What happened to you inside Central California Women's Facility was not okay.

Road 22, outside Chowchilla. That is CCWF, and it's where California sends most of the women it locks up. One of its officers, Gregory Rodriguez, was found guilty by a Madera County jury in January 2025, 64 counts, for what he did to nine women there between 2014 and 2022. Then the U.S. Department of Justice wrote it down. On August 13, 2026, it said CCWF and the state's other women's prison have had an unbroken pattern of staff sexual misconduct since 2000, and that it hasn't stopped. If you did time at Chowchilla, this is about you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

A criminal record changes nothing. Everyone at CCWF has one; that is what a prison is. The State took custody of the women there and owed them safety in return, and the Justice Department just said it didn't deliver.
It was not Rodriguez. He is the one with the conviction, but the Sacramento complaint names more than 30 current and former officers, and the DOJ letter says the pattern runs across staff, not one man.
It looked like a relationship, or going along with it felt like the only safe choice. CDCR's own words: sexual contact between a staff member and an incarcerated person is always considered abuse, regardless of consent. There is no version of this that lands on the woman.
You filed a 602 and it came back unsubstantiated, or you were the one who ended up in ad seg. That is exactly what the record says happened in 2014, and it is why federal investigators wrote what they wrote.
Still inside, or on parole. A family member or a friend on the outside can fill this in, and we take it from there.
Immigration status doesn't matter, and neither does being deported after release. A case can be brought from anywhere.

What the record says about CCWF: the conviction, the lawsuits, the federal finding

None of this is ours. A jury, a federal civil rights division, court filings and reporters who read them wrote it, and every line below links to where it came from. Where a lawsuit is still open we say a complaint alleges, because that is what it is. The State of California and CDCR have not admitted liability in the pending civil cases.

April 2014

The Guardian, in a 2023 investigation, reported that CCWF received a report of an officer's overfamiliarity and a sexual relation with a woman in his custody. The officer's name was Gregory Rodriguez. The prison looked into it, called the evidence insufficient and closed the file, while the woman who'd reported him got interrogated, then months in solitary confinement, then a transfer to a prison farther from her family. Him? Still working there. The Guardian, October 26, 2023.

July 2022 to October 2023

CDCR did not investigate Rodriguez until July 2022. He retired a month later, after internal affairs approached him, and the case went to the Madera County District Attorney. Women began filing civil suits that December. Six of those suits settled in October 2023 for $3.7 million. Prison Legal News, March 1, 2025.

January 18, 2024

More than 130 women sued the State of California and CDCR in Sacramento County Superior Court, Jane Roe et al. v. State of California, case 23CV013894. The complaint names CCWF and the California Institution for Women in Chino and alleges the prisons lack hiring policies to keep out predators, fail to train security staff and are guilty of willful ignorance about staff sexual misconduct. It is pending. KSBY, Sacramento complaint.

September 4, 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation under CRIPA into whether CDCR protects the women at CCWF and CIW from sexual abuse by staff. Its announcement noted hundreds of private lawsuits filed over the previous two years. DOJ, investigation opened.

January 14, 2025

The trial in Madera County Superior Court ran four months. The jury came back with 59 felony convictions against Gregory Rodriguez, for rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation, sexual penetration and sodomy, involving nine women at CCWF, and five misdemeanor convictions for sexual battery on top: 64 guilty verdicts. Thirteen women, some still incarcerated and some not, took the stand. He'd been charged with 97 counts. CDCR identified more than 22 women who said he victimized them. KQED, verdict.

August 14, 2025

The sentence: 224 years in state prison, on the 64 counts, when prosecutors had expected him to face something over 70 years. GV Wire, sentencing.

December 9, 2025

CalMatters counted at least 279 women who have sued CDCR over sexual misconduct by at least 83 prison employees. The same week the state Inspector General rated 86 percent of the department's staff sexual-assault investigations from the first half of 2025 inadequate or needing improvement, with an average nine-month delay before cases were even referred to investigators. CalMatters, December 2025.

August 13, 2026

The Justice Department issued its findings: reasonable cause to believe CDCR, CCWF and CIW violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments through an unbroken pattern of often violent sexual misconduct by staff against prisoners from 2000 through 2024, continuing to the present. The letter says CDCR, at the department level and at the prison level, has repeatedly sustained allegations of staff sexual abuse at CCWF and CIW, that is, the State itself found abuse occurred. It counts more than 65 alleged Rodriguez victims, notes he used the parole-hearing room because it had no cameras, and calls the failures a pattern or practice of deliberate indifference. California was given 49 days to fix it before the Attorney General may sue. DOJ findings letter (PDF).

