Letter to Judge Roman, February 13, 2025 — United States v. Jacob Carter (Dkt. 276, S.D.N.Y.)

Summary

A letter from the Law Offices of Jill R. Shellow PLLC, Document 276, filed 02/13/25, dated February 13, 2025, to the Honorable Nelson S. Roman in United States v. Jacob Carter, 21-cr-681 (NSR), Southern District of New York, for the sentencing of Jacob Carter on February 27, 2025. It asks for a total sentence of 24 months in prison. It states that the Probation Department recommends a downward variance to a total of 84 months, and argues that recommendation relies on incorrect and incomplete information. The letter recounts his upbringing in Mount Vernon, his Air Force service and his financial ruin, and states that he accepts responsibility for his actions. It ends with the signature name Jill R. Shellow.

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Cite this document

“Letter to Judge Roman, February 13, 2025 — United States v. Jacob Carter (Dkt. 276, S.D.N.Y.).” Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/court-filing-no-7-21-cr-00681-dkt-276-s-d-n-y-38171848a3/, SHA-256 097027b9d791981e25472a29f0ead00456a0350bdc1784a4fed0b206b90c9d19.

Full text

Case 7:21-cr-00681-NSR Document 276 Filed 02/13/25 Page 1 of 22

L AW O FFICES OF J ILL R. S HELLOW PLLC

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
15 Chester Avenue
White Plains, NY 10601
jrs@shellowlaw.com
212.792.4911 (Telephone)
203.258.1463 (Mobile)

February 13, 2025

BY ECF AND BY HAND
The Honorable Nelson S. Roman
United States District Court
Southern District of New York
300 Quarropas Street
White Plains, NY 10601

RE: United States v. Jacob Carter, 21-cr-681 (NSR)

Dear Judge Roman:

This letter is submitted for Your Honor’s consideration when you sentence
Jacob Carter on February 27, 2025.

Mr. Carter is not the person who represented himself in the pretrial
proceedings and at trial. That person’s writings appeared to be those of someone who
has no respect for the United States Constitution, rule of law or courtroom decorum.
That person’s behavior and attitude toward the proceedings appeared to be that of a
man who denies all government authority. And that person appeared to disrespect
the Court. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The journey that led Mr. Carter to Your Honor’s courtroom is not linear. But
by the same token it is not mysterious. The goal of this sentencing memorandum is
to explain the journey, introduce the real Mr. Carter to Your Honor, and justify why I
am asking that Your Honor sentence Mr. Carter to a total of 24 months in prison. I
recognize that this is a big “ask,” but by the time Your Honor gets to the end of this

Admitted: NY, CT, DC
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The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 2

submission, my hope is that I will have demonstrated why, even in the face of serious
fraudulent conduct, 24 months is sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve
the goals of our criminal justice system.

The Presentence Report
The Probation Department calculated that the advisory Federal Sentencing
Guideline is 135-168 months on the Indictment’s fraud counts followed by 24 months
for the aggravated identity theft. The Probation Department’s recommendation is
that Your Honor vary downward to a total sentence of 84 months – 60 months for the
fraud followed by 24 months for the identity theft. Id.

The Probation Department interviewed Mr. Carter in March 2024 without the
presence of counsel, and Mr. Carter did not have an opportunity to raise objections or
request corrections before the Final Report, dated May 2, 2024, was filed. Yesterday,
we submitted to Your Honor and the Probation Department a request for extensive
corrections to the PSR.

We respectfully urge Your Honor to view the Probation Department’s
recommendation as flawed because it relies on incorrect and incomplete information.
For example, Mr. Carter never understood the importance of telling the Probation
Officer that he fully accepts responsibility for his conduct (see Jacob Carter’s letter to
Your Honor in Exh. A), nor did the Probation Department know that after the PSR was
filed, in September 2024, Mr. Carter literally saved the life of another inmate at MDC
(see Special Act Acknowledgement memorandum from the MDC Warden and
Certificate of Appreciation for Exemplary Pro-Social Behavior together in Exh. B.) The
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The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 3

Probation Department recommendation was made without benefit of this
information.

