Mr Nice_ An Autobiography Part 37

'What! On what grounds?'

'Because I carried on doing business with Lord Moynihan after November 1st, 1987. That means I should have been sentenced under the Sentencing Reform Act, which demands a higher sentence than the one Judge Paine gave me. The prosecution say I should get fifteen years without parole. That makes it a worse sentence than Ernie's. At least he'll get the chance for parole before that. I won't. I'll be in prison until well into the next century. I can't do this to my wife and kids.'

The six of us sat around discussing old and present times. I hadn't had a joint for almost a week.

'Can we get any dope here, Ernie?'

'Forget it.'

In the afternoon I interviewed a number of Miami attorneys, all wearing the trappings of dope-dealing wealth and most claiming to have close friends within the prosecution with whom they could negotiate a favourable snitching deal. One of the lawyers, Steve Bronis, behaved very differently from the others. He was cold as ice and didn't smile.

'Mr Marks, let me make one thing clear before we start. If you intend to plead guilty or co-operate with the US Government, I am not your lawyer.'

'You're my lawyer. As long as I can afford you. What will you charge?'

'I'll get the papers from the court and read them. Then I'll let you know.'

In the evening, I talked to some other prisoners, again mainly Cuban and Colombian. The message was obvious. Unless one was absolutely as innocent as the driven snow and could prove it without the remotest shadow of a doubt, one would get convicted. The only way to avoid the resulting heavy sentence was to become, or pretend to become, a snitch.

My mind was troubled when I tried to get some sleep. No way can I become a snitch, a gra.s.s, a chivato chivato, a stool-pigeon, a squealer, a rat, a traitor, a wrong 'un, a betrayer, a Judas, and lie at the bottom of Dante's h.e.l.l for all eternity. I wouldn't be able to look my kids or my parents in the eyes if I did that. If Patty was convicted and got seven years, what would happen to Judy, presently languishing in a nearby jail? She was equally incapable of gra.s.sing and might have to spend years in prison. I might have to spend forever inside. How would our children survive without us? But then I mustn't give up. When I asked the US Marshals in court what had happened to my personal belongings, they said the DEA had them. John Parry's idea had worked. The DEA are now reading my phoney defence. I'll stick it right up them in trial. If I can get acquitted at the Old Bailey, surely I can manage it in downtown Miami. I'll talk to Hobbs and Malik in the morning and get them to agree to say the Pakistani load was for Australia, not America. I drifted off.

'Name?'

'Marks.'

'Number?'

'41526-004.'

'You're going to court, Marks. Leave everything behind in your locker.'

Thirteen hours later, in the Miami Courthouse's bullpen, the court proceedings finished for the day. I had not been called. I managed to get a US Marshal's attention and asked him what was happening.

'What's your number?' asked the Marshal.

'41526-004.'

'You are being transferred to another facility.'

'Where?'

'North Dade.'

I'd heard that name before. That was where Judy was being held. I turned round to face the other prisoners.

'They're sending me to a women's prison,' I exclaimed. 'North Dade. That's where my wife is. Fantastic.'

'That's not just a broads' joint,' said one of the prisoners. 'It's where they put stool-pigeons. You're getting a break, Limey.'

North Dade Detention Centre is a Florida state jail rather than a federal prison. State jails normally house offenders against that state's law. International dope smuggling is a federal offence, but the US Federal Government has taken to renting state jails from the state authorities and using them for its own purposes. Some of North Dade was used to house the increasing number of female federal prisoners; the rest was used to cultivate snitches and protect them from those who would wish them ill. The jail itself conformed somewhat to the American movie stereotype, with metal-grilled, electronically controlled cell entrances. Facing the array of cells were televisions that were never switched off. There were telephones. The outside recreation area was a small cage containing a table-tennis set-up and a weight-lifting machine and could be used by only a handful of people at a time. There were no facilities other than those required for basic hygiene. Almost every male prisoner was a self-confessed snitch who had been caught smuggling cocaine. They had agreed to testify against their business partners and friends in return for lower sentences. One man was giving evidence against his mother. Each had his own justification: he'd been ripped off, it wasn't his fault he was busted, he told them to stop, he couldn't stay in prison for years because it wouldn't be fair to his family, everyone would have to become a snitch soon, there was no other way. The American 'War on Drugs' was fulfilling some hidden and sinister agenda. Demand for confessions had been a characteristic of political repression in many countries at many times. It probably reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution in Communist China. Loyalties to families and friends have to be replaced by loyalty to country. Forget individual ethics and obey the laws and regulations. Enjoy yourself, but do it our way: watch TV for as long as possible, then practise using your firearms. If you don't do it our way, we'll kill you. If your brother is doing something illegal, you should stop him. If you don't, you're as bad as him, and we'll get both of you.

The jail regime was loose. The guards had been instructed not to upset the snitches; they were valuable government property. Not all of the inmates were Hispanic. One was of Italian extraction. His name was Anthony 'Tomak' Acceturo, the once-reputed boss of the New Jersey Lucchese crime family. We discussed our loathing of snitches and the US Government which had created them. At the same time, it was obvious we each suspected the other of being a snitch. Why else would we be here?

Judy and I were able to talk to each other on the phone. She was twenty yards away. Although keeping up her strength, she had been bitterly upset by the treatment meted out to her by her brother Patrick's wife. Their home was within a twenty-minute drive of North Dade, and it had been understood that at least someone would visit her. No one did. Not even her lawyer, Don Re, had been to see her. She was very, very lonely and cried for her children.

Steve Bronis came to see me the first morning, and I said I had not become a snitch. He said he knew and explained that the likely reason I had been transferred was to remove any possibility of my persuading Malik, Ernie Combs, and Patrick Lane not to become snitches. These days there were more snitches than non-snitches. Soon they'd have to build very small special prisons just for stand-up guys.

