r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Massive3213 • 2d ago
Steven Jay Russell, former executive employee, after being fired he became a forger and fraudster in the 90s, known for escaping from prison 4 times, one of them being a maximum security prison, he was currently sentenced to 144 years in prison, isolation and an hour a day to shower and exercise
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u/Embarrassed3266 2d ago
A severe punishment from those who felt totally outwitted by him
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u/1337coinvb 2d ago
In my country fleeing from prison does not extend or carry a sentence because the intrinsic wish of freedom is acknowledged
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u/balacio 2d ago
I love that you can’t sanction a yearning for freedom. Which country is it?
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u/1337coinvb 2d ago
Austria - but there are some European countries that have similar laws just like Germany aswell
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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 2d ago
It's the same in Switzerland. But about his escapes, only the high levels are relevant. I mean, some lower levels of security, there you can just walk out. We have low level facilities, where the prisoners go to work in a regular job outside of the prison during the day and they just have to return in the evening.
But with my own experiences, both with isolation cell and solitary confinement, when you are an high- or max-level, it's usually impossible to get out without help from outside.
In our countries, even when you escape, the thing is you have to stay on the run for all the time and you with all the bureaucracy we have here, you can't do anything at all. Can't even rent a motel room, where you usually already need to identify yourself. The law enforcement is very effective.
The only people that make it, are usually from the Balkans, they have help from the family and they can hide somewhere in a rurale and remote area, maybe bribe the corrupt police in Serbia, Kosovo etc.
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u/StiffWiggly 2d ago
I do think this is a good law, it’s a natural human desire not to be locked up. Note that you would still be sanctioned for any laws you break in the process of escaping (stealing keys, breaking stuff etc.).
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u/ThinCrusts 2d ago
That's actually pretty cool.. I would imagine someone bored out of their mind trying to escape everyday just to pass time, worst case they'll be back in their cell by dinner time
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u/Heliflap 2d ago
While it's true, that you won't be punished for trying to flee, you will still be punished for any crimes you commit during your attempt. So you will still be punished for stealing keys or breaking doors in germany as far as i know.
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u/proteannomore 2d ago
“If you can escape this room and escape from the building without causing any damage, you are free!”
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u/LightlyStep 2d ago
I mean yeah.
Some incredibly lacks guard leaves the door unlocked and you walk out.
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u/dumpster_scuba 1d ago
Yeah, no, you'd still be on the run. When you're caught there will just not be additional charges for escaping itself.
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u/TurtleSandwich0 2d ago
Just today my country ruled that a person can be fined for sleeping. We live in different countries.
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u/Ok-Kale1787 2d ago
That’s kinda cool. What country are you from?
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u/DashyKalashy 2d ago
I would assume Germany
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u/DepresiSpaghetti 2d ago
Yeah, probs Germany. Recognizing human rights and whatnot.
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u/SnooRegrets1386 2d ago
How refreshing from Germany, lessons learned
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u/daLejaKingOriginal 2d ago
On the other hand our cells are so small that Germany prefers to pay a fine every year to the EU than to actually change the prison layout. Some of our prisons are from before WW1
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u/NoTePierdas 2d ago
IIRC aren't you still charged for any crimes you committed while doing so? E.G. breaking a lock?
So, the driver is transporting you and the guards are looking the other way, you're good, legally, to run.
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u/1337coinvb 2d ago
Correct. You will still be held accountable for property damage, theft, kidnapping, etc.
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u/dumpster_scuba 1d ago
Yeah, that's pretty much it. If you have the opportunity to run, you will not be charged for taking it.
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u/StaticGuarded 2d ago
Life imprisonment is insanely excessive for a nonviolent crime.
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u/Wise-Push-7133 2d ago
He spent 3 years in prison on the original crime and got paroled....then....repeated the crimes and then tried to escape and did.....multiple times.
