September 8, 2025 • 31 mins
With the Shock program nearing its end, Marc anxiously awaits graduation day as he teeters between two polar opposite emotions: The excitement of seeing his family and friends and the inherent dread of not knowing how he’ll start over again on the outside.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
We had two pairs of boots. We had our workboots
and our dress boots. They both had to be shine though.
And some of these guys didn't have families sending commissary money.
They didn't they couldn't get this stuff, so they would barter.
You know, maybe they got a cigarette from somebody and
they traded that for a couple of stamps. So they
traded this. But you needed to have the bare necessities
(00:23):
to get through. It actually reminds me of Shawshank remember
when Tim Robinson were tore in the roof and he
makes the deal. I just wanted a couple of sods
for my co workers, and I remember buying with my
commissary money. I bought everybody in my work detail a
thing of shoeshine polish. That made me feel like, hey,
I'm at the bar. I bought tomma beer or I
bought Jimmy beer like that made me feel normal and
(00:45):
it was a good moment for me.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
From my heart radio in doghouse pictures, this is shock incarceration.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm Jeff keating.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
By this laid in the program, platoons lost a number
of inmates who had either tapped out or been kicked out.
Inmates did not want to lose sight of the finish line.
But just because they had their gold hats did not
mean the final stretch was going to be easy.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Here's ed.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
There's been en a few times where I've had some
doubts of me being able to complete it. There's a
situation where a drill instructor, for some reason, every time
I ran into him, he just focused on me. If
you were on the PT deck and there's two hundred inmates,
he would pick me out. And he came over and
(01:56):
he just started braiding me, asking me question after question.
You're so good at asking the questions. You didn't have
an answer, And I thought, this is it.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
I'm done.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
I'm going to get my ass kicked, but I don't care.
I'm gonna at least throw a good couple of punches.
And he was a big drill instructor. He would have
messed me up in two seconds. So I stepped back.
I start crying, and he looked at me and he
goes revere. I finally broke you. I broke you, and
he walked away and I was standing out there. You
(02:31):
don't know what to do, you know, wipe myself up
and just started writing the letter. About four or five
days later, I'm going through the mess hall and he
grabs me up, snatches me out Revere and I tell you,
I broke you because of simple reason. You think you're
smarter than everybody. You don't think you have a problem
like everybody else. He goes, You're no different than anyone
(02:53):
else in here. He goes, you need to get humble,
and he was right.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Mark was humble on several occasions as well, including one
incident during confrontations.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
This was a guy that when we did confrontations, we
would actually get together and say, hey, I'm going to
call you up for this. You called me up for this,
so I knew what he was going to confront me on,
you know, and we would get through this. The drill
instructor's desk.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Is off limits. You are not allowed to touch it.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You are not allowed to take anything off of it
unless obviously you ask for permission. And he's sitting there.
In this case, the drill instructor Caposi was not there.
But I needed his scissors. I needed to do something,
so I took the fucking scissors. I looked around, I
will admit, and I went up and I grabbed the
scissors and I brought him back and I did what
I had to do at my clothes, and then I
(03:40):
brought them back there. And nobody knew the difference except Nash.
He saw me do it, and Nash called me out
on it. He called me out on it. And again,
it's not a minor little thing. You're not cut in
your corners. This is stealing. Technically, that's a golden rule,
no stealing in shock. This was something that I was
called in by drill and structor Ugleston. Did you take
(04:02):
those scissors off Caposei's desk, sir, Yes, sir, I did.
I admitted it. Now if I said I didn't, well,
Nash told me it did. But then it's the you know,
he said, she said, I just said, you know what,
let's talk about integrity. Let's talk about this, let's talk
about doing the right thing.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Sir.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yes, sir, I did. I needed to, you know, handle
my clothes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He appreciated me telling the truth, and then he quite
honestly just told me don't.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Do it again. Very simple.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But I got pissed at Nash, you know, for wrapping
me out. You know, that's why we had to do
the friendship blog, and we all had to get our
mattresses on our head and do ten laps around our
dorm because I took the scissors off of his desk.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
But Mark and Ed also learned that even in shock incarceration,
there were ways to work the system.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Sometimes you even butt it up with somebody and say, hey,
I'm going to write a confrontation on you. I'm just
going to say you didn't square your corners, you know,
because you have to when you walk in. You have
to square your corners. And he'll be like, all right,
all right, I'll do that with you. So you could
go back and forth. But one thing they did was
as the program progressed, they wanted your confrontations to progress.
They knew everybody was going to put in an oh
(05:11):
a fellow pier and dash he didn't square his corners,
or he'd laid down for two minutes when the drill
instructor laughed. I mean this is the stuff people, Right,
as you progressed with the confrontation, you came up with
something a little bit more severe through counseling.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
That's the thing getting pulled up.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
They're called pull ups where you see another inmate doing
something wrong and you must tell on them. U genius idea,
because at least the drill instructors knew everything that's going
on behind closed doors. Now, if you've seen something that
someone did wrong and you did pull them up, you
would get pulled up. And it's even worse. There's also
(05:52):
a thing called the red seat or the hot seat,
and that's also part of counseling. If you a person
needs extra counseling, they would put their name in a
hat in this bucket and the reason why you believe
this person need the extra counseling, And then the counselor
(06:13):
would take a red share and put it in the front.
And everybody had to say something about you negatively.
Speaker 6 (06:21):
And you used to have a saying there's no throwing roses,
so you got blasted.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
They said, who's a person or persons that has not
written any pull ups? And I just sat there and
of course they said, well add I'm.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
Like, gosh shit. So I had to go out and.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
The drill instructor made me every single day do a
pull up. He goes make it up. I don't care.
So I used to go to some of the other
inmates and say, hey, Brook can I pull you up
so you know ahead of time that you didn't lace
your boots right. He's like, yeah, yeah, sure, okay, as
long as I know it's coming.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
So I was doing that. Then I got caught.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Mark was getting so close to graduation, but each day
the pressure built as the end drew near. Mark used
the letters from his family and friends to give him
hope and strength for the next day.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And you would lay in bed and you'd read them,
and you'd read it again. You'd read them three or
four times. You knew exactly what the next sentence was.
