Ritz-Carlton guest sues hotel after staffer served her ‘semen-contaminated water’: lawsuit
A woman staying at a Ritz-Carlton outside San Francisco to celebrate her birthday claims she was “sexually assaulted and exploited” after a staffer at the luxury hotel “ejaculated his semen into a Ritz-Carlton-labeled water bottle” and served it to her, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
The married mother-of-three, identified in the court documents only as Jane Doe, booked a room at the five-star Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay with her husband in November 2022 for a “restful and indulgent” birthday weekend.
During her four-night stay, Doe ordered water to her room, and sipped from a hotel-branded water bottle in the middle of the night when she “realized that the taste and texture of the water she had ingested may have been semen,” according to the suit filed earlier this month.
“Doe was mortified, terrified, embarrassed and humiliated, but shared her suspicion with her husband,” according to the court documents, who then contacted the hotel — where rooms start at more than $800 per night — as well as the local police.
The Ritz-Carlton “sent the water bottle to a laboratory for analysis and the testing did, in fact, confirm that the water contained semen,” according to the court documents filed in federal court earlier this month.
Before being “defiled by a criminal deviant,” Doe claimed in the filing that she and her husband of 25 years have stayed in Marriott-branded hotels at least 600 times, including at its Ritz-Carlton properties — and the five-star hotel’s Half Moon Bay location, situated about 20 miles outside of San Francisco.
The suit claims that Doe — a homemaker who lives with her husband in Washington state — was traumatized by the experience, and went on to seek therapy.
“To make matters worse, the Ritz-Carlton and Marriott International have refused to provide Jane and John Doe with a copy of the actual lab results for the subject water bottle,” according to the filing, which claimed Doe was “emotionally distressed” over whether she ingested a sexually-transmitted virus.
Meanwhile, the law enforcement investigation over who contaminated the water bottle has been stalled because the hotel refuses to turn over the soiled bottle, the lawsuit claims, hindering authorities from cross-referencing the DNA in the water against sex offender registries.
“The Ritz-Carlton and Marriott International have also refused to disclose the identifies of the hotel employees on duty that day so that their backgrounds and criminal histories can be scrutinized,” the suit alleges.
The complaint requests damages for sexual battery and negligence, and demands a jury trial to settle the case.
In the meantime, the Ritz-Carlton has offered Doe and her husband “a few measly Marriott rewards points — which, of course, could only be used for another anxiety-inducing stay at a Ritz-Carlton property,” the suit claims.
Terrence Jones, an attorney for Jane and John Doe at Cameron Jones law firm, told The Post: “One of our clients’ main concerns is that this deviant is caught so that no one else is victimized. “
“Thus far, the Ritz-Carlton and Marriott have been more concealing than cooperative, obviously to try to protect their reputation rather than their hotel guests,” Jones added.
A Ritz-Carlton spokesperson declined The Post’s request for comment.
