Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Snitches Get Stiches’: Ghislaine Maxwell Fearing Prison Beatdown After Reporting Inmate Extortion

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Convicted trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell is reportedly in fear of receiving a brutal beating from two inmates at the Connecticut federal prison where she is serving time. Maxwell allegedly reported two inmates, who belong to prison gang “Las Cubans,” for extorting her over commissary items. She now fears retaliation after the women spent 47 days in solitary confinement. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks down the trafficker’s troubles behind bars with former federal prison inmate and podcaster Brett Johnson.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Galane Maxwell, the British socialite turned convicted sex trafficker, may be living in fear in federal prison. Welcome to Sidebar here on Law and Crime. I'm Jeanette Levy. You've probably heard the saying, snitches get stitches. It refers to people in prison or in criminal, involved in criminal activity who may tell on or rat out other inmates or other criminals, and then they possibly get beat up. Well, a story in the Daily Mail says Galane Maxwell told on two inmates and now she's fearing for her safety. The mail cites an

anonymous source who claims two violent inmates tried to get Maxwell to use her 300, $160 a month commissary allowance to buy them things after they discovered a kitchen worker was saving food for Maxwell on the sly. The story says Maxwell told a lieutenant and showed a note the women had written with their blackmail demand. They were sent to a special housing unit for punishment where they were kept in their cells for 23 hours a day for 47 days. Now the Daily Mail.com claims that Galane Maxwell is being escorted from her cell when she leaves it by a because of fears for her safety. Brett Johnson served seven and a half years in federal prison for cyber crimes.

He also escaped from federal prison and did some extra time for that. Now he has his own podcast and is doing well. Brett, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. No, thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. Brett, when you read about Galane Maxwell, I mean, this is a British socialite doing some time, serious time behind bars in federal prison.

And allegedly, you know, she's fearing for her life because of these two inmates who are threatening her according to the Daily Mail. What do you think about that? Well, I mean, I can give you the PC answer or I can give you the correct answer. So I'll give you the correct one. I think she has every bit of it coming. That's what I think. I think that if you're a predator of children, that, you know, there's not really any type of punishment that you don't. I was, as you mentioned, I served seven and a half years in federal prison.

The prison that I was initially at was Big Spring FCI, and that had a population of around 20 to 25 percent of child predators. Extortion of child predators is not only accepted in those prison environments, it's somewhat encouraged. My job, if you want to call it that, I was kind of fingered as the guy that was supposed to approach child predators of my race and have a conversation with them to find out what they were charged for, make sure that they could associate with other inmates there. I'm sure that Glissane Maxwell went through the exact same thing. So typically what happens is when you get off a prison bus and you arrive at your prison,

you have to either show paperwork or you have to convince someone of your charges. Now, they already knew who she was coming in. that she was a pedophile. That being said, pedophiles are not allowed access that other inmates are allowed. For example, the television rooms. Each prison has a set of TV rooms that pedophiles are not allowed into, and it's not the guards that stop that. It's the other inmates that stop that.

You're not allowed to talk to certain people. There are all these different types of rules that you're simply not allowed to engage as a normal inmate would do extortion is very common among with child predators simply because you're dealing with an inmate population prisoners felons criminals and criminals are typically predators themselves but there's a food chain a hierarchy in federal prison and that hierarchy says that child predators are on the bottom rung so anyone that wants to abuse them whatsoever they're allowed to do that let's say Maxwell coming into that penitentiary like that They knew who she was, and they knew she had money.

So the extortion, very common. Her snitching those people out is one of the things that's not allowed. And I would be surprised, if it were a male prison, I would absolutely say she had already been attacked. I would be surprised if she would not be attacked in the near future. So they may have her if they've not already. They may have her on some sort of protective custody, which basically equates to solitary confinement. They may look to transfer her to a different prison, something like that. Well, the Daily Mail is reporting that she is, you know, being afforded some type of protection.

She's being escorted if she leaves herself, things like that. But, you know, the thing is, you know, talk to me a little bit about the snitching culture. Of course, you know, Gilein Maxwell is a high profile inmate. Plus, she's a pedophile, which we always know they are kind of targeted when they're in prison anyway. But these women allegedly, according to the Daily Mail, We've tried to verify this and haven't been able to do so, said, hey, we know that this kitchen worker is saving extra food for you and you need to give us your commissary money or we are going to, you know, there's going to be trouble. So they're blackmailing her and she goes and she tells the prison staff and then these women get sent to solitary confinement for, you know, 47 days. So why is snitching such a big deal in prison?

I mean, she's already a target. This possibly makes it worse. But, you know, the whole snitches get stitches thing. What is up with that in these prisons and just in the, you know, environment where criminals associate? Sure. So if you think about it, what gets most people caught is someone telling on them. Now, law enforcement is very good about doing their jobs,

about investigating, but typically what gets someone fingered for a conspiracy charge or most any of the charges out there is someone has told on them. So they're already upset about that. They're already angry about that when they enter into prison because when you tell on someone, sometimes that equates to more than just a couple of years behind the fence. It equates to a life in prison or 20 years or 30 years or something like that. So you're in this environment where people are already upset about being told on. Not only that, but But understand that in prison, guards don't run the prisons. Inmates run the prisons.

