The Federal "Rape Club”
Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, a women’s prison 20 miles southeast of Oakland, CA, was closed in April 2024 due to widespread employee misconduct but not before it was nicknamed “the Rape Club” by inmates.
This was uncovered by an Associated Press investigation, another aspect of which we previously covered.
The AP reportedly found “a permissive and toxic culture” at the facility that enabled decades of sexual misconduct by predatory employees dating back at least as far as the mid 1990s. Cover-ups kept the abuse quiet.
One female inmate reported that her prison work supervisor taunted her, saying “let the games begin,” after he assigned her to work under a maintenance foreman she had previously accused of rape. The warden in charge was also accused, and allegedly kept nude photos of a woman he was later convicted of assaulting on his government-issued cell phone.
In a March 15, 2024 court order appointing a special master to oversee the prison, which ultimately led to the closure of the facility, Federal District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote, “The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change.”
Judge Rogers added that the Bureau of Prisons acted, “…with intentional disregard of the inmates’ constitutional rights despite being fully apprised of the situation for years. The repeated installation of BOP leadership who fail to grasp and address the situation strains credulity. The court is compelled to intercede.”
While a Department of Justice investigation reportedly “implicates approximately 20 officers and staff,” only eight have been formally charged. Of the eight, seven – including former warden Ray Garcia, former chaplain James Highhouse, and five guards – have been convicted and sentenced to prison.
Ex-Warden Ray Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in prison, after which he will be subject to 15 years of supervised release and $15,000 in restitution for sexually abusive conduct against three female victims.
Former chaplain James Theodore Highhouse, an Army veteran who served as an Army chaplain in Iraq and Afghanistan, was sentenced to seven years. One woman said that she cried herself to sleep after testifying to a grand jury about the abuse she experienced from Highhouse.
“I felt so lost, hopeless, worthless, and betrayal and truly do not know what to do or who to talk to about my problems,” the woman wrote.
“Highhouse ruined my life — he truly did,” another woman said in a victim impact statement. “I don’t even go to Church anymore because of him. I have no trust in the Church and really, I don’t trust anyone because of what he did.”
Two inmates said Highhouse claimed that he was a sex therapist, asked them graphic questions about their sex lives, and offered to let them have sex in his office, prosecutors said. One said Highhouse had a reputation as a “predator,” and would leer at her when she got out of the shower.
Another inmate reported that Highhouse raped her multiple times in his chapel office where she went for counseling, prosecutors said. When she tried to report the abuse, the guard she reported it to shrugged her off, and reminded her that she was already in the process of transferring to another prison.
Prosecutors said that Highhouse engaged in “predatory conduct” with at least six women from 2014 to 2019, including a fellow veteran that he counseled at a veterans hospital where he worked before becoming a prison guard.