“Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”
― Honore de Balzac

For those of you who’ve not had the pleasure of doing time, rejoice! I’m going to save you a trip. I pissed off DA Thomas Spota (which ultimately got him a prison sentence) with the collaboration and insistence of the former Supervisor of the Town of Southampton, “Skip” Patrick Heaney (who has not yet been imprisoned) and his Town Attorney friends, like Joseph Lombardo — as a result of my writing about corruption. They engineered what is known as a vindictive prosecution. They enlisted Thalia Stavrides, Emily Constant and a few other local criminally-inclined politicians to finish off the job. I did 4 years for the privilege of exposing them. They’ve all been sucking money from real estate along with multiple pensions at our expense with no-show jobs like Joey on the docks.

But, that’s old news.

The current crop of thieves in Southampton Town Hall who are sitting on more than $2 Billion in so-called Preservation Fund money stolen from New Yorkers isn’t even used for affordable housing. It’s used for political bribes. Affordable housing in the Town is now $600,000 townhouse for friends. Compliments of their developer buddies.

But the most corrupt Village in the Hamptons is Westhampton Beach — where, instead of affordable housing there are dozens of new townhouses with million dollar price tags and enabled by the Mayor (who is a real estate agent), appointing people for inside deals on zoning committees that rewards friends. Those who rock the boat are defamed by Anthony Pasca, the Village Attorney, who doubles as outside counsel for a major law fim. Suffolk County is so corrupt that the Bar Association won’t even investigate their members. Seniors and the disabled are treated like shit. In Westhampton Beach, like the Town of Southampton under former Supervisor Heaney and now Maria Moore, you must pay to play. Or, like a MAGA enemy, be prosecuted.

So here’s a view from prison, where many of those Southampton and Westhampton Beach criminals — meaning the politicians — have a reputation and are well-known.

______________________________________________________________________________

“What’s it like?” 

“Whaddaya mean?” he said.

“Parole. What’s it like at 40th street?”

“It ain’t too bad. There’s about 50 officers and about 15 a them are dicks. The rest are okay. Some don’t give a shit what you do, some just tellya, ‘Stay outta trouble an’ I won’ violate ya,’ an’ othas, they jes come visit once in a while. But, the 15 are lookin’ ta fuck ya.”

“Like how?”

“Well, one guy named Cruz likes to fuck with guys. He tells ’em ‘I have a Ph.D. and if you fuck with me I’m gonna violate ya,’ an’ he likes to play games to show you he’s boss.”

“That’s nice,” I said sarcastically, as they turned around and around, speed walking in the snow.

“Yeah, he’s a little fucked up. But, mostly, if you sit in the waitin’ room and never talk — like I bring a book, an’ don’ argue or disagree with them, take all the programs they wancha ta take — you won’ have any problem.”

“What programs are you talking about?”

“Well, like A.R.T or a Drug or Alcohol program.”

“You mean you have to take a drug program even if you took one here?”

“Oh, yeah, s’pecially if you took ASAT here. That means you hadda drug problem if you tookit here.”

“Well, wait a minute. I volunteered to take ASAT just to be eligible for Merit Board. Does that mean I’d have to take another program? I never took drugs or abused alcohol.”

“Oh, probly. Lissen, this is about them gettin money an’ makin’ money fa those programs. They don’ really give a shit about you. So, they make ya take these programs and den they get reimbursed from Medicaid. It’s all about the money. Why do you think they get you qualified for Medicaid? It ain’t ta help you. It’s for them to get the money and then they require you to take these programs.”

“So, in other words, I took ASAT to qualify for Merit Board and volunteered to take it — and they got Federal money and State money for that -­ and then, even though I told them I was taking it to get some background knowledge about drugs and alcohol, they’re going to make me take another drug and alcohol program to help me with a problem I don’t have or never had?”

“Probly.”

“Jesus, what a scam.”

“Yeah, an’ you betta take it or they’ll violate ya an’ sen’ you back to prison.”

He laughed as they rounded the blacktop, snow swirling in their faces. “Yeah, alladat’s right. But, you can’t tell’em that.”

“Why not?” I said, looking at him. Shades of D.A. Spota and the Town of Southampton’s corrupt politicians.

“Because if you tell them that they’ll think you’re trying to get out of taking the program. If you go to the program and tell them you don’t have a problem they’ll report you to the Parole Officer and he could violate you and send you back to prison for refusing a program.” 

I was beginning to appreciate Yossarian’s plight. This was a real life Catch-22.

“So, I should lie about using drugs or alcohol?”

“Well,…uh, maybe, I guess. It’s all about money, man.”

“So, how’s it in your dorm now? I’d heard that they had a guy who was 78 when he came in. Was that your dorm?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Yeah, he came in and did two years.” 

“We have a lot of guys in their 70’s and one guy in his 80’s. He’s got dementia though. Doesn’t even know where he is at Count.  So, he doesn’t get up on time and they give him tickets for it. He should be in a nursing home.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, yeah, he lit the pilot light on his stove and it went out. Blew up and the building he lived in burned down. They said he shouldna have lit the pilot light himself.” 

“So they prosecuted him?”

“Yeah, they gave him 7 years for that. He’s just old. Like some of the other guys in my dorm. But, a few a them are from Suffolk County on Long Island. Dey prosecute anyone, no matter how old you are or whether you’re guilty of anything or not. It’s all about numbers fa dem — and gettin’ the prosecution numbers high so dey can get money from the State. Din’ you write about ‘em? Half a dese guys in my dorm can’ walk widout someone helpin’ ‘em — an’ some a dem don’t even know where dey are. It’s a fuckin’ shame.  

The political push to get seniors out of prison, especially those whose “crimes” sounded more like the mistakes made by Seniors who lived alone or whose families couldn’t afford assisted-living facilities, was a massive State fraud. 

Especially, if you were prosecuted in the Hamptons.

