Ex-Con Preps White-Collar Perps for Prison
N E W Y O R K, Aug. 7 -- Note to Samuel Waksal, Kenneth Lay, Bernard Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski and the Rigas family: If you are in fact sentenced to do prison time, keep these pointers in mind.
Inmate etiquette dictates that you don't rat, don't cut in line, don't reach, don't ask, don't touch, don't whine and flush often.
And that's just for starters.
These tips are courtesy of David Novak, an ex-con and the author of Downtime: A Guide to Federal Incarceration, who makes his living by coaching white-collar convicts on how to get through the ordeal of doing prison time.
He's made a steady living out of this since he himself was released in 1997, and his professional endeavors are now perfectly aligned with today's corporate criminal zeitgeist.
Novak is a font of federal incarceration information. He advises that fellow inmates will give new inmates a one-month grace period before they're expected to understand and obey the joint's code; explains that in federal facilities, conjugal visits are not permitted, but sending flowers is; and notes that some prison kitchens will make a reasonable effort to accommodate Kosher diets.
He also says to pack light: The only personal property permitted is one soft-covered religious text, a religious medallion worth less than $50, a pair of eyeglasses, a wedding ring with no stones and dentures.
Prison Prep for $125 an Hour
Understandably, Novak won't say whether he's involved with any of the cases making headlines lately, but he does expect that this current crop of corporate crooks will land some pretty stiff sentences if convicted.
White-collar jail terms haven't historically called for much more than a decade behind bars — and even the most notorious offenders have ended up serving far less time than they were sentenced.
Ivan Boesky, for instance, received just three years and served two. Jailed junk-bond king Michael Milken was originally sentenced to ten years, but also served just two. And considering that savings-and-loan shark Charles Keating's scheme cost taxpayers a cool $3.4 billion, he got a relatively benign 12-year and seven-month sentence — and actually clocked just four years.
