The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (13 page)

For the first time in his two weeks of incarceration at the jail, he looked rested.

He turned his back to the small crowd of media, courthouse personnel and spectators, and sat. He faced forward for barely a moment before glancing back again.

Francis smiled at the two young, brunette television reporters from Panama City’s competing stations who could have passed for sisters.

He kept his head down as he looked from face to face, until Aaron Dyer walked in. He sat up instantly and motioned for Dyer to join him at the defendant’s table.

Dyer, taller than the 6-foot-2 Francis, carried a file folder pressed to his chest with his left hand and pushed open the swinging gate at his knees with the other. Francis clapped him on the shoulder as soon as Dyer sat down and leaned forward to talk to him.

The clap on the shoulder seemed to be a mixture of greeting and a desperate cling. Dyer, who stood by him through four years of legal problems, had been Francis’ lifeline throughout the last 10 days of his incarceration, when Francis had found himself in solitary confinement, shackled and cut off from the human contact he craved. Dyer had visited him every day.

Dyer stood and took a seat on the first pew. He wouldn’t be representing Francis at this hearing. That was for Jan Handzlick and Jim White, who were in the judge’s chambers negotiating a plea deal.

Francis asked a Marshal for a Kleenex, wiped his eyes, blew his nose and waited.

Gone was Francis’ usual cocky body language. He had an unfortunate habit of putting his hands in his pockets when he stood before the judge, but the green prison garb didn’t have pockets and he wouldn’t have been able to use them with his wrists shackled.

Francis believed for a long time that Smoak considered him to be “the devil.” On this day, Francis was scheduled for a hearing so the prosecution could convince the judge that Francis had committed the crime of criminal contempt of court. What it came down to was that Smoak had issued a complaint against Francis charging him with contempt of his court and then ordered him to show why he shouldn’t be incarcerated for it. Smoak said the prosecution was going to have to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, but that was hard to believe since the judge was the one who filed the complaint in the first place.

Francis was guilty until proven innocent.

Before the hearing had started, Francis’ Panama City lawyer, Jim White, had come out of some whispered discussions and stood off to the side by himself.

He had his hands in the pants pockets of his gray suit and the tip of his tongue protruded from between his teeth; his eyes were looking off into the distance, lost in thought. He was a respected Bay County lawyer with a brilliant legal mind. That day, he looked like an excited school boy.

“Interesting,” he said when I caught his eye. After the hearing, he explained that comment. “I was thinking about the dynamics of this case. This has never been seen before.”

He meant it was rare, if not unheard of, for someone to be jailed for criminal contempt of court in a civil lawsuit.

Francis did what was expected of him that day: he pleaded guilty to one count of criminal contempt of court. He admitted that he did not turn himself in to authorities on April 5 when ordered to do so. Instead, he flew in to Panama City five days later and was arrested by airport police.

In the two weeks since, Francis had gone from a cocky 34-year-old millionaire to a thoroughly beaten man.

“He stands before you transformed,” Handzlik, who was seeking a lenient sentence, told Judge Smoak.

Francis also was charged with contempt for supposedly lying to the judge in a hearing on March 30. As a part of the deal, the prosecutor agreed to drop that charge, but Smoak went through the allegation anyway before explaining why he would dismiss it.

Smoak said even though Francis had said attorney Rachael Pontikes had called him an “a-hole” during mediation, and Pontikes said she hadn’t, Smoak couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Francis had lied.

The charge of criminal contempt for not turning himself in on time, however, was better defined.

Smoak sentenced him to 35 days in jail. The judge made it clear that the sentence was for more than a year of aggravation Francis had caused him.

Smoak wouldn’t come off the sentence, either. Thirty-five days – seven days for every one that Francis was a fugitive in violation of the judge’s order to surrender himself.

Aaron Dyer said privately that Francis didn’t immediately turn himself in because he had a meeting with a probation officer during that time that he was afraid to miss. Dyer said Francis’ lawyers were in daily contact with the U.S. Marshal’s Office in Los Angeles during this time and there was always a plan for Francis to voluntarily surrender.

Francis cried quietly throughout the 30-minute hearing and blew his nose a half-dozen times. Nearly every time Francis blew his nose, Smoak would have to stop what he was saying. The judge, though, continued on as Joe wiped his nose.

Thirty-five days was a lot. Handzlik begged the judge for no more than 30 days, saying anything more than that would elevate Francis’ criminal history and make him eligible for up to a year in prison if he goes before a federal judge again.

Apparently, Handzlik had alerted Judge Smoak to that two days before and the judge was aware of the consequences, but still refused to back off the sentence. He said it would be improper for him to consider the ramifications of the sentence on other cases.

Smoak knew that Francis had been indicted in Nevada on April 11 for tax fraud and was facing up to 10 years in prison.

He stuck with his sentence.

State Prosecutor Mark Graham sat in a cushioned leather seat in a courtroom of Bay County’s new courthouse. The chairs were comfortable, the room distinguished with its dark wood accents, a contrast to the bland federal courtrooms where Joe Francis had been spending much of his time.

Despite the comfortable surroundings, Circuit Judge Dedee Costello had put Graham on the spot by questioning his ability to count to 35. Graham had asked for an emergency hearing on Tuesday, May 8 for Costello to enforce her order that Joe Francis be placed in her custody once he completed his federal contempt of court sentence.

Graham had asked to have the hearing on May 8, believing it was the last day of Francis’ sentence. Federal Judge Richard Smoak, however, put the sentence’s last day as Sunday, May 6. When the sentence had run, Smoak allowed the Department of Justice to remove Francis from the Bay County Jail.

