Peter V. Calabria's Horror Story

Out of character as it might seem for a man of science, by the time of his arrest, Calabria, who's now 57, has a history of unpleasant encounters with law enforcement.

According to his wife, Ruth, many of Calabria's troubles can be traced back to the early 70s, when he was living on E. 11th St.

"He was living in an apartment and some smoke was coming into his room all the time through a broken chimney," Ms. Calabria told me when we spoke at New York Press' offices. "He just kept living there and breathing that without thinking that it might have some long-term effect on his lungs."

Calabria ended up contracting multiple chemical sensitivity. And after breaking his foot ("at least once, and probably twice"), he finds wearing regular shoes an excruciating ordeal, choosing instead to wear moccasins. Those two conditions, his wife explained, lay behind much of the trouble that started in 1993, while the family was living in a campground in Schenectady.

"That is where it all really started," she told me. "He was arrested, and they put the handcuffs very tightly around his wrists. So much so that he suffered for a year after that. It was an absolutely horrible experience."

The details got a little sketchy, however, when I asked why, exactly, the police showed up to arrest Calabria.

"...It's hard to say what he was arrested for. We were living on a campground, and he was living in a tent. That was because of his lungs. Unfortunately, it often makes us look like we're kind of unusual. We cannot just go and live in a normal apartment because of this chemical sensitivity. New paint, cologne, he has to avoid all of those things... We have spent an awful lot of time over the past 27 years avoiding the things that hurt his lungs. The rest of us were living in a trailer, and he was living in a tent, so they arrested him."

After whatever happened was resolved, the family moved to a small town in Georgia, primarily for the warmer climate. But in 1997, they had more trouble with the police. According to a letter written by Ruth, the family had been having some sort of unspecified trouble with a neighbor. After they'd made several complaints to the sheriff's department, a squadron of police cruisers finally arrived?on the Calabrias' doorstep.

"It was very isolated," she said of where they lived. "There wasn't anybody around."

I wondered how they could have neighbor trouble if they were completely isolated.

"There was one neighbor there," she said. "But he wasn't all that close. When my husband saw [the police] he picked up one of the kids' shotguns. I jumped in front of him so they wouldn't shoot him... They arrested both of us, but they dropped everything."

When I asked what, specifically, the original charges were, she replied, "There weren't any charges. So why did they come to begin with? I don't know. They didn't like us very well. My husband is a scientist who writes on evolution. It's a small town. I guess we stayed there too long."

She admits he probably shouldn't have grabbed the gun. And though she insists there were no charges, she also says that the incident went on his record, and influenced judges in later cases.

The family moved again, this time out West. And in March of 1999, they had some car trouble. "We came to a small town in New Mexico, and there [a repairman] was really being a rat," Ms. Calabria explained. "He gave us a rental car. We left [our car] there and drove off in the rental car. My husband corresponded with the guy, who never fixed our car. So he reported [the rental] as a stolen car and [Peter] was arrested. The charges were eventually dropped again."

In the New Mexico jail, she told me, Calabria was kept in painful restraints for nine hours at a stretch?and because of his lung condition, had great difficulty breathing. The family posted bail and they headed back East. Problem was, Peter never returned for his hearing.

Around the same time, Peter and Ruth were bilked out of $90,000 by a man claiming to be an investor. When Peter discovered that they had not only lost the money, but that the "investor" was a con man, he sat down and wrote him a letter, threatening his life. Calabria was arrested again, this time for sending threats across state lines.

"They said, 'If you don't plead guilty, we're gonna send you back to New Mexico.'" Ms. Calabria told me. "So you see the chain. First he was tortured with the handcuffs. Then he pulled out the gun. Then in New Mexico, he was tortured, so he did not want to go back there. So he pled guilty."

Citing a history of violent behavior?specifically a 1984 arrest on harassment charges, which the family has never mentioned?the judge gave Calabria the maximum sentence.

Even though the family was able to recover $70,000 from the admitted con man, Peter began his 16-month sentence in the Hampshire County Jail in Massachusetts. And that's where his troubles really began.

