Lot Life

In his own words: I will attempt to explain how I ended up in Federal Prison with a life without parole sentence for selling LSD My name is Timothy Leonard Tyler. I was raised in Connecticut with my mother and sister, Carrie. My father lived in Florida and I always wanted to live with him down there. Finally, when I was 16 years old I convinced my mother to let me go to Florida to live with my father. I went to high school and graduated in 1986 from Lakewood Senior High School I was into having parties and drinking when my father went away on vacation. My father did not approve of this and I finally quit having them. One time he went to Las Vegas to get married. He had a fairly new Corvette parked in a warehouse that he was renting. I basically took his car for a ride and was involved in a small accident with it. I had to tell his wife about the car since I didn't have the money to pay for it to get fixed. At the same time that I took my father's car for a ride, he was having a minor heart attack in Vegas. He ended up staying there for a month for bypass surgery. His car was fixed before he came back. We decided not to tell him about it until he started feeling better. When we finally did tell him, he kicked me out of the house immediately. I went back to Connecticut to live with my mother. I went to visit my sister one day in West Hartford and met her best friend. I fell in love with her. I ended up moving into the same apartment that they lived. I wasn't doing anything in particular with my life. I was working as a busboy in this nice restaurant and that was about it. I guess I was about 18. This was about 1987. One day my girlfriend's sister told me that there was a bunch of people camped out on the lawn at the Governor's Mansion downtown. That is the first time that I heard of the Grateful Dead, and I went down to check it out. There was a guy on the sidewalk handing out free LSD. I had never taken any before but I tried it. I just basically walked around all night looking at all of the people. I saw this one guy selling gas that came out of a canister. I later found out that this gas was Nitrous Oxide (the gas dentists use to calm you, also used in whipped cream containers, hence the name, "whippit"). He had lots of people in line waiting to purchase this stuff. I had never heard of this either but I saw that this guy was making quite a bit of money. I went out the next day and bought a canister like the one he had and I bought as many cartridges as I could afford. I found out that the Grateful Dead was playing in Worchester, Massachusetts the next day, so I went there with some friends of mine. I sold all of these "whippits" that night. The next day I went to the store and bought all that they had. I sold all of them that night. I didn't know where to get any more so I had the idea to sell beer. I bought plenty of beer and sold it all. This was the third night and I still had not seen a Grateful Dead Concert. Someone came out of the concert and asked me if I wanted a ticket to see the Grateful Dead in Rosemont, Illinois. I was having so much fun that I decided to buy the ticket, even though it was for a show in Illinois which was a day or two drive away from where I was then. A couple of minutes later, another guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a case of whippits (Nitrous Oxide). I bought them and then I knew that I had to go to the next concert in Illinois to sell them. Plus I had a ticket and I wanted to see what this was all about. I went back to Connecticut where I was staying for a few days. I put some traveling things together and had my sister drop me off at the truck stop. I hitchhiked from Southington, CT. to Rosemont, Illinois in two days. As soon as I arrived there, I started selling the whippits that I just carried half way across the country. I also had bought beer to sell and I had set up this small kid's swimming pool filled with beer and ice. After I sold all of the beer and was still selling the whippits, a security team came up to me and confiscated them from me. It was now time for the show to start and I went in. As I walked into the concert hall there was a guy handing out LSD in the bathrooms for free. I took some and I began to really love the feeling and energy that was at this concert. The music felt and sounded better than any I had ever heard. I had never even heard of the Grateful Dead before. I decided right there that I would be seeing this band again whenever I can. The show ended and I went outside. I walked up to the first person that I saw and asked him if he knew where I could get some LSD. I was steered in the right direction and I bought 200 hits for $90. I then went to the bus station and bought a ticket to go back to CT. Upon arriving back in CT., I sold some of the LSD to some friends. I found out that the Grateful Dead was going to play in California in two weeks. I planned on being there somehow. I asked my stepfather to borrow his pickup truck to go "on tour." He said yes and I talked my sister into going with me just for fun. She