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Two girls, including one who was prostituted to customers when she was 13, are suing Stars Cabaret for a combined $8 million, according to court documents.

(Everton Bailey Jr/Oregonian)

Two girls, including one who was prostituted to customers when she was 13, are suing Stars Cabaret for a combined $8 million, according to court documents.

Steven Toth, who managed the strip club chain's location in Beaverton, hired the 13-year-old girl to dance nude for customers and have sex with some of them. He split the profits with her pimp, Victor Moreno-Hernandez.

The second girl was later hired to work at the club, where she was induced to dance nude and people were allowed to "grope and/or inappropriately touch" her, according to one of two related lawsuits filed last week in Washington County Circuit Court.

She was 15 at the time, the suit said.

Toth was convicted in September 2014 of compelling prostitution, first-degree sex abuse and second-degree sodomy, court records show. He was convicted the same day of promoting prostitution in a separate court case.

Moreno-Hernandez was convicted of 13 felony charges, including second-degree rape, delivery of methamphetamine to a minor and four counts of compelling prostitution.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission said Stars Cabaret is in the process of selling the Beaverton strip club. Spearmint Rhino, a strip club chain with a location on Southeast Division Street in Portland, is buying the location, according to media reports.

The OLCC in June 2015 proposed canceling the Beaverton strip club's liquor license, the agency said in a news release. The club took responsibility for five violations and will give up the license Aug. 1 or when the sale is finalized, whichever happens first.

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian also launched a civil rights case against Stars Cabaret "for unlawful sexual harassment of minors," the Bureau of Labor and Industries said in an April 6 news release.

The bureau's Administrative Prosecution Unit will seek at least $4 million for each girl, according to the news release. The lawsuits are separate from those efforts, "although the damages may overlap," Janis Puracal, one of the attorneys representing the girls, said in an email.

The lawsuits state the club and individual defendants knew or should have known the girls were minors and that girls "are vulnerable to sexual exploitation" -- especially "by those in positions of money, power, or authority..." The girls suffered bodily injury and emotional damage, according to the lawsuits.

Stars Cabaret "create(s) and perpetuate(s) an environment of sexual exploitation at their strip clubs where young women are objectified and sexualized in exchange for money," the lawsuits allege. The lawsuits allege they host theme nights such as a "naughty school girl night."

-- Jim Ryan

jryan@oregonian.com

503-221-8005; @Jimryan015

Emily E. Smith of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report