Many of us have been involved with sociopaths who committed crimes, ranging from fraud to drug distribution to murder. Many times we report their activities to law enforcement, and the authorities do nothing. (That’s what I experienced.) Or, the case is prosecuted and the criminal gets off. We are left with nothing but our frustration.
If the offense is serious enough, however, the sociopaths may be prosecuted and sent to prison. We rejoice. But throwing the bums in jail may be a mixed blessing. Yes, they’re off the street, and we can sort of rest easy—temporarily. But while the offenders are locked up, they have guaranteed food, shelter and medical care. Some have access to libraries and the Internet. And they often have the right to free legal services.
With their basic needs taken care of, prisoners have nothing but time on their hands. Time to plot, scheme—and file tax returns. Last year, the IRS detected 173,000 fraudulent tax returns filed by prison inmates, claiming $2.5 billion in tax refunds. Of that, $1.1 billion was claimed by just two inmates.
Those are the cases that the IRS detected. They don’t know what they missed.
Here are cases of prison plotting and scheming associated with Lovefraud readers:
Patrick Alexander
William Patrick Alexander, son of the Lovefraud contributor Joyce Alexander, murdered a 17-year-old girl back in 1992, and has been locked up ever since. But from behind bars, he tried to arrange his mother’s murder. He sent his former cell mate to infiltrate Joyce’s family, and she had to flee for her life.
Patrick Alexander comes up for parole this year. Joyce is fighting his release.
Mark Ledden
I recently heard from Denise Escher, former wife of Mark Ledden, who is profiled in True Lovefraud Stories. Ledden assaulted Denise on Valentine’s Day 2009, stabbing her 11 times in front of their two young sons. He was sentenced to seven to 20 years in prison.
So what has he done while in prison? Demand visitation with the boys. Denise’s lawyer got his first petition thrown out. But he’s just filed another one. He asks for mail correspondence and telephone calls with his sons, now ages 10 and 7, copies of medical and school records, and for the boys to visit their paternal grandfather. Ledden wrote:
Plaintiff believes it would not only be healthy buy (sic) helpful to have a relationship with their natural biological father, as opposed to no relationship during the developmental years of life.
Ledden does not mention that one of his sons, who witnessed the attack, was totally traumatized. And, in a letter to Denise’s attorney, Ledden blames the entire episode on drugs, which he accused Denise of taking as well. (She did not.) Read:
Mark Ledden petition for visitation with his sons
Mark Ledden letter to Denise Escher’s attorney
Oh, and because, being in prison, he is indigent, Ledden also asked for a free attorney to represent him in the matter. Denise says the court has appointed an attorney for him, one she described as “accomplished.”
Patrick Giblin
Another of the True Lovefraud Stories is about Patrick Giblin. This man was arrested because he defrauded 132 women out of a total of $320,241—money that he blew in Atlantic City’s casinos. He met them on telephone chat lines, convinced him that he loved them, and asked for money. In 2007, he was sentenced to 115 months in prison—that’s 9.5 years.
So what has Giblin been doing? Apparently plotting his escape. Lovefraud received an email from one of his many victims. She was notified by the US Victim Notification on January 18, 2012, that Giblin escaped from the Luzerne Community Correctional Facility.
What will Giblin do on the outside? I’m sure he’ll go back to scamming women. In fact, perhaps he’s been talking to women all along from prison, and that’s how he escaped.
Hard labor
Many sociopaths view prison time as simply an occupational hazard, part of the game. Others go to prison and expand their skills at deceit, manipulation and criminal activity. They are not rehabilitated.
Perhaps prisons should get back in the practice of making inmates at least the sociopathic ones do hard labor. Then maybe they’d be too tired to plot and scheme.
