Gavin Newsom Delivers Porn to Death Row Inmates — at Taxpayer Expense

By Christopher F. Rufo and Haley Strack

Gov. Gavin Newsom has sought to transform California’s massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, and dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row.

As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets — generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell — to every inmate in the state prison system, at “no cost” to offenders.

The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates’ old tablets — which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all prisoners by 2023 — as a step toward “digital equity” for “justice impacted” individuals. The prisoners could, in theory, use the devices to contact their families, consume “educational” content, and “learn new technology.”

In reality, taxpayer-funded tablets have also been used for more lurid endeavors.

We contacted dozens of death row inmates, who told us that prisoners in the state system use their devices to watch pornography and have explicit sexual conversations. Some prisoners, according to a former high-ranking California corrections official, use their tablets to groom minors.

Though the state has claimed to regulate explicit content, the inmates told us that users can easily evade detection.

When reached for comment, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the tablets were “tightly controlled education tools” that provided inmates with “access to the Bible, education, and reentry resources that actually reduce crime.”

But inmates told us a different story.

In the 1980s, rapist and serial murderer Robert Maury killed a woman by strangling her with a nylon clothesline, strangled and killed another two women, and brutally raped a fourth before he was caught by authorities.

Now, Maury is living at a state prison facility in Stockton, California, where he has viewed pornography on his taxpayer-funded digital tablet.

In an interview, Maury told us inmates can receive “nude pictures” and watch pornography through their devices. In his case, he claimed to have received a topless photo from a 22-year-old German psychology student who was “hoping that I would share my story with her for her class project.” After the student sent the photo, Maury said he “flirted” with her “for a while.”

Maury said another way that inmates can watch pornography is through the video chat application. In this scheme, he explained, an inmate can call someone on the outside, that person can “put porn on their TV,” and the inmate can “watch with them.”

Maury specified that he has never explicitly asked anyone to broadcast pornography in this manner, but when it happens, he “just say[s] cool and thank you.”

Samuel Amador, another serial killer who was sentenced to death, had a similar experience. He said inmates watch pornographic videos and have sexually explicit conversations through their tablets. The videos, he said, are delivered in “30 second clips.”

Amador has created a rotation on his tablet between explicit and wholesome content: “I watch porn an[d] short clips of my family at the Beach.”

Sometimes, guards catch lewd messages, Amador said. But, in general, the restrictions are easy to evade. “[W]e get around their bulls–t,” he said about sexting.

“We interviewed a dozen death row inmates and they told us that prisoners are using state-funded digital tablets to watch pornography, have x-rated video chats, and, in at least one case, to groom a minor girl on the outside.”

This is a scandal.pic.twitter.com/AxMD8ViBEQ

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) May 13, 2026

Jamar Tucker, a capital inmate at High Desert State Prison who has killed three men, noted the system’s loopholes. He indicated that while the rules prohibit inmates from receiving nude photos, he has received videos of women “dancing … in a thong.” He uses racy photos, he says, for sexual pleasure.

The potential for abuse is obvious. Inmates, including child predators, can communicate with members of the public through their tablets, apparently with no age restrictions, at a cost of 5 cents per text message or 16 cents per minute of video.

In a recent case, Nathaniel Ray Diaz, who was convicted of committing sex crimes against a 12-year-old girl, allegedly used a prison-issued tablet to contact and exploit her from inside Avenal State Prison. Diaz allegedly told the girl to send him sexually explicit images, which he received through a co-conspirator.

Prosecutors alleged that, in total, Diaz made “thousands of calls” to the girl, violating a no-contact order and — by soliciting explicit photographs and exploiting a minor — committing additional child sex crimes. Officials said Diaz is in custody awaiting trial.

Douglas Eckenrod, former deputy director of California’s adult parole operations, indicated that the Diaz case is only the tip of the iceberg. He said there is no way to monitor the nearly 90,000 inmates in the state prison system who have access to taxpayer-funded devices.

What is California doing to stop this abuse? Last month, state officials attempted to tighten restrictions on prison tablets. But death row inmates we interviewed said prisoners could easily bypass these restrictions.

Newsom has offered no indication that he will reverse course on the free tablet program. In fact, the new vendor contract allows for four one-year extensions, which could push its total cost to $315 million. At least one Democratic legislator is demanding that the state make inmates’ messages free of charge.

Eckenrod, who anticipated the dark side of “digital equity,” believes California has opened the floodgates to abuse. “We created a pathway for them to reach out and groom folks,” he said. “There are going to be victims that didn’t need to have been victims because of these decisions.”

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America’s Cultural Revolution. Haley Strack is an investigative reporter at City Journal.

EXCLUSIVE: California spent nearly $189 million to give every state prisoner a free iPad. We interviewed a dozen death row inmates, who told us that prisoners are using the tablets to watch porn, engage in x-rated chats, and groom minors on the outside.https://t.co/bpmvDB6vPm

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) May 13, 2026

Gavin Newsom delivers porn to death row inmates — at taxpayer expense https://t.co/YUgVqoUUNO pic.twitter.com/vGfGPzUyBk

— NY Post Opinion (@NYPostOpinion) May 13, 2026