A total of five male convicts were 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, a female correctional center, are sexual predators serving sentences related to the abuse of children.
Among them are 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.
Another, Sean Windingland, 35, sexually assaulted two 6-year-old relatives and posted videos of the abuse and grooming on pornography and pro-pedophile websites.
Windingland admitted to engaging in sexual contact with the young girls when questioned by investigators, but claimed that the children had consented. He pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2019. Windingland is now serving his 36-year prison sentence among women at MCF-Shakopee.
The third, Bradley Richard Sirvio, is a convicted murderer who is serving a life sentence. Sirvio, 52, beat a man to death with a hammer before setting his house on fire in November of 1995. A repeat offender, Sirvio has several other convictions that include multiple charges of assault, burglary, and theft. He was quietly transferred to MCF-Shakopee in November 2023, a full five months ahead of the date that a newly-drafted gender identity policy was set to take effect.
The two remaining men confirmed by Reduxx to have been transferred into the women’s prison are Nathan Charles Johnson, serving two years for aiding and abetting a burglary, and a trans-identified male who uses the name Christina Suzanne Lusk, but was born Craig Lusk.
In June 2022, Lusk launched a 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. Lusk, who was serving a five-year sentence for the possession of methamphetamine at the Moose Lake correctional facility for men, was backed by the trans activist non-profit organization Gender Justice – which was recently revealed to have received nearly $500,000 in taxpayer funds from the administration of Governor Tim Walz.
The Democratic vice presidential nominee’s office handed out $448,904 to Gender Justice just one year after the organization filed the sex discrimination complaint against Minnesota’s DOC on behalf of Lusk, according to a review of public records published by the taxpayer watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.
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. The defendant fact sheet lists Lusk’s gender as “male,” though he had changed his legal name the year prior.
Lusk had a previous felony conviction for first-degree robbery.
The legal claim, which was successful in court, demanded that Lusk be transferred to MCF-Shakopee and refers to him as “a woman who was assigned male at birth”, using feminine pronouns throughout.
“Gender identity refers to a person’s innate sense and deeply held understanding of their own gender. Everyone has a gender identity,” reads the complaint. Lusk began taking female hormones in 2009 and received chest implants in 2017.
Gender Justice further demanded that Lusk be given “women’s undergarments,” and claimed that DOC “punished Ms. Lusk for having breasts and for wearing women’s clothing.” Additionally it was stated that Lusk was “repeatedly misgendered and misnamed”.
As previously reported by Reduxx, a Facebook account belonging to Lusk showed that he was obsessively posting about seeking female sexual partners, and that he wanted “a bride from Japan”.
As a result of a settlement between Gender Justice and the DOC, Lusk was awarded a $495,000 payout, of which approximately $250,000 was allocated to cover the cost of legal fees. The DOC also rolled out a new policy that would streamline the process for male convicts to transfer into the women’s prison.
The legal team responsible for arguing Lusk’s case was honored with the title “Attorneys of the Year” by law publication Minnesota Lawyer.
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.
This week, a woman formerly employed at the Minnesota Department of Corrections came forward to tell 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, says the policy which prioritizes “gender identity” over biological sex creates an “unsafe environment.”
“I think it has just created a lot of risk, a lot of unknown confusion, frustration, anger,” Beckmann said. “It just has a vibe that doesn’t sit right with a lot of us who work at Shakopee because we are a women’s correctional facility.”
“We house every custody level. We have what would be considered low-level offenders who are there on DWI charges, theft charges, drug possession. Then, 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.
Beckmann remarked that the policy had caused a climate of fear among staff at the women’s prison. “We just fear saying anything. I’ve been away from the DOC now for a few months and I still fear any kind of retaliation from the agency for speaking out, and I’m speaking out for these women who deserve a chance to be rehabilitated and returned to society. I just don’t think the way they’re doing it is appropriate.”
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