A Colorado representative is suing Lyft and an independent transportation company for failing to take proper actions to prevent her alleged sexual assault by one of its drivers last year.

According to the lawsuit, Rep. Jenny Willford, D-Northglenn, was taking a Lyft home on Feb. 24 when the driver made unwanted sexual advances and ultimately assaulted her. Willford reported the incident to Northglenn Police that evening.

“I don’t know how to put into words how excruciating it was to be so close to home, so close to my husband and our two kids, and so close to safety while being assaulted in view of my house,” Willford said during a press conference to announce the suit.

According to the lawsuit, Willford also reported the assault to Lyft, who promised never to match her with that driver again and provided her with an $85 refund.

The lawsuit alleged the driver used the nickname “Shanu” on Lyft and is a man named Mukhammadali Mukadyrov. Mukadyrov had been using a Lyft account owned by Kholmurod Halimov, who owns a transportation company called Shanu Transportation, LLC.

Halimov engaged in a practice known as “account renting”, in which one person creates a rideshare driver account, passes the required background check, and allows other people to use that account, often for a fee, without having to pass their own background check, according to Morgan Carroll with Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine, who represents Willford. Carroll is the former president of the Colorado state Senate and current partner Sen. Mike Weissman. 

This practice is illegal in Colorado and against Lyft policy.

Shanu Transportation is also named in the lawsuit.

“Lyft had a legal duty to follow the laws of the State of Colorado and regulations promulgated by the Public Utilities Commission for Transportation Network Companies,” the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit also mentioned nearly three dozen lawsuits filed against Lyft in 2019 for failing to prevent sexual assaults and that the company was sued by its shareholders for failing to disclose how serious the issue had become.

Willford said police performed a DNA test on the clothing she was wearing that night, but the results are still not in over a year later.

“A year of walking through a never-ending nightmare, a year of waiting for answers, a year of wondering if the driver will ever be held accountable, or if I’ll run into him in the grocery store, a year of being haunted by his eyes in the rearview mirror, and a year of not being able to move on with my life, with no end in sight,” she said, adding that the average turnaround time for DNA and rape kit results from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is 517 days.

“This is egregious and it’s unacceptable,” Willford said. “The state of Colorado can and must do everything to end the backlog of DNA and rape kit testing for the sake of every single assault survivor and the safety of the public at large.”

“If Lyft had taken reasonable steps, Representative Willford and hundreds and thousands of other people would’ve never been assaulted and we would not be here today,” said Carroll, the lawyer. “What happened to Representative Willford should never have happened to her, and it should not happen to anyone else. Lyft has known of well over 6,000 incidents of sex assault on their passengers, and to this date has still failed to take reasonable steps that would address the problem.”

Lyft sent the following statement when reached for comment:

“Safety is fundamental to Lyft, and the behavior described in this incident has no place in our society. We take reports of sexual assault very seriously, and when incidents such as these are reported to us, our trained team takes immediate action to investigate and works with local law enforcement so that appropriate actions can be taken. In addition, our Terms of Service strictly prohibit the impersonation of another person or entity, and such behavior can and does lead to a permanent ban from the platform.”