7: Inmate K51114

"The other guys can't cope, a lot of times I can't cope, I don't think I belong out here. What happened to me and Prism was wrong, what happens to anybody in Prism's wrong, especially if you're innocent." In the last episode, former Simon City Royals gang leader Brian Nelson told us about his harrowing years in prison, but beyond the specifics, Brian's story isn't unique in America. "I'm your next-door neighbor. Every one of us now has a relative friend or loved one that's in prison, on probation, on parole or on some type of supervision, and there's no help. But we're all coming home. We're coming home." Mattias Jimenez would eventually come home on May 1st, 2009, after 16 years in prison. When he walked out, TJ's lawyers and family called it a fresh start. But the trauma of prison was festering inside of him. He'd lost his formative years, 13 to 30. It's the time when people figure out their identity. But when you've grown up in prison, a place where nothing is in your control, who are you when you get out? From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Frank Maine, and this is Motive. Inmate K-5-111-4. So you actually got to see TJ and Prism once, is that right? Yeah, the prison was very, very intimidating to me. It scared me a lot. Just the process of getting in. After his murder conviction, TJ was sent to Little Joliette, a maximum security prison for kids about 40 miles outside of Chicago. Carolyn Nielsen covered TJ's trial when she was a student journalist. They became friends, and they kept in touch. We met at this kind of large open space, and there was like a round table. It looked almost like an empty cafeteria, and we sat and talked. It seemed fairly quiet and fairly calm for a prison. But outside the visiting room, things in Little Joliette weren't so peaceful. TJ says he got knocked out cold during a riot in the chow hall. Another time, his cell mate slashed him in the wrist with a homemade knife, when TJ refused to have sex with him. TJ set up a wake on the toilet all night. Carolyn and TJ didn't talk about those things. He was calm and quiet and happy to have a visitor. He did tell me about a particular time when he had been sent to solitary. It took a big toll on him, and that was really heartbreaking. TJ's mom, Vicki, would visit him as often as she could. When TJ turned 17, he was transferred to an adult prison, and given the inmate number, K-5-1-1-1-4. Once he turned, all night, they put him in the max, which was stays there. And I'd go to visit him, and I'd see all these grown men. TJ was the smallest guy there. It was killing because you watch these movies, what happens in jail. Now, couldn't sleep. In Stateville, the thing that protected TJ from Vicki's worst nightmares was his membership in the Simon City Royals. You touched one of mine. I'm not going at your brothers, coming for you. Brian Nelson had been housed in Stateville, but he wasn't there when TJ arrived. Massey, as Brian was known, still committed respect, and TJ was one of Massey's guys. When he walked in, he would have checked in immediately. Would they have said, "I'm with Massey here." What'd you be, and you represent? TJ would have raised his hands and plashed the Royals gang sign. You walk in the door, and you throw it up at the door when you walk in. You don't know who's on that wing, but you've got to say what you is. According to TJ, when he walked into Stateville, an inmate with a clipboard greeted him inside the prison. The gang's controlled housing assignments. By the time TJ came to jail, things have been so established. So you think they would have carried him? Oh, I know they did. I know they did. You know, for a fact. Soon, around 18 years old, TJ gets his first job. He's a middle manager for the gangs in Stateville, a guy with some power. TJ talked about it in a deposition. Did you have any kind of like rank in the Royals in prison? I was a supervisor in the cell house that I was in. I had to keep things organized in the house. You'd be like the top guy. For the out-sale house, you'd keep the peace between the guys on the earth, authority, and then you'd keep track of the count of membership, of communications with the other cell houses, and enforce the institutional structure of signy positions, and do's. Sometimes they just needed somebody that had no sense to take the position. What we set up made it so easy for the new guys coming in behind us. They didn't have to worry about the stuff we did. By the time he went to jail, it was all easy. Easy-ish. Yeah. It's psychologically is not, but he doesn't have to worry about predators going after him. Prison is not nice. It's fucked up. You're locked up, you're away from your family. You've got to accept that. TJ filled his time in Stateville by reading books, and he wrote a lot of letters. How would you describe his writing style? Oh my gosh. Well, first, it was phenomenal. Journalist Carolyn Nielsen corresponded with TJ. His vocabulary, his command