Another woman had a bulging hernia. She carried her intestines with both hands and arms, lifting her belly at all times. Despite her obvious suffering, Carswell refused to authorize medical tests or surgery, though her condition qualified as a medical emergency. Carswell provided no medical treatment of any kind. We’d sit in the prison yard, while she’d groan in pain. Prison staff appeared totally indifferent to her physical agony.
As we watched, the hernia got larger and larger, as if all her intestines had spilled into her gut.
I rather expect she’s dead now.
Notably, Carswell takes out a life insurance policy on every inmate, and collects financial benefits for every woman who dies. That practice has become embroiled in controversy over whether Carswell has a financial incentive to withhold care until sick prisoners die. It’s not a question of mercy. It’s a question of profit versus basic human dignity.
Dying at Carswell is a nasty way to go.
The scent of urine wafted through the vents of the hospital wing, making a permanent stench that suggested inmates upstairs were left soaking in their own excrement. At the very least, bed pans could not have been cleaned frequently enough.
An ant infestation got so bad in the hospital wing, a few months after I shipped out, that Betty Brink, a journalist for “Fort Worth Weekly” reported the “tiny biters were crawling on comatose and dying patients in their beds, and covering the body of at least one paralyzed inmate.”419
Before prison inspections, there’d be a rush to paint the hallways bright white. Miraculously the air quality would improve, a blessed reprieve for our olfactory senses. Prisoners would joke that the Feds must be coming. Still, it raised our spirits, because conditions would get better for a few weeks.
Within this prison that warehouses every sort of chronic medical ailment— and hundreds of healthy prisoners to boot— there’s a small unit on the third floor called M-1. Here, I came to believe, was every prisoner’s worst nightmare in the flesh, and Carswell’s greatest shame.
M-1 houses 40 to 50 women at a time. About half of the M-1 inmates get shipped to Carswell for psychiatric evaluations before sentencing. The rest are long term inmates with special mental health or physical needs that require close observation. No inmate could be judged criminally insane, but some prisoners had suicidal impulses that required special monitoring. Detox was common for chronic heroin users coming into prison. Some had epilepsy. One suffered Alzheimers dementia. No one got special care on M-1. It just mitigated the prison’s liability until their release.
Regrettably, closer staff observation on M-1 did not translate to a higher standard of care. A 27 year old woman died of sleep apnea on M-1 several weeks before my arrival, because Carswell denied her access to a special breathing machine at night. Her Judge had mandated her right to use the machine. But Judges’ orders got flouted all the time at Carswell, even when defendants headed back to court, asking to enforce the original medical orders. It never happened.
That time, a very young woman died. Carswell covered its liability, because she’d been housed on M-1. And the prison collected the insurance.
That’s how the system works.
And yet M-1 looked so good after two weeks locked up on the SHU.
By now I felt like I was starring in my own spy thriller movie: I imagined my acceptance speech at the Oscars. “I would like to thank the Academy for getting me off the SHU. God bless you all!”
At the start, I had no idea that in a few short months, I would fall down on my knees and beg God, truly, to let me off M-1, as well.
But at the start, I was so innocent. I had no idea of Carswell’s full reputation.
As for why the rush to get me into prison, the answer fell into my lap quite unexpectedly, just days after my release from the SHU.
.Late one night, I got a big clue, watching CNN on prison television. Democrats on Capitol Hill were trying to launch a congressional inquiry on Iraq, led by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) in the House, and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan) in the Senate.420 Democrats weren’t taking the Republicans’ word on anything. Who could blame them?
Democrats wanted to investigate whether Republicans in Congress had smoothed things over for the Bush Administration—which of course, they had.
In part, the Democrats also wanted to explore if and how pro-war Republicans had punished individuals who dissented from their war policy.
Oh ho! That would shine a harsh spotlight on my case, front and center!
As long as Republicans controlled the podium, they could block hostile testimony. If Democrats controlled the inquiry, the truth would come out. And it was an ugly truth.
