The Phony War On Drugs


MIM prints the following article describing and exposing unjust conditions of arrest, trial and sentencing, with the hope that someone with access to legal resources can help this person. We think the author places too much emphasis on the criminality of the informant in his case (someone known to the author) relative to the overall criminality of the injustice system itself. The biggest criminals are the biggest owners of private property and exploiters of labor -- those that have a stake in the dramatic expansion in the imprisonment of oppressed nationalities in Amerikkka.

To help contact:
M. Arguello Jr. #895698
P.O. Box 30
Pendleton, IN 46064

Editor:

As we all know the phony drug war has a lot to with who you are. If you are a poor minority (non-white) you're guilty automatically before even going to court. Believe me I know, I'm a non-white Indian and I am one of the victims of this phony drug war. I received a sentence higher than Manuel Noriega!

Allow me to describe myself so you'll better understand my story. I am an American Apache Indian, 6' 2" 220lbs, long raven black hair, which hangs past my waist. My woman is a 5ft white woman.

On April 28, 1988, The great spirit blessed me with the birth of my first born child in Jacksonville, Florida. A beautiful baby girl who we call Crystal Summer Arguello. I was a very proud father, so I decided to come up to Indiana to visit my mother then to show off my beautiful first born child.

So my woman, her son, our baby girl and myself we came to Frankfort, Indiana to visit my mother. Frankfort is a very small hole in the road, all white, short haired farmer town, with the exception of my mother and a small handful of Mexicans.

We weren't here but a couple of months when [someone I knew] was released from prison. I didn't know him very well because he has lived most of his life in and out of prison. He had no place to go ... I let him stay with me and my family.

It wasn't long before he was right back into his old criminal ways. He started bringing stolen guns and other stuff into our home, including drugs. Now I'm no angel, but he was bringing cocaine into our home. I have never stolen anything in my entire life on this earth, nor have I ever had anything to do with anything stolen. I am a carpenter/mechanic by trade and made pretty good money at both jobs, so I never had to stoop to that level. I told [him] to stop bringing his junk to my home. He said he was trying to repay me for my hospitality with his stolen junk. I told him that he did not have to repay me ... and that I did not want anything to do with his junk. All I wanted was for him to stay out of trouble. He continued to bring his junk into my home so I told him to get out of my home and to take his junk with him.

About a week or two later the police came storming into our small apartment pointing their guns at our heads, yelling that they had a search warrant for my apartment, but they were showing us nothing but the barrels of their guns. Our children were crying and they would not let us tend to them. They said, they were searching for drugs and guns. They arrested me and my woman on Information to Dealing in Cocaine. I never heard of such a thing! Either you're dealing or you're not. But anyway they were in our small apartment for 48 hours and found nothing! Nothing, not even an empty baggie.

I was taken to the police station, not the jail, where I was harassed, threatened and called all sorts of niggers and other racial names, while they tried to get me to confess to being a cocaine dealer. Then I was taken to the jail two blocks away when they realized I would not roll over for them. The sheriff put me in an eight-man cell and told all the other guys there that he was putting a big Indian in there and if they all beat the shit out of the Indian, he'd make sure no one got into trouble for it. Well I'm no little guy and these hicks were scared of the unknown. Even though I did get into a few fights, it was nothing serious.

My trial was a joke. Before I even went to court to get a court appointed attorney, the prosecutor came to the jail along with a racist pig (Chuck Toney) to tell me to plead guilty and they'd give me 30 years in prison and let my woman go free. My woman was about a month pregnant at the time of our arrest, she was also in the jail. The prosecutor, Louis Evens, told me if I went to trial he would make sure I went to prison for 100 years and my woman would also go to prison and we would lose our children and that my son would be born in prison and then they would take him away from us also. I told them I was going to go to trial and they would have to prove me guilty ... He said "I do not have to prove anything, all I got to do is accuse you of something and it's your job to prove yourself innocent. And I guarantee you will be found guilty, because we don't like your kinda people here anyways!" I said, "what do you mean my kinda people?" He said, "long-haired Mexicans!" I told him I was not a Mexican, but an American Apache Indian. He said, "Indian, Mexican, Nigger, whatever, you're all the same and we don't want you in our town." I got up and told them I did not want to hear anymore of their bull-shit and to take me back to my cell.

