Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 1: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2: Good Evening. After three years in Europe, former journalist Carla
Speaker 2: Conti just wanted to settle her family into the suburbs
Speaker 2: of Philadelphia. But her high school friend Scott Powell, a
Speaker 2: lawyer handling a brutal prison stabbing case, needed a favor
Speaker 2: where she knew it. Carla became part of the defense
Speaker 2: team and miirred in the terrifying world of federal prison gangs,
Speaker 2: penal abuse, and corruption. Then, when she agreed to write
Speaker 2: a tell all book on the violent machinations behind the
Speaker 2: court case with Scott's client as an inside source, the
Speaker 2: stakes turned deadly. Two different prison gangs issued hit orders
Speaker 2: against the prisoner she and Scott now considered a friend,
Speaker 2: and the journalist and defense attorney were imperiled by association.
Speaker 2: Chaine Byrds is a true crime memoir of Carla's tenure
Speaker 2: journey to advocate for federal inmate Kevin Sanders and help
Speaker 2: them re enter society after prison. But the mission came
Speaker 2: at a cost, as Carla struggled to balance her own, Scott's,
Speaker 2: and Kevin's safety while writing an expose on the horrific
Speaker 2: conditions that led to the shutdown of an experimental prison
Speaker 2: program in Louisbourg, Pennsylvania. The book that we're featuring this
Speaker 2: evening is Chained Birds, a true crime memoir with my
Speaker 2: special guest, former journalist and author Carla Conti. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Carla Conti, Well, thank you so much for having me. Dan,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, and congratulations on this book, Chained Birds.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. This is my publication day, so I'm
Speaker 3: extra happy to be talking to you.
Speaker 2: That's great. Thank you. Let's go right to your first chapter,
Speaker 2: and you take us to June twenty eight, two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, and a particularly horrifying scene in this book,
Speaker 2: Bureau of Prisons at Water Prison in California and Jose
Speaker 2: rivera twenty two year old who really wanted to work
Speaker 2: for the California Highway Patrol. You say, and he had
Speaker 2: applied for that job. The California Highway Patrol tell us
Speaker 2: about Jose Rivera a little bit about his background and
Speaker 2: this high security penitentiary, and that he was a unit officer.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the circumstances of that day at work.
Speaker 2: June twentyth two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, Jose Rivera was a pretty new correctional officer
Speaker 3: at Water and he lived in the San Joking Valley
Speaker 3: near his family. He did a couple of tours in Iraq.
Speaker 3: He was just expecting a normal work day at Water Prison.
Speaker 3: The night before, a new inmate had come into intake,
Speaker 3: and he was from Guam, and he had a history
Speaker 3: of violence against officers in particular, and he was suspected
Speaker 3: of a murder in Guam, and his data was not
Speaker 3: recorded properly into a database that wasn't even really regularly
Speaker 3: checked by correctional officers. So Jose came onto his shift
Speaker 3: not fully aware of this situation with this new inmate,
Speaker 3: and he was also the only officer on duty for
Speaker 3: one hundred inmates on his unit. The BOP Bureau of
Speaker 3: Prisons was pretty understaffed throughout the country, and Atwater was
Speaker 3: no exception. So he was on his own. That was
Speaker 3: a Tuesday, I believe, and there were some inmates who
Speaker 3: had gathered. He was selling in a section with Asian
Speaker 3: and Pacific islanders, and they had made a fresh batch
Speaker 3: of prison wine, and Jose noticed that some of these
Speaker 3: inmates who had gathered before the afternoon count were intoxicated,
Speaker 3: and two inmates who ended up selling together, including the
Speaker 3: one who arrived the night before, were noticeably intoxicated. Jose
Speaker 3: started his afternoon count, and everybody needed to go to
Speaker 3: their cell and have the doors shut so that they
Speaker 3: could be counted. They're locked in for a short amount
Speaker 3: of time, and he started that on the lower level
Speaker 3: of his tier. And then when he arrived to the
Speaker 3: upper level of that tier, two inmates from Guam who
Speaker 3: were cellmates, and they were drunk. They had weapons on them,
Speaker 3: and one of them pulled out a weapon as Jose
Speaker 3: was about to try to put them in their cell
Speaker 3: and stabbed him in the torso, so Jose ran down
Speaker 3: the stairwell. Both inmates were in pursuit, and he managed
Speaker 3: to headbutt one of them on the stairwell bottom. A
Speaker 3: little bit of time, Jose made it to the bottom
Speaker 3: of the stairs, but then one inmate grabbed him held
Speaker 3: him down while the other inmate continued to stab him.
Speaker 3: So there were no other personnel on this unit. As
Speaker 3: people started to become aware of what was happening, they
Speaker 3: were able to see this through the unit door through
Speaker 3: the glass, but nobody could get inside because Jose had
Speaker 3: the only keys to the unit. There were a couple
Speaker 3: of other personnel, a unit secretary and another correctional officer.
Speaker 3: They were both females. They came upon the scene as
Speaker 3: Jose was being stabbed and they yelled and screamed at
Speaker 3: the inmates to stop, but to no avail, and they
Speaker 3: had nothing on them like pepper spray or anything that
Speaker 3: could have helped the situation. And finally, after a few minutes,
Speaker 3: someone arrived with an outside key, and people rushed in
Speaker 3: and they got the inmates off of Jose. They rushed
Speaker 3: him to medical. He ended up going to a hospital,
Speaker 3: but he died of his injuries. And that is the
Speaker 3: event that launched a special management unit all the way
Speaker 3: over in Pennsylvania as a misguided attempt to try to
Speaker 3: corral all these kinds of the worst of the worst
Speaker 3: inmates together to try to make the other prisons safer.
Speaker 2: You're right that the first. In February two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: the US Penitentiary in Lewisbourg in central Pennsylvania began receiving
Speaker 2: the first inmates for the new Special Management Unit program,
Speaker 2: the experimental you write s Special Management Unit program, And
Speaker 2: by the time it began, it was already full of inmates.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the powers that be within the Bureau of
Speaker 3: Prisons decided that this was going to be a new
Speaker 3: program and a way to try to prevent these episodes
Speaker 3: with Jose Rivera, and they started sending some of their
Speaker 3: highest risk, highest profile, most violent inmates to Lewisbourg. But
Speaker 3: the interesting thing I learned doing research for this book
Speaker 3: is that what happened at Atwater may definitely have resulted
Speaker 3: because the two inmates who attacked Jose were drunk, but
Speaker 3: they also had been able to fashion a shank out
Speaker 3: of stolen dishwasher parts from within Atwader. And also that
Speaker 3: terrible policy where Jose was the only one with a
Speaker 3: unit key, and the fact that he had no other
Speaker 3: officer working for him. All of those things together contributed
Speaker 3: to his specific tragedy and really had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with starting a whole new special Management Unit for all
Speaker 3: these violent prisoners. It was misguided from the very beginning.
Speaker 3: And I have not seen in any of my research
Speaker 3: anywhere else where somebody has connected those dots that led
Speaker 3: the SMU origin back to Jose Rivera.
Speaker 2: Now you have a chapter called the Snowball in Hell.
Speaker 2: Pardon me, and this is February twenty eleventh in Lewisbourg
Speaker 2: at the Special Management Unit and a inmate named Stephen
Speaker 2: OK Trombley twenty seven years old, and you take us
Speaker 2: to the G block Recreation unit and explain first before
Speaker 2: we start about explaining what happened that day, was tell
Speaker 2: us about the practice of the recreation cages and the protocol.
Speaker 3: Right. So, once the inmates arrived at the Special Management Unit,
Speaker 3: it was a very austere program with mostly twenty four
Speaker 3: to seven lockdown. The inmates were allowed out for recreation
Speaker 3: one hour a day, five days a week, and a
Speaker 3: shower three days a week, and that was the only
Speaker 3: time they were allowed outside of their cells. And thes
Speaker 3: were designed for just one person. They were the size
Speaker 3: of a parking lot, a parking space. Lewis Bourg's facility
Speaker 3: was just kind of a crumbling infrastructure and really not
Speaker 3: designed to house this many inmates under these conditions, and
Speaker 3: all of these men were very violent and they were
Speaker 3: on top of each other all the time, and so
Speaker 3: this led to a lot of inmate on inmate violence.
