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Alfred Anaya Put Secret Compartments in Cars. The DEA Put Him in Prison (2013)

122 points by hippich 12y ago

blahedo 12y ago
This is the most disturbing part of this: > ...he will likely spend the next two decades in prison for doing something that isn’t specifically forbidden by federal law. He was prosecuted in a state he'd never set foot in, for doing something that wasn't against the law as contracted by people whose plans he did not know; and he was convicted, and sentenced to twice the term of the actual lawbreakers. That's not how the rule of law works.
- sremani 12y ago
  There is a joke among DAs "any one get a conviction for the guilty, but its takes a great lawyer to convict the innocent". Its mind boggling how convictions are used as stepping stones for personal ambition and the Prosecutors are getting more ambitious when throwing the kitchen-sink at some of the cases and of course more often than not Judge and the Prosecutor on same party and the defendants are in a up-hill battle.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - blatherard 12y ago
    These are not equivalent scenarios. They are all one-shot deals and, significantly, there isn't an obvious connection between the sale and the law-breaking. They could probably be altered to match a little more. Here's my take on the third: You sell special hunting rifles that are designed to kill elephants. Sometimes people need them for self defense, you say when people ask. You insist that purchasers not mention that they will use them to hunt protected species, especially elephants. One of your clients asks you to come out to the field to repair his gun. While there, you see a stack of elephant tusks in the back of his truck. You tell him to get them out of there. Then you sell him and his friends more guns over the next year. They are caught and convicted of poaching, and then you are too.
  - owenmarshall 12y ago
    > You modify a car for better speed and handling. Later it gets used to rob a bank. You go to jail. People modify cars for speed all the time. Most of them hoon around tracks or country roads, which isn't a crime - or, at least, is nothing more than a traffic ticket. > You download Tor for a friend of a friend. They use it sell drugs online. You go to jail. People use software to protect their anonymity all the time. Some just don't like the government, others don't like to respect copyright. Not a criminal matter either way. > You sell someone a special hunting rifle (out of season). They use it for poaching. You go to jail. People collect guns all the time. Most of them shoot at paper or clay pigeons or hoon around on the firing range, which isn't illegal. These scenarios compare pretty poorly to what we've heard the person in this case did: he, for years, aided drug trafficking. In the first paragraph he admits to knowing this - when someone pays you money to install an ultra-secret compartment in your vehicle, and when you pull out nearly a million dollars in cash while trying to fix it, you damn well know what's up. If I tune your car up, my expectation isn't that you're robbing a bank. On the other hand, if you bring it for repairs and I discover the problem is twenty bags of sequential bills in the trunk throwing off the suspension, my expectation is going to change pretty quickly. The law isn't a magical thing that you can circumvent with the right incantations, nor should it be. It's better to have this flexibility, not worse. ED: This is a controversial comment, which surprises me a bit. Let me add I'm not much of a fan of the war on drugs. But my central thesis is that allowing the legal system to apply a dose of common sense prevents such things as mandatory minimums and blind sentencing, which is a good thing all around.
    - krschultz 12y ago
      Wait, it's "common sense" to you that we should be sentencing non-violent offenders to 20 years in federal prison? How does that make sense? What is the cost to tax payers of putting him in prison for 20 years? What did he cost tax payers in helping the drug traffickers move their drugs a tiny bit more effectively? I can not imagine that this nets out positively for society, and it effectively ends this guys productive life.
      - owenmarshall 12y ago
        It's possible to agree with the conviction while disagreeing with the sentence. In this case, no, the punishment is excessive. But the point of my comment wasn't to address that, but to address the conviction.
- encoderer 12y ago
  I disagree. I think he was trying to be too clever. The law in California, according to what I read here, is simple: building these things for use in drug activity is against the law. The reasonable man test is essential to the integrity of our legal system. And if you have a couple street thugs with $800k stuffed in their hidden compartment, a reasonable man would know exactly what they were up to. But they offered him more business. He gambled, and he lost. Though I do find the sentence far too harsh. Give the guy 5 years.
  - LanceH 12y ago
    They are only thugs if you assume they are drug dealers. You only know them to be drug dealers because you know them to be thugs...
    - akerl_ 12y ago
      No, if I see $800k stuffed in a secret compartment, becoming suspicious is reasonable. His actions after that moment are the key thing that make his role conspiratorial rather than just negligent.
      - Ygg2 12y ago
        After seeing how civil forfeiture works(i.e. cops using seizure of property ,for their own literal slush fund), I would not be so sure it must be FOR TEH DRAUGZ.
- rayiner 12y ago
  First, there is nothing about the rule of law that says you can't be prosecuted in a state you've never been to. In this case, Anaya aided a criminal act that took place in Kansas. The fact that he's never personally been to Kansas is neither here nor there. Second, the fact that a particular act might be legal does not mean that it is legal to do it in connection with a crime. There is nothing illegal about driving a car. There is something illegal about driving robbers in a car away from a crime scene. Third, willful blindness is not a defense to any charge that requires showing knowledge. Anaya purposefully profited from criminal activity, and even if he didn't know the specifics of the plan, it's only because he purposefully tried to avoid learning of them. The law simply imposes a higher level of social responsibility than that. Now, it's a fair criticism that drug enforcement is a waste of resources and drug sentences are too long. But that's quite a separate issue to the points you raise. Say that instead that Anaya was installing traps to help members of child prostitution rings convey cash around. The analysis of his involvement would be the same.
