A transgender prisoner in Oregon says the state should be held in contempt of court after male guards performed a body-cavity search on her, in violation of a judge’s order, and “paraded” her around clad only in her undergarments.
In September, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ordered that Zera Lola Zombie, an inmate at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, be considered a vulnerable party and that no male officers or prisoners be allowed to see her nude, The Oregonian reports. Aiken also ordered that Zombie be housed in a separate cell where she could be protected from sexual assault by male inmates. She had been assaulted in the past. The order came in response to a discrimination lawsuit Zombie had filed in 2021.
But in November, she was taken from her cell and ordered to be strip-searched and provide a urine sample in front of male guards during a search for drugs. After she said she was legally entitled to deal only with female guards, the officers left her alone in a small cell, her lawyers said. She eventually had to urinate, and without access to a toilet, did so in her clothing.
“When she removed her prison clothes to let them dry, correction officers then handcuffed her and ‘paraded her’ in her bra and underwear in view of other male staff and prisoners to another room where she was then given a ‘humiliating body cavity search’ by a male officer, her lawyers wrote to the court,” according to The Oregonian.
She “was cited for contraband and disobedience of an order,” the paper reports, and was placed in a disciplinary unit, where she remains. In that unit, she has to shower in front of male inmates and officers.
In court last Tuesday, a lawyer for the state said no female officers were available when the drug search was going on. But Aiken said the search involving a recreational drug called spice paper, could have been put off because the drug is not life-threatening, unlike some others.
“You can barely get through these allegations without wondering, does somebody have any common sense?” Aiken said, as reported by The Oregonian.
“To me, she is not the only transgender individual in the system,” Aiken added. “So these are precautions that need to be addressed. You need to answer each one of those allegations in detail. … This has me very concerned.” She gave the state lawyers until 5 p.m. Monday to do so. If the allegations turn out to be true, “there will be sanctions,” she said.
Zombie, 39, is serving time for manslaughter in the 2014 beating death of a girlfriend, Samantha Lee Brown, and an assault on a fellow prisoner at the Umatilla County Jail. She cannot be released until 2049.
“When people are in the care of the state of Oregon and corrections for whatever crime it is they are in for, our responsibility is that they are treated appropriately, humanely, and they receive their sanctions for their sentence,” Aiken advised state lawyer Nathan Riemersma. “We are not sending people into prison to be further abused.’’
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