Should Joe Nacchio report to a federal prison in Pennsylvania as expected Tuesday, the former Qwest chief executive will be strip-searched and issued a green button-up shirt and matching pants.
He’ll get a pair of shoes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, a bar of soap and laundry detergent.
Within two to three hours, the 59-year-old Brooklyn native will have a “bunkie,” an inmate with whom he’ll share a cubicle on a floor of cubicles.
Two to three days later he’ll have been assigned a prison job that pays between 12 and 40 cents an hour, likely cleaning a bathroom or serving food.
“It’s going to sink on him that he’s not important anymore,” said Jimmy Tayoun, a former Philadelphia politician convicted of bribery who spent more than three years at Schuylkill. “No one cares who he is.”
Unless he’s transferred or released early for good behavior, the prison camp at Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Minersville will be Nacchio’s home for the next six years, the outcome of his conviction for illegal insider trading.
But the minimum-security Schuyl kill camp — it’s a satellite location to the medium-security prison of the same name — is hardly the “Club Fed” critics paint, former inmates say, despite the decent living conditions and edible food.
The worst part may be the isolation and time away from family.
“It’s going to be awfully lonely,” Tayoun said.
The one-time superstar was recruited from AT&T in 1997 by Qwest founder Philip Anschutz and orchestrated the Denver company’s takeover of phone giant U S West in 2000. Nacchio reaped millions in the aftermath.
But Qwest flirted with bankruptcy at the end of his tenure in 2002, mired in an accounting scandal and saddled with $25 billion in debt.
Five years later, Nacchio was convicted on 19 counts of illegal insider trading, accused of selling $52 million in Qwest stock in early 2001 based on private warnings that the company was faltering financially.
Far from familiarity
Schuylkill is a long way from familiarity for Nacchio.
Inmates work about seven hours a day, five days a week. Otherwise they read, watch television, work out or play sports such as softball, basketball and bocce.
There isn’t a fenced perimeter, and there’s only one guard per shift.
“It’s nice as far as being incarcerated goes,” said George Stantzos, an inmate from 2001 to 2005. “In reality, it’s not nice. You’re put in a melting pot with people from all different levels of society and you have to (coexist).”
Politicians, bankers, doctors and lawyers roamed the grounds during Tayoun’s days from 1991 to 1994. It’s also home to white-collar criminals and nonviolent drug offenders.
“We have enough talent, we could run a city,” Tayoun said he once quipped to a guard.
ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal, a key figure in Martha Stewart’s stock-dumping scandal, served 18 months there for securities fraud, bank fraud and other charges. Waksal’s first job was to clean the same bathroom every day, said Stantzos, in Schuylkill on drug-related charges.
Waksal had little to say when contacted for this story. “What does one say? It’s prison,” he said.
Beds, desk and dresser
Opened in 1991, the Schuylkill camp can house 300 inmates. The cubicles each hold two inmates with a bunk bed, desk and dresser. They’re separated from other cubicles in the dormlike setting by 4-foot-high cinder-block walls.
Dibs on a bottom bunk, where there’s more privacy, is based on medical need or seniority.
The cafeteria is in the nearby administration building, where there’s a gym and rec room.
Inmates get visitors on alternating weekends and 500 minutes a month of phone time, each call limited to 15 minutes. Family members can wire money for inmates to use at the commissary.
Escape attempts are rare, but food smuggling is another matter. Inmates often have family and friends leave food in the woods following visits, Stantzos said.
“At nighttime, the inmates would run out to the woods (and) grab the food,” he recalled.
“Shakedown” searches for contraband occur frequently, sometimes turning up some interesting things.
An inmate’s smuggled toupee was confiscated. He refused to leave his cubicle for a month, not even to eat, Stantzos recalled.
“This guy was a psychiatrist,” he said. “That’s the crazy thing about it.”
Former Massachusetts state Sen. Joseph Timilty, who did a four-month stretch in Schuylkill, chronicled his time behind bars in a book, “Prison Journal: An Irreverent Look at Life on the Inside.” In it, he suggests the government should order criminals such as Nacchio to do community work rather than spend thousands of taxpayer dollars to keep them locked up.
“Sending people like him and me to these types of camps,” Timilty said, “is an absolute waste of money.”
Librarian Barbara Hudson contributed to this report.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