  - valar_m 12y ago
    I can't agree that the getaway driver scenario is analogous. The difference is attenuation from the illegal act. The getaway drive directly took part in the illegal act itself. Here, Anaya never saw or touched drugs. He had no hand in planning any drug smuggling operations. He was never told what was going on, and had no legal duty to ask. That is not willful blindness. I think a better analogy is the store clerk who sells rolling papers and blunt wrappers to the same people who never buy tobacco. Would you say that a store clerk under those facts is also guilty of a crime?
    - kelnos 12y ago
      Read a bit more (more than just Wired's ridiculously editorialized article that's written to make you want to love this guy). It's pretty clear to me that he knew full well what his traps were being used for, and even specifically used code words about trap capacity to avoid mentioning drugs. Seeing the crime being committed or participating in it directly is not necessary for a conspiracy charge. He knowingly helped people smuggle drugs. I think that's a perfectly valid charge. I think our drug laws are pretty messed up overall, and 24 years is a ridiculously unfair sentence for this sort of thing, but I think the evidence gathered by the prosecution very adequately painted Anaya as a co-conspirator.
- blatherard 12y ago
  > He was prosecuted in a state he'd never set foot in He was prosecuted for criminal conspiracy in an interstate crime. One end of that crime was Kansas. His physical location when he engaged in the conspiracy is immaterial. > for doing something that wasn't against the law criminal conspiracy is against the law. You can take almost any "legal" activity and make the doing of it an element of a crime. For example, saying "Yes" is not explicitly illegal. However, saying "yes" in answer to the question "Would you kill this guy for ten thousand dollars?" would be an element of the crime. > as contracted by people whose plans he did not know Except for the fact that he was selling them secret compartments, witnessed one stuffed full of almost a million dollars in cash, and continued doing business with them. Plus, "avoiding talk of illegality" indicates that he knew what service he was really providing. > and he was convicted, and sentenced to twice the term of the actual lawbreakers He engaged in a criminal conspiracy, so he was also an actual lawbreaker. His sentence was very harsh though, agreed, but he was knowingly engaging in a commercial enterprise that assisted criminals for a number of years. > That's not how the rule of law works. Yeah, actually it is. A judge and jury in this case looked at the overall pattern of facts and correctly determined that this guy was aiding people in breaking the law. That's how the law works. Its unfortunate that a guy who clearly had developed some interesting skills and otherwise had a kind of messed-up life ended up where he got. But this is not the fault of the criminal justice system, or prosecutors gone wild. This is a guy who made some really stupid choices and got caught.
  - jmckib 12y ago
    > Except for the fact that he was selling them secret compartments, witnessed one stuffed full of almost a million dollars in cash, and continued doing business with them. Is having large amounts of cash illegal now? I still don't see where this guy actually broke the law.
    - eropple 12y ago
      "These dudes who don't have particularly noteworthy legal careers have a lot of money and are acting really weird about secret compartments in their cars" almost certainly falls under the reasonable-man test here, though.
- rodgerd 12y ago
  > This is the most disturbing part of this: >> ...he will likely spend the next two decades in prison for doing something that isn’t specifically forbidden by federal law. Do you feel, then, that it's a victory that investment bankers have never served a day in the wake of the GFC?
discardorama 12y ago
I don't know why, but I saw parallels with the Aaron Schwartz case.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- scintill76 12y ago
  Mainly just that HN is split on whether to vehemently support or vehemently despise.
- sitkack 12y ago
  The gov hates intelligence that doesn't bow to it.
revelation 12y ago
Such is the nature of the war on drugs. It starts with outlawing drugs, and as the tentacles spread, you have laws on drug paraphernalia (basically, laws against whatever we deem illegal, subject to change without notice), millions of wiretaps and cases like United States versus a bucket load of cash. All in the name of the cause.
- abstrakraft 12y ago
  There will always be legal loopholes that allow federal prosecutors to try someone in a state in which they never set foot, and they'll always have the funds to put together a pro team that's smart enough to convince a jury that you're worse than Hitler because they're the friggin' federal gov't, and even if you aren't already bankrupt, they can freeze your accounts so you can't pay your own team. The fundamental problem is their incentive for doing this, which is based entirely on convictions and time behind bars, and has nothing to do with fairness. I don't claim to know what the _right_ basis for prosecutor incentive is, but I do know that if it's throwing people in jail, we end up with a lot more people in jail (which has happened/is happening in the US).
blatherard 12y ago
Alfred Anaya is yet another example of magical thinking about how the law works. Just avoiding certain words doesn't prevent rational people (in this case, a judge) from concluding that he did, in fact, know what he was doing when he built hidden compartments for drug dealers. This isn't a guy who built one thing for the wrong person, but many over the course of multiple years. It blew up in his face, but that is the risk of working with very dangerous people at the edge of the law.
- grej 12y ago