“Lissen, I was in Riverhead Jail for almos’ three years, said Mike. I hadda learn how ta survive. I usta help otha white guys, cause ya know, it was mostly blacks an’ gangs, y’know 5 percentas, Bloods, Crips, an’ since I was a professional fighta, I helped’em. There was no cops in wid us. Just us behin’ the bars. The food cart usta come aroun’ an I noticed dat dis guy was tellin’ othas what ta do an’ given some people more food and some none at all. So, I took it over. We had a place where we could fight and settle shit. Cops din’ care. Dere was no supervision. Even inna showers, dey’s nothin. Guys fuckin’ inna steam. I jes looked the otha way. Dat was in 1991. By 1995 dat changed.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

I know about Riverhead Jail. I was there twice as part of my little fiasco before being sent up to the Gulag. It was a shithole where a couple of guys hung themselves when I was there. It’s where the Hamptons D.A. first put white collar people like me.

Currently there is a Class-Action lawsuit started in 2009 against the Suffolk County Jails.

There will also be a Class-action lawuit against the Spota-era vindictive prosecution and all of the friends and associates who were involved in that will be brought to justice along with the fraudulent Conviction Integrity process by people who claim to be undoing Spota’s crimes.

In Suffolk County where money is the only God and the religion is the Mob.

Copyright 2025 Confessions from the Gulag

“He who loses wealth loses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But, he who loses courage loses all.”

– Miguel de Cervantes

An attorney sent me an article in the New Yorker written by a journalist who had written about prison, C.O.s, inmates and the vicissitudes of life for those behind bars. She was writing about it from the outside, looking in. After five years of writing about it from the inside looking out, I found it amusing. Not funny, but amusing. After all, with a degree in mental health I was running a therapy group for murderers and assassins. The Master’s at NYU and post-graduate training in Psychoanalysis hadn’t included any pointers on drawing out killers so that their aggression was mollified. In fact, one guy really looked like he wanted me to be his next victim.

But, having been brought up by hardworking people who enjoyed a good joke there were times when I’d sift through the debris of my existence looking for gems. Here’s a sample from one day “behind the wall.” Who knows, maybe the New Yorker might want to print somethng about reality someday?

—————————————————————————————————

“Among the new people coming in was Mike, a Sicilian assassin who was a friend of Santelli’s. 

Now, there were two Sicilians, one who was White Collar and another who was a contract killer for the Mob. I liked Mike, though. I was okay with assassins. Everybody’s got a right to make a living, right? And, he was a nice guy. We’d been in a therapy group for 13 weeks that I ran at times. To me, Hit men were several steps above Charlie, the Pussy Killer who’d emptied his .357 magnum into his ex-wife’s vagina. For me, I questioned the sanity of the prison’s two female administrators or wardens, who were deferential towards him. They seemed oblivious to Charlie’s crime.

Now I had a group of Italians for friends. So, I told our assassin about my roots in Brooklyn and being brought up by another Sicilian, Al Gallo, a family man who lived in my building when I was a  kid. I also mentioned Anastasia and the Profacci’s, with whom Gallo was associated.

I had just finished “Opening  Belle,” a book about Wall Street and the glass ceiling and I was re-reading ‘The Godfather.’ Tony, who was part Polish and part Sicilian was complaining that Mike was too close to the “moulignones,” making him untrustworthy. What bothered me wasn’t that I was too close to the Blacks. He was too close to Charlie and his ‘Nigas,’ a special kind of sneaky, anti-white, Black coward who would screw you. Melanese meant eggplant and Moulignone was slang, not Italian. So, now there was a growing white, Italian, Sicilian contingent.

The two women who ran the prison came in and I ignored them but Charlie ran up to them and was all smiles. 

I detested the women for being so weak, pandering to an obvious fraud who appeared to have gotten them to respond. He not only had murdered and tortured a woman but was a dangerous manipulator. The Superintendent, with 1950’s hair and her Deputy, superciliously walked around together. Despite my liberal attitudes on feminism, I had zero respect for them.

Having Mike in the dorm was a good thing as far as I was concerned. I’d rather have a contract killer than a sniveling, grasping, thieving kid who wanted to steal your teeth if he could get something for them. Mike, at least, had values — like Santelli who looked down upon Tony. He was a half­-Sicilian, who’d been rounded up in an “Enterprise corruption” case when his door on Staten Island had been rammed open. According to Santelli, Mike considered Tony a “wannabe.”

Santelli and I were going to the Gym. He did his exercise, which was speed-walking. He looked like he’d just escaped from Dachau but walked earnestly. He made me look like a straggler. That’s how fast he was. He managed to do 4 miles in the time that I only did little more than 3, partly because I’d also done some light weights.

When he slowed to talk me I asked him about his fellow Sicilian. I considered myself a bit of an expert because of my background in Brooklyn as a kid, but also because I was ensconced in re-reading ‘The Godfather.’

“If Mike was hired and did the job, I thought the deal was that they took care of you?”

“Who?” said Santelli.

“Who?” I thought. Is he kidding?

You didn’t have to be an expert to know that short-timers were expected to keep their mouths shut. Omerta and all of that shit. But, with long-term sentences the whole thing got dicey. RICO cases were successful because wiseguys started to rethink things when 20 years was the offer on the table.

“Mike,” I said, “you know, the boys?”

“Oh, well, he’s been in for 27 years. His father and mother have made sure he was okay. But, his family’s been taken care of all this time.”

That sort of cleared it up. His father had to be Sicilian. Was he perhaps one of the boys? And had an assurance that his family had been taken care of all of that time.

Mike was about 6 foot tall, graying short hair, a glance that was cast slightly downward and a minor Brooklyn accent. He seemed like a gentle guy but, was easily and quickly roused to anger. That had come out once in the Law Library when I had  made copies for him.

He’d gotten irritated. He’d been imprisoned in 1990 or 1991 and was about 50 now. Since then, especially after I had been in group with him, we got along. And, that was before I found out that he had two bodies. He had now been in for 27 years and had taken a plea of 19 years to Life. 

I now understood why he had taken such a draconian plea. 

“He’s goin’ to the Board next month,” said Santelli as he rounded the court with me.

“He probably won’t get it, though.” 

“Probably not.”

“With murder, they usually make them do 30 to 35 years. And, with a contract killing and two bodies?”

“Yeah, I agree.”

“Murder is one thing. A contract killing is another.” 

“What about Charlie?” asked Santelli.

