The Dominican Republic hotel where a Delaware woman said she was beaten and left for dead in January says she demanded $2.2 million in compensation before going public with her story in a May 29 Facebook post that since has gone viral.
Tammy Lawrence-Daley of Wilmington posted a full account of her ordeal to Facebook, writing that a man in a uniform bearing the logo of her Punta Cana hotel, the Majestic Elegance Resort, attacked her and then dragged her into a basement maintenance room where he continued assaulting her badly enough to warrant a five-day hospital stay, according to the Delaware News Journal, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
“I was kicked in the head, I was beaten with a club,” she wrote. “And then strangled again for the kill.” Her post was accompanied by photos showing significant bruises and cuts to her face.
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Lawrence-Daley also accused the staff of her hotel of taking a cavalier attitude toward her case, writing that when her husband and friends asked for help searching for her, a security staffer assured them she was probably “drunk somewhere.”
Majestic Resorts, which operates the hotel in question, offered its own version of events in a two-page Twitter statement Wednesday.
The company says that before going public with her story, Lawrence-Daley “formally demanded a 2.2 million compensation agreement. After receiving no positive response, she disclosed her version of the case, four months after it happened.”
The statement disputed Lawrence-Daley’s timeline, saying that her husband, Christopher Daley, reported her missing at 2:30 a.m., close to three hours after she claims he went to the front desk. It also says that contrary to her claim that it took several requests to spur hotel staff to action, “a few minutes later, a search operation began all throughout the property.”
The hotel said she was eventually found at 6:40 a.m. in a restricted area of the resort.
“She showed bruises on her face and had broken a fingernail, without presenting any other signs of violence on her body,” their statement claimed, noting she was also still “in possession of her purse, cellphone and other belongings.” (Lawrence-Daley has confirmed that she was not robbed during the incident.)
From that moment on, Majestic Resorts said, a staffer was stationed at the hospital “to provide assistance and ensure that her needs were met.”
According to its statement, “Majestic Resorts paid for all hospital expenses and offered Mrs. Lawrence, her husband and her fellow travelers a complimentary extension of their stay at the hotel for all the time necessary to recover and arrange for their departure.”
Once she was released from the hospital, Majestic says “special meals were prepared for her as she had difficulty eating solid food.”
The hotel also says that a U.S. Embassy staffer visited to explain how the Dominican Republic’s legal system works but that Lawrence-Daley “refused to present any legal accusations despite the recommendation of the local authorities.”
Lawrence-Daley has said she testified before flying home but has yet to receive a copy of the police report. In her Facebook post, she noted the hotel’s insurance company had concluded they were not at fault since she could not identify her attacker and that unless she hires a local attorney to pursue the case on the ground, she will run out of legal options in late July.
The hotel’s statement also noted that some investigators believe her story “presents contradictions and confusing facts, casting doubts on her testimony.”
Majestic, which says it is continuing to cooperate with local authorities pending the outcome of their investigation, expressed irritation at U.S. media coverage, which treated Lawrence-Daley’s account as “true and definitive, without listening to the authorities’ version or waiting for a final resolution of the case.”
Last week, police spokesman Col. Frank Durán told the Associated Press that as soon as they learned of the incident, authorities visited Lawrence-Daley in the hospital to interview her. They also collected physical evidence from the resort.
“There is a lot of conjecture about the case, a lot of information that doesn’t match some of the statements,” Durán said, without elaborating on what the discrepancies may be. “We have to wait for the investigation to end.”
Lawrence-Daley did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the USA TODAY Network.
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Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.
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