Piper Eressea Kerman (born September 28, 1969) is an American writer who was indicted in 1998 on charges of felonious money-laundering activities and sentenced to 15 months' detention in a federal correctional facility, of which she eventually served 13. Her memoir of her prison experiences, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, was adapted into the critically acclaimed Netflix original comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black.
Since leaving prison, Kerman has spoken widely about women in jail and about her own experiences there. She now works as a communication strategist for non-profit organizations.
Video Piper Kerman
Early life and education
Kerman was born in Boston into a family which included many attorneys, doctors, and educators. She graduated from Swampscott High School in Swampscott, Massachusetts in 1987, and Smith College in 1992. She is a self-described WASP (although her paternal grandfather was Russian Jewish).
Maps Piper Kerman
Criminal career
In 1993, Kerman became romantically involved with Catherine Cleary Wolters (Nora Janson in her memoir), a heroin dealer working for an alleged Nigerian kingpin. Kerman laundered money for the drug operation.
In 1998, Kerman was indicted for money laundering and drug trafficking; she subsequently pleaded guilty. Beginning in 2004, she served 13 months of a 15-month sentence at FCI Danbury, a minimum security prison located in Danbury, Connecticut.
During her sentence, the website "The Pipe Bomb" was set up to document her life behind bars.
Later career
Kerman published her best-selling memoir about her experiences in prison, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, with Spiegel & Grau in 2010. A television adaptation of the same name created by Jenji Kohan, the Emmy award-winning creator of Weeds, debuted on July 11, 2013 on Netflix. Kerman's character in the series ("Piper Chapman") is played by Taylor Schilling. The series was renewed for a fourth season on April 15, 2015, before the third season premiered on June 11, 2015. A fifth season was released on June 6, 2017. The sixth season was released on July 27, 2018. Orange is the New Black has received critical acclaim and won four Emmy Awards.
Kerman serves on the board of the Women's Prison Association and is frequently invited to speak to students of creative writing, criminology, gender and women's studies, law, and sociology, as well as to groups, such as the American Correctional Association's Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, federal probation officers, public defenders, justice reform advocates and volunteers, book clubs, and formerly and currently incarcerated people.
On February 10, 2014, Kerman received the 2014 Justice Trailblazer Award from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Center on Media, Crime & Justice.
On February 25, 2014, Kerman testified at a hearing on "Reassessing Solitary Confinement" before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights chaired by Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin.
On August 4, 2015, Kerman testified at a hearing on "Oversight of the Bureau of Prisons: First-Hand Accounts of Challenges Facing the Federal Prison System" before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Senator Ron Johnson.
Since 2015, Kerman has worked as a communications strategist for nonprofits.
Since her prison sentence, Kerman has spoken publicly many times on behalf of women in corrections and about her experience.
Personal life
Kerman has stated, "I'm bisexual, so I'm a part of the gay community". She came out of the closet around the age of 18 and identified as a lesbian for most of her youth. On May 21, 2006, Kerman married writer Larry Smith. Kerman and Smith live in Columbus, Ohio, and she teaches writing classes at the Marion Correctional Institution and the Ohio Reformatory for Women in nearby Marysville, Ohio.
Works
- Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
References
External links
- Official website
- thepipebomb.com - The website about her incarceration (mentioned in location 945/4958 of the OITNB ebook)
- Piper Kerman on IMDb
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- "Ubben Lecture". DePauw University. February 4, 2005.
See also
- Teresa Giudice, reality star and media personality whose prison memoir, Turning the Tables (2015), describes her 15-month incarceration from 2015 to 2016, for fraud, at the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, CT
- Martha Stewart, celebrity who was incarcerated from 2004 to 2005, for offenses related to insider trading, at Federal Prison Camp, Alderson, WV
Source of article : Wikipedia
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