The lawsuit claims that the janitor’s sexual misconduct caused at least 13 women to contract untreatable infections.
A recently filed lawsuit accuses a Texas janitor of spreading a sexually transmitted disease by wiping his penis on the inside of water bottles at his former workplace.
According to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of 13 women who have “now tested positive for incurable sexually transmitted diseases that will forever affect their lives.”
The complaint—filed on behalf of the women by the law firm Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner—seeks more than $1 million in compensation from the defendant janitor, his employers, and the building management.
The Star-Telegram reports that the defendant janitor, identified as 50-year-old Lucio Catarino Diaz, was arrested in October and charged with “aggravated assault” with a deadly weapon after he was observed placing his penis inside of a woman’s water bottle.
Diaz, notes the Telegram, had tested positive for herpes simplex virus type 1 and chlamydia at the time of the incident.
One of the woman told McClatchy News that she no longer feels comfortable kissing her own children, out of fear that they, too, could contract a sexually transmitted disease.
“I (can) no longer leave my water bottles anywhere or my cups at a party … because I don’t want no one to catch what I have because a monster decided to do what he did to me without my consent,” the anonymous woman said. “But what hurts me the most is that every time my babies want to kiss me I have to turn my face and tell them kiss mommy in the forehead or I have to kiss my babies in their back and not in their cheeks … they are too little to understand what happen[sic] to their mommy.”
The Star-Telegram notes that, although Diaz was fired in October, employees began noticing a “foul taste” in their water as early as August.
When workers left their water bottles in the office overnight, they would often return to find that their own water supply had acquired a similarly discomfiting smell.
One of the women, identified in court documents only by her initials, M.A., told the physician she worked for that her water smelled like urine.
A urinalysis was performed, and the results confirmed that urine was present in her water.
Shortly afterward, M.A. purchased a “hidden camera” online and left it at her desk.
“The video clearly showed the nighttime janitor … approach M.A.’s desk as if to clean, set the cleaning rag and cleaning bottle on the desk, unzip his pants, pull out his penis, grab the water bottle sitting on the desk, unscrew the cap, and begin to insert his penis into the water bottle (turning it upwards to ensure the water in the bottle touched his penis), and rub his penis on the mouth of the bottle,” the lawsuit alleges. “He then put the cap back on the bottle, set it back where he found it, zipped up his pants, grabbed the cleaning bottle and rag, and continued to ‘clean’ the desk.”
Diaz, attorneys added, did not appear nervous.
“He had done this before—and it had now become just a part of his daily ‘cleaning’ ritual,” the lawsuit claims.
M.A. submitted an official report to the Houston Police Department the next day, and told a building manager that she would tell the other employees what Diaz had done.
However, the building management asked M.A. to remain silent so that they could handle the situation. But, according to the lawsuit, it took six full days for the company to report Diaz’s misconduct to other employees, in which time the janitor was again observed wiping his penis inside M.A.’s water ball.
“Diaz was given free rein to commit another assault on M.A. and the other plaintiffs,” the lawsuit claims.
M.A. and the other plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages.
Sources
Janitor rubbed penis in water bottles, spreading STD to at least 13 people, lawsuit says
Houston janitor allegedly peed in water bottles, lawsuit filed after 13 women test positive for STDs
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