Jailhouse Confections, Part 1

Confections [kənˈfɛkʃən]  - Informal anything regarded as excessively elaborate or frivolous

Maya Derkovic and Robyn Adams

Venting through the ventilation system

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

- Joseph Heller, from Catch-22

That’s one of the problems with the letters released yesterday, letters written by Casey’s own hand. Damned if you believe her and damned if you don’t. Here, we have 258 pages of, as criminal defense attorney Richard Hornsby stated, drivel. We also have several interviews to pore over and Detective Yuri Melich’s synopsis of what Maya Derkovic and Robyn Adams told him and other members of law enforcement about conversations they had with Casey. The words of two jailhouse snitches allegedly coming from a confirmed liar.

Herein lies a dilemma. In her interview, inmate Maya Derkovic talked about Casey using something to knock Caylee out, but she was not specific about what drugs she used to do that. Melich wrote, “Casey Anthony never mentioned what she used to put Caylee Anthony to sleep.”

But also in his investigative summary, Melich reported something completely different coming from inmate Robyn Adams. “Caylee Anthony had trouble sleeping and she had to use chloroform to put her to sleep. Casey Anthony implied her mother may have brought the chloroform home when she worked at a local clinic.”

Those are contradictory words written by Melich. Generally, prosecutors rely on sworn testimony and not on what a detective writes in a summary, but now the possibility exists that the defense could exploit the detective’s credibility at trial. In the movie Cool Hand Luke, starring the late Paul Newman, the prison captain said, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” Was it chloroform or wasn’t it, according to Melich? Did Casey tell one person about using this trihalomethane, but not the other? Can we trust anything coming from the mouths and hands of an established prevaricator, a convicted murderer and a convicted drug trafficker out to strike a deal with the State?

Without addressing the Melich implications any further, I will focus on Casey’s jail-bird friends. Melich is a matter for legal dissection.

What happens when convicts are called to the stand is simple. The defense has the option to cross-examine, and when they do, a whole can of worms spills out about that person’s criminal past. Yes, the defense will do that and because of the Sixth Amendment, Casey will have the right to be confronted with the witnesses against her, shackles and all.

Maya Derkovic, now 21, was convicted of murdering a 15-year-old girl, Harriet “Jackie” Curtis, in February of 2008. Dear Maya is spending her best years at Lowell Correctional Institution. She was a member of a gang, the 3rd World Rolling Sixties, a spinoff of the West Coast Crips. While incarcerated at the Orange County Jail, she decided it was time to come clean with what she did, so she opened up to a jailer, and later, to detectives. She and two other gang members lured Curtis to a retention pond on Goldenrod Road with the sole intent to kill. The other two, Amiri “Sin” Lundy and Dominique “D” Tolbert, held Curtis down while Derkovic choked her to death.

A pertinent point Casey’s defense would bring up is the conflict that’s arisen since Derkovic’s confession. In trying to find peace, she decided to come clean. In October of 2007, she told Orlando Sentinel reporters Henry Pierson Curtis and Sarah Lundy, “What I did was terribly wrong. It’s time to fess up to what I did and do the right thing.”

That sounds all chivalrous and everything. Good for her. She saw the light. Praise the Lord, but there’s a problem with it. She appealed her conviction. For the record, she is now incarcerated for these felony offenses: (1) Carjacking Without Felony Assault/Deadly Weapon - 2 years; (2) Aggravated Flee/Alluding a Law Enforcement Officer - 2 years; and (3) 2nd Degree Murder, Dangerous Act - 30 years. Why would Ms. Derkovic appeal her conviction if her inner conviction was to come clean and seek redemption?

Robyn Adams is married to a former police officer. Orlando Sentinelreporters Jim Leusner and Vincent Bradshaw wrote on July 23, 2008 that “Clay Adams lived two lives: one as an Altamonte Springs cop, the other as a painkiller-addicted, marijuana grow-house operator who was scheming to kill a former supervisor.”

Courtesy of WFTV

I live right around the corner from Altamonte Springs and there’s no way I don’t remember the story of one of the city’s finest from July 2008. According to a complaint filed by Agent Timothy Gunning of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Robyn Adams, then an employee at a surgeon’s office, obtained illicit prescriptions for her husband and marijuana seeds from the Netherlands via the Internet. They both ran the grow-house.

