You Are Not What Happened to You. You Are What Comes Next.
If you are reading this in the hours or days after a sexual assault at a hotel in Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky, we are sorry for what was done to you. You are not a case file. You are not a statistic. And the law does not make you carry this alone.
We represent survivors of sexual assault, and we have seen the morning-after fog you are sitting in: the hotel police tape, the strangeness of your own body, the way your mind keeps replaying the room, and the quiet terror of who else has been in that room before you and who will be after. We know the other voice in your head, the one asking whether you should have fought harder, said no more loudly, not had that drink. We know because survivors describe that voice to us, and we tell every single one of them the same thing: what happened to you was not your fault, and the law is built to put the responsibility where it belongs — on the person who attacked you, and on the companies that let it happen.
This page is for Kentucky survivors assaulted at a hotel — and especially for Toyota employees who were sent to Georgetown on a work training trip and assaulted in the room their employer arranged. We are going to walk you through what Kentucky law gives you, who answers for it, what evidence exists and how fast it disappears, what the hotel and corporate insurance machines will try next, and what your case is actually worth. At the end we will tell you exactly how to reach us.
“No action shall be brought in this state for the recovery of damages for an injury to the person, including death resulting therefrom, unless brought within one (1) year after the date the cause of action accrued.”
— Kentucky Revised Statutes § 413.140(1)(a)
That quote is the single most important sentence on this page. Under Kentucky law, you have one year to file a civil claim for damages from a sexual assault. The clock starts when the cause of action accrues. For adult victims, that is generally the date of the assault. For childhood victims, the law applies different rules. A year sounds long until you realize the hotel can erase its video in 30 days, the police evidence lives on its own retention cycle, and the company has lawyers whose job is to make you wait until your window closes. Do not wait.
What Happened at Home 2 Suites, Georgetown — And Why It Is a Civil Case, Not Just a Criminal One
A coworker named Julio Gerardo Gonzalez-Abraca, 36, has been charged in Georgetown with first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy in connection with an incident at the Home 2 Suites in Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky. The criminal case against him began after police cited the affidavit of the survivor — a Toyota employee who had come to Georgetown for work-related training, and who told police that Gonzalez-Abraca was a coworker she had trained, that they were talking in her hotel room, that both had been drinking, and that the assault included being thrown on the bed, having clothes removed, and forced oral sex. She told police she objected. She told police she tried to bite him on the shoulder to get him off her. She told police her mind partially blacked out during the assault. She agreed to his statements during the assault, the citation recited, in an effort to get him to stop, an effort the citation says failed. Gonzalez-Abraca is being held on a $50,000 full cash bond with an ankle monitor, with a court date set.
The criminal case is its own proceeding, with its own rules and its own standard of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) and its own lawyers (the Scott County Commonwealth’s Attorney). We do not handle the criminal case. We handle the civil case — the case that puts money in your pocket for the harm done to you, that names the institutions whose choices put you in that room with that man, and that holds those institutions accountable so the next person does not walk into the same trap.
This is important because the criminal case will not pay your therapy bills, will not fund your lost wages, will not compensate you for the nightmares and the panic attacks and the marriage that strained, and will not name the employer who sent you on the trip or the hotel that welcomed him with a key card. Only the civil case does that. And only the civil case is yours — you control it, you direct it, you decide whether to settle or try it.
Kentucky Law — Your Right to Compensation
Kentucky is a pure comparative fault state under KRS § 411.182. That means your recovery is reduced by your share of fault, but never completely barred — even if a jury assigned you some percentage of fault, you still recover the rest. In a rape case, the defense may attempt to pin a percentage of fault on you (for drinking, for being in the room, for not screaming). Kentucky law does not let them use your conduct to erase the assailant’s liability. We anticipate this and meet it head-on. Kentucky permits punitive damages under KRS § 411.184 upon proof of oppression, fraud, or malice — and a sexual assault in a hotel room, particularly one the hotel could have prevented, supports a punitive claim against both the assailant and any institutional defendant whose conduct rose to that level.
Kentucky recognizes all the common-law torts you need: assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, negligent hiring/retention/supervision/entrustment, negligent security, and premises liability. You may also have a claim under Kentucky’s dram-shop and adult-establishment statutes where third-party furnishing of alcohol contributed.
The single most important number on this page is the one-year statute of limitations under KRS § 413.140(1)(a). That year passes faster than you think. Evidence will die before it runs out. Call us today at 1-888-ATTY-911.
