"In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders." "These are their stories." "Fourth and seventeen Kordell Stewart from the shotgun." "Hike!" "Play action!" "Keshawn Johnson going long!" "Stewart rolls right, looks downfield." "Come on, man!" "Thought you could jet." "Whooped your ass." "Yo, Kev!" "DOA's a white male, 50's." "Any ID?" "No wallet, no cash." "Looks like a straight-up robbery." "Wrong place, wrong time." "Big guy." "What put him down?" "Hollow point." "Nine mil or 40 caliber." "We recovered some bullet fragments by the fence." "How many rounds?" "First one was a through-and-through to the gut." "Exit wound in his back." "Slug grazed his left ankle." "Second one to the chest finished him off." "Rey, see the dirt on his pants?" "Shooter made him get down on his knees." "Beg for his life." "There was a corrections officer from Pine Hills." "Charles Tyner." "M.E. makes the time of death around midnight." "They recovered one intact slug." "Ballistics says it's from a nine millimeter." "Probably a Glock." "Where'd he live?" "Coxsackie, upstate." "We called there about a half a dozen times." "No answer." "But, uh, local PD's gonna ring his bell." "Well, he could have been visiting someone in the city." "Anyone report him missing?" "Nothing." "But whoever he was with, they were having a hell of a time." "M.E. logged in his stomach contents." "Peanuts, popcorn, nachos, beer, and about a half a dozen hotdogs." "No Crackerjacks?" "I'm guessing he was at a ballgame." "Yeah, him and about 50,000 other people." "Well, call the prison." "I'm sure they'll have the next of kin." "That's my father." "I never called him." "I thought..." "I thought he made it home." "I'm sorry." "Uh..." "When did he get into town?" "Saturday morning." "Are you okay to talk?" "He, uh, he checked into the Barrington Hotel, and then he came up to see the game." "I play football for Columbia." "And after the game?" "Uh, we went out for a few beers, and then he went home." "He went..." "He went back to his room." "He had to get back the next day for his shift." "At Pine Hills?" "He transferred there about five months ago from Greene Correctional." "He said it would be easier for him there." "Why?" "Women instead of men?" "I guess." "Why would somebody shoot him?" "I mean, he gave up his money." "A uniform." "He was a cop?" "Corrections officer." "Nothing." "A change of clothes and some toiletries." "You remember this guy going anyplace?" "Yeah." "Came out late, asked me for cigarettes." "I sent him to the all-night market at the corner of 42nd." "Opposite direction from the playground." "You see him come back?" "No." "You mind if we have a look around?" "Just drop off the key." "Thanks." "Guy goes out for smokes, winds up six blocks in the opposite direction." "A mugger would've taken him on the spot." "Tyner was hijacked." "Maybe he ran into an old friend." "A con from upstate?" "I don't figure it was one of the gals from Pine Hills." "So why'd Charlie transfer?" "Problems at work?" "No, change of scenery." "Charlie was a hero around here." "A few years back, there was a multiple man fight in one of the classrooms." "Two teachers got trapped off." "Charlie talked his way in, got 'em out." "Nobody hurt." "I'm sure the guards loved him." "What about the inmates?" "Never had any complaints." "Hey, 18 years in here, he must have made some enemies." "Look, nobody who works here is warm and fuzzy." "You can't remember a single con he ever pissed off?" "Oh, Charlie was by the book." "Had trouble with an inmate, he'd write him up." "You keep those write-ups?" "Sure." "Parole looks at 'em." "Gimme a name." "Uh, Johnnie Fry." "Tyner wrote him up five times." "Paroled last year." "He violated." "He's in Fishkill now." "Okay." "Ricky Crimmins, paroled last month." "Eight write-ups." "Insubordination, verbal harassment, tardiness." "Write-ups stop in January." "Probably cleaned up his act for the parole board." "What was he in for?" "Let's see." "Two prior buy-and-busts." "He was here on a plea to Assault One." "Deadly weapon." "Any more details?" "Knee-capped a drug associate." "Arrested with a Beretta, 92." "Nine millimeter." "His weapon of choice." "He was here a couple of days ago." "He's not due back for another month." "The guy just got paroled for a violent felony." "Hey, if I had time, I'd tuck 'em in by 9:30." "Make sure they brush their teeth." "Does Crimmins have a job, in case you bothered