FBI brokers on Monday raided a federal ladies’s jail in California so tormented by sexual abuse it was identified amongst inmates and employees because the “rape membership.” 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 employees are accused of retaliating towards an inmate who testified in January in a lawsuit introduced by feminine inmates towards the jail, in response to a courtroom submitting.
The developments are simply the most recent twist in a years-long scandal surrounding the ability. Since an FBI investigation was launched and resulted in arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin workers have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. 5 of them have pleaded responsible to fees, and two have been convicted by juries. One other worker is slated to go on trial this yr.
Final yr, former Warden Ray J. Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in jail for sexually abusing incarcerated ladies and mendacity to the FBI as a part of a cover-up.
Though FBI officers wouldn’t specify what triggered Monday’s raid on the jail, an legal professional for the federal authorities mentioned in a courtroom submitting that it got here on the heels of the allegations of retaliation towards employees.
In line with the submitting, the warden transferred an inmate who was a witness in a lawsuit towards the jail, violating a decide’s courtroom order that witnesses not be moved with out the courtroom’s approval. Two captains and a 3rd administrator had been faraway from the ability 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.
Bureau officers acknowledged the management change, saying, “Current developments have necessitated new government workers be put in” on the jail, whose inmates have included Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman after their convictions within the school admissions scandal.
FBI spokeswoman Cameron Polan informed The Instances that the company “carried out court-authorized legislation enforcement exercise at that location.” Along with paperwork, computer systems had been faraway from the jail, in response to a supply accustomed to the continuing investigation.
The raid comes because the variety of ladies who’ve come ahead to allege sexual abuse and retaliation in lawsuits towards guards and employees 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 girl, Rhonda Fleming, was put into the Particular Housing Unit — a typical jail punishment — and transferred to a facility in Los Angeles towards a decide’s orders after she testified in regards to the tradition at FCI Dublin throughout a January listening to in a civil case.
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 yr, the decide 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 discovered him responsible of three counts of intercourse with an incarcerated particular person, 4 counts of abusive sexual contact and one depend of mendacity to the FBI.
He groped three ladies incarcerated on the jail in Dublin and made them pose bare for photographs. Earlier than his sentencing, one in every of his victims informed Garcia: “You’re a predator and a pervert. You’re a shame to the federal authorities.”
