ACID TRIP
A TALE OF GOOD MISFORTUNE

PART 1

Busted

     Seemed like any other Wednesday. We spent the weekend doing what the family always did the past five years, enjoying the Kerrville Folk Festival. But this was the midweek break and the insurance premium was due, as well as the van registration and a few other mundane bureaucratic endeavors attached onto life in America. I headed to the Elgin post office to mail off the payments and pick up my keys, which I left in the P.O. Box the last time I checked the mail.

     When I arrived at the P.O. there was a sheriff's car parked out front. That didn't set off any warning bells because it was a frequent experience at the Elgin P.O. I went up the stairs and through the vestibule to the counter. Behind the counter, did Jim, the postal counter guy, know what I was looking for? Well, yes because he had the keys ready to hand to me. And did he know a little bit about my immediate future also? Probably yes to that one too. I turned around to head out the door and there were the two sheriffs flanking me. They had quietly entered while I was yakking at Jim and waited for our interaction to end before making their presence known.

     "Are you Michael Sommers"? One of them asked. "Ohhhh Sheeith!!" I thought. And as quickly as the mind can, mine did an inventory of the I.D. that I had with me. The first review came up with an interesting belief. I didn't have any I.D. on me that said "Michael Sommers" on it. I didn't have my wallet with me, although I was wearing my fanny pack. So I answered no. Then upon further review I came up with the fact that there was something in my fanny pack that did identify me as Michael Sommers. So I amended my response to a yes. And I was informed that I was under arrest. They handcuffed me behind my back and searched me. Upon going through my fanny pack they encountered the $5000 I was carrying. It was a lot more than I usually had on me but the intention of my journey that day was to spread some money into the economy.

     Bummer. Got the ride to the local Bastrop County jail complex, passing on the way the Bastrop Federal Correctional Institution (F.C.I.). I didn't get any kind of realization at that time that this was to be my ultimate destination for the forced vacation that I was about to be sent on. I didn't get much of a realization of anything at all through the fog of depression that I entered into upon the placement of the handcuffs on my wrists.

     Upon entering the jail complex I was allowed a phone call, which went to my retained lawyer, before I was given the new set of clothing that I was to have as my entire wardrobe for the next three weeks, the official federal trial pending orange jumpsuit.

     Thus began my odyssey through the criminal justice system and the interesting experiences that it was to bring me.

     I was an acid dealer. I had some experiences experimenting with psychedelics as a teenager, which changed my perspective on the direction and goals that gave value to my energy and life. I experienced a state of consciousness while on an LSD trip in which I fully achieved an ego death and felt with every part of my being that I am my oneness with all that is. One of the finest experiences I have ever achieved.

     Having had this profound spiritual experience I had an admiration and respect for the potential of LSD and other psychedelics. For a time I attempted to recreate that experience. But I got such a negative response from my peer group for trying, as far as they could see to get catatonic, that I failed to get back there and have that experience again. As a result for a short time I was pretty spaced out. I got tired of that though and gradually stopped taking any drugs.

     I went on and did my life for a few years without doing any further experimentation with LSD. The lessons learned were enough to change the direction of my life without any reinforcement on an ongoing schedule.

     Then sometime in the mid-1980's I ran into someone who was marketing LSD and I took the opportunity to see how selling it would treat me.

     Surprisingly, selling it was as easy and flowing and right feeling as anything that I had done in my life. So I became an acid dealer.

     In January 1991 I had a business relationship with a couple who resided in Virginia. I was living in Texas. The way we did business was through the mail.

     I was thoroughly aware of the illegality of my ongoing actions. Although I had no ethical problems with getting what I considered a tool for enlightening experiences to those whom desired such experiences.

     My friends in Virginia were at that time distributing to a woman who resided in Delaware. Local Delaware police busted her. She was a poor single mother supplementing her income. She certainly had more loyalty to her child than to the chain of dealers she associated with. So she did what she could to make her life where she could remain with her child. She told them where she was getting the LSD. She also told them where her connection was getting their LSD.

     It seems that the couple I was doing business with had in the course of normal conversation with her stated that they were getting the LSD from "Mike in Texas."

     Upon receiving this information the police deduced that federal laws were being broken, and the U.S. mail was being utilized to break the law. So they gave this information to U.S. postal inspectors, whose function is to arrest and prosecute persons who behave in violation of the laws pertaining to the mail system.

     The postal inspectors decided to arrange to have the couple from Virginia drive across state lines to deliver some LSD to the woman from Delaware. When they arrived for their rendezvous they would be arrested. Then upon arrest the inspectors would induce the couple to keep the arrest ball rolling by setting up "Mike from Texas."

     Their plan worked as planned and after their arrest the husband of the couple was calling me from the federal courthouse four days later, unbeknownst to me, to arrange for my mailing a package containing 2000 doses of LSD to them. And I did.

     The couple from Virginia did not know my given name. They only knew me by a name I had been labeled years ago and used exclusively when engaged in the LSD business. The address I used on my package also was innocuous and untraceable back to me. There were no fingerprints on the package I sent.

     The method I used for people to get a hold of me was for them to call a beeper number. Upon the receipt of the page I would call them back. I used a cellular phone that was not in my name to place the call back to Delaware. And the words we used during the call made no mention of the nature of the package that I understood I was to send to them. So essentially after going through the trouble of having me send them the LSD the government did not know who they were receiving the package from nor did they have enough evidence to take to a grand jury and get an indictment.

     They had to have my customer place another call to make a second order. This time he had to mention during the call, which was being taped, that what we were speaking of in the package was LSD. My lawyer later stated that he had never heard tapes of such exceptional quality obtained through a government operation. My customer actually said that upon receiving the first package, opening and touching the paper upon which the LSD was placed he experienced an LSD trip and was a bit surprised that this occurred. I answered simply that this is what we referred to in the business as an industrial accident. This admonition became enough to have secure evidence that I was the perpetrator in this endeavor. And there was a thumbprint on the second package sent.

     With that evidence the government went to the grand jury and obtained an indictment and arrest warrant.

     But they still didn't know where I lived. I sent the packages from a post office with a bogus return address. I had the money orders that I accepted as payment sent to a P.O. box in a town different than where I lived and in another name. They did have my P.O. box number in Elgin though. I had corresponded with the couple from Virginia through that box and had them send payment to it in the past. An attempt was made to arrest me by sending some postal inspectors to the Post Office box where I had the money orders sent and apprehend me when I picked them up. This box was located at the main postal facility in Austin. This did not work out for them because I never went to that post office until after midnight. Apparently postal inspectors only work 9 to 5. Even while on stakeout. The federal government then gave the job of apprehending me to the local sheriffs department.

     Their plan was to wait at the Elgin post office every day until 11.00 a.m. If I came in before then they would have me. I didn't happen to do that for three months though.

Hays County Detention

     I only had a short wait at the Bastrop County jail facility. Since I was a federally charged detainee I would be sent to the nearest facility where all federal detainees were placed. They stayed there until their trial was completed and either their innocence was established or their guilt was established. In central Texas this was the Hays County jail facility, outside of San Marcos.

     When the federal marshals showed up that evening to escort me to Hays County I went through the rigmarole of being processed out of Bastrop County jail. It was then that I was informed that the local postal inspectors had showed up in the meantime and had confiscated the $5000 I had in the fanny pack. Kiss that money good-by.

     They put me into a large van and drove me to San Marcos. Here I was stripped, fingerprinted and photographed. At this point I was given my new federal identification number, which is the main way the Feds have to name someone. Your name becomes nothing of any consequence and when asked to be identified, they want you to recite your number to them. This is one more dehumanizing thing to press the point of how much less you are than all of the non-incarcerated joe blows on the street.

     Then I was handed my orange jumpsuit. After being processed into the facility I was led to the holding cell I was designated to and shown where the only open bunk there was located. Business was booming for the Federal law enforcement community in central Texas.

     The county holding experience consists of being placed in a large cinder block room filled with bunk beds arranged along the walls. There were about thirty-six detainees in the room I was placed. Virtually all of them awaiting the outcome of drug charges lodged against them.

     Something that was consistent with each of my new neighbors was their basic incredulity that they had landed here, and their lack of preparedness. We all were engaged in activities that were both against the law and carried stiff penalties. But I was the only one there that had a lawyer on retainer at the time of my arrest as well as a healthy bail fund. Seems that there is a heavy tendency towards denial for the law breaking class.

