Talk:Steven Jay Russell

What happened to Phillip Morris?

How long did he get? Is he out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.79.214.224 (talk) 01:48, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Probable disorder

His life pattern seems to fit the classic diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, particularly as outlined in the book "The Mask of Sanity.

Untitled

The part about his early life seems to say that being homoseksual made him criminal.. 81.205.145.79 (talk) 20:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you stupid? 128.211.198.168 (talk) 08:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It was illegal based on the sodomy laws. Being outed meant getting fired back then/the anonymous sex doesn't ever really look good. 199.8.13.1 (talk) 06:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

photo

Can we find an old mugshot and crop it? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:01, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Infobox: Criminal

If I'm reading the article right, he's in prison. Shouldn't we change the infobox and occupation to "former..." or "inmate"? Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:06, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

How can you Regard his escapes as 'successful' if he was always recaptured. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.96.91.85 (talk) 22:40, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Because his recapture was because of subsequent actions, not as part of the escape. 93.107.28.240 (talk) 23:46, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Because getting caught again wasn't related to the escapings?

link 9

footnote link 9 doesn't work can anyone find the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.156.10 (talk) 04:01, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced Material

Article has been tagged for needing sources for over a year, and is a BLP. Please feel free to reincorporate below material into the article with appropriate refs. Thanks! Doniago (talk) 14:31, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Early Life

== Early life == Steven Jay Russell was adopted at birth by a conservative family in New York. During the 1970s, Russell was employed as a deputy police officer and lived with his family in Georgia. While serving with the police force he would often make use of the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications Service and the National Crime Information Center databases to find information on his birth mother, eventually learning to use such sources to great effect. It is believed that said skills aided him in conning his way into attaining a job as a sales manager with White Swan Foodservice in Houston, Texas, by convincing the CEO Ronald Elmquist that he held advanced degrees in fresh food service management. When it was revealed that Russell was gay, he lost his job at White Swan Foodservices. He went on to convince the CEOs of two other food service companies of his non-existent qualifications before being realized as a fraud.

Escaping from prisons

Over the years, Russell had at least 14 known aliases. During his escapes he masqueraded as a judge, a physician, a police officer and a handyman, among others. On May 21, 1993, Russell escaped from Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, wearing civilian clothes he had obtained. Afterward he fabricated bogus credentials and obtained a job as CFO of North American Medical Management. He proceeded to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company. In 1995, his crimes were discovered, and Russell was imprisoned for insurance fraud and again placed in Harris County Jail, where he met future lover Phillip Morris. In 1996, while in Harris County Jail (Texas), Russell impersonated a judge and ordered his own bond decreased from $900,000 to $45,000, which he paid, securing his own release. He was arrested ten days later in Florida, and was subsequently transported back to Texas. That same year he began participating in art classes provided by the prison. Each time he attended a session, he stole a green Magic Marker and hid it under his bed. Eventually, he had enough markers to dye his white prison uniform green. Since all the medical professionals in the prison wore green uniforms, Russell was able to walk out of the prison disguised as a doctor. In 1998, he was again at the Harris County Jail, serving a 45-year sentence for stealing $800,000 from North American Medical Management, plus 20 years for the previous escape. He later managed to have Phillip Morris transferred to the Dallas County Jail and tried to have him released.

