State Sues Murderer for the $518,841 Spent to Keep Him Locked Up

The Illinois Department of Corrections wants to force a murderer to pay back the $518,841 it has cost to keep him locked up for the last 18 years, according to a lawsuit filed in Will County court.

IDOC determined the price of housing Anthony Spaulding, 37, by “computing the average per capita cost per day for the operation of that institution or facility (where he has been incarcerated) for the preceding fiscal year,” the lawsuit said.

Spaulding is currently doing time at Stateville Correctional Center.

Spaulding and three other men were charged with gunning down a man and woman in Chicago in 1994, according to a petition he filed in federal court. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 1997.

On the website Live From Lockdown, Spaulding says he was a Gangster Disciple and used the street name Ant G.

“I was a hard-headed individual who had the opportunity to be whatever I wanted to be!” Spaulding exclaims on the site. “I was very book smart and a great athlete. My family was middle-class so I didn’t have to get in the game, but I did! I got caught up! Doing whatever and whenever! Partying, smoking weed, gang-banging, and being promiscuous. Even after I got locked up I was doing dirt. It’s crazy because I was just getting myself deeper and deeper in trouble. I’ve been locked for twenty years, and I don’t know when I am coming home!”

Department of Corrections records show that Spaulding is scheduled to never get home and they want him to pay for the privilege of being locked up for as long as he has been already.

In its lawsuit, IDOC claims Spaulding has $11,596.49 in a State Bank of Lincoln savings account, another $2,500 in a Wells Fargo Shareholder Services securities account, an additional account at an “unknown bank,” and an “unknown quantity of Walgreens common stock.”