Bamboozled (2 page)

Was this a paperwork error or has Joey successfully rewritten his own history in his head? Since so many reporters mimicked Joey's version of events, why wasn't this discovered sooner?

Another convicted murderer who declares his own innocence after spending eighteen years in prison, Damian Echols, expresses the importance of focusing on what you have in your life. He says, rather than focusing on what you don't have, like freedom, appreciate and develop the relationships you have. Echols claims it is what guided and calmed him through his eighteen years behind bars. This is a lesson that Torrey seems to understand as frequently as he twists it.

But Joey does seem to understand the importance of having an outward appearance that he has achieved zen with his life in prison. Understandably, he does sometimes slip and complains, “Doing life for a Y.A. plea bargain? It makes you mad. It makes you really mad.” In a recent letter to me, while explaining why I should send him $10,000 to hire a new attorney to appeal his case, he wrote “I don't expect you to understand, since you can walk outside and see the sunshine whenever you wish.” A fair point.

By 1990 Torres had married a woman he corresponded with from New Mexico. He arranged to transfer into the New Mexico penal system.

There, he came across
coram nobis
—a procedure intended to bring factual errors or omissions to the court's attention. The former amateur boxer continued a decades long fight for his freedom. In 1998, he arranged to be transferred from New Mexico back to California.

“I needed access to California law,” he says.

Torrey had appealed before and his contention remained the same. In 1980, neither the court nor his attorneys had outlined the consequences if he received expulsion from the California Youth Authority (now the Division of Juvenile Justice), and it had resulted in a sentence of life in prison.

When his new court date arrived, Thomas I. McKnew Jr, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, vacated both Torres's guilty plea and the judgment against him.

With that, Torrey was released into a world he barely recognized.

“People asked me what my cell number is,” he jokes. “I say, cell block six, cell 13. They say ‘No, no, no… Your cell phone.'”

But Torrey's new-found freedom was in jeopardy from the start.

Torrey's petition of
coram nobis,
the state argued on appeal, was handled improperly—the issue was settled long ago. On May 19, 2003, Torrey stood in a Los Angeles courtroom and was ordered back to prison, and he's spent most of his time since attempting new appeals from the California prison system.

“I'm still shell-shocked,” he says.

Torrey's former attorney, Verna Wefald, petitioned for a review of the decision to grant the state's appeal that had little hope for success. She had greater hope, however, for a
habeas corpus
petition she filed regarding matters far closer to the heart of the case against Torrey.

First: The only witness against Torrey, in 1978, had a prior criminal record and received immunity for his testimony.

Prosecutors did not reveal this in court.

Second: There was no eyewitness to the murder, nor was a murder weapon found.

Third: Torres was never allowed to speak on his own behalf during his original trial.

Wefald says California almost never grants parole in first-degree murder cases. Think life, she says—not 25 years.

“I've kind of lost faith in God. I really have.” says Torrey.

Joey tends to follow statements like these with proclamations about how he would rather focus on the days until his next opportunity for appeal—and what he has done with his days and those remaining is what is truly important.

For a repeatedly condemned man, Torres can still muster an upbeat demeanor. He laughs, cracks jokes, and in 2003, was working the phones for YDI and doing business for Top Rank, a boxing management company.

“I did all right, huh?” he asks, then answers his own question.

“I did all right. I did all right.”

Joey Torrey, 1978

Luigi, Marci, Ana, Mr. Gallo, and Bruce Trampler

A full moon shines above the glare of brilliant lights, which fade into the darkness beyond the walls and fences.
Guards maintain their vigil behind protective glass in this maximum security prison. In 1998, Kim Joseph Torrey, prisoner number C-47554, serving a life sentence for murder, was placed in Corcoran.

He maintains hope for his release, which is made visually evident by his extensive collection of law books, legal pads, and manila folders and his prolific letter writing campaigns.

Joey Torrey frequently has dreams that the state comes around to serve justice as he sees it—by releasing him. He's had that dream for over twenty years. Waking up each day, reluctuant to face his reality, he begins his excercise routine. Joey knows that some of his decisions have caused others to want to kill him before that parole day ever comes.

Prisoners usually get “whacked” in the morning when they're groggy or just released from “the hole.” Sometimes all a person can do is keep their mind and body in tip-top shape in case the moment to defend themself arises.

At breakfast time, Torrey might see Charlie Manson and Sirhan Sirhan, whom both share his cell block. Skilled at attaching himself to famous people, Joey claims to have known both men since he was a kid and to answer Charlie's mail, since Manson claims he can't read or write.

Joey was born May 4th, 1960, to a Puerto Rican father and a Sicilian mother in Brooklyn, New York. Joey says he was told that his father was offered a job in California, and moved the family there to start over, but as he grew older, he says a different story emerged. In the 1940s, a Sicilian girl wouldn't speak to a Puerto Rican man, let alone marry one. His
mother's six brothers instructed his father to disappear. So Joey's father changed the family name from Torres to Torrey, a change that haunts him to this day.

