Ex-prison warden faces trial more than inmate abuse allegations

The former warden of an abuse-plagued federal women’s jail identified as the “rape club” goes on demo Monday, accused of molesting inmates and forcing them to pose naked in their cells.

Ray J. Garcia, who retired immediately after the FBI uncovered nude photographs of inmates on his government-issued cell phone past year, is amongst 5 employees billed with abusing inmates at the federal correctional establishment in Dublin, California, and the initially to go to trial.

Opening statements and the 1st witnesses are anticipated Monday in federal court in Oakland. Garcia, 55, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he would confront up to 15 a long time in jail.

An Affiliated Push investigation in February uncovered a culture of abuse and include-up that experienced persisted for several years at the prison, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) east of Oakland. That reporting led to improved scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the federal Bureau of Prisons that it would deal with difficulties and change the society at the jail.

Garcia is billed with abusing 3 inmates between December 2019 and July 2021, but jurors could listen to from as many as 6 girls who say he groped them and instructed them to pose naked or in provocative apparel. U.S. District Choose Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said prosecutors can call 3 added accusers as witnesses, even although their allegations are not part of his indictment.

Garcia’s law firm has frequently declined to remark, expressing he would react to the charges “only by the court process.” Court docket filings point out the defense strategies to argue that Garcia took photographs of one particular inmate because he wished documentation that she was breaching plan by standing all-around bare.

The circumstance, with shades of #MeToo guiding bars, is also probably to place a spotlight on the Bureau of Prisons, contacting into concern its dealing with of sexual abuse problems from inmates towards staff and the vetting course of action for the folks it chooses to run its prisons.

Garcia was promoted from affiliate warden to warden in November 2020 when he was nonetheless abusing inmates, prosecutors say. The Bureau of Prisons has stated it didn’t locate out about the abuse until eventually later on. Garcia is the greatest-rating federal jail formal arrested in far more than 10 a long time.

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The agency’s new director, Colette Peters, has reiterated the agency’s zero-tolerance policy for employees sexual misconduct and has referred to as for harsher punishment for staff who commit abuse. But as abuse raged at Dublin, the process for reporting it was inherently damaged.

Garcia was in demand of team and inmate education on reporting abuse and complying with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act at the exact time he was committing abuse, prosecutors say, and some inmates say they were being sent to solitary confinement or other prisons for accusing personnel of abuse.

Prosecutors say Garcia tried to preserve his victims quiet with promises that he’d assist them get early release. He allegedly instructed just one victim he was “close friends” with the prison official dependable for investigating staff members misconduct and couldn’t be fired. In accordance to an indictment, he mentioned he preferred to cavort with inmates since, presented their deficiency of electric power, they couldn’t “ruin him.”

Garcia is also accused of buying inmates to strip naked for him as he built his rounds and of lying to federal brokers who questioned him if he experienced ever asked inmates to undress for him or experienced inappropriately touched a female inmate.

“If they’re undressing, I have presently appeared,” Garcia advised the FBI in July 2021, in accordance to court information. “I never, like, schedule a time like, ‘You be undressed, and I’ll be there.’”

Garcia was positioned on administrative leave just before retiring, He was arrested in September 2021.

The inmates had been not identified in court docket papers. The AP typically does not title people today who say they are victims of sexual assault except they consent to currently being determined.

All sexual action involving a prison employee and an inmate is illegal. Correctional staff members love considerable energy in excess of inmates, managing each factor of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no state of affairs in which an inmate can give consent.

Previously this thirty day period, Deputy Lawyer General Lisa Monaco directed federal prosecutors across the U.S. to “consider the whole array of statutes,” which include the federal Violence Towards Gals Act in instances involving Bureau of Prisons workforce who are accused of sexual misconduct.

In people cases, Monaco said prosecutors must take into consideration inquiring judges for sentences that go outside of the federal pointers if the sentence encouraged in the suggestions is not “fair and proportional to the seriousness of the offenses.”

Monaco, a vital player in the Justice Department’s attempt to reform the federal prison procedure, satisfies on a regular basis with Bureau of Prisons director and the department’s inspector standard and has achieved with U.S. lawyers and FBI Director Christopher Wray to emphasize the require to go after costs when jail staff commit misconduct.

Of the 4 other Dublin staff billed with abusing inmates, three have pleaded guilty and one is scheduled to stand trial next yr. James Theodore Highhouse, the prison’s chaplain, is appealing his 7-yr jail sentence, arguing that it was abnormal since it was extra than double the encouraged punishment in federal sentencing recommendations.

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