Eschaton

Justice, Ken Starr style.

She started out at the Faulkner County Jail in Conway, Ark., where she says the only book she was allowed was the King James Bible, she had to sleep on a mat on the floor, and the food was almost inedible -- but that was the best she would ever have it. Transferred to a federal medical prison in Fort Worth, she says, she was housed on a floor reserved for patients with mental illness. When she asked why, she writes, she was told that "the authorities apparently feared that if I was put in the prison camp, I would be more susceptible to a helicopter rescue!"

Then she went to the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in Los Angeles, where she was told she was getting assigned to the "high-profile" wing. She found herself on Murderers' Row, placed on lockdown status, which meant she was only allowed out of her cell for one hour a day. The explanation she says she was given? "It's for your own protection."

She was kept there for eight months, then moved to a Los Angeles County jail called Twin Towers. There, still on lockdown, she was kept in a plexiglass cell that was soundproof, so she could watch the other prisoners go about their lives, but could not hear anything except her own voice. She says she was let out for one hour a day, but not allowed to mingle with the other inmates. Guards sometimes forgot to bring her meals, she says, and ignored her when she pressed the buzzer that was her only way to contact the outside world. She remained there three weeks.