     The door is a solid metal one that is operated through the application of electro-magnetics. A large window placed to the right of the door displays the guard station. A guard sits at a console there and operates the controls for three dormitories placed adjacent to each other. All of the rooms held approximately the same number of detainees. There are shower and toilet facilities connected to the room. The front portion of the room is furnished with several metal versions of a picnic table. The seats were constructed as metal planks and attached to the table. All the amenities are provided such as towels, soap, shampoo and razors. There is also a commissary system set up whereby a detainee is provided with a list of items available to purchase once a week. Detainees fill out what they want and the money necessary is deducted from an account the detainee has established by having money sent into the facility from someone outside.

     A detainee's day pretty much consists of first waking up and getting his morning toilet regiment done. Breakfast is provided usually at six A.M. Trays with the morning's offerings are brought to a slot placed in the wall and they are passed through to detainees who take them one at a time and sit at one of the metal tables. Then detainees may amuse themselves in any fashion they have contrived, reading, playing cards, playing chess, conversing about vagaries of the judicial system, or sleeping. There is a television set located on one of the walls. It is turned on at an early hour and remains on until about nine at night. The choice of programming is worked out by the detainees and surprisingly smoothly. Lunch is provided just before noon and dinner is served at about five.

     Detainees are permitted to move for an hour, Monday through Friday from the holding dorm to another walled enclosure that is unroofed but is covered with a hurricane fence. This is the exercise yard. There are two basketball goals and a court marked off, a small selection of weights and room to do any solitary exercise that they can think of. Doing jail time for me pretty much came to amusing myself until there's a break in the routine. These occur with court appearances and the weekly library visit.

     I was taken for my arraignment the next morning. I was allowed to change into the clothing that I was brought in with, handcuffed and shackled. Shackling consists of placing ankle cuffs with a two-foot chain connecting them and a chain placed from that ankle chain to a waist chain.

     The arraignment pretty much consisted of the Federal Attorney relating to the judge that the federal court in Delaware wanted me and it was his preference and theirs that I be sent there ASAP. My lawyer and I chose to fight this extradition. A pretty standard legal tactic for one in my position until more information is provided. Another hearing was set up for a bail hearing. An event that everyone in my position is afforded. Then I was carted back to San Marcos.

     I had many family members and friends who provided testimony and financial collateral in support of my being granted bail. At the hearing there was more than enough testimony provided to the judge to grant bail and he did. But the Federal Attorney appealed my being granted bail unless I allowed myself to be extradited to the court in Delaware.

     As it was a fait accompli that this would happen eventually, my extradition. The longer that I postponed the preferences of the prosecutors there the more resentment would be built up by them towards me. This was not a favorable adversarial position to be in when entering a court of law. So I agreed to be sent to Delaware.

The El Reno Shuffle

     Have you per chance seen or had your attention drawn to a recent movie titled, "Con Air?" The premise of this movie is that a group of very dangerous and therefore Life without parole or Death sentenced federal inmates are being transported to a new more secure high-level facility by an airplane manned by Federal Marshals. Of course they almost escape but one honest inmate who was incidentally being transported to his release destination saved the day.

     The real life parallels exist. There has been a new highest security federal penitentiary created at Florence, Colorado. Supposedly this facility is built similar to the model that we have been presented of NORAD, the air force and missile command center also located in Colorado. The belief is that this place is essentially underground. The premise is that only persons who have life sentences without the chance of ever seeing the outside of a prison this lifetime are incarcerated there. Essentially those who enter never leave until they are carried out in a pine box. There is also a facility in Marion Ohio, I believe the one that John Gotti was sent to, that was essentially built underground.

     The method that the government utilizes to move inmates and detainees around the country was in the early to mid 1990's with a couple of 737 airliners and a bunch of smaller planes as well as some privately contracted planes. The story about the 737's is that they were owned by the Colombian airline. They entered New York City with their wheel wells stuffed with cocaine. The U.S decided that they had to have been OK'd by the airlines to have that happen and so they were confiscated. Now they are the flagships of the Air Con fleet. Of course this is the urban legend spread by those of us who have traveled on it and is absolutely unconfirmed. Yet a pleasant legend to believe. A parallel belief is that the Government has a pretty large fleet of other confiscated planes that are used in the same manner.

     As with all airlines there are hubs for Air Con. El Reno, Oklahoma is the Midwest hub. El Reno is a Medium Security F.C.I. located west of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The planes are actually flown into Oklahoma City and the passengers are put into a bus and transported to El Reno. Virtually everyone who is put into an airplane and moved from the middle of the country to either the west or East Coast can be assured a stay at El Reno.

     After I chose to waive extradition, the marshals, who are actually in charge of getting prisoners from one incarceration facility to another or to court, decided that the court in Delaware was in some sort of a hurry to get me in their jurisdiction. So the day after I allowed myself to be sent to Delaware, I was brought up to the front of the facility where I was finger printed and photographed. Then I was allowed to dress and was handcuffed, leg shackled and had a chain connected between the handcuffs and shackles. That is the standard way a federal prisoner is secured before being moved. I was led out to a van, driven to the local San Marcos airport and placed on a twelve seat Lear Jet with two other inmates and two marshals. This was a nice ride. This plane took us directly to Oklahoma City and we were handed over to the local marshals for our bus ride to El Reno. As I remember three planes of various sizes arrived into the same area of the airport within a few minutes of each other. There was a short wait while incarcerates were removed from the planes while others were placed on them. The prisoners who were brought to the airport were transported there on bureau of prison marked busses. Those of us who got off were placed on the busses and driven to F.C.I. El Reno.

     This was my first experience of an actual Federal Prison facility. And a humbling experience it was. By the way that prisoners are treated by those guarding them it appears that someone has spent considerable time and effort to create and train guards to display an attitude that results in the recipient of the behavior to feel as dehumanized as possible. The adage "Despair you who pass through these doors" comes to mind.

     The busses entered a nondescript turnoff with a simple sign that stated, "Federal Correctional Facility, El Reno." This road traveled a short distance to reveal the prison. This was a totally walled compound with guard towers at each corner and razor wire strung up on top of the walls. In addition there was a ten-foot high fence surrounding the facility inside of the walls also topped with razor wire.

     We were led through several gates to a door entering the facility. This was a long narrow room with boxes at one end and a series of cubicles and the doors that led into the interior of the facility at the other. This area is designated Receiving and Discharge (R&D.) We were told to disrobe down to our underwear and place our clothing in the boxes. I was allowed to wear my court suit on this journey and any subsequent travel. The other incarcerates wore either street clothes or the orange jumpsuit.

     Next step was to have each of us enter one of the cubicles. A guard faced us at the opening. We were told to take our underwear off and go through the federal search routine. This was one of the most humiliating experiences that I had ever endured. It really sucked the first time.

     There were a series of six open-faced cubicles each separated by a wall from each other. Facing each cubicle was a guard. Six inmates at a time were directed to enter a cubicle and disrobe. Once naked we were directed to perform the standard B.O.P. search routine. This consisted of raising our arms, running our fingers through our hair and manipulating our ears. The next thing was to open the mouth and waggle the tongue in a circular motion while extending it outside of the mouth. Then we reached down and lifted our scrotums. The final maneuver was to turn around, bend over and spread our butt cheeks.

     This whole routine was created as a supposed way to check for any contraband that might be secreted on or in a person's body. Every time that I entered another facility and entered or left the visiting room I endured this routine. By the end of my internment it became an old friend that I created into a little dance for the poor schmuck who was on duty in the anteroom of the visiting room. I had done it enough to have all of the moves down and after the scrotum lift I would, in as fluid a motion as I could produce, turn around with a leap and do the bend over simultaneously. This provided a small amount of entertainment for the guard who was being subjected to a degrading task.

     We were given a new set of underwear, jumpsuit and shoes while still in the cubicle and after dressing were led through a door and into a hall. After walking through quite a maze of corridors we got to the room where our fingerprints and pictures were taken. This was also a routine that we were subjected to every time that we entered or left a federal facility. I went through this twice a day on numerous occasions going to and coming back from court.

     After that we were led to our weekend cells. This was somewhere in the deep depths of El Reno and away from the "Normal" holding cells for those who were just passing through. These were only one floor deep and ran adjacent to each other with a wall facing them. The corridor-facing portion of the cell was constructed of iron bars with an iron bar door in it.

     The weekend stay had us locked up for 24 hours a day from Friday evening until Monday morning in those cells. There was a television brought in and placed in the hall in the middle of the corridor for everyone in the row of ten adjacent cells to watch. And some of the cells had books left behind in them. We were fed by having our food brought to the cell. We were let out individually during the day to shower in a bathroom at the beginning of the corridor the cells were on. There was a stainless steel toilet placed in every room with a stainless steel mirror, the kind that you get a fuzzy image but not quite one that is usable for detail work in. Most of our entertainment that weekend came from swapping stories of how we had created ourselves to be there.