According to the Sentinel article, the complaint gives this account of the probe:

Adams approached an informant to partner in a marijuana-growing operation. That person tipped off CCIB agents, who brought the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and ATF into the case.

During the next two weeks, the informant secretly recorded meetings and phone calls with Adams and his wife while agents monitored them. Adams bragged about previous marijuana-growing operations and driving the pot to Tallahassee distributors.

Adams provided the informant with drivers-license photos, undercover aliases and real names of drug agents and CCIB officers, along with the descriptions of their vehicles. Adams also supplied weapons and prescription drugs to the informant, a convicted felon.

He told the informant that he joined CCIB earlier this year to learn investigative methods on how to detect marijuana-growing operations, Gunning wrote.

Adams was “extremely upset” when a supervisor’s reprimand led to his removal from the task force, the agent wrote.

“Clay advised [the informant] that he will let the issue cool off for a couple of months and then ‘take [the supervisor] out’ when he least expects it, utilizing a .308-caliber rifle equipped with a silencer,” Gunning wrote.

After the informant rented a home for the operation, Adams and his wife set up hydroponic equipment in the residence last weekend and provided marijuana seeds, the complaint read.

Adams is a master patrolman who has served as a uniformed officer and detective for Altamonte Springs police. He has been suspended without pay, police Chief Robert Merchant said at a news conference Tuesday.

Adams’ actions “disgraced the honor of the badge,” he said.

“I am extremely upset,” Merchant said. “We work very, very hard to build our reputation only to have it brought down by [Adams’] actions.”

This is a despicable couple who conspired to deal in illicit drugs and (allegedly) have a police officer murdered. Clay Adams owned an arsenal of handguns, rifles and shotguns¹.  She will stay locked up inside the Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) until April 6, 2017, while he will remain up close and personal-like with Big Bubba at the Beaumont FCI until October 17, 2023. When interviewed, Bubba said he “don’t like cops gone bad.” No one does. Robyn Adams kept those letters from Casey after promising to dispose of them. Flush after reading. She tried to work out a plea deal over them. In my opinion, once a cop’s wife, always a cop’s wife, no matter how rotten to the corps. It’s a mindset thing and if you can’t trust a cop - or his wife - who can you trust?

I don’t know what is truth and what is fiction from the documents released yesterday. What I can and will say is that there are huge differences between being raised up with a strong religious faith and the kind that comes in prison, called jailhouse religion. I’m not going to say that either of these women picked up an honesty trait suddenly, and I’m not going to deny that they may have had epiphanies - the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something - a Come to Jesus moment so to speak, but I sure as hell wouldn’t put any stock in what they had to say. Any more than I would put in Miss Anthony’s letters. Again, let me refresh your memories… “Not a bit of useful information has been provided by Ms. Anthony as to the whereabouts of her daughter,” Circuit Court Judge Stan Strickland said. “And I would add that the truth and Ms. Anthony are strangers.”

What we have to be very careful of is selective believing. If you don’t trust Casey, how can you believe any of it is true? If you do believe any of it, you must believe Casey is telling the truth. So are the snitches.

A veritable Catch-22. Plus 2.

OCSO SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT ON CASEY’S LETTERS

Comments

[boli cat]

to bad there are no comments...I just happened to read this article sitting home bored while I'm sick with the flu...and wow! this was truly fun to read and full of a great deal of information. thanks for this article and i certainly hope you are still writing. peace

Hi, boli cat! Yes, I am still writing. My guess is that you came in from a search engine, but you can go to my main page by just typing marinadedave.com. This particular article was written on my old blog in April of 2101. I moved to this platform in August of that year and brought the old posts over without the comments. The original article can be found HERE and that one contains 506 comments. I am no longer active on that site.

Sorry you had to wait for your comment to show. If you ever want a free membership, let me know and I will set you up with one. That way, future comments will not be stuck in moderation. There's contact form located on the lower left sidebar. Everything remains confidential.

I'm very glad you enjoyed the article. I wrote extensively on this case from in and out of the courtroom. I attended hearings and the trial and wrote for Orlando magazine, but leading up to it and now that it's over, I'm back on my blog and happy to be here. Hopefully, you will find my other articles just as fun to read and very informative. All I can say is thank you very much. You help encourage me to continue. Peace unto you!