This is a list of notable current and former inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta. Inmates who were released from custody prior to 1982 are not listed on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nicodemo Scarfo | 09813-050 | ![]() | Transferred to FMC Butner; died of natural causes in 2017. | Boss of the Philadelphia crime family from 1981 to 1988; convicted in 1988 of racketeering conspiracy for directing Mafia activities including drug trafficking, loansharking, extortion, and murder. [1] |
Ignazio Lupo | Unlisted* | ![]() | At USP Atlanta from 1910 to 1920 and from 1936 to 1946. | Founder of the Morello crime family in New York City, convicted of counterfeiting in 1910; returned to prison in 1936 for racketeering; suspect in numerous Mafia-related murders. [2] [3] |
Jimmy Burke | Unlisted* | Released from custody in 1978 after serving 6 years. | Associate of the Lucchese crime family in New York City; Burke and fellow associate Henry Hill were convicted of extortion in 1972; Burke is the suspected mastermind of the 1978 Lufthansa Heist, in which nearly $6 million in cash and jewels were stolen at JFK Airport. Burke and Hill were portrayed in the 1990 film Goodfellas . [4] | |
Al Capone | Unlisted* | ![]() | Transferred to the federal prison on Alcatraz Island in 1934 by Atlanta Correctional Officer James D. Stephens. | Leader of the Chicago Outfit, which smuggled and bootlegged liquor during Prohibition in the 1920s; convicted of tax evasion in 1931. [5] [6] |
Vincent Papa | Unlisted* | Murdered at USP Atlanta in 1977. | Associate of the Lucchese crime family in New York City; convicted in 1975 masterminding the theft of heroin seized during the French Connection investigation from the New York City Police Department property office from 1969 to 1972. [7] [8] |
Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
Willie Aikens | 01732-031 | ![]() | Released in 2008 after serving 14 years. | Former Major League Baseball player; convicted in 1994 of selling crack-cocaine. [9] |
Denny McLain | 04000-018 | ![]() | Released from custody in 1988 after serving 29 months. | Major League baseball pitcher and two-time Cy Young Award winner; pleaded guilty in 1988 to racketeering and drug trafficking. [10] [11] [12] |
Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
Frank Abagnale | Unlisted* | ![]() | Escaped from USP Atlanta in 1971; captured several weeks later in New York City. | Notorious check forger portrayed in the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can . [13] [14] |
Carlo Ponzi | Unlisted* | ![]() | Released from custody in 1924 after serving 3 years. | Inventor of the financial fraud known as Ponzi scheme; convicted of mail fraud in 1920. [15] [16] [17] |
Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
Eugene V. Debs | Unlisted* | ![]() | Released in 1921 after his sentence was commuted by US President Warren G. Harding. | Founding member of Industrial Workers of the World and US Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America; convicted of sedition in 1918 for promoting opposition to the military draft during World War I; received over 900,000 votes while incarcerated in 1920. [18] |
Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher | Unlisted* | ![]() | Sentence commuted and released in 1962 as part of a prisoner exchange with the Soviet Union for the release of Francis Gary Powers and Frederic Pryor. | Convicted of espionage with relation to the Hollow Nickel Case and sentenced to 45 years' imprisonment [19] |
Marcus Garvey | Unlisted* | ![]() | Released from custody in 1927 after serving 4 years. | Founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and leading figure in the Black Nationalist and Pan Africanist movements; convicted of mail fraud in 1923 for promoting the Black Star Line, a UNIA business dedicated to the transportation of goods and eventually throughout the African global economy. [20] [21] |
Pedro Albizu Campos | Unlisted* | ![]() | Transferred to a hospital prison in 1943 and released in 1947 after serving 10 years. | President of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party from 1930 to 1965; convicted in 1936 of sedition in connection with the assassination of Puerto Rican Police Chief Elisha Riggs, which was in retaliation for the Río Piedras massacre, during which police killed four unarmed party supporters. [22] |
Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ed Norris | 41115-037 | ![]() | Released from custody in 2005 after serving 6 months. | Baltimore Police Commissioner from 2000 to 2002; pleaded guilty in 2004 to misusing police department funds for personal expenses and tax fraud. [23] [24] [25] |
George A. Caldwell | Unlisted* | Released from custody in 1941 after serving 1 year and pardoned by US President Harry Truman. | Louisiana contractor who supervised the construction of 26 public buildings; convicted in 1940 of tax evasion and accepting kickbacks in connection with the Louisiana Hayride scandals of 1939 and 1940. | |
William Colbeck | Unlisted* | ![]() | Released in 1940 after serving 16 years. | Politician and organized crime figure in St. Louis; convicted in 1924 of two 1923 armed robberies which netted over $2 million. [26] |