The Journey

All journeys have a beginning, a middle and an end, and the path of a journey
is usually told chronologically. Mr. Carter’s journey starts in Mount Vernon, where
Mr. Carter grew up. The middle is his exemplary military career followed by his fall
into financial ruin (exacerbated by the pandemic). The beginning of the end of Mr.
Carter’s journey is his arrest, the pretrial proceedings, the trial, the sentencing that is
yet to come, and the life that Mr. Carter will lead when he is released from prison.

This memorandum tells the story of Mr. Carter’s journey starting with Mr.
Carter’ arrest, trial and conviction in Your Honor’s courtroom. The story then goes
back to the beginning – to Mount Vernon – to explain how Mr. Carter came to be in
this place. 1

Arrest, Trial and Conviction
Jacob Carter has no criminal history, nor does he have any significant personal
experience with the consequences of rule-breaking. When he was arrested, he began
his legal education on the Internet. As with all defendants who cannot afford counsel,
at the initiation of these proceedings, counsel was appointed. Unfortunately – as

1 This memorandum gives an overview of Jacob Carter’s social history.A thorough
recitation appears in the Mitigation Report, Feb. 13, 2025, prepared by Noah Friedman-
Rudovsky at Exh. C.
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The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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sometimes happens – Jacob and his counsel were a bad fit. Jacob felt that he and his
lawyer were not able to communicate. To make matters worse, no one ever advised
Jacob that if he and his lawyer had insurmountable problems that the Court could
appoint a new lawyer – someone with whom Jacob could hopefully develop a trusting
relationship. So, Jacob – believing that no one would protect his interests in the
proceedings decided – even in the face of Your Honor’s thorough allocution – to
represent himself. And Your Honor designated the appointed lawyer to be Jacob’s
stand-by counsel.

We have become accustomed to turning to our computers for answers when
there is a fact we do not know, or a system we do not understand. More often than
not, we get helpful and reliable information. Sometimes, however, an Internet search
first spits out the wrong information. And when we feel like the answer to our query
will be life altering, we do not always scrutinize the Internet’s response as carefully
as we should. Rather, we dig further into the wrong information, and fall headfirst
down a rabbit hole. When there is no one we trust to explain why the Internet was
wrong and to help pull us out of the hole, we end up digging ourselves deeper and
deeper into that hole. That is what happened to Jacob Carter.

Jacob knew that he was in real trouble, but lacking a lawyer he could talk to,
Jacob repeatedly turned to the Internet for advice on what to say and how to behave
in the courtroom. 2 For a variety of reasons, which will soon become clear, Jacob was

2 The Internet serves as a primary source of information for untrained litigants,

facilitating the spread of sovereign ideology through videos and flawed interpretations of
the law. Juris Blog, Duquesne Law School, JURIS MAGAZINE, Feb. 26, 2024 at
https://sites.law.duq.edu/juris/2024/02/26/sovereign-citizens-deciphering-their-
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The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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particularly vulnerable to the conspiracy theories and mis-information he learned on
the Internet. Relying on this faulty information, Jacob acted as those theories told him
he should act and filed papers with language that those theories instructed him to use.
Because Jacob didn’t trust his stand-by counsel, he never consulted him about the
propriety of proceeding in this manner. As a result, Jacob dug himself into a hole so
deep that he could not see the light. That was the Mr. Carter that Your Honor came to
know during the many pretrial conferences and nine trial days.

All that changed after Mr. Carter was convicted, and the undersigned was
appointed. During my first couple of meetings with Jacob at the Westchester County
Jail, I just listened. Occasionally, I would ask a question, but mostly I let him talk.
Soon, Jacob came to the surprising realization that not all lawyers are alike. He saw
that his new lawyer wanted to hear what he had to say and had the skills to listen.
Jacob learned to trust me.

