Source: Women are Human
CA — Kitchener, Ontario. On January 4, 2021, Heather Mason, former Canadian federal prisoner and advocate for women in prison, tweeted that numerous women at the Grand Valley Institution (GVI) for Women were contacting her to express their fears over a violent male prisoner housed with them.
I have been receiving a ridiculous amount of phone calls from women in Grand Valley Prison for Women in Kitchener, Ontario regarding Angela Valentino who was transferred there after they released Steve Mehlenbacher on bail for a sexual assault charge.
Thread pic.twitter.com/mbeL3mxCyN
— Heather Mason (@Mason134211f) January 4, 2021
The prisoner, Wayne Bruce Stovka, who currently goes by the name Anngela Valentino, petitioned for years to be transferred to a women’s prison.
A March 1992 Kingston Whig-Standard report on Stovka’s grievance for not allowing prisoners to have makeup at the men’s prison, noted that “Miss Stovka would rather be at the Prison for Women, but he doubts any judge or jury would understand his predicament”.
At some point after this, Stovka (who by this point preferred to be called “Angela”) landed in the Sault Ste. Marie jail for an armed bank robbery, according to a June 1997 Sault Star article.
By 2005, Stovka had assumed the name “Anngela Valentino”, and was coming to the end of a 15-year sentence for armed robbery, according to a May 2005 Kingston Whig-Standard story. Valentino had spent the previous nine years in Bath Institution, a medium-security prison for men – being ineligible (at the time) for placement at a women’s prison, due to still having male genitalia. The Whig-Standard article stated that Valentino’s lawyer was trying to negotiate an agreement to either send Valentino to a minimum-security prison or to a female institution following a “sex-change operation”. However, the journalist noted that Valentino’s release “is complicated by her abysmal record of violating every release she has ever been granted”.
Women Are Human contacted Heather Mason for further details on Valentino’s subsequent prison history. Mason stated that, at some point between 2018 and 2019, Valentino was placed at the Edmonton Institution for Women, where another male prisoner, Steve Mehlenbacher (known as “Sam” while incarcerated as a woman) was also serving time, prior to being transferred to GVI. The women who contacted Mason told her that Valentino bragged of having “beaten up” Mehlenbacher “for being a rapist” while at the Edmonton prison, and for this reason, could not be placed at GVI while Mehlenbacher was still there. Prior to being moved to GVI, Valentino was at the Joliette Institution for Women.
Mason’s understanding is that Mehlenbacher was released from GVI in July or August of 2020, to a women’s halfway house in Quebec. Valentino was transferred to GVI shortly afterwards, in September 2020.
It wasn’t long before Mason began hearing about women who were terrified of Valentino. Initially the stories trickled in, but throughout October to December, more and more women were contacting her to express their concerns.
GVI is mainly “residential-style small group accommodation houses for minimum and medium-security inmates in an open campus design model.” Mason tweeted that women who live in the same house as Valentino are afraid to leave their room, while women in other houses are afraid to step outside. Valentino has allegedly choked a housemate, has been “shooting women up with Fentanyl” to the point where they are unable to stand, has threatened to hurt women, and at one point left a raw, bloody chicken outside one of the houses. The guards told the women that meant someone was going to get hurt.
“A” was shooting women up with Fentanyl & was so high they couldn’t stand up for count. The guards didn’t make “A” stand up for count.
“A” left a raw bloody chicken outside the door & the guards came & questioned the women about it & said it meant someone was getting stabbed.— Heather Mason (@Mason134211f) January 4, 2021
According to Mason, Valentino has undergone “sex-reassignment surgery”; this provides no reassurance to the women forced to deal with Valentino’s violent behaviour, and further threats of brutality.
The women are asking for our help. They want you to know what’s going on inside. They are calling me asking why it’s happening & why no one is doing anything about it. CSC won’t help them. They keep moving these prisoners around & these women stay scared & abused
— Heather Mason (@Mason134211f) January 4, 2021
ACTION
To express your views on allowing male prisoners who identify as women to be housed with women, please contact the following:
Dr Ivan Zinger, The Correctional Investigator of Canada
Angela Arnet Connidis, Deputy Commissioner of Women Offenders Correctional Service Canada
Email: [email protected]
Address: 340 Laurier Avenue West Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0P9 Canada
Phone: 613-992-6067
Alternate phone (National Headquarters): 613-992-5821
The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
