- Robert Kosilek was convicted of murdering his wife Cheryl in 1990
- In prison, he changed his name to Michelle, sued for the state to pay for a sex change and attempting to castrate herself in custody
- Massachusetts judge ruled that the $20,000 surgery is the 'only adequate treatment'
- Now judge ruled eligible for 'large amount of money' from legal fees
- Family of murdered wife outraged after Kosilek's book about her life is released online
By Associated Press Reporter and Rachel Quigley
Published: 09:39 EDT, 17 September 2012 | Updated: 09:57 EDT, 17 September 2012
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The transsexual wife killer who has just been granted a stated-funded sex change is also entitled to be reimbursed by the state for years of legal bills.
A judge ruled yesterday that Michelle Lynne Kosilek, 63, of Mansfield, who was born Robert Kosilek, was eligible for the 'large amount' of money because the case dates back many years.
U. S. District Court Chief Judge Mark Wolf ruled earlier this month that the state prisons department violated Kosilek's rights by refusing to pay for a sex change.
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The amount could be disclosed as soon as Thursday — the deadline Wolf has set for Kosilek’s legal team to submit a suggested bill to the court.
'Kosilek has prevailed on his claim that (the Department of Correction) has violated his Eighth Amendment rights (against cruel and unusual punishment) and is continuing to do so,' Wolf wrote. 'Therefore, he is eligible to be awarded his reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.'
The 63-year-old legally changed his name to Michelle Lynne Kosilek nearly 20 years ago and has been living and dressing as a woman at the all-male MCI-Norfolk state prison.
He has tried to kill himself twice and also threatened to castrate himself because he is so distressed over his gender identity. Wolf said the sex change was a 'serious medical need'.
The niece of Cheryl Kosilek expressed her outrage last week that her aunt's killer was being granted a taxpayer-funded sex change.
Now Susan Ohannessian said she is angered further now the 63-year-old's book is available online.
Ms Ohannessian says she discovered the online book, called Grace’s Daughter, which described Kosilek’s years of abuse and his suffering from growing up with gender identity disorder.
Kosilek writes that she doesn’t remember killing Cheryl but Ms Ohannessian say that is difficult to believe.
She told CBS boston: 'He has such a big huge recollection of his entire life, but that one blurb about that day, he can’t remember that one.
'He defamed Cheryl, she can’t even speak for herself, this is another slap in the face to her family.'
Ohannessian said it is the last page which upsets her most as Kosilek reveals a new lawyer has been hired to appeal her sentence.
She said: 'He is going to sue the state and say it wasn’t me. That was Robert Kosilek that did that. I’m a changed woman now.'
Kosilek has already received hormone treatments, psychotherapy and electrolysis while serving a life sentence as a woman in an all-male prison.
One week ago Wolf ruled that Kosilek, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of his wife, Cheryl, in 1990, has won the right to receive a $20,000, state-funded sex change operation because it is a 'serious medical need'.
Prison officials have opposed the decision based on the safety of Kosilek, saying that her housing and security needs would be impossible to meet as she would surely be a target for assault.
Another of Cheryl Kosilek's niece said she was 'sickened, outraged and disgusted' to learn that the judge has ordered the state Department of corrections to pick up the tab for the sex reassignment surgery.
'He's a freak...wanting a sex change and expecting everybody to pay for it. We’ve paid enough. He doesn't deserve anything for what he did,' Laura Brandel said.
Democratic and Republican state lawmakers sent a letter to Correction Commissioner Luis S. Spencer, saying that the department has taken the Eight Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantying protections for inmates a step too far.
'It cannot be fairly said to require the state to accommodate every last need and want of convicted murderers,' the missive reads.
The bipartisan letter goes on to say that granting Kosilek a sex change at the expense of taxpayers is an affront to the woman he murdered and to her surviving relatives.
The authors also rejected Kosilek’s claim he could be harmed if not given the surgery.
Kosilek’s attorney Joseph L. Sulman told the Globe that he understood why relatives of the victim are opposed to Wolf’s ruling.
'This is a case that requires us to separate our emotions and focus on legal principles,’ he said. 'I can’t fault anyone associated with the victim of my client’s crime to not like this outcome or want something worse than life in prison. That’s perfectly normal.’
However, the lawyer noted that the judge's decision was carefully considered over the ten years the case has been before him, and it was rooted in the advice of medical professionals rather than political arguments.
Brandel, the daughter of Cheryl Kosilek's older sister, said that if her aunt's killer ultimately has the operation, she has hopes for what happens when the surgery begins.
'With luck, he will die on the operating table,’ said Brandel. 'I would never, ever wish harm on anybody but him.’
According tocourt documents, Kosilek began transitioning to a female after his arrest and indictment.
He first launched his campaign against the Massachusetts Department of Correction 12 years ago.
'Everybody has the right to have their health care needs met, whether they are in prison or out on the streets,' Kosilek said last year from a state prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts.
'People in the prisons who have bad hearts, hips or knees have surgery to repair those things.'
She continued: 'My medical needs are no less important or more important than the person in the cell next to me.'
In 2002, Wolf ruled that Kosilek was entitled to treatment for gender-identity disorder, but stopped short of ordering surgery. She was also granted electrolysis treatment and hormone therapy.
Kosilek sued again in 2005, arguing that the surgery is a medical necessity.
In his ruling Tuesday, Wolf found that surgery is the 'only adequate treatment' for Kosilek's 'serious medical need.'
