Prison officer nicknamed 'Dirty Dick' charged with more sex crimes
Powerless in Prison: The fallout of FCI Dublin
In April, the Bureau of Prisons abruptly shut down the troubled FCI Dublin. KTVU interviews dozens of women and explains what led up to the closure, questioning whether this was retaliation for outside oversight over the prison, which has been riddled with sex abuse for decades.
DUBLIN, Calif. - A correctional officer at the now-shuttered women's prison in Dublin whose nickname is "Dirty Dick" has now been charged with sexually abusing five women when he worked at FCI Dublin.
The U.S. Attorney's Office charged Darrel Wayne Smith, aka "Dirty Dick," with a superseding 15-count indictment on July 25, accusing him of abusing five women, up from three, when he was first charged in May 2023.
It's unclear why prosecutors chose now to add counts to his case.
Smith, 54, is the eighth correctional officer at FCI Dublin to be charged with sex crimes and he has pleaded not guilty. The other seven, including the former warden, have all either been found guilty or pleaded guilty to similar crimes.
Court records indicate Smith allegedly abused three women, identified as S.L.H., C.A.H. and L.J., from May 2019 to May 2021. The women allege Smith touched their buttocks, breasts and had sex with two of them – at least once in a janitor's closet.
The two additional women in the new indictment are identified in court records as L.B. and F.C. Court records indicate they testified before a grand jury. Smith is charged with touching L.B.'s breast in her cell and digitally penetrating F.C.
The formal charges that Smith faces include abusive sexual contact, sexual abuse of a ward, aggravated sexual abuse and deprivation of rights under the color of law.
While former Warden Ray Garcia was the highest ranking guard to be charged and convicted in the sex scandal at FCI Dublin, Smith has the most counts of any officer so far filed against him.
And in interviews with nearly 50 incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women at the prison, Smith's name came up the most.
"His karma finally caught up to him," one of his alleged victims told KTVU last year. "He was the worst out of all the officers, a pervert in its worst form."
KTVU has interviewed at least four other women who said Smith targeted and terrorized them, sometimes while he sat in the dark, eating bananas watching them undress. These women were not formally named in the indictment.
"Like every time we got out of the shower, opened a door, anything, he would be just standing right there looking, probably eating some bananas or something, just staring at us," Linda Chaney of Sacramento, who used to be incarcerated at FCI Dublin, said in a prior interview. "It was weird."
Smith has been allowed to live out of custody in Florida as he fights the charges against him.
Since his arrest, the federal prison was closed by Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters, and the 605 incarcerated women were transferred to prisons across the country.
He is currently scheduled to go to trial in March 2025.