“Well, she was a cop. He was a cop. They don’t like rogue cops. He may never get out.” I said. That thought did not sadden me. 

“Yeah.”

“Like that guy Harris. He’s already got 40 years in. They told him he’s not getting out.”

“What’d he do?”

“Killed his girlfriend, chopped her up. They say he sent the pieces to her family.”

 “They take a dim view of that.”

In the midst of this discussion, CO Colgate wanted to know if I had gotten my helmet yet — his feeble joke about my having repeatedly being hit in the head by basketballs as I rounded the court — and he had made a report about it to protect himself – and his pension. 

A brain bleed in prison? Good luck with that, I thought!

Then I was on the walkway with Cuba.

“You goin’ home, Mac,” said Cuba excitedly.

Why didn’t I think that? I was being very cautious. Very superstitious about something, anything, going wrong.

“Well, I’ll tell you, if it weren’t for the fact that you told Cleveland and then I talked to McCoy, I’d be more worried. But, they know the score and they know the situation. I’m glad you took care of that.”

“Lissen, Mac, I woodna’ letchu down. Dey gotchya back. Don’ worry. Nothin’s gonna happen. Trus’ me.”

The entire staff of the prison knew I was in danger — targeted by Charlie, the killer.

I got back to the dorm and spoke to my eldest son who was doing well in school, except for math. We spoke about getting a tutor. Then I spoke to my wife about money. Big mistake. There wasn’t any. She hadn’t been able to pay February rent yet and now it was March.

That depressed me.

“You really shouldn’t come up to visit until you’re able to pay it, baby.”

“What’s  the  difference?”  she said, resignedly. 

“Listen, think about it,  please. Just come up to pick me up if I get Parole. okay?”

That ended the conversation. I was depressed and unhappy. She was doing everything she could and with the foreclosures on all of my property arranged bt the DA and the Town of Southampton and the harassment by the Town — for having rented to Latinos and Blacks while I had exposed political corruption — the Code Enforcement Police were telling tenants not to pay rent. It was all closing in on me. Their hatred for me and the Latino and Black workers was irrational and boundless.

After speed walking the day before, I was depleted. Of course, I slept in a dorm with 59 other guys who coughed, sneezed, farted and talked all night long. Several had very deep, hacking coughs that did not sound good. A couple of them had been called to the Infirmary for follow-up on their TB tests and I did not find that amusing.

“One a the guys has HIV and cut his hand, bleeding all over,” confided Santelli. “He also had Hep-C.”

“Well, now I feel MUCH better.”

“Aren’t they supposed to quarantine these people?” 

“Sure, but why run up expenses? One guy with Hep-C just left. Maybe your guy was the token Hep-C guy. You know, we’re all PC here, after all. Right?”

He shook his head. 

“They don’t give a shit what they expose us to, do they?”

“Hey, you see any Polonium laying around here? Of course they care!”

They got into a discussion about cleanliness and cleaning, in general.

“You know, I had an environmental clean-up company.” 

“Yeah, I remember your telling me that. What kind of jobs did you handle?”

“Oh, we had everything from cesspool back-ups to suicides. The last one we had was a murder.”

“Oh, so you’re a Cleaner. Like the guys that they call in the Intelligence business when they need to sanitize and eliminate the scene of a ‘wet job’?”

In a number of Intelligence novels a Cleaner was called to tidy up after an assassination.

He laughed. “Well, something like that. We usually would come in after the cops called us to clean up and the insurance company had been alerted. There’s a lot of money in that.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like, for a small room in an apartment, could be $10,000, $20,000 to do the job. We’d rip up the carpet and throw it away. Sometimes the furniture too. Depends.”

“Depends on what?” I said, curiously.

“Well, with suicide, sometimes there were a couple of rooms involved.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the best ones are called ‘Walkers.’” 

“Walkers?” I said. “What the hell is a ‘Walker?’”

“Well, with a murder, or a suicide, the guy gets shot or slices his wrists. And, then he walks around. You know, he spreads it all around  the apartment. The bill could be MUCH higher then.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that sounds profitable. So, what was your strangest job?”

“We got a call from the police that some guy had been murdered in his building and we get there. Nobody knew that he was gay but when we got there, the guy’s laying in the hallway handcuffed, shackled, gagged and bound. And, he had a sword up his ass.” 

“His boyfriend had killed him and let him bleed out all over the hall carpet. We got a nice check on that one.”

“No shit?”

“Then, there was the miscarriage at a McDonald’s. That was nasty. Hell of a clean-up. Girl just went in for a burger and exploded.”

“She exploded? So, you rip up carpets and throw furniture out. What happens if there was, like, a Manson murder?”

He laughed. “Well, in one case we had to clean the walls as well as the floors and dump the furniture. It had been a murder scene and one of the victims was a Walker. So, we hadda clean brain matter off the walls and put Kilz on it.”

“You had to put what on it?”

“Kilz. It’s a chemical you put on before the walls can be repainted.”

“Good name.”

“Then, another case we had to get some guy out of the tub.”

“Why?”

“Well, he committed suicide and he was laying there for almost a month before they found him.”

“He must’ve been cute by the time you got there.” 

Santelli laughed. “Yeah, he was all blown up. But, we didn’t actually have to get him out. The EMT’s did that part,” he continued.

“How’d they get him out?”

“Pricked him with a pin. You know, they blow up like that when they’re old and left to rot.”

“I would think? Some really elegant stuff.”

“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” he added.

“But, as my father used to say,” I said. ‘Who wants to be in the plane when it’s the pilot’s time to go, right?’”

He looked at me suspiciously.”How’d you know about that?” 

“What?”

“About the plane crash?”

“What plane crash?” I said.

“I was in a plane crash, didn’t you know that?”

“No,” I said, looking at Santelli. He appeared to actually be concerned. As if I had known something that I shouldn’t have known. “That was a joke my father used to tell. But, you know, my wife says I’m a Warlock.”

He looked at me suspiciously.

“WERE YOU in a plane crash?”

“I was coming back from Palm Beach one day and I was sitting next to this 90 year old woman who was dressed to the nines. Suddenly, the plane, a 747, touched down, and the landing gear collapsed. Suddenly, the wing was sheared off from dragging along the ground and the plane started to spin around. When I was able to look out the window all I could see was a line of trucks and foam everywhere. They put up the chute and this 90 year old woman winds up in my lap. We were sliding down the chute together. It was amazing.”

