Waiting in the South Bend, Indiana jail for the trial on the properties that nana (grandma) purchased in New York for the trial that was upcoming and to be held in the Northern District of Indiana. One evening, when I woke up for my medications, I noticed that there was a large legal size envelope with a package in it so I grabbed it and put it on my bunk and went in line for the medications. When I got back, I opened it up and it was another indictment. My dad and I were being indicted. This time it was dealing with some properties that my dad and his partner sold as investments to two different people while I was living in New York. According to the indictment, I was being accused of promising these two buyers "good tenants" and "good homes". I had never seen the properties, but knew my dad put Section 8 tenants in the properties so promising "good tenants" is something that I would never do because Section 8 tenants are not the highest caliber tenants, plus you can never guarantee anyone to be a "good tenant" because people lose their jobs all the time and life sometimes just happens. There are never any guarantees in life, so that is something that I would have never said, especially since I had been a landlord in Indiana for a while and knew that it is hard to deal with tenants over there. South Bend and Indianapolis are both cities in the thralls of post industrial decline with a lot of violent crime. This is something that I would have no control over, but according to the indictment I promised "good tenants" and "good houses". The indictment also accused me of saying that the buyer wanted to move into the property at the same time as the other indictment pertaining to the properties that my nana purchased. It also stated that I used inflated income figures and stated that the buyers were citizens instead of legal residents on the applications. The indictment accused my dad of selling rental properties in a state of disrepair. I knew that these accusations were not true but it was extremely stressful nonetheless and even more so because my appointed public defender was not competent to say the least. 

The indictment charged a total of four counts pertaining to two buyers, Paul Davies and Gladys Zoleko. Paul Davies came to the United States years before and worked in health care. He had purchased the house that he lived in a few years ago and was married with a family and spoke only English. Gladys Zoleko also worked in health care and was from Cameroon and spoke English and French. She worked with Paul, so they knew each other. I had an office at the building that they used because I had several rental properties of my own that I managed from there. The tenants could come in to sign the Section 8 paperwork and other administrative documents, while the maintenance men would come there to get paid. I did meet both of these buyers when they came in asking about purchasing rental properties. Initially, I met Paul and referred him to my dad who was purchasing and fixing up rental properties. Andrew Beam, who was the owner of the mortgage company, ended up meeting with him to do the financing. I was not an employee there or had any access to the computers to type out or do any applications. There was a password on the computers which I never had. Gladys was referred over by Paul and came later to purchase rental properties after Paul had purchased his rental properties.

Around the same time Andrew Beam was indicted by the state for raping the secretary that worked there. I was actually working at the time when they came to deliver the indictment, so they handed it to me and I left it on the secretary's desk. I had no idea it had anything to do with her. The secretary, Erin, was an attractive young lady that I really didn't know except for greeting each other when I came in. Andrew's case went on for a while and overlapped the time that both Paul, and later Gladys, were purchasing their rental properties. This was several months later after I had left the summons on the desk and had already moved to New York by this time. I remember before I had moved that Andrew was telling people that he would need a lot of money for a good lawyer. Apparently the rumor was that he drugged her and then raped her on her yacht where they were having a party on Lake Michigan.

Pretrial hearings were set for both indictments which totaled seven counts altogether.Mypublic defender, Robert Truitt came to visit me to go over the indictment and the upcoming trial. As usual Truitt seemed very confused and not able to comprehend much. It may have been because he had never represented a white-collar case over his career as a lawyer and he was retirement age so it seemed very strange that the judge would have appointed Truitt to represent me during the twelfth hour of his career as a defense attorney that had only represented blue-collar crimes such as drug and gun cases. The more that I explained to Truitt the worse it got and the worse that I felt. I was already depleted of energy from the depression of the entire situation and being in jail for something that I was not guilty of. I got to the point that I didn't even want to meet with Truitt anymore and so at the pretrial hearing requested another lawyer that would be capable to represent me which the judge quickly denied.

All of the stress piled up and I decided I wanted to commit suicide so I started saving all of my medications that were given to me. I had never taken any medications on the street before jail but now I was taking 20 pills each day. I thought I could just save them for a few weeks and take them all at once. The pain and depression from the situation was so overwhelming that the only solution I could see is suicide. However my bunkmate somehow figure out what was going on and reported it to one of the guards.

The guards immediately took me to suicide watch. I had to go to this other jail cell where I was with this seriously crazy guy. I was put on a bunk without any bunk cushion. I was already sore from sleeping all of the time with the thin cushion in the other cell but know I had no cushion at all and no clothes or anything. I could not have a blanket because they said I could hang myself with it. It was cold and the lights were on all of the time. It was worse than before because now the steel from the bed really hurt from the bed sores I already had from sleeping so much. A guard would come by every fifteen minutes to ask if I were ok. I told the guard I just told you yes fifteen minutes ago. This continued for 48 hours while I was there. I had to meet with a psychology doctor before being able to go back to the regular population with the restriction that I had to take the 20 pills in front of the nurse.

Question:

Describe this in first person and in as much detail as possible.

Describe in first person and in detail the indictment and the reasons it was bogus but still stressful.

Describe in first person and in detail that Andrew Beam, the broker and owner of the mortgage company had taken the applications but he was dealing with another legal case of his own.

Describe in first person and in detail the upcoming hearing and how incompetent public defender Truitt was.

Describe in first person and in detail the meeting with Truitt made you feel even more overwhelmed and depressed.

Describe in first person and in detail how you felt the only way to deal with the situation was suicide.

Describe in first person and in detail the suicide attempt, the cellmate reporting it and having to go to suicide watch.

Describe in first person and in detail what it was like to be in suicide watch.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

In my memory the chill of the jail cell in South Bend clings to me as vividly as the day the indictment landed on my bunk Wrapped in a thin scratchy blanket I unfolded the papers that would complicate ... View the full answer