to ask?" "You might try his wife." "She waits tables uptown." "Big Mike's Cozy Corner." "You hope." "Parole." "Gotta give these guys a reason to behave in jail." "How about guards, solitary." "Privileges you can revoke?" "So in Rey's world, nobody gets a second chance?" "They blew their chance." "I'm with Pataki." "No minimum-maximum crap." "A guy gets 10 years, he does 10 years." "And hits the streets with no supervision." "Crimmins checks in once a month." "His P.O. doesn't even know where the hell he is." "They ought to put a collar on these guys." "The name ain't Trina Crimmins, it's Trina Fleming." "So you still with Ricky?" "No." "He's a negative influence." "He in trouble already?" "Depends on what he has to say." "You know where he is?" "I seen Ricky once since he got out." "He hit me up for $50." "For a gun?" "That's what I was thinking, but he promised me it wasn't." "Said he wanted to buy some kind of timer." "Like for chess or something." "Did he ever mention a guy named Charlie Tyner?" "Never." "Order up!" "That's mine." "A chess timer?" "Putting a hurting on you, man." "Gonna hurt you bad." "Ricky Crimmins?" "Yo-yo-yo-yo." "You're fragmenting my concentration." "I'm trying to open this chump up." "Open him up a little." "Yeah, maybe I ought to fragment this, huh?" "We need to talk." "Yeah, well, let me finish my game, man." "I got him in a tough position." "Ain't no Vaseline for this position, baby." "Time to go." "Hey, brother, you know I was about to mate your butt." "You owe me $5." "Hey, you messing up my game." "There's plenty of time for chess where you're going." "Where am I going?" "Saturday night, I was sleeping on the F-train." "Anybody see you?" "If they did, they looked the other way." "You know how it is." "Brother like me, late at night." "You happen to run into Charlie Tyner that evening?" "Who?" "Charlie Tyner from upstate." "You spent eight years with him on the wrong side of a cell." "That Charlie?" "Yeah, that Charlie." "Let's cut the crap, Ricky." "We know you bumped into him." "Down here?" "Uh-uh." "Ain't had nothing to do with old Charlie." "Just like you had nothing to do with the guy you capped in '89." "Man didn't give me my props." "Charlie didn't give you your props either." "All those tickets he wrote you upstate must've really pissed you off, huh?" "You saying I did something to Charlie?" "You put him on his knees and executed him." "I need to get with a lawyer." "That's the way you want to play it." "We're violating you on the fake address." "Why you doing me like this?" "Hey, you kill a hero like Charlie, it's only gonna get worse." "Hero, my ass." "He's a lying, thieving peckerwood." "Was a thousand inmates want to put Charlie in a box." "You're lying." "Hell I am." "All American Charlie was the biggest drug dealer in the whole damn joint." "Crimmins is blowing smoke up our ass." "He could've just kept his mouth shut." "Why would he make it up?" "Well, it shouldn't be too hard to find out if Charlie was dealing." "Local PD searched his house." "It was clean." "Well, he wouldn't score in Coxsackie." "Someone might recognize him." "Look for trips to the city." "I don't see any charges in New York." "Looks like Tyner never left Coxsackie." "Well, you know there's all kinds of hot spots there." "There's Kmart, J.C. Penney..." "And the Starlight Motel, back in January." "Maybe for an out of town guest?" "Never seen him." "His name's Charlie Tyner." "He stayed here January 3rd." "I still never seen him." "Do all your guests sign that book?" "House policy." "Charlie sign it?" "No." "But Trina Fleming did." "Mrs. Ricky Crimmins." "Charlie Tyner shacked up with your wife at the Starlight Motel." "As soon as you got the chance, you made him pay." "Yo, hold up a second." "How'd you find out about it?" "Trina rub your face in it?" "She comes upstate to visit you, winds up in your C.O.'s bed?" "Piss the hell out of me." "It's justified homicide." "You tell that story, maybe you walk away." "I wanted him to do Trina." "Hell, I set the whole thing up." "Every time I turn around, Charlie's hitting me with tickets for some half-assed nonsense." "I spent half last year in the hole." "So where does your wife come in?" "I told her to use her female charms on him." "Then I punked him out." "What do you mean, you punked him out?" "I got to old Charlie, I say, "I got proof you sexed my old lady." ""I will tell administration you threatened to plant