# Passing time at Loretto > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Passing time at Loretto," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/passing-time-at-loretto/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *How prisoners at FCI Loretto filled days John Kiriakou describes as Groundhog Day, working out and watching television on a set of screens divided between factions, while Kiriakou himself read, answered mail and wrote a book.* - **Kiriakou's description of prison days:** Groundhog Day, every day just like every other - **The commonest pastimes:** Working out and watching television - **Television sets:** Eight, four controlled by Hispanic prisoners, four by Black prisoners - **Whites:** Did not get to choose - **Kiriakou's own:** Reading, answering mail and writing **Passing time at Loretto** is the practical problem [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) identifies as the real hardship of a sentence. In his account the worst part of prison is that it is Groundhog Day: every single day is just like every other day.[1] For most of the men at [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto), he says, the answer was working out and watching television.[1] ## The televisions The television arrangement was factional. Kiriakou says the prison had eight sets, and that the Hispanic prisoners controlled four and the Black prisoners the other four.[1] He describes the programming with an explicit caveat that he hates to stereotype but that this is simply how it was. The four Black-controlled sets showed MTV, VH1, BET and a sports channel. The Hispanic-controlled sets showed Telemundo, another Spanish-language channel he could not recall, ESPN Deportes, and for reasons he attributes to some long-departed prisoner's taste in soap operas, CBS.[2] The white prisoners did not get to choose.[2] Kiriakou says this did not much affect him, because he was not a big television watcher at the time: he did not watch *Love and Hip Hop Atlanta*, and he did not watch a Peru–Venezuela soccer match. So he read.[2][3] The arrangement had consequences beyond boredom. Kiriakou notes that violence at Loretto was relatively rare, and that most of what there was broke out over what to watch on television.[4] ## Working out For many prisoners the answer was exercise every day. Kiriakou describes men who were nothing but rock-hard, knotted muscle, because there was nothing else to do but work out.[3] Among the Hispanic prisoners it was not even optional: an unwritten rule of [the Pisces prison gang](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/pisces-prison-gang) required every member to work out daily.[5] ## Kiriakou's own solution Kiriakou says he was fortunate. Four hours into his first day a stranger's postcard arrived, and he decided on the spot to answer every piece of mail he received, a decision that produced [7,000 letters to 675 people](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/seven-thousand-letters) over 23 months and kept him very, very busy.[6][7] He was also writing. *[Doing Time Like a Spy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/doing-time-like-a-spy)* started as a joke, he did not intend it as a book, but thought he would write down some of the more ridiculous and absurd things that happened.[7] He places reading in the same category, as a defence against [depression in prison](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prison-depression): a voracious reader anyway, he says he read well over a hundred books in 23 months.[8] ## See also - [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) - [Seven thousand letters](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/seven-thousand-letters) - [Prison Depression](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prison-depression) - [Doing Time Like a Spy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/doing-time-like-a-spy) - [The Pisces prison gang](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/pisces-prison-gang) ## Sources 1. S2E3 Circle Of Friends (2026-06-01), at 13:56. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a1cae87f7ef77595849152c/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-dead-drop-s2e3-circle-of-friends/ 2. S2E3 Circle Of Friends (2026-06-01), at 14:26. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a1cae87f7ef77595849152c/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-dead-drop-s2e3-circle-of-friends/ 3. S2E3 Circle Of Friends (2026-06-01), at 15:04. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a1cae87f7ef77595849152c/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-dead-drop-s2e3-circle-of-friends/ 4. S2E1 Welcome To Loretto (2026-05-18), at 08:16. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a07ca01bae3d7f66f021234/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-dead-drop-s2e1-welcome-to-loretto/ 5. S2E1 Welcome To Loretto (2026-05-18), at 14:17. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a07ca01bae3d7f66f021234/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-dead-drop-s2e1-welcome-to-loretto/ 6. S2E3 Circle Of Friends (2026-06-01), at 15:38. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a1cae87f7ef77595849152c/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-dead-drop-s2e3-circle-of-friends/ 7. S2E3 Circle Of Friends (2026-06-01), at 16:13. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a1cae87f7ef77595849152c/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-dead-drop-s2e3-circle-of-friends/ 8. S2E5 The Abyss (2026-06-15), at 20:08. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a29d3734df224c1a48bf864/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-15-dead-drop-s2e5-the-abyss/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/passing-time-at-loretto/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt