The Room They Could Not Enter Without Suits
You came to Las Vegas for a few days, a meeting, a show, a flight layover, a birthday. You checked into the Aria on the Strip because the Aria is a five-star property, and a five-star property promises, in every brochure and on every wall, that you are safe inside it. Then a man introduced himself to you as “Sky.” He was pleasant at first. You shared drinks. And then the drinks stopped being optional, or your body stopped being your own, or both, and when you came back to yourself you were in a hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip with blood on the sheets, blood on the floor, blood on the walls — so much blood that the hotel classified the room as a biohazard and locked it down, and your body was no longer yours to control.
We have read the arrest report. We know what was found. We know the charges the Clark County District Attorney filed. We know that the accused had been a registered sex offender for years, with prior convictions in California stretching back two decades, and that a growing number of women have come forward to say he did this to them too. We know that the Aria sits inside the CityCenter complex, that it is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International, the largest casino company in the world, and that MGM has known for years how the Las Vegas Strip hospitality industry is preyed upon by exactly this kind of predator.
If you are reading this page, you are probably one of those women. You may be reading it at 2 a.m. in a hotel room that is not the Aria, or in a bedroom in another state, with a folder of medical records and a knot in your stomach. You have not decided what to do. You may not be sure anyone will believe you. You may not be sure the law is on your side. You may not be sure a Las Vegas lawyer will care about what happened to you in a hotel room, in a place where cameras watch every hallway, where a single room rebooking would have stopped it, where security was on the floor.
We will tell you what is true, and we will tell you what to do next. Free consultation. 1-888-ATTY-911. We have been doing this work for more than two decades.
Who We Hold Accountable: The Map of Defendants in an Aria Sexual Assault Case
A Las Vegas sexual assault case is almost never a case against one person. It is a case against an entire system of decisions that made the assault possible. The architecture looks like this.
The perpetrator. His name is in the arrest report. He is in Clark County custody awaiting trial. He is the source of the violence, the man who introduced himself as “Sky” and then did what a registered sex offender with prior California convictions has done before. We pursue him civilly for everything the law allows. His assets, his future earnings, anything a judgment can reach. He is the first defendant, but he is rarely the last.
The property owner and operator — Aria Resort & Casino, owned by MGM Resorts International. Aria is not a stand-alone building with an independent owner. It is a flagship property of the largest gaming company in the United States. MGM Resorts operates Aria as part of its CityCenter complex on the Las Vegas Strip, and MGM’s corporate infrastructure — its security protocols, its hiring and training programs, its surveillance systems, its incident-response policies, its background-check procedures for vendors, contractors, and high-volume guests — is the system that was supposed to keep you safe. When that system failed, the failure was not an accident. It was a corporate decision, made by people with budgets, oversight, and prior notice that the Las Vegas Strip hospitality industry is targeted by exactly this kind of predator. A prior registered sex offender on a known pattern should not have been able to operate in that space unchecked. We intend to prove he did.
Third-party security contractors. The Aria, like every major Strip resort, contracts portions of its security operation to outside firms. Those contractors have their own liability when their personnel fail to perform the function they were hired to perform. If a third-party security officer was on the floor where the assault occurred, or should have been, and was not — that is a separate defendant with its own insurance tower.
The corporate parent above MGM. Through years of mergers, the corporate family tree above a Las Vegas Strip property can run deep. Identifying the right operating entity, the right holding company, the right insurance tower, and the right corporate family member is not a clerical task. It is the foundation of whether a judgment, when won, can actually be collected. We bring the resources to do this work correctly.
The defendant map does not have to be perfect at intake. We build it as discovery unfolds. But it has to be built, and built early, before the trail gets cold.
What the Defense and Its Insurance Carrier Are Going to Do
The defense playbook in a Las Vegas negligent-security sexual assault case is not improvised. It is a system. We have seen it run on prior cases, and we have beaten it on prior cases. You should know what is coming, so that when it arrives, it does not feel like the world is closing in. It is a script. We have the counter.
Play one: the recorded statement. Within days of the report, someone from the Aria’s insurance carrier or a third-party investigator will call you. They will be warm, sympathetic, professional. They will say they want to understand what happened. They will ask to take a recorded statement “while the details are still fresh.” That statement is engineered to lock you into a version of events before you have had medical care, before you have had legal counsel, and before the psychological weight of what happened has fully registered. The counter: do not give a recorded statement to anyone until you have spoken with us. We will take your statement first, in a private setting, in your own time. The insurance carrier can wait. Your memory cannot be rushed.