  The bottom line is that what he did was not against the law. There are supposed to be laws written against activities that are prohibited, to prevent prosecutions based on the whims of prosecutors and other individuals, outside of the normal legislative process. If one wants to argue that this type of activity should be precluded by law, then that's a valid argument. That still doesn't put Anaya in jail however, because even if it were passed, ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3. The bottom line is, Anaya didn't play ball with the DEA. They went after him to punish him for not cooperating, not because he broke any laws. It's a travesty and a scathing indictment of the current legal situation in the United States that he could even be charged with this crime at all in a state he'd never set foot in, much less to have a conviction against him.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    "The bottom line is, Anaya didn't play ball with the DEA. They went after him to punish him for not cooperating, not because he broke any laws. It's a travesty and a scathing indictment of the current legal situation in the United States" Exactly. 10,000x this. The fact that 90% of charges don't go to trial means that the whole thing is rigged towards scaring people into accepting guilty pleas. If he had accepted a plea he probably would have gone to jail for a very short amount of time. By protesting his innocence - which he clearly believed - he effectively lost 10x more than if he had just given in. That is horrifying.
    - rando289 12y ago
refurb 12y ago
He was initially denied bail, in part because an illegal assault rifle and a bulletproof vest had been discovered in his house during a police search. Lovely. This "illegal assault rifle" was likely only cosmetically different than a completely legal rifle. Hell, that rifle is probably legal in most of the other 50 states. And who cares about a bullet proof vest? Or are those illegal in CA? The guy certainly isn't a saint, but holy crap this is a great example of the gov't punishing someone using confusing laws against victimless crimes when they can't nail him for what he's actually doing because it's legal.
- refurb 12y ago
  ...when Anaya had glimpsed more than $800,000 in cash. The prosecutor contended that seeing such a large sum was tantamount to seeing drugs, since Anaya surely must have deduced the source of the money. Wow! It just gets better! What next? If a friend buys an expensive car when I know he has a low paying job, am I guilty of not turning in a "drug dealer"? Even if you don't think drugs should be legal, it should be abundantly clear that the War on Drugs has resulted in a significant loss of individual rights. This article really ruined by evening...
  - blatherard 12y ago
    From the decision of Anaya's 2013 appeal [http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1642115.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1642115.html], here's a synopsis of the evidence that swayed the jury to believe he knew what he was doing. Its not just the 800K. 3. Sufficient Evidence of Knowledge At trial, the Government presented evidence that Mr. Anaya • built multiple hidden compartments in vehicles for the DTO that were insulated to mask the smell of drugs; • witnessed $800,000 in one of his compartments in a DTO vehicle; • used “kilos” as a unit of measurement for building compartments; • communicated by phone with the DTO through a secret code to discuss compartment sizes; and • warned Mr. Crow not to discuss the compartments or how they worked with anyone to avoid police detection.
    - krschultz 12y ago
destructaball 12y ago
I run a reasonably successful service buying and selling Bitcoins for cash, an act which is completely legal where I live. I have absolutely no idea where my clients get their Bitcoins or what they use them for and there no way I could find out. It isn't inconceivable that some of these people are using the coins I sell to commit crimes or that the ones I buy are the proceeds of crime. I always fear I could be a victim of this kind of overzealous prosecution for running a legitimate business and it causes a chilling effect in my industry
- chm 12y ago
  Because you acknowledge the possibility, the question is now: Do you practice due diligence? It's easy to point the finger.
  - destructaball 12y ago
    I have on a few occasions refused to sell Bitcoins to people. One time a man brought $5,000 of crumpled bills in a carrier bag and I told him to take a hike and never try to buy from me again. I refuse to sell to anyone who tells me they're going to use the Bitcoins to buy drugs and I try to buy directly from miners. I'm doing everything I can reasonably do because I really don't want to get involved with criminals, but all of these safeguards are trivial to sidestep
    - kelnos 12y ago
      And that's the difference. You are actively turning away people who you think might be involved in criminal activity. Anaya attempted to be willfully ignorant, but it's clear (to me, at least) that, from gathered evidence, he knew exactly what his clients were doing with his work. The sad thing is... the government still could go after you if you -- completely innocently and without your knowledge -- sold to someone doing something shady, and if they really wanted to make it stick, it's likely they could, or could at least intimidate you into doing their bidding.
morgante 12y ago
This thread is a sad reminder of just how irrational HN has gotten when it comes to the government. Yes, the war on drugs is probably unnecessary and ill-conceived. And no, it's not illegal to put a secret compartment in your car. But it's patently obvious that Anaya is a criminal and engaged in criminal conspiracy to traffic narcotics. He quoted the capacity of his compartments in "kilos." He witnessed $800,000 in the compartment and subsequently increased his rates specifically because he knew it was a shady affair. Most damningly, he tried to isolate himself from information (if you don't suspect a client of being a criminal, you don't instruct them to avoid talking of their usage). In what world is someone who willfully helps drug dealers to conceal drugs not an accomplice? Do the people in this thread think that getaway drivers on bank robberies should get off scot free because driving a car is not itself a crime? Also, the Wired editorializing is way off base. If you are truly operating in an information void from your clients (without suspecting them of being criminals), that's not illegal. (Toyota can't be prosecuted for drug trafficking just because some drug dealers use it for that.) But when you have a personal relationship with clients who make it pretty obvious that they're engaged in criminal activity, you absolutely have an obligation to stop assisting.
- maratd 12y ago
  > Do the people in this thread think that getaway drivers on bank robberies should get off scot free because driving a car is not itself a crime? I think this is more like putting the car salesman in jail for selling them the getaway car ... and that would be wrong. > But it's patently obvious that Anaya is a criminal and engaged in criminal conspiracy to traffic narcotics. You can say the same about every bank in America, which facilitates the same. Oh and probably every electric utility for growing all that weed. Water utility too? I mean, it's not like they ask each of their clients if they're drug dealers or growing dope. They don't exactly look for the criminals either. Probably because it's not their job.
