April 23, 2025 • 70 mins
Today, I sit down with Tess Korth, the whistleblower who exposed rampant abuse and systemic corruption at FCI Dublin, a federal women’s prison in California once dubbed “the rape club” by those who lived and worked within its walls. Tess shares her firsthand experiences working inside a prison where the power dynamics turned predatory and silence was enforced through fear. Throughout her 25-year career, she witnessed not only the abuse of incarcerated women by staff but also the institutional cover-ups that followed. Tess faced retaliation, ostracization, and threats when she decided to speak out, but she didn’t back down. In our conversation, Tess walks us through the moment she knew she had to blow the whistle, the emotional toll of breaking the silence, and the slow grind for justice in a system stacked against transparency.
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Featuring a promo for Mountain Murders:
East coast murders covered by Appalachian folks, Heather & Dylan. Who knew mountains could be so deadly? Are you ready to embark on a perilous journey through the treacherous peaks of true crime? Welcome to Mountain Murders True Crime, where chilling tales of mayhem and mystery await! Join our intrepid hosts as they navigate the dark side of nature, exploring crimes that will make your hair stand on end. From mysterious disappearances to shocking homicides, our podcast will have you on the edge of your seat, clutching your hiking gear tightly. So grab your headphones, strap on your adventure boots, and get ready for a wild ride through the untamed world of Mountain Murders True Crime!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every story has a beginning, but not everyone has an ending.
In the shadows of headlines and buried police reports lay
the voices of the missing, the murdered, and the forgotten,
waiting to be heard and have their stories told. This
is the Book of the Dead, a true crime podcast
(00:22):
where we remember forgotten victims of heinous crimes, reopen cold cases,
ree visit haunting disappearances, and uncover the truths buried beneath
the years of silence. I'm your host, Courtney Liso, and
every week we turn to another chapter, one victim, one mystery,
(00:44):
one step closer to justice. Brought to you by Dark
Cast Network indie podcasts with a twist.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hi, I'm Heather and I'm Dylan. We are Mountain Murders
and Appalachian truecrime podcasts, dropping weekly episodes every Sunday.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Our show offers well researched cases with unique storytelling and
Southern flavor.
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Story's so good you'll want to sop them up with
a biscuit.
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I pull back the curtain unlesser known and often obscure
regional cases from Georgia to Maine, exploring the darkness that
lurks deep in the heart of Appalachia.
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And I react with profound statements.
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You mean profoundly stupid.
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Statement, something like that.
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We're not your stereo typical.
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Hillbillies, but we do like moonshine.
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It'll tickle your yards.
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Join us every Wednesday for Mountain Murders Offbeat.
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Offbeat is a mini episode covering a variety of topics,
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Find Mountain Murders anywhere you download podcast. Hit subscribe today
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Speaker 1 (02:24):
Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter in the Book
of the Dead. With me today I have a very
special guest. Test Courth is a former Federal correctional officer
and nationally recognized prison reform advocate with over twenty five
years of service at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.
(02:46):
Throughout her career, she was known for her compassion, integrity,
and on wavering commitment to the rehabilitation and dignity of
incarcerated women. When whispers of abuse, both physical and sexual,
started floating through the prison, tests started reporting what was
happening now, she was retaliated against but that didn't stop
(03:07):
her voice, and she looked for outside help before resigning
due to test taking. A stand action was taken and
not only was Dublin closed, but countless offenders and the
warden have been prosecuted. One of the worst Darryl Smith,
whose trial ended with the jury being hung, although a
(03:28):
new trial date has been said, Tess, thank you so
much for joining me today.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So before we get into what happened at Dublin with
these reports of abuse and you reporting everything, I wanted
to start with, you know what led you to going
to work in the Department of Corrections. You know, was
that something you always wanted to do or did you
kind of just think this was like a good place
(03:59):
to work kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Well, originally, when I started college in high school, I
always wanted to like own a chain of luxury hotels.
That was my thing. I wanted to be in hotel management.
I started college with doing the hospitality management and stuff,
and then I kind of changed. Actually, I got kicked
(04:26):
out of the community college over in San Francisco that
was running I mean, they had a really good program
because I had kind of a bad boy boyfriend at
that time, and it was preventing me from going to
class a lot. So because he was kind of a jerk,
(04:48):
it made me change my whole trajectory. And when I
went to actual college like sax State, got into well okay.
So when I went to another community college, I thought, oh,
this criminal justice stuff looks okay. And so I actually
(05:11):
got my AA in administration of justice and I decided
I don't want to go do that in management. And
I think it was because I had this bad boy boyfriend,
and you know, I was so young and naive and
really dumb. You know, I was into that, Oh I'm
(05:32):
going to change the kind of thing which never works.
Never girls, never, it doesn't work. So I wanted to
get into like FBI or something like that, which I'm
so glad I didn't. The quickest way to get hired
into the government was the Bureau of Prisons. I mean
(05:54):
they as long as you were warm body, you weren't dead,
they would hire you. So that to me, the Bureau
Prisons was just going to be a stepping stone, my
foot in the door, Go get my job, and then
transfer to another agency. But then when I started, I thought,
(06:16):
oh my gosh, when you get in there, you realize
it's a city in there. It's like a little city.
They have health department in their education and case management
unit team, which that's where I wanted to go. It's
just a whole it's its own city, a facilities department,
(06:37):
a food service, all that, and I thought, ah, you know,
I could do okay in here. So I was there.
I did end up quitting for a little bit for
ten months. I went to probation because I loved probation,
but it was over a county probation and they were
having like union dispute. So I went back because still
(07:00):
I was a warm body. So they took me back
at the Bureau of Prisons and I told them I
specific I want to be a case manager. That's what
I'm coming back for. So they took me back as
a secretary unit secretary, and I learned what I had
(07:22):
to do. I learned all the case management stuff while
I was a secretary, and because I was in the
unit learning all of it and worked my whip from
secretary to warden's secretary, to case management to re entry
coordinator to unit manager and also a lot of collateral
(07:44):
jobs like disciplinary sharing officer, planning section team leader, a
lot of filateral duties you can do in there, so
always learning stuff. So it was good run until the
last couple of years. You know, they make it sound
like if you read interviews or you listen to the
(08:07):
directors of prison or the unions, they always say, oh,
we're so short staffed. You know, they take nurses and
they take case managers and that the most needed people
and they have to be officers. Blah blah blah. We
all are officers. We all go say through the same training.
(08:29):
We all get paid for law enforcement because every single
one of us is a frictional officer first and then
we have our jobs. So you know, it just makes
it sound more dramatic when they're asking for money and
(08:50):
that the union's trying to make things sound worse than
they are kind of thing. Or the director just wants
my money money kind of stuff, instead of like trying
to be format how they're set up and how everything
is managed. You know, they just want more money and
then continue to waste the way that they do.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's fascinating. I think a lot of people like don't
realize that that, you know, the people that work in
a prison, like they are correctional officers.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Now in the state prisons, it's different. Like I worked
for a very short time in the state prisons, California's
state prison, and they are separate, so they have the
correctional officers and then everybody else that works in there
are either civilian or contractors, so like they are not
(09:45):
law enforcement. If something happens, they don't go running to
help like we would, so they're separate. They're totally different
than what the bureau prisons are.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know, everyone gets the same training. What is the
training involved, like what is what is that like? Is
it like really rigorous or is it no?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
We go well some some did. During COVID there was
really no no hardcore training or anything for those officers
because they couldn't travel. They put a freeze on traveling.
But at the time when I went through, we went
(10:30):
to they call it FLETSE, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
It's in Georgia, and we went for about two and
a half week. And the physical requirement is different now
than it was then. They've actually lowered the requirements now
(10:51):
then back then, and they changed the standards. They've made
it easier now, but you you do a lot of
training for shooting because when you go out on medical escorts,
you need to be armed. If you work in the OSP,
(11:11):
which is outside patrol, your truck is armed, your arms,
you have on a side arm which is semi automatic firearm,
you have an M sixteen, and you have a shotgun
in the truck with you. And then at the higher
(11:33):
security prisons they have towers, so they have the M
sixteen's in there, so we need to be able to
shoot all those and qualify for them. So a lot
of people like me, I had never a shot before,
so you have to learn from the basics, and we
(11:53):
had to shoot a completely different range than they do now.
Now they stand really close and it's really easy, but
back then we had to stand like, I don't know,
fifty yards way or you know, far back and qualify.
So that's part of it. You have to learn, like
(12:16):
all the policies you have. What else we oh god,
we had, I think we were doing jiu jitsu at
that time. We have to do some self defense thing
and that was like it was fun. But now they
just they train them like in realistic stuff like how
(12:38):
to get away from from somebody charging you, how to
get out of like if someone's choking you, how to
get out of that. More practical things than you know,
putting it kobiyashi or whatever. This is something that we're
not going to remember. And then there's the physical agility.
(12:59):
I don't know what they do now. We had a
dummy drag. We had to drag this heavy dummy like
all the way around and around and around and physical
things like that running the track. And then the funniest
part was which a lot of people didn't like, but
I loved it. We were in the classroom and they
(13:22):
had a fake They had a mock scenario they call
it that some guys came in, you know, with their
guns and all that, and they you know, it was serious,
and took us hostage. And I mean they were yelling
at us and took people out, pretending like they raped
(13:43):
them and stuff and shot and killed them. And I
mean when they do scenarios, they do scenarios, they hire
actors and all that stuff because they want to see
how you react. And it is interesting. So a lot
of people didn't like it. They it spooped them. So
(14:06):
it's interesting. They have little jails set up, so they
have a lot of scenarios you have to do.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's so interesting. I could see some people getting really
spooked by that though. That sounds like it's incredibly intense.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Yeah, oh yeah. They cush you out, they swear, they
call you know, they'll call you racial names, they'll do whatever.
I mean, just like an inmate would take you hostage.
They won't care.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
So you you said that, you know, they just kind
of as long as the body's warned, they'll they'll hire you. Literally,
were they doing psychiatric evaluations.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
So they should. But nope.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's interesting because when you go out to like you know,
you go into like the police force, and you know
they do the psycho bowls, but this which is I mean,
you're coming into someplace where there's that power and balance
and you're in control of all of these people with
(15:09):
you know, some of them that are very volatile depending
on you know, where you are in the prison or
whatever prison you're in. There's no psychic house. No.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
They started doing some kind of little computer thing, but
it wasn't a psyche vl. I mean when I went
to work at probation, there was a psyche val and
then they have you talk to somebody before they hire you,
and all this stuff based on your evaluation, and because
(15:41):
we were armed, we were deputy probation officers. No, they
need to. And that's why we had so many problems.
