Читать книгу Sold Short In America - Richard A. Altomare - Страница 9

So many of these individuals are psychologically damaged and so very ill. It is tragic that this is the rehabilitation solution which best serves our society and them. Fortunately, they have the non-contacting mad-hatter psychologist or my inattentive counselor to guide them through their various issues and to return them to society, improved.

My caloric intake seems like an afterthought to these surround melodies, but during this questionable incarceration, I try to find some other things to report to you.

Although I believe "on paper", (like the legal visiting room availability) they serve an adequate caloric intake for prisoners to maintain their weight, I only eat about 700 to 900 calories per day. Let's once again try to go through a typical day, (estimated of course).

My breakfast has been exactly the same each day - one packet of cereal (90 calories), half-pint of milk (80 calories) and either a tangerine or a slice of some canned fruit (60 calories), Total calories = 230.

My lunch may include potato salad or macaroni salad (inedible because mayonnaise and unsanitary conditions plus heat heighten my fear of getting sick), salad (1/8 cup normally hot - I also pass). That leaves the rice and the vegetable and sometimes mystery meat. Estimated Total Calories = 300.

Dinner is pretty much the same except sometimes I do get a tangerine. My breakfast milk container is my cup for water at lunch and dinner. Estimated Total Calories = 300.

Some of the positive effects of my "visit" to observe the prison system is no snacking, a little more forced reading, more Bridge Solitaire than I'd like to say and more push-ups and sit-ups while I drown out the sounds and the loss of some weight. How much have I lost? I'm on the clinic "list" to be weighed.

As I wait to see if the elevator is "working" today, I know now that it is selectively working "depending” if the guards want to "work" themselves. I hope we can have an investigation just to help those who may never have the opportunity to question this type of power abuse.

Abuse of power by the SEC and one Judge is what placed me in this institution in the first place. I guess it is shortsighted of me to think that the same ethical guidelines in the same Department of Justice wouldn't remain consistent.

My company was attacked ten years before we all read, just recently, about Bear Stearns and our stock financial meltdown caused by what is today called naked short selling. Naked short selling is the counterfeiting of a public security with no intention of ever buying or delivering that stock certificate. Naked short selling results in more shares trading than actually exist or that have been issued by the company. The stock normally devalues and more often than not the company goes out of business. Over six thousand developing companies have failed during the past few years.

Those traders who have sold what they did not own pocket the profit. They do not even have to cover their sale (or produce the certificate) because the company is then out of business. No taxes are paid on the pure profit made by the counterfeiters. Such companies are normally "attacked" as well by vicious lies on the uncensored internet during the process.

We took our case to the Florida courts. Although highly unusual, we were the only American company able to identify some of the crooked counterfeit sellers. We were able to prove the existence of naked short selling to two Florida juries and were awarded approximately $700,000,000 USD for our shareholders. We were finally able to explain why our stock price was decreasing while the company was continuing to grow and improve. More on this to be discussed later, but for now let me continue my prison expose′ while I am being wrongly incarcerated.

As I was watching the steel cell doors close today, I had to think of claustrophobia. How horrible that problem would be for an inmate confined as I and others have been.

Take away my legal visits, my writings, my books, my self-created games and it's easy to understand some of the literary stereotypes of prisoners from Papillion to Shawshank Redemption and to “Escape from Alcatraz”. We really haven't improved the process of rehabilitation and healing. It appears that these are buildings of societal confinement and other forms of socialistic welfare. We justify inconsistent law enforcement, unconstitutional legal court processes and we keep the prisoners in the same type of place as we did in the Eighteenth century.

The constant yelling and bantering during the daytime is more annoying than my evening symphony of psychopaths. Trying to read, pray, concentrate, even exercise is constantly interrupted by the immature "playing", "teasing", "yelling" and childlike bantering which replaces actually working as the guards daily activities. I wonder how long a sensitive, intelligent, caring officer remains that way before they either acquiesce or shut down. It seems to me that the better doctors should be where they are needed most. The better psychiatrists are really not here. I look in the inmates’ and guards’ eyes. The guards are part of that welfare and political patronage cycle of intellectual poverty that we have permitted to exist in our society.

