http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_13547967?source=commented-
Posted: 10/13/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT
Say you're a murderous drug kingpin sentenced to isolation in the world's tightest security prison. (Just go with me on this.) Chances are, you'd want Lourdes Mederos working for you.
Lulu, 28, is bilingual, street smart and gorgeous. She moved to Florence from her native Miami last year for proximity to the incarcerated cartel leaders able to pay for her attention.
"To the world, they're monsters. And yeah, they killed people. But at the end of the day, they're people just like you and me," she says of the three Supermax inmates she counts as clients. "And, believe me, they'd rather see me than some old man attorney any day."
ADX Florence houses convicts the feds have deemed in need of the tightest control. It isolates them in solitary confinement. Visits are allowed only with family members — most of whom live nowhere near Colorado — or people designated as part of their legal teams.
Upon Lulu's arrival in Florence, word spread among Latino drug lords in the prison that her one-woman LM Paralegal Inc. was available for hire.
At first, she says she was "a little intimidated."
One client, Juan Ramon Matta Lopez, was a key player in pushing cocaine from Colombia's Medellin Cartel into the U.S. though Mexico. Another, Jesus Hector Palma Salazar, is a former Mexican drug trafficker and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. The third, Heriberto Huerta, is a founder of the Texas chapter of the Mexican Mafia, or Soldiers of Aztlan, which he managed to run from prison.
Each week, usually twice for Huerta and Matta Lopez, the inmates' out-of-state lawyers pay Lulu $125 an hour to visit their clients, generally for most of the workday. She delivers legal documents and conveys messages about the many lawsuits each has filed against the federal Bureau of Prisons. Their complaints range from the tightness of their shackles to guards' inability to speak Spanish to long waiting lists for vision care or hernia surgery. The cases are distractions from lives led in mind-numbing isolation.
Lulu offers company and conversation, the ultimate luxury in a prison where, she says, "you could die and nobody would know." Separated by the thick glass walls of a highly secured visiting booth, clients tell her about their lives and families. They discuss TV and football games. Palma Salazar talks food, advising her on his own special ceviche recipe. Matta Lopez chides her for having recently bobbed her long hair.
Lulu makes a point of visiting on holidays. She's careful never to be late. And she abides by ADX's rules prohibiting her from showing cleavage or wearing skirts that fall above the knee. After all, she says, "I have to be professional."
"These aren't my boyfriends. I can't be flirting or anything like that. They videotape our visits. There are a lot of eyes on me when I'm at my job," she says.
Still, she's confident her clients like the way she works. If they didn't, "they would have cut me off a long time ago."
Lulu is homesick. She misses her friends in Florida, life in the big city and her mom's Cuban cooking. But Florence is where ADX is. And ADX is where the money is. And for now, she says, the money's good.
She dreamed as a kid of becoming a zoologist, but says she's content "working with other kinds of animals."
"They're bad boys and I love working with bad boys," she adds. "My line of work, it's recession-proof. They ain't going anywhere. I've got my own place. I'm my own boss. I'm able to help my family out. I'm living, for me, the American dream."
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Posted: 10/13/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT
Say you're a murderous drug kingpin sentenced to isolation in the world's tightest security prison. (Just go with me on this.) Chances are, you'd want Lourdes Mederos working for you.
Lulu, 28, is bilingual, street smart and gorgeous. She moved to Florence from her native Miami last year for proximity to the incarcerated cartel leaders able to pay for her attention.
"To the world, they're monsters. And yeah, they killed people. But at the end of the day, they're people just like you and me," she says of the three Supermax inmates she counts as clients. "And, believe me, they'd rather see me than some old man attorney any day."
ADX Florence houses convicts the feds have deemed in need of the tightest control. It isolates them in solitary confinement. Visits are allowed only with family members — most of whom live nowhere near Colorado — or people designated as part of their legal teams.
Upon Lulu's arrival in Florence, word spread among Latino drug lords in the prison that her one-woman LM Paralegal Inc. was available for hire.
At first, she says she was "a little intimidated."
One client, Juan Ramon Matta Lopez, was a key player in pushing cocaine from Colombia's Medellin Cartel into the U.S. though Mexico. Another, Jesus Hector Palma Salazar, is a former Mexican drug trafficker and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. The third, Heriberto Huerta, is a founder of the Texas chapter of the Mexican Mafia, or Soldiers of Aztlan, which he managed to run from prison.
Each week, usually twice for Huerta and Matta Lopez, the inmates' out-of-state lawyers pay Lulu $125 an hour to visit their clients, generally for most of the workday. She delivers legal documents and conveys messages about the many lawsuits each has filed against the federal Bureau of Prisons. Their complaints range from the tightness of their shackles to guards' inability to speak Spanish to long waiting lists for vision care or hernia surgery. The cases are distractions from lives led in mind-numbing isolation.
Lulu offers company and conversation, the ultimate luxury in a prison where, she says, "you could die and nobody would know." Separated by the thick glass walls of a highly secured visiting booth, clients tell her about their lives and families. They discuss TV and football games. Palma Salazar talks food, advising her on his own special ceviche recipe. Matta Lopez chides her for having recently bobbed her long hair.
Lulu makes a point of visiting on holidays. She's careful never to be late. And she abides by ADX's rules prohibiting her from showing cleavage or wearing skirts that fall above the knee. After all, she says, "I have to be professional."
"These aren't my boyfriends. I can't be flirting or anything like that. They videotape our visits. There are a lot of eyes on me when I'm at my job," she says.
Still, she's confident her clients like the way she works. If they didn't, "they would have cut me off a long time ago."
Lulu is homesick. She misses her friends in Florida, life in the big city and her mom's Cuban cooking. But Florence is where ADX is. And ADX is where the money is. And for now, she says, the money's good.
She dreamed as a kid of becoming a zoologist, but says she's content "working with other kinds of animals."
"They're bad boys and I love working with bad boys," she adds. "My line of work, it's recession-proof. They ain't going anywhere. I've got my own place. I'm my own boss. I'm able to help my family out. I'm living, for me, the American dream."
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