2255 Motions and the People Who Will Rip You Off

Lee Ann who started this blog asked me to make a post on it, so here it comes.

I was a lawyer for 17 years and got into some trouble and ended up in Federal Prison as many others do. I wrote a book about life in Federal Prison and how you can be prepared and make the best of it. It can be found at WWW.FedsGotMe.Com I also did another book for families of inmates. It tells you how some things work in Federal Prison and it also tells you how to cope with Supervised Release and Halfway House, to keep you from going back to prison. It can be found at WWW.GettingOutofPrison.Com. I spent a long time (say 2 years) writing these manuals and I do actually keep them up to date with the latest things you can find about the subject. I would suggest that anyone here take the time to look at those sites. They also have photos of some prisons on them (more to come in the near future too).

I teach people about making the transition to prison life. I also teach them about those who do not have their best interests at heart. This post is about some of them.

This is more of a caution a lot of people who will legally take as much of your money as they possibly can. In the prison business (on the outside), you are going to find a lot of people willing to separate you from your money. They are “prison consultants”.

There is no training or regulation with this group (and I guess I’m one of them too in a way). If you have a problem with a lawyer, you can go to the State Bar Association who can help you straighten out a fee dispute or something. A lawyer is licensed. These people are not.

Some are fairly good and to some extent actually know what they are doing. There is me and Gareth Lasky (He does work involving RDAP and can be found at WWW.Glasky.Com) that I think you can trust, there may be a few others too. Generally, you need to be very cautious.

Generally you will find a few things here. First, they will promise you anything you want. If there is something you need, they will tell you they can handle it for you. They will also tell you they have a good “win” record. The one thing to remember in criminal law is that the deck is generally stacked against you. You should lose most anything. Things like furloughs and transfers, even if you meet all the qualifications, are routinely denied. Other motions win a small percentage of the time. If someone says write a check, and I’ll get you what you want, you may want to reconsider what you really want.

If you want a 2255 Motion (which is a motion to set aside, vacate or correct a sentence), it has to be done by one of two people. Either you do it and file it yourself or you have a lawyer do it for you and the lawyer files it. Why? Because when it gets filed someone swears they did it.

If you have a “consultant” (one who is not licensed to practice law) ghostwrite it for you to file; eventually time comes to argue it in front of a judge. It will take the Judge and the US Attorney about 5 seconds to figure out that you didn’t do the motion and you swore that you made the motion. So now you lied to the court, chances are you are not going to get anything (and you only get one chance to make this motion) and there is a chance you are going to prosecuted for fraud (like you need another Federal charge now).

So to have someone who isn’t a lawyer do it for you is asking for a disaster. Also what does one cost? A lot. For someone decent to do one, expect to pay over $20,000. So if someone says they can take care of it for $3000 or $7000, chances are they are not going to do it or what they produce is not going to be a quality product.

2255 Motions are hard to win for experienced post conviction attorneys. They also have to spend about 2 years in process, so don't expect an answer from one very soon.

There are also consultants who will promise about anything you want as far as the prison you want to go to, or try to get you a transfer, furlough, or something else. As you read my manual you will find that prison designation is handled by the BOP based on what the Judge recommends. The Judge will usually recommend whatever you ask for. There are rules for transfers and you need to start them yourself, the same for a furlough. These are the kind of things that are routinely handled by the system and don’t require outside assistance. When your relief is denied, it’s really easy for the consultant to simply say that sometimes we lose, but you have a good case and if you pay me some more money, I’ll do the appeal for you too. This is really tossing good money after bad.

Hourly fees are interesting in this area too. Non-licensed professionals shouldn’t be charging $500 an hour plus. In my best year, I charged a few hours on an hourly basis at $150 an hour. A lot for a good lawyer anywhere is $250 an hour, and in downtown Manhattan if you pay $500 an hour, you are spending too much. So if your prison consultant is charging you $500 an hour, it should be a sign and not a good sign.

I’ve also noticed that some fees seem to be variable too. If you are worth millions of dollars, a fee for prison preparation (about 2 days work at best) seems to suddenly increase to $100,000+. For the other poorer people it seems to run $5000+. Currently I charge $1250 plus expenses (subject to change) no matter what your net worth is. If you just read the book I worte, the cost is way less than $100. No sense taking you for your last nickle.

There are going to be a lot of “consultants” who are going to be saying some bad things about me behind their backs. I’m not here to be their friends; I’m here to see you don’t get hurt if I can help it.

Please take a look at my sites at WWW.FedsGotMe.Com and WWW.GettingOutofPrison.Com.

Mark H
P51Mstg@Aol.Com
Copyright 2009