Eric Spiwak
Portait of Eric Spiwak
The last time Jennifer Jones spoke to her father Eric Spiwak was during a three-minute and 48-second phone conversation. Jennifer received the call from an unknown number, she told CBS News. “A full minute” elapsed before she recognized the voice on the other end, grated by COVID, as her dad’s. She recalls her father “gasping for breath, and he’s like, ‘I’m sick.’” Jennifer believes that the call came from a burner phone within the prison. On the call, Eric tried to list everything he wanted his daughter to do, since she is an attorney — but he struggled to get the words out. This was the first time Eric and Jennifer had talked in months. Remembering their fleeting exchange, Jennifer said to CBS: “We didn’t even get to say ‘I love you’ to one another.”
Though Jennifer had not been in contact with her father in the year leading up to this last phone call, her sister communicated with Eric frequently. It was she who, on May 25 — less than two days after Jennifer spoke to her father — received a call from a prison chaplain. This correspondence was brief but solemn: the chaplain informed Eric’s daughter that her father had passed away. According to the sisters, the chaplain’s call was the only official communication their family had with the prison regarding Eric’s illness. Eric was brought to the hospital only after experiencing respiratory failure. He tested positive for COVID-19. We lost Eric, age 73, three days later.
Unfortunately, Eric was not the only one to die at the Butner facilities. Twenty-five others had succumbed to the virus there as of August 18, a toll higher than that at any other federal prison in the country. This horrifying figure is a direct product of the disregard for human life displayed by the Bureau of Prisons. Butner, where Eric spent the last decade, houses some of the most medically vulnerable incarcerated individuals in our country. Yet, according to some there, social distancing is impossible, and those who display symptoms are given medical treatment only if they meet certain conditions. One of these conditions is a sick call, which requires the incarcerated individual to pay.
The ACLU of North Carolina, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the law firm of Winston & Strawn have joined forces to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of those behind bars at federal facilities in Butner. We stand with them in their fight against injustice. We stand with Jennifer Jones, her sister, and the rest of Eric’s family and friends in mourning his untimely passing — and those of too many others.
This memorial was written by MOL team member Frances Keohane with information from reporting by Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post, Clare Hymes of CBS News, and a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Original artwork by MOL team member EJ Joyner.