Six women who say guard assaulted them inside California prison settle their lawsuits
Six former inmates at California’s women’s prison in Chowchilla who alleged they were sexually assaulted by a former guard there have agreed to settle their lawsuits for $3.7 million, their attorney says.
Rocklin attorney Robert Chalfant said the settlement agreements came after two days of talks in federal court in Sacramento over allegations that guard Greg Rodriguez, who faces 96 charges of rape, sodomy, sexual battery and other counts, assaulted the women while they were incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility.
“I’m emotionally exhausted right now,” Chalfant said Thursday. “Being involved in that kind of case is draining.
“I’m proud of my clients for coming forward. It’s terrifying to come forward and make these kinds of allegations against a guard.”
Rodriguez, 55, was arrested in May and is being held without bail at the Madera County Jail, where he faces a trial setting date in Superior Court on Nov. 20.
District Attorney Sally Moreno has said the charges involve 13 victims and allege 39 individual sexual assaults, some charged in more than one way, that could result in Rodriguez facing up to 300 years in prison.
A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
Rodriguez began with CDCR in 1995 as a cadet and had been at Chowchilla since 2010. He retired effective Aug. 25, 2022, after CDCR investigators approached him about the allegations.
Rodriguez was accused of luring inmates into a parole board hearing room where there were no cameras and sexually assaulting them.
Chalfant has said prison officials were warned for years about Rodriguez but took no action, and that CDCR still is not doing enough to protect inmates at the state’s largest women’s prison.
“If CDCR wanted to end sexual assault of female inmates at CCWF there’s a lot of things you could do, including body-worn cameras, putting cameras in all the places where guard have access to inmates and hiring more female guards.
“All this could have been avoided if people did their jobs and looked out for women.”
In recent weeks, dozens of lawsuits have poured into Sacramento Superior Court filed on behalf of women who claim they were sexually assaulted by staff at Chowchilla or other women’s prisons.
The suits are the result of a new state law that allows victims of sexual assault by prison guards or law enforcement officers to sue within 10 years of an assailant leaving their agency or being convicted of a crime.
That measure was sponsored by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2021.