Bronis had already reviewed the transcripts of the trials of Ernie, Patrick, and others. He felt that the defence lawyers had not put enough effort into getting the telephone taps thrown out of court. He had contacted the DEA and Gustavo in Madrid. Gustavo had sent Bronis the papers I'd left with him. The DEA claimed that there were no defence notes in my personal belongings. Read your heart out, Lovato.

Bronis arranged to have Judy accompany us during his legal visits. I hadn't seen her for six months. She looked different: more worried and more strained. Judy's choice was simple: admit to something she'd never done, get a sentence of time already served, and go home as a convicted felon; or wait for months, maybe years, in a county jail and attempt to establish her innocence before a brainwashed jury. She chose the former. A few weeks later, Don Re's able a.s.sistant, Mona, represented Judy in front of Judge Paine, who convicted her and set her free. The relief was the greatest I have ever known. Her and our children's intense pain and suffering were over. We might not see each other for a while, but Judy's plea agreement made provision for US Government a.s.sistance to be granted to help her to enter the country in the future and visit me.

Talking to the snitches, I quickly discovered what small fry I was. I had been charged with somehow being involved with a grand total of about a hundred tons of dope over a period of almost twenty years. Now I was a.s.sociating with Cubans who had done more than that in a single shipment and had doc.u.mentary evidence to prove it. Lovato and his DEA buddies had certainly done a remarkable job in getting the world to believe I was its biggest-ever marijuana dealer. Part of me really loved the attention I was getting because everyone thought I was the greatest smuggler in the universe. American media, journalists, and authors began to take an acute interest in me. I had been the mystery cartel leader, absent from a trial having all the ingredients that Americans yearn for: a British Peer of the Realm running knocking-shops full of Filipino wh.o.r.es and snitching on his buddy from James Bond's organisation, MI6, who had been smuggling dope in Pink Floyd's equipment and banking in Hong Kong and Switzerland. It was really international: not just a bunch of Hispanics from south of the border, but real foreigners from Europe and Asia. ABC's peak-viewing news programme, Prime Time Live Prime Time Live, wanted to interview me. I said yes, of course.

Paul Eddy and Sara Walden were former members of the Sunday Times Sunday Times Insight team and now lived near Washington, DC. They had just written a book called Insight team and now lived near Washington, DC. They had just written a book called The Cocaine Wars The Cocaine Wars, which covered cocaine smuggling from Colombia to Miami, and now wanted to write a book about my arrest and trial. Paul Eddy had written to me in Madrid advising me of his intention and asking if I would agree to be interviewed by him. I did so on the condition that I would not answer questions if I felt that I might mess up my defence by doing so. They interviewed me a number of times at North Dade Detention Centre's visiting room, providing a welcome break from the tedium of the television-flooded cell block and enabling me to have an objective viewpoint of the evidence against me. BBC Television wanted to make a doc.u.mentary of Paul's book about me. The director, Chris Olgiati, interviewed me at North Dade. BBC Wales were making their own special doc.u.mentary about me. They interviewed me too.

The fame I'd longed for ever since I was a weak swot in school was now well and truly mine. I loved it. But the fortune I had also longed for had disappeared. I wasn't completely skint: Judy still had the Palma house and its contents. The Chelsea flat was also still in her name, and the Palma Nova flat I'd bought off Chief Inspector Rafael Llofriu was still mine. Some or all of this property could be sold to support Judy and the children. But I had no cash or healthy bank accounts, and Bronis wanted $150,000. My parents sold their smallholding in Wales, now worth a dozen times what it cost them, and liquidated their savings. I was forty-five years old and apparently the biggest dope dealer in the world, yet my modest-living and modest-earning parents were the only ones able to pay for the best dope lawyer in America. Humiliation and shame took their grip of me.

I explained my defence theory to Bronis. Apart from the rock-group scams, I hadn't smuggled any dope to America. I wasn't Mr Dennis, and I could prove I wasn't in Pakistan when DEA Agent Harlan Lee Bowe said I was. The Alameda scam did not concern me. But I was a dope smuggler. The Pakistani scam in which I partic.i.p.ated was to Australia. The Vietnamese scam was to Canada. The United States was not involved. No one in their right minds would smuggle dope to the US these days. Bronis himself worked like a demon. He hired a private investigator to collect doc.u.mentary back-up for my defence. We obtained meteorological data from Australia showing that comments made by us and tapped by the DEA clearly referred to a particularly severe storm off the Australian coast. We obtained reams of statistics about money-laundering and dope-trading in Australia. Every word of the 500 phone taps could be explained. There was enough to convince a jury that what actually happened was a Pakistani scam into Australia. Showing that the Vietnamese scam was a Canadian affair was much easier because the DEA were accusing me of precisely that. Additionally, however, the DEA were claiming American jurisdiction of the Canadian scam on the basis of some weed the DEA had found in California which had been packaged in precisely the same manner as that busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver. Each half-kilo bag of Vietnamese weed masquerading as Thai weed carried a label bearing the words 'Pa.s.sed Inspection' and a logo of an eagle. The Californian and Vancouver weed obviously originated with the same supplier in Vietnam, but the DEA had no other proof of my partic.i.p.ation in any importation to America. DEA Agent Lovato had gone well over the top in trying to prove the Californian Vietnamese weed was mine. He maintained that the logo on all the packages was of a sparrowhawk. As Sparrowhawk was Philip's surname and Philip worked for me in Bangkok, it was obvious that I was smuggling dope into America. Bronis and I acquired ornithological texts demonstrating the physiological differences between sparrowhawks and eagles. Lovato would look a fool in court.

