State seeks to join lawsuit alleging Lakeville drywall company fired employee who reported being raped at Eagan jobsite
The lawsuit was filed less than two weeks after Norma Izaguirre's former co-worker admitted in court to raping her in a bathroom on May 20, 2021
On Tuesday, the state Department of Human Rights announced that it had filed a motion to join the lawsuit, which was filed last week in Dakota County District Court by rape survivor Norma Izaguirre against her former employer, Absolute Drywall. Attorney General Keith Ellison said a state investigation found the company violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
'The State's decision to join my case against Absolute Drywall is an acknowledgment of not only my truth, but also the unacceptable reality that women like me, Latina women, too often face sexual harassment and assault in the construction industry,' Izaguirre said in a statement issued by the Department of Human Rights.
Izaguirre, who is represented by the Minneapolis firm Nichols Kaster, filed the four-count lawsuit against Absolute Drywall on Feb. 26, alleging sex discrimination, reprisal, negligent retention and negligent supervision. A judge will decide whether the state can join the lawsuit.
The lawsuit came less than two weeks after Izaguirre's attacker, Juan Diego Medina Cisneros, admitted in court to raping her in a bathroom on May 20, 2021, while the two were working for Absolute Drywall at an apartment complex at the Viking Lakes development in Eagan.
Dakota County prosecutors charged the 32-year-old male Mexican national in July 2022 by warrant with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct. Izaguirre told Eagan police she believed he fled for Mexico after she reported the assault, the criminal complaint says.
In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested Cisneros at Gateway International Bridge, between the cities of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas. He appeared in Dakota County District Court on Feb. 13 and pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct after reaching a plea deal that calls for a three-year prison term, a downward departure from state sentencing guidelines. Sentencing is scheduled for July 8.
The lawsuit says Izaguirre immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1997, and moved to Minnesota around 2001. While she was working at Los Grandes Mexican Restaurant in Burnsville in January 2021, Cisneros approached her and struck up a conversation about their employment.
Cisneros told Izaguirre that his employer, Absolute Drywall, was looking to hire women, and that she should apply to work with the company, the lawsuit says. She did, and started work as a drywall laborer on Jan. 16, 2021. Cisneros was a crew leader.
According to the lawsuit, around early March 2021, Cisneros began making sexually harassing comments to Izaguirre. When they were alone, he would try to touch, hug or grope Izaguirre, who at all times rejected his advances and told him to stop.
The lawsuit alleges that when Izaguirre threatened to report Cisneros, he threatened her and said no one would believe her. At least one co-worker witnessed Cisneros groping Izaguirre on multiple occasions.
Izaguirre reported Cisneros' sexual harassment and inappropriate touching and aggression to her supervisor, who told her that he would address the issue, the lawsuit says.
Absolute Drywall did not investigate Izaguirre's report, the lawsuit alleges, and 'made no effort to address Izaguirre's concerns. Unfortunately, because nothing was done, (Cisneros) continued to escalate his aggressive pursuit of Izaguirre.'
Izaguirre reported the sexual assault to St. Paul police in January 2022, according to the criminal complaint. The investigation was referred to the Eagan police in March 2022, and Izaguirre provided a statement to investigators on May 22, 2022.
According to the complaint and lawsuit, Izaguirre was on her hands and knees cleaning the job site, when Cisneros came up behind her and aggressively put his arms around her and pushed himself against her. Despite Izaguirre's pleas that he stop, he continued. Cisneros pushed Izaguirre into a shower and raped her.
After the assault, Cisneros threatened Izaguirre and said he would harm her if she reported him, the lawsuit and complaint say.
Soon thereafter, the lawsuit, says, Izaguirre reported Cisneros' sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior to her supervisor a second time. Although Izaguirre's second report included general reference to Cisneros' inappropriate sexual advances, harassment and touching, the lawsuit continues, 'she did not expressly report the rape. She did not feel comfortable sharing such private, sensitive information with (the supervisor), particularly because he had done nothing after her first report of harassment.'
In or around August 2021, Izaguirre reported that Cisneros' sexual harassment and touching a third time, but to a different supervisor over the phone. Shortly thereafter, Izaguirre was at Absolute Drywall's office and asked a human resources employee if there were any updates on the investigation into her report against Cisneros. The employee stated they had not heard about any type of investigation, and that there were no records of her report, the lawsuit says.
In the fall of 2021, Izaguirre reported the sexual harassment to the owner of the company. The owner told Izaguirre to stop reporting the harassment or she would be fired, the lawsuit alleges. She was fired in October 2021.
