Mike Tyson was convicted of rape on the basis of testimony that we believe we can now prove was known to be false and incomplete by the prosecutors. Indeed, we believe the prosecutors themselves played an active role in misleading the jurors and in keeping the true story from them.
The Rape of Mike Tyson
Had the jurors known what we now know – and what we contend the prosecutors knew all along – they would have acquitted Mike Tyson. Indeed, at least five of the jurors have recently urged that Tyson be given a new trial, at which the false evidence that was presented to them can be corrected, and the excluded evidence can be submitted to a new jury.
I am one of the attorneys working for Tyson on his appeal, so naturally I have very strong feelings about his situation. But I am also confident that as you read this article, presenting the facts and arguments which have been urged in briefs to the Indiana Court of Appeals, you will become as outraged as I am about such a gross miscarriage of justice.
As one of the jurors put it, “We [the jurors] felt that a man raped a woman …. In hindsight, it [now] looks like a woman raped a man.” Another juror, Rose Pride, now believes that Desiree Washington, the pageant contestant who accused Tyson of raping her, “has committed a crime.” On the basis of new information, which was kept from the jury during the trial, Ms. Pride has concluded that Washington “isn’t the innocent young girl presented in court.”
Two other jurors recently called me out of the blue to tell me that after hearing about this new evidence, they also believe that Tyson deserves a new trial, and they doubt they would have voted to convict if they had known the whole truth about Desiree Washington. And a fifth juror appeared on the Maury Povich show to tell the world that he, too, would have voted for an acquittal had he known then what he knows now.
WHAT THE JURY HEARD
In order to understand why these jurors are now having second thoughts about their verdict, we must go back to the trial itself and see how Desiree Washington was presented to the jury and to the world at large. Remember that during the trial she did not allow her name or face to be revealed. She was portrayed as a shy, young, inexperienced, religious schoolgirl who wanted nothing more than to put this whole unpleasant tragedy behind her. Her family had hired a lawyer for the express purpose of helping to “ward off the media” because she did not want any publicity. She had no plans to sue Tyson, and she had certainly not hired a lawyer for that purpose. When she and her family were asked whether they had a “contingency” fee agreement with any lawyer – the kind of agreement traditionally made with lawyers who are contemplating a money suit for damages – they all claimed to not even know what that term meant. When Desiree’s mother was asked at the deposition whether there had ever been any “discussions” with lawyers about fees, she said no, and she swore under oath that there were no “written documents relating to the relationship between you and [the lawyer who was supposed to ward off the media].”
Thus, as one of the jurors later put it, “When she [Washington] said [on Barbara Walters] she wasn’t looking to get any money, [I believed her and] thought then that we made the right decision.” Another juror agreed, saying that at the trial “she was very credible” because she had no motive to lie, since she was not intending to collect any money or to benefit in any way from Tyson’s conviction.
In addition to portraying herself as an altruistic victim whose only goal was to see to it that Mike Tyson received the treatment he needed, Desiree Washington was also portrayed – with the complicity of the prosecutor – as an inexperienced girl before she met Tyson. She testified that she was a devout Christian, an “innocent, almost naive” girl, according to the prosecutor. She knew how to “handle the hometown boys” if they even dared to try to cop a “quick feel,” and return from the date as “the same girl,” suggesting Washington did not even neck or pet.
The prosecutor also argued to the jurors a variation on the “dressed-for-sex” theory, which has been rejected by most courts. He told them that Washington went to meet Tyson wearing “little pink polka-dot panties” rather than “Frederick’s of Hollywood” underwear, thus showing that she did not wear the kind of sexy underwear that women wear when they are out to have sex. (As an example of just how tricky and unfair the prosecutor was, even his “dressed-for-no-sex” argument was based on misleading information: The fact is that Desiree’s underwear was all still wet from having been washed; her only pair that was dry when she went to meet Tyson at two o’clock in the morning was the one with polka dots.)
Finally, Desiree Washington solidified her image as a totally nonsexual, platonic date who only wanted to go sight-seeing with Tyson at two o’clock in the morning by describing to the jury how she responded when Mike tried to kiss her as she entered the limousine for the ride to his hotel: “He went to kiss me, and I just jumped back.”