     On Monday we were taken out of that dogpatch location and brought to the usual holding wing. This place was straight out of old prison movies. Three tiers of cells all with simple iron bars on their fronts and the doors that opened and closed simultaneously via some sort of electro-magnetic operation.

     There were also inmates who actually were incarcerated full time at El Reno. They were housed in a portion of the facility where the rooms resembled the normal FCI fare. But it seemed that the majority there were just on their way from one more permanent location to another.

     In this section the normal routine was observed. We were all counted in the morning. After count was cleared the doors opened and all of us went down to the dining area to eat our meals. After the meal we were allowed to head for a recreation yard for exercise in the morning and pretty much had the run of the unit. Lunch was served at 11:30. At four P.M., we were once again told to go to our assigned cells to be counted. After the count cleared the doors were reopened and dinner was served.

     I observed no aggression within this transitory community on this pass through. Or at least I don't remember any. Since I am 6'4" and weigh between 220 and 250, depending on the degree to which I employ junk food as my main diet, I never had any problems with acts of aggression directed towards me. My size is an inherent intimidation that is perceived by our culture, and it acts as a natural deterrent against someone who is only interested in inflicting pain upon someone and not getting any pain inflicted back on themselves.

     The next day I was once again taken down to R&D to get my fingerprint, photo, clothing change routine out of the way before my admission to the bus back to the airport. I was introduced to a new technique utilized by the B.O.P. to further shackle someone. The Black Box. This is a box that is placed around the hands and locked into place of the already handcuffed person. This acts as a further impetus to becoming free of their bonds. Persons who have any history of an escape attempt get this treatment. The guy I was seated next to on this flight was black boxed.

     And after getting back on the plane, this time one of the 737's, my next destination was Philadelphia and the ride to Fairton, F.C.I. in southern New Jersey.

Legal Education Time

     Fairton F.C.I. is located in South Jersey. It was the closest federal facility to Wilmington, Delaware, where the federal courthouse was located that my run through the judicial system took place in.

     Fairton was relatively brand new, of a slew of new facilities that Reagan, Bush and their respective congresses chose to create after the change in the drug laws and the introduction of mandatory minimum sentencing created an enormous rise in federal prison populations. I believe it was about two years old when I arrived, not that I got to see the comparison with El Reno for awhile.

     After going through the entrance ritual I was summarily led to the hole. That is the segregation portion of the facility. A person normally gets the pleasure of enduring existence in the hole as a result of some behavior by them that is frowned upon by the Bureau of Prisons.(B.O.P.) Essentially for breaking the law while incarcerated. The hole is the prison within the prison. So the prime role of the hole was to send someone to jail if they broke the law of the prison.

     There are two designations for an individual while in the hole, administrative detention and disciplinary detention. Administrative detention is the term for someone who has not yet had due process of the alleged incident that normally got them sent to the hole completed. Or for a person who is detained because someone in the B.O.P thinks that it is a good idea. I was placed as an administrative detention classificee. Disciplinary detention is for those who have had what serves as due process, a hearing before one of the higher level administration folk, and have been found guilty of the infraction charged and sentenced to a term in seg.

     I had no idea why I was led straight there and no answer to my inquiry of why this was came to me.

     Everyone who resides in the hole wears only a jumpsuit. Since this was the only federal clothing I had ever worn I didn't know that I was missing something, like regular shirts and pants.

     The next morning I was taken to court for the hearing on the bail that was granted in Texas. Basically a determination in a federal court holds in any other federal court, so it was a fait accompli that I be freed. The bail was a secured $150,000. This means that no one had to put up any actual cash but my parents had to promise to fork over their home if I chose to take off rather than face the music. This was something (taking off) that I never considered.

     Up to this time I had not been questioned by any Federal Law Enforcement person. Not one cop had asked me anything about anything. I'm guessing that the fact that I had a lawyer from the git go kept questioners at bay but I really don't know. One stipulation that the judge gave me before I actually walked out of the courthouse was to be taken to a room where I was to give samples of my handwriting.

     They had the money orders they sent me to compensate for the acid I sent them. I had cashed them and in the process signed them on the back. But I didn't use my legal name in that process, rather I used an alias I had acquired.

     By saying that I had acquired an alias means that I actually had a birth certificate and Texas State photo I.D. under a different name than the one I was handed at birth. I got this through one of my customers. It was rather easy to do in Texas in the late 80's.

     First he went to a graveyard and searched for a tombstone of someone who was born about the same time I was but had died almost immediately. He then asked the graveyard administration which funeral home took care of the internment. Then he went to the funeral home and asked for the mother's maiden name and the full name of the father. Now armed with the name, birthday, and mother's maiden & fathers name I took this information to the Texas State records department and asked for a copy of my birth certificate. At that time the state had not reconciled the birth records with the death records. I don't know if they have as of yet. They then sent me a copy of the birth certificate. With that I went to the Department of Public Safety and got a Texas State I.D. card. I didn't care to push the envelope and attempt to get a drivers license. That takes social security cards and I didn't have the knowledge of how to go about approaching the federal government and asking for them to issue me my first social security card at the age of 36.

     I used that I.D. to cash the money orders. And signed the name listed on the I.D. on the back. So there I was in an office one of the postal inspectors had wrangled to use signing this alias for a long time. They required five signatures per money order and there were twenty money orders.

     The thing about money orders is that if you want to cash them at the post office and they are too large many times the postal clerk will not have enough money in their till to cover them. So I found that by keeping the amount at two hundred dollars per money order I could just about walk into any post office and there would be that much money in any clerk's till.

     Still no questions. I never did get questioned by a law enforcement person throughout my entire ordeal.

     Before leaving the courthouse I had to meet with my probation officer, Ellen Krause. She informed me that while out on bail and living with the parents I had to report to a local federal probation office regularly not far from my parent's house, in lieu of coming back to Wilmington once a month.

     I was released to my parents custody and lived in South Jersey for the next few months, and began my federal legal education.

     My lawyer was a good old boy who received his education from Baylor. There's nothing like a down to earth Baptist to represent you. Chuck Grigson came to my attention through being the court appointed lawyer for a friend and colleague. He was able to pull a seldom-used maneuver to let my friend escape the mandatory minimum ten-year sentence and receive a five-year sentence instead. As federal sentencing is pretty much written in stone through the 1987 laws enacted by congress this was an impressive feat. I had Chuck on retainer when I got busted. And he had relatives in Pennsylvania that he was over due to visit, so there was a bit of synchronicity to my timing.

     I had not actually seen the evidence that was gathered against me yet. Chuck did a discovery motion and we soon had all of the transcripts from all sorts of phone calls. This included those between the couple in Virginia and the lady in Delaware and between the couple in Virginia and myself.

     All in all it was apparent that there was little likelihood that I could be found not guilty by a jury so the prudent option was to plead guilty and get a small reduction in the sentence.

     Sentencing in the federal system was changed in the 1986 laws pertaining to drugs to be mandated by the weight of the "mixture or substance" of the controlled substance one was caught with. This was a great departure from the previous laws governing sentencing of persons convicted. Prior to 1986 the substance a person was busted with was analyzed and the actual amount of the controlled substance in the mix was what was used to determine the sentence applied. The judges also had some discretion as to mitigating factors and basically had Carte Blanch to set any sentence they chose. Therefore federal sentencing was not uniform at all throughout the country. Congress perceived that liberal minded federal judges gave disproportionately small sentences.

     When the war on drugs was conceived as a nice tool to get re-elected through, Congress got creative. There were a few main points that they decided to address. One was this practice of judicial discretion resulting in the Connecticut guy with an ounce of cocaine getting one year while the Texas guy got ten.

     When creating the sentencing guidelines the direction intended was one that gave similar sentences to similar ranks of offenders. The guidelines states:

     "Congress also sought reasonable uniformity in sentencing by narrowing the wide disparity in sentences imposed for similar criminal offenses committed by similar offenders." (S.Rep. 98-225 pp.45-52.)

     And the sentences were seen as just not punitive enough to deter continued drug sales. Congress took a look at this and said "whoa." If someone is out there with an envelope that has some white powder in it that they are telling whoever they are selling that envelope to, "Hey man, got cocaine here. Fine stuff too. Uncut." Well Congress figured that person was marketing his product as pure cocaine. They weren't saying, "Hey I've got about ten per cent cocaine here and the other 90% is some kind of inert filler that looks a lot like cocaine and mixes easily with it."

