Lawsuit: Conventioneer arrested after criticizing W Hotel manager

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A conventioneer from New Hampshire who was staying at the W Hotel in downtown Atlanta said he was attacked by security guards and then arrested after he told a man sitting in the bar to stop making derogatory comments about the United States.

“No one needs to speak about our country ...  in that way,” Michael Pelkey said to one of two men sitting at the end of the hotel's bar, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The man Pelkey rebuked was the night manager, the suit said.

The lawsuit did not name the people Pekley encountered. It also did not recount what the man said that prompted Pelkey to speak out on the evening of Dec. 6.

But the police report says Quanzuil Seals and Earl Williams told officers that Pelkey "appeared intoxicated" and was trying to start fights. The report does not identify the jobs or the roles Seals and Williams had in the incident.

A call to Barry Real Estate Companies, which the lawsuit said does business as W Hotel Downtown Atlanta, was not returned in the early afternoon Thursday. The real estate company was the only defendant.

Pelkey, who was attending a conference for forensic accountants, said in the suit that the man spoke into a handheld radio after he complained and it was then that the bartender told him to “just get out.”

In a hallway on his way back to his room, Pelkey said, five or six men tackled him, broke his glasses and pinned him to the ground. He said he was handcuffed.

“These men, believed to be agents and employees of the [hotel], then proceeded to drag him outside and sat him on a planter box outside the hotel in the public parking lot for one hour before calling the police,” the suit said.

Thirty minutes later, as the officers pulled up, one of the hotel employees said to Pelkey, “here comes my sweetie, your [butt] will be in jail,” according to the suit.

Pelkey said he was accused of threatening people and of being intoxicated, yet he was not given a breathalyzer or a blood test for alcohol in his system. He said he was held in jail until late the next morning.

A Municipal Court judge dismissed the drinking in public charge on Feb. 15.

Pelkey is asking for at least $250,000 in damages for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.