From music stars to billionaire hotel heiresses, the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, is home to some of the most famous female inmates in United States history.
The low-security prison, sometimes called Club Fed, is where convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell requested to serve out her 20-year federal sentence.
Unlike the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where the 60-year-old spent nearly two years awaiting trial, FCI Danbury has a reputation as one of the most welcoming prisons and has earned a special place in American pop culture.
Most famously, the fictional Litchfield Prison in the hit Netflix comedy Orange is the New Black is partially based on FCI Danbury.
Author Piper Kerman spent 13 months in prison in the mid-2000s after being convicted of money laundering and drug trafficking.
Her memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, was based on her experiences behind bars and was later turned into an Emmy Award-winning television series.
Aerial view of FCI Danbury, where Ghislaine Maxwell wants to serve her 20-year sentence
(Bing Maps)
Six-time Grammy winner Lauryn Hill, 47, spent three months at FCI Danbury in 2013 for failing to pay about $1 million in taxes.
On the day of her release from prison, Ms. Hill released a new song called Consumerism.
The R&B singer “wanted to release this music while she was incarcerated because it’s a product of the space she’s been in while going through some of the challenges she’s been facing lately,” according to a promotional release at the time.
Leona Helmsley, often called the “Queen of Mischief,” was convicted in 1989 of 33 counts of tax evasion, tax fraud, and mail fraud and sentenced to four years in prison.
(Maria Bastone/AFP/Getty)
Ms Helmsley married hotel tycoon Harry Helmsley in 1972 and became synonymous with the ‘greed is good’ mantra of the 1980s.
According to a biography written by her former lawyer Sandor Frankel, she was heard to say, “We don’t pay taxes, only the little people pay taxes.”
When Mrs. Helmsley died in 2007 at the age of 87, she left behind an estate worth $5 billion.
The Connecticut facility was also temporarily home to former The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice.
Ms. Giudice served 11 months behind bars at FCI Danbury in 2015 after pleading guilty to bankruptcy and mail fraud in a scheme with her husband, Joe Giudice.
In an interview with Good Morning America after her release, the reality TV star described her prison life as a “hell”.
Joe and Teresa Giudice leave court after facing bankruptcy and mail fraud charges
(Getty)
“There was mold in the bathrooms. There was no constant running water. The showers were freezing cold. The living conditions were really terrible,” she said.
“There were some nights we didn’t even have heat…it was hell.”
Outside of Orange is the New Black, the prison has provided a brutal backdrop to several other television shows.
In the popular Showtime series Weeds, main character Nancy Botwin, played by Mary-Louise Parker, works at FCI Danbury.
Danielle Brooks, Schilling, Vicky Judy and Samira Wiley in Orange is the New Black
(Netflix)
And in the legal drama Suits, the character of Patrick J. Adams Mike Ross was sentenced to life imprisonment in Danbury.
Maxwell, 60, filed more than 100 complaints about her treatment in prison during her time at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
She claimed that she shared her cell with rats and that she was subjected to regular cavity searches and abuse by guards. She also claimed her food was infested with worms.
Justin Paperny, an expert on federal prisons, said Danbury will be like “Disneyland” compared to her experience at MDC.
“She was in this wretched, damp, cold, dirty detention center in Brooklyn, which really forced her to be locked up,” Mr. Paperny told The Times.
“She has truly endured the worst that prison has to offer – in isolation, dealing with Covid and quarantine and arguably the worst detention center in America.
“People are surprised to hear that once she’s sentenced and goes to the federal penitentiary, it’s actually going to feel like Disneyland compared to where she is now.”
Opened in 1940, FCI Danbury is located about 55 miles north of New York and in 1993 became a dedicated women’s prison.
The prison offers classes in everything from group therapy programs for inmates with PTSD to “hobby crafts and music” classes.
Inmates can also take circuit training and aerobics classes.
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