Izaguirre filed a charge of discrimination against Absolute Drywall with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in May 2022. The agency completed its investigation in April 2024 and issued its determination finding probable cause of discrimination.
Absolute Drywall appealed the department's determination in June, and that same month the agency affirmed its original probable cause finding against the company. In August, the parties participated in conciliation through the Human Rights department, but were unable to reach resolution.
'To date, Defendant has refused to adopt policies prohibiting sexual harassment, reprisal, or sexual assault,' states the lawsuit, which seeks compensatory and punitive damages, and other damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
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The Department of Human Rights says it wants Absolute Drywall to have and enforce anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies and wants to ensure the company's employees, including those who speak Spanish, know about the policies and can easily report sexual harassment, assault and other forms of discrimination.
'The court-ordered changes we're seeking will help women, like Norma, who deserve respect in the workplace,' Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said in the statement.
Minnesota has one of the highest percentages of women working in construction, according to a March report by Labor Finders. However, sexual harassment in the construction industry is prevalent across the U.S. A 2021 report by the Institute for Women's Policy and Research states that nearly one in four women working in construction surveyed said they experience near constant sexual harassment on the job.
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Los Angeles Times
8 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
How an LAPD internal affairs detective became known as ‘The Grim Reaper'
In a police department with a long tradition of colorful nicknames — from 'Jigsaw John' to 'Captain Hollywood' — LAPD Sgt. Joseph Lloyd stands out. 'The Grim Reaper.' At least that's what some on the force have taken to calling the veteran Internal Affairs detective, usually out of earshot. According to officers who have found themselves under investigation by Lloyd, he seems to relish the moniker and takes pleasure in ending careers, even if it means twisting facts and ignoring evidence. But Lloyd's backers maintain his dogged pursuit of the truth is why he has been entrusted with some of the department's most politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing cases. Lloyd, 52, declined to comment. But The Times spoke to more than half a dozen current or former police officials who either worked alongside him or fell under his scrutiny. During the near decade that he's been in Internal Affairs, Lloyd has investigated cops of all ranks. When a since-retired LAPD officer was suspected of running guns across the Mexican border, the department turned to Lloyd to bust him. In 2020, when it came out that members of the elite Metropolitan Division were falsely labeling civilians as gang members in a police database, Lloyd was tapped to help unravel the mess. And when a San Fernando Valley anti-gang squad was accused in 2023 of covering up shakedowns of motorists, in swooped the Reaper again. Recently he was assigned to a department task force looking into allegations of excessive force by police against activists who oppose the government's immigration crackdown. At the LAPD, as in most big-city police departments across the country, Internal Affairs investigators tend to be viewed with suspicion and contempt by their colleagues. They usually try to operate in relative anonymity. Not Lloyd. The 24-year LAPD veteran has inadvertently become the face of a pitched debate over the LAPD's long-maligned disciplinary system. The union that represents most officers has long complained that well-connected senior leaders get favorable treatment. Others counter that rank-and-file cops who commit misconduct are routinely let off the hook. A recent study commissioned by Chief Jim McDonnell found that perceived unfairness in internal investigations is a 'serious point of contention' among officers that has contributed to low morale. McDonnell has said he wants to speed up investigations and better screen complaints, but efforts by past chiefs and the City Council to overhaul the system have repeatedly stalled. Sarah Dunster, 40, was a sergeant working in the LAPD's Hollywood division in 2021 when she learned she was under investigation for allegedly mishandling a complaint against one of her officers, who was accused of groping a woman he arrested. Dunster said she remembers being interviewed by Lloyd, whose questions seemed designed to trip her up and catch her in a lie, rather than aimed at hearing her account of what happened, she said. Some of her responses never made it into Lloyd's report, she said. 'He wanted to fire me,' she said. Dunster was terminated over the incident, but she appealed and last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a reprieve that allows her to potentially get her job back. Others who have worked with Lloyd say he is regarded as a savvy investigator who is unfairly being vilified for discipline decisions that are ultimately made by the chief of police. A supervisor who oversaw Lloyd at Internal Affairs — and requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media — described him as smart, meticulous and 'a bulldog.' 