Lawsuit alleges officer assault

A Seattle woman has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the city and a former police detective claiming he sexually harassed and assaulted her after she sought help with a domestic-violence incident.

In the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court, Kathi Yeutsy claims her civil rights were violated when she was assaulted in 2003 by a former police detective who installed a police-owned security system in her home after a violent incident with her husband.

The former detective, Dale Nixdorf, 60, resigned from the department after Yeutsy's complaints against him were upheld in an internal police investigation. Nixdorf's resignation came before he faced department discipline, according to police.

The allegations against the detective surfaced when Yeutsy called police to have the system removed because she didn't want Nixdorf in her home again, the lawsuit says.

Repeated attempts to contact Nixdorf yesterday were unsuccessful.

The Seattle City Attorney's Office and the police department refused to comment on the lawsuit yesterday.

"We cannot talk about pending litigation," said police spokesman Rich Pruitt.

Pruitt did, however, confirm that Nixdorf had resigned from the department.

According to the lawsuit filed by attorney Dan Mallove, Yeutsy had called police on July 14, 2003, after a violent incident with her husband.

On the following day she filed a restraining order against her husband and waited at her mother's house until he had left their home, the suit says. Nixdorf was assigned to give Yeutsy a ride to her home and to install one of the police department's temporary alarm systems, the lawsuit says.

According to the suit, Nixdorf spied a stuffed animal on Yeutsy's bed that day and then lay on the bed offering to be her "teddy bear." Over the next several weeks, he came to her home several times under the guise of checking the security system and called her repeatedly, the suit claims.

Each time, he would make sexually aggressive comments and ask her for sex, the lawsuit says.

One time, she emerged from the bathroom to find him lying naked on her bed with his gun in plain sight nearby, the lawsuit claims. The suit also claims that Nixdorf grabbed Yeutsy's buttocks and forced her to fondle him through his jeans.

The suit claims that Yeutsy's civil rights to bodily privacy and personal security were violated by the officer's actions and that the department failed to train and supervise Nixdorf adequately.

The lawsuit, which seeks damages of no less than $1 million, claims that Yeutsy still suffers from emotional and physical distress as a result of the assaults and can no longer work as a massage therapist.

In 2004, Yeutsy received a letter from Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske and the oversight Office of Professional Accountability informing her that her complaint had been investigated and upheld. According to a source close to the investigation, it was recommended that Nixdorf be fired. The facts were forwarded then to city and county prosecutors for review, but no criminal charges against Nixdorf were filed, according to the letter.

"While the case did not rise to the level of criminal charges, the evidence does indicate that the actions of the named employee were inappropriate," Kerlikowske wrote in the letter, a copy of which was contained in Yeutsy's lawsuit.

"The worst thing about it is, this is an incredibly vulnerable woman who is a victim of domestic violence and the police department sends a man, alone, to her home and he breaches her trust and the public trust and they let him resign before he's disciplined," said Mallove. "It's wrong."

Seattle Times staff reporter Steve Miletich contributed to this report.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com