Defendants Statement Sentencing Hearing Zayd Allebban Your honor, I understand that the typical posture of a defendant at a sentencing

hearing is one of contrition, remorse, or regret sentiments that, whether genuine or contrived, are expressed with the goal of leniency in mind. However, those sentiments do not reflect my feelings, your honor, for two reasons. Firstly, if I were to express those sentiments, I will for the first time be lying in your courtroom and lying to you. Unlike others who have traversed your courtroom in this case, I take my oath to the truth very seriously; it is not bound by where I sit or which hand I raise. And secondly, your honor, I am not looking to manufacture artificial words that will earn leniency because I firmly believe that the truth alone will best equip you to determine a just punishment. Your honor, entering this process, I expected certain disappointments. Firstly, disappointment in the man who unnecessarily pulled me into a mess of his own making, disguised it in honesty, effectively told lies about my involvement, and then used me as the currency for his own freedom. Mr. Shisha was an enormous disappointment. Then, when I expected Mr. Kazmi to tell the same story to the government that he told me and instead admitted to criminal behavior, that was a disappointment made worse by the fact that he had an opportunity, amidst his lies and crimes, to do something noble. He had an opportunity to make clear to you, the jury and the government that no conspiracy existed and that I did not even know to the day I was arrested that anything illegal or improper had ever happened. But cowardice dictated his actions, just like it did Shishas, and he passed on that opportunity to do the right thing, encouraged without a doubt by the government who dangled his own sentencing above his head to drive his decision to remain silent. But your honor, my largest disappointment blindsided me and this may be more of my naivety showing. I was most disappointed in my government the stewards of justice sitting behind me. And although there is, Im sure, much to be disappointed about in the quality of their investigative work leading up to my arrest, Ill start further down the timeline.

Mr. Shisha first approached them presumably with a story of victimization and extortion. Then suddenly, Kazmi doesnt plead guilty to extortion, but bribery. On the surface, it may seem that the true story doesn't matter much as long as the bad guy gets caught. But the real story, the nitty gritty details, what was said to who, who did or knew what. those details do matter, your honor I am proof that they matter. Your honor, the prosecutions case revolved around these conversations between Mr. Shisha and I. Im sure they fully expected that I would try to minimize those meetings and shift focus elsewhere. Your honor, I would never run from those transcripts. Those transcripts are the evidence of my innocence. Those conversations are saturated with my reassurances to Shisha that he had done nothing illegal, to always tell the truth, to hold his head high because he was an honest businessman, and that I wouldnt even be helping them if they had done anything improper. But somehow, all those statements escaped their consideration. Nonetheless, Shisha tried again to sell his victim story in court, under oath, and at the direction of the prosecution. Your honor, it didnt take a federal investigator trained in the art of uncovering public corruption to reveal him as a liar and a criminal it took an astute attorney a couple of hours in cross examination. Thats all it took, sir, for Shishas house of lies and deception to come crumbling down around him. In fact, he was so discredited and exposed as a crook that the prosecution had to retreat from their star witness against me how telling is that? How pathetic it is, your honor, that fundamental questions about Shishas companies, activities, contracts, and profits werent posed by the very investigators who explicitly stated on the witness stand that those are exactly the types of things that they were investigating. The prosecutor himself seemed surprised to learn that Shishas shell company, VM Logic, had coincidentally profited exactly double the money he gave Kazmi who held 50% of that criminal enterprise. Now after Shishas crimes were made clear and this may be more of my naivety showing again I drove home with Mr. Faraj that afternoon with a smile I couldnt wipe off, but he maintained the same focused, stoic look that he always has. This was a good day, Haytham. Doesnt this change everything? He knew nothing would change, but let me instead see it with my own eyes the following day in court. You see, your honor, I fully expected the prosecution to take a step back and reconsider their position against me

