The Hotel Attack
Chicago Sun-Times, 07/18/1996By Sneed, Michael
The hotel attack ... Sneed hears the teenage girl who was savagely beaten and found near death in her Hyatt Regency Chicago hotel room on June 29 is probably brain-damaged.
Sneed is also told the girl is due to be released today from Northwestern Hospital and flown back to New Jersey by medical ambulance jet.
The family of the girl has retained Chicago attorney Bob Clifford, a personal-injury specialist. "The case still has the police boggled," said Clifford, who says the 15-year-old girl needs long-term psychological care and has severe facial injuries that require additional surgery.
"She has no current memory of the event and is likely brain-damaged due to lack of oxygen. We don't know how long the belt was wrapped around her neck. She can speak, but she is not always coherent.
"The reason she is being transferred to New Jersey now is because she needs rehabilitation. So we decided not to put her in rehab here but closer to her home out East."
The victim's father is a trader with the American Stock Exchange, and the family was in town to attend a wedding.
Clifford said there are "multiple security concerns under investigation at the hotel."
Examplet the Hyatt hotel's west tower, where the fmaily stayed and the incident took place, private cocktail parties are regularly scheduled in the lobby area on the first floor near the elevators. "The result being that anyone who walks off the street into the hotel immediately becomes an uninvited guest at the party and is easily able to mingle with the partygoers," Clifford said. "One can legitimately question whether that constitutes a breach of security. The victim and her family attended this kind of party the night the girl was beaten."
