A Geek in Prison - A Life Series by Charlie Shrem (Part 1 - Sentencing to Surrender)

in #story8 years ago (edited)

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December 19th 2014, I stood up facing the judge and said:

Bitcoin is what I love and all I have. It’s my whole life. It’s what I’m on this earth to do, is to help the world see a financial system that does not discriminate and provide for corruption, and I think that bitcoin will do to money what e-mail did to the postal service. It allowed everyone to be equal. People in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, will have the same opportunities now with bitcoin, and because of this now, because you can move money instantly and information on a peer-to-peer system. And I think that’s really important. And if your Honor grants me that, I’d love to be back out there helping the world and making sure people don’t do stupid things like I did.

In a letter to the Judge a few days earlier, my lawyer had written:

Had the Greeks known of crypto-currencies and of certain provincial Brooklyn neighborhoods, a tragedy could have been written about a boy who, through Dionysian passion and a little hubris, helped nurture an idea—bitcoin—that was new to the world, and that could change how the world—the whole world—passed value from one person to another.

This new idea would take the boy from from his neighborhood. The boy would see himself as an almost sacred guardian of this new idea, charged with the awesome responsibility of bringing it out of the darkness and into the light of widespread, mainstream acceptance. However, in the chaos of developing the new idea, he would drop his guard, and allow the dark forces to caste it in shadow.

He would be to blame. He would be viewed not as its protector but as its destroyer, the destroyer of the one thing—the idea—he loved most. He would be sent back to his provincial neighborhood and, for a while, would live in his parents’ basements, all the while dreaming of the time he could return to his lifelong task of helping—of being just one of many—to bring this new idea further into light.

The rest of the story remains to be written.

However as fate would have it, I was heading to prison.

The court room cleared out while I stood back to take it all in.

Putting all those factors, as well as all the other facts under Section 3553(a), which the Court has considered, into the equation, the Court thinks that the appropriate sentence is two years. Accordingly, the defendant will be sentenced to two years in prison, 24 months.

Two years in Federal prison. At this point I had been under house arrest for about 18 months and I thought I would get probation or maybe another year of house arrest, but two years?

The New York Times wrote:

Before Thursday’s hearing in New York federal court in downtown Manhattan, Mr. Shrem, in jeans and a dark suit jacket, sat alone on a bench outside courtroom 14B, his right leg crossed over his left as he read a book. He appeared calm, fidgeting only slightly once he entered the courtroom. Known for his charisma, he was instead stoic, his voice unwavering. (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/charles-shrem-bitcoin-supporter-pleads-guilty-to-federal-charge/?_r=0 )

Looking back, this day, December 19th 2014 was one of the most important days of my life and even one of the happiest. Why? Finally there was light at the end of the tunnel. I was facing 30 years and went to sleep every night since my arrest thinking that I would spend the rest of my adult years in prison. When the Judge said two years, I breathed a sigh of relief. After good time, it would be a little over a year. I could make it, I think.

It was agreed I would be given 90 days to get my life in order and prepare for my self surrender on March 30th. At this time, Courtney and I were living in New York City, just enjoying things that I wouldnt be able to do once I was in jail. We spent the days and nights living like it was our last. I continued to be apart of the Bitcoin community, skyped into conferences and consulted for different companies to pass the time until my impending incarceration.

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Two months later, March 1st and I’m not ready. I had been living life as if nothing was wrong and I wasn’t about to go to prison. How do you mentally prepare yourself for this? You don’t. You physically get prepared, drive up to the prison and walk in.

So thats what I did. Called up the moving company and packed up my life into boxes. Cancelled my lease, suspended my cell phone number, added multi factor to my email accounts, Bitcoin accounts, and hoped to god that a hacker wouldn’t get into any of my account while I was away.