was about 17 years old. We left CT. without enough money to get there. I did have some LSD though. We made it all the way to New Mexico and ran out of money and gas. I pulled into a carnival in the middle of nowhere and sold all of the LSD that I had. Now I had enough money to get where we were going. Before arriving at the concert, I bought all of the beer that I could afford. Then I went to the outside of the concert and sold it all. I took the truck back out of the parking lot and bought all of the beer that I could afford again. I did that one more time before the night ended. The next night I sold beer and also bought some alcohol for my sister to sell "shots." She sold shots of Tequila and other kinds of alcohol just for the fun of it. After these three show nights, there was a break of two weeks until the next shows. My sister had a regular job as a waitress so she decided to go back to CT. and got a ride home with a trucker. I stayed at a campground and waited. I went to the next show and sold whippits again. Then I met some friends, and decided after the shows to give them a ride back to New York on my way back to CT. On my way driving, we stopped in Reno, Nevada. I went to a casino and gambled away all of my money in just a short time. I was without gas money. I called my father who had a fireworks business in Florida and asked him for some gas money. He said that he would send me some but that I would have to go down to Florida and work for him a while to pay off my debt. He sent some money, although not enough exactly to get to CT. The people that I was with, as they were out of money also, said that they could get me a little gas money as soon as I got them to where they were going in NY. We arrived and they put $10 in gas into the truck. Somehow I coasted into the parking lot of where I lived in CT. while the truck ran out of gas. There were no shows for a month or so now. I took a friend with me from CT and then picked up this other friend that I had met on tour from Pennsylvania, and we headed to Florida in the same truck. When we arrived there, my two friends wanted to go to Daytona Beach. They dropped me off at my father's warehouse and went to the beach with my borrowed truck. The guy that was my supposed friend from CT. ended up stealing the truck from my other friend and stranding him in Daytona Beach. He hitchhiked to where I was and we started from scratch working for my father. We worked almost everyday all day at the fireworks warehouse, and started saving money to get what we needed to go on tour. We bought a cheap old van. Then we bought five blenders and fifteen coolers. Our idea was to sell fruit smoothies once we arrived at the shows again. We did all of this in about a month and a half time. We finally said that we were leaving since it was a couple of days away to the concert. My father offered each of us a bonus to stay at least until the Fourth of July, but we left anyway. We arrived at this concert in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Some guy was walking around selling LSD for $5 per hit. This is very high because LSD usually goes for $1 per hit at these concerts. My friend bought 4 hits for $20 and right before the concert started, he gave me one. We went in the concert, and in about an hour or so into it, I started to feel it. I felt what I would describe as a separation of my soul from my body. First, I was looking down at myself. Then I was looking down at the concert. Next I was looking down at the Earth. All of a sudden I saw many meteors hit this Earth and I watched my body get destroyed. When I saw this happen, it did not matter to me, because I was somewhere else which I can only describe as beautiful and heavenly. I went somewhere other than that which is considered reality. There was music there, similar to the music being played at this concert. A short amount of time later I ended up back in my body. At this point, my life was changed. I feel like I was shown something while on LSD. It might have been the future I was seeing. I went outside and found my van and we went to the next shows which were in Wisconsin. The Grateful Dead would be playing six nights out of seven there. We were there selling fruit smoothies. My friend gave me a sheet of LSD to walk around with. I found someone who was willing to trade some opium for what I had. I never tried opium before so I traded. I then walked around asking everyone I ran into if they wanted to smoke a bowl of opium with me. By the end of that week, I had not been eating or sleeping due to the smoking of opium. I told my friend who had the van that I would see him at the next show which was in Ohio. He had about ten people in the van and there was a lot of arguing going on so I decided not to ride in my own van. At this time, I was seeing full color auras, which are the energy fields surrounding everything. I ended up getting a ride there by this truck driver. At a rest area somewhere in Ohio I started wandering around and I left. I was walking down the road on the side of the highway and a police car