Tag Archives: President Obama

Freedom for Another Friend

August 9, 2016Current Affairs, Prison politicscommutation of sentences, conspiracy, Obama, Politics, President Obama, PrisonersWayne Dowdy

by Wayne T. Dowdy

obama clemency On January 5, 2016, I wrote about Alphonso D. in “Freedom for a Friend,” whom President Obama had freed from an unjust sentence of life-without-parole. The President granted Alphonso’s petition for commutation of sentence and gave him another chance at life in the free society.

ANOTHER FRIEND FREED: I am grateful to write that President Obama granted 214-more commutation of sentences on August 3, 2016. One of the men was another friend of mine: Alonzo M., a tall, light-skinned, well-mannered, African-American male.

Before August 3, 2016, Alonzo was eighteen years into serving life without parole for a drug conspiracy case, with a concurrent 240-month sentence for a bogus money laundering charge. He was fed to the lions by criminals who wanted time off their sentences.

DANGEROUS CRIMINAL: Alonzo was a late bloomer who indulged in mind-altering substances for his enjoyment, not for business purposes. He occasionally bought small quantities of marijuana, until at the age of 47, after hospitalization for a serious injury, he began using cocaine and heroin to ease the pain of his injuries. (See SENTENCING ENHANCEMENT FACTORS below for why he received so much time.)

prisoners leaving jail FREEING JAIL BIRDS: Alonzo ran a family-owned bonding service, passed on to him by his father. He employed two brothers. Mackins Bonding Service helped get men and women out of jail who paid the required fee, or otherwise put up something of value to cover the cost of the bond. Many of his customers were drug dealers. He came when called to bond them out of jail. If he knew them and they had been good about paying debts, he’d work with them on the financial aspect to get them out.

UNDER PRESSURE: Prosecutors and law enforcement officers use jail cells and the poor living conditions to pressure defendants into pleading guilty, and into cooperating with investigations by helping to put other people in jail. That is especially true in cases based on the most abused law in history: CONSPIRACY. That is so even when the government witnesses are known liars who fabricate evidence to get a plea deal.

WARNING: One agent from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) cautioned Alonzo, “You are interfering with our investigations by getting them out of jail before we can interrogate them properly.”

“I am a bondsman. I get people out of jail who pay me. That’s what I do for a living.”

Another DEA agent came to him in 1997 and attempted to get him to cooperate by providing information against some of his clients. The DEA agent said, “I know you have a drug problem and that you buy drugs from some of them, but we don’t want you. You aren’t the problem, but if you don’t become part of the solution, we will see you as part of the problem.”

Alonzo didn’t cooperate and become targeted as the problem. When he continued to do his job, federal prosecutors put the word out in prisons and jails that they wanted the Mackins and offered reduced sentences to those who provided information.

JAIL BIRDS LIE: For sentence reductions, the conspirators mostly made false claims against Alonzo and his brother, Willie. The lies told were payment for the Mackins’ getting people out of jail who law enforcement officials did not want out.

Read “Freedom for a Friend,” subtitle “INFORMATION FOR SALE” (USA TODAY reporter reveals scam in federal prison where inmates sell fabricated information to put other people in prison so the purchaser gets time off sentence); and for more information on conspiracy laws and unreliable information used by prosecutors to put people in prison, sometimes for life without parole in letters, or life without parole in numbers (75-years or more, without parole) straightfromthepen.wordpress.com and waynedowdy.weebly.com.

MONEY: Alonzo broke both legs in an auto accident and was out of the bonding business for eight months. During that time, Ron S., a pretrial detainee, whose girlfriend was the daughter of a long-time customer, gave her father $100,000 to deliver to Willie to hold for his bond, until his attorney took care of other pending charges.

BAD DECISION: Ron S. was in jail for selling drugs. His bond was one million dollars. He had a detainer in another jurisdiction that he needed removed to make bond. (A detainer is a hold placed on a prisoner by law enforcement authorities that prohibits release of the prisoner without notifying the agency who placed the detainer.)

