Exhibit Letter from Mr. Ashcraft — USA v. Ashcraft (Dkt. 20.1)

Record facts

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California · No. 2:22-cr-00087-KJM · Doc. 20-1 · 2022-12-05 · Docket on CourtListener

Full text

Your Honorable Chief Judge Kimberly Mueller, 
I write to you as a man who lost his way, a man who up to 2017 led a law abiding, ethically 
guided and morally founded life. I raised my son from 3 years old through adulthood as a single 
parent with little to no involvement from his mother. I was the sole source of income and 
parental support.  I learned very quickly that I enjoyed fatherhood. Although my father’s 
methods could sometimes be physically or mentally abusive, it was not without cause or 
foundation, and ultimately, represented core guiding principles critical to the ongoing continuity 
of our society. I chose not to employ the militaristic methods of my father and was able to raise a 
very respectful, well behaved, intelligent, contributing member to society. 
Where I would normally feel pride in saying I am a good man, a man of morality, ethics, and 
justice, after committing the crimes I perpetrated, I only feel the shame I brought upon myself 
and the betrayal to my core beliefs, my family, my partners, my community, and my country, in 
a time of National Crisis. I blame nobody but myself.  I am extremely remorseful for my actions 
and am ashamed and hurt knowing that I have hurt people that trusted me and who had looked up 
to me or counted on me. I did not plan to destroy years of trust and hard work. 
The intent in the crimes I committed was an act of desperation, a failure in my character, in my 
choices. Knowing all well the consequences of my actions I still chose to pursue those choices 
that led me here.  
I dealt with the unfairness of the situation and had no intention whatsoever of taking money I 
was not authorized to take until a major life change took place in February 2017. This major 
event and change in my life began when I chose to start a relationship with a friend of, at that 
time 8 years, Rhonda Morton. I had a fairly close friendship with her throughout the 8 years 
trying my best to be supportive of her as a friend with the abuse she was suffering from husband 
at that time, at the same time keeping a friendship only so as not to upset my situation or hers or 
make her situation worse due to the fact that her husband was a violent Norteño gang member 
and violent retribution was feared if it should ever even be assumed that we were engaging in a 
relationship.  
Unbeknownst to me throughout the years of physical and mental abuse, compounded with 
Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Manic Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder all 
complicated by many traumatic sexual, physical, and emotional events throughout her childhood, 
Rhonda had developed an Alcohol and Methamphetamine dependency. At the time of our 
conception of the relationship in February I was not aware of Rhonda’s drug use or alcohol 
dependency. I was elated, in love, finally in a relationship with someone I had wanted to be with 
since I met and who had felt and did feel the same way about me. Someone who shared the same 
dreams, same views on family life and children, and lifestyle, or so I had thought. 
By the time I was aware of Rhonda’s alcohol and drug dependency I was deeply in love and 
committed to Rhonda and I could not in good conscious just turn my back and leave her because 
of her alcohol problem. She needed help and someone to care and love her and believe in her. I 
believed I could be her hero and she believed I could be her hero. And it did begin to go that way 
until the symptoms of the Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar coupled with the drug and 
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alcohol dependency; the eminent fear of abandonment and pain fueling paranoia, anger, rage, 
fighting, more alcohol and more drugs. I chose to stay with Rhonda despite these issues. I chose 
to stay and fight with her rather than leave and worry about my own life. I knew a fight of this 
nature would not come without its consequences and there would be a heavy toll possibly even 
end with her hating me when I was only trying to help. 
On a personal level I felt as if I was cursed to be around. It had destroyed my family, my fathers 
drinking driving my parents to divorce and then again later my mother’s second husband and his 
drinking problem nearly leading to my mother’s suicide and downward spiraling depression. I 
had seen Alcohol win too many times, destroy too many families and friends. What I didn’t see 
is the true, raw, personal nature of Alcoholism. I fortunately despise the taste of Alcohol and do 
not like the effects that come along with it and do not drink at all. The close personal attached 
nature of our relationship spewed her emotional dysregulation, rage, and years and years of 
trauma unchecked without therapy, no recognition of potential psychological causes, no 
recognition of personal responsibility, causing a huge chaotic reciprocating nightly theme of 
being accused, projected, ridiculed, bullied, argued with, one moment I am her idol and the next 
moment I am the devil.  
