Ex-guard at California women’s prison sentenced to 224 years for sexual abuse | California

A former Californian correctional agent found guilty of dozens of sexual abuse in a prison for women was sentenced to 224 years in prison on Thursday.

Gregory Rodriguez, 57, worked as a goalkeeper in the establishment of women in Central California (CCWF), the largest prison for women in the state, and was found guilty in January of more than 60 accusations of having abused women under his custody, including rape and battery. The state brought its file on behalf of 13 women.

The case of Rodriguez has become a massive scandal for the state, exposing a long -standing crisis of sexual misconduct and abuse behind bars. The officer targeted incarcerated women in almost a decade before his retirement in 2022 during his investigation.

A Guardian investigation published in 2023 revealed that the prison had received a report on the abuses of Rodriguez in 2014, but did not end it and rather punished the victim. This survivor spoke of being sent to lonely isolation while the authorities investigated the allegations of his abuse.

It is rare that prison officers are accused and criminally sentenced for sexual misconduct in service, despite data suggesting that guards’ abuses are a systemic problem in California and the United States. The misconduct files disclosed by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) showed that from 2014 to 2023, hundreds of women imprisoned filed complaints of sexual violence, but only four agents were dismissed for sexual misconduct in this period.

Rodriguez, who worked for the CDCR for 27 years, isolated victims in cameras without cameras and forced them to sex by offering articles such as gum or tobacco and threatening to “make prison very difficult” if they do not be satisfied, according to prison investigators and legal proceedings. The majority of rapes charged by prosecutors took place in 2021 and 2022 in the hearings of the Council of Conditional Liberations, where the incarcerated residents have confidential lawyers and are concerned before the commissioners to plead their freedom.

A woman struggling with a substance consumption disorder declared that Rodriguez had forced him to sex by offering to take her medication for dependence, but instead of obtaining a prescription, he gave her heroin, which led her to an overdose.

Rodriguez had pleaded not guilty and his lawyer sought to question the accounts of the victims at the trial. He was found guilty of the majority of the more than 90 accusations of the prosecutors brought, but for some charges, the jury was hung or recognized as not guilty. Rodriguez had pleaded for the leniency, saying that her daughter was sick and needed support, and his family testified on his behalf.

After his conviction, his lawyer, Roger Wilson, said that “the jury clearly believed certain prisoners and incredulous others”. Wilson did not immediately respond to an investigation.

Some survivors testified in court last month before Rodriguez, including Nikki, who spoke to the Guardian in 2023 behind bars and has since been released. She was mentioned by her first name in legal proceedings.

“For more than a decade, I experienced as a result of what you did to me,” she said in court, according to a copy of her statement that she shared with the Guardian. “I was an incarcerated woman – vulnerable, alone, stripped of dignity, humanity and power … You used this moment to feed on me. You chased me away … what you did was predatory, manipulator and bad. crawl out of the hole in which you put me.

She said he had “treated it”, saying that he “exploited my isolation, my loneliness, my hunger of fundamental humanity”: “You built a prison inside the prison, and I always live there.”

She added: “I will no longer whisper the truth that you, your lawyer and CDCR tried to bury. This statement is for me so that I can start recovering what you have tried to take me.”

In an interview this week before the conviction, Nikki said that she would not remain silent: “I do this for women who are always inside … who are too terrified to express himself, because it was once too.”

She said that the CDCR was “managed by brutes protecting itself” and that, although incarcerated, it faced harassment and intimidation after the abuses of Rodriguez were revealed: “It was their way of silencing and normalizing the trauma they perpetuate … It was never a bad apple. The CDCR has allowed Rodriguez, who is called women, which we must be called, and the more abusers. An injustice?

Last year, the American Ministry of Justice of the Biden Administration opened an investigation into civil rights on the sexual abuse of staff at the CCWF and other prisons of women in California, quoting the Rodriguez case and hundreds of prosecution. The MJ noted that the officers accused of misconduct included “the same people who are responsible for the management of sexual abuse complaints”.

Under Trump, the DoJ rejected the affairs of the civil rights police carried by the previous administration, but the defenders said that the California prison was underway. An MJ spokesperson refused to comment.

• Information and support for anyone affected by problems of rape or sexual abuse is available from the following organizations. In the United States, Rainn offers support for 800-656-4673. In the United Kingdom, Rape Crisis offers a support at 0808 500 2222. In Australia, the support is available at 1800 respect (1800,737,732). Other international assistance lines can be found on ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html