by Leo Sullivan
mind, pleading, begging with him to get out the game.
Ain’t no
longevity in the dope game,
Trina’s voice.
You’ll end up dead or in
prison,
Hope’s voice. It’s always the woman that warns us, and
almost always we never listen, but we hear.
Tomica must have thought I had passed out. Now that I felt
her trying to ease out of the bed, I played sleep, but I had one eye
open. I watched her tiptoe over to the window and began to wave
the curtains like she was giving a signal. My heart damn near burst
out my chest, when I realized what she was doing, setting me up!
I got out of the bed and stood behind her. Feeling a presence, she
turned around startled. On the security screen I saw all the white
vans marked FBI and ATF. It must have been over a hundred vehi-
cles, the entire estate was surrounded. Major burst into the room.
“The police breaking down the front gate, L, we gotta go!”
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Tomica just stood there in the window nude with her arms crossed
over her breasts. I picked up the gun as Major grabbed my arm.
“The bitch set me up!” I said as Major walked up and placed
his arms around me. We headed down the stairs.
In my study behind the bookshelf was a tunnel that lead to the
sewer system. As we reached the bottom of the stairs I could hear
the police pounding on the door with a battering ram, overhead I
heard helicopters along with the frantic banter of shouting, “FBI.”
We made it into the study just as the front door came crash-
ing in. I stashed the gun in a Bible as Major turned the candle-
holder that opened the secret compartment to the door behind the
bookshelf. I was barefoot as we escaped into the darkness of the
tunnel. I had it all planned, leave the countr y. I had millions of
dollars in escrow in Brazil. All I had to do was step foot on the soil.
Up ahead I saw a bright light. It beamed on us like the morn-
ing sun, and then I heard the sound of guns being cocked.
“Freeze! FBI!”
*****
223
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
“Against all Odds”
– Hope –
Nine months after federal agents raided Life Thugstin’s mansion
in a long, drawn out operation titled Operation Thug-Sting, fed-
eral agents seized more than ten million dollars in assets, cars, jew-
elry, not including the four million dollars that was discovered
hidden in the mansion inside secret compartments in various parts
of the floors.
*****
The sound of my heels could be heard scrapping across the
meticulously buffed marbled floor of the Federal Correctional
building. For me, the sound only seemed to heighten the urgency
of my arrival, Hope Evans, the Bureau’s Assistant Prosecutor for
the United States Southern District of Florida. And still with my
title of elitism and all its accolades, I knew that I could never be
comfortable with my job. The job of imprisoning Black people
with such a high degree. I was sure that America could be charged
with the cruel and inhumane act of genocide. That day I walked
down the halls, it felt like I was walking down the gallows to hell.
However I was determined to do my best to tr y to change all of
this. The same dreams that I had when I was a little girl growing
up, I wanted to help my people, help my brother, I still clung to,
only now my convictions were stronger, more dedicated and
determined.
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That day I was going to do my damnest to help Life Thugstin.
I was risking all I had. I came to warn him of the insidious trap
that awaited him if he intended to go to trial with his team of high
powered lawyers. I overheard his attorneys conspiring with my
boss, David Scandels, the head prosecutor and a ver y ambitious
attorney that would stop at nothing in order to win a conviction.
To date this was by far the biggest case of his entire twenty-year
career, and he had no intentions of losing it.
The federal government had a 98 percent conviction rate,
which means an innocent defendant had about a 2 percent chance
of success if he was going to trial. Life Thugstin was facing a life-
time sentence, plus thirty years if he was convicted. My office was
prepared to offer him a thirty-year bargain and a ten million dol-
lar fine. I took a deep breath as I waited with my briefcase in hand
outside a steel door marked SHU, Segregation Housing Unit.
In my career as a prosecutor and going inside prisons I quick-
ly noticed a distinctive odor that omitted from the inside of pris-
ons. It smelled like generic Pine Sol and semen, marinating in fear.
About a month ago, Life was placed in SHU for the assault on a
confidential informant. He assaulted the inmate with a ten-pound
weight on the recreation yard. The inmate nearly died. He
received over two hundred stitches. The informant’s name was
Steven Davis, a.k.a. Stevey D, a small time drug dealer turned
informant. He was amongst the 78 inmates that were scheduled to
testify against Life Thugstin; in return they would all get signifi-
cantly reduced sentences. Some would be immediately released if
Life were convicted. Only one or two of the people actually knew
him and the government was aware of the fact that most of the
people testifying were lying, but that is how the system worked
with its 98 percent conviction rate.
