Manny The Hippie
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Thursday,
Aug. 22, 1996 · Page
A 3
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© 1996 San Francisco Examiner | |
For Manny the Hippie, becoming Micah the Narc was just way too schwag to deal with. So he split Ohio for the West Coast.
Manny, 20, who became famous as David Letterman's San Francisco pal and now is facing as much as a year in prison back in Ohio for a probation violation, feels his troubles began when he refused to become police informant a year and a half ago. Instead, he hit the road, attending a Rainbow Gathering and following the Grateful Dead for a few months before landing in The City later in 1995.
Manny was arrested in April 1995 for selling an eighth of an ounce of marijuana for $20 to an undercover cop in Xenia, Ohio, about 12 miles from Dayton.
"It was schwag weed - Mexican," Manny said. "We don't have diggity dank in Ohio."
Authorities said Manny, whose real name is Micah Papp, had agreed to cooperate with a drug task force in Green County, Ohio, in return for his release from jail.
Word leaked out
But when it came time to arrange the first bust, the narcs "couldn't locate him," said Mark Adkins, an investigator for the Greene County prosecutor's office. Just before he left, Manny said, someone had put out the word on the street that he was cooperating with police, ruining his effectiveness.
"They asked me to snitch people out," Manny said in a jailhouse interview Wednesday. "They said they'd let me out of jail right away. All my friends were already in jail, so I said, "Sure.' Then I split for California."
When Manny returned to his mom's home in Ohio last Christmas Eve, he was immediately arrested and spent three months in jail before he was released March 6 to serve five years of probation. Two days later, he left, vowing never to return to Ohio.
Manny, who sits in San Francisco County Jail on a no-bail warrant awaiting an extradition hearing Tuesday, is basking in attention. Wednesday evening, reporters lined up for interviews with the street person turned celebrity.
But not all the attention has been positive. Tuesday night, Manny said, two inmates beat him up, giving him a fat lip and bruises on his face. Sheriff's spokeswoman Eileen Hirst found his story credible, and her department is investigating. But Manny declined to press charges or identify his attackers, saying, "I won't be responsible for anyone doing any more jail time. I've already spent too much time in jail myself."
Fame has its downside
It was Manny's first 15 minutes of fame that led to his downfall. Until May, when Letterman discovered him while "The Late Show" was being filmed in San Francisco, Manny was just another smiling street hippie hanging in the Haight-Ashbury and using goofy slang. Since then, his smiling visage has been seen throughout the nation, and "schwag" (bad), "dank" (good) and "diggity dank" (quite good) have entered the American lexicon.
Manny hasn't spoken with Letterman since being arrested Monday, although he said "Late Show" staffers had been in contact. Another of his gigs, San Francisco radio station KBGG's (98.1 FM), is organizing a "Free Manny" campaign.
"We're not dealing with a diabolical criminal mind," said morning show host Darian O'Toole. "This is not a drug lord. This is not even the Cannabis Club. This is Manny the Hippie. He's a harmless kid whose idea of being a fugitive is to hide on Letterman."
Unfortunately for Manny, people back in his hometown of Beaver Creek, Ohio, watch "The Late Show," too. But Manny wasn't exactly a famous criminal back there either.
"I saw him on Letterman, and I heard him say he was from Ohio, but I didn't know he was from here," said Adkins, the investigator now trying to extradite Manny. "But someone in our Probation Department spotted him on TV and said, "He's one of our cases.' "
He wants to stay
Manny said he planned to fight extradition as long as possible. His attorney, Doug Rappaport, hopes he can arrange for Manny to get his probation transferred to San Francisco.
"I'll do anything to avoid going back to Ohio," said Manny, adopting a serious tone. "They can make it my probation condition that I can never set foot in that state again - I promise to comply.
"Back in Ohio, I was just someone who didn't fit in. If they bring me back there, I'll just get in trouble again. I'll never go anywhere. I'll never amount to anything. I'll just spend the rest of my life in and out of jail.
"In San Francisco, I've finally got a life. Why do they want to ruin it?"