“Crime doesn’t pay. Unless you work for a corrupt politician in the Hamptons”

— Anonymous

Those of you who’d like to know what prison is like after the criminal justice system works you over, here’s an outtake from my five volume work entitled Gulag. This was what it was like in Riverhead jail before being sent to prison near Canada where minus 35 degrees was the norm.

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Chapter one.

“The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.” 

— Joseph Heller, Catch-22

March 27, 2012

The descent began in a courtroom on Long Island. After three years of emotional torture and the decimation of my finances — planned by District Attorney Thomas Spota and his subordinates Thalia Stavrides and Emily Constant — I was offered a way out. Through the side door in a courtroom leading to Riverhead Jail. The construction of such a convenient corridor from court to Jail was a source of pride among the judges who the D.A. had installed with the help of a con artist by the name of Frank McKay, a political operative and radio announcer. Judge F.X. Doyle was among the coterie of political sycophants who had played his part in my drama and was part of the pay-to-play scheme after the political hacks in the Town of Southampton, Patrick Heaney, David Betts and Joe Lombardo got tired of reading about themselves in my work. 

They all wanted revenge for exposing their corruption in my articles and blogs – and they got it – with the help of  distortions by The Southampton Press and the DAs press person, Robert Clifford. 

To poison the proceedings, in open court before sentencing, prosecutor Stavrides described me as ‘The Lord of Darkness.’

Through a series of tunnels worthy of a gothic novel, I was dragged from the court in chains after sentencing to the local jail. It was a dark, filthy place full of recovering drunks, murderers, drug dealers, gang members, pedophiles, and assorted criminals. The Hamptons, where I had been prosecuted for writing about corruption, did not distinguish between killers and journalists. I would be staying at this vermin-infested facility and then transferred to an upstate prison. To do my time. In a class-action lawsuit, the horrendous conditions were described in Butler v Suffolk County Jails which settled for $18 million dollars.

My sentence was four to twelve years as I approached my 69th birthday. One of my triumvirate of attorneys, George Guldi, had already been imprisoned. Another, Tom McVann, was depressed, but he knew the D.A. and had once worked as an Assistant District Attorney. They’d cut a deal for him and he didn’t do any time at all. Ethan Ellner, the third attorney on that illustrious team became the D.A.’s confidential informant, or C.I., and was getting a walk. 

Not only had Ellner lied about me but provided details of his criminal deal with Steve Levy, the County Executive, exchanging title work for campaign cash. Spota got all of the $4.1 million dollars in return for no prosecution or jail time.

I had written about corruption in the D.A. ‘s office and, therefore, was far more dangerous.

“Hey Professor!” I heard from behind me.

“Professor,” came the call again. I turned towards the voice and could see him through rusted metal bars. It was one of the guards, a Correction Officer with his shiny gold star and a smile.

“Yes, sir?” I had quickly learned to respond, with trepidation. Even in my brief career behind bars I knew that being singled out by a CO, as they were called, was not good.

“Professor, what the fuck are you doing here?” he said. “I saw you in court, taking that plea — and I read about it in Newsday. It doesn’t make sense. What the fuck was this about? You stole money from the banks?” He seemed serious. 

“What’d you do, drive up with an armored truck?” 

“How’d you steal $82 million dollars? How was that even possible? And then not go to trial?” He laughed.

I was about to ask him why he believed anything written by Spota’s publicity and hatchet man and then published by Newsday. But, then, I remembered where I was. In the heart of the beast — Suffolk County — where Hamptons money controlled the media. While I had interviewed and written positive articles about the Sheriff, Vincent DeMarco, who ran the prison I was in — Riverhead Jail – counting on him for support would be nothing less than magical thinking.

“I was a mortgage broker,” said the CO, “believe me, I understand what happened.” 

I smiled. Was this guy for real or was this just a set-up — a cop looking for information to use against him?

I started speaking in tongues. Not on purpose. I just couldn’t sync my mind with speech, truth versus coping. The fantasy of being beaten to death lurked. On my way into the jail I’d watched a guy who’d hung himself being removed on a gurney. 

“Well, sir, you know, in 2007, the Investment Banks, CDO’s, synthetic CDOs, credit-default swaps. Liquidity all dried up. The Great Recession had begun. Nothing could be financed or re-financed, foreclosures started…,” I said.

“You know. Everything fell apart — they decided my partners and investors were straw buyers — after the foreclosures started and after the mortgages had been paid. For six years.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” said the cop. “I was making $200 grand a year writing mortgage loans. And, now…,” he waved his arm around with his nightstick in it, as I watched nervously, “this shit.”

