Sometimes, prisoners have a lot more freedom than I would be comfortable with. There is a man here in Louisiana, convicted a couple years ago in connection with a Ponzi scheme (nonviolent, o'course), whom I happen to know personally. A few months ago, he was working on some landscaping in the North LA prison where he is incarcerated and a prison official told him he "needed more plants". The prisoner got into a prison truck and drove to Lowe's, where he was in line to purchase plants when the staff called LE and he was detained and subsequently transferred to another facility. Now, this guy was a nonviolent offender and quite possibly a moron, but you know that prisoners who are deemed "model" are often given more freedoms and responsibilities and their supervision can become lax.
I'd be interested to know if BSL was granted any "trustee" type status while incarcerated, and what that entailed/would allow him to do.