Matters were made considerably easier when, to my enormous joy and consolation, Old John was freed by a Vancouver court. The DEA had intentionally withheld favourable evidence, and the outraged Vancouver judges acquitted Old John of the Canadian charges and denied the United States' extradition request. He was free. The DEA were shown, again, to be cheats. There was other good news: Arthur Scalzo, the DEA's man in the Philippines, the one who dealt with Moynihan, had fled Manila under threat of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit for damages. His credibility would be easily attacked. Also we had acc.u.mulated all sorts of dirt on Moynihan. He would be no problem, and he knew nothing. I was going to enjoy this trial. I would make it the most entertaining and colourful trial Miami had ever seen. I would win. I'd be a star.

The prosecuting authority in any US federal case is the a.s.sistant US Attorney for the particular federal district. He has an obligation to resolve any prosecution quickly and cost-effectively. This is achieved by plea-bargaining. The prosecutor offers a maximum sentence for a plea of guilty to some charge plus some other considerations. Craig Lovato and a.s.sistant US Attorney Bob O'Neill came to see me and Bronis in North Dade. They gave us two choices: go to trial against overwhelming evidence and spend the rest of my life in an American prison, or plead guilty, become a snitch, and go home in a few years. They strongly recommended the second choice. Bronis told them to get f.u.c.ked. I was innocent. We were going to trial.

O'Neill left North Dade a disappointed man. Then he left his job and went to work for a firm of civil litigators in New York. He was replaced by a lightweight who knew nothing about the case. Things were looking up.

My confidence continued to increase as the July 1990 trial day approached. Just before my Old Bailey trial in 1981, I had received a poem from Patrick Lane which had given me a great deal of support. This time I received a letter from him.

Dear Howard,I have just spent the past eight hours with agents Lovato and Wezain here at Oakdale and I have agreed to tell them everything that I know about you and about this case. Consequently, I will be testifying against you at your trial in August. I am informing you of this partly to ease my conscience by forewarning you, but also in an attempt to persuade you to plead guilty now and to make a deal with the Government before it is too late.After serving my time for the past two years in stoic silence, you can well imagine how painful and difficult a decision this has been. I am all too aware that little Amber, who has always treated me with such reverence as her favourite uncle, will now only think of me as the man who betrayed her Daddy and sent him to jail for life. But I have had to weigh my loyalty to you as an old friend and brother-in-law against my love and duty towards Jude, Peggy, and Bridie. I am facing the very real probability of a new 15/20-year jail sentence, and I have no right to impose that on my family when I am offered a way out. In return for the Government's agreement not to pursue the extra jail time, I have become a co-operating witness.Co-operation is a bit like pregnancy: there are no half-way measures. Having agreed to tell the truth, I will have to tell the whole truth; from when I first met you till when I last saw you and everything in between. They started asking me questions today, slowly and methodically, and they will be back again tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that until they are satisfied that they know everything that I know. As I answered their questions, part of me felt detached, listening to my voice as though it belonged to somebody else, speaking in the courtroom. As I listened to that voice, speaking slowly, telling only the truth, I finally realised that you do not stand a chance. If you go to trial, you will be destroyed and I will be one of the instruments of destruction ...[M]y evidence alone will sink you. We have been good friends too long, you and I, and I know too much about you ... I do not care how imaginative or resourceful you are, and I have never underestimated your abilities; this time you will not pull it off ... For you to spend the rest of your life behind bars will not only be a shameful waste of all your gifts but will be a terrible tragedy for all the people who love you and need you and whom you will leave behind ... So, as a lapsed Catholic to a Welsh Baptist, I am recommending submission to a greater power. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus Extra ecclesiam nulla salus no salvation outside the church. I'm afraid it involves a humiliating loss of face and a painful swallowing of pride, but if you wish to rejoin your children while they are still little children, I see no alternative to a complete and utter surrender. You are surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered there is no dishonour in such a defeat. But as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a brother, you have no right to throw away your life in a futile gesture of bravado ... no salvation outside the church. I'm afraid it involves a humiliating loss of face and a painful swallowing of pride, but if you wish to rejoin your children while they are still little children, I see no alternative to a complete and utter surrender. You are surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered there is no dishonour in such a defeat. But as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a brother, you have no right to throw away your life in a futile gesture of bravado ...I want little Patrick to be proud of his name. I do not want to have to stand in a Florida courtroom and point my finger at you and reveal to the cold scrutiny of strangers all the secrets of twenty years of friendship. Please don't make me do that. Whatever you decide, all my prayers are with you.Patrick.

I had been gra.s.sed up by my own good friend and brother-in-law, the person after whom I'd named my dear son. Where was all that loyalty, unity, faith, trust, camaraderie, and romance? Where had it gone? Was it all bulls.h.i.t? Of course it was. We weren't the Mafia. We weren't the IRA. We weren't even Robin Hood and his Merry Men. We were just a bunch of easy-going guys who took the easy way out when the rest of the world went mad and ruthless. Alcatraz and Sing Sing weren't meant for the likes of us.

We all have our breaking points, don't we? Put a gun to the head of any one of my children, and I'll tell you all I know. But threaten me with a prison term, and I'll tell you to f.u.c.k off. So why, Patrick? You're definitely no wimp: you took suitcases of hashish from a locked car outside Hammersmith police station when the owner was inside being grilled by the cops; you drove a car full of hashish from Ireland to Wales; we unloaded a ton of hashish in a German gravel pit; we've been together with loads of money and dope in loads of countries. Can't you fight your way through a prison term? I've spent the last nine months with snitches. They're human. I don't blame you, Patrick. But I can't do it. I'll never help the DEA do any of their evil work. I'm not going to put anyone behind bars and obtain my happiness through someone else's tears. You may be doing the right thing, Patrick. It's just my expectations of you that were wrong. And that's not your fault.

