Tag: Central Illinois Department of Corrections

The Change in Diet

In a maximum security prison, you are a caged man. You spend most days in your cell on “lockdown status.” This happens when someone causes an incident that challenges the security of the prison. Or so the staff will say.

Then all you get is “three hots and a cot.” You get a ten-minute shower once a week. Your meals are brought to you in a cell. No other movement is allowed. My only reprieve from this boredom was to read the law. Jimmy Soto’s words were always there: Continue reading “The Change in Diet”

The Man Takes Control

I was set up pretty good at Stateville. The most notorious prison in the Illinois Department of corrections nourished all the vices. I had found my niche making moonshine. I was learning the law. Jimmy Soto, whom I met on day one, had set my head straight. “Nobody cares about you being locked up but you. If you want to change things, learn the law. Then you must beat the man at his own game.”

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1994 The Nightmare Begins

In 1994, I was sentenced to forty-five years with another twenty years, running consecutively, or as the boys in the long house would say, “Running Wild.” I have served twenty-two and one-half years on the forty-five. I am now serving ten years on the twenty-year sentence. This obscenely long sentence was handed down because I refused to plea bargain for crimes I didn’t commit.

Continue reading “1994 The Nightmare Begins”