Transcript
My Story in Short Form Let me tell you some of my story and you then tell me am I crazy? Or worthless? Or a bad person? My name is Michael John Reese. I was born 02-07-1982. to a 18 year old. single mother. She was poor. a community college drop out. with a g.e.d. diploma & no job, car, or drivers license. & truth be told did not know for a fact who my dad was. I was molested by my step dad Brian Reese from 3# to 5# years old. & my first memory was of my mom & her boyfriend holding me down at 3# years old & shoving Ritalin down my throat with two fingers as I choked. My second memory is of my step dad molesting me & beating me again at age 3#. My third one is step dad beating my mom in the kitchen & choking her till she turned blue. My step dad molested me so bad I had problems with pooing myself till I was 10 years old (It took that long for my sphincter to completely heal) & I wet the bed till I was 9 years old. My mom liked to tell me how disgusting I was because of this. & that I would never amount to anything and was worthless. She also beat the hell out of me & that is when I was home My first time locked up was at age 7# Eastern State Hospital for mental health evaluations. By order of the courts after the cops got called because she beat me so bad my whole left side of my face was black & blue. She told me to lie & say it was my fault. That if I didn't lie I would get punished & never come home again. I also went three times to Virginia Treatment Center for children. And was put in the hole many times for fighting with other inmates to keep from getting raped & beaten. The hole is a square room with no light. You're left naked there is nothing else in the room no toilet, no bed, no sink, no hole in the floor to pee & poo in. Nothing, when you need to use the bathroom you pick a corner & hope the floor is level because you will be sleeping in the opposite corner. Then it was P.R.I in Goochland County Virginia. And violence from inmates & sometimes guards. And oh yeah. E.C.T treatments. Electro shock treatments. And if you refused you got a beating a needle in your hip & woke up strapped down in the E.C.T chair anyway. (I woke up that way every time) I was for a short time then a ward of the State of Virginia at the time so no need of parental consent. Not that it mattered [.] Mom at the time was addicted to crack & was still getting a government check each month to take care of me. Ha! That extra $550.00 a month got a lot of crack. Me I was wearing donated clothing two & three sizes too big. Enjoying my beatings & E.C.T & oh yea getting put in drug trials for experimental mental health medications with fun time side effects like pain vomiting & for a friend blindness & kidney failure! Yay! Fun! Anyway, enough of my childhood. I got married at 20 years old to a 25 year old drunk named Deborah Morgan. We met on a blind date [.] She caused me more pain & shame then anything else in all my life. She got pregnant the child was born 4 & a half months early & died. I never knew if he was mine or not. (She was cheating every chance she got & prostituting herself as well behind my back[.]) I was in jail in Powhatan County Virginia when the child was born & died. Because her dad had me locked up for verbal assault over the phone I called him some name from Henrico county Virginia when he was on the phone in Powhatan. My moms Dad disowned me for marrying her among many other reasons & I was a fuck up from day one. And he & grandma did not hide that they wanted mom to have an abortion. As you can understand I developed a real drinking & drug use problem & P.T.S.D. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I got sent to prison with my first violent offense & my first felony at about 24# years old [.] I got attacked by a 18# year old man [named?] Michael Davis on Bell's Island in Richmond Virginia. We were both drunk & I had only known him about a month we got into an argument because I told him I could not help him anymore & did not need him as my helper at my work[.] He attacked me[.] I won. At one point of our drag out fight he shoved my face in a bonfire. And attacked me 4# times as I tried to walk away. I lost it. And I hurt him way more than I realized & left thinking he would move on & be ok. He was not ok. He was crippled for life & almost died. I did three years for it. I pled Innocent by Self Defense. The place we fought had only one way in or out[.] He attacked me & did so repeatedly when my back was turned. There were no weapons used & he had a violent adult history (a month before I met him it turned out he tried to harm his mom & dad with a knife because they would not give him money to get crack cocaine with!) & he changed his story under oath three times & cussed out the judge, prosecutor, & my court appointed attorney when they called him on it. Judge Stout told me he believed I was under serious threat of bodily harm & or death, however because of the severity of Mr. Davis's wounds he could not find me Innocent by Reason of Self Defense & sent me to prison for a term of 5 years with one & a half suspended over my head for life. I got out with a suspended drivers license thousands in court costs & fines two years probation homeless with no job & was not able to get into college or trade school in prison (I tried) & I was a construction worker with no transport not certified in anything post housing & bank downturn from 2008. In fall of 2013 I was just getting out of court ordered rehab at Rubicon in Northside Richmond, VA. Fellow addict showed me how to get Pell grants to pay for college [.] I did