  - RogerL 12y ago
    > I think this is more like putting the car salesman in jail for selling them the getaway car ... and that would be wrong. They did not go after, or put in jail, the people that sold the cars to the drug dealers, because, as you say, that would be wrong. They went after the person that knowingly made it possible for the drug dealers to commit their crimes. > You can say the same about every bank in America, which facilitates the same. Actually, they do stop doing business with you when reasonably believe you are committing a crime. http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25965517/reluctance-banks-leaves-pot-shops-looking-secure-practices http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25965517/reluctance-b...
isavix 12y ago
Apparently we hate the metric system so much using kilo as a unit lands you 24 yrs in prison
tzs 12y ago
The article mentions he will appeal. That has happened and he lost. Link to the PDF of the appellate court opinion: http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-3010/12-3010-2013-08-16.pdf?ts=1411095378 http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-301... Something is mentioned there that either was not mentioned in the Wired article or I missed it: Anaya admits that he knew particular customers were buying compartments for illegal purposes. He just didn't know what particular illegal use they were going to be put to. He's basically arguing that to "knowingly" join a conspiracy, you have to know its objectives and scope, and he says he lacked that knowledge. It's probably a bad idea to do business with people who want to use code words when they talk to you on the phone. The appeals court mentions an intercepted call where Anaya told the drug traders he could put "3 speakers" in a Camry for $2,500, where "3 speakers" meant a compartment to hold 3 kilos. His sentence is way too long. He's not the lynchpin of the drug trade the prosecution made him out to be, but he does not appear to be quite the innocent bystander Wired makes him out to be either.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > His sentence is way too long. He's not the lynchpin of the drug trade 1. Drugs should be legal and sold out of liquor stores to anyone 21 and older. 2. His sentence isn't about trying to cripple the drug trade, but about punishing someone the government does not like. 3. The same motivation could someday be used to prosecute people who serve cheeseburgers to drug dealers at a restaurant under the theory that they were helping those drug dealers to deal drugs (you can't deal drugs if you're starving). 4. It won't be necessary to passed legislation so fucked up as that, existing legislation can easily be twisted to allow for such travesties, and judges rarely put a stop to it.
  - jsmeaton 12y ago
    > 1. Drugs should be legal and sold out of liquor stores to anyone 21 and older. I agree (mostly), but they are not. Society has decided that certain drugs are illegal (for now). This point doesn't really have anything to do with anything. > 2. His sentence isn't about trying to cripple the drug trade, but about punishing someone the government does not like. How do you figure? Did they just pick him out randomly and decide to find whatever they could on this guy? I would probably think that the people prosecuting him believed he had significant impact in enabling certain drug trades. > 3. The same motivation could someday be used to prosecute people who serve cheeseburgers to drug dealers at a restaurant under the theory that they were helping those drug dealers to deal drugs (you can't deal drugs if you're starving). This is ridiculous, and completely undermines everything else you said. 24 years for building hidden compartments is a joke, even if he knew what they were being used for. Current drug laws are a joke. Governments enable a tonne of bad behaviour by denying people access to substances they want that rarely hurt others. But making outrageous claims about serving food to a drug smuggler helps no one.
jtuple 12y ago
It's a shame how much inconsistency there is in applying the letter of the law in different cases. Did Anaya suspect illegal activity with his traps? Probably. But, perhaps he doesn't agree that drugs should be illegal and was intentionally trying to sidestep the law as written. That happens all the time for a variety of different laws. Heck, it's the cornerstone of tax avoidance techniques used by the rich and connected. When Illinois tried to ban payday loans by prohibiting loans less than 120-days in duration, did that get rid of payday loan companies? Nope. Payday loan companies simply offered loans up to 121-days in duration. Was that sidestepping the intent of the law? Yep. But, they got away with it because they're wealthy and connected companies. We should always strive for consistency in justice. Either everyone should be able to "get off on a technicality" or no one should. Personally, I'm in favor of restrictive justice where people can get off on technicalities. It's makes convictions harder, slanting the system towards "letting 100 criminals walk free to prevent convicting 1 innocent". It also leads to laws evolving via legislative deliberation, not arbitrary reinterpretation via case law. Of course, I can also live with the "intent of the law" crowd. But, please, can we consistency apply that to all cases?
- maaku 12y ago
  Tax avoidance is not illegal.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Tax avoidance is literally synonymous with tax compliance.
ipsin 12y ago
I think it's worth highlighting that, even if you think you are doing something entirely legal, when a customer mentions your product or service in the context of their illegal operation, you need to politely ask them to leave and sever the relationship, as a matter of self defense. Take, as a cautionary tale, the case of people teaching other people to beat polygraph tests. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/16/199590/seeing-threats-feds-target-instructors.html http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/16/199590/seeing-threats-... Legal and interesting, but when a "customer" shows up and says "wow, this will really help me beat my government polygraph test", you're apparently supposed to know that that they're talking about an illegal act and that you're being set up. It sucks, but there it is. Paranoia might lose you some business, but there are worse things.

