Creepy Maintenance Man Groped Woman: Lawsuit

JOLIET, IL — A maintenance man at a Crest Hill apartment complex entered a woman’s home there, then groped her breasts and stuck his fingers inside her vagina, according to a lawsuit filed in Will County court.

Jose Alberto Canales, 44, was jailed on charges of criminal sexual assault and criminal sexual abuse following the alleged attack in March. Canales remains in custody in lieu of $200,000 bond.

According to the lawsuit, Canales entered the woman’s apartment in the Woodlands at Crest Hill, then touched her breasts under her shirt “and put his fingers into her pants and into her vagina.”

The woman “tried to push herself away from him but he overpowered her,” the lawsuit said.

The woman is suing both Canales and the company identified in the lawsuit as his employer at the time of the attack, Marquette Management.

Canales, a married father of three, was the “subject of many complaints for sexual harassment, unwanted touching of the residents and obnoxious behavior during work hours in full view of (Marquette Management’s) customers, property tenants and security cameras,” the lawsuit said, but the company kept him on anyway, allowing him to “act in an inappropriate fashion despite the knowledge that this behavior was ongoing and a disturbance to the tenants in the building."

Jose Alberto Canales | image via Will County Sheriff's Department