We had some crazy people working there, crazy crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
That's mind boggling to me, Like that's mind boggling.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Scary people. We had some scary people there.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's terrifying. And we're going to go into this that
what was a typical day like for you working at
the prison before things started going really bad? You know what?
What did your day to day kind of look like?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
My day to day? You never know? It was always
something different because sometimes I would get there before I
needed to be because once the day started going, the
inmates days started, and our days started at six am.
Once six am hit, it was non stop, non it
(16:42):
was like boom boom, boom, boom, boom boom, inmates at
my door, people calling me, just non stop. So I
would get it to my office, which was in the
housing units, so I lit. My office was inside where
the inmates lived, so I loved getting there and getting
(17:04):
there when they were still sleeping. So I would get
there like maybe four thirty ish five o'clock where it
was still nice and quiet, and start doing like work
because there was always tons of work. I'd have to
run rosters see what was due. The regional office always
(17:30):
wanted dumb stuff. God, you know. The sad thing is
that the management, whether it was the regional or central
or our wardens, the aw's their secretaries. We had an
aw secretary, a warden secretary, a captain's secretary. See, they
(17:54):
can do away with those. You got three officers. They
all wanted the same stuff, you know, and nobody knew
it was already done. I read, you know, so and
so told me to send it to that email box.
It's done. Oh okay, And then I get a request
(18:15):
for the same exact thing from so and somebody else
and it's like, it's done, it's in that mailbox. Well,
who told you to send it to that that person, Well,
we can't get access to that box, so can you
send it to I mean, it was like the same
stuff over. We wasted so much time doing that that
(18:38):
kind of thing, and we're doing the same paperwork fifty
times because somebody didn't like that comma there, and so
we would have to redo and reroute something because it
was all a power trip because that secretary didn't like
(18:58):
that comma, so they kick it back. We'd route it
it get past that secretary and then that aw didn't
want that comma there, so then it gets kicked back again.
And it's like, why don't you realize, why don't you
look at the mission? You are defeating the mission of
(19:21):
the Bureau of Prisons. Plus you're wasting a lot of
paper and time. I mean, everyone just had a power trip. God, yeah,
look at it. My heart is like boo boom boom,
boom boom, just getting so irritated. So that's I would
get there early so I can get stuff done because
(19:42):
they would want everything walked through because now all the
things that we did early but way before deadline is late,
so we'd have to walk stuff through. So that was
my typical day. It was different all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
So I know, you were really pivotal in reform and
rehabilitation and you created a program. What was that like?
And you know, how did the inmates respond to you?
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Inmates love female females love programs. They love programs. I
I'm not going to say to jamates loved me, but
they loved the programs. I had no problems coming up
with programs. The wardens had no problems approving my programs.
(20:38):
They loved my programs. I would just pick up the
phone or email different agencies and say, hey, how do
you feel about coming out here? I want to do this.
I think the inmates need that. We don't have any
programs to do that. And they would be like, yeah,
that sounds cool. What do you you know, what do
(21:00):
we need to do and we'd come up with the program.
And then when this awful aw came she wasn't even
there a year. She the Second Chance Act thing came along,
and oh god, what is the other thing? I don't know.
(21:21):
It was just alful. It's just she decided to interpret
that they were like programs like for health, like pre
release health education, you know, all the same categories that
we've been dealing with forever. And they had evidence based programming.
(21:45):
And so they decided they would pick which that bop
was gonna tell us what programs we can do, and okay,
well whatever, and then they said, oh, and by the way,
you can't do any other programs except for these, Well
(22:06):
those programs were stupid. You know, I have evidence based
programming because I know some of my inmates because they
would call and tell me how they were doing because
they were allowed to because I was re entry. They're
doing great, so to me, that's evidence based. But they
(22:28):
then they decided because I had we used volunteers. We
had like over two hundred volunteers, so we had volunteers
that would teach the classes. And these were like professional people,
so they knew what they were talking about and they
would follow the outline and you know, they and they
(22:49):
sleved them. They would come at night, they would come
during the day. Then this aw interpreted it, Oh, only
staff can do these classes. Well there you go that
she ain't going to be done then, and only these
staff members can do it, like counselors, certain staff department
(23:13):
individuals can do it. Well, we have lazy staff and
some people are not very educated, and now they're going
to do evidence based programming with the inmates. It's not
going to happen. And these inmates are supposed to take
these programs because it gets them extra time off. So
(23:38):
when she said that, no programs got done, none and
they all were on waiting lists. So then all of
a sudden, as long as they're on a waiting list,
they're earning credits to get their time off. Who cares
if they're learning anything. They just they'll get days off
(23:59):
as soon as they're on the waiting list. So why
did we have to stop actually teaching them things and
have them actively programming? You know, when they were actually
learning stuff, I was doing a pre released three day
program having an ex offender come in and do it
(24:21):
with probation and just it was like really interactive and
they loved it and it wasn't optional. They all had
to do it. And now they're sitting and doing nothing,
but they're getting time off and they're not prepared. You know,
they didn't have any pre release stuff done. They didn't
(24:42):
have any just nothing. But we're sending them out early,
so nothing they do makes sense. That's fascinating to take away,
like because that's in essence is what you're doing. Like
even though like the like you're taking it away, you're
taking away something that's benefiting them. Oh yeah, we did
(25:06):
a program and that they are geared specifically for females.
We did a program called Foundations. We're always the first
because I was like, we're doing it and it was
a long program and we were the only one that
did it in the BOP and one of my aw's
(25:30):
the good one that retired. She would have her AW
friends from other prisons call me and I would explain
how to do it. And Central Office sent somebody out
to watch us do it because they used this as
a best practice. And even the company, the Change Change
(25:54):
or change company or something, the one that put the
program together, they came out and filmed our program to
use on their DBD for how to run the program.
We couldn't do that. It was like, you're stupid. We
(26:18):
had a summer camp inside the prison for the kids.
I partnered with the Catholic charities and one of the
colleges in southern California, and they used art therapy, so
there were art therapists in there the whole week. And
Holy Names College, which now they closed it. But one
(26:41):
of the nuns who was very young, I'm like, I
can't believe you're a nun, but she was like full
of energy and everything. They stayed up at Holy Name's
College and after they would leave, they would go like
swimming or to the movies, and then at night they'd
have like campfires and songs and things.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Couldn't do that anymore or children. I got with it,
get on the bus, and they would go and pick
up kids, like in the buses anywhere. I mean, not
like cross country or anything, but as far as Arizona, Utah,
(27:28):
like the western states, and they would help them. I mean,
if they needed ID, they'd help them get ID. If
they needed a bus ticket to get out to the
spots where the buses were leaving from, they'd pay for that.
They'd get it. They would help get things notarized for them.
(27:49):
If power of attorney had to get done. I mean,
they'd like bent over backwards. They told us we couldn't
do that because it was free. All this stuff was free,
and the person that was the department head in the
central office, she loved it. She loved it, so she said, yes,
(28:14):
do it all, do it all. And then the ethics
department said we couldn't do it after we had done
it for three years. And I'm like, why, it's already
been approved, we've been doing it, and they said, well,
it's free, and we don't know who's backing it. And
I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh my god, I already know the answer, but I'm
going to ask anyway. Obviously, it wasn't just female corrections. Officers.
You know, there were male officers were some of the
issues that came of it prior to the major incidents
that were going on.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Since I was there. Since for the last twenty five years.
When I worked there, you know, every so often we'd
have what we call staff walked out, the male staff
walked out, and that means they were doing stuff they
shouldn't have been doing, and they would they would clear
(29:24):
the yard. Everybody knew. They all knew all somebody came
in with the suit on and they just cleared the yard,
and everybody would go to the windows to watch who
was getting walked out, and they would walk somebody out.
They were allowed to resign, and sometimes they'd get prosecuted.
(29:46):
Sometimes they wouldn't. And that's just how it happened. It
was every once in a while, and I learned right
from the get go when I was still a rookie
off sir, you gotta report everything. This is what they
pounded in our head from the get go. Pounded it
(30:08):
in our head that if you hear something, if you
think something, whatever, you send a little note to SIS,
which is our internal investigation step. So you send us
a note of what you heard or what you observed
or whatever, and they teach us. Every year we have
(30:31):
annual refresher training where we're re taught the same step
over and over again, the red flags, you know, every
year for we have training for a week. So I
was taking that. When I was an officer, I was
taking two inmates out to medical and one was Heidi
(30:55):
Flice and she was she was the Hollywood matter and
she was her and the other one we're talking and
they were talking about an officer that put his hands
down someone's pants and stuff like that, and so I
was listening to him talk and I didn't I you know,
(31:18):
I didn't even think anything about it. And I came
back to work and the next day I got called
to the sis lieutenant who is now my friend, and
she and I was like all nervous, and she called
me in and she said, do you understand that you
can be prosecuted. I'm all what, I didn't do anything.
(31:42):
I'm like scared, gitless, And she's all, were you at
the rear gate yesterday? And I'm like, yeah, did you
take you know, so and so out? And I'm all, yes,
I understand you heard something that they were talking about.
I'm all, oh, yeah, that some you know, so and
(32:03):
so put his hands down someone's pants and she's all, yeah,
why didn't you report it? Well, well, I didn't see
it or anything. And she's all, you need to report
anything you hear or see or anything, or you can
be prosecuted. I'm all, oh shit, So I like send
(32:30):
anything and everything to SIS. So we're told that that
failure to report, we can be prosecuted for that. Well,
they need to start doing that because there was a
period I think it was when Trump was president last
(32:50):
time we had a hiring freeze. We couldn't hire anybody
except for military and veterans. We can hire them, and
we could hire active military also because you know, they
come and go, you know, they'll be on active duty
doing stuff, you know, deployed, and then they come home.
(33:14):
So we had you know, active duty and then they
work for a while, they say, they come and they
take a break, and then they go back out on
active duty. We would get them and we didn't bother
you know, asking them if they need assistance with anything.