I would have made trouble alright! They were correct about that.
By the time I finished describing in graphic detail how my two co-defendants and I all got arrested on trumped up charges as “Iraqi Agents,” there would be no doubt Republican leaders had lied to America and the world community about Iraq, the CIA’s advance knowledge about 9/11, fraud in the 9/11 investigation—and the ludicrous rationale for the War on Terrorism itself.421
I would wax eloquent how my two young Iraqi co-defendants—Assets like me—helped the FBI because they wanted to stay in America, and the FBI promised to fix their visas. They betrayed their own father, an Iraqi diplomat, to do it. The Justice Department repaid them cold heartedly, by arresting their brothers and sisters, and throwing the whole family into prison in New York. Leveraging the siblings as hostages, the Justice Department pressured the boys to sign false confessions that they deliberately supplied bad intelligence to the U.S. before the War, and informed Iraqi Intelligence about exiles living in the U.S. who opposed Saddam’s government.422
These two boys worked at a dry cleaners and a video store in Manhattan.423 They didn’t know any Iraqi exiles. None of the evidence supported the accusations. But the whole family got locked up for a year in prison, while the Justice Department extorted those boys to confess to non-existent crimes.424 One of the boys demanded a trial, and got locked up for 18 months. Then they all got deported with a forced non-disclosure clause.
Transcripts from prison phone calls told their whole nightmare.
It’s something Saddam Hussein would have done. It’s against everything our country stands for.
Oh yes, I would have a few things to tell a Congressional Inquiry.
Understanding that, Republicans turned villainous, removing sources like me, so the Democrats would be starved for bloody meat, and the inquiry would go nowhere.
It was truly despicable and cowardly.
I watched the game play out on prison television, and I, the expendable pawn.
I remember Rep. Murtha saying “Assets are slowly coming forward to tell us what really happened.”6
It was late at night before lights out. There was a night guard. I pulled him into the TV room.
“Murtha’s talking about me,” I told the guard, practically in tears. “And I can’t testify because the Justice Department has locked me up here to get me out of Washington.”
“I should be testifying on Capitol Hill right now. Not locked up in prison without a trial. Murtha wants Assets to come forward to expose what really happened before the War. Democrats in Congress want to hear what we have to say.”
The guard looked at me sadly, truly sympathetic. “They don’t want you talking, Lindauer.” And he shook his head, prophetically. “They’re not ever going to let you talk. If you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to go along with them.”
The Democrats’ inquiry explained a lot. Yes it did.
Watching CNN that night, I steamed with impotent fury. I vowed to myself that I would hold the truth inside myself until it was safe to reveal. I would not let this go for the convenience of lying politicians. That truth was too important.
And yet bitterly I saw the obstacles ahead of me, if I spoke up. My credibility had been so brutally destroyed by false allegations of “mental incompetence.”
Who
would listen to me now?
I resolved to tough it out. They had power over their actions. They did not have power over mine. Really though, what else could I do?
I stayed focused on my release date. February 3rd burned onto my brain. I kept my cool, and waited. It was four months. Okay, I could do that. I’m a pretty tough lady. I’ve got my wits, and I’m mostly calm under pressure. I could do that time “standing on my head,” as the saying goes.
Four months. Then it would be over. Or so my attorney, Sam Talkin, swore to me in prison phone calls. The White House had its pound of flesh for my transgression, opposing Andy Card’s war. Colin Powell’s reputation had got whitewashed and redeemed. The Justice Department would drop the charges, Talkin promised. And the case would go away. I would have no prison record. No conviction. For the first months of my incarceration, I had no choice but to trust him. He’d cut the deal. And he sounded awfully convincing. Uncle Ted and I wanted so much to believe him.426
Could you blame us?
Uncle Ted and I had a back up plan if anything went wrong. Ted would demand a hearing on my behalf immediately. But surely this would be the end of it? That’s why they’d done it. To have an end game. That’s what Talkin kept promising us.
