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At least four trans-identified male convicts were transferred into an Illinois women’s prison after being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Now, the ACLU is requesting that the court issue an order prohibiting those men from being transferred to Menard Correctional Center, the state’s largest maximum security male facility, and demanding that an additional group of men in Menard be offered a transfer to a women’s prison.
For nearly a decade, the Illinois ACLU has acted as legal counsel on behalf of a group of male criminals who claim to be transgender, of whom at least four have been confirmed by Reduxx to be currently housed at Logan Correctional Center – a women’s facility.
Of the five men who are named in the ongoing lawsuit, four are currently at a women’s prison as a result of the litigation: Patterson, Padilla, Melendez, and Kuykendall.
Reed is listed as being in male prison Centralia.
Reed was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2012 on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a victim over the age of 60. The ACLU states that Reed began claiming to be transgender “during the intake process at Stateville Correctional Center.”
The other four men named in the ongoing litigation are already being held at Logan, having been quietly transferred in beginning in 2019. This is despite their recorded sex listed as “male” in DOC records.
Kuykendall, who is a registered sex offender, is serving a 40-year sentence for the 2013 stabbing murder of his former girlfriend, high school student Erin Schneider. The 17 year-old was found dead just hours before the two were expected to appear in court, as Schneider’s mother had filed for an emergency protection order against him.
Patterson is serving time for multiple violent felonies, including murder, attempted murder, and aggravated assault, with a criminal record dating back to 2005. In November 2010, Patterson pleaded guilty to murdering his cellmate by strangling him to death.
In June of 2019, just two months after being transferred into Logan, a woman who was made to share a housing unit with Monroe [formerly known as Patterson] filed a Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) report alleging that he had raped her. Under the protection of anonymity, “Jane Doe” also accused prison officials of attempting to coerce her to lie about her ordeal, which she would later reveal the details of in a February 2020 lawsuit.
Padilla, who is six feet tall and 237 pounds, is serving a 23-year sentence for attempted first-degree murder after he stabbed Frenaz Lyles repeatedly in the abdomen. On the evening of March 25, 2003, Padilla, who is Mexican, bumped into the victim and demanded an apology from him. When Lyles did not apologize, Padilla kicked him in the knees before pulling a knife from his back pocket and stabbing the man three times.
Melendez, a registered sex offender serving a combined sentence of 35 years for murder and aggravated battery with a firearm began claiming to be transgender in 2015, six years into his prison sentence.
As a result of ACLU litigation, convicted pedophile James Blessent was sent to serve his sentence at Logan upon his conviction in 2024. Blessent, who calls himself Michelle, is currently being housed at the facility after being found guilty of raping his two children. As previously reported by Reduxx, Blessent, 35, was initially arrested in April of 2023 in a case which included five counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim under 13.