FRAUDULENT PLEA AGREEMENTS: the DOJ's long-running, willful and wanton misconduct brings chaos, violence, and murder to numerous non-cooperating criminal defendants

       April 5, 2019

       United States Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers and federal prosecutors across our country combined, conspired, and agreed to a course of action in what can be characterized as an “ends justifies the means”, Machiavellian scheme. In yet another policy or practice exemplifying the DOJ's attitude of invincibility and unaccountably, prosecutors carried out a plan to subject ALL non-cooperating criminal defendants as cannon fodder, in a ruse designed to conceal rewarded criminals who traded information and/or testimony in exchange for reduced charges and prison sentences, as well as other incentives.

       Inescapable documentation and evidence show that at least from 1992 through 2000, government prosecutors implemented a policy or practice for which any unofficial person should be, and probably would be, charged with a wide array of federal crimes. The DOJ's sinister scheme involved creating a false narrative by knowingly inserting a series of egregious misrepresentations into ALL plea agreements of defendants that did not cooperate, as a means and method "to protect persons who actually were cooperating with the government," consisting of a nonnegotiable, standardized paragraph of fallacious agreements to make ALL non-cooperating defendants appear as snitches, rats, or stool pigeons, "the effect of the [fraudulent plea agreements] was to require the lawyers to mislead the Court." (Quoting April 13, 2004 letter from the Federal Defenders Services of Wisconsin, Inc.)(see attached).[FN.1] The United States Attorney's Office in Milwaukee refused to enter into a plea agreement with a non-cooperating defendant "without [the fraudulent] paragraph." (Quoting April 13, 2004 letter at 2).


THE FRAUDULENT PLEA AGREEMENTS 


       The express malice behind this scheme was so flagrant, so outrageous, and so subversive of both the human rights of non-cooperating defendants and the integrity of the judicial process itself, rises to a new level of truly conscience-shocking conduct by the DOJ. For nearly a decade, non-cooperating defendants were either beguiled and/or coerced into signing what amounted to clearly unlawful plea agreements filed with the courts purporting in relevant part: 


          "The defendant, by entering into this plea agreement, further agrees to fully and completely cooperate with the government in its investigation of this and related matters, and to testify truthfully and completely before the grand jury and at any subsequent trials or proceedings, if asked to do so. The government agrees that any information provided by the defendant pursuant to this paragraph will not be used directly against the defendant, except as provided in the proffer letter, and further will not be used in determining the applicable sentencing guidelines range, but will be brought to the attention of the sentencing court as contemplated by the Sentencing, Guideline Manual [Section] 1B1.8."

(See e.g. United States v. Dominick, Case No. 00-CR-234 (E.D.Wis. 2000)(Docket # 37 at 8).[FN.2]

PROSECUTORS BRING ON THE MAYHEM AND VIOLENCE


       Strikingly reminiscent to, and most likely straight from the playbook of the FBI's notorious National Counterintelligence Program, "COINTELPRO,"[FN.3] the DOJ's depraved policy or practice was calculated with a propensity to do much more than to simply "protect persons who actually were cooperating with the government." With such a scheme, it necessarily correlates to a design that was further calculated to expose a great number of non-cooperating defendants (while serving their prison sentences and after release) to harassment, severe emotional stress, threatened use of physical force, extreme violence, and in some cases murder. (See April 13, 2004 letter, 1-2). The soulless architects of this scheme destroyed countless lives. Moreover, the consequences and ripple effects of this diabolic sham continues to adversely affect a great number of American citizens.

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW


       Sooner or later, the truth catches up. The prosecutors, lawyers, and judges that manifested an agreement to participate in the conduct of this conspiracy[FN.4] at a minimum, violated Title 18, United States Code Section 373; Title 18, United States Code Section 371; and Title 18, United States Code Section 2. In addition, documents submitted to a court that are not factually and legally justified violate Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This is not even a close call—there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it—the DOJ is responsible for an epidemic of mayhem and violence, and violations of basic human rights spanning decades. This certainly conflicts with the DOJ's "mission ... to ensure public safety ... [and] to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans."[FN.5] Seemingly ingrained with a "us-versus-them" mentality, prosecutors complicit in the fraudulent-plea agreement-scheme are reminded of the words inscribed on the wall of the Attorney General's rotunda in Washington, DC, "the United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts," not when DOJ lawyers falsely brand non-cooperating defendants as "snitches," "rats," and "flippers" in fraudulent plea agreements "to protect persons who actually were cooperating 
with the government."


THE GOVERNORS SHOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE GOVERNED


       This cover-up has gone on long enough. The rule of law is the cornerstone of our constitutional system of government, it is something that each one of us needs to stand up for and defend. The crimes perpetrated by the now ironically named Department of Justice lawyers went beyond many of those committed by the non-cooperating defendants that have been victimized by this scheme. If you are outraged by this clear case of wanton and reckless governmental misconduct, forward this report to the following components of the DOJ requesting their review, investigation and disposition.

United States Department of Justice
Office of the Inspector General: Investigation Division 
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 4706 
Washington, DC 20530-0010 
Telephone: (202) 514-3435 
Fax: (202) 616-9881



United States Department of Justice 
Office of the United States Attorney: Eastern District of Wisconsin 
517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Room 530 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 
Telephone: (414) 297-1700 
Fax: (414) 297-4394

     [FN.1] By promptly responding to the incarcerated, non-cooperating defendant, and further revealing the DOJ's fraudulent-plea agreement-scheme, the attorney's letter prevented this person (as well as many others) from serious assault, or possibly a fate worse. The author of the April 13, 2004 letter, Dean A. Strang, is a former assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Wisconsin (Milwaukee Division), and currently an Adjunct Professor at Marquette University Law School and the University of Wisconsin Law School.

     [FN.2] This document can be reviewed on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) website (www.pacer.gov).

     [FN.3] The extent of the FBI's brinksmanship and treachery is limitless, and well documented. See e.g., Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1, 12 (D.C. Cir. 1984)(FBI counterintelligence program created and anonymously sent "racially-inflammatory leaflet[s]" in efforts "to engender animosity" between antiwar group and organization of black citizens and leaders); see also Hampton v. Hanrahan, 600 F.2d 600, 609 (7th Cir. 1979)(In a concerted effort to promote "violent conflicts," FBI's Chicago office "sent an anonymous letter" to the leader of "a local black gang" falsely telling him that the Black Panther Party (BBP) had a "'hit out' on him. The purpose of the letter was to prevent a merger and to induce the [local black gang] to initiate reprisals against the BBP."); Davis v. United States, 670 F.3d 48 (1st Cir. 2012)(government found liable for negligence and ordered to pay nearly $2 million to families of murder victims. FBI agents affirmatively intervened to protect murderers who were also FBI informants and members of a Boston organized crime group, both by tips to the men and by blocking law enforcement measures that would likely have brought them to justice before the murders of two women).

     [FN.4] "The crime of conspiracy is the agreement itself[.]" Quoting United States v. Corson, 579 F.3d 804, 810 (7th Cir. 2009).

     [FN.5] Quoting the DOJ website. See, About The Department Of Justice, available at: https://foia.gov (accessed last on April 1, 2019).