of the language, even at such a young age, showed real potential for academic success, and he had asked me to send him books. Carolyn sent TJ books that he might have read if he had gone to high school. Novels on required reading lists, like Slaughter House 5. But he didn't really like novels. He always just wanted facts. TJ was more of a nonfiction guy, really nonfiction. He specifically wanted a farmer's almond axe, and I could not understand that at all, but I sent them. I don't know why TJ would want to know the average rainfall in Peoria and April, but that's the kind of information that a farmer's almond axe is full of. And he sent me a thank-you note and told me how every day he was learning a new word from the dictionary, and he was memorizing things from the almond axe because he wanted to educate himself the way college students did. So TJ loves lists of facts, but here's the thing. To thank Carolyn for the almond axe, he wrote her a poem. It was about summer picnics with his family on Lake Michigan, on the north side of Chicago, on Montreux Harbor. I'm not going to share it because in the letter he specifically says he's sharing it only with me, but he writes about these picnics, and he says we used to have them at least 10 times every summer, and it was the best times I've ever had, right? Just being with his family out at Montreux Harbor, having a picnic, and they would dance, and there was food, and there was music. Did that hit you hard? It hit me really hard. I mean, I read it this morning, and I think my voice is getting a little quivery now because you know, that's the person he was at that time. In Stateville, TJ not only preoccupied himself with reference books, he tried to find himself in religion. A lot of times in jails, you go to the far extreme of things. Father Dave Kelly worked with thousands of inmates over the years, and he's seen this kind of thing before. I think there is something about having control of your own life, and part of that is strict parameters in who you are and what you believe it, you know, so you would cling to that because that's something you could hold on to. Father Kelly ministered to TJ when he was in juvenile jail. After he went to prison, TJ went to mass, went to confession, got confirmed. He could told what he could, and immersed himself in theology. He wrote to Catholic publishing companies, and they sent him crates of books. TJ was about Aristotle, and Aquinas, and Latin, and Greek, you know, he was going back to, you know, the roots and things like that with the fathers of the faith. And then he asked me questions about, you know, certain things, saying, "Whoa, you're over my head, kid. You're more Catholic than I am, for God's sake." TJ sent Father Kelly letters. Part of one was even written in a dead language. I remember him writing once in Latin. Let me tell you, my Latin is almost silt. I even asked Father Denny, who's one of the older priests, and he said, "Hey, can you look at this and see what this is all about?" Because he was almost like a fanatic Catholic. The only kid I've ever had in all these years, you know, went to that extreme. I'm sure he was the site to be holed in the prisons, you know, in his Latin. In Stateville, books and religion kept TJ's mind occupied. His gang kept him safe. And through it all, he always said he was an innocent man. I do recall him saying that he wasn't guilty, that he was innocent of this from the very beginning, from the very beginning, pretty consistently. TJ was pretty adamant that I didn't do this. That attitude got TJ in trouble. He says he broke prison rules because he was innocent, and he didn't belong in stateville. TJ had a lot of run-ins with the guards. Because of his bad behavior, TJ was moved to the prison in Pontiac, the oldest in Illinois. It's a big red brick and stone monstrosity surrounded by razor wire. In the late 90s, Pontiac was converted into a disciplinary facility with more than 1,000 people living in solitary confinement. TJ says he was locked in a cell by himself for nearly 24 hours a day. Once a week, you'd get to walk around in a cage for an hour. TJ only slept a couple hours a night. He'd lie in his cot, staring at the ceiling. To keep his sanity, he sang Christmas songs to himself. Then, TJ got transferred to a prison in Menard, along the Mississippi River in southern Illinois. He says the guards threatened to beat the inmates in the showers, where they could wash away the blood. Sometimes, prisoners working in the kitchen mixed feces, urine, and semen into the food. So, TJ tried to avoid the chow hall. He'd eat zooms, zooms, and wham whams. That's what the inmates called junk food, like twinkies and chips. During the winter, the cells could get really cold. The ink in his pens would freeze, and he couldn't write letters. TJ says he'd rip a large hole in his mattress so he could climb inside to keep warm. TJ lived in those hellholes for around four years. (dramatic music) TJ was eventually