Seeking Justice in a System She Seeks to Abolish

Pedro Gomez, the former Director of External Affairs under Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has been accused of rape in the second degree, according to a police incident report obtained by The Stranger. Gomez, who abruptly resigned from his position last week, is now under scrutiny as the King County Prosecutor’s Office Special Assault Unit reviews the allegations.

The allegation stems from an encounter between Gomez and Cheryl Delostrinos on June 18, 2024, when the two met for a planned business meeting over drinks near City Hall. According to a police report, the evening ended at a Lake Union apartment where Delostrinos later woke up, disoriented and intoxicated. She allegedly found herself in bed with Gomez performing a non-consensual sex act on her. News of the police report was first reported in the Northwest Asian Weekly.

In an exclusive interview with The Stranger, Delostrinos recounted the events of June 18 involving Gomez, her conflict as an abolitionist grappling with the criminal justice system, and her urgent call for accountability.

In our interview, Delostrinos described a difficult personal decision-making process to report the alleged assault. In addition to the inherent challenges of coming forward with these allegations, Delostrinos, a prison abolitionist and woman of color, faced profound internal conflict about the criminal legal system, but she told The Stranger that her concerns for community safety and the need to hold Gomez accountable led her to report the alleged incident.

“Part of the reason I went through the entire [criminal justice] system and process was to provide evidence so people can believe me and understand what’s happening. I’m speaking publicly because I want to lean on the community,” she says. “As a leader in our community, I’m asking: How are we holding this person accountable? And how are we keeping our community safe?”

“It takes tremendous courage for any survivor to come forward,” says Elizabeth Hendren, an attorney representing Delostrinos from the Sexual Violence Law Center. “Their personal lives are routinely opened up for examination and criticism, and the process is very painful and taxing. We frequently see survivors attacked and shamed by their own communities and by the courts when they choose to hold the people who have sexually abused them accountable.”

She adds that survivors of color often face systemic disbelief and harsher criticism for perceived imperfect choices around their victimization —an added burden Delostrinos knew all too well when she decided to speak out. And because of that, she says, her reason to come forward was very clear.

“I’m not here to take him down. That’s not the goal. I am speaking out and talking about what happened to me, to [make visible] the violence against women, and that it could happen to anybody,” says Delostrinos.

Strictly Business

A burning van first brought Delostrinos and Gomez into each other’s orbits back in December 2023 according to the police report.

At the time, Gomez’s role placed him at the intersection of community engagement and city governance. Acting as a public liaison, he represented the Mayor’s office, and was required to coordinate with the City’s Budget Office, City Council, and central staff. In this public facing role, Gomez would regularly meet with community members to address concerns. It’s how Gomez and Delostrinos originally connected with each other.

Delostrinos has spent her life devoted to building community power, as an organizer, dancer, co-founder of Au Collective, a dance collective devoted to eradicating systemic racism by creating a safe space for femmes, queer, and trans people of color to present their own stories and make art accessible to the communities they come from. It was this passion for community that inspired her to pursue a business degree and work as Director of Development for Young Women Empowered (Y-WE), a South Seattle-based nonprofit focused on life enrichment and skill building for women, trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive youth.

After one of Y-WE’s vans was vandalized and set on fire, the organization’s leadership reported the suspected arson to the Seattle Police Department.

Receiving no follow-up from SPD for weeks, according to her statement in the police report, Y-WE leadership reached out to the mayor’s office for assistance and was eventually connected to Gomez, as a representative of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office.

After scheduling a meeting, Gomez, Delostrinos, and another Y-WE director, all met in late February to discuss the arson and how the city might be able to help the organization.

During the meeting, Gomez shared that he was a business owner of Kolors Studio. “He had expressed to me that he was somebody in the community doing really awesome things as an entrepreneur, and some of the things he was talking about really aligned with a lot of work that I was focusing on in supporting Black and Brown owned businesses,” Delostrinos told The Stranger.

The three discussed a possible partnership between Kolors and Y-WE, and scheduled another meeting to flesh out more details of the possibility.

Delostrinos, her colleague, and Gomez would next meet for a 90-minute discussion at Kolors studio in March of 2024. Gomez was joined by his business partner, and during the meeting, brought out a bottle of tequila for a celebratory drink. Delostrinos accepted out of politeness, but her colleague declined, stating to police that she passed on it because she felt uncomfortable due to the power imbalance with Gomez working at the mayor’s office, according to the police report. Still, the two both left excited at the potential of partnering with Kolors.

According to her statement in the police report, Delostrinos and Gomez met twice after that: once shortly after, when he asked if Delostrinos might be interested in working at Kolors; and again in May, when he invited her to a campaign party for Nick Brown that he hosted at Kolors, where he suggested they meet up again to talk more about Delostrinos, who was attending graduate school at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, joining the Kolors team.“At the time, I was going on a lot of informational interviews and connecting with people in community, nothing seemed out of the ordinary,” she says. “Every time we met was specifically about business,” she says.

