Sportscaster Erin Andrews has testified against her stalker and the hotel where her nude videos were recorded. The disgraced reporter emotionally expressed how the intruder "ripped" her to pieces when he posted the recordings online.
In a report by CNN, Andrews, a reporter for Fox Sports, took the stand for her $75 million civil trial, which is on its second week. Andrews is suing her stalker and Nashville Marriott hotel over the recordings made via a peephole during her 2008 stay in the establishment.
During her testimony at a court in Nashville, she noted that people accused her that the videos were just public stunts. The videos surfaced in the summer of 2009. She shared that for three months, "everybody thought it was a publicity stunt. That ripped me apart."
She pointed out that she traveled with her father to meet with the FBI to determine which hotel were the videos taken from. While watching the clips, Andrews reportedly left the room to vomit as per the agents' statements, noting this convinced them that she did not stage the recordings.
The case of Andrews states that Nashville Marriott told a man named Michael David Barrett which room she was staying in. Barrett has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison back in 2010 after he admitted checking into hotel rooms next to Andrews on multiple occasions and recording her naked via a peep hole, ABC News reported.
Barrett noted that he took the footage of Andrews because he needed money, NBC News reported. He added that he has recorded around 10 more women but he picked them randomly. However, he picked Andrews because she was popular. He tried to sell the videos to TMZ but they refused so he published it online, mostly in porn websites.
Andrews told her attorney that nobody ever called her when she was at Nashville Marriott and nobody told her that when she checked in that, he asked to be put next to her. She added in her testimony that the recordings could have been stopped if only someone told her about Barrett.
The disgraced reported said her life has drastically changed since the footage has been leaked. She noted that she suffers from depression and sleeplessness, also noting that even when she works as a reporter, some men still frequently taunt her about the videos. According to her, she has been known as the girl with a "hotel scandal" and that the video will forever be on the internet until the day she dies.
The hotels involved, however, claimed that Barrett should be held responsible alone.
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