Colorado prison’s former command sued, allegedly watching undressing search videos of more than 100 women
Denver (AP) – Three women are more than 100 prisoners, and her strip search video is reportedly watched repeatedly by a former commander of a Colorado prison who is suing him and government agencies and saying they have failed to grasp who is accessing the images and why.
The proposed federal class action lawsuit filed Wednesday, alleging that La Plata County and its sheriff’s office knew Edward Aber was accused of sexual misconduct or harassment when employed and failed to control footage accessing strip searches, including monitoring who accessed it.
A state investigation found he had watched striptease search videos of at least 117 female inmates, and about five years later, Aber has been charged with crimes, often recorded in prison ingestion weeks and months after recording. The searches for female inmates entering the county jail were conducted by female representatives and recorded on their body cameras to ensure that new inmates do not hide contraband like drugs.
His lawyer in criminal cases, Barrie Newberger King, is traveling but does not immediately return an email or leave a message at the office that is closed this week. There is no phone message immediately returned to the phone number listed by ABER.
Interim deputy county manager Megan Downing said the county has not commented on the proactive lawsuit.
Last month, the parents of a prisoner filed a lawsuit last month with county commissioners, sheriffs and other lawsuits where the inmate died in 2023 and the sheriff’s representatives ignored his crying for about 15 hours.
Aber conducted an investigation in July 2024 for “suspected sexual conduct” with a female inmate and sexually harassed her chief’s office employees, according to an affidavit of arrest warrants prepared by a Colorado Case Investigation agent. The document said the previous investigation did not lead to any criminal charges against Aber, who resigned in July 2024 but prompted him to review computer use.
According to the Arrest Affidavit, between February 2019 and July 2024, investigators found that Aber logged in to access body camera lenses over 3,000 times, mainly looking at footage marked striptease without any obvious legal reasons. It says the videos are sometimes watched at home and in the hotel, usually late at night or early in the morning.
Last month, Aber was charged with one official misconduct charge, and 117 counts of invasion of privacy due to sexual satisfaction, all misdemeanors charged with watching videos of female prisoners, including three women who filed the lawsuit. The lawsuit also attempts to include other women who allegedly watched videos by Aber.
The document states that some of the videos Aber visited have been cleared from the system, so there may be more than more women, and he has watched more than 117 women.
The lawsuit accused Aber and others of violating women’s constitutional rights, including their privacy rights, and being protected by unreasonable searches.
One of their lawyers, Kevin Mehr, admitted that the prison needed a strip search. But he said why watching videos of such invasive moments, such as finding contraband or inmates complaining of being abused, could be subject to some restrictions. Otherwise, trust in the criminal justice system could be eroded, he said.
“Seeing this happens and thinking that it may happen elsewhere really deteriorates trust across the system,” Mel said.
