EXCLUSIVE: Trans-Identified Male Convicted of Beating Woman to Death with a Hammer Transferred into NJ Women’s Prison

Reduxx has learned that a man serving a 30-year sentence for the fatal beating of a 55-year old woman has quietly been transferred into New Jersey’s Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Elliot Rivera Jr., 35, now calls himself Jamie Belladonna and is described as “female” within the state Department of Corrections (DOC) system.

Rivera’s total prison term amounts to 40 years, to be run concurrently, on the basis of two convictions. In November 2011, he was sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of 30 years for the 2009 murder of Patricia Cantaloupe. In a separate case, Rivera was sentenced to 10 years in prison for carjacking a 57 year-old woman in the parking lot of a supermarket on February 26, 2010.

On July 31, 2009, an investigation was conducted into the death of 55 year-old Cantaloupe after a building maintenance supervisor reported an unusual smell coming from her residence. The homicide investigation, led by Sgt. Thomas Cassidy of the Sayreville Police Department and investigator Scott Crocco of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office revealed that Cantaloupe had been struck multiple times in the head and died from blunt force trauma. An autopsy report identified the weapon used to bludgeon the woman to death as a hammer.

On March 4, 2010, Rivera was charged with accosting and carjacking a 57 year-old woman’s vehicle, and he was arrested by Spotswood police.

The slain woman had also been robbed, and reports from The Central New Jersey News state that law enforcement had considered Rivera a suspect in Cantaloupe’s homicide “within days” of conducting the investigation.

Nicholas Sewitch, assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor, said detectives focused on Rivera, formerly an acquaintance of the victim, early on in the investigation. “It was always, ‘Where is Elliot Rivera and what is he doing?'” Sewitch told the press. Evidence needed to charge him with the murder was discovered hours after his arrest for the carjacking, though Sewitch declined to give further details to the news outlet at the time.

Since 2011, Rivera had been serving his sentence in the New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) in Trenton. In February 2023, independent news site The Appeal reported sympathetically on Rivera’s situation as a “trans woman” who was unjustly incarcerated in a men’s facility.

After communicating with Rivera via email, The Appeal reported that “she attempted to remove her testicles after officials denied her request to move to Edna Mahan”. According to statements made by Rivera to the outlet, in the process of mutilating his genitals, the convicted killer cut an artery. He claimed that he required emergency medical attention as a result, but the DOC declined to comment on the matter.

“Because of how hurtful the language was to me with this denial, the next day I was set to mutilate this crap that I’ve been begging to have removed for a whole year,” Rivera wrote. “But no one took me serious & then to deny me saying the main reason is the very thing I’ve been begging to have removed.”

In October 2022, New Jersey lawmakers amended the DOC prison policy in order to allow officials to override the housing preferences of trans, nonbinary, or intersex prisoners. Previous policy gave prisoners the “presumption” to be housed according to their self-declared gender identity.

The decision was made after the widely-publicized case of Demetrius ‘Demi’ Minor, a trans-identified male transfer into EMCF who impregnated two female inmates and had been trying to have sexual relations with the women from the moment he was transferred in.

Reduxx has previously interviewed female inmates at EMCF about the situation, who explained that following the news of the two pregnancies at the prison, Minor and four other male inmates were segregated from the female inmates and relocated to the Vulnerable Persons Unit (VPU) of EMCF. Shortly afterwards, he was transferred to a male facility at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility.

Just like Rivera, Minor had also claimed to have mutilated his genitals by attempting to amputate his testicles with a razor, though the only evidence of this occurrence is a blog post he authored himself. “I started cutting again, and with a razor I begin making a incision to remove my testicle. In my head, I just wanted the pain to stop,” Minor wrote.

“Truthfully the one family that I had is at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility. It was a group of friends who helped me get through this pain, from being stuck in a body that I hate. I went through many depressive nights, and often wanted to be loved.”

Curiously, both Minor and Rivera have been housed in the same unit the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, designated for “vulnerable” inmates.

In previously denying Rivera’s transfer to EMCF, officials cited “reproductive concerns,” according to The Appeal. Rivera told the outlet that he was facing “hostility” at the NJSP for men and that he was “begging” prison officials to stop calling him a man.

Rivera is also calling on the DOC to provide him with “gender-affirming” surgeries. “It is torture for me because I only have half of my bottom surgery and so I’m stuck in the room all day with this part that doesn’t belong to me,” he said.

In 2019, an ACLU lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Corrections resulted in a settlement which required the state to allow violent male inmates to self-identify into the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. The lawsuit was launched on behalf of a trans-identified male inmate and convicted terrorist Daniel Demers, named in the court documents as “Sonia Doe.” Reduxx was the first to reveal that Demers is a vocal participant in the “adult diaper” community, a fetish subculture which involves adults dressing up and roleplaying as children during sex.

According to previous testimonies provided to Reduxx from women incarcerated at Edna Mahan, among the first men to be transferred to the prison after the ACLU was victorious in their lawsuit was a sadistic murderer who had boasted about drinking his victim’s blood.

Perry Cerf was handed a 50-year sentence in 2003 for the brutal rape and murder of a sex-trafficked woman from Ecuador. Cerf, who now goes by “Michelle Hel-loki Angelina” and is recorded as female by the DOC, had been found wearing his victim’s clothes and utilizing her identification with his photo superimposed over hers.

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