It's been many days and my nails and hair are beginning to make me look like Howard Hughes!

These two grooming services are not permitted without the counselors or a CO presenting a request. You get on the "list". This "list" seems like a "permanent record" in high school. I believed in that high school list - I am having some difficulty believing in these prison "lists".

Some of the guards do nothing and they don't hear, or choose not to hear you screaming at the cell door because that is the only way you may dialogue with them.

Still no first phone call. Today I met, during my post legal visit strip search, a young man who couldn't call anyone to even tell them where he was. He wanted to speak to someone but the same counselor told him he can make one call every thirty days. So much for being able to inform family and legal defense. The system is designed to house criminals and it shouldn't be a hotel, but with Sixty Billion Dollars budgeted annually, an effective prison system should prevent more criminals. Do they want that? There are many questions to be asked like eight salaried “suits” discussing the moving of a bunk bed and not enough Counselors (or at least caring ones). Believe me, I would tell both sides of this story if there was another side. It's broken.

Everything that you have read, from the night screaming to the lost and overwhelmed guards to inmates appearing even brighter than the guards, are my heartfelt observations. I may be here longer - so I will report positive or professional actions when they occur. There just hasn’t been that many to report. Therefore, I decided to write a letter to myself.

Dear Me - On the eve of your second week anniversary in solitary what are your thoughts?

Dear You - What have I learned? Well I'm stronger and more resolved than even I thought I was. I haven't found religion or taken an oath to say what I don't believe. I guess if others can do it - so can I. Whether it was growing up in 1950's Brooklyn, Marine Corps training, multiple businesses, politics, sports ownership or simply being almost sixty - that combination, coupled with complete confidence that the forces of God must have a reason for giving this opportunity to me, convince me that this is an opportunity . When I win the Appeal, my life will shift into tenth gear.

I say tenth gear because, to date, I have lived what others would explain to be a very full life. This legal victory can activate me to a new level permitting me to act as a positive enabler for so many regulatory issues and so many worthwhile causes.

In two weeks I've learned I can absorb what others could not. I believe that God is present in every religion and that they are all connected and not different. I know that someone really loves me in this dimension and the next. Upon reflection, I am happy with my journey to date, and have no painful regrets from these SEC events, that have not crept into the silence of solitary. I have been given time. I am not doing time.

I have learned that previously I, like most of us, ate too much and I can get by with less. I have learned that I can survive easily on basics and adjust as quickly as anyone else, despite my privileged life style.

I have flourished in solitude due to my belief in the righteousness of my actions prior to that solitude.

I feel sorry for those who have made prison their world - that now includes staff, inmates and Judges. Guards actually report to prison every day for twenty or more years.

I have found I can live without things I didn't think I could live without.

I have realized the depth of the love and attachment I have to my family and friends.

I do not fear the unknown of this experience and I find this solitude to be similar to a religious retreat. I appreciate the "time" life has given me. It certainly stopped my familiar world and introduced me to an unknown one. That unknown world has required a resetting of who I am and what I will do.

I didn't lose my optimism, my sense of humor and my expectation of my personal performance. Hence my disputes with prison employees and the Judge who wrongly put me here continue to be presented in this diary.

I am hopeful if the Judge continues his persecution based on his loyalty to the SEC and not to the law, his personal goals and dreams will be stopped, not by his judicial limitations, but by the will and actions of this writer and his supporters.

Today my stay in MCC (which I am told by the guards means more charges coming) took an unfortunate but expected turn of events. My frustration with my three (3) named counselor, Mrs. Andrews or Mrs. Compton or Mrs. Johnson, who has accomplished nothing except to frustrate or confuse this already broken system, heard that I had told another CO that "anything she was paid over a dollar for her services was a waste of taxpayer's money". She told me today, "Remember your $1 dollar statement and see how much help you get now."

