Snake eyes on the street, he had a lucky roll in prison
While serving a mandatory life sentence for drug dealing, something remarkable happened to Eric Van Buren. The Bowie High School graduate, class of 1991, wrote and published a book about the law called “Housed at the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., he began teaching law classes to inmates on criminal procedure and rules of evidence. He became a “jailhouse lawyer” and filed several motions that resulted in some inmates getting their sentences reduced.
He began shooting craps while in high school in the 1980s. He was good at it — knew that worn, unbalanced dice often produced patterns — some numbers showing up more than others — and calibrated his betting accordingly. “I got lucky a lot,” he recalled. He would sometimes earn between $400 and $1,500 in a weekend, he said. Crap games also put him in touch with drug dealers, who also played high-roller games.
Orejuela was at Lewisburg as a holdover, en route to another federal prison. He had received a 30-year sentence and is due for release in 2029. Since his release, Van Buren has spent much of his time getting acclimated to a much-changed D.C. region. He and his wife live in Prince George’s County, Md., not far from where he grew up. Now age 49, he is a regular speaker at the University of Virginia Law School’s clinic on sentencing reform. He’s also started a paralegal and mediation service.
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