Nevin Shapiro University of Miami.
In the mid-2000s, amidst the decadence and fake money of the Miami real estate boom, Nevin Shapiro became the unlikely king of South Beach, the epitome of consumption at all costs. He chased status, celebrity and cash. And Shapiro’s favorite extravagance came in the millions of dollars he said he spent on athletes at the University of Miami, the largest known lavishing of extra benefits in college athletics history.
“I was the fastest guy in the fastest town,” Shapiro said.
On this day last February he’s sitting inside a small, concrete meeting room of the Hudson County (N.J.) Correctional Center. He wears dull green prison garb. Upstairs he shares a cramped cell with a bank robber. He fears that when he returns to his tier he’ll run into a fellow prisoner so intent on fighting him that it can’t be avoided. Even if he wins, he’ll get sent to solitary.
He barely eats in an effort to avoid gaining weight on his 5-foot-5 frame. Last winter, he went more than four months without stepping outside, even into the prison yard; drawing not a single breath of fresh air. In June, he was transferred to a detention center in Brooklyn, where on the high security eighth floor he shared one big room, just rows of bunk beds with 120 murderers, terrorists and the other assorted worst of the worst.
“People who say I should go to hell, well, I’m here,” Shapiro, now 42, said.
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