The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is targeting Eric King, an unapologetically vocal anti-fascist, yogi and poet who has been incarcerated since September 2014, for his political beliefs. King was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after being charged with attempting to set fire to a government official’s empty office building in support of the Ferguson, Missouri, uprising in 2014.
On March 10, 2020, Sandra Freeman, King’s lawyer, filed a motion requesting a hearing related to ongoing abuse against her client and interference with the attorney-client relationship. “The institutional interference with my relationship with my client and our ability to prepare for trial is ongoing and unlike anything I have previously experienced during my time as an attorney in multiple jurisdictions,” Freeman wrote in the filing.
Lt. Donald Wilcox ordered King to attend a private “interview” in a prison storage room at FCI Florence in Colorado on August 17, 2018, according to a statement written by King. Lieutenant Wilcox works in the Special Investigative Services (SIS) unit, a shadowy nationwide department that investigates and surveils people who are deemed threats within the BOP system.
