ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (47 page)

Somewhere along the way, I again realized that the power of the mind is an amazing blessing; I could turn hell into heaven if I tried hard enough. So rather than dwell on my burdens, I tried to help others who were struggling. In so doing, I learned a lot more about our justice system. I ran across a few other people who were doing the same thing and learned how to study law. I researched case law that the Supreme Court had already ruled on to use as precedence for my case. I found that six out of ten cases that went to the Supreme Court on appeal from our county got overturned for violations of the constitution relating to overzealous detectives and prosecutorial misconduct for not doing anything about it.

I compiled more and more case law regarding search and seizure, scope of searches and the elements involved in drug possession for sales. In the holding cells people would gather around me and we’d go over circumstances that applied. Back in the jail I’d go over it with Shotgun. Shotgun was using the case law as points of authority for motions, like the kind to dismiss charges. Shotgun was helping so many people understand the strike law and their case and how to deal with their attorney, that it was causing a ripple effect into the courtroom. It got to the point where the bailiff in the courtroom started telling detainees not to accept any jail house lawyer advice. He pointed out that it was bad advice and wasn’t professional. I pointed to the paperwork I had that said the Supreme Court was overturning 6 out of 10 appeals that came to them from our county.

I continued to do my homework with Shotgun and we crafted our own 995 motion to dismiss the drug charge in my case. After studying the search warrant we learned that the scope of the search was for the alleged items used in the alleged robbery. They had the authority to search for a gun, silencer and hockey mask and anything related to the robbery claim. It turns out that none of those items fit inside the battery pack of a snake light, so searching that area went beyond the scope of the search and should have been inadmissible. The next part of the search warrant that was bogus was the fact that I wasn’t on the lease. Detective Pincher assumed I was because my brother’s last name was the same but I wasn’t on the lease and didn’t have any bills in my name or anything else to show I had dominion and control of the residence. Now I understood why detective Pincher tried to coerce my brother to testify against me, he didn’t have much of a case for that quarter ounce of speed.

It got to the point where I had to trick myself into looking forward to the long bus rides to court by telling myself they were field trips to get out of jail and go see interesting people. Another way I made sure I didn’t fall into the trap of feeling sorry for myself was by acknowledging it could be worse, others had it worse. I wasn’t the only one our county was building a railroad against and I wanted to help as many of them research the law that applied to their case as possible. There was a sea of lost souls to try and inspire a smile out of.

In my case, my attorney Mr. Barries was being cryptic with our defense. I continually asked him to send an investigator to the Harley dealership to pose as a buyer so we could prove my investment was a sham and couldn’t get him to do it. He deflected everything with a response that, “A lot will come out in preliminary hearing next week.”

CHAPTER 127

Two days before my preliminary hearing, on Halloween, I talked to my attorney on the phone to go over his lack of strategy in my case. I tried to get ahead of him to shake him up enough to understand what was going on.

“Mr. Barries! I know why you’re not sending an investigator to the Harley dealership to get the fact that my investment with Mr. Dudley is fraudulent on his end. You don’t even want that fact to come out on record because then you’ll be obligated to use it as a defense!”

My attorney ignored me as usual and responded, “Benny. Do you have today’s newspaper?”

“No. We’re a day or two behind.”

“If you did, I’d have you go to the obituaries… Mr. Dudley had a heart attack and passed away on October 27. I hope the D.A. doesn’t insinuate that this case influenced it.”

“Mr. Barries. Mr. Dudley was a constant drinker and smoker who did business fraudulently! Don’t you think those are some factors?”

CHAPTER 128

At my preliminary hearing things didn’t go as expected. Mr. Barries ran it down.

“Benny. The D.A. is playing hardball. They are taking the stance that you’re to blame for Mr. Dudley’s heart attack. They are calling his son and his daughter to testify against you in place of their father. Legally, they can’t do that, but for the purpose of preliminary hearing the judge is going to allow it. They are going to take what their father said to detective Pincher and admit it as evidence as hear say. The reason it’s inadmissible in a court of law is because we don’t have the opportunity to cross examine it now that Mr. Dudley is no longer with us.”

“So you’re telling me it’s illegal, but they’re doing it anyway?”

“Benny. This is Orange County. They write their own law here. They’re looking at it like it will take years for the Supreme Court to overrule them. It will also take you a lot more money in attorney fees to get it there…”

CHAPTER 128

After all of the testimony was taken my attorney came back.

“Benny. The D.A. has made an offer. They are willing to drop all of the charges relating to in home invasion, robbery and extortion, all of the srike-able offenses, if you sign for the possession for sales of the speed in the snake light and sign guilty for the pot charges you were on the run for. The offer is six years.”

I stared at my attorney and knew the D.A. had even less of a case now that Mr. Dudley’s son and daughter had just contradicted each other so significantly on the stand. It didn’t matter. My attorney wasn’t fighting for me. I stared into his eyes and felt all of the fight leaving my mind, body and spirit. Mr. Barries continued.

“Benny. It’s a good deal… I’d tell my mother to sign it.”

“Mr. Barries, you would have defended your mother and proved Mr. Dudley set up a sham investment with her!”

“Benny. You’re being railroaded! I have to work with these D.A.’s and judges! This is where I do business and they want a conviction and are willing to do anything to get it.”

I signed for six years.

CHAPTER 129

Central California State Prison.

I watched Screwball shake his head in disgust with my court story.

“Your attorney Mr. Barries straight up admitted he couldn’t properly defend you because of the pressure of having to work with those D.A.’s! So everything that was alleged against you is going to assassinate your character for the rest of your life.”