moved to a medium security prison called Hill Correctional Center. At Hill, TJ was allowed to enroll in college classes. In art history, he got into Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But he thought anybody could do a Jackson Pollock. He got A's in sociology, political science, logic, and psychology. His mom, Vicki. He's self-taught, and he's one of the smartest guys I know. Stupid, but smart. TJ put his education to work. He started reading Supreme Court cases about juveniles. TJ read that adolescents don't have full control over their impulses because their brains aren't fully developed. Therefore, juveniles shouldn't face the same penalties as adults. TJ wrote to the psychology professor who published that work on the brain. The professor wrote him back and suggested TJ reach out to a lawyer at Northwestern University, Steve Drizzon. Here's Drizzon speaking on the BBC. We get about 200 letters a month. And in July of 2005, I received a letter from TJ. And it was a remarkable letter. It was eloquent. It was passionate. He had a real solid grasp of what we were up against in trying to exonerate him. I was impressed with him from the get-go. When TJ received a letter back from Drizzon, agreeing to take on his case, he says he dropped to his knees and he thanked God. A May 1st, 2009, inmate number K51114, was sweeping a cell block when a sergeant grabbed him and took him to the hole. He was confused. He didn't do anything wrong. So why was he in solitary? The warden had moved him to that cell, so the other inmates wouldn't know that K51114 was getting out that day. The warden allowed him to take a shower and get dressed in street clothes. Then the warden shook inmate K51114's hand. This is how TJ described that moment. Quote, "I wasn't his subject no more. I wasn't his minion. I wasn't his prisoner. I was a free man, innocent man. And that's how he treated me. And now that free man, that innocent man, somehow had to start a new life." Prison is supposed to reform people. He should be so grateful to be out of prison that he should go be a choir boy. You know, this isn't an after school special. And I think people wish it was. I never got to be Brian Nelson. I was mousy. I was somebody else before my name changed to mousy. Brian Nelson knows a thing or two about the identity crisis of an ex-prisoner. I got out of jail and I get to be Brian Nelson. Who the fuck is Brian Nelson? Who is Daddy of Samantha's? We had no chance ever to figure that out until we got out. All of us always wanted to get out here, and have a chance. Now that TJ was home, he didn't like to tell war stories about prison. For his family, that part of his life, the majority of his life, was a big mystery. Now, once did he talk about jail to anybody in the family? Have you asked him anything? None. This is TJ's younger cousin, Susie Jimenez, recorded in a deposition. You can only imagine what goes on in prison. I don't think that that was something he really liked talking about. Not particularly, no. That I would assume was personal time. Donnie Ballard is TJ's brother-in-law. He's known TJ since he was a little kid. After TJ got out of prison, he didn't seem better, at least at first. He just seemed happy to be home, happy to be around family. Just trying to get his life back in order. TJ lived with his cousin Susie for a little while. She says he struggled to adjust. Everything was new. I mean, everything that we take for granted, cell phones, driving, work. Did he try to get employment? Yeah. To get some work experience, TJ began volunteering with a private investigator who had helped out his attorneys. TJ quit for a couple months. Most of the work they were receiving became too sophisticated for me, mostly computer research, and stuff like that. TJ's brother-in-law, Donnie, is a plumber. I dig a lot. TJ is not a manual, back-breaking labor material. I'm not saying he couldn't do it. It just really-- I don't think it was just cup of tea. Is there a certain field you're looking in particularly to work in? No. He felt like he didn't have the confidence in himself, that he needed to go out and work. I think he felt like it was all stacked against him, you know? TJ wound up cooking and cleaning at a sonic fast-food restaurant. He was driving a fancy car. He bought with some money that the state gave him. The other workers didn't know what to make of this mysterious guy with a Jaguar. They thought they might be in a reality show. The employees actually thought he was like, what is that undercover boss? Oh, did they really? You know, they just thought, oh, man, this guy's got a younger color boss. And it kind of worked as a doonage. TJ thought he could even be a manager at the Sonic one day. I'm sure he thought he could have. TJ is a very intelligent young man. I mean, he's obviously read many books. And people that don't know him think he's just some street gang banging and street dog. When TJ was in prison, he was taking college classes and