the thin line between optimism and delusion…

Well, yesterday was not a fun day. But luckily it is over. I haven’t ever written about this, but now seems like a good time.

A few years ago a couple of FBI agents showed up at my dad’s office and wanted information about some work my dad had done for an accounting firm about five years prior. The accounting firm was being investigated for Medicare fraud. They wanted my dad to give them dirt about this firm and interrogated him for about 4 hours. The problem was, my dad didn’t know anything. So after cooperating with the FBI for about 2 years, they indicted my dad for obstruction of justice. My dad is an attorney. Basically, to make a long story short, at every step my dad thought that it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. When they offered plea agreements to the men from the accounting firm – keep in mind, men that had been lying to the government for years – the agreement allowed for a lighter conviction for the more people they would say “knew” what was going on, and my dad got indicted on a couple of other counts. Since he was already in the pleadings with the obstruction of justice count, this was easy. In the end my dad was bullied into a plea agreement – after five years of this he felt like he just needed to move on with his life. He plead to obstruction of a federal audit – which in his case (from what I understand) means that he saw (not produced or changed) documents that contained fraudulent information and he should have known about. Not that he did know, that he should have known. It is all much more complicated than this, but you get the idea.

I have very negative feelings about the FBI. Regardless, my dad has never lied to me and he says that if he had to do it all over again he doesn’t know what he could have done differently, short of never having worked for this accounting firm. Obviously I am a little bias, but I believe him. It is very scary the power that the FBI has at its own discretion with no checks.

So yesterday was the sentencing. The US attorneys were out for blood. Part of the agreement was that the prosecution was not going to make a recommendation to the judge. But you know what, he did anyway. He stated that they would be upset if my dad didn’t go to jail. And, up until that point, I don’t think I ever realized how serious this all was. I was sweating. And the judge started talking about how because he is an attorney he should be held to a higher standard and that attorneys take an oath that other people don’t. It really wasn’t looking good.

Then the judge started talking about how he had total discretion in the sentence. He said that in all the years that he had been a judge, he had never had a defendant with such a record of service to the community as my dad. He said he had never had a defendant who had such support from his family, friends, and community. He said he was impressed by the immense regard that everyone expressed for my dad (we (lots of people) wrote letters to the judge and some of my dad’s friends spoke on his behalf). He said that although he did believe that attorneys should be punished more severely, he said that he thought my dad had already been severely punished.

In the end, my dad got probation and community service along with a ridiculous fine. As I watched him write the check, I thought of the small islands I could buy. But I also thought of how it could be going to a rehab center for one of us or to something even worse. I am just happy that it is over and the uncertainty is no longer hanging over our heads. But geeze, it was scary there for a moment.