A former Washington state employee has filed a lawsuit against the state alleging that her supervisor coerced her into a longterm sexual and abusive relationship, Washington television station King 5 News reported this week.
Barbara Eller, a former assistant caregiver at a school for the mentally disabled, said she was sexually assaulted by her male co-worker over seven years. The school is run by the state Department of Social and Health Services.
According to the complaint, the actions included “inserting foreign objects into the employee’s cavities” and “unrelenting sexual torture, including beatings and bitings that injured her genital areas.”
The lawsuit also said her supervisor “subjected the employee to horrific, humiliating, and depraved acts, including him urinating and defecating onto and about the employee’s body, her face, and her nose.”
The supervisor threatened Eller with his pistol on multiple occasions, according to the complaint. He also allegedly sent her text messages saying things like “you are my sex slave and you will do what you are told.”
Eller told King 5 News that she now struggles with daily life.
“My doctor tells me it’s because I just can’t process everything that’s been done so it comes through my body,” she said. “I still live in fear. I stay in my house a lot. And when I go out in public I shake and sweat and people look at me like I’m a weirdo and I feel like that. It’s embarrassing for my kids to go places with me.”
The television station reported that the unnamed supervisor previously tried to get a restraining order against Eller, testifying that she was the one in control of the relationship and that she demanded pornography and sex.
A spokesperson for the Department of Social and Health Services told King 5 News that Eller never filed a sexual harassment complaint. The Department launched an investigation once it learned of Eller’s claims, according to its statement to King 5 News.
The supervisor resigned from his position in June, according to the station.
The state has not yet opened a criminal investigation due to lack of evidence, Sgt. Ted DeHart of the Washington State Patrol told King 5 News.
