Justice for Mikey

                          Justice For Mikey

Our story:  

     My only son was an opiate addict.  He was addicted for about 6 yrs before all this happened.  My husband and I had literally cut him off from lending him anymore money.  He was 25yrs old and living in our home with myself and my husband.  His 3 sisters all lived on their own.  

We have lived here for 21 years now and our kids had friends in the neighborhood.  One of my son’s friends lived three houses down from us.  The story includes him as well.

On the night before Obama was elected President, there was a church fire.  This church was being constructed with a mostly black congregation.  The fire was very destructive, and the church burned to the ground leaving only the steel rafters behind.  

Some months after the fire, my son’s friend came to him and asked him if he wanted to make $100.00 and all he had to do was lie to this guy and say they have done fires together so he could get his money, no fire would ever be lit, and they would have his money. 

My son, agreed to say he had done it before for the money.  Little did both know that the person they were speaking to was an undercover agent.  This man picked both of them up and drove them around getting them to say they have done fires before on tape, then pulled into an ATM parking lot, and having officers arrest them.  

My son was interrogated for 9 hours, he was withdrawing from opiates and it was clear on the video tape.  He asked them several times for a phone call and was denied.  It wasn’t until the very end of that video that investigators told my son, “Tell us what we want to hear, and we will let you go”.  When my son started to say what they wanted to hear, every time he got something wrong, they corrected him.  And that was because my son was never there.  He was home the night in question.  

His friend, was arrested on related charges of ammunition and drugs and the fire as well.  He is a pathological liar.  Every one of his friends testified that he has done nothing but lie, and fabricate the truth all his life.  Even when he was being interrogated he told investigators fabricated stories that they knew was not true.  

But because he had told this undercover agents that he had done the fire and gave my son’s name to back him up, they suddenly believed him.  They were arrested that night and interrogated for hours, until finally they had gotten what they wanted.  The had belittled, degraded, and cohered confessions out of these men.

My son was convicted to 14yrs in Federal Prison, and at trial, not a single one of his supposed friends testified for him, and that’s because my son only had drug friends.  His accomplices friends testified because none of them liked my son.  Our Federal Government paid these people and threatened them to say what they wanted, and they did.

My son was the only one that took this all the way to trial, saying he wont plead guilty to something he didn’t do.  His friend pled guilty and received 9yrs.  Another man, whom my son met once, and not even on the night of the fire, but because his friend said he was there, pled guilty to get a lesser sentence and testified against my son to get an even lesser sentence, and got 4yrs. 

During the trial, the man who was convicted for 4yrs has a sister and brother in law who testified that they had never seen Mikey at their house, either the night of the fire, because they were home, or at any other time.  And that her brother didn’t even know my son, only that he knew my sons friend.  

On the day he was convicted and sentenced to 14yrs in prison, my husband, his father, was in the hospital and on life support trying to recover from a very large infection and a very large stroke that took the entire right side of his brain.  The judge allowed my son till noon the next day to go and say goodbye to his father.  The next day my family brought my only son to the Federal Building to turn himself in to Federal investigators.

Prior to this, my son was on house arrest for 3yrs and never once violated his agreement with them.  He went for drug tests randomly, he was clean and trying to make mends for things he had done when he was on drugs.  He had lost his girlfriend while he was on drugs, he treated her very badly, and wanted to let her know he was sorry for that.  We talked, we could never talk when he was addicted.  

Since all of this 3yrs ago, I have enrolled in Criminal Justice classes that will start in July.  I need answers as to why this happened and maybe I can help someone that this happens to in the future.  I know my son is innocent because he was home at the time of that fire, I have evidence we found after my son went to jail, but no one would listen to us.  Now his appeal has gone in on Tuesday June 11th, 2013.   I only hope that I can help him get the justice he deserves.  

I am asking for any help anyone can give toward getting him a good appeal lawyer.  As a mother I have felt helpless and broken hearted to not have my son included in birthdays, holidays, and outings as we had always done.  There is a hole in our hearts where his presence belongs.  Please help us help Mikey.  

Sincerely, 

 Mikey’s Mom and friend