Bamboozled by Joe Biel Read Free Book Online

coming and going to the prison is read, when prosecutors reviewed the letter, it was clear to them that Joey was requesting that she obtain a gun for his use. He was caught as she tried to allegedly smuggle said gun into his lockup. He was apparently still feeling a little invincible.
    Joey remembers the situation a little differently. He says that he had already told Rudy about the gun in advance but due to the Youth Authority being consolidated into the Department of Corrections in 1982, there was a need to crack down under the new management.
    Joey was then transferred to Tracy Prison, which he claim was then known as “Gladiator School.” As a youth inmate in a state prison, Joey was put in a single cell, while other inmates were double celled. As he was brought in, the prison was on lockdown due to an ongoing gang war.
    Joey says he sent a message to one of the guys from 18 th St. asking for some coffee and 411. He received some coffee, a big knife, a chess board (to put in his pants as a shield) and a note that read, “It’s on! Watch your back!”
    This particular prison’s cast included: the Mexican Mafia, La Eme, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Guerilla Family, and a melting pot of Cubans, Ricans, Haitians, Native Americans, and more. Every group has a designated shot caller, who represents the group to all inmates, administration, and guards. Like a state senator, the shot caller is a lifer who has the keys to the yard.
    He was still a kid, really, and thought he was going home in a few months—working at Denny’s, drawing, seeing Maria… and now, facing a situation where he could expect to die in prison.
    On his first Monday, Joey was guided out to the yard. Two men ran past and the 5 th guy ahead of him was stabbed five times in the neck before they ran off. He died running after them. The prison stayed in lockdown for another month.
    It is, at moments like these, a time to question how much rehabilitation is expected to occur in this institution, how responsibly public money is being spent, and to what end. When prisoners kill each other, it is merely held up as an opportunity to ask for more funding. Who is that helping?

8
    Joey was scheduled for a parole board hearing in 1982 and he expected to go home, wherever that might be. Joey started working out hard and got down to 165 pounds. His knee was feeling better from the weights and his daily runs alongside the “onion field murderer” from Bakersfield. Once a week, Joey invited someone to his cell or the shower to box.
    The next few weeks were the craziest. Joey was met in the big yard by a couple of La Emes who escorted him to their shot caller—“some fool from the Venice gang” that Joey had met when he lived with JoJo. The shot caller was cool and respectful to Joey but supposedly wanted 18 th St. to pay La Eme. If they didn’t pay, a green light would be issued, meaning that any La Eme could kill an 18 th St. member without ramifications. Joey explained that he was neither Mexican nor about to pay anyone.
    In the eyes of any gang from La Cosa Nostra Joey was neither white nor Mexican, but Joey’s lack of racial identity was of little concern to any gang’s bottom line.
    A few days before his parole board hearing, Joey says he started to carry a knife, the tip pricking his knee every time he took a step. He says it made him alert and never complacent. The night before the hearing, Joey stayed up all night with his legal folder, letters of support, and new marriage certificate to Maria. Joey had no family left—Luigi was in prison, the Gambinos, Genoveses, and Bonannos were dying or snitching each other out. His relationships mostly existed in the postal system.
    Knowing the parole board could release him on the spot, Joey was eager to stand out. The morning as his name wascalled on the loud speaker to report, many lifers wished him good luck.
    When Joey entered the parole board room