The Art of the Heist

Nine

Not long after the rape conviction was overturned I was transferred from Walpole to the medium-security prison at Norfolk. It was early 1971 and I had served four years of my ten-to-twelve-year sentence for the charges from the shooting. Though I could not have foreseen it, I would be back in the art business much sooner than the police hoped. Meanwhile, I used my time at the more relaxed prison to study. That, and get into an adventure or two.

The transfer was meant as a reward for good behavior, but I viewed it as the worst kind of punishment. The nightmare I’d suffered at the hands of the medical staff there was still fresh in my mind, and the idea of going back made me queasy. On top of that, the prison population at Norfolk had a bad reputation, despite the laxity of the place.

It was ironic: the inmates at Walpole, by contrast, were stand-up guys. Old-school criminals who understood the meaning of loyalty, they lived, by and large, by an iron code of ethics. Whatever their disagreements were, men at Walpole did not rat on one another. Those who did were handled swiftly and discreetly. It was, at times, a brutal system, but it succeeded at keeping order.

Norfolk, on the other hand, could be an unpredictable place. The majority of the inmates there were junkies. Like all addicts, they would do anything for a score. Many had been sent to Norfolk as a reward for informing on fellow prisoners at other facilities. If the choice had been mine, I gladly would have stayed at Walpole.

Luckily, a number of my friends were also at Norfolk, including Ozzy DePriest, who was transferred from Walpole around the same time I was, and Bobby Donati, a kid I’d known from my days playing in clubs in Revere Beach. Though not a wise guy himself, Bobby had ties to the Italian community. He was always a very active thief, taking full advantage of any opportunity that came his way. Like me, he was an avid art collector, with a particular passion for oriental rugs.

Another upside to Norfolk was the number of college extension courses offered there. The educational opportunities at Walpole were unimpressive at best. There was a range of interesting classes to choose from at Norfolk. Having nothing better to do, I quickly took advantage of the offerings.

Growing up, I was never a particularly good student. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the ability to succeed at school; learning always came easily to me-perhaps too easily. As I said before, I have always had a surprising facility for recall of facts. There were just so many more interesting things than schoolwork-animals, music, art, girls-on which to focus my mental energy. But in prison the distractions were far fewer. I did well in my classes, earning straight A’s.

When not in formal classes, I studied subjects that were of particular interest to me, making good use of the prison library and of books I requested from friends and family members. Aside from art and the current market for fine art and antiques, areas I always made a point of keeping abreast of, I was particularly interested in religion. I immersed myself in the study of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, the American Indian religions, and even the occult.

Because of my good grades in the extension classes, near the end of my stay at Norfolk I was given an opportunity to take the SAT test. I surprised everyone-including myself-with near perfect scores on both sections of the exam. Somehow, the local press got wind of my achievement, and one of the Boston papers ran a story questioning the legitimacy of my scores. Essentially, the author accused me of having cheated. The article caused quite a stir at the time. Many people found it hard to believe that someone of above average intelligence could be doing time in the state pen. Others argued in my favor.

Eventually my story caught the interest of two professors from Cambridge, who endeavored to set the record straight once and for all by having me take the exam again, this time under close supervision. The warden at Norfolk agreed, and I was allowed to retake the test. I performed even better the second time around.

As a result of all the publicity surrounding my scores, I was offered admission and scholarships to two prestigious universities in the Boston area. The schools also offered to transport me to and from the prison for classes. Not surprisingly, Department of Correction officials shot down the proposal. Given my predilection for running, I could see why they were reluctant to let me leave the prison grounds.

I would have served out the remainder of my sentence at Norfolk in relative peace and quiet, diligently availing myself of the prison’s educational opportunities, if it hadn’t been for an incident involving Ozzy DePriest. Instead of academic pursuits, Ozzy had found a more lucrative way to pass the time at Norfolk. With the help of friends on the outside Ozzy was smuggling large quantities of pharmaceuticals into the prison, then selling them for considerable profit.

It was a thriving business for a while. But when Ozzy was busted with a substantial stash of drugs in his cell it seemed all but certain that he’d be facing additional time on the inside.

