Airline sued for accusing dad of trafficking his own daughter

An Arkansas woman has sued Delta Airlines for $2.35 million, claiming an employee wrongly reported that her dad inappropriately touched her and sex-trafficked her on a flight with other family members when she was just 13.The stressful incident unfolded on Dec.18, 2019, when Madison Cupp, of Paragould, Ark., was on a flight with Endeavor Airlines — whose parent company is Delta — accompanied by her parents and her grandparents to attend her brother’s graduation from Coast Guard school in Newport News, Va.The plane hit some turbulence as it was nearing its destination in the Old Dominion State and Cupp’s Army vet dad, Nicholas Cupp, “comforted” his scared and crying pre-teen daughter “as any good father would do,” according to court papers filed in Virginia federal court last week.But “unbeknownst” to the Cupps, Delta employee Cheryl Thomas reported the moment to the captain, requesting that law enforcement be there when they landed and that the girl be separated from her family, according to the suit originally filed in state court in December.The captain then contacted Delta station manager Derek Palazzone, who called the police “without making even the slightest effort to determine the truth of the matter,” the filing charges.While the plane was still in the air, Thomas went on to claim the dad was “inappropriately” touching the daughter and “sexually abusing her” — all totally false accusations, the filing said.Madison “was not sexually assaulted by her father; rather, she was comforted by her father at a time when she was nervous about experiencing turbulence for the first time and at a time she was literally surrounded by other family members,” the suit explained.Armed cops boarded the plane once it landed, took Madison from her parents and interrogated her and her dad separately, the docs alleged.Madison was “upset and scared and crying” while she was interrogated, the court papers claimed.And the dad was embarrassing...