He’s freaking out about what happens when he’s released. Fear of the unknown is something that is part of who he is.

I’ve already found out where his probation officer would be. . . that is, if they release him here in PA.

They can still hold him in Florida where he would have nowhere to live. 2500 feet residency restriction from anything school, church, school bus stop, park. . and now with the ‘mini parks’ they’re putting in at every available spot he would be living in a tent somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. But yet they can do that to him.

Or if they release him here the PO might not approve my home. There are so many things right now that are unsure. It’s stressful to say the least.

Right now he’s in another band. So that is keeping him busy. He also has a lot of women writing him. The other inmates have told him that all he would get are fat and ugly women writing him.. but his little pile of pretty girls makes them laugh about it.

The new attorney will be going in to see Face, my adopted inmate, on June 29th. I’m hoping that she can bring his sentence down from 35 years. He was supposed to get 15 but his court appointed attorney didn’t do much and they threw the book at him.

I’m also keeping in touch with Mango, who is my sons friend and big brother in the slammer. He’s waiting for my son to be released and then he’s going to ask for a transfer to a work camp. He can now but he feels he wants to stay to watch out for my son, which I really appreciate.

I know that some prisoners will lie and milk people on the outside. They don’t ask me for anything. I decided to help Face on my own because I felt he was wronged and someone needs to do something. I send some money to Mango so he can keep in touch with me because it costs $$ to email.

Some people are guilty and should be punished, but our government is in the business of putting our citizens in prison for a long time. It’s what we fund our country with.. or at least the pockets of those who run our country.

I’m unpacking Adam’s things. He’s being released in 8 months.  I’m hanging up his clothes, putting away his books.

I remember months before sentencing he was packing up his stuff. He packed everything except for a few items. He told me he was going to prison. I didn’t believe it.

But as I unpack his things that he spend weeks putting away I can’t imagine what was going on inside his head as he did it. He knew they were going to put him in prison. They always do. He was only 20 then and I can’t tell you how full of anguish and stress he was under. It breaks my heart.

When he gets home and has to deal with all the crap our government will throw at him there will be more stress. 15 years probation, lifetime on the sex offender list. My poor son. Look what they’ve done to him.

Thea:

Dutch immigration law has been changed several times. The Act defines the right of admission to the Netherlands, the different types of permits and procedures for decision making. It, however, is not the only source of immigration law in the Netherlands. For instance, the rules of entry by way of a visa are laid down in a separate law.  Furthermore, a lot of important rules are laid down in secondary legislation, referred to in the Aliens Act and mainly sets out formal procedural issues.   There is also a separate law, which sets out the rules applying to third country nationals wishing to stay in the Netherlands for purposes of employment.

Third country nationals who are not EU/EEA nationals and who wish to enter the Netherlands, need in principle a visa, which is valid for a maximum of three months.  United States citizens do not need a visa to enter the Netherlands for a stay less than six months.  Third country nationals who wish to stay longer than three months have to apply for an authorization for temporary stay (MVV).  Not everybody requires a MVV to apply for a residency permit. Nationals of the following countries do not need a MVV; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America and the Vatican City.

Schengen area – what is it and how does it work?

The Netherlands is a signatory to the Schengen Agreement, which enables free circulation of residents within countries in the Schengen Area. A visa granted by one of these countries (for example, the Netherlands) is valid in the whole Schengen Area. Travelling within the Schengen Area is legally the same as travelling within the Netherlands. If you enter the Netherlands with a tourist visa, you will be able to stay in the Netherlands and/or any other country in the Schengen Area for up to 90 days during any 6-month period.

In addition to the Netherlands, the other parties to the Schengen Agreement are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

Although you can leave the Schengen Area and come back in as many times as you need during its 6-month validity, the total amount of time you can stay in the Schengen area cannot exceed 90 days. A visa granted by one of the Schengen countries is valid in all other member countries. Countries outside the Schengen Area include Switzerland, United Kingdom & the Channel Islands, Ireland, Morocco, and Gibraltar.  Applications have to be submitted to the Dutch Embassy in the country of origin or residence. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is in charge of issuing visas and MVV’s 73 for which there is a specialized visa service.

Residence

If you are not a national (or family member of a national) of Switzerland, a European Union (EU) country or a EuroZone (EER) country, you will need a long-term residence permit to reside in the Netherlands for more than three months. The first step is to obtain a provisional residence permit at a Netherlands embassy or consulate overseas. This will allow you to enter the Netherlands, after which point you will need to apply for a long-term residence permit at the Dutch immigration service. The success of your application and the length of stay granted will depend on your reason for seeking residence (work, study and family reunion are examples of permissible reasons). The best way to get permission to stay in the Netherlands for several years is to obtain a long-term skilled or professional job, or marry a Dutch citizen.

Benefits of Residence

As a resident of the Netherlands you may live and work in the Netherlands (depending on the conditions of your residence permit). You may also freely travel to most EU countries for the entire duration of your residence permit as there are no customs barriers throughout most of EU. Finally, you may eventually become eligible to apply for Dutch citizenship.

Dutch Citizenship

In order to obtain Dutch citizenship, you must be at least 18 years old; have continuously resided in the Netherlands for the past five years for a non-temporary reason (study is considered a temporary reason); pass an examination proving your competency in the Dutch language; and have maintained a clean criminal record for the past four years. Other restrictions may apply in certain cases, such as past terrorist activity. You may also be required to renounce your original nationality (numerous exceptions apply to this requirement).

Benefits of Dutch Citizenship

As a Dutch citizen you will be able to obtain both Dutch and EU passports. You will be able to live and work freely in the Netherlands for the rest of your life, and you may travel, live and work anywhere within the EU. You will also be able to vote in Dutch elections.

EMPLOYMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS

A third country national who wishes to work for an employer in the Netherlands needs a residence permit and a work permit. To qualify for a residence permit, the third country national needs to hold a MVV89 for the purposes of paid employment. During the application procedures for the MVV it will be determined whether the third country national meets the requirements for residence in the Netherlands. In principle, the criteria for admission to the Netherlands are threefold:

1. International obligations as mentioned in treaties or agreements90

2. Essential interests of the Netherlands, for example business men or employees with particular expertise

3. Humanitarian criteria such as family reunions.

Apart from international obligations, a residence permit issued for the purposes of paid employment or self-employed activity will be granted only if the proposed activity matches the specific national essential interests.  The decision to grant or refuse a residence permit will be delayed until the decision on the work permit application has been made. In the meantime the Aliens Police will, however, check whether the applicant complies with the regular requirements for admission. These requirements are as follows:

· The residence of the applicant is not considered to be a risk to public order or national security

· The applicant has proof of sufficient means to support himself

· The applicant will have decent housing

· The applicant has not breached any procedural rules such as entering the Netherlands without a MVV

The applicant will only be granted a residence permit if DOO of these requirements are met. In the case of the residence permit application being refused, the work permit application will consequently be refused. The law also defines the obligations for the employer. An employer in the Netherlands has to apply for a work permit at the Regional Manpower Board, which advises the Central Manpower Services Board.

However the main potential obstacle to a non-EU/EEA national obtaining a work permit lies in the condition that there must be no qualified personnel available on the Dutch or EU/EEA labor market able to fulfill the vacancy. Other conditions to be met include:

· The vacancy has to be filed at the Regional Manpower Board and at the EURES-network, at least five weeks before the application for a work permit is filed;

· The salary will meet the minimum standards;

· The work does not consist of sexual dealings/activities with/for third parties.

Additional criteria for refusing a work permit are mentioned in article 9 of the Act, e.g. conditions of employment, age of applicant, proof of sufficient efforts to find personnel on the

internal market.

When all the above mentioned requirements are met, a work permit will be granted for the purposes of paid employment. A residence permit will be issued for the purposes of paid employment. Additionally, the third country national must undergo a tuberculosis test.

The residence permit will be issued for a maximum of one year, but will be extended for as long as the third country national holds a work permit. If the work permit has been granted for less than one year, the residence permit will be issued for the same period of time.

After three years in possession of a residence permit for the purpose of paid employment, third country nationals may request the right to free movement, which allows them to accept any paid employment without having to apply for a work permit.

Self-employed third country nationals do not need a work permit.

A third country national, who wishes to establish residence in the Netherlands for the purposes of self-employed economic activity, needs a residence permit. The main criterion for admission to the Netherlands in this case is that the activity has to match the essential interests of the country. These interests do not have to be purely economic: cultural and other sorts of interests may be involved. Professionals (such as doctors or lawyers), who wish to work in the Netherlands, need to prove that they are qualified by Dutch standards and that there is a demand, which cannot be met by the internal market.

A third country national, who wishes to start a business, has to prove that his/her business activity is clearly innovative and that the business will not hamper competition in any way. The Ministry of Economic Affairs advises the Immigration and Naturalization Service on these criteria. The third country national is required to register at the Chamber of Commerce and provide evidence of the profits of the business (in case of a start-up there has to be a business plan). Information on the contribution to innovation of the product or company has to be provided and contracts with Dutch companies have to be shown.

The main rules for the admission of self-employed applicants are set out below:

· The normal requirements for obtaining a residence permit have to be met – such as proof of the means to support oneself and that the applicant does not pose a risk to public order.

· The maximum age to obtain a residence permit for the purposes of self-employed economic activity is 60 years.

· The residence permit will be issued, provided that the applicant enrolls in a health insurance scheme and undergoes a tuberculosis test.

When a third country national has held a residence permit for the purpose of paid employment for a period of three years, he or she may require the right to free movement, which allows him or her to accept any paid employment without having to apply for a work permit.

The third country national is entitled to receive a permanent residence permit after five years as a residence permit holder. The applicant should show evidence of sufficient means to support him/herself and should not present a risk to public order. The applicant will have to receive a long-term income for at least one more year and a main residence in the Netherlands for 5 consecutive years prior to the application to qualify for a permanent residence permit. In cases in which the applicant has seriously violated the public order or if he/she constitutes a threat to national security, the authorities may reject the application. If all requirements are fulfilled, the permanent residence permit will be granted for an indefinite period. The holder of a permanent residence permit does not require a work permit in case of employment.

Unemployment affects the right to residence depending on the status of residence. It does not affect the legal status of holders of a permanent residence permit.

Residency permit requirements

In order to qualify for a residency permit you will need to fulfill certain requirements. These requirements depend on the motivation of your stay: work, education, family, etc. The IND (Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst) will decide whether you fulfill the necessary requirements and if you are in possession of the correct documents. There are various requirements which you will always need to meet. You will always need to be in the possession of a valid passport. To obtain a residence permit you will further need to undergo a tuberculosis test and have a valid health insurance.

If you are not sure whether you fulfil the necessary requirements for a residency permit you can contact the IND by telephone by calling +31 20 889 30 45 or through their website www.ind.nl.

When you have enough information, and you are in possession of all the required documents you can ask for the application form at the local municipal office. Here you will also have to pay a certain fee. To apply for a residence permit you are required:

·         To have a valid passport

·         Not to have a criminal record

·         Not to be a danger for the public and/or national safety

·         To have sufficient monetary funds to finance (for example an income through labor or a financial sponsor) your stay in the Netherlands

·         To undergo a tuberculosis test

·         To have health insurance to cover any medical costs in the Netherlands

It is possible that the reason for your stay in the Netherlands obliges you to fulfil additional requirements. You should check this thoroughly on the website of the IND: www.ind.nl .

If you are coming to the Netherlands on academic grounds you can find more information on www.nuffic.nl.

Where and how to apply for your residence permit

Once you are in the Netherlands, if you do not need a MVV or you are in possession of a MVV, you can apply for a residence permit at the local municipal office (Gemeentehuis).

The municipality will send your application to the IND who will examine your submission. When the IND makes a decision to grant a residence permit they send a message to the municipal office and you will be able to collect it there. If the IND rejects your application you will receive a personal letter at your home address. If you are not granted the residency permit you have four weeks to appeal against the decision.

