The Racketeer

basic details. You couldn’t avoid it; there was a story in the newspapers virtually every day.
    A rich vein of uranium ore runs through central and southern Virginia. Because the mining of uranium is an environmental nightmare, the state passed a law forbidding it. Naturally, the landowners, leaseholders, and mining companies that control the deposits have long wanted to start digging, and they spent millions lobbying lawmakers to lift the ban. But, the Virginia General Assembly resisted. In 2003, a Canadian company called Armanna Mines filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Virginia attacking the ban as unconstitutional. It was a frontal assault with no holds barred, heavily financed, and led by some of the most expensive legal talent money could buy.
    As we soon learned, Armanna Mines was a consortium of mining companies from the U.S., Australia, and Russia, as well as Canada. An estimate of the potential value of the deposits in Virginia alone ranged from $15 to $20 billion.
    Under the random selection process in effect at the time, the case was assigned to a Judge McKay of Lynchburg, who was eighty-four years old and suffering from dementia. Citing health reasons, he passed. Next in line was Raymond Fawcett, who had no valid reason to recuse himself. The defendant was the Commonwealth of Virginia, but many others soon joined in. These included cities, towns, and counties situated on top of the deposits, as well as a few landowners who wanted no part of the destruction. The lawsuit became one huge, sprawling mess of litigation with over a hundred lawyers involved. Judge Fawcett denied the initial motions to dismiss and ordered extensive discovery. Before long, he was devoting 90 percent of his time to the lawsuit.
    In 2004 the FBI entered my life, and I lost interest in the mining case. I suddenly had other, more pressing matters to deal with. My trial started in October 2005 in D.C. By then, the Armanna Mines trial had been under way for a month in a crowded courtroomin Roanoke. At that point, I could not have cared less what happened to the uranium.
    After a three-week trial, I was convicted and given ten years. After a ten-week trial, Judge Fawcett ruled in favor of Armanna Mines. There was no possible connection between the two trials, or so I thought as I went away to prison.
    Soon, though, I met the man who would eventually kill Judge Fawcett. I know the identity of the murderer, and I know his motive.

    Motive is a baffling question for the FBI. In the weeks after the murder, the task force settles on the Armanna Mines litigation and interviews dozens of people connected to the trial. A couple of radical environmental groups had sprung up and operated around the fringes of the litigation. These had been closely monitored by the FBI at the time. Fawcett had received death threats, and during the trial he had moved around with protection. The threats were thoroughly investigated and found not to be credible, but the bodyguards remained close by.
    Intimidation is an unlikely motive. Fawcett has made his decision, and though his name is poison among the environmentalists, he has done his damage. His ruling was confirmed in 2009 by the Fourth Circuit, and the case is now headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Pending the appeals, the uranium has not been touched.
    Revenge is a motive, though the FBI says nothing about it. The words “contract killing” are being used by some reporters, who apparently have nothing to base this on except for the professionalism of the killings.
    Given the crime scene and the empty safe that was so carefully hidden, robbery seems the likelier motive.
    I have a plan, one I have been plotting for years now. It is my only way out.

CHAPTER 5
    E very able-bodied federal inmate is required to have a job, and the Bureau of Prisons controls the pay scale. For the past two years, I have been the librarian, and for my labors I get thirty cents an hour. About half of this money, along with the checks from my father, is subject to the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. The Bureau of Prisons takes the money and applies it to felony assessments, fines, and restitution. Along with my ten-year sentence, I was ordered to pay about $120,000 in various penalties. At thirty cents an hour, it will take the rest of this century and then some.
    Other jobs around here include cook, dishwasher, table wiper, floor scrubber, plumber, electrician, carpenter, clerk, orderly, laundry worker,