Stargazer
Years ago when I lived in a ghetto in a very bad suburb of Denver, I had neighbor who was a high profile drug dealer. I didn’t know anything about sociopaths at the time, and one day I found myself inside his apartment – don’t really remember the reason. I asked him a lot of questions. He was very open about his drug dealing. He told me that every few years he would get caught and go to prison. In prison, he told me, he would make contacts for making future drug deals on the outside. So prison was a form of social and “professional” networking for him. That was when I first started to realize there was something not quite working in the prison system.
The free medical care alone must be worth the price of admission.
Truthspeak
Stargazer, good to “see” you!
Yeah, the medical care INCLUDES sex-change surgeries, too.
Inmates have more rights than their victims do, especially the murderers and child molesters. Once they’re convicted, they have three meals a day, a source of “income” in prison jobs, every resource available to help them “REHABILITATE,” medical care, psychiatric care, psychologial care, and conjugal visits. Their victims, on the other hand, had NO opportunity to argue their case as to why their lives should be taken from them or ruined, forever. The victims had NO process of appeals once the criminal pronounced sentence.
Yeah…… and prison guards make a shit-ton of money, make NO mistake. They make their hourly wages (some States starting salary is 60K per year), overtime, holiday pay, and all of the PERKS between the inmate deals and so forth…..it’s obscene. The whole thing is obscene.
Ox Drover
Truthy, SOME prisons have decent medical care. and SOME have conjugal visits…over all, the dental care is only pulling a rotted tooth, and the BARE minimum of medical care–when they get old and sick and expensive they give them “compassionate” parole for their families or the state to pay for them to keep down medical costs for the prisons.
What pushes my buttons is that there is such a difference in prisons…from horrible to worse. They make no distinction between the kids who COULD be rehabilitated and the 50+% of the prison population who are so HIGH IN P TRAITS that there is no chance for them, but they let them out on parole anyway KNOWING they will be back in 3 years or less on a new crime (Bureau of Justice Stats 2011)
Stargazer
And the thing that gets me is that our tax dollars are paying for this free ride and the free medical care, when I can’t even afford the deductibles on my own medical care. System is definitely broken.
DawnG
I had a friend who got a job at a state prison in the medical department. I warned her not to go there – that it was a bad place full of bad people. I told her that empathy for others is absolutely not allowed there, unlike a regular hospital. She took the job anyway because the benefits were good.
She didn’t make it past her probationary period before they let her go, and they let her go in the most humiliating way possible. She was having inappropriate contact with one of the inmates, and had apparently even met members of his family on the outside. The inmate was a lifer – I still can’t get her to tell me exactly wtf she was thinking in getting involved with him.
This lady was in a very bad marriage, was lonely, and had very low self esteem. She was ripe for plucking, that much I do know.
Stargazer
Free sex change surgery, huh? My ex, the spath, would probably be begging for a sex change surgery if I’d ever gotten my way with him. There wouldn’t be much left of his private parts after they met with my boots. Anyway, all part of a messed up system where lying and exploitation are rewarded. Look at the corrupt welfare system, speaking of people lying and exploiting. It’s very depressing for me to think about it because I really can’t be part of the solution. But I imagine for sociopaths who dislike actual work, crime pays for them, because their stints in prison are all funded by taxpayers.
Ox Drover
Having been inside prisons, not as an inmate thank God, but having visited there for nearly 20 years, I didn’t see anything that I personally would have enjoyed about either living there or working there either. The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a cake server.
In the visiting room the inmates eyes were continually SCANNING the room, on HYPER ALERT for trouble 24/7…
survivorlady
Hello everyone,
I have a question. My ex husband (still battling divorce but he is still my ex as far as I am concerned) was always very mesmirized by any program on T.V about prisons, convicts, and watch every movies that had to do with prisons, Escape from Alcatraz, etc etc.
I often wondered why ? Why did this appeal to him ? He was never in prison, that I know of. Can anyone help me with this ?
Louise
survivorlady:
I am assuming it’s because he could relate to the level of spathiness. He was probably also learning from those shows on how to do more damage.
Ox Drover
It might also because he fears going to prison and wants to learn how to behave if and when he gets there. Many of them do illegal things.