THE STORY

In 2015, I was sentenced to 8 years on federal charges. I pled guilty, so it should be understood that I did illegal things, but what I was arrested for, charged with, and sentenced for, were very far apart. In the federal system, the facts of a case are lost during quid-pro-quo, coercion tactic negotiations, so when I’m asked specifically what my sentence was for, I really don’t know how to respond. I offer this as an answer, by telling the story of what happened, so that you can judge for yourself.

My entire income for 12 years was making fake IDs, a lot of them. This was almost entirely for college students to facilitate partying, but other kinds too occasionally. This was count 1 of my indictment.

[Click HERE to view details of Count 1]

I was arrested by the Department of Homeland Security picking up a package from China. It wasn’t a weapon of mass destruction, it contained enough steroids to last one person about 4 months. This was count 2 of my indictment.

[Click HERE to view details of Count 2]

The advisory sentencing guidelines for these two acts of civic dereliction were about one year in a minimum security camp. This was the only criminal activity I was actively involved in, and the only thing I stood accused of, until I refused to inform on other people.

[Click HERE to view Indictment]

Informing on other people may be the right thing to do legally, but that’s not why people do it. Informers turn their friends in to the secret police for personal benefit, which is morally reprehensible. The people I had information about were not violent criminals, they were college students and some close friends that would have felony records for the rest of their lives because of me. I could not punctuate what I had done with this kind of self serving betrayal. I tried to give something else instead, the worst kind of degenerate that no one would ever fault me for turning in. It didn’t work, they wanted more.

When I couldn’t give the agents what they wanted, I was run through their PR shredder. Suggestions of strange conduct like impersonating the police were alluded to in the news, and although I was never charged with anything of the sort, this was the only conduct the judge mentioned when I was sentenced.

[Click HERE to read Uncharged Conduct & Press Release]

In an effort to increase the possible sentence, and pressure to cooperate, the prosecutors multiplied the steroid quantity based on speculations of what hypothetical packages to the same address could have contained. This is a practice called “ghost dope,” widely used and considered to be ethical in the land of the free. This increased my sentence range to just under two years, but it didn’t change my mind, so they hauled me off to a small jail far away from my city and secluded me away in a filthy isolation cell.

Solitary confinement – the prosecutor’s way of persuading defendants to ‘cooperate’ more fully…People will agree to anything to get out of solitary confinement, and it is the rare person who can endure this kind of torture without capitulating to the prosecutors demands. Once a defendant has signed a plea-and-cooperation deal he has indeed sold his soul to the devil.

Harvey Silvergate – Attorney, Writer, & Journalist

After holding out that way for 10 months I was slapped with an alternative indictment (see Count 3 link below) creating a whole new charge based on the information that I had foolishly given. This skyrocketed my possible sentence to just over 8 years unless I informed. I took the 8 year risk, but the false implications cost a terrible price far beyond the 8 year sentence.

[Click HERE to view details of Count 3]

According to calculations, the sentencing guidelines for steroids was 18 months, and 16 months for IDs. Although the late add on count 3 eclipsed them all at 97 months, and judges are required to discuss offenses and give reasons for the sentence, count 3 wasn’t even briefly mentioned when my sentence was read. The only thing the judge had much to say about before giving me 8 years was what the news stories reported, which would have carried a maximum sentence of 3 years if it had been charged at all.

---