Hello everyone.

I wanted to post the first chapter of my book, “Jew in Jail,” again, for anyone who hasn’t read it yet to learn what it was like for me – addicted to alcohol, drugs and gambling at the time and eventually sentenced to seven years behind bars for robbery – to recover and go on to lead a healthy, happy and productive life.

No matter what addiction you or someone you know and love may be suffering from, or if said person is simply not living up to his or her full potential, it IS possible to get better and enjoy life, which is what “Jew in Jail” is all about.

If you would like to read the rest of my book, or have me come and deliver a motivational & inspirational speech to your group – at a school, jail, drug treatment program, or anywhere I can be of help – then please feel free to contact me through my website, http://www.jewinjail.com/.

Thanks, and enjoy the first chapter of “Jew in Jail.”

1. THE DAY THIS WHOLE NIGHTMARE BEGANMy mother had asked me, the night before, what I was doing with that toy gun. She noticed it on the foot of the extra bed in my room, and I told her that I was going to give it to my friend Alan’s son as a birthday present. I lied to her. The truth of the matter was that I was an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a compulsive gambler, and I was planning to go into Manhattan the next day in order to rob a few dry cleaning stores.

I had thought about doing this before, but this time, I had to go through with it—I already owed the bookmaker six hundred and forty dollars for the week that was about to end, and not only was I unlikely to get even, but I didn’t have the cash in my house. I gave my sister and her husband about ten thousand dollars of my money several months earlier to hold on to, and I was tired of calling and asking for some of it back, a little bit at a time, which I had been doing for a while now. Besides, what could go wrong? I was smart, and knew that all dry cleaning stores have old-fashioned cash registers, no video cameras, and are run either by women or Chinese people, and I would be in and out in no time at all. And once I stole enough money to pay off my debt, I would stop gambling for good. So there was no harm in doing this at all, right?

I woke up bright and early that next morning, which was Saturday, June 13, 1998 (I actually don’t remember sleeping at all the night before), and had breakfast: three Valium, three Tylenol #4 with Codeine, and a bottle of Heineken beer. Then I got dressed and hopped on the D train to Manhattan. I brought another Heineken along with me for the ride, but finished it before the train even departed the Brighton Beach station.

After transferring to two more trains, I finally arrived at my destination: the east side of Manhattan—First Avenue in the 60s, where there were as many dry cleaning stores around as any good thief could want. So I proceeded to walk up First, looking into each dry cleaning establishment I passed, until I found one that was empty and had a woman working behind the counter. I had a plan but needed a rehearsal, so I went into dry cleaning store number one on First Avenue and 67th Street.

“Good morning,” the woman behind the counter cheerfully said to me. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, could you please tell me how much it would cost to clean and press these dungarees that I am wearing?” I asked so innocently.

“Three dollars and fifty cents,” the shopkeeper replied, anxiously awaiting my decision.

“Oh, okay, maybe I’ll be back later,” I responded as I walked out the door, knowing very well that I had no intention of returning.

Still not feeling comfortable with my game plan, I went through my practice run at another place.

Then, after having swallowed my fourth and fifth Valium and Tylenol #4 with Codeine, and washing that down with yet another Heineken, my third of the morning (it was still only 8:25 AM), I conjured up enough courage and felt the time was right to go to work.

So I entered the next dry cleaning store that suited my needs. After asking my “how much” question, I allowed the woman behind the counter to start her answer before I began what later would be the biggest mistake of my thirty-six-year life to that point. She was Indian or Pakistani, just the kind of foreigner who would easily comply with my demands, I remember thinking at the time. As we made eye contact while she was telling me the price to clean and press my dungarees, I nonchalantly lifted up my shirt, thereby exposing the toy gun that was tucked neatly under my waistband, and calmly and methodically ordered, “Empty the money out of the cash register or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

I remembered the terror in her eyes later on while I was in my jail cell at the 17th Precinct, wondering how I could have done this to another human being, not once, but three times in all. This, after all, was the kind of thing that you only read about in newspapers or see on the news. But I was desperate. I was in debt to my bookie and was feeling nice from the pills and beer. Besides, I rationalized, I absolutely had no intentions of hurting anybody. Little did I realize at the time that the tables could have been turned, and I could have been blown away myself, with there being no repercussions at all to the store owner. However, my plan had worked like a charm, and I grabbed the loot off the counter and scurried outside to hail a cab.

I told the cabbie to drive straight down First Avenue and I’d let him know when to let me out. Being a neat freak, I began to straighten out the money, which I had balled up in my hand, and when it was finally arranged the way I liked it and safe in my pocket, I instructed the cab driver to pull over and let me out. “Two-seventy-five,” he said to me, as we approached the curb. “Here, keep the change,” I replied, as I handed him a five-dollar bill, feeling like a real big shot.

