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

A former California breeding officer who was convicted of dozens of sexual abuse in a female prison was sentenced to 224 years in prison on Thursday.

57 -year -old Gregory Rodriguez worked as a guard at the Middle California Women’s Facility (CCWF), the largest women’s prison in the state, and was found guilty of accusing more than 60 women in custody, including rape and battery. He brought the state case on behalf of 13 women.

Rodriguez’s case became a great scandal for the state, and revealed the crisis of abuse behind long -term sexual abuse and bars. It was found that the officer targeted women imprisoned for about ten years before he retired in 2022 when he was under investigation.

A Guardian investigation published in 2023 announced that the prison received a report on the abuse of Rodriguez in 2014, but did not terminate it and punished the victim instead. The survivor, the authorities investigating the allegations of abuse, said the sent to cell imprisonment.

Despite the data showing that the abuse of guards is a systemic problem in California and the United States, it is rare that prison officers are accused of criminal and rarely convicted for sexual abuse. The abuse released by the California Correction and Rehabilitation Department (CDCR) showed that hundreds of women imprisoned from 2014 to 2023 have complained about sexual abuse, but only four officers were dissolved for sexual abuse.

Rodriguez, who has been working for CDCR for 27 years, isolated victims in the camera -free spaces and threatened to yapmak making prison very difficult ”according to the cases of prison researchers and victims by offering items such as gum or tobacco. The majority of the rape accused by prosecutors occurred in the Parole Council Zone, where residents, imprisoned in 2021 and 2022, had secret lawyer meetings and emerged to defend their freedom of commission members.

A woman struggling with substance use disorder, Rodriguez offered to take the medication of addiction, forcing her to gender, but rather than recipe, he gave an overdose of heroin.

Rodriguez claimed that he was not guilty, and his lawyer tried to arouse suspicion at the hearing of the victims. From the majority of more than 90 accusations, the jury was hung or found it for some numbers not guilty. Rodriguez, his her daughter was sick And he needed support and his family testified on his behalf.

“The jury clearly believed in some prisoners and believed in others, Rog his lawyer Roger Wilson said after his conviction. Wilson did not respond immediately to an investigation.

Some survivors expressed Last month in court, in 2023, in front of Rodriguez, including Nikki, who spoke with Guardian behind the bars and released since then. The first name was referred to in the court procedures.

According to a copy of the statement he shared with Guardian, he said, ım I have lived for more than ten years after you have done me. ” “I was a woman imprisoned – vulnerable, lonely, dignity, humanity and power… You used that moment to feed me. You hunted me… You violated me in predatory, manipulative and evil. You have violated me under the cape of the authority. I didn’t talk about anything that you didn’t hurt. “

He said that he “groomed” that he said, “My isolation, my loneliness, my loneliness, to the basic humanity”: ın You built a prison in the prison and I still live in it. ”

“I will not whisper the fact that you, your lawyer and your CDCR are trying to be buried. For me, this statement can start to take back what you are trying to take from me.”

In an interview before the conviction this week, Nikki said that he would not remain silent: orum I do this for women who are still in him or He was very horrified to talk, because he was once me. ”

He said that CDCR was “managed by the bullying bullying” and imprisoned, and that Rodriguez’s abuse was faced with harassment and intimidation after the emergence: “This is never the way of silenceing and normalizing the trauma they maintain. Is this never an injustice?”

Last year, he referred to the Rodriguez case under the US Department of Justice Biden and hundreds of cases, and launched a civil rights investigation on personnel sexual abuse in other women’s prisons of CCWF and California. Doj said that the civil servants accused of abuse contain “persons responsible for addressing sexual abuse complaints”.

Under Trump Police had no lawsuits for civil rights It was brought by the previous administration, but lawyers California said that the prison task investigation continued. A doj spokesman refused to comment.

• Information and support for everyone affected by rape or sexual abuse problems are available from the following organizations. In the USA Sky It offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape crisis 0808 500 2222 offers support. Support is available in Australia 1800 disrespect (1800 737 732). Other international assistance lines can be found at this address Ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html