We Are Talking to the Survivor Reading This Page
If you are reading this in the days or weeks after an assault at a hotel in Deerfield, in Lake County, Illinois, you do not have to sort out what comes next on your own. You also do not have to wait for the criminal case to finish before you talk to a civil lawyer. The criminal prosecution against your attacker — the man now sentenced to natural life in the Illinois Department of Corrections — and the civil case against the property that housed the attack are two separate fights, with two separate clocks, run by two separate sets of rules. We handle the second one.
You may be afraid of what a civil case costs. You may be afraid that no one will believe you. You may not have told anyone yet beyond the people you had to. All of that is normal. What we want you to know before we say anything else is this: the law in Illinois gives you real tools, real time, and a real right to hold the place where this happened accountable — and our firm exists to use those tools for people exactly in your position. A free consultation costs you nothing, and we do not get paid unless we recover for you. The number to reach us is 1-888-ATTY-911.
What Happened at the Deerfield Hotel — and What It Means for Your Civil Case
In May 2024, a 44-year-old man named Chris Butler committed two felony counts of criminal sexual assault against a survivor at a commercial hotel in Deerfield, Illinois. The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case to a bench verdict in April 2025. Butler had a prior 2007 Cook County sex offense conviction, and that predicate made the sentence mandatory: natural life in prison, with no possibility of parole. That sentence was imposed in 2025. Butler fled to Champaign after the assault and was located and taken into custody there.
For our purposes — for the survivor reading this page — the criminal verdict and sentence establish two facts we use in the civil case:
“Witnesses reported seeing the attack.”
That sentence is short, and it is the single most important sentence in this case. It is the foundation of every negligent-security argument we will make against the hotel.
When witnesses saw the attack and the property’s staff either did not, or did nothing, the law of Illinois treats the property’s failure as a breach of the duty it owed to the survivor as a guest. The criminal case proves what happened. The civil case asks why a hotel full of staff, with cameras and key-card logs and housekeeping rounds and a front desk, let it happen anyway.
Why the Hotel — Not Just the Attacker — Is on the Hook in Illinois
Chris Butler is in prison for the rest of his life. He will not pay a civil judgment. The prison sentence does not pay the survivor’s therapy bills, her lost wages, or the lifetime cost of the post-traumatic stress that follows an attack like this. That recovery has to come from somewhere — and in negligent-security law, it comes from the property that let the danger in.
Illinois recognizes what courts call “foreseeable third-party criminal conduct.” A hotel that invites the public in for money owes its guests a duty of reasonable care. That duty includes protecting them against criminal attacks that the hotel knew about, or should have known about, or that were so foreseeable that a reasonable hotel operator would have done something to prevent them. The legal theory is not that the hotel “caused” the assault. The legal theory is that the hotel failed to do the things a hotel is supposed to do to keep its guests safe, and that failure is what gave the attacker the opportunity.
We sue four categories of defendants in a case like this:
- The hotel property itself — the Deerfield hotel where the assault occurred. This is the named-defendant premises defendant.
- The hotel management company — the entity that actually runs the day-to-day operations. The property may be owned by one LLC, operated by a separate management company, and franchised or branded by a third. Each is a separate pocket.
- A franchisor or brand entity — if the hotel flies a national flag, the brand on the sign can be a defendant in the right case, depending on how much control the brand exercises over how the property is actually run.
- A third-party security contractor — if the hotel hired an outside company for patrol, monitoring, or response, that contractor is its own potential defendant for what its people failed to do.
The criminal case does not name any of these defendants. That is normal — criminal cases name the person who committed the crime. Our civil case names the entities that profited from the room and failed to keep it safe.
The Legal Theories We Plead Against the Hotel
We do not file a case on a single theory and hope. We file on every available theory, because each one targets a different weakness in the hotel’s defense.
Negligent Security
This is the spine. The hotel owed the survivor a duty of reasonable care. It breached that duty by failing to provide adequate security measures — lighting, cameras, locks, key-card integrity, staffed front desk, trained security personnel, surveillance protocols — that would have prevented or interrupted the attack. The assault was a foreseeable result of those failures. Witnesses reported seeing the attack. If a witness in a hallway or an adjacent room saw it and hotel staff did not, or staff saw it and failed to act, that is the breach made concrete.
