Canton Cover-Up Part 289: Turtleboy’s Prison Journals Part 4, Turtleboy Gets Deep
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Today is my 45th day in jail and one of the most anxiety-inducing. I’m writing Part 4 of my prison journal today, primarily so the day will go by faster. If I don’t find something to occupy my mind, all I will think about is the elephant in the room – our appeal to the SJC that is currently under advisement.
Seventeen days ago, my attorney filed a 17-page petition with the state’s highest court, asking them to reduce my bail revocation from 90 to 60 days, undo the bail revocation entirely, return my phones and computer, restore my First Amendment rights completely, and have the entire 16-count indictment reviewed by the full seven Justice panel.
I don’t need my phones back today, I know that we will win with the indictments, and I know that eventually I will be able to publish public court documents. So, they can take their time on that stuff. But what I need ASAP, is to know if I’m getting out of here so I can see my children, start my new life, and continue my award-winning journalism.
I want to be home for the Super Bowl badly. Every year we go to my buddy’s house and drink beer, eat food, and gamble with friends I’ve had since I was a kid. Getting together like this is harder when people have families, so the Super Bowl is an important event that unites us, and one that I really look forward to.
I also want to be out before 60 days on February 23, because there are a lot of important court dates coming up that I would like to attend as a free man. There is a world of difference between showing up to court in chains and showing up to court on my own accord, in a fresh new suit with the American flag behind me, holding a press conference on the courthouse steps.
I don’t mind the chains that much since they highlight the outrageousness of what is happening. Everyone knows I am not a dangerous person. They know I never threatened, assaulted or intimidated anyone. They know that I’m a law-abiding citizen being imprisoned by the same corrupt government agents I’ve been exposing. The idea that I should be in shackles, like accused murderer Brian Walshe when he enters the same court, is ridiculous. But until you see it, it’s hard to comprehend the injustice.
There are four court dates in the next two weeks that I will either attend as a prisoner or a free man:
- February 12 in Leominster District Court. Krusty Panties criminal complaint hearing for witness intimidation and trespassing. In several videos she threatened me with physical violence if I attended court proceedings in which I was a witness, or made it known that I’d be attending. At her January 6, 2023, court hearing in West Roxbury, for violating a restraining order against a woman she was stalking for being a friend of mine, she followed through on her threat by bringing her boyfriend Andrew Johnson to court, who proceeded to assault me on video.
He was subsequently charged with assault and battery, and was facing charges of assaulting Kate’s daughter with a knife, at the time. Holden Police also charged her with trespassing for coming to my house on July 22, while I was hosting a peaceful protest in Canton, leaving a threatening note for the mother of my children, and photographing herself in my driveway. A Magistrate will decide Monday if charges will be filed.
- February 15 – Karen Read’s court date in Norfolk Superior.
- February 16 – my court date for a Pre-Trial Conference in Norfolk Superior.
- February 20 – Andrew Johnson’s trial in West Roxbury, in which I am a victim and witness.
Obviously I much rather attend these proceedings as a free man, but mentally I am preparing that I won’t be free. That way I won’t be devastated if it doesn’t go my way. Worst case scenario, I spend two more weeks in jail, which I could do in my sleep at this point.
Nevertheless, I’d be ecstatic to get out. This has been the longest 45 days of my life, and I’ve almost forgot what it feels like not to be in here. I miss seeing my kids every day, driving a car, being able to use a phone without typing in a nine digit PIN, having unmonitored calls that don’t end after 15 minutes, texting, sending videos, eating what I choose, sleeping on a mattress, having a pillow, watching TV, watching YouTube streams, reading online comments, doing the Live show, having privacy, not being filmed in the bathroom, wearing whatever clothes I want, going to the gym, running streets instead of circles, and so much more. These are the little things you don’t realize how much you enjoy, until they are taken away from you.
My daily routine remains the same. At morning recess, I run 6-8 miles, talk to my kids before they get on the bus, shower, shave, drink coffee, and watch Sports Center. Then I go back to my cell in the medical unit from 10:00 am – 6:30 pm, eat lunch at 11:00 am and dinner at 4:00 pm. I continue to eat tons of fruit and vegetables that I never ate on the outside and look forward to continuing these healthy habits after I’m released.
I have an insane person next to me named Kevin Burbank, who screams, yells, bangs his door, and calls imaginary people retards all night. He refuses to take his meds, so our broken system locks him in a cell 23 hours a day. It’s a joke.
I’ve also been recognized by two people down here as Turtleboy. One guy is a Turtlerider named Dawn’s boyfriend. The other is the first transgender prisoner I’ve met. I was confused to see what appears to be a chick down here, who immediately recognized me. It looks like a chick, has the voice of a chick, and is named Jessica. All Jessica told me, is that he or she, is transgender. I’m confused if Jessica has a cock, so I didn’t ask because transgenderism is all just made up anyway. Jessica wears green which means she or he is convicted and told me she or he was recently kicked out of a Boston jail. All I know is, Jessica is from Canton and likes my stories, so Jessica is cool by me.
