Criminal That I Am

by Jennifer Ridha

  After this, I am brought to a tiny room where fingerprint- and mug shot–taking occur. I catch sight of Burly Man: he is sitting on a chair, my purse and coat in his lap, looking bored. I’m second in line to provide fingerprints; ahead of me is a young Russian man charged with a drug-related crime, and after me is a pedophile who is there on a violation of supervised release.

  When it’s my turn to supply fingerprints, I’m told to place my hands on what looks like an enormous Xerox machine. The Marshal presses my hands down as the machine seems to scan their image. But it doesn’t take on the first attempt. Or the second. Or what I count as the eighth. I try to press my hands harder onto the glass to possibly make things easier, but this only makes the machine stall.

  “Stop trying to help,” the Marshal admonishes me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He sighs. “It’s this fucking machine,” he tells me. He calls in another Marshal, this one with a heavy Boston accent, and tells him that he’s unable to fingerprint me. The second Marshal sizes me up.

  “Whaddaya here fah, a fackin misdemeenah?” he says.

  I nod.

  The two men fuss with the machine. They look at each other as though they are at a loss. They look at me again. They don’t seem to know what to do next.

  “Maybe I could just promise never to commit a crime again,” I offer.

  This suggestion is ignored. The second Marshal catches sight of my shoes. “By the way,” he asks, pointing down at them, “did anyone tell ya there’s a fackin blizzaad outside?”

  He is likely referring to the fact that my black high-heeled pumps are not suited for the gathering snowstorm.

  I shrug my shoulders.

  He shakes his head at me and looks over at the other Marshal. “Just give ha the ink.”

  This means exactly what I think it does. The first Marshal produces an old-fashioned fingerprint card, a box for every finger. “Watch that you don’t get ink on yourself,” he says as he presses my hand into an inkpad. When I look at the black on my fingers, he assures me that the ink can be wiped off with a tissue.

  He returns me to Burly Man, who hands me back my coat and purse. He explains that we now have to go to Pretrial Services before heading to court.

  “That’s it?” I say. This was less painful than a trip to the DMV.

  One of the Marshals leads us to an internal elevator that will take us upstairs to Pretrial Services. The elevator is meant for law enforcement and contains a large cage to carry criminal defendants.

  As we make our way into the elevator, I step toward the cage.

  “What are you doing?” Burly Man asks.

  “I’m going in here,” I say, pointing inside the cage.

  “No, absolutely not. You stand right next to me,” he says protectively.

  “Okay,” I say. I look up at him, but he is once again staring straight ahead.

  When we arrive at Pretrial Services, we walk into a room full of people waiting to check in with their Pretrial Service Officers. This will be me in a week, I think to myself.

  Burly Man walks me through the waiting room to a hallway on the other side. “We don’t want to sit in there,” he says. “It’s filled with defendants.”

  But I’m a defendant, I feel tempted to say. But I don’t. I’m unclear as to the reasoning behind his care, but feel that he is being kind.

  While we wait on Pretrial Services, I ask Burly Man questions about law enforcement, how he can tell a perp is lying, how he knows if someone is up to no good. “It’s just something you know,” he tells me with pride.

  In the midst of my questions, Burly Man looks at his watch. “I’d better get you over there,” he says, referring to the magistrate’s court. “You can come back here after you’re done.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  He leads me into the courtroom, where I catch sight of my attorney. Once we’ve said our hellos, I turn around and Burly Man is gone. I find myself feeling wistful at his disappearance, almost sad that I did not have an opportunity to say good-bye.

  My attorney and I sit down in the gallery. I survey the room for possible press but don’t see any. My eyes circle the room every few minutes to detect whether this changes.

  On my visual tour of the courtroom, I watch a group of gentlemen get arraigned on tax crimes. One of them looks over at me as the extensive charges against him are being read and rolls his eyes. If I weren’t awaiting the announcement of my own charges, I would probably laugh.

  I also catch a glimpse of Some Prosecutor on the other side of the aisle. I had forgotten what he looked like, I recognize him only from the scowl he gives me when our eyes meet. I greet his disapproving look with a small smile that I have perfected in consultation with Best Friend the night before. The smile is not so large as to be arrogant but not so weak as to concede complete defeat. It assumes a middle ground, possessing a calibrated level of contentment that says merely: this did not break me.

  By the time I execute it, Some Prosecutor has turned his attention to the papers in front of him. I decide that this still counts.

  I continue to scope the door for entering reporters, but there appear to be none. Lawyers and defendants mill in and out of the courtroom, but as it becomes closer to lunchtime most of these have filed out. By the time my case is called, the courtroom is otherwise empty.

  The court clerk announces: “The United States of America versus Jennifer Ridha.” It is the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Everyone? I want to ask. Is there no one who isn’t against me?

  The proceedings begin as the magistrate judge takes the bench. I keep turning around to see if any reporters walk in. My attorney shoots me a look that says I should stop.

