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The Southern California
Wildfires
of ’93



by

Thomas Larsen











First edition copyright © 1996 by Thomas Larsen

First edition, eighth printing (with revisions & additions) May 2022
v2.0

All rights reserved – no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author-publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote select passages in connection with a review in magazine, newspaper, or other media.

(Special note: I am no longer selling printed copies of my book. Instead, readers can download it in Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) format by clicking here [3.6 Mb] and either view it on screen or print it out themselves. I ask you to consider donating what you feel it is worth to you by clicking here. From the page that opens you can donate to my PayPal account from yours, any amount you wish. Choose Friends and Family if it asks. You do need a PayPal account to do so and it is free to sign up for at: https://www.paypal.com/. Any money I receive goes towards reducing the debt the wrong-acting judicial system owes me. Thank you.)

Disclaimer:Every attempt has been made to avoid violating the law in all wording contained in this book. All such statements I make are to be considered conditional statements. Conditional on the assumption that they are legal to say without breaking any laws. If I slip up, meaning the condition has not been met, consider them not only inadvertent and immediately withdrawn as if they never existed in the first place – but also not stated. On rare occasions, cuss words are used solely for emphasis. At times, sexual activity is described in explicit ways using slang terms. My specific intention is to obey the law in all behavior, words, and writings for the remainder of my life. Due to the complexities of our legal system though, I could conceivably do, say, or write something I do not know is illegal. If so, consider it inadvertent and corrected as soon as I become aware of it. This book is very real. It portrays the judicial system, along with the personnel involved with it, warts and all. All accusations I make about misconduct of others are supported by factual happenings I fully present. Fuller documentation is available upon request by interested parties. While I consider these things wrong, and sometimes criminal, the legal community in all likelihood does not share my view – or if they do, they allow them to happen anyway. While not specifically intending to embarrass any individual or organization, certain individuals may experience some embarrassment nonetheless. If so, it is solely on account of their own actions that are merely reported on as they truthfully happened. The chips are allowed to fall where they may. The reader is welcome to arrive at their own conclusions. I welcome any feedback, criticism, suggestions, or money anyone wishes to throw my way – meaning donations are actively solicited.

         All of a sudden Snake – his T-shirt damp with sweat, balding head shining as a billiard ball, neck tendons stretched to the max, and angry looking pupils of his menacing brown eyes opened wider than ever – spoke out in his deep-gravely voice; “let’s burn ’em out; let’s burn ’em out!” It’s hard to relate to you the look that came over him as he bellowed it out. They say that looking into the eyes of a snake are like peepholes into hell. With this human snake, I’m not so sure it’s a myth. Snake had this fascination with fire that I’d never known in a person before; but then again, I’d never associated with these kinds of people to know where their fascinations lie…
         Would it be too much to suggest that out of this one group discussion a critical mass had been achieved, a fission had taken place, and merely weeks later the ensuing explosion of boundless rage lit up the skies of Southern California with fire after fire after fire?
         Were these words the first smoldering embers that became responsible for the greatest number of arson-set wildfires in Los Angeles history?
         Was there a “vast conspiracy” behind the whole affair as one newspaper reporter surmised?
         Were the fires “linked” to the Rodney King and Reginald Denny trials by being “retaliation for their verdicts” as another suggested?
         These questions, and many more, will be explored by the only person down on the field with all of the key players in this whole mess.
         If you were a victim of one of these arson fires or know somebody who was, this book is for you. Hear the never before told chilling story, outside of prison walls, about how deceit and misconduct by investigators from the FBI, ATF, and Bakersfield Police Department cost them their best shot at possibly solving many, if not all, of the arson fires set during that infamous two-week period.
         Join with me as we explore the darker side of humanity where death and destruction are as easily committed as illegal left or right hand turns with no more empathy or guilt. Delve into the activities and motivations of activists sworn to non-violently avenge judicial-system misconduct. Discover the existence of a split faction of disgruntled ex-convicts within this group with their own don’t-care-who’s-hurt attitude, and how these malcontents quite possibly are be your real arsonists. Find out their various motives for destruction, what could have excited them into action, and what it could be costing society even as we speak.
         Read for the first time ever the names of 13 faction members whose handwriting is on various threatening letters and envelopes mailed just weeks before the first fire ever started. Puzzle with me why federal agents were content with the arrest of only myself – who merely mailed the letters – even though they knew my handwriting was on none of them, and previous surveillance confirmed that I was not an arsonist. Join in as we finally piece together what agents should have been piecing together and reporting to the public from day one. Learn what steps are necessary to bring these most likely suspects to justice and how it is still possible despite foul up after foul up, which continued through the Bureau of Prisons before finally coming to rest in Washington D.C.
         So fasten your seat belts and get ready for a trip down into the sewers – into the dark, slimy, unhappy world of drugs, drinking, and destruction; along with a planned murder and maybe an arson or two thrown in for “good” measure.
         Text includes photostatic copies of all the threatening letters mailed, excerpts from official government paperwork, first-hand reports detailing vandalisms up and down the state of California (which included Kern County’s single costliest acts of vandalism in history), along with the activist group’s membership/solidarity OATH, theme “fight” song, logo, motto, and excerpts from their vengeance handbook.

CAUTION: This book weaves together enough threads to call into question the conduct of some of the top law-enforcement organizations in the nation. Following pages could prove disturbing to your peace of mind if you are a member of the judicial system, a friend or family member of someone who is, or merely a strong supporter. Should you fit in the above category, the author assumes no responsibility for your predictable discomfort. Tread lightly! : - ( Conversely, if you’ve ever been at the other end of the stick, this book is bound to bring a chuckle to your belly. Enjoy! : - )

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         In the spring of 1992 my mother was diagnosed with rectal cancer. We were told her only viable treatment option was chemotherapy along with a series of radiation treatments. Her doctor told us that although her life would be prolonged, the possibility of severe side effects could make its quality less than desirable. Needless to say, we took the news very hard. I was the only child to my parents and had never lived apart from them ever, except for the times when I was in prison. They never deserted me during my travails throughout life; whether it was when they found out that I was gay, or during encounter upon encounter with the judicial system. They were always there to help me no matter what trouble I got myself into.
         At the time of her diagnosis I had been out of state prison about 18 months and was already off of parole supervision. My good behavior cut two years off of the three-year tail the judge handed down at the time of sentencing back in 1987. I was actively working on my first two books, Loving Gay Relationships and the Bible: A pro-gay Biblical-Christian perspective, and Revenge on the Judicial System: Don’t Get Mad Get Even! and was looking forward to living a law-abiding life as a gay man for the remainder of my days. (For the Web version clicking on a link above will open another window. Simply close that window to return to this page.) There were still feelings of anger present over some improprieties that had happened to me during some of my last forays into the judicial system, but I was doing the best I could to heal those wounds. Although my parents didn’t agree with my method, continuing my activities with VOCAL (Victims Of Court or other judicial system Abuse of Laws & powers) – an organization I founded in state prison a few years earlier – out onto the streets was a tremendous help. Finding other like-minded individuals who had also been mistreated in some ways by our judicial system and pooling our thoughts together as to what solutions we could come up with was very cathartic in diminishing the pain.
         We’re going to cover VOCAL and Revenge on the Judicial System (hereafter, simply Revenge printed in italics) later on in quite a bit of detail and how they tie in with the most likely arson suspects. I’ve often been asked; how is it that someone raised as a Roman Catholic since birth, who had instilled in him a love of God at an early age by two loving and kind parents, would ever divert his thought processes into something as unorthodox as Revenge. One would think some kind of trauma or abuse in early childhood could have been the original trigger mechanism. Sorry to disappoint those psych majors in the audience, but other than being molested by our head parish priest at the age of 9, my childhood was as average as could be. If anything, I was over-loved by my parents – or in the very least, over-protected. (To find out why Revenge was written to begin with check out Chapter 10. To find out everything you might want to know about VOCAL see some of the paragraphs relating to it in Appendix I.)
         I did have some difficulties later on, in the mid-1960’s at the time of puberty, when I found it difficult to accept my new-found inner attractions towards others of the same gender. It took a lot of soul-searching, reading, and friendly support to allow my Christian upbringing to peacefully coexist with my inner, natural, and inborn feelings. Unfortunately, many of us back then didn’t have support and consciousness-raising groups to help us understand and explore this particular aspect of our lives. Often in our walk, we’d come across people who would try to implant fear in us as we searched out the truth. Frequently they succeeded because we were unfamiliar with our feelings, and unfamiliar always seems to get resisted whether it’s people, ideas, or whatever.
         While my parents were slow to understand it, they did come to realize that it is who I am, that it was implanted at birth, and that it has the capability to express love and kindness to others in its own unique ways. Having sort of paid my dues into sexual maturity the hard way, I felt I had a responsibility to those with less emotional stamina, who were not as comfortable with their gay orientation, to show them encouragement, sympathy, and guidance at a time they needed it most critically. I felt those raised in homes with traditional conservative religious values should not have to experience guilt, shame, depression, and the stigma that follows. I refer to this as spiritual abuse – more damaging to a person than a mutually-desired sexual interaction should ever be considered. Others need to become more aware of their consciousness, and encouraged to develop stable, healthy, and happy personalities and relationships. These honest beliefs were the motivational force behind Loving Gay Relationships and the Bible.
         Now I’m not trying to push that book here to the audience that is most likely interested in this particular book. Being a gay man interacting with a contingent of people who are predominately gay – and who just happen to be the most likely arson suspects we’ve got – plays a pivotal role in our story here. Needing to know something about me as a gay person is a necessary element that needs to be told.

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         Soon after my mother began her chemotherapy and radiation treatments she became nearly constantly bedridden. Before this, she had always been a very active person. Now, she needed nearly constant care and we always made sure that at least one of us was at home to care for her. Along with working on my books and caring for her, my days were filled. I was not dating anyone or even leaving the house much at all other than to run errands. I did attend monthly meetings at the astronomy club, Audubon society, and three different computer user groups I belonged to, but that’s about it. These were my hobbies and the only socializing I was doing. I even gave up pushing the teachings of VOCAL.
         In June of 1993 she was finally getting up and about quite a bit more frequently. For the first time in well over a year I went out socializing with other gay people. At around midnight I ended up at the Silver Mountain, a popular gay bar in West Hollywood. I was never much of a drinker, but did drink socially when out with others if alcohol was present. After a casual walk throughout the establishment to see if anyone interesting was there, and to give everyone else a chance to see me, I sat myself down at the bar and ordered a drink.
         It wasn’t long before Steven, an attractive 22-year-old with dark wavy hair, a slim build, and the sexiest smile you could ever imagine, sat himself down next to me and struck up a conversation. After being cooped up for so long at home this seemed so natural; so enjoyable. It was just what I needed to revitalize my inner strength. Hours earlier when I left home I did not know if I was going to have a sexual encounter with anyone that night, nor did I set out as a goal to have one. Actually, I usually don’t on a first date anyway. But if the opportunity did present itself, i.e., if the right person just happened to come along, I sure wasn’t gonna’ turn it down. I’d been without long enough.
         After spending a couple of hours together we both decided we wanted to make love with each other. I was never a person who cared for anal sex, even in the days before AIDS was a concern. I did engage in it back then, but really it was because the person I was with wanted to do that particular sex act. Since AIDS became a household word I have said no to everyone that asked – except Steven. I did say no to him performing it on me, but did perform it on him. I believed that I would be safe, in that if I was ejaculating in him, nothing would go up my penis from him.
         A little over two weeks later I noticed some creamy puss coming out of the head of my penis. The nurses over at Kaiser hospital, the HMO I was a member of, suspected it was gonorrhea and treated me for that. A couple weeks later I got the results confirming their suspicions.
         This story would have ended here but for the fact that I wanted to locate Steven so I could tell him about his disease so he could get cured and not pass it on to anyone else. I had no idea where he lived, nor did I know his last name. All I could do is check at the Silver Mountain once in a while in hopes that he shows up.
         After checking every couple nights for nearly two weeks I finally saw a guy he was talking to the night we met.
         “Hi, I’m Tom. I met Steven here a few weeks ago and I need to talk to him. Have you seen him or know where he’s at?”
         “No, he went back to Denver. But I don’t know where he’s at. I haven’t known him that long. Did you guys make it together?”
         “Yeah, that’s what I’ve got to talk to him about.”
         “Did you know he’s HIV positive?”
         “He’s what?”
         “Yeah, he just found out right before he left, I think that’s why he left. To be home with his people.”
         “Yeah, he gave me gonorrhea. I’d been with no one else for a long time so I know it was from him.”
         Needless to say, my heart sank. Here my dear sweet mother was dying of cancer and now my own death was looming in the not-too-distant future. Whoever said the thought of death riding on your shoulders quickly and dramatically puts your life into a totally different perspective sure knew what he was saying. To top that off, I had just attended my 25th high school reunion just over a week earlier at the end of July. This is the first one I had ever been to; every other one at the 5, 10, 15, and 20 year intervals I had been in prison. I saw some of the kids, now adults, I had not seen in all those years. Many were successful business people with nice families and the pictures to prove it. I saw myself as much of a failure. I had only held menial lower-income jobs between the times I was in prison. By this time I already had 10 years in custody under my belt spread out among several separate prison sentences.
         Now this! AIDS. Everything I knew about the disease told me that as the end approached, it was painful and lonely. Surely, when my time comes my mother would be gone and chances are my father, who wasn’t that healthy either, would also be gone. Neither my parents nor myself associated with any close friends on a regular basis, nor had we been regularly keeping in touch with the few relatives we have living in California. I would be basically all alone when my time comes and the sense of that and being vulnerable was overwhelming.
         Now, as it turns out, I am not HIV positive. I got tested soon after my arrest in November 1993 and again in June 1994 and February 1996. Each time I come out negative so I know I’m in the clear from Steven. But I didn’t know that at the time. I knew that one can’t take the test right away because the nature of the virus is such that one could be infected even though the test won’t show a positive result for months. Knowing the strings of bad luck I’ve had in the past, I had absolutely convinced myself that I had to be infected just because I was too unlucky to be anything but infected.
         Just for the record, I never did find out if Steven really was infected or not, but I did find out from a doctor that in performing anal sex on an HIV positive person one could get gonorrhea but not get the AIDS virus. In any event, thank my lucky stars or whatever, but I didn’t get it. Nor will I! I won’t be that careless again.

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         For the next several nights in a row I was a regular customer at the Silver Mountain. I guess I was still hoping Steven would prance through the door and tell me it isn’t so. Well, life isn’t that easy. But in any event I got to drinking pretty heavily. Fortunately, I had a van with a bed in the back so I just hopped in there and slept it off every night before I drove home. My criminal record may be bad, but my driving record, along with my credit history, is good and I wasn’t going to louse it up.
         After about the third straight night there drinking my cares away all alone a middle-aged man approached me and struck up a conversation. As an arm was gently placed over my shoulder I heard this deep-gravely voice say,
         “Hey bro, it ain’t that bad.”
         “What?” I said, sort of being caught off guard.
         “I saw you all alone here looking like you could use a friend.”
         I didn’t want this so I said, “I just want to be left alone,” but I wasn’t that insistent either.
         And this is where it all began. The man introduced himself merely as “Snake.” He was a chubby bespectacled man in his mid-40’s, with a balding head, a full beard, and as I already mentioned, a deep-gravely voice. The other thing about him was that he was all dressed up in leather; a total biker outfit. To say he was a politically incorrect kind of character is putting it mildly. I’ve never associated with these kinds of people before but I knew about them. Heaven knows, there’s enough of them in prison. I just knew he had to have a hog out in the back parking lot he’d want to show off. A Harley-Davidson of course; that’s the only one for these guys. No Hondas or anything else for them. Harley is it – period! Well, as it turns out his hog, named Wild Thing, wasn’t running, but that’s for the story a little farther down the line which we’ll be getting to.
         Snake was a gay biker who had the hots for me and his approach was merely his way of making a pass. He was there with two other friends that night, Mondo and Danny. Mondo was an average looking 30-ish age slightly stocky man of black and hispanic descent with an intelligence quotient well down in numbers. His hair was cut in a mohawk and because of that, and his facial features, you could detect a resemblance to Mr. T, the actor who was popular on the A-Team back in the ’80s. He was considerably smaller than Mr. T though, and walked with a stooped posture as if there was a deformity in his spine of some kind. Danny on the other hand, was a rather attractive dark-haired man with a slender build, I’d guess to be around 28. Take all those damn tattoos off of him and he would have been darn right sexy. I’m usually not attracted to guys beyond about age 22, but Danny had facial features and a body physique that I did find sexy – except for all them damn tattoos; that was my turn-off button.
         Right from the start I knew Danny had to be an ex-con though. He just had that look about him. He was in great physical shape, but at the same time he partially looked like a strung out doper. These guys will get all healthy in prison, get all buffed up pumping iron on the weight pile and then when they hit the streets its back to the dope connection and they lose all the health they worked so hard to gain. I’d never associated with dopers before and I’ve never been around people high on drugs except in prison. It seems they have no trouble getting dope in there and you always see someone high somewhere.
         I was right about Danny. He mentioned he had been in Joliet, back in Missouri I believe, but I can’t recall if that’s the latest place he paroled out of. He did mention he released straight out with no supervision or parole. That often happens if someone goes back on a parole violation or two and then maxes out their time. When they get out they are totally free. No tail, or no paper we call it.
         Snake was also an ex-con from way back but he brought a lot of moxie to the group. He was clearly the leader. He had experience, he had smarts, but he also had a dope habit – not to mention a mental disorder lurking in the shadows. His drug of choice was primarily crystal-meth, speed, 8-ball. And his usual method of ingesting it was smoking it, but he wasn’t against shooting it up on occasion or even snorting it, despite his cocaine-damaged nostrils. He claims he gave up heroin long ago.
         Before this time, the only drug I had ever tried in my entire life was marijuana. A couple times in high school and more frequently when I was confined at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) at Terminal Island back in the late ’70s. That low-security prison in those days had so much of it there, it was unbelievable. You could not walk along the ocean-front pathway dividing the north and south yards without getting a whiff of someone’s marijuana. Back then, no gun towers were manned and that stretch of the path left a view of approaching staff for quite a distance. More than enough time to toss your joint into the ocean if necessary.
         Had I have just brushed them off this story would not have gone any further. But no, stupid me didn’t foresee the wisdom in that. It wasn’t until some months after my arrest that I understood just why it was that I had such an attraction to this motley scummy crew, the exact opposite of the kind of people I normally associate with. I now understand it fairly well and that will be for discussion a little farther down the line.
         Soon after our meeting the four of us moved to an area where it was a little quieter where we could sit and talk and drink. For some odd reason, the music wasn’t as loud as it normally was so having a conversation inside was not out of the question. I told them about my suspected HIV status and that made Snake just all the more interested in me as a “companion.” You see, he is HIV positive; no suspicion either. He knows it for sure. He was wanting to meet an attractive HIV positive man to spend the rest of his remaining years with. His idea was that if you’re both HIV positive already you don’t have to worry about catching it or spreading it and you don’t have to worry about using pleasure-robbing devices like condoms. You can enjoy sex to the max. Well I made it clear that first of all, I’m not attracted to guys past their mid-20s, and surely not to someone with so much body hair or excess weight. He was just a hairy ape, and probably was even in the age range I am interested in – late teens to mid-20s. My lack of interest didn’t prevent him from continuing to try though.
         As often happens between convicts and ex-cons, we exchanged “war” stories of our encounters with the judicial system. Just about everyone can relate some story about getting screwed over in some way – whether by arresting officers beginning on day one, court personnel as they proceed through the court processes, prison staff once they are sentenced, and all the way through parole or supervising officers up to their last day on supervision. TV shows like America’s Most Wanted will lead the public to believe that criminals get all the breaks and that the victims are left with no justice. While that has happened in some cases – and these are the stories that always get broadcast on these shows – usually the opposite is the reality. I’ve met very few guys who were happy about a plea bargain deal they got where they beat the system out of time on a higher crime they did. More often than not, prosecutors overfiled charges or enhancements that weren’t valid to begin with and then used them in an offer to drop in exchange for a guilty plea to what are the only counts the defendant is guilty of anyway. And that’s the lucky ones. Sometimes they get stuck doing time for those invalid enhancements. And I speak from personal experience on that one, because I’m a victim of that tactic more than once.
         After our discussion had been going on for some time I had to make my way over to the restroom. I noticed the TV behind the bar displaying recaps of earlier sporting events. Being I wasn’t a sports enthusiast I paid them no mind. After coming out of the restroom my path back to our seats would have prevented me from seeing the screen unless I made a special effort to turn my head way around to look at it. When someone I just passed dropped their drinking glass on the floor the noise caught my attention and I looked around.
         On the screen at that instant was John Patrick Maginnis, the former attorney my father had hired to represent me in my last (1986) criminal encounter with the judicial system. I had been seeing Maginnis on TV in recent months as the Reginald Denny beating trial was progressing. You’ll recall, truck driver Reginald Denny was dragged out of his big-rig truck at the corner of Florence and Normandie at the start of the L.A. riots which were set off after four L.A.P.D. officers was acquitted in Simi Valley in the beating of motorist Rodney King.
         One of the defendants charged in the beating was Antoine Miller, and it was this person that Maginnis was court appointed – at no cost to Antoine or his family – to represent. Antoine was charged with attempted murder even though all he did was open the door on Denny’s truck. Other defendants in the case actually dragged Denny out and beat him severely in front of news cameras flying overhead. They clearly showed Antoine had never touched Denny at all. I believe the prosecution was trying to contend that Antoine and the others were all working in cahoots in a plan to beat Denny – or anyone white for that matter I guess. Maginnis’ defense was that Antoine only opened the truck door, unaware of the intended activities of the others. Because attempted murder requires intent in order to be guilty of the offense, and because Antoine didn’t have the required element of intent to kill or even injure Denny, his case should be dismissed, Maginnis claimed. From what I knew of the case, I don’t believe Antoine was guilty of anything against Denny, other than burglary of his truck. It looked like he was going in to grab merchandise from it and that was really the extent of his culpability. Now it’s possible Denny wouldn’t have been dragged out if Antoine hadn’t opened the door, but I don’t believe there was a conspiracy with the other defendants to beat Denny. The riots were just starting, spur of the moment, and there was no pre-designed plan.
         The point is, Antoine got exactly the defense he should have gotten. And that’s where my deeply-ingrained anger lies. I paid Maginnis thousands of dollars to defend me in a case where one of the elements of the offense was specific intent in order to be guilty of it, and it was well known that my intent was only to commit the less-serious crime of vandalism, which would have carried a much shorter sentence. In my case, Maginnis told me that my lack of intent was not a ground for a defense. I am guilty of the charge anyway no matter where my intent was. On this advise I pled no contest, the same as a guilty plea for sentencing purposes, to more counts than were valid and received considerably more time than the proper charges would have carried.
         Plus, with the extra charges I was facing, I felt compelled to hire an attorney rather than trust my life to an over-worked public defender. From the experience of others, I knew that these court-appointed attorneys sometimes do not work in the best interest of the person they are appointed to represent. All too often, their busy case loads are such that they can’t devote as much time to a defendant as he or she really needs. If only the proper charges had been filed, I could have easily gotten by with a free PD and saved a bundle of money. And that would have meant a lot. I’ve always been tight with money and being forced to part with it in improper ways has always been a major hot-button issue for me – my Achilles’ heel. Equally important to me is when my personal property is violated in some way, and having this offense committed against me by the Secret Service several years earlier also plays a part in our story here.
         Before I get to the juicy parts of the story though, and how this all ties in with the fires, I really need to go over more of the shenanigans of Maginnis and what led up to my involvement with him to begin with. After all, he is a central character in all this mess.
         Chapter 9 cover my case immediately preceding the Maginnis fiasco, while Chapter 10 covers everything about my involvement with Maginnis. Those two cases are more directly connected with this current “Fedbuster” case than anything else in my life. But there is an earlier criminal history that should be reported on because it too plays a part in the grander scheme of things. Readers wishing to get right to the meat and potatoes, the main subject of this whole book, could conceivably skip the next eight chapters that really only give background information, but nothing relating to my encounters with Snake and his minions and how they’re probably connected to many, if not all, of the arson fires set back in the fall of ’93. Be advised though – by skipping these next eight chapters, you will be missing out on some significant events of my life that will be referred to quite regularly in the so called “meat and potatoes” chapters. I’m sorry for burdening you with so many of these ancient details, but I want to impress upon you how much excess baggage I brought into the relationship I had with Snake and the fellas during that brief time span back in the summer of 1993.

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         “In their report they document Larsen as a ‘rather dangerous sociopath with sexual overtones that were reflected in his attempts to burn the church’.”
         I read that statement, along with another one telling how I hit a woman over the head with a rock while praying at the alter, in one of the many newspaper articles that were written about me and the fires a short time after my arrest on November 7, 1993. I think it was one of the main reasons that I chose to decline all offers to be interviewed by members of the news media. And by media I mean, NBC News from New York, Dateline NBC, the Los Angeles Times, some newspaper in the city of San Gabriel whose name I’ve long forgotten, and a few other news organizations whose names have also faded from memory with the passage of time. I honestly don’t remember if the Daily News asked for an interview or not, but they are stationed in my local community and their reporters did cover me rather extensively. For that matter, the Orange County Register did a pretty thorough job too.
         While there is a connection between sex and “attempts to burn the church,” not telling the rest of the story takes everything so far out of context, that I felt that anyone who would do such a thing has nothing coming from me. I was worried that if I gave any story to anyone that it would end up getting twisted around to make me out the main bad guy in all this mess and that’s just what I didn’t want. We’re too much of a society who loves to get the dirt. Heck, just look at the tabloids. And when we do, the facts and what’s really important doesn’t seem to matter that much.
         Now, as it turns out, I owe the news media an apology. They didn’t neglect to tell the rest of the story as I suspected for these past few years. They reported all that was in the record on that topic. I totally forgot where that statement originally came from until I got to digging into some of the past psychiatric reports that were done on me.
         On November 5, 1993 Special Agent Michael P. Gleysteen of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) filed a sworn Affidavit with a United States Magistrate to support an application for a warrant to search our house. In there he mentions that statement and I assume that’s where the newspaper reporters got it. According to the Affidavit though, Gleysteen got if from a psychological evaluation he was given by Detective Roger D. Ott of the Bakersfield Police Department. Ott was conducting his own investigation of vandalisms up and down the state of California, which happened back in August of ’93, and was collaborating with the feds on their investigation.
         That evaluation was dated October 1, 1990 – nearly a month and a half after I was released from state prison – by Staff Psychologist, Dr. Pamela Jackson, Ph.D. The Chief Psychiatrist, Dr. William Kaz also signed the report but I never talked to him. (That’s a common thing they do. Some lower-lever trained therapist will do the actual interview and then get the head mucky-muck with all the degrees behind his name to put his John Henry on it. That tactic is done in order to give it more weight for a court.) Anyway, this was a post-release evaluation so I wasn’t too concerned about it. In fact, I never even asked for a copy of it from my state parole officer. Later on we’re going to cover how I was arrested and prosecuted for those vandalisms Ott was investigating after I got out of federal prison on the “Fedbuster” letters. The thing is, part of the Discovery information my Bakersfield attorney received from the prosecution included Jackson’s evaluation along with another one I didn’t have.
         That one was dated June 29, 1987 by Dr. Judith Vukov, M.D., a Consulting Psychiatrist for the Department of Corrections. The purpose of that interview was to make a recommendation to the court regarding my pending sentencing for an arrest that we’ll be covering in Chapter 10. This report mentions that out-of-context statement but Jackson’s doesn’t. I assume Gleysteen got both reports from Ott and inadvertently referred to the wrong one as to where the statement come from. On this one error I don’t detect any shenanigans. He is not without faults though, and they will be addressed farther down the line.
         The point here being, we’ve traced the statement back to Dr. Vukov. But she got it from a report done by Dr. Paul Tobias, Ph.D. on March 11, 1987. He was one of the psychs who examined me while I was out on bail for that arrest we’ll be covering in Chapter 10. I did have his report stored away all these years and did read it back then but totally forgot all that was in it. It turns out he’s quoting if from Dr. Marcus Crahan, M.D. on his March 18, 1975 report to another court. And that’s where it ends.
         All this reviewing of reports has refreshed my memory now. Dr. Crahan was doing a post-release evaluation on me for the court after I had been in custody for three years and one month on my first incarceration, which gets covered in Chapter 5. My conviction had been reversed by the sentencing judge on a technically and we had entered into a plea agreement whereby I would be given probation in exchange for a guilty plea to the same two counts provided two court appointed psychiatrists found that I was not a danger to the community.
         I had previously mentioned to a psychiatric technician – a staff member with some college-level training in psychotherapy – at Atascadero State Hospital that I had been molested by a priest back in the fourth grade when I was attending Catholic school. This was an unheard of accusation back in 1972 and it didn’t go over well at all with the hospital staff. Knowing how they held the key to my freedom, and how soon that would be, I right away fell in line with a more politically “correct” story as to what could have caused me to engage other boys into sexual activity.
         Other than to fellow patient/inmates, I never brought it up again until my interview with Dr. Crahan on that March day in 1975. Being an old fuddy-duddy from the old school of psychiatric training, he too disbelieved it and I right away changed course into another avenue because I badly needed a favorable report from him if I hoped to get that probation I so desperately wanted.
         And that’s where that statement comes from. Crahan didn’t want to believe the whole story, but he believed enough of it to link sex and attempting to burn the church in such a way that he writes it up as if implying that there was a sexual excitement in the arson which is so far off base, that it’s outrageous.
         He is the guilty culprit here – not Tobias, Vukov, Gleysteen, or the news media.
         Father Patrick F. O’Dwyer was the head parish priest at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Van Nuys, California back in 1959 when I was 9-years-old. Adjoining the church is their school which covered grades 1 through 8. I started there in the 1st grade and was in the 4th grade in 1959. Father O’Dwyer wasn’t too friendly of a person in general but, for a reason I wasn’t aware of at the time, he always had an extra amount of friendship for me. Looking back now, it’s obvious he was grooming me for some time for what was going to take place next.
         It began as friendship, but moved rather quickly onto friendly non-sexual gentle touching, which I had no complaint with. Being gay is inborn at birth. When I entered puberty I never made a conscious choice to find males attractive over females. I chose to sexually interact with males over females, but I didn’t choose that guys were what turned me on. That came natural to me and guys are my natural turn on – just as opposite-sex people are a natural turn on for heterosexuals. Some gay people display a natural affinity or closeness toward those of their own gender at a very early age in a way that is different from how non-gay people display it. As far back as I can remember – like about age four or five – I can recall noticing that some males were more physically attractive than others, but I have no recollections about distinguishing between pretty or not-so-pretty females. While I had no sexual thoughts back then, I was clearly noticing the variations in attractiveness of others, and those others were just males.
         Possibly Father O’Dwyer, probably being a gay pedophile from way back, detected some signals that I was giving off which indicated that I was a budding homosexual. Before sexuality entered the picture I was basking in the extra attention he was giving me. I clearly recall feeling special because he never showed most of the other children anywhere near this amount of kindness, let alone spending one-on-one time with them during recess. Our upbringing taught us to revere priests as one step below God himself. And here it was the head one of the entire parish, and I alone seemed to be chosen to be a “special” friend to him. I’ve got to say, this guy was a smooth operator. He took his time in grooming me real slowly. I’m sure he saw me as a cooperative mark right from the start and used every bit of charm to accomplish his goal. I specifically remember three other boys who also seemed to catch his favor in a special way. While I never saw anything going on with any of them, in remembering back to those days, I would say that all the indications are there that I wasn’t the only one. If you guys are out there, I’d sure like to hear from you and compare notes.
         The fact that I never saw anything else isn’t surprising. He didn’t do anything to me in view of anyone else. Sexual touching began with me sitting on his lap as he would message my shoulders and back in a pleasurable way. The first sexual touches – after some kisses on my cheeks and then lips – were of my penis through the outside of my pants. Some time passed before he pulled my zipper down and touched it directly. Next was oral sex with him putting it in his mouth. I don’t recall finding it traumatic or even objectionable. In fact, after the first time, I sort of looked forward to it. While I’m sure there weren’t any sexual feelings on my part, I recall it feeling weird in a good sort of way.
         Some weeks went by before he took another step. He wanted me to suck him. I didn’t want to do it in the worst of ways but did attempt to because he was such a “special” friend. Once he ejaculated in my mouth and I became really grossed out and began to cry. He didn’t try that the next couple times we were together, but later on he became more insistent he wanted that done.
         But he wasn’t satisfied with that. He wanted to perform anal sex on me. Even though he could never get it all the way in, his repeated attempts, despite using a vaseline like lubricant, were painful. It’s hard to imagine what he was thinking of here. Here he had a cooperative kid who was doing things he found pleasurable, but apparently that wasn’t enough. He wanted more and became quite insistent that he was going to get it.
         I had the most God-awful mixed feelings racing around in my mind at the time. I both revered him highly – because we were taught that by the nuns – and I also despised him for hurting me. Why was he doing that? He had always been so nice and kind. If God would never do anything bad – and likewise, those one step away from Him would also never do anything bad – why do I feel that this is bad? I wanted so much to stop it but I didn’t know how. Nobody ever heard of such aberrant behavior back then, especially by someone one step away from God Himself. I knew I would never be believed, even by my own parents. My mother, who loved me dearly, loved her religion with equal intensity, and never gave any doubt about that. I was just a kid – a well-behaved kid – but who would ever believe me?
         In my 9-year-old mind, I figured that if the church isn’t there any longer then it won’t happen to me anymore. (The molesting had taken place in a room in back of the alter inside the church.) I stole a book of matches from my mother, who was a smoker at the time, and lit it and set it on a wooden counter top just inside the rear exit to the church. I fully expected to go to school the next morning and find no church there any longer. To my dismay, it was still there. Father O’Dwyer didn’t touch me that day. In fact, he never even talked to me. And boy, was that comforting. I did see him talking with some firemen so I assumed right away that my fire, if it didn’t burn down the church, at least kept him busy and away from me. Now how to keep him busy some more?
         I checked out the counter top where I placed the matchbook and found a small burnt spot a couple of inches in diameter. That’s it? If that’s all it did, what will it take to burn it all down? I noticed in another room by another rear exit there was a closet filled with books and it wasn’t locked. I got another book of matches from my mother and on the next day or so I went back there and lit the closet on fire. Surely that would do the trick. Well it didn’t. The insides of the closet burned but it spread nowhere else. You see, that particular church is a concrete structure, and my 9-year-old mind didn’t comprehend that concrete is a non-flammable substance. Now what to do? You’ve got to realize how desperate I was to go to this next step.
         Both my parents were smokers back then and my dad used a lighter to light his cigarettes. I remember seeing him refill it from a can of lighter fluid and somewhere along the line I knew that it was very flammable. I figured that lighter fluid was just what I needed to get the job done right. Memory fails me as to why I didn’t just steal some from my dad though. Instead, I concocted this plan to steal a woman’s purse in order to get money to buy lighter fluid. Probably what was on my mind at the time was that I could buy several cans of it, more than my parents ever had at home at one time, and with that I could really get the job done.
         Women were always regular visitors to the church and would often be seen kneeling near the alter in prayer while their purse was set besides them. My thought was to grab a purse and run. But what if she chases after me I probably thought. One television show I regularly watched back then, against my mother’s wishes, was Highway Patrol, staring Broderick Crawford. I always noticed that whenever somebody robbed someone with a gun they always hit them over the head to temporarily knock them out so they could get away. They never got shot and never got hurt. You’d always see them get up and be O.K. after a short time. With that in mind, influenced directly from that show, I planned to hit a woman over the head to knock her out so I could get the money and run. My 9-year-old mind had no idea that the person could be seriously injured. I had seen that act committed so many times on Highway Patrol with the victim always getting up minutes later with no more injuries than a bit of a headache. I led a rather sheltered and overprotected life with my parents. I honestly had no comprehension to the amount of injuries I could have done.
         I took a rock and headed for the church this particular day with no thought in mind but ending the abuse I was suffering in the only way I thought I could. A couple people were in the church at the time and after it was down to one I decided to act. I had seen this older lady around doing clean up chores on the school grounds and recalled that she was rather grouchy to the kids. That wasn’t why I chose her though. She just happened to be the only one there at the time, she had a purse, and she didn’t look like she could chase me and catch me if it come to that. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. I eased up behind her pretending I was praying myself. She saw me and turned around to ask if she could help me. I said no and she went back to facing the alter and praying. I hit her over the head and started for her purse but she got to screaming, “you hit me; you hit me!” I panicked and run out of there. It didn’t happen like that on Highway Patrol. They quietly fall to the ground and that’s it.
         I was shacking so bad and too scared to go home at that time that I sort of just stayed on the grounds in a state of trembling panic. Someone spotted me and one of the church janitors walked up to me and immediately put his hand in my pocket where the rock was and pulled it out. He then took me by the arm and led me into the church rectory and at that point everything is a blank.
         I know my parents were called and I know I went home with them that night. I can remember sitting in the rectory with Father O’Dwyer staring at me with this look that was so foreboding. I’m sure in his mind he was telling me with his eyes that I’d better keep my mouth shut because no one would believe me anyway. Well, I already had that idea so he was safe from that. And as it turned out, I was safe from him – and that’s what I wanted anyway. I was promptly kicked out of school there so as far as I was concerned, I got what I needed. There was one other hurdle to get over first though.
         While being examined by doctors as to why I would do such a bizarre thing, someone had the idea to give me an electroencephalogram. By sticking pins into the head, this instrument is able to measure and record the electrical activity of the brain to see if there is any kind of abnormality that could account for what I had done. I can imagine where everyone’s thinking was at that period of time when violence in public schools by older kids was rather unheard of – let alone by someone at a parochial school, and so young at that. I mean, here I was; a well-behaved kid who had never engaged in any kind of misbehavior or caused the school any problems at all. Everyone was flabbergasted as to what brought on such aberrant behavior and their first thought was there had to be some kind of brain abnormality. I’m sure professionals today, given the same set of circumstances, would suspect some kind of abuse first before ever jumping to the conclusion that a physical reason was behind the problem, but this was 1959 and we hadn’t advanced that far yet. Even the juvenile court-ordered psychiatrist I saw for a number of months, a Dr. Perry in Sherman Oaks (which we got stuck paying for, Grrr!), never suspected abuse. I can remember telling him over and over that I just “blacked out” and didn’t know why I did what I did. Today, they’d probably use puppets or some form of play thing in order to get the child to bring out the truth. But he didn’t and it never came out until years later.
         I can remember as clear as day laying on that hard cold unpadded table in the doctor’s office and seeing this ominous machine looming over me as the nurses were sticking pins in my head. I can even remember where the doctor’s office was. On the west side of Van Nuys Boulevard a short distance north of my father’s business, which was near the corner of Van Nuys Blvd. and Hatteras St. My biggest fear, other than the minor pain of the pins going into my scalp, was that they were going to read my mind. Of course, now I know that is not possible to do with that machine, but back then, I didn’t know that. In a therapy session I relayed this story in years later, somebody asked me why I was so afraid to have my mind read if my reason for not telling on Father O’Dwyer was that no one would believe me. His reasoning of course being, that if my true thoughts are being read, then they would have to believe it, after all, it’s not just my word then – which could be questioned – relaying the sexual activity. I had to think about that for a bit and place myself back on that doctor’s examining table and try to recall how I, as a 9-year-old, felt at the time. Then it came to me. I had actually enjoyed some of the gentle touching and even being sucked. It felt good! And those are the thoughts I was afraid would be read. I felt guilty about the parts I enjoyed and at the same time afraid I’d be punished for enjoying them.
         I recall hearing the doctor tell my parents that the test came out normal and I breathed a sigh of relief. While it was going on, I concentrated on pleasant thoughts far removed from my encounters with Father O’Dwyer, figuring that it would “fool” the machine into thinking that I was just a regular happy-go-lucky kid. But in the end, I just hurt myself by not bringing out the truth. Today, Father O’Dwyer is long since dead, having passed away at a ripe old age of natural causes – but not until attaining the title of Monsignor first. Before any of this ever happened, I was a happy child from a loving home with friends in the neighborhood and at school and I did good in school. I never disclosed the molestation until years later in therapy and that is one regret I have.
         As you can see, there is a connection between sex and an attempt to burn the church, but having the whole story shows that connection in quite a different way than one is led to believe by just reading that statement at the beginning of this chapter. Dr. Crahan is to be criticized in the strongest of terms for noting it in the way he did while at the same time disbelieving me that I was molested by such a “respected” person.
         As I mentioned above, I got kicked out of St. Elizabeth, which was fine with me, and my parents then put me in a private all-boys military school. Besides having much smaller class sizes than St. Elizabeth, my parents felt that a stronger-disciplined environment would help “straighten” me out. And I don’t mean to imply that they suspected that I was gay at that time. Somebody recommended that school and they didn’t know where else to turn. They had previously had the belief that private schools were better than public, so going to the nearby public school a few blocks away was out of the question.
         After a short time of missing my friends at St. Elizabeth, I quickly made new ones at Sepulveda Military Academy and enjoyed it immensely. It wasn’t an overly-strict environment as some military schools had a reputation of being. I did not sleep there at night as some of the other kids did. My mother picked me up every afternoon.
         SMA, as it was known, continued on through the 9th grade and I just assumed I would stay for the duration. Unfortunately, my father had other plans. For a reason I’m not exactly sure why, he put me in Robert Fulton Junior High School, a public school for grades 7 through 9. After a small school with about 100 kids in the whole school, which was 1st through 9th grades, I didn’t like this change at all. My grades quickly dropped and after my first semester it was back to SMA. Hooray – well, sort of.
         I say sort of because a major event happened in my life during that one brief semester. My hormones – I’m not quite 13-years-old yet either – kicked in at a rather intense pace. Only in my case, I found guys turned me on rather than the girls. Because I wasn’t too agile at athletics I didn’t care too much for phys. ed. class, which was a requirement everyone had to take. It did have one side benefit though. A locker room with showers where I got to look and admire.
         I remember a few years ago when there was a big controversy about admitting gays into the military. One of the major concerns was that gay people would be sneaking peaks at attractive-looking straight people during shower times or even in the living quarters. They compared it to having males and females doing these activities together and that they wouldn’t want that even if all that went on was admiring looks and no touching. Well, I got news for all you people out there. About 10% of the population is gay or bisexual to some degree. And most of us discovered these feelings quite early on. We may not have acted upon these feelings, some of us even actively fought against them, but for that percentage of the population, we were sexually aroused by those of our own gender to the same degree that our similar-age straight counterparts were aroused to opposite-gender people. All you straight people out in the audience mark my words – if you were undressing in front of other students of your own gender back in junior high, or surely by high school, you can bet somebody was admiring your physique if you had any kind of attractiveness to you at all. And I don’t want to hear you all saying we were a bunch of perverts either. If you guys had a chance to wander through the girls locker room and shower (or girls in the guy’s locker room and shower) in a way where nobody knows you’re there, I bet you’d be admiring the view too – just like you salivate over all those naked pictures in magazines.
         The guy I had my eye on was named Kent. He had a locker down the row from mine and I used to watch and wait for him to get into the shower. When he did I’d follow him in and just admire him in the most beautiful way. I wanted so bad to put my arms around him and give him the biggest hug as we were both all soaped up and slippery. Of course, that was out of the question, seeing that we weren’t alone. Even when he was alone though I never got up the courage to express my passion for him. As it turned out though, another guy was watching me from a distance. Actually not too distant. His locker was just a couple down from mine. George, who I’d known since the 1st grade back at St. Elizabeth, was neither a friend not an enemy. (I’ll skip his last name to avoid any embarrassment.) He was just an acquaintance; one of the many kids I knew. This one day, when I was returning from the showers after a particularly pleasing “watching session” of Kent, I had a rather erect penis covered up under my towel. At one point, while fiddling with the combination lock to my locker, my towel fell to the ground and exposed my erection. It just so happened that George was already looking in that general direction, and when the towel dropped, you should have seen his eyes light up. He looked directly into my eyes with this big shit-eating grin and my first thought was that he was going to blab it all over that I had a boner – a common term kids used back then for an erection. Well he didn’t. Later when we were alone he approached me and after one thing led to another we found we each shared the same sexual feelings for other guys.
         For the remainder of my brief stay at Fulton we were boy friends. Although those were words we never used, our relationship was not unlike that of sexually-active boy friends and girl friends. George wasn’t as physically attractive as Kent, who I never did approach with my feelings, but from that day forward I knew that sex with a girl was not my cup of tea. The trouble was, homosexuality was never talked about in any kind of positive ways at all. There were no support groups to help developing teens explore this natural part of their inner being in a positive way. Instead, psychs treated it as a “disease” and those of us with these feelings as having a “sickness.”
         All you straight people out there in the audience; imagine for a moment that your natural feelings of attractions toward opposite-sex people were considered wrong by everyone you know, love, and respect dearly. Your parents and teachers speak disparagingly about such feelings and people who have them. Legislators make laws to make acting upon such feelings a crime worthy of imprisonment. Psychiatrists, those people with the greatest amount of training when it comes to diagnosing matters of the mind, tell you you have a bad sickness which will take years of therapy to “cure” – and then stick you with the bill for trying to do so. And let’s go on a little further with this imaginary horror story. Imagine that being gay was the respected thing to do. Everybody tells you these are the feelings you are suppose to have.
         Now how would you, as a person with no sexual interest in same-gender people, feel? You could force yourself to do what society says you should do. (Just like in the real world when some gay people got married figuring their feelings would change.) You could go against the grain of society and openly proclaim your true identity. (In decades past some gay people did this and were ostracized or even killed.) You could become celibate and not act upon your feelings. Or you could enter into a secret relationship with somebody and work at keeping everyone else in the dark.
         This last option is often chosen by many gay people, but the strains of society in decades past took quite a toll in the self-esteem of those going through it. You may feel wonderful thoughts about the feelings you express to your sexual partner, but the burden that everybody thinks so awful of it can lead many to depression, drugs, or suicide.
         Gay people are more fortunate today that there are positive programs and reading material to help build self esteem and respect for the various diversities we have within society. There’s still a lot more work to do on that topic though. I think Loving Gay Relationships and the Bible: A pro-gay Biblical-Christian perspective is one small step in the right direction and that’s why I wrote it. It sells for $15.00, by the way, and is available from the address at the beginning of this book.
         Now before you think that I’m such a good-hearted person for wanting to lend so much help to gay people, you need to know there was another motive behind its writing. Much of what I say in it goes against the teachings of conservative Christian values and the Catholic church. Because of that, I’m sure it irks them to some degree and, because I have a bone to pick with the Catholic church in particular, that does give me some pleasure – and lessens the pain of Father O’Dwyer’s clerical debauchery just a tad.
         My other book, Revenge, is an ongoing work in progress but is still available for sale. Because it is referred to quite frequently within these pages, along with the fact that Snake and his bag of misfits devoured every word of it much like a devout Christian would do with the Word of God, I’m making it available to readers of this book for the reduced rate of $10.00 (or check it out for free on the Web at: https://tlarsen.us/revenge.html). Normally, this price is available only to those who are out on bail, on probation or parole, or who are unemployed or current inmates. All the rest will pay $15.00. Just be aware, its language, grammar wise, is still a little rough around the edges and not every paragraph has found its final resting place within the context of those neighbors around it. For those readers not wishing to invest any more money, I have copied selected paragraphs from the tome and pasted them into Appendix I. When reading it, bear in mind that other material goes between those paragraphs that are double spaced. Enjoy. : - )
         After my dad put me back in the military school I sadly lost track of George for the next few years. My dad just pulled me out of Fulton with no advance warning right after I got my report card so I couldn’t exchange phone numbers with George. I should have insisted that I wanted to keep in touch with some friends but I was still new to my feelings, which I was adamant about keeping hidden, so I didn’t want to tip my hand as to why one particular guy was so important.
         I had affairs with a couple of the students in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, but after that, it was on to Van Nuys High School for the next three years. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I run into George. Throughout the 10th grade he was my secret boy friend. The way we acted when we were together, I’m surprised no one ever suspected we were really lovers. At least no one tipped their hat if they did know.
         Come the 11th grade is when tragedy struck. George moved away. His father got a promotion from his company and they moved him to their main office in Florida. Needless to say I was heartbroken, but quickly set about the task of moving on. My wandering eyes had been checking out several sexy guys in the locker room showers after our daily dose of required phys. ed. class was over. I never quite got up enough courage to approach anyone though because I was still new at this whole sex thing and way too shy. Unbeknownst to me, my admiring looks were being observed by some prejudice homophobic bullies. We’ve all heard women complain about how some men will let their eyes wander down to their cleavage while they’re talking to them. The counterpart to that in the gay world would be noticing the bulge in a guy’s pants. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my eyes were wandering downs to that bulge in even a fully-clothed attractive guy’s pants when I was talking to him.
         One day, one of the boys called me into the boy’s bathroom under the guise that he wanted to show me something. That something was two other large-sized boys, one of them with his dick hanging out and saying, “is this what you want you fucking faggot?” The one that lured me in there then pushed me into the other two and all three proceeded to beat me up. They avoided hitting my face though. I believe they wanted to make sure they’d leave no visible bruises behind because they warned me in the strongest of terms to keep my eyes to myself and my mouth shut. I abided by their orders and had no more trouble out of high school boys again.
         Some time later, I happened to notice two boys tussling together in a playful way that appeared to have sexual overtones. They looked to be around junior-high school age, which was the same age I was when such thoughts first entered my mind. Being so young, they didn’t have that sexually-attractive pant bulge that tended to stimulate my hormones, but because of the sexual-appearing play they were engaged in, I felt an urge to comment, “ooh, how sexy. I bet you guys like to have your dicks sucked don’t ya’?” One of them said “fag” and they run off. Sucking was – and still is – my favorite sex act. It’s the one sexual thing Father O’Dwyer did that had a good feeling attached to it, although I don’t believe there’s a connection there. Even though I wasn’t really attracted to boys that young, I felt they at least couldn’t beat me up if they were prejudice like those high-school bullies were, and that’s why I had no trepidation about making my comment. Now I know it’s not the smartest thing to say to some total strangers, but hey, I was only 16-years-old. It’s not the worst kind of crime 16-year-olds did, even back then.

         A bright and clear Sunday afternoon in early December of 1966 brought me my second encounter with the judicial system. While I was standing among a crowd of parade goers waiting for the annual Bethlehem Star Parade to start, one of those tussling boys noticed me and pointed me out to his father. He and another adult grabbed me in a rough way and held me until police arrived. During this manhandling, which I would call an assault, he tore my coat. I’m mad police never confronted him about his crime in any way. Granted, I should have pressed the issue and formally complained at the time, but still, police should have at least questioned me about what happened to me. I was taken to the Van Nuys police station and ultimately charged with 647a of the Penal Code, which includes the crime of soliciting a sex act from a minor. A juvenile court judge in San Fernando ordered me to see a psychiatrist in order to “cure” me of my homosexual tendencies. Back then, homosexuality was a crime even for consenting adults. To this day, I can remember his court clerk giving me the dirtiest possible look as if I had done such a horrible thing. In light of the caliber of crimes juvenile courts see today, I’m sure my sexual comments would be looked on as petty. They probably wouldn’t even bother prosecuting a kid making them.
         What is so angering is that we got stuck with the psychiatrist’s bills. When 16-year-olds make heterosexual verbal only advances to others of the opposite sex they are not treated this way. Neither should gay people for verbally expressing an interest in another of the same sex. Heterosexuals that actually do sexually interact with each other in a consenting way (i.e. reference the Lakewood High School Spur Posse sex scandal of March 1993, which I’m going to be talking about a little more later on in Chapter 9) don’t even get prosecuted. And this was true even back in 1966.
         Beyond that issue, teenage offenders, or even adult offenders, often have community-funded programs for mental health care when courts order it. We should not have had to pay out of our pockets. Teenage girls that get pregnant even get free medical care and treatment at no expense to them even though they are breaking the law when they engage in consenting sexual behavior according to Penal Code statutes. Being the court ordered me to seek treatment they, or the probation department, should have directed us in the proper direction. If they wanted me to attend therapy they should have provided it at no cost to me!
         We surely shouldn’t lose because of the court’s discriminatory prosecutorial practice. Gay and non-gay solicitation is equally violating of the statute and I’ll be addressing how that is so in Chapter 9. To purposely pick gay solicitation to prosecute and ignore non-gay solicitation of the same nature is discriminatory and illegal. I still feel I should be compensated for those psych bills ($50.00 per session twice weekly for my one year of probation). And don’t you dare say my parents paid it and not me. I inherited everything they had, so what extra they would have had at the time of their deaths, if they didn’t have to pay these damn psych bills, would have meant more money in my pockets. And that’s where it belongs – not in Dr. Jose Amador’s.
         One central theme you’ll see clearly addressed within these pages is that I take a very dim view of being cost money that I shouldn’t be cost. When I say such violations are my Achilles’ heel, I say that with every amount of emphasis I can place upon it.

         This particular encounter with the judicial system and psychiatric community left my still-forming gay identity in shambles. It’s hard to imagine how primitive we were back then. Today, developing gay teenagers can get encouragement and support from open-minded counselors and teachers who can direct them toward avenues that can build up a person rather than tear them down. School libraries no longer have to eliminate books from their shelves that portray gay people in a positive light. Kids have the vast internet available with hundreds of Web sights lending the kinds of positive support they desperately need. And not only can schools speak positively about it, but students have programs available like Project 10, originated in the 1980s at Fairfax High School by Dr. Virginia Uribe and now available to schools nationwide. Parents too can find support when they learn of their loved one’s gay identity. Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays has over 200 chapters in the United States and groups in other parts of the world where caring loved ones can meet informed people who are glad to share their information with others.
         Oh, what I would have given for such opportunities back then. Instead, I withdrew into a shell of loneliness – lonely that I was the only one like this. How else would I feel? I knew no other gay people; and those few I read about were always portrayed in a very despicable light. I can recall even telling the psych that I’m not a homosexual (gay was not a common term used then) because I’m not like that. “That” being those negative portrayals I’d seen of gay people in literature or on TV.
         With the psych and everybody else negating what natural feelings I had bubbling within me, I just shut them off and pursued other avenues. I always had an interest in science, so when one high-school student invited me to a local astronomy club to view the heavens with its large telescope I couldn’t wait. I had already been attending its twice weekly meetings for several months when my arrest come about. After it, with my sexual feelings basically shut off, I became deeply entrenched in my studies of astronomy and astrophotography. My parents confided in the club’s director, Mr. Joseph D. Truxton, about my arrest and I guess asked him to give what encouragement and help he could. Mr. Truxton was a retired teacher with a college degree in Divinity so I expected some kind of ecclesiastical-oriented speech about what I had done was so wrong. While he denounced homosexuality, it was done in a mild sort of way, more like how a caring friend would try to correct a child who had done a minor bad thing.
         While I didn’t hear any encouragement for the sexual feelings I was having, I at least wasn’t made to feel like such a dirty scoundrel. And that basically free advise did a heck of a lot more for my mental stability than that damn psych charging my parents a hundred bucks a week.
         Until he passed away in 1978, Mr. Truxton remained a dear and valued close friend. In fact, despite our differences in age – he was 39 years my senior – I was not closer to anyone else in the entire world. And that includes any kids my own age; my various aunts, uncles, and cousins; and even to some bit of degree, my own parents. Not being able to attend his funeral (I was in prison at the time) was a key contributor in antagonizing me further against the judicial system when I was not allowed to attend my parents’ funerals. And as you’ll see later, that missed event (particularly my dad’s funeral) contributed greatly to allowing the real arsonists to remain free a while longer. All that will be coming folks, but first we’ve still got some criminal history to get through. Trust me though; all this ties in!