Patrick knew nothing about any of the scams to Canada. He collected the money from the Pakistani scam but had no proof that the hashish had been imported into America. I was going to maintain that the cash in America resulted from a complicated money-laundering system used to move Australian currency. Patrick could not refute that. His testimony wouldn't matter. Bronis would destroy him anyway. Sorry, Patrick. You've got to go through the public humiliation of unsuccessfully betraying me. You can't sink me. Only one person can do that: Ernie Combs, who had handled every ounce of dope I'd imported to America over the last twenty years. No way would he roll over and become a government snitch.

The DEA and the newly appointed prosecutor wanted another meeting with me and Bronis to make a final offer. This time the offer was go to trial and get banged up forever or plead guilty and get a maximum of forty years (with possibility of some parole) with no requirement to gra.s.s anyone up or even talk to the DEA. Again Bronis rejected the offer. I was innocent. The DEA said I might like to change my mind: Ernie Combs had agreed to testify against me. He did not do it to lessen his own forty-year sentence by one day. He did it to secure immediate release for his old lady, Patty.

I love you, Ernie, but no more dope deals.

In West Palm Beach Courthouse on July 13th, 1990, I pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy to racketeer. The Canadian charge had been dropped. It was specified I could never be subpoenaed at anyone's trial or any Grand Jury proceeding to testify against them. The judge accepted the agreement not to impose a sentence greater than forty years. The sentencing date was set for October 18th.

From West Palm Beach I was taken to Miami MCC rather than to North Dade. Having been convicted, I wasn't any problem and could no longer adversely influence my codefendants to irritate the system. Jim Hobbs and Ronnie Robb had finally given in and pleaded guilty. As in the case of Judy and of several other co-defendants, the judge agreed to set them free once they'd admitted some non-existent crime. Miami MCC was much the same as when I'd left it nine months previously but was now frequently in the news because of the DEA's capture and forced extradition of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. Apparently the American invasion of Panama was nothing to do with grabbing the strategic Panama Ca.n.a.l. The US were just doing a drug bust. Noriega was housed in Miami MCC prison in special prisoner-of-war quarters. I saw him a few times but never conversed with him.

Shortly after I arrived, Balendo Lo turned up. The British had finally given in to DEA pressure and extradited him. He had been charged with facilitating my racketeering enterprise by supplying me with airline tickets. His business and marriage to Orca had been ruined. He was not a happy man.

A pre-sentence investigation report was prepared by a United States Probation Officer, Michael Berg. After an exhaustive enquiry into the whole case and into me, he concluded: In essence, Marks has pled guilty to facilitating the importation of vast quant.i.ties of marijuana and hashish into the United States while living in Europe. This 45-year-old British subject has remained in continuous confinement since July 25, 1988. An Oxford fellow, he is regarded by many as an intelligent, fascinating, and charismatic individual. Aware of this reputation, this writer must confess to not being disappointed.Marks is a devoted husband and father. He has been described in glowing terms by friends and relatives and all of their letters have been reviewed and considered. Much has been written about Dennis Howard Marks and much will continue to be written. Acknowledging this, this investigation attempted to separate fact from fiction. Dennis Howard Marks has, to some extent, become a victim of his own legend. By what the Government now alleges, he is not the world's biggest cannabis trafficker and he certainly is not responsible for 15% of all the marijuana that has entered the country, as DEA once claimed. He is not the biggest trafficker ever prosecuted in the United States, nor, for that matter, in the Southern District of Florida. However, make no mistake, Dennis Howard Marks is a major trafficker. It is astounding that he operated so long, that so many loads successfully entered this country, and that he did it all while remaining in Europe.

Early one morning, I heard over the prison compound's Tannoy, 'Inmate Marks, 4-1-5-2-6-0-0-4, report to the lieutenant's office immediately.' Inside the lieutenant's office, I was handcuffed behind my back, taken to 'the hole', the prison within the prison, and locked up alone all day with no privileges. No explanation was given for a week. Then I was told I was being locked up because I had attempted to escape. Bronis got on the case and a week or so later I was out of the hole. We couldn't find out who was behind the escape allegation. Bronis suspected Lovato. It was a typical DEA move.

Roger Reaves's sister, Kay, lived in Miami and eventually obtained permission to visit me. She had exciting news. While I was in the hole suspected of making escape attempts, Roger actually did escape. He had fulfilled his plan to the letter. He snitched on me and McCann, got a seven-year sentence, and escaped from his German prison, despite its being a maximum-security one. He sent his love and promised to pray for me.

The world's press turned up at West Palm Beach on October 18th. So did a clutch of DEA agents, US spooks, and law enforcement representatives from every corner of the globe. Because of my high profile, I wasn't woken up at 3 a.m. with all the other prisoners attending court. The US Marshals picked me up in a limousine at 11 a.m. Notoriety has its advantages. The courtroom was packed. Julian Peto had especially flown over from London just to say a few words to the judge on my behalf. Kay Reaves was also there, praying like mad. So were Patrick Lane and his family. He, too, wanted to say a few words on my behalf, but the judge wouldn't let him. The new prosecutor, a.s.sistant United States Attorney William Pearson, said: 'Your Honour, it is clear that Mr Marks was and is a very highly educated person. I think he has thrown all the gifts he was given to the wind. He has abused the trust, not only of his friends and family, but of his colleagues, the people that taught him in school, and of those people who respected him along the way. He has completely self-destructed and was probably motivated by his greed. While it is true that the United States and other police agencies have not been able to locate as much of Mr Marks's properties as we would like, we are certain, and the Court should feel very certain and secure in the fact, that Mr Marks made an enormous amount of money through his drug-dealing for those twenty years.

