New York Post

Oh, cry for Marathon bomber!

‘Jailers took my cap’

- By AMANDA WOODS

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is suing the federal government for $250,000 over his treatment inside the Colorado supermax prison where he is serving a life sentence — claiming his baseball cap was confiscate­d and he has been restricted to only three showers a week, according to a report.

In the handwritte­n suit, Tsarnaev (inset) accused guards and the warden at the Federal Correction­al Complex Florence — called the Alcatraz of the Rockies — of being “unlawful, unreasonab­le and discrimina­tory,” the Boston Herald reported.

His treatment, he alleged, has made him so anxious that it is contributi­ng to his “mental and physical decline.”

The 26-year-old con claimed that prison guards confiscate­d his baseball cap and bandana “because, by wearing [the cap], I was ‘disrespect­ing’ the FBI and the victims” of the April 15, 2013, bombing, according to the report.

Before Tsarnaev was taken into custody, investigat­ors described the suspect as a man in a backwards “white hat,” according to the report. The Polo cap was used as evidence in Tsarnaev’s death-penalty sentencing, according to the report.

His death sentence was tossed last fall after the appeals court said the judge fell short in running a jury-selection process “sufficient to identify prejudice.” But the Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to review the case in an attempt to reinstate the death penalty, calling it “one of the most important terrorism prosecutio­ns in our nation’s history.”

Tsarnaev’s suit was filed Monday and assigned to a federal judge, records show. The next day, however, the judge said the “filing is deficient” because it lacks a “certified copy of prisoner’s trust fund statement” and a $402 filing fee.

Such a lawsuit is common among inmates, former Florence warden Bob Hood told the Herald.

“I get it. He wants more than three showers a week,” Hood said. “But he’s 20-something living in a seven-foot box where life is worse than if he did get the death penalty.”

Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, killed three people and wounded more than 260 when they set off two bombs at the marathon finish line.

Tamerlan died when he was run over by his brother as the two tried to make their escape amid a police shootout days later.

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