Boise Police via AP, file

Michael J. Watkins was sentenced to seven years in prison after the death of a monkey at the Boise zoo. The patas monkey was found dead of blunt force trauma to the head and neck.

An Idaho man who admitted to breaking into a Boise zoo last year and killing a monkey was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday, court records show.

Michael Watkins, 22, of Weiser, Idaho, in March pleaded guilty to attempted grand theft, a felony, and misdemeanor animal cruelty stemming from the break-in and beating death of the monkey at Zoo Boise in November.

The primate was one of the zoo's two Patas monkeys, ground-dwelling animals from Africa that stand more than 2 feet tall and weigh about 35 pounds. They are rare in zoos but not endangered in the wild.

The case shook officials at the zoo and triggered an outpouring of sympathy and donations from animal lovers worldwide.

Watkins scaled the security fence at Zoo Boise in the pre-dawn hours of November 17 and attempted to steal the monkey, which bit him, police said. Watkins then kicked and hit the animal, severely wounding it, according to police. The monkey later died of blunt force trauma, zoo officials said.

Zoo Boise Director Steve Burns said on Thursday the sentencing of Watkins closed a particularly devastating chapter for the facility.

"We're moving on," he said. "The court has done its job and we're continuing to do our job."

In the days after the death, zoo staff sought to boost the spirits of the companion-less Patas monkey and considered shipping it to another zoo with primates since they are exceedingly social, Burns said.

Instead, Zoo Boise in December gained two female Patas monkeys donated by the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York.

News about the monkey's death brought donations from across the United States and overseas, allowing the zoo to begin construction on Monday of a $250,000 exhibit for the three Patas monkeys, Burns said.

The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has been moved from the hospital to a federal prison 40 miles away that provides specialized medical care, the government said Friday.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was moved from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he has been held and interrogated since his capture last week, to the federal prison at Fort Devens, Mass., the Marshals Service said.

Elise Amendola / AP

Devens Federal Medical Center is seen in Devens, Mass., in 2011.

The prison’s website describes it as a facility for men who need specialized or long-term medical or mental health care.

The most prominent inmate there is Raj Rajaratnam, who in 2011 was sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading. He has diabetes, and the prison has a dialysis center.

The prison is in a wooded setting on a military base that was decommissioned in 1996. Another inmate there is Sabri Benkahla, who is serving 10 years for lying to authorities about training with militants in Pakistan. Benkahla was accused of being part of an American group that trained with paintball guns. He is scheduled for release in 2016.

Roger Stockham, a Southern California man who was accused in January 2011 of plotting to blow up a mosque outside Detroit, served at Fort Devens and was released late last year. Stockham has a long criminal history that includes holding a psychiatrist hostage, kidnapping his son, trying to hijack a plane and threatening to kill the president.

A lawyer who has had clients sentenced to Fort Devens told The Hartford Courant in 2005 that the prison has an outdoor basketball court. Crafts, including woodworking and making leather goods, are popular, the lawyer told the newspaper — though it is not clear how restricted Tsarnaev will be.

At the time, a judge had recommended that John Rowland, a former Connecticut governor who pleaded guilty to a corruption charge, be assigned to Fort Devens. Instead he served about 10 months at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.

In 1918, during a flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people around the world, there was a severe outbreak at what was then known as Camp Devens — a ghastly scene of piled up corpses and cots overflowing onto porches.

The outbreak came in the last days of World War I. According to an account published by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, men at Devens were so sick that their oxygen-deprived skin turned deep blue.

The decision on where to send federal inmates is made by the Bureau of Prisons, which does not generally disclose its reasons for assigning prisoners.

Boston police could be seen early Friday leaving the hospital, which has treated not just Tsarnaev but people injured in the marathon blasts April 15.

Tsarnaev, 19, was upgraded earlier this week to fair condition from serious. His injuries, including a gunshot wound to the head and neck that may have been self-inflicted, were so severe that he initially communicated with investigators by moving his head and in writing.

