About Accidental Felons
Daniel's lucid prose takes you inside the heartbreak of an ordinary citizen falling on the wrong side of the law. Experience the anguish at realizing there is no help, no trial. and no justice. Feel what it is like coming to terms with what it is like to wake up one day a successful business person, spouse, and father and then go to sleep that night a social disgrace facing life in prison.
Daniel's story isn't fiction. It's the norm for Maricopa County Arizona residents. You'll be there as Daniel makes the same decision that thousands before and since have made. When faced with Mandatory Minimum Sentencing equating to life in prison Daniel accepts Trial By Prosecutor and pleads guilty to a crime he didn't commit.
After entering the jail system, Daniel learns that he isn't the unfortunate exception to a fair and just political system, but just one more person on the assembly line into jail and prision created by a local politician. You'll meet others like Daniel. Listen to tragic stories of people encountering life's hardships only to be preyed upon by an elected official ruthlessly trying to build himself a political resume on the bodies of county residents.
Now Daniel has an even bigger challenge, surviving the winter living in the desert. You'll read how other inmates teach Daniel how to survive in the Alcatraz of Arizona — Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Tent City — even saving his life when detention officers turn him out into the desert in 40 degree weather to spend the night in pajamas.
Daniel survives that crucial first month and then goes on to help others survive, doing what he can to help fellow county residents in need. You'll meet two Vietnam ear veterans who should have been in a VA hospital, but were on their way to prison from the effects of their mental illnesses.
You'll learn how Daniel helps the father of a dying five-year-old child get out two months early when no one at the Public Defender's office would return his phone calls. You will think you are in the tents so clear is Daniel's description of torrential rains and strong winds drenching prisoners with freezing water during early monsoon rains.
You'll meet the father of a two-year-old girl who had been accidently run over by her mother and sit with Daniel as he counsels the man. Learn how a social worker stricken with personal grief found himself on the wrong side of the Maricopa County Attorney and how his wife, a school teacher, became a nude dancer to pay the forty-thousand dollars in fees the lawyer demanded.
Walk with Daniel through a year in Sheriff Joe Arpaios notorius Tent City. Experience it through the eyes of an inmate who survived the ordeal. Meet many others as Daniel chronicals his journey over the next year of incarceration, working diligently to get back to his family, keep his home, and his job.
Below are some sample chapters taken from Accidental Felons.
Chapter 12 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 25
