By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area federal prison guard who said she was harassed and repeatedly assaulted by a male co-worker after breaking up with him sued the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Tuesday, alleging that it ignored her many pleas for protection.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by a guard, identified only as Jane Doe, who has worked at the prison in Dublin since 2005. She said her former co-worker, also not identified, was allowed to resign in July 2010 without discipline and has continued to threaten her despite court restraining orders against him.
When she broke up with him in the fall of 2007, after dating him for several months, he threatened to kill her and himself, the suit said. It said he started beating her that December after learning she was pregnant with his child, and continued the abuse until he left the prison.
In 2009, he used the prison computer system to send her e-mails showing pictures of beaten and bloody women, Jane Doe said. She said prison officials ignored her requests to keep him away from her, refused to enforce the restraining orders, and in June 2009 assigned the two of them to three months of duty in a locked unit, leaving him in control of the doors.
During those months, he “verbally and physically assaulted her, slammed her into a wall, pinned her down and pulled her hair,” and later locked her in a cell, the suit said.
In response, Jane Doe said, prison supervisors merely told the male guard that he had been the subject of a complaint and should “conduct himself professionally.”
Jane Doe said she took several medical leaves of absence and still suffers trauma and panic attacks.
“This case is evidence of an institutional culture that is more than dysfunctional - it is dangerous,” said Wendy Musell, a lawyer for the woman.
Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Sally Swarts said the bureau does not comment on pending lawsuits.
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