Until it wasn’t.

We Can’t Do This

Delostrinos remembers the morning of June 18, 2024, as just another Tuesday. After graduating from the University of Washington’s Business School, she’d hit the ground running, catching up with neglected business contacts and leaving no stone unturned on career prospects.

Still interested in pursuing a job with Kolors, she and Gomez had agreed to meet at Charlotte Restaurant & Lounge at the Lotte Hotel less than a block away from Gomez’s City Hall office, according to her statement in the police report.

Scheduled to meet at 4:30 pm, Gomez was running late so Delostrinos had already ordered a margarita when he arrived about 15 minutes later from a barbecue he’d been attending at the mayor’s office, according to the police report. He shared that he’d already been drinking at the barbecue, and then ordered a shot of tequila for himself.

“He asked if I wanted one. I told him no. And he was like, well, I’ll get one for you, and if you don’t finish it, I’ll finish it for you,” she says.

According to the police report, the two talked about Kolors needs and its investors, with Gomez name-dropping several prominent figures he and his company were associated with. The conversation turned to the public sexual assault allegations against former chief of police Adrian Diaz, and Gomez commented that was the reason he made Kolors a “safe space” for women.

Delostrinos told police that the conversation soon turned to a restaurant called Mercado Luna on Capitol Hill, where Gomez claimed he was an investor. He then ordered another shot of liquor and asked her if she wanted another. She said no because she was driving. But Gomez ordered another for her anyway, telling her he’d finish it if she didn’t. Delostrinos says she felt pressured to drink it.

Having drank, but eaten little at the cafe, Gomez asked Delostrinos if she wanted to go to Mercado Luna. At that point, Delostrinos told police that she didn’t suspect that Gomez was hitting on her, but feeling too tipsy to drive at the moment, she accepted a ride in Gomez’s BMW to the restaurant. She told police that she texted her fiance her whereabouts, as the two typically did if one was going to be out a little later than planned.

As soon as they entered the restaurant, Delostrinos said she needed to use the restroom. Already going beyond her typical two-drink maximum on a weekday, she intended only to eat at the restaurant. However, when she returned to the table, she was surprised to see an unwanted margarita and a shot of Mezcal waiting for her, according to her statement in the police report.

At the restaurant, Gomez seemed very familiar with the restaurant staff and introduced her to the owner, but, she told The Stranger, the vibe started to feel a little off. “After a while, I started to feel like I wasn’t safe. I texted my fiancé and best friend like ‘I just wanted you to know that I’ll probably need a ride at some point.’”

According to the police report, she also texted her fiancé that she was uncertain about Gomez’s intentions, but that she was okay and making business moves.

At this point, according to the police report, Delostrinos shared she was drunk, and unsure whether or not she had finished her drinks. She told police that she did recall eating there and Gomez asking her why she was attracted to her fiance.

The report shows that she called three Lyfts that night, at 10:10 pm, 10:18 pm, and 10:24 pm, but never got into any of them.

According to her statements in the police report, the time leading up to being in Gomez’s South Lake Union apartment is a bit of a blur. She ended up back in Gomez’s car after not getting into a Lyft, and then at an apartment at Dexter Apartments.

Delostrinos reported that she later found herself at Gomez’s apartment on his bed with some of her clothing removed and damaged. She regained consciousness while Gomez was performing nonconsensual sexual acts on her, according to her statements to the police. According to the police report, she verbally told Gomez “no, I don’t want to do this” but Gomez proceeded to attempt to nonconsensually force his way on top of her and kiss her. She got off the bed and struggled to find her phone and belongings.

In her statement to the police, she then describes a struggle: She sat down at a table in the apartment, stating they were supposed to have been “discussing business, not this.” Gomez offered her a drink, which she did not accept, and then, according to the police report, continued to pull her towards him, lift her, and throw her onto the bed. She repeated, no, she didn’t want to, and got off the bed again to find her phone. She told the police that her purse was in Gomez’s car, and she couldn’t recall whether or not she went with him to retrieve it, but she was able to get her phone and finally call a Lyft home. She found that her fiance had previously texted her several times, but he hadn’t heard back from her.

Speaking to investigators in September, Gomez gave his version of the night. He stated that their June 18 encounter was the first time he and Delostrinos had hung out and that they both drank until the bar closed in Belltown. Afterward, he told the police, the two decided to get more drinks at his apartment, where he says Delostrinos initiated a kiss, but he was uncomfortable because of her relationship, and he rejected it.

Police found that the apartment Gomez took Delostrinos to was not actually leased to him, though he was listed as an emergency contact on it.