If the dude just did his time.....for the actual crimes he committed he would have been out a long time ago
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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 2d ago
We have an infamous prisoner in my country Switzerland, he got to prison for a robbery. Instead of showing good behavior, he did the exact opposite and constantly attacked both the staff and other inmates, so he was put in the hole. Even there, they needed a team with riot gear every time when they had to open his cell. For some time, they just fixed him on the bed.
If he just had cooperated, he'd have been out in around 2 years. But now, he's like there for more than 10 years - he was actually recently released for some time on parole and the very first thing he did was to beat someone, so he was arrested again and is back in the cell.
The parliament is even talking about changing laws and there's the "Sicherheitsverwahrung" (that's life in prison without possibility of parole for dangerous offenders) in the debate, he'll maybe get this.
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u/Squirmadillo 1d ago
Reminds me a bit of Charles Bronson ).
If you haven't seen the Tom Hardy film, it's in my top 25.
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u/StaticGuarded 2d ago
Yeah, I guess in this case it was more “Look, we all believe in rehabilitation but you clearly haven’t learned your lesson so it would be foolish of us to keep letting you go so you can continue victimizing others.”
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u/Wise-Push-7133 2d ago
He could have been out in literally 3 years....this is no one's fault but his own
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u/oooo0O0oooo 2d ago
…and the first three was his choice too. Bad choices all the way around with a terrible drive to follow through on the choice.
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u/2BrothersInaVan 2d ago
So, three years for what he did, and the rest because he tried to run?
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u/Wise-Push-7133 2d ago
He ran.....got a little more time. So, a normal person would learn and serve the time he did not.
Then he ran again and got a little more time and again didn't learn.
Then he ran again and got more time....then he ran a 4th time.
Things compound when you don't learn from your mistakes.
Sure, if he ran once and got out in 5 years, no one would bat an eye
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u/nomamesgueyz 2d ago
144 years?!
Whats he living for?
Whats the motivation?
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u/EbolaYou2 1d ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Jay_Russell
He’s been granted parole, he’s just waiting on a release date.
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u/Wise-Push-7133 2d ago
Ok, then, after 3 years, when he was free....don't repeat the crime and get more time....and then while you get a couple more years, don't repeat the same crime 4 more times. Is it that complicated?
Sentences compound when you repeat the same thing you've already done about 6 times ....4 escapes and 2 of the original crime...
He didn't get 144 years off the bat. He was literally free on parole in 3 years. The title is rage bait when you look into the case
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u/nomamesgueyz 2d ago
Sure
Didnt answer the question
Whats the point of living in solitude for decades until he rots? No one to care for him, to be with him, cant do prison activities or programs i imagine....death sentence would be less painful
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u/PortiaKern 1d ago
I'm assuming he would have found a way to commit suicide if it was really that bad.
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u/DankeSebVettel 2d ago
If he had stopped doing crime he wouldn’t go to jail. Maybe it’s a bad idea doing a crime and an even worse idea to try to escape
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u/not-bread 1d ago
He’s literally being tortured (solitary confinement) for the rest of his life despite not being at all a threat to society.
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u/2ingredientexplosion 2d ago
The punishment doesn't fit the crimes. Murderers have gotten less time. Yes he's a criminal but a he's also a non-violent one. He should've been reformed and given the chance to become an asset not destroyed, he clearly has a great mind just used it for crime.
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u/Hob_O_Rarison 2d ago edited 2d ago
99 years of his sentence were from his prison escapes.
He was also parolled last year and currently awaiting release according to wikipedia.
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u/Cayote 2d ago
That’s crazy, where I’m from the act of escaping is not punishable. Something about the human nature wanting to be free.
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u/Reasonablefiction 2d ago
This makes so much sense to me. Like how are you going to punish the criminal because the prison couldn’t do their one job?
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u/SkintElvis 2d ago
The USA does not have a restorative justice system. The aim is to punish.
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u/gerhardsymons 2d ago
Not even close. The aim of the justice-industrial complex is to make money.
