There is no fool proof way to prepare for prison.
On March 30th I self surrendered to Lewisburg Federal Prison Camp after I was sentenced to two years for aiding and abetting an unlicensed money transmitting business, for which I am guilty.
In my case, the only things I could do to prepare myself for was the idea that for the foreseeable future I won’t be around. But I was optomistic because the only way to get through it, is to fully embrace it and take it head on. Which is what I did.
On March 5th 2015, about 30 days before my self surrender, I wrote this on my blog:
I’ve been dreading writing this blog post, and since I’ve written it, it’s been sitting as draft for a few weeks. Never the less, it’s time I get on with it. On March 30th, I’ll be self surrendering to Lewisburg Federal Prison Camp in Pennsylvania. It’s been a long hard fight, from getting arrested at JFK airport while landing home, to solitary confinement and being under house arrest the for the past 14 months. When the government indicted me and requested 30 years, I kept my head up with the help of friends, family, and the Bitcoin community. While some distanced themselves, most stood by and fought. I owe my life to those people. Of course I don’t look for sympathy, I did the crime and I will do the time. They say those who stand by you in the bad times, deserve to be with you in the good times. Good times are coming and I look forward to it.
Optimism. No matter how sad I was feeling, I needed to stay positive with my head up, because once I fell into a spiral of self pity and depression, there is no coming out.
So I started taking notes from other people who have been to Lewisburg and finding out everything could prepare myself for.
- Keep books/newspapers under 13oz. Keep it to 4 per package.
- USA Today delivery, dropped off directly.
- Always use Amazon for books.
- Bring list of people to communicate with - Name/Mailing Address/ Email Address/ Phone number
- Every month 300 minutes for the phone maximum, Nov/Dec 400 minutes.
- Email/Phone busiest mostly after dinner.
- Get a watch
- $360 a month is max you can spend on commissary, not including phone and email.
- Buy sneakers.
- Try to get education job
- Dont gamble
- Get there 8:45am. Then complete strip search, then temporary clothes, then medical intake, then sign forms and meet a counselor.
- Corlinks app for iPhone, becomes like instant messaging. Can print emails.
- Write physical letters. Stay optimistic.
But what was prison going to be like? What was my day going to consist of from waking up until I go to sleep? No one could answer these questions except for me. I needed to accept that I was going to be in prison, and going to use the time wisely.
There was a lot to do. What do I do with my email account, how do I secure my Bitcoin wallet, how do I keep my phone number. How will I maintain a relationship with my family? What is prison going to be like? All these questions were burning in my head and I couldn't find anything online to help me.
This is going to be a Steemit series on before, during, and after prison. I will post pictures, letters, diaries, notes and things I wrote while inside.
Feel free to post your questions you want to see answered, I plan on answering them all to the best of my ability in the following posts.
Follow me to read Part 1
-Charlie
It is rather insane that some people think they can put other people in cages merely for moving, or transmitting, pieces of paper with pictures of dead people around. I suppose the insanity is only surpassed by yet other people strutting around in costumes thinking they can put people in cages for feeding other hungry and desperate people.
Money laundering (I know his was for "transmitting") is actually a morally sound thing to do and a heroic act. Keeping money out from the extortion of the government is one of the noblest things a man can do.
Lol. Money laundering... Maybe, maybe not. If it's for the payment of a hitman to snuff someone?
On the deep web, there is no reason why it would be done on the account of vendors of drugs, or even credit card dumps, who exactly would they target, their competition? How is anyone going to find them if it took over a million to catch Ross?. In fact, I personally think that it was a lot of ITG hot air. I saw some of the discussions about it, and I think it was a bunch of attention seeking trolls cooking up these stories.
In this sense, Apple CEO Tim Cook is the noblest of men.
Couldnt agree more, I have a feeling Charlie will make some scary comparisons between life in prison and life outside.
We need to put the governments in prison
@tracemayer I was thinking the same thing all the way reading this post. I know he's out but still.. Well, I'm gonna shut up now, I hope that they don't take from him what is already taken, and that he enjoys going back to his life.
How did he get out? This is the guy who invented silk road right?
Guilty my arse... I'm 'guilty' of eating apples. Fuck their law. But thank you, Charlie, for sharing. I'd like to share your post by reading on a community radio show that I'm part of.
Government IS a prison.
Pretty strong comment there bro.
Wow, glad to hear your story. Would you mind if I printed and shared with Ross Ulbricht?
Hello @tatianamoroz (btw, big fan! I love you!)
I am absolutely CERTAIN Mr Shrem would not mind your sharing this with Ross.
