DENVER (KDVR) — A former female inmate says strip searches were common in the La Plata County jail in Durango, but she was not sure why.
She is one of 18 women who have joined a federal class action lawsuit that has been filed at the Federal Courthouse in Denver.
With her attorney listening in, the former inmate told FOX31 how she felt after learning then-Commander Edward Aber had allegedly viewed a video of her strip search at the La Plata County Jail in Durango.
“Shock. Pissed off. Violated. Hurt,” the former inmate said.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation says that the former commander has been charged with 117 counts of invasion of privacy for sexual gratification in the case.
In the lawsuit, attorneys say Aber logged into the system that stores strip search videos 3166 times. The attorneys said most, if not all, these logins were for the purpose of accessing strip search videos of female inmates.
“I was there for 22 months, so I really didn’t keep track of how many searches we’ve had, but, um, there were a couple months where there was like three searches, four searches a month,” the former inmate said.
Rathod Mohamedbhai Attorney Neil Sandhu says the strip search video policies need to be changed at the jail.
He is helping lead the case involving the class action suit.
“Why give unfettered access to those videos? Why not restrict it to only those people, such as people in the county attorney’s office or other lawyers, who would need to review those videos to evaluate whether a claimed use of force actually occurred? I cannot come up with an answer as to why unfettered access was given to these videos,” Sandhu said.
“They shouldn’t be trusted with our, with our personal, you know, everything, I guess, just, it’s unsettling and, and it makes me distrust the law enforcement,” the former inmate said.
Attorneys say Aber has since resigned his position. FOX31 was not able to reach Aber for a comment on this story.
The sheriff and the Board of Commissioners are also named in the suit, but spokespeople for them said they had no comment since this was an active case.
Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
