JOHN MOORE (AKA Government Witness #1)
John loved guns and methamphetamine. It was a true romance. According to the investigative reports generated by federal agents, John was a big-time drug trafficker. Indeed, he lived the high life—a life in the fast lane fueled by easy drug money.
During federal agents’ investigation into John’s drug trafficking network, John would be arrested for a serious felony charge and beg to speak with law enforcement so that he could ingratiate himself with them by telling them about other alleged drug dealers. He would then be released, go right back to large-scale drug deals, and within a couple of days, would be arrested for new felony charges, some of which were violent crimes. He would then beg to speak to law enforcement again, tell them about his recent drug escapades, give the federal agents more names, and repeat the cycle. During the period of time when he was “cooperating” with multiple state and federal agencies, he got himself arrested time and again. And when I use the vague term “cooperating,” I mean that when John was sitting in a jail cell withdrawing from methamphetamine use and wanted out of jail, he would beg to speak to a narcotics officer or federal agent so that he could toss them some names in exchange for a favor. Incredibly, while John was feeding the eager, information-hungry federal agents information about Randy and other alleged drug dealers potentially involved in their federal case, he racked up about 13 felony charges, as well as a positive urinalysis for methamphetamine—13. Felony. Charges.
Based on his record, most people would reasonably assume that these transgressions would make John an untrustworthy government witness. They would be correct. In fact, he’s a textbook case of an untrustworthy witness. But the federal agents didn’t mind. He was their Golden Goose, spitting out vague information about Randy and other alleged drug dealers that the agents and prosecutors clung to and consequently used to leverage lay-down convictions. Their numbers, which are directly tied to the trajectory of their careers, were all that really mattered. It’s simple: the greater the number of convictions, the better the career path.
John was rewarded handsomely for his “contributions.” Because of his so-called cooperation with the federal government, he escaped a harsh prison term and received a relative slap on the wrist—a seven-year federal prison sentence at a low-security federal prison. But what happened next was truly shocking. Even though John could not stop committing high-level felonies or using methamphetamine while he was “cooperating” in the federal government’s case, he did not go to prison after he received his greatly reduced sentence. Instead, the prosecutor argued he should be given the luxury of going home, so that he could self-report to prison a month later, at his convenience. The judge agreed. After all, John was on team U.S. Justice Department. It wasn’t a hard sell. Must be nice.
But, predictably, before John could self-report to prison, he went on one last crime spree that culminated in a violent confrontation with law enforcement, resulting in four or five fresh felony charges, two of them serious crimes of violence. Stated more emphatically, after a dangerous high-level-drug-dealer-turned-government witness who should have been given decades in a maximum security U.S. Penitentiary received a greatly reduced prison sentence because he traded information for his freedom, this convicted felon continued to sell and use methamphetamine, and then took a firearm and went on a rampage that resulted in an assault on law enforcement and five new felony charges, all before he could report to federal prison for his initial sentence. A convicted felon who had just received a greatly reduced sentence and who was about to report to federal prison, was freed by the court, only to take a firearm and drugs and commit violence against law enforcement when they dared to get in this way.
It’s not John’s fault—well, not entirely. The federal government created this monster. John, an unrepentant serial offender, understandably felt untouchable, and was consequently emboldened to commit more crimes. He was right. No doubt because of his golden government goose witness status, all of the fresh felonies were quietly tossed out. These were violent crimes and serious drug charges that easily could have added up to many decades in state and federal prison, but he will never serve a single day in prison for those crimes. Untouchable, he flouted authority with impunity.
After all of the new charges were dismissed, John was transferred to a cushy, low-security federal prison where he served the seven-year federal prison sentence that he bought with blatantly false information about Randy.
The truth is that John was coddled and celebrated by the self-serving federal government prosecutors and agents. That John was a high-level drug trafficker, a habitual criminal, and a violent felon who had a penchant for firearms; that he continued to lie to federal agents and commit serious crimes, using methamphetamine while he was supposedly a cooperating government witness; and that he took a firearm after he was sentenced to prison and went on a violent crime spree that culminated in an assault of law enforcement, was of no consequence to the federal government. At the end of the day, John had positive value: he was willing to give federal agents information about Randy (and others) which helped them and federal prosecutors secure more lay-down convictions—never mind that the information was blatantly false.
