JUDICIAL DUPLICITY

Today I happened to read in The Huffingon Post, an article Michael Santos had blogged from his prison cell in Atwater, California. Not that Michael has the use of any computers, he writes his articles and posts for his website (Michaelsantos.net)longhand and mails or emails them to his wife Carole who in turn submits them. I particularly liked his take on the following issue:

Judicial Duplicity: It's Worth Protesting
Posted: 10/24/11 12:22 PM ET
By: Michael Santos

The Wall Street Journal reported that Citi has agreed to pay $285 million to settle fraud charges. It's one of several settlements from banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, and others. Those financial penalties don't make up to a hill of beans when juxtaposed alongside the market valuations of those companies. Essentially, they skirted any punishment at all.

In Citi's case, the bank admitted to selling mortgage bonds under fraudulent pretenses. Basically, it sold the bonds without disclosing to investors that at the same time it was selling the bonds, Citi was placing side bets, or shorting the deal in a Machiavellian twist that would enable Citi to profit from its belief that the value of the assets would decline. By not fully disclosing the terms of the deal, the SEC alleged that Citi had deceived investors. The government has given Citi a pass, however, allowing it to use shareholder money to settle the fraud charges.

Whereas the government readily excuses big corporations that violate laws, it locks ordinary Americans in prison at a record pace. I am currently imprisoned at the federal prison camp in Atwater, California. I've been in prison since 1987 because of bad decisions I made during a reckless transition between adolescence and adulthood. I led a scheme to sell cocaine. Although I did not have a history of violence or weapons, when my judge imposed a prison term, he slammed me with a 45-year sentence. Since then, I've spent more than half of my life locked in prisons of every security level.

When I began serving my sentence in a high security United States Penitentiary, tens of thousands of new nonviolent drug offenders were being locked in prison each month. Today, thousands of low-level, white-collar offenders are being churned through America's prison system. I regularly hear stories from men who were ripped away from their families at gunpoint for business related offenses. Some of my fellow prisoners, for example, provided inaccurate information to qualify for a mortgage.

Others serve time because they did not report their taxes accurately. Others provided inaccurate information on bankruptcy forms. The government didn't have compassion on them. It didn't give them a pass, enabling them to settle disputes through civil proceedings. Instead, they were locked inside the federal prison system, exposing them to all of the ancillary consequences of imprisonment.

It sickens me to read of judicial duplicity. Clearly, our country has a double standard. Whereas the government demands its pound of flesh from ordinary citizens who err in judgment, it goes easy on the mighty banks of Wall Street. Perhaps that injustice is worth protesting.

"I thought San Diego must be Heaven on earth...It seemed to me the best spot for building a city I ever saw." - Alonzo Horton, builder of New Town, site of current downtown San Diego, 1877







We are in San Diego for a few days, my husband attending several classes relative to his position as a Safety Director for an electrical contracting business here in southern Cal. I love these little getaways and often go with him on his out of town trips, be they classes or seminars necessary to keep him updated on safety and OSHA regulations, or conducting safety meetings, orientations, etc, with the Company's various line construction crews throughout the state, delivering materials, tools and FP (fireproof) clothing as needed. I value and cherish the hours we spend in conversation on the long drives from one city or location to another, the time we have in the off hours to explore and sightsee all the new places, walking hand in hand through the streets, parks, museums or stroll long stretches of beach, either in comfortable silence or ruminating on the past, present or future.

I appreciated having this opportunity to re-visit San Diego, not just because it is one of Californias most beautiful cities and my favorite of all Californias cities I have visited in the past eight years we've lived in southern Cal, but because it meant spending time with friends who live here as well, having some time to catch up on our lives.


Our first evening in city we settled into a comfy booth at Currant Brasserie, just half a block from our hotel (The Bristol) smack downtown in the Gas Lamp District of the city, with our good friends Linda and Terry who reside in Laguna Beach, a nearby coastal town. It had been a few months since I'd seen Linda and we quickly set about catching up on what we've missed. Currant offers french american cuisine and dinner itself was a delight, beautifully presented flank steak salads for the men, a big bowl of french onion soup with mixed greens on the side for Linda, and a large platter of herbed fries complimenting a cooked-to-perfection, Bison burger pour moi. All too soon the evening drew to a close and we parted ways to meet up another day.


On sunday my most excellent friend, Susie, drove in from Carlsbad (another seaside community just northwest of "Dago") to pick me up at the hotel and wisk me off to the Embarcadero. Susie suggested meeting up at 10 am and amazingly she pulled up in front of the hotel entrance on First Avenue at EXACTLY 10 am! How she managed this feat in a city bustling with traffic is beyond me, must come with being a San Diegan all these years. We spent several hours walking and talking along the waterfront, enjoying coffee and hot Beignets (see the picture of these yummy treats in the picture above) before making our way up to India Street to visit Little Italy. It turned out a huge Farmers Market was in progress and the various and assorted booths and tents selling all manner of goods and foods, seemed to stretch out for miles! Seeing all the fresh, colorful, and bountiful garden produce reminded me again of my husband's and my committment to eat "whole" and healthy. As Susie and I strolled the streets we enjoyed a wonderful, cold, drink concoction of lemonade, pureed cucumber and ginger, finely chopped fresh mint leaves, topped off with seltzer. A large pick covered with cucumber and strawberry slices inserted in the mix added to its healthful appeal. I must remember to make this at home, it was SO refreshing!


Susie dropped me off back at the hotel early afternoon, but we met up again, with our fellas in tow, for dinner that evening at a BJ's Restaurent in La Jolla. We have a BJ's in Bakersfield, so are familiar with the down home, just reliably-good, comfort food offered on its large and varied menu. But this visit was more about the good company and conversation than the food, both which turned out to be most excellent. It was lovely to catch up on our friends' lives, and all too soon, after finished up with cupcake desserts from Sprinkles, just down the street, the evening came to a close.

