On Monday, a second woman in under a week filed a lawsuit against a River North bar claiming that she, too, was sexually assaulted after someone drugged her drink — and staff at the bar were complicit in the crime.
Elizabeth Capra, 32, was at El Hefe on Oct. 12, 2014, when she consumed a drink containing acetone — a substance used in “date rape drugs,” according to the suit.
Toxicology tests confirmed the presence of the drug, and the only people with access to her drink were “the bartender or other agents or employees of El Hefe,” according to the suit.
After becoming separated from her friends, the next thing Capra remembered was, hours later, running down the street to her home, according to a news release issued Monday by her attorneys.
Exams performed at a Near West Side hospital, which were returned a year after the incident, confirmed that Capra had been sexually assaulted.
Police investigated, but the bar disposed of security footage and “did not disclose” the names of staff who worked that night, according to the suit.
A representative for El Hefe’s parent could not be reached for comment Monday.
Capra recently decided to file a lawsuit — more than five years after the incident — after seeing a news story of a lawsuit filed last week by a woman who alleged security guards at the bar had escorted her into a dark alley along with a man in red shoes who she suspected of drugging her drink. The woman, who could barely stand, was then sexually assaulted behind a dumpster, according to the lawsuit.
Security footage from a business across the the alley show the 23-year-old woman being walked into the alley and the man with red shoes walking away with her to the dumpsters. The two El Hefe security guards remained in the alley about 100 feet away and talk while smoking a cigarette.
The alleged assault against the woman — named as a Jane Doe in the lawsuit — occurred in the late hours of Oct. 18.
Capra learned of the woman’s story and suspected they were not alone in their accusations.
“She wanted to come forward because she believes they are not the only ones who have been assaulted,” according to a statement from Hale & Monico attorneys Brian Monico and John Chwarzynski, who represent both victims.
