January 2, 1996
SUMMARY OF FACTS
by Sam Zhadanov
My name is Sam Zhadanov. I am 69 years old. I am not a criminal. I am
a professional engineer/inventor.
For 22 years in the United States I worked my way up from a machinist
to chief engineer to the head of my own manufacturing company. Hundreds
of thousands of people today benefit from my inventions in the medical
device and consumer product fields. My recently developed medical devices
were on the brink of becoming new life saving products in the fight against
AIDS.
All of that work has been destoryed. People that were employed at my
business were thrown on the street. Tools of my trade, my equipment, materials,
facilities, bank accounts, as well as all of my family's real estate property
and lifetime savings, even savings of my 89 year old mother...everything
that was earned in a lifelong struggle of hard labor was confiscated by
the United States Government.
My ideas, my patents, my mind, my productive energy were put away, hidden
behind prison walls. Prosecutors have demostrated to me how a family or
ordinary engineers, defenseless people without political connections or
teams of lawyers can be crushed and erased by the might of the United States
Government.
The "Crime" that was assigned to me was that I manufactured
small plastic containers. In 1991 I was approached by two businessmen who
brought me a product sample of a small plastic perfume container and told
me that I would get the manufacturing contract if the price was right.
I developed the technology that enabled us to meet the low cost requirements
and I received the job. My customers were selling this product through
retail variety stores. As they informed me a year to a year and half later,
these plastic containers became popular with store customers to illegal
drugs.
Almost from the beginning of this job, government agents placed my factory
under surveillance. They parked daily across the street and observed through
open building gates how small plastic bottles came out of the machine.
For months they watched, while millions of containers were being manufactured,
picked up by the customer and sold to the retail system, to be ultimately
filled with drugs.
Factory gates were always open allowing unobstructed view of the manufacturing
process from the street. It was obvious to agents that people inside are
not aware of any illegal nature of their activity, or the illegal use of
their product. Yet their plan was not to interrupt. It is unconscionable
to imagine that public officials who's job is crime prevention would not
alarm the unsuspecting manufacturer.
Yet instead of preventing the crime, their plan was to create the crime
and to make it flourish! As case documents show, this case was carefully
planted and seeded by Philadelphia US Attorney's office for a period of
two years at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Even when my customers started getting doubts about the legal nature
of their product and abandoned its manufacturing and distribution, they
were convinced by the planted government informant to renew production
and that the product was perfectly legal. This conversation is recorded
on tape!
My customers did not share their concerns with me, knowing that I would
immedately stop the manufacture of their product. However, changes in their
behavior started worrying me. Even though dozens if not hundreds of general
retail stores continued to openly carry this product, I decided to be sure,
just in case.
I brought samples of the product to my attorney, described my concerns
and asked for a legal opinion. The legal opinion letter and verbal assurance
made it clear that I had nothing to worry about. As I recently found out,
even the Congressional definition of Drug Paraphernalia does not include
packaging materials or plastic containers. Federal Appeals Courts have
ruled repeatedly that manufacturing of items like "crack vials"are
perfectly legal.
This information gave me a new understanding of what was done to me
and my family: US Attorneys office fabricated a crack vial case and decided
to turn it into a major drug conspiracy. I was chosen to take the fall
knowing that manufacturing of plastic containers is not a crime, they decided
to charged me with the drug conspiracy to distribute 10 tons of crack cocaine.
Since my factory, over a period of 3 years, prouduced plastic containers
with a total volume capable of containing 10 tons of crack powder, I would
be guilty of conspiracy to distribute 10 tons of crack, punishable by 10
years to life.
Payments received for my work constituted money laundering punishable
by up to 20 years of imprisonment.
From a plastic manufacturer contracted to make plastic products, they've
turned me into a drug dealer.
Under threats against members of my family, with no money to fight,
after seizing every penny I had and destorying my business by scaring away
all my customers, Federal proscecutors started pressuring me to give up
fighting and plead guilty in exchange for a very light sentence and an
opportunity to save my business. If I didn't agree, they threatened to
put me in jail the rest of my life and go after the rest of my family.
According to my lawyer, I had no resources to mount a successful defense.
I did not know at the time that my lawyer, recently a Federal prosecutor
himself, had alternate reasons for closing this case this way. I later
found out that while he continued to represent me, his legal fees were
under the control of the prosecutors to be released under certain conditions.
Prosecutors and my attorney skillfully coerced me into signing the guilty
plea agreement, which I never even read. I placed my life into the hands
of people who betrayed my trust and used my lack of competence in these
matters foreign to me. This happened one week before my trial was scheduled
to start.
During sentencing, prosecutors attacked me with distortions and lies,
but my lawyer abandoned me and did not rebut a single statement. I received
a sentence of 5 years imprisonment to be followed by 5 years of supervised
release.
I have been in prison for almost a year. but they have not broken my
spirit. I know that I am innocent and I have not given up the hope that
justice will prevail. I am now fighting for the chance to have a FAIR TRIAL.
If such chance is given me and I cannot get a lawyer to defend me, I will
represent myself. I intend to prove my innocence and expose the documented
conspiracy, corruption and criminal conduct by Federal prosecutors.
22 years ago I brought my family to America from the despotic regime
of the Soviet Union in search of Freedom and Justice. I am now prepared
to die as a decendent in the America "Gulag" for that Freedom
and Justice.
Sincerely,
Sam Zhadanov