When Jacob was all talked out, the real Jacob Carter was revealed. The real
Jacob Carter is smart and intense, committed to his family and his country, creative
and inspiring, and Type A and stubborn – just to name a few of his positive and not-
so-positive attributes. The more I learned about Jacob’s journey, the more I am
convinced that the person I met at the Westchester County jail is the real Jacob Carter,
and that the Jacob Carter who appeared in Your Honor’s courtroom was a Jacob Carter
acting from a place of fear and isolation coupled with ignorance about the criminal

conspiracy-theories-and-strategies-for-productive-engagement-in-law/ (last visited
Feb. 12, 2024) citing https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2022/01/27/the-
growing-danger-of-sovereign-citizens.
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The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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justice system. The Jacob Carter who was present in Your Honor’s courtroom
appeared to be a defendant untethered to reality. 3

Growing Up in Mount Vernon and
Attending Rye Country Day School

For all appearances, Jacob grew up in a stable low-middle income home with
two parents who worked and four siblings in Mount Vernon. He was neither the
youngest, nor the oldest. Jacob was closer to his mother than his father, but his
emotional rock was Barbara Lloyd, his maternal grandmother. They were especially
close and when Jacob felt alone, needed to work through his feelings, or wanted the
comfort and support of an adult, he turned to his grandmother.

Jacob’s parents worked hard to provide the best possible future for Jacob and
his siblings. In his early school years, Jacob attended the Mount Vernon public
elementary school. When Jacob appeared to be struggling academically, his parents
– with the help of generous scholarships – sent him to Rye Country Day School (RCDS)
– one of the elite, private, co-ed prep schools in Westchester County. Jacob’s older
brother was an RCDS student, and Jacob’s parents hoped that the small class sizes and
individualized attention would help Jacob overcome his academic weaknesses. Jacob
made them proud. Jacob had a creative streak and was active in extra-curricular

3 Before I met Jacob, I read some of the transcripts and pleadings that he had filed.
I
was sufficiently concerned about Jacob’s mental health, that I asked Your Honor to approve
CJA funds for a psychiatric evaluation. When Jacob indicated that he would fully cooperate
with the evaluation, Your Honor appointed Eric Goldsmith, MD, a forensic psychiatrist. Dr.
Goldsmith concluded that Jacob did not evidence any major mental illness. See Exh. D, Report
of Eric Goldsmith, MD, Nov. 14, 2024. Dr. Goldsmith’s report is discussed in greater detail
infra.
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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sports, but he mostly excelled in the structured learning environment of what we
today call the STEM subjects. 4

But all was not rosy at RCDS for Jacob. RCDS is a pre-K to 12 school. Most of
its students started kindergarten together and graduated from 12th grade together.
Jacob started at RCDS in third grade, so he came into the school as an outsider. At the
time RCDS had few students of color, and unlike his older brother who was a star
athlete and a member of the “popular kids” group, Jacob was never accepted as a
member of the “RCDS community” – one of the strengths of the school touted by its
administration and alumni. Jacob was always an “other.” Jacob’s parents were not
rich. His clothes were from K-Mart, not Bloomingdales. And while his classmates
spent their summers at sleepaway camps, Jacob worked odd jobs and went to funerals
of friends and family who were murdered on the streets of Mount Vernon. At RCDS,
Jacob learned how to compartmentalize his thoughts and his conduct. His brain had
one compartment for his school life at RCDS; another compartment for his life at
home. Jacob yearned to live in the former, but knowing that would always be beyond
his reach, settled for the latter.

Jacob also endured the blatant racism pervasive in Rye in the 1990s and early
2000s. Too many times, when Jacob was the driver or a passenger in a car with his
brother or teenage friends, the police would pull them over for DWB – driving while
black – for the fun of just harassing them. Jacob’s father says that these early
experiences sowed the seeds of Jacob’s distrust of law enforcement officers and other
authority figures.

4 STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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When his RCDS classmates were traveling to visit colleges and applying to
schools like Yale, Bennington, the University of Chicago, and Stanford, Jacob chose to
enlist in the Air Force. For one thing, he knew his parents could not afford more
private school tuition payments. For another, he knew that he would receive valuable
training in the military and that one day the Air Force might even pay for him to go to
college. At the time, the reputation of the Air Force was that it was the branch of the
service favored by white, upper class males and that as a result of forced efforts to
diversify, smart men of color had greater promotion opportunities in the Air Force
than the other armed services.