'As for specific recommendations from the United States, it is our position a forty-year sentence is appropriate. This is a pre-guideline sentence. Mr Marks will be eligible for parole after a percentage of that forty years. Based on those activities, and thumbing his nose at the United States as well as at the United Kingdom since 1980, we think it appropriate that the Court impose a forty-year sentence.'

Stephen J. Bronis, attorney-at-law, had a different slant: 'If someone asks me to describe in one word the case of United States of America versus Dennis Howard Marks, I would have to say bizarre. No other word better describes a man so complex, fascinating, and so intellectually gifted as Mr Marks allowing himself to be put in a situation that he faces today, and no other word more aptly fits what this case has become. Bizarre is the best way to describe some of the things that I have heard agents of the Government say about Mr Marks, and to Mr Marks. I know this, Your Honour: I have practised criminal law for eighteen years, I have represented the spectrum from murderers and rapists to Judges and Generals, but I have never witnessed anything like this.

'Agent Lovato has been awash in glory since the day he handcuffed Mr Marks. Next Tuesday, PBS will air a broadcast, a docudrama, and in that drama Agent Lovato will be re-enacting his crime-stopper techniques, and after you do what he hopes you will do with Mr Marks, he will leave the courtroom for the awaiting journalists, who will splash his picture in the national media and European papers.

'I am sure, Judge Paine, you have sensed the Government's urgency for you to unflinchingly execute the severe punishment they want you to put upon Mr Marks. They have recommended that you sentence him to forty years in prison. Forty years in prison on a guilty plea to a marijuana offence. It is bizarre that we are giving any credence whatever to the notion of a forty-year sentence. Forty-year sentences should be reserved for the thoroughly evil and violent of our species. Intellectually, they know that. I know that, and I believe you know that, Judge Paine. Judge, I myself have represented scores of marijuana smugglers on a scale much larger than Mr Marks, and I know many other such defendants. None that I am aware of has received the Draconian punishment after pleading guilty that the Government wants you to inflict in this case. For a marijuana smuggler who has pled guilty, forty years is inconceivable.'

The Honourable Judge James C. Paine said: 'Mr Marks, would you please come forward and receive your sentence. Mr Marks, there is no doubt you are a person of superior intelligence, and you had an excellent education. It is apparent that you enjoy an enviable relationship with relatives, business, academic a.s.sociates, and friends. Your biographical data discloses a personality which enjoys intellectual challenge, games of strategy coupled with a general feeling of disenchantment with conventional society.

'The letters of support for Mr Marks do not proclaim his innocence. They do cite his many admirable qualities so as to counter-balance his errors. After defining the defendant's many and varied talents, some of the letters of support indicate that it would be a shame to require him to expend many years of his life in prison at a cost to the public when he could contribute greatly to society. No doubt, that would be a shame. The problem is that on the basis of past experience, society cannot count on his making commendable contributions. On balance, his contributions have been negative rather than positive.

'It is apparent, Mr Marks, that you regard the use of marijuana and its derivatives as consistent with sound moral principles, and it is also apparent that you have been quite willing to violate laws which prohibit or control use, possession, or commercial transactions with respect to marijuana. You have been quite willing to ignore, or studiously violate, the laws of many countries. You have demonstrated that you have little respect for the rules of society as expressed by criminal laws which do not conform to what you believe to be acceptable conduct. While there is a large body of opinion that use of marijuana is not addictive, does not impair health in an unacceptable way, and should not, therefore, be illegal, there is, also, a large body of opinion to the contrary as to these matters. Further, and more important, federal statutes prohibit trafficking in marijuana. These statutes have been enacted by the Congress of the United States, and are enforced by the executive branch of the Government by initiation of court action and otherwise. I have taken an oath to administer justice, perform all duties agreeable to the laws of the United States. So, even if I agreed that laws controlling use and sale of marijuana are inappropriate, even foolish, I would have to abide by them until Congress has repealed them. These are rules of society which the courts are bound to apply whether you agree or not that these laws should be in place.

'The fact that the governments of many European countries and people of Europe are more tolerant of marijuana than is the Government and population of the United States is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Should the foregoing actually be a fact, it seems strange, Mr Marks, that you didn't confine your activity to the European market, thereby reducing your risk of harsher punishment. You were apparently willing to accept this risk.

'I must say I have some difficulty in characterising as candid the information you have offered with respect to your current financial condition. It is true the Government has offered no doc.u.mentation that you are able to respond to a substantial fine. Despite this, I find it difficult to conclude that your net worth is zero.

'Having considered the foregoing, I impose this sentence. As to Count 1 of the indictment, it is adjudged that the defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States or his authorised representative for imprisonment for a term of ten years. As to Count 2, the defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States or his authorised representative for imprisonment for a term of fifteen years. The sentence as to the second count is to run concurrently with the sentence as to the first count. I will recommend that because you are a citizen of the United Kingdom, it is recommended within the policies and procedures within the Bureau of Prisons that you be considered for a transfer to serve an appropriate portion of your sentence in an inst.i.tution in the United Kingdom.'

In stunned silence I was taken from the courtroom to the court's holding cells. What a wonderful judge! I'd been given a total of fifteen years, not the forty years that the might of the US Government was demanding. With maximum parole, I'd have to do a total of only five years. I'd already done almost half of that. A year or so more in American prisons plus a year or so in a British nick and I'd be a free man. End of story. What on earth had we all been panicking about? I knew that at that very moment, Julian Peto would be ringing my wife, children, and parents with the news. They would be ecstatic with joy.