“So, nobody was hurt?” 

“No. I was very lucky.”

“Sexy too, huh?” I said.

Copyright 2025 Confessions from the Gulag

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.“

— George Orwell

For those of you who are musically inclined, as I am, having been a musician most of my life — performing in New York, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome, Puerto Rico, Copenhagen — rejoice! Neil Young, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, has written a new song. Shades of Ohio.

I’ll get out my axe and you can enjoy it. Remember it, folks.

“No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House”

Don’t need no fascist rules
Don’t want no fascist schools
Don’t want soldiers walking on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
There’s big crime in DC at the White House

Got to get the fascists out
Got to clean the White House out
Don’t want no soldiers on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more money to the fascists
The billionaire fascists
Time to blackout the system
(No) no more great again
No more great again
Time to blackout the system
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again.”

Songwriters: Neil Young

Big Crime lyrics © Hipgnosis Songs Group

“If you can’t beat them, leave town. The Downtown corruption makes Trump and his minions look like choirboys.”

– Anonymous

In their zeal to provide routes for bikers, which unfortunately started in SoHo and was approved by Community Board #2 for SoHo and the politicians that have poorly served lower Manhattan (with the exception of Brad Hoylman and Christopher Duarte) — Citibikes, which is apparently not the owner of the racks and bicycles installed where there used to be parking in Manhattan — It is actually a company owned by Lyft of San Francisco, a poorly functioning private car service in Manhattan supported by Transportation Alternatives, the Hudson Square BID and Trinity Real Estate — not to mention Citibank.

While there have been many complaints about losing parking spaces in SoHo and Hudson Square the real problem is that no provisions have been made for senior citizens or the disabled who often have to walk or be wheeled out into the middle of the street in order to be able to get into a taxi or car service. Where they are targetted by bikes and vehicles. No provision has been made for the safety of these people and pedestrians who are unable to use the crosswalks for many reasons such as monumental traffic. Congestion Pricing has been a very big thing but there has been no abatement of traffic in lower Manhattan and traffic agents are not able to give out tickets to abusers rushing to New Jersey or elsewhere and protecting pedestrians safely crossing the street — since the crosswalks are constantly blocked. I’ve been writing about this for 25 years and I can testify to the fact that Community Board meetings occurred 20 years ago in which the DOT claimed that it was working on a plan to protect us. Bullshit. I can tell you after several accidents and drivers getting out of their vehicles in order to threaten me and other pedestrians who complain to drivers that there’s not enough space between their blocking vehicles in the crosswalk to cross the street. Clearly, nothing has been done because DOT and NYPD and Traffic don’t give a shit about pedestrians, seniors or disabled and Congestion Pricing was just a money grab — witness the fact that next week the fares will be going up on the subway and buses.

If there was ever anything to drive Democrats and independents into the arms of MAGA people this certainly is one that should be reviewed carefully. Something should be done to protect seniors and disabled from being hit by vehicles. If there was ever a Tell of corruption in action on the part of lower Manhattan politicians, this is it, folks.

Pedestrians, Disabled, Wheelchairs, Seniors with canes? Are you kidding?

We don’t give a shit about SoHo or Hudson Square. The Politicians, Community Board #2, Hudson Square BID, Transportation Alternatives, SoHo BID, DOT– were all paid. If the wheelchairs and walkers and Hurrycanes can’t get through to get into taxis and cars, fuck them. We’ll just install more bike racks. Our neighborhoods are for bikers without vehicles who can’t afford a garage and pay membership fees and make political donations.

“Never give up, never, never, never give up.”

— Winston Churchill

Well, I have been known for my constant bitching about the fact that many of us downtown especially in SoHo have had no access to city agencies that actually do anything.

HPD, also known as Housing, Preservation, and Development is an agency charged with overseeing the safety of apartments in Manhattan and making sure that residents rights are not violated by landlords.

Here’s a list of their largely ineffective functioning in Manhattan:

We have a landlord who is part of a team of two dentists and their families that essentially purloined the building that we live in and has managed to evict, by one method or another, at least 90% of the tenants in the building. Amid collusion with HPD we have no 311 service to our building as we have been designated a loft building when in fact, we are rent- stabilized tenants. As an example of the violation of our rights, we have practically no heat in the winter and 311 will not take our complaint when they used to take our complaint. When it used to function, 311 would give us a Report number and tell us that within 72 hours someone would show up to verify the fact that we had no fucking heat.

Strangely the inspector when we used to have 311 ability to make complaints would first call the landlord, who would then of course turn the heat on so that when the inspector arrived there would be heat and then turn the heat off after the inspector left. After going to court to force 311 to again service our building, the City-owned judge ruled that we must file an article 78 to get justice. At a cost of $10,000!

While I try to understand people when they’re speaking to me, the HPD inspectors rarely spoke enough English for me to convey my complaint and once the complaint was filed (when we used to have 311 ability to make complaints) absolutely nothing was done to force the landlord to give us heat. HPD is a bad joke.

NYPD recently arrived at our apartment because someone had broken into our apartment while we were there — which, in my illustrious experience in prison as a journalist being prosecuted by a corrupt district attorney in Suffolk County — I learned that breaking into someone’s apartment is called Home Invasion. The individual who broke into the apartment was charged with trespassing. If he’d had a weapon, one of us might’ve been killed.

Another recent experience with NYPD has been that I was sideswiped by a car on Broadway and I rushed to try to get a photo of the car which was fleeing, but it did not show a clear license plate number When NYPD arrived I was cross-examined as to why I was there and I got no assistance whatsoever with finding out who the perpetrator was. I contacted DOT, the police department, FBI, and even surrounding building owners to find out if they had cameras that could elucidate. I receive no cooperation whatsoever, including from the DOT inspector general, which had cameras that were strategically located at the corner of Canal Street on Broadway. When I visited NYPD to update the investigation I was told at the front desk that the detectives only see people regarding murders — a hit-and-run in SoHo was an irrelevancy.

