| Location | Benteen Park, Atlanta, Georgia |
|---|---|
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Medium Security |
| Capacity | 1,909 as of 2006 |
| Opened | 1902 |
| Managed by | Federal Bureau of Prisons |
United States Penitentiary, Atlanta is a medium-security federal prison for men in Atlanta, Georgia. It also has a detention center for pre-trial and holdover inmates and an adjacent camp for minimum security male inmates. The prison is located in the Benteen Park neighborhood of southeast Atlanta at the intersection of Boulevard and McDonough Boulevard.
Contents |
Construction of the prison was authorized in 1899 and the project was completed in January 1902. It encompassed 300 acres (1.2 km2) to accommodate 1200 prisoners.
In the 1980s it was used as a detention center for Cuban refugees from the Mariel Boatlift who were ineligible for release into American society. Its population as of July 6, 2006 was 1909 in the penitentiary and 554 in the camp.
Then in November 1987, the Cuban detainees, tired of indefinite confinement, rioted for 11 days.
The prison is one of several (see FTC Oklahoma City) that are used to house prisoners who are being transferred between prisons. As of 2006 the prison was housing 3—5 in-transit prisoners in each approximately 56-square-foot (5.2 m2) isolation cell for up to eight weeks at a time.
The main prison building was designed by the St. Louis, Missouri architect firm of Eames and Young, which also designed the main building at the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth.[1]
| Name | Number | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ignazio Lupo | 2883 | Died 1947 | Gangster imprisoned for counterfeiting in 1910 and release on parole 1920, returned after conviction for racketeering 1936. |
| Willie Aikens | Former Major League Baseball player. | ||
| Frank Abagnale | Inspiration for the feature film Catch Me If You Can | ||
| James J. Bulger | Boston crime boss, he has committed 19 murders and is included on FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. | ||
| Jimmy Burke | New York mobster on whom the fictional Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas was based. | ||
| George A. Caldwell | Louisiana contractor who supervised the construction of twenty-six public buildings; convicted for income tax evasion and accepting kickbacks in the Louisiana Hayride scandals of 1939-1940; in Atlanta, 1940–1941, when paroled. | ||
| Al Capone | Best known for other supposed offenses but imprisoned for tax evasion prior to being transferred to Alcatraz. Capone was escorted to Alcatraz by Atlanta Correctional Officer James D. Stephens. | ||
| Pedro Albizu Campos | Puerto Rican politician and advocate of Puerto Rican independence from the United States, as well as President of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party from 1930 until his death in 1965. | ||
| William Colbeck | St. Louis mobster and leader of Egan's Rats. | ||
| Eugene V. Debs | Socialist Party 1920 presidential candidate, received 919,799 votes while an inmate at the Atlanta Penitentiary. | ||
| Phil Driscoll | Gospel Entertainer, Trumpet player, now serving a year and a day at the camp. | ||
| Roy Gardner | Last notorious Western train robber, the warden described him as "the most dangerous inmate in the history of Atlanta Prison". | ||
| Marcus Garvey | Pan Africanist had been imprisoned here for offenses allegedly growing out of his operation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and one of its businesses, the Black Star Line. | ||
| John Gotti | organized crime boss. | ||
| Harry Golden | Author of Only in America. | ||
| Charles Harrelson | father of actor Woody Harrelson - transferred to ADX Florence following an escape attempt | ||
| Julian Hawthorne | novelist and son of literary icon Nathaniel Hawthorne, convicted of mail fraud. | ||
| Kent Hovind | 06452-017 | Held at USP, Atlanta in August 2010 then moved to FCI, Tallahassee[2] | Creationist, convicted tax evader |
| Ken Jenne[3] | A former sheriff | ||
| Denny McLain | baseball pitcher , the last pitcher to win thirty games in a season, served a sentence there for fraud. | ||
| Ed Norris | Former Baltimore police commissioner. | ||
| Vincent Papa | Masterminding the theft of the French Connection heroin from the New York Police Department (NYPD) property office. | ||
| Carlo Ponzi | From Ponzi scheme fame. | ||
| Lou Pearlman | 02775-093 | Started Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and others. Was convicted of fraud. Perpetrated one of the longest running Ponzi schemes in the United States. Stole $500 million from family, friends, strangers and banks. 25 year prison sentence. | |
| Bernard Madoff | 61727-054 | Crooked financier convicted of orchestrating the world's largest Ponzi scheme. | |
| Nicodemo Scarfo | Former boss of the Philadelphia crime family. | ||
| Nevin Shapiro | 61311-050[4] | Confessed to security fraud and money laundering in $930 million Ponzi scheme with some proceeds going to University of Miami sports programs. | |
| Don Siegelman | 24775-001 | former governor of Alabama. Convicted of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. | |
| Michael Vick | 33765-183 | NFL Quarterback convicted of Dog Fighting. | |
| Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory | 13037-078 | Serving 30 years to life | Co-founder of the Black Mafia Family. Alleged to have made in excess of $270 million in cocaine drug trafficking. Plead guilty in 2007 to drug trafficking and continuing a criminal enterprise and was sentenced along with his brother in 2008 each to 30 years in prison. |