pulled up to me and the officers asked where I was going. I told them that I was going the Grateful Dead concert here in Ohio. I was feeling the effects of smoking all of that opium and I told them that I was Jesus. They ended up beating me up as I was telling them that I loved them. They brought me to a mental hospital. I was looking at this doctor there and he looked evil. They put me in a room and injected me with some kind of drug. I stayed in this hospital for around 30 days. They put me on an airplane and I flew back to CT. to live with my mother temporarily. As soon as I found out where the Grateful Dead was playing next, I decided to go again. I called three friends of mine and we decided to go to the concerts in Atlanta, GA. We arrived and I started selling beer. I bought a small plastic swimming pool and filled it with ice and beer. I sold beer right out in the open. A guy came by to buy a beer, and while he was taking money out of his pocket, a sheet of acid fell from his wallet into the swimming pool by mistake. I was selling beer with caps on them, reaching in and opening them for the customers. I was getting high on LSD. By the end of the day I was really messed up again. I was feeling that the leader of this band (Jerry Garcia) was either God or a prophet. That is when I started getting interested in what the lyrics to their songs were saying. There were many people following this band around to try and see every concert. Most of these same people felt that this band was more than just a band. I ended up back in CT. right after these concerts. I went up there and my mother put me in another mental hospital since I had been talking about the world ending. When I came out of the hospital this time after being there 30 days, I was at my Mother's house again and I was taking this medication that made me feel like a zombie. Every minute seemed like an eternity. It was a feeling that you would never wish upon anyone. My sister had met a man while working at a bar in Hartford, CT. he asked her to come to Florida to live. Since I was not doing anything and taking all of this medication, I decided to go down there to live with her. I had a girlfriend while I was in CT. She was my sister's best friend. She moved in with my sister first. That is when I decided to go down there too since I missed her. After a little while, I stopped taking this medication and I started to feel better. I started making friends down there and then I heard that the Grateful Dead was going to play in Orlando, which was not too far away, so I decided to go. I went there and it made miss seeing them and miss going "on tour." I went back to my sister's place, and when the next tour started, I decided to go. My sister had a car and she gave it to my girlfriend. My girlfriend went with me back up to CT. to visit her family and I visited my mother. At this time, I drove to New Hampshire to buy a bunch of beer. Then we drove with the car loaded with beer to New Jersey to the shows. I set up another another pool and sold beer. This allowed me to see the shows and stay at a decent hotel all week. By the end of the week I had enough money left over to buy 91 cases of imported beer. I also rented a truck and we drove to the next shows which were in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the beer. I set up my beer stand as usual. Then a lady came by who happened to be an undercover police officer. She was with another officer and they followed my friend back to the truck when he went to get some more beer to sell. My friend saw them and ran away. I went to the truck and ended up getting arrested. My girlfriend showed up and they arrested her also. They took us to jail. They then called our parents to make sure we were who we said we were. They confiscated all of the beer and let us go. Now I had only what money that I had already earned from selling the beer that they didn't take. It was pretty cold outside and I was starting to feel that beer wasn't the smartest thing to sell. I was starting to feel like it may not be good Karma or something. I had an empty truck now and I needed to do something to make money to continue touring. I bought a propane stove and started selling soup out of the truck. It went real well. By the third day I had bought all of the vegetarian soup that this store had. I decided to try something different. I had always wanted to sell fried dough ever since I saw people doing it at carnivals as a child. I bough everything I needed and I did it. It went over really well. I decided to do that from then on. As this tour ended in Miami, I decided to buy some LSD to bring back to St. Petersburg, FL. where I lived sometimes. I ran into some old friends and sold it all real fast. This made me want to get some more for them. The next shows were in California. I drove out there with a car that my sister bought me. I was sight-seeing in Oakland, California since I had a couple of days until the shows started. I went down this one street by accident and there was a guy unloading there big blue tanks out of a