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Gregory Rodriguez, a former California women’s prison correctional officer, who was at the center of one of the state’s largest prison abuse scandals, was convicted of 64 sexual abuse charges on Tuesday.
The jury’s guilty verdict includes convictions for rape and sexual battery on behalf of 13 incarcerated women.
Rodriguez, 56, was facing 97 counts and was found not guilty on some while the jury was hung on others, the Fresno Bee reported. His convictions include 57 felonies and seven misdemeanors, prosecutors said.
Rodriguez is one of the few California prison guards to face criminal charges for on-duty sexual misconduct, which data suggests is rampant in the state’s women’s prisons and across the US, but infrequently punished.
The scandal exposed how difficult it is for survivors of officer sexual assaults to come forward behind bars and how the system shields abusive guards from accountability.
Authorities first disclosed in December 2022 that Rodriguez was suspected of sexually abusing at least 22 people incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility, the state’s largest women’s prison, located in Chowchilla in the Central Valley. Rodriguez, who had worked in the state prisons since 1995, retired in August 2022 after he was approached by investigators, the California department of corrections and rehabilitation (CDCR) said at the time.
In May 2023, the Madera county district attorney’s office charged Rodriguez with nearly 100 counts of sexual abuse on behalf of 13 women. Investigation records and accounts from survivors suggested a pattern – that Rodriguez would first verbally harass women, making sexually explicit remarks, then summon them to isolated areas without cameras, falsely claiming they had appointments or were needed for prison labor. He allegedly offered them items such as tobacco or gum in exchange for sex and threatened to discipline them if they did not comply or they reported him.
A Guardian investigation revealed in 2023 that the prison received a report of Rodriguez’s abuse in 2014, but instead of firing him, punished the victim. That woman said she was sent to solitary confinement as the prison conducted its sexual misconduct investigation. She was eventually sent to another prison.
In an interview last year, she said the experience severely affected her mental health and that she was left isolated without support. She said: “I just felt trapped because I couldn’t talk to anybody … I really internalized that anger towards myself.”
After the 2014 investigation, Rodriguez went on to commit dozens of acts of sexual violence, prosecutors said.
Roger Wilson, Rodriguez’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told the Fresno Bee Rodriguez has maintained his innocence. The CDCR did not immediately comment on Tuesday.
Records showed that women incarcerated in California’s state prisons filed hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse by staff from 2014 to 2023, but only four officers were terminated for sexual misconduct during that timeframe.
The California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a group that supported victims during the trial, shared a statement from one imprisoned survivor in its press release: “This is not a one officer problem. From my experience, Rodriguez is one bad apple on a tree that’s rotten to its core”, the woman said.
The coalition lamented that women had been forced to testify in chains. “While we recognize this step in holding Gregory Rodriguez individually accountable, we call for systemic change in CDCR policies and practices that will help ensure that abuse in the women’s prisons does not continue,” advocates said in a statement.
Last year, California lawmakers adopted legislation meant to support outside investigations into claims of sexual misconduct filed by incarcerated people. In September, the US Department of Justice also opened a civil rights investigation into sexual abuse at the state’s women’s prisons, though the fate of that inquiry is unclear as Donald Trump resumes office.
