OGDEN, Utah — They went to Ogden Regional Medical Center in crisis.
One was in the midst of a psychiatric episode. Another was experiencing methadone withdrawals. A third was admitted for alcohol poisoning.
But in separate lawsuits, three women say that instead of finding safety at the hospital, they were assaulted by a third-party security guard who worked there.
The first alleges she was put in a chokehold after she refused to undress in front of the man in June 2020. The second woman says he repeatedly sexually assaulted her in February 2021, in a room where the security camera had recently been disabled.
The third woman — who filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the hospital and Healthcare & High-Risk Security Services, the company that employed the guard — alleges he sexually assaulted her in the emergency room and again in the Alcohol and Chemical Treatment Unit after she was admitted to the hospital in March 2022.
But the lawsuit alleges the abuse didn’t stop there.
The complaint says that when she was discharged from the hospital, it was to the security guard, who then took her to a nearby motel. Struggling to cope with what had happened to her, it says she attempted suicide a few days later and was transported back to the same hospital.
Despite a police investigation, the lawsuit claims the man was still working at the hospital and sexually abused her again.
“I was at a hospital where I was supposed to feel the safest, kept the safest, where I was the most vulnerable,” alleges Cheryl, the woman who filed the most recent case, in an interview with FOX 13 News. “And I was victimized by the person that should have kept me the safest: a security officer.”
Because of the nature of their allegations, FOX 13 News is identifying Cheryl and another plaintiff interviewed for this story by only their first names. The station has chosen not to identify the security guard, since he is not named as a defendant in the most recent lawsuit and because no criminal charges have been filed against him.
The Weber County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to FOX 13 News that the investigation into Cheryl’s allegations is ongoing.
Michael Young, an attorney representing Cheryl in her lawsuit, said he believes the evidence shows that Ogden Regional Medical Center and HSS were repeatedly presented with “unmistakable, clear evidence that a security officer in their hospital poses a threat to patient safety.” But at multiple points, he alleges, they failed to take necessary action to prevent future harms — including by suspending the employee or limiting his access to patients.
“I have a hard time explaining why nothing was done,” Young said in an interview. “In short, it was just a remarkable failure by the institutions involved.”
Cheryl’s lawsuit is seeking damages of $30 million.
Ogden Regional Medical Center said in a statement to FOX 13 News that “the allegations against the former contractor are deeply disturbing.” The hospital added that it has been assisting law enforcement during its investigation. “Our current administration will continue to work with the third-party contractor that hires and supervises security personnel to ensure the right procedures and processes are in place to protect those who seek our care,” the hospital concluded.
Healthcare & High-Risk Security Services, known as HSS, also issued a statement in response to an inquiry from FOX 13 News, noting that it has a policy to not comment on the specifics of pending litigation but takes "allegations of this nature seriously.”
“The safety and well-being of the communities we serve remain our paramount priority,” the statement continued. “HSS denies any wrongdoing in this matter and stands behind its commitment to providing a safe environment for its clients. As this remains an active legal proceeding, we will have no further statement at this time.”
'Everything a victim could be expected to do’
After Cheryl was admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning treatment in March 2022, her lawsuit alleges the security guard began by touching her under the guise of comfort — rubbing her shoulders and arms “while telling her, ‘it’s okay’ and ‘everything’s going to be okay.’”
Then, alone in her room and behind a closed door, the complaint claims he escalated that touch, repeatedly sexually assaulting her as she came in and out of consciousness, “confused and heavily intoxicated.”
“I was just in complete shock,” Cheryl said in an interview. “I was confused. I was scared. I was wondering what was going on. I didn’t understand what was going on, because I was still in a state of, you know, coming out of detoxing.”
The lawsuit alleges the assault continued after Cheryl was moved from the emergency room to the Alcohol and Chemical Treatment Unit, where it claims the security guard took her into the bathroom and raped her.
A report from the Weber County Sheriff’s Office says video shows him coming in and out of her room on several occasions with the door shut behind him, including one time for about 33 minutes.
“I’m sort of blown away by the fact that he’s able to walk into her room in this restricted unit, close the door and remain in there for 30 minutes,” Young said. “And no one comes to the door, no one checks on her, no one makes sure that anything untoward is happening.”
The lawsuit alleges that the security guard had no “clinical, security or operational responsibility in that unit, and no legitimate reason to be present in Cheryl’s room.”
The complaint says Cheryl was then discharged from the hospital to the security officer, who took her from the hospital to a nearby motel — a “catastrophic failure of discharge protocols.”
“While she was still sort of in this difficult psychological state, they discharge her to the very person who had been sexually assaulting and raping her,” Young alleges.
Cheryl said she has no memory of being discharged from the hospital.
"He left with me, put me in his personal car, according to cameras, and took me to my hotel room,” she said. “And I remember none of that. I don’t remember any of that.”
Once he left the room, Cheryl called 911 and reported that she had been raped, the lawsuit alleges. A report from the Weber County Sheriff’s Office notes that she was “heavily intoxicated” when police arrived.
The lawsuit says her complaint to police sparked a criminal investigation and that detectives were in contact with the hospital to obtain records. But it alleges the security guard wasn’t suspended and that his access to patient areas was not restricted.
When Cheryl attempted suicide a few days later, the lawsuit alleges she was transported back to Ogden Regional Medical Center, where the security guard still worked.
“The EMTs were not aware of what was going on with my case,” she told FOX 13 News. “They weren’t aware that I had reported this rape already to authorities. They weren’t aware of that, so they had no idea.”
