STEFAN R. UNDERHILL, District Judge.
Jorge Orlando Ardila, a prisoner incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution Allenwood Low in White Deer, Pennsylvania, has written to the court requesting that I suspend his obligation to pay his criminal fine of $25,000. Ardila currently pays $25 per month toward the fine under the Bureau of Prisons' Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. Ardila states that "th[e] fine has become a hardship" because he "receive[s] very little in the way of inmate pay, and any money [he] receive[s] from home is inconsistent." See Letter Mot. re Fine, Doc. No. 267, at 1. I construe Ardila's letter as a motion to modify his fine under either 18 U.S.C. § 3572(d)(3) or 18 U.S.C. § 3573. Neither provision empowers me to grant the relief Ardila seeks.
18 U.S.C. § 3572(d)(3) provides that:
In an earlier ruling on Ardila's petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, I noted that "section 3572(d)(3) is likely not applicable" to Ardila. See Ardila v. United States, 2012 WL 3580298, at *9 n.2 (D. Conn. Aug. 17, 2012). Section 3572(d)(3) "deals with `[a] judgment for a fine which permits payments in installments,'" but "Ardila's fine was ordered payable immediately, and not in installments." Id.; see Judgment, Doc. No. 166, at 1 (imposing a fine of "$25,000 due and payable immediately"). Even though Ardila may be "paying his fine[] in increments through the Inmate Financial Responsibility [P]rogram," because the fine "was due and payable immediately," he is "not entitled to relief under section 3572(d)(3)." See Ardila, 2012 WL 3580298, at *9 n.2 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted); Baez v. United States, 2007 WL 638198, at *3 (D. Conn. Feb. 23, 2007) ("[B]ecause there is no installment schedule in place for the court to modify, [section] 3572(d)(3) does not apply."); see also United States v. Rush, 853 F.Supp.2d 159, 162 (D.D.C. 2012) ("[T]he amount an inmate must pay under [the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program] is a matter entrusted to the Executive Branch, and `[c]ourts are not authorized to override the [Bureau of Prison's] discretion about such matters, any more than a judge could dictate particulars about a prisoner's meal schedule or recreation.'") (quoting United States v. Sawyer, 521 F.3d 792, 794 (7th Cir. 2008)).
18 U.S.C. § 3573 provides that:
That provision also does not avail Ardila. Under a former version of section 3573, "a defendant had the opportunity to petition the district court to modify or remit a fine." See United States v. Schilling, 808 F.Supp. 1214, 1218 (E.D. Pa. 1992). Under the current version of the statute, however, "only the government [may] petition for modification or remission of a fine." United States v. Seale, 20 F.3d 1279, 1286 n.8 (3d Cir. 1994), cited with approval by United States v. Wong, 40 F.3d 1347, 1383 (2d Cir. 1994); accord United States v. Linker, 920 F.2d 1, 2 (7th Cir. 1990) (Section 3573 "applies strictly to the Government, and not to defendants."); United States v. Martinez, 281 F. App'x 39, 41 (2d Cir. 2008) (summary order) ("[I]n accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 3573, the sentencing court may not modify the terms and conditions of the fine except `[u]pon petition of the Government showing that reasonable efforts to collect a fine or assessment are not likely to be effective.'"). Because the petition to modify the payment schedule was not filed or joined by the government, "relief is not available to [Ardila] under [section] 3573." See United States v. Stonner, 84 F. App'x 141, 142 (2d Cir. 2004) (summary order).
Even were Ardila's payments able to be modified under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2) upon his commencement of supervised release, "the fine owed by the defendant while incarcerated may not be modified simply because the fine may later be implicated as a condition of supervised release." See United States v. Akinrosotu, 637 F.3d 165, 167 (2d Cir. 2011). Therefore, I cannot suspend Ardila's monthly payments toward his fine while he is incarcerated.
So ordered.