Can't answer for him, but I'd be shocked into a coma if he said 'no way'.
:^)
Thank you! Well, you never know, there are weird rules w prison and stuff. I feel like he would like this though, and I am helping his mom set up a Steemit account now :)
Using BTC (or any other cryptocoin) cuts out the bankers' fees and politicians' kickbacks and burrocrats' regulatory fines.
Using BTC keeps special interests and do-gooding group-leeching from milking off taxes.
Rent-seeking and do-gooding are the scourges of efficient and moral governance, and not surprisingly, are the most influential effects on politics.
Politics is of course, the process of how we as people divvy up what the producers in society create. As a digression, it is also the process of how buttinskys tell other people how to live.
Charlie's example shows us how important it is to:
I spent a year in prison in Bulgaria a related 'offense'. Namely, I was operating, quite unsuccessfully, a vendor account at The Silk Road. I have still not yet made a post about the subject but you certainly could encourage me to do so ;)
I am pretty sure I am the only person who has ever been caught in this business in Bulgaria, and probably some people might think I am mad for sticking to the decision I made before I got into trouble, that I want to make this funny little country my long term home. I have also by chance bumped into very interesting theories about this part of the world relating to the old Bible story of the Flood, which as you may know is a story that has found its' way into many other cultures' legends.
The short version of the theory is that the flood was in fact caused by a long period of heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of the Black Sea that saw it rise so much that it became possible to navigate from it into the Mediterranean.
Bulgaria is the main neighbour to the contentious nation of Turkey, which also was the centre of the Roman Empire in its late stages, and in modern Bulgaria, the revolution that saw Bulgaria become independent from the Ottoman Empire still today is a major subject of discussion and hundreds of historic locations and memorials throughout the country.
Bulgaria; Turkey type countries, I understand some people live in those places their entire lives. I understand also that some non native people choose to visit those countries...
Planter Earth is a BIG place; why would average type people choose to go to such places?
I never adventure to anywhere I cannot speak the language, cannot eat the food or I would want to carry a gun. People who visit such countries should get five years in jail just for being so personally irresponsible.
Did you know it is illegal to visit North Korea, Iran or Syria; that list should include at least 97 other countries. Fools visit these countries and then expect their overseas government officials to help them resolve their local difficulties.
In fact it is a common practice in South East Asian countries to 'arrest' Westerners just to "drop all charges" once fines have been paid...
After all people have to make money right ? : )
/ hugz ;)
It's nowhere near as bad here like that as other places, I would never visit Turkey, for example, that place is a hellhole. I fucked up royally to get myself into that shitty situation, invested way too much in low demand items, spent too much money on what really amounted to silly chemistry experiments, and then I topped it off by letting a complete stranger in on it, and getting him to got shop my lagging inventory around on the local market. I couldn't have been more stupid.
But because this country has such a low cost of living, if you can find some other, perhaps safer way of making money, you can start small and move up quickly. This is partly why I am so excited about Steem. It potentially could be an avenue for me to do this. I have always wanted to be able to spend my time on developing interesting software, and if I do that here, for Steem, then naturally I will get a share of the investment yields as such additions help boost the investment in Steem.
Firstly I always say to people if you know another language please use that language to stand out from the English speaking crowd within the steemuniverse.
I think my biggest complaint is the vastly different types of cultures that can cause problems when people travel a bit. Some people are semi-professional travelers and over time I suspect they get very adept at knowing what to do, where not to wander and how to communicate and when further information should be referenced.
Speaking for myself I set my personal goals at a more realistic level such as I am usually subconsciously pleased when I manage to put my pants on in the correct way without always being consciously aware of it...
Somehow I suspect that is why I like steemland so much, I can author an incredibly inappropriate rant about why the Constitution should be alters to make ex-politicians mandatory army live firing range target holders; the next might be a different type of post.
Regardless I can hide out herein anonymously and the worst I risk is some trolls and a flame war, whereas to mess up in a foreign country. That creates a whole new set of unknown variables and problems to be encountered. . .
A friend of mine got appendicitis when in Italy; now such a situation should not become tragic but her situation was far more complicated simply by communication problems and cultural differences. Thankfully she had nothing more than a routine surgery and a minor horror story due to differing opinions and expectations.
My advice try and stick to the things your comfortable with, act conservatively and always suspect the worst while hoping for the best...
/ hugz ;)
Aз mога да говоря български, но уменията ми не са толкова добри, но аз се опитвам да се подобри, когато мога.
i also am not fully familiar with the ways of writing it better, also because of no practice at doing so. almost every bulgarian I speak to IRL or online just reverts to english, because they have good english.