Thus, the jury and the world at large were presented with the picture of a religious, young, naive girl who does not kiss, neck, or wear sexy underwear, and for whom a lawsuit or media attention were the farthest things from her altruistic mind. This public image was capped when Desiree Washington publicly stated that if Mike Tyson had simply apologized to her, she would have been satisfied and would not have pressed criminal charges.
No wonder the jurors believed her testimony, in what was a classic “she said-he said” credibility contest. As the trial judge instructed them, “You should not disregard the testimony of any witness without a reason and without careful consideration.” There was no reason – at least not any known to the jury or the public – for not believing Desiree Washington at that time.
Now it has become crystal clear that both the jury and the public were hoodwinked by Washington, her family, and the prosecutor. They were taken in by the image that she and the prosecutor presented of her and of her lack of motive to lie. The truth has now begun to emerge, and it presents a totally different story than the one heard by the jury.
WHAT THE JURY DIDN’T HEAR
The picture that is now emerging of the real Desiree Washington and her true motives for crying rape against Mike Tyson is so different from the one presented to the jury that it is as if the Desiree Washington who testified at the trial was an impostor – an actress hired to play a role written by a creative screenwriter. And she played that role so well that she ought to be nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Actress in a Documented Injustice.
It now turns out that the Washington family did not hire a lawyer to “ward off the media,” as they claimed, but rather to do precisely the opposite – namely, to sell Desiree’s story to the media for huge sums of money. Donald Washington, Desiree’s father, has now publicly acknowledged that he discussed movie rights with the very lawyer whom he falsely told the jury he had hired solely to ward off the media. The tape of an interview that he recently gave contains the following important admission: “I expected to get money from movie rights; that’s where the money is.” (Washington now claims that he was quoting the lawyer, not himself. Even if that were true, it would show that he and another lawyer were discussing movie rights.) I have been reliably informed by a person familiar with the facts that the Washingtons initiated the discussion of movie and book rights shortly after they returned from Indiana following Desiree’s encounter with Tyson.
It also now turns out that the testimony denying any contingency-fee agreement and any “written document” with the lawyer was totally false. The story of how the truth about this important issue emerged is a fascinating one. According to this source, immediately after Desiree Washington’s sexual encounter with Mike Tyson, the Washington family went to see a high-powered lawyer in their home state of Rhode Island. He brought in another high-powered lawyer, and the discussion instantly turned to how the Washington family could parlay Desiree’s date with Tyson into big bucks. They talked about movie rights, book deals, and multimillion-dollar lawsuits. The lawyer carefully explained what a contingency-fee agreement was – that he would charge a percentage, usually one-third of whatever the family collected from the lawsuits. The family agreed with this arrangement, and Desiree signed a contingency-fee agreement, which her father and mother officially witnessed. The family was given a copy of this written document to keep.
It was only a few short months after Desiree signed this contingency-fee agreement that she and her family were asked, under oath, whether they had a contingency-fee arrangement or “any written document” with the lawyer. They denied any such arrangement or document, despite having explicitly discussed the arrangement and having actual possession of the document.
I have now been reliably informed and have so advised the court that at the time of these denials (and the subsequent ones at the trial itself), the prosecutor was aware of the relationship between the Washingtons and their lawyer. (For the record, the prosecutors, in sworn affidavits, all denied knowledge of any written agreement between the Washingtons and their Rhode Island lawyer, and stated that they had no recollection of any fee arrangement or the purpose of such an arrangement.)
The prosecutors did everything in their power to keep the truth from coming out. They objected, on frivolous grounds, when Tyson’s trial lawyer tried to ask about a contingency-fee agreement, and tried desperately – but unsuccessfully – to obtain a ruling that any evidence about contemplated civil suits would be inadmissible. Then they arranged for the Washington family to take the courtroom pass away from their lawyer, so that he could not attend the trial. It now appears, in retrospect, that the prosecutors may have wanted the lawyer out of the courtroom while his clients testified so the lawyer would not feel ethically compelled to stand up and correct the Washingtons’ testimony if they falsely denied any contingency-fee or written agreement with him.
The ploy worked – at least for a while. But the Rhode Island lawyer soon learned that his clients were not being straight with the jury. He began to worry that he might have an ethical obligation to blow the whistle on his clients, as lawyers do when their clients are committing perjury. So the lawyer went to the Rhode Island Disciplinary Counsel – the attorney in charge of enforcing the ethical rules that govern lawyers – to obtain guidance about what his ethical obligations were in light of the Washingtons’ testimony. The disciplinary counsel advised the lawyer to get a copy of the trial transcript. In the meantime, the trial ended with Tyson’s conviction. After the verdict, the disciplinary counsel reviewed the transcript herself and concluded “that the attorney had an obligation to report to the [Indiana] trial judge the fact of his contingent-fee agreement.” She also asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court for guidance.
