A New Orleans man who kidnapped, robbed, and demanded sex at gunpoint from a transgender woman in December has been sentenced to 10 years for armed robbery after accepting a plea deal that dropped kidnapping, assault, and attempted rape charges, reports the city's Times-Picayune.
Joseph Pittman, 30, offered a local 46-year-old trans woman a ride home from French Quarter gay bar Le Roundup at 8:30 p.m. on December 14, but when he got to the intersection where she asked him to turn towards her Bywater home, he instead allegedly pulled out a handgun and ordered her to lay down in his pickup truck.
An interesting side note:
Anti-transgender crime occurs often in New Orleans, as part of a national trend of violence that targets trans women, and especially trans women of color, say local trans advocates. In February, 21-year-old black New Orleans trans woman Penny Proud was fatally shot in an apparent attempted robbery, stirring national outcry. Proud's death was the fifth reported murder of a trans woman in the U.S. this year in an "epidemic" that has since seen four more known casualties.
Local activists and others, including The Advocate, drew attention to the Times-Picayune's decision to originally misgender Proud in their February reporting, contradictory to journalistic standards endorsed by the Associated Press and GLAAD. Although reporter Prescotte Stokes was unapologetic about his reporting practices, columnist Jarvis DeBerry did publish an op-ed addressing his own lack of knowledge of reporting standards around trans violence victims, saying he was unaware until reading The Advocate's reporting that women are targeted for being transgender.
New Orleans Man Who Kidnapped Trans Woman Granted 'Rare' Minimum Sentence | Advocate.com
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