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Under the U.S. Fair Housing Act, a complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Monday, Dec. 7, that alleges Salazar dos Santos subjected women, tenants of his Chicopee properties, to sexual harassment on multiple occasions going back to at least 2008, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Massachusetts.
Dos Santos manages residential rental properties in Chicopee. The properties he manages are owned by two family trusts - at least one of them being The Trust of Dos Santos Salazar - which are alleged to be liable for Dos Santos’s conduct, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Dos Santos is being accused of subjecting women to unwelcome sexual contact, including coercing them to perform oral sex and touching intimate parts of their bodies, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He is also suspected of exposing his genitals to women, locking them in his office, implicitly offering to grant tangible benefits such as rent payment plans in exchange for sex, and threatening tenants who resisted or objected to his sexual harassment and abuse.
On behalf of the female tenants that are part of the lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is seeking monetary damages to compensate victims and a court order barring future discrimination.
Dos Santos is among the landlords charged under the Justice Department’s Sexual Harassment in Housing Initiative. Since it was launched in 2017, 20 anti-sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed through the program.
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