During her second admission, the lawsuit claims the guard continued to sexually assault her. When she was able, the complaint contends she asked to speak to a hospital caseworker and again disclosed the abuse and her police report.
She hoped action would be taken. But when she was moved from the ER to the hospital’s Behavioral Health Unit, the lawsuit alleges the security guard followed her again — despite having no documented reason to be there.
“At that point I just thought, ‘no one believes me; this is it,’” she recalls.
The complaint alleges Cheryl had done “everything a victim could be expected to do.”
“She spoke out," Young added. "She asked for help from the police. She spoke directly to the hospital and asked for help. And those requests went unanswered. And this individual continued to have access to her, continued to show up in her room."
After her second discharge, the lawsuit alleges the security guard called her and came to her workplace. Court records show Cheryl then requested and obtained a protective order against him.
But the suit claims the security guard wasn’t terminated until 70 days after Cheryl was discharged to him, after law enforcement showed the hospital surveillance footage of him escorting Cheryl into the motel.
As the police investigation into Cheryl’s case continues, Young said he believes the sheriff's department is being "very careful and they’re being very deliberate in how they sort of work the case up to make sure that when it comes time to charge this individual, he will be held accountable.”
‘This just can’t happen’
A few months after the alleged assaults, Cheryl said she got up the courage to seek help from a rape recovery support group in Ogden.
That’s where Cheryl heard a woman she’d never met before sharing her own story.
“She starts saying about a year and a half ago she was assaulted by a security officer in a hospital,” Cheryl recounted. “And here I am listening to her story and I’m thinking to myself, ‘There’s no way. There’s no way it’s the same hospital. There’s no way it’s the same officer. There’s no way. This just can’t happen.'”
Cheryl said she approached the woman afterward and learned she was accusing the same security guard at Ogden Regional Medical. Stephanie, the other woman, described the shock of that encounter in an interview with FOX 13 News.
“I hit the floor,” she recalled. “I was so upset. I hit the wall. I kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ She couldn’t understand what I was so sorry for.”
Stephanie filed a lawsuit in 2022, alleging that the security guard repeatedly sexually assaulted her after she was admitted to the emergency room in February 2021, experiencing methadone withdrawals and a mental health episode.
She alleged that he started entering her room and offering her water or blankets, then began touching her inappropriately. The lawsuit describes her as drowsy and confused during these encounters.
Following a police investigation, the Weber County Attorney’s Office declined to file charges in the case, saying there was “insufficient evidence to support a reasonable likelihood of conviction,” documents show. Surveillance footage in the hallway showed him repeatedly entering Stephanie’s room. But the cameras inside her room had recently been disabled, a police report says.
“There is absolutely no reason for a security guard to be walking into a patient’s room, closing the door and staying in that room for upwards of 10 minutes,” argues Young, who is also representing Stephanie in her lawsuit.
The security guard denied touching Stephanie inappropriately, telling the Weber County Sheriff’s Office he’d exchanged “probably fifteen words” with her, though he said he did touch her back over the blanket.
Ogden Regional Medical settled the claims in Stephanie’s lawsuit last year. The claims against HSS are ongoing.
'Who was I supposed to cry to help for?’
After she met Stephanie, Cheryl went online and found court records showing a third woman had filed a lawsuit against the security guard in 2023. The woman alleges he choked her after she refused to undress for him when she was admitted to the ER at Ogden Regional Medical Center following a suicide attempt in June 2020.
The case is ongoing. Ogden Regional Medical Center has denied allegations of wrongdoing in court filings. The security guard said he never choked the woman and became involved only after she became aggressive.
Cheryl said learning of the complaints made before her alleged assault makes her feel like her case could have been prevented.
“They knew about all of these instances leading up to me,” she said of the hospital and the security company. “They knew that these cases were reported, that the complaints were there, investigations were done. And they did nothing but keep allowing him to victimize women.”
Stephanie agrees, saying she believes Cheryl’s assault was “100% without a shadow of a doubt preventable.”
But she said she doesn't feel like her complaints were taken seriously, noting that she was asked at one point during the investigation why she hadn’t cried out for help during the assault.
“To whom?” she recalled thinking. “The person hurting me? Who was I supposed to cry to help for?”
Stephanie said she pursued her lawsuit only after she felt all of her other avenues for justice were exhausted.
Young said he believes their allegations demonstrate a need for HSS and Ogden Regional Medical Hospital to take a “hard look at how they’re actually applying what they’re supposed to be doing and then from there, from that assessment, making sure that this doesn’t ever happen again.”
“Something as simple as ‘male security guards will not enter female patient rooms by themselves and close the door, and if you do, that’s a zero tolerance violation’ — those sort of I think interventions would have helped,” he said.
Both Cheryl and Stephanie say their experiences at Ogden Regional Medical Center have had a lasting impact on everything from their sense of safety to their relationships with others and their comfort in health care settings.
“I’ve lost trust in everything since this has happened,” Cheryl told FOX 13 News. “I became a different person. The person I was before this is not who I am today. I miss that person.”
They said they hope their lawsuits will bring what they see as needed accountability, and that by sharing their stories more widely, they can help prevent what happened to them from happening to anyone else.
“I hope I am that last person” this could have happened to, Cheryl said. “I hope I stopped this within.”
Both women said they're afraid that there may be other women out there with similar allegations who haven’t yet spoken up.
“That still haunts me every day,” Stephanie said. “Who else did it happen to?”