Jamie Olis

I try to never post in this forum, but I have a fear this will end up here anyway, so I figured I'd put it here to begin with. Given the demographics of this site, I don't expect much symphathy for white collar criminals, but I thought I'd reach out to you anyway. You probably already have an opinion on this, as do I. I don’t think Jamie Olis is completely without guilt. I have to think that surely he had some idea that “project Alpha” had elements of illegality to it, but I can only imagine that if one of the Big Five accounting firms sold my company some type of structure, my first inclination wouldn’t be to question its ethics; after all…..shouldn’t the accounting firm be held ultimately responsible? Or....at least all the bosses above me who signed off on the project. In my mind, Jamie’s “sentence” should have probably been a fine—somewhere along the magnitude of five to ten thousand dollars. Even if he was truly innocent, this would have sent a message that people need to be more diligent in ensuring the legality of the things they are involved with. Instead, Jamie has been sentenced to 24 years in federal prison with a maximum time off for good behavior of only about four years. Certainly, that should be sobering to quite a few people, but I wonder what kind of message it sends when the real masterminds behind this project will be free. Needless to say, I think his sentence is wrong.

Regardless, here’s an e-mail written by Jamie Olis’ wife. If nothing else, it might show how easy this could happen to anyone. This e-mail was sent to the head of International Tax for the Houston office of one of the remaining big four (Jamie worked with this guy previously), and he forwarded it to some of his employees—including my wife. This is how I ended up with it. She doesn't come across as some rich b****, and she doesn't come across as particularly vindictive. She's just someone who, along with her husband, felt that he was innocent....and thusly decided to fight things in the courts. Feel free to forward it to whomever you think might be interested, and feel free to discuss.

Dear Friends-- This is Monica again- I apologize in advance for this long
e-mail... So many have asked what they could do to help Jamie and our
family. We appreciate your concern so much and we know so many of you are
hurting along with us. The judge was severely restricted by the federal
sentencing guidelines which were changed in November of 2001 and made even
harsher in 2002. The intent of course was to " get tough" on white collar
crime however it allows a person like Jamie to be held responsible for the
entire loss to shareholders and as the judge said, allows that determination
to be made as an "estimate" of loss rather than requiring any clear
evidence. This "loss calculation" made up the majority of the 24+ year
sentence given and it does not consider that the defendant did not profit
and had no intent to profit nor does it consider that the defendant had no
individual authority to have caused those losses nor their character, lack
of a criminal past or their family needs.

Just to set a small part of the record straight, it is undisputed that
Jamie did not individually act or have authority over any of the things he
was convicted of. He was held criminally responsible for these alleged
crimes because his boss, who was the sole witness of a "conspiracy"
testified (as required to keep his plea deal and reduce his sentence) that
Jamie was also in the conspiracy of people that committed those allegedly
unlawful acts. Jamie's boss testified that the CFO, many other Dynegy
employees/officers, external consultants and two highly reputable outside
attorneys were allegedly part of the conspiracy making Jamie, by law,
criminally responsible for all of their decisions, advice and work whether
or not he knew or understood what was being done beyond his own work. Also,
this alleged "scheme" that Jamie is being held responsible for and is
described in the press, was a common type of transaction in the industry and
the concept was peddled to Dynegy by Arthur Anderson (also now represented
as government witnesses) and other experts as a legal and common
transaction- and evidence shows that his company's Board and Executive
Officers agreed to enter into that type of transaction and assigned
employees to a project team to accomplish the transaction. Jamie was not an
officer of the company at the time and did not manage anyone at the time.
He had no decision making authority on this project and checked everything
with his boss who later testified against him. He also did not pocket one
penny and had no intention of profiting in any way from the job he was
assigned to. Yet, if something doesn't change, he will never have a chance
to be a part of his baby daughter's life until she is well into her college
years.

I know some of you recognize that this could happen to almost anyone and
especially anyone in a public company is in danger of being held responsible
for estimated shareholder losses. It seems the lower you are in the
hierarchy, the easier a target you are for the federal prosecutors
especially since we can't afford the tens of millions that these CEOs and
CFOs can afford to defend themselves against the millions of taxpayer
dollars that the prosecutors have at their disposal. Most of us also cannot
afford to be suddenly unemployed and unemployable because of an indictment
and the public accusation- No real proof is needed at this stage but the
effects of the accusation are financially and emotionally devastating and it
typically takes years to get to a trial. The maximum loss per the guideline
was $100 million which added almost two decades to Jamie's sentence. For a
company the size of Dynegy, that meant about a 30 cent drop per share which
happens on any day at any time for any reason and for no reason. The
mandatory sentencing guidelines are dangerous because they are blind to the
defendant, the circumstances, and are being used as a sledgehammer against
low and mid level employees- in essence, you are guilty as accused because
the downside is too tremendous to risk fighting for your innocence.
Prosecutors seem to target lower level employees in order to intimidate them
into pleading guilt, give them a "deal" with the understanding that they
will have to earn their freedom back through testimony against someone
higher up or, as in our case, someone lower because that is the only way to
earn your freedom back to be with your family. It doesn't seem to matter to
them that the testimony is opposite from previously sworn testimony and it
doesn't matter that it contradicts the written evidence and it doesn't even
matter that the testimony isn't factually possible- so long as it provides
"substantial assistance" in convicting another. How do you overcome this
type of prosecutor coercion when you are innocent? I understand that one
can be held responsible for the acts of others in a knowing criminal
conspiracy to commit a murder or traffic drugs- the intended crime there is
obvious to even an average brain like mine-- but how can an employee of a
legitimate company with a legitimate and recognized hierarchy be held
responsible for the independent and expert decisions (expected to be lawful)
of those in authority? Jamie and I were so sure a jury would see his
innocence, we were wrong. Please know that this can happen to another
person you care about especially when working in a public company because
your exposure is much, much greater.

