Got 15 Years to Life for Drug Sale : College Student Does Slow Time

Thomas Eddy had not been arrested before, but the law is the law, the judge told the college student. “Fifteen years to life” came the sentence, in 1981, and Eddy has not been out of prison since.

His crime: He sold two ounces of cocaine to college friends.

He has another seven years to go before he can even apply for parole. By then, he will be 38 years old. He will have spent a decade and a half in maximum security prisons.

“At this point in my life, it’s almost easier to have less contact with people outside,” he said. “If you live ‘in the street’ you will never be able to do the time. Once you accept that you’re living in prison, it’s easier.”

Admits to Sales

Eddy is now 31. When he was 21, he sold drugs to other college students at Binghamton, N.Y. He admits it. He became known to other students as someone who could get marijuana or Quaaludes or cocaine. In his busiest weeks, he did $1,000 worth of business.

“I enjoyed the notoriety,” he said. “I thought it was part and parcel of my popularity. I went from (being) the basic middle-of-the-road kid in high school, to being a big shot on campus. It was a thrill.”

He was selling mostly to friends, he said. After his arrest, while he was awaiting trial, he was arrested again for selling Quaaludes. Still, he did not consider himself a “pusher.”

“This may sound self-serving, but when you’re in college, everybody does it,” he said. “It wasn’t that anybody was corrupted and I was getting rich off somebody’s sickness. It was very recreational. I never saw anybody get hurt by it.”

‘Drugs Can Hurt People’

“In here, I see the damage. Drugs can hurt people. I came in here and (saw) these kids who were on street corners selling heroin at age 13.”

Thomas Eddy is a handsome, preppie-looking man with the fast patter of a New Yorker and a glibness now backed by a string of education credits earned since his incarceration. He finished his bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing at Green Haven prison, earned a master’s degree in theology at Sing Sing, and is working on a second master’s degree in sociology at Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch.

He has helped run counseling programs for inmates. And he has become a “jailhouse lawyer,” writing briefs for himself and other inmates. He scored in the top 3% on the law school admissions test while in prison and has gotten invitations to apply to several law schools if and when he is out.

He chafes at the harshness of the penalty. “There are plenty of people who are in here for less time for killing someone,” he said. But he does not excuse his crime. “It was completely my fault. I was an ass. I wanted immediate gratification.”

‘Rockefeller’ Drug Law

Eddy was convicted under New York’s “Rockefeller” drug law passed in 1973 when then-Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller called drugs the state’s biggest scourge. The law requires a sentence of 15 years to life for the sale of two ounces or more of dangerous drugs. In 1979, the Legislature softened the law for marijuana, but not cocaine.

Eddy made two one-ounce sales to friends while on a Thanksgiving vacation in Long Island in 1979. They pooled the drug and resold it to an undercover policeman. When they were arrested, they struck a deal with the authorities: They turned in Eddy and got probation for their crimes. They served no time.

Eddy said he was offered a similar deal if he would go to a college campus on Long Island, sell drugs, and turn in the buyers. He refused. He was then offered a minimum three-year prison sentence if he pleaded guilty. He refused because his lawyer told him he could beat the charge.

“I gambled . . . and I lost,” he said. “I’m being punished for going to trial.”

Oppose Sentence Length

His parents say it was best that their son was sent to prison. But not for 15 years.

“If he had been acquitted, it never would have made an impact on him,” said Dorothy Eddy, 57, at their suburban home in Brewster, N.Y., where Thomas grew up.

“But after a month, he had learned his lesson,” added her husband, Thomas Eddy Sr., a 59-year-old retired IBM manager. “The sentence is just too harsh.”

“I distinctly remember when (passage of the ‘Rockefeller’ law) was on TV. I said, ‘Good,’ ” recalled the senior Eddy. “But they were supposed to get dealers. They haven’t gotten the big ones. They get kids like Tommy.”

The Eddys and their son have waged a war of letters in an effort to persuade Gov. Mario M. Cuomo to bypass the 15-year minimum for parole and recommend the young man for clemency. It is a long shot--the governor usually grants only a few such recommendations a year. So far more than a hundred letters written by friends, acquaintences and legislators have not worked.

Frequent Trips to Prison

Meanwhile, the Eddys make frequent trips to the state prison at Napanoch an hour away, where they see their son in the visiting room.

“It’s difficult,” Dorothy Eddy said. “His friends are progressing in their careers, and getting married, and having kids. You really don’t want to tell him. It’s sort of like rubbing it in that his life is on hold.”

“There’s no purpose,” she added. “It’s a complete waste of a bright young man. Yes, he did wrong. Yes, he should be punished. But this,” she struggles for the right word, “this is ridiculous.”