He also has injuries to the leg and hand, apparently from a firefight with police in suburban Watertown, Mass., on April 19 that played out about 12 hours before Tsarnaev was captured hiding in a boat parked in the driveway of a house.

New York authorities said Thursday that Tsarnaev had improved to the point that he could talk, and that in a second round of questioning he admitted that he and his brother decided on the run to carry out a second attack in Times Square. His brother, Tamerlan, was killed after the shootout.

Tsarnaev has been charged with federal crimes including conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, and Attorney General Eric Holder could decide to seek the death penalty.

Tsarnaev has told investigators that he and his brother acted alone when they built and detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the marathon. Three people were killed in the attack and more than 200 injured.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that the brothers were motivated by a desire to defend Islam after the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In prison, experts have said, Tsarnaev will probably be subject to special administrative measures that could sharply curtail his contact with fellow prisoners and the outside world. Stephen Huggard, a former Boston federal prosecutor who worked on the Sept. 11 investigation, said Tsarnaev’s parents, who are in Russia and have insisted he’s being framed, may not be allowed to visit.

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

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Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Launch slideshow

At a hospital court room hearing earlier this week, Tsarnaev showed little sign of fear or remorse and his heart monitor didn’t register a blip when he was told he could be could be facing the death penalty, according to a source familiar with the events inside the room when he was read his rights.

The mother of the Tsarnaev brothers insisted Thursday that her sons are not responsible for the attack and said she did not see any aggression in the older brother, even when the FBI questioned him two years ago.

Speaking to reporters in Russia, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva also said the elder son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, came to Russia for six months last year to attend a family wedding, visit relatives and later renew his Kyrgyzstan passport.

“America took my kids away from me,” she said. “I’m sure my kids were not involved in anything.”

U.S. investigators have said they want to know more about why Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in Russia. When he returned to the United States in July, he began posting radical Islamic videos to his YouTube account.

Matthew DeLuca of NBC News contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Fri Apr 26, 2013 7:18 AM EDT

FBI via Reuters

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center now. The feds will have to figure out where he goes next while awaiting trial.

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been hospitalized since his arrest, but if his condition continues to improve he will soon experience the hospitality of a high-security lockup while waiting for a trial that could be two years away, experts say.

"As soon as he is medically cleared, he'll be moved," said Steven Swensen, a former U.S. marshal who now runs a judicial security consulting firm. "This is a high-threat, high-profile situation."

Tsarnaev's condition improved from serious to fair on Tuesday. But his injuries -- including a gunshot wound to the head and neck that could be self-inflicted -- were so severe he initially communicated with investigators in writing.

The hospital and FBI have not released details of his treatment at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was under heavy guard, or given any hint of when he might be released.

When it happens, the U.S. marshals and federal prosecutors will have to weigh distance from the courthouse against security and medical needs in choosing a new temporary home for the suspect.

Federal prisoners are sometimes sent to the Plymouth County Jail, which can handle high-risk prisoners but does not have extensive medical facilities. The state's Shattuck Hospital has a jail unit and is only about 20 minutes from the courthouse.

Further afield, there's the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, R.I., a privately run maximum-security federal detention facility less than an hour's drive Boston, or the federal prison hospital at Fort Devens in Harvard, Mass.

If it's Wyatt, Tsarnaev would be far from the first high-value prisoner locked up there. Rezwan Ferdus, who pleaded guilty to trying to fly bomb-laden model aircraft into the Capitol and the Pentagon, spent 399 days in solitary confinement at the facility before he was sentenced.

But the 771-inmate center has just four hospital beds, according to its annual report, and it became the subject of controversy in 2008 when an immigration detainee died of advanced cancer and the feds found he had been neglected.

Devens is a medical facility but doesn't typically house suspects before sentencing. The Bureau of Prisons said it can handle detainees of any security-risk level, but it's also about an hour from Boston.

