Joseph Vigliotti

Well, I don’t know where to start. I guess I’ll say who I am. I’m Joseph Vigliotti. My friends and family call me Joe. I’m 20 years old and have been in Lancaster Correctional Institution since June 2009. To the boys in here, I’m Fro Joe, Viggy, Joey and Vigliotti. To the COs, I’m Inmate Vigliotti, G15656.

See back in 2007, I stole a couple of things I shouldn’t have. I was just two months into my 18th year of living and dating a girl I would spend two years of my young life with. It all started after seeing a Harry Potter movie. We came back from the movie theater and it was just about 1 a.m. I had to work the next day at a reptile farm.

Well, my girl at this time had a couple of problems with her neighbors, so she sweet talked me into stealing from these people. I stole their stuff and not even a week later, the detective was at my girlfriend’s house and she told the police everything.

I helped the lead detective recover the majority of the stolen property from my hiding spot in the woods. I went to County two weeks after that. I was in County Jail for three months. I got out in October, worked for a concrete company, was placed on probation and violated probation in December 2007. I went back to my county jail in January and got out in February. I was on probation from March of 2008 to January of 2009. I violated again. (Both of my violations were from failed or tampered with pee tests.) Went back to jail and got out in the very beginning of March. I went back to drugs and drinking hard during this period. I got arrested again in April for resisting arrest without violence. I bonded out a day later. Then I had a court appearance on May 7, 2009, got arrested as soon as I walked in the courthouse, and I have been behind bars ever since.

I am not a special dude. I’m our average Joe. I live in Levy County, Florida - a county that has almost nothing. I am 20 minutes from Gainesville and have access to some of the biggest sand hills in Florida. I enjoy mudbogging, clubbing and funny movies. I used to eat pills, smoke marijuana and drink tremendous amounts of alcohol. After years of doing nothing and sitting in Lancaster, I really want to better myself. I have a family that tried to help me, but I turned my cheek to them and kept going down this path. I have my whole life to live, but now I have this experience on my record and my mind.

If anybody could read this and it helps them or touches them in any way, I want you to look at yourself, help yourself, help your loved ones, read ANY passage out of a Bible, don’t drink that beer, don’t roll that swisher, don’t do that cocaine. Don’t be a follower – be a leader. Lead yourself to be you – not who they want you to be, but YOU and do what you have to. A wise man once told me – “Life is easy. Living is hard.”

So please don’t follow me. Don’t let your children be like me.

I want to thank Teddy Braden for letting me say a little bit of my mind. I love ya bro. Okay, I’m done wasting your time. I’ll be here.

- Joseph Vigliotti

Photo from Joe's MySpace page.