You wanted a connection. I got letters from my ex wife,
my sisters, my father, cousins, and you picture their voice
reading it. Other people have asked me, you know, what
was it like going to bed at night and it's dead, silent.
(07:38):
You're sleep in a room with fifty five inmates, walks
of life from all over New York. But you read
a couple of good letters and you can fall asleep.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
But sometimes when you messed up, then you got something
crazy next to you at lights out.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The six foot raiser was both a learning and a
humiliating tool, and basically it was an indication that you
don't know how to shave. Every single day you shaved
and got inspected, and if you were having some troubles,
the drill instructor would make sure that you would take
the time to correct what you're doing wrong. So he
(08:13):
would give you this styrofoam six foot razor and you
would have to take it with you twenty four hours
a day. Essentially, you would light next to your bed
when you go to sleep, but in the morning, the
minute you got up, that's with you all day.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
One of the main purposes of the program was to
prepare them for life outside of prison if they were
able to graduate and get parole. The drill instructors worked
with the inmates to set realistic objectives throughout their time
in shock.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
We'd teach one in the near term. For our midterm
goal was they laid on their goals and then I
just look at someone ridiculous. Of course, martin nat school.
You know a lot of kids. I'm gonna do this,
I'm gonna all this, and then you set the reality.
Hey guys, you're convicted fellers, you know, can't be a
state senator. You can comput lucky if you get the
right the row and some of the things they put
on their paper, well good luck and everyone, I shatter
(09:02):
your dream. Like a lot of them want to join
the military. But of all my platoons, I never saw
one able to get in as a convicted felon. So
you try to chapter goes out and maybe ain't be
a painter, be a floor cover, be an electrician, and
then evokes you know, do landscaping. They do different things,
and so that's where we try to push these kids
in the right direction for the future. And that's kind
of the message I try to teach these kids.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
But I think he saw something in me that was
a little different than some of the other inmates. Maybe
I want to believe that, but the way he acted
towards me, I thought was a little bit more of
a boss employee versus a correctional officer.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
And an inmate, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
As part of the process to completing shock incarceration, each
platoon with gold Hats had to choreograph their own synchronized
march to perform at graduation, and they had limited time
to get it ready.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
We had to do our march, We created it, and
he had to approve it. So this was the last
big task and quite honestly, it caused a lot of issue.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
It was.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The remaining thirty five of us, you know, and he
told us it had to be under three minutes and
had X amount of marching.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
Mark was picked to be a squality. That's a great accomplishment,
and it's hard to maintain that job because you screw up,
you get fired, and there's a lot of pressure because
those inmates have to listen to me. They don't have
to listen to peto leader. And it's very hard because
you know, as a good patoon leader, I don't want
him coming to my office every two seconds and saying, sir,
when you were here, this guy just did this, and
(10:56):
I want him to handle it on his own through respect. Karen,
it's kind of an honor to be picked for one
No different than in the military when we picked squad
leaders and tune guides.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So we had a couple of people that volunteered. Jesse
was one of the guys. He said, I'll take the
head choreographer, and we put together a couple different steps
and weaves and everything else. We had frustration putting it together.
But you wanted to make it fancy. You wanted to
kind of show off a little bit. I remember we
(11:27):
did like this criss cross marching and then one went
into like a big ass and then we came back
in the four rows. I was a squad leader, Glenn
Jesse and Fleischmann was the other guy. And then everybody
on our squad was behind us four rows and it
was tough to put this together. Jesse was the guy
that I saw on Facebook that he died like seven
(11:48):
months ago. It's a shame. I remember he had a
disabled younger brother. He spoke a lot about his brother.
It's a shame that he's no longer with us. But
he was the guy that took the ball and he
put this whole choreographed thing together. I remember doing it
and practicing it, and like we felt good about it,
(12:08):
and we showed them, you know, what do you think
drill and shuck.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
I don't like it at all. I don't like it roll.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
He critiqued us. He gave us a good heads up
on it. But this was only one thing we did
on Saturday. But this was really the last task because
there was a lot of pickering and a lot of
animosity and a lot of no, we're not doing it
that way, that's stupid. What about this way? Why can't
we do it this way? It was almost like, all right,
this is the last task, that maybe we might lose
one person through this. It was getting that heated. People
(12:36):
were throwing shit on the ground. I don't want to
do it. What do you mean you have to do it?
But we ultimately figured it out. That was really the
only major change we had to prepare for that because
that was something we had to put on and perform
in front of our peers. I definitely think we finally
got good at the routine.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
All the inmates continued pt marching and work details, and
the purpose of the drill instructors was clear.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
We had to take care of the grounds, so we
had inmates that cut the grass and manicured along inside facility.
Then we had a crew of inmates that went outside
the facility, so those are all crews of twelve. Then
we also had vocational shops though, where we talked to
the inmates. So if they had their ged they didn't
fit on a work squad, they weren't outside. Clear, because
not every inmate was cleared to all the side of
the spans, they had to go to a vocational shop.
(13:27):
They might go go to floor covering, horticulture, We had masonry.
At one time, we had electrical So there's various things
that these guys are doing during the day to brady
them for the next stuff in their life. Because I
tell these kids all the time, we'd do goals training
with them, and I'd said, laid on your goals. These
guys are about to get out, and they're what's going
to make or break the program. If they go out
(13:50):
and violate again, it puts a bad shadow on our program,
like why is this kid out early doing this type
of behavior still, So we want to make sure they're ready.
So I'd say in goal cap in her fifth and
sixth month, when you say zero to it is zero
tis by this time the inmates that squeaked along or
barely made it. If he still isn't figuring it out,
(14:10):
he's done. You know, we evail him out superten's committee.
He gets in front of a committee and he gets
voted out or recycled. He can give them another chance,
but we can't take the chance to let these guys
home to go violate and give the program a black guy.
