At lockdown, I went into my assigned cell inside the block, which was pretty scary. I didn’t have to share a cell with anyone; apparently that was to protect me. The cell was tiny—it fit two bunks and a toilet that was close to the ground. That was it. I suffered from claustrophobia, but I had to get over that real quick.
The first nights I spent in prison I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I lay in my bed and began to think that if I continued living the destructive lifestyle I was living, I would die young. I started to actually appreciate getting arrested. Once and for all, I had to make changes in my life, and this was the swift kick in the ass I needed to do so. I also realized that there must be something important that I was supposed to live for, a bigger purpose. I began thinking about having children, and as I lay on my prison bunk, I wondered what my kids would look like. I thought about what had happened between Billy and me. I got really sad thinking about my horrible family life and all my brothers who had died. Being in prison gave me time to reflect on everything and everybody that had had an impact on my life.
The day after I arrived at the penitentiary, Norman Elliott Kent, my attorney, came to see me. Jorge had arranged for him to represent me. Norman wore crisp tailored suits and was incredibly focused. He was a big-shot attorney in Dade County whose forte was bad boys, and I was certainly a bad boy—or rather, a bad girl. I had no clue how the system worked or how this process was going to go. This bad girl was crying and scared. Norman calmed me down and began to advise me both legally and personally.
During our first meeting Norman advised me not to show my emotions. It was a sign of weakness to the other prisoners. He told me that they prey upon weakness in these places and I already stood out enough as it was. Then he advised me not to take a shower—it was too dangerous. He said everyone would see me naked and I could get raped. I can’t take a shower for three weeks? Okay, wonderful, I thought. Luckily, later that day, my girlfriend Alex brought me deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and commissary money. She also brought me my favorite red velvet Fila sweat suit, which was popular and fashionable at that time in Miami. I remember feeling particularly grateful that she’d brought that warm-up suit because wearing it made me feel safe and gave me a sense of home.
A few days later I was sitting at a table near a group of other inmates who began to pick on me. They were starting to mark their territory, and one of the girls wanted me to be her “bitch.” Clearly, this situation was going to turn really bad, really fast.
As I was starting to panic, a black woman named Sister Sue came along. She resided in the first cell of the block, near the pay phone. Now, let me explain the importance of this in prison life. When you live inside a cell block and the phone is right outside your cell, that sends a message. You don’t get to pick your cell as if prison were a summer camp. There’s no “Oh, I want that bunk!” Her cell location was a clear sign that Sister Sue had a lot of respect and authority within cell block C.
Sister Sue’s meth lab had exploded, and that was why she got arrested and ended up in prison. Sue looked as if she had been doing her fair share of meth. She had missing teeth and her skin was weathered and I believe she might have been in her thirties, but she looked much older.
Sister Sue approached the table and said to me in a cold, commanding voice, “You have a phone call.”
“Oh, really? Okay,” I answered sheepishly.
When I got to the pay phone to take the call, Sister Sue said quietly, “You’re going to act like you’re talking on the phone. Understand?”
“Okay.”
“I told whoever was calling that you couldn’t talk.”
“Who called?”
“What am I, your secretary? Do you want to survive this place?”
“Yes.”
She then brought me into her cell. “Get down on your knees and close your eyes,” she demanded.
I did what I was told. Tears began rolling down my face and I was shaking like a leaf. I had no idea what was going to happen. Then I heard a thud. Something hard had hit the mattress. (There are no fluffy mattresses in prison, so it was a pretty loud noise.)
“Now open your eyes,” Sister Sue said. I opened my eyes slowly and saw . . . a Bible.
“When you’re done reading this psalm, I will protect you,” she said. “I’m in here for a while and I’m not going anywhere. Sure, you might get out. But while you’re here, I’ll take care of you.”
“Okay. Thank you,” I said, relieved.
