San Diego County continues to employ a sheriff\u2019s lieutenant who has been accused by two women of sexual harassment, allegations that have prompted nearly $500,000 in legal settlements.<\/p>\n
The two women worked as detention processing technicians alongside Lt. Roberto Cardenas in the downtown Central Jail, and in 2022 independently complained to human resources that he had touched them sexually in the workplace, according to a lawsuit and a state employment discrimination claim.<\/p>\n
After receiving one of the complaints, the Sheriff\u2019s Office opened an internal investigation into one of the women, Yvonne Bareno, a 16-year employee of the Sheriff\u2019s Office who supervised other jail processing technicians, according to the lawsuit she filed in San Diego Superior Court in 2023. The lawsuit against the county and Cardenas alleged sexual harassment, failure to prevent it, gender discrimination and retaliation.<\/p>\n
As a result of the investigation, the county told Bareno she would be fired for violating rules for \u201cunbecoming conduct\u201d and \u201ctruthfulness,\u201d her lawsuit said. Bareno denied any wrongdoing and quit her job.<\/p>\n
A simultaneous investigation of Cardenas found he violated work rules, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Cardenas, who has been with the Sheriff\u2019s Office since 2003, continues to work in the county\u2019s jail system with a $176,000 salary, said Lt. David Collins, a Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Collins declined to comment on the findings of the investigations or any discipline Cardenas may have faced as a result of the complaints.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Office does not tolerate sexual harassment or retaliation,\u201d Collins said. \u201cWe take all allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation seriously and thoroughly investigate all such allegations. Employees who are found to have violated policy or procedure or the laws regarding discrimination, harassment or retaliation are held accountable through the disciplinary process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cardenas could not be reached for comment. The Sheriff\u2019s Office and the Deputy Sheriffs\u2019 Association of San Diego County were asked to contact him on the Union-Tribune\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n
The other woman who complained about Cardenas, Moriah Bradley, was denied a transfer out of the jail where Cardenas continued to work after making her complaint, and she quit her job with the Sheriff\u2019s Office before landing a new position in a different part of county government, according to the state employment discrimination claim she filed in February.<\/p>\n
The county settled with Bradley in April for $175,000 before any lawsuit was filed, according to her settlement agreement.<\/p>\n
And the county settled with Bareno for $306,000 last October, according to county settlement data. Bareno declined a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Jenna Rangel, an attorney for the two women, said that despite the agency\u2019s stance of zero tolerance for harassment, those accused largely don\u2019t face serious consequences.<\/p>\n
County taxpayers, on the other hand, do face a cost.<\/p>\n
According to data compiled by the Union-Tribune, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct lawsuits and pre-litigation claims against Sheriff\u2019s Office personnel have resulted in $13.5 million in settlements with victims and judgments since the beginning of 2020.<\/p>\n
Outside the Sheriff\u2019s Office, the county has paid only $105,000 in similar costs in the same period of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to protect the reputation of their officers,\u201d Rangel said. \u201cThey want them to be seen as these heroes. They want them to leave with their pensions. They don\u2019t want to take these actions against them, and that\u2019s what I see over and over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The complaints<\/p>\n
Before joining the Sheriff\u2019s Office, Bradley had long envisioned herself having a career in public service, in particular law enforcement and the justice system, she said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Bradley had previously held a temporary position with the county as a contact tracer during the pandemic. When she got a job with the Sheriff\u2019s Office, she pored over booking criteria and other materials so she could excel in her new position.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re building toward something, and when you finally do get in line for this career role, and it\u2019s stripped away from you, it\u2019s so deeply painful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A little more than a month into her job at the jail in July 2022, she was working about 4 a.m. in the facility\u2019s pre-intake office, a sealed room about the size of a check-out counter in a store.<\/p>\n
Cardenas, a watch commander in the jail who Bradley had never seen before, asked her to let him into the room, where he allegedly proceeded to approach her from behind and massage her neck and back without her consent, according to her claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many thoughts are going through my head,\u201d Bradley said of the experience. \u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s taking advantage of you, so how do you get out of it without causing that person to be upset with you or be mad at you?\u201d<\/p>\n
A week later, Bradley made a complaint of sexual harassment against Cardenas to her supervisor and human resources, she said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Bareno learned of Bradley\u2019s complaint. Weeks earlier, Bareno had taken a transfer out of the Central Jail to a different county jail to get away from Cardenas, her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n
Bareno had worked as a detention processing technician since 2006 and had been a supervisor since 2016. She had worked with Cardenas for several years.<\/p>\n
But in February 2022, Cardenas \u201ctook their professional relationship too far,\u201d according to her lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Bareno says Cardenas\u2019 alleged harassment of her began when he showed her a photo of him in his underwear. In the ensuing weeks, Cardenas repeatedly took Bareno\u2019s hand and moved his two fingers in her palm in a sexually explicit way, her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n
In May, Bareno transferred to a different county jail to get away from him.<\/p>\n
Other women told Bareno that Cardenas allegedly called one of them his \u201csweet and juicy mango\u201d in Spanish and tried to cuddle with another while on the job, her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n
Once Bareno learned of Bradley\u2019s complaint, she filed her own against Cardenas that August.<\/p>\n
That prompted Cardenas to be reassigned from the Central Jail to the sheriff\u2019s administrative center, though he returned to the jail about two months later, her lawsuit said.<\/p>\n
Two weeks after Bareno made the complaint, the Sheriff\u2019s Office opened its internal investigation into her and allegedly forced her out of her job as a result, according to her lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Bradley alleges she faced her own retaliation from the Sheriff\u2019s Office as a result of her complaints against the lieutenant.<\/p>\n
After going on unpaid leave in the aftermath of her complaint, the Sheriff\u2019s Office would only allow her to go back to work at the Central Jail, where Cardenas continued to work, or the Vista Detention Facility, 50 miles away from where she lived, she said.<\/p>\n
Bradley decided to go on unpaid leave again before landing a different county job.<\/p>\n
Collins, the Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesperson, declined to comment on the women\u2019s claims of retaliation.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: September 18, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego County continues to employ a sheriff\u2019s lieutenant who has been accused by two women of sexual…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":236415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,356,5295,728,50,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-236414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115225476912398833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}