USC Ordered to Pay Rape Victim $1.62 Million

A Superior Court jury, finding USC negligent in its security provisions, has awarded $1.62 million to a former student who was raped outside an off-campus dormitory.

After the January, 1989, assault, the woman claimed that the university failed to protect her and concealed the potential dangers of living at the dormitory at 851 S. Grand Ave. in downtown Los Angeles.

The jury issued its award for compensatory damages Tuesday after a 4 1/2-week trial before Judge David A. Workman. The panel deliberated Wednesday on whether to consider punitive damages but reached no decision.

The rapist, who attacked the woman at knifepoint, was not a university student or staff member and has been convicted of the crime, according to the victim’s attorney, Natasha Roit.

The jury found that the university fraudulently concealed information from the victim when she agreed to live at the dormitory, called Embassy Residential College. “They enticed students to live at that facility by not revealing the dangerous area,” Roit said. University brochures about the dormitory described “all the facilities they could walk to,” she added, but failed to mention local crime statistics. Before going to USC to study music, the victim lived in a small town in Washington and had no knowledge of Los Angeles neighborhoods, Roit said.

The victim left USC after the rape and has not returned to school, the attorney said.

Addressing the jury Wednesday, Garrin J. Shaw, attorney for USC, said the brochures clearly stated that the dormitory is located downtown and that crime statistics are public record. “We know these statistics are available at the public library,” he said.

USC officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

At least two cases involving students who have alleged they were raped in USC fraternity houses are pending. One woman, who alleges she was raped by another student at Beta Theta Pi fraternity in November, 1990, claims that USC and the fraternity were negligent.

The other case involves a student who said she was the victim of a date rape at the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity in 1989.