Clarence Aaron a 23 year-old college student, Clarence received three life sentences in a drug conspiracy trial based on the testimony of informants. Can you imagine serving 3 life sentences based on testimony of informants?

This is Clarence Aaron story.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows...

How did you get involved in this plot?
Because I hooked up two friends of mine. I had some friends out of Mobile, and they was in some type of drug activities, and I met some guys out of Louisiana that I became friends with, and I found out that they was into some type of drug activities. So me going back and forth from college home, I used to talk about these guys.

They'd had nice cars and thing like that, and I thought that they might be dealing some type of drugs or something like that. So one particular day, my friend Robert called me at Louisiana to ask me, could I introduce the two parties? I said, "Yes." He say, "Well, if you can introduce us, I'll get you fifteen hundred dollars, if you can introduce us we can come to some type of agreement." I said, "Oh, I have no problem with that." So I got in touch with Gary and told Gary that my friends out of Alabama wanted to meet him. He said okay....[so I] took Robert over to Louisiana to meet Gary....

Were you involved in trafficking?
Not directly. But I was involved because I had introduced the two parties and the two parties didn't know each other well enough to trust each other.... Neither party trusted each other so I had to be there just to smooth the way between the two parties....

So you were involved?
Somewhat I was, yeah. The only thing I can see I was involved in was introducing the two parties. As far as them making some type of transaction, whatever they wanted to get from each other, I don't know, but I did introduce the two parties.

If you were involved, why are you complaining?

Why? Because I felt that I received too much time. I got charged with things that the other guys in my conspiracy did not get charged with. I'm the lowest end of the totem pole. Only thing I did was introduce the two parties, and I got charged with the most of everything. I got the most time out of everybody.

What did the others get?
Robert got five to seven years, I think Tino got between 12 and 14 years, and Gary got 20 years. James, my cousin, he got no time. Probation. Nothing. He just walked straight out of the courtroom.

Why did they pick on you?
Why? Because during the time that I got incarcerated and prior to trial, I think they wanted me to cooperate, but I ain't have nothing to cooperate about .... The only thing I did know was that I introduced the two parties, I felt that both parties did have some type of activities, but that's as far as I could give them. I couldn't give no name, no places, none of that and so ... what could I do?

Your friends conspired against you?
I feel that my biggest mistake was if I never post bond at the county jail, maybe everything would be different because I would have known then that they were conspiring to put everything on me. They had to find somebody [to be] the scapegoat. They had to find somebody to ... point the finger at ... to get [their] time reduced, and I was that person. I had a clean record in college at the time,[the] semester just starting, the jurors granted me bond with a lot of stipulations, so I didn't get a chance to know what exactly was going on until trial, until I heard them testify on the stand ....

How much money did you make?

$1,500.
Was it worth it?
No.

For the rest of the story.

This is Clarence Aaron story.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows...

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