truck. I asked him if that was Nitrous Oxide. He said that it was. I went inside to where he was bringing it and they sold it under certain conditions to people. I bought a container which weighed a couple hundred pounds for $160 and a $200 deposit on the container. I went to a wholesale balloon place and bought a bunch of balloons with clips. I then went to the shows and sold the balloons filled with gas for $5 each. I made a few thousand dollars with this, and had bought another tank at the shows from someone who just happened to be selling one. Later that week I went back to the Nitrous place and bought 5 more tanks. There were no shows for about another month now so I rented a storage area for the month to store the Nitrous tanks. I also bought some LSD to bring back to Florida with me. I headed back to Florida, and on the way I stopped in Panama City to visit a friend that I hadn't seen in a long time. He ended up introducing me to his friend, and his friend bought all of the LSD that I had. When I showed up in St. Petersburg, I had money but no LSD. At the end of the month it was time for the shows again. I took some other friends of mine and gave them some money and my car to drive to California. I decided to fly. When I got there, I rented 3 hotel rooms. I had an idea that I was going to sell these balloons directly to people's hotel rooms. I had these little fliers printed that said "Yum Yum balloons delivered to your hotel room 24 hours per day from December 26th through January 1st. " I put the phone number of one of my rooms on the flier. This town of Oakland, CA had all of their hotels lined up in a row so you can walk from hotel to hotel easily. My friends finally showed up. We started handing these fliers out. When the show was over, we went back to the hotel room and the phone started ringing off the hook with orders. I had about six guys working delivering balloons. I guess I started getting greedy because while they were delivering to the hotel rooms, I took my car and put a nitrous tank in it and went to this gas station where there were like a thousand people there. This was because the concert just let out and it was walking distance to where the hotels and this gas station were. I opened my trunk and sold about 50 balloons, one at a time. There was another 50 people in line waiting to buy them. All of a sudden a police car pulled up and everyone walked away. I was arrested, and since I had three hotel room keys on me, they went and raided the hotel rooms. All of my tanks were confiscated except one that I still had in storage. I posted a $1200 cash bond. I then rented a truck and drove it to the concert with a tank in it. I had one friend fill up balloons and put clips on them in the back of the truck and I walked around with six balloons at a time and sold them. After doing this for a while, I ran into another police officer that took the balloons from me and brought me to his car. The same guy who arrested me two nights prior was there. He arrested me again. This time it was New Years and I didn't want to waste the money bonding out so I waited. This town had something set up where they usually release all of the deadheads from jail on the day after New Years. They released me and most everyone else that was a deadhead saying that we were just being detained, and if we stayed out of trouble, then nothing would happen in this case. I went to the courthouse to find out about when my court date would be for the last charge that I posted bond for. They told me that the charges were dismissed. I ended up getting my bond money back after about a month. They had to mail it to my house. I decided to drive with these friends of mine in my car back to Florida. I stopped in Panama City again and sold the same guy all of the LSD that I had again. This was my last time selling to him. I had other friends that lived in St. Petersburg, Florida that I could sell to which was much easier. One day this same guy called me and asked if I wanted to buy some ecstasy. He also wanted more LSD. I was going to fly to California in two days so I was unable to drive up to meet him. A friend of mine wanted some ecstasy so he volunteered to go up there to meet this guy. The problem, that I didn't know at the time, was that this guy had been arrested for selling LSD and was setting me up. When my friend showed up to trade some LSD for some ecstasy, he was arrested. Then they put a warrant out for my arrest and arrested me. They came and picked me up in St. Petersburg and brought me to Panama City. I was given an attorney and told him that I wanted to go to trial. He said that when they get the discovery together then we will see how it looks. About 30 days went by and he filed a motion to have me released on my own recognizance because they did not file formal charges against me yet. In about seven more days they brought me back to court and I was released. They said to keep in contact with my attorney and he would give me the court date. I kept in touch with him and postponed it. I purchased a used van right around this