On Talk of the Nation yesterday, Neal Conan was talking with Victor Oboyski, former supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal, and Jennifer Mascia, author of Never Tell Our Business to Strangers, about fugitives on the run from U.S. authorities who lived “on the lam.” He took calls from people who lived on the lam for a period of time and had them tell their story. Here is part of the exchange with a caller named Rick.
RICK: Hi, how are you doing today?
CONAN: I’m good, thanks.
RICK: Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I amassed a few drug charges in the late ’80s, and I took off in 1990, and it was pretty easy to do then. I just — I got a couple of states away from where I grew up at, and I just gave them a fake Social Security number when I wanted to get a job, or else I worked under the table. I was lucky enough to get a job on a fishing boat, which really gets you away from the authorities, and I waited it out about four years, and, you know, my attitude changed when I got off the drugs and came back and turned myself in. And when I left, I was looking at nine years. When I walked into the local police station and told them my story, I — you know, by the time court and everything else was done with, I wound up doing about nine months in jail and about three years of probation at the county level, I didn’t go to prison. And all in all, it worked out pretty good for me.
Drug charges. Even the 9 months in jail was 9 months too much. This story is just another example of the stupidity of the war on drugs. Rick should not have had to move anywhere in the first place.