     Since that's the way they were marketing their product, Congress decided that they would honor that marketing scheme. They allowed whatever was being sold as pure to be viewed by the court as well as the consumer as pure, and the sentence meted out based on whatever was in that envelope as 100% genuine pure cocaine, or speed or heroin or whatever. The wording of the legislation reads:

     "Using the total weight of the substance developed a sentence based on a market oriented approach and allows for sentences of retail traffickers to not necessarily be lenient because retail sales levels perpetuate the ongoing market." (HR Rep. NO. 99-845 pt. 1 p. 11-12. (1986).)

     They boosted the pot sentencing and threw in a potentiation for pot plants. If someone was found growing pot, the plants were counted and each one was given a weight of a Kilo, 2.2 pounds. So someone with a greenhouse with 100 two-inch tall pot plants when busted was charged with possession of 220 pounds of pot. That 100-plant threshold was also the amount that kicked in the mandatory minimum five-year sentence.

     Sentences were boosted across the board. The whole idea of instituting mandatory minimum sentencing thrilled Congress to the marrow. And the sentencing guidelines were created. This placed all of the sentencing written down within the statute in a handy table. The only choice that a judge had was the choice of looking up the congressionally mandated sentence and telling the offender what they had found at sentencing time.

     The hinging clause used in the statute was "Any mixture or substance containing a detectable amount." There were a few things that were not considered and Congress had the foresight to see that some sort of fine-tuning was necessary to fix any glaring glitches found in their creation. So along with the law was created the Sentencing Commission.

     Other factors of the offense were also utilized. Having a gun in one's possession at the time of arrest gets you an extra five years, no questions asked. And any violence, such as using a gun while doing the crime, or fighting back when arrested granted extra time, as well as the level of activity one as involved with. If there was evidence to support that a person held a fairly high level in a drug selling operation this added points to the sentence level. There were tables located within the statutes setting levels a person had achieved with the amount of substance charged with and the additional points achieved or removed from that level.

     I found an interesting twist in my indictment. There are four paragraphs in the statute, 841, which relate to indicting for drug offenses, labeled A, B, C, and D. A covers the mandatory minimum five-year sentence range of weights for different substances. Many of the weights in the statute granting the five year minimum are less than in the sentencing guidelines. No telling what is in the mind of Congress, or what they are on, when they throw these things together. Paragraph B covers mandatory minimum ten years sentences. Paragraph C just states that a range of 0 to 20 years may be sentenced if this is the indictment used. Paragraph D says something about pot; since this didn't affect me at all I never took the time to learn its specifics.

     The Attorneys prosecuting my case indicted me under the C paragraph, which was basically unheard of those days. They had this tool to put anyone charged under the hot seat by waving this mandatory sentence at them, and they didn't do this to me. I called Chuck and asked him, "What's up with this?" He said, "let's not bring it to their attention or they might rethink and change it." So we didn't say nuttin to nobody.

     Each of the packages I sent contained 2000 doses of LSD. The standard dose of LSD in those days was 100 micrograms. That's 100 millionths of a gram. So a gram of LSD, which in a powder form weighs the same as a dollar bill, contains 10,000 doses. This is one of the single things discovered in the world on which the smallest amount can achieve a response in a human.

     Since it is pretty much impossible to mete out 100 micrograms of LSD powder and give it to someone, methods had been devised to apply a dose to a piece of paper, gelatin or other medium. I used blotter paper. The method for applying LSD to paper constituted getting some cotton bond paper and perforating the paper into equal sized sections. This usually was 900 sections to a 7 1/2" by 7 1/2" sheet of paper. Then a set amount of alcohol was placed in a flat container, say 30 milliliters. The paper was placed in the container until it had absorbed as much of the alcohol as it could. Then it was removed and the excess alcohol was poured into a container that could measure what was left. The amount left subtracted from the original amount equaled the absorption capacity of the paper used, usually somewhere between 11 and 15 milliliters.

     This procedure had to be done with each different type and quality of paper used to determine how much alcohol to be used for a gram of LSD to be absorbed by the amount of paper that totaled 10,000 doses. For the 900 dose per sheet paper this was eleven sheets plus a ninth of another. The alcohol absorbed by one sheet was multiplied by eleven and a ninth and this was pored into a container. White lightning, 180 proof grain alcohol, was primarily used.

     Before opening up the container that the crystalline LSD powder was sealed in I put on rubber gloves and a surgical mask. Since LSD is so easily felt by us humans, simply opening the vial and allowing air to get to the pure LSD was usually enough to elicit a response in whoever was in the room. So protection was necessary to allow the person putting up the LSD to remain in control of their faculties. Even with all of that protection I often still got dosed while doing the process. Once I remember licking my mustache before I showered after doing the dipping procedure. Enough ambient LSD had accumulated on my mustache to give me a good dose. I showered immediately after dipping after that.

     Then the gram of LSD was put into the alcohol and mixed around for a while. The mixture was left to sit for about an hour to further allow it to mix proportionately. This method got the dispersion of the LSD pretty uniformly throughout the alcohol. Then the entire amount of alcohol was poured onto the paper, which resided in a square glass-baking dish.

     Alcohol was used because it did not alter the LSD in any way, or so thought the street alchemists who were performing this operation. And it evaporated very quickly. The sheets, after being saturated with the alcohol/LSD mixture, were placed on a drying rack of some kind or another. Within a half-hour to an hour they were completely dry and ready to be marketed.

     In this, the marketing of LSD, congress missed its mark a little bit. Most of the substances listed as illegal were being marketed by weight. So a person would buy a gram of cocaine, or an ounce, or a pound. And the price was set to purchase some specific weight. During the hearings for the new law specific testimony was given for many of the substances the legislation was being created against. That testimony is easily found within the congressional record. From what I have been able to research so far no testimony at all about the marketing of LSD was done during the hearings that eventually created the law. The proper perspective that should have been placed on the sentencing, relative to the marketing and sentencing created for the other substances considered was never achieved. So apparently some legislative aide pretty much made up how to handle LSD and just threw it in there.

     LSD was sold only by the dose at the street level. One hit, ten hits, one hundred hits. No one took any notice as to how much the paper or sugar cube or gelatin pyramid weighed. And there was no way in being able to tell how much LSD was in a dose at all. The only way was to take some LSD and gauge the experience achieved relative to any other LSD experiences of the past to determine, at best, a subjective assessment of how many mics were there.

     But when Congress set up the LSD sentencing they gauged the sentences based on weight of whatever the LSD was placed on alone. So if someone used a heavier weight paper than another person they would be granted more time for the same amount of doses caught with. And forget sugar cubes. One dose set off the mandatory minimum.

     So the sentencing for LSD was set up to reflect that any weight of the mixture or substance onto which the LSD was placed was to be seen as pure LSD and the sentence imposed via the guidelines tables for that pure weight.

     The four thousand doses on paper that I sent weighed 28.63 grams. Of that total weight .4 of a gram was LSD. The other 28.23 was paper. One gram gets the mandatory minimum five and ten grams gets the MM ten-year sentence. And there is no reduction below that five or ten year amount. The 28 grams placed me, under the non-mandatory minimum statute they indicted me, at a base level of 32, which carries a 120 to 157 month sentencing range per charge I had two charges lodged against me.

     Because I chose to plead guilty I was granted a two-point reduction for "acceptance of responsibility." This constituted making a statement in writing clearly relating my culpability in the behavior I engaged in of selling LSD. I also had to clearly state that the guy's actions who set me were in no way a factor in my getting busted. It was I who did the deed by choice. This was one of the few items placed in the sentencing guidelines that could affect a sentence.

     The other prime tool used for reducing sentences is a 5K1 clause. This is given to individuals who cooperate with the government in such a way so as to provide evidence against another or many other individuals that results in those others successful prosecution. The couple from Virginia who set me up was granted this type of reduction.

     Although I was never questioned, the prosecutors did send an offer through my lawyer to me to cooperate and get a 5K1. I told him to send them a message back that I would not do that and rather would do the eight and a half years I was looking at.

      I ended up at a level 30 which carried a 97 to 121 month sentencing spread.

     This process, which began on Memorial Day weekend, had progressed to the lawyers working out the terms of my pleading guilty by late August. The original indictment consisted of three counts. One each for the packages sent and one for sending through the mail. Each of these would carry the 97 to 121 month term running consecutively. If convicted of all three that had me looking at a minimum of 291 months, 24 years and change. By pleading guilty to one charge, the other two were dropped.

