Ex-correctional officer at federal prison in California gets 5 years for sexually abusing inmates

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A federal correctional officer has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for sexually abusing two inmates at a women’s prison in California where the warden and other employees were charged with similar conduct. A federal judge on Friday handed down the sentence to John Russell Bellhouse. He was found guilty in June on five counts of sexual abuse targeting two inmates between 2019 and 2020 at FCI Dublin, near Oakland. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment. The prison’s former warden was convicted in December of molesting inmates and forcing them to pose naked in their cells.