A family from Seattle, Washington, which was reportedly brutally attacked by two men in a Nassau Beach Hotel room two years ago, has filed a lawsuit against billionaire American hotelier Phil Ruffin.
The Amaya family is seeking more than $375,000 in addition to costs associated with the case.
The new round of bad publicity for The Bahamas and its number one industry comes as officials continue to assess the fallout from the murders of two tourists in Bimini late last month.
In their lawsuit, the Amayas claim that Mr. Ruffin, who has since sold the hotel to the Baha Mar Development Company, was negligent and failed to provide adequate security to protect his guests.
The lawsuit details the attack, claming that the couple and their two children were about to leave their hotel room around 7:20am when two armed men with pistols confronted them at the doorway to their room and forced them back in.
The two men repeatedly threatened to kill the Amayas while they were bound and gagged, the lawsuit filed in a Kansas court where Mr. Ruffin resides further states.
The attackers also reportedly kicked and hit the Amaya family members on numerous occasions and also ransacked their personal belongings and stole items of value, including the coupleﾴs wedding rings.
The woman was also reportedly sexually assaulted in front of her husband and son, the lawsuit alleges. It also adds that the teenage daughter was raped in front of her family.
After raping and sexually assaulting the females and stealing the familyﾴs valuables, the two armed men reportedly left the hotel room and went into the hallway then forcibly entered a hotel room across the hall and assaulted and robbed another family.
“More than seven minutes passed before hotel personnel arrived at the Amayaﾴs hotel room,” the lawsuit says.
“The armed men were still present in the room across the hall from the Amaya familyﾴs room when hotel personnel finally responded to the plaintiffs’ call for help. The assailants left the second room by lowering themselves from the balcony to the balcony of another guest directly below.”
The lawsuit states that the assailants then entered the third hotel room from the balcony and attacked the female guest inside.
After this third assault, the lawsuit alleges that the two armed men freely exited the Nassau Beach Hotel without confrontation from any hotel staff.
In the lawsuit, the Amayas assert that as the owner of the hotel, Mr. Ruffin owed a duty to the Amaya family to utilize the highest degree of skill and care to ensure that the property provided the family, as guests of the hotel, facilities which were reasonably safe and free from burglary, robbery, physical assault, sexual assault, and forcible rape.
The lawsuit also claims that Mr. Ruffin and or his agents or employees were on notice of the propensity for criminal acts in Nassau generally, and at the hotel specifically.
The family asserts that Mr. Ruffin or his staff knew or by using ordinary care should have known that guests at the Nassau Beach Hotel were susceptible to such attacks and that his security measures and personnel were wholly inadequate to deter, prevent and respond to such attacks.
The Amayas also want the court to agree that Mr. Ruffin negligently and carelessly failed to require a hotel room key or other form of identification in order to access floors and hallways containing doors to guest rooms at the Nassau Beach Hotel and negligently and carelessly failed to post hotel personnel at points of access to hotel rooms to ensure that only paying guests and their invitees were permitted in those areas of the Nassau Beach Hotel.
The lawsuit says as a direct result of Mr. Ruffin’s negligence, the family was brutally assaulted and robbed. It also states that the woman and her daughter continue to suffer from the fear of sexually transmitted diseases and the trauma associated with sexual assaults.
The lawsuit also accuses Mr. Ruffin of breaching a contract he entered into with the Government of The Bahamas on January 3, 1997 whereby the Bahamian government approved the assignment of the lease to land on which the Nassau Beach Hotel sits.
It points out that the Wichita businessman committed to spending $12 million to improve the hotel and upgrade security, but the Amayas claim that security improvements had not been completed prior to their stay at the Cable Beach hotel.
As a direct result, they say they continue to suffer emotional and mental pain, trauma, guilt, helplessness, shame, embarrassment, anguish, sleeplessness, lethargy and depression.
Bill Shea, executive vice president of Ruffin Holdings, did not return a Bahama Journal call on Monday, but he was quoted in the Wichita Business Journal calling the lawsuit erroneous.
Candia Dames, The Bahamas Journal
