A male convicted killer has been allowed to remain at a women’s prison in Illinois despite disturbing allegations that he raped a female inmate. Department of Corrections officials have attempted to have Andre Patterson returned to a men’s prison, but have been unsuccessful due to his “transgender” identity and support from activist groups.
The lawsuit filed by the anonymous female inmate accused Monroe, who “identifies as female, but still has male genitalia” was moved into the plaintiff’s housing unit on June 18, 2019, and immediately began “express(ing) an interest” in Doe.
After the female inmate reported the sexual assault, she was transferred to the prison’s Health Care Unit (HCU), and was taken to an outside hospital for a “rape kit” examination. According to the 2020 lawsuit, she was interviewed by prison officials, who “covered up the sexual assault” and tried to “falsely classify it as consensual, to keep it from being considered a PREA violation.”
Patterson has a long history of violence recorded since his teenage years. In 2006, he murdered his cellmate with his bare hands after the two men had been detained together for a period of just three days. At the age of 17, Monroe strangled to death Kimani Muhammad, then 31, in Cook County jail.
Despite Patterson’s voluntary agreement to move back to a men’s prison, he is still detained with women. IDOC records also show that he is catalogued under his birth name and sex.
“Ms. Monroe does not want to be transferred [to a male prison] and wants to continue her gender-affirming treatment,” attorney Danielle Berkowsky said during an October 2024 hearing, contradicting Patterson’s own previous declaration.
“We know her position on ‘gender-affirming care’ has changed multiple times, recently. Not necessarily because her identity has changed, or not because she’s not ‘trans,’ but because of conditions and how things have been at Logan. It seems that there have been some outcries made in the midst of crisis which don’t seem to be representative of treatments that she needs or wants… Her changing position tells us that her safety is on the line.”