The
Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Dix (
FCI Fort Dix) is a low-security United States
federal prison for male offenders in New Jersey. It is operated by the
Federal Bureau of Prisons. A satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male inmates.
FCI Fort Dix is located in Burlington County on the ASA Fort Dix entity of Joint base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. It is approximately 40 miles (64 km) from Philadelphia. Fort Dix is the largest single federal prison in the United States in the number of inmates housed there.
It is divided up into three compounds: The separate East and West Compounds (both low-level, each constituting a single prison in its own right) and a camp between the two.
Notable incidents
Identity theft ring
In early 2010, a joint FBI and Federal Bureau of Prisons investigation found that Dimorio McDowell (50711-019), an inmate at FCI Fort Dix, was operating a major identity theft ring from the prison. Eight co-conspirators, with whom McDowell communicated by telephone, were also arrested. The ring targeted credit cards issued by major chain stores such as Macy's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Staples, Home Depot, Lowes and others. McDowell and his co-conspirators obtained the personal information of credit card holders through customer service departments and added themselves as authorized users. When McDowell's co-conspirators went to make purchases, they showed false identification or provided the last four digits of the cardholder's Social Security number and charged high-end items such as a John Deere tractor, big-screen televisions, snow blowers and stoves. The companies that issued the cards, including Citigroup Financial, HSBC and GE Capital, lost between $500,000 and $1 million.
McDowell subsequently pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and was sentenced to 14 additional years in prison on January 18, 2011. McDowell is currently incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, which has a Communication Management Unit, where inmate contact with the outside world is severely restricted and tightly monitored. He is scheduled for release in 2028.
Notable inmates (current and former)
High-profile inmates
Politicians
|
|
Register number
|
Status
|
Details
|
| Buddy Cianci
|
05000-070
|
Released from custody in 2007; served 4 years.
|
Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, from 1975 to 1984 and 1991 to 2002; convicted in 2002 of racketeering for accepting bribes in exchange for city jobs from 1991 to 1999.
|
| Kwame Kilpatrick
|
44678-039
|
Served a 28-year sentence; transferred to Oakdale. Sentence commuted by Donald Trump on his last day in office.
|
Former mayor of Detroit from 2002-2008, convicted in 2013 of racketeering, fraud, bribery and extortion.
|
| Joe Ganim
|
14466-014
|
Released from custody in July 2010; Served 7 years
|
Mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, from 1991-2003 and 2015–present. Convicted in 2003 of 16 federal counts that include racketeering, extortion, racketeering conspiracy, bribery, bribery conspiracy, mail fraud, and tax fraud.
|
| Rob Walker
|
90668-053
|
Was serving an 18-month sentence; released from custody on January 24, 2023.
|
Former Chief Deputy County Executive of Nassau County, New York from 2010-2018 convicted for obstruction of justice.
|
| Bobby Henon
|
77029-066
|
Serving a 3.5-year sentence; scheduled for release in 2026.
|
Former majority leader and member of Philadelphia City Council. Convicted in November 2021 for political corruption involving former Philadelphia labor leader John Dougherty.
|
Fraudsters
| Inmate name
|
Register number
|
Status
|
Details
|
| Martin Frankel
|
14142-014
|
Released October 27, 2016; served 17 years.
|
Pleaded guilty in 2002 to racketeering and fraud for siphoning over $200 million from insurance premiums paid to companies he controlled in the 1990s; Frankel's story was featured on the CNBC television program American Greed.
|
| Edward Porta
|
18862-058
|
Released October 1, 2019; served 38 months.
|
Pleaded guilty in 2005 for defrauding the U.S. Department of Agriculture of more than $400,000
|
| Steven Hoffenberg
|
35601-054
|
Served 18 years of a twenty-year sentence; released on October 11, 2013
|
Former associate of Jeffrey Epstein convicted in 1997 for investment fraud
|
| Hushpuppi
|
54313-424
|
Serving a 135-month sentence; scheduled for release in 2029.
|
Former Instagram influencer convicted for conspiracy to launder money from business email compromise frauds and other scams
|
Child pornography
Other
| Inmate name
|
Register number
|
Status
|
Details
|
| Casey Fury
|
07480-036
|
Serving a 17-year sentence; scheduled for release on August 19, 2027.
|
Former worker at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine; pleaded guilty to arson for setting fire to the nuclear submarine USS Miami in 2012, injuring five firefighters and two sailors and causing $400 million in damage.
|
| David Headley (a.k.a. Daood Sayed Gilani)
|
01783-265
|
In another prison for a different crime (released from federal prison on March 5, 1992)
|
After serving a drug sentence at Dix, he conspired in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
|
| Lee Mroszak (a.k.a. Crazy Cabbie)
|
71424-053
|
Released on January 26, 2006.
|
Was a regular guest on the Howard Stern Show. During the November 9, 2004, live broadcast he admitted that he had not filed or paid taxes for several years, an Internal Revenue Service employee happened to be listening to the show and reported Mroszak to their superiors at the IRS. He was sentenced to serve one year in FCI Fort Dix and pay his outstanding back taxes. On June 29, 2005, Mroszak was moved from FCI Fort Dix to the Federal Medical Center Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts.
|
| Matthew Weigman
|
26937-038
|
Released on October 20, 2018.
|
Blind phreaker, sentenced to 11 years and 3 months for his part in a swatting conspiracy.
|
| Paul Nicholas Miller
|
32607-509
|
Served a three-year and five-month sentence; released on July 3, 2023.
|
American far-right political commentator and streamer, known online as 'GypsyCrusader'. Miller is best known for his cosplays of various characters, most notably Joker. Miller was indicted on charges of possessing a firearm as convicted felon and possession of unregistered rifle on February 25, 2021, stemming from an incident that took place in January 2018.
|
| Michael Parnell
|
96286-020
|
Transferred to FCI Butner. Serving a 20-year sentence; scheduled for release on October 1, 2031.
|
Former Peanut Broker convicted of conspiracy, fraud and other federal charges.
|
| Tyler King
|
57919-177
|
Serving a six-year and six-month sentence; scheduled for release on June 26, 2024.
|
Tech CEO convicted of conspiracy to access a protected computer system. Also founder of A Voice From Prison, the first nonprofit of its kind which advocates for criminal justice from inside Federal prison.
|
See also
