Becoming Jewish in prison was a very popular thing for prisoners to do, not because anybody was necessarily in search of spiritual enlightenment, but because Jews got higher-quality kosher meals, as well as candies that nobody else got. The scam worked like this: you approach the chaplain and say that one of your grandparents was Jewish and that you’d like to explore your Jewish heritage. The chaplain asks if you intend to become kosher, you say yes, and he schedules a short “test” for you. You do some rudimentary reading into Judaism, then you take your test. “Who was Abraham? What is Moses known for? What does kosher mean?” Answer those questions correctly and you’re a Jew!
So what did being Jewish get you in prison? Several desirable things were yours for the asking. First, you got the kosher meal three times a day rather than the inedible slop that everybody else got. Breakfast was oatmeal, wheat bread, butter, jam, and fresh fruit, while everybody else got loose grits, a small piece of cheap yellow cake, and a hideous piece of fruit that would be thrown away in a store. Lunch was often fish—tuna or sardines, for example—while the rest of us ate sloppy Joes or three different starches. Dinner was usually a meat—chicken, a sirloin burger, or sliced turkey—along with beans, a vegetable, and a dinner roll. The rest of us ate cheap Mexican. The Bureau of Prisons spends about $0.85 per meal per prisoner. But kosher meals cost $4.00, and it showed.
Besides daily meals, Jews got extra treats. Around the High Holy Days every Jew in the prison got a box of matzo every week, a large heavy bar of Israeli chocolate, a fistful of hard candies, and the most coveted treat in prison—a canister of chocolate macaroons. Many fake Jews immediately set out to sell their treats. The matzo went for three bags of mackerel (about four dollars.) The candy bar and macaroons each went for a book of stamps ($7.00 if used to gamble or $9.80 if bought legitimately.) It was a ready-made source of income, especially if you got no money from home or if you liked to gamble. Not bad for doing nothing.
None of the fake Jews went to Friday services in the chapel. An outside rabbi came in occassionally to lead services, and a couple times a year he’d look at the list of Jews, note the people he’d never met, and declare that they were not Jews. When that happened, they would lose the meals, the treats, and the catered dinners on the High Holy Days. Then they had to start the whole process all over again.
In the chapel, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed Jews were all represented. (There is a separate prison in Connecticut for ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic Jews.) The outside rabbi was Orthodox, but he didn’t normally come on Fridays, and services were led by an inmate “faith coordinator.” This caused unending problems.
The Jewish faith coordinator at Loretto was a seventy-year-old child molester. A former resident of Chicago, he had arranged over the Internet to “buy” an eleven-year-old girl from the child’s drug-addicted mother. He repeatedly emailed the mother, who was in Atlanta, admonishing her to make sure the girl did everything he would tell her to do once he got to Georgia, and added that he wanted to be her “naughty grandpa.” As it turned out, there was no eleven-year-old girl, and the drug-addicted mother was a male FBI agent. The soon-to-be prison faith coordinator got fifteen years. He’ll probably die in prison, where he rediscovered his faith and set himself up as the go-to guy for Judaism.
Two years into the position, another devout Jew arrived to challenge “Chicago” for his position. A forty-eight-year-old Philadelphia attorney and wealthy philanthropist named Kenneth Schaeffer arrived at Loretto in 2013 and immediately got involved with the chapel’s Jewish group. A gay child molester who raped a Russian boy as many as four times a week for six years, Schaeffer was convicted of violating the Mann Act for bringing the child to the United States and raping him here, and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
As sedate an inmate as Chicago was, that’s how pushy and aggressive Schaeffer was. He immediately lined up all the Jewish pedophiles, organized a coup, and tried to replace Chicago as the Jewish faith coordinator.
All of this backbiting and political infighting infuriated the non-pedophile Jews. Two who were especially strident in their opposition to having either Chicago or Schaeffer as their faith leaders came to me for advice. I told them what I had learned in my years in intelligence operations: “If stability is not to your benefit, chaos is your friend.”
I first met Kenneth Schaeffer, although he was calling himself “Kevin,” in April 2013. It was Robert, yet again, who brought another unvetted person to meet me. Schaeffer was looking to move from the overpopulated Central 2 down to Central 1 and he knew that there was an empty bed in my room. (This was just before Erik moved in.)
Schaeffer made a good first impression, prison-wise. He used polysyllabic words and spoke in a manner I could understand. He didn’t finish each sentence with “you know what I’m saying?” I learned in my later research that Schaeffer had earned a Bachelor’s degree at the University of Chicago and a law degree at Harvard. He was a successful attorney specializing in mergers and acquisitions, and was based in London. I was excited that someone wanted to move into the unit with whom I might be able to speak.
Still, in prison, you always have to be careful who you’re dealing with, especially in a prison which by all accounts was at least 25 percent pedophiles, including a clear majority of whites. I asked Schaeffer what he was in for. His response was “it’s complicated,” at which I rolled my eyes. Wrong answer.
Let me take a moment to talk about what it’s like to have a pedophile or child molester living in your room. They associate exclusively with other pedophiles, so there’s a constant stream of perverts coming into and out of your room, even when you tell them repeatedly that chomos are not allowed visitors; they talk about their cases incessantly in an effort to relive the thrill of their crimes; they trade seminude photos of “barely legal” eighteen-year-olds; they cut out and trade photos of children from the Toys “R” Us catalogue, Parenting magazine, Disney Magazine—any magazine with young children. Some even subscribe to Teen People or Seventeen Magazine and tape up pictures of shirtless boys or bikini-clad girls in their lockers. You can imagine what it’s like having this happen where you live—it’s obviously not something you would want.
Hearing pedophiles ceaselessly regurgitate their cases—“the kid came on to me,” “she said it felt good,” “she wanted me to do it” even though she was five years old—led me to consult with a former colleague. Before prison, I was an adjunct professor at a university in Virginia. I reached out to the dean of the psychology program there to ask what to do when encountering pedophiles. The answer, in the short, was to “run screaming from the room.” Pedophiles, the dean said, talk about their cases because they get sexual gratification from reliving them. The decision to not talk to pedophiles was thus an easy one for me.
Back to Schaeffer. When he said his case was “complicated,” I told him that I had a right to know with whom I was dealing, especially if he had any thoughts of moving into my room. He paused for a moment and said that he had misused client funds that had been placed in an escrow account. This simply didn’t ring true to me. Why was he in prison and not in a minimum-security work camp? And more importantly, why was he serving fifteen years, rather than just getting a slap on the wrist? I decided to go to the law library and look him up. I thought there was some funny business going on, but I was stunned to read the sickness and depravity involved in his case. Here’s what I learned.
On October 1, 2010, Schaeffer was convicted by a jury of “traveling in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in sex with a minor between the ages of twelve and sixteen,” and “transporting a person in foreign commerce with the intent that such person engage in criminal sexual conduct.”
“The charges against Schaeffer, who, in 2001, was thirty-six years old, stem from his travel on August 22, 2001, from Russia to the United States in the company of [John Doe], a fifteen-year-old Russian boy. At the time of his travel, Schaeffer had housed [Doe] in a Moscow apartment for three years and, during the year immediately preceding the flight, had regularly raped the child.
