. It will be up to the jury to determine how much weight should be accorded to his opinions, but the remedy of outright exclusion is not warranted.
Finally, the Court did not find that Rule 403 would be violated by allowing this testimony. Providing testimony to provide background, contextual testimony to assist the jury in understanding subject matter outside common experience is relevant and not prejudicial to justify exclusion.
Held
The Court denied the Government’s motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. Justin Lehmiller.
Key Takeaway
While Lehmiller’s background may be deficient in having exhaustive knowledge of the sex trafficking industry, that is not the standard for Rule 702 admissibility. The Court finds that while not overwhelming, when considering the totality of his education, research and training, Lehmiller’s proposed testimony meets the thresholds of relevance and reliability.
Please refer to the blog previously published about this case:
This case arises under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which provides victims of sex trafficking a civil remedy against the perpetrators and beneficiaries of their trafficking. Plaintiff C.L.F. filed this action to recover for alleged harm she experienced from being trafficked at a Motel 6 in Wichita, Kansas, that she claims was owned and operated by the Defendants.
On August 21, 2025, C.L.F. filed the motion sub judice, seeking to exclude as irrelevant the testimony of Defendants’ designated law-enforcement expert witness Bill Woolf.
Law Enforcement Expert Witness
William “Bill” Woolf has spent over 15 years of experience in law enforcement, specializing in the investigation of human trafficking, organized criminal enterprises, narcotics, and gang-related crime.
He has conducted extensive fieldwork in identifying, investigating, and dismantling human trafficking networks, with a focus on both sex trafficking and labor trafficking operations occurring in a variety of settings, including hospitality environments.
Woolf is the Principal and Founder of The Woolf Group, a national consulting firm providing expert guidance on human trafficking prevention, investigation, training, and public policy.
C.L.F. asked the Court to exclude all four opinions offered by Woolf. Namely, Woolf’s opinions that:
(1) “There is no evidence that trafficking involving CLF was identified or interdicted by law enforcement during the relevant period;”
(2) “Hotel staff are not trained, equipped, or authorized to investigate or intervene in suspected trafficking operations;”
(3) “In transient lodging environments, the investigative and intervention burden for human trafficking rests with law enforcement, not hotel personnel;” and
(4) “It is unreasonable to retroactively impose a higher duty of detection on hotel staff than the standard applied by law enforcement at the time.”
C.L.F. claimed that “all of Woolf’s opinions are red herrings that draw the jury’s attention to topics that have no bearing on the actual issues that must be decided in this case.”
Opinion 1
Woolf may not tell the jury there was “no evidence that trafficking involving C.L.F. was identified or interdicted by law enforcement during the relevant period.” This is irrelevant to understanding whether hotel staff knew or should have known of sex trafficking at the Wichita Motel 6. It is also misleading. Hearing that police officers had “frequent engagement with the subject properties” and that they made no reports or arrests for sex-trafficking related crimes would lead a juror to conclude that such conduct was absent. That distracts the jury from the pertinent inquiry. Numerous arrests for sex trafficking might put hotel employees on notice, but that logic does not follow from a total absence of arrests. Law enforcement may not have arrested anyone for trafficking at the Wichita Motel 6, but that in no way precludes hotel management and staff from being aware of ongoing sex-trafficking-related activity.
As such, the Court struck Woolf’s opinion as irrelevant and misleading.
Opinion 2
The Court struck Woolf’s second opinion as misleading. Investigating and/or intervening in human trafficking is not an element of the TVPRA and to suggest that Defendants’ employees were not trained or able to investigate, identify, or interdict trafficking injects elements into C.L.F.’s burden of proof that simply are not there. All that is required for C.L.F. to show is that Defendants’ employees were negligently aware of sex-trafficking-related activity on the property.
Opinion 3
The jury cannot hear Woolf’s third opinion. It would tell the jury that, since hotel staff lack the “access to confidential intelligence, interagency data, investigative tools, and legal mechanisms such as warrants and subpoenas” that police officers have, hotel staff are unable to “reliably assess” potential trafficking red flags.
This would seriously undercut the jury’s factfinding role. As said, hotel staff cannot escape imputing knowledge from their own observations of sex-trafficking-related activity just because they lack military-grade investigative tools. A janitor’s inability to petition a judge for an arrest warrant has no bearing on his awareness of sex trafficking if there were observable signs of trafficking in the hotel hallways. The jury, who “is solely responsible for determining the weight and credibility of the evidence,” should assess how Defendants’ staff interpreted those signs without assessing how a police officer would react.
Further, pointing out hotel staff’s lack of crime-prevention tools might mislead the jury to think that the TVPRA excuses liability where a defendant is unable to prevent sex trafficking. As the parties know, making that suggestion to the jury would be wholly inappropriate because “the TVPRA does not impose an affirmative duty to police and prevent sex trafficking” (nor excuse sex-trafficking liability because no duty to prevent exists). The relevant inquiry is whether hotel staff knew of trafficking, not if they prevented, or attempted to prevent, it.
