In a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court this week, a Chicago investment banker is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman during a vacation on the Italian island of Capri last year.
That woman, Sahra Isla, said in the suit that while she and two girlfriends were in Capri on holiday in July of 2018, there was a mixup in their lodging arrangements. Isla said she and one of her friends met Chicagoan Thomas Kane, who offered to let them stay on the sofa-bed in his hotel suite.
Isla indicates in the suit that the first night was uneventful, but that on the second night, after an evening out, she began blacking out after consuming drinks which Kane mixed at the table and "pressured her to consume."
"A wave of exhaustion hit Plaintiff, and she could no longer stand," the lawsuit states. "Plaintiff had never felt this way before."
The suit states that after that, Isla began to black out, "and could only remember flashes of moments from her time at the night club the next day."
Isla’s attorney shared hotel surveillance video which shows Kane entering the hotel carrying Isla on his back. The video shows her attempting to stand near an elevator and leaning heavily on him as they make their way off the elevator to his room.
The following afternoon, the lawsuit states, "plaintiff found herself in Defendant’s bed … Plaintiff was naked and found that her underwear was on the floor. Plaintiff felt sharp pain in her genital, pelvic, and lower abdomen area."
The suit states that Isla was scheduled to fly to Sardinia that day, and reported the incident to police there. Upon arrival at her home in France, she said she saw a doctor who performed an examination and diagnosed her as having contracted chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease.
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"Plaintiff is severely traumatized as the result of Defendant’s act of sexual battery," her attorney wrote. "And she feels paralyzed on a personal and professional level by what happened to her."
Kane’s attorney Andrew Schapiro vehemently disputed the lawsuit’s allegations.
"The video shows that Mr. Kane helped Ms. Isla get back to the hotel where she and her friend had been staying with him," Schapiro said in a statement. "We have documentary and photographic evidence proving that the two had a consensual relationship. The Italian authorities already looked into this matter and declined to pursue it, and we are confident this sorry attempt to tarnish Mr. Kane’s reputation will not get far in court."
Contacted at his New York office, Isla’s attorney Edward Hayes said the Italian authorites had no rape kit, and suggested the video only reinforces his client's story.
"It doesn’t look consensual to me," he said. "She couldn’t even walk!"
Hayes indicated he looked forward to litigating the case.
"It’s hard to get around the video," he said. "That’s why God invented juries!"
