Prison: Behind the BarsFirst comes trial, then comes guilty, then comes sentencing to years locked away with people even more dangerous than you are. Join us on a whirlwind tour of prison!
The United States Penitentiary ADX is a federal supermax prison located in Colorado - and it is the prison El Chapo is going to. It is sometimes referred to as "the Alcatraz of the Rockies." The supermax prison is home to inmates the federal prison system has declared the most dangerous in the country. Violent gang leaders, foreign and domestic terrorists, and inmates with a history of violent crimes towards fellow inmates and prison guards can all be found at ADX Florence.
Who is the most famous prisoner at the ADX Florence Facility? Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh used to top the list. The Gulf War veteran detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995 killing 168 people and injuring over 600. Now, El Chapo is the most dangerous man at the prison. Cartel Lord El Chapo, born Joaquín Guzmán, once claimed he killed 2,000-3,000 people. At ADX Florence, McVeigh was housed on “Bombers Row” along with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, New York Latin Kings founder Luis Felipe, and the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist Ramzi Yousef.
Here are the most dangerous criminals locked up in the "unescapable" Colorado supermax prison.
Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist who perpetrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and injured over 680 others. The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in United States history.
A Gulf War veteran, McVeigh sought revenge against the federal government for the 1993 Waco siege that ended in the deaths of 86 people, many of whom were children, exactly two years before the bombing, as well as the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident and American foreign policy. He hoped to inspire a revolution against the federal government, and defended the bombing as a legitimate tactic against what he saw as a tyrannical government. He was arrested shortly after the bombing and indicted on 160 state offenses and 11 federal offenses, including the use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was found guilty on all counts in 1997 and sentenced to death.McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. His execution was carried out in a considerably shorter time than most inmates awaiting the death penalty, as most convicts on death row in the United States spend an average of 15 years there. Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier were also convicted as conspirators in the plot. Nichols was sentenced to eight life terms for the deaths of eight federal agents, and to 161 life terms without parole by the state of Oklahoma for the deaths of the others. Fortier was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and has since been released.
Joseph Michael Swango (born October 21, 1954) is an American licensed physician and an admitted serial killer. Swango has been estimated to have been involved in as many as 60 fatal poisonings of patients and colleagues, though he only admitted to causing four deaths. He was sentenced in 2000 to three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, and is serving that sentence at the ADX Florence supermax prison near Florence, Colorado.
David Eden Lane (November 2, 1938 – May 28, 2007) was an anti-American white separatist and convicted felon. A member of the domestic terror group The Order, he was convicted and sentenced to 190 years in prison for racketeering; conspiracy; and for violating the civil rights of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host, who was murdered by another member of the group on June 18, 1984. He died while incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.Lane coined the best-known slogan of the white supremacist movement in North America, the Fourteen Words. He has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "one of the most important ideologues of contemporary white supremacy" and is regarded as a folk hero by those who subscribe to his religious, political and philosophical teachings.
Robert Philip Hanssen (April 18, 1944 – June 5, 2023) was an American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."[2] At the time of his death, Hanssen was serving fifteen consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. Three years after joining the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) to offer his services, beginning his first espionage cycle, lasting until 1981. He restarted his espionage activities in 1985 and continued until 1991, when he ended communications during the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing he would be exposed. Hanssen restarted communications the next year and continued until his arrest. Throughout his spying, he remained anonymous to the Russians.
Anthony Salvatore Casso (born May 21, 1942) is an American mobster and former underboss of the Lucchese crime family. During his career in organized crime, Casso was regarded as a "homicidal maniac" in the mafia as he admitted to the government responsibility for 36 murders but most likely committed many more. Former Lucchese captain and government witness Anthony Accetturo once said of Casso, "all he wanted to do is kill, kill, get what you can, even if you didn't earn it." In interviews and on the witness stand, Casso has confessed involvement in the murders of Frank DeCicco, Roy DeMeo, and Vladimir Reznikov. Casso has also admitted to several attempts to murder Gambino family boss John Gotti.
Following his arrest in 1993, Casso became one of the highest-ranking members of the Mafia to turn informer. In 1998, however, the US government rescinded Casso's plea agreement and dropped him from the witness protection program. Later that year, a federal judge sentenced him to 455 years in prison.
Barry Byron Mills (July 7, 1948 – July 8, 2018) was an American convicted criminal and leader of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) prison gang. Nicknamed "The Baron", Mills was incarcerated in the California state prison system at a young age, where he rose within the AB organization during the 1970s and 80s.Mills, from Windsor, California, was first incarcerated in 1967, and jailed for a year in a county lockup. He entered the California state prison system after an armed robbery in 1969, and was in jail from then on.
He became involved with the AB in San Quentin Prison, where the group originated in 1964. He was convicted of nearly decapitating another inmate, John Marsloff, over a gambling debt at USP Atlanta in 1979.According to a federal indictment, Mills was involved in the consolidation of the AB power structure in 1980, where he assumed a seat in a three-member "federal commission" for the gang. Along with Tyler Bingham, he expanded the operations of the AB in federal and state prisons, moving the group into narcotics dealing and racketeering.In 1996, Barry Mills proposed that the Aryan Brotherhood absorb the prison gang known as the Dirty White Boys.In 1997, Mills and his accomplice, Tyler Bingham, reportedly ordered their members to carry out a race war against a rival prison gang, the D.C. Blacks.
In March 2006, Charles Hartsell, a Las Vegas member, and leader of the Las Vegas section, along with three other leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood, including Bingham, were indicted for numerous crimes, including murder, conspiracy, drug trafficking, and racketeering. Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham were convicted of murder and sent back to United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility Prison (ADX) in Florence, Colorado, after they were given life sentences without the possibility of parole.Mills died on July 8, 2018 at the age of 70.
