Maine Department of Corrections (DOC) commissioner Randall Liberty defended his decision to allow a 310lb trans-identifying male murderer to live in the women’s prison when House Minority Leader Billy-Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) questioned the policy.
“The Department follows State and Federal law in its practices regarding transgender residents,” said Liberty,
Rep. Faulkingham reached out to the far-left Commissioner Liberty after The Maine Wire published an article in late February including allegations from a female inmate, Katie Mountain, who claimed that she had been harassed and assaulted by trans-identifying male inmate Andrew Balcer.
Balcer was convicted in 2017 of murdering both of his parents and the family dog with a knife, and was allowed to move into the women’s prison in 2022, after he declared that he identified as a woman.
Before that article’s publication, The Maine Wire reached out to Liberty requesting comments on the allegations made by Mountain, and submitted a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request for records on Balcer.
Liberty did not respond to comment on the allegations, and rejected the FOAA, claiming that inmate records are confidential.
After the article’s publication, Faulkingham reached out and eventually received a response from Liberty on Wednesday.
Liberty defended housing of males in the women’s prison, but failed to confirm or deny any of the allegations made against Balcer.
“The allegations made in the article were serious and the Department takes them seriously,” said Liberty.
He claimed that the MDOC follows state law, which affirms that prisoners can be housed based on their self selected identity “except when such placement or search would present significant management or security problems.”
He did not address the possibility that Balcer’s presence does cause a management or security problem.
Liberty told Faulkingham that if he wanted additional information on a specific inmate, he would need to have the inmate sign a document authorizing the MDOC to release his records.
Liberty also claimed that his policies adhere to federal law and pointed to a provision instructing prison administrators to decide how to house trans-identifying inmates on a case-by-case basis.
He did not address President Donald Trump’s executive order demanding that men not be housed in women’s prisons.
Attorney General Pam Bondi acted on that order in April 2025, announcing that she would be pulling non-essential federal funding from the MDOC until it stopped putting males in women’s prisons.
The Maine Wire first revealed on Monday that Bondi’s Department Of Justice (DOJ) had quietly restored that federal funding after the MDOC appealed the cuts.
Liberty confirmed that the funding had been restored in his letter to Faulkingham.
The Maine Wire reached out to the DOJ days ago requesting an explanation of why that funding was restored while males still share cells with female inmates. The DOJ has not responded.
