“–Hollis seems to think you’re an innocent man. 

—Well, I’ve been accused of a lot of things before, Mrs. Mulwray, but never that.”

— Chinatown (1974)

When we think of a criminal enterprise we normally think of a drug cartel or a bunch of wiseguys planning a heist in Queens, you know, like the Lufthansa robbery that was glamorized in Goodfellas. We don’t necessarily think about what the FBI describes in its description of a structured organization engaging in acts of criminal conspiracy and/or criminal activity. And, injustice in our society often depends upon your political affiliation or whether, like Sinema, your bread is buttered by Roger Stone-style corporations or banking entities.

After all, we have several banking organizations which fit that bill. Deutsche Bank, for instance, has been described by David Enrich, “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction,” in which the banking corporation is essentially a criminal enterprise. The fact that five of its top executives hung themselves is telling. And, could anyone forget Mat Taibbi’s description of Goldman Sachs as “The Great American Bubble Machine — The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Goldman has studiously avoided designation as a criminal enterprise, or ever earned a felony. But there’s no question that having gotten all of its money back 100 cents on the dollar from Treasury after the credit-default payments subsequent to the 2008-9 disaster it also managed to avoid being prosecuted for the 1MDB Malaysian fund when PM Najib Razak ripped-off his country’s treasury. A schmuck by the name of Roger Ng was thrown under the bus as a “former employee” like Mathew Martoma during the Steven A. Cohen prosecution. By extension, Goldman inadvertently became one of the producers of The Wolf of Wall Street.

While HSBC was operating The Laundromat — a cute name for the Russian gangster money-laundering operation involving billions in stolen money — their lawyers were busy foreclosing on a house that I owned. Since the Hamptons courts love banks and rule exclusively in their favor, the judges cooperate to a degree that defies logic. But, hey, they needed my house. I was in prison at the time for writing about corruption in the Hamptons and the Criminal Enterprise being run out of Thomas Spota’s District Attorney’s Office (quoted by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone). Suffolk judges were only too happy to let anyone who even spoke my name take anything they wanted from me or my family. It wasn’t only Steven Donziger or the Innocence Project that knew how I’d been railroaded.

Look up Donziger. He did less time than I did but his ordeal is familiar.

************************************************************************************

Here’s are a few current photos from SoHo. Traffic has increased as well as danger. Only a class-action lawsuit against D.O.T. and the City will change the level of danger. Numerous accidents involving people being hit by vehicles have occurred and crosswalks are now for cars or bikes — certainly not for baby carriages, seniors, the disabled or ordinary pedestrians.

Crossing West Broadway

Crossing Broome Street

The New SoHo Art — piercings and tats

For those of you who enjoy what life on the inside is like without actually having to be there, I’ve included some outtakes from my five volume tome The Gulag. Unfortunately, I reported on actual dialog as it happened. Of course, that’s what the now-incarcerated former D.A. Thomas Spota and his buddies in the Hamptons intended. That story is yet to come.

FROM “THE GULAG” —

“Harry started reading his papers again to prepare for the Board. It was now 4 days until he had to appear in front of them.

“You gotta be sincere when you ged in fronna them,” said Cuba. 

“I will be. But, you realize this is all  bullshit.”

“It don’ matta. Jes as long as you’re sincere. You gotta go in ‘ere an’ tellim da truth, Mac, Act like ya life depens onit. Jes be sincere.”

“I know, but I’m telling them what they want to hear. Not what really happened. It’s not easy, you know?”

“Faged all ‘at shit. You gotta be SINCERE. Dat’s allat mattas.” 

“Okay, so here goes, ‘I was one of the major people who facilitated, managed, and  perpetrated this fraud. And, I brought buyers who were friends, family members, and others to the table to purchase property. I managed the property and paid the mortgages. I worked with a builder, a mortgage broker and 3 attorneys.”

“Good. An’ you were sincere when you said it.” 

“Yeah, but that’s not what happened.”

“That don’ matta. You wanna ged outta here, doncha?” 

“Well, yeah. Okay, so I’ll work  on it.”

“And, tellim aboud the Drug Program ya took. The Criminal Thinking. An’ how you gonna take dat course, y’know the program Advanced Relapse Prevention.”

