An inmate at New Jersey’s only women’s prison has revealed to Reduxx that a violent trans-identified male transferred into the facility has been allowed to marry a female inmate while serving a 50-year-sentence for the brutal murder of a prostituted woman.

Perry Cerf, 39, was arrested for the rape and murder of 47-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant Flor Andrade in 2002. Cerf, who now goes by the name Michelle Hel-loki Angelina, was wearing his victim’s clothes and utilizing her identification when he was found by police.

Cerf had been stopped for speeding while driving her car in Demearst, New Jersey, and further investigation by police led them to the body of Andrade, whose naked and bound body had been dumped in a nearby ravine. He was charged with murder, felony murder, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, possessing a knife, providing false information to police, and various motor vehicle offenses.

While awaiting trial, Cerf penned a letter to The New York Daily News confessing to the crime and boasted of drinking the woman’s blood. As reported by The Record of Hakensack, Cerf bragged in graphic detail about the brutality he had inflicted on Andrade, and said he drank her blood “so I could allow this person to live vicariously through myself.”

Speaking to media in 2005, Cerf said he had no regrets about murdering Andrade. “Personally, I don’t like to say I regret things that I’ve done,” he said, concluding: “I feel bad because I got caught.”

During his trial for the 2002 murder of Andrade, prosecutors initially offered Cerf a 40-year sentence if he pleaded guilty to rape and murder. However, Cerf told authorities he didn’t want to enter prison on a sex-related charge and accepted a 50-year sentence to avoid a rape conviction.

“Going to prison on a sex charge would be a safety concern for me,” Cerf said at the time. He was being held among other men at New Jersey State Prison, where Cerf assaulted inmates and at one point was placed in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day. He had initially been placed in the mental health ward but was moved because of “aberrant behavior” against others.

Cerf was quietly transferred to the women’s facility at an unknown date after beginning to identify as transgender.

Speaking to Reduxx, a currently incarcerated woman at Edna Mahan stated that Cerf was recently allowed to marry a female inmate and that the pair are now living together in the same quarters.

Kokila Hiatt, who has previously spoken out against New Jersey Department of Correction’s decision to house male inmates in the women’s facility, told Reduxx Cerf had married Jennifer Pasquarello, a former middle school aide currently incarcerated for sexually abusing one of her male students.

Hiatt told Reduxx that a few men transferred to EMCF who have undergone vaginoplasty surgeries are “free to engage in sexual relationships with the women simply because they no longer have the capability to impregnate anyone. Angelina [Cerf] actually married a woman here and the facility is housing them together.”

Since becoming involved with Cerf, Pasquarello has begun identifying as non-binary. The wedding, which was held in the gym of Hiatt’s unit was described by Hiatt as a “spectacle … since everyone thinks his relationship with the girl is [bullsh*t]. He has essentially turned her into his puppet.”

Hiatt explained that Pasquarello and Cerf are now working together to enact something of a campaign of terror against the female inmates. The two frequently threaten women, and have on at least one occasion coordinated an assault on inmates who complained about their behavior.

Hiatt, who was housed in the same unit with the couple, said she was among the women specifically targeted by Cerf and Pasquarello for abuse. In order to avoid censorship by prison staff, Hiatt referred to Cerf by the female name he had adopted.

“[Cerf] frequently would threaten women. He threatened me one time because I was one of the ones who worked to get him and his (at the time) girlfriend Jennifer Pasquarello moved.”

“He told me that my laughing was going to ‘get me in trouble’ as he ground his fist into his other hand. He told another woman she was going to ‘take a trip,’ meaning a trip to the hospital.”

Hiatt and a few other women filed a formal complaint detailing instances of threatening and aggressive behavior in an attempt to have the two separated.

“They both lived in this unit on separate wings, but were allowed ample contact time with each other. After many complaints about their behavior the facility decided to move [Pasquarello]. When [she] got told to pack up, they devised a plan that would get them put in lock [solitary] together. Their plan was that if they couldn’t at least live in the same unit together then they would go to lock together,” Hiatt said.

This prompted Cerf and Pasquarello to formulate a strategy to assault two women who had made formal complaints.

