cjjack
06-20-2004, 06:21 AM
After Enron, a Sunless Year in a Tiny Cell
June 20, 2004
By KATE MURPHY
Houston
JUST two years ago, Lea Fastow, former assistant treasurer
of the Enron Corporation, was anticipating a move into a
12,000-square-foot house that she and her husband were
having built in the exclusive River Oaks section of this
city. It would have six fireplaces and Italian flagstone
flooring, and would cost $3.9 million.
Instead, on July 12, she will move into the austere,
high-rise Federal Detention Center downtown. A closet-size
cell there will be her home while she serves a one-year
sentence after pleading guilty last month to tax evasion.
She and her husband, Andrew S. Fastow, had to sell their
River Oaks house after the implosion of Enron left both of
them in a legal morass. Mr. Fastow, Enron's former chief
financial officer, will also go to jail. As part of a plea
bargain agreement, he could serve up to 10 years for
concealing Enron's debt and inflating its profits while
making millions for himself.
Besides dealing with the dangers and indignities of prison
life - from the threat of violence and routine strip
searches to scratchy toilet paper and narrow bunk beds -
Mrs. Fastow, 42, is likely to find that the mixed-sex,
highly secure detention center will be anything but the
kind of pastoral prison camp that many people still
associate with white-collar criminals. And, former convicts
say, her time will be more difficult because she is a
woman, white and wealthy.
That is grim news for Martha Stewart, another well-known
woman accused of a white-collar crime, unless her
conviction is overturned on appeal or she has more luck
than Mrs. Fastow did in persuading a federal judge to
recommend that she be assigned to a low-security,
women-only prison.
"Let's be honest: jails are racist, sexist and homophobic
places," said Ray Hill, who served eight years in prison
for burglary and is now a consultant to people facing time
behind bars. He is also the host of "The Prison Show," a
call-in radio program for inmates and their families in
southeast Texas. When white people are a minority in
prisons, he added, they often suffer the most abuse. Being
rich only makes things worse.
Gabriela Reza, a Hispanic woman who served 4 months of a
10-month drug-possession sentence at the Houston center
last year, agreed. "You hate to say it, but just like on
the outside, people tend to help people who are like them -
and Hispanics and blacks are the majority in there," she
said.
After Mrs. Fastow surrenders to the authorities, which she
is scheduled to do at 2 p.m. on July 12, she will be
assigned to an 8-by-10-foot cell in the 11-story, 1,100-bed
prison, which houses people serving relatively short
sentences or awaiting trial on a variety of charges,
including violent offenses.
She will be locked in her cell at night, fed Army-style
rations and rarely permitted to see sunlight. The center is
within sight of Minute Maid Park, the downtown baseball
stadium that was called Enron Field before Enron filed for
bankruptcy in 2001. Not that Mrs. Fastow will be able to
see the stadium, because the only windows in the
cast-concrete detention center are narrow strips of
translucent glass.
For most inmates, the hardest part of incarceration is the
loss of privacy. This is especially true at the Houston
site and at other administrative detention centers, which
have strict security because they house men and women
accused of all kinds of crimes. Mrs. Fastow would have far
more freedom of movement at a low- or minimum-security,
single-sex lockup like the federal prison camp in Bryan,
Tex., that her lawyer had requested, or in similar federal
prisons like those currently housing Samuel D. Waksal, the
former ImClone Systems founder who pleaded guilty to
securities fraud, and Jamie Olis, a former midlevel
executive at Dynegy who was convicted of accounting fraud.
Without explanation, Judge David Hittner of the Federal
District Court here declined to recommend that the Bureau
of Prisons send Mrs. Fastow to such a prison, despite
entreaties from her lawyer and prosecutors.
As a result, Mrs. Fastow will be under constant
surveillance, as is the rule at detention centers, and will
not be allowed to roam about without an escort or scrutiny,
as she would at a minimum-security prison camp. Officials
will also open all her mail and monitor her phone
conversations, which would be unlikely if she were at a
lower-security facility.
Perhaps the worst loss of privacy, however, will come at
night, when she is locked in her cell and must use the
toilet under the gaze of her cellmate. "It's really hard to
get used to going in front of someone but after lockdown,
you can't ask them to step outside or anything," Ms. Reza
said. The steel doors of the detention center's cells are
locked promptly at 9 p.m. and do not reopen until 6 a.m.,
when most of the inmates go to their prison jobs. There is
no nightly lockdown at most minimum- and low-security
federal facilities.
