Amy Povah’s CAN-DO Spirit

I’m serving a 30-year federal prison sentence. And I guess I got off easy because, well, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines recommended 30 years to life in prison. I made misrepresentations to three high-net-worth investors, causing a combined loss of $106 thousand—not $106 million, $106 thousand. There is no parole in the federal system.  I've got more than a decade done. 

I initially pleaded guilty to a ten-year offense, capping my sentence at ten years, thereby insulating me from my draconian sentencing range. But because of my attorney’s and my judge’s gross incompetence, the court had to subsequently toss out my highly advantageous guilty plea, as my guilty plea was illegal—the acts I pleaded guilty to did not constitute a crime.  My attorney dropped the ball in not ensuring that what I pleaded guilty to was a crime. Similarly, my judge didn’t bother ensuring that my conduct constituted the crime—basic duties for both a criminal defense attorney and a judge.

I am paying a high price for their egregious mistake. After the illegal guilty plea was tossed out, I pleaded for a comparable replacement plea deal. There was no mercy on me. The new prosecutors (the previous prosecutor took a new job offer) maintained that I should die in federal prison. I was in my early thirties. Again, I made misrepresentations to three high-net-worth investors; they lost a combined $106,000 as a result. 

The point is the federal brand of “justice” is brutal. And most attorneys are so indifferent, they don’t fulfill even their basic duties. 

My attorney’s mistake cost me an additional 20 years in federal prison—just like that, my attorney’s and my judge’s mistake cost me 20 years of my life. Nobody flinched. 

So, because I have experienced firsthand the callousness of the American justice system, I can spot the real deal from a mile away. That is, I can easily distinguish between an emotionless robot who serves to facilitate assembly-line justice and treats defendants like cattle versus someone focused on true justice.  The latter all have a special place in my heart—they are incredibly rare. They say there are 100 rhinestone cowboys for every John Wayne—well, Amy Povah is as real as they come. Amy is one of my Angels of Justice. And she is certainly on my dream team: the MiAngel Cody (my favorite), Brittany K. Barnett, Jessica Jackson, Kim Kardashian, Mark Osler, Rachel Barkow, Nancy Gertner, Amber Baylor, and Amy Povah.

Like me, she got a taste of the federal brand of “justice.”

But because of her grit and determination, she received a Clemency grant from the President. She went from a prison cell to the White House—and she hasn’t stopped since. This is her remarkable story, one that should inspire us all. It’s not what happens to you; it’s how you handle it. And Amy Povah handled it like a boss.

I will model my life after Amy’s. I will win my freedom and use my new perspective, heightened compassion, and empathy to help others. She makes that dream real.

Now let’s talk about Amazing Amy.

Imagine falling in love with someone. They are everything you’ve hoped to find in a person. Smart. Funny. Incredibly successful and well-respected. You completely trust them and commit to spending the rest of your life with them.

Now imagine just a few years into the marriage, your soulmate has been arrested and detained in a foreign country, and you learn for the first time they are a major drug kingpin.

This exact scenario happened to Amy Povah. 

Amy’s husband, Charles, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six years in a German prison for manufacturing and distributing MDMA, also known as Ecstasy. While federal prosecutors requested that Charles be extradited to the U.S., German authorities refused, arguing it would be double jeopardy. 

Amy traveled to Germany several times during the trial to be by her husband’s side and to receive money on his behalf for bail. Charles served only four of the six years of his sentence and is now free in Germany.

That was the end of Charles’ nightmare. But Amy’s was just getting started and would last for the next decade.

The DEA Pays a Visit

Charles owned a dozen successful businesses, and Amy worked in one of them for two and a half years. But she had no knowledge of the other eleven. She repeatedly told the DEA agents that paid her a visit that her now ex-husband could have easily hidden illegal activity from her.

In a sane world, a woman with no prior criminal history that never sold any of her husband’s drugs would be left alone to live her life. But Amy refused to testify against her husband and the other co-defendants (because she didn’t know anything), and well, federal agents don’t like to be told “no.” And so Amy was subsequently charged in the conspiracy to manufacture and import MDMA as well as a money-laundering charge. 

A Circus Trial

For an entire year, Amy was assigned a court-appointed attorney and held without bail in a county jail in Waco, Texas. Prosecutors had nothing on her. In fact, most of the evidence presented at trial was against her estranged husband. But since he was in Germany, the feds decided to go after the next best thing, his uncooperative wife.

It is worth mentioning that even though Charles had entered into a plea agreement with the United States, federal prosecutors did not bring him back to the U.S. to testify against Amy. Does this make any sense? It does when you realize their entire case was smoke and mirrors. The feds portrayed Amy as involved in every aspect of the conspiracy from the very beginning. Charles’ testimony would have completely destroyed their case against Amy.

By the end of the trial, Amy had been labeled as a ringleader of the conspiracy and sentenced to a mandatory 24 years in federal prison. The only two people who testified against Amy were co-defendants who offered fake testimonies in exchange for drastically reduced sentences. Both are free today.

And that’s how it works in our criminal justice system. The guilty, who lie to help prosecutors get another conviction and proverbial notch on their belt, get off scot-free. In contrast, innocent people who refuse to play the game and lie are punished to the full extent of the law. 