Ron S. agreed to pay $12,000 to the attorney to have the detainers removed so he could make bond, and asked Willie to pay the attorney for him out of the $100,000. He did. Months later, Ron S. asked Willie to give money to the daughter of the man who delivered the $100,000. He did that, too.

NO BOND: Willie attempted to make the bond for Ron S. but the jailers would not release him because of the detainer. That’s when Ron S. instructed Willie to give some money to the girl.

When Alonzo returned to work and received a phone call from Ron S. wanting a refund of his money, Alonzo did not know what he was talking about. He checked the log and did not find any entry for Ron S., so he asked, “Which bondsman took your money?”

“Willie Mackins,” he said.

“Give me time to investigate,” Alonzo said. “Call me back later.”

After a meeting with his fellow bondsmen and of learning that Ron S. could not make bond, he told his brother to return the money. He explained it was short because of him having given the money to the attorney and the girl. Alonzo knew something wasn’t right. When Ron S. returned the call, he attempted to set-up Alonzo, who said his money would be refunded, but he first had to sell some rental properties to get the remainder of the balance.

“You can give me the rest in something else,” he said, suggesting drugs.

To paraphrase, Alonzo told him, I don’t know where you got that idea. I don’t do business like that and neither does anyone else here. I resent your implications, and I wouldn’t be talking with you right now if my company wasn’t involved. You will get your money, he said, and hung up the phone.

Ron S. lied in court and claimed the financial transaction involved drugs. The above conversation never played out in court. Ron S. received a sentence reduction for telling his lies, as did most others who testified.

GOOD DEEDS MADE BAD: The fabricated money laundering charge began in the late eighties. He is uncertain of exactly when, but suspects the theory began when he innocently loaned $11,000 to a woman against her nephew’s Mercedes-Benz, for $2,000 interest on a six-month loan.

Lola claimed they needed the money to put a relative in a nursing home. No one ever mentioned drugs during any conversation he had with her.

She came to him later with various sad stories and persuaded him into helping her rent vehicles because she needed them to move or transport her relatives or children, and because she didn’t have a credit card to use to rent a vehicle. Since she had repaid the $13,000 in a little over six-months, and she had brought him and his father a lot of bonding business over the years, he helped her. Each time he rented her a vehicle, she gave him $50.00.

One of the times that she came asking him to help her get a vehicle, she had tears in her eyes and said a relative had died and she needed help. He always gave her a helping hand but never knew of any drug transaction or inappropriate use of the vehicles.

In Court, the government claimed he rented Lola the vehicles to transport drugs for her nephew. She had died by the time he was hauled into court, so she could not tell the truth about their relationship. He was never involved with her nephew or other family members, other than bonding them out of jail, if Lola stood good for them.

His good deeds got him life without parole when people lied on him in court to get time off their sentences.

SENTENCING ENHANCEMENT FACTORS: Alonzo went to trial and was found guilty based upon the conspiracy theories. At sentencing, the prosecutor pushed the judge to give him a life sentence because of 1) their claim that he was a leader and organizer; 2) the alleged drug conspiracy quantities, never proved to a jury, but found by the judge, and 3), his prior conviction for possession of .02 grams of cocaine that a female passenger had dropped between his car seats.

In reference to the incident behind his notorious prior conviction, he said, “I saw her drop it. I looked everywhere for it and even vacuumed the car. I still didn’t find it, but when that cop searched the car, he found it.”

I looked at him and smiled before I said, “You are such a dangerous criminal, I don’t know how I have lived around you for so long.”

The judge enhanced his current sentence because he possessed a gun that was found during his arrest for the match head of powder cocaine. He legally owned and possessed the firearm. Bondsmen carry guns.

WORKING MAN: Alonzo works in the cubicle beside me in the business office of the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. Since news of his commutation circulated the prison network news (Inmate.com), several people came by to congratulate him. Most everyone said the same thing: “No one deserved it more than you,” or “It couldn’t have happened to a better man.”

