JESSICA

Jessica Ermatinger

Jessica was a prostitute.  That is true about most of the women I met in OCJ.  She and her pimp were responsible for a man's death.  She was living with her pimp and his girlfriend in Detroit.  Jessica told her pimp that the john carried a lot of money on him.  Since he was a regular, the next time they met, Jessica and her pimp had a plan to rob him.  Except, her pimp brought a trigger happy friend, who shot the man.  They were arrested on their way back to Detroit.  Jessica was 24.

The reason she lived on the the wrong side of E is that she had a co-defendant named Lynn.  Lynn was added into the plan at the last minute, because they didn't have a ride.  They should have known their plan was doomed, because how do you rob somebody and you don't have a car?  Lynn wanted out, because the friend she went to pick-up for company was released at the traffic stop.  She claimed to have nothing to do with it, and all the other players in the crime agreed.  Lynn wanted the same courtesy, but Jessica was the first to turn on everybody, and wouldn't let Lynn out of it.  Lynn and her new jail friends began to harass Jessica, and she had to come live with the rest of us in 23 hour lock-down.

When there are more of them than you, the Supervisor makes the choice to send you to "the other side".  Then they treat you like a disciplinary problem.  Except, the Gatekeeper treated Jessica and her friend Mildred differently.  He would let them out at 10 a.m. They would usualyy stay out until 2 p.m.  That's about four hours, and included lunch out.  That was reality for Jessica Monday thru Friday when he was there.  With all of her "situations" Jessica didn't have it too bad.  When I found out that she was a prostitute, I thought I would see her in and out of her cell like the others.  Nope, she stayed in.  That was until it was time for her to go to court to testify against her co-defendants.

All the other prostitutes were mad about her getting a lighter sentence, because they knew she was the main culprit in the crime.  She was the one who made the whole robbery possible.  She is the one who told her pimp about the money the man carried.  If she would have kept that information to herself there would be no crime at all.  Plus, why was she the one to get a deal?  Her pimp used a nod in court to say it was because she was having sex with the lead detective in the case, and he wasn't far off.

The weeks before her testimony she would be out of her cell a 3 a.m.  I know, because she lived in #18 and I lived in #20.  She told me she was getting her blood drawn for her Depakote levels, but she didn't have on a band-aid for the hole the poke made.  She was in the Clinic, and if I never told you, the clinic is where the sex acts take place.  One time when she was out I had a medical emergency.  Ashmead told her to get away from the bubble.  She did as she was told, and I could tell the type of person she was.  Unlike Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman", she doesn't say who, when or how much.  She needs someone to tell her.  She is co-dependent.  She's also an air-head who told me that she had seen one of her other pimps who was driving a Mercedes at the time.  She said if she would have just gone with him she wouldn't be in so much trouble.  She said, "That mothafucka didn't have nothing anyway.  I saw another one of my pimps, he was driving a Mercedes.  I should have went with him."  Sadder for her, don't you think.

The Gatekeeper talked to her pretty badly, too.  One morning, when she was sleep he came on her speaker and told her, "Jessica, get up!"  That's when I began not to trust him.  He sounded like her pimp and Jessica pulled back to cover and got up.  I told you about Mrs. Freedline, and the 29 fiasco.  Jessica actually thought she would get probation for causing the death of a man.  She was Chabot's and got 20 years, but her male co-defendants got LIFE.  Lynn got 15 years, because she always claimed all she wanted was cigarette money.  She was a prostitute in OCJ, but she was always on the other side, and I don't know her story. 

After she was sentence, I hugged her and told her that she would be okay.  She kept crying and said, "I don't know why she did that, it won't bring him back".  To let you know how selfish she is.  When I got back to the POD, she was in the bed with her head towards the wall and Mrs. Freedline was in the bubble.  She told me that she had called her phantom Mom and she didn't want to talk.  She had shortly before moved in to cell #1.  Remember that is the "fuck me" cell.  She got a bunky who acted overbearing.  They bought tons of commissary, when Jessica had only ordered coffee that was $5 and a couple of brownies before.  Mildred was gone and Jessica went to prison; for once I felt relief for a soul.  She also had those visits in the virtual visiting room...