The uncorroborated accusations that John, a proven liar and habitual criminal, leveled against Randy, were the centerpiece of the federal government’s so-called case against Randy. And John’s out-of-court accusations are the primary factor that drove the length of Randy’s prison sentence, as the court considered the out-of-court accusations to be “evidence” of Randy’s “drug-dealing activities.”
Somehow, though, it gets worse. During one of the jailhouse interviews between inmate John and federal agents, John made many accusations against “a guy named Randy”—never mind that John didn’t know Randy’s last name, where he lived or worked, or where the drug deals occurred. And never mind that the accusations proved to be demonstrably false. In particular, the agents followed up with all of the people who John said could corroborate his story—people who John said had witnessed the drug deals with Randy first-hand—and one after another, they argued that did not even know Randy. In many independent interviews, all of the people who John said were eyewitnesses to the drug deals maintained that the deals occurred with someone else, not Randy. Put another way, they were familiar with the drug deals and with John’s methamphetamine suppliers, but Randy wasn’t one of them. In short, the very people that John said could corroborate his account actually corroborated Randy’s version—that the accusations were false.
Had John been put on the stand and forced to give live testimony in a courtroom—that is, had John’s story and credibility been tested and scrutinized under cross-examination—any defense attorney worth his salt would have exposed his lies in a matter of minutes, destroying his credibility and rendering his accusations against Randy worthless. Unfortunately, at the sentencing stage in federal proceeding, a defendant is not allowed to face his accuser in court; that means, he cannot even question his accuser so as to test his story or credibility. By waiting until the sentencing phase to present what essentially amounts to its entire case and supporting it with out-of-court hearsay accusations, the prosecutors were able to use out-of-court hearsay as evidence—even uncorroborated, unsworn, untested hearsay—knowing full well that Randy would not be allowed to question his accuser. It was a brilliant strategy.
In the end, it was a perfect marriage: on one side, you had a desperate criminal who didn’t want to spend decades in a maximum security U.S. Penitentiary, but who also didn’t want to stop using or selling methamphetamine; on the other side, you had federal agents and prosecutors who were desperate to leverage John’s vague information so that they could add names to their little drug conspiracy indictment. Now add to that, that John never had to step foot in a courtroom or worry about his story being put to the test by a defense attorney, and you have a system that obscures the truth and rewards and coddles high-level criminals who are willing to fabricate stories about others, replacing the real investigative work—e.g., controlled buys, drug seizures, telephone wire taps—that yields real evidence, such as actual drugs or at least, drug deals captured by surveillance.
Randy’s prison sentence is only as good a John’s word. You do the math. The unsworn, uncorroborated word of an untrustworthy, high-level criminal is what passes for evidence here. Such a characterization strips the word “evidence” of its meaning. Would you want your freedom to hinge on the untested hearsay of a person with such a record? Notably, John played the system beautifully, exploiting the federal agents’ and prosecutors’ reliance on the word of other criminals to make their cases. With that in mind, we have a dangerous high-level criminal who is coddled and almost celebrated, while a low-level addict, Randy, is warehoused with a long prison term of nearly two decades with no parole. Our only thought is: in what world is this justice? It’s not true justice; rather, it’s a perverse and twisted mockery of the concept.
Sadly, we have a dangerous, high-level criminal who committed far worse crimes than Randy ever thought about committing, who will spend the holidays with his family and who will celebrate life’s milestones with his loved ones. On the other hand, we have a low-level addict who was also a 50-year-old professional photographer, who had never been to prison, who was never caught with even $1 worth of drugs, in a case with no physical evidence, who must serve nearly two decades in federal prison, based on John’s false accusations.
In sum, the U.S. Justice Department will piously tell you that Randy needs to be caged for nearly two decades to protect the public, yet it lets loose-canon criminals run wild, so long as they are willing to feed federal agents and prosecutors information so vague that nobody else can verify it.