Because we had one guy, nice guy, very nice guy.
(33:37):
But we had a shooting range right next to us
at the Sheriff's office, and sometimes he would like freak
out and step and and you know she I think
she was one of the guys too that there's an
article about him. So we get we got a whole
(34:03):
different kind of officer than we had before, and there's
big camaraderie with that, and you know they're not gonna
tell on people and they have their backs and all
that kind of stuff. And then we had a lot
of those transfer over to Dublin from penitentiaries, male prisons,
(34:30):
and they didn't care inmates or inmates. They didn't care
to learn how to deal with female inmates or anything.
So for the last I don't know, you know, like
maybe the last seven years that I was there, it
(34:53):
was more like the inmates were being treated like it
was a prison camp or like they were prisoners of
war kind of thing right out in the open. You know,
these bitches this, and and you know that they would
come up ask for something that they had coming to
(35:14):
them and they would the officers would respond like so disrespectful.
And you know it wasn't just the officers, because everyone
was an officer at one time, and they moved their
way up so it could be a manager or whatever,
(35:35):
and they would do it right out in the open,
in front of the aw in front of the captain.
Captain thought it was funny. In front of the warden.
Of course, you know what happened to the warden and us,
the people that had been there for years, they call
them the homesteaders, were like, what is going on? What
(36:00):
is going on? I mean I would go talk to
the captain. I'm like, you need to put your officers
in check. I said, this one right here is doing this,
and that one right there is going into rooms tearing
them up because they're not flirting back with them. And
then his friend's writing these inmates up. And his little girlfriend,
who is an officer, goes in and starts telling those
(36:23):
inmates that her boyfriend likes bitch, you better stay away
from my man. I'm all, get your officers in check.
And he would just laugh about it. It's like, what
is going on here? And I went into the special
housing unit one time. I went down the hall because
(36:45):
I would go talk to the inmates. And I went down.
He opened up the gates, say one, and I'm a
holy shit, it's hot. It was so hot. And the
officer said, this court, don't say anything. I'm all, what
are you talking about it. It's so hot. You need
(37:05):
to get someone in here to fix this. So I
went down and the inmates, you know, they all had
their tops off, their little sports prop things on. I'm like,
it is hot. I'm going to find out what's going on.
So I went out again and he's all, there's nothing
wrong with the with the air, and he said they've
(37:27):
been acting up, so piss on them, and he had
turned the heater away up. I said, oh no, no, no, no, no,
put the air on. And I went and told the
captain and he just he said, well, they shouldn't be
acting up.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
No, And so I told the adew I'm like, hell
is going on here? Do you want somebody to fall
out and die in there on your watch? I said,
I'm not, uh uh uh. I just signed the books
that I walked through there, and this sh ain't gonna
happen with me walking through. I'm like, oh hell, So
(38:04):
just stuff like that was crazy, and they thought it
was funny and it was. It was just crazy there,
just crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
That's a vile that's vile.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Obviously things go really bad and there's sexual abuse going on,
the physical abuse going on. You know, was there a
catalyst for this, you know, were there any signs that
this was happening or did it all come to ahead? Yes?
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Oh yeah. Well the one that just got the mistrial,
he worked for me for a little bit. I got
a temporary promotion at the end of twenty fifteen. I
think it was either the end of twenty fifteen or
beginning of twenty sixteen. I wrote a memo too then
(39:01):
the acting or the associate warden and the warden and
I gave it to the prosecution and he didn't use it.
It's a very long memo because we I was working
on a weekend and he was there. He's very scary.
He would go out of his way to do things
(39:24):
to me, like very passive aggressive, and so he didn't know.
I was working on a Saturday morning and we were
getting ready for the regional director to come in. So
you know, everybody's shining. I always say they're trying to
shine a turd. So the warden was there, that aw's
(39:46):
were there, everybody was there. Well, he didn't do what
I asked him to do the day before, and so
he was in my office and I wish I had
called the awn. I wish I did, because I could
have swore I smelled alcohol on him, and at that
time he was kind of new. I didn't know that
he had a history of drinking and stuff. So I
(40:09):
have a very sensitive note. So I thought, maybe it's
maybe there's hooch, because I always found hoos in the unit,
which is you know, alcohol. So he got mad at
me about something I don't even remember, and he threw
he crunched up some paper and threw it at me,
and I said, that's that's it. And so I wrote
(40:31):
a memo. I said, I don't feel safe with him
in the unit. When he gets mad at me, he
takes it out on the inmates. He gets on the intercom,
he starts yelling at him. He goes in their rooms,
he tears up their rooms. He's racist, he has made
racial comments. Two inmates that I had to move from
(40:53):
his side right next to my room so I can
watch him. She you know, I said that he has
moved the young cute Hispanic girls over in front of
his office and tells them to keep their doors open
so he can watch him. I had NonStop have inmates
(41:14):
coming to my office crying because they say that he
walks by and looks in the windows while they're going
to the bathroom or undressing. I hear him yelling at
them on the intercom something else. I said, I do
not feel safe. I don't think the inmates are safe
(41:36):
with him in the unit. He acts as if he
has no respect and doesn't like women, and I don't
think that he should be in this unit or any unit.
I gave that to the prosecution and they never even
used it. That was like ten years ago, so yeah,
(41:57):
there were red flags as red as you can get.
He was horrible, horrible, and I told the prosecution, I said,
get with the Camp Parks police. Because we are on
a military base, an army base, and he lived on
(42:19):
base and his wife worked with us. The police would
always get called up to his house, which again that's
not supposed to happen with us, you know, that's a
violation of our employment. The police were called up there
for some kind of domestic thing, and he ran from them,
(42:40):
and he ran into the prison camp where there's inmates
and just hid out in there. Again, he still worked
for us, but he remembered. The prosecution didn't bother doing
any of that. They could have got all that stuff
(43:02):
for the trial.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Of course they could have. Of course they could have.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Yeah, I mean all this stuff was stuff that they
could have presented instead of not objecting to irrelevant questions
asked by the defense.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
So when you started reporting everything after everything got worse,
and you know, these women are being raped and they're
being you know, abused, what did what did the warden do?
What did the union do? Like, what did anyone do?
Speaker 4 (43:34):
But what did they say?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Like, what was the reaction? You come stuff with this information?
Speaker 4 (43:38):
And they did nothing? They did nothing? Well, Okay, So
we had another warden at the time when I had
him Smith working for me, and I would, like I said,
the wardens like me, and I was never in the military,
so I didn't give a shit about that rank thing.
(43:59):
I would just walk right into the warden's office and
go to chat with them. And at that time he
had me so stressed out, so stressed out, and something
happened after the fact between we had an HR manager
(44:23):
that actually quit the Bureau of Prisons because of an
incident with him, and she had to get a restraining
order from him between him and her daughter. I don't
know what was going on with him, but yeah, and
(44:43):
I totally remember that and the article that the union
president lied on the stand about. He brought that up
about HR manager letting his daughter letting her daughter read
personnel files or something, which wasn't probably not true because
(45:05):
this HR manager was like by the book and they
probably didn't like that. So she actually left the bureau
and then a couple of years later she went to
a different prison. But that's how scary he is. So
(45:25):
I would go and I would tell this other warden
he's retired now. God, this guy was crazy crazy. He
call us racist and this warden with nuts, although he
did like me, so I was, you know, I tried
to keep him calm, but I would tell him about
(45:47):
this guy. And this warden was like a total male chauvinist.
She was not from the United States. He was just
he he's just so astonished when he walked into Dublin
and saw women working, like writing the lawnmower. We had
(46:11):
writing lawnmowers. She had never seen that before. He was
just so astonished that women can do that. And he'd
said that in front of a central office person and
we all looked at each other and we're like and
the central office lady said yeah, we've been working for
a long time, and so he's like that kind of person.
(46:34):
So I told him about him, and he said, overly,
I've always thought he good guy. He comes in every morning,
we drink coffee, we chit chat. And I said, oh, no,
he's not. She's awful. And I told him some stiff
and he's like, we're gonna get well, we're gonna get
(46:57):
down to the bottom of this. And so the warden
hated my boss via w because she was a woman.
So if he said something, she would tell me to
do it the right way, and then he would call
me and say, oh, you do that, and I would say,
(47:18):
the aw don't do that, and it was like, you know,
parents pitying each other. It was the most stressful time.
So he would want to handle it. You know, we're
gonna get down to the bottom. And then the next
day I would have to do the same thing because
the smith would have gone during the day to the
(47:40):
warden with his coffee and sit down and chit chat
and talk about how bad I was, and it was
just awful. So nothing, nothing would get done. But this
this same warden he used to go after after the
(48:05):
four o'clock count He would go watch this particular female
and mate teach jazz, the jazzer size, the aerobics class.
He would just sit there and watch.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
So, you know, birds of a feather, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
You can't write this stuff like I mean.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Now, it it's quite literally stranger than fiction.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
It is, it is. But you know, the stuff still
goes on because I have the other I have people
from other female institutions send me messages in Facebook asking
me through Messenger that I don't even know that asked
(48:54):
me what should they do? Oh, it's still it still happens.
They don't learn their life. I always have said, you know,
throughout the twenty five years the BOP, they just make
lawsuits for themselves. You know, they just they just can't
(49:15):
help themselves. You know, they just do stuff that they
can prevent and they don't. They don't. They'll just say
whatever with everything. You know, they're stupid. And I loved,
you know, I was like all gung ho. I was
(49:40):
in management. I was I loved that job. I loved
that job up until I really saw what was happening
and it really sucked, really sucked.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
That's terrible that they just they they took something that
you loved to do, and they just they was ended
up warped and twisted and terrible and then they retaliate
against you.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Yeah, and the bad thing what really sucked was, you know,
I took them to I guess court because I had
to go to the MLSB, which is a merit Labor
Systems board or something. And the way they dicked me around.
(50:34):
I warned the people that I used to work with,
because you know, everybody was like, oh they you know,
nobody wanted to talk or you know anything. They just
you know, lay down and do nothing. And I said,
you know what if they did it to me, because
they always acted like I was a little their little
(50:55):
star and stuff. I said, they're going to be doing
this shit to you guys, And sure, shit they did.
And I get email our little messages you know, what
did you do? And I thought, it's like, don't ask
me for help. I haven't found a job yet and
it's been almost three years, so don't be asking me
for shit. At least they're offering you guys jobs. They
(51:21):
blacklisted me or something, but they treated me so bad.