I agree. He is one of the most humble, respectful, polite and kind people that I know. When I grow up, I want to be like him.

Three years ago, Alphonso and Alonzo worked within ten feet of each other as Quality Assurance Inspectors on a production line, inspecting small components before installation on military trousers. I got to know both men by issuing and reviewing their inspection instructions, inspection stamps, and other documents as part of my position as the document control clerk and as an internal auditor. Both men took pride in their work and were known by staff and inmates as the most reliable Q.A. Inspectors.

GRATITUDE: Alphonso D. and Alonzo M. deserved the President’s compassion and have expressed their gratitude for him giving them another chance at life. I am confident that neither one will betray his trust.

I am grateful to President Obama for blessing them with freedom. Neither man should have been serving a life sentence in federal prison, where they were doomed to die before the President commuted their sentences. I hope other Presidents will have as much courage as President Obama displayed by standing up for what is right, in light of the controversy his actions have caused with his critics.

JUSTICE ?: Thousands of others remain in federal and state prisons serving life sentences, many of whom were convicted for Ghost Dope Conspiracies and other similar crimes, where no actual drugs or evidence existed, other than that provided by testifying codefendants or informants, who provided testimony to avoid prison or to shorten their stay.

May justice one day be served by Congress clarifying the law or passing others to prohibit prosecutors from using tainted testimony, paid for by giving witnesses “something of value for their testimony in court,” in violation of Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 201(c)(2), the Anti-bribery statute.

As a three-judge panel in the UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT concluded in Singleton v. United States (1998), a person’s freedom is something of value. An en banc decision (reviewed by all judges on the Tenth Circuit) overturned the original decision, after political pressure consumed the news about the three-judge panel’s decision. The en banc panel essentially concluded that governments have been giving deals for centuries, so it must be okay. If asked, I’d said, the Romans fed Christians to the lions and thought that it was okay, too. Civilization proved otherwise.

Paying a man or woman with freedom, who may be condemned if they do not perform as the prosecutor demands, taints the judicial process and has made a mockery out of the American criminal justice system by allowing dangerous criminals to go free or to be released early from prison for providing unreliable information used to put people in prison.

Paying people for testimony leads to unreliable convictions, as happened in the cases of Alphonso and Alonzo, and thousands of other American citizens. Most criminal defendants will not hesitate to tell a lie to the tune of a prosecutor, to avoid being fed to
the lions.

Roman Coliseum with lions

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Wayne T. Dowdy writes Straight from the Pen. Purchase his most recent novel today, UNKNOWN INNOCENCE ($14.95) from Midnight Express Books or your favorite bookstore.

Freedom for a Friend

January 5, 2016UncategorizedAttorney General, Clemency, commutation of sentence, congress, conspiracy, Eric Holder, President Obama, President of the United StatesWayne Dowdy

by Wayne T. Dowdy

balance

In the American Criminal Justice system that falls under the Executive branch of the Federal Government, the President of the United States is over the Department of Justice. Political campaigns designed to get votes by former presidents declaring War on Drugs and War on Crime, lead to the mass incarceration in America. The first wave of attacks against the citizens came under the guise of the Sentence Reform Act of 1984, where Congress abolished parole for federal offenders and required that prisoners serve eighty-five percent of their sentences, all of which lead to a boom in the incarceration industry. Hundreds of politicians lined their pockets with cash as a result of the boom due to the influence of private prison corporations. [1]

The Honorable Eric Holder, former United States Attorney General, and President Barack Obama implemented programs to reduce the federal prison population, reign in overzealous prosecutors, slow the prison growth rate, and other measures to reduce recidivism. One plan was Clemency Project 2014. In it President Obama planned to grant clemency to drug offenders serving unjust sentences. One to benefit from the project was my friend: Alphonso D.

obama granting clemency On December 17, 2015, President Barack Obama granted clemency to ninety-five federal prisoners and pardoned two; sixty-seven of whom are in prison serving lengthy prison sentences for conspiracy to commit drug offenses and other associated charges, thirty-eight of whom had life without parole.

