Criminal That I Am (3 page)

“I think I really messed up.” Saying this out loud causes all residual shock to dissolve. For the first time that morning, I begin to cry. And then, with a tone of self-pity that only a mother can indulge, I sputter through tears, “I think my whole life as I know it is pretty much over.”

“Don't say that. Crying is not going to help now.” And then, as I cry harder, she says: “No, no. You're a smart girl, a good girl.”

This is a phrase my mother repeated to me in my most vulnerable moments in childhood. To hear her say it then made my troubles subside. To hear it now as a grown woman facing criminal charges is decidedly less comforting, possibly because in this moment it is the furthest thing from the truth.

“Mom,” I say pathetically, “can you please come here?”

“To New York?”

“Yes,” I say. “I want you to come here.”

She agrees. She has one condition: “Please, don't tell your father about what happened,” she warns. “He will be sick over it.”

She's being literal; my father's worry usually manifests as physical ailments. Once, on a cruise vacation when he could not locate my brother and me—we had absconded to the boat's casino in the hopes of finding unclaimed tokens for the slot machines—his fear that we had fallen overboard made him so ill that we had to summon the ship's doctor.

But there is more to it: she is also sparing my father from what she is feeling now.

She seems eager to get off the phone. She tells me to let her know what I can, when I can, and that she will let me know when she is coming.

She is saying good-bye, and I interrupt. “Mom?” I say.

“Yes?”

“I'm so sorry. I promise to spend the rest of my life making this up to you.”

She does not immediately respond. I hear a deep sigh. “No,” she says.

It's not clear what she is saying no to, and I'm too afraid to ask.

W
hen I get off the phone with my mother, I am not sure what to do with myself. That's the horrible thing about getting tangled with the law: there is everything to think about and nothing to be done. My shock has waned, and I let reality sink in.

I halfheartedly walk into my bedroom. I might as well get dressed, I think. As I rummage through my closet for something to wear, I catch a glimpse of myself in my full-length mirror and freeze.

I'm wearing my standard-issue nighttime clothing: a pair of gingham pajama pants and a cotton T-shirt. But what I failed to remember when I ran to the door this morning is that the night before, I had selected a T-shirt that was almost completely sheer. In the commotion of my morning, I've also failed to put on a bra. My breasts are entirely exposed.

I reflexively pull my arms around my body, as though somehow this will erase the fact that I have managed to flash two agents of the Department of Justice. I suppose that being consummate professionals, neither Burly Man nor Lady Agent let their eyes linger on my chest. Or if they did, I was too distracted to notice it. I clutch my arms harder in the hopes that this will stop the cringing. It doesn't.

What I don't know as I stand essentially topless in front of my mirror is that this is a harbinger of things to come. Criminal cases have an inevitable voyeuristic streak. Personal details, even when they don't
precisely bear on the relevant facts, always seem to rise to the surface. I've often wondered if this is an intentional prosecutorial tactic, confronting suspects with the sordid details of their personal lives to force them to acquiesce to the government's demands.

I've seen glimpses of this in practice, clients having to admit affairs or fetishes or narcotic proclivities. But now it's me who will be standing in the spotlight. This will seem harmless at first: I will be asked to identify my birthmarks, to provide my weight, to list any tattoos. My pharmaceutical records will be discussed. I will be asked questions about my family, my bank account, the places I have called home.

But over time, the exposure will extend to the most intimate parts of human existence, the spaces that one believes, or at least hopes, will never be public knowledge. E-mails of the romantic kind, both written and received, will be presented as evidence. I will be questioned about the location of kisses, both on earth and on my person. A prosecutor will advise a judge that I maintain that I did not have sex with my co-conspirator and that he is unable to prove otherwise. In an open courtroom, a defense attorney will ask about my vagina. My bra will become the stuff of newspaper headlines. On a message board for lawyers, men will hypothesize about my ability to perform fellatio. I will learn that in the realm of criminal justice, no corners of life are sacred. Everything is for the taking.

As I stand in front of my mirror, however, I know none of what's to come. Instead, I stare at my reflection, at the residues of my beauty regimen from the day before. My hair, perfectly coiffed for yesterday's prison visit, has been reduced to limp waves. My skin is tan from the sweltering summer. I notice smudges of mascara on the sides of my eyelids, faint traces of eyeliner underneath. My face looks as though it was once precisely drawn but then placed in a washing machine.

I gaze at it as though it belongs to someone else. This, I think to myself, is what a criminal looks like.

