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Hotel Peeping Toms Not Limited to Pretty Sportscasters
We were just starting to get over the uncomfortable idea that the creepy stalker of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was actually helped on his perv mission by a hotel staffer when we came across this news last night--a family staying at a TownPlaces Suites Hotel outside Denver were also the victims of a hidden camera placed inside their hotel room.
Robert Reams and his family checked into their hotel room during a vacation in August. But while they were there, they had no idea that someone was watching them. WOWT TV reports:
From a hole nearly invisible to the eye, David Fugate was in the room with the family. The hole caught the attention of a hotel employee after the family checked out. "The maintenance people poked a pin in the hole and it poked back. They went and got a knife and cut it open to look inside," says Reams. "When they looked inside the wall they found a camera." Fugate had been observing the Reams family from an adjacent room using a wireless camera.
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Erin Andrews Stalker Asked For, and Received, a Guest Room Next to Hers
Last Friday, the creepy stalker who videotaped sexy ESPN reporter Erin Andrews through a peephole in her hotel room was found, arrested and charged with one count of interstate stalking using harassing and intimidating surveillance. But it turns out, Michael David Barrett wasn't just a clever predator on the hunt for his prey. Oh no, he had some help from the hotel.
A lawyer for ESPN blasted the management at Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University for failing to protect Andrews. The reason why? Computer records show that Barrett requested and was given a room next to Andrews and that their rooms were located in an alcove off the main hallways. It even shows up on the computer records as "GST RQST TO RM NXT TO [Andrews]." So much for guest safety and privacy, huh?
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Randy Quaid and Wife May or May Not Have Stiffed The San Ysidro Ranch
Two things are for certain concerning the reports that former? actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi were arrested for allegedly stiffing the San Ysidro Ranch in Calif, out of a nearly $6,000 hotel bill. One, Randy and Evi are most likely crazy. They posed for their mugshots like it was a Facebook profile photo shoot and then scribbled off some letter to TMZ about how they in fact did pay the bill. Two, TMZ got way too excited about their mugshots.
But we still aren't sure if they actually did skip out on their hotel bill on August 20th. TMZ says the couple have done this sort of thing before at the Hotel Bel-Air but Evi sent a copy of a cashier's check they sent to the hotel with the amount requested. She also said:
I promise the state of California, Texas does not bother people over hamburgers ordered by room service, supposedly burglarized."
Um...ok. Either way, the duo have posted bail and are free to check into new hotels now. But we're not so sure hotels will be eager to accept them now. Remember, hotels do have a blacklist.
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A Shocking Murder at the Jumeirah Essex House
A sad and ugly truth about hotels is that they are often unwilling hosts to murder scenes. But the murder of a woman at the posh Jumeirah Essex House hotel off Central Park over the weekend has us rattled because the hotel's housekeeping chief has been charged with the crime. The New York Times reports:
The suspect, Derrick W. Praileau, 29, of 1521 White Plains Road, in the Bronx, was taken to Manhattan Criminal Court on Sunday afternoon and later charged with second-degree murder in the death of the woman, Andree Bejjani, whose body was found on Saturday in a 10th-floor apartment at the Jumeirah Essex House, where Mr. Praileau worked. He was ordered held without bail.
Tags: Hotel Theft / Hotel Crime / Sardinia Hotels / Iti Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Safe Crime Wave Targets Italian Resorts, Saudi Princess
Watch you put in your hotel room safe in Italy this summer as a wave of high-profile robberies have taken place, with one becoming a diplomatic incident.
This weekend, an unidentified Saudi princess—perhaps the same who defaulted on all those shopping bills in London—had 15.6 million dollars worth of jewelry stolen from her hotel room safe. They actually took the whole safe, as it was only affixed to the wall with silicon, and they managed to do it in a period of ten minutes while everyone was at dinner.
Although the hotel has been identified as the Colonna Hotel in Porto Cervo, one of the many Iti Resorts on Sardinia's Costa Smeralda, we'd continue to be careful as this seems to be not only an inside job (they used a master key), but also a crime wave.
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Another Way to Avoid The Erin Andrews Situation in Hotels
The other week, being horrified by the Erin Andrews hotel peeping situation, we gave you a list of ways to avoid this same thing happening to you during your next hotel stay. These were mildly helpful ranging from "Don't stay in hotels" to "Don't be famous."
But Twitterer JordiScrubbings has taken a different path to conquering peeping toms.
To avoid my own erin andrews situation, i am leaving my hotel curtain wide open. Do your worst peeper people.
Unsure about what to do when your hotel curtains are wide open? Why, just look at what the guests of the Standard New York have been doing as of late.
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High Hotel Drama in Mexico Involving Stolen Sand
One time at a beach on a family vacation, we were building a sandcastle and our brother ran up and snagged a big bucket of that good, wet, sandcastle-building sand that we'd had to walk all the way down to the water to retrieve and we threw a hissy in response to the stolen sand.
