DUBLIN — Federal prosecutors filed sexual abuse and misconduct charges against two more former FCI Dublin prison guards this week, reigniting a scandal that led to more than $100 million in settlement payments and contributed to the troubled facility’s closure last year.

The new cases bring to 10 the number of former prison officials charged with sexual misconduct at the infamous women’s prison, where a reputed “rape club” terrorized inmates for years, and guards retaliated against women who spoke up against their abusers. The culture inside the jail became so toxic that federal prison leaders shuttered the facility in 2024, just weeks after a federal judge made the unprecedented decision to order a special master to oversee operations.

At least one of the newly-charged guards, 33-year-old Lawrence Gacad, was among the chief targets of a sprawling class-action lawsuit that led to the special master’s appointment. He faces a single charge of abusive sexual contact, after prosecutors say he abused an inmate from March 2022 to June 2022.

Also charged was 34-year-old Jeffrey Wilson, who repeatedly abused an inmate in the prison’s medical room from March through August of 2022, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release. Authorities claim he then lied about abusing the woman, and about giving her contraband while she was housed at the prison.

The charges came as a relief to inmate advocates, who had grown concerned that federal prosecutors might turn their attention elsewhere after the prison’s closure. One woman — who said she too was assaulted by Wilson while incarcerated at the Dublin facility — said she was left in “shock” on Thursday.

“We’re very thrilled that they’re continuing investigations of officers who hurt us,” said the woman, who asked only to be identified by the initials D.B. “We were losing hope.”

The Bay Area News Group does not typically identify victims of sexual assault without their permission.

The woman said she was attacked by Wilson in 2022 while seeking medicine at the Dublin complex’s medical room. She recalled him locking the door, pinning her against a wall and assaulting her until someone knocked on the door.

She said she reported the attack to multiple psychologists, but was warned by one of them not to report it elsewhere, because it could lead to her being placed in solitary confinement. On Thursday, she expressed hope that the new charges would deter other Bureau of Prisons guards from acting similarly.

“The message is that BOP officers cannot get away with this type of criminal conduct,” she added. “This wasn’t just a Dublin issue — these types of events happen at all BOP facilities, unfortunately.”

Already, seven prison staffers at all levels of the facility — from the warden down to line-level guards — have either been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty to a slew of charges related to abusing women at the prison. They include former Warden Ray J. Garcia, who was sentenced in early 2023 to nearly six years in prison, as well as former Chaplain James Highhouse, who received a seven-year prison term.

An eighth prison guard, Darrell Smith, is set to appear for trial in September after his first time before a jury ended in a mistrial earlier this year.

Federal prison officials first announced plans to close the prison in April 2024, and made the decision final in December. At the time, the agency had been facing an avalanche of lawsuits from inmates who said they had been sexually assaulted and retaliated against by prison guards for years.

The class-action lawsuit accused prison managers of ignoring decades of warning signs and providing insufficient mental and physical health care to inmates. It led to a consent decree that called for a federal monitor to oversee nearly 500 inmates who were housed at the prison, and to ensure they are protected from being placed into solitary confinement as a form of retaliation for speaking out about prison conditions.

In that class-action lawsuit, an inmate accused Gacad of dedicating songs and writing notes professing his love to her, telling her she would be his “future wife.” After several weeks, he began grabbing and groping the inmate and appearing unexpectedly in her cell, according to the lawsuit.

Gacad quit working at the prison after another inmate reported the alleged abuse, the lawsuit said. Even then, the inmate claimed Gacad continued to stalk and harass her — allegedly going so far as to appear at her parents’ home while she was on a video call with them.

The court-appointed special monitor has lambasted the Bureau of Prisons for its actions in closing the facility, calling it “unnecessarily rushed.” The prison officials’ decisions led to “mass chaos” as inmates were scattered to other prisons across the country, the special master wrote in a report.

In December, 103 inmates agreed to a $116 million settlement from the federal government for the abuses they endured. Other cases remain open and ongoing.

More recently, inmate and migrant advocates have raised concerns that the mothballed prison may be transformed into a detention center as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. While prisons officials have stressed they have no plans to re-open the facility, inmate and migrant advocates remain deeply skeptical.

One prison guard union leader, John Kostelnik, told this news organization he had recently seen maintenance crews and plumbers show up at the prison — raising questions about federal authorities’ commitment to keep the facility shuttered.