The Minnesota House of Representatives held a public safety panel yesterday to debate legislation which would require the Department of Corrections to remove trans-identified males from the state’s only women’s prison, MCF-Shakopee. Speaking in support of House File 435, former Shakopee employee-turned-whistleblower Alicia Beckmann revealed that female inmates have been made to endure sexual harassment and intimidation from the male transfers, several of whom are sex offenders, over the past three years.
Beckmann, who has a degree in criminal justice and a Master’s in education, worked as a GED instructor at MCF-Shakopee for ten years before resigning in protest last fall over the DOC’s decision to implement gender identity policies by allowing convicted male criminals to be transferred into the women-only facility.
“In June of 2023, unbeknownst to myself, frontline staff and roughly 600 female offenders, ‘Christina’ Craig Lusk, a biological male, was transferred to Shakopee Correctional Facility after he successfully won a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections,” she said. “This decision opened the floodgates for the nightmare that was to follow.”
Beckmann was referring to a June 2022 discrimination lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Corrections which ultimately resulted in the implementation of measures permitting male convicts to be housed in the female estate. As Reduxx previously reported, Lusk was serving a five-year sentence for the possession of methamphetamine at the Moose Lake correctional facility for men – but had also been accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, who has called him “scammer” and a “big fat liar.”
The discrimination claim was filed, on behalf of male convict Craig Lusk, by the trans activist non-profit organization Gender Justice. In order to aid their legal fight to have violent men placed into the women’s prison, Gender Justice was granted nearly $500,000 in taxpayer funds from the administration of Governor Tim Walz.
Lusk was eventually given a personal payout of $495,000, also at taxpayers’ expense.
“Multiple incarcerated men were able to manipulate the system and transfer to Shakopee,” Beckmann testified to the House Committee.
“The men who ultimately transferred to Shakopee included at least two sex offenders and one murderer with a violent history during his incarceration over the past 30 years. At no point were the staff at Shakopee given a voice.”
Beckmann also noted that “a large percentage of incarcerated women have been victims of sexual, emotional and physical abuse at some point in their lives,” and that housing them with violent sex offenders caused them to be re-traumatized.
There have been multiple bizarre and frightening instances involving the behavior of the male inmates at Shakopee.
Elijah Thomas Berryman, a convicted sex offender who pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct against a minor was among the men transferred into the women’s prison. Sources inside Shakopee have told Reduxx, via women’s inmate advocate Rebeca Warmbo, that Berryman often talks to himself using both a deep voice and a higher-pitched voice, as though he were two different people of the opposite sex.
During one classroom session held at the prison, Berryman allegedly stood up and began talking about the harmful impacts of rape. Witnesses said that he became visibly sexually aroused as he did so.
Another child sexual abuser transferred into Shakopee is Sean Windingland, who sexually assaulted two 6-year-old relatives and posted videos of the abuse and grooming on pornography and pro-pedophile websites. Warmbo told Reduxx that Windingland was recently transferred back to a men’s facility, Stillwater, for repeatedly masturbating in front of staff and inmates.
According to reports from inmates seen by Reduxx, pedophiles Berryman and Windingland had been using their internet privileges to obtain photos of female inmates’ children in order to threaten them into silence.
In another instance, female inmates reported feeling terrified that they were being forced to share a shower facility with a violent male murderer. Bradley Richard Sirvio, 53, who beat a man to death with a hammer, was transferred into Minnesota women’s prison MCF-Shakopee at the end of last year after claiming to identify as transgender and adopting the name “Aurora.”
Additionally, a convicted pedophile who abused a six year-old girl is said to have been flashing his genitals at female inmates in Shakopee. When filing a request for a change of name and legal sex in February 2023, Daniel Patrick Benz claimed to be a “transgender woman” and said that it was “painful, difficult, and uncomfortable” for him to be referred to as a man.
Beckmann, when speaking before the House Committee yesterday, noted that despite these serious instances of sexual abuse of female inmates, top officials had refused to even acknowledge that official reports had been filed with the DOC.
“An administrator within the DOC made the claim back in September that there have been no reported instances of violence or threats. This is simply not true. I have spoken to several correctional officers that have filed reports on behalf of women who have been harassed, flashed, intimidated, and overall live in fear of their safety,” Beckmann said.
She added that staff feel afraid of speaking out for fear of retaliation, and that because of this, she had made the difficult decision to quit in order to be able to speak honestly.
“The day my students came to me in tears, not knowing what to do about their fear and concern about men being incarcerated at Shakopee was the day I realized I could no longer help keep them safe. I knew my job would be in jeopardy had I spoken up while still employed,” Beckmann said.
Multiple trans activists attended yesterday’s hearing on bill HF 435 and expressed their fervent opposition to removing the male criminals from Shakopee. Before the meeting was fully underway, Democrat Representative Emma Greenman referred to the definition of ‘woman’ in the bill as “extreme language” and said that she believed it was language that was “imported” into Minnesota by the Trump administration.
To clarify, Representative Mary Franson, who introduced HF 435, read the text aloud:
“For the purposes of this section, ‘female’ means a female as biologically determined by genetics and defined with respect to an individual’s reproductive system. A ‘female’ is defined as an individual who naturally has, had, or will have, or would have, but for congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, or utilizes eggs for fertilization… A woman is an adult human female. A girl is a minor human female.”
Democrat Representative Brad Tabke also accused Beckmann of being “hyperbolic” and of “misgendering” the male convicts. One member of the public who commented, Lucy Geach, called HF 435 a “discriminatory and pernicious bill” which “scapegoat[s] the most vulnerable members of our society.”
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