A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who alleges she was terminated in 2014 in retaliation for complaining about being sexually abused by three supervisors over a six-year period can proceed with her lawsuit for now, a judge has ruled.
The plaintiff is identified only as Jane Doe in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, in which she also alleges sexual battery, gender discrimination, assault and battery, negligence, negligent hiring and supervision, failure to prevent harassment and civil rights violations. On Wednesday, Judge Teresa A. Beaudet overruled a motion by county attorneys to dismiss all claims unrelated to sexual harassment, battery and assault.
The county attorneys also challenged the ability of Doe’s attorney to bring the allegations under the state’s revival statute, which temporarily reopens the statute of limitations to permit sexual abuse victims to file civil suits that would otherwise be time-barred by the original legal deadline.
The county will have another chance to challenge all of the causes of action later with a motion for summary judgment. None of the three alleged abusers are defendants in her case and all are retired.
According to the suit, Doe aspired to become a deputy.
“However, that dream quickly became a nightmare as Doe was subjected to a harrowing and sustained pattern of sexual abuse perpetrated by high-ranking LASD officials,” the suit filed May 13 alleges.
Despite having a military background, Doe, then in her early 20s, was not immediately hired by the LASD in 2006, the suit states. Doe met an LASD division chief, then in his mid-50s, at a conference and he told her that if she wanted his help in getting hired, she would have to be intimate with him, the suit alleges.
“This conversation kicked off a horrific cycle of sexual abuse by (the division chief) and other LASD supervisors that lasted for six interminable years,” according to the suit, which also states that the plaintiff believed that she had no choice but to yield to his sexual demands if she wanted to have a career with the department.
The division chief demanded that Doe be intimate with him in his office at LASD headquarters or in his vehicle in the parking lot, the suit alleges.
As Doe’s application moved forward and she entered the academy, the division chief introduced the plaintiff to an LASD lieutenant and told her to “take care of him sexually” just like she had done with the division chief, the suit alleges.
Doe believed that she needed to follow the instructions to be hired, the suit states.
After graduation from the academy, Doe was assigned to the Twin Towers jail, where the division chief also directed her to be intimate with a captain there who had relations with her both in his jail office and at the plaintiff’s apartment, the suit states.
Doe had an emotional breakdown and attempted suicide in November 2012 as a result of the years of alleged serial sexual abuse at the hands of the three men, the suit states.
The LASD’s Special Victims Unit investigated Doe’s complaints, but the probe was done in a manner “designed to bury her allegations” rather than objectively determine what had occurred, according to the suit, which further states that the plaintiff was terminated in 2014 for speaking out about her ordeal.