Jacob’s Service in the Air Force and Subsequent
Employment in the Military-Industrial Complex

Jacob was at RCDS when the World Trade Center Towers fell, and with 9/11
still fresh in everyone’s mind, Jacob’s best friend, Kirk Williams, decided to enlist.
Jacob followed Kirk’s lead and was proud to serve his country. Jacob also recognized
that the military was ordered with the kind of structure in which he thrived. Kirk
enlisted in the Air Force and so did Jacob. Jacob enlisted in September 2003 when he
was a high school junior, and he began his service in September 2004 after he
graduated from RCDS.

The Air Force trained Jacob in communications and antenna systems and anti-
terrorism operations. Jacob was stationed in Turkey and Germany during the U.S.
Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 when the Air Force was providing, among other
things, combat air patrols and search and rescue capabilities. Jacob was not on the
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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front lines, but he performed support for a range of other missions classified as
security, stability, transition, and reconstruction operations. Jacob relished the
diversity of the Air Force and made life-long friends. But Jacob became disillusioned
and distrustful when he learned that the military brass regularly withheld
information from the troops and when he saw that U.S. troops were not universally
welcomed in foreign countries.

Jacob was posted to Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Washington, D.C., in
2007, when Grandma Barbara died, and the next year when Jacob’s mother was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Jacob decided to leave active duty and return home
to be with his mother. That said, Jacob remained on inactive reserve status until
2012, when he received an Honorable Discharge and completed his service
obligation. 5

From 2008 to 2020, Jacob held communications-related positions with military
contractors that included work on infrastructure, security, engineering software and
geographic mapping projects, and he completed various training programs. 6 He held
a security clearance that allowed him to work at the Pentagon and Andrews Air Force
Base, and to perform maintenance on Air Force One.

5 The Defense Department Certificate of Release Or Discharge from Active Duty (DD

Form 214) includes a list of the medals Jacob earned and the military education he received.
This form, a photo of Jacob’s 2007 Award for Communications-Electronics Systems
Outstanding Airman, and Jacob’s Honorable Discharge Certificate are together in Exh. E.

6 We were able to locate a few of the Air Force certificates for completed training, and

they are grouped together in Exh. F.
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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One of Jacob’s many tattoos says, “Brothers from another, ties like no other,”
which Jacob says reflects the relationships he built in the military. These
relationships are reflected in the letters to Your Honor from people who knew him in
the Air Force and worked with him in the years after.

• Christopher Henderson met Jacob when they were
stationed together in Turkey. After Christopher
received a medical discharge, he suffered from
extreme depression that he hid from his family.
Jacob found the time to talk to Christopher almost
daily for three years. “He listened when I needed to
vent, reassured me when I doubted myself, and
encouraged me to be a better husband and father.
His empathy and support helped pull me out of a
very dark place, and I will forever be grateful for
that.” See Exh. G.

• Jacob met Colin Holley when they worked together
for a military contractor. They started as colleagues.
Then Jacob became Colin’s team leader. Colin
describes Jacob as one who “consistently
demonstrates thoughtfulness toward others and
places great importance on collaboration within a
team.” See Exh. H.

• Jose Rodriguez spent hours traveling with Jacob
from Air Force base to Air Force Base conducting
communications audits. During their time together,
Jacob’s dedication to helping young people find their
way was the impetus for Jose to get involved in his
community, and Jose became a Youth Soccer Coach.
See Exh. I.

• Kirk Williams and Jacob were best friends growing
up. They played football together, and Jacob
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United States District Judge
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followed Kirk into the Air Force. Kirk is getting
ready to retire, and as he reflects on the people he
has relied on throughout his career, he wants Your
Honor to know that “Jacob is one of those rare
people whose selfless service, dedication to family
and country, and unwavering reliability have always
stood out.” The depths of Kirk’s respect for Jacob is
reflected in the statement, “I would not hesitate to
serve alongside Jacob again if given the
opportunity.” See Exh. J.

Each of these letter writers understands the seriousness of Jacob’s conviction, but
they want Your Honor to know that Jacob’s conduct is an anomaly in an otherwise
exemplary life and that Jacob is deserving of Your Honor’s mercy.

Jacob’s Commitment to His Family and the
Greater Community

Jacob learned to respect the value of family first from his parents who, as his
father says, “raised him in a loving family atmosphere.” See Bishop Cass B. Carter
Letter at Exh. K. And after his mother died, for seven years Jacob took it upon himself
to provide a home for his disabled father. Once his father moved into senior housing
Jacob “made it a point to check on him every day to make sure he didn’t need
anything.” Id.

