I spent that summer in Morgantown, West Virginia attending training camp for the West Virginia University Mountaineers football team but I did not make the final cut. I may have been the fastest person in the state of West Virginia at one time but I was a middle of the pack defensive back in the Mountaineers defense. Coach Don Neihlan’s gave me the news himself and invited me to come back the next year, but I never did. By that time next year I would be facing 5-10 years in federal prison and football would be the last thing on my mind.
I began taking Military Science Class and the morning PT classes with the other cadets at ROTC. I had not been able to get an appointment to the United States Naval Academy but I was still planning to enter officer training school and flight school after I graduated. Now my plan was to get my degree, enlist in the Navy as an officer and become a pilot in the United States Navy after graduation.
I did meet a lot of guys on that team that smoked Ganja but none of them were from West Virginia and they didn’t know where to get Ganja So I started picking up a few ounces of Ganja on my weekends home, breaking them down and selling them to guys that would ask me. A few of the guys I met started selling for me and by the end of the first semester of my freshman year I was bringing over $10,000 a month which was quite a bit of money back then. I bought a Kawasaki Ninja and a silver 1988 Honda Accord-LXI 2 Door-Coupe.
It was 7:00 AM on a cold February morning my freshman year at West Virginia University when agents from the DEA and the Morgantown Police Department knocked on the door to my dorm room at 381 Boreman Hall with a warrant for my arrest. I was arrested and charged with two counts of distribution of marijuana 26.6 grams (1 ounce) and 14 grams (1/2 ounce) and conspiracy to distribute LSD. This was not a large amount, but the United States Attorney Sam Nazarro brought me into his office and personally threatened with me a 5-year sentence unless I testified against my childhood friend Devon Wheeler.
In 1990 the United States Attorney William Kolibash had indicted Kīrtanānanda Swami aka Keith Ham, the guru of New Vrindavana on 5 counts of racketeering, 6 counts of mail fraud, and 2 counts of conspiracy to commit the murder of two devotees who spoke against him, Charles St. Denis and Stephen Bryant. The Justice Department claimed that the followers of Kirtananda Swami had illegally amassed a profit of more than 10.5 million dollars through various criminal enterprises including the sale of illegal copyrighted materials and that he had engaged in the sexual abuse of minors. The indictment also charged that the Swami had ordered the killings of St. Denis and Bryant because the victims had threatened to reveal his sexual abuse of minors.
The government claimed that witnesses had seen Kirtananda Swami molest my friend Devon Wheeler who had sold me the weed but Devon denied these allegations and insisted that he had not been molested. The United States Attorney wanted me to testify against Devon Wheeler for selling me the marijuana so that they could pressure him to testify against Kirtananda Swami for molesting him. Devon swore that Kirtananada had always been treated as a son and had never touched him and he refused to testify against him. At the time I believed him.
Devon did not grow up with the rest of us in the ashrama but had lived with Kirtananda Swami as his son. He was even worshiped by Kirtananda’s more devout followers. I did not know at the time that Devon’s father Howard Wheeler aka Hayagriva had been Kirtananda’s lover or that Howard had spilled the beans about Kirtananda Swami and him to Charles St. Denis while they were partying together and that was why St. Denis had been murdered. I did not know that Devon’s father had also arranged for the murder of Steven Bryant and the payment of the hit man Thomas Dresher aka Tirtha. At that time all I knew was that my friend’s dad had died of cancer and the feds were trying to get me to roll on him.
Devon had sold me the weed which he had grown on our friend Robbie’s farm even though I didn’t want to buy it because it was really leafy. Then Robbie had lost his damn mind and told me that if I didn’t buy this swag I couldn't buy any of the good weed that they were selling either. So I caved and I ended up being stuck with this leafy scrubweed for months until I was finally able to unload it. Just like I didn’t want it, no one else wanted the weed and so I should have known when the guy agreed to buy it there was something wrong, but hindsight is 20/20. Tom Brown, the guy I sold it to, had been busted selling cocaine on campus and had agreed to act as an informant for a reduced sentence. He got me on a recorded buy and they had me cold.
