More than 100 women who said they were abused and sexually assaulted at a California prison dubbed the “rape club” have been awarded nearly $116 million in a settlement agreement.
The negotiation was settled on Tuesday, leading to the Department of Justice (DOJ) agreeing to pay out an average of about $1.1 million to each of the 103 former inmates of the now-closed Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The settlement came as a result of the women’s lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), on the same day as a federal judge preliminarily approved another settlement in a separate class-action lawsuit that would force the BOP to open some of its correctional facilities to a “court-appointed monitor” and “publicly acknowledge abuse at FCI Dublin,” according to the outlet.
The seventh former correctional officer accused of sexually abusing inmates was sentenced in March, and an eighth officer, Darrell Wayne Smith, is still awaiting trial on over a dozen related charges, the DOJ said in July.
“We were sentenced to prison, we were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused,” former Dublin inmate Aimee Chavira said in a statement to the AP.
“I hope this settlement will help survivors, like me, as they begin to heal – but money will not repair the harm that BOP did to us, or free survivors who continue to suffer in prison, or bring back survivors who were deported and separated from their families.”
The legal battle was fought by the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, represented by San Francisco-based law firm Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld (RBGG).
“This is not an FCI Dublin problem – it’s a BOP problem,” said Emily Shapiro, an advocate with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and member of the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, before bringing up the Biden administration.
“The DOJ and the Biden administration know that sexual abuse and retaliation are rampant in federal prisons, but they have failed to enact the structural changes necessary to prevent future abuse. Meanwhile, people who were incarcerated at FCI Dublin continue to suffer staff sexual assault, retaliation, and medical neglect at other BOP prisons across the country,” Shapiro said. “BOP has utterly refused to take responsibility for its many failings – they seem to think that they can temporarily close one prison, write checks, and hope that everyone moves on, but we will not stop demanding justice for survivors of BOP abuse.”
The Dublin facility was permanently closed in November.
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