Bamboozled (10 page)

One day he was called to the warden's office while he was in the middle of making a deal. While it may not have felt like prison to visitors, there remained occasional reminders.

As Joey sat down he says the secretaries asked him for Emmitt stuff, which Joey tended to refuse giving to cops and guards. The new warden supposedly informed Joey, “If you want to keep running your operation, you are going to need to make a donation to my son's baseball team.” All calls to and from the prison were recorded so the warden knew exactly how much money Joey was earning behind bars so lying wasn't an option, for once.

Joey says he responded, “Since you broke the ice, I need to be on that same level” leaning forward over the desk. “I will not be sending your son a dime and if anything happens to me, you'll be guaranteed to be cut up into little pieces and put out in the desert.” And with that, Joey walked out, smiling. He had
been “reformed” to look after his own interests.

After that, Joey was promoting the event of his life—a
Night of the Champions
signing that included Cecil Fielder, Jeff Bagwell, Carlos Palomino, Bip Roberts, Boom Boom Mancini, Scott Cooper, and many more. Lou Gagliano, an associate of “the family,” would hand Joey's phone call around from player to player as they signed and then to check the money count. Joey says he chargd $45 for signing flat items and $75 for round items.

He put Ana Luisa in charge of his new company OG Collectibles, which he claims meant “originally guaranteed,” because he had letters of authenticity for even the signings he admitted were bogus.

Joey married Ana Luisa that April, and she started to ask about Joey's appeal. Joey thought about it for days. He had created a comfortable life in prison with some fame and a healthy pile of cash. At the same time, he says he felt stupid for sitting in an empty cell while his wife was on the outside.

The same week he'd demanded money from Joey, the prison warden was arrested for soliciting an underage prostitute. Joey's cell door came to be open 24 hours/day on the honor system. He could spend up to 10 hours/day on the phone and Joey used every second. Joey claimed that he paid the guards for a weekly pizza, gold chain, a Rolex, and a bottle of Hennessy. Nonetheless, Joey told Ana Luisa that he would shift focus to his appeal in the prison law library.

After eighteen years of incarceration, Joey came to believe that attorneys represent you as long and as well as you can afford, and their opinions aren't of much importance. Joey had also learned in business that anything is possible, even when he's told that everything is in the hands of the parole board.

Joey met with Chris Baca and informed him of his plans to return to California for access to California law books. Baca understood and wrote letters of support.

Joey contacted Curt Rost from the DOC, explaining his interest in returning to California to
appeal his case. Rost understood the dilemma: Joey didn't want to be killed by California inmates but he wanted access to California legal documents to secure his released. Joey was transferred to Folsom Prison while OJ Simpson was all over the television after his wife had been murdered. Being escorted over to the attorney area, Joey claims he ran into two suits he thought looked like Feds.

He took a seat as the suits requested the relationship between Michael Irvin of the Cowboys and Daryl Strawberry's drug connection. The men suggested that they could make it rough for Joey but he claims he said that if he gave them anything on Luigi and Mr. Gambino, it would be worse. Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratianno had turned into a federal informant, sending numerous leads down the chain. Joey claims he said, “There's nothing you could do to me that has not already been done. Fuck you in your Mormon neck.”

Joey was informed at his classification hearing that based on his notoriety for saving the female correctional officer he would not be housed at Folsom. He was instead transported to the Maximum Security Housing Protective Unit in Corcoran, a unit full of complaints of sexual abuse, beatings issued by guards and inmates, and staged fights setup by guards, eventually becoming the subject of an episode of
60 Minuites.

After years in Nevada and New Mexico, Joey was not prepared for this kind of treatment. Joey claims he had two friends in there; Charles Manson and Big C. Big C had been first
round football draft pick who kidnapped a college professor for giving him a bad grade. He was serving the 35
^th
year of his sentence of 7-life.

In May of 1996, after 17 years of incarceration, Joey came to devour case law books at all hours of the day and he found out that his father was about to pass away. This time the DOC would not release him to see his father. Joey called Ana Luisa, who put him through to Carlos, who instructed Joey to call in a favor from Gomez. Joey claims that Gomez sent one of his men to pretend to be the warden while special agents escorted Joey in a car to kiss his dad goodbye.

Joey spent the next three years studying law to find an angle to work in his case. Joey began taking work researching cases for other inmates. Out of money after a card show Joey promoted that turned into a bust, Mike Sadek from the Giants was convinced to send Joey signed Willie Mays balls that he would exchange for law books. Paul Moitor would send money from time to time. Joey admits he even traded pornographic pictures of prisoner's wives and sisters to afford his legal forms. Ana Luisa's supported him by scouring the fledgling internet for case history.

The real warden took some inmates off the prison bus from Lancaster one day and beat them to the ground while cutting off their hair and braids. Two guards tossed Joey's cell one day supposedly pocketing a Roberto Clemente card. They were angry that Joey refused to participate in their staged fights. Now 37 and 230 pounds, Joey was physically shot. The guards began telling Ana Luisa that Joey had been transferred when she tried to visit.

Shortly after an ambulance was brought on site by a captain before a staged fight that ended with the guards shooting a prisoner, the
60 Minutes
expose broke and the California DOC was in the national spotlight for its staged fights, beatings, and worse. The department responded by passing a new law that forbid California inmates from talking to the media. Joey was transferred to Soledad.

Joey ran into his childhood friend Lil' Boxer, who was working at the law library there. Lil' Boxer got Joey a job as a
library clerk. He was now a shot caller with keys.

