Pain, Prison and a Pandemic: Life Behind Bars for Former CEO of U.S. Pain Foundation
/By Pat Anson, PNN Editor
Self-isolation, social distancing and good hygiene may be the order of the day for most of us during the COVID-19 crisis. But they are next to impossible for Paul Gileno.
“Basically 100 of us are locked in one building, all sharing the same bathrooms and common areas. I sleep on a top bunk in a room of 30 people which is all open,” says Gileno.
Gileno is the founder and former CEO of the U.S. Pain Foundation, which once billed itself as the nation’s largest advocacy group for pain patients. Today he is better known as Inmate #26388014 at Federal Prison Camp Schuylkill, a minimum-security facility in Minersville, Pennsylvania.
Like other federal prisons, Schuylkill has been locked down in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus. All visits have been suspended and inmates spend little time outside of their cells and dorm areas.
“The CO's (correctional officers) and staff do not wear masks and they come from the outside world. They say they test them, but that consists of taking their temperature. They won’t let us out to get fresh air, only to go eat and come back which is less than 10 minutes,” Gileno says.
In January, Gileno began serving a one-year sentence at Schuylkill for embezzling over $1.5 million from U.S. Pain. He could have gotten up to 25 years, but federal prosecutors agreed to ask for a lesser sentence when Gileno pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion.
“I was horrified how pain patients are treated in the outside world. In prison it’s 100 times worse,” wrote Gileno, who recently began corresponding with this reporter by letter and email.
“I am treated terrible here, all of the inmates are treated horrible here. Food is either expired or almost inedible and they are constantly doing raids, shakedowns and lockdowns, sometimes making us stand in the freezing cold for hours while they search our cells.”
Gileno abruptly resigned from U.S. Pain in 2018, but it took nearly a year for the Connecticut-based charity to disclose the full extent of the “financial irregularities” that he was accused of.
An audit revealed that Gileno used the foundation’s bank account as his own personal piggy bank, writing checks to pay expenses such as his mortgage, car payments and a visit to Universal Studios.
There were also questionable business decisions that were far outside the scope of U.S. Pain’s mission, such as a $100,000 loan to Gileno’s brothers and $165,000 spent on a failed bakery.
The brazen misuse of donated funds somehow went undetected for three years by U.S. Pain’s board of directors and vice-president Nicole Hemmenway, who has been “interim CEO” ever since Gileno’s departure. The non-profit’s board and office staff remain largely the same.
PAUL GILENO
“I don’t know what else I can say about U.S. Pain, except I certainly made mistakes and I mismanaged. But I took full responsibility and I am paying the ultimate price in many ways,” Gileno wrote.
“Sadly the people I loved and respected and who I trusted and hired totally disowned me, left me and refused to handle this in a way where I did not suffer as much as I am suffering. I owned up to my mistakes and never thought I would be treated as I was. With that said, I want U.S. Pain to succeed and I want it to flourish.”
Gileno says he sleeps on a two-inch mattress that has aggravated his chronic back pain. His only relief comes from ibuprofen or Advil, which he buys at a prison commissary. A doctor visits once a week, but sees only a handful of inmates.
“They are overwhelmed and do not care,” Gileno wrote. “I have met men in so much pain it’s tragic. We have no options here, no physical therapy, no medical attention, no access to any sort of therapy that can relieve some of our pain.
“I must say I am suffering more now in pain than ever before and my anxiety is at an all time high. And they do not treat that either.”
The worst part of prison life for the 47-year old Gileno is that he can’t see his wife and two sons due to the coronavirus lockdown. Schuylkill is a three-and-a-half-hour drive from their home in New York state. Telephone calls are limited to 15 minutes and emails are restricted.
Because of the pandemic, Attorney General William Barr recently ordered the early release of inmates from three federal prisons where coronavirus outbreaks have occurred. But so far there’s no word of that happening at Schuylkill.
“There is a lot of talk about freeing federal inmates but we have not been told anything nor have they informed us if there is a procedure in place,” Gileno says. “I am hoping they are not waiting until it gets here. I am one of the high risk patients they should put on home confinement. Besides all of my pain conditions and RSD, I have chronic asthma and chronic bronchitis.”
Gileno is currently scheduled for release in November. When he gets out, Gileno would like to return to patient advocacy and perhaps run a support program for prisoners in pain.
“I just hope people with pain know that I am always going to fight for them and all patients and that was always my goal when starting the foundation. I can’t wait to get out to be a patient advocate again and help who I can,” he wrote.
