One of the highest-ranking female officers in the Denver Police Department has filed a state civil rights complaint alleging she was effectively demoted after speaking out against sexist and derogatory remarks made by the former police chief.

In her complaint, Cmdr. Magen Dodge, 41, detailed a series of interactions between herself and former Chief Robert White that she said show he retaliated against her for participating in investigations into his behavior and speaking up for herself and others, eventually leading to her effective demotion.

Her allegations also state that White made sexist remarks, including, she said, once insinuating in a meeting of high-ranking police staff that she should prostitute herself to earn $50,000 for the department. When she spoke up against poor treatment of herself and others, she said White disregarded her complaints, calling her “silly,” “emotional” and “immature,” according to the complaint.

The entire department is “rife with sexism, including at the highest levels,” Dodge wrote in her complaint filed last month.

Representatives of both the Denver Police Department and the city’s Department of Public Safety said the agencies could not comment on the complaint since it is an ongoing investigation. Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson declined to answer why Dodge was reassigned to a different position.

“It’s not appropriate for us to comment on this process,” Jackson said.

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Dodge declined an interview for this story through her attorney, Paula Greisen, who provided the Colorado Civil Rights Division filing to The Denver Post. Dodge told Denver television channel Fox 31 — which first reported on the complaint — that she believes current police Chief Paul Pazen colluded with White and Public Safety Director Troy Riggs to marginalize her.

Dodge’s allegations were first investigated by a third-party company on behalf of the department, in lieu of an internal affairs inquiry. The department eventually cleared White of wrongdoing in the case, but the outside investigator’s findings and analysis have been hidden from the public — and from Dodge herself.

Kelli Christensen, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said Monday that she could not say why White was cleared.

White, when reached by phone, said he had no further comment other than to say the internal investigation found he did nothing wrong.

“I’m done. I have nothing else to say,” he said. “The more I say … yeah, that’s it.”

The complaint

Dodge joined the department as an officer in 1998 and rose quickly through the ranks. She became a commander in 2012 at age 36 — the youngest person to ever achieve that level, which is the fourth-highest rank in the department. She led the department’s introduction of body cameras and managed one of the largest police districts in the city.

There were discussions of her someday becoming chief, she said in her complaint. Interviews by the outside investigator with other high-ranking police officials at the time support this claim, documents provided to the Post show.

Dodge first drew criticism from White in February 2017 after she reported that one of the lieutenants she supervised believed he was being discriminated against because he was gay. When she reported the lieutenant’s concerns to White and said she had to notify others, he said she was being “silly” and told her to be careful, according to the complaint.

Shortly after that, White’s treatment of her worsened. He made sexual innuendos about women he saw at his gym and called a female detective a derogatory term, according to the complaint. When she spoke up at a disciplinary hearing for another officer, White criticized her comments and said, “I don’t know what is wrong with Magen, it must be a female thing,” according to the complaint.

Later that month, White insinuated at a command staff meeting that Dodge prostitute herself to earn money for the department, according to the complaint.

The deputy chief of operations at the time, David Quinones, also was in the meeting, documents from the third-party investigation show. He said the comment made him uncomfortable.

“I don’t remember who I talked to, but one person asked me, ‘Did the chief call Magen a prostitute?’ ” Quinones said, according to a written summary of the investigator’s interview with him. “It sounded like he had done that. I don’t know where he was trying to go with this comment.”

Previously, White had suggested that Dodge have sex with a specific billionaire in order to get pregnant and become financially secure through the child, Dodge wrote in her complaint. When Dodge told him that his comments were sexist, he reportedly told another high-ranking police official and called Dodge “emotional” and “immature” and, thus, not ready to be promoted to deputy chief.

Dodge first reported her concerns about what she alleged was White’s sexist and retaliatory behavior toward herself and others when she was interviewed in the separate investigation into whether White had violated state public record laws. That investigation, along with one into whether he made derogatory remarks about his own officers after he was involved in a hit-and-run crash, found that he didn’t violate department policy.

Internal affairs opened an investigation of Dodge’s complaint in February 2018 and, at the Department of Public Safety’s direction, hired Employment Matters LLC to conduct it. As the investigation continued, White began to talk about demoting her or transferring her to another position, according to the complaint.

White retired in April and was replaced by current Chief Paul Pazen. Dodge said that she remained concerned about retaliation because White, Pazen and Riggs, the director of public safety, were close friends, according to the complaint.

In July, Pazen transferred Dodge to a new assignment. Although Dodge retained her rank, she said the new job as liaison to the Colorado Information Analysis Center is an “effective demotion.”

In her previous assignment, she oversaw 181 employees. Now she oversees nobody. The position sat vacant for more than a year before she took it and was previously held by lower-ranked personnel, according to her complaint. The position is not referenced in the Denver police operations manual, which outlines jobs and procedures for the department.

“When I was first assigned this position, it did not even have an office, only a cubicle,” she wrote in her complaint. “It was some time before I was even given a computer.”

White told the third-party investigator that he had no memory of many of Dodge’s allegations against him and denied he would say such things, though he did say that he believed Dodge was immature, a summary of the interview shows. He said that some of his comments — if he said them — could have been intended as jokes.

“I like to be friendly and create an environment where people are comfortable,” White said, according to the summary. “I used to joke, and obviously that is being used against me. Maybe I joke too much and it has become an environment that is too friendly.”

Hidden findings

Dodge never learned what happened in the internal affairs investigation into her allegations, besides being told that it was completed and that White was found to have done nothing wrong. She was never given access to the investigation file or a written conclusion, she said in her complaint.

Records related to the investigation obtained through a Denver Post public-records request show summaries of the interviews the investigator conducted as well as Employment Matters’ final report. However, the 16 pages detailing the investigator’s conclusions and analysis are almost completely blacked out. A letter provided with the records stated the redactions were made to protect the privacy interests of people involved, that “there is no public purpose to be served in allowing disclosure of this record” and that “disclosure of the redacted information would be contrary to the public interest.”

When pushed for further explanation, Christensen, the spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said she could not explain further about the redactions or the department’s decision that White had not violated policy.

Jackson, the police spokesman, also declined to answer how the department concluded that White did nothing wrong. He said he did not know what department policy was regarding allowing complainants access to the investigative files.

The Office of the Independent Monitor, tasked with overseeing investigations within the Denver police and sheriff’s departments, requested to oversee the investigation into Dodge’s complaint. However, the office’s involvement was denied, as it was with the other cases regarding White’s conduct. Last year, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said the Office of the Independent Monitor did not have authority to investigate the chief of police, reversing previous policy.

The Denver City Council changed city ordinance last week to expressly permit the independent monitor’s involvement in investigations regarding the chief and other high-ranking public safety officials.

Authorities with the Colorado Civil Rights Division have yet to interview Dodge, said Greisen, her attorney. The commander could wait months for the interview, she said. Dodge cannot file a discrimination lawsuit against the police department without first receiving a “right to sue” letter from the division.