SOBIN’S CURRENT incarceration is not his first return to custody since his initial release in 2003. He’s been jailed multiple times for violating protection orders instituted by his son. Their dispute, Sobin says, is over a large inheritance promised to him by Sobin’s mother, who died 18 months before his 2003 release. Neither his son nor sister— whom Sobin claims also conspired to ensure he received no inheritance—was willing to talk for this story. But according to court documents filed by them, Sobin’s mother gave away most of her money before her death and specified the remainder wasn’t to go to Sobin, and the inheritance claim and the lawsuits Sobin has filed relating to it have merely been an attempt to force his family to have contact with him.

As a motion filed in 2006 by his son states: “For more than two decades, [Sobin] has been a sophisticated serial abuser of the legal process, adept at manipulating the legal system to further his illicit purposes, including stalking, harassment, and vengeance.” It goes on to note “ 60 separate meritless civil lawsuits” Sobin has filed since the ’80s. The court eventually imposed a vexatious litigant order against Sobin, which prevented him from filing lawsuits in D.C. Superior Court without employing a licensed attorney or getting prior approval. The court also fitted Sobin with a GPS tracking device after he allegedly pasted notes outside his son’s apartment window in the middle of the night.

During Sobin’s most recent trial, his son read a victim impact statement that described Sobin as mentally ill, with “a very explosive and violent temper” and a “limitless supply of energy to pursue his nefarious ends.” “This is not a situation where a man who has made mistakes needs

Jail Guitar Doors’ Billy

Bragg and Mick Jones deliver guitars to London’s Wormwood Scrubs, 2007.

tion just proves how hard it is for ex-offenders to re-enter society. “The judge said, ‘Mr. Sobin, I can’t accept your testimony as true because I note your criminal convictions.’ That’s the real obstacle people face out there. They have criminal convictions—it applies to getting a job and to families, but it can also apply to people just plain believing what you say is true.” He maintains the dispute over his inheritance is real. “They stole from me. I’m not going to walk away without the money or an apology. I’m going to continue to speak out about it. Is that harassment? Is that stalking? It would be the equivalent of [con-demning] Holocaust victims who keep speaking out about what happened to them.”

Whether Sobin is the crusading activist he

.

.

.

a helping hand on his path to redemption,” the statement reads. “Rather, it is all about enabling a dangerous predator to continue to stalk those that have resisted him in some fashion.”

In recent years, even some of Sobin’s friends have recognized his unhealthy obsession with his family. Donavan Berry, who has helped run the Prisons Foundation in Sobin’s absence, says it’s something he’s fixated on. “It has definitely caused a distraction in the foundation’s work. I wrote him a letter saying, ‘Look, if you would’ve devoted as much time and energy to the foundation as you’ve devoted to getting back at these people you claim stole a million dollars from you, you would’ve at least made ten million dollars for the foundation by now.’ ”

Sobin insists his family problems stem from his unwavering, lifelong commitment to truth and liberty no matter the cost, and denies stalking anyone. He says his most recent incarcera-

views himself as, the unrepentant, mentally afflicted narcissist his detractors paint him as, or something in between may not be the most important question. Even if we’re to believe the worst about Sobin, does that invalidate the work he’s done? Even his harshest critics would be hard-pressed to fault the sincerity of his efforts on behalf of the nation’s incarcerated. As the Prisons Foundation’s Horrocks puts it, “Dennis’ story and who he is isn’t really nice and neat. He’s not Gandhi or even Malcolm X. I can relate to that.”

The problem comes when he holds himself up as a model of the ways the arts can rehabilitate criminals. Although he appears to have given up the porn business—he claims to be now involved only as a “consumer, no longer as a provider”— he won’t admit to any real wrongdoing in the case that put him away for more than a decade. Even if, as he insists, the child pornography conviction wasn’t justified, his lifestyle choices led

to a seemingly irreconcilable split with his son and landed his two young stepchildren in foster care. Doesn’t he have any regrets?

“I wouldn’t change it,” he says. “There are people going to Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives for something they believe in. I didn’t die for something I believed in. Yes, I lost some years. Yes, I lost a family that’s still bitter and antagonistic. But that was the price I had to pay.”

Six weeks after visiting him, I speak to Sobin on the phone. He’s been transferred next door to a lower security facility and has big plans for his impending release. He’ll be starting the Safe Streets Arts Foundation to concentrate more on broader, national arts-in-corrections issues, and plans to rekindle his political ambitions.

“After what happened to me at City Hall, I need to get access there,” he says. “Since the courts won’t give it to me, I need to get some office, whether it’s as a council member or even running for mayor again.” When asked whether his messy backstory, continuing family drama, and refusal to accept responsibility for his own crimes might undercut his message by providing his critics with ample ammo, he seems unconcerned.

“That’s an issue, but I’m the real McCoy here,” he says. “I’ve been to prison. I’ve seen injustice firsthand. I know what goes on in prison and how to make it a better place. I don’t come with clean hands, but I come with experienced hands.” Rehabilitation, to him, isn’t only about reforming inmates who deserved to be in prison, but also brightening the prospects of those who didn’t. It’s a convenient position, in that it makes his own guilt or innocence beside the point. But while he may be a spectacularly flawed messenger for music’s redemptive powers, the work he’s committed himself to—even if for all the wrong reasons— offers the slim chance he might not always be.

“Look, I’ve got my weaknesses too, but I’m going to come out of here a better person,” he says. “I want to stay out of prison.”

MARTIN GOD WIN

74 MAY 2009 / SPIN.COM IS WHY YOU LEARNED TO READ