Transsexual Awarded $755,000 Over Strip-Search

A jury awarded $755,000 in damages Monday to a transsexual who was strip-searched by sheriff’s deputies to confirm her gender.

The seven-member U.S. District Court panel awarded Victoria Schneider $750,000 for emotional pain and suffering for the strip-search at the county jail on June 13, 1996. They also imposed $5,000 in punitive damages against Deputy Fred Lew for ordering the search.

After the verdict, Schneider told the jury that it was “life transforming” that they believed her.

The strip-search was unnecessary, she argued, because deputies at the same jail had searched her before, after a 1993 arrest, and determined that she was a woman. She said she implored them to look up their records but they refused.

Schneider was brought to the jail after being arrested for investigation of prostitution, although she was never charged. Initially booked as a male, she protested that she was a woman and said she feared for her safety if placed into a cell with men.

According to a federal appeals court decision, a strip-search may be performed only when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that someone arrested is concealing contraband, Schneider’s attorneys said. Prostitution arrests are not the kind of offenses that should generate a strip-search, attorney Nanci Clarence said.