Santa Fe County jury finds Allied Universal Security firm partly at fault for student’s on-campus sex assault
SANTA FE NM August 7 2026
A company that provided security at Santa Fe High School has been ordered to pay $5.5 million in damages after a jury found it was partially at fault for failing to prevent a student from being assaulted on campus in 2021.
The Santa Fe County jury deliberated for about eight hours over two days before delivering its verdict Thursday in a case filed by a former student who accused Allied Universal Security Services of negligence in failing to protect her from being drugged and raped by a classmate when she was a junior at the school. The verdict — and the order that the company pay $5 million in punitive damages plus 10% of $5 million in compensatory damages to the plaintiff — brought to a close a trial that lasted nearly two weeks.
The plaintiff — a now-21-year-old woman who The New Mexican is not naming because she is an alleged victim of sexual violence — collapsed on a bench in the hallway sobbing after the verdict was read. She said in a message sent by her attorney Thursday afternoon that she was proud she’d never given up on her 16-year-old self.
The jury, which was made up of four women and eight men, found the woman’s assailant — then-17-year-old Badr El-Badri — 70% responsible for the woman’s damages, apportioning 20% to Santa Fe Public Schools and 10% to Allied Universal Security Services.
“We respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict and do not believe the Company is responsible for the conduct at issue,” a spokesperson said in an email statement Thursday. “We intend to pursue all appropriate post-trial remedies, including an appeal if necessary.”
El-Badri’s attorney did not respond to a call seeking comment Thursday after the verdict was announced.
Santa Fe Public Schools was initially a defendant in the lawsuit but agreed earlier this year to pay the student and her parents $2.2 million to drop their claims against the school district and school officials — including then-Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez and then-Santa Fe High Principal Renee Salazar-Garcia — and will not have to pay any more in connection with the jury’s verdict.
The woman’s complaint, filed in 2023, alleged that El-Badri offered her a pill that she thought was Xanax — but which turned out to be a stronger designer tranquilizer — then took her to a student parking lot and raped her in a friend’s car. Her complaint alleged El-Badri then left her half-naked and dazed in a portable toilet on a Monday afternoon, all under the noses of Allied Universal Security Services guards.
The woman testified at trial that she woke up the next morning at home with a hospital bracelet on her arm and no recollection of the assault or of being found in portable toilet by a passerby and taken to the hospital for a sexual assault exam.
The incident led to a criminal case against El-Badri. He faced counts of criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. However, the state later dismissed El-Badri’s sex crime charges as part of a plea deal in which he admitted guilt of a felony count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. El-Badri was sentenced to a year in the custody of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, which handles the state’s Juvenile Justice Services.
El-Badri also took one of the pills — which he’d purchased from another student — and had no recollection of the events, his attorneys said at trial.
Plaintiff’s attorney Kate Ferlic said Thursday the security company had “no more than four” security guards on duty on Sept. 13, 2021, the day of the incident, when it was supposed to have had seven guards patrolling the high school’s sprawling 100-acre campus.
“Allied said it was going to provide security at Santa Fe High School and didn’t even fulfill the basic elements of the contract,” Ferlic said in a phone interview after the verdict was read.
“But I think the general disregard for student safety by Allied is what led to the jury’s award of punitive damages,” she added.
Attorneys for Allied suggested during the trial that the assault might not have actually happened, and that the encounter might have been consensual.
However, the jurors who deliberated in the civil case determined an assault did occur.
The jury had to answer eight questions in its verdict, including whether El-Badri assaulted the woman, whether the assault resulted in the woman’s damages and whether the company was negligent.
The jury answered yes to all of the questions and also found the company’s actions taken as a whole were “willful, reckless, wanton or in bad faith,” resulting in the $5 million in punitive damages.
Unlike in criminal cases, verdicts in civil cases need not be unanimous — only 10 members of a 12-person jury must agree to reach a verdict. The verdict in this case fell just short of unanimous, with all but one of the 12 jurors agreeing on most of the counts.
However, all 12 jurors agreed that El-Badri’s assault was the cause of the plaintiff’s damages.
“It’s really important when victims of sexual assault are believed, and it took a long time, almost five years, for a group of 12 strangers to affirm that this happened, and that’s everything for people that suffer these kinds of crimes,” Ferlic said.
Ferlic said she was grateful the jury decided the case how it did.
“When big corporations come into New Mexico with big promises and don’t fulfill them, this community needs to find those corporations accountable,” she said.
Allied Universal’s website says it operates in 100 countries and territories and “is the third-largest private employer in North America and seventh in the world,” with annual revenue of approximately $23 billion.