I complain to the Community Board about the fact that the landlord of the building that I was living in was abusing and harassing tenants, using tenants as spies to find ways to evict rent stabilized tenants, and allowing and may have been involved in a sex trafficking operation with underage girls — and had stolen the building from the previous owners under very suspicious circumstances. Toby Bergman was the chairman of the community board at one point when I described some of these conditions and he found it to be very humorous. The community board has never done anything to assist the residents in SoHo and has become an insulated donation/patronage operation which does nothing for us Senior, Disabled pedestrians. In fact CB2 and Deborah Glick has allowed the Hudson Square BID and the SoHo BID to essentially operate a money producing racket for their employees and investor friends while controlling real estate interests Downtown.

Then, when I contacted Richard Fife in the DAs office to describe criminal behavior on the part of my landlord, I was totally ignored. They don’t even return emails when crime is reported.

I attempted to get DOT to provide ticket writing traffic agents — since the agents that currently monitor the traffic flow on Canal Street, Avenue of the Americas, Broome Street, Watts Street areas do not have the ability to write tickets. There is no way to get anything done to improve the safety for pedestrians. In fact I was a member of Community Board 2 and discussed these items 20 years ago and absolutely nothing has been done, except to add several traffic agents that are unable to write tickets.

The improvements of adding bikes for transportation, in lower Manhattan and elsewhere is laudable and I knew Sadik Khan who was a biker and who influenced the Bloomberg administration to improve the ability for people to ride bikes, however, bikes have overtaken pedestrians and we are no longer safe. Further, the installation of Citibike bike racks (owned by Lyft and Citibank) has, in many cases, interfered with the ability for seniors and the disabled to get into their vehicles safely for doctor appointments and transportation without the risk of being hit by a tourist or delivery service motorbike. The biking interests which include Transportation Alternatives are on the verge of becoming a fascistic organization that provides opportunities for those who are acolytes of biking where those of us who are disabled and seniors are left behind to our own devices and safety. This should be the domain of the community board which completely anbrogated its obligation to protect us.

For Disney fans, hopefully you will appreciate the new blocklong building at 137 Varick street also known as 7 Hudson Square. They are a new, valued addition to Hudson Square, buddies with the Hudson Square BID and Trinity Real Estate—who deserve each other. We should welcome them.

Note: The only downtown politician who actually does anything for SoHo is Christopher Marte — who is running for Speaker of the City Council.

“Forgive your enemies but always remember their names.”

— John F. Kennedy

You know, what is most disconcerting about the anxiety-riddled time that we live in, is the fact that when abusive, heavy-handed stupid people try to impose their will on the populace they believe they can force their point of view on us all as well. If anything, the reverse is true. If history has taught us anything, it is that ultimately, freedom will out — like truth and the debunking of lies rising to the surface. It was Goebbels who said “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” And, the Third Reich would last “A thousand Years.”

Apparently, that didn’t work out too well.

So, liars and abusers, strongmen and dictators rise to the surface and abuse those who are not aggressive or punitive like them. The so-called weak, the disabled, the poor, the not-entitled in our new entitled-only America, the ostensibly Christian superior zeitgeist — has no place, even if you accept the bible. Apparently the not entitled or rich should leave or become slaves to the their Superiors.

Perhaps. But, as Don Ameche once said, “Things Change.” Remember that as you hear the lies intended to sway your vote and swallow it whole.

On a lighter note, here’s a couple of short pieces from my stay in prison, supported by my landlord and pushed by the politicians in the Town of Southampton — for housing the poor and exposing corruption — a vindictive prosecution based upon lies arranged by D.A. Thomas Spota, his associates Thalia Stavrides, Southampton Town Supervisor Skip Heaney and Town Investigator David Betts in the Hamptons. The pedulum did swing in that vindictive prosecution — and the DA was prosecuted partly as a result of my writing and he went to prison.

______________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile as I languished in prison due to this vindictive prosecution, I met a few people:

“Y’know dis place remin’s me a the funeral parlor in Wes’ Palm,” said Cuba.

“What?” I laughed.

“Dis guy Ray, dat I usta ged drugs from. He hadda funeral parlor.” 

“No shit?”

“Yeah, he did a lotta work fa the Haitians. Usta be called Little Haiti.”

“So, you hung out in a funeral parlor?”

“Yeah, but not so much in the business, but, at his home.” 

“At his home?”

“Yeah, he had a whole basement fulla caskets.” 

“With bodies in them?”

“Some a dem. Yeah, he had bodies layin’ aroun’ allova. But, he kept a lotta dem at the parla. But, he was very loose and he kept a lotta urns in his house too. He was high mosta’ th’time.”

“Urns?”

“Yeah, he mixed his business an’ home-life. But, a coupla times people would call ‘im an he’d tell’em ta come by his house.”

“For what?”

“Well, this one time I’m there an’ I’m scorin’ some shit an’ the people come by for their urn. Y’know, they had someone cremated and he jes’ forgot about it. So, he tol’em ta come by his house.”

“Yeah, and?”

“So, he haddan assistant there an’ he says let’s go inta the garage an’ he pulls dis urn off the shelf and breaks it open wid a hammer and tells the guy, ‘Here pud dis innaa urn an’ give it ta dem when ‘ey come tada door. Den he scoops up some’a th’ashes wid a little beach shovel and putsid inta the urn and covas it.”

“Well, whose ashes were they?” I asked.

“I dunno. He din’ eitha. An’ he din’ give a shit. We was both high on dope an’ he jes wanned taget ridda th’ people. Y’know, he charged ’em $900 f’a a cremation. He hadda giv’em dere money’s worth. So, he gave ’em a urn wid ashes an’ some bones it it. He had no idea whose dey were. An’ I think dey was chicken bones from Popeye’s. Da people din’ know an’ ‘ey din’ care. Y’know the people who picked it up? Dey neva figg’id it was anythin’ bud dere’s.”

“Jesus Christ. And, you can’t do DNA on ashes can you?” 

He laughed. “Nah, nobody’d eva foun’ out.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

January  29th, 2016

“After a morning of frigid walking in the Yard, my sinuses were suffering. The entire dorm was a coughing, sneezing, spitting, cursing sea of beds. Not simply because they were sick, but  because the heating system was hot air with no windows open. Wood wouldn’t allow it.

