BEAUMONT, CA — A woman alleging sexual harassment, abuse and threats by a former Beaumont Police Department officer going back more than a decade is suing the city for civil rights violations and negligence, it was announced Thursday.
Attorneys for Nancy Melara filed the civil action in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles Thursday. The city of Beaumont did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Melara is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages based on alleged Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment violations, as well as government negligence, state gender violence laws and California civil rights guarantees.
According to the plaintiff's complaint, she first encountered former police Officer Miguel Macias after filing a sexual battery report in May 2010. The woman, then 24 years old, had encountered an unidentified individual who perpetrated an unspecified offense.
Court documents stated that Macias, then a police corporal, took the woman's report and then allegedly provided her with his personal mobile phone number, telling her he was available for any help she might need. Melara was married at the time.
In the ensuing weeks, the defendant and plaintiff communicated, leading to alleged explicit messages from Macias, which variously referred to anal sex, oral sex, tying her up and blindfolding her, treating her like a "slut" and being her "little devil to the very end," according the complaint.
It was unclear whether Melara directly responded to these messages. However, she remained in communication with Macias going into 2011, the complaint said.
The defendant allegedly requested that she send him videos of her and her husband engaging in sex, which she refused to do. The plaintiff alleged the policeman then proceeded to send her explicit images of his body parts, including one picture where he was in uniform, sitting in his patrol unit, masturbating.
On different occasions in 2011, the plaintiff alleged, Macias sexually assaulted her.
"On the first occasion, after the plaintiff's husband had left their home, and while plaintiff's children were inside the residence, Miguel Macias came to her door, pulled down his shorts and directed the plaintiff to perform oral sex on him," the complaint said.
Court papers said that during the second alleged assault, Macias showed up at her home, saying he would drive her to a court hearing regarding the original assault she'd reported to police.
"Instead of taking her to court, the defendant took her to a house," the complaint alleged. "There the defendant displayed his service firearm ... which frightened the plaintiff, and then he directed her to perform oral sex on him."
The woman complied.
When Melara moved away from the area in 2012, there were no further physical encounters with Macias. However, the plaintiff and defendant remained in contact via text messages, according to the complaint. When the woman reached out to the defendant in 2024 for a "character reference letter," Macias, by now a lieutenant, agreed to write one, but he suggested he would need something in return, according to the plaintiff.
This led to a series of additional vulgar messages, one of which allegedly included a statement that "He was going to rape her, that he would tie her up and that his friends would also rape her," the complaint stated.
The plaintiff contacted the FBI, asking for an investigation. In July of this year, the woman's attorneys confirmed the defendant had been dismissed.
There is no record of criminal charges against him in federal court, nor has he been charged with anything in Riverside County.
The plaintiff's complaint alleged that Macias' colleagues were aware of his behavior but did nothing to stop it.
A court date has not been set in Melara's lawsuit.
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