U.S. District Attorney Carol C. Lam
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sanjay Bhandari,
Jason Forge, & Phillip Halpern
Office of the United States Attorney /
San Diego County
Office Federal Office Building
880 Front Street, Room 6293
San Diego, California 92101-8893
Dear District Attorneys,
Enclosed please find a letter I would appreciate being delivered to Federal Prison System Inmate #94405-198, Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham. I do not know the proper procedure to send a letter to a guest of the Federal Prison System, but I thought you might like to review it first, anyway, and could probably deliver it on my behalf during one of your conversations with the prisoner.
I believe he should, and I hope that he will, confess to the crime I accuse him of in this letter. If / Once he does, I would think he should find it comparatively easy to confess to any number of other crimes and misdemeanors you might be questioning him about.
Also, I hope the enclosed letter proves to Mr. Cunningham an absence of malice on my part against him, DESPITE the audacity of his actions against my wife and me. I'm sure his fear of my anger at what he tried to do to my wife and me could be a significant factor in his refusal to admit to, or confess to, or apologize for the action, and I would like to relieve him of that worry, so that he can consider instead the benefit to the Department of Motor Vehicles, since they would then have a complete description of the event from both drivers' points of view, which I think could be invaluable to them. I'm sure he also does not particularly enjoy being burdened with the knowledge that this issue could come up at any time -- bringing it out in the open and getting it behind him will alleviate any anxiety he may have "waiting for the other shoe to drop." Or perhaps he doesn't think about it at all, or thinks it was a dream: In that case this letter will remind him that I am still waiting for an answer.
In the enclosed letter, I have tried to offer him hope for the future, as well as give him some concept of the real magnitude of his many, many crimes against us all.
The truth can hurt a lot. If prisoner 94405-198 would rather stop reading my letter, and stop thinking about "that awful night" after the first page, or at any point, and confess and give the details of the "accident," and read no more, please let him know that he will "owe" me (or my wife) nothing more -- not even an apology. I feel it is vastly more important that he provide his version of the details of the accident than that he read the whole thing OR apologize formally to me. In fact, if he could be induced to provide a "post-mission debriefing" regarding this "accident" BEFORE he reads my version, it will be much more USEFUL to the DMV, let alone, to Miramar's TOP GUN flight school, psychology of fighter pilot mentality division, who I believe will, after a confession from the prisoner, be very interested in this whole affair.
Under these circumstances, please feel free to give my letter to him page by page, or even paragraph by paragraph, as long as the entire letter is presented IN ORDER over a reasonable period of time -- weeks, say, or at most, a few months. If he is truly the man behind the wheel of the other car, as I assert, then he's pretty sure to be thinking about it often anyway -- in which case, if he doesn't confess, I don't see how society deserves to have him thrust upon us again, whether by Presidential pardon or just by the years going by, perhaps with time off for not trying to kill anyone else while he's in jail. Then what happens when / if he does it again? Who will be to blame?
For your reference / information, I have also included a copy of a letter I sent to U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns last week in regards to my fear that Mr. Cunningham could be a danger to himself or others. For the time being, of course, I am far less worried about his being a threat to others than I was last week, but I still worry that he is a danger to himself.
Thank you in advance for your consideration in this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can answer any questions.
Sincerely,
Russell "Ace" Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA