Former cop Lane to report to Colorado prison for Floyd’s murder

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane, who was sentenced to 2 1/2 years for violating the civil rights of George Floyd, will serve his sentence in a low-security federal prison in Colorado.

A court order on Tuesday directs Lane to report to the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution in Littleton, a Denver suburb, on Aug. 30.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson had recommended that the Bureau of Prisons send Lane to the lower-security prison camp in Duluth, closer to his home, but the bureau makes final decisions about where inmates are placed, including evaluating of security concerns.

“He should be fine there,” said Lane’s defense attorney, Earl Gray.

According to the Bureau of Prisons website, FCI Englewood is a low-security prison for men with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. It has 1,032 inmates, including 97 in the camp. Housing is dorm or cubicle style. Life there is highly regimented, including frequent head counts and having to wake up at dawn.

Mike Brandt, a Minneapolis-area defense attorney who has followed the case closely, said Lane’s assignment made sense.

“They take into account a variety of factors including the crime they are sentenced for, their criminal record score, the judge’s recommendation, history of violence, etc.,” Brandt said. “I think because this crime was not necessarily a ‘violent’ offense and he had no priors, his numbers were lower, qualifying him for a lower security facility.”

Magnuson originally ordered Lane to turn himself in on Oct. 4, but moved up the date due to the complex interplay between his federal sentencing and his sentencing in state court, which is scheduled for Sept. 21. for his guilty plea aiding and abetting second degree murder.

The judge has not changed so far. the surrender dates of October 4 for former officers Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, who were convicted of federal civil rights charges along with Lane in February. Magnuson he sentenced them last month to 3 1/2 years and 3 years, respectively, and recommended that they go to Duluth or Yankton.

But Thao and Keung are scheduled to go on trial in state court on October 24 on separate charges of accessory to murder and manslaughter. They formally rejected plea deals Monday.

Legal experts say it’s not unusual so that people convicted in federal court can appear for sentencing weeks or months later, even in such an emotionally charged case like the death of Floyd under the knee of former officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020, which sparked protests in Minneapolis and around the world in a considering racial injustice and surveillance.

Chauvin, who was sentenced to 22 1/2 years on state charges of murder and manslaughter and 21 years on a federal civil rights charge, remains in the maximum security state prison in Oak Park Heights pending his transfer to a unannounced federal prison.

Littleton Prison has housed other former law enforcement officers convicted of federal crimes, including former officers from North Charleston, South Carolina, Officer Michael Slager, who is serving 20 years on a civil rights charge for killing Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who fled a traffic stop in 2015; and the former Orange County, California, Sheriff Mike Carona, who was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in 2009 for witness tampering.

Other known former Englewood inmates include former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who denounced in 2012 to serve 14 years for corruption but he got his sentence commuted by then President Donald Trump in 2020. Another was former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who served more than 12 years in Englewood and elsewhere beginning in 2006 for securities fraud and other crimes.

There are still former Subway salesman Jared Fogle who was sentenced in 2015 to more than 15 years for crimes of child pornography and illicit sexual conduct with a child.

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Find full AP coverage of the murder of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

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