A former security guard at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) sued former site security contractor Centerra Group on Monday for repeated incidents of alleged sexual harassment allegedly culminating with a violent sexual assault in 2017 by five male colleagues.
Jennifer Glover, who first told her story to The New York Times in January, sued Centerra Group in U.S. District Court for Nevada. The complaint echoes what Glover, a former security police officer (SPO) at NNSS, told the Times: that in November 2017, five male SPO colleagues allegedly ganged up on her during a training exercise in a smoke-filled room. While Glover was handcuffed “for her role in the training,” the men struck her in the face with the butt of a rifle and, as she lay bleeding, groped her buttocks, groin, and breasts.
The men groped her so forcefully, according to Glover’s complaint, that they tore off her nipple ring. In the smoke-filled training room, she could not see who assaulted her, the complaint says. She did identify one attacker “with a sleeve tattoo on his arm.”
Glover seeks damages including back pay, lost benefits, and punitive damages. She also wants District Judge James Mahan to require Centerra to monitor work areas to deter or record further discrimination by employees, and to discipline supervisors who engage in unlawful discrimination.
Glover said she reported the alleged violent assault of November 2017 to Centerra, but that the company failed to discipline her alleged assaulters for touching and striking Glover.
Glover alleges the violent assault was preceded by repeated incidents of sexual harassment that were “severe and pervasive throughout her employment,” which lasted from 2016 to 2018, when SOC took over the Nevada National Security Site security contract.
The NNSA funds contracts at the Nevada National Security Site, including the security contract once held by Centerra.
In an email, a media relations firm retained by Centerra Group, Centerra denied the allegations and said it “appropriately responded to and thoroughly investigated the claims Ms. Glover brought to its attention in January 2018.”