Like many women at the detention center, Mrs. Fastow may be
assigned a job in the laundry or dining area of a
cellblock, where she would warm trays of food sent from the
kitchen downstairs. As a woman, she is not eligible to work
in the kitchen preparing food - as is, say, Ben F. Glisan
Jr., the former treasurer of Enron, who is at the Houston
center serving part of his five-year sentence for
conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. To keep the
sexes separated, and because of the heavy lifting that is
sometimes required, only men work in the kitchen.
Kitchen work is especially desirable, former inmates say,
because prisoners can then serve their own food and eat in
the kitchen instead of in their cellblock. Not that the
food is very good. Ms. Reza described it as "gross." Maria
Douglas, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
said all correctional facilities served meals using
"armed-services recipes at an average cost of $2.74 per
day, per inmate."
Women are not eligible for the coveted jobs - trimming the
trees and shrubbery around the center or loading supplies
at a nearby warehouse - that let inmates go outside; those
jobs are also reserved for men. The only sunlight that
women at the detention center see is the vague glow that
permeates the four-inch-wide frosted-glass windows in their
cells.
"You're living a fluorescent existence," said Vanessa
Leggett, an aspiring crime writer who served 10 months at
the center for refusing to turn over to a grand jury notes
from her interviews with people implicated in the murder of
a Houston socialite.
Deprived of natural light, female inmates in the center
often look as gray as the building's concrete exterior.
Despite their pallor and lack of access to makeup, women at
the detention center still attract leers from the male
inmates they encounter in common areas like the visitation
room and the medical clinic.
Since white inmates are the minority, Mr. Hill said, they
are more likely to be sexually, verbally and physically
harassed. But Ms. Leggett, who is white, said she did not
feel any discrimination while incarcerated, although she
added that she might have had special status because she
was perceived as someone who had flouted authority.
But more than her sex and race, Mrs. Fastow's wealth will
work against her in prison, former inmates said. "You've
got to understand that most people in there have nothing,"
Mr. Hill said. "If you have money, you're going to have to
deal with a lot of panhandling and scams."
Typical are inmates who offer to sell physical protection,
or pester wealthy prisoners to buy them goodies like
off-brand sneakers or candy bars at the commissary. And
kindnesses received will usually come with the expectation
of payback.
"Don't accept any favors," Ms. Leggett said, giving advice
that could also apply in the cutthroat corporate world.
"They all have strings attached."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/business/yourmoney/20jail.html?ex=1088729803&e
i=1&en=ec6ebf57987bc66e (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/business/yourmoney/20jail.html?ex=1088729803&ei=1&en=ec6ebf57987bc66e)
June 20, 2004
By KATE MURPHY
Houston
JUST two years ago, Lea Fastow, former assistant treasurer
of the Enron Corporation, was anticipating a move into a
12,000-square-foot house that she and her husband were
having built in the exclusive River Oaks section of this
city. It would have six fireplaces and Italian flagstone
flooring, and would cost $3.9 million.
Instead, on July 12, she will move into the austere,
high-rise Federal Detention Center downtown. A closet-size
cell there will be her home while she serves a one-year
sentence after pleading guilty last month to tax evasion.
She and her husband, Andrew S. Fastow, had to sell their
River Oaks house after the implosion of Enron left both of
them in a legal morass. Mr. Fastow, Enron's former chief
financial officer, will also go to jail. As part of a plea
bargain agreement, he could serve up to 10 years for
concealing Enron's debt and inflating its profits while
making millions for himself.
Besides dealing with the dangers and indignities of prison
life - from the threat of violence and routine strip
searches to scratchy toilet paper and narrow bunk beds -
Mrs. Fastow, 42, is likely to find that the mixed-sex,
highly secure detention center will be anything but the
kind of pastoral prison camp that many people still
associate with white-collar criminals. And, former convicts
say, her time will be more difficult because she is a
woman, white and wealthy.
That is grim news for Martha Stewart, another well-known
woman accused of a white-collar crime, unless her
conviction is overturned on appeal or she has more luck
than Mrs. Fastow did in persuading a federal judge to
recommend that she be assigned to a low-security,
women-only prison.
"Let's be honest: jails are racist, sexist and homophobic
places," said Ray Hill, who served eight years in prison
for burglary and is now a consultant to people facing time
behind bars. He is also the host of "The Prison Show," a
call-in radio program for inmates and their families in
southeast Texas. When white people are a minority in
prisons, he added, they often suffer the most abuse. Being
rich only makes things worse.
Gabriela Reza, a Hispanic woman who served 4 months of a
10-month drug-possession sentence at the Houston center
last year, agreed. "You hate to say it, but just like on
the outside, people tend to help people who are like them -
and Hispanics and blacks are the majority in there," she
said.
After Mrs. Fastow surrenders to the authorities, which she
is scheduled to do at 2 p.m. on July 12, she will be
assigned to an 8-by-10-foot cell in the 11-story, 1,100-bed
prison, which houses people serving relatively short
sentences or awaiting trial on a variety of charges,
including violent offenses.