W
ithout a clear memory of the remainder of the day, I'm later forced to piece together its events through documentary evidence. Taxi receipts and legal bills demonstrate that I meet with my attorney that same
afternoon. I note that he is kind and thoughtful and does not appear to openly judge what is undoubtedly my disheveled state. I give him the letter from Burly Man and in painful detail explain exactly what I did and why. As most lawyers do, he speaks reassuringly, but I do not leave his office feeling reassured.

He advises me not to talk to my co-conspirator until this matter is resolved. He also asks me to print out all of my e-mails to him so he can read our exchanges for anything relevant. I know this drill well, but not from this end. I hate the thought of my attorney reading my private exchanges for evidentiary purposes.

Still, a credit card receipt will show that on my way home I stop at a drugstore to pick up a ream of printer paper in order to follow his directive. When I leave the store, I think I hear a man's voice calling me. Trying to avoid human interaction at all costs, I quicken my pace and look straight ahead until the voice fades into the cacophony of the street. When I return to my apartment, I realize that I've left the paper behind.

Home phone records for that day will show that on or around seven o'clock in the evening, my best friend calls me. She asks me about my day, and I report that federal agents came to my door and that I've been informed that I'm the target of a criminal investigation.

At first, she's silent. And then she says: “Damn, Jen, your life is never boring.”

It is my first and only laugh of the day. Though I never discussed my crime with anyone—my co-conspirator and I have sworn each other to secrecy—it seems she has a sense of what I've done. She does know about my relationship with my co-conspirator and makes the immediate connection that he is somehow involved.

She is a good friend, and so she comforts me that everything will be fine when it most certainly won't. She says there is nothing to do but try to take my mind off of things. I promise her that I will try. She suggests that these circumstances are extreme enough for me to employ a method of relaxation involving a substance that is currently legal in most states only for medicinal purposes. I tell her that it seems unwise to risk racking up my charges, especially so early into my case.

She says she will call me tomorrow and is true to her word. She
will call the next day, and then the next, and then virtually every day thereafter until the middle of winter, when I appear in court to account for my sins. On that day, I will speak to her by phone just before my appearance. In a comforting voice, she will assure me that it will all be over soon, that my life will be boring again. Even though she can't see me, and even though that does not end up being true, I will nod my head in relief.

Finally, U.S. Bureau of Prisons records will reveal that on or around eight o'clock in the evening, a call from one of its facilities is placed to my cellular telephone. The allowed duration of calls from this and any other federal correctional facility is exactly fifteen minutes, after which the line will automatically disconnect. The caller is announced in advance, and I'm required to declare my willingness to speak to him by pressing the number five. At five-minute intervals throughout the call, a female recording will remind me that I am a party to a call from a federal prison. The recording is not without judgment: her accusatory tone makes clear that she is addressing someone who has committed a crime or is cavorting with a criminal, or in my case, both.

The call surprises me. I assumed that he has also been confronted by federal authorities about what I did—what we did—and that he has likewise been instructed not to speak to me. When I hear his upbeat voice over the line, I realize that this isn't true.

“Did you have a good trip home?” he asks. He starts telling me a story about something that I don't quite register because I'm trying to figure out how to tell him that everything has fallen apart.

I finally blurt out, “I actually can't talk to you.”

He is dumbfounded. “What? Why?”

“I can't tell you.” Because the call is being recorded, I don't want to implicate him any more than he already is.

“What do you mean you can't tell me? What are you talking about?”

“I just can't tell you.”

“Why can't you tell me?”

I try to think of a way to tell him without really telling him, but I can't. So I just say, “I thought maybe you already knew that I couldn't talk to you.”

“What? How would I know that?”

I don't know what to say. I feel my entire body begin to shake.

“I want to know who said you can't talk to me.” He is angry.

I hesitate. I don't know if answering would be saying too much.

“Jen, tell me who said you can't talk to me.”

“My lawyer,” I finally say. In acknowledging this—that I have a lawyer, that I have this lawyer because I've committed a crime, that my crime is being pursued by law enforcement—the reality of the situation washes over me. For the second time today, I burst into tears that soon devolve into long, self-pitying sobs.

He is stunned silent. After a moment, he says, “It's going to be okay, Jen. Everything is going to be okay.”

He does not ask any more questions.

I suppress my sobs as best I can. We speak as two people might when they know they will be separated for an extensive period of time. But this doesn't last long. I begin to cry again, so hard that I can no longer form words.

“It's going to be okay,” he tells me. “I promise it's going to be okay.”

He says it over and over again, as though this might make it true. I cry even harder, knowing that it won't.