  • Cell phone: I called up Verizon and had my phone number suspended. I needed to keep my number and many cell phone companies allow you to pay $10 a month to keep the line in a suspended state.
  • Gmail: I made sure 2 factor is working and gave backup codes to my loved ones. It's important to make sure I had enough storage to cover a years worth of emails. I had to pay Google $10 a month for extra storage on my various email accounts.
  • Bitcoin wallet- Without giving too much away, I had to secure various wallets. I even set up honeypot wallets assuming someone would try and break in (Spoiler- someone tried)
  • Physical stuff: In our apartment the furniture was rented so scheduling a pickup was easy. We had a moving truck come a day before and pickup the rest of our things.
  • Bank accounts: Spoke to my bank and let them know my situation. At the time I was banking with the Internet Archive Credit Union and was good friends with their staff. They understood and suspended any transfers in and out of my account.
  • Power of Attorney - Very important before going to prison, or even a surgery. Have someone able to make decisions on your behalf.

March 30th, 530 AM it was freezing in New York City. We all packed into the car and drove up to Lewisburg, PA. After a quick breakfast at Panera, which would be my last, we drove up to the prison.

My good bye to Courtney was quick. I told her I loved her and would see her at the first visit. I didn’t cry even though I wanted to, I needed to be strong. I walked through those doors and did not look back.

It would be 13 months before I walked though those doors again.

Next post, Prison Day 1.

-Charlie

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@charlieshrem- really excited to read these stories but a question but me: how much time and energy to you expect you'll be putting into Steemit? do you plan on reinvesting back into steem power? Your posts will likely always be in the top trending category. That's a responsibility. Just curious of your thoughts. Sorry for the off thread topic. Don't answer if you prefer not to. They are rather pointed questions...

Hey, it's a great question that I plan on answering in a separate post. I have not been powering down, and have been curating more and more every day in addition to authoring. Steem is still very new and I want to see it succeed long term.

Many thanks for responding to that...

That powering down thing is the one flaw that I personally see in the system. There doesn't appear to be an incentive to remain powered up at the moment. Game Theory that scenario out and everyone is racing to power down and sell off their Steem due to the opportunity costs and the fact that all the whales are doing it.

Looking forward to reading more! If you have an ear with @dan or @ned, please ask them about the lack of incentives to remaining powered up!

The incentive for me is to gain more VESTs while others are losing VESTs. Long term, it's the VEST count that really matters, both in terms of influence and economics. Those who already have more VESTs than they need should power down to spread that influence around. If the market can't sustain the price, then new opportunities will arise for people to get in at a low price.

Do you have plans on leaving the country? I would never want to live back in the states again.

Please excuse my username.

I was so happy to see that you had joined us here on #steemit. I was also very happy to read the news article I saw upon your release.

p.s Your quote upon sentencing is one of my favourite crypto quotes ever. I hope I have not got the quote wrong, in anyway. Please let me know if I do, and I will edit it. I respect you so much.

“Bitcoin is what I love and all I have. It’s my whole life. It’s what I’m on this earth to do, is to help the world see a financial system that does not discriminate and provide for corruption, and I think that bitcoin will do to money what e-mail did to the postal service. It allowed everyone to be equal. People in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, will have the same opportunities now with bitcoin, and because of this now, because you can move money instantly and information on a peer-to-peer system. And I think that’s really important. And if your Honor grants me that, I’d love to be back out there helping the world and making sure people don’t do stupid things like I did."

-- Charlie Shrem, speaking to Judge Rakoff just before being sentenced to two years in prison.

As a fellow crypto dev, I feel the same. We need more people like you in this world. Not locked up in a cage. They have it all wrong. Change is coming.

p.p.s If you ever need a crypto dev, let me know. I work on Ethereum projects/smart-contracts and love the industry as much as you. It would be a great honor to collaborate with you. I built www.etheroll.com and I am currently in discussion with some experienced IoT hardware guys to see how we can change the world by working on collaborative projects in the crypto space in the (very near) future.

Welcome back, we sure did miss having you around.

Kind regards,
Optimistic

I forgot to add that to the post ! Thank you !

Dec.19 my Birthday!

Great story and I really like your pictures too. Thank you for your inspiring sharing, thrive on and namaste :)

Yep, Great story :)

Great writing man, thanks for sharing.

I was completely cut off from my family for about 3 months when I went in. But I have to say that that moment of judgement, is a moment of relief. You were lucky to be under house arrest, this was impossible in my situation. I was crammed in a 4x5m cell with 3 or 4 other people, mostly who did not speak english, and a l lack of common decency from the ones I got stuck with the first three months eventually forced the remand centre administration to relocate me.