Being a member of Jacob’s family means knowing that he will always have your
back. His little sister, Joi, was only 15 when they lost their mother. Their father was
emotionally unavailable to help her grieve. She writes that “Jacob made sure to
remind me of all I could be and where I came from….. He encouraged me as I chased
my dreams. He took on more than he had to just to give me a chance at having a
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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decent life…. He never judged me for my mistakes, instead he offered me a safe place
to stay when I had my daughter at the age of 20 and embraced her as one of his own.”
See Joi Frasier letter at Exh. L.

Jheaneel Bailey is Jacob’s wife and the mother of his four youngest children.
They have been romantic partners for more than 20 years. Her letter to Your Honor
is a window into Jacob as a father. Their children are courageous because “whenever
faced with adversity or anything that could bring feelings of uncertainty within, Jacob
would always tell them “Strong Heart, Strong Mind.” This reminded the children “to
be steadfast and to know that they could and would overcome anything that may
stand in their way.” See Exh. M. Just like Jacob has imparted this lesson to their
children, Jacob knows that if he is steadfast, he too can and will overcome the
consequences of his conduct.

Audrey Bailey is Jheaneel’s mother (Jacob’s mother-in-law). She writes to Your
Honor about Jacob’s selflessness, his inspiration, the way he “instills in his children
the importance of family and community not only through his words and teachings
but through actions.” See Exh. N. She talks about how when he is watching movies
with his children he patiently explains the small nuances and lessons in the movie
that they may have missed, and how he would “spend hours building Legos with the
children never becoming frustrated always just calm.” Id.

Kadesja Thompson is almost a family member. She is a long-time friend, the
godmother to Jacob’s children and a neighbor. She recounts for Your Honor how
Jacob during the pandemic started a fitness group for his neighbors to help “battle the
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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mental load that came along with losing loved ones” from COVID. She adds that she
does not know if she could have made it through such a hard time were it not for
Jacob. See Exh. O.

There is one letter to Your Honor that I hesitated to submit. The letter is from
Jacob’s 12-year old daughter. I have always shied away from submitting letters from
young children fearing that a judge will think that the defendant has exerted unfair
influence on the child so that the child becomes a protector of his or her patent. Jacob
was upset when I explained my views. He pushed back hard at my explanation. He
wants Your Honor to hear from his daughter – in her own words – what their
relationship means to her. I acquiesced. She knows that her father has done wrong,
but she doesn’t know the details. She just knows that she, too, wants to share with
you the person she calls her “superhero.” I am not going to quote from her letter, or
attempt to paraphrase her thoughts. Her letter speaks for itself. See Exh. P.

The Road from Successful Engineer With a
Security Clearance to MDC Brooklyn

The pressures that led Jacob to prison started to build in 2016. By then, Jacob
and Jheaneel had two small children. Jheaneel was having health problems and at the
same time trying to get in shape to apply to the D.C. Police Academy. Jacob decided
that his priority had to be his family, and so he traded a job that paid him $35/hour
(but required long absences from home) for a job that paid $16/hour (but allowed
him to be close to home and share childcare duties). The drop in their household
income proved to be a significant strain. Jacob and Jheaneel couldn’t pay the
mortgage, insurance, medical bills, Jacob’s child support for his two oldest children,
and still have money left for groceries.
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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The bills went unpaid, and by 2018, the bank foreclosed on their house.
Jheaneel and the children moved in with Jheaneel’s mother in New York, but Jacob
was still working for $16/hour in Washington, D.C. Jacob made the trip back and forth
between his work in D.C. and his family in New York, but because he could not afford
an apartment or a hotel in D.C., he ended up essentially homeless – living in his car.

Jacob was ashamed of his circumstances. He put on a good face and
compartmentalized this part of his life so that no one knew how desperate their
financial situation had become. In 2019, for a brief time, things looked like they were
getting better. Jacob found a better paying job that required him to be at Andrews Air
Force base, but he couldn’t make it last. By now Jheaneel was working as a D.C. police
officer, her dream job, but Jacob and the children were living in New York with
Jheaneel’s mother who had taken ill. Once again, the commute between New York
and suburban Maryland was too much, and by early 2020 Jacob had to quit work.

