Los Angeles Police Department vehicle in 2017 (via David McNew/Getty Images
A California police officer is suing the Los Angeles Police Department for sexual harassment over the department’s response to her husband, also an LAPD officer, allegedly sharing intimate photos of her — without her permission — with colleagues.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the woman accuses the City of Los Angeles of harassment and retaliation after she raised the alarm that her husband, LAPD officer Brady Lamas, had disseminated the pictures. According to the complaint, the department retaliated against her by failing to follow its procedures and isolating at least two officers who continued to menace and harass her, even after they wrongly shared the photos and video.
The woman made the disturbing discovery on Jan. 30, 2022.
“Plaintiff was horrified when she looked through her husband’s phone,” the complaint says. “Plaintiff discovered that her husband, also a LAPD officer, had been passing around sexually explicit photographs and sexually explicit videos of Plaintiff to other LAPD officers unbeknownst to Plaintiff for more than a year in violation of [the law]. The phone revealed to Plaintiff that her husband, while both on and off duty, distributed said photographs and video through text messages, and other phone applications such as WhatsApp, and KIK to other LAPD police officers.”
The pictures were unmistakably of the plaintiff, the lawsuit says, and showed her “in the nude, revealing her private parts, and at times engaged in sexual activity.”
“None of the shocking photos or videos that Plaintiff observed were disseminated with her knowledge or consent,” the complaint adds.
The discovery put context to some of the comments the plaintiff’s co-workers had allegedly made to her over the previous year.
“Plaintiff could now see that multiple officers, while both on and off duty, had been obtaining and soliciting these explicit photographs and video of Plaintiff,” the complaint says. “Some of these officers who were in the group text with her husband had made many sexually harassing comments towards Plaintiff while on- duty over the course of the prior year that Plaintiff now had context for but previously did not understand.”
Among those recipients who had made the harassing comments were officers identified as Duplantis and Moreno, who the plaintiff would “regularly encounter” during her work.
According to the complaint, the LAPD didn’t follow its own procedure after the woman brought her husband’s illegal actions to the department’s attention.
“The Department has had a pattern or practice of separating a victim of sexual harassment from those who are involved in the hostile work environment, largely to protect future acts of potential sexual harassment,” the complaint says. “But, in this instance, the Department did not transfer Officer Duplantis or Officer Moreno out of the Division or place them on loan pending the outcome of their Internal Affairs investigation. The decision not to move Officers Duplantis and Moreno was further retaliation for Plaintiff’s protected activity.”
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LAPD leadership also failed to ensure that any officers who had received the photos “cease and desist their actions in soliciting or disseminating the photos and videos of Plaintiff which they had obtained,” the complaint states.
This failure, the plaintiff alleges, “was both retaliation for Plaintiff’s protected activity and the promotion of a hostile work environment. The Department simply did not care enough to do all that was necessary to protect Plaintiff.”
According to the complaint, the woman was subject to harassment from the two officers — and others — throughout 2022.
“On multiple occasions these officers sexually harassed Plaintiff with harassing body language, staring at Plaintiff as if she was a sexual object, making her feel extremely uncomfortable and causing her significant emotional distress,” the complaint says. “Moreover, other unknown officers suddenly seemed to also know about Plaintiff’s photos as they suddenly were also engaging in similar behavior by staring at Plaintiff in a sexual manner and making suggestive comments.”
This continued into 2023, the woman alleges. When she again reported the harassment, she said no action was taken.
“The Department’s conscious disregard of Plaintiff’s safety and well-being in these respects exacerbated the harm and humiliation against Plaintiff causing anxiety and panic attacks,” the complaint says. “Plaintiff has also been forced to endure undisclosed medical conditions and treatments. Plaintiff’s career has been derailed by the actions of these involved officers and the Department’s recklessness in handling this severe misconduct.”
She does not specify the amount of damages but puts the total above $25,000.
Lamas, 46, was criminally charged in December 2022 for allegedly sharing intimate photos without consent. According to the criminal complaint, Lamas sent intimate pictures between December 2021 and January 2022 to other people, including fellow officers. Prosecutors say he should have known that sharing the images would have caused the victim emotional distress.
According to online court records, Brady Lamas has a pretrial conference scheduled in his criminal case in February.
A spokesperson for the LAPD declined to comment.
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