OAN’s Brooke Mallory
6:37 PM – Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The Washington Department of Corrections is being sued by a biological man who identifies as a transgender woman who was found guilty of sexually abusing an underage girl.
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The perpetrator claims that the department has not lived up to the terms of a “gender-affirming care” agreement, and he is now requesting $400,000 in damages.
The sexual abuser’s “dead” name was originally Brett David Sonia, and his new name after transitioning is “Brooke Lyn Sonia”. Transgender people refer to their birth-given names as “dead names.”
The criminal was found guilty in 2005 and 2006 of numerous counts pertaining to the sexual exploitation of a minor.
The inmate initially made contact with the child in Strafford County, New Hampshire, where he started abusing her sexually and taking pictures of her in obscene actions. He went on to transport the victim across state lines to Los Angeles County, California, where he continued to abuse her.
It was not reported how he knew the young girl, or if he knew her parents.
According to early press reports regarding the case, Sonia had manipulated the 13-year-old girl into producing child sexual exploitation material. He was also suspected of selling the abuse material online. However, the second claim was not proven in the court system.
The Strafford County jury selection process was described as “difficult,” as more than a dozen prospective jurors acknowledged that they would not be able to serve on the case because of how extremely upsetting the details were.
Sonia received prison sentences in both California and New Hampshire, with the latter imposing the longest jail time. His sentence in New Hampshire has a maximum term of 22.5 years. A Los Angeles County court will determine if the disturbed individual will serve additional time in California after that point. Sonia’s sentence expires in 2047.
In 2016, one year after Sonia began identifying as transgender, the perpetrator was sent to spend part of his sentence in Washington under the Interstate Corrections Compact (ICC). States are permitted by the ICC to pool their custodial resources and transfer prisoners to international facilities that could be “more appropriate” for their requirements.
Meanwhile, Sonia complained about not having any access to “gender affirming care,” such as women’s underwear and laser hair removal, after being transferred between several male institutions in Washington.
Sonia was eventually sent to a women’s jail in the state of Washington in 2022. However, the criminal regularly “changes” his gender identity, according to female inmates at the Washington Correctional Center for Women (WCCW), and he has reportedly admitted to some of them that he still identifies as a man. This information was shared with the outlet Reduxx by a family member of an insider who works at WCCW.
Additionally, months after revealing Sonia’s relocation in a previous news article, Reduxx reported that Sonia had filed a complaint against 10 employees of the Washington Department of Corrections (WDOC) at both WCCW and the male prison where Sonia had previously been housed.
Sonia claims to have suffered “severe emotional anguish” as a result of not receiving “adequate medical care with deliberate indifference.” Sonia also claims in the complaint that he made a deal with WDOC employees in 2020, promising to have his facial hair removed and to get “gender confirmation surgery”—specifically, breast implants.
Sonia asserts that he has experienced severe and incapacitating “anxiety, depression, weight gain and loss, and anger management issues” as a result of not receiving the operations in a timely manner.
In response, the defendant’s’ attorney general, Robert Ferguson, acknowledged that Sonia and the prison authorities had reached a deal on “gender affirming care,” but he did not claim that Sonia was entitled to any compensation for his numerous grievances.
The case is moving forward and will go to trial sometime this year, reports say.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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