Chapter 1: Ready or Not, I’m Going to Prison
This is part of a series. For more please go to the Table of Contents.
“So, what’s your cover story gonna be?”
“What? Cover story?”, I asked, “I didn’t know I could have a cover story.”
“Sure!” said Mike, my psychologist. “You don’t want the other inmates to know why you’re really in there, do you?”
“Well, I kind of figured everybody was gonna know anyway…”
“No, they won’t! Inmates are not allowed to go looking each other up. You can have a cover story.”
How wrong you were, Mike! As I sat at the table in my prison dorm’s TV room about eight months later writing this story it was all too obvious that my shrink had no idea what he was talking about. Nevertheless, having a cover story and believing it was working for the first month or so of my prison term gave me a chance to get my bearings and get to know what the other guys were like without blurting out something stupid. Perhaps it served some useful purpose.
By the next psychologist visit I had my cover story. I figured it had better be something that fitted neatly into my real life story. I couldn’t say, for example, that I had robbed a bank or run a meth lab because I know absolutely nothing about those things. I was a career local government bureaucrat, never been in trouble with the law before. Family man with a wife, two children and two grandchildren. What could I possibly have done to suddenly earn a two year sentence in state prison followed by three years of probation?
So I said, bribery. Accepting a large amount of money to arrange for the approval of a big slimy downtown redevelopment project. Except that it turned out to be a sting operation, and I was the idiot who took the money. I test-drove this story with Mike the shrink and with a few other people. They thought it sounded pretty good. My attorney, however, was less sanguine.
“You can try it”, he said, “but inmates have ways of figuring out why you’re there — I don’t care what Mike says.” Thanks for the encouragement!
The real reason I was going to prison was quite different. After many years of keeping my secret from everyone, I had been caught in possession of hundreds of photos of young children. The police found these photos not by searching my hard drives but by searching my download history — any photo I had downloaded I also must have possessed. The vast majority of these were perfectly legal — although completely unacceptable to any normal person’s sense of morality. But the local Assistant District Attorney was able to find exactly ten of those photos that he believed “crossed the line”, by which I mean the line between “socially unacceptable” and illegal child porn.
If you are part of my target audience for this story, you will recognize a little of yourself in that real story — maybe more than a little. You are invited to read this story as a cautionary tale because if you don’t straighten yourself out this could end up being your story too. If you are anybody else, you are also invited to read my story even though you may say that I’m a disgusting pervert and got the very least of what I truly deserved. I can’t do anything about that, can’t convince you that there’s any other side of me than the one you choose to see.
Getting my life in order
I had other things to worry about in the few weeks before prison. I did my best to put everything in my life on auto-pilot so it would still be there when I got out. When I was caught — and forcibly retired from my job — about a year earlier, one of the first things I did was to take all of my retirement accounts, sign them over to my wife, and begin disbursement of funds to her. I did this because in destroying my own life I had destroyed my wife’s life too. It was too late to undo almost any of that destruction, but there was one thing I could do something about — the loss in income my wife suffered on account of my forcible retirement. I have no doubt that my now ex-wife would tell you that the money was the least of what I had done, and she would be right, but it was the one thing I could at least do something about — so I gave all my retirement money to my wife. A lot of people have told me that was a stupid thing to do, but even as I was writing this almost two years later sitting in prison, I didn’t give a shit what people said — it was the right thing to do, and it was the very least I could do.
I own rental properties. Not a lot — a couple of duplexes and houses, but I was self-managing them, and they were making at least some money. After my arrest I had to get a property manager. Property management costs pretty much wiped out whatever profit there had been — the only good news was that I wasn’t losing money.
Another consideration was health insurance and health care generally. Although forcibly retired, I was still retired. That allowed me to stick with my employer’s rather good health care plan as long as I kept up the very reasonable monthly payments. I had enough cash on hand to pay out two years ahead. Then there was the matter of my prescriptions. I had prescriptions for a few ordinary “old guy” medications like high blood pressure, cholesterol, low-dose aspirin for my heart, etc. How was I going to get those prescriptions honored and continued while in prison? My attorney had no answer.