They have to be ready to go home.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
We're getting to the finish line here, and you didn't
stop until the last day. You walked up until the
last day. Whoever was going to school went up until
the last day. We did confrontation and all these other
routines right to the last day. We did drug an
alcohol counseling to the last day.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And the drill instructors were not the only ones preparing
the inmates for life on the other side of those
barbed wire fences. Counselor Rose had a big impact on
them as well.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
She was very good, shot a lot of patience, because,
let's face it, you have a room full of people
doing drugs, selling drugs, doing alcohol, and you're basically teaching
a class to tell them why they shouldn't. She did
kind of make you feel like a regular person.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It wasn't like a drill instructor in your face, treating
you like you're an inmate. She actually spoke to you
as you were a human being and she wanted to
help you. We watched a lot of videos of what
you could turn out to be. There was a lot
of visuals, if I remember that, were trying to convince you,
if you can get through six months, why can't you
get through seven eight? Nine ten, and it was just
(15:36):
it was a good class. Did it really help me personally? Ultimately,
I have to say yes, it did.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
The program does work. I tell my guys this all
the time. Hey, at graduation day, I said, if I
didn't teach you anything, if you really haven't figured out
and you go to rob that seven to eleven, at
least don't shoot the guy behind the counter this time,
because I taught your respect for others. If you've learned
that I've accomplished something. I had told him that straight up, Like,
if you're going to come back and do something stupid,
(16:04):
at least respect other people. So did I think I
was they were all gonna be the best and do
the greatest. No. But I got a phone call from
the inmate in the crackhouse. Back when we first opened
to jail, they used to patch calls in for the
switchboard of the old phone system in inmates who call
for the drill structor, and they were told they could
do this. So I got to call them this kids
(16:24):
in the crackhouse, He says, Sarah, I don't know what
to do. I'm about to violate. I'm at wits end.
I said, it's easy, he said, what do you mean, sir,
It's not easy. I said, yeah, it is. Turn around,
is it? Do you see a door? You turn around?
I said, about face. I gave him commands. I said,
is there a door there? I said, walk out it.
I said, they call me back, and they did. I said,
was that easy? It's all about choices and decisions. So
(16:45):
I said, now start building from there.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
And d I.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Clark tried to leave the inmates with the feeling that
all the drill instructors were still present even when they
walked out the doors to go home.
Speaker 7 (16:57):
The drill structors always watch it. And I told them,
everything you guys are doing we've seen. We've been doing
this for years. We've seen it all. You're making the
same mistakes. You know, you've got to be better than this.
The true side of discipline is you do the right
thing when no one's watching. It's another thing I would
teach them all the time. If I'm inside the scribe
a your outside on a smow freaking true tested discipline
is you're not talking even though I'm peeking out the window.
(17:20):
Or I got another inmates spying from me.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
With graduation days so close, marking the other inmates were
able to get some final thoughts off their chests, to.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Mark down the days, like say you had three days
to go, two nights left. There was a lot of
hey man, I'm sorry if I ever caused a problem
throughout the process. And I used to say I never
wanted to be friends with them, or I never wanted
to get to know them. I said, I wanted to
get away from them. They're not who I am. But
at the end of the day, I was in there
(17:50):
with them. I was one of those guys, so ultimately
I was one of them.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
It was the last night.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
There was a lot of smiling, there was a lot
of bonding. I couldn't wait to get out of there.
I couldn't wait to wake up in the morning. Everybody
knew what the what the schedules, and at that point,
drill instructor Eggleston was like, all right, say here's what's
going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You never knew you never knew what the next day
was going to be. For six months.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
You kind of had an idea you were going to
do your regular pt and you knew when you were
going to eat, but you don't know what your job
assignment for the day was or what they were actually
going to have you do, and he said, you guys
are going home tomorrow if you're lucky. That's what he
told us. You are not a graduate. You're not out
of there until you're out of there.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
Talking back to staff late in the program six months,
if you still haven't figured out that, you know, are
you going to go to your job and talk back
to your employer. If it's a major fight, that's direct
kickout and maybe not even offered recycle. There's different levels
of severity, and it's really culative. We have all the
evails when they go in front of what we have
what's called the Superintends Committee, all the evails from the
(18:56):
six months, so they can see if it's a repetitive
behavior or if it's just something new, a one shot deal.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know, until the minute you walk out of those doors.
He told us, don't you watch what you say. Don't
think it's the last day. You can get away with
being a wise guy or trying to say something funny
to a drill instructor. They might just be in a
bad mood and say, you know what, you're not leaving yet.
Fifty five people started. We lost people along the way
because they signed themselves out they couldn't handle it, or
(19:25):
they got recycled. Recycled means they started from square one.
You could be a week away from graduating. If you
fuck up, they'll put you either back to square one,
you'll start over as a brown hat, or they'll just
send you on a bus to do your full time.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
It's a zero tolerance.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
During the Gold Hut, we lost two, so we were
up thirty five going into graduation.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Anticipation filled the door the evening before graduation, and inmates
went to sleep knowing there was a good chance they
would walk out. The next day, I.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Woke up kah the smile.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
I knew my mother and father were on their way up,
or they were there ready, because they came up the
night before to stay over, you know, knowing that they
were maybe only in the parking lot waiting to come in.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Man, what a.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Feeling that was.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That was an unbelievable feeling. And I couldn't wait to
see him. Man, I couldn't wait to see him. And
I knew I was gonna, you know, have a tough
road to recovery and get back on my feet. But
I was also determined that I knew it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Mark expressed the memory and emotions of graduation day during
one of our interviews together.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
So walk me through the excuse me, sorry, take a minute.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Sorry, okay, okay, thank you're sorry?
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Is this happy? Stop?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Especially like I said, I haven't ever let this out?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
You can also you can also.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Probably put yourself right back in that spot and remember
absolutely taking that step out of the Yeah, facility, and
the gates are closing behind you.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
It's a great feeling.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
Mom and dad are there?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Is the graduation in the facility.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
It's it's it's in the prison. You know.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
My parents had to go through a security check and
get searched, and they were escorted down with other inmates,
family members into an auditorium where we where we did
the march and then we you know, you sit, you sit,
actually sit down in chairs like a like a high
school graduation. And they called us up one by one.
(22:23):
Mark Lombardo, heah, you go up. You get a piece
of paper saying that you graduated shock incarceration, you know,
Lakeview Correctional Facility in New York.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
They did everybody. We all got a round of applause.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
We've come in for these things on our day off
without me. I came down from Fort Drum, I had
uh I was getting ready to go to Iraq. I
came in full dress blues and maybe the guest speaker
for the graduation. The driller structures actually give awards. We
actually have to get up and give speeches. The superintendent talks.
It's a big deal for the facility. We shut workers
down to get as much staff back there as possible.
