After around two weeks of testimony, the jury is deliberating in a civil lawsuit by three women who allege prominent developer Bill Hutchinson sexually assaulted them.
Hutchinson, the founder of commercial real estate company Dunhill Partners, whose largest project was the Virgin Hotel, also appeared on the Lifetime TV series Marrying Millions.
The first woman, who was a university student at the time, filed a lawsuit in July of 2021, alleging Hutchinson sexually assaulted her. Two other women, who alleged Hutchinson raped them, according to court records, joined the lawsuit.
The first woman, identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe 1, alleged in the lawsuit that she reached out to Hutchinson on social media for career advice, and eventually met up with him at the Virgin Hotel in 2020, where he ordered “numerous alcoholic beverages” for her without identifying her age. After that, the woman alleged in the lawsuit that Hutchinson took her to an apartment near the hotel, touched her without her consent, and continued to grope her after she told him, “no.”
The second woman alleged in the lawsuit that she met Hutchinson in the summer of 2020 at the Virgin Hotel, and, later that summer, Hutchinson forced himself upon her on two separate occasions at the Virgin Hotel after she’d been drinking, the court records from the combined lawsuit showed in 2022. She alleged in court records that she later discovered she had an incurable sexually-transmitted disease that she didn’t have before her encounters with Hutchinson.
The third woman alleged she met Hutchinson while she was working at a political event he was hosting at his Highland Park home, and that he eventually forced himself on her at the Dunhill apartments, according to the lawsuit.
The third woman alleged after that, she met Hutchinson for dinner at the Virgin Hotel and later woke up in a hotel room with Hutchinson in the room and didn’t remember how she got there, but remembered “feeling like sexual activity had occurred,” the lawsuit stated.
Hutchinson and his attorneys have denied the allegations of nonconsensual sexual assault.
During closing arguments Wednesday, Hutchinson’s attorney, Levi McCathern, showed photos and text messages he said were exchanged between Hutchinson and the women, that he said refute their allegations that they had met with him for career advice or mentorship.
“I have daughters, so I understand and we understand that no means no. It is absolutely insulting to me to act like somehow Bill Hutchinson thinks that because he texted with someone that that’s consent. Of course, he doesn’t think that,” McCathern said. “You can look at these facts and circumstances, you can use your common sense, and you clearly see that Bill Hutchinson did not assault or sexually assault these women.”
An attorney representing the women, Michelle Simpson Tuegel, said in her closing arguments that “this is a case of a rich and powerful man who preyed on vulnerable women.”
“The victim that they’ve portrayed throughout this trial as the victim that would be the right victim is someone who typically fits the model of a stranger rape, and this was not a person in a dark alley who was a complete stranger to these women. They had gotten to know Bill Hutchinson. That’s part of his MO,” Tuegel said.
Aside from the civil lawsuit in Dallas County, Hutchinson, pleaded guilty in an unrelated case to one count of misdemeanor sexual battery in Orange County Superior Court in California in 2024. The Dallas Morning News reports that that conviction has since been expunged.
A Dallas County grand jury declined to indict Hutchinson after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in 2021.
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