We continue in this manner until the phone abruptly cuts out. Fifteen minutes have passed. Our time is up.

T
here are no further records for the remainder of the day. At some point, I realize that the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner this day is over. I decide to reinstate the sleep decree I issued earlier.

The drastic difference in my life from the time of the sleep decree to this moment is not lost on me. Everything that concerned me then has been rendered irrelevant. The people I've known, the plans that I've made for myself are now all things that once were. I try to picture what happens next. I see nothing.

I dress for bed—in an opaque T-shirt this time, just in case—and fall into the mattress face-first, my arms splayed, like I used to do as a child. With my face buried in the pillow, I wait for sleep to come. I listen for the usual bustle from the street that serves as my lullaby. I hear nothing.

The silence is eerie. If I listen hard enough, I think I can hear the shift in my life's trajectory, far away from what I had intended it to be.

To block the sound of silence, I fill my mind with questions. I wonder if this matter might go away. I consider worst-case scenarios. I imagine how I would fare as an inmate. I wince at the thought that inmates are required to use the restroom in the most public way possible. I wonder if it is physically possible to refrain from using the bathroom for the entire duration of a sentence. I believe that it is not.

I consider the irony—and hypocrisy—in the fact that in a matter of weeks I am supposed to begin teaching criminal law. I wonder how I will approach my lecture about theories of punishment while possibly awaiting punishment of my own. I think about whether my conduct constitutes a literal teaching moment. I decide that it does not.

I think, too, about what a criminal record will mean for my future. I think about what I will do if I can no longer practice law or teach. I try to remember what I wanted to be before I decided to be what I am. I was so young when I chose a career in law that I think it was something fanciful, like becoming a mermaid or a princess. I think about sitting monarchies across the globe. I think about whether a prince would ever marry a putative princess with a criminal record. I conclude that he would not.

I consider whether I ever expected that my crimes would be discovered. I am certain that I did not.

I think about why I did not think about any of these things before I decided to commit my crimes.

I have no answer.

I lie this way for hours. At some point, I pull my face from the pillow. I squint my eyes and see that the sun is rising over the East River, filling the sky with light. It is already the next day, and my hell persists. There is no escape.

CHAPTER 2

Meet My Co-Conspirator

A
llow me to introduce you to my co-conspirator. His name is Cameron Douglas.

He was arrested in New York City in July 2009 on a nonviolent drug offense—distribution of methamphetamine, commonly known as crystal meth—that subjects him to a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years.

In certain ways, Cameron fits the statistical profile for many nonviolent drug offenders. But for his stint as a dealer, he has some, but not much, of a criminal history: a couple of petty misdemeanors. He has spent some time in juvie. Having been removed from private school, the high school he attended—a public high school in a working-class community in southern California—has poor graduation rates. Cameron is among those who failed to graduate with his class. And for most of his life he has been a drug addict, at the time of his arrest a severe heroin addict.

These are where the similarities end.

Cameron Douglas's father is a film actor. You may recall him from popular movies such as
Wall Street
and
Jewel of the Nile
or the critically acclaimed
Traffic
, in which he plays a government drug czar. But if you were a child of the 1980s, you perhaps know him better from a trilogy of sexually imbued movies, each of which is released at pivotal moments in your pubescent development: just prior to undergoing puberty (
Fatal
Attraction
), during the prime of your adolescence (
Basic
Instinct
), and just after reaching adulthood (
Disclosure
). Perhaps in seeing these films—­particularly
Fatal Attraction
, which predated your knowledge of anything sexual—you become somewhat scarred by the depiction of sexual intercourse as something leading seemingly inevitably to serial stalking and the boiling of bunnies. Maybe you also note that sex looks as though it involves a considerable amount of physical effort. You might even be left wondering if, when you grow up, you, too, will be required to exert such effort slammed against the wall of a loft elevator or straddled over a sink.

Possibly later, as a college student, you study this trilogy of sexy films in a women's studies class. You are taught that they epitomize Hollywood's misogynistic depiction of independent women. A visibly angry professor lectures that these portrayals send a subtle message that when women step out of their essential role, when their actions do not comport with convention, they are no longer worthy of the audience's sympathy.

This assessment doesn't make you think particularly highly of Cameron Douglas's father. Nor do the quotes attributed to him in the required reading for the course, Susan Faludi's
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
, in which Cameron Douglas's father announces he is “sick” of feminists and that “[g]uys are going through a terrible crisis right now because of women's unreasonable demands.”

