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Two more former employees of the now-shuttered federal women’s prison in Dublin entered guilty pleas on Thursday to charges they sexually abused female inmates, federal prosecutors said.
Jeffrey Wilson and Lawrence Gacad are the eighth and ninth correctional officers to have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of sexual abuse at Federal Correctional Institution Dublin.
The former low-security prison closed in April 2024 in the wake of an investigation into predatory sexual abuse of female inmates.
“These guilty pleas mark yet another step toward accountability for a culture of predation that thrived for far too long behind the walls of FCI Dublin,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani in a statement on Thursday. “Female inmates were exploited by those with power and access when they were most vulnerable.”
Wilson worked at the prison from July 2021 to September 2022 as a health technician/paramedic. Around August 2021, he allegedly started interacting with an inmate after she started taking medication for seizures.
Federal prosecutors said Wilson encouraged the victim to transfer to an adjacent minimum-security prison camp, where fewer staff could see their interactions.
Wilson, 34, admitted to having sex with the victim and gave her a $60 pre-paid credit card and a cellphone while she was at the FCI Dublin Camp, prosecutors said. The victim used the cellphone to take naked pictures of herself and send them to Wilson, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of California.
Wilson also admitted to making false statements to federal investigators. When he was first interviewed by investigators, Wilson had told them he never had sex with the victim inmate and that he had never given her contraband, prosecutors said.
Wilson faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for each count of sexual abuse, and eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the count of false statements to a government agency.
Gacad, 33, worked from July 2021 to June 2022 as a correctional officer at FCI Dublin. Between March and June 2022, Gacad kissed and groped an inmate who lived in a housing units where Gacad was sometimes assigned as the guard on duty, prosecutors said.
Gacad also admitted he exchanged handwritten notes and emails with the victim, some of which were sexually explicit. To disguise his identity, Gacad used email accounts that he set up using fake names, authorities said.
Gacad resigned after the abuse was discovered, but authorities said he continued to exchange emails with the victim and speak with the victim on video chats that she had with her parents.
Gacad faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the count of abusive sexual contact.
Both Wilson and Gacad were released on bond. Wilson is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 6 and Gacad on Nov. 19, 2025, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
“There is zero tolerance for federal correctional officers who violate their positions of trust and authority. And that is especially true where they use those positions to sexually abuse individuals in their custody,” Craig Missakian, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, said Thursday.
