Federal prosecutors are destroying my family

I decided to write a series of articles about my case for a couple of reasons and will explain as I go. This first article is about prosecutorial abuse, and I write it hoping that, by shining a light on it, it will spare someone else from having their family torn apart, which has been my experience the last eighteen months. Put differently, this is me stupidly believing in criminal justice reform, just as I always have.

The golden rule in criminal defense is to keep your cards close until the trial. But I’m also speaking out because—although I’m confident of an acquittal—even when that occurs, I lose this case because my two children will be forced to testify—one child against me, while the other one testifies for me. What happened in this case is tragic and the harm to my children will not be remedied, even with an acquittal.

For over a decade, I have worked tirelessly to make a positive impact on our criminal justice system. As a lawyer and law professor, I have dedicated my career to promoting fairness and justice, guided by my personal experiences and a commitment to making the system better for everyone. But now, I’m facing a prosecution that threatens to destroy everything in my life. The actions of the prosecutors in my case are a stark reminder of the very problems I’ve dedicated my career to solving: abuse of power, disregard for evidence, and a relentless pursuit of conviction at any cost. My greatest fear is what this will do to my family, and that drives me to write this post ahead of my trial—to protect my wife and children from the devastating consequences of this prosecution.

I am husband, father, lawyer, law professor, and felon. I served over a decade in federal prison for robbing five banks in my early twenties, acts that continue to haunt me. I have spent countless hours in the past decade or so, working on criminal justice reform. Trying to make the justice system better for all involved.

After my release from prison in 2008, I married my wife, Ann Marie, and we have two children. Our love story is the part of my memoir that resonates the most with people—judging from what readers have overwhelming told me. I love my family, and I am very blessed.

I attended law school, clerked for a federal judge, and served as a faculty member at a law school. My redemption story is well known. The one consistent thread of my work is that I have opposed the Department of Justice in numerous forums, including in my scholarship, litigation, and criminal-justice policy reform. Just a few months ago, I won several cases against the DOJ on behalf of clients. Needless to say, many of the prosecutors in the DOJ are not fans of me.

Now to the charges: In October of 2023, I was charged with misdemeanor assault of my wife. The indictment was superseded to include four counts of misdemeanor assault, and seven felonies, including obstruction of justice and contempt. My trial will take place in June of 2025.

Because the case originated in the domestic violence misdemeanor division of the DOJ, two junior-level prosecutors were assigned (Monisha Rao and Katherine Ballou), and they have made major investigatory mistakes, preyed upon my wife and her mental illness, made false allegations against me in court, and taken extreme legal positions.

The two prosecutors, generally, are hell bent on destroying me, and thus, my family. Since the inception of the case, they have been in possession of videos showing some of the charged conduct. These videos flatly contradict the government’s narrative of the events. Put differently: the prosecutors are in possession of videos showing my innocence of the two charges that began this prosecution. Despite the wealth of evidence that I possess showing that my wife was sick and prone to angry and violent outbursts (of which the prosecutors were aware), they went forward with charges.

Let me be clear, the government is in possession of over 50 videos that I openly took with my cellphone showing that my wife would become verbally and physically abusive, when she was dealing with mental illness and substance abuse. At best, the videos also show that most of the times that occurred, I told her to stop, walked away, and left my house—for which I have 23 hotel stays in and around Washington DC over a two-year period. At worst, the videos show that I pushed my wife away from me or out of my bedroom in self-defense when she became physically and verbally abusive to me. Yet they charged me with assault all the same, even though the videos show I tried to deescalate the situation and acted in self-defense.

The prosecutors claim that, by bringing charges and taking this case to trial, they are protecting my wife and children. But after my wife was involuntarily committed and spent time in a treatment center for substance abuse last year, she told the prosecutors that she did not want the case to go forward because it was impacting her mental health. She also made clear that the ordeal was taking a tremendous emotional toll on our children. The prosecutors nevertheless went forward with charges and subpoenaed my wife and daughter to trial, which essentially requires me to subpoena my son to trial, thereby pitting my family against each other.

Can you imagine a trial in which my wife and daughter testify against me, while my son testifies for me and contradicts the claims made by my wife and daughter? The damage to my children will take a lifetime to repair, but somehow the government’s interest in winning a misdemeanor case was more important.

The prosecutors are also aware of several family friends who have witnessed some of these incidents between my wife and me, when she was experiencing mental health or substance abuse episodes. They have selectively chosen to speak with one witness who supports their version of the facts (even if that person spent almost no time around my family), while ignoring those who do not.

When my wife and children did not appear for the initial trial call, the prosecutors took the extraordinary step of having my wife arrested in Tennessee, further jeopardizing her mental health and the wellbeing of my children. So much for protecting my wife and kids! She was their victim-witness, but it did not stop them from having her arrested and placed in jail for several days. This is not the normal process, as many lawyers who litigate these types of cases have consistently told me.

The prosecutors then threatened my wife with serious charges of obstruction of justice and threatened to take our kids—charges for which they ultimately offered her immunity—predictably, enticing my wife to provide untruthful testimony about me.

Just three months ago, I became aware that my wife had illegally possessed and fired a gun, while taking a concealed carry permit course, after having been involuntarily committed and after making multiple suicide attempts the past few years. The government’s position in court, however, was that my wife attempting to obtain a firearm presents no harm to my children—and apparently not to the public, either. This extreme position has been a far cry from what has happened to my clients in similar positions.

