Rikers Island staff told male prisoner to identify as trans so he could access women's ward, pimp out female inmates: Lawsuit

An explosive lawsuit filed in a Bronx court last November claims that some inmates and staff at Rikers Island prison had been running a prostitution ring, that the staff members involved encouraged a straight male inmate to identify as trans to have better access to the women's facility, and that New York Department of Corrections officials knew all about the scheme.

According to a report from Reduxx, the civil lawsuit was brought by a female former Rikers inmate identified only as Rose Doe. In December 2021, Doe was placed in the Rose M. Singer Center, the only women's unit at the prison. Shortly after she entered the facility, a male inmate was placed there as well under the pretense that he identified as transgender.

However, almost immediately after his arrival, the male inmate allegedly proudly boasted that he was neither transgender nor gay and had only pretended to be trans so that he could join the women's ward and "have sex" with female inmates. When he entered the women's facility, he had a "full beard," the lawsuit claimed, and manifested no outward signs of "feminine or non-binary traits."

What's more, the man may have been placed in the women's center as part of an intra-prison prostitution ring run by inmates and corrupt employees. "Upon information and belief, the male inmate in question, was a heterosexual male [hereafter 'the perpetrator'] who was instructed to claim that he was transgender by DOC staff so that he could stay in the female dorm where he would have access to female inmates" that he could then pimp out, the lawsuit stated.

At the time he entered the women's dorm, he was under investigation by the DOC for his alleged involvement in the prostitution ring, the suit claimed. He had also already been under investigation for at least five separate allegations related to prison rape, though whether he was accused of assaulting men or women is unclear. One of the defendants listed in the lawsuit allegedly admitted that the male inmate was placed in the women's center "because he had already been kicked out of every other dorm and had nowhere else to be housed."

Rose Doe claimed she learned firsthand how dangerous the man can be. On the afternoon of April 6, 2022, Doe reported to prison officials that the male inmate had made inappropriate comments and grabbed her rear end in the bathroom. Doe's report must have been so convincing that the acting warden emailed staff to say that the male inmate "was not a suitable fit" in the women's area and to ask prison rape investigators to visit the facility the following day.

It was too late. According to Doe, the male inmate pulled down her pants while she was sleeping that night and viciously raped her, choking her as he did so. Other inmates awoke and began fighting the male inmate to bring the assault to a halt, she claimed.

Doe added that just two days before the alleged assault, she had witnessed her attacker coax a mentally disabled female inmate into performing sex acts on him.

Despite the serious allegations, prison officials delayed performing a rape investigation on Doe for 10 hours, the lawsuit said. It also indicated that she was denied mental health and medical treatment for this incident and a diet suitable for her diabetes, negligence that rendered her weak and made her particularly vulnerable to attack.

These violations of New York State Public Health Law were "born of a desire and/or conspiracy to cover up and destroy evidence of the sexual assaults that [staff] knew had taken place," the suit insisted.

Doe was released from Rikers Island in August 2022. The male inmate in question left the prison a year later and transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility, described on its website as "a maximum security level facility for males," where he remains today.

H/T: the Post Millennial

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