I got out of the cab and stood on the corner of First Avenue and 51st Street for a few minutes in order to psych myself up for my next robbery. Being intoxicated and high from the pills, I never stopped to think for a moment that the woman I just ripped off a few minutes earlier might have called the police, and that they were looking for me right now. I was only about fifteen blocks away from the first robbery, but we crooks are smarter than the cops anyway. We have to be!

I set my game plan into motion again, an exact replica of the first. And the results were the same as well. So I figured I’d try it one more time and that would be it. After all, I had to make sure that I got back home in time to study the baseball lines (odds) in the newspaper and call my bookmaker. Then I was going to take my radio and lie on the beach, it being a beautiful sunny day and all. You see, I was planning on making a whole day of it: the robberies in the morning, lying in the sun all afternoon, and then going over to O.T.B. that night to bet on the horses at Yonkers Raceway. This is what I had been doing pretty much every day (except for the robberies) since I was fired six months earlier for drinking on the job at Phoenix Communications (Major League Baseball Productions).

I continued to walk down First Avenue, this time oblivious to everything else around me, until I found another dry cleaning store that I felt could provide me with another success story. I stumbled (literally) onto a small mom-and-pop operation and went inside. There, I found the cutest little old Chinese man and woman going about their business, and by now, after having accomplished two robberies with relative ease, I felt like a seasoned pro on top of his game. So, again I went through my shtick of asking the price to clean and press my pants, but this time, I couldn’t wait. I immediately displayed the (toy) gun in my waistband and demanded the cash. Appearing frightened out of his wits, the elderly gentleman placed the cigar box he and his wife used as a cash register on top of the counter while his wife remained behind her husband for protection, and like a little kid rifling through the cookie jar, I grabbed its contents and fled.

Not knowing exactly how much money I had accumulated, I said to myself that three robberies were enough. But I wasn’t ready to head home just yet. Not until I had another beer or two. This was another of the many mistakes I made that day.

I began walking again until I came upon a little delicatessen that sold beer, not even grasping the fact that I had just committed three “armed” robberies, and that the police were probably hot on my trail at that very moment. But, hey, I earned this break for myself. I justified. I had just worked up quite a thirst, pulling off three robberies in the previous thirty minutes.

I went into the deli and grabbed an ice cold Heineken from out of the freezer and asked the owner what the price was, like any good Jew would have done. Then I walked out and proceeded to drink my beer as I leisurely strolled down the street. After downing it in no time flat and letting out a healthy belch, I remember saying to myself that one more cold one was in order before heading home. After all, my mission had been accomplished, and I was now hungry and tired. So I looked for another deli, all the while not caring one iota about the lowlife things I had just done to these innocent and hardworking shopkeepers.

It being Manhattan, there were many delis to choose from, and I decided to cut over to Second Avenue for a change of scenery. I found a store to my liking near the strip club Scores on 60th Street and took the Heineken out of the freezer and over to the counter. When the woman who worked there told me that I owed her two-seventy-five, I became enraged. “I just paid one-fifty two blocks away,” I shouted, as a small crowd began to form at the counter. After getting nowhere with my efforts at haggling, I paid her “extortion money” and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

I crossed the street and found a cozy corner in which to drink my beer before calling it a morning (it was still only nine-fifteen, and I wasn’t ready to “escape” into the subway system just yet). All of a sudden, from seemingly out of nowhere and coming from every direction, were the police. Before I knew what hit me, one cop tackled me hard to the sidewalk, knocking my bottle of beer high into the air; it came crashing down to the pavement.

“Where’s the gun?” the flatfoot demanded.

“What gun?” I asked, as he took the fake weapon from out of my pocket.

He then pulled me up off the ground and brought me over to one of the many squad cars that were now on the scene.

“We got him. We got Woody Allen,” the officer chirped as he handcuffed and handed me over to another of New York’s finest. “Don’t move an inch, you piece of shit,” the second officer ordered, as I finally realized the magnitude of what I had done, although still not believing that all of these cops had come just for little old me with the balding head and thick prescription eyeglasses.

After being positively identified right there in the street by my last victim, the elderly Chinese man, I was placed into the police car and taken over to the 17th Precinct, without even having had my rights read to me.

At the police station, I was immediately processed (photographed and fingerprinted), and then thrown into a filthy, stinking cell. Oh, yeah, and my money and pills were taken from me, presumably to be held as evidence.

“Now I’ve really done it,” I remember mumbling to myself, as the gravity of the entire situation began to completely sink in. Then, after lingering in my cell for over an hour, two sharply dressed detectives came to pay me a visit.

“How ya’ doing, Gary? I’m Detective Burns and this is my partner, Detective Foley,” the older of the two announced.

“Can I please have my medication back?” I asked. “I’m not feeling well, and my back hurts.” (I have scoliosis and a slipped disc, among other problems with my back, which is why I began taking these pills in the first place many years earlier.)

“We want to talk to you first,” Detective Foley responded, as he began to open up my cell.

