Twisted & troubled past of trans inmate who impregnated 2 at women’s lockup 'PSYCHOPATH' -OR MARTYR?
Twisted & troubled past of trans inmate who impregnated 2 at women’s lockup who impregnated 2 at women’s lockup
DEPENDING on whom you ask, the 27-year-old inmate who impregnated two women in a New Jersey prison this year is either a martyr to the transgender cause, or a coldblooded killer who got involved in a messy love triangle behind bars.
He was once Demetrius Minor, a troubled foster kid with a record for burglaries and at least one gunpoint carjacking, who stabbed his 69-year-old foster father 27 times in 2011 at age 16.
“It was the worst murder scene I have ever seen,” Brad Wertheimer, one of Minor’s defense lawyers in 2011, told The Post. “There was blood everywhere. The community was outraged. The [foster] dad was considered a great guy, an angel.”
But Demetrius is now Demi, a transgender woman activist fighting to be returned to a women’s prison after being removed from the state’s lone facility for females in June after it was discovered she had impregnated two other inmates.
Her legal team is fighting for her transfer under a new and controversial state policy enabling inmates to be housed according to their preferred gender identity.
Demi is also now an advocate for “juvenile justice” with an elaborate social-media presence and a team of advocates who have backed her since 2020.
“She’s a force to be reckoned with, a triumph,” her new lawyer, Derek Demeri, an advocate for the LGBTQ community, told The Post. “I admire her ability to navigate the system. She’s pretty levelheaded and has risen above a lot.”
‘Dangerous’
But Minor’s former foster mother, Dr. Wanda BroachButts, the widow of Theotis “Ted” Butts, who was slain by Minor, said she believes Minor is a manipulative “psychopath” using transgenderism as a ruse to get special treatment and attention in jail. She said she would worry for the inmates if Minor is returned to a women’s prison.
“I think all this about him being transgender is a ploy,” she told The Post. “He’s manipulating people to get a better situation for himself and to get attention. He’s learned the language to use. He’s dangerous, and he’s a psychopath.”
Minor, who’s serving a 30-year sentence for manslaughter and carjacking, was moved two months ago from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women near Clinton to the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility — a prison for young adults in Burlington County, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections. State prison policy forbids sex between inmates.
The two women’s pregnancies were discovered in April after other inmates at Edna Mahan sent letters to several media outlets complaining about the housing of pre-op transgender prisoners at the facility.
Minor was one of about 27 transgender inmates first moved to Edna Mahan after a new “gender self-ID” policy was enacted in New Jersey last year. This policy was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union along with Garden State Equality, which is openly financed in part by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
Demeri, Minor’s attorney, used to work for the ACLU of New Jersey as well as for the Red Umbrella Alliance, an advocacy group for sex workers that is partially funded by Soros. He wouldn’t confirm whether he was working for Minor pro bono.
Minor is now in a “vulnerable” housing unit in the youth facility where she is the only woman and has extra protection, her spokesman said.
Consent & coercion
It was initially reported by DOC officials that Minor had impregnated two inmates after engaging in “consensual sexual relationships” at Edna Mahan.
One of the women is Latonia Bellamy, a convicted doublemurderer who is in a relationship with Minor and due to give birth this fall. Bellamy was convicted, along with her female cousin and one man, in the carjacking-related homicides of a newly engaged couple in Jersey City in 2010.
Demeri told The Post this week that the other relationship was “coerced” on Minor.
“One was absolutely consensual,” Demeri said. “But in the other case, Demi was a victim of coercion.”
Demeri said the second woman, who was jealous of Bellamy, sneaked into Minor’s cell and threatened her into having sex, saying, “I’ll beat your b- - -h up.”
Even so, “Demi doesn’t classify it as rape. The Department of Corrections knew it wasn’t totally consensual,” Demeri said.
After the encounter, the woman, who has not been identified, got pregnant but had it terminated, several sources told The Post.
In addition to Demeri, Minor’s other supporters include Mike Isaacson, a former professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and member of Antifa who co-founded the anti-white supremacy group Smash Racism in Washington, DC, and once referred to dead police officers as “pig death stats.”
(Isaacson later apologized for his com
ments, saying he regretted making “the John Jay community . . . the target of death threats and harassment,” adding, “So much for free speech.”) Isaacson and Minor’s other backers see the inmate as a victim of the foster-care system and of a prison system that discriminates against black trans women. “Justice for Demi was founded as a juvenile justice and LGBT2SQAI+ rights organization seeking structural changes to remediate the injustices Demi faced throughout her life as a black trans female with . . . an awful experience in the foster and criminal punishment systems,” a Justice for Demi spokesman told The Post.
Forgiveness
But Broach-Butts, Minor’s former foster mom, is skeptical about Minor’s crusade and her real motives.
Broach-Butts, 63, who fostered seven boys total with her husband, is a professor of nursing who spent years overseeing some mental-health programs in the state prison system.
She wrote a book about her ordeal that was published last fall, “The Ice Underneath: My Passage Through Loss and Faith,” in which she writes about forgiving Minor and trying to move on with her life.
At the same time, she worries about Minor’s push to be returned to a women’s prison.
“It’s not a good idea, especially for the female inmates,” she said.
Broach-Butts said she was so traumatized by the murder of her husband in July 2011 that it was only her religious faith that enabled her to go on.
“My husband was stabbed from his chin to his ankle,” she said.
But she recovered enough, she said, to formally address Minor in court during the manslaughter case and forgive her foster child.
“He didn’t say a word back to me,” she recalled. “There was no remorse, just a total flat affect, like a psychopath.”
Broach-Butts, like several others who knew Minor a decade ago, said they never saw any evidence of gender dysphoria or transgenderism in her youth.
“He was angry at gay people when I knew him,” Broach-Butts said.
Minor’s uncle, Tyrone Wright, said that he hadn’t seen Minor since she went to prison but that he never saw any gender dysphoria in her. He does not believe Minor is truly transgender.
“If I were incarcerated for any reason and was going to have to do a lot of time, I’d do everything I could to make it easier. You know what I’m saying?” he said. “I call bulls- -t on this.”
A complex history
Minor has a complicated background. Her biological mother, Michelle Minor, was stabbed to death in October 2004 in a still-unsolved murder years ago in the Bridgeton, NJ, area. Her biological father, Allahdjinn Wright, is a New Jersey minister and certified drug and alcohol counselor for the Department of Corrections who was arrested in March on charges of sexually assaulting a teen girl he was supposed to help. (Wright remains free pending trial on those charges.)
Demi was 14 and called Demetrius when the Butts family took her in. Her former foster mother had warned Minor’s new parents that the youth had problems. Butts said the then-teen was not violent with them in the home but had to be removed after numerous instances of difficult behavior, including stealing. Minor was reportedly confronted by her foster father when she broke into the Buttses’ house in July 2011 and then stabbed him.
On her website, Minor complains in numerous blog posts about being repeatedly “misgendered” and said she has been suicidal over losing her rights as a trans woman.
In a July 15 blog post, Minor wrote that she was placed on suicide watch at the new facility “due to the fact that I had hung myself in the van.” She claimed guards denied her request to be strip-searched by a female DOC officer.
“[NJDOC] have violated my right to be safe and free from sexual harassment, by putting me in one of the most violent youth Correctional facilities,” Minor wrote. “While living here at GYSC, I have found my self under attack by young inmates who are immature and just plain ignorant towards a person like me.”
Minor also lamented the fact that she has been separated from the mother of her baby.
“Demi is very afraid for her life and safety,” Demeri told The Post this week. “Her gender dysphoria is aggravated. Her gender identity is not acknowledged and is affecting
her mental health.”