[Return to Table of Contents]

         I remained celibate throughout my high-school years as I pursued astronomy with greater intensity with each passing year. In looking back on it now, I would honestly say that it was my substitute outlet for the hormones that were raging within my body – a body that was finding other guys more and more attractive all the time. I was not interested in sports like a lot of the other kids were, but that didn’t stop me from attending some of the high-school football games because there were a few guys on the team that sent my head a spinning. They just had such hot bodies. I had this thing, and still do, for slender athletic-looking guys. Of course, these jocks weren’t gay – or if they were, I had no indication of it – so admiring from afar was as close as I got to sex until early in 1971.
         I did not go on to college, instead choosing to work at my father’s television/radio repair business full time. I began working there when I was in high school and pretty much decided that it would be my life’s work. One particular employee caught my eye soon after he was hired. Alan was an Englishman of rather tall stature, although he wasn’t as tall as me. (I was 6' 4".) His deeply-accented voice had a certain melody to it that was very pleasing to hear. Of course, the fact that he turned me on surely added to the pleasure of hearing him speak. He had an interest in ham (amateur) radio and had a general class license which allowed him to broadcast all over the world with the maximum kilowatt of power allowed by the FCC.
         Although my dad wasn’t a ham himself, he encouraged my new interest and even offered to purchase me my own transmitter if I passed the test and got my license. One requirement of the test, besides radio theory, was being able to transmit and receive Morse Code. I built a code practice oscillator with which I could teach myself the code and Alan spent some of his break times “transmitting” to me so I could increase my receiving skills. Needless to say, I was rather close to him; but not as close as I would have liked.
         Once again, my sexual hormones were activated to a renewed level of intensity. I wanted so much to make passionate love to him right there as he was tapping out dots and dashes to me with his telegraphers key. If I could have gotten up the nerve, my message to him could have easily been something like,     . .      . - . .    - - -    . . . -    .      - . - -    - - -    . . -     — I love you. Now, of course, this was more lust than love at that point, but my feelings were strong none the less. My remembrances of those high-school bullies some years earlier, plus the fact that I didn’t want to louse up this friendship if he were anything like that, along with the likelihood of my dad seeing me in an unfavorable light, prompted me to keep my feelings to myself and my mouth shut.
         Then is when it happened. One side of our house looks right down into the sunken-garage parking area of an eight-unit apartment next door. Several families with kids lived in that two story building which I watched go up from scratch just a few years earlier. Kids often played down there because there was no front or back yard to speak of and during the days most of the cars were gone with people at work. Down under there one is fairly well hidden from view from all directions except for someone looking out of either our bathroom window or one of the windows from my parents’ bedroom. Two boys, ages 13 and 14, caught my eye one day because they appeared to be up to something sneaky. After about five minutes of checking all over to make sure no one was around one of them whipped out his dick and the other one started sucking on it. I quietly opened the window just enough to see if I could hear what they were saying and quickly found out that the one getting sucked was not willing to return the favor upon his lover.
         Well needless to say, I became stimulated. Surely these guys couldn’t be against gay people like those bullies back in high school were some years earlier, plus they were smaller than me so I didn’t fear getting beaten up. And neither would they be offended by what I was about to ask them like those two tussling boys I commented to back in 1966 were. Being neighbors, I knew them and they knew me, so it wasn’t like a stranger coming up and asking them if I could join in. At first, they were afraid I wasn’t the only one that saw them, but I assured them that only from our windows could they be seen and I was home alone at the time. When I offered to suck the one that wasn’t getting sucked he right away took me up on my offer. The three of us entered into a sexual liaison for several months and enjoyed the activity two or three times a week. First one moved away, and then the other one. And then it was back to masturbating my urges away.
         Until that is when I came up with the stupid idea of asking other younger boys I run across in other neighborhoods if I could suck their dicks. Some said yes, many said no. Eventually one kid jotted down my license number and police were called. I was arrested on July 25, 1971. This time though, it wasn’t about being released to the custody of my parents like happened back in 1966. Now I got my first taste of how heavy handed the judicial system can really be. First off, they wanted $25,000.00 bail before they’d let me out of jail. I thought that was outrageous. What did I do, kill somebody, I thought to myself. Well not that bad, but bad enough. I had no idea at that time how serious they looked upon the behavior I had done. Oh, I knew it was a crime of course, but I had no idea that it was such a major crime. I wasn’t into looking into the law library back then, but today’s law classifies Penal Code 288, the offense I was guilty of, as both a “violent felony” and a “serious felony.” And it doesn’t matter whether the victim was a willing participant or not. One would think they would put some kind of degrees to it like they do with murder – 1st, 2nd, and manslaughter. That way they could put forcible child molestation into a more severe category than the kind where the child gives his O.K. Yes, I know a child it too young to legally give consent – but the fact that some do should carry less penalty for that offender than it does for the one who forces himself upon his victim. They do that with rape. Statutory rape, where the girl gave her consent but was merely under age, carries less penalty than forcible rape; and that’s as it should be. Penal Code 288, lewd acts upon a child, does not differentiate.
         I was in custody three days or so before my parents bailed me out, but that three days was a lesson I will never forget. After being formally charged at my first court appearance, I was transported to the Los Angeles County Jail for housing. Because of overcrowding at the central jail near downtown Los Angeles, sheriff deputies often transport prisoners to one of their outlying facilities. Because of my high bail, I was sent to the maximum custody facility at the Wayside Honor Rancho out by Magic Mountain. The facility today is officially known as the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, after one of Los Angeles’ former sheriffs, but it is still referred to as Wayside much of the time.
         All this jail stuff was totally new to me and I was scared as to what kinds of things I was facing. I had the court paperwork listing the charges against me and without giving it a second thought, I set about the task of asking other inmates in this 150+ person dormitory details about the court procedures I had laying in front of me. Not only wasn’t I keeping the crime I was charged with a secret from them, but I even admitted to it without shame, explaining that the kids enjoyed it as well as I did.
         Now before you all get yourselves into a tizzy here, let me add that that’s what I thought at that time. Today I realize that sexual encounters at a young age, even if they can appear enjoyable to a certain extent, do have the potential of causing considerable emotional problems for some people with less emotional strength as they grow older. Heck, I’m one example of it with my Father O’Dwyer incident. And while we’re here, let me clarify one more thing. When I told a psychologist some years ago that my sexual activity with the boys “could have” caused them emotional trauma rather than saying it “definitely did” cause them emotional trauma she was outraged. Her idea being that every child who engaged in sexual activity is unquestionably damaged. I disagree. Several years ago one of the TV talk shows did an episode on teen-age runaways. One teen-age girl told the audience that she had been raped and when asked by the host how it affected her, she indicated that it was over with and she has moved on. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve heard stories on these shows of where grown women have been raped and their lives are totally in shambles for years. Being violated is an experience nobody should have to suffer. But the fact is, some people barely give it a second thought, while others are emotionally destroyed for life. Look at the highly-publicized case of 35-year-old Mary Kay Letourneau. She and her 13-year-old lover, who was a former student, planned to have a baby together. When the boy was interviewed on TV he made it clear that, despite how the law classifies him, he was not a victim of sexual abuse in any way. Both of them agreed their relationship was a “natural romantic love” in which they “walked together in the same rhythm.” If I remember correctly, it was him who had come on to her. Well, enough of my preaching; let’s get back to that Wayside dormitory back in the summer of 1971.
         Shortly after my discussion with the inmates one of the deputies told me to roll it up for transfer back to the central jail because I had made bail. Inmates go back there to get processed on out and the bus taking us back would be leaving later that evening. As soon as the deputies were gone, several inmates jumped me and proceeded to beat me up before my yelling brought deputies back to break it up. I got a black eye and some minor cuts and bruises but was otherwise O.K.
         Normal procedures in jails and prisons when a fight breaks out is for staff to investigate the cause and punish those who are responsible for starting it. They even go as far as strip search inmates so they can look for bruises on their bodies if they got one fighting inmate in custody who refuses to tell on the one or ones he was fighting with. (Next to child molesting, snitching is the worst looked down upon thing inmates can do.) Yet in this particular case, deputies treated me as if I caused the fight because I was a child molester. At first, they were all concerned about my welfare, but that quickly changed when they found out why I was jumped on. While I wasn’t fearful that they were going to beat me up, I was subjected to considerable hostility pouring out of their angry mouths. “You got what you had coming to you,” said one. “If I ever saw you in my neighborhood I’d do the same thing,” said another. My mind at that time was not on bringing my attackers to justice but I could have easily pointed them out to the deputies if they would have only done the follow ups that are normally done in such instances. They never asked me to describe my attackers. Never offered to escort me back to the dorm so I could point them out. No nothing. And it wasn’t that I had to catch a bus that was leaving right away either. I stayed in a holding cell for several hours all by myself until the bus arrived to take a load of us back to the central jail.
         Oddly, this one relatively minor attack so long ago was another contributor in antagonizing me further against the judicial system when Bureau of Prisons’ officials refused to bring other inmates who attacked me to justice. As you’ll see later, their oversight contributed greatly to allowing the real arsonists to remain free a while longer. All that will be coming folks after we wade through some more criminal history. When I say I brought a lot of excess baggage to the relationship I had with Snake and his bunch of malcontents I know from where I speak – and you will too!
         Alright, I learned my lesson. Keep my mouth shut as to why I was in jail, even to staff. You see, child molesting is the worst looked down upon crime among prison inmates. You can go out and premeditate one or more murders. You can sell drugs to kids. But if you as much as touch a child in a non-forcible sexual way you are at the bottom of the skewed pecking order of prison culture and are continually made to feel like soiled pieces of baggage by way of harassment and threats. And when you advise inmates that those drug sales to kids could do them more harm than a non-forcible sexual encounter you just send them more over the deep end and against you.
         The most troublesome inmates to us molesters were the white, muscular, loud, tattooed, doper/biker kinds of guys. These are the very ones who during my last two prison stints would watch old reruns – the ones on weekdays early in the evenings before prime time shows – of Married With Children and lust over Kelly Bundy, played by Christina Applegate.
         Out of curiosity, I checked the show’s and her Web sites on the internet and found out she was 15-years-old on the dates of original airing for all 13 episodes of the 1st season and 11 episodes of the 2nd; 16-years-old during 11 episodes of the 2nd season and 2 of the 3rd; 17-years-old during 20 episodes of the 3rd season and 9 in the 4th. And the longer that the lag time was between taping and air dates would mean that her real age in each episode was younger than these figures indicate. The way these inmates openly expressed their desire for her among themselves, I’d bet not too many of them would turn her down if they had a consenting opportunity to do so even though that would make them a “child molester” in the eyes of the law too – unless, of course, the age of consent is lower in that location – it’s 16 in some states. I confronted one of the inmates prone to harassing me about her real age in the shows and he justified his lust by saying, “well she’s an adult today.” “But she wasn’t in the pictures you’re lusting after” I felt like saying but didn’t want to press my luck. Actress Jodie Foster was on TV and in movies when she was 10- or 11-years-old. Just because she’s an adult now does that make it O.K. to lust over her pre-teen-age pictures? Clearly these doper/bikers don’t have the best of priorities either. I’d classify them as “closet” child molesters, but I dared not say that to their faces though. What do you think? And what about you people reading this? Have you ever had sexual fantasies for a sexy-looking performer in a movie that appears to be an adult but is in reality a tad under 18? Think about that the next time you are tempted to harass an ex-sex offender like me.
         I can also remember that when I was in prison back in 1987 these same kinds of rowdy inmates were watching old reruns of Family Ties and lusting over Justine Bateman. A check on the internet finds that she was 16-years-old during the show’s 1st season. Clearly there are a lot of closet molesters that will be released out among you that no one seems to be worried about. Hmmm – haven’t thought much about that have you? I welcome your thoughts on the subject. Well, enough preaching and venting on this topic; let’s get back to our story. Oh, one more thing – all the negatives I received during my various prison stays relating to my known status as a child molester does play a considerable role in why the arsonists are still at large, so my harping about how we are so despised is not just idle chit chat. It is a very key part to this complex and intertwined story. More baggage? You bet!
         As often happens to defendants, I was charged with more counts than were proper or valid. In the end though, the two counts I pled guilty to were the actual acts I did do, so I can’t complain that I have a conviction on my record for something I didn’t do in this particular case. Not so on some convictions later down the line though, but they will be gotten to in their proper time. After we already had the preliminary hearing and I was bound over to Superior Court police arrested me again. Their excuse as to why it wasn’t done before was that the boy was on vacation and not available to identify my picture. Once he returned and did so I was rearrested, bailed out, had another preliminary hearing, got bound over to Superior Court and from there everything was consolidated together. My guilty plea was to one count from each of these previously separate court filings. In the process, all these extra court appearances ended up costing us more in attorney fees.
         I’m probably madder about that today, after I’ve suffered through so many more unnecessary judicial-system-mandated costs, than I was way back then. Each cost I shouldn’t have suffered has been added to previous costs of the same nature and has made me more and more hyper-sensitive about being made to pay money out of MY pocket. I don’t hide the fact that messing with my money or property are the two worst offenses the judicial system has ever committed against me. They are the biggest pieces of baggage I lug around constantly. Absent those offenses, I would have never even met Snake and his “road dogs.” And the fires, assuming they were responsible for them (as I tend to believe they are), would have never happened.
         I was also mad that bail was jacked up so excessively, which cost us more in lost bank interest while the courts had our money. Some of the counts which alleged acts I never did were dismissed after the boys testified at the preliminary hearing. Even though bail was lowered at that time, it was too late. Six months interest out of a high-interest term account was already lost because the banks charged us an early-withdrawal penalty. This shouldn’t have been necessary if authorities would have done their homework properly and filed only the proper charges.
         It was November 11, 1971 when I pled guilty to two counts of Penal Code § 288. Superior Court Judge William H. Rosenthal wanted two psychiatrists to examine me before making a final determination on my case. According to transcripts, he asked my attorney, Sidney W. Bishop, “Do you want this matter to be disposed of in December, or do you want it to go over until after the first of the year?” “In December, if it can be done, Your Honor” was Mr. Bishop’s response. From a meeting they had in chambers moments earlier, I already knew Rosenthal was offering me the choice of either before or after Christmas. Against my dad’s recommendation, I chose December because I wanted to get all this over with before. Even though I wasn’t expecting to go into custody, I was worried and too impatient to have to wait all through the Christmas holidays in order to have peace of mind as to whether I would be going in. When I found out the psychs were recommending Atascadero State Hospital rather than probation with out-patient therapy, as I was pushing for, I asked to postpone it until the January court date. “Could this matter be held over until after the holidays, your Honor?” Mr. Bishop asked Rosenthal on my December 15th court date. “I don’t think so. Motion denied,” was Rosenthal’s response and I was stuck in the Los Angeles County Jail a couple weeks right through the holidays waiting for transfer to Atascadero. Merry Christmas to me. Grrr!   : - (
         This too, (missing a Christmas I shouldn’t have had to miss) was another one of those anger provoking things that, when combined with being made to miss Christmas 1993, which also shouldn’t have been missed, contributed to allowing the real arsonists to remain free a while longer. Once we get to those chapters you will see how these things all tie in real clearly.
         Atascadero was, at the time, the primary hospital facility in California where those diagnosed as being a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender (MDSO) were incarcerated while they received treatment. Three major classifications of inmates – officially called patients – were treated there: MDSOs, those classified under § 1026 of the Penal Code as being innocent at the time of the crime by reason of insanity, and those classified under § 1370 of the Penal Code as being unable to understand the charges they are facing and unable to assist their attorney with their own defense. Because there were so many sex offenders in the place, those that weren’t did not harass or threaten those of us who were.
         I quickly found out one of the diagnoses they labeled me with was “pedophile.” That’s the first time I ever heard that word so obviously I wanted to know what it meant. What I found out was rather shocking. A pedophile is a person who is predisposed to having a sexual attraction to children primarily of pre-pubescent age. Why that’s not me at all. Granted, I had sex with pre-pubescent age boys, but that was not my primary attraction. I’ve already covered how my attractions lean toward slender athletic guys. Sure, I did a pedophile act, but that doesn’t make me a pedophile, any more than if going to bed with a woman would make me a heterosexual. What I’m saying here is, I can do a heterosexual act with a woman, but if my primary attractions are for men, then I retain the label of homosexual. I was not, and am not, a pedophile by its definition.
         By this time I had only had a brief interview with one of the institution’s psychiatrists. Ongoing therapy sessions will be conducted by psychiatric technicians who will report on my progress to the psychiatrist in charge of the ward I live on. So far, I was just getting to know the routine and make friends with my fellow patients. No hostilities at all were detected. On the contrary, the other patients went out of their way to make me comfortable and help me. Part of the therapy at Atascadero was communicating and working with each other. I learned early on that we were under constant observation by staff who reported our general ward behavior back to the psychiatrist in charge. Everything was considered a therapy. A patient’s job assignment was “industrial therapy.” If you were involved in learning employment-related skills that was “occupational therapy.” Why just daily interacting in your daily environment was “milieu therapy.” When all the patients and staff got together to discuss happenings related to the ward as a whole that was “therapeutic community,” or “TC.” And when we met in small groups with a psychiatric technician to discuss in depth our problems that was “psychotherapy.”
         Away from the prying ears of staff some fellow patients and myself shared stories of what got us here to begin with. I was quickly filled in on the game I would have to play if I ever wanted to see the streets again. For one thing, telling them that young children are not my cup of tea won’t fly. Even admitting that I’m gay with interests in legal-age guys may pose a difficulty. Although staff did tend to accept a homosexual orientation, as long as it was with consenting adults, such activity was still illegal in California. That didn’t change until 1976. And also, we were still a year or two away from the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association’s decisions to officially remove homosexuality (and gay identity) from their diagnostic list of emotional and mental disorders. I already mentioned the response I got from a psychiatric technician when I told him that I had been molested by a priest back in the fourth grade. That story quickly became, I was molested by other older boys at the military school.
         So here was my “politically correct” version for staff. I’m attracted to girls my age but was too shy to ask them out so I sought out satisfaction with boys because that was the only sexual experience I knew of because I was molested by some older boys at school when I was young. I realize now how wrong it was to do and I plan to go out with girls my age when I get out. If this was considered playing a game and games are a form of recreation and if everything we do is some kind of therapy could I call this “recreational therapy”? Hmmm. All kidding aside, I know this was a serious thing. After all, Judge Rosenthal committed me there for an indefinite period under § 6316 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. Indefinite – that’s like forever. Ouch!
         While I was out on bail my attorney left me with the impression that it would be for just 90 days. I think he said that because he saw how upset I was when I heard just that amount of time. He was telling me how I will be expected to bring out my problems in therapy sessions and I was remembering how I got beat up at Wayside and how I was left with the definite impression that what I did must never come out to other inmates. Anyway, Judge Rosenthal made it an indefinite commitment but ordered the hospital staff to send progress reports back every 90 days on me. I, of course, heard the 90 day part and relayed that to Atascadero therapists that I was only suppose to be there 90 days. They interpreted that as me refusing to cooperate with therapy and sent me back to court as “unamenable” to treatment. They recommended the court recommit me under another section of the Welfare and Institutions Code; 6326. This indefinite commitment, called the “round robin” number, allowed them to shuffle a patient back and forth from Atascadero when he’s not cooperating with the treatment program to state prison. The reasoning behind that being that the state prison will be like the punishment you get if you refuse to “program.” Once the prison staff sees you becoming “amenable” to treatment they send you back to Atascadero, who will send you right back if you backslide. Hence the term “round robin.”
         At a considerable cost in private psychiatric fees, along with the fees of my private attorney, we got Judge Rosenthal to send me back to Atascadero under my original 6316 number. Not only did this prevent them from sending me to prison, but Rosenthal ordered them to house me in a ward with a different staff of therapists and doctors. Having been better schooled in what conduct I would have to portray in order to get them to send me back to court with a favorable recommendation, I now set about establishing myself anew with this staff.
         I was in county jail 4 months fighting this “round robin” recommendation and with the 3 months at Atascadero the first time, I had 7 months under my belt. But as far as the hospital staff saw it, I was there all anew just like a new patient arriving for the first time. Being an indefinite commitment, they don’t consider credits for time I already served as actual jail sentences do. That 7 months was “dead time” as far as they were concerned – even the first 3 months because I was “unamenable” then. I was mad about that, of course, but kept it to myself. After all, my life was at stake here. I wanted to go home as soon as possible.
         Although having a sexual relationship with Chris, one of my fellow patients, helped me more than any “traditional” therapy I ever received, I had to continue showing staff how my “intention” was to date girls my own age. They encouraged me to join the Young Generation Club. For this club, the institution brought women in from Cal Poly, a college nearby. These women were suppose to help patients overcome their fear of communicating with women and I guess that would mean they would then find women attractive partners to date from then on rather than look for children. The thing is though, I was gay. I didn’t have any trouble communicating with women. I just didn’t want to date or have sex with them. But of course I couldn’t tell them that, so it was off to Young Generation every week for our socializing. I missed TV shows I wanted to see, but heck, it was part of the game that had to be played.
         As time went by I became increasingly impatient. They restructured their programs in the early part of 1973 whereby all sex offenders were going to be housed together in the same ward. Their plan was to treat them together in a “Sexual Reorientation Program” rather than in the mixed groups with other types of offenders, as was the practice up until then. This new sex-offenders program was advertised as being not less than a 9-month program. The stickler was though, that they considered it that minimum amount whether we had a number of months under our belt in other programs or not. I could have gone in with all the back time I had accumulated and completed it in the same amount of time as some new guy just coming in off the streets with nary a bit of therapy in the bank. I found that as not right. Of course, they don’t go by time as prison sentences do so that’s how they justified not counting one’s back time.
         All MDSOs have to return to court in order to get released to the streets. We all work toward the goal of having staff classify us as no longer an MDSO and no longer a danger to society. With this recommendation, judges often grant the offender probation with a requirement that they continue in therapy out in the community. When I returned to court the first time, Atascadero’s recommendation was that I was still an MDSO and still a danger to the community. Even though all of the privately-retained psychiatrists who examined me at the county jail determined that I was no longer an MDSO and not a danger, Judge Rosenthal was not ready to release me.
         Not wanting to break in a whole new staff and have them get to know me all from scratch, I began to explore my other options. Of course, I didn’t want to return to court with an unfavorable report like last time. Unlike the ward I was on during my first stay there, this ward was not headed by a psychiatrist. In fact the guy wasn’t even a doctor at all. Mr. William A. Ernst’s title was Program Director VI. He told me that if I requested to return to court he would still classify me as an MDSO, but would state that I had improved enough to where I was no longer a danger to society. While he wouldn’t recommend probation to the judge, he wouldn’t recommend prison either. Now I’ll be the first to admit, in hindsight I should have jumped through the hoops they wanted and gone into their new program but I was home sick. I wanted to go home, and I was too impatient to wait any longer.
         Because Ernst was not a doctor and the report to the court requires a doctor’s signature, it was left up to Dr. Alfred J. Rucci M.D., the Acting Medical Director to stick his John Hancock on it. Without ever as much as talking to me though he said, “This report is to inform the judge that in my opinion this man is still a mentally disordered sex offender, has not recovered, and remains a danger to society and should not be given a new opportunity to victimize others. He has not benefited from therapy and should be returned to court for resumption of criminal proceedings.” How he can say that I had, “not benefited from therapy” when on the second page of his report, those staff members who actually interacted with me on a regular basis wrote that my, “insight into problems has shown slight improvements” is beyond me. It was particularly angering when I read that, “He has an isolated interest in bird watching and star gazing and he has not learned how to approach an interest with adults.” Excuse me here people. While bird watching was a hobby I got into shortly before my arrest, astronomy was well establish and serious. At the time of my arrest I was attending meetings at an additional astronomical society, besides being a member of Mr. Truxton’s Valley Astronomy Club. Isolated? Get your facts straight people! These groups, along with the Audubon society for bird watching were, and are, run by adults.
         Them saying I hadn’t “learned how to approach an interest with adults” stems from their criticism that I didn’t join in with many of the activities other patients were doing on the ward such as playing cards with each other, playing table games, pool, or ping pong. Sure, I could have entered into these things regularly and let the staff see me socializing with my peers, but these activities didn’t interest me. My interests and hobbies lied in another area. Is that so wrong? Put me in with a bunch of others interested in astronomy or nature study like I am and you’d see all sorts of socializing out of me. Needless to say, all those patients who liked all those kinds of games and partook in them regularly found favor with staff and got the better reports when it come time to return to court. From management training classes I’ve had, such a phenomenon is called a “halo effect” – the opposite of a prejudice. I would like them to answer how playing cards or whatever regularly with fellow patients is suppose to change a person’s sexual interest from children to adults. Well, its part of that philosophy that everything we did was therapy. Oh ya’, “milieu therapy,” that’s what I wasn’t participating in.
         There were a couple other things that were always prominently mentioned in their reports too. Hitting the woman in church was one of course, without any acknowledgment that victimization of me led to it. The other was a dispute I had with Mrs. Maze, a customer whose apartment I was at as a TV repairman shortly before my arrest. I was working for Packard Bell as one of their in-home repairman going into customers’ homes to fix their sets. I was at a return visit to Mrs. Maze one day after her set went out a second time. The labor and new parts we put in are guaranteed for 90-days, but if any other parts became defective the customer has to pay for them. Back in the days when TVs all had vacuum tubes, service calls to replace them were quite common. In fact, seldom was it anything but vacuum tubes that went out. Well this gal had another tube fail and I put a new one in which fixed the set. That made her happy until she saw that I was charging her for the new tube. She apparently thought she should get it fixed for free because she already paid for it. But she’s not paying for labor or the service call, only the new tube. Had one of the tubes we installed previously gone out, it would have been replaced for free. But our warranty didn’t cover every old part in the set. When she refused to pay the bill I attempted to repossess her set and walk out the door. She stood on the narrow spiral staircase in an attempt to block my way downstairs but I brushed by her, actually squeezed is more accurate. With the set in my arms, I squeezed by her much as two people in a narrow corridor attempt to squeeze past each other, only we were not in contact with each other because her TV was between the two of us. Eventually I was charged with battery and, if I remember correctly, pled no contest to it. I had already been arrested for the child molesting by that time and my attorney disposed of the matter without me ever attending a court appearance. Had I have known it was going to be used against me to such an extent, I would have insisted on telling my story in court. Yes, repossessing the whole set was an overreaction. I should have just pulled the new tube out of the set and left. But to charge me with a crime when she’s blocking the way? I don’t think so!
         To Atascadero though, these two crimes against women were a major hot point they held over my head. Absent them, I don’t think getting a favorable report out of them would have been so difficult. Having been held so accountable for the Maze incident when Bureau of Prisons’ staff refused to get me a photospread when I told them I could ID two of the three inmates who attacked me at the United States Penitentiary at Lompoc on July 2, 1994 was fully on my mind when I let them know I would not disclose the identity of the arsonists until my attackers are identified. We’ll be getting to that in its good time now folks, so just hold on. Be patient. Kick back. The arsonists ain’t going nowhere – hopefully. (They have no idea I’m ready to spill the beans.)
         Anyway, I got pretty disgusted over the whole thing. How can it benefit me if I have to deny who really molested me? How can it benefit me if I have to play the part of a heterosexual? I should have insisted on sticking to the truth – that’s my major mistake. Today I stand up for the things I believe in and have even included them in an OATH. (See Appendix II.) The sad thing about all of this is that when we patients talked among ourselves, without staff’s nosy ears listening in, we tended to be a lot more honest because we didn’t have to constantly be on guard and putting a best foot forward in order to get that favorable report back to the court. It’s amazing how many “true” pedophiles – those who have a sexual interest in children only if they are pre-pubescent and only if they have no hair on their genitals – ended up getting that anticipated favorable report back to court because they jumped through all the proper hoops; i.e. did all the right amounts of socializing on the ward with the games etc. Kinda’ tells ya’ where staff’s priorities really were doesn’t it?
         I say to this day, I benefited tremendously from my stay at Atascadero. But all that benefiting was done outside of organized therapy groups conducted by staff. I communicated openly with other gay people who were much more comfortable with their identity than I was at the time. It was there I learned of the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay-Christian oriented church founded by Reverend Troy Perry. It was there I learned of the recently-founded Gay Community Services Center in Hollywood where gay people could go to meet others and find various kinds of assistance. While I was becoming increasingly comfortable with my gay identity and filling myself with joy that I had access to a community of like-minded people out there with which I could build a wonderful support system, I was reduced to remaining a liar to staff who were led to believe I was a heterosexual who would seek out girls my own age when I get out.
         After I read Dr. Rucci’s report they tried to get me to change my mind and enter into their newly-formed sexual-offenders’ program but by now I was fed up. Of course, all the blame was put on me that I was not cooperating with professionals who are suppose to know so much more because they’ve gone through all that schooling. Well, little ol’ me, with just high school under my belt at the time, had something to teach them. Unfortunately, they, and society, weren’t ready to deal with such issues quite yet. Those issues being that priests do molest children, so believe it when somebody tells you that. And, homosexuals can live productive happy lives filled with self esteem and wonderful friends. Heterosexuality need not be the only goal of therapy to achieve those qualities.
         I returned to court in the spring of 1973 with Dr. Rucci’s report tagging right along. It cost us more in attorney and private psychiatrist fees to try to defend against what he said. Not only did all of the private psychiatrists – and even a Rehabilitation Therapist from Atascadero (Mr. Richard E. O’Shanghnessy) who knew me personally throughout my two stays there – recommend probation; but the probation officer who filed an in-depth report with the court even recommended probation with intensive therapy. But no, Judge Rosenthal sentenced me to state prison for the term prescribed by law – 1 year to life.
         Back then we had indeterminate sentencing. A person’s release was determined by the “Adult Authority.” This parole board traveled from institution to institution, conducting their hearings on inmates that were scheduled for release consideration. After a 3-month stay at the Reception and Guidance Center at Chino – where all Southern-California inmates went for processing – I was transferred to San Quentin. This maximum-security institution, housing some of the most violent prisoners in the state, was not the kind of place a non-violent child molester should be sent. Staff agreed. I was given two different reasons why I was sent there. One was that it was by mistake. The other was that there was a deadline they had to make to get me seen by the board, and in order to meet it I had to go to San Quentin where the traveling board was currently at. That was probably the true reason. Because I was well over the year minimum my sentence carried they had so many days from the time of sentencing to get me seen by the board. I saw them and was then on the next bus back down to California Men’s Colony.
         My two-week stay there was not without horror though. November 22 brings sad memories to many of us old enough to have been alive when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But that date also brings to my mind another horrible incident. Although not as bad, this one was directly observed by me and because of that, it has become deeply engrained in my memory ever since. November 22nd in 1973 was Thanksgiving Day. We were all standing in the “upper” prison yard waiting to go in to eat lunch. The big Thanksgiving meal was going to be served at dinner time. I was talking to an inmate right in front of me who I knew from Atascadero. Although he wasn’t a sex offender, he knew I was and still remained friendly. All of a sudden a gang-member looking guy come up from behind him and started stabbing on him with a knife. My acquaintance started screaming to attract the officers which quickly arrived. I saw the attacker put the knife away inside his coat and disappear into the crowd which engulfed him in such a way as to give him cover and ability to escape.
         I learned later that the guy being attacked was not hurt too bad, so at least I don’t have the memory of seeing a murder in my mind. I heard two different rumors as to why he was being attacked. One was that he stole some inmate’s shoes. Steeling from a fellow inmate is considered a serious offense by inmates. The other rumor was that he was a snitch. In the twisted value system of prison life, the second worst thing one can be is a snitch – the worse, as I said before, was a child molester. Probably third would be steeling from another inmate. But murder doesn’t rate any bad points at all in the eyes of hardened convicts. In fact, this attacker may have even scored some brownie points from his fellow convicts. Gang members actually earn stature from their violent peers when they commit violence, especially when it is eliminating one of the “despised” ones. Unlike most of those who believe in the inmate “code of silence,” I reported what I saw to staff. Unlike the sheriff deputies back at Wayside, these officers were interested in the description I was able to provide of the attacker. I don’t know if they ever caught him or not because I left there the following week and boy was I glad.
         Although California Men’s Colony wasn’t considered as high of a security institution as San Quentin, it still housed 1st degree murderers and the like. My offense became known to the general population in one of two ways. Either inmate clerks with access to inmate files saw it written and spread it around or some prejudice staff member spread it around. I’m sure of the former and strongly suspect the later. One particular officer was noticeably hostile to me and had made some disparaging remarks to me about my offense on more than one occasion. I don’t believe any of the few inmates I knew from Atascadero spread it around because none of them showed me any hostility.
         This state prison experience left me so awfully embittered it’s still hard to talk about it without elevating my blood pressure manyfold. Here I was, a young looking early twenty’s inmate, being subjected to the worse God awful offensive sexual harassing solicitation, and sometimes even threatful sexual solicitation, imaginable. Homosexuality in prison was a commonly engaged in activity by a sizeable number of long-sentence-serving convicts. These are the kinds of guys who probably despised homosexuals on the outside and would never in the slightest of ways consider themselves to be homosexuals at all. They justify that opinion of themselves this way: They’re fantasizing on a woman when they’re getting their dick sucked or if they’re fucking some guy in the ass. This is how that prison mentality runs folks. You can be a buffed up weight lifting tattooed macho heterosexual convict with naked girly pictures torn out of magazines plastered all over your cell’s walls and no one in the least will consider you a homosexual if you engage in one of the above mentioned sex acts with a fellow inmate. Now if you take it in the ass or do the sucking, then you’re the homosexual. Actually, that assessment does make sense. A straight person performing a homosexual act should not consider himself a homosexual if his predisposition is for someone of the opposite sex. Now if that macho convict with the advertised interest in girls actually fantasized on the guy he is having sex with he should consider himself a bi-sexual. I knew some like this who would never admit it to their friends.
         Anyway, those of us who were young looking shy appearing types with no tattoos were particularly prone to victimization. Tattoos you ask? What do they have to do with it? Tattoos, especially having multiple ones, are a sort of badge of honor among the other convicts. They establish you as one of the “regulars.” Basically it boils down to this – you can be a young attractive guy, but if you got a bunch of tattoos plastered all over your body and you speak the rowdy language that all the other “regulars” speak and you hang around with them, and only them, you got a smooth ride ahead of you as far as doing time the easy way. No one’s going to bother you and if someone does you got your “road dogs” (friends) to back you up.
         These guys, by the way, are somewhat offended if you call them inmate. They proudly say they’re “convicts” and emphasize that in a way that it is meant to mean a higher level of prisoner. These are exactly the kinds of inmates I mentioned earlier that are the most troublesome to molesters. I lived daily with threats of one kind or another. One progress report mentioned how I stayed in my cell most of the time. That was not because I was locked in there. We had our own keys to our cells and were free to come and go throughout the day. Only at night were we locked in. I was too afraid to be out among the other inmates. Even with a gun tower looking directly over the yard anything could happen. Heck, it was just a short time earlier I saw the attempted murder at San Quentin. And that was over a less-hated inmate than me. I have vivid memories of this one particular 1st degree murderer, who was well liked by other inmates, going out of his way to harass me. The track area where inmates walked and jogged went right by the weight pile where the worst offenders hung out much of the time. I could not pass without some comment by him, and then once that started, his “dogs.” Sometimes it was unmistakably directed at me, but more often than not, it was a comment whispered to a friend, but purposely said loud enough for me to hear, “ya, so and so wants 20 packs to do ’em.” 20 packs being 20 packs of cigarettes, the common “currency” inmates on the yard use because real currency was not allowed. While 20 packs may seem like a cheap price to pay to kill somebody, I’m sure some would do it for the “status” they would earn – especially when it was a child molester they were getting rid of.
         I felt so betrayed by the judicial system. It seemed I couldn’t get anyone to protect me from it because it was too “minor” of an issue for staff to enforce. One day two inmates entered my cell with the intention of raping me. I put up a fight and got hit on the forehead by a belt buckle as one inmate swung his belt at me. They immediately left when they saw the blood but not without threatening me to keep my “fucking mouth shut!” Stupid me did, and I’m still mad about it. I guess that’s why I’m so insistent about bringing the inmates who attacked me at the United States Penitentiary at Lompoc on July 2, 1994 to justice. Here, I knew who these guys were too. Although there were no witnesses, I think staff would have saw to it they were punished even if it wasn’t by bringing them up on new charges. They only need a preponderance of the evidence to find an inmate guilty of breaking a prison rule, whereby in court they need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, I would have had to be put in administrative segregation, also known as the hole, for my own protection until they transferred me to another prison, but at least they wouldn’t have gotten by with it.
         After I was turned down for release by the parole board for another year, the maximum that was allowed by law, I attempted suicide. I just couldn’t take it any longer. Aspirins were readily available to inmates back then. In fact, they were left out in the open for us. We could literally go and grab a handful from the drawer. And that’s exactly what I did. I can remember swallowing pill after pill for what seemed like the longest time. When I woke up early the next morning before light and saw that I was still alive I tried to cut my wrist with a razor blade. With that unsuccessful, I stumbled my way to sick call after breakfast, which I skipped. I can remember throwing up the blackest of stuff from my stomach before I did make my way over there though. And for several days my hearing was impaired and I had a constant ringing in my ears.
         They sewed up my inch-long gash and sent me on my way with orders to come back later to see the psych when he arrived at work. That particular day was the one day of the week our quad was allowed to go to the canteen though, so before I made my way to the psych’s office I stopped by there to pick up a few things. I can remember that psych asking to see what I bought and determining that I must not be suicidal any longer because I bought ketchup. I guess his thought was that a bottle of ketchup lasts a long time, therefore my plans must mean I intend to be around to use it. Anyway, he sent me back to my housing unit with the recommendation that I come back the following week. You know, back in those days the bottles of ketchup they sold us were glass, not plastic like they sell now. Why wasn’t he concerned that I could break the bottle and stab myself in the neck with the sharp protrusions still intact on the piece I had in my hand? Hmmm. It just shows you how little concern they really showed for us. When somebody attempted suicide at Atascadero they locked him in a stripped down room all by himself and posted somebody by his door to monitor him constantly until they figured he was no longer suicidal.
         Anyway, life went on; and so did I. My parents, now more concerned about me than ever, hired a new attorney to see if anything could be done to get me out. As it turned out, he found several court case decisions that could be used to get my conviction reversed. Before a defendant is allowed to plead guilty to a crime case law requires them to advise him of all the consequences his guilty plea carries. One of those consequences for sex offenders is that they will be required to register with police as an ex-sex offender once they are released from confinement. Because I was not so advised we had grounds for filing a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Judge Rosenthal reversed my sentence and in January 1975 I was transported back to the county jail for further court proceedings. I’ll never forget for as long as I live Rosenthal’s comment to me on that first day in court. He mentioned how I looked so much better than the last time he saw me, as if to imply that the incarceration had done me good in some way. Well, what do you expect from a guy who does think prison sentences do people good? My emotional frame of mind, after what the inmates had done to me for the last year and a half, was considerably worse than it was on the last day I stood in his courtroom. With a boiling anger inside of me as fierce as it could ever be, I wanted to scream at him in the worst of ways so he would have some understanding of what going to prison did to me. But better judgment took over and I kept my mouth shut. After a reasonable bail was set I walked out of the same Van Nuys Superior Court building that I entered three years and one month earlier when he took me off of the streets.
         For further court proceedings I was transferred to the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Charles M. Hughes. Both Hughes and the deputy district attorney agreed that I had done enough time. They were willing to grant me probation if I agreed to plead guilty to the same two counts I pled guilty to in 1971 provided two court-appointed psychiatrists found that I was not a danger to the community. And that’s where Dr. Marcus Crahan, M.D. comes in. You remember him from Chapter 4 don’t you? Anyway him, along with another court-appointed psych plus one we retained, all determined I was no longer a danger to the community and recommended probation with therapy.
         The thing is though, we got stuck with the tab for all the court-ordered psychiatric treatment. Officially I was in treatment for a sex problem, but in reality I had rages and rages of anger that needed addressing more than anything else. I was too scared though to bring them out in therapy for fear word would get back to the judge. Throughout all these years in custody the main thing all of them nit-picked about so awfully much was that I was a “danger to the community” and therefore unworthy of release. My main goal now was to jump through all the hoops they wanted to make damn sure that that designation doesn’t get placed on me again, which could make me open to re-imprisonment. Not only wasn’t I going to tell them about the extreme anger I had over the abuse I suffered by the inmates, but I made up that I was dating a woman my age. Her name was “Susan” and I met her in a college class I was taking on bird identification. Susan was the name my parents had picked out for me before I was born if I would have been a girl, although I don’t believe that’s the reason I used that name to my “therapist.”
         If I needed any kind of psychiatric treatment, it was to work on the new emotional problems the prison experience caused. And that surely shouldn’t have been on my tab. I was in their care and should have been kept safe. The fact that I wasn’t means they were negligent to some degree. Now don’t negligent parties pay to correct damages they cause or allow to happen? They were concerned enough with my mental health to require this aftercare. Why weren’t they concerned before sentencing when the majority of professionals advised against prison and predicted it would have negative consequences on me? The fact that those predicted negatives come true should indicate that those responsible for allowing them to happen should foot the bill to correct them.
         Senate Bill 42 changed the law from indeterminate to determinate sentencing shortly after I was released on probation. Of course, I didn’t know these changes were in the works at the time, but the result was that if I would have just sat back and done my time without filing a Writ I would have gotten out shortly anyway on state parole. Not only would I have saved the attorney fees we spent on the Writ, but I would have gotten mental health aftercare paid for by the state. You see, parolees required to attend these sessions as part of a parole condition get it at no cost to them. Me being on probation got stuck with it because the county probation department has no budget to pay for psychiatric therapy. The way I see it, I did the time as any other inmate, so I should receive the same state paid “therapy” benefits as any other ex-inmate on parole. But no, it don’t work that way. Grrr!
         Besides having to pay these damn psych fees and fees for the attorney to do the Writ, I was cheated out of my $200.00 release money we are suppose to get when we are released from prison. I wrote back and requested it but never heard from them. I guess they figured that I didn’t have it coming because I got out through the court rather than going out on parole as most other inmates do. At a later incarceration I read the policy in their rule book and found out I did have it coming. As it turns out, any inmates that have been in custody for a set minimum amount of time are entitled to be given release funds. I did the time and I surely expect my money. When I found that out I tried to file for it but was told that no records are available to verify whether I was given it or not. I was going to appeal further but didn’t after being caught committing an in-prison vandalism.

         Before we get to the next chapter there are a few other incidents to report on first. I committed misdemeanor petty theft twice and pled guilty both times although one was dropped to trespassing. I got a 14-day county jail sentence on one and a $250.00 fine on the other. My probation was violated but I was not given any additional jail time on the violation.
         Newspaper articles reporting on “Fedbuster” were quick to point out that I tried to burn down the Sands hotel in Las Vegas. Well, that’s not exactly true so let me go through that story now. I went to Las Vegas with an adult friend and his juvenile brother one weekend in September 1976 without permission from my probation officer to leave Los Angeles County.
         We got some of those free “fun books” the casinos give out as promotional gimmicks in order to get patrons to come in and gamble. One such book was from the Sands hotel. The three of us come in just long enough to cash in the coupons to get our freebies. After that we were headed out the door when it happened. We apparently caught the eye of a security guard who obviously knew we were just mooches – getting what we could for free and not spending anything in return. While there was nothing illegal about that, he apparently didn’t like it. Seconds after we were outside the front door he whistled me over to him. “Let me see that” he says as he points to the “fun book” in my hand. As my hand neared his he snatched the book from me in a very rude way and said, “now don’t come back.” That attitude pissed me off royally and I wasn’t going to let him get by with it. Even though there were no more coupons we wanted to cash in, that attitude and the way he stole it from me was too much to accept. Why, if I snatched something out of somebody’s hands like that I’d be subject to arrest for robbery. I had a road flare in my car so the next day, shortly before the Wayne Newton show was going to start, the juvenile and I went to an upper floor of the hotel. He pulled the fire alarm button as I climbed through the ceiling escape hatch of the elevator car and set the ignited flare on top. That top up there was all metal. There was no way a fire was going to get started. On the contrary, our intent was to have them evacuate the place right before the start of Wayne Newton’s show which would cause them inconvenience and cost them money. If you read the OATH in Appendix II you will see that my methods of non-violent revenge have always been to “cost, inconvenience, embarrass, and/or aggravate a perpetrator, or organization he or she represents.” Although my OATH had yet to be written back in 1976, its policy of how I conduct my revenge was well established. No fire did, or was intended to, start on that metal top within a concrete shaft. Getting everybody to peaceably evacuate the building and cause them aggravation to return the aggravation they gave us was the intention.
         Unfortunately, we were seen and arrested for 4th degree arson. No charges were ever filed by the district attorney though and the case was dropped. Unfortunately, it resulted in a probation violation for leaving the county without permission. When I pled guilty to that violation Judge Hughes insisted I also plead guilty to being in the company of a minor without having a responsible adult present. I had a letter from the 18-year-old adult who was with us, but Hughes said he doesn’t consider an 18-year-old a responsible adult. But still he’s an adult. I can have sex with him legally. Well, I relented to Hughes’ pressure and pled guilty to that violation anyway. As long as it gets me reinstated on probation. He had previously stuck me in the county jail for two weeks pending this formal violation hearing and that caused me to miss the extravagant 50th anniversary celebration the astronomical society I belonged to was putting on in November 1976. This was only a technical violation. I wasn’t facing any new charges. There was no reason he couldn’t postpone it a little longer. You already know I’m a serious amateur astronomer, so it goes without saying how very mad I was – and still am – at missing this event that can’t be made up.
         Missing this anniversary was a contributor in antagonizing me further against the judicial system when I was not allowed to be with my parents for their 50th, and final, wedding anniversary in 1993. As you’ll see later, missing their anniversary contributed a sizeable amount toward allowing the real arsonists to remain free a while longer. Hang on, we’ll be getting to that once we wade through some more criminal history. Hope you’re not getting bogged down too heavily here. I just have such a long and complex history so intertwined with every other part that it requires knowledge of all that has proceeded in order to fully understand how and why recent events happened the way they did – those recent events being, of course, the letters and the fires.

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         As 1976 gave way to 1977 my feelings of anger over getting stuck with the therapy tab were reaching the boiling point. Of course, I was still fuming over having put out so much to the private attorney we hired way back when all this mess began. I saw so many patients, who only had no-cost-to-them public defenders working on their sides, getting favorable reports from Atascadero and ending up with probation once they returned to court. And they didn’t have to foot any additional bills for extra psychs to try to counteract a bad report either.
         I felt so let down by the system. Having been raised in a rather sheltered and protected atmosphere smothered with love from my parents, I never experienced unfairnesses before. Never got punished for something another kid did, as probably happens in homes with brothers and sisters, never was accused of a lie when I was truthful, and never felt fear from others as kids in violent neighborhoods do today. If only I’d have been strong enough to stand up for my homosexuality and proclaim that I have no interest in women. If only they’d have accepted my word that my predispositions are for older guys and that I find fulfillment with those of legal age. If only the laws would have changed just a few years earlier making homosexual sex between consenting adults legal. If only the psychs had removed homosexuality from their diagnostic list of emotional and mental disorders a bit earlier.
         If onlys can go on and on. But the fact of the matter was, I was mad and I wanted my money back. I learned some of the basics of counterfeiting from Joe McKinney, an old man I met during my stay at Atascadero. I’ll never forget this character. He was well into his 80s and nearly blind as a bat, but his mind, despite some delusional patterns to his reasoning, seemed sharp as a tack. His talkative personality had a way of drawing people to him because he was filled with interesting stories. He made counterfeiting sound so exciting, proudly proclaiming, “the more you spend, the more you make.” By that he meant purchasing an inexpensive item with a counterfeit bill and getting the rest in change. You spend a phony, and make real in return. Ya, that sounds cool to me. Just going from store to store buying something cheap so you can get your change seemed like an easy way to make a good deal of money rather quickly.
         Unfortunately, the easier technique he laid out to me was not suitable for printing something with a lot of fine-line details. In a counterfeiter’s ideal world, one would use the same intaglio (engraved) printing method that’s used to print genuine currency, but that is a process way beyond my skill level or bank account level to purchase the kind of expensive equipment that would be required. My only option then appeared to be offset printing.
         In offset printing, like is done in any of a number of instant print shops all around town, a document is photographed and its image ends up on a plate. That plate is put on the press which eventually transfers the image to paper. When very high quality isn’t required, printers often use equipment that photographs the original’s image directly onto a plastic or even paper plate, eliminating any dark room work developing film. To retain as much of the original bill’s detail as possible I found that film will be needed, along with a darkroom to develop it and the skills to know how.
         Even though photography, and astrophotography, had been hobbies of mine for a number of years, I never developed any film. Oh, I was familiar with how it was done in a limited way from reading I’d done in the past, but to really do it I needed to learn a lot more. The same way with offset printing. I never took a class in it ever in school. Everything I learned was all on my own. I’ve always been a mechanically-inclined person and do tend to pick up new things in that field rather quickly. (For that matter, I never took a class in journalism either, but I don’t think I’m too bad of a writer. Do you?)
         It started out going to print shop after print shop asking questions how its done. When one guy got tired of answering my questions, I’d head to the next one and continue on where I left off. Of course, when I was shopping for equipment or supplies I always had a list of questions to ask salesmen. In the process, I amassed a lot of reading material from various companies selling things related to the printing or photographic business. I’m sure I ended up at the library a time or two, but I really don’t recall that.
         What I ended up with was a process camera to photograph the bill full size onto a special lithographers fine-line negative film; a plate maker, which contained a bright light that shines through the negative and prints (or burns) its image onto a metal plate that is pre-sensitized to light; and a table-top offset printing press.
         I was living with my parents who, just like all the other times I was involved in criminal activity, never knew what I was up to until I got arrested. Obviously, doing it at home was out of the question. I checked into the possibility of renting a store somewhere, but found a single apartment would be cheaper and that’s what I ended up getting. I turned the whole place into a darkroom by covering the windows with aluminum foil. By draping it over the curtains that were closed, all someone saw from outside was a window with closed curtains. No suspicious hint of aluminum foil was visible at all.
         After getting all the stuff I needed and reading all the literature I had, it was time to begin. Here I was, a person with no experience in the least at developing film, needing to reproduce something filled with intricate fine lines. Could this be done? I was betting the thousands of dollars I paid for the equipment on it. The very first image I ever developed in my entire life was that of a 20 dollar bill. It wasn’t that good of an image, but it was there.
         Hours of practice resulted in passable-quality bills. I was disappointed in how they come out, but I got ’em the best I could. The weak link in my chain was the press I used. I found out later that presses with integrated ink/water systems do not produce as good of results as presses with separate ink/water systems. While my images up through the metal plate stage were quite decent, I lost that quality in the printing stage. I finished all the printing and gave up the apartment I had before I ever passed any of the money. Everything was then stored in one of those self-storage places under my name. I sought out dumber-looking people to pass my bills to and all but a few accepted them. One guy kept the bill I gave him and I ended up running out of the store, but others who recognized them as phony gave them back and asked for another bill. I always had genuine money on me so there were a few times I got stuck buying some cheap-ass item with real money.
         Unlike many other counterfeiters I met in federal prison later on, I did everything myself; printing and passing. Most guys that were printers sold it in bulk to others who passed it. The printers usually got busted after the passers turned them in when they got busted. If you have excellent quality money, don’t use the same serial number too long, and don’t let anybody else know of your activities, you should be able to pull this off indefinitely without fear of getting busted.
         Well, my money wasn’t excellent; far from it in fact. And in a bragging sort of way, I showed a friend one of my bills and he turned me in to the feds when he got mad at me later on. I was actually trying to entice him into repaying a $252.00 debt he owed me. He wasn’t the most law-abiding character around, so when I mentioned that I would give him counterfeit money to pass after he gives me back my $252.00 I didn’t expect him to rat me off. He even bragged he did it during one of our arguments over the debt – which I never did get by the way. Other mistakes resulted in my arrest and conviction, but that snitch started the ball rolling.
         The United States Secret Service is the agency that investigates counterfeiting. They ended up getting our phone bills which listed all the toll charges I made to places I purchased equipment and supplies from. At my trial the prosecution had guys testifying how I was inquiring about doing fine-line printing, ink suppliers saying I purchased only green and black inks, and a paper supply house testifying how I purchased a special kind of paper “highly valued by counterfeiters.” If I’d have only used a pay phone they would have had none of that.
         Before my arrest though, I rented another apartment so I could do a better job. I bought 51 reams of Cranes Bond, a 100% cotton paper which is about as close to the kind genuine currency is made of as one can get in this country that I’m aware of. At that apartment I spent a lot of time getting the images on the plates just right and I remember being quite satisfied with the results. I exposed and developed enough extra plates to last for the entire run of those 51 reams of paper. A ream, by the way is 500 sheets, and my paper was standard 81/2 x 11 inch size. That’s a lot of bills there. Three bills could fit on the page, but I limited my runs to one for quality assurance reasons. My press was marginal at best printing on a small part of the page. Trying to fill a page with quality work was out of the question. I honestly do not remember if I printed and passed any more of that money though. I know the 51 reams of paper were later given – by way of threats – to the Secret Service still unopened. I had purchased some small quantities of paper between my very first purchase and the 51 ream purchase. I tend to remember I printed a small amount of money at that apartment.
         In any event, I was already suspecting law-enforcement involvement by the time I made that 51 ream purchase because the snitch had told me what he did. I ordered the paper from Blake, Moffitt, & Towne, a large paper warehouse southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to me at the time, their staff is aware that 100% cotton papers in the 20 lb. weight (also known as SUB 20), which is nearly the same thickness as genuine currency, is highly valued by counterfeiters. When I arrived to pick up my order the Secret Service had the place staked out. Purposely looking for a tail during my departure, I spotted them almost immediately. I ended up losing them in traffic and went on with my plans to pass the hundreds of counterfeit twenties I had with me at that time. If they would have arrested me on the spot right then they would have gotten me with the goods in my possession. Instead, their plan was to keep me under surveillance to see what I was up to with the paper.
         When I stopped parking my car at home, for fear they’d put an electronic tracker of some kind on it, they decided to pull a fast one. Local police called me under the pretext that my car was involved in some kind of accident and they wanted to inspect it. Of course, I knew I hadn’t been in any accidents so I right away smelled a rat. I filled my parents in with just enough details about somebody following me that they were now concerned that somebody was after me. They already knew of some of the problems I had with that snitch and probably thought it was over that. In any event, the three of us went to the Van Nuys substation of the Los Angeles Police Department. An officer, in on the ruse, come out to look at the car and then tried to get us all to go inside. I mentioned that there is something suspicious about all this accident story and I’m not about to leave the car unguarded. “Oh it’ll be O.K. out here” he said, trying to get us away from it so the feds could put a locator on it. This all come out in the Secret Service report I got later after I was arrested so this isn’t merely me guessing that they all were working in cahoots here.
         After it was “inspected” and I was interviewed about that “accident” we all went on home. I parked the car a couple miles away and drove home on my motorcycle, which was previously parked in that area. Finding they couldn’t bug my car, they decided to blow their cover and call me in for questioning. This was done at the office of my county probation officer in Van Nuys. I was led into a room by my probation officer and introduced to two agents of the United States Secret Service; Special Agent James D. Davidson and Special Agent Lane McNitt. They all seem to call themselves “Special.” Is there such a thing as a regular agent? Hmmm. Anyway, they hadn’t yet gotten our phone records of toll charges I made to the company where I purchased the printing equipment so they didn’t yet know for sure that I even owned any. Still, knowing I had the paper and assuming I must also have a press, they wanted to know where they were. I concocted a story about wanting to print some astronomy booklets for myself but that the equipment was purchased for a Bob Anderson and I did suspect his printing intentions were not on the up and up. Sort of buying it for the time being, their not arresting me gave me some breathing room to figure a way out of this mess. They, of course, wanted to see my car so I took them to where it was. From then on I knew it would be bugged in some way. They wanted to know about “Bob Anderson” so I told them I only had a general location where he lived because I was drunk the night we went to his place. I was pretty much known to be a non-drinker so I’m surprised they didn’t pick up on that. But anyway, they wanted me to try to find him and get back to them the next day. Assuming my car was bugged, I went out that night to the area mythical Bob was suppose to live and pretended to drive around from street to street in my “search.” What I did notice was a car with an unusual antenna arrangement on its roof several times throughout the night. Having grown up in the electronics industry, I was aware of antenna arrangements and sizes for various purposes and frequencies. I’d never seen this particular setup before, or since. With the nature of it, I would hazard a guess to say that they had a readout of not only my car’s presence within a mile or so, but its direction from their receiver. Because I was driving around in hilly areas their range was cut down and that required them to follow closer. Couple times I was on dead end streets and had to back track on out which resulted in each of us passing one another in opposite directions.
         Before my interview with them I had no idea what frequency their two-way radios transmitted on. I had an inexpensive radio at home that received shortwave along with the upper VHF band which is used by police. Davidson and McNitt had walkie-talkies with them that day they first talked to me and I noticed their antennas were in the 6- to 7-inch range. Being a ham-radio enthusiast familiar with 2-way public service radio frequencies, I knew this length indicated that they transmitted on the upper VHF band. Some law-enforcement organizations transmit in the UHF band and for them their walkie-talkie antennas would be only an inch and a half long or so. Knowing these guys had to be in the upper VHF band, I put my old radio in my car the next night when I went a hunting for ol’ Bob and sure enough, there they were. I remember being so surprised. Not about picking up law-enforcement talk. I had listened in on police calls long before this. My surprise was that they didn’t scramble their signal so nobody could pick it up. The Secret Service not being secret? – hey, that’ cool! I gotta’ tell everyone ’bout this. : - )
         Anyway, all this covering my ass went on for a while longer. When I needed to take care of some things I didn’t want them to know about I’d hop over our back fence and walk up to a place where I could rent a car for the day. I can remember one time being gone all day with it and after I got home in the evening I found they were still there waiting to follow me in my hunt for Bob. Of course, I obliged them there in my own vehicle after I got done eating dinner.
         Knowing that they were wanting to know about the press and paper, I rented another storage garage and moved them there on one of the days I had a rented car. I buried the plates and the remaining money just off Kanan Road out in the hills of Agoura. Mr. Truxton lived out there at the time just a mile or so farther up Kanan Road, so it was just a minor detour to get rid of it before I got to his place. Knowing that an arrest would probably come at some point, I wanted to sell my equipment so at least if they remained insistent about its whereabouts I would have the money in the bank – my bank – when I told them where it was. Before I buried the plates and money I wrapped them in three layers of plastic trash bags just in case I wanted to retrieve them later.
         The trouble is, most equipment dealers wanted no part of such a low-quality machine. If I’d have had a larger floor model press, the kind professional print shops have, I could have sold it in a hot minute. I paid $2,644.70 for it new. Only one guy offered to buy it, and that was for only $500.00. In hindsight, I should have took it because then I would have had at least that in the bank. But I was going to hold out for at least $2,000.00. I mean, the thing was barely used.
         Knowing I no longer had the apartment, the Secret Service called around to local public storage places to see if someone with my name rented one. (Lesson # 2: Don’t store contraband at a place under your true name.) Early one evening in November 1977 an agent, under the guise of being the manager of the storage place, called me on the phone and asked me to come and remove what I had stored there. I forgot exactly what the conversation was now but I believe he indicated his reason was that he was concerned what I had there. I assured him it was only printing equipment (the process camera and plate maker) but agreed to remove them. Fully expecting it was a set up, but knowing I had nothing illegal there, I headed out the door, me and my station wagon, right into the welcome arms of Secret Service agents. Ooh, surprise. Actually, the only surprise was that they had their guns drawn and pointed right at me. That’s the first time that ever happened during an arrest. Even all the encounters I’ve had with law enforcement since then, all but one were carried out without weapons being drawn. I guess I just radiate that aura of peacefulness when confronted by law-enforcement officers. I’ll cook up non-violent ways to avenge the misbehavior they commit, but on a one-on-one conversation I am this peaceable guy mentally noting any misbehavior that needs to be resolved later on in a way I’m typically inclined to do.
         In any event, now is when their misbehavior started. I was sitting in their car handcuffed at the time when Davidson asked me to sign a form authorizing them to search the storage locker and my car. It said, “These officers or agents are authorized by me to take from my premises and/or automobile any letters, papers, materials or other property which is contraband or evidence and I understand that this evidence or contraband may be used against me in a court of law.” Knowing nothing illegal was there I didn’t hesitate to sign it. It was after that when I noticed one of the agents was taking the air filter off of my car. I’m guessing he was looking to see if I had any counterfeit money hidden in there. “Hey, what are you doing to my car?” I asked. “It’s our car now” Davidson snapped back in a real snotty kind of way. It was one of those rude kinds of inflections that activates my revenge mode real quick. Of course, I wasn’t going to do anything about it at that moment. I just made a note of it in memory so when my time comes I could settle up then.
         I was let out on bail a few days later and eventually had Michael Sobel appointed to represent me in court. I want to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to him for accusing him of ineffective assistance of counsel. For my own gain and to try winning an appeal I accused him of giving me an incompetent defense. Nothing is farther from the truth. If anything, if I would have listened to him I would have more than likely done quite a bit less time. At the other end of the spectrum though, if the government would have listened to my pleas just a tad I could have gotten a lot less time plus they would have saved a bundle and not come out with egg on their faces.
         The sticking point was that they – meaning Curtis B. Rappe, the Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting the case – wanted me to give them my press and paper for free. I was perfectly willing to plead guilty, but I wasn’t going to give my stuff to them for free. “It’s for sale, you can buy it,” I told Rappe, Davidson, and McNitt at one of the pre-trial meetings Sobel and I had in Rappe’s office. They were outraged about that. It was sort of like, how dare me for even suggesting that they would have to pay me in order to get it. The thing is, they have been paying for it dearly ever since that day. Their thievery has cost them many times over. I could have easily contacted that one business that offered me five hundred bucks and then told the feds where it was once I banked the money, but I didn’t want to settle for that low of a sale – let alone giving it up for free.
         In an ideal situation, they would have let me sell it to the guy I bought it from. I don’t know what he would have given me, but he was a fair guy – even testified on the stand honestly about our business dealings – so I’m sure I wouldn’t have done better anywhere else. Also they could have let me return the paper back to Blake, Moffitt, & Towne. The boxes it come in were still sealed so I should have been able to get my full price back. With this I could have pled guilty and gotten a reasonable sentence. I was only charged with passing two counterfeit $20.00 bills so it wasn’t a horrendous crime we were looking at here. Given all that, a lot of retaliation – non-violent of course – on my part could have been avoided. Just wonder what they would have done if they knew what they were facing at the time? If they really knew I was the wrong person to screw over and steal from?
         Instead, they wouldn’t give an inch. They were bound and determined to get my press and paper. (They already had my car, process camera, and plate maker.) Well, they got it – but not without coming out the goats with big time egg on their faces. And that’s because that forced theft of my press and paper has led to a ton of revenge at a great cost to them, society, and me ever since. All that is coming up in further pages folks so hang in there. There is a connection to the fires too, so don’t get lost along the way.
         At one point I remember telling Sobel that I’d rather dump the press and paper in the ocean rather than give it to them for free. He advised against that, but I forgot exactly what his reason was though. I think I even said I could even tell them where it was and they could dive down and get it if it was so important. With all talks broken down it was on to trial. My trial was set to be heard in front of United States District Judge A. Andrew Hauk, a gruff cantankerous old man prone to nearly out of control fits of ranting and raving on occasion. One of these episodes happened right before the start of trial and ended up aggravating both Rappe and my attorney. Sobel called me the night before to let me know that my trial was going to be postponed because the court had another case in progress. We still had to show up in the morning though in order to accept the postponement. Well, Hauk informed us in a belligerent way that the other case is over with and that he’s not going to waste a day in court. He ordered the trial to go on. My attorney objected stating that he was expecting just a brief appearance and had appointments with other clients back at his office. “Cancel them,” yelled Hauk. Rappe, who also expected a delay, said he didn’t have the witnesses ready. “Well, I’ll go out and have them arrested if I need to, but the trial’s going to go on,” snapped back Hauk. (These quotes are from memory. I do not have the transcript so they may not be verbatim.) Trial was then rescheduled for just after lunch.
         We originally had a jury trial scheduled but now Sobel suggested we go with a judge trial. His reasoning being, and I agreed with it, was that it would take the rest of the day to pick a jury. That means Rappe would have until the next day to get his witnesses there to testify. But if we cancelled the jury and just let the judge hear it the trial would have to start that afternoon. His reasoning being that that wouldn’t give them enough time to get the witnesses there and they would then have to dismiss. Well, needless to say they got the witnesses there. The Secret Service went out and picked them up themselves and brought them there.
         So trial began. Against Sobel’s advise, I took the stand and perjured myself. I stuck to my Bob Anderson story and claimed I was not involved in counterfeiting. When Rappe took his turn at questioning me he asked me more questions about my child molesting conviction than he did about the counterfeiting. His tactic was to impeach my credibility, and he was milking it for all it was worth. Unbeknownst to me, Hauk had a prejudice against gay people. This has since been openly expressed in court and even reported on in the media, but at that time I had no idea of it. Surely Rappe did though. I mean, the way he went after me with such gusto sure indicates he did. I can remember him asking me about my encounters with the boys and then inquiring something like, “and is it true you got probation for that?” I answered, “yes, but only after I did three years and one month in custody first.” Sobel then spoke up and asked Hauk to advise the defendant to answer only what he was asked. That’s the one gripe I have about him. He was willing to let Rappe leave Hauk with the false impression that I had gotten off easy with probation. Sure, I got probation after the original sentence was reversed – but I did the time and I wanted the judge to know that I did not get by easy.
         Questioning went so much into that past crime that he was relating details of events from the original police report that were dropped at the preliminary hearing after the boys testified. The counts of conviction gave a truer indication of what I had actually done, not all that was thrown at me way in the beginning. But, of course, Rappe wanted to make me look as bad as possible. I wish he would have been more interested in winning justice for all, rather than just winning a conviction at any cost. (And boy – what a cost it turned out to be. In the long run they didn’t win at all.) Being an over-zealous prosecutor is one thing; phrasing statements in such a way in order to slant the truth is quite another. The spirit of the law is to find the truth – the real and unbiased truth. They should be more concerned about getting at that. Only then should a person be judged and then punished. When that is not done justice is not served and the perpetrators should not be allowed to prevail. And, in a way he hasn’t – at least not in my case. Others he committed misdeeds on may have let him slither off into the sunset unpunished and unreprimanded; but those people aren’t me!
         Rappe was later harshly criticized by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for this particular line of questioning. Because I was claiming Sobel gave me an incompetent defense (my apologies again Sobel, ya did fine), the 9th Circuit appointed another attorney to handle my appeal. That attorney was J. Patrick Maginnis, the central character in all the firestorms. Maginnis told me that after he and Rappe presented their oral arguments to the three-judge panel that Rappe asked him if he was going to handle the retrial. Apparently the criticism was so intense that he got a good ass chewing for it and was apparently convinced at that point that my conviction would be reversed. Unfortunately though, it was not reversible error. The panel ruled that it would have been reversible error if trial had been to a jury though, apparently assuming such Rappe tactics would have prejudiced the jury against me. But because this trial was to a judge, and he made his reasoning for conviction a part of his deliberations, they felt the error was not enough to require reversal. The anger-provoking thing though is that this would have been a jury trial if Hauk had not been so belligerent and demanding that the trial would proceed that day. The 9th Circuit’s opinion warranted publication and interested readers can find it in their local law library (often in court houses) using the following citation: U.S. v. Larsen 596 F.2d 347 (1979). For those unfamiliar with those cryptic numbers, it is book 596 in the second series of the Federal Reporter, page 347 and the case was decided in 1979. Just ask the law clerk there if you are having difficulty locating it. I should mention that even though the appeal was unsuccessful, it was through no fault of Maginnis.
         After judge Hauk found me guilty of the two twenty dollar bill passes discussion came up about me remaining free on bail pending sentencing. I don’t have the transcript so I’m winging this from ancient memory and other notes I made of the incidents. Somewhere along the line it was brought up that I was refusing to give up my press and paper. That prompted Hauk to raise the bail, I guess assuming I could afford it seeing I would have money from the proceeds of the sales. And that’s where things stood as I was led away into the custody of the U.S. Marshals until my father put up the higher bail
         A short time later Rappe, Davidson, and Sobel come downstairs to see me in the marshals’ lock up and informed me that further discussion with Judge Hauk brought a change in circumstances. Apparently Rappe made a big stink about my holding onto my press and paper saying that they were contraband and should be seized. The law allows not only items purchased from the proceeds of ill gotten gains to be seized, but also items used in and during the performance of the illegal activity. The thing is though, even though I did use that particular printing equipment to print the money, I was not convicted, or even charged with, printing money. Sure, I know that may be splitting hairs there, but the facts before the court were limited to convicting me of passing counterfeit money; not printing it. Also, its noteworthy to mention that all the equipment was purchased before I ever engaged in illegal activity, so it was not purchased with illegally-earned money. As for the paper, it was never used in illegal activity at all. Why it was still in its factory-sealed boxes. Sure, it was going to have money printed upon it, but it hadn’t yet. And my station wagon you ask? On the two bills I was convicted of passing so many months earlier, I did not own that car yet which I proved to them by way of DMV records. Plus, according to the police report done at the time, the owner of a taco stand I passed one of those bills to stated he, “followed the suspect in a tan colored Datsun or Toyota pick up as he dodged and weaved in traffic.”
         As they were looming over me sitting in that locked cage moments after my conviction, they told me the bad news – and I mean bad on their part too because it’s cost them a lot in the long run. Hauk made it a condition of getting out on bail that I had to give them my press and paper. Rappe tried to get him to order it’s seizure but Hauk apparently said he couldn’t do that. He could only make it a condition of bail. Once they had it in their hands, it was then up to the government to bring the formal forfeiture proceedings forward in order to determine if they could keep it. On the car they already had, I previously received a letter from them relating to its seizure and what steps I could go through to contest it. Rappe never did, to this day, follow through on what Hauk told him he’d have to do and traditional methods of complaint involving typical red tape of a judicial system got me nowhere.
         I’m still waiting for them to do all this stuff. Unfortunately, Rappe’s no longer in the U.S. Attorney’s office though. Still, it was his oversight and he should be the one to set it right. Anyone wishing to prompt him into the right direction could reach him at his new job as Superior Court Judge located, as of January 1998, in the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles on 210 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, CA  90012-3210. (213) 974-5726. I’m sure he would welcome any opportunity to correct any past errors and omissions – not! Anyway, the reminder is there; unfinished business should be taken care of and it’s never too late to make amends. Hint, hint, hint!!! – especially since the debt remains listed on my score sheet (and interest is accumulating as we speak).
         I was so enraged that day. Because I was seated in a caged area and they were standing at the time, the impression I got of a talons-protruding bird of prey ready to pounce upon its poor defenseless victim was overwhelming. Here, the whole reason for going through the trial to begin with was to keep what I purchased with legally-earned money. Sentencing was set for a month away and any time I did now would count toward the total time I’d end up doing, so I thought about just keeping my stuff. Sobel told me it would look bad at the time of sentencing if I still had it though, and I’m sure he’s probably right. Hauk could have given me more time than the 4-years he did give me. Even though there wasn’t an order to give it to them, the implied threat behind how it was said was clearly on the table.
         In the timespan since my arrest and this day I had been trying to get my personal possessions that were in the car and even my house keys back. I brought this up to them while they were looming over me. Davidson then pulled my house keys out and threw them down on the table at me as if to gruffly say “there’s your damn keys, now give us our stuff.” I knew I was going to make them pay big time for this. There was no way I was going to let Rappe’s abusive mouth screw me over in this particular method with the Secret Service and Judge Hauk condoning it. And trust me folks; they haven’t ridden off into the sunset without feeling my foot kicking them in their asses along the way. And they haven’t even complained about it either. Just hold on; we’ll be gettin’ to that.
         I took them to the storage place I had my press and paper and was released on the higher bail the next day. You know, the reason Hauk raised the bail originally was because he knew I had my property and was intending to sell it. Now, because I no longer had it, bail should have remained where it was which would mean I shouldn’t have been in custody for these two days. Yes, I know those two days counted toward the total time I ended up doing. But back then, the Los Angeles County Jail housed federal prisoners and getting booked into that place, which sometimes took 20 some hours, was an awful experience. Just on this one case alone I went in three times; at the original arrest, this day bail was raised, and the day I was sentenced. Only two should have happened.
         I received a total sentence of 4-years, an amount even prison staff felt was stiff considering the crime involved only $40.00. Judge Hauk angrily mentioned how I had gotten up on the stand and lied about it so clearly some of the sentence length was for committing that offense. I fully admit I shouldn’t have done that. It was totally my decision. Sobel recommended against it. I do owe Hauk and Rappe an apology for that – and I am sincere too. On occasion, I’ve apologized to judges for crimes I’d done strictly with the idea of getting a lower sentence in mind. I had no sincerity behind those apologies. This one I do. I just wish the judicial system could have been as punish-demanding when Mrs. Reeves committed perjury against me as it was when I did it. The fact that I didn’t get by with perjury and she did plays a considerable role in the grander scheme of things. Just keep in mind how I was punished with a harsher sentence for it when we discuss later on how she slithered off unpunished.
         Of the 4-year sentence I got, the United States Parole Commission required me to do 20-months of it in custody. To establish that amount, they use a set of Guidelines that takes into account the severity of the current offense, along with a person’s past criminal history, plus some other factors. Bureau of Prisons’ Policy allows them to take behavior that was not a part of the counts of conviction into account when they figure the person’s severity level. They determined that a preponderance of the evidence was present that I printed the money, and because printing is a greater severity of an offense than merely passing, I ended up doing basically the same amount of time as if I’d have been convicted of printing. And it didn’t matter either that I was never even charged with printing. Such “silent” beefs can be used to enhance the time spent in custody and doing all that resulted in a 20-month incarceration. I spent the last 3 months at a half-way house so the total time spent behind the prison walls at FCI Terminal Island ended up being 17 months.
         It took all the way until shortly before my release date to get a decision from the 9th Circuit Court on my appeal. That had to be finished before I was legally permitted to request a sentence reduction from Judge Hauk. When he sentenced me to prison he had two options to choose from. One would require me to serve at least 1/3 of the 4-year sentence before the Parole Commission could legally release me, even if they wanted to. The other option permitted them to release me the day after I arrived if they wanted. There was no minimum requirement I had to serve. Hauk chose this option. Because of the Guidelines though, my time to serve was set at 20-months – over 1/3. At my sentence modification hearing in April 1979, where Hauk was aware of my close-approaching release date – Rappe bad-mouthed me to such an extent that Hauk not only denied my reduction, but he yelled out that I’m getting out too soon. He got so inflamed at me because of the dirt (although truthful dirt) spewed out of Rappe’s mouth in the particular way it was, that he – who sentenced with the provision where less than 1/3 was permitted – was now mad that I’m doing as little over 1/3 as I am. The way Rappe went at it, one would think he was the victim of a brutal attack by me, rather than being a person who should be acting business like and proper as would be fitting for someone of his stature. Just more injustices to make note of in order to settle up later on.
         While in prison, I met a number of counterfeiters – guys who were professional printers and knew the trade inside and out long before they ever printed money. Three guys in particular were my “teachers.” In order of greatest expertise and help they were: Dan Willis, Lew Hatton (spelling unsure), and Hugh Sullivan. Like me, they too had a bone to pick with the judicial system, so their helping me print better money I’m sure gave them a bit of personal satisfaction that they were throwing a monkey wrench or two into the wheels of the judicial system in order to make them squeak. I know it does me whenever I pass on the expert techniques I learned from these three, plus a few others. Between step one of photographing a genuine bill on through having a counterfeit bill properly aged and ready to pass on to an unsuspecting mark, there are a number of steps that need to be taken. Each guy had his own unique slant on the way he accomplished certain steps and assembling all this information was a full-time study for a time. When I reprinted later on, the steps I took were no single person’s method. My aging process, which was practically more time consuming than anything else, was much my own creation though. Because I was doing the passing also, I wanted to make them look as genuine as possible. All these other guys wholesaled it out for 10 to 20% on the dollar only partially aged, if at all, and let the passers finish that process.
         I hooked up with Hugh Sullivan – who was now going by his middle name, Lee – after I got released from FCI Terminal Island in July 1979. We had been keeping in touch ever since he was released some 8 months or so earlier. He was impressed with how very much I was interested in improving my skills and decided he wanted me to print a large sum of money for him. He fully admitted his skills were not that much up to par. My intention at that time was really only to print up enough money to reimburse myself for the car, equipment, and paper they confiscated/stole from me months earlier. Of course, I didn’t tell Lee that though. I led him to believe that I would do whatever printing he wanted because I needed him to bankroll purchasing all the equipment we needed.
         He had a book showing samples of all the driver’s licenses in each of the 50 states along with another one explaining the number coding sequence on social security cards. His idea had something to do with printing up phony identifications for people but I never questioned him about it because I never intended to print anything past my recouped losses. One book he had though caught my eye. Police Technical Manual: The Hows and Why of the Counterfeiter by Carl Dorski. Although I learned a few techniques from this 46-page book, nothing in it added significantly to my already substantial store of knowledge on the subject. It did show how to make a process camera inexpensively out of wood though, and that we needed. You see, Lee did not have the funds necessary to purchase all the equipment we needed, even if we got it all used.
         From plans in the book, I used my woodworking skills to make a process camera. I also went out and bought two reams of paper. From the homework I had done in prison, I found another 100% cotton paper from Crane & Co., Inc. had a feel closer to genuine currency. In fact, their product literature defines Cranes Crest as having a “crisp currency feel.” Crane, by the way, advertises in the same literature that they are the, “Principal supplier of paper for currency to U.S. Government since 1879.” Of course, they don’t sell that particular 75% linen/25% cotton paper to the general public. Us counterfeiters have to settle for the closest facsimile we can get and wing it from there. Part of the time-consuming aging process goes into achieving a color and feel as close as possible to genuine currency.
         Now please don’t side step my counterfeiting expertise here. It is instrumental in some of my dealings with Snake and what he wanted me to do for him along with why I believe they set all the fires. When I say everything is connected here folks, you can take me at my word. All this is very pertinent.
         It was Zellerbach Paper Company I bought those two reams of Cranes Crest from. Just like at Blake, Moffitt, & Towne a couple years earlier, when I went to pick up my order, the place was staked out. I was followed from there and the gig was up. Dodging and weaving around I lost them and headed to Lee’s apartment to fill him in on our dilemma. He was pissed that I did it on my own. He thought he had me convinced on doing these other identification documents for the time being which didn’t require papers that bring on suspicion when purchased. Well that’s what he thought but I had my own agenda, an agenda that now looked like it was dead.
         I was still living in the half-way house at the time and beginning on the next day or two I noticed a large helicopter following me wherever I went. It was a dead give away because it was such a huge thing. Totally out of place in our skies around here where all we see are ones similar to those used by the police department. I’m guessing they got this thing on loan from one of the branches of the armed forces because it looked like one of those used in the Vietnam War to drop off and pick up our troops. Weren’t they Sikorsky helicopters? I’m not sure. But needless to say, if I would have lived down by El Toro or someplace like that, I wouldn’t have given such a chopper a second thought.
         My suspicions were confirmed once I got my radio tuned in. Memory fails me whether I told them last time that I was listening to them during my “hunts” for ol’ Bob. I distinctly remember they suspected it, but for the wrong reason. When they were snooping around in my bedroom at that time they saw a shortwave receiver on my dresser and noted that because of it they thought I was listening in on their conversations. I believe there was some mention about my dad being an electronic expert also. The thing is though, that particular radio only covered the AM band and short wave frequencies up to 44 MHz, well below their frequency in the 165 MHz range. Yes I was listening in, but with a portable radio they never saw.
         I also don’t recall if I bragged to them back then about knowing about the beeper. One Saturday when I went out of town on a bird watching field trip and noticed they didn’t follow me I took it apart to see what made it tick. I was surprised it was such a large transmitter. The darn thing run on four D-batteries. You could tell it was made to heavy-duty government specifications. Thick printed circuit board, heavy duty rubber gasket all around the inside of its removable cover, and strong magnet with which to stick it under my car. Its short little wire for an antenna indicated that it too was in the upper VHF band, but for some unknown reason, I didn’t tune my radio around to see what kind of signal it put out. Did it put out a modulated beep tone? Was it just continuous wave? Guess I’ll never know. I remember looking at its crystal but saw no frequency indication imprinted upon it as they often have. I don’t doubt it was in the upper VHF band though. The rods on the receiving antennas on their car were of the proper length for that band.
         Anyway, this time my car had no beeper. Not only did I crawl under it and check, but I borrowed a bug detector from Lee. This pocket device gives an indication when any transmitter of any frequency is within a few feet of the area one is “sweeping.” Apparently this time it was all about visual surveillance by helicopter and vehicles. I spoke earlier about my surprise that they didn’t scramble their signal in order to prohibit its reception and that they weren’t too secret. Their transmissions were secretive to an extent though. Unlike other law-enforcement agencies I’ve listened in to over the years, the Secret Service don’t give away their location by speaking the street names I was driving on or approaching.
         The half-way house I was at was located just off of Vermont Ave. As I would walk out the front door toward my car, radio in hand, I’d see a helicopter hovering above high and far enough away to be just audible above the roar of nearby traffic. Once I cleared the front door an agent parked in a van across the way radioed to his comrades to get ready. By the time I’m pulling out of the driveway, the chopper has moved in close so as not to lose me. As I approach Vermont I hear, “he’s at the V.” The 101 freeway was a “triple digit.” Likewise, Interstates 5 and 10 would be “single” and “double digit” respectively. Coldwater Canyon was, “he’s at the C C.” While I heard similar such coding from other law-enforcement agencies, most don’t even attempt to hide their locations from anyone listening in. They must know people do listen in. I mean, you can buy books from electronic stores that sell books publishing the numerous frequencies various agencies transmit and receive on.
         Knowing that my cover was now blown as far as printing any money and making back what they confiscated/stole from me, I decided to go another route. If I couldn’t make my money back, then at least I could cost them many times more. Knowing they lost much more than they made by the sale my equipment and car was a consolation prize with a good deal of personal satisfaction. And I wanted satisfaction not just for the thefts, but for the belligerent rudeness of Davidson, Rappe, and Hauk. That alone irked me as much as anything else. With my entourage in tow and bait inadvertently placed, why not hook ’em good. I set about the task of purposely doing “suspicious” appearing things. Going into printing supply stores and graphic arts supply houses inquiring about wanting to purchase quality equipment knowing agents would surely interview the proprietors to see what I was up to was one hook I put in the water. Shopping at paper and ink companies was another. My radio verified that everywhere I went they were sure to follow. Who else but the President of the United States warrants such escort attention form the Secret Service? This is the closest I’ll ever get to Presidential honors. : - ) Now it was just a matter of leading them around and wait for them to come forward as they surely would eventually do.
         Rappe previously accused me of playing a cat and mouse game when I was out on my nightly Bob Anderson “hunts.” I looked at that as just trying to cover my ass as to why I purchased certain suspicious-appearing items I knew they knew about. This time though, it really was a cat and mouse game, and I was enjoying it. Here kitty, kitty, kitty! Meow… Yes, I was having fun and it tended to lower my anger level down a notch or two – someplace they should have been happy to have it at. In the meantime, I secured a job delivering oxygen tanks to old people who required it for medical reasons. This was neat. Wherever my delivery route took me, there they were. Besides the helicopter’s nearly daily appearance, they also used up to six vehicles. Each day brought a different helicopter too, and always a big noisy lug. Sometimes small ones were used though. I kind of looked forward to the big ones though. They’re probably more expensive to operate and being I was sort of keeping a mental note of what all this was all costing them, I liked seeing that big brute chug-chugging away up there. Surely all this would cost them a few pennies.
         One day I found I inadvertently lost them when I didn’t want to. My route that day took me up into the hills of Mt. Washington north of downtown Los Angeles. After making one of my deliveries, my next stop required me to travel down the west side of the mountain. I could tell by their conversations though that they didn’t know where I was at. Instead of proceeding on with my planned route, I backtracked the way I came up from the east and sure enough, there they were latching back onto me once again. “Come on guys,” I said to myself with a satisfied smug look on my face that they couldn’t see, “can’t you keep up? It’s this way.” And for the rest of that day, and ones to follow, I drove slower than average just so they could keep up.
         After about seven weeks and surely a cost of thousands of dollars they decided to bring me in for questioning – something I was eagerly looking forward to. I was looking forward to bragging how I was on to them all along and how I – little ol’ me – outsmarted the “great” Secret Service. They couldn’t do anything more than question me about my suspicious-appearing activities I thought, because I hadn’t done anything illegal. Unfortunately, my not illegal revenge tactics temporarily backfired on me – and, in return, on them too in the long run.

