A woman in San Diego has filed a lawsuit against Dollar Tree after she and numerous others across the country were allegedly victims of “gooning” sexual assault incidents at the discount store chain.
As detailed in court documents reviewed by Complex, a woman identified only as a Jane Doe accused Dollar Tree and its related companies of failing to prevent such sexual assault incidents, citing similar cases in other stores nationwide. “Dollar Tree has become a hotspot for a disturbing new form of sexual assault: public ‘gooning’ — a phenomenon where perpetrators masturbate on or at unconsenting victims in public spaces for sexual gratification or online notoriety,” the lawsuit reads.
The legal team representing the woman cited at least ten other women across the United States reporting similar assaults at Dollar Tree stores over the past two years.
“Dollar Tree’s systematic failure to provide adequate security—through chronic understaffing, absent or fake security cameras, and tolerance for criminal activity in the name of keeping costs as low as its prices—has made its store a hunting ground for sexual predators,” the lawsuit continues.
The lawsuit, filed in March, notes that victims, employees, and media coverage have failed to move the company to do something about the repeated incidents. Doe was allegedly sexually assaulted at a San Diego Dollar Tree store in 2025, and says that the same man assaulted two other women at the same store in the space of a week. Attorney Alreen Haeggquist told NBC San Diego that Doe noticed a man behind her, and later felt him wipe something on her only to discover it was semen. The man was later identified as Noe Gonzalez Cresencio, and he was charged with three counts of lewd acts and two counts of sexual battery.
Doe says that when informed an employee at the store about the assault, she was told that the camera that would have captured the incident wasn’t operational. She is seeking compensatory damages.
