It began with a familiar request: "License and registration, please." ....With the requested documents in hand, Officer Caraballo and his partner returned to their vehicle.... I was searched, then handcuffed. .. The partner removed the wallet from my pocket and rummaged through its contents. He confiscated my driver's license, ....
This makes it sound like the license was removed from the wallet, but the earlier paragraph states that he had already handed over the license. Now, maybe it's just bad writing, but...
Williams asked the court for my prints and photos, but his request was denied. He told Judge Robert M. Stolz that this was the seventh case of identity theft I had experienced ... Stolz ordered the delivery of the arrest photos and fingerprints just before the afternoon recess.
So this is all in the same day. The attorney asks for prints and photo. The judge thinks it's just a stalling technique. The attorney explains he's been the victim of identity theft and the judge changes his mind, it looks like immediately (since these initial hearings are generally pretty prefunctory.) I don't see anything peculiar or ominous about this.
Most of what makes the story seem like such a Kafka-esque nightmare are his peculiar interjections of "such-and such has refused to comment" which function as dark hints of conspiracy, along with the weird details and little extras that may or may not be true, like the prisoner being beaten because he refuses to be strip-searched.
Saturday night, November 23, 2002, I was pulled over on the Bruckner Expressway because of a broken taillight. The police officer who ran my license claimed I had multiple warrants out for my arrest. I was searched, then handcuffed.
We went to the 41st Precinct, where I was fingerprinted and had my mug shot taken. No one ever told me what charges were on the warrants that bore my name. I was not allowed to call a lawyer.
Note he doesn't say he wasn't allowed a phone call, but that he wasn't allowed to call a lawyer. Had he already used his phone call?
Day 2 Sunday, November 24 I was taken to an interrogation room. A court-appointed attorney walked in (an employee of the Bronx Legal Aid Society).
If he could afford a lawyer why does he have a court-appointed lawyer? Is he trying to say he wanted to call his own lawyer but they made him accept a court-appointed lawyer? If so, why isn't this described further?
Inside the courtroom, he explains again that he doesn't know about the 3 warrants. His lawyer requests new prints. She asks that he be taken back to his cell until he can be reprinted. (This seems a reasonable procedure.)
Twenty minutes later, I was once again in the interrogation room. This time, Alison Webster, a slender blonde attorney also employed by Bronx Legal Aid, came in and sat across from me. (she takes over the case.) Then she flipped through my file. "This doesn't add up," Webster said. (His interview answers don't jibe with the rap sheet so she thinks he's lying/nuts) I told her that if she checked my fingerprints, she would see my real background. ... Since I was interviewed on 60 Minutes in 2001 about the first incident, I have had more than a dozen cases of identity theft. Funds have been removed from my bank account; credit cards obtained with my Social Security number have been maxed out.
Kind of late to tell us this. Also, wouldn't this have been one of the FIRST THINGS he'd have told the police and both lawyers? And where is his family by now? Why haven't they shown up?
Later that same day .... The judge gave me a $50 ticket for having a busted taillight. (Months later he learns that his license had been suspended and confiscated because the DMV had failed to process records proving insurance coverage for his truck.) But why doesn't the judge address the suspended license? If it's not cleared up till "months later" wouldn't he still be "driving on a suspended license?"
But there were still three warrants for my arrest, one of which included a felony charge of grand larceny. The judge said I would have to return to Manhattan Criminal Court for another hearing. He set bail for me. My family arrived that evening with the money. The clerk counted out $3,000, then apologized.
"I'm sorry," she said. "We don't have any more bail receipts. Mr. Bain will not be able to go home with you today." The prison was out of paper. So I spent another night in jail.
Well, that sucks, but it's just wild incompetence, not a plot.
Day 3 Monday, November 25 Before the sun came up, I was among a dozen or so inmates chained together to board a bus for Rikers Island. Just before we pulled off, I overheard a senior officer change our destination to ... "Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center." ... We were ordered to strip naked and prepare for cavity searches. (Bummer.) At dawn, I was taken with several inmates to the criminal courthouse in Manhattan. A well-dressed young attorney, Eric Williams, introduced himself to me.
Now he has a new, third attorney. Court-appointed? Not court-appointed? Does this mean he got his phone call?
Williams asked the court for my prints and photos, but his request was denied. He told Judge Robert M. Stolz that this was the seventh case of identity theft I had experienced since I was unjustly arrested two years prior....
Stolz ordered the delivery of the arrest photos and fingerprints just before the afternoon recess. He ordered me released on my own recognizance, but I was told to return after lunch. I was then taken back to my cell to sign release forms. Three documents were handed to me. One had my name printed on it, and the others had the name "Anwar Bostick" typed above my Social Security number. I refused to sign the release forms. "You'll sign them if you want to get out of here," a guard said. Another officer agreed. "Anwar Bostick is your alias," the second officer informed me while flipping through the forms. "Are you refusing to sign this? Because if you are, you'll just have to sit in jail and wait until whenever they get around to calling you back to court."
I refused to incriminate myself. They ignored the judge's ruling that I be released, and returned me to a basement holding cell.
The officers did the wrong thing and he did the right thing. As a result, he spent lunch hour in jail. That, too, is a bummer, but not unlike something that happened to me in the military once, and I'm white.
After lunch, a captain and lieutenant for the Department of Corrections showed up to settle the dispute. Following a lengthy debate, it was discovered that my signature was not even necessary.
Okay. So. Where's the rest of the story? Did he go back after lunch to clear up the 3 warrents? Did his prints and photos show he's the victim of identity theft and was he let go? Is this the end of the story?