Chowchilla Women’s Prison Lawsuits: Settlements and Federal Probe

The lawsuits against the Chowchilla women’s prison are a wave of nearly 500 civil cases accusing correctional staff at the Central California Women’s Facility of sexually abusing incarcerated women over more than a decade, and accusing officers of a violent, allegedly retaliatory assault on more than 150 women in August 2024. The litigation has already produced a 224-year prison sentence for one former guard, millions of dollars in state settlements, a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation, and a new California law expanding independent oversight of staff misconduct.

What the Lawsuits Allege

The claims fall into two distinct tracks, with overlapping defendants in the State of California and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The first track is sexual abuse by staff. Hundreds of women say correctional officers raped, assaulted, and harassed them inside CCWF, and that the department ignored complaints, retaliated against those who reported, and failed to install basic safeguards like cameras in areas where abuse occurred. The best-documented offender is former officer Gregory Rodriguez, but the suits name other staff and reach back years before his conviction.

The second track arises from a single day. On August 2, 2024, officers removed more than 150 women from their cells, held them for hours in a dining hall allegedly without food, water, or medication in extreme heat, and then deployed pepper spray, tear gas grenades, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, and batons. Plaintiffs say the women were complying with orders. Two suits allege the operation was retaliation against women who had filed complaints under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, and one claims it was led by a group of guards referred to as the “Delta Dog” gang. ¹ CDCR has said officers were trying to break up a fight between two individuals. ²

Reported injuries from that day included traumatic brain injuries, seizures, respiratory distress, long-term vision loss, and at least one stroke. One plaintiff, Wisdom Muhammad, said she was zip-tied, dragged onto a lawn, and hit by four tear gas grenades, one of which left a permanent facial scar. ¹

The Criminal Case Anchoring the Abuse Suits

Gregory Rodriguez worked as a correctional officer at CCWF for roughly 12 years after transferring there in September 2010. ³ Reports of his abuse date to 2014, but CDCR did not open an internal investigation until July 2022. ⁴ He retired a month later, after internal affairs approached him.

Trial testimony described Rodriguez luring women to phony “appointments” in a parole board hearing room without cameras, assaulting them there, and coercing silence with threats of discipline or small rewards like cigarettes and chewing gum. One victim said she was placed in solitary confinement after reporting the abuse in 2014. ⁵ CDCR investigators identified at least 22 potential victims. ³

On January 14, 2025, a jury convicted Rodriguez of 59 felony counts, including rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation, sexual penetration, and sodomy, plus five misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, for crimes against nine victims. ⁵ On August 14, 2025, he received the maximum sentence: 224 years. ⁶

Civil Cases and Settlements So Far

The civil claims are proceeding as individual actions rather than one class action, so that compensation can be tailored to each plaintiff’s circumstances. As of September 2025, nearly 500 individual lawsuits had been filed by survivors of abuse at Chowchilla.

Attorney Robert Chalfant filed the first federal suits for Rodriguez’s victims in December 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, with additional plaintiffs added in June 2023. Attorney Joseph Virgilio filed on behalf of six other victims. ⁷ In late 2023, the state settled six of those suits for $3.7 million. ⁸

A larger action is pending in state court. In December 2023, a lawsuit was filed in Sacramento Superior Court on behalf of more than 140 women incarcerated at CCWF and at the California Institution for Women in Chino. The case, Jane Roe et al. v. State of California (Case No. 23CV013894), was assigned to judicial council coordination proceedings and alleges systemic sexual assault, battery, harassment, and institutional negligence. ⁹ No trial date or settlement has been publicly reported.

Between 2022 and 2025, CDCR spent more than $6.8 million on settlements related to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender violence complaints across the system. ²

The August 2024 Incident: $1.9 Million Settlement

In April 2026, California agreed to pay $1.9 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed in March 2025 by 13 women involved in the August 2024 incident. Chalfant represented the plaintiffs, who received individual payouts between $50,000 and $200,000 depending on the severity of their injuries. ² CDCR did not admit wrongdoing or commit to policy changes as part of the deal. ¹

A separate class-action suit filed in May 2025 on behalf of nearly 160 women present during the incident is still active and was scheduled for mediation in 2026. ¹⁰

