Brian Arroyo calling from SCI Mahanoy. “The Perfect Pawn.”
Fernando Perez is a good example of the abuses endured by people with mental illness when they are caught up in the legal system. It all started in the early morning hours of December 25, 2000. That cold night changed the life of two strangers forever. On that night off duty, Springfield Police Officer Carlo D’Amato was wounded after being shot by an unknown assailant some two blocks from his cross street apartment in the south side of Springfield.
As to be expected, the incident garnered extensive media coverage, both on television and print, with a report on the incident on every local news channel and newspapers for weeks. In less than a week, the Office of the Mayor of Springfield announced that a reward was being offered in exchange for information leading to the capture and conviction of the person responsible for the shooting of Officer D’Amato, stating that “the person responsible was a threat to society.”
The approximately $10,000 reward was incentive enough for a witness, who wasn’t really an eyewitness, to come forward and give information to the police. Surprisingly enough, that witness turned out to be Fernando Perez’s ex-girlfriend, and mother of their four month old little girl. What motivated the young woman to give the information, which she supposedly got directly from Fernando himself? The answer to that question is somewhat of a mystery. What is clear is that the moment Claritza Santini became aware of the $10,000 reward, she contacted her cousin, a member of the tactical unit investigating robberies and also in charge of investigating the D’Amato shooting.
Santini implicated Fernando in the shoot up of D’Amato and everything started to roll from there. Now, both Santini and cousin had a vested interest in Fernando being arrested for the crime, i.e, Santini would get the reward, and cousin would be praised as a hero. $8,000 was Santini ‘s 30 pieces of silver for her betrayal of the father of her child. After their meeting, Santini and cousin met with District Attorney William Bennett, where Santini further implicated Fernando in the shooting of D’Amato. Following this meeting, an arrest warrant was issued for the capture of Fernando Perez.
Fernando was visiting friends in Scranton for the holidays, as was customary since he attended school there in previous years. The Springfield Police contacted the Scranton police about the arrest warrant, and Fernando was arrested without incident by a SWAT team and taken into custody. This is where the real nightmares began for the 17 year old kid with an IQ of 70. Fernando was taken to the police station in Scranton, where he was put in a Spartan cell wearing only his underwear and with a window open. This is a common torture tactic by the police called “softening the suspect.”
After several hours of this abuse, he was taken to an interrogation room where he was questioned for hours while being denied water and food. It is worth reminding the readers that this was happening to a person who was diagnosed borderline mentally retarded, while hundreds of miles away from home and away from his only source of guidance and support, i.e. his mother, Nancy Garcia.
Suffice it to say that at the time of his arrest Fernando had been diagnosed to suffer from learning disabilities, ADHD, Post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic depression; problems that had been exacerbated by a history of domestic violence. His vocabulary was near a sixth grade level. A psychologist appointed to review Fernando later determined that Fernando’s IQ is at the bottom of the borderline/intellectual functioning range, indicating that his thinking, his ability to understand the world and predict outcomes, is much like that of a mentally retarded person.
Fernando was subjected to mental torture at the hands of officers from both police departments. Relying on what he’d seen on television, Fernando requested a lawyer, but his requests were simply ignored and was eventually forced to sign a confession at gunpoint by Officer Eugene Dean. Fernando was subjected to further abuse by the ineffectiveness of his lawyer, who did nothing during a suppression hearing where the determining factor, as to whether Fernando made a voluntary statement, was that if he could hold a job flipping burgers, he was smart enough to know what he was doing when he signed a confession.
During trial, his attorney did nothing to champion his cause, and Fernando was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison based on nothing more than the word of an ex-girlfriend whose motives are seriously in question, and a coerced confession gotten through torturing a borderline mentally retarded 17 year old. Today, 13 years later, Fernando sits in prison hoping that someone will hear about his situation and offers to help him get out of the nightmare that started when Carlo D’Amato was shot by an unknown assailant.
We as a society must demand more accountability from our law enforcement officials, especially when it comes to the most vulnerable ones in our society. Fernando was no match for the seasoned veteran of interrogators that he could have been made to confess to killing President Kennedy. The voice and face inside the nation of prisoners, this is Brian Arroyo from SCI Mahanoy from prisonradio.org
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
