Prisoner of Denver; Just 22, Lisl Auman was convicted in 1998 of the felony murder of a police officer, a crime she didn't commit, and is serving life in prison without parole.(Interview)

BYLINE: Hunter S. Thompson, Mark Seal

Mr. Hunter S. Thompson1-4-01I laughed out loud while reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," during my stay

(13 months) at the Denver County Jail. Thank you for helping to bring a smile to my face.

I am now a hostage at the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility in Canon City. I feel somewhat "connected" to you in the surreality of the lives, however different, we lead. Yes, my life is surreal in a nightmarish sort of way.

Amongst the many disappointments in my life, one happens to be directly connected

to you! These M.F.'s banned your books from this and every other [Department of Corrections] library. How do you feel about that? I think it sucks!

So, I can only hope that one day I will be vindicated and I will be able to go home ... wherever that is ... and pleasure my humour with more of your writing.

I, in case you're wondering who the hell I am, not that my case history is "who"

I am ... My name is Lisl Auman and I was convicted of Felony Murder in 1998 for the

murder of a Police Officer. However-I maintain my innocence!!! I just turned 25 years old and also have an awesome family who supports me 100% every step of the way.

Check out the website they set up for me at www.lisl.com. Only if you're interested,

of course.

Bye Bye

Lisl

Dear Lisl,Jan 17 '01

Thanks for yr. kind note.... I remember following yr. case in the newspapers & being horrified by it.

I checked yr. Website today & got some valuable information from it. Tomorrow I will call yr. lawyer, Kathy Lord in Denver, & see what I can learn about yr. current situation. Maybe I can write a story about it & stir up some interest. We'll see.

I don't know what the rules are about sending anything to you in prison, but I'll find out & try to send you something that will make you laugh.

Possibly I can help you, but I can't be sure or even optimistic at this point. I don't

even know if this letter will reach you at all, so if it does please let me know immediately.

I know what it's like to be locked up & how hard it is to keep yr. sense of humor cranked. Write me anytime you feel like it. Okay,

Hunter

I.

The case of Lisl Auman, who first wrote me from prison three years ago, is so rotten and wrong and shameful that I feel dirty just for knowing about it, and so should you. The Colorado Supreme Court is preparing to hand down its fateful decision on an appeal in the case this summer, which should scare the living shit out of your whole family if the judges decide to keep this young woman in a filthy state prison for the rest of her life, when each one of them has to know-in their hearts and their minds-that she is innocent. She was locked and handcuffed in the backseat of a Denver police car long before a cop was shot 10 times and killed in what the thugs in the Denver Police Department call a sudden "adrenaline dump"-which in real life is called another disastrous police panic and a frenzy of hysterical shooting and screaming in a residential neighborhood that left two people dead. At least 100 uniformed law-enforcement officers swarmed onto the scene that day from all over town, and they went crazy. Shit, of course some people got killed, like they always do when 100 armed goons with a license to kill any suspect who comes within 21 feet of the rifle fire of a Denver cop responding to a 911 call show up in a mood to shoot somebody.

One of my sweetest memories of growing up in Louisville is taking long walks on summer nights with Pierre, the kindly old uniformed cop who patrolled our neighborhood streets all night to keep us safe from crime. Or at least that's what he told us when we asked him about his job and why he was prowling around in our territory with a spotlight and a whistle and a steel-blue .38 police special on his belt. Nobody else could get away with that kind of crap, and we soon came to think of him as the Final Authority, the Man. We made Pierre a secret honorary member of the Hawks Athletic Club, and after that we ruled our turf together. It was wonderful. And that's how I was raised to believe that that was what police officers were all about. I thought they were decent, honorable people just like us.

But that was a long time ago in a very different country. Now I know different. I know that police are the Enemy, cruel and stupid and greedy and dishonest in a way that would shame the Hell's Angels. At least the Angels get Respect. Colorado has taken a serious beating in public print recently, with the Columbine High School massacre, the football rapes in Boulder, the Jon-Benet Ramsey case, and the repulsive police corruption that stains Denver's once proud image. Denver has never pretended to be a civilized place. When you think of Denver, you think of cowshit and gunfights, small brains and big guns, dumb brutes and wild whores with hearts of cheap gold. Yes, sir, that is Denver in a nutshell-a cowboy town with cowboy rules and cowboy justice. When you come to Denver, Bubba, you'd better be ready to fight. Kick ass or die is what the Denver Police Department is all about. It is kill or be killed in this town. The D.P.D. has never been anything but a dangerous gang of vengeful, half-bright cowboys with a vicious reputation for brutality and what the Hell's Angels used to call "massive retaliation." Hell's Angels didn't just punish the enemy, they massacred all of them. Nobody who fucked with a Hell's Angel ever lived to tell about it. Indeed, that was the point they wanted to make, and few people dared to forget it.

It is not in my nature to be polite to people who want to hurt me, or to turn my back on a woman who is being brutally raped right in front of my eyes, especially when the rapists are wearing big guns and Denver Police Department badges. And that is why I am telling you this disgusting story about how notoriously vicious cops buried a provably innocent young woman in a tiny cell in the concrete bowels of a Colorado state prison for the rest of her life with no possibility of parole. That is a death sentence, pure and simple, and those rotten, murdering bastards are still proud of it. Proud. Remember that word, because it is going to come back and haunt every one of those swine. The Lisl Auman scandal will whack the Denver law-enforcement establishment like Watergate whacked Richard Nixon.

Remember him? Nixon is the yo-yo who said, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." And he was, after all, the president.

Ho ho ho. Richard Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to screw his pants on every morning, and so is Denver police chief Gerry Whitman. He and his force have committed more crimes against humanity than Lisl Auman ever dreamed of. He should be indicted by a grand jury and put on trial in a federal court for criminal conspiracy to deprive Lisl Auman of her civil rights, then put immediately in prison for 10 years, and so should the judges who ignore him.

Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I first heard it from Bobby Kennedy, just before he was murdered in 1968. Bobby had a cavalier attitude about plagiarizing high wisdom from others, and he did, after all, have a team of eloquent speechwriters whose job was to get him elected to the presidency, despite the huge odds against him. There was no time for scholarly details, and, besides, I have always believed that a man can fairly be judged by the standards and taste of his choices in matters of high-level plagiarism. I have done it myself on some days, but when it comes to Burke's haunting dictum on the Triumph of Evil, I am fated to take it personally. And that's what got me in the strange and terrible saga of young…