Brilliant Minds in Captivity. Roger W Upchurch
ection>
Introduction
Roger W Upchurch
BRILLIANT MINDS
IN
CAPTIVITY
“Living in a prison camp and stories of Brilliant Minds”
Roger W Upchurch
Brilliant Minds in Captivity
“Brilliant Minds in Captivity” is the continuing from the book “Guilty Til' Proven Innocent” which is a book about my life growing up and becoming a Custom Home Builder, Mortgage Broker an entrepreneur manufacturing synthetic marijuana called K2, everything was legal, and I was making millions. I started a recording studio, record label, two-night clubs, limo service, and concert promotions. I was hobnobbing with celebrities and living a wonderful life. Then an encounter with the DEA stating I had a banned chemical in my products, but I never even heard of that chemical, it did not matter they will get you after they investigate you. Their lies, and scare tactics work. They coerce and threaten you into a plea deal. They took two and a half million dollars from me and sentenced me to 48 months in a prison camp. After two-and-a-half years warehoused in the camp and a slave working to keep the prison up next door I was released to home confinement early because of the Coronavirus and now here I am at home living with an ankle bracelet, writing my stories.
I am an advocate for Justice, Sentence, and Prison reform. I want to help good men and women through facing the Justice system BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER sentencing or prison.
I want to help release inmates become successful in life, by helping them with jobs, homes, and keeping them on the right path. Most of all I want to help children of incarcerated parents. You can help too by going to www.rescuesuccess.org
“Brilliant Minds in Captivity”
This book continues my life in a prison camp with the humor, the drama, and the stories of the Brilliant Minds that I met there, and some not so Brilliant Minds. How the Government and the Justice system breaks up good families with excessive sentencing. Learning how to be a better criminal!
Chapter One
The prison camp is like a working vacation you can get things done that otherwise you cannot get done at home. Turning a negative into a positive
My name Roger Upchurch and I am a sixty-nine-year-old inmate here at the Ashland Kentucky Federal Prison camp and I self-surrendered here on October 24th, 2017. I am a retired custom home builder and mortgage broker since 2009 when the industry collapsed. Shortly after I was introduced to a business, and it was synthetic marijuana called K2. I searched for it and could find nothing illegal about it. I got into it and started manufacturing it. Soon I was making millions. With the money, I started a recording studio, a record label, two-night clubs, limo service, and concert promotions, a true entrepreneur. I kept many people employed and helped a lot of other people.
A customer brought me a new prospect, and he said that his family-owned stores in Indiana and Kentucky and wanted to use my products and maybe buy me out. All lies and come to find out he was a DEA agent and my customer that brought him to me was a “Whistle Blower”
On February 12th, 2014 that same DEA agent came to my door and raided me. They took over two and a half million dollars from me. The prosecutor from Washington DC was using their usual scare tactics of threatening and coerce you into a plea deal and it works. They offered me 0 to 5 years. Of course, my attorney says that I will get the 0 and just probation. My attorney argued that I was not a good criminal therefore I should get probation, well that did not work. What about arguing that I was a first-time offender and never involved in violence? How about I was a family man and have built many homes for families. I paid taxes all those years. Married for 38 years to the same woman and was a productive citizen, not a criminal, maybe just made a bad decision. The Judge said I was a good businessman, but I had to set an example and he gave me 48 months in a prison camp. How can I be an example nobody will know? I never would have got into this business or any business if it were illegal and I would never knowingly commit a crime. Now I am a sixty-nine-year-old first time, non-violent offender going on my third month here at the camp and starting the new year of 2018 warehoused with fifty other men in this unit.
So far, I have met several Brilliant Minds and of course not so Brilliant Minds in here. They are Doctors, Lawyers, Politicians (not a surprise), Athletes, Accountants, CEOs of large companies, business owners, and of course drug users and dealers. They were sentenced to prison knowingly or unknowingly committed a crime or says the DOJ. If you are investigated by the DOJ and no matter what department they are with they will find something to charge you with, even if they make it up, no matter how small. It is the agent’s job and they want their reward for ruining someone's life. They make get a steak dinner with their name on the performance board. It is a game to them, and they win 99% of the time because most people do not have the resources as the Government does. The Government wastes millions for convictions. They are always searching and follow up on leads and try to make something out of them.
Example: #1 I met a young man here at the camp and he was Spanish and in his late twenties. He was clean shaving but before he got here, he had a full-length beard and long hair. He looked like a middle eastern terrorist, well that is what a neighbor said. He was living in an expensive home in an upscale part of town with his wife and she was the breadwinner. He took care of the house and did odd jobs and mostly taken care of the elderly. When the neighbor called the authorities and that she thought something was going with him the FBI started investigating him. They could only find on him was that he did not put his father’s initials on his passport application. What a crime. He finally did a plea and the Judge gave him ninety days in prison and he did sixty days in county jail and the balance here at the prison camp. So how much money did the Government waste on this and now this young man has a criminal record and labeled a felon for just ninety days in a prison camp for not filling a passport correctly? What a shame!
Example #2: Father Bill an “Eighty-year-old retired priest” is in here for seven months. He was managing entertainment for a retirement home with bingo, travel, dinners, and such. A wealthy gave him a credit card to use for helping the programs at the retirement home. A jealous resident notice that he bought some personal stuff with the card. The Feds got involved in using someone’s card that was not his. They got him for credit card fraud. The owner of the card said that he did not care it he bought a few personal items, but it did not matter to the FED. They still pursued him, and he made a plea for seven months in prison. He came into the camp after four months traveling from county jails and stopovers with a knot on his forehead the size of an enormous egg. He was handcuffed and shackled the total time until he got here. He said they pushed him out of a bus. The Father bill is about 150 lbs. And 5'5” tall. A big dangerous criminal! How much did it cost the government on this one? I bet the agents are proud and I am sure they got a splendid steak dinner for catching this criminal. There is more about Father Bill later.
There are too many good men and women in prison for such petty stuff as the two above. Too many first time, non-violent men and women warehoused in prisons, and even if they made a mistake or committed a crime should have got probation, community service, or even home confinement. A lot or maybe most are given restitution to pay, and that is usually way overstated, but how can they start paying it back making $26 a month in prison.
Starting the new year 2018 am sitting in my vacation home at the Ashland Kentucky federal Prison Camp. I am in unit A2 and my room number is #14. My room is 8'x10' with tile floor, block walls 6' high, two twin beds, two lockers, a wall hung desk with light to read, and a 4' opening. The color is a warm soothing soft beige. Right now, I do not have a cellie (roommate) which is fine with me. I share the bathrooms and showers with about fifty other men. Here the toilets are all with medal stalls with doors and each shower is about 3'x5' enclosed with shower curtains and the water pressure is great and hot, genuinely nice.
Our grocery store (commissary) is open every Wednesday and Thursday, we have laundry service, a medical department with nurses, a dentist, a barbershop, an exercise room with bikes, a weight room, a library, basketball courts,