Reduxx has learned that a trans-identified male sex offender was quietly transferred into a women’s prison in Minnesota, despite having been convicted of sexually abusing a girl under the age of 13 years old. Daniel Patrick Benz, 38, filed a civil rights complaint on February 27, 2023, which resulted in his transfer into Minnesota’s only women’s prison.
Benz legally changed his name to Danielle Marie Whitebird in June of 2023 after his petition was approved by the state of Minnesota. In addition to the name change, Benz also was supplied with a “replacement birth record” which declared his sex as female, despite not having undergone any surgeries, according to his own legal complaints.
In 2007, Benz was convicted of criminal sexual misconduct with a victim under the age of 13. According to court records obtained by Reduxx, St. Louis county police officers responded to a tip from the Eveleth Police Department in July regarding the sexual abuse of a minor.
Eveleth police had received a text message informing law enforcement that Benz had “played a game of touch the peanuts” with a 6 year-old girl. The informant, whose name has been redacted, said the girl had been acting oddly for two weeks. The child divulged to the individual that “Dan” had sexually molested her on multiple occasions.
Benz had been staying in the same residence as the victim after having been evicted from his apartment. During an interview with a social worker, the girl stated that Benz had been touching her genitals.
“One night when her mommies went to pick up her daddy, she was with Dan at her house,” reads the 2007 complaint. “They were sitting together watching a movie… [The girl] stated that Dan reached with his hand and went inside of the left leg of her pajama pants. He then put his hand inside her panties and touched her on top of her vagina.” The victim also described other similar instances of abuse.
Benz was handed the maximum 25 year sentence. However, his long history of criminal behavior indicates that he was released in approximately 2012, when he was convicted of a misdemeanor for giving a police officer a false name – a charge that appears multiple times throughout his criminal record.
The convicted predator has recently been released after serving a brief sentence for burglary. Benz was convicted of the theft of a motor vehicle in 2018, a charge which carries a maximum ten-year sentence. Police records filed after his arrest in 2017 state that Benz had “active warrants” out of Crow Wing County for “failure to register as a predatory offender” as well as a domestic assault report.
While incarcerated in a men’s facility, Benz began claiming to experience “gender dysphoria”. When filing a request for a change of name and legal sex in February 2023, Benz claimed to be a “transgender woman [whose] legal documents do not match my gender and gender identity”.
“It is painful, difficult, and uncomfortable for the party addressing me, when they inquire about the ‘male’ legal name, and my ‘male’ sex identifier are on my legal documents,” Benz wrote.
He continued: “I humbly request this court changes my ‘current legal name’ Daniel Patrick Benz to Danielle Marie Whitebird, and my current sex identification from ‘male’ to ‘female’, in order to match my gender and gender identity. This will alleviate my unnecessary suffering.”
Concurrently, Benz had also filed a human rights complaint requesting a transfer to the women’s prison MCF-Shakopee on the basis of the Eighth Amendment’s clause against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Ms. Benz-Whitebird’s case satisfies both elements of the deliberate indifference test,” Benz wrote in his complaint. “She has presented extensive evidence that, despite hormone therapy, she continues to experience gender dysphoria so significant that she continues to have thoughts of self-castration and is at serious risk of acting on that impulse again.”
The Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) violated Benz’s human rights, he claimed, by failing to transfer him to MCF-Shakopee in a “timely manner,” and “failing to house Plaintiff in a female facility according to her gender identity which would ensure safety and reduce the risk of sexual victimization”.
Reduxx has now learned that Benz had been transferred to MCF-Shakopee at the end of 2023, where he remained until September of 2024. He has since been released to the supervision of Crow Wing County. Benz’s placement in the women’s prison was confirmed both through court records and by an inmate who spoke to Reduxx via women’s prison advocate Rebeca Warmbo – herself once an inmate at the facility.
Warmbo provided documented exchanges from a woman who was a former victim of sex trafficking. In order to protect her identity, her name has been changed.
“[There was a] man who introduced me to drugs and then prostitution, which eventually led to the charges I am here for now,” said Cate, adding that while he was in MCF-Shakopee, Benz “showed me his penis… I was terrified.”
Cate went on to explain that though she had reported the incident to prison officials, “nothing was done” and “everyone turned their cheek.”
Cate stated that she believed action was not immediately taken on the basis that her report was seen as “homophobic” or bigoted.
“We just want to be protected here and not abused or taken advantage of. Most of us come from a background of abuse and we shouldn’t allow it here. We should be safe and protected, but they are allowing abusers in,” she added.
Benz’s temporary transfer into MCF-Shakopee constitutes the sixth known male convict to be placed in the women’s prison since a June of 2022 lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Corrections resulted in changes to policies.
It was at that time that a 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.
Though Lusk was only housed at MCF-Shakopee for just under a year, the lawsuit filed on his behalf allowed for several other men to be transferred into the female facility, including two other men with previous convictions for child sexual abuse, and upon his release, Lusk was awarded a $495,000 payout on the basis of discrimination.
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 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.”
In October, multiple female inmates at MCF-Shakopee told Reduxx that the transfer of violent men into the prison had caused them to feel “scared” and “unsafe.” Additionally, at least one of them male inmates had attempted to strike “deals” with some female inmates to impregnate them in order to sue the state for financial compensation.
Gender Justice is also currently pursuing a Supreme Court suit in a bid to allow a trans-identified male to compete against women in powerlifting. Yet Jess Braverman, the Legal Director at Gender Justice, has been received multiple honors and awards. For three consecutive years, from 2021 to 2023, Braverman was named Minnesota’s Attorney of the Year.
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