I was then brought upstairs to the squad room and handed a cup of water as I took a seat in Detective Burns’ office. But my one free telephone call was still not forthcoming.

“You know, Gary, those were very nice people you robbed today,” Burns offered.

“Can I please have some of my medication back?” I tried again. “I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms and need some of my Valium and Tylenol #4 with Codeine because my back hurts.”

Although the Tylenol #4 with Codeine was indeed prescribed for my back pain by my personal physician, Dr. Gencer Filiz, and the Valium for my nerves, due to my anxiety, at this point in my life I was merely only taking these pills to get high because I was an addict.

“Gary, you tell us what happened, and we’ll give you back some of your medication,” Foley guaranteed.

“What happened?” I asked, as if I had no idea of what Burns and Foley were inquiring about.

“Look, Gary,” Burns said, “we were out there in our car and we saw you darting across First Avenue. You almost got yourself run over, you know. But we don’t want you…we want the bigger fish out there. You tell us what we want to hear, and then we’ll speak to the assistant district attorney, whom we are good friends with, and we promise that she will let you go home today and you won’t even be prosecuted.”

“Can I have some of my pills back first?” I bargained yet again. “I’m a drug addict and I need to take the edge off.”

Detective Foley removed three Tylenol #4 with Codeine and three Valium from my pill bottle, which he now had in his possession, and gave them to me. I quickly threw all six pills into my mouth and washed them down with a big gulp of water before Burns and Foley could change their minds.

“Now step up to the plate and be a man,” Burns implored of me, in a slight variation of the normal good cop/bad cop routine. “Tell me what happened from the very beginning.”

As I began spilling my guts, I noticed Burns was writing everything down like a secretary taking dictation from her boss. And whenever I got stuck or was unsure about some of the details of my crime, Burns didn’t hesitate to put his two cents in and volunteer information.

When my statement was complete, Foley told me to sign it at the bottom, and I complied, without hesitation. After all, he and Burns promised that I would be back home by the end of the day, and when you are as high and drunk as I was, you tend to believe the words of two experienced detectives. Another of my many mistakes on that fateful day.

But the deal wasn’t completed yet. Not by a longshot. I was then taken by another detective, Hackett, to the 19th Squad, where I was to give another statement, this one written by me. Detective Hackett, on the car ride over to the 19th Squad, told me that after I write this second statement, using my “own words,” I should add a paragraph or two explaining how sorry and remorseful I was for what I had done, and that he would see to it that I was placed into an inpatient drug treatment program to get the help I needed. That all sounded good to me, since I really did want to get my life straightened out once and for all, so I did exactly as he instructed.

In all honesty, and even looking back at it now, although he lied and set me up like the rest of them, Hackett really wasn’t a bad guy. He did feed me McDonald’s after I completed that second written statement, which was more than Burns, Foley, or anyone else did for me.

I still had one more confession to give, and it was a big one. Alan Daab, who was the arresting officer, then took me over to One Hogan Place, where Assistant District Attorney Lois Booker-Williams was waiting.

In the squad car, Daab said to me, “Gary Goldstein, what’s a nice Jewish guy like you committing robberies for?”

“I don’t know. I’m a drug addict and a gambler,” I answered, as if he even gave a damn. I then asked him if I could use the telephone to call Sportsphone when we arrived at our destination, because I needed to double check the scores of the previous night’s ballgames, and he very patronizingly said that I could.

The woman, who I was led to believe was eventually going to send me home as if nothing had ever happened, had Room 1209 all set up for me to give a videotaped confession.

By now, it was 1:15 PM, and I was no longer drunk or high, but very, very tired. I just wanted to get this whole thing over with, and presumably go home. So, after receiving my Miranda warnings for the very first time, I looked straight ahead (the camera was behind a one-way mirror) and, in essence, hung myself out to dry. When Lois Booker-Williams had what she needed, she stopped the tape and nodded at Daab.

“Let’s go, you piece of shit,” Daab ordered.

“What about that phone call I need to make?” I inquired.

“They’ll let you call after you’ve been processed at Central Booking,” Daab said.

“But Detectives Burns, Foley, and Hackett all told me that I would be going home after I confessed,” I insisted. “Can I talk to you, Ms. Booker-Williams?”

“I said let’s go, and I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth until we get to Central Booking,” said Daab.

When we arrived at Central Booking, it finally began to sink in that I was tricked, manipulated, and used. After processing was completed, which included removing my shoelaces to prevent suicide, I was permitted to call my mother and father.

I told them everything that had happened, and that I was sorry. It was yet another case of my causing my parents so much unnecessary pain and aggravation. After telling them that I would call again the next day, when I knew more of what was going on, I curled up like a fetus, and went to sleep on my part of the bench in the cell that I had to share with eleven other guys.

Today, I bring you the sixth chapter of my book, "Jew in Jail."

By reading it, you will hopefully gain some insights into the insanity one deals with when he or she is a defendant going to court in the New York State judicial system.