Phil Driscoll | 41294-074 | ![]() | Released from custody in 2008 after serving 1 year at the minimum-security prison camp. | Grammy-winning trumpeter; convicted in 2006 of conspiracy and tax evasion. [27] [28] |
Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
Roy Gardner | Unlisted* | Served several years of a 75-year sentence at USP Atlanta; attempted to escape in 1926. | Notorious bank robber and escape artist; stole over $350,000 in cash and securities from banks and mail trains in 1920 and 1921. [29] [30] | |
Harry Golden | Unlisted* | Released in 1932 after serving 3 years; pardoned by US President Richard Nixon in 1974. | American author and newspaper publisher; convicted of mail fraud in 1929. [31] [32] | |
Charles Harrelson | 02582-016 | ![]() | Transferred to USP Florence ADX, the federal supermax prison in Colorado, after attempting to escape from USP Atlanta in 1995. | Convicted of murdering Federal Judge John H. Wood, Jr. in 1979 at the behest of a narcotics dealer; father of actor Woody Harrelson. [33] |
Alphonse Gabriel Capone, sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1925 to 1931. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.
Frank William Abagnale Jr. is an American security consultant, author, and convicted felon who committed frauds that mainly targeted individuals and small businesses. He later gained notoriety in the late 1970s by claiming a diverse range of workplace frauds, many of which have since been placed in doubt. In 1980, Abagnale co-wrote his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, which built a narrative around these claimed frauds. The book inspired the film of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg in 2002, in which Abagnale was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. He has also written four other books. Abagnale runs Abagnale and Associates, a consulting firm.
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of Midtown Manhattan on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2007.
The Gambino crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.
The Mexican Mafia, also known as La eMe, is a predominantly Mexican American prison gang and criminal organization in the United States. Despite its name, the Mexican Mafia has no origins in Mexico and is entirely a U.S. organization. Law enforcement officials report that the Mexican Mafia is the deadliest and most powerful gang within the California prison system.
The Genovese crime family, also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Mafia. The Genovese family has generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside New York, including ties with the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Patriarca, and Buffalo crime families.
The United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility, commonly known as ADX Florence or the Florence Supermax, is an American federal prison in Fremont County to the south of Florence, Colorado, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. ADX Florence, constructed in 1994 and opened one year later, is classed as a supermax or "control unit" prison, that provides a higher, more controlled level of custody than a regular maximum security prison. ADX Florence forms part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Florence, which is situated on 49 acres of land and houses different facilities with varying degrees of security, including the adjacent United States Penitentiary, Florence High.
The Morello crime family was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defeating the rival Neapolitan Camorra of Brooklyn. They were the predecessors of what eventually became known as the Genovese crime family.
The Five Families refer to five Italian American Mafia crime families that operate in New York City. In 1931, the five families were organized by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War.
Ignazio Lupo, also known as Ignazio Saietta and Lupo the Wolf, was a Sicilian American Black Hand leader in New York City during the early 1900s. His business was centered in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he ran large extortion operations and committed other crimes including robberies, loan-sharking, and murder. By the start of the 20th century, Lupo merged his crew with others in the South Bronx and East Harlem to form the Morello crime family, which became the leading Mafia family in New York City.
The Colombo crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family.
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Louis "Little New York" Campagna was an American gangster and mobster and a high-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit for over three decades.
Morris Rudensky was an American prohibition-era gangster, cat burglar and safe-cracker.
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The Rochester crime family, also known as the Valenti crime family or the Rochester Mafia, was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Rochester, New York that was part of the American Cosa Nostra.
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