As a 5'5”, 140-lb kid resembling a dorky character from
Mad
magazine, Joey was and still is often accused of being a white man trying to be Latino. To make identity matters worse, his father was a VP for an ambulance company and they lived in a suburban three-bedroom ranch, vacationed in Europe, and attended church regularly.

And that confused racial heritage and search for authenticity plagued him worst in his teenage years. He grew up in what was then a more working class Panorama City. He started to get in fights with Mexican kids who thought he was white. He says he would frequently fight with his dad about changing their name. Joey idealized gang and street life and seemed bored by the suburban trappings of his youth.

At 15 years old he stole money from his parents and moved out, preferring a life of being homeless on the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Gang territory in Los Angeles was a complex issue in the 1970s and straying into someone's territory frequently caused fights. One day Joey rode the bus from the west side to the east side of LA Stopping downtown, another kid on the bus asked him the question that framed his teenaged fate: “Where you from?”

Joey says he tried to step off the bus, but the kid grabbed his arm, and they fought for what felt like hours. Eventually Joey says he grabbed the kid's throat and groin and banged him into a trash can until he passed out. The kid, “Lil Boxer,” a big boxer from 18
^th
St., became Joey's best friend and started calling Joey “Boxer.” Joey claims he was accepted into the west side 18
^th
Street gang—one of the few gangs at the time where Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and misfits congregated because Mexican gangs wouldn't take them.

His probation officer later wrote, “No one ever knew whether to take this claim seriously. It was highly unlikely an LA gang would even speak to a middle-class Caucasian youth from the San Fernando Valley.”

Joey recalls going to Venice Beach with Lil' Boxer. A car drove up and a fight broke out. The police showed up and the boxers took off running, but when Joey saw Lil' Boxer get caught, he says he went back so they could go to jail together.

At the beach patrol holding facility, Joey says a police officer gave them the choice between joining the police boxing program at the 77
^th
police station or going to juvenile hall. They both decided then and there to “Box!”

Joey wanted to spend the remainder of the night partying, so the boxers headed through the gauntlet of gang territory towards the 77th police station. That summer, Joey says the police program taught them the science of boxing.

Joey's dad once took him and Lil' Boxer to the gym for a match in East LA With Joey's dad in their corner, Lil' Boxer won the first fight, but Joey had the flu. Still, he fought. As his opponent put his gloves up for the first round, Joey's left hook ended the match as fast as it had started. Joey says his dad was frozen, mouth open in amazement.

That night, Joey's dad dropped them off on Main St., where they ate chicken wings as they strutted down skid row. They spent the night with a woman named Shondra, who had a few kids and treated them well. As a fifteen year old, Joey developed a love of gambling, cocaine, parties, and women.

In the summer of 1975, Joey was getting released from East Lake Juvenile Hall for being a runaway. Lil' Boxer picked him up, pretending to be his dad. Joey claims Shondra worked as a counselor at the very same Juvenile Hall so they drank 40 ounces around the corner and waited for her to get off work.

A 1947 Chevy pulled into the adjacent parking lot and Lil' Boxer slapped Joey, saying it was Bobby Chacon, an undefeated fighter in LA, getting ready for a shot at the title.

Through a window, Joey watched Bobby Chacon practice with Benny Urquidez at the nearby gym. To him, their motions looked like a primitive dance. He walked into the gym, and Benny's charm caught him off guard. Benny greeted Joey with a smile and introduced himself—walking him into the matted area where Bobby was hitting the heavy bag, resounding in a sharp and crisp, pop, pop, pop. Maybe it was the Colt 45 in his bloodstream or just his innate stubbornness, but for whatever reason, Joey informed Benny “The Jet” Urquidez that a good boxer would “kick the shit out of any Karate man.”

Former Welterweight Champion and International Boxing Hall of Famer Carlos Palomino describes Joey at this point in his life as a “wide-eyed, happy-go-lucky kid with a lot of confidence who thought he could be a world champion.”

Bobby stopped hitting the bag and turned to Benny in an awkward silence, before they started to laugh. A pissed off Joey explained, “Fool, I'm Boxer from 18
^th
St. and just won the junior Golden Gloves. My record is 7-0, with six knockouts!” Benny, never losing his cool, explained he only fought for money and, when Joey grew up, he could bring some money in and they could tie ‘em on.

They returned to working out, leaving Joey to feel like a fool before he realized he was late picking up Shondra. Joey found her standing at the corner down the street, smiling, and not even upset. Joey couldn't pick her up in front of her work because as a 30 year old social worker she could not be seen having romantic entanglements with a 15 year old street kid. Shondra held Joey's hand on the drive home as she tenderly told him that he was going to be a father.