Sexual Abuse Survivors Sue Prison Dubbed the 'Rape Club'

Lawyer says abuse at federal women's prison is continuing despite arrests, convictions
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2023 8:53 AM CDT
Sexual Abuse Survivors Sue Prison Dubbed the 'Rape Club'
Yvonne Palmore, who was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin for two years, shares her experience during a press conference outside the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023.   (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group via AP)

Eight survivors of sexual abuse at a federal women's prison dubbed "the rape club" have filed a class-action lawsuit against guards, officials, and the Bureau of Prisons, saying the agency was aware of "rampant staff sexual misconduct" at FCI Dublin for decades but failed to act. The lawsuit shows officers at the prison 20 miles from Oakland, California, "are running a trafficking system within those walls," attorney Anaris Montes said at a press conference Wednesday, per the San Jose Mercury News. "Individual prisoners have had to endure rape, groping, voyeurism, forced stripping, sexually explicit comments on an everyday basis. and so much more."

"Officers at every level literally watched as other officers assaulted incarcerated people and helped to keep survivors silent through retaliation," said Montes, whose Rights Behind Bars group is representing the plaintiffs. Eight former FCI Dublin staff members, including the former warden and former chaplain, have been charged or convicted. They are named in the lawsuit, along with officials including the current warden and BOP Director Colette Peters, KQED reports. At Wednesday's press conference, former inmate Yvonne Palmore said she endured verbal and psychological abuse as well as sexual abuse at the facility—and was placed in solitary confinement whenever she threatened to report the abuse.

The lawsuit notes that the abuse continued for decades after the BOP settled a 1995 lawsuit from women who were sexually abused in the maximum security unit. Montes said Wednesday that the abuse—and retaliation against inmates who report it—is ongoing, the AP reports. "We went to visit the prison yesterday and we heard additional stories of recent sexual abuse within this last week," she said. "The BOP has tried to address individual officers and is trying to make it seem like it's an issue of bad actors or bad apples, but it's really a systemic issue." The lawsuit is seeking, among other things, the immediate removal of staff members who have substantiated claims of abuse against them and monitoring by a third-party organization so inmates can report abuse confidentially, reports CBS. (More women's prisons stories.)

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