The Cartel Lawyer

1 I heard the gates of the prison slam shut as the Department of Corrections van entered New Jersey’s maximum-security federal prison. This place looked like the gates to hell. The prison had a stained wall that separated a world of predators from freedom. At all four corners of the prison, guards with rifles looked down on the compound. A sign had the following statement in bold letters: “No warnings in this yard.” The new warden had given the officers permission to fire if someone tried to escape or if a fight broke out. The prison van passed through the gates and the driver yelled, “Shut up and be quiet.” I stepped down in my orange jumpsuit. The handcuffs began to tighten and the shackles around my waist made noise as I took my first step down from the van. How the heck did I end up here as an inmate? I thought. Unfortunately, this was not my first time in this hellish prison. In my past life, I had visited many clients here who were incarcerated on federal drug charges. Two overweight corrections officers shuffled out to greet the new arrivals. “Alright boys, welcome to the big house,” proclaimed one guard. This was not a white-collar prison where Wall Street bankers played tennis and served their time at “club fed.” This was a maximum-security prison. The other guard shouted over our heads, “Listen up inmates! As Officer Smith said, we don’t take any nonsense. We’ll refer to you as inmate and whatever your last name is. You will answer yes sir or yes ma’am. It isn’t rocket science.” The new inmates from the van moved through the intake process. One officer yelled, “Gentlemen, take off your jumpsuits. We will check you for contraband. If anyone of you is stupid enough to smuggle drugs or weapons into this prison, we will find out. After you shower, put on your jumpsuits. We run this joint, so don’t try anything stupid.” The warden of the prison, Mr. Humphrey Brown, had been running the Texas prison system for three decades. Before becoming a warden, he had been a sheriff in Amarillo, Texas. Mr. Brown, a five-foot six-inch man with a pot belly, believed that prisons should be designed to punish, not rehabilitate, offenders. Warden Brown, along with his cowboy hats, spurs, and belt buckle, had left the comforts of west Texas and moved to New Jersey’s Brick City. This job came with a large pay raise as few people wanted to be the warden of Newark’s toughest prison. The governor needed someone to come into this nightmare of a prison system and shake it upside down. In the past fifteen months, the prison had experienced three riots and ten stabbings, including one involving an officer. The media outcry led the governor to fire the warden and fifteen officers, as they had been involved in a litany of scandals from smuggling drugs into the prison to letting rival gang members enter the same cells to duke it out over turf battles on the streets. As I removed my clothes, showered, and put on my new jumpsuit, one intake officer asked me if I had thoughts of harming myself: “Do you want to hurt yourself? Have you been sad lately?” I wanted to respond, “I’m going to serve twenty-five to life in federal prison. Yeah, I’m depressed, you moron.” Another veteran officer recognized me and said, “Ricky Gold. Hey, brother. Funny seeing you on this side of the law. I guess representing scumbags and drug dealers for all those years finally caught up with you.” “Nice to see you too, officer,” I replied. The officer responded, “Officer Joseph, you nitwit, you don’t read the papers. Pretty Ricky Gold here got caught up with some Mexican cartel and worked for some gang members. He used to be one bad boy in that courtroom.” “Welcome to hell, pretty Ricky. This isn’t a white-collar prison, son. We aren’t babysitting Wall Street bankers here,” responded Officer Joseph. I was assigned a cell in the east bloc. The officer threw me a bedsheet and pillow. “Inmate Gold! Shut up and follow me. I will take you to your cell.” If you have never been inside a prison before—good for you—there is the constant smell of Clorox, as the inmates are always mopping. Prisons are full of noise from the time you walk in and hear the heavy metal doors slamming shut behind you. The noise can be overwhelming. The thought of putting up with this for years made me nervous. My years as a criminal defense attorney taught me that the prison system in the United States has evolved over time. Richard Nixon launched the US “war on drugs” in 1971, and Ronald Reagan implemented the “modern phase” of the drug war during the 1980s. President Bill Clinton passed the 1994 Crime Bill with his famous “three strikes and you are out” speech. People who committed three felony charges would receive a mandatory minimum of twenty-five years to life. The war on drugs has resulted in the prison population spiking. Today, there are more than two million people in jail or prison. The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world. We lock more people up than China, Russia, and even South Africa at the height of a*******d. Low-level drug addicts crowd the prison system, which costs taxpayers around eighty billion dollars per year. The federal prison in Newark, however, was not a prison where people served time for crimes for drug possession or writing bad checks. This was a maximum-security prison housing dozens of top cartel leaders who had been extradited from Mexico to the United States. The most famous inmate, the son of Joaquín Cabrera, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was convicted for trafficking more than three million dollars in drugs between Mexico and the United States. The prosecutors could never get him on the scores of murder charges that he committed as no one wanted to talk. However, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the federal agency in charge of combating drug trafficking, cooperated with the Mexican government and helped prosecutors build a slam-dunk case against one of the sons of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world. This is the world I entered. A world that I became familiar with as a former criminal defense attorney. As I walked down the long corridor, inmates banged on the bars and yelled at me, “Welcome to hell, pretty boy. I’m going to be your worst nightmare.” Another inmate whistled and screamed, “You better watch it here, son. I can’t wait to see you on the yard. Better start doing some pushups. Be careful when you lift weights, son. I’ll get you, pretty boy.” I did not look at them or respond. Prisons are a predator’s playground. The weak are fed to the wolves, and inmates smell fear. Friends, wives, and