Douglas Cameron - Criminal that I am: a memoir

For my mother and my father: thank you for loving me anyway

Alexei Alexandrovich, she said, looking up at him and not lowering her eyes under his gaze, directed at her hair, I am a criminal woman, I am a bad woman, but I am the same as I said I was then, and Ive come to tell you that I cannot change anything.

T OLSTOY, A NNA K ARENINA

To know your own illness is the proper remedy.

R UMI

CONTENTS

AUTHORS NOTE

T his book has been created from court filings, transcripts and dockets, e-mails, text messages, journals, notes, newspaper articles, and, more than anything else, my individual and necessarily imperfect recollections. Many of the names have been changed. I have omitted people and events where they are not integral to the story. With the sole exception of my co-conspirator, none of the people included or omitted had any knowledge or involvement in the illegal acts described in this book. No one Ive known would ever do something so stupid.

CHAPTER 1

Busted

I can fall asleep anywhere. Airports, movie theaters, bathroom stalls. Once during law school, seated in the gallery of an overcrowded courtroom during a murder trial I was supposed to be observing, I managed to curl into the fetal position, legs pulled to my chest, head pressed against the pew. I awoke only when I felt a crude poke to the shoulder and opened my eyes to see a court guard who had but six words for me: Wake your ass up or leave.

I take my aptitude for sleep seriously, not only because of the pleasures it offers but also because of sleeps unparalleled ability to provide refuge from all waking hells. It therefore strikes me as odd in the wee hours of July 26, 2010, that I suddenly sit upright in bed, as though someone has just doused me with water. I look around my bedroom for the cause. There doesnt seem to be one: the clock indicates that the time is just shy of five in the morning, and even through my groggy disposition I can see that everything is accounted for, nothing is out of place. I am in a brief period between two jobsone has concluded the week before, and the other does not begin for several more. Lacking obligations, I issue a personal sleep decree and go back to sleep.

An hour later, I hear my doorbell ring. Having already determined that there is no reason to be awake, I ignore it. Probably the mailman, I tell myself.

I suppose only moments pass before I hear the doorbell ring again. I dont stir. The doorbell rings again. And then again. Soon, the doorbell is being pressed in such rapid succession that its wail is now an uninterrupted siren from the front door.

Confused, and not a little annoyed, I slink out of bed and make my way to the living room. Once there, I realize that the cry of the doorbell is accompanied by a heavy pounding, one that causes the door to shake with each blow. This is not the mailman, I think.

No, even in my half-slumber, I know that this is clearly something much more ominous. I ask through the door, Who is it, please?

The pounding and ringing stop.

Its the Department of Justice.

I wish I could say that Im baffled as to the reason why the Department of Justice is at my doorstep. But I will venture that most people who are visited at an unconventional hour by law enforcement have a decent idea of why they are there. I do, at least. And so, when I hear these words through the door, I feel a heavy dread run through me.

I close my eyes and press my forehead against the door in the hopes I can possibly will their presence away. This doesnt work. After a moment I clear my throat and say, Yes?

Open the door.

The mans request seems easy enough. I move my hand toward the knob, but before I turn it, a lawyerly thought passes through my brain.

Why? I ask.

There is a pause on the other side of the door. From the agents silence, I deduce that this visit is not accompanied by a warrant, not one for my arrest nor one for the search of my home. This means that I dont have to open the door. I dont have to do anything at all.

The agent seems to follow my thought process. Just open the door. Im starting to wake up your neighbors.

Sure enough, I hear the chain and latch of the door of my elderly neighbor, Patrick, a sweet man in precarious health who always stops to ask me how I am doing. Even after today, he will not discuss what he sees this morning. When I run into him in the hallway, he will only ask me how I am doing. Im fine, I will tell him. Im just fine.

Now that poor Patrick is awake, and the agents are not going anywhere, the options are few. I take a deep breath. This is it, I think. This is where it all begins.

I open the door. I see the first of two federal agents, a burly white man in his late forties. He doesnt seem happy that I have made him wait at my door. Next to him is a black woman, whose age I will not guess, in a pantsuit and glasses. I later learn that she is not on my case but has accompanied Burly Man because of a Department of Justice policy requiring male agents to visit female suspects at home with a female agent in tow. This is a good policy. The expression on Burly Mans face frightens me. Lady Agent softens things up a bit.

Even though I know why theyre here, Im still in shock. I have stepped out of my body and am watching this exchange happen to someone else. The active part of my brain has been switched off; I have only at my disposal its default settings. Im processing everything matter-of-factly, as though Burly Man is here to fix my cable, not to advise me of a criminal investigation that is being conducted in my honor.

Burly Man shows me his badge. I look at it in the hopes it provides some loophole about why he should not be standing in my foyer. I find no loophole. He places the badge back in a black leather case and then pulls from the inside pocket of his jacket a white envelope.

Im here to give you this letter, he says. And I want you to read it right now.

I take the letter from his hand. My default settings are in charge. I dont have to read this right now, I think. And I dont want to read a letter whose contents I already know, especially not in front of Burly Man, who will probably be able to detect that I already know. I stare at the envelope, wondering if there is some way I can get out of this.

I look up at Burly Man. Read it, his eyes insist. Now.

I open the letter. It is a target letter. As I read, I imagine a faint bulls-eye appearing on my forehead.

The letter is written on stationery for the United States Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York. The letter, addressed to me, states its method of delivery as By Hand. The letter also says that I am a target of a federal investigation, that I should be aware that the Office plans on presenting this investigation to a grand jury. Would I like to come in to meet with the prosecutors office and say something for myself? Or would I prefer to be indicted? Sincerely, Some Prosecutor.

As I read the letter, I do not react to its contents. I am mindful that Burly Man is watching me closely. Lady Agent, on the other hand, appears to be somewhat disinterested. I see her looking around my apartment as though she is hoping something better will grab her attention.

I hand the letter back to Burly Man. Its for you, he says, as though bestowing a gift. Keep it.

Okay, I say.

Do you have anything youd like to say about the letter? he asks.

If its all right, I say, knowing full well that it is, Id prefer to speak to an attorney before I say anything.