“Schaeffer first met [Doe] in 1998 when [Doe] was twelve years old. [Doe] had recently been forced to leave a prestigious ballet-training program in Russia at the Moscow Academy of Ballet, also known as the Bolshoi Academy, after his parents became unable to pay his dormitory fees. [Doe’s] parents wanted their son to continue his ballet training and considered sending him to a ballet school in St. Petersburg, where he had a scholarship. In the summer of 1998, however, two of [Doe’s] former Academy instructors, Nikolai Dokukin and Tatiana Dokukina, raised the possibility of securing payment for [Doe’s] education at the Academy from Schaeffer, a ballet aficionado, who had told the Dokukins he was interested in creating a charitable organization to provide scholarships to talented arts students in Russia.
“At the time, Schaeffer was working in Moscow as an attorney and had become acquainted with the Dokukins because of his interest in ballet. After meeting the Dokukins, Schaeffer became involved at the Academy, donating furniture to the Academy, paying for ballet footwear for the students, and providing grants to the instructors. He also visited ballet classes at the Academy and videotaped the students, telling Dokukina he planned to send the videos to his friend, Olga Kostritzky, an instructor at the School of American Ballet. Within a month of meeting Schaeffer, Dokukina told him about [Doe’s] financial troubles and asked if he would be willing to sponsor [Doe’s] ballet education. Schaeffer indicated he might be interested, but told Dokukina he wished to meet [Doe] and see a demonstration of his ballet ability before agreeing to sponsor him.
“Schaeffer and the Dokukins went to [Doe’s] house and asked him to perform a number of ballet exercises. Schaeffer videotaped this demonstration, during which [Doe] was dressed only in a pair of black underpants. During the demonstration, Schaeffer told [Doe’s] parents, ‘If you show this recording, they will grab him for ballet and throw you into the bargain. They’ll be asking ‘where did you dig up this treasure?’’ according to court records. Dokukina testified that having such a tape would provide [Doe] with a ‘huge chance to be admitted to [a ballet] school.’
“[Doe’s] parents were interested in having Schaeffer finance their son’s education and agreed to additional meetings with Schaeffer. During one of these meetings [Doe’s] father asked Schaeffer for a loan so that he could repay the debt he owed to the Academy for [Doe’s] delinquent dorm fees. Schaeffer agreed, loaning Doe’s father 4,300 rubles, approximately $470 at the time. A notary public in Russia drafted a loan agreement, which was signed by Schaeffer and [Doe’s] parents, requiring the [Does] to repay the loan over four months, with the final payment due December 31, 1998.
“At another meeting, Schaeffer told [Doe’s] father that after [Doe] reenrolled at the Academy he would not live in the dormitory, but would instead live with Schaeffer. Schaeffer explained he could provide better accommodations because [Doe] would have his own room in Schaeffer’s apartment, would get better rest and better food, and would have access to a personal ballet instructor. Although this arrangement made [Doe’s] father uncomfortable, he felt he had to agree to it to ensure his son was able to reenroll at the Academy. Before [Doe] moved in, the [Doe] family visited Schaeffer’s apartment, a two-room apartment with one small bedroom and a larger main room. Schaeffer told the [Does] he would sleep in the bedroom and [Doe] would sleep on a pullout couch in the main room. The [Does] were satisfied that this was an appropriate sleeping arrangement for their son.
“When the new school term started, [Doe] began living with Schaeffer from Monday to Friday, returning to his parents’ home on weekends, holidays, and in the summer. Schaeffer discouraged [Doe’s] father from visiting him during the week, telling him [Doe] had everything he needed. While at Schaeffer’s, apartment, [Doe] was taken care of primarily by a woman who lived across the hall from Schaeffer, Ludmila Kozyreva. Kozyreva woke [Doe] up, prepared his breakfast, helped him get ready for school in the morning, watched him after school, and prepared his dinner. Because the [Does] did not know Schaeffer well, [Doe’s] father advised his son to tell Kozyreva if he was ever sexually molested by Schaeffer. During the time [Doe] lived with Schaeffer, Schaeffer paid for his food and some of his clothing and purchased other items for [Doe], including a PlayStation videogame console and a bicycle. Schaeffer also paid for Dokukin to provide private dance lessons to [Doe] in Schaeffer’s apartment, and bought [Doe] a cellular phone.
In 2001, when [Doe] was fifteen years old, Schaeffer encouraged [Doe] to apply to summer ballet programs in the United States and elsewhere, and offered to take [Doe] to Philadelphia so he could study at the Rock School. [Doe] testified that in the year before he and Schaeffer traveled to the United States, Schaeffer had been engaging in oral and anal sex with him approximately three to four times a week, with the encounters typically taking place at night in Schaeffer’s bedroom. Schaeffer told [Doe] to keep these encounters secret because people would not understand their relationship, and Schaeffer would go to jail. Schaeffer worried that the effects of his molestation of [Doe] would be discovered by a nurse at the Bolshoi Academy, and told [Doe] if the nurse asked about injuries to his rectum, he should say he was using a hemorrhoid stick. When the nurse did attempt to examine [Doe], Schaeffer called the school to complain about her, and she was eventually fired. Schaeffer also told [Doe] that if Schaeffer was gone, [Doe] ‘wouldn’t be able to fulfill his dreams as a ballet dancer and would stay in Russia,’ according to court records.
“[Doe] also testified that Schaeffer had previously told him their relationship was similar to the relationship of the famous Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky and his mentor and director, Sergei Diaghilev. When [Doe] was thirteen, Schaeffer showed him Nijinsky, a film that depicts Diaghilev and Nijinksy as lovers, and suggests that Nijinsky was emotionally destroyed after he ended his relationship with Diaghilev to pursue a heterosexual marriage. After the film, Schaeffer told [Doe] that Nijinsky made a mistake by leaving Diaghilev, and warned him not to make the same mistake. Schaeffer also told [Doe] that relationships with girls were ‘disgusting,’ and [Doe] should avoid girls because they would take advantage of him. That same year, Schaeffer gave [Doe] a birthday card inscribed with the message, ‘[Johnny], until trillion thirty years. Your friend, Ken,’ and told [Doe] they should be together ‘until trillion thirteen [sic] years.’ Before they traveled to the United States, [Doe] thought of Schaeffer as his friend and role model. In an essay he wrote as part of a school application, [Doe] said Schaeffer made him very happy by reenrolling him in the Academy and by helping him with any problems he had, and described Schaeffer as ‘a friend’ and ‘second father.’
“Schaeffer helped [Doe] complete his application for the Rock School, which admitted [Doe] to its summer program and awarded him a scholarship, which paid for [Doe’s] travel to and from Philadelphia. After his acceptance to the summer program, [Doe] and his parents went to the US Embassy in Moscow to apply for a travel visa. In the application, [Doe’s] parents authorized Schaeffer to take [Doe] to the United States from July 4, 2001, until August 31, 2001. When Schaeffer and [Doe] traveled to Philadelphia, [Doe] stayed with Schaeffer’s parents at their home in Berwyn, a suburb of Philadelphia. Schaeffer did not stay at the Berwyn home for the summer because he was traveling for work, although he visited [Doe] there occasionally. While Schaeffer and [Doe] were in the United States, they did not engage in any sexual activity, though Schaeffer held [Doe’s] hand, hugged him, and kissed him once, according to court testimony.