After reviewing the materials from the disciplinary counsel, and after questioning the attorney face-to-face, the Rhode Island Supreme Court issued an unprecedented opinion concluding that “the attorney had an obligation to disclose the existence of his contingency-fee agreement to the [Indiana] criminal trial court.” The state’s highest court found that the agreement’s “existence might well have had a bearing upon the jury’s determination.” The Rhode Island court then directed the attorney to disclose to the Indiana court the information that the Washingtons had withheld. He did so, but the Indiana trial judge has refused to make the contingency-fee agreement available to Tyson’s legal team, despite its obvious relevance and despite the conclusion of the Rhode Island Supreme Court that it might well have affected the jury’s verdict. Indeed, what could be more important than the fact – unbeknownst to the jury – that Desiree Washington had millions of dollars riding on whether Mike Tyson was convicted or acquitted, since without a conviction, it would have been difficult for her to collect monetary damages or sell her story to the media.
It is important to note here that the chief disciplinary counsel for the state of Rhode Island, after reviewing only a portion of the relevant testimony, has not concluded that Desiree Washington or her father necessarily committed perjury. Furthermore, the judge of the Tyson rape trial concluded – without holding an evidentiary hearing – that no perjury was committed either at the trial or when the Washingtons’ depositions were taken. This finding was based in part on the judge’s conclusion that direct questions were not posed, and that counsel for the defense never requested a copy of any written fee agreement. In the absence of perjury, the Indiana trial court concluded that there was no prosecutorial misconduct, and rejected the defense’s request for a new trial. The ruling is now being appealed.
Other important information was kept from the jury about Desiree Washington’s background and her activities on the night in question. It now turns out that Desiree was hardly a naive innocent. In fact, her new lawyer – who recently filed a megabuck damage suit against Tyson for rape and for giving Washington a venereal disease – implied to the media that Washington had been examined for venereal diseases, stating that she had had a full medical exam a month before she had sex with Tyson, and that she was “not sexually active” during that brief period. He provided that information in order to show that Washington could not have had any venereal disease before she had sex with Tyson. But why a young, sexually inexperienced girl should have been examined for venereal diseases before she had sex with Tyson was not explained by her lawyer. (When the lawyer was confronted with this question, he quickly backed away and said he was not going to talk about whether Washington was tested for AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. But if there had not been an examination for these venereal diseases, why would he have mentioned the medical exam at all, since a general examination would not have proven that Desiree did not have these diseases before she had sex with Tyson?)
Any and all relevant evidence of Washington’s sexual activity and of her motive to frame Tyson will emerge at the civil trial, since the Indiana Supreme Court has just ruled that the rape shield statute does not apply when an alleged rape victim has taken the initiative of suing for damages.
Not only was the jury misinformed about Desiree Washington’s general sexual proclivities, but it was also denied the most crucial eyewitness testimony of what she was doing just minutes before she went to Tyson’s hotel room. Remember that she denied necking with Tyson in the limo on the way to the hotel. In fact, she testified that she rebuffed his attempt to kiss her and “jumped back,” adding that Tyson reacted by saying, “Oh, you’re not like these city girls. You’re a nice Christian girl.” Tyson’s testimony was precisely the opposite. He swore that when he kissed her, “she kissed me,” and that on the drive to his hotel, he and Washington were “kissing, touching.” The jury obviously believed Desiree’s testimony because Tyson’s was uncorroborated and self-serving.
But it turns out that there were three eyewitnesses – disinterested outsiders who happened to be in front of the hotel on the same night when the limo pulled up – who saw what was going on inside and outside the limo just before Tyson and Washington left it to go to his hotel room. One saw them necking -”they were all over each other”; another saw them holding hands on the way to the hotel. The third corroborated their testimony. (Desiree denied both necking and holding hands.)