“When [Pasquarello] was to be moved to another unit … they then hatched a plan to assault two other women. The [Correctional Sergeant] had called for extra officers to assist in the moves. [Cerf] screamed, ‘They’re sending teams to lock us, Jen,’ [and] at that point Jen screamed ‘Do it now!’Each went running down their respective wing to assault their individual intended targets.”

Within one week, according to Hiatt, Cerf was found ‘not guilty’ of his assault charges. Hiatt also stated that he was “receiving property in lock that no other inmate would have had access to,” such as his typewriter and a battery-operated shaver.

Pasquarello, however, was found guilty for assault and was out within a few weeks despite receiving a sentence of 90 days. Hiatt clarified that while “early releases from lock are not uncommon” and Pasquarello had no prior disciplinary record, it was “only after being involved with [Cerf] did a whole other side of her come out.” The marriage, said Hiatt, was allowed to occur regardless of the incident.

The married couple is being housed together, despite the fact that the facility separates immediate family such as sisters, mothers and daughters, Hiatt added.

Cerf was removed from the facility on July 5 to receive breast implants, subsidized by the state. For some time prior, Hiatt said, he had been “provided with prosthetic breasts to wear.”

Trans-identified male inmates are being prioritized over women for hormone treatment, even in circumstances where women are in medical need, multiple women told Reduxx. The men claiming a transgender status are able to receive hormones on the basis of a mental health treatment once they acquire a gender dysphoria diagnosis. They are also able to receive certain cosmetics for free which the female inmates have to purchase, in addition to the breast implants and hormones.

“Women cannot receive these things as ‘medical treatments’ because we are actually women and not diagnosed with a mental illness,” Hiatt stated. “Those types of things are not seen as medically necessary for conditions we may experience. A woman could have a mastectomy and not be able to get implants to replace her breasts because she is a real woman, but [in order to make Cerf] feel like a woman, he was provided with implants.”

“Whether it is men trying to become women or women trying to become men, both are accommodated. Real women who are going through menopause are not allowed hormone therapy as a palliative treatment for menopausal symptoms,” Hiatt explained.

Another female inmate at Edna Mahan, Michelle Tierney, affirmed Hiatt’s claims and added that women suffering from a medical condition called endometrial hyperplasia – caused by a lack of progesterone – were unable to receive hormone treatment. Moreover, women going through menopause are denied hormone replacement therapy, as are women who have had hysterectomies to treat cancer.

According to court records, Cerf suffers from “several mental diseases” and had on more than one occasion attempted self-castrations.

In 2005, he told his prison psychiatrist, Dr. Marina Moshkovich, that he wanted to murder the Associate Administrator Michelle Ricci by breaking her neck, hitting her in the head, beating her up, and choking her.

He had also grabbed his psychiatrist by the hair and attempted to beat her. He was served with a disciplinary report for threatening another person and for assault, and for fifteen other offenses for which were ultimately either dismissed or for which he was found not guilty.

Edna Mahan, New Jersey’s only correctional facility for women, continues to be a source of ongoing controversy.

Multiple women have come forward to reveal the ways in which conditions within the institution have changed since a settlement between the ACLU and state Department of Corrections was reached in 2021. The settlement stipulated that trans-identified male inmates must be housed on the basis of their gender identity, resulting in the transfer of multiple violent male offenders.

On April 13, 2022, the New Jersey Department of Corrections confirmed that two female inmates at Edna Mahan had become pregnant after sexual encounters with trans-identified male inmates housed there.

Reduxx is a newly-launched 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.

UPDATE 8/2/22: A previous version of this article included the now-outdated claim that Marcelin was located in the men’s section of Rikers Island. This article has been edited to reflect that Marcelin is currently housed in the female section of Rikers, as per the New York City Department of Corrections.

A transgender serial killer with prior convictions for the murders of two women was granted access to a homeless shelter for women, where he reportedly was interacting with his third victim.

Harvey Marcelin, 84, who identifies as a transgender lesbian and uses the name Marceline Harvey, was arrested on March 4 for the murder of Susan Leyden, 68. Leyden, a former jewelry designer from New Jersey, was a resident of the Sage Center at Stonewall House, an LGBTQ residence in Brooklyn that also houses homeless seniors.

