Editor’s Observe: This story comprises discussions of rape or sexual assault which may be disturbing. Reader discretion is suggested. For those who or somebody you understand has been sexually assaulted, yow will discover assist and discreet sources on the National Sexual Assault Hotline website or by calling 1-800-656-4673.
(NewsNation) — Six girls who have been previously incarcerated at FCI Dublin in California are telling their tales of surviving a federal jail so infamous for sexual abuse, it was known as the “rape membership.”
They inform NewsNation investigative correspondent Natasha Zouves they have been assaulted by officers who labored there, and after they tried to report the abuse, they have been silenced; some, thrown into solitary confinement, others had their launch dates postponed. All in an effort, they are saying, to cowl up what was actually occurring behind federal jail partitions.
‘They’re all in it collectively’: The Warden’s abuse
Yvonne Palmore says she remembers Warden Ray J. Garcia standing over her, filming her bare physique as she was crushed by a bunch of guards.
“I occurred to lookup and he’s standing over me with this smirk on his face,” mentioned Palmore. “I wakened within the hospital. I had bruises from head to toe, boot prints, precise boot prints on my physique for months. In order that they hid me within the SHU.”
Palmore mentioned she was put within the Particular Housing Unit (SHU) in solitary confinement, at one level, for seven and a half months.
“They instructed my household I used to be useless after they came around. That they didn’t know the place my physique was, my stays,” mentioned Palmore.
Warden Ray J. Garcia was one in all eight former FCI Dublin correctional officers charged in federal court docket for sexually abusing girls behind bars — a report variety of correctional officers charged with intercourse crimes at any federal jail in america, in keeping with the Garrison Undertaking.
Garcia is the primary warden within the historical past of the Bureau of Prisons to be incarcerated for a intercourse offense. He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 70 months in jail.
“They’re all collectively. They’re all in it collectively,” mentioned Palmore. “I didn’t suppose I’d ever see my household once more.”
‘Nowhere was secure’: Abuse within the Jail Church
The previous inmates say the abuse was all over the place — within the cells, the hallways, even the jail church wasn’t secure.
Windy Panzo mentioned she’s simply one of many survivors of Chaplain James Theodore Highhouse’s abuse. She mentioned she hit all-time low at FCI Dublin and turned to religion.
“It acquired actual darkish, so I began leaning on God. I wound up going to church. That turned out to be even darker,” mentioned Panzo.
She alleges that the chaplain abused her a complete of, “4 occasions… after they name you to go, you possibly can’t refuse. You may’t do something. So he would name me over to get these certificates that he would write. He would wind up grabbing me or doing no matter that he wished to. And I couldn’t refuse. You may’t depart.”
Panzo is out from behind bars now, making an attempt to rebuild her life. She says she goes to remedy, however she is endlessly modified by what occurred within the chaplain’s workplace.
“I used to be 140 kilos when all of this occurred, and I ate myself as much as over 200 kilos. I figured if I grew to become ugly, then nobody else would need me, nobody else within the jail system would come after me, and that wasn’t true. I can’t go to church. I don’t go to church in any respect, I don’t decide up my bible. I can’t,” mentioned Panzo.
Highhouse was by no means charged instantly in Panzo’s case, he pleaded responsible to 4 counts of sexual abuse and was sentenced to 84 months in jail.
‘It was a violent kind of episode’: Abuse and Retaliation
Darlene Baker says she nonetheless can’t sleep after what occurred. In a federal lawsuit filed final June, she claims to have been sexually abused by a medical workers member at FCI Dublin.
“I get a shot each two weeks for a reasonably extreme autoimmune dysfunction. And I went in to get my shot, and he mentioned, ‘Oh, go on again to the place the fridge is, into the again medical room.’ And I didn’t know, however he had then locked the entrance door and locked the within door,” mentioned Baker.
“(He) pushed me exhausting in opposition to the wall, and it was a violent kind of episode. I form of, I don’t know, blacked out. And after I got here again, when there was knocking on the door and he had lastly stopped, my shirt and bra was as much as my neck and my pants have been down,” mentioned Baker.
Baker says she tried to report the assault, and the retaliation started. She says her launch was canceled and prolonged for eight months. Cellphone calls, emails and private visits have been reduce off. She grew to become decided to be the whistleblower who would assist carry this all down.