     Up to that time, my lawyer had never experienced within the federal system the event of someone who was out on bail not having that bail continued after pleading until the actual sentencing. But there was a clause in the law books that provided that if a person was looking at a possibility of serving a ten year sentence they were mandated to be placed in a prison at the plea, rather than being allowed to hang out till sentencing day. This was usually a period of four months.

     In the Delaware court the week before, some smarmy and widely disliked by the prosecutors lawyer, had pled in the case for which he had been prosecuted. This individual was also expecting to leave the courtroom that day and go home until his sentencing. But because of their dislike for him the prosecutors pulled the existence of the "if you are looking at ten years/go to jail clause" out for the first time and sent this guy immediately to Fairton.

     So when I rolled in there the precedent had been set. Now they were obligated to use this clause on everyone looking at the possibility of ten years who showed up before the judge in order not to seem to obvious that they really had done it to mess with the guy they pulled it on first. I did get a warning the night before that this was to happen the next day. So I showed up to court on my Birthday, September 5th 1991, pled guilty to delivering a controlled dangerous substance (LSD), and was taken once more back to Fairton.

110 Days in the Hole

     I went through the same old finger printing/photograph rigmarole but at the end was once again taken to the hole. Where I was once more dressed in the familiar jumpsuit. And once again I asked why I was taken there as opposed to being allowed to be in the regular prison population. But I was given a reason this time. "For the security of the institution." I didn't have a clue as to what was going on and no one was telling me a thing. I ended up staying in the hole until after my sentencing date.

     The hole consists of two perpendicular corridors with about fifteen cells on each side. The guard station sits at the head of the corridors. There is a little vestibule to the right of the guard station. This has a small kitchen area. Just beyond that is the law library. To the left of the guard station is the room, which houses the washing machines and clothing stash.

     The cell doors have a small window about a foot and a half tall and six inches wide. There is also a slot about waist high that is wide enough to pass the food trays through and large mail. This slot has a door that is closed all of the time except for these events and if at any time the inmate is allowed to leave his cell. The cell was approximately ten by ten. It was painted off white and I was not allowed to place anything on the walls. Upon entering, immediately to the left of the door, was placed a stainless steel sink with a metal mirror above it. To the left of that in the corner of the room was a stainless steel commode. The opposite wall had a bar covered window placed in it and a set of bunk beds against it. The beds were a flat metal surface with a thin mattress placed upon it. I was afforded a set of sheets and a thin blanket and a pillow. There was a set of metal lockers against the wall to the left of the entrance. A metal table that was to serve as a desk was placed against the wall opposite the lockers with a metal folding chair.

     I was expected to make my bed in the morning upon being woken. Then lie on the made up bed during the day, if I was inclined to lie down rather than sit at the desk. I chose to rebel against this stricture of making the bed. When told to do so my reply was, "What are you going to do if I don't? Send me to the hole? Keep me there longer than you are already? " The poor guards pretty much didn't know how to respond to this. They stopped demanding me to behave as they wished and I began making my bed once they laid off the fascism.

     I was given an interesting sort of court hearing soon after I got there. The Lieutenant conducting the hearing continued to tell me no reason except that someone thought that it was in the institutions best interest that I be segregated from the population. This same hearing occurred about every thirty days that I was there. Basically it was really only a chance for one of the administrators to let me know just how insignificant I was. At least I was in administrative segregation, so I was allowed a few more amenities than the disciplinary segregates who co-inhabited the hole with me.

     After being found guilty of the charged infraction an inmate lost access to all of the property that he had before going to the hole and the ability to smoke. Sometime after 1991, smoking was banned from all federal buildings and no one who went to the hole was allowed to smoke. Although they could smoke during the exercise hour. A disciplinary detention inmate though was not granted a daily exercise hour. So no smoking while receiving their punishment. None of this affected me, as I don't smoke.

     When an inmate who is in seg is allowed to leave his cell, to take a shower, go to the exercise yard and go to the visiting room he is told to turn with his back to the door and place his hands through the door slot. Then he is handcuffed behind his back. Only after this event has taken place may the door be opened and he be led to his destination. There is one segregated inmate who may be out of his cell without the cuffs, the orderly. This is the guy who washed the laundry and the floors, passed out the food trays and does all of the custodial jobs needed.

     I was permitted to take a shower every other day and go to the exercise yard one hour a day Monday through Friday. The shower is an open cubicle located at the beginning of the corridor. It has a jail bar door open for the guards to make sure the inmate isn't doing something not allowed. Not much privacy allocated there.

     The exercise yard consisted of an area slightly smaller than a basketball court totally enclosed by fencing, sides and top. It was split down the middle and a small number of the segregation inmates were placed in each side at a time. They did take our cuffs off after we had entered and the door to the yard was secured. They did this the same way that they did when we left and entered our cells, by opening a small slot through which we put our wrists facing away from the door. There was a basketball, but no goals. I guess that they figured dribbling the ball was enough satisfaction for incorrigibles like us.

     Once every two weeks or so one of the prison psychologists would come through to evaluate whether anyone had gone nuts in seg. So I saw these guys regularly for about a minute or two. I made a deal with all of them that I wouldn't respond to any questions until we had told each other a joke. If they didn't have one on hand they had to send it in to me later. And they did. It was the least I could do to raise their spirits and give them a reason to keep on working. I think also that they figured out through this little game I created that I wasn't going too nuts there. At least I was maintaining my sense of humor.

     After awhile I figured out what was up. The guy who set me up was in the population. He pled before me and was there before me. When a situation occurs where two potentially antagonistic people are placed in the same institution, one of them goes to the hole. Usually it is less trouble to take the second one arriving to the hole rather than getting the guy who is already there to gather all of his possessions and marching him to the hole. And in Ben's case, he had cooperated. I refused to keep the ball rolling for the prosecutors, by offering up one of my associates in turn for a sentence reduction. My deduction of this was corroborated in my Pre Sentencing Investigation.(P.S.I.)

     So I was relegated to the hole until after I was sentenced. They wouldn't sentence Ben until after I was sentenced. This was because they couldn't be sure that something would happen to mess up the case. They didn't want to give someone something better than they would have received without cooperating. If the case they cooperated against fell through so did the reason that they were handing them a bone.

     I have a guess also that the prosecutors might have influenced my long stay in the hole. I figure that they thought that hole time might get me to come around and go the 5K1 route and hand someone else over to them on a platter.

     I read a lot. Got my parents to send in the Sunday New York Times. That took me a week to go through that all by itself. And I read every word of it. Got to read about the "Blue Man Group" theatrical production all that fall and winter. Now they are doing Intel commercials.

     Except for one day, I was alone in the cell the entire 110 days. A Gypsy who was apprehended for apparently taking off with one of his children was put in with me for one night.

     But I could converse with the persons in the cells next to me and across the hall from me. Persons sent to the hole for disciplinary reasons were often quite loud and continuously so. I got used to it. At one visit, my mom gave me the sagely observation that her mother gave to her at some time during her growing up. "You can get used to anything, you can get used to hanging if you do it long enough." This proved to be pretty much true as by the time that I got out of the hole, being there was no big deal.

     I attempted to purchase a radio through the commissary, but ran into one of the bureaucratic blockades of the prison commissary system. Inmates in population get first crack at commissary items. The hole sends their list in at the end of the week. For the first two months the radios that were obtained each week were sold before my list got to the commissary. I was without a radio until just before Christmas. Then after I did get the radio the only station I could get reception to was the one that played "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" 24 hours a day. That's not entirely true. I did get the PBS station out of Philadelphia. That made life eminently more bearable.

     For a short period of time the guards slipped up, and I was allowed to be an orderly. I co-orderlied with a guy from the plumbing shop. He had hit someone to receive the honor of being in the hole. He was an ex-jewel thief, bar owner and nice guy. He told me to look him up, if they ever let me out of the hole, and he'd hook me up with a job in the plumbing crew. One of the top administrative types, an associate warden probably, learned that I was out of my cell and after about a day of folding laundry and having the pleasure of some freedom, relatively speaking, I was back in my cell full time.I believe that the reason for this is that they wanted me to have as little contact with other inmates as was possible. The more inmates who would be returning to the general population that I could tell about the guy who set me up the more likely that word would filter through of his actions in setting me up. And consequently the higher likelihood that he may encounter some sort of violent event. Either that or my theory about the prosecutors preferring that I stay in as unpleasant environment as was possible.

     It was in the hole that I did some research about the disparity in sentencing between LSD offenders and offenders caught with other substances. It became pretty glaring that there was something wrong with this picture.

     The 4000 doses, 28 grams that I was charged with got the base level of 32. The price that the government paid for those doses was $2200. To achieve this level with other drugs a person had to get caught with one to three kilograms of either methamphetamine or heroin. 1000 to 3000 kilograms of pot or 5 to 15 kilograms of cocaine.

