Woman Groped At Child Custody Hearing Gets Big Bucks [Video]

Monica Contreras, the 28-year-old Las Vegas woman who made allegations against a family court marshal, was finally vindicated after almost three years, according to Opposing Views.

On August 8, 2011, Ms. Contreras was in family court with her 3-year-old daughter for a brief hearing related to her divorce. The marshal, Ron Fox, took Ms. Contreras to a witness room after the hearing, stating she was acting like she was on drugs and needed to be searched.

Once Ms. Contreras was brought back into the courtroom, she began complaining that Fox, who was alone in the witness room with Ms. Contreras, asked her to pull up her shirt. Ms. Contreras said she didn’t feel that was right, refused to pull up her shirt alone with Fox, and asked for a female to be present in the room. Her request was denied by Fox. And she continued to refuse to pull up her shirt per CopBlock.org.

Fox brought her back into the courtroom where Ms. Contreras, as seen on video, continued to say that Fox asked her to please pull up her shirt without a witness, but no one would listen to her.

A second marshal, James Kenyon and the hearing master, Patricia Doninger, were in the courtroom as Ms. Contreras was pleading for help. Kenyan just took orders from Fox, while Doninger sat on the bench in her legal robe completely ignoring Ms. Contreras while she just played around with Ms. Contreras’ daughter.

Fox was so enraged at Ms. Contreras that he had her arrested and had Kenyon put Ms. Contreras in handcuffs in front of her 3-year-old daughter. As Ms. Contreras cried and kept asking why she was being arrested, the little girl looked up at Kenyon and said, “Sir, please don’t take my momma.”

Fox told Ms. Contreras she was being arrested “because of false allegations made against a police officer.” But, guess what — there is no such law. Regardless of that fact, the arresting officer, James Kenyon, listed her offense as “disorderly conduct” in his report.

So, Ms. Contreras was arrested on a law that doesn’t even exist, with no one present who would even hear her side of the story.

According to Review Journal, Ms. Contreras was “taken to a holding cell, where she was subjected to urine and field sobriety tests.” All the test results came back negative.

Contreras hired a lawyer, Ross Goodman, and on October 25, 2011 she visited the Regional Justice Center where she and her lawyer filed a lawsuit against Ron Fox, making claims of civil rights violations, battery, false imprisonment, defamation, and negligence. This lawsuit prompted an internal court investigation, per Review Journal.

James Kenyon and Patricia Doninger were also included as defendants in the lawsuit, as well as Clark County, the state of Nevada, and the courts.

The lawsuit alleges that Ron Fox “engaged in nonconsensual improper sexual contact” with her body and “made sexually abusive and harassing requests.” The lawsuit also alleges, “The wrongful conduct of defendant Fox was intentional and evilly motivated, and the wrongful conduct of defendants Kenyon and Doninger involved reckless, callous and deliberate indifference to plaintiff’s federally protected rights.”

Ron Fox was placed on administrative leave November 1, 2011, and eventually Fox was fired. Patricia Doninger was also fired.

A scathing 12-page report was issued at the post-termination proceedings by Assistant County Manager, Ed Finger. He adamantly upholds the firing of Ron Fox.

“Fox, and to some degree Kenyon, simply intimidated and bullied the complainant in a way that is shocking and almost incomprehensible, using the complainant’s own freedom and custody of her three-year-old child as threats,” Finger wrote.

Fox continues to say he is innocent of all charges and hired a lawyer to fight for what he considers to be wrongful termination. CopBlock.org reports that Fox’s lawyer, Adam Levine, claims that Marshal Fox’s arrest of Ms. Contreras was legal because “no one in the courtroom tried to stop him.” Is that how it works now?

Today, justice prevailed. Ms. Contreras was awarded $200,000 in the settlement of this lawsuit. Who wants to bet she is laughing all the way to the bank?

[Photo Credit: Review Journal]