a shank in my bunk" ""unless I gave you my wife. "" "Should've seen that cracker's face." "See, he didn't know Trina was my old lady." "Had his ass in my pocket." "So he brought in drugs for you?" "Drugs, cigarettes, whatever." "Charlie was my bitch." "Why am I gonna smoke him?" "Ricky told us about your scam on Charlie Tyner." "He turned up dead." "Yo, it wasn't me." "I was here." "I got 50 witnesses." "You still committed extortion." "Any way I can take care of that?" "You can start by telling us how it went down with Charlie." "All right." "I was still with Ricky then." "He pointed Charlie out to me in the visiting room." "He told me that guard was abusing him." "Ricky told me where the C.O. bar was up there." "The man was easy." "So you and Ricky worked your magic, and now you're Charlie's connection." "Yo, I ain't doing that kind of stuff no more." "You think I would be on my feet 12 hours a day, if I was making easy money?" "Charlie called me last month to hook him up with some coke." "Told him no." "He tell you what he wanted it for?" "We didn't have a long conversation." "Look, if you're busting me, let's get it over with." "We know where to find you." "Charlie's tox screen was clean." "He wasn't scoring for personal use." "Maybe when he went up to Pine Hills he took his bad habits with him." "I can't get too worked up about Charlie." "He's here a few months." "I'm here 14 years." "Were any drugs coming into your block before he got killed?" "Not that I know of." "You sure about that?" "I got a daughter wants to be a policewoman." "Maybe she could give you a call?" "She's gonna have to take the exam." "Last week, three of the girls got pulled in for a drug test." "They check us by random." "I heard one of the girls wasn't too happy about it." "Alice Simonelli." "Came in first thing Thursday morning." "Her block rep said she put up a fight." "They hauled her in here for a urine sample, screaming she wanted to come back later." "Did you get the sample?" "Her choice." "The cup or 60 days solitary." "She chose the hole." "What are these initials for, next to the date?" "One of the C.O.s came by later." "Signed for Alice's file." "Figured there was an investigation." "C.T." "Charlie Tyner." "I didn't know Tyner." "He was new." "And now he's dead." "Easy come, easy go." "They already got somebody new doing his shift." "That's a nice tattoo you got there." "That's a Paganos gang sign." "Since when do Paganos take white girls?" "I just joined them in here for protection, that's all." "Yeah?" "And to party with?" "Yeah." "This place is a barrel of fun." "So what was Charlie bringing in?" "Pills?" "Coke?" "What?" "Eh." "Too bad you can't ask him." "You know, if you lose the attitude and help us out, we can get you out of solitary." "Yeah, cool." "All right, maybe he was selling." "I'm not sure." "Come on, why else would he be interested in your drug test?" "These C.O.s, they're all snoops." "We're not buying it, Alice." "We know you were using." "Maybe you know who Tyner's supplier was in the city." "Whatever." "Have a nice ride back to New York." "The girl won't talk." "She's either scared or protecting somebody." "Or both." "What's she doing time for?" "Cocaine rap." "Two to six." "That's a tough hit for a first- timer." "I'll talk to the A.D.A. who prosecuted her." "See who her dope friends are in town." "Maybe one of them was Tyner's connection." "Alice Simonelli?" "Yeah, it was a '95 indictment." "One of 1,000." "Got it." "Okay." "Right, Simonelli was driving some guy to a drug deal." "The cops stopped her car, found the stash." "Major weight?" "Little over an ounce." "And you sent her upstate?" "The guy she was riding with took off." "She wouldn't name him." "Whole thing turned out to be my fault." "Are there any other partners we should be looking at?" "She could be protecting them now." "No, we never found any of her drug pals." "Legal Aid was supposed to assign her to a work camp." "She should've been out in less than a year." "I read her Corrections file." "Her first month in, she got busted for smoking marijuana." "Explains why she didn't go to the work camp." "And about a year ago she got into a fight." "Stabbed an inmate with a sharpened broomstick." "Blew her parole, too." "She screwed her life up, big time." "She had a baby and a teaching career ahead of her." "Well, now she's with the Paganos." "We traced some of her telephone calls to one of their drug