Speaker 3: Going to the snowball incident, we start with Stephen Tremblay,
Speaker 3: nicknamed Oki because he was from Oklahoma, and he was
Speaker 3: in a wreck cage, which the wreckages had earned the
Speaker 3: name Thunderdomes because there was a lot of fighting that
Speaker 3: went on in there. And Okie noticed a new correctional
Speaker 3: officer who was coming to unlock the wreckage, and he
Speaker 3: recognized him from a previous prison, and it was an
Speaker 3: abuser of his from a previous prison, Captain Dennis McDonald,
Speaker 3: and Oki, just on impulse scooped up some snow and
Speaker 3: slush because it had snowed overnight, and he threw the
Speaker 3: snowball at McDonald and before McDonald recognized who he was,
Speaker 3: he was taken off guard and fell down, and then
Speaker 3: Oaki was able to kind of kick him in the
Speaker 3: groin and all the other inmates were cheering him on,
Speaker 3: and then eventually other officers came in and removed Oki
Speaker 3: and planted him on the concrete, but McDonald swore vengeance
Speaker 3: and said in front of a lot of people, who
Speaker 3: can I put you in a cell with basically as revenge.
Speaker 2: Now you take us to the main subject of this book,
Speaker 2: and Kevin Sanders, also in Louisbourg in twenty eleven. Tell
Speaker 2: us about Kevin Sanders.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, Kevin came from the allan Wood United States
Speaker 3: Penitentiary High security really only twenty minutes away from Lewisbourg.
Speaker 3: He had been transferred right around the time of the
Speaker 3: snowball incident, and his story was interesting. He was involved
Speaker 3: with a Hispanic prison gang, the Montanistas, and he was
Speaker 3: a pretty high ranking official with the Montanistas in the
Speaker 3: Allenwood prison yard, but he refused a hit order given
Speaker 3: by the shot caller for the Montanistas to give a
Speaker 3: really good down to his friend. And because he refused
Speaker 3: that order, that put him in the hat is one
Speaker 3: of the ways that the inmates phrase it. He was
Speaker 3: in trouble with the Montanstas and the only way to
Speaker 3: keep him safe after that point was to move him.
Speaker 3: So he got moved to the SMU at Louisbourg, and
Speaker 3: when he arrived, it's very typical at federal prisons for
Speaker 3: inmates to fall in line with a race based gang
Speaker 3: for protection. That's just what happens. You kind of need
Speaker 3: the protection of somebody when other inmates want to cause
Speaker 3: trouble for you, But then you're also beholden to that
Speaker 3: prison gang and you have to do what they say.
Speaker 3: So he got absorbed into the white power gangs because
Speaker 3: he's a Caucasian, which is a little confusing because he
Speaker 3: spoke fluent Spanish and that's also why he kind of
Speaker 3: crossed gang lines and was a Montanesa at one point.
Speaker 3: But when he went to Louisbourg, he became part of
Speaker 3: the like An Aryan Brotherhood offshoot. Foot soldier clan Steven Tremblay,
Speaker 3: who threw the snowball, was eventually put into a wreck
Speaker 3: cage with Kevin Sanders and Kevin's cellmate, and the two
Speaker 3: of them were ordered to try to kill or give
Speaker 3: a really good beatdown or exact this hit order that
Speaker 3: came down from the shop collars of the Aryan Brotherhood,
Speaker 3: and that's how we ended up with that wreck cage assault,
Speaker 3: which is what led to assault charges being brought against
Speaker 3: Kevin and Kevin's cellmate and then Kevin's attorney, My high
Speaker 3: school friend became his public defender and pulled me into
Speaker 3: the case. So it all sort of started with the
Speaker 3: snowball which led to the wreck cage fight with Kevin,
Speaker 3: kevin cellmate and Stephen Trimblay that led to criminal charges
Speaker 3: and my high school friend becoming Kevin's attorney and he
Speaker 3: brought me into the case.
Speaker 2: Let's go back a little bit too, this wreckage itself
Speaker 2: and also just sort of the rules of the prison
Speaker 2: that you outline and the rules of these gangs, but
Speaker 2: ends up being the rules of the prison that these
Speaker 2: inmates follow. When you talked about this attack in this
Speaker 2: wreck cage with this Tromblay, you also talk about the
Speaker 2: rules that forced Kevin to participate in this, whether he
Speaker 2: wanted to or not. Tell us about these rules and
Speaker 2: how those rules worked in that regard.
Speaker 3: Yes, So as Stephen Tremblay was being led into the
Speaker 3: wreck cage that Kevin and his cellmate were already in,
Speaker 3: Kevin knew that this was not going to be a
Speaker 3: good situation because the Aryan Brotherhood wanted to send a
Speaker 3: signal to Stephen Tremblay. They were very unhappy with some
Speaker 3: of Stephen Tremblay's behavior inside the prison. So Kevin knew
Speaker 3: that the Aryan Brotherhood was going to want them to
Speaker 3: assault Stephen Tremblay, and he told Kevin told a correctional
Speaker 3: officer as Stephen was being led in, hey don't put
Speaker 3: this guy in here, don't do this. But the officer said,
Speaker 3: this is his assigned cage and this is where he's going,
Speaker 3: And the orders came from a higher up in the
Speaker 3: prison hierarchy. Kevin knew that once the three of them
Speaker 3: were inside and the yelling started coming down from the
Speaker 3: top tier windows of Louisbourg Prison that looked out onto
Speaker 3: the wreck cages, and the yelling coming from the shot
Speaker 3: collar in particular, hey get this guy, you got to
Speaker 3: take this guy out, You got to do this. Kevin
Speaker 3: knew that if he did not act or pretend to
Speaker 3: give a beat down, his cellmate, who had a shank,
Speaker 3: would have turned that shank on Kevin, because even refusing
Speaker 3: to participate in such a fight is disobeying the gang,
Speaker 3: and it's basically kill or be killed.
Speaker 2: Now, in this regard, everything is videotaped at this prison,
Speaker 2: So this assault is, this incident, altercation is videotape. But
Speaker 2: also just tell us about Kevin in terms of his
Speaker 2: attitude towards the gangs. Was he considered a gang dropout
Speaker 2: or tell us about this concept of gang dropouts.
Speaker 3: So he was a gang dropout of the Montanistas when
Speaker 3: he arrived at Louisbourg, but he was brought into the
Speaker 3: umbrella system of the Aryan Brotherhood, not a full fledged member,
Speaker 3: but just someone who was associated with them but still
Speaker 3: had to do their bidding. Just that clear association meant
Speaker 3: that he had to follow orders. And his cellmate was
Speaker 3: a very ambitious up and coming Nazi lowrider, one of
Speaker 3: the foot soldiers of the Aryan Brotherhood. So his cellmate
Speaker 3: was all too happy to make this assault on Stephen
Speaker 3: Tremblay that the air In Brotherhood wanted to have happened.
Speaker 3: Kevin did not want to do this, and he mimicked
Speaker 3: stabbing motions with his fist, but did not have a knife,
Speaker 3: and he was actually found not guilty of having a knife.
Speaker 3: They were never able to prove he had a knife,
Speaker 3: and he just mimicked those motions to make it look
Speaker 3: to the Aryan Brotherhood and everybody else that he was participating.
Speaker 3: But he did not do the stabbing that his cellmate
Speaker 3: did to Stephen Tremblay.
Speaker 2: Now you say that that he didn't do the stabbing,
Speaker 2: but we're getting ahead of the allegations that he did
Speaker 2: do the stabbing. Like I said, there is videotape of
Speaker 2: what happened. So let's talk about that videotape of that
Speaker 2: incident and the analysis of that, and then also the
Speaker 2: practice of the prison self every fourteen days to erase tape.
