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 Guardian reports. 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.
A Guardian investigation revealed in 2023 that the prison had 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, said in an email that he and his client were “disappointed” with the outcome of the trial: “The jury had a monumental task of wading through weeks of testimony and exhibits to reach decisions on 97 counts … The jury clearly believed some inmates and disbelieved others.” He said he couldn’t comment further while the jury continued to deliberate on issues related to sentencing. 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.
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