Stripper sues Booby Trap, claims bouncer raped her
Miami FL Sept 7 2019 A former dancer at the Pompano Beach-based Booby Trap strip club chain claims in a federal lawsuit that a bouncer raped her after she was coerced into working 17 hours and consume alcohol purchased by patrons.
“It’s common knowledge that women in these situations can be assaulted, sexually or physically,” said the woman’s attorney, Kelly O’Connell of the Miami-based law firm Derek Smith Law Group Inc., in an interview Wednesday. “That imposes an increased burden on [strip club] employers to make sure the women are protected.”
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 31 in U.S. District Court in Miami.
The Booby Trap’s owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the suit left with its registered agent, Boca Raton-based attorney Thomas U. Graner. A long list of corporate entities, all “doing business as” The Booby Trap, are listed as defendants.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 31 in U.S. District Court in Miami.
The Booby Trap’s owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the suit left with its registered agent, Boca Raton-based attorney Thomas U. Graner. A long list of corporate entities, all “doing business as” The Booby Trap, are listed as defendants.
The dancer, who is married, has a child and was named Jane Doe in the suit to protect her identity, said managers required her to work two back-to-back shifts between noon and 5 a.m. on Oct. 25, 2017, at the company’s Miami location, Booby Trap on the River.
She consumed drinks purchased by patrons during her first shift because it was encouraged by the club to entice customers to “spend more money, helped loosen up employees so they could perform better, and drinking helped add to the atmosphere of the gentlemen’s club,” the suit states.
After finishing her first shift at 10 p.m., she changed into her non-work clothes and requested an Uber ride so she could pick up her daughter, the suit states. But her manager, identified as “Able,” told her she needed to work a second shift and would not be allowed to come back if she left.
The woman “begged Able to let her leave as planned, stating she needed to leave because her shift had already ended, she was exhausted, and she did not feel safe working if she had to continue working a second shift and have to drink more,” the suit states.
After she finished her second shift at 5 a.m., Able and her “house mom” allowed her to go home. She offered a bouncer identified in the suit as “Soli” $20 to take her to her Miami Beach home. Violating the club’s policy forbidding bouncers from driving dancers home, Soli agreed to her request, the suit states.
She exited the club “with the knowledge of her supervisors and with her supervisors knowing [she] was intoxicated as a result of working the back to back shifts,” the suit states.
As she was “resting” in Soli’s vehicle, she did not notice that Soli did not take her 15 minutes away to Miami Beach, but instead drove about an hour away to a “cheap motel” in Homestead “where he raped her against her will.”
The bouncer drove her to a gas station and left her, the suit states. She ended up hiring an Uber driver to get back to her home, O’Connell said.
The dancer doesn’t remember much about the rape — “a combination of drinking during those two shifts, not eating and extreme exhaustion,” O’Connell said. “She just remembered waking up to him being on top of her and trying to push him off.”
The woman decided not to return to the club after she told managers about the rape and they failed to assure she would be protected, the suit states. O’Connell said a couple weeks went by before she phoned the police to report the rape “but the police did not make her feel that comfortable” and wouldn’t take her report by phone. Because she didn’t want her husband to find out about the rape, she didn’t ask him to drive her to the police station, and so no official police report was filed, O’Connell said.
“For people who will say she had this coming because she was a dancer, that’s medieval thinking,” the attorney added. “My client did not give consent.”
Jane Doe is seeking more than $15,000 plus interest, attorneys fees and costs for injuries the suit says stems from sex/gender discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual battery, sexual assault, false imprisonment, emotional distress, hostile work environment, retaliation, negligence, and other claimed violations of state and federal laws.
The Booby Trap clubs have been subject of numerous state and federal lawsuits claiming violations of workplace protections.
In 2016, the clubs’ owners agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle a class action suit accusing the business of, among other violations, requiring dancers to pay “house fees” or “bar fees” to work shifts, pay “disc jockey fees” and a percentage of their gratuities to the managers after their shift, fining dancers who failed to show up for shifts, and classifying dancers as independent contractors to avoid paying wages and overtime.
