The Toll of Decades in Prison on a Mind, Heart, and Soul

Pornchai Moontri was released after almost three decades in prison. A new development could also release Fr. Gordon MacRae, but what does freedom look like for them?

June 8, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Someone who is an old friend to both Pornchai Moontri and me posted a Facebook rant in 2021 that was printed and sent to me by an angry reader who saw it. Our friend was reacting to a cut in Covid pandemic relief services. Clearly, the last two years have posed challenges for many people. Our friend’s rant protested the budget cut while bemoaning all the “free services” that he believes had been afforded to prisoners: “Free food, free housing, clothing, health care, legal representation, and free education!” I understood his argument. It is one held by many people, but none of it is true.

Prisoners where I have been forced to live against my will for 28 years are required to hold a prison job. However most prisons have become so overcrowded that more than 50-percent of prisoners are in the category of “no job available.” Prison jobs here pay a base rate of $1.15 per day for four hours of daily work. Both Pornchai Moontri and I held relatively privileged positions in specialized jobs that required some skill. These full time positions required working a full day, five days per week. Pornchai was the Safety Trainer for the prison woodworking shop managed by the Recreation Department. I am the sole legal clerk in the prison law library, a position that every prison is required to have by law. Both jobs were salaried positions with a rate of pay at $43 per month.

Prisons are required to provide the most basic level of sustenance including food, housing, clothing, etc. Beyond that, most prisons — this one included — sell food, hygiene items, and clothing items to prisoners either directly or through a prison-approved vendor who manages these sales with a healthy kickback to the prison’s recreation fund budget. A pair of shoes costs about six weeks’ pay.

Because the prison food budget affords lots of carbohydrates but far less protein, most prisoners strive to supplement food intake through purchases from a commissary. Those who cannot afford food, or who do not have families to help them, contrive all sorts of means to assure that they have adequate food. There is a lot of exploitation. Some prisoners will purchase food, and then sell it at inflated rates to the hungry who then rack up debts that they sometimes cannot pay.

The main meal of the day here is between 3:30 and 4:00 PM. By policy, prisoners are allowed 10 minutes to eat. It seldom ever takes that long. Neither Pornchai nor I were ever well off here, but we could not turn away prisoners who asked for a package of ramen noodles to fend off hunger at night. We both bought and stored them just so those around us would not have to owe someone who wanted to exact a profit — or worse.

The same is true with coffee and postage stamps, neither of which are provided to prisoners. A four-ounce bag of generic instant coffee is $5.00. A four-ounce packet of chicken is $3.25. A book of ten postage stamps is more than three days’ pay. Over the years, Pornchai and I have loaned enough coffee — seldom if ever repaid — to keep Juan Valdez on his burro for decades to come because those earning one dollar per day cannot afford coffee.

Many other items are required, but acquired only through purchase at the commissary. This includes soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes, deodorant, cough syrup, Tylenol, bandages, toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and, during the pandemic, face masks. Those who can afford to do so also purchase multivitamins, Omega-3, Vitamin D3, and other essential supplements. There are over 260 food and hygiene items sold to prisoners in the commissary here and in most other prisons.

Some enterprising prisoners develop little side ventures such as a laundry service. The more artistic ones create and sell greeting cards. Several have a sneaker cleaning service. The costs do not end with food, clothing and postage. A visit to daily Sick Call at Health Services has a co-pay that for some is the equivalent of three days’ pay. Telephone calls must be prepaid and are charged by the minute.

Money Laundering

Union Supply Direct, a company that markets only to prisoners, has cornered the commissary market here and also has a mail order business for prisoner clothing, electronics, and other needs. The catalog sells just about all clothing items except the actual New Hampshire prisoner uniform which consists of dark green slacks and a matching long sleeve buttoned shirt. Prisoners here may request three sets every two years. However, what we receive is used clothing. Ironed-on patches have the prisoners’s name and number. Prisoners often turn the replacements back in if they are in worse shape than the ones we already had. The last set I received had four prior ironed-on labels under the one with my name. The last set of new clothing I received was in 1998. The last used replacement set that was in good enough condition to keep was in 2012.

Purchased clothing is at risk of being stolen and then resold to other prisoners. This has never happened to me or to Pornchai, but it has happened to some of the people around us. My current roommate does not want to lose the new towels and clothing he purchased so he never puts them in the prison laundry. Instead, he washes them himself in the bucket that I use for Mass. In our small cell, he hangs them on a removable shoestring clothes line and aims a fan at them. Some enterprising prisoners have set up a sideline for private laundry services. They will pick up newer clothing, wash and dry it, and return it folded, all for a bag of coffee or food. Union Supply sells a gray fleece jacket for $42.95, and just about everyone will pay the fee to have it washed because it is a hot item for theft and resale.

