For nearly a decade the First Congregational Church in Ripon,  a small town just outside of Modesto, California, put their trust in Pastor Randall Radic. Then he mortgaged the church house. Then he mortgaged the church. He was sentenced to nearly two years in prison but cut a deal to snitch on a murderer he met in the jail in exchange for early release. Now he’s written a book.

Rumpus: How did you end up in Modesto?

Randall Radic: I used to be a professional swim coach, but got tired of it. I was in Fresno coaching swimming. Then I was called to take the church in Ripon. They call it ‘calling’. When you accept the call you ‘take the church. So here I am. I should add that I don’t like it here.

Rumpus: Could you explain that a little bit?

Radic: My eduction was geared for the priesthood but I got sidetracked. When I tired of coaching I looked around for a church. The Church in Ripon was looking for a pastor. So they ‘called me, which means they hired me. I took the job.

A friend put on to the position. He was the pastor of the church at the time, and he left for another church in the midwest.

Rumpus: How long did things go OK for and then what happened?

Radic: Things went fine for about 7 years. Then I got tired of being poor and mortgaged the house that the church provided for me to live in. The house was not mine. When the initial money from the house ran out, I sold the church itself.

Rumpus: What did you want that money could buy?

Radic: I wanted a nice vacation, a BMW, nice clothes, fine wines, good cigars. In effect I wanted status, and in a way I wanted people to like me.

See also The Rumpus.net interview with James Frey

Rumpus: So after three years you mortgaged the church. You had the authority to do that?

Radic: I had the authority, but not the legal right. What I did was totally wrong. And I did it for the wrong reasons.

Rumpus: How did you get caught?

Radic: I made a large deposit into my personal checking account. The bank got suspicious and contacted the church. From there things got worse. Then they went to hell.

Rumpus: There’s no way you were going to be able to pay off those mortgages. Didn’t you know you were going to get caught? Did you want to get caught?

Radic: At first, I actually thought I could get away with it. Total arrogance.  After a while, though, I knew it was inevitable. But there was nothing to do about it, except turn myself in and confess. And I was too scared to do that. In the end, perhaps, I wanted to get caught. I mean I didn’t want to go to jail and face all the humiliation. But I didn’t want to keep living the way I was living either. For I was overwhelmed by guilt — couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. And fear! The fear factor was like factor twelve on a scale of five.  In hindsight, getting caught was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me face up to myself, what I had done, where I was going, who I was, who I wanted to be. So I would say that in my case getting caught was a second chance.

Rumpus: What finally happened? You surrendered to the police?

Radic: Yeah, in the end. First I got scared and ran. Then my family and friends talked me into myself up. I came back and surrendered. I was released on my own recognizance. Then they found out about the church sale and I was arrested.

I went to San Jose County Jail for six months. During that time I was attending hearing after hearing. I was sentenced to sixteen months in prison but because I agreed to testify in a murder case they released me.

Rumpus: So you never actually went to prison?

Radic: No. But jail is worse than prison in many ways. The food is worse. I was in PC (protective custody) so I was locked down most of the time. In prison the food is better, and if you’re mainline you get out most of the time. Especially in minimum-security, which is where I would have been. Instead I was in jail with child molesters, murderers, rapists, and bank robbers.

Rumpus: If you hadn’t testified how long would you have been placed in prison?

Radic: If I hadn’t agreed to testify they would have sent me to prison probably after about five months in jail. I would have received credit for that time in jail. In reality I would have spent another three months in prison then I would have been paroled.

Rumpus: How did you end up involved in a murder trial?

Radic: A murderer in jail confessed his crime to me and another inmate (not in religious sense). I admit I wanted to get out of jail but I also felt compelled to testify against this guy. He was a stone-cold killer.

Rumpus: Were you worried about him seeking retribution?

Radic: Yes and no. Yes because he would have killed me without a second thought. No because he had no gang affiliation. If he had been gang affiliated I would not have testified. Someone would have gotten to me.

Rumpus: When did you decide to write a book about your experiences?

Radic: While I was in jail. The corrections officers often told me, “You should write a book when you get out.” They thought my story was bizarre.

Rumpus: How’d you find your publisher?

Radic: ECW is a publisher in Toronto, Canada. I sent the manuscript to them and a number of other publishers. Jack David, who is the publisher, liked it and offered me a contract. Then he offered me a contract for a second book.

The book is not your usual boring rise, fall, and redemption kind of thing. It’s voyeuristic. Like a bad porno movie. When you finish it you say to yourself, “I don’t think I wanna do that or go there.” When you read about jail and the kind of people who are in jail it scares the living daylights out of you.

Rumpus: So why did you write the book? What did you hope to get out of it?

Radic: I wrote the book for peace of mind. For me, jail was horrifying and surreal, like taking a trip to Dante’s Inferno without a guidebook or finding myself in the biblical Great Gulf Fixed. So I wrote the book to put everything I had experienced into perspective. A kind of handle on reality that I could use to pick it up and walk around with it. Like most Americans I had no idea what jail was like, what kind of people went to jail — the mentally ill, the brutal — hollow, violent people. Naive and innocent, I walked into “the belly of the beast.” When I came out I wasn’t naive or innocent anymore. I came out wary, with no more illusions. I guess I wanted someone else to know what it’s like.

**

See Also: Pastor Betrays His Flock

See Also: From Bank Robber To Author, Joe Loya’s Journey

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