The GEO Group Inc., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison services provider, is paying $550,000 to settle federal claims that alleged widespread sexual harassment against female employees over a six-year period that ranged from explicit comments to assault.

The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Arizona Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General's Office filed suit in 2010 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against GEO Group's facility in Arizona. The complaint, which alleged sexual harassment and retaliation claims between 2006 and 2012, said a male manager grabbed and pinched the breasts and crotch of a female correctional officer, and a male employee allegedly forced a woman onto a desk, shoving her legs apart and kissing her.

Other claims against the company included male officers asking female officers for sex, calling women explicit names and managers making sexually explicit comments to female officers.

The lawsuit also claimed GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, retaliated when women complained about the harassment by forcing them to quit, terminating them or placing them in unsafe conditions in the prison.

Littler Mendelson attorneys represented GEO Group in the lawsuit. GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez said in a statement the company mandates “zero tolerance towards all forms of sexual harassment in all its facilities.”

He added: “We believe that the range of individual settlements speaks to the nature of the individual claims. The claims included in the lawsuit took place between 2006 and 2012, six to 12 years ago, and no such claims have arisen since. As a result of the settlement, the GEO Group has implemented additional measures including enhanced training, reporting, and monitoring.”

The settlement follows a March 2016 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that reversed a trial judge who found the cumulative effects of the misconduct against women were not enough to go to trial.

The $550,000 settlement will be divided among 16 women who were dismissed from the case in 2012. The company was also ordered to send letters of regret to the women and provide employment references for them. The company will also review its policies to ensure sexual harassment complaints are investigated by neutral employees, designate certain alleged harassers ineligible for rehire and conduct anti-discrimination training.

The Trump administration, reversing an Obama-era policy, embraced the use of for-profit prison providers to house federal detainees. The Washington Post reported in October that GEO Group's lobbying and political donations increased in 2016.

The Campaign Legal Center is suing the Justice Department in Washington court over access to records focused on a $225,000 contribution that GEO Group, a Republican campaign donor, gave to a pro-Trump PAC during the 2016 election.

Separately, GEO Group faces a class action complaint in Colorado that alleges thousands of immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were subjected to forced labor.