Bryan Kim, who murdered his parents, was transferred to a men’s prison after being caught having sex with a female inmate.
A transgender-identifying male felon who murdered his parents sued the Washington State Department of Corrections on Tuesday for moving him back to a men’s prison after he was caught in a prohibited sexual encounter with a female inmate while being housed in the state’s women’s prison.
The ACLU filed a discrimination lawsuit on Bryan Kim’s behalf, asking a Washington court to either return him to the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) or release him entirely. The court petition claimed that Kim’s transfer to the Monroe Correctional Facility qualified as cruel punishment, forbidden by the Washington Constitution, by exposing Kim to an imminent danger of violence, sexual assault, and harassment.
“For the three-and-a-half years I was housed at WCCW, I used my time there to learn, to grow and to contribute positively to the WCCW. Being singled out for exceptional punishment — and transferred to a men’s prison — over a single infraction not only harms me, but every other incarcerated transgender person,” Kim said in a statement published by the ACLU.
After being housed at WCCW, colloquially known as “Purdy,” for four years, Kim was found having sexual intercourse with a female inmate in March, in violation of DOC policy. In July, the DOC moved him out of Purdy, citing “ongoing safety concerns” in a statement to National Review Kim is the first and only trans-identifying male offender to be removed from a women’s facility since the DOC enacted its radical gender-inclusive housing code.
Kim was found guilty in 2008 of two counts of aggravated first degree murder in the stabbing of his father, Richard Kim, and the bludgeoning and strangulation of his mother, Terri Kim, the Spokesman-Review reported. Kim killed his parents at their Mount Spokane home on December 5, 2006, as they returned from work. After attempting to clean up the murder scene and hide his parents’ bodies in an outbuilding, Kim went shopping the next day, using his father’s debit card to withdraw $1,000 from his parents’ account. For his crimes, Kim was sentenced to life in prison.
A housing review completed a month after Kim received the infraction recommended Kim stay at Purdy and continue to live among the female inmates. But the DOC conducted another review weeks later, the ACLU claimed, and advised that Kim go to a men’s prison.
While Kim insisted that the incident was consensual, the DOC found that consensual sex is difficult to prove in an environment as fraught and prone to exploitation as a prison.
A DOC employee, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, told National Review that technically there is no consensual sex between the incarcerated, though the DOC had been increasingly mitigating the sanctions on offenders who claim their prohibited sexual encounter was consensual.
“Due to the nature of the culture inside American prisons, where incarcerated individuals are not able to come forward with information that may lead to others getting into trouble without fear of reprisal, there is no sound practices for determining actual consensual sex,” Kim’s housing review said, according to the Seattle Times.
A female inmate at Purdy who chose to remain anonymous said that the reporting on Kim’s incident “definitely played a really big role for the simple fact that it brought a lot of negative publicity to the facility, and it was very well known.” The WA DOC has come under heightened scrutiny following National Review’s exposés into the treatment of its female inmates by male transfers.
A male child molester currently housed in Purdy repeatedly sexually harassed a female inmate who is herself a victim of child rape, the victim, Mozzy Clark-Sanchez, told National Review. Prison officials in August notified Clark-Sanchez that her 2022 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) case against trans-identifying inmate Christopher Williams has been referred to the state police.
In his complaint, Kim said he was worried about “being victimized in the shower” in men’s facilities. Many female inmates at Purdy have the same fear about the men preying on them while showering, as the stalls in the prison bathrooms don’t ensure privacy.
“They’re so tall, they’re like 6′ 4″,” another female inmate, who chose to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, told National Review of the male inmates.
“Our shower stalls don’t go up to our heads,” she said. “And the bathroom stalls, same thing. A bunch of women, when they’re in the showers, these people are just standing there. They don’t have to stand on their tippy toes and they look over and see everything. People were so uncomfortable. You feel kind of like you’ve been violated.”
Williams has repeatedly leered at the women while they’re showering. Clark-Sanchez said he peered over at her while she was naked taking a shower. On one occasion he threatened, “I can get you when I want,” she said.
“If I am sent back to WCCW, I will continue my trajectory toward rehabilitation,” Kim wrote in his declaration.
While there are ten men’s prisons in Washington State, there are only two women’s prisons. Besides Purdy, there’s Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women, which houses minimum-custody female offenders who are not considered dangerous or likely to escape. DOC policy allows for individual housing placements to be reviewed on a regular basis.
“Individuals placed in a gender-affirming facility may be transferred to another facility or returned to the originally assigned facility due to documented, objective safety and security concerns,” DOC policy reads.
The DOC and Kim’s legal team did not respond to requests for comment.