July 21, 2025 • 34 mins
Marc Lombardo arrives at Lakeview Shock Incarceration Center in Brocton, New York unprepared and oblivious to what goes on inside the barbed wire fence.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It was about thirty of us on the bus, one
of those old school correctional facility school buses, and they
handcuffed your hands in front and your feet shackled, and
then they had a chain going from your hands to.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Your feet so you couldn't move. I was feeling helpless,
couldn't even pick.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
My nose if I wanted to. And my mind was
in a thousand different directions for ten and.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A half hours. And I can remember.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Staring out of that bus window and just looking at
trees and cars and looking at people, and looking at
intersections and stores and banks and gas stations, anything you
could possibly think of. And my vision and my goal
was to get to see those things as quickly as
I can. Again, I just want to get back on
(00:48):
that other side of this bus.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
From iHeartRadio and Doghouse Pictures. This is Shock incarceration. I'm
Jeff Keating. Mark's thoughts consumed him through the silent ten
(01:26):
hour bus ride from the Ulster County Correctional Facility to
Lakeview's Shot incarceration program. During the multiple stops along the
way they picked up over twenty additional prisoners, Mark wondered,
how the hell did I get myself into this and
his biggest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Am I going to complete this? That was my biggest
fear and my biggest concern. Am I going to be
able to do this?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
You know? Once I get there?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Am I going to be able to actually do this?
And to think about the same thought for like ten hours?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
You know?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I think that was probably our first way to mind
fuck you if you really think about it, that was
probably like the beginning test.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short term,
highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These
programs are designed for young, first time, non violent offenders
and aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing
strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark
(02:32):
was about to arrive at Lakeview, a sanctioned facility that
was part of the New York prison system.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You pull into this place and you could see the
lights on the barbed wire.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It was like right out of a movie.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Your throat it was at my feet because it was like,
all right, here we are, this is it.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
There's no turning back.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And then they had us pull into one big gate
where the bus went in and then a big gate
closed behind the bus. And it was about ten o'clock
at night now, so we were tired, and the guards
started saying, you guys have no idea what you're in for.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I mean, you could absolutely hear a pin drop.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Another inmate that went through the shock incarceration program at
Lakeview was Ed Revere.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Then when we got to Lakeview, one drill instructor said,
all right, everyone's going to get off the bus. You're
going to walk through this pull barn and make a left.
He walks off the bus and he lights up a cigarette,
and then out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
This one drill instructor came on the bus and he
was a big, massive correctional officer, you know, with that
hard brim and everything like you would see in a movie,
and a whistle and he blew it as by the
loudest swhistle I ever heard of my life.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
Your meggot's get off the fucking bus.
Speaker 7 (03:54):
The very first people in our front seat, they random
and they threw them off the bus, tumbling down these
stairs because they're shackled, and I'm going.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
What the hell?
Speaker 7 (04:05):
You finally get off the bus and.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
They're right next to you, like, move your ass motherfucker,
you piece of shit, and you're pushing on in the
back of your I'll believe because you're shackled with this
other guy and you're just like, what the hell just happened?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And then he kind of really went into us. He said,
you're in here because your piece is of shit. You
belong to us. Now you are a number, a New
York State number, and you belong to us, and we
own you, and we are going.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
To treat you the way you need to be treated.
He said, from now on, the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
First word out of your mouth is going to be sir.
The last word out of your mouth is going to
be sir. Does everybody understand that? And nobody said anything.
We just didn't because we didn't know if we should
say it then or say it now again.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
You could hear a pin drop and he said, listen
to me, you motherfuckers. The first word out of your
mouth is going to be sir. The last word out of.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Your mouth is going to be sir. Do I make
myself clear? And we were all like, sir, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Bullshit, motherfucker, bullshit.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
You will sound off, you will be loud, you will scream.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Do I make myself clear, and it was sir yes,
sir louder, Sir yes, sir louder. Sorry, yet we must
have done it eight nine times. I mean he had
us screaming it and I'm thinking myself, Holy fuck, like
what is this?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Drill?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Instructor Paul Stack began at Lakeview in two thousand and
three and has welcomed thousands of new inmates to Shock
over the years.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
Immediately we will be all over them in their face,
asking them why they're looking around. And you don't wait
for responses. These are rhetorical questions. As soon as they
start to answer and they open their mouth, now we're
yelling at him even more because we don't want an answer.
So it's setting them up for failure. Right off the
back they come in, we process them. We got to
(06:00):
take the restraints off them that we've had during transport
off and again, make sure they're following directions. You will
not turn your head, you will not look to the side,
You will look straight forward. Eyes in your head will
be straight. You will not look at anything but was
exactly in front of you. It's just NonStop. It's non
stopping because it's just so much being thrown at them
all at once.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Here's former shock in mate Ed Revere.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
They weigh you, take your picture and they take one
at a time, and people had disappeared. So then it
was my turn and I go around and they weigh me.
They take my picture and they say get out of here.
So I'm running out the door. I ran out the
wrong door. So I come running out the wrong door
and there's the bus and no one else is around.
(06:47):
I will, what the hell does happen? So I'm kind
of looking around. Well, one of the drill instructors saw
me standing out of the zone. Holy shit, he came
running at me like I thought, he's gonna kill me.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
Your motherfucker, how the fuck did you screw this up?
Speaker 7 (07:05):
You're like retarded, you stupid son of a pitch out
the right fucking door.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
I turn around and we ran out the other door
and there's everybody in line.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Drill instructor Russell Clark, a thirty year veteran of Lakeview,
explains the welcoming reception is part of the program.
Speaker 9 (07:23):
We had a skit We've given them very loud, and
they'd be shaken. For them, it's a shock. They've never
seen this. They don't know what if they expect they
all get treated the same. It's like equally worthless pieces
or shit. And they were scared. I don't think any
of them knew what they were getting into.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
They walked us in single file, a couple rows and
you checked in, and they told us repetitively that we
own you. We own you. New York State owns you.
You do as we say, and if you didn't, they'll
be health to pay. They're making you nervous, They're making
you do something wrong immediately because they want to make
sure that they have the upper hand. Some of them
(07:59):
they spit in their face. A couple of them got
slapped in the head.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
The place was like being in a freezer.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was cold from day one until I left. And green.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Everything's green.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The walls were light green, the bathrooms were darker, green
tiles in the shower, and the green uniforms. You know,
everything was green.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Everything was moving a million miles an hour, and there
were no breaks to have anything explained twice in no time.
The new arrivals were given everything they needed for the
entirety of their sentence.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
They gave you a fresh set of clothes, boots, winter
hat and hoodie and all your basic necessitiesbrush, toothpaste, and
the whole time that this was going on, they are
screaming at you. So under that pressure and in that environment,
you can in your first five minutes there, you're easily
going to make a mistake. And that's what they want
you to do, because they want to prove to you
(08:53):
that you're gonna make mistakes, and we're going to call
you out on every one of them.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
They will fail.