(22:58):
As many drill structures we close ailed out for graduation.
And the pride you see is the inmates march around
the compound after the last PT session and we're into
gold caps saying goodbye everybody, and then their families are there.
And for the families, this is the first time they've
seen their son, loved going or whatever graduate from something.
But the families that had come and sit there crying
(23:18):
their eyeballs out. In the beginning, I thought, how crazy
we're doing the graduation from jail. But after doing a
few of them, yeah, it made sense. You know, now
they know they've accomplished something, so let's see where it
goes from here. But the pride all unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
We had to put on and perform the d n
C drill and ceremony the last time you do it,
and your famili's are there.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
They're allowed in the prison. They come and wash the ceremony.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
My mother was there, my stepfather, and my sister, and
of course some relatives from some of the other guys.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
And you could see a.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Lot of emotion on their face too, a lot of emotion, happiness, sadness.
Every time, every other platoon sits and watches you in
march in the middle. All the family relatives are there,
all the staff members, every single employee of the entire prison,
(24:15):
quite honestly comes and watches you, and you do your
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
After the formalities of the graduation ceremony, Mark had to
wait a little longer as the prison processed his release.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
The relatives were all escorted outside the prison and then
we were escorted up to the front where we had
to do end processing, get a pass showing the release
that we were officially released that date. It was probably
about an hour and a half of processing until you
actually walk out. You go into the main entrance to
(24:51):
the prison and there's some paperwork we had to sign.
You have to get your check right, so anything that
may have been left in commissary for you.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
They give you a check.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I think I had like sixteen dollars or something and
eighty two cents as the only money I had. Then
the last thing they do is they give you information
for purparol and who you have to contact within twenty
four hours you have to contact and go sin.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It had been almost a year since Mark had been
a freeman, since he'd walked, eaten, showered, or slept alone.
It had been more than six hard months inside shock incarceration.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And the minute they opened the door, that good luck
and I hope we don't.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
See you again.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
I remember going through in new officer Gerhard. He was
a reception I had him for like three months. He
was a rost point grad and I walked through. A tough,
tough guy. I could tell you a hundred stories about him.
And I walked through and he just gave me.
Speaker 7 (25:57):
That a little week.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
I was like, holy shit, this is amazing. What a feeling.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
It was August eighth. It was beautiful weather, and I'll
never forget that feeling. I'll never forget it. Just walking out,
my mother, stepfather, and sister were about fifty yards in
front of.
Speaker 8 (26:16):
Me, and I said, I don't see him. I don't
see him, and Vicky said, there he is. And I
went where because they all look the same.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
I remembers kneeling right down to the ground, right down
to the ground in front of those prison doors.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I kissed the ground. I got up and then I
just ran over and I'm looking.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
And I'm looking for Mark.
Speaker 8 (26:37):
He comes out, Mik just takes his hands and puts
him in the air like Rocky, you know. And I screamed, Mark,
just like in the movies. I ran up, put my
arms around in my legs. I'm like, I couldn't believe.
He goes, Mom, I get me the fuck.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Out of here.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
I gave one last spit on the ground and I said,
come on.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I gave my mom probably the biggest hug I've ever
given her, followed by my stepfather and my sister and
we cried.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I'm getting emotionally.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I'm sorry because I tell you what yet, I'll never
go through anything like that again, I hope. And when
you sit back and reflect on it, and I tried
to paint a picture, it was crazy fucking experience. It
was a crazy experience. There was a lot of things
(27:41):
that kept me strong through the process. Mostly it was
my niece, my niece at the time, it was probably
five or six, and she's the sweetest little thing in
the world. I was allowed six pictures on my locker.
I had a picture of my grandfather and my mother,
my father, a large one with multiple family members in it,
(28:04):
and I had a picture of her.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
That made me believe that I could get through this.
There was nothing stopping me. It was to be able
to hug my mother and father and be able to
have a family dinner and a holiday. They were definitely
the driving force and the motivation and the energy that
made me believe that there was no way in hell
anything was stopping me from not graduating this program.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
More than six months of physical military type training definitely
had an effect on Mark, and the difference between his
appearance before he entered the program and after he got
out was extreme.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I came out looking like a sick child. I needed
a cheeseburger. My clothes didn't fit me. When your relatives
come to get you, they'd bring one outfit for you,
So he had a change. My mother brought me a
pair of khaki shorts and a black T shirt.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
That I actually wore those clothes because don't forget, I
lost fifty eight pounds. We got in the car and
then around the corner was a bank. You can get
your check cash. So I went in there and I
cashed it was like sixteen dollars a change.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
And my mother even asked me, you want me to
go in with you? And I said, no, no, that's okay, No, I'll.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
Be right out.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And it's interesting the way the bank teller looked at you.
She knew what the check was for, so there was
like an uneasy feeling, like almost a nervous feeling on
their end.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Oh who is this guy? What did he do? Oh?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
This guy just got out of prison. And again, what
a horrible way for somebody to feel about you. I
really picked up on that. I picked up on it immediately,
like she was just hesitant to like even engage in
a conversation with me, or just get me out of
the bank as quickly as possible. But that's the perception,
I mean, that's how certain people look at people.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
So she gave mere money.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I walked out, and my mother was standing right outside
the front door.
Speaker 8 (30:01):
So I stopped him and I said, I have some
bad news.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
And I said, what's up now? She smokes, so I said, oh,
you're having a cigarette. She said no, I want to
tell you something and she said.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Kathy died.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
He just fell to his knees.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
He cried like a baby.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
And I mean just everything gone.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
It was like what I had the biggest high in
my life a half hour ago walking out of that place,
and then it was just like.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
Felt like I got hit with a bat.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Shock.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
Incarceration is a joint production from iHeartRadio and Doghouse Pictures,
produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Mark Lombardo,
Tommy James, Noel Brown, and Jeff Keating. Written by Jim Roberts,
Tommy James, Chris Regazzo and Jeff Keating. Story edit by
Jim Roberts, Edit mix and sound design by Lane Krauss.
Speaker 7 (31:09):
From Herd's Creek Productions.
Speaker 9 (31:11):
Music composed by Diamond Street Productions, accompanied by Tyler Greenwell,
Danny Wattanas, Sean Thompson and Spencer Garne. Special thanks to
Trinity Investigative Group and Mark Lombardo's family and friends who
contributed to the podcast.
