by Gary Mulgrew
The way the plea-bargaining system worked provided its own twist to the pressure to ‘rat out’ on the others around you. Once the judge had ordered our separation when we arrived in Houston we weren’t allowed to communicate or be in the same room without a lawyer present. Each client had to have individual and separate legal advice and it didn’t take long before the lawyers would start to suggest that one or both of the others may be guilty – or if not guilty, perhaps too weak to resist a deal to go home. I understood that the only person who I could actually be sure was ‘not guilty’ was me. I couldn’t know for certain if Giles or David were guilty of a crime, just as they couldn’t know for certain about me or indeed each other. The DoJ had assumed that all three of our actions were interchangeable and that we were reasonably aware of what each other said or did, or emailed or indeed intended throughout. But we knew that wasn’t actually true. Any one of the three of us could have been aware of what was going on from Fastow’s perspective, or hidden a key piece of evidence or information, or decided not to say or do anything that would have led the others to abandon the deal. There were thousands of permutations, maybe all unlikely, but all I knew with certainty concerned my own actions and thoughts, not those of Giles or David.
I must admit I had had my moments of doubt and I’m sure the other two must have had them about me as well. There were loads of inconsistencies, of failed recollections or misunderstood events. With lawyers constantly around, I had lost the ability to talk freely to David and Giles and the doubts about them and how they were viewing me began to increase. David had already told me on more than one occasion that he was told, ‘Mulgrew’s missing daughter makes him a shoo-in to do a deal.’ Clearly the DoJ thought so too.
But I tried to dispel such thoughts from my mind. Inconsistencies were part and parcel of human recollection – one man remembers a green room while another saw blue. When we finally gained access to the emails that had contained so much of the inflammatory materials used to extradite us, it had been four years since we had been indicted and six years since we’d written or received them. I can struggle to remember what I meant in an email sent last Tuesday, yet still the lawyers would spend hours re-examining potential nuances in every email. It was pointless. All I knew was I hadn’t set out to defraud anyone. I never would.
In an attempt to sweeten things, the DoJ had also stated that if I accepted a deal, I wouldn’t have to testify against my two friends, although they stressed that they might reduce my sentence further if I did. But I knew even if I didn’t testify against them, just the act of pleading guilty would almost certainly lead to their conviction. The inference a jury would draw from my guilty plea and the fact that Giles and David couldn’t count on my testimony would be enough to sink them, guilty or not guilty.
That is the problem with so-called ‘conspiracy’ cases: during the plea-bargaining process, at some point you can become the de facto judge. Now, if I changed my plea to guilty, I was effectively sentencing David and Giles to years in prison; judging them based on nothing more than a few lawyer-induced random doubts or feeble inconsistencies, just as surely as if I stood there and admonished them myself. Sure we all had doubts, and in the hard times we had endured in Houston any paranoia was easily fed. But Giles and David had both gone through the same doubts about me and about each other, goaded no doubt by lawyers required to do the best for their client. Maybe one of them was guilty, maybe they both were guilty of something – I’d never know – but my sense and experience of them suggested otherwise. And anyway, who was I to judge?
I looked down at the paper again and consider once more the nature of this ‘deal’ and the people who were offering it to me. I felt cheated, angry, insulted and amazed by the squalid nature of their approach. I paused for a second before I ripped the piece of paper up and threw it across the table.
Reid had told me once that he’d seen brothers plead against brothers, fathers against sons, and having tasted the pressure exerted first hand, I could understand why. I began the journey thinking I had lost my country. But even for a man who tended to think of himself principally as a Scot, there was something very British and dignified about the way we three individuals independently determined not to assume the role of judge or executioner of the other two. Maybe I was getting my sense of country back; maybe one day I would get it all back. Anyway, I wouldn’t be pleading guilty.
‘I don’t need to waste time thinking about this anymore,’ I thought, my anger and determination growing as I reached for the phone to call Reid. I wanted to tell him to go back to them today – to go back to them now, this morning, immediately after my call – and tell them, in words as stark as his lawyerly professionalism would allow, ‘to go and fuck themselves’.
