In court this week for the Fox broadcaster’s civil suit against a Nashville hotel, Erin Andrews’s lawyer claimed that the hotel disclosed her room number to her stalker, then gave him the room next to hers, from where he used a peephole to record videos of her undressing.
Andrews accuses the Marriott Nashville at Vanderbilt of giving out her room number to Michael David Barrett. Via Entrepreneur, Andrews alleges Barrett didn’t have to do much to get close to her.
In 2008, Andrews checked into The Nashville Marriott to cover the Vanderbilt football game. Michael David Barrett, a man who had been stalking Andrews, called the hotel and asked what room Andrews was staying in. He was provided with the room number, allowing him to book the room next to her, rig her peephole and record her undressing. He later uploaded the footage to the Internet where it has been viewed more than 300 million times.
During Thursday’s testimony, Marriott International vice president of global sales Renee Buonincontri contested that Marriott booked that room for Barrett, because the hotel chain takes its reservations from a central location and the request was never transmitted to the Nashville front desk.
Andrews’s father Steve Andrews testified on Wednesday that the videos had changed Erin’s whole personality. “She doesn’t trust anymore,” he said.
Barrett had shot the video in September of 2008 while Erin Andrews was in Nashville to cover a college football game. The father said she was so disturbed about the secret footage that she vomited before agreeing to an FBI request that she watch the nude videos so agents could find clues about who took it.
Barrett served two and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of interstate stalking, and was released in 2012.
Correction (March 8, 4:00 p.m.): The original version of this article incorrectly claimed that Andrews was suing The Blackwell and the Radisson Milwaukee. When Andrew refiled her suit in Nashville, she did not name The Blackwell or Radisson as defendants. The article has been corrected.
[Entrepreneur | AP]
Photo: AP
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