U.S. Department
of Justice
United States v. Ariel Solis, et al. (D.N.M.)
On February 14, 2025, the court entered a consent order in United States v. Ariel Solis Veleta, et al. (D.N.M.). The amended complaint, which was filed on February 13, 2025, alleges that between 2010 and 2022, Ariel Solis Veleta (Solis), a property manager in Albuquerque, New Mexico, engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual harassment against female tenants at St. Anthony Plaza Apartments in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The lawsuit further alleges that Solis’s employer and the Apartment’s owners and managers—PacifiCap Properties Group, LLC, St. Anthony Limited Partnership, PacifiCap Holdings XXXVIII, LLC, and PacifiCap Management, Inc.—are vicariously liable for Solis’s discriminatory conduct because Solis acted as their agent when he sexually harassed tenants. The consent decree requires the defendants to pay $350,000 to female tenants harmed by Solis’s harassment and a $10,000 civil penalty to the United States. The consent decree permanently bars Solis from contacting tenants harmed by his harassment and from managing residential rental properties. It also requires that defendants provide training and adopt policies and procedures to prevent future discrimination at residential rental properties that they own or manage.