Hotel sued for giving room key to ‘pervert’

A woman has filed a lawsuit against Starwood Hotels and Resorts after employees at a Finnish property allegedly gave her room key to a drunken stranger.

Alison Fournier, a businesswoman from New York, said in a statement on Monday that she was sexually assaulted at the Hotel Kämp in Helsinki, Finland, on the night of 15th January of 2011 by a man who had made advances toward her earlier in the evening.

The lawsuit, in which Fournier accuses the company of negligence for allegedly providing the “visibly intoxicated” stranger with the key to her room, has been filed with the help of women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred as well as New York law firm Cuti Hecker Wang LLP. The suit claims that Starwood Hotels and Resorts has not followed up on the incident nor has it opted to disassociate itself from the Hotel Kämp.

Fournier said in an official statement, “Starwood is the go-to brand for business travellers and I expected a certain level of security from their hotels,” ABC News reports. She added, “To this day, I still suffer from the memories of that night and I am still not able to put it behind me.”

According to ABC News, Starwood Resorts has issued an official statement saying, “The safety and security of our guests is our first and foremost priority. It is company-wide policy to ensure proper identification is shown and verified before distributing a key to a registered guest’s room. We are taking this allegation seriously and are working with the hotel in question to understand the facts and any breach of security that may have contributed to this very unfortunate event.”