I stayed on my knees and read the Bible. When I was done, Sister Sue kept her word and gave me her protection. Nobody—and I mean nobody—messed with me again. Prior to that, I wasn’t able to eat regularly and the other prisoners took everything I owned. Sister Sue got all my stuff back. When I took a shower, Sister Sue watched over me, but she never made advances toward me. Some of the other women inmates were hard-core gang members, but they didn’t scare Sister Sue. Finally, somebody was watching my back in cell block C.
Shortly after I arrived in prison, Billy reached out to me. He had seen me on the news and decided to visit me. I didn’t actually want to see him, but when I was told he was there, I felt guilty and decided to meet with him. He told me he still loved me and would always be there for me, and I told him that I was in a different place in my life and it was a frightening moment for me. Then I began to blame him for my ending up in prison. In retrospect, it wasn’t my smartest move, but I wanted him to feel like shit for cheating on me.
“I wouldn’t have been sent here if you didn’t cheat on me,” I said.
Billy told me that he felt horrible about it. Ah, I hit a nerve, I thought. Then I decided to embellish on my current situation to make him feel truly terrible: I told him that I had been extremely ill in sick bay and a guard had tried to rape me. Billy was upset and angered by the news. I saw the jealous reaction that I had longed for, and it was the perfect antidote to my misery.
Sadly, my lie almost ended up coming true. I got sick and asked to be taken to sick bay for medical attention. Male prison guards were taking care of female prisoners, and I was escorted by one of them from my cell. When this happens, the other prisoners lean out of their cells and watch you walk by them down the long, straight hallway. If you fall out of sight during the walk to sick bay, the prisoners know something’s up, something’s wrong. On my way to sick bay, the guard pushed me into a storage closet and out of sight. In a flash, he pulled my pants down. The guard stuffed a rag into my mouth and had me bare from the waist down and lying on my stomach with my hands cuffed behind my back.
Out of nowhere, Sister Sue came to my rescue. She burst into the closet and yelled, “Get off her, now!” He didn’t. He had given her no choice, so Sister Sue shanked the guard in the leg. Like many of the other prisoners, Sister Sue had a makeshift knife made from whatever was available because everyone had to protect themselves come nightfall. The danger wasn’t so much because of the other prisoners. The real danger was from the prison guards—something I’d just learned firsthand and wouldn’t soon forget.
6
TRIAL AND RESOLUTION
As the date for my bail hearing drew near, I began thinking of what I was going to do when I got out of jail. Whom would I see first? What would I want to eat for my first meal? Then harsh reality set in: what if I was denied bail and sent right back to jail? This was becoming a real possibility as I spent weeks watching it happen to countless prisoners before me.
Certain days during the week at the Florida penitentiary were designated as either arraignment or trial days. Female prisoners would spend the early mornings putting on makeup, spraying on perfume, and getting dressed in their best outfits to hopefully make a good impression on the judge. Before the bus ride to court, they would be bound in shackles and put in handcuffs, then escorted outside.
Most prisoners were fearful, some even crying as they left, because they knew this might be their last chance at freedom for a long time. If the verdict went their way, they could walk out of the co
urtroom as free women and see their families again. If they didn’t get released that afternoon, their next shot might be in another year, five years, ten years, maybe longer.
Sadly, at the end of the day I watched many of the women who’d got dressed up in the morning full of hope come back to jail, devastated because things hadn’t gone their way. Even the most hardened criminals looked shattered when that happened. I remember looking around and thinking how awful it would be if I had to stay in there for God knew how much longer. I thought to myself that if I did have to stay, I should start becoming better friends with these women. But I didn’t become closer with any of them because in my mind befriending them meant that I was going to have to stay in jail. A back-and-forth tennis match ensued in my head as the days went on. I became more scared and thought deeply while in my cell—a prisoner within my own thoughts.
Then I met Isabella, who helped me garner some inner strength.
