“You can’t run away from it; ‘That’s where you’re stuck’: A Spokane woman reports widespread sexual misconduct in the now-shuttered California prison

Aron Laureano was on the right track when she went to federal prison five years ago.

Before her sentencing, the Spokane woman completed extensive drug treatment, earned union certifications in welding and carpentry and took a job as a construction manager for a state correctional facility construction program, according to court records. U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson, who sentenced Laureano, called her a “superstar” for changing her life.

She left the sentencing grateful for the judge’s support and hoping for a safe environment to continue on the right path.

Instead, over the next two years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., Laureano was repeatedly subjected to sexual misconduct by guards, staff and the warden, according to a Sept. 19 lawsuit filed in Laureano v. United States, Darrell W. Smith and Ray J. submitted complaint. Garcia.

“You can’t run away from it; You’re stuck there,” she said in an interview about the routine abuse. “It’s the worst feeling in the world.”

Garcia was the warden and Smith was a guard at the prison in Dublin, about 35 miles east of San Francisco, while Laureano was incarcerated there from 2019 to 2021.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Garcia was sentenced last year to 70 months in federal prison for sexually abusive conduct against three women serving prison sentences and one count of making false statements to government agents.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Smith is charged with 15 counts of sexual abuse against five women, including a civil rights violation, following a federal grand jury indictment in July. The women were inmates under Smith’s care in Dublin.

The low-security women’s prison was closed earlier this year after years of sexual abuse by guards.

“The facility was run by state-funded sexual predators – guards, cooks, staff, even the warden and the chaplain – who used their unfettered power to rape, harass and intimidate the women now trapped within Dublin’s walls “ says the complaint. “Sexual abuse was not only widespread in Dublin, but also open.”

Laureano’s requests for help during his incarceration went unanswered, according to the complaint filed by Laureano’s representation, Connelly Law Offices, in the U.S. District Court – Northern District of California. Instead, Laureano received threats because of her allegations.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Scott Taylor said in an email that the bureau does not comment on matters related to pending litigation, ongoing litigation or ongoing investigations.

Laureano, now 46, was sentenced to 6½ years in prison in February 2019 in Spokane for possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine.

The complaint states that Laureano was repeatedly sexually abused as a child and the trauma led to addiction and related crimes.

Judge Peterson agreed, saying Laureano’s criminal history stemmed from abuse.

“I am confident that you will not let the past defeat you,” Peterson said during the sentencing.

Laureano was sent to FCI Dublin, where prison staff used their power to abuse her, just as they had done to dozens of other women, the complaint says. The alleged sexual harassment involved guards staring at her in the shower and toilet, whistling at her, groping her and threatening her.

The complaint alleges that one of the guards, Smith, pinned her to a concrete cell wall and sexually assaulted her, which Laureano called “one of the worst things that has ever happened to me.”

Before Smith’s alleged assault, he repeatedly opened the bathroom door to watch Laureano use the toilet and, beginning in late 2019 and early 2020, opened the curtain to watch her shower, the complaint says. While watching her, he made sexual comments.

Laureano said she knew Smith’s behavior would lead to sexual assault.

She reported Smith’s attack to Garcia, but he did not investigate or report the attack, the complaint says. Instead, Garcia offered to “protect” her from Smith by allowing her to work on construction projects in his office outside of Smith. During that work, Garcia groped her and made sexually harassing comments, the complaint says. The behavior is said to have occurred almost daily for months.

Laureano also attempted to report other sexual misconduct she experienced by writing formal complaints, notifying employees verbally and writing to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General. Their reports were unfounded, the complaint says.

Guards who learned of Laureano’s reports told her they would “make life difficult” for her if she continued to complain, the complaint says. Her department head threatened solitary confinement, while a guard punished Laureano by forcing her to kill baby goslings that hatched in the prison yard.

Laureano reached out to her family to report the abuse even though she was unable to come forward through the Bureau of Prisons complaint process.

After she told a family member about the abuse during a call, a guard went to Laureano’s cell and ordered her to stop talking about the guards’ misconduct on the phone, the complaint says. More than one video call with her family was “dropped” shortly after she mentioned the sexual misconduct.