I got tons of letters of encouragement from friends. I stayed active, walking four to six miles a day on the outdoor track. That’s 80 to 120 laps every day. I read lots of books. An old college friend sent me the complete Harry Potter Series, which delighted me and calmed my nerves. I read lots of spy thrillers and crime mysteries. New York Times Crossword puzzles entertained me for hours. I got pretty good at identifying four letter words for “betrayal.”
Quickly I settled into the “monastic” experience of prison life, and tried not to get eaten up by bitterness. What else could I do?
I tried to be kind to other women, and made friends I will cherish forever. These women provided a strong support network. We cheered for each other victories, and ached for each other’s private battles. We prayed for each other constantly. Though it sounds unlikely, I am a better person because I have known these women.
M-1 had its quirks. It’s a locked unit. Why it’s locked, nobody could explain, since it’s a punishable offense for prisoners to wander beyond their designated areas. We spent lots of time waiting for guards to open the doors, so we could go outside, or come in. The guards griped about it constantly.
A second unit, called M-2, houses another 70 to 80 prisoners after sentencing, whose health conditions range from heart disease to moderate suicide risk, bulimia and old age. That’s not a locked unit. It’s also not highly medical in function. That’s where my older friend collapsed from her heart attack—in full view of a “nurse’s station.” Yeah, it’s kind of a joke. That’s the point.
The hospital wing takes up the top floors. Tragically, I saw lots of wheel chairs at Carswell, mostly transporting young women suffering AIDS or cancer. It’s a distressing sight. They sank faster, because although Carswell supposedly functions as a hospital, the nursing staff had a suspicious lack of medical supplies.
Poor medical care was not the only hazard faced by women inmates.
Coercive sex and outright rape are not uncommon at Carswell, either. Since 1997, eight professional staff at Carswell have been convicted of rape, averaging one staffer every year. They include two prison chaplains, a gynecologist, a psychologist, a supervisor of food services and three guards.427 Some abuse involved sex for bribes—special access to contraband cigarettes, or staying out of the SHU, if prisoners got caught breaking rules. However, some abuse qualifies as violent rape. Women prisoners are helpless to fight back, without getting accused of assaulting a prison officer—which adds extra years on her sentence. That makes it difficult not to yield, and difficult to prove afterwards that sex was forced, not consensual.
It’s shocking to think of the sorts of high level staff who have sexually abused prisoners.
In 2008, Vincent Inametti, Carswell’s Catholic Chaplain for seven years, got sentenced to four years in prison for what his judge called “surprisingly heinous sexual crimes” against two women prisoners.428 The Court speculated there might have been more victims who got released or feared to come forward. Inametti had a terrible reputation when I was at Carswell in 2005-2006. Other women whispered that we should never accept favors from Inametti, or get caught alone in his office. We always stayed in pairs, dealing with that man. He was the prison’s Catholic Chaplain, and women inmates couldn’t trust him one on one, even for spiritual counseling.
In addition to rape, abuse of inmates’ legal rights was a serious problem at Carswell, too. But I didn’t know that at first.
I was determined to stay good-natured as long as possible.
I settled into prison life, helped by the generous and devoted support of my companion, JB Fields, waiting at home for me in Takoma Park.
JB Fields was a computer techie, who worked in Naval Intelligence on submarines before going to the Peace Corps and the U.S. State Department. He used to joke that he spent six years of his life under water. He was a free thinking intellectual with a blue collar streak a mile wide. He argued passionately in defense of civil liberties, and never hesitated to tackle tough issues, like the rights of gays to work openly in the military.
Most famously, he rode a BMW motorcycle! Every weekend he took off on a road trip or scavenger hunt. He had an “Iron Butt” badge to prove he rode 1,000 miles in 24 hours. He loved diners and pubs. He was gregarious and generous and opinionated. And he loved to blog.
