Letter from Prison
by Seth Ferranti
9-9-2014
I got locked up in 1993, when the War on Drugs was at its
height. As a first time, non-violent offender I got a 25 year sentence for a
Continuing Criminal Enterprise charge. This is a charge usually associated with
likes of Pablo Escobar type dudes, big time drug kingpins, but for some reason
the Eastern District of Virginia used it on me. They claimed the amount of LSD
found in my case, about 120 sheets or twelve thousand hits of acid, was the
largest seizure in Northern Virginia ever, but in truth I wasn't a drug
kingpin. I was just a kid, barely out of my teens, who was selling LSD and
marijuana at several East Coast colleges.
For a twenty year old I was making good money, but in the
big scheme of things I was just a small time drug dealer. When I got busted I
had only been selling drugs for a couple of years at the most. There was no
criminal organization, or gang or cartel, it was just me driving around to the
colleges my friends attended and hitting them off. I was more addicted to the
lifestyle than to the drugs, but I partied a lot, like most college kids do, a
lot of marijuana, LSD and alcohol. It was a nice life while it lasted and a
viable career choice I thought at the time, until I got busted and was
sentenced to more time than how old I was under the federal sentencing
guidelines and mandatory minimums Congress enacted in the late 80s as a result
of the crack epidemic.
My case was from 1991 and for two years I was a fugitive
from justice or maybe we should say injustice but it’s all relative now. I had
been getting loads of weed out of Dallas since the late 80s and I settled in
the Arlington area while I was on the run. I had some friends at the University
of Texas and I quickly settled back into a drug dealing routine, eventually
driving loads of pot up to Saint Louis, Missouri. Where after a short time I
got caught and extradited back to Virginia. For some reason the US Marshals had
put me on their Top 15 Most Wanted fugitive list and my capture was given
national priority. Like I was Whitey Bulger or something. Go figure. Again I
was never quite sure why, but that's how it all went down.
At the age of 22 I was sent to federal prison to start doing
my time. I don't have any vicious penitentiary war stories to tell you, but the
medium security prisons I was housed at were rough enough. Back in the 90s they
called them gladiator schools and you could get shanked, cut or cracked in the
head with a lock on a belt. I found out it was about respect and I carried
myself accordingly. I managed to stay busy, stay out of trouble and stay out of
the way. But eventually I got comfortable in prison and I started doing the
same things I was doing on the street, smuggling marijuana. Except this time I
was smuggling it in through the prison's visiting room. I would swallow 10-15
marble sized balloons full of kind bud and smoke to my heart’s content. I was
still in shock at my 25 year sentence and was self-medicating to numb myself so
I didn't have to feel the reality of my situation. I also sold the weed and
made a decent living as a prison hustler. I did this for my first 9 years in
the belly of the beast.
Eventually I got a clue and stopped smuggling and smoking
weed. Around 2002 I decided I had to start working toward my future. I still
had a lot of time left to do, with a 2015 release date, but being stuck in the
netherworld of corruption and violence, the idea of being a career prison
gangster didn't appeal to me. So I made a choice, a choice to do everything I
could to prepare myself for my inevitable release. To that end I started taking
college correspondence courses and earned an AA degree from Penn State, a BA
from the University of Iowa and an MA from California State University. All
from prison. I was locked up but that didn't mean I couldn't accomplish
something positive. It was hard work getting those degrees from here but I did
it, despite the lack of cooperation and accommodation from the Bureau of
Prisons. Because rehabilitation isn't their goal, warehousing men is what they
do. If you want to do better for yourself, you have to take that into your own
hands and that is what I did.
