Feldman Shepherd Attorneys Mark Tanner and Samuel Mukiibi Represent Client Who Was Sexually Battered in ICE Detention Center

Attorneys Mark W. Tanner and Samuel Mukiibi are pursuing a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of a woman who was sexually battered, raped, and terrorized by a deputy sheriff while held at an ICE detention center — a facility with a known history for mistreatment of detainees.

The client, who was legally in the United States, and was a working single mother, was believed by no one when she tried to report the sexual batteries, and officials at the facility responded by further retaliating against her. Undeterred, the client was strong and smart enough to get definitive evidence to outside authorities by tearing off pieces of her clothes that contained her attacker’s semen.

Even with this conclusive evidence, the prosecutor’s office was initially reluctant to charge the perpetrator with the full array of offenses. Ultimately through the client’s perseverance, and pressure placed on the prosecutor’s office from counsel and support groups, this deputy was finally tried, and a jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts. He is facing up to 90 years in prison.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, seeks compensation for the trauma, torture, and suffering that this woman endured, as well as compensation for violations of her civil rights and punitive damages designed to mandate reform in this Sheriff’s office. It is the hope that this case will mandate that those responsible for detainees in custody are properly supervised, and other women are protected from this sort of unconscionable harm.