Marriott Drops Blame-Victim Defense in Conn. Rape

A sign leading to The Marriott Hotel and Spa in Stamford, Conn. is seen Monday Aug. 17, 2009. A...

A sign leading to The Marriott Hotel and Spa in Stamford, Conn. is seen Monday Aug. 17, 2009. A Marriott International hotel is abandoning its defense in a lawsuit brought by a Connecticut woman raped at gunpoint in a garage in front of her children that she was careless and partially at fault for the 2006 attack.(AP Photo/Douglas Healey).

(AP)

The Marriott hotel chain on Monday abandoned its legal claim that a Connecticut woman raped at gunpoint in a hotel parking garage, in front of her young children, had been careless and was partly at fault.

The withdrawal followed days of backlash against Bethesda, Md.-based Marriott International Inc., which had claimed in its defense of a lawsuit by the woman that she had "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities."

Her attacker is serving a 20-year prison term for the 2006 attack at the Stamford hotel.

The woman also accused Marriott in June of indirectly disclosing her and her children's identities by seeking subpoenas for her Pilates instructor, friends and tennis partners, a house cleaner, and a baby sitter.

"This was done to expose the identities of the Doe family in their community so as to intimidate them from pursuing this case, pure and simple," attorneys Paul Slager and Ernest Teitell wrote in court papers.

Marriott attorney Donald Derrico said the company was trying to determine the effect of the crime on the victim and that subpoenas have not been issued. The hotel will decide whom to subpoena on a case-by-case basis, he said.

"Her name was never, ever, ever disclosed to anyone," Derrico said.

Marriott issued a statement Friday that it was "profoundly sorry that such a terrible thing happened to the victim of this violent crime" in its parking garage. The chain said the situation has "created a mistaken impression that Marriott lacks respect" for victims of violent crimes.

Critics said the blame-the-victim defense wasn't softened by the apology.

"I thought it was despicable, disgusting and all too common," said Jessica Mindlin, a national director for the Victim Rights Law Center in Boston. "It's like a second rape."

The defense claim was made before attorneys finished taking the victim's deposition, Derrico said, "so as not to waive a potential defense." He said that Marriott officials asked his law firm to withdraw the claim in July, but that his associate had not done so because his mother died.