This has turned out to be a real "foodie" weekend for us...not often do we take the time to endulge on these trips, but besides a long leisurely sunday breakfast, sitting streetside in the misty cool of the San Diego morning, we also met up again with Terry and Linda for lunch yesterday afternoon at Island Prime in Point Loma, a lovely california cuisine restaurent, where we sat outside, directly over the water (again, see picture above...for some reason I simply could not get the download to be positioned in this post where I wanted it to be!) with the most amazing view of the city before us, across the bay. Dining on fresh salads and seafood, laughing and just having fun, and watching all manner and size of boat and ship cruise the waters before us, made for a most excellent adventure shared with good friends.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive." ~Anäis Nin

IN TRANSIT

Yesterday as I whiled the day away with Corey at Camp visitation, he spoke of his “Bunkie’s” recent transfer to another prison where he has been accepted into the BOP’s Residential Drug and Alcohol Program (RDAP). Stan had learned a few months back his application had been accepted and this past Wednesday morning a guard came to his and Coreys cube and told him to “rack up”. That meant Stan was to put his affairs in order, box up all his personal possessions (which must fit into 2 small boxes, that is all they are allowed to take with them, not that they have much, all an inmate has for property storage is a very small locker, maybe 4ft X 1ft), as shortly (in the next day or two) he would be transferred out of Taft.

“Of course” they will not give the inmate any specifics, such as what day or what time he‘ll actually be leaving as that is considered a “threat to the security of the institution”, but the inmate knows the move in emminent and can make a few personal calls to family and friends to inform them of what is happening. AND from that point on the family sits on pins and needles until their loved one has made it through the transition process and arrived at his ultimate “destination” as all communication is cut off indefinitely. The inmates personal “bank” account, phone acct and email acct (if he has finances enough to afford the rather expensive fees of using Jpay.com’s e-messaging system) will be closed. until he has been processed back into the new facility.

Stan began the process Thursday very early morning, at 3 am, when the guard came to the cube to take him away. Corey was awake, they had had a going away party/dinner for Stan that evening, and though Stan was able to fall fast asleep after the late ending event (1:30 am), Corey was unable to fall asleep, so was awake when the guard arrived. He woke Stan up, and walked with him to the Housing Units door where they said their goodbyes. Having been cellmates for the past year, they had developed a very close friendship, bond if you will, and this parting was bittersweet for them both. Corey has gone through the losing of close friends and “bunkies” many, many times in the past 8 years of his encarceration, at every farewell there is the sadness of the loss of a good friend, and that of being the one left behind, but the hopes and fantasy again of when it will be his turn. When HE will be the one leaving on the journey towards release.

So Stan would have been escorted to R&D (Departure), after final processing would have been loaded on the facility van or bus with whatever other inmates were designated to the same or another close by facility. If the prison is within a few hours drive, which in Stans case it was (he’d learned a week ago he’d be going to Lompoc, over on the coast, a 2 ½ hr drive away) he would arrive within hours, and within 24 hours no doubt be back in touch with family. Of course he could have been designated to a prison further away, and that could have been ANY Federal prison, ANYWHERE in the USA, in which case he’d have been either given a furlough (and a bus ticket) to that facility, or driven on a prison bus or van to an airport and been loaded on ConAir, the BOP‘s private airline service, to be flown to Oklahoma, from whence, at some time, week/month, he’d be transitioned to the Federal prison where he’d enter the RDAP program. The transition (or transfer) process can be a very long, exhaustive, grueling and dehumanizing process, or it can be a simple 2 ½ hour bus ride as Stan was expecting, to Lompoc. Such was not to be the case.

It wasn’t until I arrived back home after my visit with Corey that I saw I had several voicemail messages from Stans wife. We had gotten to know her and her baby boy over the past year that Stan has been Coreys bnkie, having met them in the visitation room itself. Often Rhonda has stayed at our home in Bakersfield after flying from SLC, Utah, from our house it is a short 30 minute drive to the prison camp to visit her husband. Obviously in the past year we’ve become good friends and supporters of each other, as only those in such situations as ours can be (more on that in another post). Rhondas voicemail and tone of voice indicated her stress and worry at what has transpired since Stan left on the prison bus out of Taft. The only way she has, at this point in the transition, to know whether Stan had arrived at his designation, is through the BOP’s website, via the Inmate Locator, or in her case, when she tried to wire money to Stans account for his use once in the new prison’s system. It was only then she realized Stan had not gone to Lompoc but to Victorville, California!!!…hundreds of miles to the southeast of Taft, not the short jaunt over to the coast to Lompoc! She immediately called Victorville and was told she couldn’t send any money to her husband at this time, that she couldn’t visit him (as only “family” was allowed, and she and Stan are not yet formally married, - he was arrested before the planned event could happen) and it could be many weeks or months before she would be able to next see him. She couldn’t get any answers as to what his status was, where he was going, was Victorville where he was going to be interred for the drug program, and final months of his encarceration, or given any answers to her questions regarding her “husbands” future. Such is the brutal, punishing ongoing way this system works and how it affects all who are clenched in it’s ironclad grip.

Stan could very well be staying in Victorville, or he may yet, at some point, a few days, a few weeks, or a few months from now, be loaded back on a prison bus and driven back UP the coast to Lompoc, you see neither logic nor financial expense (for the Amercan taxpayer) are ever part of the BOP’s transfer (or any) process. Its archaic and downright stupid. In the meantime, Stans wife and family will live with the “need to know” policy. Each has to find a way, it’s an individual and introspective journey, to find peace to assuage the stress accompanying these difficult times.


Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses. ~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire