Female inmates at the women’s prison in Shakopee, Minnesota have come forward to report disturbing behavior from the trans-identified males housed at their facility. Former inmate Rebeca Warmbo alerted Reduxx to the situation and has been communicating with women inside Shakopee, who reveal the male transfers are making them feel “unsafe” and “scared” for their lives.
“I have been able to speak to numerous women inside the prison and there is a significant increase in fear and anxiety. They have told me about being harassed, intimidated, and even sexually harassed,” Warmbo told Reduxx in an exclusive interview.
Disturbingly, Warmbo also revealed that rumors have been circulating regarding the male inmates striking up “deals” with some female inmates to impregnate them in order to sue the state for financial compensation.
“There is talk of some women in the prison agreeing to have sex with these men to get pregnant and sue the DOC and the state,” Warmbo says. “This has caused a climate of terror inside the prison, as they are forced to shower in an open area without locked doors and they can hear them talk about sexual things they want to do to the women.”
One inmate whom Warmbo has been in touch with sent a handwritten letter expressing that the men in the prison have caused her to be “scared, uncomfortable, and unsafe.” She also says the presence of the males in close quarters have been triggering her PTSD.
“I feel like there are some here not for the right reasons. They are having sex in bathrooms, [we are] finding cum in bottles, and people are touching themselves under the table,” the note reads. “I really wish legislation would take this [seriously] and change this.”
As Reduxx reported last month, a total of five male convicts have been transferred to a Minnesota’s women-only prison following the adoption of a gender identity policy by the Department of Corrections in January of 2023. Two of the men who are now being held at MCF-Shakopee are sexual predators serving sentences related to the abuse of children.
The prison policy was altered following a June 2022 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.
The discrimination claim was filed by the trans activist non-profit organization Gender Justice on behalf of Craig ‘Christina’ Lusk, who was serving a five-year sentence for the possession of methamphetamine at the Moose Lake correctional facility for men. 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 arrested on two drug-related felonies, but was ultimately only convicted on one after striking a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to first degree possession of a controlled substance, and was sentenced to 98 months in prison. Lusk had also had a previous felony conviction for first-degree robbery. The defendant fact sheet lists Lusk’s gender as “male,” though he had changed his legal name the year prior.
“I was uneasy when Lusk lived on my wing because [he] still had [his] male anatomy, was built like a line backer, had a horrible temper, and would verbalize that [he] ‘still had a working unit,'” one woman, known as Janice, told Reduxx. “Thankfully [he] was discharged this past year.”
“I definitely have my concerns and opinions about the male inmates being admitted into our facility, but like most inmates there is a fear of speaking up or voicing those concerns because of potential retaliation, or because people will think you are being discriminatory or judgemental,” said Janice.
Upon his release, Lusk was awarded a $495,000 payout.
But Lusk’s ex-wife came forward last year to tell The Daily Mail that she believed he was a “scammer” and a “big fat liar.”
The two were married in 2005, but Lusk’s wife filed for divorce in 2008 due to his heavy drinking and violent behavior.
“He would tell his family that if he was a woman, and had boobs, then they had to put him in a female prison,” said Lusk’s ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“He said that he was going to make sure he made money out of the whole ordeal, he said ‘I’m going to become a woman and complain to make sure they give me money and move me,’” she added. “When we were married he wasn’t doing anything like that, or even after we were divorced. I think he’s a big fat liar.”
Janice currently shares a unit with Elijah Thomas Berryman, 26, who was first arrested in April 2022 and accused of sexually abusing a minor multiple times. He pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in March of this year, and according to the Minnesota DOC website, is currently serving his 25-year sentence at the women’s prison.
According to Janice, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, Berryman has been “ranting and raving,” talking to himself in both a masculine and feminine voice.
“[Berryman] definitely has some mental health issues. I live kitty corner from him and he is extremely loud when he is talking to himself in his room at all hours of the day and night,” Janice said. “He talks like he is talking to someone and on one occasion when he was ranting and raving in his room, he was saying ‘You’re the one who got us locked up,’ and on another he was saying he was going to ‘fuck their ass,’ which is extremely disturbing and triggering for me.”
“I definitely live more on edge or hyper alert because many of us have been sexually assaulted by men in our past and now we are being housed together,” she added, while emphasizing that Berryman “still has male anatomy.”
“In our hallway is where our shower is located, I can not lock the door when I am taking a shower, which had never really given me anxiety until I had a male inmate living on my hallway.”
Another male inmate currently detained in MCF-Shakopee is Sean Windingland, 35, who is serving a 36-year sentence for child sexual abuse. Windingland sexually assaulted two 6-year-old relatives and posted videos of the abuse and grooming on pornography and pro-pedophile websites.
One woman who shares a unit with Windingland expressed her disgust with seeing him “happy” to be incarcerated with women.
“I personally do not like to see the grin on Sean Windingland’s face every day. He is in my unit and laughs and smiles all the time. Because he is here, he is safe and he has female companionship,” a female inmate said. In order to protect her identity, the pseudonym Amber is being used for the inmate.
“Yet, he had sex with his own daughters, sold the video on a predator’s website, and is looking at a lot of years here. It makes me sick that he is here. He is happy and how is this fair? His actions here clearly show he is a predator himself. Women with half a brain and a gut can tell that he is no good,” Amber added. “We have women who are butch but you don’t see them shipping them to men’s prisons. Why is it the other way around?”
Last month, a woman formerly employed at the Minnesota Department of Corrections came forward to tell Minnesota’s Alpha News that she had resigned from her post in protest of the new policy allowing men who claim a transgender status to be transferred into the female prison estate. Alicia Beckmann, who worked as a GED instructor at MCF-Shakopee, said the policy which prioritizes “gender identity” over biological sex creates an “unsafe” environment.
“You bring in biological males who are violent, who would be housed at a custody level four facility. I just believe we’re re-victimizing some of these women, re-traumatizing them. They are incarcerated, however, they all have a past and a lot of their past includes physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. I think allowing men to live amongst these women is traumatizing and it’s also unsafe for staff,” she added.
The new transgender inmate policy, which was revised in April last year and came into effect at the beginning of April 2024, established an Agency Gender Identity Committee in order to identify and make placement recommendations for “incarcerated people who are transgender” or “gender diverse”.
The document cites as an authority the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a lobbying group that Reduxx has repeatedly connected with sex offenders and sexologists sympathetic to pedophiles. Former WPATH president Eli Coleman has for many years been in a leadership role at the University of Minnesota’s Sexual and Gender Health department.
Interestingly, Lusk, the inmate whose lawsuit spurred the change in policy, underwent a chest augmentation procedure at the University of Minnesota in 2017. Similarly, the organization which represented his claim, Gender Justice, has worked closely with University of Minnesota students.
Last July, the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health presented Governor Tim Walz with a Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award for his “outstanding efforts in protecting gender-affirming health care.”
In May, a report titled “2024 Status of Women and Girls in Minnesota” declared that the policy allowing violent male convicts into Shakopee was a “policy win” for women.
The research was compiled as a cooperative effort between the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and the Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
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