when an officer in the Mountain Village police department could gain access to chapters of Hogue’s life simply by typing “James Hogue” into Google. Yet there is also a sense in which Hogue’s singular quest, the way he went about his business, was itself a product of the information age. He was a hacker, for whom finding a shortcut through the thicket of requirements and pathways laid down by the operation of large systems was a life-affirming challenge that lessened his sense of isolation and provided him with a sense of purpose at the same time as it condemned him to a life that was impossible to share or sustain.
• • •
James Hogue was arrested on February 4, 2006, while surfing the World Wide Web on a
stolen laptop at the Barnes & Noble at the Foothills Mall in Tucson, Arizona. It was Saturday afternoon, and Hogue was spotted by an employee of the large bookstore chain who recognized the skinny fugitive from a wanted poster that was hanging near the employee lounge. Hogue had been under surveillance by federal marshals who had tracked his movements through Oro Valley and Oracle, Arizona, northeast of Tucson, where he had been staying at a rural compound owned by the Salentre family of New Jersey.
According to law enforcement and organized crime sources in New Jersey, the Salentre
family’s involvement in illegal activities centered around the trafficking of stolen goods in New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, and elsewhere. Donald Salentre Jr. had been Hogue’s cell mate in a New Jersey prison where Hogue did time for his most celebrated fraud; Salentre Jr. had been sentenced for receiving stolen property. The marshals flew a helicopter over the Salentre
compound and spotted Hogue’s truck, the license plates of which had been switched with the
plates of a truck that belonged to Donald Salentre Jr.
When he was caught in the Barnes & Noble, Hogue had $1,200 in cash and appeared to
be preparing for a new life as doctor, with CD-ROMs on anatomy, clinical consultation, and the principles of internal medicine. He was arrested and brought to the Pima County Jail, where his first phone calls were to the Salentre family home in Trenton. Hogue contacted the Salentres soon after leaving Telluride. The tapes of his phone calls show Hogue as a family friend of career criminals who provided him with money, lawyers, and other resources while he was on
the run.
“They caught me,” Hogue announced. He asked if a family friend named Jeff would pick
up his truck at the mall where he had been arrested.
“Are you guys gonna bail me out?” he asked. Bail was set at $120,000. If he couldn’t
make bail, Hogue threatened to do something drastic. “I’m just gonna hang it up,” he said. While it sounded like a threat to kill himself, it was also clearly a message that he was feeling desperate. He would do anything, including flip on the Salentre family, in order to avoid doing time. Even five days in jail would be too much, Hogue suggested.
“I did eight and a half years!” the criminal on the other end of the phone laughed.
“Fuck, man. I’m really, really depressed,” Hogue said. He wanted the Salentres to get
money from his bank account in New York and send it to his fiancée, Irina, in Russia. In a
second phone call to the Salentre family he talked directly to his old cell mate.
“Somebody could kill eighty people and not get this bullshit,” Hogue fumed. “I mean,
shit, there’s no way out of this.” He wanted Jack, the Salentre family bagman, to come out to Colorado and arrange for his assets to be transferred to Irina. “If I can’t get out of this, I’m gonna hang it up,” he said. “That’s why I need Jack to come down here, you know. Tell him it’s
desperate.”
When the family got hold of Jack, however, it turned out that the bank account had been
frozen. Hogue then turned to his nephew, Brian Patrick, the person he was closest to in his extended family. While Jim became
• • •
James Hogue was arrested on February 4, 2006, while surfing the World Wide Web on a
stolen laptop at the Barnes & Noble at the Foothills Mall in Tucson, Arizona. It was Saturday afternoon, and Hogue was spotted by an employee of the large bookstore chain who recognized the skinny fugitive from a wanted poster that was hanging near the employee lounge. Hogue had been under surveillance by federal marshals who had tracked his movements through Oro Valley and Oracle, Arizona, northeast of Tucson, where he had been staying at a rural compound owned by the Salentre family of New Jersey.
According to law enforcement and organized crime sources in New Jersey, the Salentre
family’s involvement in illegal activities centered around the trafficking of stolen goods in New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, and elsewhere. Donald Salentre Jr. had been Hogue’s cell mate in a New Jersey prison where Hogue did time for his most celebrated fraud; Salentre Jr. had been sentenced for receiving stolen property. The marshals flew a helicopter over the Salentre
compound and spotted Hogue’s truck, the license plates of which had been switched with the
plates of a truck that belonged to Donald Salentre Jr.
When he was caught in the Barnes & Noble, Hogue had $1,200 in cash and appeared to
be preparing for a new life as doctor, with CD-ROMs on anatomy, clinical consultation, and the principles of internal medicine. He was arrested and brought to the Pima County Jail, where his first phone calls were to the Salentre family home in Trenton. Hogue contacted the Salentres soon after leaving Telluride. The tapes of his phone calls show Hogue as a family friend of career criminals who provided him with money, lawyers, and other resources while he was on
the run.
“They caught me,” Hogue announced. He asked if a family friend named Jeff would pick
up his truck at the mall where he had been arrested.
“Are you guys gonna bail me out?” he asked. Bail was set at $120,000. If he couldn’t
make bail, Hogue threatened to do something drastic. “I’m just gonna hang it up,” he said. While it sounded like a threat to kill himself, it was also clearly a message that he was feeling desperate. He would do anything, including flip on the Salentre family, in order to avoid doing time. Even five days in jail would be too much, Hogue suggested.
“I did eight and a half years!” the criminal on the other end of the phone laughed.
“Fuck, man. I’m really, really depressed,” Hogue said. He wanted the Salentres to get
money from his bank account in New York and send it to his fiancée, Irina, in Russia. In a
second phone call to the Salentre family he talked directly to his old cell mate.
“Somebody could kill eighty people and not get this bullshit,” Hogue fumed. “I mean,
shit, there’s no way out of this.” He wanted Jack, the Salentre family bagman, to come out to Colorado and arrange for his assets to be transferred to Irina. “If I can’t get out of this, I’m gonna hang it up,” he said. “That’s why I need Jack to come down here, you know. Tell him it’s
desperate.”
When the family got hold of Jack, however, it turned out that the bank account had been
frozen. Hogue then turned to his nephew, Brian Patrick, the person he was closest to in his extended family. While Jim became
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