So we can sort of relate to this story a little bit: environmental enforcement officers and Mexican navy personnel "closed off hundreds of feet of powder-white coastline in front of a hotel accused of illegally accumulating sand on its beach." Yes, a hotel stole some sand.
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Park Hyatt Chicago's Overnight Manager Has Some Sticky Fingers
(Cue Abba song, "Money": Money, money, money, must be funny, in the rich man's world.)
Perhaps envious of seeing guests drop hundreds of dollars on a room at the luxury Park Hyatt Chicago, an overnight manager allegedly stole nearly $2,000 from the hotel recently. Chicago Sun Times reports:
Mark Bachman, 31, of the 9100 block of Helen Lane in Orland Park, was charged with felony theft, according to a police report that stated Bachman was an overnight manager at the Park Hyatt Hotel.
Bachman was arrested at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the John Hancock Center, 875 N. Michigan Ave. The charge was approved Tuesday afternoon, according to police.
As the manager, Bachman had access to $2,500 of hotel money when the alleged theft occurred. The hotel reported the theft to police June 12.
It was later determined that approximately $1,589.55 was missing from the hotel. The manager has been released and bond is set for $25,000. He's now been ordered to submit to electronic monitoring and it's say to safe he'll probably never work in hospitality again.
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Guess Who's Probably Not Allowed at Above Allen or A60?
Ali Wise, the blonde armcandy to Thompson Hotels' Jason Pomeranc for many years, was arrested the other day for hacking into another blonde's voicemail accounts using some computer software called SpoofCard. No one knows for sure why Wise would be so unwise and hack into this person's voicemail but a few reports speculate that it may have something to do with affairs of the Pomeranian...er....Pomerancian heart.
NY Daily News reports that Wise is "cuckoo" over Pomeranc who she split from late last year but has been reportedly seeing on and off. Sources says she may have used the Spoofcard to hack into his voicemails and emails to find out if he was dating other women. CityFile even reminds us that Pomeranc and co. were victims of a hacking incident last year that remains unsolved.
But apparently, it's not just love that drives Wise to obsession.
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Suspect Arrested in Tragic Murder At The Hotel Le Bristol
You know the all publicity being good publicity theory? The Hotel Le Bristol (the one with the cute cars) must be keeping its fingers crossed at the moment. It hit the news the week before last when the body of 36-year-old businesswoman Kinga Legg was discovered by a chambermaid in room 503. (Note: Last week was not a good week for hotel housekeeping. See: David Carradine.)
Luckily for the hotel, at least, it seems that this wasn’t a random attack – her boyfriend, Ian Griffin, was staying with her and went on the run after the murder. And now it looks like justice has been swift – he’s been arrested while sleeping rough in Cheshire in the UK.
Will it affect the Bristol’s popularity? Probably not, unless it turns out he used one of their snappy little cars to make his escape. Let’s hope they get another good celeb story soon.
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Shootout At The Trump Taj Mahal
Ugh. An employee of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was killed yesterday after sustaining gunshot wounds during what appears to have been an attempted robbery at the Casino. The victim, a shift manager who had been working for the hotel since the first day it opened (almost 20 years) died after a frequent patron of the casino shot him in his office.
Eerily, nobody on the casino floor really noticed all the ruckus going on. According to CBS news:
The shooting and its aftermath were not visible from the casino floor, and the gambling hall remained fully open until management shut its table games down Wednesday evening and sent home workers assigned there. Slot machines remained open.
Yeah. Gotta keep those slots open, no matter what, apparently.
This is the latest in a string of unfortunate incidents at the hotel: in January, there was an 11-hour standoff with a man waving a gun around and, in February, the hotel filed for Chapter 11.
Tags: WTF Hotel News / Budget Hotels / Hotel Crime / → All Tags
Harboring Stolen Candy in Your Hotel Room Will Get You Arrested
Let this be a lesson to all of us: stealing a barrel of candy and then hiding it in your hotel room will get you in serious trouble with the law.
A young lady in Wyoming has found her name splashed across headlines today after she was arrested on suspicion of possessing stolen property because she "had a pilfered barrel of cinnamon bear candies" in her hotel room. Headlines. This has made headlines today.
And the worst part? Police had come to her hotel room because of an accidental 911 call when they noticed the stolen cinnamon bears in question:
Investigators said they responded to a 911 call from a Days Inn hotel room in Casper [Wyoming] at about 8:20 p.m. Saturday and noticed the large barrel of candies after determining that the call was an accident, the (Casper) Star-Tribune reported Wednesday.
A police affidavit said the officers recognized the barrel from Poor Boys Steak House and contacted the manger of the restaurant, who confirmed a candy barrel was missing.
High drama on the high plains!
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