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The owners of a Marriott hotel in the US have been forced to share responsibility with a stalker for nude photos taken of a TV reporter whilst she was alone in her hotel room.
In 2008, US sports broadcaster Erin Andrews was filmed through her hotel room’s peep-hole by Michael David Barrett, a previously convicted stalker, who later published the video online.
But today a jury decided that Barrett was responsible for 51% of the verdict, and by extension that the owners of hotel were responsible for the remainder, because the hotel did not provide Andrews with a secure room.
Lawyers for the owner and former operator of the hotel said Barrett should be held solely responsible for the video, but the jury said the two companies should share responsibility for around $27m of the damages awarded.
Andrews cried in court when the verdict was delivered, and over the course of the trial testified that she had been “ripped apart” by the ordeal, which humiliated her and induced a bout of depression.
Her parents told the court that until it became clear who the stalker was, they had worried that she was still being filmed or spied upon, and Andrews herself said she had resorted to inspecting hotel rooms for hidden cameras every since.