The memory of that morning re-ignited the anger in me. Angel was still sat on the bunk, patiently waiting for my answer. ‘I don’t think there is anyone,’ I began with a passion that probably surprised him, ‘that hates those fuckers more than me. I wouldn’t help them if my life depended on it. Read my fucking papers and see for yourself. I wouldn’t rat on anyone.’ I stood to get up, as Angel’s hand locked onto my wrist.
But I was way beyond being frightened of Angel or anyone else at that moment, and he seemed to sense that, quickly letting go of me with a nod and a smile. ‘OK, Scotland, OK. That’s cool. I’ll take your papers and get it all checked out, then get back to you. I hope for your sake they stack up, I really do. You understand we need to check through these things.’
I didn’t say anything, I just nodded. I was still thinking of the Department of Justice, that institutional misnomer. I hated those people. Loved America, loved its people, hated its justice system. To me, the DoJ were no better than Angel, no better than the people who had perpetrated the beating in the Range the previous day, or the people who had looked away.
‘Can I go?’ I said to Angel, my face set in stone.
‘Sure Scotland,’ he responded offering me a fist bump. ‘I pissed you off?’ he added, intrigued.
‘No, no,’ I responded, reminding myself a little of the delicacy of my position. ‘You just started off a lot of bad memories. Let me get you those papers.’
Back then, Reid tried to get me to take longer to consider my decision, but I knew I would never change my mind, and he eventually delivered my message to the DoJ, although I doubt it was with the gusto or the wording I would have preferred. He was too professional for that. It looked like we were all set for a trial a few months later in October, but then in a move that surprised us all, the DoJ offered a deal to all three of us to plead guilty. In what Reid saw as a coincidence and I saw as an orchestrated move, the judge ordered a further delay in the trial ‘to at least January, but possibly the Spring’ on the same day the DoJ approached us with this new, collective deal. The official explanation was that a state murder trial was to take precedence over our case, even though Reid and Dan told me they had never known any state trial to trump a Federal prosecution.
The deal was this: a straight thirty-seven months for the three of us, with a significant twist. Provided we agreed to waive all rights to any future appeal, the DoJ would agree to transfer us home ‘in an expedited manner’. That was our shabby deal. ‘Expedited’ was as far as they would go, despite our best attempts at some stronger assurance. The price of waiving our right to an appeal was inviolate; the DoJ recognising without doubt that the nonsense to which we were pleading guilty was quite likely to be overturned in time.
Transfers normally took anywhere between eighteen months to three years to arrange; so Reid’s guess was we were looking at around a year if we got lucky. Having geared ourselves up for trial and having resolutely refused an individual deal, it was amazing how quickly the cracks in our resolve now appeared. We could be home late the following year – almost four years since we had left. We were tired, drained and had all been away from home for too long. People had died, life had moved on. Life was in danger of leaving us behind.
And so we
all agreed to plead guilty. Bizarrely all that remained with the sentence already agreed was what we were pleading guilty to. To be honest, I was past caring, but in the end we worked out what was known as a Statement of Facts. I understood that as long as everything in it was true, or at least I had no knowledge to suggest it was untrue, then I could sign it. It didn’t matter if there were material omissions.
In the end, when I read it, I was still unclear of the crime I was supposed to have committed: a breach of my employment contract with NatWest because I had apparently failed to ever mention the investment opportunity to them. It was rubbish and in a court in England, where I could have compelled witnesses to appear (we couldn’t compel them to come to Texas), it would have been thrown out in a day with testimony from NatWest alone, but by that stage, I’d have pleaded guilty to being Osama bin Laden if they’d asked me. I just wanted to get home.
I handed my papers containing this nonsense to Angel. ‘You’re welcome to that,’ I said, sitting on the bunk below mine as Angel started flicking through the papers. After a while he looked up, briskly, all business again.