“Okay, so I took a 6 month ASAT program for a problem that I didn’t have so I could get out early. I’m going to brush up on what I wasn’t addicted to and I’m going to admit to crimes involving filling out loan applications and paying mortgages to the banks — for Liar Loans concocted by mortgage brokers who actually filled out the mortgage applications themselves — along with bond traders — neither of which were ever prosecuted, because basically, the financial firms like Goldman Sachs behind the fraud own the government. Right?”

“Mac, you know, ya got a bad attitude. See, now that’s Criminal Thinking.”

“What happened to all of that American philosophical thought. ‘And the truth shall make you free?’” 

“Look around you,” said Cuba.

They’d  been talking about Wood, the C.O. most of the day.

They agreed with Harry’s Venus Flytrap theory but liked the alcoholic humiliator and abuser better. 

According to Cuba, he was now on Wood’s Shit List for simply not sitting up at Count while reading one of Harry’s New York Times one morning. Apparently, that was all that it took to make someone a pariah in the Honor Dorm.

“I assed aroun’,” he said, “no one talks ta him. They don’ trust ‘im. Only that guy Al, y’know, dat fat lunatic, talks ta him.”

Al had finally moved. His name had risen on the list for individual cubes and instead of being in a bottom bunk, he was now by himself — where Amar had been when they moved him to the Box. Now, instead of his being a few cubes down from Harry in a bunk where only the top of his head was visible over the cube walls, there now was an unobstructed view directly into Harry’s cube from across the dorm, no more than 20 feet away. 

Al now had a commanding view of everyone’s movement. He watched everything anyone did. And, of course, he had a special obsession for Harry. Laughing and cackling, joking, and loudly talking, he dominated the waking existence of anyone near him. He had become a one man horror story. Talking to him only encouraged him, ignoring him did nothing to discourage him. So, Al chatted up Wood who no one else wanted to speak to and who had the pallor of an AIDS patient on a cocktail of medication and booze. Harry now referred to Wood as The Cadaver.

“Y’know that Spanish guy I was talking to?”

They were leaving the Law Library, heading back to the dorm. Harry had just finished telling Cuba that he thought Wood had all of the personality of a dead hamster and looked like a cadaver.

“The guy you were just talking to? Harry asked. 

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t that ‘Chauty?'” Harry remembered when the guy first had introduced himself. He’d thought he called himself “G” and it turned out that it was not, so he just told Harry his real nickname. “Chauty,” he said. Eventually, Harry figured out that was ‘Shorty.’

“Guy’s got a major fucking lawsuit against the medical people.” Cuba smoked  his cigarette and smiled. “I figure he’s gonna’ collect big time.”

“What’s it about,” Harry asked. 

“He hadda hernia.”

“And…?”

“And, they operated on him and fucked it up.” 

“What happened?”

“Well, dey gottim up at Albany Medical an’ dey do the operation an’ he leaves and soon as he’s back, he starts gettin’ pain and swelling.”

“Yeah?”

“So, finally, dey raalize somethin’s wrong when his testicle starts to swell up an’ he’s in a lotta pain.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, dey sennim back and open’im up and dey figure out dat dey crossed some wires.”

“What? What do you mean they crossed some wires?”

“Well, dey patched ‘im up after they connected the nerve in his left testicle with the right testicle. So, now he’s got two nerves connected to the right testicle and no nerve connected to the left testicle.”

“Holy shit. So, what happened?”

“Now, they got a problem and dis guy’s bein’ shuffled back an’ forth on onea dose diesel fumin’ buses from prison to hospital, off, an ‘en back on an’ up tada hospital again. Meantime his right testicle is the size of a grapefruit anna guy’s in agony. His right testicle’s got an extra nerve connected ta’it and it’s very fucked up.”

“Well, what happened?” 

“They finally gottim back tada hospital and figure out whad dey did an’ now operated on ‘im ta fix it.”

“So, was he okay?”

“Nah, they fucked up that operation too.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Harry, thinking of the pain involved. (He was reminded of judge, F.X. Doyle who, at sentencing refused to allow Harry to follow his cardiologist’s orders. The A-fib he would wind up with was directly due to his prison stay. Judge Doyle sang the praises of the prison medical team).

“Yeah, they open ^‘im up and uncross th’nerve and pudit back the way it was supposed ta be the first time. Only now, the hernia’s returnin’ from all of the surgery.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Yeah, so dey sen’im back with the testicle like a grapefruit an’ the hernia’s comin’ back.”

