Gregory Rodriguez, formerly the warden of a women’s correctional prison in California, which was in the center of one state; the biggest prison abuse scandalswas convicted of the 64 abuse charge Friday.
The defendant’s trial involved convictions for kidnapping and sexual assault for 13 women incarcerated.
Rodriguez, 56, faces 97 counts and was found not guilty on some of them while a jury was hung on others, Fresno Bec. announced. His convictions include 57 felonies and seven felonies, prosecutors said.
Rodriguez is one of a handful of California prison guards to face criminal charges for sexual misconduct on the job, data suggests. established in the state prisons for women and across the US, but they are rarely punished.
How difficult it is to expose the scandal the rest of the officer sexual assault to forward behind bars and how The system targets injury guards from accountability.
Authorities first revealed in December 2022 that Rodriguez was suspected of sexually exploiting at least 22 men in Central custody. California The women’s facility, the largest prison for women, is located in Chowchilla in the Central Valley. Rodriguez, who had worked in state prisons since 1995, retired in August 2022 after being approached by investigators, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said at the time.
In May 2023, the Madera County district attorney’s office Roderici was charged with nearly 100 counts of sexual assault for 13 women. Research of records and accounts from survivors suggested a pattern – Rodriguez first verbally harassed the women, made sexually explicit statements, and took them to isolated locations without cameras, falsely claiming they needed institutions or prison labor. He would give them things like tobacco or gum in exchange for sex, and threaten them if they didn’t comply or report the training.
Tutor investigation in 2023 it was revealed that Rodriguez received a prison report for abuse in 2014, but fined the victim for that arson. The woman said that she was sent to prison as usual because of her disgraceful conduct in prison. Finally he was sent to another prison.
In an interview last year, she said the experience had severely affected her mental health and she was left isolated without help. He said: “I felt so trapped that I couldn’t talk to anyone… I really had an inner anger towards myself”.
After the 2014 investigation, Rodriguez committed dozens of acts of sexual violence, prosecutors said.
Roger Wilson, Rodriguez’s attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment he told the Fresno Bee Rodriguez maintained his innocence. CDCR had no immediate comment on Tuesday.
The records revealed that women in California state prisons filed 100 sexual abuse complaints per staff from 2014 to 2023, but the four leaders are terminated for wrongdoing in that timeframe.
The California Coalition of Prisoners, a group supporting victims in the trial, shared a statement from one incarcerated survivor in their press release: “This is not a single officer’s problem. From my experience, Rodriguez is a bad tree on a tree that is rotten to the core,” the woman said.
SOCIETY lamented that women had been forced to testify in chains. “While we recognize that Gregorius Rodriguez is taking this step as an individual, we call it a systemic change.” CDCR policies and practices it will help ensure that abuse does not remain in women’s prisons,” advocates said in a statement.
Last year in California legislators laws adopted He wanted to support extra investigations into the law of sexual immorality filed by incarcerated men. In September the US Department of Justice also opened a civil rights investigation into sexual abuse in the state’s women’s prisons, though the fate of that investigation is uncertain as Donald Trump resumes office.