this ktvu investigative report includes discussions of rape and sexual violence. please use caution and discretion when watching it was. what can we do? you know, we're nobodies. we're just the number. this is a story about abuse of power. what became clear was that this is an agency that is rife with abuse and corruption, manipulation and sexual coercion. the way they refer to him. they were. um. those were nicer. that was a nicer term. they used all happening inside fc i dublin, a federal prison for women. it's not often that a warden gets caught with a government computer and phone full of

pornographic images of incarcerated people. whistleblowers tried to pull back the curtain on toxic culture and cover ups wanted to speak publicly. long before this rape and retaliation. i was petrified. i was traumatized. this is a ktvu investigation powerless in prison, surviving sex abuse. sexual abuse, threats , intimidation. these are just some of the accusations against guards and fc i dublin federal women's prison here in the bay area. hello this is powerless in prison. surviving sex abuse. i'm cristina rendon. fc i. dublin has become so notorious for sexual assaults behind its walls it some of nicknamed it the rape club, but now the world is finally learning about what's been going on inside women who experienced the abuse or speaking publicly for the first time. we want to warn you, some viewers may find this content offensive and upsetting. about

40 miles east of san francisco. a nondescript compound sits alongside the dry grass hills of dublin, california. it's the federal women's prison known as fc i. dublin it's where felicity huffman and lori laughlin were once housed for their roles in the college admissions scandal. as of early this year, there were about 700 women being held there, many serving nonviolent sentences in dorm rooms without bars. but behind those walls, there are also stories of rape, retaliation, abuse and silence. what's important about dublin is that the abuse was happening all over the facility. it was happening in housing units and people sells. it was happening at their work sites. you know the kitchen, the security office it was happening in the chapel. it was happening in the medical office from sort of sexual harassment and stalking comments about their bodies about, um, you know about sex, too violent rape. i was petrified. i was

traumatized, but we didn't have no help. there was all men down there the inmates and the staff . they were all men. he would tell me that if he could come into myself that he would bend me over and with me since last summer, fc i dublin has been under an intense spotlight. five correctional officers, including the former warden have been charged with having sex with women serving out their sentences there. that's the most sex abuse charges at any one federal women's prison in the country over the last eight months, ktvu has focused on and highlighted the voices of the women. more than three dozen who are currently or formerly incarcerated described to us how they were sexually verbally and physically abused over and over again. the women also told us they were either ignored or punished if they reported the abuse. i was afraid to speak up because for one i didn't want to be put in special housing. me like i didn't want my room tor

up like it's just strange and like it just seemed like if you don't go with the flow there like the outcast, you and treat you worse, sir. i felt hopeless and like they didn't believe me because i wasn't inmate and nothing i said mattered. andrea rays of riverside county had perhaps the most disturbing story to tell about officer ross clinker and what he did to her in 2020. he has since pleaded guilty. raise says not only did cling er have sex with her and promised to marry her. but he also dug into her private medical records to uncover her mental frailties. and use them to prey on her. it was one day that i was in the shoe working on the floors, and that's where he pretty much. let me know that he was looking into my files, and he knew that i had four children. he knew what city i was from. he knew all about me. and i was just like, whoa! he's on some stalker. a stuff or he's he really likes me. i didn't

know which which one to think. at that point what to believe. that's new to me. and i've seen hundreds of women who have complained about sexual abuse in jail and prison. i've never seen the staff go into the records. terry cooper's is a forensic psychiatrist who lived in berkeley. he testifies in prison sex abuse cases across the country. it's just ah, exceptionally painful and traumatic going into records. i mean, think about sexual assault . it's a violation of a boundary of a woman's boundary by physical strength roots there. her strength. and the incursion into medical records, which by law, and we expect our confidential and then using that information in the perpetration of sexual abuse is just beyond the pale. i just can't imagine something being more traumatic. he started making me feel comfortable with him started making me feel like i could talk

to him started telling me about his personal life. it didn't take long for him to actually say that he loved me that he was in love with me. it was probably like a month into it. i guess i was i was alone and i it was vulnerable, and i like the things he would tell me the stuff that he had been through the stuff i would i had been through. i felt like i could relate to him. typically what happens is that officers who are inclined to abuse women search the out the ones that seem most vulnerable, and this is going to be women who have previous trauma in their life. then they're going to start getting very cozy with them. they're going to start talking to them kindly. and eventually they're going to start touching them, and they're basically getting them ready for sexual assault. they promised them things. they give them gifts and then they salt them. he would send me money. uh, he bought my kids christmas gifts and birthday