Joey saw the doctor and learned he had far-advanced Hepatitis C. He started chemo, which made walking up the stairs a struggle. Getting sick and losing weight, Joey asked Lil' Boxer to watch his back.

One day Joey was called out to the yard by some bikers. He brought Lil' Boxer and some 18
^th
boys out with him. Gypsy walked up to Joey and asked a question as he rolled his head to the right. It was a setup and Joey felt a hot pain in his side. Another fist came and as Joey tried to fight back, his medication knocked him out. Two years later Gypsy was found murdered in his cell. No one came forward to take credit for that one.

The day after getting knifed in his side, Joey went back to work on studying his case. The cops locked down the yard when they found the bloody knife and went cell to cell, looking for wounds. Joey says he buried himself in his books, asked them to leave, and they slammed the door without checking him. Joe returned to the back of the law library and found new laws President Clinton had signed pertaining to appeals and time limitations. Lil' Boxer shook his head in disbelief, looked at the knife wound, which looked like a “blue, black, and red dart board with a pencil-sized hole.” Joey hoped there wasn't internal bleeding.

A month later Joey found an old law book and learned about
a writ of error coram nobis
which allows for a review and re-trial if a defendant can prove he wasn't made aware of all possible outcomes before he pleaded guilty. Joey felt this challenged Clinton's bill, which stated an inmate had only a year to appeal a conviction.

Joey told Ana Luisa about his law discoveries and began approaching the press. Joey contacted every attorney in the law directory and was visited by Gary Diamond, an appeals specialist who requested $20,000 to take the case.

Joey also received two letters from James Gallo, a real estate attorney from Pasadena who wanted to help. Next he got a response from Christopher Morales from San Francisco, who graduated UCLA and was a former amateur boxer. The three men would be Joey's team.

Morales investigated the mechanics of
coram nobis
and Gallo would help Joey file motions. Joey says Morales challenged him daily to be his best. Months of prison lockdown
from another North/South war gave Joey time to study.

The lawyers gave the thumbs up and Ana Luisa filed Joey's
writ of error coram nobis
on January 8, 2001. She hand delivered it to the clerk in Norwalk. The motion was actually filed seventeen times and each time it came back denied. As each one was denied, Joey put another in the mail. Joey assumed he could challenge the life sentence on account of his plea agreement with the Youth Authority.

He turned on the TV one morning and saw the planes crash into the World Trade Center. The alarm went off, the National Guard took off, and the prison operated on a skeleton crew. Then mail stopped appearing as a result of the anthrax scare. Not even legal mail was delivered for weeks.

Eventaully Mr. Gallo instructed Joey to write an appeal that was less than 100 pages, as that was likely why they were denied. Joey wrote a ten page version.

One day, in his cell, Joey heard chains slamming on the floor and looked up from his bunk to see five transportation guards stopping in front of his cell. As they put the chains around his body Joey suspected someone had mentioned the stabbing or something else he'd done. Little did he know that his appeal had been granted.

The medical department began attending to Joey's badly-infected stab wound while
he ate a Big Mac. He thought the cars looked like something from the future and marveled at a guard's cell phone.

Ana Luisa was in shock and could not speak. Joey instructed her to buy him some clothes and to rent an apartment for them.

The following morning Joey found himself in the same court room he stood in 20 years earlier. He saw Ana Luisa behind him, looking scared. Joey sat alone, with no attorney next to him, but plenty of bold optimism.

Judge Thomas McKnew, a balding man in his 60s, walked into the court room. He glanced down at Joey's legal briefs. The DA, Pamela Frohreich, began throwing cases, cites, and arguments against Joey. Joey responded, quoting law dating back to King James. After their summations, the Judge returned to his chamber. The bailiff supposedly informed Joey that he had done “a remarkable job.” James Gallo showed up to mention Joey's “good behavior” in prison.

An hour later there were keys jingling and butterflys in Joey's stomach like he experienced before a fight. The judge entered and everyone stood.

The stoic judge began reading: “Despite vehement opposition from the District Attorney's Office, Petitioner's petition for writ of
coram nobis
is
granted
.”

Joey had tears in his eyes. Ana Luisa is bug-eyed in shock. Frohreich jumped to her feet in protest.

“The judgment of conviction is hereby vacated, as is petitioner's guilty plea. Petitioner is remanded to custody without
bond and shall appear on December 27, 2001.”

Joey's sentence was vacated like it had never happened. He was re-arrested for the crime of 1979, like it had never occurred. The penal code stated that applicable bail would be what it was for murder in the first degree in 1979. Joey smiled, appreciating his natural proclivities as a lawyer. Mr. Gallo filed a bail motion to Judge McKnew with a motion for the Department of Corrections to release their hold.

“Mister Torrey, how do you plead to murder in the first degree?”

“Not guilty, your honor.”

“I vacate your original sentence but the DA has filed new charges against you because there is no statute of limitations on capital murder. She protested my decision to the court of Appeals, saying I'm not competent to do my job. Now, let's discuss bail.”

District Attorney:
“Your Honor, this is a capital murder, in the first degree, as you correctly stated. Therefore, there is no bail, nor has there been since 1980.”

But Joey's crime was in 1979. He is intstructed to debate this action by the DA.

Torrey:
Your honor, I filed a motion on this very subject last night after years of researching. You should have it in front of you. Under the California penal code Sub Sec A6, bail rights are applicable to what they were at the time of the crime, and at no time issuance will be different, based on the fact that the DA was fully correct in stating that as of 1980, no bail on murder one. Ergo, my charged allegations transpired in 1979, one year prior to the law cited.