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         No, not the vandalism I did. We’ll be getting to that chapter later on. This one deals with vandalism the Secret Service committed against me.
         January 11, 1980, the day of judgment finally came. It was mid-afternoon when my pocket pager went beeping away. I called the office to find out what it was about and they told me to call home immediately. My dad told me the Secret Service just left after spending all morning searching every nook and cranny of the house. He didn’t tell me how bad the destruction was though, so I wasn’t aware of its totality until I got home later on in the evening. My first thought was whether they went to my boy friend’s apartment too. I met him soon after I got released from the half-way house in October and we were going out quite regularly in the evenings. Surely the Secret Service had seen us together. Jim knew nothing about my criminal past so if they searched his place I surely owed him an apology. Well, they were never there. I filled him in about the situation and told him I’d have to break our date that evening.
         I finished up my last two deliveries and went on back to the office knowing they would be waiting. As soon as I exited my work van I was approached by a bright-eyed plain clothes agent with a smile on his face as he was flashing his badge. His face seemed to be saying “now we got you,” but his look quickly turned to dismay when I spoke up equally bright eyed saying, “Hi guys, I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve been listening in on you. I knew you’d come out of hiding one of these days. Do you have my six thousand eight hundred dollars yet?” “What six thousand eight hundred dollars?” the surprised agent – who I soon learned was Special Agent Michael C. Tarr – asked. “Five thousand six hundred dollars for my equipment and unused paper you took without following the proper forfeiture procedures and twelve hundred dollars for my car that you knew wasn’t used to transport the counterfeit currency I was convicted of and therefore should never have been taken in the first place,” I said. Tarr’s smile quickly vanished and mine – although reeling with anger from the destruction I knew they had just committed – got wider. This was my ball game, it was the bottom of the 9th, and I had one more pitch to go for a third out. Their questioning of me back at their downtown L.A. field office ended up being more of a tongue lashing reprimand back to them. When they asked me, “If you knew we were following you, why didn’t you just come forward?” My chipper response was, “what – and spoil all the fun, this was my cat and mouse game guys.” As I mentioned before, Rappe had previously accused me of playing cat and mouse with the Secret Service before my arrest when I wasn’t doing it. (Sure, leading them around on wild goose [Bob Anderson] chases could be considered that, but I’d term that tactic more so as looking out after my property which I knew they wanted to get their hooks into.) I wanted to make sure I let them know I was playing cat and mouse this time. “I haven’t had this much fun in years. It’s almost better than sex. Now give me my stolen property back!” I said. My self-satisfied smug look sent chills of anger down the agents’ backs, but they couldn’t do anything about it. I hadn’t broken the law. I just love revenge that doesn’t breaks the law. You can enjoy it to the max without fear of getting arrested and irritate the hell out of ’em. Now I know many of you don’t like my attitude here, but it is my opinion posed in the context of freedom and the First Amendment. Is this a great country or what? : - )
         Those figures I quoted them were only approximate. The equipment and paper really comes to $6,879.06 and the car comes out to $1,200.00. That includes the price I paid for it used including sales tax and recent repairs I did to it or had done to it by a shop in order to make it run good. After I got my personal possessions that were inside of it back I found my pair of dark glasses was missing. Their cost is $20.00. And, of course, these figures do not include interest I lost by not having the money invested in a high-interest earning savings account where it would have been. I’ve tallied up total amounts owed me for this case, and all others, in a document I call Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable. Judicial personnel interested in making right their debts – or just wanting to know what they owe – are encouraged to request a free copy of this 148-page document from the author at any time.
         When they first approached me back at work I still had three hours to go before getting off, but they insisted I go with them right then. (Obviously I’ve tallied up those lost hours in the above mentioned Statement.) During questioning at their field office, I bragged about how I was listening in to their conversations the whole time on my police-band radio. After they were finished with me, probably pissed they couldn’t arrest me, they drove me on back to where my car was parked. Absent the radio, they may have just shoved me out the door to hoof it back on my own, but they wanted to check out that radio.
         By now I was on a first name basis with Tarr which, I’m sure, irritated him to no end – which is exactly why I did it. Oh, I just love it when a plan comes together. : - ) “Mike ol’ buddy, tune in your standard surveillance frequency and I’ll tune you in here,” I boastfully said as I was showing off my radio. Mike looks at it and noting the dial’s position says to his fellow agent in the car, “Key up Baker frequency.” “Testing 1, 2, 3,” was the response. A flabbergasted look appears on Mike’s face as I said while making a waving scolding finger motion, “Thou shalt not use Baker frequency on me again. You know, if you were to give me back my six thousand eight hundred dollars I would be tempted to not tip people off that you have under surveillance or teach others how to counterfeit money.” By the way, Baker frequency, which is only one of many frequencies assigned to the Secret Service by the Federal Communications Commission, is located at 165.7875 MHz.
         Disclosing surveillance information to a suspect (or even teaching others printing “trade secrets”) may violate certain laws by being considered “interfering with police activities” or “obstructing justice” (as if some of what they do to us doesn’t obstruct justice), therefore those engaged in it often cannot come right out and admit it. Notice I didn’t say, “give me my money or I’ll do….” I merely used round about wording just so they’d “know” what was happening because they weren’t giving me my money back.
         After I found out how badly they tore up our house I typed an anonymous condemnatory letter to the Secret Service clearly indicating my teaching and disclosing activities will be a continuing part of my recreational hobby activities to help recoup unnecessary losses I previously sustained and also to help thwart law-enforcement’s sneaky practices to entrap others. (I still remembered how they bugged that snitch back in ’77 that I showed a counterfeit bill to and had him try to get me to say things incriminating.) Revenge as a recreation you say? Sure, why not? Some people play golf for recreation. Revengers get revenge for fun and sometimes profit – or in the very least, restitution. To this day, no law-enforcement personnel at all (I got into tipping off anyone I heard under surveillance, even if agencies that have never done me wrong were involved) have offered any comment on these activities and not the least hint of an objection about my having this ongoing fun. (Besides the Secret Service, the communities of Torrance and Manhattan Beach were also advised of my ongoing plans to continue tipping off other people under surveillance to help recoup unnecessary losses I sustained during their abusive tactics. They too, like their federal cohorts, have offered no comment and not the least hint of an objection about my continuing to do them now or later down the line.) And in my view, lack of complaint means acceptance. It is unclear whether they really don’t care about losing the cases they wouldn’t otherwise be losing, or if they just want me to think that it isn’t important to them so that I’ll tire of my activities and stop on my own accord. Either way, they cost me in ways they shouldn’t have cost me, and I’ve enjoyed returning that favor in the small ways I have. It’s interesting to note that after I was arrested a second time for counterfeiting in 1981 and told them I was able to do it so much better because inmates in prison taught me their trade secrets, they never asked who these guys were. If it is O.K. to do then, maybe those engaged in it don’t have to do it behind closed doors. They can freely enjoy it to the max. Party time!!! : - )
         As it turns out, Agent Tarr was the culprit who was in charge of the troop of about nine vandalizing, thieving, and rude agents the day they searched our house. As if to purposely incite my anger, searching agents, the wicked malcontents that they were, were very malicious as they ransacked and vandalized the house, particularly my bedroom. Although I can’t prove it, I’m sure they knew how extremely neat and fussy I am about my personal property. As if a slap in the face, they even had the nerve to leave their dirty empty McDonald’s food wrappers, from their lunches, laying inside my desk drawers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, items were taken outside where it was lightly raining that day and they ended up getting damaged. When my innocent elderly mother spoke up to complain she was very rudely spoken to and threatened to stay seated or she would be handcuffed. These improper searches could just as easily have been done properly and that would accomplish their goal just as effectively – if not more so. And even if it wasn’t more effective, it sure would have eliminated a lot of revenge later on down the line. Those agents were like a runaway truck on a steep, icy hill, careening wildly out of control and they needed to be taught that that’s not the way to drive – not with me as their passenger anyway.
         Even though I had no illegal materials or equipment at the house (and no criminal charges were ever filed or a parole violation imposed) agents, working in cahoots with Rappe to conspire this crime, seemed determined to not leave empty handed. Probably mad I kept harping about wanting my car back, they were going to screw me back as bad as they could no matter what it took. With a search warrant stating they could take anything having to do with photography and printing, they ended up taking a light-duty movie camera tripod and movie camera lights which belonged to my father and clearly, without a doubt, had nothing to do with counterfeiting in any way, or any crime, and they knew it. Yet did that stop them? No! They took them anyway without any concern for propriety. Their innocence could not be disputed at all because, by their very nature, these items are not used in the manufacture or distribution of counterfeit currency in any way – which any dummy knowledgeable of such things very well knows. Process cameras used to photograph currency are heavy pieces of equipment which stand on the floor. You do not put them on a flimsy tripod. As far as the lights, they took the four recently-purchased flood lights I did intend to use with my home-made wooden process camera so they know my dad’s lights were innocent. Plus, his weren’t even mechanically the type that could be used. But do you think agents cared? Do you think they started to care when they found our what their misbehavior ended up costing them and society later on down the line by the way of my returned revenge? Hmmm. I was particularly mad about the camera tripod and lights because first of all, they weren’t mine, and second, they had, and have, sentimental value as Christmas gifts from friends years earlier and should not have been taken to begin with. Another thing taken was a ground glass Mr. Truxton gave me some years earlier. It was from a view camera, dating back many years, which was broken and unusable. I didn’t use this ground glass to project the magnified image from my telescope of the Sun on any longer, but it was a treasured gift from the single treasured friend I had, and I still want it back. They also took the process camera I was making out of wood from plans I got out of Dorski’s book.
         Another angering thing relates to what they didn’t do. When they found evidence that I wasn’t molesting children they conveniently left that information out of their report. Back in ’77 they made note about how my station wagon appeared to be outfitted for child molesting because of various things they found in it. A Daily News article published a couple days after my 1993 arrest quotes from their 1977 report that my station wagon was, “equipped with various implements associated with child molesting, including a mattress, draw curtains, shaving cream and undergarments.” If they would have written up a complete inventory of the things they found in my car, they would have more properly classified my “implements” as being associated with camping. Saying shave cream the way they did, leads one to believe that it was meant to be used for sexual pleasures in some way. But when you add that I had a razor with it, along with a portable stove, a folding saw, hatchet, a couple changes of clothes, and various other camping-related items, that puts it all in a totally different light. So what if I had some changes of underwear? Now if they would have been child sizes of underwear – that would have been a different story. If someone with a conviction for murder were to have those same things in their car, including the hatchet, I wonder if they’d say that they were implements of an ax murderer? Hmmm.
         And for the evidence that I wasn’t molesting children which was conveniently left out of their report? On the day they tore up the house they found my diary which covers my sexual escapades with other men. Much like Senator Bob Packwood does, I wrote down pleasurable experiences I’ve had in bed with sexual partners. While I often covered how good the sex was and the various things we did, nothing was as kinky as what sportscaster Marv Alpert would have included in his diary if he were to write one. Just traditional good ol’ gay sex. But I did include the ages of the men I made love to and all were 18-years-old or older – although not much older. My parents knew I was gay at the time of course, but they never knew about my diary. When I got home that night its many pages were spread out on my bed as if purposely left that way so my parents would find them and read what I wrote. Surely the feds were reading them too. Yet when they saw my activities were with legal-age guys do you think they noted that in their report? Of course not. Their idea was to make me out to be as bad as possible, even if they had to hide some of the truth to do it. The U.S. Attorney prosecuting me on the threatening letters in ’93 continued on with this lie, telling the court that I was continuing to engage in child molesting activities right up to the time of my arrest. We’ll be covering his multitude of sins later on, but just let me add now that that alone prompted me to stay in a self-imposed silence regarding Snake’s activities that much longer. He come out a goat too – probably more so than Rappe. Oh well!
         Yes, I had sex in my station wagon. S o what. It’s with legal-age men, and I don’t hide that fact. To this day, even though I live alone and could bring someone home; those I meet in Hollywood or West Hollywood we do it down there in the privacy of a van I now have. There’s no need to drag ’em on home to make love. Some people may say that doing it in a car is illegal. That may be true if somebody can see in. But if you’re behind closed curtains you’re not doing sex in public, which would be a crime. And for your information, my current van is registered as a housecar; just like a large motorhome. I don’t see anybody sniveling about old retired husbands and wives possibly having sex in their vehicles as they travel our beautiful country. Just try it and you’ll have the Good Sam Club bitching at ya’ – or maybe the American Association of Retired Persons.
         Another thing that angered me at the time was when they interviewed Lee Sullivan about my activities they made a point of telling him that I was a child molester. Now Lee knew about my past because I told him, but that’s the kind of thing you don’t want people knowing. I guess that’s one reason I became such an advocate of speaking favorably toward embarrassing the judicial system back. You see, it’s one of VOCAL’s goals and is included in the OATH.

         Within days of our house’s search, my father formally complained about the destruction and thefts in writing to U.S. Magistrate James J. Penne, who was the one who authorized the search warrant. He promptly received word back from Penne that he transferred the complaint to the head United States Attorney, Andrea S. Ordin. We never even got the courtesy of a reply from her, let alone an apology or the return of the innocent movie camera tripod, movie camera lights, and ground glass. After this vandalism and theft I knew that in some way I was going to get my turn. These actions of grave disrespect to my property, along with Municipal Court Judge William G. Willett’s misdeeds later in 1985 and ’86 (covered in Chapter 9) were instrumental in my decision to disrespect other people’s property by way of vandalisms in March through July 1986. Truly, Rappe and his bag of cohorts, dunces that they were, all come out the goats in this mess.

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         Ever since “vandalism day 1980,” as I call it, I knew I was going to make them pay big time. Teaching counterfeiting and tipping people off that are under surveillance won’t cut it though; not after what they did. Neither will printing up only enough money to reimburse me for the equipment, car, and paper they stole back in ’77 and ’78. I wanted more. Trouble is though, the heat was on. If I was going to pull this off, I’d have to bide my time until I was sure they’d given up following me all over the place.
         I never saw them after “V day,” but that didn’t mean they weren’t keeping an eye on me. Going on the assumption of “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” I would have expected them to use some better surveillance methods from that point on so I wouldn’t spot them. The fact that I didn’t spot them either meant they weren’t following me, or they finally got their ducks in order and got it done right. Not knowing which, I decided that patience is a virtue worth trying.
         It was 1981 before I was starting to get back into operation. This time, no one was going to know what I was up to. Even my lover was kept in the dark. From my “teachers” in prison I learned that a Multi 1250 is an excellent press on which to print money. Not only does it give excellent quality, but it is easy to operate for someone with less experience than a professional printer. I purchased a used one in fair to good condition for around $2,500.00 from a company I’d seen an ad for. After I gave it a complete overhaul and installed all new ink rollers I was well satisfied with the quality it could put out. It was a night and day difference from that table top press I had back in ’77.
         Improving on Dorski’s design, I constructed a vertical process camera out of wood which you can see in the photographs at the end. I also rigged up a vacuum frame in which to hold the negatives in contact with the plates as the arc light burns in the image.
         You would think my main worry would be getting paper though. Well it wasn’t, because I already had the paper. 60 reams of it – my old favorite, Cranes Crest 20 lb., White Wove. Wow!!! And the easy way I got it was totally by happenstance. Soon after leaving the oxygen delivery company, I answered an ad in the newspaper for telephone sales. I did not know it until I got there, but this company has its employees call other businesses offering to sell stationary and other office-related products. One of the catalogs they had was from Zellerbach Paper Company. It then dawned on me, the large paper company, with their own security people, consider orders of certain kinds of paper by private individuals as suspicious. Yet this fly-by-night place I’m working for would have no idea about that. Could they, who had a running account with Zellerbach, order it for me without triggering their security people to once again call the feds? Hmmm. Turned out, it worked. This fly-by-night place received my order and I picked it up from them. Before I took it to the storage locker I recently rented though, I made sure I wasn’t followed.
         This time, instead of renting a single apartment, I rented a one bedroom. The printing process takes three passes through the press, once for the green seal and serial numbers on the front, once for the black printing on the front, and once for the green back. It should dry for at least a day between printings, and to do so I had small stacks of money, no taller than an inch high, spread out all over the bedroom floor. Truly I needed a lot of floor space.
         Because I lost my equipment last time when they called around to local storage places inquiring about any tenant with my name, I wanted to rent a locker this time in another name. The ideal ID to print up would obviously be a driver’s license. But I didn’t have the skill, nor the equipment, to print on color photographic paper, which was what our licenses were printed on back then. Some months earlier my lover had to get a copy of his birth certificate in order to get a passport that he wanted. I noticed all it was was a photostatic copy that was imprinted with a purple seal to signify it as certified. That would be easy to counterfeit. Just photograph the purple seal like I did money, use purple ink in the press, and presto – paper imprinted with purple certified seals. All that’s left then is to send it on through a second time to print the actual certificate with black ink. From the downtown L.A. records office that stores such records, I purchased a copy of my own birth certificate to use as the original to copy from and I was in business. I did the same thing with my social security card which had red and blue ink printing on it.
         With these identification documents typed up with another name on them, I rented a storage locker similar to the kind I had before. Now if anything went wrong, as it did, at least I wouldn’t lose my equipment. I also made sure no toll calls were on our phone bill either so no snoops would be finding out I made purchases like they did last time. Those other identification documents play a key roll in some of my activities with Snake and his minions so keep them in mind as we get back to the main subject of this book later on.
         Another thing that played a very key roll was a genuine one dollar bill that I played off to them as being counterfeit. Huh? That’ll take a little explaining, folks, and we’ll do that in its proper time. But for now I’ll tell you about this other technique I was experimenting with.
         The main drawback in the whole printing process was the paper. I carefully chose the original bills I photographed from and my counterfeits were sharper than some poorly-printed genuine bills where too much ink was laid down. The best paper I could get though, was not as close to the feel of real money as I would have liked. The ideal situation, baring having a batch of the real paper, would be to bleach the ink out of one dollar bills and print twenties on that. I tried strong acids, strong alkalis, paint remover, and even good ol’ fashion laundry bleach. By the time the black ink was coming off, the paper was also dissolving. One chemical though, potassium hydroxide, a strong alkali, turned the back yellow within seconds. Green is made up of blue and yellow pigments. In fact, this time I mixed my own green inks by using the right proportions of blue, yellow, and black and got closer shades of green than last time’s purchases of pre-mixed green inks. The yellow image left behind after the blue pigment was bleached out was not blurred in the slightest either. It’s as if it was printed right from the start with yellow ink loaded in the press which can be done.
         But besides doing that, it also shrunk the paper quite noticeably. One was left with the impression that it was a counterfeit bill printed smaller than normal with yellow ink on the back instead of green. Oddly, the green seal and serial numbers on the front of the bill did not turn yellow, possibly having something to do with the fact that they are not engraved printing and therefore would be a different ink chemistry. I can just picture all you people running out to your local chemical-supply store to pick up some potassium hydroxide crystals in order to try this yourself. No need to waste a whole bill though. Just dipping a corner in will suffice.
         Another thing the bleaching did was to add what’s called optical brighteners to the paper. If I spread out on a table a number of genuine bills with one of mine printed on Cranes Crest that has been properly aged, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference in normal lighting without a magnifying glass. But shine an ultraviolet light, also known as a black light, on it and it will glow like a spot light. I always avoided passing to dark bars that often had black lights right by their cash registers. Real money does not have these optical brighteners in the paper and because most papers do, a black light is a rather good device to detect counterfeit money.
         When I got to bragging to Snake and his bunch about my previous counterfeiting activities I wanted to show them a sample. Trouble was though, I didn’t have one to show them. I was able to show off my birth certificates and social security cards, but as far as a counterfeit bill, I was fresh out. I pawned off my genuine bleached, shrunk, yellow-backed one dollar bill as a counterfeit and “proved” it to be counterfeit by shining a black light on it so they could see it glow.
         Counterfeiting is an art, just like any other art, and those who spent oodles of time perfecting it like to show it off to other like-minded appreciative folks. I did hold back a few of my bills for bragging purposes but for reasons I’ll be getting to later, I didn’t have one to show the fellas. Just let me say though that their seeing my “counterfeit” one dollar bill convinced them that I was an expert counterfeiter and they wanted in on it – big time. It was when they thought they were going to lose that opportunity that everything else happened and, assuming my theory is correct, the fires were the ultimate final result. More on that in its due time though. Let’s get back to counterfeiting 1981 style.
         Knowing that bleached ones was a dead issue, I set about putting plan B into operation; using the 60-reams of Cranes Crest I already had. My goal was to print one million dollars using 24 different serial numbers. I could easily pass $2,000.00 per day in twenties, and because it would be at least a couple days before businesses were notified to be on the lookout for certain serial numbers, I wasn’t worried in the least that these bills were on a hot sheet. When I passed another $2,000.00 a month later I would use a different serial number and be in another city. By that method it would be two years before I reused a serial number and surely by then its heat would have cooled down. But in case it didn’t, I planned to do those passes far away from where the others were done. And when I’m talking passes here, I’m talking traveling throughout the United States in a motorhome for years much like some old retired folks do on a full-time basis. They even have clubs for this. They call themselves “full timers.” Ah; the carefree life on the open road.
         But it was not to be. I started out being real choosy who I passed to, just like before. Picking people that looked like they wouldn’t inspect the twenties I gave them too closely. By the way, I also printed and passed some tens and printed some fives which I didn’t pass. Everyone was accepting the bills so easily that I became less choosy in picking who I was going to pass to. The idea was to buy something as cheap as possible in order to get back more change, but not so cheap as to raise suspicions as to why one is using a twenty on such a small purchase. I set $2.00 as being the price of an item that I would purchase. I tried to buy something I could use, but some stores had nothing I wanted so it would just be tossed out.
         This one day in September I walked up to a gas station with a gallon gas can pretending like I’d run out of gas. First off, I didn’t want the guy to see my car, and second, I only wanted $2.00 worth. The guy, who turned out to be the manager of the place, already gave me my change, but hadn’t punched the buttons in yet to turn the pump on. He picked the bill up a second time to look closer at it and told me it’s counterfeit. Before I had a chance to say I just got it as change from the bank he was on the phone. But not on the phone to police. He thumbed through a Rolodex file to come up with the number and I recognized it to be that of the Secret Service. Apparently this guy knew right who to call. The way he picked up so easily on the bill and all, I believe he took some kind of class in how to recognize counterfeit money.
         Anyway, I took off running only to be apprehended by some garage mechanics and other nearby individuals. I had gotten some distance away before they caught me. In fact, I had disappeared in the side garden entrance to a nearby Gemco store long enough to stash the gas can, take off my top shirt, rip off my fake semi-gray mustache, and throw away the pair of glasses I had. I did not wear glasses at the time and these were just a prop to disguise myself. I also had my hair sprayed with make-up spray to make it semi-gray. At the time my real hair wasn’t gray at all. Having done all this, I casually walked past store security at the exit thinking I was home free. When I noticed two individuals following me I took off only to hear one say, “see that’s him, he’s running now.” Apparently they weren’t sure whether I was the culprit or not until I ran. I tried to disappear into a building under construction next door but gave up after being confronted by too many others.
         When they got me to the police station they asked if I wanted to make a phone call but my first thought was to get the make-up spray out of my hair. Knowing it washes out easily with cold water I told the officers I need to use the bathroom first. Once that was done my plan was to play it off as if “these guys just started chasing me, I don’t know what it’s about.” Police at first seemed convinced that I may be innocent and merely run because someone started chasing me. They asked me if I was willing to be taken back to have the victim look at me and I said “sure, no problem,” figuring that now I look so different he’d never ID me. Well, needless to say he did ID me, without any question, or even any mention of me being somewhat different. So much for disguises I guess.
         I was released to the custody of the Secret Service and taken to their, now all too familiar, downtown L.A. field office for questioning. Since our encounters on vandalism day 1980 I had purchased a used van but still kept the station wagon I had back on that fateful day. I was careful to use only it in the passes. In case something went wrong, losing it to the feds was better than losing the van. Counterfeit money was off limits to that van. Hoping to keep them away from the car, which had more counterfeit money in it I planned to pass that day, I played it off during questioning that I took a bus to that area to visit a friend and my van, which I still have, is at home. I gave them its license number and told them to call DMV to verify I own it now. Well they also found out I still have the station wagon too. My taking a bus story wasn’t flying either. Why would I be buying gas if I took a bus? Wonder how it would have turned out if I’d have gotten busted on any other pass at a regular store?
         They ended up driving around the neighborhood until they found the car and once they did that I knew it was all over. No chance in saying I just got that bill as change when the car contains nearly $2,000.00 more of the same serial number. I had already passed about five that day and the change from them was stuffed in a paper bag separate from the counterfeit bills.
         From there on things proceeded quite smoothly, leaving me far from disgruntled and them not coming out like goats needing vengeance once again performed on them. Back in 1980 they took the small process camera I made from plans out of Dorski’s book. I convinced them that I used it shortly before they took it to make negatives. I then said that being I was only printing up a few thousand dollars in order to make back what they stole from me I could do that one at a time without a press. I’m not sure whether such a by hand method would produce a decent result or not, but they bought the lie.
         Happily they didn’t disrespect our house once again. They briefly looked around but that was about it. While they could be criticized for not being as thorough as they could have been, they come out the big winners in the long run. Whether it was an oversight or somebody actively deciding that it’s best to not violate me again, I don’t know. But in any event, we all won and no one come out the goat with big time egg on their faces because of it.
         After I got out on bail I set about the task of selling the equipment. I had already made up my mind, that if I couldn’t pass money as good as mine was and not have it recognized by the average Joe on the streets, then I best get out of the business. Before I sold it though, I briefly thought over whether it could still be done safely if I corrected the mistakes I had made. To be guilty of the crime of passing a counterfeit bill they have to prove there was intent to defraud. Anybody could get an excellent counterfeit bill from somebody and pass it on without knowing it’s fake. It only becomes a crime if someone knows it’s a fake and passes it on anyway. And to successfully prosecute somebody for the crime they present evidence to prove that intent.
         Take last time for instance. If I would have used a pay phone to make my calls to printing supply and ink companies they would not have had the mountain of evidence they did to prove intent to defraud. Having the snitch testify against me and showing the large order of 100% cotton paper I purchased may have tipped the scales against me, but still my mistakes led them right to a conviction. Of course, if they had no idea I had the equipment there wouldn’t have been the threats to give it to them and I could have entered a guilty plea and probably received a fraction of the amount of time I did. And they would have had the added benefit of not coming out the goats they did on account of the my revenge for the stolen equipment.
         And then take this time. Let’s say I’m the average Joe on the street with no criminal record of counterfeiting and no prior printing experience which could be brought up to a jury. Add to that I have no other counterfeit bills in my possession and none in a car registered to me that is parked nearby. Plus lets say I went to the extra trouble to cash a real $100.00 bill in a local bank that morning to get twenties. Now if I get caught I have an alibi and can “prove” I got that bill at the bank; just ask the teller – whose name I would conveniently remember – or look at the video tapes. Present that to a jury with no evidence of prior printing experience or counterfeiting and I’m off scot free because there was no intent to defraud.
         This, of course, is a one time shot. Get busted once and you could never use it again because they would present your first episode to the second jury which would have that to weigh toward your guilt. I shot my wad the first time, and surely more the second time. You can imagine I look at the money I get as change or out of an ATM machine real close. If I ever accidentally passed on a bill without knowing it was fake and got pulled in for it I would have a tough sell to a jury that I didn’t know it was counterfeit. They’d see my two-time record for it and I’d be up the river without a paddle for a long time. To this day I have yet to get someone’s counterfeit bill, or even see another one, and I hope I don’t.
         Along with having the equipment at the storage place, I had four full boxes of printed but uncut and unaged counterfeit money, mostly in twenties and only two of the 24 different serial numbers had been passed. The rest were still virgin bills. There was also a small quantity of tens which had not been tied to me and fives which had never been passed. Going on the assumption that I’d surely meet some trusting person with no printing or counterfeiting past history in prison who would be willing to do my passing for a cut of the proceeds, I decided to hold on to my money. Get this person, go through the steps mentioned above, and train him to be cool if arrested and there is no fear of either me getting caught or him having intent to defraud proved to a jury. Sounded like the perfect crime and that was my full intent at that moment.
         I sold the press and home-made plate maker, which consisted of a separate carbon arc light and vacuum frame with pump, to a private individual who had an ad in a graphics arts publication. I only got like $1,200.00 for all of it, which is a lot less than I paid for the press alone, but at least it wasn’t stolen from me and I didn’t want to spend time shopping around for a better buyer. He was a Hispanic guy and somewhere I recall getting the impression he resold them south of the border and that’s how he made his living. In any event, it was gone and the money was in my bank – and that’s all I cared about. I sold the German lens to my home-made process camera back to the camera store I purchased it used from some months earlier. The camera’s still around, although not as a camera. Parts of its wood were used in other woodworking projects and the basic frame was turned into an exercise machine with which to perform dips on.
         The four boxes of money were individually wrapped in three layers of plastic trash bags and transported up to an out-of-the-way mountain location north of L.A. and buried. I had no idea how long I’d be in prison and there was no use paying rent on a place when I could store it rent free courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service. After all, they owed me something back for what they stole last time.
         Come sentencing though, my whole plans changed. To this day, no judge, except U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher, ever considered past injustices I suffered and took them into consideration in order to hand down a lesser-than-average sentence. (All the others enhanced my sentences.) Normally when a person commits the same crime a second time he gets a much stiffer sentence. Judge Kelleher was different. He took an interest in how I had been violate in my past case and even asked me for more details about it before he handed down his sentence. Having been so sensitive to injustices in the past, I now found myself highly-sensitive to an extra degree of concern and compassion. In reality, it may not have been that much of a deal, but to me at the time it was a wonderful breath of fresh air that I needed more than anything else. Imagine being trapped in a submarine with a faltering ventilation system and suddenly surfacing to the fresh smell of ocean air entering your lungs for the first time in days or weeks. Although he sentenced me to prison (6-months), it was a sentence that clearly had a hidden message behind it. It was like he was saying, “you did wrong and you deserve some punishment, but you were also wronged very badly by us and I recognize that contributed to your misbehavior.” Acknowledging I had been wronged – albeit a silent acknowledgment – was a vital message I carried with me as I began serving my rather-light sentence, and that did my emotional stability more good than a ton of psychiatrists could ever hope to accomplish with years of “traditional” therapy.
         And then to top that off, Judge Kelleher let me stay out for another month through the Christmas holidays (which included my birthday), and that I sort of looked on as reimbursement to how Judge Rosenthal refused the same request exactly 10-years earlier.
         On January 11, 1982 – the two-year anniversary of vandalism day – I surrendered myself to the U.S. Marshals’ lockup as ordered to begin serving my 6-month plus sentence. Plus, you ask? Yes, I knew I faced another 18-months on top of the 6 for violating the parole of the first counterfeiting conviction. Although I was hoping the U.S. Parole Commission would follow Judge Kelleher’s lead and also consider the improprieties of the last case, I knew the unlikeliness of that, and that my added exposure was up to 18 more months after completing the 6. Well they gave me all they legally could; in all I did just over 231/2 months, getting out on December 22, 1983, just in time for Christmas. Just missing being in custody those two Christmases aided the judicial system a lot because it lowered my anger level considerably.
         I already covered how being a child molester is at the bottom of the barrel as far as other inmates seeing you. The counterpart to that is an inmate who is regarded higher than average by his fellow peers. Guys who used a lot of finesse in a well planned out non-violent scheme requiring skills that many don’t possess and which netted them a lot of money clearly falls in that category. Having made the newspapers on account of your crime is another. Many of the black inmates were eagerly awaiting the arrival of entertainer, George Kirby back in ’79 after his conviction for cocaine. Automaker, John DeLorean was an inmate at FCI Terminal Island for a few days before he got out on bail. Even though he wasn’t in the general population with the rest of us, as pre-trial inmates never are, everyone sure wanted to see and talk to him whenever he was escorted past us from one part of the prison to another.
         When I was at FCI Terminal Island the first time no one knew about my child molesting past. I was just an average inmate and got along quite well with everyone. To a certain extent, to make myself appear more skilled to other inmates, I bragged that my counterfeit money was better than it was. This time, I really had money that was better. Before I buried those four boxes of money I saved out a few samples as keepsakes. Not really so much to brag about to like-minded individuals, but a lot of skill, love, and work went into making those bills and I wanted something to remember them by years from now. Pride you ask? Ya. The same kind of pride any skilled artist has. The great photographer, Ansel Adams, surely was pleased to show his magnificent photographs to the general public separate from the fact that he also made his living with them.
         Some inmates hide drugs on them when they know they’re going into custody. I hid one of my lovingly-made counterfeit twenties on me when I entered prison that fateful vandalism-day anniversary. Far from any thoughts of passing it though or defrauding anyone, I had it specifically to show off. I even wrote on both sides, “Counterfeit For Display Purposes Only” just in case it were found. This way no one could say there was intent to defraud behind it and without that necessary element, the mere possession of it is not illegal. At least I don’t think it is.
         As soon as I got released to the general population my first thought was to find Dan Willis to show him what I had accomplished. Just like a grade-school child so proud of his or her school project a caring teacher is responsible for bringing to fruition, I needed to show my primary “teacher” my work of “art.” I was so saddened to learn that Dan had left not too many months earlier, but Lew Hatton was still there. It was such an uplifting experience to have him, an experienced printer from way back (plus a smooth-talking con man to boot), show such surprise in the quality I accomplished. While I wasn’t attracted to him in a sexual way, I could have given him the biggest bear hug right there as we were walking from the north to the south yard that cold winter afternoon. To this day I remember the exact spot we were walking when this praising moment happened.
         One of my hobbies had always been photography and the recreation department needed to fill their position as yard photographer. Inmates that wanted pictures of themselves or friends could purchase tokens in the commissary and have their pictures taken out on the yard or in their living quarters. Because I took pride in composing the shots just right, better than other camera men had done, I was often praised for the quality of my pictures. That, of course, often led to my comment, “you should have seen the money I printed” letting them know how that’s much a photographic process too. While I gave up my plans to enlist someone else to pass the money I had buried, I actively set about passing on the trade secrets I had stored up in my memory.
         While Judge Kelleher’s over-board fairness was instrumental in my decision to no longer involve myself in counterfeiting, the U.S. Parole Commission’s hanging me out to dry was conducive in prompting me to spend all the time they’re making me do turn into a disadvantage for the judicial system – one of those opposites I so much like to accomplish. As they should be able to see, I’m an easy dog to hunt with; as long as they treat me properly. And that’s the key; they’ve got to take that first pro-active step. (It’s still not too late guys; hint, hint!) Now I became the expert teacher of counterfeiting not only money, but any other kind of documents imaginable. While I didn’t have the expertise in printing that professionally-schooled printers would have, I had learned, and in some cases perfected my own, counterfeiter “trade” secrets that were valuable to others wishing to pursue the trade. And I really didn’t even try to hide the fact from staff that I was making my expertise available to others. Sometimes they listened with interest to see how it was done. Of course, I didn’t delve into anything more complex than basic techniques when they were within earshot. Still, you can expect inmate snitches to rat you out sometime. Every prison has ’em. But no one did, and of course as I said previously, I told the Secret Service I was going to teach others how to do it and tip people off that are under surveillance until they gave me my stolen property back. I took a no complaint out of them as being a we don’t care. Maybe they figured it’s job security if others are doing it. After all, there’s a lot of agents, and only so many can be assigned to watch after the President. The rest gotta’ track down counterfeiters, and that’s where we come in. If there weren’t enough of us, they’d be out looking for another job. Do you think they think that way? Hmmm.
         One day an inmate showed me my name in the newspaper. Instead of the government sending me a letter informing me how I could contest the seizure of my car like they did last time, they merely published a notice in the newspaper (Los Angeles Times for September 23, 1982) describing the car along with my name and advised me to make a claim by September 30th or it would be disposed of. I guess they assume that notice covers their asses if I try to claim it later and complain I was never notified they planned to sell it. I would have never known if the inmate hadn’t of accidentally seen it. Anyway, I shot a letter off to them right away suggesting that being this car was used to pass counterfeit currency and the last one wasn’t, why don’t they return this one to make up for the last one that shouldn’t have been taken. If they would have done that I would have accepted the loss of the last one without question. But no, they chose to not respond at all to my letter and totally ignored any responsibility to correct any of their misbehavior. Because of that, as far as I’m concerned, they owe me for both cars and it’s listed as such on my Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable.
         For once I was highly regarded by my fellow inmates, which felt wonderful, but I still had hundreds of thousands of dollars in counterfeit money still buried. Is there a way it could bring me some joy without exposing myself to the dangers of arrest? My first thought, seeing that I was going home a week before the end of the year, was to ring in 1984 with it in a monumental way. By that I mean, take it up to a tall skyscraper overlooking Times Square on New Year’s Eve and just as Dick Clark counts down the seconds on national TV and the time ball drops its last few inches, so does my money. Drops down into the hoards of people on the streets below who scoop it up like manna from heaven. Ooh, I can just see it now. That would piss the Secret Service off royally. It would have been so much fun to do. : - )
         But instead I chose another option. I wrote the Secret Service an anonymous letter a few months before Christmas 1982 with purposely-implanted vague hints that it’s from me and saying that I had about $700,000.00 in counterfeit money buried that I was willing to trade in exchange for a reduction in my parole violation sentence that would get me out by that Christmas. Within days, Special Agent David A. Cahill and a partner paid me a semi-friendly visit asking for the money first before they would ask for a reduction in my sentence. Smelling the con job right from the start, I not only turned his offer down, but I even denied having any money buried or sending the letter. I wasn’t worried it could be tied to be because I used a typewriter from the prison library that is available to all other inmates and I made sure I left no fingerprints behind that could be traced to me. I figured, what did I have to lose. If they refused to deal I’d just finish the sentence I was already doing. They couldn’t extend it any longer, I was already doing the max. And they couldn’t give me any new time because they couldn’t tie the letter positively to me. Guessing it’s from me don’t get them a conviction. So basically this was my ball game; I was calling the shots and not sustaining any of the liabilities. Cool, that works for me.
         Months went by and I never heard a thing from them. It’s clear now they had devised a well-thought-out plan to prompt me to give it up and get nothing in return. Darn con artists that they were – it worked. On February 10, 1983 I was approached by Mr. Sweeney with an enticing offer. (Memory fails me as to whether he was an agent or not. To aid in the preparation of this book I reviewed a number of the letters I had written to the Secret Service and found his name on one written in June 1983 complaining about how they conned me.) In exchange for my services as a consultant to them in the area of training I would get released from prison. I was told the job would include all expense paid trips to Washington D.C. and other various locations to assist in training programs of new Secret Service agents both in the areas of counterfeiting and surveillance. Several of these interviews took place during the next few weeks where they passed it off as an exciting opportunity that could lead to full-time employment and a rather decent career. At no time did any of them (and there were several of them at these meetings whose names I did not get write down) bring up the buried money in the slightest of ways. Their smooth con put all the focus on this job “training” opportunity.
         They were in what I thought was the process of arranging for my release when on April 14, 1983 they come to take me to their office in downtown L.A. under the auspices of being a kind of session where I’d teach the agents some of the techniques I used. Special Agent Paul Lipscomb was the agent overseeing this elaborate con game by now. On this bright and sunny April morning, after having been groomed for weeks into believing I’d be working with them and going home early, Agent Lipscomb “casually” brought up that he “just” learned of the fact that I had some outstanding money buried out in the hills and it would be sort of a “good faith” move on my part if we could just get that “little” matter out of the way before we proceed any further. Having my guard down at the time with thoughts of going home, possibly even that day, I agreed to take them out to where it was buried.
         With a signed agreement from some United States Attorney that I would not be prosecuted for this extra amount of counterfeit money, we proceeded out to Soledad Canyon, north of the San Fernando Valley, and up a semi-steep eroded (luckily we had a 4-wheel-drive vehicle) fire road to the location I buried it some 19-months earlier. After digging all that up, and them as happy campers, we headed on back to their L.A. field office, stopping on the way to get a bite of lunch. That’s all I got out of this con, one day out of jail and a free lunch of non-prison food. Days later Lipscomb told me it all added up to $945,000.00 I gave them, but I’m sure that counted misprints and partially printed bills that were surely in there too.
         Lipscomb said he wanted to give me a lie detector test to make sure I had no more money I was hiding from them before they’d let me go home. Unfortunately I did have some, not to pass though, but just to have as keepsakes. In fact, I even had one in my cell which I showed around to inmates. The trouble was though, that those souvenirs were stashed with the few blank birth certificates and social security cards I had printed in order to rent the storage place in another name. These I’d never been charged with and they were not a part of the immunity from prosecution agreement I had so I decided to remain silent about them and hope I could fool the polygraph by saying truthfully that I have no counterfeit money with which to defraud people. Now that’s true. None of what I had was going to be used to defraud anybody. They were just for display purposes. But they wanted to make sure I had no counterfeit money, no matter what my intent was.
         I brought out about burying the money and plates off Kanan Road in Agoura back in ’77 so the examiner’s question was something like, “other than the money we retrieved today and what you just told me about in Agoura, do you have any other counterfeit money you didn’t tell me about?” I answered no to the question and failed it miserably. Them thinking I was holding out was the reason I was told they could not proceed with the release plans we had discussed. They videotaped me for one hour that evening explaining some of my techniques, but that’s as far as it went.
         There’s an interesting story relating to that money buried out in Agoura. I buried it on a hillside covered with thick chaparral brush. In October 1978 a raging arson-set wildfire swept through the area killing two people, including Mr. Truxton, on its way to the Pacific Ocean. After I got out of prison, I went out there to retrieve it and found the entire hillside totally out in the open. Where once I had to crawl under brush to reach the burial site, let alone to even see it from a dirt road below, now all I had to do was look up at it from the road. Trouble is, digging around, I couldn’t find it. In relation to a Y-shaped tree, singed but still there, near the road I know I was within 10-feet or so of it. There was no evidence of anybody else digging before I got there, nor any indication that rains had washed it down the hillside. I went back there with a metal rod with which to probe down into the ground without having to do a lot of digging and still come up dry. Lee Sullivan had a metal detector so I borrowed that in the hopes of detecting the aluminum plates, which were only 6-inches or so under ground, but still found nothing. To this day I am so puzzled. What happened to them? Would they have vaporized in the intense heat of the fire raging overhead? But even with the fire, wouldn’t the ground act as an insulator? At the most I can see them melting, but not vaporizing where no metal residue is left behind. I know magnets won’t stick to aluminum. Will these electronic detectors detect aluminum as well as other metals? My other thought was somebody saw me bury it and immediately dug it up. The passage of time – winds, rains, and fire – until I got back to it could have erased any evidence that it had been tampered with even if the guy didn’t fill in the hole afterwards.
         I told the Secret Service they would need a large back how (something the size of a Caterpillar model 215 excavator) with a long enough reach in order to dig up a good chunk of the hillside while parked level on the dirt road below. They said they would take me out there to get it but still haven’t got around to doing it. I’m still willing to assist them in retrieving it, not because I’m so civic-minded in wanting to help law enforcement mind you – far from it. It’s only because I’m so curious as to what happened to it, and everyone I talked to about is equally perplexed.
         After going through all this effort in trying to get out early, I did two things you may find surprising. If an inmate was denied parole, like I was this second time, and told to continue serving time until their “mandatory release” date, they still got good-time and work-time credits taken off the full term the judge handed down at the time of sentencing. Back then, they calculated our work-time credits manually after our statute-mandated good-time credits were subtracted off of the full term. A computation sheet we were given by staff gave our release date with only the good-time credits applied. That is because a staff member in the records office entered our work-time credits periodically only after we earned them. Those going out on mandatory release didn’t know their exact release dates until a staff member did the final calculations a few month or so before they were expected to be released. Of course, we inmates could always figure it ourselves and get it within at least a day or two, but I wanted to know the exact date then and now.
         In mid-1982 a cooperative staff member in the records office calculated my date by hand one month at a time on through the end and told me it is December 22, 1983. Because she had all the figures in front of her she penciled them on my official records which tracked such things. Sometime after the first of the year I went up to the records office for some reason that has long since faded from memory, but because my file was pulled out I asked the new staff member, who recently took over that position, what my release date was. She set about the task of manually figuring it just like the former one did some months earlier, only she made an error and I saw it right away. When she saw my work-time credits calculated on through December 1983 she mistakenly took it to be December 1982 – which is where most inmates would have been calculated through at the time – and figured from that point, in effect giving me double credits for a number of months. And like the former staff member, she too entered her calculations in the official record and told me my release date was November 2nd. Would they catch this error somewhere down the line I wondered? I was hoping not. This would have gotten me home for the entire “holiday zone,” that wonderful time span between Thanksgiving and New Years which has always been one of my favorite times of the year. Plus I would have been out for and my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary on December 10th and my birthday a week before Christmas.
         Each housing unit is headed by a Unit Manager, and under him or her is a Case Manager. It is the Case Manager’s job to handle all the paperwork relating to inmates assigned to the unit. My Case Manager at the time was Ms. Lynda Croasmun. If an inmate is going to get released to a half-way house several months before their scheduled release date, as many do, the Case Manager starts the paperwork well beforehand. One day she called me into her office and asked if I wanted to apply for a half-way house. By doing it at the early date she did, I knew they hadn’t caught their error yet. Later on you’re going to see how they refused me a half-way house placement in 1996 even though they knew it would delay my disclosing the identity of the arsonists that much longer. By then, releasing former child molesters had become a hot political issue and they weren’t going to give us a chance to reoffend during an early release and bring them bad publicity in return.
         But back in ’83, when wiser heads prevailed, they weren’t so oppressive. But I turned Ms. Croasmun down. I, who was trying my darnest to get out early told her no thank you. Why, you ask. I’m glad you did. And if you didn’t, you can always skip it. But if you do, you’ll miss some important details that relate to why the arsonists are enjoying an extended vacation.
         Beginning shortly after my arrival at FCI Terminal Island, and continuing until just a few days before my release date, I was taking a fairly full schedule of college classes. One of the first was Introduction to Computers and it included programming in BASIC, a popular programming language included with all home computers sold at that time. Unfortunately, it did not include any hands-on study with computers though. What I did learn stimulated my intellectual juices to such an extent that astronomy and bird watching, my two primary hobbies, were put on the back burner. Without ever touching a computer keyboard, and only reading one book with a brief chapter on BASIC, I was spending much of my free time writing simple programs.
         When I turned down Ms. Croasmun’s half-way house offer I knew the upcoming semester included a class that would have actual computers for us to use, computers compatible with the then very popular Apple II. Now prison became too fun to leave. TI, as we called it, was a rather laid-back non-restrictive institution back then with little violence. A few fights here and there and only one stabbing happened the entire time I was there both times. I had a fun job, a private room (not a cell but a room) with my own key to it in the south yard and a view of the harbor people would pay big bucks to have. Plus, I had a certain status among the other inmates and no one knew I was a child molester.
         As my incorrect release date was approaching, Ms. Croasmun called me in to her office once again, this time to sign my conditions of release. When I noticed the date on the papers she handed me I told her, “this isn’t my correct release date.” With a mindset typical of Bureau of Prisons’ staff members taught to believe in the accuracy of official records, she said, “yes it is.” “No it’s not” I responded. “Yes it is,” she said with a little firmer voice. “No it’s not,” I said, having firmed up my voice a tad bit by now. Finally deciding that I seemed to know from where I spoke she asked me, “Well, what is your release date then?” December 22nd” I answered. “What makes you think it’s December 22nd?” she inquired. I then proceeded to explain how the error was made. Once she heard that she abruptly snatched the papers out of my hand and said, “I’ve got to check into this.”
         A day or so later she come to me with the papers to sign after the date had been corrected and I did so without hesitation. (It turned out my computer class ended just days before my release date.) I then asked her if I could have a furlough to go home for Thanksgiving. Furloughs and day passes were commonly given to inmates that had good behavior back then. Because of my molesting history I was never able to get one in the past but I reminded her that it’s only because of my honesty that I’m still in for Thanksgiving. “Good point” she thought, “Why don’t you run it by the warden?” I did, and sure enough, he let me go home on Thanksgiving. He’d only give me a day pass though, not an overnight furlough.
         What did I do you ask? No, I didn’t molest children as some folks would fear. The June 1983 issue of Astronomy magazine published their very first astronomy-related computer program in BASIC. This program calculated star time, known as sidereal time, from local time, date, and longitude entered by the user. Previously when I wanted to have this time, I had to calculate it by hand after looking up some data from a table that changes daily. Being the amateur computer programmer that I was becoming, and wanting to enhance the program to calculate other data not a part of the magazine author’s original program, I needed some mathematical formulas from some of my astronomy books at home. With the few hours I had available to me, I got what information I needed, enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, and rushed back to my computer so I could make “SID,” the abbreviated name I assigned to Sidereal Time, really hum.
         As you can see, computers became rather important to me and learning more about them is now as much of a hobby as astronomy and bird watching are. Getting purposely cheated out of nearly finishing a computer technology class in 1996 is one of the delaying factors that is keeping the arsonists away from justice a while longer. All that will be covered in its due time, but by seeing how someone is willing to spend more time in prison for a beginner’s class in computers, surely you’ll be able to see how very much more important that advanced class was to me. Just some more history to have stashed away when you read about my reasoning behind granting the arsonists an extended vacation.
         I turned down all offers to work in cahoots with other inmates after my release from TI. Everyone had the idea I was more of an expert printer than I really was, probably because of me embellishing my skills a tad bit, but they really weren’t that far off though. Other than running into an ex-inmate at the parole office a time or two, and once at a restaurant, I never had any contact with anybody I knew from prison. While I was nowhere near as mad at the feds as I was last time – mainly because of Judge Kelleher’s compassion and no equipment being stolen – I still had a bone to pick. They wouldn’t give back this time’s guilty car as a make up for taking the innocent one from last time was one thing. Being conned was another. Yes, I know I would have missed my computer class if they would have gotten me out back then. That’s not the point. I was still hood winked and it’s the principle of it. The fact that I benefited greatly by not getting out early lessened the liability they created for themselves, but it didn’t erase it. I wasn’t going to print any money, and I wasn’t going to break the law. But I was going to cost them.
         I plucked down 300 bucks or so for a Bearcat scanner, a radio receiver that can be programmed to scan individual given frequencies, entire bands, or groups of bands. When no activity is present on a given frequency it scans on to other frequencies. This way, I can listen in on a number of frequencies all at once because it will stop while activity is present on a channel. Bearcat and other companies publish books that list the exact frequencies various organizations transmit on and by punching them in on a keypad one can be assured of receiving whatever is said on that channel. One book listed state and county law enforcement and another listed government organizations. Besides Secret Service in general, they break it down even farther to show which ones the White House use in their guarding of the President.
         As I openly disclosed I was going to do until they made amends for the thefts and vandalism they had committed, I resumed my listening in to others that are under surveillance and tipping them off. Only this time I had a decent radio. The other one, with its cheap analog tuner, never gave me an exact readout as to what frequency I was on. I found the Secret Service on the dial merely by knowing they were on the upper VHF band after I saw their walkie-talkie’s antenna length and tuning through the dial until I found them talking. I knew they were just above 162.55 MHz, which is where I received NOAA’s National Weather Service transmissions, but that’s as close as I got. I learned they called that frequency “Baker” when Tarr, wanting to hear my radio, said the word. And now with a book listing all government frequencies and indicating the word “Baker” by one of them I learned it is at 165.7875 MHz. Punch that frequency in on the scanner and it’s mine.
         Of course, as I said before, the Secret Service uses a bit more secrecy in their conversations than other surveillance law-enforcement organizations do. It was much easier to identify the surveillance location and the mark they were watching when these open-conversation guys were on the air. By the summer of 1984 I had acquired a job for a company delivering hardware to construction sites. A few days before Labor Day, and well into my counter-surveillance measures, I noticed I was being followed by someone. I wasn’t doing counterfeiting so I hadn’t even been looking out for anyone. I briefly thought it could be over my countermeasures but quickly discounted that because I openly proclaimed I was going to do that and they never objected in the slightest of ways.
         What gave them away was their vehicle. I was making a delivery in an out-of-the-way construction area where large luxury vehicles are noticeably out of place. If they’d have had a pick up truck or something like that I’d never have noticed. That particular day I left my scanner in my personal van parked back at work because it wasn’t an activity I engaged in every day. My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed the same vehicle wherever I went. After I got off work and into my own van I turned on my scanner to listen in. Here it was, nearly 5-years since agents last trailed me, and when I boastfully showed them my radio. So where do you suppose I found them on the dial? That’s right – right there at Baker frequency. These dimwits didn’t even check past notes from previous agents to determine that Baker was no longer a “secure” channel. Wonder if these kids skipped their homework in grade school too? Hmmm. They had a bunch of channels to choose from too. It wasn’t like the FCC allotted only Baker channel to ’em. They could have even used one up in the UHF frequency range, which they knew that old radio didn’t pick up. Of course, my scanner did pick up those frequencies, but they didn’t know I had it.
         We only had to work half a day on that Friday before the holiday. Before I left work I called the Secret Service and asked them, “I noticed you guys following me, would you like to talk about it?” At first the guy I talked to denied it, but when I was persistent that I knew they were he then connected me to another agent who admitted it. Then I told him I’m not doing anything illegal and am willing to come in to their office if they’d like. “O.K., come on down, do you know where we’re at?” “Of course I know where you’re at” I said sort of with surprise, but then realize that this guy may not know of my extensive history with them and multiple visits to their office. Knowing they had their own employees’ garage for parking I asked if he could clear it so I could park there and save the high public-parking fees. He did and I was on my way, but not without making one quick stop home first.
         You’ll recall, I previously saved several counterfeit bills as keepsakes and they were responsible for failing that lie detector test they gave me back on April 14, 1983. I assumed that’s why they were checking up on me, probably thinking I still had a stash somewhere. Wanting to make sure I don’t fail another test they might want to give me, I flushed all the bills I had down the toilet and knew I could then say with comfortable honesty that I had no counterfeit money. As it turned out, they did want to give me a polygraph. They asked me about passing any counterfeit money in a certain very recent time span. I offered to answer questions for time spans all the way back to when I was arrested in September 1981 but they were only interested in a narrow slice of recent time. Obviously somebody with my patterns of activity, or quality of money, was out passing some. Who knows, maybe it was one of my former “students.” Anyway, they seemed satisfied about the results of the polygraph and I went on home, never to talk to them or be followed by them again – as far as I know.
         Before I departed though I reminded the agent about the money buried out in Agoura and he said he’ll get back to me when we’d be going out there. I also mentioned I still had 7 reams of Cranes Crest left from that 60 reams I bought from that fly-by-night telemarketing place. I mentioned I’m wanting to sell it and have offered it to other inmates. He asked if I’d tell them who it is that buys it and I said I would. Now, we may have been on a more friendly basis this time, but I wasn’t that friendly. It’s for sale to anybody on a no-questions- asked and no-ID-required basis. Yes, I’ve still got it – it’s up in my attic right now. I paid 28 dollars and some odd cents per ream – boy it was sure a lot higher than the first batch I bought some three years earlier – and I’m selling it for $28.00 per ream too. I’m not making a thing on it, just my cost is cool with me. Aren’t I worried the Secret Service will attempt to steal it again? No. They’ve known I’ve had it all these years without any hint of threatening it out of my à la Rappe/Davidson. I tend to believe they’ve learned their lesson from vandalism day 1980, which cost society a bundle. If they want to cough up 28 bucks a ream it’s all theirs. I don’t care who I sell it to. I’m a bottom-line oriented guy! I just want my money out of it.
         I’m sure you’re wondering now why I come forward to the Secret Service this time when last time I was actively involved in a game of cat and mouse with them. Well first of all, my anger level was nowhere near as high as it was back then. No equipment was stolen from me, no threats were made to give up anything, Judge Kelleher was fair beyond expectations, and besides any of that, my countermeasure practices were successfully venting the anger I was still in possession of. Of course, wanting to get them off my back so I could continue my anti-surveillance activities in peace, which was more fun than another cat and mouse would be at this time, was also on my mind. I’d already worn out that game. This other one with my new toy (the scanner) was the game-of-the-day at this particular time in my life. They merely lucked out because of the change in my priorities and gameplan.
         We shook hands on my departure and the agent handed me something like $70.00. I assume it was in appreciation for coming forward as soon as I did which saved them days of following me around to see if I was up to anything. You may wonder if I subtracted that 70 bucks off of what they owe me for the theft of my equipment and cars. Of course not. This was payment for my professional consultation that day. They haven’t paid anything toward their debt which is itemized in detail in my 148-page Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable.
         We now come to a warm Saturday in September 1984 which is the subject of our next chapter.

