Pubdate: Wed, 02 Aug 2006
Source: News-Tribune (LaSalle, IL)
Section: Pg A5
Copyright: 2006 News-Tribune
Contact:  http://www.newstrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3808
Author: Tom Collins and Yuri Ozeki, Reporters
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

EARLVILLE MAN CREDITS ARREST WITH SAVING LIFE, TEETH

PONTIAC -- Russell Farley turned 18 years old in La Salle County 
Jail, sleeping off a long methamphetamine bender that kept him up for 
days without sleep.

"I thought I was going to die," Farley said, recalling his torturous 
days in lockup. "I'd wake up and was mad and want to fight somebody 
because I didn't have my meth.

"I didn't want to eat," he said. "I just wanted to get high."

Farley has come a long way since the drug task force raided the 
Farley homestead in rural Earlville, where police discovered a meth 
lab in a barn. Farley's life had been in a downward spiral since the 
11th grade, when he dropped out of high school following an assault 
on a principal and then started using cocaine. Six months after he 
was out of school and on the streets, the people he hung around with 
offered him methamphetamine.

"They didn't really tell me what it was," Farley recalled. "They 
said, 'Try this. It's way better than coke.'You feel real good when 
you're high on it."

Within four months he was addicted, using up to 2 grams a day. Farley 
paid a price for the good high. Authorities initially charged him, 
his brother and father -- Leon Farley and Roger Farley -- with 
unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, 
a Class X felony carrying up to 60 years because two children lived 
near the lab.

Russell Farley was only 17 at the time, enabling him to squeak past 
the more oppressive sentencing enhancements and negotiate a plea for 
four years. He entered the prison system at Stateville Correctional 
Center, where he was locked in his cell 24 hours a day and given one 
shower a week.

He later was transferred to Pontiac Correctional Center, where the 
conditions improved slightly. Prison dentists fixed his teeth and 
despite the vile food he regained the weight he lost, from 170 pounds 
back to 210, from binging on meth.

Pontiac has no air-conditioning, however, and he shares a tiny room 
with an obese cellmate he doesn't get along with. They nearly fought 
when the roommate flipped off the lights while Farley was reading his 
mail, until Farley remembered his work detail in the prison's 
segregation unit for unruly prisoners.

"It's not really worth it," he said. "Seg is not a good place."

Farley is scheduled for parole in November and has a factory job 
waiting for him when he gets out. He's glad to leave prison, and 
surprisingly grateful for the arrest and conviction that forced him 
to get clean.

"Right now, if I was out there I'd be real high and would have lost 
all my teeth," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman