Summary: A Dominican woman was sent to a Miami male prison after a nurse and officials viewed her characteristics as manly.
A 50-year-old woman traveling from the Dominican Republic was classified as a male and placed with male inmates in a Miami prison for 10 hours. Fior Pichardo de Veloz was arrested on a decades-old drug charge that was eventually dismissed. She has now filed a civil rights lawsuit for being wrongly classified as a male three years ago after her arrest at the Miami airport.
Pichardo was booked as a female until medical staff deemed her characteristics as being “non-traditional male characteristics” and reclassifying her as male. A Miami-Dade County nurse reviewed Pichardo and determined that she had male reproductive organs, sending her to the male-only facility.
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She is seeking $5 million in her lawsuit against the Miami-Dade Corrections Department. She is married with three children. She was visiting the United States for the birth of a grandchild. She is a former local government official in the Dominican. She had traveled to the U.S. before without problem.
The lawsuit details how she was placed in the facility with 40 other male inmates in an open cell, constantly exposed to taunting and sexual harassment. Afraid to go to the bathroom located in an open area, she “urinated on herself.” Her lawyer explained, “She was threatened and sexually harassed. She was debased and humiliated.” They also claim that she was eventually moved to isolation and had photos taken of her private parts.
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Pichardo claims that she now suffers from PTSD and is seeking psychiatric care because of the incident. The lawsuit argues that the jail officials lied when they claimed they performed a proper examination of Pichardo because otherwise the incident never would have happened.
Do you think Miami-Dade Corrections Department owes Pichardo for what they did to her? Tell us in the comments below.
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Photo: teleradioamerica.com