Ex-guard beaten to death in prison
Onetime Danbury employee was serving sentence in murder plot
A former guard at the federal prison in Danbury, convicted of having sex with an inmate and recruiting inmates in plots to kill his wife and a lawman who investigated him, was beaten to death at the federal prison in Indiana where he was serving what amounted to a life sentence, according to a published report and other information.
Michael Rudkin, 56, turned an illicit sexual relationship with a female inmate at the Danbury prison into multiple murder plots and a prison sentence of more than a century. He was killed at the high-security federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, where he had been transferred for disciplinary reasons, a federal official said.
The federal bureau of prisons lists Rudkin on its website as “deceased” as of Aug. 24. Prison officials in Washington and Indiana did not respond to questions.
The Associated Press reported that Rudkin was beaten to death in a fight with another inmate.
The Bureau of Prisons is notoriously unwilling to discuss inmate deaths. Three years after he was beaten to death in a West Virginia prison, the bureau has yet to explain the circumstances of Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger’s death.
While employed as a guard at Danbury, Rudkin began a relationship with the female inmate in September 2007, offering her cigarettes, candy and alcohol. As the relationship developed, he asked the inmate for help in killing his wife.
The inmate led him to believe she knew someone on the outside who would commit the crime.
Prosecutors said Rudkin provided the inmate with a floor plan of his house and the hours during which his wife would be at work. He tried to time the murder so he’d be able to reinstate a life insurance policy on his wife. Rudkin promised to pay the inmate with a series of deposits totaling $5,000 to her prison commissary account.
In 2009, Rudkin was sent to a low-security Florida prison for five years for the plot against his wife and the sexual relationship. In Florida, he recruited two inmates to kill his by-then ex-wife, her boyfriend, the inmate whom he recruited for the first plot and the federal agent who investigated the Danbury case.
Rudkin was sentenced to 90 years on the Florida charges, to run consecutive to the 15-year Connecticut sentence.
In May, he asked in court
for a compassionate reduction of his Connecticut sentence on the grounds that he was being exposed to COVID-19 in prison and subjected to harsh
conditions of confinement as a result of the prison measures to stop the virus’ spread. The request was denied because Rudkin had been vaccinated.
The judge said reducing the 15-year Connecticut sentence would still leave Rudkin serving what amounted to a life sentence from the Florida court.