These actions lead to a question: why are these prosecutors acting this way? My notoriety in legal communities—especially my work on criminal justice reform—painted a target on my back, and the two prosecutors certainly see my case as a career builder. Why else would they have jeopardized my wife’s physical and mental health, and that of my kids, over misdemeanor charges? There are far more serious cases and crimes are occurring in the District of Columbia each day. The amount of money spent on my prosecution alone could have allowed them to investigate and prosecute those more serious crimes.

Many people think the prosecutors are doing this because I was tied to President Donald J. Trump and helped President Trump pass the First Step Act, which DOJ vehemently opposed. Or because I “mentored” President Trump’s daughter, Tiffany Trump, while she was my research assistant at Georgetown Law. When the prosecutors brought these charges, they undoubtedly thought President Trump would be in prison, and not our next president.

I just keep coming back to the unusual way in which my case has been prosecuted and my family destroyed.

* * * *

This second article is written with great trepidation. For eighteen months, I have not spoken publicly about my case, nor defended myself. There is a reason for that. My wife has had mental health issues that predate our marriage, and her symptoms have gotten worse. She truly believes that I am abusive, and if I contradicted her story in any way publicly, I feared that she would commit suicide, which she has attempted many times over the past few years. In fact, she threatened suicide and was involuntarily committed after I would not plead guilty. I also did not want to put our private family business into the world. The only reason I write this now is because all these details will come out at the trial regardless of what I do. Our worst will be paraded for the world to see. My main concern is my wife’s and children’s wellbeing, and I cannot count on the system to ensure their safety.

I also write this because my health has declined, and I cannot rely on anyone getting my wife the help she needs. This is no small concern. When I moved back into my house after my wife and the kids moved, I discovered that she had disassembled every smoke detector in the house and had done so for over a year because she believed there were hidden video cameras in the detectors, while also possessing anti-surveillance equipment.

That was an incredibly dangerous situation for her and my kids. That is just one way her delusions impact their safety.

No matter what happens to me, I’m creating a record so that my wife will someday be forced to get the help she needs, so my kids are not in harm’s way. Any doctor treating my wife will be forced to understand her full range of symptoms because, as far as I know, she has never told a treating doctor about these symptoms for fear she will be prescribed as mentally ill. She instead told treating doctors that she was being abused, and the doctors would prescribe medications that my wife would consume, with alcohol, to commit suicide (I rescued her from multiple suicide attempts). I tried to get her help many times. But only my family, and our friends who have long witnessed her symptoms, believed me.

I get no joy in writing any of this. But these prosecutors will stop at nothing to destroy my family, and while I’m confident at trial, I can no longer ensure my kids’ safety—or that of my wife.

I noticed around four years ago that my wife was increasingly paranoid and delusional. It started with her thinking her phone was hacked and replacing her electronic devices every few months. Then she started covering the televisions with blankets because she thought the televisions were monitoring her and then talking to her. When we would go on vacation, she would immediately cover the television in the hotel room. The paranoia only grew worse when she started drinking heavily. Many of our friends have witnessed these symptoms.

Her delusions included the following below. She would deny that she ever made these claims, but she said these delusions in front of our friends and family. I also would record her on my phone when she was having a mental health episode, and she has made these delusional claims while I openly recorded her. And then I found her handwritten notes scattered around the house making many these same delusional claims.

· That I monitor her cellphones (my wife had all the phones in her name and her account our entire marriage).

· That our entire house was bugged (including smoke detectors, light fixtures, and appliances) and people were listening to her.

· That people are stalking her.

· That I took secret videos of her.

· That when she gets intoxicated it is because I drugged her.

· That I am a human trafficker of young women (she watched a documentary about human trafficking and then created a narrative that I am committing these horrific crimes).

· That I, and all our family friends, are members of a voyeuristic coven and participate in black magic (whatever that means).

· That I have prevented her from working the past several years, even when I have not lived with her, and even after our law partner agreed that her mental illness was significant enough that she could not represent clients.

· That all our family friends are part of some grand conspiracy and lie about her having mental illness.

My wife has been sick for a while. If she saw these videos of her being drunk and abusive, she would not believe them because she does not remember these events. She does not remember the nights she was physically or verbally abusive.

Even my wife’s own sister witnessed my wife become angry and violent, and witnessed my wife punch me in the face after I broke up their dispute—my response, again, was to just walk away.

My wife does not remember the nights I had to kick in our bedroom door because she was nonresponsive after having threatened to kill herself and then taken too many pills along with alcohol. Instead, she created a narrative in her head that I was a human trafficker, had hidden cameras stationed around the house, and that I’d break down the door to abuse her. Because of her mental illness, my wife has not worked for several years, rarely left the house, and alienated most of our friends with angry outbursts and false allegations against both them and me.

This video was taken shortly after the alleged assaults. It is my son, who was, tragically, an eyewitness to the entire ordeal, explaining what happened, even though he is deeply uncomfortable making these allegations against his mom. It is heartbreaking.

The other videos, which will be presented at trial, show my wife attacking me and me pushing her out of my bedroom and her repeatedly running into our bedroom door to attack me. Any bruise or mark on her body only occurred as I pushed her away from me in self-defense. I have several videos showing slap marks, bruises, and the like that happened to me, and in most of those situations, I just walked away.

As a final note, I love my wife. She has testified and made false claims against me at two grand juries, ruined my reputation, bankrupted us, and caused great harm to everyone around me, especially our children (and I’ve also failed in so many ways). But she is sick. She believes what she says, even the worst of her delusions. And the prosecutors have preyed upon her and her mental illness because all they care about is winning their case against me. I want her to get help and that has nothing to do with the case against me. I miss and love the wife I had before her illness. That has not and will not change.