They acted like I was a terrible employee. They in
court I had on the witness list so I can
cross examine them, the regional director who lied, the deputy
(51:45):
regional director who lied, my aw who lied and falsified
a document, and it was like it didn't it still
didn't matter. Nothing happen to them. I proved that they lied.
I had the original document I brought up, which you know,
(52:08):
I knew was not going to be relevant, but I
just wanted to get get it in on them that
they had criminal records. You know, right before this is
how the bop is, how you screw up to move
up the aw right before she came to Dublin, how
to duy. So I showed the mugshot and I said
(52:32):
when she when she first came out, and I said,
have you been drinking this morning? She said, oh no.
I said, is it true that you got a DUI
and miss year and then right before you came to Dublin.
And they're all, that's irrelevant. I said, no, it's not,
(52:54):
because it would explain your erratic behavior at the institution.
So I did prove that she retaliated against me, So
that was proven, and I proved a lot of the stuff,
but I was trying to prove constructive termination, and they
said no. But the other guy, the regional deputy director,
(53:22):
he came in like a bad out of hell and
acted like I was, you know, not qualified for the job,
all this crap, and she right before he got promoted,
he pled guilty to a misdemeanor for speeding. He was
(53:42):
like doing a hundred and something, and so I brought
that up and they're all irrelevant, but he was one
of the original cowboys. They would they handcuffed African American
prisoners and beat them up and call them racial names
(54:03):
and stuff. That was one of our leaders. And then
the regional director said, she never met me before. It's
like are you serious? At you many times? So I'm thinking,
if this is how they treat me, imagine how they
do the inmates. Imagine how they lie about stuff. So
(54:28):
the inmates are like doomed.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
So you we talked about this a little bit before
we started recording, but you were at the trials for
these men. You know, what is that like, especially considering
what happened with Daryl Smith's trial and you know, it
ending in the jury being hung. You know what what
was that like?
Speaker 4 (54:47):
I think that the prosecution doesn't really want to work
that hard to convict them. These guys are you know
with the warden I sat through that she could have
been convicted and sentenced a lot harder. Oh. Part I
didn't get to tell you about. For the warden's trial
(55:08):
was the FBI agent that was there. I don't know
if she was just either lazy or incompetent. She when
they went into his house, you know, he had naked
pictures on his government phone, so I can't remember if
(55:30):
it was on his phone or his computer at home.
But you know how you can make your own little
locked file or whatever on your computer. Well, he had
a locked file and they couldn't get into it, and
it's the FBI, so they don't know what was in it.
(55:51):
And the judge said, but I love this judge. She's
very tough. The judge said, wait a minute, didn't you
don't you have an IT guy? And she said, well
it was that night we didn't want to call him.
And she said, you are the FBI, and you guys
(56:13):
didn't open this private folder. You don't know what was
in this private folder. And she says no. And then
because you know the SIS guy, the SIS lieutenant and
the warden are good friends. So that's why nothing happened.
(56:34):
So the FBI asked the sis lieutenant for video of
the warden and this one inmate, and the judge said,
did you get it? And she says, well, no, because
he went on vacation and the judge said, well he
(57:00):
returned from vacation. She said, well, he was on leave
or extended leave.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
And the.
Speaker 4 (57:11):
Judge said, why didn't you subpoena and she said, well,
usually he just gives it to me, and I judge
is all, you didn't subpoena something that the warden has
access to because the only people that have access to
(57:32):
video is a warden and the sis lieutenant who is
his friend and so because they worked together for years
and they always are like buddy Betty, and she's all no.
So he she said when did he come back? And
she saw, oh, he was out for a few months.
(57:52):
So she said when he got back, did you get
the video? And she says, and I'm thinking in my
head no, because it tapes a like every few days,
and so she's all known. And the judge asked, or
why not, Well, because it's tapes over each other, like
every recycled every week, and she said, and the judge
(58:16):
just says wow. So in the trial for Smith, I
just had to leave in this one part because again
the prosecution just was allowing the defense to ask questions
of a sexual abuse victim that you can't ask. I mean,
(58:43):
you're not supposed to be asking these irrelevant questions, and
they just don't object. And that happened in the warden also. Finally,
an abuse victim said is that relevant? Are you allowed
to ask me that? And the judge had to butt
in and say, do you want to object? And they objected,
(59:05):
and she said on what grounds? And he said the
grounds and she said, no, that's not right, and he
switched to another thing. And it's just like they it's
like they want to convict, but not so bad because
they're all Department of Justice. It's like a big family
(59:28):
kind of thing. And on Smith, I think they don't
really want to convict because that will open them up
again for a multimillion dollar lawsuit, just like it did
with the warden. And also the warden, the judge said
(59:49):
the pre sentence report they did there were additional victims
that were interviewed that were far worse than the ones
that actually we were named in the prime that he
was convicted for and she was surprised that she didn't
(01:00:10):
see indictments for those ones. And she said, I'll give
you time. If you want to do some super superseding indictments,
I'll give you time to do them. And they said, no,
you weigh those. And I was sitting in the in
the you know, I was sitting in the courtroom with
(01:00:32):
the reporters and with like the advocates and with the
inmates attorneys and stuff, and we're like, what the hell.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
I'm saying, what the hell?
Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
And you know, I gave him evidence, he didn't use it.
I told him I would get up there as a
rebuttal witness and explain that, you know, things that they were.
That defense was like questioning and making that inmate sound
(01:01:07):
like she was lying and she really wasn't, because you know,
during that time it was COVID and all that, so
to the jurors it probably made it sound like she
was lying and she really wasn't. And no, he didn't
didn't even get back to me, just to know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
I his new trials in like September a thing, so hopefully,
but what a mess, What a mess. And but it's
I mean, thankfully you you spoke out because I can
only imagine what had been what would have been going
on like now.
Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
I was kind of sad that they closed it because
you know, there's a lot of good people, the ones
that lived, the homesteaders, the ones have been here for
you know, as long or longer than me that that
were like me, I'm just I'm not picking up. And
(01:02:11):
they knew I wasn't going to move and leave this area,
which now, respect maybe I should have because now I
can't find work. But they knew I wasn't going to.
I mean, I've had people offer me jobs and other
places that I've turned down in the central Office and
(01:02:32):
I've turned down. So no, I'm not going to go
take the same job I have at this prison that
they're having problems with up in Oregon. No. So, and
they knew I wasn't going to, so I retired. I
didn't want to retire at forty nine the Hill. So yeah,
(01:02:56):
So I am kind of sad because I did. I
did love that place, you know, I did love that job.
And I mean some of the inmates actually a lot
of the inmates I kind of grew up with, you know,
I saw them get old. I've seen their kids grow
and now they're shuffled all over the place too.
Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
So that is sad because they took something that you
loved and heard about so much, you know, doing all
these good things for the women there, and they win
day completely and that's really sad.
Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
Yeah, Pisces me on and I know all the the
other ones that I worked with feel the same. I mean,
you're not supposed to get friendly or to you know,
attached inmates and stuff which were not attached to them.
But female inmates are different, you know, you have to
(01:03:57):
you have to relate to them different. That's why we
have a whole training on female offenders and there's a
whole branch in Central Office on female offenders because they're
just different. And the problem was that these people coming
(01:04:19):
in they didn't want to learn it. A lot of
the ones that came in, you know, they they had
like they filed something with the union against somebody, so
they in order for them to drop it, they get
to pick where they want to go, and so they
(01:04:39):
want to go to Dublin because they hear, oh, female,
that's the easy job, and we get paid the highest
pay in the Bureau of Prisons. And then they come
out here and they see why. It's because it's expensive,
and they're the ones that they're the ones that screw up.
(01:05:00):
Everybody that was convicted. They came from somewhere, they were
not they were not homesteaders, so they ruin it. And
there's still a lot more. I don't know if they're
still doing investigations. But that was just the tip of
the iceberg.
Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Oh I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
I'm I have like big flashes of people, but yeah,
a lot more.
Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
I have one more question for you, and it's what
advice would you give to someone that's going into working
with in prison or you know, being a corrections officer.
What what advice would you give them?
Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Don't don't do it. Don't do it. It is it
is not it's very toxic. I would say, don't do it. No,
(01:06:08):
not anymore. Everybody, the ones that I think that did
it right have retired. Because I'm still on the Facebook
page for Bureau Prisons and all that, so I read
(01:06:33):
what the one the officers and the staff that still work.
I read their little comments and stuff, and it's like,
oh god, yeah, it's never going to change, never going
to change.
Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
I'm that sad.
Speaker 4 (01:06:47):
Mm hmm. It is it is.
Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
But you know, hopefully enough people out there like you
and actually speak up about what's going on in any
prison that they're at.
Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
I would hope so, But really it's they don't. They're like,
I just mind my business. I just you know, and
it's like, you can't, you can't. And the thing that
pisses me off is every year we have training, they
train us in red flags if you notice this, you know,
(01:07:23):
blah blah blah, and then they when we report the stuff,
they don't do anything. Why are you telling us this stuff?
Then they do it just to cover their ass.
Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Yeah, because at that point there's no point in reporting
anything because nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Any exactly, Egg exactly. I reported the chaplain. The chaplain
was it had an office right next to us, and
me and my mentor, me and my partner, we right
off the bat reported him. We said he's gonna be
(01:07:59):
a problem. We already talked to him about what he's doing.
It's not right. They're going to compromise you. You need
to knock that off. He didn't care. He's like, this
is how I do it. Okay, Well you're gonna get it.
You are gonna de walked out you and we reported
him to his boss. She didn't do anything. We reported
(01:08:22):
him to SIS over and over again. They didn't do anything.
He was on probate, you know, first year. When you're
on probation, you can get fired for whatever. They should
have got rid of him and this other guy. They
I told them, get rid of him while he's on probation.
He's gonna he's gonna be a mess if he did
(01:08:45):
that while he was on probation. Get rid of them.
They didn't, And so they just walk themselves into trouble.
But they need warm bodies, that's why they do.
Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
They need warm bodies, and they should be screening them properly,
and they're not.
Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
Yes they should, Yes, they should because and then after
the fact, Oh yeah, so and so he molested somebody
and he had problems at his lash job. You didn't
know that, And they get it and we get an
FBI background cheeck. Oh yeah, he's got a history of
(01:09:24):
domestic violence and when he was in the army, this
and that and that. Oh you didn't know that either.