“Is this for real?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a’ready had 3 operation an’its still not fixed and healed. Hadda get some bigwig black docta’ involved ta straighten it out.”

“Isn’t this guy, like, a major drug dealer, or something?” 

“Yeah, he’s a major guy. He’s Puerto Rican.”

“I thought the major guys were Mexican?”

“The Columbians grow it and, basically, wholesale it, the Mexicans distribute it and a lot of the Puerto Ricans retail it. A lotta the Mexican stuff comes in on boats to Puerto Rico. It’s an island and it’s parta the U.S. so dat makes it easier. Most of the ocean front land and estates in Puerto Rico are owned by Mexicans now.”

“So, the most dangerous guys are the Mexicans?”

“Yeah, dey th’guys with the heavy people. Th’enforcers.” 

“The guys with the balls?”

He smiled. “Somethin’ like dat.”

A sexual dream in prison is not a joy, it is a complication. The fact that Harry was having some good sex should have alerted him to that fact even in a dream state. He couldn’t really do anything about it except to try to avoid having an orgasm. In the middle of a darkened dorm the choices were unpleasant. Including getting up and cleaning off, realizing all the while that it wasn’t a young woman but only his right hand.

Awakening and denying is the best move. Walking past the cop in the Bubble in the dark, carrying paper towels after being unprepared for the dream, raised all kinds of issues. Such as, if he figures out what happened, he might decide to break Harry’s balls and ‘investigate.’ Orgasm equals Destroying State property if clothing or towels are involved.

And, it’s not like Harry’s balls were the problem. “Chauty’s” were. His problem turned out to be far worse than even Cuba had said.

“He’s got a good case,” Cuba said to Harry. 

“How is he now?”

“Still fucked up. Y’know after they crossed the nerve in his two testicles they opened‘im up to fix the second hernia.”

“What second hernia?”

“He had some kinda distended testicle ‘cause they fixed the first hernia an’ lef’ the second. Den’ey hadda open’im up tado the second an’ his testicle filled up wid blood. He was in agony.”

“And, he had to be transported again on the bus to Albany?” 

“Id wasn’ Albany, it was Upstate Medical Center. An’, yeah, dey dragged the fucker in chains wid a swollen testicle fulla blood BACK tada hospital an’ ‘ey made 8 incisions inis groin an’ ‘en sen’ ‘im back with Percocet. Here, dey wouldn’ give ‘im any Percocet. Dey gave ‘im Ibuprofen.“

“Jesus Christ.”

“Can ya imagine?” said Cuba.

“Unbelievable,” Harry said.

“Whateva ya do, don’ eva let ’em operate on you here.”

Harry saw Perry having what seemed to be an argument in the dorm with Charlie Chia. There was some smiling but Perry, the White Supremacist who was shortly going to be released, was clearly miffed. Harry was almost hoping that he would take a swing at Charlie since he was such a smartass.

Finally, it was over and Harry couldn’t help himself and went out to the Rec room to see if he could find out what it was about.

Perry was by the door to the dorm when Harry stopped him. “What was that all about?”

“What?” he said.

“It looked like you were having an argument.” 

“Ah, no, they were tryin’ to tell me some  shit.”

“What do you mean?”

“That guy James, he says they got a puppet in onea the prisons “

Now Harry knew that Perry was not particularly bright. He also knew that James was an ‘old-timer’ who traded on his experience having been in prison for a murder from over 20 years ago and was not particularly bright. But, these two and the black  old-timer who was a Muslim, did not mix well with a white Aryan Brotherhood-type guy with minimal intelligence.

“What?”

“Yeah, he says they got a puppet in prison. Got his own D.I.N. number. Craziest thing I ever heard.”

Harry had to think for a moment. Here, Perry was actually having a discussion about this and was, despite his protesting, seriously having a dialog about it with James and Charlie.

“You know, you remind me of someone in the movies?” 

“Whaddayamean?” said Perry, impressed but suspicious.

“You know Kevin Kline? He played Otto in a film with Jamie Lee Curtis.” 

“Nah. Maybe, I heard a Kline.”

“Yeah, good actor,” Harry said, “well, anyway,” as he turned to walk away, realizing that he was not living with a mental giant.