Speaker 8 (08:58):
It's going to happen. They are absolutely not going to
follow those directions, like I just said.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
After receiving their essentials, Mark and the other inmates entered
their preshock living quarters and got their mandatory haircut. According
to the Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of
New York, all incoming shock inmates will have a haircut
on the first day in the facility. Haircuts will be
military style, one quarter inch in length and completely trimmed
(09:29):
around the years.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
They took us one by one, just shaved our heads.
We're buck naked standing there. They give you this gel
or license stuff. They want to make sure that there's
no drum. So they just shaved your head, threw you
down there, slapped this shit in here.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
And whoa This is crazy, man, What the fuck is.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Going on here? You know, Mark learned that even showering
is a stressful experience.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
In Shock, they made us line up in roses seven.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And then fourteen of us went in and shot and
I'd say, you got three minutes.
Speaker 9 (10:02):
There's seven shower heads and about fourteen the Mays stand
in there, so they had to move. They had to
share the water, get out of each other's way, scrub up,
and when I blew the whistle it was time to
come out.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
They push a button, the water comes out.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Seven people step up and get wet, and then back
up and soap up, and then the other seven people
would step up and get wet, and then you would
quickly rotate. So you had three minutes to do that
and get out and put your clothes on and go
to bed. Don't make a peep. That was the first night.
That's what we did, and we didn't know what to
(10:33):
expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
The lights were out, no more shouting, no more spit
flying in his face, no more intimidation, at least not
until tomorrow morning. Alone with his thoughts, along with several
dozen conflicts he'd never met Mark tried his best to
settle in.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
The first night was overwhelming, more conversation with myself than
I ever thought I.
Speaker 9 (11:02):
Would when they go to bed or you're just staring
up at the ceild and say, what the hell did
I do to expect this.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I laid in that bed and I was scared. I
was nervous. I didn't want to fall asleep. I remember,
and I need to say, I need to be awake.
I need to see what's going on. You're laying in
bed and you don't know who's next to you. These
beds were about four and a half feet apart and
just rose lined up. You don't know who anybody is,
so you're looking around. You want to get the lay
(11:28):
of the land. You don't know anything about these guys.
You don't know who did what, why they're there, what
they're capable of.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
You have no idea.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
After an hour of scanning the room and contemplating what
kind of hell was coming in the morning, Mark realized
no amount of worrying was going to make the next
day easier.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Probably the best thing for me is to go to sleep,
because there was too many things in my head. Just
go to bed, try to get some sleep, be fresh
for the morning, and see what this fucking place is
all about.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And with those final thoughts, Mark closed his eyes and
tried to think back to a better time in his life.
(12:19):
Oakland a small, charming town twenty miles west of New
York City with about twelve thousand residents, a place that
New Jersey Monthly once touted as the number one town
in New Jersey for young families.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oakland's a fantastic town. It really is a very small
knit community. Everybody kind of knew everybody. It was my mother.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
We moved there in nineteen eighty two when I married
my second husband.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
My stepfather, Richard, and his two daughters from a previous marriage,
my stepsisters, Vicki and Judy.
Speaker 10 (12:52):
I've lived there in my whole life. I raised my
kids there. They have great school system. It's a great family,
great sports for kids.
Speaker 11 (13:03):
I loved not only in New Jersey but our town.
Growing up there, we were near the Rampo River, and
now that I'm a parent, I marvel at the fact
that it was like a ten eleven year old with
my group of friends and we'd be down by the
Rampo River all day long.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
My older brother Donnie's five years older than me.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I got there when I was twelve. Mark was seven,
I think, and my twin brother David. Dave and I
were fantastic together as twins growing up. I mean, what
would any other kid want. It's like a permanent, every
day of the minute friend to play with.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And that's what we had.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Whether it was baseball, soccer, playing with trucks, toys, just
messing up the house, pissing off our mother, you know,
banging kitchen cabinets. It didn't matter what it was, you know,
you always had somebody to do it and somebody to
blame it on.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Two of Mark's closest friends growing up were Jason and Darren.
Speaker 12 (13:54):
Oakland kind of has a hill that a lot of
the houses are up on. I lived up at the
top of the hill and then it comes down to
the main road of Oakland, and they lived just across
that road, so I could ride my bike there easily.
Speaker 13 (14:08):
Small town, hardworking people. I think my graduating class had
maybe one hundred and ninety five people in it or
something like that. At high school it was mostly Italian.
I say this to everybody. I had the greatest friends
in high school. I love those guys I never could
imagine having friends as close as I did with them.
Speaker 12 (14:28):
These guys we're talking about are people that I've been
friends with almost my whole life. High schools where we
formed the most strong groups of friendships. But it's a
lot like what you'd expect from small town America.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
It wasn't just a charming town with nice houses, a
winding river, and huge parks. In the eighties and nineties,
Oakland offered so much more with its own mall, arcade,
movie theater and lots of great restaurants.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You had a couple places. You had Scanio's, and you
had Molly's. Fish Market was a good one, and Kermit's Pond,
where my older brother Don actually worked for a short
period of time.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
But there was one place that all the kids in
Oakland went to. It was their Arnold's. It was their
peach pit, it was their central perk.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It was Junior's Pizza.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Junior's Pizza was the place we all hung out at,
whether we were nine to ten or right through high school.
Junior's Pizza was the place everybody went.
Speaker 14 (15:28):
So when you were a kid, you just left school
and went over to Junior's Pizza.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Great Turkish family that owned the place, three brothers, Baki, Kadeer,
and Hattie. I mean they became family, they really did.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
They were so good to everybody that came in. They
were good to the kids, and the kids respected them.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Mark and Dave's family and friends could distinguish their personalities
as they grew up. Here's their friend Jason.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
Mark and Dave could not have been any more different
than they are. I know, they're twins. Stunning to see
how different they actually are, not only from the way
they look, their personalities are starkly different too.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
My brother would be a g rated brother.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
You know. I was the guy that usually got us
in trouble. I'm sure my mother will have some stories
about that.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
They would shake baby powder in the room to where
you were choking and coughing, and everything was covered in
white baby powder.
Speaker 14 (16:23):
They were a menace. I was sort of a laid
back guy. They were always having a good time and
I was just trying to get left alone.
Speaker 13 (16:32):
They're kind of like Martin and Lewis, like the stray
guy and the silly guy. Mark was the silly guy, hilarious,
just doing silly things that were just so funny, just
like a perfect pair of funny comedic duo.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
One of Mark's favorite childhood memories is the time he
got both of them in trouble with the neighbors and
then quickly tried to talk his way out of it.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
We had the Wingadora. It was a water balloon launcher.
It was a huge rubber band. One guy would hold
it up here, and one guy would hold it up here,
and the guy in the middle would pull it back.
And when I tell you, this would throw a water balloon,
probably two hundred yards and it was a bullet. So
one night we put oranges in it and we were
(17:14):
whacking the neighbor's house.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
God's on a story.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
This is how stupid we were kids one hundred feet
across the street, mister and missus Kramer what's their name.
