A former Mainer is suing one of the largest hotel chains in the world, alleging workers at the company’s Boston hotel failed to aid her before she was raped twice in the same night.
The woman is referred to only as Jane Doe and is not identified in the lawsuit, which was filed in Massachusetts Superior Court in November. The defendants are the two men she alleges raped her – one of whom is from Maine, the owners and operators of the Westin hotel in Boston’s seaport district, the hotel’s director of security and nine unnamed people whom the woman alleges could have helped her but did not.
Charles Bergeron of Auburn has been charged in Massachusetts with rape, and David Hughes of Manhattan Beach, California, has been charged with kidnapping, assault with intent to rape and assault and battery. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
The next hearing in the criminal cases is Feb. 18 for Hughes, and Bergeron’s trial has been set for September, although it could be delayed because of a backlog in Massachusetts courts caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Court documents don’t list a date of birth for either man, but the records show Bergeron was born in 1990 and Hughes in 1968.
According to the civil lawsuit, Doe, who was 23 at the time, was with her brother and friends on Nov. 10, 2018, at a bar near the TD Garden. Some time after she and her friends arrived at the bar, Bergeron arrived at the same bar, the lawsuit alleges.
The woman and Bergeron knew each other when they were younger and dated briefly in 2015, when the woman was still in Maine, the legal complaint says, but she had made clear to Bergeron she had no interest in further contact with him.
“Despite this, Mr. Bergeron continued to pursue and harass Ms. Doe for a sexual relationship, even after he was engaged to another woman,” the complaint states.
It says Bergeron took the woman from the bar to the Westin hotel, where he was staying, late that night.
“Video footage from the Westin hotel show(s) that Ms. Doe is unable to stand up and is clearly in need of assistance,” the complaint states. “Because of her condition, Ms. Doe was unable to consent to sex.”
The lawsuit says Doe fell in the lobby and had to sit in a chair – “reclined in such a way that made it clear she was not sober” – while Bergeron got a spare key for his hotel room from the front desk.
The plaintiff “was seated directly across from at least two Westin employees who were about 10 to fifteen feet away at a bellhop or concierge station,” the lawsuit says. “The Westin employees appeared to have clearly observed Ms. Doe’s behavior but did nothing to assist her or alert security.”
Then, Bergeron “dragged” Doe to the elevators in clear view of hotel employees, took her up to his room on the sixth floor and raped her, the complaint says.
About a half hour later, Bergeron put Doe on an elevator and hit the button for the lobby, where she stumbled into the bar area and put her head down on a table, the lawsuit alleges.
There, she was spotted by David Hughes, a Harvard Business School graduate who lives in Manhattan Beach, California, and was in Boston to celebrate his 50th birthday, according to the lawsuit.
Hughes approached Doe within minutes of her sitting down and then led her to the bank of elevators, the complaint alleges.
“At one point before she got on an elevator, Ms. Doe had to steady herself by facing the wall and resting her forehead on it,” the suit says. “One elevator appears to have arrived and closed before Ms. Doe could get on the elevator because she was so impaired.”
Doe awoke several hours later, “naked and bleeding,” in the bed in Hughes’ room, according to the lawsuit. She then left the hotel, went to her brother’s apartment and then to the hospital and reported the alleged sexual assaults to police.
According to the lawsuit, Westin’s security team “had dismissed Ms. Doe as a sex worker.”
The complaint doesn’t specify what damages Doe is seeking. Her lawyer, Lisa G. Arrowood, declined to answer questions.
Hughes’ lawyer, Jeffrey Denner, said he expects his client’s trial will be delayed because of a backlog of cases caused by the pandemic. He also said he will ask the court to put the civil case on hold until the criminal case is resolved.
Neither Bergeron nor his lawyers returned a reporter’s voicemail messages. Messages left for the general manager of the Westin hotel and for Marriott International, which owns Westin, were not returned, as were messages for DiamondRock Hospitality, co-owner of the Boston hotel.
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