Here is what I did and what happened as a result; 

•  A then newly-enacted amendment to Rule 35(b)of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure ( which grants prisoners sentence reductions only upon motion of the US Attorney, and only for "Substantial Assistance') allows a second sentence type of sentence reduction.
• This new animal was specifically designaed for the delivery of information that was not known to the defendant until more than one year after their sentence has been pronounced by the judge. If you are paying attention, you will recall that there is always a sense of urgency in ensuring that the Assistant US Attorney does not neglect to file that Rule 35 Motion before the year is up. Otherwise, most courts will deny a belated motion, and the defendant is out of luck.
• The new grounds appear to be for the circumstances where an inmate overhears someone make damaging statements,  admit guilt in otherwise yet-uncharged cases, or learn the location of someone's hidden criminal assets or profits, more commonly known as the proceeds of crime.
• But my idea was to create an opportunity for myself, to actually acquire information which might persuade the US Attorney's office to file a second sentence reduction motion on my behalf. Was this arrogant or overreaching on my part? Perhaps, but I noted that Federal prisons were full of people with no hope of an early release. I had no intention of simply accepting my fate. Nothing ventured in the legal system, nothing gained. Besides, what else was I going to do? Working towards something positive filled up the time, of which I unfortunately had a surplus.
• So, what was I to do? How about going after one of the fugitives in my case; there were more than 200 people in the organisation, three of them had informed on me, therefore putting me in prison, notwithstanding that I protected them for a decade. So, I considered these ingrates fair game.
•  Of course, I only personally knew, and/or had represented, a small portion of the long list of defendants, so I culled out the names of a few fugitives, wanted by the authorities, and picked one as a likely candidate. He had been on the list for a couple years, and we neither knew each other, nor even had any close links, due to geographical distance, and his work responsibilities for the narcotics trafficking organisation I represented.
• Good money launderers know all the classic investigative techniques employed by law enforcement to catch them; it is the way that we avoid or evade capture. One of the best ways to find somebody is to look for his long-time associates and friends. The idea is, if you track the close associates, they may lead you right to your fugitive.
• How does one identify long-term associates? Your high-school year book photo section may confirm who a target's old childhood friends and partners, now criminal colleagues, were and are. Using this technique, someone working on my behalf was able to build a profile on my new target.
• Another method is to track family members, on the theory that fugitives need a support system.; The target had a grown child who owned a retail business in another part of the US, and my contact spotted the fugitive inside that establishment blissfully thinking that nobody knew his whereabouts.
• I would have like to have seen the look on his face when the state police raided the business, and arrested him on a federal warrant. To this day, I am sure that he never had a clue about the circumstances surrounding his arrest. When you are first taken into custody, the shock and surprise, and your immediate need to bond out, leave no room or time to reflect on how the police found you in the first place.
• Unfortunately, the Assistant US Attorneys handling my case did not think that I was deserving of yet another sentence reduction, so they declined my request.
•  It was time to concede that I was not going to get that prized get-out of-jail card, and that I would have to serve the remaining six months left on my sentence. lawyers do not like to lose, but I figured that i was probably the only one in my case to be getting out of jail that year, and that I should count my blessings.

I was shipped out, to be returned to the Federal Prison Camp at Eglin Air Force Base, but my travel was occurring over the weekend, when Eglin did not accepts incoming transfers, so the good people in the US Marshals Service dropped me off (temporarily they said) at the Escambia County Jail, in Pensacola. This was an unexpected detour to a more "colourful" place with its own culture and story.

 Next Week: Down and out at Mardi Gras.