Attorneys for a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who alleges she was sexually abused by three male supervisors during a six-year period and required by one of them to get an abortion are asking a judge to order the production of the personnel files of all three men.
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. None of the three alleged abusers are defendants in her case.
In court papers filed June 17 with Judge Teresa A. Beaudet in advance of a July 15 hearing, Doe’s lawyers are seeking the records of a division chief and two captains, including any documenting other complaints for sexually inappropriate conduct or comments involving the trio. The division chief and one of the captains are now retired, while the second captain resigned.
In her lawsuit filed in May 2025, Jane Doe says she had long aspired to become a Los Angeles County sheriff’s 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,” according to her suit.
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. In 2010, the division chief required Doe to have an abortion against her wishes and drove her to a clinic to ensure she went through with the procedure, according to Doe’s attorneys’ court papers.
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 Williams’ instructions to obtain employment with the LASD,” 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.
The LASD terminated Doe after she pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of spousal battery and obstructing a peace officer, both arising from Doe’s 2012 nervous breakdown and attempted suicide, according to Doe’s attorneys’ court papers.