Erin Andrews' Lawyer Goes After Hotel

Michael David Barrett, the man accused of illegally taping a naked Erin Andrews through a hotel peephole, was arrested Friday and charged with interstate stalking.

He looks unassuming enough, at least based on the artist's rendering. But if we're going solely on that, let me be the first to congratulate Judge Ted Lange for finally finding work.

Whatever, Marshall Grossman, Andrews' lawyer, is now criticizing hotel management for their bungling of the situation. Via the Los Angeles Times:

In a 35-page criminal complaint filed Friday, FBI investigators allege that Barrett, an insurance salesman, contacted the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University and specifically requested a room next to Andrews, who was there in September of 2008 to report for ESPN.

The complaint says hotel computer records of Barrett's reservation show a notation, "GST RQST TO RM NXT TO [Andrews]."

Grossman said the hotel granted Barrett's request and gave him and Andrews "rooms at the end of the hall, in an alcove, where anyone would be free to do just about whatever they wanted to do in complete privacy," decisions that he said would "likely serve as a casebook study on poor hotel management."

The Times also reports that "Authorities allege Barrett called 14 hotels in Milwaukee in July 2008 to determine where Andrews was staying while she covered a Major League Baseball game." Barrett never checked into that hotel, but "investigators found a ... altered peephole [similar to the one in Nashville] in the room where Andrews stayed."

Grossman is innocent until proven guilty and whatnot, but here's my question: how can somebody alter a peephole, spend a non-trivial part of their hotel stay camped in the hallway holding a camera up to a door, and not draw attention to themselves?

My other question: since when did hotels start making it a practice to put stalkers next to the people they're stalking?

Photo caption: In this Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 courtroom sketch, Michael David Barrett appears for a hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago. The Chicago-area man accused of filming surreptitious nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews in a hotel room was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport Friday night.