toledoblade.com -- The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio

Frankel: Angry, bored
( AP )

From his tiny cell in a Connecticut prison, Marty Frankel said he's living in "a Twilight Zone."

He said he's locked in the 8-by-10-foot cell for days at a time. He has few books to read, and no television. The hours drag in solitary silence. "It's a horrible thing when you think about this," he said.

This is what life has become for the fallen fugitive.

Two months after he was extradited from Germany, the Toledo native claimed he's treated like a serial killer.

He's angry at his defense lawyer, angry at the prosecutors, and angry at his jailers. He vows to take his $200 million fraud case to trial. "I have a feeling I may be heading into a real fight with them," he said in an audio tape released to the media.

In his first comments since his March extradition to America, Frankel said his prison experience has been torturous.

He swears he never tried to escape from a German jail before being brought here - the reason he's being held in a high-security area of the Walker Reception & Special Management Unit in Suffield, Conn., prosecutors said.

"It's all bull," he said. "That's not true."

He said he doesn't know why German authorities told reporters he tried to cut the jail bars with a hand file at the Hamburg jail on Feb. 27 - two days before he was sent to the United States.

"I swear to God on my father's grave, any evidence they come up with will be fabricated," he said.

After numerous weeks in the Connecticut prison system, the former University of Toledo student has:

Accused his lawyer, Jeremiah Donovan, of working for the police.

Received hate mail, including numerous anti-Semitic threats.

Been confined in a special unit, where five of the nine inmates are being held on murder charges, he said.

Contacted a prisoners' rights organization.

Asked to be transferred to another facility, saying he's forced to stay in his cell 23 hours a day, and at times "three to four days" in a row.

Insisted he's broke and not hiding any money.

The 46-year-old ex-stockbroker, who was indicted in February by a federal grand jury on 48 counts of fraud, racketeering, and other charges, made his statements during several taped conversations with Toledo resident George Windau between March 17 and April 7.

With Frankel's permission, Mr. Windau turned over a tape to WBGU, the Bowling Green State University radio station. Mr. Windau had no connection to Frankel's business enterprises.

Frankel has declined media interviews, but in his taped statements, he insisted he "didn't set out to steal money from other people" and said he will refuse to throw himself "at the mercy of the court ... and you wake up and the judge gives you 3,000 years."

He said he may hire another lawyer, possibly former O.J. Simpson defense counsel Johnnie Cochran.

"What I'm saying is, I have a feeling I may be heading into a problem. I may end up with Johnnie Cochran," he said. A secretary for the famous lawyer said he was traveling yesterday and could not be reached.

Mr. Donovan, who has been Frankel's court-appointed lawyer for more than a year, said he didn't know his client had been looking for another lawyer, and was surprised his client allowed his comments to be released to a radio station. But he said last week he's still representing Frankel.

"This is the way people talk in prison," he said. "They get depressed. They get sad. I have enormous sympathy for Marty."

He said his client should be allowed more books, and should be released from his cell more often than an hour a day.

"There's no reason to treat him like that. He has nothing do all day but sit and stare at the walls." He declined to say whether a plea deal with prosecutors is in progress. He said he too has questioned whether his client ever tried to escape from the Holstenglacis Jail in Hamburg.

Federal prosecutors requested documents about the alleged escape attempt from German authorities in March, but have yet to receive them, said Kari Dooley, assistant U.S. attorney.

Jury selection for Frankel's trial - along with three co-defendants - is set for September.

The prosecutor said prison is not always "going to be acceptable" to defendants, and said she didn't believe Frankel's imprisonment is "cruel and unusual." She declined to comment on his recorded statements.

Based on Frankel's comments, he may be heading for a trial showdown.

The former fugitive said he has talked to his lawyer about pleading guilty in exchange for a 10 to 15-year prison sentence. But Frankel says the terms keep changing.

"My lawyer has said from the beginning, `Oh, make a deal and you'll get like 10 years.' Now it's 15 years. It gets worse as it goes on," he said.