a position that had been crafted by the lies of a single person who had everything to gain by selling these lies to them. But our Department of Justice, our stewards of justice, pressed forward unwaivered. To speak frankly, it blew my mind that the truth presented itself so clearly in court, yet it did not move them. And Mr. Shisha, sir, to this day, is a free man, charged with no crimes, when there is another county contractor in this very same investigation who had committed the very same crime with another county official, who was charged and pled guilty to offering bribes. Your honor, Ill mention one more painfully obvious truth that the investigators missed. A cursory look into my background, my family, my friends, or even my coworkers would have defined my lack of propensity to be involved in anything illegal or unethical. Mr. Shisha and Mr. Kazmi hid their crimes from me purposefully they knew how Id react and that's why they didn't tell me the truth. They knew that had they shared the true nature of their activities with me, their best case scenario would have been that I simply walk away. The more likely scenario would have been that I walk away and walk straight to the investigators and say, youre looking for corruption? Heres two crooks for you. You see, your honor, my belief in the honesty of these two men did not stem from my friendship with them. My friendship with them stemmed from my belief in their honesty and decency. The moment I were to find out that honesty was a ruse, that friendship and loyalty disappears. And that, your honor, highlights again the greatest travesty in all this: the real bad guy has been promised protection from prosecution. The man who profited from multi-million dollar contracts that he admitted were illegally obtained is sitting free of charges. And instead, the only county employee who took nothing, who knew nothing, who covered his own $2 cup of coffee when he sat with a contractor, was not only charged, but somehow convicted. Your honor, I absolutely take responsibility for my actions. With that said, your honor, this courtroom and the hallway behind it are full of people for whom I would do the exact same thing, albeit with a little more vetting this time, Im sure, but I would do it nonetheless. Let me be clear, sir if two good people, your honor, approached me today, so worried about something that they were considering taking their own lives, and I had no reason to doubt their honesty, I would help them

without hesitation. That decision, as was my decision a year and half ago, would be driven not by friendship or loyalty, but compassion, humanity. Not even the prosecutor himself would stand here and minimize the importance of that quality. After all, it was the prosecutor himself who, during a pause in trial, walked over and requested that my attorney not ask a potential witness about money he had received from Shisha yes, your honor, there were three county employees that took bribes from Shisha and the prosecutor cited humanitarian reasons to leave that unmentioned. But of course, it didnt matter, because I had already asked my lawyer to exclude that information if we called this person as a witness simply because it came from the mouth of Shisha and I was not going to be part of destroying another life on the credibility of a crook like him. But set that aside, again, I think the prosecutor understands humanity. Your honor, I will never let this experience, the lies of Mr. Shisha, the wrecklessness of the investigators, and the indifference of the prosecutor change that about me. If I let a year of endless damning press releases from the government, foregone conclusions by the media, and the harsh judgment of thousands of residents of this region chip away at what it took my poor parents a lifetime to instill in me, I have lost. Forget my legal standing, Ive lost something greater. And I thank God every day that I live in a country where there is still a path to exoneration, to clearing my name. Because when you grow up in a simple life, live paycheck-to-paycheck, and have nothing to show for years of education and employment but a foreclosed house that is $60k underwater and a wispy-thin savings account, all I have is my name, my credibility, the humanity that drives the decisions I make. Your honor, to conclude, I wanted to also apologize if we created any confusion this morning with the time we requested to speak. You see, my attorney is comprehensive in his work and had arranged to have a couple of friends of mine speak today about me, my community service, character, and so on. But I pulled the rug out from under him earlier this morning before we began. So I apologize to those of you who had prepared something to say and I am truly humbled by your support. And I did that for a simple reason, your honor. When this case began a year and half ago and I had a single conspiracy charge against me, the USAs office approached me to make a plea deal. I refused them. They approached again with a sweeter deal, I refused them. They approached

again I refused them. And they approached one final time with a team of FBI agents in an attempt to convince me that their evidence against me was insurmountable I respectfully declined to even sit down with them. Because, your honor, an innocent man has only the hope of exoneration at trial to cling to when the DoJ is raining the full weight of the government down on him. Right is right, your honor, and wrong is wrong. The space between these four walls is the only place in the country where those words will always ring true. Of course, after I refused all their attempts, the USAs office just piled on more charges. I dont know if you hunt, your honor, but birdshot spreads wide in the hopes that one of those little pellets will take the target down. I suppose they operate much the same way. Your honor, I wouldnt plead guilty because I would never admit a false guilt in exchange for some sentencing leniency. I would never compromise my principles to shave a few months or even years off my sentence. Much the same way, your honor, I also wont parade my character and put my altruism on a pedestal for leniency today. I am not unique in my service to those in need. Others who have the same commitment would say as well that service for the community is for the community, not for me to barter away in court. My attorney asked me to think of my girls when I make this decision, your honor. I paused briefly and realized that I am thinking of my two little girls, your honor. Because when those two beautiful little girls, in eight or ten years, decide to Google their fathers name, and learn about the investigation that ensnared him, understand his commitment and confidence in the truth, and internalize the lessons they extract from that, that will give them so much more than a few months of my absence will ever take away from them. To put it simply, your honor, if you decide a sentence of custody is just, my slumber on that prison pillow will be restful, because I know where I stand with myself, your honor, and in front of God. I simply ask, your honor, that you render a sentence that I deserve no more than that and no less.