𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 𝖕𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 ⋆ 𝕶𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓 𝖉𝖆𝖞

𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊

01/09/2007

          To the Parole Board of Metropolitan Detention Centre, Brooklyn.

          My name is Margaret Naomi Cohen. Currently in your care is my half-brother, Jonathan Isaiah Cohen, who was incarcerated on February 17th, 2005. In five days time, there will be a meeting between my brother and yourselves to determine whether he is fit to leave the prison system and rejoin society under strict parole supervision. In my personal opinion, Jonathan Cohen should never be allowed to set foot outside of your prison walls.

          I found my family when I was three months old, and Jonathan was eleven. My father, who had a child by a teenage girl experiencing homelessness and drug addiction while she was in his care at the shelter he often volunteered at, found me on his doorstep on a July morning with nothing but a blanket and a letter with me. His wife at the time, the mother of Jonathan, read this letter and took his actions as a sign to leave. As a man in a position of power in the community, my father won full custody of Jonathan and wrote off his now ex-wife as a lunatic. He raised us equally, both with the same love and care despite our vastly different entrances to this world. Isaac Cohen brought us up with his religion and his personal beliefs, hoping to shape us into the children he believed the world needed. Neither of us turned out the way I think he would have hoped.

          From a young age, I befell harm at my brother's hands. Jonathan hated me, and after years apart, I can understand half the reason why. I was the thing that took his mother away, that left him at the mercy of our father's belt and harsh hand. But there is a difference between a playground insult, and snapping the outside handle off of the bathroom door while your little sister sits in the bathtub with the water left running. There is a difference between the destruction of a favourite Barbie doll, and forcing your little sister out onto the stoop after sunset because you have friends over, and having a child in the house is 'killing the vibe'. Had we both been children, there could be humour found here. Funny stories parents tell their friends at dinner parties, about little Jack and little Maggie playfighting in the rumpus room. But I was four when I almost drowned, and Jack was fifteen. I was seven when I nearly lost fingers to frostbite that February night, and Jack was eighteen. I was little. Jack knew better.

          My father never noticed these things. I don't know if it was because he didn't want to see it, or he simply didn't. He was a busy man, and Jack used it to his advantage. He'd play the caring brother, dropping me off to the sports club or the community centre or school. Dad loved it, he bragged to all of his friends about how much his kids loved each other, even though their lives came together so suddenly and strangely. And Jack loved it too. He loved having someone who looked so innocent (and was innocent, until a certain point) that would be able to make drop offs and pick ups without drawing too much attention. He liked that I could hide in alleyways with my Walkman on mute, listening in on conversations he was not privy to. I was little enough then to understand that what I was doing was wrong, but not able to do much about it.

          Isaac Cohen died on October 1st, 1998. He had a short battle with cancer before it killed him. And that's when Jack became a monster.

          We stayed in our childhood home until we couldn't anymore. The mortgage was paid, so all of Dad's assets came straight to us. Or rather, they went straight to Jack, who became my legal guardian when he was twenty-two and I was eleven. He sunk most of the cash into buying large amounts of illicit substances to cut with baby powder and aspirin, and the rest went towards keeping the heat on in the winter. It only took two years for him to blow through all of the cash, because he used up most of the drugs instead of selling them. The ways he scraped together pennies needed for canned meals and a cold shower came naturally to him. He started lacing my juice with prescription pills, so that I wouldn't fight back when he let his friends, and eventually strangers, take my clothes off behind my locked bedroom door.

          The thing is, nobody knew my father was gone. His death was not officially recorded until Jack's arrest in 2004. My father's body was left in his bedroom for six years, sealed with pillow stuffing and packing tape, so that Jack could continue claiming compensation cheques and prescription refills in his name. It was a smart plan, really, and it kept us going for a while. Those prescription drugs were my saviour, in a way; they let me forget about the hell Jack made my life into, and they were the thing that made me forget what happened behind closed doors every night.

          Jack would tell me he loved me every time he laid a fist into my body where nobody else would see it. "I'm doing this for us!" he would say when he made me walk across Brooklyn to deliver a triple-wrapped package to a man who would inevitably pull me into his apartment. "You make it so hard to take care of you" he would scream before locking me in a stifling, pitch black bedroom with my father's rotting body when I acted strange in front of the CPS ladies. When he was arrested, he screamed my name in such a pained way that I cried for days afterwards. Every day when court would meet for his hearing, he would hug and kiss me and tell me we would be back together soon. I think he loved me, and still does love me, in his own sick way. 

          Jonathan Cohen does not know he has made any mistakes in his life. He feels no remorse for any single action in his life, aside from being caught. This is why he should never be released from the prison system, and why he will never understand the consequences of his actions.

          I appreciate your time, and hope my words have done something to sway your decision.

Regards

Maggie Cohen