Former FCI Dublin officer charged with sex abuse provides witness list
OAKLAND, Calif. - Defense attorneys for a former FCI Dublin correctional officer charged with more than a dozen sex crimes will soon get their chance to call witnesses they feel will be favorable to their side, in a second trial that began last week.
Lawyers for Darrell Wayne "Dirty Dick" Smith provided their witness list to U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Tuesday, as they continue to assert that he is innocent of 14 counts of sexual abuse while he worked at the now-closed, all-women's prison in Dublin.
The list includes 17 witnesses, including his wife, Carla Sisi Smith, and Susan Canales, who used to be a co-leader of the correctional officers' union. Neither of these women testified for Smith during his first trial.
When Smith was tried in the spring, her husband, FCI Dublin Union L-3584 President Ed Canales, testified for the defense, though he is not on the current list.
That trial ended with a hung jury.
Smith did not testify in his first trial, and his name does not appear on the current witness list, either.
1st day retrial for FCI Dublin officer charged with sex crimes: 'Never touched her'
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.
Smith is the last of 10 FCI Dublin correctional officers to be tried for sexual abuse. The other nine, including the warden and chaplain, have already been found guilty or pleaded guilty to similar crimes. Most have already been sentenced to prison.
Prosecutors provided a witness list of 33 people to testify during this trial, which began on Sept. 2, including four women whom he allegedly sexually abused. 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.
Smith has maintained his innocence of the charges, which include allegedly telling women to flash their breasts at him, masturbating as they showered and pinning them down to have sex with them.
When he entered the federal courthouse on the first day of trial, Smith turned to a KTVU camera and said: "I would like to say a lot. 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."
What the witnesses on the current list will testify to was not immediately clear. Smith's wife was seen walking into court with him, though she had not been sitting in the trial during testimony.
Other witnesses on the current list include Jose Lau, the vice president of the FCI Dublin correctional officers' union, who also testified last time; Portia Louder, who was convicted of mortgage fraud and has an active TikTok account; and Debbie Wofford, who was also incarcerated at FCI Dublin and testified for Smith last time.
In a phone interview after Smith's first trial, Wofford told KTVU that she felt the allegations against him were "horrible" and they "didn't happen the way they say they did." She also said that the women accusing Smith all want "money or visas."
EDITOR'S NOTE: The defense did not present their case on Wednesday. They are expected to begin either Thursday afternoon or Monday morning.