Flamingo Casino Housekeeper Attacked, Suspect Faces Sexual Assault Charges

Posted on: March 2, 2021, 05:08h. 

Last updated on: March 2, 2021, 05:22h.

Larry Henry Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Gaming Business, Legislation, Politics, Regulation.

A 20-year-old man accused of choking and attempting to sexually assault a housekeeper at a Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino is set to appear in court on Wednesday, authorities said.

Flamingo Las Vegas
The neon sign at the Flamingo hotel-casino lights up the Las Vegas Strip. Police said a housekeeper at the resort was assaulted in January. (Image: Reno Gazette-Journal)

Michael Douglas faces charges of attempted sexual assault with a deadly weapon, battery to commit sexual assault, and more in the Jan. 31 incident at the Flamingo Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

Douglas was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Feb. 19. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department recently released the arrest report. 

The housekeeper told police Douglas approached her at a room she was cleaning on the 17th floor. He said he was drunk and needed help finding his room, according to the newspaper. At first the housekeeper said she was too busy to help. When he wouldn’t stop, she relented.

They rode together on an elevator to the 15th floor. She tried his key on a few doors. One door finally opened.

Douglas shoved the housekeeper into the room and pushed her onto the floor. He climbed on top of her and squeezed her neck until she blacked out, the newspaper reported.

‘Gasping for Air’

The housekeeper told police that when she came to, she had a headache and noticed her breasts were exposed.

A guest in the room next door told police he heard what sounded like someone had been “gasping for air.” He opened his door and saw the housekeeper walking out of the suspect’s room with a bloody nose and a handprint on her neck. The man called security.

Police said they found a knife and used condom in the room.

At a local hospital, an X-ray revealed the housekeeper’s hyoid bone in her throat was cracked, according to the newspaper. Marks were visible on her neck. She had lost her sense of taste.

An exam at the hospital showed “no sexual assault occurred,” according to the newspaper. The used condom in the room was not accounted for in the report.

The incident at the Flamingo is one of several violent occurrences at or near the Strip since the first of the year.

Bugsy’s Flamingo

The Flamingo was one of the earliest hotel-casinos to open south of downtown Las Vegas on what then was a desert highway toward Los Angeles.

The Flamingo opened in December 1946 under the direction of New York gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Siegel and other underworld figures earlier had owned the El Cortez hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas.

In June 1947, a gunman firing from outside the Beverly Hills home of Siegel’s girlfriend, Virginia Hill, shot the 41-year-old gangster to death. No one has been held criminally responsible in the killing.

The Flamingo is at the same location on the east side of the Las Vegas Strip, though none of the original buildings remain. The El Cortez, with some of its original structures in place, is still in operation.