Transgender woman Barbie Kardashian told gardaí she threatened to rape two women at Limerick Prison because she was enraged after being wrongly accused of leaving showers dirty at Limerick Prison.
Kardashian, (22), of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court to one count of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Tegan McGhee, who was an inmate at the prison in February 2023.
She also denies three further counts of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Rosin Linnane, a prison officer at the jail.
The trial heard on Friday that, following her arrest for the alleged threats, Kardashian admitted to gardaí she did threaten the two women. However she said she had not intended to carry out the threats and she said that the two alleged victims must have known this as she was segregated from the rest of the prison population.
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Kardashian told gardaí she had suffered an “extremely traumatic childhood” which included being “raped and sexually assaulted” on numerous occasions as a child.
She said she threatened Ms McGhee after she admitted to her that she had told others that the accused had left the prison showers dirty with “body hair”.
Kardashian told gardaí these “false rumours” were circulating for weeks at the prison and she had become “increasingly annoyed”.
“I snapped and threatened to rape Tegan,” the accused told gardaí. “At no point was she (Ms McGhee) raped by me. The threats were made, however I did not intend for her take the threat seriously.”
Kardashian claimed she was also annoyed because “she (Ms McGhee) said I had a male voice, and I find this extremely offensive and transphobic.
“She said I sound like a male and I am a female.”
When gardaí put it to Kardashian that she had said that Ms McGhee “deserved to be punished”, the accused told the interviewing officers “I said this because I wanted the prison authorities to punish her for making false accusations against me”.
Kardashian further claimed in Garda interviews that she was also angry after Ms Linnane allegedly called her a man, and referred to her as “Gabriel” in reference to her birth name, Gabriel Alejandro Gentile.
The court heard this was the name the accused was given at birth before she changed her name by deed-poll to Barbie Kardashian in 2020, and before she had received a gender recognition certificate which recognised that she had “changed from male to female”.
Kardashian told gardaí she was “in a state of fury” when she threatened Ms Linnane after the prison officer locked her in the shower room for a few minutes.
The accused said the prison regime that restricted her from mixing with others “affects me emotionally and psychologically, and it makes me overreact”.
Ms McGhee and Ms Linnane both gave evidence earlier this week of being “shocked”, “terrified”, “upset” and “disgusted” at Kardashian’s alleged threats.
Kardashian told gardaí she wanted to apologise for making the threats. She said that “on reflection” her behaviour had been “disproportionate” and “unjustified”.
The trial continues.
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