It's like, what kind of background check do we do? So?
Oh yeah, there's histories of everything.
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
I know. I'm sorry. I thought we were supposed to
have a clean conduct. I should have gotten into those
bar fights in your time being good, I did waste
my time being good. Damn Tess.
Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Thank you so much for joining me today. I really
appreciate it. Oh you're welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
For everyone listening. Thank you so much. As always, I
hope you have a wonderful week, and I will see
you in the next chapter of the Book of the Dead. Bye, guys,
Another page closed. But the story isn't over for the
families left behind. The pain doesn't end when the headline's fade.
(01:10:27):
And for the victims, we owe them more than silence.
For our on solved cases. If you have any information,
please reach out to local authorities or visit our show
notes for links and resources. Someone out there knows something,
Maybe it's you. Thank you for listening to the Book
(01:10:47):
of the Dead. If this story moved or spoke to
you in some way, talk about it, share it. Keep
their names alive until next time. I'm Courtney Lee's, so
stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant, and remember the
dead may be gone, but their stories will not be forgotten.
Speaker 4 (01:11:12):
M
Every story has a beginning, but not everyone has an ending.
In the shadows of headlines and buried police reports lay
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waiting to be heard and have their stories told. This
is the Book of the Dead, a true crime podcast
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where we remember forgotten victims of heinous crimes, reopen cold cases,
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Speaker 2 (01:25):
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Speaker 1 (02:24):
Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter in the Book
of the Dead. With me today I have a very
special guest. Test Courth is a former Federal correctional officer
and nationally recognized prison reform advocate with over twenty five
years of service at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.
(02:46):
Throughout her career, she was known for her compassion, integrity,
and on wavering commitment to the rehabilitation and dignity of
incarcerated women. When whispers of abuse, both physical and sexual,
started floating through the prison, tests started reporting what was
happening now, she was retaliated against but that didn't stop
(03:07):
her voice, and she looked for outside help before resigning
due to test taking. A stand action was taken and
not only was Dublin closed, but countless offenders and the
warden have been prosecuted. One of the worst Darryl Smith,
whose trial ended with the jury being hung, although a
(03:28):
new trial date has been said, Tess, thank you so
much for joining me today.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So before we get into what happened at Dublin with
these reports of abuse and you reporting everything, I wanted
to start with, you know what led you to going
to work in the Department of Corrections. You know, was
that something you always wanted to do or did you
kind of just think this was like a good place
(03:59):
to work kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Well, originally, when I started college in high school, I
always wanted to like own a chain of luxury hotels.
That was my thing. I wanted to be in hotel management.
I started college with doing the hospitality management and stuff,
and then I kind of changed. Actually, I got kicked
(04:26):
out of the community college over in San Francisco that
was running I mean, they had a really good program
because I had kind of a bad boy boyfriend at
that time, and it was preventing me from going to
class a lot. So because he was kind of a jerk,
(04:48):
it made me change my whole trajectory. And when I
went to actual college like sax State, got into well okay.
So when I went to another community college, I thought, oh,
this criminal justice stuff looks okay. And so I actually
(05:11):
got my AA in administration of justice and I decided
I don't want to go do that in management. And
I think it was because I had this bad boy boyfriend,
and you know, I was so young and naive and
really dumb. You know, I was into that, Oh I'm
(05:32):
going to change the kind of thing which never works.
Never girls, never, it doesn't work. So I wanted to
get into like FBI or something like that, which I'm
so glad I didn't. The quickest way to get hired
into the government was the Bureau of Prisons. I mean
(05:54):
they as long as you were warm body, you weren't dead,
they would hire you. So that to me, the Bureau
Prisons was just going to be a stepping stone, my
foot in the door, Go get my job, and then
transfer to another agency. But then when I started, I thought,
(06:16):
oh my gosh, when you get in there, you realize
it's a city in there. It's like a little city.
They have health department in their education and case management
unit team, which that's where I wanted to go. It's
just a whole it's its own city, a facilities department,
(06:37):
a food service, all that, and I thought, ah, you know,
I could do okay in here. So I was there.
I did end up quitting for a little bit for
ten months. I went to probation because I loved probation,
but it was over a county probation and they were
having like union dispute. So I went back because still
(07:00):
I was a warm body. So they took me back
at the Bureau of Prisons and I told them I
specific I want to be a case manager. That's what
I'm coming back for. So they took me back as
a secretary unit secretary, and I learned what I had
(07:22):
to do. I learned all the case management stuff while
I was a secretary, and because I was in the
unit learning all of it and worked my whip from
secretary to warden's secretary, to case management to re entry
coordinator to unit manager and also a lot of collateral
(07:44):
jobs like disciplinary sharing officer, planning section team leader, a
lot of filateral duties you can do in there, so
always learning stuff. So it was good run until the
last couple of years. You know, they make it sound
like if you read interviews or you listen to the
(08:07):
directors of prison or the unions, they always say, oh,
we're so short staffed. You know, they take nurses and
they take case managers and that the most needed people
and they have to be officers. Blah blah blah. We
all are officers. We all go say through the same training.
(08:29):
We all get paid for law enforcement because every single
one of us is a frictional officer first and then
we have our jobs. So you know, it just makes
it sound more dramatic when they're asking for money and
(08:50):
that the union's trying to make things sound worse than
they are kind of thing. Or the director just wants
my money money kind of stuff, instead of like trying
to be format how they're set up and how everything
is managed. You know, they just want more money and
then continue to waste the way that they do.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's fascinating. I think a lot of people like don't
realize that that, you know, the people that work in
a prison, like they are correctional officers.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Now in the state prisons, it's different. Like I worked
for a very short time in the state prisons, California's
state prison, and they are separate, so they have the
correctional officers and then everybody else that works in there
are either civilian or contractors, so like they are not
(09:45):
law enforcement. If something happens, they don't go running to
help like we would, so they're separate. They're totally different
than what the bureau prisons are.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know, everyone gets the same training. What is the
training involved, like what is what is that like? Is
it like really rigorous or is it no?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
We go well some some did. During COVID there was
really no no hardcore training or anything for those officers
because they couldn't travel. They put a freeze on traveling.
But at the time when I went through, we went
(10:30):
to they call it FLETSE, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
It's in Georgia, and we went for about two and
a half week. And the physical requirement is different now
than it was then. They've actually lowered the requirements now
(10:51):
then back then, and they changed the standards. They've made
it easier now, but you you do a lot of
training for shooting because when you go out on medical escorts,
you need to be armed. If you work in the OSP,
(11:11):
which is outside patrol, your truck is armed, your arms,
you have on a side arm which is semi automatic firearm,
you have an M sixteen, and you have a shotgun
in the truck with you. And then at the higher
(11:33):
security prisons they have towers, so they have the M
sixteen's in there, so we need to be able to
shoot all those and qualify for them. So a lot
of people like me, I had never a shot before,
so you have to learn from the basics, and we
(11:53):
had to shoot a completely different range than they do now.
Now they stand really close and it's really easy, but
back then we had to stand like, I don't know,
fifty yards way or you know, far back and qualify.
So that's part of it. You have to learn, like
(12:16):
all the policies you have. What else we oh god,
we had, I think we were doing jiu jitsu at
that time. We have to do some self defense thing
and that was like it was fun. But now they
just they train them like in realistic stuff like how
(12:38):
to get away from from somebody charging you, how to
get out of like if someone's choking you, how to
get out of that. More practical things than you know,
putting it kobiyashi or whatever. This is something that we're
not going to remember. And then there's the physical agility.
(12:59):
I don't know what they do now. We had a
dummy drag. We had to drag this heavy dummy like
all the way around and around and around and physical
things like that running the track. And then the funniest
part was which a lot of people didn't like, but
I loved it. We were in the classroom and they
(13:22):
had a fake They had a mock scenario they call
it that some guys came in, you know, with their
guns and all that, and they you know, it was serious,
and took us hostage. And I mean they were yelling
at us and took people out, pretending like they raped
(13:43):
them and stuff and shot and killed them. And I
mean when they do scenarios, they do scenarios, they hire
actors and all that stuff because they want to see
how you react. And it is interesting. So a lot
of people didn't like it. They it spooped them. So
(14:06):
it's interesting. They have little jails set up, so they
have a lot of scenarios you have to do.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's so interesting. I could see some people getting really
spooked by that though. That sounds like it's incredibly intense.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Yeah, oh yeah. They cush you out, they swear, they
call you know, they'll call you racial names, they'll do whatever.
I mean, just like an inmate would take you hostage.
They won't care.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
So you you said that, you know, they just kind
of as long as the body's warned, they'll they'll hire you. Literally,
were they doing psychiatric evaluations.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
So they should. But nope.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's interesting because when you go out to like you know,
you go into like the police force, and you know
they do the psycho bowls, but this which is I mean,
you're coming into someplace where there's that power and balance
and you're in control of all of these people with
(15:09):
you know, some of them that are very volatile depending
on you know, where you are in the prison or
whatever prison you're in. There's no psychic house. No.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
They started doing some kind of little computer thing, but
it wasn't a psyche vl. I mean when I went
to work at probation, there was a psyche val and
then they have you talk to somebody before they hire you,
and all this stuff based on your evaluation, and because
(15:41):
we were armed, we were deputy probation officers. No, they
need to. And that's why we had so many problems.
We had some crazy people working there, crazy crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
That's mind boggling to me, Like that's mind boggling.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Scary people. We had some scary people there.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's terrifying. And we're going to go into this that
what was a typical day like for you working at
the prison before things started going really bad? You know what?
What did your day to day kind of look like?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
My day to day? You never know? It was always
something different because sometimes I would get there before I
needed to be because once the day started going, the
inmates days started, and our days started at six am.
Once six am hit, it was non stop, non it
(16:42):
was like boom boom, boom, boom, boom boom, inmates at
my door, people calling me, just non stop. So I
would get it to my office, which was in the
housing units, so I lit. My office was inside where
the inmates lived, so I loved getting there and getting
(17:04):
there when they were still sleeping. So I would get
there like maybe four thirty ish five o'clock where it
was still nice and quiet, and start doing like work
because there was always tons of work. I'd have to
run rosters see what was due. The regional office always
(17:30):
wanted dumb stuff. God, you know. The sad thing is
that the management, whether it was the regional or central
or our wardens, the aw's their secretaries. We had an
aw secretary, a warden secretary, a captain's secretary. See, they
(17:54):
can do away with those. You got three officers. They
all wanted the same stuff, you know, and nobody knew
it was already done. I read, you know, so and
so told me to send it to that email box.
