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San Diego County sheriff’s officials failed to investigate at least seven sexual-assault complaints at the private Otay Mesa immigration detention center in 2025, and records show the agency ceded control of the cases to civilian administrators hired by the nation’s largest for-profit prison company.
Under a memorandum of understanding As of 2020 between the sheriff’s department and CoreCivic, Detention Center Director Christopher LaRose has the authority to decide whether to investigate allegations of rape at the facility, which currently houses just under 1,500 federal immigration detainees, most of whom are in custody awaiting hearings and have not been convicted of a crime.
CalMatters obtained the memo after requesting additional information about the alleged rapes and four attempted sexual assaults through a request under the California Public Records Act. While a sheriff’s spokesman said the agency is not investigating those cases, he said he could not release additional records because they are part of a police investigation.
In a written statement released after this story was originally published, CoreCivic said Otay Mesa officials conduct an administrative investigation into every sexual assault complaint, although a spokesperson indicated the company does not conduct criminal investigations into sexual assault complaints because it is not a law enforcement agency.
“When a matter requires law enforcement intervention, we refer it to the appropriate authorities,” CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin said in a statement.
The company operates the detention center through a contract with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations. ICE officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Gustin said all complaints are recorded in a database and that “any potentially criminal matter is referred to law enforcement.”
“Proven allegations lead to disciplinary action and, when appropriate, referral of the case to the prosecution,” Gustin said. “If an individual is determined to be at significant risk of imminent sexual abuse, immediate protective measures are taken.”
The company said it has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault and harassment and indicated that detainees, staff or anyone present at the facilities can report incidents in writing or via a hotline. Likewise, the company said it offers medical, psychological and emotional support services to those who file a complaint.
CoreCivic did not respond to questions about whether it has similar MOUs with other agencies, nor did it provide details about previous MOUs in San Diego County.
Seven operate in California. immigration detention centers operated by private companies, with CoreCivic having contracts for two of them. It was not immediately possible to determine whether other detention centers have similar agreements with local law enforcement.
“We are appalled, but not surprised, to learn that multiple cases of sexual assault have gone uninvestigated at a CoreCivic facility,” said Susan Beatty, senior staff attorney for the advocacy group California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
“State and local law enforcement agencies have a responsibility to use their authority to protect the rights of Californians in custody and to hold accountable both ICE and the private prison companies that profit from billions of taxpayer dollars by imprisoning immigrants in our state.”
A 2022 audit by an outside company, Creative Corrections, found the facility met all federal standards to prevent sexual assault.
San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remmer said she plans to question San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez at a hearing Tuesday night about ICE transfers from county jails.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence in CoreCivic’s ability to investigate these very serious allegations,” he said earlier this month.
Supervisors are questioning the sheriff after the CalMatters story
A member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors questioned County Sheriff Kelly Martinez about the MOU after this article was published Tuesday night. Sheriff Kelly Martinez said her department is understaffed to investigate allegations of criminal wrongdoing at all of San Diego’s civil and criminal detention centers, including Otay Mesa.
“There is something in the MOU that specifically delegates to CoreCivic…” Tera Lawson-Rimmer, president of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, began.
“Well, we may not have any MOU,” Martinez interrupted, “and we won’t be informed or investigated. So we also have to work with those responsible for the facilities; the reporting mechanism will still have to come from the facilities themselves.”
Lawson-Rimmer called the decision to delegate criminal investigation decisions to a private company “concerning” and asked if Martinez could sign a memorandum of understanding requiring the sheriff’s office to investigate every criminal complaint.
“I don’t know if we have the capacity to do that, maybe you could give me more positions and create an investigative unit,” Martinez said with a laugh.
“I completely understand your concern and that it doesn’t seem like the right way to investigate these complaints, but I really don’t know how many are happening.”
Martinez said she is responsible for her own detention centers and that investigating those outside of San Diego County is a “difficult task.”
San Diego County is embroiled in a legal battle with CoreCivic over the Otay Mesa detention center. In a lawsuit filed this month, the county alleged that the Trump administration and Tennessee-based CoreCivic unlawfully blocked a public health inspection from the center. According to the lawsuit, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initially granted county officials access to the facility, but reversed that decision when the inspection team arrived.
911 calls from the detention center
In total, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department received 142 calls for service related to Otay Mesa Detention Center in 2024. Fourteen of these were identified as related to the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), a 2003 federal law designed to prevent, detect and respond to sexual abuse and harassment in correctional facilities.
Last year, 159 calls for service were logged at the Otay Mesa Correctional Facility. Twenty-one of these were related to the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and of those, seven responded to allegations of rape.
CalMatters used a Public Records Act request to obtain a digital record generated by 911 operators and 911 operators for the years 2024 and 2025.
CalMatters tried to obtain additional records of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault, as well as audio recordings of 911 calls and the full dispatch log, but the sheriff’s department refused to release them, saying the recordings were “law enforcement investigative records or any investigative or security file compiled by a law enforcement agency is exempt from release.”
Records obtained by CalMatters did not indicate whether the victims were detainees or facility employees. Likewise, the records provide no information about the alleged perpetrators.
The department’s MOU with CoreCivic was signed and dated by former San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore in 2020.
Under the MOU, the jail director is responsible for investigating any allegations of sexual assault or abuse, said Lt. David Collins, director of media relations for the sheriff’s department. Collins referred further questions about the incidents to CoreCivic.
He said CoreCivic “did not ask for our involvement” in any case last year.
“Because the sheriff’s office has not initiated any criminal investigation, no reports have been forwarded to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office for consideration of charges,” he said.
If officials had investigated, the memorandum of understanding would have required them to submit their findings to CoreCivic.
“Upon completion/closure of an investigation, the investigating agency will forward a copy of the investigation report to the storage center as part of the center’s record-keeping requirements,” the MoU states.