By law, the IND has 6 months to make their decision but in most cases this process will not take this amount of time.  If you require a MVV and you are not in the possession of this document, you should go to one of the IND offices in either Hoofddorp or Rijswijk in order to apply for a residence permit. Keep in mind that when a MVV is required you always have to try to obtain one. If you do not do this you could be handed over to the Foreign Police (Vreemdelingenpolitie).

Therefore, to get to the Netherlands, Luke would only need to present his U.S. passport, and then once Luke gets to the Netherlands, he will need to apply within the first three months for residency.

I see two main options for Luke.  One, he can pursue studies at a university in the Netherlands.  This would likely be the easier option for him, and allows him to extend his stays for longer periods of time.  We could make this application prior to his departure, and then he would renew while he is in the Netherlands and remains in school.

The second option is for Luke to work in the Netherlands, and have an employer sponsor him.  Absent Luke finding a job before he leaves the U.S., he could go to the Netherlands on the visa (as described above), possibly having set up job interviews for while he is there, and then once he is hired and physically present in the Netherlands, they can complete the applications for residency.

This option also includes the possibility of Luke opening a business in the Netherlands, being self-employed.  If he goes this route, it is much more complex, and requires extensive showings to the government, as well as the process of setting up a business in the Netherlands (permits, licenses, etc.).  I only mention this here as a worst case scenario, should Luke be unable to find work.  We would likely need to consult with local (Netherlands) counsel if Luke decided to open a business in the Netherlands.

Last Thoughts re: Criminal History

On the form itself, it asks about criminal history (convictions, terms of imprisonment, etc.).  It requests that the person provide an explanation of this criminal history.  So it’s all up to whether they consider the criminal record to constitute a threat to public policy.

In EU law, ‘threat to public policy’ can generally only be assumed if it was something really serious: crimes against humanity, murder, rape, or hard-drug trafficking.
In practice though, will they ask at the border? No, they won’t. They aren’t yet having citizens of visa-free countries fill in the type of questionnaires that the US has foreigners fill in to get their visa waiver. So not telling them can’t really be considered lying.

When someone applies for a long-term residence permit in the Netherlands, though, they do ask, and lying (if they find out about it) is punishable by revocation of the residence permit later on. They don’t care so much about the felony/misdemeanor distinction that US criminal law makes: what they do, if you admit to having a criminal record, is translate the specific crime into Dutch criminal law to decide how serious they think it is.

In Dutch immigration law, a conviction in a foreign court of something that could be considered equivalent to a midriff (the more serious class of offenses in Dutch criminal law, analogous to a felony) is a bar to being able to get a residence permit for a non-family-related purpose. The question is how long the bar stands. Your offense would translate to art. 240b of the Criminal Code, paragraph 1 (which is the less serious form: simple, non-systematic possession of child pornography)– for that the maximum prison sentence in the Netherlands is four years. That means that the maximum length of time that you can be denied legal residence is five years, starting on the day that the foreign conviction became irrevocable and you were already in detention. (If it had been a violent offense, it would be 10 years– if it had been an offense for which a maximum prison sentence was 6 years or more, it would be 20 years.)

Nevertheless, it would be a fight, even in such a cut-and-dried case as this, if you tried to go to the Netherlands more than 5 years after the date of conviction. Especially that, according to those in the Netherlands, there has been something of a mass hysteria about crimes involving children ever since a big scandal broke regarding one particular ring.  Lawyer indicate that the government would of course try its hardest, for political reasons, to deny your residence.  The relevant offenses in Florida criminal law and Dutch criminal law don’t exactly line up, so there may be an argument as to whether or not you would be prosecuted in the Netherlands.

If you immigrates for family-related reasons, i.e. to be here in a pre-existing relationship with a Dutch citizen, that would be an extenuating circumstance in the considerations. And if you came here for a relationship or marriage with a citizen of another EU country who was living in the Netherlands (say, a Polish or Spanish or British citizen living in the Netherlands), then you could not at all be denied residence for a criminal record like that. This is because of the fact that that situation falls under EU law, and EU law maintains an extremely high standard for what can reasonably be considered a threat to public safety on the part of EU citizens or their family members– it roughly has to do with safeguarding the unimpeded freedom of movement of EU citizens.

As a side note, and as something far into the future, Dutch citizenship does not require that a person not have any criminal convictions – it only requires that a person has not been convicted of any criminal offenses in the four years preceding the application.  Note – citizenship and residency are two separate steps in the process.  As Luke does not have any availability possibilities for a direct line to Dutch citizenship (family members, etc.), the first step will be for him to obtain residency in the Netherlands.  Further, at the residency stage, Luke will not have to make the difficult decision of giving up his U.S. citizenship, something that I rarely, if ever, will counsel a client to do.  This will give him some time before he has to make that decision, as once you renounce your U.S. citizenship, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to ever get it back. Further, if Luke wants to travel back to the U.S. at any point, absent maintaining his U.S. citizenship, his felony conviction will be a bar to entry into the U.S., absent waivers or other relief.  Therefore, I would strongly recommend that, at least for the first few years, that Luke maintain his U.S. citizenship, obtain residency in another country, and then make the other decisions a few years down the road.

So we have some things to think about.  I have made good contacts with both the Netherlands consulates in the US, as well as a very good attorney in the Netherlands who handles these types of cases.  So we have some good resources for when we start to move forward.  I will start looking into Japan as well – I apologize that I did not know until Luke’s email that this was an option.

I got 2 emails this week from 2 different family members who’s sons were convicted of downloading child porn.. altho they did so by accident. Thru peer-to-peer software, they saw what it was and deleted them without watching. I also get 3 or 4 emails a month, same situation and they all tell me what happened to their son is almost exactly the same situation my son has gone thru.

My son has 1 more year i Federal Prison. He has friends in there and I’m thankful for them and for his music that keeps him going.

But the thought of what he will have to endure when he gets out has scared the hell out of him. He’s a shy quiet guy, young. He just spent his 23rd birthday in there, Xmas baby. He’s not the kind of person who is good at doing things for himself, as far as being on his own and taking care of confrontations. . . but he’s asked me about moving out of the country. I’ve hired an immigration attorney and she’s working on this for us.

We’re first looking at moving to New Amsterdam, Netherlands. I’m not moving.. I can’t. I own a business here in the states and that’s our money. Without that we’d both be living in the streets. I hate the thought of him not being here, not being able to see him everyday.

At this point I haven’t seen him in a year. The strip search he would have to deal with if I went for a visit is more than he can take. So, I don’t visit.. and now he’ll be leaving the country.

I can’t blame him. 15 year probation, a lifetime on the sex offender registry for accidentally downloading child porn that he didn’t want and never watched. Probation is strict . If he’s not home by 10pm he goes back to prison for 5 years. He has to take therapy and polygraphs, drug testing as often as they want him to, and he has to pay for all that. Nice scam huh? And at my son’s and YOURs .. this can happen to you.. This is my son’s life and our government has fucked him over and laughed about it. They know what they’re doing. They know this is bull shit, but now that pot is almost legal they need a new trick and this ‘crime’ is it. Shame on you USA.

My son says they’ve taken away all his freedoms for the rest of his life he has no rights in a country he’s supposed to call his. They’ve taken away his citizenship. He has no alternative but to denounce America and try to live a citizen of another country. We’re not the greatest country in the world people.. Wake up. This can happen to you.

Mandatory Minimums and Death In Prison

My son called and he was talking about all the inmates with really long sentences. His buddy Mango, who is the drummer in his band, got 18 years for 1^st offence drug charge. Mango has 2 kids on the outside, a sister, brother and a mom who is in bad health with cancer.

Most of all the inmates in ‘Low’, which means low risk, have been oversentenced. Many spending most or all of their lives in prison.

We spoke briefly about being ‘institutionalized’ where inmates feel safer in prison than out. That they have been brainwashed to think the guards are their friends and the ‘outside’ is a dangerous place.

He told me about the ‘town hall’ meetings where the CO will come in and act like they’re all on the same side and let the brainwashing begin. Most smart inmates know not to talk with anyone in charge. Because they’re really not on your side. In fact, they can find things to hold against you.

Luke also told me about the blind guy who was so old and just died. Why didn’t they let him and to die at home? He was blind! What harm could he do. He was real sick, hadn’t eaten for 3 days. When the CO s (correctional officers) finally brought him to the hospital he was dead. My son has been in for 9 months and has seen 5 people die from old age or sickness. They take the body out quickly tho and bring it to the hospital to cover the fact that the inmate died in prison. Making like he died at or on the way to the hospital.

Rule # 1. Don’t get sick in prison.

My son is still in a band in prison. He doesn’t call me often.. and when he does he won’t tell me what he’s doing. I ask and he says ‘does it matter?’ Then he’ll say ‘I really need some good news right now’. And .. I have nothing to tell him.. so he’ll say ‘You need to have some good news for me tomorrow’ and then hangs up.

I’m waiting on his attorney to clarify his sentencing. The judge said Adam wasn’t going to take sex offender treatment. Our shrink’s report said that it would be destrimental to him and the judge went along with it. He DID say that Adam would take some kind of therapy tho when he’s released.. not the best but it’s better than sex offender treatment. So we’re trying to clear that up. Even so I just don’t trust the system and will get ready to fight that once my son gets released.. in case they say ‘it’s mandatory and he has to’ then they’re in for a fight.

Getting into my busy season at work and ready to send my daughter to Philly to look for a new shop and a place to live probably beginning of October.

My son is in his 9th month.. It never gets easier. He says I don’t care about him, that I don’t love him and that I’m not trying or he’d be out of there. He says if he were out and I was in that he’d find a way. But there is none.. so far.

I miss him.

My son called me yesterday. He calls when he needs something.. so he asked me to get him some guitar tabs (sheet music). He’s joined another band. Word in the place that he’s the best guitarist there.. He says some are good but they only play blues or metal and he plays everything. He’s very talented.

He tells me with pride in his voice and I’m so happy he has his music. Being charged with a crime you didn’t commit.. and being labeled one of the foulest creatures alive.. a sex offender. . can really make a person feel that have nothing to live for.

I miss him.. He tells me how I don’t care and don’t love him. It’s tough..

I’m part of a new support group, we’re going Activist! www.PastWalls.com

I learned a lesson today. Trying to be part of these groups that are trying to reform the sex offender laws.

I’m reading this book call Moral Man And Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics
and the words in that book struck me.

These laws are put through a government who’s people are only human and their human ideals and emotions reflect those laws. But who are they to say what is right and wrong. These reform groups cry out that the people who are now accused of these crimes have been caught in a net of what the public cry demands. And that is the way human nature is.

So, I join grassroots groups that are fighting laws passed by people based on their idea of what is right and wrong. And as I see these groups organize they begin to have rules. Most have to do with a little ego but seems the main requirement is ‘time put in’. How long have you had this sex offender issue in your life. If it hasn’t been that long that you are a worker bee. If you buzz too loud then you are kicked out of the hive. There are rules so don’t break them. I broke the rule of trying to engage in conversation about what was going on in Pennsylvania and how do I help, who do I call, maybe I’m not in the right facebook.. And in 2 minutes there were comments like. ‘Who does she think she is’.. And ‘She’s been kicked off. And that’ll teach her a lesson.

Why do I have to get an email that says ‘I’m up here and you’re down there and you can’t be in charge because I am.’ Why can’t we all just be equals. Why can’t we be all captains or all soldiers. But that’s human nature. The chiefs and the scouts. My not being in a group for as long as someone else does not make me irrelevant or an idiot.

So, the lesson of today is, beware of organizations when you’re fighting organizations. Do only what will advance your cause and no more than that because you’re not in charge of other people.
If there are ‘rules’ to follow and you don’t fit in then you can always do it on your own.