Speaker 3: Yes, so if you look at the videotape, it appears
Speaker 3: that he would be stabbing because he was making stabbing
Speaker 3: motions with his fist. At the end of the videotape.
Speaker 3: There is only one weapon found on the concrete floor
Speaker 3: of the cage, So that was the basis for the
Speaker 3: defense team's argument that he did not have a weapon.
Speaker 3: And yes, the videotape system at the time did self
Speaker 3: erase every fourteen days because there wasn't enough storage in
Speaker 3: the database, and neither Kevin nor his cellmate understood anything
Speaker 3: about that. If they had, they would have asked for
Speaker 3: it to be preserved because there was evidence on there
Speaker 3: that was in their favor, especially the very beginning where
Speaker 3: Kevin was warning the correctional officer who was bringing Stephen
Speaker 3: Tremblay into the cage not to put him in there.
Speaker 3: Kevin even used motions like, you know, moving his flat
Speaker 3: hand back and forth under his chin, which is kind
Speaker 3: of like a cease and desist, you know, universal gesture
Speaker 3: telling the officer not to do this. If that had
Speaker 3: been preserved on the tape, that could have been very
Speaker 3: helpful for his.
Speaker 2: Trial, just as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
Speaker 2: let's get to how the prosecution itself or the stabbing,
Speaker 2: this assault of this Trumblay. Let's get to how that's
Speaker 2: done and the controversy with the tape itself, as you
Speaker 2: just alluded to.
Speaker 3: Right, because Kevin and his cellmate were considered short quote
Speaker 3: unquot quote, meaning they had just a few years left
Speaker 3: on their sentence. That is the ideal type of inmate
Speaker 3: that the FBI would pursue charges for. They're not going
Speaker 3: to bother charging somebody who's a lifer or who's got
Speaker 3: twenty five years, but they go after these inmates that
Speaker 3: are short. And Stephen Tremblay did suffer a lot of
Speaker 3: puncture wounds, he had a collapsed long he spent a
Speaker 3: few days in the hospital. So it was a serious
Speaker 3: assault and Kevin and his cellmate were indicted and brought
Speaker 3: up on charges of assault with a weapon and other
Speaker 3: related charges.
Speaker 2: Tell us about your friend and attorney Scott Powell how
Speaker 2: he becomes involved with Kevin Sanders' case.
Speaker 3: So, my friend Scott was in private practice in Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: and he also served as one of the area's public defenders.
Speaker 3: And it was his very first federal prison case when
Speaker 3: he was called to come and represent Kevin at hearing,
Speaker 3: his first indictment hearing, and he had represented clients in
Speaker 3: state court before, but didn't know anything about the federal
Speaker 3: prison system. And he found it very eye opening to
Speaker 3: hear all about prison gangs and orders that you have
Speaker 3: to follow, and all of the things that led him
Speaker 3: to believe that if a jury heard these things, that
Speaker 3: they might see the situation for what it is. You know, one,
Speaker 3: certain rules happen in the outside world, but there are
Speaker 3: different rules that have to be followed on the inside.
Speaker 3: I believe Scott always felt that if all the evidence
Speaker 3: could be presented, that his clients stood a good chance
Speaker 3: at trial.
Speaker 2: Scott, right away, here's from Kevin that there's something missing
Speaker 2: from the tape. Right away, He's intrigued, isn't he very.
Speaker 3: Much so right, And he always felt that the tape
Speaker 3: when it was released to them on DVD and did
Speaker 3: not contain anything at the beginning that would have shown
Speaker 3: Kevin waving off the guard. Scott always felt that that
Speaker 3: had been selectively edited. He really felt for his client,
Speaker 3: who was clearly an underdog, and he was willing to
Speaker 3: take the case all the way if his client wanted
Speaker 3: to do that. And not a lot of public defenders
Speaker 3: would do this. I mean, there's usually a revolving door
Speaker 3: of pleading out, and certainly the prosecutor and the judge,
Speaker 3: they all would have loved this case to be pleaded
Speaker 3: out and not dragged through the legal system and to
Speaker 3: the stage of a trial. But Scott was willing to
Speaker 3: take it that far.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons was some of the revelations that
Speaker 2: Kevin Sanders gave to Scott. Like you say, he didn't
Speaker 2: know anything about the federal prison system, but he got
Speaker 2: a full dose of what goes on. And also Kevin
Speaker 2: spoke initially about participating guards in all of this debacle,
Speaker 2: specifically Captain McDonald didn't he.
Speaker 3: Yes, And Kevin wrote letters to Scott outlining all of
Speaker 3: these things, multiple letters and sometimes the letters didn't reach Scott,
Speaker 3: they were taken. Kevin was basically threatened for trying to
Speaker 3: reveal this kind of information to his attorney. Kevin was
Speaker 3: even told he was spending too much time with his attorney,
Speaker 3: and he was transferred out of Louisbourg at one point
Speaker 3: just to keep him away from his attorney who was
Speaker 3: trying to build a case for trial. So it was
Speaker 3: very illuminating for Scott to hear about all of these
Speaker 3: things that happen in the underbelly of the federal prison
Speaker 3: world related to gangs and how correctional officers often collude
Speaker 3: with them, and sometimes it's foreign vendetta, and a lot
Speaker 3: of times it's to help try to keep the peace
Speaker 3: because sometimes these prison gangs are the only ones who
Speaker 3: can discipline their own properly, and they all just kind
Speaker 3: of have an enabling relationship with each other, or they
Speaker 3: did at this time.
Speaker 2: But Scott, here's the whole story of how this story
Speaker 2: starts with the snowball and ends up with revenge by
Speaker 2: virtue of Captain Powell and this wreckcage situation.
Speaker 3: Yes, we very much wanted to try to tell this
Speaker 3: story of the snowball and Captain McDonald. But when they
Speaker 3: finally got to the point where witnesses were being subpoenaed,
Speaker 3: and this case dragged on for a little bit, Captain
Speaker 3: McDonald had retired and the Bureau of Prisons would not
Speaker 3: give our defense team his whereabouts or help us find him,
Speaker 3: and they didn't even let us know that he wasn't
Speaker 3: available until I think a few days before tryle So
Speaker 3: it was quite impossible to tell that version of the
Speaker 3: story to the jury. And in fact, Stephen Tremblay himself,
Speaker 3: the victim, had been transferred to a different prison and
Speaker 3: then deported to Canada, not even allowed back into the country,
Speaker 3: so he was not someone that we would have called
Speaker 3: for reasons like that. But also he was the victim,
Speaker 3: and at the time we didn't know what kind of
Speaker 3: testimony that would bring. We didn't have the full picture
Speaker 3: of the vengeance and Stephen Tremblay's role as far as
Speaker 3: what he thought had happened to him and why, so
Speaker 3: he would not have been a witness at the time,
Speaker 3: but things became clearer later on.
Speaker 2: Let's get to how you become involved. You're not in
Speaker 2: a atney. You're a journalist, so and you're a friend
Speaker 2: of Scott's So how do you become involved in what
Speaker 2: is your rule?
Speaker 3: So? Scott is my high school friend, and he knew
Speaker 3: that I was a journalist and I enjoyed making websites,
Speaker 3: and he figured that he needed a website and someone
Speaker 3: to write about his client to try to do some
Speaker 3: crowdsourcing and raise money for a defense expert. His judge
Speaker 3: was not allowing any public funds to be used to
Speaker 3: pay for an expert witness that Scott wanted to try
Speaker 3: to help explain what it's like in prison and prison gangs, etc.
Speaker 3: To a jury. The judge wouldn't pay for an investigator.
Speaker 3: It was very bare bone. So Scott reached out to
Speaker 3: me to ask if I would write about his client
Speaker 3: and put together a website in the hopes of raising
Speaker 3: money for Kevin. And that's how I started my involvement.
