Warden ignored staff rapes of female inmates, prisoner alleges. Florida promptly promoted him
At Lowell Correctional Institution, where the systemic rape of female inmates by male guards has been documented over years by the Miami Herald and drawn a sharp rebuke by the Justice Department, a newly filed lawsuit says the sexual abuse is as pervasive as ever.
The inmate lawsuit, dated Sept. 1 and citing a litany of specific incidents, targets Stephen Rossiter, Lowell’s warden, as a defendant. It does not claim he engaged in sexual misconduct but that he exhibited “deliberate indifference to a widespread pattern of sexual and physical abuse.”
This week, 12 days after the lawsuit was filed, the Florida Department of Corrections gave the warden a new, higher-echelon job. Michelle Glady, the prison system’s director of communications, underlined the word “promotion” in an email to the Herald confirming Rossiter’s newly announced role as assistant regional director of programs.
Glady said at the moment he still functions at the prison near Ocala.
The department did not immediately provide a comment from Rossiter, whose warden salary is slightly more than $100,000.
In addition to citing Rossiter, the lawsuit names the Department of Corrections as defendant. Filed by a former Lowell inmate since transferred to another prison in Homestead, it seeks in excess of $75,000 in damages, saying she was sexually abused by a Lowell corrections officer. Only the officer’s last name is cited in the filing.
The inmate, serving a sentence in Palm Beach County for charges related to drugs and car theft, alleges she was attacked in an area of the prison with no surveillance camera coverage and was threatened with death if she complained. The plaintiff’s sentence ends in 2030.
During his tenure as warden at Lowell, Rossiter has ignored a clear, widespread pattern of sexual and physical abuse, harassment, and threats by the staff against inmates, according to the lawsuit.
A separate suit filed in July by a different woman makes similar claims and says she too was sexually abused, but names a different officer as her attacker.
David Frankel, who represents both women and has filed several similar cases over the past five years, said it is “very distressing that the Department of Corrections would promote someone to a position of even greater responsibility who has demonstrated such a significant disregard for the rights of prisoners.”
“Although that could be the very reason he was rewarded with a promotion,” he added.
Lowell has a long history of sexual abuse allegations. In 2016, the Herald published an exposé, Beyond Punishment, documenting how Lowell corrections officers used their positions of power to sexually abuse inmates. Prisoners said they were coerced with threats or bribed with cigarettes by guards seeking to have sex in surveillance blind spots at the prison, Florida’s largest women’s compound.
It was a year after a Lowell assistant warden, referred to by inmates as “Daddy,” was fired amid allegations that he had inappropriate relationships with incarcerated women. The assistant warden “failed to conduct himself in a professional manner and acted inappropriately toward staff and inmates,’’ a spokesman for the Department of Corrections said in a written statement at the time.
The prison administrator had inmates lining up to see him daily in private, locking the door for 10 to 60 minutes at a time, according to a 56-page inspector general report.
The Herald investigation found systemic abuses continued and that those inmates who complained were physically threatened, placed in isolation, and deprived of necessities like food, soap and sanitary napkins. Angela Gordon, the warden at the facility at the time the Herald did its reporting, left the position later that year and, according to her LinkedIn page, is now a regional director.
In August 2019, a Lowell inmate was left a quadriplegic after a violent take-down by corrections officers staffers that followed her refusal to perform cleanup duties. Cheryl Weimar said she was ill. A lawsuit said Weimar, 51, was knocked down and “dragged like a rag doll” through the prison yard, her head bouncing off concrete. She received a settlement of $4.65 million. No staff member was charged.
In the aftermath of the Herald’s coverage, the U.S. Justice Department dispatched a team to Lowell to interview inmates, their relatives and prison staff. In December 2020, the department issued a scathing 34-page report saying it “found reasonable cause to believe that Lowell violates the constitutional rights of prisoners in its care, resulting in serious harm and the substantial risk of serious harm.”
“Specifically, Lowell fails to protect women prisoners from harm due to sexual abuse by staff.”
The report cited “inadequate systems for preventing, detecting and responding to sexual abuse” and said inmates even faced threats of harm for cooperating with the Department of Justice fact finders.
The Justice Department said the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) investigation of Lowell is ongoing and no other comment could be provided.
Debra Bennett, an ex-inmate at Lowell and activist who co-founded an organization called Change Comes Now, which assists female inmates, said she was not at all surprised by Rossiter’s promotion, but called it a “catastrophic decision.”
“This is what the FDC does,” she said. “They promote to silence.”
Shortly after the Justice Department issued its report, state Sen. Janet Cruz, a Democrat from Hillsborough County, called on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to ask for Rossiter’s immediate resignation.
On Wednesday, Cruz reiterated that request in a text to the Herald.
“Rossiter’s track record of abuse should have resulted in an immediate firing not a cover-up which led to a promotion — I stand by my demand [made] two years ago and call on DeSantis to examine and withdraw this promotion. Abuse of any kind is unacceptable.”
In a written statement, Glady, the FDC communications director said: “Lowell Correctional Institution (CI) houses more than 2,000 inmates with a mission to provide for the care and custody of females incarcerated in Florida and provide programming to restore and rehabilitate those who will return to their communities.
“Under the warden’s leadership, Lowell CI has been subject to numerous outside audits by correctional experts and the Department of Justice. Outside audits have found Lowell to meet and, in some instances, exceed national standards. “
