Status Operational | Phone +1 915-791-9000 | |
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Location Anthony, El Paso County, Texas Security class Low-security (with minimum-security prison camp) Population 1,060 (320 in prison camp) Managed by Federal Bureau of Prisons Address 8500 Doniphan Rd, Anthony, TX 79821, USA Similar El Paso County Detention, Otero County Prison Fa, Criminal Justice Departme, New Mexico Correctio | ||
The Federal Correctional Institution, La Tuna (FCI La Tuna) is a low-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Anthony, Texas. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. A satellite prison camp, located 30 miles from the facility, houses minimum-security inmates.
Contents
FCI La Tuna is located on the Texas-New Mexico border, 12 miles north of El Paso, Texas.
Letters from La Tuna
From May to September 2013, the El Paso Times published a series of letters written by Bob Jones, a longtime El Paso businessman serving a 10-year sentence on corruption and fraud convictions at FCI La Tuna. Known as "Letters from La Tuna," Jones wrote the letters to his family to "warn you and all of our loved ones and friends away from any misdeeds or illegal behavior" and give readers insight into the harsh consequences of breaking the law. In the first article, Jones described being detained in a private prison in Otero, New Mexico after he was sentenced on February 17, 2011 and contracting E. coli bacteria from undercooked food and becoming ill with dysentery. Still sick, he was transferred to FCI La Tuna in May 2011:
I was loaded with nine other men into a van and taken to La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution, throwing up all the way. Once I was checked in, I was taken by wheelchair to my new home -- and a different type of hell in Unit 6 (handicapped unit) at La Tuna. The things that saved my life were my "cellies" (my cell mates, the other five men in the six-man cell that I was assigned to live in, a 10-by-10-foot room). These men fed me and wheeled me to the bathroom, food service (sometimes) and to the medical office.
Jones subsequently suffered kidney failure and was sent to a local hospital twice, each stay lasting about 30 days before he was sent back to FCI La Tuna. Jones wrote that while in the hospital, he was chained to the bed and was watched by guards 24 hours a day. However, Jones noted that the conditions at FCI La Tuna were better in comparison to the private prison he came from: "La Tuna is far more what I expected of prison -- food, guards, management bureaucracy" and added "the inmates [at FCI La Tuna] are mostly men who are in prison for far too long a term for their crimes."
Notable inmates (current and former)
Joseph Valachi, the famous Mafia lieutenant who testified before Congress in October, 1963, also spent time here. The Italian American was the first Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia. He is also the person who made Cosa Nostra a household name. On April 3, 1971, Valachi died of a heart attack at Federal Correctional Institution, La Tuna in Texas.