Of course, the fact that they were necking and holding hands doesn’t preclude the possibility that Desiree may have said no when it came to intercourse. Nor does it mean that a woman who engages in sexual foreplay may not refuse further sex at any point. Of course she may, and if the man then forces her to have sex, it is rape. But the testimony of these eyewitnesses shows three important facts: that Washington was lying when she denied necking with Tyson; that Tyson was telling the truth when he testified that they were necking; and that just moments before the hotel door closed behind them, Washington was involved in sexual foreplay with Tyson.
Despite the importance of this eyewitness testimony by three disinterested bystanders in an otherwise uncorroborated “she said-he said” credibility contest, the trial judge refused to allow the jury to hear the evidence of the three eyewitnesses. She ruled ·that the prosecution – which admitted that the testimony was “pivotal”- would have been prejudiced by the eyewitnesses’ late disclosure. (They had come forward near the end of the prosecutor’s case-after learning that Desiree Washington had denied necking with Tyson-but before the defense case began.) The jury never learned, therefore, the truth about what Desiree was doing in the limo moments before she went to Tyson’s hotel room. (The prosecution contends that the three eyewitnesses saw Tyson necking with Angela Boyd, a singer he was with the night before the Washington episode, but the witnesses clearly remember that they had just come from a concert that was held on the night Tyson was with Washington.)
It should come as no surprise that the trial judge made such a bizarre and unprecedented ruling to exclude such relevant and exculpatory evidence. The trial judge, Patricia Gifford, who used to be a full-time professional rape prosecutor, prosecuted more than 50 rape cases. She expressed extremely strong feelings about rape, especially what has come to be called “date rape.” Indeed, she lectured the lawyers against even using the term date rape in her courtroom, and refused to give the traditional date-rape instruction, which requires acquittal if the jury concludes that the defendant reasonably believed the woman consented, even if she did not intend to consent.
In light of Judge Gifford’s attitudes and professional background in regard to rape, it might be wondered how the prosecution got so lucky as to have her as the judge in the Tyson case. Luck, however, played no part in the selection. Using Indianapolis law and practice, the prosecutor was able to pick the judge who will try a criminal case. Nowhere else in the free world does the prosecutor have this ability, other than in Indiana. And the prosecutor picked wisely, if not fairly. Judge Gifford made virtually every important ruling in the prosecutor’s favor, including the exclusion of those three “pivotal” witnesses who would have won the case for Tyson.
Several distinguished commentators – including Professor William A. Kerr, who is Indiana’s leading authority on criminal procedure – have concluded that the trial judge committed a serious legal error by excluding the witnesses. Articles in The American Lawyer and the New York Law Journal have reached the same conclusion.
She also excluded evidence – under the rape shield law – that would have proved that Desiree Washington had a strong motive to frame Mike Tyson for rape, rather than acknowledge that she had eagerly consented to have sex with him.
Finally, after Tyson was convicted, Judge Gifford denied him bail pending appeal, apparently accepting the prosecutor’s silly argument that this celebrity defendant would somehow sneak away and fight in a country with no extradition treaty with the United States. And then, after Tyson went off to prison, Gifford convened a press conference and, according to news accounts, “expressed some worries about having her rulings overturned, especially in an internationally publicized case in which prosecution costs alone reached $150,000,” commenting on “the enormousness of the reversal of a case that would have to be tried again like this.”
THE CASE WAS A CLOSE ONE
Judge Gifford’s one-sided rulings shifted the balance against Tyson in what was otherwise a very close case. Even without all this exculpatory evidence, the initial jury vote was six to six. Eventually, the six who voted for conviction were able to persuade the six who voted for acquittal that there was no reason to disbelieve Desiree Washington’s account. But that account, especially when reviewed against the background of the information that is now known, is extremely unconvincing. I have no doubt that if Tyson gets a new trial before a different jury and a fairly selected judge, he will be quickly acquitted.
What then is Desiree Washington’s account of what happened that night? She led Tyson on and behaved like a groupie would behave. She sat in his lap and hugged him during the pageant rehearsal when they first met. She showed him a picture of herself in a bathing suit, gave him her hotel room number, and agreed to go out with him. She took his call at 1:45 in the morning and agreed to come down to meet him in his limo. Then she went into her bathroom and put on a pantie liner to keep her expensive borrowed dress from becoming stained by the beginning of her menstrual flow during the partying and sight-seeing that she said she expected to do over the next several hours. Yet she testified that shortly after going to Tyson’s hotel room and sitting with him on his bed, she went to the bathroom again and removed her pantie liner without replacing it. How did she expect to prevent her borrowed $300 outfit from becoming stained over the next several hours of anticipated partying and sight-seeing? The only plausible explanation for the removal and non-replacement of the pantie liner is that it was done in anticipation of consensual sex. (Desiree said that she did not replace the pantie liner at the hotel because she had left her pocketbook outside the bathroom, and she thought she would have an opportunity to replace the liner later in the evening.)
