Rape Club Federal Prison Guard Now Faces 15 Counts Plus Civil Lawsuits

While serving as a correctional officer at the Dublin Federal Correctional Institute, Darrell Wayne “Dirty Dick” Smith, 55, allegedly committed 15 acts of sexual abuse involving five female inmates over several years, “including brazen and violent acts,” Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said in the press release.

An arraignment on the new charges had not been scheduled as of the writing of this article, but prosecutors said Smith’s jury trial on the previous counts is set for March 17, 2025, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

Conviction of aggravated sexual abuse and deprivation of civil rights each carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. The maximum penalty is 15 years in prison for each count of sexual abuse of a ward and a two-year sentence for each count of abusive sexual contact.

The court would also order a term of supervised release and could impose a fine of up to $250,000 on each count, require restitution, and order additional assessments after consulting the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other relevant factors.

Harsh Words

Federal authorities did not mince their words when describing Smith’s alleged offenses in their official statements.

The superseding indictment alleges Smith “engaged in appalling criminal acts when he sexually abused those in his care and custody,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. Smith’s indictment “is the latest product of the (DOJ’s) ongoing work to seek justice for victims of sexual assault at FCI Dublin,” said the press release.

“Federal prison guards must treat prisoners humanely,” U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey said. “Victimizing inmates sexually and denying them basic civil rights must end.”

Smith’s alleged offenses “are some of the most disturbing charges we’ve seen for a former federal corrections officer,” said Executive Assistant Director Michael D. Nordwall, of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. “Sexual abuse scars everyone who survives it but can be particularly traumatizing when it’s perpetrated by someone in a position of trust or authority.”

FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp said the “allegations of sexual abuse are deeply troubling. We are committed to enforcing civil rights statutes and holding accountable those who abuse their positions.”

Smith moved to Florida after the Dublin prison was closed. He was arrested in Wakulla County, Florida on May 11, 2023, according to arrest documents.

A federal jury initially indicted Smith on 12 charges in April 2023 for acts against three women from May 2019 to May 2021. The superseding indictment adds two more victims, with offenses as early as August 2016.

Smith faces six counts of sexual abuse of a ward, seven counts of abusive sexual contact, one count of aggravated sexual abuse, and one count of violating a victim’s civil rights violation due to that aggravated sexual abuse. The 14 sexual abuse charges each correspond to an allegation of an unlawful sexual act or contact with a victim.

“Endemic Sexual Abuse”

Both houses of Congress have passed the bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act – the House of Representatives on May 21 and the Senate on July 10 – and specifically cited the incidents at FCI Dublin.

In the Congressional Record of July 10, Ossof declared, “How did it come to pass that in a nation whose founding document guarantees due process and civil rights and prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, a federal prison in Dublin, California, would become so notorious for the endemic sexual abuse of female inmates by prison staff that it would be known as ‘Rape Club – rape club.’”

Ossof added that the “human rights crisis behind bars in the United States is a stain on America’s conscience.”

A July 11 motion filed by the California Coalition of Women Prisoners notes that eight of the prison’s staff – guards, a warden, and a chaplain – have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Seven – former warden Ray Garcia, former chaplain James Highhouse and five guards – have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms. The motion states that a DOJ investigation that began in 2020 “implicates approximately 20 officers and staff.”

In a subcommittee report in December 2022, Ossof said an investigation into complaints of abuse and corruption in federal prisons found that in two-thirds of federal prisons that housed female inmates (19 out of 29), inmates had been sexually assaulted by members of prison staff.

The Dublin prison was ordered to be closed in mid-April, shortly after Judge Rogers appointed a special master to look into the “dysfunctional mess” at Dublin. By May 1, all of the low-security prison’s 600 inmates had been transferred to other facilities across the nation.

In a March 15 court order appointing a special master to oversee the situation at FCI Dublin, Rogers wrote, “The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change.” She further stated the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) “has proceeded sluggishly with intentional disregard of the inmates’ constitutional rights despite being fully apprised of the situation for years. The repeated installation of BOP leadership who fail to grasp and address the situation strains credulity. The court is compelled to intercede.”

On July 3, Rogers issued another court order saying, “The court will continue to monitor, oversee and manage the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) for those issues stemming from conditions at FCI Dublin prior to its May 1, 2024, closure.”

Nunley Case

The seventh Dublin officer to be sentenced for sexual misconduct is Nakie Nunley, who was sentenced by Rogers to six years in prison on March 27 after pleading guilty to abusing five women, the DOJ announced in a March 27 press release. Rogers let her opinion on the relatively light sentence be known.

“You left a wake of destruction behind you,” Rogers said, according to a report by San Francisco-area Public Broadcast station KQED of the sentencing. “I don’t know how else to describe it. You were cruel, you were perverse, you were predatory, and you exploited them. A sentence has to reflect the reality of what you did. There are women you abused who have longer sentences than I will give you. One wonders if that is appropriate.”

He pled guilty on Sept. 5, 2023. Under a plea deal, the DOJ said Nunley not only admitted to victimizing the five inmates in the charges but also described how he engaged in sexual acts with two other inmates and lied to Justice Department Office of Inspector General (DOJ-OIG) investigators. The offenses included vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and ejaculating in an inmate’s hand.

“Nakie Nunley egregiously exploited his authority by sexually abusing multiple incarcerated women and then retaliating against those who blew the whistle,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the March 27 press release. “As today’s sentence shows, the Justice Department will hold accountable officials who abuse their authority to harm those they are sworn to protect — and will not tolerate retaliation against victims.”