time. I then decided to fly to California to go to some more shows and get some more LSD. While flying back into Florida, I took a few hits of LSD along with some of my friends. This other friend of mine called me and asked if I could sell him some. I told him that I would later. When I finally did meet him I had about six friends in my van with me. I gave the guy 1300 hits and he walked across the street with it and all of a sudden a van pulled up to my van and a bunch of police jumped out. I was arrested at this time and my van was confiscated. I still had the court date from Panama City. I postponed it again. Now I was in jail for about 30 days again and I told the attorney that I wanted to file a release on recognizance order since they too had not filed formal charges yet. She filed it and in about seven more days they released me. She told me that it would take 10 days to be released if I won the argument. The strange thing is that it was a Friday afternoon. I was sitting in the county jail playing cards. I said out loud to the other guys in there that if "I was released today then I would be in Massachusetts tomorrow," since that was where the Grateful Dead would be playing. About an hour later, they called my name and released me. I was supposed to go to the ROR office on that Monday but I had better plans. I went to all of my friends that I sold LSD to and asked them for some money up front. I then went and bought two plane tickets to Boston for my girlfriend and I. We arrived and pulled into the concert. The first thing I did was buy some LSD from people that I knew there. We did not have a vehicle but I had a friend that lived in Marlboro, Mass. I told him to come pick me up. He did and took me to a friend that was willing to sell me a decent car for a sheet of LSD. I traded with him and I had my friend get the car insured and registered the next day. I told him to come with us on tour. He came with us and we started selling fried dough. We did this for the entire tour. The last show ended and the Grateful Dead were scheduled to play again in California. The following night one of the band members overdosed and died. It was unclear what was going to happen now to the band. I went to Florida for a little while to sell some more LSD to my friends. I sold it and then flew to California to buy more. Then I decided to move from Florida to Mesa, Arizona to live. I picked this spot because I had been there before visiting a friend, that I had met at a show, and I liked the place. We lived in this apartment and I flew to California to buy LSD and then flew back. I would send the LSD to Florida to my friends and they would send me money for it. The Grateful Dead were getting a new keyboardist and planning on playing again. They went on tour through Europe. I didn't try to go since I figured that I could not get a passport due to my arrests in Florida. I never did go to court on the Florida charges. I just left Florida. After a few months, the Grateful Dead were going to play again in the states and I decided to go. I bought roundtrip tickets for my girlfriend and friend to fly to Connecticut to visit their parents. I went to the shows which were right near my apartment. Then I met a few friends and we drove to the next shows in Denver, Colorado. At the end of these shows a friend gave me a vial of liquid LSD. I put it in my pants pocket. The next shows were in California. As we were driving, I started to feel different and I didn't know what was happening to me. We stopped at my apartment on the way to CA. When I went to pull the vial out of my pocket I noticed that it was now empty. Then it hit me. It had opened up in my pants and soaked into my skin. About a month earlier I had mailed some money to the Grateful Dead Merchandising to buy two tickets for the New Year's Eve show. When I arrived at my apartment I was really messed up from the LSD. I went to open my mailbox and had a vision that the tickets were there, and they were. I thought that I had two real tickets to Heaven. I ended up calling up this friend of mine and telling him to come take all of my furniture. I gave everything away and left two cars behind. I had some money and LSD that my supposed friends ended up stealing from me. I just needed to get to the next show in Oakland, CA. That was all I thought that I needed. I had thought that the band was much more than a band. I thought that they were going to leave this Earth behind on New Year's Eve. This thinking came from the large amount of LSD that had seeped through my skin. We arrived at a hotel and I went into the whirlpool and swimming pool. I took off my shorts and the next moment I was arrested for indecent exposure. I was really messed up still and would be for a long time to come. This was about 4 days before New Year's Day now. On New Year's Eve, they released me. I then went to find my friends at the hotel. They had sold my tickets that they were supposed to be holding for me. I told them to give me the money that they received and I would go buy my own. They said that they were