What I heard about my sentence

Tonight my parents came to visit me at the jail.

It was incredibly hard to find out yesterday that I would be doing at least two years in prison.

My mom talked to my attorney on the phone today. The attorney said that it would be two years minus the time served (24 months - 11 months = 13 months). She also said that if I keep out of trouble (no arguments, fights or escape attempts), I could maybe get some time off for good behavior as well.

The attorney will ask the judge to recommend that I be sent someplace close to home. The judge can't determine where I'll be sent. Only the intake center can say where I'll go. But the judge can possibly recommend one prison to the intake center.

There is a work release camp near the Pinellas County jail, where prisoners can go to in order to serve the last year of their sentence. I may be eligible to go there.

There's also a prison/work camp in Largo. The penitentiaries nearest my home in Clearwater would be in Zephyrhills, Hillsborough and Polk counties. There is also an adult prison at Avon Park next door to where I spent 9 months at the juvenile facility. You can click on the hyperlinks and click on Browse Current Population to view photos and profiles of the inmates in the prisons.

When I enter a plea on Monday morning, I will then be eligible to go right away to the Orlando reception center, which is an intake facility for people going to prison. I will stay there two weeks and they will evaluate me to determine what prison I go to. It could be a minimum, moderate or maximum security facility.

I won't be kept with only younger inmates, as I wasn't tried as a youthful offender. (One of my podmates was involved with armed robbery, but was tried as a youthful offender.) So I'll be in with inmates of all ages.

As long as I keep out of any fights, I won't be housed with the violent offenders like murderers.

I hear from other guys here that they have college classes or trades you can go to in prison and I'd like to go to them.

I'm trying to keep positive and look at it as another experience to write about. My mom told me that a lot of famous authors have been in prison - such as Jack London and O'Henry.

My attorney told me before court that she thought I had a 90% chance of getting a sentence of time served and that I might get out of jail sometime after court on Tuesday. So it hit me doubly hard when I found out that wouldn't be the case and that I'd be doing [what I thought at the time] would be at least two more years.

I'll ask the judge on Monday if the sentence will for sure be 24 months minus any timed served.

But whatever she says, I'll definitely accept the deal. I don't want to face 30 years in prison.

Photo: Video visitation room at the Pinellas County jail.

More famous writers that have spent time in prison: Boethius, Cervantes, Campanella, Daniel Defoe, Thomas More, Walter Raleigh, Leigh Hunt, Oscar Wilde, Maxim Gorky, Chernyeshevsky, Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Francois Villon, Voltaire, Diderot, The Marquis de Sade, Jean Genet, Saint Paul, Malcolm X.