Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9409130027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
It belongs to Benjamin Arroyo, a confessed armed robber. And at 24, that face is looking straight at the rest of his life in a Virginia prison.
Arroyo knocked off 10 fast-food restaurants around Richmond and Newport News within a few months last year, stealing about $18,000 in all. Now it probably will cost Virginia taxpayers more than $600,000 to punish him.
Arroyo was sentenced under Virginia's ``three-time loser'' law, which says anyone convicted of three separate armed robberies or other violent crimes is not eligible for parole.
He'll be imprisoned at least 20 years longer than the average murderer or rapist.
Arroyo is among a few hundred three-time losers in the Virginia prison system, but there soon could be a lot more lifers behind bars.
Gov. George Allen wants to dramatically increase sentences for repeat, violent offenders - as much as 700 percent in some cases - and abolish parole. Inmates entering prison a third time would receive sentences so long they likely would die in prison.
``When violent, three-time felons are committing such a large percentage of the crimes, it just makes common sense to lock them up,'' Allen said in an interview.
The costs to hold them all are uncertain. The Allen administration estimated it will cost $850 million to build new prisons, but no one knows what it will cost to operate them 20 or 30 years from now.
Arroyo was sentenced to 214 years in prison and could have received more if prosecutors hadn't waived some potential charges. Without parole, his only hope for release is clemency granted by some future governor.
Virginia spends about $16,000 a year to house inmates like Arroyo. The cost runs even higher if an inmate's health fails.
If Arroyo lives to be 65, the average life expectancy for black American men, the cost to taxpayers to keep him in prison will easily top $600,000 without factoring in inflation.
But a footnote to the Allen plan would allow Allen and future governors to release ``exemplary'' older prisoners under a special geriatric clemency program.
``We cannot turn our prisons into hospitals. We cannot afford it,'' said Richard Cullen, co-chairman of the commission Allen set up to draft his plan.
Without the three-time loser provision, Arroyo probably would have been paroled after about 20 years, said his court-appointed attorney, John C. Jones. Twenty years of incarceration would have cost taxpayers half what life without parole is likely to cost.
Arroyo has been behind bars before, for selling crack cocaine in Pennsylvania. When he was arrested in January, Arroyo was wanted on drug possession charges in New York and Washington.
He is the youngest of eight children and the only family member ever to go to prison, he said. His childhood nickname was ``Smiley.''
The so-called ``polite robber'' says he always knew he would get caught.
``I couldn't stop, it was so easy,'' Arroyo said in an interview at the Chesterfield County Jail. He is awaiting transfer to state prison.
Arroyo said he almost couldn't believe his good luck with each robbery, and he kept waiting for the inevitable moment when that luck would change. When he was caught, he confessed to all 10 Virginia robberies, plus one in North Carolina, and pleaded guilty.
Like many of Virginia's prisoners, Arroyo is a high school dropout who has never held a long-term job. He was a small-time drug user and sometime dealer. By his own admission, he lacks the personal resolve to avoid booze, drugs and unsavory companions.
``I'm a follower, I guess. I just kind of go along with it,'' Arroyo said.
Jones thinks Arroyo has underlying behavior or learning problems, but is fundamentally nonviolent.
``There is nothing in his mental makeup that says he has to be a murderer or a rapist or a robber. It was just easy money," Jones said.
Yet, Arroyo repeatedly pointed a loaded gun at helpless people and demanded money. Armed robbery is a felony that carries five years to life in prison in Virginia.
The Allen administration says armed robbers usually get off too easily. On average, they serve only between 2.7 years and 4.1 years in prison, the Cullen commission said. Under the Allen plan, first offenders would serve 5.4 years, and those with prior violent offenses would serve 29.6 years.
``Anytime you use a gun in the commission of a crime and you intimidate people it is a crime of violence,'' said Michael V. Gerrard, the assistant commonwealth's attorney who prosecuted Arroyo for two restaurant robberies in Henrico County. ``To say he was polite I guess is accurate, but it doesn't change the facts of what he did.''
Eventually, Arroyo would have harmed someone, Gerrard said.
Arroyo, who grew up in Harlem, came to Virginia last year looking for work. Instead, he befriended a rough crowd in Richmond and passed his days smoking marijuana, watching television and drinking heavily.
``I would just sit around drinking all day ... then at the end of the month when it was time to pay the bills I would go rob a McDonald's,'' Arroyo said.
First, he'd drink a pint of cognac.
``I got a conscience, I'm a nice person. I did that so I wouldn't feel it,'' Arroyo said.
His plan was always the same: Enter the restaurant by a back entrance, confront the employees and order them into the freezer at gunpoint.
Then Arroyo asked the manager to come forward and open the safe. One young woman was so frightened she couldn't work the combination. She told Arroyo the numbers, and he opened it.
Arroyo timed the robberies to avoid customers, but once he miscalculated and caught a woman at the counter. When he ordered the terrified woman into the freezer with the employees, she left her purse behind.
Arroyo rifled the purse, taking cash and her wallet, but later mailed the woman her identification and credit cards, Jones said.
In each case, Arroyo told his hostages he would not harm them, and he did not lock the freezer. ``I was polite,'' he said.
Gerrard scoffed at that. ``Those people were frightened out of their wits,'' he said. ``Someone puts you into a freezer at gunpoint, they didn't know what was going to happen. They thought they might die.''
by CNB