Woman alleges she was raped by worker at drug treatment center

May 24—A mother of three is suing a substance abuse treatment center in Rio Arriba County, alleging the company employed a man with a criminal history who raped her there in 2022.

The civil complaint, filed recently in the state's First Judicial District Court, accuses the Española-based Hoy Recovery Program of negligent hiring, premises liability and violations of the Unfair Trade Practices Act. It seeks an unspecified amount of actual and punitive damages from Hoy and the certified peer support worker she accuses of sexually assaulting her when she was undergoing inpatient treatment for a fentanyl addiction.

The plaintiff is identified in the suit only by the fictitious name Jane Doe

"Jane Doe was struggling with addiction; emotionally and physically overwhelmed as she confronted its consequences by seeking help from Hoy Recovery," the lawsuit says. "Rather than help Jane Doe recover, Hoy's negligence was a cause of her exploitation by ... a Hoy employee who preyed on her while she was at her most vulnerable."

The New Mexican is not naming the accused worker, who does not appear to have been charged with assaulting the woman.

The plaintiff's attorney's did not respond to a call inquiring about whether she reported the alleged assaults to police.

Hoy did not respond to an email and phone messages seeking comment.

The woman's complaint alleges she was assaulted three times by the worker and says she reported his actions to management, but "nothing immediately happened as a result of her report." The complaint notes, however, the employee was then assigned to work only on the male side of the facility.

The former Hoy worker, who is named as a defendant, said in a phone interview Tuesday he was hearing about the lawsuit for the first time.

"There is a situation behind all this," he said. "We dealt with it way back then, and I never heard anything about it since. That was two years ago."

He confirmed he had worked at Hoy and said he didn't "know what they did about it on their end," but that he'd suggested they have males work with males and females work with females, and "that was implemented after I left."

He declined to say when he left Hoy or to comment further. "At this point I would contact a lawyer," he said.

Hoy knew or should haven known of the risks of employing the man, the lawsuit says, as he has a record of "at least 44 criminal cases" in New Mexico between 1990 and 2014, including "at least" 11 domestic violence cases and 12 DWI charges, an escape conviction, two drug trafficking cases and a case in which he'd threatened "to shoot the mother of his children in the head or back."

"Despite his criminal history and long-established pattern of violence, Hoy employed him and assigned him to work closely with vulnerable female residents," the lawsuit states.

Court records indicate the former Hoy worker's criminal history dates back to 1990 and includes dozens of charges, including multiple counts of driving impaired, drug trafficking and domestic violence.

Some cases are so old the complete files aren't publicly available online. Records in the system show a state District Court judge sentenced the man to four years in prison in 2015 as part of a global plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to a sixth count of DWI and trafficking heroin.