The pandemic was the crushing blow. Everything shut down in mid-March
2020. By May 2020, Jheaneel – a first responder and essential worker – was always
working. The world Jacob knew had fallen apart. Jacob was no longer able to
compartmentalize, and there were no structures to keep his dark thoughts at bay. By
the spring of 2020, a different conspiracy theory was on the news each night: China
intentionally engineered the virus to unleash it on the world; Anthony Fauci and Bill
Gates were using their power to profit from a COVID-19 vaccine; wearing a mask
activates your own virus. Jacob bought into these ideas and many more. And the SBA
Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program seemed to be a lifeline not only for
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United States District Judge
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him, but for others he knew who were struggling under the weight of the quarantines
and dead bodies.

In Dr. Goldsmith’s opinion, Jacob had “developed longstanding feelings of
mistrust, beliefs that the United States Government withholds information from its
citizens and adopted many conspiracy theories. Jacob’s gravitation towards these
paranoid ideas stems from his experiences in life, including what he perceives was
the loss of his grandmother and mother under suspicious circumstances and multiple
experiences of feeling exploited by authority figures.” See Exh. D.

Jacob viewed the EIDL program as an opportunity for him to do good for his
community without anyone suffering. By processing EIDL applications for others,
they would benefit and so would he. He did not think anything of lying on the forms
because the money was going to people who needed it – himself included. The money
he made allowed him to pay off the household bills and was an opportunity to have
shiny things just like his peers at RCDS that Jacob couldn’t resist.

We have reached that point where I can pick up the story of Jacob Carter’s
journey after his conviction and his remand. The Westchester County Jail in Valhalla
restored the structure that Jacob needed, but not in the positive way that the structure
of the Air Force had helped him grow and develop into an adult. Jacob chaffed in the
confines of the jail walls, but he knew that one day it would end. Jacob Carter did not
expect that the nightmare of Valhalla would give way to the inhumanity of MDC.
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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Conditions at MDC

Jacob did not know hell until he arrived at MDC on September 6, 2024 (his
birthday). The conditions at MDC Brooklyn are deplorable – not fit for animals in
zoos, much less human beings. Media attention abounds. See, e.g., Concerns Grow over
Safety of Incarcerated People at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, News12
Brooklyn, Jan. 21, 2025; 7 Exclusive: Inmates Decry Conditions Inside Brooklyn Jail,
NY1.com, Jun. 24, 2024; 8 Inmate at Brooklyn’s Troubled Metropolitan Detention Center
is Stabbed to Death: Sources, N.Y. Daily News, June 20, 2024; 9 Maggot-infested Meals
Being Served to Inmates at Brooklyn Federal Jail, Lawyers Say, N.Y. Daily News, Mar.
30, 2024. 10 Compare Animal Welfare Act of 1966, 7 U.S.C. § 2131 and T. Blackett, Core
Fundamental Standards of Practice for Captive Wild Animals, Wild Welfare, Oct.
2020. 11

7 Available at https://brooklyn.news12.com/ concerns-grow-over-safety-of-
incarcerated-people-at-metropolitan-detention-center-in-brooklyn (last visited Feb. 12,
2025)
8 Available at https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2024/06/24/brooklyn-

federal-jail-murder-conditions (last visited Jul. 4, 2024).

9 Available at https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/06/20/inmate-at-brooklyns-
troubled-metropolitan-detention-center-is-stabbed-to-death-sources/ (last visited Jul. 4,
2024).

10 Available at https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/03/30/maggot-infested-meals-

being-served-inmates-at-brooklyn-federal-jail-lawyers-say/ (last visited Jul. 4, 2024).

