After his conviction, Fornaro was held for five weeks in the Tombs prison, first awaiting his sentence, and after his sentence, during a stay pending a decision on his application for a Certificate of Reasonable Doubt, which was denied; and on December 4, 1909, he was taken to the penitentiary on Blackwell's Island to begin serving his term.
Two weeks later, when the news of the sentence had reached Mexico, Rafael Reyes Espindola went to a bull fight. As soon as he was seen entering the stands there was a great outcry against him from the spectators—there were over twenty-five thousand of them; they were calling him "Assassin of reputations." They pelted him with missiles and drove him out of the bull ring in confusion and ignominy. The Mexican newspapers, commenting on the incident, called it "Brutal Justice."
On October 3, 1910, Fornaro was discharged. He had served ten months in prison, which was the full term of his sentence, except for two months off for good behavior, which is provided by the laws of New York.
Within a few weeks after Fornaro's discharge from prison, after the revolution against Diaz broke out in Mexico, on November 20, 1910, Fornaro was offered $25,000 to leave the United States if there was an investigation of the manner in which evidence in his behalf was suppressed or kept from the court.
Fornaro refused it, as he refused the bribe for suppressing his book, and as he refused a pardon which he was told would be granted him unconditionally after his appeal to the Supreme Court had been lost. There never was any investigation into his case.
But the book that caused all the trouble went on. The first edition of "Diaz, Czar of Mexico" had been exhausted, and a second edition was printed. The revolutionists in Mexico still say that this book, in conjunction with Francisco I. Madero's "The Presidential Succession in 1910," were the greatest influences in bringing about the fall of Porfirio Diaz.
A MODERN PURGATORY