TINLEY PARK, Ill. (WLS) — A civil lawsuit has been filed alleging that concert venues hold a duty to safeguard minors who purchase tickets to their events.
The legal action targets Live Nation, the owner of the Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, asserting that the company failed to protect a teenage girl from a sexual assault allegedly carried out by an 18-year-old college student.
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With a capacity to host approximately 28,000 attendees, the Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre was bustling with fans during the July concert featuring Wiz Khalifa and Sean Paul.
Molly Wells, the attorney representing the 16-year-old victim, claims that her client was sexually assaulted by the college student in a restricted section of the venue.
“This ordeal has been extraordinarily difficult for her,” Wells stated. “It’s an irrevocable, life-altering event that she will carry with her indefinitely.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the girl and her family, accuses Live Nation of negligence. The claims include a lack of sufficient security measures to prevent predatory actions, inadequate monitoring or restriction of access to the area where the alleged incident occurred, and failure to stop the serving of alcohol to minors.
According to the lawsuit, the mother of a friend who was with the 16-year-old girl at the show bought alcohol for the alleged victim. However, that mother is not named in the suit.
“We’re here to talk about what Live Nation didn’t do, what they failed to do, and what they should have done,” Wells said.
Roman Basso, of Frankfurt, was indicted in February on charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault. He was a student at Arizona State University.
According to their attorney, the victim and her family are withholding their identities to protect their privacy. Through their attorney, they say they are trying to protect other young concertgoers as the summer concert season ramps up. Their attorney claims Live Nation has a history of alleged security lapses which have led to numerous incidents of violence at concerts.
“I would say to parents that they should know when they are sending their children to a concert, that venue should be doing everything possible to keep their kids safe,” Wells said.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Live Nation released a statement, saying, “The safety and security of our guests is our top priority. We cooperated fully with law enforcement regarding this case. As this matter involves ongoing litigation, we do not have anything further to share at this time.”
Todd S. Pugh, an attorney representing Basso, issued a statement, saying, in part, “My client is an eighteen-year-old young man whose reputation has been recklessly attacked at a press conference held with no apparent investigation and in plain contradiction of the venue’s own surveillance video… We do not normally respond publicly to pending matters. But when counsel chooses to try a case through press conference using statements that the video and the Plaintiff’s own police report show to be false, silence is not an option. Every news organization handed these allegations should obtain and review the venue’s surveillance footage before repeating a single one of them.”
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