“It has. First, I got sent to a level four prison because of it. Just being there is a set up. There are a bunch of people coming out of the Pelican Bay S.H.U. who the state is trying to label as affiliated. So now that I’m doing time with them, it’s guilt by association. If they put me in a cell with one of them, it goes in the file. If you eat at the same table, or work out together on the yard, it goes in the file. When I finished up my six year sentence I had all of that noise Mr. Dudley alleged combined with the state’s file that I was an associate. I knew I had an uphill battle awaiting me so I told myself that I have to keep the faith that everything happens for a reason. While I was doing my time I did a lot of soul searching, reading, writing, playing chess and watched CNN. Somewhere along the line, I told myself that when I got out, if I put as much energy into starting a business, or working a legal job, as I had in the drug business, I’d be very fruitful.”

Screwball nodded his head he understood. “So how did it feel to get out and have a high control parole officer who decides your fate reading a file that had all of those accusations against you? Did you feel like you had a fair shot?”

“You’re right about the high control parole officer. Mine had the title of S.S.U. high control and his name was Douglas Heimrick. He started by telling me that I was going to be watched 24/7 by the gang task force, narcotic detectives, neighborhood watch and whoever else they could get to keep track of me. He told me I was to keep a log of everywhere I went, who I saw and what I did everyday and that if my log didn’t match up with their log, I was going to get violated! I was so overwhelmed that I tried to get him to see me as a human being, and not prejudge me by what was written about me in his file. I told him, Mr. Heimrick, I’m not a child molester, rapist or a rat and I didn’t do a lot of those things that were alleged against me. I’m asking you not to believe everything you’ve read about me and base your decisions on what you see in front of you.”

Screwball asked, “How did that go?”

“It went well. I studied Mr. Heimrick and got the impression he was good people with compassion and an open mind. He looked at me like I had surprised him with what I’d said. Then he thought about it and came back with a loaded question I realized was going to determine how he initially viewed me. He asked, ‘so you’re telling me that you were completely innocent and shouldn’t have gone to prison?’ I spent the next half an hour explaining my life in a nut shell. Mr. Heimrick looked like he was surprised at the amount of honesty I gave him. He admitted to me that a detective he had a lot of respect for confided in him that he didn’t believe a lot of what was written about me pertaining to my custom Harley investment with Mr. Dudley. I remembered detective Maltobano’s report.”

Screwball said, “It sounds like you got really blessed to get a good parole officer.”

“I got blessed big time. He even asked me if I was going to be okay living with my Dad with our checkered history? I told him I didn’t know but that I had thrown my Dad an olive branch by telling him that I was too young to acknowledge how much it must have hurt to lose our Mom when they got divorced. Mr. Heimrick asked me how that went and I told him it only got a grunt out of my Dad. Mr. Heimrick then admitted to me that he’d lived through a similar childhood divorce and barely made it himself. I felt so blessed having such a caring man for a parole officer that I started crying, praying and thanking God right in front of him. It looked like he realized he wasn’t supposed to get that personal and got professional. He told me that there was some really bad stuff in my file that would be following me for the rest of my life and that I should fill my time working as much as possible and stay under a rock and out of the mix.”

Screwball said, “So you got off to a good start. Whatever happened to Vince and Damon? Did you hook back up with them?”

“Yeah, I did, I’ll tell you the rest of the story as if it happened in a movie.”

CHAPTER 130

I was living at my Dad’s house in Dana Point with my brother. It felt weird after all we’d lived through to be back in our Dad’s house. My brother had started an auto detailing business and was at the top of his field in his territory. He had a rich clientele and dialed in exotic cars in exotic gated communities. He was doing well for himself and I was proud of him. I, on the other hand didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to follow my parole officer’s advice and busy myself with so much work that there wouldn’t be time for anything else. I just didn’t know where to start.

One morning, feeling out of place and uncomfortable in my Dad’s house, I sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out what to do with my life. My brother dropped the yellow pages in front of me and said, “Find a business you can see yourself doing better than the competition. Then imagine yourself advertising it better until you come up with a business name and a philosophy. Then roll the dice.”

I liked the advice and started looking.

My Dad came down stairs and had a scowl on his face. He’s got black thinning hair and those blood shot eyes with those veins running through a bulbous nose giving him the look of a heavy alcoholic. He had stopped drinking but hadn’t changed his competitive ways where he had to put you down so he could feel better about himself, though. He walked to where I had to look at him studying me and asked me a question, like my answer was going to decide how he felt about me.

“What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life? What kind of job or vocation are you going to spend your time on?”

I looked at my Dad and wondered what he wanted me to say. I didn’t have any idea what kind of job or vocation I could get involved in. I didn’t know if I’d even make it living at his house from one day to the next. I decided to test the waters and told him, “I’ve decided I want to be an attorney and study law.”

My Dad looked shocked. I knew he looked up to lawyers and doctors so my answer couldn’t disappoint him. I watched him manufacture a reason this wasn’t a good idea.

“I don’t think you can be a lawyer with your record. Plus that would cost a lot of money and schooling. I think you should shoot for something more realistic.”

I just stared at him and wondered how he could expect me to come up with something on the spot. He filled in the rest of his mood with words.

“I have some rules you have to abide by to live here. You are to pay me $350 a month in rent, keep a 40 hour a week job and go to church every Sunday. There’s a church that is just starting this Sunday in the movie theater down the street. You’re to go.”

My brother stepped in on my behalf. “Dad, why don’t you leave him alone? He has enough pressure to deal with getting acclimated from being locked in a cell for five plus years. Give him some room to breathe!”