Of course, had I not put myself in this predicament in the first place, none of this would have ever even taken place!

6. BACK TO COURT

Going to court from Rikers Island was an experience in itself. After attending my first two meetings in the S.A.I.D. Drug Program the day before, which consisted mainly of observing everything, and then going to bed at 9:00 PM, I was awakened at 4:30 AM by the C.O. to get ready for court on Monday, June 22, 1998.  I had also spoken to my parents the night before and knew that they would be in court as well.

I shaved, took a shower, got dressed, and then went to the mess hall to eat breakfast. Then, everyone who was going to court was herded into the gymnasium, located inside the main building. One by one, the C.O.s called out the five boroughs of New York City—Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx—and when the borough where you were going to court was announced, it was time to go to the bullpen, but not before getting searched.

I brought a manilla folder full of legal work, mostly cases, which I had researched and made copies of in order to show my attorney, Mark Jankowitz. So, after patting me down, the C.O. went through my folder as if I were concealing the plans for the atomic bomb. But I knew that he was just doing his job, and besides, it made me feel important in some strange way.

When the bullpen became full of inmates, we were all moved to a larger one, where we then had to wait ninety minutes or so until the buses arrived to transport us to the court building.

This was the time, at least for me, to ponder my situation, and try to figure out what was going to take place later in court. But for others, it was the perfect time to discuss the events of the week.

“Yo, son, the po-lice (C.O.) in my house is whack,” said one guy to his friend, who he probably hadn’t seen since the night before! “That motherfucker won’t let a nigga do his thing,” meaning that security is very tight.

“No doubt, no doubt,” answered his partner in crime. “They all on point.”

“Hey, yo, T, my man, Born came in yesterday from Brooklyn House (of Detention),” another pillar of the community shouted across the bullpen to his crony. “You heard?”

“Yeah, Tisha told me when I called the bitch last night,” replied this old-timer, who had all of his years of past incarceration etched on his wrinkled face.

With all of this high-level dialogue going on, it was virtually impossible to concentrate on the issue at hand, so I just tried to rest until it was time to get ready to load the buses.

But since the C.O.s failed to enforce the no-smoking rule, and the bullpen looked like a high-stakes poker game had been going on, the smoke, combined with the oppressive heat of the summer, even at seven in the morning, prevented me from doing anything else than just sitting and staring about.

Twenty more minutes and it was then time to load the buses. After hearing my name called, and walking over to the C.O. to give him my book, case number, housing unit, I was handcuffed to another detainee, placed on the bus, and locked in one of the steel cages, all set for the trip to New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

“There is no smoking or yelling out the windows,” announced one of the two C.O.s who were assigned to our bus, as we began our journey.

Forty minutes later, after we battled through morning rush-hour traffic on the Grand Central Parkway, we arrived in lower Manhattan. It felt good to be out amongst the throngs of people, even though I was caged in like an animal on the bus.

It was a few more blocks to the court building, and the natives were getting a little restless.

“Yo, baby, I should be home in five to ten,” shouted a big, fat black guy a few rows in front of me; he was not only trying to make a date with a pretty lady on the street for 2008 or so, but was also ignoring the C.O.’s earlier order not to yell out of the bus when we first departed Rikers Island.

We finally pulled up to 100 Centre Street, the Supreme Court Building, and took our place in line in the parking lot, behind the first three buses to have already arrived from the island and other jails throughout the city.

About an hour and a half later, the C.O.s received the word to bring us into the building through the back entrance, as usual. Still handcuffed to a partner, we all had to walk two flights up a narrow staircase until we reached the elevator. Then we were crammed inside and taken up to the twelfth floor.

We were released from our bracelets, passed through a metal detector, and put into a giant, noisy, and filthy bullpen. A few minutes later, my name was called, and I was taken to yet another bullpen, this one smaller and right outside the courtroom, where I would soon be facing the judge. The C.O. gave out cold baloney-and-cheese sandwiches and a cup of Kool Aid, both of which I took a pass on.

An hour later, Mr. Jankowitz arrived, and we had a brief get-together.

“Gary, you’ve been indicted,” he revealed to me.

“What exactly does that mean?” I asked, knowing the answer full well, but wanting my mouthpiece to earn every last cent that the state of New York was paying him to defend me.

“It means that the Grand Jury found sufficient evidence to charge you with robbery in the second degree,” he said.

“But I wanted to testify in front of the Grand Jury as to the fact that I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict, and that I was intoxicated and high on pills on the day of the crime,” I asserted.

“I waived your right to testify before the Grand Jury,” admitted Jankowitz.

“You had no authority to do that without checking with me first,” I shouted.

“Trust me, Mr. Goldstein, I know what I’m doing,” he replied. “You were better off staying away from the Grand Jury.”

“Well, I Xeroxed these cases here for you to look at,” I quickly fired back, “and they show how the police are not supposed to make any promises in order to secure a confession. I want you to ask for a Huntley hearing to have my confessions suppressed.”