Moreover, if she did not want to have sex, she could easily have locked herself in the bathroom and called for help from the bathroom phone. The bathroom had a working lock and a phone that she could easily have used. Instead, she willingly came out of the bathroom, passed a door leading to the outside corridor, and went back to Tyson’s bedroom.
According to Washington’s own testimony, Tyson asked her – during their sexual encounter – whether she wanted to “get on top,” and she responded, “Yeah” (because, she explained at trial – but not to Tyson – she thought she could get away). When the sex was over, he asked, “Don’t you love me now?” after he had ejaculated outside of her, in response to her concern that she did not want to get pregnant.
No one except Tyson and Washington knows exactly what went on behind the closed doors of his hotel room. There was no videotape, as in the Rodney King case. Nor was there any physical evidence to corroborate Washington’s unlikely story. Indeed, the available physical evidence completely undercut her story. She was wearing a sequin-studded outfit, which she claims Tyson “yanked” off her as he “slammed [her] down on the bed.” If that had happened, there would have been sequins all over the hotel room. In fact, when the dress was gingerly introduced into evidence at the trial, sequins fell off in the courtroom. But only one sequin was found in Tyson’s hotel room after the allegedly forcible rape.
Nor were there any bruises – external or internal – found on Washington that were consistent with her account of how Tyson had “forced” her to have sex. She testified that Tyson “slammed [her] down on the bed,” got on top of her, held her down with his forearm across her chest, and forced himself inside of her.
Had the 230-pound, muscular Tyson done that to the 105-pound, slight Washington, there would have been bruises, welts, contusions, and even broken ribs. Yet there was not even the slightest bruise on Washington’s body when she went to the hospital just hours after the sexual encounter. The doctors found only two tiny abrasions, which, according to leading experts, are perfectly consistent with consensual sex – especially if the man has a larger than average penis or the woman a smaller than average vagina. Such tiny abrasions are also more likely when two people have consensual sex for the first time and are not used to each other’s sexual movements and desires.
The prosecution disagreed with this conclusion. One of their experts – as well as the doctor who examined Desiree the day following the incident – testified that while such vaginal abrasions can occur during consensual sex, it was a highly unlikely possibility.
Mike Tyson’s account of what occurred was entirely consistent with the physical evidence and with what is widely known about the world of athletes and groupies in general, and about Mike Tyson in particular.
Desiree Washington presented herself to Tyson as a groupie. Indeed, the pageant director herself criticized Washington for behaving like a groupie at the concert that night (when Tyson was not around). The “rules” of groupie sex are well-known to both groupies and athletes. The groupies want sex with superstars in exchange for bragging rights that they slept with the “high scorer,” the “champ,” or the “star.” Some, like Washington, hope that the star will fall for them and make them rich and famous. Indeed, several other contestants – friends of Desiree’s testified that after meeting Mike Tyson, Desiree bragged to her friend that she was going out with him because “this is Mike Tyson. He’s got a lot of money. He’s dumb. You see what Robin Givens got out of him.” She told another friend that “Robin Givens had him. I can have him, too .. .. He’s dumb anyway.” To her roommate, she said, “Mike doesn’t have to know how to speak well. He’ll make all the money, and I’ll do all the talking.” The friend overheard Desiree talking about Tyson’s butt – ”Oh, it’s something to hold on to” – and speculating about the size of his penis.
Tyson testified that he was blunt, direct, and unambiguous about what he wanted from Washington. When he asked her out – in front of a witness she suggested a movie or dinner. But he said no: “That’s not what I [have] in mind …. I want you. I want to fuck you.” The witness – Johnny Gill, a singer testified that Tyson said “I want to fuck.” Gill later asked Tyson how he could be so straightforward with women, and Tyson explained that he is used to saying what’s on his mind.