Play two: the quick settlement with a release. The insurance carrier may approach you with what looks like a generous offer, often before the criminal case is resolved, attached to a release that forever waives your right to sue. They will frame it as helping you move on. They will pay for some therapy, a small lump sum, and a non-disclosure agreement. The dollar number will be calibrated to feel like enough to a person who has not yet seen the full damages picture. The counter: you cannot know the value of your case in the first weeks after an assault. You do not yet know the cost of the therapy you will need for the next decade. You do not yet know whether you will be able to work. You do not yet know what your PTSD will cost you over a lifetime. A fast settlement is the insurance carrier’s best tool because it cuts off the most expensive years of your recovery. We do not let them use it.
Play three: comparative fault. The defense will look for evidence that you were drinking, that you went willingly to the room, that you did not fight back, that you delayed reporting. Each of those will be raised as a basis to reduce or eliminate your recovery. The counter: Nevada’s comparative-fault rule does not allow the defense to turn consent into fault. Drinking is not consent. Voluntary presence is not consent. Freezing — the body’s automatic survival response to a sexual assault, documented in clinical research in roughly seventy percent of rape survivors — is not consent. And delayed reporting is the norm for sexual assault, not the exception. The defense will try these arguments. They have been tried before. They do not win when properly countered with medical evidence, psychological expert testimony, and the law as it is written.
Play four: blaming the perpetrator alone. MGM’s first move will be to say: the perpetrator is the criminal, not us, you should be suing him, not the hotel. The counter: yes, we are suing him — and we are suing the hotel, because the hotel had the duty, the means, and the prior notice to do exactly what it did not do. A jury in Las Vegas understands this. They have watched the industry operate for decades. They know that a five-star resort has more security resources than a city police department, and that when those resources fail, the failure is corporate, not cosmic.
Play five: surveillance and social media. The insurance carrier will monitor your public social media. They will look for posts, photos, location check-ins, anything that can be used to suggest you were not as injured as you claim. The counter: go silent on social media. Do not post about the case, do not post about the resort, do not post about your recovery. Anything you write can and will be quoted back. We will tell you when it is safe to speak publicly.
The Forensic and Medical Picture: What This Did to Your Body and Your Mind
We are not doctors, and we do not pretend to be. But in a sexual assault case, the medical and psychological evidence is the spine of the damages case. We work with the right specialists — the SANE nurse who documents the physical findings, the trauma psychologist who administers the validated diagnostic instruments, the forensic psychiatrist who can speak to causation, the life-care planner who prices out the lifetime cost of your care. Here is what we want you to understand about the science, so you understand why the case must be built with clinical care and not on a hunch.
The first thing to know is that “mild” and “serious” are not medical categories here. Sexual assault is a medical injury with a diagnosis. The American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual sets out eight criteria for PTSD, and the diagnostic interview is a formal structured procedure. The validated instruments — the CAPS-5, the PCL-5 — are designed to withstand cross-examination by a defense expert. The diagnosis of PTSD following sexual assault is one of the most replicated findings in trauma medicine. It is not controversial. The defense can attack the application of the diagnosis to your specific case, but it cannot attack the diagnosis itself.
The second thing to know is that freezing is the most common response to sexual assault, not fighting back. The clinical research is unambiguous: in studies of sexual assault survivors, roughly seventy percent report significant involuntary immobility during the assault, and roughly half report extreme immobility. This is a brainstem-mediated protective reflex — the body locks up because the body is calculating that fighting will lead to worse injury. The survivor who froze was not consenting. The survivor who froze was the survivor most likely to develop PTSD. This is the medical literature, and we will put it in front of a Nevada jury.
The third thing to know is that delayed disclosure is the norm. The defense will point to the gap between the assault and the moment you first told anyone. They will argue that a real victim reports immediately. The medical and sociological literature says the opposite: most sexual assault survivors delay disclosure for months, years, or even decades. The reasons are well-documented — shame, fear, self-blame, distrust of the system, trauma-induced memory fragmentation, the fact that the survivor often knows the attacker and is navigating the emotional and practical consequences of reporting them. Your timeline is not a defect in your case. It is the predictable, well-documented pattern of how this injury presents.
