Sam Peel
Banned
A Florida family is furious with authorities after a woman was tossed in a men's jail following a coke bust because nurses thought she was a guy.
Veloz Fior de Pichardo, of Miami, was thrown in among male prisoners at the Metro West Detention Center near Doral after a nurse who examined her during processing found she had "male sexual reproductive organs," south Florida's NBC 6 news reported.
Pichardo, 50, was busted with a stash of cocaine at Miami-Dade International Airport on Nov. 4, authorities said.
Pichardo, who was listed as a female on the original police report, said she was humiliated by other inmates and forced to use the bathroom with male prisoners.
"I feel offended because they have offended my integrity as a woman ...doubting me if I have changed my sex," she wrote in a complaint to the Miami-Dade corrections department, according to NBC 6.
"[They are] causing my pressure to elevate, because I was taken to a male jail and I'm a woman. I had to enter the same bathroom. Nobody has abused me physically but psychologically yes."
Pichardo also wrote in the complaint that she had not had a sex change, the station said.
She was eventually re-examined after her family complained to the officials at the jail. Two nurses later determined she was a woman.
The Miami-Dade corrections department said they were investigating the mix-up.
Pichardo was being held at a federal jail on Wednesday night.
U.S. immigration officials were also looking into her case, the station reported.