Never one to walk away from a friend in need, I quickly devised a plan.

Prison, I have come to learn, is a place of intense social stratification. In an environment where loyalty means everything, where the decision to trust someone has to be made at a glance, traditional identifying markers take on heightened significance. Italian, black, skinhead: these and other classifications can be matters of life and death. This is true for staff as well as inmates, and that includes those men of the cloth who ply their godly wares within the prison walls. At every prison I’ve had the pleasure to know, the clergy conform to surprisingly rigid stereotypes.

In New England prisons the Catholic priest always heads up the largest and most powerful congregation. Irish, Italians, Poles: everyone who’s anyone is a Catholic. Like his flock, most of whom are career criminals, the priest is always a stand-up guy. It’s his job to settle grievances between groups and stick up for men at parole hearings. If he knows what’s good for him, he does his job well.

The rabbi, though far less powerful, is inevitably an inmate favorite. The rabbi is generally the one to resolve disputes between inmates and staff. He’s always bringing in food and other treats, and lobbying for better treatment for all the prisoners.

The Protestant minister, on the other hand, is almost always the least likely to bend the rules to help an inmate. The minister at Norfolk, a man named George Dodson, was extreme in his contempt for the inmates. A spineless bottom-feeder with a pathological need for validation from the administration, he spent most of his time shooting down guys at their parole hearings. He was helped in his efforts by his inmate clerk who was a known informant. Not surprisingly, Dodson was universally despised. Inmates hated him for being the prick he was, while the staff disdained him for being a two-faced asshole. I figured pinning Ozzy’s rap on him would be a piece of cake.

Ozzy had been put in isolation after being caught with the drugs, but I was able to get messages to him through a friendly guard. Screws, as we called the guards, could be invaluable allies. In every prison there were sympathetic screws who could be persuaded to do favors for inmates.

The next time I saw this particular guard I pulled him aside. “Tell Ozzy I’ll take any extra merchandise he still has.”

Not long after this exchange an associate of Ozzy’s passed me a package with nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of pills inside.

The next morning, taking the package with me, I paid a visit to the prison library, where I stashed the drugs in the stacks, behind a thick row of Bibles.

Snitches may be the lowest form of prison life, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their uses. There are times when a smart con can use an informant to his advantage. This was one of those times.

Later that morning I approached a well-known rat on the yard. “I’ll tell you a secret,” I said. “But you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

My words were music to the man’s ears. He nodded eagerly.

“This rap Ozzy’s facing was a setup. The real culprits are Dodson and his clerk.”

“The minister?” the snitch asked, fairly drooling at the information.

I nodded. “Dodson’s the one who brings the stuff in from the outside. He hides it in the library. Up in the top tier of the stacks where all the Bibles are.” I paused, looking at the rat, watching his face as he processed the information, weighing its worth. “You won’t say anything, will you?”

“Of course not,” he assured me.

“I’m heading over to the weight room,” I told him. “Wanna come?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got some stuff to take care of.”

I bet you do, I thought as I walked away across the yard. Turning to look back over my shoulder, I saw the man making a beeline for the administration building.

Originally designed as a model of a progressive penal reform, the grounds at Norfolk looked and felt more like a college campus than a prison. Inmates were housed in a handful of dormitory-style brick buildings spread around a grassy quad. On pleasant afternoons we often gathered in small groups on the steps of these buildings. If not for our monochrome prison uniforms and the conspicuous lack of members of the opposite sex, we might have been any group of students lounging between classes, chatting about a lecture we’d just attended or which girl we were going to ask to an upcoming dance. Only we weren’t, and the topic of conversation at Norfolk, though often centered on women, was usually of a much less wholesome nature.

Aside from providing a comfortable gathering place, the dormitory steps were the perfect vantage point from which to observe the comings and goings in the administration buildings. After allowing sufficient time for the snitch to do his work, I settled myself on the dormitory steps to observe the fallout of my actions.

I figured the warden would act quickly on the information I’d fed his snitch, and I wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t been watching for long when I saw a handful of guards run into the building that housed the minister’s office. A few minutes later they reappeared with the minister and his clerk in tow.