The cell gate opened, and I was taken back before Judge Paine. He said: 'Let the record show that I asked for all interested persons to be rea.s.sembled because I simply made a very serious error in stating this sentence. I said that the sentences as to each count were to run concurrently. I misspoke without realising I had done so and should have said consecutively. I said concurrently and I meant consecutively, and that was my clear intention within my mind. Somehow I subst.i.tuted the word concurrently for consecutively when I stated the sentence. I am quite embarra.s.sed about it. I apologise to each of you. There were a number of people in the courtroom who are not here, and it is undoubtedly going to be the source of confusion in newspaper reports about the matter. The fact is that I simply used the wrong word. It seems inconceivable I have done that, but I did. I must restate the sentence. There is no change in it whatsoever except the word consecutively must be subst.i.tuted for concurrently.'

A surreal nausea overtook me. I'd suddenly been given another ten years. Now I was serving a twenty-five-year sentence. G.o.d! For a few minutes, I'd been so happy.

Hours later, at Miami MCC, I settled down. The sentence wasn't that bad. With maximum parole, I should be out in just over six years, and most of that six years might be served in Britain.

The media descended on the prison. Cameras, microphones, and lights littered my cell. I gave dozens of interviews and continued to get off on the glamour and notoriety. As Bronis had told the judge, the BBC doc.u.mentary, The Dream Dealer The Dream Dealer, was screened by PBS. The entire prison watched it. I loved it and thought it well done. It became Britain's entry for the Montreux TV festival, but won no prizes.

Lovato had been interviewed extensively and didn't come across as a nice guy. I did, to the prisoners, anyway. Lovato accused my wife and children of uttering anti-American vulgarities at him when he arrested Judy and me. He said that I was so ruthless I even laundered money through a foreign charity. What in fact he was referring to was the few thousand dollars I had given, at Sompop's request, to the charity for handicapped children in Bangkok.

A written confirmation of the judge's sentence quickly followed. He added a $50,000 fine and a recommendation that I serve the American portion of my sentence in a special prison in Butner, North Carolina, which was particularly suited to prisoners wishing to study when incarcerated. It was affiliated with North Carolina University and Duke University and was probably the best joint in the federal system. Doing time there was known to be easy. I just had to wait in Miami MCC for a month or so until the authorities were ready to move me.

The regular guard came into our cell early one evening.

'Marks. Get your s.h.i.t together. You're leaving. You're an escape risk, so we're processing you first. You'll be blackboxed.'

There was no point arguing. A black-boxed prisoner was chained, shackled, and handcuffed. Hands were rendered further immobile by a black metal box. He was segregated from other prisoners while being transported.

'I don't think you'll appreciate Indiana, Marks.'

'Indiana? I thought Butner was in North Carolina.'

'It is. But United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, is definitely in Indiana. I've been there.'

'I'm not going to Terre Haute. I'm going to Butner.'

'Marks, you're going to Terre Haute. It's a very rough joint. Someone in the US Government obviously doesn't like you. You've been no sweat to me, though. Good luck, buddy.'

Seventeen.

DADDY.

There are fifty states in America. Each has its own administration of justice. So does Washington and the rest of the anomalous District of Columbia. So do Guam, the Virgin Islands, and other US overseas possessions. These combined authorities keep well over a million people incarcerated for offences such as murder, possession of drugs, rape, and child molestation. No other country imprisons anything like that number. In addition, the United States Government has created its own federal justice system, which envelops all the above jurisdictions and imprisons a further 100,000 individuals. Typical federal offences are crimes which threaten national security, involve federal employees, involve inst.i.tutions which are federally insured, are committed on Indian reservations, involve two or more states of the United States, or are related to drug smuggling. Sixty per cent of federal prisoners are drug offenders. Generally, federal offenders get housed in federal prisons. Exceptions occur for short stays during the federal prisoner's court appearances, when the Feds want to isolate a prisoner to turn him into a snitch, or when the Feds want to inconvenience a prisoner by subjecting him to 'diesel therapy' (continual shunting around from one state jail to another for no reason). To accommodate these circ.u.mstances, some sections of some state prisons (including county jails) are permanently designated for the use of the federal authorities. North Dade was a typical example. Similarly, state offenders are generally housed in state prisons. The only exception is when a particular offender is too troublesome for the state authorities to handle. The Feds will take care of him. A federal prison, therefore, will house Indian braves, terrorists, bank robbers, presidential a.s.sa.s.sins, spies, interstate hooker transporters, dope smugglers, and any state convict too butch for the state authorities to handle. To house its broad spectrum of offenders, the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons operates inst.i.tutions of several different security levels, based on such features as the presence of external patrols, gun towers, walls, fences, detection devices, staff-to-inmate ratios, and the conditions of confinement. Of its more than one hundred inst.i.tutions, six were cla.s.sified as the highest security level, built to house America's most violent and dangerous criminals. They are referred to as United States Penitentiaries (USPs). One of these six, the one with the worst reputation for slaughter and gang rape, was at Terre Haute, Indiana. Known as 'Terror Hut', it was America's 'gladiator school' and provided an arena for tough redneck US Government hacks, Black innercity gang leaders, bikers, and psychopaths. Half of those imprisoned there would never be released. It promised to be different. I was terrified.