Everyone who knows Mike Tyson will tell you that this is characteristic of the former champ. He always says exactly what’s on his mind and asks for precisely what he wants. In fact, several years before his encounter with Washington, Tyson was being deposed by a female lawyer who was a former student of mine. In the middle of the deposition, he leaned over and asked her if she wanted to fuck him. She said no, and that ended the matter. Even though this lawyer was on the opposite side of the case from Tyson and doesn’t like him one bit, she has no doubt that he told Desiree Washington that he wanted to “fuck” her. “That’s just the way he does things,” the lawyer said.
Desiree Washington knew full well that Mike wanted to have sex with her when she went to his hotel room at two o’clock in the morning. Yet she testified that she had no idea that Tyson had any interest in having sex in his hotel room at two o’clock in the morning. How any rational person could believe that, especially in light of what is now known about Washington, is mind-boggling.
The truth is, she was willing to have sex with him in order to exploit him the way Robin Givens did. She hoped that after having sex with her, he would want to see her again and continue to go out with her. She was obviously disappointed and hurt when he treated her like a groupie – a one-night stand rather than as a continuing romantic interest. She realized that she could not exploit his sexual interest in her the way Robin Givens had done, and she was afraid of the reaction of her friends and family when it became known that she had indulged in a one-night stand with Tyson. At first she said that he had “tried” to rape her. She finally denied having sex with Tyson. Then she said it occurred “on the floor.” She gave the female chaplain at the hospital the sense that there had been some “participation” and consensual physical involvement on her part before he forced her. Finally, she settled on the account she gave at the trial: He had raped her on the bed with no prior consensual involvement on her part. To provide “evidence” of that account, she contrived with her mother to place a phone call to the 911 operator a full day after the event, and – after ascertaining that the call was being recorded – told the 911 operator the story she eventually recounted at the trial. That contrived recording became the corroboration for her testimony.
Despite the absence of physical evidence to corroborate Desiree Washington’s story, the jury eventually believed her because there was no compelling reason to disbelieve the testimony of a young, religious, sexually inexperienced “girl” who had no possible motive to put herself through the agony of a rape trial. But now it turns out that there are very good reasons for not believing her. As one juror recently put it, “She was very, very credible [at the trial]. but now she’s not credible at all. Right now I wouldn’t believe anything she said. I would sign an affidavit that if we had known about the money, I couldn’t have voted to convict him. Mike Tyson deserves a new trial.”
The only remaining question is whether Mike Tyson will get a new trial or be required to complete his sentence, despite the compelling information that he was denied a fair trial and that he is innocent of raping Desiree Washington. The case is now before the Indiana Appellate Court, and a decision is expected soon. It would be a shocking miscarriage of justice if Mike Tyson were not given an opportunity to prove his innocence in front of a fairly selected judge and a jury that hears all the evidence – including the suppressed eyewitness testimony that Desiree Washington was necking with Tyson on the way to his hotel room, and the documentary evidence of Washington’s financial motives to frame Tyson – that was deliberately kept from the first jury. I am confident that if Mike Tyson receives a new trial, he will be quickly and unanimously acquitted.
Editor’s note: As this article was going to press, the New York Post reported that Desiree Washington’s relationship with her father may have been more complicated than anyone outside the family had suspected. Citing police reports from their Rhode Island hometown, the Post wrote that in October 1989, Desiree’s mother, Mary Bell, had her father, Donald, arrested and charged with assault and battery against Desiree. “In her account,” reported the Post, “Desiree alleged to the police that her father ’hit me and pushed my head under the sink . … He continued slamming my head into the wall and the floor. I freed myself and reached for a knife to protect myself.’ “ The Post goes on to cite a deposition given by Mary Bell Washington for the Tyson trial in which she says that her husband “flew off the handle” when Desiree told him “she had lost her virginity.” According to the Post, Mrs. Washington also told the police (but not the court) that she “arranged for Desiree to undergo psychotherapy, because of severe depression and suicide threats.” The Post said that Desiree’s attorney did not return calls for comment on the story, and that it was not clear whether “Dershowitz has obtained or will utilize any of this evidence when oral appeals begin.”
In a recent series of interviews orchestrated by her new civil lawyer, Desiree Washington has complained bitterly about the publicity that has surrounded her since she decided to go public following the trial. She says that she, too, is “in prison,” and that “as long as [Tyson] is in prison, and maybe even longer, I will be in prison.” Putting aside the fact that she decided to disclose her own identity – it was kept secret before and during the trial – by appearing on “The Barbara Walters Show” and on the cover of People magazine, the reality is that Desiree Washington continues to attend college, live at home, and do whatever she pleases. That is a far cry from the isolation of Mike Tyson’s imprisonment.