     Thank god for the New York Times in the hole. I gleaned information from articles about current prices of substances there. I came up with wholesale prices for heroin as $160,000 a kilo. Cocaine was $40,700 a kilo, speed was $22,000 a kilo and wholesale pot was running at about $1,000 a key.

     I also came up with specific studies on drug treatment that listed dosage amounts per kilo. Between 100,000 and 200,000 per for heroin, 6,500 and 50,000 per for cocaine, 20,000 for methamphetamine and 2000 for pot.

     When someone is out there handling kilos of heroin, speed, cocaine or hundreds of kilos of pot, they are pretty heavy hitters in the drug sales game. Someone handling 4000 doses of acid ain't that big of a dancer.

     There I was with a paltry 4000 doses worth $2200, and at 28 grams that was at the high end of the LSD amounts, that placed one in level 32 of 10 to 30 grams. And I was looking at the same time as persons caught with 300,000 doses worth of heroin that would cash in at $122,000. 97,000 doses worth of cocaine, at the conservative 6,500 doses per key, cashing in at $240,000. 60,000 doses of speed ringing up at $66,000. Or 6 million doses of pot worth 3 million bucks. Something was really wrong with this picture.

     A couple of senators caught on to this discrepancy. Joseph Biden, the senator from Delaware, and Ted Kennedy. Both of them placed amendments into legislation seeking to change the mixture and substance clause to permit looking at LSD weights in a different perspective. Three separate attempts were passed within legislation by the senate. But all three bills with clauses changing LSD sentencing were defeated by the house.

     A couple of guys who had been busted for LSD well before me and who were in the system had looked at the disparity also and decided to take a case to the Supreme Court. Too bad that they presented the wrong argument. They decided that this disproportionate sentencing was somehow against the constitutionally mandated right to equal protection under the law.Wrongo moosebreath. So much for hippies and their lawyers trying to think things out. The Supremes weren't swayed at all by that argument and rightfully so. Even when some of the justices said right out loud that there was something very wrong with the picture. Just the wrong argument about the picture was presented.

     The main argument that the justices used was that the sentencing was legally created by Congress and it was exactly what Congress wanted to create, the weight of the LSD guiding the sentencing amounts.

     Personally I feel if the argument was presented that in fact there was no testimony given to specifically address LSD sentencing in the hearings. And that this disproportionate sentencing was diametrically opposed to the stated intent of congress when they created the law they might have gotten an argument that the Supremes couldn't have shot down. But who knows what the Supremes are about anyway?

     Another set of statistics supporting more lenient sentencing for LSD was the mortality numbers for drugs compiled by the Drug Abuse Warning Network, (DAWN) During the years between 1986 and 1990 there were 1,4,4,3 and 0 deaths attributed in some way to the presence of LSD in the dead persons system.

     So out of the three million or so persons a year who were taking LSD 1 out of a million was dying. It would appear that LSD was the single safest item that a person could encounter without the risk of a fatality.

     And those figures did not preclude the presence of other substances in the person's system. If a person is under the influence of alcohol, cocaine and LSD when they die then the death is placed within the statistical figures of each of those substances.

The Guys Next Door

     When I first got placed in the hole the next door cell was occupied by one of the many characters that I would come across while incarcerated. This guy had flown a DC-9 full of cocaine, 3000 kilos, from Colombia with the intended destination of Nova Scotia. But he miscalculated the fuel needed to fly in an arc out over the ocean parallel to the U.S. coastline. He ran short of fuel he had to enter air space over the mainland to seek some. He ended up running out in central Pennsylvania. He escaped but his cohort was captured and he became a fugitive for awhile. His big claim to fame was having been chronicled on the television show "America's Most Wanted." He was in the hole because he was fixing to cooperate against some pretty heavy hitters to escape the 40-year sentence that he was looking at.

     After he left for somewhere else, another guy was led to that cell. It turns out that this character was a detective from some town in North Jersey. His position on the force was the detective who investigated bank robberies. Through his education about bank robberies and his desire to give his income a boost he began to rob banks himself. It came out that there were times that he investigated the robbery of the bank that he had robbed minutes before. The tellers remarked that the bank robber looked a lot like him.

     He was at some sort of cop conference in South Jersey and at the lunch break decided to go out and replenish his cash stash. This time tho a civilian followed him and flagged down a cop car while surreptitiously driving behind him. The civilian told the cops that he was the bank robber.

     When they stopped him they found money wrappers from several of the robberies he committed, various loaded weapons and bullet proof vests in his trunk.

     The bullet-proof vest really pissed off the cops. Their viewpoint of persons wearing them while committing crimes is that they fully intended to shoot someone, if necessary, while committing the crime. And the persons most likely to be on the receiving end of those weapon firings were cops.

     The next thing he knew he was living next to me. I had a little attitude about that guy after he decided to tell me about the pot busts he participated in. That didn't set to well with me.

The Next Step

     So I got there on September 5th and got sentenced on December 10th. Then they sentenced the guy who set me up a little while after that. But I still had to wait until he got shipped out to the minimum security camp that he was sent to.

     For some reason Ellen Krause liked me. I've never sat down with her and found out just why she supported me in the manner that she did. But she went to bat for me in a manner that I have never found the equal to in any other inmates experience with the federal judicial system.

     It is a bit of a misnomer to say that the judge is the one who creates the final sentence of an individual. There are many factors that are considered mostly to raise a person's level from the base level triggered by the weight of the drug busted with. The person who actually spends the time to consider all of the factors is the probation department representative who is assigned to each individual going through the federal judicial system.

     This probation department representative is given the task of creating a Pre-Sentencing Investigation (P.S.I.) for the newly convicted but as yet unsentenced person. This document carries more weight than anything else when sentencing time comes. So basically the probation person sets the sentence based on what they choose to put into or omit from the P.S.I.

     All of the P.S.I.'s that I have been allowed to read of other inmates basically read that this guy therein described made Hitler look saintly. And as much possible ammunition was presented to bolster the additions to someone's sentence above the sentencing guidelines basic level for weight of a substance.

     My P.S.I. reads like, "Oops, we got Gandhi here. Let's be as easy as possible with him." There is a statement quoted from my brother's interview with Ellen stating, "This is a guy who would give his last dollar to someone else if he thought that they needed it more than he did." I'm not sure what's more amazing about this, that someone would have said that in the first place about me or that having made the statement it would be included into a federal court document.

     One factor in my benefit was being placed in the hole. Ellen had to interview me to obtain information. So she had to come to Fairton to do that. When she got there they took her to the hole, and she didn't have a clue that I was there. The guards placed her in the law library of the hole, and then went and got me and brought me there. And I was in the requisite behind the back handcuffs position. She of course asked what was up. I filled her in on the fact that I was there, dressed in the orange jumpsuit with the bracelets on, because Ben was in population. This was the only option that the prison had to place me. This bummed her out. She immediately asked the guards to take the cuffs off. She made mention of this in the P.S.I. also, not that she was bummed but that I had been in the hole these past three months.

     Ellen coached me closely on the proper things to say to her. She began her first interview with me, while I was out on bail, by relating that it was not in my best interest for her to hear from me that I was selling the LSD for any kind of altruistic reason. That I was engaged in furthering the enlightenment of the planet by doing this. She told me that if I stated anything like that it would appear that I did not perceive the wrongfulness of my act and my sentence could easily be pushed to the higher end of the possible spread that applied within the level I got sentenced at. For her to warn me not to speak as I was actually inclined to was a blessing. So I informed her that I was doing it for the money and for no other reason. Which was exactly what she and the rest of the court system wanted to hear.

     Apparently the judge liked me too. At my sentencing he basically apologized for having to give me such a harsh sentence. But as the sentencing was strictly set down all he could do was pronounce the congressionally mandated sentence for the record.

     He did in fact depart from this set in stone mandate though, and got away with it. Part of the statute states that all persons convicted be assessed a minimum fine of $17,500. The maximum was $1,000,000.

     Part of the interview process had me make a financial statement. I listed the meager goods that I owned which included a couple of old funky cars of little value, my motorcycle, a house that I own in Bisbee, AZ, and a small bank account that I maintained in Texas. And I had that $5000 on me when they busted me, which in my mind was a pretty large amount of bucks for a person to have as walking around cash.

     That fact didn't much enter into the judge's mind I guess. At sentencing the judge made a statement that I didn't have enough resources to have the ability to pay the mandated fine so he was going to choose to waive the fine. Basically he didn't have the right to do that. But for the statute to be implemented the prosecutor would have to appeal that aspect of the sentence to a higher court. I guess this didn't matter much to the prosecutors because they just let it slide.