Who Is Being Held Responsible Beyond Rodriguez

The suits reach past the individual officers to the department’s management and reporting systems. Civil lawsuits against Rodriguez alleged that the facility’s former acting warden, Mike Pallares, had prior notice of Rodriguez’s conduct and failed to take steps like installing cameras in the hearing room. ¹¹ Pallares himself was removed from CCWF in January 2023 and reassigned, after two employees sued alleging he sexually harassed subordinates and retaliated against complainants and a separate inmate accused him of misconduct. CDCR said it was investigating but had “found no evidence to sustain” the allegations. ¹²

For the August 2024 incident, 41 staff members were found to have violated policy. Disciplinary actions included terminations, salary reductions, and transfers, which CDCR described as one of the largest sets of corrective actions against staff from a single event. ¹

In December 2025, the California Office of the Inspector General reported that at least 279 incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women had sued CDCR, accusing at least 83 prison employees of sexual misconduct. The OIG rated 86% of CDCR’s internal affairs caseload as “inadequate” or “needs improvement,” found that department legal staff took an average of nine months to refer cases to investigators, and noted that five correctional officers accused of sexual assault remained employed by the state. ¹³

Federal Investigation and New State Law

On September 4, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into conditions at CCWF and the California Institution for Women. Conducted under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, it is examining whether CDCR adequately protects incarcerated people from staff sexual abuse. ¹⁴ As of mid-2026, the DOJ has not published findings, interim reports, or agreements from the investigation.

A March 2024 report to the California Legislature by a working group of advocacy organizations had already identified “longstanding cultural deficiencies” at CCWF, including an “unsafe and inaccessible reporting process” and an “absence of staff accountability.” ¹⁴

Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 1069 on September 30, 2024. Authored by Senator Caroline Menjivar, the law reinstated investigatory authority to the Office of the Inspector General, which had been largely stripped of that power in 2011; previously, CDCR’s internal Allegation Investigation Unit handled misconduct inquiries and wardens decided on findings and discipline. Since 2014, only 17 correctional officers had been fired or resigned following hundreds of complaints about sexual abuse in California’s women’s prisons. ¹⁵ Under the new law, the OIG expects to increase its monitoring from about 30 sexual misconduct cases per year to roughly 350, and to review approximately 9,600 additional grievance decisions annually that CDCR’s screening team had previously declined to refer. ¹⁶

CDCR also put emergency regulations in place on January 1, 2025, eliminating “local inquiries” into staff misconduct and establishing a centralized unit to resolve investigations. ¹⁶ The department says it enforces a zero-tolerance policy and acknowledges “there is more work to be done.” ¹⁷ Advocacy groups have countered that reforms such as body-worn cameras and surveillance systems came through federal court orders, not voluntary action. ¹⁸

Related Litigation at the Sister Facility

The Chowchilla cases are not the only ones against CDCR’s women’s prisons, and readers researching Chowchilla will often see them discussed together. The California Institution for Women in Chino faces its own suits. In February 2025, a class-action complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. Scott Lee, Case No. 5:25-cv-00283) alleging that Dr. Scott Lee, the facility’s only staff gynecologist, sexually abused dozens of incarcerated women from 2016 to 2023, and that the facility first received reports in 2017. ¹⁹ Lee has been barred from in-person patient contact at CIW. ²⁰ A second amended complaint was filed in April 2026. ²¹

CDCR also paid $1 million to settle claims from two CIW prisoners who said they were used as “sexual bait” in a sting operation against guard Stephen Merrill, who pleaded no contest to a charge of sexual activity by a public employee with a consenting adult. ⁸ The CCWF and CIW matters involve different staff and distinct incidents, but share common defendants in the State of California and CDCR, and the DOJ’s September 2024 investigation covers both facilities.

1
Los Angeles Times. California Settles With Female Inmates Who Say Guards Unleashed War Zone Level Violence
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Sacramento Bee. Former CCWF Prisoners Reached Settlement Agreement After CDCR Assault Allegations
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CDCR. CDCR Refers Internal Investigation Into Former Correctional Officer to District Attorney for Charges of Sexual Misconduct of Incarcerated Women
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KQED. Former Guard at California Women’s Prison Found Guilty of 59 Counts of Sexual Abuse
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Prison Legal News. Former California Guard Convicted of 64 Counts of Sexually Abusing Prisoners
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ABC30. Former Correctional Officer Sentenced to 224 Years in Prison for Sexually Assaulting Female Inmates
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Prison Legal News. California Pays Millions to Prisoners Allegedly Raped by Guards
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U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Announces Civil Rights Investigation Into Correctional Staff Sexual Abuse at Two California Prisons
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Prison Legal News. California Prisoners Sue Gynecologist for Sexual Abuse
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