Christina Cardenas’s husband is an inmate at a correctional facility in Tehachapi, California. When she went to visit him on Sept. 6, 2019, she was put through an extensive strip search across multiple locations, including a body cavity search allegedly so invasive to the point of her being sexually violated.
Now, she has won a $5.6 million settlement against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, two correctional officers, one doctor, and the Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley Hospital, where she was taken for the search.
When the officials found nothing after a strip search at the prison, they handcuffed Cardenas and took her to Adventist Medical Center, where she was denied access to water or food and subject to an “hours-long cavity search that involved her stripping, being X-rayed, and squatting over a mirror,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, whose firm represented Cardenas, called the ordeal “state-sanctioned torture.”
The lawsuit also stated that a male doctor conducted “unwanted and forceful penetration” on Cardenas during the uncalled-for body cavity search. She also had to take a pregnancy test.
After all of this, she was denied the right to visit her husband.
Cardenas released a statement on Monday explaining why she went through with the lawsuit. She said she hopes that this experience doesn’t happen to someone else and that she inspires change within the prison system.
“It is crucial not to criminalize or victimize those who are visiting and supporting true rehabilitation,” Cardenas said.
Initially, the Times reported, her lawsuit sought to stop all body cavity searches of women visitors. That wasn’t part of the final settlement.
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