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Sex Assault Victim's Call Unanswered After Center Shuts Down

FORT COLLINS, Colo.. (CBS4) - A victim's call for help was unanswered after a call center in Fort Collins abruptly was shut down. One of the answering service's clients was a sex assault hotline.

State revenue agents shut down Cross Country Fulfillment for failing to pay taxes. The company says it has hundreds of clients worldwide.

Client's of the call center told CBS4's Valerie Castro they didn't get any notice the call center was closed. Louann DeCoursey with the Sexual Assault Victim Advocate Center got a call from Planned Parenthood saying the number her organization gives out for victims of sexual assault wasn't working -- something DeCoursey said is unacceptable.

DeCoursey said the owners never warned her they were in trouble. By Thursday last week the company had a red seizure notice taped up in the window saying the business owed at least $50,000 in back taxes.

"We need to be there and it's just unforgivable that for about 12 to 15 hours we weren't there," DeCoursey said.

The couple that owns the call center both did time in federal prison in the mid 1990s after they were convicted of running a Ponzi scheme that cheated people out of $2 million.

The sexual assault hotline is now running though a different call center.

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