Peter Bistrian was a former Chadds Ford financial adviser serving time at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center on a 2006 fraud conviction. He was working as an orderly in solitary when he saw a note on the floor, writes Jeremy Roebuck for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

A voice from inside a nearby cell told him to deliver the message to another inmate on the row. Bistrian did as he was told.

He couldn’t have known then that his simple act would entangle him with one of Philadelphia’s most notoriously violent drug lords — Kaboni Savage.

Bristrian found himself routinely ferrying communications between Savage and his lieutenants, while sharing those messages in exchange for telephone privileges with federal agents building Savage’s death-penalty case.

But within a month, the arrangement abruptly unraveled when Savage discovered Bistrian was sharing the notes with the guards.

He was attacked. The beating left Bistrian with a dislocated shoulder, broken fingers, cuts across his face and head, and chipped and lost teeth.

Released from prison in 2009, Bistrian is now suing prison officials whom he blames for blowing his cover and ignoring his warnings about the danger he was in.

Read more about Bistrian’s experience here.

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