Forced hot, dry air heat without humidity was a killer. It dried out the nasal passages and forced our bodies to produce histamines. Which caused nasal drips and lung infections. Jimmy was sick and Cuba made him tea with honey.

“Yeah, Cuba did a nice job. I feel better already. But, y’know bro, I gotta geddoutahere.”

“I know Jimmy. You have a family to live with?”

“Yeah. Me and my sister. My brother’ll get out soon.” 

“He in jail?”

“My brother?” 

“Yeah.”

“Oh, my brother’s been in prison for almost 20 years.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, when we were kids, I told you about my mother and father; we was separated and we each were placed with different people. My brother didn’t do so well.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guy was raping him.”

“Who, the one taking care of him?”

“Yeah, he raped my brother starting at the age of 9 years old. Did that for 4 years until my mother took him to the doctor and they checked him out. He didn’t say anything ‘cause the guy said he’d kill him.”

“So, what happened?”

“Well, my brother always said that if he ever found him, he’d kill him.”

“What happened?”

“They prosecuted the guy and he did a few years and then he got out. And, when he did, my brother tracked him down and found him.”

“And,..?”

“Put a bullet in his head. Then he buried him. They gave him 25 flat. He’ll be out in 22 and a half.” 

“Why did they give him so much time?”

“They wouldn’a done it if he din’ lie about it. The cops knew what’d happened to him. But, he hid the body. They finally found it two years later. Some woman was shopping an’ ‘is arm and leg was sticking up someplace near a parking lot. He didn’t bury the guy very well. So, when they found him they knew who it was and even though my sister got the best New York City attorney and paid him $50,000; the best they could get him was 25 flat.” 

“Jesus. After he’d been raped for years?”

“Yeah,  cause he lied to them and buried ‘im and it took ’em 2 years. He coulda gotten 35 years fa that. Dey also neva found his dick and balls. Musta gone ta town on ‘im.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Y’know, I’m just tired of these stupid people. I’m not gonna do this again. I’m done.”

“What do you mean?”

“This,” he said, “look around.” They were in the Rec room. 

“These people. I can’t do this again.”

Copyright: Confessions from the Gulag

“An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.”

— Simon Cameron

I distinctly remember looking across my desk in the prison Law Library where I worked for four years, at Charlie — known as ‘The Pussy Killer’ among the inmates. He’d graduated from the NYPD cadet school, married a Correction Officer, and then, after a contentious divorce he kept tabs on her. Apparently, like a mobster, he believed she was still his property and visited her until she had a date one night. After her new bed partner escaped out the window, onto the fire escape, Charlie placed his .357 magnum between his ex-wife’s legs and emptied the gun into her vagina. He then wrapped her in a rug, placed her in the front seat of his car and dropped her off into the East River — while she was still breathing. I knew him after he’d already done 29 years for first degree murder with depraved indifference. I found him to be difficult at times but I had no choice about dealing with Charlie. D.A. Thomas Spota, A.D.A. Thalia Stravides, and Supervisor Patrick “Skip” Heaney, saw to that.

Charlie’s friends in prison, like Animal, who dismembered his victims after raping them — or the Carnival Killer, who picked up young girls, raped them and then buried them in his backyard — were my new, daily cellmates, but not my chosen associates. I had been sent to prison for nearly five years because the Suffolk County District Attorney and his prosecutor, sought to make me their chosen target. Thomas Spota and Stavrides were operating a criminal enterprise, namely the Southampton Town’s Supervisor and Town Attorney’s office which I had been exposing for years. And, I had been brought to their attention by several members of the Southampton Town and Westhampton Beach political class for trying to solve the Affordable Housing crisis that has been rife with racism, corruption and outright theft for many years. Huge amounts of money was being squirreled away in the Town’s slush fund known as The Preservation Fund and I simply pointed it out.

I had purchased dozens of new houses from a builder in Southampton during the expansive, CDO-driven economy written about by Michael Lewis in The Big Short — and rented these properties to immigrants, Latinos, Blacks, poor Whites and other hard-working individuals — while writing about corruption in my magazine The SoHo Journal, and in my two blogs.

While I was solving the Affordable Housing crisis by providing new homes, writing about corruption in the Town of Southampton, and paying mortgages diligently I did not count on the degree of animosity and criminality in the Southampton Town Attorneys Office, its Supervisor’s office, or in the District Attorney’s Office under Thomas Spota and Stavrides.

Even I was surprised when Spota and his Assistant District Attorneys were later prosecuted and imprisoned themselves.

However, I had been prosecuted for Grand Larceny — stealing from banks that had offered No income, No Asset, No credit check, No money down loans. Nevertheless, the loans were paid on time until the Town of Southampton sent around the Code Enforcement Police, under the direction of David Betts and Supervisor “Skip” Heaney to tell the tenants NOT to pay rent. This plan was to force all of my property and property owned by my partners and me (for writing about their corruption), — which was rented to the people they hated, into foreclosure. The Great Recession, the Southampton Attorney’s Office, the corrupt assistance from Westhampton Beach Village, did the rest.

I was given a choice. Agree to take a plea to Grand Larceny for $50 mlllion dollars for stealng money frm those poor banks which had molested America’s economy and go to prison — or we’ll make sure you are evicted from your New York apartkment and your wife will go to prison and your children will be wards of the State.

Meanwhile, Spota used one of my attorneys to purloin $4.1 million dollars from Steve Levy, the County Executive and convinced him to resign. Why? Because one of my attorneys was paying Levy off for title work. He and Spota entered into a non-prosecution agreement and my attorney Ethan Ellner was allowed to walk away from everything.

I was sent to prison.

But Ellner was stealing froim the immigrants. He stole money from them and arranged loans they couldn’t afford.

Ellner received no jail time for lying about the purchases I’d made to help the poor find housing. I rented new homes to them. But, I was the criminal. Not the banks, not the politicians, not the Code Enforcement, not the Town Attorneys not the Supervisor of Southampton, not DA Spota or Stavrides.