And they came outside and I went and took orange
juice out of the kitchen refrigerator and I poured her
on the front door.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Because she came over and said, what do you guys?
I said, look, they got us too, the orange all
down the door. I mean, it's stupid, stupid.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
She knew it was us.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Oh, Mark and Davis brothers. They were an experience.
Speaker 14 (17:46):
They really were.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Mark drew in the car industry right out of high school,
and his twin Dave, became a big success, making six
figures and living the dream working for the Fortune five
hundred investment bank Morgan Stanley. A few years later he
moved on to Bank of America.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
He was a stockbroker, account manager, you know, somebody who
had a book of business and get new clients and
invest their money and just kind of monitor for him,
give him the heads up when you should be selling
or buying, and you know, whatever stockbrokers do. He was
doing well. He was doing very well. The money was
rolling in. I was happy a hell for him. I
thought it was fantastic. He bought a convertible Porsche. He
(18:31):
bought a condo and Hoboken four stories. He was on
the fourth floor. He at a penthouse. You'd take an elevator,
you open it up, it's right in your living rooms.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Gorgeous. It was a very very nice condo.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Jason remembered Dave's early career success.
Speaker 12 (18:44):
We were all still working and establishing our careers and
trying to find our way in the.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
World, and Dave was probably the most successful of us.
Speaker 12 (18:52):
He was living pretty high on the hog at that point,
but wasn't that surprising to us because he'd always been
such a hard work.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
In addition to building a vast client list, Dave managed
money for his brothers as well. Don pushed Dave to
invest in a Silicon Valley giant.
Speaker 14 (19:09):
I convinced him that I wanted to invest in Apple,
and he's like, no, no, no, absolutely not. And I'm like,
I wanted to get a thousand shares of Apple at
the time, which was I think twenty two dollars or
whatever it was, and I said, I want to do this.
He got me two hundred and fifty shares of Apple
and that quickly rose split again.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It was doing well.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Mark also crusted it early in his career, parlaying his
hot numbers as a tire salesman into a management position
at one of the largest and most successful car dealerships
in the country.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I reached out to a BMW dealer who was a
great customer of mine when I was with the other time.
They brought me on and I was a service advisor
then I was a parts and service director.
Speaker 14 (19:52):
And I knew he wanted to get into sales, and
I knew he was that kind of guy like a salesman.
But I was like, all right, starting to bottom and
work your way up, figure out what you want to do,
and you're still a young kid. But he did. He
got better and better at what he was doing, and
he just stuck with it.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Landing the BMW job was only Mark's second greatest score
in the early two thousands. His greatest feet of the
decade occurred hanging with some buddies at a bar, when
he bumped into Liz, an old friend from his high
school days, and jokingly proposed to her rite on the spot.
This bold move epitomized Mark's nature and helped kickstart their
(20:31):
love story.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So I knew Liz from high school.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
She actually went to Rampo, the rival high school, and
she dated a friend of mine after high school.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Once we were in our early twenties.
Speaker 15 (20:43):
I met Mark because someone I was friends with hosted
a poker game, so I would go over there for
the poker nights and hang with the guys.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
And I ran into her at a bar about five
or six years later, and I said, oh my god, Liz,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
What's going on?
Speaker 15 (20:59):
I think he said, let's have dinner, maybe have some kids,
and moved to Florida.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And she said yeah in that order, and I went
out with her the following week.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
We had dinner. We kind of hit it off.
Speaker 14 (21:10):
Liz. We really love Liz.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Her mother and my husband at the time kind of
worked together. Her mother was a realtor, my husband was
in the mortgage in and we enjoyed getting together with them.
Speaker 14 (21:23):
Liz. I always liked her. She was such a good girl.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Mark found love and someone who was both similar to
him and his total opposite, like the relationship with his
twin brother Dave. The same but different, and they seemed
perfect together.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
She was fun and quite honestly, she was a lot
different than me. She wasn't flashy or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
She was very down to earth.
Speaker 15 (21:48):
His personality was so engaging. He's very charismatic. He was fine.
It was never a dull moment. He was very positive,
and it was like a brother of fresh air. He
was just absolutely fun all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And she liked to laugh. I think that was That's
the thing I loved about her the most. She really
enjoyed joking around and going out, having to drink and
just not a care in the world, just laughing, dancing,
kind of person, good hearted girl.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
These wonderful memories Mark dreamt of would quickly be replaced
by the harsh reality of his first day in shock incarceration.
(22:41):
Mark jolted awake to a barrage of unruly noises as
he braced himself for the first day of shock incarceration.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
They bang garbage can lids, they blow whistles. You have
three seconds to be out of bed, standing at attention
at the endge of your bed.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I didn't know that. They don't tell you that.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You heard that whistle and garbage can and shit your pants,
opened your eyes, and you saw everybody else doing it,
so you did it. Those people that were there two nights,
three nights before me, they knew what to do, and
they obviously had their first night and not knowing what.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
To do in the morning.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So I very quickly found out that five point thirty
in the morning, that's what you have to do.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Despite being savvy enough to follow along with the rest
of his fellow inmates, Mark didn't quite understand why.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What's with the screaming This one guy across from me, Davis,
that's what they want you to do when you wake
up every morning. You have to wake up screaming.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Here's drill instructor Russell Clark.
Speaker 9 (23:36):
And they'd have to scream as they're getting out of
bed and stand in attention. They had to do that instantly.
If not, they're going to get back in and out
of the wreck.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
The first thing they do every morning is the count.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So drellal instructor would say, all right, start and for
the first thing, it's sir one sir, sir, two sir, sir,
three sir, and they go all the way around the room.
So two parts of the dorm would go in the
bathroom do their thing, while the other part of the
dorm is made in their beds and getting all their
clothes and all that stuff reddy. So they would go
for about three minutes and he would blow the whistle. Well,
it didn't matter where you were at. If you were
(24:07):
halfway don't your bed, or if you were halfwa brushing
your teeth, it was now your turn to do the
other half of the six minutes. So after you do
the count, the drill instructor would say, okay, the dress
code for today is and he would rattle off greens,
work boots, brown cap, whatever was very specific. So we
would do that and then everybody would stand at attention.
(24:28):
They would walk up and down to give a quick inspection.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
After an inspection of their clothes, the inmates were rushed
outside for physical training or PT, and the lake View
Drill Instructors or d I's didn't ease in the newbies
from day one. It was balls to the wall, and
the stories he'd heard of Shock's relentless PT scared Mark
more than the yelling, screaming or threats of violence.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I was really concerned.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I was two hundred and eight pounds, I was out
of shape, and I was considered one of the older people.
I was thirty six when I went in. The average
age was twenty, so it's a lot of younger kids,
and I was very concerned about being able to keep
up with them. It was push up, sit up, jumping jacks, jogging,
place scissor kicks, all these exercises together. You're using muscles
(25:20):
you never use, and I was hurting.