Evidence — What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Disappears
This is the section you read at 2 a.m. and the section that determines whether your case survives. The evidence that wins a sexual-assault case lives on clocks that are all shorter than you expect. The day you call us, the preservation letter goes out. Here is what we move to freeze:
Hotel CCTV footage. The cameras at the front desk, in the elevators, in the hallways, and at the parking lot. Most hotel surveillance systems overwrite on a rolling loop — commonly 30 to 90 days. There is no Kentucky statute that requires a hotel to keep CCTV longer. If we do not send a litigation-hold letter within days, the video may be legally gone. This is the single most time-critical step in any hotel assault case.
Key-card / electronic door-lock logs. Every swipe of your room key and every swipe of his room key, with timestamp, is recorded. These logs prove when he entered your room, how long he stayed, and whether he had access he should not have had. Hotels commonly retain these for weeks to months in active systems and months to years in archive. They die on their own schedule.
Guest folio and reservation records. The hotel’s property-management system records who reserved the room, who paid, how they paid, what was charged to the room (mini-bar, room service, movies), and who checked in alongside whom. This proves the corporate travel arrangement, who else was registered to the room or to the training cohort, and the financial relationship between Toyota, the booking channel, and the property.
Housekeeping and maintenance logs. When housekeeping entered your room (or didn’t), when maintenance was called, and whether the room was serviced during the time the assailant was inside. A “do not disturb” sign hung for 18 hours is a documented red flag. A housekeeping entry with a body-cam-style description (“two towels on floor, alcohol bottles, clothes strewn”) is a verbatim witness statement from a hotel employee who had no idea she was making one.
Police records. The Georgetown Police Department citation, bodycam footage from the responding officers, the 911 audio, the SANE/forensic-exam records (the “rape kit”), the detective’s investigative file, and any prior calls for service at the property. Kentucky’s Open Records Act (KRS § 61.870 et seq.) gives us the right to demand these once a case is open or a records request is filed.
Toyota’s internal records. Toyota’s travel records (who was sent, when, on what booking, paid for by whom). Toyota’s HR files on Gonzalez-Abraca (prior complaints, prior incidents, prior discipline, training records). Toyota’s anti-harassment and travel-safety policies. The communications chain that arranged the training. Whether anyone at Toyota knew of prior red flags about the assailant. We send Toyota a preservation letter the same day we send the hotel one.
The assailant’s records. His phone (texts, call logs, location data, social media). His prior contact with the survivor or other female Toyota employees. Any prior complaints. We move to preserve all of this through both the criminal case (a subpoena or defense request) and the civil case (a preservation demand to him and his counsel).
The survivor’s own contemporaneous records. The first person you told. The first text to your sister. The 911 call. The hospital visit. The first therapy intake. These records pre-date any litigation motive, and they are the most powerful corroboration of your account. Write down, today, while it is fresh, every detail you can — the room number, the date, what he said, what he did, what you said, how you felt, who you called afterward. Memory degrades. Paper survives.
The clock summary. CCTV: 30–90 days. Key-card logs: weeks to months. Folio records: months to years. Police records: years. Toyota HR: years. Your own contemporaneous records: you create them right now. The difference between winning and losing this case is often the difference between getting a preservation letter out in week one and getting it out in month four.
The Medicine — Why Your Injury Is Real, Even When No One Sees It
A spinal cord injury shows on a scan. A fracture shows on an X-ray. Sexual assault usually shows on nothing — and that is the defense’s greatest weapon. We answer it with the medical literature.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a recognized psychiatric diagnosis with eight specific criteria in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5/DSM-5-TR). The diagnosis requires: a stressor, intrusive re-experiencing (nightmares, flashbacks), avoidance, negative alterations in cognition and mood, heightened arousal and reactivity, duration over one month, functional impairment, and exclusion of other causes. A trained clinician — typically a trauma psychiatrist or psychologist — diagnoses you using structured instruments like the CAPS-5 (Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale) or the PCL-5 (PTSD Checklist). The diagnosis is not a feeling; it is a checklist you meet.
Rape is the most psychologically damaging event studied. The landmark National Comorbidity Survey (Kessler et al., 1995) found that of all traumatic events measured, rape carried the highest conditional probability of producing PTSD — for both men and women, roughly half of all rape survivors go on to develop PTSD. That is more than combat exposure, more than motor-vehicle crashes, more than natural disasters. The harm is not a possibility; it is the most predictable outcome in trauma medicine.