We had two pairs of boots. We had our workboots
and our dress boots. They both had to be shine though.
And some of these guys didn't have families sending commissary money.
They didn't they couldn't get this stuff, so they would barter.
You know, maybe they got a cigarette from somebody and
they traded that for a couple of stamps. So they
traded this. But you needed to have the bare necessities
(00:23):
to get through. It actually reminds me of Shawshank remember
when Tim Robinson were tore in the roof and he
makes the deal. I just wanted a couple of sods
for my co workers, and I remember buying with my
commissary money. I bought everybody in my work detail a
thing of shoeshine polish. That made me feel like, hey,
I'm at the bar. I bought tomma beer or I
bought Jimmy beer like that made me feel normal and
(00:45):
it was a good moment for me.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
From my heart radio in doghouse pictures, this is shock incarceration.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm Jeff keating.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
By this laid in the program, platoons lost a number
of inmates who had either tapped out or been kicked out.
Inmates did not want to lose sight of the finish line.
But just because they had their gold hats did not
mean the final stretch was going to be easy.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Here's ed.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
There's been en a few times where I've had some
doubts of me being able to complete it. There's a
situation where a drill instructor, for some reason, every time
I ran into him, he just focused on me. If
you were on the PT deck and there's two hundred inmates,
he would pick me out. And he came over and
(01:56):
he just started braiding me, asking me question after question.
You're so good at asking the questions. You didn't have
an answer, And I thought, this is it.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
I'm done.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
I'm going to get my ass kicked, but I don't care.
I'm gonna at least throw a good couple of punches.
And he was a big drill instructor. He would have
messed me up in two seconds. So I stepped back.
I start crying, and he looked at me and he
goes revere. I finally broke you. I broke you, and
he walked away and I was standing out there. You
(02:31):
don't know what to do, you know, wipe myself up
and just started writing the letter. About four or five
days later, I'm going through the mess hall and he
grabs me up, snatches me out Revere and I tell you,
I broke you because of simple reason. You think you're
smarter than everybody. You don't think you have a problem
like everybody else. He goes, You're no different than anyone
(02:53):
else in here. He goes, you need to get humble,
and he was right.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Mark was humble on several occasions as well, including one
incident during confrontations.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
This was a guy that when we did confrontations, we
would actually get together and say, hey, I'm going to
call you up for this. You called me up for this,
so I knew what he was going to confront me on,
you know, and we would get through this. The drill
instructor's desk.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Is off limits. You are not allowed to touch it.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You are not allowed to take anything off of it
unless obviously you ask for permission. And he's sitting there.
In this case, the drill instructor Caposi was not there.
But I needed his scissors. I needed to do something,
so I took the fucking scissors. I looked around, I
will admit, and I went up and I grabbed the
scissors and I brought him back and I did what
I had to do at my clothes, and then I
(03:40):
brought them back there. And nobody knew the difference except Nash.
He saw me do it, and Nash called me out
on it. He called me out on it. And again,
it's not a minor little thing. You're not cut in
your corners. This is stealing. Technically, that's a golden rule,
no stealing in shock. This was something that I was
called in by drill and structor Ugleston. Did you take
(04:02):
those scissors off Caposei's desk, sir, Yes, sir, I did.
I admitted it. Now if I said I didn't, well,
Nash told me it did. But then it's the you know,
he said, she said, I just said, you know what,
let's talk about integrity. Let's talk about this, let's talk
about doing the right thing.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Sir.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yes, sir, I did. I needed to, you know, handle
my clothes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He appreciated me telling the truth, and then he quite
honestly just told me don't.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Do it again. Very simple.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But I got pissed at Nash, you know, for wrapping
me out. You know, that's why we had to do
the friendship blog, and we all had to get our
mattresses on our head and do ten laps around our
dorm because I took the scissors off of his desk.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
But Mark and Ed also learned that even in shock incarceration,
there were ways to work the system.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Sometimes you even butt it up with somebody and say, hey,
I'm going to write a confrontation on you. I'm just
going to say you didn't square your corners, you know,
because you have to when you walk in. You have
to square your corners. And he'll be like, all right,
all right, I'll do that with you. So you could
go back and forth. But one thing they did was
as the program progressed, they wanted your confrontations to progress.
They knew everybody was going to put in an oh
(05:11):
a fellow pier and dash he didn't square his corners,
or he'd laid down for two minutes when the drill
instructor laughed. I mean this is the stuff people, Right,
as you progressed with the confrontation, you came up with
something a little bit more severe through counseling.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
That's the thing getting pulled up.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
They're called pull ups where you see another inmate doing
something wrong and you must tell on them. U genius idea,
because at least the drill instructors knew everything that's going
on behind closed doors. Now, if you've seen something that
someone did wrong and you did pull them up, you
would get pulled up. And it's even worse. There's also
(05:52):
a thing called the red seat or the hot seat,
and that's also part of counseling. If you a person
needs extra counseling, they would put their name in a
hat in this bucket and the reason why you believe
this person need the extra counseling, And then the counselor
(06:13):
would take a red share and put it in the front.
And everybody had to say something about you negatively.
Speaker 6 (06:21):
And you used to have a saying there's no throwing roses,
so you got blasted.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
They said, who's a person or persons that has not
written any pull ups? And I just sat there and
of course they said, well add I'm.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
Like, gosh shit. So I had to go out and.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
The drill instructor made me every single day do a
pull up. He goes make it up. I don't care.
So I used to go to some of the other
inmates and say, hey, Brook can I pull you up
so you know ahead of time that you didn't lace
your boots right. He's like, yeah, yeah, sure, okay, as
long as I know it's coming.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
So I was doing that. Then I got caught.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Mark was getting so close to graduation, but each day
the pressure built as the end drew near. Mark used
the letters from his family and friends to give him
hope and strength for the next day.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And you would lay in bed and you'd read them,
and you'd read it again. You'd read them three or
four times. You knew exactly what the next sentence was.
You wanted a connection. I got letters from my ex wife,
my sisters, my father, cousins, and you picture their voice
reading it. Other people have asked me, you know, what
was it like going to bed at night and it's dead, silent.
