04 Jul 08

Postcards from Long Island (1)

Long Island - Promising young cellmate I taught to trade the financial markets. Released on the 11th of December '05 and recently rearrested. Alleged to have committed forgery and hit an officer with a car. He is writing from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Towers jail.


6-25-08

Shaun,

What’s up, bro! Please tell your readers that Long Island is far from dead! I want people to know and understand the truth, but I can’t speak about my case just yet.

I don’t know where to begin about the conditions at Towers. It’s Hotel Arpaio at its finest. Do you remember the cells at the Madison Street jail? The ones at Towers are slightly smaller and they’ve managed to weld a third bunk into every cell. The bottom bunk is about 8 inches off the floor, the middle is about 5 ft above the bottom and the top is about 2 ft from the ceiling. Sleeping on the top feels like laying in a coffin.

They’ve taken away all the diets and created a menu that accommodates everyone. They still serve the rancid sack breakfast in the morning called a Ladmo bag. There’s no lunch. Dinner is about 7pm. It’s now the same every day. Cabbage and potatoes covered in some type of gravy AKA slop of a different color a couple of times a week. Do you miss red death? It’s truly a new low for Arpaio and appalling that he gets away with it.

I don’t know why it surprises me though. I thought I saw it all when they stopped allowing letters to be written and received. I wish the Postal Inspectors would stop sweating me for a minute and figure out if not allowing us to receive letters is legal or not.

The only times we are allowed to make legal calls are between 3pm and 5pm. You know as well as I do no lawyer is still in his office that late in the afternoon. That subject is something that really angers me. Both times I got sentenced to prison I had to use a public defender and I got railroaded and didn’t even know it. I was fortunate enough to be able to retain private counsel this time and it’s a whole different ball game. It angers me so much when I see these guys getting pressured into signing plea bargains by their own attorneys. Sometimes for years of their lives. I did the same thing in the past.

I’ll write more later. I’m in here fighting for my life. The truth about the conditions in jail needs to be known, but that’s only part of the corruption I’ve seen.

Let me know how freedom is treating you, brother. No one deserves success more than you. You’ve always had my deepest respect.

Your friend,

Long Island

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