A woman celebrating her 21st birthday has filed a lawsuit against an Austin-based Doubletree Hotel after a sexual assault occurred on the property that she believes resulted from the hotel failing to cancel a lost hotel key.
According to the lawsuit, and was initially reported by HNR, the woman, referred to by the initials M.W., was staying at Texas-based DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in the Austin Northwest Arboretum area. M.W. , a University of Texas student who, according to the complaint, was celebrating her 21st birthday, was invited by a man who overheard her mention she was celebrating her 21st birthday and invited her to the bar for a drink which she did.
Later, a member of the group – a woman – noticed M.W. was fairly intoxicated and helped her back to her room. However, M.W. had lost her room key. The pair returned to the hotel front desk where a new key was issued, however, the older key was not canceled. The good samaritan helped M.W. back to her room and into bed.
While in the room helping M.W. into bed, a male member of the group, later identified as Zakary Titus Nadzak entered the room offering assistance. The female assisting M.W. became suspicious and refused to leave her alone with Nadzak who eventually left. The good samaritan then returned to the front desk and inquired about the original key where she was assured by the hotel employee that a key had not been issued to Nazdak.
Later that night Nazdak, allegedly used M.W.’s original key to enter and sexually assault M.W. The next morning Nadzak was arrested in connection with the alleged assault and currently is awaiting trial in the Travis County Jail.
According to the lawsuit, M.W. is suing the hotel for gross negligence for the following reasons noted in the graphic, below:
The lawsuit was filed by the Texas law firm Blizzard Law, which issued a statement fro Anna Greenberg: “This horrifying attack could have been prevented if the hotel had followed its standard operating procedures. When a guest reports a lost key, hotels are supposed to issue new keys, rather than duplicates, to avoid this very issue. Having working room keys floating around the hotel is a hazard to guest safety.”
