The man who was convicted of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 and sentenced to die is fighting federal prosecutors to prevent them from seizing funds that he has accrued in his canteen account in prison.
The Boston Herald reported that an attorney for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (30) filed an appeal to stop the federal authorities in Boston from seizing the $4,200 plus in Tsarnaev’s account. The lawyer argued the death row inmate was “neither hoarding money nor spending profligately.”
According to the outlet’s report, Tsarnaev received donations totaling around $26,000 from a variety of sources, including strangers, his siblings, and his lawyers.
David Patton confirmed that Tsarnaev received $1,400 in COVID payments a few years ago. He also said that Tsarnaev “continues to receive uninvited deposits from people he has not met,” and that his client doesn’t have access to these funds.
For more than two decades, federal officials in Massachusetts have been working to convince Tsarnaev that he should hand over any COVID funds and other funds from his inmate trust accounts to pay the more than $100 million he owes to his victims.
Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial resulted in an order to pay criminal restitution of more than $101,000,000 and a $3,000 additional fee. His lawyer said that his client had paid $2,600.
Tsarnaev has been convicted on 30 charges relating to the bombing that occurred at the Boston Marathon finish line in 2013. Three people were killed and over 260 injured in the explosion. 17 of the victims were injured and lost a limb.
Tsarnaev, his brother, and the police were then involved in a multiday pursuit during which Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police officer Sean Collier died after being shot. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Tsarnaev’s brother, died as well.
Tsarnaev, a Colorado resident who is known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” is currently being held in Colorado’s ADMAX Florence while his lawyers seek to overturn his death sentence. Bob Hood, a retired warden told The Herald that the taxpayers’ bill to house Tsarnaev has already surpassed $1 million.
Hood called Tsarnaev’s access to thousands of dollars in his prison account “offensive.”
Hood told The Herald, “He was indigent when he arrived and should continue to be indigent, it’s sickening that he even has a following.”
