SUIT CLAIMS WOMEN SOLD AS SEX SLAVES IN PRISON.Byline: Dennis J. Opatrny San Francisco Examiner The San Francisco Examiner is a U.S. daily newspaper. It has been published continuously in San Francisco, California, since the late 19th Century. History 19th century The beginning of the Examiner is a topic of some controversy. Three women say they were sexually assaulted, beaten and sold by guards as sex slaves for male prisoners during their stay at the federal penitentiary penitentiary: see prison. in Alameda County. The three have sued federal prison authorities whom they accused of knowing about the slavery ring but ignoring repeated pleas for help. The three recently filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden seeking unspecified damages and changes in prison procedures to prevent pain and humiliation for women inmates. The lawsuit names eight officials as defendants and alleges that the officials engaged in the prison prostitution ring or failed to act to stop it. ``These women were being sold like sex slaves,'' said attorney Geri Lynn Green. ``The guards took money from inmates in return for access to the women.'' Green said the women were locked in with men in solitary-confinement cells. The defendants in the case are O. Ivan White, former director of the Western Region for the Federal Bureau of Prisons Noun 1. Federal Bureau of Prisons - the law enforcement agency of the Justice Department that operates a nationwide system of prisons and detention facilities to incarcerate inmates sentenced to imprisonment for federal crimes BoP ; Warden Loy Hayes; Capt. Dennis Smith Dennis Smith may refer to:
n. Games A bridge or whist hand containing no honor cards. [After Charles Anderson Worsley, Second Earl of Yarborough and Wayne Ernest; and guards Margo Gillette and Garfield Samuels of the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Alameda County. Paul Laird, prison public information officer, said neither Gillette nor Samuels still works at the prison but declined to say whether the guards remain employed anywhere in the federal correctional system. He said the other officers could not comment because of the pending lawsuit. Dennis Grossini, spokesman for White, said the former regional director declined comment and has been transferred to the prison bureau's internal affairs office in Denver. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bert Glenn, who was assigned to investigate the case, also declined comment. The women plaintiffs are Robin Lucas, Valerie Mercadel and Raquel Douthit. Lucas is out of prison. Douthit and Mercadel have been transferred to other federal prisons. They were moved, Green said, after she and other lawyers began looking into the women's allegations. Douthit was transferred to a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Fla., and Mercadel to a similar prison in Danbury, Conn. Karen Bower, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Prison Project in Washington, D.C., said lawsuits by women inmates against correctional personnel have become more prevalent. ``Just like women were once reluctant to report rape or spousal rape spousal rape Forensic medicine Rape by a husband or common law partner, a violent crime and a component of battered wife syndrome. See Assault, Date rape, Domestic violence, Rape. , so they have been reluctant to report incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment sexual harassment, in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes. in prison,'' Bower said. Debbie Brake, an attorney with the National Women's Law Center The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) is a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization. Through litigation and policy initiatives, the Center strives to improve the lives of women and their families in the areas of health, employment, family economic security, and education. in Washington, claimed sexual harassment and abuse of women in prison is common. ``We think that most of the time it's not even reported,'' Brake said. Lucas, 30, served 30 months of a 33-month sentence for credit card conspiracy. She lives in Marin County and owns a hair salon in San Francisco's Ingleside District. Neither she nor her co-plaintiffs has a violent history, Lucas said in an interview. Mercadel and Douthit were convicted on drug charges and not considered dangerous, Lucas said. Despite their low-security-risk classifications, Lucas said, they were placed in the men's Secure Housing Unit - solitary-confinement cells - because of disciplinary problems such as quarreling with female inmates. She said prison officials violated prison regulations by placing women in men's solitary confinement solitary confinement n. the placement of a prisoner in a Federal or state prison in a cell away from other prisoners, usually as a form of internal penal discipline, but occasionally to protect the convict from other prisoners or to prevent the prisoner from causing , then ignored the women's requests to return to their own cells. The three women have filed written statements on violence and indignities they claim to have suffered while in solitary confinement, where they were visible to male inmates and guards 24 hours a day, including while they used the toilet and shower. |
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