Where is Auburn Calloway today? Other reports indicate he was held at USP McCreary in Pine Knot, Kentucky, by August 2023. Calloway was convicted of interference with a flight crew and attempted air piracy.

According to Click Orlando, as of August 2023, However, contradictory reports show that in August 2024, he was located in the United States Penitentiary, Coleman, in Sumter County, Florida.

In August 1995, Judge Julia Smith Gibbons convicted Calloway of interfering with a flight operation and attempted air piracy. However, he denied the charges, insisting that he acted in self-defence after an argument broke out in the cockpit.

But he could not convince the court because the cockpit voice recorder proved he began the attack as he was on record stating: “Sit down! This is a real gun, and I will kill you.”

The flight crew, led by Captain David G. Sanders, First Officer James M. Tucker Jr., and Flight Engineer Andrew H. Peterson, was heading to Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), California.

At 19,000 feet, Calloway went into the cockpit and attacked the pilots in an attempt to incapacitate them. With serious injuries to the head, the crew fought him off while trying to navigate the plane and avoid a crash.

Fortunately, Captain Sanders and his crew managed to turn the plane around and return to Memphis with no fatalities. First Officer Jim Tucker lost his career due to the injuries.

All three pilots were awarded the Gold Medal Award for Heroism, the highest civilian aviation honour given by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Two years after his conviction, Calloway appealed his conviction of interference with flight crew and attempted air piracy. He presented six arguments:

After the appeal, the government vacated only one count—interference with flight operations—because it was considered a lesser-included offence of air piracy. The charge of attempted air piracy and the resulting life sentence were affirmed.

Despite being in prison since the dismissal of his 1997 appeal, Calloway filed another in early 2024 on three grounds:

• Requesting a sentence reduction due to compelling and extraordinary reasons.
• Denial of his recusal motion, arguing the judge ought to have been reassigned.
• Denial of many other motions.

Representing himself, Calloway asked the court to remand for sentence reduction to time served, reassign the district judge, and vacate certain convictions due to errors. However, on April 17, 2024, the court dismissed the motions he filed at the district court because they were duplicates of other filings he made.

Upon the dismissal, Calloway sent a notice of appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which remains pending.

Auburn Calloway was not pardoned. Records from the Office of the Pardon Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, show he filed for commutation of sentence in 2016 under clemency case number C197523 and registration number 14601-076. However, his request was denied.

Additionally, the Veteran Community Mentors website published a letter seemingly from Calloway, dated February 1, 2023, addressed to former United States President Joe Biden, requesting clemency.

Calloway claimed the judge removed his case from a rotating docket and took it to the jury with a general intent instead of the legally required specific intent. According to him, this would have given him a chance to get a not-guilty verdict and seek treatment. However, there is no evidence that Biden responded to his letter.

Calloway intended to crash Federal Express Flight 705 so that his family (ex-wife and two children) would receive a $2.5 million insurance package to secure their financial future. Additionally, he wanted to crash into FedEx headquarters to punish the company, which, according to him, was going to destroy his career.

Before this incident, he was awaiting a hearing for falsifying his flight hours and failure to disclose that he had been fired from another cargo company. Believing he was going to be fired, he planned the attack.

He hid two sledgehammers, two claw hammers, a knife, and a spear gun in a guitar so that he could mimic injuries from a plane crash, so the real cause of the accident would remain unknown.

Besides his career troubles, Calloway was dealing with stress from his 1990 divorce and his ex-wife's move out of state with their children.

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Final Word

Where is Auburn Calloway today? Auburn is serving his life sentence without parole at the United States Penitentiary in Coleman, Sumter County, Florida. Despite appeals, Calloway’s motions have been denied except for the charge of interfering with flight operations, deemed as a lesser charge of air piracy. He has also not received parole, and his latest appeal, filed in 2024, remains pending.

Tuko.co.ke published an article on Prichard Colon’s story. Prichard Colon was a fast-rising boxer touted to become one of the best in the sport. However, on October 17, 2015, his life and career changed forever.

He faced American boxer Terrel Williams, but even before the fight ended, Colon struggled with dizziness after repeated blows to the back of his head. After the fight, he collapsed, went into a coma and went into a vegetative state. Where is he now? Read the article for more.

Source: TUKO.co.ke