Former FBI Agent Files Sexual Harassment Suit Against FBI

On Thursday, August 18th, former FBI agent Danielle Marks filed a suit claiming that many of her former FBI coworkers repeatedly harassed her, along with other female coworkers.

Marks is seeking back pay, attorney fees, compensatory damages, and is also requesting to be reinstated as an FBI agent. Denver attorneys Charlotte Sweeny and Kaitlyn Wright are representing Marks.

Case Details

“After a year of enduring constant inappropriate comments and poor treatment, the environment at the (Metro Gang Task Force) became so hostile and intolerable that it began to affect Ms. Marks’ mental health,” according to the lawsuit. Marks became a FBI agent in 2010, serving in a unit in Baltimore where she reportedly worked well with her co-workers.

In 2013, Marks transferred to Denver, and worked under a far different atmosphere. At the Metro Gang Task Force (MGTF), Marks was subject to, and observed, many incidents of sexual harassment. This included male agents making inappropriate sexual remarks, asking women to allow them to perform sexual acts, and repeatedly refusing to work with female agents.

Three specific agents who allegedly made these remarks were named in this lawsuit – Special Agents Sanin, Tobar, and Alexander.

Reportedly, on 20 different occasions agents failed to attend their surveillance shifts on Marks’ wiretap case. Marks would be assigned men to conduct the surveillance of a wiretap, but they never showed up.

Marks alerted supervisors of her co-workers’ behavior as early as September of 2013, but the behavior of the male agents did not change according to Marks. Marks recalls that the other agents would joke about the lack of disciplinary action, saying “I wonder how many zeroes will be at the end of that lawsuit check.”

Marks and other female agents were often excluded in other cases, and Marks reports that she was not included on “rescue” missions because the male agents told her that “it’s better left to the boys.” In 2014, Marks’ supervisor, Special Agent in Charge Thomas Ravanelle, asked Marks not to resign and instead be transferred to New York.

Marks claimed that the other male agents should be transferred instead of her, to which Ravanelle refused. Ravanelle then requested that Marks not disclose the behavior of the men who had harassed her.