I was forty-two years old, and lived in Wichita, Kansas. I had never returned to the beach. I wondered if my life might have taken a different turn had I chosen to do so.

I sat at my attorney’s side. We were waiting anxiously on a frail man who possessed a sharp wit, tremendous attention to detail, and a vast understanding of federal law. He could send me to prison for as much as twenty years, or he could send me for as little as five, but he had to send me. Federal law prohibited him from sentencing me to anything lesser.

At the beginning of my legal case, his age caused me concern. President John F. Kennedy appointed him to his status of Senior Federal Judge. He must have been destined to practice law, because he somehow managed to grace the earth with his presence for ninety-eight years, sixty-five of which had been spent as a federal judge.

Having presided over countless federal criminal trials, I suspected he’d seen all there was to see. Yet. During my trial, he took pause. In the end, I was pleased to have him as my judge. He proved to be open-minded and truly impartial.

As we sat in wait, I hoped he maintained these qualities during my sentencing.

My legal case had dragged out in court for four years. It cost me a quarter of a million dollars, several friendships, a marriage, and all but deteriorated my relationships with my three children.

“Will the defendant please rise,” the bailiff bellowed.

His voice echoed off the ornate wooden walls of the federal courthouse. Upon realizing my freedom could be snatched from me in a matter of minutes, my right knee began to bounce.

“Stand proud,” my attorney whispered. “Remain stoic. Win or lose, don’t give these sons-of-bitches the satisfaction of seeing any emotion.”

“Yes, Sir,” I responded.

We stood in unison.

I was a firearms collector. It wasn’t my profession. It was simply a hobby. I used it to occupy my idle time. A crutch, if you will, to help me along my path to clean living. I’d quit drinking twenty years prior. I then applied my addictive behaviors to collecting firearms. Nonetheless, I set up a business, paid my taxes, and made certain every transaction was in accordance with the law. The ATF, however, had testimony obtained from an informant that told them otherwise.

According to him, I had two million dollars in cash, and a cache of machine guns in my safe. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

In hope of finding the cash and machine guns, an undercover ATF agent posed as a biker and befriended me. I confided in him. I invited him into my home. We shared stories. He met my wife and children. All the while, unbeknownst to me, he was investigating me.

During the course of that three-year investigation, he had found no wrongdoing on my part. The upper echelon of the ATF was still attached to the belief that I was a criminal. They brought in another undercover agent. This time, they had a woman pose as the widow of a law enforcement officer.

She called me, asking that I give a bid on her deceased husband’s firearm collection. She explained that there were complications obtaining the funds from his retirement. She needed to sell the guns to purchase a headstone for his funeral. After visiting pawn shops and having multiple wannabe collectors offer her pennies on the dollar, I was her only hope.

In a last-ditch-effort to obtain a search warrant for my home, the ATF – through her – offered to sell me a collection of firearms that included a machine gun. I couldn’t own the weapon, and I knew it. I explained the federal law governing the transportation of the weapon at length while being filmed by a hidden ATF surveillance camera.

I could, however, act as an agent for a machine gun dealer who had been my partner at several gun shows in the Midwest. A week later, after obtaining the prerequisite paperwork to transfer the weapon, I agreed to pick them up.

Upon placing the weapons in the back of my SUV, a helicopter lowered itself onto the street just ahead of me. Federal agents armed with machine guns leaped from the earth’s every orifice.

Mimicking the scenes from a Hollywood action movie, I was zip-tied, tossed into the back of a black SUV, and rushed through the city in a convoy of similar black SUVs. Upon reaching the ATF’s headquarters, I was handcuffed to a stainless-steel table.

As I watched the agents from various federal entities remove their bullet-proof vests and secure their weapons, I noticed my fellow biker walk past. He wasn’t wearing boots, jeans, and a wife-beater. He was wearing SWAT-type gear, a badge, and had a pistol affixed to his tactical belt.

While I was bound to the cold piece of steel, they obtained a search warrant. They searched my home. Upon finding nothing, they got another warrant to search my safe deposit box. After finding nothing once again, they obtained a warrant for my bank records. Then, they searched my retirement account, my investment accounts, and my business records.

Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

I had no illegal weapons. There were no piles of cash. In fact, their searches, in their entirety, revealed no wrong doing whatsoever. The only crime that had been committed was the one they’d orchestrated.

Frustrated, they released me without any criminal charges. I was quite certain they felt foolish. I surely would have if I’d spent three years attempting to arrest a machine gun kingpin, only to find out that he was a law-abiding citizen.

A year later they charged me with possessing the machine gun. I explained to my attorney about the machine gun dealer, the licensing he possessed, and of the paperwork he’d provided. We both agreed the case would never make it to trial.

The government then offered me a sentence of probation if I plead guilty to the crime. Through my attorney, I declined, choosing to go to trial. No jury in their right mind would convict me of a crime I had no intention of committing.

That was my belief, at least.

The day before the trial was scheduled to begin, they dropped the charges entirely.

The next day, they indicted me on two counts of machine gun possession. According to their Washington D.C. specialist, the firearms they’d sold me included two machine guns. I, according to him, had improperly identified one of them.

How convenient, I thought.

Facing two charges, I was once again offered probation. You might beat one charge, but you’ll never beat them both, they taunted. Remain a free man, simply plead guilty.

I declined their offer, opting to take both charges to trial.

The trial was plagued with lost audio recordings, video recordings without audio reproduction, and witnesses – including federal agents – who were willing to perjure themselves on the witness stand.

Halfway through the first day of trial, the judge stopped the proceedings. He advised the jury that there was evidence to suggest that I was entrapped to commit the crime. He asked that they consider that the government may have coerced me to possess the machine gun. He further advised them to find innocence or guilt only after giving the entrapment doctrine consideration.

On the witness stand, I lost my composure. I screamed, I cussed, and I demanded the truth be told. Despite the judge’s orders not to, I challenged the prosecuting attorney to produce the lost recordings.

During breaks from testimony, US Marshalls struggled to keep my attorney and I separated from the ATF agents. Arguments broke out. People pushed each other. Verbal mud was slung through clenched teeth from both sides.

After all the testimony, my attorney and I stood on the steps of the courthouse and smoked a cigarette. I’d given up drinking alcohol and cigarettes twenty years prior, but the stress of the trial had me smoking again. At least they didn’t drive me to drinking, I told myself.

The US Attorney walked past, giving his regards as he reached the steps.

“Looks like you’ve got this one in the bag, Mc Master,” he said.

My attorney gave a sharp nod. “The opera’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

Neither of us knew it, but she was about to sing. In the form of yet another lying witness.

When we returned to the courtroom, the US Attorney’s office called a witness that wasn’t on the witness list. My former partner. The machine gun dealer.

He claimed he didn’t provide me with the transfer paperwork. My attorney produced the ink-signed form which had been confiscated from my vehicle at the time of arrest. The dealer then opted to exercise his right under the Fifth Amendment not to testify any further for fear he would incriminate himself.

I found out years later that they forced him to testify, threatening prosecution if he chose not to.

On that note, the trial ended. The judge provided the jury with instructions to allow entrapment as a legal defense. They deliberated for three days. Moments before the judge was prepared to declare a mistrial, the jury announced a verdict had been reached.

“Have you reached a verdict?” the judge asked.

“We have, your honor,” the foreperson replied.

The judge cleared his throat. “How do you find the defendant?”

“On count one, we find the defendant not guilty,” the foreperson announced.

I felt faint. I was halfway there. The sweet taste of victory caused me to salivate.

“On count two,” he continued. “We find the defendant guilty.”

My heart faltered.

According to my attorney, it was common for a jury faced with multiple charges and little damning evidence to find guilt on one count, and innocence on the other.

After the guilty verdict was reached, the judge released me. I went home as if nothing happened. He ordered a ninety-day long investigation into my character. After the investigation, a sentencing date was set.

It was now time for me to learn what my future held. The judge rifled through a stack of paperwork, appeared to read something, and then looked up.

