 | |
 Interactive map of Federal Medical Center, Carswell | |
| Location | Fort Worth, Texas |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 32°47′06″N97°25′03″W / 32.78500°N 97.41750°W /32.78500; -97.41750 |
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | All security levels (with minimum-security prison camp) |
| Population | 1,206 [928 at the USP, 278 in prison camp] (April 2022) |
| Managed by | Federal Bureau of Prisons |
| Warden | Michael Smith |
| Website | Official website |
TheFederal Medical Center, Carswell (FMC Carswell) is a United Statesfederal prison inFort Worth, Texas,for female inmates of all security levels, primarily with special medical and mental health needs. It is operated by theFederal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of theUnited States Department of Justice. The facility also has a prison camp for minimum-security female inmates.
As of April 2020, 1,625 women were confined at FMC Carswell.[1] The facility is located in the northeast corner ofNaval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, formerly known asCarswell Air Force Base.[2][3] It lies in the northwest part of the city of Fort Worth, near the southeast corner ofLake Worth. The BOP housed women under federal death sentences in this facility.
The director of the DC Prisoners' Project stated in 2009 that Carswell, along withFMC Butner andFMC Rochester, "are clearly the 'gold standard' in terms of what BOP facilities can achieve in providing medical care," and that they had provided "excellent medical care, sometimes for extremely complex medical needs."[4] The prison has seen media coverage due to incidents of abuses of inmates by prison staff, as well as the presence of several high-profile prisoners. Significantly affected by theCOVID-19 pandemic, Carswell has had one of the highest rates of infection among all federal prisons in the United States, with hundreds of prisoners contracting the virus[5] and at least four dying.[6]
Prior to the facility's opening, women went to a federal prison hospital in Kentucky that also served male prisoners. FMC Carswell opened in 1994. The facility previously served as the medical center forCarswell Air Force Base.[7]
FMC Carswell is fully accredited by theJoint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and theAmerican Correctional Association.[citation needed] It is the only medical facility for women in theFederal Bureau of Prisons.[8]
The main five-story building has a capacity of 600 prisoners. The minimum security prisoners live in barracks, outside of the main compound.[7]
Although most inmates at this facility have some form of medical condition requiring treatment, there is also a general population of inmates at FMC Carswell who do not. Carswell housed the last woman who was under afederal death sentence,Lisa Marie Montgomery, who had murdered a young pregnant woman and then cut the woman's unborn fetus from her womb.[9][10] Montgomery was scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on December 8, 2020;[11] however, this was rescheduled for January 12, 2021, as her attorneys contracted COVID-19. Montgomery was transferred to the federal execution facility at theUnited States Penitentiary inTerre Haute,Indiana, on January 12, 2021, and was executed on January 13, 2021.[10]
FMC Carswell has an administrative high security unit,[12] which houses women in the BOP system who are classified as "special management concerns" due to violence and/or escape attempts.[13] The unit has a capacity of 20 women;[14] according to a report published on July 6, 2018, there were 10 women confined in the unit.[15]
Articles criticizing FMC Carswell have appeared in various media outlets relating to various forms ofprisoner abuse. These articles focus on allegations ofmedical malpractice, neglect, andsexual abuse of inmates by staff.[16] Over a seven-year period, seven FMC Carswell staff members were convicted of sexual abuse of a prisoner.[17][18] In March 2000, a correction officer at FMC Carswell, Michael Lawrence Miller, raped a prisoner. The prisoner did not report the incident after it occurred, but kept a pair of sweatpants she wore during the incident as proof. As she was being released in September 2000, she gave the sweatpants to a prison administrator.[19] Implicated by this evidence, Miller was convicted, and in 2004 he was sentenced[20] to 150 months (12 years and 6 months) imprisonment.[21] He served out his sentence at theFederal Correctional Institution, Sandstone, and was released on March 19, 2015.[22]