Opinion 4
Woolf’s fourth opinion is simply a summary of his already discussed testimony. His claim that it is “unreasonable to retroactively impose a higher duty of detection” on hotel staff than law enforcement highlights the irrelevance of his other opinions. Discussion of law enforcement’s knowledge or lack thereof regarding trafficking at the Wichita Motel 6 has no effect on that of hotel management and staff. Referring to it would only mislead the jury. Woolf’s testimony appears designed to imply that Defendants were unaware of sex trafficking because law enforcement, with all its law-enforcement techniques, was also unaware. While sensible to think that a layperson would not detect an ongoing crime if a police officer in the same situation could not, that analogy is “non-helpful” here.
The standard is whether hotel staff knew of sex trafficking at their hotel. As explained, hotel staff are in a much different position than police officers to observe the day-to-day happenings at a hotel. The ways in which law enforcement and hotel staff acquire knowledge of sex trafficking at a hotel are completely different and to conclusively suggest to the jury that what was not observable to law enforcement was not observable to hotel staff is both untrue and unhelpful.
Rebuttal Opinions
Defendants pointed out that Woolf also offered rebuttal testimony to C.L.F.’s experts, and that C.L.F.’s motion did not request those rebuttal points to be excluded. C.L.F. responded that, if the Court excludes Woolf’s opinions, then it should also exclude his rebuttal opinions.
All four opinions asserted that it would be unreasonable to find that hotel staff were aware of sex trafficking at the Wichita Motel 6 because law enforcement, with its greater resources, tools, and training, was not. As explained, such testimony would only confuse the jury.
Rebuttal Opinion 2 responded to C.L.F.’s expert witnesses’ claims that hotel training was inadequate by pointing out that no industry standards about sex-trafficking awareness, such as the DHS Blue Campaign Hospitality Toolkit, existed until after this case’s relevant trafficking period.
The opinion also pointed out how “assertions by [C.L.F.’s law-enforcement expert] Christi Decouflé that G6 policies actively discouraged reporting to law enforcement are not substantiated by the record.” But this is straightforward impeachment. It did not help the jury to have Woolf provide such testimony. Impeaching a witness by highlighting inconsistencies between their testimony about documents and facts contained in and relating to those documents does not require specialized knowledge, nor even a live witness; instead, that is the role of counsel.
This Ruling Remains Good for Both the Goose and the Gander
Woolf’s testimony could only muddle things, as he would not testify about red flags observable or known to hotel employees. Instead, he wants to advise the jury on what law enforcement would or would not have known. This would not help the jury.
While Woolf’s testimony goes to Defendants’ actual or constructive knowledge about the trafficking, it is inappropriate as compared to other experts.
Decouflé’s testimony here is based on Defendants’ own policies, guests’ online reviews, and what potential sex-trafficking-related facts the hotel workers, not police, saw during the relevant time. She would testify to hotel-staff knowledge based on hotel-staff observations while Woolf would compare hotel-staff knowledge and training to police-officer knowledge and training. For a jury deciding what the hotel staff knew or should have known, the former is helpful; the latter is not. Woolf’s testimony is irrelevant.
Held
The Court granted Plaintiff’s motion to strike or exclude the testimony of Bill Woolf.
Key Takeaway:
The perspective of a trained law enforcement officer experienced in identifying, investigating, and intervening in cases of human trafficking—even within hospitality settings—would not help the jury understand or determine whether G6’s management or staff knew, or should have known, that sex trafficking was occurring at the Wichita Motel 6.
While Woolf indicated that he considered “the observable signs and behaviors that might have been available to hotel staff,” his opinions address only what law enforcement would understand and/or do in response to those observations.
Please refer to the blog previously published about this case:
Jane Doe K.R. sued Defendants, Choice Hotels, Choice Hotels International, Inc., and Choice Hotels International Services Corp. under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA).
Plaintiff alleged that between March and May 2013, she was the victim of sex trafficking at an Orlando, Florida hotel owned and operated by WHG, a franchisee of the Choice Hotels Defendants.
According to Plaintiff’s hotel security expert, Salvatore Caccavale, “the incident involving Plaintiff was foreseeable and predictable. Inconsistent documented staff training and the failure to adhere to corporate policies contributed to the ease of [the] trafficking of [Plaintiff] at the subject hotel location. Hotel ownership [i.e., Defendants] and their employees should have recognized the correlation between drug use and trafficking at their hotel and collaborated with local law enforcement. It is reasonable to conclude that the hotel management and staff knew that [Plaintiff] was being trafficked.”
Defendants challenged Caccavale’s qualifications and the overall reliability of his methodology before making reliability and helpfulness arguments against each of his opinions.
Hotel Security Expert Witness
Salvatore Caccavale has over 40 years of experience as a hospitality business and security executive, both at the property level, and subsequently with oversight for the Americas for Hilton branded hotels.
Presented by HospitalityLawyer.Com, Caccavale is the recipient of the Thomas G. Davis Loss Prevention Lifetime Award, and the beneficiary of Hilton Hotel’s 2001 Global Spirit of Pride Award. Caccavale has been recognized and honored by many levels of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies over the years for his assistance in executing their duties.