In letters to his wife (many now posted on the family's website), Calabria has written in graphic detail about the nightmares he has encountered in prison over the last year. He recounts being beaten, raped, extorted, humiliated, deprived of sleep and tortured. He recently found himself in heavy restraints for 10 straight days. He's spent most of his time in segregation, being denied both family and lawyer visits. He's also, over the past 13 months, been transferred from Hampshire County to Wyatt Federal in Rhode Island, to Albany County Jail, Ray Brook, Clinton County, Syracuse, Otisville, Coleman, FL?and, most recently, to Alabama. I asked Ms. Calabria why he was moved around so much.

"We made a stink," she said. "Most people don't make a big stink... My husband stood up for his rights?many of which had to do with his medical conditions. He's a sick man, and does not belong in prison anyway. Point of fact, he doesn't need anything complicated. All he needs is a little fresh air?which they're supposed to give them. And as far as the shoes go, all he wants to do is wear his own shoes, not the ones that hurt his feet... Anyway, the thing is, he always had to stick up for his rights in regards to his health problems. Whenever we made enough of a stink, then they'd send him to a different place."

Reading Calabria's own account, most of the problems he's encountered do seem to trace directly back to his lungs and his shoes. Locked down for 23 hours a day, Calabria can't get the fresh air he needs to breathe easily. And by refusing to wear prison-issued shoes, he's earned himself a reputation as a troublemaker, prey for guards and prisoners alike.

The shoes weren't a problem at first, according to a statement written by Calabria's son. His first two weeks in Hampshire County, things were fine; he could wear his moccasins. But then it was discovered that he was talking radical politics with a cellmate, an illiterate Puerto Rican farm worker. Everything went to hell after that.

"They obviously don't like him because he is uncooperative," his wife said of his treatment. "And I suppose they would say that they have a right to maintain order in a prison... It's one thing to happen in a county jail, like New Mexico?but I did not think this would happen in federal prison."

I asked Ms. Calabria if she believes that her husband has been singled out for punishment on account of his political beliefs.

"Yes," she said, "but he also talked quite often about [other prisoners]. There are around two million people in prison right now, and about 85 percent of them are black, and most of them are men. And he has often written about their problems... What he says is that as far as he can see, about half the people there aren't guilty and don't belong there at all."

Despite his concern for other inmates, however, he's had as much trouble from them as he's had from the guards who keep him chained down.

"You've got people in there eight years, 10 years, 20 years," his wife says. "Black people generally, understandably, don't like white people, who tend to get short sentences. Sixteen months is nothing. Then they don't like him because he's white. And there are lots of them in there who are black."

Their court-appointed lawyer did try to file suit to get her husband released, but it went nowhere.

"I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm just stumbling along," she said. "I'm trying to do whatever I can to help him. I'm just hoping that when he gets out of prison, he can help himself. It's been a terrible burden to me."

She has not seen her husband in months, and last spoke to him by phone on July 22. She does, however, receive several letters from him every week. Last she heard, he was on a hunger strike.

In the meantime, to get word of her husband's plight out, Ruth and Peter Calabria have formed the Revolutionary Party and Ruth just announced that she's running for president. She and family members have been handing out pamphlets with Peter's story, calling radio shows and taking out newspaper ads. Calabria's release is pretty much the only party platform.

As she explains it, "We figure that if we yell and holler enough, they won't hurt him so much. I've tried to keep him visible. What they can do to people who have nobody, you can well imagine."

I asked Ms. Calabria what she thinks will happen when Peter is released on Nov. 1.

"I don't really know. At this point, I'm hoping and praying that he lives and that they let him out... I guess we intend to continue to pursue what we were doing before that. He's writing a book. He is about finished with that, and he's been sending us lots of science notes from prison. We're hoping he'll be able to get that published, and that will help. We used to have a lot of hopes and dreams. At this point...I just hope we can survive."

For more information on the Calabria case, and to read the prison diaries, visit: http://pages.prodigy.net/pvcalabria/homepage.htm