'Joe just goes where the facts lead him and he doesn't have an issue asking the hard questions,' the supervisor said. On more than one occasion, the supervisor added, Internal Affairs received complaints from senior department officials who thought that Lloyd didn't show them enough deference during interrogations. Other supporters point to his willingness to take on controversial cases to hold officers accountable, even while facing character attacks from his colleagues, their attorneys and the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League. Officers have sniped about his burly build, tendency to smile during interviews and other eccentricities. He wears two watches — one on each wrist, a habit he has been heard saying he picked up moonlighting as a high school lacrosse referee. But he has also been criticized as rigid and uncompromising, seeming to fixate only on details that point to an officer's guilt. People he has grilled say that when he doesn't get the answer he's looking for, he has a Columbo-esque tendency to ask the same question in different ways in an attempt to elicit something incriminating. And instead of asking officers to clarify any discrepancies in their statements, Lloyd automatically assumes they are lying, some critics said. Mario Munoz, a former LAPD Internal Affairs lieutenant who opened a boutique firm that assists officers fighting employment and disciplinary cases, recently released a scathing 60-page report questioning what he called a series of troubling lapses in the LAPD's 2023 investigation of the Mission gang unit. The report name-drops Lloyd several times. The department accused several Mission officers of stealing brass knuckles and other items from motorists in the San Fernando Valley, and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by switching off their body-worn cameras. Munoz said he received calls from officers who said Lloyd had violated their due process rights, which potentially opens the city up to liability. Several have since lodged complaints against Lloyd with the department. He alleged Lloyd ultimately singled out several 'scapegoats to shield higher-level leadership from scrutiny.' Until he retired from the LAPD in 2014, Munoz worked as both an investigator and an auditor who reviewed landmark internal investigations into the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the Rampart gang scandal in which officers were accused of robbing people and planting evidence, among other crimes. Munoz now echoes a complaint from current officers that Internal Affairs in general, and Lloyd in particular, operate to protect the department's image at all costs. 'He's the guy that they choose because he doesn't question management,' Munoz said of Lloyd. In the Mission case, Munoz pointed to inconsistent outcomes for two captains who oversaw the police division accused of wrongdoing: One was transferred and later promoted, while another is fighting for his job amid accusations that he failed to rein in his officers. Two other supervisors — Lt. Mark Garza and Sgt. Jorge 'George' Gonzalez — were accused by the department of creating a 'working environment that resulted in the creation of a police gang,' according to an internal LAPD report. Both Garza and Gonzalez have sued the city, alleging that even though they reported the wrongdoing as soon as they became aware of it, they were instead punished by the LAPD after the scandal became public. According to Munoz's report and interviews with department sources, Lloyd was almost single-handedly responsible for breaking the Mission case open. It began with a complaint in late December 2022 made by a motorist who said he was pulled over and searched without reason in a neighboring patrol area. Lloyd learned that the officers involved had a pattern of not documenting traffic stops — exploiting loopholes in the department's auditing system for dashboard and body cameras. The more Lloyd dug, the more instances he uncovered of these so-called 'ghost stops.' A few months later, undercover Internal Affairs detectives began tailing the two involved officers — something that Garza and Gonzalez both claimed they were kept in the dark about. As of last month, four officers involved had been fired and another four had pending disciplinary hearings where their jobs hung in the balance. Three others resigned before the department could take action. The alleged ringleader, Officer Alan Carrillo, faces charges of theft and 'altering, planting or concealing evidence.' Court records show he was recently offered pretrial diversion by L.A. County prosecutors, which could spare him jail but require him to stop working in law enforcement. Carrillo has pleaded not guilty to the charges. In an interview with The Times, Gonzalez — the sergeant who is facing termination — recalled a moment during a recorded interrogation that he found so troubling he contacted the police union director Jamie McBride, to express concern. McBride, he said, went to Lloyd's boss, then-deputy chief Michael Rimkunas, seeking Lloyd's removal from Internal Affairs. The move failed. Lloyd kept his job. Rimkunas confirmed the exchange with the police union leader in an interview with The Times. He said that while he couldn't discuss Lloyd specifically due to state personnel privacy laws, in general the department assigns higher-profile Internal Affairs cases to detectives with a proven track record. Gonzalez, though, can't shake the feeling that Lloyd crossed the line in trying to crack him during an interrogation. He said that at one point while Lloyd was asking questions, the detective casually flipped over his phone, which had been sitting on the table. On the back of the protective case, Gonzalez said, was a grim reaper sticker. 'And then as he turned it he looked at me as if to get a reaction from me,' Gonzalez said. 'It was definitely a way of trying to intimidate me for sure.'
