Starting around 2009 and continuing for multiple years, Borobia said Bocanegra began asking her out on dates via email and text. She said he would tell her she was pretty and make other comments about her appearance. She rejected the invitations, but worried rebuffing Fuentes’ chief of staff too strongly could threaten her job. A document provided by the Assembly Rules Committee, which serves as the body’s human resources department, lists “pressuring or persistently asking an employee for dates” as workplace conduct that “may be found” to violate the Assembly’s sexual harassment policy. Lawmakers in both houses have recently insisted the Legislature has a “zero-tolerance” policy for workplace sexual harassment. Borobia, now 30 and working as a county planner in Southern California, said the emails were sent from Bocanegra’s personal email address to a Yahoo account she no longer has access to. She left the office in August 2011. Yolanda Anguiano, who worked as a field representative in Fuentes’ office from 2007 until 2010, said Borobia told her at the time about Bocanegra’s repeated overtures and how they made her uncomfortable. Eventually Anguiano approached Gerardo Guzman, the district office director, who also is Martinez’s husband. “I went to his office. I sat in front of him and I said, ‘This has to stop, Raul is harassing Jennifer and I’m sick and tired of it,’” Anguiano said. She said he seemed to take her concerns seriously and asked her what he could do. Anguiano said Guzman told her she could go to the Assembly Rules Committee and file a report. Anguiano opted not to, fearing negative consequences for her political career. Now 35 and living in Los Angeles, she said she filed a report with the committee earlier this month outlining the complaints she heard from Borobia during her time in the office. Guzman denied Anguiano’s account. He told The Times in an email that “no staff person came to me with complaints about Mr. Bocanegra's behavior.” In January 2015 Borobia emailed Bocanegra with condolences about his recent reelection defeat and upbeat memories of her time in the office. She said she struck a positive tone because she did not want him to think she was behind rumors of harassment allegations that surfaced in his 2012 Assembly campaign. The house parties It was early summer 2012 and about eight people who worked in Fuentes’ district office attended a celebratory lunch for Guzman’s birthday at Octopus in Burbank. Alcohol was flowing freely. Camille Pili-Jose was feeling uneasy about how much her co-workers were drinking during work hours. Her nervousness grew, she said, as the group decamped to Guzman’s house in San Fernando to continue to socialize. Bocanegra at the time was running to succeed Fuentes in the state Assembly, a race he would win that November. Pili-Jose, who from 2011 through 2012 worked in the local community as a field representative for Fuentes, said her colleagues were taking shots of Tanqueray gin and encouraged her to join in. Bocanegra was standing to her side. After some resistance, she raised a full shot glass to her lips. Just as she was about to drink, she said, Bocanegra laid his hand on the front of her stomach. She said she was so shocked by the unexpected touch, she spit out the gin. Pili-Jose, now 30, told a friend at the time about what happened. The friend confirmed Pili-Jose’s description of the incident. Gabriela Correa, another Fuentes field representative who worked for the assemblyman from 2011 until 2012, also saw the encounter. She told The Times that Pili-Jose made it clear, verbally and with her body language, that the touch was unwanted. Later that afternoon, Correa, Guzman and Bocanegra took a colleague home. Correa said that when she and Bocanegra were standing in the garage attached to the staffer’s apartment complex, he removed a bracelet from her wrist, slipped it in his front pants pocket and told her to retrieve it. She said she refused, and a few minutes later asked Guzman to get it back from Bocanegra. Guzman did not respond to a question about the alleged bracelet incident. Correa, now 29, told a college friend about the experience soon after it happened. The friend confirmed that account. Both Pili-Jose and Correa said the experience soured them on their jobs. They started taking their duties for their colleague Bocanegra’s Assembly campaign — which they volunteered for after work hours — less seriously. The women said that not long after the house party, Fuentes met with them to raise concerns about what he said was unsatisfactory campaign work. Pili-Jose and Correa said they told Fuentes about Bocanegra’s behavior at Guzman’s house. They said that in his response, Fuentes was focused on the fact that alcohol had been present. “I felt he was trying to convince me I was wrong because I was drunk. But I was not,” said Pili-Jose, who now works in administrative support at a state college. The women did not file complaints at the time with the Assembly Rules Committee. Correa said she felt uninformed on how the process worked, in part because she did not work in the Capitol. Fuentes’ reaction further discouraged her. “We told our boss, and that’s how it was taken by him,” said Correa, who went on to work in human resources and is now a law student. “I felt defeated at that point.” Fuentes did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Guzman said in the email to The Times he was “completely unaware that an incident allegedly occurred in my house.” He said he “was not present in the setting where it allegedly occurred, and was never told about it.” Martinez, the councilmember married to Guzman, called on Bocanegra to “immediately resign.” In a statement issued several hours after this story first published, Martinez did not address the gatherings the women alleged took place at her home. “For too long, women and men have been subjected to sexual harassment and assault by people in power, and they have felt powerless to stop it,” Martinez said. “That has to end.” In her own words: Women of California politics tell their stories of sexual harassment and unwanted touching » Another Fuentes staffer said she also had an unwanted encounter with Bocanegra in the summer of 2012, soon after he had come in first in the June 5 primary. The woman, who asked to be identified by only her first name, Heather, said the incident occurred after an all-staff lunch with lots of alcohol. The group moved to Guzman’s house to continue partying.

Sexual harassment becomes focus in Sacramento Coverage of California politics UPDATES: 5 p.m.: This article was updated with reaction from Martinez and Speaker Anthony Rendon. This article was originally published at 12:20 p.m.