JB was my companion and lover, though some friends were told of our relationship, and JB kept others in the dark. Some of his friends urged him to leave me to protect his career. But he never took the easy way. After my arrest, we applied our own peculiar brand of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” for the sake of his work. He stayed with me through prison, but died of lymphoma cancer before my case got dismissed.
In fact, JB got a Top Secret Security clearance after he moved in with me. So much for the Feds’ argument that I posed a security threat as an “Iraqi agent!” Before Carswell, we talked about getting married. His support was phenomenal to my spirit. He was my white knight of chivalry. I could never have survived without him.
I had 300 minutes of phone time for all prison phone calls every month. That’s five hours of phone time, in maximum 15 minute blocks. At Christmas, prisoners got an extra 100 minutes. JB and I would count them down together. When I’d run out, there’d be such regret in his voice as he begged me to hold on until I got my next batch of minutes on the 1st of the month. He’d be waiting for my call that morning.
To this day, I have a phobia against cell phones, because it reminds me of counting minutes from prison.
If JB was alive today, he would be an Oathkeeper—dedicated to upholding the U.S Constitution. JB came out of Naval Intelligence. So he made a special effort, in our conversations, to insist that neither of us disrespected the military, though we both hated this Iraq war. All phone calls were monitored by prison staff, and Lord love him, JB tried so earnestly to communicate that it’s patriotic to defend the First Amendment. He used to say that old military guys like him signed up to protect the best parts of our liberties and our Constitution, including the right to dissent from the government. Disagreeing on political issues didn’t mean we loved our country any less. Throughout history, American soldiers have died to protect this very cause.
So JB swore, with hand on heart! And so my first couple of months at Carswell passed without breaking my spirit.
The large outdoor track in the prison yard was the focus of all inmate recreation and social life. For the sake of exercise and burning off stress, I walked four to six miles a day, half in the morning, and half in the evening, when the harsh Texas sun cooled off. As the nightmarish months trudged on, my release date becoming a distant fantasy, like an impossible dream, I used to imagine that by the end of my detention, I would have walked enough miles on that track to take me all the way
home to Maryland.
Twice a week, M-1 got “treated” to in-door recreation. Carswell had a small crafts room and a micro gym, with four tread mills, four exercise bikes and four Stairmasters. It was somewhat inadequate for a population of 1,400 women prisoners, but very much appreciated. Carswell would be a sorry excuse for a country club. Some surprisingly child-like activities qualified as in-door recreation, such as bowling with gargantuan plastic pins that got knocked down with huge plastic balls twice the size of basketballs. Board games like Monopoly, Sorry, LIFE and Chutes & Ladders entertained us for hours in the TV room, just to fill the time. We played card games constantly.
Sometimes we got very silly, like the night we played “Monopoly,” and I pulled a “Get out of Jail” card. I took it to the guard, and asked to go home.
There was also a small prison library, which amused us enormously by specializing in True Crime dramas, stuffing every book shelf. We joked that the prison’s choice of reading would teach our fellow inmates how to make up better alibis the next time out.
To put that in perspective, when a college friend shipped me a complete set of Harry Potter books, other inmates tried to buy it off me for commissary (prison currency, legal or otherwise).
Otherwise, for recreation, women crocheted endless dolls and blankets for children and boyfriends back home. There was always a buzz over new yarns, colors and designs and patterns, and haggling over who wanted to trade a blanket for commissary.
For the most part, Carswell inmates are not violent or destructive. In fairness, ten years ago a large number of these women would not have got arrested at all. Today there’s a mentality that favors sweeping out households, particularly in drug cases.
Nowadays, grandmothers get locked up for refusing to testify against their adult children caught dealing drugs, while grandma cares for their babies. Most people forget that these grandmothers are holding their little worlds together, keeping children out of foster care. And the Courts punish them terribly as a result. One woman at Carswell was a quadriplegic who got locked up in a drug sting. She could not possibly have walked out on dope dealing family members, since she was paralyzed from the neck down.
EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Page 42
