Farmington » Five years of incarceration have changed him, music producer Weldon Angelos says.
Before he began a half-century stretch behind bars, he ran Extravagant Records in Utah, which produced hip-hop and rap. Now he helps operate the dental lab at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, Calif.
A high school dropout, Angelos says he's close to earning a two-year associate's degree in business from behind bars. He plans to continue his studies, maybe switching to English.
And should he overturn his mandatory 55-year term without parole for drug and weapons violations -- a sentence that garnered national attention with dozens of lawyers and former judges speaking out against mandatory terms -- Angelos says he'll toe the line.
"I've learned a lot in prison," he said in an interview at the Davis County Jail, where he's being held pending a March 6 hearing in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. "I've outgrown my old ways."
For now, Angelos, 29 and the father of three young children, is concentrating on what could be his last chance to get out of prison before he's old.
His current attorneys will try to convince Judge Tena Campbell that Angelos' trial attorney fumbled badly during plea negotiations with prosecutors. Had he understood the possible dire consequences of going to trial, Angelos insists, he would have agreed to a plea deal with a recommendation by the U.S. Attorney's Office that he serve 16 years in prison.
A favorable ruling could give Angelos a new sentencing. If the decision goes the other way, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Taking into account time off for good behavior, the Bureau of Prisons estimates his release date as Nov. 18, 2051, when Angelos will be 72.
Growing up in the Salt Lake Valley, Angelos said he ran with a rough crowd but wasn't in a gang. He ran into trouble in 2002 when he made three marijuana sales to a police informant.
According to court records, initial police reports on the sales mention nothing about Angelos carrying a gun. That allegation was added months later as a way to pump up the case, Angelos' attorneys allege.
In an affidavit, Angelos says he was willing to plead guilty to the three drug sales but was not guilty of a weapons charge. Defense attorney Jerome Mooney allegedly crossed out the charge on a paper in front of him, consulted a book on sentencing information and told Angelos that he was facing about 21 months in prison.
The lawyer also told him, "I can get you a year," Angelos said. After he declined the plea deal offer, prosecutors obtained a new indictment with more charges.
Mooney said in an affidavit that he believes Angelos' assertion that he was not armed during the drug transactions. He said after the government categorically rejected a plea deal counteroffer, he shifted his attention to preparing for trial.
While he pursues appeals, Angelos is serving time in a single-bunk cell at the medium-high security facility in Lompoc and has settled into prison life. His routine includes working in the dental lab, studying, exercising and doing research in the prison law library.
Angelos said he was writing music for a while but lost interest because "prison kind of kills your spirit." He says his company has two unreleased songs by Snoop Dogg, but he's not sure he would return to the music business.
Friends living in California occasionally visit but he has seen family members only a few times there, when they were able to make the trip from Utah. His biggest regret is that he's missing watching his two sons and his daughter grow up.
Angelos wonders if he caught prosecutors' attention by being in the music business.
"I still don't know why they attacked me so hard," he said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office denies any vindictiveness or unfairness in its handling of the case. In a court brief opposing any sentence reduction, prosecutors say the informant did tell police immediately after the drug buys about seeing a gun.
In ruling on Angelos' motion for a new sentence, Judge Campbell has rejected claims of prosecutorial misconduct and narrowed the appeal to whether Mooney was effective in plea negotiations.
Music producer Weldon Angelos was accused of selling marijuana to a police informant three times in May and June 2002, each time charging $350 for 8 ounces. He was indicted on one gun possession count, three counts of marijuana distribution and two lesser charges.
Prosecutors claim Angelos was affiliated with a violent gang, had a gun strapped to his ankle at one sale and a gun present in the vicinity at the other drug buys.
Angelos denied those allegations and declined a plea deal calling for a 16-year prison sentence. The U.S. Attorney's Office then obtained a new indictment with 20 charges that mandated a minimum 105-year sentence. When he asked to reopen negotiations, Angelos says, prosecutors refused. Prosecutors said they did consider his offer to take the original plea deal but rejected it.
A jury convicted Angelos in 2003 of 16 counts of drug trafficking, weapons possession and money laundering. One charge was dismissed, and the jury acquitted Angelos of three charges.
U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell reluctantly sentenced Angelos to a minimum mandatory 55-year sentence: five years on the first weapons conviction and 25 years each for the next two counts, stacked as required by law. The judge tacked on one day for the drug charges.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Angelos' appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case.