Delostrinos told police that she returned home at 1:30 am. Her fiance told the police that he could smell alcohol on her before she reached the doorway of their bedroom, where she stumbled in. He told investigators that he was shocked at the sight, as he’d never seen Delostrinos this drunk before.

“I was inebriated and non coherent when I got home,” she told The Stranger. “I’m called the grandma of all my friends because I literally go to bed at 8:30 pm every day. So for me to be out at 1:30 in the morning—it’s just out of character for me.”

Her fiance told police that Delostrinos told him what had transpired that evening.

Delostrinos woke up feeling awful the next day, with an extreme headache, severe dehydration, bruises on her body, and vomiting several times throughout the morning, according to the police report.

She texted her best friend to tell her about the previous night. Delostrinos coordinated with a friend’s husband to retrieve her purse back from Gomez, according to the police report.

According to her statements in the police report, Delostrinos expressed to her friend that she was fearful of the power dynamics present— Gomez was, after all, in a high position at the mayor’s office, and had previously boasted of being connected to powerful people — she knew the immediate next step.

When asked to respond to Delostrinos’ allegations and the public police report, Gomez’s attorney, Joshua R. Saunders, provided The Stranger with the following statement:

“Pedro Gomez has been an advocate for equity and social justice for his entire career. He has done nothing wrong and strongly denies these allegations. We are confident that he will be fully exonerated when all of the facts are known.”

Making Violence Visible 

“Being somebody that has supported survivors of sexual assault, you always want to have as many options as you can—whether or not you’re going to move forward. I’ve told enough people in my life to go get a rape kit done that I knew it was something I had to do as well,” Delostrinos says.

The process of getting a rape kit done is inherently invasive. She describes a grueling nine-hour process of different nurses, many of them male, popping in and out of a University of Washington hospital room, probing and asking her deeply invasive questions about her body less than 24 hours after experiencing the trauma of assault. It’s an experience, she says, she was only able to endure with the support of her fiance.

“If he wasn’t there, I would have been like, ‘fuck this’. On top of that, I was emotionally and physically distressed. If I didn’t have an understanding of why it was important for me to be there, I would have left in 30 minutes,” she says. “I’m someone who has resources and knows this process. I can’t imagine being someone who went through a horrific experience with no support or knowledge of why different men are walking into the room asking about what just happened.”

What was worse, she says, was that she wouldn’t be able to see the results of her rape kit unless she filed a police report.

Delostrinos is an abolitionist, and she was hesitant to trust a criminal justice system she believed was focused on punishment, as opposed to any true restoration and healing of survivors of sexual assault.

It was a system that disproportionately incarcerated people of color and destroyed the lives of folks from marginalized communities while providing leniency to the powerful. By utilizing that same system, would she be validating its legitimacy?

What’s more, Delostrinos said that Gomez occupied multiple identities and was a Mexican man at a time when problematic, racist, and false narratives of Latino criminality had caused wildfire with at least a plurality of the electorate, intensifying during the most recent presidential election.

“It’s a really complex situation because of the multiple intersectional identities, when you’re going through this system, they don’t really care about us. Our [local communities of color and gender expansive communities have] seen that time and time again, but I wanted to make an intentional decision about what accountability would look like in terms of this harm,” she says.

Her decision to file a police report five days after the incident was principally driven by concern for others within her larger community. With Gomez’s access to community members and the assertion that he was creating a “safe space” for women of color, Delostrinos says she felt an obligation to protect other women of color from future abuse from Gomez.

“At the heart of most sexual violence is a misuse of power. There are many ways a person can have power—sometimes it is through a formal position, but sometimes it is informally gained through a community reputation. It is critically important that we understand this, and have clear and consistent processes in place, whether legally or through our communities, to make sure the people we put in power are not abusing it,” says Hendren.

Even with Gomez’s resignation from the city, he is still a prominent fixture within the greater Seattle Community as an entrepreneur with being the co-owner of Kolors Studios, a co-working and production space primarily serving communities of color.

Prior to being named the Director of External Affairs, Gomez worked in various external roles at The City for more than a decade, including as the Director of small business development in the City’s Office of Economic Development, and last year was named one of the Puget Sound Business Journal’s 40 under 40 honorees, awarded to rising stars in the local business community.

In an email to The Stranger, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office says that the City was informed of the investigation into the alleged sexual assault on September 24, and the City promptly placed Gomez on paid administrative leave pending the results of the investigation. Gomez was also barred from contacting City employees, engaging with community partners, or entering municipal offices while the investigation remained active.

The spokesperson further stated that the mayor’s office became aware on January 6 that the Seattle Police Department had referred the case to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. That same day, Gomez submitted his resignation, preempting any review of the allegations or subsequent action by the mayor’s office in response to the report.

Gomez had no prior reported allegations of sexual assault against him, according to the same spokesperson.