“You’re the first one of my clients who ever…”
To solve this problem I decided to obtain written prescriptions and have them all in my pocket when I walked into the county jail (which I knew would be the first place I was going). That way when they took my property they’d find them and I’d say “those are my prescriptions, I need to get them over there” (I would gesture toward the nurses’ station where I knew there would be a medical check-in), and see if that worked.
This idea, and my concern about my health plan and medications, became only the last of several times when either my attorney, my shrink, or both said, “Z, you’re the first one of my clients who ever brought this up”. Each time this happened it astonished me. How could you possibly not be concerned about your health while in prison, especially if it’s for “only” two years (which still seemed like a long time to me)?
The first time I heard “ “Z, you’re the first…” was when they both said, “Z, you’re the first one of my clients who ever came into my office and admitted he was a pedophile.” I was astonished that time too. I said, “But you’re my attorney (or shrink) — I’m supposed to tell you, of all people, the truth, right?”
My attorney said, “My clients always say, ‘Oh. This was all an accident; I was really searching for something else and downloaded this material by mistake and blah, blah, blah…” My shrink said, “My clients always say, ‘Oh, I was searching for other kinds of porn and found that I gradually needed more and more extreme stuff until I found this material and blah blah blah…”
I said, “Yeah well they’re all lying. At least I’m telling you the truth.” To which they both said “Well, these guys are my clients and I have to accept what they say and blah blah blah…” Ok, guys, as long as you know they’re all lying.
Why are all these guys lying? Upon reflection, I believe they are all in denial — they are lying to themselves as much as to their attorneys and psychologists. They don’t want to admit, even to themselves, that they have a mental defect so repulsive to society they that themselves disapprove of it.
Another time I heard my attorney say, “Z, you’re the first one of my clients who ever…” was when I insisted on seeing the photos I was charged with possessing. My charges were fairly slight as these kind of charges go. The list of things I was not charged with was long, and the list of things I was charged with was quite short. I was not charged with ever having done anything to anybody — because I have not. I was not charged with having created any photos or videos of sex acts among children or between adults and children — because I have not. I was not charged with being part of any file sharing network or buying or selling any kind of child porn — because I have never done anything like that. And to my attorneys’ great relief, I was not charged with possessing any videos — because I never had any.
Also, and again to my attorneys’ great relief I had invoked my right to remain silent the very moment the cops started interviewing me. He said, “So many times, guys feel so guilty about what they’ve done that they unload all of that when the police interview them, and then I’m left to pick up the pieces afterward.”
“Well I feel guilty and ashamed too,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up my right to remain silent!”
“That was the smartest decision you have ever made,” he said.
So what was I charged with? I was charged with possession of exactly ten photos. And because all of my photos came from open, moderated web sites I couldn’t stop asking, what exactly was illegal about them? I thought to myself, yes, there probably were a few line-crossing photos in my collection, but which ones? I wanted to see the evidence against me, yet it turns out that in this type of case the prosecutors routinely refuse to let the defendant see the photos. Instead they provided a very brief description of each of the ten photos and allowed my attorney to see then and describe them to me. Still, I couldn’t conjure up any of them in my mind. I became indignant and told my attorney, “How can I be charged with a crime and accept a plea bargain without ever having the opportunity to see the evidence against me?!”
That’s when he said, “Z, you’re the first one of any of my clients who ever insisted on seeing the evidence — photos, videos, etc.” Really?!
Yes really. It turns out that most defendants feel so guilty and ashamed that they don’t want to see what the cops have. “Besides,” my attorney said, “they already know what the evidence is.”
I wrote the last few paragraphs well over a year after that conversation, by which time I had “interviewed” a handful of other inmates with charges similar to mine. Not one of them ever insisted on seeing the evidence, for that very reason — they felt guilty and ashamed and they already knew what the evidence was, so what was the point?
I thought I had a pretty good idea what the evidence was too, but I could not get over the idea that I was being charged with a crime but not allowed to see the evidence, and my attorney couldn’t even describe the evidence sufficiently for me to recognize it. Isn’t this America? Don’t I have a constitutional right to see it? Month after month, each time I visited my attorney I insisted. Finally, when it came time for me to sign the plea agreement and I had to initial each paragraph to prove that I had read and understood every part of it, I came to the paragraph that said, “I have had the opportunity to see and review the evidence against me…” and I stopped right there and said, “Damnit! I refuse to initial this paragraph because it’s not true!”
