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'Yacht Killer' inmate received taxpayer-funded sex change operation with Kamala Harris' blessing: report

'Yacht Killer' inmate received taxpayer-funded sex change operation with Kamala Harris' blessing: report

A transgender woman convicted of killing a couple to get money for her gender reassignment surgery ended up having the procedure covered by California taxpayers, thanks to radical policies supported by Vice President Kamala Harris.

The infamous so-called “Yacht Killer” – who was born John Jacobson Jr. and now goes by the name Skylar Deleon – is currently serving a life sentence without parole after initially being convicted of the murder of 57-year-old Thomas Hawks and his Ms. Jackie had been sentenced to death. 47, in 2004.

Transgender “yacht killer” Skylar Deleon says she underwent gender reassignment surgery last year while serving a life sentence for murder in California. AP

Deleon, 45, deceived the couple and had them and several associates board their 55-foot yacht and sail out with them after feigning interest in purchasing the vessel.

While out at sea somewhere between Newport Harbor and Santa Catalina, Deleon used a stun gun to incapacitate the couple and forced them to give up their bank account details and sign the boat's title – before tying them to the anchor and leaving it threw overboard.

After the terrible crime, Deleon and the accomplices drank a few beers from the dead couple's fridge below deck and enjoyed an afternoon of fishing.

Last year, nearly two decades after the murders, the killer finally underwent gender reassignment surgery, courtesy of California taxpayers. She is now waiting to be transferred to a women's prison.

“I underwent gender-affirming surgery and breast augmentation on April 5, 2023,” Deleon wrote in a letter to the Washington Free Beacon, which asked for an update on the status of her transition.

California's policy of offering hormone treatment to prison inmates who identify as transgender predates Harris' election as attorney general in 2010. During her tenure, the state prison system expanded its gender-confirming surgical offerings for convicts and provided the first gender reassignment surgery for inmates in 2015 in the country.

Thomas and Jackie Hawks were killed by Deleon and his accomplices in 2004 after they forced the couple to hand over their yacht and reveal their bank details. AP

This year, inmate Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, sued the California prison system to force it to pay for his gender reassignment surgery. A federal judge sided with Norsworthy, saying such a procedure would be considered necessary health care for inmates under the state constitution.

In her capacity as the Golden State's top law enforcement officer, Harris argued that the surgery was not medically necessary and even vowed to appeal the case after a district judge ruled against the state. However, an appeal was never filed, and then-Gov. Jerry Brown gave Norsworthy the green light for parole before the state landed on the hook for his operation.

It was the last documented time Harris showed any shred of common sense on the issue, critics say.

While the state was fighting Norsworthy in court, another convicted murderer serving a life sentence – Rodney Quine – was also suing the state, demanding that he pay for his gender reassignment surgery. The state's Justice Department — led by Harris — failed to stop a settlement agreement in which California taxpayers would pay not only for Quine's sex change but also hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, the Beacon writes.

She later took responsibility for her office's files on the issue at a campaign news conference in 2019 — while blaming the state's Justice Department for her position, the Washington Blade wrote.

“I was…attorney general of California for two terms, and I had a variety of clients that I had to defend and represent, and I couldn't fire my clients, and unfortunately there were situations where my clients took positions that contradicted mine Beliefs,” she said.

Quine would become the first – and far from the last – convicted murderer in the state to have sex reassignment surgery at taxpayer expense.

Deleon deceived the couple and had them and several associates board their 55-foot yacht and sail out with them after feigning interest in purchasing the vessel. AP

After the agreement was announced, California announced sweeping changes to how it would handle the issue of trans prisoners, ushering in even more radical policies.

“California is the first state with a policy of offering sex reassignment surgery to some prison inmates,” the New York Times wrote at the time.

Covered procedures include mastectomies and genital reconstructions.

As her political ambitions grew, Harris advocated taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgery for prisoners.

In a 2019 interview with the National Center for Transgender Equity during her failed run for the White House, Harris even boasted that she played a key role in getting California to change its policies “so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have done this.” Access to the medical care they wanted and needed,” they called the policy “a question of humanity.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has boasted that she was instrumental in California's radical left-wing policy shift that included taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for prisoners. GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

That same year, in a questionnaire distributed to candidates by the far-left American Civil Liberties Union, Harris vowed that if elected president, she would “use her executive authority to ensure that transgender and non-binary people who support the “Those who rely on the state for medical care – including those in prison or immigration detention – will have access to comprehensive treatment related to gender reassignment, including all necessary surgical treatments.”

Between 2017 and 2022, California's prisons and jail populations saw a 234% increase in the number of inmates identifying as trans or “non-binary,” according to a CalMatters report last year.

The same report said the state expects 462 prisoners to seek gender reassignment surgery in 2024, while current medical staff can only perform three such procedures per week.

Deleon listens to his attorney Ed Welbourn during his arraignment on December 20, 2004. AP

The Harris-Walz campaign has avoided speaking extensively about the issue during the campaign. A representative told CNN last month that “as president, Harris will take the same pragmatic approach and focus on common-sense solutions in the interest of progress.”

The Trump campaign has seized on the issue to portray Harris as out of touch with the priorities of the average American, frequently airing an attack ad attacking her for her support for taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgeries for prisoners with the slogan ” Kamala is for she/her” is attacked. President Trump is for you.”

A Harris Walz spokesman reached by email Tuesday referred The Post to a recent appearance on Fox News by the campaign's communications director, Michael Tyler, in which he explained that the ACLU questionnaire “is not that , what (Vice President Harris) is proposing or pursuing.”

The campaign had no further comment on the matter.

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