A California women's prison so plagued by sexual abuse that it was known among inmates and workers as the “rape club” will be closed, the head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced Monday.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said the agency is closing the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, where more than a half-dozen correctional officers and the former warden have been accused or convicted of sexually abusing female inmates.
Peters stated that the office had “taken unprecedented steps and provided enormous resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, outdated infrastructure and, most critically, employee misconduct.”
“Despite these measures and resources, we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility. “This decision is made after an ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of these unprecedented measures and additional resources.”
He said “planning is currently underway to deactivate” the prison that houses 605 inmates. The facility east of Oakland is one of the few federal women's prisons in western states.
“It's a remarkable admission,” said attorney Michael Bien, whose law firm represents inmates in a class-action lawsuit over prison conditions. Prison authorities “say they cannot operate this prison safely.” He said the closure does not address the underlying problem. “How does this solve problems? The same policy and procedures apply in other prisons. “It’s not the building that did anything wrong.”
Bien said lawyers representing Dublin inmates had not been informed of the closure announcement. He added that a federal judge had just been appointed special supervisor of the prison in connection with the class action lawsuit and that same judge had ordered that no person involved in the process can be transferred from Dublin without his authorization.
The women housed in Dublin will be moved to other facilities as close as possible to their release location and no employees will lose their jobs due to the closure, according to Peters. The long-term fate of the federal facility is unclear. “The facility closure may be temporary, but it will result in a change in mission,” she said. Among the prison's inmates are actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman after their convictions in the college admissions scandal.
The events are the latest twist in a years-long scandal surrounding the facility. Since an FBI investigation was launched that resulted in arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin employees have been accused of sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty and two have been convicted by juries. Another employee is scheduled to stand trial this year.
The announcement comes after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the prison last month and Director Art Dulgov, just months into his tenure, and three other top managers were removed from their positions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) said “the FBI investigation into the facility shed light on a toxic culture that enabled years of sexual misconduct by employees, five of whom pleaded guilty to charges.” associates and two were convicted by juries of ordinary Californians.”
Dulgov was the third new leader of the low-security prison since warden Ray J. Garcia, who, along with more than a half-dozen employees, was convicted of sexually assaulting several women serving time there.
Dulgov and his staff are accused of retaliating against an inmate who testified in January in the class-action lawsuit alleging “horrible abuse and exploitation” at the prison, with rampant sexual assault of incarcerated people, according to a court filing.
Last month, a correctional officer who worked at FCI Dublin was sentenced to 72 months in federal prison. Nakie Nunley pleaded guilty to sexually abusing five inmates and admitted engaging in sexual acts with two other women detained at the facility. All of her victims worked at a call center operated by Federal Prison Industries at the prison, where he supervised them.
Last year, Warden Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in prison for sexually abusing incarcerated women and lying to the FBI as part of a cover-up.
The FBI raid came after the then-director transferred an inmate who was a witness in a lawsuit against the prison, violating a judge's court order that witnesses would not be transferred without court approval.
In the wake of the raid, Nancy T. McKinney, a senior regional supervisor for the Bureau of Prisons, was named acting director of Dublin. She is the fourth person to hold the position since Garcia was removed from office.
FBI spokeswoman Cameron Polan told the Times that the FBI raid involved “court-authorized law enforcement activity at that location.” In addition to the paperwork, computers were removed from the prison, according to a source familiar with the ongoing investigation.
The raid took place as the number of women who have filed lawsuits against guards and staff alleging sexual abuse and retaliation has risen to more than 63. That number is expected to surpass 100, lawyers say.
It is a crime for any prison employee to engage in sexual activity with an incarcerated person, and someone behind bars cannot give consent.
In February, KTVU first reported that an incarcerated woman, Rhonda Fleming, was placed in a special housing unit (a common prison punishment) and moved to a facility in Los Angeles against a judge's orders after she will testify about culture at FCI Dublin during a January Hearing in a civil case brought on behalf of people incarcerated at the prison.
After learning of Fleming's transfer, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne González Rogers ordered prison authorities to return her to Dublin.
In March 2023, the judge referred to the prison's “culture of sexual abuse” in sentencing Garcia, the former warden, who she said had perpetuated that culture.
A federal jury in Oakland found him guilty of three counts of sex with an incarcerated person, four counts of abusive sexual contact and one count of lying to the FBI.
He groped three imprisoned women and made them pose naked for photographs. Before his sentencing, one of his victims told Garcia: “You are a predator and a pervert. “You are a disgrace to the federal government.”
In 2022, former prison chaplain James Theodore Highhouse was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually assaulting a female inmate at FCI Dublin. Highhouse engaged in predatory behavior with at least six women between 2014 and 2019, according to prosecutors. He claimed that God had brought them together, citing the Bible and referencing King David's many wives as justification for his actions.
“There is a culture of rot in Dublin,” another federal judge declared in Highhouse's sentencing. “It's important for the world to see this egregious conduct and see this grave penalty.”
The Bureau of Prisons class action lawsuit alleges that FCI Dublin and other federal agencies failed to prevent, detect and investigate sexual abuse, placing those detained at the prison at substantial risk of sexual assault. The prison also houses transgender and non-binary people.
The lawsuit alleges that while prison officials were being sentenced, other guards continued to sexually harass, grope and assault detainees and subject some individuals to “transphobic harassment.”
Allegations of sexual assault in Dublin date back to the 1990s. Four employees were previously convicted of sexual abuse of inmates. Those incidents, along with civil litigation, forced the prison to commit to reforms.
But lawyers say those reforms were “ultimately ineffective or abandoned.” In the early 2010s, they note, “a dozen Dublin FCI employees were dismissed for sexual abuse, including one who recorded himself having sex with inmates and kept the tapes in a prison locker. but no one was arrested.”