It's done. Oh okay, And then I get a request
(18:15):
for the same exact thing from so and somebody else
and it's like, it's done, it's in that mailbox. Well,
who told you to send it to that that person, Well,
we can't get access to that box, so can you
send it to I mean, it was like the same
stuff over. We wasted so much time doing that that
(18:38):
kind of thing, and we're doing the same paperwork fifty
times because somebody didn't like that comma there, and so
we would have to redo and reroute something because it
was all a power trip because that secretary didn't like
(18:58):
that comma, so they kick it back. We'd route it
it get past that secretary and then that aw didn't
want that comma there, so then it gets kicked back again.
And it's like, why don't you realize, why don't you
look at the mission? You are defeating the mission of
(19:21):
the Bureau of Prisons. Plus you're wasting a lot of
paper and time. I mean, everyone just had a power trip. God, yeah,
look at it. My heart is like boo boom boom,
boom boom, just getting so irritated. So that's I would
get there early so I can get stuff done because
(19:42):
they would want everything walked through because now all the
things that we did early but way before deadline is late,
so we'd have to walk stuff through. So that was
my typical day. It was different all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
So I know, you were really pivotal in reform and
rehabilitation and you created a program. What was that like?
And you know, how did the inmates respond to you?
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Inmates love female females love programs. They love programs. I
I'm not going to say to jamates loved me, but
they loved the programs. I had no problems coming up
with programs. The wardens had no problems approving my programs.
(20:38):
They loved my programs. I would just pick up the
phone or email different agencies and say, hey, how do
you feel about coming out here? I want to do this.
I think the inmates need that. We don't have any
programs to do that. And they would be like, yeah,
that sounds cool. What do you you know, what do
(21:00):
we need to do and we'd come up with the program.
And then when this awful aw came she wasn't even
there a year. She the Second Chance Act thing came along,
and oh god, what is the other thing? I don't know.
(21:21):
It was just alful. It's just she decided to interpret
that they were like programs like for health, like pre
release health education, you know, all the same categories that
we've been dealing with forever. And they had evidence based programming.
(21:45):
And so they decided they would pick which that bop
was gonna tell us what programs we can do, and okay,
well whatever, and then they said, oh, and by the way,
you can't do any other programs except for these, Well
(22:06):
those programs were stupid. You know, I have evidence based
programming because I know some of my inmates because they
would call and tell me how they were doing because
they were allowed to because I was re entry. They're
doing great, so to me, that's evidence based. But they
(22:28):
then they decided because I had we used volunteers. We
had like over two hundred volunteers, so we had volunteers
that would teach the classes. And these were like professional people,
so they knew what they were talking about and they
would follow the outline and you know, they and they
(22:49):
sleved them. They would come at night, they would come
during the day. Then this aw interpreted it, Oh, only
staff can do these classes. Well there you go that
she ain't going to be done then, and only these
staff members can do it, like counselors, certain staff department
(23:13):
individuals can do it. Well, we have lazy staff and
some people are not very educated, and now they're going
to do evidence based programming with the inmates. It's not
going to happen. And these inmates are supposed to take
these programs because it gets them extra time off. So
(23:38):
when she said that, no programs got done, none and
they all were on waiting lists. So then all of
a sudden, as long as they're on a waiting list,
they're earning credits to get their time off. Who cares
if they're learning anything. They just they'll get days off
(23:59):
as soon as they're on the waiting list. So why
did we have to stop actually teaching them things and
have them actively programming? You know, when they were actually
learning stuff, I was doing a pre released three day
program having an ex offender come in and do it
(24:21):
with probation and just it was like really interactive and
they loved it and it wasn't optional. They all had
to do it. And now they're sitting and doing nothing,
but they're getting time off and they're not prepared. You know,
they didn't have any pre release stuff done. They didn't
(24:42):
have any just nothing. But we're sending them out early,
so nothing they do makes sense. That's fascinating to take away,
like because that's in essence is what you're doing. Like
even though like the like you're taking it away, you're
taking away something that's benefiting them. Oh yeah, we did
(25:06):
a program and that they are geared specifically for females.
We did a program called Foundations. We're always the first
because I was like, we're doing it and it was
a long program and we were the only one that
did it in the BOP and one of my aw's
(25:30):
the good one that retired. She would have her AW
friends from other prisons call me and I would explain
how to do it. And Central Office sent somebody out
to watch us do it because they used this as
a best practice. And even the company, the Change Change
(25:54):
or change company or something, the one that put the
program together, they came out and filmed our program to
use on their DBD for how to run the program.
We couldn't do that. It was like, you're stupid. We
(26:18):
had a summer camp inside the prison for the kids.
I partnered with the Catholic charities and one of the
colleges in southern California, and they used art therapy, so
there were art therapists in there the whole week. And
Holy Names College, which now they closed it. But one
(26:41):
of the nuns who was very young, I'm like, I
can't believe you're a nun, but she was like full
of energy and everything. They stayed up at Holy Name's
College and after they would leave, they would go like
swimming or to the movies, and then at night they'd
have like campfires and songs and things.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Couldn't do that anymore or children. I got with it,
get on the bus, and they would go and pick
up kids, like in the buses anywhere. I mean, not
like cross country or anything, but as far as Arizona, Utah,
(27:28):
like the western states, and they would help them. I mean,
if they needed ID, they'd help them get ID. If
they needed a bus ticket to get out to the
spots where the buses were leaving from, they'd pay for that.
They'd get it. They would help get things notarized for them.
(27:49):
If power of attorney had to get done. I mean,
they'd like bent over backwards. They told us we couldn't
do that because it was free. All this stuff was free,
and the person that was the department head in the
central office, she loved it. She loved it, so she said, yes,
(28:14):
do it all, do it all. And then the ethics
department said we couldn't do it after we had done
it for three years. And I'm like, why, it's already
been approved, we've been doing it, and they said, well,
it's free, and we don't know who's backing it. And
I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh my god, I already know the answer, but I'm
going to ask anyway. Obviously, it wasn't just female corrections. Officers.
You know, there were male officers were some of the
issues that came of it prior to the major incidents
that were going on.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Since I was there. Since for the last twenty five years.
When I worked there, you know, every so often we'd
have what we call staff walked out, the male staff
walked out, and that means they were doing stuff they
shouldn't have been doing, and they would they would clear
(29:24):
the yard. Everybody knew. They all knew all somebody came
in with the suit on and they just cleared the yard,
and everybody would go to the windows to watch who
was getting walked out, and they would walk somebody out.
They were allowed to resign, and sometimes they'd get prosecuted.
(29:46):
Sometimes they wouldn't. And that's just how it happened. It
was every once in a while, and I learned right
from the get go when I was still a rookie
off sir, you gotta report everything. This is what they
pounded in our head from the get go. Pounded it
(30:08):
in our head that if you hear something, if you
think something, whatever, you send a little note to SIS,
which is our internal investigation step. So you send us
a note of what you heard or what you observed
or whatever, and they teach us. Every year we have
(30:31):
annual refresher training where we're re taught the same step
over and over again, the red flags, you know, every
year for we have training for a week. So I
was taking that. When I was an officer, I was
taking two inmates out to medical and one was Heidi
(30:55):
Flice and she was she was the Hollywood matter and
she was her and the other one we're talking and
they were talking about an officer that put his hands
down someone's pants and stuff like that, and so I
was listening to him talk and I didn't I you know,
(31:18):
I didn't even think anything about it. And I came
back to work and the next day I got called
to the sis lieutenant who is now my friend, and
she and I was like all nervous, and she called
me in and she said, do you understand that you
can be prosecuted. I'm all what, I didn't do anything.
(31:42):
I'm like scared, gitless, And she's all, were you at
the rear gate yesterday? And I'm like, yeah, did you
take you know, so and so out? And I'm all, yes,
I understand you heard something that they were talking about.
I'm all, oh, yeah, that some you know, so and
(32:03):
so put his hands down someone's pants and she's all, yeah,
why didn't you report it? Well, well, I didn't see
it or anything. And she's all, you need to report
anything you hear or see or anything, or you can
be prosecuted. I'm all, oh shit, So I like send
(32:30):
anything and everything to SIS. So we're told that that
failure to report, we can be prosecuted for that. Well,
they need to start doing that because there was a
period I think it was when Trump was president last
(32:50):
time we had a hiring freeze. We couldn't hire anybody
except for military and veterans. We can hire them, and
we could hire active military also because you know, they
come and go, you know, they'll be on active duty
doing stuff, you know, deployed, and then they come home.
(33:14):
So we had you know, active duty and then they
work for a while, they say, they come and they
take a break, and then they go back out on
active duty. We would get them and we didn't bother
you know, asking them if they need assistance with anything.
Because we had one guy, nice guy, very nice guy.
(33:37):
But we had a shooting range right next to us
at the Sheriff's office, and sometimes he would like freak
out and step and and you know she I think
she was one of the guys too that there's an
article about him. So we get we got a whole
(34:03):
different kind of officer than we had before, and there's
big camaraderie with that, and you know they're not gonna
tell on people and they have their backs and all
that kind of stuff. And then we had a lot
of those transfer over to Dublin from penitentiaries, male prisons,
(34:30):
and they didn't care inmates or inmates. They didn't care
to learn how to deal with female inmates or anything.
So for the last I don't know, you know, like
maybe the last seven years that I was there, it
(34:53):
was more like the inmates were being treated like it
was a prison camp or like they were prisoners of
war kind of thing right out in the open. You know,
these bitches this, and and you know that they would
come up ask for something that they had coming to
(35:14):
them and they would the officers would respond like so disrespectful.
And you know it wasn't just the officers, because everyone
was an officer at one time, and they moved their
way up so it could be a manager or whatever,
(35:35):
and they would do it right out in the open,
in front of the aw in front of the captain.
Captain thought it was funny. In front of the warden.