Frankel did not mention the $200 million he's accused of stealing from the cash reserves of six insurance companies under his control in the 1990s. But he said his role as the "mastermind" and "financial genius" of the financial scam has been exaggerated, and that other, more powerful people were involved.

"What I did was make many mistakes," he said. "I still in my heart hold out hope that somewhere along the way, one of these people is going to be human. And look at this [case], and look at the individual, and say: `This guy isn't a demon. This guy did this big financial thing. But he's not a bad person, so what are we going to do? Put him in jail for 10 years, and maybe let him go to some halfway decent place.'" But in the end, he said, "they can basically destroy me."

He said he has been "convicted in the court of public opinion a billion times," but if the case goes to trial, he can call "the highest people in American government" as witnesses.

He said it was Texas oil money - not a Toledo hedge fund - that financed the purchase of his first insurance company in Tennessee in 1991. He did not offer any names. "I could have a big, huge trial, and embarrass the hell out of everybody," he said.

But he added: "Saying s--- like this will probably get me killed. Believe me, they can come into my cell anytime they want, give me a drug, and make me die of a heart attack in an hour. The only thing I got going for me to protect me a little, is that this is so high profile."

Frankel said he was going to contact a prison rights group - Critical Resistance of Oakland, Calif. - to complain of his treatment in prison. No one from the organization could be reached on Friday.

Additionally, Frankel said he's considering filing a lawsuit against the Walker correctional facility on constitutional grounds.

"It will be on behalf of the conditions of this prison where I'm at," he said. "You have the right to a law library. You should have the right to books. In this prison, no one has any right to any law book. ... All they give people is religious stuff."

Christina Polce, a prison spokeswoman, said the nine-year-old facility, which houses 566 inmates, meets all state and federal regulations. She declined to comment about Frankel, referring questions to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Gary Dorsey, an agency spokesman, said Frankel's prison accommodations were made by the marshal service based on reports from Germany that he tried to escape as well as the defendant's notoriety.

"Sometimes, it's for the prisoner. He could be preyed on. He might be vulnerable," said Mr. Dorsey.

Frankel said his confinement is "insane," saying he's being slowly punished so that he'll plead guilty. "It's a game they play: we're going to torture you for a year or two," he said.

"You are not innocent until proven guilty. Everything they taught me in political science school at the university [of Toledo] was bull," he said. "It was a lie."

Each day is a plodding, fruitless grind, with no end in sight, he complained. On some days, he receives hate mail, mostly with anti-Semitic themes. "It's a day-to-day thing for survival," he said.

But he added he has met some "nice people" among the inmates. "I will fight for the rest of my life for prisoners' rights, regardless of the way the trial goes."

Frankel did not talk about any of the other major defendants, including onetime finance Sonia Howe. But he said he was disappointed his fleet of 21 luxury cars - mostly black BMWs, Mercedeses, and Lexuses - were auctioned for only $757,000 last month.

"Four of those cars were worth $600,000," he said.

He still thinks about Toledo, saying that the hedge fund he set up in 1989 when he was a stockbroker was a success for his clients, mostly retirees, Jeep workers, and Owens-Illinois executives. "The funny thing is: all the people in Toledo, they all made money. Not one little person got hurt in anything I did. Nobody cares about that. It doesn't matter."

Prosecutors charge that the money paid to the Toledo investors did not come from investments, however, but from the cash reserves of the first insurance company that Frankel allegedly looted - a charge Frankel denies.

It's not clear whether Frankel will continue to release statements rather than consent to be interviewed.

The man on the other line of those conversations, Mr. Windau, has declined to be interviewed. But on the tape, he explained that he has been friends with Frankel for about 20 years.

"I know him as a person. You know him as a cartoon character. You know him as Darth Vader of the financial world," he said. "To me, he's just a person with good qualities, bad qualities, flaws, and some talents too."

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