After my mother died in a fire, I never expected to wind up facing federal charges of arson and wire fraud. A careless error on the part of the authorities was all it took to ignite a cascading series of cover-ups and misdirection that landed my father and I in prison, fighting to prove our innocence.

From the night I first received a bizarre midnight call from a police dispatcher miles away, to the day of our conviction, I suspected my father and I were the victims of a chain of events too bizarre to be imagined and too deliberate to be simple ineptitude. The whole situation reeked of contrivance, and would have been comical if not for my mother’s death.

The judge sealed the conspiracy when he gave us both life-without-parole sentences despite no evidence tying us to the fire. We were never charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, or even assault.

To regain our freedom, I hired the best, most unwavering and tireless attorney I could find―me.

After poring over mountains of evidence, transcripts, and subpoenas from my jail cell, I unraveled a web of dysfunctional half-truths and outright lies the US Attorney used to convict us. My father and I are the only two men in the history of the United States to be sentenced to life-without-parole in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, and later exonerated.

This book is the story of my ten-year battle.