DEA official singled out as ‘sexually immoral deviant,’ wrongly fired for partying in underwear with ‘corrupt’ ex-agent: suit

A federal drug enforcement officer claims she was “unjustly profiled as a corrupt agent,” singled out as a “sexually immoral deviant” and wrongly fired because she once partied in her underwear with now-disgraced DEA agent Jose Irizarry, his wife, and a female federal prosecutor in Colombia, according to a lawsuit.

Irizarry, a special DEA agent in Cartagena, was arrested along with his wife, Nathalie, in 2020 and sentenced in 2021 to 12 years in prison for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel.

The female agent, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, claims she went to dinner at Irizarry’s Colombia home with her boss and others in 2017 — where Nathalie Irizarry offered her a blue pill and “made attempts to sexually seduce” her, she said in court papers.

Jane Doe, 36, slyly tossed away the pill, which she suspected was either Viagra or a roofie, and ignored the wife’s advances but admitted she and others jumped into the couple’s hot tub, where Doe, clad only in her underwear, allegedly “kissed and embraced” Ohio federal prosecutor Marisa Darden.

The make-out session was followed by an “innocent” and “normal” conversation about the recently pregnant Doe’s “leaking breasts,” which she “showed the other women,” she said in her Manhattan Federal Court filing against the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Former Ohio federal prosecutor Marisa Darden allegedly “kissed and embraced” a female DEA agent at a party at Jose Irizarry’s Colombian home in 2017, according to a lawsuit. Linkedin Marisa Darden

The next day, Doe joined other guests on Irizarry’s boat, where he offered her another “blue pill” and suggested a threesome, she alleged.

This time, she stashed the pill under her seat cushion “and just went along with the banter.”

Her supervisor allegedly laughed off the incidents and told her not to worry about it, claims Doe — who said she didn’t hear about the weekend again until five years later.

But Doe said she was “ridiculed, harassed, demeaned and embarrassed” during a contentious January 2022 interview by the DEA’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which grilled her about the 2017 visit to Irizarry, “her bisexual conduct . . . and her lactating breasts,” she said in the litigation.

“Dozens of DEA agents who came in contact with Jose Irizarry have been investigated” but none have been charged, she contends.

She was suspended without pay indefinitely and claims rumors ran wild among colleagues who were “told” Doe was “a drug user and dealer, was tied into the criminal case and activities of Jose Irizarry, is corrupt, is a lesbian and sexual predator” who “sleeps with all the bosses in the DEA . . . and participate[s] in group orgies with other DEA agents.”

Doe was removed from her criminal investigator job in April and is seeking $800,000 in back pay and punitive damages.

Former Ohio federal prosecutor Marisa Darden allegedly “kissed and embraced” a female DEA agent at a party at Jose Irizarry’s Colombian home in 2017, according to a lawsuit. AP

Irizarry became known as the most “corrupt” agent at the DEA, after pleading guilty to diverting millions from drug investigations to fund an elaborate lifestyle that included a $30,000 Tiffany ring for his wife, luxury sports cars, and homes in Cartagena, Florida, and Puerto Rico.

Darden, whose father Thom Darden was a safety for the Cleveland Browns, was the first black woman nominated for the US attorney’s job in northern Ohio but withdrew from the job.

She declined to comment on the lawsuit.