AUBURN HILLS, Mich – Last summer, a woman on a business vacation in Auburn Hills was asleep in her hotel room when a man obtained a copy of her room key and assaulted her at the Sonesta Select. He has been sentenced to up to six decades in prison. On Tuesday, the survivor spoke in court as Joel Delevara, 36, was sentenced to 22 to 60 years in jail.
“This encounter has left me with enduring trauma. “I feel like the person I was – confident, joyful, and trusting – has been taken away,” she added. “I often feel that I don’t want to leave the house.”
A video revealed at the trial from the hotel depicts a group of individuals, including the survivor, assembled for a work conference.
“Working vacations or staying at a hotel will never be the same,” she informed me.
Both Delevara and the woman were members of that group. She then went to her room to sleep, but he remained in the lobby until he got a key to her room from the front desk.
Following the rape, Delevara boarded a plane and flew back to Yuma, Arizona.
“The concerted effort to get into that room is alarming and, quite frankly, scary,” said Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor David Champine. “The really bold move to go to the front desk and ask for a key to another person’s room with no permission, which – the fact that it was given to him is beside the point of what we’re here for right now – but the brazenness of going into someone’s room, sexually assaulting them for nine minutes, and then hightailing it out of the hotel.” This case is very awful.”
Judge Yazmine Poles of Oakland County Circuit Court agreed, ordering Delavara to prison for rape and home invasion on consecutive sentences.
“You asked for the key. You stated that the key belonged to you, that you would go to that room, and that you had authorisation to go there. There isn’t a single piece of evidence proving you have authorisation to go to this woman’s room, but you do,” Poles said.
Todd Flood, an attorney, is defending the women in their complaint against Sonesta Select.
“But for the hotel giving this key to this rapist – this would have never happened,” says Flood. “You just can’t give out a key without checking to see what’s going on and whether or not you have authority to enter that place. It’s a tragedy, and they should also be held liable.
FOX 2 contacted Sonesta for comment but has yet to receive a response. Flood claimed the person who handed him the key had been dismissed.
