While we wait for Greta, did everyone see the following article?? I didn't know if it was posted and discussed and I missed it or what. Red might want to put it on front page as yet another example of how much care we must take these days travelling abroad:
Copyright 2006 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The New York Post
June 22, 2006 Thursday
All Editions; Pg. 5
546 words
CARIBBEAN NIGHT OF TERROR - GANG ROBBED & BEAT N.Y. COUPLE WITH HELP OF RESORT SECURITY GUARD
TODD VENEZIA and PAUL THARP
A luxurious Caribbean getaway turned into an ordeal from hell for a beautiful New York real-estate broker, who claimed she was held down, sprayed with chemicals and brutalized by group of robbers inside her $1,000-a-night hotel room.
Janis Aurichio said that her male companion was also tormented by the gun-toting goons - who beat him and laughed as they threatened to blow his brains out.
"Right after they get to their room, five males show up," Aurichio's lawyer, David Jaroslawicz, told The Post. "They pointed a gun at him and put a pillow case over this head and said 'We don't want to splatter your head and ruin the room.' "
The woman claims in a $10 million suit that the attack was the ultimate betrayal because the attackers were helped by one of the security guards at the posh Amanyara Hotel in the western section of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
And in a final slap, the hotel whisked the couple off the island because they feared negative publicity would lead to a drop in tourism, Jaroslawicz said.
"When the hotel found out this happened, they chartered a plane and got them off the island," he said. "The last thing they wanted is another Natalee Holloway on their island," he said, referring the case of the young American who went missing in Aruba last year.
The suit claims the horror occurred on the night of April 25 and 26, as the thieves held the couple at gunpoint for between 30 and 45 minutes - poking Aurichio with their weapons and beating her friend, Andrew Schwartz.
As the couple shook in fear and turquoise waves crashed outside their hotel window, the cruel crooks tried to blind them with caustic chemicals.
"She pleaded for her life and begged them not to kidnap and poison her," Aurichio's suit says.
They rummaged through the room for what seemed like forever, and eventually made off with Aurichio's jewelry, Jaroslawicz said.
"It was a tough experience and it wasn't what you see in the travel posters," the lawyer said.
After the attack, the couple made their report to police and were flown out of the resort.
Five men were arrested last month and charged in the attack, according to a local press report. Among them was a hotel guard, who was accused of letting the men into the resort and facilitating their entry into the couple's room.
The residential broker and New Jersey native is a former sports-marketing rep who entered the real-estate field in the tough times immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.
She still managed to work hard and "carve a new niche . . . in the over-$1 million [home price] range," according to her bio on the Web site of Citi Habitats, the company where she works.
In her suit, she claims the hotel and its parent company, Amanresorts, failed to warn her that the Turks and Caicos Islands are rife with crime and that they failed to police their own staff to weed out criminals.
Aurichio has filed suit in New York because she is a resident here and the resort company keeps offices here.
A hotel spokeswoman said she could not comment on the suit. A lawyer representing the hotel's insurance company declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
The suit claims that the company - and the authorities on the Turks and Caicos - do not tell tourists of the crime on the island.
VACATION FROM HELL: Janis Aurichio says she was savagely beaten and robbed at the tony Amanyara Hotel (above) in Turks and Caicos. [Eduardo Patino]
June 22, 2006
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