Hecker, Blagojevich and Skilling all serving ti...
Hecker moved to prison with Blagojevich, Enron's Skilling
- Jim Hammerand Staff reporter
- Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
Denny Hecker has been moved to the Colorado prison where former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling are doing time.
Federal authorities have shuffled the Twin Cities car dealer and fraud convict from prison-to-prison for months but haven't said why. He was most recently in Oklahoma City; his new home (for now) is the Federal Correctional Institution Englewood, in Littleton, Colo.
The prison is a low-security facility with 992 inmates about 15 miles southwest of Denver in the Rocky Mountain foothills. It also has a satellite prison camp with 183 minimum-security inmates.
Lawyer Alan Ellis, who wrote "The Federal Prison Guidebook," told CBS Chicago that the prison is "a good draw."
Blagojevich specifically requested to serve his 14-year corruption sentence in the prison, which offerspool, ping-pong, foosball, call center jobs and Saturday brunch. Last year he said he might teach Shakespeare or ancient Greek philosophy and mythology on the inside.
Former Minneapolis City Council member Dean Zimmermann served 17 months at Englewood for bribery; he was released in 2008.
Hecker was recently in a much rougher prison in Pennsylvania, which was on lockdown following the fatal stabbing last month of a prison guard. He's serving a10-year sentence for bankruptcy fraud and wire fraud conspiracy.