“I’ve a authorized background, And what I noticed, I used to be like I’m going to do that. I’m going to report what I’m seeing,” mentioned Baker.
She did — sending meticulous documentation by means of one other inmate’s mail to her household, who despatched it to Congresswoman Jackie Speier.
Consultant Speier led a congressional delegation to examine the power, and later demanded an investigation into the power’s compliance with the Jail Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
The U.S. Authorities did one thing unprecedented — reaching an almost $116 million civil settlement, paying out greater than 100 inmates of FCI Dublin.
Baker is pleased with her actions and the data she offered that ended up being essential in constructing proof, although that medical workers member just isn’t one of many eight charged.
“I nonetheless have actually dangerous nightmares each single night time, and I feel that’s as a result of I do know my offender is free.”
She says the medical workers member instructed her he would discover her.
“He’s nonetheless out, there’s an entire bunch of them on the market, a bunch of offenders,” mentioned Baker.
Kendra Drysdale says she skilled comparable retaliation and over-incarceration after she tried to report workers misconduct throughout a pat-down. She despatched what ought to have been a confidential message to the DOJ — however she says inside an hour, she was known as right into a disciplinary listening to within the jail and accused of mendacity.
She says the guards requested her what she wished to maintain, “I’m like, oh my God please don’t take my telephone. I speak to my daughter each single day. After which she mentioned, ‘We’re going to take your electronic mail, we’re going to take your in-person visits. We’re going to take your video visits. After which she appeared on the different (officer) and mentioned, ‘What else can we take from her?’ And he or she mentioned, ‘Nicely, let’s take her out date.’”
The California Coalition for Ladies’s Prisoners says Drysdale was left in jail for a number of months previous the date she was alleged to go dwelling.
“They tried to interrupt me in right here, they tried to interrupt all of us,” mentioned Drysdale. “They weren’t profitable.”
Darrell ‘Soiled Dick’ Smith
The ladies say they’re devastated after the occasions of this week.
Probably the most infamous guards, Darrell “Soiled Dick” Smith, was the final of the eight officers charged with intercourse crimes at FCI Dublin to go to trial. All seven of the opposite males have both pleaded responsible or have been discovered responsible, they’re awaiting sentencing or are already serving as much as 96 months in jail.
Smith was charged in a 15-count indictment — probably the most counts of any of the officers. However after days of emotional testimony from alleged victims — girls coming nose to nose with the person they are saying abused them — earlier this week, a federal decide declared a mistrial after jurors have been unable to achieve a verdict. His new trial is now scheduled for September.
Smith maintains his innocence.
The California Coalition for Ladies’s Prisoners launched this assertion after the mistrial:
“Survivors shared extraordinarily disturbing testimony over the course of days, together with how Smith raped and digitally penetrated quite a few them, masturbated whereas watching girls bathe, spanked them, and used coercive techniques comparable to withholding their mail or not letting them depart their cells if they’d not flash their breasts or comply with sexual encounters with him.”
Aimee Chavira alleges “Soiled Dick” Smith abused her. She says the abuse led her to contemplate taking her personal life behind bars.
“Suicide crosses your thoughts. Despair is a large difficulty. How do you inform your loved ones that you simply’re in a federal jail and that the federal authorities is permitting this to occur? Is somebody going to imagine this?” mentioned Chavira.
Assist is on the market, if you happen to want emotional assist name or textual content 988 to achieve the Suicide and Disaster Lifeline
Chavira says she confronted Smith sooner or later contained in the jail.
“He was within the responsibility officer’s workplace downstairs. He would roll again and kick his toes on prime of the desk, and he’d be like, ‘you ain’t acquired no (ejaculate.) You’ll by no means get me.’ He goes, ‘Have a look at you, have a look at me.’ And I mentioned, ‘I don’t want it. There’s gonna come a day. Belief me, there might be a day the place this may come down.’”
One in every of Smith’s alleged victims, Cassandra Reyes, says she had nice apprehension main as much as testifying in court docket, however in the end discovered coming face-to-face with Smith empowering.
“At first I used to be actually afraid and dealing as much as the purpose of getting to go testify. I had been so nervous, wired, simply so anxious. After which lastly after I acquired to face him within the courtroom, I actually felt good. I locked eyes with him. I let him know, I’m not afraid of you and I’m right here to face up for myself and I’m right here to carry you accountable,” mentioned Reyes.