“On August 22, 2001, Schaeffer and [Doe] flew from Philadelphia to Moscow. After arriving in Moscow, [Doe] went to his parents’ house and stayed with them for a week before he returned to school. When [Doe] returned to school and moved back into Schaeffer’s apartment, Schaeffer’s molestation of [Doe] resumed, and continued to occur two or three times per week.”
In 2002, after spending the summer at Schaeffer’s Pennsylvania home, Schaeffer and Doe moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and remained there until 2004, when Doe completed high school. Doe testified that he and Schaeffer had sex in Massachusetts during this period. Doe also testified that he and Schaeffer took a vacation to Montana in 2003, where they also had sex.
Over Christmas in 2006, Doe attempted suicide in the United States and was hospitalized. Shorty thereafter, he moved in with Jane Doe and her family. Around this time period, Schaeffer’s mother, Marjorie Schaeffer, arranged a meeting with Doe and asked him to sign a release, which stated as follows:
“Bernard Schaeffer (Schaeffer’s father), Marjorie Schaeffer, and Kenneth Schaeffer (the “Hosts”) have acted as host family and legal guardians for John Doe (the “Guest”), a citizen of the Russian Federation, from the year 1998 until the year 2007. During this time, the Guest also received assistance and support from The Apogee Foundation (owned by the Schaeffer family), a New York not-for-profit corporation (“Apogee”). This reconciliation dated January 12, 2007, establishes that the Guest is now ceasing to be hosted by the Hosts and will no longer have his financial status guaranteed by the Hosts or by Apogee. The Parties each acknowledge and agree that no harm has come to the Guest at any time by virtue of his relationship and activities with the Hosts or with Apogee, and the Guest forever releases, acquits, and discharges the Hosts and all relatives of the Hosts, as well as Apogee, of all causes of action, claims, and liabilities of any kind. Doe, Marjorie Schaeffer, Bernard Schaeffer, and Kenneth Schaeffer, on his own behalf and on behalf of the Apogee Foundation, signed this release.”
Marjorie Schaeffer went to Doe’s hospital room after his suicide attempt and demanded that he sign the release. He did not, and Marjorie Schaeffer forged his signature. It was later thrown out by the court.
Doe told the court that because of his relationship with Kenneth Schaeffer, he had to seek mental health treatment, focusing on dealing emotionally with the abuse. Doe maintained that he suffered from depression and alcoholism, and was often withdrawn from his peers. He claimed to have difficulty performing at work, making friends, and maintaining relationships. Indeed, he was fired from his job with the Boston Ballet because of poor performance.
“[Doe] never told his parents that he had been sexually abused by Schaeffer. After he began living with Schaeffer, however, his personality changed. His father noticed that he was more withdrawn and silent, and seemed to be keeping something to himself. [Doe] eventually moved to the United States in 2008 told his girlfriend, whom he has since married, about Schaeffer’s sexual molestation, revealing that Schaeffer had sexually abused him while they lived together in Russia.
“On August 12, 2008, [Doe] filed a civil lawsuit against the Schaeffers and the Apogee Foundation, bringing claims stemming from Schaeffer’s sexual abuse. After [Doe] filed his lawsuit, he was contacted by the FBI, which launched a criminal investigation into Schaeffer’s conduct with [Doe]. On January 14, 2010, Schaeffer was charged in a two-count indictment with 1) traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in sex with a minor, and 2) transporting a person in foreign commerce with the intent that such person engage in criminal sexual conduct.” Schaeffer’s defense against the charges was novel. First, he denied that any sexual contact with Doe ever took place. His attorneys argued that “there is a very real risk that such evidence (of sexual abuse) could lead the jury to make its decision on an improper basis. Namely, the jury would be so overwhelmed by the victim’s detailed descriptions of sexual abuse that it would find Schaeffer guilty based on repulsion to the alleged acts and antipathy toward child sex abusers, instead of weighing whether, on August 22, 2001, Schaeffer intended to engage in sexual conduct with the victim.
This distinction is crucial because the acts of sexual abuse allegedly committed by Schaeffer from 1998 to August 2001 do not form the basis for charges against Schaeffer. Instead, Schaeffer is charged with a crime of intent, and the jury will be charged with determining not whether he actually engaged in abusive sexual practices, but whether he intended to engage in such practices on August 22, 2001. Therefore, exhaustive evidence of Schaeffer’s prior and subsequent sexual misconduct would exceed the probative value of showing his intent on August 22, 2001, and would be unduly prejudicial.
Finally, it is evident that a litany of abuse will invariably disgust and inflame the jury. Although evidence of prior sexual misconduct is relevant and probative, exhaustive evidence of such misconduct is unduly prejudicial.
Schaeffer was found guilty on both counts, although his conviction on the second count was eventually overturned. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
I approached Schaeffer armed with my newfound knowledge and asked him why he had lied to me. I said I had a right to know about the person who wanted to live with me. His first response was that the person in the court papers wasn’t him, and he insisted emphatically that he wasn’t a pedophile. He said, “I don’t know this Kenneth guy. My name is Kevin.” I told him that over the previous several days I had heard him paged to the mail room as “Kenneth” Schaeffer several times, and for two of those times I had been behind him, as I had been called to the mailroom too. (The CIA had taught me to be constantly aware of my surroundings. You never know when the smallest detail of something you observe could become crucial.)
Faced with his duplicity, Schaeffer got nasty. His response to me set the stage for the remainder of our relationship. He spat, “Don’t you fuck with me! I’m more dangerous than you think.” I was amused. I looked at five-foot-six Kenneth, with his potbelly. With all the training the CIA had provided me, I was a formidable physical presence in this dispute, and Schaeffer wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds against me. I walked away shaking my head.
Over the next couple of weeks, Schaeffer approached every person with an empty bed in his room, telling all of them that he was a crooked attorney. But by then, I had a reputation as someone who knew his way around the law library, and countless people approached me, wanting me to “check out names” for them. This proved to be a double-edged sword. The prisoners who had something to hide—and you can’t believe how many people had something to hide—were very wary of me. The “good guys,” though, were eager to use my “skills.” To be clear, the “skills” I’m talking about here consist of typing a name into a search box on the Lexis-Nexis database. It was as simple as that.
Anyway, the guys Schaeffer approached about moving into their rooms made a beeline for me to ask for the real story. My responses were unvarnished. I even allowed them to copy what I had printed on Schaeffer’s case from the law library. Eventually, Schaeffer went to the unit counselor, who put him in a dorm-type room in my unit, the least-desirable place one could live, although still in my unit.
It was about this time that Schaeffer began his counteroffensive against me, not having any idea how ill-prepared and outgunned he was. Schaeffer was a very arrogant little man and was used to being the smartest person in the room. He was also used to getting his way. But he had badly misjudged the situation. I would have been happy to leave him alone. I wasn’t looking for trouble. He just wouldn’t stop picking at the scab. He realized that, to go up against me, he would need allies.