not know of such. I stayed in J.S. Reynolds community college all the way till the end of spring 2015. At which point I messed up bad. I had been double majoring in an associates degree in human services & a certificate degree in drug counseling. And I was unable to get a spot in but three of my needed classes that spring. Just barely getting the minimum credits needed to get a full refund check from the remaining money left over from my Pell grants & Stafford loan. I ended up missing two classes in one of my Introduction to Human Services classes. Normally I could miss up to 4#. And still pass. But I did not know it was a 8# week class not a 16# week one & so was put out of class. Yet I had already received my refund check & had used it to pay my part of rent to my roommate three months in advance as well as my phone (Metro Teleconnect prepaid un-limited data talk & text) & pay off my three $300.00 dollar limit credit cards. (in full) & my utilities to my roommate three months ahead & wi-fi satellite & got a new laptop for school & fun. Well when they later told me I owed the college about $3,400.00 I had to pay them back in full before I could get Pell grants or Stafford loans again. I still could not get work on the regular (which was all the more reason I was trying to change careers) & was living mostly off my college grants & loans. Well I ended up homeless by July-2015. My mom told me to move in with her till I got back on my feet instead of moving in with my friend [.] She told me she would not kick me out if I showed up drunk sometimes or got into trouble but would give me hell over it. (She is sober now & does not like drinking or anything else.) I got a job painting & after a few weeks got drunk with friends in town & got a disorderly conduct on a Friday & got released with time served on that next Monday by 3pm & found a note telling me I had three days to get my stuff out or it would be put into the trash [.] Homeless again. I lived in a tent for a few weeks lost my job & hitched a ride to Virginia Beach looking for work. Lived under some bushes till mid September & it had rained for a week [.] I was eating out of trash cans & food pantries. One day as I stood in line outside a homeless outreach center to get a shower & wash my wet moldy clothing & use the phone to make call's to try & find housing & work a man approached me & said he would pay me $100.00 each to cash checks for him. Like a fool. I did it. I got into his car out of desperation & despair. I knew something was not right. But I was desperate enough to ignore my common sense. I cashed 4# checks the first day in three counties in North Carolina. The second day I cashed two in Virginia in two counties. On the third week of September I got into a long term really good shelter called the Judeo Christian Outreach center then got a part time under the table job washing / detailing cars then on October 5th 2015. I got a job as a sales assistant at the I.M.A Telemarketing Firm on Virginia Beach Blvd. They would have been paying me about $800.00 to $1,200.00 a week take home pay with benefits. That night I got drunk at the beach by the Neptune Inn to celebrate. Got arrested for drink in public. & found out I had warrants in North Carolina in three counties. 8# months later I went to prison in N.C. In November 2016 I had just started a[n] accredited three month brick & block masonry class at Avery Mitchell prison & found out I was to be transferred to Virginia for warrants in two counties for checks I cashed the last two. And I never got to finish my masonry class much less start my approved free college correspondence course (accredited)[.] I was supposed to start them 1-15-17. Instead I've been in this jail the Meherrin River Regional Jail. a for profit private owned jail that has contracts with the VA, D.O.C. & the federal prisons & three local counties to hold long term inmates. They have no classes, no pre-release counseling, no nothing to better myself at all. & I got 10# years with all but 7 months suspended in South Hill county & one year probation & in Brunswick County I got 10# years with 8# suspended & indefinite probation [.] I now owe a total of $27,000.00 in court costs & fines spread out over 9# counties. In VA & NC have a suspended drivers license for non-payment of court costs & fines. & my release date is March 2019. I will be homeless. With nothing but the clothing on my back. No support network. I will have been locked up about 42# months [.] I'll be 37# years old. With no trade. If I don't get to prison which is 50/50 odds. I will get dropped off at a truck stop & if I don't get a place to live in 30# days I will be violated on my probation & locked back up. If I don't pay each of the county's $50 minimum on court costs & fines in my first 30 days I will be sent back to jail & or prison. My mom tells me she might let me sleep on her couch so if I do that I will have to walk on the highway for a day or two to get there. If I don't get arrested. & violated on my probation. Its illegal to walk on the side of the highway. I will have 9# felonies all but three from these checks. No education. & there is no homeless or re-entry programs in these counties. The counties that I have probation in & have never been here except to cash two checks & then to do my jail time [.] How am I going to get a job? Find a stable home? Make $450.00 every 30# days so to not get violated on my probation & locked back up? P.S. If you know of any solutions to my dilemma, please, please! Send them to me at Michael John Reese Meherrin River Regional Jail Alberta, VA 23821
