After a hotel maid at the Pierre Hotel was allegedly groped by a guest on Sunday evening, she told a manager about the incident. But the manager simply put it in the log book, and didn't contact the police. "It wasn't until the next morning that her supervisor saw the entry and immediately notified authorities, said John Turchiano, spokesman for the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, the union that represents the accuser," according to the Post. Now, the manager has been suspended.
This alleged sexual assault occurred two weeks after former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested for an alleged attack on a maid at the Sofitel in Times Square. In this instance, Egyptian banker Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar is accused of assaulting a maid in his room. The Pierre Hotel said of the delay in contacting the cops, "A procedure for swift reporting is in place, and we are investigating the situation right now for an answer to this question."
The Pierre and the Sofitel have also moved to give their staff panic buttons. New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council president Peter Ward said, "Let everybody in the world traveling to New York know that when they stay in a hotel room, the person cleaning that room is armed with a button that they can immediately press if you're stupid enough to get inappropriate."
Omar, whose lawyer said he was innocent, was arraigned two counts of sexual abuse and one count of forcible touching, with $25,000 bail. He was ordered to turn over his passport. A woman who worked as a maid at the Essex House told the Daily News, "Sometimes you go inside the room and the guest is not properly dressed - either they have on only underwear or they're completely nude. They sometimes say, 'Come in. Come in. It's fine.'"
