Abduction victim sues The Waterworks mall owners

A woman who was kidnapped from the parking lot of The Waterworks mall, near Aspinwall, and sexually assaulted in Ohio sued the mall's owners, whose lax security, she says, contributed to her abduction.

The Fox Chapel woman and her husband sued the J.J. Gumberg Co. on Tuesday for negligence and loss of consortium. The couple said in the lawsuit, filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, that Gumberg did not have adequate security to protect the woman from crime or to spot the crime as it occurred.

Jimmy Lee Tayse, 30, a Johnstown native who more recently lived in West Virginia, is accused of kidnapping the woman and her child in April, forcing her to drive him to Brimfield, Ohio, and raping her there. Tayse faces 14 charges in Ohio, including kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery and grand theft.