‘OK. Once we’ve checked these out, we need to talk about who you’re running with.’
‘Why does it matter so much?’ I asked, wearily.
‘Because it does,’ he answered quickly, before pausing slightly then changing his tone. ‘Look, Scotland . . . it’s like this. Each gang runs a certain part of the “business” of the prison.’ He leant forward on the bunk, hand gestures patiently mirroring his words, like a teacher. ‘Each gang has a shot-caller; the guy who calls the shots. Everything goes through him, and he determines what actions, what punishments or retributions take place. If we sort things out ourselves, in the quiet of the Ranges, then the cops never need get involved, and they are happy and we’re happy,’ he explained. ‘This way it’s good for business, good for everyone.’
I doubted that. Chief had already told me that the gangs operated an uneasy truce, dividing the various ‘business lines’ between themselves from prison to prison. In Big Spring, those lines were gambling, steroid usage, smoking, drugs, alcohol and male prostitution. On top of these main streams, there was more of a free-for-all in the extortion market, with each gang free to find their own ‘marks’ to extort. Sometimes one gang would encroach into another’s territory and a mini war would ensue. The war would never determine who was right, said Chief, just who was left. Then the cops would step in to restore order and allow the one gang or other to prevail. And there was big money in each of these rackets. In Federal prisons there was a complete smoking ban (unlike UK prisons, which still allow smoking) and a full packet of cigarettes retailed at a staggering $450 in Big Spring. With many of the cops on around $22,000 per year, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine where a lot of the gangs got their supplies from.
‘So, are you a shot-caller?’ I asked. Angel smiled easily. He had a gold tooth with a diamond encrusted in it, just left of centre on the top row.
‘Sure. I run the Kings. We are based out of LA. On the out I used to be responsible for two prisons,’ he offered matter-of-factly as he took off his top and showed me a tattoo of a crown covering his entire back. ‘That’ll never come off,’ he said, with some pride.
‘What do you mean you ran two prisons on the out?’
‘Man, you really don’t know shit about shit, do you?’ he said with a smile. Then he mused, more to himself than to me, ‘You really did come from another kind of Pollok.’ He had so much energy and enthusiasm when he spoke. He was constantly moving around; such a stark contrast from the usual sluggish inhabitants of Big Spring. ‘I ran the prisons for the Kings,’ he explained. ‘Everything you get on the inside needs to get paid for on the outside. No one in here can pay hundreds of bucks for a packet of cigs – someone on the outside has to pay it for them. So I used to make sure the money hits the right accounts, and then gets used properly – most of the guys on the inside have families, kids and shit, and we need to make sure they are looked after. We look after our own. It also helps fund our businesses on the outside. Once you join the Kings, you’re always a King. You never leave the Kings, unless it’s in a body bag. You know what I’m saying?’
I nodded. I knew what he was saying and I mentally crossed the Kings off my list of potential gangs to join. ‘Each prison should make about $2 million a year,’ Angel said. ‘Although I think I can make much more from them now I’ve had a chance to spend some time on the inside.’
I refrained from making any quips about Angel reconnecting with his customer base. I just wanted to know what it had to do with me. ‘Not everyone runs in one gang or another, Scotland, but for the smooth running of operations here, we prefer that people who are high-profile or who interfere have at least some allegiance. And that’s why we need to figure out what to do about you. Problem is you are already high-profile: you’re European, you’re seen as part of all that Enron shit irrespective of the facts of it, so you’re too high-profile to walk alone. And as for that shit you tried to pull the other day, well, that just compounds matters. We can’t allow that.’
Thinking again about the beating, I nodded slightly. ‘Look, I’m not from here and all this stuff is new to me, but I’m a quick learner. You said not everyone runs with someone. Can’t I be one of those guys?’ I asked hopefully.
‘No, Scotland. Shit happens around you, shit happens to you. That’s how you rock, that’s how you play. You’ll be too dangerous outside a gang and it will be too dangerous for you too. You’re gonna have to run with someone. Let me read through your papers and check that everything’s cool there, then we’ll talk some more. In the meantime, try to stay out of everyone’s shit and do your own time. You know what I’m saying?’