“Mister Hildreth,” he said, his quaking voice giving indication to the century-long life he’d lived. “I’ve reviewed the evidence, the transcripts from the trial, and the notes from the ATF agent’s investigation. I do not believe you had any intention to possess the machine gun in question, nor do I believe you had any intentions to possess machine guns prior to the offense in question. There is no place in the law, however, for me to second-guess the jury. That jury, need I remind you, found you guilty.”

He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, scanned it with his eyes, and then handed it to the bailiff, who in turn handed it to the stenographer.

“Despite my belief of your innocence,” he continued. “You chose trial by jury. You now stand before me a guilty man. My sentencing today will be indicative of my belief of your lack of intention to possess the firearm in question. Furthermore, I have spoken to the prosecution’s office, and they have agreed not to appeal my decision or my sentencing. I hereby sentence you to three years of probation.”

My attorney’s knees buckled.

Mine did the same.

I’d studied law for three years, spending almost twelve hours a day with my nose stuffed in one of over three-dozen legal books. I knew enough about federal law to know the judge didn’t have the latitude to do what he’d just done. The federal sentencing guidelines prohibited it.

He’d done it, nonetheless.

If the appellate court didn’t find out about the lenient sentence, nothing would be done to modify it into a prison sentence. I could serve my probation, stay out of prison, and live my remaining days on earth a free man.

The laws of double jeopardy would prevent me from ever being resentenced after the probation time was served. The only way the appellate court would find out about the judge’s sentencing was if I chose to appeal the case.

In the absence of an appeal, I would remain free, forever. To accept the punishment of probation, however, I must accept the guilt. Taking ownership for a crime I didn’t commit – or intend to commit – wasn’t something I could do.

The world I lived in was black and white. There was right, and there was wrong. There was no in between. Gray didn’t exist. In this circumstance, I was right. The jack-booted thugs in the ATF had proven their willingness to botch an investigation in places like Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas. They were now proving it in Wichita, Kansas.

I had news for them. The man who stood before them was courageous enough to take his case to the US Supreme Court steps.

I leaned to the side and whispered in my attorney’s ear. “May I speak?”

“You want to address the judge?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir,” I responded. “I do.”

My attorney, a former Marine officer, Vietnam War combat veteran, retired Golden Gloves boxer, and Notre Dame graduate, was a hard ass on his best day.

He gave me a stern look. “Proceed with caution and respect,” he whispered. “No outbursts.”

I faced the judge. “Your honor, I appreciate your belief of my innocence, and equally appreciate your expression of such in your sentencing of me today. It saddens me to inform you, however, that I must appeal this case to the appellate court. I would like to go on the record as saying that this decision will be appealed. Consider this timely notice.”

My attorney gripped my bicep. “Your honor, my client will be advised of the risks taken if an appeal is filed. Be advised if we so choose to appeal, a notice will be given in writing--”

“Your honor,” I interrupted. “In accordance with the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, consider that timely notice of appeal has been given on this date.”

“Mister Hildreth,” the judge said. “It is your right to appeal the finding of the jury, and your further right to appeal this sentencing. If you choose to do so, and the end result is a loss, I will have no other recourse but to send you to prison. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, your honor, I do.”

“As we speak, however, you are a free man.”

“I understand, your honor.”

“If you so choose to appeal,” he said. “Good luck, and may God be with you.”

I accepted the sentencing. Against the advice of my attorney, I went on to appeal the guilty conviction, risking going to prison in doing so. Based on the grounds that I was coerced by ATF agents to commit a crime I wasn’t predisposed to commit, a brief was filed with the appellate court. Two-and-a-half years later, six months before completing my sentence of probation, I lost the appeal.

I went on to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court.

They didn’t hear my case. It wasn’t surprising, as they only hear one percent of the cases they’re presented.

It was the same as a loss.

When I went back in front of the judge, he had already celebrated his one-hundredth birthday. He imposed an unprecedented sentence of just less than three years in prison, rewriting federal law in respect to machine gun possession when he did so. Furthermore, he allowed me to remain at large and later surrender to US Marshalls to begin serving my prison sentence.

Three months later, I surrendered proudly, knowing I fought until the bitter end without giving up, or giving in.

The date was September eleventh.