Trans prisoner removed from California's Chowchilla women's correctional facility after raping female inmate

A trans-identifying male inmate at a California women’s prison has been moved to a men’s prison after being charged with raping a female inmate. Tremaine “Tremayne” Deon Carroll had been housed at the Central California Women’s Facility, located in Chowchilla. 

According to the Daily Mail, Carroll has been charged with two counts of rape and one count of dissuading a witness from testifying. One of Carroll’s alleged victims, Jane Doe, said she was attacked and raped by Carroll in a shower at the jail. 

Doe was in jail serving a short sentence for burglary. Sources close to the case said that Doe had asked prison authorities to change her cell. Doe chose to room with two female inmates and Carroll. Doe said that Carroll began expressing sexual interest when she moved to the cells, allegedly leaving her flirtatious notes and propositioning her on the second day Doe was in the cell. 

Doe said she turned down Carroll’s advances, but a day later she said Carroll attacked her when she was alone in the shower and raped her. Sources told the outlet that Doe was hospitalized and placed in chains during a pelvic exam. She was segregated when released from the hospital and strip-searched because Carroll claimed that Doe was the one that carried out the attack. 

Carroll has since been moved to Kern Valley State Prison, a male facility around two hours away from the women’s facility. 

Carroll’s criminal history dates back to the late 1980s, with Carroll being charged with theft and firearm possession offenses in 1988 and 1989. 

In 1990, Carroll, then 17, was charged as an adult for his involvement in the gunpoint kidnapping, robbery, and sexual assault of two women. 

According to Reduxx, the women in the apartment were held under the demand of ransom and were kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Carroll was charged as an adult on three counts of kidnapping for ransom, two counts of robbery, and three counts of oral copulation by force. A retrial was needed after a hung jury was reached, but Carroll pleaded guilty to two counts of kidnapping to avoid a retrial on all charges. 

Carroll was sentenced to 10 years and 8 months in prison. After being released, Carroll in 1998 was arrested and convicted for the robbery of a jewelry store. That final crime activated California’s three strikes law, giving additional penalties for repeat felony convictions. Carroll was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison and has been locked up since. 

Carroll has filed dozens of legal complaints while in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), alleging discrimination, mistreatment, and sexual abuse at the hands of CDCR officials and staff. Carroll reportedly received over a dozen Rules Violations Reports between 2001 and 2015. 

In one legal complaint filed in 2019, Carroll claimed to have been moved around CDCR facilities over 200 times since 2009, claiming it was "retaliation." Many of those moves were to or from medical centers where Carroll was receiving treatment for mental health episodes. 

Carroll revealed in an earlier legal complaint that the inmate was "mentally disturbed" and was on high doses of antipsychotics. 

Reduxx reported that the vast majority of Carroll’s complaints see the inmate use "he/him" pronouns, and does not mention gender identity or sexuality. 

Carroll invoked California’s then-recently passed Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act in a March 2021 case, which allows inmates to be housed based on gender identity. By August of that year, Carroll was moved to the Central California Women’s Facility. 

Carroll is also one of the trans-identifying male inmates intervening in a lawsuit against CDCR seeking to protect female inmates by blocking biological males from admittance.  

Carroll said in sworn testimony for the case, collected by the ACLU, "I know what it feels like to live in fear and to carry the weight of the past abuse by men. But I am not a threat [to women]. I strongly believe that everyone here at CCWF would benefit from more structured interaction — opportunities to sit and talk with each other and realize that we’re all in the same boat."