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Texas Sex Slave Sues Prison System for Failure to Protect
For more than a year, Roderick Johnson was regularly and brutally raped and sexually abused while confined in a Texas state prison. In April 2002, Johnson filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 where he complained that prison officials not only condoned sexual slavery and widespread gang rape but refused Johnson's repeated requests to be housed in protective custody.
Johnson, a 33yearold U.S. Navy veteran, is a black homosexual from Marshall, Texas. While serving time at the 2800man James V. Allred State Prison in Iowa Park (Texas) on a bad check charge, Johnson was subjected to an organized system of gangrun sexual slavery. He was routinely bought and sold as chattel, raped and degraded daily, and threatened with death if he resisted.
In a lurid 25page complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Wichita Falls (Texas) Division, Johnson named Gary Johnson (no apparent relation), the Executive Director of the Texas prison system, and 19 other prison officials as defendants. Plaintiff Johnson alleged that from September 2000 until April 2002 at the Allred prison, he was brutalized by a prisonerrun system of sexual slavery where gang members bought and sold him for as little as $5. In gruesome and chillingly explicit detail, Johnson's complaint describes the daily depravity in a prison where he was compelled to provide anal and oral sex, launder gang members' clothing, cook their meals, clean their cells, and participate in mutual masturbation sessions with other homosexual prisoners as gang members looked on.
Johnson further alleged that while defendants were aware of his plight and the perverted gang activity, they refused to investigate his complaints and further refused his pleas to be housed in protective custody. Prison officials made it clear by their words and deeds that they derived sadistic pleasure from Johnson's victimization; they expressed contempt for nonaggressive homosexuals and refused to protect prisoners from sexual assault until such prisoners were savagely beaten or "gutted," said Johnson's complaint.
Plaintiff Johnson is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. He is represented by Austin attorney Edward Tuddenham and by attorneys Margaret Winter and Craig Cowie of the ACLU's National Prison Project in Washington, D.C. See: Johnson v. Johnson , 702CV087R, USDC ND TX, Wichita Falls Division.
Johnson, a 33yearold U.S. Navy veteran, is a black homosexual from Marshall, Texas. While serving time at the 2800man James V. Allred State Prison in Iowa Park (Texas) on a bad check charge, Johnson was subjected to an organized system of gangrun sexual slavery. He was routinely bought and sold as chattel, raped and degraded daily, and threatened with death if he resisted.
In a lurid 25page complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Wichita Falls (Texas) Division, Johnson named Gary Johnson (no apparent relation), the Executive Director of the Texas prison system, and 19 other prison officials as defendants. Plaintiff Johnson alleged that from September 2000 until April 2002 at the Allred prison, he was brutalized by a prisonerrun system of sexual slavery where gang members bought and sold him for as little as $5. In gruesome and chillingly explicit detail, Johnson's complaint describes the daily depravity in a prison where he was compelled to provide anal and oral sex, launder gang members' clothing, cook their meals, clean their cells, and participate in mutual masturbation sessions with other homosexual prisoners as gang members looked on.
Johnson further alleged that while defendants were aware of his plight and the perverted gang activity, they refused to investigate his complaints and further refused his pleas to be housed in protective custody. Prison officials made it clear by their words and deeds that they derived sadistic pleasure from Johnson's victimization; they expressed contempt for nonaggressive homosexuals and refused to protect prisoners from sexual assault until such prisoners were savagely beaten or "gutted," said Johnson's complaint.
Plaintiff Johnson is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. He is represented by Austin attorney Edward Tuddenham and by attorneys Margaret Winter and Craig Cowie of the ACLU's National Prison Project in Washington, D.C. See: Johnson v. Johnson , 702CV087R, USDC ND TX, Wichita Falls Division.
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Related legal case
Johnson v. Johnson
| Year | 2002 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Case No. 7-02-CV-087-R (ND TX 2002) |
| Level | District Court |