The “you froze” issue. The defense’s favorite line is “she didn’t fight.” The clinical literature on tonic immobility answers it. A study of 298 women at a Stockholm rape-crisis clinic (Möller et al., 2017) found that 70% reported significant tonic immobility during the assault and 48% reported extreme tonic immobility. Tonic immobility is an involuntary, brainstem-mediated freeze response — the body physically locks up in response to inescapable threat. The victims who froze went on to develop PTSD at roughly 2.75 times the rate of those who did not, and severe depression at 3.4 times the rate. The freeze is the injury, not the absence of one.
The “she didn’t report right away” issue. Delayed disclosure is the norm in sexual assault, not the exception. Freezing, shame, fear of retaliation, fear of disbelief, fear of being fired from Toyota, fear of being blamed for drinking — these are all documented reasons. The DSM-5 itself recognizes a “delayed expression” specifier: PTSD symptoms can first appear six months or more after the assault. Your delay is not proof of lying. It is the symptom.
The memory question. Trauma scrambles the bookkeeping of memory before it scrambles the horror itself. You may remember the smell of the room and the sound of his voice with brutal clarity, yet struggle to put the night in order or fix the exact time. That is how trauma affects recall. It is not a sign of deception.
We retain trauma psychiatrists and forensic psychologists to evaluate you, document your diagnosis with validated instruments, and explain to a jury in plain English why your suffering is real and measurable. The invisible injury is the injury — and we know how to prove it.
Why Toyota and Hilton Cases Are Different — And Why That Matters for You
Sexual assault by a stranger in a parking garage is one kind of case. Sexual assault by a coworker in an employer-arranged hotel room is a fundamentally different case — and a stronger one.
The Toyota layer. Toyota is a multinational automaker with operations across the country, including Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky in Georgetown — one of the largest Toyota plants outside Japan. The plant sends employees on training trips routinely. When Toyota sends two coworkers to a hotel in a strange city for training, Toyota has a duty under Kentucky common law and under federal employment law to ensure that the environment it places its employees in is free from foreseeable sexual violence. The training trip is the workplace for that trip. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 governs sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination occurring between coworkers, including during off-site business travel. If Toyota knew — or should have known — that Gonzalez-Abraca posed a risk to female coworkers (prior complaints, prior incidents, prior warning signs, prior disciplinary action), and Toyota still placed him on a training trip alongside the very people he was likely to harm, Toyota is itself liable for negligent retention, negligent supervision, and negligent entrustment. If Toyota had a written anti-harassment policy that was not enforced, or a travel-safety protocol that was not followed, those failures are evidence.
We do not need to prove Toyota intended for you to be assaulted. We need to prove Toyota was careless in the people it sent, the supervision it provided, and the trip it arranged. Kentucky law allows the jury to infer that carelessness from the facts.
The Hilton layer. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. is one of the largest hotel companies in the world. Its Home 2 Suites brand is an extended-stay product aimed at the exact demographic that ends up in this kind of case — corporate travelers on multi-day assignments, often traveling alone, often working long hours and returning to a hotel room at unusual times. Hilton and the local franchisee knew or should have known that their guests would be traveling alone, would be vulnerable, and would need functional security (working locks, well-lit parking, staffed front desk, key-card logging, guest verification, incident reporting).
The hotel’s duty runs through every system they operate. Did they screen the assailant’s name against their own internal incident database? Did housekeeping flag anything unusual? Did the front desk note that an unregistered male was going to a female guest’s room? Did maintenance respond to a lock or door malfunction? Did the hotel have written security protocols, and did the staff follow them? Did they have a relationship with the Georgetown Police Department that would have surfaced prior calls for service at the property? Every one of those is a question we answer in discovery, and every one of them is a question the hotel would rather you did not ask.
The Hilton franchisor angle. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. is the franchisor. The local property is owned and operated by a separate franchisee LLC (confirmed through discovery). Hilton controls the brand standards, the reservation system, the loyalty program (Hilton Honors), the training, and the marketing. Under theories of apparent agency and negligent franchising, Hilton can be pulled into the case alongside the franchisee. Hilton presents itself to the public as a single, unified experience — and that presentation is the basis for the legal argument that Hilton owes the duty directly.
The bystander layer. Did anyone else see? Did a housekeeper walk past? Did the front-desk clerk notice an unregistered guest? Did another Toyota employee in the hotel see something and not report it? Each bystander is a witness and a source of evidence, and we interview them early, before memories fade and before hotel management has a chance to coach them.
The Geography — Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky
Georgetown, Kentucky sits along the I-75 corridor between Lexington and Cincinnati, a small city dominated by the presence of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, one of the largest Toyota plants outside Japan. The plant sends employees on training trips as a routine matter, and Georgetown’s extended-stay hotels — Home 2 Suites among them — house those travelers. The city’s identity is industrial: Toyota, Georgetown College, a historic downtown square, and the I-75 traffic that moves people and freight between Michigan and Florida.
For our purposes, three local facts matter. First, Scott County juries in Central Kentucky have shown a willingness to award substantial damages in cases involving gross negligence or intentional harm by corporate-affiliated individuals — a reality that anchors our valuation work and our trial preparation. Second, the courthouse where your case will be tried is the Scott Circuit Court in Georgetown, and the jury that decides what a night in a hotel room cost you will be twelve people from your own community. Third, the distances in Scott County are small, which means depositions, hearings, and trial are accessible without enormous expense — a practical advantage for your case.
If you are not local — if you live in Texas, where Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas is based, or in any other state — we can still represent you. We work with local Kentucky counsel where required, and we appear pro hac vice in Kentucky courts. You do not need to be in Georgetown to have a case in Georgetown.
What Happens in the First 72 Hours — And Why That Window Matters
If you call us today, here is what happens before the sun goes down.
Hour one. We take your call. We listen. We answer the questions you are ready to ask and we do not push past the ones you are not. We explain the one-year Kentucky statute of limitations under KRS § 413.140(1)(a) and the evidence-preservation clocks that are already running. We explain the free consultation, the contingency fee, and the fact that there is no charge unless we win.
Hour three. We send litigation-hold letters to the hotel (the local property and Hilton Worldwide), to Toyota (Motor Manufacturing Texas, Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, and Toyota Motor North America), and to the assailant’s counsel. We name every record category. We set the tone: this is a serious case, evidence must be preserved, and we will move to compel if it is not.
Hour twenty-four. We open a public-records request under KRS § 61.870 to the Georgetown Police Department for the citation, bodycam, and incident report. We open a parallel request for any prior calls for service at the Home 2 Suites property.
Hour forty-eight. We contact the Scott County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office to introduce ourselves and offer coordination. We do not interfere with the criminal case, but we ask that our preservation requests be respected.
Hour seventy-two. You have a written plan in your hands: who we are sending letters to, what evidence we are freezing, what medical and therapy providers we need records from, what your next steps are, and what the realistic timeline looks like. You have a lawyer. You are not alone.
This is not the minimum we can do. This is the standard.
What We Are Not
We are not the prosecutors. The criminal case against the assailant belongs to the Scott County Commonwealth’s Attorney. We do not handle criminal defense for the assailant. We do not handle criminal prosecution. We do not represent the police, the hotel, or Toyota. We represent survivors of sexual assault.
We are not a settlement mill. We do not send form letters and hope for a quick check. We build cases. We take depositions. We try cases when the defense forces it. Our contingency fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if we go to trial — the standard arrangement for serious plaintiff work, and the same whether the case settles on day 30 or verdict on day 30 of trial.
We are not a TV operation. We do not buy billboard ads on I-75 or sponsor the Scott County Fair. We spend our money on investigators, expert witnesses, depositions, and trial preparation, because that is what wins cases.
We are not a national referral service. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC, a Texas-based trial firm that takes cases across the country, including in Kentucky through local counsel where required. We work a case ourselves; we do not hand it off to someone you will never meet.
How to Reach Us — Right Now
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — the call is free, the consultation is free, and the line is answered by a real person 24/7. You can also reach us through our website at attorney911.com/contact/. If you would rather read more before you call, start with our practice areas to see the kind of cases we handle, meet Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña personally, and explore our other guides on what to do after a car accident, how to negotiate a car accident settlement, uninsured and underinsured motorists explained, and what to do if your insurance claim is denied — the same insurance-defense playbook Lupe learned from the inside, now turned against them for you.
If English is not your first language, we serve you fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts entire client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter, and our bilingual staff stands ready to walk you through every step in the language you are most comfortable speaking.
The call is free. The consultation is confidential. There is no fee unless we win. And the day you call, the preservation letter goes out.
You survived what was done to you. Now let us help you build the case that holds the people who did it accountable.
1-888-ATTY-911.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice; the application of Kentucky law to your specific facts requires a confidential consultation with an attorney.