Several days later the warden called me into his office.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “I know you had a hand in what happened to Dodson.”

The setup had been a fine piece of handiwork on my part. I wanted more than anything to take credit for it. But I managed to bite my tongue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him.

“No?” the warden growled. “Well, I’m sending you back to Walpole anyway.”

I tried my best to look crestfallen.

The fall of 1971 was a dark time in the nation’s prisons. That September a bloody riot at New York’s Attica prison ended in the deaths of ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates when state troopers dropped tear gas into the yard and stormed the facility. For those of us on the inside the riots highlighted not only the atrocious conditions in which we prisoners lived but also our powerlessness in the face of a brutal system. Attica brought simmering discontent to a full boil in prisons all over the country.

In the days immediately following the riots Walpole inmates were sharply divided over how to respond to what had happened at Attica. At the best of times the atmosphere in any prison teeters on the brink of all-out chaos. There were many at Walpole who believed violence was the only way to show our solidarity with the Attica inmates and air our grievances. Other, saner voices called for nonviolent demonstrations. Fortunately for everyone involved, those inmates advocating peaceful means eventually won out over those crying for a repeat of what had happened at Attica.

In late September the inmates at Walpole embarked on what would become a five-day work stoppage. The solidarity with which the strike was carried out was impressive, to say the least. All of the six hundred men at Walpole participated, bringing the prison to a virtual standstill.

Among our demands were furloughs for work and education, conjugal visits for married prisoners, better medical care, and permission for death row inmates-who at the time were kept locked down in horrific conditions in Block Ten-to mix freely with the general population. Our most controversial demand was a repeal of the so-called “two-thirds law,” which mandated that all prisoners serve out two-thirds of their sentence before they could be eligible for parole.

On the third day of the strike savvy inmate council leaders issued an invitation to members of the press to come inside the prison walls and talk with the prisoners directly. It was a brilliant move. The next day the entire population of the prison, many of us wearing black armbands in memory of the Attica dead, gathered in the auditorium to meet with reporters from most of the major media outlets in New England. By the fifth day Governor Francis Sargent, under intense media scrutiny, pledged to act on our demands.

The strike was officially over. Yet hostility-and justified skepticism regarding the governor’s ability to bring about the promised reforms-lingered. In early October prisoner leaders, frustrated by the lack of visible progress in fulfilling their demands, called for another work stoppage. This second strike, which lasted a week, was followed in mid-November by a two-week lockdown of the entire prison after rumors of a planned riot and inmate takeover reached the warden. Then in March 1972, the Massachusetts legislature defeated a bill to reform the two-thirds law, and full-scale violent riots broke out at Walpole.

The troubles started on St. Patrick’s Day, when a white inmate knifed a black inmate in the maximum-security wing. What happened next is not entirely clear, but according to prisoners who were present during the incident, at least one guard then ran through the cellblock shouting, “Race riot!” This call was quickly answered by the inmates, who began setting fire to the piles of garbage that littered the floor of Block 10.

Most of the inmates from the minimum-security side, including myself, were in the auditorium watching a movie when the fight broke out. By the time the film ended the air was thick with the acrid smell of burning garbage. As the guards attempted to funnel us down the smoke-filled main corridor to our cellblocks, mayhem erupted. Guys started throwing things: ashtrays, a television set. Soon the minimum-security wing was burning as well. As the violence escalated, terrified guards deserted their posts, leaving control of the cellblocks to us. Within a matter of hours we had full control of the prison.

Tensions escalated further over the weekend after guards tried to force maximum-security inmates back to their cells. The confrontation quickly turned violent, and several guards and inmates were seriously injured. The move was a major misstep on the part of the new prison superintendent, Robert Donnelly. In the wake of the clash, inmates broke off all communication with Donnelly. He later apologized for his actions over the prison public address system, but by that time he had lost the trust of the inmates.

