Einstein gives shocking explanation for breaking into new downtown Nashville jail

Editor's note from The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network: This story has been updated to correct the bond amount Alex Friedmann received in the jail break-in case and to more accurately describe the 37 mm launcher found as part of the investigation. It was also updated to clarify the timeline on when Friedmann took a tour of the old Nashville jail.

This is the last of a four-part series detailing the chase to catch the man who infiltrated a jail under construction in Nashville.

The sheriff noticed something looked wrong with a cinderblock.

He pushed on the block, and the wall caved in, leaving a crumbled hole and a shocking clue inside the new jail he had convinced Nashville to spend $200 million to build.

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall was sitting in the gleaming Downtown Detention Center's visitation area, trying to retrace the steps Alex Friedmann had taken when investigators reviewed 2 million hours of surveillance tapes - footage from 600 cameras over six months. 

The opening of the jail had been delayed, the red carpet stored away, the prisoners' transfers into this facility put on hold.

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At this point, Feb. 10, 2020, a month and a week after Friedmann had been arrested, he was still just a guy who stole some jail keys.

Investigators had found a pry bar and two screwdrivers Friedmann had hidden in the north stairwell. Three potential weapons, but nothing mind blowing. It was as if he wanted either to arm someone with makeshift weapons or give them tools to break out of the jail.

The strange story was about to get stranger and more dangerous.

When the sheriff pushed open the wall, there was a package inside. Something wrapped in plastic.

Until this point, Friedmann, the button-down prison reform advocate, was nothing more than a burglar. He was free on bond.

When the concrete caved in on the visitation wall in front of Hall, the whole Friedmann investigation changed.

Hall didn't open the package he found. He left that for Metro Nashville Police investigators who were immediately called to the jail. The sheriff had to fly to Washington D.C. He was president of the National Sheriff's Association, and he was making a speech to introduce then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.

As Hall was walking to the podium in D.C., surrounded by dignitaries, he got a text about what they found inside the package he had discovered in the hole in the new jail's wall.

The text said something Hall never expected. It was only one word.

Gun.

Hall lost his breath. He stumbled over the words in the middle of his speech.

He looked at the attorney general and, without context, said, "Have you ever heard of putting guns in the damn wall of a jail?"

The crowd must have thought he was crazy.

Inside the package inside the wall, police investigators found a .22-caliber American Arms revolver, 10 .22-caliber cartridges, a razor blade, three handcuff keys and a special bit that could unscrew metal fasteners inside the jail. When he returned to Nashville to see it for himself, Hall called it a jailbreak packet.

The presence of the gun, like it does in a Hitchcock movie, made the stakes even higher than they had already been.

Jail officers do not carry guns. Imagine what someone inside the jail could do with a gun.

In that same search, in the Downtown Detention Center third floor medical unit, investigators found a .38-caliber Ruger and ammunition hidden behind the bathroom mirror. Behind the mirror in a holding cell, they found a 9 mm Derringer.

That first day of searching investigators found eight jail-break packets with security bits, handcuff keys, razor blades and saw blades in the jail's medical unit.

In six subsequent searches, with help of sophisticated scanning equipment from the FBI, 22 jail-break packets were found inside the walls of the jail. Inside those packets were a total of three guns, 29 rounds of ammunition, 19 tools (saw blades, security bits, screwdrivers, handcuff keys, etc.). A 23rd packet was found almost a year later in an air conditioning duct. That packet had $100 and a jail officer's uniform inside.

The packets were discovered inside or near areas the future inmates would have some degree of access. The medical unit. The visitation area. The stairwells. The shower stalls. The exit doors.

The first question that popped into Hall's mind when he found the gun: What was Friedmann planning? 

No co-conspirators were ever implicated. So it appears Friedmann was the only person who knew about the planted jail-break packages or where to find them.

"It takes the planning of an evil mind to be ready to pull all that off," Hall said.

Hall's conundrum was this: Alex Friedmann was a 50-year-old, respected man in the community, sitting on committees with the city's power brokers, so how would he ever get access to the guns and ammo if they were hidden in the jail? He was a free man, so why would he need jailbreak material?

"He was going to commit a crime," Hall theorized. "I believe it was going to be a major felony arrest because that's where he would be housed."

As investigators found more and more evidence that Friedmann had cut holes in the jail walls and stuffed the walls with weapons, District Attorney Glenn Funk decided to increase the charges. Friedmann was charged with committing vandalism with more than $250,000 damage −a felony.

That charge exposed Friedmann to a potential 25 to 40 years in prison.

But Einstein had another card to play.

'What were you even going to do?'

The news of Friedmann's arrest was shocking, especially to people who thought they knew him.

"I honestly just cried," said Jeannie Alexander, the faith leader who had performed the marriage ceremony for Friedmann and his wife, Alice. 

Alexander had worked on prison reform projects with Friedmann for years. "It made me so sad because it made me very confused. What happened didn't make sense to me."

"If Alex was sitting in front of me right now, I would look at him and go, 'Dude, you had a respected life, a position, a reputation that was clean. And you turned it around. And you were married. And, I guess, thriving. How could you get to the guns and the bullets and the prison guard uniform and the money? What were you even going to do?"