gifts. and he would tell me that it was because he wanted me to know that he wanted to be my provider. he wanted to be my savior, my knight in shining armor. and i believed him raise says their relationship soured when she discovered clinker also had a relationship with another woman. that's when she tried to end it. he threatened me all the time. he would tell me that he was going to kill me that he was going to kill me and kill himself. he told me that all the time and i was afraid because obviously he knew where i grew up near where i lived. he knew where my family lived. women weren't just raped and assaulted inside fcc dublin. they were also retaliated against in 2018 . sheri dillon says she saw an officer flirting with a cell mate, promising her a future together. when dylan reported it, she was punished when i left there, they had taken away all of my good time, and you get good time. which gets. gets time off of your sentence. that was a

big deal. that was like, um like another year, almost after a certain point you just you get tired of it, and you find that strength to finally fight back marie washington says. she reported an officer for inappropriate behavior and intimidation in 2020. every time you make a report like that, they would come and like thrash our rooms or, like, you know, not give us dayroom or you know what i mean? you just you feel threatened, and so you can't really say anything. the department of justice says the abuse stemmed from the top with the former warden ray garcia, was charged with abusing three women as warden. garcia's job was to keep the women safe as they serve their sentences. instead the feds say he did the opposite sexual abuse in prison doesn't happen. in a culture that doesn't allow it. there should be zero tolerance. that's the first statement in the prison rape elimination act, the prison rape elimination act is a

federal law designed to eliminate sexual abuse in prison . garcia was in charge of teaching his staff about those laws in 2019 and 2022 big problems here. one is the culture of misogyny. so the women are just treated with absolutely no respect. and i'm just lovely and the other is they have no way to appeal because the people they're appealing to our the peers and are very loyal to the perpetrators. prosecutors have charged garcia with fondling women, forcing them to touch him , asking them to strip naked and taking pictures of their private parts on his work phone. the doj . lynch's garcia took proactive measures to make sure that women would not come forward, telling at least one of them. he was close friends with the person in charge of misconduct investigations. he denies the allegations linger and james high house, the prison chaplain , had pleaded guilty so far. enrique chavez, who worked in the kitchen should plead guilty at the end of october. last month, a judge sentenced high

house to seven years behind bars . only garcia and one other john bell house maintained their innocence and are headed to trial. high house must surrender on november 2nd. the other four are not in custody. we're only hearing about the tip of the iceberg. the biggest problem is secrecy. people don't want to know what goes on in prison. it's lock them up and throw away the keys. we have also reached out to all of the guards or their attorneys, and no one has responded in statements to ktvu . the bureau of prisons called the allegations quote, abhorrent , adding they're working to bring perpetrators to justice. the criminal conduct inside the prison upsets some of those who work there to at least one whistleblower said she tried to report what she saw. but she was ignored and then told she had to move to another state. i got called into my supervisor's office. first time in 25 years, i got a letter of reprimand. for questioning her leadership test

scores worked at fc i dublin for 25 years, rising to the level of unit manager in may. she was one of 22 guards to get reassigned to another prison. she says it was because she had regularly called out bad behavior from staff. i did a report to the office of inspector general. within a few weeks of that report. everything turned upside down. i started being retaliated against instead of leaving her home and moving to oregon retired. i told them to shove it. and some other. choice words they've been reported. the things that. other staff have observed them doing like sitting in their office in the dark, watching inmates terrorizing inmates. um. being abusive to other staff members. she's things that they're not supposed

to be doing. are ridiculous, and we've been reporting stuff for years and you know based still work there. i would talk to the people that were the investigators there. after you know, i would go and say, why are you guys not freaking doing anything about this stuff and remind them that you know when we leave? these limits are alone in here with these people. they can't leave. they don't have anyone to report it to and we're just leaving them in here. 90% of these inmates have sexual abuse trauma in their background from since they were freaking, like, like babies. i mean, we've had their history that we read. and we're leaving them in here with these perpetrators. what the #### is going on? abuse of women in prison is not unique to

fc i. dublin we found sex abuse charges against officers in 13 states across the country, but dublin by far stands out. many of these cases only came to light as part of a national investigation, which started in an unlikely place in manhattan federal jail cell in 2019. with the suicide of jeffrey eps

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other states get much more. why is prop 27 such a suckers deal for california? because the corporations didn't write it for us. they wrote it for themselves. this ktvu investigative report includes discussions of rape and sexual violence. please use caution and discretion when watching welcome back in 2019 financier jeffrey epstein was found dead in a manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges. his death triggered a series of questions by two associated press reporters leading them down a twisted path inside the federal bureau of prisons. they ultimately uncovered abuse on an unprecedented scale. we sat down with one of those reporters to hear the story behind the story.