Speaker 9 (25:22):
It was going to be hard on the inmates. Here
we get guys in out of shape. I've done very
little physical activities in her life, and.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
At night things didn't get any easier. Here's Ed Revere
breaking down their routine.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Typically at nighttime, it's a drone instructor. He would help racks.
You strip down to your boxers, stand in the corner,
and then he would say ready, Racks, and then you
yell yes, Surrey, take two steps. Everyone had to get
into the rack at the same time. The wild part
is they also never turned off the lights, your lights.
Around twenty four to seven, it was rough. I learned
(25:58):
how to sleep without a pill on to pillo over
my head, and then you had the outside area that
also had lights. So nighttime they would turn the far
outside lights off and might make it a little dimmer,
but overall nope.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
The first two weeks were intended to break down the
new arrivals. The shock incarceration program is officially six months,
but those six months only commence when an entire platoon
of fifty four inmates has been built, beds become available
in one of ten dorms, and after a preceding platoon graduates.
Here's drill instructor Clark.
Speaker 9 (26:35):
In the first two weeks we call zero weeks because
it doesn't call for anything.
Speaker 16 (26:38):
Our job then is teach them the program, teach them
the way, get them ready. Those two weeks of intense
training for I tell you what. I went home sore
and tired every day and lost my voice every zero weeks,
and they never knew that. The very last day of
zero weeks, we'd do what's called a knucklehead drill and
we take them to the pt deck we're behind the school,
and we pt them for three hours straight.
Speaker 9 (27:00):
So it's the hardest two weeks is the first two weeks.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
It's brutal out there. And if there was snow, sleet, rain,
freezing ice, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. You were
out there doing it and he froze your balls off.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You didn't have a choice.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
On top of the grueling physical training, the inmates were
also required to attend group therapy sessions. Mark vividly remembers
the first one.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
In a single file.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
We walked into the room, a twenty by twenty square room,
and all four walls were mirrors, and as we walked in,
Councilor Rose kind of directed us around the room. We
stood there at an arm's length away from each other,
looking at the mirror, one by one, all four walls.
You just start thinking about family and make that change.
(27:50):
I remember specifically saying that line, and that's what this
was for it was to make a change, and it
was to make a positive change. And I'm getting goosebumps
even telling you the story now because I can see
the emotion in my eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I can see a little quiver in the lip. You know,
you get emotional, but yet you got to fight through it.
Speaker 17 (28:10):
And everything I did when I hear stuff like that
and think about stuff like that and doing the right thing,
it was all back to family and why am I
here and how bad they're thinking about me and how
worried they are about me, And that was my biggest
fear in there, and my biggest struggle, quite honestly.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Mark's preshock lasted nearly two stress filled months from his
arrival at Lakeview a week before Christmas twenty twelve, through
February eighth, twenty thirteen, when his platoon, the Rough Riders,
was ready to begin the program. He used this time
to learn how he could best exceed expectations and avoid
(28:53):
the wrath of the drill instructors, who seemingly look for
any excuse they could find to explode into a slew
of spit filled commands.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Shaki is a hands on program and ultimately, how it
was explained to us is by the law, they have
the ability to put their hands on you, whether it's
slapping you, grabbing you, throwing you down to the ground,
handcuffing you. I don't necessarily think it meant that they
could knee you in the ribs or punch you in
the back, which they did at times. You know, I've
seen that, But it is a hands on facility. The
(29:25):
first time I saw a confrontation between the guards and
an inmate, they put fear in you, because at the
end of the day, is that going to be me.
Mostly it's a quick jab or two that they get
off in the chest, in the ribs, a knee, a punch,
But it happened on a regular basis.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Mark avoided zero week's punishment by following orders, not talking back,
and never ever eyeballing a drill instructor.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There's no talking.
Speaker 9 (29:52):
You're handneiser main straight forward at all times.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You're gonna eyeball staff.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
You cannot look a drill instructor in the eye. You
cannot ever look at him in the eye.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Ever.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
If a drill instructor would say Lombardo front and center, sir, yes, sir,
you'd run up to him and you would look right
over him, you know, to the right of him. To
left them, you'd be looking at the wall behind him,
but you never look at his eyes.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Being acutely aware of what fellow inmates were doing to
avoid trouble, Mark paid attention to those doing things the
right way and tried to follow their lead.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
In the first couple of days, if not week and
a half two weeks, it was a lot of observation
on my part. It was observing who made their rack
the quickest, who made it the best, because we got
judged on that, and drill instructors would walk up and down.
So there was this one guy directly across from me, Davis,
(30:43):
and his bed or racked. It was immaculate, so I
kind of observed him to see how he was doing it.
You had to have everything lined up in your locker,
your hangars had to be two fingers apart, your soap
and everything had to be in a certain spot. And
I observe what other people's looked like, and you kind
of adapted to how they were doing it. The guy
(31:05):
to the left of me was an elderly Spanish guy
who was really good at polishing his boots. I actually
asked him I said, can you show me how you
get him so shiny? And he was showing me different ways.
Speaker 14 (31:16):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
As you can imagine in a prison facility, there were
a bunch of screw ups as well, and they had
their own special nickname.
Speaker 9 (31:28):
Shipbird was somebody that didn't have their shit together. They
were flying around messed up and they needed correction.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Other inmates would call you a shipbird. Did I call
people a shipberd? Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (31:38):
If you have a brown head on, you are considered
a shitbird.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
As Mark explains, there were several full time shipbirds, and
regardless of the infraction or who committed it in Shock,
the entire platoon was punished and each inmate was just
one mistake away from either being recycled in the program
or thrown out completely.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
McFadden was responsible for the entire dorm having their lockers
dumped one night. They would literally just toss them and
your shit would be all over the place.
Speaker 9 (32:13):
They had to maintain those lockers perfect, so I'd always
have the midnight offer stay back, inspect the lockers and
if they found it, well, maybe their locker got tipped over,
and if they did it the game, maybe their locker
got thrown across the squad bay.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
If they did again, maybe they came back.
Speaker 9 (32:25):
To their locker was outside, or maybe they moved outside
with their locker and lived at the light pole with
their locker for a day or two.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
This fucking guy would never have his shoes lined up.
We came back from dinner in the danger zone was
a fucking mound of shoes. Every single one was tied together.
And he said, you can thank McFadden for you guys
having the next hour getting your shoes out of here.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Go ahead, have fun.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
And you looked around and you were like, what the fuck.
First thing I did, I went down to my rack.
I want to see if it was a joke. I
want to make sure they were actually gone. They were gone,
and we were like, you motherfucker. I quickly realized that
in order to graduate shock incarceration prison and avoid doing
(33:13):
my full bid sentence in a max prison, that I
needed to not only help myself but also help every
fucking member of the rough Rider platoon to start following
orders in lockstep. One thing I certainly knew was this
would be an uphill challenge to accomplish, But to be honest,
I didn't know exactly what to expect Next.
Speaker 18 (33:43):
Shock 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 Ragazzo and Jeff Keating. Story edit by
Jim Roberts, Edit mix and sound design by Lane Krauts.
