Ex-corrections officer latest charged in sex abuse scandal at California women’s prison
A former correctional officer at a troubled federal women’s prison in California was arrested Friday in Florida and charged with sexually abusing three inmates, according to federal prosecutors.
Darrell Wayne Smith, who was employed at Federal Correctional Institution Dublin in the Bay Area, was charged with repeatedly abusing the women between 2019 and 2021 in their cells and in the prison laundry room, prosecutors said.
Smith is the sixth employee of the facility to be arrested on charges of sexual abuse, which was so rampant at the prison that it was once referred to by inmates and workers as the “rape club.” The criminal conduct went all the way to the top: Warden Ray J. Garcia was convicted in March of having sex with and sexually abusing inmates. Inmates cannot legally consent to sex with prison workers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom this week will announce plans to remake San Quentin, one of the state’s most storied prisons, using a Scandinavian prison model that emphasizes rehabilitation.
Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison.
Smith was indicted on 12 counts of abusive sexual contact and sexual abuse of a ward. The women he allegedly abused were referred to in court documents only by their initials.
Three of the other FCI Dublin employees charged with sexual abuse have pleaded guilty, while the prison’s former chaplain, James Theodore Highhouse, is appealing a seven-year sentence for sexually abusing an inmate as excessive.
FCI Dublin is a low-security women’s prison in Alameda County that currently holds about 500 inmates.
Democrats are divided over legislation to limit solitary confinement in California’s prisons, jails and private detention centers.
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