122 points by hippich 12y ago

This is the most disturbing part of this: > ...he will likely spend the next two decades in prison for doing something that isn’t specifically forbidden by federal law. He was prosecuted in a state he'd never set foot in, for doing something that wasn't against the law as contracted by people whose plans he did not know; and he was convicted, and sentenced to twice the term of the actual lawbreakers. That's not how the rule of law works.

sremani 12y ago
There is a joke among DAs "any one get a conviction for the guilty, but its takes a great lawyer to convict the innocent". Its mind boggling how convictions are used as stepping stones for personal ambition and the Prosecutors are getting more ambitious when throwing the kitchen-sink at some of the cases and of course more often than not Judge and the Prosecutor on same party and the defendants are in a up-hill battle.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- blatherard 12y ago
  These are not equivalent scenarios. They are all one-shot deals and, significantly, there isn't an obvious connection between the sale and the law-breaking. They could probably be altered to match a little more. Here's my take on the third: You sell special hunting rifles that are designed to kill elephants. Sometimes people need them for self defense, you say when people ask. You insist that purchasers not mention that they will use them to hunt protected species, especially elephants. One of your clients asks you to come out to the field to repair his gun. While there, you see a stack of elephant tusks in the back of his truck. You tell him to get them out of there. Then you sell him and his friends more guns over the next year. They are caught and convicted of poaching, and then you are too.
- owenmarshall 12y ago
  > You modify a car for better speed and handling. Later it gets used to rob a bank. You go to jail. People modify cars for speed all the time. Most of them hoon around tracks or country roads, which isn't a crime - or, at least, is nothing more than a traffic ticket. > You download Tor for a friend of a friend. They use it sell drugs online. You go to jail. People use software to protect their anonymity all the time. Some just don't like the government, others don't like to respect copyright. Not a criminal matter either way. > You sell someone a special hunting rifle (out of season). They use it for poaching. You go to jail. People collect guns all the time. Most of them shoot at paper or clay pigeons or hoon around on the firing range, which isn't illegal. These scenarios compare pretty poorly to what we've heard the person in this case did: he, for years, aided drug trafficking. In the first paragraph he admits to knowing this - when someone pays you money to install an ultra-secret compartment in your vehicle, and when you pull out nearly a million dollars in cash while trying to fix it, you damn well know what's up. If I tune your car up, my expectation isn't that you're robbing a bank. On the other hand, if you bring it for repairs and I discover the problem is twenty bags of sequential bills in the trunk throwing off the suspension, my expectation is going to change pretty quickly. The law isn't a magical thing that you can circumvent with the right incantations, nor should it be. It's better to have this flexibility, not worse. ED: This is a controversial comment, which surprises me a bit. Let me add I'm not much of a fan of the war on drugs. But my central thesis is that allowing the legal system to apply a dose of common sense prevents such things as mandatory minimums and blind sentencing, which is a good thing all around.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    Wait, it's "common sense" to you that we should be sentencing non-violent offenders to 20 years in federal prison? How does that make sense? What is the cost to tax payers of putting him in prison for 20 years? What did he cost tax payers in helping the drug traffickers move their drugs a tiny bit more effectively? I can not imagine that this nets out positively for society, and it effectively ends this guys productive life.
    - owenmarshall 12y ago
      It's possible to agree with the conviction while disagreeing with the sentence. In this case, no, the punishment is excessive. But the point of my comment wasn't to address that, but to address the conviction.
encoderer 12y ago
I disagree. I think he was trying to be too clever. The law in California, according to what I read here, is simple: building these things for use in drug activity is against the law. The reasonable man test is essential to the integrity of our legal system. And if you have a couple street thugs with $800k stuffed in their hidden compartment, a reasonable man would know exactly what they were up to. But they offered him more business. He gambled, and he lost. Though I do find the sentence far too harsh. Give the guy 5 years.
- LanceH 12y ago
  They are only thugs if you assume they are drug dealers. You only know them to be drug dealers because you know them to be thugs...
  - akerl_ 12y ago
    No, if I see $800k stuffed in a secret compartment, becoming suspicious is reasonable. His actions after that moment are the key thing that make his role conspiratorial rather than just negligent.
    - Ygg2 12y ago
      After seeing how civil forfeiture works(i.e. cops using seizure of property ,for their own literal slush fund), I would not be so sure it must be FOR TEH DRAUGZ.
rayiner 12y ago
First, there is nothing about the rule of law that says you can't be prosecuted in a state you've never been to. In this case, Anaya aided a criminal act that took place in Kansas. The fact that he's never personally been to Kansas is neither here nor there. Second, the fact that a particular act might be legal does not mean that it is legal to do it in connection with a crime. There is nothing illegal about driving a car. There is something illegal about driving robbers in a car away from a crime scene. Third, willful blindness is not a defense to any charge that requires showing knowledge. Anaya purposefully profited from criminal activity, and even if he didn't know the specifics of the plan, it's only because he purposefully tried to avoid learning of them. The law simply imposes a higher level of social responsibility than that. Now, it's a fair criticism that drug enforcement is a waste of resources and drug sentences are too long. But that's quite a separate issue to the points you raise. Say that instead that Anaya was installing traps to help members of child prostitution rings convey cash around. The analysis of his involvement would be the same.
- valar_m 12y ago
  I can't agree that the getaway driver scenario is analogous. The difference is attenuation from the illegal act. The getaway drive directly took part in the illegal act itself. Here, Anaya never saw or touched drugs. He had no hand in planning any drug smuggling operations. He was never told what was going on, and had no legal duty to ask. That is not willful blindness. I think a better analogy is the store clerk who sells rolling papers and blunt wrappers to the same people who never buy tobacco. Would you say that a store clerk under those facts is also guilty of a crime?
  - kelnos 12y ago
    Read a bit more (more than just Wired's ridiculously editorialized article that's written to make you want to love this guy). It's pretty clear to me that he knew full well what his traps were being used for, and even specifically used code words about trap capacity to avoid mentioning drugs. Seeing the crime being committed or participating in it directly is not necessary for a conspiracy charge. He knowingly helped people smuggle drugs. I think that's a perfectly valid charge. I think our drug laws are pretty messed up overall, and 24 years is a ridiculously unfair sentence for this sort of thing, but I think the evidence gathered by the prosecution very adequately painted Anaya as a co-conspirator.
blatherard 12y ago
> He was prosecuted in a state he'd never set foot in He was prosecuted for criminal conspiracy in an interstate crime. One end of that crime was Kansas. His physical location when he engaged in the conspiracy is immaterial. > for doing something that wasn't against the law criminal conspiracy is against the law. You can take almost any "legal" activity and make the doing of it an element of a crime. For example, saying "Yes" is not explicitly illegal. However, saying "yes" in answer to the question "Would you kill this guy for ten thousand dollars?" would be an element of the crime. > as contracted by people whose plans he did not know Except for the fact that he was selling them secret compartments, witnessed one stuffed full of almost a million dollars in cash, and continued doing business with them. Plus, "avoiding talk of illegality" indicates that he knew what service he was really providing. > and he was convicted, and sentenced to twice the term of the actual lawbreakers He engaged in a criminal conspiracy, so he was also an actual lawbreaker. His sentence was very harsh though, agreed, but he was knowingly engaging in a commercial enterprise that assisted criminals for a number of years. > That's not how the rule of law works. Yeah, actually it is. A judge and jury in this case looked at the overall pattern of facts and correctly determined that this guy was aiding people in breaking the law. That's how the law works. Its unfortunate that a guy who clearly had developed some interesting skills and otherwise had a kind of messed-up life ended up where he got. But this is not the fault of the criminal justice system, or prosecutors gone wild. This is a guy who made some really stupid choices and got caught.
- jmckib 12y ago
  > Except for the fact that he was selling them secret compartments, witnessed one stuffed full of almost a million dollars in cash, and continued doing business with them. Is having large amounts of cash illegal now? I still don't see where this guy actually broke the law.
  - eropple 12y ago
    "These dudes who don't have particularly noteworthy legal careers have a lot of money and are acting really weird about secret compartments in their cars" almost certainly falls under the reasonable-man test here, though.
rodgerd 12y ago
> This is the most disturbing part of this: >> ...he will likely spend the next two decades in prison for doing something that isn’t specifically forbidden by federal law. Do you feel, then, that it's a victory that investment bankers have never served a day in the wake of the GFC?

