Ex-Hotel Detectives Sue Sultan of Brunei : Bias: Former Beverly Hills Hotel staff members--black, white and Latino--say they were harassed, then fired when they complained about racial discrimination.
Ten former house detectives have taken on the Sultan of Brunei in federal court, saying they were discriminated against on racial grounds and fired from the staff of the Beverly Hills Hotel after complaining about their treatment to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The plaintiffs, including blacks, whites and Latinos, said they were harassed and threatened by the hotel’s former head of security, a Hong Kong Chinese, and eventually replaced, largely with Filipinos.
A lawyer for the world-famous pink hotel, home to movie stars from Spencer Tracy to Elizabeth Taylor and tycoons from Howard Hughes to Norton Simon, denied the charges.
“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found in each and every one of these cases that there was absolutely no evidence of any violation of law and that these allegations were baseless,” said Jay Waks, a New York attorney.
He said the plaintiffs lost their jobs when the hotel management discharged the entire security staff of 20 officers and hired an outside security firm to get ready for a two-year make-over of the hotel. The hotel is scheduled to close for the renovation Dec. 30.
“If the court action parallels the allegations that were previously made, there’s no question that the court will ultimately find in favor of the defendants,” Waks said.
Plans call for an extensive overhaul that will reduce the number of rooms by 14, to 447. The hotel will keep its pink paint and landmark Polo Lounge, but rooms will be larger, columns gone from the banquet rooms, and electrical, plumbing and heating and air conditioning systems updated. (A lawsuit filed by an angry neighbor may yet delay construction, however.)
In addition to the hotel and its former security chief, Steven Hui, who now holds the title of director of loss prevention, other defendants in the fired detectives’ lawsuit include the Brunei Investment Agency and its subsidiary, Sajahtera, Inc., which bought the hotel for $185 million in 1987.
The investment agency is an arm of the government of Brunei, an oil-rich, independent principality on the coast of the South Pacific island of Borneo. It is ruled by Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the world’s richest men.
The plaintiffs are led by Tino Guerrero, 32, a Hollywood resident who worked for the hotel for 3 1/2 years and now is a field supervisor for a security company.
Guerrero said they filed the suit because it was important to speak out “against an individual who was discriminating against blacks and Hispanics,” Guerrero said.
The plaintiffs charge that Hui denied promotions to African-American security guards, disciplined them on false grounds, made racial slurs and denied them high-paying bodyguard work for hotel guests.
He similarly mistreated Latinos and whites who would not go along with Hui’s creation of a hostile and offensive work environment for their African-American colleagues, the lawsuit says.
“If I stood up for an African-American they’d say, ‘It’s none of your business,’ ” Guerrero said in an interview. “To be in his good graces, you had to write little statements about other people. He’d pit Hispanic against black and black against white.”
“(Hui) wasn’t subtle about it,” added Kent Roberson, 42, of Ladera Heights, who worked at the hotel for two years and now is a bodyguard for an entertainment industry executive.
“We had a black supervisor, and me and a few others, and he said they couldn’t trust those minorities,” said Roberson, recalling a racial epithet he said Hui had used.
“The racial slurs were a daily thing,” said Nelson Osorio, 31, of Lancaster, a four-year employee.
Hui declined to comment on the charges beyond saying, “I already told the truth to the EEOC and if the case has been thrown out, that’s all I know.”
The lawsuit charges that the federal agency cleared the hotel after being falsely assured that Hui had been removed from responsibility for security. Less than a week later, the defendants were fired.
In fact, Guerrero said, Hui kept control of hotel security throughout the investigation from behind the scenes.
He also said that hotel management refused to investigate the guards’ complaints about Hui, telling them instead to leave if they were unhappy with their working conditions.
Waks said that Hui was acting as liaison between the security company and the hotel at the time of the EEOC investigation.
He said that Guerrero and his colleagues could not have been fired in retaliation for their complaints, because testimony to the EEOC showed that hotel management openly discussed the possibility of dropping the guards and switching to an outside company as early as November, 1991.
In a brief telephone interview, Hui said he had no responsibility for security because that is being handled by the outside company, International Protocol Group.
Hui said he had no connection with IPG. But a man who answered the phone at IPG’s Pacific Palisades offices identified him as vice president of the firm.
