My Bio - Part 27

Many urged me to turn to God after receiving the insane sentence I did. Yet, my hatred towards Him only deepened. If God existed, allowing this to happen to me—on top of everything else I’d already endured—was despicable, inexcusable, and unforgivable. Sure, everyone had their struggles, but I certainly didn’t deserve what I got, and many others agreed, though they had no power to help me.

Tom patiently supported me through the 180 days I was stuck in Phoenix’s Estrella Jail. He wrote to me weekly, visited twice a week, and kept money in my account for commissary.

What angered me most was knowing that no one who had ever wronged me—whether in a big or small way—had ever faced any consequences. People tried to convince me that God would “get ‘em” in the afterlife, but I had no way of counting on that—or even knowing if an afterlife existed.

The next six months were filled with anger and homesickness, but they were also packed with unexpected adventures. I met interesting people and learned a lot of new survival tactics. I learned how to peel kiwis with plastic spoons, the only utensils allowed. I trimmed my bangs with nail clippers. I discovered that gum could be made by rubbing orange peels against Styrofoam cups, softened by their acids, and flavored with toothpaste—though I found it pretty disgusting. Jail taught me that things could have more than one use. Toothpaste doubled as glue for sticking pictures to the wall, though the DOs often made us take them down. Wet wads of toilet paper worked well to block part of the air vents so we wouldn’t freeze so much. The old-fashioned, non-stick maxi pads without pins made surprisingly good washcloths and could also be repurposed as earplugs using the cotton core.

The food was beyond terrible. Rarely did we get anything halfway decent. Mostly it was bread and overly spicy hotdogs or sausages. And the showers were just as cold as the jail itself.

In pencil, since pens weren’t allowed, I documented my day-to-day experiences, good and bad. I’d send a few pages at a time home to wait until I could return to type them up.

Miraculously, I made it through my sentence without a single write-up, though I had a few close calls.

County time is hard time, but as strange as it sounds, I had more freedom in jail than I did in Brattleboro or Valleyhead. They didn’t run us ragged all day and night. Oddly enough, more people seemed to care about me there, and having a set release date from the start made things a bit easier. In those other places, I never knew when I was leaving until the day I actually left.

Of the sixty or so detention officers (DOs) I encountered, I only disliked a few. Most of them were surprisingly cool, especially officers Pérez, Palma, Chambers, Temple, and Espinoza—“Espi,” as we called her. But none could compare to Johnson, whom I affectionately referred to as “Teddy Bear.” I had always been attracted to her, and although the feeling was mutual, neither of us realized it until close to the end of my sentence. There were a few others—three female officers and one male—that I knew were also attracted to me.

In court, I would’ve refused to sign the appeals paperwork after the judge sentenced me if it weren’t for the bailiff urging me to do so.

“What’s the point?” I said. “I’m too white and definitely too Jewish to fight these people.” I didn’t yet know I’d been framed in a clever and successful way, and I also knew that by the time anything happened with the appeal, my sentence would be over.

During one of our visits, Tom told me he had written a complaint to the Bar Association about Paul, but naturally, they refused to do anything.

My heart nearly stopped in fear. “Tom, don’t! Please don’t. It’s hopeless. I appreciate your support and I know you’re just trying to seek justice, but there is no justice in this case. Don’t fight for me; it’ll only make things worse, especially while I’m in here. But how did that pig know I was Jewish?”

“Well, you do look it—with your facial features. Plus, he would’ve known your maiden name. I really believe you’re here more for being Jewish than for being a complainer.”

“I just don’t see how I could end up here for so long for sending journals, Jewish or not.”

“You’re not in here for the journals. It’s because of that letter—and the cop was personal friends with her.”

I looked at him in disbelief.

“Yeah, haven’t you figured that out yet?” he asked, pointing out their behavior in court.

I thought back to the way they’d interacted. “I suppose I should’ve realized, but I couldn’t stand looking in their direction that much. I was afraid I’d come completely unglued if I did. But yes, I sensed something was off. I just didn’t want to admit it. It’s terrifying to acknowledge that these things really happen. After all, I did have the dreams warning me of trouble ahead.”

I knew I couldn’t have been their only victim. Just like a rapist doesn’t only rape once, I knew the corrupt cop had very likely used and abused his authority over others as well.