Time to take a new angle. His confession was false, we have the forensics. Without that they had 1 cp. That’s all. The confession is splattered all over his PSI and sentencing papers. If I could find a lawyer who can take it from another angle.. You never know. At this point my son will be on the registry unless I try to make him a free man and not just a managed sex offender.

I didn’t know this but before 1990 possession of child pornography was not a federal crime. I’m still trying to find out what the punishment would have been. . going back to 1977 when the first sex offender law was passed.. there’s a lot of reading to do . Since 1990 the sentence for possession have increased 445 times that of the original sentencing from 1990 to current. That’s huge.

I’m still moving there. . It would still be 1000 as compared to 2500 and the cops would be a little more lenient.

PA – THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA SENATE BILL No. 1378

Read more on the link:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&sessYr=2011&sessInd=0&billBody=S&billTyp=B&billNbr=1378&pn=1888

I had to move 2 months ago and finally got the mail that I left behind that has been accumulating in my PO box there. I had a friend pick it up and ship it to me. In there were letters from people I’ve contacted about my son, politicians, projects, etc.

I got all my stuff back from the Miami Innocence project and even tho I was told my son has a case but they can’t take it because his sentence is too short I get this:

We have received your letter that you provided. We regret to inform you that we cannot assist you on your case. We take no position on the merits of any claim you raise.

What crap! And it seems everyone else is now falling in line. This thing is political and my son really has no recourse. He’s fucked.

I am planning on moving my business up to Philadelphia. I am hoping that there won’t be any problem with the government releasing him up there instead of this dead town in Florida. I know if he stays here he will be constantly harassed by the police and sheriff. They’re just terrible down here. And he has very limited places he could live.

If I move to Philly with my shop I’ll make more money. Philly is a good town for my biz.

So.. he’ll have a relative, a job and a place to live in Philly.. and they should transfer him, but they don’t have to.

I’m going to cross my fingers and take the leap. Still waiting to get more info from the lawyer about it but we’re not talking yet.

Adam called me this morning, asking me to put some money in commissary and giving me a list of music tabs. He said there are 3 guys in there that are really good guitar players and he’s one of them. He’s been asked to join a few bands and I think he’s picked one. I am really glad he has his music.

I got a letter from Face who is just as miserable as everyone else. He said he was having a few bad weeks and with the politics in there his life has been tough. Face.. the Muslim bunkmate my son had in county.. I’ve kindof adopted him.

He says: I’m sorry that it has taken so long to respond. I have just been going thru alot during the last couple of weeks. between dealing with prison politics and bad news from my court appointed appellate lawyer, I’ve just been down lately.. Which isn’t like me at all.

I have been trying to get a job for a few months now. but this prison is so overcrowded that the best i could do is to get on a waiting list. . . I want a job even if it doesn’t pay just to give me something to do. I’ve never liked tv, their library is a joke and there is only so much working out and walking i can do. i can’t wait to to to low and hand out with Wolf either. maybe he can tech me guitar and or kung fu. good company is hard to come by over here. tell wolf i said ‘Wassup’ and for him to keep his head up. It’s always good to hear from you. take care of yourself as well and I hope to hear from you soon.

— and he signs it —-    Peace, Daniel (he’s always signed it Face in the past) I’m going to have to kid him about that when I write him.

I put money in is commissary as well. he has no one and that little extra makes life a little easier. And it brings a good thing to their day with all the crap that goes on.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with this new attorney I found. I sent him everything and he said to have Adam put him on his phone, email & visiting list. I’m hoping it’s not just another of those attorneys who take your 5grand and then tell you what you already know.

Last night I got a call from my son. He was telling me about taking the GED evaluation. He has to get his GED or he will loose good time days. His evaluation showed he almost got the science part perfect, missing 1 or 2. It surprised him but not me. And he took the reading evaluation and did pretty good there.

He also asked me to get him guitar tabs. He’s been spending all his spare time playing guitar. I started telling him how happy I was that he has music and he got pissed off and told me that none of this stuff matters anyway.And hung up on me.

I know he didn’t want me to think that it’s ok that he’s in there and that I should give up making him a free man.. which I’m not.

And even before he would call and ask me if I had any good news. I don’t have any.. He doesn’t want to hear about me going to an ACLU meeting or how the Pardon is coming along. . there’s so much paperwork for the Pardon. He just wants me to tell him that he’s getting out, now, today.

He’s been having it tough. He won’t even tell me what’s going on anymore. I ask him if he’s gotten the magazine I sent him and he’ll say ‘does it matter?’ and that’s my answer for every question I ask him.

I’m hoping that, eventually he’ll start talking to me about what he’s dealing with in there. I know they’re supposed to give him a job and he’s going to get his GED (if he doesn’t he looses good time) but I have no idea if he’s started them. . He won’t tell me anything. I hate it. sucks

Adam hangs out with Mango who is bi sexual. My son is not prejudice against anyone and he’s always hung out with whoever he wanted to hang out with. . but this is Prison and when you hang out with someone like Mango, and Mango hangs out with the ‘sissies’ then . .well, you know people on the inside are going to think you’re gay. And now Adam is having to put up with people telling him that he likes it up the ass and stuff like that. Now I have more worries.  I know my son and he can handle things but it just takes one person to hurt him. I hope things just settled down. Once people get to know him they like him, but being in situations like this just make his life harder.

I guess because I’ve raised my kids to think for themselves.. that might not have been good to instill it in my son, seeing how he’s in this place now. He’s already had a Muslim bunkmate who he hung out with and then started going to Muslim services. That was jail, which wasn’t so bad. He started those services in Prison and it didn’t work out well. Some of the inmates had a problem with a white boy hanging out with Muslims.

And now he hangs out with Mango. He puts himself in these places where, if he would make other choices, his life would be easier. But it’s not in him to do that. He could become a  fake ‘Christian’ .. that would make people like him better. But it’s really hard for him to sit and listen to the preaching all day long. No offence, but Christians preach all day to you, every day.. it’s all they have.

I worry about him.

Adam had to see his case worker today. The CW told him he should take a vocational course because he won’t be able to get a job where there’s children around. Wolfe told him he had a job already but I guess he didn’t hear him. Then he was told that he would almost definitely 98% not get into a halfway house end of his sentence. Which I think is a lie. Everything I read about the Halfway house says not. I think on of the jobs of the workers there is to make each inmate feel as insignificant and paranoid as possible.

I went to the local ACLU meeting this past Friday. I think most people know who they are. They try to protect peoples civil liberties.

It was at the Red Lobster here in Daytona. Anyone can go to these meetings.

At the end of the meeting George, who was in charged, asked me if I wanted to talk about my son and I wasn’t ready for that. But he told me to give him all of Adam’s stuff and he’ll give it to their lawyers to look at.

I’ve come to the conclusion that going to a lawyer help for to appeal won’t work. They’ll just send it to trial and he’ll get more years. But there are things I may need a lawyer for at this point. I know the laws change constantly. There are things now going into place that might let Wolfe request getting of the registry in 25 years instead of life. Not a bit plus but it’s something.

There are people that, when they’re on probation, have went to court to get off the registry so I want to keep that on the ‘list of maybes’ . Adam might be able to get sent home to finish his sentence there. And there is the sex offender treatment that he is required to take for 18 months. He’s supposed to take it in Prison, but the prison he is in doesn’t have that so he’ll have to do it when he gets out. All he did was accidentally download cp and he has to go to treatment for sex offenders.

I just feel we still need a lawyer. . Eventually I want to sue the government. Seems most people I contact to help, like lawyers, just blow us off. They figure he’s done and just has to deal with the outcome, like so many other people who have been fucked over by the government. If it doesn’t involve filling their pockets with money or making a name for them.. then people just don’t want to bother.

I went to see my son for visitation. I was there a little early, put some money in commissary and waited for 8am. The guard comes out and tells me he’s not there anymore. So.. he’s been transferred.

I hear it can take days before you find out where your ‘prisoner’ went. Fortunately I got a call later that night. He’s in Coleman about 2 hour drive from here. I’m writing this post on Fed 17th so  some time has passed.

I think he’s staying there. Not sure if I’m happy about that or not. The COs are giving him a real hard time. They know his charge but don’t know what he didn’t do. So to all the guards he’s a sex offender. They’re not allowed to ‘out’ my son, but it’s done. If they do and get connected to the ‘outting’ they could loose their job.

I was happy to hear he now had a guitar to play. It’s only acoustic but it’s a guitar. Some of the inmates have heard him play and think he’s really good.. which he is. . and there’s talk of starting a band. . .BUT

Just as Adam brought back a guitar a few days ago the guard told him he didn’t bring it back on time. Didn’t he hear the call over the loud speaker to return equipment. No he hadn’t. One of the other inmates told the guard to cut him a break.. he’s new. But he didn’t and now Adam is without a guitar or anything from the music room until April. Not sure what date in April . . they do what they want.

A couple better things, there is hot water and a private shower and toilet. He can go outside. On his ride to the Prison he sat in back of a coushy Federal van and listened to the first music in 3 months. And my son is a musician.

He tells me it’s over. He’ll never be famous for his music or anything else he wanted to be in life.. they’ve taken it all away from him.

I hope not.

Wolfe doesn’t call as much as he used to do. He says it’s frustrating. He wants to hear some good  news, anything.. even a contact from an old friend, mostly from a new lawyer. . . and there’s never anything good to tell him.

He’s still in D Pod, the Mental Health Department. Altho he shouldn’t be there. He’s been waiting for someone to come evaluate him for the past 2 weeks and they don’t. He’s the only 1 in there that’s not on meds.

He signed up for Muslim studies yesterday and it never happened. He was really tired but he stayed awake waiting for them to call his name so he could go to studies and see Face. But it never happened.

He says there are 2 guys in there that got the death penalty. One of them might have a chance of getting out of it but there other is a definite. Wolfe says he’s such a nice optimistic guy. . and wonders how he could be like that.

I can’t understand how people in this world think it’s ok to kill someone. The death penalty is just . . . I don’t even have the words for it.

One thing I’ve learned is.. that guy in there could be you. Everyone does something that could put them in there, you just haven’t gotten caught.

I have to move my business this week because the bank took it over and we have to get out. . so, it hinders things a bit.

Went to see my son yesterday. He has given up the fight. He used to yell at me and tell me he needs to get out or he’ll kill himself. That he has nothing to live for. Each phone call I took and each one I knew would be torture to hear his pleas of help. Which got him put in the hole, for a week. Hopefully he’ll be out Tuesday. If not who knows.
He’s in one of the more ‘plush’ cells.
He told me the jail used to be privately owned and each room had a phone, tv, table. But he could see where they took out the stuff as it left marks which were never painted over. He has a mattress on the floor, a sheet, toilet, camera always watching him, his books and some sketching/writing paper. They don’t let him out all day. He was in there for 2 days straights and would have been longer if I hadn’t shown up for a 1 hour visit. He’ll be in there again for another 3 days straight because there’s no more visiting days until Wednesday. No windows, no leaving the room.
He’s trying to be positive. He wants out. But now he’s flipped that light on and realizes that the way he was going about it wasn’t the right way. He’s also a Taoist so finally that philosophy is kicking in.

We talked about a big problem there, which is that when they’re not treated fairly or there’s a problem with anything.. like none of the sinks have faucets. They have sporks stuck in them to direct the water.
There’s a list.. .
They have no outside group, that I know of, that is effective in helping with this stuff. You have some Christian organizations, but they don’t like the convicts. Yes, they’re Christians, but they’re hypocrites. There needs to be a non denominational advocacy group to address these issues. Of course.. that takes time and right now all I want to do is get my son out.

He wants to help others as well. He says when he gets out he’s going to work on that goal. He now has friends in there and it’s personal. He also wants to take down those people who put him in there. Now, neither of us are into revenge. But these people need to stop fucking up peoples lives.