“It’s too early for that right now,” Jankowitz informed me. “When we go out into the courtroom and the clerk asks you, ‘How do you plead?’ I just want you tou say, ‘Not guilty.’ That’s it. You’ve already said enough by confessing.”

Several minutes later, the court officer took me out of the bullpen, and escorted me, without handcuffs, into the courtroom. As I entered, I immediately saw my parents and waved. There were only three other people, besides my mother and father, sitting in the audience, and it felt a little intimidating knowing that everyone in the courtroom—the judge, assistant district attorney, court officers, clerks, stenographer, Mr. Jankowitz, and my parents—were all directing their attention on me.

“The People of the State of New York versus Gary Goldstein, indictment numbers 5013/98 and 5013A/98,” the court clerk announced. “Mr. Goldstein, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty,” I asserted.

Then, after a few minutes of legalese among Mr. Jankowitz, the assistant district attorney, and the judge, I was escorted back to the bullpen. As I walked out, I motioned to my parents that I would call them later that night.

I was expecting to see Mr. Jankowitz again to ask him what took place after I pled not guilty, but I never saw him anymore that day. (I also never got a chance to ask him about my arraignment, when, after that sidebar conference, the judge ordered my bail at ten thousand, so I was left puzzled as to what exactly had transpired that day as well.) But, of course, as with anything else in the great U.S. of A., you get what you pay for, and since his fee was being paid by the state of New York and not me, Jankowitz refused to go that extra mile.

All I learned from the C.O., as I was then taken from the small bullpen outside the courtroom back to the main one where I was earlier in the day, was that my next court appearance was going to be in three weeks, on July 13, in Part 71.

Since it was now 12:15 PM, and I missed the first bus going back to Rikers Island (the first “go-back”), I had to return downstairs to wait in another bullpen until four-thirty, when the afternoon buses would be ready to leave.

After passing through another metal detector, and again refusing to take a baloney-and-cheese sandwich, I took a seat in the bullpen. I was hungry but was planning on going to “sick call” the next morning at Rikers Island in order to be put on a low-cholesterol, special diet, so I wanted to get a headstart on watching what I was eating. I knew that I would be getting dinner later anyway upon my return to the island, so I decided to wait.

For four hours, I just sat and stared at what was going on around me. As the bullpen became more and more crowded, the noise level increased to a deafening pitch.

Guys were letting off steam after having just seen the judge, and now was the perfect time to discuss the events of the day with each other.

“Yo, son, my lawyer’s trying to get me to cop out (plead guilty) to a five to ten (a five- to ten-year sentence),” said one guy to his friend. “Aint no motherfuckin’ way it’s gonna happen. I told him I’m going to trial, you heard?”

“No doubt, I know what you sayin’,” said the other guy. “But at least you saw somebody. My lawyer didn’t even show up, so I came for nothing.”

Then I focused my attention in another direction.

“They’re trying to charge me with a body (murder),” claimed this obese, biker-type white man, to whoever would listen.

“They like to bluff,” responded the guy sitting next to him, as if this were just a game. “I bet the next time you come to court, the charges will go down.”

I couldn’t believe I was right in the middle of all of this bullshit. I had such disgust and disdain for all of these animals I was locked up with. But mostly, I was mad at myself for getting arrested in the first place.

A few minutes later, the C.O. came around with a basket full of extra sandwiches to give away and everyone ran to the door to get one. Except me.

“Yo, my man,” said this old, sickly looking Puerto Rican fellow. “If you don’t want your sandwich, can you get it and give it to me?”

After thinking for a moment, I said, “If you hold my seat, I’ll get you a sandwich.”

I got him the sandwich and proceeded to watch him devour it like he hadn’t eaten in days, which was a good possibility. Thinking that he might have AIDS, I tried to avoid looking at him anymore, fearful that he may come over to talk to me and inadvertently spread his germs. From that day on, I became even more obsessed about cleanliness than ever before.

So I just closed my eyes and pretended to be sleeping until it was time to load the buses for the trip back to Rikers Island.

The sound of handcuffs jingling from the C.O.’s belt loop alerted me that the time had finally arrived, and a short time later, the buses departed.

The same rules were in effect for the trip back regarding the restriction of smoking and noise, but guys still had a lot of stress to get off their chests. Besides, they knew that since they were already in jail, what more could the C.O.s actually do to them?

As soon as the bus left the parking lot and we were on the streets of lower Manhattan, the shenanigans began.

“Hey, baby, you’re looking good today,” one guy hollered to a woman apparently on her way home from work.

“I’ll be home in three to six,” added another, as the woman continued to ignore it all. “You’ll wait for me, won’t you?”

After a few more minutes of the same, we approached the highway, and by five-thirty, were back on Rikers Island.

I was starving by then and knew that as soon as we were all registered back into the jail, dinner would be served. Since it was also count time when we returned, I realized that it would be about an hour until we were all taken back to our housing units, and I was finally able to take a shower and lie in my own bed.