We discussed how I should’ve gone to trial. If I had, it was unlikely I’d have been convicted and sent to prison for a year and a half as Paul warned. All I would’ve had to do was claim I knew nothing of the letter (had I had a lawyer tell me that’s what I was being charged with up front), which would’ve planted enough doubt in the jurors’ minds. Paul manipulated me into not going to trial because trials cost money.

“No one’s going to hurt you,” said the detention officer as he handcuffed me after the sentence was handed down. He walked me out of the courtroom and into the Horseshoe, the central booking station. I was crying hysterically. We passed a chain of male inmates awaiting their own court appearances. One of them handed me a religious booklet. I let it fall from my hands onto the cold, hard concrete floor. God was the last thing I had any faith in at that moment.

They took my hair barrette and put me in a room not much bigger than a phone booth, alone. There was nothing to sit on, so I slid down the wall and onto the floor, sobbing until I was nearly hyperventilating. I was numb with utter shock and disbelief. This was only supposed to happen to other people—or on TV. Eventually, a female DO came to get me to go over some forms, but I honestly can’t even remember what they were about. Probably just general info.

At first, I refused to cooperate. I knew it wasn’t right to take out my frustration on the detention officers (DOs), but I was done with “cooperation.” Look where it had gotten me.

After they removed my cuffs, I was frisked, photographed, had my blood drawn, and my fingerprints taken. Then they threw me into a holding cell with about twenty-five other women. The cell was all concrete and steel, with a three-foot wall partially shielding the toilet. Two walls had concrete benches, while the third had three steel bunks, completely bare of mattresses.

Some of the other inmates tried to console me, but at the time, I was beyond inconsolable. I wasn’t just shocked and depressed—I was furious. Every “if only” raced through my mind, even though it was pointless. If only I had taken the neighbor’s crap and done nothing about it. But since I didn’t, if only I hadn’t opened the door to the cops. But I did, and after that, if only I hadn’t gone to court. If only I had gone to trial. If only, if only, if only.

After fifteen grueling hours in the holding cell with nothing to eat (not that I could have eaten), we were cuffed in pairs and loaded onto a bus for the ten-minute ride to Estrella jail. The male inmates were packed into tiny, phone-booth-sized enclosures. The women, including me, sat on open seats. My cuff mate was a large woman named Becky, who kindly tried not to squash me every time the bus jerked around a corner by our crazy driver.

When we got to the jail, we filed into the intake area, where we were uncuffed.

“Be a man!” I suddenly heard a female officer shout at a male inmate. Her name tag read Wilder. “How bad do you want that work furlough? A little tact and class takes a man a long way.”

We were then separated and put into different holding cells. With limited bench space, most of us lay on the cold floor, huddling together for body warmth.

After about a half-hour, an inmate trustee came by to get our sizes so we could change into the ridiculous black-and-white-striped uniforms issued by the jail.

When I finally received my ID card, I stared at the photo. Damn, I look terrified, I thought.

From that moment on, I was no longer Jodi S. I was just a number.

Around midnight, we were assigned to different areas of the jail based on our classification. Unsentenced inmates, pregnant women, and those with medical issues were sent to the dorms, large rooms holding 130 women in rows of bunks. Sentenced inmates like me were sent to Tent City.

Tent City consisted of ten army tents set up in a yard surrounded by two layers of fifteen-foot-high, razor-wire-topped fences. Even more razor wire was coiled at the base of the outer fence. Each inmate was assigned to a tent based on their job, as everyone was expected to work a shift. When you first arrived, you were placed in the “welfare tent” until assigned a job. Most inmates qualified for “two-for-ones,” where each day worked reduced their sentence by a day. Of course, I was one of the unlucky few with a flat sentence, so I didn’t qualify.

The indoor area included a dayroom with picnic-like tables bolted to the floor. Lockers lined one wall where we could store personal items if we bought a lock through commissary. Off one side of the dayroom was a small room with showers, and on the other side, a bathroom. The three-foot-high walls between the stalls offered little privacy, so if you wanted any, you had to use the filthy, mice-infested porta-johns outside. There were also sinks, payphones, and the DOs’ station, which was enclosed in a chain-link fence that ran from the floor to the ceiling.

When I was assigned to the laundry tent—the biggest of them all—Officer Trilock, known for being strict, assigned me to a top bunk.