Wherever he ends up, experts said, Tsarnaev will likely be subject to special administrative measures that could sharply curtail his contact with fellow prisoners and the outside world.

Elise Amendola / AP file

Devens Federal Medical Center is seen in Devens, Mass., in December 2011.

Stephen Huggard, a former Boston federal prosecutor who worked on the 9/11 investigation, said Tsarnaev's parents, who are in Russia and have insisted he's being framed, may not even be allowed to visit.

How long the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth student spends in a local lockup depends in large part on whether prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty -- a decision that is months away and will ultimately be made by Attorney General Eric Holder.

If the marathon bombing becomes a capital case, it could be "a couple a years" before a jury decides his fate, Huggard said.

Tsarnaev, 19, hasn't even been arraigned yet.

He nodded answers to a few questions at a cut-and-dried initial appearance before a magistrate in his hospital bed after being charged with one count of using a weapon of mass destruction and a second count of malicious use of an explosive.

The next step is for a grand jury to vote on an indictment. Technically, prosecutors have 30 days to get that done, but legal experts agree the deadline is likely to waived by both sides while they continue to investigate.

The suspect's next court date, May 30, would then be a status hearing, and he would not be arraigned until the indictment -- which could contain more charges and evidence than the criminal complaint signed this week -- is issued.

"There is no reason to rush at this point," said Dan Collins, a former federal prosecutor in Minnesota who worked on the Mumbai bombing case.

Tsarnaev has been assigned three federal public defenders who are likely, given what legal analysts describe as overwhelming evidence, to open discussions about a plea deal that would keep their client off death row at the "supermax" prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

"It wouldn't shock me if this ends in a plea," Huggard said.

"This is a kid, and as heinous as his acts are, he acted atypically for what we would expect for a terrorist," he said, noting that Tsarnaev was back at school and the gym after the bombing and before the bloody rampage that led to his arrest.

"Does it mean he didn't fully comprehend what he was doing? That's going to get explored by both sides."

But Huggard added that if Tsarnaev was telling the truth when he reportedly told investigators he and his older brother Tamerlan were lone actors and not sponsored or deployed by a terrorist cabal, it may make it harder to get the death penalty off the table.

"Then he has nothing to offer," he said. "Then he's just a guy who decided he wanted to blow up America."

Related:

• Bomb suspects' phones, computers show no sign of accomplice
• Wife of dead bombing suspect in 'absolute shock'
• FBI quizzes members of mosque suspect attended

Several courts in Ohio are illegally jailing people because they are too poor to pay their debts and often deny defendants a hearing to determine if they're financially capable of paying what they owe, according to an investigation released Thursday by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU likens the problem to modern-day debtors' prisons. Jailing people for debt pushes poor defendants farther into poverty and costs counties more than the actual debt because of the cost of arresting and incarcerating individuals, the report said. 

"The use of debtors' prison is an outdated and destructive practice that has wreaked havoc upon the lives of those profiled in this report and thousands of others throughout Ohio," the report said. 

Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor of the Ohio Supreme Court, responding to the ACLU's request to take action, promised to review the findings. O'Connor told the group in a letter Wednesday: "you do cite a matter that can and must receive further attention." 

The report says courts in Huron, Cuyahoga, and Erie counties are among the worst offenders. 

Among the report's findings: 

— In the second half of last year, more than one in every five of all bookings in the Huron County jail — originating from Norwalk Municipal Court cases — involved a failure to pay fines. 

— In suburban Cleveland, Parma Municipal Court jailed at least 45 defendants for failure to pay fines and costs between July 15 and August 31, 2012. 

— During the same period, Sandusky Municipal Court jailed at least 75 people for similar charges. 

Judge Deanna O'Donnell of Parma Municipal Court said Thursday the court was unaware of the issue until contacted earlier this week by the ACLU. She said officials were examining the 45 cases in question. 

"If there's an issue here, a problem, we're going to correct it," O'Donnell said. 

