30 My Colonel Blamed Me For The Blankets My Own Unit Delivered — He Didn't Know A Fire Captain Had Bought One Back From A Private Warehouse

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Ward was arrested at his home in Elk Grove on the afternoon of the seventeenth of October.

He was forty-one years old. He was a logistics officer in the California Army National Guard. He was a graduate of California State University Sacramento. He was a husband and a father of two. He was the son of Colonel Henry Ward.

He was arrested by two deputies from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and one agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was charged with theft of government property, conspiracy to commit theft of government property, and receiving stolen property. The federal charges were added because the property in question was U.S. government property and because the theft had occurred during a federally declared emergency.

He was placed in the Sacramento County Jail. He was released on $50,000 bail the next morning. He was arraigned before a federal magistrate the following Monday.

His court-appointed attorney was a woman named Aisha Patel. She was thirty-eight years old. She had been a public defender for eleven years. She had a reputation for being thorough and for not being intimidated by prosecutors or by the men who hired them.

She met with Michael Ward on the Monday afternoon after his arraignment.

He told her the truth.

He told her that he had been stealing military relief supplies for three years. He told her that he had started small — a pallet of blankets here, a case of MREs there — and that he had escalated over time. He told her that he had never sold the supplies during a disaster before. He told her that he had always sold them in the months between disasters, when the supplies were sitting in warehouses and no one was counting them. He told her that he had thought of it as "asset reallocation." He told her that he had convinced himself that the government was wasting the supplies anyway. He told her that he had convinced himself that the families would never notice.

And then he told her that the fire had started.

He told her that he had watched the fire on television for two days. He told her that he had watched the evacuation orders go out. He told her that he had watched the shelters fill up. He told her that he had watched the National Guard get called up. He told her that he had watched the relief supplies get ordered.

And then he told her that he had called Richard Salazar on the morning of the thirteenth of October and told him that he had "a big load" coming.

His attorney looked at him for a long moment.

"Lieutenant Colonel Ward," she said, "do you understand what you have just told me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you understand that this is a confession to a federal felony?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you understand that this is a confession to a federal felony that occurred during a federally declared emergency, which means that the sentencing guidelines will be significantly enhanced?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you understand that you are going to go to federal prison?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you understand that you are going to be dismissed from the California National Guard?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

Michael Ward looked at her.

"Because, ma'am," he said, "I saw the video."

"What video?"

"The video from the depot. From the fairgrounds. On the news. There was a woman — a captain — standing in front of an empty box. And she was refusing to leave. And her colonel was telling her she was relieved. And she said no. And I watched that video, ma'am, and I saw the families behind her. And there was a woman in the front of the line. She had a baby. And she was holding the baby and she was crying. And she was not crying because she was angry at the captain. She was crying because she was grateful to the captain. Because the captain had given her a blanket."

Ward paused.

"And I thought about the blankets in the warehouse. And I thought about the blankets that were being sold for four dollars to families who had just lost their homes. And I thought about the fact that I was the person who had put them there. And I thought about my own daughters. And I thought about the fact that if my daughters had been in that line, I would have wanted someone to buy back the blanket. I would have wanted someone to buy back the blanket and hold it up in front of my colonel and say, 'This is stolen.'"

Aisha Patel looked at him.

"Lieutenant Colonel Ward," she said, "I am going to tell you something. I have been a public defender for eleven years. In those eleven years, I have represented men who stole cars, men who robbed stores, men who embezzled from their employers, and men who sold drugs to children. And I have never — not once — had a client tell me the truth because he watched a video of a captain refusing to leave a relief depot."

"Ma'am, I do not expect you to be impressed."

"I am not impressed. I am surprised. And I am going to tell you what I am going to do. I am going to represent you. I am going to do it well. And I am going to do it because you have just done something that most of my clients never do. You have told me the truth. And the truth is the only thing in this case that is going to save you. Not the plea agreement. Not the cooperation. The truth. And you have already told it. So we have a place to start."