Dominican Woman Classified As Man In Miami Prison Files Suit

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SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (CBSMiami/AP) — A Dominican woman who says she was wrongly classified as a man in a Miami prison and held with male inmates for 10 hours has filed a civil rights lawsuit.

The filing comes three years after Fior Pichardo de Veloz was arrested at Miami's international airport on what attorneys say was a decades-old drug charge that was later dismissed. The suit names the Miami-Dade Corrections Department as a defendant.

Attorneys say Pichardo was initially booked as a female but medical staff reclassified her as a male because they said she had "non-traditional male characteristics." They say Pichardo was then placed in an open cell with 40 male inmates, where she was sexually harassed.

Corrections spokeswoman Chandra Gavin said Wednesday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

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