More than 100 women currently and formerly detained at a now-shuttered federal women's prison in Northern California have reached settlements with the federal Bureau of Prisons worth nearly $116 million to end individual lawsuits alleging sexual assault and harassment at the hands of prison staffers.

The settlement agreements, announced Tuesday and which plaintiff attorneys called "historic" and said make up the highest aggregate monetary compensation the BOP has ever agreed to pay out, end dozens of individual lawsuits filed against the United States, the BOP and individual officials at Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, California, a facility with a history of sexual assault and abuse.

The settlement comes less than two weeks after the agency announced that it permanently closed FCI Dublin, located east of Oakland, and after agreeing to enter into a consent decree to resolve a pending class action filed by prisoners at the facility who said they suffered repeated abuse.

"We were sentenced to prison, we were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused," Aimee Chavira, one of the formerly incarcerated woman who reached a settlement, said in a statement. "I hope this settlement will help survivors, like me, as they begin to heal — but money will not repair the harm that BOP did to us, or free survivors who continue to suffer in prison, or bring back survivors who were deported and separated from their families."

Chavira said in her statement that she was speaking out to demand justice for all survivors of prison abuse.

"Money will not stop prison officials from continuing to abuse incarcerated people," she said. "Our government can and must take real action to make sure that no one else suffers like we did at FCI Dublin."

FCI Dublin's history of sexual abuse, which spurred the facility to be nicknamed "Rape Club," has come to the fore in recent years with the high-profile criminal prosecutions of several prison officials.

Eight of them were convicted, including the prison's former warden, Ray J. Garcia, who in March 2023 was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for sexually abusing prisoners from December 2019 until July 2021, and James Theodore Highhouse, who was sentenced to seven years for abusing a prisoner while working as a chaplain at the prison. One more official is expected to face trial in March.

The lawsuits, filed by current and former prisoners each presenting their individual stories, were aggregated under a lead case brought by a woman identifying herself only as M.R., who accused a prison guard named Ross Klinger of using his position of power to exert sexual favors from her. She alleged that Klinger had sex with her at least five times while she was incarcerated at FCI Dublin, and later used the threat of violence to silence her.

"Klinger manipulated plaintiff into performing oral sex and engaging in forced sexual intercourse, which was unwelcome, offensive, and non-consensual," M.R. said in her complaint. "Klinger threatened her and told her that if she snitched, he was going to kill her."

Klinger was charged in June 2021 with sexual abuse of a ward and sentenced in January 2024 to time served and five years of supervisory release, among other terms.

Susan Beaty, a senior attorney at California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, a nonprofit that represented some of the 103 individual plaintiffs, said a culture of sexual abuse is ingrained within the federal prison system.

"What happened at Dublin is horrific and extreme, but unfortunately, not an aberration and a product of deep, systemic failures across the BOP system. Staff sexual abuse happens in BOP facilities all over the country," she said. "We need to see deeper systemic changes in the BOP to prevent this kind of abuse from happening again at other facilities."

The BOP said in a statement that the settlement agreements have been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and that a "third-party neutral process" was used to allocate the funds among the plaintiffs.

"The [federal Bureau of Prison] strongly condemns all forms of sexually abusive behavior and takes seriously its duty to protect the individuals in our custody as well as maintain the safety of our employees and community," the BOP said in the statement. "The FBOP is dedicated to appropriately addressing the consequences of sexually abusive behavior at FCI Dublin. The FBOP remains committed to rooting out criminal behavior and holding accountable those who violate their oath of office."

Emily Shapiro, a member of the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, a partnership of people currently and formerly at FCI Dublin and their supporters, said the Bureau of Prisons has known about the pattern of sexual abuse and retaliation at the facility, but has failed to take action.

"This is not an FCI Dublin problem — it's a BOP problem," she said. "They have failed to enact the structural changes necessary to prevent future abuse. Meanwhile, people who were incarcerated at FCI Dublin continue to suffer staff sexual assault, retaliation, and medical neglect at other BOP prisons across the country."

Adam Slater, the founder and managing partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP, a firm representing 23 of the plaintiffs, called the settlement a "crucial step" in holding the BOP accountable for the abuse suffered by women in its custody.

"These survivors have shown extraordiary courage in speaking out," Slater said. "We are committed to ensuring their voices are heard and their experiences validated."

--Editing by Michael Watanabe.