————————————————————————————————–

But, in a recent Newsday article, an investor has been accused of stealing and defrauding immigrants, Latinos, poor people — in the Hamptons:

“Hamptons real estate scam allegations mounted for years before state action…

“The accusations against him, first reported by Newsday in May, are one of the latest examples of alleged real estate scams disproportionately affecting Latino immigrants. Since 2016, at least 17 buyers have sued Michael O’Sullivan, alleging fraud or breach of contract in deals in which they paid over $5 million, according to a Newsday investigation. At least half the plaintiffs are Latino, including eight who say English is not their first language, according to court documents and attorney statements.Some buyers waited years for deeds that were never filed, while others said they were unaware their properties were in foreclosure.

…He was told by the district attorney’s office that it saw the cases as a civil matter.

Tania Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, declined to comment.”

In other words, folks, if you’re not conducting a Vindictive Prosecution to punish Freedom of Speech in the face of defending against corruption, it’s a Civil Matter. You can search apartments, publications, raid houses without a warrant, and imprison landlords — if you feel like it in the Hamptons!

Apparently, it was all really about how much money Spota and Stavrides could steal when they thought they could make millions from me, as they did with Steve Levy during the three years they delayed my case to torture me and my family, poison the jury pool, destroy my reputation, steal all of my assets, and connect with the criminals who owned the building I and my family lived in. It destroyed my health and damaged the health of my family.

But I had no money to fight them. I was too busy providing affordable housing and paying mortgages.

My actions were apparently not just a civil matter because I wasn’t paying off the District Attorney.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Donald Clark MacPherson True Crime novels: Prisoner of the Hamptons, A Civil Death in the Hamptons & Murder in SoHo

“Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?”
― Honoré de Balzac

 

Do you really give a shit about your neighbor?

Schadenfreude is not really a new concept? How about racism? Liberalism? Democracy?

As a friend of mine said recently, Conservatives have always hated the idea of equality or Fair play. It’s always been, take what you can get, fuck the Blacks and screw the immigrants — even when that meant italians and the Irish arriving by the boatload. This is not a kind or tolerant society.

Take the Hamptons, for instance — that lily-white bastion of New York escapees who located a Shangri-La near the beach where they could set up shop and rip off their own heritage. Most of the residents in the Town of Southampton, for example, came from families in Queens, Brooklyn the Bronx and Staten Island –with a few escapees from Manhattan who saw how Grand Theft works in practice, for example. Of course, now that generational progress has occurred, their children, card-carrying members of the Suffolk County Civil Service long-con stand on principle, not just Bridgehampton potato farmer families.

So, it was never a question of having to wait for the current environment of a police state mentality to surface. It was always there. Now, however, the gloves have come off all across America. Apparently we hate and distrust everyone and have been trying to hide our dislike of Blacks, Gays, Latinos, Democrats, Women, Transgenders and all Immigrants — except for Russians and others with lots of cash. Except, we wear masks now so that the real reason for past pretense of humanity need not be pretended any longer. We don’t, apparently really like anyone. It’s all always been about optics. Not just Conservatives, but Democrats, Liberals, Magas, and Whites. All bullshit, all the time.

Take the Supervisor of the Town of Southampton, Maria Moore, for instance, who recently sued The Shinnecock Indian Nation for Freedom of Speech — over signage.

I could have warned the Indians about that, who are mostly Black, since Africans took over the tribe when the redskins died out. After all it was the Town of Southampton that pursued me for writing about corruption and racism. Why should they get a pass? If it were up to the Republican Party, the party of Trump, Code Enforcement, the Southampton Secret Police, would just arrest them. Optics, baby! It’s still somewhat the name of the game — standing in for morality in this Best of all possible worlds!. Patrick Heaney of course, the former Supervisor of Southampton, and his Code Enforcement Police were in operation long before ICE became a popular form of Secret Police. They pushed the criminal D.A Thomas Spota and his prosecutor Stavrides to pursue what is known as Civil Death against me for writing about the corrupt Supervisor and criminal Town Attorneys operating out of that office — sitting atop more than $2 Billion dollars in purloined transfer tax money, known euphemistically as The Preservation Fund. It’s money taken from New Yorkers buying houses in the Fabulous Hamptons where you can get arrested for writing avout criminal politicians. Moore left Westhampton Beach after running out of development deals to enrich some of her local friends on the Zoning Board, Building Department, Village Trustees, Village Attorney and real estate investors. In Westhampton Beach Village, the new Most Corrupt Village in the Hamptons. A place where you pay to get any deal.

Screw the little people! Who needs affordable housing anyway?

But it’s not just the Hamptons that has foisted this little-hidden immorality. SoHo suffers from another perverse sort of predilection. Elected politicians serve their personal fiefdoms downtown, like Assemblymember Deborah Glick and Brian Kavanagh and Community Board #2 which has all but ignored SoHo — except for pandering to the bike fascists, Transportation Alternatives, the SoHo BID and the Hudson Square BID people — and ignore Seniors and the Disabled and perpetually line their pockets at the expense of residents. CB2 is so disinterested in the lives of non-members that I described a sex-trafficking operation run by my landlord to the Board Chairman and was laughed at.

Numerous accidents have occurred here downtown as well, hurting or killing residents. Criminal behavior by influential real estate interests are ignored by politicians and CB2. But nothing is done. Even Alvin Bragg’s press sidekick Fife and his A.D.A’s don’t give a shit about SoHo.

It is the morality of cash. In the Hamptons, the politicians are so obvious its not even necessary to point the finger. In fact, when Heaney was Supervisor they found cash in an envelope on the front seat of his car and they did nothing. In Westhampton Beach the Village Attorney Anthony Pasca has lied in legal proceedings to win cases for Village real estate interests and his law firm. In SoHo, its done by approved deals, secret, rushed votes, or intimidation as was the case when Bob Rinaolo threatened Community Board members to vote for his Nursing Home deal. Downtown we get Citibike racks instead of space for Seniors and the Disabled to safely cross the street or hail a taxi using a cane courtesy of the Community Board’s speedy unannounced votes and the Hudson Square BID, assisted by Trinity Real Estate. And, donations to campaigns are commonplace. Jobs are offered. Cash is handed out on occasion. Or, with more subtle politicians, such as Roy Cohn, Trump’s former mentor, it’s The Favor Bank.