Speaker 3: And then eventually he asked me to be part of
Speaker 3: the defense team, and I offered my services pro bono
Speaker 3: and was almost like a Della Street to his Perry Mason.
Speaker 3: Then we eventually got a second pro bono person, Jack Bear,
Speaker 3: to join us, and we shouldered the burden together, the
Speaker 3: three of us.
Speaker 2: You just mentioned Jack Bear, So tell us who this
Speaker 2: prestigious attorney is. Jack Bear give us his background.
Speaker 3: Well, he is a figure larger than life. He and
Speaker 3: Scott had known each other for quite a while. They
Speaker 3: had tried a couple of cases together in federal prison.
Speaker 3: And Jack had seen the website and the stories that
Speaker 3: I had eventually posted about Kevin and was very compelled
Speaker 3: by his backstory and offered his services to Scott, saying,
Speaker 3: you know, he's happy to help a brother. He is
Speaker 3: a like minded libertarian like Scott is, and really roots
Speaker 3: for the underdog and likes to take on the system.
Speaker 3: And he said he would sit second chair pro bono
Speaker 3: if Kevin agreed, and we were thrilled to have him
Speaker 3: join the case because he was very experienced and it
Speaker 3: helped take off a lot of the pressure.
Speaker 2: Let's get to the strategy that you decide to all employ,
Speaker 2: and let's get to the explanation of justification for this. Say,
Speaker 2: many people would have liked this just ended up into
Speaker 2: a plea agreement. But you are trying something. Scott is
Speaker 2: trying something and Jack Bear trying something novel in terms
Speaker 2: of trying to prove there was justification explain that for us.
Speaker 3: Yes, So that was really the only legal strategy they
Speaker 3: could employ that Kevin was justified for doing what he did,
Speaker 3: or he would have faced certain assault, possibly killing in
Speaker 3: that wreck caage at the time, because his cellmate would
Speaker 3: have turned his shank on Kevin. And it was a
Speaker 3: novel approach at the time. It was brand new court
Speaker 3: case law that had just come down from the appellate court,
Speaker 3: and there were some very specific points that we had
Speaker 3: to meet, and we felt we met all of them.
Speaker 3: But it made it a very complex concept to impart
Speaker 3: to a jury because there was a preponderance of evidence
Speaker 3: standard and not just reasonable doubt. So it was great
Speaker 3: that we had that option to try, but it also
Speaker 3: made it more complex to try to impart that information
Speaker 3: to the jury.
Speaker 2: Part of this justification, you say, was, as you just mentioned,
Speaker 2: that the cellmate, the selly, would have turned on him
Speaker 2: if he didn't participate in the assault. But Kevin said
Speaker 2: that he didn't participate in the stabbing and just made
Speaker 2: the motions as you had already mentioned, but also that
Speaker 2: on the video the prosecutor was contending that he had
Speaker 2: reached into the back, into his back of his pants
Speaker 2: and secured a weapon. What did Kevin say in his
Speaker 2: defense to that allegation.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, So now we get into the business about
Speaker 3: what a kite is. Kit A kite, a kite in
Speaker 3: prison as a small piece of paper with sensitive information
Speaker 3: written on it, rolled up very tightly, about the size
Speaker 3: of a cigarette. And these kites can be flung underneath
Speaker 3: doors with a string attached, which is kind of where
Speaker 3: it gets its name, and passed down to a cell
Speaker 3: And Kevin was in charge of carrying a kite that
Speaker 3: had a lot of sensitive information that the Aryan Brotherhood
Speaker 3: needed to know, you know, inmates and their inmate numbers
Speaker 3: and various things about them, various things about correctional officers,
Speaker 3: what they called sensitive intelligence. So it was Kevin's job
Speaker 3: to carry the kite. It was Kevin's cellmate's job to
Speaker 3: carry the shank, and Kevin, what was not seen on
Speaker 3: the video was him reaching into his shoe to grab
Speaker 3: the kite where he stored it, and then something that
Speaker 3: you can see on video is a very quick motion
Speaker 3: where he has his hand in the back of his pants.
Speaker 3: And it was Kevin's contention that he stored the kite
Speaker 3: into a more secure location because there would be a
Speaker 3: very expected strip search and pat down following the type
Speaker 3: of assault that he expected to have happened.
Speaker 2: Also, Kevin said made allegations about certain guards, one being
Speaker 2: a officer named Shemp, that were testifying that they didn't
Speaker 2: get any signals from Kevin whatsoever, indicating that he didn't
Speaker 2: want and was warning them that not to put Tromblay
Speaker 2: into the cell, into the wreck cage.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, there were at least two correctional officers who heard
Speaker 3: and or saw the signals coming from Kevin not to
Speaker 3: put Trimblay into the wreck cage. But they lied on
Speaker 3: the stand. They cover for each other. It's typical. It's
Speaker 3: not something that made us happy, but we expected it.
Speaker 3: What are you going to do?
Speaker 2: Let's get to the point where in this prosecution, the
Speaker 2: idea of this videotape is. Kevin says that what they
Speaker 2: were showing and what you had seen yourself, was not
Speaker 2: indicative of the entire assault itself. Previous to the assault
Speaker 2: especially was missing suspiciously from the video. Tell us what
Speaker 2: he said was missing from that, and tell us about
Speaker 2: your defense team's fight to have and to look at
Speaker 2: and to observe that video in its entirety.
Speaker 3: Yes, Initially, the Bureau of Prisons could not even provide
Speaker 3: this video on a disc for us. It was a
Speaker 3: computer file that was in a proprietary format, and I
Speaker 3: was able to figure out how we could burn it
Speaker 3: to a disc so that we could look at it fully.
Speaker 3: And there was a hearing prior to the trial all
Speaker 3: about the video tape and whether there was exculpatory evidence
Speaker 3: that had been erased or it had been selectively recorded,
Speaker 3: and the judge ended up determining that nothing untoward had
Speaker 3: happened with recording that video, so that became part of
Speaker 3: the evidence that was allowed to be introduced at trial.
Speaker 3: And they were both Jack Bear and Scott Powell were
Speaker 3: able to hint and slightly indicate that there were things
Speaker 3: missing from it, but the video was quite damaging on
Speaker 3: its own. It was up to a jury whether they
Speaker 3: believed the story of what was missing from that video.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's important that Jesus as an opportunity to
Speaker 2: stop to hear these messages. Now tell us about the campaign,
Speaker 2: the motion to try to get an expert witness and
Speaker 2: obviously have the state paid for or that expert witness.
Speaker 2: But first off, what was the expert witness going to
Speaker 2: speak to specifically?
Speaker 3: Yes, Scott had found an expert that he really wanted
Speaker 3: to bring into the case, someone who had worked in
Speaker 3: the Special Management Unit and was very aware of all
Speaker 3: the things that go on in federal prison and that facility,
Speaker 3: in particular the hierarchy with gangs. You know what a
Speaker 3: shot caller is. When a shot caller gives an order,
Speaker 3: you have to obey. What happens if you don't obey.
Speaker 3: Scott felt it was very important to have a third
Speaker 3: party explain this world to a jury. Well, the judge
Speaker 3: wasn't interested in having any public funds be spent on
Speaker 3: an expert, witness or an investigator. I mean, Kevin was
Speaker 3: an indigent defendant and Scott was his public defender. So
Speaker 3: you know, a different client who was able to pay
Speaker 3: for an attorney would be able to have those things.
Speaker 3: But in the public system, the money had to be
Speaker 3: approved by a judge, and the judge said no. So
Speaker 3: at one point Scott said, fine, I'll pay for the
Speaker 3: expert myself. And this was a very expensive expert, like
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars expensive, and Scott was willing to pay
Speaker 3: that himself, and he wrote briefs and motions to this effect,
Speaker 3: and Jack Behar helped him, and the judge said, no,
Speaker 3: you are not allowed to bring in this expert witness,
Speaker 3: whether you pay for it or not.