“Rooting out injustice in prisons is difficult work,” U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey for the Northern District of California said in the press release. “But we will not shy away from the task. I want to thank the DOJ-OIG and the FBI for their continued partnership in prosecuting this case. With their help, we will ensure that prison personnel who violate the rights of inmates are held accountable.”

“The defendant sexually assaulted multiple female inmates, disregarding their dignity and violating his responsibilities as a corrections officer,” Assistant Director Michael D. Nordwall of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division said in that press release.

In the March 27 press release, the DOJ reported that Nunley admitted to retaliating against prisoners who complained about his actions and threatened them with being transferred to another facility and losing their jobs in the prison’s UNICOR program. In one instance, he told a woman that if she wanted to keep her job, she had to “pull down her underwear and bend over,” the DOJ reported. When she did, he slapped her on the buttocks several times.

Civil Suits

Numerous civil lawsuits involving dozens of inmates have been filed concerning the years-long abuse at FCI Dublin, including a class-action suit set for trial in Rogers’ court on June 23, 2025. That suit was filed by eight women who allege they were victims of rape, sexual assault, drugging, groping, and being forced to take explicit photos.

The suit also claims female inmates were abused during medical exams and that immigrants were threatened with deportation if they did not comply with the officers’ sexual demands.

The Daily Muck reviewed complaints in four cases involving Smith.

One suit contends Smith “exploited his position and power to stalk, sexually harass, assault, and sexually abuse at least 11 individuals who were incarcerated at FCI Dublin.”

This woman “suffered her sexual abuse in silence, lest she was retaliated against or deprived of the modest privileges she had as an incarcerated individual,” the civil suit states. The suit says Smith’s conduct of touching victims’ groin, breasts and buttocks and penetrating their anus and vagina “showcases how he used FCI Dublin as his playground, where he could terrorize powerless women for years with impunity.”

Smith is also alleged to have locked women in their cells and refused to let them out until they exposed their naked bodies to him. He allegedly would enter cells to assault the inmates, follow them to the showers to watch them wash, and threaten retaliation if they resisted his sexual demands or reported him.

That suit maintains the victims knew BOP personnel “would not intervene to prevent Defendant Smith’s sexual assaults, let alone adequately discipline, supervise, or reprimand him in accordance with BOP’s purported zero-tolerance policy against suspected staff sex abuse on prisoners.”

Even though Smith had been demoted following one complaint early in his tenure at Dublin, he was allowed to remain on staff and put in a position of control over inmates.

“Smith’s sexually inappropriate behavior was so obvious that he was openly referred to by his moniker, ‘dirty dick Smith,’ throughout the facility,” the lawsuit notes. “There was no intervention to correct Smith’s behavior.”

Smith even offered advice to other officers who might want to do the same things, telling them to target women without legal immigration status so they would be deported after serving their prison sentence.

Smith took advantage of “blind spots” not viewed by security cameras to abuse the inmates. This included rape, digital penetrations, fondling breasts and buttocks, grinding against them and forcing them to undress in front of him. He once ordered prisoners to engage in sexual acts with each other so he could watch.

The lawsuit says these recent incidents are not the first at FCI Dublin. In 1996, three women were taken to a male housing unit adjacent to the women’s prison, where correction officers opened the male inmates’ cells to allow them to rape the women. Four employees in the 1990s and 2000s were convicted of sexual abuse of female prisoners, and 12 were fired, but not arrested, in the 2010s for sexually abusing prisoners.

A second lawsuit contends that Smith would enter the showers to watch the inmate bathe, intentionally rub his penis against her when he passed her in the hallways, fondle her breasts, and make sexually explicit comments about her body.

This complaint quotes from the U.S. Senate Committee of Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report of Dec. 13, 2022, which found there were 5,415 cases of sexual abuse by BOP employees made by male and female inmates. Of those, only 586 were deemed “substantiated” by an investigation. The subcommittee indicates approximately 134 cases “where a BOP employee was convicted of sexually abusing a female prisoner or where BOP Office of Inspector General substantiated allegations that a female prisoner was sexually abused by a BOP employee.”

Complaints in a third lawsuit are similar, with the inmate saying Smith would touch and fondle her breasts and vagina and threaten to send her to solitary confinement if she complained about the abuse.

The suit contends, “female inmates were sexually abused, and were continually sexually abused and sexually assaulted and battered given that staff were intimidated by supervisory employees and other correctional officers to keep silent about what they heard, saw, knew and suspected about female inmate sexual assaults and sexual battery.”

The inmate in a fourth civil suit relates that in 2019, after being released from a disciplinary stay in the prison, Smith would ask personal questions and try to ingratiate himself with her. In late 2019, his actions became “more invasive,” the suit states.

On one occasion, he called her into his office and asked her who she calls on the telephone and what she would need when she got out of prison. He asked her if she would have sex with other female inmates. He told her he would get her a job and money after her release “if she would ‘be with’ him,” the lawsuit continues, adding that Smith emphasized his intent by pointing at his penis.

She refused to answer the questions.

During the COVID lockdown in mid-2020, Smith came to the woman’s cell and demanded to touch her private parts and feet sexually. She said no, and he threatened to write her up and send her to the disciplinary unit if she did not cooperate. She reluctantly complied.

This abuse continued, with Smith coming to her cell and groping her, rubbing her buttocks and vagina, and digitally penetrating her.

When she asked Smith about a report that she was to be transferred to another prison, he “told her to take her pants off so he knew if it ‘was worth it’ to help her,” the suit states. “She refused, and he forced his hands down her pants to her vagina. Shortly thereafter, he came into her cell, forcibly pushed her face-first into the wall, and attempted to rape her. She managed to fight him off, and he left the cell.”

Readers should realize that neither indictments nor lawsuit complaints are proof of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.