Messages left for Norwalk and Sandusky municipal court officials Thursday weren't immediately returned. The ACLU also sent letters to officials at Bryan, Richland County and Hamilton County municipal courts and Springboro Mayor's Court. 

ACLU spokesman Mike Brickner said the group believes the practice is widespread in Ohio. 

The report is a follow-up to a national 2010 report that focused on Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio and Washington. 

That report determined that many courts are violating a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that courts had to hold a hearing to determine why people are unable to pay before sentencing them to incarceration. 

"The report shows how, day after day, indigent defendants are imprisoned for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to manage," according to the 2010 report, 'In For a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons.'

"In many cases, poor men and women end up jailed or threatened with jail though they have no lawyer representing them," the report said.

A similar 2010 report by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice looked at the growth of court fees in Florida. It concluded, in part, that the "current fee system creates a self-perpetuating cycle of debt for persons re-entering society after incarceration."

Courts are breaking the law by holding defendants in contempt of court for failing to pay fines without proper notice or allowing an attorney to be present, the report said. Courts are also issuing arrests warrants for people who fail to show up and pay their fines and jailing defendants who are too poor to pay, according to the report.

Court costs should be recovered through civil lawsuits, not jail time, the report said.

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DENVER - An intruder who forced his way into the mountain home of a Colorado deputy district attorney was shot dead by either the prosecutor or her police officer husband, authorities said on Tuesday.

The shooting, shortly before midnight Monday, comes two weeks after Colorado's prisons director was slain as he answered the front door to his home, and two days after the district attorney of Kaufman County in Texas was found shot to death with his wife.

An assistant prosecutor in the Kaufman County district attorney's office was shot to death on January 31, and authorities have said both Texas murders and the March 19 slaying of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements appeared to be targeted killings rather than random acts of violence.

In light of the three previous cases, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is leading the probe into the latest shooting, which occurred in Hot Sulphur Springs, about 95 miles northwest of Denver.

"There are no apparent ties to recent shootings; however, investigators continue to pursue all possible leads and background information on this (dead) person," the bureau said in a written statement.

Authorities did not immediately release the names of the deputy prosecutor and her husband in connection with Monday night's shooting.

The deputy district attorney made a 911 emergency call and reported that a man was at her door "behaving very erratically," police said.

The prosecutor then told dispatchers that the stranger forced his way into her home. An altercation ensued inside and shots were fired, leaving the unidentified man dead, police said.

A spokeswoman for one of the agencies investigating the incident told Reuters that the prosecutor and her husband, himself a sheriff's deputy, both fired at the intruder, but it is too early in the probe to know who fired the fatal shot.

The Colorado prosecutor and her husband both suffered minor injuries and have been placed on paid leave pending the results of the investigation.

Related: For prosecutors across country, threat of violence 'comes with the job'

Clements, the state's prisons chief, was shot to death on March 19 when he answered the front door of his home near Monument, Colorado, about 45 miles south of Denver.

Authorities have matched the handgun used in Clements' slaying to the weapon used by a recent Colorado parolee, 28-year-old Evan Spencer Ebel, in a gun battle with police following a high-speed chase through Decatur, Texas, last month.

Investigators have named Ebel, a member of a white supremacist prison gang, as a suspect in the killing of Clements and in the death of pizza delivery man Nathan Leon, 27, who was found dead in suburban Denver two days earlier.

Ebel was killed in the shootout with Texas police. A search of his car turned up a pizza deliverer's shirt, visor, pizza box and heat bag.

WDSU

A gun is seen in a still from the video shown in court in New Orleans

A New Orleans parish released a shocking video on Tuesday that shows inmates doing drugs, gambling, waving a hand gun and drinking beer.

It was the second day of a federal hearing on the Orleans Parish Prison spending money to fix and refurbish jails. It is not clear when the video was recorded.

Manny Romero, a prison consultant who testified, said he had never seen such a dysfunction in a jail and that the amount and nature of some of the contraband suggests prisoners may have had help from jail staff in obtaining it, New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU reported.

