By Jamie Satterfield
The News Sentinel
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Assistant U.S. Attorney David Lewen has a bad case of buyer’s remorse.
Lewen’swordslaudingSan Francisco drug lord Curtis Lebron Ross for resisting the schemes of “jailhouse lawyers” were still hanging in the air Thursday in U.S. District Court in Knoxville when Ross, 38, launched into a rant that even his lawyer said came straight from fellow inmates.
“Due process under the law hasbeendenied,"Rossbegan, reading from a handwritten script.
Lewen, who had just made a case for why Ross ought not draw a mandatory life term for heading up one of the largest California-to- Knoxville cocaine pipelines in recent history, was stunned.
“I have never seen a defendant facingwhathe’sfacingdo what he just did,” Lewen said. “Had I known that was coming, that motion (for a sentencing break) would never have been filed.”
It was too late. U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan already had voiced approval of Lewen’s recommendation that Ross be sentenced instead to just less than 20 years because of his contrition and work as a highlevel informant in the cocaine trade in California.
But the rant did stop Varlan from giving Ross an even bigger break pushed by defense attorney Matthew Robinson, who himself was stopped short by his client’s attack on his prosecution delivered at a time he should have been seeking judicial mercy.
“I think he’s received some bad information from jailhouse lawyers,” Robinson said, while Ross vehemently shook his head in disagreement.
Ross was the head honcho of an operation that shipped a quarter ton of cocaine from California to Knoxville via mail delivery services.
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