Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols wants to keep more of the money he has made from selling paintings done in his prison cell.
Nichols, 70, disclosed in federal court in Denver that he sold paintings at art shows. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of release at the federal supermax penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
He is asking U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang to limit to 15% how much in restitution is taken out of any money coming into his trust account. The federal government is objecting to the request.
His paintings sold for $1,150 at a 2023 art show, according to one of his filings. His cut was $575 after a nonprofit took half. Of those proceeds, $190 was taken for restitution, according to a government filing.
His participation in the creative arts program at the penitentiary will likely anger families of those killed in the bombing and survivors.
He wrote he needs to have enough money to afford Raisin Bran once a week for a painful medical condition and to buy art supplies. Nichols told the judge he is “simply trying to make ends meet.”
The Oklahoman discovered his handwritten filings about his paintings during its reporting on the 30th anniversary of the terrorist attack.
He explained in the filings he had a change in his financial circumstances when his mother died. He described his mother as his primary source of funds over the years.
To compensate for the financial loss, he took up painting and selling his artwork though a Bureau of Prisons-approved local art show held annually, he wrote in an October filing.
Artwork from inmates at the supermax facility was sold last August at an art show at the Fremont Center for the Arts in Canon City, Colorado.
Nichols urged the judge and government attorneys to persuade the Bureau of Prisons to create a website to market inmate art across the nation or around the world. “It would be good for the nation,” he wrote. “More inmates would get into art, be more productive, pay more on one’s restitution … etc.”
He also wrote the Bureau of Prisons should be persuaded to do away with a $300 cap on each sale.
He complained in a filing in August that a captain at the penitentiary told him he can no longer sign his paintings.
“Painting is a great stress reliever,” he wrote. “Painting brings calmness, satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment and purpose, expands one’s imagination, generosity, and more. It gets one’s mind off of where one is in a productive way.
Nichols complained that forbidding someone to sign a painting was “mental sabotage.”
In a filing in March, he wrote he already has spent $248 on art supplies to do paintings for the upcoming August 2025 art show.
Nichols was ordered in 1998 to pay $14.5 million in restitution to the U.S. General Services Administration for the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
A bomb made of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and racing fuel exploded outside the building on April 19, 1995. The attack resulted in 168 deaths.
He still owes $14,490,954, government attorneys reported in September.
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