Tyson has been in jail since the day of his sentencing on March 26, 1992, despite the fact that his appeal has not yet been decided. (It was argued on February 15, 1993.) Only a person who has never seen the inside of a prison could believe that there is any analogy between Desiree Washington’s life on a college campus in Rhode Island and Mike Tyson’s daily routine in the Indiana Youth Correctional Facility.
I visit Mike Tyson in prison regularly, and I speak to him even more frequently. If Desiree Washington saw and heard what I have seen and heard, she would not want to trade places for even one day.
The first time I saw Mike in prison, he was bound and shackled in chains around his midsection, on his legs, and on his arms. This was near the beginning of his imprisonment, and he was being disciplined for some minor infractions. On his first day at the facility, a guard had asked Mike for an autograph for his kid, and Mike had instinctively signed his name. In the world of prison – a world unknown to Desiree Washington – that constituted a disciplinary violation, since no prisoner is allowed to give a guard “anything of value.” Then a few weeks later, a guard told Mike that he had a visitor. Since Mike’s visits are limited to a few hours a month, Mike asked the guard whether the visitor was his mother, whom he was expecting, or someone else, on whom he did not want to waste one of his precious visiting hours. The guard refused to tell him, and Mike cursed the guard. For that violation, Mike was placed in isolation and had to wear the chains in which I first saw him.
Since that incident, Mike has adjusted relatively well to life in prison. But he can never relax. Even the warden cautioned him never to turn his back on anyone. As a high-profile prisoner, Tyson is an obvious target for other prisoners, who might try to make a reputation by showing they are tougher than he is, or who might try to earn points with the authorities by setting him up. Mike spends his days reading. I have sent him dozens of books on subjects ranging from biography to ancient Egypt, from pigeons to nutrition to the psychology of succeeding. He is a voracious reader, and he loves to discuss the books he has read. We have had mini-seminars during our visits, and he is an avid student. He has also taken prison courses in math and other subjects, and during a recent visit, he proudly showed me an A he had received in one of his courses.
Mike’s father died on October 27, 1992. Mike was not permitted to attend the funeral, nor could he grieve openly, since crying — even at a loved one’s death — is a sign of weakness in prison, and the smallest sign of weakness is an invitation to exploitation in the prison world.
Mike, who is particular about his food, has lost a considerable amount of weight because he limits himself to eating fresh fruits and vegetables when he can get them. He has fasted for several days, not to protest, but to protect his health. He tries to stay in shape, but boxing is not a permitted activity in the Indiana prison system, so he is limited to doing sit-ups and other exercises.
The one subject Mike does not like to discuss is his future: “My life is in prison for now, and dealing with prison one day at a time is a full-time job. I’ve got to keep my mind on what’s going on in here right now, not on what may happen when I get out.”
The Indiana Youth Correctional Facility is not a hellhole like New York City’s Rikers Island. It is an old, gray, antiseptic prison with an emphasis on security. Like most prisons, it is an extremely dangerous place, with knives, razors, and other weapons readily available. During the day Mike is allowed to walk around in a fenced-in field that is part of the prison. “That’s the worst,” he told me to my surprise. “If I were locked in a cell all day, at least I wouldn’t get myself into thinking I was free. But when I walk in the field, I can sometimes forget for a minute or two that I’m not free, that I can’t make any decisions on my life in here. I’m dying in here a little at a time.”
Mike also receives mountains of mail – some from fans, some from ordinary citizens outraged at the injustice of his conviction, and much of it from women who want to go out with him. Some of the mail never reaches him because of prison restrictions. But he reads the letters that he does receive and answers some of them.
During my visits, I asked Mike what he misses most. “Not the sex,” was his instant reply. “The privacy, the ability to do what I want, to eat healthy food, to hug my mother, to joke around with my friends, to feed my pigeons, to sleep in my own bed.”
Mike constantly asks himself, “How could she have done this to me? She knows that I didn’t rape her; she knows that she agreed to have sex. How can she do this to another human being?” He shakes his head in frustration and looks straight ahead at the drab prison building to which he must return after our interview.
