A class-action lawsuit has been filed against a former La Plata County Jail commander who is accused of secretly viewing 117 strip-search videos involving female inmates, reportedly accessing the recordings 3,116 times in nearly five years.
The lawsuit also names the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office and several employees, including Sheriff Sean Smith.
Smith and the Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
The lawsuit was filed by Kevin Mehr and Tyler Jolly of Mehr Jolly, PLLC, and Jason Kosloski of Kosloski Law, PLLC, civil rights attorneys from the Front Range.
“When you’re in jail, you have very little power over your own autonomy and body,” Kosloski told The Durango Herald in July. “The jail staff who are in charge of you are entrusted with a massive amount of power – and it sounds like (Aber) took absolute advantage of this.”
Former Cmdr. Ed Aber faces 117 counts of invasion of privacy and one count of official misconduct – all misdemeanors. A pretrial hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 13 at 9 a.m.
The lawsuit, which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on Wednesday, relates to the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Civil Rights Act, also called the Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights.
The act allows individuals to pursue lawsuits against state and local officials who have violated individuals’ constitutional rights or federal statutory rights while operating under color of state law.
“It shocks the conscience,” Mehr said in a news release attributed to all three attorneys Thursday.
“Imagine the most intimate, private and vulnerable moment you can,” Jolly said in the release. “Now imagine (Ed Aber) is there in your bedroom, bathroom or doctor’s office taking pictures and video to watch it later for his own ‘entertainment.’ That’s what happened here and the people in charge let it happen.”
In a July 30 news release, Kosloski called the allegations against Aber “as shocking as they are heartbreaking.”
“When the person entrusted with security becomes the perpetrator of abuse, the legal system must respond decisively,” Kosloski said in the release. “Victims of abuse at the hands of someone sworn to protect deserve a voice – and a path to justice.”
He said monetary compensation is only one aspect of the reparation the women are seeking through the lawsuit.
“I think the biggest thing that all the women that we’ve talked to, and are representing, want, is for there to be real change, so that this can’t happen again,” Kosloski said. “We are pursuing monetary compensation, but I think it’s important for us to say that for these women, it’s not about the money. There’s really not an amount of money that can make them whole. The pain, the things they have gone through, and the things that they’ve expressed. ... There’s not a dollar value that can be put on that experience.”
Though only three women were listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit as of Friday, others have reached out to the law firm to share their experiences and seek reparation, Kosloski said.
“We can’t comment on other people that we may represent (going forward), other than the three that we’ve publicly named in the lawsuit, but there’s been an outpouring of women coming forward about this, and we hope that more women continue to come forward,” he said. “This is not just three women: This is a community.”
Kosloski encourages anyone who thinks they may be a victim in this case to call the firm at (720) 605-6487.
Protection, no contact and non-harassment orders were ordered last week for all 117 females.
La Plata County Judge Richard Schmittel cited Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-1-1001 during the Aug. 7 hearing, which prohibits Aber from harassing, intimidating or retaliating against any victim or witness in the case.
Aber’s attorney, Barrie Newberger King, could not be reached for comment Friday. A voicemail and email notification from Newberger King’s office said Newberger King would be out of the country until Aug. 18, and that communication until then would be “sporadic.”
epond@durangoherald.com
