DENVER — Near the border between New Mexico and Colorado is the La Plata County Jail in Durango — a place where recordings of female inmates during strip searches were allegedly used for the sexual gratification of a leader within the detention facility.
The arrest warrant for Edward Aber, who was promoted to jail commander in 2018, details the investigation behind 117 counts of invasion of privacy - sexual gratification, a Class 1 misdemeanor. In addition, Aber faces a charge of first-degree official misconduct, another Class 1 misdemeanor.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charged Aber after the La Plata County Sheriff's Office reached out and asked for assistance with the investigation.
In 2019, Aber received administrative access to a website that stores footage from body-worn cameras, according to the arrest papers.
The document states that in 2024, Aber was placed on administrative leave during an investigation into "alleged sexual conduct with female inmates and alleged sexual harassment of numerous female employees" at the La Plata County Sheriff's Office.
During that initial investigation, at least 14 female La Plata County Sheriff's Office employees reported "multiple instances of alleged inappropriate sexual advances and comments" made by Aber over the years.
No charges were filed as a result of that specific investigation, but the electronics he was issued were searched.
Aber resigned before the investigation concluded, according to the arrest affidavit.
The audit of Aber's devices revealed "several female inmate strip search videos that were logged into multiple times on a variety of dates by Edward Aber's login," the affidavit writes.
According to the arrest warrant, the only time a strip search video would be reviewed at the facility is when "a suspect is uncooperative, force was used, or contraband was found."
The affidavit claims there is no "legitimate" or "authorized" purpose to regularly view strip search videos of inmates.
There were seven IP addresses found that had logged into the website that stored such footage under Aber's credentials. Only one belonged to the La Plata County Sheriff's Office, according to investigators.
In total, the arrest warrant asserts that Aber accessed and viewed strip search videos connected to 117 female inmates between Feb. 14, 2019 and Jan. 14, 2024. Many of those videos were accessed "multiple times," the document claims.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Aber, in addition to the Board of La Plata County Commissioners and the sheriff of La Plata County. The plaintiffs are 18 of the female inmates who allegedly had videos of their strip searches accessed by Aber.
Denver7 spoke with one of those women, who will be identified by her initials, J.L.
“For all the other girls that are still behind bars or going through something like this, maybe that I can shed some light on it and give us all a voice," J.L. said when asked why she wanted to discuss the lawsuit. “I wanted to say that enough is enough.”
J.L. said she struggled with substance use disorder over the last few years, and wound up within the La Plata County Jail.
“When you're booked, you go through a whole procedure. You go in there, you fill out some paperwork, and they — a woman — takes you into the bathroom," J.L. explained. "She has us remove each piece of clothing. They inspect it, make sure there's no contraband or anything like that on it. They make us shake out our hair. You lift your boobs, arms, you turn around each of the bottom of your feet, behind your ears, you do a whole mouth sweep, and then you have to bend over and cough. You have to spread them, and you cough hard three times. It's uncomfortable. You feel violated. You know, it makes you feel less human.”
According to J.L., she never knew the strip search was being recorded.
“I know being in jail, there's not a lot of privacy, but I have never thought in a million years that they would be watching our strip off videos," J.L. said. “These men, they're given a lot of power, a lot of trust, and they abused it.”
The conversation was not easy for J.L. — but she felt it was necessary to speak.
"I'm not proud that I've been to jail, that I have a criminal record. But it doesn't mean that they could take advantage of the situation," said J.L. “They're violating your rights as a human. They're taking away your dignity."
Now, J.L. said she sees a psychologist and therapist to help work through her trauma.
Meanwhile, her attorney Neil Sandhu has one word to describe the allegations: disgust.
"An individual who was in charge of the jail was permitted to access these strip search videos without cause for years on end," Sandhu said. “While he was at the jail, there were numerous accounts of his sexual proclivities, including sexual harassment of his own employees. Those women came forward and accused him of sexually harassing them, and that's the only reason that his employer, the sheriff, decided to delve into his access records. That's the only reason we know that this abuse was occurring.”
Sandhu claimed the La Plata County Sheriff's Office has since revised their regulations to ensure strip searches are not videotaped and are conducted by a medical professional.
“If it's safe and feasible for those sorts of regulations to be in place today, they could have been in place 5, 10, 15 years ago. That would have prevented the exact sort of abuse that's at issue in this case... There's no reason for these videos to be recorded, for those recordings to be uploaded, for those recordings to be able to be accessed without reason, and for them to be stored for years.”
According to Sandhu, their civil lawsuit will be pursued as the criminal case unfolds in court.
“True justice, the real justice these women deserve, involves getting a time machine, going back in time and stopping this abuse from ever occurring. I can't make that happen. A judge can't make that happen," Sandhu said. “The only justice we're able to pursue in the civil system is systemic change, accountability for the institutions that cause this harm, and compensation for the women who endured this harm. And we're going to pursue all three of those.”
Aber is expected to appear in court at the beginning of January for his criminal case.
Denver7 reached out to the La Plata County Sheriff's Office for a statement about the case, but was told it would be "inappropriate" to comment on pending litigation.
