A former deputy with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office says a co-worker sexually harassed her while she was working undercover as “bait” with the East Metro Sex Trafficking Task Force. Isabella Curtis, 29, left her job in August 2023 and sued the county soon after, claiming in court documents that former Sgt. Keith Anderson’s harassment ruined her reputation and career with the county. The county has asked a judge to find in its favor without a trial, arguing that the sheriff’s office put a stop to the alleged harassment once it was reported. A hearing on the case is set for Monday. Anderson resigned in the midst of a county investigation into his conduct, and he faces an October hearing where he could lose his law-enforcement license, according to a Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training notice filed with the lawsuit. At an appearance before the POST Board in August, Anderson “acknowledged that he crossed professional boundaries” and said “many of his comments could be considered inappropriate, but nonetheless denied that he sexually harassed (Curtis) because she did not directly report to him, and he did not have the authority to hire or fire her,” the POST notice states. The sheriff’s office suspended its investigation after Anderson’s resignation, according to the POST notice. It said he did not intend to renew his license. Started as mentor Curtis, who grew up in Roseville, worked as a Roseville police officer for a year before joining the Washington County Sheriff’s Office as a patrol deputy in November 2020. She has worked as a contract deputy in Hugo and a DARE instructor, crisis negotiator and mentor. She also began working as an undercover officer with the East Metro Sex Trafficking Task Force, which Washington County operates with the cities of Woodbury and Oakdale; Anderson was one of the sergeants assigned to the task force. Curtis told the Pioneer Press the task force was “very meaningful work. I knew that that was where I wanted to go as far as investigations go, so I expressed that to them.” She said her first extended interaction with Anderson took place in September 2021 during a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension sex-trafficking conference at Breezy Point Resort in northern Minnesota, when she was 25. “He was the only person from the county who was in any type of leadership role or anything like that who was at the conference,” she said. “We kind of stuck with him and did the whole social eating together, going out together, whatever, to the bar.” Curtis said she and Anderson ended up talking late one night, and she shared that she had attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, but left after her first semester because she had been drugged and sexually assaulted at an ROTC party in October 2019. “I felt comfortable with him, comfortable enough to tell him about it,” she said. “Obviously, at the time I thought he was being empathetic. He shared an experience that he had had. I was like, ‘OK, this guy is a nice dude.’ I thought he was going to be a mentor, being that he was in the role that I eventually wanted to be in.” In February 2022, the two began working together as part of the task force. They met for lunch to discuss her work in March and again in July, she said. That August, Anderson gave Curtis his personal cellphone number, and “he began texting her more frequently, often about non-work-related issues,” according to the civil complaint. “I would ask him about a case or like, ‘Hey, what do you think about doing this?’” Curtis said. “… He gradually started asking more personal questions, and he started throwing in things about how I looked.” Curtis said those initial comments weren’t immediately distressing. “He was married. I didn’t think he was hitting on me or sexually interested in me,” she said. “We would talk about the photos that I would take for (the task force). They’re designed to lure in johns and sex traffickers.” She started to feel uncomfortable when Anderson referred to her as “a honeypot,” according to the civil complaint. “I didn’t even know what that meant,” she said. “I had never heard it before, but it isn’t something you should say to your co-worker who’s 27 or 28 years younger than you. He is older than my parents.” ‘I’m into you’ At the end of September 2022, while Anderson was attending a trafficking conference in Las Vegas, he sent Curtis numerous text and Snapchat messages, according to the lawsuit. One “stated that he had something to tell her, and went on to say, ‘I’m into you,’” the lawsuit said. “He later referred to this as the ‘great Vegas confession.’ The next morning, he texted her work-related questions and apologized.” Anderson showed up unannounced at Curtis’ home at midnight one night to return her cellphone, which she had left in his vehicle during an undercover operation. “When she went down to the lobby to retrieve the phone from him, he ogled her (a fact he later acknowledged) and later told her that he liked her nightwear,” the lawsuit said. At other times, Anderson sent Curtis a song with suggestive lyrics, offered to cover her costs for a required $350 crime-scene class, told her she could sue the county over what he’d said and done, and acknowledged he’d “gone too far” and had been “creepy,” the lawsuit said. It says Anderson at various times told Curtis “she was cute, sweet, pretty, beautiful, had nice legs, had nice hair, and on one occasion (in person) ‘a killer body.’ … He referenced men looking at her social media accounts and wanting to be with her sexually. Upon being given access to (Curtis’) Instagram account, Anderson immediately ‘liked’ over 100 pictures of her on that account.” In his deposition taken on June 5, 2024, Anderson said that he told Curtis that he was “into her” because Curtis had sent him “a couple of pictures that were borderline inappropriate.” Anderson’s deposition was filed by the county as an exhibit to their motion. “I (was) trying to handle it, I told her yeah, yep, I’m into you, but part of the rest of that text is, I just want to be friends. And then she texted back or Snapchatted back, okay, let’s do that,” he said in the deposition. Anderson said in his deposition that the photos that Curtis sent included one of her “laying in bed, where she had a computer at her feet and it showed, basically, she was in a tank top, midriff down” and another where “she was dressed in a dress that was — the photo was taken from an angle, so you could see down, like, the cleavage area.” Anderson said Curtis sent other messages telling him she was going out for the night or going for coffee. One had devil horns with a heart with an arrow through it, he said. When asked if it was possible that the photos were work-related or to be used in operations, Anderson responded: “It is not possible.” He also said that Curtis showed him a picture of the condo building – the old U.S. Postal Service building – where she lived at the time in downtown St. Paul. When she left her cellphone in his squad car, he said he felt obliged to bring her the phone because she was “on squad” and her “grandmother was on her deathbed.” Curtis said in an affidavit filed on Jan. 13 that Anderson’s assertions that she sent him “allegedly provocative photos for his exclusive viewing” are false. Related Articles Crime & Public Safety | St. Paul man accused of helping son hide 4 bodies in Wisconsin cornfield sentenced to 16 years in prison Crime & Public Safety | More than a dozen Minnesotans among Jan. 6 rioters who were spared by Trump Crime & Public Safety | Burnsville ambulances will be the first in the state to carry blood for on-scene transfusions Crime & Public Safety | Texas man gets 4 years in federal prison for carjacking at Inver Grove Heights strip club Crime & Public Safety | Costumed St. Paul robber sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison for gun crime, violating probation She said that she never provided photographs to Anderson or any other Washington County employee that were not related to task-force operations; she said she was required in her role as an undercover officer for the task force “to provide my superiors with sexually provocative pictures of myself to be broadcast to members of the public seeking to sexually exploit or traffic young women,” Curtis’ affidavit states. The photos of Curtis that Anderson described in his deposition were posted to her Snapchat story, which lets users post photos and videos in a temporary environment, Curtis said. Anderson was a “listed friend,” which allowed him to see and view her stories, she said. “At no time did I ever send Anderson any picture intended to be sexual or flirtatious. … Any photos he was able to view of me that were not work-related were photos posted to social media timelines for general consumption or viewing by ‘friends.'” Curtis said she feared retaliation if she reported Anderson’s behavior. As her supervisor when she was working on behalf of the task force, the two worked together at night with Curtis functioning as “bait,” which gave Anderson “unique opportunities to cross into conversations relating to her appearance and sexual appeal to potential ‘johns,’” the lawsuit said. Retired without discipline In December 2022, Anderson arranged for Curtis to use a sheriff’s office GPS device for a retail-theft investigation in Hugo, but no one at the department had approved the use, according to the lawsuit. When Cmdr. Sara Halverson learned about it, she told Anderson to retrieve the device, the lawsuit states. “Cmdr. Halverson then spoke to Curtis and told her that she did not want her working with Anderson any longer, acknowledging that Anderson was ‘favoring’ her,” the lawsuit said. County officials say that before Curtis got the GPS device through Anderson, she “made the application within her chain of command, all of whom rejected the application,” the motion for summary judgment states. “Deputy Curtis decided to circumvent her chain of command and went to Sgt. Anderson asking for assistance … Sgt. Anderson did not know that her chain of command had already said no.” Anderson admitted in his deposition that Halverson told him to stop texting Curtis, according to court documents. But Anderson continued to “share inappropriate personal information with Curtis including information about his marital problems,” Curtis’ lawsuit said. “He asked her ‘what kind of guy she was into.’ He stated he felt like he had known her forever, and that they had a strong connection. He offered to donate sick time if she did not have enough to cover her leave when she had COVID.” On Jan. 30, 2023, Curtis reported the alleged harassment to her commander and later gave a lengthy statement to attorney Michelle Soldo, whom the county had hired to investigate the situation. “On information and belief, the county confronted Anderson with the facts contained in this complaint, and he was allowed to retire without the county making an official finding with respect to the investigation or disciplining him in any fashion,” the lawsuit said. Washington County Sheriff Dan Starry, Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson and other county officials said they could not comment on pending litigation. Anderson did not respond to an interview request forwarded to him by his attorney. “The defendants’ position on the claims were well set forth in the recent filings with the court,” said Jessica Schwie, the private attorney who is representing both the county and Anderson against the civil claims. “We trust that the court will reach a just outcome.” Julie Fleming-Wolfe, the attorney representing the East Metro Sex Trafficking Task Force, said she has filed a motion asking for the case against the task force to be dismissed because it was not Curtis’ employer. Anderson, of Fridley, grew up in Brooklyn Center and graduated from North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park with an associate of applied science degree in criminal justice, according to court documents. He started as a community service officer with the Brooklyn Park