I was kept up all night long trying to calm an Alcoholic down from raging over the slightest 
things, even a thought, misheard conversation, or something that was a complete fabrication of 
the mind and paranoia common with the use, particularly the inhalation of methamphetamine. I 
was still working every day, many long hours, being kept up all night, receiving calls at work 
yelling and accusing me of things. Everything was beginning to get so far beyond any stressful 
situation I have ever encountered in my life. I had never loved someone so much but at the same 
time, never in my life been treated so badly and hurt so badly by someone. I knew that wasn’t 
my friend, that wasn’t who she was, she didn’t want to be like that, she just wanted a chance at a 
normal life, it was the Alcohol and Drugs, they had taken over her mind and body and were 
taking their toll on her health mentally and physically. 
Unfortunately, the stress of the relationship, some infidelity on her part, the chaos of her moving 
people into my house against my wishes, doing things against my wishes, arguing, and throwing 
alcoholic tantrums until she got her way, blowing all of my money on her friends and family, 
excessively wasting food, and giving everything of mine and that I bought her away and then 
complaining she had nothing. To make matters worse in my own mind, my confidence and ego 
were shattered, I was allowing it all to happen when I could have just left… At that time, I had 
my reasons for allowing it, thinking it would show her someone was willing to trust and believe 
in her and stand strong through her mistakes and truly not abandon them. I expected to 
recognition of some authority on her part and her not having to ask me for anything to be 
empowering and develop trust, but instead it only made things worse, and she still complained 
that I controlled her when in fact I did not try to control her in any way. I knew it was in her 
nature, particularly at that time in her life to get what she wanted by any means. Because I knew 
if I didn’t give it to her, she would get it from someone else. That was a fatal error in my 
thinking process, I was only slipping myself into a relationship of codependency with and 
alcoholic and drug user. 
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When the sleepless nights, fighting, embarrassment, fear, anger, confusion, hurt, pain 
accumulated along with all of the stress and worries I was experiencing at work, especially given 
the drop in my performance due to sleepless nights and constant drama and or fear of drama, and 
my money was very quickly depleting I chose to snort methamphetamine one evening with one 
of her friends she brought around my house, pouring my heart and troubles out to them while 
they offered me a line saying just one line won’t hurt, it will help you relax. I had done drugs a 
few times in my youth and thought I could handle the temptation to continue using such a drug. I 
was very wrong and did it again a few nights later, and then a night later, and then daily. It was 
my choice to do it and I continued to do it because it made dealing with the fighting and drama 
and sleepless nights bearable. It made it so I could deal with the fighting and drama and still go 
to work the next day just to come home to more drama. It made it easier to deal with the fact that 
I chose to stay with someone who cheated on me. It made it easier to deal with the fact that I was 
letting an Alcoholic run all over me and destroy my house and my career. It made it easier to 
deal with the poor choices I made. 
Soon my drug use became apparent to my partners, and I was asked to take a drug test. I agreed 
and took a drug test which came up positive for methamphetamine. I explained the situation I 
was into the owner’s son and he was unusually understanding and talked his father into giving 
me another chance. From that point on I was treated very poorly by the son and I began to feel 
depressed and angry and began using more and more methamphetamine. Money soon began to 
run very low with the last of my life savings being spent on my Wife’s father’s funeral. 
After my Father-In-Law’s funeral my wife’s twin sister Laura came to live with us to mourn her 
father and that turned into a chaotic emotional nightmare with constant fighting and drama. I was 
using methamphetamine daily just to cope with all the stress and the fact that I felt terrible with 
what I had done. I continued writing invoices and paying them to fill the sinking hole of money I 
was making by allowing it to be spent and wasting it fruitlessly gambling, which prior to my 
drug use I would never go to a casino, being an Accountant I know the statistics. But the drug 
use, depression, self-sabotage, shame, guilt, stress, fear, fighting, and stress of a relationship and 
dealing with the daily and nightly alcoholic outbursts it became the only moments of calm and 
escape I had. 
Having been using the drug now for a little over two years, I was still working with my partners 
and the Pandemic hit. In my drug induced delusion I justified applying for a PPP loan in the fact 
that I could use the money to make money with crypto mining or another business opportunity 
and pay back the loan and also pay back the money I was not authorized to invoice and pay from 
my partners. Because of the sheer number of businesses applying for PPP loans and my own 
mental cognition issues caused by the methamphetamine use, It was difficult to maintain 
deadlines. Because of that I applied for multiple loans using them as backup loans in case one 
did not come through. My intention was not to apply for multiple loans and make a big grab for 
money. I applied for multiple loans out of fear that my loan application may slip through, or not 
get in to underwriting or approved in time; or as in one situation the bank that received the PPP 
deposit froze my bank account leaving me with no money not even my personal money and I 
chose to apply for another loan. 
