Survivor of Florida hotel rape caught on camera settles with Rodeway Inn for $16m
‘This face is in front of me every night’, said the victim in a recent interview
A woman in her 60s who was subject to a beating and alleged rape at a Florida hotel last year has now reached a settlement worth $16m with Rodeway Inn.
The 67-year-old, who has not been named, was awarded the figure a year after she was attacked by a man inside a Rodeway Inn in Miami, Local10 News reported on Tuesday.
Rodeway Inn, who the woman accused of failing to stop or prevent the attack in a lawsuit, contributed $11m to the settlement. Another $5m was from a security company who oversaw the building.
Shocking surveillance footage from the 10 July 2021 incident showed the woman getting beaten and assaulted by a man in a hotel hallway after her husband, also in his 60s, had been punched to the floor.
She was “strangled to the point where she lost her vision,” the police reportedly said of the attack.
“He grabbed me to the elevator....He forced me to do so many things. I was screaming and I was screaming so many times,” the woman also told investigators.
The attacker was later identified by Miami-Dade police as 22-year-old Travon Smith. Smith was charged last year with kidnapping, sexual battery, and burglary with assault or battery, NBC Miami reported.
The woman told Local10: “This face is in front of me every night, every morning, during the day. This b*****d, what (he’s) done to me.”
The incident occurred at the Rodeway Inn hotel off Northwest 167th Street near the Golden Glades interchange. The company has been approached by The Independent for comment.
“Nothing was done to intervene as this woman was beaten and sexually assaulted for ten straight minutes in the middle of an open hallway at the hotel,” said the woman’s attorney, Justin Shapiro.
“With the settlement they’ll have the closure they deserve and the financial security that they’ll need for the rest of their lives,” he added.
While the hotel have reportedly made security improvements since the attack, Mr Smith is due to appear in court again in August for his trial. It was not clear if he had a lawyer or had entered a plea.