An appointee to the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Biden administration has been accused of sexually assaulting a subordinate at her Pentagon City apartment.
Allegations stemming from a 2023 incident ultimately led to the resignation of Jessica Guadalupe Cavazos after fewer than eight months as the agency’s deputy Under Secretary for Minority Business Development.
Following her arrest earlier this year, she now faces four criminal charges: one count each of forcible sodomy, object sexual penetration, aggravated sexual battery and strangulation.
Cavazos, according to court records, hosted a department subordinate — who resided outside of the D.C. area — after she had traveled here for a work conference on Nov. 28, 2023.
Feeling “in a celebratory mood” after organizing the event, the other woman, plus Cavazos and other colleagues, toasted their efforts with multiple rounds of alcoholic beverages at a D.C. hotel bar throughout the evening, according to court documents.
But after returning to Cavazos’ apartment, where the subordinate would sleep before traveling home the following day, Cavazos made multiple unwanted passes, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case
Cavazos is accused of performing multiple unwanted sex acts on the other woman as the two shared an inflatable mattress at Cavazos’ sparsely furnished residence.
“We never even had any conversations to this effect … if anything, our conversations we had leading up to this was her putting herself out to be a mentor kind of person,” the victim later told police.
Cavazos attempted another sexual encounter the following morning but was rebuffed by the victim, according to the complaint, and the victim then left Cavazos’ apartment. Distraught, the woman called three people that morning — including her husband — and described what happened, before returning to her out-of-state residence, according to the complaint.
After undergoing an examination by a sexual assault nurse examiner at a hospital, the victim was found to have neck bruising and other symptoms commonly associated with strangulation, the document says.
“Nothing I said mattered,” the victim is quoted as saying. “And that’s why I knew that this wasn’t about — it wasn’t about sex, if that makes sense. It wasn’t about having a mutually enjoyable experience. This was, like, about her hurting me.”
Cavazos later told attorneys at the Department of Commerce that the victim had slept at her apartment and that they shared a mattress, but did not acknowledge the accusations of an unwanted sexual encounter, according to court documents.
Nonetheless, Cavazos submitted her letter of resignation to the agency on Dec. 15 — roughly two weeks after the alleged incident.
“Ms. Cavazos vehemently denies the allegations made against her,” attorney Kathy Potter said on Cavazos’ behalf, “but acknowledges that she is now faced with the choice of either resigning or facing termination due to the incident involving her and a department subordinate.”
In March 2024, the victim formally filed a report with the Arlington County Police Department. Cavazos was arrested in May of this year but is not currently in police custody.
Cavazos, who resides in Wisconsin, is scheduled to appear in Arlington’s General District Court on Aug. 18 for a preliminary hearing. Each of her three previously scheduled appearances was continued to a later date, according to online records.
