Woman accuses Csar Chvez of sexual assault in lawsuit against two nonprofits

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred A woman who worked for labor leader César Chávez and the United Farm Workers organization he helped found is suing a pair of related nonprofits for negligence, sexual harassment and civil rights violations, claiming they facilitated her abuse and did nothing to protect her and others from his unwanted sexual advances.The woman, identified as Jane Doe in a suit filed last week in Kern County Superior Court, says Chavéz sent her husband away on union business over her 33rd birthday in 1973, plied her with alcohol at the party he’d arranged and pursued her so aggressively she hid from him in a bathroom.

After she rebuffed his advances, the suit alleged, Chavéz lay in wait at her home in La Paz, the former tuberculosis sanatorium in the Tehachapi foothills where the union boss and his top lieutenants lived.There, she said, the charismatic icon who’d been the best man at her wedding raped her in her marital bed while his bodyguard stood watch outside.“He planned this, he knew how to make it work so he could do these things,” said the woman’s attorney, V.

James DeSimone.“[The bodyguard] is standing guard to make sure ‘the chief’ could get away with whatever he wanted to do.”Years later, the lawsuit claims, Chavéz summoned the woman to his home, where he “forcibly pulled [her] head down to his crotch” against his erection.

“Employees and others there within UFW were aware of the abuse but failed to respond to this knowledge in any manner,” the suit alleged.“Instead, despite this knowledge, the UFW employees ensured that any abuse was done in closed quarters, outside of visibility of others.” Doe, 86, sued UFW Foundation and the César Chávez Foundation as Chavéz’s employers, saying the nonprofits enabled his attacks, ignored and rebuffed contemporary complaints about them,...