Alaska woman sues over alleged sexual abuse at all-female federal prison she says is known as ‘rape club’

An Alaska woman was sent to serve a sentence at an all-female federal prison in California, where its warden allowed, and took part in, sexually abusing inmates, according to a new federal lawsuit.

Such abuse at FCI Dublin became so “pervasive” that it’s been referred to as the “rape club,” her lawsuit filed Aug. 2 in federal court in Alaska says.

Its former warden, Ray Garcia, while in charge of the facility’s Prison Rape Elimination Act program, sexually abused the woman and several others — in direct violation of the law, a complaint says.

On March 22, Garcia, 55, of Merced, California, was sentenced to serve 70 months in prison for sexually abusing three female victims at the low-security prison, the Department of Justice announced in a news release that day.

The woman, only identified by her initials in the complaint to protect her identity, was one of the three victims prosecutors referred to, the complaint says.

She’s now suing the Bureau of Prisons and the federal government over the sexual abuse on several causes of action, including violation of her civil rights and negligent infliction of emotional distress. She is seeking unspecified damages to be determined at trial.

The Bureau of Prisons declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Aug. 3, as it doesn’t comment “on matters related to pending litigation, or subject to ongoing legal proceedings or ongoing investigations,” a spokesman said.

McClatchy News also contacted FCI Dublin and the Department of Justice for comment Aug. 3 and didn’t receive an immediate response.

More on the lawsuit

According to the lawsuit, the woman began serving her sentence at FCI Dublin in 2016 after her federal conviction in Alaska for a crime that wasn’t specified in the complaint.

She was sent to the Dublin facility because Alaska has no federal prison for female inmates, according to the complaint.

There, “Garcia himself, and the Dublin leadership, and co-workers tolerated and encouraged sexual harassment and sexual abuse by permitting predatory employees to harass, rape, and abuse inmates without consequence,” the complaint says.

In 2019, Garcia started grooming the woman and made “sexually derogatory and inappropriate comments” before he began kissing, groping and sexually abusing her, according to the complaint.

The unwanted sexual contact continued, and escalated, through 2020 until the woman was transferred to a halfway house in Anchorage, in late September 2020, the complaint says. He continued to contact her there, according to the complaint.

In a Senate report on sexual abuse of female inmates in federal prisons published Dec. 13, it notes federal prosecutors indicted at least five FCI Dublin employees for sexually abusing inmates over the past 18 months — including Garcia and a former prison chaplain.

“According to the criminal complaint, Garcia knowingly had sexual contact with at least one female prisoner, asked at least two inmates to strip naked for him during rounds and took photos, and stored a ‘large volume of sexually graphic photographs’ on his BOP issued cellphone,” the report says.

At the halfway house, Garcia repeatedly called the woman over FaceTime and instructed her to take off her clothes, according to the complaint.

What she didn’t know was that Garcia captured images of her undressed and saved them on his BOP phone or computer, the complaint says.

The woman felt “powerless” and unable to report Garcia, as he had disciplinary authority over her — and threatened to revoke her probation and time at the halfway house if she didn’t do what he said, according to the complaint, which says her federal sentence was approaching its end during the abuse.

As warden, Garcia had access to confidential information in her prisoner file and was aware she was “emotionally vulnerable” from previous abuse and “due to her fear of having her probation revoked,” the complaint says.

She also felt unable to report the sexual abuse or harassment because Garcia led FCI Dublin’s rape reporting program, the complaint says.

The complaint notes that consensual sex, in addition to non-consensual sex, is illegal between prison staff and inmates.

“Garcia and his staff were well aware of the law, and despite their knowledge he was enabled by the ‘rape club’ and the customs and policies of FCI Dublin,” the complaint says.

In April 2022, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations launched its bipartisan investigation into sexual abuse of female inmates, leading to the Dec. 13 published report.

The investigation found that female inmates have been sexually abused by prison staff at 19 of 29 prisons dating back to 2012, according to the report.

“BOP management failures enabled continued sexual abuse of female prisoners by BOP’s own employees,” the report says.

In March, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denounced Garcia at his sentencing hearing, the LA Times reported.

“You entered a cesspool and did nothing about it,” Rogers said, according to the outlet. You just went along for the ride and enjoyed the cesspool yourself.

You should have done something about it.”

Dublin is about 35 miles east of San Francisco.