Chimp Victim, Charla Nash, Wants To Sue State For $150M

Attorney: State Knew Chimp Was Dangerous
By LAUREN PETTY
NBC Connecticut
nbcconnecticut.com
Nov 4, 2009

Claiming the Department of Environmental Protection knew Travis the chimp was a serious threat but failed to act, attorney's for his victim, Charla Nash, filed a petition Wednesday with the state's Claims Commissioner asking to sue the state of Connecticut for $150 million.

"This is a tragedy that did not have to happen, should not have happened," Nash's attorney Charles Willinger said in March, when a lawsuit was filed against the chimp's owner, Sandra Herold, for $50 million.

Nash's attorney's now are taking aim at state officials who were aware of concerns about Travis for years...

For the next two years, Charla Nash will go through surgeries as she recovers from a vicious chimp attack in Stamford in February that left her disfigured, blind and near death. Her brothers are by her side through her recovery...

..."It is an accident waiting to happen," that's what a DEP biologist wrote in a letter obtained by the Associated Press dated October 2008, five months before Nash was mauled by Travis in Stamford in February.

55-year-old Nash lost her hands, nose, lips and sight after Travis attacked her when she came to help her employer, Sandra Herold, get the chimp back into the house...Nearly nine months later, Charla Nash remains at the Cleveland Clinic....

...They say she is walking around and using primitive prosthetics. "Charla has accepted her losses. She accepts that she can not change this."

...The Attorney General says hundreds of claims are filed against the state each year and it could take months for the Claims Commissioner to rule on Nash's claim...

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