(AP) Fearful it would make the department look bad, Pennsylvania State Police attempted to silence a dispatcher present during a fatal ambush at the Blooming Grove barracks from disclosing a trooper there raped her about a year before the attack, she claims in a lawsuit.

Nicole Palmer of Dunmore alleges various officials with the department went to extraordinary lengths to keep her quiet, including having her involuntarily committed to a mental institution based on false allegations she threatened suicide.Because she filed a lawsuit and has been identified by name in previous stories, The Times-Tribune is naming Palmer.When she persisted in demanding the trooper who assaulted her be charged, officials launched an investigation - not of her attacker, but of her - based on claims that she told two troopers she was offered $1 million to keep quiet.The explosive allegations are contained in a 36-page lawsuit recently filed in Lackawanna County Court.State police on Tuesday filed paperwork seeking to transfer the case to federal court.Contacted Tuesday evening, Maj. James Degnan, area commander for the state police for Northeast Pennsylvania, said he could not comment on the suit, citing the department's policy not to comment on pending litigation.The lawsuit is among two Palmer filed related to the ambush. She also has a lawsuit pending in Pike County Court against Frein for emotional injuries she suffered as a result of the Sept. 12, 2014, sniper attack at the Blooming Grove barracks that killed Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson II and wounded trooper Alex T. Douglass.Palmer was the civilian dispatcher on duty the night of the ambush and attempted to drag Dickson into the barracks in the moments after he was shot.The latest lawsuit says authorities investigating the motive for the ambush asked Palmer if she ever had a sexual relationship with a senior trooper at the barracks, who is not identified in the suit.According to the suit, Palmer revealed the trooper in question, who was her superior, raped her in the summer of 2013 and thereafter continued to sexually harass her at work.In January 2015, Palmer said she was summoned to a meeting in Bethlehem, purportedly to answer whether she had been offered $1 million to stay quiet.The lawsuit seeks damages on 10 counts for violations of her constitutional rights, gender discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress and punitive damages.