Finally the steel door opened and I walked inside the
vestibule. I had the jitters; my stomach was in knots. The hum of
the air conditioner droned, and in the distance I could hear the
staccato of a steel cell door slamming. I was thankful I wore my
suit coat.
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“May I help you?” a deep baritone voice asked from a speaker
above my head.
I flashed my ID with its gold star and announced, “Hope
Evans, the United States Prosecutor’s office. I’m here to see inmate
Life Thugstin. My office made arrangements earlier,” I said with
authority. Silence. I waited patiently. In the dim of the booth
inside the officer’s station flickered lights illuminated an array of
bright colors that looked like the inside of the bridge of the Star
Ship.
Click!
“You may go inside. Someone will be there to assist you
in a minute,” the voice said from the speaker.
I walked through the door into another world. A world with-
in a world. A world where 88 percent were of poor impoverished
Blacks and Spanish decent. The federal prison institution used to
be a predominately white man’s institution in terms of incarcera-
tion, until corporate America discovered astronomical profits that
could be made of cheap slave labor. Politicians and federal judges
had financial investments in the cheap labor. Thus, harsh sen-
tences were given out, as a way to insure their investment. One
only had to go check the Wall
Street stock market and he would
find prisons are amongst the best investments for wealthy white
men.
The cacophony of loud voices hollering and screaming roared
in my ears like a million angry Black men chanting, begging to be
let free. I thought about my brother, my own flesh and blood, liv-
ing in one of these dungeons. I thought about how my ancestors
were packed on slave ships like sardines in a can. This was no dif-
ferent than a slave ship. Even though I had been here before, it
always felt the same, cruel and inhuman.
Directly in front of me was a line of cells. Men ogled me. It
felt like I was at center stage at the Apollo Theater. I heard a voice
say, “Hey, Dirty! Hey Dirty! Come to the cell door. Look at dis
bitch here’rr! She fine as a muhfa.” Then suddenly a frantic banter
of voices echoed, signaling my presence, like a ship being sighted
by men marooned on an island.
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“Hey! Psss. Damn, she thick.” Catcalls ensued. I tried my best
not to look, not to stare. Directly across from me I detected a jerk-
ing motion.
I know damn well this negro ain’t doing what I think
he’s doing,
I thought as a large burly officer approached. He had a
grin on his face, the kind men wear when they’re being mischie-
vous.
I guess he too must have been enjoying himself at the expense
of my arrival. After giving me a quick once over, with gaiety he
said, “Follow me.” I walked down the long narrow corridors as
Black men stared behind caged bars, open mouths with their faces
pressed against the steel. With each expression, invitation, flirta-
tion, masturbation, I regretted wearing my high heels and tight-
fitting skirt. We approached a door. The officer pointed and I
looked inside. Life sat in a chair wearing an orange jump suit and
leg irons. His right 1eg was shackled to a steel rod in the wall. All
of a sudden, the realization of what I had come to do dawned on
me, and for the first time in a long time I was scared to confront
a man. Not just any man, but the father to my child. I needed him
to know this. I needed him to know that I was going to quit my
job and help him. I was here to help him.
I turned to the CO, “I will interrogate the inmate alone.” His
eyes narrowed and looked as if he wanted to say something, but
thought better of it.
As I entered the room, Life looked up at me. His hair was mat-
ted. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks and most of all, the
expression on his face said that he was not too happy to see me, at
all. The room was small. His presence was large, he actually was
intimidating me with his stare. In the room was a dilapidated old
desk and a crumbled Coke can that someone used for an ashtray.
There were two chairs, the metal folding kind. He sat in one and
the other one was a few feet away from him. The man just con-
tinued to look up at me with my son’s eyes. Call me sentimental,
but I wanted to break down and cry. But I didn’t, I had come to
warn him, protect him. I sat down next to him tried to smile at
the same time, taking the opportunity to compose my thoughts. I
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could feel my heart pounding in my chest trying to find its way
out. My tongue searched for the words that wouldn’t come out.
The moment was awkward, like his stare seemed to pin me to the
wall. I was here for my own personal redemption, the female ver-
sion of Hannibal. I was here to betray my government for the sake
of the love for my own people. God help me!
“Life, I come to help.”
“Listen, you Uncle Tom-ass bitch.” His voice was low, guttur-
al, like he had been saving up all his agony and pain for me. “If
you wanna help me, get a fuckin’ razor and let me slit your fuckin’
throat,” he said and leaned forward and hunked up a large wad of
spit and spat in my face. A trickle of saliva dripped from my chin
onto my lap. I just stared at him stunned, shocked beyond belief.