Even Amy’s prosecutor told the journalist who broke Amy’s story in a 1999 Glamour magazine article,

“Had she…cooperated, I would say there’s a probability she wouldn’t have been prosecuted.”

In other words, countless innocent lives have been ruined in this country, not because people have committed crimes but because they have refused to become working informants for the feds.

Amy’s Appeal is Denied

Amy quickly realized it was going to be up to her to get herself out of prison. She collected six affidavits from co-defendants, who each swore she had no involvement in the conspiracy for which she had been charged.

These affidavits completely refuted the bogus charge by the feds that Amy had been a leader in the conspiracy from the very beginning. 

There were other affidavits Amy was able to collect for her appeal. One was from a retired Dallas police officer who had known Amy her entire life. He had wanted to testify on Amy’s behalf during her trial. This former police officer was shocked that Amy’s court-appointed lawyer had never even met with him to discuss the particulars of her case. In his affidavit, he stated,

“In the course of my career, I have never witnessed an attorney with such bizarre behavior as he [Mr. Hurley] exhibited.”

Another affidavit was from Amy’s cousin, who also worked for one of Charles’ companies. He had agreed to testify on Amy’s behalf, but again, Amy’s attorney never contacted him.

In addition to the many affidavits she collected, Amy easily obtained plenty of character references.

But the district judge who presided over her appeal case was the same judge who presided over her original trial. This judge never so much as acknowledged the affidavits or character letters and denied Amy’s motion without providing any legal basis for doing so.

The same judge then denied her the right to appeal her motion to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which would move her case to a higher court. This judge had the final say on whether Amy’s case would ever be heard by another judge. When her final appeal was denied, Amy knew her only hope of freedom would come through Clemency.

It’s worth mentioning that the judge who repeatedly denied Amy an appeal has since become the subject of a renewed investigation into allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward women in his chambers. He retired, ending his 32-year tenure as a federal judge, and, get this… will still receive his full salary of over $200,000 a year as a lifetime appointment.

That’s justice for ya!

Working from the Inside

Amy kept her head down and tried to keep her spirits up on the inside. She never stopped working to free herself. She managed to get several media sources to cover the injustices of her case, one of them being Glamour magazine. 

Amy then began to launch her own massive letter-writing campaign. She was soon joined by many friends, family, and activists who had been inspired by Amy’s story.

These efforts resulted in seventeen members of the House and Senate writing letters in support of Amy’s Clemency.

Amy has said,

“Glamour Magazine was a game-changer because it enabled key politicians to understand what happened in my case and as a result, they were not afraid to support my Clemency,” 

The nightmare would finally end when on July 7th, 2000, President Clinton would Grant Amy’s Clemency, and she was set free after serving nine of her 24 years.

Together, We Can-Do This!

Though Amy’s nightmare had finally ended, her freedom would prove to be bittersweet. She had become close friends with many women who were still in prison. Some of these women had cases even more tragic than Amy’s. 

Amy vowed to help as many other incarcerated people who needed guidance in their own pursuit of justice. Eventually, the CAN-DO Foundation was born.

Amy and her organization began advocating for many of the women she had bonded with during her prison sentence. One of them was her own roommate, Lau Ching Chin, who only passed one telephone message to a boyfriend who, unbeknownst to Lau, was involved in dealing drugs. She had no idea who the person on the phone was or what the message was about, but that one occurrence would result in Lau’s mandated 17-year sentence.

Lau’s Clemency was granted by President Clinton. And of the 105 women who received Clemency under President Obama, 44 were CAN-DO members that Amy and her team advocated for.

Amy and her team know that until the current drug laws in this country change, there will be a steady stream of innocent people being put away for decades. They also know a push for real justice reform can only come from an educated public, which is why they do as much as possible to educate anyone who will listen.

Too many people are unaware of our country’s current issues with mass incarceration, and fewer still know about the conspiracy law, the one responsible for sentencing Amy to 24 years behind bars. The conspiracy law transfers guilt from one co-conspirator to the next. Only those who do not cut a deal with the feds end up with long, mandatory sentences.

Currently, there are major efforts underway to abolish mandatory sentences, giving judges more leeway in sentencing. These efforts always get significant pushback from federal prosecutors, who claim they “need” mandatory sentences to force minor participants to help them catch “the bad guys.” 

But Amy and her team at CAN-DO know the reality,

“In addition to my own case, we have a long list of cases where the “bad guys” were given leniency and are now free, at the expense of minor participants who went to trial and were hammered.”

Another myth Amy likes to dispel is that mandatory minimum sentences are triggered based on how many drugs a person is caught with.

“There are thousands of people in prison serving long sentences who were never caught with any drugs. No tangible evidence is required to support a guilty verdict in a drug conspiracy case. Only the word of a cooperating co-conspirator is necessary. In truth, mandatory sentences are triggered the minute a person says “no” to a prosecutor.”

To date, the CAN-DO Foundation has helped get 150 prisoners freed and back to their families. While Amy is proud of the work she and her team have done, she acknowledges the battle for justice reform is bigger than most people realize.

“We need a President and Congress with a moral compass and the willpower to say “ENOUGH.”  We’re waiting. Our patience is growing thin. Those of us devoted to ending this War on Drugs are on the right side of history. American politicians know it. World leaders do too. And so do the millions of Americans left scarred from a war they never signed up for.”