“But I can’t climb up there,” I told her.

At first, she glared at me like she wanted to kill me. Then she asked, “Are you Jodi S.?”

I nodded.

Her expression softened. “You’ll be okay,” she assured me, and later assigned me to a lower bunk.

What I didn’t know was that the media had been all over my case, and many DOs felt bad for me, regardless of whether I was guilty or not. I also didn’t look like the typical inmate. Most of the others were there on drug charges with their hardened and less-than-attractive appearance, missing teeth, and unkempt look. So, I definitely stood out.

I got hit on by several inmates and soon realized that Johnson, who I would meet later, wasn’t the only DO who liked me. They didn’t have to say much—it was in the way they looked at me as opposed to their words. I got more attention in jail than I ever had in all the gay bars combined.

Officer Arajo was one of those who seemed attracted to me, though the feeling was far from mutual. Standing six feet tall and mean in every way, she was a stereotypical “dyke,” as people would call her, and that wasn’t my type.

Overall, despite a few arguments and one near-fight, I was well-liked by both the inmates and most of the DOs.

The DOs wore beige uniforms with their first initials and last names displayed on their name tags. They typically addressed us by our last names, but some called me by my first name, especially the ones who liked me—not just physically but because they saw me as smart and funny, though they knew I could be a bit of a bully at times.

About forty of us slept in the laundry tent with only two portable heaters at each end of the forty-foot tent. The days were pleasant, but the nights were freezing. Despite wearing thermal underwear under my stripes and bundling up with half a dozen blankets, I was still cold.

At night, the women on the lower bunks would ask me to check for mice nesting in their blankets, as I wasn’t afraid of them.

We woke up at 4:00 AM for a nauseating breakfast and were then cuffed in pairs and led to work in the laundry department. There were three supervisors: one I didn’t like, and two others, Kevin and Maria, who were pretty cool. Both expressed that they believed I’d been railroaded and encouraged me to fight my case, but at the time, I couldn’t see how that was possible. Still, I wanted to fight, not just for me, but for others who might also be victims.

Maria nearly fainted when she realized who I was. In a high-pitched voice, the stout, motherly woman exclaimed, “You’re Jodi S.? Oh my God!”

Yeah, lucky me. The one and only infamous Jodi S.

There was no coffee in jail. No tea, no soda—just milk and juice. Toward the end of my sentence, a coffee cart came around selling decaf coffee, tea, hot chocolate, soda, and soup, but it didn’t last. Apparently, they weren’t making enough money.

The food was atrocious. We often got “slop,” tiny bits of mystery meat in congealed gravy. Spicy hotdogs were a favorite at Estrella, but nothing was as common as the bread and bland potatoes they constantly served.

If you had no money, you’d get an indigent package each week: a short toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, ten sheets of paper, five stamped envelopes, and a golf pencil. Combs, soap, and feminine supplies were on demand. If you did have money, you could buy a radio (until they took that option away after I left), writing supplies, hygiene items, and snacks—but first, you had to pay $30 a month for “rent.”

During their sentence, most inmates gained around 30 pounds due to the abundance of starch, sugar, and lack of physical activity. I, on the other hand, made an effort to jog in place with my little radio on most days—when I wasn’t completely exhausted. I arrived at 115 pounds, dropped to 105, and left at 119.

My biggest fear when I was first sentenced was losing our house. I was terrified they’d demand I move back to Phoenix, but I was determined not to. I had dreamed of owning a house like ours and living in a rural town for too long to let a group of hateful people take it from me. While the county could dictate my life in jail, I wasn’t about to let them control how I lived on the outside, especially over such a petty and false accusation.

I also feared dealing with a nightmare of a probation officer, especially after the corrupt cop, deceitful lawyer, and vindictive judge I had already faced. I was anxious about being ordered to work outside the house, but I was ready to stand my ground. After all, I lived miles from any bus line, and as far as I was concerned, I already worked. I was sick of society’s disdain for homemakers, even though my responsibilities went beyond just cleaning the house.

Life in the tents was a nightmare. Sleep was nearly impossible with people constantly moving around, yelling, laughing, and sometimes crying. Whenever I did manage to fall asleep, I was woken up over and over again. The DOs would make announcements over the loudspeakers, and inmates were always noisy, often smoking with cigarettes smuggled in during their open-contact visits. Ever since I quit smoking, I became extremely intolerant of secondhand smoke.

