DENVER — An investigation about a male state senator using the women's restroom at the Colorado Capitol is complete - and has been for three-and-a-half months.
The report was released by Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik, R-Thornton, through Senate Republican leadership on Friday morning. She filed the complaint earlier this year accusing Sen. Dan Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village, of using a women's restroom while she was in another stall.
The report stated that Kagan "more likely than not" used a private, women-only bathroom three times in the 2017 legislative session.
The restroom had not been marked as a women's bathroom until earlier this year, but according to the report, the two-stall bathroom near the Senate Chambers was "known as the women's restroom reserved for female senators and staff members."
"It validates the complaints I had heard about, not just mine. The complaints hadn’t changed with other people. That is why I filed the complaint to begin with, because there were other people that that had occurred with, and yet Sen. Kagan is not willing to acknowledge that this occurred more than once. It actually verifies that we have credibility," Martinez Humenik said in an interview with 9NEWS Friday.
The findings of the report list three probable times Kagan might have used the women's restroom: once in January 2017, once in March 2017, and once more at some time in spring, when a witness thought Kagan "appeared intoxicated," and was "stumbling" out of the bathroom.
The report says Martinez Humenik confronted Kagan after the March incident. She says he came in to use one stall of the bathroom while she was in the other.
Humenik told the investigator that while she never saw him in the bathroom again personally, she was alerted to it happening other times before she filed the formal complaint. The report includes testimony from other witnesses who say they saw Kagan coming and going from the restroom.
In his own testimony, Kagan told investigators that he mistakenly did use the bathroom once in March because he was sick, and because he was unsure that this was a women's restroom at the time. He says Humenik "berated" him, and he found it "strange" she seemed to believe he used a women's bathroom intentionally.
Kagan said to investigators that he never used the bathroom again, according to the report, and in an interview with 9NEWS reporter Marshall Zelinger in April.
"I have acknowledged that there was one occasion where I mistakenly entered the women's bathroom at the Senate," Kagan said to 9NEWS.
We asked if there were multiple times besides the one he admitted to in the interview.
"No," said Kagan.
Humenik filed her formal complaint this year as the legislature discussed sexual harassment allegations made against Senator Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulpher Springs, and former State Senator Steve Lebsock. She told investigators that she made her complaint in March - a year after she says she saw Kagan in the bathroom - following a speech he made about sexual assault on the Senate floor that made her uncomfortable. During the speech, Kagan quoted graphic terms in state law that referred to sex crimes.
The investigators' report became public days after two Republicans in the state legislature, Senate Majority Leader Chris Holbert, R-Parker, and House Minority Leader Rep. Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock, posted satirical comments poking fun at the investigation into U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. A woman came forward after Kavanaugh's nomination to accuse him of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school.
The report was finished on June 5, but Martinez Humenik said she did not see it herself until last month.
"You have this in your hands today because we have had some issues in the Capitol this past year with harassment claims being brought forward. There is no accountability on the other side of the aisle for a person who has actually been shown to have this behavior on more than one occasion but won’t own up to it and is not being accountable for it," said Martinez Humenik. "We are not asking for resignation, expulsion, to be taken off committees – simply a reasonable request to do a public apology, so that those folks that aren't mentioned in this report, that we were the witnesses, get an apology. There has been no public apology made."
Next reached out Kagan after we read through the report, but he did not return our voicemail from early Friday afternoon.
WATCH | Commentary from Kyle Clark about timing of investigation release