reading about art, law, and philosophy. He learned Latin, and now he's flipping burgers. That must have been pretty dull and frustrating for him. But as a former prisoner, even an exonerated one, that was a job TJ could get. And he held it down for a while. By now, TJ's with his girlfriend, Abby, together they have a baby son and then a daughter. TJ thought about getting his kids baptized, but he never got around to it. He hadn't been to church in a while. He was also going to finish college, but he didn't get around to that, either. TJ's temper was becoming a problem. Abby and another woman filed complaints with the police. The TJ was threatening them. And he was having a lot of other problems with the cops. TJ was with a Simon City royal when he got busted for public intoxication. Another time, he was arrested for resisting a police officer. TJ's cousin, Susie. I think there's obvious resentment and authority figures based on his wrongful conviction and the amount of time he spent behind bars for something he didn't do. Then the police raided TJ's home in a Chicago suburb. He was arrested for having illegal mushrooms, and he was later convicted. I was crying because he's going back to jail, and he's going, "Mod, come on, it's only a couple of months. I could do this standing on my head after what I've been through," you know? I think you'd go visit your son in jail yet again. We bring the kids, you know? He teased them and showed my stalker and he was trying to go to the glass and shit like that. And we bring wives to the house. We could wipe the grass so they could give kisses, you know. During that stint in jail, TJ was getting ready for the big event. His lawsuit against the City of Chicago. - So do you work a read, please call 5-3-1-6. So do you work a read, 5-3-1-6. - Let's talk about post, you got out, you got out of prison May 1st, 2009, right? - All right, how many times have you been arrested since then? - Three times. - Since you've been released from prison in May, have you seen any kind of therapists or doctors? - Everyone suggests I should, but I haven't taken a step shit. - Who suggests you should? - My family, my friends, my attorneys. - If these people are suggesting you take those steps, why haven't you done it? - I just have a hard time opening it up to people. - At the time of this deposition, TJ did have an appointment with a psychotherapist, and he only agreed to that because it was ordered by the judge in his drug case. - Is that, is that related to your pending court case? - Yes. - In what sense? - To assess whether or not I have a anger problem. - Do you think you have an anger problem? - Somewhat. - Okay. - TJ was struggling to figure out what to do with his life. He found himself on the wrong side of the law, with the same police department that put him away when he was a kid. And then he was back in jail over some stupid mushrooms. Bikki says when TJ got out of jail this time, it was nothing like when he first came home from prison in 2009. - The first year he was great. It was all about family and seeing his cousins and then he went back to the jail. And then when he came home, it's like completely different. - Well, TJ started going back to the thing that was always there for him, his gang. - Because he was one of us is why he was safe. And when he got out, he understood that. - I'd call him up to you where you at. - Mama, minute, don't know. I go, I'm not asking you. I'm just saying, are you okay? You're not by the royals, right? No, mama, I'm not by the royals. I wanted to put a truck on his phone so bad. - TJ clearly didn't want it, but maybe things would have been different if he got enough professional help to vent all that anger that was smoldering inside of him. Former royals leader, now prisoner's rights activist, Brian Nelson. - TJ got out and did the right thing the first time. He had no money and did everything right. And he was starting to figure it out and he had a kid when he was paying his bills, when he was working. That's how you survive, that's how you live. Went back in, it's out again and you give him all this money. - TJ's about to sit through something that's gonna make him a whole lot angrier. And at the end of it, he's gonna be handed $25 million. - Next time on Motive. - I mean, that was their order. I'm gonna get ready for court in the morning. A lot of things came to light. It weren't known before. - And I went up to him and I told him, you know, I'm sorry about what happened. He was in tears, he was crying, you know? - I kept looking at the jurors to say, make sure you're paying attention. Not like the criminal trials, making sure they're listening. Pay attention. - Motive is a production of WBZ Chicago based on original reporting from the Chicago Sun Times. I'm Frank Maine. The producer is Colin McNulty. The executive producer is Kevin Dawson. Our engineer is Shelley Stephens. Special thanks to the listeners, whose financial support of WBZ made this podcast possible.