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By the time all the damage was done I had accumulated quite a few loans and through my drug 
induced delusion and cognitive impairment I had lost complete track of the financial situation I 
had put myself in. Again, still under the delusion that they were just loans and if I wasn’t able to 
pay it back it would be a civil issue. Again, not a justification, but a delusional premise that I 
conjured in my three-year drugged haze. This three-year haze came to an abrupt end when after 
numerous near death incidents with my wife’s health due to complications from the consumption 
of alcohol and the sum of my shame and guilt and disappointment in myself and others we both 
decided to do the right thing and work together to pull ourselves out of the hole I dug us into 
before we lost everything. My wife was not aware of any of the financial dealings whatsoever, I 
purposely omitted any financial knowledge to her because I did not want her to be an accessory 
or get wrapped up in any legal issues with the choices I made. 
In October 2021 my wife and I began attending outpatient rehabilitation, Cognitive Behavior 
Therapy, and counseling. Along with eating healthy, abstaining from drug use, and cutting all 
ties with anyone we knew or know that uses drugs or alcohol. We have both been clean and 
sober since October of 2021 and we both are very sure we will never go back to using drugs ever 
again. Ultimately throughout the entire 3-4 years of my marriage to Rhonda, I have helped her 
through some very terrible times. When Rhonda began a relationship with me, she made a dead 
halt in her fast-paced nomadic free living chaotic lifestyle to being home, not being abused, not 
knowing what to expect, and left to face herself and the choices and situations she has gone 
through in her life. I can honestly say I have never in my life met someone who has gone through 
so much trauma, with a terrible childhood where she was molested and hurt by her own family 
and people, she trusted to one of her exes that tried to kill her and ended up committing suicide 
by cop right in front of her. The emotional trauma she has experienced alone is a testament to her 
strength and will to live. 
In going through all this and since our sobriety Rhonda has begun learning about herself, 
learning to love herself, learning that she doesn’t need anyone but herself and she has gained a 
lot more independence than she has ever had before. Her ex-husband kept her in the house and 
sheltered her and would not allow her to get a driver’s license, go to school, or get a job. She is 
now enrolled in nursing school, starting her own business cleaning homes, studying for her 
driver’s license. I also enrolled in school to pursue my Bachelor’s Degree in Data Analytics and 
have recently been hired with two jobs working for different companies in a remote home office 
capacity as a 3D Cad Designer and Product Designer. 
This has all been a preface for the question I am about to ask you. Your honor, I am a humble 
man. I know the difference between right and wrong, I am eager to redeem myself not only in 
my own eyes but those of my family, peers, and community. I have no excuse for what I did and 
I am deserving of any punishment you and or the courts in your wisdom and experience set forth. 
I will accept your decision with respect and without resistance of any nature and I will make the 
best of any sentence set forth to improve myself and make a positive lasting impact on those 
around me. 
I am not sure if I am deserving of leniency, but I know my wife and our children are deserving of 
it. I say that because this is a critical situation that my family is now facing and of no fault of 
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anyone but myself. If I did not have family who depend on me, depend on me for their emotional 
and physical wellbeing, I would take my sentence without request or deviation. However, as I 
said my family is in a critical situation. My wife as I stated has been diagnosed with Borderline 
Personality Disorder, Major Manic Depressive Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder. She has been 
admitted to the mental hospital on a few occasions and was officially diagnosed by a medical 
professional. Her mother and father have both passed away, what remains of her family are drug 
users and nothing but bad news.  
My wife has nobody to turn to. No friends, no family, no driver’s license, no formal education, 
no job experience. She was never given the chance to get those things before and now after all 
she has worked through, I would dare say comparable to many years of intensive psycho-
therapy, sure will power, strength, and a desire to be an upstanding member of our community. 
Neither my wife or myself are affluent, we have no life saving for her to pull from to support 
herself during my incarceration. These circumstances will undoubtedly halter any progress she 
has made and more likely than not send her spiraling in a depression and back to using drugs and 
alcohol or taking on a subcultural lifestyle in order to survive. My wife and I went through nearly 
four years of intense arguing, fighting, communicating, and getting to trust and know each other. 
I went through what to me was one of the most challenging events in my entire life. So much 
was sacrificed, so much time, so much life, so much heart to have it all fall apart would do no 
service to my wife, our children, our family, or the community. My wife also has legal shared 
custody of her underage children who depend on us in so facto depend on me and without me 
and their mother and a safe home to live in they risk falling into the abysmal gang culture that is 
prominent where they would have to live with their father. 
