A chain of California luxury spas has been accused of covering up a string of sexual assaults on guests by massage therapists at their five star hotels.
Two lawsuits brought against the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa and its sister hotel the Claremont Club & Spa in Berkeley – both owned by Accor Group – allege a pattern of abuse and cover-ups by staff going back 20 years.
In court documents seen by DailyMail.com, a 50-year-old woman said she was receiving a massage at the Sonoma spa in December 2017 when her masseuse sexually assaulted her, putting his fingers in her vagina.
In another suit, a 48-year-old woman said a different masseuse ‘grabbed her legs and pulled them open’ and then ‘inserted his fingers inside her vagina for approximately a minute’.
In both cases, the women alleged hotel staff failed to take proper action, offering the first victim a complimentary bottle of wine, and the second a free night’s stay.
The women’s lawyer, Micha Liberty told DailyMail.com that there had been more than a dozen accusations of ‘horrific’ sexual misconduct by staff at the two resorts since 2003.
Multiple lawsuits brought against the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa (pictured) and its sister hotel the Claremont Club & Spa allege a string of sexual assaults by massage staff
The suits list more than a dozen other accusations of sexual misconduct against the two resorts since 2003
Daniel Cortright (pictured) was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn. He told DailyMail.com that the allegations were ‘completely untrue and fabricated and filed to force a settlement from the Fairmont’
The suits center around the five-star Wine Country resorts, where guests pay up to $1,500 a night to stay in luxurious rooms surrounded by perfectly manicured grounds with pools, gyms and golf courses.
The first lawsuit against the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa was brought in November 2018 by a 50-year-old woman identified only as Jane Doe.
Doe claimed that during her stay at the hotel in December 2017, she was sexually assaulted by her masseuse, a man named Daniel Cortright.
She claimed that during the massage he touched her vagina without consent and said ‘you’re wet down there’.
She said made an excuse to leave the room, found her husband and informed the resort’s manager, Kacey O’Rourke.
According to court documents, Ms O’Rourke did not call the police and instead sent a complimentary bottle of wine to Doe and her husband.
Doe reported the incident to police who investigated but never referred the case to prosecutors, so she lodged her civil complaint against the hotel and its owners.
According to Doe’s attorney, Liberty, the complaint was settled for an undisclosed sum and Cortright was fired.
Daniel Cortright told DailyMail.com that the allegations were ‘completely untrue and fabricated and filed to force a settlement from the Fairmont’.
He added that ‘the lawsuit was dismissed without any admission of any liability’.
The suits center around staff at the five-star Wine Country resorts, where guests pay up to $1,500 a night to stay in luxurious rooms
The hotels are surrounded by perfectly manicured grounds with pools, gyms and golf courses
The first lawsuit against the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa was brought in November 2018
This March, a second suit was filed against the resorts at the Alameda County Superior Court by a different woman, a 48-year-old from Tennessee also identified as Jane Doe.
She claimed a masseuse named Vincent Ahern, 53, had groped and penetrated her during an hour-long massage at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn in September 2022.
Her husband had booked the massage for her as a treat after they won the stay in a charity auction.
But in the suit, Doe said her life was ‘forever changed when she was exposed to a sexual predator by a global hotel chain that she trusted’.
It adds: ‘Vincent James Ahern sexually assaulted Ms. Doe when she was trapped in a dark massage room with no safe escape.
‘He grabbed her legs and pulled them open. He then inserted his fingers inside her vagina for approximately a minute.’
Doe felt ‘nauseous’ and went to tell her husband what had happened. They told hotel manager Edward Roe who called the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, and offered to reimburse the couple for the massage.
The lawsuit said: ‘As if such trivial tokens could excuse a sexual assault and profound breach of trust.’
The suit claims there has been over two decades of sexual assaults at the neighboring sister property at the Claremont Hotel & Spa (pictured)
It lists lists over a dozen separate incidents at the hotel and spa from 2003 to 2019
Attorney Micha Liberty told the San Francisco Chronicle: ‘The sheer number of victims should be a call to action to fix this insidious problem.’
Doe told the San Francisco Chronicle that after she reported the incident to Sonoma County Sheriff’s office, officers attempted to dissuade her from pressing charges.
She said officers highlighted how long and grueling the process would be, telling her it was a ‘your word against his’ situation.
She told the paper: ‘I was led to believe this was a waste of time. I felt so lost and defeated. Someone in authority said there was nothing I could do.’
In the latest suit, the claimant alleges that the incidents are just the latest in a string of allegations against staff at the two resorts.
The suit claims: ‘In the years leading up the Cortright assault, including the prior year, multiple female massage clients complained to the hotel defendants that their massage therapists had sexually assaulted them during massages.
‘They did not investigate the allegations, discipline the massage therapists, or implement their own method of prevention.
‘Inconceivably, there has been over two decades of sexual assaults at the neighboring sister property at the Claremont Hotel & Spa.’
The suit lists over a dozen separate incidents that attorney Micha Liberty – who represented both Jane Does – said are ‘confirmed allegations that the Fairmonts were notified of.’
Liberty told DailyMail.com: ‘It’s no surprise that we see multiple allegations of these kinds of horrific abuses when the corporate entity take no real steps to clean up practices and hold folks accountable.
‘It’s not enough to fire one perpetrator. There are cheap and easy fixes but these entities are looking the other way time after time, because they are making money.
‘These hotels have a culture of cover up and abuse. It’s rare to have locations like these two where it’s multiple reports and they just allow the abuse to continue with no real reforms. We know if there is no real accountability they will do it again.’
DailyMail.com contacted Accor Hotel & Resorts for comment.
