Convicted Boston Marathon bomber got COVID relief money in prison, prosecutors say
On April 15, 2013, two brothers planted pressure cooker bombs during the 117th running of the Boston Marathon, resulting in the deaths of three people and injuring hundreds more.
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev was convicted on April 8, 2015 by a federal jury on all 30 counts against him, including the fatal shooting of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier three days after the race. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died after Tsarnaev ran over him with a car while trying to escape a police standoff.
Now, six years later, Tsarnaev sits in a prison in Florence, Colorado.
Authorities say he received a COVID-19 relief payment of $1,400 in June 2021, according to a motion filed Jan. 5 by acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Mendell from the District of Massachusetts.
He also received payments totaling $11,230 from the Office of Federal Defenders of New York, from May 2016 through June 2021 according to the motion.
Other contributions from at least 35 people totaled more than $8,400, prosecutors said.
Despite being ordered to pay a $3,000 special assessment and $101,126,627 in criminal restitution on Jan. 15, 2016, he has only paid $2,202 as of Jan. 5, court documents state.
The “largest payment” Tsarnaev has made from his inmate account was $2,000 “to his siblings for items such as ‘gifts,’ ‘support,’ and ‘books,’” court documents said. He hasn’t paid victims of his convicted crimes.
After the motion was filed on Jan. 5, the court ordered that the money in Tsarnaev’s account must be given to the Clerk of the Court so it can be redistributed to victims of the crimes he’s convicted for, according to CBS Boston.
“By Congressional mandate, the United States has a statutory duty to collect restitution owed to crime victims,” the filing said.
Tsarnaev was sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences and the death penalty following the bombing, the subsequent killing of Collier, a kidnapping and carjacking, and a firefight with police, according to the Justice Department. However, Tsarnaev’s death sentence was overturned in 2020, but the Justice Department wants the penalty to be reconsidered, CBS reported.
McClatchy News has reached out to an attorney contact for Tsarnaev, provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, for comment and was awaiting a response.
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 10:05 AM with the headline "Convicted Boston Marathon bomber got COVID relief money in prison, prosecutors say."
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