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         In September 1984 I was quite active in the dating scene and was a frequent patron at some of the gay night clubs in Hollywood and West Hollywood. On one particular Saturday afternoon I was window shopping in a part of Hollywood known to be an area where gay people looking for sexual partners often congregate. The night club I had planned to attend did not open for several hours and I was basically just killing time.
         Because computers was now a serious hobby of mine I was considering purchasing one. I had looked at several makes and models at one particular store before I went on down the line to see what other stores had. Farther down, I saw a young man I had seen earlier at the computer store who was also looking at computers. We struck up a conversation together and found out we each had a hobby-like interest in computers.
         After we had been talking for some minutes a flamboyant 19-year-old I had met on the dance floor at the previous June’s Gay Pride Festival approached me with greetings. His gay identity was unmistakable and this caught Michael Reeves, the young man with whom I was having a conversation with, by surprise. Our conversation quickly turned to an inquiry. “Are you gay?” he asked. “Yes, I am” I said. “But you don’t look gay.” I could easily see where this conversation was leading. He apparently had the belief that all gay men are effeminate. But worse than that, he had been taught that being gay is an “abomination” of God. I had not yet written Loving Gay Relationships and the Bible, but still had researched the subject quite a bit. I was always one to speak up for the things I believed in and I was already of the belief that being gay is an inborn quality and that gay people are a part of God’s plan.
         As our talks progressed, Michael seemed quite interested in the subject and I did happen to ask if he was gay or if he ever had an interest in engaging in gay sexual activity. Sometimes people find quite an inner conflict between their own natural inner feelings for someone of the same gender and various conservative religious teachings which speak of such feelings as abominations of God. In the various support groups I’ve been involved with over the years I’ve met people who tried to marry away their gay feelings, figuring that if they get heterosexually married it’ll all just go away. It doesn’t. In the worst case scenario, some have committed suicide because they couldn’t deal with all the inner strife. And that is the real abuse in this country. Those who promote such inner conflicts are the real abusers. All those issues are addressed in Loving Gay Relationships and the Bible so I won’t belabor them here. I just want to emphasize that I will always speak out against issues that could lead to abuse of any kind.
         As it turns out, Michael was 16-years-old so technically I broke the law when I asked if he wished to engage in sexual activity. Not the biggest crime in the world and after I learned of his age I did not freak out and make a point of showing fear or emphasize that he shouldn’t tell anybody. After all, this was Hollywood. This was the city that does not enforce 18-and-over age limits for admission to gay dance establishments even though signs at the door say you must be at least 18. This is the city that has homeless youths rooming the streets along with some underage prostitutes and as of back then, didn’t seem to be making much headway in cleaning up the mess.
         Michael made it clear up front that he wasn’t gay but he wished I would call him. As it turned out, his mother, Margaret Reeves, had the courts take him out of her house because of some of his misbehaving and he was placed in the Children’s Baptist Home in Inglewood. He relayed to me that staff will “slam kids against the wall when they misbehave.” Even though the two of us were separated by some years in age, we were very similar in social experience. We’re both very quiet, shy, non-athletic, intellectual kinds of people who liked the same kinds of music, hobbies, and recreational activities. Michael sure didn’t have anything in common with the kids his own age at the Home who were mostly crude, rude, and loud, loud, loud – both with their mouths and their radios. He often expressed to me how very distressing that is to him and that he doesn’t fit in with them at all. Most of the kids also happened to be black, and although neither of us were prejudice, there is quite a cultural/life dissimilarity. When you are one of the few whites around – and a quiet type at that – this can surely lead to discomfort. Having been in similar living situations in custody, I can relate to this very well. Some of my worst memories of prison life are of the crude, rude, and loud inmates I had to put up with. I was 21-years-old the first time I was put in custody and had difficulty living with the cultural shock. I can imagine how I would have been at 16. And I can imagine being 16 and knowing that my own parents put me there rather than give me the love and support I needed. Everyone says that because I did not have permission from the Home to communicate or see Michael that I am blameworthy. Yet how about their culpability for allowing their staff to man-handle their “inmates?” Michael and I did have more in common than not and that should account for something.
         After the staff became aware of our ongoing friendship and frequent telephone conversations, Michael was apparently harshly questioned and did mention that I did ask him for sex. Police enticed him to wear a hidden transmitter and to try to get me to speak sexually to him so they could get evidence of a crime. Within minutes of our pre-planned meeting at the Manhattan Beach Pier in March 1985 Michael brought up the subject of sex just as the police had instructed him to do. (Detective Patricia Picker, the Manhattan Beach Police Officer in charge of this investigation, snickered in a self-satisfied way when she told me that she told Michael to do this.) Yet, unaware to her, Michael also tipped me off as to the set up so I wouldn’t be entrapped and say anything incriminating. I’m convinced that his purposely not taking the opportunity to get me in worse trouble, as bad as his mother wanted, despite repeated prodding and poking by her and police to do so, was probably an act of defiance against her wishes – his only way to silently disobey her, and I’m sure, knowing what I do about what he told me he’s been through, that did him more emotional good than anything else. It’s noteworthy to mention that besides moving out from under her roof as soon as he turned 18 and was legally able to do so, when we were going out in 1984, and he was 16, he wanted to move in with me – that’s how bad he wanted to get away from that damn Children’s Baptist Home where his mother stuck him.
         After our discussion went on for some minutes police finally moved in. As it turned out, Detective Picker admitted I did not break sexual laws during my monitored conversation with Michael. At first they weren’t even going to arrest me. Before they let me go though, they wanted to search my van. Michael had told them he saw pornographic magazines in one of my cupboards. Michael actually found them one day while rummaging through my cupboards. They all included adult photos, both gay and straight, so there was no problem there. The thing is, they also found a prescription medicine in one of my cupboards that was not registered to me. It wasn’t an illegal street drug. It was a regular pharmaceutical drug that required one to have a prescription for. Someone I was out on a date with recently left it behind in my van and I kept it so I could return it the next time I saw him.
         It was for that I was officially arrested. A Business and Professions Code violation. Section 4230, possession of a controlled substance. Then because of that, they tacked on the soliciting a sex act charge. Once it got to the deputy district attorney though, the prescription medicine charge was dropped but the sex charge stuck. 647a of the Penal Code was the statute I was charged with. (It has since been renumbered to 647.6 PC.) The angering double-standard thing about this Penal Code is that it also includes teenagers soliciting opposite sex teenagers, yet they are never charged – even ones that do sexually interact with each other in a consenting way which is more illegal than mere solicitation. And law book cases, including one I quote below involving a child offender, verify this to be true. In the printed case; In re R. (1970) 83 Cal.Rptr. 671, 464 P.2d 127, 1 C.3d 855 it is quoted, “The words ‘every person’ within this section [647a] means that every person who annoys or molests any child under the age of 18 is a vagrant include a minor as well as an adult.”
         Rather than prosecute either consenting teenage partner, some are legally given free condoms, and if the girl gets pregnant she gets free medical care and treatment paid for by taxpayers. But for me charged with only soliciting a sex act, I couldn’t even get a free attorney which I legally was entitled to with the meager income I was making; 6 bucks an hour. I had to hire an attorney at my expense with money I had to borrow from my parents. Why shouldn’t I get a free attorney like cops do when they are charged with a crime?
         You’ll recall, one of the left over remnants of being molested at age nine by Father O’Dwyer surfaced in 1971 when I spied some neighbor boys engaging in sexual activity among themselves and asked to join in. Months later our activities, along with some I had with other boys, came to the attention of others and ultimately the police. In the three years and one month I served, I, being a young-looking early-twenty’s inmate, was subjected to worse offensive talking sexual harassing solicitation – sometimes even threatful sexual solicitation and at other times harassing threats alone (one memorable offender in particular being a 1st degree murderer) – by hardened muscular convicts and couldn’t get anyone to protect me because it was too “minor” of an issue for prison staff to enforce. (And as I mentioned before, I once got hit by a belt buckle swung by a prejudice inmate and still have a small scar on my forehead to show for it.)
         I did not like being punished by the judicial system for the very same kind of crime I couldn’t get the judicial system to protect me from. If they are so concerned about sexual solicitation as an offense worthy of prosecution, then why weren’t they as concerned when it was directed toward me? And why wasn’t I protected from hearing even offensive speech of a non-sexual nature in every custody situation I’ve ever been in? Some of this was dished out by not only inmates, but by staff members also. Shame, shame! I should not accept being punished by the judicial system for using the very same kind of language I got thrust into? You need to realize that non-sexual language can be just as offensive, if not more so, than sexual language when cussing is involved. (If anything, they owe me! On November 9, 1993 the U.S. Supreme Court said, “Sexual harassment doesn’t have to lead to a nervous breakdown to be a civil rights violation.” In May 1994 a female FBI agent won a law suit based on sexual harassment by other male employees. If people can sue and get substantial monetary compensation from those responsible for allowing or causing sexual harassment then I surely expect compensation for what I’ve been through.) If a statute is to be enforced, then all who break it should be charged – surely those who actually do the act, even teenagers! There is no exception in the law.
         And for that matter, how about other offensive indignities I, as an inmate, was subjected to such as: being stripped naked in front of everyone else and searched into every body cavity and private parts; having to shower in front of everybody else, even officers of the opposite sex on occasion; and even getting sprayed with poisonous de-louse spray while getting booked into the L.A. County Jail. Yes, I was subjected to offensive practices too, and I am truly offended and angered – and remain so, very much so!
         To make this debacle more horrible, near the same time of my incident with Michael, a woman police officer, Sharon Fischer, committed not only the very same act with a 16-year-old boy while on duty, but fondling was also involved – a more serious offense in the law books. As reported in the Daily News on March 13, 1987, her solicitation even involved love letters, a much more severe offense of 647a than mere talking as Michael accused me of. In the end, she was only fired from the police department by Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and not criminally charged at all. Chief Gates gave the following reasons for her dismissal: “1) Improperly writing sexually suggestive letters to a minor, 2) Improperly telephoning a minor at his residence, 3) Improperly permitting a minor to fondle her breasts & buttocks, and 4) Maintaining an improper relationship with a minor” – who was a 16-year-old boy – while doing undercover work. To this day she remains fired and not prosecuted. How dare the judicial system expect me to accept punishment for my deeds when they won’t hold one of their own responsible for worse deeds, in both behavior and language, with a boy of exactly the same age. She actually did the touching and Michael stated in the police report that I did not touch him in any sexual way.
         It’s not right to prosecute some for a charge and not another, especially when that person’s offense was more serious. No one should stand for that. Either all should be charged on a given penal code statute number or none. If anything, police officers should be more accountable to act in a professional manner while on duty, as this policewoman was. Right after the Rodney King beating incident President Bush said, “law-enforcement officials cannot place themselves above the law.” I believe we all have a responsibility to carry on his wishes here and I preach that freely. Sometimes laws are purposely left broadly worded so authorities can capriciously choose who they will get, and to what extent, if they really want to shaft somebody. This tactic was obviously followed here.
         Equally bad, why don’t others who actually do a sex act get prosecuted if I, who was only accused of talking about doing a sex act, get prosecuted and punished. When the Lakewood High School Spur Posse sex scandal broke in March 1993 a female deputy district attorney on TV responded to why many boys were not prosecuted by saying that even though sexual intercourse with a minor is a crime, it is their policy to “not prosecute when the willing participants are of the same or similar age and have a similar social experience in life.” So here we have acknowledged evidence that some sex crimes will be allowed, while people only engaging in verbal sex talk will get screwed badly.
         Sure, the two of us are separated by some years in age, but we were very similar in social experience. We’re both very quiet, shy, non-athletic, intellectual kinds of people who like the same kinds of music, hobbies, and recreational activities. And like I said before, Michael sure didn’t have anything in common with the kids his own age at the Home. We really did have more in common than not. Now that should have accounted for something.
         And then we have adult actor Rob Lowe caught taking pornographic video tapes while actually sexually interacting with a consenting 16-year-old girl (a much more serious violation of the law than what I did with Michael) and receives barely a slap on the wrist as punishment (20 hours community service as reported in the Los Angeles Times September 14, 1989).
         In August 1989 then Los Angeles County District Attorney Ira Reiner responded on national TV to Lowe getting a very minor punishment for his offense in relation to what others would get by saying that when judges see a typical normally law-abiding non-criminal come in front of them they see themselves in that person and are reluctant to punish him the same as a typical criminal. Reiner acknowledged that it is easy to punish a petty thief to jail, but not a white collar normal law-abiding business person who stole millions. I could hardly believe what I heard from him, but these are his true statements and such discrimination makes me truly mad. He basically admits here that there are 2 systems of justice, exactly the thing we should not have to tolerate. Of all the gall, to come out in the open and admit unfairness and not even have shame for it. Hearing statements like that makes me truly feel I’m even more owed compensation. And I feel even less sorry for non-violent revenge I’ve done in the past to even scores for judicial abuse or aggravations.
         And if prosecutors were not seeking county jail or state prison time for Hemet High School football coach Randy Brown (as mentioned by a prosecutor on TV) for arranging sexual liaisons between more than one underage football players and his wife, Kelly, why should I for just discussing sexual activity with a similar age high schooler? Where is the fairness our country was founded upon? I am appalled at the abject sexual discrimination inflicted upon me that no one should stand for. For the Browns, a stiff fine satisfied the prosecutor and court totally. Yet for me, whose monetary expenses greatly exceeded theirs, that was not enough.
         One thing that is particularly extra angering to me today since the Michael Jackson sex scandal broke in the media in 1993, is that I shouldn’t have even been charged to begin with. In relation to Jackson’s investigation, police said that the statement from one 13-year-old boy alleging the two engaged in sexual activity was not enough to file criminal charges if there is no other evidence to substantiate his statement. Yet for me, they charged me even though there was no evidence other than one 16-year-old’s statement, a statement that said I only asked for sex; something much less serious than Jackson was accused of by a younger boy. If more evidence is needed for him, then more evidence should also be needed for me too, if fairness is to be upheld that is. After all, sexual activity with a 13-year-old raises the crime’s severity factor all the way up to the “serious felony” category while mine normally should remain in the “misdemeanor” category. Obviously fairness wasn’t upheld.
         647a considers mere solicitation an offense because the phrasing is offensive to the person who hears it, yet 16-year-olds are exposed to more offensive legally permitted things in movies or even in school they can legally see or hear. And for that matter, MTV’s cartoon characters, Beavis and Butt-Head, aren’t so innocent of offensive language and little kids seem to be permitted to see and hear them on a regular basis.
         While on the subject of movies, try this on for size. In the 1981 movie Private Lessons starring Howard Hesseman, 15-year-old Eric Brown was sexually involved with the 25-year-old family maid played by Sylvia Kristel. If what I did was so offensive then this movie should also be judged as such. After all, even though it had no naked scenes, it clearly showed the passion between the two consenting lovers in bed, in a tub, and elsewhere clearly on screen. And in another more recent movie, Rambling Rose, a boy, Lucas Haas, I believe to be 16-years-old was also involved with an older woman. Why doesn’t the talk of these two adults, let along their consenting actions, violate the offensive part of 647a if my talk does? And in the movie Poison Ivy, released in May 1992, actress Drew Barrymore, who was 17-years-old at the time (and surely 16 when it was made considering her birthday is 2-22-75 and the lag time between filming and release), made love with another person in a consenting way. Then, last but not least, in the 1994 movie Milk Money, a grown prostitute, played by Melanie Griffith, shows her breasts to a boy, advertised in promotional literature to be 12-years-old, and his two friends who could have been 13. She was offered and was given money to perform the deed.
         It’s also unfair to consider Michael a victim when he’s two years younger than the legal age of consent to engage in sexual activity, but then treat him as an adult and punish him as such if he were to do a serious crime. (A 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allows states to execute those as young as 16-years-old. According to USA Today September 28, 1994, page 11A; 21 states do allow it at age 16, 4 at age 17, and 12 at age 18. 13 states have no death penalty. In 1994 2/5 of juvenile judges polled by the National Law Journal would extend the death penalty to 14- and 15-year-olds. A sixth of them would even execute kids as young as 12.) Either treat all 16-year-olds as children in all cases as it pertains to the law or as adults in all cases. The judicial system shouldn’t flip-flop them back and forth for their benefit to use as they see fit. They can’t have it both ways. That is the real child abuse in this society! That is using somebody to gain one’s own advantage and that is absurd and unfair.
         Child advocates will come right out and say that children can’t give consent to have sex and that they are not responsible for it if it happens to them. Well then I ask, when a 12- or 13-year-old does a serious crime and everyone jumps on the band wagon and yells for their punishment of time in custody just like any other adult because they are “responsible” for their actions, why are they considered “responsible” for that, but not if they choose to engage in sexual activity with somebody? This double standard having it both ways ain’t right folks.
         Now here’s another thing. They say a 16-year-old can’t legally give consent to do sex so having consensual sex is not a legal defense for someone charged with this “crime.” But then they turn around and let the 16-year-old give consent to have an abortion if she, under her free will, wants to have one – and she doesn’t even need her parents’ consent for it either in some cases. The November 5th, 1992 edition of the Los Angeles Times quoted a statement by Judge Jerry T. Lockett of Lake County Florida. “If a minor is sufficiently mature such that the law has to accept her consent alone to an abortion, surely she may consent, as a matter of law and privacy, to the act which led to the necessity for the abortion, i.e., sexual intercourse.” At least some judicial people are waking up to fairer open-minded views.
         If their reasoning is that my deed involved gay sex and the police woman’s did not, then how dare them further. 647a makes no distinction there. All who commit the offense are equally guilty, no matter the gender of the people involved. Either charge all of us, or none of us. Don’t you dare nit-pick who you’ll charge and who goes free at your whim. And don’t you dare do it at my expense and expect me to pay for your prejudicial selective persecutions. That’s my view! I welcome yours. I will not stand for any form of sexual-activity prejudice committed against me by anyone! And I’m more firm in this position today (and more angered) since getting 6 extra months tacked onto my ’93 federal sentence because of this double-standard type of conviction.
         The fact that not everyone is charged indicates they do see it as a minuscule kind of offense. Beyond that, if actually interacting in a mutual way is such a harmful deed to a younger partner Michael’s age as some seem to think, it would be illegal everywhere – but it isn’t. At some places it is perfectly legal for people of my age to mutually sexually interact with opposite-sex people Michael’s age, and in some locations – Washington D.C. for just one example where they liberalized their laws within this range in September 1993 – even same sex people Michael’s age. In May 1996 it became newsworthy talk show material when a teacher had legal sex with his 17-year-old student in Pahrump, Nevada where the age of consent is 16. He only faced moral trouble because it was a teacher/student affair, not because he broke a criminal age law. I shouldn’t have to put up with a double standard and I can’t see how they have the nerve to expect me to. Fairness is not an adjustable concept. It does not fluctuate based upon a person’s legal status (whether he’s free or in custody) or degree of powerlessness.
         Beyond any of that, the punishing part that is so bad is the part they don’t even consider as punishment – the loss of MY hard earned money. I’ve never hid the fact that being forced to pay money is a hot-button issue to me. The 40 days in county jail and 320 hours of community service time I did is long over. I no longer feel any lingering bad effects from that. But the financial loss continues – I’m still without MY money. All told, it cost me $16,563.49 and if that money would have been in the bank or invested elsewhere drawing interest, as it should have been, it would have been worth $43,290.69 at the end of 1997 – the last date loses are calculated through on my Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable. Now that’s anger provoking.
         To aggravate the situation further, the DA filed an extra third count against me that according to the statute’s wording, and the police-recorded entrapment attempt tape, prove I was not guilty of that one. My words to Michael did not violate the statute in count three. He initiated sex talk because of police prodding and I tried to change the subject to something else. You’ll recall, he actually tipped me off so I wouldn’t say anything incriminating. Yet count three of the sexual solicitation was for this particular conversation. The other two counts were for soliciting Michael on two other occasions when we went out and were statutorily valid. Shouldn’t he be the guilty party on count three rather than me? Hmmm.
         Now here’s the other thing. The case should have been handled out of the court prosecuting Hollywood committed crimes, because this is where Michael and I originally met and where I verbalized my infamous words. This way, the whole situation could have been kept in the proper context of the more sexually-lenient Hollywood environment and treated as such. While free on my own recognizance and awaiting trial on this case, I called the Hollywood substation of the Los Angeles Police Department about a man I knew who was sexually interacting with a 16-year-old male prostitute and they weren’t concerned as long as it was consenting. The officer I talked to didn’t even want the man’s license number when I offered it to him. I even told them the man is keeping the boy out of school so they can be together. Even at that, the officer was not interested in taking a complaint. This is the agency that should have handled my interaction with Michael if anyone was going to. NOT Manhattan Beach where the complaining mother lived – a mother who gave up custody at that. Hollywood is where my “crime” of solicitation took place. Maybe the Torrance district attorney knew the Hollywood area was more lenient about such matters and figured they could stick it to me more if they handled it. They should have kept their noses out of it and let the proper jurisdiction handle it. The Manhattan Beach Police Department police report even mentions my contacts with Michael were outside of their jurisdiction. The only reason Manhattan Beach PD got involved was because that’s where Mrs. Reeves lived. But she wasn’t the “victim” and Michael didn’t even live with her. Nor did he live in that jurisdiction. He lived in Inglewood. If they wanted to be so righteous about prosecuting crime why wouldn’t they even look into the claim I relayed to them that Michael told me that when kids misbehaved at the Children’s Baptist Home they would get “slammed against the wall”? The November 20, 1994 edition of The Arizona Republic made it front page news when they revealed abuse worse than slamming kids against walls and resulting coverups in Arizona’s juvenile facilities. Is Inglewood and Manhattan Beach guilty of a cover up too? Hmmm.
         (In all fairness to the Home, I sent the Director a letter asking for a response to this allegation on April 24, 1998, which was one month before I originally planned to go to press with this book. I assured him that I would quote him accurately if he wished to respond, but also stated that he was free to decline. When my letter was returned unopened and marked “VACANT” “FORWARDING ORDER EXPIRED” I checked around and found another Children’s Baptist Home in Canoga Park. A phone call there confirmed that this is the same Home that moved there from Inglewood back around 1990. The man I talked to claims he is one of the oldest current employees there, having been there since around 1990. He was unaware of any abuse that may have happened back in 1984 and seemed concerned that I was even going to report it in a book. That’s as far as I’ll take my investigation into it. I do wonder though why none of the older employees are still around. Did they move on as part of the normal process of career advances or were they shuffled out to other locations after some impropriety was discovered? Hmmm. Anyone care to follow up? I’ll just leave it at this – Michael seemed to be a credible person when he said abuse took place. I believe it.)
         My case eventually ended up in front of Municipal Court Judge William G. Willett. Judge Willett was a Harry Anderson looking kind of guy. Who? You don’t remember Harry Anderson do you? Well he was the judge on NBC-TV’s Night Court some years ago. Ya, now you remember, right? Anyway, a plea agreement was reached between my attorney, the deputy district attorney, and Judge Willett where I would receive 20 weekends in a local city jail to be followed by 320 hours of community service in exchange for a guilty plea. This would allow me to keep my job so I could earn back the money I was forced to borrow. In the middle of open-court sentencing a deputy DA, brand new to the case that day, spoke up and said he wanted a fine too. So now, as an uncaring afterthought, Judge Willett sneakingly snuck in an $850.00 fine but kept the originally agreed upon 20 weekends in jail and 320 hours of community service the same even with the addition of the fine. How dare them cheat and sneak that by me. That wasn’t a part of our original agreement, and I should have spoke up at the time but I didn’t.
         I remember when U.S. District Judge John G. Davies sentenced L.A.P.D. Officers Stacey Koon and Lawrence Powell in the Rodney King beating case he didn’t fine them because he acknowledged in open court that they were broke. Willett knew I too was broke so why shouldn’t I have been given the same courtesy? Judge Davies considered other punishment suffered by the two rogue cops and hardship when he handed down his sentence. Why couldn’t I have gotten the same courtesy from Willett? On Christmas Eve 1992 President Bush verbally expressed on national TV that he considered the lost savings spent to defend themselves as one reason he pardoned 6 Iran-Contra defendants. They had spent considerable sums of money defending their actions in court just like I did. Why couldn’t I have gotten the same courtesy? Every penal aggravation we have to put up with, especially costs out of our pockets, should be considered as part of the punishment. There’s no reason to ever settle for anything less. Willett knew what my out of pocket expenses were. I stated them in a polite letter and asked that they be considered.
         Not only wouldn’t Judge Willett consider high attorney fees and other expenses I already paid as part of the punishment, but he expressed verbally how he wanted me to pay even jail time expenses while I was incarcerated. They just wanted to grab (bloodsuck) all they could and I was furiously offended. The fact that he was so determined to make me pay contributed to making me determined to return the favor in some way. At the time, there was no plan to vandalize numerous vehicles – but it didn’t take too long for that plan to materialize.
         This weekend jail cost by the way would amount to $150.00 per weekend for 20 weeks room and board in a local jail cell. (Local jails charge prisoners $50.00 per day or any portion of a day. Even though I would be in 48 hours at a time it would be from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Sunday, therefore 3 portions of a day. Boy, isn’t that a scamming way to screw someone over?) This is enough to tick any normal person off. Bloodsuckers all the way! How dare them cheat and sneak that fine by me. Do you see my outrage showing?
         Due to lack of any more funds, I was unable to do the weekends and instead did the 40 days all at once in the Los Angeles County Jail. But to do so, Willett made this sentence 60 days knowing he had to do that in order to get me to do 40 days. But the catch is, to do 40 out of 60 I had to work 8 hours a day. In the weekend 40-day deal it would have been 40 without any requirement to work. Shouldn’t 8 hours a day for 40 days (which equals 320 hours) have been taken off of the community service time then? I sure think so! There should have been no community service.
         And then on the subject of community service, I had to pay more money out of my pocket just to sign up for it at their “volunteer center.” And that wasn’t a part of the original plea agreement either. On top of that, Willett made me drive over 30 miles in heavy traffic from the San Fernando Valley way down to Manhattan Beach every day to do the community service work rather than do it in my own local neighborhood as most judges would allow. Willett also ordered the community service had to be “hard labor” and not a sit down kind of work like clerical duties. I told Willett my financial difficulty relating to gas expenses on my old low-gas-mileage vehicle but that didn’t matter a bit. “I want the community where the crime took place to benefit from the community service,” was Willett’s sharp-ass response. I told him the so called “crime” didn’t even happen in his court’s jurisdiction and that Michael and I met in Hollywood. I then said to let me do it in Hollywood which won’t be as far to drive. But no, that wasn’t good enough for Willett. Now that he knew the real location of the “crime” he changed his mind and said, “then I want the community where the arrest took place to benefit.” It meant nothing to him that the arrest shouldn’t have taken place in his jurisdiction at all to begin with! Ironically, the janitorial work I was assigned to do at the National Guard Armory in Manhattan Beach left Tony Conti, the regular state-employed janitor I worked for, free to type labels for his extensive private collection of adult pornographic video tapes. When I did all the work he was once doing alone, this left Tony free to do his own “personal” paperwork.
         As I’ve said before, those with sex crimes are at the bottom of the skewed pecking order of prison culture and are continually made to feel like soiled pieces of baggage by way of harassment and threats once their identity is made known to others. It always seems to get out somehow. Either by hostile staff telling other inmates or merely “letting it slip,” carelessness of staff with inmate records left out in open view, nosy inmate clerks with access to records, or news media coverage blabbing it around. It’s hard to put into words the trauma one feels about being constantly belittled, berated, threatened, and hated all because you’re considered a “baby raper.” Even for those of us who never used physical force in the sexual activity, being labeled one of “them people” carries with it the stigma that physical force and physical injury is always an element as far as fellow inmates see it. And the ironic thing about this, like I mentioned earlier, is that the worst offenders against us are the white, muscular, loud, tattooed, doper/biker kinds of guys who’ll watch the old reruns of Married With Children and lust over an underage Christina Applegate who plays sexy Kelly Bundy. But do they consider themselves budding or closeted child molesters? I don’t think so. Should they? Hmmm.
         I was doing my 40 days at the minimum custody facility at the Peter J. Pitchess (Wayside) Honor Rancho. This low-security facility has open dormitory living situations where anyone could be attacked in the dead of night by anyone mad at them. Needless to say I was scared. And angry. I was receiving threats from others and that was a hell of a lot worse than my mere misspoken words were to Michael. I’m not sure how it got out. Sheriff deputies seeing my charge on their paperwork surely was one possibility. Probably the only other one was inmate clerks. I happened to be a clerk in the hospital clinic along with one other inmate. On top of a file cabinet we had access to there was a multi-page computer printout listing all the inmates in the entire L.A. County Jail system. Besides their names and booking numbers, it also listed housing locations, release dates, and charges they are in for. Other clerks worked in other offices around the facility too and one of them spreading it around is easily possible.
         Throughout my court proceedings I would always see Mrs. Reeves giving me the dirtiest of looks. She seemed to have the belief that I alone caused Michael such an emotional harm. Maybe her way to clear her own conscious was to put all the blame on me as to his upset nature. I wondered if she had any idea of the emotional and physical abuse he was suffering in the Children’s Baptist Home where she had him put.
         As I was suffering verbal abuse and threats at the hands of inmates, I had an overpowering urge to verbally give Mrs. Reeves a piece of my mind – a tongue lashing so to speak. I needed her to know that she deserved some of the blame too. That was a part of my healing process from all of this. Besides, I was concerned for Michael’s emotional well being also. I knew good ol’ mother Margaret was responsible for some of his distress and run away problems, and all because of her, he was placed in a mildly-abusive living environment where punishments sometimes consisted of unnecessary physical contact. Worse yet, he was emotionally suffering the rejection of his mother who did not want him to live with her. From my dormitory bunk among hostile inmates I criticized her in a non-threatening, but harshly worded, 10-page single-spaced pencil-written letter (we weren’t allowed to have pens) to condemn her for her improper actions and emotional abuse she caused to Michael which were more detrimental than my misspoken words ever should have been considered. My letter’s true purpose was to vent emotional anger as a safety valve in order to prevent a response not so benign on my part from bubbling to the surface, and to set her right as to who really abused Michael. I don’t believe in sweeping feelings under the table. They have a dirty habit of popping up somewhere else and when they do, they usually cause a lot of damage. Besides the criticism though, I also politely apologized to her for my slip of the tongue in the words I said to Michael.
         Among other things I said, “Rather than get revenge in illegal & inappropriate ways as I would have done in my younger days I find it better to vent off this steam in a legal & socially acceptable manner.” Other statements included, “You have a lot of nerve because some things you did added to his emotional problems more than anything I ever did.…you failed as a mother so bad he had to practically beg total strangers for parental closeness. He already knew you didn’t want him when he was bad. But that’s when he needed you the most. You deserted him. You don’t think that left emotional scars on him? If you ask me I think it takes a lot of nerve to blame me for things when you did much worse. You wouldn’t show your love when he needed it but you sure condemn me when I showed some love, kindness, & positive thoughts. You really owe me an apology but you probably won’t be woman enough to admit your wrongs. To further add to the problem when my attorneys investigating lady interviewed you & Michael on the phone she could hear you coaxing Michael as to what to say. In other words those were your words not Michael’s we heard from him. You should have kept your mouth out of it. We already had your statement, we wanted Michael’s unbiased words. [If she only knew at the time how Michael, by tipping me off to the tape-recorded set up, didn’t totally bow to her and the police’s every whim. He retained some dignity. He didn’t give in totally to their pressures.] You have no business putting pressure on him what to say. It’s more positive when a person can and should be allowed to express his own views. Don’t add to his emotional problems. Don’t pressure the boy. He can speak for himself. And you have the nerve to say I pressured him.…All these things were on my mind when I’d see you in court giving me such a condemning and dirty look. Who really did more harm to Michael? Who betrayed & deserted him? Who pressured him? I just hope Michael can survive the rest of his childhood in spite of you.…I’ll close by saying I will not attempt to call Michael as per a probation requirement but I do wish him well. I hope he can get over some of his problems & I hope you & the [Children’s Baptist] home haven’t done irreversible damage. You may find it hard to believe but I’ve seen it happen to others. He needs a strong, loving, & openminded parent to let him grow into the person he can be. It’s not to late. The first step should be to get him out of that home if he’s not yet. Young impressionable people come out of a place like this hardened & changed in some bad ways. You have to make the step. It’s been a pleasure giving you a piece of my mind. I hope it can be of benefit to you.”
         It should be mentioned that despite my telling Detective Picker, the court & DA, and Mrs. Reeves about the Inglewood Children’s Baptist Home’s physical abuse, no one apparently followed up on it. Who then are the real child abusers? Those who do it; those who know about it and do nothing to stop it; or both? I say both! This non-threatening but harshly worded letter was sent to her in October 1985. Isn’t it about time someone does something about it? Shouldn’t the Home answer up to somebody? They’re located at: 7715 Victoria St., Inglewood, California, 90301. Anyone can contact them for answers. (UPDATE: As mentioned earlier, they moved. They’re now at; 22455 Victory Blvd., Canoga Park, California 91307. (818) 592-2960.)
         Apparently Mrs. Reeves couldn’t accept the real truth and realize the letter’s true purpose was to vent emotional anger as a safety valve in order to prevent a response not so benign on my part. Or maybe she did realize it all along, but chose to use that as an excuse to try to get me in worse trouble so she could justify to herself not having to accept the truth I told her about her being a bad mother. Possibly the only way she could prove her actions right, as far as what she did to Michael, was to prove I was wrong by writing to her.
         In any event, it was not meant to be a threat as she tried to claim. She had a lot of nerve to even make that claim after telling my attorney months earlier that I should be hanged for speaking to Michael as I did. Hanging is murder, and that’s violence in my book. Isn’t it in yours?
         Rather than see the wisdom of that and learning by it and trying to correct the situation, she tried to get me in trouble for writing to her which was not against any probation regulations. Maybe she thought she could clear her own guilty conscience, which she surely should have had, for what she did to Michael. I was only prohibited from communicating with Michael, who didn’t even live at her house where I sent the letter. According to Detective Picker, Mrs. Reeves went to her to complain about the letter. Picker told her that she didn’t see a threat in it and sent her to my probation officer. But I didn’t have a probation officer because I was on unsupervised “summary” probation. Mrs. Reeves then went to the court clerk in order to file a complaint directly to Judge Willett. Knowing she obviously couldn’t do it legally, she apparently figured she had to lie in order to try to get Judge Willett to listen to her. To accomplish her goal she needed to lie twice about my behavior in a slanderous way as defined in Penal Code § 258 and even perjure herself, another crime as defined in Penal Code § 118 (which carries a punishment of two, three, or four years in state prison as set down in Penal Code § 126). She signed an official Declaration of Probation Violation document declaring under penalty of perjury that what she is saying is true and correct. She couldn’t accept any of the guilt for rejecting her own son at a precarious time in his life when he needed her badly and lied to put all the blame on me. They should have looked into the abuse afflicted by the Home rather than seeming so concerned that I alone was responsible for “abusing” Michael. In this narrow-mindedness, they allowed Mrs. Reeves to slither away from accepting any form of accountability pertaining to Michael’s emotional problems.
         Worse than her deeds, Judge Willett up and puts a warrant out for my arrest without checking the facts first in that he did not prohibit me from contacting her as she claimed in both a typed letter personally to Judge Willett and her sworn Declaration. I purposely held up sending the letter to a day so she would be sure to get it early in the week when Michael, who was occasionally home with her on a weekend day pass, would not be there at the time. I made sure I abided by the probation requirement in effect which was limited to prohibiting contact only with Michael. I was not prohibited from contacting Mrs. Reeves “in any way, shape or form” as she tried to claim. Now I had to put up $2,500.00 bail to get out of jail pending a probation violation hearing. Ironically, on the original charge, I was let out without posting any bail and never missed any court appearance dates. (And that was three felony counts I was facing in the beginning too although the guilty plea was to them as misdemeanors.) In the process, I lost 3 days off work for court appearances and had to pay public defender costs even though I was found legally not in the wrong for writing. (Judge Willett reluctantly appointed a public defender to represent me at the violation hearing when I told him I no longer had the money to hire an attorney and was, in fact, in debt from past legal fees on account of this mess. In the end he stuck me with the cost of the public defender after I was found to be in the right and not in violation in any way.) Worse, Judge Willett spoke harshly as if I had done something wrong. He apparently wasn’t sharp enough to realize that the letter was necessary to vent off steam to prevent less appropriate behavior from being directed towards Mrs. Reeves. Judge Willett was pissed he couldn’t stick it to me. After he read in the file on the day of my hearing that I was only prohibited from contacting Michael, he insisted on getting the court transcript to see if he verbally said to not contact her too. And when he found he had not, and then couldn’t violate me, he was quite obviously not happy. That insistence about getting the unnecessary transcript was responsible for costing that extra 3rd day off work mentioned above.
         Therapists realize the importance of verbally confronting someone who has done them wrong and how throwing the extra baggage of disgust back on their doorstep is a very cleansing form of therapy. One can only carry so much baggage before you have to unload it. (And believe me, Revenge unloads a lot of it all around! That’s its purpose. My way of doing it legally.) As I said, I don’t believe in sweeping strong feelings under the table, especially when they can pop up somewhere else and cause a lot of damage. I had a lot of anger over this case and I needed to confront the main perpetrator. I successfully used this technique in the past to other misbehaving judicial personnel and in all cases it lowered the chance that less appropriate reactions could bubble to the surface. (I’ve got a whole stack of anger-venting letters I mailed to various Secret Service agents and U.S. Attorney Rappe back in the late 70s and early 80s that anyone is welcome to see.) Although on the most serious violations, my reactions were not lowered within legal bounds of venting, my reactions still came much closer to that boundary.
         Before the second verdicts were announced in the Rodney King case, people were told to verbally express their anger if the results were not what they hoped for rather than do violence and vandalism as they did the first time. Even at the first verdicts then Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, in his wisdom, realized how the community needed to vent off steam after the case was over. And at that time then Police Chief Gates acknowledged how people need to channel their anger in a right way. This led to their strong recommendation to vent it out in a verbal and orderly way. Why couldn’t Willett just have let me vent it out?
         That’s what I did in my letter to Mrs. Reeves and I should have been complimented for writing, NOT condemned. I’d bet if a hard-core gang banger did that rather than do a drive-by shooting to alleviate an anger he would be complimented and highly praised. Surely, I shouldn’t have been cost money out of my pocket for choosing this benign method of alleviating an anger, an anger that was very legitimate to have. My verbal tongue lashing letter was merely a therapeutic way to vent off steam in a slow way, a safety valve so to speak, to prevent something of a more explosive nature in a more hostile way from coming to the surface. That’s really all there was to it – a way to put closure to the situation and bring it to completion. It was not a threat, it was the opposite of a threat, a preventative action. A very necessary preventative action. I was doing a long slow burn and I was worried that at some point the anger would just come out. It’s too bad Judge Willett didn’t understand this. He, if anyone, should realize what it could prevent. Knowing Mrs. Reeves isn’t too bright, I can sort of overlook her in a small way, but Judge Willett is highly educated. He should have known better. It’s too bad they couldn’t listen to my whispered complaints and criticism. Instead, they had to hear the shouts from hundreds of people who got their cars vandalized as detailed below.
         Mrs. Reeves’ crime of perjury was worse than my original sexual words to Michael, yet she was never charged or even reprimanded in any way. I already covered how I got more severely punished by U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk when I perjured myself in front of him. He openly expressed his disgust about my lying at the time he handed down my sentence. So why shouldn’t Mrs. Reeves have been punished just the same? Once again, I became a “double-standard” victim.
         In the end, I – the person in the right – was charged court costs; I had to pay for the public defender. THEY SCREWED UP. She lied, they never charged her, and Judge Willett didn’t check the facts first. If he had, all this would have been avoided. Rather than up and put a warrant out on me when he read her complaining document, signed under penalty of perjury, he could have easily checked my file to see she was in error. Rather than do his job properly, we ended up going through all this, and after their bloodsucking attitude got all my money before, now they wanted more. I was ordered to pay the $48.00 public defender fees for Judge Willett’s screw up. That should have been up to him. I’ve had to pay when I’ve screwed up before – so should Willett have had to!!! Losers in civil cases pay the winners’ expenses. I was the winner here – the person in the right. That should have been up to them and her to pay! I guess the opportunity to get some more money shut Willett’s eyes to what was the proper thing to do.
         Why should I have to pay for the use of an attorney that is suppose to be provided for free to those who can’t afford one when illegal aliens, who have no business even being here to begin with, don’t have to pay a thing for doctor or hospital care for all those extra babies they keep having, even when they can’t afford the ones they already have, which they’re even getting free care for also? Here my actions of writing were legal. Why should I have to pay? Those who are illegal don’t get cost a thing!
         After suffering so many unfair, improper, and unnecessary abuses and monetary loses over the years by various members of the judicial system – especially how the Secret Service very maliciously ransacked and vandalized our house, and particularly my bedroom on January 11, 1980 – this action by Willett was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was mad about losingMY money I, as an innocent victim, shouldn’t have lost, and I wanted it back. The shock should be not so much that I responded in the extreme way that I did to these violations, but that they have the nerve and audacity to actually do these various kinds of violations and then expect us – the defendants – to just accept them as if it’s the normal thing to do. That is the shocking thing folks – and the shameful thing! It is not normal! And it won’t be tolerated! And there are a lot of VOCAL members who concur.
         And just so the record is straight; no, it wasn’t just a $48.00 fee that led to the estimated half a million dollars in vandalism mentioned below. That was just the final straw. Every other impropriety about this case which I’ve already addressed, along with the anger over vandalizing Secret Service agents back on vandalism day 1980 was already brewing. Being pressured out of this 48 bucks just raised the flame a notch higher and the tea kettle burst. Let that be a lesson to those prone to misbehaving against some aggravation-intolerant defendants – keep the flame low.
         One can only imagine what would have happened if Judge Willett had gotten a wild hair up his ass and sentenced me anyway even though there was no real legitimate violation. Mrs. Reeves probably wishes he had, but that’s only because she’s not bright enough to realize she’s better off the way it happened.
         As it turned out, her own handwriting convicted her without a doubt of the second lie. A note in her handwriting turned over to police and included in the original police report, which she apparently forgot about, verified that. She was keeping a record of the times I called her house and talked to a visiting Michael. In one notation she indicated that, “asked home address, gave it,” meaning that I asked Michael for the home address and was given it. In her complaining letter to the court claiming a violation of probation had taken place she said, “I don’t know how he got my address, because Michael didn’t give it to him!” By all rights she should have been arrested and charged. If that would have been any of us ex-offenders we surely would have been. In the least Willett could have reprimanded her.
         But as I said, Willett’s biggest sin was sticking me with the public defender he reluctantly appointed. $48.00 was the damages that I, as an innocent victim of this woman’s malicious lies, was ordered to pay. And I had to pay it too because it would have been a real legitimate violation of probation if I didn’t. But it didn’t end there. They weren’t getting by with this.
         I had always done all the maintenance on my own van including touching up the paint with my own paint-spraying equipment. Now I know two wrongs don’t make a right and all that stuff, but I didn’t care. I was treated unfairly, I was cost money I shouldn’t have been cost, and I was mad; very mad! I’ve always tended to believe that if they want us as ex-cons to treat society fairly, then they must first treat us fairly, and that includes not having double standards committed against us. If they choose to play by less than the rules of the road, then they dare not have a right to complain if we respond in a like fashion. Snivel all you want about my attitude – but it is my attitude, and I have a Constitutional right to express it.
         With this philosophy firmly entrenched in my mind, I proceeded to fill a plastic squirt bottle, the kind used to water house plants, with battery acid. I drove by nicer looking cars and squirted the acid on their paint. I then made up some flyers to advertise “auto body touch up” at rates considerably lower than licensed businesses would charge. I figured I’d make my money back at these other people’s expense. It didn’t bother me that they were innocent of wrong doing and had nothing to do with the victimizing of me. I had been victimized in ways I shouldn’t have been and I didn’t care. It’s that simple. I wanted my money back! I was a bottom-line oriented person at that point. Some people rob people, steal priceless possessions, injure people. That has never been my way. The last time I passed counterfeit money. The most any individual lost was 20 bucks. That ain’t much. And no one ever got hurt. And that’s important to me.
         I have never seen anything wrong with methods of response to injustices that are designed to cost, inconvenience, embarrass, and/or aggravate a perpetrator, or organization he or she represents as long as no animal or person is injured in a physical way. Now I know more properly my response should have been limited to only those who did the actual violations, but then again, I really didn’t care at that time if a large group of individuals suffered a minimal expense. I was offering auto body touch up for 50 bucks.
         After news reports spread that some individuals had gotten some of the overspray mist on their skin I immediately pulled down all the fliers I had previously put up. At the time, I had only made $450.00 out of the $16,563.49 I wanted to make back. And I was planning to keep on until I made it back too. From then on, I made sure no one was anywhere in wind-blowing range when I sprayed cars. I was intending to let time pass, to let news reports die down, and put up my flyers later on.
         But by now, my anger level had reached the point where making my money back from this travesty was not numero uno on my mind. I was cost money in this mess, I was cost additional money even though I was innocent of wrongdoing by writing to Mrs. Reeves (who then slithered free from punishment for her perjured statements), I was cost money in the Secret Service mess, and I had my own property badly vandalized and stolen with no one in the slightest offering compensation or even apologies despite letter upon letter of complaint. Separate from making my money back, I wanted to spread the anger around to others. I wanted to cost other innocent people and make them mad in return. I wanted to violate other innocent people’s property as my innocent property was violated. I had sort of turned into a vandalism junkie by that time and that squirt bottle was the poison needle in my arm that gave me this fantastic rush as I giggled with joy at each new and expensive car I splashed, knowing some person would be pissed royally. I found my anger subsiding so much in the fun I was having. Bear in mind, this was going on while I was doing my hardware deliveries all over the Southern California area. Yes, I was addicted to a bottle. Not a bottle of alcohol mind you, but a bottle of battery acid. I never actually kept an actual count of the number of cars I got per day, but I remember coming home sad some days that I didn’t score as many as I would have liked. I also never officially scored cars as to the level of thrill they produced, but clearly some were more joyful to get. Tops on my list were those I called “bad parkers.” You know the kind. Those people who park way away from everybody else in the lot so no one will ding their paint when they open their car doors next to them. And if they positioned their car in order to hog two spaces in their belief that that will further protect them from an adjacent parker, then they were all that much more on my hot list of must get. I’d skip a whole parking lot full if necessary just to get one of them.
         At this very moment I can imagine nearly all of you fuming with the fiercest of anger, not only at my actions back then, but probably more so at my pleasure-filed attitude about it. Like, how dare me do such a thing and feel glad about it. These people never hurt me you say. Why would I actively choose innocent victims and feel so good about it? Wouldn’t getting the actual perpetrators have given me more pleasure? Willett’s car for instance? Mrs. Reeves? Of course they would, but there was actually a bigger picture here. There was more baggage I was lugging to those vandalism episodes than just Reeves, Willett, or the Secret Service. That was the victimization at the hands of others – meaning inmates and staff – by being an ex-sex offender. Such a large percentage of the general public not only cares less whether ex-sex offenders are treated badly, but they boldly proclaim that they’re glad when we get mistreated. In my mind, those upper-middle-class car owners were more than likely part of that mind set, and that made them contributors to the abuse I’d suffered. How are they contributors you ask? When so many in society think a certain thing is O.K. to do, even if it’s wrong, those with the power to prevent it, or punish those who commit it, are less inclined to do so. Remember when that teenage criminal was going to receive a caning in Singapore in May 1994 and our government stepped in to ask them not to because so much public support was behind not letting it happen? Well, so much public support is behind letting us ex-sex offenders receive abuse, that the powers that be let it happen. The judicial system permits us to suffer more than should be allowed and refuses to punish those who violate us because far too much of society approves of it. Now you’ll probably say not all of these car owners were so against ex-sex offenders. True, but war has many causalities; the guilty as well as the innocent! Most recently that happened in the Persian Gulf War. We can feel sad that innocent children got killed in the mess, but I don’t see outrage against our government that it happened. Now that may be a far stretch of an attempt to justify what I did, but at the time I was targeting nice and new looking cars I saw myself as a badly-violated victim of a conservative establishment – i.e. upper-middle class – who was responsible for allowing it to happen.
         Now I’ve heard all this stuff about two wrongs not making a right and all that and I agree with it, but I didn’t care. Doing a wrong in return sure made me feel better. I would’ve liked to have made more of my money back, but there was a lot of satisfaction in angering others in return and in implanting my position in the judicial system’s mind that I was the wrong person to violate. The anger you’re all feeling right now at my pompous attitude – that’s how I felt, so stifle it and look at it from my point of view.
         Unfortunately, unknown to me at the time this was all going on, some sharp-eyed citizen had gotten my license number and I was already under surveillance by police. I was observed spraying two cars in a shopping-center parking lot and arrested a short distance away. This now brings us to my encounters with J. Patrick Maginnis. But first, let me add one more thing. In an attempt to appease the judge handling that case and possibly lower the punishment I could receive, I told him that I was sorry for the vandalisms I had committed. In reality, I was not sorry at all – not for the vandalisms anyway. I was, and am, very sorry for the minor injuries that happened to a few people when some of the overspray mist blew onto their skin. My MO is one of a non-violent property offender (revenge tactics that merely cost, inconvenience, embarrass, and/or aggravate others as a response to violations committed against me as outlined in my OATH), not someone to injure others – that is not my way, despite the fact that the district attorney put more emphasis on this part of my behavior. See the 1986 San Fernando case in the next chapter for all those details. Now on to Maginnis, one of the primary characters in the “Fedbuster” mess.

[Return to Table of Contents]

         On July 30, 1986 I was arrested by officers from the Devonshire substation of the Los Angeles Police Department who had been keeping me under surveillance for a number of days. The Secret Service’s shoddy surveillance methods had spoiled me to such an extent into thinking that they’re all that inept at following a suspect, that I wasn’t being as observant as I should have been. Right after I made my first delivery for the day up in the Santa Clarita area, I drove through a shopping-center parking lot and sprayed two cars that caught my eye.
         The deputy district attorney assigned to the case, Mr. Leland B. (Lee) Harris charged me with several counts of assault with a caustic chemical that, according to Penal Code § 244 were not valid. Specific intent is required for a person to be guilty of this statute and they knew I did not intend “to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of” those few people when I intentionally vandalized numerous vehicles. Beyond that, case law also requires the chemical to touch the victim. One count didn’t even meet this provision as could be read in the police report. In the victim’s own clear statements I was only guilty of misdemeanor vandalism, a much less serious crime, and the one I did intend to do. All this improper charging cost me more to defend against. I got one extra year consecutive on that one count alone. They also charged a special Great Bodily Injury (GBI) allegation (Penal Code § 12022.7) that was clearly not valid when the police report is read. It clearly stated there was “no serious injury to [any] victim.” Section 17.20 of the California Jury Instructions says that, “‘Great bodily injury,’ as used in this instruction, means a significant or substantial physical injury. Minor, trivial or moderate injuries do not constitute great bodily injury.”
         Despite that, Harris wanted an open-court hearing rather than quietly drop the GBI allegation. Maginnis told me that Harris was the one who insisted on it because, with all the media publicity, he was worried how it would appear if the most serious charge was dismissed behind the closed doors of chambers. Probably he also didn’t want to look bad to the media and have to explain to them why he charged a count he shouldn’t have charged to begin with, if he had done his job and read the police report properly. It was then up to me to pay my attorney for this hearing that wouldn’t have been necessary if Harris had merely done a proper job and filed only the proper vandalism charge at the outset. Basically it boils down to the fact that I got stuck footing the bill so Harris could cover his ass.
         If we as defendants are expected to admit our errors in open public when we plead guilty, shouldn’t they be expected to do the same when they screw up? How else can they fix the problem if they don’t even admit it? And surely, shouldn’t they pay the cost; after all, they make us pay the cost when we do the screw up?
         To top any of that off, police from the Devonshire substation had splash victims, which got some of the overspray mist on them, identify my picture that in no way could have been done in a proper and legitimate way. For instance, when I drove by a line of cars squirting acid on them some of the mist blew onto a bicyclist I passed by, going in the same direction. Yet she positively identified my face in a photospread even though there is no way she could have seen me. At the most, she would have seen the back of my head through the back windows of my work van, the vehicle I was using to commit the vandalisms.
         In another indication of police misconduct in relation to making improper ID’s, a girl testified in the above mentioned court hearing to show the media she was not injured. On the stand she was shown a photospread with my picture and immediately pointed it out. Then she was immediately asked if she could point that same person out in the courtroom. After looking all around, she could not at all even though I had not changed my appearance in any way. This looks suspiciously like because police knew I had splashed cars, they figured they had to point out my picture to splash victims in order to get an identification and therefore a conviction. Due to the way the splashing was done, there is no doubt this was done for one or more of the victims. (The July 9th, 1998 edition of 48 Hours acknowledged such shenanigans do go on.)
         I was then threatened with three improperly added priors (Penal Code § 667) to plead to what they offered or else I’d face enhancements up to 15 years that I found out only later, weren’t valid. And here it was, my own attorney, paid for by us, going along with their side. I would have never expected that out of him. Maginnis and my dad had become friends after meeting back in the late ’70s when he handled the appeal for my first counterfeiting case. We had even went out to dinner a time or two with his family and my dad helped him get some electronic equipment at discount prices on more than one occasion. I guess because of the ongoing friendship I didn’t question his actions as thoroughly as I should have. I didn’t confirm how wrong he was until it was too late and I was in state prison. All these extra charges, plus certain lies told to the court at my first bail hearing court appearance by Harris, jacked bail way up above what is normally called for when someone violates 244 (“bail deviation” I believe is the term they called it) and it cost us extra lost bank interest to put it up and while courts had our money. Six months interest was lost from early withdrawal out of a high-interest term account. This should not have been necessary had Harris done his homework properly and not overfiled the improper charges.
         The complete language of 244 is as such: “Every person who willfully and maliciously places or throws, or causes to be placed or thrown, upon the person of another, any vitriol, corrosive acid, or caustic chemical of any nature, with the intent to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of such person, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.” When I questioned Maginnis about the statute requiring intent (I was not aware of the terms “general intent” and “specific intent” at that time) to injure and disfigure in order to be guilty of it he lied to convince me that is not true by saying, “if one shoots a gun up into the air and the bullet comes down and accidentally kills someone it is still murder.”
         (I sent Maginnis a 7-page letter asking for a response to this allegation on April 24, 1998, which was one month before I originally planned to go to press with this book. I assured him that I would quote him accurately if he wished to respond, even if he was just criticizing me, but also stated that he was free to decline. Even though publication was held up longer than expected on account of one final (unexpected) fly in the ointment as outlined in Appendix IV, I never heard a thing from him. No defense of his actions, no acceptance of responsibility, no apology, no nothing. Oh well, at least he can’t snivel that I didn’t give him a chance to air his side. Just let it be a part of the record that I am doing what any good journalist should do, getting both sides of the story so I can report the facts as accurately as possible. All told, 15 people received letters of inquiry in my attempt to get all sides told. Of those 15, no one had the guts to fess up to what they did except my cousin, Mark, and you’ll see what he had to say in its proper place. I guess if I was ashamed of something I did I wouldn’t want to respond either.)
         Today Maginnis couldn’t use that shoots a gun up into the air baloney to defendants since Korean grocer Soon Ja Du got probation for second degree murder because the court ruled she did not intend to kill the non-threatening walking away teenage girl. In fact, after the Williams and Watson part of the Reginald Denny trial was over with on October 20, 1993 Maginnis came on TV as Antoine Miller’s attorney and said there was no intent on the part of Antoine to kill Denny so he is innocent. Antoine, you’ll recall, only opened the door on Denny’s truck, probably to burglarize it. It was the other defendants who dragged him out and beat him. Antoine never touched him at all. Maginnis should have had the same response to me about my lack of intent. This bullet crap won’t get it. It’s a dead issue. No pun intended. Truly, Maginnis owes me big bucks back. (If you agree you can contact him at home at: 6728 Wildlife Rd., Malibu, CA  90265-4305, (310) 457-5090.) It wouldn’t be quite so bad if I would have gotten him court appointed for free like Antoine did, but I paid him out of my own pocket and I want it back. Can you blame me? Maginnis shouldn’t be allowed to slither off with his bulging pockets filled with my money. This is one character to stay away from folks. We don’t need double standards inflicted upon us from our own defense attorneys. The court in turn should also have only punished me for my intentional misbehavior (vandalism) as required by statute. I should be excused for a non-intentional minor injury if someone can be excused for a non-intentional murder.
         And in some cases, those who have intentionally murdered others have gotten practically excused. Several years ago a man shot and killed his son’s molester while cameras were rolling away taping the whole scene. And I don’t believe he did any time for it. And who can forget Ellie Nessler. With public support behind her, she did only a few years in prison for the 1st degree murder she committed when she killed her son’s molester right in the courtroom.
         I should never have even been charged with assault to begin with. On TV, a DA made a point of telling the media that he was not charging Mets’ outfielder Vince Coleman with assault in relation to his throwing a large firecracker (reported to equal 1/4 stick dynamite) into a crowd of baseball fans on July 24th 1993 because he said Vince had no intent to injure anyone. In his case, it was well publicized how his careless act injured a 2-year-old baby girl serious enough to show visible scratches near her eyes. Besides her, two other people suffered minor injuries; an 11-year-old boy and a 33-year-old woman. The injuries to these three people were worse than any physical injury I caused during my carelessness while vandalizing cars. Vince was only charged with unlawful possession of an explosive device, the intentional thing he did do. Why couldn’t Harris have been as forthright in charging me with only the proper charge of vandalism, my real intentional behavior? But as far as being charged with injuring others, why did I face one count for each person I injured when Coleman injured three people and faced only one count against him? And if he was allowed to plead guilty to a mere misdemeanor, requiring no jail time, then why not me? It’s noteworthy to mention that the assault statute Coleman could have been charged under, Penal Code § 245, is not a specific intent crime. Only general intent is required for guilt. If the natural circumstances of his act could result in bodily injury to another, then he rightfully could be found guilty of the crime – if only he would have been charged with it. Do I have a legitimate right to claim I want my money back, or what???
         Right about here is a good spot to paste in something I said in Revenge. It just irks the hell out of me to be prosecuted for an assault that statute says I’m not guilty of, and then see law “enforcement” officers commit an assault that statutorily they’re clearly guilty of. Grrr : - (

December 2, 1987

Mr. Xxxxx Larsen
XXXXX Xxxxxxxxx
Van Nuys, California  91XXX

    Re:  People v. Larsen

Dear Xxxxx:

    Enclosed you will find CALJIC 1.22 and the use notes that accompany the jury instruction. You will note that the comment specifically states that maliciously, as construed in a Penal statute, does not require specific intent. I am enclosing a copy of the Bohmer case for your review.

    Judge Fratianne was quite clear that he would have denied the motion, whether I was present in court or not, because he felt that the sentence that he meted out to Tom was reasonable pursuant to the plea bargain. He also felt that he was giving him a break, by not sentencing him on any of his four prior felony convictions.

