A senior Secret Service supervisor was put on leave last week after a female agent accused him of sexually assaulting her at the office, the Washington Post reported Wednesday night.
The female agent alleged that Xavier Morales, her boss in the security clearance division, made sexual advances toward her after the two returned to agency headquarters following a party on March 31, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the probe told the newspaper.
The woman told investigators that Morales grabbed her arms when she resisted his advances and the two physically struggled until Morales gave up, sources told the Post.
Morales was placed on indefinite administrative leave and barred from agency headquarters, an anonymous Secret Service official told the newspaper. He declined, through the agency, to comment to the Post.
“These allegations as reported are very disturbing,” Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy said in a statement to the Post. “Any threats or violence that endangers our employees in the workplace is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
The D.C. police’s sex-crimes unit and a government inspector general are investigating the allegations against Morales, according to the report.
The Secret Service has been plagued by a string of agent mishaps and misconduct from September, when a knife-wielding man managed to jump the White House fence and enter the building, through to last month, when two agents who were allegedly under the influence drove through an active bomb threat investigation and hit a barricade.