Because I have spent a year inside in this country, I was forced to learn a lot more and now that I am free, after 9 months back in the country, I can get by quite well when my counterparty does not know english well.
It is a great adventure and I do my best to pay attention and improve what I know, whenever the opportunity presents.
желая, че повече хора от българия идва тук. аз съм сигурен че с време повече българи ще идва.
I have little trouble writing half decent, broken bulgarian with a pen or pencil, but on a computer, it is harder. even in this very country, small as it is, there is a lot of disagreement between people about what is the correct way to latinise, there is about 4 different systems used online, and even on signs erected by the fucking government, are all kinds of grammatical and spelling errors. Depending on which canon of bulgarian language you talk about. It's pretty funny, really.
Here is the preamble, and story of the first minutes of my arrest:
https://steemit.com/story/@l0k1/life-in-prison-in-bulgaria-what-you-need-to-know-if-you-are-as-stupid-as-i-was-part-1
I will continue it in a second one. There is so much background information I got a bit lost. But I hope you enjoy :)
Could you elaborate more on what you did? What is exactly "unlicensed money transmitting"? I know it is a lot to ask, but as you have been so straightforward with it I went ahead and asked. It sounds to me like a victimless crime? Did you hurt someone? Did you cheat on somebody? Government does not count. As far as I am concerned license is the government selling you back a right that you already have. All the best.
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-first-felon-charlie-shrem-begins-2-year-sentence/
At the age of 22, Shrem was the CEO of bitcoin exchange BitInstant. While working at this company, he violated anti-money laundering duties by dealing with Robert Faiella, who supplied $1m in digital currency to people buying drugs on the now-defunct online marketplace Silk Road.
Faiella, who went by the alias of 'BTCKing', was sentenced in January to four years imprisonment.
Both Shrem and Faiella entered plea bargains, agreeing to forfeit $950,000 each to the US government as a condition of their deals.
Thank you for the information. So he basically did not harm anyone and did do nothing wrong.
Looking forward to the series. Did you meet any interesting people in there?
Wow morality in this world is none existing. Seems on steemit you need to have a criminal record, doing drugs or show tits as a women to get paid. Guess we all need to work for a living, it is only the method and integrity that differs. Job well done all.
You definitely earned yourself a follow with this one. Can't wait for the next part!
to be honest, i just started reddit about 7 weeks ago, because I was enticed by such post series. 1 week into reddit, i discovered Steemit, and i was almost ready to delete my Reddit. If there're more content creators like you around, Reddit will probably be a waste of space to me not long in future, lol
You'll do great here, looking forward to your series!
I love you @charlieshrem!
If all author/writers are like you...well, I will be happy fat and.... rich!
I reconfirm now at 17:51 UTC 8/26/2016, I do Love you!
I just need 10-20 more writers like you!
I am really curious to see how this series progresses.
A few questions:
Thanks for the fascinating read Charlie. Obviously virtually all in this community don't feel you did anything wrong and in fact you were badly needed to provide access to Bitcoin in the early days. In hindsight what (if anything) you would have done differently to avoid this unfortunate experience?
You and Ross are Bitcoin legends. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you Guys had a conversation , about steemit.
Ross's mom is coming onto Steemit soon and hopefully will be posting some stuff by Ross (though he is heads down w the appeal right now). Really glad that Charlie is free and able to share his experience. I loved his book list.
Source?
Source? What do you mean? She's my friend, if that helps clarify? Not sure what you are asking.
Long time listeners of Tatiana's show like me can vouch for her. Although I can't spell their family name. Lynn Ulbect (DPR's mother) has been on the Tatiana show. It's here somewhere: https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/category/tatianaepisodes
Hey Charlie, great post. What really saddens me is the people who point the finger as if they are better than you for having not gone to prison.
With the number of new laws coming into force I think it is very easy to find ourselves in front of the judge. I heard recently of a man that got arrested for flying a drone outside the natural history museum in London. Had he flown it inside he would have been shot. Strange times we are living in.
Thanks for opening up to us.
Hi Charlie,
you did not commit any crime, so you are not guilty. The ones who create stupid laws about "money laundering" ought to go to prison. Anyway, I highly appreciate your style and attitude!
For all Charlie Shrem fans: here is a video in which he plays a role as an animated character.
How about don't pick a soap on the floor part ? Haha jk .
I just wanted to know what you're first week in jail feel like ?
Because very much spending most of you're time in internet without this access I think really much disturbing or you feel more better without it .
