West End Hotel Partners, which owns and operates that Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University, has said Barrett’s criminal actions were his responsibility, not theirs.
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Jury decides Erin Andrews will receive $55 million in peephole video lawsuit.
Barrett was a Chicago-area insurance company executive who frequently traveled around the country when he took the video of Andrews at the Nashville hotel in September 2008.
Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews was awarded $55 million in a lawsuit over a secretly filmed nude video.
Andrews brought a $75 million suit against her stalker, Michael Barrett, and the management company of the Nashville Marriott where the almost five-minute video was filmed in 2009. In at times tearful testimony, Andrews told jurors that she didn’t think her life would ever be the same, and she still gets taunted by people who have viewed the videos.
Barrett, who the jury found to be 51 percent at fault, has to pay out more than $28 million.
Andrews said in a 2010 GMA interview that she obtained the copyright to the video. They said staff never verified Barrett’s request for a room adjoining Andrews’ and allowed Barrett to find Andrews’ room. “It’s going to be on the Internet until I die”, Andrews said in her testimony.
A forensic computer expert estimated that the video of Andrews has been seen by 16.8 million people to date, and that statistic, among other things has caused Erin Andrews to develop PTSD.
Many observers had criticized Dedman’s legal team for deciding to question Andrews on her explosive career success after the videos were leaked. The stalker, Michael David Barrett, posted the videos online and pleaded guilty to stalking charges, for which he was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
“We are not and have not been a part of this trial”, Marriott wrote in a March 4 response to the petition.
When the celebrity gossip site refused the offer, Barrett posted the video online.
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The hotel lawyers also argued that Andrews’ continued professional success showed she hasn’t suffered severe and permanent damage.