The next day I stood speaking to a factory supervisor when I was blessed with a unique experience. My friend strutted in flaunting a larger than normal smile.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Great now! I was granted clemency,” Alphonso said.

A smile erupted on my face as tears of joy filled my eyes. The news made me almost as happy as if President Obama had granted my petition for commutation of sentence. I have a release date. He did not.

Alphonso is a well-mannered, polite, soft-spoken, and respectful man in his mid-fifties. On February 12, 1996, a judge sentenced him to life without parole for Conspiracy to Violate Narcotic Laws (crack), in the Western District of North Carolina. (Crack is cocaine base people smoke, which is an alkaloid, and not a hydrochloride like powder cocaine that people snort or inject to get high on.)

No actual drugs existed in the conspiracy that lead him to prison to live out the remainder of his life, that is, until President Obama intervened and showed compassion by granting his petition for commutation of sentence. He will be released on April 16, 2016. The government convicted him under the conspiracy theory for “ghost dope.” He deserved the President’s compassion.

CRIMINAL CONSPIRACIES: Conspiracy is a law Congress first enacted in 1909 as the CONSPIRACY ACT (Offenses Against the U.S.), which prosecutors used to convict mobsters and other criminals without any physical or scientific evidence. In 1948, Congress enacted Title 18 of the United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 371, “Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States”; then in 1970, added Title 21 U.S.C., Section 846, “Attempt and Conspiracy” to their arsenal to prosecute drug offenses and allow prosecutors to seek the same sentence as provided for the primary offense; e.g., life without parole for certain drug offenses. Prosecutors use Title 18, Section 2, “Principals,” and other statutes to achieve the same result in other offenses.

A criminal conspiracy may be based on little more than informants or witnesses claiming a defendant planned to or committed a crime. Under Section 371, if the government convinces the judge or jurors of an overt act used to activate the plan to violate the law, the defendant gets convicted in most cases.

Prosecutors do not have to prove an overt act under Section 846. Overt acts may be as simple as making a phone call, or instructing someone who to see or where to go to buy illicit drugs, weapons, or anything used to knowingly violate laws.

Under 18 U.S.C., Section 371, the stiffest penalty is five-years imprisonment and a fine. Under the conspiracy theory, prosecutors may charge defendants for all crimes involved in the conspiracy; e.g., armed bank robbery, through Conspiracy to Commit Armed Bank Robbery. (See PERSONALLY below.)

BAD DEALS: When threatened with absurd prison sentences, some defendants plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because it comes as a package deal to help investigators clear the books, or to avoid an excessive sentence when the government refuses to believe their informant is lying. Some prosecutors use perjured testimony to get convictions. Numerous people in American prisons have been freed with DNA evidence that proved witnesses lied or made mistakes. In some cases, prosecutors, and or law enforcement officials, concealed exculpatory evidence to get convictions (exculpatory evidence proves innocence).

In my opinion, conspiracy became the most abused law in American history. Many unjust incarcerations resulted from prosecutors who abused the law and forced people into providing false testimony to convict another person; prosecutors also use the law to retaliate against those who won’t cooperate. Law books are filled with incidents where defendants went to prison due to overzealous prosecutors.

INFORMATION FOR SALE: On December 14, 2012, Brad Heath reported in USA TODAY about a ring of inmates at the United States Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, selling information to other inmates to use for sentence reductions. Conspiracy plots were formed inside the prison to fabricate evidence against defendants to get sentence reductions. Heath stated, “Snitching has become so commonplace that in the past five years at least 48,895 federal convicts, one of every eight, had their prison sentences reduced in exchange for helping government investigators, a USA TODAY examination of hundreds of thousands of court cases found. The deals can chop off a decade or more off their sentences. …..”

