Steamboat Cleaning Owner Faces Felony Sexual Assault Charge

Steamboat Springs —The air inside a freshly cleaned house holds a specific kind of silence, a sterile stillness that settles after the vacuum’s hum fades and the windows are wiped clear. It is a quiet that usually signals completion, a job done well. But for one employee of Perez Cleaning Services, that silence in December 2024 became the backdrop for a violation that felt less like a workplace incident and more like a trap sprung in the dark.

Ernesto Silvioquispe Perez, the 64-year-old owner of the Steamboat-based cleaning company, now faces a felony charge of sexual assault. According to court documents obtained by the Steamboat Pilot, the accusation centers on an incident that occurred while Perez and his staff were working unoccupied homes in the Steamboat Lake and Steamboat II areas. The report, filed on December 21, 2024, describes a sequence of events that began with a critique of workmanship and escalated into a sexual assault behind a closed door.

The narrative, as told by the victim to detectives, starts in a bathroom. Perez had reportedly ordered her to return to a room she had already finished cleaning, telling her it was “still dirty” and that she “hadn’t done a good job.” Once inside, Perez closed the door behind them and touched her on the chest. The gesture was small, perhaps, but it served as the prelude to something more severe.

From there, the scene shifted. Perez led the victim and another employee to a residence behind the Marabou Ranch neighborhood. While the other worker cleaned upstairs, Perez directed the victim to a bedroom containing two sets of bunk beds. He closed the door, pulled down the window blinds to darken the room, and told her to remove her clothes. The threat was immediate and tied directly to her livelihood: if she didn’t obey, it would be her “last day of work.”

The affidavit details that Perez then lowered his pants and penetrated her with his penis while lying on the bedroom floor. It wasn’t just a physical act; it was a power play, leveraging the vulnerability of a cleaning crew working in empty homes to enforce compliance.

Perez was arrested on July 14 following an investigation that spanned several years by the Routt County Sheriff’s Office. He was released the next day on a $50,000 personal recognizance bond. The legal proceedings are moving forward, with a court appearance scheduled for September 16 to determine the status of the case.

What stands out in the reporting is not just the act itself, but the context of fear that the victim described as permeating the workplace. This wasn’t an isolated mistake by a boss; it was a culture where the threat of losing your job could be weaponized to extract sexual compliance. For the employees of Perez Cleaning Services, the work involved more than just dusting and vacuuming; it involved navigating the moods and commands of a man who held their employment in his hands.

The smell of bleach and the sound of shutters closing are mundane parts of the cleaning trade, but when you look closely, they can also be the sounds of isolation. In the Marabou Ranch neighborhood, where the work took place, the houses were empty, waiting for new owners. Inside one of those rooms, with the blinds drawn, the air grew still and heavy, holding the memory of a promise that a bad job review could become a last day on the job.