It wasn’t long before Schaeffer ingratiated himself with a small group of African-American prisoners, convincing them that he was not a pedophile and plying them with copies of the Robb Report, the duPont Registry, and stories about his $300,000 watch, his houses, luxury cars, and international vacations. To say these dolts bought his stories hook, line, and sinker would be an understatement. They wanted to be associated with success and to bask in the glow of his wealthy past life. (Besides Schaeffer, who is very wealthy, the only people in prison who read the Robb Report or the duPont Registry were the people furthest away from the bright center of luxury consumerism. There will never be any Lamborghinis or McLarens for them.)
At this point, I started getting dirty looks from some of the African-Americans and one or two Spanish-speaking prisoners. I shrugged it off. It was nothing I couldn’t live with, and I assumed this would be the status quo. Schaeffer had found his little crew, and I figured a “Pax Loretto” would ensue. A weekend visit by my family changed everything.
The atmosphere of détente was short-lived. That weekend, my wife and three youngest children (my eight-year-old son, six-year-old daughter, and one-year-old son) came to visit. We sat in the very first row of chairs in the visiting room, next to Schaeffer and his parents. About twenty minutes into the visit, when my wife and kids had gone to the vending room, CO Duran motioned for me to get up. He whispered that he was moving my family and the large family of another prisoner to the opposite side of the room. I told him that my family had plenty of room, so if he was trying to give us more space, it wasn’t necessary. “Well,” he said, “I need for you to move. I think there’s a problem.” He nodded at Schaeffer. “We’re not supposed to call them out like this, but that pedophile keeps eyeing your son.” He nodded in the direction of my eight-year-old. We moved.
This was highly unusual. The visitor’s room was filled with pedophiles on any given visiting day. Families are almost never moved because of them. (COs will routinely warn pedophiles to “take the child off your lap!”) But Duran saw something. He saw Schaeffer licking his chops at the sight of my son and another little boy, and he acted to stop it. After the incident, during the many times I was in the visiting room with my family, and Marjorie Schaeffer was visiting Kenneth, she glared at me, as if to project the blame for her son’s sickness and perversion on others, almost making it out to be my fault for bringing an object of her son’s desire into the room.
I think Schaeffer’s problem was a simple one. Oftentimes, Type A personalities don’t get along well with other Type A personalities. My training at the CIA prepared me to get along with other Alpha types. Frankly, the CIA’s clandestine operatives are all Type A personalities. Consequently, I was, and am, perfectly comfortable dealing with other strong personalities. Schaeffer, unfortunately, was not. This was never a problem I had with Kenneth Schaeffer. If I had had trouble dealing with strong personalities, I would have had trouble getting along with 90 percent of the people in prison. This was a one-sided problem on the part of Schaeffer and it became a one-sided feud. Some people just need a boogeyman. Schaeffer decided I was his.
Immediately after the visiting room incident, I became the focus of Schaeffer’s ire. He did what he was raised to do: he bought allies and demonized those people he couldn’t buy.
Schaeffer’s first strike came when he addressed the prison’s Jewish congregation during Friday evening Shabbat services, stating that he had uncovered “an insidious anti-Jewish faction within the prison.” I was the one who organized and ran this cabal. Schaeffer said that I was a “virulent anti-Semite and a danger to all Jews.” He went on to say that I had even recruited members of the prison staff.
Later in that same service, the Jewish faith coordinator, Chicago, got into an unrelated argument with Schaeffer over what course the Jewish services should take. Schaeffer called for Chicago’s ouster and more conservative services. When he was rebuffed, he threw a chair and had to be separated from another inmate by chapel orderlies.
Over the course of the next week, another Jewish inmate, Corey Lyman, with whom I was friendly, and Chicago approached me to say that Schaeffer had made wild accusations of anti-Semitism against me, saying I was leading a vast “underground conspiracy intent on hurting Jews.” (As an aside, Chicago told me that when Schaeffer first arrived at Loretto Chicago had encountered him on the walking track. He welcomed Schaeffer, said he was the Jewish faith coordinator for prisoners, and invited him to services. Schaeffer looked around as though he feared someone had heard that he was Jewish, and said, “I have to be very careful because it’s very anti-Semitic around here.” Chicago responded that he had been at Loretto for two years and had never experienced any anti-Semitism. He asked Schaeffer rhetorically, “You’ve experienced anti-Semitism in your first week?” Schaeffer was silent.)
At the next Shabbat service, which Schaeffer boycotted, Chicago stood and spoke for me. He said he knew me. I had once advised him on how to confront a bully, and he could state unequivocally that I was not an anti-Semite. A day later word got back to Schaeffer that Chicago had spoken out on my behalf. Schaeffer immediately began a counteroffensive, telling other members of the congregation that Chicago was “a pawn in the anti-Jewish faction. He’s nothing more than a stooge and a collaborator.” Lyman kept me updated throughout the weekend.
A few words about Lyman: Lyman, like Schaeffer, was a lawyer who had gone bad, although he was not a pedophile. He took an instant liking to me, and I set out to “recruit” him as a source of information, and as an “access agent,” thinking that I might need a presence in the Jewish congregation if Schaeffer decided to move against me there. Lyman, who was new to the prison and had very few friends, welcomed the attention and was an easy target for recruitment, and I moved him in that direction. This was not entirely cynical on my part. I liked him very much, he hated Schaeffer’s entitled attitude, and he enjoyed my company. So I got to work.
I hatched a plan to divide the pedophile vote and to elect a non-pedophile as the Jewish faith coordinator. After surreptitiously making a copy of all the registered Jews in the prison, I divided the names between those who were pedophiles and those who were not. One of the non-pedophile Jews began engaging with other non-pedophile Jews to ask for their support. Meanwhile, the other non-pedophile Jews began lobbying the pedophile Jews to support either Chicago or Schaeffer, thus splitting the pedophile vote. After weeks of “campaigning,” an election was held, and the non-pedophile won. Loretto’s Jews were then led by a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer and drug smuggler, thanks to a valuable CIA life lesson. And there were still chocolates and treats for everybody.
I engaged Lyman in a conversation about the types of losers and criminals you meet in prison, “people who aren’t like us,” and created a camaraderie where none existed before. I dangled my disgust with pedophiles before Lyman, knowing that he would jump at the opportunity to express his own disgust with Schaeffer’s crime, as well as the disruption Schaeffer was causing in the Jewish community. Although Lyman had heard the rumors regarding Schaeffer’s crime, I enlightened him with the full details.
The recruitment bore immediate fruit. It was Lyman who first came to me to report that Schaeffer had denounced me to the Jews. Indeed, Schaeffer had gone directly to Lyman, among others, to say that Chicago was a stooge and collaborator. With this source of information, I was able to stay one step ahead of Schaeffer. The next challenge came quickly in the form of two rather large African-Americans.
As I was waiting to get into the visitor’s room one afternoon, I was approached by two African-Americans, whom I vaguely remembered having helped write some commutation request letters a couple months earlier. The letters had taken only five minutes and required only a working knowledge of the English language, but it meant the world to these guys. The conversation went like this:
Man #1: Yo, John. We need to talk to you.
John: (Momentarily not having any idea who these guys were.) Hey! What’s up? Good to see you again!
Man #1: Do you know the little white guy, Schaeffer?
John: I know him. I don’t like him.
Man #2: He asked us to do something pretty fucked up.
John: Yeah? Like what?
Man #2: He wants us to lay you out.