MY CASE: The government paid the witness against me with eight and a half years, in place of the threatened-life-sentence. He went inside the bank with a gun. I sat in a second getaway vehicle, without a gun, down the road from the bank and got sentenced to 420-months. However, the result in my case does not compare to that of Sammy the Bull and former mob boss, John Gotti. (Read “The Truth About Incarceration” for more on Gotti and the deal made with Sammy the Bull to testify on him. [2])

In the Story Highlights, Heath wrote, “Inmates who operated the schemes have alleged that agents knew what they were up to [over] the past five years[.]” Then he wrote, “Those schemes are generally illegal because the people who buy information usually lie to federal agents about where they got the information. They also show how staggeringly valuable good information has become; prices ran into tens of thousands of dollars, or up to $250,000 in one case, court records show. ….. Prosecutors have said they were troubled that informants were paying for some of the secrets they passed on to federal agents. Judges are outraged. But the inmates who operated the schemes have repeatedly alleged that agents knew all along what they were up to, and sometimes even gave them the information they sold.”

MONEY TALKS: At the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, I once read confidential reports (three depositions) obtained by Private Investigators in the case of an alleged, wealthy, Canadian Mob Boss (Allan R.), who is in prison for smuggling large shipments of cocaine into America. Those documents, filed in court, showed where Spanish drug enforcement agents primed a witness with information to tell American authorities about the man the witness first stated he did not know. After extradition to the State of Texas for a drug case, the informant made a second deposition and claimed to know A.R.

Texas authorities primed him with more information to carry to the State of Florida, where he made a third deposition and agreed to testify against A.R. in an alleged murder of a Florida State Patrol officer. During the Discovery process, the prosecution only revealed the last deposition made in Florida. Had A.R. not been a millionaire with International connections, he would have been convicted, but when he proved the government concealed the other two depositions, and proved the witness had lied, the court dismissed the case.

Allan R.’s case is one where justice prevailed, even if it was at the price he paid to hire the Spanish private investigator, and high-powered attorneys in America, needed to obtain information to win against the most powerful criminal justice system in the world.

MORE ON CONSPIRACY: Reports of corruption in the judicial system by way of paid informants are not new. Numerous television segments have reported similar incidents, where defendants admitted they lied to get additional time off their sentences, or to get rich.

In 2002, Congress amended one federal statute to put a $500,000 cap on the amount of payment a government informant could receive, without special approval from the Attorney General. That was because of outrageous reports about “snitches” becoming millionaires by setting people up to get twenty-five percent of seized proceeds. Prosecutors still used those snitches to get convictions, and more often than not, relied on the conspiracy theory/principles to obtain the conviction to take the defendant’s assets.

REAL CRIMES: If an actual crime occurs, conspiracy principles apply to the extent that a defendant may be held accountable for all acts committed within the conspiracy, regardless of whether he or she had knowledge of the acts charged in the indictment. Most criminal offenses require an “intentional” or “willful” act to be proven as an element of the offense, but many prosecutors twist facts to get a conviction by coercing witnesses into saying what is needed to convict the defendant.

A person does not have to voluntarily play a role in the commission of the crime(s). Perhaps that sounds unbelievable but it is true. I know hundreds of men in prison due to testimony of people they had not seen or did not know, who helped put them in prison for quantities of drugs that never existed.

PERSONALLY: I am in prison based upon conspiracy principles, where the government convicted me for all acts because I was with the cohorts who committed crimes I did not agree to commit. I was involved. I am not saying otherwise; however, I learned more about the crimes during the jury trial than I knew before the trial began. Under conspiracy laws, though, I am as guilty as the ones who went inside the bank with guns, even though I did not intend to commit the crimes of conviction when I joined another conspiracy with the cohorts.