Speaker 2: And you write about the not the behavior, but the
Speaker 2: treatment by Judge Anderson of your friend Scott in terms
Speaker 2: of almost being hostile and very much in opposition and
Speaker 2: confrontational in this trial, so much so that as a
Speaker 2: team you decided that Jack Bear would do the closing
Speaker 2: arguments just because the judge had seemed to have so
Speaker 2: much animosity towards Scott.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's how it certainly appeared to us. We don't
Speaker 3: know if it appeared that way to the jury. As
Speaker 3: I said, I feel that the judge had certainly wished
Speaker 3: this case had been pleaded out and not taken up
Speaker 3: space on his docket and in his court scheduling. And
Speaker 3: there were a number of hearings and appearances and then
Speaker 3: the trials, and it did go on for quite a while,
Speaker 3: so that had to be part of it. I know
Speaker 3: that Scott was extra glad to have Jack on the
Speaker 3: case after this animosity seemed to build, and it built
Speaker 3: in the way of briefs and motions and what you
Speaker 3: would read Scott type out for the judge, and then
Speaker 3: what the judge's response would be, in return, it was
Speaker 3: quite testing.
Speaker 2: There was four points of justification that they had to find.
Speaker 2: There was four specific elements of that affirmative defense. But
Speaker 2: in the end they said that regardless of whether he
Speaker 2: had stabbed him or not, whether he had a weapon
Speaker 2: or not, he was still guilty of aiding and a
Speaker 2: betting the stabbing of this inmate.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's ironically what it ended up coming down to.
Speaker 3: Even if we had met these four elements, the prosecutor
Speaker 3: was able to convince the jury that aiding and a
Speaker 3: betting superseded it all. And even if the jury didn't
Speaker 3: think Kevin had a weapon, and they did find that
Speaker 3: he did not, still it appeared that Kevin aided and abedded,
Speaker 3: and that's all they needed.
Speaker 2: The other concept that came up, and that's what they
Speaker 2: wanted the expert witness to testify to, was that in
Speaker 2: a combination of the bylaws or the laws of the
Speaker 2: prison itself, that Kevin acted in a sort of justifiable
Speaker 2: self defense because of the rules. And the judge said
Speaker 2: something to the effect that we all have to live
Speaker 2: by the same rules, and regardless of whether a prison
Speaker 2: has different rules, that we all have to abide by
Speaker 2: the same rules.
Speaker 3: That's right, And really it was almost talking out of
Speaker 3: two sides of your mouth, because he certainly had many
Speaker 3: cases appear before or him from Louisbourg prison. He was
Speaker 3: well aware of what went on behind bars, and at
Speaker 3: one point he claimed he didn't know very much about
Speaker 3: what happened, but the roster of cases he had before
Speaker 3: him would indicate otherwise. And of course there are two
Speaker 3: different worlds, and if Kevin had chosen to not follow
Speaker 3: the rules behind the bars of Louisbourg, he could have
Speaker 3: ended up being dead. So kill or be killed, assault
Speaker 3: or be assaulted. It's really disingenuous to say that it's
Speaker 3: not feasible to live in that world and not follow
Speaker 3: those rules.
Speaker 2: In the end, you all felt that the case was
Speaker 2: hampered by the lack of an expert witness and also
Speaker 2: the CEOs lying on the stand. And you say the
Speaker 2: general imbalanced favors the prosecution. In federal court, the jury
Speaker 2: is deliberating. You say that after an hour and a
Speaker 2: half or so they have a couple questions and regarding
Speaker 2: the four points of the justification. But you say about
Speaker 2: another hour and a half later they have a decision.
Speaker 2: The charges were assault with a dangerous weapon, assault resulting
Speaker 2: in bodily harm, possession of a dangerous weapon. Tell us
Speaker 2: what the verdicts are After about four hours of deliberation
Speaker 2: by the jurors.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was found guilty on all the charges except
Speaker 3: for having a weapon because there was no video evidence
Speaker 3: and they had no photographic evidence that he had a weapon,
Speaker 3: and we were pretty clued into their thinking when the
Speaker 3: jury came back with some questions. One of their questions was,
Speaker 3: what is the definition of imminent because one of the
Speaker 3: four points that we had to abide by for the
Speaker 3: justification was that he was in imminent danger and all
Speaker 3: the best anybody could come up with was reading a
Speaker 3: dictionary definition for them. And then one of the other
Speaker 3: questions was did all the jurors have to agree yes
Speaker 3: or no on every single one of the four points,
Speaker 3: And basically they did so if any of the jurors
Speaker 3: didn't feel that zero point three had been met, even
Speaker 3: if it was one or two, the whole thing didn't matter.
Speaker 3: We weren't able to prove our four points, and they
Speaker 3: would find him guilty on those charges. So he was
Speaker 3: found guilty on all the charges except having the weapon.
Speaker 2: You're right, before this you weren't completely confident in a
Speaker 2: not guilty verdict, and Jack had said that as well,
Speaker 2: he was somewhat optimistic. But you all said that you
Speaker 2: hug Kevin and promised to be working on the appeal.
Speaker 2: And then you say right after that, a few hours
Speaker 2: after the verdict, you visited with Kevin, shook hands, but
Speaker 2: that Scott had also mentioned to Kevin that he could
Speaker 2: file twenty two fifty five and he refused, what does
Speaker 2: a twenty two to fifty five? What does that stand for? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Ineffective assistance of counsel? Yes, thank you, And it's something
Speaker 3: that defendants will often file if they lose their cases,
Speaker 3: and that basically claims that their attorney screwed up, and
Speaker 3: they screwed up so badly that the court should consider
Speaker 3: appointing a new attorney or overturning the verdict. And Scott
Speaker 3: offered to even help Kevin write this motion, and Kevin
Speaker 3: said absolutely, no, no way. After everything that Scott did,
Speaker 3: in Kevin's opinion, going above and beyond representing him as
Speaker 3: an indigent defendant, Kevin said, no way.
Speaker 2: Let's just as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now you say he's in Douglas County Prison. He was
Speaker 2: awaiting his sentence for these charges. And while he was there,
Speaker 2: he was enjoying himself and doing one of the things
Speaker 2: that gave him great pleasure, and he exhibited a lot
Speaker 2: of talent and that was his artwork. And then after
Speaker 2: a short period of time, he was sent back to Florence, Colorado.
Speaker 2: Tell us about just the correspondence that you have with
Speaker 2: and the differences he notes from the two places, and
Speaker 2: his prospects he believes going back to Lawrence in Colorado.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, Douglas County Prison was Douglas County jail night
Speaker 3: and day from what he experienced in Lewisbourg with correctional
Speaker 3: officers who took their job seriously, but it was they
Speaker 3: were just more respectful to inmates, treating them more humanely.
Speaker 3: And Kevin thrived under that circumstance, and he was able
Speaker 3: to interact more with other inmates and spend time outside
Speaker 3: of his cell. And Kevin was a very talented artist,
Speaker 3: and he was able to convince the warden to let
Speaker 3: him have some prison painting projects, and those really filled
Speaker 3: his soul and it was great for the prison and
Speaker 3: It was a terrific circumstance, but he wasn't able to
Speaker 3: stay there for too long. When he got transferred to
Speaker 3: Florence in Colorado, a high security federal prison, everyone on
Speaker 3: the defense team was very concerned because there were grumblings
Speaker 3: from the Aryan Brotherhood about Kevin having testified at his
Speaker 3: trial and for some of the things that Kevin said
Speaker 3: about the gang at trial. I mean, that's one of
Speaker 3: the unwritten rules. You do not testify and say all
Speaker 3: these truthful things about the gang. And when he got
Speaker 3: to Florence, he found trouble in the way of one
Speaker 3: inmate in particular, who was posing as a dropout from
Speaker 3: the Aryan Brotherhood, but who was in fact sent there
Speaker 3: to take revenge out on Kevin for testifying.