“An’ y’know, they said, the puppet was just paroled,” added Perry.

He scratched his head. Harry looked at Perry. He wanted to ask him if he’d ever seen ‘A Fish Called Wanda,’ but thought better of it in case he had.

Harry told Cuba about Perry and James.

“James is an idiot. He’s in the ARP program with me. We was talkin’ about the price of gold and investments. An’ he  says, ‘I know why the price of gold is goin’ up.’ An’ I said ‘Why?’ an’ he said, ‘It’s cause alladose guys walkin’ down the street snatchin’ chains offa people walkin’ by.'”

”Macroeconomics,” Harry said. “He has a good grasp of market makers.”

Harry decided to hedge his bets and ask someone else who, he knew, had overheard the dialog.

“Lou,” Harry said, “did you hear that conversation about the puppet?” 

“Yeah, James was talkin’ about a guy who was in fa murder in the seventies an Charlie said they lettim have his puppet come with him. I can believe that. They let in lotsa things, y’know, like personal items in those days. But, then he says the guy’s puppet testified at his trial an’ he usta talk ta people in the prison. I don’t buy that part.”

Harry looked at him. “So, you think  the story’s true, then? They wouldn’t let the puppet testify? I mean, but doesn’t that trample on the guy’s rights to call witnesses?”

“No, no, I don’ buy it. But, Charlie tol’ me he talked ta the puppet.” 

“Charlie talked to the puppet?” Harry said.

“Yeah, Charlie said he was inna next cell an’ he talked ta him.”

Lou was an early 20’s white kid who was a little heavy around the waistline, but appeared to be on the ball. This placed that opinion in doubt.

“Okay, so, let me get this straight,” said Harry, with a deadpan look on his face, “some guy was in prison for murder in the seventies who had a puppet with him that testified at his trial? And, the puppet talked to people? Charlie, being one of them. And he told you that?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t believe ALL of it. But, some parts maybe.” 

“I see. Which parts?”

“Well, I don’ think he testified. An’, I don’ think he had his own D.I.N. number and stuff like that.”

“You don’t think he actually testified though?” 

“Oh, I doubt it.”

What a relief, Harry thought. At least they hadn’t let the puppet testify at the trial. That would have been a bit much.

“Yeah, I can see that,” said Harry. “But, Charlie said he actually spoke to the puppet himself?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s what he was sayin’ to Perry when he was talkin’ to him.”

Harry could just picture it. Charlie, the Chia-headed, arrogant, pussy-killer sitting, having a conversation with a puppet in prison. Harry wondered if Charlie would rat out the puppet’s confession while he was at it. After all, if he did that, who would know? Who would be around to overhear it?

As a final attempt to put this to bed Harry said, “But you don’t believe that they gave the puppet Parole do you?”

“Oh, no,” said Lou. “That’s ridiculous. I don’ believe that part.”  

Harry breathed a brief sigh of relief.

Then, Lou added, “Who would believe that?”

The nervousness was getting to Harry. He watched kids repeatedly putting on deodorant. Sometimes they used only a portion of the stick, applying it over and over. For what? He was mystified.

They were going to have an Inspection of the dorm tomorrow and that, too, was going to have to be done while Harry was waiting to be called to beg for his life at Parole. All of this was going on and he had to pull out his battle grey, rusted, chipped locker to look for dirtballs under it in his 4 square feet of space.

Naturally, it was a good time to do another mock interview and Mike took Harry out to the Rec room again. They went over and over the same material, the Catch-22’s, the Crimes,  the Remorse, the Victims, including those poor Banks which Harry had theoretically defrauded. And, how Harry had single-handedly destroyed the Hamptons economy. Of course, he couldn’t tell them how the Banks had, in fact, defrauded the country along with the entire American financial system. They wouldn’t want to hear that.

“Don’ make yaself crazy. Ya gonna be alright,” said Cuba on the walkway.

“I know, I know.”

“Dey gonna do a Paper Review of a bunch a guys, y’know the flat bid guys wid drugs an’ ‘en you. You’ll see ’em tomorra or Wednesday.”

What Harry learned during Mike’s mock interview was what initials were tattooed onto his knuckles. “I.E.E.N. What does that mean?” Harry asked him.

“I eliminate every nigger.” he said, speaking softly. 

“Oh, I see,” Harry said. “Well, that makes sense.”

