nothin Waiting For Johnny | New Haven Independent

Waiting For Johnny

Paul Bass Photo

I just got word from Connecticut that former Gov. John Rowland, who was sentenced to 30 months behind bars, has requested to check into this prison camp.

I will check the calendar in the HBBIC’s (Head Blueboy in Charge) office and see whether his name pops up in the color red as an incoming inmate.

One minute Rowland is a former governor and the next minute an FNG (bleeping new guy) in prison camp.

We need a few more guys from Connecticut in here to balance out all the criminals from New York and New Jersey. Most of these New Yorkers have never even heard of the State of Connecticut. They say: Where is that state located, somewhere near Vermont?

There are a number of guys in here who were involved in politics on the outside which got them into trouble. But prison politics is an entirely different world. When you first get here you are at the bottom of the barrel. You have to work your way up to the top.

Rowland would come in here with some good street credibility. He did time in the past. He was a governor, albeit of a small state, who was involved in a lot of criminal activity. I think he would get some respect just because of who he is.

But after that he is going to have to do some schmoozing in order to get access to a seat to watch TV. He will never get control of a clicker; you need a long sentence to get control of the TV clicker. You inherit it from a guy who leaves. Then you have to watch TV at the same time every night or else you will lose your privileges to some other criminal who will steal your seat and steal your clicker. You use it or lose it.

Rowland won’t have a seat at the dining hall, unless someone is impressed with him for some reason and wheels and deals to get him a seat. The last guy who got a seat at the dining table in the common area was a young billionaire art dealer who hailed from one of the wealthiest families in the world. Rowland is small time compared to that guy.

Other than watching television and eating, what else is there to do in prison? Read books, magazines and newspapers?

Rowland can order all the books, magazines and newspapers he wants.

A Singer? Fuggedaboutit

Very bad news today.

I am the official prison tailor. My sewing machine has been broken for a couple of weeks. My Blue Boy boss sent it next door to the medium for repairs. It fell off the truck and now it is all broken up.

The Blue Boyz want to replace it with a cheap Singer.

I cannot work under these conditions. I am a professional. My father, his father and his father’s father were all in the garment business. I was the first to go against tradition and become a lawyer. See what happens when you go against tradition? You end up in prison forced to do what your forefathers did.

Inmates deserve more than a cheap Singer sewing machine. It may be good enough to take in prison pants, but what about all the stuff inmates ask me to do as special favors,” like sewing towels together, embroidering initials on clothing, sewing blankets together, repairing jackets, making winter scarves, making eye patches for guys to sleep at night, repairing gym pants, and making special pants pockets that have special openings for that special someone for that special visit?

I don’t engage in such activity, as that is against the rules. I get in enough trouble in here already. But that’s the kind of pressure the prison tailor must deal with on a daily basis. 

Skeptical Drug Dealers Give Props

I work with a bunch of drug dealers at the prison warehouse. There is a bit of rivalry between the drug dealers and the white-collar criminals

Drug dealers put down the white-collar guys. They say that white-collar guys are crooks and steal money from people.

I have to defend our reputation. I told the drug dealers that it does not take much intelligence to be a drug dealer. In fact, the federal sentencing guidelines say that a fraudster gets an increase in his sentence because fraud is a crime committed by sophisticated means.” This proves that your average white-collar criminal has a higher level of intelligence than your average drug dealer.

But the drug dealers rebut by saying that if I was so intelligent, I would not have gotten caught. They have a good point there. I can’t argue with that.

But I also tell the drug dealers that the sentencing guidelines say that my sentence gets increased because I abused a position of trust.” That means I am more trustworthy than an unsavory drug dealer.

The drug dealers argue that you can never trust another drug dealer: You have to take precautions, and properly arm yourself.

I tell them that at least I am smart enough not to risk getting shot and killed in my line of work. The drug dealers say that if I rip someone off, that person can get mad and bump me off. But I don’t think JP Morgan Chase will come looking for me. And besides, I never ripped anyone off; I helped do a handful of closings for guys who made hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, and all I made was my closings fees.

When the drug dealers hear this they all laugh and say that I cannot be too sophisticated if everyone else made money and all I got was a free hotel room in this prison. They say that when I get out I should try to collect my fair share of the profits.

They also laugh at me because drug dealers never have any restitution orders, while I have a $400,000 restitution order. It should have been in the millions, but the banks never filed claims for monies lost in the closings that I did; they were either covered by insurance or they went under. The subprime mortgages were bundled by powerful Wall Street investment banks, given fraudulent AAA ratings by Moody’s, and then repackaged and resold to investors in China.

But the guys at the bottom of the totem pole end up in prison. Where’s the justice?

I have a hard time explaining these concepts to drug dealers. They keep calling me a crook” and a thief.” I tell them I never took any money from anyone; I just earned my closing fees. I gave them names of other inmates in here who robbed real individual victims of their life savings. I did no such thing! If anything the mortgages that I closed were insured by the government. The government covered the losses, so I helped stick it to DA MAN.

Finally I hit on a concept that the drug dealers can understand. They gave me a high five and were quite impressed with my criminal activity. 


New Haven attorney Lawrence Dressler is serving a 20-month sentence in an out-of-state federal minimum-security prison for his part in a mortgage-fraud ring.

Previous installments:

Larry Noodles & The Tossed Banana
A Peanut-Butter View Of A Real Prison”
Arrival
Tempers Flare Over … What?
Blinded By The Light
The Russians Take Control
Welcome To The Hole
Slider Takes On The Roman Empire

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