Two women incarcerated at a California prison are calling for an investigation into a staff cook who they say sexually assaulted them.
The women said Marcus Johnson, a former supervisory cook at the California Institution for Women (CIW), sexually assaulted them in 2020 while working for him in kitchen jobs. The women, who make less than 40 cents an hour, threatened disciplinary action if they complained about him in federal civil complaints.
The two women spoke for the first time in recent interviews with the Guardian from CIW at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) prison in Chino, an hour east of Los Angeles. Both said they wanted Johnson to face criminal charges to prevent him from endangering women in other jobs.
For one woman, identified in court as Jane Doe 1, the jail deemed her claim against Johnson “substantiated,” meaning the assault was “confirmed to have occurred,” a rare outcome. Investigators notified her of their conclusion in 2024, nearly four years after she first reported the allegations, records show.
For the second woman, Jane Doe 2, investigators found her claims to be “unsubstantiated,” meaning there was insufficient evidence to make a decision.
The district attorney for San Bernardino County, which owns Chino, said CDCR referred Johnson’s case to his office in 2024 and that prosecutors are still reviewing it for possible charges.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Jane Doe 1 said in an interview. “Because he worked for CDCR, it seemed like it gave him a license to rape. The whole point of us investigating was for him to be prosecuted and that still hasn’t happened. It’s devastating. There’s no closure.”
Reached by phone, Johnson dismissed the allegations of sexual harassment as untrue: “I absolutely deny the allegations. I have never been aggressive towards a woman for anything, and especially for sexual reasons.” He said he was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation in 2020 and later resigned.
The women came forward at a time when reports of rampant sexual harassment within CDCR are on the rise. Hundreds of sexual misconduct and harassment lawsuits are filed each year against staff in the prison system, the largest in the US. But of more than 700 adjudicated staff sexual-harassment claims in 2023 and 2024, internal investigators deemed only 17 substantiated, state data show. And very few staff ultimately face criminal charges.
Last year, Gregory Rodriguez, a former guard at another CDCR women’s prison, was convicted of sexually assaulting nine incarcerated women and sentenced to 224 years in prison after records revealed the prison failed to act on an early report of his abuse.
He threatened to press charges
The John Doe claims were detailed in complaints filed in October 2025 against Johnson and several CDCR officials. The Guardian is referring to the women by pseudonyms used in court to protect their identities.
In 2020, Jane Doe 1 took a job as a line worker in the CIW kitchen, serving food to other inmates and paid 38 cents an hour, which amounts to about $10 a month. Although the wages were low, she said it helped her buy essentials like hygiene supplies from the commissary.
During one shift in April, she grabbed some vegetables to take back to her cell, she claims. Food from the commissary is expensive and it’s common for workers to let kitchen staff pick up some items for themselves, she said.
This time, however, Johnson said she was going to issue a disciplinary violation for “stealing vegetables,” according to her lawsuit. She was terrified because a writ could get her transferred to a high-level prison or she could be denied visitation with her children.
“I was like, please don’t write me off. Can I do anything extra like clean up? I apologized and said I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Jane Doe 1 recalled.
Johnson, her complaint alleges, then took her to a nearby bathroom where she thought she would clean up, but instead he forced her to perform oral sex, then “slammed her against the bathroom wall” and raped her.
“When he raped Jane Doe 1, Johnson threatened that if she reported him, no one would believe her, that she had sexually assaulted him, and that she would be subject to criminal charges,” the lawsuit states.
She initially didn’t report the assault because of his threats, but within days, she told a friend at the jail, who reported the assault to staff in May of that year, the lawsuit states.
According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe responded on June 1 Again sexually assaulted by Anson. In that incident, she went to the cook’s office after injuring her hand, and there, her suit says, Johnson forced her to perform oral sex.
She told the same friend about the abuse, who again reported Johnson to staff, the lawsuit states.
Jane Doe reported Johnson in a direct complaint on Sept. 1, 2020, a formal complaint, according to case records, saying, “I feel like the incident was swept under the rug.”
‘She screamed for help’
Jane Doe was making 12 cents an hour in the CIW kitchen on June 2, 2020, when Johnson assaulted her, according to her lawsuit. After she asked him for a towel to clean himself up, he brought her to the manager’s office, where he became “aggressive and violent” and sexually assaulted her, the lawsuit states.
“Jane Doe 2 screamed for help, but no one seemed to hear her,” her lawyer wrote.
After the alleged rape, Jane Doe 2 developed symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease and was prescribed antibiotics a few weeks later, the lawsuit states. She initially did not report the assault to staff, including medical staff, for fear of retaliation, but eventually confessed to a CIW therapist in October and filed a complaint in January 2021, the suit states.
The lawsuit alleges that Johnson was promoted after the prison received its first report about Jane Doe 1. He was removed from CIW sometime in June 2020 and later resigned, although it is unclear when he resigned.
In August 2021, Jane Doe 2 was notified that her claim was deemed “unfounded” and that the case was closed.
Records show Jane Doe 1’s abuse claim was deemed “substantiated” in January 2023, but she was only informed in March 2024. It is unclear why she was not informed of the outcome of the jail for more than a year.
Johnson does not have an attorney representing him in the civil cases and has not filed responses in court. In response to the Guardian’s detailed inquiries about the women’s claims, Johnson said by phone that he had worked briefly at CIW and previously at another CDCR facility, but did not provide specifics about his employment history.
He said women in the kitchen are allowed to eat certain foods “in moderation”, but if they eat too much they can get into trouble. He’s a supervisor, but “there’s no way to predict how much more time those women could get if they get in trouble,” he said. He said he had no physical relations with any of the women in jail: “I deny the allegations of rape, coercion, threats, I deny all those allegations.”
