I went to prison after a 100-count trial alleging that six Village Voice Media defendants facilitated prostitution. I was found guilty of a single count of laundering money; i.e., placing assets in a European bank. The verdict is mysterious. FBI agents told my American banks: Don’t do business with this fellow. And so, they did not.

My attorneys advised me to take my money to Europe, and my attorneys set up the transfer. My lawyers then filled out forms, F-bars, and filed them with the federal government. This annual paperwork informed the government where my money was and how much was in the account. Taxes were paid. Nothing was hidden.

Nonetheless, I sit in prison for five years. After almost a month, I’ve dropped 11 pounds. It is a spa program without smiles. Imitation bologna, hard to imagine, harder to swallow. Powders are prevalent: Fruit punch, lemonade, coffee, potatoes, eggs.

Chewing is a habit, but not necessary when so much merely slides down the gullet. There is never a threat of a roast, a chop, or a filet.

An hour of outdoor recreation in the morning provides a welcome break from the menu.

The basketball hoops have nets. There is a wall for handball. No expense is spared on murderous concertina wire. The barbed coils are everywhere, except in your bunk.

And yet . . . within the coils of Mach 3 blades, beautiful, free doves perch. Unconcerned, Zen. An inspiration.

Do your time. Be a dove . . . with an attitude.

In the distance, beyond the fences, green cotton fields soothe. A sand and gravel business whittles away at a hill. At the horizon, an uprising mound has a large letter . . . “F.”

For Florence as a grade?

Back on the basketball court, a man in a blue vest pours ice into an orange Home Depot water bucket. He is Oliver Howard, my 71-year-old cell mate. All the guards as well as the prisoners in our pod know Mr. Howard. He helps people sort it out because he’s been here over a year. He reads religious tracts and attends Bible study.

We have another Christian at the court, a senior guard, Mr. Lee Harvey, trained at a Christian college in Denver. He uses product on his hair, which is parted and slicked, looking like an advertisement for a 1960s barbershop or a church pulpit. He is a smart conversationalist. But there are smarter.

One female corrections officer is addressed by an inmate, John-ee, who is proud that he has managed to find a female inmate as a girlfriend.

Guard Imogene Vanilla is skeptical.

“What’s wrong with you, John-ee?”

“I got a girlfriend. She’s got a job on the outside and we got it going on,” he told guard Vanilla.

“You, you’re in here because you got caught doing something stupid. Your girlfriend is in here because she got caught doing something stupid. Together . . . you’re just Dumb and Dumber.”

Woman made a point.

When I came inside, I was summoned to a case manager’s office.

He had me check off a list verifying that I had not been assaulted.

Then he asked me to sign a document claiming I was a sex offender.  (The long tail of Backpage.)

I refused.

“I’m not a sex offender. I’m in here for a single count of money laundering.”

What they couldn’t get with a trial by jury, they now want me to admit while I’m locked up for five years in the bunker.

Michael Lacey is the former executive editor of Village Voice Media, a 17-newspaper chain credited with winning more than 3,800 writing awards, including a Pulitzer.

Read more by Lacey, here. And please watch, “How the feds destroyed Backpage.com and its founders,” a 40-minute documentary on the Backpage case by Reason magazine.

Please also see:
Within the Barred Bunker: Michael Lacey Writes from Prison
and
Within the Barred Bunker: A New Prison Column by Michael Lacey, ‘A Memorable Day’