Everyone else must have been hungry and tired as well, because we were all put back onto the count and registered in no time at all.

I sat in the bullpen and ate my chicken, bread, and peas, and washed it all down with a small container of milk then sat and waited for the C.O.s to call names for the walk back.

The first thing I did when I got back to Sprung 2 was sign the sick call sheet for the next day to get on that low-cholesterol diet. I couldn’t eat kosher anymore like I did in the Tombs because it was too high in fat and salt content, and I found out that my total cholesterol level was two hundred and forty-two when I was still there.

Then I went to my bed and told Willie what happened in court.

“You should fire your lawyer,” Willie advised, “because he doesn’t appear to be working with you.”

“I’ll see what happens in court next time,” I said, as I proceeded to take a much-needed shower.

I had some questions that I wanted to ask Willie when I returned from the shower, but when I got back to my bed, he was reading.

So I just lay down and went to sleep.

1. THE DAY THIS WHOLE NIGHTMARE BEGAN

My mother had asked me, the night before, what I was doing with that toy gun. She noticed it on the foot of the extra bed in my room, and I told her that I was going to give it to my friend Alan’s son as a birthday present. I lied to her. The truth of the matter was that I was an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a compulsive gambler, and I was planning to go into Manhattan the next day in order to rob a few dry cleaning stores.

I had thought about doing this before, but this time, I had to go through with it—I already owed the bookmaker six hundred and forty dollars for the week that was about to end, and not only was I unlikely to get even, but I didn’t have the cash in my house. I gave my sister and her husband about ten thousand dollars of my money several months earlier to hold on to, and I was tired of calling and asking for some of it back, a little bit at a time, which I had been doing for a while now. Besides, what could go wrong? I was smart, and knew that all dry cleaning stores have old-fashioned cash registers, no video cameras, and are run either by women or Chinese people, and I would be in and out in no time at all. And once I stole enough money to pay off my debt, I would stop gambling for good. So there was no harm in doing this at all, right?

I woke up bright and early that next morning, which was Saturday, June 13, 1998 (I actually don’t remember sleeping at all the night before), and had breakfast: three Valium, three Tylenol #4 with Codeine, and a bottle of Heineken beer. Then I got dressed and hopped on the D train to Manhattan. I brought another Heineken along with me for the ride, but finished it before the train even departed the Brighton Beach station.

After transferring to two more trains, I finally arrived at my destination: the east side of Manhattan—First Avenue in the 60s, where there were as many dry cleaning stores around as any good thief could want. So I proceeded to walk up First, looking into each dry cleaning establishment I passed, until I found one that was empty and had a woman working behind the counter. I had a plan but needed a rehearsal, so I went into dry cleaning store number one on First Avenue and 67th Street.

“Good morning,” the woman behind the counter cheerfully said to me. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, could you please tell me how much it would cost to clean and press these dungarees that I am wearing?” I asked so innocently.

“Three dollars and fifty cents,” the shopkeeper replied, anxiously awaiting my decision.

“Oh, okay, maybe I’ll be back later,” I responded as I walked out the door, knowing very well that I had no intention of returning.

Still not feeling comfortable with my game plan, I went through my practice run at another place.

Then, after having swallowed my fourth and fifth Valium and Tylenol #4 with Codeine, and washing that down with yet another Heineken, my third of the morning (it was still only 8:25 AM), I conjured up enough courage and felt the time was right to go to work.

So I entered the next dry cleaning store that suited my needs. After asking my “how much” question, I allowed the woman behind the counter to start her answer before I began what later would be the biggest mistake of my thirty-six-year life to that point. She was Indian or Pakistani, just the kind of foreigner who would easily comply with my demands, I remember thinking at the time. As we made eye contact while she was telling me the price to clean and press my dungarees, I nonchalantly lifted up my shirt, thereby exposing the toy gun that was tucked neatly under my waistband, and calmly and methodically ordered, “Empty the money out of the cash register or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

I remembered the terror in her eyes later on while I was in my jail cell at the 17th Precinct, wondering how I could have done this to another human being, not once, but three times in all. This, after all, was the kind of thing that you only read about in newspapers or see on the news. But I was desperate. I was in debt to my bookie and was feeling nice from the pills and beer. Besides, I rationalized, I absolutely had no intentions of hurting anybody. Little did I realize at the time that the tables could have been turned, and I could have been blown away myself, with there being no repercussions at all to the store owner. However, my plan had worked like a charm, and I grabbed the loot off the counter and scurried outside to hail a cab.

I told the cabbie to drive straight down First Avenue and I’d let him know when to let me out. Being a neat freak, I began to straighten out the money, which I had balled up in my hand, and when it was finally arranged the way I liked it and safe in my pocket, I instructed the cab driver to pull over and let me out. “Two-seventy-five,” he said to me, as we approached the curb. “Here, keep the change,” I replied, as I handed him a five-dollar bill, feeling like a real big shot.

