(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investment banker Warren Stephens and his family are “relieved and thankful” that their long-time housekeeper is doing well and recovering after spending the weekend trapped in an elevator at their New York townhouse.
“The employee involved has been a valued member of the Stephens extended family for 18 years,” his company, Stephens Inc., based in Little Rock, Arkansas, said Monday in a statement. “A Stephens family member accompanied her to the hospital this morning and remains at her side.”
The woman, identified by the Associated Press as Marites Fortaliza, 53, of Queens, spent three days trapped in an elevator at the family’s townhouse on East 65th Street in Manhattan. Firefighters freed her after forcing their way into the elevator, which stalled between the second and third floors. The owners had been away for the weekend.
The cause “is being investigated and appropriate measures will be taken to ensure that something like this never happens again,” the company said in the statement.
Stephens is worth $2.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sophie Alexander in New York at salexander82@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Steven Crabill
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