Police Department in 1988, and then worked for the Redwood Falls Police Department from 1992 to 1996, court documents show. Washington County hired Anderson as a sheriff’s deputy in 1996 and promoted him to sergeant in 2015. He resigned Feb. 17, 2023. A POST committee last August determined that reasonable grounds existed to believe that Anderson violated standards of peace officer conduct and initiated an action to determine whether he repeatedly engaged in sexual harassment and failed to self-report his misconduct to the POST Board, according to Curtis’ lawsuit. It is set for an Oct. 14 contested court hearing where Curtis has been asked to testify. County says alleged harassment stopped In the county’s motion for summary judgment, filed on Dec. 30, sheriff’s office officials said Curtis was assigned to three different sex-trafficking operations from July to September 2022. “Unbeknownst to anyone, the two started a short-term personal relationship that included some flirtatious communications,” the motion states. “After a few months, Deputy Curtis decided that she found the communications concerning and reported it on Jan. 30, 2023. Sgt. Anderson was placed on leave the following day and later resigned. Because the county accepted Sgt. Anderson‘s resignation rather than terminating him, (Curtis) brought this suit alleging quid pro quo sex discrimination and hostile working environment sex discrimination.” The defendants deny that Curtis was sexually harassed as defined by state law because the alleged conduct was “not sufficiently severe and pervasive,” the county motion states. Following Curtis’ complaint, the sheriff’s office “took prompt, appropriate, and reasonable action,” the motion states. Because all of the concerning conduct “was carried out on private devices/accounts, behind closed doors, and outside the view of co-workers and others who would be able to corroborate the allegations … it was incumbent upon Deputy Curtis to raise the issue to Washington County in a timely fashion,” the motion states. County officials also say that after Halverson instructed Anderson and Curtis to “limit their communications and interactions,” Curtis continued to communicate with Anderson via text. “On January 16, 2023, (Curtis) initiated a conversation with Anderson,” the county’s motion for summary judgment states. “Anderson responded, offering to take (her) to lunch for her upcoming birthday which (she) accepted. On January 28, 2023, (Curtis) sent her last text message to Anderson stating her plans for the weekend. On January 30, Anderson sent messages to (Curtis) about his son, stating that it was good to see her, and asking a work-related question. At no point did (Curtis) state to Anderson that his conduct or comments were offensive or request that he cease communications with her. ” When Curtis told her supervisors on Jan. 30, 2023, that Anderson was sexually harassing her, “there were no allegations of touching other than hugging,” the motion for summary judgment states. “The next day Sgt. Anderson was given notice of the investigation and placed on administrative leave.” “There’s no dispute that after he became aware of the complaint, Sgt. Anderson never returned to the workplace, and he has never communicated with Deputy Curtis again and vice versa,” the motion states. The county closed its investigation, finding that Anderson had violated its workplace policies and expectations and submitted the findings to the POST Board. Anderson “testified that it was not his intention to violate county policy, nor to harass plaintiff,” the motion for summary judgment states. “There were a few times … where upon reflection, he was concerned that some of his remarks to Deputy Curtis had crossed a line; each of those times he checked in with (Curtis) to see if he had offended her; each time she advised him that they were good, meaning that he understood her to be not offended.” Curtis said she resigned in August 2023 because she believed Anderson’s alleged harassment ruined her reputation and career at Washington County, according to court documents. She sued Anderson and the county two months later for sexual harassment. Curtis said she applied to the FBI in December 2022, the day after Halverson called her “to tell me not to work with Keith anymore,” she said. Coming forward Isabella Curtis, right, and her attorney Chris Wachtler, a former Washington County prosecutor. (John Autey / Pioneer Press) Curtis resigned a week before she reported to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. She was placed with the Safe Streets Violent Gang Task Force in Pittsburgh, but is currently on a temporary assignment at the Minneapolis office. “I had to stay (at Washington County) for eight months after reporting what he did, and it was terrible,” she said. “I owned my house, and I had a mortgage, so it’s not like I could just quit. I had to pay bills. People are like, ‘Why did you stay there?’ Well, what else was I supposed to do exactly?” Related Articles Crime & Public Safety | White Bear Lake assistant fire chief tapped to be Mahtomedi chief Crime & Public Safety | Hudson Hot Air Affair floats into new location this year Crime & Public Safety | Inmates’ help sought in Lake Elmo woman’s 1988 disappearance Crime & Public Safety | Bremer Bank exec charged with felony swindle in sale of Duck Donuts stores Crime & Public Safety | Two hurt when fleeing suspect crashes in St. Paul Curtis said she is disappointed with Washington County’s handling of the case. Curtis’ attorney, Chris Wachtler, said the consequences for his client continue today. Wachtler, who worked as a Washington County prosecutor from 1998 to 2001, said county officials have “blamed the victim and refused accountability.” Curtis said she’s going public with her story “to be an example to others.” “How can I encourage victims to come forward if I am not willing to do so myself?” she said. “I tried to do the right thing … I have a 3-year-old niece. I want her to be able to do the job that she loves to do without fear of harassment.”