I got out of the cab and stood on the corner of First Avenue and 51st Street for a few minutes in order to psych myself up for my next robbery. Being intoxicated and high from the pills, I never stopped to think for a moment that the woman I just ripped off a few minutes earlier might have called the police, and that they were looking for me right now. I was only about fifteen blocks away from the first robbery, but we crooks are smarter than the cops anyway. We have to be!

I set my game plan into motion again, an exact replica of the first. And the results were the same as well. So I figured I’d try it one more time and that would be it. After all, I had to make sure that I got back home in time to study the baseball lines (odds) in the newspaper and call my bookmaker. Then I was going to take my radio and lie on the beach, it being a beautiful sunny day and all. You see, I was planning on making a whole day of it: the robberies in the morning, lying in the sun all afternoon, and then going over to O.T.B. that night to bet on the horses at Yonkers Raceway. This is what I had been doing pretty much every day (except for the robberies) since I was fired six months earlier for drinking on the job at Phoenix Communications (Major League Baseball Productions).

I continued to walk down First Avenue, this time oblivious to everything else around me, until I found another dry cleaning store that I felt could provide me with another success story. I stumbled (literally) onto a small mom-and-pop operation and went inside. There, I found the cutest little old Chinese man and woman going about their business, and by now, after having accomplished two robberies with relative ease, I felt like a seasoned pro on top of his game. So, again I went through my shtick of asking the price to clean and press my pants, but this time, I couldn’t wait. I immediately displayed the (toy) gun in my waistband and demanded the cash. Appearing frightened out of his wits, the elderly gentleman placed the cigar box he and his wife used as a cash register on top of the counter while his wife remained behind her husband for protection, and like a little kid rifling through the cookie jar, I grabbed its contents and fled.

Not knowing exactly how much money I had accumulated, I said to myself that three robberies were enough. But I wasn’t ready to head home just yet. Not until I had another beer or two. This was another of the many mistakes I made that day.

I began walking again until I came upon a little delicatessen that sold beer, not even grasping the fact that I had just committed three “armed” robberies, and that the police were probably hot on my trail at that very moment. But, hey, I earned this break for myself. I justified. I had just worked up quite a thirst, pulling off three robberies in the previous thirty minutes.

I went into the deli and grabbed an ice cold Heineken from out of the freezer and asked the owner what the price was, like any good Jew would have done. Then I walked out and proceeded to drink my beer as I leisurely strolled down the street. After downing it in no time flat and letting out a healthy belch, I remember saying to myself that one more cold one was in order before heading home. After all, my mission had been accomplished, and I was now hungry and tired. So I looked for another deli, all the while not caring one iota about the lowlife things I had just done to these innocent and hardworking shopkeepers.

It being Manhattan, there were many delis to choose from, and I decided to cut over to Second Avenue for a change of scenery. I found a store to my liking near the strip club Scores on 60th Street and took the Heineken out of the freezer and over to the counter. When the woman who worked there told me that I owed her two-seventy-five, I became enraged. “I just paid one-fifty two blocks away,” I shouted, as a small crowd began to form at the counter. After getting nowhere with my efforts at haggling, I paid her “extortion money” and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

I crossed the street and found a cozy corner in which to drink my beer before calling it a morning (it was still only nine-fifteen, and I wasn’t ready to “escape” into the subway system just yet). All of a sudden, from seemingly out of nowhere and coming from every direction, were the police. Before I knew what hit me, one cop tackled me hard to the sidewalk, knocking my bottle of beer high into the air; it came crashing down to the pavement.

“Where’s the gun?” the flatfoot demanded.

“What gun?” I asked, as he took the fake weapon from out of my pocket.

He then pulled me up off the ground and brought me over to one of the many squad cars that were now on the scene.

“We got him. We got Woody Allen,” the officer chirped as he handcuffed and handed me over to another of New York’s finest. “Don’t move an inch, you piece of shit,” the second officer ordered, as I finally realized the magnitude of what I had done, although still not believing that all of these cops had come just for little old me with the balding head and thick prescription eyeglasses.

After being positively identified right there in the street by my last victim, the elderly Chinese man, I was placed into the police car and taken over to the 17th Precinct, without even having had my rights read to me.

At the police station, I was immediately processed (photographed and fingerprinted), and then thrown into a filthy, stinking cell. Oh, yeah, and my money and pills were taken from me, presumably to be held as evidence.

“Now I’ve really done it,” I remember mumbling to myself, as the gravity of the entire situation began to completely sink in. Then, after lingering in my cell for over an hour, two sharply dressed detectives came to pay me a visit.

“How ya’ doing, Gary? I’m Detective Burns and this is my partner, Detective Foley,” the older of the two announced.

“Can I please have my medication back?” I asked. “I’m not feeling well, and my back hurts.” (I have scoliosis and a slipped disc, among other problems with my back, which is why I began taking these pills in the first place many years earlier.)

