“Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid has asked a federal judge to declare him bankrupt, complaining in a handwritten plea that a $256,082 fine the Supermax lifer has had outstanding for more than 13 years is beyond his means.
“I hereby request that as I am not now, nor will I — I believe — ever be, able to pay this fine that a declaration of bankruptcy be entered in my favor and that this fine be vacated in keeping with that,” Reid, 43, wrote U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young, as first reported by bostonherald.com yesterday.
Reid reached out to the judge he famously squared off with at his 2003 sentencing in Boston after receiving a notice from the court last month reminding him the lump-sum, quarter-million-dollar fine — plus 17 cents — is long past due.
“We strongly urge you to pay this debt immediately,” the court told Reid.
Young yesterday put U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz’s office on notice that they have until Dec. 16 to respond to Reid’s request to have his debt forgiven.
Documents Reid submitted in support of his claim that he is indigent show that at the end of October he had a balance of $6.43 in his commissary account. The same paperwork shows he spent $53.20 on books and $130 on a lockbox between May and September.
Reid’s delinquent tab includes $5,784 he owes American Airlines in restitution and nearly $300 he is supposed to pay a flight attendant he bit on the hand.
Young condemned Reid to three life sentences after the British-born al-Qaeda recruit pleaded guilty to eight counts of terrorism, including placing a bomb on a commercial aircraft, attempted murder and interfering with a flight crew.
American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami and its nearly 200 passengers were diverted to Logan International Airport in Boston on Dec. 22, 2001, after passengers subdued Reid when he lit a match to try and detonate the hiking boots he was wearing, packed with explosives.
Reid is behind bars in the country’s most secure federal prison in Colorado. The Supermax is also where Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 23, awaits his execution.