Although the lead prosecutor told the court almost a year ago that they had
a "mountain of evidence" and would be indicting many others, they never did.
Watch this case and see if the executive officers who were already named as
"co-conspirators" are indicted or if they continue to go after non-officers
and people who can't afford to defend themselves- and then offer them deals
for testimony. According to news reports, it seems that the US Attorney,
Michael Shelby will not comment on whether they will pursue the higher ups
however he claims this sentence is a message to CEOs and CFOs- could the
message be that we will go after your subordinates and if they don't give
up, we'll let them rot in prison for your decisions but the actual decision
makers who can afford to fully defend themselves are safe? Their definition
of "cooperation" means "substantially" help them convict whoever they are
pointing their finger at. Prosecutors are craftily climbing their own
version of the corporate ladder but doing so on the lives of innocent people
who thought they were doing a responsible and legal job for their company
but who can't bear the risks of fighting for their innocence at a trial.

Another difficult issue is that the length of this sentence would likely put
Jamie- who has never committed a crime and has never raised his hand or his
voice in anger- in a higher security prison. According to Bureau of
Prisons, he would be sent to a medium security prison which is one level
under maximum security (every decade of the sentence automatically moves you
up a security level regardless that the alleged offense is non violent).
That alone is terribly frightening for our family- had I believed that Jamie
might be found guilty, I probably would have done everything I could to
convince him to take a deal just to keep him safe, as I'm sure any wife
would do to be sure that her husband could at least safely come back to his
family eventually. I do not mean lying about someone else and damaging
their families to get him home sooner -anyone who knows Jamie knows that he
would never agree to do that, no matter what- but simply surrendering to
this frighteningly unjust system and pray that he could get back home in
time to see our baby girl starting her first day of school. Please know we
are not government bashers- our families have served this government for
many decades in distinguished military service and dedicated civil service.
We would not have believed the authority of our government could be so
abused as to facilitate this unjust prosecution except that we endured it
first hand.

I am asking anyone who is concerned about these federal sentencing
guidelines and how they are being applied to write or e-mail your
congressman and the U.S. Sentencing Commission- who rule on these
guidelines. Judge Lake said that this was Congress' intent. I will not
criticize Judge Lake and I ask that you don't- I believe he was following
the law as written. I do believe that the sentencing guidelines are
dangerous and are not being used as Congress anticipated. I hope you will
join me in letting Congress and the Sentencing Committee know that and ask
that the sentencing guidelines be amended to allow for justice and greater
discretion to judges who are in a better position to weigh the factual
differences in each case. This doesn't take away a judges ability to impose
a devastating sentence to an Executive Officer of a company who knowingly
made decisions that clearly caused significant harm to others- however, it
may free lower level people who believe in their own innocence from being
horribly victimized by the federal prosecutors. By the way, to my
knowledge, there is no real recourse against the government or its attorneys
for incorrectly pursuing a prosecution or for inappropriately influencing
witnesses. Apparently, they are only limited by their own consciences, and
that is very very frightening.

Here is the website to get to your Congressman.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Also, please copy your e-mail to the U.S. Sentencing Commission members who
approve and rule on these guidelines: Their e-mail address is
pubaffairs@ussc.gov mailtoubaffairs@ussc.gov and ask that your e-mail be
forwarded to each of the Sentencing Commission members.

Those e-mails should take no more than a few minutes--U.S. Senators are
harder to reach but can be of great assistance in speaking on your behalf.
They require an authorization to do so and I am attaching the link to your
U.S. Senator by state. It is http://www.senate.gov/ Please go to the
Casework section of the Senator's website and there will be mailing
instructions for letters and a mandatory authorization form that must be
mailed in order for the Senator to assist. Writing your Senator and sending
the signed authorization will take more time to complete than the above
e-mails and will cost a few postage stamps. If you are willing to take that
time to take this additional step to solicit your Senators' help, my
daughter and I would greatly appreciate it.

Finally-My goal is 4000 letters/e-mails to Congress and the Sentencing
Commission (I know Robin & Ben will get us to a quarter of this goal
single-handedly). So I hope you will forward this request to anyone else
who is concerned about this. If you do decide to forward this however,
please delete all of our e-mail addresses. Although I know you will send it
to others who are concerned and want to help, this may be forwarded well
beyond that group and we have found there are some people who don't
understand what this is about but have hateful intentions toward Jamie and I
want to reduce any additional exposure that he, our family and our friends
have to anything like that.

Thank you so much for your help and your prayers! Jamie is fighting this
verdict through an appeal, but if there can be some relief on these
sentencing guidelines, maybe others won't be damaged as we have been --
Monica

P.S. I am attaching a sample letter to give you an idea for those wanting
help to get started. Any portion of it can be copied and pasted into an
e-mail but please express your own sentiments as you wish in your e-mail.
The second page of the attachment includes quotes from experts on this
matter. Thank you again--

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