A couple of days later my court appointed lawyer came to see me and feed me the same bull-shit story the prosecutor did. 30 years and they let my woman walk, so she can care for our children. At least your children will have one parent to care for them they told me. I told him that the prosecutor came and told me the same story and I told him what he had told me, and he told me the prosecutor was right. This is supposed to be my attorney speaking now! He tells me, "If you go to trial they will hang you in court, as soon as you walk into the court room and they see your long hair and the color of your skin, you'll be guilty on the spot no matter what you say!" He said, "Look around you, they don't have to put K.K.K. signs to tell you you're not wanted around here, it's plain to see the whole town is white!" Oh, and the informant he tells me is [the person who was staying with me]. So I might as well admit my guilt and take the plea bargain. Of course I did not believe him. I even cussed him out for saying such foolish bullshit lies. Well wasn't I surprised when he played the tape and let me hear [his] recorded statements!

As I said my jury trial was a joke. I had a racist white judge, (Jack O'Neill) a racist prosecutor, (Louis Evans), a racist local public defender (Mike Douglass) and an all white racist jury, in an all white racist short haired farmer town. What were my chances of a semi-fair trial? They had no evidence at all. They had nothing but the testimony of a rapist, thief, child-molester, career criminal who only testified to save his own ass from going back to prison, not to mention the 300 dollars he was paid for his testimony. Now isn't this called bribery? If you or I was to pay someone to lie for us in court, wouldn't the court accuse us of bribery? Wouldn't that be perjury? Maybe not if we called our "Paid Liar" and "Paid Informant!"

[The informant] got on the stand and said that he sold the police an ounce of cocaine on Feb. 13, 1989 and another one on Feb. 22, 1989 and that he got the cocaine from my woman and I. The police got on the stand and said that he bought an ounce of cocaine ... not from me or my woman, but from [the informant], and he bought it on Feb 13 and Feb 22, 1989. The pig also testified that [the informant] "told" him that he got the cocaine from [me]. Even though he admitted he personally never saw anything. He never saw or knew me, or ever spoke to me. He (the pig) knew nothing, all he knew was what [the informant] supposedly told him, or what he told [the informant] to say. His testimony was only to "co-sign" [the informant's] testimony. To make [the informant] sound like an honest person, even though he's been convicted of numerous "Dishonest Crimes."

I was found guilty, no evidence at all just on hear-say. The paid testimony of a long-time ex-con who would have said anything to save his own ass from going back to prison, because he was still on parole and was facing breaking and entering, theft, and rape charges on a 12 year old boy, not to mention the selling of the cocaine charges, which they'd of pinned on him if he didn't pin them on me. Before the trial he had changed his mind about testifying so they gave him $300, rented him a motel and bought him some food and clothes to make him happy and to remind him to testify.

And me? I received two 45 year sentences, 90 fucking years! And to think I hear all these rich white boys in the federal joints crying about receiving 10-20 years for selling or possessing two or more kilos of cocaine! Shit, I wish I could have received a 10-20 year sentence in a fancy federal joint, instead of 90 years in this shit-hole state prison! And remember I sold nor possessed nothing! I had a clean record and my worst crime in my entire 24 years of life on this earth was a speeding ticket.

WAR ON DRUGS? Hell yeah! There are no rules in a war and that's exactly what this is, a "No Rules Game" to these political pig bastards! They don't have to catch you with anything or even see you sell anything, all they need is some punk ass, snitching bitches word to send your ass to prison!!

I was sentenced in Oct. 1989 to two 45 year sentences. My woman done seven months in the jail, until it was close for her to give birth to my son. Her bond was the same as mine, 100 thousand dollars cash. They told her that they did not want to pay for the delivery of our son, so for her to ask my mother how much money we could come up with to bond her out of jail? My mother lives on social security and told them she only had $250. They told her to bring the $250 and they would release my woman to her.

