Former teacher, now in jail, gives a living lesson

You don't have to spend much time with Mark Ohrnstein to find him likable, articulate and a potentially great salesman.

What's not so readily apparent about the 38-year-old father of three is that for most of his life he's been an accomplished liar, cheat and a thief, all in the name of fueling his addiction to alcohol and cocaine.

"I've been in jail long before I ever got here," Ohrnstein said, figuratively.

Literally, he's also been in jail a few times.

Ohrnstein was arrested in September for going door-to-door in some Urbana neighborhoods, pitching a sob story that his car had broken down and he needed just a few bucks for a tow. Arrested Sept. 16 and charged with theft, he got out on bond and did the same thing again less than a week later.

In the past, the same scam resulted in nothing greater than misdemeanor convictions for him.

"I can only imagine what I looked like. Either they felt sorry for me or just wanted me to leave," he said of those who helped him.

In 2004, he was charged with residential burglary for entering the home of a woman he knew and stealing her credit card to buy Wal-Mart gift certificates. She suspected him because he had borrowed money from her before. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespass charge.

Early this month, Ohrnstein pleaded guilty to felony theft for his latest scam. Judge Harry Clem set sentencing for December. Ohrnstein plans to ask for drug court probation, a rigorous program of therapy for substance abusers whose crimes are directly linked to their addictions.

He knows his legal troubles could be over a lot quicker if he accepted a sentence to prison. The maximum would be three years, and he'd probably have to serve less than half. But he also says he knows how much he needs and wants to escape the life he's led for almost 30 years.

Growing up wasted

The youngest of three boys born to an architect father and a stay-at-home mom, Ohrnstein said his childhood was good.

"I had everything a child could want materialistically," he said.

The Ohrnsteins lived in Springfield through his seventh-grade year, the year his alcohol consumption picked up steam. His first taste of alcohol came at age 8; marijuana, at 10.

In seventh grade, he said, his father's business was in a decline, his oldest brother was in the military and his next older brother had graduated from high school.

"I had a lot of confusion," he said, adding that he turned to alcohol and marijuana "any time I didn't want to deal with life on life's terms." There were friends in his neighborhood whose parents worked, so it was no problem to drink at their homes.

When he was in eighth grade, he and his parents moved to Palm Beach, Fla., so his father could start a new chapter in his architectural career.

Although he missed his Springfield friends, he joined the football team and took up surfing.

"From day one, there was always alcohol and marijuana involved," he said, adding he's not sure if everyone was really using or if he just sought out those who did. Regardless, he said, "I chose to do it."

He remembers being at the home of a friend whose father was a "mule," transporting cocaine between Texas and Florida. Finding a brick of cocaine in the parents' bedroom, he and his friend tried it and liked it.

It was the early 1980s, and crack cocaine had just hit the scene. It produced an "almost instantaneous high" and "short-lived euphoria" that was overpowering, he said.

He did it on the way to school, during lunch breaks, after school, weekends, then week nights.

He was still going to class, still doing OK academically, a sign that he could handle it.

That ability to carry on – seemingly successfully – was something he would use over and over again to justify to himself that he did not have a problem.

Functional addict

By the 10th grade, his drug usage was so prevalent that his grades fell precipitously. He slept through classes. An English class assignment to write a limerick turned into a confession.

"I wrote about smoking cocaine. I turned it in. How insane is that? The teacher turned it in to the principal," he said, who told his parents.

He believes that's the first time his parents might have acknowledged his drug use. His father assured the principal they would take care of it.

"They were classic enablers. I fault them none," he said. "They didn't know what to do."

By junior year in high school, his crack addiction was out of control and putting a serious strain on his parents' relationship.

"It was decided to geographically move me," he said. He and his mother moved back to Champaign-Urbana, where his maternal grandparents lived, while his dad stayed in Florida for a while.

A junior at Central High School, Ohrnstein said he was a bit of an introvert the first couple of months. After saving up lunch money for a couple of months, he met "friends" and spent the money on beer and marijuana. At home, he was drinking his grandparents' alcohol and refilling the bottles with water.