When she arrived, Isabella immediately stood out from the rest of the prisoners. She walked into jail wearing Gucci sneakers and carrying Louis Vuitton luggage, a natural Spanish beauty with flawless skin and a body that was in phenomenal shape. She obviously took good care of herself.
Isabella and I hit it off right away. She told me that, along with her husband, she had been a successful drug dealer, and one of the keys to their success in the drug trade was that they were not users. (It’s well-known that drug addicts don’t make good dealers, since they end up blowing their own profits, so to speak. Like Isabella, many successful dealers handled drugs strictly as merchandise and applied the Tony Montana Scarface rule of “never get high on your own supply.”)
Isabella was sentenced to a year-and-a-half prison term. However, she said she’d be up for an early release in nine months if everything went well. She and her husband had another business, totally legitimate, that they earned income from. The couple made enough money from that business so that they didn’t even need to deal drugs. They did it because they desired to go from wealthy to extremely wealthy and felt that it was worth the risk to be able to afford a lifestyle they had always dreamed of. A yacht, a private plane, and expensive cars were all at their fingertips due to their ill-gotten gains. The most difficult part about doing hard time for Isabella was being away from her children, and if she could have done it over again, she would have given it all up to be able to tuck her kids into bed every night. When you’re behind bars, you quickly realize what’s most important in life. Yachts and cars don’t mean a thing when you can’t see your children. Thankfully, Isabella and her husband did not lose their home when they got arrested. The law at that time was that if you had a home and kids, you could keep the house as long as it wasn’t purchased with money from the sale of illegal drugs. Luckily, Isabella was able to prove that her home had been legitimately financed. Although she missed her kids terribly, Isabella was pragmatic. She had been caught and accepted her fate. “Hey, I did the crime and now I have to do the time,” she matter-of-factly said.
On the day of my bail hearing, I got dressed in an all-black suit outfit that my friend Alex had picked out for me at a department store and brought to the prison. I didn’t have a lot of businesslike clothes at home in my closet—I spent my days in Miami running around in tiny bikinis and my nights at clubs in designer dresses.
Isabella stopped by my cell to offer me a few words of advice and encouragement before I headed to court, which I needed as I prepared to leave my cell and face the unknown.
“Whatever you imagine that you’ll get is probably exactly what you’ll get,” she began calmly. “Remember, they are like hound dogs. If you go into court scared, they will instantly pick up the scent of fear. Being scared is a sign of weakness, and a sign of weakness is a sign of guilt. Everything flows as one.” I nodded my head as she continued: “If you’re strong, they’ll also pick up on that. A sign of strength is a sign of confidence. And when you’re confident, they’ll feel you’re not guilty. You need to visualize and internalize what you want. If you don’t believe it yourself, it won’t happen, so believe and don’t be scared. Be strong.”
Isabella and a few of the other girls walked me down to the exit of the cell block as I began my journey to court. When we reached the door, Isabella put her arms around me and said, “Have a good life.” I knew exactly what she was trying to do. She was instilling the power of positive thinking in me. If I didn’t think I would be coming back to prison, then I wouldn’t be coming back. The first step was believing it myself.
I smiled. “Thanks, you have a good life, too.”
The name Isabella, translated from Spanish into English, means “goddess of plenty.” Isabella was exactly that.
I went to court with a positive attitude and it paid off. My bail was set at $10,000, which Jorge paid for me. I was a free woman, but for how long I didn’t know. I also knew that with the investigation and pending trial I couldn’t see Jorge again, and this was heartbreaking. It seemed that whenever I finally found love in my life, it was always taken from me. I wondered when this pattern would finally change.
When I left court, I was like a lost puppy, skittish and vulnerable. After almost a month in prison, all I wanted was to sleep in my own bed, but I couldn’t go home right away. I was advised that until my case went to trial, it would be best if I stayed with a friend.
