NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Deana Inman is filing a new lawsuit in federal court accusing Internal Revenue Service revenue agent Samuel Garza of violating her civil rights.
Williamson County, Tennessee prosecutors say Inman was the victim of sexual battery committed during an audit by Garza of her business in September.
Garza was arrested in September while caught in the act on audio and video tape, and was indicted by a Williamson County grand jury on two felony counts of sexual battery in October. He was controversially released on bond in December by a Tennessee District Court judge.
At the time of Garza’s release, Inman, the alleged victim, was “incredulous and fearful at the release of the man whom Williamson County District Attorney Kim Helper says committed two acts of sexual battery against her in early September,” sources told Breitbart News.
Garza remains employed by the Internal Revenue Service as he awaits a trial date, which his attorneys have apparently successfully delayed, on the sexual battery charge.
Inman described the new lawsuit, the most recent event in her seven month long ordeal, to Phil Williams, an investigative reporter at Nashville’s CBS affiliate NewsChannel 5. “If I had a fear, it was supposed to be how much money did I owe? It wasn’t supposed to be that he put his hands around my neck,” she told Williams:
“I go to work and sit in my car and I cry,” she said. “I walk around for a few minutes and I go into my office, pull myself together and I go to work.”
Deana’s world was shattered, she said, by the visit of Garza, a revenue agent sent by the IRS to check up on how her business handled checks from its customers.
“To be honest, anytime your hear that you’re being audited, you know, it’s scary,” she recalled.
After Garza spent half a day in the store looking over her books, assuring her he was just there to help her comply with IRS regulations, he came back a second day.
Then, in a private office, Deana said, Garza had some bad news.
“He said, ‘Well, I hate to tell you this but we’re going to either take your business or [you’re] going to go to jail,'” she recounted.
Her reaction?
“I started crying because he knows that my husband is disabled, mentally disabled, and he knows that I have an eight-year-old child.”
As she fought back tears, Deana said, Garza asked her to look up something on the computer.
That’s when he came up behind her.
“He put his hands around my neck and he started choking my neck,” she said.
“Then he came around and he started kissing me and putting his tongue in my mouth. And then he put his hands down my shirt.
“I kept telling him that it wasn’t appropriate and that I just wanted him to stop and to please stop, he stopped. And he went back to the desk and he got really curt and really angry.”
Deana said that Garza then demanded to see more of her files, following her into the room where those files were kept.
That’s where, she added, the assault continued, growing even more intense.
“And I just blacked out. I couldn’t remember anything from there.”
When she finally came back to her senses, Deana said, the assault was still continuing.
“It was like being in a tornado and everything was spinning and I couldn’t make it stop.”
Garza apparently has a new attorney, Gary Tamkin, who is representing him in the criminal matter. Breitbart News contacted his original attorney, Kyle Mothershead, but did not receive a response on whether or not he continues to represent Garza.
“Garza’s attorney, Gary Tamkin, declined to comment for this story, although Garza claims in court papers that everything that happened there was consensual,” NewsChannel5 reported.
Inman’s attorney however, indicated that the Internal Revenue Service may have been aware that Garza was a threat to female taxpayers before the alleged sexual battery by Garza of his client in September.
“Still, in the lawsuit and in a separate claim filed with the federal government, Deana’s lawyer argues that this may not have been the first time that the IRS revenue agent behaved inappropriately with a female taxpayer,” NewsChannel5 added.
The first page of Inman’s federal lawsuit against Garza can be seen here.
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