  The magistrate judge reads me my rights. I am to confirm my understanding of these rights. He explains the charge against me. I am to confirm my understanding of this charge. He explains to me the terms of my deferred prosecution agreement. I am to confirm my understanding of these terms. He asks me a series of questions, the answer to all of which is “Yes, Your Honor” or some variation thereof.

  It is quick and painless, over in less than ten minutes. The courtroom remains empty for the duration.

  There is nothing out of order, nothing out of place. But something odd happens to me at the end. As the proceedings are about to close, the magistrate judge addresses me thusly:

  THE COURT: The Government has provided you with an important benefit and opportunity here. I trust that you will comply with the terms of the agreement and the case will be dismissed.

  A sensible statement such as this one is expected for any defendant who is fortunate enough to avoid pleading guilty. And yet, as terrible as it is to admit, when I hear these words, I am internally consumed by a burst of anger. My own reaction is so unexpected that I feel as though I am possessed by someone else, someone who is so defensive about what she’s done and so resentful of authority that this small admonition causes her only to curse in my head: “Why don’t all of you take an opportunity to go fuck yourselves?”

  This internal reaction lasts only a moment, but given the easy events of the day is so misplaced that I’m somewhat unsettled. The intensity of my anger, the velocity with which it has arrived, the ease with which this feeling could take me over, all of this leads me to the brief but troubling conclusion that what I’ve done is possibly not an isolated error in judgment as much as it is a flaw in my construction, a part of who I really am.

  As I see everyone awaiting my response, I push away the thought. I look at the judge, seated on his bench, and with this harnessed focus my demons are seemingly exorcised. I am thus able to respond to his suggestion of gratitude with pitch-perfect acquiescence, like the obedient young woman I was raised to be.

  The court transcript captures it this way:

  THE DEFENDANT: I will, Your Honor. Thank you.


  With the proceedings over, I walk out of the courtroom and begin to breathe a sigh of relief. I suck it back in quickly when I see standing in front of me the same reporter from the New York Post who interrupted the impromptu meeting with Cameron Douglas’s father in the very same spot a year before.

  For a brief moment my body seizes with fear that the reporter is here to ask about my case. But he does not look up from the conversation he is having with another gentleman. I tiptoe around the two men and then move to a strategic spot close to the clerk’s office. I motion to my attorney to join me and then position myself so I can keep my eye on the reporter’s movements without having to crane my head or otherwise make myself conspicuous. If he comes my way, it’s my plan to dart into the nearby ladies’ room.

  Some Prosecutor follows us to discuss some housekeeping issues. He and my attorney chat for a bit, and then he enthusiastically takes my attorney’s hand and shakes it. I am only half paying attention because I am keeping my eye on the reporter.

  I at first don’t notice that Some Prosecutor has extended his hand toward me. When I do, I realize that the time has come for the fake handshake. I don’t want it. I stare at his hand for a moment, until I see my attorney giving me a look. I begrudgingly take Some Prosecutor’s hand, and, as if on cue, he dramatically turns his eyes away.

  Dammit, I think to myself. I was so close to getting through my case without it.

  Some Prosecutor walks away, and shortly afterward my attorney leaves me to deal with the odds and ends. At Pretrial Services, I am told that my Pretrial Services Officer (PSO) is away conducting home visits, that I should call her later in the day to arrange for my reporting schedule.

  I step back into the main hallway of the magistrate’s court and take a quick look around. The Post reporter is gone. I exit the courthouse undisturbed, not a camera in sight. I begin to run from the courthouse, my heels pressing the snow, running as though if I don’t move fast enough I will be apprehended and the whole thing will start all over again.

  I don’t stop running until I am several blocks away. When I return to my building, I see that the blizzard is approaching—the sun has departed and the sky is gray. I have narrowly escaped the storm.

  I enter my apartment and immediately go to the computer to check the news: there is not a single piece of press about my case. Relieved, I call my PSO to check in. She is confused as to why I am calling.

  “Didn’t you get your reporting instructions?” she asks.

  The man at Pretrial Services did hand me a form, which I had stuffed into my purse without reading. “Yes, I’m sorry, I don’t think I realized what that was.”

  “Well, you’re supposed to call in once a month, the first Friday of the month. Don’t call me until then.”

  “Okay, but when do I have to come in?”

  “You don’t.”

  “I don’t have to come in?”

  “No. Talk to you next month.” She says good-bye, and then hangs up.

  I’m puzzled. I had prepared myself for weekly meetings, random drug testing, home visits. I feel so certain that these are required that I consider calling her back to make sure I understood her correctly.

  I decide to leave the matter for now. My court date is officially over, and I feel unprecedented relief. Not because I survived something today—a kid sent to the principal’s office would have it worse—but because this is no longer the point in my case that Churchill would call, if Churchill ever cared to describe this juncture of my criminal case, the end of the beginning. Instead, I believe this is the beginning of the end.

  I kick off my weather-inappropriate high heels and stand at the foot of my bed. I fall into the mattress face-first, like I used to do as a child, like I did the day the federal authorities came to my door. This time, I am smiling. For the first time in months, sleep arrives in mere moments. As though making up for lost time, it pours over me like dense syrup, absorbing me to such an extent that when I finally wake, the brightness of the day will lead me to wonder if all of this hasn’t simply been a dream.

