Disgraced doctor in Ariz.
Serial sex abuser Larry Nassar is now living at a federal prison in Tucson housing an infamous kidnapper and a police detective turned Mafia hit man.
Larry Nassar, the disgraced former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor, has been transferred to a federal prison in Tucson currently housing one of the 21st century’s most infamous kidnappers and a police detective turned Mafia hit man.
On Saturday, the serial sex abuser was listed as an inmate at U.S. Penitentiary Tucson, a high-security facility that houses 1,387 inmates along with a 149-inmate minimum-security satellite camp in Pima County, according to its website.
Operational since 2007, the prison — among 17 highsecurity federal lockups in the country — is part of a federal correctional complex near the Arizona State Prison Complex in south Tucson, about 2 miles from Interstate 10.Nassar, identified as federal inmate No. 21504-040, isn’t the first high-profile inmate at the facility in the southern Arizona desert
Brian David Mitchell, the Utah street preacher convicted of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart, who later wrote about surviving her nine-month abduction and Mitchell’s brutal assaults as a teen, is currently serving a life sentence there.
So is Louis Eppolito, a former New York Police Department detective-turned-hit man who worked on behalf of the Mafia.
James J. “Whitey” Bulger, the south Boston crime boss, resided at the Tucson facility before being transferred to a facility in Florida. Convicted mass shooter Jared Loughner also spent time in the prison before being transferred. Loughner is now serving a life sentence at the Federal Correctional Center in Rochester, Minnesota, for a shooting rampage in 2011 near Tucson that killed six people — including a child and a federal judge — and left 13 others, including former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, injured.
And former U.S. Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., was released from the prison in 2013 after serving a seven-year sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud that funded an extravagant lifestyle.
Nassar, 54, was transferred Thursday morning from the Eaton County jail near Lansing, Michigan, to the Milan Federal Correctional Institution near Ann Arbor. He was sentenced on Monday in Eaton County on sexualassault charges.
A judge in January sentenced Nassar to 40 to 175 years in prison on seven sexual-assault charges. Another judge sentenced him on Feb. 5 to 40 to 125 years in prison on three sexual-assault charges. He must serve the entirety of his federal sentence before he can serve his state sentences.
The Lansing State Journal contributed to this article. Reach the reporter at 602-444-8515, jpohl@azcen tral.com or on Twitter: @pohl_jason.