'The court finds that there is no less intrusive means to correct the prolonged violation of Kosilek's Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care,' Wolf wrote in his 126-page ruling.
Prison officials have repeatedly cited security concerns in the case, saying that allowing her to have the surgery would make her a target for sexual assaults by other inmates.
Massachusetts Correction Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy has said that if Kosilek has the surgery, the consequences would be unprecedented.
'The safety and security concerns are enormous,' Dennehy testified, according to CBS.
But Wolf found that the DOC's security concerns are 'either pretextual or can be dealt with by the DOC.'
He said it is up to prison officials to decide how and where to house Kosilek after the surgery.
Cheryl Kosilek was found dead in the back seat of her car in a shopping mall parking lot on Sunday, May 20, 1990.
Markings showed she had been strangled with a rope and a wire and a taxicab driver testified in court that he had picked up Kosilek from that very mall in the afternoon and driven him home.
A few hours later, Kosilek called police to report his wife missing, suggesting that she might have gotten into a car accident.
ROBERT KOSILEK'S CRIME
Cheryl Kosileka shopping mall parking lot
Markings showed she had been strangled with a rope and a wire and a taxicab driver testified in court that he had picked up Kosilek from that very mall in the afternoon and driven him home.
A few hours later, Kosilek called police to report his wife missing, suggesting that she might have gotten into a car accident.
Police picked him up at his Mansfield home and questioned him, telling him that 'a body was found in the back seat' of Cheryl's abandoned vehicle.
Kosilek said his wife was at work all day and had intended to stop by the mall afterwards and that he was busy at the couple's home all day.
Timothy McCaul, Cheryl's 15-year-old son who lived with the couple, said that he called home for a ride around 5 p.m. and no one answered the phone.
Kosilek was questioned again, only this time he left half way through the interview and said he was getting an attorney.
Two days later, Kosilek was involved in a car crash at midnight. Officers found him in the driver's seat dressed in women's clothing and sent him home.
On May 24, 1990, Kosilek was stopped for speeding in New Rochelle, New York, and arrested him for drunk driving.
'You would be drunk too if the police thought you killed your wife,' he said.
Later, at the police station, the defendant stated, 'Look, I had a fifteen year old son and a wife. I can't call my wife. I murdered my wife. Now, I need to call a psychiatrist now.'
He later admitted to a reporter that he and his wife got into a heated argument during the day and she had thrown boiling water in his face.
He picked up a wire and blacked out, waking up days later in the hospital.
'Apparently, I did take her life,' he told the reporter. 'It was probably in self defense.'
Police picked him up at his Mansfield home and questioned him, telling him that 'a body was found in the back seat' of Cheryl's abandoned vehicle.
Kosilek said his wife was at work all day and had intended to stop by the mall afterwards. He maintained that he was busy at the couple's home all day.
Timothy McCaul, Cheryl's 15-year-old son who lived with the couple, said that he called home for a ride around 5 p.m. and no one answered the phone.
Kosilek was questioned again, only this time he left half way through the interview and said he was getting an attorney.
Two days later, Kosilek was involved in a car crash at midnight. Officers found him in the driver's seat dressed in women's clothing and sent him home.
On May 24, 1990, Kosilek was stopped for speeding in New Rochelle, New York, and arrested him for drunk driving.
'You would be drunk too if the police thought you killed your wife,' he said.
Later, at the police station, the defendant stated, 'Look, I had a fifteen year old son and a wife. I can't call my wife. I murdered my wife. Now, I need to call a psychiatrist now.'
He later admitted to a reporter that he and his wife got into a heated argument during the day and she had thrown boiling water in his face.
He picked up a wire and blacked out, waking up days later in the hospital.
'Apparently, I did take her life,' he told the reporter. 'It was probably in self defense.'
After he was indicted for the crime, he began the transition from male to female and legally changed his name to Michelle.
Kosilek's lawsuit has become fodder for radio talk shows and lawmakers who say the state should not be forced to pay for a convicted murderer's sex-change operation – which can cost up to $20,000 – especially since many insurance companies reject the surgery as elective.
Wolf noted that Kosilek's gender-identity disorder has caused Kosilek such anguish that she has tried to castrate herself and twice tried to commit suicide, including once while on Prozac.
Kosilek's lead attorney, Frances Cohen, called the decision courageous and thoughtful.
'We feel very grateful that the judge listened very carefully to the medical experts and has given Michelle Kosilek what the prison doctors had recommended,' Cohen said.
Inmates in Colorado, California, Idaho and Wisconsin have sued unsuccessfully to try to get the surgery, making similar arguments that denying it violates the U.S. Constitution's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
'This is not a choice. Transsexuals are born and not made,' said psychiatry professor George R. Brown at East Tennessee State University.
'If you didn't have this condition, why would you want to have your genitals removed, if not by a competent surgeon but by your own hand?'
According to research by Brown, about 27,000 people nationwide have gender identity disorder. Experts estimate 500 to 750 Americans undergo the surgery each year, with hundreds more seeking the procedure abroad.
Federal courts have said prisons must provide adequate medical care, and that they must protect inmates from themselves. But correctional officials and lawmakers balk at using taxpayer money for sex-change operations that can cost up to $20,000.
Brown estimates that at least 750 of the more than 2 million prisoners nationwide had gender identity disorder in 2007, his latest count.
Watch a legal discussion of the Kosilek case from before the verdict was announced:
