Boston Marathon bomber fighting to keep $4,000 prison canteen account

The man convicted and sentenced to death for carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 is fighting to keep federal prosecutors from seizing the funds he has accumulated in his prison canteen account.

The Boston Herald reported an attorney for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 30, filed an appeal seeking to stop the feds in Boston from taking the $4,200-plus in Tsarnaev's account, arguing the death row inmate "is neither hoarding funds nor spending profligately."

According to the outlet, prosecutors say Tsarnaev has received around $26,000 in donations from various sources, including from strangers, his sisters and his attorneys.

Tsarnaev's lawyer, David Patton, also confirmed in the filing his client received a $1,400 COVID relief payment a few years ago and that "Tsarnaev continues to receive unsolicited deposits from people whom he has never met," but that his client does not have access to those funds.

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Federal officials in Massachusetts have been working for more than two years to get Tsarnaev to hand over the COVID relief money and any other funds in his inmate trust account to be put toward the more than $101 million he owes his victims.

Following his 2015 trial, Tsarnaev was ordered to pay more than $101 million in criminal restitution and an additional $3,000 fee. His attorney said his client has paid $2,600 so far.

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Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges related to the 2013 bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The blast killed three people and injured over 260 others. Seventeen of the injured victims lost at least one limb in the attack.

Tsarnaev and his brother then led police on a multi-day chase, during which time Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier was shot and killed. Tsarnaev’s brother, Tamerlan, also died. 

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Tsarnaev is being held at Colorado’s ADMAX Florence, known as "The Alcatraz of the Rockies," while his attorneys seek to have his death sentence overturned. Retired warden Bob Hood told the Herald taxpayers' bill for Tsarnaev's incarceration has easily topped $1 million already.

Hood called Tsarnaev's access to the thousands in his prison account "offensive."

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"He came in indigent, and he should remain an indigent," Hood told the Herald. "It’s sick that he has any kind of following."

FOX News' Brie Stimson contributed to this report.