Pubdate: Wed, 24 Dec 2008
Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
Copyright: 2008 The Palm Beach Post
Contact:  http://www.palmbeachpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333
Author: Tom D'Angelo
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

HIS MOM IS IN PRISON, BUT FAU'S JERVONTE JACKSON ALWAYS KNEW HE COULD HAVE 
A BETTER LIFE

DETROIT - For Avonda Dowling, Christmas will not come  until Friday afternoon.

That's when the mother of Florida Atlantic's Jervonte  Jackson will walk 
from her 10-by-10 cell to the "sports  room," where the 27-inch television 
always is tuned to  ESPN.

There, Dowling will gather with about 25 inmates and  cheer on the Owls. 
But the most special moments will be  when her son, a first-team All-Sun 
Belt defensive  tackle, flashes across the screen.

"It's so hard. It's very emotional," Dowling said. "At  the same time I am 
so excited."

Dowling's home for the past five years has been the  federal correctional 
institution in Dublin, Calif.,  about 20 miles southeast of Oakland. She is 
serving a  20-year sentence for conspiracy to distribute less than  500 
grams of cocaine.

There, she often thinks of her two children, Jervonte,  21, and Vonshari 
Hoardes, 19, and hopes both can  continue on a track far different from the 
one she  took. Dowling, 45, was arrested 12 times between 1982  and 1998 on 
charges ranging from aggravated assault to grand larceny to possession of 
weapons and drugs.

She was said by police to have been the leader of one  of the most violent 
drug gangs in Miami, and accused of  trafficking crack and powder cocaine, 
marijuana and  heroin in Overtown and Liberty City.

But as desperate and dangerous the existence of a drug  dealer can be, she 
managed to shield her children from  the street life while raising them to 
not follow her  example.

"Even though she did what she did, she never gave up on  me and my sister," 
Jackson said. "She never stopped  telling us to do our homework. She never 
gave us  anything. Everything had to be earned. Bad grades?  You're getting 
nothing."

Jackson has been a role model since entering FAU in  2004. He'll start for 
the 48th time in his career  Friday in the Motor City Bowl against Central 
Michigan.  He is on target to receive his degree in health administration 
in the spring. Jackson, a 6-foot-5,  300-pounder, was second team All-Sun 
Belt as a  sophomore and junior before jumping to first team this  season.

"He knew right from wrong although his family was on  the opposite side of 
the track he knew not to cross  that track," FAU defensive tackles coach 
Eli Rasheed  said.

Taking a different track

Jervonte Jackson still remembers that day sitting in  U.S. District Court, 
nervously awaiting his mom's  sentencing.

"I was sitting in the back," he said. "They found her  guilty I was like, 
'Man.' I'm praying and then they  said '240 months.' I'm doing the math and 
I said to  myself, 'That's 20 years! Whoa!'

"It hit me and my heart skipped a beat and I was like,  'My mom is going 
away for 20 years?' "

Beatrice Reed, Jackson's grandmother, often cared for  Dowling's two 
children as her daughter dealt with her  legal problems. Before her 20-year 
sentence Dowling  served time in state prison on cocaine and 
handgun  charges while Jackson was in elementary school. One  day, when 
Jackson was about 10 years old, he proved to  his grandmother that he knew 
plenty about his mother's  lifestyle.

"He said to me he would never sell drugs, he would  never take drugs," Reed 
said. "He was never a bad kid.  He could have gone down the wrong path but 
he went down  the right path."

Kids talk. Rumors are spread. Especially in elementary  school where 
Jackson heard classmates talking about his  mother. And Jackson knew most 
mothers did not hang out  on the streets.

So Jackson confronted her and she confessed.

Dowling told her son that anything she did was with her  children's needs 
at heart. Still, he begged and  pleaded.

"I was confused," Jackson said. " 'You want me to do  this and you're doing 
that? You don't think what you do  is going to reflect on me?' She told me 
what she was  doing was wrong and I understood it at a young age. I  stayed 
away from that."

And he continued to support her and show her an  unconditional love.

"She means the world to him," said linebacker Frantz  Joseph, Jackson's 
roommate the past three years. "He  hasn't had a father around since he was 
a child. She's  been the queen of everything."

Dowling still insists she had no choice. Life was hard.  Money was scarce 
and she had three mouths to feed. Help  wasn't coming, certainly not from 
Jackson's father, who  also has been incarcerated and, according to 
Dowling,  left when she was two months pregnant with Jervonte.

"I am sitting now behind these bars and realizing the  biggest mistake I 
made in my life," said Dowling,  during a 40-minute phone conversation from 
her case  manager's office.

"I continued to do wrong and I knew it was wrong but I  had to do it. It 
was so hard for me. Growing up in  Overtown, it's not easy. Very few kids 
come out of  Overtown with an education. A person can't really  relate 
unless they live in that environment, an  environment that is dangerous, 
people take advantage of  you. I was taken advantage of."

Mother's case 'a travesty'

Jervonte Jackson insists his mother had turned her life  around before her 
trial in 2003.

"I know for a fact she had stopped," he said.

But prosecutors painted a different picture of a woman  they said was the 
leader of "Vonda's Gang" and who  defense attorneys said sponsored Easter 
Egg hunts in  her working-poor neighborhood with the help of local  police.

Just before the trial started, Justice Department  officials were 
considering adding charges that would  have made Dowling eligible for the 
death penalty but  never followed through. Prosecutors said 
Dowling  benefited from the murders of rivals and they presented several 
witnesses who said Dowling never left the  business.

"There were a lot of false allegations on me," she  said. "I stood up and I 
admitted to my wrongdoings. I  admitted to being a drug dealer, which I was."

After the sentencing defense attorney William Tunkey  said the case was a 
travesty.

"Today was one of the saddest days in my (33-year)  career practicing law," 
he told the Miami Herald at the  time. "She's a very good person who has 
turned her life  around since 1995. To punish her for 20 years for  conduct 
that ended in '95 is not humane."

Dowling was eventually sent to California because the  government's case 
included so many witnesses who  testified against her that she was not 
allowed to serve  her time at any prison that housed any of the  witnesses.

"People testified against me, people I never saw in my  life," she said.

Dowling shares her cell with two inmates. In the  cramped quarters she has 
carved out room on her wall  for pictures of her children and newspaper 
articles of  her son.

She writes them both once a week and calls Jackson  before every game.

"She'll cry because she can't be here with me," Jackson said.

That call this year will come today.

On Christmas.

"It's a tough day for me," Jackson said.

Freedom is motivation

Dowling's days consist of a quilting class, a computer  class, walking the 
track and treadmill, playing  volleyball and working in the yard on weekends.

She is prepared to serve her entire sentence after  having three appeals 
denied. Dowling is hopeful the  Federal Parole Board, which was abolished 
in 1987, will  be reinstated, which could lead to shaving time off 
her  sentence.

Meanwhile, Jackson is prepared for the next step in his  life. The NFL 
could be an option, especially for a  player of his size that runs a 
sub-5.0 40-yard dash.  His half-brother, Jamaal Jackson, is the 
starting  center for the Philadelphia Eagles.

But whether it's the NFL or a career in health  administration, Jackson's 
motivation is one day seeing  his mom a free woman.

"The case against her went so wrong," he said. "So much  false information 
.. accusations against my mom,  statements and people testifying against 
her she had  never met. Never saw.

"That motivates me. I'm trying to get her a better  lawyer. That's exactly 
what keeps me driving and keeps  me going." 
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