Charge: Ex-con duped Courage Center security, had sex with vulnerable client

A felon had sex numerous times with a vulnerable adult at Courage Center in Golden Valley, posing as a personal care attendant to dupe security for months and slip into the facility's assisted dressing rooms with the brain-damaged woman, according to a felony charge filed this week.

Corey Gordon, 42, of Minneapolis, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with third-degree criminal sexual conduct. He remains jailed in lieu of $200,000 bail.

The woman's mother told authorities that Courage Center security guards had seen the pair enter the dressing rooms together many times in recent months and did nothing because he had passed himself off as her aide, the complaint said.

The mother added that her daughter, who has the cognitive and emotional levels of a third- or fourth-grader, did not have a personal care attendant, the complaint said. The woman, who is 32, has a rare brain disease that has led to numerous small strokes, and she uses a walker and wears leg braces and hearing aids.

Officials of Courage Center said they knew of the allegation and could not comment but are "fully cooperating'' with the investigation.

"The safety of our clients is very important to us,'' a statement from spokeswoman Corie Lindemann read. "Our first concern is with our client and their family.''

Lindemann declined to say whether the center has made any changes to its security procedures.

According to the complaint:

Gordon met the woman in October while she and her mother were at the Mall of America in Bloomington. The woman told her mother that Gordon was her new friend.

For months after that, the mother found text messages between Gordon and her daughter that "were inappropriate" and suggested a romance. This prompted the mother and others in the family to tell Gordon to stay away.

The mother typically had her daughter go to Courage Center via a Metro Mobility bus for her treatments three times a week. But on May 24, she happened to drive her daughter there and was told that a personal care attendant was there waiting.

When the mother confronted Gordon, he acted as if he didn't know her and left. It was then that she learned about Gordon's many previous visits.

Along with the encounters at the center, the woman said, they also had sex at her home. At one point, she said, Gordon told her to keep their relationship a secret because he could be arrested.