In the course of one year, Judge Sol Wachtler fell from the top of New York's legal establishment to the very bottom of the criminal justice system - locked up in solitary confinement at a federal prison. This is Wachtler's remarkable account of what he saw behind bars, how it changed him, and why it all happened.
Wachtler was driving home on the Long Island Expressway when a van swerved directly in front of him and three carloads of FBI agents arrested him. He was New York's Chief Judge, the man many thought would be the state's next governor. Instead, he wound up pleading guilty to harassment and was sentenced to a medium-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.
This was no Club Fed. Wachtler was stabbed, caged in solitary confinement for no reason, and regularly berated by prison guards. Perhaps the most serious threat was when Wachtler found himself face-to-face with men who were affected by decisions he had written during his tenure on the Court of Appeals. But Wachtler defused the tensions surrounding him and became friendly with many of his fellow inmates: the counterfeiter who hadn't been able to bring himself to tell his fiancee how he really earned a living; the farmer whose business had failed, tempting him to support his family as a marijuana distributor; the FBI agent who had killed his girlfriend in a crime of passion; Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, holding on to the hope that the Israeli government would secure his release; plus an assortment of mobsters, thieves, and drug traffickers, each with a sad, strange story and an unusual way of explaining his fate.
Wachtler also offers his own explanation of how he wound up in prison, describing in poignant detail how romantic obsession, manic-depression, and drug abuse contributed to his shattering act of self-destruction.
With unflinching honesty, Sol Wachtler presents a unique portrait of life in prison, an illuminating look into the souls of criminals, and a resonant warning from America's most dangerous realm.

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Book details

• Format Hardcover
• Pages369 pages
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN100679456538
• ISBN139780679456537