Speaker 2: You write that his selly, his cellmate Diablo from another gang,
Speaker 2: offered him a knife for the fight, with a nine
Speaker 2: inch blade, and you write that Kevin said, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not a gangster. And so what he proceeded to do
Speaker 2: was to create what tell us about what he tried
Speaker 2: to create to protect himself.
Speaker 3: Yes, when Kevin learned that a cellmate from the Aryan
Speaker 3: Brotherhood of Texas send a Kent was looking around for
Speaker 3: a shank and meant to do Kevin harm. Kevin made
Speaker 3: himself a protective vest out of magazines he had tattoo
Speaker 3: magazines and other types of magazines, and he sewed them
Speaker 3: inside of a T shirt which he then sewed inside
Speaker 3: of a sweatshirt. And he was able to have some
Speaker 3: means of protection because he just assumed that this Aran
Speaker 3: brotherhood from Texas whose name was Tiny, ironically, and he
Speaker 3: was not Tiny. He assumed that Tiny would come after
Speaker 3: him on the open tier of the prison, and so
Speaker 3: he wore this stab vest underneath this sweatshirt every day
Speaker 3: for a really long time, just waiting to see when
Speaker 3: this knife fight might occur. And yes, his cell mate
Speaker 3: at the time in Florence Diablo offered him a knife,
Speaker 3: and Kevin said, no, I can't do that. I will
Speaker 3: just get into more trouble and I'll get more time
Speaker 3: added on to my sentence already. And Kevin's hope was
Speaker 3: that the stab vest and him fighting Tiny off with
Speaker 3: his bare hands would work well enough until officers could intervene,
Speaker 3: and that's exactly how it did end up playing out.
Speaker 2: He had some near fatal wounds as a result of
Speaker 2: this though didn't.
Speaker 3: He yes, right under his left arm pit, maybe an
Speaker 3: inch or two from his heart. He had a staple
Speaker 3: suture to help with that, and the nurse told him,
Speaker 3: you are lucky. Another inch and you would have been dead.
Speaker 2: Very interesting, you say, they throw him in the hole.
Speaker 2: He's in there for in early twenty fourteen, for eighty
Speaker 2: three days, nothing to do but draw and write to
Speaker 2: you and Scott. And he had also written a twenty
Speaker 2: five page letter regarding the hit itself. It's interesting too,
Speaker 2: you talk about that the cellmate now is sentenced. His
Speaker 2: name was his nickname was Arson, but his last name
Speaker 2: was Keys, and he is formally sentenced to five years.
Speaker 2: Before we go on, why is it exactly that Kevin
Speaker 2: was interested in trying to go to trial and risking
Speaker 2: something more than the five years that, for example, his
Speaker 2: cellmate got.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right that was a risk, and Scott conveyed
Speaker 3: this risk to Kevin, and Scott even brought an attorney
Speaker 3: friend in to meet with Kevin and underscore the risk
Speaker 3: of going to trial. And Kevin was determined. He really
Speaker 3: felt that he wanted to tell the truth. He wanted
Speaker 3: this information to come out in the public square, so
Speaker 3: to speak and he was willing to see how that
Speaker 3: would happen, and Scott supported him, and so, Yes, his
Speaker 3: cellmate Arson got a five year sentence because he did
Speaker 3: not waste the taxpayer dollars and the judge's time and
Speaker 3: the prosecutor's time on a trial for himself. Kevin ended
Speaker 3: up getting seven years because he did all of those things.
Speaker 2: It's interesting you say that Scott gets a copy of
Speaker 2: Stephen Tromblay's deposition and at some point he claims that
Speaker 2: he would be willing to testify on Kevin's behalf.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is something we learned after the trial, and
Speaker 3: it was something that would have been part of our
Speaker 3: appeal strategy. Yes, Stephen Tremblay had been deposed by a
Speaker 3: United States Assistant attorney from the Harrisburg re Agent by
Speaker 3: video link when Stephen Tremblay was in Victorville, California. And
Speaker 3: the primary reason for that is because Stephen Tremblay was
Speaker 3: suing the Bureau of Prisons over his injuries and it
Speaker 3: was a civil suit, and so the Bureau of Prisons
Speaker 3: was doing, you know, its part and deposing him. But
Speaker 3: the whole topic of the wreckage assault involving Kevin and
Speaker 3: his homemate. Arson of course came up because that's how
Speaker 3: he received his injuries. The FBI agents who came to
Speaker 3: see Stephen Tremblay right after the assault and then later
Speaker 3: on and this prosecutor who deposed Stephen Tremblay, they all
Speaker 3: wanted to know if Stephen Tremblay would testify for the government,
Speaker 3: and Stephen Tremblay said, no, I will not. In fact,
Speaker 3: I will testify for Kevin because it's my understanding that
Speaker 3: they had to do what they had to do, and
Speaker 3: Kevin was really just not trying to kill me, Like,
Speaker 3: thanks for not killing me. I understand what you had
Speaker 3: to do. So that was a whole, very interesting wrinkle
Speaker 3: that wasn't available to us for the trial, but it's
Speaker 3: something that we wanted to be able to use for
Speaker 3: an appeal.
Speaker 2: You take us. After this decision, he's being sentenced and
Speaker 2: he ends up meeting someone quite notorious in Orlando. Tell
Speaker 2: us who he meets in jail.
Speaker 3: Right after he was sentenced, Kevin was sent to his
Speaker 3: permanent home at the Coleman Too Correctional Facility near Orlando
Speaker 3: in Florida. And after he got off one of the
Speaker 3: con Air flights and he's on the tarmac in Orlando.
Speaker 3: He is sent to line up in front of the
Speaker 3: bus that will take him to Coleman and he's standing
Speaker 3: there next to someone who he hears grumbling about one
Speaker 3: of the officers in a real heavy Boston accent, and
Speaker 3: they exchange a couple of words. And then as all
Speaker 3: the inmates line up and they're getting onto the bus,
Speaker 3: they each have to state their name and their inmate number,
Speaker 3: and this Boston accented old man, he called him old School,
Speaker 3: is in front of him and he tells the officer
Speaker 3: on the bus what his inmate number is and says
Speaker 3: he's James Bulger and Kevin knows that that means Whitey
Speaker 3: Bulger and he cannot believe he is going to be
Speaker 3: sitting on a prison bus heading to the same prison
Speaker 3: new home with Whitey Bulger.
Speaker 2: You write further on that the appeal fails and you
Speaker 2: talk about Fall twenty and sixteen and Jackson B. Bear.
Speaker 2: Soon Jackson Bear dies, doesn't.
Speaker 3: He yes, very unexpectedly from a heart attack, And this
Speaker 3: was after the appeal was lost, and we knew that
Speaker 3: the legal case was ended. And he yes, he didn't
Speaker 3: live to see many things. It was shocking for his
Speaker 3: wife and family and friends and colleagues, and he never
Speaker 3: knew that this book had been written about this case.
Speaker 2: Interesting, you're right too as well, that Scott at some
Speaker 2: point during this thing had to take a job at
Speaker 2: a law firm. Tell us about him leaving this case
Speaker 2: to go to a law firm.
Speaker 3: Yes, he got very tired of being in private practice
Speaker 3: and did not want to be a public defender anymore.
Speaker 3: This case defending Kevin Sanders really wore him down, and
Speaker 3: he was not in a great place in his personal life.
Speaker 3: He had been going through a divorce and he just
Speaker 3: wanted a fresh start, so he had been looking for
Speaker 3: other firms to join. Still wanted to stay in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: and he ended up going to Pittsburgh and joined a
Speaker 3: firm there. But he really had to kind of start
Speaker 3: over in a way like a lot of the young associates.
Speaker 3: I mean, even though he was seasoned and much older
Speaker 3: than they were, he was given the same newbie tasks.
Speaker 3: You know, DUIs and simple, not very exciting cases to
Speaker 3: start out with.
Speaker 2: This story has quite an expansive time, and you take
Speaker 2: us to Keaven has got a release date. It's a
Speaker 2: few months away. He's going to go to a halfway house.