The guards, nurses  and everyone in there lie to you. The working at the ‘health center’ where my son is in the hole told me he gave him the biggest ‘room’ (it was the only 1 left because the others had screaming inmates in them)
and it had a window.. which had blinds covering it. The blinds had a little opening at the bottom where my son could see the clock. So now he knows what time it is.. which was driving him crazy.
He tells me he now tries to sleep all day and then when it’s 12 midnight he knows it’s morning soon. Each minute feels like 20. .

and he’s innocent.

This could happen to anyone.

Now I wait. . for that phone call . . He called yesterday but it was early in the day and since then, nothing.

I had to call his dad yesterday and tell him to go visit Wolfe. At least he would get an hour out of the hole. He said he would and he did today.

Yesterday, as I was talking to Michael Todd in the Medical department where they’re holding Wolfe,.. he mentioned how it was strange he was there for so long. 2 months is a long time in holding. And I agreed. He said they tried to call the US Marshal and never got ahold of anyone..well, I know they don’t try very hard.So I mentioned that maybe I would call the US Marshal and he thought it was a good idea.

I called and was told to hold on for a moment, which turned into 23 minutes. So I called back and was transferred  few times. And finally got this guy Eric Thompson and he looked and said he didn’t have a destination yet and yes it was strange that he didn’t and that Wolfe was in there a long time. And then he saw a ‘medical alert’ from the day before and said that might hold up the transfer. And so I called Michael back and told him the conversation and gave him Eric’s info and he called.. and left a message on Eric’s answering machine. I only know that because Wolfe was able to call me and Michael was in the hall and told him he left a message. . but he really needed to call this guy back. . but messages seem to disappear in that place.

I got a visit on Sunday late.. at least he’ll get an hour out of the hole.

and I’m still waiting for that phone call today. He’s really scared. He told his dad that he may have to go to Medical instead of back to his pod. He’s afraid of getting good time taken away. So his world is full of questions and he’s just scared shitless.  He’s only 22 and this is NOT the kind of place that he does well in.

8:31. . he has until about 11:15 to call before lights out.

They let Wolfe call me tonight. He called me back 3 times in a row so we got to talk for an hour. And it was an hour out of the hole. He’s hoping to get out tomorrow. Some doctor needs to assess him first before he’s released. I think they only come around on Tuesday and Thursday. So if he’s not released tomorrow it won’t be until Tuesday of next week. But I’m hopeful.

He told me they let him keep his ‘reds’ on. Reds – jail uniform. So he wasn’t naked and that’s a good thing. He has his books and can sketch but he says the absence of human companionship is too much to deal with. It’s only been a day but he feels so isolated that it feels like days.. as he says the minutes seem so long. He doesn’t have a watch or clock so has no idea of what time it is.. Only when they bring him breakfast does he know it’s 4am and lunch is 11. It fucks with your head. . and this poor guy didn’t do anything. . . and he has to deal with this kind of abuse.

I swear I will get him his freedom. He’s innocent. I don’t know how long it will take but I’m ruthless when I believe in something. And after the government is going to do some kind of payback. I’m not into revenge.. but the truth needs to come out about all this. and sometimes the truth is not convenient.

Thea

Well, it finally happened. He was loud enough and constantly spoke about killing himself so they put him in the hole for 3 days!

I was hoping he would get transferred today. I don’t know..maybe he was. I’ve signed up with a website called Vinelink . They’re supposed to notify my when he’s moved.

This is the worse place he could be and now after 2 months of being in this shithole. At least Federal Prison is more humane and I hope that every week he’s transferred. Transfers only happen middle of the night on Mondays (who usually go to Miami) and Tuesday. . and it’s Wednesday and I haven’t heard anything so I’m assuming he’s in there for another week.

I’m on hold as well… I have no home, living out of my place of business. Just waiting to find out where they send him so I can move there.

I know he’s miserable . . even more so now that he’s naked sitting in a small concrete cell with a mattress and sheet..and a toilet that doesn’t work.

Oh.. forget to mention how I found out. I got a call yesterday and it was Daniel (Face) on the phone. He called me to let me know what happened. Wolfe asked him to so I wouldn’t worry. Daniel has a calming kind of voice. And tells me he’ll be alright and it makes me believe him. I like him right off.. . altho I know he just got 30 years for owning a rocket launcher.. plus all that pot he grew (which I don’t see as a crime). But you never know someone’s story so I don’t judge these guys.

Thanks Daniel

Thea

Yesterday, the 22nd was his birthday. He had told me, as he has everyday, that he’s tired of taking this shit and he’s going to kill himself. He now tells me he hasn’t yet because it’s too tough to do it in county, but it will be in Prison so he’s going to do it then.. unless I can get him out now. .  I don’t know why he thinks I have that power.

He yells at me, tells me I’m stupid and that I tell him bullshit, like maybe the Innocence Project can help, or maybe I can get him a pardon…but he tells me I’m stupid for thinking any of that stuff will happen. And he won’t live like this and he will kill himself when he gets the chance.

He’s been in there almost 2 months, which is a really long time to be in holding at a county jail. County jails are the worse. I’m hoping he gets transferred next Monday or Tuesday (those are transfer days) altho I know he doesn’t want to be.. I’m hoping the change in a little more privacy, and maybe a little bit better food will keep him hanging on. He can play an instrument and paint in Prison..but he still tells me he’s not free so it’s not worth being alive.

I can’t win either way.

So.. some nice local church passed out bags to the prisoners with a cookie a piece of fruit and a message to believe in Jesus. I guess they think this is a nice thing to do.. but it just reminds the inmates that they’re in prison for Xmas. And it doesn’t get my son his religious right to practice a religion of his choice, the Muslim prayer day and study are pretty much non existent in jail, even tho I complained. I guess they just figure 1 voice doesn’t matter.

So on this holiday of giving why are these Christians not allowing others to enjoy their constitutional right to practice their own religion. Hypocrites. . . I have nothing against people believing in their god but sometimes all these guys have in prison is their faith..and the government has taken that away as well.

Ok, so I’m a bit bias about his dad.. but I know he needs one even if it’s not the best.

Wolfe mailed a letter to his dad but only his granpa returned a letter at first, which I was happy with because Wolfe missed his granpa. Then his dad wrote him and my son asked me to get his phone #, which I did today. And set it up so he could call him. I’m not sure if he will tonight or not, but he has that info now.

I’m hoping for the best.

Still waiting to find out when and where he’ll be transferred, the website says he’s in ‘transfer’ mode. So that might be this week. Wolfe is so worried about it.

I’m busy writing up more info to mail out to people, newspapers, activists, politicians.. and getting my pardon info out, which I had to wait for until he transferred into Federal Prison system.

I’m so surprised at all the people who have loved ones in jail , who shouldn’t be and are doing nothing else besides what their lawyers tell them. Maybe an appeal, which never works. But when I ask people if they’re contacting their congressman or news sources to get people to notice their plight I get a silence. What is wrong with people! That’s why nothing happens and innocent people remain in jail. And those who may think they’re guilty but in jail for such little things like some pot.. and the loves ones on the outside just don’t do another thing.. except prayer.. which, I’m sorry, but prayer won’t get your kid out of jail. You have to do something and do it until you get a result. I’m not giving up on my son. I will nag these politicians, newspeople, experts, Innocence projects until I get something. I write them again and again, over and over and they will damn sure know who my son is. And hopefully someone will get off their butt and actually help us. He’s innocent and he has a life sentence.

I’ll be posting his ‘confession’ soon. It took me hours to copy from audio but I find it very telling.

So, if you have someone in jail DO SOMETHING! Let your voice be heard. Don’t remain silent and make like you can’t do anything about it and if you pray enough god will let them out.. because god won’t do that. Sorry but this is reality and unheard prayers will get you some comfort but they won’t get results. I’m sorry to offend anyone and I know that believing in a god can be a good thing, but it’s not getting your loved one out of jail. You need to do that.  . . any way you can.

He’s on the list for transfer.. but doesn’t know when. He’s definitely on the edge and I worry about him taking his life.. at least he’s in a room with a lot of other people, but it’s night and soon most will go to sleep. He keeps calling me tho and he’s mad.

Adam called me at 9:34pm. We were talking.. he’s very depressed and he said he’s going to kill himself first chance he gets. He just can’t take it anymore. And while we were talking his name was called and he said he’s in transit. We had to get off the phone.

I don’t know much about it, but I think they grab him right then and start the sending of him to a new facility. I have no idea where that will be. I could be here in Florida, there’s a place in North Carolina where a lot of ‘sex offenders’ go for ‘treatment’.

I’m hoping it will be a good change for him, but I know he’s scared to death right now and the idea of death is looking good to him. I hope he can hang on to his sanity a bit longer. He’s always been afraid of change and the unknown.. and here it is, PRISON.  it’s a very scary thing for him.. and I don’t think he’ll be able to call me until he gets set up in the new place. Hopefully he can before they send him off tonight.. but I doubt it.

He says he’d rather die than go to Prison. He has been in jail, county. . and it’s one of the worse, but he knows people there, some that he trusts and now he has nothing again and the idea of ‘starting over’ is very exhausting and depressing for him. He’s so low right now I can only hope he keeps himself going somehow.

and each moment ticking is taking so long

I spend some time a bit over a week ago trying to find where Wolfe’s dad lived. It wasn’t hard to find. Wolfe hadn’t spoken with his dad since he was 15. His dad never treated him very well, he’s blame his son for many things that Wolfe had no control or,.. or were not true. He would tell Wolfe that if it wasn’t for him he wouldn’t have to pay all that child support ($20 a week) and he’s have a nice place to stay instead of that trailer.

I knew the day would come when Wolfe realized that his dad wasn’t too bright and at 15 , he, Wolfe is now more mature than his dad. And the sparks flew as Wolfe told him he didn’t like that his dad was dating a married woman, that it just wasn’t right. I think that pretty much ended their relationship.

But things happen, like this.. and Wolfe wrote him a letter and included a couple of sketches he did in jail.

Last night Wolfe got a letter, from his grandpa, who lives with his dad. I’m glad he got one from him, because they had a good relationship and I know Wolfe missed him. Speaking of him often enough. His grandpa said that his dad ‘was confused’, as the reason for his dad not to write him.

I know his dad called our attorney a couple of days ago asking what his sentence was.. but I don’t know if he knows the whole story.

Wolfe’s going to write his grandpa back, and I’m glad for that.

On another note, I finally got the audio of Wolfe’s confession and spent hours yesterday typing it out. Breaks my heart when I hear how they tried to twist his words around. I’m waiting for transcripts from the court but seems the court reporter Amie First doesn’t like returning phone calls. They say I need to get my copies from her but after a week, calling every day and my attorney calling I heard back from her once saying that if my attorney needs it for an appeal then he needs to contact her. This is not for an appeal. Seems that my son has the right to have these and they’re not giving them to me.

My son is getting quieter and telling me he won’t be around much longer.. and he doesn’t mean because of a transfer. We barely speak when on the phone now, there is much silence. I don’t mind being quiet for 15 minutes just as long as he’s on the other side of that phone. Our afternoon call was short. He says he’s dead inside. I tell him that’s the way the COs want him to be. He sounds like he has no fight left in him.

I’m hoping he’ll call tonight.

I got an email back from a civil liberties attorney who just got done writing a book about the prison’s soring numbers of convicted. How innocent people are going to jail. He told me he’d send my email to his legal group in Boston regarding ‘new client’ status. Better start saving my pennies. But I’ll do anything at this point.

I got some sketches in the mail and a start for his book he wants to write, which I’ll post here. Along with some lyrics to songs, which I’ll post at a later date. I’m making a page just for his artwork and lyrics. Adam is very depressed.. I can hear it in his voice, very soft and final and he tells me he won’t be there long. Like.. at all anywhere. I can’t tell the jail that he’s suicidal, that would just get him put in the hole.