11Available at https://wildwelfare.org/wp-content/uploads/Core-Fundamental-
Standard-of-Practice-for-Captive-Wild-Animals-Oct2020.pdf (last visited Jul. 5, 2024).
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United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
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I know that it is unnecessary to educate Your Honor and quote extensively from
the many judicial opinions addressing the conditions at MDC, but I find myself unable
to choose the among the most salient points from the opinion of the Honorable
Jesse M. Furman in United States v. Chavez, 710 F.Supp.3d 227, 233-246 (S.D.N.Y.
2024). Judge Furman wrote:

The conditions at the MDC are dreadful in many respects,
but three warrant particular emphasis. First, inmates at the
MDC spend an inordinate amount of time on “lockdown” —
that is, locked in their cells, prohibited from leaving for
visits, calls, showers, classes, or exercise. (In Orwellian
fashion, the Bureau of Prisons does not refer to these
periods as “lockdowns”; instead, it refers to them as
“modified operations.”) But there is no mistaking what the
practice entails.

Second, the MDC is notoriously and, in some instances,
egregiously slow in providing necessary medical and
mental health treatment to inmates…. It has become
common for defense counsel to require court intervention
to ensure that inmates receive basic care — and, even more
shocking, not uncommon for court orders to go unheeded.

Finally, the MDC's physical conditions have long been
problematic. See generally Order, United States v. Espinal,
No. 11-CR-537 (JMA) (CLP) (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 17, 2016), ECF
No. 39 (collecting “letters relating to the conditions at the
Metropolitan Detention Center,” which reported visible
mold on walls and ceilings, contaminated drinking water,
vermin infestation, mouse droppings falling through HVAC
vents, and roaches and flies in showers); see also John
Marzulli, Judge Refuses to Send Women to Brooklyn Jail with
“Third World” Conditions, N.Y. Daily News (Oct. 7, 2016),
available at https://www.nydailynews.com /
2016/10/07/exclusive-judge-refuses-to-send-women-to-
Case 7:21-cr-00681-NSR Document 276 Filed 02/13/25 Page 18 of 22

The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 18

brooklyn-jail-with-third-world-conditions. .... More
recently, the Court was advised that many, if not most, of
the emergency call buttons in the MDC's main building are
not working — even though those buttons are the only way
(other than yelling and banging) to call an officer in
emergency situations during a lockdown.

In United States v. Parish, No. 13 CR. 829 (AT), 2024 WL 3904626, at *5-6 (S.D.N.Y.
Aug. 22, 2024), the Honorable Analisa Torres wrote:

Courts in this Circuit recognize that the harsh conditions of
confinement at the area’s jails counsel in favor of a shorter
overall sentence. … The conditions at the area’s jails make
time spent there “essentially the equivalent of either time
and a half or two times what would ordinarily be served.”
United States v. Gonzalez, 18 Cr. 669 (JPO), ECF No. 250 at
17:18–18:3. Such time is “materially different than time
served at a jail or prison elsewhere in the United States.”

And in United States v. Colucci, No. 23-CR-417, 2024 WL 3643857, at *7 (E.D.N.Y. Aug.
4, 2024) the Honorable Gary Brown sentenced a defendant to a nine month prison
term with the specific caveat that if the BOP designated MDC as the relevant facility,
then the imposed term of imprisonment would be vacated and, in its place, the
defendant would serve nine months of home incarceration with electronic
monitoring.

But you do not need to rely on the accounts of Judges. Jacob catalogued some
of the conditions that he personally experienced in contemporaneous notes.
Following are a few examples: He was locked down from September 12-15, 2024 for
various reasons including an inmate stabbing and a malfunctioning elevator. From
October 25-28 there was no hot water, and no water at all on October 29. (When
Case 7:21-cr-00681-NSR Document 276 Filed 02/13/25 Page 19 of 22

The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 19

there is no water that means not only nothing to drink and no showers, but no
working toilets.) He was locked down from October 28 to November 2. Jacob’s unit
flooded at least four times, and starting on December 16, 2024 through at least
January 16, 2025 the air vents were pushing out frigid air day and night. See Exh. Q.

Through it all, Jacob held down a job as a unit orderly. Jacob’s supervisor wrote
in Jacob’s Work Performance Rating for the period September 14-December 25, 2024:

Inmate Carter is an outstanding orderly. Inmate Carter
performs his duties with little to no supervision. Inmate
Carter assists other inmates in their duties in addition to
his own. Inmate Carter is an outstanding orderly who
works well with others. He is well organized, dependable,
timely, and always brings a positive attitude to his work.”

