Richard Poma promised his brother that he would do every thing in his power to break the chain of crime that has fouled their family for years.
He became a truly changed man after his young daughter visited him in prison in 1988.
“Angelique was just a baby then and she kept trying to touch me through the glass,” Poma recalled. “She told her mother, ‘Let me talk to my daddy.’”
Little Angelique got on the phone and said. “Daddy, why can’t I touch you? Can you come out here so you can hold me and kiss me?” Visibly shaken, Poma stated, “Not right now Angelique, not right now.”
He watched through glass as Angelique screamed and cried, “Why can’t you hold me right now.”
Poma told her, “Baby your daddy’s been a bad person.” She then asked through tears, “Can you be good so we can always hold each other? Will you promise me that daddy?” Poma said, “Baby I’ll do my best, I’ll do my best.”
That moment had him reeling with a guilt he had never experienced before. “I felt the weight of the world smashing me,” stated Poma. “How could I have gotten so messed up?”
As his daughter grew up, some of her friends wanted to steal some treats from a refreshment stand. “Before we go steal,” she told them, “I want you all to read something that I was told to share before I thought about committing a crime.”
The documents were legal transcripts and police reports about her father’s crimes.
To this day, the kids that read his transcripts have never broken the law, he said. “I love Angelique,” Poma said. “She is one of my heroes and I’m proud and honored to have her as my daughter.”
Angelique Poma graduated from college and obtained her law degree and works at the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Reno, Nevada.
Poma is a five-year resident at San Quentin who entered the California Department of Corrections 30 years ago. His brother has since died of cancer.
The 50-year-old Poma is known around San Quentin for his famous train whistle sounds and his long bushy handlebar moustache.