(07:38):
You're sleep in a room with fifty five inmates, walks
of life from all over New York. But you read
a couple of good letters and you can fall asleep.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
But sometimes when you messed up, then you got something
crazy next to you at lights out.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The six foot raiser was both a learning and a
humiliating tool, and basically it was an indication that you
don't know how to shave. Every single day you shaved
and got inspected, and if you were having some troubles,
the drill instructor would make sure that you would take
the time to correct what you're doing wrong. So he
(08:13):
would give you this styrofoam six foot razor and you
would have to take it with you twenty four hours
a day. Essentially, you would light next to your bed
when you go to sleep, but in the morning, the
minute you got up, that's with you all day.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
One of the main purposes of the program was to
prepare them for life outside of prison if they were
able to graduate and get parole. The drill instructors worked
with the inmates to set realistic objectives throughout their time
in shock.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
We'd teach one in the near term. For our midterm
goal was they laid on their goals and then I
just look at someone ridiculous. Of course, martin nat school.
You know a lot of kids. I'm gonna do this,
I'm gonna all this, and then you set the reality.
Hey guys, you're convicted fellers, you know, can't be a
state senator. You can comput lucky if you get the
right the row and some of the things they put
on their paper, well good luck and everyone, I shatter
(09:02):
your dream. Like a lot of them want to join
the military. But of all my platoons, I never saw
one able to get in as a convicted felon. So
you try to chapter goes out and maybe ain't be
a painter, be a floor cover, be an electrician, and
then evokes you know, do landscaping. They do different things,
and so that's where we try to push these kids
in the right direction for the future. And that's kind
of the message I try to teach these kids.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
But I think he saw something in me that was
a little different than some of the other inmates. Maybe
I want to believe that, but the way he acted
towards me, I thought was a little bit more of
a boss employee versus a correctional officer.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
And an inmate, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
As part of the process to completing shock incarceration, each
platoon with gold Hats had to choreograph their own synchronized
march to perform at graduation, and they had limited time
to get it ready.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
We had to do our march, We created it, and
he had to approve it. So this was the last
big task and quite honestly, it caused a lot of issue.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
It was.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The remaining thirty five of us, you know, and he
told us it had to be under three minutes and
had X amount of marching.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
Mark was picked to be a squality. That's a great accomplishment,
and it's hard to maintain that job because you screw up,
you get fired, and there's a lot of pressure because
those inmates have to listen to me. They don't have
to listen to peto leader. And it's very hard because
you know, as a good patoon leader, I don't want
him coming to my office every two seconds and saying, sir,
when you were here, this guy just did this, and
(10:56):
I want him to handle it on his own through respect. Karen,
it's kind of an honor to be picked for one
No different than in the military when we picked squad
leaders and tune guides.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So we had a couple of people that volunteered. Jesse
was one of the guys. He said, I'll take the
head choreographer, and we put together a couple different steps
and weaves and everything else. We had frustration putting it together.
But you wanted to make it fancy. You wanted to
kind of show off a little bit. I remember we
(11:27):
did like this criss cross marching and then one went
into like a big ass and then we came back
in the four rows. I was a squad leader, Glenn
Jesse and Fleischmann was the other guy. And then everybody
on our squad was behind us four rows and it
was tough to put this together. Jesse was the guy
that I saw on Facebook that he died like seven
(11:48):
months ago. It's a shame. I remember he had a
disabled younger brother. He spoke a lot about his brother.
It's a shame that he's no longer with us. But
he was the guy that took the ball and he
put this whole choreographed thing together. I remember doing it
and practicing it, and like we felt good about it,
(12:08):
and we showed them, you know, what do you think
drill and shuck.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
I don't like it at all. I don't like it roll.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
He critiqued us. He gave us a good heads up
on it. But this was only one thing we did
on Saturday. But this was really the last task because
there was a lot of pickering and a lot of
animosity and a lot of no, we're not doing it
that way, that's stupid. What about this way? Why can't
we do it this way? It was almost like, all right,
this is the last task, that maybe we might lose
one person through this. It was getting that heated. People
(12:36):
were throwing shit on the ground. I don't want to
do it. What do you mean you have to do it?
But we ultimately figured it out. That was really the
only major change we had to prepare for that because
that was something we had to put on and perform
in front of our peers. I definitely think we finally
got good at the routine.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
All the inmates continued pt marching and work details, and
the purpose of the drill instructors was clear.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
We had to take care of the grounds, so we
had inmates that cut the grass and manicured along inside facility.
Then we had a crew of inmates that went outside
the facility, so those are all crews of twelve. Then
we also had vocational shops though, where we talked to
the inmates. So if they had their ged they didn't
fit on a work squad, they weren't outside. Clear, because
not every inmate was cleared to all the side of
the spans, they had to go to a vocational shop.
(13:27):
They might go go to floor covering, horticulture, We had masonry.
At one time, we had electrical So there's various things
that these guys are doing during the day to brady
them for the next stuff in their life. Because I
tell these kids all the time, we'd do goals training
with them, and I'd said, laid on your goals. These
guys are about to get out, and they're what's going
to make or break the program. If they go out
(13:50):
and violate again, it puts a bad shadow on our program,
like why is this kid out early doing this type
of behavior still, So we want to make sure they're ready.
So I'd say in goal cap in her fifth and
sixth month, when you say zero to it is zero
tis by this time the inmates that squeaked along or
barely made it. If he still isn't figuring it out,
(14:10):
he's done. You know, we evail him out superten's committee.
He gets in front of a committee and he gets
voted out or recycled. He can give them another chance,
but we can't take the chance to let these guys
home to go violate and give the program a black guy.
