Former Attica prison inmate Frank Smith will get $250,000 for leading the successful effort to get a $12 million settlement for victims of the bloody 1971 Attica uprising.
The four-day uprising and police response left 32 inmates and 11 prison employees dead, all but four of them fatally shot when state police retook the maximum-security prison.
U.S. District Judge Michael A. Telesca awarded Smith, 67, the $250,000 'incentive award' this week, saying that had Smith not urged other inmates to settle, they might never have seen a penny from the state and the case might have dragged on for years.
Some people were angered that the reward went to one of the former inmates who was considered a leader of the uprising.
'I'm surprised that the judge would give that much money to an inmate who was one of the ringleaders of a riot that led to many deaths, many injuries and the destruction of prison property,' Richard E. Moot told The Buffalo News. Moot was the lawyer for Vincent Mancusi, superintendent at Attica prison at the time of the riot.
Telesca divided up $8 million of the settlement for more than 400 former inmates and their heirs in August.
A group of 15 severely wounded former inmates, including Smith, got the largest award, $125,000 each. Smith, who was serving time for robbery, had been held naked on a table, tortured, burned with cigarettes, beaten and subjected to a game of 'Russian Roulette' by prison guards after the riot.
Four other inmates or their families were granted smaller incentive awards this week, ranging from $10,000 to $25,000.
Telesca still has to divvy up $4 million in legal fees.