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John DeLario -- #40218-080
50 Years -- LSD Conspiracy
I was a middleman in an LSD drug conspiracy in 1987. On the day of my arrest I was driving in my pickup truck with two passengers. One of the passengers was the government informant, the other an innocent passenger.
I was in possession of 5,000 doses of LSD, coming from the source's house and on my way to deliver it to potential buyers. I was pulled over and arrested by the local and federal authorities and later charged in a related case in which I sold 10,000 doses of LSD to an informant who testified against me at trial. This brought the total doses of LSD in my possession to 16,256 (six-and-a-half grams).
This was my first drug arrest. I had a past criminal record of misdemeanors. My trial attorney, the pre-sentence investigator, and sentencing judge each led me to believe that if I was convicted I would be sentenced under a parolable statute. According to sentencing transcripts, government briefs, the PSI report, letters from my attorney addressed to me, and finally the sentencing judge, Walter Smith, all government officers of the court expected me to have a sentence that included parole. The judge wrote my mother explaining the reasons why he sentenced me to 50 years, reassuring her that I could become eligible for parole in ten years.
I should have been sentenced under "old law," but I was sentenced under the newer "mandatory minimums" that had abolished parole. Apparently none of the officers of the court was informed of the repeal of parole during its final twelve months of use - at least not Austin, Texas officers of the court.
In all my research over the last eleven-and-a-half years I've spent in prison, I have found that I have the longest sentence for 16,246 doses or six and half grams of LSD.
50 Years -- LSD Conspiracy
I was in possession of 5,000 doses of LSD, coming from the source's house and on my way to deliver it to potential buyers. I was pulled over and arrested by the local and federal authorities and later charged in a related case in which I sold 10,000 doses of LSD to an informant who testified against me at trial. This brought the total doses of LSD in my possession to 16,256 (six-and-a-half grams).
This was my first drug arrest. I had a past criminal record of misdemeanors. My trial attorney, the pre-sentence investigator, and sentencing judge each led me to believe that if I was convicted I would be sentenced under a parolable statute. According to sentencing transcripts, government briefs, the PSI report, letters from my attorney addressed to me, and finally the sentencing judge, Walter Smith, all government officers of the court expected me to have a sentence that included parole. The judge wrote my mother explaining the reasons why he sentenced me to 50 years, reassuring her that I could become eligible for parole in ten years.
I should have been sentenced under "old law," but I was sentenced under the newer "mandatory minimums" that had abolished parole. Apparently none of the officers of the court was informed of the repeal of parole during its final twelve months of use - at least not Austin, Texas officers of the court.
In all my research over the last eleven-and-a-half years I've spent in prison, I have found that I have the longest sentence for 16,246 doses or six and half grams of LSD.