They have to be ready to go home.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
We're getting to the finish line here, and you didn't
stop until the last day. You walked up until the
last day. Whoever was going to school went up until
the last day. We did confrontation and all these other
routines right to the last day. We did drug an
alcohol counseling to the last day.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And the drill instructors were not the only ones preparing
the inmates for life on the other side of those
barbed wire fences. Counselor Rose had a big impact on
them as well.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
She was very good, shot a lot of patience, because,
let's face it, you have a room full of people
doing drugs, selling drugs, doing alcohol, and you're basically teaching
a class to tell them why they shouldn't. She did
kind of make you feel like a regular person.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It wasn't like a drill instructor in your face, treating
you like you're an inmate. She actually spoke to you
as you were a human being and she wanted to
help you. We watched a lot of videos of what
you could turn out to be. There was a lot
of visuals, if I remember that, were trying to convince you,
if you can get through six months, why can't you
get through seven eight? Nine ten, and it was just
(15:36):
it was a good class. Did it really help me personally? Ultimately,
I have to say yes, it did.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
The program does work. I tell my guys this all
the time. Hey, at graduation day, I said, if I
didn't teach you anything, if you really haven't figured out
and you go to rob that seven to eleven, at
least don't shoot the guy behind the counter this time,
because I taught your respect for others. If you've learned
that I've accomplished something. I had told him that straight up, Like,
if you're going to come back and do something stupid,
(16:04):
at least respect other people. So did I think I
was they were all gonna be the best and do
the greatest. No. But I got a phone call from
the inmate in the crackhouse. Back when we first opened
to jail, they used to patch calls in for the
switchboard of the old phone system in inmates who call
for the drill structor, and they were told they could
do this. So I got to call them this kids
(16:24):
in the crackhouse, He says, Sarah, I don't know what
to do. I'm about to violate. I'm at wits end.
I said, it's easy, he said, what do you mean, sir,
It's not easy. I said, yeah, it is. Turn around,
is it? Do you see a door? You turn around?
I said, about face. I gave him commands. I said,
is there a door there? I said, walk out it.
I said, they call me back, and they did. I said,
was that easy? It's all about choices and decisions. So
(16:45):
I said, now start building from there.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
And d I.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Clark tried to leave the inmates with the feeling that
all the drill instructors were still present even when they
walked out the doors to go home.
Speaker 7 (16:57):
The drill structors always watch it. And I told them,
everything you guys are doing we've seen. We've been doing
this for years. We've seen it all. You're making the
same mistakes. You know, you've got to be better than this.
The true side of discipline is you do the right
thing when no one's watching. It's another thing I would
teach them all the time. If I'm inside the scribe
a your outside on a smow freaking true tested discipline
is you're not talking even though I'm peeking out the window.
(17:20):
Or I got another inmates spying from me.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
With graduation days so close, marking the other inmates were
able to get some final thoughts off their chests, to.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Mark down the days, like say you had three days
to go, two nights left. There was a lot of
hey man, I'm sorry if I ever caused a problem
throughout the process. And I used to say I never
wanted to be friends with them, or I never wanted
to get to know them. I said, I wanted to
get away from them. They're not who I am. But
at the end of the day, I was in there
(17:50):
with them. I was one of those guys, so ultimately
I was one of them.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
It was the last night.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
There was a lot of smiling, there was a lot
of bonding. I couldn't wait to get out of there.
I couldn't wait to wake up in the morning. Everybody
knew what the what the schedules, and at that point,
drill instructor Eggleston was like, all right, say here's what's
going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You never knew you never knew what the next day
was going to be. For six months.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
You kind of had an idea you were going to
do your regular pt and you knew when you were
going to eat, but you don't know what your job
assignment for the day was or what they were actually
going to have you do, and he said, you guys
are going home tomorrow if you're lucky. That's what he
told us. You are not a graduate. You're not out
of there until you're out of there.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
Talking back to staff late in the program six months,
if you still haven't figured out that, you know, are
you going to go to your job and talk back
to your employer. If it's a major fight, that's direct
kickout and maybe not even offered recycle. There's different levels
of severity, and it's really culative. We have all the
evails when they go in front of what we have
what's called the Superintends Committee, all the evails from the
(18:56):
six months, so they can see if it's a repetitive
behavior or if it's just something new, a one shot deal.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know, until the minute you walk out of those doors.
He told us, don't you watch what you say. Don't
think it's the last day. You can get away with
being a wise guy or trying to say something funny
to a drill instructor. They might just be in a
bad mood and say, you know what, you're not leaving yet.
Fifty five people started. We lost people along the way
because they signed themselves out they couldn't handle it, or
(19:25):
they got recycled. Recycled means they started from square one.
You could be a week away from graduating. If you
fuck up, they'll put you either back to square one,
you'll start over as a brown hat, or they'll just
send you on a bus to do your full time.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
It's a zero tolerance.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
During the Gold Hut, we lost two, so we were
up thirty five going into graduation.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Anticipation filled the door the evening before graduation, and inmates
went to sleep knowing there was a good chance they
would walk out. The next day, I.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Woke up kah the smile.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
I knew my mother and father were on their way up,
or they were there ready, because they came up the
night before to stay over, you know, knowing that they
were maybe only in the parking lot waiting to come in.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Man, what a.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Feeling that was.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That was an unbelievable feeling. And I couldn't wait to
see him. Man, I couldn't wait to see him. And
I knew I was gonna, you know, have a tough
road to recovery and get back on my feet. But
I was also determined that I knew it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Mark expressed the memory and emotions of graduation day during
one of our interviews together.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
So walk me through the excuse me, sorry, take a minute.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Sorry, okay, okay, thank you're sorry?
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Is this happy? Stop?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Especially like I said, I haven't ever let this out?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
You can also you can also.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Probably put yourself right back in that spot and remember
absolutely taking that step out of the Yeah, facility, and
the gates are closing behind you.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
It's a great feeling.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
Mom and dad are there?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Is the graduation in the facility.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
It's it's it's in the prison. You know.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
My parents had to go through a security check and
get searched, and they were escorted down with other inmates,
family members into an auditorium where we where we did
the march and then we you know, you sit, you sit,
actually sit down in chairs like a like a high
school graduation. And they called us up one by one.
(22:23):
Mark Lombardo, heah, you go up. You get a piece
of paper saying that you graduated shock incarceration, you know,
Lakeview Correctional Facility in New York.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
They did everybody. We all got a round of applause.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
We've come in for these things on our day off
without me. I came down from Fort Drum, I had
uh I was getting ready to go to Iraq. I
came in full dress blues and maybe the guest speaker
for the graduation. The driller structures actually give awards. We
actually have to get up and give speeches. The superintendent talks.
It's a big deal for the facility. We shut workers
down to get as much staff back there as possible.
(22:58):
As many drill structures we close ailed out for graduation.