They Feds told me from the start that they didn’t really care about me. From another kid that snitched they knew I had got the weed from Devon Wheeler and they just wanted me to flip on Devon so that he would testify against the Swami.
“The Swami is not what you think. He’s a really bad guy.” They told me and I knew they were right but they were the Feds. They were the ones who had arrested me and embarrassed my mom by releasing my name to the press and having my name plastered on the front page of the Wheeling News Register. Now they wanted me to snitch on one of my best friends, someone I had grown up with whose father had just died of cancer. At the time I had no idea at the time how involved Devon’s father Howard was in the murders. All I knew was that Howard had just fought an excruciatingly painful battle with cancer and died and now the Feds were trying to get me to snitch on Devon over an ounce of weed. Not even an ounce. They had brought a federal case over 26.6 grams of marijuana. I told Sam Nazarro, the US Attorney, to go kick rocks.
When the Feds told me and my lawyer that I was facing 5 years for selling 26.6 grams of Ganja unless I rolled on Devon Wheeler I was sure they were bluffing. When my lawyer told me that unless I wanted to face 5 years going to trial where I would surely lose my only choice was to take a plea agreement and accept a mandatory 1-year prison sentence, I was convinced that this was some kind of scared strait program and at the last minute the sentence would be suspended. There was no way they were going to put me in federal prison for a whole year for 26.6 grams of ragweed.
Up till the moment the Hon. Judge Frederick P. Stamp pronounced his sentence. I was certain that someone would come along and intervene. After all, I had a 3.8 cumulative GPA and was at the top of my PT Class in ROTC at West Virginia University. I had even volunteered to enlist for the Gulf War for the liberation of Kuwait later named “Desert Storm” if my sentence could be commuted. I was told that the sentence was mandatory and that Uncle Sam would not accept drug offenders even after my sentence was completed. My military career was over before it started.
When the Hon. Judge Frederick Stamp dressed in his black robe seated up on his high bench calmly sentenced me to 12 months, it finally dawned on me that this was real. I was going to federal prison for a year for an ounce of weed. My cheeks burned and I fought the tears back, deciding not to let a single teardrop fall. I wouldn’t give the bastards the satisfaction. There was nothing new under the sun. The law had never protected us. When my father used to beat the crap out of my mother the Sheriff would say.
“What did he smack you around a little?”
Then the Sheriff would tell her to go home and try to get along with him. After all, if he arrested everyone in Marshall County who beat up their wives the jail would be packed. After all that I had overcome to get where I was, it was all being taken away over a bag of weed that would fit in the palm of your hand. All of this over $200. I lowered my head as a single tear leaked down the left side of my cheek. I leaned to my right and let the tear roll down the side of my face into my mouth, swallowing the single tear I had let escape. I turned my back on Judge Stamp and the others not wanting them to see even a single tear. My lawyer pleaded with me and tried to get me to face the Judge Stamp again but I refused. What was the point?
I had three days to report to the Federal Correction Institute in Morgantown. I called Lisa and I broke the news to her. Up till then I never believed that I would go to prison over an ounce of grass, and so I had painted a rosy picture for her. After I was sentenced, I told her that I was going to prison and then I would be a felon for the rest of my life. I didn’t expect her to stay with me but she told me that I wasn’t getting out of it that easy. There was no way she was going to let me dump her after we had finally got back together. Then I asked her to marry me but she said no. She had just enrolled in the Speech Pathology and Audiology School at West Virginia University and told me that she couldn’t marry someone without a college education. So in hindsight you could say that I got her to agree that if I got out of prison and got my degree she would marry me, which turned out to be a good deal for me. Maybe every cloud does have a silver lining.
I drove down to the admissions office to withdraw from West Virginia University. When they asked me why I was withdrawing I should have lied but that would have violated the Honor Code and I could be automatically expelled if my deception was uncovered. So I answered truthfully that I would be serving a year in prison for possession of marijuana.