By Sunday inmates had succeeded in destroying almost all of the cell locks, along with the electrical system, plunging the blocks into smoky darkness. Later that night angry prisoners descended on the library, pulling down the stacks, setting piles of books on fire. The prison pharmacy was pillaged, the gym flooded. Someone managed to break the locks leading into the execution chamber and a crowd of angry prisoners thronged inside, smashing the electric chair, claiming pieces of this gruesome symbol of the system’s power for themselves.

At one point I wandered into the auditorium to find that a group of inmates had smashed through the wooden floor with the intention of digging an escape tunnel. It was a wildly ill-conceived plan. As anyone who has ever set a fence post will tell you, the reality of digging a hole is always more arduous than one imagines it will be. But the group was so optimistic and determined that I didn’t have the heart to tell them this.

There’s a belief among many people who’ve never been on the inside that convicts naturally gravitate toward chaos and violence, that, like animals, we thrive in an atmosphere of utter lawlessness. While this may be the case for a few truly deranged inmates, the truth is that most are grateful for the security that locks and guards provide. For the weaker inmates, riots are a time of intense fear. Many of these men (Albert DeSalvo being one of them) spent the duration of the riots barricaded in the prison hospital, terrified for their lives. Even inmates like me, with nothing to fear, far prefer the day-to-day routine of prison life to the insanity of riots. None of us wanted to live in filth, squalor, and darkness forever, but neither were we willing to surrender until at least some of our demands were met.

Obviously, both sides would have to compromise. The question was how to find common ground before the situation devolved even further.

Soon after my return from Norfolk I had become active in the Walpole chapter of the Jaycees. Originally created to help young people develop business skills through community service, but perhaps more commonly known for its county fair booths and country club dances, the group was working to establish chapters in many of the nation’s prisons. I jumped at the chance to join, mainly because it was something to do besides sit in my cell. To be honest, though, the knowledge that my membership in the organization could help me when I finally came up for parole also factored into my decision. Regardless of my motives in joining, however, I took my membership seriously and was soon elected president of the chapter.

On the Monday evening of the riots, in an attempt to maintain some semblance of normalcy, I convened our regular weekly Jaycees meeting in what was by now a ransacked classroom. I had no idea how many men, if any, would attend, but the room was packed. Clearly people needed a forum in which to air their grievances. The atmosphere was calm, as inmates offered suggestions for bringing about a peaceful end to the standoff. All agreed the first order of business was to restore a line of communication between ourselves and the administration. How this could be accomplished was a matter of debate.

Halfway through the meeting, to everyone’s surprise, Superintendent Donnelly walked into the room. It was a gutsy move on his part. He had erred in his use of force on the inmates in maximum security, but his presence at the meeting signaled that he was willing to correct his mistake. After nearly two hours of intense questioning of Donnelly by the Jaycees board, we all returned to our cellblocks with the message that the superintendent was truly contrite about his earlier decision to use force on the prisoners in the maximum-security wing and was ready to negotiate.

Later that night the block leaders met to discuss a response to Donnelly’s overture. After much debate someone finally suggested bringing in a mediation team from outside the prison. It seemed like a reasonable plan. But since none of the block leaders felt they could deliver the message to Donnelly without compromising their position, I was asked to do so.

Despite being active in the Jaycees and well liked by my fellow inmates, up to that point I had never participated in prison politics. It simply wasn’t something I aspired to, and I was somewhat surprised to find myself in the position of intermediary. But I deemed it a true honor to be trusted in such a way by my fellow inmates.

I returned to Donnelly with the block leaders’ proposal. He quickly rejected the idea, saying he believed it was the superintendent’s duty to act as mediator. But he agreed to bring in a team of outsiders to arbitrate the dispute. It seemed like a question of semantics to me, but clearly it mattered to Donnelly. I delivered this counterproposal to the inmates, who quickly agreed to it. A five-man citizen team would be brought into the prison to hear our demands and relay them to Donnelly.