This quote perhaps leaves you with the impression that Cameron Douglas's father is kind of disgusting. Over time the thought fades, although whenever you encounter his image you note that there is something not quite right about him, but you can't remember what it is.

You only bother to search for the answer when you find yourself representing his son in his criminal case. By then, you are relieved to find that the chauvinist themes evinced in his films do not appear to be easily attributable to Cameron Douglas's father himself. In fact, his avid interest in the well-being of his son is enough to make all of your prior impressions fade, even the impact of his more graphic love scenes on your burgeoning sexuality.

Cameron Douglas doesn't only have a famous father who has starred in sexy films, but also a grandfather who is an old-fashioned film leg
end. With two generations of famous men preceding him, Cameron is often described with words like “scion,” “heir,” and “descendant.”

You might come to wonder if Cameron's famous lineage helps to explain the DEA's avid interest in his case. This certainly could explain why so many resources were expended on uncovering drug dealing that was short-lived and, by the time of Cameron's arrest, long over. This might also explain why one DEA agent assigned to the case went to such lengths to make Cameron his friend, initiating “bro” talk, conspicuously pointing out attractive women to Cameron as he was dragged through the courthouse in handcuffs.

You possibly find it interesting—ironic, even—that Cameron has been made subject to the same calculated focus by law enforcement that is usually reserved for populations of lower-income communities, that fame has offset the advantages he would otherwise enjoy as someone of his socioeconomic status in the criminal justice system.

I do. I often tell Cameron that I bet that if he had been some run-of-the-mill pill pusher in a well-to-do neighborhood, none of this would have ever happened.

But he isn't. And it did.

I
first encounter Cameron Douglas as part of his legal team in October 2009. He had been arrested several months earlier, but his family decided to supplement his defense team, which now includes me.

We meet in one of the attorney rooms of Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, MCC, the maximum-security prison where Cameron is residing. When he enters, I see that his handsome exterior is rough. When he approaches his seat, his walk is so swaggered that it presents as a limp. He is tall and broad, but his jumpsuit is so oversized that his body seems to drown in it. The few exposed body parts emerging from it are blanketed in tattoos. The most prominent of these appear on his forearms in large print. In actuality, these read “TICK” and “TOCK,” an homage to the preciousness of time. But the execution of the Old English lettering is sloppy, particularly the letter “T,” and so when I catch sight of his arms I misread them to say “DICK” and “COCK.”

His hardened appearance turns out to be somewhat of a red herring. He is exceedingly well mannered, using “sir” and “pardon” at every turn. Throughout our meeting, as his case is laid out for him, his facial expressions often resemble those of a bewildered child. He blushes easily, his cheeks seeped with red when he elaborates on his crimes or doesn't understand what is being said, or, oddly enough, when I offer him my business card.

“Let me know if you need anything,” I tell him as I hand it over.

Although there are several attorneys in the room, in my memory of this meeting there is really only Cameron. I observe him as though he is an exotic creature trapped in a cage, different from anyone I've ever encountered. I take note of the way he leans in his chair, folds his arms, grips his pen. I spot the manner in which he considers a thought, tipping his head to one side as though the substance of what is being discussed slides from one ear to the other. Even when he catches sight of my survey, I record his reaction, the smile of his eyes, the sheepishness of his grin. To the naked eye, his mannerisms appear to be masculine but also childlike, alluring but also endearing.

I am rapt as he recounts the facts surrounding his crimes, how he would package drugs inside stereo equipment for safe shipment or would fill a container of bath salts with crystal meth. He describes his use of a burner phone to surreptitiously complete drug transactions in the same manner as one might give directions to the train station. As I listen to him talk, I have a sense that I should probably be appalled; instead, I am closer to mesmerized.

We don't speak much in this first meeting. At one point the remainder of the legal team steps out of the attorney room, leaving us to stare blankly at each other. I am without words, too overwhelmed to think of anything to say. He, too, appears to be at a loss. The moment is so awkward that we simultaneously burst into nervous laughter.

This is the moment, he will later say, that first bonds us together. This is when the proverbial deal is sealed.

But I don't remember it this way. I am too struck by Cameron to form any kind of bond. Later that day, when I review my notes of our meeting, I discover that they are a jumbled mess. In my distraction, I have not bothered to see any of my sentences to their end. After assess
ing the damage, I decide there is no use in trying to re-create them. I already seem to realize that representing Cameron Douglas is not something I will soon forget.

I
'm unable to reconcile what I see in my client with what I presume of his fancy lineage. There isn't much of it that can be explained other than to say that Cameron Douglas is a young man of paradox.