Fights, sexual assaults and drug use among inmates have been going on at the prison for years, according to WDSU. But Tuesday's video was the first time footage of these allegations was seen. The federal investigators said these problems are widespread at the prison.

Sheriff Marlin Gusman issued a statement saying the prison was “in a state of disrepair and abhorrent lack of proper security measures” and that was why he closed it last year.

Under normal circumstances, jailed former Illinois Gov. George Ryan would be packing his bags and preparing to go home to his house in Kankakee. But Ryan’s circumstances are hardly normal.

For the last six years, the former governor has been a federal prisoner. When he leaves the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute next week, he will be traveling not to Kankakee but to a halfway house in Chicago.

And he has nothing to pack. Someone will have to bring him the clothes he wears out of the prison gate.

"It will be the first time he’s worn his own clothes in six years," Ryan’s former chief of staff, Scott Fawell, said Monday.

Fawell provides a unique perspective. Not only was he Ryan’s closest advisor, but he also did more than four years himself for Ryan-related crimes. And he occupied that same Salvation Army halfway house on Chicago’s west side.

"It’s dingy. It’s dark. It’s dirty,” Fawell said. "It’s an old facility."

And ironically, said Fawell, it will be the place where Ryan will most likely mingle with the hardest criminals he will see during his entire stay with the Bureau of Prisons.

"You can be in the same room with guys who have done 20 or 30 years in prison, where he’s used to a little different clientele," Fawell explained.

Ryan will be required to take mandatory classes on such mundane skills as opening a bank account, writing a check, and making out a resume. It sounds ridiculous for a former governor but is par for the course in the Bureau of Prisons' one-size-fits-all approach to corrections.

"It’s for everybody," Fawell said. "Whether you’ve done 30 years or three months."

Read more from NBCChicago.com

After orientation, it will be time for the former Springfield dealmaker to go to work. Every halfway house resident is required to have a job and to work 40 hours each week.

Ryan will have to sign out when he departs in the morning and call when he arrives at his job site. He is to be back at the Salvation Army facility at Ashland and Monroe by 7 p.m. every evening.

"It’s more that they want you to go somewhere," Fawell said. "And you have to bring back a paycheck every week or two to give 25 percent of your gross to the halfway house."

Halfway house residents are constantly reminded they are not totally free. But the differences between their Chicago existence and their lives behind bars are enormous. Not only are they allowed to wear their own clothes, they can carry a wallet and money for the first time. Personal items are allowed.

Ryan will even be allowed to get a driver’s license and keep a car on site. Ryan used to issue the state’s driver’s licenses when he served as Illinois Secretary of State.

Eventually, perhaps as early as three weeks or so, Ryan will be allowed to begin transitioning to his Kankakee home. But even then, he will very much remain under Bureau of Prisons control.

"They’ll call him between 8:30 and 10:00, between 11:00 and 1:00, and between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning," Fawell said. "Every single night."

Patrick Semansky / AP

Inmate John Barba works with Dill, a veteran assistance dog in training, at Western Correctional Institution in Cresaptown, Md. Dill is one of three dogs assigned since September to inmates at the maximum-security prison for basic training as service dogs for disabled military veterans.

The Associated Press reports from Cresaptown, Md. — Hazard Wilson's new cellmate is a hairy bundle of energy whose playful zeal can't be contained by steel doors: a five-month-old golden retriever. Yardley is one of three canines assigned since September to inmates at a maximum-security prison in western Maryland for training as service dogs for disabled military veterans.

The number of programs nationwide using inmates to train service dogs is growing, but the program at Western Correctional Institute might be the first to use incarcerated veterans to train dogs for other veterans.

Patrick Semansky / AP

Dill looks on as inmate John Barba walks away after commanding him to sit and stay. The inmates, who are also veterans, are among the state's first prisoners to join a national trend of training service dogs in correctional institutions.

