William S. Eames, an architect from St. Louis, Missouri; and U.S. Attorney General John W. Griggs, on April 18, 1899, traveled to Atlanta to select the prison site.

Local hospitals reported admitting a total of eight Cubans suffering gunshot wounds, along with two prison guards who were slightly injured.

On August 14, 1963, fellow inmate Burl Estes McDonald scaled the wall of a secure compound within USP Atlanta, entered an electronics repair training facility and wielding a three-foot iron pipe, snuck up from behind and bludgeoned the unsuspecting Cohen into unconsciousness.

Cohen sustained a critical head injury resulting from shards of skull fragments that had to be removed from brain tissue which had hemorrhaged.

He underwent extensive neurosurgery and following a two-week coma, doctors inserted a steel plate to replace the mangled bone fragments in the rear skull region.