“Yes, I can understand, sir,” I said, sympathetically, but cautiously.

As I spoke, I thought about my new neighbor in the adjoining cell.

He was a young black kid who had just been extradited from down south for killing his wife, eating parts of his baby and then storing the uneaten remains of the child in his freezer. I empathized with the guard. I thought of the line in The Shining. “Things could be better Lloyd, things could be a whole lot better.”

“Everything stopped. So, they decided I stole the money from the banks.”

MortgageIt, one of the lenders owned by Deutsche Bank, a source that one of his mortgage brokers located, had even been sued by the Justice Department for a Billion dollars — for mortgage fraud. They settled the case without admitting guilt, criminal or civil, for $203 million dollars. Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide and unwitting shareholders had paid a $67.5 million dollar fine and Mozillo walked — on Long Island where the D.A. had direct control over whether to criminally prosecute the bank for its flagrant fraud. But, that would have been an expensive case. 

Mozillo then sold the company to Ken Lewis at Bank of America for $4 Billion dollars. Included with the sale was a vault full of worthless mortgages. 

Meanwhile, I got three years of bad publicity plus four to twelve years for the $82 million dollars I’d never received. Not to mention the perversion of what actually was on the books and constituted grand larceny. DA Spota bent and twisted the interpretation of that crime until the definition fit the crime and the crime fit the law. Just for me.

By the time I took a plea I was the poster boy for the Great Recession and a valuable target for the D.A. And, of course,  I had destroyed the Hamptons and had “brought the country to its knees.” 

I was the first and only person imprisoned directly as a result of the 2008-2009 Great Recession bank fraud.

“Well,” I said, “at least you have a job. And, I’m here!”

“Okay, Professor,” he said. “I knew they railroaded you. And forced you to take a plea. They had no case, but they were just doing a favor for Spota and his buddies in the Town of Southampton. They’re all crooks. Everyone in the country would be in jail if they really had a case against the borrowers. But, that guy Doyle, who’s one of Spota’s judges – if you hadn’t taken a plea he would have buried you. They jes’ tell’im what to do an’ he does it.” 

“But you shoulda’ seen my office when I was doin’ loans, though.” 

“We had one guy who just made up all of the paperwork. All those for Liar Loans, as they called them. A couple of the borrowers were dead. And, those banks in California? Those guys were all doing drugs. There was a whole crew at WaMu who were snorting methamphetamines, and now they’re saying that it was drug money from the cartels that saved the banks….Well, good luck to you. And, watch out for that guy in the cell next to you.” 

“He’s nuts. Look out he doesn’t take a bite out of you, too,” he laughed and moved on, raking the bars with his baton as he left.

My first four days were spent in a jail cell by myself with a rusted sink and a moldy toilet. Then, suddenly, I was awakened at 4 a.m. one morning for the trip to prison.  I got dressed and was chained to a couple of Spanish guys who were members of MS-13 and then spent several hours crammed into a vehicle driven by two cops who enjoyed insulting inmates. The eight guys in the van, including me, were transported in a six passenger van to the next stop in Fishkill, New York, at a prison known as Downstate. It was euphemistically called a Reception Center. 

My clothing was confiscated, sprayed down for lice, forced to shower, and had my head shaved. We were then brought to a large room that had what appeared to be individual lanes leading to interviewers posing as mental health counselors, followed by several medical examinations. There was a lot of sphincter-checking for hidden items. 

There were many reminders that no one was permitted to speak and constant questions about whether anyone wanted to kill themselves. 

I met a few interesting characters along the way and, fortunately, spent no more than a few hours with any of them. I’d already decided that I would try to take mental notes and later commit my experiences to paper. I knew that despite the horrendous experiences I’d already been through and more that I now faced — that I had a unique opportunity to describe some of the inner workings of what was euphemistically called the criminal justice system – from the inside. Not the intellectualized, Hollywood version. 

I waited in a large holding cell while the tests and interviews were done which was shared by twenty to thirty other prisoners as they left and returned. Anyone needing to use the toilet was referred to a metal bowl cemented to the floor in the middle of that large cell — surrounded by guys sitting around with nothing to do but watch each other and argue among themselves. I was briefly reminded of my Stella Adler Theater Studio stint studying Method acting. Shitting on command for an audience took practice. 

Especially, without toilet paper.

Copyright 2018 Gulag