Hotel manager invited employee to room then sexually assaulted her, lawsuit says
.png "A former Marriott Hotel employee is suing after she says she was sexually assaulted by the hotel manager.")
A Michigan woman is suing after she says her former manager at a Detroit hotel sexually assaulted her in one of the rooms.
On Aug. 8 2023, the woman was an employee at Marriott Hotel in Detroit when the incident took place, according to a lawsuit filed against the hotel chain Aug. 26, obtained by WDIV.
Around 1 p.m., when the woman’s shift ended, her manager, Dhurba Koirala, invited the woman to his hotel room, according to the complaint. He told her there would be other employees there as well.
Koirala gave the woman food and alcohol, the lawsuit said. Then, around 7 a.m. the next day, the woman woke up in Koirala’s bed and discovered she had been sexually assaulted, the lawsuit said.
The woman’s underwear was inside out and a “menstruation product” had been removed, according to the court document.
The woman reported the assault and had a rape kit performed. Koirala’s DNA was a match, according to the lawsuit.
Koirala was charged with criminal sexual conduct, according to court records.
The lawsuit said that because of the assault, the woman had to resign from her position because the working conditions were “intolerable.”
The hotel had an “obligation to provide a safe business environment for its staff and prevent its employees from injuring others,” the woman’s attorney, Jon Marko, told the Detroit Metro Times in a statement. “Not only did Marriott breach its duty when it failed to protect our client, no person should be sexually assaulted as a condition of employment.”
The woman is seeking “fair and just” compensation for a host of damages, including mental anguish and pain and suffering, the lawsuit said.
McClatchy News reached out to Marriott International for comment but did not immediately hear back.