They treat us like diseased animals. No! Worse. They think it’s justified because in their eyes criminals, scum, unhuman, not fit to live. They justify it by saying we need help, that we’re sick people who can’t live normal lives and need to be separated from the so called ‘normal people’.

It’s not that something is wrong with us. It’s just that we all have different (minds) and we have to choose our own paths in life. Not conforming to one. Of course that’s what makes people into two faced devils. They throw us in the hole every chance they get, just so they don’t have to deal with our basic needs. They deprive us of our basic human rights. They say they’re helping people.. BullShit

They do it for their own personal gain and ego. And to cover up their mistakes and wrong doings. The food they give us a starving animal wouldn’t eat. But we’re forced to eat it or starve. I wouldn’t force my worse enemy to eat this slop.

You can tell the cops, lawyers and judges have no self respect, no compassion, no love, no understanding or forgiveness. Just completely devoid of any human emotions. That’s why they chose their profession. To get recognition for their fucked up lies, beliefs and ideals. Just so they can walk around with a false sense of accomplishment.They know what they do is wrong but they’re afraid of not getting that recognition. Of not having the power to control people. They’re afraid of wrong. Afraid of being a normal human being.

That’s why they try to silence us. That’s why they try to demonize us. That’s why they treat us like this. They can’t stand that we’re the better people because we learn from and accept our actions which they refuse to do because everyone would be able to see how fucked up and two faced these people are. Their actions truly are. We’re the people they wish they could be. They won’t be truly human until they’ve learned that we have love, compassion, friendship, respect, patience, non judgement, forgiveness and willingness to learn from our mistakes. Unlike these people. We can forgive them and we will. We won’t punish them. . .but show compassion, understanding and forgiveness. That’s what makes us better, stronger people. Because we suffer for others.

****
Prisoner at John Polk Correctional Institute
#201100****2
Soon to be Federal Prisoner #54=****-018
November 25, 2011

Adam went to Muslim services yesterday morning… I’ve been busy moving our house into storage yesterday so I didn’t have time to blog.

Most religions have a time for prayer at the jail. They can go to the ‘church’ room and have services. The Christian priest doesn’t like the Muslims and gives them a hard time when it comes to this ‘right of practicing religion’ . They have a set time at 8am but are finally allowed in about an hour later and kicked out earlier than they’re supposed to be. All the time the priest watches them with distaine written all over his face.

Adam is a Taoist, which means he’s also an atheist. He goes because he wants to learn about everything, and his bunkmate goes there so Adam went with him this time. And now he’s requesting to go next time. He says the religion is interesting and is a lot less judgemental than the Chrisitian/Judai .

He tells me he’s not going to believe in god.. which is his choice of course. But the respect and humanity he gets there is what he enjoys.

I’ve read about Islam years ago and it has some very good points. I’ve yet to find any that I don’t like.. . but then I’m not an expert in that religion. will have to do some reading on it.

Needless to say.. guards and some inmates don’t look at the Muslims in jail in a good way.. just because of all the bull shit that’s been going on since 9-11.

Adam calls me at least twice a day. He always asks me if I’ve heard anything from anyone I’ve written to.. not yet I tell him. His sister is going to visit him tonight. It takes me 8 hours to do the drive, 1 hour visit and drive home so Wolfe has decided that the time is better spent writing letters, etc. Which I do. And read up on stuff that might help. I’m learning a lot.

I’m glad he gets along really well with Face, his bunkmate. He’s learning to speak Spanish, which could be very helpful in there. So he’s learning while they play cards.. so now he can play poker in  Spanish. One of the guys at the table today started spouting off how the white people were the ones who started America and went on and on. . people were getting a little pissed off but they all kept their cool. I guess he’s my age and started talking about Viet Nam . I think he’s a ‘good old boy’. Wolfe said that sometimes they’ll put someone in there with them to list and rat. If they can get something on another inmate and rat on them they have a chance of getting out.

I remember, and Adam reminded me, that when he went in they gave him a list of things, like selling drugs, owning  firearms, etc  and if he knows anyone who’s doing something illegal he should let them know and maybe it would get him shorter time. But I’d hate to be in there and be labeled a rat. I guess these guys figure if they tell on enough people they’ll get to go free, which is what happens too often.

Sent out some ‘Adam Packs’ today. 1 to Tony Morello who is singer for Rage Against the Machine. He’s really getting into the politics of things and has a website called AxisOfJustice. Smart dude.. so I sent him a pack. Also 1 to Mario Cuomo’s son.. I’ve always like that guy, maybe he’ll run for President (we all wish).

And 1 to Ed Shultz.. see my other Blog about him and the Sandusky crap that’s going on now. Whenever some big guy gets caught as a sex offender our country goes more crazy to put eveyone in jail. It just blinds everyone with rage and ‘have to do something quick to save my kid’ BS.

So my son is starting to give up and think that he might not get out. . I keep sending out my ‘packets of hope’ to politicians like Bernie Sanders and journalists.  I’m too stubborn to give up and besides.. my son is on a lifetime sex registry. So I’m going to keep going until I make him a free man.

He wants to send me his sketches he’s been doing but worried they won’t send them or the COs will look at them the wrong way and put him in the hole. Some of the other guys want him to do sketches for tats they want.

I have to get some work done at my shop because I’m way behind so this is a short post.  Waiting for a nightly phone call from Adam.

Adam’s going to mail me some of his artwork sketches and a letter. He still wants to send me the lyrics of a couple of songs he wrote but even tho I told him to mail it to his lawyer, he’s afraid the guards will read them and he’d get thrown in the box.

Some of the other guys told him that they get their mail read and 1 said his sister sent him a stamp so they sent her letter back because you can’t send stamps. Another had a section of his letter actually cut out. It had a recipe and I guess that’s a bad thing? Maybe they thought it was some kind of code to make a bomb or something. The CO (correctional officers) have strange ways of thinking. In fact we found that most people who were defending the children from my son all had issues and thought they knew what was in the heads of these ‘bad guys’ they caught. I’ll be putting together a website based on the way they interrogate suspects . . it’s on my to do list.

I had a book by Morotmoto Musachi, who was a famous Japanese Swordsman and it never made it in. I think because it had a picture of him in cartoon style and it was Musachi’s thoughts on living life seen thru a great swordsman, Samauri. These COs are so blind to what the book was really about, living life in a peaceful and nature way and saw it as something that showed you how to fight..

I mailed Adam a post card with a picture of Chief Two Moons who was a Cheyenne Chief who was at the battle of Little Big Horn. We’re big fans of his . . I have to ask my son if he got it because he should have by now. Unless they think a picture of an Indian Chief somehow is bad.

Well.. I’m so tired that I don’t even know if I’m making sense. Days are flying by and our 15 minutes on the phone are even shorter.

Martial arts.. so much of other’s lives. Not in jail. The fat guards don’t want you to practice any kind of martial art and if they find you doing that you’ll go to the hole.

Adam’s Kung Fu is something he loves. I understand it.. I’m into Tai Chi which is the 2nd part of the school we used to attend together. He tells me he’s losing his Kung Fu. As those of you who practice martial arts know that hours and hours of practice a week are needed to just sustain what you’ve learned. He practices sometimes in the dark corner and watches out for the guards but is scared. He’s met others who watch him practice a few things and tell him that they’re martial artists as well but don’t practice just because of that.

He cries about it every night when he calls. I finally wrote a letter to his teacher today and will send it out in tomorrow’s mail. He hasn’t been to class since this started so his teacher has no idea what’s going on. I’m hoping he’ll write Adam, maybe give him a few ‘stress exercises’ . You can’t write that it’s a martial art or the letter will go in the trash and Adam will go to the hole. Or even just a note of encouragement would mean so much.. so we’ll see what happens.

I’ve sent out some packets to different Innocence Projects and now I’m doing Senators. Just the liberal ones of course. and Wolfe still tells me I need to get him out now. . and my heart just breaks every time.

The prisoners are supposed to have vegetables with their meals. They wait in line as the ‘fat fuck’ as my son calls him sits on the side eating their meals. All the guard has to do is open the little door and shoot the food out but they’re always busy.
Adam actually likes healthy food like broccoli. But what they do in jail is cut the top parts off and give them to the guards and the prisoners get the stalks.

I’ve run out of money and time on my phones so I’m going to Sprint today to get a new # so Adam can call me. he has 1 call left. He’s very down and says that he’s losing who he is and will never again be able to play his guitar like he was.. and he is very good at it. He plays death metal. I feel so guilty and helpless.

His buddy Rob got transferred yesterday and I know how that really bothers him. He never had that father figure and Rob kindof took that roll. My son is scared to death about the ‘box’ and about transferring to the prison where he doesn’t know anyone and has to ‘start’ all over again. He’s not a social kind of guy so this is very stressful for him. He cries on the phone to me when we talk.

I’m mailing packets out to Innocence Project and whoever else I can find. Hopefully will have someone get back to me. My lawyer thinks I’m spending a lot of time on something that won’t work. I refuse to believe that.

I don’t know what happened because he couldn’t tell me. But when I went for our visit last night he had a knot and scrapes on his head.
He said he can’t stay there, that he’s dying inside. He said he’s losing his Kung Fu and his music, which are his life. I told him he wasn’t losing them and when they transfer him to Federal Prison he can do them there. but I didn’t understand until I looked in his eyes. He doesn’t have the will to do them. My son is a little different than most people. He’s very smart but thinks differently. Always had trouble learning in school, but put him on his own and he’s a fuckin genius. I understand now. And he gave me 2 months, now 6 1/2 weeks left, to get him out of there.

He said if I did he would try to calm down and deal with the situation. I promised. I have already started looking for people to help. But now it’s time to get down to business. I don’t don’t believe in god, used to try to but that illusion is over permanently. I’m more of a Buddhist than anything else . My son calls himself a Shinto Buddhist.  Labels.. just labels.

My whole life I’ve had people tell me I couldn’t do things and proved them wrong. So now it’s time to prove all those wrong who say I can’t get him out.

I’ve contacted the Innocence Project but most say they just go on DNA. But there’s one in Coral Gables here in Florida that works out of a law school and they don’t. I think I have enough stuff that might peak their interest and putting together packets to mail to them and others.

I remember reading ‘the 16th round’ by Rubin Carter and it inspired me then as it does now. I wrote him yesterday. I don’t have his real address but his organization in Canada said they’d forward it to him. I’m going to send him one of my ‘special’ packets as well.

If anyone reading this has any ideas I’m open and you can contact me at Nakohichi @ yahoo.com.

Wow.. this guy got to go home. My son is in jail for 3 years and on the sex offender list for the rest of his life because he accidentally downloaded a some child porn videos from Limewire.

I contacted my prison consultant Larry because Adam hadn’t yet called me and I
was worried. Finally got that call at 2:30. My son got some of his commissary
but not all because they charged him a lot of tax on it. which is weird.  But he
shared his snacks with his bunkmate Face. I guess he has noone to help him out
and no money so Adam shared with him.

Larry gave me Adam’s new Federal Inmate # and a release date of Jan. 6th 2014 for good behavior. And maybe a halfway house Sept. 6 2013. We’re not sure yet where he’s being transferred. I’ve been told that since the court ordered him sex offender treatment (and I dread that stuff because my son shouldn’t have to go thru that) it might be one of the prisons out of state because that kind of treatment is limited in most prisons. The bad thing about that is if he doesn’t go along with it they could take back some of those good behavior days. I don’t know which is worse.

Larry also told me that if he goes to one of those prison that house this offence then he’s safer than if he goes into a regular prison. But the regular prison he might not have to do treatment. It’s all a waiting game to find out what’s going to happen. I don’t want to tell my son right now as I don’t know the future and I don’t want to stress him out anymore than he is with info that may not be right.

Halfway house.. for sex offenders.. for 4 months. I’ll have to look into that if and when the time comes.