Wow, I'm really looking forward to this one, Just followed :)
Until you've finished the series, I'm just going to assume that your experience was the same as 'Orange is the new Black'.
$360! that's loads, here in the UK we get a measly £100 per month, which INCLUDES phone. I'm looking forward to noting the differences between the 2 systems. Also I hope you don't feel pressured to convey remorse and how hard it was. Please be honest, if you liked aspects then let it be known. This should be great!
Seriously; it is never a good sign when people admit to their guilt in unlawful matters. This deprives hard working attorneys etc. of much needed billing cycles that are necessary to maintain motorboat maintenance and vacation properties...
Thankfully this person chose to act unlawfully in financial matters; heaven for-fend if people of this caliber chose a life of public service, such as in politics ! ! !
Truly what would the world be coming to . . .
/hugz ; )
A license is what you get when your gov't has stolen your freedom and rented it back to you.
Have you heard of this guy?
http://marcstevens.net
If you haven't you should.
I'm sure he will be here at some point.
You are not guilty of anything. You didn't initiate violence against anyone else's life, liberty, property. "unlicensed", is just another way of making crimes out of rights. BS.
And I don't want to make fun of your suffering, but when you wrote "There is no fool proof way to prepare for prison.", it reminded me of this movie:
I just hope your "getting ready" experience was better than his. :P
"aiding and abetting an unlicensed money transmitting business, for which I am guilty."
"I did the crime"
Is there anything morally wrong with what you did?
Or is it bullshit, like going to prison for having an herb like weed?
No. There is nothing morally wrong with what he did.
Then how @charlieshrem is presenting this story is morally wrong.
Hey there Charlie! I had one question in mind and that is, "were you harassed@all while doing the time"? You knw how worldly men like to feel a sense of godly-like power:(
Well, glad you pulled through out of that experience. I've always felt like I was in prison from the crazy jobs I had, problems I have, just alway's feeling trapped so, I know what that's like. I can deal with being locked up and again, as I've alway's felt this! But it's a new day and I'm going to Steem my way out of it best believe! Take care and I admire you submitting information to us...To your new found family :)
Have you served any time yet? If so, what was the biggest surprise to you?
This is something I can relate to. Not knowing what's going to happen in prison. Where I'm from, they call it "spinning." Thinking things like, who, what,where, when, why, and how. It is tough because essentially you are going at it alone and no one is going to be there by your side while you go through it.
It took a couple months to adjust for me but once you come up with a daily routine, it can go by rather quickly.
I am glad you made it through and I wrote a post about you being a poineer. If you didn't go through what you did, I don't think the cryptocurrency market would be what it is today. I don't think we would of seen Steemit if it weren't for contribution to the community.
couple questions,
@charlieshrem thank you for sharing your story. I know people that has been in his position. My friend of rather be in jail than out in a real world, because mostly everything are already taken away from them. Hopefuly, things will change.
Not looking for a payout here but how accurate is this article? I helped a friend write it.
https://steemit.com/steemianfoodnetwork/@kryptik/things-i-learned-in-prison-easy-peanut-butter-fudge-recipe
Maybe Hillary will be your cell mate
Doubtful :( Now THERE'S a person that belongs behind bars.
Will certainly read some more
Obummer can air drop $400 million in cash to who knows in Iran with impunity but the peons cant setup a website to help people voluntary exchange a few bitcoins. The rules don't apply to the criminals in Washington.
The sad part is that these criminals threaten me to give them the money that they then use to put you in a cage.
Glad you made it though Charlie and I agree, the good times are coming.
Just a thought that when confronted by matters of prison sentence knowing that you'll be in a cage I can only assume that flashbacks were coming and going about yourself from past to present to future at that one moment.
My thoughts if it was me , I would simply describe a grandfather clock ticking backwards and seeing every moment of my existence come to a halt.
So could you say that it will be different here on in or does your assumptions and eagerness to relive that moment is somewhere along the crossroads waiting to be crossed... I wonder...?
A crime requires a corpus delecti, which requires an injured party.
If no one was injured, there was no crime. Hence, definitely not guilty.
Of course, since most of us go to public school, most of us do not know these things and eat up instructions by the state that claim you must convict if the facts are proven. Wrong. See - jury nullification
Im not sure you understand what corpus delecti means. In the US at least, it does not require an injured party. It merely requires evidence that a crime has been committed.
Jury nullification almost never works period. And it never works for white collar type crimes. If you takje it to a jury and lose after trying for nullification, youre likely to get maxed out on sentencing. And federal judges have wide guidelines for that.
