Transcript
The Threats and Lies Continue April 28: Sergeant Brakenbury tells me that she destroyed the evidence in my PREA complaint. She also claimed that I can't publish on free websites like www.PrisonsFoundation.org because "it's still a business." The reference is to a NYS DOCCS rule that inmates aren't allowed to "run a business." The staff here are using this to claim that inmates aren't allowed to make money from anything they do in prison. Executive Law 632 draws a clear distinction between "earned income" and other sources of money, and further defines earned income as money from one's own labor or running a business. The law is clear: I can even write about my own case, and make money therefrom, but that money can be claimed by crime victims. To say that I can't earn anything is to deny crime victims the opportunity to be compensated. April 30: The attacks continue. Lt. Rice confronted me with my PREA retaliation grievance and hit me with a blizzard of lies. A sergeant chimed in, mocking me as "the hero of the dorm," which was repeated by Rice as well. Prison rape culture is so deeply rooted that anyone who dares to oppose it, to try and save a young man from being raped, is subject to denigration and hate. Didn't I do something GOOD? May 15: In response to a letter I wrote to Superintendent Crowley, she sent a captain and the PREA Deputy Superintendent to repeat the same old lies and threats. I didn't believe them, or submit, when sergeants and a lieutenant said them, so why does she think I'll believe them now? I know the law, and know my Constitutional rights, and I know how to litigate. Of course, I can't litigate, because DOCCS officials have told me in writing that they will retaliate against me if I do so. I told the captain that no inmate dares to report the February 6 incident, in which an inmate was dragged across the compound with his pants and underwear around his ankles, because everybody knows that retaliation is certain. Chillingly, he said nothing to refute this, tacitly confirmed that I was right. Neither he nor the PREA Dep contradicted me when I said that I knew that retaliation was coming against me. No real investigation will happen? Why did the PREA Dep not talk to me even once since January? The answer is that Governor Andrew Cuomo does not properly supervise his subordinates. Rot starts at the top. He got rid of the Attorney General quickly enough when bad publicity threatened, but when prisoners are the victims, nothing happens. How else can criminals tell me, in writing, that they will retaliate against me with physical force if I report their crimes to the FBI, yet keep their jobs? That's called "obstruction of justice," a Federal felony. What will Cuomo do?
