Irrational Indictment & Imprisonment: for Exporting Krytrons to Israel

This is a horrible, true story of an unbelievable and unfair indictment and imprisonment of a loyal American whose only crime was to misread the USG export regulations. He spent all his money on an expensive lawyer who said, 2 days before the trial, ‘You are going to prison.’ Dr. Ernest Kelly replied, ‘How can I be imprisoned since I did nothing wrong?’ His lawyer answered, ‘The prisons are full of people who did nothing wrong!’ Terrified, Ernest and his wife caught the next plane to Europe and spent the next 17 years living a new life in Spain until he was arrested and learned what it was like to live in a Spanish prison. Extradited to Los Angeles, on the advice of his lawyer he agreed to a plea bargain and pled guilty since he didn’t have enough money for a trial. The judge ignored the advice of the probation officer assigned by the court to evaluate Dr. Kelly’s case that he be released with time served and instead sentenced him to 2 years in prison and 2 years’ probation.