The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain is facing a lawsuit in the U.S. from the parents of a girl who claimed she was sexually assaulted by a bellman at the Seven Mile Beach resort last year.
The bellman, Iyilla Delmar Spence, was cleared on Friday of seven counts of sexual assault in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands. Spence admitted to a sexual liaison with the 15-year-old girl but said it was mutual and he didn’t know she was only 15.
Despite the verdict, lawyers for the family say they are going ahead with a civil case against the hotel, which they say hired the bellman without doing proper checks on his background, negligently allowed him to socialize in a suggestive way with the girl and failed to provide diligent security.
The suit was filed in June but for legal reasons could not be fully reported until the conclusion of the criminal trial.
Lawyers acting for the girl’s parents confirmed this week that they would be proceeding with the suit.
Mark Tanner, a Philadelphia-based trial attorney who is representing the girl’s parents, said, “While we are obviously disappointed with the verdict in the Caymans, our claims in the civil case against the Ritz-Carlton are distinct claims and are not adversely affected.
“We will absolutely continue to pursue our claims as currently pending in the United States District Court, and will zealously work to see that our client’s rights are vindicated.”
Spence, 40, who worked at the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, acknowledged he had “intimate relations” with the girl, but he told the court during his trial last week that it was the teenager who had taken the initiative. He insisted she had never told him her age and he had not realized she was under the legal age of consent.
He denied forcing himself on her, as she claimed. In just under three hours, a jury of five men and two women found him not guilty on all seven charges.
The girl’s parents, who are given the pseudonyms John and Jane Doe in the U.S. court documents, seek compensatory and punitive damages from the hotel chain for the physical and psychological damage allegedly suffered by their daughter, identified by the pseudonym Mary Doe.
The burden of proof in criminal cases requires the prosecution to prove its case, “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In civil cases the threshold is not as high. It is sufficient for the case to be proved on the “balance of probabilities.”
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