A real-life horror story: You are a felon and you didn't even know it

Fox News.com ^ | December 29, 2015 | Greg Glod

[Kaslin]

Krister Evertson is the type of person we all strive to be: Eagle Scout, National Honor Society member, worker with the deaf and hearing impaired, and all-around law-abiding citizen.

Krister sold raw sodium, which is perfectly legal and used in variety of applications. Raw sodium must be shipped by ground transportation, not through the air. Unbeknownst to Krister, even when he checked off "ground" on the shipping label, UPS may ship by air.

Krister was arrested at gunpoint. He was found not guilty, but the government wouldn't stop there. After spending $430,000 in tax dollars, the government subsequently tried and convicted Krister for abandoning the "toxic" materials he clearly and carefully stored under another's supervision. Krister spent nearly two years in federal prison.

Krister's story is no far-fetched exception to some arcane law. Thousands of law-abiding citizens have been convicted under the more than 300,000 federal provisions, most of them administrative -- in other words not passed by Congress -- that carry a criminal penalty.

[Elsie]

I research it so you don’t have to!

[Elsie]

Note the year.

It was thought to be attracting UFOs.

[Elsie]

Why would you want to get rid of perfectly good sodium?

Early MythBuster programming...

[The_Reader_David]

Different bogus charge, thus double jeopardy did not attach.

[The_Reader_David]

There is a simple fix for this sort of problem: Congress and each of the several states need to pass statutes requiring that there must be a showing of mens rea before criminal charges can apply to violations of regulations or other "administrative law".

[tacticalogic]

Uhhh, noooo. Alaska Airlines, for one, operates 'combi' aircraft - half cargo, half passenger.

The information I found when I researched UPS passenger flights said they did experiment with passenger flights, but due to FAA regs, did not take passengers other than UPS flight crew members on those flights. Apparently the experiment didn't pan out and they have discontinued those flights.

[mad_as_he$$]

Yes, But it was UPS. Shipper is still responsible. They also charged him with improper storage.

[tacticalogic]

Early MythBuster programming...

Meh.

I still miss Junkyard Wars.

[Hulka]

Wow.

You pay for a service (ground) and then the shipping company decides to send via air without asking you, and you are responsible?

Wow.

[Hulka]

Too many FAA regs regarding operation of the aircraft.

Easy for a dual use aircraft but FAA makes it unworkable.

[Hulka]

I appreciate the description, as I had no idea.

(I was thinking something along the lines of simple table salt).

[Scrambler Bob]

If this guy was tried and convicted, then the government managed to convince twelve jurors of his guilt. ===

This guy was aquitted at his first trial.

Then the feds brought more charges. Fed lawyers and prosecuters, funded with unlimited money, make specific charges, and very limiting jury instructions.

So these second charges were found guilty.

[Scrambler Bob]

He left the rest in storage as he fought the charges.

When he was acquitted, the feds claimed that the stored stuff had been abandoned.

[Scrambler Bob]

That would be Randy Weaver.

[Elsie]

Oh YEAH!

That was cool; too!

(And looked like the lot out behind my barn!)

[DouglasKC]

If there’s one thing the government IS good at it’s collecting money. They are relentless in their pursuit of a buck. It’s the ONLY way they can thrive since they build or make nothing. The questionable services they provide are hopelessly on a loss curve. Therefore the ONLY way they can fund them is to collect money through taxes, fines, tariffs and other similar revenue streams.

[sharkhawk]

No he went to jail for shipping the sodium via air. Would you want your family on an aircraft that was transporting sodium? BTW he needs to sue UPS if indeed the packages were labeled correctly. EPA and DOT rules and regulations make it the shipper’s responsibility to insure no violations occur but UPS seems to be at fault if they didn’t inform him that aircraft would be used in “ground” shipments. More behind the story stuff:

I don't think merely marking it as a ground shipment would be enough. Ground just means he's paying a cheaper rate. It might go by air if that's more convenient for the shipper. I think he has to inform UPS he's shipping a hazardous substance, and it can't travel by air. If he did that, than no problem, If he just marked ground shipping, I think he should be in trouble.

[sharkhawk]

My question is why didn’t they go after UPS? The guy clearly marked ground but they ignored his request and shipped it per air anyway, knowing probably what was in it.

The question is did he mark it as hazardous material? I'm sure UPS would charge more for that, vs. just a ground package. If he just asked for ground delivery, than UPS might ship it by air if it was more convenient.

[sharkhawk]

The article implies that in this case UPS did ship it

Did UPS know he was shipping sodium?

[mkjessup]

That would be Randy Weaver.

Right you are! Chester and the entire cast of Gunsmoke would not have stood for any of that craziness!



(wow, Dennis Weaver's family killed by government agents, who knew?) ;)