Thread: Conyers checks in to federal prison

Conyers checks in to federal prison

Ex-Detroit City Council president starts 37-month sentence in federal penitentiary

Robert Snell / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Monica Conyers, the wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers and former president of the Detroit City Council, gained another title Friday: Inmate 43693-039.

The 45-year-old walked in alone to a federal women's prison camp in Alderson, W.Va., ahead of the 2 p.m. deadline, the latest in a string of 10 defendants convicted in the ongoing City Hall corruption probe.

"All inmates are essentially treated the same," Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Edmond Ross said. "You go inside, the door shuts behind, and that's your life for X amount of time."

Conyers is leaving a life packed with perks -- a home abutting the Detroit Golf Club, a shopping habit and allegedly free meals in Greektown -- for a prison known by some as "Camp Cupcake."

Tucked in the Allegheny Mountains, Alderson's 1,128 female inmates have access to washers, dryers, microwave ovens, hair dryers, curling irons and cosmetology areas where inmate-to-inmate pedicures and manicures are allowed.

Conyers, who said she enrolled in divinity school after quitting the council last year and pleading guilty to bribery conspiracy, also will have access to a chapel, religious library and prayer and study areas.

Resembling a prep school, the prison has no razor wire, imposing fences or thick towering walls. Windows can be left open -- except in winter -- and a red line rings the prison boundary. Cross it, and risk an escape charge.

She will sleep in a room with no lock or bars on the windows and be assigned a job, from housecleaning to food service to landscaping duty or light clerical work, Ross said.

Conyers also can have few personal possessions: certain religious materials and jewelry, a watch and wedding band -- sans stones. Visitors are allowed, but Alderson is an eight-hour drive from Detroit.

That could be an adjustment for a woman who arrived to court proceedings in a Lincoln Town car and faced accusations that she ate free at the Mosaic restaurant in Greektown, received thousands of dollars of free jewelry from a pawn shop and regularly took hundreds of dollars from a developer.

Those allegations never resulted in charges after Conyers pleaded guilty to accepting at least $6,000 for her deciding vote in a 2007 sludge-hauling contract. She was sentenced to 37 months but could shave off 54 days a year for good conduct.

"I obviously don't miss her on council," said Councilman Kenneth Cockrel Jr., who was involved in a notorious dustup at the council table in which Conyers repeatedly called her bald colleague "Shrek" and insisted, "you're not my daddy."

"She came to council with a lot of potential. I am sorry to see that potential wasted."

Conyers has more than just time in prison. There's volleyball, basketball, softball and croquet. Inmates can watch TV and movies.

Despite the "beautiful" setting, Alderson is still prison, said Judith Kelly, who served three months in 2003 for protesting military training at an Army base in Fort Benning, Ga. Other former inmates include Martha Stewart and two women who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford: Sara Jane Moore and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme."Prison is a very hard thing no matter what level it is. It's very isolating, very demeaning," Kelly said. "It's not ever easy to be cut off from everyone you know and love."

Conyers was supposed to go to prison around July 1, but a federal judge extended the date to Friday after she said a close relative was having surgery in the summer. After her sentence, she tried to withdraw her guilty plea and appealed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals ended the delays with a Thursday ruling.

Ross did not have details about Conyers' surrender or whether she was escorted to the prison gates by her husband, children or lawyer. A spokesperson for John Conyers, the Detroit Democrat who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, did not respond to requests for comment.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100911 ... 1408/local

For real? I didn't know things had progressed to this stage. And how is John Conyers doing?

He is still head of the Judiciary Committee last I heard. It bothers me since, as a couple, he profited from the gains of her extortion.

Monica Conyers is a thief (now convicted), just like her father and brothers were. The apple never falls far from the tree and this case is no different. Instead of holding up liquor stores or breaking into neighborhood homes, she went to law school and thereafter realized how much easier it was to steal with an education while living the life of luxury.

Personally, I have more respect for her father and brothers, as they never pretended to be anything other than the thieves they actually were.

he is 80 she is 45

This is monica conyers. This is the thugess that john conyers married. Real classy huh. John must be so proud.