discardorama 12y ago

I don't know why, but I saw parallels with the Aaron Schwartz case.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
scintill76 12y ago
Mainly just that HN is split on whether to vehemently support or vehemently despise.
sitkack 12y ago
The gov hates intelligence that doesn't bow to it.

revelation 12y ago

Such is the nature of the war on drugs. It starts with outlawing drugs, and as the tentacles spread, you have laws on drug paraphernalia (basically, laws against whatever we deem illegal, subject to change without notice), millions of wiretaps and cases like United States versus a bucket load of cash. All in the name of the cause.

abstrakraft 12y ago
There will always be legal loopholes that allow federal prosecutors to try someone in a state in which they never set foot, and they'll always have the funds to put together a pro team that's smart enough to convince a jury that you're worse than Hitler because they're the friggin' federal gov't, and even if you aren't already bankrupt, they can freeze your accounts so you can't pay your own team. The fundamental problem is their incentive for doing this, which is based entirely on convictions and time behind bars, and has nothing to do with fairness. I don't claim to know what the _right_ basis for prosecutor incentive is, but I do know that if it's throwing people in jail, we end up with a lot more people in jail (which has happened/is happening in the US).

blatherard 12y ago

Alfred Anaya is yet another example of magical thinking about how the law works. Just avoiding certain words doesn't prevent rational people (in this case, a judge) from concluding that he did, in fact, know what he was doing when he built hidden compartments for drug dealers. This isn't a guy who built one thing for the wrong person, but many over the course of multiple years. It blew up in his face, but that is the risk of working with very dangerous people at the edge of the law.

