I am a January 6th defendant. I am currently being held in Lewisburg Penitentiary on pretrial detention. I can't speak about my case at this time instead I would like to express the difficulty of my position / hardships this has caused me and my family at this time. I would like to first say I am a father of two beautiful children. My daughter is 14 years of age and my son is 12 years of age. Since they were both born I have always been with them, they have never known life without their father. I consider myself a big kid at heart, being a father has allowed me to keep my playful side. Some of the activities me and my children enjoy are kayaking, hiking, fishing, amusement parks, arcade shops, skateboarding ( my daughter had to teach me to skate board lol) snowball fights, building igloos, and different various winter sports, gardening, raising animals and more.
Being a father has been the most rewarding thing in my life! It's now been a year since I have been incarcerated and away from my babies. My life, my children, and my family's lives have been changed forever. Emotionally it has been beyond difficult for all of us. The pain is unbearable at times.
I am a very hardworking man who loves to work from sunup to sundown and supporting myself and my family. I have never asked anyone for a handout in my entire life however I have found myself in a very difficult position. After spending all of my savings this past year of incarceration on lawyers, bills, rent, and commissary I have run out of funds in my bank account.
I had covid and was neglected for two weeks till I finally got over it myself. I had a high fever, stabbing pains in my lungs, cold sweats, diarrhea, shivers, lost all taste, no appetite and during this time I lost 20 lbs in 2 weeks.
The jail I was at that time neglected my medical needs, I was so desperate I called my family because I thought I was going to die. I have never been that scared in my entire life. They finally called that jail my family and helped me along with my lawyer and the US Marshals.
I finally had medical attention and was taken out of that place. That jail had many health violations which I brought up to the US Marshals while they were visiting. At that facility raw sewage would be spewing from toilets onto the floor rat secretment in the food, milk was served by inmates orderly including holding finger in a cup and drinking it into a large pot of yellow milk after touching trays. The food and the milk was contaminated. Food portions fit for a toddler with no more than 600 to 800 calories a day by my estimation.
As soon as the US Marshals left they told me because you spoke up about the conditions to the Marshalls that I was going to be punished that's when they decided to move me into a pod of misfits and troublemakers. That is also the time when I caught covid in that pod and was neglected medically. The one day I went for a lawyer visit and I had come back to the pod to find all my commissary missing, inmates had stolen my food which left me hungry for the week. I had gotten to that facility one week or so before Christmas I wasn't allowed to order commissary till after New years which meant starvation due to small food portions and freezing because I wasn't given anything but a t-shirt. Thermals had to be purchased on commissary and I had to wait two and a half weeks till commissary. The temperature ranged anywhere from 60° to 65 we were only issued one thin blanket. To say the least it was horrid. I begged God to take me out of there every day and night. Finally my prayers were answered and I was sent to Lewisburg prison in Pennsylvania. Here at this current facility we are allowed out of our cells most days for 1 hour in a cage every morning and the rest of the day we are either confined to our cells which are 6x10 or one large recreational room.
From the windows of this current prison we can see the rest of the prison inmates roaming free on an open yard, playing ball, running lifting weights etc. all the while we are on pre-trial and under constant lock and key restriction. As you can imagine this has an effect psychologically on a person after a while. I never knew depression before this besides some rare hard times in my life, now it is constant. Some days we may get locked in our cells for 24 - 72 hours without access to showers or proper ventilation, no air condition, no working air flowing, ancient vents only a window half cracked opened that no air flows through because it's in between buildings. Air quality in cell is poor without ventilation temperatures can reach 90 Plus. When we are locked in at night I sleep in a pool of sweat and wake up in a pool of sweat until they open the doors if they open the doors. Reasons are never given to us for keeping us locked up in such hard conditions again mentally this takes its toll on oneself. I have to eat next to my toilet bowl because we don't have a cafeteria where we are being held. There is so much more that is cruel and unusual, it's very clear that human rights are violated but I must say that through all of these hardships I've kept God close to me and he has carried me through it all. I thank God for the good and the bad, he has provided me strength. I hope and pray that my nightmare will soon be over and I can return home to my children, my sweetheart and my family. I humbly ask if anyone can help with whatever you can spare it would mean the world to me and my family. If you feel compelled to write to me please do my inmate number and information are below.
Words of encouragement and prayers are more then welcomed!
I thank you all so much for taking the time to read my story and may God bless you all.
Samuel Lazar
Inmate #56948-509
USP LEWISBURG
U.S.PENITENTIARY
P.0.BOX 1000
LEWISBURG, PA 17837