Explore Harmony

I’m deeply saddened that my long-time partner, Rob, has received a substantial prison sentence, and I am writing to help in coming to terms with it for our friends.

In the past 4 years leading up to his conviction, he wasn’t able to share his story.  Now that his Appeal Opening Brief has been filed, it’s a public document and can be viewed here.

Because the Brief document is long, this is my own simplified account to our community, illuminating the ethos of this case — how can anyone be safe in a giant, multi-tiered workforce?

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Summary:

Consumer product companies often use direct mail to get their offer in front of potential buyers. Think of catalogs of home goods, baby products, vitamins and wine clubs. Businesses create the product and promotion, get lists of consumer names and mailing addresses from several data companies, and use the U.S. postal service to mail out their offer.

A data/list company serves thousands of legitimate marketing clients and makes them promise to observe the law through a service contract. Each marketer also has an agreement with the U.S. postal service, representing for their bulk mail permits that they are legitimate businesses. 

Because of this, employees working at a data company didn’t believe that it was their duty to monitor the mailers. It’s physically even impossible, as they don’t see the thousands of new ad campaigns that their clients are sending out on a daily basis.

It was found that a few of their clients ran bad businesses.  Those few companies asked consumers for small amounts of money for sweepstakes and astrology — i.e. send us $20 in the mail in exchange for a chance to win a prize — but never intended to fulfill the offer.

The DOJ investigated those businesses, but they also investigated all of their vendors, including the list companies who ended up paying enormous fines, although they were not responsible for their clients’ businesses.

But it wasn’t enough.  You can’t put a corporation in prison, and a few “fall guys” were needed.

Dozens of people worked in the data company to service the disreputable mailers as part of their regular jobs, but only 2 individuals were prosecuted over a period of 7 years, my partner being one of them.

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I’m writing this to hold up this man — strong, kind, loving and humble — whose professional life’s work has been to nurture and support people around him.  

Diamonds are created under extreme pressure, and I’ve had the privilege to watch one form in front of my very eyes.  

Thank you for your support!