corners." "I know her lawyer." "I'll put a call in to him." "Maybe if we toss her a big enough carrot." "You tell her what this was about?" "She's in solitary No phone privileges." "All she knows is she's getting a legal visit." "Take me back to the hole." "Why don't you hear what I have to say?" "Why?" "She's talking about a time cut." "Sit down, Alice." "I'm in Major Felonies now." "The Charlie Tyner case." "You put away enough innocent people, they give you a promotion?" "You had cash with cocaine residue in your pocket." "The guy gave me gas money." "I never knew his last name." "I was just giving him a ride." "Don't insult my intelligence." "Let's talk about Charlie Tyner." "I already talked to the cops you sent up here." "You want to play games?" "You make deals with people's lives." "Your whole life is a game." "I came here to help you." "Don't feed me that garbage!" "You're here to help yourself." "You destroyed my whole life because I wouldn't tell you what you wanted to hear." "For an ounce of coke, you took away my little girl!" "You sent me to this hellhole!" "You make me sick!" "That went well." "Two days before Tyner came to New York," "Alice called a pay phone in Spanish Harlem." "It's a narcotics spot." "Alice Simonelli doesn't sound Hispanic." "Bay Ridge Italian." "She joined the Paganos in jail." "They're an equal opportunity street gang." "She's come a long way from Hunter College." "I tried to cut her a deal three years ago." "What happened?" "She wouldn't give up her partner, so I wouldn't plea bargain." "Her parents weren't too happy." "They wrote a letter to my supervisor." "Any chance she might have been telling the truth?" "What, that she was just an innocent bystander?" "Look at her record since her arrest." "If I had any doubts about coming down on her, she dispelled them." "Her parents still live in Brooklyn?" "As far as I know." "You need Alice to cooperate." "Maybe she'll listen to them." "You think she's still involved in drugs?" "You never noticed the gang tattoo on her arm?" "I don't understand what happened to her." "She never mentioned any problems to you, or one of the guards?" "A man named Charlie Tyner?" "No." "She never tells us what goes on in there." "She just likes to talk about her little girl, Jenny." "What's this Tyner got to do with Alice?" "He was murdered in the City." "We think your daughter can help us find the killer." "We might be able to get her early parole." "Parole?" "What about her appeal?" "I'm sorry, uh, Alice's appeal was denied a year ago." "No." "She called us last week about it." "We gave $500 to a paralegal." "Five hundred cash?" "Yes." "Yeah." "Did he give you his name?" "Luis." "A young Puerto Rican kid." "Had a big scar." "Is there a problem?" "Why did you give him the money?" "Alice told us to." "He gave us a card." "The lawyer he works for." "Ah, that's my card." "But, uh, I don't have any Puerto Ricans working for me." "Puerto Rican clients?" "Lots of those." "It's a growth industry." "Any of them named Luis?" "Yeah." "About half of them." "Okay, uh, mid-twenties." "Scar on his neck." "Oh, Luis Pacheco." "What, you gonna, uh, charge him with something?" "It's possible." "You have his address?" "Have you ever heard of the, uh, Paganos?" "I'll give you heads-up if we arrest him, you save me a trip to the clerk's office." "I don't need the fee that bad." "I can always get his address from court records." "Do that." "There's no way it gets back to Pacheco I gave him up." "Luis Pacheco?" "He ain't here." "That's funny." "His mother told us we'd find his ugly, lazy butt working on his piece of crap car." "Your buddy here seems to fit the description." "These maricóns they got on the police now." "What is this city coming to?" "You sound mighty cheerful for a guy who's about to go down for armed robbery." " What robbery?" " Oh, you forgot already?" "Last Thursday, 4:00 p. m." "A McDonalds in Riverdale." "We got three witnesses ID'd your mug shot." "And a red Camaro hauling out of there." "Last Thursday I was hanging on the corner all day." "Straight up." "We was lamping outside the bodega." "Oh, where?" "Right next to the phone booth?" "Yeah." "Well, why don't we talk downtown?" "Just wasting your time." "Tools, man." "Tools?" "Come on, get on the car." "Assume the position." "Oh, man." "What's going on, man?" "Lennie, gun." "On the floor!" "I'm telling you, man." "I'm telling you, man, I was nowhere near