She testified in graphic element how Smith allegedly abused her from 2019 till her launch in March of 2021. She says even because the abuse escalated, she lived in concern of her launch date being jeopardized, or being thrown into solitary confinement.
“I felt disgusting. I felt like I used to be betraying myself. I felt anxious. I’ve a whole lot of sexual abuse in my previous and so it actually takes me again to love these experiences,” mentioned Reyes.
Smith’s protection used the technique of trying to discredit the ladies who accused him of sexual abuse. In her opening assertion, Smith’s legal professional urged that the absence of bodily or DNA proof ought to lead jurors to query the credibility of the allegations. She emphasised that the case relied solely on the testimonies of the ladies, all of whom have been incarcerated for felony offenses.
In an announcement after the mistrial, Aimee Chavira wrote:
“This mistrial is devastating, particularly given how troublesome and traumatizing it was for survivors to testify. To the households of these nonetheless incarcerated: Your family members will want your assist after receiving this information. It doesn’t matter what occurs, we should do not forget that the ‘rape membership’ at Dublin was made attainable by a widespread tradition of complicity and cover-ups, and the Bureau of Prisons continues to abuse and neglect folks at federal girls’s prisons all around the nation. We is not going to relaxation till this complete system is held accountable.”
NewsNation reached out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons about this report, a spokesperson replied the BOP “strongly condemns all types of sexually abusive habits and takes significantly our responsibility to guard the people entrusted in our custody… As a result of lively litigation, we are going to decline to remark additional.”
Is FCI Dublin an Remoted Case?
FCI Dublin was abruptly closed in 2024. In a plan U.S. District Court docket Choose Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers known as “ill-conceived,” about 600 girls have been scattered to greater than a dozen amenities throughout the nation.
Group organizers inform NewsNation the abuse and retaliation have continued for former Dublin inmates in these new amenities.
“We’re seeing Dublin survivors who are actually at over a dozen amenities all around the nation, being explicitly known as Dublin Ladies or Dublin Bitches,” mentioned Courtney Hanson of the California Coalition for Ladies Prisoners (CCWP). “They’re listening to issues from workers like, ‘Oh, we don’t have rest room paper for Dublin Ladies… or we ran out of meals. One thing as primary as with the ability to get a meal.”
The CCWP has advocated for survivors and pushed for systemic change to stop additional abuse in federal girls’s prisons. Efforts by the CCWP contributed to the practically $116 million civil settlement in 2024, in addition to in 2025, a federal decide approving a consent decree requiring the Bureau of Prisons to implement reforms throughout greater than a dozen federal girls’s prisons, together with federal monitoring and public reporting on workers abuse, retaliation and medical care.
“Now we have unprecedented entry and oversight over these 12 plus amenities for the subsequent a minimum of two years, to make sure that the modifications that the BOP is now mandated to make really occur and to make sure that it’s not simply phrases on paper,” mentioned Hanson.
Hanson says the struggle is much from over, and is deeply disturbed by stories of rapes and sexual abuse persevering with for the ladies previously incarcerated at FCI Dublin, accounts she calls “harrowing examples of workers sexual abuse at different BOP amenities.”
Windy Panzo, the alleged survivor of Chaplain Highhouse’s abuse at FCI Dublin, says she is aware of that FCI Dublin just isn’t an remoted case.
“It’s occurring all over the place. It’s not simply FCI Dublin,” mentioned Panzo.
“(FCI Dublin) was simply low hanging fruit,” provides Darlene Baker, who alleges abuse by the hands of a medical workers member at FCI Dublin. “Attorneys simply pressed it and pressed it, and pushed their method by means of, and Congresswoman Jackie Speier pushed her method in. It’s occurring all over the place.”
The ladies hope that by coming ahead and telling their tales, systemic change can start throughout the nation.
“We’re your moms, your grandmothers, we’re your sisters, we’re your daughters,” mentioned Baker. “We’re common individuals who made some dangerous choices.”
Aimee Chavira says change begins with the general public lastly figuring out what occurred.
“NewsNation for us is essential. I wish to say thanks for you guys wanting and keen to place this on the market, so the folks of the world can know. We’re very grateful.”