I ended up staying with Alex and her sister for a couple of weeks. Alex’s brother-in-law and I would stop by my house occasionally to pick up my clothes and mail. They were like family and I felt safe and at home around them. Alex made comfort food and helped me readjust to normal life. After I got arrested, I learned who my friends were. Many of my old acquaintances avoided me, while a few others embraced me and supported me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I didn’t realize it then, but this arrest would lead me to be scrutinized by others. People would judge me for decades to come because of this one arrest, and no matter what I did to make things right, this event would overshadow everything and would continually come back to haunt me. However, I’ve never been ashamed of it. I tell people honestly what happened to me. It was a part of my life and it’s what I went through. I’ve met many hypocrites and fair-weather friends, but when I’ve opened up and told my real friends what happened, they haven’t run. They say, “I don’t really care about that incident. I care about you!”
I had kept in touch with my mom while I was in Florida. After my arrest and while I was on bail, she was instrumental in gathering letters of reference from upstanding citizens who knew me throughout my childhood. Doctors, teachers, and lawyers wrote about how I was a good student, how I never got into trouble, etc. My mother wasn’t focused on what I had done wrong, she was more concerned with my safety. I never had the kind of relationship with my mother or father where I would ask them their opinions or consult them on what I wanted to do in my life. However, if something serious happened, my mother would try her best to be there for me. This was one of those times, and I was extremely grateful for her support.
Over the weeks following my release on bail, I met often with my attorney. I was pleased to hear that drug cases were not foreign to him. Norman Elliott Kent had handled two high-profile marijuana cases, and he had been covered in the New York Times and was the focus of a lead story on NBC for suing the state of Florida for spraying paraquat, an herbicide that destroys the environment as well as plant life, on marijuana. In various agrarian areas of Florida, people were cultivating marijuana, and the federal government, under Ronald Reagan’s direction, had launched a campaign to spray paraquat on the fields. My attorney reached an agreement with the U.S. government stating they were not to spray paraquat on marijuana. In another case, Norman represented a grandmother with glaucoma who was in trouble for cultivating marijuana for use to ease her condition. He won that case on the grounds that the pot was a medical necessity.
I had no clue how the legal system worked. Up until my arrest my only brush with the law had been receiving a speeding ticket. Norman explained
in detail the road ahead. When the federal government wants to charge somebody with a crime, it can do it through one of two ways: first, they can opt to arrest you and file what is called an “information.” Or, they can present the charges to a grand jury, which consists of twenty-three citizens who vote on the matter at hand. My case was to be presented to a grand jury. Unlike a regular jury in a case, the decision made by the grand jury does not have to be unanimous. It just has to be a majority.
When I stood before the grand jury in Florida, I had eight indictments against me. The grand jury charged everyone named in the case, and the government then figured out whom it wanted to make deals with. The prosecutors decided that they wanted to make a deal with me.
Although I was deathly afraid of going to prison, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to make a deal, either. I knew that I was innocent of the eight counts against me, but my attorney kept telling me that going to trial was not a good idea. I was considered an accessory, and if I pleaded innocent, they could try me on each count separately. Every count would get its own trial, and I would have to prove my innocence on each one. If I was found guilty, each of the counts was punishable by up to nineteen years in prison.
Behind the scenes, my attorney conferred with one of the prosecutors, Theresa Van Vliet, and learned that they wanted me to plead guilty to kidnapping and extortion, the least of all the charges. For my cooperation, they would suggest to the judge that I receive probation. Kidnapping? How could I kidnap a grown man? Extortion? Will that be on my permanent record? I had so many questions, and I felt that everything I had been taught about telling the truth and everything that I believed in was not applicable here. The case was more about circumstances and timing—I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. My attorney kept trying to get it through my thick skull that regardless of whatever I had or hadn’t done, I was there and being charged for the crimes. To the powers that be, I was guilty by association. Nobody wanted to know what I had or hadn’t done. What they really wanted to know was what I was willing to take responsibility for. However, I kept saying I hadn’t done anything, and that I was innocent.
The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words Page 7