“From the moment she arrived, the sexual abuse was ongoing, a common fact that was so pervasive at FCI Dublin that prison staff nicknamed the facility ‘The Rape Club,'” the complaint states.

Laureano told The Spokesman-Review that when she arrived at the prison in early summer 2019, other inmates warned her about inappropriate behavior from certain staff members. When she went to the kitchen to get food, the staff made sexual comments to her.

“I was devastated,” she said. “I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing or hearing because I’ve been to other facilities in my life and no one, especially the staff, has ever behaved like that.”

She said sometimes officers wouldn’t give her and other inmates their packed lunches unless they showed them their private parts.

“After a while it really got under my skin, so I got a voice,” she said.

She said officers and staff took away her belongings, including her underwear, because she voiced her allegations. She remembered the warden and other officials saying, “Laureano, stop kicking up dust. That’s just how it is here. You’ll get used to it.”

“At first I was really angry, and then I felt defeated because I felt like every time someone said something, no one believed us and we were always punished for it,” Laureano said. “I have to let people insult me ​​in order to get along here.”

Laureano said many inmates used drugs like synthetic marijuana and drank hand sanitizer to mask the mental and emotional pain they suffered at the hands of prison staff.

“That was life there, and it was just terrible,” she said. “Everyone was trying to find a way to self-medicate every day.”

Laureano said she lives in fear every day because she doesn’t know if an officer would take her property from her cell, she would lose her job or suffer more sexual trauma.

“That was the part that kept making me sick,” she said. “And I always looked out the window to see which officer was working, because depending on who the officer was, there was a certain level of abuse.”

Laureano was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minnesota in 2021. The complaint states that Laureano understood that her department head had transferred her to Dublin due to her ongoing complaints of sexual abuse.

She tried to report the abuse to guards at Waseca and the Office of the Inspector General, but they also did nothing, the complaint says.

For fear of further retaliation, Laureano had to wait until she was released from prison to report the crimes.

The complaint alleges that none of Laureano’s complaints were investigated and that the prison department “simply ignored the law.” Ignoring reports of sexual assault from prisoners like Laureano violated office policy but was “standard practice,” according to court documents.

The Bureau of Prisons released a report in 2021 saying it found no incidents of sexual harassment of inmates by staff, despite millions of dollars in sexual abuse settlements and other examples of sexual misconduct in federal prisons across the country, it said it in the complaint.

“The mere fact that BOP did not identify a single incident in 2021 should have alerted the agency that its reporting and disciplinary procedures were not only broken, but non-existent,” the complaint states. “BOP tolerated sexual abuse for years and refused to take measures that would have prevented the abuse of (Laureano), as well as the abuse of other women at FCI Dublin.”

Laureano was released from prison in the spring and lives in an Oxford home north of Spokane. The Oxford Houses of Washington State provides housing for people recovering from addiction.

Laureano, the president of her Oxford home, works at Pioneer Human Services, where she helps people battling drug addiction. She said she loves her job.

“It makes me feel good to be able to help people now,” said Laureano. “It makes me feel good to have a voice and to be able to talk to people who have been through it because I’ve been there.”

However, she struggles with depression and anxiety due to her stay in Dublin.

“I just put one foot forward and kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to let this get me down because if I was my old self, I would have gone back to drugs in a heartbeat,” Laureano said.

Laureano said the temptation to return to drugs had crossed her mind before, but the fear of going back to prison kept her at bay. She credits her job as the main reason for her sobriety.

“I always remember what I went through every day in this place and that strengthened my desire to be bigger and better,” she said.

She said the closure of Dublin and the criminal charges against staff made her feel like people had finally listened to her and the other inmates. She hopes the Bureau of Prisons makes changes to prevent the abuse that she says still occurs in prisons across the country.

“It’s still very serious and very prominent in federal facilities, and I hope to God that because of what happened in Dublin, maybe it opens the eyes of other places and they don’t allow this type of abuse to continue,” Laureano said.

The lawsuit states that Laureano is seeking financial relief in an amount to be determined in court.