Lord have mercy this can’t be happening to me,
I thought. I was
here to help him, save him from this racist system that intention-
ally set out to destroy Black men.
“All that Black conscious shit ya’ll be talkin’ bout, first chance
you get you sell a nigga out. Now here you is, a fuckin’ slave catch-
er fo’ Massa. All you niggas and so-called leaders is nothing but
fuckin’ sellouts!” he yelled at me, and for a moment I was sure that
he was going to kick me. I could see large veins pulsating in his
forehead and neck. In the distance I could hear frantic laughter, or
perhaps it was a cry. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words
came out, just a pained expression. He continued to berate me. I
just sat there like a child being chastised only this was worse, much
worse, as saliva dripped off my chin and for some reason as a Black
woman, all his anger, all his rage found its way inside of me and
nestled in a place that has been pre-conditioned to take abuse
from Black men. His refuge. My reservoir, a vacuum to my soul
that stored pain. I just sat there determined to weather the storm.
I willed myself not to cr y as I heard a shallow voice say, “I only
came to help you.” Then a whimper that gave way to a sigh that
lost its way down my throat.
“Help me! Wasn’t it you that said that I’d end up dead or in
prison? I didn’t think that you’d be the one to help put me there,
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you and ‘bout ninety other hot-ass muthafuckas about to take the
witness stand against me and lie just to get their time cut and your
pussy ass is down wit this shit?” Life was now screaming at me,
with spit spewing out of his mouth.
“Your lawyers are conspiring with my boss. They’re going to
sell you out, try to make a good show of the trial for the sake of
all the worldwide publicity. A guy by the name of Calvin Sweeny,
you may know him as Lil Cal, he’s the government’s star witness,”
I blurted out talking so fast that I could hardly catch my breath. I
wiped at the saliva on my face with my hand as I watched the
expression on Life’s face change from anger to disbelief, then hurt.
I wanted to say more, plead with him, and let him know that he
had a son that looked just like him and a woman that was willing
to do anything for him. All this may have sounded insane, but I
wanted to help. Suddenly, something washed over him, like the
calm after the storm. He could no longer look at me. I saw him
gaze up at the ceiling and saw his left eye twitch as he spoke.
“Bitch, you think I believe you? I know them crackas sent you
to set me up. What they offer you one of dem house nigger jobs?
Mo’ money? Bigger office? You’re a sell out, you and the rest of
your Uncle Toms.” His expression was sour, but I could read the
confusion in his eyes–to believe me or not.
I rose from the chair determined to keep my composure.
This
was so unexpected, so unreal. It couldn’t be happening to me. I
reached into my briefcase and placed my new business card on the
desk. I wanted to tell him that today was my last day working for
the bureau but instead, I said, “Call me.” I heard my voice crack
with emotions. It took ever ything in my power to keep a straight
face. Life took one look at the card and laughed derisively causing
the shackles on his legs to rattle.
“Them crackas taught you well. Hope, how can you sell your
own fuckin’ people out?” he asked as the CO came and opened the
door. I walked out the door and was once again welcomed to the
raucous applause of whistling, catcalls and some of the most vivid
descriptions of my butt that I had ever heard. I briskly walked
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down the long corridor at nearly a jogger’s pace with my briefcase
held tightly as if it were a shield. All of Life Thugstin’s preliminary
hearings and evidentiary proceeding had run the course of time.
Within a few days, one of the biggest trials the State of Florida has
ever known was set to begin. What Life Thugstin didn’t know was
the stage had already been set, rigged and arranged, like 98 per-
cent of Federal cases. I knew this because I had taken part in more
than a few legal lynchings. And every opportunity I was given, I
tried my best to intentionally sabotage a trial, or a court proceed-
ing.
I remember one par ticular case, the girl’s name was Keychia
Moore. She was 18 years old and the mother of three kids and
pregnant again. Her boyfriend, a small time drug dealer, sold
small amounts of coke in powder form, dime bags. A petty offense
that carried, at the most, probation and a small fine. Her
boyfriend made a sale to an undercover federal agent. The next
day the undercover agent came back wanting to purchase crack.
The boyfriend informed the agent that he did not have any. The
agent propositioned the boyfriend with a deal; he would purchase
a thousand dollars worth of the dimes if the boyfriend could cook
it up into crack. The boyfriend agreed. They cooked the dope up
in Keychia’s Section 8 apartment. Federal judges and prosecutors