joining us now is ap writer michael balsamo, one of the journalists who started reporting on this in 2019, michael, you weren't even looking into alleged sexual abuse. you were looking into the suicide of jeffrey epstein. tell us how this all started. yeah absolutely. my colleague mike sisak and i began investigating the federal bureau of prisons back in august of 2019. when jeffrey epstein took his own life in custody in a federal jail here in new york city, um and then we began digging, just trying to understand exactly how it was that the bureau's most high profile inmate would be able to take his own life while in the custody of the federal government. and as we continue digging into the federal bureau of prisons, ah, what became clear was that this is an agency that is rife with abuse and corruption and then suffering from systemic issues from chronic violence to severe understaffing, and the more that we began digging into bopp, and it's 122 facilities and the more

we just continue to find. let's talk about those layers and layers that you uncovered. can you just list off some of the findings that were most eye opening to you? wear of the scale of sexual abuse anywhere else in the federal prison system that there is at fc i. dublin the they're just pure amount of allegations of sexual misconduct at fc i. dublin has been astonishing from the former warden who has charged with sexually abusing now three inmates in his care to other correctional employees to a number of correctional workers who have been placed on administrative leave as the justice department in the bureau of prisons. internal investigators as long as well as the justice department's inspector general, continue investigating these allegations . what we've found is that the federal bureau of prisons basically is a hotbed of graft and option more than 100. federal correctional employees were either convicted or sentenced for federal crimes. in a little more than a year's time frame. you know, we have

continued to dig in on what we believe to be retribution against federal correctional officers who are coming forward whistleblowers who claim that they are being retaliated against for reporting concerns likely we've heard and known that there is abuse in prisons, but it's so rare to see it come to light in this way, where it is now exposed and reported on. um why do you think that that cattle or there's some? there's something that changed? what do you think that was in terms of why we're seeing what we're seeing now? i think part of this goes to the just the reporting about what's happening around fc i dublin and sexual abuse in the federal prison system. the federal bureau of prisons has been an agency that is literally shrouded in secrecy right. it's prisons are held behind bars, and what happens there generally is not public. and for the first time in decades, i think we're seeing is the federal bureau of prison, facing increasing oversight, both from the public and from members of congress beginning to dig in on this doubt, lawmakers are taking notice. what do you think it's

going to take those to have this entire system? overhauled can it be done? do you think actual change will happen? this is a big process right for the new director of the bureau of prisons, collect peters for the justice department attorney general america harland and deputy attorney general lisa monaco. but what we do know is that the deputy attorney general is incredibly involved. in all things involving the federal bureau of prisons, especially the abuse that is happening at dublin. we know that the deputy attorney general is being briefed regularly on incidents that are happening at dublin meets with the fbi director and the justice department's inspector general to begin digging in on these investigations. this is a big step forward for the bureau of prisons and for the justice department to change the culture that has been in, uh, you know, kind of instilled in officers across the system for decades. ktvu s requests for a tour of the prison have all been denied, also denied interview requests with the new warden and the new bureau of prisons director still

to come tackling the misconduct at fc i dublin, the help coming from national kevin: i've fought wildfires for twenty years. here's the reality we face every day. this is a crisis. we need more firefighters, more equipment, better forest management to prevent wildfires and reduce toxic smoke. and we need to reduce the tailpipe emissions that are driving changes to our climate. that's why cal fire firefighters, the american lung association, and the california democratic party support prop 30. prevent fires. cut emissions. and cleaner air. yes on 30.

this ktvu investigative report includes discussions of rape and sexual violence. please use caution and discretion when watching welcome back. i'm cristina rendon the abuse and corruption inside the bureau of prisons has caught the attention of law makers at the highest level. fc i. dublin is under a congressional microscope. this present. it is a cultural toxic environment. you have got a cultural rock in that institution that must be addressed as stories of abuse, retaliation and corruption inside dublin's women's prison come to light lawmakers are now demanding answers. what's unique about dublin is not the egregiousness or the sort of scale of abuse. what's unique is that people are paying attention and sort of providing this

opportunity to actually do something about it. this summer , senator john assaraf convened a public inquiry questioning this toxic culture. is it true that one of your prisons is known to staff and inmates? this is dublin as a quote rape club. is it true? i do not know that you don't know club. okay, this is this is the associated press reporting that staff and inmates set fc i dublin call it quote rape club and that quote inmates say they have been subjected to rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers and even the warden and were often threatened or punished when they tried to speak up. do you know if that's true? is that true? it is and it is being investigated in anything understand? my question is going through people accountable. is it true? everyone knew it? and nothing was done to stop it. and in fact, um staff took steps to sweep it under the rug and retaliate against people staff and incarcerated people who tried to sound the alarm. susan bt is supervising attorney at central legal della rossa in

