2 Women Accuse Officer of Harassment : Police: Suit alleges lewd conduct by Glendale patrolman during a traffic stop. Department declines to comment.

Two women have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Glendale, alleging that a police officer sexually harassed them during a routine traffic stop in January.

Alice Sarkissian of Glendale and Taline Khandamian of Toluca Lake, both 20, alleged they were on their way home from a coffeehouse just after midnight Jan. 7 when Officer Scott Holmes pulled them over for having a faulty taillight. In the suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the women alleged that Holmes demanded to see their breasts, and that he let the women go after Khandamian eventually exposed one of her breasts.

“We want to make sure the police don’t do this kind of thing again to women driving alone at night. If they had a taillight out, he should have just cited them, but what he did was totally inappropriate,” said Charles Matthews, a Pasadena attorney representing the women.

Matthews said the two women drove to the Glendale police station that night and immediately filed a complaint about the officer’s behavior. The following week, they filed a $750,000 claim for damages with the city attorney’s office, which was ultimately rejected. The federal lawsuit does not specify the amount of damages sought.

Police said earlier this year the allegations were being investigated. On Wednesday, spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian said police would not comment on any part of the case until the department was served with court documents.

Matthews said Holmes asked Sarkissian to get out of the car and subjected her to a field sobriety test, and then released both women without a citation.

But he said the city is trying to “whitewash” the women’s allegations that Holmes talked about the size of their breasts and shined his flashlight on their breasts and legs. He said Khandamian only exposed herself because she was “terrified.”

“The city is taking the position that it was the girls’ fault, not the officer’s,” said Matthews. “They seem to feel that [the women] somehow provoked the officer’s behavior.”