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u/I_do_have_a_cat 2d ago
I might just not know enough about USA's incarceration complex, but how are they going to get money from incarcerating him? Is it because of free labor? But isn't he now completely isolated? How can they get money from him?
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u/prong_daddy 2d ago
The government pays subsidies in $/occupant/day, based on the capacity of the institution. They receive their funding this way. It's in their best interest to have full capacity or somewhere close in order to maximize income. There was a judge several years ago, I believe in Pennsylvania, that was sentencing minors to the maximum juvenile detention for everything they came in front of him for. It turned out that he owned part of a privately contracted detention facility that paid him directly for the incarcerated kids. This is only one of MANY flaws in the US criminal justice system.
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u/Not-Josh-Hart 2d ago
Private prisons are usually located in small towns in the middle of nowhere and often compete with Walmart to be that town’s largest employer.
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u/SkintElvis 2d ago
They profit from your incarceration. Imagine that for a second. It’s a business.
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u/stffucubt 2d ago
Tbf we have no info as to why he is in solitary
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u/Witold4859 1d ago
We kinda do. If you escape from a maximum security prison then they put you in a super-max.
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u/Frostvizen 2d ago
Use him to improve prison security!!!!
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u/DarkDugtrio 2d ago
Nope. Then no one will escape in the future and can’t use those people’s minds for good uses.
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u/Wise-Push-7133 2d ago
These comments are a joke. Do you people even look into what happened?
He served 3 years and was released on parole.....then went back to the same shit and got taken off parole... but he didn't like that and escaped multiple times.
He would have been free a decade ago if he had just served his time instead of being a career criminal.
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u/naomi_homey89 2d ago
Never understood how sentences are dished out. The number of serious criminal offenses I see on here where people get slap-on-the-wrist sentencing is just completely out of hand 😔
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 2d ago
Maybe, but the dude is a complete sociopath and probably shouldn't be without supervision for the rest of his life. He would undoubtedly victimize someone else.
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u/AdWeekly2244 2d ago
Just let him out jeez. He earned it.
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u/Grouchy_Competition5 2d ago
Wikipedia said he was granted parole last year, but hasn’t yet been released
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u/Reasonablefiction 2d ago
A year later and he hasn’t been released? What’s he waiting for, he already knows the way out!
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u/TwilightGlow1 2d ago
I can't believe this guy escaped from prison four times! His life is like a movie script
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u/babyVSbear 2d ago
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic (no /s) but the movie I Love You, Phillip Morris is his life story.
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u/100LittleButterflies 2d ago
Did he steal from people or from those bastards who steal daily, just legally?
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 2d ago
I think it'd be hard to get any a-list leading men to play him or his boyfriend though.
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u/NotEnoughIsTooMuch 2d ago
He was played by Jim Carrey and his boyfriend was played by Ewan MacGregor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_You_Phillip_Morris?wprov=sfla1
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 2d ago
Thatsthejoke.txt
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u/NotEnoughIsTooMuch 2d ago
Whoosh, sorry.
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u/Grouchy_Competition5 2d ago
“Whoosh?” That sounds like the sound something makes when it flies over my head!
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u/BigEnergyEngineer 2d ago
I’m not saying it wasn’t a good, famous movie…
But not enough people know it for that joke to land like you were hoping.
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u/Gorsoon 2d ago
23 hours a day 365 days a year for the rest of your life stuck in a tiny cell all by yourself, the US can be a sadistic place.
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u/WayneKrane 2d ago
He tricked rich people out of money, they throw away the key when you do that
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u/Coolio_Jones90 2d ago
Everyone saying stuff like this but forgery isn’t exactly “tricking” someone. You’re just straight up lying and stealing. Tricking rich people would be more like convincing them to invest in a mostly phony pump and dump scheme.
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u/Witold4859 1d ago
The Black Dolphin Prison is Russia is like that too, but at least they save that one for real whack jobs.
