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The rat and pedophile table

The cafeteria table at FCI Loretto reserved for cooperating witnesses and sex offenders — a placement that also carried a ban from the television room, and which John Kiriakou describes as an outcome cooperators knew to expect before they agreed to testify.

The rat and pedophile table was the cafeteria table at FCI Loretto to which cooperating witnesses and sex offenders were assigned. John Kiriakou describes seating as one of the things decided by prisoners rather than by the institution: where a man slept was assigned by the prison, but where he ate — which tables would accept him — was decided by the prisoners sitting at those tables.[1]

The consequences of cooperating

Kiriakou’s principal example is Frank Russo, the former Cuyahoga County auditor who shared his bunk. Russo had agreed to testify against Jimmy Dimora in exchange for a reduced exposure, and Kiriakou says he knew what he was getting into: being a rat would mark him in prison.[2]

That marking had three parts. Russo would have to sit at the rat and pedophile table in the cafeteria. He was not permitted to watch television in the television room, because rats and pedophiles were not allowed to watch television there. And he would have to keep his head down, because people were going to be gunning for him.[2]

Kiriakou notes that Russo’s personality partly overcame the stigma — he was such a nice man with such a hilarious sense of humour that he won everybody over, everybody except the Italians, whose senior member Pete Calabrese told Kiriakou that Russo brought dishonour to them.[3]

As a weapon

Because assignment to the table was a prisoner decision rather than an administrative one, it could be manufactured. Kiriakou describes doing exactly that to a man at the Aryan table whose company he could no longer stand: he went to the prison law library, found a 1970s Ohio case involving a man of the same name, cut and reassembled the paragraphs into what looked like legitimate court papers, and took them to the shot callers.[4][5]

The two white shot callers debated it briefly and then banished the man to the pedophile and rat table — which, Kiriakou observes, was also the gay table. He says the man had no idea what had happened to him.[6]

The full account is at the Bob Jones frame-up. Kiriakou’s own summary of the tactic is that the power of rumours is very, very strong.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-05-18 · Transcript
  2. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-06-01 · Transcript
  3. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-06-01 · Transcript
  4. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-06-22 · Transcript
  5. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-06-22 · Transcript
  6. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-06-22 · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.

Categories: Prison