A second woman has come forward with a lawsuit against Multnomah County and a now-retired corrections deputy who she said sexually assaulted her while she was in jail.
The woman, 35, said then-deputy Edwin Diaz used his position of power at the Multnomah County Detention Center to coerce her into sexual acts across a six-month span in 2024. Diaz’s on-duty conduct led him to be charged with roughly two dozen crimes, many of them sex crimes, in June 2025. According to state records, he retired two months later.
Multnomah County Justice Center, in Portland, Ore., July, 2023.
Caden Perry / OPB
OPB is declining to name the woman per a newsroom policy not to identify victims or alleged victims of sex crimes.
The woman alleged in her lawsuit that Diaz spent months offering preferential treatment and eventually sought sexual favors in return. Diaz allegedly made promises to help her when she was released and coordinated her to get extra phone calls, meals and time out of her cell.
Her attorneys wrote in the 18-page complaint that Diaz also coordinated for her to help clean jail cells. That additional responsibility helped Diaz “gain additional access to her,” they wrote.
Diaz allegedly guided the woman on where to stand in her cell to be out of view of security cameras, and then expose herself to him. He would allegedly engage in phone sex with her by calling her on unrecorded phone lines that are normally dedicated for attorneys to talk with clients.
“Because of Diaz’s position of power over [the woman] and his manipulation of her, she felt that she had no choice but to continue engaging in this ‘relationship’ with him,” attorneys wrote. “She feared what Diaz and other deputies would do to her if she turned him away.”
The woman highlighted a September 2024 incident where she was cleaning a cell and he followed her inside. According to the filing, Diaz allegedly grabbed her neck, fondled her, bit her lip until it bled and “shoved his hands down her pants.”
She was released later that month. As she was exiting custody, she alleged, Diaz tried to talk with her in the lobby and outside the jail. He “asked for a hug and a kiss,” the complaint said. Diaz only left when she “made it clear she was leaving with her friends.”
In October 2024, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office detectives received an anonymous tip about Diaz’s behavior with women in custody and opened a criminal investigation. The woman testified in front of a grand jury, alongside at least two other women who at some point were jailed at the Multnomah County Detention Center, to Diaz’s actions.
The grand jury indicted Diaz on 25 criminal charges, including first-degree custodial sexual misconduct and second-degree sexual abuse. Approximately 17 of the charges allege first-degree official misconduct.
Sara Long, one of the attorneys with Levi Merrithew Horst representing the woman, told OPB that Multnomah County administration also bears responsibility for the sexual abuse allegations surfacing from the jails.
She said the allegations against Diaz are inextricably linked to the jail’s staffing shortage in recent years. A public report published in January described the operations as being run by a “chronically understaffed and overworked workforce.” The report shows corrections staff clocked more than 170,000 hours of overtime.
The shortage, Long said, gave Diaz the opportunity to sign up for overtime shifts specifically at a wing of the jail where women who have disciplinary issues and mental health issues are lodged.
“It seems he was targeting the most vulnerable female [adults-in-custody],” Long said. “All AICs are vulnerable, to be completely clear, but this is a particularly vulnerable group of women.” Long noted that their allegations would be “less likely to be believed.”
Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Brent Weisberg condemned the allegations against Diaz.
“The safety and dignity of every person in our custody is foundational to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office,” Weisberg said. “We have zero tolerance for misconduct and any sort of abuse of authority against those in our custody.”
A separate woman in that same wing filed a similar lawsuit on March 31, echoing many of the same allegations of coercion. That complaint accused Diaz of rape.
Diaz’s attorney declined to comment for this article.
