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> 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 p

> 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.
krschultz 12y ago
So is a flight instructor responsible if the guy he is training is most likely intending to buy a Cessna and smuggle cocaine in from Mexico? Even if I agree with you that he is guilty of conspiracy, the sentence is bananas. Someone I went to high school literally killed 2 people and got a shorter prison sentence than this. If this is the law working, something is completely wrong. I can't fathom how any non-violent, effectively victimless offense, can warrant 2 decades in prison.
- akerl_ 12y ago
  If he advertises his services as "Learn to fly over the border in just 3 quick training sessions" and then continues teaching somebody after seeing them plotting courses around border patrol on a map, yes.
  - dwild 12y ago
    Don't forget that they asked if it would be fine to move 10 kilos the size of bricks and had 800 000$ on them.
- blatherard 12y ago
  I agree that the sentence is way too harsh. He's clearly being used as a warning to the rest of the hidden compartment makers. Also, this guy must have had particularly awful representation. I guess I just don't think that disagreement with the sentence requires disagreement with the findings of fact or with his conviction. The main reason I'm responding to a lot of comments is not to defend the drug war, but rather to combat an incorrect "slippery slope" argument that regularly comes up in HN discussions like this. Something like, "Person X was convicted of crime Y because of facts A, B, C, D, E and F." and then there's a number of comments that boil down to "They're saying that B is illegal! What's next?!?! I do B all the time! The government is out of control!"
- kelnos 12y ago
  If the flight instructor has specific knowledge that that's what the guy is going to do, then yes, I'd say the flight instructor is partly responsible. But I agree that the sentence is completely insane, as our most of our drug-related laws. Think about it another way, though. Take the flight instructor analogy, and say the guy he's teaching to fly is going to buy a Cessna, pack a bunch of C4 into it, and crash it into a hospital. If the instructor has knowledge of this, is he not partially responsible if the guy follows through?

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.

krschultz 12y ago

So is a flight instructor responsible if the guy he is training is most likely intending to buy a Cessna and smuggle cocaine in from Mexico? Even if I agree with you that he is guilty of conspiracy, the sentence is bananas. Someone I went to high school literally killed 2 people and got a shorter prison sentence than this. If this is the law working, something is completely wrong. I can't fathom how any non-violent, effectively victimless offense, can warrant 2 decades in prison.

akerl_ 12y ago
If he advertises his services as "Learn to fly over the border in just 3 quick training sessions" and then continues teaching somebody after seeing them plotting courses around border patrol on a map, yes.
- dwild 12y ago
  Don't forget that they asked if it would be fine to move 10 kilos the size of bricks and had 800 000$ on them.
blatherard 12y ago
I agree that the sentence is way too harsh. He's clearly being used as a warning to the rest of the hidden compartment makers. Also, this guy must have had particularly awful representation. I guess I just don't think that disagreement with the sentence requires disagreement with the findings of fact or with his conviction. The main reason I'm responding to a lot of comments is not to defend the drug war, but rather to combat an incorrect "slippery slope" argument that regularly comes up in HN discussions like this. Something like, "Person X was convicted of crime Y because of facts A, B, C, D, E and F." and then there's a number of comments that boil down to "They're saying that B is illegal! What's next?!?! I do B all the time! The government is out of control!"
kelnos 12y ago
If the flight instructor has specific knowledge that that's what the guy is going to do, then yes, I'd say the flight instructor is partly responsible. But I agree that the sentence is completely insane, as our most of our drug-related laws. Think about it another way, though. Take the flight instructor analogy, and say the guy he's teaching to fly is going to buy a Cessna, pack a bunch of C4 into it, and crash it into a hospital. If the instructor has knowledge of this, is he not partially responsible if the guy follows through?