So you're in this environment where it's overcrowded, where etiquette matters, where you have to go through channels in order to do something, where you're expected to obey the rules as instituted by the other inmates so that everything can operate properly. And it really matters because if you get someone that steps out of those lines, things start to fall apart. pretty quickly. So now you've got a child predator, a pedophile that comes into the environment. Now, extortion is very common. And typically the way extortion starts is Maxwell will come into prison. Every month, you're allowed a certain dollar amount that you can spend at commissary. I think that right now is around $350 total for the month. Okay, so you'll have somebody that will come up to Maxwell and they'll say, hey, will you get me a honey bun? And Maxwell being new to the environment will probably say something like, absolutely, I'd be more than happy to do that.

Once that door is open, at that point it continues on, hey, I've got a list for you. Go ahead and fill this for me if you don't mind. Once Maxwell starts to say no, well, you know, we're just trying to protect you. We're trying to look out for you. You don't want anything to happen to you, do you? And that's the way this extortion begins. Now, Maxwell is no idiot. She realizes that, hey, these people are extorting me. So she decides that she's going to try to go through channels because she doesn't understand the way that the prison environment operates. Guards are not going to protect you. Guards have children, too. They're already pissed off at her as it is.

So she tells the guards on these two inmates. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who told they saw her go into the guards office, come back out. The two inmates are within an hour thrown into solitary confinement for 47 days. well those two inmates have friends those friends get upset too not only that but those two inmates their friends are gang related they probably hate pedophiles as well so now you've got you've got an environment where you've got a snitch that has told on someone that has had two people thrown into solitary for 47 days and it becomes a very dangerous environment all of a sudden I am actually surprised that and I find it difficult to believe

that Maxwell is being escorted, has some sort of on compound protective custody through guards to be exported out of her cell to the chow hall or something like that. That's difficult to believe. Typically, that does not happen. Typically, they would throw her in some sort of protective custody. She'd spend six to eight months in solitary and be transferred to another institution at that point. So you are doubting this story a little bit, at least the part about her being afforded some type of protection. I do not believe that. I absolutely do not believe that. It would seem to me, you know, when she gets into this prison, right, that she's a high-profile

inmate. I would think as a high-profile inmate, she would kind of be instructed about things that can go on in prison. I mean, I don't know. Maybe she's not. But it seems to me that she would be schooled maybe a little bit by the people at intake. Does that type of thing not happen? It does not.

Typically, where you learn, it's called learning to jail. And where you learn to do that is in the county jail and whatever holding facility that you're in. You should be incarcerated long enough in those environments that you learn the necessity of having respect for the other inmates, that you learn not to tell on other inmates, that you learn that you don't disrupt those environments. That's typically one, someone who's looking at a lot of prison time, that's the benefit of being in a holding facility. facility or a county jail or something like that. Now, Maxwell was in those environments. She should have learned that, but I think that what's happened is, is because she was a well-known figure, because she had a lot of money, she was able to circumvent a lot

of that environment. So while I said that, you know, each inmate's only allowed around $350 month for commissary, one of the typical things that happens is, is if I've got a lot of money, I will find me another inmate, someone who doesn't have money. And I will have my family or friends send money into their books, and I would give them part of that. So I would have them send, you know, $300 a month to their books. I'd let them keep $100 for their commissary, and I would take the other $200 and add

on to my commissary. And it would boost me up at that amount, too. I'm almost positive she's done that. That's a very common tactic among the more well-to-do inmates that are in federal prisoner or just prisons at large. My guess is that she was able to avoid a lot of the type of education that most criminals would undergo in those environments so that when she arrived at the federal prison, because she is a celebrity, because she does have money, I think that she came in maybe with an attitude and thought she could do whatever she wanted to. Well, it doesn't work like that. You're dealing with people that are serving, you know, she's serving a significant amount of time, but there are people.

that are also serving significant amounts of time that have been there a while. That is now their home. That's their environment. And they want to make sure everything's operating properly. So you get someone in there that's a disruptor all of a sudden that creates a problem. You also get someone in there that is snitching or telling on other people that creates even more of a problem. And I would be surprised if she did tell on someone, if the story is true, I would be surprised that she stays at that institution much longer. This whole thing about the prison cook or some kitchen worker holding food for her and sneaking

it to her. I mean, does that even sound possible to you or something? Does that ring true? Because that seems like something in and of itself that would get a prison worker, a kitchen worker fired, and then Maxwell would get in trouble for that as well. Actually, that, that's very common that that happens. You either steal food out of the kitchen or you can, you know, if you're a kitchen worker, So just to backtrack for a second, in federal prison, everyone has to have a job.

It doesn't really matter what you do, but you have to work. So Maxwell comes into the environment. One of the first jobs that inmates typically get is in food service, either rolling silverware up or working in the kitchen, mopping, sweeping, something like that. So that environment is one of the most valuable environments. While it's hard work, it's also valuable because you're able to sneak food out of the kitchen. And you can take sugar out of the kitchen for your coffee or to make alcohol back in your cell, something like that, meat, things like that. So it doesn't surprise me that someone would be sneaking or food.

I would think that Maxwell is paying for that food in some manner, maybe having money put on that individual's books or something like that. Well, it's an interesting story for sure. And federal prison is no cakewalk. They always act like federal prisons so much better than state prison, but still it's prison. So I don't think it's as posh as people try to make it out to be sometimes. Brett Johnson, we really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on to talk with us about this story. And we hope you'll come back.

Thank you so much. That's it for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcasts. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Annette Levy, and we will see you, next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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