From there I went to say goodbye to my fraternity brothers at the Kappa Alpha house. The Kappa Alpha fraternity was founded in honor of General Robert E. Lee to uphold the values of chivalry and brotherhood and to maintain the honor of the southern gentleman. Pledges are educated in proper conduct and etiquette in the company of ladies and are initiated as Knights of the Kappa Alpha Order. For many years the KA house was known for being one of the most racist fraternities on campus but by the time I got there, half of the guys in the house were Dead Heads from Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. The other half were legacies from southern West Virginia who chewed tobacco and listened to country music but almost like German descendants of the Holocaust they wanted nothing to do with their ancestors in the KKK. They really were a great bunch of guys and I had a great time living in the house. We threw massive parties with the Delta house next door and artists like REM, the B-52’s and Dave Mathews performed at our legendary Backyard Bashes.
I have to say that for all the culture shocks that I have had to endure, moving from the Kappa Alpha fraternity house at West Virginia University to the Federal Correction Institute in Morgantown, WV was probably the worst. When I had moved into the KA house I had been cheerful and pleasant to be around but now the shadow of my arrest hung over me was like a dark cloud. When I went to prison, I felt no guilt or remorse for what I had done. I felt only anger against the people who put me there. I made a list of the people I would get revenge on. On my list there was Tom Brown, the narc, Sam Nazzaro, the prosecutor, Frederick Stamp, the judge, my lawyer, some other people who ended up snitching on me and even the president at the time George Bush 1.
I was mad as a hornet but I was also devastated. It felt like I had lost everything I had. After my first month at FCI Morgantown, I called my mother from the prison payphone crying but by that time she too had had enough.
“Jason ,” she said. “You did a stupid thing and you got caught. Now you have to deal with it.”
At the time I was mad as hell at her. I thought it was a cold blooded thing to say to me but after she hung up I started to try and see it from her perspective. My name had been on the front cover of our hometown newspaper but I was nowhere to be found. She had had to deal with the shame. It was true and I had to accept that she was right. I was stupid and I got caught. So, I stopped complaining. I kept my head down, went to work, went to school, went to the gym and tried to keep my mind off the outside. If I started to feel sorry for myself but when I would remind myself of the guys my age doing 10 and 15-year sentences, and I held my tongue. No one wanted to hear me complain about my lousy year.
Two weeks into my sentence I received a letter informing me that I was expelled from West Virginia University for violating the Honor Code. I appealed the decision to the West Virginia Board of Trustees. The DEA and the Morgantown Police Department both sent officers to testify against me at my appeal hearing. Both agents claimed that I had refused to cooperate or show remorse and that I would pose a danger to the students at University of West Virginia if allowed to reenroll. My appeal was denied and I was permanently expelled from West Virginia University.
I protested that 25 other students had been arrested and none of them had been expelled. I was told that if I wanted to give the University their names they too would be expelled. The names of the students who had been arrested on campus had all appeared in the newspaper but what good would it do me to give up their names now? I could suffer in silence and go down alone or take everyone else down with me. “Suck it up sissie. Be a man.” It was only 12 months but it was a long fucking year.
Growing up we were taught that this material world is controlled by the “demons” but by the time I went away to college I thought my parents were crazy. When I went into prison I thought of the United States as the good guys and that lawmakers were just misguided. After witnessing the true depth and horror of the mass incarceration of millions of young men I changed my mind. I realized that my parents were right. The Asuras (demons) were in control. Who else could be so cruel? I decided that all I could do was bear witness to the suffering that the Empire of Babylon had caused and promised that I would never forget who the real enemy was. I threw away the list of people I wanted to get revenge on, and I swore that I would dedicate my life to freeing all the Ganja prisoners.
I made a promise to God that I would never sell Ganja again. I was going to dedicate my life to freeing the “ganja prisoners.” My plan was to go out to Hollywood, become a famous actor and make movies about people who went to prison for Ganja. When I was released in 1993, I enrolled at Wheeling Jesuit University. I graduated with a B.A. in American History in 1995. At the end of my senior year, I married Lisa Marie Henry, the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.
