From private plane to prison cell for Veon
-
Prisoners prepare silverware for the next meal in the prison's dining hall. -
Prisoners at the State Correctional Institution Laurel Highlands in Somerset County are able to walk within the fences to their jobs, activities and cafeteria. -
A typical cell in the new building at the prison has two bunk beds, a toilet, a small table and cable hook-up for inmates who buy a television. -
The day room in the new cell block at the State Correction Institution at Laurel Highlands in Somerset County. Inmates are free to leave their cell during the day to watch tv, have access to ice, coffee, soup and board games in the room. -
A typical cell in the new building at the prison has two bunk beds, a toilet, a small table and cable hook-up for inmates who buy a television.
Share with others:
SOMERSET -- As a powerful state representative, Mike Veon for years was perfectly coiffed, wore $1,000 custom-made pin-striped suits, smoked expensive cigars and sipped Makers Mark bourbon with lobbyists. He zipped around on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, attended conferences in Las Vegas and flew back and forth to Harrisburg in a state plane.
He dispatched a legislative staffer to retrieve his dry cleaning, arranged for his clothes to be tailored every time he lost or gained a few pounds and never wore the same tie twice on days the Legislature was in session.
Times have changed.
These days, the former House Democratic whip wears a brown Department of Corrections uniform, gets monthly haircuts from the prison barbershop and shaves with a 95-cent disposable razor bought from a prison commissary.
His leisurely dinners have been replaced by food mixed in huge vats and served on trays passed through a slot in a Plexiglass wall that runs between the kitchen and prison dining room. Inmates file in and sit four to a table. Talking is allowed, but there is little of it because inmates scarf down food in the precious few minutes allotted to eat. Meals lately have included hot dogs, braised chicken, baked beans, roasted potatoes and watermelon.
Mr. Veon, who did not respond to requests to be interviewed, has been sentenced to spend the next six to 14 years in the minimum-security State Correctional Institution Laurel Highlands in rural Somerset County.
There is no shortage of locked doors or razor-wire fences here, but as far as prisons go, SCI Laurel Highlands isn't too bad, inmates and corrections officers said during a recent tour of the grounds.
"We say it's a good place to be if you have to be in prison, but prison is never a good place to be," said Laurel Highlands spokeswoman Betsy Nightingale.
For most inmates, the hardest part is being away from family, said corrections officer David Shaffer.
"Other than that, you've got recreation, food, everything else you need. They have a lot of things to do. It's just the separation that's hard," he said.
First Published August 29, 2010 12:00 am
