A cable company has been ordered to pay over $7 billion in damages to the family of 83-year-old Texas grandmother Betty Thomas who was brutally stabbed to death in her home by a Spectrum employee in 2019.
Roy James Holden, an installer for Spectrum, owned by Charter Communications, had performed work at Thomas’ home in Irving in December 2019, police said at the time.
Holden returned the next day in uniform and using the company’s van while he was off, posing as if he was on the job, and killed her, then used her cards for a shopping spree after her murder, prosecutors said.
The jury awarded a verdict of $375 million in compensatory damages and said the company was responsible for paying 90% of it after the trial revealed “systemic failures” in the company’s pre-employee screening, hiring and supervision practices. On Tuesday, the verdict for punitive damages was announced — bringing the total to $7.37 billion.
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