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Chained Birds
Additional information
| Author | Carla Conti |
|---|---|
| Genre | Nonfiction – Memoir |
| Release Date | November 12, 2024 |
| Publisher | WildBlue Press |
Description
“Chained Birds is a book that will generate emotions from frustration to sadness and even awe at the events that transpired. Carla Conti has penned a book destined to be a future true crime classic.” —Manhattan Book Review (5-Star)
After three years in Europe, former journalist Carla Conti* just wanted to settle her family into the suburbs of Philadelphia. But her high school friend Scott Powell, a lawyer handling a brutal prison stabbing case, needed a favor. Before she knew it, Carla became part of the defense team and mired in the terrifying world of federal prison gangs, penal abuse, and corruption.
Then, when she agreed to write a tell-all book on the violent machinations behind the court case — with Scott’s client as an inside source — the stakes turned deadly. Two different prison gangs issued “hit orders” against the prisoner she and Scott now considered a friend, and the journalist and defense attorney were imperiled by association.
CHAINED BIRDS is a true crime memoir of Carla’s 10-year journey to advocate for federal inmate Kevin Sanders and help him re-enter society after prison. But the mission came at a cost as Carla struggled to balance her own, Scott’s, and Kevin’s safety while writing an exposé on the horrific conditions that led to the shutdown of an experimental prison program in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
This thrilling, frightening book depicts a journey filled with unlikely friendships, invisible victims of prison abuse, failings in our criminal justice system, and redemption through storytelling.
About the Author
C
arla Conti is a true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate who previously covered the police beat and criminal courts as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest and Northeast. In 2011, she was asked to write about federal inmate Kevin Sanders, who was incarcerated inside the brutal, torturous conditions of Pennsylvania’s Lewisburg Prison. Carla then became part of the legal team that defended Kevin against unjust assault charges and remained his advocate and friend on the outside ever since.
Because of her exclusive access to Kevin’s first-person accounts, she knows the stories that led to the 2018 shutdown of USP Lewisburg’s Special Management Unit, one of the bloodiest experimental prison programs in the country. For a decade, Carla followed Kevin’s journey inside various federal prisons to write an exposé on the world of prison abuse, corruption, and violent prison gangs he experienced. However, she became imperiled by association after two separate prison gangs tried to kill Kevin and learned she was writing a tell-all book about his case.
