A federal law enforcement officer stalked a nurse during her workday at the U.S. Mint in Denver, according to a new lawsuit, which says he raped her after tracking her over the building’s security cameras.
Before the sexual assault, a U.S. Mint Police officer is accused of repeatedly making “unwanted” sexual advances toward the woman inside medical offices at the Denver Mint, where he also worked.
He “had previously told her he was watching her using the Denver Mint’s security system,” a complaint filed June 19 in U.S. District Court says.
The facility is one of six locations where billions of dollars worth of U.S. government assets are stored and protected by federal law enforcement officers. The woman worked there as a civilian contractor, according to the complaint.
McClatchy News is not identifying the officer because he has not been formally charged.
The officer is accused of using the surveillance system to find the nurse on Nov. 9, 2022, as he had done on several previous occasions, according to the complaint.
He was armed and on duty when he “forcibly restrained” and raped the woman in a medical office that day, when she was stocking shelves, the complaint says.
Only medical employees, the officer and other officers had access to the keys to the Denver Mint’s medical offices, the complaint says.
The woman is suing him and the U.S. government for “severe” injuries, damages and losses, including serious bodily injury, medical and rehabilitation expenses stemming from the rape, emotional stress and more.
She is seeking $2.5 million in special damages and general damages, the complaint shows.
“It was atrocious,” the woman’s attorneys wrote of the assault in the complaint. “It was utterly intolerable behavior that cannot be excused nor condoned in civilized community.”
“When we learned how our client had been violated, we were disgusted and outraged,” Christopher Ponce, one of her attorneys, told McClatchy News on June 26.
“We knew we had to help her,” Ponce said.
The U.S. Mint didn’t return a message from McClatchy News seeking comment. Direct contact information for the officer wasn’t immediately available.
He was fired from his job as a U.S. Mint Police officer in 2023, officials told The Denver Post.
In a statement to the newspaper, U.S. Mint officials said, “While we are not able to comment on the pending litigation, the safety of our employees is a top priority, and issues of sexual misconduct and assault are taken extremely seriously.”
The lawsuit accuses the U.S. Mint of promoting and giving the officer a pay increase after he was accused of repeatedly behaving inappropriately toward an intern, who was a minor. According to the complaint, this happened before the November 2022 sexual assault and resulted in the U.S. Mint paying a settlement to the victim.
A threat following the assault
Before the lawsuit was filed, the woman’s counsel hired Sanin Global Solutions, which conducts investigations for criminal and civil law firms, to investigate the sexual assault. The firm interviewed the woman and her colleagues at the Denver Mint as part of its investigation.
A registered nurse who worked with the woman told a private investigator with Sanin Global Solutions that the officer “made unwanted advances” toward the woman between August 2022 and November 2022, according to a report prepared by the firm.
She recalled how he had told the woman that “he regularly watched (her) via the U.S. Mint security cameras and knew what she did throughout the day” and “told (her) he knew where all the security camera dead spots were,” the report says.
The officer is accused of repeatedly groping the woman, who repeatedly refused him, according to the report.
After he is accused of raping her inside an exam room in November 2022, it “looked like it had been hit by a tornado,” the other nurse recalled, the report says. The officer threatened the woman not to report the assault, according to the report.
However, according to the lawsuit, the woman reported the rape and prior sexual assaults to U.S. Mint Police Inspector James Broz, the Office of the Inspector General and other officials.
Afterward, the woman says she was “interrogated” by U.S. Mint Police officials and that they “told her that the sexual encounters with (the officer) were consensual.”
Ponce told McClatchy News that he hopes for justice for his client.
He said he hopes that “our client is compensated for her suffering, and that changes are made in the culture of federal agencies like this so that this never happens again.”
If you have experienced sexual assault and need someone to talk to, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for support at 1-800-656-4673 or visit the hotline’s online chatroom.
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