Speaker 14 (34:04):
From Herd's Creek Productions.
Speaker 18 (34:06):
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.
It was about thirty of us on the bus, one
of those old school correctional facility school buses, and they
handcuffed your hands in front and your feet shackled, and
then they had a chain going from your hands to.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Your feet so you couldn't move. I was feeling helpless,
couldn't even pick.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
My nose if I wanted to. And my mind was
in a thousand different directions for ten and.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A half hours. And I can remember.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Staring out of that bus window and just looking at
trees and cars and looking at people, and looking at
intersections and stores and banks and gas stations, anything you
could possibly think of. And my vision and my goal
was to get to see those things as quickly as
I can. Again, I just want to get back on
(00:48):
that other side of this bus.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
From iHeartRadio and Doghouse Pictures. This is Shock incarceration. I'm
Jeff Keating. Mark's thoughts consumed him through the silent ten
(01:26):
hour bus ride from the Ulster County Correctional Facility to
Lakeview's Shot incarceration program. During the multiple stops along the
way they picked up over twenty additional prisoners, Mark wondered,
how the hell did I get myself into this and
his biggest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Am I going to complete this? That was my biggest
fear and my biggest concern. Am I going to be
able to do this?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
You know? Once I get there?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Am I going to be able to actually do this?
And to think about the same thought for like ten hours?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
You know?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I think that was probably our first way to mind
fuck you if you really think about it, that was
probably like the beginning test.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short term,
highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These
programs are designed for young, first time, non violent offenders
and aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing
strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark
(02:32):
was about to arrive at Lakeview, a sanctioned facility that
was part of the New York prison system.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You pull into this place and you could see the
lights on the barbed wire.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It was like right out of a movie.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Your throat it was at my feet because it was like,
all right, here we are, this is it.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
There's no turning back.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And then they had us pull into one big gate
where the bus went in and then a big gate
closed behind the bus. And it was about ten o'clock
at night now, so we were tired, and the guards
started saying, you guys have no idea what you're in for.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I mean, you could absolutely hear a pin drop.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Another inmate that went through the shock incarceration program at
Lakeview was Ed Revere.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Then when we got to Lakeview, one drill instructor said,
all right, everyone's going to get off the bus. You're
going to walk through this pull barn and make a left.
He walks off the bus and he lights up a cigarette,
and then out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
This one drill instructor came on the bus and he
was a big, massive correctional officer, you know, with that
hard brim and everything like you would see in a movie,
and a whistle and he blew it as by the
loudest swhistle I ever heard of my life.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
Your meggot's get off the fucking bus.
Speaker 7 (03:54):
The very first people in our front seat, they random
and they threw them off the bus, tumbling down these
stairs because they're shackled, and I'm going.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
What the hell?
Speaker 7 (04:05):
You finally get off the bus and.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
They're right next to you, like, move your ass motherfucker,
you piece of shit, and you're pushing on in the
back of your I'll believe because you're shackled with this
other guy and you're just like, what the hell just happened?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And then he kind of really went into us. He said,
you're in here because your piece is of shit. You
belong to us. Now you are a number, a New
York State number, and you belong to us, and we
own you, and we are going.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
To treat you the way you need to be treated.
He said, from now on, the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
First word out of your mouth is going to be sir.
The last word out of your mouth is going to
be sir. Does everybody understand that? And nobody said anything.
We just didn't because we didn't know if we should
say it then or say it now again.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
You could hear a pin drop and he said, listen
to me, you motherfuckers. The first word out of your
mouth is going to be sir. The last word out of.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Your mouth is going to be sir. Do I make
myself clear? And we were all like, sir, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Bullshit, motherfucker, bullshit.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
You will sound off, you will be loud, you will scream.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Do I make myself clear, and it was sir yes,
sir louder, Sir yes, sir louder. Sorry, yet we must
have done it eight nine times. I mean he had
us screaming it and I'm thinking myself, Holy fuck, like
what is this?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Drill?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Instructor Paul Stack began at Lakeview in two thousand and
three and has welcomed thousands of new inmates to Shock
over the years.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
Immediately we will be all over them in their face,
asking them why they're looking around. And you don't wait
for responses. These are rhetorical questions. As soon as they
start to answer and they open their mouth, now we're
yelling at him even more because we don't want an answer.
So it's setting them up for failure. Right off the
back they come in, we process them. We got to
(06:00):
take the restraints off them that we've had during transport
off and again, make sure they're following directions. You will
not turn your head, you will not look to the side,
You will look straight forward. Eyes in your head will
be straight. You will not look at anything but was
exactly in front of you. It's just NonStop. It's non
stopping because it's just so much being thrown at them
all at once.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Here's former shock in mate Ed Revere.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
They weigh you, take your picture and they take one
at a time, and people had disappeared. So then it
was my turn and I go around and they weigh me.
They take my picture and they say get out of here.
So I'm running out the door. I ran out the
wrong door. So I come running out the wrong door
and there's the bus and no one else is around.
(06:47):
I will, what the hell does happen? So I'm kind
of looking around. Well, one of the drill instructors saw
me standing out of the zone. Holy shit, he came
running at me like I thought, he's gonna kill me.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
Your motherfucker, how the fuck did you screw this up?
Speaker 7 (07:05):
You're like retarded, you stupid son of a pitch out
the right fucking door.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
I turn around and we ran out the other door
and there's everybody in line.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Drill instructor Russell Clark, a thirty year veteran of Lakeview,
explains the welcoming reception is part of the program.
Speaker 9 (07:23):
We had a skit We've given them very loud, and
they'd be shaken. For them, it's a shock. They've never
seen this. They don't know what if they expect they
all get treated the same. It's like equally worthless pieces
or shit. And they were scared. I don't think any
of them knew what they were getting into.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
They walked us in single file, a couple rows and
you checked in, and they told us repetitively that we
own you. We own you. New York State owns you.
You do as we say, and if you didn't, they'll
be health to pay. They're making you nervous, They're making
you do something wrong immediately because they want to make
sure that they have the upper hand. Some of them
(07:59):
they spit in their face. A couple of them got
slapped in the head.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
The place was like being in a freezer.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was cold from day one until I left. And green.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Everything's green.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The walls were light green, the bathrooms were darker, green
tiles in the shower, and the green uniforms. You know,
everything was green.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Everything was moving a million miles an hour, and there
were no breaks to have anything explained twice in no time.
The new arrivals were given everything they needed for the
entirety of their sentence.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
They gave you a fresh set of clothes, boots, winter
hat and hoodie and all your basic necessitiesbrush, toothpaste, and
the whole time that this was going on, they are
screaming at you. So under that pressure and in that environment,
you can in your first five minutes there, you're easily
going to make a mistake. And that's what they want
you to do, because they want to prove to you
(08:53):
that you're gonna make mistakes, and we're going to call
you out on every one of them.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
They will fail.
