THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409220403
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LAS VEGAS LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
The mother of an 18-year-old woman found drunk and partially naked in a Las Vegas Hilton hallway testified Tuesday that the hotel withheld the truth from her about what happened at the 1991 Tailhook convention.
``If I would have known that she had been attacked, that her clothes had been taken off, I would have called the police,'' Paulette Rodgers said. ``I was not informed of anything.''
The testimony came in the second week of the federal trial to decide a lawsuit filed by former Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin, who claims she was sexually grabbed while being forced down a line of drunken military aviators.
Coughlin, who settled with the Tailhook Association, is suing the Las Vegas Hilton and Hilton Hotel Corp. for allegedly failing to provide proper security.
Rodgers testified that Hilton security officers called her shortly before midnight Sept. 7, 1991, asking her to pick up her daughter.
She said she found her daughter crying and sitting in a pool of vomit.
A security officer told her to take her daughter home, but didn't tell her that her daughter's pants and underwear had been removed earlier or that she had been passed over the heads of Navy and Marine aviators, she said.
``The way it was presented to me was they were doing me a favor by not calling Metro (police) because she was underage and had been drinking,'' Rodgers said when asked why she didn't pursue the matter.
After Coughlin came forward with her allegations months later, naval investigators showed Rodgers security reports from that night, detailing the events her daughter had been unable to remember.
KEYWORDS: TAILHOOK U.S. NAVY SEXUAL HARASSMENT
ASSAULT LAWSUIT by CNB