Yesterday I was on the treadmill watching the local news when it showed a picture of a woman I knew....Janet Redmond-Mercereau.

This is the Staten Island woman who was on trail for murdering her husband, an NYFD marshall while their 2 young children slept. She was convicted by a jury yesterday after 2 yrs fighting her case from Riker's Island. She is facing 40+ years in prison.

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1242992705190150.xml&coll=1

This woman was someone I spoke to regularly. At one point I was in general population (for 2 days) and she was the only person I would really talk to. GP is racially segregated and we were the only 2 white people so we ended up spending alot of time together. There was alot of pressure for me to choose a side (latin or black) so rather than choose I preferred to be alone.

She told me about her case (said she was innocent), her children, her husband, her time as a school teacher. I watched as she read her children stories every night from the phone on the wall and cried daily. I don't know if she did it or not. It is not my place to judge.

Another woman I was in jail with was Nizelie Santiago. She was convicted of manslaughter of her daughter when her husband beat her to death and they left her sitting there for 1 day. She got 40 years in prison and is now in Bedford Hills with Remy.

As I sat there on the treadmill, I got very upset. These are the types of criminals I was in jail with. Me- little old promoting prositution charge (class D felony-these are class A)....a victimless crime was sitting there befriending murderers. When I think about it, it makes me sick that our society would classify my crime in the same manner as theirs. My crime which happens to be legal in 2 states yet just not the one I was operating in.

I sat there day in and day out surrounded by baby and husband killers. These are people who confided in me about their cases and the people I LIVED with every day. Can you imagine that? That your new friends (after your old ones snithced you out) are a bunch of murderers?? The severity of that sort of mental anguish is something you probably can't understand. And I hope you never have to.

I'm writing this to point out the hypocrisy of our system. That me, a former madam, with a promoting prostitution charge was classified in the same manner as a murderer. That is ridiculous. And there sits Elliot Spitzer in his plush Park Avenue apartment with NUMEROUS pending felonies in the Class C category (worse than mine) and he gets away scott-free. I'd like for us to address why there is a different set of rules for the elite and connected then there are for those of us who worked our way up from nothing???