Premises Liability
Illinois premises law imposes a duty on a business invitor to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition. A hotel that knows its guests are vulnerable to sexual predation by third parties — which the entire hospitality industry knows — and fails to take reasonable protective measures is breaching that duty. The failure can be a bad lock, a broken camera, an unstaffed desk at a known danger hour, or a missing background check on a vendor with master-key access.
Negligent Hiring, Retention, and Supervision
If hotel staff, contractors, or vendors with property access were not properly vetted, or if a prior history of complaints was ignored, the hotel can be directly liable for its own hiring and supervision failures — separate and apart from any vicarious liability for an employee’s conduct.
Dram Shop
If alcohol was served at the hotel bar to the point of intoxication under circumstances that created a foreseeable risk to guests, Illinois dram-shop law (235 ILCS 5/6-21) can support a separate claim. We evaluate this on a case-by-case basis; it applies only where the facts support it.
Negligent Intervention
If hotel staff knew or should have known an assault was in progress — and again, witnesses saw it — and failed to call 911, intervene, lock down the area, or summon help, the property can be liable for the negligent failure to act in the face of an unfolding emergency.
Illinois Law That Governs Your Case
We build every Illinois case on Illinois law. Here is what the statutes and the courts give us, in plain language.
The statute of limitations in Illinois for a personal-injury case is two years. That clock runs from the date the cause of action accrues. But Illinois treats sexual abuse differently. Under 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2, victims of sexual abuse have extended time periods to bring their claims. The exact accrual trigger and the exact length depend on specific circumstances, and we analyze that question on a case-by-case basis. The general rule that matters for a reader on this page is this: do not assume you are too late. A survivor who thinks the door has closed often has years still on the clock under the special provisions that apply to sexual abuse.
Comparative fault in Illinois follows a modified rule under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116. The hotel will argue that the survivor “should have done something differently.” In Illinois, that argument does not automatically erase recovery the way it can in some contributory-fault states. We expect it, we prepare for it, and we have answers for it. The criminal verdict against Butler is a powerful answer to the suggestion that anyone other than the attacker bears responsibility for the assault itself.
Venue in Lake County. The civil case will be filed in Lake County — the same county where the criminal case was prosecuted and where the hotel sits. That matters because Lake County juries have shown repeatedly that they will return substantial verdicts in cases involving egregious institutional failure or violent crime. The criminal case here was prosecuted to a bench verdict; a civil case in Lake County is tried to a jury of the survivor’s neighbors.
A survivor does not lose the right to sue the hotel just because the attacker is in prison. Two cases. Two defendants. Two forums. One set of facts.
The Evidence That Decides the Case — and How Fast It Dies
The proof in a negligent-security hotel case lives in records the hotel itself controls. Every one of those records has a clock. The fastest-dying record in this whole file is hotel surveillance video. By industry practice, that video records over itself on a rolling loop — commonly within about thirty days, sometimes faster. We have seen hotels that overwrite in a week. The key-card logs, guest folios, and housekeeping records that prove the hotel staff saw the same pattern day after day before the attack also cycle on the hotel’s retention schedule, which can be as short as months.
The witnesses who saw the attack are the survivor’s most powerful evidence. Witness memory degrades. Witness contact information is lost when people move. The single most important act we perform in the first days after being retained is the preservation letter.
What we send, the day you call us:
- A written litigation-hold letter to the hotel property, the management company, and any third-party security or vendor with relevant records. This letter names every category of record we want preserved — CCTV, key-card logs, guest folios, housekeeping logs, incident reports, employee schedules, and any prior incident history — and warns that destruction after notice supports an adverse-inference instruction at trial.
- A preservation request to the Deerfield Police Department for CAD logs, dispatch audio, the incident report, and any officer body-worn camera footage. Police records are public-record-eligible in Illinois, but they cycle; we lock them down.
- A request to Lake County for any prior 911 calls, calls-for-service, or incident reports tied to the property. Prior incidents are how we prove foreseeability.
- A direct outreach to known witnesses — the people who saw the attack. We want their statements recorded while the memory is fresh and while they know who to contact.
If you have waited weeks or months before calling us, we still send the letter. We just have to move faster and we cannot promise that every record survived. The faster you call, the more of the record we save.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook — and Our Counter-Moves
The hotel does not write you a check. Its commercial general liability carrier does. The adjuster who calls you is working for that carrier, not for the hotel, and the carrier’s playbook is the same playbook used in every negligent-security case in the country. Here is what to expect, in order, and here is what we do about each move.
Play 1: The “just checking in” call that is really a recorded statement. The adjuster calls within days of the incident, sounds sympathetic, and asks you to walk through “what happened” — on a recorded line. The recording is built to be quoted against you later. Every word you say becomes evidence the carrier will use to lock in their version of events before you have spoken to a lawyer. Our counter: Do not give a recorded statement. Not to the hotel, not to its insurer, not to anyone until you have spoken with us. There is no rule that says you must. A polite “I would like to speak with my attorney first” is the only correct answer.
Play 2: The fast check with a release buried in the paperwork. Within weeks — sometimes before you have even gotten out of the first round of medical care — a settlement offer arrives. It looks reasonable. It is usually attached to a release that gives up every claim you have, against every defendant, forever, for every kind of damage. Our counter: We do not let you sign anything until we have read it, and we do not let you sign a release that names only the hotel when the attacker, the management company, the franchisor, and the security contractor may all be in the case. A fast check is almost never a fair check. It is a speed play, and speed is the carrier’s friend, not yours.
Play 3: The “you were partly at fault” letter. The carrier sends a letter claiming the survivor contributed to the assault by, depending on facts, being in the wrong place, drinking, dressing a certain way, not calling the front desk sooner, or any of a dozen other phrasings designed to invite an apology and a self-blame that shrinks the eventual recovery. In Illinois, modified comparative fault under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116 does not erase recovery the way it does in some states, but every percentage point the carrier can pin on you is money taken off the verdict. Our counter: We treat every “comparative fault” letter as a litigation roadmap — it tells us exactly what the carrier is going to argue, which lets us prepare the survivor’s evidence and the proof of the hotel’s failure before depositions start. A survivor should never respond to such a letter in writing without counsel.
A fourth play appears often enough to name: the recorded-statement trap with a “we need more time” delay aimed at the statute. The carrier takes months returning calls, asks for one more recorded statement, one more medical authorization, one more “updated” photograph — and the deadline creeps closer. Our counter: The tolling and preservation letter we send on day one stops that strategy cold.
What Your Case Is Worth
Every case is different. A Lake County jury is not a Cook County jury, and an adult-survivor hotel case is not a wrongful-death case. We will not promise you a number over the phone. What we can tell you, from the work we have done in premises-liability cases like this, is the range the law recognizes.
For a survivor of sexual assault at a hotel in Illinois, with witnesses to the attack and a documented failure by the property to intervene, the realistic value range sits between $750,000 and several million dollars, depending on:
- The severity and duration of the psychological injury — PTSD, major depressive disorder, anxiety, sleep disruption, sexual dysfunction, suicidality
- The economic loss — lost wages, lost earning capacity, the cost of years of therapy and psychiatric care
- The strength of the foreseeability evidence — prior incidents at this property, prior complaints, prior 911 calls
- The clarity of the intervention failure — what staff saw, what they did, and when
- The venue and the jury
The lifetime cost of a serious sexual-assault injury is not theoretical. The CDC has measured it. Lifetime economic burden figures run above $100,000 per survivor in direct medical and productivity costs alone, and that number does not begin to account for the human losses — the grief, the lost relationships, the life rerouted. A Lake County jury knows the difference between the line-item number and the real loss.
We will build your case to its full value. That means a life-care plan for your treatment, a forensic economist for your lost earnings, and a treating-clinician record that puts your injury in black-and-white medical language a jury can credit.
The Medicine: What the Survivor Lives With
Sexual assault is not a single moment. It is a condition. The survivor of an assault at a hotel wakes up inside it, lives inside it, and falls asleep inside it — sometimes for years, sometimes for life. The diagnostic name for the worst version of this condition is post-traumatic stress disorder, and it has a checklist.
The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 lists eight categories of symptoms that must be present, and the survivor’s case must clear every one of them. There is the stressor — the event itself. There is the intrusion — the unwanted memories, nightmares, flashbacks, and the body that still jumps at a sound. There is the avoidance — the streets she will not walk, the doors she will not open alone. There is the negative shift in mood and cognition — the persistent self-blame, the loss of interest in things she used to love. There is the arousal and reactivity shift — the irritability, the hypervigilance, the sleep that will not come. The symptoms must last more than a month. They must cause real impairment in the survivor’s life. They must not be attributable to something else.
