ACTIVISTS LEAFLET ACCUSED LONG ISLAND PRISONER RAPIST

[Lindenhurst, Long Island NY, October 18] A SMALL GROUP of activists from The Transexual Menace leafleted this sleepy LI town this morning, protesting the alleged case of multiple prisoner rape against current Chief Roy Fries of the Lindenhurst Fire Department. Fries was a Sgt. in charge of Internal security for the Suffolk County Jail at the time of the alleged incidents.

According to an article on the front of the NY Times Metro section, Wednesday October 9th, for 6 years Maurice Mathie has pursued his charges that Fries sodomized him at least 20 times while he was in the Suffolk County Jail, including at least once after handcuffing him to a pipe.

Mathie, an openly gay prisoner currently in state prison for manslaughter, has just been awarded $750,000 by LI Federal Judge Arthur D. Spatt. Spatt reportedly based his finding on a long-standing internal report revealing Mathie had been to Fries office 35 times, that all visits were in the evening, that Sgt. Fries spent 7 times more time with Mathie than any other prisoner, and that Mathie had Fries unlisted home phone and address.

Asked why the Menace took on this action, a spokestrans declared, "Prison rape is a national disgrace. Yet gay activists ignore it for fear it will be once again be mis-labeled "homosexual rape", and feminists ignore it for fear it dilutes their focus on women's rape. But gender-based oppression includes all forms of sexual violence because the person involved is genderqueer, genderdifferent, or as in this case, simply in a situation where they are gendervulnerable.

The group Stop Prison Rape reports that nearly 1 in 5 prison inmates will be sexually assaulted or harassed. About 90% of these incidents occur in prisoner-to-prisoner assaults, and almost all are between heterosexual inmates. Because they are at the mercy of other inmates and the prison system, it is extremely rare for prisoners to come forward.

(c) 1996 InYourFace, the on-line, news-only service for gender activism from GenderPAC.

10/19/96