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Hey, everyone. Ellie here wishing you a very happy Friday. Yet another surreal, unpredictable week. I guess the headline could be Donald Trump goes to jail very, very, very briefly to surrender down in Fulton County. But who would have ever thought that we'd be seeing all this play out? Alas, we are. I do want to focus this week, though, on a different group of people tied up in these cases. As always, thanks for listening. Love to hear your feedback to letters at cafe dot com.
Bye.
But before you exhale entirely, there is some bad news, too, or some potentially bad news. You're listed as a co-conspirator in the indictment. Hello? Hello? Did you drop the phone? Yeah, I'm still here. Look, it's not great, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be, but it also could get worse. So let me explain.
In any indictment, prosecutors typically use full proper names only for the charged defendants. Everyone else, like you, gets some sort of generic label. If prosecutors have no reason to think you were involved in any crime, they'll just call you something innocuous, like Person 1 or Witness 2 or the accountant or the bystander.
Unfortunately, you didn't get one of those cushy titles. It looks like instead you're a co-conspirator or CC for short. Yeah, I know the prosecutor's description makes it about 99.7% clear that the anonymous CC is in fact you. So what's with all these labels? It's mostly a convention. Prosecutors have this general policy that they don't name uncharged people. They wouldn't want to sully the reputation of folks who haven't actually been charged after all.
even if the entire world can tell immediately that it is in fact you. Remember Individual One, that mysterious guy from the Michael Cohen case who in January 2017, quote, had become president of the United States, end quote? I wonder who that man of mystery might have been. Anyway.
You're now a CC, a co-conspirator. I wouldn't go get T-shirts made up to brag about it, but it's better than defendant. Oh, and no, it's not just you. In Jack Smith's federal election fraud indictment, there's only one defendant. You know who? And then six co-conspirators. It was so obvious who they all were that the news channels were able to identify them and call out the names on the spot as they first read through the indictments live on air.
And then in Fannie Willis's state level case out of Fulton County, she charged 18 people, including the former president yet again. And then she dropped the co-conspirator label on 30 more. I agree. That's a big swing. So let's think about what you're going to do next.
Basically, we've got two choices. Option A is to hold tight and do nothing. Sometimes, and I'd go so far as to say often, but definitely not always, and not even almost always, but sometimes, prosecutors do eventually get around to charging people like you who they've originally labeled as co-conspirators. Maybe they don't quite have the proof necessary to charge right now, but then they get something new. Maybe somebody flips, for example, and then they bump you up from CC to defendant, or
Or sometimes they plan to roll out the charges sequentially. Here, for example, we know Jack Smith is rushing to get Trump to trial before the election. He won't say that explicitly, but it's obvious. So it might be that he indicted the former president first and alone and plans to add you and the others sometime down the line, maybe soon even.
But on the other hand, it might be that you never get charged. After all, the prosecutors clearly have drawn a line of some sort between the people they've chosen to charge so far, the defendants, and you and your fellow co-conspirators. Maybe they just don't have the proof. Maybe they've already bitten off all they care to chew. We can't know for sure, but you might well be in the clear beyond a little reputational blemish. So we can opt to lay low, stay quiet, and hope the storm passes.
but it also might get worse while we're waiting. If you don't want to roll the dice and wait, then there's option B. I can bring you in. Okay, let me explain. What that means is I'll get on the phone with the prosecutors and I'll tell them you're willing to consider working with them. Sometimes prosecutors use that co-conspirator label to accomplish just this, to turn up the pressure on people like you and hope it prompts you to flip.
If they're interested in what you have to say, and I'm sure they will be, then we'll go in and we'll meet with them. You'll need to tell them everything, you know, all the bad things you've done, plus anything that you know about anyone else. Yes, that includes the former president. And yes, if any of those people go to trial, you'll have to take the stand and testify. And yes, this will all happen in public. It's an all or nothing deal. I'm not telling you it'll be easy.
If you do that, and assuming you were part of a crime of some sort, and let's be real here, you probably were, then the prosecutors will make you take a guilty plea. I know. Why would you plead guilty when you haven't even been charged yet? I get it. It's counterintuitive. But hear me out. Because in a way, this is your safest option. If you go this route and you cooperate and you do it right and fully, then at the
End of all this, you'll get a sentencing letter from the prosecutors. They call it a 5K letter after the law that it's based on. And believe me, that is the golden ring for somebody in your shoes. If you get a good 5K letter, you will set yourself up for a massive sentencing break, possibly even probation, given that you've got no priors and you aren't charged with a violent crime here.
Want some examples? Well, the most famous one is Sammy the Bull Gravano. No, don't get offended. I'm not saying you're like the notorious Gambino underboss, but listen what happened to him.
The guy went in and flipped on John Gotti, of course, the infamous Scambino crime boss. Sammy admitted that he took part in 19 murders. No, no, you heard me right. 19. And you know what sentence he got? Five years. And back when I was a prosecutor, I did plenty of cases just like that. Guys who committed more serious crimes than what you might have done, cooperated, got their 5K letters, and walked with little or no jail time. Every case is unique, of course.
But if a hitman who dropped 19 bodies got five years, then a relative patsy like you, no offense, you'd stand a shot at probation. I can't promise you anything, and it would depend a lot on which judge we draw, but you'd have a chance to walk here.
Of course, if you do flip, even if you end up getting a full pass from the judge, I can't tell you life will be easy. You know the former president is going to come after you. He'll attack you on social media. He'll call you every name in the book. He'll spend the rest of his life torturing you. And yeah, we've seen some scary examples of deranged followers acting on his words. So I can't tell you life will be a breeze, even if you go this route.
Fortunately, his people are not paying my legal fees and you're able to afford me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be giving you such candid advice. And if you did choose to flip, I'd be gone and you'd have to pay for a different lawyer out of your own pocket. Lucky we're not in that scenario. I know this is all a tough choice. You're in a kind of purgatory, really. Do you want to wait and hope for the best? Or do we go in and cooperate and try to head off the worst?
For Donald Trump, it could make the difference between conviction and a busted trial. And for you, it's one of the most important and most difficult decisions that you'll ever make. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.
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