August 18, 2009 - STAMFORD -- Attorneys representing the Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa and other firms being sued by a woman raped in their parking garage in 2006 withdrew special defenses Monday that claimed the woman was negligent and careless and that she and her children failed to "mitigate their damages."

Donald Derrico, an attorney hired by the hotel's insurance company to handle the suit, said the defenses were standard and that the hotel's owner, Samuel Heyman, and attorney, Marc Kurzman, asked for them to be withdrawn once they learned about them in mid-July.

"No one wants to blame this woman for this," he said.

Derrico said they were in the process of revising the court filings when the attorney working on the case had to leave work because of his mother's death.

Had the hotel not raised the defense it might have lost the right to raise it at a later time, Derrico said. They had not finished a deposition of the victim at the time they made the claim, he said.

"We did not know what actually transpired in the garage that day," he said.

Heyman and Kurzman said the lawsuit has been handled by the Stamford Marriott's insurance company since the beginning. "They have control over the defense. The attorneys are engaged by and paid by and directed by the people at the insurance company," Heyman said.

Kurzman said the company, one of the AIG group of insurance companies, directed the defense and hired Derrico's firm, which has an office in Stamford.

The court documents are signed by an attorney from Derrico's firm, Stephen Brown, on behalf of the defendants. The listed defendants are Stamford Marriott Hotel and Spa, HD Realty Associates, HD Hotel LLC, Meyer Jabara Hotels and Marriott International, Inc. Meyer Jabara maintains and operates the structures, including the parking garage, according to court documents. HD Realty is the franchisee, the documents state.

Attorneys for the woman, Ernest Teitell and Paul Slager, issued a statement in response, "Under the facts of this case, blaming the victim is without any justification whatsoever. It never had any place in this litigation and it has re-traumatized the victim."

Last week it came to light that the hotel had raised five special defenses in response to claims by the woman that the hotel was negligent leading up to the afternoon attack in its parking garage.

Among the defenses were that the woman was careless, negligent and "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities," according to court documents.

Another said that she and her young children, 3 and 5, failed to "mitigate their damages."

Mark Sherman, another civil attorney in Stamford not involved in the case, said the special defenses were "boilerplate," but added that there seems to be little room for such defenses when the case involves a victim of a random assault.

"In any civil or criminal case where a victim is brutally assaulted, defense attorneys need to tread carefully, as even boilerplate language in pleadings can sometimes offend the opposing party," he said.

Another attorney, who asked not to be identified, said he had seen such defenses raised in other types of civil cases but never in a case with similar circumstances.

The Fairfield County woman, then 40, was attacked as she and her children were leaving the hotel the afternoon of Oct. 10, 2006, when a 56-year-old Darien native, Gary Fricker, pointed a gun into her back and forced her and her children into their minivan. There, he sexually assaulted the woman, pointed a gun at all three and threatened to sexually assault one of her children.

When another car pulled up, the woman screamed and Fricker fled. Police caught him three days later near White Plains, N.Y., and he confessed, police have said.

"She will never be the same," Fricker told officers as they detained him. "I ruined her life."

Fricker, a transient carpenter, pleaded guilty in August 2007 and agreed to serve 20 years in prison, to be followed by 20 years of special parole. He faced up to 140 years if convicted on all counts and sentenced consecutively at trial.

The woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, claims in the suit that Fricker had been in the hotel and garage acting suspiciously days before the attack, as well as the afternoon of the attack. The suit, filed March 2008, claims the hotel failed to notice him, apprehend him or make him leave. During the attack, security personnel did not see or stop him, the suit claims.

According to a transcript of the deposition of Donna Comunale, director of the hotel's loss prevention program, filed in court papers, there was no security director in the hotel or in the parking garage at the time of the incident and no internal security policies.

She also testified that a camera was out on a level of the garage for six weeks before the incident.

The new documents revising the defendants' response to the complaint and the special defenses were stamped at 4:42 p.m. Monday by the court. They leave in special defenses in which the hotel and other firms claim the acts were criminal and unforseen and that the defendants had not been notified that criminal activity was about to occur.

-- Staff Writer Monica Potts can be reached at [email protected] or 964-2266.

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