Man #1: Really fuck you up.
John: Why on Earth would he want to do that?
Man #2: He said you were going to plant a shank under his bed, then tell the cops we did it.
John: That’s absurd.
Man #1: That’s why we came to you. You’ve been good to us. That’s why we wanted to give you a heads up. We told him we weren’t interested, but you should still watch your back.
John: Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.
It was this conversation that made me realize that I had to be proactive, rather than reactive. I had to use my training to create an operational plan that would result either in Schaeffer being shipped to another prison or at least being moved to another housing unit. Prior to this, I had been easy on Schaeffer. But this was serious. There was a potential for violence. Schaeffer had tried to hurt me and it was time to take off the gloves.
I first made an assessment of Schaeffer’s state of mind. He was not a person who could stand any viewpoint not in sync with his own, and if the facts didn’t suit his idea of himself, he would spread disinformation and discredit or eliminate those with differing opinions. I decided that I had to fight fire with fire; if he was going to make up stories to hurt me, I would use disinformation the same way. I sat down and started to plot.
The oldest trick in the book in prison is that when a new prisoner comes in and is deemed by others to be weak and ripe for exploitation, he is immediately targeted by stronger, tougher, meaner prisoners. It’s even better if the weak individual happens to have money. The game is to convince the weak inmate that someone is after him—he’s in physical danger. He needn’t worry, however, because the stronger, tougher, meaner prisoner would protect him for a monthly fee, anywhere from $100 to $500 in commissary or money wired to his account by the weak inmate’s family. Most of the time this is a tag-team effort, with an associate of the man making the approach acting the part of the bully. But sometimes, the “savior” will use one or more individuals with whom the weak inmate already has had problems. This is what happened with Schaeffer. I became the boogeyman, the threat from which Schaeffer needed to be protected. So all of a sudden, not only was I the person who would not permit Schaeffer to be who he was pretending to be, but now he had a group of bodyguards convincing him that I was a threat to his safety. I knew that eventually, if I did not act to defend myself, I would be the one to get in trouble. I was determined for this not to happen.
To get in front of this problem I was going to have to establish a more compelling and unassailable position. I was going to have to portray myself as the victim. To accomplish this, I was going to elicit information from people close to Schaeffer and plant disinformation that would get back to him. I would do this in two ways. First, I would speak directly to people who I knew would repeat what I said to Schaeffer. Second, I would speak within earshot of people who I knew were close to Schaeffer, and who I knew would run to him with the information. (This is often the best way to pass disinformation because the listener is usually not suspicious that the speaker is trying to influence him, and believes that he very cleverly came upon this information on his own.) One example of this would be to stage a situation where you know you are being overheard and you begin a conversation with “don’t tell anybody, but…” or “listen to what I just heard, but keep it to yourself…” or anything to make a person’s ears prick up.
There were several different “camps” on the Schaeffer issue. Most people wanted nothing to with him. He was, after all, a child rapist. Most of the Jews hated him because he was so pushy and tried to take over and run the Jewish services. Most whites, blacks, and Hispanics hated him because he was so arrogant and because he absolutely denied his crime. The only people who had anything to do with him were the blacks taking his money for “protection,” the prisoners who thought that his connections and money could somehow help them when they got out, and the prisoners who were too stupid to believe that he had committed his crime, even when faced with documentary proof.
I knew I couldn’t achieve my goals simply by manipulating inmates. My goals could only be achieved by actions taken by staff, and to do that, I was going to have to convince them to act on my behalf. To add credibility to any operation, the premise had to be believable, and it wouldn’t have been credible for me to approach a staff member and rant, rant, rant about how much I hated Schaeffer and then expect something to be done. I had to map out a plan, sow seeds about Schaeffer with the right staff, count on Schaeffer to continue to be his own worst enemy by pissing everybody off, and wait for the information to take hold.
The first thing I did was to put out word that there was a conspiracy afoot and that I was the victim. I mentioned this discretely to rats and blabbermouths, and I allowed others of the same ilk to “overhear” me expressing trepidation about being a potential target of violence. Soon, “requests to staff,” also known as “cop-outs,” flowed from all corners to SIS. As I had expected, rats reported to the authorities that I was in danger, and it was Schaeffer who was doing the planning against me. So as not to be sent into protective custody, I laughed it off and said I had no fear. I could defend myself against Schaeffer with my pinky finger.
Weeks passed, and not a day went by that I didn’t stoke the fire I had started. I went just as often to see the unit manager, who became an ally. The fact was that the staff didn’t want Schaeffer on the compound any more than I did. As time went on, I saw the unit manager more and more often, and when rats reported to the Special Investigative Service that I was in danger, things came to a head.
Late one evening a different black prisoner came up to me to say that Schaeffer had offered him one hundred dollars “to fuck up Kiriakou.” The prisoner told Schaeffer, “No way. Fight your own battles.” He said he had no beef with me and didn’t want to get involved. Schaeffer disingenuously responded that I was planning to plant a shank under his mattress and blame the black prisoner, the same story he had tried with others earlier. The prisoner, recognizing the absurdity of the statement, walked away, found me, and told me everything. I made a mental note that the pressure seemed to be getting to Schaeffer. He seemed to be getting more and more desperate to beat me to the punch.
A few days later, Ali, the black “shot-caller”—the prisoner who represented black interests and worked with the leaders of other races to keep the peace, and with whom I had a warm and open relationship—approached me to say that another prisoner, “Blaze,” said Schaeffer had asked him to “lay Kiriakou out.” Blaze told the same “shank under the mattress” story I had heard twice previously. A day later, an organized crime figure with sources among the COs told me that he had heard that Schaeffer had sent SIS six “cop-outs” alleging that I was going to hurt him. Finally, Lyman said that Schaeffer had stood up in the Jewish congregation to shout that I was a danger to all Jews and that I had threatened him with “railcars and ovens.” He was coming unhinged. Perfect.
I decided to call a meeting with both the black and white shot-callers. I should also note Ali’s involvement in this. I liked Ali and occasionally hung out with him. I even designed his website. But why would the black shot-caller, who spends his days mediating between the Crips and the Bloods, care one whit about a gay white pedophile? Well, it was clear to me from the beginning that Ali was the primary person on Schaeffer’s payroll. I decided to use that to my advantage.
I asked Dave to sit in on the meeting and to play the “good cop.” For my part, I had to rely on the acting skills the CIA had drilled into me.
The meeting took place two nights later in our cell. Dave started things off. I was silent. “Schaeffer’s constant efforts to hire black guys to give John a beating have to stop. He keeps upping the ante, and the only one who’s going to get hurt is Schaeffer himself. We wanted to try to defuse the situation by bringing the shot-callers together.” Heads nodded and assurances were given. Then it was my turn.
“May I say something?” I shook with faux anger. “If I have to hear one more fucking time that I’m going to be ‘laid out,’ or if I have to hear one more fucking time that I’m an anti-Semite, there’s going to be blood on the floor! And it’s going to be Schaeffer’s! Do I make myself clear?! I’ll kill the motherfucker myself!”
There was a moment of shocked silence before the white shot-caller said, “We’ll take care of it, buddy.” Ali nodded in agreement.
