A Denver Sheriff Department deputy resigned in lieu of termination in September after two inmates in the jail alleged he sexually harassed and assaulted incarcerated women.
Cristian Gondor, 57, who was hired as a deputy in January 2024, resigned Sept. 19, Denver Sheriff Department spokeswoman Daria Serna confirmed. The two women in March alleged that Gondor inappropriately touched incarcerated women, offered to provide them with benefits if he could view them naked, watched women shower and made inappropriate sexual comments and jokes.
One woman alleged that Gondor came to her bunk area, “placed his genitalia on her foot and made a groaning noise, followed by smiling and winking at her,” according to disciplinary records released Friday for a second deputy who was suspended for six days after he failed to immediately report the allegations against Gondor.
Gondor told The Denver Post the two women fabricated the allegations against him as retaliation after they were unhappy with how he enforced the jail’s rules. He admitted to telling inappropriate sexual jokes but said he never touched any inmates.
“I am not a pervert,” he said, adding that he told the dirty jokes because he was trying to match the incarcerated women’s tones.
“Sometimes the girls, they accepted, they wanted some inappropriate jokes, that is my mistake, I spoke their language,” he said. “They told me jokes about sex…and I talked back the jokes. That was one big mistake.”
Serna did not provide additional information about the allegations against Gondor or the outcome of the investigation into the alleged misconduct on Friday, but limited details about Gondor’s case were included in the second deputy’s disciplinary records.
Gondor told the Post the allegations against him were sustained and that he resigned instead of being fired. Additional records about the internal investigation into the allegations were not available Friday.
“I did nothing from these allegations,” Gondor said.
Denver police declined to say whether the department conducted a criminal investigation into Gondor, who has not been charged with any crimes.
Deputies who reviewed surveillance footage around the time of the women’s claims found Gondor demonstrating “questionable behavior,” one sergeant reported, according to the second deputy’s disciplinary records. Video also showed Gondor following a half-dressed woman as she left the shower. The woman is seen trying to cover herself up and then exchanging words with the deputy in an apparent argument, according to the disciplinary records.
Gondor said the woman was upset that he insisted she shower separately from another inmate.
One of the women reported the allegations against Gondor to Deputy Ahmed Al Obaidi in late February during a middle-of-the-night conversation; he helped her fill out a grievance form but did not immediately report the allegation to his supervisors as required by department policy.
Al Obaidi, who was hired in February 2024, apologized to internal investigators and said the woman’s allegation was the first time he had handled a complaint of sexual misconduct against a deputy. He said he reviewed the department’s policies around reporting such allegations — which requires such complaints to be immediately escalated — and would follow it going forward, according to the disciplinary records.
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