In May 2008, Vincent Inametti, aRoman Catholic priest who worked as a chaplain at FMC Carswell, was sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay a $3,000 fine after pleading guilty in November 2007 to two counts ofsexual abuse of two inmates.[23][24] Inametti, Register # 36889-177, was imprisoned at theFederal Correctional Institution, Butner Low in North Carolina and released in October 2011.[25]
In April 2020, the BOP announced the first death of an inmate at FMC Carswell due toCOVID-19. On April 1, doctors had performed an emergencyCaesarean section to deliver the premature daughter of the inmate, who three days later tested positive, making her the first inmate to contract coronavirus at FMC Carswell. The 30-year-old Native American Andrea Circle Bear (BOP# 18015-273), who was serving a two-year sentence on a drug-related charge, died on April 28.[1]
In July 2020, it was reported that 28-year-old inmateReality Winner had tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the prison's total of confirmed cases to more than 500. According toThe Guardian, "Despite weeks of pleas for cleaning supplies and commissary privileges, attorneys, health providers and even the guard's union are all denouncing the rudimentary protocols inside FMC Carswell." In an email to her sister, Winner said guards were mocking infected prisoners.[26]
| Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angela Johnson | 08337-029 |  | Transferred toFCI Waseca and then to theFCI Aliceville. Serving a life sentence. (Originally sentenced to death on December 19, 2005 but commuted in December 2014) | Convicted in 2005 for her role in aiding her then-boyfriend, Dustin Honken, commit four drug-related homicides. Honken was also sentenced to death,[27][28] and was executed on July 17, 2020.[29] |
| Lisa Marie Montgomery | 11072-031Archived 2013-06-26 at theWayback Machine | | Executed on January 13, 2021 inUSP Terre Haute. (Sentenced to death on April 4, 2008) | Convicted in 2007 of murdering Bobbie Jo Stinnett, aged 23, andkidnapping her unborn baby from her womb in 2004.[30] Montgomery was transferred toUSP Terre Haute and was scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on December 8, 2020.[11] On January 12, 2021,[10] she was granted a stay in execution due to her execution being a possible violation of theEighth Amendment[31] and was executed at 1:31 AM CST on January 13, 2021.[32] |
| Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lynne Stewart | 53504-054 | .JPG) | Released oncompassionate grounds in December 2013 due to terminal cancer.[33] She died on March 7, 2017.[34] | Disbarred civil rights attorney; convicted in 2005 of providing material support to a terrorist conspiracy for assisting her incarcerated client,Omar Abdel Rahman, to communicate with his followers in violation ofSpecial Administrative Measures prohibiting it.[35] |
| Wanda Barzee | 16650-081 |  | Served a 15-year sentence; released in April 2018. | Pleaded guilty tokidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor in connection with theabduction ofElizabeth Smart; Barzee's then-husband, Bryan David Mitchell, was sentenced to life.[36][37] |
| Lynette Fromme | 06075-180 |  | Released from custody in 2009 after serving 34 years. | Follower of incarceratedcult leaderCharles Manson; convicted in 1975 of attempting toassassinateUS PresidentGerald Ford in Sacramento, California, on September 5, 1975.[38][39] |
| Marion Jones | 84868-054 |  | Released from custody in 2008 after serving 5 months. | Member of the US Olympic Track and Field Team during the2000 Summer Olympics; pleaded guilty in 2007 to lying to federal investigators about heruse ofperformance-enhancing drugs during athletic events.[40][41] |
| Áurea Vázquez-Rijos | 46255-069 | Serving life sentences. | Sisters convicted in 2018 for murdering Aurea's estranged husband Adam Joel Anhang Uster in 2005. | |
| Marcia Vázquez-Rijos | 42102-069 | |||
| Reality Winner | 22056-021[permanent dead link] | .jpg) | Transferred as part of plea deal to treatbulimia.[42] Released on June 2, 2021, and again on November 23, 2021. | Sentenced on August 23, 2018, to five years and three months in prison for releasing one Top Secret document exposing Russian attempted interference in the US 2016 Presidential election, thereby violating theEspionage Act.[43] |
| Rita Gluzman | 82050-054 | Released on compassionate release in July 2020 due to several medical issues including multiple strokes and a diagnosis of earlyParkinson's disease.[44] | On April 30, 1997, Gluzman was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on a federal charge of interstate domestic violence for killing her husband.[45] After her sentencing, Gluzmanappealed her sentence, claiming her conviction was unconstitutional. Her appeal was denied. |
| Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shannon Richardson | 21213-078 | Serving an 18-year sentence; scheduled for release on November 18, 2028. | Former actress who pleaded guilty to sending letters containingricin toPresident of the United StatesBarack Obama andMayor of New York CityMichael Bloomberg in 2013. As part of her plea deal, she was ultimately convicted of "possessing and producing a biological toxin" and was sentenced to 18 years in prison and a $367,000 fine. Richardson had sent the letters in an attempt to frame her estranged husband. Before her conviction Richardson was a small-part actress who appeared in the television showsThe Vampire Diaries andThe Walking Dead. She is also a mother of six children.[46][47] On March 16, 2015, theInvestigation Discovery channel aired episode 10 of season 6 of the television showWho the (Bleep) Did I Marry? which featured Shannon Richardson's case as told by her ex-husband. The episode was titled "Poison Love".[48] | |
| Emma Coronel Aispuro | 31149-509 | Served a three-year sentence, released on September 13, 2023, to four years of supervised release. | Wife ofEl Chapo, charged with importing drugs into the US. | |
| Kristen Gilbert | 90371-038Archived 2013-12-03 at theWayback Machine |  | Serving a life sentence. | Former nurse at theVeterans Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts; convicted of murder in 2001 for deliberately injecting four patients with fatal doses of the heart stimulantepinephrine in 1995 and 1996.[49][50][51] |
| Ana Montes | 25037-016 |  | Served a 25-year sentence; released on January 6, 2023. | Former senior analyst for theDefense Intelligence Agency; pleaded guilty toespionage in 2002 for passing classified information toCuban intelligence over a 16-year period, including the identities of four US spies.[52][53] |
| Marius Mason | 04672-061 | Transferred toFMC Fort Worth. Serving a 21-year-and-ten-month sentence; scheduled for release on May 4, 2027. | Member of the radical, clandestine environmentalist groupEarth Liberation Front; pleaded guilty in 2008 toconspiracy andarson for committing a 1999 arson attack atMichigan State University's Agriculture Hall that caused $1 million in damage. Marius (Marie) Mason is one of the firsttransgender individuals to be diagnosed withgender dysphoria and givenhormone treatment withtestosterone. He was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months. Plans are set to move Mason from the female prison to the men's prison later on throughout his transition.[54][55] | |
| Aafia Siddiqui | 90279-054 |  | Serving an 86-year sentence; scheduled for release on June 30, 2082. | Pakistanineuroscientist; convicted in 2010 of allegedly attempting to murder US soldiers andFBI agents while in custody at a police station in Afghanistan after she was arrested on suspicion of being anAl-Qaeda operative in 2008.[56] |
| Dora Cisneros | 77877-079[permanent dead link] | Serving a life sentence. | Cisneros and one of her clients, Daniel Orlando Garza, were responsible for the murder of Joey Fisher. | |
| Elisabeth Kimmel | 84193-298[permanent dead link] | Served a six-week sentence; released on February 18, 2022. | Pled guilty to connection to theVarsity Blues scandal.[57] | |
| Linda Weston | 68897-066 | Serving a life sentence plus 80 years. | Ringleader of thePhiladelphia basement kidnapping.[58] | |
| Angela Baldwin | 21529-509 | Serving a 33-year sentence; scheduled for release on March 22, 2050. | Child sex predator who, along with ex-husband Russell Taylor, helped funnel child pornography to formerSubway spokesmanJared Fogle. | |
| Donna Langan (registered as Peter Kevin Langan) | 64023-061 | Serving a life sentence. | Former leader of theAryan Republican Army; convicted in 1997 of committingbank robberies using firearms and bombs in order to raise money to finance efforts to overthrow the US government and murder millions of Jewish people across the country.[59][60] | |
| Holly Elkins | 07931-506 | Serving two life sentences. | Helped plan the murder of her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend and mother of his child. Elkins was arrested by federal agents at the Miami airport after returning from a trip to the Dominican Republic. She was charged with conspiracy to stalk and stalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death.[61] |
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