Woman Blames Landlords for Torture

CLAYTON, Mo. (CN) - A woman claims in court that she was raped, sodomized and tortured for 6 hours by an intruder who broke into her apartment through a faulty sliding glass door that her landlord failed to fix.

Jane Doe sued Gundaker Commercial Group, Stratford Commons and affiliates in St. Louis County Court.

She claims she asked the defendants to repair her sliding glass door that opened to a common area before she was brutalized on Aug. 13, 2011, but they failed to do so.

"On or about August 13, 2011, plaintiff's sliding glass door hardware was defective in that it could not be properly secured with the existing locking hardware on place on the door," the complaint states.

"Defendant's agents did not provide plaintiff with any secondary locking devices for her sliding glass door prior to August 13, 2011.

"Plaintiff was prohibited from adding any locks (including secondary locking devices for the sliding glass door) to any door to her apartment without the defendants' express prior permission." (Parentheses in complaint.)

Doe says her attacker entered her apartment by simply pulling open her locked sliding glass door. She claims the defendants had experienced numerous break-ins and violent crimes on the property in the 5 years before to the attack, but still didn't fix her door.

Doe seeks actual and punitive damages for premises liability. She is represented by Joseph Taylor with Taylor & Taylor and Steven Gelfman with Hoffman & Gelfman, both in St. Louis.

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