Fear is an emotion best not displayed, so I was putting on a brave face as one of ten chained and shackled federal inmates shuffling on board the prison bus in below-zero temperatures at Hulman Regional Airport, Indiana, on January 10th, 1990. An identical bus was alongside loading a handful of prisoners bound for one of the other USPs, situated at nearby Marion, Illinois. We were 200 miles from Chicago. Six weeks had elapsed since I had left Miami MCC on a sixteen-hour bus journey to Atlanta, Georgia. In the USP at Atlanta, I was stuck in the hole for five weeks because my record stated I was a high escape risk. Then, along with a hundred others, I was flown by a United States Federal Bureau of Prisons aeroplane from an air force base in Georgia to Oklahoma City Airport. After a night on the floor in the s...o...b..und federal prison at El Reno, another prison aeroplane had brought me here. There was one other 'blackboxed' prisoner. We sat together. He was Gennaro 'Jerry Lang' Langella, the Mafia boss of New York's Colombo crime family. Despite doing a life sentence in prison, he was ranked the fifth most powerful crime figure in the world. Jerry had no release date. The US Government had buried him alive. As he was telling me this, the bus drove slowly past the first of USP Terre Haute's facilities: the cemetery, the graveyard of those who are forgotten before they die.

At the reception's holding cells we were, for the seventh time that day, thoroughly searched. Yet again we were photographed, fingerprinted, and medically examined. We were give plastic cards to serve as identification. They could also be used to buy junk food from vending machines if one had money in one's inmate account. We were led to our respective cells.

Built in 1940, and holding a twenty-year escape-free record, USP Terre Haute resembles an enormous insect whose outside skeleton is razor wire, whose body is the main thoroughfare, whose legs are cell blocks for prisoners, whose claws are holes for administering torture, whose arms are mindless facilities for its 1,300 inhabitants, whose compound eyes are TV cameras, and whose head is a gymnasium. The razor-wire insect sits in a razor-wire-enclosed adventure playground containing tennis courts, basket-ball courts, at least a hundred tons of weightlifting equipment, racquetball courts, handball courts, bowling pitches, football pitches, baseball pitches, throwing-horseshoe pitches, jogging track, outside gymnasium, covered casino-type card-playing area, and an eighteen-hole crazy golf course. Close to the casino was the Native American Indian sweat lodge and sacred area. Close to the totem pole was a prison industry factory, Unicor, where prisoners slaved away for pittances making government-issue materials and surrept.i.tiously fashioning 'shanks', home-made but lethally sharp knives and swords. Facilities provided inside the insect included a chapel accommodating every conceivable religion, a law library with photocopying machines and typewriters, a leisure library, a cafeteria, a pool hall, two recording studios, a cinema, a school, a hobby shop, a supermarket, and thirty television rooms. Each cell block differs from the others in terms of type of accommodation: dormitories, single cells, multi-prisoner cells. Movement between cells within a cell block was permitted most of the day. Movement between one's cell block and common areas was allowed for ten-minute periods at specific times. My a.s.signed cell already had three occupants: a redneck who was dying of liver cancer, a Lebanese heroin smuggler, and a Black crack distributor. Conversation was surprisingly easy. They were incredibly friendly and considerate towards me.

USP Terre Haute had one major advantage: one couldn't be transferred anywhere worse. At a non-penitentiary, one could be threatened with transfer to a penitentiary. At one of the other penitentiaries, one could be threatened with Terre Haute. Apart from the hole, which had long lost its bite due to frequency of imposition, there was no threat available to the Terre Haute prison authorities other than dishing out more prison time. For those doing life without parole, this was hardly relevant. There was plenty of illegally distilled alcohol, plenty of dope brought in by bent hacks, and largescale gambling was endemic. Although most of the time the prisoners were content either to play basketball or to watch it on television, the lack of any effective deterrent often resulted in periods of mindless mayhem. At least one prisoner was 'shanked' every day. There would be several vicious and messy fights every day. There were plenty of murders and immeasurably more maimings. Most were gang-related, but some would result from petty individual squabbles.

Most of the gangs were Black Muslim-based. One of the most formidably powerful street gangs ever is the El Rukhn gang of Chicago. Originally the Black P. Stone Nation, formed in the 1960s by an amalgamation of the Blackstone Rangers and other Chicago street gangs, and shrewdly financed by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, the El Rukhn gang had a membership in the tens of thousands and large real-estate holdings acquired through a wide range of criminal operations. Other Chicago gangs had sprung off from the Blackstone Rangers, including the Vicelords, who under the leadership of Roosevelt Daniels, later to be brutally murdered in the prison cafeteria, had, at that time, the stranglehold on prison life in Terre Haute. Sometimes the Vicelords got on with the El Rukhns at Terre Haute. Sometimes they didn't. Many members of Los Angeles's two notorious rival street gangs, the Bloods and the Crips, were too much for the Californian authorities to handle: they were sent to Terre Haute. In Washington, DC's infamous Lorton prison perennially fighting Blacks had proved to be uncontrollable: they were sent to Terre Haute. Neither the Vicelords nor the El Rukhns got on with the Crips or the Bloods or any of the DC gangs. Each gang had its own peculiarities of vocabulary, its own colours, and its own system of elaborate hand signals. Different from the American city street gangs and hating them with a pa.s.sion were the Jamaican Posse gangs, some with dreadlocks, some without.

There were White prison gangs too: the fanatically racist Aryan Brotherhood, the equally racist Dirty White Boys, the rednecked Dixie Mafia, the Mexican Mafia, innumerable Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Colombian syndicates, and various biker gangs. Although rival biker gangs such as the h.e.l.l's Angels, the Pagans, and the Outlaws would kill each other almost on sight in the street, in prison they would sensibly call a truce and allow their conflicting ideologies to coexist peacefully. One of the most famous bikers ever, James 'Big Jim' Nolan of the Outlaws, resided at Terre Haute, scheduled for release in 2017.

Rules of prison gang initiation varied. Some would require the carrying out of a random killing within the prison. Being British and a famous non-rat, I could avoid most conflict by being nice, charming, and eccentric; but I never felt safe. I would have to choose my friends carefully.