Lisa’s father John Henry had grown up in the Ohio Valley and had played football at Central Catholic High School in Wheeling, West Virginia. He had done two tours of duty in Viet Nam before taking a job at Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel where he worked as a mechanic until he retired. Lisa’s mother Victoria Antoinette Fiorelli Henry has worked as a tax-preparer for H&R Block for as long as I can remember. You could search the whole world and not find two better people. Lisa was their only daughter, and even after I had gone to prison they welcomed me into their family. They were such good people and I did not want to disappoint them again.
Lisa and I moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 1995 but with my criminal record I still had trouble finding a job. Lisa was pregnant with our oldest son Jordan at the time and living in LA was expensive. So, I supported us by going out of town on the weekends and selling stickers and hats at concerts, races and football games. In the summertime I would follow concert tours or the NASCAR circuit and we’d spend our summer weekends at Watkins Glen, Pocono Raceway, Dover, and Bristol. In the fall we headed down to Charlotte and Atlanta before finishing off the season at Talladega. We also followed big concert acts like the Grateful Dead, Lollapalooza, Jimmy Buffet and Dave Mathews.
Selling people things that they did not plan to buy is not easy but I had a secret weapon. It was “the pick. “The pick is a sales technique developed by Hare Krishna fundraisers after they were no longer allowed in airports. A lot of the guys I grew up with in the ashram still survive today by doing the “pick.” If you have ever attended a concert or a sporting event you have probably been approached by a “picker”. It has become such a common occurrence that most people don’t give it a second thought and many people get hats and make donations to them all the time.
The“pick” works like this. You are in the parking lot of a concert, or sporting event hanging out, drinking and someone with a badge carrying a duffle bag approaches you. Flashing his badge he says.
“I’m sorry but we’ve had a complaint that it was too quiet over here. How do you plead? Guilty or not innocent.”
This statement is designed to catch the group off guard, initially creating a sense of concern that you might be in trouble. As the “picker” continues, they place a sticker or a hat in each person's hand and lighten the mood with a few jokes.
“So there is no jail time but we are going to try to issue you a hat and fine you a donation for charity.”
The initial fear of being in trouble is quickly replaced by laughter and relief when the group realizes it was all a joke. At this point, the “picker” asks for a donation, typically around $20. This full count press and combination of the emotional rollercoaster—from fear to relief to humor—and the social pressure of already holding the hat makes it very likely that the mark will comply by keeping the hat and making the donation. If you have attended concerts and sporting events in the United States this has probably happened to you, you have been “picked.” The money raised goes to feed homeless people and rehabilitation centers and the “pickers” keep a percentage usually about 1//3 to cover their expenses and travel.
During this time Kirtananda Swami was engaged in a 10 year legal battle with the Feds who were trying to convict him of running New Vrindavan as a criminal enterprise using this fundraising technique among other schemes and for conspiracy to murder Charles St. Denis and Steven Bryant. Thomas Dresher aka Tirtha Das had been convicted of the murders but he had insisted that had not been ordered to kill them by Kirtananda Swami. Tirtha insisted that he had killed St. Denis and Bryant because they had blasphemed his Guru Kirtananda Swami and therefore deserved to die.
The jury failed to reach a verdict on the murder charges but on March 29, 1991, Kīrtanānanda was convicted on nine of the 11 charges. Defense attorney Alan Dershowitz represented Kirtananda Swami on appeal and convinced the United States Court of Appeals to throw out the convictions, saying that child molestation evidence had unfairly prejudiced the jury against Kīrtanānanda. On August 16, 1993, Kirtananda was released on house arrest and rented an apartment in the Wheeling neighborhood of Warwood. I visited him there with Devon and he told me that the Feds had offered him a plea for 3 years. I had just been released earlier that year in March and knew that once the Feds have you they don’t let go. I told him he should take the deal but he didn't. I didn’t really expect him to.
Many of Kirtananda Swami’s followers remained loyal to him and even organized protests against the government for religious persecution. The more dirt the Feds dug up about Kirtananda Swami, the more his supporters insisted these stories were fake and created by the demons to bring down Krishna’s greatest devotee. Then in 1993 Kirtananda Swami was discovered in the back of his Winnebago in a compromising position with a young male disciple. There was a half hearted attempt at a cover up but no one was buying it this time.