“We want to talk to you first,” Detective Foley responded, as he began to open up my cell.

I was then brought upstairs to the squad room and handed a cup of water as I took a seat in Detective Burns’ office. But my one free telephone call was still not forthcoming.

“You know, Gary, those were very nice people you robbed today,” Burns offered.

“Can I please have some of my medication back?” I tried again. “I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms and need some of my Valium and Tylenol #4 with Codeine because my back hurts.”

Although the Tylenol #4 with Codeine was indeed prescribed for my back pain by my personal physician, Dr. Gencer Filiz, and the Valium for my nerves, due to my anxiety, at this point in my life I was merely only taking these pills to get high because I was an addict.

“Gary, you tell us what happened, and we’ll give you back some of your medication,” Foley guaranteed.

“What happened?” I asked, as if I had no idea of what Burns and Foley were inquiring about.

“Look, Gary,” Burns said, “we were out there in our car and we saw you darting across First Avenue. You almost got yourself run over, you know. But we don’t want you…we want the bigger fish out there. You tell us what we want to hear, and then we’ll speak to the assistant district attorney, whom we are good friends with, and we promise that she will let you go home today and you won’t even be prosecuted.”

“Can I have some of my pills back first?” I bargained yet again. “I’m a drug addict and I need to take the edge off.”

Detective Foley removed three Tylenol #4 with Codeine and three Valium from my pill bottle, which he now had in his possession, and gave them to me. I quickly threw all six pills into my mouth and washed them down with a big gulp of water before Burns and Foley could change their minds.

“Now step up to the plate and be a man,” Burns implored of me, in a slight variation of the normal good cop/bad cop routine. “Tell me what happened from the very beginning.”

As I began spilling my guts, I noticed Burns was writing everything down like a secretary taking dictation from her boss. And whenever I got stuck or was unsure about some of the details of my crime, Burns didn’t hesitate to put his two cents in and volunteer information.

When my statement was complete, Foley told me to sign it at the bottom, and I complied, without hesitation. After all, he and Burns promised that I would be back home by the end of the day, and when you are as high and drunk as I was, you tend to believe the words of two experienced detectives. Another of my many mistakes on that fateful day.

But the deal wasn’t completed yet. Not by a longshot. I was then taken by another detective, Hackett, to the 19th Squad, where I was to give another statement, this one written by me. Detective Hackett, on the car ride over to the 19th Squad, told me that after I write this second statement, using my “own words,” I should add a paragraph or two explaining how sorry and remorseful I was for what I had done, and that he would see to it that I was placed into an inpatient drug treatment program to get the help I needed. That all sounded good to me, since I really did want to get my life straightened out once and for all, so I did exactly as he instructed.

In all honesty, and even looking back at it now, although he lied and set me up like the rest of them, Hackett really wasn’t a bad guy. He did feed me McDonald’s after I completed that second written statement, which was more than Burns, Foley, or anyone else did for me.

I still had one more confession to give, and it was a big one. Alan Daab, who was the arresting officer, then took me over to One Hogan Place, where Assistant District Attorney Lois Booker-Williams was waiting.

In the squad car, Daab said to me, “Gary Goldstein, what’s a nice Jewish guy like you committing robberies for?”

“I don’t know. I’m a drug addict and a gambler,” I answered, as if he even gave a damn. I then asked him if I could use the telephone to call Sportsphone when we arrived at our destination, because I needed to double check the scores of the previous night’s ballgames, and he very patronizingly said that I could.

The woman, who I was led to believe was eventually going to send me home as if nothing had ever happened, had Room 1209 all set up for me to give a videotaped confession.

By now, it was 1:15 PM, and I was no longer drunk or high, but very, very tired. I just wanted to get this whole thing over with, and presumably go home. So, after receiving my Miranda warnings for the very first time, I looked straight ahead (the camera was behind a one-way mirror) and, in essence, hung myself out to dry. When Lois Booker-Williams had what she needed, she stopped the tape and nodded at Daab.

“Let’s go, you piece of shit,” Daab ordered.

“What about that phone call I need to make?” I inquired.

“They’ll let you call after you’ve been processed at Central Booking,” Daab said.

“But Detectives Burns, Foley, and Hackett all told me that I would be going home after I confessed,” I insisted. “Can I talk to you, Ms. Booker-Williams?”

“I said let’s go, and I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth until we get to Central Booking,” said Daab.

When we arrived at Central Booking, it finally began to sink in that I was tricked, manipulated, and used. After processing was completed, which included removing my shoelaces to prevent suicide, I was permitted to call my mother and father.

I told them everything that had happened, and that I was sorry. It was yet another case of my causing my parents so much unnecessary pain and aggravation. After telling them that I would call again the next day, when I knew more of what was going on, I curled up like a fetus, and went to sleep on my part of the bench in the cell that I had to share with eleven other guys.