After 11 hours of deliberation, a Dallas jury Thursday night found real estate developer Bill Hutchinson liable for sexual assault of two Jane Doe plaintiffs, while rejecting the claims of a third woman.
The two plaintiffs who prevailed alleged they were raped by Hutchinson. The third plaintiff alleged he groped her.
The jury awarded the prevailing women a combined $860,000 in damages, but the plaintiffs were seeking an award of $79.8 million.
“In some ways it is mixed, but it is still vindication that a jury said we believe he sexually assaults women,” the counsel for the women, Michelle Simpson Tuegel of The Simpson Tuegel Law Firm, said after the verdict was read.
The two-week-long jury trial began June 11. Virgin Hotels was a defendant at the start of the trial, but Judge Bridgett Whitmore granted its motion for a directed verdict Tuesday evening after the defense rested. Hutchinson was previously a minority owner of Virgin, and the hotel was accused in this lawsuit of being negligent and of having knowledge of his behavior toward young women but failing to act.
Before closing arguments Wednesday, counsel made their final objections to the jury charge form.
After spending Tuesday evening working through the jury charge form, the court instructed counsel to have a final form ready Wednesday morning. However, Beth Watkins of Kelly Watkins McPheeters informed the court that the plaintiffs received a “bloody” draft from the defense that morning.
“Well, funny enough, I read the case law yesterday, and that it basically says if you have not provided instructions by the deadline that the court sets, then I do not have to put them in, so we’re not going to put them in,” Judge Whitmore said.
“Your honor, if I may,” Hutchinson’s counsel James Sherry of the McCathern Law Firm said.
“That’s it. That’s the court’s ruling,” Judge Whitmore said.
Judge Whitmore told counsel that she had a problem with their lack of communication with each other.
“As an officer of the court, it is your duty to call up your co-counsel or opposing counsel and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got these problems. Let’s talk it out,’” Judge Whitmore said.
Tuegel called Hutchinson a predator in her closing argument.
“This is a case about a rich and powerful man who preyed on vulnerable women,” Tuegel said.
One woman who alleges Hutchinson raped her met him at a political event at his house in 2017. She claims she developed a relationship with him because she wanted to get into commercial real estate. In 2019, when she was apartment hunting, Hutchinson offered to show her an apartment at Dunhill Apartments, where he kept a corporate apartment. The complex is across the street from the Virgin Hotel. The woman claims that while Hutchinson was showing her the apartment, he removed his clothes and raped her.
After the first alleged rape, the woman had dinner with Hutchinson and a group of people. She claims she woke up the next morning in a room at the Virgin Hotel with Hutchinson. She had a breakdown after the second alleged assault and didn’t leave the hotel room for days.
The jury found the second alleged sexual assault did happen, but not the first.
The woman testified that she did previously have consensual sex with Hutchinson.
Another of the plaintiffs sent a direct message to Hutchinson on Instagram after watching Marrying Millions in 2020. She was a student at Baylor University in Waco at the time. The two began texting, and he sent a car to bring her to Dallas. She claimed she became “extremely intoxicated” during lunch with Hutchinson, who then took her to his nearby apartment, where he allegedly groped her.
The third anonymous plaintiff told jurors she met Hutchinson at the Virgin Hotel, and she was at the hotel’s pool when he told her he would introduce her to some friends in a room upstairs. When she got there, she alleges he raped her.
A few weeks later, she was at the Virgin Hotel pool again when she ran into Hutchinson, and they had dinner together. The woman became so intoxicated that she couldn’t stand. Hutchinson allegedly held her up as he walked her to his apartment across the street, where he raped her.
The jury agreed that both alleged sexual assaults happened.
Tuegel told the jurors that all three women told Hutchinson “no.”
“Stand your ground for these women if you believe that they said ‘no’,” Tuegel said.
She said the women will be carrying what happened to them for decades.
“Because the reality with sexual assault is that it doesn’t just disappear, it doesn’t just evaporate, it’s not gone,” Tuegel said.
Levi McCathern of McCathern Law, who represents Hutchinson, told jurors during closing arguments the case is about money.
“If you can come into a court, sue everybody in the world, make allegations that are completely unsubstantiated, completely uncorroborated, no evidence to support, and be found liable, then none of us are safe,” McCathern said.
McCathern walked the jury through the text messages and testimony of each plaintiff. He showed them that each woman talked to Hutchinson after the alleged assaults and said the women lied.
“If you get bitten by a rattlesnake — like we were always geared up growing up in West Texas — the next time you see a rattlesnake, you stay away from it,” McCathern said.
He noted that the women never went to the police, and he claimed the first person they told was a civil attorney.
“They make the story fit as the facts develop,” McCathern said.
He stressed to the jury that everything that happened between Hutchinson and the three women was consensual.
“Please don’t put your common sense aside,” McCathern said.
The three anonymous plaintiffs sat in the front row of the gallery for Tuegel’s rebuttal.
Tuegel told the jury that the defense had examined everything about the women, from their texts to their hair.
“Sadly, in this country, we still put rape victims on trial,” Tuegel said.
She told the jury that what happened to the women matters.
“Bill Hutchinson is not taking accountability. He is not sorry. He is not changing his behavior,” Tuegel said with emotion in her voice.
McCathern was not at the reading of the verdict and his co-counsel declined to comment.
Morgan McPheeters of Kelly Watkins McPheeters and Maryssa Simpson and Andrew Tuegel of The Simpson Tuegel Law Firm represent the Jane Doe plaintiffs.
Brett Chisum, Daniel Hagood, Alexandra Hunt, Jennifer Falk, Kristin Gilligan and Reagan Rush of McCathern Law and Terri Moore are representing Hutchinson.
The case number is DC-21-08859.