The Racketeer

appeared bright and educated, but most were not, shall I say, sophisticated. After three days of deliberations, they announced to the judge that they were making little progress. And who could blame them? By unloading a sizable chunk of the federal code, the prosecutors had adopted the timeworn strategy of throwing as much mud as possible against the wall and hoping something would stick. This overkill had turned what should have been a relatively easy case against Barry Rafko and the congressman into a legal quagmire. I had spent countless hours working on my own defense, and I couldn’t understand all of the prosecution’s theories. From the beginning, my lawyer had predicted a hung jury.
    After four days of deliberations, Judge Slater delivered what is commonly referred to in trial circles as the “dynamite charge.” This is basically a demand that the jurors get back there and reach a verdict, at all costs. You’re not going home until we have a verdict! Such a charge rarely works, but I wasn’t so lucky. An hour later, the exhausted and emotionally spent jurors returned with unanimous verdicts against all defendants, on all counts. It was obvious to me and many others that they did not understandmost of the code sections and intricate theories used by the prosecution. One of the jurors was later quoted as saying, “We just assumed they were guilty, or else they wouldn’t have been charged in the first place.” I used this quote in my appeals, but it apparently went unheard.
    I watched the jurors carefully throughout the trial, and they were overwhelmed from the opening statements. And why shouldn’t they have been? Nine different lawyers gave their versions of what had happened. The courtroom had to be redesigned and renovated to make room for all of the defendants and all their lawyers.
    The trial was a spectacle, a farce, a ridiculous way to search for the truth. But as I learned, the truth was not important. Perhaps in another era, a trial was an exercise in the presentation of facts, the search for truth, and the finding of justice. Now a trial is a contest in which one side will win and the other side will lose. Each side expects the other to bend the rules or to cheat, so neither side plays fair. The truth is lost in the melee.
    Two months later I returned to the courtroom for the sentencing. My lawyer had requested that I be allowed to self-surrender, but Judge Slater was not impressed with our request. After he gave me ten years, he ordered me into remanded custody.
    It is indeed remarkable that more federal judges are not shot. For weeks afterward, I conceived all manner of schemes to inflict a slow, torturous death upon Slater.
    I was taken to the courtroom by the U.S. Marshals and led to a holding cell in the courthouse, then to the D.C. jail, where I was stripped, searched, given an orange jumpsuit, and placed in a crowded cell with six other inmates. There were only four cots. The first night I sat on the concrete floor, just me and my thin blanket with holes in it. The jail was a noisy zoo, overcrowded and understaffed, and sleep was impossible. I was too frightened and too stunned to close my eyes, so I sat in a corner and listened to the yells and screams and threats until dawn. I stayed there aweek, eating little, sleeping little, urinating in a filthy open toilet that didn’t flush and was within ten feet of my cell mates. At one time, there were ten of us in the cell. I never showered. A bowel movement required an urgent plea to visit the “shit room” down the hall.
    The transporting of federal prisoners is done by the U.S. Marshals, and it is a nightmare. Prisoners of all security levels are lumped together, with no regard for our crimes or the risks we might pose. Therefore, we were all treated like savage murderers. With every movement my hands were cuffed, my ankles chained, and I was attached to the inmate in front of me and the one behind. The mood is nasty. The marshals have one job—to move the inmates safely with no escapes. The inmates, many of them rookies like me, are frightened, frustrated, and bewildered.
    Fourteen of us left D.C. on a bus, an unmarked rig that had hauled schoolchildren decades earlier, and headed south. The handcuffs and chains were not removed. A marshal with a shotgun sat in the front seat. After four hours, we stopped at a county jail in North Carolina. We were given a wet sandwich and allowed to urinate behind the bus, still chained and bound.