Professional trainers say prison-raised dogs tend to do better than those raised traditionally in foster homes, because puppies respond well to consistency and rigid schedules. That's just what they get in prison.

Patrick Semansky / AP

John Barba looks at a calendar as he sits in the 6-by-9-foot cell that he shares with Dill, a veteran assistance dog in training.

Wilson, a former military police officer honorably discharged in 1982, said he's proud to help another veteran.

"I feel as though they don't get what they deserve when they come home," he said. "This is a part of why I do what I do." Read the full story.

Editor's note: Images taken on Nov. 26, 2012 and made available to NBC News today.

Patrick Semansky / AP

John Barba walks out of his cell with Dill. Professional trainers say prison-raised dogs tend to graduate sooner and at higher rates than those raised traditionally in foster homes because puppies respond well to the consistency and rigid schedules of prison life.

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CALIFORNIA -- Tucked deep back in the tightly guarded machine shop of California's oldest prison, well away from the muscle flexing inmates in "the yard," a select group of convicted felons has their eyes on space. They fabricate metal housing for miniature satellites designed to explore the heavens. That's right. San Quentin inmates serving time for horrible crimes are given easy access to some of the sharpest metal humans can make.

They are, most likely, the only prisoners on Earth helping to develop products for space exploration.

Ariel Wainzinger, a man with ten months left on his sentence, said: "You come to prison and you think it's gonna be all gloom and doom and you find yourself with a lot of different opportunities and you take advantage of it."

Working under the strict guidance of NASA, Ariel and a handful of other skilled inmate machinists are making something most people have never heard of: P-PODs, Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployers, essentially, aluminum boxes designed to hold tiny satellites known as CubeSats, which ride "piggyback" into space as secondary payloads. The devices are part of a new generation of low-cost, miniature launch vehicles developed for research used by more than 150 universities worldwide.

Read more from NBCBayArea.com

The inmates involved in this unique NASA-San Quentin partnership seem to break most of the stereotypes society has about men behind bars. Not only do they study chemistry, calculus, and trigonometry, they look forward to their work every day. Never mind that their wages are limited to between 35 and 85 cents an hour. There's a waiting list for this prison job.

Out of a general population of more than 3,800 prisoners, machine shop instructor Richard Saenz has accepted just 27 men in his vocational education program; only five on the highly technical NASA project. A veteran government contractor on such aerospace projects as the space shuttle and the ICBM missile, Saenz is a stickler for precision. And he calls this job, training inmates to become skilled machinists, the best he has ever had.

"They have to be better than the average guy," Saenz said in describing the felons under his watch. "It's all about education, making them job worthy."

Inmates punch a time clock and learn work ethics. No attitude, no discrimination allowed. Saenz knows how hard it is to convince employers to hire an ex-felon. He's been at it for 12 years and when not working one-on-one with students in the prison shop, he's on the phone recruiting companies to sponsor the program, donate machines, and hire the men who are eventually released.

When challenged by critics who complain inmates don't deserve this kind of privilege, one felon, asking to remain anonymous, replied, "I understand where they're coming from but… I'm a human too and I think I have a second chance of deserving to go get a job as well… I've made lots of mistakes in my life. Everybody makes mistakes but I think the difference is I've been able to learn from my mistakes, realize where I went wrong in the first place and change myself in a way through positive acts… to become marketable as a citizen in society."

Except for one "lifer," all of the inmates working in the NASA directed P-POD production unit will eventually be released. Supporters of the partnership, including NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden, share the perspective that inmates have a much better chance of succeeding in the outside world if, while incarcerated, they learn skills that will help them transition to an honest living upon their release.

Wainzinger has earned two NIMS (National Institute for Metalworking Skills) certificates during his time at San Quentin, which he proudly describes as the gold standard for the industry.

He argues that inmates "must be given a chance to reintegrate themselves into society" and for that, they need to develop skill sets. "It's places like this that keep the recidivism rate down", he says, "and without them, I don't know how much worse off we'd be."