Finally, the prosecutor was forced to show me the ten photos. We went into a little conference room at the courthouse and he put sticky notes over the “illegal” parts of each photo and let me look at them, with my attorney present.
And I’m very glad I insisted on that. Yes, I finally recognized those photos, but I know why I had not been able to recognize them from the descriptions given. Yes, I had downloaded them, and about six of the ten were all from the same place, but just a few days afterward I had deleted those six — because I didn’t like them! Line crossing or not (and for what it’s worth, I didn’t think they were very far over the line) I had decided they were ugly and gotten rid of them. To me it seemed ironic. None of the ten photos showed any sex act, not even masturbation. Each of the photos showed only one individual. The prosecutor just didn’t like the way they were posed — admittedly with good reason. Of the four remaining photos, at least two or three didn’t cross any line I could see. However, it was pointless to argue — even if I had succeeded in getting them excluded the prosecutor would insert similar photos in their place to argue over. The plea deal was on the table — take it or go to trial and have them throw the book at me. I initialed that paragraph and signed the deal. This was about six weeks before I went to prison.
As I am re-reading all of this I realize that it sounds dismissive of the morally unacceptable context of the photos I was charged with possessing. I want to say here that I am very aware, and should never be allowed to forget, that each and every one of those children in those photos so available on the internet is a victim of the international child porn trade and that I was a participant in that trade by downloading those photos. For what it’s worth I want you as my reader to know that I am very aware of that.
Final Hours of Freedom
I have said only a little about my wife so far, and will try to keep it short here also. I love my wife deeply and always will. If you are part of my real target audience for this story you will know that it’s entirely possible to love your wife with all your heart even though you have a deviant sexual attraction such as mine. If you are anybody else you will call me a fucking liar. I can’t help that.
My wife was devastated by my arrest and has since divorced me. In fact, she took me to her attorney’s office to sign the final paperwork just two days before I was to go to prison. After we signed the divorce papers, she took me out to lunch. She had been taking me out to lunch at all our favorite restaurants for the last week. Even though she insisted on divorcing me she insisted just as much that we should remain the ”best friends” we have been for over thirty years. She had been allowing me to spend as much time as I wanted at home (but not overnight). She even said she might let me live at home during my probation — a very important consideration because our house was the only place I knew of that met all of my state’s very restrictive but not at all unusual distance and separation requirements for sex offender probation and where I could live rent free. (My only income was Social Security.) However, she also talked about selling the house and moving away for her retirement — a prospect that kept me in a gnawing fear throughout my incarceration …
What to tell our grandchildren? At the time our daughter and her two children aged eight and six were living with us. The kids did not know that grandpa had been arrested, although they did know that grandma was not allowing him to spend the night at home any more. What would we tell them about why grandpa was leaving for a long time and would never be allowed to visit?
We settled on this: Grandpa got a new job, but it’s very far away in a place where there’s no chance that you will ever come close enough to visit him on any future vacation — specifically, Detroit. About a week before I was scheduled to go to prison we told the kids this story and they bought it easily. On the morning of my final court hearing grandma would have to take me to the airport — it was a school day so no, you can’t go with us to say goodbye to grandpa before he gets on the airplane.
The night before I was to go in, the whole family went out to dinner, again at one of grandpa’s favorite restaurants. Then I packed my few remaining belongings into one suitcase. Grandma allowed me to stay over that night, and the next morning we made a show of loading the suitcase in the car, seeing the kids off to school and heading to the airport. Except we weren’t really going to the airport –we dropped my suitcase off at a storage room at one of my rental properties and went to the courthouse. Our daughter met us there after dropping the kids off at school. My wife and daughter had promised to be in court for my sentencing hearing. It was very kind of them.
I told myself that after I got out of this the kids would be old enough that I’d tell them the truth about where I’d really been for two years — if not the truth about exactly why. Until they were a little older still, I’d use my cover story with them.
Of course I knew I was telling another lie about myself — this time to my own grandchildren. Another lie piled on top of the lies and secrets I’d kept my whole life that had led to this moment at the county courthouse.
This time I promised to unwind that lie as soon as possible. I’ve thought about it many times since.
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