Female inmates have come forward and provided testimony that calls into question the narrative of a trans-identified male inmate who was highlighted by media as a victim of transphobia while housed at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women (EMCF) in New Jersey.
Raequan ‘Rae’ Rollins, a trans-identifying male inmate, was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison for a violent robbery incident. After five months in a male facility, Rollins changed his legal gender marker to ‘female’ and was subsequently transferred to the Edna Mahan women’s estate in October of that year.
Speaking with Reduxx, Kokila Hiatt, a current inmate at EMCF who was incarcerated when Rollins was transferred, claimed that Rollins “frequently stated that ‘no one [in the prison] can beat me’ and used that as an intimidation tactic against women and officers.”
“He assaulted many officers and was given a disciplinary charge once for either threatening to sexually assault a female staff member or saying something sexually derogatory to a female staff member,” Hiatt added.
But most disturbingly, Hiatt asserts that Rollins had been responsible for one of the most extreme events of prison guard brutality against EMCF inmates in the prison’s recent history — an incident that left six women severely physically battered.
On January 11, 2021, during what ought to have been routine “cell extractions” conducted to search for contraband, the prison officers wore riot gear, carried pepper spray canisters and shields, and moved in formations of five from cell to cell. EMCF guards brutally beat inmates in what has been described as a coordinated attack.
Footage recorded by officers during the incident was released in June of 2021 by local news, and showed the disturbing scenes as they unfolded.
“The context of [that day] was that the inmates, both him and the women, had been throwing bodily fluids on officers for at least a week straight,” Hiatt told Reduxx. “This is behavior not typical of women, and what I have noticed is that these [trans-identified males] come here and introduce these kinds of tactics to the women inmates. It’s not that women are unaware of these things, but it is just not typical behavior for them.”
Gassing, also known as ‘chucking,’ is an act of rebellion by inmates against prison staff using bodily excretions as projectiles. The most common bodily excretions thrown include feces, urine, semen, or saliva. As it carries a high risk of spreading infectious diseases, it is considered a felony in most U.S. states. The vast majority of gassing incidents reported from U.S. prisons have occurred in male facilities.
After the January 11 incident, Rollins launched a lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Corrections and subsequently received widespread media attention. Rollins’ gender identity was a central focus of the stories, and the six women who had been beaten were often a small detail, if mentioned at all. In some cases, the brutality directed towards him by officers was framed as an act of ‘transphobia.’
The New York Times interviewed Rollins’ mother about his lawsuit, and stated that “New Jersey’s only women’s prison was supposed to be a haven,” for Rollins. The violence against the women inmates was treated as ancillary to his story. Pink News reported that it was a “fact” that Rollins was a woman, and referred to the six women who were beaten as “other inmates.” CNN published multiple articles about Rollins, quoting his lawyer Oliver Barry about the “unsafe environment” he endured at EMCF.
While news of Rollins’ suit enjoyed national attention, a lawsuit filed by inmate Tatianna Harrison was only reported by one local outlet. Harrison had been one of the women brutalized that day, and revealed she “had a serious pre-existing spinal injury” which resulted in temporary paralysis after which she was handcuffed and an officer “knelt on her spine.” Her lawsuit also revealed officers had “ripped Ms. Harrison’s shirt open and pulled her pants and underwear down, exposing her groin and buttocks.”
Another one of the women assaulted during the assault, Desiree Dasilva, was hospitalized with a broken orbital bone, while another still alleged she was punched in the head 28 times while pressed face-first against the wall. Inmate Ajila Nelson said a group of officers beat and punched her, stripped off her clothes, and one male officer grabbed her breast and put his “fingers into my vagina.”
In response to Rollins’ suit, the prison’s top administrator, 22 correctional officers, and nine supervisors were suspended and an investigation was opened by the New Jersey’s Attorney General’s office. Rollins was transferred out of the women’s prison and temporarily placed in the New Jersey State Prison, before being transferred again to Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Muncy, a facility for adult female offenders. The women had no choice but to stay at EMCF.
Hiatt says Rollins should ultimately be seen as responsible for what happened on January 11, and expressed some disbelief at the media lauding him as a victim while ignoring the stories of the female inmates.
“I believe Rollins’ behavior was definitely the biggest catalyst behind administration and the officers handling the situation the way they did. The women were also misbehaving, but when you also have [Rollins] putting cops out of work week after week that surely didn’t help matters,” Hiatt told Reduxx, continuing that the January 11 incident is an example of how trans-identified males have changed the dynamic within the women’s facility.
“My intention is to get the word out about how the women here are being treated and how having men live with us has affected us in relation to the ‘transgender’ individuals being placed here. It has affected us as women and has changed the way the facility treats us.”
Hiatt’s assertions are corroborated by a now-deleted press statement issued in September 2021 by Demetrius ‘Demi’ Minor, a trans-identified male inmate, who described Rollins as inciting violence while incarcerated at Edna Mahan. “It has been pure hell. Inmate Rollins has assaulted numerous staff, causing dozens of staff members to be injured and out on leave,” reads the statement.
“Some inmates have complained and reported that inmate Rollins is telling inmates that [he] is not transgender and is simply a gay man,” Minor continued. “Rollins was involved in physical altercations with other non-transgender inmates [and] has attacked staff on numerous occasions, including throwing liquids at staff and threatening female officers.”
New Jersey’s Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women has a decades-long record of violence and sexual abuse perpetrated by staff against the incarcerated women under their supervision. Since 1990, over 70 reports have been lodged of staff-on-prisoner violations. A lawsuit filed in 1999 by two women suing the then-state corrections commissioner, superintendent and a corrections officer cited 10 incidents that had occurred during the past nine years. Their case was dismissed, and the court ruled that the administration could not be held liable for failing to protect inmates from a substantial risk of harm.
In addition, a 2020 report released by the Department of Justice detailed shocking instances of violence by staff against women inmates in what was described as a “pattern” of abuse.
The DOJ report stated that the corrections department “fails to keep prisoners at Edna Mahan safe from sexual abuse by staff, and Edna Mahan suffers from a ‘culture of acceptance’ of sexual abuse, which enabled abuse to persist “despite years of notice and efforts towards change at the state level.”
According to the report, “Edna Mahan have been aware that their women prisoners face a substantial risk of serious harm from sexual abuse, and they have failed to remedy this constitutional violation.”
Reduxx is your independent source of pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news and commentary. We’re 100% reader-funded! Support our mission by joining our Patreon, or consider making a one-time donation.