This level of bullying behavior is reprehensible. I guess for telling the truth, I was put in here by a Judge thinking the Constitution was his alone to interpret and I now have a psychotic three named counselor teaching me a lesson for expressing my frustration at her inefficiency, inactivity and her professional burnout. It's just like the organization I sued. Remember I was the plaintiff in this silencing effort of the SEC regarding my naked short selling expose’.

Whatever the consequences of this truth, I will deal with it, just as I am forced to deal with the ignorance of this punishment. Over a thousand financial pages have been presented to the Judge. Civil Contempt is not an inability to understand the documents but a person's unwillingness to cooperate with the system. I cooperated fully.

When I win the reversal - who gives back our company, who gives me back the prison time and who finds jobs for my hundreds of loyal employees and who will recapture the stock valuation for our tens of thousands of shareholders?

The Judge and his broken system have tried to destroy, rob and then crucify those of us unwilling to acquiesce. Similar to Naked Short Selling isn't it?

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is in charge of protecting the sanctity of our trading system. By the way, the SEC is paid for every stock transaction, real or counterfeit. They denied the existence of naked short selling and immediately began to harass this whistleblower with subpoenas and actual business interference. The SEC and friends planted stories on the internet and in some newspapers; indicating their "suspicions"; although for 17 years they accepted and approved all filings of quarterly and annual reports from my model company without question or comment.

Following the advice of my General Counsel and outside legal team, my company sued the SEC and they "suddenly" decided, within hours, that our company had been reporting "improperly" for the past fourteen years. My company knew it had functioned properly and provided the proof. We filed an Appeal to question the government's attacks and their vindictive questionable claims. All appeals were rejected by the same judge.

The judge assigned to our case was a former Justice Department prosecutor. He is appointed for life with a reputation of never biting the hand that feeds him.

The Judge ruled no trial was necessary.

The Judge ruled no appeal could be heard in his Court.

He, without a trial fined my company $30,000,000 and fined me $3,000,000.

He refused a "stay" while the company appealed to a higher Court, and he ordered every officer to step down immediately.

He even banned me from working in a similar capacity for life in America.

Did you ever hear of such a verdict?

Sounds pretty draconian? Then the SEC seized control (yes, seized) and shut down our fine company in days by a questionable receiver who constituted yet another layer of corruption, ignorance, and sub-standard credentials. Despite her inaccurate reports on our company, she never told the Court she represented naked shorters and was herself the target of lawsuits on those matters. Comparing this woman’s looks and intelligence (respectively) to Phyllis Diller and a monkey would be unkind to Ms. Diller and the primate. She dismantled our fine company in days like a monkey throwing a complicated computer around in its cage. The monkey then threw the computer in the water and subsequently claimed that it didn't or never worked. What were we doing for the past 17 years? What did reports like the one at the back of this story say about our "too complex for her to grasp" unique company?

Countless eye witnesses have come forth to report on her vindictive actions. But, nobody listens when three or four writers, working in unison with the SEC, post inaccurate articles supporting the sanctimonious stand of those dismantling power-abusing bureaucrats? The SEC receiver liquidated (yes, liquidated) the company for pennies (to her friends?). They shredded (yes, shredded) the company's documents (before the appeal!). The SEC itself then seized the $700,000,000 judgment. It cancelled the original case by the company against the SEC. Let's go back to the diary, before I get too angry to think clearly.

By the way, I promised positive stories when they occurred. I was promised by the education director, my counselor and one of the “suits” today that books would be sent to my isolation cell.

No books from any of the three employees have arrived today. I continue reading the Bible and unfortunately I keep re-reading "We're All Doing Time". Of course, multiple pages are ripped out so I guess I'm reading "We're All Doing Some Time" with hundreds of pages removed through old age, usage or vandalism.

It is important to note that although I had been mechanically lucky in my cell until today my prison water is now inoperable and my toiletries are still not here - but I'm not worried because I'm on the "list" for toiletries.

One Chicken Pox infected cell neighbor is now getting medical attention for dehydration - I guess being unconscious can move you up on the medical "list". What a cracker-jack run organization.