6-year-old boy raped by airline employee at hotel room after 'willful negligence' made him miss Florida flight
The father of a six-year-old boy who suffered "traumatic injuries" after he was raped by an airline employee while he was flying alone from Brazil to Florida is suing the airline for their "willful misconduct".
The federal lawsuit, which was filed on Monday, February 17, in Florida's Middle District, has accused LATAM Airlines of negligently training its employees and failing to properly supervise the young boy during the international flight in May 2018, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The suit states that the boy had been left with a folder full of identifying documents, including his Brazilian and American passports, hanging around his neck so LATAM staff could quickly access it and find his connecting flight information.
However, during the flight from Belo Horizonte, where the boy left his mother, to Sao Paolo, where he was supposed to hop on to the connecting flight to Florida, an attendant removed the folder from around his neck and placed it into his backpack.
Another employee who then took the boy to his connecting flight could not find the documents, resulting in him missing his flight because the Brazilian police did not allow him to get on the plane.
While the documents were later found in the backpack, the suit claims LATAM employees "unilaterally decided" to keep the boy at one of its hotels overnight and that the six-year-old then spent 15 hours in a room "with just one employee at a time".
During this period, one of the employees allegedly raped him, with a lawyer for Morgan & Morgan, the firm representing the victim's father, pointing out that LATAM "knew, or should have known, that if left unsupervised, its employee... would commit rape of a child."
The suit said the boy suffered "traumatic injuries" which were "the result of defendant airline’s willful misconduct or, alternatively, an accident that defendant, LATAM, did not take all necessary measures to avoid."
The lawsuit also argues that the airline, which is based in Chile and offers flights throughout South America as well as intercontinental routes, had a duty to "furnish suitable, proper, and safe means to transport the unaccompanied minor" but did not do so, and is seeking an excess of $75,000 in damages.
A LATAM spokesperson said the company had not yet been served with the lawsuit but that "it takes any allegation of this nature seriously and will fully cooperate with any resulting investigation."
The spokesperson, however, refused to comment on whether the culprit still worked for the airline and that they had "nothing further to add beyond" their statement.