Colorado jail's ex-commander sued over allegedly watching strip search videos of over 100 women

Three women who were among the more than 100 inmates whose strip search videos were allegedly watched repeatedly by a Colorado jail’s former commander are suing him and government agencies, saying they failed to keep tabs on who was accessing the images and why.

The proposed federal class action lawsuit, filed Wednesday, alleges that La Plata County and its sheriff’s office knew that Edward Aber had a history of being accused of sexual impropriety or harassment when he was hired and failed to place controls on access to strip search footage, including monitoring who was accessing it.

Aber is already being criminally prosecuted after a state investigation found that he had watched the strip search videos of at least 117 female inmates over about five years, often viewing them weeks and months after they were recorded as part of the jail’s intake process. The searches of female inmates entering the county jail are done by female deputies and recorded on their body cameras to ensure the new inmates are not hiding contraband like drugs on their bodies.