Perry came up to talk to them when Mike was telling Harry that.

“Wanna see mine?” Perry said. And, with that, he lifted up his shirt and showed off his Iron Cross and in a location on his stomach, there was a Confederate flag and two .45’s pointed downward  towards his groin.

“Nice flag,” Harry said, at a loss for anything to say to this sudden display.

“Wanna see my flagpole?” he laughed. 

“I’ll pass. Hey, Mike, what are the others on your arm?”

“Oh, this one is Michael Myers. The other I can’t tell you.”

“I’m a little uptight about goin’ home, though,” said Mike. He had his cutoffs on and his muscles and tattoos were exposed. He kept clenching and unclenching his mouth which, normally, had no dentures in and gave him a Mr. Magoo meets Fred Flintstone look.

“Why?” Harry said, leaning over the locker between their cubes. 

“The las’ coupla’ times I talked ta her I heard somethin’ a little funny. It was in her voice. Happened once before.” 

“What do you think it is?”

“I think she’s havin’ a thing with someone. That’s just what I think. Maybe I’m wrong but this isn’t the firs’ time I felt this way.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, an’ you know I don’t pull punches. We’ve been together for 29 years. Married for 20. My little girl’s 12. There’s a lot ridin’ on this.”

“You say anything?”

“Yeah, I said, are you havin’ sex with anyone?”

“Wow, well that’s pretty direct.”

“Yeah, well I don’t fuck around. I wanna know what the score is. I’m goin’ home in a week and I wanna know what I’m gonna be dealin’ with.”

“What’d she say?”

“She said, ‘Why you askin’ me a question like that?’ and I left it at’ that.”

“I see.”

“But, there’s been other things. It’s a feelin’, y’know?”

“Of course,”

“But, if I find out that she’s been screwing somebody…”

Harry was talking to a Mongol. The former President of a gang chapter. A gang with connections to the Mexican chapter and some REALLY unsavory characters. Drug dealers, killers, and more.

“Listen Mike, think of your daughter. Don’t DO anything. No matter what. You do something stupid and SHE suffers. Get out of here and STAY out of here.”

This wasn’t what Harry had in mind when he studied to be a psychoanalyst. But, Mike WAS listening.

July 28th, 2015

The entire day consisted of waiting.

Dressed in State greens with a white T-shirt, green pants, white socks, and heavy black boots. It was 90 degrees and sunny. Not even the fans were keeping the dorms cool. And, to be dressed the way Harry was would normally be unconscionable. But, today was the one day, of possibly two days, that Harry could actually be seeing the Parole Board, after 3 ½ years of being in prison.

So, Harry sat and waited. He began his wait at 7:00 a.m. after dressing for the part. And, then he just sat on his bunk waiting to be called while everything went on around me.

Guys stopped by and wished him well. Harry thanked them. And waited some more.

With nothing to do and Wood, now known as the Cadaver, on duty again because of the facility inspection — Harry simply went over and over his notes about how to answer the questions.

After 5 hours of sitting, waiting, and staring at a guy named Glen who was making coffee, rolling cigarettes and nearly coughing himself to death, Harry finally heard Wood say, “Parole, if you’re on the call-out, Go Now!” Harry headed out with his notes.

The Parole Board no longer came to any facility. It was all done over a videoconferencing system located in a small office off of the prison Visit Room. So, Harry headed for the location where he often met with his family and was directed by one of the 4 cops on duty to a seat to wait some more. There were 15 other guys seeing Parole that day.

Each of them was directed to sit at a table by themselves, as if they might somehow cheat on a test. 

There was near-absolute silence. They were not permitted to talk to each other and sat without any movement. They sat. And, continued to sit. They sat for at least an hour with no one talking or moving.

For what seemed like entertainment, two guys were brought in from the S-Unit in handcuffs and chains and told where to sit. Shortly after that they were told to move out of the general room Harry was in to a section that looked like teller booths at a bank. Then they were moved back again. They couldn’t agree where to put  them.

After waiting for about an hour and a half, we were told that the interviews would begin. One guy was escorted into the little video conferencing room that was about 10 x 15 and had a 15″ high by 30″ wide screen with a baseball-sized camera on top of it and a little insert in the screen itself so that you could see how YOU appeared to the Parole Board.