The creation of the arbitration team was a pivotal point in the standoff. Within a matter of days, the team was able to negotiate an end to the hostilities. All six hundred prisoners voluntarily returned to their cells. To further defuse tensions, Jaycees from outside the prison volunteered to come inside and walk the cellblocks. For several days, they roamed the prison, talking to inmates, listening to the men’s grievances. Eventually Donnelly, too, proved good on his word. It took some time, but many of our demands were finally met.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, my role in the negotiations would soon come to benefit me personally as well. But first, Walpole prison had one more surprise in store for me.

In the summer of 1972 I received an unexpected letter from a college student named Martha Ferrante. As part of her course work at the University of Massachusetts, the young woman explained, she was volunteering at a halfway house for newly released convicts. There she had met a friend of mine from the Walpole crafts room, a young man to whom I had taught scrimshaw. He was having trouble finding materials and had mentioned me as a possible resource. But the rules of his parole forbid any contact with convicted felons. Would it be possible, Martha wondered, for her to meet with me sometime on his behalf?

Would it be possible? A visit from a liberal-minded young coed with a soft spot for cons? Carefully I reread the letter, like a desert traveler checking his eyesight upon glimpsing an oasis. My reply went out in the prison mailbag the very next day, and soon we had made arrangements for Martha to visit.

Prison can do strange things to men. After long stretches with no physical contact with women, most cons will take whatever they can get, wherever they can get it. I’ve seen guys overlook all manner of shortcomings in their desperation to appease their overwrought libidos. At times the visiting room at Walpole resembled a cut-rate brothel, with inmates engaging in all manner of covert sex acts, often with women they wouldn’t have been caught dead with on the outside.

But I’m proud to say this wasn’t my style. Thanks to my music career, there had been no shortage of beautiful women in my life. Even after six long years in prison my standards were remarkably high. As my meeting with Martha approached, I focused on the real purpose of her visit, keeping well in mind the fact that college girls come in all shapes and sizes.

It’s probably for the best that I didn’t spend too much time fantasizing about Martha, for the truth is that my imagination couldn’t have possibly done her justice. When I finally did meet her I was taken aback by how beautiful she was.

There was no denying the fact that she was physically attractive; she would have been considered so by anyone at any time. But she had a natural beauty that was particularly well suited to the prevailing style of the early seventies. Her brown eyes were striking even without makeup; her long dark hair fell effortlessly across her shoulders.

Visiting Walpole was in many ways a humiliating experience, especially for women, who were subjected to physically invasive searches before being allowed inside. But in spite of the indignities she’d had to endure, there was a warmth and openness to Martha’s face that spoke volumes about her personality. That’s not to say she was all sweetness and light. There was also a rebellious glimmer in her eye with which I immediately identified.

Despite the circumstances I found it remarkably easy to be with Martha. As our conversation turned from scrimshaw materials to more personal topics, we discovered that we shared a number of similar interests, including a mutual love of art and of animals. By the time she left I had fallen hard for her.

Martha must have felt something for me as well. She continued to visit me throughout the summer, initially under the pretense of needing additional information on scrimshaw materials. But the real reason for her visits quickly became clear to both of us.

Despite our feelings for each other, our meetings grew increasingly bittersweet. With three years left on my sentence before I could even be considered for parole it was difficult for me to justify any kind of relationship with Martha. Though she never said anything, I knew the trips to Walpole were taking their toll on her.

Then, late in the summer of 1972, we were granted an unexpected reprieve: based in part on my conduct during the riots, Superintendent Connelly had recommended me for early parole.

It was an incredible opportunity, but I knew the real work would be convincing the parole board to accept my petition. Fortunately, as president of the Walpole Jaycees, I’d had the opportunity to come into contact with many influential members of the community. A number of these men came forward to help me, along with officials who knew me from the March standoff, my teachers from Norfolk, and my father’s friend John Regan, the state trooper who’d sat watch over me during my stay at Mass General. Regan had been promoted to state police detective by then and was part of a task force that investigated crimes committed within the state’s prisons. It was a job that brought him to Walpole from time to time. Because of that, we had managed to stay in touch.

By the time I went before the parole board my file was brimming with letters of support, including one from the governor’s office and another from the commissioner of correction.

With so much support behind me, the board had little choice but to grant my parole. In October 1972 I walked out of Walpole prison.