Subway settles lawsuit over alleged rape of teenage Jamestown worker

A lawsuit accusing a Jamestown Subway supervisor of repeatedly raping a 17-year-old first-time worker has been settled, closing a case that raised sharp questions about how a known sex offender was allowed to oversee a teen employee.

The federal case was filed in Fargo on Feb. 22, 2024 against Subway Worldwide and the local franchise owners of the Jamestown store off Highway 281 near the Interstate 94 interchange. The plaintiff sought $50 million in damages. The settlement amount was not disclosed.

The complaint said the teen was 17 and working her first job when Zeferino Carlos Rangel, then 52 and her night-shift supervisor, repeatedly raped and threatened her. The allegations put a harsh spotlight on the way a night job, a teenage worker and a supervisor with a violent history intersected inside a familiar fast-food workplace in Jamestown.

Jamestown police issued a public warning about Rangel in April 2020, describing him as a violent, high-risk sex offender likely to reoffend. The suit alleged he was hired in 2022 anyway and was allowed to work with the teen alone. For Stutsman County families, that detail is central: the alleged abuse did not happen in a hidden setting, but in a job where adults were supposed to be watching the back of a minor worker.

Court records and the North Dakota Sex Offender Registry show Rangel had a 2012 Pembina County conviction for gross sexual imposition involving a 19-year-old who was passed out. The registry also says he forced a 14-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl to perform oral sex on him on several occasions in the late 2000s. Those records had already placed his name in the public record years before the Jamestown Subway lawsuit was filed.

Rangel later pleaded guilty in May 2023 to five felony counts in Stutsman County, and a North Dakota Supreme Court opinion says he was sentenced in August 2023. The case now stands as a stark example of employer accountability in a town where many teens start their first jobs in restaurants, stores and other entry-level shifts.