broke. I know that they had money and were lying. I had this feeling that I needed to get into this New Year's Eve concert because they were going to Heaven that night. This is what they call delusional thinking. I was really messed up, but that is how I felt at the time. A friend came up to me and said that he could get me a ticket for $170 worth of marijuana. I went to the friends that I had been with, that sold my tickets while I was in jail, and told them to give me this amount of money that I needed, and they could keep all of the LSD that they had of mine, and I would forget about the rest that they owed me. They peeled it out quick. I figured that it didn't matter anyway since those of us inside this concert were going to Heaven tonight. I went in and walked around. I could not understand what was going on. I was really messed up on LSD. I felt like something was supposed to happen, but it never did. I felt like whatever was supposed to happen was postponed. The show ended and I walked outside of the concert. My so-called friends were there and asked if I was going to go back to Arizona with them. I said that California is where I belong. I went to Height Street the next day. I found some house that I could stay at as long as I was out by 7:30 am. I just woke up early each morning and went down to the street and hung out, as did many other people. I did this for a few months. One day this lady came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go to some hot springs in southern California with her. I said yes. I went down there with her and she cooked for me and tried to help me with my mind (which was still trippin). This hot springs was a natural place with hot water running out of the earth into three big pools. She was very nice to me. Although I was still messed up, I started to feel somewhat better again. One night I took a bicycle ride to town which was only three and a half miles away. When I was coming back I couldn't find the road that lead to the hot springs. I ended up going back into town where I was arrested for trespassing. I went to jail for a couple of days. When I was released, I went back to the hot springs. Since it was day time now, I was able to find it. The problem was that this girl who had taken care of me was not there. She went to Washington State to give a friend of hers a ride home. At this point, I finally called my mother who had moved to Florida. She wired me a bus ticket to go from California to Florida. I went on the bus and ended up getting off in Phoenix. I walked around the rest of the night. The next morning I saw and RV with a preacher preaching next to it. He offered to bring me to church. Before I went with him, I gave the bus ticket away that I had. Now I was in Phoenix and still out of my mind with no bus ticket, and nowhere to live. I went to Church. Then I went back to where I met this preacher. There were these white church busses riding around offering free rides to anyone that wanted to go to another church. I walked on one and it went to this very large church. I walked right up there on stage where there were people singing. A man came up to me and led me to a bench and asked me if I wanted to work for the church and they would provide me with a place to live. I said "yes." When the service was over I got back on the bus. They dropped me off at this shelter. I walked in and went over to a corner and lay down on the floor. Shortly after that some police came up to me. I was not supposed to be in there since I didn't sign up earlier in the day. They brought me to jail for trespassing. While I was in there, they put me in a room and gave me some type of medication which made me feel like a zombie. After a week, they brought me to court. The judge gave me time served and they released me to someone that gave me a place to stay. I had called my sister in Florida and she made arrangements for me to fly to Florida the next night. I arrived in Florida and I felt and looked like a zombie. I decided to stop taking the drugs that they had me taking. It took me a couple of months to get back to what I considered to be normal. I now had warrants for the two prior sales of LSD charges that I decided not to go to court on. I started feeling better and a friend showed up and asked me if I wanted to go to some more Grateful Dead concerts with him. I decided to go. All of my friends had been asking me to get them some LSD so I decided that I would get them some when I went to these shows. I went and saw some shows and brought some LSD back to Florida with me. A so-called friend of mine bought all of it, which was 1000 hits. Now I needed to go back to the shows again to buy some more. When my friend and I were leaving Florida, we were pulled over for speeding. I had identification on me, and since I had warrants, I was taken to jail in Pinellas County first. After about a month or two I went to court and they offered me 3 years probation or 18 months in state prison if I plead guilty to sales of LSD. I figured that I would plead guilty and accept probation since I