The shot-callers must have gone to Schaeffer immediately, because my next conversation was with a Jewish Mexican illegal immigrant. He asked for a meeting with me and said disingenuously that a group of Mexicans were “going to fuck you up” for bullying Schaeffer. This Mexican must have thought I was stupid. He must have thought that I, a chapel employee, had never seen them in the chapel together acting like long lost friends. I thought I’d teach the Mexican a lesson, too. I went to my closest friends, the Italians, and asked them to weigh in with the Mexicans. The Mexican shot-caller was furious that one of this people would make an unsubstantiated threat against me on behalf of a pedophile. He apologized and asked me to just forget about it.
Schaeffer made one last, desperate, attempt to punish me. He went to the chaplain to ask that I be fired for “bullying” him, and he repeated the ridiculous “railcars and ovens” story. I told the chaplain that I thought Schaeffer was insane, that he was peddling this story unsuccessfully all around the compound, and that the entire Jewish congregation would verify my side of the story. That was good enough for the chaplain. Now it was time to hit Schaeffer where it would hurt the most—in his wallet. It was time to write a letter to John Doe’s attorney.
Dave and I went to the law library and looked up John Doe’s civil case against Schaeffer. The documents listed Doe’s attorney as Kenneth Harriman of Philadelphia. It turned out that Harriman was one of the most highly respected, able, and accomplished litigators in the city. Dave wrote the first letter on September 6, 2013:
Dear Mr. Harriman,
I am currently incarcerated at FCI Loretto with Kenneth Schaeffer. In fact, we are in the same unit. Several months ago an incident occurred that I thought should be brought to your attention. This incident took place in the visiting room when a friend and former colleague, John Kiriakou, was having a visit with his family. John’s wife and his three young children (including his eight-year-old son) were visiting from the Washington, DC area. Kenneth Schaeffer was visiting with his parents at the same time. During the course of the visit, a Corrections Officer approached John and another inmate who was sitting near John (and who also had a young son visiting) and said he needed to move both families to another part of the visiting room. John told the officer that he and his family were comfortable and did not need more room. The officer responded that there was a problem with another of the inmates and discreetly indicated that the problem was with Kenneth Schaeffer. When asked to explain, the officer said Schaeffer had been observed ogling John’s son and the son of the other inmate. John had noticed the intense looks Schaeffer was giving his son, but he did not make an immediate connection for two reasons. First, the visit room is a busy and frenetic place. Second, when Kenneth Schaeffer first introduced himself to us several days earlier, he indicated that he was incarcerated for a fraud conviction. So initially no flags were raised. As a side note, Schaeffer tells people his name is “Kevin,” not Kenneth.
John wrote about the visiting room ordeal in the third installment of his “Letters from Loretto” series that has been published by firedoglake.com and picked up by news sites such as CNN, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, Esquire, The Economist, Playboy, and others. He is willing to give a sworn statement or help in any other way, as am I. We both have lived in the same 150-man unit as Kenneth Schaeffer for many months, and we have been subjected to his profligate lying and deceptions. We may be able to shed additional light into his character of late. The only thing I personally am unable to do is to speak to the aforementioned incident in the visiting room, as I was not there. But John is more than willing to speak, and he looks forward to hearing back from you. We offer our help for no other reason than it is the right thing to do.
John Kiriakou’s inmate number is 79637-083 and he can be reached at the same address as I. When writing to either of us, please follow the enclosed instructions for sending legal mail. The staff will use any excuse to open mail from lawyers.
Thank you for your time. We hope our efforts help in some small way so that your client finds the justice he seeks and deserves.
Yours Sincerely,
David Phillips
Two weeks passed with no response, so I wrote a short follow-up:
Dear Mr. Harriman,
My name is John Kiriakou, a CIA anti-torture whistleblower incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania. My friend and cellmate, David Phillips, wrote to you two weeks ago to tell you about an incident that my family had with Kenneth Schaeffer in the visiting room here. I wrote about the incident in a blog entitled “The New Normal” at firedoglake.com. It received widespread press coverage.
I seek absolutely nothing from you. I am sickened by Kenneth Schaeffer’s crime, and I am personally offended that he would openly leer at my son. I want nothing but to keep him behind bars. Please let me know if I can help you in any way.
Sincerely,
John Kiriakou
Two weeks later I received a letter from Harriman. It said simply, “Please call me immediately,” followed by a phone number.
I did call him immediately. Harriman answered his own phone and said he had been looking forward to hearing from me. He said that he would arrange an immediate legal visit and would fly his own plane to meet with me as soon as the visit was approved. True to his word, two weeks later, Harriman flew his twin-engine Cessna to nearby Johnstown, Pennsylvania, rented a car, and arrived for the meeting. Elegant, silver-haired, and dressed in a $2,000 Italian suit and custom-made shirt with gold cufflinks, Harriman introduced himself. I thought that he would want me to repeat the visiting room story. But instead, he wanted to do the talking. He was as excited as I was.
Harriman asked if I was aware of the circumstances of Schaeffer’s arrest. I said I had not heard any of the details. He continued that, after Schaeffer’s abuse of John Doe had ended, he returned to Moscow, where his only client was a billionaire Russian oligarch. Soon after arriving in Russia, however, Schaeffer heard, probably from his parents, that he had been indicted in Philadelphia on two felony counts of violating the Mann Act. His response was to flee immediately to Israel, knowing that the Israeli government does not extradite Jews to any country, no matter the crime. At the same time, several million dollars of Schaeffer’s money disappeared from Russia. Did Schaeffer hide it in Israel? Did he leave it in Russia? Did he transfer it to London, Cyprus, or maybe Lichtenstein? If John Doe was going to get any justice, Harriman would first have to find the money.
Harriman continued that Schaeffer was safely ensconced in Israel when, one day, he saw an ad for a children’s ballet performance set to take place in Cyprus. Unable to control himself, he bought a ticket and flew to Cyprus, where he was immediately arrested at Nicosia Airport on an Interpol fugitive warrant, and extradited to the US.
Schaeffer was forced to return to Philadelphia to face the criminal charges. John Doe’s civil suit was different, though, and Doe had engaged Harriman to handle it. Within weeks the attorney began running into roadblocks. Schaeffer’s family enlisted the support of Pennsylvania’s then–senior US senator, Arlen Specter. Three judges, friends of Schaeffer’s parents, recused themselves. And the judge who finally agreed to preside over the civil trial assigned all his other cases to other judges so he could focus solely on Schaeffer. It turned out that this judge had also had a social relationship with Schaeffer’s parents. The deck was stacked, but Harriman pushed forward with the case.
In my short interaction with Harriman, I found that he was a renaissance man—highly educated, highly skilled, and multitalented. He was also very successful financially and he owned a house along Philadelphia’s Main Line, not far from Schaeffer’s parents. As a hobby, Harriman was an amateur astronomer, and he had a sophisticated and expensive Meade telescope. He told me the following story as an indication of the Schaeffer family’s power, as an example of what he was up against.
Harriman’s home is located across the street from one of the most prestigious Jewish high schools in suburban Philadelphia. Around ten one evening, Harriman and his telescope were in the front yard; Harriman was looking at Jupiter and its moons when a bus full of high school students pulled up to the school at the end of a day long field trip. Several of the students saw Harriman and his telescope and asked if they could take a look. Soon the entire class was lined up to take their first look at the planet. Once everyone had seen it, they thanked Harriman and went back across the street to meet their parents and to go home.
