HELENA (AP) — A former inmate at the Jefferson County jail in Boulder has filed a lawsuit alleging the county created circumstances that allowed its staff to rape people in their custody. 

The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Helena, seeks unspecified damages.

It alleges former part-time jailer Rodney Mortimore raped the woman while her cellmate was asleep after taking a sedative, and that an open door to the jail pod blocked a surveillance camera that might have captured the alleged assault.  

The lawsuit argues jail administrators knew or should have known the camera could not capture footage in the pod when the door was open.

Attorney Amy Burns of Helena said the woman didn’t immediately report the attack because she didn’t know how long she would remain in jail before being transferred to a court-ordered substance abuse treatment program.

Mortimore has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of sexual intercourse without consent. Prosecutors said he gave three inmates cigarettes in exchange for sexual favors. Inmates in custody cannot consent to sex.

Burns said regardless of the outcome of the criminal case against Mortimore, the county has an obligation to correct the systemic problems that led to the sexual assault, including the camera location.

Jefferson County Attorney Matthew Johnson declined to comment, citing the ongoing criminal case and litigation.

The woman’s lawsuit also references a complaint filed last year on behalf of a Mexican national who said he was raped by fellow inmates while in temporary custody at the Jefferson County jail while facing deportation last fall.

The National Immigrant Justice Center asked Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to investigate and questioned whether the jail had adequate policies in place to prevent such an attack.

Jail officials said video surveillance footage from inside the jail pod showed no evidence of a sexual assault, according to the complaint. However, a review of the video shows large gaps in the recorded footage during the late-night hours of Oct. 4 and early morning hours of Oct. 5, the Tribune previously reported.

Johnson said at the time that the gaps in footage were a result of motion-sensitive cameras turning off when nothing was happening. But a Tribune reporter watched the footage and noted the camera shut off at 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 4 when most of the inmates were still awake and some were playing board games. 

The footage resumed just after midnight and cuts out again between 2:13 a.m. and 4:10 a.m., the time attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath of Helena said his client believed the attack took place.