A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of dozens of present and former inmates in Los Angeles County’s girls’s jail claims male correctional officers watched them bathe, harassed and groped them and retaliated when the alleged abuses have been reported.
The go well with accuses deputies of benefiting from girls incarcerated at Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood.
The case comes amid renewed scrutiny of how the Sheriff’s Division’s handles abuse claims. Data reviewed by The Instances present jail inmates have made practically 600 allegations of sexual abuse or harassment towards employees since 2021, however none have been referred to the L.A. County district legal professional’s workplace for prosecution.
Brian Dunn, managing companion and lead civil rights legal professional with the Cochran Agency, which introduced the case on behalf of 38 girls in late October, stated in an interview that dozens of inmates shared “chilling” allegations of “brazen” sexual abuse and harassment.
“It appeared to be occurring with such frequency that it was like a apply. … That is one thing that has been accepted,” he stated. “It’s heartbreaking for me to listen to these girls crying and the one factor you are able to do is sue.”
The Sheriff’s Division stated in a press release that, after studying about Dunn’s lawsuit, it “initiated a assessment of the claims to make sure that all applicable investigative and administrative processes have been adopted.”
“The protection, dignity, and constitutional rights of each particular person in our custody stay our high precedence,” the division added. “We’re dedicated to clear operations, thorough investigations, and sustaining the best requirements {of professional} conduct.”
The civil grievance filed within the Central District of California says abuses occurred within the Lynwood jail’s administrative segregation unit, also referred to as “the outlet.” The lawsuit claims girls have been typically despatched there for disciplinary functions — and that deputies would watch as they showered nude. The go well with says the apply violates a federal legislation known as the Jail Rape Elimination Act, which prohibits “cross-gender viewing” by employees.
The grievance alleges a “systemic and ongoing apply which considerations the cross-gender viewing of fully nude feminine inmates by male correctional officers.”
It describes an space subsequent to the bathe stalls referred to by inmates and deputies because the “cop store,” from which male correctional officers “routinely interact in frequent and extended unobstructed viewing of the whole nude our bodies of feminine inmates taking showers.”
Whereas escorting girls to the stalls, the grievance states, male guards allegedly “deliberately press their crotches towards the handcuffed arms of the feminine inmates … and deliberately fondle the inmates’ hips, buttocks, and our bodies in a sexual method.”
Deputies “routinely and deliberately set the water temperature at a scalding or near-scalding degree,” the grievance added, “which forces the feminine inmates taking showers to maneuver hurriedly and squirm erratically” and “typically leads to the feminine inmates’ breasts jiggling and wiggling demonstrably in full view of the male correctional officers within the adjoining ‘cop store.’”
Inside of Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood in December.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)
The Sheriff’s Division stated in a press release that “[t]right here is an ongoing inquiry into the claims” and that it “maintains a zero-tolerance coverage in the direction of any type of sexual abuse or harassment inside its amenities.”
The assertion added that it “takes all allegations of sexual misconduct, abuse of authority, and violations of Division coverage extraordinarily critically.”
The Sybil Model Fee, the unbiased oversight physique for L.A. County’s jails, has documented related complaints from feminine inmates in current months.
The fee, which performs inspections on unannounced visits to the jails, stated in an October report that a number of inmates “allege a deputy observes girls showering from the decrease degree, escorts girls whereas leaving them uncovered in bathe, and makes them wait unclothed earlier than returning to their cells. Concern of retaliation deters reporting.”
Fee Chair Haley Broder described the inmates as “a few of the most susceptible girls on earth. They’ll’t do something; they’re locked in cells and being retaliated towards in the event that they report it.”
Defendants within the federal lawsuit embody L.A. County, Sheriff Robert Luna and three of his predecessors, and a dozen jail staffers.
The Sheriff’s Division stated in a press release that two deputies named within the lawsuit “are actively working,” with one now at Males’s Central Jail and one other nonetheless in Lynwood.
One of many two males beforehand labored because the Jail Rape Elimination Act compliance supervisor on the girls’s jail, in keeping with the grievance.
Final month, The Instances reported that out of 592 inmate claims of sexual abuse or harassment by deputies filed since 2021, none have been deemed “substantiated” by Sheriff’s Division investigators.