Speaker 2: You have been corresponding with him, You've been part of
Speaker 2: his life. He has thanked you for everything that you
Speaker 2: and Jack and Scott have done for him. You're continuing
Speaker 2: believing in him and helping him. So tell us about
Speaker 2: this this release that he is supposed to do and
Speaker 2: some of the fears that he has on the eve
Speaker 2: of that release.
Speaker 3: So he was supposed to be released a year, say
Speaker 3: a year to eight months prior to an official release date,
Speaker 3: to a halfway house, which is typical, and he was
Speaker 3: looking at that in April of twenty twenty. Well, we
Speaker 3: all know what happened. In the spring of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: COVID hit and that shut down you know, everywhere everything
Speaker 3: and including the halfway houses. That was just not available
Speaker 3: to inmates at the time. So he ended up having
Speaker 3: to serve his entire sentence. He finished it out at
Speaker 3: Coleman and was eventually released in April of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: And he had almost some premonitions ahead of that that
Speaker 3: he shared with me over the phone, worried about gangs
Speaker 3: that wanted retribution over him, and my first thought was
Speaker 3: the Aryan Brotherhood. He reminded me of the reason he
Speaker 3: left Allenwood to go to Louisbourg in the first place,
Speaker 3: because he refused to carry out a Montanista hit order.
Speaker 3: There was retribution wanted for that, and that worried him,
Speaker 3: and he found out that they still wanted that retribution
Speaker 3: when he got out of prison and off the prison bus.
Speaker 2: Within hours, you intercepted or met him along the way,
Speaker 2: gave him a five hundred dollars phoned gift card. Scott
Speaker 2: gave him his father's his late father's wallet with a
Speaker 2: thous dollars in it. So you were giving this young man,
Speaker 2: well not so young man, really, you were giving this
Speaker 2: person a real good start. And so but two days
Speaker 2: after that meeting, you hadn't heard from him, and either
Speaker 2: had Scott tell us what had happened.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was naturally suspicious after I got no further
Speaker 3: communication with him, when I knew his bus had pulled
Speaker 3: into the place where he came from in California, Valleeuew
Speaker 3: And it was maybe a week after that that I
Speaker 3: learned for sure from Scott that Kevin had been picked
Speaker 3: up and was jailed for an encounter that happened in
Speaker 3: a motel room. He had been able to call Scott
Speaker 3: from jail, and Scott relayed the information to me, and
Speaker 3: it was the first time of many that I had
Speaker 3: heard a version of the story that occurred, and the
Speaker 3: version included being at a motel near the homeless shelter
Speaker 3: where he was released to right, and a bloody showdown
Speaker 3: happening inside the hotel room because some Montanista associates were
Speaker 3: there to carry out this revenge for the gang leader.
Speaker 2: You also talked about, though there was a confusing bit
Speaker 2: of information where he said there was a hotel room,
Speaker 2: but they switched the room numbers, so it was a
Speaker 2: confusing tale. It seemed from this guy that all the
Speaker 2: other correspondents you had seemed a little bit more rational.
Speaker 2: So all of a sudden, this story was not seeming
Speaker 2: to line up, because there was different variances of this
Speaker 2: story in a short order.
Speaker 3: That's right. I was used to taking what he said
Speaker 3: at face value, and he seemed to be very paranoid,
Speaker 3: and really his premonition about being worried about the Montanesas
Speaker 3: seemed paranoid, But then it seemed to bear out, so
Speaker 3: that seemed to have veracity. And he told different versions
Speaker 3: of the story over the following months. As I was
Speaker 3: able to communicate with him, he came up with this
Speaker 3: version where his belongings were in room one oh four,
Speaker 3: but the bloody showdown happened in room four oh one,
Speaker 3: and the Montonesas moved his things from one o four
Speaker 3: to four oh one and this back and forth thing.
Speaker 3: And at that point he had been assigned a public
Speaker 3: defender for the state because there were state assault charges
Speaker 3: and a federal public defender, and those two attorneys were
Speaker 3: asking him, well, why don't you why do we have
Speaker 3: this confusion of four oh one and one o four,
Speaker 3: And he said, well, because there was beer and drug
Speaker 3: paraphernalia found in this one room and that wasn't mine,
Speaker 3: and meaning that if those things had been his, that
Speaker 3: would have been an immediate parole violation and he would
Speaker 3: have gone back to federal prison. So I started understanding
Speaker 3: that his substance abuse history, which you can still get
Speaker 3: substances in prison, was very much a part of his
Speaker 3: new persona being released on the outside side. And my
Speaker 3: eyes started opening a little bit as I heard these
Speaker 3: new stories.
Speaker 2: Now, also he included another phone call, and a very
Speaker 2: alarming phone call to you with some strange and disturbing allegations,
Speaker 2: tell us about that phone call.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, all through these years he and I collaborated
Speaker 3: on this book project. It was one of the things
Speaker 3: that kept him going. He wrote me so many letters
Speaker 3: and drew pictures and sketches and a lot of artwork
Speaker 3: for the book, and it was our collaboration project, even
Speaker 3: though along the way I had decided many times not
Speaker 3: to write the book because of the dangers involved. I
Speaker 3: especially didn't want him to have to look over his
Speaker 3: shoulder when he got out of prison all the time,
Speaker 3: because there was a book out there that revealed information
Speaker 3: that unhappy gangsters didn't want to be out there. He
Speaker 3: told me that on the bus people were talking about
Speaker 3: the book. Well, how can people be talking about the
Speaker 3: book if he doesn't bring it up. And then he
Speaker 3: told me that his possessions were taken inside that bloody
Speaker 3: hotel room, and that included his address book with my
Speaker 3: information in it and Scott's information in it. And he
Speaker 3: told me my life was in danger, and I was incredulous.
Speaker 3: I really didn't know how to respond, and I downplayed it.
Speaker 3: I said, what are you talking about? And he said,
Speaker 3: you don't think they would kill a prosecutor. And then bad,
Speaker 3: and I about killing you and Scott to get a
Speaker 3: message to me. And that's when I washed my hands
Speaker 3: of the book project for quite a while and really
Speaker 3: had to do some soul searching about my involvement in
Speaker 3: this case.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're right, did you looked at things differently? He
Speaker 2: also at some point had said that they had these
Speaker 2: gang members had Scott's mother. So it was a horrifying
Speaker 2: situation that you had first kept that information from your husband,
Speaker 2: but then it came out and he was concerned as
Speaker 2: well and called your friend, Scott.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is true. I don't like to burden people
Speaker 3: with things that maybe can't be helped or who knew
Speaker 3: how much of it was paranoia or actually true. And
Speaker 3: at one point everything culminated and became too much, and
Speaker 3: I did let my husband know more details than I
Speaker 3: had previously about exactly what Kevin said about the address book.
Speaker 3: And yes, then my husband had a talk with Scott
Speaker 3: and made me promise not to keep any more secrets,
Speaker 3: and I agreed, and we started to move on in
Speaker 3: our lives, and that included not writing the book. At
Speaker 3: that point, You.
Speaker 2: Right about Kevin. Now he finally those charges are dropped
Speaker 2: against him, and he's at this Crossroads Academy, and again
Speaker 2: you're in correspondence with him, and you'd like to help
Speaker 2: Kevin out. But the academy, the people officials at the
Speaker 2: academy tell you something about Kevin. What do they tell
Speaker 2: you and advise you?
Speaker 3: Yes, So this academy was a place that he could
Speaker 3: have gone while he was awaiting the state charges in California,
Speaker 3: which did get dropped. But he needed a place to live.
Speaker 3: And it was for homeless people and people with substance issues,
Speaker 3: addiction issues. And he met with the director of this
Speaker 3: academy and there was an interview and the director thought
Speaker 3: he would be a good candidate, and Kevin joined them.
