Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

On January 15, 2007, Geoffrey Savage sends out an emergency email:

BAD NEWS — John is just now riding into downtown L.A. with an FBI agent to be processed on “money laundering charges.” I can only assume it’s got to be Neteller. I will let you know when I have something definitive.

I had been informed by John that there was a legal opinion that travel to the U.S. was safe for Neteller PLC officers, directors, employees, and shareholders. I would like partics on that from anyone ASAP and the contact partics for any lawyer or firm you might care to recommend for John’s defense.

“Bend and separate.”

“What?”

“COME ON, BEND OVER AND SEPARATE YOUR CHEEKS.”

“Okay.”

Lefebvre bends over a little. Then, in a half-assed kind of way he starts to pull his ass cheeks apart.

“I SAID BEND AND SEPARATE! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOME TROUBLE HERE? DO WE HAVE SOME KIND OF PROBLEM?”

The five officers drive Lefebvre into downtown L.A. They get off the Hollywood Freeway (Highway 101) and head to an ominously tall structure shaped like half a cross with huge bay-window-like wheels jutting from a few floors. The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), Los Angeles, is part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), in the judicial district of Central California, and is located on the corner of Aliso and Alameda Streets. Here, Lefebvre will be officially booked on charges of money laundering, racketeering, and conspiracy. So far, they’ve been the perfect gentlemen and gentlewoman during the entire proceedings, but here, at MDC, well, there’s really no other way to describe them: the people who work here for a living — they’re fuckheads of the highest order. Miriam Goldman, the woman in charge of these professional dinks, doesn’t care whether you’re a gentleman. This may be a point of order for Lefebvre, a way of looking at the world, a way of comporting oneself with dignity, but to her it doesn’t matter if you’ve just offed your grandmother or are a case of mistaken identity. No accommodation. None whatsofuckingever. All the same to her and her band of pricks. Guess what? You’re in our realm now, and you belong to us. That means you must be a fucking asshole — so bend and separate.

So it’s one of those days. After proving he has no baggie with a knife or dope stashed up his asshole, Lefebvre has to sit in a large cell for a couple of hours, awaiting processing so he can be assigned his own cell. It’s around noon of the first day of what is fast becoming his all-time worst nightmare, easily eclipsing his teenage drug bust thirty-eight years ago. It’s only been a few hours since the doorbell rang, but in these circumstances time has a way of being elastic. Every humiliation lasts an eternity. Be cool.

Now it’s Monday afternoon, and Lefebvre is in his cell block. He’s the new guy, the odd man out, the only guy dressed differently. Everyone else is wearing cheap baggy blue jeans and baggy green shirts, but he’s in a white jumpsuit. At dinnertime a guy comes over, passes him a green shirt and blue jeans and asks him if he wants to change so he won’t stand out. The clothes, they’re the ones the con was just wearing. They’re dirty. Lefebvre thinks, well, they’re a bit clammy but what the fuck, it’s a nice gesture. He accepts the clothes and puts them on.

There’s a table with eight seats in the middle of the room. Seven white guys are there, and they’re minding their own goddamn business, chowing down. One guy gives Lefebvre a head tilt, you know— C’mon, over here, siddown, last spot’s for you, buddy . There are a couple of other tables for white guys, but either pachucos or black guys occupy the rest. No one mixes. Not one. Lefebvre figures he ought not to buck tradition, at least on the first day, so he slides in with the white guys. Nobody asks him much, and no one’s in the mood for small talk. Lefebvre gets a familiar feeling. He’s been in this headspace before. His 1970 experience of being a prisoner floods back: This is a time to adopt a demeanor of quiet respect for everybody around you. This is not a time to whine, so don’t. He quickly adopts the demeanor of the others and wins their respect.

All prisoners are locked down at eight at night, and it’s lights out at ten. Lefebvre sits in his new home for those two hours — two hours to contemplate in stark light, before he contemplates in the dark, wondering what’s next. His cell doesn’t have a barred door; it’s solid steel, which soon makes him feel claustrophobic. His cellmate is a German guy who tells Lefebvre he’s in for a stolen-cigarettes beef. Apparently, he was walking down a street, across from a school, and spotted two unopened cartons of cigarettes in the front seat of an unlocked parked car. He did a little reasoning with himself— listen, the guy’s obviously an idiot for leaving his car unlocked, and if I don’t grab them some high school kids will get ’em first . So he entered and took them. His reasoning might have been sound, but he got caught. In California, if someone gets caught pilfering Lucky Strikes three times it’s life in prison. The three strikes rule.

The German has a couple of idiosyncrasies, as Lefebvre finds out soon enough. One is that whenever he gets served his food he hightails it back to his cell. He likes to eat there rather than hang with others. The other weird trait also concerns food. Whenever salad is on the menu, he’ll gladly take everyone else’s vinegar packets off their hands before heading back to his cell. Once there, he’ll put about ten packs of vinegar on his salad. The room reeks of vinegar and lettuce. He also bargains with people for their mini-cartons of milk. Each carton contains a half-pint, and he keeps the tiny containers unopened for ten days, maybe two weeks, until they contain a square of solid material with a little bit of clear liquid around. Every day the German opens one up and eats it like it’s yogurt.

So thanks to his German cellmate, an odor somewhere between standard white vinegar and curdled milk dominates Lefebvre’s olfaction. There are two bunks, upper and lower. Opposite the door are a sink and a toilet. If one guy needs to take a dump, the other guy is expected simply to roll over and face the other way. But when your cellmate buddy shits vinegar and fucking sour milk, it’s something else.

Lefebvre’s been assigned the upper bunk. He finds some novels in the common room. He starts reading a really dumb story. He’s feeling it now: Hmmm, this is close. This is really shitty. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to take this. He has to remember to breathe, breathe through the vinegar, through the sour milk, and gather himself. Be cool. Eventually he finds a science-fiction novel, an old Robert Heinlein. He also finds out through the grapevine that there are some decent books to be had in MDC L.A. This other con, he’s holding a stash of books. Shit, he’s got a library, like, forty-five fuckin’ paperbacks! Great! Then Lefebvre finds out the con’s a rat. He’ll let you have one book, sure, but the problem is, sooner or later, he’ll want something back. Everyone warns him off.

January 16, 2007. Geoffrey Savage writes: “I don’t expect to get any real news until at least noon L.A. time. Will keep you posted. I’m sure we might see some kind of press release from the prosecutor’s office before that.”

Day Two, Tuesday, January 16, 2007, MDC L.A.: Lefebvre wakes up in jail. Correct that, still in jail. Yes, the nightmare really happened, and it’s still happening. Lockdown is in effect until seven in the morning, at which point the guards come and let everyone out for breakfast. An hour later they lock you down again until ten in the morning. But today brings a glimmer of hope — Lefebvre has his bail hearing. Maybe he’ll get out.