According to the police, Jason Billingsley murdered Pava LaPere. (Mug shot: Baltimore Police Department; screenshot of LaPere: Ignite Baltimore)
The survivors of a terrifying break-in at their home are bringing a lawsuit against the person accused of attacking them and the company he worked for. They claim he used his job as a maintenance worker to enter their apartment and then set it on fire.
The attack happened a few days before Jason Billingsley killed tech CEO Pava LaPere in her apartment in September 2023, according to cops in Baltimore, Maryland.
The lawsuit from survivors April Hurley and Jonte Gilmore alleged that the companies Eden’s Homes and Property Pals failed to do a proper background check on Billingsley, or else the businesses would have known about his violent criminal history. He was paroled in October 2022 after a history of crimes including first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and a first-degree sexual offense.
“Maintenance. You have a flood in the kitchen,” Billingsley shouted and knocked on the door to Hurley’s apartment on Sept. 19, 2023, according to the complaint.
When she went to answer the door, Billingsley allegedly grabbed her by the hair, hit her with a gun, and bound her with duct tape. Waking up a sleeping Gilmore with a gun to the back, Billingsley demanded money, and restrained him as well, the lawsuit said.
Billingsley also allegedly sexually assaulted Hurley, who appeared with the plaintiff team in a press conference on Monday. After the repeated sexual assaults, the defendant cut her neck, doused the victims and the apartment in gasoline, and set fire to them, the lawsuit said.
He allegedly left them for death, but they survived.
Hurley managed to climb out a window. Gilmore, who was shut in a closet, knocked down the closet door, but was met with a “thick, black cloud of hot smoke.”
Handcuffed behind his back, he could not pull himself up to the window’s ledge to get out, but Hurley returned with another man, who pulled him out to the street, the complaint said.
“At all relevant times, Defendant Billingsley acted within the scope of his employment and/or agency of Defendants Eden’s Home and/or Property Pals,” the complaint said.
Billingsley had pleaded guilty in 2009 to first-degree assault and second-degree assault in 2011, according to The Baltimore Banner. Then in 2013, he strangled a woman, sexually assaulted her, and stole $53. He pleaded guilty in 2015 to a sexual offense in the first degree in exchange for a 30-year prison sentence with all but 14 years suspended, to be followed by five years of probation. Circuit Judge Emanuel Brown, who presided over the deal, didn’t agree with it, reportedly pointing out that it fell under sentencing guidelines of 15 to 25 years behind bars.
“This case deserves a lot more than the 14,” he said, according to the Banner. He ultimately accepted it to spare the traumatized survivor of testifying at a trial. Billingsley got out of prison on Oct. 5, 2022, because of good-time credit.