USA Today
8 hours ago
- USA Today
Deported from US, these social media influencers are now monetizing their misfortune
More than 70,000 Mexicans were deported from the US in the first six months of the year. Now, they're (re)building lives south of the border. Deported and alone, Annie Garcia landed in Mexico with $40 in her pocket, a criminal record in the United States behind her and an unknown future ahead in a country she barely remembered. Fast forward to the present, to a video shared with her more than half-a-million social media followers in August. Her hair blows in the wind as she speeds on a boat through an emerald sea. She tagged the clip: #LifeAfterDeportation. Expelled from the United States, young Mexican immigrants like Garcia, 35, are documenting the aftermath of their deportation online. Their videos – raw grief over what they lost in America, surprise and gratitude for what they've found in Mexico – are rapidly gaining them tens of thousands of followers. At least a dozen of these deportees-turned-influencers, Garcia included, have started over in Mexico's west coast beach gem, Puerto Vallarta. 'If there's one thing I wish my content could embody it's how much life there is on this side of the border," Garcia wrote June 15 on Instagram. "Our countries aren't what they were 20 or 30 years ago when our parents left." Returning to an unfamiliar 'home' More than 70,000 Mexican nationals were deported from the United States to Mexico in the first six months of 2025, according to Mexico's Interior Ministry. That's down from the more than 102,000 deported during the same six-month period in 2024, when people were being deported after crossing the border. Now, the people being deported are more likely to have built lives and families in the United States. With President Donald Trump's aggressive mass deportation campaign underway, Francisco Hernández-Corona feared being detained. So he self-deported to Mexico, accompanied by his husband. He started vlogging. The 30-something Harvard graduate and former Dreamer had been taken to the United States illegally as a boy, he explained on TikTok. Multiple attempts to legalize his status in the United States failed. In June, he posted his migration – and self-deportation – stories online. Between photos of golden sunsets and mouthwatering tacos, he posted in July: "Self-deporting isn't always freedom and joy and new adventures. Sometimes it's pain and nostalgia and anger and sadness. Sometimes you just miss the home that was." 'Life in the pueblo is not easy' Mexico remains a country of extremes, where stunning vistas and limitless wealth can be found in big cities and beach resorts, while hardship and poverty often overwhelm smaller communities. Olga Mijangos was deported from Las Vegas in on Christmas Eve 2024, two years after being charged with a DUI. She returned to the Oaxaca state pueblo she had left when she was 5. Mijangos, 33, has tattoos on her neck, stylized brows and long lashes – all part of her Vegas style. Back in her hometown, she began posting videos of goats being herded through the streets; the community rodeo; the traditional foods she began cooking. She posted videos from her first job: harvesting and cleaning cucumbers, earning 300 pesos a day, or $15. "I clearly understand why my mother decided to take us when we were little. Life in the pueblo is not easy," she said in a video of the cucumber harvest. "There is hard-living. There is poverty." Struggling to make ends meet for her family, including two children with her in Mexico and one in the United States, she moved to Puerto Vallarta where she met Garcia and Hernández-Corona. They began forming an in-real-life community of deportees-turned-influencers and others who left the U.S. They meet up for dinner at least once a month, and they create content. In their videos, they're having fun, drinks, laughs. But they're also celebrating what binds them to each other and to their parents' migration stories before them: their capacity for reinvention, and their resilience. "I'm very proud to be Mexican, and I'm learning to love a country I didn't get to grow up in, but I shouldn't have had to leave the home I knew to find peace and freedom," said Hernández-Corona, a clinical psychologist, in a July post on TikTok. "This isn't a blessing. It's resilience." Spanish skills, savings and support all matter A lot of their content has the draw of a classic American up-by-their-bootstraps success story, with a modern social media twist: from hardship to sponsorship. But the reality is that deportees' experience of building a life in Mexico can vary dramatically, depending on their earning capacity, language and cultural skills, and other factors, said Israel Ibarra González, a professor of migration studies at Mexico's Colegio de la Frontera Norte university. Deportees with savings in U.S. dollars and a college degree, those who speak Spanish and have supportive relatives in Mexico, may have an easier time than those who don't, he said. Others may face life-threatening risks upon their return, from the violence of organized crime to political persecution or death threats. "However much violence they've lived with in the United States, it's not the same as going back to a war zone," Ibarra González said, referring to certain Mexican states where drug cartels are actively battling for territorial control. Wherever they land – with the exception of some cosmopolitan cities – deported Mexicans have faced local prejudices, too. They've often been viewed as criminals, or their deportations as a failure. "Did I feel a lot of judgment? Absolutely," Mijangos said of her return to Oaxaca. "Even though it's my roots, I basically came from a different world. I have tattoos. I lived my life a certain way that they don't. I could feel people talking." But friends back home in Vegas, and new friends in Mexico, started encouraging her to share her deportation journey. It took her a few weeks to work up the courage. She posted a video of sending her U.S. citizen son to a Mexican school. It racked up nearly 14 million views and 2 million "likes" on TikTok, she said. Suddenly, TikTok was asking if she wanted to join the app's content creators rewards program. 