Tirtha was serving two life sentences in the West Virginia State Penitentiary for murder now changed his story and claimed that he had killed Charles St.Denis and Steven Bryant because Kirtananda had ordered him to do it. After Dresher rolled on him Kirtananda Swami knew the jig was up. Kirtananda Swami aka Keith Ham pled guilty to conspiracy and racketeering and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Donald Trump was a great admirer of Kirtananda Swami and his rise to the presidency has been compared to a large-scale application of the “pick” as a persuasion technique. Trump first scared Americans and convinced them that the country was in dire straits, using rhetoric that painted a picture of a nation under siege by various internal and external threats. This narrative created a sense of urgency and fear, much like the initial “complaint” scare in the Hare Krishna “pick” technique. Trump’s approach also included a heavy dose of humor and showmanship. His rallies were filled with jokes, nicknames for opponents, and off-the-cuff remarks that endeared him to his supporters. This use of humor served to humanize him and make him seem more relatable, much like the jokes used by the “pickers” to build rapport with potential donors. Most Trump supporters had already been getting hit up by Hare Krishnas for years at concerts, races and sporting events. Most of them have no idea that they had been brainwashed for years to say yes by the Hare Krishna “pickers” by the time Trump came along and “picked” them all off. During the pandemic when all sporting events were cancelled Trump continued to hold rallies and it was Hare Krishna “pickers” who sold “Make America Great” hats to the MAGAs.
I gave up the “pick” and became a full time Ganja-walla after crashing and burning as an actor. Our oldest son Jordan was 2 years old and Lisa was pregnant with our second child Max. We were living in a 1 bedroom apartment on Watseka Ave just west of Robertson Blvd and just scraping by. Thanks to my friend Gauravani Buchwald who had already appeared in a few films, “Dangerous Minds” with Michelle Phifer and “Virtuosity” with Denzel Washington, I was enrolled in a pretty reputable acting class. I had a decent headshot; I had been to a few auditions but hadn’t had a single callback.
Then my friend Gauravani did the strangest thing. I remember he got into a motorcycle wreck and soon after that he quit acting. This absolutely blew my mind because to me Gauravani had everything that I wanted in the world. He had an agent, he was getting roles, he was Jewish; It was obvious he was going to be huge and he was throwing it away. Gauravani told me that he wasn’t willing to do what it took to make it in the business and that he decided to dedicate his life to serving Lord Krishna. I had no idea what he was talking about at the time. I would have done anything to get into showbiziness but he left it all behind. Gauravani moved to Potomac, Maryland, married a lovely Indian girl and formed a Kirtan band Gauravani & As Kindred Spirits. They have gone on to record many absolutely beautiful and successful albums.
At the time I was crushed though. Without Gauravani I didn’t know anyone in show business but I was not ready to quit LA. I had come to Hollywood to expose how the war on cannabis had created a generation of opiate addicts and how the prison industry had decimated a generation of black leaders by incarcerating 1 out of 4 of them between the ages of 18 and 25. I decided to give up on being an actor and become a writer. I started to work on my first screenplay “Storm” about a college football player who is sent to prison for marijuana. I finished the screenplay but could not find a buyer. I was starting to wonder if we should even stay in LA.
Growing up I assumed that the problem in Los Angeles was a lack of talent. Boy, was I wrong. There is so much talent in LA it will make your head pop off. When I moved to LA, I thought the film industry was made up of pretty girls and boys from small towns and like me they just knew they didn’t belong in the mines or the mills. Most crashed and burned but what I didn’t realize is that almost none of them went home. They made LA their home, finding employment within the industry as carpenters, set designers, stuntmen, or in the restaurants, bars and strip clubs on Sunset or even the massage parlors on Santa Monica Blvd. Some ended up walking the streets and some found love in the suburbs and settled down churning out generations of beautiful people to whom they passed on their dreams of stardom. Say what you want about Los Angeles. There may be a lot of ugliness but there are some beautiful people here. After generations of actors, writers, directors and producers had clawed and scratched their way into these jobs I was starting to realize what a fool I was to think I could make it.