Riverdale!" "Right." "You were on the street corner with your nine mil, waiting on a phone call from Alice." "Who'd I cap?" "Charlie Tyner." "A C.O. at Pine Hills." "Never heard of him." "Then how did a bullet from your gun wind up in his corpse?" "That's bull, man." "Read the ballistics report." "Plus, we can put you on the phone with your girlfriend at Pine Hills." "What did you and Alice talk about?" "She have a beef with Tyner?" "She ask you to cap him for 500 bucks?" "No, I asked her for a date." "You're pretty funny for a guy facing 25 to life." "Yeah, well, I've skated on worse beefs than this." "You're not skating anywhere unless I make it happen." "Tell me about Charlie Tyner, maybe I write this up as manslaughter." "Well, maybe I talk to you after I talk to my lawyer." "The gun's not enough?" "It's enough for Pacheco." "I want to know what Alice has to do with this." "Student teacher to drug dealer, to murderer?" "Why not?" "Man, you've really got it in for her." "Pacheco has a sister in Alice's cell block." "She's also a Paganos." "Great." "Maybe we can double-team her." "Thanks." "I'm not gonna talk against Alice and my brother." "You have a parole hearing in a month." "We could tell the board you're a suspect in a prison drug ring." "You can't do that." "We will, unless you cooperate." "What do you want?" "How does Alice know your brother?" "I introduced them in the visiting room." "Alice called him at a pay phone last week." "Know why?" "All I know is she needed a favor." "Something about drugs?" "She wasn't using." "Then why'd she refuse a drug test?" "Hell if I know." "Was Charlie Tyner selling drugs in here?" "Possible." "With Alice's help?" "No." "She wouldn't go behind my back." "She's my friend, and my sister." "What about Charlie Tyner?" "What's her relationship with him?" "He was helping her out." "Pulled her out of lock-downs, brought her some socks, gave her a nice job in the commissary." "Was he that nice to all the inmates?" "I don't know." "So you helping me out, or what?" "Unless we find out you lied to us." "I'm missing a meal." "She puts Alice on the phone to Pacheco." "Ties her into Tyner." "Yeah, but we're still not sure what it's about." "It's about a $500 killing." "That's good enough for me." "Let's indict her for Murder One." "You're charged with Murder in the First Degree." "How do you plead?" "Not guilty." "The defendant is serving state time, so bail is moot." "She's remanded." "Any other business?" "No, you agreed..." "What is it, Mr. Pinsky?" "My client is asking me to make an application I feel is clearly inappropriate." "Spit it out, please." "Well, she wants to disqualify Ms. Carmichael." "Aren't you going to say anything?" "Judge, I am not going to waste the court's time with this..." "Could I represent myself?" "'Cause this lawyer is worthless." "Talk to me, Ms. Simonelli." "She should not be prosecuting this case." "She's prejudiced against me." "That's ridiculous." "Let her finish." "She locked me up three years ago just 'cause I couldn't help her." "She's got a grudge against me." "Your Honor, this woman has some kind of persecution complex." "Save your breath, Ms. Carmichael." "I'm sorry, I can't disqualify an A.D.A. from a case simply because..." "All I want is a fair trial." "This bitch is out to get me!" "Enough." "Take her out." "Anything to what the girl said about Ms. Carmichael?" "I read the file." "Her prior drug case was routine." "Abbie tried to flip her on her accomplice." "She balked." "She fired her counsel." "And hired Danielle Melnick." "Melnick's taking a gang case?" "A deputy warden at Rikers just called to give me the heads-up." "They were processing Alice Simonelli." "Something turned up in their cavity search." "Drugs?" "Heavy vaginal bleeding." "She claimed it was just her period." "They sent her to the hospital." "A miscarriage." "She was eight to ten weeks pregnant." "Might explain why she refused the urinalysis." "And why Charlie Tyner was interested in her file." "Rape?" "For the last three months." "Why didn't she report it?" "Report it to whom?" "Charlie Tyner's colleagues?" "Or maybe she didn't report it because it was consensual." "Oh, please, Carmichael, read your Penal Code." "A prisoner can't consent to sex with a guard." "It's rape by definition." "Legal definition." "Yes." "For all we know, she traded sex with Tyner for drugs and special treatment." "I don't take this crap from her." "I still don't see