The next day Harriman received a phone call from the school’s principal, who thanked him for the kindness of the impromptu astronomy lesson. The kids had been raving about it, he said, and several had even expressed an interest in studying astronomy. The principal continued that the senior class was planning a trip to Israel, and they wanted to invite Harriman to go as their guest, all expenses paid. Harriman said that he had never been to Israel, had always wanted to go, and was delighted to accept. A few weeks later, he was on a plane for Tel Aviv.
Harriman said that Israel was the “trip of a lifetime.” He saw all the holy sites, the museums, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. Toward the end of the week, one of the teacher-chaperones told Harriman that they had scheduled a courtesy call for him with the Israeli deputy minister of education. Harriman said he was happy to make the call. A few days later he went to the Ministry and was ushered into the deputy minister’s office. The deputy minister was warm and engaging. “Thank you so much for introducing the students to astronomy,” he began. “They told me how much fun they had looking through your telescope. It’s important for students to have a strong background in science. You’ve encouraged them to seek this, and it will help them in college and in life. You’ve done them a great service. By the way, can’t you make this Schaeffer case go away?” Harriman was dumbfounded. “That,” he said, “is what I’m up against.”
Harriman’s request to me was simple: help me find the money. As it so happens, I know a former CIA officer and a former KGB officer who have a consulting firm together in Washington that specializes in tracking laundered money around the world. I made an introduction, and they began their investigation. “In the meantime,” Harriman said, “What can I do to help you?”
The truth is that there was nothing I needed, although I appreciated the offer. I suggested a follow-up meeting, along with Dave, so that we could lay out a more comprehensive plan. I reminded Harriman that my goal was to hit Schaeffer in his wallet and to help John Doe find justice. He agreed to set up another legal visit in the coming weeks, we shook hands, and he departed.
In the meantime, several prisoners approached Dave and me to say that Schaeffer was in the market for a shank. I had no idea if he was going to use it to stab me, or if he wanted to hire somebody to plant it in my room. I didn’t care which, and I didn’t want to take another chance. I frankly didn’t trust the two bumbling fools in SIS, so I went back to the unit manager. I told him what I had heard and I said that if something wasn’t done about Schaeffer—soon—there was going to be trouble, somebody was going to get hurt, it wouldn’t be me, and it would be the fault of the prison administration. I was tired of getting the brush off. The unit manager called SIS, demanded an investigation, and told me to sit tight.
A few minutes later I heard Schaeffer paged to the SIS office. I was glad to hear it, but the proof was in the pudding. An hour later I was called to SIS, too. The CO offered me a seat. He started by saying, “Well, your friend’s in the SHU.”
“What friend?” I asked.
“Schaeffer,” he said. “I sent him to the SHU, pending investigation.”
“It’s about time,” I snapped. “I’ve always said you guys were lazy, but Schaeffer was going to get himself hurt. The SHU is the safest place for him.”
The CO, unfazed by my swipe, responded, “He fainted when I told him. I had to call medical to carry him down there. He cried like a baby.” Much to my surprise, the CO continued, “Look, if you want to keep this guy locked up, I have to have corroboration. Give me some names.” I was furious. He was asking me to rat, which I refused to do.
“You want me to do your job for you?” I shouted. “You know exactly who you need to talk to.” I walked out.
Schaeffer’s lockup was a reprieve for me, but it was too early to celebrate. SIS began paging a parade of my friends and contacts: the white shot-callers Big John, Bryce the Aryan, and Bam; Mark Lanzilotti; Clint Goswick; and several of the Jewish prisoners who argued with Schaeffer in the chapel. A few days later the warden stopped me in the hall and said, “You know I’m going to have to cut this guy loose, right?”
I said, “Warden, SIS better do the right thing here. They know this guy is a problem.”
“We’ll see what happens,” was all he said.
By a few hours later, I was more concerned about the fallout of the SIS questioning than I was about Schaeffer. The white shot-callers were livid at being called to SIS. Despite our protestations, they blamed Dave, who loved to stir the pot and was an easy target for them. Big John was the angriest. “You’re gonna pay for this, Dave! You fucking rat!” The Jews all told different stories, depending on where they were in the congregation. The Orthodox supported Schaeffer, the Reformed supported me, and the conservatives didn’t want to get involved. Mark and Clint were dismissed because we were friends and SIS said they were biased. Schaeffer was released from the SHU the next day at 11:00 a.m., just in time for lunch. He had been locked up for only five days.
Attorney Harriman wrote to me in the midst of the investigation to say that he was flying back out and that he had gotten approval to meet with both Dave and me together. This was highly unusual, perhaps unprecedented, and I wondered if the prison administration did it as a consolation prize for releasing Schaeffer from the SHU. Two days later, a Friday, Harriman flew to Johnstown, and then drove to Loretto.
The visiting room CO called my name first. “Kiriakou to visitation.” I was patted down in the anteroom, then went into the visitation room, where I gave my ID to the CO before meeting Harriman in a windowed area for a private meeting at the back of the room. But as soon as I walked through the anteroom door, I saw them—Schaeffer, his mother, and his father. They were deep in a whispered conversation and they didn’t notice me. I said hello to Harriman and pointed them out. A minute later, the CO paged Dave. He, too, came in through the anteroom. The gazes of all three Schaeffers locked on him.
Watching Marjorie Schaeffer physically rise from her seat, mouth agape, eyes locked on Dave as he walked to the meeting room, made my day. Harriman said he had not been in the same room with the Schaeffers since a contentious deposition more than a year earlier. Seeing us all together ruined the Schaeffers’ visit, and they stared at us for the next two hours. We got a kick out of it, and certainly Harriman enjoyed himself. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it probably pushed Schaeffer over the edge. Things would soon get worse.
The next day I ran into Nacho, a Mexican gangbanger, in the hall. I openly loathed this filthy midget rat. He stopped me and asked for a minute, so I said I was willing to listen. “Please leave Schaeffer alone,” he said. “He’s shaking. He doesn’t want trouble with you. Please just let it go.” I shot back, “He has a funny way of showing it. He’s tried to hire half the black guys on the compound to give me a beating. He’s the one who started this, Nacho. I’m willing to give him space, but as God is my witness, if he tries anything again, I’ll kill him and make it look like an accident.” Nacho nodded and walked off. This conversation convinced me that, as was the case with Ali, Nacho was on Schaeffer’s payroll for “protection.”
Dave and I discussed the Nacho conversation over lunch. We decided to give Schaeffer a week. If he backed off, fine. If not, he was going down. In the meantime, we would continue our cooperation with Harriman. I could have just declared victory, but what I really wanted now was for Schaeffer to either go to the SHU for a long stretch or go to another prison. He would soon change the scope of my problem with him.
The next evening Dave and I were outside walking the track when one of the recreation COs, McCarthy, stopped us. I liked McCarthy. We both did. He was the only member of the staff with whom, in another life, I would have had a beer. In his early thirties, physically fit and a new father, he was always friendly, engaging, and honest. I always said that the idiots on staff could learn a lot from this guy.
