Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Tuesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has revoked over $1 million in federal funding from Maine’s Department of Corrections after the state placed a violent male convict in a women’s prison due to his self-declared gender identity.
Bondi, appearing on Fox and Friends, said Maine violated President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring biological male inmates to be housed in men’s prisons regardless of gender identity. The DOJ confirmed the decision in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The inmate, Andrew Balcer, was convicted of a brutal double murder in 2018. At age 17, he stabbed his mother nine times, killed his father when he responded to her screams, and then murdered the family’s chihuahua. After the killings, Balcer called 911 and calmly described the scene. In 2022, Balcer changed his prison records to identify as female while serving a 40-year sentence.
“This was a giant, six-foot-one, 245-pound guy who committed double murder with a knife,” Bondi stated. “He was in a women’s prison because he identified as a woman. No longer.”
The DOJ said the inmate’s placement created an unsafe environment for female prisoners and violated federal policy. As of Monday night, Maine lost federal support under a directive first signed by President Trump on his first day in office. The order, which prioritizes biological sex in correctional placement decisions, is currently being challenged in court by two male inmates.
Trump’s administration has also withheld other federal funds from Maine, including from state universities, after Governor Janet Mills refused to comply with similar federal rules requiring sex-based separation in sports.
“They’re not abiding by what President Trump said,” Bondi declared. “We will pull your funding and protect women in prison and women in sports and we will protect women throughout this country.”
The DOJ reiterated its intent to continue enforcing the policy nationwide. “The Department of Justice will continue pulling discretionary funds from institutions that promote these invasions of women’s spaces,” it stated, “and will use legal leverage to compel Maine leadership to remedy this dangerous issue.”
Data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons shows the scale of the issue: as of January, 1,538 of the 10,047 inmates in federal women’s prisons — roughly 15% — were biological males identifying as transgender.
Maine’s Department of Corrections has not responded to requests for comment.