you making out justification." "Jury's not gonna have a problem." "She was defending herself and her daughter." "Her daughter?" "Yes." "He approached her daughter in Prospect Park, gave her a condom, and told her to show it to Mommy." "Four years old." "Anybody see Tyner do this?" "No." "Grandparents thought it was just some pervert in the park, until Tyner mentions it to Alice." "When did this happen?" "A week before that piece of garbage got what he deserved." "Charlie Tyner drives to Brooklyn to give the child a condom?" "I don't know, Jack." ""Have sex with me or I can get to your daughter. "" "It dials up their justification defense for a nine or ten." "Unless Alice made the whole thing up." "I wouldn't put it past her." "You make me look like an old softie." "Charlie Tyner was working the day this supposedly happened." "So much for justification." "A last minute fill-in for a guard named Atwood?" "Before we make book on this, let's make sure Charlie Tyner didn't have help." "The little girl identified your photograph, Mr. Atwood." "She made a mistake." "The day the girl got the condom, you got gas off the BQE a couple of miles from Prospect Park." "That don't prove anything." "The next step is a line-up." "We're bringing in the child's grandparents." "If they put you in the park, that's extortion." "Witness tampering." "Child molesting." "Think of what a fascinating life you'll have in prison." "Ex-guard, child sex offender." "Look, you don't understand." "I had to do it." "Charlie asked me to." "You were just following orders?" "You know how easy it is to wind up trapped off in a room with a dozen prisoners, nobody coming to help?" "For refusing to intimidate a prisoner for Charlie Tyner?" "This girl, Alice, she saved some of Charlie's semen." "She was gonna rat everybody out to the Superintendent." "Charlie said if we didn't keep her quiet, we'd all get fired." "Everybody?" "You've got no idea what goes on in that place." "Half the C.O.s got girlfriends." "Some of them got two or three." "There's more sex in there than a whorehouse." "Convince us your client was coerced into sex, we'll come down to Murder Two." "Keep dreaming, McCoy." "Maybe, maybe a jury will give you Man One." "We give you Manslaughter, Pacheco can argue that he was a Good Samaritan." "Maybe he rides your client's coattails to an acquittal." "Not my problem." "You want to try this case," "I will put the entire state prison system on trial." "You will have everybody from Amnesty International to Dateline beating down your door." "Good day." "Okay." "We can handle a little heat." "Pacheco's lawyer is moving to suppress the gun." "Without the gun, he walks." "Two long faces." "Judge Denham suppressed Pacheco's gun and dismissed the charges against him." "The shooter walks, and we have Murder One against the girl who was raped." "We can make a deal with Alice to testify against Pacheco." "And give her Man One?" "She was leeching favors off Tyner." "Extra socks?" "I know this girl" "She's manipulative." "She's playing the system." "You think guards should be having sex with prisoners?" "No." "But for all we know, she flashed her thong underwear at the guy." "Instead of blaming everyone else, she should take some responsibility." "She's responsible for the threat to her daughter?" "A condom verses a bullet?" "It's not justification by any legal standard." "The girl is just violent, Jack." "One drug conviction." "She stabbed a woman with a sharpened broomstick." "She put the victim on his knees and made him beg for his life." "Pacheco did." "And we can find a way to nail 'em both." "My neck is starting to hurt." "If we try her for Murder One, Adam, the pain will get worse." "Melnick's got her teeth in this one." "Don't worry about Melnick." "Your call." "Her daughter was threatened." "We need her to get Pacheco." "I'm cutting a deal." "Man One?" "With a sentencing recommendation." "The minimum." "Four and a half to nine." "No." "Alice?" "No, I'm not pleading to anything." "You go to trial, you're facing life without parole." "I don't care." "I did what I had to." "You've got an excuse for everything, don't you?" "The only reason this happened is because you put me in that place." "Alice." "Can't force it down her throat." "Well, you got your wish." "Alice joined the Paganos because one of the girls was giving her a problem." "Did the problem go away?" "Hell, yeah." "We put a beat down on the girl." "During