Rose, a sweet kind lady in town comes by now and then to leave me a jar of jam or a basket of vegetables in my outside frige, then she'll call and tell me to look in the frige for the items she has gifted me with. How nice.

Rose comes from a large family, a salt of the earth, hardworking, decent, Christian, tax paying, voting, respectful family who send their sons off to fight in any wars their presidents tell them they should, folks who keet their noses clean, no scandal there, no gossip, folks who are discreet and are the epitome of what Americans are--or used to be.

But Rose's family is heartbroken. They have a brother in a Federal prison in Kentucky, a brother who is elderly and frail and in poor health, and so far from home now. Rose said yesterday he is not doing well.
This is how he got in prison.
After Katrina, FEMA & MEMA hired debris removal contractors to remove debris from 300 feet around citizen's homes. You had to go to the courthouse in each county to sign up for this. The Board of Supervisors in each county was to oversee this operation.

Rose's brother was on the Board of Supervisors. Last year the brother and another Supervisor was indicted by the Feds for accepting small sums of money, kickbacks from the contractors. Rose's brother had a sorry ass lawyer who did nothing to defend him. The other Supervisor had a competent lawyer and got him off scot free without even a slap on the wrist even tho they had the same charges against them.

I think the Federal prosecutor felt like she had to pinch somebody to justify spending government money to prosecute these men. So they chose the weakest one--a frail old man who was bamboozled into maybe what he did. He is an innocent at heart. I bet he never even had a speeding ticket in his life. All kinds of crap went down after Katrina, but you don't hear of anybody being prosecuted. What a farce.
WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO ANYBODY TO SEND THE ELDERLY MAN TO FEDERAL PRISON? For Pete's sake he's not Bernie Madoff.

I wrote a letter to newspapers saying why not send him home on house arrest, with monthly probation visits, anything so the old man could continue to see his family doctor as he dies.
In New Orleans, during Katrina, a couple who owned a nursing home, left 35 bedridden patients to drown in their beds because they didn't want to bother with the expense and effort to evacuate their patients after being warned to do so. That case went to trial and the couple got off scot free too (funny how THEY got out just fine, heh?)

But a little old man in a Federal pen. That's injustice, major injustice.

susil