(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last September, a federal judge ordered the Indiana Department of Correction to provide “gender‐affirming surgery” to self-purported Muslim transgender inmate Jonathan C. Richardson, who now goes by the name “Autumn Cordellionè” and is serving a 55-year sentence for killing Richardson’s infant stepdaughter.
But in December, psychologist Dr. Kelsey Beers filed a report recommending against surgery for Richardson. Dr. Beers said in her Dec. 11 report that Richardson’s clinical symptoms are attributable to co-morbidities of borderline and antisocial personality disorders—not gender dysphoria.
Despite that, the Indiana DOC is pushing for the surgery anyways.
“IDOC is requesting that you accept a surgical consultation notwithstanding the lack of referral letters, based on the enclosed court order,” DOC chief legal officer Anna Quick said in a letter to Dr. Joshua Roth’s office.
Dr. Roth’s office has yet to make a decision on the matter, according to a Monday status report. His office did not respond to an email inquiry from this reporter. The DOC didn’t respond to an email asking why it’s moving forward with the surgery against the advice of Dr. Beers.
🚨SCOOP: Last September, a federal judge ordered the Indiana DOC to provide a sex-change operation to self-purported Muslim transgender inmate Jonathan Richardson, who is serving a 55-year sentence for killing his infant stepdaughter.
But in December, psychologist Dr. Kelsey… pic.twitter.com/mLt1aacg82
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) January 8, 2025
In her report, Dr. Beers noted Richardson’s long history of faking mental illnesses.
“She has referred to herself as a ‘master manipulator’ throughout her incarceration. She frankly admitted to feigning mental illness symptoms for secondary gain, including obtaining specific medications and receiving certain diagnoses,” her report said.
“She denied genuinely experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia or psychosis despite having a serious mental illness in her chart for years. The psychotic specifier of depression was only resolved after she began seeking a gender dysphoria diagnosis … This diagnosis no longer served a purpose for her and inhibited her newest goal of pursuing life as a woman,” the report continued.
“She feigned psychotic symptoms across multiple prisons and clinicians, which highlights her advance ability to manipulate even the highly trained and educated.”
Dr. Beers concluded that because Richardson’s clinical picture is “convoluted with overt manipulation and poorly controlled symptoms of personality disorder,” she does not recommend surgery.
Richardson, who was convicted of strangling an 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001, claims to still suffer negative, and at times debilitating, symptoms of gender dysphoria.
“At times, I have soiled myself rather than go to the bathroom, as I just do not want to see or deal with my genitals,” the inmate has said.
The baby-killer’s lawsuit is being litigated by the ACLU, and last February the DOJ filed a brief in support of Richardson.
The DOJ’s support of Richardson followed a similar move in Georgia, where DOJ prosecutors filed a brief in support of a transgender inmate who—ironically—allegedly tried bombing the DOJ.
Additionally, the DOJ settled a lawsuit in June 2023 from a federal inmate—former Neo-Nazi bank robber Pete/Donna Langan—who sued the Bureau of Prisons in late 2021 to obtain a sex change. Langan became the first federal inmate in history to receive a sex change in January 2023, but continued to sue the BOP to also cover facial hair removal surgery.
The details of Langan’s settlement have not been made public.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