9pm visit tonight going with my daughter. I’m getting a hotel room. It’s a 3 hour drive
home and I’m just exhausted.

I wish there was something I could do for all those inmates of Adam’s who are there for him. My son just called to say he was sorry for  yelling at me and that he appreciates what I’m doing for him . He said when he got off the last phone call one of the guys there talked to him about his call. He heard him yelling at me. funny that this guy is a jahovah’s witness.  We used to make fun of those guys.. guess it’s  a reminder how we’re all just human and all part of the same clan.

It’s happened with other times when Adam has a tough call. . they’re there for him. They’ve given him socks and a shirt, listened to him, gave him advice. They’ve saved my son’s sanity, if not life,  and I wish I could pay them all back some how. I’m not going to stop fighting this bull shit even when Wolfe gets out. .and he wants to do it as well.

Had a fight with my son.. which is not something you want to do. Maybe it was me but I was feeling guilty for not being able to do anything to get him out. And I think all he wanted was someone to listen. He said I made him feel stupid and like a 5 yo. And just this morning one of the guards put his head in the door and pointed to my son’s bed and then walked out. Did it twice and Adam had no idea what he wanted.. finally realize he wanted my son to make his bed. We don’t even make ours at home. He said they treated him like a 5 yo. Things got a little heated and he told me I need to shut up and listen instead of telling him to be strong. He fucking knows that. so.. we spoke again later and I shut up and now I know that he just wants someone to listen to him. Noone there understands what he’s going thru. The phone call is his time to be away from the crowd and have a connection with home. Sometimes we just sit on the phone not talking for minutes.. he needs that time away from it and I sometimes drive him crazy.. so he doesn’t get that 15 minutes.

I fired my first prison consultant because he said he would able to get my son in a prison camp. But now I know he can’t because of what Wolfe went in for. They won’t let sex offenders in a camp. And it was hard to contact him, he never answered his phone.. So I canceled the check. Hopefully I got it in time or I’ll have to fight with him over it. But I hired another. But this new guy Larry tells me that I don’t really need him. The prison system will do what they do and put him somewhere.. He’s there if I have questions and he knows where to go to find out about Adam’s transfer. Right now I’m on my own and have a busy business so having that extra person who knows the system is worth it for me. Finding out shit is very time consuming and sometimes you hit a deadend and have to restart. So, I’m cool with that.

As soon as I have some time I’ll put together links and a website with all the stuff I’ve learned from this experience.

I’ve been wanting to talk about sentencing day and my son’s first day at jail in the hole. I have a wicked headache tonight but if I put it off then I’m not sure when I’ll get to it. So.. Let’s get at it.

I called the jail today to find out about getting his diet changed. They said they could make an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to talk with him about it. I’ll let him know but I’m sure he won’t give a shit.. he just wants out.
I also asked them about the ‘law library’ they were supposed to have and they stopped that because that’s a lawyers job I was told. Aren’t inmates supposed to have that right to a law library? I ask my attorney so many things but he keeps answering me.

I had plans to go visit today, an 8 hour day.. I don’t mind, except I’m really tired from lack of sleep. Also Adam says it’s depressing when I get up an go home without him.

Hi buddy Rob, who’s around 40 and has been watching his back since he got there, asked me to contact his girlfriend and bring her for a visit today. She can’t talk on the phone but she can get texts. So I contacted her and she said yes, and then it was no because she didn’t have an appointment, and then she said yes because Rob’s xwife got her one. And then she said she needed to come up with a lie to tell her parents, who she’s now living with. This woman is 33.. I asked because at this point I was wondering if she was old enough .. I don’t want to get in trouble because I’m helping someone. Seems because of whatever happened to Rob she lost her kid and home and is now living with her parents who don’t want her to see him. She said it was like a jail there. I told her I don’t lie for people so if she’s going to that’s up to her. And I’m starting to regret this. Then she says she better not because it would jeopordize things more.

I gave the bitter news to Adam when he called. Rob was really looking forward to the visit. Next call I had a to lay it down for Lisa and told her if she doesn’t make it to the visit they’re over. All I got back as a reply was WOW.

These men have nothing to think about all day. So when there’s a glimmer of hope at a relationship it’s on their minds. . they have nothing else.  My son is dealing with that now as he had a girl interested in him before he went in and she kind of strung him along a bit. I had to tell him that she was dating (it’s my daughter’s friend) and he got pissed off about it. They have absolutely nothing there. The read, play cards and sleep. Women are on their minds and it really fucks with them.

Adam doesn’t sleep.

*** just got off the phone with him. He says he can’t stay there 1 more night. He’s innocent and it’s in the worst place you could put anyone. He doesn’t sleep. There are all these men farting, snoring and whatever else they do. They stay up until 3 in the morning then everyone goes to sleep except Adam. He can’t go outside and says he doesn’t even know what it looks like anymore. The food, which is loaded with soy, makes his stomach hurt, he has nothing to relax him, no guitar, no painting, no pot.. He has no underwear and the pants they gave him are so used they fall off of him. This is torture. Others there have been in before and if they weren’t they can deal with this better than my son. My son is not the kind of person who even likes to go to social events because he has phobias about being in crowds and dirt. . and here he is. He cries on the phone.. get me out, come get me, I want to go home. And I spend time every day looking for a solution. I have none and that pisses him off more. He says I need to think out of the box.. my brain is pretty fried these days. He’s not the kind that could sleep all day, like all the others. He hates wasting time, his time, his life.. he should be out partying. He should be dating and getting laid. He’s done nothing wrong. and they put him in there.

Not sure what I’m doing next but I’ll keep looking on the internet, seeing if there’s a clue of anything. I’m going to write a letter to Rubin Carter today as well. There’s no email for him but he was incarcerated but innocent and they got him out.
I need to find something. I don’t want to give up .

Adam just told me they had a shake down. The guards pulled the place apart looking for drugs and weapons, which they found none. But they did find bread that some of the inmates kept from diner and Adam’s roommate Face had a sandwich he kept because he can’t afford to buy extra stuff from commissary. So they found food. And there were also a couple guys who did not have their red shirt on, or didn’t get it on quick enough. They sent these people all to the hole. For bread and for not being quick enough putting on a shirt.

Right before I got that call from my son his attorney called me. He has a new client who is 22 and got arrested for the same thing. He has a little alibi because he was not home when the cp were downloaded. He asked if I would speak to his mother and I said ‘definitely’. . I’m glad to help. In the end we’re all in the same boat.

I’m going to write to the ACLU, even tho they say it may take them 60 days to get back to me. The jail is unlivable. The sinks don’t even have spouts. The inmates stick a spork in the opening to make the water go where they want. My son thought it was just his sink but it’s everyones. One of the guys gave Adam a thermal shirt as it’s freezing in there and one of the guards asking is he was new, told him to take it off. Still waiting for underwear and thermals from commissary. The money was in there but they said he missed the deadline by a couple of hours, which I just think is laziness on their part as they had plenty of time. More bullshit.

Another inmate gave him a pair of socks. You can’t walk on that floor barefoot or you get staff infection and all they give him are a pair of used shower shoes. And again one of the guys inside gave him a few snacks from their commissary. The food there is so bad, but if they don’t eat it they starve. It’s been giving my son’s stomach a bad time. He used to eat healthy and now he eats stuff our dog wouldn’t. It’s a bad scene.

Called the innocence project in NY, their main number, and left a message.

Drove 2 1/2 hours to see my son tonite. He looked well, but he wasn’t feeling well. He said something about breakfast and having the shits in public is no fun.
I told him I’m blogging and putting together a website and that people need to know about what’s happened to him and about our judicial system  and these inhumane jails. He agreed and said to get out the word. I told him I’d keep it anonymous and he said he didn’t care, let them know. He didn’t do anything wrong.. Of course the inmates and guards won’t know. They think he got busted with pot. He should be there. He accidentally downloaded 11 child porn videos along with 2331 music videos when he would do a mass download from Limewire, which is now closed just because of that reason. Convenient I say. 2 of them he didn’t look at because he didn’t know they were there. And the others were partials and when he saw what they were he deleted them. He’s 20 for christs sake. He’s not going to think.. gee.. this is illegal, he just thought it was something he wasn’t interested in and delete. But our country doesn’t feel the same way. . but I’m going off in tangents here.

***

Adam got his glasses tonite. He’s only been asking for them since last Friday when he arrived. The guard gave it to him wrapped up in toilet paper and after handing it to him told Adam to unwrap it himself because he (the guard) didn’t want to touch them.. as if they were contaminated by a convict. And then held up his middle finger and asked Adam how many fingers. and walked away as everyone (including Adam because he had to) laughed.

So.. I’m glad he got his glasses. One war won.. .

sons of bitches.   Here’s a copy of my new Federal Prison Consultant in response to advice on a few things..

Sorry to hear about Adam’s problem but Seminole Cty Jail as you know is a county facility not Federal. I just had a client transferred to a camp after several months and he had a broken foot at Seminole.  He left with a  broken foot. Both myself and his attorney attempted to resolve issues including dealing with supervisors.  Always told it would be taken care of but…..The best suggestion I can give you as a mother continue calling the institution  ask for a supervisor and also ask to speak to any U.S. Marshal if any are available.  But the County facilities and even the U.S. Bureau of Prisons work on an antiquated system.  I’m been involved with the courts, parole commission and BOP for 41 years and I always tell clients and their family it’s not the Hilton. Service is non existent  or limited. I work on designations and transfers but as far as inmate issues or BOP  transportation my reputation ceases. They have the authority  to do nothing and they  know it. Once he gets to a federal facility things will improve. I saw your request for he wanting to be involved with music or art but not being cute, he’s not going to Julliard but a prison facility.  My job is to try and get him into a camp and nothing  higher.  My BOP consultant has already started making  calls to the varuious regioanl areas  and we will follow up with correspondence ASAP.  Ray

Had a few calls from my son and we had an arguments over getting out. I guess I misunderstood or maybe just being a mom. But when your son is so upset and says he needs to get out that doesn’t mean he expects it right now. But as a mom that’s what I’m thinking and it I feel like I’m not doing everything I can.

We had some words, he hung up and called back. And now I understand more and realize that just knowing that maybe I can find a way out, still look for a solution, even tho it’s not happening now is really all he wants. Well, he really wants out but right now it’s not on the horizon.

Then he told me about a guy in there who’s a really great artist. Art is big in our family , we’re art lovers. And then he tells me about a 40 yo man who tells him that when he gets out, don’t do drugs, get yourself together and don’t come back to jail. This man has been in before and now he says his life is over. They look after one another and try to help each other out. The jailers and courts don’t. I tell my son I wish I could thank all those people that he has met and who are watching his back. It means so much to me and him. But probably no one will think of those prisoners are human beings. Society doesn’t and certainly the jailers don’t.

There is more humanity inside those bars than there is on the outside. I feel for these people. Our society is really fucked up when we have caring people locked up and treated like animals when it’s the ones who do the locking up who are the ones who are sick fucks.

My son had to hang up so he could get in line for his small roll of toilet paper. My son is one of those people who will use a half a roll during a session, but now he uses a sheet or 2. He shares the roll with his bunkmate.

Face, his bunkmate is a muslim. Wolfe tells me that Face went to the church they have there, if you can call it that, and said something to the preacher how it would be nice to have a place for him as well, being Muslim. And the preacher pretty much said that if they allowed it he would fight it. Nice guy. . . But Adam said he was thinking about going with Face on Friday night to join him in his religious practice. Adam is atheist and so am I. Now don’t think he’s going god fearing cause he’s not. He just respects when people actually want to use their religion to raise their spirits. I told him I would go if I were him. And he says it’s at least a positive thing instead of all the negative stuff he gets from the guards.

