Coleman Federal Prison Camp Is No Longer For Women Due To A Sexual Abuse Settlement 1.6 million

Coleman Federal Prison Camp Is No Longer For Women Due To A Sexual Abuse Settlement 1.6 million

Info provided by Tampa by Times & Romy Ellenbogen
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Lauren Reynolds says she was raped for six months by Officer Daniel Kuilan while serving her sentence at Coleman Federal Prison Camp.

After the first time Officer Daniel Kuilan forced himself on Reynolds, she said he told her not to tell anyone or she’d be in trouble and sent to another facility with fewer work and education privileges, according to a lawsuit filed in December in federal court by Reynolds and 14 other female inmates.

Reynolds said she was raped by Kuilan for six months — every Wednesday at a warehouse before her work shift began.

The lawsuit contends that Bureau of Prisons officers repeatedly sexually assaulted and abused the inmates at the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Sumter County.

Lauren Reynolds received $600,000 for her settlement - but she said it wasn’t about the money. Reynolds, a former inmate at Coleman, had hoped to go to trial and help spark prison reform. She said she wanted to hold the Bureau of Prisons accountable for the abuse she and others experienced.

However, the correctional officers that committed these acts of violence towards the inmates received no real punishment and were allowed to retire and even receive pensions.

Several of the officers said they considered the sexual contact to be consensual.

But sexual contact between officers and inmates qualifies as abuse under any circumstance.

Joe Rojas, the southeast regional vice president for the workers union, AFGE Council of Prisons, which represents prison officers, described the actions of the former Coleman officers as “disgusting.”

Several other officers including Timothy Phillips were also accused of rape.
Soon after an inmate’s arrival at Coleman in 2015, Officer Timothy Phillips threatened to strip her of her maintenance job unless she showed him whether her breasts were “real or fake,” according to the lawsuit. It claims that in 2016, he drove her to a parked semi-truck with a mattress inside and undressed her while she begged him not to rape her. Phillips admitted to engaging in sexual conduct with two women, according to court filings.