the week that Charlie Tyner was murdered, did Alice talk to you about another problem?" "Yeah." "She asked how she could reach my brother to ask him a favor." "Did she say anything about Charlie Tyner?" "Not then." "But... a couple of days before, said, um," ""I wish somebody would ice that bitch. "" "Ms. Pacheco, you're testifying against your gang sister?" "Got no choice." "Otherwise, I'm sitting down there." "The D.A. gave me immunity." "You've been at Pine Hills, what, nearly five years?" "Not a nice place to live, is it?" "Hard." "The guards have sex with the prisoners there?" "It goes on." "Did any of the guards ever approach you?" "I don't feel comfortable talking about it." "You afraid of retaliation by the guards?" "I know what's up." "Punishments I don't deserve." "They screw up my parole, I wind up serving to my max-out date." "The guards have that much power?" "If they really want you." "Day to day stuff's bad enough." "Like what?" "Like they watch you use the toilet." "Pat down your privates just 'cause they feel like it." "Strip searches." "Guards say they're looking for dope, but they're looking for your pride." "Charlie told me exactly what to do." "Buy a condom, go down to Brooklyn, give it to the kid, and tell her to show it to her mother." "Why, Mr. Atwood?" "To keep a lid on the abuse?" "Abuse, I can't say." "But sex, it's everywhere." "Guys swap shifts, work overtime to be with their girls." "I see." "How about you?" "I was only there a couple of years." "I see how it gets to you." "Some of these women, they way they act, they don't respect themselves, why should you?" "You start thinking of them like caged animals." "Thank you." "You weren't the only guard who refused to participate in this?" "No." "The rest of us, we just looked the other way." "Did you ever think that Charlie was raping Alice?" "I knew that they were doing it." "But I thought Alice was okay with it." "If Alice had come to you for help, would you have looked the other way?" "No, sir, no." "C.O.s may stick together, but we're still human beings." "What would you have done?" "Well, I would have told Charlie to lay off of her." "And if he didn't, I would have gone to a Captain." "What's the procedure from there?" "Well, the Captain sends the complaint to a hearing officer, then it goes up the chain." "Superintendent, Department of Corrections in Albany." "And the investigation takes, what, weeks?" "Months?" "By the next day we'd have people from the Inspector General's Office, from the Bureau of Criminal Investigations swarming all over the place." "Mr. Atwood, if you reported the rape to your Captain, wouldn't you be afraid of retaliation by your colleagues?" "Sure." "The administration would transfer me someplace else." "Right." "Where you'd be branded as a rat." "If they found out." "Takes a pretty strong person to face up to that, doesn't it, Mr. Atwood?" "Yes, I guess so." "And how would somebody like Alice Simonelli know that such a person was there for her?" "Well, I..." "I guess she wouldn't." "Make sure you ask her about her felony conviction." "It could backfire." "She claims she was wrongfully convicted by one of the A.D.A.s now prosecuting her for murder." "And she'll look like she's making excuses." "And the two incidents in jail." "The sharpened broomstick and the marijuana." "Marijuana?" "She violated prison rules." "Abbie, I'm not suggesting we water down the cross, but you heard what I heard." "Is it really that hard for you to put yourself in Alice's shoes?" "Why should I?" "Because she blames me for what happened to her?" "Jack, whatever hellhole she's in, she put herself there." "She didn't ask to be guarded by Charlie Tyner." "No, but she's still responsible for her own conduct, in or out ofjail." "You know, maybe you should handle the cross." "It started after Charlie transferred in." "He'd stand outside my cell, telling me I had a nice ass." "Did you encourage him at all?" "No way." "At first, I'd try to make a joke of it." "You know." "Slough him off." "One day, he came into the shower." "Tried to give me some perfumed soap." "And what did you do with his present?" "I told him I didn't want it." "And when he saw that you were not interested, did that stop his advances?" "He started writing me up." "Taking away my privileges." "I got a four-year-old daughter, Jenny." "I couldn't see her for a whole month." "He told me if I screwed up again, he'd send me to