Speaker 3: And I had a phone call with the director because
Speaker 3: I wanted to send Kevin some things that had been
Speaker 3: stolen that we had given him previously, a new phone,
Speaker 3: you know, some clothing, some toiletries, things like that. And
Speaker 3: the director asked me, he said, did you buy those
Speaker 3: things yet? And I said some of them. He said,
Speaker 3: return them. Don't do it. Kevin needs to stand on
Speaker 3: his own. You are just enabling him. When he's finished
Speaker 3: with this program. He could buy his own phone, he
Speaker 3: could buy his own car, he'll get a job, but
Speaker 3: he needs to stay in this program. And after my
Speaker 3: very long conversation, it was pretty illuminating, and I realized
Speaker 3: a program like that would be Kevin's salvation, you know,
Speaker 3: something that would almost replace the halfway house that he
Speaker 3: wasn't able to have. But he needed an outreach and
Speaker 3: a program that would help him with his substance abuse
Speaker 3: and help get him grounded and able to move in
Speaker 3: a good direction after prison. But that didn't last very long.
Speaker 3: Kevin wasn't there but for a few weeks.
Speaker 2: Yes, you say he left the program, and then he
Speaker 2: called again and he sounded better in that he had
Speaker 2: met a woman named Maria at a church. And then
Speaker 2: weeks later you write that he called you and said
Speaker 2: I'm getting married and said he wasn't afraid of using
Speaker 2: his own name or his face being out there, which
Speaker 2: you cautioned against because he said that God protected him.
Speaker 2: And that was the last time you spoke to Kevin.
Speaker 2: But you did speak to Maria. Tell us what Maria
Speaker 2: had said regarding Kevin and their relationship.
Speaker 3: Yes, they got into a very quick relationship. After Kevin
Speaker 3: was released looking for work, and Maria helped him get
Speaker 3: a job at her company painting, and they moved in together.
Speaker 3: She allowed him to move in. It was a very
Speaker 3: quick romance, and she acknowledges that her heart just ran
Speaker 3: away with things. But Kevin was very charming and they
Speaker 3: were happy together for that last summer that I had
Speaker 3: talked to him. But she started noticing some behavior changes.
Speaker 3: He started to become detached. He was less loving, and
Speaker 3: he also started to not eat, and he was getting
Speaker 3: very skinny. And she had an ex husband who had
Speaker 3: addiction issues, and she started to recognize that he was
Speaker 3: probably reigniting a meth addiction was his previous drug of
Speaker 3: choice before he was incarcerated for many years. And things
Speaker 3: came to a head one day she came home from
Speaker 3: work and he was in her bathroom with a homeless
Speaker 3: man shooting up meth with a hypodermic needle, and that
Speaker 3: led to yelling and screaming and shouting, and she kicked
Speaker 3: him out and she just stood up herself and said,
Speaker 3: you know, I deserve way better than this. This is
Speaker 3: just over. She kicked him out, and he threatened her
Speaker 3: and went off and had lost his job at that
Speaker 3: point because he wasn't able to really focus on anything
Speaker 3: except his next score and ended up living out of
Speaker 3: a stolen car, and she moved away to be with
Speaker 3: a sibling and needed to keep herself safe, and I
Speaker 3: supported that.
Speaker 2: Let's get to how you finally decide to complete this book,
Speaker 2: and more importantly, what you wanted to accomplish with the
Speaker 2: book now that you decided to complete it. What you
Speaker 2: thought this book most profoundly the biggest statement that it
Speaker 2: makes well.
Speaker 3: I always felt at the heart that it was bose
Speaker 3: on the SMU program at Lewisbourg, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: piggybacked on some prior reporting by NPR and the Marshall Project.
Speaker 3: They teamed up and had an expose of their own
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen. So my story covers many of those
Speaker 3: same abuse issues, but of course adds to it. I
Speaker 3: felt it was important to tell that part of the story,
Speaker 3: and there are many themes involved beyond prison. You know,
Speaker 3: substance abuse is one, childhood sexual abuse, unfortunately is another one.
Speaker 3: Kevin was a victim of that and also another one
Speaker 3: of the main characters. Yes, and the themes just seemed
Speaker 3: to all run together and form a story that needed
Speaker 3: to be told, and it was a way of getting
Speaker 3: closure for myself in this dark chapter in my life
Speaker 3: to put pen to paper and put it out there.
Speaker 3: So it's out there. It launched today, and I hope
Speaker 3: I've done justice to some of these themes. I've had
Speaker 3: some early readers tell me that they resonate the sections
Speaker 3: on the abuse, and so I hope I've done justice
Speaker 3: to that. And really to also give a voice to
Speaker 3: the voiceless. I think people who are incarcerated, men and women,
Speaker 3: they have no agency. Nobody wants to know what goes
Speaker 3: on inside of prisons, and maybe through infotainment some of
Speaker 3: this information will become more well known.
Speaker 2: One last question. You seem to be at some point
Speaker 2: very disappointed in how Kevin turned out of the fate
Speaker 2: of Kevin Sanders, because you had so much optimism in
Speaker 2: his character and him be able to overcome all of
Speaker 2: the things that he encountered in being in prison most
Speaker 2: of his life. You say, the last sentence he had
Speaker 2: was eleven years, so you thought there was hope his
Speaker 2: artistic abilities, some of the things he had done. His
Speaker 2: attitude was not to happen, was it.
Speaker 3: No? And he had gifts and skills that so many
Speaker 3: inmates don't have, and he had an opportunity. I mean,
Speaker 3: he had someone who loved him and gave him a
Speaker 3: home and helped support him, and for a time he
Speaker 3: and Maria were a very happy domestic couple. But that
Speaker 3: pull toward substance abuse and the mesta, mean, that was
Speaker 3: a big part of his prior life. That pool was
Speaker 3: just too great and he couldn't resist it. He didn't
Speaker 3: want help for it, even though help was offered. And
Speaker 3: it's such a tragedy that he had all of these
Speaker 3: positives and pluses in his life, and yet he couldn't
Speaker 3: get out of his own way because of the meth
Speaker 3: to give himself that happy life on the outside that
Speaker 3: he always dreamed of.
Speaker 2: What was the reason for the book being called Chain Birds?
Speaker 2: And you provide a diagram of Chain Bird's artwork on
Speaker 2: the cover of this book. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3: Yes, the book is titled mostly after a sketch that
Speaker 3: Kevin had drawn of a predatory bird, an eagle. It's
Speaker 3: a lovely black and white sketch that you see on
Speaker 3: the cover of the book. The bird is perched on
Speaker 3: a branch and it has a chain around its foot
Speaker 3: and a chain around the branch, but the chain is
Speaker 3: broken and I always found the drawing very haunting. It's
Speaker 3: kind of like, why isn't the bird flying away? He's
Speaker 3: not chained anymore. So I thought that that would make
Speaker 3: an ideal title when I eventually decided to write the book,
Speaker 3: and one of my early readers for the manuscript was
Speaker 3: my mother, who was a retired English teacher, and she
Speaker 3: told me that my title at the time, chained Bird Singular,
Speaker 3: was utterly misleading, that of course Kevin was the chained bird,
Speaker 3: but also Scott and I were chained to him and
Speaker 3: to each other. We were all chained birds for various
Speaker 3: reasons and another. And of course she was right, so
Speaker 3: the title became Chained Birds.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely appropriate. Thank you so much. I want to
Speaker 2: thank you so much for this interview regarding your book,
Speaker 2: Chain Birds, a True Crime Memoir. This is a Wild
Speaker 2: Blue Press release. Can you tell us if there's a
Speaker 2: Facebook page or a website if they Could you do
Speaker 2: any social media?
Speaker 3: Yes, I have a blog under my name Carla Jean Kanti,
Speaker 3: and all my social media handles are Carla Jen Kanti.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty easy to look up.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Carla Kanti. Chain Birds a True
Speaker 2: Crime Memoir. Thank you so much for this interview and
Speaker 2: you have a great evening. Thank good night, Thank you Dan,
Speaker 2: thank you