He tells me that if he makes it out alive he’s going to make sure people know those who went out of their way to put him in jail. The ICE agents, prosecutor, judge all did it , not to put some bad guy away. They knew from our forensics and everything they didn’t find that Ada, is not a threat and accidentally downloaded these.

But it’s all about the money. They’ve spent a fortune just on the sting alone.

We talked about how we were not out for revenge. We’re not that kind of people. But my son was wronged and it should be told. These people should be ashamed of what they’ve done.

He sounded a bit more calm, but it gets worse at night. We ended the phone call at the very end before the phone shut off, which I hate, sometimes in mid sentence.. He had a clean up patrol duty with a few of the other guys so he had to go anyway.

More phone calls tonight.

I wrote a letter to my son yesterday. But then we spoke and I had to tell him that the ‘dream’ of getting out and coming home now is not something I can do. His mind is having a hard time with that and in the end insists I keep trying.. which of course, I am. Think outside the box he tells me.. and I do.  .but I can’t find anything yet. 

Dear Adam,

I can’t get you out. I know you want me to but I can’t. The only option would be to petition the court and then they would up charges and go to trial. Your attorney was a bit upset when I was looking into the petitioning.
Your sister mentioned about a drug rehab but you would have had to have had a drug abuse record and you don’t. The bit of pot they found is just not enough.

I’ve hired a Prison consultant and their job is to get you into the best place. I guess their info says it best so I’ve copied it here.
***
First and foremost, in concert with counsel we do everything in our power to prevent our clients from ever seeing the inside of a federal prison. However, in those cases where a prison term cannot be avoided, we make sure that our clients serve their sentence at the best facility given their individual needs, while at the same time providing the greatest opportunity for early release.

Clients are provided with accurate, up-to-date, real world information regarding the entire judicial process including federal incarceration (from a defendant’s point of view). Patrick counts his greatest attribute as having personally experienced every aspect of the federal criminal justice system – from indictment, trial and sentencing through incarceration, supervised release, and the rebuilding of life after a period of incarceration.
***

I’m always afraid to bring it up on the phone. I know you don’t want to hear it. It’s not that I’ve even given up. I spend hours a day contacting and searching for more answers.

These guys might be able to get you into a camp instead of prison and maybe get the sentenced reduced more. They know what they’re doing.

We’re in a bad spot and it just stresses me to even think to tell you that you’ll have to tough it out. The guy Ray says a transfer can take a couple of weeks to a month. Maybe they can get it done quicker. They’re starting on it tomorrow.. It’s 7:00pm right now so they can’t today.

I know you want the truth, even tho it’s unfair . But I’ve never known you to want a phoney answer. You’ve always wanted the truth. It sucks where you are but this will be the worse place you’ll ever be and with a little help from Ray it should get a lot better soon. We’ve made it this far.

Spoke to my son a couple of times tonight. He started yelling at me again. He’s just really frustrated. I usually try to just quiet him down and go along with things. He tells me I have to get him out of there. I tell him I’m trying but don’t see anything else to do. And he gets mad and says to think outside of the box. That if I would just do that I would find a way. So I finally yelled back at him and asked him how I’m supposed to get him out? I’m not a miracle worker. There’s no magic word or action I can do. But he insists that if I try hard enough I’ll find something. . . I like that he feels anything is possible.. one of my faults that I’ve instilled in my kids. . but I just don’t see anything.

He finally got an answer from commissary and ordered a couple of thermal shirts, underwear, socks, pencil and sketch pad, a crossword puzzle book and some snacks. He’ll be getting them on Thursday. Thankful for that. He still doesn’t have a pillow. The inmates are more human than the staff there.

His attorney called me earlier this afternoon with contact info on a Federal Prison Consultant. And I finally spoke with him. The name seemed familiar and I’m sure I contacted him at the beginning of this whole deal but for some reason it didn’t connect back then, wish it had.

I’m mailing him a check for $1,000.00 and he said he will go thru his contacts and try to get my son either into a good Federal Prison or better a camp. And somewhere close to where I live.. or want to live. I’m hoping they’ll transfer him to Illinois as my daughter is moving there and that way we can be, at least, close enough to visit. He said it all depends on the kind of services my son needs from the prison or camp and if there’s room.

We spoke about how the prisons are going private and big business is going to get bigger. That’s all this shit is about. MOney.. and Mr. R (as I’ll call my new consultant) agreed.

I’ve been wanting to write what’s been happening every day. I’m behind a bit and have to fill in those I’ve missed as much as I can remember.. that first day in the ‘hole’ for my son was the worst.. but I work all day, spend half of it trying to deal with this bull shit the government did to my son and hardly sleep. so I think it’s time i did. More tomorrow.

approx. 10:10am

Call from Adam very upset that he never got his underwear from comissary which he ordered. And the commissary won’t be open next week. He’s wearing a scrub shirt and pants it’s starting to smell because there’s no way to wash them. So he washed his shirt in the shower and had to wear it because you can’t go shirtless. It’s cold in there and he was freezing. One of the other inmates loaned him his thermal shirt and I’m so greatful to him, as so is Adam .

1:12pm
My daughter just called and spoke with the medical department about Adam not getting his glasses. I guess she started going off on him about how badly the inmates are treated of which he denied and started getting an attitude so she backed off.
He said if a request is put in today he’ll look for it and Adam will get them tonite. But my son might not call me until it’s too late to do that. Wish I could call him.

Friday 11/04/11 the first night my son spent at the jail they stuck him in the hole to prevent him from killing himself.

The hole is about 10×10 and there’s a mattress with a blanket and a toilet that doesn’t work and no toilet paper.
Adam asked for toilet paper but they just ignored him. The threw him in their naked and that’s how he stayed for 24 hours. When he got out he told the guard that if that’s how they keep people from killing themselves it’s not going to work. And the guard said that that’s how they do it there.

There’s something just not right about driving your son to court when he might go to jail. We thought he’d get probation. We had all the forensics, the proof that he never even saw the 2 cp in his list of 2331 music videos , a few adult porn, but he’s a young man. Then the 7 or so cps that were partially downloaded and then deleted. So I was optimistic. And our attorney, David Seltzer. . who I am still glad I hired, (it would have been so much worse without him), had his defense and very well done, as the judge also noted. Then Carlos Perez, the prosecutor started his weird rambling and gestures . Pulling things out of the confession that the ICE agents said.. not my son. My son only agreed to the words the agents said because he just wanted them to leave him alone. So it was. . He admitted to using certain search words that were used just for that kind of porn. yet it was the officer who read off a list of what they use and my son just agreed. But Carlos made like the words came out of my sons mouth. The officers said. ‘you jerk off to them’ and my son said yeah. . and Carlos made like my son actually said the words ‘jerk off to them’ which he didn’t. This is how they get you in a confession. I’ve read their manual. I have it and when I have time I’m putting it on the internet as well.

Anyway.. I’m getting a bit tired so I’m not going to finish this tonite. But when Carlos was done the judge said 36months and my daughter and I looked at each other like.. WTF? and they never let me even give him a hug they just took him away. I think David was a shocked as well. As was our forensics guy who was there and we all figured on no jail time.  . I’m still stunned over it all.

Expecting a call from my son tonite. I spend a fortune on phone calls, first 2 days I spend $400.. we’ve since cut back

They’ve changed the date for sentencing quite a few times. First time was supposed to be March and then we switched lawyers. After about 3 changes it’s scheduled for Nov. 3rd.

That makes over 1 year my son has been under the eye of the courts.

Federal cases are supposed to go really quick, like in 6 months. I think they do that so you don’t have time to get yourself up after being knocked out and put your mind together so you can defend yourself. They have the upper hand right at the beginning and they want justice done swiftly. They want to be right no matter what.

Altho we wish it were all over, and it never will be because my son will be put on the sex offender list for the rest of his life, unless I can find people to help me get this wrong fixed. At least the prolonged agony of not knowing what they’re going to do to him has given us time to do forensics on his computer twice. The first time was your basic forensics and I still had questions like: where’s the 1 cp they said they found him with. The one with the youngest of victims in it. The one that can’t be found. And how many downloads were in the recycle bin including music,etc.

The prosecutor likes to use just their facts. They say he was found with 2331 suspect cps. But they only found 2 in that whole bunch, and those 2 were never viewed. The rest were mostly music with a few adult porn thrown in. My son didn’t now these 2 videos were even there. And there were 7 partially downloaded cps that were deleted. But I wanted the bigger picture for the future. Because after sentencing the computer is unavailable. I wanted to know how many more regular videos were also deleted.

You see, they like to make the suspect look as bad as possible. They won’t take out that number 2331, even tho our attorney mentioned that it looked bad, like that was how many cp (child porn) were found, when there were only 2.

They use the numbers and their facts they way they want.

I looked thru some new papers that came in the mail last week. ADDENDUM TO THE PRESENTENCE REPORT

More BS. But before all their reports and plea bargains mentioned that he had no priors and he doesn’t. But OH, wait, I think they found something to make my son look like he’s one of the bad guys.

Here’s what it says:

“Other Criminal Conduct

Date ** ** ** Charge Possession of Alcohol under 21 y.o. Charges dropped

On June ** 2008 the defendant was at an apartment that had loud music playing. Law enforcement was called as a result of the loud music. The defendant and several other teenagers were at the apartment. The defendant denied consuming any alcohol. The other teenagers admitted to drinking alcohol. The defendant was wearing an alcohol monitor and indicated to the officer that he was not allowed to consume alcohol under the condition of his probation. The officer could not locate any documentation on the probation status of the defendant.”

WOW … my son never had an alcohol monitor nor was he on probation for anything. I’ve emailed, called and texted our busy lawyer who has yet to respond about this. But this is a lie.

It doesn’t give an address so we have no idea where it was. But they know. They pick out just what they want to make him seem like he has a criminal past, which he doesn’t.

We have a month to try to get rid of this before it becomes permanent and before the judge looks at it and sees my son in a worse light. What crap.

My son feels his life is over. For a mother this is the worse thing that can happen. And for him.

He’ll be put on the sex offender list for the rest of his life. He won’t be able to get a job or find a place to live within a city. He won’t be able to travel like he wants.

I will never give up on getting him his freedom. If I have to pay the last red cent I have, contact everyone I possibly can to find someone who has the answer to this.

It’s just not fair.

Nakohichi @yahoo.com

Hobson was my first attorney. He decided, after talking with the arresting officer that my son was guilty of everything they said he was.
I was stupid about it all and kept him on for 4 months fighting with him the whole time. He knew nothing about Cybercrime Laws and decided that there was no such thing. I finally found a real lawyer after my son refused to speak with him anymore. I didn’t know there were lawyers just for this kind of crime.
After sending in a complaint to the Florida Bar, they decided that since my son took the plea he set up that he did his job and earned that $25,000 I paid him.  I’m now trying to find out if I can sue.

Having an attorney who doesn’t believe in your innocence, knows nothing about your crime and the only thing he can do is plea is not the way to go. You need a lawyer who will do forensics and believe in you and is willing to go to trial for you. Unfortunately with this kind of case trial is not an option as the general public ‘knows’ you’re guilty just because it’s a sex crime against children. They’re blind to any evidence that shows you’re innocent.

Beware of this guy, he’s lied to us, withheld information and aimed us for whatever the court decided they wanted .. and did so without a fight.  I’m not done with Hobson yet.

Agent Michael Spadafora : This is the guy who
‘found’ the child porn on my son’s computer. It’s weird that the one he found
with a 3yo was not found in the forensics done on that computer. So, I’m
suspicious and wondering what he really did do.

April 20, 2004 — Brevard County’s top law enforcement officer, victim advocates, and prosecutor were recognized today during the State Attorney’s Office observation of National Victims’ Rights Week.
Assistant State Attorney Bill Respess was named the top prosecutor of the year and Kathy King, coordinator of victim-witness services for State Attorney Norm Wolfinger, was named the top advocate. Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Agent Michael Spadafora, an investigator in the sex crimes unit, was named top law enforcement agent.