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 13, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Central California Women's Facility lawsuit

The State of California, through CDCR, and the officer or staff member who did it. Rodriguez answers for himself; he is doing 224 years. But he did not hire himself, and he did not close the 2014 inquiry, put the woman who reported him in solitary and leave him on the yard for eight more years. The prison did that. The federal letter goes further than any complaint could: it says the department knew, sustained the allegations itself, and kept failing anyway. That is the theory in one sentence. The State owed the women it held a duty to protect them from its own staff, and it didn't.

California law makes the route a little crooked, and you should hear that from us rather than find it out later. A state prison has a special immunity for injuries to prisoners, so the cases already on file are pleaded against the individual officers, with the State legally on the hook to pay what they owe, alongside federal civil rights claims and California's Bane Act. That is how roughly 500 cases across the two women's prisons are running today, and it is how the State has already paid. A lawyer who does prison cases knows this shape; it is not something you need to work out.

One honest limit. Because the defendant is a public entity, punitive damages are not available against the State itself. Nobody here will promise you those. What is available is a real claim on a real record, and that record is now a federal finding.

Your deadline: California's statute of limitations for sexual assault inside a state prison

Ten years from the last time it happened, or three years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever is later. That is Code of Civil Procedure 340.16, the rule for anyone assaulted as an adult, and it is why we ask when you were there. If it was 2016 or after, you are inside the ten years on the calendar alone. Earlier than that and it turns on discovery, which is a conversation with a lawyer, not a date on a page. We won't tell you a pre-2016 case is open, and we won't tell you it's closed, because neither is ours to say.

You may have read that California reopened old adult cases, first through the end of 2026 and again from January 2026 through December 2027 where there was a cover-up. Both of those are real. Neither reaches a claim against a public entity, and CDCR is one. So for CCWF the window that matters is the ten-year one, and it keeps moving forward because, as the Justice Department put it, the conduct continues to the present.

Two more things a lawyer handles for you. A claim against the State usually has to be presented to the government within six months of the injury (Government Code 911.2), with a late-claim procedure that can stretch that to a year. And the federal civil rights route has its own two-year clock that pauses while a person is incarcerated. Which clock you're on depends on your facts. That is the call.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never filed a 602, because you saw what happened to the women who did.
You were released years ago and put it away. Ten years is a long time, and discovery can be longer.
You haven't been released yet. Someone on the outside can start this for you.
You told an officer and he said he'd look into it, and that was the end of it.
You don't have paperwork, or names, or dates. The State kept the files. That is what discovery is for.
You were at CIW before Chowchilla, or after. Same department, same federal finding.

Facilities covered

Central California Women's Facility, 23370 Road 22, Chowchilla, every yard and the reception center, including the spots the Justice Department singled out as unmonitored: the Board of Parole Hearings room, the kitchen, plant operations, the eyeglass shop. The California Institution for Women in Chino is named in the same federal finding and the same Sacramento complaint. Another CDCR prison, a county jail, a fire camp? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Central California Women's Facility for sexual abuse?

More than 130 women already have, in Sacramento County Superior Court, and hundreds more in other courts. Technically the defendants are the officers and the State that stands behind them, not the building. Whether you can depends on when it happened and what you knew when, which is what the questions above sort out.

Is there a class action lawsuit against CCWF?

Not a class action, no. What exists is one large complaint with more than 130 named plaintiffs in Sacramento and a few hundred individual cases. Each woman's case is her own. That matters, because it means you are not waiting on someone else's verdict.

How long do I have to bring a lawsuit against a California prison for sexual assault?

For an adult, ten years from the last act or three years from discovery, under CCP 340.16. Against a public entity there is usually also a six-month government claim first, and the federal civil rights route runs two years with time paused while you're incarcerated. A lawyer works out which applies, and if it was 2016 or later the ten-year one is still open on the calendar alone.

What happened to the officer, Gregory Rodriguez?

He's in state prison. The verdict and the sentence are both in the record above, with links: 59 felonies and five misdemeanors, nine women, 13 who testified, 224 years. And the federal letter later counted more than 65 women who said he assaulted them.

How much will a sexual abuse lawyer cost me?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

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Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.