A woman arrested for public intoxication alleges she was groped by two officers before she fell out of their LAPD patrol car and suffered a broken jaw and other injuries, according to a federal lawsuit obtained Tuesday.
The civil rights complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles contends Kim Nguyen suffered “humiliating and egregious sexual battery” by Officers David Shin and Jin Oh, who allegedly groped her before she fell out of the moving squad car early on the morning of March 17, 2013.
The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment.
“The sexual battery caused serious and permanent emotional and psychological injuries … and has continued to torment her everyday life,” according to the lawsuit which seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Nguyen alleges that somewhere on the drive to a police station after her arrest, Shin and Oh stopped the squad car and both officers got into the back passenger compartment and sexually assaulted her by “intentionally touching her in the left thigh, left chest/breast, and pulled on (her) left ear.”
She says she fell out of the patrol car at some point afterward.
Nguyen, now 29, originally sued the city and the officers in Los Angeles Superior Court in July 2013, alleging negligence.
According to a claim filed on Nguyen’s behalf before she brought her still-unresolved state suit, she suffered a broken jaw and lost some of her teeth when she fell out of the car. She also sustained scars and “significant disfigurement” and memory loss, the claim states.
Nguyen was hospitalized for 17 days and underwent “extensive and painful surgeries,” according to the claim.
She was close to receiving her master’s degree in business administration when she was hurt, according to her original lawsuit.