oakland. they provide free legal representation to women at fc i dublin. we started going to the prison about once a month to provide immigration, legal services to non citizens. facing deportation from dublin. in the course of that work we heard from clients and other folks we met with about the really horrendous conditions in the prison, including rampant sexual abuse, bt says the prison chaplain used faith and fear to abuse women. they targeted immigrant women assuming that you know, as soon as they got out of prison, they would be deported. um and you know, i've heard so many stories of guards saying explicitly to women. i know you have an immigration hold. i know you're deported as soon as your sentence is done, and you won't be a problem for me anymore. the sexualizing of incarcerated people, um, comments non consensual touching was happening all over all the time in various parts of the prison and people. my sense is that people were talking about

it. openly guards and incarcerated people. it wasn't a secret. there's been this wave of attention. focus on dublin, in part because the conduct was so egregious and so flippant. so out in the open, you know, it's not often that a warden gets caught with a government computer and phone full of pornographic images of incarcerated people. i think, um , the sort of salaciousness of his conduct is part of what drew attention to dublin. um and i think once once people started to pull the curtains back, it became very clear that you know the warden was just the tip of the iceberg and that this is a deep, systemic issue that has pervaded dublin four years. among the proposed changes, bt is fighting forward fc i dublin include the release of women sexually assaulted at the prison , allowing community groups in to see what's happening and getting women necessary. mental health care services. response to abuse of dublin has been um,

pretty horrendous. i haven't talked to a single survivor who's gotten the counseling services that are required under federal law when someone is sexually abused in prison, and so we're pushing the prison to allow communities to let the light in. this abuse happened in the shadows. and um, you know, they need to let the letters the facility, valerie mark adele never received the proper care after her time at the prison 30 years ago. in the nineties, dublin housed men to america, del says guards would open her door, letting unwanted visitors in. she says she had to fight them off to avoid getting raped . he had jumped on top of me and started touching me and, um try to mess with me have sex with me. and at that time, i kinda kind of picked him up off of me. after that, i took the mattress and put it at the door. and i ate at the door because they came in at night from 12 to 8 so i would lay at the door and when

they try to open up the door, i would say no, don't open up my door to open up my door. i don't want no man. i was petrified. i was traumatized. uh, but we didn't have no help. adele was put in solitary confinement when she reported the attack, she was told it was for her safety. they want you to be quiet. so. and a lot of women can't take the whole. that's why i said you need god because a lot of the young women can't you know one lady set herself on fire. in solitary women are terrified of solitary confinement more than men are, and the reason is because in solitary you have no connection with other human beings, and that's very important to women, so they dread being sent to solitary and therefore they don't report or that's the tendency so the reporting has to be opened up. it has to be to an outside

agency. you can't have women reporting to the very officers who are abusing them. mark adele sued the prison. in 1995 in a settlement fc i dublin made a good faith promise to implement policies to quote reduce the risk to female prisoners of sexual assaults and harassment by correctional staff, but there was no law in place to enforce it. it's sad. it's like literally the lawsuit did nothing. merck adele shared her story with senator ossoff in private. it seems like it just brought back more memories because i noticed that i had suppressed it. some of these memories that was done to me. uh, and yeah, it's difficult. 30 years later, mark adele is now a pastor in long beach. well, let me to become a pastor is, uh when i got out of prison, i, uh went through so many hardships because of what happened in prison. i'm depressed. and this is like 30 years later in july, the justice department hired

collect peters to run the bureau of prisons, which employs more than 30,000 people. she is billed as a reform minded outsider tasked with rebuilding the agency. while peters has yet to release her plan to do so, she has stressed the importance of creating an environment where people can feel comfortable coming forward and talking about misconduct. the more you speak on it. the more you talk about it. the better, the more healing you'll get. so that's maybe one of the reasons why i am speaking up. there remains a question of security cameras when congresswoman jackie speier visited the prison, there were no cameras in the dining, commissary, recreational and housing areas. 28 cameras were supposed to be installed. spears office has received no indication that has happened. thank you for watching this ktvu special report powerless in prison. surviving sex abuse will continue covering fc i dublin and holding those in power accountable. you can learn more

at ktvu .com/ powerless in prison. cristina rendon we'll see you online and on the the 2022 fifa world cup will see the best footballers on the planet do battle. star studded portugal are looking to send off cristiano ronaldo on a high. christian pulisic is relishing his time leading the usa and we hear from a man with a foot in two world cup camps. samuel eto'o. the clock is ticking on the countdown to qatar.