'Your criminal record doesn't follow you' By taking their stories online, deported content creators say they are dismantling longstanding taboos around deportation in Mexico, shining a light on their experiences as Mexicans who didn't grow up in Mexico, and on their past mistakes. Garcia speaks openly on her social media about the financial crimes she committed in her 20s, for which she was charged and convicted, and that ultimately led to her deportation. She migrated to the United States when she was 4 years old, "out of necessity," she said. Her mother married an American citizen in Salt Lake City, Utah, and she and her mother both became legal permanent residents. But when Garcia began acting out as a child, the state intervened. "I was taken from my mother at the age of 12 because I had behavioral issues," she told USA TODAY. "I was separated from my family, and I grew up with other juveniles with behavior (problems)." As a young single mother, she would steal from her employers when she couldn't pay the bills, she said. In Mexico she found a clean slate. "Your criminal record doesn't follow you," once you've paid your debt to society in the United States, Garcia tells her followers. "You can pursue higher education. Any debts you had in the U.S. do not follow you here." As Trump's immigration crackdown widens, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has been publicly offering moral support to Mexicans facing deportation. She has called them "heroes and heroines" who "have contributed to the United States their entire lives." "We're going to keep defending our brothers and sisters there," she said in a June 25 news conference. 'Maybe … things will change' Garcia's social media accounts have grown so popular that she's earning a living, in part, from content creation. She is doing research on reintegration after deportation for an American university. And she has "tunnel vision," she said, on completing a law degree in Mexico. The pain of her deportation, and the losses it brought with it, are mostly in the past. Except when she catches news of the immigration raids in the United States. The memories of her detention, and her separation from her five children, including an infant, remain fresh. It took Garcia more than a year after her 2017 deportation to win custody of her children, to bring them to Mexico. "It's very, very triggering to me to see what's going on up there," she said. "It's a bittersweet feeling. I feel safe. I feel relief. We're here. It doesn't affect us any more. But it feels heartbreaking to see other families living through it. "When I first started sharing my story my idea was, 'Maybe if I talk about this, things will change'" in the United States, she said. She kept at it, despite facing hate and trolls online. She kept posting, even after losing two jobs in Mexico for openly discussing her deportation and criminal past on social media. She kept sharing, thinking, she said: "This is what is going to change things one day: us putting our stories out there."
The Hill
17 hours ago
- The Hill
Judge expands Paxton restraining order against O'Rourke over Texas Dems fundraising
A judge on Saturday expanded Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's (R) restraining order against former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) and his political organization, Powered by People, over its fundraising for state Democratic lawmakers who fled Texas amid the redistricting battle. A Tarrant County judge ruled that O'Rourke and his political group are barred from sending money out of the Lone Star State, coming after Paxton sought to revoke the charter of O'Rourke's organization, accusing it of committing bribery. 'The Court finds that harm is imminent to the State, and if the Court does not issue this order, the State will be irreparably injured. Specifically, Defendants' fundraising conduct constitutes false, misleading, or deceptive acts under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, because Defendants are raising and utilizing political contributions from Texas consumers to pay for the personal expenses of Texas legislators, in violation of Texas law,' 348th District Court Judge Megan Fahey said in a four-page Saturday order. Fahey said that financial institutions and political fundraising platforms, like ActBlue, are barred from transferring O'Rourke's or Powered by People's, a leadership political action committee, donations 'outside of Texas in support of the unlawful scheme.' O'Rourke has been in Paxton's crosshairs as his PAC has been raising money for Texas state legislators who left the Lone Star State for nearly two weeks to prevent the new, GOP-friendly congressional maps from passing. On Friday afternoon, Texas Republicans gaveled in a second special session. Democrats are expected to return to Texas soon. Last week, a Texas judge granted a temporary restraining order against O'Rourke, a former presidential candidate, and his political organization after the Texas attorney general claimed that the PAC was misleading donors. O'Rourke said Saturday morning that Powered by People gave over $1 million to Texas Democrats during a special session, including to the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, the Texas House Democratic Caucus and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. Paxton celebrated the judge's decision, saying that in Texas, 'lawless actions have consequences, and Beto's finding that out the hard way.' 'His fraudulent attempt to pad the pockets of the rogue cowards abandoning Texas has been stopped, and now the court has rightly frozen his ability to continue to send money outside of Texas,' Paxton said in a statement. 'The cabal of Democrats who have colluded together to scam Texans and derail our Legislature will face the full force of the law, starting with Robert Francis O'Rourke.'
