Sian Radaskiewicz-King, of Baltimore, has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for spray-painting a transgender symbol near Saints Peter & Paul Elementary School in Easton — conduct that prompted a hate-crime charge and kept her jailed without bond for more than two months.
Under a plea deal with the Talbot County State’s Attorney’s Office, the 32-year-old admitted to one count of defacing religious property and one count of malicious destruction of property, with prosecutors dropping 24 additional charges.
Prosecutors say Radaskiewicz-King spray-painted a transgender symbol — a circle with male and female glyphs and a third combined spoke — around Saints Peter & Paul Elementary School in Easton on the night of September 4. They allege she tagged the same symbol at several other spots in town, including a liquor store fence, the sidewalk outside an Ulta Beauty, and a brick archway at a nearby shopping center.
She was also charged under Maryland’s hate-crime law prohibiting the inscription of a symbol on another’s property “with the intent to threaten or intimidate” a person or group. The statute cites a noose or swastika as examples of prohibited symbols, the Baltimore Banner reported.
The graffiti — and the symbol’s meaning — alarmed school officials and parents at Saints Peter & Paul, who believed it signaled a potential threat, with some fearing it might prompt a “copycat” of the August school shooting in Minneapolis, reports The Star Democrat. The accused shooter in that case, Robin Westman, is transgender.
According to court documents, Radaskiewicz-King told police she painted the symbol “because she wanted people to know what the symbol meant, and to create a sense of space for herself.”
Radaskiewicz-King, who grew up in the area and attended Saints Peter & Paul as a child, told police she was bullied at the school. She said she hadn’t heard about the Minneapolis school shooting or drawn any connection to it, noting she had stopped watching the news.
She remained in the Talbot County Detention Center for 75 days after two judges — Talbot District Court Judge Karen Ketterman and Circuit Court Judge Phil Cronan — denied her bail, citing concerns that releasing her could endanger people connected to the school.
Talbot County State’s Attorney Joseph Coale, who prosecuted the case and opposed bail, argued that Radaskiewicz-King’s anger toward the school was a warning sign of potential violence. He also noted she had access to firearms because her mother owns two handguns.
At a bail review hearing last week, Radaskiewicz-King appeared before Judge Theresa Adams, who urged prosecutors and defense counsel to reach a plea agreement.
As talks continued on November 19, Jeffrey Bowman, an attorney for the school, told the court the school spent $200,000 on additional safety measures after the graffiti. Both Bowman and State’s Attorney Joe Coale argued that releasing King would make the Easton and Saints Peter & Paul communities feel unsafe.
Radaskiewicz-King’s attorney, Larry Greenberg, acknowledged in court that she admitted to the graffiti, but argued that as a first-time offender, she should not have been denied bail. He alleged she was jailed solely because of her gender identity.
King was housed in a men’s unit and denied hormone treatment during her 75 days in custody. Greenberg noted she was treated far more harshly than an Easton woman who pleaded guilty to placing swastika stickers on political signs ahead of the town’s May election.
Adams ultimately imposed a six-year sentence for the two misdemeanors but suspended it, crediting Radaskiewicz-King for the days she had already served, and releasing her with five years of supervised probation and electronic monitoring.
As a condition of her release, King is barred from coming within 25 miles of Saints Peter & Paul — effectively preventing her from visiting her mother’s home. She is also prohibited from possessing firearms and from contacting any of the properties she tagged.
A separate hearing to determine restitution for the vandalized properties will be scheduled at a later date.
David Jaros, faculty director of the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at the University of Baltimore School of Law, told the Baltimore Banner that the hate-crime charge against Radaskiewicz-King was “utterly ridiculous.” He said law enforcement had other options to protect the community, including asking her mother to surrender her firearms or requiring Radaskiewicz-King to undergo electronic monitoring while awaiting trial or a plea deal.
“I think it’s sadly a symptom of the public discourse over trans rights and trans issues,” he said, “but this seems like a gross abuse of the law.”
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has pledged to make New York City a sanctuary city for transgender people.
In a new campaign ad honoring Latina trans activist Sylvia Rivera -- a pioneering figure in the early LGBTQ rights movement -- Mamdani sits at a desk near the Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich Village, recounting Rivera’s life and the pier’s significance as a haven for LGBTQ people in the city.
As photos and video clips of Rivera and other activists flash across the screen, Mamdani recounts her legacy of activism -- from her role in early gay and trans rights demonstrations to founding Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which provided food and shelter for homeless trans people, and her push for LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination laws.
A federal judge has ordered Ruby Corado to be held in custody while she awaits sentencing on a federal wire fraud charge. The founder of the now-shuttered D.C. LGBTQ nonprofit Casa Ruby pleaded guilty in July 2024 and had been under house arrest at her niece's home in Rockville, Maryland, while awaiting sentencing.
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden postponed Corado's October 15 sentencing hearing after Elizabeth Mullin, her court-appointed public defender, withdrew from the case, citing "an irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship."
The International Olympic Committee is reportedly preparing to ban transgender women from competing in all female-designated sports, according to a report by the U.K. newspaper The Times.
At present, each sport’s international federation sets its own rules on transgender eligibility, with some requiring athletes to undergo hormone therapy for a specific period before competing in the female category.
But IOC President Kirsty Coventry, elected earlier this year, has called for consistent standards across all sports. After taking office in June, she created four working groups to address key issues facing the IOC, including one focused on protecting women’s sports.
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