Graduating a semester early, Ohrnstein joined the Army in the summer of 1987.

Although he described himself as a good worker from 9 to 5, he said his unfettered cocaine and alcohol use caused his three-year hitch to end with a general conduct discharge after two years.

Returning to Champaign in early 1989, Ohrnstein decided to try Parkland College.

"I went to classes a day or two then spent the financial aid money on parties," he said.

He met his wife at one of those parties, and their daughter arrived not long after.

He's fairly certain his wife didn't know the extent of his addictions, although she knew he partied.

Not long after they married, his father landed a job renovating a resort in the Catskill Mountains in New York and took Mark and family along at the expense of his company.

There, Ohrnstein obtained an associate degree in business administration in 1991. Despite having a child, he continued to drink heavily and started using crack again.

His good grades told him he could handle the drugs.

Again following his older brother, he enrolled at Western Illinois University at Macomb in business. Bored after one semester, he tried his hand at elementary education and found he liked it.

"I always loved being around kids," he said.

In May 1996, he had his undergraduate degree in teaching, a second child and his first job as a fourth-grade teacher in Macomb.

"I was a natural," he said, adding he also loved to coach.

Back to Champaign

Wanting to relocate to Champaign, he hounded then-Barkstall Elementary principal Sandy Powell for a job until she hired him in 1998. His parents were back in Champaign.

"Things were going good on the outside. My alcoholism was very prevalent at the time, but I hid that. I was teaching DARE to fifth-graders with a police officer during the day and getting high and drinking at night," he said.

As his sick days evaporated, he had to tell superiors of his problem. And despite a 30-day inpatient drug treatment program, Ohrnstein said, he still couldn't admit he had a problem.

"I'm teaching. I'm paying my bills. I still felt I don't need all this."

He had periods of sobriety and was even the PTA Teacher of the Year at Barkstall once during his 2 1/2 years there.

But the sobriety was short-lived, and the scamming started up, even with the parents of his students.

"In my mind it was: 'You're not robbing a store.' Sometimes I would pay people back. Other times I forgot who I borrowed money from.

"I would definitely say now that I was sick. There's a saying in AA classes: We're not bad people. We're sick people who make bad choices," he said.

Ohrnstein was forced to resign from teaching in 2001. His father allowed him to help in the architecture firm.

"I lied, cheated and embezzled from him," he said, adding he bounced back and forth between his wife and his folks. A third child was born to them in 2005. That child and his middle child are now living with his estranged wife in another state. His teen daughter lives in Champaign, where she's finishing high school. She visits Ohrnstein in the jail weekly. His parents come, too.

No more hopeless addict

Among drug addicts, there's a saying that one has to bottom out before he or she can begin recovery.

"There's no doubt in my mind I've hit rock bottom. It happened Sept. 21, when my daughter and father watched me be handcuffed in front of my house," he said. "Nobody wants to be (in jail), but I needed every bit of it.

"I'm in jail and happier than I've been in years. How ironic is that?"

Ohrnstein is a trusty, an inmate whose good behavior warrants a bit more freedom. He works in the kitchen.

He attends Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings and has incorporated many of their sayings into his lexicon.

"I've accepted who I am, as far as what my untreated alcoholism and addiction have led to. I've seen glimpses of what I can be. I've seen it in former students. I have done some good. But I have caused a lot of pain."

Ohrnstein is living the one-day-at-a-time philosophy of AA and said he's looking forward to getting to know the new Mark.

"It sounds like a cliche, but there's no doubt in my mind I should be here, he said. "There's a job left undone for me. I have unfinished business.

"Up until two months ago, I was a hopeless alcoholic and addict. Absolutely, I have hope today."

Also on this date

• Holiday shopping: Small towns, great gifts
• Photographers denied access to stadium field
• Researchers' model helps design more productive plants
• Future Illini's mother never rests while supporting her son
• Prepaid tuition program open for enrollment
• Arcola center brings people together
• Lab analyzes gas samples from a world away
• It's your business: Holiday stores open; apparel shop coming
• Obituaries

» More