Ten former correctional officers at FCI have been charged with sex crimes at the now-closed women's prison.
OAKLAND, Calif. - Both the US Attorneys Office of Northern California and an attorney for a former FCI Dublin correctional officer charged with a sex crime are asking a federal judge not to send him to prison, but rather, suggesting that he get five years of probation, with the first year to be served in home detention.
In sentencing memorandums filed with the court, both sides note that Lawrence Gacad pleaded guilty to one count of abusive sexual contact and admitted his misconduct in kissing and writing letters to an incarcerated women identified in court records as S.L. in 2022, the year he also resigned.
Gacad worked for FCI Dublin from July 2021 to June 2022.
"To begin with, Gacad’s crimes are serious," Asst. U.S. Attorneys Andrew Paulson and Alethea Sargent wrote to U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers ahead of Gacad's sentencing on Wednesday. "As a prison guard, he was in a position of power over S.L. and all the other inmates. The federal government invested in him vast power over the lives of those women —power that was supposed to be used to protect those women and rehabilitate them."
It is rare for a judge to come to a different conclusion if the prosecution and defense agree.
While Gacad should be held accountable, the prosecutors wrote, his actions were different from most of the other correctional officers charged at FCI Dublin, as he had one victim, while the others had multiple, and the nature of his physical contact was different.
All the other cases involving the 10 correctional officers now charged at the shuttered FCI Dublin involved some type of sexual penetration, while Gacad's did not, the prosecutors wrote.
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There was also no evidence that Gacad threatened or intimidated S.L., the prosecutors said. Also, Gacad was not a warden or a chaplain – like two of the officers convicted of sex crime – and did not hold a special position of power at the prison.
To date, all but one of the 10 correctional officers at FCI Dublin have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty by a jury. The exception is Darrel "Dirty Dick" Smith, who sat through two trials where juries could not reach a verdict in either.
Both the prosecutors and Gacad's attorney, Sierra Dugan, said that after his home in Arizona was searched in May 2024, he came forward and spoke extensively with investigators.
The prosecutors noted that Gacad's quick admittance of guilt spared S.L. and other women from testifying and compared his case to former FCI Dublin officer Ross Klinger, who also cooperated with the government and is the only officer to date who did not get any prison time.
As she asked for leniency in sentencing, Dugan shared a bit of personal history about her client.
Gacad was born in 1992 in San Jose and has four siblings but primarily grew up one with one brother.
His parents were mostly absent, she wrote. His mother was an in-home caregiver and was home on Sunday and one other day during the week. His father had a job where he was gone from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. That meant Gacad and his brother were mostly left on their own, according to his biography submitted to the court.
When he was 10, Gacad moved to Oakley and his lawyer wrote that it was difficult at first because they were the only Filipino family in the area for a while.
"Upon reflection, Mr. Gacad believes his parental absence left him seeking connection," his lawyer wrote.
He dropped out of college and joined the Navy when he was 19.
Initially, he thrived, and he won awards.
But he developed a gambling problem, which "spiraled out of control" and he ended up owning thousands of dollars, according to court papers.
"This addiction, coupled with the demise of his parents' relationship, had an extreme impact on his mental health that resulted in Mr. Gacad experiencing suicidal ideation," Dugan wrote.
Gacad ended up seeking an honorable discharge from the Navy, worked with Google for a bit and then began working for the Bureau of Prisons, "looking for connection and [wanting] to help society," Dugan wrote.