The current morality in America is basically, Fuck You! We have money and power and you don’t. And we don’t care about you. We don’t care about optics anymore just like our president. We run the world and we we don’t care about anyone.

Including each other!

“Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.“

— Edward Abbey

Those of you who have neither been to Washington DC or worked in the South Bronx in the 1970’s, a State Psychiatric hospital or the Justice system in New York can be excused for realizing how bizarre the zeitgeist is right now. I’ve worked in all of them and what’s going on now is just stupid shit. Penny-ante fantasies created by schmucks who watched too many movies starring Bugs Bunny, co-starring Clarabell the clown. We were the Vietnam generation and none of my friends came back — with or without bone spurs.

Let’s face it, being kind to those in need has not exactly worked out. That’s the problem with liberalism. There’s a guy downstairs in my building, for example, sleeping on the steps where a Ukrainian Liquor store used to be and he sits there with a blanket over his head. He could be undercover ICE, for all I know. But, he’s not paying rent and I am — but being evicted because I’m a Christian and know that my landlord is running a criminal enterprise. He gave up sex-trafficking because his shill died and since he and his family stole the building, litigation against tenants is now his favorite pastime. The Real Estate Board and Trinity Real Estate have a poster of these criminals on their walls, for adulation.

But, that’s not my point. The point is, most of Washington has always been a shithole except for where the monuments and the money is. But does that qualify for sending blacked-out vans full of guys (Politico.com) who just did a casting call for Khandahar, picking up people, not answering questions, and taking them away to be interrogated by Stephen Miller or Witkoff, his downtown developer friend? Come on guys, bring Jared or Ivanka back — how about some style? Everybody downtown wears black — how about pink? Stephen Miller, Hegseth, Witkoff in pink? Now that scares me!

If you’re going to terrify everyone, even the Beastie Bois, just lay it out, man! Everybody, go home, watch Fox News, and shut the fuck up! None of this slow, creeping horseshit. You run everything, there’s only one political party — as it should be — and fuck the Democrats. They’re all useless anyway! They’re still telling each other that “All Politics is Local” bullshit while “All theft is local” is better — as special interests like the BIDS are stealing the sidewalks under their feet and the Community Board is sitting around calling each other “Honorable” and fucking the residents who don’t donate to useless politicians!

If you’re going to arrest them all, use the vacant tents for the immigrants that were sent up by Abbott and DeSantis still out in Floyd Bennet Field where they took out Sonny in the Godfather. And, guys, remember, Pacino wore great suits. Castellano got hit because Gotti knew how to dress right. Tell the Boss to start seeing the tailor on Baxter.

So, before you take over Manhattan, like Washington, clean up your act. The Bois downtown are used to this. If you send unmarked vans, blacked out windows, commandos dressed in black with Uzi’s, Sig Sauers, Tech 9’s and Glock 17’s — with masks and black burkas on — make sure you don’t say anything. They might think you’re dressed for a party in SoHo and sound like they’re a bunch of rubes from Toledo looking to impress. In fact, if you want them to get respect, tell them to shoot first, knife the immigrants, and bow to the Chinese on Canal Street if they want any decent food. The canolis aren’t as good as they used to be — you have to go to La Mela’s on Mulberry. And send guys from Brooklyn, they’ll get respect.

Stay Tuned.

“Politicians and diapers have one thing in common: they should both be changed regularly… and for the same reason.“

Naturally, in fighting the fascists, there certainly are no instances of corruption among God’s chosen protectors of Democracy, right?. All are White Knights, not the KKK version, of course. But, consider this. While the Republicans blunder and thunder through destroying our waning civil rights, all around us we are steeped in Democratically inspired and controlled corruption.

How can you say that — you say?

Well, in SoHo you need only look around to understand. You see, the Democrats are just sneakier about screwing you. Hiding behind organizations claiming to help us. Like the most recent fraud called the Hudson Square BID that doesn’t even answer the phone.

Our elected officials are no longer responsible or accountable. Assemblywoman Deborah Glick has been in office a long time. She keeps getting elected because she has a Village base, not because she does anything. Senator Kavanaugh got into office through a power play in Brooklyn — contrary to the will of voters. Schumer has his hands full in D.C. and Nadler is on his way to the golf course.

None of them want to face the power brokers who run Downtown.

It’s the Hudson Square BID, the SoHo BID, Trinity Real Estate, and Transportation Alternatives that run Downtown. They do what they want and answer to no one. And, the politicians don’t even answer the phone, an email, or a letter. They are unaccountable and don’t give a shit about anything but collecting money to get re-elected.

The Community Board, for example, never even brought up the fact that Downtown is being overtaken by Citibikes, bike racks, butchered streets and impediments to Seniors and the Disabled — pandering to BIDs that are power-players from elsewhere — without giving a damn about residents. The Community Board no longer represents the community, only its own campaign-donation self-service machine. The BIDS have bought the cooperation and fealty of the politicians and the Boards.

Fuck the residents!

We are overrun by bikes that hit us doing 40 MPH, we lose parking spaces to bike racks and junk installed by the BIDS, are ignored by NYPD and Traffic Agents, and interrogated rather than assisted by police after experiencing Hit & Run drivers — while the BIDS collect their extortion money allowed by do-nothing politicians.

The Hudson Square BID has a nice website but the vest park around the Holland Tumnel, the bike racks, the so-calle beautification — has replaced the gritty commercial anonymity with corporate gentrification that is self-serving and tone-deaf. Not to mention ignorance of what seniors and long-time resients want.

“The BID was unanimously approved as the 64th BID in New York City by the City Council on January 28, 2009. The BID is funded primarily through the payment of an annual assessment on commercial property with an annual budget of $3.2 million.”

President Samara Karasyk did not grow up among the “Tunnel Bunnies” and I can assure you that she is ignorant of the fact that 25 years after not being able to safely cross Canal or Broome Street, which I wrote about in 1999, the BID is disinterested — even though it is still true. Flowers are nice but the BID is a self-justifying, gratuitous fake.

Is it time to invite the fascist Clowns in and overturn this little club to clean up the corruption? Would taking over Manhattan, like Washington, be an answer?

Stay tuned.