Speaker 8 (08:58):
It's going to happen. They are absolutely not going to
follow those directions, like I just said.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
After receiving their essentials, Mark and the other inmates entered
their preshock living quarters and got their mandatory haircut. According
to the Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of
New York, all incoming shock inmates will have a haircut
on the first day in the facility. Haircuts will be
military style, one quarter inch in length and completely trimmed
(09:29):
around the years.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
They took us one by one, just shaved our heads.
We're buck naked standing there. They give you this gel
or license stuff. They want to make sure that there's
no drum. So they just shaved your head, threw you
down there, slapped this shit in here.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
And whoa This is crazy, man, What the fuck is.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Going on here? You know, Mark learned that even showering
is a stressful experience.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
In Shock, they made us line up in roses seven.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And then fourteen of us went in and shot and
I'd say, you got three minutes.
Speaker 9 (10:02):
There's seven shower heads and about fourteen the Mays stand
in there, so they had to move. They had to
share the water, get out of each other's way, scrub up,
and when I blew the whistle it was time to
come out.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
They push a button, the water comes out.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Seven people step up and get wet, and then back
up and soap up, and then the other seven people
would step up and get wet, and then you would
quickly rotate. So you had three minutes to do that
and get out and put your clothes on and go
to bed. Don't make a peep. That was the first night.
That's what we did, and we didn't know what to
(10:33):
expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
The lights were out, no more shouting, no more spit
flying in his face, no more intimidation, at least not
until tomorrow morning. Alone with his thoughts, along with several
dozen conflicts he'd never met Mark tried his best to
settle in.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
The first night was overwhelming, more conversation with myself than
I ever thought I.
Speaker 9 (11:02):
Would when they go to bed or you're just staring
up at the ceild and say, what the hell did
I do to expect this.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I laid in that bed and I was scared. I
was nervous. I didn't want to fall asleep. I remember,
and I need to say, I need to be awake.
I need to see what's going on. You're laying in
bed and you don't know who's next to you. These
beds were about four and a half feet apart and
just rose lined up. You don't know who anybody is,
so you're looking around. You want to get the lay
(11:28):
of the land. You don't know anything about these guys.
You don't know who did what, why they're there, what
they're capable of.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
You have no idea.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
After an hour of scanning the room and contemplating what
kind of hell was coming in the morning, Mark realized
no amount of worrying was going to make the next
day easier.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Probably the best thing for me is to go to sleep,
because there was too many things in my head. Just
go to bed, try to get some sleep, be fresh
for the morning, and see what this fucking place is
all about.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And with those final thoughts, Mark closed his eyes and
tried to think back to a better time in his life.
(12:19):
Oakland a small, charming town twenty miles west of New
York City with about twelve thousand residents, a place that
New Jersey Monthly once touted as the number one town
in New Jersey for young families.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oakland's a fantastic town. It really is a very small
knit community. Everybody kind of knew everybody. It was my mother.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
We moved there in nineteen eighty two when I married
my second husband.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
My stepfather, Richard, and his two daughters from a previous marriage,
my stepsisters, Vicki and Judy.
Speaker 10 (12:52):
I've lived there in my whole life. I raised my
kids there. They have great school system. It's a great family,
great sports for kids.
Speaker 11 (13:03):
I loved not only in New Jersey but our town.
Growing up there, we were near the Rampo River, and
now that I'm a parent, I marvel at the fact
that it was like a ten eleven year old with
my group of friends and we'd be down by the
Rampo River all day long.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
My older brother Donnie's five years older than me.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I got there when I was twelve. Mark was seven,
I think, and my twin brother David. Dave and I
were fantastic together as twins growing up. I mean, what
would any other kid want. It's like a permanent, every
day of the minute friend to play with.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And that's what we had.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Whether it was baseball, soccer, playing with trucks, toys, just
messing up the house, pissing off our mother, you know,
banging kitchen cabinets. It didn't matter what it was, you know,
you always had somebody to do it and somebody to
blame it on.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Two of Mark's closest friends growing up were Jason and Darren.
Speaker 12 (13:54):
Oakland kind of has a hill that a lot of
the houses are up on. I lived up at the
top of the hill and then it comes down to
the main road of Oakland, and they lived just across
that road, so I could ride my bike there easily.
Speaker 13 (14:08):
Small town, hardworking people. I think my graduating class had
maybe one hundred and ninety five people in it or
something like that. At high school it was mostly Italian.
I say this to everybody. I had the greatest friends
in high school. I love those guys I never could
imagine having friends as close as I did with them.
Speaker 12 (14:28):
These guys we're talking about are people that I've been
friends with almost my whole life. High schools where we
formed the most strong groups of friendships. But it's a
lot like what you'd expect from small town America.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
It wasn't just a charming town with nice houses, a
winding river, and huge parks. In the eighties and nineties,
Oakland offered so much more with its own mall, arcade,
movie theater and lots of great restaurants.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You had a couple places. You had Scanio's, and you
had Molly's. Fish Market was a good one, and Kermit's Pond,
where my older brother Don actually worked for a short
period of time.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
But there was one place that all the kids in
Oakland went to. It was their Arnold's. It was their
peach pit, it was their central perk.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It was Junior's Pizza.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Junior's Pizza was the place we all hung out at,
whether we were nine to ten or right through high school.
Junior's Pizza was the place everybody went.
Speaker 14 (15:28):
So when you were a kid, you just left school
and went over to Junior's Pizza.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Great Turkish family that owned the place, three brothers, Baki, Kadeer,
and Hattie. I mean they became family, they really did.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
They were so good to everybody that came in. They
were good to the kids, and the kids respected them.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Mark and Dave's family and friends could distinguish their personalities
as they grew up. Here's their friend Jason.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
Mark and Dave could not have been any more different
than they are. I know, they're twins. Stunning to see
how different they actually are, not only from the way
they look, their personalities are starkly different too.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
My brother would be a g rated brother.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
You know. I was the guy that usually got us
in trouble. I'm sure my mother will have some stories
about that.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
They would shake baby powder in the room to where
you were choking and coughing, and everything was covered in
white baby powder.
Speaker 14 (16:23):
They were a menace. I was sort of a laid
back guy. They were always having a good time and
I was just trying to get left alone.
Speaker 13 (16:32):
They're kind of like Martin and Lewis, like the stray
guy and the silly guy. Mark was the silly guy, hilarious,
just doing silly things that were just so funny, just
like a perfect pair of funny comedic duo.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
One of Mark's favorite childhood memories is the time he
got both of them in trouble with the neighbors and
then quickly tried to talk his way out of it.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
We had the Wingadora. It was a water balloon launcher.
It was a huge rubber band. One guy would hold
it up here, and one guy would hold it up here,
and the guy in the middle would pull it back.
And when I tell you, this would throw a water balloon,
probably two hundred yards and it was a bullet. So
one night we put oranges in it and we were
(17:14):
whacking the neighbor's house.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
God's on a story.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
This is how stupid we were kids one hundred feet
across the street, mister and missus Kramer what's their name.
And they came outside and I went and took orange
juice out of the kitchen refrigerator and I poured her
on the front door.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Because she came over and said, what do you guys?
