A federal jury found Tuesday that the warden at the jail on Kauai did not subject female inmates to sexual humiliation and discrimination, and did not retaliate against a jail social worker who brought the suit.
After a week of deliberations, the jury voted unanimously in favor of defendants Neal Wagatsuma and the state.
Former jail social worker Carolyn Ritchie’s lawsuit accused Wagatsuma of forcing women at the Kauai Community Correctional Center to watch films depicting rape and to divulge details about their sexual pasts while being filmed.
Wagatsuma testified during the trial that the violent sexual films were part of a program he created that includes what he calls “shame therapy.”
He said there have long been rumors that he shows inmates pornography, but “I would never do that.”
The warden showed films such as “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” a 1970s drama in which the female protagonist is raped and murdered, court records showed.
Wagatsuma said he yells and uses profanity during the sessions. Words such as “whore” and “batuna,” a Hawaii slang term for a woman who trades sex for crystal meth, were used in appropriate contexts, he said.
Ritchie’s lawsuit said that women had come to her to complain about the sessions. It also alleged the warden denied women the same work release opportunities as men.
President stays close to home
Under cloudy but usually not rainy skies, President Barack Obama, who arrived in Hawaii on Dec. 16 with his family for a vacation, spent his day Thursday mainly at the U.S. Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe.
Obama appears to be keeping a leisurely pace during his outings in Hawaii — finishing some of the last days of his presidency on the island of his youth among friends.
As usual he exercised at a gym on the base in the morning before returning to his rented vacation house in Kailua, according to a press pool report.
With his motorcade, Obama left his Kailua house to go to the Marine Corps base and went to the on-base beach, where the first family and friends spent part of the afternoon. Obama’s motorcade began leaving the Marine base at about 3:36 p.m. and returned to the vacation home at 3:49 p.m.
