Almost four months after a reported attempted rape at Erwin Square Apartments, the victim--a recent Duke graduate--is suing the owners and managers of the complex.
The woman is asking for $10,000 in compensatory damages on the basis that her former landlords verbally represented that the apartments and premises of Erwin Square Apartments were safe and secure, but did not provide such an environment, according to documents from a civil suit filed May 30 in Durham County Superior Court.
"In North Carolina, there's been a series of cases going back several years holding that a landlord has a duty to its tenants to protect their safety," said Robert Glenn, of Glenn, Mills, & Fisher, P.A., who is representing her. "In light of the criminal activity that takes place on Ninth Street and the criminal activity faced by Duke students nowadays, [Erwin Square Apartments] should have done more."
The defendants in the suit declined to comment, pending the trial, which Glenn predicted would take place in about a year and a half.
Glenn instructed his client not to speak to the press. "She is still very traumatized," he said.
The 2002 graduate asserted in the suit that employees of Erwin's management company failed to secure the first floor apartment's windows when she asked them to inspect and secure the apartment in January, after finding the front door ajar and the windows open upon her return from winter break.
Her accused assaulter Sankie Allen Lennon, who has been charged with attempted rape and burglary, allegedly entered the woman's apartment Feb. 7 in the middle of the night through a window.
According to the suit, Lennon threatened for two and a half hours to rape and kill the plaintiff. She called the police, who arrived at the apartment and arrested Lennon, who is currently being held on a $1 million bond.
The compensatory damages are being requested on three counts: for physical and psychological injuries, for breach of contract in not providing a safe environment and for her "constructive eviction" as she moved out of the apartment after the assault but continued to pay her lease.
Since the assault, the operators and managers at Erwin Square Apartments--whose vast majority of tenants are enrolled at Duke, many of whom are also females--have installed flood lights to illuminate the parking lot, made the window screens more secure, employed a police officer for on-site security and started citing people who prop doors open, Glenn said.
Had these precautions been in place in February, Glenn said he thinks his client would not have been assaulted. "I believe this character was looking for an easy place to break into," he added.
Marty Snyder, business manager at the Belmont Apartments, would not comment on the Erwin case, but said that the Belmont's controlled access gate and surveillance cameras were significant selling points for its tenants.
"We cannot guarantee anyone's safety, but we try to do as much as we can to provide a safe environment," Snyder said.
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