And the pride you see is the inmates march around
the compound after the last PT session and we're into
gold caps saying goodbye everybody, and then their families are there.
And for the families, this is the first time they've
seen their son, loved going or whatever graduate from something.
But the families that had come and sit there crying
(23:18):
their eyeballs out. In the beginning, I thought, how crazy
we're doing the graduation from jail. But after doing a
few of them, yeah, it made sense. You know, now
they know they've accomplished something, so let's see where it
goes from here. But the pride all unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
We had to put on and perform the d n
C drill and ceremony the last time you do it,
and your famili's are there.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
They're allowed in the prison. They come and wash the ceremony.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
My mother was there, my stepfather, and my sister, and
of course some relatives from some of the other guys.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
And you could see a.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Lot of emotion on their face too, a lot of emotion, happiness, sadness.
Every time, every other platoon sits and watches you in
march in the middle. All the family relatives are there,
all the staff members, every single employee of the entire prison,
(24:15):
quite honestly comes and watches you, and you do your
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
After the formalities of the graduation ceremony, Mark had to
wait a little longer as the prison processed his release.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
The relatives were all escorted outside the prison and then
we were escorted up to the front where we had
to do end processing, get a pass showing the release
that we were officially released that date. It was probably
about an hour and a half of processing until you
actually walk out. You go into the main entrance to
(24:51):
the prison and there's some paperwork we had to sign.
You have to get your check right, so anything that
may have been left in commissary for you.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
They give you a check.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I think I had like sixteen dollars or something and
eighty two cents as the only money I had. Then
the last thing they do is they give you information
for purparol and who you have to contact within twenty
four hours you have to contact and go sin.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It had been almost a year since Mark had been
a freeman, since he'd walked, eaten, showered, or slept alone.
It had been more than six hard months inside shock incarceration.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And the minute they opened the door, that good luck
and I hope we don't.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
See you again.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
I remember going through in new officer Gerhard. He was
a reception I had him for like three months. He
was a rost point grad and I walked through. A tough,
tough guy. I could tell you a hundred stories about him.
And I walked through and he just gave me.
Speaker 7 (25:57):
That a little week.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
I was like, holy shit, this is amazing. What a feeling.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
It was August eighth. It was beautiful weather, and I'll
never forget that feeling. I'll never forget it. Just walking out,
my mother, stepfather, and sister were about fifty yards in
front of.
Speaker 8 (26:16):
Me, and I said, I don't see him. I don't
see him, and Vicky said, there he is. And I
went where because they all look the same.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
I remembers kneeling right down to the ground, right down
to the ground in front of those prison doors.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I kissed the ground. I got up and then I
just ran over and I'm looking.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
And I'm looking for Mark.
Speaker 8 (26:37):
He comes out, Mik just takes his hands and puts
him in the air like Rocky, you know. And I screamed, Mark,
just like in the movies. I ran up, put my
arms around in my legs. I'm like, I couldn't believe.
He goes, Mom, I get me the fuck.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Out of here.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
I gave one last spit on the ground and I said,
come on.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I gave my mom probably the biggest hug I've ever
given her, followed by my stepfather and my sister and
we cried.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I'm getting emotionally.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I'm sorry because I tell you what yet, I'll never
go through anything like that again, I hope. And when
you sit back and reflect on it, and I tried
to paint a picture, it was crazy fucking experience. It
was a crazy experience. There was a lot of things
(27:41):
that kept me strong through the process. Mostly it was
my niece, my niece at the time, it was probably
five or six, and she's the sweetest little thing in
the world. I was allowed six pictures on my locker.
I had a picture of my grandfather and my mother,
my father, a large one with multiple family members in it,
(28:04):
and I had a picture of her.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
That made me believe that I could get through this.
There was nothing stopping me. It was to be able
to hug my mother and father and be able to
have a family dinner and a holiday. They were definitely
the driving force and the motivation and the energy that
made me believe that there was no way in hell
anything was stopping me from not graduating this program.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
More than six months of physical military type training definitely
had an effect on Mark, and the difference between his
appearance before he entered the program and after he got
out was extreme.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I came out looking like a sick child. I needed
a cheeseburger. My clothes didn't fit me. When your relatives
come to get you, they'd bring one outfit for you,
So he had a change. My mother brought me a
pair of khaki shorts and a black T shirt.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
That I actually wore those clothes because don't forget, I
lost fifty eight pounds. We got in the car and
then around the corner was a bank. You can get
your check cash. So I went in there and I
cashed it was like sixteen dollars a change.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
And my mother even asked me, you want me to
go in with you? And I said, no, no, that's okay, No, I'll.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
Be right out.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And it's interesting the way the bank teller looked at you.
She knew what the check was for, so there was
like an uneasy feeling, like almost a nervous feeling on
their end.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Oh who is this guy? What did he do? Oh?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
This guy just got out of prison. And again, what
a horrible way for somebody to feel about you. I
really picked up on that. I picked up on it immediately,
like she was just hesitant to like even engage in
a conversation with me, or just get me out of
the bank as quickly as possible. But that's the perception,
I mean, that's how certain people look at people.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
So she gave mere money.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I walked out, and my mother was standing right outside
the front door.
Speaker 8 (30:01):
So I stopped him and I said, I have some
bad news.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
And I said, what's up now? She smokes, so I said, oh,
you're having a cigarette. She said no, I want to
tell you something and she said.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Kathy died.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
He just fell to his knees.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
He cried like a baby.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
And I mean just everything gone.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
It was like what I had the biggest high in
my life a half hour ago walking out of that place,
and then it was just like.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
Felt like I got hit with a bat.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Shock.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
Incarceration is a joint production from iHeartRadio and Doghouse Pictures,
produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Mark Lombardo,
Tommy James, Noel Brown, and Jeff Keating. Written by Jim Roberts,
Tommy James, Chris Regazzo and Jeff Keating. Story edit by
Jim Roberts, Edit mix and sound design by Lane Krauss.
Speaker 7 (31:09):
From Herd's Creek Productions.
Speaker 9 (31:11):
Music composed by Diamond Street Productions, accompanied by Tyler Greenwell,
Danny Wattanas, Sean Thompson and Spencer Garne. Special thanks to
Trinity Investigative Group and Mark Lombardo's family and friends who
contributed to the podcast.
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