“We were sentenced to prison,” former Dublin inmate Aimee Chavira said in a statement. “We were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused.”
The federal government will pay $116 million to settle claims that dozens of women were subjected to abuse and mistreatment at a California prison.
According to National Public Radio, the settlements were approved on Tuesday.
Under the terms of the agreements, the Department of Justice will pay, on average, $1.1 million to each of the 103 plaintiffs, all of whom were formerly incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.
Before its closure in 2024, the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin had a longstanding reputation as a “rape club,” with the inmates’ lawsuits describing a “pervasive culture of sexual misconduct and retaliation.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say that the Bureau of Prisons repeatedly and “deliberately ignored alarming warning signs and sex abuse allegations” at the Dublin facility.
The plaintiffs included a transgender person, who accused former warden Ray Garcia of “molesting him and forcing him to touch Garcia’s genitals in a recreation area that was out of view of surveillance cameras.”
“Later,” NPR recounts, “Garcia bought [the inmate] drugs in an attempt to keep him quiet.”
Another plaintiff said that she was abused by safety administrator John Bellhouse, who allegedly forced himself on her inside of his office. When the woman tried to report the abuse to an internal prison investigator, she was told that, “If it’s not on camera, then you’re beat.”
Garcia, notes NPR, was convicted in 2022 of abusing three inmates. He is currently serving a 70-month prison sentence.
At least two other former Dublin officials have also been convicted on abuse-related charges, including Bellhouse, who was found guilty of the abuse of two inmates.
“We were sentenced to prison,” former Dublin inmate Aimee Chavira said in a statement. “We were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused.”
“I hope this settlement will help survivors like me as they begin to heal,” she said. “But money will not repair the harm that [the federal Bureau of Prisons] did to us, or to free survivors who continue to suffer in prison, or bring back survivors who were deported and separated from their families.”
The Bureau of Prisons on Thursday issued a statement acknowledging the settlements, saying that it “strongly condemns all forms of sexually abusive behavior and takes seriously its duty to protect the individuals in our custody as well as maintain the safety of our employees and community.”
The Bureau of Prisons also announced that it will permanently close the Dublin prison, which has been temporarily shuttered since April.
Sources
U.S. to pay $116M settlement over rampant sexual abuse at Calif. women’s prison
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