Pervs don’t get sent to ‘Club Fed’
HE MAY be sent to Fort Dix. Or he may be shipped to Allenwood, Pa.
Wherever Anthony Weiner ends up serving his 21-month sentence for sexting a minor, experts say he won’t get off easy.
Federal sentencing authorities told the Daily News that Weiner’s creepy crimes likely make him ineligible for cushy conditions that many white-collar criminals enjoy.
“He’s not going to ‘Club Fed,’ essentially,” said John Webster, managing director of the Nashville-based National Prison and Sentencing Consultants Inc.
And even if Weiner goes to a low-security lockup, he’ll likely join inmates with violent crimes on their records. “They’re not typical white-collar, middle-aged offenders,” Webster said.
“He’s not going to a hellhole — he’s not going to be raped, abused and beaten — but he’s certainly not going to be very well liked,” Webster added.
“Sex offenders are clearly on the bottom of the food chain in any prison.”
Michael Santos, who works for sentencing consultancy Prison Professors, said Weiner’s status as a sex offender — coupled with the fact he’s famous — could lead inmates to try to extort or exploit him.
“Anthony Weiner has this potential problem,” Santos said of the sex offender stigma. “The (Federal) Bureau of Prisons will try to protect him.”
The bureau generally tries to place inmates within 500 miles of where they’ll return, Webster said. They factor in overcrowding and accept new letters from advocates, not ones already submitted at sentencing.
Some federal correctional institutions offer sex offender management programs. Weiner would have to ask to be placed in one of these facilities, the closest of which is in Lisbon, Ohio, said Webster.
Santos and Webster agreed that Weiner had a chance of serving his prison term at Federal Correctional Institution Fort Dix in New Jersey. Webster said Allenwood in Pennsylvania is also a possibility.
The nearest federal pen is Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, but it’s maximum security.
Weiner’s lawyer, Arlo Devlin-Brown, told Manhattan Federal Judge Denise Cote that it would be “extraordinarily detrimental” to send his client there, despite its close locale.
He suggested Schuylkill, a mediumsecurity prison in Minersville, Pa., with an adjacent minimum-security camp.