Of course, you know what happened to the warden and us,
the people that had been there for years, they call
them the homesteaders, were like, what is going on? What
(36:00):
is going on? I mean I would go talk to
the captain. I'm like, you need to put your officers
in check. I said, this one right here is doing this,
and that one right there is going into rooms tearing
them up because they're not flirting back with them. And
then his friend's writing these inmates up. And his little girlfriend,
who is an officer, goes in and starts telling those
(36:23):
inmates that her boyfriend likes bitch, you better stay away
from my man. I'm all, get your officers in check.
And he would just laugh about it. It's like, what
is going on here? And I went into the special
housing unit one time. I went down the hall because
(36:45):
I would go talk to the inmates. And I went down.
He opened up the gates, say one, and I'm a
holy shit, it's hot. It was so hot. And the
officer said, this court, don't say anything. I'm all, what
are you talking about it. It's so hot. You need
(37:05):
to get someone in here to fix this. So I
went down and the inmates, you know, they all had
their tops off, their little sports prop things on. I'm like,
it is hot. I'm going to find out what's going on.
So I went out again and he's all, there's nothing
wrong with the with the air, and he said they've
(37:27):
been acting up, so piss on them, and he had
turned the heater away up. I said, oh no, no, no, no, no,
put the air on. And I went and told the
captain and he just he said, well, they shouldn't be
acting up.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
No, And so I told the adew I'm like, hell
is going on here? Do you want somebody to fall
out and die in there on your watch? I said,
I'm not, uh uh uh. I just signed the books
that I walked through there, and this sh ain't gonna
happen with me walking through. I'm like, oh hell, So
(38:04):
just stuff like that was crazy, and they thought it
was funny and it was. It was just crazy there,
just crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
That's a vile that's vile.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Obviously things go really bad and there's sexual abuse going on,
the physical abuse going on. You know, was there a
catalyst for this, you know, were there any signs that
this was happening or did it all come to ahead? Yes?
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Oh yeah. Well the one that just got the mistrial,
he worked for me for a little bit. I got
a temporary promotion at the end of twenty fifteen. I
think it was either the end of twenty fifteen or
beginning of twenty sixteen. I wrote a memo too then
(39:01):
the acting or the associate warden and the warden and
I gave it to the prosecution and he didn't use it.
It's a very long memo because we I was working
on a weekend and he was there. He's very scary.
He would go out of his way to do things
(39:24):
to me, like very passive aggressive, and so he didn't know.
I was working on a Saturday morning and we were
getting ready for the regional director to come in. So
you know, everybody's shining. I always say they're trying to
shine a turd. So the warden was there, that aw's
(39:46):
were there, everybody was there. Well, he didn't do what
I asked him to do the day before, and so
he was in my office and I wish I had
called the awn. I wish I did, because I could
have swore I smelled alcohol on him, and at that
time he was kind of new. I didn't know that
he had a history of drinking and stuff. So I
(40:09):
have a very sensitive note. So I thought, maybe it's
maybe there's hooch, because I always found hoos in the unit,
which is you know, alcohol. So he got mad at
me about something I don't even remember, and he threw
he crunched up some paper and threw it at me,
and I said, that's that's it. And so I wrote
(40:31):
a memo. I said, I don't feel safe with him
in the unit. When he gets mad at me, he
takes it out on the inmates. He gets on the intercom,
he starts yelling at him. He goes in their rooms,
he tears up their rooms. He's racist, he has made
racial comments. Two inmates that I had to move from
(40:53):
his side right next to my room so I can
watch him. She you know, I said that he has
moved the young cute Hispanic girls over in front of
his office and tells them to keep their doors open
so he can watch him. I had NonStop have inmates
(41:14):
coming to my office crying because they say that he
walks by and looks in the windows while they're going
to the bathroom or undressing. I hear him yelling at
them on the intercom something else. I said, I do
not feel safe. I don't think the inmates are safe
(41:36):
with him in the unit. He acts as if he
has no respect and doesn't like women, and I don't
think that he should be in this unit or any unit.
I gave that to the prosecution and they never even
used it. That was like ten years ago, so yeah,
(41:57):
there were red flags as red as you can get.
He was horrible, horrible, and I told the prosecution, I said,
get with the Camp Parks police. Because we are on
a military base, an army base, and he lived on
(42:19):
base and his wife worked with us. The police would
always get called up to his house, which again that's
not supposed to happen with us, you know, that's a
violation of our employment. The police were called up there
for some kind of domestic thing, and he ran from them,
(42:40):
and he ran into the prison camp where there's inmates
and just hid out in there. Again, he still worked
for us, but he remembered. The prosecution didn't bother doing
any of that. They could have got all that stuff
(43:02):
for the trial.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Of course they could have. Of course they could have.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Yeah, I mean all this stuff was stuff that they
could have presented instead of not objecting to irrelevant questions
asked by the defense.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
So when you started reporting everything after everything got worse,
and you know, these women are being raped and they're
being you know, abused, what did what did the warden do?
What did the union do? Like, what did anyone do?
Speaker 4 (43:34):
But what did they say?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Like, what was the reaction? You come stuff with this information?
Speaker 4 (43:38):
And they did nothing? They did nothing? Well, Okay, So
we had another warden at the time when I had
him Smith working for me, and I would, like I said,
the wardens like me, and I was never in the military,
so I didn't give a shit about that rank thing.
(43:59):
I would just walk right into the warden's office and
go to chat with them. And at that time he
had me so stressed out, so stressed out, and something
happened after the fact between we had an HR manager
(44:23):
that actually quit the Bureau of Prisons because of an
incident with him, and she had to get a restraining
order from him between him and her daughter. I don't
know what was going on with him, but yeah, and
(44:43):
I totally remember that and the article that the union
president lied on the stand about. He brought that up
about HR manager letting his daughter letting her daughter read
personnel files or something, which wasn't probably not true because
(45:05):
this HR manager was like by the book and they
probably didn't like that. So she actually left the bureau
and then a couple of years later she went to
a different prison. But that's how scary he is. So
(45:25):
I would go and I would tell this other warden
he's retired now. God, this guy was crazy crazy. He
call us racist and this warden with nuts, although he
did like me, so I was, you know, I tried
to keep him calm, but I would tell him about
(45:47):
this guy. And this warden was like a total male chauvinist.
She was not from the United States. He was just
he he's just so astonished when he walked into Dublin
and saw women working, like writing the lawnmower. We had
(46:11):
writing lawnmowers. She had never seen that before. He was
just so astonished that women can do that. And he'd
said that in front of a central office person and
we all looked at each other and we're like and
the central office lady said yeah, we've been working for
a long time, and so he's like that kind of person.
(46:34):
So I told him about him, and he said, overly,
I've always thought he good guy. He comes in every morning,
we drink coffee, we chit chat. And I said, oh, no,
he's not. She's awful. And I told him some stiff
and he's like, we're gonna get well, we're gonna get
(46:57):
down to the bottom of this. And so the warden
hated my boss via w because she was a woman.
So if he said something, she would tell me to
do it the right way, and then he would call
me and say, oh, you do that, and I would say,
(47:18):
the aw don't do that, and it was like, you know,
parents pitying each other. It was the most stressful time.
So he would want to handle it. You know, we're
gonna get down to the bottom. And then the next
day I would have to do the same thing because
the smith would have gone during the day to the
(47:40):
warden with his coffee and sit down and chit chat
and talk about how bad I was, and it was
just awful. So nothing, nothing would get done. But this
this same warden he used to go after after the
(48:05):
four o'clock count He would go watch this particular female
and mate teach jazz, the jazzer size, the aerobics class.
He would just sit there and watch.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
So, you know, birds of a feather, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
You can't write this stuff like I mean.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Now, it it's quite literally stranger than fiction.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
It is, it is. But you know, the stuff still
goes on because I have the other I have people
from other female institutions send me messages in Facebook asking
me through Messenger that I don't even know that asked
(48:54):
me what should they do? Oh, it's still it still happens.
They don't learn their life. I always have said, you know,
throughout the twenty five years the BOP, they just make
lawsuits for themselves. You know, they just they just can't
(49:15):
help themselves. You know, they just do stuff that they
can prevent and they don't. They don't. They'll just say
whatever with everything. You know, they're stupid. And I loved,
you know, I was like all gung ho. I was
(49:40):
in management. I was I loved that job. I loved
that job up until I really saw what was happening
and it really sucked, really sucked.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
That's terrible that they just they they took something that
you loved to do, and they just they was ended
up warped and twisted and terrible and then they retaliate
against you.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Yeah, and the bad thing what really sucked was, you know,
I took them to I guess court because I had
to go to the MLSB, which is a merit Labor
Systems board or something. And the way they dicked me around.
(50:34):
I warned the people that I used to work with,
because you know, everybody was like, oh they you know,
nobody wanted to talk or you know anything. They just
you know, lay down and do nothing. And I said,
you know what if they did it to me, because
they always acted like I was a little their little
(50:55):
star and stuff. I said, they're going to be doing
this shit to you guys, And sure, shit they did.
And I get email our little messages you know, what
did you do? And I thought, it's like, don't ask
me for help. I haven't found a job yet and
it's been almost three years, so don't be asking me
for shit. At least they're offering you guys jobs. They
(51:21):
blacklisted me or something, but they treated me so bad.
They acted like I was a terrible employee. They in
court I had on the witness list so I can
cross examine them, the regional director who lied, the deputy
(51:45):
regional director who lied, my aw who lied and falsified
a document, and it was like it didn't it still
didn't matter. Nothing happen to them. I proved that they lied.
I had the original document I brought up, which you know,
(52:08):
I knew was not going to be relevant, but I
just wanted to get get it in on them that
they had criminal records. You know, right before this is
how the bop is, how you screw up to move
up the aw right before she came to Dublin, how
to duy. So I showed the mugshot and I said
(52:32):
when she when she first came out, and I said,
have you been drinking this morning? She said, oh no.
I said, is it true that you got a DUI
and miss year and then right before you came to Dublin.
And they're all, that's irrelevant. I said, no, it's not,
(52:54):
because it would explain your erratic behavior at the institution.
