1st day retrial for FCI Dublin officer charged with sex crimes: 'Never touched her'

OAKLAND, Calif. - As Darrell Wayne Smith was heading into the first day of his second sex abuse trial when he was a correctional officer at the now-closed FCI Dublin women's prison, he took the time to turn to a KTVU photojournalist outside court to speak his mind. 

‘Never touched her’ 

"I would like to say a lot," Smith said Tuesday outside U.S. District Court in Oakland, while simultaneously saying that his lawyers had advised him to keep quiet. "The girl who testified, I never touched her. The whole time she was in prison. Not one time. She got $650,000. And she's now removed from my indictment."

He then added: "Just perhaps, I'm innocent." 

His wife gave him a searing look before his team headed up to the fourth floor to the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over Smith's first trial in March, which ended in a hung jury. 

It wasn't clear who Smith was talking about. 

But it's true, he is currently facing 14 counts of sexual abuse of a ward and abusive sexual contact while he was a correctional officer in 2019 and 2021. When he was tried in the spring, the prosecution charged him with 15 counts. And a victim identified as L.B. has been dropped from the case. 

But there are still four women, F., S., L. and C., (all asked that their names not be used) who allege that Smith, whose nickname "Dirty Dick" is codified in the prosecutors' charging documents, abused them while they were incarcerated at the prison, which was closed down in April 2024 as it became embroiled in a high-profile, national sex abuse scandal. 

Motivated by money?

A key reason that the jury deadlocked in Smith's first trial is because some jurors were persuaded into thinking that some of the women who testified against him were just in it for the money, according to the East Bay Times.

More than 100 women, all of whom identify as sex assault survivors at FCI Dublin, won a nearly $116-million settlement from the Bureau of Prisons in December 2024, and the women were awarded roughly $1 million apiece. 

During the first trial in March, Smith's defense team argued that the women who testified against him were felons, motivated to lie. He did not take the stand during his first trial. 

‘Abuse of power’ 

During her opening statements on Tuesday, Asst. U.S. Attorney Sailaja Paidipaty spoke bluntly and dramatically to the six women and six men of the jury, saying how Smith "abused his power," pinned women down, and shoved his fingers into women's private parts and thrust his penis into a woman from behind.

Lowering her voice for effect, Paidipaty recounted what Smith allegedly said to S.: "I want to lick you from your belly button to your butt hole." 

Offering another example, Paidpaty told the jury that Smith masturbated in front of C. into a paper napkin, slapped her butt and then afterward said, "good girl." 

Paidipaty went on and on through each of the counts. 

Defense: No evidence of sex abuse 

Then, defense attorney Joanna Privratsky Sheridan had her turn, telling the jury that sexual assault is not on trial. The act is triggering, criminal and wrong, she said. 

The question, she said, is whether Smith is guilty of that. 

And then she told the jury that there is no DNA, forensic evidence, no surveillance video and no diaries to prove what the government was saying.

She said it was "very odd" that there is no video evidence presented since there were cameras in these housing units. And she said Smith's interest in pornography, which will be introduced at trial, was "cherrypicked" by the prosecutors and not illegal.

"It's just porn, and I urge you not to be swayed by this tactic," Sheridan said. 

Sheridan then told the jury that Smith and another incarcerated woman became the targets of a "powerful group of inmates," which led to internal discipline that was ultimately overturned by an arbitrator in 2022. 

Smith one of 10 officers

The courtroom was full: Several women who were formerly incarcerated at FCI Dublin drove or flew to Oakland to observe. Activists from the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition were there, as were dozens of lawyers and FBI agents. 

Darlene Baker, Sabrina Taylor and Amy Colburn, all of whom have been released from FCI Dublin, attended the first day of trial.

They all said they found it absurd that the defense would insinuate that women in prison have power over officers, and they all praised the prosecution's strategy: using graphic detail to shock the jury.

"I’m still horrified about this whole position that there was a conspiracy against Mr. Smith," Baker said. "That doesn’t happen inside prison. The women have no power whatsoever."

Smith is one of 10 former FCI Dublin officers charged with sex crimes, and the only one at this point not to have been found guilty. During the opening statements, he sat quietly at the defense table with a large blue plastic tumbler covered with stickers nearby. He listened quietly, sometimes leaning forward with his chin in his hands, other times leaning back in his swivel chair. 

Nine others, including the former warden, have all either pleaded guilty, or been found guilty by juries, to various sex crimes between 2019 and 2021 at the women's prison, which was closed in April 2024 and now sits vacant. 

This is the most Bureau of Prisons officers charged with sex crimes from any one prison in the United States. 

The trial is expected to last until Sept. 20. 

Dublin prisonNews