FBI brokers on Monday raided a federal ladies’s jail in California so affected by sexual abuse it was recognized amongst inmates and employees because the “rape club.” The motion coincided with the ouster of the brand new warden from the federal correctional establishment in Dublin.
As FBI brokers hauled containers from contained in the Northern California jail, Warden Artwork Dulgov — just some months into his tenure — and three different high managers had been faraway from their positions by the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Dulgov and workers are accused of retaliating towards an inmate who testified in January in a lawsuit introduced by feminine inmates towards the jail, in keeping with a court docket submitting.
The developments are simply the newest twist in a years-long scandal surrounding the power. Since an FBI probe was launched and resulted in arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin staff have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. 5 of them have pleaded responsible to costs, and two have been convicted by juries. One other worker is slated to go on trial this 12 months.
Final 12 months, former Warden Ray J. Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in prison for sexually abusing incarcerated ladies and mendacity to the FBI as a part of a cover-up.
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Though FBI officers wouldn’t specify what triggered Monday’s raid on the jail, an legal professional for the federal authorities mentioned in a court docket submitting that it got here on the heels of the allegations of retaliation towards workers.
In accordance with the submitting, the warden transferred an inmate who was a witness in a lawsuit towards the jail, violating a choose’s court docket order that witnesses not be moved with out the court docket’s approval. Two captains and a 3rd administrator had been faraway from the power together with the warden.
On Monday, Nancy T. McKinney, a high regional Bureau of Prisons supervisor, was appointed interim warden of Dublin. She is the fourth particular person to carry the workplace since Garcia was eliminated.
BOP officers acknowledged the management change, saying, “Current developments have necessitated new government staff be put in” on the jail, whose inmates have included Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman after their convictions within the college admissions scandal.
FBI spokeswoman Cameron Polan informed The Instances that the company “carried out court-authorized regulation enforcement exercise at that location.” Along with paperwork, computer systems had been faraway from the jail, in keeping with a supply conversant in the continued probe.
The raid comes because the variety of ladies who’ve come ahead to allege sexual abuse and retaliation in lawsuits towards guards and workers has reached 63.
As of Monday night, no new officers had been charged within the greater than three-year investigation into sexual abuse at FCI Dublin.
Final month, KTVU reported that an incarcerated lady, Rhonda Fleming, was put into the Particular Housing Unit — a standard jail punishment — and transferred to a facility in Los Angeles towards a choose’s orders after she testified concerning the tradition at FCI Dublin throughout a January listening to in a civil case.
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U.S. District Courtroom Choose Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, after studying of Fleming’s switch, ordered the jail authorities to return her to Dublin.
In March of final 12 months, the choose referred to the jail’s “tradition of sexual abuse” in sentencing former Warden Garcia, whom she mentioned had perpetuated that tradition.
A federal jury in Oakland found him guilty of three counts of intercourse with an incarcerated particular person, 4 counts of abusive sexual contact and one rely of mendacity to the FBI.
He fondled and groped three ladies incarcerated on the jail in Dublin and made them pose bare for photographs. Earlier than his sentencing, one among his victims informed Garcia: “You’re a predator and a pervert. You’re a shame to the federal authorities.”
This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Times.
