Blurred Memories...

As with most all traumatic events, my recollections are spotty. I can see some things with 100% crystal clarity while others jumble together in a mixed set of events that I can't seem to organize into a coherent timeline. For example, I remember getting into the DEA car and being driven off my driveway while the agent, Nick Aquino, began telling me how every day forward would be the worst of my life unless I cooperated. Do I remember arriving or checking into the Manhattan Correctional Center? Not with any clarity at all... Like I said earlier, that was a blur.

And it wasn't like this was a big surprise. We had been advised for more than a year that this was going to happen. I waited a few months too long before hiring a lawyer. The first one I went to was already in the case representing another defendant/friend of mine. He recommended another, Gerry Labush, who ultimately represented me through the entire nightmare. Gerry was an experienced criminal attorney and came with impeccable credentials. He had been a US Attorney before going into private practice. He had some very interesting clients, from the Mayflower Madame to Asian heroin smugglers to a wide range of people under investigation, under indictment, appealing convictions, etc. etc. This was a whole world that I knew pretty much nothing about.

Gerry, once he realized the scope of what I had done and had been doing, brought in a private investigator, Don Taylor. Taylor, a former treasury agent, was always on top of containment and keeping the other side from collecting more evidence. It turned out that the prosecutors didn't really have all that much evidence beyond the stories being told by convicted criminals. I was arrested as part of a sweep that took in at least two dozen people all up and down the east coast. Some were smugglers, some were couriers, some were distributors, some were simply co-conspirators in how things were stored, moved and sold. And it wasn't as though one of my people ratted me out. I was pulled into the situation by an employee of the smuggler who knew me only tangentially. And I hardly knew the guy... He hardly knew me. So while I'm sitting in jail that first week, the agents and prosecutors are trying to convince my attorney to get me to cooperate. He, on the other hand, is trying to figure out what they know and what they don't, what they believe and how much of that is bullshit.

The Beat Goes On...

It's a funny thing... I've been waiting for the 'right' moment to take this thread beyond the bust and into the crazy world of what happens afterwards. It was too easy to postpone and after a few months turned into a year, there were just numerous excuses that justified stopping where it was. But I've always felt that the story, of course, didn't end when the Feds showed up and I ended up in the 'system'.

So I think I'm going to try to narrate what came after that day... My memory is, understandably, a bit foggy now, 28 years later. So I'll try to keep things chronological but I make no promises. I don't have perfect recall and I suspect I'll discover things are out of order at times... and when I do, I'll just let it be known.

One of the main excuses, as it turns out, is that I felt a sense of betrayal by telling the tale here where my son could stumble on it... or my soulmate might not feel right about seeing it out in the clear.

But hey... if I don't do it, I'll always wonder how it would have felt and honestly, having taken you all for the ride this far, I kind of think it's only fair to let you see what happened once the curtain fell.

So be aware that I'm going to post some more here before my recollections become too foggy and indistinct.

 Looking out the window of my 'cell'... I could clearly see the Brooklyn Bridge. I recall a wistful feeling at being able to see it but not being able to leave the place. BTW, there was a wired glass window and a seriously sturdy steel door. There was no privacy... no escaping (lol)... no bars. This was just a solid little room with no way out. There were lots of guys who were there for sheer stupidity... They had been snitched on and would rather take their chances than cooperate. Mostly though, they had nothing to cooperate with so they were basically screwed until the 'system' decided they were unscrewed.

Was I nervous? Well yeah... I was. The lawyer and his 'investigator' both told me this was going to be a weird place and that I should protect myself at all times. The good news, though, was that this was federal... not state or local. State and local lockups were totally miserable places to be. Rikers or any state prison were all extremely dangerous. Me? I wasn't exactly a world class physical defender so I stayed really really quiet... quietly being friendly but not too friendly.