                                              With warmest regards,


                                              J. PATRICK MAGINNIS

JPM:mry

Enclosures

         CALJIC 1.22 refers to § 1.22 of the California Jury Instructions. The comment Maginnis refers to states in part, “The word ‘maliciously’ in a penal statute does not make the crime defined a specific intent crime. People v. Bohmer, 46 Cal.App.3d 185, 120 Cal.Rptr. 136, certiorari denied 423 U.S. 990, 96 S.Ct. 402, 46 L.Ed.2d 308.” The Bohmer case involved defendants charged with blocking the passage of a train. Yes, malicious doesn’t require specific intent. But that’s not what I’m attacking. I’m addressing § 244’s intent “to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of such person.” And according to CALJIC’s Appendix D, that does require specific intent.
         In January 1998 I did some more research in the law library to fine tune my already-established position that Maginnis was wrong. Instead of Appendix D’s brief mention that 244 is a specific intent crime, I see the statute has now been assigned its own CALJIC number. It’s complete language is:

CALJIC 9.08.5
ASSAULT WITH CAUSTIC CHEMICALS
(Pen. Code, § 244)

   [Defendant is accused [in Count[s] _________] of having violated section 244 of the Pen. Code, a crime.]
   Every person who willfully and maliciously places or throws, or causes to be placed or thrown, upon the person of another, any vitriol, corrosive acid, flammable substance, or caustic chemical of any nature, with the specific intent to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of that person, is guilty of a violation of Penal Code section 244, a crime.
   [“Flammable substance” means gasoline, petroleum products, or flammable liquids with a flashpoint of 150 degrees fahrenheit, or less.]
   In order to prove this crime, each of the following elements must be proved:
   1. A person placed or threw, or caused to be placed or thrown,  (substance)  upon the person of the alleged victim;
   2. In so doing, the person acted willfully and maliciously; and
   3. The person also acted with the specific intent to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of the alleged victim.

         Well there you have it. It is a specific intent crime. It is one of three elements that must be proved in order to be guilty of the statute. And the specific intent is “to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of” a person – just like Appendix D told me so many years earlier. Wonder what Maginnis would say now with this waving in his face? (Well I included it in my letter to him and for some odd reason he had nothing to say about it.) One day during my recent incarceration when I was speaking about him so angrily to a group of inmates, a staff member asked me how it feels to have my suspicions confirmed that he did in fact screw me over and take my money and run. I told him I remember it as if it was yesterday. Imagine somebody tries to kill you but botches the job, so that after a horrifying struggle you find yourself maimed, but somehow still alive. That’s what his actions were like. I was injured, maybe not physically, but I was injured – badly.
         Anyway, back to his letter of December 2, 1987. He went on to justify why he didn’t show up in court. The day he missed was the day the court was hearing the Motion I prepared in an attempt to modify my sentence. Apparently Maginnis was too embarrassed to be there, seeing that I was addressing the errors he made. His letter also keeps referring to my priors, this time stating there were “four” when the correct number was really three. And, of course, I later found out that only one of them would have been valid in the beginning; the two counterfeiting convictions did not meet the provisions for 5 plus 5 years enhancements. And after the GBI allegation was dismissed none of them were valid. This is what I should have been advised of before I entered a plea.
         Penal Code § 667 allows them to add 5 years to a prison sentence for each prior conviction of a “serious felony” if the current offense a person is charged with is also a “serious felony.” Penal Code § 1192.7 defines what constitutes a “serious felony.” If charges are “brought and tried separately” they count as separate priors. For those, like my two counts of child molesting which were consolidated together in Superior Court back in 1971, that would be a single conviction and count as one prior. 1192.7 does not require the sex act to be forcible in order to rate “serious felony” status; so there is no question that it would have been a valid prior. But the other two priors Harris alleged, those for passing counterfeit money, are not “serious felonies.” The GBI allegation, by its very nature, would have been a “serious felony.” Therefore, if it would have stuck, I faced one prior enhancement – not three as I was being threatened with. Now after the GBI allegation was dismissed, leaving just the 244s where no one even sought any medical attention, my current offense would have most assuredly been classified as a regular ol’ non-serious felony – meaning no prior conviction enhancements could be added.
         I plead no contest (the same as a guilty plea for all practical purposes), not only to the 244 counts (which I was led to believe I was guilty of despite my lack of intent), but to as many 244 counts as they wanted me to, strictly because Maginnis was making me feel pressure that I would get 15 extra years on top of whatever sentence was imposed if I didn’t.
         And to top that off, the California Supreme Court in People v. Day (1926) 248 P. 250, 199, C. 78 states, “…section 244 requires proof of the fact that the acid actually touched the person of another,…the defendant cannot be found guilty of the offense charged if the attempt to throw or place acid upon the person of another failed of fruition.…” In count 3 the victim, Charles Simons, clearly stated in the police report that the acid touched only his vehicle, not him. Yet, I was still improperly charged with assault with chemical, rather than merely misdemeanor vandalism, and got an extra one year consecutive on that count. I did 6 months more in prison and had to give the prison free work to earn the other 6 months off. Grumble, grumble! Maginnis just makes me angrier and angrier. I always had to admit my wrong doings when I got caught. Why can’t he? He must!!!
         (In Chapter 16 I talk about my dad playing a taped telephone conversation between him and Maginnis back to me on the phone shortly after my November 7, 1993 arrest in which Maginnis refers to the second letter I mailed as being “hand delivered” to him. Although that tape got recorded over, while searching for it I found another one containing a conversation they had right before he sent my dad the above mentioned December 2, 1987, and details of that irrelevant Bohmer case, in order to try to justify his position as being correct. Without this, it would have been just my word against his that he peddled that lame “shoot a gun up into the air” line at me in order to make me think that intent didn’t matter. Although he said it to me in front of my dad on several occasions, with him no longer here to verify it, I had no proof. Until, that is, I found the tape with him saying it to my dad once again. “I talked to his [Fratianne’s] clerk, he went into chambers, he talked to the judge, he came back out and he said Pat, here’s what the judge said. The Motion was going to be denied whether you were there or not. The judge is feeling that he got a fair sentence based on all of his previous record, based on the fact that he got no time for the priors and that’s all there is. The judge’s attitude is that.…I’ll send you a copy of this 1.22 and you can send it down to him [me in prison in San Diego] to show him he’s all wet on the issue of malicious. It is not specific intent. [Emphasis in his voice saying not was apparent.] It’s no different than myself getting in the back yard and saying I’m going to shoot some sea gulls and get my shotgun and shoot a sea gull, a couple pellets come down and hit my neighbor next door in the heart and kill him. Now I intended to kill a sea gull, but I got more than a sea gull in the process.…It’s called transfer of intent. The whole idea is the law is going to punish someone for the natural consequences of his or her actions. You don’t cry fire in a crowded theater, you don’t shoot a pistol in an urban area, you don’t throw acid on a car because you never know if somebody’s walking by the car or opening a door and you could get that person. Right?… That’s what the punishment is for – is to keep people from doing something like that.” Transfer of intent would fly on a non-specific intent assault crime like 245 PC, but not with the one I was charged with – Penal Code § 244. Maginnis is wrong! And so was Fratianne for thinking the priors were valid. Grrr! Anybody want to hear the tape?)
         It is precisely because they put their emphasis on the wrong thing all along and stuck me with a violent-crime conviction, as if I had done it intentionally, and in turn practically neglected the non-violent intentional vandalism aspect of my deeds, the exact opposite of what they should have done, despite my pleadings to not misplace their priorities onto the wrong thing again, that I acted back in the opposite way they wanted and wrote Revenge and enthusiastically speak up with my opinions so forcefully, favorably, and yes, even sometimes comically, for this method of vandalism as an easy, satisfying, and fun way to cause a lot of grief to a lot of people with no danger of injuring anyone provided care is taken. I love knowing that I’m giving judicially-abused people ammunition to annoy other people in return. (Actually, none of this would have surfaced had the Fairness Doctrine been adhered to all along. They had no business overfiling charges they knew weren’t valid just so they could threaten me with facing them all so I would plead to something lower. Let that be a hint to others prone to misbehavior. When they “win” a conviction with this tactic – which is nothing short of terrorism and extortion – just so they can save time and avoid a legitimate trial we are left feeling real bitter and angry. They may be opening up a can of worms they have no idea is even present. They may find – and should find – the time they save will be a loss many times over later on down the line.) This is sort of my way of revenging Harris and San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne for putting improper emphasis on the wrong thing. They knew what the proper charge was to file. They knew what my true intentional behavior was. They knew what is required by statute to be guilty of assault with a caustic chemical. They knew I don’t respond to unfair treatment very well. And then they still made a conscious choice to sidestep proper conduct and even actually expected me to just accept it and even pay improper-advise giving Maginnis’ bills. If that isn’t a lot of gall, what is? To believe they could pull off such a stunt is to believe in a dream world. It’s total fiction. Obviously, they’re not living in the real world. Obviously they didn’t realize they picked the wrong person to screw over – again. They put the emphasis on the wrong thing so I’m (in Revenge) putting it back where it belongs – on the vandalism. Truly, they should have stuck to the right thing and been more concerned they don’t screw me over again. Obviously, like Rappe and his bag of cohorts and Willett earlier, this bunch too came out as goats with big time egg on their faces. They’re just lucky violent behavior is not a part of my nature. These people need to review the Old Canon of Ethics of the American Bar Association; “The primary duty of a lawyer engaged in public prosecution is not to convict, but to see that justice is done.” Do I hear an Amen?
         I, of course, do not do the deed myself any longer knowing that, because of the unusual nature of this crime, I am immediately suspect when it happens and police are on my doorstep questioning me about it, even when it happens hundreds of miles away. When they do I just show them my writings about the deed and they know splashing information is out and about to more and more people. As much as they want to stop it and me from spreading the word around, they can’t. I don’t do the deed any longer and my writings with the proper disclaimer are Constitutionally protected. Obviously Fratianne and Harris should have had their priorities in the appropriate place right at the start and been more concerned that they don’t trigger off something else farther down the line. They, like too many others in the judicial system, were looking at just the short term “protection of society” philosophy (while I was in custody) and giving no thought whatsoever to the long-term effects down the line (after I get out). Here is a clear-cut example of doing something legal to get revenge and piss off others, especially law enforcement, while having no risk of getting arrested. It is not illegal to merely express an honest opinion verbally that wronged people “should” do the deed as long as you don’t do the deed yourself or actually prod someone into doing it. It has something to do with free speech and that First Amendment thing. It always creeps in there somewhere when you least expect it. : - )
         If only the proper offense I did do (vandalism) would have been charged in the beginning I could have safely gotten by with a public defender at no cost to me. Because of invalid serious charges I had to defend against, we paid thousands to psychiatrists (some were friends of Maginnis, who maybe got some money for referring me to them) for court evaluations. Evaluations that wouldn’t have been necessary if only the proper charges were filed. (I specifically asked Maginnis in bold Did you get any money from these guys? but he wouldn’t answer me.)
         My own paid attorney, the same one defending Antoine Miller in the Reginald Denny beating case, gave me wrong advice which prompted me to plead to more counts and I got more time. When I inquired about having to plead to so many counts of assault with chemical Maginnis told me that Judge Fratianne doesn’t sentence consecutively anyway so it doesn’t matter. (I ended up being sentenced to consecutive sentences anyway totaling 6-years in state prison.) My biggest worry though was the 3 priors they kept hanging over my head, about 15 extra years beyond the sentence I was facing for the crime itself, and they weren’t even valid. (Another privately retained attorney researching this issue found this out for sure.)
         When Maginnis was confronted with the known facts he tried to weasel his way from blame by sending my father the above letter and some copied law book pages to try to bolster his actions as being right. The thing is that what he sent conflicted with the truth we found and Maginnis never has, even to this day, admitted any of his errors. He even admitted without shame to my father and me how the system is unfair and insinuated how I was expected to accept it. Having an attorney like that makes me understand why William Shakespeare said, “First thing, kill all the lawyers.”
         After the July 1, 1993 San Francisco lawyer massacre by Gian Luigi Ferri, a business man disgruntled by some legal interaction, the President of the State Bar went on the air to complain about “lawyer bashing” jokes. In his complaining about the joking abuse lawyers have to put up with, he failed to mention all the abuse they put out that causes them to have this form of bad press to begin with. How many Maginnis’ are there out there? How many of their victims are suffering because of tactics like that? Should the bashing jokes stop? Shouldn’t more serious action be taken? Hmmm.
         Before sentencing, I wrote an 18-page letter to Judge Fratianne explaining how it “was totally by accident and very careless on my part” that “6 people [got] some overspray mist on them…that was not intentional.” I assured him, “I am not like that and have never intentionally tried to hurt a person physically.” In my letter, I also asked that toward sentencing, he consider all the monetary expenses I suffered, along with the mitigating circumstances of previous improper judicial misdeeds and embarrassment I sustained by media advertising and emphasizing the improper counts. Judge Fratianne did not so I shouldn’t suffer them if they’re not considered as part of the official punishment. And $3,310.00 more in doctor bills come in after sentencing that Judge Fratianne wasn’t even aware of. Even though the probation report and a 100-day diagnostic study conducted by staff at the California Institution for Men at Chino recommended state prison, I honestly think I should have been given probation to make up for the time in 1973 when the probation report (and even Chino would have if I had been given a 90-day study) recommended probation and Judge Rosenthal gave me state prison instead. Being a judge didn’t go by a probation and Chino report then, in all fairness a judge shouldn’t go by them now.
         Knowing full well that an improper monetary cost triggered off the vandalizing events in this case and that I was being sentenced on counts that were not valid, Fratianne still had the nerve to impose a $1,000.00 fine. Fortunately, somebody down the line saw fit to not try to collect it. They knew better and kept their grubby little paws off of MY money. Actually, that $1,000.00 fine was a major impetus for writing Revenge in the first place. I knew my breaking point when it comes to money violations and what such misconduct can and does lead to. I needed to make sure that if they were going to insist that I pay off that fine (just like the Willett bunch did), that it was going to come from the profits of something that, although legal, they wouldn’t like – i.e. the teachings and preaching in my book.
         The anger over Maginnis’ sins, along with how they hood-winked me into a no contest plea, and then wanted to grab more of my money by way of a fine, despite knowing of the improper costs I shouldn’t have lost last time, were the sole reasons I wrote Revenge and founded VOCAL. I solemnly vowed to never again be forced by way of pressure, threats, or extortion to pay for an attorney out of my pocket and never pay a fine or suffer an unnecessary or unfair judicial-caused expense without returning a punishment comparable in nature back upon them with enhancements as reoffenders get. (I will personally do nothing to bring on an attack of symptoms. And at the same time, I will not allow symptom-producing behavior to be done to me without first advising the instigator of likely side effects.) There will be no more income-funneling judicial related expenses going out of my pocket ever again! And that they can take to the bank – my bank! And that includes traffic or parking tickets. If I get one, I’ll choose to do the few days in county jail rather than pay the fine. I won’t run out on a promise to appear mind you; I just won’t pay a fine. I don’t mind doing the brief county jail time as long as it costs them and not me – after all; I do love to cost the judicial system money; to monkey wrench as I put it. That is a pet hobby of mine. Some people like cats or dogs or collecting stamps. I like monkey wrenching. (Did you catch the pun there? Pet and Hobby?) And I’m especially adamant about this vow today because I’ve been punished for the very same thing, (twice on one case alone); making threats. I’m not about to accept them from somebody else! Double-standard violations are one thing I don’t tolerate no more. Don’t expect me to. I’m far, far to close to the edge on this topic.
         Revenge was my unique way of returning a punishment back upon them. And the best part of it was that it was not illegal. I could brag that I was avenging their misconduct and not worry about legal consequences. That First Amendment thing was on my side and I was going to play it to the max.
         Even though Fratianne didn’t add priors to my sentence, part of the 6-years I got was imposed because of my past record and he especially made note of that on the record. That is an extremely anger provoking thing to be forced to accept, especially when I was over punished on my past crimes. If anything, time should have been knocked off to make up for the unfair excesses before along with the abuse I suffered at the hands of others which no one got punished for.
         An inmate is allowed to file a Motion for Modification of Sentence within 120 days of sentencing if new factors unknown at the time of sentencing become present. Judge Fratianne claimed my sentence modification request was filed late so he had no jurisdiction over me any longer. (The docket sheet states, “Defendant’s Application for Modification is placed off calendar. The Court finds that it has no jurisdiction to modify sentence herein.”) As it turns out, it was filed one day before the deadline; on the 119th day after sentencing. What is so angering is that he was extra fussy about a deadline of his as it pertained to papers I filed, but when it comes to a deadline he set for the probation officer (Mr. Robert Kelsey) and Chino, he allowed them to get by with not keeping to his deadline. The probation officer had over 2 months to do a Probation & Sentencing report and still didn’t get it done and Fratianne allowed him to have more time by setting off my sentencing date about 1 month. I was then sent on a 90-day observation at Chino but Fratianne set the report and court due date 100 days away to allow them some extra time. Even with 10 extra days they didn’t make his date. They needed another week and he allowed it which meant I was stuck in the L.A. County Jail that extra time with no bail set. Then when it comes to me to file papers by a 120-day deadline I’m told that I’m too late when I wasn’t. Even if I was, why couldn’t I have had the same courtesy as the others? Is there any wonder I would or should be discourteous in return? Is there any wonder I should be hyper-sensitive about double-standard violations committed against me?
         So what did all these anger-provoking costs add up to you wonder? When I first tallied everything up from all my cases a few years ago I listed $45,000.00 lost to Maginnis, psychiatrists, and interest not earned when our money was put up for excessive bail and not invested in our banks.
         While examining my files in this case recently, I ran across receipts and logs my father kept of the various fees he paid to each psych and Maginnis along with the dates of each. As it turns out, when you take into account the interest that was lost because our money was put up for bail instead of remaining invested in high-interest earning savings accounts, plus the fact that we were penalized for withdrawing the money before maturity, my $45,000.00 estimate here is damn close. I didn’t have these accurate figures when I arrived at my original estimate. If memory serves me correctly, it is a figure I got from my father. In all, it seems to have withstood the test of time quite well. He knew what we lost.
         For Maginnis we have; 8-6-86 = $5,000.00, 9-13-86 = $2,500.00, 10-28-86 = $2,500.00, 1-17-87 = $1,500.00, 3-24-87 = $2,500.00, 4-30-87 = $3,000.00, and 5-7-87 = $3,000.00 for a total of $20,000.00.
         For his friend, Paul R. Tobias, M.D. we have; 12-15-86 = $125.00, 12-31-86 = $340.00 (testing Marie Tom), 1-27-87 = $125.00, 2-10-87 = $125.00, 2-13-87 = $85.00, 3-5-87 = $800.00, and 9-14-87 = $350.00 for a total of $1,950.00.
         For Carlo P. DeAntonio, M.D. we have; 9-16-86 = $100.00, 9-23-86 = $100.00, 10-1-86 = $100.00, 10-15-86 = $200.00, 10-22-86 = $100.00, 10-29-86 = $100.00, 11-5-86 = $100.00, 11-12-86 = $100.00, 11-19-86 = $100.00, 11-26-86 = $100.00, 12-3-86 = $100.00, 12-10-86 = $100.00, 12-17-86 = $100.00, 12-19-86 = $100.00 (Ernie), 12-31-86 = $100.00, 1-14-87 = $100.00, 1-21-87 = $100.00, 1-28-87 = $100.00, 2-4-87 = $100.00, 2-11-87 = $100.00, 2-18-87 = $100.00, 2-25-87 = $100.00, 3-4-87 = $100.00, 3-11-87 = $100.00, and 3-14-87 = $100.00 for a total of $2,600.00.
         For Michael B. Coburn, M.D. we have; $750.00.
         For James Paul Walker. Ph.D. we have; 10-3-86 = $800.00, 10-23-86 = $400.00, 10-31-86 = $400.00, 11-7-86 = $400.00, 11-13-86 = $400.00, 11-19-86 = $400.00, 12-1-86 = $400.00, 12-16-86 = $600.00 (tests), and 1-27-87 = $600.00 for a total of $4,400.00.
         Kurt S. Jorgensen, M.A. gave us a FINAL STATEMENT dated July 24, 1997 that itemized his services. His breakdown was as such; September 19 - December 8, 1986: 23 Interviews @ 2hr. ea. 46 hrs./ Read case material, reports, listen “confession” tape 5.25 hrs./ February 27, 1987: case material review, conf. Drs. Tobias & DeAntonio & Pat Maginnis 3.5 hrs./ September 1986 - April 7, 1987: telcons re: case 5.25 hrs./ Review videotapes, notes, case material & prepare March 9, 25 & July 6, 1987 reports 19.5 hrs./ April 6 & 7, 1987: trial preparation 2.5 hrs./ total hrs. @$80.00/hr= 82.0 hrs./ Videotapes, originals: 23 VHS tapes $176.66/ Videotapes, duplicates: 12 VHS tapes $87.96/ total video tapes: $264.62/ 82.0 hrs.@$80.00 = $6560.00/ April 7, 1987 court appearance: 4 hrs. @$100.00 = $400.00/ total = $7224.62/ July 20, 1987 court appearance: no charge/ paid toward balance as of December 1, 1986 $4000.00/ balance due = $3224.62/ Please make payable to: James P. Walker, Ph.D./ Sincerely,/ Kurt S. Jorgensen, M.A./ My dad wrote on it that he subtracted $264.62 from the balance due and made out check # 4464 for $2,960.00 on July 30, 1987. There was some dispute regarding the video tapes that Jorgensen made of our sessions although I’ve forgotten what it was. In any event, my father didn’t pay for them and that’s what he subtracted. I seem to recall we were suppose to get them back but didn’t. I also gave Jorgensen the original audio tape that the police made when they questioned me and I didn’t get it back either.
         And later we hired another attorney to assist in my Writ of Habeas Corpus to try to fix Maginnis’ errors. Even though it was unsuccessful, he still cost us $6,500.00. And none of these figures tally up lost wages I lost by not being out in the community working. I did around 128 extra weeks in prison beyond what a proper punishment for vandalism would have been.
         By the way, if anyone wishes to voice their criticism to Lee Harris; as of May 1998 he was the acting assistant supervising Judge at the Van Nuys Branch of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, 14400 Erwin Street Mall, Van Nuys, CA  91401. (818) 374-2639.
         Fratianne, to the best of my knowledge is retired.
         As I’ve previously mentioned, my companion document to Revenge titled Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable listing monetary breakdowns in detail is freely available to those judicial personnel who have violated me and owe me money. It has an opening section that explains Revenge and I’ve included it here. Please bear with me, some of it repeats what you already know:

         This Statement was written to briefly answer inquiries as to the motivation for my book, legally permitted by the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, Revenge on the Judicial System: Don’t Get Mad Get Even! If anyone is irritated and/or upset by what is written there, they should have thought of that before they violated me and realized that some of us won’t accept these kinds of abusive actions. Although each individual violation addressed below could include several pages, I’m limiting each one to only the most serious highlights. Readers wanting more details should check out my book; Fedbuster: The Southern California Wildfires of ’93.
         In no way am I making a demand for money and no one can claim I am trying to extort what I honestly feel should be my money from those who feel it’s their money. Extortion requires a threat of some kind that something bad will happen if some demand is not met. Nowhere here is any language like that referred to, and that is not my intent (I purposely do not even say I will not distribute my book if you pay me back my loses because that may fall within the provisions of extortion laws); rather figures expressed below are just my honest belief and opinion as to what I feel I’m owed for wrongs committed against me by various members of the judicial system or anyone working in conjunction with them.
         Just as Japanese-Americans felt they were owed some financial compensation, reparations, and an apology (which they finally got, sort of) for World War II improprieties they suffered at the hands of our government, I have the same valid feelings. And if black people feel they are owed something, and in fact get some compensation by way of Affirmative Action – getting priority over non-blacks on certain things to sort of make up wrongs suffered, not by them, but by their ancestors – then surely I have a right to these feelings; after all, these are things I personally suffered. In many cases I felt just like I had been raped. If rape victims can sue in civil court because they feel they are owed something from the attacker then so should I be able to. And if female students can sue and get awards for mere sexual harassment that school officials failed to stop then surely so should I be able to. People have been awarded thousands of dollars in lawsuits for sustaining much less emotional and psychological damage than I have throughout the years because of judicial-system improprieties. Truly I honestly feel I am owed financial compensation. I consider all these debts due and payable now and everyone who has not done so, in default.
         The improprieties I suffered has led to a strongly worded Medical Advisory/Information: Statement of Facts document which should carefully be studied, especially by those inclined to misbehave to any degree. Think of it as your “Bible” and its dictates as pronouncements on proper conduct to follow. Those with predispositions toward misbehavior are strongly encouraged to veer off that course and into a more proper direction so future violations are not committed against me and unfavorable reactions can therefore be avoided. This is especially important since the 1989 Torrance travesty, listed below [we’ll be getting to that in the next chapter folks], which has reduced my tolerance level to accept any improprieties to practically zero. (The above sentence was written before November 7, 1993, when another major travesty happened as detailed below. My threshold to withstand any judicial unfairness or unnecessary aggravation is now zero! The cupboard is now bare – there’s no tolerance left; no slop factor!)
         To make up my unfair loses, outlined below, I am merely selling a legal product for a profit to anyone freely willing to purchase any amount, something our free society allows. Net profits – whether from book or past teaching, lecturing, or advising on the subject – and any individual outstanding debts paid by perpetrators, or anyone for that matter, are deducted from the Total judicial debt listed at the end. Any donations received from anyone who does contribute any amount are also deducted from the total.
         Although I hope to offset losses, I additionally hope those who have committed violations against me – and probably commit similar offenses against others – will modify their behavior to within proper boundaries in their future dealings with others and prevent the kinds of reactions they are suppose to be preventing.
         When Revenge was originally written and samples of that shorter version were circulated among fellow prison inmates and various judicial-system personnel for comments and inputs in 1988, my goal then was only to recoup lost money sustained in the ’85 Torrance [the one with Michael detailed in Chapter 9] and ’86 San Fernando [the one with Maginnis detailed in this chapter] cases because of their improperly filed counts as explained [previously]. Only after the travesty of the 1989 Torrance “extortion” case has my goal been expanded and modified to include all the way back to the beginning improper loses. As far as I’m concerned, none of it should have been lost and all of it should be compensated for. After Torrance ’89, there’s no reason to be generous and forgiving with any impropriety, even ones long ago. No one’s getting off the hook. After all, judicial personnel haven’t forgotten past misdeeds I’d done long ago. They are constantly used against me, even a small fire I set in 1959 at age 9. I still get screwed by judicial personnel for that. As of now, only one offender, Mrs. Margaret A. Reeves from Manhattan Beach, has offered to settle her debt and that case is considered closed and my attitude about her in now neutral.
         (Although I received a check from her [for $300.00 to cover the $48.00 probation violation hearing and expenses related to it and not the original thousands spend in attorney fees], I was never sure if it was from her or from someone close to her who just wanted to do the right thing. Just because the letter included with her check was worded in her distinctive kind of lower-schooling-level English and had her signature affixed doesn’t mean some friend or family member didn’t do it to placate me. Since the vicious attack upon me at the United States Penitentiary (USP) at Lompoc on July 2, 1994 instigated by one of her friends or family members [that there is no doubt about], I’m less sure she is the one who offered settlement. I suspect she may have put inmate James Beverly up to it. Either that or he took it upon himself, I’m not sure which – yet! In any event, I’ll apparently have to investigate it on my own due to the fact that I’ve gotten no help from authorities in bringing my attackers to justice despite multiple attempts in both letters and spoken words. More details are below.)
         Special emphasis is placed upon non-violent non-physical injuring kinds of retribution people have done, do, and have considered doing to even the score because the San Fernando Deputy District Attorney, Leland B. (Lee) Harris, and Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne insisted I plead to and be punished for a crime that the statute requires one to specifically intend to injure and they both knew I didn’t intend that when I did intend to do the more minor crime of vandalism which should have been the only thing charged.
         Profits I make, donations I receive, and/or individual outstanding debts paid are considered make-up, or more properly, reimbursement for improper loses I should not have sustained in the first place; and not income – therefore are not subject to usual income taxes I believe. If anyone thinks they are, speak up now or forever hold your peace. If profits are taxable, let me know now so I can adjust my goal up to allow the net profit after taxes to reflect the total at the end of this Statement.
         Think of this as my “defense fund.” Not unlike that of President Clinton’s or various other high-ranking politicians who were unnecessarily (or even properly) burdened with costs they should not have had. Some guilty culprits even set up these funds for themselves. Well so can I! I’ll call it “reimbursement fund.” Cool! That works for me. : - )
         Interest is calculated at the following annual percentage rates for the following years:
         1967-1981=8%  1982-1986=14%  1987=10%  1988=9%  1989-1990=8%  1991=7.5%  1992=6.5%  &  1993-1997=6%. These figures begin with rates in given years for long term savings accounts or bonds – where this money would have been if we hadn’t been cheated out of it – then deducts 2% to approximate net income I would have made after state and federal income taxes were paid. I do not expect more than my fair share. I am not trying to make a profit on over-due debts I am legitimately owed. I am not even charging higher interest rates, like a bank would charge on a loan; as I really should do. (I do consider my money loaned out to my perpetrators.) Nor am I compounding interest more frequently than annually; as I should also do – which is the way banks and other investment places would do. I only want to come away with what I would have had, had I not ever suffered these unfair loses. I’m a bottom-line oriented person – I want MY money back; simple!!! (And as you can see, money and personal property are extremely hot-button issue to me – my Achilles’ heel. I’m a bottom-line oriented, narcissistic, loner kind of guy and I’ve become increasingly more like this with each judicial violation. MY possessions are MINE. All I care about is my happiness and my health. The rest of it – I can give a shit. And my money and possessions fall in the “my happiness” category. No one has, or ever will, be allowed to violate them – any of them without punishment! Trust me; I’ve taken a solemn OATH on it!)

         Revenge began in the fall of 1987 while I was confined at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (DCF) near San Diego. As inmates do with a lot of free time on their hands, we sat around comparing notes and found we all had some tales of unfairnesses inflicted upon us by the judicial system in some ways. While all the current stories in Revenge come from inmates I’ve encountered in county, state, and federal facilities over the last decade, those inmates at Donovan really got the ball rolling. It was there we formulated the OATH, VOCAL, and its Guidelines and Goals. While they’ve changed over the years with the help of others, I credit the bunch at Donovan for giving it all birth.
         If my slip into the world of unprotected sex back in the summer of ’93 – which resulted in a fear that I had contacted AIDS and then led into my meeting of Snake and his bag of misfits – had not transpired, I would have been a law-abiding revenger pushing my agenda and establishing chapters of VOCAL throughout all of Southern California. But fate had a different plan for my life, and I guess all those fires were just part of it. Oh well, can’t do much about it now except learn by all the mistakes that were made. Anyway, back to Donovan Correctional Facility – this time, in the fall of ’88. But first, I think it’s a good time to switch chapters. We’re done with Maginnis for the time being, and the rest of what I have to say about Donovan relates to an extortion charge I was facing.

[Return to Table of Contents]

         Donovan has four separate independent yards within the fenced perimeter of the level-3 institution, designated Facility 1, 2, 3, and 4. Other than for inmates working in the common main kitchen, hospital, and various other institution-wide jobs, we never associated with those in adjoining yards. With each having its own visiting room, dining room, chapel, laundry, library, and exercise yard, if an inmate has an enemy on an adjoining yard he is as safe from him as if he were transferred miles away to another prison altogether. This is exactly what happened to me soon after I got there in September 1987. The institution had just opened up shortly before and our bus load contained the first inmates to be housed in Facility 4. As days went on and more inmates moved in, I noticed the lower caliber of inmates that were becoming my neighbors. My arrest had made the newspapers so it was not unlikely that some of these scumbags would recognize me and recall that I was a child molester.
         One week after my arrival I filed an administrative remedy (known as a CDC 602) asking for transfer to another institution that has a higher percentage of sex offenders and therefore may be safer for me who would then be just one of many. I began my request as such: “This appeal is addressed to the institution classification committee and/or CSR members requesting reclassification to CMC-E for the safety & psychological reasons listed below. I am a homosexual with a conviction history involving non-forcible molestation of boys in 1971 which is now known about on the yard.” After my request was denied by the Correctional Counselor I resubmitted it up the line to the next level. The Program Administrator, the head person in charge of Facility 4, responded that I would be seen by a psychiatrist and, “Upon completion of that session you will be scheduled to appear before the Classification Team. At which time, the Team will evaluate your case and make a recommendation regarding your future at DCF or another CDC [California Department of Corrections] institution.” As it turned out, the psych did recommend my transfer, but the Classification Team never did anything about it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t my worst problem though.
         Some negligent staff member left my request – and acknowledgment to being a child molester – out in the open in his office. Inmate clerks and janitors work in and around those offices and one of them saw what I said about myself. On October 10th several of them come up to my cell, which was locked at the time, and confronted me with it. I tried to deny it by showing them my current police report which doesn’t mention molesting and they seemed to fall for it. Later in the day an officer came up to my cell and told me that the Lieutenant became aware of a threat on my life. I was told to pack up my property because I would be moving to one of the other yards after lunch. After being fed in my locked cell (they wouldn’t let me go to the dining room with the rest of the inmates) and with all the other inmates locked down during the 4 p.m. count, I was moved to Facility 1 among scowls and howls from irate inmates as I was exiting the housing unit.
         Facility 1 was absolutely no problem at all. Besides no one ever finding out about me, the housing unit I lived in had a higher percentage of Christian inmates than average. From past experience, I knew that these are the safest kinds of inmates to have as my fellow neighbors. While they hate the sin, they love the sinner and are not prone to violence. Now I didn’t want to transfer to CMC or anywhere else. When they never followed through with the psych’s recommendation to transfer me I never pursued my appeal up the chain of command. I was a happy camper and perfectly willing to remain put until the day I go home.
         Unfortunately, fate was not on my side. Inmates are periodically reclassified to determine if any program changes are warranted. As an inmate nears release, his custody level goes down and he is often transferred to a lower-custody institution. Some even end up at unfenced Level-1 camps because they are not considered risks to the community. I appeared for my annual review on October 21, 1988 and was told that because of my good behavior and work reports, that my custody “points” on a score sheet they calculate had been lowered and that placed me in line for a transfer to a Level-2 institution.
         Trouble was though, Level-2 institutions have open dormitories as housing units rather than 2-man cells like all the Level 3s have. In the dark of night any inmate could be attacked or even killed in his sleep with no problem at all. I explained my fears to the classification committee and they agreed to put me in for an “override” so I could stay at Donovan. They told me to not get my hopes up too high though because the CSR (Classification Staff Representatives) try to house inmates at institutions conforming to their points score.
         Off the record, one of the counselors present at my review told me that some inmates will purposely misbehave in order to raise their points score. I, of course, was already familiar with this technique. Breaking prison rules keeps an inmate’s score higher. By being good all this time I ended up screwing myself. One incident report (known as a CDC 115), even one not too serious, would have kept my score just above the Level 2 to 3 dividing line and all this stuff about worrying about an “override” would have been a moot issue.
         Now my only choice was to raise my points by breaking a prison rule. When asking an officer to write me up for something I hadn’t done didn’t work, I set about the task of misbehaving. As a janitor in the housing unit I lived in, I dumped 5 gallons of wax down the toilet in staff’s restroom in such a way that I was the likely suspect. I wanted to get in trouble, but not enough to where I’d be put in the hole and lose the cell I lived in with a very compatible cell mate. Facility 1 Lt. Diminni (spelling unsure) called me into his office to question me about not only it, but the vandalism of one of the units TVs. Absent that, I would have gladly admitted the wax flushing and taken my write up, but when he was talking putting me in the hole I clammed up.
         The TV deal had nothing to do with this at all. The stereo TVs we had in the common area had one speaker on each side. Inmates were told to keep the volume at a reasonable level and staff was suppose to enforce it. Because they never did I poked my finger through the grill of the right speaker which faced my cell and yanked out the paper speaker cone. They could still hear just fine with the left speaker, but because that one faced away from my cell’s direction I had considerably more peace and quiet. Sure I didn’t have a right to do it, but I always took whatever steps were necessary to make my time more comfortable for me no matter if others were inconvenience by it. Narcissistic? You bet – works for me. That’s a psychiatric label I’ll gladly wear. Anyway, Diminni told me flat out that he was fairly certain I was guilty, but took no more action apparently because he figured it was purposely done so I could stay.
         Donovan has an unfenced Level-1 camp outside of our secured institution. Around the time all of this was happening I learned of an inmate who was moved from out there to inside with us because he allegedly sent a threatening letter to some ex-wife of his or something like that. After she gave it to staff and they read it they saw that it wasn’t threatening they promptly moved him back to the camp, but the point of all this was that I saw how quickly staff responds when someone in the community feels threatened by an inmate. In the past I’ve always been held back when I was perceived as a “danger to the community” in some way even when I wasn’t. That was one of Atascadero’s hot points to always bring up on me and it sure got the attention of those who got their reports. This time I was trying to use the diagnosis to my advantage. Could I make myself appear too “dangerous” to go to a lower-security institution? Hmmm.
         Of all the hundreds and hundreds of people who got their cars sprayed with battery acid and the few who got some of the overspray mist on their skin, not one of them showed up at the time of my sentencing to speak up against me as they were entitled to do. And it’s not like they didn’t know either. Besides being in the newspapers, the probation officer stated in his report to the court that he contacted the victims. So did I have anybody speaking up against me besides the deputy district attorney? You bet! My ol’ fat buddy, Mrs. Reeves – who wasn’t even a victim in this case (or even the one with son Michael’s case) – butted her way in there to say what an awful thing I had done to Michael and how I deserved prison. Noticeably absent though was Michael. Every other time (and there were many court appearances through those years with her) she yanked him out of school so he would be in court even when he didn’t need to be. Somewhere during her flaming condemnation of me to Judge Fratianne it come out that Michael moved out of her house in August of 1986. Now from the police report which had his birth date in it, I see that he would have turned 18 on August 30th of 1986. Apparently, according to Mrs. Reeves own testimony, he high tailed his ass out from under her roof as soon as he turned 18 and was legally able to do so, or the very next day at the latest. I already knew he was sort of on my side. First he tipped me off to the wiretap, and then he didn’t tell police about some of the activities we had done together which was probably his way of silently disobeying his mother who wanted me in as much trouble as possible back in ’85. Now with him not in court as an adult, I’m sure that’s his way of standing on my side without literally doing so.
         Despite Michael’s absence, Mrs. Reeves, who was not a victim in any crime I had done, went into a long rambling spiel about how I had hurt their family so bad – and on, and on, and on… It seems the only way she could avoid feeling any guilt for contributing to Michael’s abusive treatment was to over emphasize how I was the culprit rather than her. And boy was she over zealous about it, so much so that Fratianne even rolled his eyes in a way indicating he now understood the source of my anger and need to lash out verbally in my past letter to her.
         I had been toying with the idea of wanting to give Mrs. Reeves a piece of my mind once again. After that courtroom visit, when I didn’t have a chance to speak up to her, I needed her to hear what I had to say. In the least, I wanted her to know that she had done some criminal acts by lying under perjury and that she should not be so willing to throw stones when she is guilty herself. Of course, I wanted her to know what extra money I lost on account of her false statements to Judge Willett and that she should foot the bill for that, but I never really expected her to sit down and write me out a check, let alone apologize. I knew she didn’t have those qualities about her.
         Remembering how that other inmate got yanked off the 1 yard, I thought possibly I could use Mrs. Reeves to my advantage to get my transfer cancelled. She claimed my last letter was threatening when it only contained condemnatory statements she didn’t like to hear. I could get my last word in now and at the same time surely count on her to complain to prison staff about what I said. Not only did I count on her to notify prison staff, I instructed her to do it. I’ll quote some from the letter later on, but first I’ve got some more things to cover.
         I also set about appealing my pending transfer through the prison’s administrative remedy process. All hope was over on Friday December 2, 1988. That afternoon I received official word that my request for “override” was denied. There was “no justification” for it they said. The institution I was designated to was the Level-2 yard of the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi. Anticipating that this is the joint I would be shipped to, I had already asked around to find out what it was like there. When I was told that it has only open dormitories housing up to 150 inmates I immediately pictured another Wayside incident where I got jumped on by several inmates back in 1971. No weapons were used there but it was still bad enough. In prisons where some inmates regularly work around tools on their job assignments, it doesn’t take much to pocket a screw driver or even fashion a stabbing implement out of some scrap metal laying around. I was attacked in broad daylight at Wayside right after they found out I was a molester because they knew I had made bail and would be leaving shortly. Imagine the job they could have done after lights were out. While asleep, I could have quietly been choked to death without probably anybody else waking up except possibly those near me. Now how much easier would it be to have an ice pick like tool stuck in my heart in an open dormitory?
         Surely you can sense my fear here. A week or so before I received the official denial I screwed up. Mr. E Salazar, the Program Administrator for Facility 1, was planning to make a facility-wide change to something that, although totally separate from my transfer issue, would disadvantage me nonetheless. Being the Narcissistic person that I am, I snitched him off to the warden in such a way that it got tied back to me. I was sort of told that I was on his shit list then and not to expect any help from him in trying to stay.
         Like I mentioned before, I was angry at Mrs. Reeves for showing up at my sentencing hearing in San Fernando and saying the things she did. I had planned to verbally vent off all the rage, frustration, and anguish I felt toward her later on, but when this pending transfer come about, I decided to combine that with using her to my advantage to try to stay at Donovan. In my heightened state of fear, I typed a 16-page letter to her venting all the angry feelings I had built up over her lies and that final court appearance. And there were times I pounded those typewriter keys pretty hard too. But, of course, it’s better to pound its keys than to pound in her head. Making it sound as if the letter was coming from another third person writing about my anger at Mrs. Reeves, I made it sound as if I was spreading a lot of dirt about her to other inmates and that she could be in danger because of it. I emphasized that it was only truthful things that were being reported about her misbehavior so no laws were being broken by doing so. In sort of a reverse psychology move I made her think that I wanted to transfer, and that by doing so, I could endanger her even more. “Tom hopes to get transferred to another institution so he can spread the word about you to a whole new group of inmates.” Along with the letter, I sent her a draft copy of Revenge (which I had enough copies of) with the express intention that she contact the institution and tell them that I was too “dangerous” to transfer.
         As I mentioned above, it was a Friday that I got the notice saying I was definitely transferring. Knowing how I could be on the very next bus smokin’ outa’ there, I wanted to get my letter in the mail to her before the weekend. Unfortunately I didn’t have access to a typewriter with which to add the few extra things I needed to say so I disguised my own handwriting in all upper-case letters and penned page 17:

     BECAUSE MAIL NEEDS A RETURN ADDRESS TO LEAVE HERE AND BECAUSE I DON’T WISH TO SAY WHO I AM, I’M PUTTING TOM’S ADDRESS ON THE ENVELOPE. I ALSO ADDRESS IT TO YOU AS AN ATTORNEY SO IT CAN BE SEALED FROM SNOOPING STAFF EYEZ. IRONICALLY BECAUSE OF TOM’S “GOOD” BEHAVIOR HE WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO A LOWER CUSTODY INSTITUTION WITHIN DAYS TO FINISH HIS SENTENCE. STAFF RECLASSIFIED HIM TO THIS, OBVIOUSLY UNAWARE OF WHAT HE’S BEEN UP TO. HE’S ALREADY COST THEM A BUNDLE OF MONEY. TOM WILL NOW HAVE A WHOLE NEW GROUP OF INMATES TO TELL ABOUT YOU AND PASS ON HIS OPINIONS ABOUT REVENGE. YOU WOULD BE ADVISED TO SEE HE STAYS WHERE HE IS. HE CAN DO LESS DAMAGE WHERE HE IS AS EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS HIM.

         At first I thought my plan worked. Staff called me in to the office to question me about it and I played the innocent – who me? – routine. Apparently it did hold up my transfer for awhile, but on February 1, 1989 I was put on a bus and shipped to Tehachapi.
         Just so you know that the fear I was having was not without merit, here’s what happened while I was at that lower-level prison. One bold convict murdered a fellow inmate with a prison-made knife in broad daylight among crowds of others on the baseball bleachers knowing the inmate “code of silence” would allow him to escape unpunished. He calculated correctly as no one came forward to staff, inmates only talked over the particulars among themselves. One can only imagine what could happen in the dead of night in an open dorm and staff doesn’t take it serious when a person who sexually interacts with minors is violated. I presented them with evidence where they lightly punished an inmate who severely beat up such a person. (One inmate I knew – and saw the paperwork on – did more time on a parole violation – 9 months – for lightly slapping his girl friend around than he did for knocking the teeth out of an inmate at a previous institution who he learned had sex with a 13-year-old girl. He got a misdemeanor conviction and 10 days in the county jail for slapping his girl friend, but no new charge for attacking the molester. Other than some time in the hole, 30 or 60 days lost good-time credits – which he could later earn back with no new incident report – and a disciplinary transfer to a different institution, that’s all the punishment he got. It’s true. He showed me the incident report which included his statement to staff that he was “proud” of what he had done. Check it out. His name is James Rose and he goes by the nickname of “Cisco.” He was 25-years-old in 1989. I’m just glad he didn’t know about me.) (We’ll be getting to later how I become a victim of this horrible practice. Even though I told numerous Bureau of Prisons’ officials repeatedly that I could identify 2 of the 3 inmates who viciously attacked me at USP Lompoc on July 2, 1994, and that I wouldn’t stand for someone to go by unpunished, I cannot get them to follow through with getting me a photospread to view. Even telling them I won’t identify the arsonists until my attackers are identified has not helped.) On another occasion while I was at Tehachapi a melee broke out on the yard with several inmate injuries and throughout all the time I’ve done I’ve seen many fights, sometimes for what most ordinary people would consider minor reasons. Truly, I had valid concerns of worry.
         I wasn’t putting all my eggs in one basket though by depending on Mrs. Reeves to help me out. The very next day after receiving my transfer confirmation I filed a scathing administrative remedy directly to the warden. In my attempt to “dangerize” (boy, my spell checker will have trouble with that word) myself, I said among other things, “if I were to leave my current program, and quite composed attitude, my tendencies toward revenge at the judicial system when I am treated unfairly and unnecessarily aggravated will in all probability re-surface to a level far beyond what transpired before.…You people have the advantage of hindsight in knowing what my inclinations are when I am unnecessarily wronged. My record is full of it.…When I’m made mad I go way beyond what other revengefully inclined people are likely to do. In fact sometimes my revenge has been legal even though it can still cost, inconvenience, or aggravate the one or ones I’m mad at. This has been the majority of my tendencies after I come back into custody. I’ve even written a booklet that deals with issues of judicial abuse that I’m enclosing.” That booklet, of course, was the first draft version of Revenge, a 24-page single-space typed manuscript that has since become the version it is today. I continued on in my appeal to the warden, “One of my honest opinions is that people should get even when wronged.…As expected I do have a much more negative attitude now than the day I entered custody off of bail. The good news is that after an initial aggravation I am pretty much settled down and my attitude is now fairly composed. Let’s keep me that way. My current program seems conductive in helping me keep my revengeful tendencies in check.…Notice in Chapter 3 of my booklet I deal with in custody type of unfairnesses and one is to be transferred with no concern for the prisoner’s wishes. Again I must say, if our wishes aren’t considered why should we be concerned if we intentionally aggravate in return. These are my honest opinions.…I’m quite likely to vandalize if I’m treated unfairly.…why should I be good? Why don’t I go full blown revenge?…my current, severe, and costly revenge tendencies are at the point of popping out of control with the littlest of provocation because I am so fed up with the judicial systems unfair aggravations. I need you to help me lower my boiling point.” If considering my own safety wasn’t enough of a reason to get an override, I thought the above danger-appearing language would surely do the trick. After all, their own rules emphasize that transfers are to consider the inmate’s safety along with societies, prison staff, and property. But no, it didn’t even phase ’em. A Lieutenant briefly interviewed me and by the conversation I could tell he had not read what I submitted.
         Even Mrs. Reeves was no help. I still got shipped out. Unfortunately, when she turned my letter in to local police they charged me with extortion. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in my state of fear and desire to make myself appear dangerous, I inadvertently allowed my language to get away from me and stepped a tad over that great divide; the legal/illegal border. Municipal Court Judge Thomas P. Allen, Jr., the judge at the preliminary hearing, who only needed a sufficient cause in order to bind me over to Superior Court said the following after having the worst parts of my letter pointed out to him by Deputy District Attorney Imogene Katayama, “I think for the purposes of the preliminary hearing, there is the minimum scintilla of evidence to bind the defendant over, although I don’t know what’s going to happen in the Superior Court.”
         Extortion, as defined in Penal Code § 523 (Sending threatening letters with intent to extort money, etc.) requires “specific intent to obtain property from the other person” (See CALJIC 14.77 for verification) in order to be guilty of it. But that wasn’t my intent. Like I said above, I never actually expected Mrs. Reeves to sit down and write me out a check. (I fully intended to let profits from Revenge, along with those from my other teaching and activist activities, earn me back what I lost.) I even told her to show the letter to police, and emphasized how I could tell a whole new group of inmates about her misbehavior if I transferred, hoping they would contact Donovan.
         Who hasn’t said things to their kids at a time of emotional excitement or anger they later realized wasn’t right? The DA accepts that the perjury and lies Mrs. Reeves committed were done at a time of emotional fear she was feeling at the harsh letter I sent her back in ’85 and didn’t prosecute her. In all fairness to her, if she deserves any more fairness than she’s already gotten an abundance of, I believe she may not have purposely sunken into the sewer of perjury when she lied. She may have just had a lapse of better judgment in her time of emotional uneasiness.
         At the same time, I should also report on a third lie committed by her in relation to this particular letter. She wrote to Judge Major, who took over Judge Fratianne’s cases while he was out on disability, and told him that I threatened both Judges Fratianne and Willett. (She even said I threatened her life, which we’ll see shortly is not true.) In fact, I only criticized the judges and I later told her to correct the error because, even though I no longer have any pending court cases in front of either of them, I do not want incorrect information in my files. I never checked my files to verify if she sent them a correction or not, but I would suspect she didn’t – after all, she wasn’t woman enough to admit any other errors after I made her aware of them before. If she hasn’t, she should be prompted with much vigor to do so without delay. Surly the court shouldn’t let her slither out of this duty.
         (One of my April 24, 1998 inquiry letters was sent to her with questions about her role if any in the attack upon me at USP Lompoc on July 2, 1994 as covered more fully in Chapter 18. But in the letter I also mentioned, “And, by the way, did you ever straighten out the lie you wrote to Judge Major in which you told him that I threatened Judge Fratianne when in fact, all I did was criticize him in that so called ‘extortion’ letter I sent you back in 1988? Seeing that the lie originated from you, that’s your responsibility to clear up!” Unfortunately, the letter was returned unopened with a notation that she no longer lived at the address I got from Michael back in ’85. Still, she’s responsible to clear it up.)
         If Mrs. Reeves’ mis-written statements (perjury and lies) can be excused due to their being written at a time of fear she thought was present, then why shouldn’t mine be allowed for in the same way? I expressed I had a great deal of evidence to show I had a valid fear about transferring from Donovan and my state of mind should have been allowed for as hers was when she wasn’t prosecuted. I did not intend to do a crime any more than she did. I even said that I didn’t in several of the sentences in my letter. While the DA, whether an assistant or the head supervising one for the Torrance courthouse, was nit-picking to find my bad words, he or she should have been just as choosy with numerous ones that cleared me of wrong doing. For instance, on page 10 of this 17-page letter (first 16 pages were typed and page 17 was handwritten) I said, “I’ll repeat he has no intent of doing anything illegal though.” And on page 11 I said, “And he’s not doing anything illegal. Nothing more than telling the truth about you, while hoping you don’t like it.” Shame on the DA for not being equally picky about pointing out my good wording. This happens all too often by judicial people reading about our deeds. They will highlight the bad parts and neglect the good parts. Then they wonder why we act bad rather than good in response later on.
         When I read the Penal Code statute I saw that it is a crime to threaten to expose someone’s crimes if they don’t pay you money – apparently even if its your own money they owe you. I think it’s a lot of nerve to charge me with threatening to publicly expose Mrs. Reeves’ crimes of slander and perjury, which clearly fit within California Penal Code definitions, and still not charge her for those crimes. Using that phrasing in the criminal complaint against me as they did, they finally admit that what she did was in fact a crime. To this day she remains an unindicted criminal though.
         Now if one writes to someone who lied about us under oath that we are going to expose them for perjury, a felony, we can be charged with making a threat, a misdemeanor; and what happens to the one who committed the perjury – nothing! That’s fair? (It’s not even what the Bible teaches. In 1 Timothy 5:20 we find that sinners should be rebuked publicly so that the rest may be afraid. I had a Biblical duty to expose her sins. We all do. The moral is, just do it. Expose the crime. Don’t tell somebody ahead of time you’re going to expose them because that’s where you apparently step over the line of criminal activity.) Who’s the real victim here? Can society afford to turn their backs on these kinds of actions any longer? Are they really making a defendant safer for society by using this tactic? Hmmm.
         For those interested, here is a selection of sentences I unloaded upon Mrs. Reeves. “The sad part about it is that when he wrote to you in 1985 he recognized he was victimized to bad to just forget it. That tongue lashing he gave you was therapeutic to him. It was a way of relieving the anger he had, to prevent something more detrimental from coming about.…his letter was not a threat to you. Rather, it was the opposite of a threat. It was, so to speak, a safety valve, to vent off an anger to prevent something else worse from transpiring. You should have been able to see that. He thinks you probably did, but used that as an excuse to try to get him in worse trouble so you could justify to yourself not having to accept the truth he told about you being a bad mother. The way he sees it, the only way you could prove your actions right as far as what you did to Michael was to prove Tom was wrong by writing to you. You should have accepted the criticism and offered an apology when you had the chance.…What made Tom so mad at you is that if you were really concerned about Michael why weren’t you concerned of the emotional trauma Michael could experience because of the rejection he’d feel because you didn’t want him at home. Things like that can be worse psychologically coming from a loved one than a few miniscule mis-spoken words from a stranger. Especially when movies 16 year olds are allowed to see are more sexually explicit than Tom’s words ever should have been considered. And Michael couldn’t have been that upset as you say because he wanted to have Tom as a friend and be with him. He wanted Tom to call him.…He just needed the last word. Then you had to bring all this back to the surface just because you couldn’t accept the truth of being a bad mother. He clearly said that letter was in place of doing something else as he would have done when younger. Yet you try to convince the judge he’s a ‘definite threat to us!’.…And worse yet to really stick yourself in the dog house you had to lie about it to get him in trouble. You tried to say and I quote your letter which he shows around when he is often heard still expressing his anger about this case, ‘absolutely no contact with Michael or his family, in any way, shape or form’. If you would have listened as you should have to the judge you would have known that is not true. And if you weren’t sure you should have checked the facts first before you signed a document under penalty of perjury. Tom didn’t ‘ignore’ the judges order when he wrote to you as you tried to claim. But you sure ignored the advice he tried to give you. You filed the declaration with the clerk. All you would have had to do is ask the clerk to check the facts to see if the judge said just not to contact Michael or if he included you. That should have been your responsibility. Tom thinks you probably knew, but didn’t care. You were determined to get him in trouble whether he was in the right for writing to you or not.…Tom had contested your statements in a written letter to the judge and also explained the reason it was written along with the necessity of it because of his inability to merely forget an injustice. He mentioned your 2 lies, but that apparently fell on deaf ears. You signed that declaration of probation violation under penalty of perjury and you lied. You should have been arrested. YOU’RE A CRIMINAL!!! when you sign something like that it’s your responsibility to check the facts first to make sure you’re not making a false statement, and you didn’t do that. You should be held accountable. If that would have been Tom lying to a judge he would have been raked through the coals. In fact that happened to him once and he got a higher sentence for it. [You remember the Judge Hauk fiasco in ’78?] That judge verbally made that clear to him. And here you are getting off scot free. We can’t have that. You deserve to be arrested and jailed for a least a few days to see how it is. You should see how it is to smolder in a hot cell in summer day after day with only warm water coming out of the faucet. You need to be forced to shower in front of other people. You need to have someone strip search you in front of everyone else and search into every body cavity and private part to let you know how it feels. You need to get some of that de-louse spray sprayed on you to see how it feels. Tom would love to see you set up some how to experience it first hand. In the least you should have been reprimanded by the judge for lying, but he didn’t even do that.…As mad as he is at you he means you no physical or bodily harm at all. When asked his opinion of what he would like to see happen and thinks you deserve, it is to lose your life savings and possessions exactly as he lost his life savings to attorney fees.…He noticed how you admitted to the judge in San Fernando that Michael moved out from you in August 86. Tom remembers his birthday is at the end of August 8-30 and he would have turned 18 in 86. Apparently as soon as Michael become a legal adult he couldn’t wait to get out from under your pressuring rule. I’ll bet that if you would have had your way you would have wanted to drag Michael to court in San Fernando to speak against Tom. Only now that he’s over 18 you couldn’t make him as you could do before he was 18. One would logically assume that if he was as upset by Tom’s sexual words as you say he was he would have made it a point to be there [or even sent a letter along with her for that matter]. One can quickly see that you were the one that was upset rather than Michael. Knowing the way Michael talked about you in 1984 to Tom it’s not surprising that he was anxious to get away from you. And that probably made you madder. You are under the false belief that you think you can take it out on Tom. That doctrine is of course false. You were especially mad when you couldn’t command him to come in to court and speak against Tom as you coaxed and pressured him to do before, weren’t you? Yes Maggie, you were an abusive and poor mother in emotional ways to Michael. It’s time you face up to it!!…And if he was as emotionally bothered as you say he was by only a few mis-spoken words, can you see how emotionally damaged he could have been made by YOUR rejection when he needed a mother more than ever? You’ve got a lot of nerve, bitch. You should feel guilty. He sure deserved a better mother than you.” And here’s what I wrote about my draft version of Revenge which was included in the letter to Mrs. Reeves. “It would be nice if someone like you could encourage authorities to buy the publication rights to his booklet which would mean he wouldn’t publish it because someone else would own the copyright. Of course authorities wouldn’t want to publish it, but if they own the rights Tom couldn’t print it. Actually it would be considerably cheaper if they gave him an equivalent value to all this case cost him than it would be to have it go into publication. He may even be able to find one of those so called under ground publishers and then get national distribution. If just one purchaser of the book picked up one idea and did just one day of stunts it could cost more than what buying the rights would cost. Imagine what a lot of people with a copy of it could cost the system. See what you brought about. You made him mad. You shouldn’t have made him mad. Now he’s getting his turn. Knowing how people connected with the judicial system usually do things in not the most efficient or wise way, they’ll probably choose the more costly way in the long run and allow the booklet to go into publication rather than buy the rights. Well that’s their loss.” And assuming its wry thoughts contributed to Snake and the fellas’ actions in the fall of ’93 – as is conceivable – not buying its rights was their loss – as well as societies in general. Oh well!
         I made them aware of the proper misdemeanor charge I should have only been charged with (Penal Code § 650; Sending letters threatening to expose another). Even it would have been a questionable charge, but none of that mattered though. I was threatened to plead to the original felony charge and accept a small amount of additional time (when back time credits are figured in) or face a lot more if I lost a trial. The deputy district attorney and Superior Court Judge Cecil J. Mills knew my language didn’t fit within the provisions of the felony statute, but that didn’t matter to them. They even, as if a slap in the face, put it on the record (citing a case called People v. West) that they acknowledge I wasn’t guilty when they took my pressured guilty plea. They should have been more interested in justice for all, rather than just winning a conviction at any cost. How dare they accuse me of a threat and then turn around and threaten me. If making a threat is a crime, then aren’t they also criminals? I honestly believe so. They should be treated as such. I was only guilty of using Mrs. Reeves to my advantage to try to stay at Donovan; not a crime! How dare them even accuse me of a threat when they subjected me to the fear and intimidation of the L.A. County Jail when they knew I couldn’t bail out.
         I was willing to take it to trial with all the documentation I had to show how I tried to stay at Donovan and what legitimate fears I had about being in an open-dormitory institution. If I would have been out on bail I would have done it in a heart beat, but because I was already serving time, I was not entitled to bail and that county jail for a pre-trial inmate in the maximum-custody area is a bitch to do time in. I had already been there for 76 days by this time when Judge Mills offered me the bare minimum state prison sentence he could – 8-month in exchange for a guilty plea. With half-time credits allowed by law I would normally do 4 months of that. But they told me that 76 days back-time county jail credits would come off the 4 months which would leave me only about 46 days or so to serve. Of course they heightened the offer by saying they’d waive getting a formal probation report before sentencing and would in fact sentence me that day plus order the sheriff to get me back to Tehachapi forthwith (meaning as soon as possible) along with recommending that prison staff transfer me back to Donovan. That sounded like an offer made in heaven. Exchange 46 some odd days for my safety and get out of that miserable county jail a hell of a lot sooner than if I had a trial.
         Well what’s that saying about a sucker being born every minute, or if something sounds too good to be true it probably is? When I got back to Tehachapi I couldn’t get them to abide by the deal we agreed to, as to how Judge Mills ordered that I be credited for the 76 days back time. They said that because I was already doing another sentence and this new one was consecutive to it, that I am not entitled to the 76 days credit. Granted, the way the complexities of the law are worded about receiving jail credits when one is already serving time, Tehachapi was correct in denying them. But still, a deal’s a deal. Either Judge Mills, who knew I was edgy about wanting to get out of the county jail soon, intentionally hood-winked me, or he just didn’t understand how those credits are calculated for someone already serving a sentence – it’s hard to know. But when I advised him how the institution was handling the new sentence he would not uphold the decision we made together. He could have resentenced me to 46 days total and that would have fixed everything. But no, he left the original sentence stand and I ended up doing 4-months of the 8-month total sentence – 76 days more than I pled guilty to. If they were so nit-picky at the words I used to classify them as illegal, they should have been as nit-picky with upholding the deal that Judge Mills and I made. Shame on them for not being equally picky about that. If one thing can be so simply brushed aside as if it was nothing, then surely so can the other one be. During that 4-months I had to do free prison work in order to get the other 4-months off. When I was a child and took something back that I had previously given to a playmate I was called an “indian giver” in the most looked-down upon terms. Now I know that may be an impolite term to use in today’s politically “correct” world, but in the early 60s that’s what I was called. I can still recall the how little the other kids made me feel for what I had done. Judge Mills should be made to feel the same way. Such characters are nothing but termites of evil destroying the foundations of our “justice” system and they should not be allowed to succeed. In case anyone wishes to voice their criticism to him and/or encourage a correction; as of January 1998 he was a Juvenile Court Judge at the Los Padrinos Juvenile Court, 7281 E. Quill Dr., Downey, CA  90242-2096. (562) 491-8841.
         And to make matters worse, Tehachapi refused to honor Judge Mills’ recommendation and send me back to Donovan. Needless to say, I was pissed royally, besides being scared. Now I’d be in danger an extra 4 months. Besides actively recruiting new members for VOCAL, I set out to make sure I’d get that incident report I couldn’t get Donovan to give me.
         One of my dorm janitorial duties was to take the dirty laundry thrown into a bin over to the laundry for washing. I took every opportunity I could to rip up or cut up with a razor blade as much of it as I could. Because I wasn’t making a conscious effort to hide my “extra curricular activities” (or recreational fun, whatever you want to call it) I never expected it would continue as long as it did. Despite snitches being hated by other inmates, every institution has its share of inmate snitches. These weren’t even lending me a hand in telling staff what I was up to. Apparently one did, but what really got me was when I typed a couple anonymous letters to staff members regarding being cheated out of something I shouldn’t have been. When I used the phrase “I don’t get mad, I get even” when I told them the punishment for their offenses would be torn up laundry, a counselor related that phrase to part of the title in Revenge, which he had a copy of, and officers were put on alert to watch me when I was near the laundry bin. By the time I was taken to the hole, they had tallied up $27,078.00 in damages. At a disciplinary hearing they convicted me of only $446.90 and shipped me off to the Level-3 California State Prison at Corcoran, emphasizing they’re sending me north because I wanted to go south to San Diego.
         Actually, it all turned out O.K. Corcoran was as safe as Donovan was for me and in two ways, it was better. My parents visited me every two weeks and even though both institutions were about the same distance away in mileage, going north from the San Fernando Valley gave them a lot less traffic to drive through than they had going south to San Diego. Plus we got more TV stations to choose from at Corcoran. Besides Bakersfield stations cabled into our cells, we could rig up a UHF loop antenna on our sets and pick up stations from Fresno – or vice versa. I’ve forgotten which was it was now. I was a very active couch potato back in those days, and still am to a much more limited extent, so having a personal TV in my cell was one other important reason I wanted to be in an institution that has cells rather than dorms. (Personally owned TVs weren’t allowed at all at Tehachapi.)
         I only had one problem with inmates while there and it was not related to me being an ex-sex offender at all. My own cell mate had run up a drug debt with some other inmates in the housing unit before I got there. When he couldn’t pay it back they pressured him to steal the motor from my AM/FM cassette player. A good number of tattooed inmates got their tattoos in prison. Inmates use these motors to make tattoo guns so they can tattoo each other. Because I had no cassette tapes to play, my cell mate figured that if he put it back together I’d never know. Even though the radio part worked perfectly, I still recognized the tampering. I was more mad at the young bully inmates than I was at my cell mate, I guess because I saw a part of me in him in how inmates had bullied me in the past. He remained my cell mate until the day he went home and I hated to lose him. The bullies, of course, were another story. I used every opportunity I could to snitch off their prison rule breaking, and after I went home I wrote them back to let them know I did it. They may have been bullies and could have beaten me to a pulp, but age and treachery is no match for youth and beauty. They learned they picked the wrong person to screw over. You see, I’m not after only the judicial system when I get violated. Anybody who screws me gets just punishment. And just for the record, I do not resent authority figures, despite what some may think – only those who abuse their authority; and today, abuse it in even minor ways!
         I abstained from breaking any prison rules while at Corcoran until the day I attended a hearing to restore the good days Tehachapi took from me as part of the conviction for vandalism. Prison policy allows inmates to apply for restoration of credits lost after they have remained incident free for a set period of time. After I was convicted at Tehachapi they asked me to sign a form to transfer money from my account to theirs. I refused. Now all these months later I was at a restoration hearing chaired by Associate Warden C. Reed. He offered to give back only 10 days of the 75 days that he was allowed to give back because I hadn’t signed over my money to them. But then as soon as I did sign it I magically got 75 days back, the maximum he could give at that time. (I got all of the remaining 75 days back at the next hearing but still got my sentence extended by 12 days because I lost half-time credits during the time I was in the hole.) I clearly felt extorted and threatened. Here I was currently doing 4 extra months for just threatening to talk about Mrs. Reeves to others if she didn’t pay back what she owed me, and now I was threatened with what would have been extra time if I didn’t sign my money over to them. The thing is, when they take an inmate’s money it isn’t just some of it at a time as the feds do with their FRP deal where inmates are still left with reasonable spending money. (FRP stands for “Financial Responsibility Program,” the federal program where they have an inmate sign over just a portion of the money he gets at regular intervals in order to pay a debt he owes. We’ll be talking about this more later on as my FRP troubles relate directly to giving Snake and the fellas an extended vacation.) Corcoran wanted every penny I had on my account and would take every penny I have sent in to me until it is paid off. They cared less whether I’d have anything to spend for necessary canteen items, so in return I cared less about their property. I immediately began cutting up clothing as I’d done before. This alleviated some of the anger over having to do without necessary canteen items. By the time they got around to suspecting me, I figure I got them for $4.000.00. It’s worth mentioning that before they got around to processing the paper work to take my money I was able to spend down my account to zero. I didn’t have that much but it saved me – and them, by way of reactions I’d give back to them – some. The thing is, for months I was getting no money from my prison job, it was all coming from my parents. Now as a pay slot finally came open I was going to be getting paid. It is this money they grabbed from me, which just happens to total $48.00, the same as Willett’s theft. But the anger of that is lessened by the fact that I cost them $4,000.00. When will they learn – don’t mess with MY money? With all the documentation they had available to them, why they wouldn’t have anticipated my response to their pressure tactics I don’t know. I hid nothing from them. Just suffice it to say that if my request to have them consider my safety hadn’t of fallen on deaf ears back in San Diego they would have saved over $27,000.00 plus the other $4,000.00. Do I hear an oops?
         It’s interesting to note that despite how easily and often inmates get their personal property disrespected by officers who think nothing of it, they sure get pissed when an inmate disrespects theirs back, even if it’s only state property and not their own personal property. And when they know you violated it because of their misbehavior, their pissed attitude is never at themselves, as it should be – but always at you for doing it. Take it from someone with such experience – it feels real good to see them pissed, knowing they know it was their misbehavior that brought yours to the surface, and knowing they know some people won’t accept their abuse of ours. While they may have the nerve to expect us to accept it – I wonder how accepting they would be if the shoe was on the other foot. Let them think about it for a moment. Because old ways of thinking and doing things has such a tenacious hook on people, it’s especially hard to change their views and get them to accept how wrong some of their behavior really is. There is just too much conformity to old ideas.
         Now I can imagine everyone out there outraged at my in-prison behavior here. Well what would you do if a bunch of your neighbors were angry at you and law enforcement turned a deaf ear to your expressed fears? You’d leave the area. But what if that wasn’t an option? If you developed some elaborate method to protect yourself, and it worked, wouldn’t you expect cheer and praise from those who saw how wrongly you were treated? Well so do I. If there’s anything you come away from after reading this book, let it be how awfully bad ex-sex offenders are treated by others, both in custody and out. I’m often accused of justifying what I do when I avenge something. Like I’ve said before, I know it ain’t right to do, but I didn’t care. When I’ve had to do some elaborate method in order to protect my own safety, even if it was costly to others, I emphatically do justify that as the right thing to do. If they’re shirking their responsibility to protect me, then I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect myself. And that goes double when their own negligence led to my identity as an ex-sex offender be known. How dare Reed pressure me out of money for committing an offense I was compelled to commit after they brushed my fears aside.
         They had already given me all of my lost days back when they started to notice a lot of laundry was coming up damaged. All they knew at the time was that it was coming from the housing unit I lived in. Because of that they locked us in and fed us in our cells for a number of days as a general punishment. When one of our regularly assigned officers, who was there when I arrived and was aware of my prior, told them I was a likely suspect I was carted off to the hole. They couldn’t give me a write up for it because no one seen me do it, but they kept me in the hole anyway until I went home a little over a week later. I’ll never forget this one officer whispered to me after he got done escorting me to the release area. Surely mad at me for skating by on this along with being familiar with my child molesting past, he said he’d kill me if he ever saw me on the streets. To this day I consider him a criminal who just hasn’t been arrested.
         It’s amazing the threats I’ve had to live with throughout they years that no one even begins to lift a finger to protect me from. But let me merely threaten to expose another person’s wrong behavior and I get raked through the coals. A few years ago we had female Korean grocer Soon Ja Du getting probation from Judge Joyce Karlin for killing a 15-year-old girl the court ruled she was emotionally afraid of, even though the 15-year-old was non-threatening and walking away at the time of the murder. Why couldn’t I have gotten probation for making a harsh and sort of moderate, but non-physically harming, threat when I was emotionally afraid? Once again, I shouldn’t have to put up with a double standard and it’s amazing they actually expect me or anyone to do so. Like I said before, fairness is not an adjustable concept and it doesn’t fluctuate.
         And if Zsa Zsa Gabor could get only 3 days in jail for actually hitting somebody why did I get 8-months in prison when I touched no one or even threatened to physically touch or injure? My threat was only to disclose past criminal activity of Mrs. Reeves to the public at a future time – something I was never told I couldn’t actually do at any time, now or in the future. While I can speak about her in a truthful manner all I want to anyone at the current time – as I’m doing – I just can’t “threaten” I plan to do it at a future time – that’s when it becomes a crime.
         Now when police inflict minor but unnecessary and improper physical injuries on people they don’t get prosecuted. This infuriates me greatly as to why I should have been singled out. Worse yet, when police misconduct is serious enough and they are prosecuted, their attorney is paid for by taxpayers (or their own Police Protective League as in the case of the cops that beat Rodney King), even though they can afford it. This is really intolerable discrimination and particularly angering in view that I was forced to pay my own attorney in the 1985 & ’86 Torrance matters and this time I get a cheap-ass public defender, nowhere near as good as a privately-appointed attorney like the King defendants got, who led me astray to think I’d get back time jail credits.
         I truly remain very angered and feel owed. I don’t demand compensation, but I truly feel I’m owed it! If William Kennedy Smith can publicly express his belief that he expects compensation for improper judicial prosecution soon after his rape trial was over with then so can I – and I do so with as much vigor!
         What is so additionally anger provoking is that I get blamed, prosecuted, and punished for telling someone that really is a guilty culprit that they owe me, but the Internal Revenue Service can actually, out in the wide open with no attempt to hide their intent, threaten an innocent person that is merely an employee of a company (not an owner whatsoever) to pay back taxes the owner didn’t pay. Here’s another example where what is legal and what is right part company. They do this form of “legal” theft if there is more of a chance of collecting the debt from some innocent person with seizable assets than there is from the real guilty culprit who is the real responsible person who does not have assets that can be found and/or seized. They can get away with this because they say laws make a mere employee responsible for the intentional tax evasion of the owner if that employee had the power to write company checks as part of normal business operations.
         On April 14th, 1992 NBC-TV’s Dateline NBC told about a suicide after the IRS wrongly demanded money from a family. Why shouldn’t those misbehaving agents be charged with murder? When a guy on an unrelated case was fleeing capture in a car and two pursuing police helicopters collided and crashed killing officers on board, the fleeing person was charged with murder. Even though the pilots’ negligence to watch their nearby air space really should put the blame on them, the fleeing person gets blamed because they say his original actions caused the wreck. Shouldn’t the IRS be held to the same standards? If the negligent pilots aren’t to blame, should the severely distressed suicide victim be to blame for his death? If the fleeing suspect gets all the blame and punishment for a death he didn’t intend but indirectly caused, shouldn’t misbehaving IRS agents be treated the same way when their actions indirectly caused an inadvertent death? Shouldn’t we expect that? I know I do. It’s high time we make sure all misbehaving judicial personnel get the same treatment for their misactions as we would get for the same kind of misactions we do. None of this crap of giving them a low bail or OR release for the same kind of crime we’d get a high bail for. None of them getting a good lawyer for free when we get a dump truck public defender too rushed to give us a proper defense. No more bending over backwards to mitigate the offending judicial-person’s misdeeds like Judge Davies did when sentencing the two Rodney King beating cops when we get our misactions aggravated or enhanced by a judge when we get a sentence handed down. (Before they aggravate a sentence they should be made aware it will aggravate us and that will surely make it more adverse for society in the long run.) No more merely transferring offenders to a different office while letting them keep their jobs.
         Possibly worst of all, rather than take into consideration the past abuses I already suffered from Judge Willett, the head Torrance DA took an extra personal interest to get me at any cost, whether a charge was valid or not. This was because I partially got back at them and publicly made them look bad for the 1985 Judge Willett improprieties listed above. If they were so concerned about my harsh tone of voice to Mrs. Reeves as an offense worthy of prosecution, then why weren’t they as concerned when threats were directed toward me, both now and years ago in custody the first time? Is there any reason I should stand for selective enforcement? Is there any reason I should smile and just accept it? Surely they know I won’t. Especially since I got an extra 6 months on my ’93 federal sentence because of this fraudulent conviction.
         When lessons of history are ignored, they repeat themselves. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson with me before, but instead they went ahead and screwed me again. They are mighty lucky my revenge has always been limited to an intentional non-violent variety with no one being physically hurt. Others I’ve spoken to have said they wouldn’t be so lenient under similar circumstances. This time though, my vengefulness is limited to legal methods of lashing out behavior which gives me the laugh’s last laugh’s best opportunity which is quite satisfying. I can speak out to others and write about the subject all I want, as the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights allows, and there is nothing they can do about it – no matter how mad they are; as I hope they are!
         Before we move on, here’s what I say about that People v. West crap in Revenge:

