Day 37 - 7/29/21 - Thurs.
- mainemoviepirate
- Aug 4
- 6 min read
Actual Journal Entry:
“Slept pretty good; not dropping right off like before the Wellbutrin. Got to stop day-napping.
BREAKFAST: Ate half the cereal, a couple of bites of cake. Took the apple. Probably my last breakfast, though I say that a lot. Hmm… maybe if I can find a way to drink the Lemon/Honey/RedPepper (LHR) drink religiously every day like I do at home. Hmm..
Should be getting commissary today, fingers crossed. Well, it was an interesting day. I was called to the case manager’s office. She was in there with the light shut off. She waved me in. A CO (or so I thought) came in right behind me. He was looking at the case manager and said, ‘Are you new here?’ I didn’t know he was talking to me; I thought he was making a joke to the case manager. They seemed to have some type of relationship. Plus, I had heard the Case Manager was also new here. As she said, I had a Walsh* on my charges, but she also said she talked to the other case manager, and since I wasn’t convicted of the charge (huh?) **, she was going to give me an exemption. I said, ‘Thank you,’ and signed the paper. The CO said, still looking at the Case Manager (it’s like he wouldn’t make eye contact with me), ‘You don’t answer questions?’ I just realized, ‘Sh*t, is he talking to me?’ So I replied, ‘I didn’t know you were talking to me. Yes, I am new here.’ He finally looked at me as he spoke, ‘You want some advice?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ ‘Don’t smoke weed outside.’ I replied that I didn’t smoke weed. He said, ‘Good.’ I asked the case manager if that was it. She said yes. I started out the door. The CO (who I learned later was the Camp Secretary) added: ‘But don’t drink alcohol either.’ I just closed the door. I wanted to say something else. But: Low. Profile. Fly under the radar.
Found out later, after asking people and finally looking it up myself, once I got email, that it was because of the Witness Tampering enhancement I got at sentencing. I think.
Then around 10 AM, I was in the library because they had just had a book purge, which means they throw out (maybe, or they take them to the SHU, which would mean the same thing) a bunch of books. I went to check the damage. When a gaggle of COs came down the hall and said, ‘Everyone into the Visiting Room!’ I guess it was what they call a Shakedown. They searched everyone’s CubiCell, some they really trashed—not mine. After the searching (took about two hours), they patted everyone down (twice) as they let them back in. When they called the first four, a kid everyone called ‘Lo Mein’ (I don’t know if I ever learned his real name) started crying and having some kind of breakdown. Because apparently the rumor was if they called your name, you were going to the SHU. The whole room full of inmates cracked up. Man, he took some abuse. Even some of the COs got into the taunting. Though the one who ‘escorted’ me from the SHU to R&D said, ‘Come on, Guys, he’s really upset!’ Wow, empathy from a guard—haven’t seen that since ‘GameTime’ at the SHU. Of course, it was a female guard. Lo Mein is not very well-liked by the general population here at the Camp. Something about rodent-like behavior. I almost feel sorry for him, but I don’t know all the stories involved either, as they happened before I arrived. I may find out. RY might have put it best: just when you start to feel sorry for him, he does something childish and ignorant. My first shakedown wasn’t that bad.
LUNCH: BBQ chicken (Overcooked; it was Shakedown Chicken!), Really good mac & cheese. Ate it all. Mixed veggies, apple crisp.
We got commissary, so I may skip dinner. We’ll see. My email came on around 10 AM, so that’s cool. Sad that’s the most exciting thing I got! Man, they are not letting up on ‘Lo Mein.’ They hounded him well through the Shortline and Supper. (He was a kitchen worker.) I’m not sure if he’s getting it or not; maybe he likes the attention. Hard to say. Some of the taunting was funny. I tried not to laugh.
SUPPER: Chicken, spaghetti, carrots, bread. Ate most of it, saved the bread.
Raining. But I still did two laps. It started to really pour as I came in. Reading a new book, The Factory, about the Prison Industrial Complex, and one man’s journey through it. Self-Published and kind of interesting. You have to send email requests to those you want to email with this system. I sent requests to Mom, T., & SS (my lawyer). I also called T.; no answer.”
Notes for Day 37 (Four Years Later)
This was a full entry. I found out what the hold up on my email was and was grateful for the Case Manager giving me an exemption. Now, four years later, I’m learning what a Walsh flag truly is. It is named after Adam Walsh and is basically used for sex offenders that still pose a threat to society even while incarcerated. So their contact with the outside world is highly controlled and limited.
So, I’m like, HUH? My case was copyright infringement and mail fraud. Was this Walsh flag a mistake, or something more nefarious from the Prosecution? FMC Devens, the actual prison, has a large sex offender population. Was the Walsh Flag placed there so I would be placed behind the wall, or just to limit my access to email and thus legal means of working on my appeal? Because email access was super instrumental to my legal work; I can’t imagine doing a fraction of it without the still limited access. So that being said, since I am still writing the story of my case, conviction, and my reasons for fighting (mostly Copyright Reform), I need to know where this Walsh Flag came from.
While I was incarcerated and even in the halfway house, I filed at least a hundred FOIA/FOAA requests concerning my case. Mostly law enforcement, but really any agency that was remotely involved in my case.
Except, never the Bureau of Prisons. Because, obviously, if I started doing that, my ‘Under the Radar’ strategy would have been destroyed by FOIA. In other words, I would have been inviting more trouble than I wanted to deal with.
Once I learned what the Walsh Flag really is, I decided to send my first BOP FOIA on July 22, 2025, and I’ve also decided to publish all my previous FOIA/FOAA requests and responses/answers/information, because I saved most of them. You can access this work in progress here: FOIA Requests. I will post the past FOIAs and any new ones I file, along with my thoughts on them as I make my way through the Prison Journals.
The other things: The CO, who was also the Camp Secretary, was, after PeterSomething, the second most hated CO in the Camp. That, too, depends on who you ask. This intro was the worst he ever did to me, and that wasn’t bad. Just rude, I thought; probably comes with the job. He just reminded me of someone who was picked on a lot as a child, and as a Cop, he seeks his revenge on a daily basis.
As far as Shakedowns go, this first one was rather mild. It was just a shock, because up until then, things were pretty chill at the Camp. I mean, the front door isn’t even locked, and the highway is like seventy-five feet away. You can literally walk away whenever you feel like it, though I wouldn’t recommend it.
The final thing that was impactful on me was the Book Purge. That, too, was a regular thing. So many inmates had books sent in, and they would ‘donate’ them to the library. After the severe lack of books in the SHU and my own personal feeling as an avid reader and somewhat regular writer, throwing away books is wrong no matter where you are. But that, too, wasn’t quite what it seemed. Let’s just say: Don’t judge an action by its cover or what it seems to be, and that will be yet another story for another time or blog entry.
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