I said, look, they got us too, the orange all
down the door. I mean, it's stupid, stupid.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
She knew it was us.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Oh, Mark and Davis brothers. They were an experience.
Speaker 14 (17:46):
They really were.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Mark drew in the car industry right out of high school,
and his twin Dave, became a big success, making six
figures and living the dream working for the Fortune five
hundred investment bank Morgan Stanley. A few years later he
moved on to Bank of America.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
He was a stockbroker, account manager, you know, somebody who
had a book of business and get new clients and
invest their money and just kind of monitor for him,
give him the heads up when you should be selling
or buying, and you know, whatever stockbrokers do. He was
doing well. He was doing very well. The money was
rolling in. I was happy a hell for him. I
thought it was fantastic. He bought a convertible Porsche. He
(18:31):
bought a condo and Hoboken four stories. He was on
the fourth floor. He at a penthouse. You'd take an elevator,
you open it up, it's right in your living rooms.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Gorgeous. It was a very very nice condo.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Jason remembered Dave's early career success.
Speaker 12 (18:44):
We were all still working and establishing our careers and
trying to find our way in the.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
World, and Dave was probably the most successful of us.
Speaker 12 (18:52):
He was living pretty high on the hog at that point,
but wasn't that surprising to us because he'd always been
such a hard work.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
In addition to building a vast client list, Dave managed
money for his brothers as well. Don pushed Dave to
invest in a Silicon Valley giant.
Speaker 14 (19:09):
I convinced him that I wanted to invest in Apple,
and he's like, no, no, no, absolutely not. And I'm like,
I wanted to get a thousand shares of Apple at
the time, which was I think twenty two dollars or
whatever it was, and I said, I want to do this.
He got me two hundred and fifty shares of Apple
and that quickly rose split again.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It was doing well.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Mark also crusted it early in his career, parlaying his
hot numbers as a tire salesman into a management position
at one of the largest and most successful car dealerships
in the country.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I reached out to a BMW dealer who was a
great customer of mine when I was with the other time.
They brought me on and I was a service advisor
then I was a parts and service director.
Speaker 14 (19:52):
And I knew he wanted to get into sales, and
I knew he was that kind of guy like a salesman.
But I was like, all right, starting to bottom and
work your way up, figure out what you want to do,
and you're still a young kid. But he did. He
got better and better at what he was doing, and
he just stuck with it.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Landing the BMW job was only Mark's second greatest score
in the early two thousands. His greatest feet of the
decade occurred hanging with some buddies at a bar, when
he bumped into Liz, an old friend from his high
school days, and jokingly proposed to her rite on the spot.
This bold move epitomized Mark's nature and helped kickstart their
(20:31):
love story.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So I knew Liz from high school.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
She actually went to Rampo, the rival high school, and
she dated a friend of mine after high school.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Once we were in our early twenties.
Speaker 15 (20:43):
I met Mark because someone I was friends with hosted
a poker game, so I would go over there for
the poker nights and hang with the guys.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
And I ran into her at a bar about five
or six years later, and I said, oh my god, Liz,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
What's going on?
Speaker 15 (20:59):
I think he said, let's have dinner, maybe have some kids,
and moved to Florida.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And she said yeah in that order, and I went
out with her the following week.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
We had dinner. We kind of hit it off.
Speaker 14 (21:10):
Liz. We really love Liz.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Her mother and my husband at the time kind of
worked together. Her mother was a realtor, my husband was
in the mortgage in and we enjoyed getting together with them.
Speaker 14 (21:23):
Liz. I always liked her. She was such a good girl.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Mark found love and someone who was both similar to
him and his total opposite, like the relationship with his
twin brother Dave. The same but different, and they seemed
perfect together.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
She was fun and quite honestly, she was a lot
different than me. She wasn't flashy or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
She was very down to earth.
Speaker 15 (21:48):
His personality was so engaging. He's very charismatic. He was fine.
It was never a dull moment. He was very positive,
and it was like a brother of fresh air. He
was just absolutely fun all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And she liked to laugh. I think that was That's
the thing I loved about her the most. She really
enjoyed joking around and going out, having to drink and
just not a care in the world, just laughing, dancing,
kind of person, good hearted girl.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
These wonderful memories Mark dreamt of would quickly be replaced
by the harsh reality of his first day in shock incarceration.
(22:41):
Mark jolted awake to a barrage of unruly noises as
he braced himself for the first day of shock incarceration.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
They bang garbage can lids, they blow whistles. You have
three seconds to be out of bed, standing at attention
at the endge of your bed.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I didn't know that. They don't tell you that.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You heard that whistle and garbage can and shit your pants,
opened your eyes, and you saw everybody else doing it,
so you did it. Those people that were there two nights,
three nights before me, they knew what to do, and
they obviously had their first night and not knowing what.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
To do in the morning.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So I very quickly found out that five point thirty
in the morning, that's what you have to do.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Despite being savvy enough to follow along with the rest
of his fellow inmates, Mark didn't quite understand why.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What's with the screaming This one guy across from me, Davis,
that's what they want you to do when you wake
up every morning. You have to wake up screaming.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Here's drill instructor Russell Clark.
Speaker 9 (23:36):
And they'd have to scream as they're getting out of
bed and stand in attention. They had to do that instantly.
If not, they're going to get back in and out
of the wreck.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
The first thing they do every morning is the count.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So drellal instructor would say, all right, start and for
the first thing, it's sir one sir, sir, two sir, sir,
three sir, and they go all the way around the room.
So two parts of the dorm would go in the
bathroom do their thing, while the other part of the
dorm is made in their beds and getting all their
clothes and all that stuff reddy. So they would go
for about three minutes and he would blow the whistle. Well,
it didn't matter where you were at. If you were
(24:07):
halfway don't your bed, or if you were halfwa brushing
your teeth, it was now your turn to do the
other half of the six minutes. So after you do
the count, the drill instructor would say, okay, the dress
code for today is and he would rattle off greens,
work boots, brown cap, whatever was very specific. So we
would do that and then everybody would stand at attention.
(24:28):
They would walk up and down to give a quick inspection.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
After an inspection of their clothes, the inmates were rushed
outside for physical training or PT, and the lake View
Drill Instructors or d I's didn't ease in the newbies
from day one. It was balls to the wall, and
the stories he'd heard of Shock's relentless PT scared Mark
more than the yelling, screaming or threats of violence.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I was really concerned.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I was two hundred and eight pounds, I was out
of shape, and I was considered one of the older people.
I was thirty six when I went in. The average
age was twenty, so it's a lot of younger kids,
and I was very concerned about being able to keep
up with them. It was push up, sit up, jumping jacks, jogging,
place scissor kicks, all these exercises together. You're using muscles
(25:20):
you never use, and I was hurting.
Speaker 9 (25:22):
It was going to be hard on the inmates. Here
we get guys in out of shape. I've done very
little physical activities in her life, and.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
At night things didn't get any easier. Here's Ed Revere
breaking down their routine.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Typically at nighttime, it's a drone instructor. He would help racks.