The defense will try to argue that the survivor is exaggerating, that the symptoms are pre-existing, that something else caused them. The answer is the medical record built from the moment of the assault forward — the first emergency-room visit, the first therapy intake, the first person she told. All of that is why the first 72 hours matter so much, and why we send the preservation letter the day you call.
There is one more fact about the medicine that we want every survivor on this page to know. In clinical research, more than two-thirds of rape survivors experience what is called tonic immobility during the assault — an involuntary paralysis, a freeze response, in which the body simply cannot move or speak even though no one is physically holding them down. It is not consent. It is not “she didn’t fight back.” It is the biology of terror, and it predicts worse long-term PTSD. If the defense ever tries to weaponize the absence of physical resistance, the medical literature is on the survivor’s side, and we will put that literature in front of the jury.
The First 72 Hours
If you call us today, here is what we do.
Hour one. We listen. We take the facts from you in your words. We do not push. We tell you what the law allows and what it does not. We answer the question that is on your mind right now: whether you have a case.
Hours one through twenty-four. We send the preservation letter to the hotel property, the management company, any third-party security vendor, and the Deerfield Police Department. We lock down CCTV, key-card logs, guest folios, housekeeping records, incident reports, and dispatch records. We contact the witnesses who saw the attack. We open the line to the survivor’s treating providers.
Days one through seven. We file the necessary paperwork to formalize the preservation hold and prepare the record requests. We coordinate with the survivor’s medical and mental-health providers so that the documentation of the injury begins correctly — not for the litigation, but because the documentation is also the proof, and the proof must be built from the first day.
Weeks one through eight. We investigate. We review the hotel’s prior incident history. We pull the Lake County public records. We retain the right expert witnesses. We do not file suit until the case is ready to be filed — we file when filing gives the survivor the strongest position.
Throughout, we do not promise an outcome. We do not promise a number. We do what the work requires, in the order the work requires it, and we tell you what we are doing and why.
Why Attorney911 for This Case
Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — has spent more than twenty-four years fighting for people whose lives were torn apart by someone else’s negligence. Ralph Manginello leads the firm. He has been licensed in Texas since 1998 and has practiced in federal court for more than two decades. Before he was a lawyer he was a journalist, which is part of why his trial work reads the way it does — every fact has to land, every argument has to be built to a verdict, every witness has to be understood before they are questioned. You can read more about Ralph’s background on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña has been with this firm since 2012 and brings a perspective that matters in a case like this one. Before he joined us he spent years on the other side of the table — inside a national insurance-defense firm, working with the same adjusters and the same playbook that will be deployed against the survivor in this case. He knows how Colossus values claims, how IME doctors are chosen, how surveillance is staged, and how delay tactics are scheduled. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients, and he is fluent in Spanish — we run full consultations in Spanish when a family needs to grieve and decide in the language they pray in. You can read more about Lupe’s background on his attorney page.
We do not take every case. We take cases where the law gives us the tools and the facts give us the proof. We run this firm on a contingency fee: 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial, and we never get paid unless we win. The first consultation is free, confidential, and 24/7. You reach a real person at 1-888-ATTY-911, not an answering service. The conversation you have with us costs you nothing but the time it takes to tell us what happened.
We will tell you honestly if we are not the right firm for your case. If we are, we will begin work the same day.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue the hotel even though the attacker is in prison for life?
Yes. The criminal prosecution and the civil case are separate. The criminal case proved who did it. The civil case asks whether the hotel that housed the attack failed in its own duty to protect you. The prison sentence does not pay your therapy bills, your lost wages, or the lifetime cost of your injury. The hotel’s insurance policy does — and the hotel’s failure is what gave us the right to reach that policy.
How long do I have to file in Illinois?
The general personal-injury statute of limitations in Illinois is two years. But Illinois law provides extended time periods for victims of sexual abuse under 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2. The exact length depends on the specific circumstances of your case. The most important thing is not the number — it is that you call us now so we can analyze the clock against your specific facts. Do not assume you are too late.
I did not fight back. Does that hurt my case?