Now Francis was in Marianna, a town 50 miles north of Panama City, waiting for transfer to Atlanta where he would be bussed to Reno, Nevada.

“We believe our math was correct,” Graham insisted. “We didn’t expect the federal marshals to spirit Mr. Francis away in the middle of the night.”

Now, Costello was scrambling to stop his transfer so she and the state prosecutors could finally put to rest his 2003 charges and possibly resolve the new contraband case at the same time. She asked Francis’ lawyer, Larry Simpson, if he could be ready for trial by mid-July.

Simpson was reluctant to commit. He said he had more discovery to collect and witnesses to interview.

“I think I’ve been more than patient with allowing this case to proceed slowly,” Costello told him. “I would have expected your discovery to be completed by now.”

Simpson said Francis’ settlement of the lawsuit meant he could now question the four girls – the alleged victims – in the case about things that were off limits while the lawsuit was pending.

Costello scheduled the trial for July, hoping to convince federal authorities that they could get these cases resolved without any inconvenience to them.

It made no difference.

Smoak denied Assistant State Attorney Bill Lewis’ request for a hearing on the matter and ordered Francis’ transfer.

Francis’ lawyers, too had worked to get him out of the Bay County Jail, where they believed the guards were trying to spur him into some kind of violent outburst so they could put more charges on him.

There was probably little truth to that. If jailers treated him uncaringly or rudely, it was because he was a number to them, an inmate. They insisted then, and in interviews years later, that Francis was actually treated better than most inmates in solitary confinement.

Francis, however, claimed he was virtually tortured.

Now Francis was on his way to Reno to resolve the second of three cases that had fallen on him in the span of one extraordinary week in April. After being jailed for contempt of court, Francis was charged with new state crimes of smuggling pills into the Bay County Jail and trying to bribe a guard. Then came the federal tax indictment in Reno. Then he was charged with misdemeanor sexual assault in California, for allegedly touching a girl against her wishes.

When he reached Reno, his lawyers asked for bail. The judge granted him a $1.5 million bond but said he had to resolve his bond issues in Bay County before being turned loose.

As a part of his bond request, Dyer included a report from a psychologist who had interviewed Francis in jail.

Dr. Ronald Markman wrote in his report that he’d met with Francis for two hours and during that time, Francis told him he was isolated in a small cell with the light burning 24 hours a day.

“All murderers in my section,” Francis said. “I started freaking out and screaming. I couldn’t breathe. I don’t think I can handle this on a long-term thing. I’m not a criminal.”

Dyer said Francis had been kept in the same area as two of Bay County’s most notorious killers – Robert Bailey and Blake Collier.

Collier had decapitated his wife and taken a bite out of her ovary because he thought she was carrying another man’s child, or to fulfill a Biblical prophesy or because she had refused to give him a blowjob. All three were reasons he’d given to police. Collier was bugshit crazy.

Dyer said Bailey did his best to drive Francis insane with his constant taunting.

Markman agreed that the situation was not conducive to Francis’ mental stability.

Francis had been denying some mental problems since he was a teen. Diagnosed at age 6 with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Francis was prescribed meditation but refused to take it. That led to so many problems that a teacher once told his parents: “If all children were like Joe, no one would have children.”

At a boarding school in Connecticut, the teachers found him angry and uncooperative. His parents finally sent him on to a military academy in California.

In all, Francis was diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar with adjustment disorder with anxiety, anxiety disorder, personality disorder and deemed immature with narcissistic tendencies.

Dr. Markham met with Francis twice during his incarceration: April 20, 2007, in Bay County and again three months later in Washoe County, Nev. The first time they spoke, Francis was in control of himself even though he was frazzled.

The next time, though:

“The once clinically stable defendant was repeatedly screaming invectives and demonstrating little emotional control, likely due to the cessation of his medications and the constant stress he was experiencing while in custody.”

Dr. Earl Nielsen met with Francis as well after his transfer from Bay County to the county jail in Reno, Nev.

“Francis’ thinking has turned to the bizarre,” Nielsen wrote. “Mr. Francis has lost confidence in his counsel. He frequently flies into rages or fits of frustration and has outbursts that are no longer rational or reflective of his immediate reality.”

Francis’ lawyer wrote in a motion that Francis was locked up in a small cell in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. The lights were constantly burning. The concrete cell was always cold and Francis had little more than a towel to keep him warm.

The motion said jailers would put his food outside his door and just past arm’s reach, so on many occasions Francis went hungry.

When he was transported to Reno, his lawyers said Francis wasn’t given his anxiety medication during the trip, even though the meds were on the bus, because no one was “authorized” to administer medications.

Once in Reno, his living conditions improved, but Francis’ mental condition continued to deteriorate. He became increasingly suspicious of his long-time lawyer Aaron Dyer when Dyer was unable to convince Judge Dedee Costello to reinstate Francis’ bond.

Dyer once said to me that Francis had been able to channel his hyperactivity, attention deficit and bipolar disorders into short bursts of formidable marketing drive.

Francis drove Girls Gone Wild into an empire that was reaching $1 billion in sales by the end of 2007.

Francis decided not to treat his disorders, only taking medication to stave off stress and panic attacks, so he could maintain the high-energy or manic phases in his bipolar disorder. During those times, Francis was intense, even brilliant, Dyer said.

He respected the Joe Francis that walked into Smoak’s courtroom in early April 2007, but didn’t recognize the man who cried in Smoak’s court a few days later.

“You’ve seen Joe Francis breakdown in court,” Dyer said. “That’s not Joe Francis.