Woman Suing Radio Station for Alleged Date Rape

By Prescott Carlson in News on Nov 26, 2008 9:45PM

A Lake County woman filing under the name Jane Doe, is suing Waukegan radio station WXLC, claiming that a date the station set her up on went horribly wrong. In January 2007, the station held a "Win a Date with Travis" contest -- Travis being Travis Harvey of Gurnee, a hapless guy who had trouble meeting women. The suit says that Harvey was touted by the station as "a 'great guy' and 'kind'" -- the woman even met Harvey face to face at a radio event where they held the finals.

Doe, then 23, won, and that weekend Harvey promised her a date at Chicago's House of Blues—only to later say he was too tired, and invited her to his home for pizza instead, [Doe's attorney Bob] Baizer said. The woman went, and after a single drink, felt extremely drowsy. Harvey then raped her, the suit alleges. Attorneys say she was drugged. The woman went to police several days later, but at that time, there was no physical evidence of a sexual assault or of the drugs, Baizer said.

The suit also claims that Harvey has a criminal record, having twice violated a domestic violence protection order taken out against him. Doe feels that the station should have done more due diligence as to who they were trying to hook women up with, and that the station was negligent.

While perhaps a formal criminal background check may be impractical for a rinky dink radio station running what they thought was going to be a fun contest, simply sending along a chaperon -- which we thought was protocol for "dating game" type stuff -- could have prevented this whole thing. [Trib]