See Exh. R. Jacob also managed to complete several programs, including three
addressing money management. His certificates are gathered in Exh. S.

One incident stands out not only because of what it says about MDC, but more
importantly what it says about Jacob. On September 30, 2024, an elderly inmate
attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with a bedsheet from the 2nd floor
(the top tier). Jacob ran up the stairs from the lower tier and with another inmate
pulled the person off the railing, freed his neck from the noose that he had fashioned,
and escorted him to the corrections officers. Raul Maldonado, Jr., MDC’s Warden at
the time, acknowledged Jacob’s intervention in a “Special Act Acknowledgement”
memorandum and MDC gave Jacob a Certificate of Appreciation for “Exemplary Pro-
Social Behavior.” See Exh. B.
Case 7:21-cr-00681-NSR Document 276 Filed 02/13/25 Page 20 of 22

The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 20

The Journey’s Future: Redemption

On April 27, 2024, before I was appointed to represent Jacob, he wrote a letter
to Your Honor. It is unchanged and appears in Exh. A. In the letter Jacob writes,

I sincerely take responsibility for my actions regarding the
charges I was found guilty of by a jury of my peers within
your court on February 9, 2024.

***
The first steps to redemption are always accountability and
acceptance of one’s past transgressions. Whatever time
and fate sentenced, once released I plan to see my 6
children and explain to them my departure and absence as
well as how my poor judgment and choice undoubtedly
took away the most precious thing a father can give his
children, loving time spent together. Once released, I also
plan to use my skills in art, technology, and engineering and
public speaking to return to volunteering and running a
program with pre-K through middle school students to
make sure they all learn to organize, articulate and
mobilize their thoughts and feelings in the most creating
and constructive ways via blockchain tech, drones,
drawing and building, but also learn from my mistakes of
how a bad choice can forever not only change your life, but
those lives of the ones we love most.

Inmates often make promises to Judges about what they will do once released,
but sadly these promises are too often empty. Jacob has proved he is not one of those
defendants. Many of the letters talk about his book, “Who Am I.” The book is
reproduced in Exh. T. “Who Am I” aims to instill in young Black students the pride
that he never had. This is not Jacob’s only book. Prior to his arrest, Jacob was working
on several titles, including “Little Black Girl, They Envy Your Soul” (artwork and
Case 7:21-cr-00681-NSR Document 276 Filed 02/13/25 Page 21 of 22

The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 21

layout concept created in 2016; artwork not completed) and “Invest in Thyself”
(written in 2017 artwork and layout concept created in 2018-2019).

Since his arrest, Jacob has been working on –

“The Canopy of Connectivity” (rough draft, written in 2024,
needs editing, layout formatting and fact checking as well
as source citing before finalized);

“The Almighty Brothers” (characters created in 2019 into
2020. Origin story for characters created in 2024, artwork
started in 2024 not complete);

“From Seed to Sequoia” (written in 2024, artwork started
in 2024 not complete); and

“Who’s Babysitting Who?” (written in 2024, artwork stated
in 2024 not complete)

Jacob was reluctant to share his work-in-progress with me, but if you want to
see these writings, I can provide copies. His writings are proof that he has a vision
that he can and will pursue when he is released from prison.

Conclusion

Jacob knows he made a serious mistake. He accepts responsibility for his
actions. He acknowledges how the conviction will forever change his life going
forward.

The sentencing statute requires that Your Honor impose a sentence on Jacob
that is “sufficient but not greater than necessary” after considering, among other
things, the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics
Case 7:21-cr-00681-NSR Document 276 Filed 02/13/25 Page 22 of 22

The Honorable Nelson S. Román
United States District Judge
February 13, 2025
Page 22

of the defendant; the need to promote respect for the law and provide just
punishment; both specific and general deterrence; the need to avoid unwarranted
sentence disparities; and the advisory Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The aggravated
identity theft statute requires Your Honor to impose 24 months in prison to follow
the service of any other sentence.
The story of Jacob’s journey, from Mount Vernon to redemption, demonstrates
that a sentence of 24 months is sufficient but not greater than necessary.

Respectfully submitted,

Jill R. Shellow

cc: All Counsel (ECF)
Jacob Carter (by legal mail)

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