While she was in jail they tried their asses off to get her to lie and admit we were selling drugs. They told her she could walk free anyday as long as she testified in court that I was a dealer. They told her as long as she was my woman she would stay in their jail. Well, in Feb. 1991 my woman divorced me and two months later they dismissed her charges! Coincidence? I think not. Oh, did I mention my woman is white?

She's back in Florida now with my daughter and my son. I was only 24 years old at the time of my arrest, my baby girl was fixing to turn one year old the next month and my woman was carrying my son. I was just starting my family. Now my daughter is 8 years old and my son is 6 years old and I have only seen him a half dozen times since his birth. Since my children were only babies, I've never heard their voices. I've never been called daddy by my children and probably never will, being I will spend the rest of my life in prison, or most of it. And all because of this so called phony drug war!

Since my incarceration I have received several letters from [the informant] saying he's sorry. He said the pigs paid him to lie. So why am I still in prison? Because that's the way the "Just Us" system is made to work. Whether you're innocent or not once you're in their greedy claws and in their prison cages, it's impossible to get out. Even if you eventually beat your conviction they got it fixed so that you'll do most of your sentence fighting to get out. Another reason for my still being in prison is the "Just Us" system only picks on the poor and minority people such as myself. People who they know don't have the money to buy their way out of prison sentences with big time, high priced lawyers.

I had no money for a lawyer the first time in court, so I was stuck with a local racist public defender to help me. And now being in prison making $15 a month for fixing the guards' autos, I surely haven't got any money to hire an attorney to appeal my case. So I was sent to prison for being guilty of being a poor "Non-White" Indian in a racist white man's world. A world that only sees two colors, Black and White, and for this I must spend most of my life in a prison cage. And my children must be raised without their father, until the white man's "Just Us" system gets their greedy claws into them also. Which they eventually will do, because my children look just like me. Even if their mother is white, they look full blooded Apache Indian! Who says the fight between the cowboys and the Indians is over?

Let me give you an example of the "Just Us" system. In this same town where I was racially arrested, convicted and sentenced to most of my natural young life in prison, a rich white boy was arrested for possession of cocaine, possession of crack cocaine, possession of syringes, spoons, and marijuana -- all these drugs in his possession while driving drunk, endangering the lives of many innocent people. Yet he was released on his own recognizance, which means he didn't have to pay any money to get out, only agree to appear for his court date. Remember I possessed nothing and my bond was $100 thousand dollars cash! But let me tell you who this rich white boy was. He was the mayor's son!

Well, three weeks after his release, he was arrested again this time in a different town. He was driving drunk again and he was in possession of crack cocaine, cocaine, marijuana, syringes and spoons again. This time his bond was 12 hundred dollars. No problem for the mayor. To cut the story short, the courts came to an agreement to run their sentences together. So he was given 180 days license suspension and two years probation. All his charges were class A felonies, about 8-10 of them, were all dropped to "ONE" class-D felony. Class A felonies are non-suspendable by Indiana law. Now here's the real kick in the ass. If this poor rich boy keeps his nose clean for his two year probation, his felony conviction will be charged to read as a class A misdemeanor on his police record! So he will not be a convicted felon! What kinda bullshit it that? You think maybe the court change my felony record to read as a misdemeanor on my police record if I keep my nose clean while on parole? I mean I possessed nothing nor did I sell anything, so why wouldn't they erase my felony convictions?

Everything I have written here I can prove, I even have a letter from the mayor, giving me a sad story why his son done what he done. Of course he's sorry and he only done it because he had a hard life.

Well my brothers and sisters of all colors, I can't tell you the end of my story because I do not know it. Does it end with my children growing up without their daddy and do I die in prison? Or will someone out there finally hear my cries for JUSTICE and help me gain my freedom?

MAYBE ONE OF YOU READING THIS STORY/CASE?