A Life Wasted

Illinois & Cincinnati

They only kept me in Cincinnati for a few days before taking me to the airport and putting me on a small jet. It was nice and cozy. Just me and a group of special U.S. Marshals that handled "special transports" like me. I was flown to Illinois to be sentenced in federal court. Recall that I had gone to trial and lost but escaped before I was sentenced. So I needed to be sentenced.

Not surprisingly, they put me in a different jail. This Sherriff wasn't taking any chances. I don't want to explain all the ridiculous security measures he had in place for me, but I will say that I was locked in a special segregation cell that had a camera in the cell. The cell was lit by an extremely bright light that never went out. I wasn't allowed any bedding, not even a wash cloth or towel. When I tried to sleep I had to lie on my back and face the camera. And the light. I wasn't allowed to roll onto my side, nor was I allowed to cover my eyes with my hand. If whoever was watching the camera could not see either my eyes or the back of my eyelids they activated this horrifically loud yelping siren.

Between a light so bright that I saw spots through my eyelids and a siren so loud it threatened to damage my ears I was completely unable to sleep. When I would finally pass out from exhaustion I was awaken with the siren for "count" which seemed to only occur when I fell asleep. I have no idea how long I was in that jail. My attorney visited me during this time to discuss my sentencing and escape charges. When he couldn't get me to understand what he was saying my attorney asked me my name. When I couldn't answer that simple question he began raising hell. I was being tortured so severely that my attorney was able to push to have me moved almost immediately.

Recall that I had been charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. I wasn't charged with using a gun, just with having it in my possession. For that simple crime I was given a twenty-seven-year sentence. I find it ironic when I hear conservative pundits say we need tougher gun laws. How much tougher would they like them to be? I was sentenced for simple possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and have served sixteen years on that sentence and have seven more years to go. That sentence alone will take me from 43 years old to 67 years old. I also received three years for the escape.

An hour after I was sentenced in Urbana, Illinois I was back on a different jet, this one a nicer Hawker 800, and flown back to Cincinnati.

I wasn't too happy with my lawyer in Illinois so I decided to represent myself in Cincinnati and my trial for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The Constitution guarantees that a criminal defendant has a lawyer, but it also guarantees that a criminal defendant can represent himself. But to do so the defendant must "knowingly and intelligently" waive those rights. This waiver is done through what is known as a "Farretta Hearing." The judge gave me this required hearing and allowed me to represent myself. The judge also appointed me a "Stand by" counsel from the federal public defender's office. This guy was great. He freely gave me his time and taught me how to act like a lawyer without embarrassing myself too much. It is common to hear horror stories about unfair judges and poor legal counsel, but I had the opposite in Cincinnati. Even the United States Attorney who prosecuted me was fair. The law however, is very harsh.

The trial was interesting in that I attempted to raise what is called a "Defense of Necessity," meaning I tried to claim my illegal act of possessing firearms was necessary to protect pre-born children from murder by abortion. The judge correctly ruled that I couldn't raise this defense since abortion is legal, therefore not murder and the jury found me guilty in about thirty seconds.

The District Court Judge in Cincinnati was fair in everything she did. She was also curious and decent to me. She even gave me a break in the sentencing, but she was required to sentence me within the federal guidelines. My sentence was just under 20 years, which was the least the judge could give me. This time was run consecutively with the time in Illinois, so it gave me a total sentence of 599 months, or one-month shy of 50 years. Fifty years in prison for possession of guns.