MELINDA NEAL (AKA, Government Witness #2)
Melinda Neal was a high-level drug trafficker who worked hand-in-hand with her high-ranking gangster boyfriend to distribute a massive amount of methamphetamine. If John Moore was the king of their drug network, she was the queen of their large-scale drug operation in Graham, Texas.
When federal agents knocked on her door in March of 2014, they informed her that she was the target of an investigation into a large-scale drug distribution network and that she was looking at spending the rest of her life in federal prison. After setting the stage, they began to press her for information. Right out of the gate, the agents caught her lying; then, they discovered that she was in possession of methamphetamine, which they seized. She was not off to a good start. Still, according to the investigative reports produced by the federal investigation, the interview continued.
But Melinda didn’t mention anything about her real supplier of large amounts of methamphetamine—her long-term boyfriend who also happened to be a high-ranking member of one of the most vicious street gangs in America, who made a name for themselves out of their sheer brutality and willingness to murder people in the name of facilitating their drug sales. Still, she had to please the federal agents on her doorstep. So she tossed out Randy’s name. Since there were no third-party witnesses or pieces of physical evidence to corroborate her accusations (not even a single text message), she agreed to set Randy up so that the federal agents could capture the drug deal using surveillance, commonly referred to as a controlled buy. Satisfied, the federal agents did not haul her off to jail. Instead, she would become a government witness and help them build their case against Randy. Melinda had escaped being dragged off to jail by making the agents believe that she was going to help them catch her drug supplier.
Melinda knew she had lied. Randy, a small-time addict, was not supplying Melinda, a high-level drug distributor, with large quantities of methamphetamine; it was her gangster boyfriend. If the agents were recording the back-and-forth between Melinda and Randy, they would discover that Randy was a petty addict who used methamphetamine with Melinda, and nothing more, thereby exposing Melinda’s deceit. This would be bad for Melinda: happy federal agents = freedom; angry federal agents = a very long prison stay. So, as the investigative reports reflect, after Melinda left the interview with the federal agents, she immediately called Randy and told him that the federal agents wanted her to set him up. By alerting Randy about the plan, she could avoid her lie being exposed. Of course, Melinda didn’t tell Randy why the agents wanted her to set him up: because she (falsely) told them that he was her methamphetamine supplier.
In short, Melinda was playing both sides, acting as if she was going to help the federal agents build a case against Randy, while surreptitiously sharing the information with Randy so that it never came to pass. As the case record reflects, Melinda tried to kill herself immediately thereafter. She did not die, but she was hospitalized. After coming out of a coma, she fled the country, but was ultimately captured. Suicide had failed. Fleeing the country and living on the run had failed. But Melinda still had one card to play: the Randy Bookout card.
Tellingly, nothing that Melinda said about Randy was ever corroborated by a single piece of evidence. Nor were her vague accusations corroborated by third-party witnesses—just her vague, unsworn, out-of-court hearsay accusations.
Significantly, Randy was not allowed to cross-examine Melinda. She never had to step foot in the courtroom. As for her betrayal of the federal agents’ trust, it was hidden from Randy’s sentencing judge. Had Randy’s judge known that a government witness (Melinda) had essentially acted as a spy or a double agent and used her insider government witness status to surreptitiously tip targets off about the investigation, her credibility would have been instantly destroyed, and as a result, her accusations against Randy would have been worthless. Thus, a decision was made: allow the government to use Melinda’s out-of-court accusations against Randy, even if it means sweeping her lies and deceit under the rug.
Consequently, her uncorroborated, out-of-court statements were used to pin more than 30 drug deals and related activities on Randy, which helped drive Randy’s extreme prison sentence of nearly 20 years in federal prison.
In sum, since there was no actual evidence that tied Randy to drug distribution, Melinda’s, a proven liar, untested, out-of-court statements were passed off as evidence of Randy’s “drug-dealing activites,” which the judge used to sentence Randy to nearly two decades in federal prison.