still had to go to Bay County after this was over. I pled guilty and was given 3 years probation. Then I was brought up to Bay County. After about 3 months they decided to give me concurrent probation because I told them that is the only way that I would plead guilty. I didn't think that they actually had a good case against me since I was not caught with anything in their County. I was finally released and I went back down to St. Petersburg to live and do my probation. My friends started asking me to get them some more LSD and I was really missing the Grateful Dead. I decided to go to the shows again even though I was on probation. I flew out to California to go to one of their shows. I bought some LSD and flew back and immediately sold it. I then did this again a few times. Finally, one day I decided to leave Florida since I was selling so much LSD. I told all of my friends that I was leaving including the snitch Jeff Rhodes who was setting me up. He was arrested on the state level, and instead of being a man about it, he started setting me up. I then left Florida on the day that I said I would. I went on tour. I had told my friends in Florida that I would send them LSD while I traveled around the country following the band around selling fried dough. I was addicted to the positive energy that was inside the Grateful Dead concerts. The only way to understand this would be to actually go to one of them. I started mailing my friends LSD including the Confidential Informant, Jeff Rhodes. He was claiming that he never received anything. After taking quite a few losses I decided to mail in one envelope enough hits to cover all of my friends. I mailed 9,045 hits in an envelope to a friend of mine at his father's business. The Confidential Informant knew what day it was coming since I told him. I had no idea that he was setting me up. I had told everyone to go and pick up what was for them since it was supposed to be there the next day. When the package was delivered, the guy who received it turned into a confidential informant on the spot. It was delivered by the DEA. The guy then waited with the DEA until people called and he told them to come down and pick up their envelope. When they did, they were arrested. Included in this was Frank Bollwage and my father. My father was just helping a friend of his acquire some LSD since his friend knew that I was the one selling it. My father ended up getting 10 years for doing that little favor in which he was held accountable for 2000 hits. Frank ended up getting five years since it was his first offense and he was only receiving 500 hits. I ended up pleading guilty because my public defender lawyer told me that if I did then I would get 262-327 months in Federal prison. He told me that if I went to trial then I would get a life without parole sentence. I plead guilty and when I went to get sentenced he told me they were going to give me life without parole anyway. I told him that I wanted to take back my guilty plea. He said there was no way to do that. I still tried and the judge denied it and sentenced me to life without parole in Federal Prison. They charged me under the Career Criminal because they used the two prior sales of LSD convictions that I had in Florida. On one of those charges, the one in Bay County, I had pleaded no contest and the judge ordered adjudication of guilt withheld and three years of probation was given to me. If they hadn't used these two prior charges against me (enhancement), then I would have received 262-327 months which is much better than a life sentence without parole. The law says that they actually are not supposed to use charges against you where adjudication of guilt has been withheld. I have tried to file an appeal based on this but I have been denied because in 1996 there was an anti-terrorist bill that went into effect. This made it nearly impossible to file a Habeas Corpus appeal after the one year date of which our last appeal was denied. I actually did file a Habeas Corpus appeal on time. It was done by myself and another inmate in prison. When I sent a copy of it to my father, he showed it to another guy who is supposed to be a very good jailhouse lawyer. This lawyer read it and said that it looked like an abusive writ. He said that he could get my sentence down to around twenty years for $5,000. My father and mother paid this money. The jailhouse lawyer sent me a motion to Withdraw Without Prejudice so that I could send to the court. That was for the one that I had already turned in. The court granted this Motion Without Prejudice. Then the lawyer needed all of my state transcripts. It took me about nine months to get everything that I needed. Then he made a winnable writ and I mailed it into the court. The court denied it based on a time limit restriction, even though it was less than one year from the date that I had Withdrew Without Prejudice my last appeal. I then filed another one to the 11th Circuit, and it was denied based on being past time restraints. That is where I now sit serving life without parole for selling LSD.