The Union Supply Catalog sells about 200 items including clothing, sheets, towels, hygiene items, electronics, televisions, etc. at seemingly inflated prices. A small flat screen Clear Tunes TV is $275. In the latest catalog, a 4-ounce tube of Crest toothpaste is $12.95. A poor quality Swintec typewriter doubled in price this year and is now $375.95.

This could go on and on. Every category that our friend’s Facebook rant described as free for prisoners was falsely stated. When you consider the ratio between a prisoner’s expenses and what he or she can earn, prisoners are typically the most impoverished citizens on the planet. I know that the common argument for seeing this as “okay” is that “prisoners put themselves in prison.” That is indeed true for some, perhaps even most, but I hope that readers know by now that it is by no means true for all.

The Seeds We Sow in Prison

Surely the most advanced society on Earth can come up with a better model for the management of criminality than the current prison system, which has a recidivism rate of 50-percent. As a culture, we cave to our worst instincts for instant vengeance by the establishment of laws that make an adequate criminal defense virtually impossible. I am not guilty of the crimes attributed to me and I am by no means the only one now saying that.

When I heard Judge Arthur Brennan intone the jury instructions at my trial, I knew then that I was doomed. This was a case without evidence. None whatsoever. Judge Brennan first instructed the jury to “disregard inconsistencies” in accuser Thomas Grover’s claims. Then he told them that under New Hampshire law, (RSA 632a-6) “no evidence or corroboration is necessary for a conviction” under this category of offense.

After dutifully disregarding all the inconsistencies, the jury convicted me in less that ninety minutes. You already know that after refusing three efforts to convince me to take a plea deal to serve a minimum of one year in prison, Judge Brennan sentenced me to a term of 67 years. Attorney James Higgins, speaking for my bishop and diocese at the time, wrote to me in prison: “To the extent that you are without funds for an appeal, contact the Public Defender’s Office.” I was sent to prison at age 41 in 1994. I will be 70 on my next birthday. I will be 108 when my sentence is completed. I was 29 when the fictitious crimes were claimed to have occurred.

My peers in priesthood and in life are preparing for retirement. In contrast, I have spent the last nearly three decades of my life earning and trying to live on $43 dollars per month. Some readers have helped over time, and both Pornchai and I have survived almost solely because of that. We have profound gratitude. This blog could not exist without such help. One of the tragedies of prison is that people here for decades leave with nothing — with no life built up and no buffer or support system upon which to build one.

For a priest in prison, whether guilty or innocent, survival after would depend on the willingness of his bishop to observe Canon Law and provide some basic infrastructure such as housing, health insurance, etc. In the neighboring Archdiocese of Boston, a 75-year-old priest coming out of prison was told to go find a homeless shelter. Over time in the abuse scandal, fear reigned and the observance of Canon Law has diminished. Some bishops simply discard priests deemed inconvenient, again whether guilty or innocent. My bishop has given no indication whatsoever that he would assist me in any way. He visited me briefly ten years ago, but he would not let me speak of any of this.

Back in January, 2022, a surprising development surfaced. A New Hampshire court ordered the Attorney General to make public a previously secret list of police officers whose investigations or testimony have been tainted and discredited by misconduct. It turns out that former NH Detective James McLaughlin is on that list as revealed in “Predator Po1ice: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.”

He is on the list for a 1985 incident of “Falsification of Records and/or Evidence” which is exactly what I have claimed of him for three decades. I am now expected to hire legal counsel for a new appeal based on this newly discovered evidence. I have been frozen in place ever since then. Only time will tell whether and how this develops. Saint Paul wrote that three gifts abide, Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love (1 Corinthians 13:13). But Hope is the most fragile.

A part of me does not dare to hope or to even move on this. The last such hope in 2013 met a dead end with a prosecutorial judge who refused to review new evidence or hear new witnesses. Justice from men is not always even or just. At almost 70, I feel closer to meeting God’s justice than that of anyone in New Hampshire. Shall I try or shall I simply wait? Stay tuned!

+ + +

Important Notes from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please do not understand this post as a plea for help, for many of you have already done just that. I offer profound thanks for your support, encouragement, and prayers for both me and Pornchai Moontri whom God has entrusted to my care.

An important sequel to this post will appear here next week. My heart was broken, as were many, by recent events in Uvalde, Texas. Twice in two weeks, a lost and deeply troubled and broken 18-year-old committed grave acts of terror in Buffalo, New York and then in Uvalde, Texas. My friend, Pornchai, was also 18 and broken when his offense was committed. Something essential has been lost in our culture and must be faced with bold courage. Pornchai and I both have some thoughts of hope about this that will be a part of our post next week. Meanwhile: please share this post, and please consider reading more through these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae by Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

The Measure By Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past

The New Hampshire State Prison exit gate.