No injury, loss, or harm? As a matter of law that means there is no crime.
American Jurisprudence 2D states much the same.
Wikipedia notes the same as as well here.
Personally, I like Marc Stevens page here... plenty of good citations there.
Of course, I'd believe the state supreme courts before I'd believe a lawyer or statute.
This is true, but it is also just scare mongering as they don't want people to know that we can nullify legislation, which is perfectly valid when said legislation conflicts with the law.Obviously, no one should go in and ask the jury to nullify unless they have no other choice (e.g. huge minimum sentencing rules).
I figured thats where you were going.
Yes, injury loss or harm is necessary. No, it does not have to be against a specific person or entity. It can be injury loss or harm to the common good. A great example is littering. The notion of injury to the common good dates all the way back to english common law (which is where we get the idea of corpus delecti)
Legislation is the law. And no, even if by some miracle you try jury nullification and win, you don't change the law, or "nullify" the legislation. In fact, such a ruling probably wouldnt even be admissible in a different trial. Its not like youve set a precedent.
Jury nullification is a slang term. Juries can't nullify or even interpret legislation. They are deciders of fact, not law. Its not a valid legal defense that "they" are trying to hide from you.
Legislation is the will of a group of men and women calling themselves a legislature. It is not law. This is the core difference between what is legal and what is lawful.
As for nullification, if a people has no right to judge not only the facts, but the validity of the purported law that is being applied, then the people are enslaved.
For it to be otherwise, the people would be at the absolute mercy of any legislation created, no matter how insane or criminal. Legislators could pass laws to do anything they want with no recourse for the people.
good intro - couldn't have been easy knowing what was coming.
I still don't get how they thought it was appropriate to send you to jail. It is insane that we now live in police states. You are guilty until proven innocent when it comes to certain things the government doesn't like. It is disgusting and a gross violation of the principles of liberty.
Please don't take offense at this.
Your post is too short for the payout.
Your story is VERY interesting and users will read it all the way through if it were twice as long as this. I wanted to say this earlier for another post of yours that was too short, but thought the better of it. I wanted to read more of your posts to see if it would be a pattern.
I enjoy what you write, just wish it didn't feel like a 3 panel cartoon and was more like a short story.
Thanks and don't take this as a slight; it's truly meant to be constructive criticism.
Cheers
Your comment was too short to be interesting. I hope it's not a pattern.
How nicely do I have to state my comment? How obvious do I have to make it that I like what the author does?
Still somebody like you has to troll it. SMH.
Hey, I don't take offense and I do appreciate how you went out of your day to say something that could be seen as trollish, but with good intentions.
Hello,
Thank you kindly. I certainly didn't mean for my comment to sound like a troll as this is one of the very reasons I want Steemit to succeed. It's to cut down on people being douchebags and trolling like it's commendable or worthwhile.
Thanks for being understanding.
Also, I noticed that you didn't follow anyone yet. If you click on a user's name there will be an option to follow them or mute them. Then when you go to your personal page you can check your feed to see the new posts of those you follow.
Wish you nothing but the best.
Cheers
The prison system is the modern day slave trade. Jobs once held by hard working americans have been outsourced to americans in a cage working for inhumane third world wages. Inmate indenture servitude for all of us as we pay to build it around us. We pay to indoctrinate from very early in life by throwing youth in a meat grinder called educational system to create the new and improved slave for the cage.
Has prison made you more creative and patient and have you tried to get out as much as possible out of the things available to you? At what time did you accept fully that you are in prison and need to make the best out of it?
It's them people that stick by you and that you find when you're coming down, that make life worth living hey. Cheers
Waiting with baited breath.
You know... spun right, you just might be able to turn this into a netflix exclusive series and make some serious cash ala "Orange is the New Black" style.
Interesting read. There are so many things I never thought about on being isolated to that degree.
Stay optimistic.
Hi Charlie
This is very interesting and I am looking forward to read the rest.
I would like to know how real life prison compare with the classic TV version
The eating hall
The exercise yard
Gangs and the need to be a part of a gang to survive
etc
really looking forward to this, thanks for sharing.
awesome story @charlieshrem
Dont Gamble and Dont take anything for free.
especially not any candy bars waiting on your bunk when you first arrive.
if I was doing a long stretch (ten plus) I'd gamble and make the most of the time. would you?
if you wanna get cheated into a debt you cant pay back sure gamble like a mofo
Only carry your own lunch tray
This is going to be an interesting series. I actually look forward to reading it. Thanks!
Bless you Charlie. You're a strong, old soul. :)