         By the way, the Torrance courts apparently use that People v. West deal quite regularly to help them screw over defendants. As [I] was sitting chained in an area where defendants talk with their attorneys, another defendant with a different public defender and going in front of a different judge was being prompted under that same infamous case to also plead to something he was not guilty of and he too was disgruntled about it. This tactic is like a slap in the face – as if to say, “we don’t care if you’re guilty or not, we just want to ‘win’ a conviction and look good to our supervisors.” This needs to send a red flag up in the minds of everyone who is victimized. Even if you give in to the pressure tactics at the time (as [I] did), when you get your power back later on make sure they don’t win. You’ve got the tools to do something about it. Don’t be the only loser! Make sure they don’t get a chance to slither off and gloat in the pleasure of a victory. Make them look bad to their supervisors. Make them turn red faced. See if you can get them chewed out good. They deserve that! Keep in mind that when political favors and pressure to clear dockets becomes involved, people fall through the cracks and new victims bubble to the surface. Make sure they understand that clearing dockets at any cost is not the way to do business and that it carries with it a heavy cost which they better be ready to pay. Wonder how soon it’ll be when the whole crime comes a tumbling back in on them? Do you think the end times are near? Should they be? Hmmm.

         Well, enough of my righteous indignation. Everyone knows I’m angry, and everyone knows I stand up and speak out for the things I believe in. After spending a little over a week in the hole I was released to the awaiting arms of my parents out in the prison’s parking lot on August 24, 1990, never to see the inside of a prison again, knock on wood.
         Whew! That was a lot of prior history to get through folks. But at least we have a good foundation built so we can continue on constructing a full understanding of how all them damn fires come into our lives. It’s now time to get back to the Silver Mountain on that hot August evening back in 1993 where we left off describing my first encounter with Snake and the fellas.

[Return to Table of Contents]

First thing, kill all the lawyers
–William Shakespeare

         When I saw Maginnis on TV that hot, muggy, August night speaking once again favorably about Antoine’s behavior and lack of intent I lost it. I went ballistic. It galled me immeasurably to think about what he had done to me. I was already drunk, immersed in a whirlwind of despair over my suspected HIV status and my mother’s cancer, and angry. My sense of moral outrage that he had gotten away with what he did to me had grown even greater since I had been seeing him on TV. They later told me that I was ranting and raving at that screen as if it was a real person I was face to face having an argument with. Snake pulled be away from “Maginnis” and calmed me down, but for the next couple of hours I was venting every detail about what he had done to me.
         All of a sudden Snake – his T-shirt damp with sweat, balding head shining as a billiard ball, neck tendons stretched to the max, and angry looking pupils of his menacing brown eyes opened wider than ever – spoke out in his deep-gravely voice; “let’s burn ’em out; let’s burn ’em out!” It’s hard to relate to you the look that came over him as he bellowed it out. They say that looking into the eyes of a snake are like peepholes into hell. With this human snake, I’m not so sure it’s a myth. Snake had this fascination with fire that I’d never known in a person before; but then again, I’d never associated with these kinds of people to know where their fascinations lie.
         Would it be too much to suggest that out of this one group discussion a critical mass had been achieved, a fission had taken place, and merely weeks later the ensuing explosion of boundless rage lit up the skies of Southern California with fire, after fire, after fire?
         I pictured Snake as a Unabomber kind of guy with a different agenda. Now that’s a connection I made back then when I knew him, before Theodore J. Kaczynski was ever arrested. I don’t mean to imply here that Snake wanted to live all alone out in the woods or that he hated modern-day technology. He was like the Unabomber in a stealthy kind of way in that he liked to use fire in some fashion or another to get even with somebody. Both these guys just shared that particular trademark in their own unique ways. He penned the “Up the Courts & Cops + DA Incorporated” signature on the “Fedbuster” letter as a sick kind of parody because he was fascinated with the guy who bombed an IRS office some years earlier and signed his letter claiming responsibility, “Up the IRS Inc.” Snake said he acquired a great love for fire in Vietnam when he used to participate in the burning of foliage and villages and took an extra special pleasure when a gook village was caught up in a firestorm. It didn’t surprise me when he said he wanted to go there.
         “Why would someone want to go to Vietnam?” I asked.
         “To meet new and exciting people and kill them,” was his response. “My brother – actually step-brother – was killed over there by the gooks and I wanted to take out as many as I could.”
         I mentioned I had beliefs in avenging wrongs, but only in non-violent ways where no one suffers any physical injuries. Snake just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, why limit it to that? Throughout my years as an activist for VOCAL I’ve come to realize revengers come in two varieties. Some push the envelope from within, squeezing out every last fairness they’ve got coming by only using non-violent means. Their insights can turn judicial misconduct into a settled debt without any physical injury to anyone. But then, there are revengers who perch outside the envelope and stir up trouble. Impatient with the pace of progress, and bureaucratic red tape, they stretch into more violent tendencies, often mixing and matching ideas from various revengers dedicated to a common goal. This seemed to be where we were heading.
         We loosened the screws with several more stiff drinks as our “war” story talks were progressing. When our mutual levels of anger had risen to a fever pitch, Danny whispered me over to his side of the table and pulled out this gun to show me. I believe it was a 9mm. I know that’s a standard size in automatics and I know it was an automatic. He had the fully loaded gun in one hand and an extra loaded clip in the other and said,
         “you’re already a ferry [referring to the derogatory term for gay people], why don’t you be a ‘Frisco Ferri’?”
         This last reference was a half-hearted joke/homonym reference to Gian Luigi Ferri who blew away a bunch of attorneys in a San Francisco high-rise building just over a month earlier. My Ferri, of course, being Maginnis. All Danny wanted was two hundred bucks for the gun and clip. I had my ATM card in my wallet and a bank was within walking distance just down the street. I knew where Maginnis worked, I knew where he lived, I knew I was facing a slow and lonely painful death in the not-too-distant future. All I saw was being on this speeding train going a hundred miles an hour down this hill without any brakes and the bridge over the gorge ahead just gave away. I was dying, my spirit was broken, I was on the brink of a breakdown and I didn’t care. Basically, I had nothing to lose. The worry of getting captured didn’t even phase me. I’d be dead of AIDS long before a death penalty sentence could ever be carried out.
         It’s not that Maginnis didn’t deserve to suffer some malady. After all, dead lawyers don’t lie. Just look what Shakespeare wrote. Come to think of it, that may be more true than merely just a figure of speech. The Bible even addresses that issue on more than one occasion as I’ve been covering in Revenge since it broke out of its limited draft mode. Proverbs 12:22 says, “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD:” And many other verses speak of some form of lying or making false statements. In Exodus we find: 20:16 “Thou shalt not bear false witness…” (he broke one of the 10 Commandments there); 23:1, 7 “THOU shalt not raise a false report:…Keep thee far from a false matter;” In Leviticus we find: 6:3, 5 these verses reference lying and swearing falsely. 24:19-20 “And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.” In Deuteronomy we find: 19:15-21 the false witness will have done to him what he wanted to do to the one he lied on. And other verses that speak of lying, deceit, and false witnesses are: Psalms 63:11 101:7 109:2 Proverbs 6:17, 19 12:17 12:19 “…a lying tongue is but for a moment.” 14:5, 25 17:4 “A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue.” 17:7, 20 19:5 “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.” 19:9 “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.” At this point Snake, who was a staunchly avowed Satinist, asked me,
         “we shouldn’t argue with God should we?”
         Continuing on with Proverbs we have: 19:22 21:6 21:28 “A false witness shall perish…” 24:28 25:18. In Jeremiah 7:9 swearing falsely is as bad in God’s eyes as committing murder. In Zechariah we find: 5:1-4 8:16, 17 “…love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.” And when Snake read the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:29, 30 “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off” he felt we should yank out Maginnis’ lying (sinful) tongue in the least.
         With the mindset that I had nothing to lose, along with a belief that such sufferings appeared Biblically consistent, there was absolutely nothing to stop me, except one thing. I’d never killed anybody before and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have even done it in Vietnam if I’d have gone over there. It just isn’t me, even when I’m at an emotional precipice. I’m a non-violent person. After hearing Snake’s tales of life in the violent lane, I didn’t want to admit that I’d never killed anyone before and really couldn’t make myself do it, so I used an excuse as to why I didn’t want the gun. I said I was worried it could jam right at a critical moment. You see that happen all the time on TV and I thought it was a good logical reason. Snake was quiet for a moment before he gently (it’s hard to picture Snake as a gentle person; you’d have to know him to know what I mean) led me aside to whisper in my ear,
         “I’ve got something to show you back at Danny’s.”
         Danny had a room at the Samuel Clemens, a fleabag hotel not far from the Gay & Lesbian Community Center in Hollywood. Although I saw no fleas there, the place had an odor that was rather unpleasant. Actually it sorta’ smelled like some kind of bug spray – and I’m talking throughout the whole place; uck!
         “I’m staying at Danny’s tonight ’cause I need to get some bat’s hearts in the morning. Come crash with us.”
         Bat’s hearts? Who are these people I’m getting involved with? This is getting weirder all the time. Around the corner from the Samuel Clemens there was an occult shop where Snake could get his bat’s hearts. He claims they are his “luck” charm and he always has them around his neck when he’s going to do a crime. What crime I wondered. Well, I was soon to find out.
         Once we got to the hotel, Snake led me over to a car parked down a side street. He opened the trunk and inside was a whole shit load of weapons. Everything from automatic rifles, uzis, hand guns with silencers, shotguns, revolvers, and even a bow & arrow. These were professionally machined silencers too. Not no home-grown jobs like you can make from instructions learned in some underground publications. This keeps getting weirder and weirder, and scarier and scarier. But it was sort of a new life experience for me and I didn’t have much of a life left so I went for it.
         Here we were, darn near within spittin’ distance of Hollywood and Vine, one of the most famous intersections in the world which nearly every tourist out here makes a point of seeing, and here in one nondescript car parked out on a public street looking as innocent as all the other cars around it are enough guns and ammo to mow down everybody walking through that busy intersection many times over. And it’s not idol chit chat that I bring up this scenario. Two of Snake’s “heroes” just happen to be are James Oliver Huberty, the man who shot and killed 21 patrons, some of them being young children, in a San Ysidro, California McDonald’s back in 1984 and George Hennard, who did the same thing during lunchtime at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas on October 16, 1991.
         “Take your pick and I’ll tell you the price. Here’s a .38 special, as simple as it gets. This one will never jam.”
         Now what was I to do? Not wanting any of his stash, but afraid to tell him no, I finally broke down and told him my “weakness.”
         “I’ve never killed anybody before and I can’t do it. If there’s anyone that deserves it more than Maginnis, I don’t know who they are. Maybe Saddam Hussein or some middle-eastern terrorist like that, but that’s about it.”
         Then he said, “Well for God’s sake I’ll do it, give me two thousand bucks and I’ll do it.”
         Now that I considered a little more seriously. I just couldn’t do it myself. I had nothing against somebody else doing it. Echoing throughout the still of that hot summer night were words carved from pain, silently spoken by a man huddled and shaking under the blanket of deep, dark depression.
         “Should I take Snake up on his offer or shouldn’t I?”
         “Why not?”
         “Naw, I can’t do that.”
         “Yes I can”
         “NO, I can’t!”
         And that’s where my self conversation ended. I guess that’s what I get for being a Christian. Christian? you ask. But aren’t I gay? Obviously you’re kind of confused as to how a person can be both at the same time. I disagree, and discuss that topic further in Loving Gay Relationships and the Bible. Wanna’ find out more? Order a copy.
         Too bad the price to oft Maginnis was so high though; me being tight with money and all. With this new option, Snake and his accomplishes were bringing my worst thoughts to the surface and in my weakened state I almost fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
         After I got to prison and had a chance to talk to some therapists I found out that it was a panic attack situation I was involved in. Panic disorders, I learned, are usually caused by childhood abuse or even by a too-strong attachment to a parent one then loses. (I had a double whammy there; the first one happened, and the second one was about to.) A person starts to have panic attacks, then becomes phobic about having panic attacks, and the anxiety leads to panic and it gets worse and worse. Very often, it causes mental breakdowns. It is often in a family from generation to generation, so this kind of explains my particular fragility as my mother had a nervous breakdown right after I was born. (She was advised to have no more children because of it too.)
         It’s hard to imagine one single piece of information changing your life in such a way. While Maginnis wasn’t that far from pushing up daisies, he was never that close either. Despite the Biblical verses we were all reading, I still felt there would be guilty feelings if I brought his death about.
         “No, I can’t even make myself do that, as mad as I am at him,” I said.
         Had I known for sure that I did have a terminal disease and that death was very near, the $2,000.00 wouldn’t have mattered. In the end, I guess one reason I declined Snake’s latest offer was my stinginess with money. From my writings it’s readily apparent that I’m tight with money; they are hot-button issues to me when I’m cost or squeezed out of it; especially by the judicial system. I had more than enough in the bank to cover his fee but told Snake I didn’t. Then he inquired,
         “how much you got?”
         “Oh, ’bout a thousand.”
         “Tell ya what,” Snake said with a big shit-eating-grin on his face, “For one thousand I’ll shoot him in both Achilles’ tendons. That way he’ll just be crippled for life. But he’ll still be alive, even though he don’t deserve it and you won’t have to feel guilty you’re responsible for his death. Let’s go out to where he lives – check out the area.”
         “How ’bout putting a tattoo on his forehead ‘liar & cheat’?” Danny suggested.
         There was now serious thought going on here folks – especially about that tattoo. I had to laugh over that one; that was a cool idea. I still get a chuckle out of it as I type this. I could have settled the anger with the person I was most angry with ever and there wouldn’t have been any chance of tying it to me. Plus, with him still alive, I still had a shot at getting restitution for the thousands he still owed me. I could never collect with him dead. Make no mistake about it folks – I’m not planning to do it, or have it done now. As bad as I’ve been openly talking about him to everyone wanting to hear my story (mostly inmates; prison staff cared less), if anything did happen to him now, I’d be suspect number one. So for everyone within earshot out there; leave him alone. I can’t collect money from a dead man, and someday he may come to realize the errors of his ways and want to make it right. If he chooses to do that of his own free will of course. I’m making no demands or threats. I don’t do that no more.
         Some criticized me in prison for being so open in saying what should happen to Maginnis, as if to imply that I was advocating or encouraging that it happen to him, which would be illegal. On the contrary, I am only expressing a personal opinion; something our Constitution allows us to do. You know, it’s that darn free-speech thing. It just always creeps in there somehow. And being the First-Amendment kind of guy that I am; I will not be silenced. After all, if Zsa Zsa Gabor can tell the world in the November 28, 1994 issue of People magazine, Vol. 42, No. 22, page 194, “First of all, we have to slap the police around a little bit” and not get in trouble; and if some pro-life zealots can say that abortion doctors should be shot to save babies and not get in trouble; and if Catholic Priests can go on talk shows, like Geraldo in January 1995, and tell the world that doctors that perform abortions are mass murderers and should be killed and not get in trouble; and if former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates can say that drug dealers should be shot and not get in trouble; and if radio talk show host, and convicted felon, G. Gordon Liddy, can suggest aiming for the head and groin (as they have body armor) if ATF agents break in without a warrant and not get in trouble; and if Phoenix, Arizona conservative talk-show host Bob Mohan can openly agree with Liddy’s comment on his May 10, 1995 show and not get in trouble; and if music rapper Ice Tea can sing about shooting cops and not get in trouble; then surely I can say what merely should happen to Maginnis and not get in trouble. People can dislike my opinions all they want – or hate it that I express them – but they can’t say that they are illegal to verbalize. Besides, the last time I checked, we were living in a democratic society that allows such free speech and expression of opinions. If some of you people don’t like some of my words, just skip over them. It’s one thing to get stabbed in the back; it’s quite another to have it turned and turned and turned. I am very mad, and I’m not going to be silent about it.
         And the anger hasn’t subsided either. If anything, it’s bigger than ever. I’ll just say that Maginnis knows what he did wrong and what compensation he owes. He’s very welcome to request a copy of my Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable to get a detailed breakdown of his debt, along with how it’s grown over the years with interest. We’ll just leave it at that for the time being. One reason I’m angrier now is because when he was interviewed by the news media after my arrest in ’93, rather than accept any responsibility for his misbehavior, he told them I “appeared to” threaten a judge’s daughter. That’s a lie and if he’d have checked the facts first before he run his mouth he would have known that. In 1987, before being sentenced on the acid spraying case, I wrote an 18-page letter to Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne. In it I explained the various events that led up to my crime and referred to the fact that I have been obsessed with non-violently evening the score when I’m violated in some way, particularly by members of the judicial system who should be professional and above such aberrant tactics. I tried to play up my psychological nature and referred to other good obsessions, as well as the bad ones, and that I was now obsessed with the desire to work at over-coming my darker side. I then gave an example of a good obsession so he would understand where I was going with this.
         Fratianne’s daughter was a gold medal winner for ice skating in the Olympics and I mentioned how it takes a lot of work and dedication to become that good to achieve such a goal. I used that as an example of a good obsession to have. The part of the letter in question went as follows:

    Not all of obsessive-compulsive behavior is negative. I’m sure you as a young prospective attorney were rather obsessive in the extreme amount of studying and detail work you had to do and the years of schooling you had to dedicate to your field to reach your goal of obtaining a law degree. Congratulations, I’m sure it wasn’t easy. And I can also appreciate the obsessiveness in a persons personality to become an Olympic ice skater and gold metal winner as your daughter has achieved. Few accomplish that or even have the dedication to try. Unfortunately some forms of obsessiveness are negative and some parts of my behavior have turned into negative parts of my life.

         As you can see, I am complimenting her obsessive dedication, not threatening her in the least. At the time, Maginnis mentioned that Fratianne didn’t like the reference to his daughter, apparently not liking personal references being made; even complimentary ones. Somehow over the span of time, Maginnis seems to remember this event as that I “appeared to” threaten her and that’s what he told the media in ’93. (“…he mailed a letter to the judge in which he mentioned the judge’s daughter and appeared to threaten her, Maginnis said.” Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1993, page B1.) Now it’s possible he didn’t once again sink into the sewer of deceit. His memory could have just faded over the years and this is the way he honestly believes my letter was worded to bring on Fratianne’s displeasure. Either way, seeing he didn’t check the facts first, he has a responsibility to set the record straight with those media he talked to. I just accidentally saw the story in one newspaper. Only he knows who all he talked to. Besides the money he owes, now he has this mess to clear up. The lies have to be corrected! (Seeing that he didn’t have the guts to respond to my inquiry letter of April 24, 1998, I have no reason to believe he has done it though.) (It’s interesting to note that later editions of the Times dropped the “appeared to” phrase, and simply stated that I had threatened her. Ya catch a hint of my outrage here? : - ( ) All that said, I don’t want death to be the end point of a long struggle with the psychic pain of being screwed over by my own attorney who I paid a lot of money to. Is all that clear folks? And I’m addressing this specifically to irate Snake-like inmates at FCI Phoenix and FCI Sheridan who learned of his misbehavior and saw the letter with his home address in it.
         So much for the detour. Back to the business at hand. I was wondering why Snake was so hepped up on Maginnis who never even screwed him over. Could he be living vicariously through my anger for some reason? Does he think that if he does this for me I’ll find favor with him and go to bed with him? Does he know Maginnis but isn’t admitting it? As it turns out, it’s sort of a combination of things. Yes, he does want to go to bed with me, there’s no doubt about that. But more important than that, there is a vicarious thrill for him. First of all, he’s seen Maginnis on TV so that’s sort of like knowing him in a way. But more important than that, he had gotten screwed over by an attorney some years ago and the scoundrel up and died of natural causes before Snake got out of prison to kill him himself. Knowing everything about Maginnis just made it a personal thing, much the same as if they really did know each other. To hear him talk of how he’d love to force Maginnis to admit his errors moments before he’d kill him, I could tell he was visualizing Maginnis as his own attorney he never had a chance to get his hands upon. As I look back upon it, I’m surprised he didn’t offer his “services” for free. Knowing that spending my money was one of the things that held me back from accepting his offer, I have a feeling Maginnis may not be around today if Snake had of known of my miserly nature. I know he liked to kill. Just hearing his Vietnam stories were riveting. There’s an old wives’ tale that says snakes can poison the air with their eyes. With this human snake, I’m not so sure that’s an inaccurate description either. It’s kind of ironic, being tight with money is the one thing that brought out my vandalizing reactions back in ’86 and in turn, the case I had with Maginnis which we’re all complaining about here, along with my ’93 “Fedbuster” case. Now switch to the summer of ’93 and those very same penny-pinching tendencies are what’s helping save Maginnis’ life. Who says life doesn’t have weird twists to it? Hmmm. Unless he stumbles upon this book or Web site in some way, he’ll never know how close he became to being 6-feet under.
         Snake also wanted me to print up some counterfeit money for them. He claimed that with that and his dope connections we could all come out with a nice nest egg. You’ll recall back in Chapter 8 I told you about showing the fellas that genuine one dollar bill (because I had flushed the souvenir counterfeit twenties down the toilet in order to pass a polygraph test back in ’84) that had the blue pigment bleached out of the back which made it appear as if it had been printed with yellow ink. And I also showed them the birth certificates and social security cards I printed back in ’81. They were wanting in on this stuff big time so I was a valued commodity to have around.
         “We’ll case out Maginnis’ neighborhood soon as I see George in the morning” Snake said.
         Who’s George I wondered. Turns out he’s the “Master Practitioner” of this occult shop where Snake gets his bat’s hearts. But why does he need a bat heart now I wondered as I remembered the earlier comment about how he always has them around his neck when he’s going to commit a crime.
         “Wait a minute, we’re not going to do anything to Maginnis, you just want to check out the area.”
         “Yeah, yeah, I know. I still want to have my bat’s hearts.”
         They aren’t really considered “luck” charms by most of those in the black arts “industry,” but that didn’t stop Snake from treating them as such. Back inside, the fellas introduced me to crystal-meth and let me tell you, once you get high on that stuff your cares are gone. They’re history. But so’s your better judgment. For the next two weeks AIDS never even phased me.
         We all slept in late the next morning. After all, none of us was working and we didn’t have a clock to punch. We had some cold cereal for breakfast and after that Snake went out to get his bat’s hearts. With all that done we were off to Malibu to “see” Maginnis.
         “Hey, nice neighborhood. I bet some famous people live here.”
         I slipped up when I said, “yeah, as a matter of fact Johnny Carson lives nearby.”
         I didn’t know which house, I just remember Maginnis saying that Johnny was one of his neighbors. That’s all Snake needed to hear. I could see the wheels turning.
         “Look, you don’t want Maginnis killed right?”
         “Right!”
         “How about setting him up for a major crime he’d have to defend himself against?”
         “I’m listening,” I cheerfully said.
         “Here’s the scam. We kidnap Johnny Carson and force him to have sex with Maginnis’ wife, [Jeanette,] then shoot them both. We’ll make sure Maginnis’ prints are on the gun and Johnny’s sperm is in Mrs. Maginnis. It’ll look like Maginnis caught his wife in bed with another man and killed them both. That would be great to see him having to fight charges he was innocent of. Then he could see how it feels.”
         “Yeah but you’re still killing people though. Can’t you get away from that? Surely there’s a way to set him up without hurting anyone. As much as I’d like to see him be forced to defend himself against something he’s innocent of, I can’t condone murder.”
         “Yeah, but then it wouldn’t be as much fun. You know; once you’ve mastered the art of murder you’ve touched the face of God. Besides, with someone like Johnny Carson, its sure to make world-wide publicity. I’d love to be the one responsible for causing a major news story. I don’t want to be in the story now. I just want to cause it. Plus you get the added benefit – with Maginnis locked up, he can’t screw over any new unassuming marks! Look at the benefit to society you’d be doing.”
         “Just think of it as a ‘reduction’” Danny said.
         “A reduction?”
         “Yeh.”
         That reminds me of how police refer to killing a suspect as “neutralizing” the problem. Such language is purposely chosen to dehumanize the person so officers feel less guilty about killing a human being. Using the term “gooks” in Vietnam was another way to dehumanize living people. Portraying the enemy you were fighting with rat-like facial features was another.
         “Exactly,” Danny said. “We take our cue right from them.”
         At one point they were discussing doing a trunk murder in which the victim’s body is dismembered. They thought that having Maginnis come home to the sight of his wife’s trunk propped up just inside the front door with a sign saying, “Vengeance has many causalities; the guilty as well as the innocent!” will finally get him to realize how those he has victimized feel.
         When I was relating some of these events to fellow inmates during my recent incarceration, we got to wondering how someone can commit such atrocities without a second thought. It soon become apparent that our behavior basically reflects what has been shaped for us. As a victim of various branches of the judicial system, I can tell you the “spillover” is devastating. What seems dysfunctional to many, actually might be functional ways of dealing with repeated times and levels of victimization. Some of us choose non-violent ways to avenge our many instances of victimization, while others, like Snake, choose more violent ways. Although life goes on after victimization happens, the memories are firmly implanted for life. And sometimes the deep emotional wounds and psychic scars of these actions don’t manifest themselves fully for years. Snake’s event with his violating attorney happened some 20 years ago and only now is it seeming to bubble to the surface through Maginnis.
         Before leaving the area we smoked some more crystal-meth and then headed back to the Samuel Clemens. Snake was making regular trips down to Tijuana to get some medicine he claims is good for HIV positive people. He asked if I wanted to go with them down there so I could get started on it too. I figured might as well, it couldn’t hurt. I had to get started on something.

[Return to Table of Contents]

         We stopped by Plummer Park so Snake could hitch up his trailer for our trip. This particular West Hollywood park is a known hang out for homeless people and the L.A. County Sheriffs, who patrol the area, don’t seem to bother the “residents” too much. Snake’s trailer didn’t have a shower but that didn’t bother him too much because he wasn’t a person who showers that regularly anyway. When he needed to he just depended on one of his minions, this particular day, Danny at the Samuel Clemens.
         In fact, we all showered up before smoking some more crystal-meth and pot and then heading out. Snake needed to drop Wild Thing, his prized Harley, off at a friends in Pomona for some work. There was some valve train problem and Snake didn’t have the tools nor the know how to tear the engine down.
         Of all days, this was Friday the 13th, August 13, 1993. The first day of a crime spree that changed my life forever, and some of you alls too. Here I was not on parole, not on probation, not in custody, or even out on bail. No nothing for the first time since my arrest on July 25, 1971 for child molesting. I was totally free and clear. And I was also just about ready to louse it up.
         That afternoon we dropped Wild Thing off at Jason’s apartment. At around 50, Jason was balding and slightly rotund. The hair he did have was thick and curly and flowed back from the center of his head, down the neck, and almost to the level of his shoulders. He sometimes wore it in a pony tail. In rimless glasses, he bore more than a passing resemblance to the middle-aged Benjamin Franklin. Snake and him seemed to have a relationship that spanned many years, and as it turned out, they served in ’Nam together. Jason’s mechanical skills, in fact, date back to his ’Nam days where he used to fix up all the vehicles that broke down. Now Snake was tapping into his skills in order to get Wild Thing up and running.
         After we were done here, our plan was to head on down to Tijuana. Fate didn’t quite have that plan in mind though. I sometimes hate fate. He or she can really mess things up. Danny’s van wouldn’t start. We quickly determined it was a dead battery. Jason let Snake use his car to go get a new battery at a nearby auto parts store and by the time he got back we had the old one out. They slipped the new one in and it started right up.
         Their plan now was to grab a bite to eat while grocery shopping then cash in the old battery and be on our way.
         “Grab a bite to eat while grocery shopping? What do you mean?” I asked.
         They would go in as three separate people slowly shopping throughout the store and filling their carts. But at the same time they’d eat whatever they wanted. Once their stomachs were full they’d merely walk out the store leaving their full shopping carts in some aisle happy they’d gotten a free meal. Now I’ve always liked being a mooch so I was all for that.
         After we ate I thought we were heading down to Mexico now, well we did, but.… All of a sudden Danny got a criminal idea and, of course, with Snake that lights his eyes up real quick. Snake was constantly using nose spray to clear up his Cocaine-damaged nasal passages. Turns out that’s why he preferred smoking crystal-meth, which is less preferred than snorting or shooting it, because his nasal passages were so bad. Anyway, before we cashed in the dead battery Danny drained the acid into a container and then filled the nose spray bottle with it.
         “What are you up to,” I asked.
         I didn’t like the looks of this right from the start. They had already devoured and loved every word in Revenge, so they already knew all the details about how I once sprayed acid onto cars in an attempt to make back some money I shouldn’t have been cost. When we were first talking about it some days earlier they seemed to take a special interest in wanting to know about it. I guess it partly had to do with the excitement I expressed and giggling with joy at each new and expensive car I splashed. Apparently, when I described myself as sort of a vandalism junkie at the time they could easily relate to that, being junkies themselves who know the feeling. After Danny filled the bottle he walked over to a car dealership lot within eyeshot of our parking spot.
         “Watch this guys,” he said.
         He casually walked through the lot of cars and with the small bottle concealed in the palm of his hand, he squirted acid on car after car. We saw him walk across the street to another car dealership and do just a few over there. As it turned out, he ran out of acid and had to come back to reload.
         “Hey you’re right, this is fun. I like this,” he said. “Snake, you’re not in a hurry to get to TJ are you?”
         “No, we’re on our own schedule. We don’t punch clocks.”
         And so began their crime spree.
         “Aren’t you worried about cameras photographing you or someone seeing your face, you’re right out in the open? At least when I did it back in ’86 I was in a vehicle and still was ‘apparently’ seen.”
         “No, if someone starts chasing me I’ll just squirt them and kick them then run in the opposite direction and circle back to the van. Besides, I’ve got the bat’s hearts around my neck.”
         Oh, well that explains it. As long as they’ve got those bat’s hearts there’s nothing to worry about. Yeah right – and pigs can fly too.
         “But then they’ll get you for assault with a caustic chemical and they’ll clearly show there was intent.”
         “Yeah, but they got to catch me first,” he says as he jingles Snake’s stinky bat’s hearts in front of my face. Even though they were sprayed with an acrylic varnish to seal them, the stench still crept through after a day or two. God, that becomes an awful smell.
         I just knew this was going to come back to haunt me, after all, it isn’t that common of a crime and I do have a prior for it. But what can I do. Besides, their seemingly short attention span seems to be off of killing or setting Maginnis up. I had no business taking them out to his neighborhood, but what’s done is done. The bell can’t be unring. They know where he lives now. And as they will surely see him on TV again he’ll be right back in their minds as fresh as ever. But for now he wasn’t. But little did I know there was more deviousness to come out of the twisted minds of Snake, Mondo, and Danny. Just hold on folks. The fires are just around the corner. : - (
         We headed on down to San Diego that freaky Friday the 13th, stopping along the way to do more cars as the opportunity presented itself. They wanted me to join in but I didn’t want to. First of all, it wasn’t a turn on for me any more. These guys were like a bunch of giddy school boys getting their chance at destroying the school that failed them the semester before. Just laughing and giggling their heads off at each stop we made. And second, with my prior in the very same crime committed in a not too different kind of a way, if even my rough description is put out, police will be beating on my door.
         When we passed a sign indicating a turn off to Laguna Beach Snake happened to mention that he still had a grudge he hadn’t yet settled with police there who hassled him some years earlier. It seems that he and another guy had gotten into a shoving match at a gay bar in town. Apparently Snake got thrown out but the other guy didn’t because he was a local who lived in the area and that’s what make Snake so mad. I too have been treated in a double-standard kind of way on more than one occasion by the judicial system so I could truly sympathize with him about it. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but now these years later I wonder – could there be a connection between his deep-seated long-lingering anger over how he was treated by police, who he hates with a passion, and the Laguna fire set in the fall of 1993? I don’t know; but there could be an indication when everything else about the man is entered into the equation.
         We slept in the trailer on the U.S. side of the border and early the next morning the four of us walked over to Tijuana. Because there was dope in the van, Snake didn’t want to take it across where it would be subject to search when we returned. His so called doctor was more of a – I’m not sure how to describe him. Witch doctor comes to mind, but that doesn’t describe him as accurately as I’d like to. In any event, Snake got his pills and I passed. Actually his kind of “doctor” shouldn’t surprise me. Someone who hangs around a “Master Practitioner” in the occult doesn’t go to traditional doctors. I was expecting something different from regular doctors I’ve always gone to, but I didn’t expect something weird. But then why not? Everything else was. Surely the crystal-meth was affecting my thinking, but I didn’t know it at the time. Before this time I had never really been high. Now for practically two weeks straight I was never anything but. Snake paid his quack 300 bucks and we were on our way back to the U.S.
         I didn’t know what to expect next. Actually, I did expect they would pull out more crystal to smoke and sure enough, they did. This too was getting old real quick. This was not my kind of life style. I am totally out of pocket with these people. People seeing us together on the streets have got to see that too. Here I am a clean-cut looking guy with not a tattoo on my body anywhere, and here are these three with barely enough room on their arms to put another tattoo even if they wanted to, they were so loaded.
         One of Danny’s tattoos is the state of California with jail bars pictured within its borders. Three rows of bars running north/south for the entire length of the state and then two rows running east/west just as if you took a picture of jail bars and used the boundaries of the state as the edges of the picture. I’ve seen this kind of tattoo quite often in various jails and prisons. For guys that have done a lot of time and keep coming back it seems their only friends are people that have been to the joint. In their world, everyone they know is either locked up, has been, or will be when they get caught. The whole state is one big jail to them and that is sort of the symbol of this particular tattoo.
         Mondo was the quietest of the three. But that didn’t stop him from coming up with his own twisted ideas as they entered his brain. He points to Danny’s tattoo and says,
         “Snake, we were up here when Danny first splashed the cars, right?”
         “Yeah, so?”
         “Then we come down here splashing all along the way, right?”
         “Yeah”
         “Look, you were talking about going up to Humboldt County to meet your [dope] connect[tion], so if we splashed cars all along the way it’ll match these jail bars on the tattoo. That would be cool to see mapped on TV wouldn’t it?”
         (What he was meaning here was to see the splash locations pinpointed on a map of the state being shown on the TV news.) Oh no; a new idea for Snake. Well needless to say, his menacing brown peepholes into hell opened up wider than ever with excitement. I know I was in trouble now. These are the kind of guys who would go out and do joy killings just for the fun of it once they set their minds to it. I had already mentioned how Snake was a Satanist. He also practiced the religion of Nihilism – the worship of the idea of destruction. Many with this belief are generally associated with multiple tattoos, chains, leather clothing, metal body armor, and/or crude actions of disrespect. Snake scored yes on a number of these categories. And come to think of it, I recall seeing a ragged copy of Helter Skelter back at the Samuel Clemens. You may recall Helter Skelter portrayed the events surrounding the Charles Manson “family” and their murderous rampage back in the summer of 1969. I could easily see these people filling that same niche. All we needed was a squirrely woman to be a part of the “family.” Little did I realize there was one in the background. I just hadn’t met her yet.
         But before we get to that, I needed to know what this Humboldt County deal was. As it turns out, Snake’s pot and crystal-meth connection lives up there and it was time for him to replenish his supplies. I, of course, was welcome to come along for the trip. We worked our way north from San Diego and made it to Orange County around lunch time. They stopped along the way at car lots and splashed acid on new cars we passed on the way north. Although several other businesses also got hit, their destructiveness was primarily limited to car dealerships. At least their MO was totally different from mine before. I did it to private cars already sold to people.
         What was the deal about car dealerships I wondered. As it turned out, Danny tried to get a job washing cars at a lot several months earlier but the guy that interviewed him treated him like the scum bag doper he obviously appears to be. Danny said the guy’s eyes were lurking up and down his tattoo-filled arms as he told him in a condescending way that there was no opening. Days later Danny saw the “help wanted” sign still up and a few days after that a regular looking “geek” (non-tattooed person) was on the lot washing the cars that Danny feels he should have been washing. I could tell Danny was still fuming about it these many months later, but at the same time I’ve got to admit; Danny’s not the kind of guy I’d hire either. I’d want a regular clean-cut looking guy over a scum-bag appearing character any day if I was an employer. But, of course, I didn’t tell Danny that.
         It’s kind of ironic, Danny’s California jail-barred tattoo which signifies a mythical belief that the whole state is one big jail ends up contributing to a large portion of the population shunning him to where he does feel like an outcast more and more. A prisoner of his own body filled with tattoo upon evil tattoo. I think any normal person would shun someone with skulls, crossbones, swastikas, “born loser” phrases, and other prison-indicating kinds of tattoos all over their body. I know I would – I normally would.
         Finally for the first time, I was left alone in the trailer. I was able to dump the rest of the acid down the sink and refill the container with water. Water and battery acid look alike so there was a good chance it would fool them. I added some dirt in the water because the acid we had from the battery had flakes of dissolved lead plates mixed in with it. From then on as we headed up north I kind of had a chance to laugh because they were spending all this time spraying plain water on cars. Well at least it wasn’t being done in my neighborhood as it would have been. We drove right through the San Fernando Valley on our way north and splashed several new car lots on the way.
         Our original plan was to head up Interstate 5, but just before we got to the junction of the 5 and 14 freeways Danny’s van developed a very burnt smell. A pull of the automatic transmission dipstick confirmed his trans was shot. We ain’t going nowhere. Finally some good luck. Now maybe we can put an end to this crap. As it turned out, Snake knows somebody in Palmdale. He seems to know somebody everywhere. If we could just make it there we could get the truck in the shop and be on our way after it gets fixed.
         For the few days while we were waiting for the van to get fixed we partied at the home of Tiny, one of Snake’s biker buddies. Tiny was a slightly gray-haired man with long straight brownish-gray hair and average height, with a generous belly bulging over his belt. I don’t need to tell you he had tattoos – surely you’d guess that. Somewhere within this time span the battery acid (water) disappeared, I don’t know where and no one else did either. But Danny was on the edge of a tantrum. Fortunately, or unfortunately from my perspective, Tiny had an old junker in the yard and he was willing to part with its battery. Now these slime balls had their acid again.
         Once the van was fixed we were on our way toward Humboldt County and Snake’s dope connection. For the next day and a half the three splashed acid on cars while giggling like school boys every step of the way. Only now they had real acid again. They fully understood my unwillingness to participate. They realize places are likely to have cameras and they knew that with my priors I better not have my face in one. They were wanting me around so I could counterfeit some money and IDs for them.
         By the afternoon of August 22nd we had made our way up to the Fresno area and that’s when trouble hit, or helped if you’re looking at it from my point of view. Danny’s Ford van was a light duty 1/2 ton model. Not the best thing in the world for towing a trailer, especially in the heat of summer. And Snake’s driving habits were to always floor it. Even at that, his zero to 60 times were upwards of 30 seconds or so. In any event, this particular time we were headed up a slight incline as he accelerated to cruising speed. He manually down shifted into first to keep it there longer than normal, and that’s when it happened. The over revving blew the engine and smoke was billowing out the back as we slowed to a dead stop with not a prayer in the world to start again. No quick fix in a shop this time. This was an expensive, time consuming replace the engine kind of repair and we all seemed to know it.
         Now how to get back home. I had an idea. My own 1971 Chevy van is also unequipped for towing because it too is a 1/2 ton model. But I told the guys I’d take the bus home then rent a trailer hitch and come back and get them and the trailer.
         “But what about my truck?” Danny was worried about.
         “Sell it as scrap, it ain’t worth it,” I said.
         Well he wasn’t going to hear that. That was his Jitney and he wasn’t going to part with it. So now the question was, could we attach a cable from my truck to Danny’s so I could pull his truck and the trailer. I said I’ll try but you’ll owe me big time. They agreed and I was on my way home.
         I made it back to them early the next morning. They had already got a cable and now it was just a matter of hooking it up and heading home. My old truck, which I had always maintained well, resisted but, by golly, she succeeded and we made it home. (Why I never got pulled over by the CHP for this illegal towing arrangement I’ll never know.) At my brief stop at home to get my truck I found out my mother had suffered a set back. After I got Snake, Mondo, and Danny home I told them I had to be getting home because my mother had become worse. They understood and wished me luck.
         I truly felt at that instant that I had broken away. There was no reason to go see them again. They didn’t know my last name. They didn’t know where I lived. There was no way they could come and get me for any reason. Besides, we parted on good terms and I had a legitimate reason for my swift departure. Snake still expected me to be printing them up some counterfeit money and documents though, as I falsely led them to believe I would do. But as time goes by his drugged out mind will forget about me and our conversations. This is where our story would have ended had not another step took place.
         On August 25th my father come to my bedroom to tell me that two policemen were out front to talk to me. Both were plain clothes detectives from the Bakersfield Police Department. Detective Roger D. Ott, the one who did the most talking, seemed to be in charge. The other detective was R. Buckles. They asked me about a large number of vandalisms on cars up and down the state within the last two weeks. I, of course, denied everything and tried to act shocked why they would single me out. I figured it had to be just because of my prior record for it. No one could say they saw me at the scene of one of them because I wasn’t present at any of them. Still, there was reason to worry. Back in my 1986 acid-splashing case some people positively identified my picture that, due to the circumstances surrounding the crime, I know they never saw my face. I’m convinced to this day that police, in knowing that I was the guilty party, pointed out my picture to victims rather than victims identifying me from their memory. In my many years of talking to other inmates in prison, I know police do sometimes resort to shady practices in order to get convictions on people they know are guilty, but can’t convict if they play it by the book.
         I didn’t receive Ott’s police report until 1997, soon after I was arrested for these crimes which we’ll be covering in some detail later on. Although he states in his report that, “I intentionally did not mention any of the other cities which had sustained the same type of crime in their area,” one of the detectives did. While one of them was searching inside my Chevy van with my permission, and out of range of our voices, the other detective mentioned several cities in the San Diego area by name, along with cities far to the north such as Shafter and Tulare, which had also sustained damage. If Ott was the one searching my van he is truthful here. Along with searching the van, they conducted a cursory search in the garage and found nothing.
         From Ott’s police report I found out an article about the vandalisms appeared in the August 24th edition of The Bakersfield Californian. This front page article also offered a $5,000.00 reward for information on the perpetrator. Ott mentioned he received contact from Jim Newman, a correctional counselor I had when I was in prison at Tehachapi back in 1989. Mr. Newman remembered I was in prison for doing a similar vandalism and apparently thought there could be a connection. He contacted police which resulted in their visit to me the next day. Letters were mailed claiming responsibility for these vandalisms but that didn’t happen until after this interview.
         I knew this was going to come back and haunt me somehow. Now how am I going to clean up this potential mess. Against my better judgment, I went back to Snake and his minions. Only now there was a new one. Her name is Crystal. I’ll give you one guess how she got her name. Crystal was a tall, sloppily-attired woman with long brown hair who could easily have fit in back in the ’60 free love, end the war crowd. Her real name is Erin, but because of her fly-by-night nature Snake called her Eris, after the Greek goddess of chaos, discord, confusion, and mischievousness. That name never stuck though like Crystal did, so Snake sort of lost out there. He had a knowledge of gods and goddesses, I guess it come from his dabbling into Satanism. He sometimes called himself Thanotos – the god of death. So what do you think mine would be? Nemesis – the god of revenge, of course. Crystal’s supposedly Snake’s girlfriend. Girlfriend? But Snake’s gay. Maybe he’s bi. As it turns out, Crystal’s a fag-hag. A straight woman who gets her turn on by making it with gay men.
         Now the “family” was complete. As I look back on everything today in a clearer frame of mind, coming upon five years since the last time I set eyes upon them, I am firmly convinced, and there’s no doubt in my mind, that these people are a 90’s version of the Manson “family.” Mass murder may not have been their primary forte – but destruction certainly is. It would take a lot to convince me they did not have a part in some or all of the arson fires set during that infamous two-week period back in the fall of 1993. I cannot prove they did it – I never saw them after August 28th, except for a brief encounter with Crystal while I was under surveillance the day before my arrest. But, with everything I know about them, it would take a lot to personally convince me they’re innocent. With the circumstantial indications of evidence; I’d say they’re guilty! But what do I know? I’d say O.J. Simpson was guilty too but we all know in the “legal” sense he’s not. And there is a possibility he really isn’t guilty, just like there’s a possibility the fellas aren’t guilty. But do you really believe Simpson is innocent? I don’t – and I don’t believe the fellas are either. I can’t prove it one way or the other. It’s just a gut feeling; which is less than the DNA evidence they had on Simpson – so who’s to say? Just hope we don’t have a Marcia Clark like prosecutor on the case when we round ’em up. Wonder if we can get Vincent Bugliosi to prosecute them? Who? He’s the one who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and the bunch back in ’69. Actually, if Jessner would have had some of his qualities we may not be having this conversation now because they’d already have been arrested. Who? Jessner is the guy who prosecuted me. We’ll be getting to him later. Just hang in there.

