On a two-day layover in Chicago on April 15, 2013, before flying a Boeing 777 back to Delhi, where he lived, Pankul Mathur says he was awakened at 10:40 p.m. by a “loud banging” on his door. When he opened the door, without looking through the peephole or asking who was there, what he originally thought was a large African-American woman barged in and took $500 from his wallet next to the bed.

“I ran to the phone to pick up the phone and to call to the security,” said Mathur (right) in a March 17, 2015, deposition, only recently made public, “at which point she yanked the cable off from the base unit and I was just left with the handset in my hand, at which point I just ran out of the room yelling at the top of my voice, saying ‘Help me. I’m being robbed.’”

But the hotel, he says, starting with a housekeeper named Anthony Downs who was standing outside his door, ignored his pleas.

The robber got away that night but was caught on security video. Chicago police watched the video and within a week made an arrest – of a man who went by the name Audrey James. James had been arrested twice before for prostitution. He told police he was a massage therapist and that Mathur had contacted him through a website, which Mathur denies.

The charges, this time, did not stick. Police say Mathur never showed up to identify James as the robber. Mathur says police never told him they had made an arrest, only that they had someone who fit the description.

Judge unsure if case can continue in federal court

Mathur is suing Hospitality Properties Trust, owner of the hotel, and the hotel’s operator, Wyndham Hotel Management.

On February 10, 2016, Judge Sharon Coleman dismissed two of three counts in the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court. One count, for negligence, survives but Mathur cannot recover punitive damages – money that goes beyond compensation and is intended to punish the defendant.

With the dismissal of one count of negligent infliction of emotional distress and another count involving some security video that was destroyed, and punitive damages no longer on the table, Coleman (left) says she has concerns as to whether the case can continue in federal court.

She refers to “diversity jurisdiction,” requiring parties in a civil procedure to have different citizenship, either because they are from different states or because one party is not a U.S. citizen. In addition, the amount in controversy has to be more than $75,000 and that may no longer be the case.

Coleman has asked each party to submit a brief arguing their position. A status hearing is scheduled for May 6.

Mathur says incident could have humiliated his family

Since the April 2013 incident, Mathur has been back to Chicago three times. He returned in June 2014, November 2014, and March 2015.

He says he filed the lawsuit because he felt he was “in harm’s way” and the hotel was not remorseful.

“If this thing had gone really bad…gone out of hand or it would have turned violent and I would have lost my life, the hotel would have just turned around and said…he called a prostitute, the deal went bad, he got killed, too bad,” said Mathur in the 2015 deposition. “My parents would have lived all their life in shame. My wife would have lived in humiliation. My son would have been humiliated and ashamed all his life that Pankul Mathur died in a prostitution event.”