El Hefe says staff threatened over sex assault lawsuit

Lawyers for a River North bar say staff members have been on the receiving end of multiple threats since a lawsuit was filed last year alleging the bar, effectively, allowed a woman to be drugged and sexually assaulted.

“Numerous employees have been subjected to a myriad of unsafe and unsettling actions in person, by telephone and through social media,” James Hoey, an attorney for El Hefe, said in a court filing last week. “These actions include, but are not limited to, people showing up at El Hefe only to make threats to staff, threats of violence, harm, retribution, and even death threats via social media.”

El Hefe is being sued by a woman who alleges she was drugged while at the bar last year. Within an hour of her arrival, staff at El Hefe — who said the woman became “overly intoxicated” — led her out the back door into the alley, where she was sexually assaulted.

It is still unknown who committed the assault, and it remains unclear which staff member at El Hefe called 911 to report the attack.

The woman’s attorney, John Chwarzynski, said the call wasn’t made until 10 minutes after the attack occurred. Surveillance footage from a neighboring business shows two El Hefe employees standing in the alley, about 100 feet away from the victim, while she is assaulted.

The woman, who had just seen a show at the Chicago Theatre and was only in town for a visit, was found unconscious and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to her attorneys.

Cook County Judge Brendan O’Brien on Wednesday entered a protective order that will allow El Hefe to turn over sealed records showing the cellphone activity of bar employees three hours before and after the 911 call was placed.

Last month, El Hefe’s lawyers argued the woman could not be awarded any damages because she “was more than 50 percent of the proximate cause of the injury.”

The next hearing in the case is Feb. 19.

El Hefe faces a second lawsuitfrom another woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted after someone in the bar drugged her drink. She went on to claim the bar’s staff was complicit in her attack.