  My PSO was not exaggerating. The sum total of my obligations to the Pretrial Services Office consists of six phone calls, one for each month of the term of my deferred prosecution agreement. Each of these calls consumes something on the order of forty-five to ninety seconds.

  On five occasions, I call her on the first Friday of every month. On the sixth occasion, she tells me that she will provide a recommendation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to drop the misdemeanor charge that had been lodged against me.

  There is no in-person reporting, no home visits, no drug testing.

  It is an odd incongruence, the start of my case as compared to its ending. The brute arrival of the feds, the possibility of prosecution, the fear of the press, and the threats of extortion all seemed to portend my status as a criminal worthy of heavy punishment. And yet, this is hardly what transpires.

  My family and friends insist that I should be happy about the apparent exceptions that have been extended to me. It could have been so much worse, they say. But as it is happening, I find myself distrustful of the disparity. That I have been spared what even the most privileged defendants are forced to endure makes me question why I have been put through it at all. I feel as though this has been more of an exercise in humiliation than an attempt to address wrongdoing.

  Over time, I gain better perspective. I come to the conclusion that of the two theories of punishment, I am subjected to the approach in which the criminal is punished only insofar as needed to prevent her from committing further crimes. And in determining how the interests of justice could be served in my case, the system did not consider my conduct to be that of a repeat offender as much as that of a complete idiot.

  What really matters, I tell myself, is that it’s all over.

  Or so I think.

  CHAPTER 7

  Thank You for Your Cooperation

  When my case is over, I hold out hope that I can move forward with my life.

  It doesn’t work out the way that I intended.

  Once the charges are dropped, my lawyer calls to check in with me to see how I’m doing. I tell him that I am making the most of my second chance. I am elated, I tell him, that my case has come to an end.

  “There’s just one thing,” he says.

  And that thing is cooperation.

  When boiled down to its essence, cooperation is an exchange of evils. It operates on the straightforward premise that the cost of leniency for one act of evil is worth the ability to harness two such acts.

  Cooperation is usually heralded as a situation in which everyone wins. The cooperator gets off easier than he normally would. The government saves precious resources. Crime rates go down. Cooperation is quick, it’s easy, everyone is happy.

  But.

  Because cooperation deals in evils, it has many of its own. Cooperation has a bad reputation for promoting dishonesty. One often finds that individuals who are comfortable (a) committing crimes, and (b) turning in their accomplices for personal gain, are just as comfortable (c) lying about it. Cooperation can, and sometimes does, harm the innocent.

  Cooperation’s evils can obviously befall the cooperator as well. For some cooperators the leniency offered by cooperating can come at the price of one’s own life. Cooperation can, and sometimes does, harm the guilty.

  When you really think about it, cooperation’s evils can be traced throughout history. Jesus Christ himself was famously ratted out, his identity and subsequent arrest provided by a paid informant who sold him out at a dinner party. And although that particular instance doesn’t end too badly—it did bring about one of the world’s great religions—similar betrayals have brought about nothing less than mass atrocity. Cooperation is the fuel in genocide’s engine. Cooperation is how death marches and pogroms come to be.

  Because of these evils, our legal system recognizes that
cooperation has limits. This is why husbands and wives, doctors and patients, attorneys and clients, clergy and congregants have all been deemed sacred relationships in which loyalty is protected. Left unfettered, cooperation tears at the social fabric, rips through community trust, causes more harm than it seeks to prevent.

  I have seen in practice the filthy residue that cooperation can leave behind. So when my attorney tells me that cooperation bears on my ability to move forward with my life, I am right to be concerned.

  In order to explain how cooperation comes to touch my criminal case, I need to go back in time to the summer of 2009, months before I even join Cameron’s case. Shortly after his arrest, Cameron identifies his drug suppliers as two brothers named David and Eduardo Esca­lera. The Escaleras befriended Cameron when he moved to California in 2003 and are alleged to have served as Cameron’s personal dealers before joining him in the drug conspiracy that is being pursued by the government.

  The expected next steps after Cameron provided this information were these: The Escalera brothers would be arrested; they would decide to either plead or go to trial; if they chose to go to trial, Cameron would take the stand. If they pleaded or were found guilty, they would be sentenced. Then, after all of this, Cameron would be sentenced, the full fruits of his cooperation taken into consideration by the judge.

  But this is not what happened. The Escalera brothers somehow managed to elude arrest. Perhaps owing to the publicity surrounding Cameron’s arrest, they made themselves scarce, possibly absconding to their native Mexico. For the duration of Cameron’s case, they apparently were nowhere to be found.

  This was good news for Cameron. He had been dreading any arrest of the Escaleras, not wanting to cause them harm and also not wanting to reveal his begrudging decision to cooperate. Because his sentencing was expedited, true to his wishes, he was sentenced without any arrests having been made.

  After his sentencing, I tell a hopeful Cameron that maybe they will never be arrested at all. Maybe, I tell him, this is all over.