[Return to Table of Contents]

         I arrived back at the Samuel Clemens in a panic.
         “Snake, the cops are breathing down my neck, what am I going to do? They come all the way from Bakersfield to question me about acid splashings of cars all up and down the state.”
         “Oh don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure a cover.”
         In the meantime, Crystal got ahold of one of Snake’s cassette tapes and began playing it. The first song to come on was “Another One Bites The Dust” by the group Queen. Snake got immediately mad at that. That was a special tape. What’s special about that I wondered. As it turned out, Snake always kept that tape handy and keyed up for whenever he hears on news of a law-enforcement officer that has been killed in the line of duty. He plays that as a twisted tribute; another one has bitten the dust – has been killed. Yep, Manson “family” of the 90’s, no doubt about it. He particularly liked the parts that said, “There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man / And bring him to the ground / You can beat him / You can cheat him / You can break him bad and leave him / When he’s down / But I’m ready yes I’m ready for you / I’m standing on my own two feet / Out of the doorway the bullets rip…/ And another one gone and another one gone / Another one bites the dust yeah.”
         Anyway, they sensed how scarred I was about someone identifying my picture as being in the general areas at the time of the crimes. Separate from the chance that police could get someone to fraudulently ID me as the splasher, my main worry was that my picture would be shown to locals in the areas. Being the motley looking crew we were, we did tend to stand out from many around us. Surely my picture could be showed around at nearby restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores – all places we were in during our travels up and down the state. Then again, there’s video tapes where my picture could be. So many establishments have video cameras that surely I’d be on some nearby store’s surveillance video somewhere and then it would be all over. Place me in the same general area of a town I normally am not in on the very day of the crime, show a jury my similar record, and I’d be history. I wouldn’t be the first person to get convicted on merely circumstantial evidence.
         But beyond any of that, I was worried I could once again be a victim of dirty shenanigans by law-enforcement officers. My picture was previously ID’ed by people who couldn’t have done so in a legitimate way. Could this happen again? An extra count was charged and a Great Bodily Injury allegation was alleged that weren’t valid as would have been easy to comprehend by a mere reading of the two separate victim’s own statements they made to police which were documented in the police reports. Could this happen again? And extra priors were filed that were invalid according to Penal Code law. Could this happen again? Yes, yes, and yes! It seems that once a person has a record, especially for a similar kind of crime, it’s much too tempting to pull a fast one because such actions are all so easy to commit.
         I think by now the guys were worried I’d snitch them off, and to tell you the truth, I did consider it. Around this time Danny come up with the idea of writing a bunch of letters claiming responsibility for the acid spraying but don’t mail them until I am taken into custody. That way, if they are postmarked after my arrest I couldn’t have been the guilty culprit, after all, how could I have mailed them from jail. Sounded like a plan to me, high or not it sounded like it would clear my ass and that was my main concern. I was suppose to call the front desk at the Samuel Clemens twice a week and if I failed to leave a message twice in a row, as would happen if I was in custody, then they would mail the letters. Cool, no problem; that’ll work for me.
         Now Snake brought Maginnis up again.
         “I want to get Maginnis. He’s my Williams.”
         “Your Williams?”
         “Yeah.”
         Then he went on to explain. Williams was the name of the attorney that screwed him over some years ago and who died of natural causes before he could do the deed himself. He claimed Williams and Maginnis had physical similarities that only become closer when he was high. I admit, I wanted to cause Maginnis some kind of grief but I didn’t know what. I once thought of picketing the Reginald Denny trial with enlarged placards of the documentation I had to prove Maginnis gave me wrong advise. Surely I would be interviewed by news media and word would get around that he isn’t a trustworthy attorney. But then I’d be known as a criminal by all the people who knew me and I didn’t want that.
         Mondo suggested we make him resign from the Denny trial and threaten humiliation if he doesn’t. Cool, that’ll work. I’ve always been one who believed a well thought out letter could raise a big havoc without the danger of causing any injuries to anyone. Besides, it’s good for people like Maginnis to know that there are people like us out here who are willing to stand up to them and put them in their places by letting them know we won’t stand for it. It does the soul good to blaze a new trail into a clearer understanding between us abused folks and those who have abused us. Woops, did I say blaze? Bad choice of words in this case.
         We went over to Plummer Park to see some of Snake’s other buddies to assist in the writing of the letters. Besides Snake, Mondo, Danny, and Crystal we had Tim, Chuck, Dave, Doug, Scott, Ken, Berry, Jake and a few others who’s names have faded from memory with the passage of time. I was wanting to put closure to this anyway. I did want Maginnis to at least admit his errors, even if he didn’t give back the money that should be ours. That’s really what I wanted – just a way to put closure to the situation and bring it to completion. Like I said before, therapists realize the importance of verbally confronting someone who has done them wrong and how throwing the extra baggage of disgust back on their doorstep is a very cleansing form of therapy. In the past, not only couldn’t we get him to admit his errors, but we couldn’t even get him to admit the advise he did give me. I wanted some acknowledgement. I did not want to go to my grave without it. I needed that. I was owed that. At least that!
         Jake wanted to poison Maginnis’ food with the Batrachotoxic secretions from the frog with the Genus name of Dendrobates. It’s common name is Poison-arrow or Poison-dart Frog and it apparently comes from down in the tropical areas of Central and South America. Jake was a heavy-set semi-tattooed man with an ebbing hairline. The “skill” he brought to the group was that he was an amateur herpetologist, a person trained in the science of reptiles. Now I know what you’re thinking here folks, why isn’t Snake the expert in reptiles, after all, he has the name for it. Well first of all, that isn’t how Snake got his name, and second, that’s not the way the story goes. In real life, Jake is the reptile expert and in order to be true to the story, I’m telling it the way it really happened. I’m not gonna’ botch the facts à la FBI/ATF practices (which we haven’t even gotten to yet). I won’t stoop to that level. Someone’s gotta’ be a beacon of honesty in a growing filthy cloud of spiked dishonesty and outright lies in all this mess. At first I didn’t believe all this malarkey until I saw something in Jake’s car that sent chills down my back. He had a newsletter that distributed information on Dendrobatid husbandry and captive propagation. Its stated purpose was to develop communication between Dendrobatid breeders. Now that I was off the drugs this is getting way too heavy for me. Jake knew where he could get some of these frogs and according to him, squeezing their bodies causes them to secrete a poisonous substance that can be put into food with deadly results when eaten. His grudge with the judicial system was that when he was in the state hospital some years earlier they forced psychotropic medication on him that made him sick and he wanted to return that “favor” onto other judicial-system people. Still, making someone dead is a bit more severe than merely making someone sick.
         Snake still wanted to burn Maginnis out though. He said that with the right conditions he could burn out a whole neighborhood and leave no clue that the target was one person in particular. We had already discussed how the Bible views the sins of Maginnis, so when Snake pulled out his Bible to show me Matthew 13:49-50, “This is how it will be at the end; the wicked will be separated from the just and cast into the fire” it was just one more nail being set in Maginnis’ coffin. Snake, a Satinist having a Bible? Turns out, there are plenty of Scriptures one can turn to in order to justify certain horrendous behavior as being a proclamation from God. When a manipulative person is trying to talk someone into something, being able to show that it is the “righteous” thing to do bolsters one’s position. Being the kind of guy who likes to boldly fly in the face of convention non-violently I, in my more benign ways of evening scores said,
         “let’s write Maginnis a threatening letter.”
         Although this was being rather lenient with him, when one looks at it from the Biblical standpoint, I felt it would be sort of sufficient. And I emphasize “sort of” here folks! With the extra time I did in prison over what a proper sentence for just vandalism would have been, I suffered a lot of agitating harassment from hostile inmates aware of my past sex offense. Giving Maginnis some uneasy agitation in return was the least he had coming. And that doesn’t even count all the money I lost to him and his psych buddies. (I still think he shared in some of the money we paid them.) Snake’s idea was that we shouldn’t disregard God’s wishes for these kinds of “bottom-feeding scroungy characters,” but I was adamant about settling this according to VOCAL’s Guidelines. After all, how would it look for me, who founded the group and set the first beginnings of it’s Guidelines down on paper, to not follow them myself? I stood my ground. It was going to be the “VOCAL Way” or no way! Even though I had Maginnis in my sights and could have pulled the trigger I said,
         “We’ll just limit this to the letters. It irritates the hell out of them and no one can get hurt.”
         When people have asked me recently what prompted me to vent my anger, hostility, and sense of unfairness in this particular unorthodox way, I told them that it’s not unlike what prompts workers who have been let go to go back and blow away their employed counterparts or bosses. I just chose a more benign route.
         At one of my previous OATH taking session, where I was inducting new members into VOCAL, Snake wouldn’t raise his hand and take it and Mondo asked to withdraw from his just days after I administered it. Well, if they did set the fires, at least they’re not card-carrying members. That should have been a red flag to me because one of the requirements in the OATH is to not injure others during settlement processes. Just so you know, ever since all this, I’ve been requiring members of VOCAL to take the OATH before they’re sworn in. It is no longer an option in order to be a member. And for any old VOCAL members out there who never took the OATH, do not consider yourself members any longer until it is administer to you. Of course, anybody can buy Revenge though. When it comes to money – I’m not turning it down from no one. Ya show me the money and ya got it! After all, I’m a bottom-line oriented kind of guy; but you know that already. I had to get back to my mom so I left the bunch on their own for the next several days and only guessed at what I’d see when I got back there later in the week.
         Before I continue on, and because this chapter deals with the infamous threatening letters that started all this mess, let’s take a moment to get some definitions down on paper. This is necessary so we’re all reading from the same dictionary. Later on, we’re going to see how the judicial system has various definitions for what constitutes violence. The feds alone have two separate definitions in their law books and I got stuck with a “crime of violence” in one of their laws, while at the same time, not a “crime of violence” in another. Confusing? Trust me, we’ll straighten it all out. But to eliminate that kind or problem, let’s define threats right now.
         Threats come in two major categories or flavors: Open-ended or time-unlimited, and closed-ended or time-limited. Within each major category, there are also sub categories: Conditional and unconditional. If I say I’m going to do X to you, that is an example of an open-ended/unconditional threat. Once professed, it remains in effect, or active, literally forever (possibly for the life of the proclaimer or proclaimee), or until it is officially retracted or withdrawn by the threatener him or herself. It’s not like a license, something you have to renew periodically. And with no condition attached, there is no action the victim can take to deactivate the threat either.
         If I say I’m going to do X to you if you don’t do Y, or I won’t do X to you until you do Y, these are examples of open-ended/conditional threats. Here again, the threat remains in effect, or active, literally forever, unless the threatening person withdraws it. But this time, the one threatened has an active part to play. He or she can meet the condition (pay back the money or give back the property for instance) and thereby deactivate the threat him or herself.
         When a threat references an action that had better not happen, the threat gets activated only if the person does the action he or she was told not to do. If I say I’m going to do X to you if you do Y, everything is inactive until you commit that forbidden Y. Once you do that, you’ve activated the threat, and whatever the outcome of that threat is; that’s on you.
         One can issue a stay of execution for a period of time though. If I tell somebody I’m going to do X to you if you do Y, and the threat becomes activated by that somebody committing the forbidden Y, I can stay the completion of the threat for whatever time I want in order to give the offender a chance to get his or her ducks in order to come up with an acceptable plan of restitution or compensation.
         A closed-ended threat, rather uncommon, has a conditional time limit that ends it at a specified time in the future. (Unless a conditional end is included in the threatening language, the threat is to be considered open-ended.) An example of a closed-ended/unconditional threat is when on the July 4th weekend in 1995 the Unabomber said he was going to blow up an airline on that weekend. After the end of the weekend, the news media made note of the expiration of the deadline, but mentioned that security was still heavier than normal. Unlike open-ended threats, time-limited ones have an expiration date or time. They must be reissued periodically if they are to stay active. This particular threat of the Unabomber, by the way, had no conditional attachment. One couldn’t deactivate it by paying a sum of money. Time alone deactivated this one, as brief as the time was.
         And here’s another thing. One can literally apologize for making a threat without actually retracting it. In this case, the threat remains as volatile after the apology as it was the instant it was made. Back when I was a child of about 10 or so I threatened Joe Whitley, a neighbor boy. I’ve long forgotten what it was about, but I remember my mother making me apologize when she found out about it. But because I never officially withdrew it, that threat is still active to this very moment. I wish to now publicly retract that one – Joe wherever you are. There, now after nearly 40 years, it is no longer active. This one is retracted.
         And vendettas, like threats, can be open-ended or closed-ended. Normally they are open-ended unless specified otherwise. If I say “I’m going to do activity X until you do activity Y” that means X will still be an active thing I’ll be doing 40 or 50 years from now if you haven’t come through with your Y requirement.
         Some inmates I talked to mentioned that open-ended threats are the most valuable of all because they can be milked for all they’re worth, even if the threatener gets convicted for making the threat. This, they explained, is because the threat remains in effect unless its retracted. And that can only be done by the threatener him or herself. The fact that there is a conviction by law enforcement does not in and of itself retract a threat. The one threatened still has to complete whatever task was outlined in the original threat in order to be safe from the outcome of the threat. Hmmm. It’s an interesting concept and certainly worth more discussion. But for now, let’s resume our story.
         I arrived back at the Samuel Clemens on Saturday the 28th to almost a production line environment the way they were putting these things together. It turned out to be a brainstorming session, much like you’d have in the corporate boardroom. Ideas were flying every which way from everyone present as to which wording should be included. Snake blurted out one thing, Doug elaborated, Crystal fine tuned, and someone else paraphrased as another one dictated the final words that ended up on paper. That’s how it went. With all the talking we had done over the past weeks they knew my life story as it related to the wrong side of the law as well as I did, and I knew theirs. Make no mistake though, this wasn’t an elaborate corporate boardroom we were in. This was a hot, stinky, one room hotel room chuck full of a bunch of people all over the place. I don’t know how everyone fit in there. I didn’t like the way they worded so much of my own personal story into the letters for fear that it would identify me too positively, but at the same time I wasn’t in the clearest frame of mind either.
         Each paragraph was written by a different person and the envelopes were addressed by another. One went to Maginnis at his law firm, another to his wife at home, and 23 more copies to law firms chosen at random out of the yellow pages. Oddly, only 7 of these letters were turned in to police. Did other law firms think it was a hoax and threw them out? Did they know Maginnis, or his ways, and not care what happens to him? Although it would be nice to ask them, we’ll probably never know because I have no record of who all we sent the letters to. That small number surprises me though, seeing that we did hint at blowing away other law firms and not just Maginnis.
         101 “Fedbuster” letters were sent out, one to KNBC, Channel 4, who mysteriously must have thrown it out. After I got all the “Discovery,” the written report of the FBI and ATF, from the government I saw that a private citizen, whose friend received one of the letters in the mail, contacted Channel 4 because the letter mentioned NBC. They then asked for a copy of it and he faxed it to them. 101 “Nightcrawler” letters were sent out, one to KCAL, Channel 9, who also mysteriously never turned it in. Maybe they just took it as a crank letter. In all, only 37 people turned in “Fedbuster,” and 33 turned in “Nightcrawler.” I can only assume the rest thought they were cranks.
         People puzzle why there were 101 letters. Why not an even number like 100? It had to do with Snake’s superstitions. He looked at himself as an odd character, so therefore everything in his life had to incorporate odd things, even numbers. He insisted Danny get a room that ended in an odd number, even though all the odd-numbered rooms at the Samuel Clemens were on the south side of the building. That, of course, made them hotter in the summertime with the sun blazing in, but as long as odd numbers were on that side of the hall, it had to be. No one questions 25 “Maginnis” letters going out because, even though that’s an odd number fitting within Snake’s requirements, it is a common dividing line. In this case, the even number 26 would have seemed an uncommon number of letters to mail.
         I hit the ceiling when I saw the letters claiming responsibility for the acid splashing on the cars. Although some of the stories could fit complaints I had while in state prison, others had nothing to do with me at all. Apparently their drugged up minds thought that if the stories weren’t mine that would get me in the clear. Well that is a thought, but the thing is, some of them are too close to my prison life story – too close for comfort. Of course, having my computer at hand, with some of my own stories incorporated into the pages of Revenge was too easy to neglect I guess. All they had to do was copy stories already written and edit them on down from there. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had no business leaving my computer with them – the same one that’s doing this book by the way. (A little portable Mac Classic.)
         Danny said, “we won’t mail them unless we don’t hear from you, in which case we’d know you got busted. If they received letters postmarked on a date that you are locked up that would throw all the blame onto someone else.”
         “That sounds cool,” I said, “but why didn’t you concoct a story totally away from prison life?”
         Before I finished my question I already had my answer. These guys had been locked up for so much of their life, either in prison or by associating primarily with those who had been in prison, that they didn’t have much for stories outside of prison life. With that and being high it didn’t cross their minds that it would have been better to invent a dispute between the car dealership and a mythical customer for instance or even Danny’s real reason where he didn’t get hired by one to wash cars.
         There was no way I was going to want those letters mailed. After all, real damage had taken place. At least with the other threats, no actual misdeed had ever happened. My handwriting or fingerprints were not on the letters, nor was my DNA sample left behind because I never licked any stamps or envelopes. At the worst I expected law-enforcement people to question me about the letters and I could boldly speak up and say, “no that’s not my writing.” While not admitting guilt, I could have had a chance to express my grievances about what misbehavior they had done and get them to answer back, something I’d been unable to get them to do in any other way. Even when I come right out in the open and said I’d teach counterfeiting and tip people off that are under surveillance until I got my stuff back I got no response out of them. The fact that I thought I was dying certainly placed a greater urgency on my need to bring prompt closure to the situation, but at the same time it was long overdue anyway.
         Snake had gotten a bunch of his friends together for this “letter writing party,” something bikers will do. When one of their comrades is in trouble they’ll all pool their efforts in order to help the troubled one out. Of course, one of their main things was they didn’t want to lose their counterfeiting connection because I had led them to believe that I would print them up a lot of money. These letters were partially typed and partially written. They went to the trouble to use different handwriting on each one, a different font for the typed parts, and even different stamps.
         Jake was the author of “Nightcrawler” and I asked him specifically,
         “Now I’m not gonna’ find a bunch of people poisoned by frog secretions am I?”
         “No, I’m not going to front you off,” he said in the country drawl he has to his voice.
         Why I never asked Snake about his compulsion to burn Maginnis out I’ll never know. I don’t think I would have gotten a straight answer anyway. There was a fire in Snake’s eyes – no pun intended. A fire that had been brewing for some time, only now it seems to have been re-kindled. Snake had another thing he was fuming about though. Some drug partner he fronted money to got busted and he lost all of his investment when they raided the place. All I tend to remember now was that it had to do with hydroponics and it happened on October 26, 1989. Now I know that had nothing to do with Maginnis, but the two things that Snake was pissed about most in life was that attorney Williams and this particular raid. I failed to get more details so can’t elaborate any further.
         On a couple of occasions prison staff members, aware of my high-publicity case and curious about personal details, asked if I felt responsible for putting the spark (again no pun intended) into Snake’s eyes so to speak. This sort of delves into “If history.” If x happened that caused y, would y have happened on its own accord? Would Snake and the fellas have set the fires if we’d have never met? Who knows? I answered back though that I’m no more responsible for Snake’s behavior than the authors of MTV’s cartoon characters, Beavis and Butt-Head are responsible if some child burns down somebody’s house because he saw it done by the two misfits on TV who have been known to say “fire is fun” and “let’s set something on fire.” And look at all those other shows on TV or in theaters that may give someone an idea how to do a crime. We blame the one who commits it, not the actor who simulated it on the screen, or the writer who wrote the script. I got punished when I hit that woman in church back in 1959, not the TV show I got the idea from. I got punished for counterfeiting, not the ones who taught me. Snake and the fellas alone are responsible for the fires even if I would have asked them to do it – and surely when I speak favorably for revenge without physical injuries to any animal or person. The judicial system teaches everyone that we each are responsible for our own behavior. It’s too bad the fires happened, but I’m not accepting any blame. And even though the blood trail leads back to Maginnis, he can’t either.
         While on the subject of “If history” try this on for size. If I never met the fellas would “Fedbuster” and all the others letters have been sent? Highly unlikely. Chances are, I would have unobtrusively continued venting my anger without breaking the law by promoting VOCAL while selling more and more copies of Revenge. Exactly what I planned to do after I got released from prison in 1990.
         Now while it’s quite likely that Danny wouldn’t have thought up the idea of splashing acid on cars up and down the state at that exact time if he hadn’t of heard of me doing it years earlier, surely destruction would have come from his twisted mind in some way at some time. It’s just part of his nature. Actually, at the time I thought the acid splashing the lesser of the two evils in that they were all hepped up on killing or setting up Maginnis.
         Whether all the fires would have started at the times they did without Maginnis and the thought of letters prompting them along – assuming there is a connection, of course (I really don’t know for sure) – there’s no way of knowing until we speak to the real arsonists. The thing is, we have the advantage of hindsight now. We can look back at Snake’s speech, his actions, the look in his menacing eyes. We can see the kind of person he really is. Assuming he and his minions were responsible for the arson set wildfires of 1993, as I believe they were, it would be impossible to say whether they would have started just the same if I would have never met them. While viewing the firestorms on TV one night I could not get Snake’s voice of a few weeks ago out of my mind,
         “I’d love to be the one responsible for causing a major news story. I don’t want to be in the story now. I just want to cause it.”
         Because these people are so disgruntled and carry a strong don’t care who’s hurt attitude, I’m sure some major destruction would have come out of them is some way, no matter what.
         I grabbed all the letters that day and foolishly mailed the ones threatening Maginnis and his family along with the other two which came to be known as “Fedbuster” and “Nightcrawler.” The three separate letters were xeroxed multiple times so numerous individuals actually received them.
         “Fedbuster” is the one that made all the news because it is the one that threatened all the fires, and it only threatened fires because that was Snake’s “hobby” in life. As killing Maginnis kept coming up I was the one who suggested, sort of as an appeasement to Snake, to threaten to set fires. I never expected them to actually go out and set them; if in fact they did. “Fedbuster’s” anger was addressing misbehavior over my involvement with the Secret Service and my counterfeiting case, events I had long ago substantially made up for in ways they have yet to complain about. You’ll recall, I’d been satisfactorily avenging their misbehavior throughout the years by way of not only listening in on law-enforcement frequencies in order to tip people off that are under surveillance which can louse up the cases they’re trying to build, but also by teaching people how to print counterfeit money and other documents until they give me my stuff back and make amends for the vandalism they did in 1980. While I had slacked off in recent years, I still kept my foot in the door when the venting need arose so my anger at the Secret Service, and other judicial personnel regarding my counterfeiting activities, was rather minimal. Minimal in relation to Maginnis that is. The letter addressing the anger that set all this off to begin with – namely Maginnis’ misbehavior – barely made the news. That’s because its threat fortunately never come through.
         I destroyed all the letters relating to the acid splashing, or so I thought. Apparently I didn’t get them all because about a month later they were mailed. I never saw Snake or any of the bunch after August 28, 1993 and I never led them to believe that I’d never see them again. I’m guessing that when I never showed up or called they assumed that I had gotten busted and mailed them in an attempt to throw police off of my track. The problem is, the way the letters were worded, it got them more on my track.
         My mother was in the last stages of her disease by now and was needing nearly constant attention. Other than to go shopping, I rarely left the house. Early one weekday morning in late September or early October my father just happened to be looking out our front living room window when he saw a police car park across the street. He called me over and we saw a uniformed police officer face directly at our house and snap a picture. It was unmistakable that he was facing directly at our house as I saw the flash go off. Why he had the flash turned on on a bright sunny day I don’t know, but it did go off – and it was facing directly at our house. He then walked around the side where there is the driveway to a next door apartment. I lost sight of him but assume he looked over the fence into our back yard and possibly took a picture of it.
         Knowing that I had mailed the letters on August 28th I immediately assumed this is what it was about. I also suspected this was preliminary to getting a search warrant. From my experience with the Secret Service, I know that search warrants describe the house in great detail, everything from where the house numbers are placed, to the location of the mail box in relation to the door, to its color and roof style. I decided to go out and have a friendly talk with the officer.
         “Hi, can I help you? I noticed you taking a picture of our house.”
         “No, I took a picture of the apartment next door.”
         After a bit more conversation he asked me,
         “Have you seen any goats next door?”
         Now that was a dead give away. We don’t live in a rural community and there are no farm animals around here, especially in a two story apartment. Apparently I caught him off guard and he didn’t have a story made up to cover his behavior. Asking if I’d seen any drug activity next door would have been something more believable and probably wouldn’t have raised my suspicions. I saw that flash facing us, it wasn’t facing next door but I just played along all nice and everything anyway. He had sergeant stripes so I know he wasn’t just a rookie. I explained to him that I had been in trouble in past years but I am clean now. I told him that he would be welcome to come in and look for whatever they wanted but that please don’t make a mess like had happened before with the Secret Service. He again assured me it wasn’t anything at our house. We shook hands and parted and that was the end of that encounter. Turns out, we were observed by one of our neighbors who later told a news reporter about it after my arrest. Somehow though, he seemed to think that I showed hostility to the officer for taking the picture. Nothing could have been farther from the truth, but in any event, it’s on the record that I was brought to their attention early on. I’m not sure whether it was the feds or Bakersfield police who were in the preliminary stages of getting a warrant. (I asked both of them in letters of inquiry sent out on April 24, 1998 and neither answered me back.)
         On October 20, 1993 the Williams and Watson part of the Reginald Denny trial ended with acquittals on the most serious counts. These are two of the culprits that actually did the beating of Denny. Soon afterwards, Maginnis came on TV again as Antoine Miller’s attorney and said there was no intent on the part of Antoine to kill Denny so his case should be dismissed. Once again, my anger was beginning to flare up at him. I had been feeling ill and thought at the time that it was already symptoms of HIV coming to the surface. In reality it was probable anxiety related symptoms over my suspected HIV positive status and my mother’s approaching death. In any event, on the 24th I sent another follow-up letter to Maginnis reemphasizing my demand to him to get off the Denny case. I mailed this single letter unaware that I was already under surveillance by federal agents who were trying to catch me mail more letters. I’ll cover a little later how I can confirm this.

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         On Tuesday, October 26th the first of a number of arson fires was started within that infamous two-week period. Being a regular viewer of the afternoon news, I saw the early helicopter views and the reports that it was of a suspicious origin. As the week progressed more fires broke out that were also reported to be of suspicious origins. On Thursday I had come to suspect more and more that this was the work of the Snake bunch. I knew these are the kind of guys you don’t want to have mad at you, but I also knew they didn’t know where I lived. I seriously considered making a call to the police that evening but hesitated for some reason that I’m not sure of.
         By Friday evening I was wrestling more and more with the urge to let it be known what I was holding inside. If Snake and his buddies are involved, somebody’s got to be told. I was busy around the house that afternoon and evening and not as attentive to the news as I normally am. I thought in the early evening I’d heard something about letters but by a late newscast it was more clear. They did mention some letters threatening to set fires but still were not too informative. I was left with the thought, could they be talking about the ones I sent?
         Saturday to me is a blank as far as newscasts go. I don’t recall what we did that day. Something with my mom must have come up and I never caught any newscasts. Whatever preoccupied my mind that day has faded from memory along with any newscast I might have seen.
         Sunday night, Halloween, is a different story. I was doing some editing on Revenge that afternoon and was anxious to catch the early news that evening. Often we end up watching the Channel 4 news but that is not etched in stone. Sometimes we hear a promotional story a certain station will be doing and that then is the one we watch. Tonight for some reason that has long become forgotten I turned on the Channel 2 news. Leading the news that evening was Harvey Levin with a report on my letters. Only this time, there was no doubt they were mine. He held them up on TV all fan folded out to show everyone their multi-page length. He then read excerpts from them and informed the viewers he was piecing together the clues in the letter as to the author’s identity. I was literally shaking in my chair at this point and expecting a knock on the door any minute. I was the one who coined the term “Fedbuster” originally, sort of a play on words with the movie Ghostbusters, I guess sort of a way to spook the feds – excuse the pun. Well it was working, only I was the one who was getting spooked, on Halloween night none the less. Knock, knock, knock! I shakily go over to the door to see who it is.
         “Trick or treat?”
         Well this time it was only trick or treaters, but what about next time? It’s only a matter of time. There’s no calling police now. Knowing that I’d never been given a fair break on any of my cases in the past, I knew that I was going to think of my own needs first and foremost. It’s all about covering my tracks before this gets more out of hand. Once I’m cleared, I’d be more than happy to help put the real culprits where they belong; after all, I’m totally against that kind of destruction whether one had been wronged by someone or not. But for now, that was secondary. C Y A comes first! Cover Your Ass.
         On Tuesday, November 2nd the Malibu fire started. Despite this being Malibu, it still wasn’t anywhere near Maginnis so it’s hard to know if there was a connection or not, but I do have my personal suspicions. I was a regular viewer of Dateline NBC and other newsmagazine shows of this nature. Knowing that once again the fire coverage would preempt regular programming on all the local L.A. stations, I tuned our home satellite dish to the unscrambled Ku band satellite and transponder number that NBC used to transmit their network programs to their local affiliates. Three hours earlier than our regular viewing time, I saw coming out of New York, what would have been broadcast here later that night if it wouldn’t have been preempted.
         Now my letters were making national news. Here, beaming down from 23 thousand miles in space, excerpts from my letter were being read aloud as its words were scrolling across the screen for half of the entire world to view live at that given instant. And in the background there were scenes of homes burning to the ground. Later in the week Governor Pete Wilson was touring the Malibu fire scene when someone asked him if there was any connection between the fires and letters circulating around that were threatening to set fires. He responded that they were looking into that. Boy, what next – President Clinton commenting on our letters? Well if he did, I never heard him, but needless to say I was scared shitless. No helping law enforcement right now. Number one priority was covering my ass and making sure I didn’t get burned – no pun intended. I could always help them out once I see that I’m sitting pretty.
         One of the days during this nerve-racking week a Los Angeles Times article spoke of a possible link to the King and Denny trials, seeming to imply that the fires could be in retaliation to the verdicts. This supposed link sent chills down my back. Assuming the fellas are the responsible culprits, there is a link – it’s just for a totally different reason; Maginnis, instead of anger over the verdicts. In any event, the idea of a link – any kind of link – brought more fear to my heart. And it didn’t help when Governor Wilson said arsonists are on a par with child molesters – two things I happen to be.
         On Thursday I thought I noticed that I was being followed. This was later confirmed in their Discovery. Unlike the way the Secret Service did it, where I noticed them on days I wasn’t even looking for them, this time I never did definitely see a following vehicle. I saw some suspicious activity that led me to suspect it, but I never confirmed it at the time. And unfortunately, I didn’t have my scanner either. I let the fellas use it along with the book that listed government frequencies. Snake wanted to keep tabs on the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. (I still had my 1993 edition of the Betty Bearcat National Police Frequency Directory put out by Uniden each year. This was one of the things the feds took in their search of the house and later returned.)
         Early Saturday morning I was determined to find out whether Snake and his cohorts had anything to do with the fires and also do what I could to clear my ass. I took my little micro cassette recorder along in the hopes of recording them bragging about it. I’m sure Snake would brag about it as easily as he did about some of the illegal killings he did in Vietnam especially when he was high, which he often was. I drove around in some evasive ways for a good period of time to lose any possible tail I may have had. After I thought I was in the clear (in reality I never lost them) I parked away from the Samuel Clemens and walked over to it. No luck. Danny hustled his body on Santa Monica Boulevard once in a while as a male prostitute so I checked out those common areas. Apparently following agents thought I was just out cruising to pick up a prostitute because that’s how it came across in their Discovery.
         I stopped off at Plummer Park and saw a few of the guys who helped pen the letters. One told me Snake was laid up with a bad hand but he didn’t know what happened or where he was. I eventually made it back over to the Samuel Clemens only to come up empty again. Well, not quite. One of the neighbors in an adjoining room said they got an apartment. Turned out this apartment was just off Santa Monica Boulevard near the Silver Mountain.
         I got the address and immediately headed on over unaware that my agent “friends” were right behind me. I’ll tell you one thing, whatever methods these guys used to follow me, they did their homework. The Secret Service was so sloppy that I noticed them at times accidentally when I wasn’t even looking for them. These guys I looked for and dodged and weaved and still never lost them. After I got into prison I learned from an inmate that was a former law-enforcement officer that newer technology allows them to use the cellular telephone network to triangulate a hidden transmitter’s location and display its position on a map on a computer screen. And then, of course, there’s the Global Positioning Satellites. A transmitter on my car could relay my exact position determined from these satellites orbiting high overhead. As I neared the address given to me by the neighbor I saw Crystal walking back with a small sack from a nearby store. After finding a parking spot a block or so away I walked back to her and yelled out,
         “Crystal.”
         “Hey dude, what’s the scam?” Crystal said in her hippie-like voice. Despite being only 25, she really was a child of the ’60s.
         “Have you seen Snake?”
         “What da ya think of the fires; far out huh?” she said with a pleased smile on her face.
         “Do you know anything about them?” I asked just remembering I didn’t have my pocket tape recorder with me.
         “Cool aren’t they?”
         I never could get a straight answer out of her. But she was as high as a kite anyway.
         “Is Snake around?”
         “No he’s out taking care of business. Stop back later.”
         And with that last statement of hers I was on my way, but not without first noticing some gauze and ointment showing through the thin translucent plastic bag she was carrying. This is not good, this is not good at all. First I find out Snake was laid up with a bad hand. Now I see gauze and ointment. It doesn’t take much to imagine him being injured in some way while setting some fire. And if Crystal was involved? Well then the feds had one of the arsonists right in their sights without even knowing it. My first thought though was to cover my tracks before I get reeled in all the way. Although I wasn’t on dope at this time, my head still wasn’t screwed on straight.
         That idea they had over two months earlier to mail a letter claiming responsibility for the acid splashing after I was taken into custody sounded like a good cover-my-tracks scheme. I quickly penned a follow-up letter to Harvey Levin regarding “Fedbuster” and walked around the corner to a print shop that rents out typewriters for $5.00 per hour. After expanding on my hand-written version to a full page and proofreading it, I drove to a nearby trash can and tore up my notes. These notes were retrieved from the trash by surveillance agents and entered into evidence against me. I also threw away the address to Danny’s apartment which I got from the neighbor back at the Samuel Clemens. That had been written on a small piece of paper and just crumpled up into a ball before I threw it away with the torn up letter. Agents never did get it.
         I then drove way down to Long Beach which was a part of my cover-up scheme. For one thing, the letter led them to believe I drive to work along the 405 freeway. Neither were true. I was unemployed at the time. I mailed the letter in a box that would not get picked up until Monday. I wanted a postmark date on it no sooner than that because I fully expected to get arrested very soon. In fact, I was counting on it, that was a part of the plan. If I could be in custody when a letter claiming responsibility for the fires is postmarked, that would get my ass out of the, well fire. Sounded like a good sneaky plan, but in order to work I would have had to avoid being under surveillance. No such luck.
         I went on home unaware that federal agents got a search warrant for the mail box in order to retrieve the letter. The final nail in my coffin had now been set and I was the one who set it.

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         Early on Sunday morning, November 7th, I left the house unaware that I was again under surveillance, or that my arrest was a mere hours away. Once again, I tried to find Snake or Danny but to no avail. I just needed to know for sure whether they were responsible for any of the fires or not. I was already sure enough in my mind, at least all the circumstantial indications were there. I just needed to hear it directly from the horses’ mouths. But what I really needed to do was record them though. I had mistakenly thrown out the apartment address of Danny’s new place yesterday so once again I dodged and weaved my way to the Samuel Clemens so I could get the address. No luck. This time I drove around to known areas that I was likely to see them in.
         It wasn’t long before I was pulled over by police who were instructed by the feds to pull me over and send me home. The Discovery says, “agents were forced to have a police officer make contact with defendant to scare defendant away from the area so that the government would not be forced to arrest him before it had completed its investigation.” The feds wanted to take me in for questioning, but they wanted to do it from my house for reasons I’ll be getting to shortly. One of the two officers said that the reason they pulled me over was because someone in a vehicle “just like mine” was seen molesting children. That excuse was so outlandish that it just raised another red flag comparable to the one that caught-off-guard sergeant put up by asking me whether I’d seen any goats next door. My particular van’s color scheme – lower half green with the upper half white – is not shared by that many other vans. And child molesting is not that common of a crime every day. If I would have had an all white van, which is a fairly common color, and the officer would have mentioned a crime like burglary, which is also a fairly common crime that is committed quite regularly, I don’t think a red flag would have been raised. I, of course, knew I didn’t molest any children, so it didn’t take much of an effort to calculate the odds of someone in a vehicle matching mine doing an uncommon crime that I just happen to have a history of. What gave them away even more though was what come next.
         In my shirt pocket I had a small container of pepper spray. It was clearly labeled “For Animal Attacks.” Such a labeled bottle is in a consistency that was legally permitted to have without a special permit. Back then the laws had not yet been changed to allow possession of pepper spray for personal protection against attacks by people. They made a special point of telling me it was illegal to have it, despite the label, but didn’t arrest or ticket me. They did end up taking it though. Then they told me, not to just leave the area, but to go home. Now that’s something I’ve never heard of before – to actually be told to go home. Well, of course, that’s because the feds wanted to make contact with me at home and nowhere else.
         Before I did go home though, I stopped by a bar in San Fernando where Snake or Danny might be at but had no luck. I then remembered that in one of my van’s cupboards were the birth certificates and social security cards that I had showed to the fellas some weeks earlier.
         When I got home I was immediately confronted by Special Agent Richard G. Palacios of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) along with an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), who was Special Agent Karl Anglin if I remember correctly, as I was exiting my van. There were no guns drawn and nothing but polite words were spoken. Their Discovery admits to using a “ruse” to get me in a cooperative mood. They played it off as if I had done nothing wrong and that I was a victim of a crime. My threatening letters had claimed how I had been victimized so they were going to use that terminology when talking to me. The lying agents even reassured my mother, who was startled by their arrival, that I wasn’t in any trouble and was only thought to be a victim of a crime. I was merely asked if I would go with them to their office in Van Nuys. Right when they pulled their car in behind my van I stuck the counterfeit documents under my sweater in an attempt to hide them. I agreed to go with them but said I need to go to the bathroom real bad first. I did have to go, but my main reason was to hide the documents. I stuck them in the back of one of our bathroom cabinets and come on out figuring I had all my ducks in a row and quacking on cue. The letters I mailed back in August had none of my writing in them, nor would any of my fingerprints be found on them, and I never licked the stamps or envelopes. Plus, a letter is on the way that won’t be postmarked until tomorrow, Monday, so obviously I am in the clear as I’ll be in custody by then.
         This is the frame of mind I went into their interview with. I was read my rights at 11:35 a.m. and promptly waived them. At that point polite questioning began. If I were to put words to it, as I’m doing, I would say there was a quiet country elegance to their voices. Palacios and Anglin were the two agents conducting the interview which was done at the AFT office in the Federal Building in Van Nuys. Palacios appeared to have the more prominent role in the questioning, and from the Discovery I found out that he was the agent in charge on the FBI side. Special Agent Michael P. Gleysteen was the agent in charge on the ATF side of the operation, although I don’t believe I saw him that day.
         Unknown to me though, our house was raided by their comrades right after I was taken away. FBI and ATF agents, along with three police officers from the Bakersfield Police Department, led by Detective Roger D. Ott and several police officers from the Manhattan Beach Police Department and the Torrance Police Department very maliciously ransacked and vandalized our house, and particularly my bedroom, designated “Room E” on their “Evidence Recovery Log” inventory form, and attic, called the “loft” and “Room I” on their form, in a search that just as easily could have been done properly to accomplish their goal. As I mentioned above, Palacios was with me so he didn’t take part in it, but he’s the responsible party on the FBI side though. I’m not sure if Gleysteen was present at the crime scene or not. Ott was present but waited in a car out front of our house because he had a severely broken foot and was in a cast. The other two officers from Bakersfield present in the house were Detective Steve Griffith and Detective Adair (first name unknown). One of the Manhattan Beach Police Department officers assisting in the vandalism was Detective Jane Hoag; the one who brought charges against me in the Torrance “extortion” case we talked about in Chapter 11.
         In many ways, this criminal disrespect was worse than the January 11, 1980 Secret Service travesty. For one thing, my “Fedbuster” threatening letter, which was addressing all of the past Secret Service improprieties, including the January 11th event, warned them in clear and no uncertain terms, “If you was to do now even 1/10 what you did then you’ll find a Killeen Texas situation on your hands only worse. But I’ll pluck off little kids in school yards from a distance with a high power rifle I could easily buy and I’ll make sure everyone knows you were told and refused to abstain from your bad vandalous deeds. So don’t fuck with my property again. Or else.” Plus, I told Palacios and Anglin in a verbal admonishment during formal questioning on November 7th to not re-committed the same offense the Secret Service did in 1980 and that I wanted to be present during the search; a search I fully expected and was ready for. I reminded them – and it’s noted in the Discovery – how “fussy [I am] about people [merely] touching [my] things” and I even left several pairs of rubber gloves in plain view in my bedroom for them to use if they needed to rummage through my stuff but they never used them. Instead, they confiscated them as supposed evidence of some kind. In a document I titled Medical Advisory/Information: Statement of Facts, I clearly outline in no uncertain terms the extreme emphasis I put upon my property and make strong warnings about respecting and not touching it. I made a point of leaving this in my bedroom in plain view. I know it was read because when I got it back it was separately displayed in plastic. (For the latest incarnation of this document see Chapter 18 and take special notice how I consider having my material possessions touched just as serious of a crime as ordinary people do if someone touched their kid’s private parts without permission.)
         Also, on November 2, 1993, five days before they committed their crimes, Palacios spoke with Special Agent William Issen of the United States Secret Service. He was one of the many agents involved in investigating me as a counterfeiter and was present at the time of the search of my parents’ house and my car in 1977. The Discovery mentions that “ISSEN also recalled that LARSEN was an extremely meticulous person who kept everything in a very orderly fashion.” And on top of that, the feds were working together with the Bakersfield Police Department who were planning to search our house on the same day looking for evidence of the car vandalisms up and down the state. Detective Ott obtained copies from my California Department of Corrections file and a post-release psychological evaluation is noteworthy. On October 1, 1990 Staff Psychologist, Dr. Pamela Jackson, Ph.D., “noted that he has a long term pattern of lashing out legally and illegally if he feels he has been treated unfairly, unnecessary aggravated, put in a position where he has to spend a great deal of money, cheated, or had his property ‘messed with.’ He also noted that he has become more sensitive over the years with regard to the latter.” And continuing on, the report says there was evidence of “hypersensitivity, and strong feelings of entitlement along with pre-occupation with the theme of getting even or avenging himself when feeling wronged.” Plus Bakersfield also had my three page typed Medical Advisory/Information. It’s noteworthy to mention that according to Agent Gleysteen’s sworn Affidavit in support of an application for a warrant to search our house, he admits that Ott provided him with a copy of Jackson’s evaluation. So there’s absolutely no way any they can come back now and snivel that they didn’t know that I was so hyper-sensitive about my possessions. The feds had the information; and Bakersfield had the information. Both from separate sources. And they collaborated and shared it all together.
         One interesting sideline about Dr. Jackson is worth mentioning before we leave her behind. In talking about my extra sensitivities and unwillingness to accept injustices she had the nerve to say I should work on being less sensitive and accept these things, which she even admitted were not right with the system. I wonder if she, who is black, would think the same if she was magically transported back in time 100 years to when women couldn’t smoke or vote, and blacks were much more repressed than they are today. Knowing the proper freedoms black women have today, would she be expected to accept those ancient practices so easily? Surely she would become an activist as others in that time did in order to bring black women to the equality they have today – and activism continues because much is still needed to change. It was once accepted to burn people at the stake if they did not follow established beliefs. These things changed only because some brave souls spoke up and said enough is enough. So I say the same thing to the judicially abused among us.
         In the search they also took (stole) a lot of my personal papers and books along with my computer and printer. Other than a few small not-too-important items (the gloves, one road flare, and possibly batteries), everything they took seems to have been returned after it had been messed with. At least I don’t detect anything else outstanding at the current time. While they’re deep in the dog house, they’re not all the way back. In anticipation of the computer being taken, after news reports were circulated more and more about my “Fedbuster” letter, along with my suspicions that I was being followed, I deleted the then latest version of Revenge along with my Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable which was known as Judicial Debt Statement back then. Knowing that deleting a file from your computer does not actually erase it from the disk (only the directory location for listing and finding purposes is deleted) I overwrote the unused hard disk space and de-fragmented it so no remnants of these documents would be left behind for snooping eyes to see. (For more details on computer privacy see Revenge.) I’m not ashamed of them by the way; I just didn’t want them seen at that time. They’re something private to distribute in my own time. (Palacios did have Revenge’s draft version to refer to during questioning though.) Revenge makes it pretty clear that my attitude is basically; heaven help anyone who ever tries to take my computer, and my Statement previously said, “I wouldn’t be as lenient today to a similar [January 11, 1980] violation.” Even though the vandals didn’t see these additional warnings, they still had plenty of others thrust up into their faces and they paid none of them a bit of mind. No leniency should be shown now. Currently, we’re in a “holding pattern” while they get their ducks in order so they can come up with and participate in an acceptable restitution plan. I’ll have a lot more to say about tearing up the house later, but first let’s get back to my questioning.
         As time went on, questioning became more accusatory. I don’t recall the exact order of all that happened that day but at some point I was led into another room with enlarged samples of my letters hanging on the walls. There was also a chronological display of events surrounding the various arson-set fires. Eventually, questioning got around to their belief that they thought I was an arsonist. Of course, now I know that was all a part of their ruse just to get me to admit authorship of the letters.
         Somewhere along the line, I learned that a white van was seen in the area of one of the fires and a motorcycle was seen speeding away from another. It wasn’t until weeks later, after I got the Discovery information, that I learned of their deceit to a United States Magistrate in order in order to entice him to approve a search of our house. In an Affidavit, Gleysteen said he believed I set one or more of the recent fires and that I owned two vehicles that matched those described at the scenes of two fires. They knew this was not true because they had me under surveillance since before the first fire ever started, and they know my two vehicles did not fit those described by witnesses. Gleysteen said, “According to official records and FBI physical surveillance of the subject, Larsen owns and operates a 1975 Honda motorcycle (color unknown), with a California license plate number of… and a white 1971 Chevy van with a license plate number of…. Similar vehicles have been seen at two of the above mentioned arson scenes.” Previous pages of this Affidavit mention that, “A witness stated to investigators that the witness observed a motorcycle leaving the area of origin at a high rate of speed” and elsewhere it says, “At one of these fires (the Rancho Palos Verdes fire) a white van was seen leaving the area of origin.” It’s odd they don’t know the color of my motorcycle if they saw me driving it. Well they didn’t because it wasn’t running. It was parked in the back yard out of sight. For the record, it happens to be orange. It also happens to be an ST90 model, which they could have confirmed from DMV records which they claimed to have gotten. Even in new condition, that small engine size, along with its smaller than average diameter of wheels, would not propel it down the road faster than 46 miles per hour. It is not capable of “leaving the area of origin at a high rate of speed” as Gleysteen misleadingly hints at. To claim that my motorcycle is similar to one seen speeding from the crime scene is fraudulent and he should be held accountable for his deceit. And that includes his deceit about my van. It is green and white. Green on the bottom half and white on the top half. To claim it as white is deceitful. To lie that way on a signed sworn statement should be considered illegal. That was a sworn statement. Shouldn’t Gleysteen be considered a perjurer? And I don’t mean to pin everything on the ATF alone. The FBI is equally culpable here. Both organizations were twins of deception in getting their search warrant. To be fair, I have to say that I haven’t heard their side of the story yet. Were they of the belief that my van is all white? Did they just fail to check into the kind of motorcycle I own and what its maximum speed is? Do they just think that lies are the oil that make the judicial system run smoothly? Or are they merely honesty phobic? I wasn’t aware of this deceit at the time but after I learned of it I considered it just one more reason to continue in a self-imposed silent state. (Letters of inquiry were sent out to both Palacios [4-pages] and Gleysteen [3-pages] on April 24, 1998 asking for comments to my various allegations relating to their misbehavior. Neither had the guts to respond back even though they had well over the month I told them I’d give them. I even offered an extension of time to respond if they’d merely ask for it. They didn’t.)
         As far as them knowing I set none of the fires because they had me under surveillance since before the first fire ever started, I know that to be true because of something Maginnis told my father on the phone. He had called my father a day or two after my arrest and had what my father described as a “friendly conversation.” Because he had made the first call, I didn’t think there was anything improper about having my father call him back after I had been indicted. I thought that because Maginnis was now an “official” victim (before being indicted I was only charged with mailing one “Fedbuster” letter), that his word could have some weight toward the court about granting me bail.
         It was about three weeks after my arrest that I was indicted by the Federal Grand Jury on 77 counts which now included the letters threatening Maginnis. During the original questioning on day one they limited their inquiry to the “Fedbuster” letter threatening to set fires. The Maginnis letter was never mentioned at all and “Nightcrawler” was only mentioned once in passing near the end of the interrogation by Sergeant John Yarbrough of the Homicide Bureau of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department when he accused me of writing “Fedbuster” and added, “I think you sent ‘Nightcrawler’ too.” Now with the Grand Jury, I’m officially charged with the Maginnis letters too.
         I asked my father to express my apologies to Maginnis for the letters. Now before you get some wild idea that I was getting all soft and ready to forgive him, well you just get that crazy notion out of your head right now. I needed to do whatever was necessary in order to get out on bail, and if that meant sniveling and saying how sorry I was, well that’s what I was gonna’ do. I had a right to be a little dishonest, in view of the multitude of their dishonesty. I was sorry though about including Maginnis’ wife and kids in the threats because they weren’t guilty of any improprieties. During the letter-writing campaign they just sort of got swooped up in the brainstorming session and included in the threat. Because my dad and Maginnis had been friends in the past I didn’t think asking him to speak up favorably about me getting bail was an out of line request. I also wanted my father to relay my mother’s condition, their up and coming 50th wedding anniversary, and the last Christmas that we would be able to spend together. My dad happened to record the conversation with Maginnis though, as he often did on important calls. Since President Clinton’s 1998 sex scandal broke in the news, word come out that making such a recording without the permission of the other party may be illegal. Well if it is, my dad ain’t here to prosecute so you’re shit out of luck on that. Anyway, he later played the tape back to me over the phone when I talked to him from the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC-LA) where I was being housed. Unfortunately, what I requested did not come through in his conversation to Maginnis. He somehow never asked him to speak up in court for my bail. But one important thing did come through though. In their discussion about the letters, Maginnis mentioned that one of them had been “hand delivered” to him. Even though my dad recorded over the tape with more recent conversations and I don’t have it now, I distinctly remember Maginnis using the words, “hand delivered.” Right away that caught my ear. From my interview on the day of my arrest, I already knew that agents pulled the Harvey Levin letter out of the mail box that they saw me mail on November 6th. I also remember agents telling me they did give Mr. Levin a copy of it. The first bundle of letters were all mailed on August 28th so of course I wouldn’t have been under surveillance at that time. If Maginnis was “hand delivered” a letter, just like Harvey Levin, then that would mean that it too was pulled out of the mail box in similar search warrant fashion after they saw me mail it. After I got a copy of it as part of the Discovery I saw that it, like Levin’s, did not have a postal service cancellation stamp on it. There’s no doubt that it was pulled out before it could go through normal mail pick up routines. The fact that it had to have been the letter I mailed on October 24th, two days before the first fire ever started, means they had me under surveillance at least that far back. Recall now they photographed the house in late September or early October (I failed to write down the exact date) so who knows how long before surveillance commenced.
         I began to suspect deceitfulness around mid-afternoon. One agent was so intent on getting me to admit authorship of “Fedbuster” that he told me he’d make sure my name is kept out of the newspapers if I’d admit to it. Moments later, another agent coming from outside the office inquired to his fellow agents, “what’s with all the media outside.” Surely the first lying agent knew that. Turned out, there were hordes of reporters outside just waiting for me. No matter what they would tell me or what I’d tell them, I knew then that I’d be all over the news. After 2 weeks of some of the worst and greatest number of fires in Los Angeles history, many being arson set, along with the fact that my widely-distributed letter threatened just such firestorms, there’s no way I’d be kept out of the media no matter what. Although it sure would have been proper for them to inform the media that they knew that I was only a letter sender and not a fire starter. One point had become crystal clear this early in the game though. There was deceit on their part. The flags were all raised and I had to be on guard.
         I was curious why no one ever brought up the 13 different handwritings on the letters and envelopes. In fact, it wasn’t until well after my sentencing in June 1994 that a Bureau of Prisons’ staff member interviewing me asked me about it. And no one even asked if any of them could have started any of the fires. It seems that once I was done and convicted the case was over with and they could care less who the real arsonists were. And it’s not like I was hiding the fact that I knew of their likely identity either. I openly stated it and no one cared.
         But all that comes later. For now it’s back to the interview. At this time I did not know that I had been under surveillance since at least two days before the first fire ever started. They knew I wasn’t an arsonist, yet their line of questioning was as if I was. It’s clear now that this was part of the ruse to scare me into admitting authorship of the letters. (Ironically, had they of been forthright and honest right from the start and told me they knew I wasn’t an arsonist and that all they wanted me for was the letters I would have been more apt to cooperate and help them with information that may have led to solving the real crime they should have been more concerned about – the actual arsons. It seems they had their priorities on the wrong thing once again; an offense I’ve admonished judicial personnel about over and over again throughout the years. Oh well!)
         Then, with an imperceptible change to his tone, Palacios let the cat spring from the bag, claws exposed – he pulled out a copy of the letter I mailed to Harvey Levin just the day before. Immediately I knew I was dead. The only way they could have gotten that is to have pulled it from the mail box because it was not scheduled to be picked up until the next day. Now I knew I was under surveillance all this time. I puzzled why the questioning kept on me rather than asking about the various stops I was making in the last couple days or the people I talked to, one of them being Crystal right out in the open on busy Santa Monica Blvd. I may not have been a trained investigator – and I had knowledge that they didn’t have – but still, I think there were other questions they should have been asking.
         But the fact that they didn’t was O.K. for now, and as time passed it was easier to let them go right on believing whatever they cared to believe. It would give me more time to regroup and get my ducks back in a row. As they quickened the inquiry’s pace and accused me more and more of being an arsonist I was becoming more and more scared. I was no longer denying the letters, but I wasn’t admitting them either. At the same time, I strongly emphasized that I had nothing to do with any of the fires. I insisted several times that I wanted to take a lie detector test. In years past I had been given them by the Secret Service, the L.A.P.D., and even a polygraph examiner privately hired by an employer. In all other cases I had something to hide. This one time I didn’t. I wanted them to limit their questions to the fires, of course, because I could be truthful in answering that I had nothing to do with them.
         It was well after dark when I asked to call home, mainly to find out if my personal property was being respected. At this time I was considering divulging my escapades into the outer fringes of hell with Snake and the fellas and probably take them to the park some of them hung out in and the hotel Danny had rented back when I knew them. But once I found out from my dad of the thieving destruction they had done I shut down real quick. Once they crossed that line of no return they had nothing coming from me. At least not at that time. They think they’re so damn smart and powerful I suppose. Well let them march their god damn asses on out and find them themselves then. Their over-zealousness to violate me resulted in maybe the real arsonists going scot-free. Oh well! That’s what they get when they try to lie their way into a confession and phony up a polygraph test. (Hold on, we’ll be gettin’ to that folks.) I could always divulge what I know later on so Snake and his cohorts could be brought to justice, but I’d do it at a time of my choosing. I was now a real victim here and I wanted to make sure that I was treated like one. I was going to have some say in this mess. Given the right circumstances, I’d be glad to give them up, but I needed something in return. To date, I haven’t gotten anything even close to prompt me to help them out. I don’t care if they’re ever caught. I didn’t lose a house in a fire. I’m worried about what I lost in this mess. (And if you want to peek ahead to see what that loss is check out Chapter 20.) Bringing them to justice brings me no personal satisfaction. I’m a bottom-line oriented materialistic kind of guy and helping law enforcement does nothing for my bottom line. Bringing some of my violators to justice, as outlined on earlier and later pages, would bring me satisfaction. That’s more important to me than the arsonists of fires I wasn’t a victim of. Narcissistic? Damn right! You bet! Nobody cared about my property or about bringing my violators to justice so turn about is fair play. And they can chew on that awhile. I gave them the road map to follow – i.e. don’t mess with MY property – but they chose to follow their own beaten path – a path they’ve already been down with me. Now they gotta’ live with it – just like they had to the last time. And just like they expected me to live with what I’ve been subjected to throughout the years. They can snivel all they want. But they can’t say they weren’t told.
         Why they would engage in such risky behavior once again is beyond me. I mean; it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand there would be some kind of fall out from it. Maybe they thought the end justified the means. If so, they had another thing coming. After all, they knew me by now. It wasn’t as if they thought I was some unknown chump they could easily push around and get away with it. I had a track record for not allowing such misbehavior to go by unchecked or unpunished. If they would have been up front and honest in the beginning and kept your grubby little fingers off of my property,–as they were told to do – on November 7th I’d have been more than happy to give up what I knew. I didn’t like what Snake, Mondo, and Danny had done, and I had nothing against giving them up. But now I had something more firmly against, and that was helping the government. The government that violated my personal property for the second time. I mentioned to Palacios how I wish I could have been present when they were searching my bedroom and his response was something like, “you know we couldn’t do that.” Well so be it then, but now you know I couldn’t help you out – either. Just think, they could have been sitting pretty well right about now with real arsonists behind bars rather than just little ol’ letter sender me! And they can chew on that a bit too!
         Absolutely everything was done to make me displeased more and more. Severely embarrassing me through the news media even though they knew I set no fires and enhancing my sentence beyond proper boundaries – over-punishing me on things I have already been over-punished on already (including both primary punishments officially pronounced by judges and secondary – sometimes more severe – punishing aggravations not a part of an official handed-down punishment but always a part of it anyway) and/or innocent of – were surely no help at all. (Knowing I especially like to embarrass judicial personnel back, it is especially negligent on their part to commit this offense even in a minor way, let alone the major way they did. They just kept digging more and more. They should be concerned about justice for all; not just winning a conviction at any cost using any tactics they want.)
         They knew I set none of the fires. They knew there were many different handwritings on the letters. Why couldn’t they just have kept their grubby little fingers off of my property, be polite, and merely ask if I had any information as to who the arsonists could be? Back in ’86, when I was arrested for vandalizing numerous vehicles, I distinctly remember a police detective emphasize how he was very careful with my possessions when he was in my bedroom because he saw how neat and orderly I was. I thanked him and then talked freely and openly about my crime to him. Too bad the feds didn’t do a little more homework. Hopefully they know now you can get more flies with honey. Is that the right saying here? Anyway, you get the point.
         Even though I decided to remain silent about Snake and the fellas for the time being, I still wanted to take a polygraph test so they’d get off my back about setting the fires. Finally they brought an examiner in. After a good deal of time briefing him in private, I was put in another room where his portable equipment was already set up. Before giving the test, these guys go over the questions they’re going to ask you first. I asked him to limit his questions to those pertaining to the fires. He said if I didn’t come clean on the letters first, the fact that I was holding something back would give a false reading on my answers pertaining to the fires. I suspected his rational right away because in a past test an examiner purposely kept his questions to one limited area of behavior they were wanting the truth on.
         He finally “reluctantly” agree to limit his questions to the fires. For the first time ever during a polygraph examination I felt relaxed. I knew the questions would be limited to the fires and I knew I had nothing to do with them. I answered them truthfully and with confidence. At the conclusion I was told that I had failed the test without question. That couldn’t be. I was so truthful and comfortable in answering. I was wondering if my body chemistry was such that polygraph results are not accurate on me. I also wondered if they purposely lied to me in an attempt to scare me further into a confession of the letters. Such deceitful practices are committed by law-enforcement personnel as was disclosed in the December 23, 1997 episode of Dateline NBC. Today I believe this aspect of their behavior is the truth. Nowhere in the entire Discovery report is there ever a mention of a polygraph examination being given. It mentions my request to take one three separate times, but that’s it. Surely if I honestly did fail one that result would be prominently displayed in writing. Just another reason to continue a self-imposed silence. (In my 4-page letter of inquiry to Palacios I stated in bold I’d sure like a response on this one but never got an answer.) And nowhere in the Discovery was there a mention of analyzing my voice with a voice stress analyzer which is another lie-detector procedure technology has made available to law enforcement for some time now. Today it’s even available to home computer users with Windows-based machines. Just call (877) TRUSTER for info or to order.
         (More than a year after publication, and release to the public, of this book Dan Rather explored the subject of police deceit during interrogations in the May 6, 1999 episode of 48 Hours. “Police interrogations are usually by the book. There’s a manual for almost everything. There’s even one on how to arrange the furniture to get the best results. And not only are the police allowed to lie to coax a confession, they are taught how to do it. For example, to claim the results of a polygraph, such as this one, [pointed to by him] proved that a suspect is guilty or that there’s hard physical evidence when there is none.” Boy, am I glad I let the fellas stay out a while longer.)
         Shortly before releasing the revised edition of this book on my Web page in May 2002 I conducted another search for any references to Fedbuster. To my surprise up popped the Web site of the person who administered the polygraph to me back in 1993. Turns out he mentioned Fedbuster on his Curriculum Vita page where he lists major cases he has been involved with throughout the years and that’s how the search engine found it. I’m sure he introduced himself to me at the time of the test but I made no note of it and as I mentioned already, the Discovery never revealed who he was. These polygraph discrepancies were inquired about in my letter to Palacios back in April 1998 which he never responded to. Now with the name of the actual examiner I could confront him directly with my allegations and see what he has to say if anything. He by the way is: JACK TRIMARCO & ASSOCIATES, POLYGRAPH / INVESTIGATIONS, INC., 9601 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 744, Beverly Hills, California 90210, 310 247-2637 Phone, 310 276-4504 Fax, http://www.behaveanalysis.com/trimarcopolygraph.htm, jtrimarco@aol.com. A banner scrolling across his main Web page has the following: WHEN YOU WANT THE TRUTH,  AND NOTHING BUT..... Well I want the truth Jack. Will you give it to me?.
         Apparently not. I sent him a letter on April 27, 2002 with my concerns laid out in detail but one week later it was returned unopened and marked NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED UNABLE TO FORWARD. Surely this wasn’t a situation where the guy moved and left an invalid business address on his Web site. More than likely he recognized my name and just didn’t have the guts to answer my questions. Chances are Palacios advised him 4 years earlier of the allegations I was inquiring about and figuring that that’s what I wanted to know about he tried to pretend he was no longer at that address. Oh well, he can’t snivel he wasn’t given a chance to defend himself. He or any of the other suspects I sent letters of inquiry to are still welcome to answer up at any time. If so, I’ll immediately update the Web site and book and for any books already printed but not yet sold I’ll wedge a note in at this page.
         Toward the end of our long hours of questioning – actually I’d classify it as interrogation by now – they brought in Sergeant Yarbrough. This was their big gun – the bad cop of the good cop/bad cop routine. Most of the agents before this started out cordial and soft spoken with words evenly spaced, much like fence posts enclosing the territory they were occupying. Yarbrough was different. He played no punches right from the start in his ominous language accusing me of being an arsonist. Of course, for the time being they’re on their own as far as getting any help who they are. Maybe after I get out on bail, get all my property back, and get it back in pre-ransack condition I’ll put a helpful offer out on the table, but not before. For now they can wait. There’s an old saying; “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” I wasn’t about to be fooled again. I needed something to bargain with just in case I didn’t get everything back. And knowing how they operate, I had every reason to worry. To this day I still haven’t gotten everything back that the Secret Service took in 1980 – even though it had nothing to do with counterfeiting in any way – and I sure wasn’t going to be left in a position like then with nothing to trade.
         Yarbrough’s reasoning as to why he thought I was an arsonist was so far off base that it scared me even more. Earlier I told you about how Mr. Truxton, who was one of the only close friends I’ve ever had in my life, was killed in an arson-set wildfire which swept through the Agoura area where he lived in October 1978. I knew a 15-year-old Agoura High School boy was convicted of setting that fire. Now Yarbrough presented me with a copy of that police report, along with the name of the boy which I never even knew before this, and expressed his theory as to why I set the fires. His reasoning seemed to be that because my one and only friend died in that particular fire that I wanted to avenge it, or some such reason as that. After hours of questioning (according to the Discovery it was approximately 12:15 a.m. on the 8th), the tiredness, the sacredness, whatever, I apparently blurted out,
         “‘Alright officer, I confess – I’m Fedbuster, but I didn’t start any fires’
         or words very similar to those,” according to the Discovery. Apparently that’s all it took. Shortly after that I was officially arrested, finally. Apparently all this time what they really wanted me to do is admit authorship of the letters. Once that was done they had what they wanted and that was it. The thing is, that once they saw me mail that follow-up letter to Harvey Levin, they wouldn’t have needed a confession to convict me of the letters. But they were sure bounded and determined to get it at all costs, a cost that probably cost them their best shot at possibly solving many if not all of those arson fires set during that infamous two-week period. If they would have only put their priorities on the right thing for a change – and their fingers off of my personal property – they damn well might have been sitting quite pretty with the real culprits behind bars rather than just little ol’ letter sender me. Is this a good time to say oops?
         (By the way, one of the 15 letters of inquiry I sent out went to Harvey Levin who began doing some of the investigation on the case before I was arrested. In my 4-page letter to him I addressed in detail the shenanigans and inconsistencies I was suspecting the government to be involved in. Surprisingly, he never responded, strengthening my belief that once the case was over with and it was old news no one seemed to care. I wonder if the arson victims will care enough to want answers? I sure would if I were one of them. And I’d be kinda’ pissed how the judicial system – and everyone else around them – dropped the ball if my house went up in a puff of smoke.)

