Sandals being sued for millions by couple who claim butler molested bride-to-be while she slept

Sandals Resorts is being sued for $30 million by a couple after the butler booked for their dream wedding molested the bride while she slept.

The luxury resort allegedly tried to hush up the incident, offering them a $15,000 refund for their wedding if they signed a non-disclosure agreement, but the pair refused.

Now news of their ordeal two years ago has made headlines around the world after Ahsley Reid, who has been forced to seek treatment for post traumatic stress disorder, and her husband, Jeffrey Pascarella, decided to sue Sandals.

Reid, aged 32, claims she woke in the early hours of the morning of her wedding day at Sandals Bahamas resort to find the butler, Moral Adderley, next to her with his hands down her pants. Pascarella, also 32, was in the bathroom at the time.

Speaking about her ordeal this week, Reid told the New York Post: "Something was prompting me to wake up, something was wrong. As I started to wake myself up, I realised his hands were down my pants and I jumped out of bed.

‘I screamed. He got up, he ran out of the room. I was just kind of disheveled and disoriented. I couldn’t make sense of what just happened. I was in shock."

The groom-to-be ran out of the bathroom and then chased Adderley, who was arrested after the pair gave statements to the resort security and the police.

Sandals claimed they had fired Adderley that night, but the couple said he called their room the following morning to take their breakfast order ‘as if the assault had never happened’.

‘It was surreal. It just didn’t feel like what you grow up imagining your whole life what your wedding would be like," Reid said.

Adderley pleaded guilty to indecent assault a week later after the couple insisted on involving the police despite the resort’s objections, Pascarella claimed.

"Throughout the process, the [resort staff] were just very dismissive," Pascarella told the Post. "They didn’t want us to call the police. I think they were just doing everything they could not to escalate this and just move on."

Reid was later diagnosed with PTSD and underwent two years’ of therapy.

The couple is suing the resort for failing to provide a ‘memorable experience in the positive way that was promised in their contract’.

"Indeed, Sandals by their negligence, lack of diligence, and blatant failures, ensured that plaintiffs wedding package shall live vividly, if unpleasantly, in their memories for the rest of their lives," the lawsuit says.

The suit also claims that the ‘negligence, indifference, carelessness, and failure of the defendant in, amongst other things, hiring, and training its personnel’, the couple’s ‘entire dream wedding was ruined, rendered a calamity, a disaster’, and ’caused pain, suffering hurt, and humiliation’ that caused to the bride to be ‘rendered sick, sore, and disabled, filled constantly with fear, apprehension, suspicion, and disquiet’.

A Sandals spokeswoman said in a statement: "There is nothing more important than the safety and security of our guests, and we take allegations of criminal assault at our resorts seriously.

"We have worked tirelessly over decades to create a safe and enjoyable environment at our resorts, and our efforts include collaborating with various government and law enforcement resources to ensure we are among the safest resorts operating in the Caribbean."
 

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