other family members can send inmates money for the canteen store. Tougher inmates extort the weaker ones for the money as they can buy candy, noodles, and other snacks at the prison store. The money also can be used for buying drugs. People on the outside may believe that prisons serve as a place where inmates can be rehabilitated. One may think that inmates detoxing from drugs will have several years where they will be able to overcome their addiction through counseling and substance abuse classes. This prison, like many others in the United States, was known an epicenter for drugs and crime. You can get any drug that you want if you are willing to pay the price. Inmates have an abundance of one thing on their hands: time. Endless amounts of time. Newark’s maximum-security prison brought in the feds to clean things up after several violent riots that left four inmates dead and dozens wounded. The authorities started to shake up the cells and found a seemingly endless pile of home-made knives, known as shanks. Inmates can make a shank out of anything from toothbrushes to metal rods in the air vents. As I walked along the prison corridors, I tried not to show fear, but my heart sank deep into my stomach. I thought, How’d I end up in this place? Why couldn’t I have been smarter? We kept walking until we reached my new home. The guard yelled, “Stop. Here it is, inmate. Enjoy.” The gates of the cell opened, and the officer started walking away. A large man lurking in the shadows smiled. He was around five feet nine inches and one hundred and eighty-five pounds of pure muscle. He did not have his shirt on. He had the phrase “El Payaso,” which means clown in Spanish, tattooed above his belly button in large green letters. He had the letters M and S tattooed on each of his pecks. “What’s up Ricky? Funny seeing you in here,” said “El Payaso,” whose real name is Juan Cruz. “Hey man. Great to see you. Well, it’s not great to see you in this hellhole. Luckily, the guards and prison authorities are too dumb to realize that we know each other.” I had represented Juan Cruz on various charges in my past life as a lawyer. Cruz came from a rough background and was a major player on the streets for the gang known as Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. The authorities could never get him on any serious charges because witnesses did not want to upset the clown, who had killed several people and become an expert in extortion. The Drug Enforcement Administration got involved and helped local authorities build a case against him. Three previous cases did not move forward because the clown threatened to kill every witness and their families if they testified against him. He moved cocaine, crystal meth, and m*******a between different neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York. Federal prosecutors finally nabbed him on drug trafficking and racketeering. The judge sentenced him to five years in federal prison. “We dodged bullets for many years, my friend,” I told Juan. “Funny that we ended up in the same cell together. It never ceases to amaze me how dumb the authorities are. It would never have occurred to them that you and some old gringo like me knew each other on the outside.” Juan laughed. “Yeah man. All the officers do here is serve their eight hours and hit the gate. They’re so lazy, it is unbelievable. Don’t expect them to help you.” “How’s the family?” “You know. It’s been rough.” “Yeah, I can imagine. We’ve got a lot of time here to catch up. I’m not going anywhere quickly.” “I hear you, brother. Listen, I will take care of you in this dump. Obviously, we can’t associate outside the cell.” Juan could not associate with me behind bars because of the unwritten racial code. Racism is much worse on the inside than on the outside of the prison system. Prisons in the United States are divided along racial lines. African Americans hang out with African Americans, whites with whites, and Hispanic or Latinos with their own kind. Prisoners are allowed out on the yard, an open space with basketball courts, a track, and weights. Inmates self-segregate on the yard, which becomes a battleground for prison gangs. Even if prisoners themselves are not racist, they follow the unwritten code about what inmates should do and who they should talk to. Since prisons are full of predators, one mistake, even a tiny one like accepting food from an inmate of the opposite skin color, could result in a fight or even death. “Follow the code,” Juan told me. “Don’t ever break the code.” Prison is the only place in the world where you will see men in their forties or fifties joining a gang for protection. Countless studies by academics show that there is a relationship between age and crime. Gangs are a youth phenomenon on the outside. In the United States, most people “age out” of the gang life and leave it behind as a young adult. Yet in prison, there is power in numbers, forcing people, even middle-aged men, to link up for protection. “You know how many jailhouse lawyers are here? You will be the only real lawyer here. Ya sabes lo que la gente dice: ‘En tierra de ciegos, el tuerto es rey.’” Juan laughed. (You know what people say. In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king). “Glad to know that the three years in law school was not a total waste of time. You know sometimes I wonder,” I said, laughing. “I do need to pay off my fines.” In prison, everyone hustles to make some extra cash. If you want drugs, you need to trade either goods or services for them. While tattoo guns are illegal behind bars, every jail has its own tattoo artist. Some are better than others. Given how many people are appealing their cases, there is always one inmate who can serve as an “advisor” and charge fees for “legal representation.” A jailhouse lawyer can help inmates who do not have lawyers on the outside file appeals and write letters to different foundations asking for legal advice. People on the outside often forget that someone sentenced to prison must pay restitution and other court fines. I got involved in the crimes that I committed because I needed money. Now I’m supposed to pay six hundred thousand dollars to the state. “How do you expect me to do that while I’m incarcerated for possibly the remainder of my life?” It, therefore, is no surprise that people revert to the “skills” they acquired on the streets to hustle and make money while behind bars. Time to settle in, I thought. This is going to be a long hall. I started to put my stuff away in my new “home,” which had a toilet and two beds stacked on top of the other. Welcome to hell is right.