Coral Gables Marriott Manager Raped, Molested Housekeeper, Suit Says

Soon after a new housekeeper joined the Courtyard by Marriott in Coral Gables in 2009, the hotel’s manager began personally assigning her schedule and monitoring her work. Before long, that unusual personal attention turned into unwanted sexual advances, demands for nude photos, and outright molestation. When she tried to resist, he told her, “I’m the boss, you know what’s good for you.” Finally, he raped her in a hotel room.

So says the anonymous woman, at least, in a new lawsuit filed against the hotel chain this morning in Miami-Dade Court.

Marriott has not returned a phone call from Riptide to comment on the suit.

The woman, named as Jane Doe No. 21 in the complaint, says the sexual assault she received at the hands of William Castro, the hotel’s manager, was echoed by several other women at the Marriott.

She started work at the chain’s location on LeJeune Road in June 2009, and quickly ran into trouble with Castro, her lawyers say. First the manager made advances to the married housekeeper, who has two children and says she repeatedly spurned his attention.

Then, one day her boss asked her to bring towels to an unoccupied room where he was waiting; once inside, he sexually assaulted her.

The abuse continued from there, with Castro frequently demanding oral sex, groping the housekeeper and asking for nude photos of her. Finally, the manager ordered her to another hotel, where he’d rented a room; when she arrived, he raped her, the attorneys say.

The housekeeper left Marriott this past January, and eventually brought her allegations to Jeffrey Herman, the attorney behind the suit.

“The allegations that a man used his authority to take advantage of a vulnerable woman are disturbing,” Herman says in a statement.

Read the full complaint here:

Marriot Complaint

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