grej 12y ago
The bottom line is that what he did was not against the law. There are supposed to be laws written against activities that are prohibited, to prevent prosecutions based on the whims of prosecutors and other individuals, outside of the normal legislative process. If one wants to argue that this type of activity should be precluded by law, then that's a valid argument. That still doesn't put Anaya in jail however, because even if it were passed, ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3. The bottom line is, Anaya didn't play ball with the DEA. They went after him to punish him for not cooperating, not because he broke any laws. It's a travesty and a scathing indictment of the current legal situation in the United States that he could even be charged with this crime at all in a state he'd never set foot in, much less to have a conviction against him.
- krschultz 12y ago
  "The bottom line is, Anaya didn't play ball with the DEA. They went after him to punish him for not cooperating, not because he broke any laws. It's a travesty and a scathing indictment of the current legal situation in the United States" Exactly. 10,000x this. The fact that 90% of charges don't go to trial means that the whole thing is rigged towards scaring people into accepting guilty pleas. If he had accepted a plea he probably would have gone to jail for a very short amount of time. By protesting his innocence - which he clearly believed - he effectively lost 10x more than if he had just given in. That is horrifying.
  - rando289 12y ago

refurb 12y ago

He was initially denied bail, in part because an illegal assault rifle and a bulletproof vest had been discovered in his house during a police search. Lovely. This "illegal assault rifle" was likely only cosmetically different than a completely legal rifle. Hell, that rifle is probably legal in most of the other 50 states. And who cares about a bullet proof vest? Or are those illegal in CA? The guy certainly isn't a saint, but holy crap this is a great example of the gov't punishing someone using confusing laws against victimless crimes when they can't nail him for what he's actually doing because it's legal.

refurb 12y ago
...when Anaya had glimpsed more than $800,000 in cash. The prosecutor contended that seeing such a large sum was tantamount to seeing drugs, since Anaya surely must have deduced the source of the money. Wow! It just gets better! What next? If a friend buys an expensive car when I know he has a low paying job, am I guilty of not turning in a "drug dealer"? Even if you don't think drugs should be legal, it should be abundantly clear that the War on Drugs has resulted in a significant loss of individual rights. This article really ruined by evening...
- blatherard 12y ago
  From the decision of Anaya's 2013 appeal [http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1642115.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1642115.html], here's a synopsis of the evidence that swayed the jury to believe he knew what he was doing. Its not just the 800K. 3. Sufficient Evidence of Knowledge At trial, the Government presented evidence that Mr. Anaya • built multiple hidden compartments in vehicles for the DTO that were insulated to mask the smell of drugs; • witnessed $800,000 in one of his compartments in a DTO vehicle; • used “kilos” as a unit of measurement for building compartments; • communicated by phone with the DTO through a secret code to discuss compartment sizes; and • warned Mr. Crow not to discuss the compartments or how they worked with anyone to avoid police detection.
  - krschultz 12y ago

destructaball 12y ago

I run a reasonably successful service buying and selling Bitcoins for cash, an act which is completely legal where I live. I have absolutely no idea where my clients get their Bitcoins or what they use them for and there no way I could find out. It isn't inconceivable that some of these people are using the coins I sell to commit crimes or that the ones I buy are the proceeds of crime. I always fear I could be a victim of this kind of overzealous prosecution for running a legitimate business and it causes a chilling effect in my industry

chm 12y ago
Because you acknowledge the possibility, the question is now: Do you practice due diligence? It's easy to point the finger.
- destructaball 12y ago
  I have on a few occasions refused to sell Bitcoins to people. One time a man brought $5,000 of crumpled bills in a carrier bag and I told him to take a hike and never try to buy from me again. I refuse to sell to anyone who tells me they're going to use the Bitcoins to buy drugs and I try to buy directly from miners. I'm doing everything I can reasonably do because I really don't want to get involved with criminals, but all of these safeguards are trivial to sidestep
  - kelnos 12y ago
    And that's the difference. You are actively turning away people who you think might be involved in criminal activity. Anaya attempted to be willfully ignorant, but it's clear (to me, at least) that, from gathered evidence, he knew exactly what his clients were doing with his work. The sad thing is... the government still could go after you if you -- completely innocently and without your knowledge -- sold to someone doing something shady, and if they really wanted to make it stick, it's likely they could, or could at least intimidate you into doing their bidding.

morgante 12y ago

This thread is a sad reminder of just how irrational HN has gotten when it comes to the government. Yes, the war on drugs is probably unnecessary and ill-conceived. And no, it's not illegal to put a secret compartment in your car. But it's patently obvious that Anaya is a criminal and engaged in criminal conspiracy to traffic narcotics. He quoted the capacity of his compartments in "kilos." He witnessed $800,000 in the compartment and subsequently increased his rates specifically because he knew it was a shady affair. Most damningly, he tried to isolate himself from information (if you don't suspect a client of being a criminal, you don't instruct them to avoid talking of their usage). In what world is someone who willfully helps drug dealers to conceal drugs not an accomplice? Do the people in this thread think that getaway drivers on bank robberies should get off scot free because driving a car is not itself a crime? Also, the Wired editorializing is way off base. If you are truly operating in an information void from your clients (without suspecting them of being criminals), that's not illegal. (Toyota can't be prosecuted for drug trafficking just because some drug dealers use it for that.) But when you have a personal relationship with clients who make it pretty obvious that they're engaged in criminal activity, you absolutely have an obligation to stop assisting.

