Prison guards illegally recorded hundreds of women strip-searched: Lawsuit

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) officials are names as defendants in a new $500 million lawsuit alleging that prison guards recorded body camera footage of naked women at a detention facility.

Why It Matters

Detroit-based Flood Law attorneys Todd Flood, Allexa Otto and Katherine Kobiljak are representing 500-plus women who were allegedly recorded, which litigators claim constitutes a felony as a violation of a Michigan law (MCL 750.539j) in addition to violating other fundamental constitutional rights.

Michigan, according to Flood and his team, is currently the only state that has a policy to videotape strip-searches.

What To Know

The 164-page lawsuit, filed this week in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, alleges “a grotesque and deliberate abuse of power” at Michigan’s only women’s prison, Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHV) in Ypsilanti.

Plaintiffs claim that between January and March, MDOC officers “forced hundreds of women”—including a vast majority who are rape survivors—to submit to video recording while completely nude during strip-searches, while showering, using toilets and in other states of undress.

Lawyers said that “officials deliberately implemented and aggressively defended a policy that sanctioned state-sponsored voyeurism while cynically claiming security concerns,” adding that it “represents a brazen and calculated violation of fundamental constitutional rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and human dignity.”

The suit names the MDOC, Whitmer, MDOC Director Heidi Washington, Deputy Director Jeremy Bush, Warden Jeremy Howard, Assistant Deputy Warden Steve Horton and multiple other officials.

Newsweek reached out to Whitmer’s office and the MDOC for comment.

The lawsuit alleges multiple violations including:

• Invasion of privacy (intrusion upon seclusion).
• Intentional infliction of emotional distress.
• Sex-based discrimination under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
• Violations of Michigan’s constitutional rights.

Flood told Newsweek on Wednesday that a colleague brought the case to him, sparking an arduous process involving interviews with more than 500 women that led to a circuit court filing and ultimately this broader litigation.

“If you take a vulnerable victim, the majority of these women—close to 90 percent—have been subjected to some sort of sexual assault, rape or domestic violence,” Flood said about the amount sought by plaintiffs. “If you look at comparable cases out there—one lady, we see $55 million for a peeping Tom videotaping her taking a shower naked.

“We did a lot of work with experts, financial experts and economists to come up with a number that deals with the damages. These women have all suffered at some point in time of trauma. Now they’re in a lesser position.”

Flood previously represented victims of former U.S. gymnastics Dr. Larry Nassar, as well as more than a dozen students at Eastern Michigan University who claimed they were sexually assaulted earlier this decade.

Whitmer’s inclusion in the suit is because of her broader governance over the state, Flood added.

“The Department of Corrections, the appointments, and the Department of Corrections’ leader is the governor,” Flood said. “The buck stops at the top, so she’s ultimately the one that’s in charge of our state’s Department of Corrections and making sure that it’s ran within the confines of the law and regulations.

“Do I think the governor knew about this? Realistically not. But she’s in charge and she’s the one that stood in the shoes of making sure that our women and men that are incarcerated in the state and held within the public entity of the state are protected.”

The victims, many of whom were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder prior to the alleged recording incidents, are now, according to Flood, experiencing “devasting” effects, including severe psychological distress, debilitating panic attacks, insomnia, gastrointestinal distress and exacerbation of preexisting conditions.

Several have withdrawn from visitation with family members, resigned from prison jobs and abandoned educational programs, he added.

“Put yourself in the confines of a prison and how you’re treated,” he said. “Obviously, it is a totally different place and totally different way. Then, you have to succumb to being strip-searched and the trauma.

“The triggers that take place with these women are visceral. Some of the women said, ‘I will only see you once because I don’t want to come see my lawyers. I don’t wanna see anybody because I’m going to be videotaped,’ and they will have a physical reaction of either shakes, sweats, sick, sleepless nights vomiting where they don’t want to leave their cell.”

What People Are Saying

Attorney Todd Flood told Newsweek: “My lawsuit brought notice and light underneath the hood here to what’s going on. And it would have continued to take place, but for us doing this lawsuit.”

What Happens Next

The women represented by Flood and his colleagues are collectively seeking injunctive relief, destruction of all recordings made during the illegal period, mandatory training for MDOC staff and monetary damages for the harm endured.