OAKLAND, Calif. — A mistrial was declared Monday in the trial of an FCI Dublin women’s prison guard accused of sexually preying on inmates at the now-shuttered facility, after jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict.

Deliberations were called off a week after the jurors began deliberating the fate of Darrell Smith, who faced 15 counts of sexual abuse and depravation of rights stemming from his years working at the scandal-plagued prison.

Smith represented the last of eight prison guards and executives to face trial in a sprawling investigation sparked by concerns the facility was ruled by an alleged “rape club” who terrorized inmates for years. Prosecutors secured guilty pleas or convictions at trial against the seven other prison guards and leaders charged with sexual abuses at the facility – chief among them the prison’s former warden, Ray J. Garcia, and its chaplain, James Theodore Highhouse.

In Smith’s case, prosecutors argued that his reputation as “Dirty D— Smith” underlaid a campaign to sexually manipulate and abuse inmates under his watch — often by trapping women in their cells or janitorial closets, sometimes while wearing a cowboy hat, boots and an unbuttoned shirt. Prosecutors relied on the testimony of a dozen women, who described being either personally being abused, consoling women who had been, or seeing it happen themselves in 2020 and 2021.

“If you put their stories together, what you have is a horrifying portrait of coercion, manipulation and abuse,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Paulson told the jury during closing arguments.

Yet Smith’s attorneys argued that the guard’s outgoing personality made him an unnecessary target for sham abuse allegations. They said a previous investigation of an improper relationship between Smith and an inmate — for which Smith was cleared by an arbitrator — made him “the perfect patsy.”

The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard“FCI Dublin didn’t just fail the inmates, it also failed Mr. Smith,” his attorney, Naomi Chung, told the jury.

On Monday, jurors described a panel that was fairly divided on whether Smith was guilty or innocent. Often, skeptics cited the lack of direct evidence tying Smith to the alleged assaults and the credibility of the inmates testifying against him, jurors interviewed said.

For Baudelio Medina, 30, the settlements received by inmates who sued the federal government claiming the prison fostered a climate of abuse and retaliation played a “huge part” in the believability of their testimony.

“The room was very, very split in half,” said Baudelio Medina, of Richmond. “There was nothing concrete. It was very he-said, she-said.”

The mistrial comes almost exactly a year after the Bureau of Prisons first announced plans to shutter the long-troubled facility.

An avalanche of lawsuits in recent years claimed the prison’s leaders cultivated a culture of abuse and retaliation, while providing decrepit health care. One suit received class-action status for hundreds of women housed at the prison in spring 2024, leading to an unprecedented settlement that secured numerous protections and an independent monitor to help guard against further abuse.

Another settlement secured a $116-million payout from the government for slightly more than 100 of those inmates; other lawsuits remain ongoing.

The prison itself now sits vacant, having been permanently closed by the Bureau of Prisons in December 2024, citing low staffing levels and “considerable repairs” needed to the facility. The move was initially cheered by inmate advocates as long overdue, but they now fear the prison could be reopened as a migrant detention center as part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown.

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