(For a brief summary about my involvement, read “No Sympathy” for free as an eBook or on my blogs [3]. In it I reference “The Price of Change,” which contains excerpts from my trial and past events that changed me. I also wrote about going to trial with a lunatic. I combined two essays to make a special eBook: “Fence Rows & the Price of Change.” No Sympathy and The Price of Change show my experience with criminal justice and the high cost of recidivism.)

CONCLUSION: In June 2014, I filed a petition for commutation of sentence; if granted, I plan to help reduce recidivism. As No Sympathy shows, I am a man with a mission.

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[1] For more on prisons for profit, read “The Truth About Incarceration, Part II” (https://straightfromthepen.wordpress.com/category/prison-politics/); and “An Inside View of the Criminal Justice System,” first published by PrisonLawBlog.com, Oct. 2014.

[2] “The Truth About Incarceration” (Part I), first published on PrisonLawBlog.com, Nov. 2014.

[3] (https://straightfromthepen.wordpress.com/) (http://waynedowdy.weebly.com);

Visit http://www.straightfromthepen.com or https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/WayneMrDowdy to purchase eBooks, essays, or to buy ESSAYS & MORE STRAIGHT FROM THE PEN, containing twelve essays, one short story and three poems; also available through Midnight Express Books or from your favorite online or offline bookstore.

PLOT TO STOP SANTA by Mr. D.

December 23, 2015Current Affairs, My Life Inside, Politics, Prison Living, UncategorizedDonald Trump, ISIS, Islam, Muslims, Paris Terrorist Attacks, President ObamaWayne Dowdy

[2020 Update: The author no longer worries about the censorship he dealt with when his former publisher posted this blog. He now enjoys freedom and exercises his freedom of speech.]

[The author uses his pseudonym due to institutional concerns when his publisher emails blogs into American prisons: one prison blocked their emails after sending “Zachariah Zambroski, Attorney at Law.”]

PANIC IN THE NORTH POLE: Santa’s elves discovered a package that ticked and then called in the bomb squad. False alarm. After detonating the suspicious package, the bomb squad determined the ticking package had been a miniature version of a grandfather clock. Clocks will be clocks. Real clocks tick.

PLOTS OF TERRORISTS: The feds uncovered a terrorist plot to blast Santa out of the sky. An early morning raid by the FBI netted six terrorists, five pipe bombs, four AK-47s, three pistols, two Rocket Propelled Grenades with launchers, and one computer. A search of the hard drive on the computer revealed other terroristic plots against Santa.

Santa security personnel installed anti-missile devices and .50 caliber machine guns on the sled to give Santa a fighting chance. Santa says, “I’ll blast them to pieces before they get me.”

Go Santa!

NO SANTA FOR PRISONERS: Santa’s not coming to see federal prisoners this year. The feds deemed Santa’s modified sled and his reindeer’s antlers a threat to institutional security and barred him from landing on prison property to deliver gifts to prisoners who have not been naughty. If he lands on federal property, he’ll be prosecuted on weapons charges and for the introduction of contraband behind the guard line.

Prisoners gathered on the yard to protest after the Warden announced the news. Guards in riot gear fired tear gas to disperse the prisoners. No reports of injuries. Prison authorities placed the prison on lockdown status and will feed the prisoners bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid for Christmas.

CONCLUSION: The plot to stop Santa only stopped him from delivering gifts to prison, and that’s how the story ends, but at least the fortunate children will see him and get their gifts.

Terrorists will reap eternal suffering for their dirty deeds.

It turned out for the best anyway. Investigators later learned about a plot by Mean Mugger Mack and Hack’em & Sack’em Sam, who planned to rob Santa of all the gifts when he touched down, so it’s all good. The terrorists plot to stop Santa saved him in the end. As for the prisoners, prisoners are survivors and will go about their daily activities like it is just another day in the pen, hoping for the day of their freedom. May God bless them all with peace, regardless of the name used by those who pray to summon that power greater than themselves.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all who celebrate! I hope everyone gets blessed with the desires of their heart and that 2016 will be the best year ever experienced. Watch for my next blog on Presidential Commutation of Sentences.