Deak Hens eons 18 The mai Tim gaiq Yo As a teenager I made the tragic mistake of getting involved with using drugs. One evening in late February in 1975 I accompanied a friend to a Luigi's restuarant nearby where he sold 3 grams of heroin to an undercover agent. We were both arrested and my friend Ritchie's bail was $300 and mine was $150. Soon afterwards I was assigned court appointed attorney Nickolas Trogan TIT. He asked me to meet him at the court house and when I got there he took me immediately to see assistant prosecutor James Bearinger, I told Mr. Bearinger that I was “ota drug-dealer and he said he knew that and they would drop the charges against me com- pletely if I helped them set up a guy I knew named Jon, I had dated Jon for several weeks but was no longer seeing him, 1 explained to Mr. Bearinger that for many reasons it would be impossible for me to set up ‘Jon. Bearinger angrily said that I would have to plead guilty then and he would get me a lenient sentence. T asked him if by lenient he meant probation and he said yes - for one year. But even with probation I would still have a record and a trial would clear my.name, Bearinger became angrier and in a loud voice said that if I took this to trial they would crucify me. He said that the agent on my case, Mike Robinson was a legend for his ability to convince a jury of anything no matter what the facts were. We'll send you to jail for many years if you don't co-operate and plead guilty. (Ritchie later told me that he was also told he would be ‘crucified'.) I said that T would need to talk it over with my parents. I was surprised that they also wanted me to accept the plea deal. My father said that my uncle a prominent attorney in town who he said knew the prosecutor, had strongly recomended that I plead guilty. I was still reluctant. A week later I moved to Lansing and attended classes at a community college there. A short time later I was notified by mail that T was to attend a hear- ing in Saginaw called a preliminary hearing. At bhe hearing T would leazn for the first time that the same_agenf Mr. Robinson, had made an- other purchase from Ritchie for $60 a couple months prior to the incid- ent at Luigi's. Although Robinson admitted that he had no witnesses, recordings or even police notes to back up his allegations, he would claim that I was also involved in that transaction because he said he called me by telephone and I told him to go to Ritchie's. According to hias testimony, he then forgot Ritchie's name when he got there but Ritchie asked if he knew me. Thad no recollection of the call or many other things that Robinon would claim but I found it hard to believe that a police officer would lie.I asked my attorney to get a statement from Ritchie since Ritchie could clear everything up and verify that I was not involved. Ritch was a small-time but chronic user. I knew him on a very casual basis He was a year or two older and came to the west side to our school to sell small bags of pot when I was in HIgh school earlier that year. He was a nice and popular guy till he began to use drugs regularly and began to 'rip' people off, as we called it, Only later would I come to believe that Ritchie had been working with Robinson the night he persuaded me to go with him to Luigi's I believe Robinson confronted him after he made the $60 p.rchase and threatened him with jail if he didn't set up other people. As a chronic user, Ritch. would have been anxious to think he would not have access to drugs if he went to jail. Ritchie later told me and others that Robinson was giving him drugs and money to set people up by making purchases for him and he was afraid his habit would get bigger. (He always said he wanted to quit but didn't know how.) It didn't seem to matter if the people he was setting up were small time users or actual dealers. Actual dealers would have been harder to prosecute since they would have been able to hire a decent defense attorney. But at the time I would not have imagined that anyone, especially some- one like Ritchie ~ : z tla never known anyone who had been arrested. I continued to press Trogan to get a statement from Rithie but he was reluctant. Trogan and my parents continued to press for me to plead guilty. Trogan said that probation was no big deal. T remember thinking that as an attorney he wouldn't want a record, My father contacted me specifically to say that an embarrassing public trial would kill my already ill mother. (My family was already going through a turbulent period. my mother was suffering from the onset of a crippling disease that greatly affected her nerves and emotional state. Within that year she would Ba lose the use of her arms *“ legs permanently.) Trogan said that they had decided to try Ritchie and I separately. I asked him if he had gotten the statement from Ritchie and he became hostile. He said that.since I was offered probation a statement wasn't necessary. I insisted that it was, especially if I were going to plead guilty. He avoided talking to me even in the courtroom or minutes be- fore a hearing. ONe time when I asked him a question while he was rushing ahead of me to avoid angering a question, He snarled that he knew what he was doing. (This was in the courtroom hallway.) After what my father said and the constant pressure from the attorney and the prosecutor, I agreed to plead guilty. 1 returned to Saginaw and as I was walking into the courtroom to change my plea, Bearinger stopped me in the doorway, in front of witnesses, he said that it was important that I didn't mention in the courtroom that any promises had been made. He s d, "No matter what the judge asks you, don't mention the probation but don't worry, it has all been set up." He reiterated twice that probation had been arranged. 1 was upset that} he had not dropped the charge against me completely.Only many years later would T learn that Bearinger had recomended the maximum sentence despite his assurance that I would get proba~ tion for a year. This information was in a report called a PSI that was given to my attorney but he did not read as noted in the transcript and in a recent statement from him. The PSI report also included fabricated statements from the 26 year old vice agent that he had bought drugs from me on another occassion - no other details were given and he had never raised this information before, and he claimed that in his estimation I sold thousands of dollars worth of drugs ever week and was associated with higher ups in a drug syndicate. The same 3 page report list my assets at the time as a $10 tv, a clock and a ten year old car, (I paid $400 for the car before i was in an accident.) The report says that I used drug money to off- set the financial aid my parents were giring me while I attended a local college. and I had nice clothes. The agent recieved a big promotion for his remarkable number of ar- rest that year (and long sentences). He later became police chief For years I tried hiring attorneys to help resolve this and they warned that as long as he vas @ powerful political figure in MIchigan and Mike Thomas was prosecutor I had little hope of good results. Michigan was in a prison expansion period during the 80's and 90'S.