Of the prison’s purported finding, Johnson said: “I haven’t seen the evidence.” Of his resignation, he said: “It’s been a lot of back and forth and I don’t want to be put on hold. What will my career at CDCR look like? What kind of label am I going to get after all is said and done? … I’ve resigned from CDCR to get on with my life and well-being.” He said that he is continuing in food services.
‘I felt helpless’
Both women said the attacks and subsequent investigations had lasting effects.
Jane Doe 1 said her initial anxiety was compounded by fear that if the authorities found out, she would get in trouble and have an extended sentence: “All I did was sit in my room and cry. I was too scared to tell anyone. They wouldn’t believe us.”
She began struggling with suicidal thoughts, at which point her friend reported Johnson to staff, she recalled. When Jane Doe 1 called in for an interview with investigators, she initially hoped it would help her process what had happened.
“I was relieved until I got to the interview. It was interrogation after interrogation. They said, ‘What did I do to bring him on me?’ And, ‘He didn’t do that for no reason – are you flirting?’,” she recalled. “I wanted to harm myself. I didn’t know my way out of it. I felt completely helpless and helpless.”
She stayed in an emergency bed for people experiencing mental health crises, her suit says.
In Jane Doe’s September 1, 2020 complaint, she said she had not seen a mental health professional who could discuss the abuse directly with her, such as a rape counselor, as CDCR had done in other cases: “I’m asking for some kind of therapy to help me process the rape. I’m having a hard time doing it alone.”
John Doe 2 said she felt “dirty” after Johnson’s alleged assault, which brought back memories of being sexually abused as a child and being disbelieved by her family.
When investigators learned her accusations were “baseless,” she said: “I was deceived and very angry. They were basically calling me a liar. And that’s what happened to me with my own family.”
Her medical records showed in October 2020 that a prison doctor reported that her mental health was deteriorating “from working in the kitchen”, recommending that she be removed from that environment even though the job gave her “purpose”. She was also offered a one-on-one session with a victim advocate from a rape crisis center.
She was transferred to an unpaid construction job, which improved her mental health, but left her with little money to buy basic commissary items. “Every penny counts. It’s not a lot, but it helps,” she said of her kitchen salary.
Her memories of Johnson haunt her, she added. “I still have nightmares and they will never go away.”
Calls for prosecution
The suits allege negligence by CDCR officials, failure of prison leaders to protect women from abuse and a history of sexual misconduct in the CIW kitchen. Since 2017, the complaints have alleged sexual harassment by at least four supervising cooks, and in 2020 Johnson said he faced allegations of sexual harassment from two other jailed kitchen workers, though the lawsuits did not provide specifics about those allegations.
“When you get multiple sexual harassment complaints about the same work area, that should be a red flag,” said Jenny Huang, a civil rights attorney representing both Jane Does. “If prisons act, these rapes can be prevented.”
CDCR did not respond to inquiries about the lawsuits. Attorneys for the department argued that because Johnson had already been fired, the women failed to allege a “significant risk of continuing or future harm” and that the lawsuits against prison officials should be dismissed. The state, which did not represent Johnson, argued that the women’s attorneys did not present evidence against Johnson and other allegations of misconduct in the kitchen. The California Department of Justice, which is representing CDCR in the lawsuit, declined to comment.
Colby Lenz of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), which supports CIW residents, argued that staff abuse survivors need ways to be granted release. “There is no escape from abuse and retaliation. We must prioritize bringing these victims home, where they can access services and recover from horrific state violence.”
Huang said he was concerned about the impact of the lack of prosecutions. Huang is one of the attorneys representing six women who sued CIW gynecologist Scott Lee last year, alleging he sexually assaulted women under the guise of medical care. He did not face charges.
“What kind of message does it send?” said Huang. “There is no criminal conviction, and staff can resign. Staff often tell victims, ‘Nobody believes you, you’re just a prisoner.’ And they have proof of that.
Lee’s attorney, Susan Coleman, said he “vehemently denies ever sexually abusing any inmate” and that “to date, no allegations of sexual abuse have been sustained” by the CDCR. The San Bernardino DA’s office said it had not received a referral about Lee. CDCR did not respond to inquiries about Lee.
Jason Anderson, San Bernardino’s DA-elect, said in an interview that it is “very rare” that CDCR refers staff sexual misconduct cases to his office. A Guardian 2023 investigation found three cases of alleged CIW staff abuse prosecuted by the DA from 2014 to 2023, with only one conviction on his record.
Anderson said prison abuse cases are difficult to prosecute because of victims’ delays in reporting, delays in referrals, lack of physical evidence and questions that arise about the motives and credibility of incarcerated victims. Even if CDCR considers the claims proven, “it doesn’t carry a lot of weight because that standard is completely different than what we deal with in the criminal realm of proof beyond a reasonable doubt … We look at it from the lens of, are there independent ways to verify what someone is saying?”
Anderson recalls one case in which an incarcerated victim was found to be credible, but he had to deny the charges because he wasn’t confident he would win in court. He praised the civil attorneys who pursued the cases and said: “We always want every victim to speak up regardless of the situation they find themselves in. Don’t delay. Be as specific as you can. Your Help the investigators if there is a chance to verify what Ru says…don’t get discouraged if cases aren’t being registered.”
The DA said it doesn’t usually take “years” for his office to investigate cases of sexual abuse by prison staff, but he didn’t provide specifics about a timeline for reviewing Johnson’s case. After learning about it from the Guardian’s inquiry, he said: “I have to follow my managers and we have to make a decision one way or the other.”
Both Jane Does said they want to prosecute Johnson to make sure there are no future victims.
“I feel like I have to do my best to keep people out who are a danger to women,” said Jane Doe 2. “I’m doing this for all women. I want everyone to know that we matter.”
