Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General | https://www.justice.gov/
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General | https://www.justice.gov/
A federal grand jury has indicted Ishmael Petty, 56, on two counts of murder charges. Petty, a prisoner serving a life sentence, is charged with committing first-degree murder against another inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary-Florence, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Colorado on September 19, 2020. The inmate had been in federal custody since a 1998 bank robbery conviction. In a series of escalating charges, Petty was sentenced in 2002 to life in prison for murdering an inmate and again in 2015 to 60 years for an assault on two federal officers at ADX.
The current charges carry a possible death sentence. "Consistent with that authorization, the U.S. Attorney filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Petty," officials stated, following approval from Attorney General Bondi. The notice was filed by the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado.
"The FBI Denver Field Office investigated the case," the announcement stated. Prosecution will be undertaken by the U.S. Attorney’s Office's Violent Crime and Immigration Enforcement Section in Colorado, alongside the Criminal Division’s Capital Case Section.
Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell for the District of Colorado announced the indictment. The indictment serves as an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The case, numbered 25-cr-00123-DDD, continues under close legal scrutiny.
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