At 6:30 pm, I go to evening rec and do 600 step-ups and 250 pushups. The other day, I met the first prisoner who was ever hostile to me. He had been moved down there because he had just got into a fight. He yelled, “Fuck you Turtleboy! You wrote about my ex-girlfriend Sarah Burke.” Sarah was featured on Turtleboy in 2017 for whoring herself out on webcams, and sometimes featured her kids in videos. The crackhead Dedham mother was later associated with Mike Giannetti and Lindsey Gaetani. Ratchets run together. The prisoner told me that there were others that wanted to beat me up too. I told him to tell his crackhead friends to get in line and laughed at him for simping for his whore ex-girlfriend.
The 8.5 hours I spend in my cell from 10:00 am – 6:30 pm will go slowly if I don’t keep my mind busy. On the outside, time flies because there’s so much to do and not enough time. That’s why I started doing my “Dear John” prison letters – it takes hours to write them by hand, call my Turtlepeople up, and dictate the articles for them to type out and publish. Time has gone by a lot faster because I’m always working on something.
The other thing that’s made the time move quicker has been reading. I’ve read two books in here that have given me a lot of perspective – To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Happiest Man on Earth – a New York Times best seller written by Auschwitz survivor, Eddie Jaku.
We “read” To Kill a Mockingbird in high school, but I never actually read a single book my teachers assigned. I was lazy, had CliffsNotes, and was friends with a lot of Asian kids who let me copy their homework. This was enough for the B- I strived for.
But now as an adult, I can appreciate classic literature that 16-year-old immature Turtleboy could not. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the greatest novels ever published. Written from the perspective of a 9-year-old Alabama girl in the 30s, named Scout Finch. It’s a story of injustice in the criminal justice system. Scout’s father, Atticus, is a lawyer and one of the greatest literary character ever. He is tasked with representing Tom Robinson – a deformed, 25-year-old Black father, falsely accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old white woman, from a poor white-trash family. In reality, the woman invited Tom into her house and threw herself at him, but Tom resisted her advances. The woman’s illiterate, trashy father Bob Ewell, saw this happen, beats his daughter for kissing a black man, and told police Tom Robinson beat her.
The evidence was all on Tom Robinson’s side and Atticus exposed the girl and her father to be liars on the stand. Nevertheless, the all-white jury convicts Tom of rape, and he ended up getting killed trying to escape from jail.
After the trial, Bob Ewell vows to destroy Atticus for exposing him on the stand. He spits in his face in public and tried to murder his 12-year-old son. But Atticus never gets upset or seeks revenge. He tells his kids that Bob is a trashy person, whose pride was insulted and didn’t know how to handle it. Stooping to his level meant degrading yourself.
I see my own situation a lot in this book. Like Tom Robinson, I’m wrongfully accused of assault by a trashy woman, and the justice system is rigged against me. Like Bob Ewell, there are trashy internet trolls who would like to see me in pain, for making them look dumb. But I must be like Atticus Finch. I must be above it all and never stoop to their level. I recognize that I’m living in an unjust society, but all I can do is continue to work to fix it. In the meantime, I must take the blows against me in stride.
Eddie Jaku lost his entire family in the Holocaust. He survived Auschwitz by being smart, conserving food and energy, and remaining optimistic. Jail is nothing like Auschwitz, but like Eddie, I did nothing wrong to be imprisoned. And like Eddie, I find ways to make prison less awful by doing little things like conserving mayonnaise packets, so I don’t have to eat tuna fish with mustard, which for some reason the jail serves it with. Like Eddie, I get by thinking about life when I get out of here.
But Eddie is the happiest man on Earth not because he survived, but because he liberated his soul. He says that other survivors who think the worst of humanity because of what they witnessed, have never truly been liberated from Auschwitz. Eddie lost his entire family, but his ultimate revenge against the Nazis was being happy. He did this by getting married, having two sons, four grandkids, and five great-grandkids. He never forgave the Nazis, but he didn’t allow them to dictate his happiness.
Reading his book has changed the way I thought about the people who put me in here. I will never forgive Brian Tully or Ken Mello and will seek justice for what they’ve taken from me. But for Lindsey Gaetani, I feel nothing but pity. She has to wake up every day an angry, broken person. Her only friends now are murderers and internet trolls, who I know she is disgusted by. She did this because she thought seeing me in pain would make her happy. She thought it would teach me a lesson that I wasn’t allowed to end things with her.
But if I remain angry with her and seek revenge, then I will never be truly happy and liberated from her. I will tell the story of what she did to defend myself on the charges, but I won’t allow her negative energy to change who I am. My only revenge will be to be happy, successful, and full of love for others – things she will never have unless she changes who she is. I hope for her sake that she does because she suffers from mental illness, and I don’t think she is purely evil as the people she surrounded herself with. There is still time for her to tell the truth and expose how Tully and Jennifer McCabe used her like trash, for their own benefit.
I can’t ever forgive Lindsey, just as Eddie can’t forgive the Nazis, but I can control the effect she has on me. Holding onto hate may hurt your enemies, but it hurts you more. Being happy, rich, successful, and forgetting she exists is the most powerful revenge there is.
During the hours it took to write this journal, Justice Kafker has been reading our petition for release and drafting his response. If I don’t write, then he is all I will be able to think about and the day will drag on slowly. Although I want to get out now, my real victory is that I am at peace with losing too. I pray that God gives him the wisdom to see the sham that it is, but I cannot control what he does and will not allow him to determine my happiness. Regardless of what he does, I will soon be free, this will all be a distant memory and I will be happy because I’m surrounded with love and support.