The fourth thing to know is that the financial cost is large and it is lifelong. We are talking about decades of trauma-focused therapy, decades of psychiatric medication management, decades of missed earning capacity, decades of diminished quality of life. The lifetime economic burden of rape, modeled by CDC researchers using national survey data, has been estimated at over one hundred thousand dollars per survivor in direct costs — and that figure was generated using a methodology that did not include the human losses. When the human losses are added, the figure climbs. We will build the number for your case with the precision it deserves, using the same government data and the same actuarial methodology that the most experienced life-care planners use.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap for a Las Vegas Sexual Assault Survivor
If you have just been assaulted, or if the assault was days or weeks ago, the steps below are the ones that matter most.
Hour 0 to 24: medical care. Get to a Las Vegas-area hospital with a SANE program if you have not already. The SANE exam documents the physical findings with the precision a jury will need. It is also the beginning of your medical and psychological record, and the medical record is the foundation of the damages case. If you have already been examined, save every document — the discharge summary, the lab results, the photographs.
Hour 0 to 48: report. If you have not already reported to LVMPD, do so. The criminal case is the criminal case, and the civil case is the civil case, and the two proceed on parallel tracks. The LVMPD report creates a contemporaneous record that is invaluable in the civil case. The detective assigned to your case is a resource — ask for the case number, ask for the detective’s contact information, and share both with us.
Hour 0 to 7 days: do not speak to the insurance carrier. MGM Resorts and its insurance carrier will move fast. They will call. They will be warm. They will ask for a recorded statement. Refer them to us. Do not give a statement. Do not sign anything. Do not agree to a meeting.
Hour 0 to 7 days: preserve your own evidence. Save every text, every email, every voicemail from the day of the assault forward. Save the names and contact information for every person you told. Save the receipts from the Aria, the bar tabs, the Uber or taxi records from that day. Save the screenshots of any social media or messaging-app contact you had with the perpetrator. Save the clothing you were wearing, unwashed, in a paper bag.
Hour 0 to 7 days: call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. We will listen. We will tell you what we can do, and we will tell you what your options are, and we will never pressure you. If you decide to retain us, the preservation letter goes out the same day.
The Biohazard Room: What the Physical Evidence Already Tells Us
The Clark County arrest report describes a hotel room at the Aria that was classified a biohazard by the property’s own staff. The volume of blood was so substantial that the room could not be cleaned and returned to service by standard housekeeping. That detail is not a tabloid flourish. It is medical evidence.
The volume of blood in a room is a function of the violence inflicted. It is not a function of consent, of drinking, of any of the excuses the defense will offer. It is a function of force. In a sexual assault case, the physical findings — documented in the SANE exam, in the hospital records, in the photographs taken at the scene — are the part of the case that does not require the survivor to re-tell her story to be believed. The biohazard classification is the Aria’s own staff making a contemporaneous professional assessment that what happened in that room was extraordinarily violent.
The biohazard room is the foundation of the physical-evidence case. The SANE exam is the foundation of the medical-evidence case. The LVMPD report is the foundation of the contemporaneous-record case. The perpetrator’s prior registered sex offender status is the foundation of the foreseeability case. The Aria’s failure to screen, monitor, or intervene is the foundation of the negligent-security case. Each of these is a separate strand, and each reinforces the others. We weave them together in the case we present to the jury.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it too late to file a sexual assault case in Las Vegas?
No. Nevada law, under NRS 11.215, gives sexual assault survivors a longer limitations period than most states. The clock generally does not start until you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury and its cause. Many survivors come forward years after the assault, and the law is built to accommodate that reality. We can tell you, after a free consultation, exactly how much time you have under the specific facts of your case.
Can I sue the Aria and MGM Resorts even though I was assaulted by another guest?
Yes. Hotels and casinos in Nevada owe their guests a duty to protect them from foreseeable criminal acts by third parties, and the Aria and MGM Resorts had the security infrastructure, the prior notice of the danger, and the resources to do exactly that. The fact that the perpetrator was a guest does not insulate the property from liability. In many cases, it does the opposite — the property’s decision to allow the perpetrator on the premises is part of the negligent-security case.
What is the difference between suing the perpetrator and suing the hotel?
The two are not mutually exclusive. You can sue both. The perpetrator is the source of the violence, and the civil case against him recovers what his assets can pay. The hotel is the entity that had the duty, the resources, and the prior notice to prevent the assault, and the civil case against the hotel is where the meaningful recovery typically comes from — because the hotel’s insurance tower is the deep pocket, and the hotel’s conduct is what the jury will focus on.
