Life is not looking up for ex-Politico labor reporter Mike Elk. A few weeks back, he was arrested in Chattanooga after an altercation at a bar in which he tried to bail on a $20 bar tab. He insisted the bartender had overcharged him. The charges against Elk ultimately ranged from public intoxication to more serious felony charges of trying to bribe a cop.
Elk spent the night in the jug. In a GoFundMe letter, he said the experience was life-changing as he met inmates he wanted to organize because they said they were being treated badly by prison guards.
The former Rosslyn reporter was released on an $81,000 bond.
But the situation is now looking pretty bleak.
“Ugh – just got a call from my bails bondsman,” Elk wrote The Mirror Tuesday. “If I don’t come up with another $900 for a bail reduction hearing, I could be back in jail by as early as Friday.”
Elk, who was Washington Free Beacon‘s 2015 Man of the Year, pleaded for sympathizers to donate money. “Please give or share if you can’t,” he wrote, referring to his GoFundMe page. “I really don’t want to be back in a Southern jail as rough as the one in Chattanooga. I will not last long in that environment. Please give if you can.”
Asked what was so rough about his one night in jail, he replied, “The people cat calling me and the cops threatening to beat me up as well as being denied a clean source of water. I was literally forces to go into a shower and drink out of t…”
And just like that, the email abruptly ended. PLEASE, MIKE, DO NOT KEEP US HANGING.
Did Elk have to drink out of the shower? “Yeah like I had to pee shit and drink out of the same shower stall in solidarity condiment,” he wrote.
Wait. WHAT?
The Mirror: “You mean solitary confinement?”
Elk: “Yep.”
The Mirror: “Did they put you in there to protect you?”
The Mirror: “Wait — was there a toilet?”
Elk: “Nips.”
The Mirror (silently to herself): Nips?
Elk (unedited): “Perhaps I kept requesting federal Marshall transfer as I am a cooperating witness into fed investigation into corker. I meet with congressional investigators and the fbi.”
The Mirror: Wait… So explain the cell. It was just a bed and then a room where you both showered and went to the bathroom?”
Elk (unedited): “No bed just a showe and floor.”
The Mirror: “A blanket? Anything?”
Elk: “Eventually they gave me one.”
He’s scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 21.
Stay tuned for another installment of As Mike Elk’s World Turns.