Albion." "Albion State Prison?" "Up near Rochester." "Ten hours from Brooklyn." "Maybe I'd see Jenny at Christmas." "I just couldn't fight him anymore." "One day, he took me in a closet, and I let him." "I just closed my eyes, and I let him do it." "And was this the only time he raped you?" "It went on for a few months." "Once or twice a week." "And then I missed my period." "I told Charlie." "He said he didn't care, it wasn't going to change anything." "He told me to get rid of it any way I had to." "And what did you do?" "Right after that, he took me into the prison chapel, and I saved some semen on a Kleenex." "I told him that if he touched me again," "I'd turn him in." "And did he touch you again?" "Not for a few days." "Then I happened to call home, and my mom said somebody had given a condom to Jenny in the park." "That night, Charlie asked me what my daughter brought home for show and tell." "Then he said it's time for his back rub." "That's when I decided." "Decided what, Alice?" "To stop Charlie." "I called Luis Pacheco." "He said he needed $500 for a clean gun." "I told him Charlie was gonna be staying at the Barrington Hotel." "I told him to kill Charlie." "Right." "Thank you." "You're a convicted felon, aren't you?" "That's why you're in prison in the first place?" "You should know You prosecuted me." "I suppose you were innocent." "I made a mistake." "Didn't you get in trouble in the first prison you went to?" "Some girls had some marijuana." "They told me it was no big deal." "I was smoking with them." "We all got busted." "It was stupid of me." "They were supposed to send me to a work camp." "Instead, they sent me to Pine Hills." "Where you stabbed another inmate with a broomstick." "Was that just another stupid mistake?" "No." "She came at me with it." "After Charlie Tyner allegedly raped you, he assigned you a cushy job in the commissary?" "I didn't ask to work there." "This so-called rapist also gave you some socks, isn't that right?" "My parents sent me five pair of wool socks." "Three days later, somebody stole 'em." "What Charlie was doing to me..." "Yeah, he gave me some socks." "So this relationship had some perks for you." "It wasn't a relationship." "It was rape." "But you never complained about it." "The last girl who complained, they planted drugs in her cell." "You never even told your Paganos friend, Candy?" "Or Luis Pacheco?" "No." "Didn't you trust them?" "I was ashamed." "Why would you feel ashamed if it wasn't your fault?" "Have you ever been raped, Ms. Carmichael?" "Don't you think I felt stupid for being where Charlie Tyner could rape me?" "So now you blame yourself." "Yes." "But instead of punishing yourself, you punished Charlie Tyner." "No." "No." "You had Luis Pacheco force him to his knees..." "He was killing me." "...and beg for his life." "I just wanted to go home to my daughter." "Charlie knew that." "He was using that." "He was never gonna stop." "I was just scared all the time." "Can't you understand that?" "He had all the power!" "I was nothing!" "Isn't your jury still out?" "Just looking for a little solace, Adam." "One or two holdouts?" "Split down the middle." "Three days." "Why doesn't that judge hang 'em?" "Probably give 'em a day or two more." "How do you stand with Melnick?" "Man One's been on the table." "I haven't heard from her since the jury went out." "Why don't we give her a call?" "I'm sending my file to the Westchester County D.A." "We're breaking up the party at Pine Hills." "That's great." "But you still can't erase the past." "My offer is still Man One, or we get ready for a retrial." "It's a wash, Jack." "It'll always be a wash." "Does your client want to take that chance?" "Plea down to Attempted Man One." "Five to ten." "Three to six." "Concurrent with her drug sentence." "If she testifies against Pacheco." "She put you up to that." "That's a death sentence." "She's the reason that I'm talking to you." "Alice..." "Okay, look, she knows where Pacheco got the gun." "She'll give you a name and address, but no testimony." "I'm eligible for parole in three years?" "Yes." "But no guarantees." "And they don't send me up to Albion." "Okay?" "Need a lift?" "You go ahead." "I'll call a cab." "I need to decompress." "Want to talk about it?" "Or not." "Whatever you feel comfortable with." "I was a freshman." "He was a third year law student." "We were on a date." "I never told anybody." "I blamed myself." "But not anymore."