She will be locked in her cell at night, fed Army-style
rations and rarely permitted to see sunlight. The center is
within sight of Minute Maid Park, the downtown baseball
stadium that was called Enron Field before Enron filed for
bankruptcy in 2001. Not that Mrs. Fastow will be able to
see the stadium, because the only windows in the
cast-concrete detention center are narrow strips of
translucent glass.
For most inmates, the hardest part of incarceration is the
loss of privacy. This is especially true at the Houston
site and at other administrative detention centers, which
have strict security because they house men and women
accused of all kinds of crimes. Mrs. Fastow would have far
more freedom of movement at a low- or minimum-security,
single-sex lockup like the federal prison camp in Bryan,
Tex., that her lawyer had requested, or in similar federal
prisons like those currently housing Samuel D. Waksal, the
former ImClone Systems founder who pleaded guilty to
securities fraud, and Jamie Olis, a former midlevel
executive at Dynegy who was convicted of accounting fraud.
Without explanation, Judge David Hittner of the Federal
District Court here declined to recommend that the Bureau
of Prisons send Mrs. Fastow to such a prison, despite
entreaties from her lawyer and prosecutors.
As a result, Mrs. Fastow will be under constant
surveillance, as is the rule at detention centers, and will
not be allowed to roam about without an escort or scrutiny,
as she would at a minimum-security prison camp. Officials
will also open all her mail and monitor her phone
conversations, which would be unlikely if she were at a
lower-security facility.
Perhaps the worst loss of privacy, however, will come at
night, when she is locked in her cell and must use the
toilet under the gaze of her cellmate. "It's really hard to
get used to going in front of someone but after lockdown,
you can't ask them to step outside or anything," Ms. Reza
said. The steel doors of the detention center's cells are
locked promptly at 9 p.m. and do not reopen until 6 a.m.,
when most of the inmates go to their prison jobs. There is
no nightly lockdown at most minimum- and low-security
federal facilities.
Like many women at the detention center, Mrs. Fastow may be
assigned a job in the laundry or dining area of a
cellblock, where she would warm trays of food sent from the
kitchen downstairs. As a woman, she is not eligible to work
in the kitchen preparing food - as is, say, Ben F. Glisan
Jr., the former treasurer of Enron, who is at the Houston
center serving part of his five-year sentence for
conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. To keep the
sexes separated, and because of the heavy lifting that is
sometimes required, only men work in the kitchen.
Kitchen work is especially desirable, former inmates say,
because prisoners can then serve their own food and eat in
the kitchen instead of in their cellblock. Not that the
food is very good. Ms. Reza described it as "gross." Maria
Douglas, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
said all correctional facilities served meals using
"armed-services recipes at an average cost of $2.74 per
day, per inmate."
Women are not eligible for the coveted jobs - trimming the
trees and shrubbery around the center or loading supplies
at a nearby warehouse - that let inmates go outside; those
jobs are also reserved for men. The only sunlight that
women at the detention center see is the vague glow that
permeates the four-inch-wide frosted-glass windows in their
cells.
"You're living a fluorescent existence," said Vanessa
Leggett, an aspiring crime writer who served 10 months at
the center for refusing to turn over to a grand jury notes
from her interviews with people implicated in the murder of
a Houston socialite.
Deprived of natural light, female inmates in the center
often look as gray as the building's concrete exterior.
Despite their pallor and lack of access to makeup, women at
the detention center still attract leers from the male
inmates they encounter in common areas like the visitation
room and the medical clinic.
Since white inmates are the minority, Mr. Hill said, they
are more likely to be sexually, verbally and physically
harassed. But Ms. Leggett, who is white, said she did not
feel any discrimination while incarcerated, although she
added that she might have had special status because she
was perceived as someone who had flouted authority.
But more than her sex and race, Mrs. Fastow's wealth will
work against her in prison, former inmates said. "You've
got to understand that most people in there have nothing,"
Mr. Hill said. "If you have money, you're going to have to
deal with a lot of panhandling and scams."
Typical are inmates who offer to sell physical protection,
or pester wealthy prisoners to buy them goodies like
off-brand sneakers or candy bars at the commissary. And
kindnesses received will usually come with the expectation
of payback.
"Don't accept any favors," Ms. Leggett said, giving advice
that could also apply in the cutthroat corporate world.
"They all have strings attached."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/business/yourmoney/20jail.html?ex=1088729803&e
i=1&en=ec6ebf57987bc66e (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/business/yourmoney/20jail.html?ex=1088729803&ei=1&en=ec6ebf57987bc66e)