On my second or third day there, a DO told me Channel 3 wanted to interview me. My heart raced with a sliver of hope—someone cared! Someone thought six months for a letter was absurd, whether I was guilty or not!

Or so I thought. In reality, they hadn’t come to offer support; they came to attack me. Though they initially claimed to be “neutral,” it was clear just minutes into the interview that they were there to make a spectacle of me for entertainment. The anchorwoman, speaking as if the supposed victim was the one who’d been wronged, eventually came right out and asked if I was a racist. Suddenly, the entire narrative shifted to whether Jodi S. hated Black people.

I should have left the room as soon as I realized I was under attack, but I stayed, trying to be polite. I was confused, unable to understand why I was receiving the same kind of media attention usually reserved for murderers or celebrities. Was Oprah going to call next?

That night, when Tom saw the news segment, he told me they’d edited out everything I said, making me look like some horrible monster.

Feeling utterly helpless, used, and depressed, I returned to the tents, more hopeless than ever. I sat in the dayroom and cried. Looking around, I wondered how many others were there for petty offenses, trumped-up charges, or perhaps even innocent like me. I couldn’t be the only one in this situation.

An Asian woman named April approached me. She was a therapist in jail for beating her husband, though it was hard to imagine such a small woman, probably no more than 90 pounds, doing that. She hugged me, introduced me to others in nearby tents, and let me cry on her shoulder. While she couldn’t help me get out of jail, just having someone care enough to listen made a difference.

The first inmate to show me physical affection was Angel, who bunked in my tent. She generously gave me paper and an envelope so I could write to Tom since you had to be there a week before receiving commissary or indigent packages. But her fondness wasn’t mutual—I wasn’t attracted to her. Even so, she wanted to soap my back in the showers, kiss me, and hold my hand every chance she got. Fortunately, I was moved inside before I had to break her heart and tell her we weren’t on the same page.

The DOs weren’t allowed to open legal mail, but we had to open it in front of them. One day, LaBorde—whom I privately called “LaVoice”—handed me a letter from the adult probation department. I opened it, and as she walked off, I read the terms and conditions of my probation.

No alcohol? No problem. I didn’t drink.

No contact with the “victims”? Only in my dreams, I thought sarcastically, shaking with rage.

No contact with the arresting officer? Of course not. Why would they want us to confront them for screwing us over?

No guns? No problem—though we didn’t own one, you could bet we’d get one if anyone caused trouble at the house. They knew where we lived, thanks to the media and their “pig pal,” and we weren’t about to be sitting ducks. No system could keep us from defending ourselves if it came to that.

As I sat with my list of “no-nos,” I felt like a child again, being told what to do, when to do it, and how. If there was ever a time I felt my life wasn’t my own as an adult, it was then. I wondered if I’d ever feel free again.

How had these people managed to seize total control of my life from such a distance? Before, they hadn’t cost us money or my freedom, but now they owned every aspect of me. They dictated my every move, from where I was to what I wore, ate, and even when I slept. Ironically, I slept better with them just a few feet away making all the racket they made! They controlled my visits with Tom, took me away from my home and pets, and even from my dental care—I was without my retainers for two months, causing my teeth to shift.

As I sat on my bunk, I reflected on the last 24 hours. My heart was heavy with sadness, my fists clenched in anger.

Each day, it became harder to pull myself out of bed to fold laundry from 5:00 AM to 12:30 PM. I was sleeping less and less each night. By the fourth night, I was tossing and turning until 1:00 AM, listening to the shouts and laughter of other inmates.

“This is impossible,” I told myself. “I can’t work with no sleep, and I don’t deserve this. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t work for a sheriff who’s degraded me to a common criminal. Screw this! I’m not going to kiss this state’s ass!”

A sense of panic welled up inside me. For the first time in years, I wanted to die. If I were dead, I’d never have to worry about being stuck in places I didn’t want to be or dealing with society’s bullshit at my own expense.

I thought of ways I could kill myself before anyone could stop me. Maybe I could hang myself with a sheet from the fence, or slam my head against the wall.

Then I remembered the razors that littered the shower room floor. My heart pounded as I climbed out of bed, feeling drawn toward the showers and those razors. But as I approached, another force seemed to push me past it, leading me toward the DO’s station.