“Mayor Harrell believes that sexual assault and harassment are wholly unacceptable[…] Our office works to bring attention to power dynamics, recognizing that those from historically marginalized communities can most feel their impact. We always encourage survivors to come forward. The mayor appreciates the courage of this individual in sharing this with SPD.”

A King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson says they are waiting for additional information from law enforcement sources in the coming weeks and expect to make a charging decision once that information is received. 

“Community safety has always been at the forefront of what my goal for doing this is a part of the accountability process is removing a person from a position when they can potentially harm our community,” the spokesperson says.

Another driving force behind her decision to come forward was the urgent need to spotlight the pervasive harms of gender-based violence, a crisis increasingly normalized by the election of a president found civilly liable for sexual abuse—a president that has hand-picked cabinet nominees facing accusations of rape and sexual assault, underscoring the systemic nature of the issue and the stakes of remaining silent.

“I wanted to make visible the violence against women and that this could happen to anybody. This was a business meeting. This was somebody I knew. This was somebody in my community, in my activist community. I’m not looking to take him down. I’m looking to lean on the community to ask how we’re holding this person accountable,” says Delostrinos.

From her perspective, she doesn’t want perpetrators of violence to get what they “deserve”, in the punitive sense, but the assistance they need to overcome a pathology where harming women for sexual gratification is okay.

For her, the issue of violence against women is not just a personal pathology but a systemic failure, woven into the fabric of a culture that commodifies bodies and normalizes harm. She rejects the simplistic, punitive notion of giving perpetrators what they “deserve” and instead advocates for the need to address the root causes of their behavior. This means challenging the toxic ideologies and structures that enable violence, providing the resources and support necessary to fundamentally reshape destructive patterns. Justice goes beyond punishment to dismantling the systems that perpetuate harm in our society.

In her case, she’s found some of her own needs met in the ensuing months with the help of her network within the local social justice space. Of the 50 women she estimates she shared her story with, nearly 95% have, in turn, shared their own experiences of sexual assault—many for the first time.

By contrast, Delostrinos notes that many of the trusted men in her circle have expressed shock that this could happen to someone they know, highlighting the extent to which even many well-meaning cis men are unaware of the prevalence of sexual violence in the lives of women close to them.

Many of the questions they ask are what cis-straight men should be constantly asking themselves: What’s our role in fixing this? How do we make sure the people in power are held accountable? And how do we, as men, start noticing the subtle ways violence gets normalized in the world around us? And, how do we contribute to that violence, even if implicitly? 

Those answers are not the product of mere navel-gazing, but of a willingness to sit with the weight of silence, to listen with an openness that demands humility. They require the kind of time that is not spent, but invested—the kind of time that is borne out of a desire for deep reflection and honest conversation. Only then can we begin to unravel the truths that live within us and between us.

“Some of the things that happened to these women and gender-expansive people I’ve spoken with happened to them as children. They’re now in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and I’m the first person they opened up to,” she says.

These conversations have served as a needed social balm to her and also illuminated the limitations of society’s grace when it comes to current support offered to victims of gender-based violence.

“We don’t know how to support victims, and that’s why there aren’t enough people coming forward talking about the harm trauma and PTSD they experience every day. We have so much grace for the predator that when it comes to the victim, we see them as someone who’s broken,” says Delostrinos.

She shares that she suffers from PTSD as a result of the alleged assault. It’s prevented her from attending informational or networking interviews and has led her to decline job opportunities.

That’s why she laments a society beholden to a criminal justice system that prioritizes neither the transformation of the perpetrator nor the healing of the person they’ve harmed. It is not a system built for acts of repair. Unfortunately, it’s the system we have for now.

“So much violence is in the gray area in our society, it’s the hug that’s a little too long. It’s your boss touching you inappropriately, or your friend objectifying someone. So many cis, straight men have been socialized like this,” she says. “It’s why all of us have to have these conversations, so we can start building and creating safer spaces for people like me, for victims to not only have the justice they deserve, but the healing they deserve.”

If you or someone you know have been a victim of sexual assault, below are local resources to get the assistance you need. 

988: the behavioral health and suicide support line, available 24/7.

Legal counsel at the Sexual Violence Law Center: Contact them by calling 844-991-7852, or emailing legalline@svlawcenter.org.

Harborview Center for Trauma and Abuse: Provides trauma-specific evaluation and mental health treatment for survivors of sexual violence.

King County Sexual Assault Resource Center: Provides advocacy for survivors of sexual assault. 

WashingtonLawHelp.org: A free legal resource library that includes many legal information packets for survivors.

Additional reporting by Hannah Murphy Winter.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Gomez was previously the Director of the City’s Office of Economic Development. He was the director of small business development in the City’s Office of Economic Development. It also stated that in his most recent role, he was a liaison between the Mayor’s office and HHS, which was incorrect. Both have since been corrected in the story.