     My guess is that actually any federal judge can in fact at any time set a sentence that is different from the statute. The factor that stops them is the ability of the prosecutors to appeal the sentence. If a prosecutor is not inclined to appeal the sentence stands.

     I asked at sentencing that I be sent back to Bastrop to serve it out. That is the F.C.I. that was 5 miles from my home and that I passed on the way from the post office to the Bastrop county jail when I got popped. And one of the local radio stations played the Grateful Dead hour every Saturday night (I didn't actually mention this to the judge though.) He gladly put that instruction to the B.O.P. in the sentencing order. But this didn't necessarily mean that the B.O.P. had to follow his instructions.

     My parents lived in Southern New Jersey, in Atlantic County. Their congressman was William Hughes. He had been in congress forever and with his seniority had achieved the role of the head of the house judiciary committee. This is the committee that has sway over the justice department and with that the B.O.P. So dad asked him to use his influence with the B.O.P. to make sure that I ended up at Bastrop. He wrote back to my dad that he would do whatever he could to make that happen.

Normal Prison Life

      They shipped Ben on to his reward and let me out of the hole on Christmas Eve with a little package of Christmas goodies from George Bush. I had no idea how to behave. This was such a different world than any that I had experienced thus far during my incarceration. I was sent to one of the units and it seemed like a wonderland. The unit at Fairton was constructed of two basically triangular two-story shapes that were connected by a short vestibule. The cells were placed around the perimeter. Although the two portions were connected, they acted autonomously with a different set of guards monitoring each side. The central area was open with pool and ping pong tables placed within. The entrance was toward the middle of the building and a guard station was to the immediate left of the entrance. One room on each side was created to serve as a TV room with basic cable, HBO and ESPN.

     There were laundry rooms placed in the far corner of the triangle. An inmate had the option of having the main prison laundry do their laundry or do it themselves in the unit machines. The machines were free although there was usually a couple of hour wait time till your turn arrived. The method of marking your spot in line was to place your laundry bag adjacent to the last one lined up in front of the machine. There were several inmates whose job it was to do custodial work in the units. They ran a sideline of doing other peoples laundry. This made it convenient for those inmates who were working all day in some other part of the institution.

     There were several single stall showers placed in alcoves in between rooms on each floor. These usually had a line for their use also. An inmate's spot in that line was marked by some shower item like shampoo.

     The cell had a wooden door with a small window. The dimensions of the room were about ten by ten. Across from the door was a barred window with a set of bunk beds placed against that wall. These beds had wooden frames, a spring support and the mattresses were thicker than the hole. The sink and mirror was immediately to the left of the door when entering, and a commode was to the left of that in the corner space of that wall. This was a porcelain commode and sink though, and a regular glass mirror. There were a set of wooden lockers and a nice wooden desk. The desk had a couple of drawers placed under the desktop along one side and an upper portion with a couple of cubicles with wooden doors. This place was very different from both El Reno and the hole.

     For the first time I was allowed to wear normal prison garb, as opposed to the jumpsuit I was afforded both back in San Marcos and in the hole. The standard inmate uniform consists of a khaki shirt and dark green cotton pants. Most of the clothing are castoffs from the military. At the laundry inmates are issued a set of three pairs of pants, three shirts and five sets of underwear. We could take any dirty items to the laundry in a provided laundry bag and pick them up the next day. All items had name tags placed in them, but as the way laundry was done was for the entire bag to be tossed into one of the industrial machines getting your clothing misplaced was not much of an issue.

     My first cell mate was an elderly Italian gentleman about 65 years old, straight out of the Godfather. He spoke only Italian and the rest of the inmates paid him great deference. I was told to not be rude to him and just act in awe of his being. Hey, no problem.

     It was Christmas so I didn't have to worry about finding a job for a few days. And I was allowed to go to the commissary and to the dining hall and to the gym and hell, after 110 days in the hole I was in a wonderland of choices and opportunities.

     The dining hall was a trip. Just grab your tray and hit the line. I have always been impressed with the food in the F.C.I. Nice portion, Drink dispenser with unlimited soda, great salad bar, nice deserts and good company. Well maybe the last was a stretch.

     I am a vegetarian and never had a problem getting my fill of good tasting healthy food. And I had a nice coin to trade. Although the portions were generous enough there was no seconds on entree's. But I didn't eat meat. So I always had that to trade. Many times someone approach me well before a meal to reserve the meat of the day from me. And I extracted services in kind. I could get anything copied and as many copies as I wanted. As I got into networking with whoever was out there working on the sentencing changes for LSD, I picked up a prodigious copy habit.

     Going to the commissary was another wondrous experience. Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia and New York Super Fudge Chunk. Life don't get much better than that. I couldn't order Ice Cream while in the hole. They didn't want to mess with something that would be melted by the time they got it to me. Having access to Ben & Jerry's was beyond my wildest.

     My ice cream jones did get me into a bit of hot water though. I wasn't hungry at the time when I bought my first pint. So I took it back to the unit and placed it in the ice machine until after dinner. By the time I got back to it it was very buried under a lot of ice. But I was determined to get it out of there. So basically I had to dig with my hands through the ice. Not the most sanitary of behaviors but that notion didn't cross my mind at the time. I just wanted at my ice cream. While digging away my hand got slightly lacerated by the ice. And some of my blood got onto the ice.

     That was another faux pax that did not immediately register with me. AIDS was within the prison system, between overtly gay inmates having been incarcerated for whatever criminal activity they were doing and intravenous drug users getting busted. But as I only had experienced the hole and San Marcos I hadn't had any means to learn this aspect of prison culture So blood in an area that was used by everyone, no matter how HIV negative a person was, didn't sit well with anyone. My first night out of the hole was spent emptying out the ice machine and disinfecting it. And this was a task that I took upon myself, not one mandated by the guards as a result of my ice fishing. I never left my ice cream in an ice machine again.

     After Christmas was over a normal schedule for the day was presented to me. We were awakened at about six and breakfast was served from six thirty till seven thirty. After breakfast inmates had an opportunity to get back to cells and then get to work at eight thirty.

     Everyone who was physically able had to work somewhere in the prison. Refusal to work produced a stay in the hole. Everyone gets paid to work. As one of the general crew I got $.05 an hour. That was the lowest wage given. Persons working for specific crews started out at $.12 an hour and could graduate with time and experience to $.55 an hour. UNICOR workers, this is the prison industries, are the best paid inmates with the pay scale ranging from $.25 to $1.50 per hour. And at times they work more than 40 hours a week and get overtime for those extra hours.

     Federal prison industries pretty much only make items that will be used somewhere within the government, either for the bureaucracy or the military. The wait to get into a UNICOR position was about two years from the day an inmate arrived in the compound. UNICOR workers who were moved from one institution to another for non disciplinary reasons went to the top of the list when they arrived and the first available position was given to them. UNICOR workers removed from an institution for disciplinary reasons were placed at the end of the waiting list when they arrived at their new home.

     For a newcomer like me who had not yet had the opportunity to seek out a job with one of the specific crews the only option was be assigned to a general work crew. This group of inmates was under the direction of the lieutenant in charge of the compound. Basically we walked around and picked up cigarette butts all day long. Tortuously tedious.

     After one day of that I was ready to do anything else, so I kept an eye out for the guy I spent my one day co-orderlying with. I found him and he was responsive to helping me get on with the plumbing crew. The fact that I knew nothing about plumbing did not matter. It was pretty much one or two people who knew something about the job and a bunch of others who carried tools from one place to another. One day they did let me and another guy go out and fix a shower head. Neither of us had any real plumbing experience so we just had to fake it. We got the job done without breaking more than we fixed.

     The morning work shift lasted until 11:30 and then everyone went from work to lunch. Actually admission to the cafeteria was staggered, with UNICOR workers going first, crew workers next, and all others going last.

     After lunch we reported back to our work areas and did the afternoon shift until 3:45. Then we returned to our units and got counted at 4:00. After count mail was handed out by a guard at the guard station. The inmates would gather around the station in anticipation and the guard would read off the name from the mailed item. Then the Units were called to dinner beginning at about 4:30 in a revolving stagger. Whichever Unit had been first the week before would be shifted to last the following week. In three more weeks they would be heading to chow first once again.

     Evenings were open to do whatever we pleased. Watch TV, go to the library, gym, crafts room or just be in our cells. The unit had no movement restrictions and many inmates played cards, pool or chess.