Over that interval, in keeping with a assessment of D.A.’s workplace data by The Instances, the Sheriff’s Division referred none of these circumstances to L.A. County prosecutors, who resolve whether or not there’s sufficient proof to file costs.
“The DA’s workplace has introduced no circumstances towards sheriff’s deputies for sexual assault crimes dedicated towards inmates” since 2021, the workplace confirmed in an electronic mail. It added that it’s “not conscious of any such circumstances just lately introduced by LASD for submitting consideration involving deputies accused of sexually assaulting inmates.”
The Sheriff’s Division stated in a press release that since 2021 it has despatched 9 circumstances for assessment by both its Inside Affairs or Inside Legal Investigation bureaus, all of which “are nonetheless being actively investigated.” It added that “[o]nce a felony investigation is accomplished, investigators will current the case to the District Lawyer’s Workplace for submitting consideration.”
The division has acted towards not less than one deputy in response to an inmate’s claims of sexual misconduct lately. In November 2023, deputy Jonathan Tejada Paredes was arrested on suspicion that he sexually assaulted an inmate whereas he was working within the girls’s jail in Lynwood.
However court docket data present that no county or federal costs have been filed towards Tejada Paredes. The D.A.’s workplace stated it “has not acquired this matter for charging consideration.”
Jacqueline Sparagna, an legal professional for Tejada Paredes, denied any wrongdoing by her consumer and confirmed that he has not been charged. She added that whereas the federal government goes out of its option to completely examine allegations towards legislation enforcement officers, “there are probably issues with the” Paredes case, akin to an absence of corroborating proof or credibility questions.
Requested concerning the standing of the declare towards Tejada Paredes, the Sheriff’s Division stated an “investigation is at the moment ongoing.”
Prior to now, the Sheriff’s Division has referred various circumstances of deputies accused by inmates of sexual assault for prosecution. For example, Giancarlo Scotti, who labored on the Lynwood girls’s jail, was charged by the D.A.’s workplace in 2018 with assaulting six inmates there after being arrested and positioned on administrative go away by the Sheriff’s Division the prior yr whereas the division investigated the allegations.
In 2019, court docket data present Scotti pleaded no contest to 6 counts of sexual exercise with an inmate, ward or parolee. A decide sentenced him to 2 years in state custody, with a suggestion that his time period be served in a state fireplace camp.
A assessment of county data reveals that the Sheriff’s Division has referred various deputies for prosecution on sexual abuse costs since 2021 — simply not in circumstances with inmates as alleged victims.
Final yr, in keeping with a D.A.’s workplace memo, the workplace declined to carry felony costs towards a correctional officer after a Sheriff’s Division investigation discovered he had allegedly dedicated sexual battery towards a feminine colleague at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in 2022. The D.A.’s memo cited questions on whether or not the deputy’s conduct constituted sexual battery, the alleged sufferer’s response and whether or not there was sufficient proof to corroborate her claims.
The shortage of transparency round how jail sexual abuse claims are investigated has raised alarms amongst native watchdogs.
“The general public just isn’t getting the reality from the Sheriff’s Division. We deserve actual, correct knowledge about folks being raped or assaulted in our jails, not hogwash,” stated Hans Johnson, chair of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Fee.
Max Huntsman, who retired as L.A. County inspector common earlier this month, instructed The Instances in November that he believes the Sheriff’s Division is “not in compliance with PREA in lots of senses,” together with its inner insurance policies and the bodily state of its growing old jails.
An April report by Huntsman’s workplace “discovered that many allegations stay unresolved in quarterly experiences, elevating considerations concerning the thoroughness of investigations” underneath the federal legislation.
Some investigations, the inspector common’s workplace wrote, didn’t embody “a radical description of bodily and testimonial proof,” and investigators “didn’t seem to interview all potential concerned individuals” in some circumstances.
The cross-gender viewing allegations on the Lynwood girls’s jail are “one among many instances when the county may have averted litigation by merely correcting situations,” Huntsman stated.
As of Oct. 27, 30 of the 38 girls who signed on to the lawsuit alleging rampant cross-gender viewing on the Lynwood jail remained incarcerated there.
“Behind each a kind of paragraphs in that grievance is a human story,” stated Dunn, the lawyer representing the feminine inmates.
