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| Transsexual Inmate Sues for Series of 1993 Assaults, Rape |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/27/2001 |
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A transsexual inmate has sued the federal Bureau of Prisons and officials at a northwestern Pennsylvania prison claiming they failed to prevent repeated sexual assaults and a rape at the facility eight years ago. John Cuoco, 38, who has taken female hormones since 1991, claims officials at a federal prison for men in Bradford, about 70 miles east of Erie, should have known she faced a heightened risk of being attacked by other inmates. Cuoco, who plans to have a sex change operation after being released, considers herself a woman, while the government considers Cuoco to be a man. Cuoco is serving 14 years in prison for robbing New York area post offices, and claims her feminine appearance and a 1992 recommendation from New York judge should have prompted prison officials to place her in a protected area. Instead, McKean prison officials placed Cuoco, now at a federal medical center in Rochester, Minn., in the general prison population. There, another inmate raped her on Oct. 20, 1993 and she was sexually assaulted twice after the alleged rape, the lawsuit states. Cuoco is seeking unspecified damages, claiming prison officials violated her constitutional right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment by ignoring the risk that an effeminate inmate would be raped by fellow prisoners. The government denies Cuoco was raped. If she was assaulted, the government says, prison officials did nothing wrong because Cuoco didn't report any threats before she was allegedly raped. Aside from her appearance, Cuoco claims U.S. District Judge Gerard L. Goettal in White Plains, N.Y., warned federal officials about the risk of rape when he sentenced Cuoco in 1992. Goettal recommended the Bureau of Prisons place Cuoco in a prison where they could separate her from violent inmates because 'he is more likely to be a victim of prison homosexual rape than the average prisoner.' A jury trial is scheduled for Sept. 10 in Erie. |
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