Former prisoner Jeff Deskovic, who was released from a life sentence in New York after being cleared by DNA evidence, had befriended Friedmann over the years. Deskovic said he needed dating advice after being in prison for 16 years, and Friedmann was a good source of tips about meeting women after long prison sentences.

"I'm really sorry to hear he did that, winding up engaging in some criminality," Deskovic said. 

Their relationship turned sour, Deskovic said, after Friedmann was arrested. 

Friedmann asked Deskovic, who is now an attorney and public speaker after receiving a multi-million-dollar settlement from the state of New York for wrongful conviction, to pay for his defense.

"He's saying, 'Hey buddy, do you have $40,000 to $100,000 that you can give me? I'm not even going to tell you what I did,'" Deskovic said.

Deskovic told Friedmann no.

They are no longer friends, Deskovic said.

Chasing Einstein: Explore the series

Part 1: Two keys to an under-construction jail in Nashville went missing. Would it lead to havoc?

Part 2: A razor in his shoe. A makeshift ice pick. Nashville criminal 'learned his trade in jail'

Part 3: Could Einstein be captured in the jail without knowing it was a trap? What happened next

Part 4: Einstein gives shocking explanation for breaking into new downtown Nashville jail

A friend comes forward with insight

Monte McCoin, who lives in Nashville, said she was in love with Friedmann for almost a decade. She said she met him through a Craigslist advertisement in 2010.

She said Friedmann tattooed her.

"I wear his mark on my right hip," she said, and then described a five-pointed star. "He carved a mark for me with a scalpel, and he set it with tattoo ink, then he sealed it by putting a cigarette out in the middle of it."

After his arrest, however, McCoin called Hall to tell him what she knew. Hall and his staff kept detailed notes.

She laid out what she knew of Friedmann's background.

He was born in Massachusetts, but his father took a job working for an oil company in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Friedmann lived there until he was a teenager.

He moved back to the United States alone, living with his grandmother in Nashville. Since then, he has become estranged from his parents.

"He was an only child, and he didn't have to share his toys," McCoin said.

He went to Tennessee Preparatory School before he was charged with the two armed robbery crimes that landed him a nine-year sentence. In jail, he became a well known writer and was hired by the Prison Legal News. PLN Editor Paul Wright, who hired and promoted Friedmann, declined to comment for this series.

McCoin and Friedmann dated for part of the decade in the 2010s. 

She said he often said, "Prison is my retirement plan."

McCoin said his earlier crimes are examples of a dangerous side of Alex Friedmann.

"Alex has deep running violent tendencies," she told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. "... I believe Alex knows that he is capable of some pretty bad things. I think maybe he wanted to be locked up because he's safer or maybe because we, out here, are safer."

Search for the guns

On Feb. 18, 2020, Alex Friedmann, who had been charged with vandalism and out on bail, knew through his attorney that weapons had been found inside the jail walls. He knew his case was about to change.

So he turned himself in to police to face additional charges.

Judge Steve Dozier set Friedmann's new bond at $2.5 million, the highest bail price Hall had ever heard. This time, Friedmann couldn't come up with the money to bond out.

What investigators didn't know, at that moment, was that Friedmann had a cache of other weapons (more than a dozen pistols, shotguns and assault-style rifles) in crates marked "legal documents" in a concrete storage area on Tampa Drive in Nashville.

An anonymous tip led police to search that area, but, by the time the police arrived, the guns were gone.

When investigators looked at the cinderblock walls of that storage unit, they noticed little crevices, the same kind of openings they found in the walls of the jail. The crevices between the cinderblocks were big enough to hide jail keys. And the cinderblocks could be caved in with a push.

Greg Hall, who Friedmann had paid to help him build the storage unit, told investigators Friedmann had given him a notarized letter saying in the case of his (Friedmann's) untimely death, ownership of the contents of the storage unit should transfer to a person named "Ferris Mar."

What would cause his untimely death?

Greg Hall had seen Friedmann recently with a U-Haul truck. He remembers because the truck got stuck in the mud, and he had to take Friedmann to the U-Haul rental office to get another one. 

He had helped Friedmann load several crates into the back of the new U-Haul truck. He said each crate weighed 50 to 75 pounds.

He told police Friedmann was "frantic" and "desperate" as he loaded the crates.

At first, investigators didn't know where Friedmann took the plastic crates. But that mystery ended when they searched for "Ferris Mar." They found a man named Ferris Marone who lived in Joelton, a sparsely populated northern sliver of Nashville. Ferris Marone's wife, April, told investigators she had given permission for Friedmann to store legal documents in her garage.

Investigators found 14 pistols, five rifles and a flare and smoke launcher in those black and yellow crates. There was body armor, a black metal face mask and enough tactical gear for a major offensive.

Under appeal

The trial of the man who earned the jail nickname "Einstein" began July 19, 2022. Separately, Friedmann pleaded guilty to federal gun charges.

The vandalism trial was simple, straightforward. There was no drama.

Friedmann was convicted after only two days of testimony.

