A Conshohocken man who was arrested, tried and acquitted on a charge of molestation in Missouri is suing the Ritz-Carlton over a mix-up of keys and room numbers that resulted in his entering the wrong room after a night out drinking.
An article from the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch details the incident that led to the hotel’s front desk giving him the wrong key. Once in the room he undressed and climbed into bed and began to cuddle with a person who he believed to be a lady he had met earlier in the evening. It turned out it was a nine year old girl.
Hughes was acquitted in 2014 and there was a settlement with the girl’s family for $50,000. Now Hughes is suing the Ritz-Carlton because the whole incident cost him a prosperous career, had to pay a settlement to the family, etc. From The Post-Dispatch:
The suit says the Ritz-Carlton and Maritz, Wolff & Co., which runs it, were negligent in failing to check his identification and the guest register, and failing to give him the correct key.
Hotel staff also failed to conduct “any reasonable and customary key-security precautions that are standard within the hotel industry and particularly within the luxury hotel market to which the Ritz-Carlton belongs,” the suit says.
Because of the error, Hughes lost a lucrative position with Enterprise Leasing Co., his suit says. He earned $480,000 in the year before the incident, it says, and probably would have earned more than $1 million in fiscal year 2015.