How much is my case worth?
We do not quote a number on a first call. The value of your case depends on the medical damages, the wage loss, the pain and suffering, the punitive damages potential, and the strength of the negligent-security evidence. We will give you our honest assessment once we have the medical records, the damages model, and the discovery in hand. The CDC researchers have estimated the lifetime economic cost of rape at over a hundred thousand dollars per survivor, and Nevada law allows recovery for the human losses on top of that. We will build the number for your case with the precision it deserves.
What evidence should I preserve right now?
The video surveillance at the Aria is the single most important piece of evidence, and it is the most perishable — hotel surveillance is routinely overwritten on a rolling basis. Call us immediately so the preservation letter can go out the same day. Beyond the video, save every text, email, voicemail, social media message, and receipt from the day of the assault forward. Save the names and contact information of every person you told about the assault. Save the SANE exam and hospital records. Save the LVMPD report and case number. Do not wash the clothing you were wearing. Take photographs of any injuries, even if they have healed.
Do I have to face the perpetrator in court?
The civil case is separate from the criminal case. In the civil case, your lawyer handles the courtroom. You may be required to give a deposition — a recorded question-and-answer session under oath — and you may be required to testify at trial. We prepare you for both, and we are in the room with you. The criminal case is handled by the Clark County District Attorney’s office, and the rules about your involvement in that case are different.
What if I was drinking that night?
Drinking is not consent. The legal definition of sexual assault in Nevada is not altered by the presence of alcohol. The defense will try to use alcohol to attack your credibility and to argue comparative fault. We have seen this strategy before, and we know how to counter it. Your consumption of alcohol, even heavy consumption, does not make what was done to you your fault.
What if I didn’t report right away?
Delayed disclosure is the norm for sexual assault, not the exception. The medical and sociological literature is clear on this. The defense will try to use the delay against you; the law and the science are on your side. We have the expert witnesses and the legal arguments to explain to a Nevada jury why a survivor’s timeline is not a defect in the case.
Can I remain anonymous?
We take your privacy seriously. We will not publicize your name, your story, or your case without your consent. Any settlement or verdict can include confidentiality terms. The defense will want a non-disclosure agreement; we will negotiate the terms so that your privacy is protected to the maximum extent consistent with your interests.
What does it cost to hire Attorney911?
Nothing out of pocket. We work on contingency. No fee unless we win. The firm advances the costs of the case. Free consultation. Contact us to schedule a confidential conversation or call 1-888-ATTY-911.
How long will my case take?
The honest answer is that it depends. Some negligent-security sexual assault cases resolve in twelve to eighteen months. Others take three to five years. Cases that go to trial take longer. We will give you our best estimate after we have a full picture of the case. We do not rush settlement, and we do not let the defense run the clock. We move at the pace the case requires.
What if I am not in Las Vegas anymore?
You do not have to be in Las Vegas to bring a case. We handle the Las Vegas litigation, and we communicate with you remotely. We have clients in cases across the country. The Las Vegas venue is determined by where the assault occurred, not where you live now.
The Call That Stops the Clock
The evidence is perishable. The video at the Aria is on a rolling overwrite. The memory of the LVMPD detective is fading. The personnel files of the Aria employees are subject to routine purging. The perpetrator’s prior incident history at other MGM properties is sitting in databases that the company can edit or delete if no one has asked them, in writing, to preserve it.
Every day you wait is a day the defense benefits. Every day you wait is a day the evidence that wins your case gets weaker. The preservation letter goes out the day you retain us. It is not complicated, and it is not expensive, and it is the single most important early act in the entire case.
We are a trial team. Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña have spent their careers fighting for people who were failed by the systems that were supposed to protect them. We know how MGM Resorts defends these cases. We know what the insurance carrier is going to do. We know what a Clark County jury will and will not accept. We know the medical and psychological evidence inside and out. We have the resources to take a case against the largest gaming company in the world to a verdict.
The consultation is free. The call is confidential. The firm advances the costs. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.
Contact Attorney911 now. 1-888-ATTY-911. The clock is already running. Let us stop it for you.
See our full practice areas and how we help survivors of negligent security and sexual assault. Read about Ralph Manginello’s courtroom experience. Read about Lupe Peña’s insurance-defense insider advantage.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.