A former California correctional officer convicted of dozens of sexual abuse charges at a women’s prison was sentenced to 224 years in prison on Thursday.
Gregory Rodriguez, 57, worked as a guard at the Central California women’s facility (CCWF), the state’s largest women’s prison, and was found guilty in January of over 60 charges of abusing nine women in his custody, including rape and battery.
Rodriguez’s case became a huge scandal for the state, exposing a longstanding crisis of sexual misconduct and abuse behind bars. The officer was found to have targeted incarcerated women over the span of nearly a decade before he retired in 2022 while under investigation.
A Guardian investigation published in 2023 revealed the prison received a report of Rodriguez’s abuse in 2014, but did not terminate him and instead punished the victim. That survivor spoke of being sent to solitary confinement while authorities investigated claims of her abuse.
Ex-guard at California women’s prison sentenced to 224 years for sexual abuse