Contradictions surround every aspect of his person. While he comes from unimaginable means, he has not experienced some of the most basic trappings of middle-class existence. Acting is his birthright, but he has never seen a play. He has lived in residences reserved for the highest echelons of society, but also in shabby hotels and on friends' couches. He has traveled the globe, but has spent as much time locked in a room with a needle in his arm.

He suffers from an untreated learning disability, one that is so severe that I find it more efficient to read everything to him. Yet he possesses an instinct for human behavior that allows him to see through any ruse, even the stock lines that sophisticated clients usually accept without question.

He is both prince and scourge, at once loved and hated. I observe the alternating adoration and contempt that is piled upon him by MCC's illustrious staff of corrections officers. On his prison unit, he is so well received that some inmates gratuitously prepare his food, buy him gifts. But others display ire at his presence, rendering him familiar with physical altercation. Prior to his arrest, he was chronically surrounded by a gaggle of adoring women, and yet when he is required to provide an inventory of his physical scars, almost all of these can be attributed to instances of female rage.

It's only the most obvious contradiction about Cameron, that the talented product of a prominent Hollywood family would ever turn to a career in drug dealing, that in the end is probably not a contradiction at all. After all, Cameron's struggles with drugs accorded him extensive experience in the drug trade, and as with any industry research, he had unparalleled knowledge of the players and the products. Thus, when his family gave him an ultimatum to either get clean or go it alone, he defiantly chose a career path in what he knows best.

But I suspect that even this doesn't fully explain why Cameron turned to a life of crime. I privately wonder whether walking away from the family business and into the dicey field of drug trafficking allowed Cameron to demonstrate a perverse but rare fortitude among men. That by traversing the line between celebrity and notoriety, in making real what could only be imagined by his Hollywood family, Cameron managed to step out of an otherwise endless shadow.

Once, when he speaks of reviving his acting career, I joke that it's probably best that Cameron go into his dad's business rather than the other way around.

He doesn't laugh. “My dad could never do what I did,” he tells me. I'm not certain, but his tone seems to be one of pride.

And so in the end, it might be Cameron's crimes that make the most sense about him. In this way, Cameron and I present as opposites. My history is void of conundrums, my unfulfilling path up until our meeting the stuff of rigorous rules and copious planning. It is my crime that will present the greatest contradiction of my life, one that try as I might, I cannot seem to reconcile.

I
n our second meeting, Cameron displays the qualities of what is sometimes called a “difficult client.” As soon as he arrives in the attorney room, even before he takes his seat, he is yelling at everyone in the room.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demands.

The legal team has not seen him in a week. He is not angry because he has missed us. He's angry because while he is incarcerated, the only way information can be securely passed to him is in person. Our absence has left him with the feeling that his case is proceeding without him.

Though I am caught off guard by the change in his demeanor, I don't experience the silent resentment I usually do when someone is yelling at me. Instead, as with a crying child, I want only to make it stop. I see in his face exasperation more than anger, and so during a pause in his tirade, I tell him that we understand why he is upset and promise to visit him with more frequency.

At this, he begins to calm. We proceed with our meeting, during which questions are met with answers. As we get ready to leave, I tell him I'll be back in a couple of days to discuss the latest update, and every few days thereafter.

Once he sees his needs are being met, he is contrite. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I shouldn't have yelled.”

“It's all right.” I stand up to leave.

He stands up, too. “It's just . . . I'm having a bad day.” He points downward. “Some of the guys wanted to do me a favor by fixing my jumpsuit. But look.”

I examine the cuffs of his jumpsuit. Something indeed looks off.

He explains: some well-meaning members of the Gambino crime family noticed that the pant legs of his oversized jumpsuit tended to drag across the floor. In a gesture of kindness, they arranged for their “tailor”—apparently another inmate who is adept at sewing—to adjust the hems to a more appropriate length.

The problem is that the trimmed pant legs make the oversized jumpsuit look misshapen. This is not helped by the fact that, presumably due to a limited thread selection, the brown hems are sewn in white. It's as subtle as the stitching on a baseball.

“I look ridiculous,” he says.

He does. I'm not sure what to say, so I try to point out the positive. “The stitching is really even,” I say.

I'm not just trying to make him feel better. The Gambino family has landed a plum tailor, one whose stitches are so precise in size and tension that the hem looks sewn by machine. But I do understand Cameron's complaint. I'm able to evaluate the quality of the stitching only because I can see it from where I am standing.