Attorney Ben Raybin, who, along with his father David, represented Friedmann at trial, said his conviction is being appealed. He said the basis of the appeal will be that the charge of vandalism shouldn't have risen to a felony because the crime didn't cause $250,000 in damages. Remember, the Sheriff's Office said they paid overtime to officers who examined two million hours of tape in order to catch Friedmann.

"Looking at a videotape is not damage," Raybin said.

The Sheriff's Office, while it's opening of the new jail was delayed, also had to pay $1.2 million to house inmates who were supposed to be in the new DDC to be housed in other facilities.

There are other areas in the case being appealed, but that is the big one. Raybin said that re-keying the jail, repairing the holes in the walls doesn't come close to $250,000 in damage.

Raybin said there may be a hearing in the appeal in 2025. And there may be a decision late in the year. But that's optimistic.

Since his conviction, The Tennessean has been in touch with Friedmann, who is being held at the Bledsoe County Correctional Facility in Pikeville. Friedmann refused to answer any questions on the record.

Before his sentencing, Friedmann dropped this bombshell. He sent the judge a letter to offer an explanation for his attack on the Downtown Detention Center.

"People are complicated and people are flawed and I am no exception," Friedmann wrote in his opening paragraph.

He apologized for his actions, and he continued.

"I am also sorry that I failed and betrayed the trust of the many people who believed in me, including my wife, who takes seriously her vow of 'for better or for worse.' It does not get much worse than this, and nothing I say and no apology I make will change that. I have committed professional, reputational, financial and social suicide."

Further into his seven-page letter to Judge Dozier, Friedmann addressed his crime.

"I will attempt to give an explanation, though it is not one that most people will understand, as it is not rational or reasonable. There is no rational basis for irrational acts. Each person is an aggregate of all their life experiences, everything that has happened to them. Those who have not shared similar experiences cannot be expected to comprehend them.

"To quote author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 'How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?'"

Friedmann said he had been raped in jail when he was 18 years old. It was the first time he was arrested, and it happened in the old jail that had been torn down.

"I was in jail less than a week before I was cornered in a cell by three inmates," he wrote. "They threatened me with a shank, grabbed and twisted my injured hand and forced me face down on a bunk. I was unable to defend myself and two of them raped me."

He said that almost three decades later, he requested and was taken on a tour of the old jail (in 2016) before it was torn down. He saw his old cell and was triggered to the point he decided to load up the new jail (which had not yet been built) with hidden guns, blades and tools in case he was ever sent back there. Friedmann said he broke down and cried in front of the cell where the rape occurred.

The problem with that story is that Friedmann first said the tour of the old jail happened in 2018. But that was impossible because the old jail had been demolished in October of 2016. Friedmann later said he was mistaken about the date.

At issue, however, is this: if visiting the jail in the summer of 2016 and seeing the spot where the rape occurred was the triggering event, why had he paid a friend to teach him how to grind concrete (just like he grinded holes in the jail walls) in August 2015?

Hall called the rape story an "outlandish" and "sensational" story, a "legal Hail Mary" and "just another trick of a narcissist."

Friedmann told the judge all he wanted to do was protect himself. Ben Raybin said the planting of escape tools and weapons was Friedmann's "irrational safety blanket."

In his letter to the judge, Friedmann explained it this way: "To deal with this mental and emotional distress, I resolved that should I ever be jailed again and subjected to the same sexual abuse, I would have the resources to escape or defend myself. And since the new jail was being built, I had a one-time opportunity to accomplish that by concealing escape tools and weapons in the facility as a contingency plan."

Sheriff Daron Hall tracked down the jail officer who gave Friedmann the tour.

"The guy who gave him the tour didn't remember that," Hall said. "Think about it, if you were a rape victim, and you wanted weapons (inside the jail) in case it happened again, would you plant a (jail officer) uniform to run down the street? ... If you're really going to defend yourself against these bad guys, a uniform is not going to help you.

"The whole rape thing is a total farce."

"I know that he worked for five years, practicing, learning, training," Hall said.

The other person who found flaws in Friedmann's rape story was Judge Stephen Dozier.

"I just don't believe it," the judge said at sentencing.

Dozier said Friedmann's actions were filled with "tons and tons of intent." The judge said a felon like Friedmann is not allowed to have guns at all.

"How in the world is Mr. Friedmann getting access to 26 assault weapons?" Dozier said. "That's criminal behavior."

As Dozier spoke, Friedmann took off his glasses, closed his eyes and put his left hand over his face.

The sentence was not going to be the minimum.

Dozier gave Friedmann the most he could give him: 40 years.

If he completes the whole sentence, Friedmann will be 93 years old.

It doesn't take Einstein to figure out − that's a long time.

Chasing Einstein: Explore the series

Part 1: Two keys to an under-construction jail in Nashville went missing. Would it lead to havoc?

Part 2: A razor in his shoe. A makeshift ice pick. Nashville criminal 'learned his trade in jail'

Part 3: Could Einstein be captured in the jail without knowing it was a trap? What happened next

Part 4: Einstein gives shocking explanation for breaking into new downtown Nashville jail