CANON CITY - In one of the few cases of its kind before Colorado courts, a former correctional officer has sued the Colorado Department of Corrections, claiming he was sexually harassed by his female boss.

Michael C. Hill, a longtime law enforcement officer who worked at the Women's Correctional Facility in Canon City from May 1, 1993, until lie was terminated Oct. 16, 1997, filed the suit Tuesday In U.S. District Court In Denver.

The lawsuit accuses the Department of Corrections of fostering a hostile work environment by failing to act on grievances that Hill filed against his boss, Sgt. Debra Perry. The suit also claims that the department denied Hill's rights provided under the Americans With Disabilities Act and its predecessor, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

"I don't know if you can believe that a man can be tortured by a woman, but she tortured me bad, really bad," Hill said Tuesday from his home In Canon City. "It was like I had my entire life just trashed."

Corrections officials said they had not seen the lawsuit and would not comment on it.

The lawsuit says that in April 1996, Perry attempted to initiate a sexual relationship with Hill, but he refused her advances. She threatened him by making repeated references to the movie "Disclosure," a film starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore in which a female supervisor terrorizes her male subordinate after he rejects her unwelcome sexual advances and reports them to her superiors.

Fearing for his job and safety, Hill then had sex with Perry, the suit says. During the encounters, Perry learned that Hill had only one testicle. He lost the other one when he was shot while working in 1973 as a deputy sheriff in Stanislaus County, Calif.

After he had sex with her a few times, Hill told Perry he no longer wanted to have sex with her. On April 18, 1996, Perry told Hill while they were at work that she wanted to come over to his home after they got off work. Hill told her she was not welcome. She then began swearing at him over the intercom at the correctional facility, the suit says

That evening, Perry repeatedly called Hill at home and told him site was coming over. He said she wasn't welcome. She came anyway, and Canon City police later removed Perry from Hill's home, the suit says.

Hill told a lieutenant at the prison about the incident, but Perry continued to harass him, the suit says. Hill said inmates and staff then began to tease and ridicule him for having only one testicle.

"The Inmates called me (names)," Hill said. "It's like somebody went and pulled my pants down in front of every body."

The suit says meetings were held and a letter was written requesting that Perry be moved to another prison, grievances were filed, but no action was taken by the department. In mid-May 1996, doctors ordered Hill to take sick leave from work, saying his physical and mental health had badly deteriorated. Hill wrote a letter expressing his desire to return to work and asked that he be moved to another job. On Oct. 15, 1997, Hill submitted a letter asking the department to accommodate his mental disability. He was fired the next day.

"He followed the rules. He asked for help, he followed the orders and in the end he lost his job," said David Sanderson, a Boulder civil rights and criminal defense attorney who is representing Hill.

Sanderson said the department has numerous rules and procedures in place to handle complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace, yet it failed to act.

"I believe, and we believe, it's be cause Michael Hill is a man."