Things were not so bad for the 4 months following this first horrible period, stuck in with mostly north african arabic speakers.

The next cell I was in, at least they spoke a language I was starting to learn, Bulgarian.

I somehow over a 2 year period, despite any support, managed to remember my google password, or at least, was able to recover it. But it was touch and go. A couple of years later I completely lost that account by being clever as I was travelling, homeless and penniless, north through Italy.

I didn't mind, in the end, that I rolled over my online identity. I had reinvented myself many times before, and I expect I may still do this again, and I have already mostly abandoned my Facebook account, and I will be pleased in fact when I can divest myself of my Google account completely, and depend only on a password and distributed systems to secure it.

Maybe I am fortunate that I had very little to lose when they put me away. It dulled the loss a lot. I had in my brain the one and only number still, that would never be erased, my mother's phone number. We had no right to free phonecalls of any kind in the Bulgarian prison system. The cost for calling my mother was something like $20 for about 10 minutes. It pained me to have to be so cut off from everyone, but I think it sharpened me, and made my long declared rebellion and opposition towards the system that was encaging me, even stronger, and more certain.

I even wrote about this in my journal, which I sadly decided to shred and throw down into the sewerage system. But I remember enough of what transpired. I will be writing more about it in a followup post soon.

For true rebels, like Charlie, and myself, these experiences only cement our certainty as to what we are fighting against. In my case it was my personal crusade against drug prohibition. I went down, did my time on a cross, and I was born again and they only made a better enemy by being unfortunate enough to not have killed me during the arrest. They came pretty close. But that's too bad for them :)

So raw. So transparent. Such inspiring authenticity. Thank you.

Great response!

Did you do any physical preparation? Lift weights, try to put on size, take self defense classes, etc?

I was so overweight and drinking from stress I didn't do any preparation for that, plus I knew I was going to a non violent place

I must say, I am very interested (and looking forward) to hearing more about your time in prison. I don't mean this to be an exercise in 'schadenfreude'. That is not my angle at all.

I would like to hear the story of what it is really like to be in prison from a man that I know I can trust, a man that has the same basic belief systems as me.

I just wish it didn't have to be so expensive for you. In the sense that it cost you 13 months of the single most precious resource all of us have here on this earth - time.

I think @tlc said it best...

I am a capitalist, but I am also a humanist

-- Toni Lane Casserly

When you are also plagued by the burden of unrealised dreams, even 12 months is too much. Especially when it cuts you off from your only support, your family, who are thousands of miles away. But in the end, if they don't kill you, they make you even more certain about what you have dedicated your life to.

This hit me right in the feels:

I didn’t cry even though I wanted to, I needed to be strong. I walked through those doors and did not look back.

The insanity that is government control of human storage and transfer of value will hopefully be seen as archaic, primitive, and even savage. I hope the future judges the rulers of this time for the violence they inflict on their fellow human beings.

Yo Chuck! How many parts to this one? 6? 10? Genius! Listen, we know you are a believer, and you took a lot of damage for the community .. someone had to be put through the state meatgrinder at the beginning of the revolution, and you were it ..or one of a few. Much respect for persevering and coming out the otherside still able to smile and young enough to rebuild.

BUT!

To keep it entirely real you have to mention that you saw stacks n stacks of dollah dollah bills when you first realized there was money in crypto. Do not be too much the angelic martyr ..to be believable tell it real ..including the illicit shit .. I know if I were you I would have been ass deep in hoes and empty Crystahl bottles (see! I'm so poor I don't even know how to spell it!) ..making random phone calls with a serious case of cotton-mouth, trying to find a way into the arms trade!

Peace!

Next post, Prison Day 1.

He spent 13 months in prison.

So, hopefully :

13*30.42 =395.46

hehe. I hope so.

#amancandreamright

Hopefully we won't get Mr. Shrem into further trouble post release by invoking son of Sam. But seriously, I think he now needs to pursue expungement and put this episode behind. Great story telling, however.

That must have been so hard to do and unbelievably scary of what the next 13 months had in store. Looking forward to the next instalment.

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