     At 9P.M., everyone had to go back to their unit. Once there we had the run of the unit until 11P.M. At that time we were locked in our cells for the night. At 6 the next morning the cell was once again unlocked.

     New Years came and one of the stations out of Philly played the Grateful Dead New Years show live. I had my Cherry Garcia in my mouth and Jerry Garcia in my ears. Nice.

     My brother has a friend, Barry Alterman, who manages the Mark Morris Dance Troop. They became aquainted while in pursuit of the Grateful Dead. As the manager he arranged all of the airline tickets so he received all of the bonus miles. He had an extra bonus ticket lying about and he gave it to my brother to fly to Amsterdam for New Years. He flew in and out of New York, so when he came back he showed up at Fairton for a visit. The visiting room had an outside area, for inmates and their visitors to walk a little. My brother arrived and we go out for a walk and he says, "Hey bro, I've been smoking hash all weekend legally. How are you doing?" "Well I just got out of the hole after 110 days. I guess that doesn't quite stack up to your experience but it is definitely progress from where I am looking," I answered. Just what I needed to hear though.

     I stopped by the psychology department to see what they were up to. If there were any programs happening to lend a bit of spiritual growth to the population. All that they had going on at Fairton was A.A. Better than nothing I guess.

     On January 6th I was woken and told to get my stuff together and head down to R&D. I was on my way back to Texas. After going through the departing rigmarole a bunch of us were put into vans and taken to the Philadelphia Airport. One of the 737's showed up and they did the transfer boogie. Got everyone off who was destined for Philly and put us on who were heading elsewhere. About that time it hit me. Oh shit. The El Reno Shuffle again. On the plane we were given a brown bag lunch of a white bread cold cut sandwich, an apple, a Little Debbie's snack cake, the official snack cake of the federal prison system, and a can of juice. Eating while shackled is an interesting experience. Most of us had waist chains to which our cuffs were attached. Made for interesting head bending combinations.

     That flight headed up to Connecticut to swap out bodies at Danbury. I had a rather shocking experience during this body swap. There are three separate facilities a Danbury, a men's minimum security, a men's medium security and a woman's minimum security. As they unloaded inmates off the plane one of the names called to depart was the female member of the couple who set me up. I thought that that was a rather serious faux pas on the part of the BOP, but I guess they can't be on top of every relationship within the membership of the inmates. So she walked right past me to depart and I just couldn't stop myself from saying hello. The marshals blew up at me for that one. But there was no other consequence except for their rather angry words towards me and the tight feeling that created in my body for awhile, and that passed. I don't know if she recognized me though. There wasn't much of a sign of recognition on her face when I addressed her. I was clean shaven and had my hair shorn too. This was a totally different appearance for me than any that she had experienced.

     Next it went up to Ray Brook in the Adarondacks to do the exchange at a federal prison up there. Then the flight took off and stayed aloft for a long time. When it finally landed we found out that we had arrived for an overnight stop in Webb County, Texas along the border by Laredo. They took us to what was basically a holding spot for illegal aliens. And that's when I got my lesson in security cuffs.

     After we arrived and were well within a couple sets of locked doors they began to uncuff everyone for the night. When they got to me they found out that I had received a set of special cuffs. The key to these cuffs was like a Coke Machine key, round thick base that went over a pin as well as had raised edges to engage the pins within. They usually were used for high security risk persons. Interpret that as guys who liked to attempt escapes. But no one there had the proper key to this contraption. So they had to send out for the Webb County super cop in whose possession the one security key was placed. I got uncuffed about two hours after every one else. Made for a nice conversation piece though. They fed us that night, border tex mex, just my style. We were herded back into our shackles and to the plane the next morning.

     The plane took off and it flew directly to Robert Mueller airport in Austin. Whoa! I didn't have to endure the El Reno shuffle, what a blessing. I was taken off and rode back through familiar territory to Bastrop F.C.I. It appeared that Congressman Hughes intervention was quite successful in getting me to where I wanted to go.

Home Sweet Bastrop F,C.I.

     The van got us to the F.C.I. late in the afternoon. We pulled up to a front door. There was a gauntlet of pick up trucks forming a corridor from the doorway of the bus to the prison entrance. Flanking this gauntlet were bullet-proof vested shotgun toting guards. We walked past this welcoming committee to the front door. Behind the door was a small vestibule with a guard sitting at a desk. Behind this greeter was another door. The door behind the guard was electro-magnetically operated. We passed through that door and walked a short way to another door. On either side of the building that encompassed the initial doorway were the standard two parallel runs of ten foot high fencing. There were sensor wires that ran through the fencing to tell the powers that be if anything touched them. The fences were topped by razor wire.

     Bastrop was at that time designated medium security level. The majority of the inmates there were medium custody classification designated.

     There were some high level designates at Bastrop. For the most part the high level designees were toward the end of their sentences. They had initially been placed in a penitentiary but were moved to this facility as a reward for good behavior despite their relatively high security designation.

     A change in custody level can happen to any inmate during the course of their sentence. If the time factor of their remaining sentence falls to a level to switch them into a lower level. They can also engage in some new behavior while in prison, getting busted for drugs or being violent, to put them into a higher level and get sent to that level of institution.

     There were about eleven inmates who showed up that day so the R&D rigmarole took a couple of hours. They had placed the same security cuffs on me that needed the special key to open. But here they didn't have someone within their universe who had the key. So after an hour or so they found a pair of bolt cutters and cut the cuffs off my wrists.

     We were dressed in orange jumpsuits for our first night in the compound. Our regular clothing wasn't to be issued until the next day from the main laundry. About eight o'clock we finally were led to a door that opened into the compound. And the first thing that I saw was this tall guy with a beard down to his waist and a pony-tail down to the middle of his back race walking past us. "Cool," I thought. "Hippies running by.".] So far so good. We were led to our respective units where the guard in charge looked up where there were open bunks and showed us to our new accommodations.

     Bastrop F.C.I. was created in 1979. The urban legend was that it was built on top of the dump of Camp Swift. This was now a national guard base but had, again legendarily speaking, been an internment camp during World War Two for Japanese-American citizens.

     There were four units for housing. Each of these consisted of two rectangular shaped buildings joined by a vestibule in their middle. There were about 75 rooms to each wing. The original plans when built were to accommodate 600 inmates with each of them living alone in a room. When I got there the population was about 1100 and almost all of the rooms had two inmates in them.

     The guard stations and unit managers offices were located in the vestibule. The cells were similar to Fairton in that they each had the same set up of size, furniture, sanitary facilities and general placement. All of the buildings were climate controlled. This was a big plus during the Texas summer. South central Texas really didn't get much of a winter though. A building was placed in the center of the compound that housed the chapel and psychology departments. The four housing units comprised two sides of the compound. The other two sides had buildings housing the hole, hospital, administration offices, visiting room, cafeteria, laundry, commissary and library. Behind the library complex was the gym and recreation yard and behind that was the UNICOR facilities.

     My first cellie was a black cocaine dealer from Detroit. Having integrated cells wasn't the norm. Inmates could actually pick their room-mates as long as there was an equal desire for the persons to be together. Larry, my new cellie, had the misfortune of having his cellmate getting into a fight and getting sent to the hole. Once an inmate is sent to the hole he loses his bed. After getting back out of the hole, he has to await whoever got put into their bed finding a more preferable cellie and letting him have it back. His cellie got out of the hole in about a week, and I was informed as to the impermanence of my position in that room. A bed opened up in a white guy's room in another week and I was moving.

     My new cellie was a classic example of how to fuck up a major portion of your life through simple obstinacy. This guy had been a Marine. In 1970 he and a couple of his marine buddies decided that they could steal something from the base and sell it to scrape together some extra cash. So they did and they got caught.

     Apparently he got a military public defender lawyer who talked him into pleading guilty and accepting a three year sentence. By pleading guilty he was told that the sentence would be commuted to probation and that he would not have to serve any actual time in the pokey. So he went for it.

     When he got up in front of the judge the deal for probation disappeared and he was sentenced to serve the three years. Pissed him off. As soon as he was able, he escaped, probably from an unsecured facility. In the federal system an escape is an automatic five-year extension of your sentence. He was caught and got his extra five. And he escaped again. By this time he ended up in some sort of high security facility. His last sentence extension was due to someone else escaping. After they got caught, they told the powers that be that he had tutored them on how to do it. When I met him he was finishing up the last of his 21 years that he had accumulated.

     He still had an attitude that he had been screwed over by the system and was pretty reluctant to get it that he was there only because of his own behaviors.

      By Motorcycle Michael Sommers

      (Parts 2 and 3 will appear in the winter and spring issues of The Caldron.)