Trump denies bedbug infestation at Doral resort after club settled lawsuit in 2017
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to slam Democrats for spreading a “false and nasty rumor” that his Doral, Florida, golf club, where he has said he hopes to host a gathering of world leaders for a major summit next year, is infested with bedbugs.
“No bedbugs at Doral,” Trump said. “The Radical Left Democrats, upon hearing that the perfectly located (for the next G-7) Doral National MIAMI was under consideration for the next G-7, spread that false and nasty rumor. Not nice!”
But in fact, a possible bedbug infestation was the subject of a 2016 lawsuit, in which a New Jersey man who sued for $15,000 in damages alleging that he woke up covered in bites and sores after a night in one of the resort’s villas.
According to a complaint filed in Miami-Dade County Court, Eric Linder, 66, awoke on the morning of March 8, 2016, “to discover that he had multiple welts, lumps and marks over much of his face, neck, arms and torso.”
Linder said he then issued a complaint to the resort’s management, who went to test both rooms he had stayed in for bedbugs.
“[Linder] was advised by the Trump resort staff and/or management that the guest room in the Jack Nicklaus Villa building tested positive for bedbugs,” the complaint alleged. “Trump National Doral and the Jack Nicklaus Villa building in particular, has a history of severe bedbug infestation, going back to at least the beginning of 2016.”
In a court filing responding to the lawsuit, lawyers for the resort denied all of the allegations leveled by Linder, and leveled an attack against Linder saying he, “conducted himself so carelessly and negligently that his conduct was the sole proximate cause or contributing cause to the events of which he complains.”
The resort never was compelled to expand on that attack, however, because it reached an out-of-court settlement with Linder and the case came to a close in May 2017.
The settlement included a confidentiality clause, so both Linder and the resort have been barred from speaking further about the matter.
Neal Hirschfeld, who represented Linder in the case, told ABC News that the president’s tweets “would not have any effect” on the settlement and said that the case is, “long over.”
Separately, Linder did not immediately respond to calls requesting comment on the matter.
[ABC News]