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| Location | Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Coordinates | 32°47′06″N 97°25′03″W / 32.78500°N 97.41750°WCoordinates: 32°47′06″N 97°25′03″W / 32.78500°N 97.41750°W |
| 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 |
The Federal Medical Center, Carswell (FMC Carswell) is a United States federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, for female inmates of all security levels, primarily with special medical and mental health needs. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the United 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. The facility is located in the northeast corner of Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, formerly known as Carswell Air Force Base. It lies in the northwest part of the city of Fort Worth, near the southeast corner of Lake Worth.
The director of the DC Prisoners' Project stated in 2009 that Carswell, along with FMC Butner and FMC 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." 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 the COVID-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 and at least four dying.
History
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 for Carswell Air Force Base.
Facility and programs
FMC Carswell is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the American Correctional Association. It is the only medical facility for women in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The main five-story building has a capacity of 600 prisoners. The minimum security prisoners live in barracks, outside of the main compound.
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 a federal death sentence, Lisa Marie Montgomery, who had murdered a young pregnant woman and then cut the woman's unborn fetus from her womb. Montgomery was scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on December 8, 2020; however, this was rescheduled for January 12, 2021, as her attorneys contracted COVID-19. She was executed on January 13, 2021.
FMC Carswell has an administrative high security unit, which houses women in the BOP system who are classified as "special management concerns" due to violence and/or escape attempts. The unit has a capacity of 20 women; according to a report published on July 6, 2018, there were 10 women confined in the unit.
Notable incidents
Articles criticizing FMC Carswell have appeared in various media outlets relating to various forms of prisoner abuse. These articles focus on allegations of medical malpractice, neglect, and sexual abuse of inmates by staff. Over a seven-year period, seven FMC Carswell staff members were convicted of sexual abuse of a prisoner. 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. Implicated by this evidence, Miller was convicted, and in 2004 he was sentenced to 150 months (12 years and 6 months) imprisonment. He served out his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Sandstone, and was released on March 19, 2015.
In May 2008, Vincent Inametti, a Roman 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 of sexual abuse of two inmates. Inametti, Register # 36889-177, was imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institution, Butner Low in North Carolina and released in October 2011.
In April 2020, the BOP announced the first death of an inmate at FMC Carswell due to COVID-19. On April 1, doctors had performed an emergency Caesarean section to deliver the premature daughter of the inmate, who three days later tested positive, making her the only 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.
In July 2020, it was reported that 28-year-old inmate Reality Winner had tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the prison's total of confirmed cases to more than 500. According to The 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.
Notable inmates (current and former)
Death row
Former death row
| Inmate Name | Register Number | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angela Johnson | 08337-029 | Department of Justice announced it would seek another death sentence, but she was resentenced to life in prison. Johnson is currently being held at the Federal Correctional Institution, Waseca. | Convicted in 2005 for her role in aiding her then-boyfriend, Dustin Honken, commit four drug-related homicides. Honken was also sentenced to death, and was executed on July 17, 2020. |
| Lisa Marie Montgomery | 11072-031 Archived 2013-06-26 at the Wayback Machine | Executed on January 13, 2021. | Convicted in 2007 of murdering Bobbie Jo Stinnett, aged 23 and kidnapping her unborn baby from her womb in 2004. Montgomery was transferred to USP Terre Haute and was scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on December 8, 2020. On January 12, 2021 she was granted a stay in execution due to her execution being a possible violation of the Eighth Amendment and was executed at 1:31 AM CST on January 13, 2021. |
Non-death row
High-profile inmates
| Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lynne Stewart | 53504-054 |
|
Released on compassionate grounds in December 2013 due to terminal cancer. She died on March 7, 2017. | 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 of Special Administrative Measures prohibiting it. |
| Wanda Barzee | 16650-081 | N/A | Served a 15-year sentence; released in April 2018. | Pleaded guilty to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor in connection with the abduction of Elizabeth Smart; Barzee's then-husband, Bryan David Mitchell, was sentenced to life. |
| Lynette Fromme | 06075-180 |
|
Released from custody in 2009 after serving 34 years. | Follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson; convicted in 1975 of attempting to assassinate US President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California on September 5, 1975. |
| Marion Jones | 84868-054 |
|
Released from custody in 2008 after serving 5 months. | Member of the US Olympic Track and Field Team during the 2000 Summer Olympics; pleaded guilty in 2007 to lying to federal investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs during athletic events. |
| Áurea Vázquez-Rijos, Marcia Vázquez-Rijos | 46255-069
42102-069 |
Serving life sentences | Sisters convicted in 2018 for murdering Aurea's estranged husband Adam Joel Anhang Uster in 2005. | |
| Reality Winner | 22056-021 |
|
Transferred as part of plea deal to treat bulimia. | 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 the Espionage Act. She was released on June 2, 2021. |
| Rita Gluzman | 82050-054 | N/A | Released on compassionate release in July 2020 due to several medical issues including multiple strokes and a diagnosis of early Parkinson’s disease. | 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. After her sentencing, Gluzman appealed her sentence, claiming her conviction was unconstitutional. Her appeal was denied. |
Other notable inmates
| Inmate Name | Register Number | Photo | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shannon Richardson | 21213-078 | Serving an 18-year sentence. | Former actress who pleaded guilty to sending letters containing ricin to President of the United States Barack Obama and Mayor of New York City Michael 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 shows The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead. She is also a mother of six children. On March 16, 2015 the Investigation Discovery channel aired episode 10 of season 6 of the television show Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? which featured Shannon Richardson's case as told by her ex-husband. The episode was titled "Poison Love". | |
| Emma Coronel Aispuro | 31149-509 | Serving a 3 year sentence, scheduled for release in 2023 | Wife of El Chapo, charged with importing drugs into the US. | |
| Kristen Gilbert | 90371-038 |
|
Serving a life sentence. | Former nurse at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts; convicted of murder in 2001 for deliberately injecting four patients with fatal doses of the heart stimulant epinephrine in 1995 and 1996. |
| Ana Montes | 25037-016 |
|
Served a 25-year sentence; released in 2023. | Former senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency; pleaded guilty to espionage in 2002 for passing classified information to Cuban intelligence over a 16-year period, including the identities of four US spies. |
| Marius Mason | 04672-061 | Now at FCI Danbury | Member of the radical, clandestine environmentalist group Earth Liberation Front; pleaded guilty in 2008 to conspiracy and arson for committing a 1999 arson attack at Michigan State University’s Agriculture Hall that caused $1 million in damage.
Marius (Marie) Mason is one of the first transgender individuals to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given hormone treatment with testosterone. 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. |
|
| Aafia Siddiqui | 90279-054 |
|
Serving an 86-year sentence; scheduled for release in 2082. | Pakistani neuroscientist; convicted in 2010 of attempting to murder US soldiers and FBI Agents while in custody at a police station in Afghanistan after she was arrested on suspicion of being an Al-Qaeda operative in 2008. |
| Dora Cisneros | 77877-079 | Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. | Cisneros and one of her clients, Daniel Orlando Garza, were responsible for the murder of Joey Fisher. | |
| Elisabeth Kimmel | 84193-298 | Served a six week sentence; released On February 18, 2022. | Plead guilty to connection to the Varsity Blues scandal. |
See also
External links
- FMC Carswell page at BOP.gov
- "Abuse at Carswell Prison is for real", May 21, 2000, Molly Ivins
- Brink, Betty. "Taking the Cuffs Off at Carswell." Fort Worth Weekly. Wednesday May 3, 2006.
