Murder Scandal – $7 Billion Settlement Reached
(NewsReady.com) – A jury has ordered America’s second-largest cable company to pay over $7 billion in damages to the family of a customer murdered by one of its employees. The killer was off-duty when he struck. Nevertheless, jurors ruled that the company was negligent.
Whoa! Jury hits Charter/Spectrum with $7 billion (yes you read that right) for gross negligence punishment phase in case that found Charter liable for 2019 robbery & murder of 83-year-old Betty Thomas by a company employee. Charter already hit with $375M in compensatory damages.
— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) July 26, 2022
On Tuesday, July 25, a Dallas County jury awarded $7 billion in punitive damages against Charter Communications, weeks after finding the company negligent in the 2019 murder of 83-year-old Betty Thomas of Irving, Texas.
Thomas’ murderer, Roy Holden Jr, worked as a cable technician for Charter. On December 9, 2019, he paid a service call to the elderly woman’s house. The next day, he put on his work uniform, used a company key card to obtain a van, and returned to Thomas’s home — this time to rob and kill her.
Thomas’ family says Charter’s hiring practices ignored various red flags about Holden, who had no criminal record, but had allegedly lied about his work history. They also said the company didn’t prevent the unofficial use of work vehicles. Lawyers for the family say Charter also forged a document in an attempt to force the lawsuit into a closed-door forum that would have limited damages. On July 26, the jury decided the company’s behavior deserved punishment, and ordered the massive compensation payment.
Copyright 2022, NewsReady.com
