Guards Ban Lawyer from Entering Jail, With or Without Bra

A Florida attorney was banned from meeting with her incarcerated client because of what was underneath her shirt.

woman in lace bra
(Image credit: Jacob Wackerhausen)

Talk about a bunch of boobs.

Attorney Brittney Horstman attempted to enter the Miami Federal Detention Center earlier this month to meet with a client when the underwire in her bra set off metal detectors. Security guards told her she was not allowed to enter, but determined to keep her appointment, Horstman took a ballsy step — she simply popped into the restroom and removed the supposedly dangerous garment. But when she returned to the security checkpoint, she was taken aback when the guards told her that her braless appearance violated the dress code, which bans dressing in a "provocative" or "enticing" way.

Needless to say, Horstman was pretty ticked off. She wrote an email to fellow lawyers about the incident, saying: "Simply because I was a woman who wore a specific bra, my client was denied access to his attorney today. This is completely unacceptable."

We'll say! Luckily, the matter was settled after a correspondence between the Federal Public Defender's Office and the warden. The warden agreed that the security guards' decision was not okay and said it wouldn't happen again.

This is far from the first time we've seen ridiculous things happen because of normal items of women's clothing.

Ladies, have you ever faced an issue at work because of what you were — or weren't — wearing? Tell us about it!

Anna Maltby

Anna Maltby is an award-winning journalist and editor and was most recently the executive editor of Elemental, Medium’s in-house health and wellness publication. She was previously the deputy editor at Real Simple magazine and a deputy editor at Refinery29, and also held staff positions at Men’s Health, Marie Claire, SELF, Fit Pregnancy, Natural Health and Condé Nast Traveler. Her writing has appeared in such outlets as The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, O, Family Circle, Fitness, Redbook, Vogue.com, TeenVogue.com, MensJournal.com, CondeNastTraveler.com, FastCompany.com_ _and Brides.com. She received her BSJ and MSJ from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Anna is also an American Council on Exercise–certified personal trainer and functional training specialist, a certified prenatal and postnatal exercise specialist, and a certified mat Pilates teacher. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two children, and two tuxedo cats.