A woman at the Central California Facility for Women says she witnessed the immediate aftermath of a jailhouse rape by a transgender inmate.
Mimi Le provided a sworn declaration to lawyers with the Women’s Liberation Front, which will be included in the organization’s case against California, according to evidence from the filing obtained by Reduxx.
Le reportedly said she was one of many inmates who saw events involving what was described as a “sexual assault” committed by a man who identifies as a woman and was therefore locked up in a women’s prison.
On May 19, a female inmate was taken to a medical-administrative building after other female inmates reported to staff that she had been raped, Le explained, adding that she found the woman to be “barely conscious.”
Less than an hour later, the female victim was taken away on a stretcher under a “Code 3” alert, which means a person is unresponsive and unable to be revived via immediate methods, Le added.
Le and other inmates reportedly identified the alleged assailant as Jonathan Robertson, a biologically male transgender individual going by the name Siyaah Skylit.
Multiple inmates said they had heard Robertson shouting, “Fuck all you bitches. I’ll rape you. I’ll rape your mama. I’ll fuck all you bitches up — there is nothing you bitches can do.” He has also spit at fellow inmates, the women said.
“This was very triggering and saddening for everybody,” Le reportedly wrote in her declaration. “To be threatened by a man with doing a thing that he can do, that he is capable of doing, that he may already have done to other women, is terrifying.”
“They were concerned and discussed how to protect themselves; I convinced them to just go to their rooms while I asked for an update from the Captain to figure out how to proceed,” Le added.
Later, Le said she went to correctional staff to inquire about what, if anything, would be done about Robertson’s threatening behavior, at which point she learned he “had already been released back onto the yard.”
But “once the Captain learned of the rape threats, he decided along with the Sergeant to move [him] to administrative segregation,” the inmate said, adding that “before they could do that, the Warden overruled them, saying that an inmate-to-inmate threat is not an offense sufficient.”
Hellbound and Down 