Bill Kamal Talks About Life Behind Bars
Our community was shocked when we learned he had driven to Fort Pierce to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old boy. He was caught in an Internet sex sting, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.
We saw the evidence. We heard the sickening details of the conversations on the Internet. But until now, we never heard Kamal's version of events.
Over the next few days, you'll be privy to the chilling details of the crime he's been convicted of, the day-to-day reality of his life in prison and what he hopes to do when he gets out.
He talks candidly about whether he's attracted to children and whether he's done something like this before.
We'll get to all of that over the next few days, but we begin with Kamal and his life behind bars.
Kamal: "I miss the little things that you couldn't possibly even imagine, like when I saw two Canadian geese in the recreation yard. And I'm thinking they don't know they're in prison -- they flew away -- and I can't fly away."
The federal prison Kamal calls home is 1,500 miles from South Florida and a world away from the life he used to know. It's in the Massachusetts countryside, ironically only 22 miles from the place where he was born.
South Florida came to know Kamal as a trusted meteorologist; his expensive suits, his jet-black hair -- a man who delivered the forecast with confidence.
Today, the hair that had been darkened with dye is now gray like the walls of his prison. His GQ look replaced with a prison jump suit.
Kamal: "Some days are easier than others. I hope I don't get used to this lifestyle where I settle in because some days you just can't believe I'm here. It's just so surreal. It's like a dream."
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Kamal: "It was an unbelievable hell. I would be on my knees and talk about soul searching. I probably got closer to God in four to five months than most people do in a lifetime. You have nothing but God, letters, letters that you write, mail that comes in. You have only to look forward when officers come by, opens big door, (it's) called chuck door, they open it up to feed you on a tray then they close it again. Very seldom ask how you are doing. When you go to recreation, it was just you. Move to a different room, that was just you. But it had fresh air rather than air conditioning -- no sunlight, never any sunlight. And sometimes, in 12-by-6 cell for three weeks at a time, breathing the same air. My books, my letters, my mail and God -- not necessarily in that order, and just looking forward to some human life. Bring my meals, that's what I looked forward to. And God got me by. I got by with God. I was arrested in October and never saw the light of day again. I was put on suicide watch -- not even knowing I was on suicide watch. You people reported that I was on suicide watch. My family and friends think I'm going to commit suicide. I didn't even know where the hell I was."
That isolation ended when Kamal pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to five years and was moved from Miami to the federal medical center in Deven, Mass., which is where he reflects on the last time he was outside the prison walls, driving in a prison van through the neighborhoods where he grew up, a drive that brought him to tears.
Kamal: "We drove down I-93 past my godmother's house -- two miles. It went past where I was born by a mile and a half. I thought about my parents. I'm thinking, 'Just take this exit. Don't take the next exit and I can be home. Don't take the next exit.' When you pass the exit on the highway that you grew up as a little kid, that's pretty chilling. I cry pretty easy. I'll shed some tears before your questions are over -- what my life has become. But I'm the type of person that believes that God has a plan and a purpose for everybody. Of course it's a detour to the life I had, but maybe it's for a better purpose. Maybe it's for a higher purpose and that's what keeps me going."
He also keeps going because he has no choice. Prison is all about structure, and you're not allowed to be late.
Kamal: "Get up a 5:45 a.m. Weekends, sometimes 6:30 a.m. -- a little later on weekends. My Monday through Friday, after we eat, start my job a 7:30 a.m. I'm teaching a class here -- weather climate and health. It's how weather and climate affect your mental and physical health. I take some evening classes. I don't teach them. I take them. Italian, I signed up for that."
Kamal says he's had moments where his new home felt like a college dormitory or even an Elks Lodge, but reality sets in rather quickly in prison.
Kamal: "We have very few privileges here. We are subject to strip searches. Whenever a visitor comes you have to strip naked. Every time my family visits, I strip naked. They check your mouth, your ears, you open your legs, spread your cheeks, you do everything. It's just so humiliating. How can you ever get used to it? I don't want to ever get used to that because that is not me."
His family and his friends get him through. Kamal says he'd be lost without the letters.
Kamal: "Friends, family, viewers -- I had viewers, total strangers starting writing in November and December and we've become the best of friends. And I really believe God puts people in our lives for a reason. Like, I believe this happened to me for a reason and I never would have known these wonderful people personally had it not been for this tragedy or crisis, whatever you want to call it. It's amazing to me and I'm so blessed to have family and friends support me and total strangers who felt that they knew me. Those letters. I would get cards on a daily basis, three, four, five a day. And letters -- they'd make me cry, cry a river every day the mail came. It amazes me and you don't know how many friends you have. It's like you died but you're still alive. You see everything. It's like you are elevated above your own story and you look down and you see people crying, people frustrated, people helpless, eulogizing you and yet I'm still here."
Kamal says he's a survivor now. He was also a survivor at Channel 7, keeping his job despite two arrests for drunken driving. He now admits he had a drinking problem.
Kamal: "I was always a social drinker until I got into television. A social drinker means you drink once in a blue moon -- a beer once a month, special occasions. When you graduate to habitual drinking, which is what I was doing, it becomes a habit. What do people do 11:30, 12 at night after this business? They go to a club or bar because there's nothing else to do. I fell into that habit, not that I was drinking seven days a week, but I was drinking as a habit and like anybody who drinks and drives, I thought I can get away with it."
But now this time, one day after his arrest on suspicion of soliciting sex, WSVN fired Kamal.
Kamal: "Look, it's business. If I owned the company, you know, it's basically an offense that's hard to tell your side of the story -- basically, guilty until proven innocent. It's a very crime du jour everybody is honing in on nowadays and I know that the station probably had no choice but to do that. And I'm thinking, had they said, 'He's suspended pending the investigation,' they could be picketing the station to get him off the air -- (people asking) why are you doing this? God forbid I had bail and was allowed to go back on the air, who knows what people could have done. They could have threatened them or me. So maybe they did the right thing. But it was tough."
Kamal misses his job but that's way on the bottom of his list.
I miss freedom. I miss being able to get up when I want to get up, lie down when I want to lie down, bathroom, privacy. I miss 4 and 10. I miss the gym, the little things it makes you really appreciate. When we say stuck in traffic, we are not in prison. We do not have four walls.
This was only the beginning of our interview. Tonight at 11 we press Kamal on what happened in Fort Pierce. Was he planning to have sex with a boy? Is he attracted to young boys? What led to his arrest? And what was he doing in that Internet chat room to begin with?
Kamal: "(The Web site) was dads and sons, or sons and dads, and I said, 'Well this is an odd chatroom.' I mean if I were a child molester, if I were a sexual predator, how do you become one at 48 years old? As I was driving up (to Fort Pierce), I thought, 'Could this be a trap? Could this be that?'"
So why did he still go? Kamal answers that question and offers so much more of the story that no one has ever heard tonight at 11 on Local 10 News.