Terre Haute boasted quite a few notable mafiosi mafiosi. Apart from Gennaro 'Jerry Lang' Langella, the most senior Mafia member, one found John Carneglia, Victor 'Vic the Boss' Amuso, and Frank Locascio, high-rankers in New York's Gambino crime family, the facilitators of my New York airport hashish scams. There was Anthony 'Bruno' Indelicato, son of Alphonse 'Sonny Red' Indelicato and a capo capo in the crime family of Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno. Also in Terre Haute were Sicilian Antonio Aiello of the Pizza Connection case and Joey Testa of the Philadelphia Mafia. I made friends with them all. The Italian Mafia, like the bikers, 'truced up' against the common enemy when inside and postponed their differences, seeming very resigned to doing their time. The outside operations they still headed were continuing and prospering through the prison's telephones and visiting room. Their main concern was the quality of the prison pasta and availability of keep-fit facilities. Cla.s.sified somewhere between the Italian Mafia and a street gang are the Westies, a no-nonsense New York Irish criminal organisation. A few of its members resided at USP Terre Haute, including its highly intelligent and charismatic boss, Jimmy c.o.o.nan. The rest of the prison population was made up of psychopaths, spies, perverts, and sophisticated, high-profile individual criminal personalities serving decades of time. in the crime family of Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno. Also in Terre Haute were Sicilian Antonio Aiello of the Pizza Connection case and Joey Testa of the Philadelphia Mafia. I made friends with them all. The Italian Mafia, like the bikers, 'truced up' against the common enemy when inside and postponed their differences, seeming very resigned to doing their time. The outside operations they still headed were continuing and prospering through the prison's telephones and visiting room. Their main concern was the quality of the prison pasta and availability of keep-fit facilities. Cla.s.sified somewhere between the Italian Mafia and a street gang are the Westies, a no-nonsense New York Irish criminal organisation. A few of its members resided at USP Terre Haute, including its highly intelligent and charismatic boss, Jimmy c.o.o.nan. The rest of the prison population was made up of psychopaths, spies, perverts, and sophisticated, high-profile individual criminal personalities serving decades of time.

One of them, Corsican Laurent 'Charlot' Fiocconi, became one of the best friends I have ever had. Charlot's case was the last of a series that became immortalised as the French Connection. In 1970 he was arrested in Italy, extradited to the United States, convicted of heroin smuggling, and sentenced to twenty-five years. In 1974 he escaped from a New York jail and went to the middle of the Brazilian jungles to mind his own business. He stayed there for seventeen years. He met and married a beautiful lady from Medellin, Colombia. In 1991 they were both arrested in Rio de Janeiro in connection with cocaine charges. The United States locked him up in Terre Haute to finish his sentence.

Another prisoner with whom I developed a strong friendship was Veronza 'Daoud' Bower. He had been a Black Panther in the 1960s. In the early 1970s he killed a cop. He had been in penitentiaries ever since. Daoud had grown waist-length dreadlocks and had devoted his twenty-odd years of continuous prison life to playing chess and Scrabble, perfecting his own physical fitness, and studying and practising various healing techniques. He could do several thousand push-ups non-stop and relieve or cure virtually any ailment. Daoud was the only non-native American Indian who partic.i.p.ated in religious sweat-lodge rituals.

The prison staff varied from fat military megalomaniacs to fat and demented local Ku Klux Klan rejects. Indiana is the state with the highest incidences of illiteracy and obesity and traditionally has been host to many fervent Ku Klux Klan supporters. The hacks' hobbies included shooting animals and brawling in bars. One hack was busted for running around b.o.l.l.o.c.k naked, another for bringing in dope, and another was dismissed for partic.i.p.ating in a convicts' p.o.r.nography racket. The prison chaplain was busted for bringing heroin into the prison.

A new arrival at the prison must find himself alternative official employment within forty-eight hours to avoid being forced to work in the kitchen for $25 a month. There are scores of different jobs available in the libraries, laundry, cla.s.srooms, and other common areas. While Desert Storm was in full swing, I presented myself to the prison's Department of Education and was interviewed by a likeable and intelligent hack named Webster. His teenage sons were fighting in Desert Storm. He gave me the job of teaching English grammar to prisoners studying for their General Education Diploma (GED), a qualification regarded as equivalent to a high-school diploma. My pay was $40 a month. On my first day I faced a cla.s.sroom of seventeen young Blacks, most of whom were looking at the rest of their life behind bars. Correctional Officer Webster sat at the back ready to step in if there were problems. There had been in the past, like the time a mutilated and b.l.o.o.d.y corpse was found in the bathroom. It had always been difficult for a prisoner, even with the protection of a hack, to teach other prisoners because he dared not display any authority or superiority and could not even begin to appear to be administering any kind of discipline. An inmate teacher, if not cautious, could find himself regarded as a semi-hack or jailhouse snitch. I was scared, but I applied the usual rule: never show your fear.

'My name's Howard Marks, and I hope to be able to help you study for the English grammar section of the GED exam.'

'Hey! Hey! Hey! Webster! Webster! I ain't trying to learn no motherf.u.c.king thing from no motherf.u.c.king cracker. There ain't nothing no motherf.u.c.king White dude can tell me. Nothing. You know what I'm saying? There ain't nothing no motherf.u.c.king White dude can tell me.'

'Now, now, this is an equal-opportunity prison,' said Webster, in an attempt to pacify and control Tee-Bone Taylor, cop killer and second-in-charge of the Vicelords.

'Webster, it ain't like that. You be welling, man. Don't be laying no racist government c.r.a.p on me. I ain't trying to hear that motherf.u.c.king s.h.i.t. This cracker don't be knowing more than me. He ain't chilling in no projects like me and my brothers. What does he know? Hey! Hey! Hey! Teach! Teach!'

'Call me Howard, please.'