US to pay nearly $116M to settle lawsuits over rampant sexual abuse at California women’s prison

FILE – The Federal Correctional Institution stands in Dublin, Calif., Dec. 5, 2022. The U.S. government will pay nearly $116 million to resolve lawsuits brought by more than 100 women who say they were abused or mistreated at a now-shuttered federal prison in California that was known as the rape club because of rampant staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
NEW YORK – The U.S. government will pay nearly $116 million to resolve lawsuits brought by more than 100 women who say they were abused or mistreated at a now-shuttered federal prison in California that was known as the “rape club” because of rampant staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct.
Under settlements approved Tuesday, the Justice Department will pay an average of about $1.1 million to each of 103 women who filed individual lawsuits against the Bureau of Prisons over their treatment at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.
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The settlement follows one in a separate class-action last week in which the Bureau of Prisons agreed to open some of its facilities to a court-appointed monitor and publicly acknowledge pervasive abuse and retaliation at FCI Dublin.
“We were sentenced to prison, we were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused,” lawsuit plaintiff and former Dublin prisoner Aimee Chavira said.
“I hope this settlement will help survivors, like me, as they begin to heal – but money will not repair the harm that BOP did to us, or free survivors who continue to suffer in prison, or bring back survivors who were deported and separated from their families,