Two former Minneapolis officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, are to begin serving their federal sentence for violating George Floyd’s civil rights in his murder back in 2020, according to The Associated Press. Their federal charges are in addition to their state charges of aiding and abetting Derek Chauvin in the killing, for which they are awaiting sentencing.
The report says Kueng and Thao are to report to the US Marshals Service Tuesday. The Bureau of Prisons has not publicly disclosed which federal facility they’ll be serving out their sentences, for security reasons of course. However, it’s also not specified whether they’ll be provided protections inside whatever hell hole they land in.
Hennepin county Judge Peter Cahill ordered the sheriff’s office to provide the men with three sets of clothes for state trial. For now, they’ll be in local custody waiting for their state trial Oct. 24.
More on the sentencing from AP News:
The federal Bureau of Prisons said it cannot release information about Kueng and Thao until they arrive at their destination. But in the cases of their co-defendants — former officers Derek Chauvin and Thomas Lane — a federal prison assignment was made public before the men reported to custody.
In July, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson sentenced Kueng to three years in prison and Thao to 3½ years on the federal counts. After their sentences, there were questions about whether they would take a plea deal on the state aiding and abetting charges. But they told Cahill in August that they rejected plea agreements in the state case.
Their buddy Thomas Lane pled guilty to the same second-degree manslaughter aiding and abetting charges and is now serving both his state and federal sentence in Colorado. Chauvin is serving his 21-year federal sentence. We won’t see that man again until about 2044.