Biography

Russell claimed his life of crime started in the early 1990s when he was fired from his job as an executive of a food service company after his employers found out he was homosexual. He was later arrested for fraud for faking a slip-and-fall accident, and was sentenced to six months in prison. After serving four weeks in the Harris County jail, Russell escaped on May 13, 1992, by using a spare set of civilian clothes and a walkie talkie to impersonate a guard. He later went to take care of his boyfriend Jimmy Cambell who was dying of AIDS; Cambell died three weeks after Russell was re-arrested and sent back to Harris County jail. While in prison Russell met Phillip Morris, with whom he quickly fell in love. The two were later released from prison, and wanting to give Morris a glamorous lifestyle, Russell managed to get a job as the chief financial officer of North American Medical Management (NAMM). He then started embezzling funds, stealing $800,000 before the activity was detected and Russell and Morris were arrested. Sent back to the Harris County jail, Russell, considered a flight risk, had his bail set at $950,000, but later made his next escape by calling the Harris County Records Office, pretending to be a judge, and lowering his bail from $950,000 to $45,000 before posting the reduced bail. He was later tracked down via trap-and-trace phonecalls when he called his friends asking for money. He was arrested in a hotel room in West Palm Beach, Florida one week after his second escape. Russell was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the NAMM fraud and was sent to the Maximum Security Estelle Unit near Huntsville, Texas. Russell concocted a new escape after he began collecting green highlighter markers and a spare prison uniform and used his cell toilet to dye the uniform green to look like doctor's scrubs. He then walked out of the front door and hiked away from the prison to a house where he convinced a man to give him a ride into town. He then took a taxi to Houston. After tracking down Morris, on bail awaiting trial for his involvement in the NAMM case, he convinced him to run with him and the two fled to Biloxi, Mississippi, making money in casinos, where Russell was later identified and arrested by a U.S. Marshal. Morris was also quickly found and arrested. He was sent back to a maximum security prison in Texas to serve an additional and cumulative 45-year sentence. From here, Russell made his most inventive escape ever; he used acting and laxatives to fake the symptoms of AIDS, and a prison typewriter to fake his medical records to show him as HIV positive, being granted a special-needs parole to a nursing home to die. He then called the prison and parole board, posing as a doctor and AIDS specialist, asking for prisoners interested in an experimental treatment, and volunteered. Once out of Texas, he then sent death certificates to the prison and parole board stating he had died. While out on the run, Russell (determined to get Morris out of prison) managed to make up an attorney's bar card. He then called the Estelle Unit where Morris was serving his time, posing as a judge, and issued a bench warrant to have Morris moved to a Dallas prison so he could visit him disguised as his attorney Jean Louis without being recognized. U.S. Marshals visited the prison to find Russell already gone. He then dropped off the radar for a period of time.

Location?

The main article begins by stating he was a business executive who was then fired, then sent to the Harris County jail. Shouldn't that say Houston, Texas? I see in the talk section that this information was removed. Any objection to restoring it?Marzolian (talk) 00:50, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Steven Jay Russell/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The part of the "Escaping from prisons" section dealing the the year 1998 is rather confusing. Perhaps it could be re-written to better clarify the chronology of events in that year.

Last edited at 17:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 07:05, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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WRONG LINK?

It seems the page on the TDCJ website does not exist anymore. I have found another Steven Russell whose info. seems to match this Steven's. Here's the link (what say ye?): https://inmate.tdcj.texas.gov/InmateSearch/viewDetail.action?sid=05138971

Short description update

This was obviously wrong, and the additional context is more than important enough to warrant an exception to the observation that most articles only need 40 characters. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:36, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

From WP:HOWTOSD - "Editors should keep in mind that short descriptions are meant to distinguish an article from similarly-named articles in search results, and not to define the subject." The shorter description seems sufficient to accomplish that task. DonIago (talk) 14:10, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

It is not an exercise in brevity. Uses such as {{annotated link}} massively benefit from ever-so-slightly longer entries. I've seen utterly no arguments to the contrary save for robotic rules recital. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:41, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Let's see what other editors have to say on the matter then, especially since you can't seem to discuss this without being insulting about it. DonIago (talk) 23:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I will request a third opinion on this matter as we have not reached a consensus. DonIago (talk) 03:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Third opinion: both factors are important. He's only notable because he kept escaping, but 60 characters is long, and there are multiple shorter options:

• American con-artist with multiple prison escapes (48)
• American con-artist w/ multiple prison escapes (46)
• American con-artist with many prison escapes (44)
• American con-artist w/ many prison escapes (42)
• Con-artist with multiple prison escapes (39)
• Conman w/many prison escapes (28)

~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 14:06, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. My preference would be for something that's under 40 characters in keeping with WP:SD40, but in the interest of moving along over a fairly minor issue, I'd be fine with anything up to 45 characters. Over 45 seems excessive to me. DonIago (talk) 17:05, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Fine. I've gone with the 39-char option. I still think that blindly following a guideline which specifically permits a wide variety of exceptions is silly, but this should square that circle (and to be honest I've never been a fan of the way we make nationality so eternally prominent in biographies). Thanks to Argenti Aertheri (talk · contribs) for an amicable resolution here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:29, 20 August 2023 (UTC)