Funny, the diminutive, bespectacled lady doesn't look like a hardened criminal.
In fact, the 5-foot-2, 113-pound Key West clerical assistant has never bought or sold crack cocaine, held up a gas station, written a bad check or even attacked Police Chief Buz Dillon in print.
But she has felt the sting of the chief's brand of justice and she's got the bruised wrist from handcuffs clasped too tight to show for it.
Madge, as we'll call her, wears her gray-specked brown hair pulled back in a bun like a proper school marm. That, along with her wire-rimmed glasses stretched across her hazel eyes and framing her thin face, and she could be someone's well-dressed grandma.
Actually, she is, with three grandchildren and three grown children. Madge came to Key West in 1994, from her native Washington. With her children on their own and a failed marriage behind her, like many Key Westers, the pretty, middle-aged woman wanted a second chance in life.
After two years working as a store clerk, she found herself employed as an aide to a professional, where she has been ever since. But as a poor working stiff in pricey Key West, Madge could be safely classed as one of the city's "little people"— not earning enough to advance much beyond subsistence levels, but earning too much for public assistance.
Also, as she would learn, she was too poor to attract one of those high-profile Miami attorneys, like the drug dealers. All of this she would become painfully aware of in the early morning hours of June 8. That was when her world and her lifeline, her job, almost, came crashing down around her narrow shoulders.
She had just stopped off at Don's Place to see a friend who had recently begun working there. He wasn't on that shift, but she stopped for a drink anyway. "It cost around $3 and I left a $2 tip," remembered Madge. "I know that because I only stopped by with a 20-dollar bill and I put $15 in my pocket." That $15 would become important to her later.
Madge said a young man on her right bought her a drink. Then a large man on her left was celebrating his birthday and started sharing shots with the bartender. She said the birthday boy offered her a cup of Yukon Jack whisky. Since she said four drinks are usually her limit, she got up and left to walk home. She was within a few doors from her home when the police car pulled up beside her and the officer told her that she had run up a $14 bar tab and, the bartender said, had left without paying. "I don't run a tab. I always pay as I go," she said, adding that she had $15 in her pocket and could afford to pay for the drinks."
She said the next thing she knew, she was handcuffed by a young cop, placed in back of the squad car, transferred to the police van and taken to jail on Stock Island. "Why wasn't I given a chance to confront the bartender or even to pay the $14? I had $15 in my pocket."
She was kept overnight at the jail. "I had to be to work at 11 a.m. Pre-trial Services said they would call my job and tell them I was sick, so I wouldn't lose my job. They never did.
"Around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I appeared before Judge Wayne Miller on closed-circuit TV. I was told he was having a bad day, but didn't realize how much until he set bail for me at $250. Everyone around me was responding to a citation for things like a dog bite or traffic tickets. Why wasn't I cited with a notice to appear in court? Why did I have to go to jail?"
Late that afternoon, she was able to locate enough friends to cover the bail and get released. The jail didn't return her $15. "There's a $10 processing fee," they said. They gave her a check for $5.
When she went to court recently, her public defender wanted her to plead to no-contest. They would adjudicate the charges, meaning there would be no record. All she had to do was pay another $120, perform 20 hours of community service and remain on probation for six months. She said she was given a form that read guilty or no-contest. "Where's the space for not guilty?" she asked. "I'm going to fight this."
The police and bartender have a different version of the facts. They say "Madge" walked out on the tab, was "chased down" and told if she didn't pay, the police would be called.
The 33-year-old bartender then contended that the 53-year-old woman apparently outran him. The police said they asked her to pay for the tab if she had the money. She allegedly told the cop "tomorrow."
Madge denies all this, but admits that the two men who bought her drinks probably expected something in return for their money. "When I walked out, they may have decided not to pay. The cop NEVER brought me back to the bar or offered me the chance to pay. Don't you think, faced with going to jail and possibly losing my job, I would have paid the money if given the chance, even if I thought it was unfair?"
As for why the bartender would lie, Madge, a former bartender herself, could only guess. "Maybe it was because he had been drinking. Or maybe it was because I told him his girlfriend sitting at the end of the bar was ugly."
As for why the cop would lie? Everyone knows good cops don't lie. Her trial by jury has been set for Sept. 24.