[Return to Table of Contents]

         It was shortly after midnight on the 8th that I was “officially” arrested. Hours earlier I already knew I wasn’t going home. Agents had told my father that I was going to be taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. (MDC-LA) and he relayed that information to me when I talked to him on the phone well before midnight. Also, throughout my interview agents never left me out of their sight. I was escorted by two agents whenever I needed to use the restroom. Despite going “voluntarily” with them to their office at around 11:00 a.m., it was clear that I was not free to leave the building if I wanted to. So even though I wasn’t “officially” arrested yet, it was in the works and I was going to be. For all practical purposes, I was “in custody” well before midnight. Yet when it come time for sentencing, my time in custody began on the 8th, not the 7th as it should have. I was cheated out of a day’s credit and still feel I’m owed. No matter how you look at it, I was in custody on November 7th and that day should have counted.
         After I got booked into MDC-LA I was immediately whisked away to administrative detention, the hole, for my own safety. Included in the news stories about me was the fact that I had a conviction for a sex offense against children. They never reported that it was a non-forcible offense though. Likewise, they prominently reported that I had tried to burn a church down in 1959 when I was 9-years-old. Unfortunately, they never completed the rest of the story as to how it all come about. After being in the hole a couple of days I was put in a special housing unit still out of the general population but at least not locked in a cell all day. That unit, known as 8-South Annex, housed those with physical disabilities, mental disabilities, and those who needed protective custody for various reasons. I fully expected to get released on bail once the court set a dollar amount. I had always gotten released on bail during my past arrests and those were for crimes where I actually did some damage. Here there were only threats to do damage and no actions toward carrying any of them out. The only injuries I caused were emotionally upset feelings by those who read the letters along with expenses the government incurred in arresting and prosecuting me.
         Now I know everyone’s going to jump on the bandwagon and say they were horrible threats. I don’t doubt that. And I don’t doubt that it caused some people to suffer some sleepless nights due to worry after what they read. But I will stand up on the highest mountain I can find and tell you that the emotional trauma anyone felt nowhere compares to what I suffered on a long-continuing basis as an ex-sex offender living among the most hostile and violent people on Earth – prejudice convicts. I don’t want to even hear your sniveling about how you suffered after what you read in my letters. I got denied bail on this case because my threats were “so” bad, but when I got subjected to a hell of a lot worse, they all turned a deaf ear. If they would have taken my abuse 1/100 as seriously as they are taking what I dished out in the letters I’d be much less grudge filled today. : - (You’re going to be hearing how I continued in a self-imposed silent state after being denied bail and refused to disclose the identities and actions of Snake and company. Much of that relates to being treated in a double-standard way once again, something I vowed long ago to no longer tolerate. If you’re going to downplay serious threats I suffered don’t you dare elevate less serious ones I put out and then think you got a favor coming from me. That shit don’t play with this dude! Sorry for the detour once again folks. One of my hot buttons just got punched!
         I already covered how they knew I wasn’t an arsonist because they had me under surveillance at least two days before the first fire ever started. But did the deceitful agents report that to the news media? Angrily no. They continued to let them believe that I was a suspect and with that my name continued to lead the newscasts night after night. What I needed was to get a copy of that letter I sent Maginnis on October 24th. If it was pulled out of the mail box, as I pretty well knew by now, and didn’t go through regular postal channels then its stamp wouldn’t be cancelled.
         As days progressed bits and pieces of the pages of Discovery filtered their way to me through my attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Paul L. Abrams. Sure enough, Maginnis’ letter did not have a postal service cancellation stamp on it. Those dirty bastards definitely had me under surveillance all that time knowing I had nothing to do with any of the fires, yet their harsh line of questioning was as if I did. I told Mr. Abrams about this and asked him to get copies of all their surveillance records so we could see it in black and white. A few days later his letter relayed their response, “the government has informed me that no surveillance reports exist.” Now I’m even more convinced there’s a cover up. No one’s going to believe they are going to devote all those expensive man hours to following me everywhere I go and not keep a written record. Even dumb-ass Mondo wouldn’t fall for that excuse. (In my inquiry letters to Palacios and Gleysteen I stated in bold I’d sure like to have this confirmed but heard nothing from either one. Gotta’ wonder what they’re hiding here.) The earliest positive reference in the Discovery of surveillance is on November 2nd, the day the Malibu fire started in which three people died. Yarbrough clearly had no business pursuing the line of murder-related questioning he did. Let that be a lesson to everyone. Invoke your Miranda rights right on day one. They can’t trick you into anything if you keep your damn mouth shut! You know, I address this quite extensively in Revenge, but I failed to listen to it myself.
         This time – for the first time ever – I was denied bail because of that well worn phrase; I was supposedly a “danger” to the community. This excuse alone was used, despite the fact they knew, or should have known, that of the past times that very same excuse was haphazardly thrown up into my face when I wasn’t a real “danger” at all, it later, out of spite, brought out behavior (sometimes not even illegal behavior) to purposely show that I could be a “danger” – or in the very least, a real nuisance to the judicial system. Accomplishing one of those opposites of what they’re trying to accomplish – like handing them back some of the disadvantage they’re throwing at me – especially when it can be done without breaking the law, has been an ongoing pet project of mine for years and I openly speak enthusiastically about it.
         Unofficially, I was told that if I hadn’t of made all the publicity I did that bail wouldn’t have been such a problem. The thing is, I wouldn’t have been a publicity item to begin with if the FBI and ATF would have been honest and forthright from day one and told the media that I wasn’t an arsonist. Had that of been done I would have been just a person who sent some threatening letters in the mail, something that probably happens often and never gets reported in the news; and with that I could have gotten bail set. This I will never forgive – nor forget. But besides that, John Orr was let out on bail, and he was a real serial arsonist whose federal case made a lot of publicity several years ago. (And even again recently in a state murder trial.) He was a former fire fighter and I believe an arson investigator who actually set fires and then wrote about them in a book he was going to publish. I’d say his behavior was a lot more dangerous than mine so if he could be let out on bail then surely I could have been. But no, I had to be another double-standard victim.
         Now, basically for political reasons I was going to miss my parents’ 50th, and final, wedding anniversary, my birthday, a final Christmas together, plus I was being housed in more restrictive living conditions than general-population inmates are all because of my high-profile case that had no business being so.
         And on top of that, I could not see what damage ransacking agents had done to my personal property on the day of my arrest. I had only had the crime scene described to me on the phone by my parents and it was pretty bad. As far as I was concerned, they could play their games if they want, but I’m not giving up any information until I get out to survey the damage, make sure I get everything back, and put everything back into pre-ransack condition. That could be any time soon, or they could deny me bail forever, in which case I won’t get home until the end of my sentence. It’s fine with me if they want to be that way. I don’t mind giving the most-likely suspects an extended vacation before they’re brought to justice. It’s no skin off my back. And I don’t want to hear any sniveling that I’m the one responsible for the lengthened time frame between commission of crime and arrest. You just follow the blood trail back to where it begins. If the feds really wanted to do everything possible to round them up quickly, they knew darn well how to act properly toward me and my property. They knew my personality traits. They knew my hot button. They knew I had a track record for returning liabilities back upon those who violate me. Although they didn’t know I had my feet firmly planted in the ground with a good solid OATH backing me up, these other things were well publicized. I was a life-long subscriber to the what goes around comes around theory and they damn well knew it! They coulda’ had ’em on day one. But no. They had another agenda to follow, and that was violating me – again. These guys may prefer a Mancuso FBI type of image, but I’d say it was more like Keystone Kops. Sometimes even Barney Miller comes to mind. How ’bout Barney Fife? Naw, not that bad. Palacios was not Robert Loggia though! Who? He was the star of Mancuso FBI, and a darn good one at that. (Hey, how ’bout an America’s Dumbest Law Enforcement TV show as a counterpart to Fox’s America’s Dumbest Criminals? Ya think society’s ready for it? If we can get more victims snitching them off like I am here so everyone sees how prevalent all this crap is it just might sell. How ’bout it Fox?) And I don’t mean to slight Gleysteen either. He was a co-conspirator in all this mess. Like I’ve said before – and you’re sure to hear again (because I firmly believe it) – I didn’t lose a house in a fire. I’m worried about what I lost in this mess. I believe in turn about as fair play. If I gotta’ wait, then they can too. We’ll just all wait together. And wait we did. Oh well! (Or as they sometimes say – shit happens.) This is one of those examples of how the judicial system has various ways of leaving victims in its wake. I get victimized first, and then the arson victims, who they’re suppose to be helping, get victimized a second time on account of the wait. I guess the Waco and Ruby Ridge fiascos weren’t the only major screw ups the feds committed – they were just more publicized. Oops! And for you “get tough on the defendants” people out there I have just one question for you all. This is your government at work folks. Are you proud of it?
         At one point, I considered bringing it out that I knew the likely identity of the real arsonists and that I would be willing to give more information once I put my personal possessions back in proper order. Holding something back to bargain with is not without precedent on my part. You’ll recall, part way through my second counterfeiting sentence in the fall of 1982 I anonymously notified the Secret Service that I knew the location of a large sum of good quality counterfeit money. Before this time, they had no idea I was holding out. Well you know the rest if you read Chapter 8 – they conned me out of it.
         I thought of that old saying once again, “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” They fooled me once, I wasn’t going to fall for it again. I did plan to quietly let it be known that I knew the likely arsonists’ identities and let them come to me for more but no one ever did. It’s as if because the case was over and closed no one cared at all. Here it was, one of the biggest news stories of the decade, various news organizations wanting my story soon after my arrest and now that its over, let’s just sweep it under the rug and forget it. I wonder if the real fire victims think that way? I don’t think so!
         On January 28th the FBI released the remainder of what they had taken from our house during the raid. My father picked everything up from the West Los Angeles FBI office and later that night read from a list of everything returned. Now as it turns out, the FBI & ATF didn’t repeat the same mistakes the Secret Service committed years earlier by refusing to return some of the things they took. But I still wasn’t ready to give up any information though because I still hadn’t personally inspected everything or put it all back in pre-vandalism condition. The thing I wasn’t ready for though was being ripped off by my own family members watching after the house after both my parents passed away. If I would have been out on bail, as I should have been, I could have hired somebody reputable to look after my affairs during my absence but I wasn’t able to. Resolving those particular thefts, which include some irreplaceable family mementos, are one thing I still have to deal with before I end my self-imposed silence. Those thefts are covered in Chapter 20.
         It was particularly anger provoking to be denied bail by U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp and Assistant United States Attorney Gregory W. Jessner who knew my mother was dying of cancer and that this would be, and in fact was, the last Christmas we could have spent together. Nor was I allowed to attend her funeral on January 3, 1994 despite a court order I be taken to it. (She died on December 29th. I got the news directly from my father during one of my regular telephone conversations home. At least I didn’t have to hear it from cold-hearted prison staff.) A private viewing at the funeral home was better than nothing, but it still wasn’t the funeral service with family around. And then, to pile anger upon anger, I was again denied bail after she died so I couldn’t even be with my father for his last days on Earth, while confined to a hospital bed, even though I had pled guilty to all the counts Jessner wanted me to and “accepted responsibility” for my benign letter writing campaign. As a result, he died among strangers – the staff at the hospital. (My dad’s two sisters who come out from Nebraska were with him earlier in the afternoon but not when the time had come.) And then, to anger me further, I couldn’t even go to his funeral on February 17, 1994; despite another court order to take me – the U.S. Marshals saying, “we did it once, we’re not doing it again.” These are things I will never forget nor forgive; even if all other past wrongs are made up, as they should be, and all perpetrators were to apologize, as they should do. This one though can’t be made up.
         Title 18 United States Code § 3142 outlines how judges are to conduct hearings to determine if a defendant can be let out on bail. One sticking point against me was that my crime was classified as a “crime of violence.” At the time I found that very surprising. I never touched anybody; how could I have committed violence? My definition of violence is more as the real world sees it. Somebody has to actually be injured in order for it to be considered a violent crime. The State of California distinguishes violent felonies from serious felonies from other felonies that are not violent or serious. And their list of violent felonies contain only truly violent acts in all cases but one that I’m aware of. (Penal Code § 288 – child molesting involving a child under 14-years-old – is in that violent category even though the statute includes the little talked about or acknowledged acts where a younger person is a willing participant who initiated the interaction. If that 13-year-old lover enticed 35-year-old Mary Kay Letourneau into bed here in California and they had a baby together, as was apparently their arranged plan, she would still be guilty of a violent felony even though they both termed themselves as “soul mates” and the relationship as a “natural romantic love” in which they “walked together in the same rhythm.” If 288 PC had various degrees to it – similar to murder’s 1st, 2nd, and manslaughter – this particular form of interaction could surely be taken out of the violent category and placed back into the garden-variety non-violent felony where it belongs.)
         The feds are different. Section 3156 of Title 18 defines a “crime of violence.” The part that pertained to me included these words, “an offense that has an element of the offense the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.” Merely threatening somebody – or even their property – with harm, even when there is no intent to carry out the threat, is violence in the eyes of the feds and is one valid reason to deny a person bail. My first thought was, well the cops who beat Rodney King got out on bail without anybody objecting and they did actual real violence that led to serious injuries. And as I already mentioned, even serial arsonist John Orr, who actually did commit arsons, got out on a very closely supervised bail. (If I remember news stories correctly, he wore a transmitter ankle bracelet.) Naive me still figured bail would be no problem. After all, even though I had a lengthy criminal record (none of it containing violence, other than minor non-intentional injuries to a few people back in ’86), my excellent performance while out on bail all those times, along with my making all court appearances on time would surely go in my favor. In fact, that’s even one of the things they’re suppose to take into account. But no, Hupp and Jessner never even considered that. “I think the risks to the community are too high in view of the past history,” is how Judge Hupp justified his decision to deny me.
         Ironically, the very things they pinned my denial on had the exact opposite effect of what they were trying to accomplish and that dulled the pain just a little bit. They were required to consider things that “will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community.” Now I may be wrong here, but I would say that showing the Maginnis – “No Justice No Peace!” – letter around (which I got from the government as part of the Discovery), with his home address prominently displayed within its pages, and ranting angrily about his misbehavior to anybody who would listen could have put him into more danger from released irate inmates that had been screwed over by an attorney they didn’t know where he or she lived than having me at home in a content, and silent, state caring for my ill mother while we spent our final Christmas together. After all, look what speaking out against him to just Snake and his minions almost led to. Of course, Hupp and Jessner weren’t aware of these items at the time so they couldn’t be held culpable for that.
         And as far as safety of the community? Wouldn’t the community have been safer with the real arsonists behind bars, where it’s possible they could have been if I wasn’t in a self-imposed silence, which I wouldn’t have been in if I could have saw to it that my property was put back in pre-vandalism condition, as I could have done if I’d have been out on bail – as I should have been? Whew – that was a long sentence. But, of course, Hupp and Jessner didn’t know all that either. Oh well; that’s the way the cookie crumbles I guess when priorities are placed upon the wrong things, as seems to happen way too many times. Maybe next time they won’t trade off a long-term ideal for a short-term advantage. When they’re commanded to “take into account” the “characteristics of the person” while making such an important decision like bail, shouldn’t they think of the possible liabilities back to themselves and society when one of those “characteristics” is a well-known desire to achieve the exact opposite of what the judicial system is trying to accomplish? When will they learn to listen to my admonishments? PEOPLE! Keep your priorities on the right things! (Namely, thoughtful and fair consideration for both sides.) When they are we’re all benefited – you as well as me! (And I have a mountain of documentation to back that up!) Do you like my little wavy effects with words here? Don’t mind me – I’m just feeling a little extra giddy about venting this stuff out. It’s about time it gets told. It’s taken a long time. Fess up to it, you caused the same condition (danger to society) you’re suppose to be eliminating or preventing by not letting me out on bail and in return, letting the arsonists remain free. Would you like a Kleenex to snivel?
         And don’t you dare try to say I had an obligation to tell the feds or even that I lied to them. First off, I had a right to remain silent. You know about that; Miranda rights they call it. I was read them and signed that I understood them at 11:35 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on November 7, 1993. I waived them and agreed to answer their questions and I was truthful as best as I can remember. Now I know I was denying being “Fedbuster” in the beginning; but in reality my words were, “that’s not my writing” on the letters; and it wasn’t. None of it is. On the letters, nor on the envelopes. As far as the fires, I denied being involved, and that’s true. They never asked if I knew who set them or even if I had any suspicions who might have. They were too busy being in their “ruse” mode to think through where their priorities should have been. So, I was well within my rights legally to keep my mouth shut, plus I didn’t lie. Legally, it wouldn’t have been illegal to lie though, because I wasn’t under oath. But I didn’t need to lie when they failed to ask the right questions. Besides, they dare not have a right to complain if I am not as forthright with helpful talk or actions when they themselves were rather unforthrightful on that day; both in actions and words. (Their Discovery admits to using a “ruse” while questioning me – and don’t forget they lied about the color of my van in order to obtain a search warrant too.) I’ve often been heard saying, “If they choose to play by less than the rules of the road [first], then they dare not have a right to complain if I respond in a like fashion.” Turn about is fair play? Yup; it works for me! : - ) Maybe they thought they could have it both ways – expect me to be forthright when they themselves were unforthrightful. Well they’re dead wrong on that. That shit don’t play with me. Ya want honesty? Ya gotta’ give it first! Capish?
         Let me take this opportunity right now to handle one little C Y A chore. (Pause for the transition.)........................ There – now that I’m within my C Y A mode we can continue. During one of our VOCAL meetings several inmates with a bit more legal smarts than I admonished me that it may be illegal to withhold the information I have on Snake and the fellas. While aiding and abetting someone to commit a crime is illegal, I do not fit in that category because I did nothing to help them start the fires. Heck, I never even spoke favorably about doing such a thing like I often do when talking about non-violent revenge. And I’m not hiding them from justice either. They’re not in my house being hidden. They’re totally out on their own – somewhere. So then, we come to the question – is it illegal to not inform on them? Can that be considered hiding them or aiding their escape from justice? Is a person required by law to tell when somebody else commits a crime? Health-care workers are required to report suspected child abuse; but is the average citizen? But what about, as in this case, where authorities Mirandize me and then fail to ask about other participants despite seeing many different handwritings on the letters? Hmmm. (The FBI’s own laboratory in Washington D.C. even confirmed that in a report issued four days earlier which said, “It was concluded that the ‘FEDBUSTER’ letter and the ‘NIGHTCRAWLER’ letter were prepared by different writers.” And surely they knew that none of the writing was mine because Secret Service Agent Davidson took handwriting exemplars from me way back on September 27, 1977. I know that date because I’ve got a copy of the samples signed by both of us. [See Appendix III. Actually Appendix IV; it got bumped down one notch when another final fly in the ointment got shuffled into the mix at the last moment before publication. Sorry ’bout that.]) And what about someone who does not even know for sure whether they committed a crime? If you only suspect someone of doing the dirty deed, is there a legal requirement to tell someone? Hmmm again. And what if that suspicion is strong? As stated in the disclaimer at the beginning of this book, my specific intent is to be law abiding for the remainder of my life. With that in mind, I’m compelled to make the following statement. Snake and the fellas are fictional characters. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. There. Does that satisfy the legalese among you? Now I don’t want to hear anybody sniveling that I’m breaking the law by holding back vital information on a major crime. If you want to bitch, just hold the above statement directly in front of your face until you stop your bellyachin’. Now let’s get back to our story. (Pause for the transition back to normal mode.)........................ Those wishing to believe the above scenario need to know that nothing else at all is fictional in this book. Every person mentioned is real, and so are the actions they did. And most times there is documented proof of those actions too. Wanta’ see it?
         After I pled guilty to all 6 counts Jessner wanted me to plead to – the “Fedbuster” threats, 18 U.S.C. § 844(e) – on January 10, 1994 we tried to get bail again so I could be out to help my dad after my mother’s death less than two weeks earlier. The U. S. Sentencing Guidelines, which define the rules that will be followed in order to sentence me, defines “crime of violence” a little more leniently. The part that pertained to me is defined in § 4B1.2 and includes these words, “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” Notice the words, “or property,” are not there. My counts of conviction, as defined in the indictment and § 844(e), threaten property only and not persons. With the letters threatening people’s lives not a part of the counts I stand convicted of, I am not guilty of a “crime of violence” and that sounds cool. It shouldn’t have been to begin with if you use real-world definitions of violence which is how Congress should have structured the law from day one. Hopefully bail would be no problem now. Ah, but luck was not with me; and in return, not with the government either who was “sentenced” to suffer a longer self-imposed silence. For sentencing purposes, where the Guidelines set the rules, I was not guilty of a “crime of violence.” But for bail setting purposes, 18 U.S.C § 3156 still defines “crime of violence” and in there the words “or property” stuck it to me. I’m still guilty of a “crime of violence” as far as using that factor to deny me bail.
         Part of Judge Hupp’s official reason for denial was, “I think the risks to the community are too high.” If he believed that me in and the arsonists out is safer for the community than me out and them in, I’ve got a piece of ocean-front property in Arizona to sell him. That’s a joke folks. I’m not selling any land right now. Seriously though, in his favor he wasn’t aware of my secrets. I thought once again of placing an offer on the table – i.e. bail and return of my seized property for the arsonists – but after Assistant U.S. Attorney Curtis B. Rappe and Secret Service Special Agent James D. Davidson threatened me out of my legally purchased printing press and unused paper they knew I was hiding back in ’78 and the Secret Service conned me out of my buried counterfeit money in 1983, I wasn’t going to fall for such shenanigans again. Being a victim of middle-level bureaucrats run amuck still gnaws at my innards. If I was going to expose my knowledge, it was going to be on my timetable and on my terms. And if they didn’t like? So? I don’t give a flying fuck whether they like it or not. I’m not here to please them.
         Another anger provoking thing bubbled to the surface months after I was sentenced and bail was long a dead issue. Malcolm X’s daughter, Qubilah Shabazz, was arrested for trying to hire a hit man to kill Louis Farrakhan, who was an enemy of her father. She apparently thought he had something to do with her father’s death and wanted to avenge it. Even though her crime easily fit within the “crime of violence” statute, she be released on an unsecured bond. And I couldn’t get bail at any cost. Boy, was I glad I was in a self-imposed silence.
         One thing I’ve learned in all my years of involvement with the judicial system is that if they want to grant you something they will interpret their rules in whatever way necessary in order to help you. But if they want to deny you, you can damn well bet they’ll be interpreted in such a way with all the legalese words to fully justify why you got nothing coming. They easily could have gotten around that “crime of violence” definition if they wanted to. They did it with the Rodney King cops and theirs was a “crime of violence” for both bail and sentencing purposes. Oh well, I can accept that as long as I know that two can play that game too. I had an ace in the hole that I knew they wanted, if only they knew I had it. And that little bit made my time just a tad bit easier. Enough of the bail issue. It’s time to move on to the next hurdle.
         I had a court order to be taken to my father’s funeral, but even with that the marshals were balking. They brought me over to the marshal’s lockup at the federal courthouse with the other inmates going to court that day as it seemed I would be going out with some privately hired off duty law-enforcement personnel. But a combination of problems, beginning with the marshals now wanting more people to escort me, led to me missing the 11 a.m. service. When they backed out at the last minute my attorney got ahold of Judge Hupp, who was attending an out of town conference, and did get everything straightened out, but by then it was too late. It was then just a matter of catching the early van back to MDC-LA after lunch and forgetting it. Only now those dirty bastards wouldn’t take me back on the early van because they said that, “you’re still scheduled to go out.” “But I already missed the service,” I told that bitch (female marshal), “there’s nothing to go out to now.” “Sorry, you’re still scheduled to go out,” was her wise-ass response. And there I stayed, for the last van back. I was royally pissed. First they back out on a court order. Then when they know I had missed it they still made me stay there as if I was still going to go to it. I had to wait about six more hours on nothing but heard seats while everyone else finished with their court appearances. Those dirty sons-of-bitches got nothing coming from me ever. I became so enraged after that and my verbal speech reflected it to everyone within earshot; inmates and staff alike. I yelled to them at the time that if I just happened to be the lone witness to a vicious attack or murder of a marshal or a marshal’s family member and was the only person in the entire world whose statement to police and/or testimony in court could bring the perpetrator to justice I’d remain silent and wouldn’t even think of lending a finger to help do so in any way. And as my anger level has grown over the years, I’ve expanded that proclamation out to include any and all law-enforcement personnel; even minor staff members working in the law-enforcement field such as secretaries and janitors. If you clean up after law-enforcement people or type up their dictation ya got nothin’ comin’ from me – EVER! For the rest of my entire life, if I just happen out of coincidence to witness such a crime upon such a person or one of their family members, if I’ve got any say in it; the perpetrator’s going free and I hope you don’t like it. And what if I am one of maybe two others who could positively ID the culprit you may ask? I’m glad you did. Let’s assume the others would correctly ID the suspect. Would I go as far as perjure myself by saying the attacker is definitely not the guilty party? Such testimony, I’m sure you’re aware, could then give the jury a reasonable doubt and result in an acquittal. I’ll decline to answer that question right now because to answer in the affirmative could be breaking the law. I will add though, that you do owe me a free perjury pass – i.e. no prosecution if I do commit a perjury. After all, you wouldn’t prosecute Mrs. Reeves for the perjury she committed against me back in ’85 which left me a victim so you owe me one – a free pass. We’ll just leave it at that. And how about Gleysteen? If he perjured himself, as I allege he did, don’t I have two free perjury passes coming? Now I know this scenario is highly, highly unlikely ever to happen. But it does emphasize how awfully, awfully high my anger level is. They took something from me that I could never get back – something that meant more to me than anyone could ever imagine. So much so, that it left a gaping hole in my heart that will never heal. That has to be impressed upon them in the strongest of terms. There’s no forgiving them for what they did. Unlike Maginnis and other violators, their misdeed can’t be made up with money or in some other way. There is no way, short of a time warp back in time to that rainy February day in 1994, that it could ever be made up. I just wish I could repay them in a comparable fashion – like for starters, keeping the actual guilty marshal who was responsible for screwing me out of attending the funeral from attending a funeral of one of his or her dear loved one’s. Give him or her a taste of his or her own damn medicine. That’s what’s deserved!
         Besides, if you had me testifying against someone else I can damn well bet that the prosecutor wouldn’t impeach my credibility like Rappe did when I was testifying in my behalf and he used my sex offense against me. As far as I’m concerned, they can’t have it both ways. They’re not going to be flip-flopping my word back and forth to suit their purposes. So that’s just another reason they’d have nothin’ comin’ from me!
         (And for the communities of Manhattan Beach and Torrance, they’re even deeper in the dog house. If I become aware of any crime happening there – be it major or minor – to even a private citizen, and am the only one who could help bring the guilty culprits to justice, they have nothing coming from me either. Not only did they violate me a second time, as outlined on earlier pages, but these two communities partook in the vandalism of my house on the day of my arrest – a third “strike.” Private citizens down there be on guard. Having me as a witness is tantamount to having no witness.)
         I think you need to know further about my relationship with my parents to fully understand my anger level here. I was their only child and never lived apart from them, except for the times when I was in prison. They never deserted me during my travails throughout life; whether it was when they found out that I was gay or during encounter upon encounter with the judicial system. They were always there to help me. Also, it’s widely known that I am a loner with no close friends. In fact, I haven’t had any real friends for years. Oh, of course, I’m friendly with club members at the various astronomy, Audubon, and computer clubs I attend – but as far as real friends; not one. No one I associate with outside of club meetings. The only real friend I’ve had in life, as I mentioned before, was Mr. Truxton, the founder of the astronomy club which I attended beginning as a teenager and on through my mid-twenties. He died in the arson-set fire in Malibu in October 1978 when I was at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) at Terminal Island. Staff wouldn’t let me go to his funeral because he wasn’t a “family member.” Even when I explained to them that he was closer to me than all of my aunts and uncles it made no difference. Even having a staff member offering to escort me to his service was no help. I was left with the belief that if he was a family member there would have been no problem at all going. Now, when the only other people I’ve been close to in the entire world die and are family members I couldn’t get the judicial system to take me. The stickler here was the jurisdiction I was in. Bureau of Prisons’ staff members, those that had me in custody back in ’78, said that if I was under their control it would be no problem. But because I was still unsentenced, I was in the custody of the U.S. Marshals – and they’re the ones who were balking on taking me. So basically, I’m like a political prisoner of one arm of the judicial system that refuses to take me even though the other would with no problem.
         The marshals are on my shit list and every law-enforcement person – including secretaries and janitors – will pay for their sins for as long as I live; no ifs, no ands, and no butts about it! And if anyone wants to snivel about it, well just remember that this anger comes from much deeper within the core of my being than any other anger I have over unfair judicial-system practices, so you just march your god damn ass right on back to that particular marshal who decided to disobey a court order. Now my attitude may be cold here, but that marshal should have realized there would be some kind of liabilities for his or her decision to cheat me. So wherever my travels of life take me, you ain’t got nuthin’ comin’ from me! Period.
         In my rage that day after being told that lame excuse as to why I couldn’t go back on the early van I also yelled out in a waving scolding-finger tone, “I’m the only one in the entire world who can solve your god damn arson cases and I’m not talking ’till I see my parents’ graves. So chew on that awhile!” The way my angry attitude saw it at the time (and still does), if I had to wait until I get released from prison to see their graves, then they’re going to have to wait to get something from me. I’m a firm believer in turn about is fair play, and this is one of the best examples to put that adage into practice that I’ve ever had in my entire life. And as you know, we waited. I dressed up in the suit my father bought me a few years earlier – the one he commented on how he wanted me to look good at his funeral after I had mentioned that I already had a suit and didn’t need a new one – and visited their graves on October 4, 1996, the day after I got out of prison.
         That statement I blurted out in a fit of anger was not only the first time I ever led on that I knew who the arsonists were, but it was also not totally true. I don’t absolutely know they’re guilty. I believe they are – but I never saw them after August 28th, the day I mailed the letters, and they never told me they were going to do it. (Their “fire speech” was limited to wanting to burn Maginnis out.) Since my declarations to the marshals that day I’ve remained truthful in the statements I make. I know the identity of those who I believe set the fires and that’s what I’ve said to prison staff members and inmates since then.
         I often refer to the arsonists in a context as if I know for sure they did it or that I’m the only one that could bring them to justice. While my words on the topic often could lead one to that conclusion, I don’t have absolute proof they were involved because I wasn’t there and they never told me they were going to set such firestorms. While burning Maginnis out was mentioned, killing him was more fervently discussed and that wasn’t committed. Readers need to understand that when I talk about bringing the arsonists to justice, I’m meaning bringing those who I feel are the most likely culprits, those I believe could be guilty; not that are in fact guilty. I can’t bring the arsonist-hunting battleship all the way into the harbor, I can only plug in some excellent coordinates. The judicial system will have to delve into their activities back in the time frame in question in order to make a “beyond a reasonable doubt” determination. Now I know that could be harder to do with the passage of time (they may no longer have the incriminating things they surely had in their possession back then), but who do they have to blame that so much time has passed? (As simple an act as keeping their grubby little fingers off of my personal property could have negated this whole dialog. Thanks to that one incident, the real arsonists quite likely rode off into the sunset, never to be heard from again – unless, of course, we can round them up now.) While I can have that “reasonable doubt” suspicion settled in my own mind, as I clearly indicate, my mere feelings that they are guilty are not sufficient for a jury to convict. Heck, look no further than O.J. Simpson. Many of us feel he was guilty; but according to the law, he ain’t. Have I clarified that or are you more confused? Just make sure you don’t interpret my words pertaining to the arsonists as if to imply I have the absolute proverbial smoking gun. There’s plenty of residue indicating that it was freshly fired mind you – it’s just not smoking; not too much anyway. A puff here, a puff there. Everywhere a puff puff. Alright already; I’ll forget the jokes. I’m just feeling so extra proud of myself how I turned a great deal of disadvantage directed toward me back upon you all, and didn’t even have to break the law to accomplish it. You know, one of those opposites of what they’re trying to accomplish deals. Oh, I just love it when a plan comes together. : - )
         In a memo dated November 27, 1995 given to Mr. David L. Wisehart, my Unit Manager at FCI Phoenix, but addressed “To: Any interested BOP [Bureau of Prisons] staff member” I said, It’s a little bit satisfying that because of FBI-ATF deceit & misconduct (things they knew I was touchy about) I shut down & to this day they don’t know who it is that I believe started all the fires nor will they till they read it in my book. They were so determined to get me as much time as possible now it’s coming back to bite them as they have to wait to find out the real guilty culprits. The thing is, the longer that wait is the less likely the culprits will be where they were when I knew them but that’s what they get for screwing me over as itemized in my support documents….”
         My blared out remark to the marshals was also not planned. They say you can’t unring the bell once it’s been rung, and that’s certainly true here. For fear they’d pull a Rappe/Davidson threat on me, I didn’t want this knowledge known until after my sentencing date. It was in this very same marshals’ lockup back in ’78 where Rappe and Davidson, in cahoots with my own defense attorney, Michael Sobel, approached me in a threatening tone and insinuated that if I don’t give them my printing press and 51 reams of new and unused paper, which I was hiding, that I’d get more time when I go for sentencing. You’ll recall, Judge Hauk had just convicted me of passing counterfeit currency and raised my bail pending sentencing. After I was taken from the courtroom, Rappe spoke up to Hauk asking him to order that I give them my press and paper. Hauk made it as a condition of getting out on the higher bail that I do so. Even though Hauk told Rappe that he would have to bring the formal forfeiture proceedings forward, Rappe has refused to do so to this day.
         If they knew that I was holding back, they could hold it over my head and threaten me with a higher sentence if I didn’t talk. Remembering their past shenanigans back then, I knew all too well that they’re not above such atrocious tactics. Even though the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines that are now in effect limits the range of sentence a person can legally receive from the judge more than they did back in ’78, they can still fiddle with them enough to screw a person over if they want to. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to be the one on top of this mess, the one holding at least some of the cards. Now that my secret was known, I expected Jessner to show up any minute and make a similar Rappe/Davidson threat. I had three choices: I could tell him the whole truth; I could refuse to talk at all; or I could make him think that what I’m telling him is the truth and that I’m cooperating when in fact I’d be giving him bogus names and places to lead them astray. Knowing my anger level and how I’m so against helping them, plus how I want to cover my ass, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that my most favorable choice would be to pick door number three. Well, as it turned out, Jessner never did squeeze me for information. Fortunately, the marshals never picked up on it – even though another one within earshot just looked at me in this dumb-founded look of sort of surprise and lack of care – and my bellowed words died right there. Inmates are always yelling angry and disparaging words at jailers so they probably don’t even listen. Lucky me, I guess. The marshals even took out the floor to ceiling wire mesh partition separating us and them they had the last time I was in their custody, and installed one with thick glass so we could still be seen, but now heard less.
         By the day of the funeral I had already firmly decided that I would remain in a self-imposed-silent state until I get a chance to survey the damage the thieving vandals made at home, plus I wanted to make sure I got all my property back. Just because my father picked up the last of what they claimed they still had didn’t mean anything. I needed to check everything first. I wasn’t going to be suckered or made a patsy again à la Secret Service 1980 style. Even telling them years ago that I’d teach people how to counterfeit money until I got it all back has done nothing to prompt them to make it right. Nor has telling them that until they return the stolen items I’m going to listen in on law-enforcement radio frequencies so I could tip people off that are under surveillance to ruin cases that are being investigated. Even as we speak; I’m still waiting for them to come through and they’ve made absolutely no stink at all about my ongoing activities to avenge their thefts. Although its been awhile since I’ve done such things outside of custody; I’m sure the feelings are still there and could easily resurface at a moment’s notice. Maybe they think their changes to our money will make it too hard to counterfeit. While they pose more difficulties, those piddly-ass changes are mostly a big joke – especially when passed to dummer-looking people who don’t look that close. If they were really serious about stopping counterfeiting they’d make our money like some countries do with a lot of colors all blending together. Here’s a hint. Follow what our friends to the north in Canada are doing with their money. Now that’s virtually counterfeit proof.
         So basically, being I was already being silent on account of the property thefts, by proclaiming that I was going to remain silent until I get to see my parents’ graves – even if that wouldn’t be until after release from prison 3 or so years down the line – added no further disadvantage to their position. I already knew I’d have to wait for release in order to survey my property and I completely accepted that bail was now a dead issue. As far as I saw it, we can all wait together. And that’s as it should be. They have to be taught that there are consequences for their misbehavior. It was no skin off my back and it was sort of personally satisfying knowing that them trying to give me as much time as possible was actually giving them a greater disadvantage in the long run – i.e., that the real arsonists, the ones that should be getting time as soon as possible, were in fact enjoying a l o n g e r breath of freedom. It was like doing one of those opposites of what they’re trying to accomplish that I’ve always enjoyed so much coming back at them full strength with. And in this case, I didn’t even have to do a damn thing to achieve it – I just had to sit back with my big yap slammed shut in silence and do my time until it was my turn. Like I’ve been heard saying so many times before, it didn’t matter to me if the arsonists were brought to justice in a timely manner; or if ever. They’re your arsonists, not mine! I didn’t lose a house in a fire. I’m narcissistic! I’m worried about what I lost in this mess. Now that may be cold-hearted to say, but look at it this way folks! No one cared about my property; or even my personal safety while I was in custody. So why should I care about anybody else’s? (Besides, the fellas treated me O.K. and that’s a lot more than the feds, or anybody else with the judicial system, ever did!) If you ask whether this is one of those laughs last, laughs best scenarios, I’ll admit it brought a chuckle to my belly. By screwing me they were screwing themselves (and society), and that made the extra aggravation I was suffering a little bit more palatable. : - )
         Although I’ve visited the cemetery, confirmed that everything taken by law-enforcement was returned (minus a few not-to-important items), and put all my property and the house in general back in pre-vandalism condition, they’re not out of the woods yet – not by a long shot. Other things have crept in to prompt me to keep my mouth shut and they are listed later on in Chapter 20.
         I don’t know of any money that could make up the denial of bail simply because of the extreme media publicity – and resultant embarrassment – despite the fact they knew I was not an arsonist. Or for that matter, I don’t know what amount of money could make up the lies they uttered in order to get their search warrant so they could commit their vandalism. More than one inmate I related the Snake story to, who also suffered their own set of victimization by the judicial system, indicated how they could look back with satisfaction if they worked up enough “courage” to cause a lot of destruction and vent a lot of anger in a similar such way. They said that even though they’re not normally like that, extreme victimization over and over again tends to bring out the worst in people. Chilling statements, but it just goes to show how badly we are taking what they do to us. The Oklahoma City bombing was one example of revenge. There’s a lot more less serious examples. But on all of them the blood trails leads right on back to improper activities of judicial-system personnel.
         As weeks progressed I saw Jessner was going after the maximum sentence possible within the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. One major ground we lost on was grouping. According to the Guidelines, when there is no clearly identified victim you take society as the whole as the victim and group the counts of conviction. Guideline rules instruct judges to consider only the “primary victim,” rather than a “secondary victim.” My 6 counts of conviction involved the letters that were sent to fire stations which weren’t even in the brush fire-prone areas I was threatening. We felt that each recipient of the letter was not the primary victim because the threat was not directed to them. And we had other case law to back up our reasoning.
         If a person sends a threatening letter to the President of the United States it is someone else who opens the letter and reads it. Yet the one who sent it is punished with an enhancement for threatening a public official. In other words, the court looks at the content of the letter, who it is threatening, not merely the subordinate who opens it and reads it first. That same reasoning should have been followed here. The person who opened it was not being threatened, nor was his fire station. The threats were directed to brush fire-prone areas and those particular fire stations were not in brush fire-prone areas (although one was close). In the end I did about 11 months longer than I should have done if they would have been grouped properly. I chalk this one up to fiddling with the way Congress intended the Guidelines to be interpreted. Judge Hupp felt each recipient was a “primary victim” of the threat and sentenced me accordingly. We did appeal but lost there too.
         While the above thing was just a difference of opinion regarding how the Guidelines should be interpreted, Jessner saw to it this sentencing did not go without its share of misconduct. In Rappe-like misleading fashion, both in his Position papers filed with the court shortly before I was sentenced and verbally to Judge Hupp at my sentencing hearing, Jessner tried to leave Judge Hupp, and the news media present, with the false impression that I had 4 child molesting convictions on my record when in fact I had only one. My 1971 felony conviction contained 2 counts of Penal Code 288 that were consolidated in Superior Court for guilty pleas and sentencing. According to U.S. v. Smith 991 F.2d 1468 (9th Cir. 1993) at page 1473 we find, “all prosecutions combined for trial or sentencing [count] as a single conviction.” A single conviction Jessner – not 2. Smith further clarifies that even separate cases with different case numbers, like mine had, are related where the defendant was sentenced in one proceeding by the same court, as I was. And my other convictions were for merely soliciting a sex act of a minor – one happening when I was a 16-year-old juvenile myself. Although the misdemeanor vagrancy statute contains the words “annoy or molesting child under 18” it is misleading to put a conviction for this statute (647a PC, later renumbered to 647.6 PC) into the same category as the actual completed act of child molesting felony statute of 288 of the Penal Code. Technically, I have 3 convictions for child molesting – not 4 – but 2 of those are misdemeanor soliciting only! To claim even 3 without clarifying the true nature of 2 of them is improperly misleading and worthy of correction. Absent putting them in the proper context, it’s clearly deceit flat out and should not go unchecked. If I would have lied or provided false information to the Court Jessner would have accused me of obstruction of justice real quick. So I should be able to accuse him of the same thing without any problem – right? (He was sent a 3-page letter on April 24, 1998 and asked to respond to my allegations here but chose not to.)
         Besides the Court hearing the lies, the ubiquitous news media picked up on it too and really played it up. They reported over and over my “multiple” sex offense convictions. I blame Jessner for that. He’s the one who had his bureaucratic paws in it up to his elbows. When I expressed concerns for my safety if I go to prison he had the nerve to write, “Because the instant offense does not involve child molesting, there is no reason that other inmates or guards should learn of his pedophilia.” What’s he going to say next – that inmates don’t watch TV, listen to radio, or read newspapers? Well what he wrote was that I, “should have a comparatively easy time managing in prison.” Well I beg to differ with you, Greg ol’ buddy, but USP Lompoc ’94 would prove otherwise. Maybe you could get your bureaucratic paws involved in that and help bring my attackers to justice. It would sure help redeem you a bit, not to mention clearing up one of the hurdles keeping you apart from Snake and the fellas. You do want them don’t you? I once got punished with extra time when I lied to Judge Hauk back in 1978. Jessner should also be held culpable and punished for lying and deceiving Judge Hupp. And an apology goes without saying, ya know I got that coming.
         And on top of that, Jessner made it clear to the court that I was continuing to engage in child molesting activities right up to the time of my arrest. Yet he knows this is another lie. One of the things agents seized from my bedroom was my diary which covers my sexual escapades with other men. I talked about this earlier how the Secret Service found it in 1980 during their search. Much like Senator Bob Packwood does, I wrote down pleasurable experiences I’ve had in bed with sexual partners. While I often covered how good the sex was and the various things we did, nothing was as kinky as what sportscaster Marv Alpert would have included in his diary if he were to write one. Just traditional good ol’ gay sex. But I did include the ages of the men I made love to and all were 18-years-old or older – although not much older. The feds’ search warrant this time included language to authorize a search for any “documents concerning pedophilia” so I’m sure they read my diary to see if anyone under 18 was mentioned. (It is mentioned in the Discovery by the way.)
         In his Position papers, Jessner was quick to point out such things as how I “kept a file on Judge Hauk” (newspaper articles detailing his uncommon courtroom demeanor and anti-gay remarks over the years), how agents “recovered blank identification documents” in the house (birth certificates, social security cards, and high school graduation diplomas which they initialed and later returned; probably by mistake), and how I am “an expert counterfeiter…adept at disguising [my] handwriting, as a cursory review of [my] writings illustrates.” First off, I don’t think printing money on Cranes Crest 20 lb. White Wove 100% cotton paper using a Multi 1250 offset press, aluminum plates presensitized to light, and Kodak Kodalith ortho type 3 Estar thick base film, items easily purchases by anyone at graphics arts and paper supply stores, classifies me as an “expert.” I would reserve that designation for one who has mastered the art of intaglio (engraved) printing; the method used to print genuine currency. And second, in his “cursory review,” Jessner may have thought all those different handwritings on the letters and envelopes were mine; but if he would have just read the FBI’s own findings from their laboratory in Washington D.C. dated November 3, 1993 (quoted earlier) he would have known they aren’t. But did he know? And if so, was it an accidental omission or a purposeful deceit? Hmmm. (Well we won’t know because he refuses to answer my inquiry.) (It’s also interesting to note that Bakersfield Detective Ott, in speaking about the various letters claiming responsibility for vandalisms of cars up and down the state, was equally flawed in his analysis of that group of letters. He stated in his report, “upon reviewing all of the letters they appeared to be written by the same person.” Surely even you lay people out there can see those are all different handwritings.) Jessner also wrote, “Doctor [Benjamin] Hulkower’s [one of the psychs who examined me before sentencing] apparent contention that anger at defendant’s former defense attorney [Maginnis] was the primary cause of defendant’s crimes is surely wrong. Defendant did not even mention his attorney in the ‘Fedbuster’ and ‘Nightcrawler’ letters.” That just shows how little Jessner really knew about me and this whole mess.
         What is known is that he conveniently left out them finding and reading my diary because I could use that to prove my lovers were all of legal age and he didn’t want anything to dissuade him from his point of view that I was an active child molester. Just because my van has “curtains over the van’s windows, and in the back [there] was a pristine white mattress” does not mean it was “outfitted for child molesting.” Such talk like this went on and on, sentence after sentence placing emphasis upon angry emphasis that I was actively involved with child molesting and had been doing so continuously for a number of years. As I said before when I addressed this issue with the Secret Service’s crap, yes, I have sex in my van – and previously it was a station wagon with curtains and a bed in the back. S o what. It’s with legal-age men, and I don’t hide that fact. To this day, even though I live alone and could bring someone home; those I meet in Hollywood or West Hollywood we do it down there in the privacy of my van. There’s no need to drag ’em on home to make love. (For your information, it’s registered as a housecar; just like a large motorhome. I don’t see anybody sniveling about old retired husbands and wives possibly having sex in their vehicles as they travel our beautiful country. Just try it and you’ll have the Good Sam Club bitching at ya’ – or maybe the American Association of Retired Persons.) And I did too sleep “in the back of [my] van.” Interviewed neighbors told news reporters how they saw me put my telescopes in it to take out of town to areas that have darker night sky viewing condition. I usually slept overnight in it after I was up much of the night observing the wonders of the universe. And Jessner knew damn well that it was my adult sexual encounters that initiated this whole mess. Just recall my evening spent with Steven; getting gonorrhea; suspicion of AIDS, etc. etc. You know the rest. And Jessner knew limited pieces of it.
         One thing several newspaper articles were quick to connect was the statement in “Fedbuster,” “When they took (stole) my vehicle they screwed with my sex life to,” and the supposed child molesting “implements” the Secret Service made note of in their 1977 report. This “connection” was apparently to indicate that their taking of my car interfered with my molesting of children. That wasn’t it at all. It interfered with my sexual activity with legal-age guys. How you ask? Because without my station wagon, I was limited to using my parents’ 2-door Oldsmobile Toronado, and we couldn’t get all naked in a bed in it to enjoy sex to the max. That’s how it interfered. Had nothing to do with children at all; so get off that crap.
         Apparently Jessner didn’t want to though. His Position papers mentioned, “When defendant was arrested in 1985 [for soliciting 16-year-old Michael Reeves], police searched his van and again found a considerable amount of child molesting paraphernalia, which is detailed in Paragraph 107 of the Presentence [Probation] Report.” Now here’s the entire contents of Paragraph 107: “Police then searched the defendant’s nearby van. In it, they found pornographic literature, a camera, binoculars, KY Jelly, literature on homosexual affairs, a bed, three Penthouse magazines, four homosexual oriented, sexually explicit magazines, a hand-held flat surface vibrator, a one-eighth empty bottle of Southern Comfort liquor, and an unknown amount of a drug labeled ‘Lidocaine,’ in injectable form. The defendant therefore was also charged with one count of 4230 BP [Business & Professions Code]: Controlled substance without prescription, a count which was subsequently dismissed in this case. The defendant was ultimately found guilty of three counts of the above-listed 647 (a) PC: Annoying/molesting children.” Those magazines all had adult pictures in them – and I can prove it, because I still have them. And I have the police report which includes pictures they took of the inside of my van with those same magazines spread out on top of the bed. Anybody want to see ’em? Surely if there was any child porno found in my van that would be prominently mentioned in Paragraph 107. But it wasn’t because there was none there. But did that stop Jessner from stating that I had “a considerable amount of child molesting paraphernalia”? No! Can you see why I entrenched myself into a self-imposed silence even deeper after reading the lies that poured forth off of his papers?
         Jessner should also know that when I was driving around early on the morning of my arrest I was not making an “attempt to pick up juveniles for sex” and that it is not true to emphasize the place I was as “an area known for juvenile male prostitutes.” While the area is known for male prostitutes, someone under 18 is uncommon and to emphasize that is deceitful. If I wanted children there are other places one is more likely to find them such as video arcades and playgrounds – places I do not go to. As I mentioned earlier, I was looking for Danny that morning who was a part-time adult prostitute. Now I know that Jessner’s job is to make me look as bad as possible to the court, but it ain’t right to be dishonest while doing so. Apparently the modern-day snake-oil salesman is alive and well and the poisoned product he was selling was a dishonest version of me. Shame on Jessner in the sternest of ways for stooping to Rappe-like tactics! Rappe come out like a goat in that mess and it cost society a bundle. Does Jessner want his issue? Shouldn’t he have learned by Rappe’s mistakes; which he was very well aware of? Hmmm. And he had the nerve to say, “Simply put, defendant is not a truthful person.” To that I say; let him who is without sin cast the first stone. –John 8:7. Keep all this in mind when we get to Chapter 21 will you please? Just for the record though, Jessner’s Position papers do contain one statement that is so accurate that no one at all will dispute it – ever: “Defendant still feels that the government owes him.” Do I hear an Amen? How ’bout dittos? (Only Rush Limbaugh aficionados would understand that reference. Check out KFI AM 640, 9 a.m. to noon if you want to know.)
         Just why do they feel so compelled to stoop to these tactics? It seems like we have honest folks on one side with a proper understanding of how truth is acquired and respected, and how it is to be administered. And then on the other side we have judicial abusers wearing honest-appearing attire. These folks believe that the truth is less important than their public image and how it might be enhanced. The worst offenders live by the idea that the truth matters less than the utility of an action in serving a political agenda. Could this be Jessner?
         You say people wouldn’t sink into the sewer of deceit on account of a political agenda? (If you saw CBS’s Public Eye on June 24, 1998 you’d know they do.) Imagine for a moment a fictitious Mr. X. Mr. X is an anonymous, faceless little man who, in the outside world, would be of very little consequence to anybody’s life. But Mr. X, as a bureaucrat, is suddenly draped with the power of the whole United Stated Government, and people act as if he is a person with the judgment, intelligence, and maturity to be taken seriously. Just food for thought folks. I, for one, have no use for mindless, middle-level bureaucrats who run around without any controls. How ’bout you? I say, with people like Mr. X, the judicial system is a sleeping dinosaur of an institution that lumbers along more and more out of alignment with the society it thinks it serves. How ’bout you? It’s been said before that our justice system is sometimes like a maze constructed of elaborate and impenetrable barriers to the truth. That definition sure fit in this “Fedbuster” case. How many other cases have fingerprints of prosecutorial misconduct all over them? Hmmm. “
         In Revenge one statement I make is, “If they make decisions on the basis of what’s politically acceptable, rather than what’s right, make sure they get some bad press. See to it they get the opposite of what they’re trying to accomplish.” Need more be said? Oh, and by the way, here’s another one I like, “By the way, have you ever broken down the individual parts of the word “politics” into their separate meanings? “Poli” meaning many, and “tics” like the bloodsucking insect. So then we have poli and tics – many bloodsuckers. Cool! That works for me.”
         I am so awfully glad I was in a self-imposed silence at the time and vowed to stay there until I was ready to end it. If there was anything I was going to have power over, that was it. I held the key to the whole thing – the whole shit-and-caboodle, and they weren’t gettin’ it; not for a damn good deal of time. And I felt good about that. The hell with those arson victims; I was feeling at the time. I know that’s cold; but Jessner’s deceit coldened my heart. Now I know you’re not going to find colden in the dictionary; but trust me folks – that word fits here. And so does reading these last few sentences aloud in a raised angry voice (while waving a shaking scolding finger at the computer monitor) to simulate my own speech as I read it back to myself during proofreading.
         I think for each over-mention – meaning each mention of it beyond saying it once – of my child-molest history, Snake and his minions should enjoy one extra month of freedom. By that I mean, my self-imposed silence should be extended by one month per each “Jessner mention.” What do you think? Hmmm! Actually, that thought was on my mind on the morning of June 13, 1994, the day I was sentenced. Knowing how Jessner overly-harped on it in his Position papers filed with the court days earlier, I expected a repeat performance verbally to Judge Hupp when it came time for him to give his spiel. I made it my pet project that day to note each time he committed that offense with the express idea in mind of delaying my speaking out by one month per “Jessner mention.” I just like that term. It’s so fitting. Actually, “Rappe violation” sounds better; seeing that Jessner merely repeated the same performance that his comrade did so long ago. The legal community has a way of naming things after individuals. We have “Miranda rights,” “Marsden motion,” “Morrissey Hearing,” and “Megan’s Law” to name just a few. What’s wrong with a “Rappe violation”? Hereafter, such an offense will be called “Rappe violation,” in honor of the first person to commit the misdeed – against me anyway. If anyone would like to inform him of his newest “honor” or voice any criticism, as of January 1998, Curt Rappe was a Superior Court Judge in the downtown Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building at 210 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, CA  90012-3210. (213) 974-5726. And while we’re giving out addresses here, why don’t we get Jessner’s out among you? As of March 1999 he’s still an Assistant U.S. Attorney at 312 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA  90012. (213) 894-0511.
         After the vandalism arrest (after I got out of federal prison) came to the surface and put everything on hold until April 1998, I decided to withdraw this project. This book gets published as soon after that case is resolved (and bail is returned) as I can include last minute details and get it to print. Just for the record, Jessner committed his namesake violation only two times verbally to Judge Hupp on the day I was sentenced. With no other problems coming to the surface, I fully expected to publish this book three months after my release from confinement; October 3, 1996. (One month was on account of waiting one extra month to attend my first-Wednesday-of-the-month computer user group meeting as explained more fully below.) Too bad other flies got in the ointment. Oh well!
         Some people – actually, a lot of people – have criticized me for holding on to past injustices with the intensity I do. One psychiatrist labeled me – and rightly so – an “injustice collector.” That’s a badge I wear prominently displayed, no doubt about it folks. (Another one said I’m someone who keeps a “scorecard” with respect to being treated fairly and unfairly by others and still another said I’m “obsessed with fairness.”) This just lends support to my theory about how so many of you out there are perfectly content with a double-standard system of justice. I’m suppose to forget about the violations committed against me and move along with my life, while at the same time, the judicial system not only won’t forget about violations I committed, but will harp and harp on them just as if they happened yesterday. More than once, not only did I get more time in custody than I should have gotten for an offense, but they used that conviction – even ones they knew weren’t valid – to enhance a new sentence. You want me to forget past injustices? What’s that saying once again about he who is without sin cast the first stone? Oh ya, it’s in John 8:7. When you people harp more and more about my past inequities I just resolve myself more than ever to not forget old offenses committed against me. Clear?
         Jessner also still insisted he thinks I did set one or more of the fires even though they know I didn’t. After his big mouth lies I now sort of wish I really would have; after all, I’m getting accused of it. In reality, I’m not that kind of person though. My revenge has always been intentionally non-violent. (Now I know you’re going to say that assault is automatically a violent crime by its very definition and that I have a conviction for assault. Well, first of all, I shouldn’t have a conviction for assault. As is covered thoroughly in earlier pages, my criminal behavior did not meet all of the elements in order to sustain a conviction of that statute. And second, it was non-intentional. My intentional act of vandalism on property is a non-violent crime.)
         Jessner even harped that I wasn’t apologizing to past victims I violated like those who I passed counterfeit money to. Of all the nerve! For one thing, my conversation with the probation officer in preparation to him doing a Probation Sentence Investigation report for the court was limited to the current offense conviction only at my attorney’s request. Past letters to judges available to Jessner apologized for those past crimes. It is a lie to say I didn’t apologize for them. (In some cases, I withdrew apologies as mentioned in my Statement of Judicial Debts Receivable but he didn’t have that document to reference.) NOWhe needs to apologize for deceit to Judge Hupp. It’s also a lot of nerve to criticize me for failing to make an apology I had in fact made when they still refuse to make any they know they never have made.
         While I’m real quick to criticize, I am just as adamant about praising those that do something beyond the ordinary. Jessner did make some extra efforts to try to get me taken to my father’s funeral. I’m not going to go as far as suggest that he was having some guilt feelings about being a primary reason why I wasn’t out on bail to begin with – which is the reason I was missing the whole thing – but I did detect some sympathy, and some effort beyond his usual job description. And that’s worth a bit of praise and thanks. I’ll let slide my trying to analyze his remark to the court in his sentencing papers, “Defendant’s parents had lived to old age, and rather than being tragic, their deaths were a natural part of life’s cycle.” Or his remark verbally to the court at the time of my sentencing, “Moreover, it’s not particularly unusual. Unfortunately people’s parents die; it is a fact of life.” Technically that’s all true; but it’s still cold to say. And it contributed to keeping my heart in a chilled state – exactly the opposite temperature they should have been trying to achieve.
         The individual worthy of the greatest praise though was my Deputy Federal Public Defender, Mr. Paul L. Abrams. If Maginnis would have performed at 1/10 the level that Mr. Abrams did, this whole mess would have never come about. I went into this case with no thought of beating it. I was seen mailing a letter and there was no way to convince a jury that I was innocent of that. My stance was to work at getting as little time as possible. While I did my own foot work in the prison law library to research my options, Mr. Abrams handled things from his end in a very extraordinary way. To position me to the court to the greatest advantage he put a lot of research time into avenues that never even entered my layman’s mind. Because they were new strategies to me, I would have had no complaint if he did not perform them. But by performing them, I knew they were praiseworthy acts.
         Separate from his legal performance, he went way beyond the call of duty to help me at the time of my mother’s death, and later at my father’s. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been able to see my mother that last time at the funeral home. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see my father but it wasn’t for a lack of effort on his part. On this one thing he and Jessner worked together on. And when I was attacked at USP Lompoc he come to my aid again and was instrumental in getting me transferred from there as soon as I was. Normally transfers take much longer to process.
         And at MDC-LA I had Dr. Hennig, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Fry, Mr. Munoz, Mr. Bustamonte, and Mr. Langowski who were helpful and supportive at the time of my parents’ deaths. I was lucky I had them at that difficult time. Please forgive me if I botched the spelling of any of these names. O.K., that’s it for praise. There’s no one else left in this particular federal case that’s worthy – unfortunately. It’s time to continue our story.
         I already mentioned how Judge Hupp cheated me out of one day of credit because I wasn’t “officially” arrested until after midnight even though, for all practical purposes, I was “in custody” since before noon the day before. One of the liabilities I was going to impose on them for this was to give the fellas one extra month of freedom. Why one month you ask? I’m glad you did. One of the three computer user group meetings I go to meets on the first Wednesday of the month. My release date was Thursday October 3, 1996, one day after that meeting. If I wouldn’t have gotten cheated out of that day I would have gone home the day before and made it to my meeting. Instead, I had to wait one extra month to go to that particular meeting. And the return was going to be one extra month of freedom for the fellas. Because this next case come about (vandalism) which we’ll be covering in Chapter 19, I withdrew that punishment. Lucky you all. For your information, one of my other computer group meetings meets on the first Thursday of the month. I got home from the airport just in time to go to that one. Still, I had to wait a month for my Wednesday meeting, so the punishment would have been in effect despite making my Thursday meeting. Sorry ’bout that – it’s just the way I am. Live with it!!!
         But one day is nothing compared to this. The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines takes the current offense severity, prior convictions, and other factors such as grouping of counts (as we discussed earlier) into consideration in order to arrive at a sentencing range. Judge Hupp used my convictions for the sexual solicitation of 16-year-old Michael Reeves back in 1984, the accidental assaults in 1986, the supposed threat to disclose the wrongs of Mrs. Reeves back in 1988, and one of my two counterfeiting convictions. All that added up to a range for me of 33 to 41 months. (The child molesting and one of the counterfeitings were beyond the time limit they could count.) While the Guidelines permit “Departures” above and below this range, in general, the judge was limited to sentencing me within this range.
         If they’re making such a deal about the first three offenses listed above, then why couldn’t I get officials to do something about the extra severe sexual solicitations that were directed at me as a young-looking inmate in prison in the early 1970s? Why couldn’t I get them to make a deal about it when I was threatened in prison over and over again by inmates aware of my sex offense not only in the early ’70s, but to a lesser extent in 1987 through 1990 also? And beyond any of that, if my 1986 accidental minor assault (where no one even sought medical attention as per the police report and probation report prepared for this case) was such a big deal to warrant more time in custody and more points on my Bureau of Prisons’ “Security Designation Form” to put me in a higher custody prison than I needed to be in, why then wouldn’t staff take it serious enough when I was purposely and viciously assaulted to want to bring my 3 attackers to justice? (Hold on, we’ll be covering this story shortly.) I told them I could point out pictures of 2 of them in a photospread yet they refuse to do anything about it.
         We tried to get the Maginnis conviction’s three “Criminal History Points” not included in the sentencing calculations because it was a conviction that should not have happened to begin with. Unfortunately, a new U.S. Supreme Court case just a month old prohibited us from pursuing that avenue. The conviction would have had to be reversed at the state level first before the federal level could avoid counting it. Had we of been successful, my sentencing range would have been reduced to 27 to 33 months. (The vandalism conviction, which would have remained intact, would have left two of those three points still there, but having one less point was what was needed to bump me down one “Criminal History Category.”) While Judge Hupp wasn’t legally permitted to disqualify that one extra point it added to my total, he was very much permitted to go anywhere within the range his little ol’ heart chose to lead him. He gave me 40 months, just one month below the maximum he was allowed to.
         You’ll recall how I spoke earlier about U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher taking an interest in how I had been violated in the past and considered that when he handed down a lesser sentence than an average repeat offender would get. Although he sentenced me to a short prison term, it was a sentence that clearly had a hidden message behind it. It was like he was saying, “you did wrong and you deserve some punishment, but you were also wronged very badly by us and I recognize that contributed to your misbehavior.” Acknowledging I had been wronged – albeit a silent acknowledgment – was a vital message I carried with me as I began serving that sentence, and that did my emotional stability more good than a ton of psychiatrists could ever hope to accomplish with years of “traditional” therapy. This was a case where my high degree of sensitivity to injustices in the past manifested itself in a high degree of sensitivity to an extra degree of concern and compassion which resulted in it being appreciated more than an average defendant would have. Of course, being permitted to stay out through the holidays in 1981 was just icing on the cake.
         Now fast forward ahead to sentencing, Judge Hupp style. I would have seen a 33-month sentence as a hidden acknowledgment that Maginnis was wrong. I say that because 33 months was the lowest sentence the Guidelines permitted Judge Hupp to give me in the category I was stuck in, but it was also at the top of the proper range I should have been in if Maginnis was kicked out. Ideally, 27 months would have been preferred, but because 33 overlaps both ranges, I would have considered that an acceptable “acceptance of responsibility” that Maginnis was wrong. Getting stuck with 40 months to my “mentally ill” state of thinking is tantamount to telling me that “we don’t give a flying fuck whether Maginnis wronged you or not – this isn’t Judge Kelleher’s courtroom.” Well, of course, my revenger philosophy returns that favor with, “I don’t care if your arsonists are brought to justice [with emphasis on your because they didn’t burn me out].” Of course, I didn’t say it out loud, just like Judge Hupp didn’t verbalize his hidden message to me out loud, but that doesn’t mean our messages didn’t get “sent” and “received.” 10-4? (That means O.K. to you non 2-way-radio folks out in the audience.)
         As an added point of information, while speaking of some of the past injustices I suffered at the hands of the judicial system, Dr. Benjamin Hulkower, Ph.D., one of the psychs who examined me before sentencing, asked the court to “simply recognize” my “position…in some manner, with words.” While in no way endorsing the “actions” I used to avenge those wrongs, he felt that such an acknowledgment would be a “plus” to my particular “psychodynamics” in that I would be less apt to still believe that “authorities don’t care.” Even though to “humanize the Justice system” was detailed as a “psychological necessity” that would have a “positive effect” for me, Judge Hupp chose to not only disregard it, but he threw it all back on me in that I didn’t take “advantage of” the “provisions at that time for challenging” the seizure of my property. And where did he get that idea? “From certain implications I got from the papers here” he said. Hello! Wake up guy; I mean Harry. I’ve been very vocal about all the steps I took in my attempts to get it all back. Even the “Fedbuster” letter refers to those steps. Polite requests, harsh requests, promises to teach counterfeiting and tip people off that are under surveillance until I get it back are all on the record. (And if anybody wants to see copies of these many letters I sent to various Secret Service agents and U.S. Attorney Rappe in years past I’ve got ’em for you.) And God only knows how long it’s going to take them to get it all back to me. How dare Judge Hupp say there are no “implications…from the papers.” There’s a mountain of it out there – and it’s been there long before my August 1993 threats were ever put down upon paper. Needless to say, not only was I pissed at the lack of caring he showed, I was overwhelmed with joy that I had entrenched myself in a self-imposed silence. Judge Hupp could have followed the lead of his colleague, Judge Kelleher, and began “therapy in the courtroom itself” as Dr. Hulkower suggested. But he didn’t, so now we have a higher barrier to get over in order to non-self impose me. Oh well, no skin off my back – time to hoof it on off to prison. step… step… step… step… : - (    Me an’ my secrets. : - )
         Well, at least I won’t be facing a double whammy. It’s bad enough having the inmates know I’m a child molester. At least I won’t be pegged as a snitch also – the second most looked down upon thing. I mean, I gotta’ live with these guys for the next three years. I don’t need having myself appearing worse than I already am. C Y A? You bet! I come first. Don’t like it? Ask me if I care.
         My thanks to Dr. Hulkower for his less-than-common suggestion to the court. It’s high time somebody recognizes that I’m not just imagining that these things were wrong to do to me. Usually they merely report that I perceive them as “wrong,” and then say it in such a condescending way as if to deny that they were wrong deeds to commit to begin with. I also want to thank Dr. Bruce L. Danto, M.D. Now this psyche was chosen by Jessner. My history with prosecution-chosen psychs indicates that these guys more-often-than-not bring to the table a scale pre-tipped in the prosecution’s favor. With that in mind, I want you to see what Jessner’s choice had to say about me. Now I’m sure he would have given Danto every bad-appearing piece of paperwork he had on me, including Revenge. It’s emphasis on doing no injuries to anyone surely contributed to his conclusion here. “I do not feel that he constitutes a danger to the community in terms of lethal behavior. He might be involved in some antisocial activity, such as counterfeiting or hustling a dollar in some manner or another, but I do not see him as an actual danger to the community.” He nailed me on the head closer than any other examiner has ever done. Jessner was surely hoping for justification to his “upward departure” sentencing request. Instead he got, “I would certainly not consider this man a candidate for outright release on probation, but would insist that he remain in a structured environment, such as a half-way home for a considerable period of time, and that he be assisted in being evaluated for and sponsored in a vocational rehabilitation activity, where he can learn a trade, so that he can make an honest living.” Had Judge Hupp of followed through, the fellas may already have been several years into serving their long prison sentences. Oops! Later on you’re going to see how denying me a half-way house for the last few months of my prison sentence (which is something inmates are suppose to be entitled to) and cheating me out of the opportunity to complete a vocational computer course has extended the fellas’ already longer-than-necessary vacation. Oops again!
         All this confirms what I’ve said before. If they want to screw you over, they’ll justify to themselves some way to do it; despite what probation or psych reports recommend. Judge Rosenthal was determined to send me to prison even though the majority of psychs and therapists who knew me along with a probation officer recommended probation with out-patient therapy. They said prison would be more detrimental for me but Rosenthal paid it no mind. Yet then when I get a bad report they’ll sure use that to their advantage to justify a harsher sentence. Just another one of those double-standard violations. Grrr : - (
         Before sentencing, I calculated that my security level was such that I should be eligible for housing at a low Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) facility. Lompoc has a facility of this level along with a maximum custody United States Penitentiary (USP) and a minimum custody Federal Prison Camp (FPC). I had also looked up in the prison law library that this institution has a vocational computer class which I was very interested in attending. At sentencing, I asked Judge Hupp to recommend FCI Lompoc because of the computer class and he did. Unfortunately, his court clerk left off the FCI part and just wrote down “Lompoc” on the Judgement and Commitment Order, which is the paper work that the Bureau of Prisons gets after a person is sentenced.
         And unfortunately further, I did not anticipate the Bureau of Prisons elevating my custody score higher than their own instructions call for. The probation report prepared for the court, which took every opportunity it could to emphasize all my bad points, said this about the most seriously injured victim in the 1986 accidental assaults, “one victim…sustained temporary injury, but was not treated by a physician.” Even though that should clearly classify it as a “minor” assault, according to their form’s instructions, I was given extra points equivalent to the “aggravated” assault category, the same as if there would have been serious injuries. And to top that off, for my current threatening letters’ offense I was given points equivalent to the “greatest” severity, the same as if I had committed a heinous offense, even though Judge Hupp classified my crime as not a “crime of violence” and the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines assign the crime a “Base Offense Level” of 12 on a scale of 1 to 43, with 43 being the most severe crime. Even with this, my score was 1 security point below the USP level and, absent any other unforeseen circumstances, I would have gotten designated to a high FCI level institution – maybe FCI Phoenix – right from the start. (FCI institutions come in 2 security levels, high FCI and low FCI.)
         And this is where the court clerk’s screw up enters the equation. On the transcript, Judge Hupp recommended “Lompoc FCI” but his clerk wrote just “Lompoc” on the Judgement and Commitment Order. Once the Bureau gets that paper they then calculate the inmate’s custody score and then designate him to an institution within that range. 18 points and above calls for a USP level institution. I had 17 points, still within a high FCI level, but because the judge recommended Lompoc and the Bureau tries to honor judges’ recommendations as much as possible, and because my score was nearer the USP level than the low FCI level they “flexed up” my point score and designated me to the maximum custody USP Lompoc.

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