A transgender
inmate freed from prison last year because she was dying of
AIDS has been charged with using a forged Maryland death
certificate to get new criminal charges dismissed. Dee
Deirdre Farmer, 41, was charged Wednesday with forging
a Baltimore circuit court order to change the death
certificate of a man named Charles Smith to reflect that
Farmer was the person who had died. Charging documents
showed that Farmer got criminal charges in Virginia
dismissed using a forged Maryland death certificate.
In a landmark case, Farmer sued federal prison
officials over a 1989 rape that occurred about a week
after Farmer entered a federal maximum-security prison
for men in Terre Haute, Ind. Farmer had arrived with
male sex organs and breast implants, after undergoing
estrogen therapy.
The lawsuit claimed the government had violated
Farmer's constitutional right to be free of cruel and
unusual punishment by ignoring the risk that a
feminine-appearing inmate would be raped by other prisoners.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1994 that prison
officials can sometimes be held liable for inmate
assaults revived Farmer's lawsuit, which had been
dismissed by lower courts. After the Supreme Court decision,
however, she lost the case at trial.
Farmer was serving a 20-year federal sentence
for credit-card fraud, followed by a 30-year sentence
for credit-card fraud in Maryland. In February 2005,
Chief Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr. of the Maryland court of
special appeals freed Farmer from a state prison near
Hagerstown, saying the inmate, then described as
blind, bedridden, and dying of AIDS, was no longer a
threat to society.
''When I cut him loose, my recollection is that
it was on the basis of documentary evidence that he
was HIV-positive and that his life expectancy was
very, very short,'' Murphy told The [Baltimore]
Sun on Wednesday. Murphy said he decided to
release Farmer on probation ''in the hopes that that
might encourage him to remain crime-free while he was out
with what little time he had left.''
Farmer was born male and underwent a sex-change
operation. She legally changed her Maryland birth
certificate a few years ago to reflect that she was a
woman named Dee Deirdre Farmer, according to court documents.
In December, Farmer was arrested in a department
store in Baltimore County for allegedly applying for
and using store credit cards in other people's names.
She identified herself as Larry Prescott, although she
later gave the name Dee Farmer, and appeared in court on
those charges dressed as a man, said Baltimore County
prosecutor Michelle Samoryk, who said that Farmer did
not appear to be ill.
Farmer was charged in December as Larry G.
Prescott, 44, with identity theft, identity fraud, and
theft for allegedly opening fake Nordstrom credit card
accounts. Dee Deirdre Farmer was indicted in January on five
counts of mail fraud and two counts of aggravated identity
theft for allegedly obtaining more than $50,000 in
money and property by opening fraudulent credit accounts.
Nicholas A. Szokoly, the lawyer who helped win
Farmer's release last year from prison, was surprised
to learn of the new charges. ''I was hoping he would
get some peace,'' the lawyer said. ''I was looking forward
to Dee being able to return home [last year] and have
some quiet time with his family.'' (AP)
