Freedom-Cry

I was born in 1940, the son of two German immigrants to the United States.  My father and mother left Germany after World War I, my mother to leave poverty and my father to make his way in the New World.  My brother and I were educated in the New York and New Jersey area.  I graduated from Watchung Regional High School in New Jersey and got my BA in 1963 from Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison, New Jersey).  I was Student Council president and was swept up in Kennedy’s rhetoric of asking not what the country could do for me, but what I could do to help.  I joined a Peace Corp initiative called “Accion en Venezuela”.

I spent 18 months helping the poor people in barrios in Venezuela.  I returned to the United States with a Venezuela wife and went to work for the State Department.  I worked in Nicaragua for four years as the youngest Capital Development officer with the United States Agency for International Development.  While in Nicaragua, I also assisted the State Department in other endeavors and assisted the CIA.

I left in 1969 and worked briefly on my Master’s in Economics, but ended up working on Wall Street for FI DuPont as a security analyst.  I then moved with my wife and three children to South Florida where I started small businesses.  First I ran a data processing company, then a ship brokerage firm, then ship repair, then lastly ship management, chartering and ship building.  I spent much of my time at harbors in the Caribbean and ended up with a fleet of twelve vessels including tugboats, barges, small oil tankers and a large barge (integrated tug-barge).  I also had a small construction yard in Louisiana that worked on small ships.

I lived in Florida with my family and we ended up owning a beautiful new house in Gables Estates when we were prosperous.  Along the way I took a shipping partner, George Brock.  Some of my ships were used by Brock in the marijuana smuggling operations.  I was accused as one half of the team of Brock in which he smuggled marijuana from Colombia to the United States.  I lost my house, my businesses and all my assets from this case.  The government still claims that I have a large fortune stashed away.

My father, mother, mother in law, and father in law have all died.  My youngest son dropped out of school and suffered greatly during his youth because of my absence.

While in prison, I completed my Master’s degree in Economics from Antioch University in Ohio through correspondence.   I have also taught courses for most of my twenty years of being incarcerated and have written screen plays, poems and essays.I have become a strong Catholic while in prison and this faith has sustained me in dark hours.  In the last five years I almost died twice due to improper medical care.  Through my own rehabilitative efforts, I have regained most of my health.  I live with the hopes and prayers of returning to my  family of wife, children and grandchildren.