I finally got what Malone had meant all that time ago about ‘doing your own time’.
Angel stood up to leave. ‘And by the way, if that lieutenant hauls your ass in about that beating, you didn’t see shit!’
‘I didn’t see shit,’ I echoed, as if it were true. We fist-bumped and he went on his way, my papers and immediate fate in his hands.
12
DON’T PANIC
I LASTED IN THE CLEANING JOB for six weeks, during which time I availed myself of every opportunity to find alternative work. I had initially hoped to continue my partnership with Gato, as I felt we made a good team and I hadn’t been hassled by anyone else wanting to use the toilet while I had my head halfway down it. Gato talked to me constantly, often about the many buildings and banks he had robbed, and how he had managed to get into them and escape without a trace. I say without a trace although that isn’t strictly true as he was eventually caught because of his insistence on leaving the ‘paw mark’ of a cat in each conquest. I asked him if he thought of leaving a fairy cake instead, but he didn’t see the funny side of that. Like many others I had talked to, Gato had a barely disguised pride in his work and I doubt he was actually interested in what he stole – it was the challenge he liked. He seemed constantly frustrated that it was a drug bust that finally got him Federal time; like he was cheapened by it, since his real artistry was in breaking and entering. Sadly, however, my education was curtailed. One day Gato approached me and told me that another Sureno brother was coming to Big Spring and that he would be taking my job in the toilets, thus making me redundant. It seemed the gangs really did control every aspect of the prison – even the least glamorous ones.
This was a pity as I’d got into a tolerable routine by then. Everyone would head off to work by 7.30 a.m. and I would continue reading to around 8 a.m. I got into the habit of reading while facing the wall at that time in the morning, so I didn’t have to see who specifically had just been into the latrines, or speculate as to what they might have left there. That helped me. It was pretty gruesome work, but I was usually finished in an hour and a half, by which point there would be a queue of people waiting to undo all my hard labour. I didn’t mind. No one came to check my handiwork, and I would be finished and back to my bunk well before
lunchtime.
That gave me time to try and find new work. Big Spring offered a number of interesting positions for the misplaced Bank Executive on a range of salary levels, peaking at $200 a month in the ‘factory’ assembly line, producing fine garments for other prison establishments. Unfortunately that career path required a six-month initial stint in the kitchen, unattractive to me on grounds of the sharp knives and the Tex-Mex menu. I had also heard that there was much fun and merriment to be had from placing various concoctions and organisms into certain inmates’ food, and since I had to eat this stuff every day, I really didn’t want to know what was in it. Fortunately, some career advice came to me from my favourite source.
‘You can read and write, right?’ Chief asked me one typically airless afternoon.
‘Of course.’
‘Cool,’ he responded, ‘I’ll speak to the Head Librarian, Miss Reed, for you.’ He went back to his drawing then, when I didn’t go away, looked up again. ‘Can I do anything else for you, Scotty?’
‘Erm, well, this Miss er . . . librarian. Won’t she want some more information from me? Or a CV – you know, résumé – or something?’
Chief chuckled. ‘You just done give me your “CV” when you said you could read and write, Scotland.’
Miss Reed seemed to feel the same way. Our interview, which took place the next day, was brief, focused and involved minimal eye contact. I went off to the library wearing my best khakis, having paid another inmate – El Turko, aka Turk the Knife, who apparently was as gifted with the knife as he was with an iron – one stamp to iron them for me the night before. Stamps were the currency everyone used in Big Spring – all trading between inmates was calculated by the number of stamps needed, and fortunately Chief had given me a few to get me going until I could get some funds into my prison account. I had also shaved with a brand new Bic razor and washed my hair, placing a handwritten CV (colour-coded, no less) in my shirt pocket. Chief found all of this preparation very amusing and kept telling me it was going to be unnecessary. And he was, of course, right.
