A woman was raped in her hotel room by a stranger after front desk staff gave him a key to her room.
Cheri Marchionda was staying in an Iowa hotel in 2014 when she was sexually assaulted and beaten by a man she had met in the bar earlier that day.
The New Jersey woman had denied Christopher LaPointe’s advances when they first met before retiring to her room.
The Seattle Times reports that when she awoke some hours later, LaPointe was in her room touching her leg.
He then proceeded to attack her for several hours.
Des Moines police later discovered that LaPointe had gained accessed to Marchionda’s room via a key he had been given at the front desk.
Staff at the Embassy Suites Hotel had not asked LaPointe for identification or to prove that he was staying at the hotel.
The New York man later asked a maintenance worker to dismantle the safety latch on Marchionda’s door, claiming that she was his girlfriend and that she had locked him out after a fight.
Marchionda’s lawyer said that she had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the attack causing her to lose work.
She settled a lawsuit with the Iowa hotel this week.