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u/csking77 2d ago
So 144 years, for what? Fraud? All day lockdown and isolation, most of the world refers to that as torture
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u/nomamesgueyz 2d ago
Interesting
144years is a long time
That kind of isolation will make anyone go crazy
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u/OzymandiasTheII 2d ago
144 years for forging and frauding? Who was he frauding, God himself? Oh because he was escaping. Oh no he's gonna go forge some more tax returns. Who fucking cares, the guy was non-violent? Justice isn't blind, she's a biased bitch.
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u/MinamimotoSho 2d ago
Isolation is cruel and unusual.
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u/Witold4859 1d ago
Not true. It may be cruel, but it is not unusual.
And Canada is no better. We put a person in solitary and left him there until he died of insanity.
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u/Your_Mom_Pegs_Me 1d ago
What do they hope to accomplish? They're just driving him insane with a punishment so cruel that even the puritan quakers outlawed it for fucks sake. There needs to be an immediate shift from punishment to rehabilitation
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u/Normal-Error-6343 2d ago edited 2d ago
Elmira system, most jails in WV use this method of incarceration. It is the most a human being can be incarcerated (strictest).
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u/outcome-unlikely 2d ago
If no one has mentioned it yet, a movie about Steven Jay Russell was made with Jim Carey and Ewan McGregor. It's titled, "I love you, Phillip Morris." An overlooked Jim Carey role.
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u/Bizzarxdj 2d ago
If you escape prison you shouldn’t get extra jail time should get lesser jail time and an offer of a job to bolster the defences at a prison..
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u/Meanteenbirder 2d ago
One escape had him elaborately fake illness and once he was out, he faked his own death lol
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u/Geebeeskee 2d ago
Watch “I Love You, Phillip Morris”. It’s based on this and is, imo, Jim Carrey’s best role that nobody has ever heard of.
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u/Sunchinethewerewolf 2d ago
He looks like doesn’t shower nor exercise in that hour.
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u/ItsRainingTrees 2d ago
To be fair, if I had one hour outside of isolation a day, those things wouldn’t really be high on my list of things to do.
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u/WayneKrane 2d ago
Right, who’s he trying to look and smell good for?
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u/ItsRainingTrees 2d ago
I mostly meant that I’d rather spend my time interacting with people and like walking around outside. You can exercise a bit in your cell, and showering is something I’d want to do, but not badly enough to sacrifice the only things that may keep you sane.
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u/daveythepirate 2d ago
EU is bigger than the us and has a larger population. Germany for example is half the size of Texas but has a population twice that of California
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u/linuxpriest 2d ago
And such crimes were never committed by anyone ever again because deterrence, right? /s
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u/Watcher_over_Water 2d ago
Live long isolation? 1 hour a day for shower and exercise? At that point give him the chair and stop torturing him
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u/frisky024 1d ago
Dudes free...
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u/JosephHeitger 1d ago
He’s been granted parole but I don’t think he’s actually been released. Kinda fucked up how long paperwork can take
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u/Gary-Beau 1d ago
So what crime of violence did he commit? Just stole a bunch of money? Kill anyone?
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u/TinFoilRobotProphet 1d ago
He stole our hearts! And for that he will never be forgiven! runs down hallway crying
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u/LonelyMechanic1994 1d ago
i mean thats a bit excessive. Keep the years but atleast give him more than a hour.
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u/bgoodell90 1d ago
I know him personally. I worked in the TDCJ facility he was housed in. ( Polunsky Unit)We talked often about his stories- I told him I had seen his movie and how much I loved it. He’s a very kind and gentle soul. He had a ton of books in his cell- he was always reading and helping other inmates with their cases. Even in 23 hour a day lock up and only a few pods over from men on death row.
Honestly— he paid for his crimes years ago— Texas is just mad he got out. Last I heard, he was granted parole and is currently out.. I don’t know how he is now though if I ever get to see him on the outside in person— I’d give him a great big old hug.
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u/flyingsponge14 2d ago
The fuck is this title?