Leyden’s headless torso was found by a passerby in a shopping cart blocks away from Marcelin’s apartment on March 3, prompting police to question Marcelin on the gruesome discovery. Marcelin was well-known to police as a murderer, having been convicted in the brutal deaths of two other women on two separate occasions. In 1963, Marcelin had been convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. In 1986, just two years after being paroled, he stabbed a woman to death. Marcelin was paroled again in 2019.

Marcelin was arrested after witnesses reported seeing him leaving his apartment with Leyden’s floral shopping bag and CCTV footage was reviewed confirming Leyden had entered, but never left, Marcelin’s apartment building.

A search warrant executed at Marcelin’s apartment turned up Leyden’s decapitated head.

“My office charged Harvey Marcelin with allegedly concealing the severed head of a woman in [his] home and discarding the victim’s torso in a bag on the street,” Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a press conference held on March 14. “Today, the grand jury indicted Harvey Marcelin for murder, and my office is committed to vigorously seeking justice. The facts of this horrific case are gruesome and unsettling and my heart is with the victim’s family and friends.”

During the same press conference, the NYPD provided updates on the gruesome crime in which they released surveillance footage from a retail store featuring Marcelin. In it, Marcelin is seen utilizing a motorized wheelchair with what appears to be a severed human leg on the seat, visible when Marcelin stands from the chair to look at products.

On March 30, Marcelin pleaded not guilty to charges of first- and second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence, and concealment of a human corpse in the killing of Leyden.

While it is unclear when Marcelin and Leyden first met, one of his many Facebook profiles reveals a communication with the victim dated 2019, just after he was released from the upstate Cayuga Correctional facility on the provision of lifetime parole.

It was at this time that both Marcelin and Leyden were seeking housing. Leyden, who was reportedly struggling with declining mental health and drug addiction, eventually secured an apartment within the Sage Center at Stonewall House.

Marcelin used Leyden’s own photo as his own profile image on more than one Facebook account and had repeatedly posted her picture to his Facebook pages. In October 2021, just months before Leyden was murdered, Marcelin responded to her with the comment, “Love personified.”

Yet a few comments made from Leyden’s Facebook account suggest that the feeling was far from mutual.

In November 2020, Marcelin uploaded a photo of a young blond woman as his main profile photo, the identity of whom is unknown. Beneath the photo, Leyden commented: “That is not a picture of Marceline Harvey… [he] is nice but crazy… Marcaline [sic] is a freak.”

Anne Brennan, a nurse who oversees the intake of residents, told The New York Times that she had objected to Harvey being allowed entry to the women’s section of the shelter where Leyden resided — particularly in light of his long record of violence against women — yet her concerns were ignored by her supervisors.

“Apparently his feelings and identity were far more important than all the other women that were terrified of him,” Brennan said.

However, Julia Savel, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Social Services, told media that policies permitted Harvey’s presence.

“Our policy — in accordance with the law — is to place individuals in shelters based on their reported gender identity,” she said. “Being homeless or transgender does not make you inherently violent and are not connected to the crime that was committed.”

Marcelin told media in April that he met Leyden in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village and that she was among his “coven” of women. She was one of three women who occasionally visited Marcelin’s East New York apartment.

According to James Essig, NYPD Chief of Detectives, Leyden was seen entering Marcelin’s apartment on the morning of February 27 with a shopping cart. Marcelin was seen at a local hardware store on March 1 with “another unknown female”, where they purchased a power saw, trash bags, and cleaning solutions.

Marcelin is currently detained in the Rose M. Singer section of Riker’s Island, which is the only female facility on Rikers Island. In an interview with The New York Post conducted in April, he stated that he first dressed up as a woman for Halloween when he was about 13 or 14 years old.

“It felt so good,” Marcelin said, who added that he did not claim a female identity until he met a transgender inmate at the Auburn state prison in 1993 who encouraged him to start taking Premarin, a form of estrogen that was developed for post-menopausal women.