The Board members were actually located in Syracuse and to Harry’s left sat two civilians who were civilians that Harry did not know. One of  them was a 60 year old guy who wore a plaid shirt and appeared to be a workman of some sort. The other guy was about 15 years younger than him and had a huge gut. Neither of them told Harry who they were and, considering the fact that they were now privy to some of his darkest secrets, he thought it might have been nice to know who they were. But, there were no niceties in prison. Personally, emotionally, or legally. They didn’t give a shit and said nothing to relax anyone.

Finally, an image appeared on the black screen after Harry had stared at the video camera for what seemed like 5 minutes, like a dummy. 

Three people sat in front of Harry on the screen. The main speaker, a guy who sat in the middle of the other two, told him the three Commisioner’s  names. Harry immediately forgot them.

“You are Harry McDavid?” he said, gruffly, peering down at his papers.

“Yes,” Harry said, waiting patiently for any response. 

“You have just been awarded a Certificate of Earned Eligibility, and that is why you are now here.”

The Commissioner continued to rifle through his papers and looked confused. Relaxing, thought Harry, tensely.

“It says here that you have a 4 to 12 sentence for a conviction involving numerous counts resulting in the theft of $50 million dollars.”

Harry waited. What could he say to that? Are you fucking kidding me, he thought.  He didn’t get any money at all. All that Harry got was a shitload of unfinished houses from a Greek builder who sold him that shit because he was his own lawyer’s other client. 

The builder took the money to Greece after creating fake contracts with their lawyer. They were contracts which Harry almost never saw — and the builder ran off after buying a Mercedes for everyone in his family.  Between the corrupt D.A. who was hoping to tap into a $200 million dollar grant through a Congressman with access to TARP money, no one could get their story straight. The D.A. couldn’t decide whether Harry had stolen $50 million or $82

million. The Southampton Press reported one number, while the D.A. and his Minister of Information, Bob Clifford, spread around other numbers. Couldn’t they count?

At sentencing, the $82 million, part of an original indictment where the D.A. had included numbers from a completely different case. The $50 million dollar number which Harry had never received — was further reduced to $44 million. That supposedly represented all of the mortgages that he and his partners obtained through the efforts of the mortgage broker. Judgments were filed against Harry even though he never saw a nickel of it.

There were a few more observations about his having taken ASAT and the fact that Harry had no tickets. He waited for the Mastermind shoe to drop. He now knew it was coming  but didn’t know how or when. THIS was the piece de resistance that the D.A. would have sent them to fuck him. 

“So, we see here that you directed the actions of 3 attorneys and a builder, an appraiser, and a mortgage broker, and planned an operation that was intended to buy houses, collect the money and drive them all into foreclosure.”

Harry waited until he finished.

This was Merit Board? This was supposed to be solely an evaluation and review of what you had done while in prison and it was intended to review that record of achievement and award early Parole based upon that AND whether you could reasonably be expected to live free of crime from this point onward.

What the Commissioner had just said was simply an attack. It came right out of the D.A.’s own self-directed Probation report.

It was an attack calculated to determine if Harry would argue with them or to see if he would try to correct them or to gauge whether it made him angry. And, once again, as the D.A. had already done with the fake p.r. to poison the jury pool — it was done to defeat the purpose of Merit Board — to not give people early release based solely upon their performance in prison.

“Well, sir,” Harry said with his hands flat on the table, using an assertive voice, sitting straight, and looking directly into the camera, “I brought straw borrowers to the table to purchase properties. I manipulated their information so that they could qualify for loans and then managed the property and paid the mortgages for six years until the economy collapsed.”

It was The Big Lie and he’d done it well. Harry had never provided any mortgage information. It had all been created by mortgage brokers who wanted to get mortgages approved so that they could collect a commission.

The Commissioner stared at Harry and then down at his paperwork. He looked surprised. Harry hadn’t argued with him. He basically told him that he was wrong, without telling him that. That he hadn’t driven the houses into foreclosure and that he’d paid the mortgages for 6 years.  Harry couldn’t tell whether the guy was confused or annoyed, or basically was ignoring what he’d said.

“Well,” he said, “you have restitution,” moving on to another area that was a test of whether Harry would lose it and become challenging. And, it had nothing to do with Harry’s accomplishments or behavior in prison.  “How are you going to pay all that back?”

