Tresa Baldas Jamaica resorts silenced assault claims for years
She had been drugged and raped, she said, and the resort did nothing to help her.
She woke up on the shower floor crying and naked — choke marks on her neck, scratches on her body. The 18-year-old au pair vacationing in Jamaica had no idea how she wound up in a bathroom near the pool until hours later. Instead, Sandals Resorts paid her American host family $25,000 as a refund for the July trip and had the parents sign a nondisclosure agreement vowing that they would never speak of the incident.
But the victim never signed any such agreement. And she’s talking now.
“They know what happened. They know exactly who he was,” the au pair said. “My silence will not be bought. ... They let someone get away with it.”
In the wake of a Free Press investigation that found sexual assaults of tourists are a long-standing and unchecked problem in Jamaica, where State Department statistics estimate that one American is raped every month, multiple victims have come forward with stories about cover-ups, confidentiality agreements and payoffs by resorts looking to protect their reputations and revenue.
Over the past several years, Jamaican resorts have silenced multiple sexual assault victims, discouraging them from calling the police or pressing charges, downplaying their fears and offering free hotel stays or cash refunds in exchange for a promise not to sue or tell anyone what happened, the Free Press found. Most of the people
“They know what happened. ... My silence will not be bought. They let someone get away with it.”
who shared their stories with the Free Press requested anonymity.
In some cases, the resorts persuaded guests to just go home.
The silenced tourists include:
❚ The West Virginia family whose 18year-old au pair told police she was sexually assaulted July 4 at the Sandalsowned Beaches Negril Resort & Spa, alleging a resort bartender spiked her drink before a guest choked and raped her. She filed a police report and had a rape test. Surveillance video identified the attacker, she said, but no one was arrested. The host family was eventually paid and signed an agreement forbidding them to discuss the case.
❚ An Atlanta mother who said she was sexually assaulted while in the ocean by a Sunscape Splash resort employee during a trip celebrating her 50th birthday in October. She said resort staff at the property, which is owned by AMResorts, manipulated her into not pressing charges, warning her the criminal process would be lengthy and expensive and persuading her to “go home and forget about it.”
❚ A Kansas City woman who said she was sexually assaulted during a sailing excursion by a Sandals Ochi Beach Resort employee in October 2017. She stayed in her room for three days but eventually reported him to the resort, which, she said, rushed her into signing a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for a $4,500 trip. “It was so fast – and they didn’t give me time to think about anything,” she recalled, adding police were never called. “I said, ‘ Do I need to make a police report?’ They said: ‘No. You don’t need to do that. We’ll take care of everything.’ ”
❚ A North Carolina couple whose honeymoon was ruined after a Sandals resort dancer named “Showtime” allegedly sexually assaulted the wife on the dance floor, putting his hand up her dress, grabbing her genitalia and then forcing her hand to his groin to feel that he was aroused. Sandals gave the couple a replacement seven-night trip “as a goodwill gesture” and a complimentary couples massage. In return, the couple signed legal forms releasing Sandals from any liability.
Sandals declined to comment on specific allegations but has denied covering up assault claims at any of its resorts or silencing victims with payoffs.
“Our policies are clear – all reported incidents of sexual assault and harassment are fully reported to law enforcement, investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted by the authorities,” Sandals said in a statement. “This is a core element of our incident response protocol. In no way does Sandals discourage guests or others from reporting allegations of criminal conduct to law enforcement or from cooperating with law enforcement investigations.”
Moreover, the company added, “refunds are not offered to guests who report being victims of criminal assault where an active law enforcement investigation or prosecution is underway. Where there is no active criminal investigation or prosecution, on rare occasions, we do offer refunds or similar compensation when our guests feel that we did not meet expectations which may include releases and confidentiality, as is industry practice.”
Sandals stressed that “no guest is ever forced to sign any document.”
Nevertheless, problems continue to crop up for the resort chain.
A New Jersey couple sued Sandals last month for $30 million, saying their
2016 wedding in the Bahamas was ruined by a resort butler who sneaked into the bride’s suite on the eve of her wedding and molested her. According to the couple’s lawyer, John Nicholas Iannuzzi of New York, Sandals discouraged the couple from involving police and offered to refund the $15,000 event, but with a nondisclosure agreement. The couple declined and filed a lawsuit in Manhattan two years later.
“We were not interested in being silenced,” the 32-year-old bride, Ashley Pascarella, told the Free Press. “It was a nominal amount of money compared to what had happened.”
Sandals called the lawsuit “a selfserving, one-sided and incomplete version of an incident reported in 2016.”
“The plaintiffs have unfortunately embarked to influence the case using a choreographed media campaign based on their one-sided narrative,” Sandals said in a statement.
1 million U.S. visitors a year
Jamaica’s biggest source of revenue is tourism. The country drew a record 4.3 million visitors in 2017 and raked in more than $3 billion in revenue from U.S. tourists alone that year. Americans are the biggest contributors to Jamaica’s tourism industry: More than 1 million vacation there every year, and the numbers keep going up.
Meanwhile, the travel advisories continue.
In addition to Sandals, several Jamaican resorts have been accused of failing to properly address sexual assault complaints, including Grand Bahia Principe of the Spanish-owned Bahia Principe Hotels & Resorts; Breathless Montego Bay Resort & Spa and Sunscape Splash Montego Bay of Philidelphia-based AMResorts; and Hotel Riu Reggae in Montego Bay, part of Riu Hotels & Resorts based in Spain.