Defendants did not dispute that Caccavale is generally qualified to opine on matters related to hotel safety and security; however, they maintained that he cannot offer opinions as to human trafficking because he is not qualified in that area of expertise. The Court notes that each of Caccavale’s opinions in this case concerns hotel safety and security.
Methodology
Defendants described three ways in which Caccavale did not follow the methodology endorsed by the International Association of Professional Security Consultants. First, the Defendants asserted that Caccavale did not conduct threat and vulnerability assessments at the physical property, as required. Second, according to Defendants, Caccavale looked to calls for service without sufficiently contextualizing them with other crime records such as incident reports. Third, Defendants argued, Caccavale improperly relied on CrimeCast information postdating the alleged 2013 trafficking incident and could not provide details about how the CrimeCast report was compiled. However, regarding these points, Caccavale testified that he conducted a vulnerability assessment based on calls for service, the CrimeCast report, and online reviews of the hotel, and the CrimeCast report shows past crime risk scores for the area around the Orlando hotel in 2010.
While Caccavale’s opinion about the predictability of the alleged sex trafficking incident may be helpful in determining whether Defendants knew or should have known about Plaintiff’s alleged sex trafficking, he was not allowed to opine on the adequacy of the training at the Orlando hotel because Caccavale admitted to not knowing what training policies were in place at the time of the alleged sex trafficking incident.
Defendants challenged Caccavale’s statement that they “should have recognized the correlation between drug use and trafficking at their hotel.” Plaintiff responded that opining as to a correlation between drug use and trafficking does not equate to opining that drug use always indicates trafficking. The Court agreed. Moreover, the jury will be called upon to decide whether Defendants, through their management and staff, had actual or constructive knowledge of Plaintiff’s trafficking at trial. Therefore, Caccavale’s statement that “it is reasonable to conclude that the hotel management and staff knew that [Plaintiff] was being trafficked” amounts to an impermissible legal conclusion.
Held
The Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ Daubert motions concerning Salvatore Caccavale.
Key Takeaway:
The Court addressed Defendants’ general arguments on qualifications and methodology in addition to the opinion-specific arguments. Defendants’ opinion-specific arguments fare better than their general challenges to Caccavale’s qualifications and methodology but are not wholly persuasive. Caccavale’s testimony is helpful in determining whether Defendants knew or should have known about Plaintiff’s alleged sex trafficking.
Jane Doe 3, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, sued Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn in their capacities as the executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate for participating in a sex-trafficking venture in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
Doe’s rebuttal expert, Jane Khodarkovsky, is a former state and federal prosecutor who served in various roles as a human-trafficking specialist.
Doe engaged Khodarkovsky to “offer her expert testimony regarding sex trafficking and how shell companies, funnel accounts, and other tools can be used by gatekeepers, such as lawyers, bankers and accountants, to support and promote sex trafficking networks.” Khodarkovsky opined that “the use of shell companies is one way in which criminal networks, including in sex trafficking, conceal the source and nature of their criminal activity,” and “Defendants had knowledge of red flag indicators that they reasonably should have known were part of an illicit sex trafficking network.”
Defendants filed a motion to exclude Khodarkovsky’s testimony in full.
Human Trafficking Expert Witness
Jane Khodarkovsky spent almost a decade as a state and federal prosecutor. She served as a Trial Attorney and Human Trafficking Finance Specialist for the U.S. Department of Justice, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (DOJ/MLARS) from December 2018- April 2022. For almost three years, Khodarkovsky served as the sole Human Trafficking Finance Specialist for the entire DOJ.
In January 2023, she founded Chazak Consulting LLC, a sole member limited liability consulting firm focused on providing consulting services related to anti-money laundering and human trafficking, child exploitation, and blockchain related matters.
Also, Khodarkovsky earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School, and Bachelor in Arts from Barnard College, summa cum laude.
To begin with, the Court agreed that some portions of Khodarkovsky’s testimony are inadmissible. Whether Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that Epstein was engaged in sex trafficking is “a central issue in this case.” Khodarkovsky crossed the line by concluding that “Defendants had knowledge of red flag indicators that they reasonably should have known were part of an illicit sex trafficking network.”
Additionally, as all parties seem to agree, Khodarkovsky may not testify about the scope of the TVPA.
However, the Court disagreed with Defendants that the rest of Khodarkovsky’s testimony is inadmissible under Rule 702 or 403. Khodarkovsky is experienced in investigating human trafficking, and her opinions regarding how shell companies are used by sex traffickers to enable their operations, as well as how Epstein used his shell companies, will assist the jury in determining whether Epstein was engaged in a sex-trafficking enterprise and, without opining directly on the issue, whether Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that fact. To the extent that certain financial or bank regulations are relevant to her testimony, she may describe those, given that they inform her opinions on corporate-structuring and transactions.
Held
The Court granted in part and denied the Defendants’ motion to exclude the testimony of Jane Khodarkovsky.
Key Takeaway:
Whether Defendants knew or should have known that Epstein was engaged in sex trafficking is a question for the jury, not the experts. In other words, Khodarkovsky can’t offer testimony on what Defendants knew or should have known, which is for the jury to figure out.