Obviously, they had NOT read the Parole packet that his attorney had sent. It described the fact that most of the money had already been recovered through foreclosure sales since there were MORTGAGE LIENS against the property. They were I.O.U.’s. Which meant that the banks would get paid back simply by selling the property at auction. And, it also described the fact that the banks, which were responsible for what happened to the economy — Hello Angelo Mozilla -­- had liens against all or the property that was likely worth more than was owed. Unless of course you used the D.A.’s fuzzy math which had Harry owing more than was ever borrowed — not stolen. What they prosecuted him for.

“Most of it HAS been paid back and the rest will be when I am released.”

“I see,” said the Commissioner, appearing to be confused. Or, perhaps disappointed. Of course, there was actually some doubt that $44 million dollars had ever existed outside of mortgage liens that were collateralized. 

“I will contact the banks to get the numbers whenever I get out of prison and work that out through my attorney.”

“Well, Mr. MacDavid, we see here that you would be living with your wife if you were released. She was one of the co-conspirators so do you think you’d be able to live with her, crime-free?”

Wow, that was a low blow, thought Harry. “You want to take my family away from me and then say, after I agree to take a plea so she would not be locked up, that I couldn’t go back to her because she was listed in the indictment JUST to fuck with me and force me to take a plea in the first place? What are we, fucking Bonnie and Clyde? Such assholes. Good old New York State, ‘We want to keep families together.’ Give me a fucking break.”

“My wife came into this by my lawyer having assisted her in buying one house from his other client. She is a woman who has taken care of our children for 3 1/2 years while I’ve been locked up here and has done a wonderful job. I love her and my children.”

Harry added, “There’s no problem with our living free from any criminal behavior.”

“Well, do you have anything to add? We have here something from Hammock and Sullivan and a report from NCIA. Are you familiar with this?”

Obviously, they had not read the Parole packet and went through it digging into the file and locating a report that was 4 years old that had been sent to the sentencing judge. It was meaningless. And, after Harry explained how remorseful he was and how he planned to work and spend all of his time with his children, another Commissioner asked him a question.

“How old are your children?”

Harry looked at her. It was information that was all over everything that had been submitted. It was also on the letters that his children had sent.

They hadn’t read any of it.

Now he knew what he was dealing with. This was the vengeance that he suspected would be coming from the D.A., via complete avoidance of all of the stated goals of Corrections.

Harry’s writing, the Town of Southampton and its Code Enforcement Police, the fake news including the retaliation against blacks and immigrants and his journalism. Plain as day. Too bad for him. And, his family.

“How’d it go,” said Mike when Harry got back to the dorm.

“Could go either way,” he said, standing with him in the Rec room.

Just then Otto, a/k/a Perry came up to us and stood there as we were talking.

“Well, what kind of questions did they  ask?”

“One of them was ‘You directed 3 lawyers and a builder and  a mortgage broker…’, it was like, you know, ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ type of question.”

“WHAT? Really?” said Perry. Harry stared at him. “Did they really ask you if you’d stopped beating your wife?”

Perry stood there looking at him and Harry looked back at him and glanced at Mike who was to his right. Harry was looking for some sign of acknowledgment, of confirmation. Was he serious?

“When I went ta the Board an’ they asked me that I jes said, ‘Suck it.’” Perry laughed and made the mock body movements of fucking, pulling back and pushing his groin forward.

“I see,” said Harry. “So, you were at Parole for beating your wife, then?”

“Nah, I didn’t go to Parole. I refused it. But, y’know, my ol’ lady an’ I hadda  problem.” he laughed. “We gotta divorce.”

“I see,” Harry said. “You know you really do remind me of Otto. You sure you never saw that movie?”

“I don’t see much TV,” said Perry.

In his cube, next to Mike, Harry leaned over and said, “Was he for real?”

Mike looked at Harry, with his massive arms leaning on his cube wall and both sets of teeth removed, “You mean Perry?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, “about the ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’ comment.”

“Oh, yeah, that went right over his head.”

“I thought he was kidding.”

“Oh, no, he was serious. He thought you were in front of the Parole Board for beating your wife.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You gotta remember he’s been in prison several times and in County for beating his girlfriends and his wife. So, that’s no biggy for him. And, he refuses Parole. He’ll only C.R. ‘cause he won’t ‘Suck Dick’ in fronna them.”

“Unbelievable.”

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