Compounding matter further my wife has a twin sister who also experienced a lot of traumas 
through life and who is also experiencing mental health issues. However, her mental health 
issues are of an entirely different caliber. She has been diagnosed with Bipolar Schizoaffective 
Disorder bordering diagnosis of Schizophrenia. She has audio and visual hallucinations, 
delusions, talk obsessively to demons, yelling and sometimes screaming vulgar obscenities, and 
marked as gravely disabled and unable to take care of herself by a medical professional. She like 
my wife has no family or friends to care for her and my incarceration would inevitably preclude 
her spiral to the streets, drug use, and a terrible existence with no chance of pursuing any realm 
of normalcy in her life. 
My incarceration will negatively impact and endanger the lives and wellbeing of my wife, my 
sister-in-law, and our children. I accept that if that is the way things proceed than that is of my 
own doing and nobody’s fault but my own. They depend on me for more than just food and 
shelter, I have become a beacon of trust and stability and hope to them. A positive influence on 
her children. A glue that has held us together and allowed my wife and her children the freedom 
of independence. I have been a good stepfather in always talking with them, taking interest in 
what they were interested in and reinforced their interests by whatever means I could provide. 
I thank you for your patience and in you taking the time to read so much when you have such a 
heavy caseload and so much more important matters to attend to. I feel ashamed to even be 
taking your precious time away from more critical human matters to deal with my negligence 
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and poor decisions. I do not want to waste any more time or money of the people of this great 
country, I have already unfairly and unjustly taken from my friends, neighbors, and community. I 
have complied and assisted honestly and forthright with the FBI, the prosecutor’s office, the 
court and those involved by any means possible to reduce the time and resources that my actions 
have taken away from potentially more critical matters in our society. I am truly sorry for all the 
time, money, and energy I have wasted of all the people and organizations involved with the 
investigation and prosecution of the crimes I committed. Truly sorry to all those that trusted me. 
Truly sorry to my neighbors, my peers, our public servicemen and servicewomen, government 
officials, our forefathers, and to our amazing country I am blessed to born into. 
Your Honor, I humbly submit and accept all responsibility for my actions and I ask of you as a 
human of good nature, one who is in pursuit of knowledge and truth, one who is curious of the 
world around me, one who has limitless potential and a true means and ability to give something 
back to this world. I have not lived anywhere near my potential and my ability to contribute to 
our society and to bring people together. I ask of you your leniency in sentencing me for the 
crimes I have committed. I do not ask leniency of punishment; I only ask the court and your 
honor for the chance to remediate my poor choices and actions. To make right what I have 
wronged. To balance with the scales of justice and to regain balance within myself. I ask of you 
to allow me to serve my sentence incarcerated at home by means of ankle monitoring and or any 
monitoring and assurance set forth to assure the courts that I will maintain sobriety, follow all 
orders placed upon me by the court, and follow the terms of my sentence. I ask this of you and 
the court because I have a wife, a sister-in-law who is gravely disabled, and children depending 
on me. I have already let them down and I will not serve them any good being incarcerated in 
prison where I cannot provide for them and be there to support my wife in her times of need. I, 
my wife, my friends and family are all very certain without me present their lives would 
critically altered and endanger their wellbeing. I deserve to be punished and I am being punished 
and will for a very long time as this follows me through my life. The personal toll it has brought 
on my conscious has been almost unbearable as it is not in my nature to commit such horrible 
acts, to make such horrible unintelligible choices. 
Please allow me to serve this punishment with honor by allowing me to continue allowing my 
wife and our children to gain their independence and confidence and hope for the future. By 
allowing me to serve my time in service of my family and my community and not in a prison 
costing my neighbors and fellow Americans hundreds of thousands of dollars. Please allow me 
the opportunity to atoll and remediate my actions through the struggles of our society with my 
wife and children who need me very much. I assure you; I swear on all that is sacred, holy, and 
that I love and cherish that I will work diligently to pay back the money I have stolen, I will 
work and love my family and honor my family and community. I will grow and commit myself 
to the perseverance of good and honesty and never ever again depart from a path of good will 
and will never divert from the path of a law-abiding citizen. 
 
 
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I would like to Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you are able to allow me to 
serve my incarceration at home. I know it will only serve to fortify my children’s future and the 
future of my wife and her sister and allow me to truly atoll for my wrong doings. 
Thank you, 
 
Aaron Ashcraft 
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