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In the Crossfire

Prison pointer for Traficant: Go quietly

(CNN) -- Former Rep. James Traficant was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison for accepting bribes and kickbacks. The nine-term Democrat from Ohio was convicted in April of bribery, tax evasion and racketeering. The House of Representatives voted 420-1 to expel him last week, making Traficant only the second member of Congress kicked out since the Civil War.

To offer Traficant some advice on surviving prison life, Jimmy Tayoun stepped into the "Crossfire" with hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala. Tayoun served six years on the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 16 years on the Philadelphia City Council, and three-and-a-half years in a federal penitentiary for racketeering, mail fraud, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. Tayoun also wrote the book "Going to Prison?" and he's editor and publisher of the "Philadelphia Public Record."

BEGALA: In fact, let me ask you, Traficant -- Jay Leno last night, he had a great line. He said Traficant may be the first guy who actually looks better after the prison haircut.

What, I mean, if, say, hypothetically, a former Congressman wore a toupee, that's out, too, isn't it?

TAYOUN: They take the toupees off. We had an outstanding Philadelphia lawyer who came to prison when I was there, and I took care of him, and I said, don't worry about your bald head, he began wearing a cap. I said, don't do that, you look great without your hair.

Came home, he now has a little practice back again and he's wearing a toupee again. I don't understand it. He looked better without the toupee.

But they take that away from you because they need to -- that's a disguise. And they need to have a regular picture of you, where you are, and so other guards can identify you, because you can change toupees, you can do anything you can to disguise yourself.

CARLSON: Now Mr. Traficant has said that he plans to run from prison. If -- is it possible to run, A; and if he did and won, is it possible to govern?

TAYOUN: Well, that's why he's not going to win, because everybody understands that's an asinine attitude. You're not going to be able to run a congressional district from prison. You're done.

You have one telephone call, if you're allowed. You have to wait in line to make that call. Then you can't conduct business; they won't allow you to conduct business, and being a congressman is a business -- you do represent people.

He doesn't realize the full -- the full worth of what's happened to him. He is now a zero, zero, zero, zero person. No personality. Done, finished. Nobody cares who he is. He walks into prison, goes into -- waits in line for anything. Goes out into the dining room, the cafeteria. Goes out in the field, walks around with the prisoners, they don't care who Traficant is.

The only people who will appreciate him are those who might be in prison from his own neighborhood, from his own district. And they'll go, "Hey, Mr. Traficant, how's it going?"

CARLSON: There are probably a lot of those, though.

TAYOUN: Boy, when I was in ... I had 20 percent of the audience of the prison population where I was from Philadelphia, so I was the big man.

CARLSON: They were your constituents.

BEGALA: Well let me ask -- you know, I get this other positive image of prison from "Goodfellas." Great movie. And the smart guys there, they got the bribes to the guards, they got food and wine and women...

TAYOUN: It works, even in the federal penitentiary. I'll tell you, one day I walked down the range -- the range is a little room, a long hallway with beds on each side -- and I saw all these cold cuts laid out and Italian rolls and stuff like that. And I felt homesick. And I kept going. I didn't look to my right, I didn't look to my left.

I got to the end and they call me, "Hey Tayoun, come back, man, come on back here, join us, have a sandwich."

I came back. I says thanks. I took what they gave me, I said thank you fellas, and I left. And I don't know where the hell they got imported cold cuts from Brooklyn...

CARLSON: Who were these guys?

TAYOUN: They were part of the mob. Mob guys.

BEGALA: So that is true. "Goodfellas" is right. The mob gets -- congressmen are a mob of their own. They should get the better food too, don't you think?

TAYOUN: No. There are not that many put in jail, you know. Politicians are looked at as just average souls with no power. People realize it.

So Traficant, if he tries to run he's going to lose. He should save himself and his loyal staff and his loyal friends the embarrassment of digging in to find money they can't get from anywhere else but from their own pockets to wage a campaign that can't be done. It would do everybody a service.

I say to him, if he's listening, fold your tent, go in and just keep quiet. Mind your own business. Develop a little bit of demeanor, and you're going to do very well for yourself.