NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – An attorney for sportscaster and TV personality Erin Andrews told a jury Tuesday that Andrews felt horror, shame and humiliation when she discovered that someone had secretly filmed her nude and posted the video on the Internet.
“She was so afraid,” attorney Randall Kinnard said in his opening statement in Andrews’ civil lawsuit against the hotel’s owner, its manager and the man who pleaded guilty to stalking her. Kinnard said Andrews began to ask herself, “‘Who did this? Who could have done this? Where did it happen? Is somebody trying to kill me? Is somebody going to kill me?'”
The FBI later stepped in and discovered that an insurance executive who lived in a Chicago suburb had made the 4 ½-minute recording in the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University.
In 2009, Michael David Barrett pleaded guilty to renting hotel rooms next to Andrews in three cities, altering peepholes and secretly shooting nude videos of her in Nashville and Columbus, Ohio. He rented a hotel room in Milwaukee but was not able to shoot video in that city because he received an emergency phone call, an attorney told jurors. Barrett was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
Andrews filed a $75 million lawsuit against Barrett, West End Hotel Partners, which is the franchise owner of the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University, and Windsor Capital Group, which manages the hotel.