McCarthy pulled me aside and said, “Kiriakou, I just found an anonymous note under my office door. It said that a guy named Schaeffer had a shank in his room that he was going to use to stab you.”
I laughed, “I could crush that guy like a bug. What did you do?”
“I turned it over to the lieutenant,” McCarthy said. “He’s investigating right now.”
“Who’s the lieutenant tonight?”
“Gramble,” he said.
I laughed again. “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t Gramble who gave Schaeffer the shank!” I went back inside and waited for everything to play out.
I waited and waited and waited. Nothing happened. One of Schaeffer’s cellmates at this point was Art. The next morning I asked him if there had been an incident in his room the night before. He said, “Actually, the cops came in last night and shook us down. Gramble was the lead.”
“Did they find anything?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Art said. “They did the shakedown and walked out.”
By the next morning, news of the anonymous note and the shakedown had spread like wildfire. At least half a dozen people told me that they heard I was in danger. This put me in a tricky position. If I had gone to the cops with any concern about my physical safety, they would have put me in the SHU “for my own protection.” What was the alternative? Stabbing Schaeffer wasn’t an option, at least not realistically. I called Harriman for advice.
Harriman said that something was certainly “up.” When he visited several days earlier, he noticed that a prominent attorney from Philadelphia, from a firm that represented the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s pedophile priests, had signed in for a visit “in the administrative office” the previous Tuesday. Legal visits with prisoners are allowed only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. “This had to be a meeting with the warden,” he said. “Why? Why are they protecting Schaeffer?” He advised me to write a “strong, sharp” letter to the warden.
“Tell him that Lieutenant Gramble covered up the confiscation of the shank, and tell him we know about the Tuesday meeting. Tell him you’re willing to go to the press. Tell him you want immediate action.”
I began the three-page letter with, “Warden: in the unlikely event that you are unaware of the past three days’ events…” The letter was sharp to the point of being accusatory. I handed it to him directly at lunch and I took a seat where I could watch him read it. Halfway into the first page, I saw him mouth the words “oh, shit” and hand the letter to his executive assistant, who was standing next to him. His response was, “Oh, no,” and he handed the letter to the assistant warden, standing next to him, turned, walked out of the cafeteria, and went across the hall to the SIS office. A minute later, the PA system barked, “Inmate Schaeffer to the lieutenant’s office immediately.” Fifteen minutes later, as I left the cafeteria, I saw a weeping Schaeffer being led to the SHU in handcuffs. Again.
Dave and I went back to our room, got changed, and headed toward the rec yard. In front of the SIS office, waiting to go out, were all three of Schaeffer’s cellmates: Art, Al the arsonist, and a young pedophile. We wished Art luck and went outside for a walk. An hour later, on our way back in, another prisoner ran up to us saying, “Did you hear? The cops locked up the whole room for investigation. Art’s in the SHU!” We told the guy to not panic. Art would probably be in the SHU for a few days, and then they’d let him out. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Besides, he’s a tough guy. He’s been in prison for forty years. He knows how to handle himself.
In the meantime, more rumors began to spread. There were two shanks, not one. They were meant for me, not for Dave. Lieutenant Gramble had been suspended. I thought it best to keep my head down and my mouth shut, and to see how things played out in the coming days.
The next day, the day after Schaeffer’s cell was taken to the SHU, I was sound asleep at 1:00 p.m. when Dave woke me up in a panic. “I just got called to the lieutenant’s office,” he said. “You know what to do if I don’t come back.” (We had planned in advance if either of us was ever taken to the SHU; one would secure the other’s personal property and call home to pass the news.) Only fifteen minutes after Dave was called down, a lunatic who goes nightly to the zombie pill line came to my cell to say, “Your…buddy…just got…taken…to the SHU… He says…goodbye.”
Frank and I looked at each other, stunned. We knew we had about five minutes to take all of Dave’s books, legal work, and personal papers out of his locker before the cops came and loaded everything into green military-style duffel bags. Dave wouldn’t get his property back until he was released from the SHU or arrived at his final destination. That could be a year from now, depending on whether he was put into diesel therapy or on Con Air and flown around the country. I sent all his books to his grandmother and everything else to his attorney. A prison administrator told me later in the day, “You two will never see each other again.”
A day later it was my turn to be called to the lieutenant’s office. From there I was sent directly to SIS. Graham offered me a seat and said bluntly, “The only reason you’re not in the SHU is that we couldn’t find any video of you going into Schaeffer’s room.”
“Well,” I said, “that plus the fact that that I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Here’s our theory,” Graham said. “Your buddy Dave made the shanks and got Art to plant them in Schaeffer’s property.”
Recalling the CIA’s rule of “admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations,” I responded, “Are you insane?” Graham’s face was blank, but he didn’t speak, so I continued. “Dave could have killed Schaeffer with his pinky finger. Did you forget that he’s a fourth-degree black belt in Tai Bo Jiu Jitsu? And you want me to believe that he talked a seventy-five-year-old man with forty years of prison experience into getting onto his hands and knees to do Dave’s dirty work? Even I gave you more credit than that!”
“So what was Phillips doing in Schaeffer’s room?” he asked.
I said flatly, “I get stacks of magazines every week. You know that because you monitor my mail. When I finish the magazines I give them to Art. Dave took them to his room because Art’s an old man. It’s as simple as that.”
“Before you go,” Graham said, “You should know that a four-year-old could have made those shanks. They were toothbrush handles with razor blades glued to the end. There were for slashing, but they wouldn’t have done much damage to anything.”
“All the more reason to conclude that Schaeffer made them,” I said, but I could see that Graham was already bored with the entire saga. “If Dave had made them they would have been professional killing weapons,” I said. Graham stood to signal to me that the conversation was over.
“Either way, I have to separate all of you. You’re lucky. You get to stay here.”
“Whatever,” I said as I turned and walked out the door.
Two months later, Schaeffer was sent to a low-security prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he could start his whole scam all over again: tell everybody he’s a crooked attorney, then when they find out he’s a child molester, claim anti-Semitism, then hire black guys to protect himself. Two weeks after Schaeffer left, Dave was sent to a low-security prison in Elkton, Ohio. Art got his wish of being closer to his sister and was put on Con Air for eventual incarceration at a low-security prison in central California. I remained at Loretto. I never saw Dave or Art again.
Did Dave make the shanks? Did he plant them? Did Art? Was this all meant to push Schaeffer over the edge? Or was this the culmination of Schaeffer’s plot against me? My lips are sealed. I will say this, though: Schaeffer had no idea with whom he was dealing. If he had known about the “rules,” he would have walked away from me at the very beginning.
Nobody saw Lieutenant Gramble for weeks. Some prisoners even took to calling him Sergeant Gramble. Rumors were rampant that he had been suspended because he had been caught punching a timecard for another lieutenant who was only pretending to work, that the other lieutenant was punching Gramble’s timecard, that Gramble had sexually harassed a staff member in the medical unit, or that he had sexually harassed a prisoner’s wife in the visitation room. I kept my mouth shut, and I think the warden probably appreciated it. Gramble eventually came back to work, with his lieutenant’s bars, but first as a “recreation lieutenant,” a new position with no interaction with prisoners, and then on the midnight shift, with supervisory authority over the janitors. The prison was a better place for it. At least temporarily.