I was always big into sports and working out. I played in
the intramural basketball, soccer, softball and flag football leagues. Prison
sports were rough but I made sure I always represented. I was known as a go
hard white boy who was a good but not great athlete. I channeled my anger at my
sentence into sports and my studies and it helped me tremendously to stay
focused and in shape. I started spending more time in the prison library. I was
out of the mix, away from the politics and all the drama that goes down in
prison. After several years of this type of behavior I was transferred to a
nice, tame, low security prison where it wasn't all about the politics and who
was running the yard and bringing in drugs and getting punked out or checked
in. It took a minute to get used to the low security prison, because I was used
to cells and the lows were cubicles and open dorms, but I adjusted and it’s
been about 8 years now that I have resided in a low. Less tension, politics and
a generally more accommodating atmosphere.
I decided to start writing articles and books about prison
life and true crime. My first book Prison Stories was well received and brought
me a lot of accolades. I went on to author over 500 articles that were
published in magazines and on the Internet and I have authored 7 books to date,
all true crime, with more on the way. With the help of my girlfriend, who I
married in 2005, I started a website, blog and publishing house from prison.
Over the years my website, books and writings have generated a lot of interest
and helped me to establish a career from here. You can check out my website at
gorillaconvict.com. I write books about gangsters and I have covered all of the
street legends that rappers like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Nas and LL Cool J rhyme about.
I have been locked up with a lot of these dudes in the feds and done interviews
with them and got the exclusive stories to share with the world. My site also
has tons of prison stories, interviews with gang members and covers the crack
era and life in the belly of the beast like no other site on the Internet.
I have written for magazines like Vice, Don Diva, and
F.E.D.S. and my work on prison basketball have appeared on hoopshype.com and in
Slam. I have also written for thefix.com, the dailybeast.com and Maxim on how
to smuggle drugs into prison, how to make hooch and how to make body armor in
case you are expecting to get in a knife fight. I have used my time
productively and made a career as a writer from here so that I have a future
when I get out. It hasn't always been easy as I have been locked up in the
hole, put under investigation, had my property seized and destroyed and been
shaken down and harassed repeatedly, due to my writing efforts, but despite the
hassles it has been worth it, because I have a future. And in prison that is
the biggest thing, hope for a better life in the future. I am not coming home
from prison, after almost 21 years of incarceration, with nothing. I have
prospects, opportunities and options. But I have worked hard for all that
awaits me.
I have rehabilitated myself in effect. The Bureau of Prison
hasn't had anything to do with it. But that's life on the inside. You fight for
what you want and if you fight hard enough, you get it. Because in here nobody
is going to give you anything for free. I have overcome tremendous obstacles,
sometimes self-imposed, to be in the position I am now and I have worked hard
throughout. As my time is coming to an end it is a new beginning for me. I have
my wife, I have my career, I have my publishing house and my website with a lot
of writing credits on my resume. I also have my music, I have wrote tons of
songs and will be performing under the name, White Boy Mafia, when I get out. I
recorded some songs back in FCI Manchester in 1996 that hopefully they will
play a little of for you all to listen to. Remember that name, White Boy Mafia.
I go home in a couple of months and I am ready for the
world. I am hungry for it, Just imagine, 21 years, I have done it and it still
doesn't seem real to me. But it is real and when I walk out that gate I suppose it
will all hit me. I have had a long journey but it is almost over now. I go to a
halfway house on August 1 of this year. Just a couple of months left now. The first
thing I want to do when I get home is to make love to my wife, eat a Dominos or
Pizza Hut pizza and take a bath. I have plans to start taking the content I
have created into the visual realm. So be on the lookout for a series of
documentaries from me and visit gorillaconvict.com. Look for some music releases from White
Boy Mafia also. If you like my work or music please feel free to drop me a line at gorillaconvict.com and friend me on Facebook at
Seth Ferranti and you can order all my books on gorillaconvict.com. Thanks to
Gavin for setting this up and I hope to be playing in Deep Ellum sometime soon.
***
MOB SPEAK thanks Seth Ferranti for sharing his thoughts and views with us. We hope to follow him on the outside after he digests what we humans have done on this planet since he's been in prison.
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