SACRAMENTO, Calif. (SONNA) \u2014 A former correctional officer at the biggest women\u2019s prison in California has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting at least 13 inmates\u00a0over the past nine years, prosecutors said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Gregory Rodriguez, who worked at the Central California Women\u2019s Facility, faces 96 counts including rape, sodomy, sexual battery and rape under color of authority, the Madera County District Attorney\u2019s Office said in a news release.<\/p>\n
It couldn\u2019t be determined Wednesday if Rodriguez, 54, has an attorney who can speak on his behalf. He was being held in lieu of $7.8 million bail, the\u00a0DA\u2019s office\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
The alleged assaults date back to 2014, but most happened within the past two years, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
The charges involve 13 separate victims, according to the DA\u2019s office. If convicted on all charges, Rodriguez could be sentenced to more than 300 years in prison.<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s prison where Rodriquez worked for 12 years is located in Chowchilla, a small city about 120 miles (190 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. Rodriguez retired in August after being approached about the assaults as part of an internal investigation, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in December.<\/p>\n
The investigation, which found that Rodriguez may have engaged in sexual misconduct against at least 22 inmates, was handed over to the district attorney\u2019s office earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese allegations are in no way a reflection on the vast majority of correctional officers who act professionally and do their best to make sure prisoners serve their time while remaining safe,\u201d the DA\u2019s office said Wednesday. \u201cIt is our hope that the removal and arrest of this defendant encourages them to continue in their honorable profession upholding the law every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two unidentified inmates filed lawsuits in December accusing Rodriguez of sexual assault at the prison, which holds about 2,100 inmates.<\/p>\n
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (SONNA) \u2014 A former correctional officer at the biggest women\u2019s prison in California has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting at least 13 inmates\u00a0over the past nine years, prosecutors said Wednesday. Gregory Rodriguez, who worked at the Central California Women\u2019s Facility, faces 96 counts including rape, sodomy, sexual battery and rape under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":417105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-417104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417106,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417104\/revisions\/417106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}