Trans inmate who filmed sexual abuse of 7-year-old daughter housed in troubled NJ women’s prison

[The Bobster]

Trans inmate who filmed sexual abuse of 7-year-old daughter housed in troubled NJ women’s prison

Volz — who previously went by Matthew before transitioning — is now listed as ‘female’ in official prison records.

nypost.com

Trans inmate who filmed sexual abuse of 7-year-old daughter housed in troubled NJ women’s prison​

By
Patrick Reilly


May 3, 2023 11:59pm
Updated












A transgender woman convicted of filming pornographic videos of her 7-year-old daughter has been revealed as one of the transgender inmates being housed at a troubled all-female New Jersey prison.
Marina Volz, 34, is serving her 25 year sentence at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women alongside her accomplice Ashley Romero, 30, also a trans woman who participated in the sickening child sex abuse, according to jail records reviewed by The Post.
Volz — who went by Matthew before transitioning — is now listed as “female” in official prison records.
Volz and Mahan were two of four people found guilty of running a porn company out of Volz’s basement in Franklin Township in Somerset County.
A source inside of the prison told Reduxx that Volz still has male genitalia.
Volz and Romero are looking to tie the knot while behind bars in an apparent effort to share a cell, an inmate told the outlet.

Marina Volz is serving a 25-year-sentence for filming sexual abuse on her 7-year-old daughter.Somerset County Prosecutor's Office
Last month, protesters demanded that transgender inmates be removed from the Garden State’s only all-female corrections facility.


At least 10 transgender women, including one who claims she has a “taste for blood,” are housed there.


#GetMenOut activists gathered outside of the state capital and read letters from four biologically female inmates at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility.


The women described from behind bars their fears at being housed with biological men who identify as women, particularly in regards to sexual assault.


One transgender inmate impregnated two women at the facility last year.


Volz, Romero and Sean Allen, 54, were convicted in 2022 of operating a “pornography production studio specializing in amateur, BDSM and taboo fetish content,” investigators found, according to NJ.com.


Dulcinea Gnecco, 21, also pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.


According to the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office, Volz brought her 7-year-old daughter from Oregon to New Jersey to carry out the abuse.

Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Union Township, New Jersey.AP
Romero and Allen repeatedly filmed horrific sexual assaults of the child, prosecutors said.


Police were tipped off to the abuses by an anonymous phone call to the New Jersey Child Abuse hotline, NJ.com reported.


“On January 28 … a search warrant was executed at the residence and it was discovered that the child was in fact residing in the home where a pornography production company was being operated, exposing the child to sexually-explicit matter,” prosecutors said after their arrest.


“Electronic items, including cell phones and computers were seized for forensic examination … During the examination and analysis of the electronic devices, several sexually-explicit photos and videos of the 7-year old victim were located.”


Volz and Romero will have to serve the full 25 years before being eligible for parole, according to the outlet, while Allen must serve 10 years before he is eligible for parole, according to the outlet.


Gnecco was sentenced to five years.

Ashley Romero, who also identifies as a trans woman, is also locked up at the women’s jail.Somerset County Prosecutor's Office
All three pleaded guilty to various counts of sex trafficking, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.


“There is no hope that they will emerge from incarceration as better people because they are not capable,” assistant prosecutor W. Brian Stack said at their sentencing. “They’re bad people.”


Edna Mahan Correctional Facility began accepting transgender prisoners in 2021 after a controversial state policy permitted inmates to be housed according to their preferred gender identity.


Last October, the New Jersey Department of Corrections changed its policy after The Post’s story on Demi Minor, the transgender inmate convicted of killing her foster father who later impregnated two female inmates at the prison.

Sean Allen was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the sexual abuse.Somerset County Prosecutor's Office
Now transgender prisoners are given something called a “rebuttable presumption” to be housed according to their gender identity — meaning that prison officials can override their preference, an NJDOC spokesman said.





Edna Mahan has a history abusing women’s human rights.


A 2020 Department of Justice report found “Edna Mahan violates the constitutional rights of prisoners in its care, resulting in serious harm and the substantial risk of serious harm.