You strip down to your boxers, stand in the corner,
and then he would say ready, Racks, and then you
yell yes, Surrey, take two steps. Everyone had to get
into the rack at the same time. The wild part
is they also never turned off the lights, your lights.
Around twenty four to seven, it was rough. I learned
(25:58):
how to sleep without a pill on to pillo over
my head, and then you had the outside area that
also had lights. So nighttime they would turn the far
outside lights off and might make it a little dimmer,
but overall nope.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
The first two weeks were intended to break down the
new arrivals. The shock incarceration program is officially six months,
but those six months only commence when an entire platoon
of fifty four inmates has been built, beds become available
in one of ten dorms, and after a preceding platoon graduates.
Here's drill instructor Clark.
Speaker 9 (26:35):
In the first two weeks we call zero weeks because
it doesn't call for anything.
Speaker 16 (26:38):
Our job then is teach them the program, teach them
the way, get them ready. Those two weeks of intense
training for I tell you what. I went home sore
and tired every day and lost my voice every zero weeks,
and they never knew that. The very last day of
zero weeks, we'd do what's called a knucklehead drill and
we take them to the pt deck we're behind the school,
and we pt them for three hours straight.
Speaker 9 (27:00):
So it's the hardest two weeks is the first two weeks.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
It's brutal out there. And if there was snow, sleet, rain,
freezing ice, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. You were
out there doing it and he froze your balls off.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You didn't have a choice.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
On top of the grueling physical training, the inmates were
also required to attend group therapy sessions. Mark vividly remembers
the first one.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
In a single file.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
We walked into the room, a twenty by twenty square room,
and all four walls were mirrors, and as we walked in,
Councilor Rose kind of directed us around the room. We
stood there at an arm's length away from each other,
looking at the mirror, one by one, all four walls.
You just start thinking about family and make that change.
(27:50):
I remember specifically saying that line, and that's what this
was for it was to make a change, and it
was to make a positive change. And I'm getting goosebumps
even telling you the story now because I can see
the emotion in my eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I can see a little quiver in the lip. You know,
you get emotional, but yet you got to fight through it.
Speaker 17 (28:10):
And everything I did when I hear stuff like that
and think about stuff like that and doing the right thing,
it was all back to family and why am I
here and how bad they're thinking about me and how
worried they are about me, And that was my biggest
fear in there, and my biggest struggle, quite honestly.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Mark's preshock lasted nearly two stress filled months from his
arrival at Lakeview a week before Christmas twenty twelve, through
February eighth, twenty thirteen, when his platoon, the Rough Riders,
was ready to begin the program. He used this time
to learn how he could best exceed expectations and avoid
(28:53):
the wrath of the drill instructors, who seemingly look for
any excuse they could find to explode into a slew
of spit filled commands.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Shaki is a hands on program and ultimately, how it
was explained to us is by the law, they have
the ability to put their hands on you, whether it's
slapping you, grabbing you, throwing you down to the ground,
handcuffing you. I don't necessarily think it meant that they
could knee you in the ribs or punch you in
the back, which they did at times. You know, I've
seen that, But it is a hands on facility. The
(29:25):
first time I saw a confrontation between the guards and
an inmate, they put fear in you, because at the
end of the day, is that going to be me.
Mostly it's a quick jab or two that they get
off in the chest, in the ribs, a knee, a punch,
But it happened on a regular basis.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Mark avoided zero week's punishment by following orders, not talking back,
and never ever eyeballing a drill instructor.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There's no talking.
Speaker 9 (29:52):
You're handneiser main straight forward at all times.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You're gonna eyeball staff.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
You cannot look a drill instructor in the eye. You
cannot ever look at him in the eye.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Ever.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
If a drill instructor would say Lombardo front and center, sir, yes, sir,
you'd run up to him and you would look right
over him, you know, to the right of him. To
left them, you'd be looking at the wall behind him,
but you never look at his eyes.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Being acutely aware of what fellow inmates were doing to
avoid trouble, Mark paid attention to those doing things the
right way and tried to follow their lead.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
In the first couple of days, if not week and
a half two weeks, it was a lot of observation
on my part. It was observing who made their rack
the quickest, who made it the best, because we got
judged on that, and drill instructors would walk up and down.
So there was this one guy directly across from me, Davis,
(30:43):
and his bed or racked. It was immaculate, so I
kind of observed him to see how he was doing it.
You had to have everything lined up in your locker,
your hangars had to be two fingers apart, your soap
and everything had to be in a certain spot. And
I observe what other people's looked like, and you kind
of adapted to how they were doing it. The guy
(31:05):
to the left of me was an elderly Spanish guy
who was really good at polishing his boots. I actually
asked him I said, can you show me how you
get him so shiny? And he was showing me different ways.
Speaker 14 (31:16):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
As you can imagine in a prison facility, there were
a bunch of screw ups as well, and they had
their own special nickname.
Speaker 9 (31:28):
Shipbird was somebody that didn't have their shit together. They
were flying around messed up and they needed correction.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Other inmates would call you a shipbird. Did I call
people a shipberd? Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (31:38):
If you have a brown head on, you are considered
a shitbird.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
As Mark explains, there were several full time shipbirds, and
regardless of the infraction or who committed it in Shock,
the entire platoon was punished and each inmate was just
one mistake away from either being recycled in the program
or thrown out completely.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
McFadden was responsible for the entire dorm having their lockers
dumped one night. They would literally just toss them and
your shit would be all over the place.
Speaker 9 (32:13):
They had to maintain those lockers perfect, so I'd always
have the midnight offer stay back, inspect the lockers and
if they found it, well, maybe their locker got tipped over,
and if they did it the game, maybe their locker
got thrown across the squad bay.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
If they did again, maybe they came back.
Speaker 9 (32:25):
To their locker was outside, or maybe they moved outside
with their locker and lived at the light pole with
their locker for a day or two.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
This fucking guy would never have his shoes lined up.
We came back from dinner in the danger zone was
a fucking mound of shoes. Every single one was tied together.
And he said, you can thank McFadden for you guys
having the next hour getting your shoes out of here.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Go ahead, have fun.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
And you looked around and you were like, what the fuck.
First thing I did, I went down to my rack.
I want to see if it was a joke. I
want to make sure they were actually gone. They were gone,
and we were like, you motherfucker. I quickly realized that
in order to graduate shock incarceration prison and avoid doing
(33:13):
my full bid sentence in a max prison, that I
needed to not only help myself but also help every
fucking member of the rough Rider platoon to start following
orders in lockstep. One thing I certainly knew was this
would be an uphill challenge to accomplish, But to be honest,
I didn't know exactly what to expect Next.
Speaker 18 (33:43):
Shock 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 Ragazzo and Jeff Keating. Story edit by
Jim Roberts, Edit mix and sound design by Lane Krauts.
Speaker 14 (34:04):
From Herd's Creek Productions.
Speaker 18 (34:06):
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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