A vulgar Instagram account frequently degraded female prison employees at the Federal Correctional Complex in Lompoc, mocking their bodies after pregnancy.
Its posts made light of suicide, including one with a “Training Day” meme: “When you cut an inmate down, they have to be your slave in the afterlife.”
Another featured a meme of Jeffrey Epstein with the words “Don’t leave me hanging this Valentine’s Day.” The meme, posted soon after Epstein’s death by suicide in federal custody, was dedicated to the “SHU Crew” — referring to the Special Housing Unit, where incarcerated people are isolated and rates of self-harm are staggering.
Posts like these were the bread and butter of the “8_and_hitthe_gate” account — its name a reference to an “unofficial motto” among correctional officers. And they were the work of a prison supervisor at FCC Lompoc, on California’s Central Coast, who still works for the federal Bureau of Prisons.
A former facility psychologist, Lindsay Okonowsky, who was targeted by the account, is suing the BOP, alleging it created a hostile work environment that prison officials failed to address. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case today, after a district court ruled against Okonowsky last year.
The posts were “unquestionably offensive and degrading,” the judge ruled, but the prison lieutenant’s conduct was not “sufficiently severe or pervasive to establish a........