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 embarrassingly questioned “in a public portion of the airport where members of the public witnessed” the grilling, before the officers “ultimately determined that there was no probable cause to charge or arrest” the father, the suit claimed.

After the debacle, Thomas walked right past Madison, but she didn’t apologize or even look in her direction, the filing claimed.

The father-daughter duo suffered “severe and permanent harm” with Madison experiencing “stomach aches, vomiting” and other signs of “emotional trauma.”

In fact, she went on to fear “interacting with her father in public” after the humiliating fiasco.

Madison had been an outgoing student who played basketball on a team coached by her dad. But after she became a recluse, wanted to stop going to school and quit the team.

She also “refused to show any affection to males” and was constantly in fear of her family getting taken away from her, the court documents claimed.

The Cupps allege Delta failed to properly train Thomas and Palazzone on how to accurately spot, investigate, and report actual sex trafficking.

Nicholas has been fighting his own lawsuit for years and recently Virginia’s Supreme Court ruled the airline wasn’t immune and his case could go forward, according to a report by USA Today.

Delta and Thomas didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday. Palazzone declined to comment.