maratd 12y ago
> Do the people in this thread think that getaway drivers on bank robberies should get off scot free because driving a car is not itself a crime? I think this is more like putting the car salesman in jail for selling them the getaway car ... and that would be wrong. > But it's patently obvious that Anaya is a criminal and engaged in criminal conspiracy to traffic narcotics. You can say the same about every bank in America, which facilitates the same. Oh and probably every electric utility for growing all that weed. Water utility too? I mean, it's not like they ask each of their clients if they're drug dealers or growing dope. They don't exactly look for the criminals either. Probably because it's not their job.
- RogerL 12y ago
  > I think this is more like putting the car salesman in jail for selling them the getaway car ... and that would be wrong. They did not go after, or put in jail, the people that sold the cars to the drug dealers, because, as you say, that would be wrong. They went after the person that knowingly made it possible for the drug dealers to commit their crimes. > You can say the same about every bank in America, which facilitates the same. Actually, they do stop doing business with you when reasonably believe you are committing a crime. http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25965517/reluctance-banks-leaves-pot-shops-looking-secure-practices http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_25965517/reluctance-b...

isavix 12y ago

Apparently we hate the metric system so much using kilo as a unit lands you 24 yrs in prison

tzs 12y ago

The article mentions he will appeal. That has happened and he lost. Link to the PDF of the appellate court opinion: http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-3010/12-3010-2013-08-16.pdf?ts=1411095378 http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-301... Something is mentioned there that either was not mentioned in the Wired article or I missed it: Anaya admits that he knew particular customers were buying compartments for illegal purposes. He just didn't know what particular illegal use they were going to be put to. He's basically arguing that to "knowingly" join a conspiracy, you have to know its objectives and scope, and he says he lacked that knowledge. It's probably a bad idea to do business with people who want to use code words when they talk to you on the phone. The appeals court mentions an intercepted call where Anaya told the drug traders he could put "3 speakers" in a Camry for $2,500, where "3 speakers" meant a compartment to hold 3 kilos. His sentence is way too long. He's not the lynchpin of the drug trade the prosecution made him out to be, but he does not appear to be quite the innocent bystander Wired makes him out to be either.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> His sentence is way too long. He's not the lynchpin of the drug trade 1. Drugs should be legal and sold out of liquor stores to anyone 21 and older. 2. His sentence isn't about trying to cripple the drug trade, but about punishing someone the government does not like. 3. The same motivation could someday be used to prosecute people who serve cheeseburgers to drug dealers at a restaurant under the theory that they were helping those drug dealers to deal drugs (you can't deal drugs if you're starving). 4. It won't be necessary to passed legislation so fucked up as that, existing legislation can easily be twisted to allow for such travesties, and judges rarely put a stop to it.
- jsmeaton 12y ago
  > 1. Drugs should be legal and sold out of liquor stores to anyone 21 and older. I agree (mostly), but they are not. Society has decided that certain drugs are illegal (for now). This point doesn't really have anything to do with anything. > 2. His sentence isn't about trying to cripple the drug trade, but about punishing someone the government does not like. How do you figure? Did they just pick him out randomly and decide to find whatever they could on this guy? I would probably think that the people prosecuting him believed he had significant impact in enabling certain drug trades. > 3. The same motivation could someday be used to prosecute people who serve cheeseburgers to drug dealers at a restaurant under the theory that they were helping those drug dealers to deal drugs (you can't deal drugs if you're starving). This is ridiculous, and completely undermines everything else you said. 24 years for building hidden compartments is a joke, even if he knew what they were being used for. Current drug laws are a joke. Governments enable a tonne of bad behaviour by denying people access to substances they want that rarely hurt others. But making outrageous claims about serving food to a drug smuggler helps no one.

jtuple 12y ago

It's a shame how much inconsistency there is in applying the letter of the law in different cases. Did Anaya suspect illegal activity with his traps? Probably. But, perhaps he doesn't agree that drugs should be illegal and was intentionally trying to sidestep the law as written. That happens all the time for a variety of different laws. Heck, it's the cornerstone of tax avoidance techniques used by the rich and connected. When Illinois tried to ban payday loans by prohibiting loans less than 120-days in duration, did that get rid of payday loan companies? Nope. Payday loan companies simply offered loans up to 121-days in duration. Was that sidestepping the intent of the law? Yep. But, they got away with it because they're wealthy and connected companies. We should always strive for consistency in justice. Either everyone should be able to "get off on a technicality" or no one should. Personally, I'm in favor of restrictive justice where people can get off on technicalities. It's makes convictions harder, slanting the system towards "letting 100 criminals walk free to prevent convicting 1 innocent". It also leads to laws evolving via legislative deliberation, not arbitrary reinterpretation via case law. Of course, I can also live with the "intent of the law" crowd. But, please, can we consistency apply that to all cases?

maaku 12y ago
Tax avoidance is not illegal.
- baddox 12y ago
  Tax avoidance is literally synonymous with tax compliance.

ipsin 12y ago

I think it's worth highlighting that, even if you think you are doing something entirely legal, when a customer mentions your product or service in the context of their illegal operation, you need to politely ask them to leave and sever the relationship, as a matter of self defense. Take, as a cautionary tale, the case of people teaching other people to beat polygraph tests. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/16/199590/seeing-threats-feds-target-instructors.html http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/16/199590/seeing-threats-... Legal and interesting, but when a "customer" shows up and says "wow, this will really help me beat my government polygraph test", you're apparently supposed to know that that they're talking about an illegal act and that you're being set up. It sucks, but there it is. Paranoia might lose you some business, but there are worse things.