YOUR AD HERE »

New trial against Aspen developer in alleged rape case is denied

Staff Report

A Florida woman who sued Aspen developer Nikos Hecht earlier this year for allegedly raping her in Mexico in 2014 and lost will not get a new trial in the case.

That’s according to U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson, who also ruled Oct. 20 that Suzanna Dailey owes Hecht $45,850 for expenses he incurred defending himself from the allegations.

A jury of five women and two men ruled after just 50 minutes in May that Hecht neither raped nor assaulted Dailey during dinner at a restaurant in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, that included his wife and children and her 90-year-old mother. The jury also found that the sexual encounter between the two of them — witnessed by Dailey’s teenage nephew and a friend — was consensual.



Dailey’s lawyers asked for new trial for various reasons mainly concerning pieces of evidence Jackson refused to allow the jury to consider. Jackson, however, ruled that his decisions concerning the evidence were not erroneous, “or that if there was error, it was of such significance to have likely affected the outcome of the trial,” according to his order.

“I am satisfied that both parties received a fair trial, and accordingly, the motion for a new trial is denied,” Jackson wrote in the order.




Hecht initially asked to be reimbursed for $182,518 in expenses he racked up for the trial. However, Jackson’s clerk knocked it down to less than $46,000, and Jackson upheld that decision.