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Justin Volpe, the NYPD officer who brutalized Abner Louima with a broomstick in 1997, has been released early from federal prison.
According to New York Daily News, Volpe was transferred on Tuesday (June 13) from federal prison in Sandstone, Minnesota to a Residential Reentry Management program, which puts inmates in halfway houses or allows them to return home to finish out their sentences. Volpe's 30-year sentence was cut short by six years.
Other details of his release weren't disclosed to the public due to "privacy, safety, and security reasons," prison spokesman Donald Murphy.
In 1997, Volpe claimed Louima had hit him as cops were breaking up a rowdy party in Brooklyn. Louima was arrested and brought to a Brooklyn precinct where he was sodomized by Volpe with a broomstick. Following the attack, Volpe threatened to kill Louima if he told anyone and bragged to fellow officers about the assault.
The officer pleaded guilty to battery and sexual abuse of Louima while on trial in 1999. He admitted to shoving the wooden stick up Louima’s rectum.
Louima needed several surgeries after his rectum and bladder were perforated in the attack.
Volpe previously requested "compassionate release" while serving his sentence in Beaumont, Texas in 2021. The former officer claimed that he contracted COVID-19 while in prison but didn't receive medical treatment. He asked to be allowed to return home to look after his “dear 76-year-old mom who is a widow and needs physical and emotional health.”
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes opposed the request.
“The crimes committed by the defendant are among the most horrific crimes prosecuted in this district and left a lasting harm on Mr. Louima,” she wrote in her response at the time.
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