LONGMONT, Colo. — A mother and her daughter are set to receive over $4 million in damages following an attack they endured while staying at an EconoLodge in Longmont in 2023. This decision came from a Weld County jury last week.
The two women filed a lawsuit against the hotel and its parent company, Choice Hotels.
As per the lawsuit details, the women had invited the daughter’s ex-boyfriend, identified as Cody Czichos, to their hotel room for dinner. Subsequently, they asked him to leave due to his perceived irrational and unpredictable behavior.
After complying initially, Czichos returned to the hotel’s front desk, where an employee inexplicably handed him a key to the women’s room without obtaining their consent. Czichos had only provided the room number and the last name on the reservation.
After receiving the room key, Czichos went on stab the daughter and assault her mother.
Matthew Haltzman, attorney for the victims, said Czichos was also visibly intoxicated and writing threatening notes targeting the women before he asked the front desk for the room key.
Longmont hotel faces $4M in damages after man attacked guests
Haltzman also said the two women were left with both physical injuries and post traumatic stress disorder. He said they feel “some level of vindication” after the multi-million dollar verdict.
He went on to call the hotel’s policies “dangerous.”
“This seemed like an outlier to me,” Haltzman told Denver7 Sunday. “This hotel was engaging in a policy that said name plus room number equals key. I’ve never seen that at a hotel before, and if it didn’t happen to my clients, then it would have happened to somebody else at some point at this particular hotel.”
Denver7 reached out to the hotel about their room key policy and if any changes have been made since the incident. They declined to comment.
Last year, Czichos pleaded guilty to attempted murder, assault and trespassing. He is serving 15 years in prison.