On July 30, the New York Times released a lengthy sympathetic profile on Marcelin and his crimes, utilizing “she/her” pronouns throughout. The article insisted “transgender people are far more likely to become victims of violence, not perpetrators,” and appeared to attribute Marcelin’s history of violence against women as part of his gender identity conflict.

Marcelin has a long history of mental illness and committing sex-based violence. He was first accused of attempted rape when he was just 14 years-old; the allegation was made by a girl aged 8.

A 1963 psychiatric examination conducted by three doctors at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital concluded Marcelin had “schizoid personality with sociopathic features” but was not deemed criminally insane nor psychotic. A hospital record from 1962 suggested he may have had “delusional grandiosity,” “suggestions of chronic schizophrenia” and “paranoid reaction personality.”

Prior to Leyden’s grisly homicide, Marcelin had been incarcerated for more than five decades on two separate murder convictions for the brutal homicides of women – the first in 1963, and the second in 1985.

A jury found Marcelin guilty of murder in 1963 for fatally shooting his girlfriend Jacqueline Bonds inside a Manhattan apartment. At the time, Marcelin was also facing an attempted rape charge involving another woman, and Bonds had been scheduled to appear before a grand jury considering the case.

In April, Marcelin stated that he had killed Bonds out of jealousy. “She was very popular,” he said. “And I had images of her just being nice to somebody else. Yeah, sexually, you know. She was beautiful. I didn’t want anyone else to have her.”

He was found guilty of first-degree murder and received a sentence of 20 years to life, and was released in May 1984.

On the morning of October 30, 1985, Marcelin was seen pushing a shopping cart that contained a garbage bag. Witness Robert Romano told law enforcement, “The bag ripped on the first step and blood came out.” A second witness spoke of discovering the bag later and discovered a pair of women’s legs inside, bound with rope.

The victim was identified as Anna Laura Serrera Miranda, 29, in police records. Miranda had a string of prostitution arrests and a heroin habit, according to parole board reports. She had been stabbed repeatedly, tied up with a rope, before being wrapped in plastic. Marcelin told parole officers that he wanted to be a pimp and that Miranda lived with him occasionally, and later told a Manhattan judge that she had been late with the rent.

“I was very nice to her but then she’d go out for two or three days and I didn’t know what she was doing,” he said.

Marcelin was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six to 12 years in prison.

State officials expressed concern over granting parole when Marcelin became eligible in the 1990s. During one State Parole Board hearing in 1997, Marcelin admitted to having “problems” with women, according to court records. Other boards had rejected parole citing Marcelin’s “attempt to place the blame” on the victims. He was released on August 7, 2019.

Marcelin described his male “side” as a “pimp” and blamed his female victims for inciting him to violence. “I tell them — there’s a side of me you don’t want to see… but they don’t listen,” he told The New York Post.

When asked about his tendency to erupt in a violent rage, Marcelin said his outbursts felt “liberating” as he could let his “macho side come out”. He went on to say that he “[covers] it up by being a woman” because he doesn’t like his “male rage.”

“Harvey’s not a good guy, he’s a tough guy,” Marcelin said, “Marceline’s nice and gentle and loving, you know, lots of laughter, fun to be with. She’s the one who’s perfectly normal.”

Marcelin’s presentation of his gender identity is similar to that of Washington state serial killer Donna Perry.

Perry murdered three prostituted women in a four-month timeframe in 1990. He managed to avoid suspicion following the heinous killings, and fled to Thailand in 2000 to undergo gender reassignment surgeries, after which he successfully concealed his identity for years.

It wasn’t until a 2012 DNA test following a conviction for illegal firearms possession that Perry was forensically connected to all three women’s murders.

During the trial proceedings, prosecutors contended that Perry had only undergone his gender changes to avoid suspicion for the murders and shirk justice. This was in part fueled by the fact Perry referred to his “male” and “female” identities in separate contexts, accusing his “male” side of having committed the crimes while his “female” identity was innocent of them.

He was found guilty in 2017, and in 2021 it was revealed that he had been transferred to the Washington Correctional Center for Women.

Reduxx is a newly-launched 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.