Though some accusers cut deals with the resorts or rejected their offers, others have said the resorts took no action in responding to sexual assault claims. Their complaints were ignored altogether, some said, despite repeated phone calls and emails to management asking for help.
‘These things happen here’
Soon after returning from Jamaica, the American host mother took to TripAdvisor to vent and warn others about what happened to her au pair at Beaches Negril.
“My 18-year-old daughter was given a drink directly from the bartender at Club Liquid. It was drugged,” the woman wrote, referring to the au pair. “She was then taken to a bathroom by another ‘guest’ and raped. CHOKED. SCRATCHED and RAPED.”
TripAdvisor removed the post, stating the review “was flagged by another user for violating our review guidelines.”
A Sandals payout followed, along with a confidentiality agreement that prohibited the family from discussing the incident and required them to remove all comments about the trip from social media. Specifically, any mentions of the au pair’s ordeal on the Jamaica trip were removed from the host mother’s Twitter feed.
Here, according to the au pair and text messages, emails, statements to the police and public records, is what happened that night at the all-inclusive resort:
It was 11 p.m. when the au pair went to Club Liquid for a drink. She had spent the day with her American host family and their four children at the resort and ventured out on her own when they all went to bed.
The au pair sat alone at the psychedelic-colored bar and had a few drinks while music played. But within an hour, her world would go dark.
At about midnight, the bar started emptying out and the au pair ordered another drink. The bartender mixed her drink while talking to a man who was sitting nearby. He was the only one left in the bar, and he approached the au pair as she finished her drink.
Quickly, everything turned into a blur. She remembers talking but nothing about the conversation. She doesn’t remember leaving the club. She vaguely remembers being at a beach with a man and winding up in a pool with him, crying on a pool step.
The next thing she remembers is waking up in the shower near the pool at the resort. The water was running. She opened a door and found her clothes and bag on a nearby bench. She got dressed and walked to her room.
“I just remember being in the pool area but not how I got there,” she said. “I didn’t understand what the hell had just happened. I was so confused. There was nobody around. It was light outside.”
Her cellphone read 6 a.m. when she returned to her room and plugged it into a charger. She put on her pajamas and went to bed.
“I was feeling so ill and so tired,” she said.
When she woke up, her head was spinning. She felt discomfort in her vaginal area and was nauseous. She had red marks on her neck.
At about 11:30 a.m., she told her host mother she wasn’t feeling good and filled her in on the few details she could remember from the night before. The mother summoned a nurse and security. A police officer also showed up and interviewed the au pair, who then went to a hospital with her host mother. She had a rape test and had some type of medication prescribed.
“The doctor said something definitely happened,” she said.
After going to the hospital, the au pair went to the police station to give a statement. There, she heard a comment that left her reeling.
“The policewoman said to me, ‘Were you not warned about the culture here?’ ” she recalled, noting she was confused.
The officer elaborated: “These things happen here. ... Next time, don’t have so many drinks.”
More than seven months has passed and the au pair, who is back in South Africa, is still trying to get her hospital records, toxicology results and a copy of a surveillance video. It burns her that her host family has been given informa- tion about her rape, she said, but she has not been given it.
The resort knows who did this, she said, noting there is surveillance video of what unfolded.
The Free Press has learned that management has video showing the suspect alone with the au pair at the bar, taking her to a bathroom, spending time in there with her and then leaving alone.
Management knows the suspect’s name and what room he was staying in; it had a clear view of his face, the au pair said. He was an American tourist who left the next day, according to the au pair. The au pair said no one seems willing to do anything because the incident involves three countries: The victim is South African; the incident happened in Jamaica; and the suspect is an American.
“I’ve been feeling helpless,” the au pair said, “because no one really cares.”
Sandals posted a comment on the au pair’s TripAdvisor account last week, stating:
“In this case, local law enforcement conducted an investigation and reviewed the Beaches Resort’s surveillance video footage which was immediately provided. Local law enforcement subsequently issued statements, in which they explained that ‘We have collected statements and reviewed video evidence none of which supports the claim of rape’; ‘The toxicology report has not revealed anything of note and the theory of her being drugged is not sustainable.’ ”
Jamaican police said that they investigated the incident but that the prosecutor’s office declined to bring charges. They did not elaborate on the findings in the au pair’s case, nor any other sexual assaults involving resorts. In response to numerous questions from the Free Press, they issued a one-page news release that included the following:
“The woman’s employers allegedly noticed marks on her neck and reported the matter to the Negril Police, where the woman told investigators that she had a drink with the man and subsequently woke up and found herself sitting in a shower on the property,” the statement says.
Jamaica’s Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse conducted an investigation that included a toxicology analysis, statements to law enforcement and surveillance footage. The file was then submitted to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for a ruling.
“On September 20, 2018, a ruling was received. ... It stated that no criminal proceedings can commence in this matter,” the statement reads.
Meanwhile, the South African Embassy has intervened, requesting a copy of the medical report. Police said it was provided and the matter has been referred to a tourism liaison officer.
“It should be noted that items that are submitted into evidence for an ongoing investigation cannot be released as there are strict issues of confidentiality and strong potential for the investigation to be compromised,” the agency stated.
The status of the investigation is not clear.
“Visitor safety and security remain a top priority of the Jamaica Constabulary Force,” the police agency states, adding that local law enforcement works with the tourism sector in patrolling tourist attractions and conducting security inspections and certification of resorts, hotels and attractions to ensure they meet regulatory requirements.