Kingpin : prisoner of the war on drugs

Dublin Core

Description

Captured in the lobby of the Sheraton Senator Hotel at LAX following a fifteen-year run smuggling marijuana and hashish as part of the hippie mafia, Richard Stratton began a new journey. Kingpin tells the story of the eight years that followed, through two federal trials and the underworld of the federal prison system, at a time when it was undergoing unprecedented expansion due to the War on Drugs. Stratton was shipped by bus from LA's notorious Glass House to jails and prisons across the country, a softening process known as diesel therapy. Resisting pressure to falsely implicate his friend and mentor, Norman Mailer, he was convicted in his second trial under the kingpin statute and sentenced to twenty-five years without the possibility of parole. While doing time in prisons from Manhattan's Criminal Hilton to rural Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and New York, he witnessed brutality as well as camaraderie, rampant trafficking of contraband, and crimes by both guards and convicts. He first learned the lessons of survival. Then he learned to prevail, becoming a jailhouse lawyer and winning the reversal of his kingpin sentence and eventual release. Kingpin includes cameos by Norman Mailer, Muhammad Ali, and John Gotti, and an account of the author's friendship with mafia don Joe Stassi, a legendary hitman from the early days of the mob who knew gangsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Abe Zwillman and has insights into the killing of Dutch Schultz and the Kennedy assassination. Kingpin is the second volume in Richard Stratton's trilogy, Remembrance of the War on Plants

Date

Language

Format

Subject

Identifier

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1628727268

Rights

Copyright 2017 by Richard Stratton

Book Item Type Metadata

Subject

Drug War

Genre

Pages

304

Cover Price

$25.99

LC Classification

956349455

Dimensions

6.2 x 1.3 x 9.1 inches

Condition

Good

Condition Notes

Discarded Library book

Book Class

3rd

Bookshelf Location

Waiting shelving stack

Citation

Richard Stratton , “Kingpin : prisoner of the war on drugs,” Wirtshafter Collection-Cannabis Museum-Athens, Ohio, accessed May 12, 2024, https://cannabismuseum.com/omeka/items/show/12976.