Private Prison Reaches $1.3M Settlement With EEOC

DENVER (AP) — The operators of a Colorado private prison have agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that male officers forced female workers to perform sex acts to keep their jobs.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the settlement with the Dominion Correctional Services LLC and Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America on Tuesday.

The suit, filed by the EEOC in 2006, also alleged that women who worked at the Crowley County Correctional Facility were subjected to comments about their bodies and inappropriate touching. It accused the companies of retaliating against women who complained.

In one case, the EEOC alleged that a female officer who complained about being sexually harassed by a male co-worker was subsequently placed in an isolated location where she was raped by the man she complained about. A female officer also said the prison's former security chief forced her to have sex to keep her job.

The companies didn't admit liability as part of the settlement. CCA bought the prison from Dominion in 2003 and said most of the more serious allegations in the lawsuit dated from the time Dominion operated the prison.