So I did prove that she retaliated against me, So
that was proven, and I proved a lot of the stuff,
but I was trying to prove constructive termination, and they
said no. But the other guy, the regional deputy director,
(53:22):
he came in like a bad out of hell and
acted like I was, you know, not qualified for the job,
all this crap, and she right before he got promoted,
he pled guilty to a misdemeanor for speeding. He was
(53:42):
like doing a hundred and something, and so I brought
that up and they're all irrelevant, but he was one
of the original cowboys. They would they handcuffed African American
prisoners and beat them up and call them racial names
(54:03):
and stuff. That was one of our leaders. And then
the regional director said, she never met me before. It's
like are you serious? At you many times? So I'm thinking,
if this is how they treat me, imagine how they
do the inmates. Imagine how they lie about stuff. So
(54:28):
the inmates are like doomed.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
So you we talked about this a little bit before
we started recording, but you were at the trials for
these men. You know, what is that like, especially considering
what happened with Daryl Smith's trial and you know, it
ending in the jury being hung. You know what what
was that like?
Speaker 4 (54:47):
I think that the prosecution doesn't really want to work
that hard to convict them. These guys are you know
with the warden I sat through that she could have
been convicted and sentenced a lot harder. Oh. Part I
didn't get to tell you about. For the warden's trial
(55:08):
was the FBI agent that was there. I don't know
if she was just either lazy or incompetent. She when
they went into his house, you know, he had naked
pictures on his government phone, so I can't remember if
(55:30):
it was on his phone or his computer at home.
But you know how you can make your own little
locked file or whatever on your computer. Well, he had
a locked file and they couldn't get into it, and
it's the FBI, so they don't know what was in it.
(55:51):
And the judge said, but I love this judge. She's
very tough. The judge said, wait a minute, didn't you
don't you have an IT guy? And she said, well
it was that night we didn't want to call him.
And she said, you are the FBI, and you guys
(56:13):
didn't open this private folder. You don't know what was
in this private folder. And she says no. And then
because you know the SIS guy, the SIS lieutenant and
the warden are good friends. So that's why nothing happened.
(56:34):
So the FBI asked the sis lieutenant for video of
the warden and this one inmate, and the judge said,
did you get it? And she says, well, no, because
he went on vacation and the judge said, well he
(57:00):
returned from vacation. She said, well, he was on leave
or extended leave.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
And the.
Speaker 4 (57:11):
Judge said, why didn't you subpoena and she said, well,
usually he just gives it to me, and I judge
is all, you didn't subpoena something that the warden has
access to because the only people that have access to
(57:32):
video is a warden and the sis lieutenant who is
his friend and so because they worked together for years
and they always are like buddy Betty, and she's all no.
So he she said when did he come back? And
she saw, oh, he was out for a few months.
(57:52):
So she said when he got back, did you get
the video? And she says, and I'm thinking in my
head no, because it tapes a like every few days,
and so she's all known. And the judge asked, or
why not, Well, because it's tapes over each other, like
every recycled every week, and she said, and the judge
(58:16):
just says wow. So in the trial for Smith, I
just had to leave in this one part because again
the prosecution just was allowing the defense to ask questions
of a sexual abuse victim that you can't ask. I mean,
(58:43):
you're not supposed to be asking these irrelevant questions, and
they just don't object. And that happened in the warden also. Finally,
an abuse victim said is that relevant? Are you allowed
to ask me that? And the judge had to butt
in and say, do you want to object? And they objected,
(59:05):
and she said on what grounds? And he said the
grounds and she said, no, that's not right, and he
switched to another thing. And it's just like they it's
like they want to convict, but not so bad because
they're all Department of Justice. It's like a big family
(59:28):
kind of thing. And on Smith, I think they don't
really want to convict because that will open them up
again for a multimillion dollar lawsuit, just like it did
with the warden. And also the warden, the judge said
(59:49):
the pre sentence report they did there were additional victims
that were interviewed that were far worse than the ones
that actually we were named in the prime that he
was convicted for and she was surprised that she didn't
(01:00:10):
see indictments for those ones. And she said, I'll give
you time. If you want to do some super superseding indictments,
I'll give you time to do them. And they said, no,
you weigh those. And I was sitting in the in
the you know, I was sitting in the courtroom with
(01:00:32):
the reporters and with like the advocates and with the
inmates attorneys and stuff, and we're like, what the hell.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
I'm saying, what the hell?
Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
And you know, I gave him evidence, he didn't use it.
I told him I would get up there as a
rebuttal witness and explain that, you know, things that they were.
That defense was like questioning and making that inmate sound
(01:01:07):
like she was lying and she really wasn't, because you know,
during that time it was COVID and all that, so
to the jurors it probably made it sound like she
was lying and she really wasn't. And no, he didn't
didn't even get back to me, just to know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
I his new trials in like September a thing, so hopefully,
but what a mess, What a mess. And but it's
I mean, thankfully you you spoke out because I can
only imagine what had been what would have been going
on like now.
Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
I was kind of sad that they closed it because
you know, there's a lot of good people, the ones
that lived, the homesteaders, the ones have been here for
you know, as long or longer than me that that
were like me, I'm just I'm not picking up. And
(01:02:11):
they knew I wasn't going to move and leave this area,
which now, respect maybe I should have because now I
can't find work. But they knew I wasn't going to.
I mean, I've had people offer me jobs and other
places that I've turned down in the central Office and
(01:02:32):
I've turned down. So no, I'm not going to go
take the same job I have at this prison that
they're having problems with up in Oregon. No. So, and
they knew I wasn't going to, so I retired. I
didn't want to retire at forty nine the Hill. So yeah,
(01:02:56):
So I am kind of sad because I did. I
did love that place, you know, I did love that job.
And I mean some of the inmates actually a lot
of the inmates I kind of grew up with, you know,
I saw them get old. I've seen their kids grow
and now they're shuffled all over the place too.
Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
So that is sad because they took something that you
loved and heard about so much, you know, doing all
these good things for the women there, and they win
day completely and that's really sad.
Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
Yeah, Pisces me on and I know all the the
other ones that I worked with feel the same. I mean,
you're not supposed to get friendly or to you know,
attached inmates and stuff which were not attached to them.
But female inmates are different, you know, you have to
(01:03:57):
you have to relate to them different. That's why we
have a whole training on female offenders and there's a
whole branch in Central Office on female offenders because they're
just different. And the problem was that these people coming
(01:04:19):
in they didn't want to learn it. A lot of
the ones that came in, you know, they they had
like they filed something with the union against somebody, so
they in order for them to drop it, they get
to pick where they want to go, and so they
(01:04:39):
want to go to Dublin because they hear, oh, female,
that's the easy job, and we get paid the highest
pay in the Bureau of Prisons. And then they come
out here and they see why. It's because it's expensive,
and they're the ones that they're the ones that screw up.
(01:05:00):
Everybody that was convicted. They came from somewhere, they were
not they were not homesteaders, so they ruin it. And
there's still a lot more. I don't know if they're
still doing investigations. But that was just the tip of
the iceberg.
Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Oh I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
I'm I have like big flashes of people, but yeah,
a lot more.
Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
I have one more question for you, and it's what
advice would you give to someone that's going into working
with in prison or you know, being a corrections officer.
What what advice would you give them?
Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Don't don't do it. Don't do it. It is it
is not it's very toxic. I would say, don't do it. No,
(01:06:08):
not anymore. Everybody, the ones that I think that did
it right have retired. Because I'm still on the Facebook
page for Bureau Prisons and all that, so I read
(01:06:33):
what the one the officers and the staff that still work.
I read their little comments and stuff, and it's like,
oh god, yeah, it's never going to change, never going
to change.
Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
I'm that sad.
Speaker 4 (01:06:47):
Mm hmm. It is it is.
Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
But you know, hopefully enough people out there like you
and actually speak up about what's going on in any
prison that they're at.
Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
I would hope so, But really it's they don't. They're like,
I just mind my business. I just you know, and
it's like, you can't, you can't. And the thing that
pisses me off is every year we have training, they
train us in red flags if you notice this, you know,
(01:07:23):
blah blah blah, and then they when we report the stuff,
they don't do anything. Why are you telling us this stuff?
Then they do it just to cover their ass.
Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Yeah, because at that point there's no point in reporting
anything because nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Any exactly, Egg exactly. I reported the chaplain. The chaplain
was it had an office right next to us, and
me and my mentor, me and my partner, we right
off the bat reported him. We said he's gonna be
(01:07:59):
a problem. We already talked to him about what he's doing.
It's not right. They're going to compromise you. You need
to knock that off. He didn't care. He's like, this
is how I do it. Okay, Well you're gonna get it.
You are gonna de walked out you and we reported
him to his boss. She didn't do anything. We reported
(01:08:22):
him to SIS over and over again. They didn't do anything.
He was on probate, you know, first year. When you're
on probation, you can get fired for whatever. They should
have got rid of him and this other guy. They
I told them, get rid of him while he's on probation.
He's gonna he's gonna be a mess if he did
(01:08:45):
that while he was on probation. Get rid of them.
They didn't, And so they just walk themselves into trouble.
But they need warm bodies, that's why they do.
Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
They need warm bodies, and they should be screening them properly,
and they're not.
Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
Yes they should, Yes, they should because and then after
the fact, Oh yeah, so and so he molested somebody
and he had problems at his lash job. You didn't
know that, And they get it and we get an
FBI background cheeck. Oh yeah, he's got a history of
(01:09:24):
domestic violence and when he was in the army, this
and that and that. Oh you didn't know that either.
It's like, what kind of background check do we do? So?
Oh yeah, there's histories of everything.
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
I know. I'm sorry. I thought we were supposed to
have a clean conduct. I should have gotten into those
bar fights in your time being good, I did waste
my time being good. Damn Tess.
Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Thank you so much for joining me today. I really
appreciate it. Oh you're welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
For everyone listening. Thank you so much. As always, I
hope you have a wonderful week, and I will see
you in the next chapter of the Book of the Dead. Bye, guys,
Another page closed. But the story isn't over for the
families left behind. The pain doesn't end when the headline's fade.
(01:10:27):
And for the victims, we owe them more than silence.
For our on solved cases. If you have any information,
please reach out to local authorities or visit our show
notes for links and resources. Someone out there knows something,
Maybe it's you. Thank you for listening to the Book
(01:10:47):
of the Dead. If this story moved or spoke to
you in some way, talk about it, share it. Keep
their names alive until next time. I'm Courtney Lee's, so
stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant, and remember the
dead may be gone, but their stories will not be forgotten.
Speaker 4 (01:11:12):
M
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