Wyndham Hotel Management, Inc., filed a response on January 14 to the federal lawsuit against it and Hospitality Properties Trust, the real estate investment trust that owns the Wacker Drive hotel, formerly named Hotel 71. Pankul Mathur (left), a 46-year-old captain for Air India, says on April 15, 2013, he was robbed at Hotel 71 and employees there refused to help.

He says he awoke to loud banging on his hotel room door. When he opened it, a large, African-American woman barged into his room, took $500 from his wallet next to the bed, and left. Near an elevator, says Mathur, was a male housekeeper who refused to help him and told the woman he would support her story that she was a prostitute, Mathur had called her for sex and was not paying her. In the lobby of the hotel, Mathur says no one would help him and the woman got away.

Security video shows the woman entering the hotel and walking out minutes later.

While admitting little of his complaint, attorneys for Wyndham say the hotel did question whether Mathur had indeed called for a prostitute.

Ann MacDonald, Paula Morency, and Sailesh Patel of Schiff Hardin LLP, agree that while some guest rooms did have a security chain installed on their doors, some did not, including Mathur’s. But they deny the hotel refused to help or call police or that any of its employees were responsible.

“Wyndham Hotel Management denies that a hotel staff member was involved in any assault, battery, theft, or other crime, or was an accomplice in any way to the actions of a third party as alleged in plaintiff’s amended complaint,“ reads the response, signed by MacDonald (right).

They deny Mathur’s claim that the hotel’s security director told Mathur his staff “handled the case badly.”

“Wyndham Hotel refuses to compensate Captain Mathur and instead blames Captain Mathur for the assault, battery, and robbery.”

They say it was Mathur’s fault for “inviting a stranger to his room or opening his hotel room door to a stranger” and the hotel had no control over the woman who entered Mathur’s room on the night of the incident.

In addition to ruling in its favor, Wyndham wants Judge Sharon Coleman to award it their costs of the lawsuit.