Victim of alleged rape says Primm is delaying payments

Grace Leong

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2000 | 11:30 a.m.

A Florida woman who said she was abducted and raped while employed on the luxury yacht M/V Primadonna has accused its owner of delaying payments for her medical expenses and wages.

The defendants in the case are the Gary E. Primm Family Trust and Gary Primm, though Gary Primm denies he owned the yacht.

Gary Primm was the chairman and chief executive of Primadonna Resorts Inc. until it was sold to MGM Grand Inc. last year. Primadonna owned three hotel-casinos at a complex in Primm at the California-Nevada border on I-15, as well as a 50 percent stake in the New York-New York hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

In a federal lawsuit filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe in July against Primm and Primadonna Resorts Inc., the woman, who was working as a chef, said that in February 1999 she was abducted near the yacht while in port at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and driven by three unknown assailants to a remote desert location, where she said she was raped and battered.

She said she was abandoned at an airport in Mexico in late February without money and assistance, medical care or treatment after Primadonna cancelled her airline ticket for her return to the United States for medical treatment shortly after the assault.

Primadonna had cancelled her airline ticket because she didn't return to the vessel to resume her work obligations for Primm and his family, the suit said.

In a response filed Jan. 18 opposing the defendants' Sep. 30 motion to dismiss the suit, the plaintiff alleged payments of some of her expenses finally arrived after she hired an attorney for her case, but the payments were allegedly late and many were allegedly incomplete.

The plaintiff alleged in her response she hasn't been paid wages now totalling $34,000 for more than 10 months and the defendants are still allegedly refusing to pay her psychotherapy and medical expenses and had allegedly arbitrarily underpaid her living expenses. The defendants said in their Sep. 30 motion the plaintiff has been reimbursed most of her medical expenses and maintenance allowances, and attributed delays in some payments to her failure to furnish proper documents to support her claims.

Rosanne Williams, an insurance officer at ACE USA -- formerly known as CIGNA Insurance Co. -- the yacht's insurer, said in an Oct. 27 affidavit the insurance company began to reimburse the plaintiff's maintenance and medical expenses starting in late March 1999.

The defendants denied responsibility for her injuries in their motion because she was allegedly raped while "pursuing her own recreation (i.e. night-club hopping)," outside the vessel, and the defendants weren't present when the assault occurred.

"Essentially we believe that the complaint filed by the plaintiff in this case doesn't have any merit and we expect to prevail at the time of trial," said Primm's attorney, Salvatore Gugino. "We also feel that Mr. Primm has been wrongfully impugned by the accusations contained in the complaint."

Primm said in his Oct. 27 affidavit he had been improperly named in the lawsuit because he isn't the owner of the yacht.