No, and the medical literature is clear. More than two-thirds of rape survivors experience tonic immobility during the assault — an involuntary paralysis, a freeze response, in which the body cannot move or speak even though no one is physically holding them down. It is not consent. It is not weakness. It is the biology of terror, and it predicts worse long-term PTSD. If the defense raises the absence of physical resistance, we have the medical answer for the jury.
What if I do not remember everything?
That is normal and it is not fatal to your case. Trauma scrambles memory in predictable ways — central sensory details (smells, sounds, the attacker’s voice) are often vivid while peripheral details (times, sequences) are impaired. The defense’s “her story changed” argument has a medical answer, and we will put that answer in front of the jury through the treating clinicians and the standard diagnostic instruments.
Will I have to go to court?
Most negligent-security cases settle before trial, because the proof is on paper and the hotel’s insurer knows it. But we prepare every case as if it will be tried to a Lake County jury, because that is the only preparation that gets a fair settlement. If we do go to trial, we will be ready. If we settle, we will only settle on terms you approve, in writing, with full understanding of what you are giving up.
How much does it cost me to hire you?
Nothing up front, and nothing unless we recover. Our fee is a contingency — 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial, and we do not get paid unless we win. The free consultation costs you nothing. The preservation letter costs you nothing. The investigation costs you nothing. You only pay if we deliver a recovery, and the percentage is taken out of that recovery — not billed to you separately.
What about the hotel’s claim that I assumed the risk or was comparatively at fault?
Illinois follows a modified comparative-fault rule under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, and the hotel will absolutely raise it. We expect that argument and we have answers for it. The criminal verdict against the attacker is itself the strongest answer: the person who caused the assault was the attacker, not the survivor. Comparative-fault arguments are also why we build the evidentiary record from day one — every medical visit, every therapy intake, every contemporaneous disclosure to a friend strengthens the survivor’s case and weakens the comparative-fault narrative.
What if the hotel is owned by a separate LLC and operated by a different company?
That is the normal structure, and it is part of why this area of law exists. We name every entity in the chain — the property LLC, the management company, the franchisor or brand, the third-party security vendor — and we pursue each one to the extent the law and the facts allow. The shell game is real, and our job is to see through it.
What if I gave a recorded statement to the hotel’s insurance company already?
It is not fatal. We work with what we have. Recorded statements are routinely used by carriers to lock in early, partial versions of events, and the same statements often contain language that supports the survivor’s case more than the carrier expected. If you have already given a statement, send us a copy. We will tell you honestly what it means and what we can do with it.
How long will the case take?
Every case is different. A straightforward negligent-security case with strong paper proof and a cooperative insurance carrier can resolve in twelve to twenty-four months. A case that has to go through full discovery and trial can run two to four years. We will give you our honest assessment of timing at the consultation, and we will keep you informed at every step.
Will my name be in the news?
The criminal case is already public, and the survivor’s privacy is something we take seriously. Civil cases are public filings, but the survivor’s identity is generally not plastered across media coverage the way the criminal case was. We will talk with you about privacy protections, sealing options where available, and how to handle media inquiries if any come.
What if I am not in Illinois anymore?
Many survivors of crimes that occurred in Illinois live elsewhere now. That does not bar the case. The hotel is in Illinois. The witnesses are likely in Illinois. The records are in Illinois. We work cases for clients nationwide, and we will walk through venue, travel, and remote participation with you at the consultation.
Call Us Tonight, Tomorrow Morning, or Whenever You Are Ready
You do not have to be ready to sue to call us. You do not have to have decided anything. You have to be willing to spend twenty minutes on the phone telling us what happened. That is the cost of finding out whether the law gives you the tools we believe it does.
1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. Confidential. 24/7. Real staff, not a recording.
You can also reach us through our contact page or browse our full practice areas to see the full scope of what we do. If your case involves the kind of psychological injury we have discussed on this page — PTSD, post-traumatic stress after a serious injury — you may also want to read our breakdown on PTSD payouts after a serious accident.
Hablamos Español. Si su familia prefiere hablar en español, podemos hacer la consulta completa, la conversación sobre el caso, y todo el trabajo del caso en español. Lupe Peña, uno de nuestros abogados, es completamente bilingüe. La primera consulta es gratis y confidencial. Llámenos al 1-888-ATTY-911.