***********************************************************************************************
Florida– Michael Spadafora surfs the Internet for several hours a day, posing as a teenage girl or boy in chat rooms and on social networking sites.
Some days, all it takes is a few minutes before the Brevard County sheriff’s agent gets a bite from a would-be sexual predator, usually an older man.

On a recent weekday, he posed as a 13-year-old girl in a chat room, and soon a man was offering $500 to see a nude picture of her. In 30 minutes, as Spadafora stalled and the conversation meandered, the offer was raised to $1,500.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that one out of seven children receives a sexual solicitation online. Internet predator cases tackled by the sheriff’s office rose by 38 percent to 65 in 2007.

“We are only scratching the surface here,” Lt. Tod Goodyear said about the possibilities on the Internet for sex crimes against children. He heads the sheriff’s unit that handles sex predator cases.

Once in a while, Spadafora, who works in the unit, will find predators who are local and will ask to meet. Sometimes, he will pass on information to other law enforcement agencies around the country.

A typical chat might begin with the exchange of “ASL,” online lingo for age, sex and location. Those trolling for juveniles are sometimes brazen enough to use sexually suggestive language right away.

“Wud u like share sex chat?” asked a 24-year-old man in a recent chat, thinking he was communicating with a 14-year-old girl in Florida.

“Mature can give u more enjoy,” he told Goodyear, who had logged on as a teenage girl.

Online solicitation of a minor is a felony, as predators soon find out.

“They do not have to travel to be charged,” Spadafora said.

If they do, it becomes a bigger crime.

Nicholas Campbell, 19, was arrested near a gas station on Merritt Island in June after a series of conversations with agents. He was investigated after the parents of a 13-year-old girl complained about him, suspicious that he had met their daughter for sex and was planning more encounters.

Agents posing as the girl talked to Campbell online, and when he tried to meet her, he was arrested. The charges against him: online solicitation of a child under 14 and attempted lewd and lascivious battery on a child.

Numbers climb

Nancy McBride, safety director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said her organization had received 36,000 tips about online sexual solicitation or enticing a child to run away in about a decade.

In one recent week, the office received 186 reports, she said.

In Brevard, arrests by the sheriff’s office increased by 75 percent in 2007, with 15 people jailed for trafficking in child pornography and six for online solicitation.

Spadafora and Agent Dan Ogden also assisted agencies in Alabama, Georgia, Colorado and Ohio, leading to the arrest of suspects in those states. Other police agencies in Brevard often fall back on the sex crimes unit of the sheriff’s office for help in investigating sexual predators.

After arrests are made, an agent at the sheriff’s office usually takes apart the suspect’s computer to inspect it. In Brevard, that job usually goes to Agent Francis Dufresne. His job, too, is getting busier by the day.

In 2007, he examined 131 computer hard drives. He also is trained to inspect and retrieve records from cell phones, digital memory cards and Apple computers, a rare skill among Central Florida officers that has seen Dufresne’s services requested by law enforcement agencies in other counties. His office space usually is a mess of disassembled computers and stacks of hard drives.

It is this evidence, collected and researched painstakingly, that helps the sheriff’s office bolster its cases in court.

When a 12-year-old girl ran away from her Port St. John home in April, it took Dufresne less than 30 minutes to find out who she had been corresponding with through her MySpace account. The information and a vehicle tag number helped law enforcement trace her to the 19-year-old man from Quincy who had encouraged her to run away.

******************************************************************************

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Texas-clashing-with-feds-over-Adam-Walsh-Act-1046840.php#ixzz1NZGXNA20

Texas clashing with feds over Adam Walsh Act
State says cost of implementing sex offender database law is too high.

http://www.uaff.us/pentagon_workers_tied_to_child_porn.htm

Boston Globe
By Bryan Bender
July 23, 2010
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports.
The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department.
The number of offenders is a small percentage of the thousands of people working for sensitive Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies “at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations,’’ according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009.
Some of the individuals have been prosecuted and other cases have been dropped, while more have languished several years without resolution, according to the previously undisclosed documents about the investigations.
The more than 50 pages, compiled by the investigative service, part of the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office, contain summaries of investigations initiated since 2002, including some cases that remain open.
The uneven discipline reflects difficulties in bringing prosecutions, according to specialists. The evidentiary standards are high for prosecution in child pornography cases, according to child welfare specialists, including positively identifying victims as underage or known victims of abuse. In others, evidence was lost or misplaced and investigators said they lacked sufficient resources to complete all of them.
Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s Inspector General, said the agency takes such cases very seriously but said he could not comment on individual investigations.
Many of those apprehended were swept up in a much broader probe initiated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in 2006. Operation Flicker identified an estimated 5,000 people who had paid money over the Internet to access websites operated overseas. But until now, it has not been disclosed that a sizable number of cases were referred to the Defense Department for investigation because they involved military personnel, intelligence officials, or defense contractors.
The investigative documents were provided to the Globe by a government official after they were approved for public release.
The exact numbers of cases involving Defense Department personnel were not contained in the reports and officials at DCIS could not immediately provide statistics. But the official reports indicate that more than 30 government employees were investigated.
Purchasing child pornography is a crime; accessing it on a government computer is also a violation of laws governing the misuse of government property.
At least two of the cases were contractors with top secret clearances at the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on foreign communications, according to the documents. When one of the contractors was indicted two years ago, he fled the country and is believed to be hiding in Libya, according to a summary of the investigation from last year. The other was sentenced in 2008 to more than five years in prison and lifetime probation.
A separate case involves a contractor working at the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites. The individual admitted in 2008 when he was being interviewed to renew his security clearance that he viewed child pornography at least twice a week on his home computer.
As of December, the individual had been transferred to an agency field office in New Mexico and had not been charged. A National Reconnaissance Office spokesman, Rick Oborn, said he was aware of a few cases of agency employees accessing such images but could not immediately say whether the particular contractor was still working for the organization.
Specialists in child protection expressed alarm at the revelations, but said it was not that surprising to find even officials in sensitive government positions engaging in such activity.
“Some are in high-ranking positions, in positions of trust,’’ said John Sheehan, executive director of the exploited child division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has been consulted on many of these cases and has reviewed 36 million images of alleged child pornography since 2002 at the request of law enforcement agencies. “There isn’t a profile or stereotype, which makes it even more challenging for law enforcement.’’
The Pentagon’s investigation reports show that personnel found frequenting the illegal websites worked at a variety of Pentagon installations.
Thirteen suspects were identified in California, including individuals who worked at some of the most sensitive military installations on the West Coast. One was a contractor at Edwards Air Force Base, where weapons testing is conducted, while another worked at the Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake.
Their positions gave the cases priority at the immigration and customs agency that first uncovered them, according to the reports, “because the subjects are DoD employees who possess security clearances.’’
A large amount of pornography was found on the office computer of a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, including images that appeared to be of children. DARPA is responsible for developing some of the military’s most secret weapons and technologies. Charges were not pursued because there were no images of known victims of abuse, something that is routinely needed to bring charges, the case summary said.
A DARPA spokesman, Eric Mazzacone, declined to comment.
Other agencies where personnel were investigated are blacked out in the documents because their jobs were so highly sensitive, including a case from 2007 in which a national security official had 93 documents, 8,400 pictures, and 200 movies “that were evidence of receipt of child pornography.’’ The individual was sentenced to five years in prison and five years of supervised release.
Others have not led to criminal prosecutions, such as the 2007 case involving an employee at the Defense Contract Management Agency in Hartford who had about 40 images believed to constitute child pornography on a government-issued computer. The individual was not prosecuted because the ages of the individuals depicted in the images could not be determined or positively identified as known child victims, according to the reports.
Another case opened in August 2007 involving a Defense Department contractor was closed “due to a lack of resources,’’ a November 2009 report from Pentagon criminal investigators said.
The case was referred back to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

Employees Picked Up in Child Porn Sting
FoxNews.com
July 23, 2010
Several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors have been accused of — and in some cases were convicted of — purchasing and downloading child pornography on government computers, the Department of Defense’s inspector general’s office disclosed in documents released Friday.
The investigation that led prosecutors to these government workers was actually part of a larger Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency sting called Operation Flicker, aimed at identifying individuals who paid money over the Internet to access child pornography overseas, according to the inspector general’s office.
That sweep collected information on more than 5,000 people in 60 undercover stings involving 18 child porn websites. Among those were several dozen who worked for Pentagon intelligence services.
Offenders include people with highly sensitive security clearances who have the potential to blackmail the government using closely held military and intelligence secrets, according to the documents released. Some of the people involved have such high-level clearance, identifying characteristics about them were blacked out in the report.
Among those investigated are employees of the National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and other offices at the Defense Department.
“Some are in high-ranking positions, in positions of trust,” John Sheehan, executive director of the exploited child division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told The Boston Globe, the first newspaper to report the IG’s conclusions. The center has been consulted, which has reviewed 36 million images of alleged child pornography since 2002 at the request of law enforcement agencies, consulted the government as part of the investigation.
“There isn’t a profile or stereotype, which makes it even more challenging for law enforcement,” Sheehan said.

And these are they guys who ‘caught’ my son. I doubt if he’ll have to go thru as much crap as we have. . and my son didn’t know he downloaded the 2 suspect cps they found on his computer that were never viewed.

Federal investigators are continuing their probe of child pornography allegedly e-mailed to the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Florida.

Anthony V. Mangione

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for South Florida has been placed on paid administrative leave, as federal agents investigate four images of child pornography he allegedly received on his home computer via an AOL e-mail account, according to sources familiar with the probe.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/12/2164352/ice-chief-placed-on-leave-in-child.html

Broward Sheriff’s Office and FBI investigators seized Anthony V. Mangione’s computer from his Parkland residence Saturday after obtaining a search warrant based on an alert from AOL, Mangione’s Internet service provider. Sources said Mangione, 50, who has headed the ICE regional office since 2007, was not believed to have received the pictures in connection with any ICE investigation.

The Justice Department probe could take a while to complete as investigators determine whether Mangione sent, received or distributed illegal digital images of children. “It’s going to take some time forensically to examine the computer,” a federal law enforcement official said.

AOL, which monitors the distribution of child pornography by its users, alerted a national nonprofit resource center about the images allegedly sent to Mangione’s computer in recent weeks, sources said. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children then forwarded the information to a multi-agency task force that investigates child-porn distribution over the Internet.

Investigators issued a subpoena to AOL to find out the identity and computer address of the account user who allegedly received the four images, sources said. The information provided the legal basis for the FBI to obtain the search warrant to enter Mangione’s home and seize his computer. Authorities also have seized his computer from ICE’s office in west Miami-Dade.

“Internet service providers, including AOL, are required by federal law to report apparent violations of the child pornography laws to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which works with the Department of Justice,” said former Miami federal prosecutor Ryan Stumphauzer. In 2007, he won the conviction of a Biscayne Park man for producing and distributing child-porn over the Internet.

“To comply with this obligation, AOL and other Internet service providers use sophisticated software to detect suspected child pornography images based upon their unique digital fingerprints,” Stumphauzer said.

During the past decade, ICE has aggressively targeted child pornography, with Mangione frequently speaking out against “predators’’ who illegally share images through their computers. ICE also investigates migrant smuggling, illegal weapons exports, terrorism and drug trafficking.

Mangione could not be reached for comment. There are no court records indicating that he has been charged with any crime.

The ICE office in Washington, D.C., declined to comment and referred questions to the Department of Justice. Justice spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment, as did Miami FBI spokesman Mike Leverock.

As special agent in charge of ICE’s South Florida office, Mangione often lauded the agency’s efforts to fight child pornography in both the cyber and real worlds.

Mangione was planning to retire this summer. He has served his entire 27-year federal career with ICE and its predecessor, the U.S. Customs Service.