Family Sues Ritz-Carlton for $750,000 : Law: Guests allege Dana Point hotel failed to protect their valuables and slandered them in burglary incident.

A New Jersey surgeon and his family are suing the Ritz-Carlton Hotels Co. for more than $750,000 in damages stemming from an unsolved burglary at the luxury hotel here last summer.

Dr. Harold Fischer of Short Hills filed the suit in Orange County Superior Court, alleging that the five-star Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel failed to protect their $300,000 in cash and jewelry and slandered him and his family during extensive media coverage of the theft.

The Fischers’ Los Angeles-based attorney, Ronald D. Reynolds, said Thursday that the hotel had described the burglary to reporters as a “rumor,” which he said suggests the Fischers had faked the incident.

“The hotel head of security told someone that they thought the Fischers had set the burglary up,” Reynolds said. “Then the manager referred to it as a rumor, implying it was some sort of trumped-up hoax.”

As they have in the past, hotel officials declined Thursday to comment on the suit, which they said they haven’t seen. However, after the burglary report on Sept. 4, one hotel official referred to it as an “alleged theft.”

The burglary was reported during a nine-day hotel stay to celebrate the Fischers’ 40th wedding anniversary.

Two wall safes in the closets of the Fischers’ two-room suite were broken into and $300,000 worth of jewelry, $13,000 in cash, airline tickets and other personal items were stolen, as well as luggage and clothing from the room, according to police reports.

Lt. Dan Martini of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday the case remains open and extensive work by investigators has failed to produce stolen items or any suspects.

“We have invested well over 200 man-hours and a dozen or more personnel and at this point have developed no leads,” Martini said.

After the theft, according to the lawsuit, the Fischers “were berated, degraded, lied about . . . and held virtual prisoners of the hotel” until they were able to leave Sept. 5.

Judy Rowcliffe, the regional director of public relations for the Atlanta-based Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., declined to comment Thursday, saying the company had not been served with the suit.

But she did deny one claim in the lawsuit that the keys to wall safes in the suites are kept in unlocked rooms accessible to many hotel employees.

The suit says the Fischers’ stay at the hotel was satisfactory until the afternoon of Sept. 4, when the four family members returned from the beach and discovered the burglary.

The hotel’s head of security, Allan Lavigne, and its general manager, John Dravinski, immediately promised the Fischers they would be reimbursed for all their losses, according to the suit.

Later in the day, however, after the Fischers had contacted news reporters, they were allegedly physically restrained from leaving the hotel, their remaining luggage was kept from them and their car was searched without their consent, according to the suit.