I’ve been a special agent with the federal government for more than sixteen years and the lead investigator on many cases. I’ve seen defendants plead guilty to serious crimes and then, just before sentencing, tell the judge what they’ve done wrong, often expressing remorse. Allocution isn’t easy: imagine standing in a courtroom before a judge and admitting you laundered money or committed identity theft. There’s a physicality to it, not unlike what happens during the sacrament of penance, or during the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass.
The offenders I’ve encountered are not evil incarnate. After a suspect is arrested, we spend a long day together, going through the initial criminal proceedings. Some cooperate with the government, which could involve lengthy “proffer” sessions during which we discuss their entire history. On countless occasions, I’ve made small talk with serious wrongdoers over lunch in small rooms. Once, I chatted about movies with a cyberstalker, who told me he named his cat Rollo Tomassi after a character from L.A. Confidential. Other times, I’ve discussed books and fitness routines. Whether a defendant cooperates or not, they usually thank me for treating them like human beings. They even occasionally apologize to me personally for their actions.
One man, whom I’ll call Edward, joined a money-laundering conspiracy. The conspiracy was a popular payment method for cybercriminals worldwide, processing tens of millions of financial transactions amounting to billions of dollars. The conspiracy facilitated a variety of frauds and scams, but a typical example goes like this: after a hacker harvests thousands of credit-card numbers from a company and offers them for sale on the dark web, buyers purchase batches of numbers. But they can’t use the normal financial networks, since banks would flag those traceable transactions as suspicious. Instead, they use the conspiracy’s virtual currency, a digital asset tied directly to the value of the dollar. The illicit operation affected hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
Edward’s arrest was like something from a spy movie. We learned he and his boss, the kingpin of the scheme, had booked two flights out of Rabat: one to Paris and one to Madrid. Agents in Morocco tailed them to confirm their exact flight. After they boarded the plane to Madrid, we staged agents with the Spanish National Police at Barajas Airport, where, based on our warrants, Edward and his boss were arrested on the tarmac. Their arrests triggered enforcement actions in more than ten countries. We arrested five people and seized money and computer servers in places like Cyprus, Hong Kong, and New York City.
Edward signaled interest in talking to the U.S. government, so I flew to Madrid to interview him along with the investigative team, which consisted of three agents and four federal prosecutors. Edward spoke to us for hours in a Spanish Ministry of Justice conference room. The prosecutors determined he was truthful and prepared to interview him again following extradition.
Months later, I returned to Madrid to assist the deputy U.S. marshals responsible for extraditing Edward. I had an afternoon to kill before the return flight on the following day, so I went to the Prado museum, eventually lingering near Goya’s “Black Paintings.” One in particular hypnotized me: Duelo a garrotazos (Duel with Clubs), painted around 1820. Goya depicts two bloodied men clubbing each other, locked in an apparent fight to the death. The odd angle of the frame, and the fact that the two men appear from the knees up against a rugged landscape, makes them appear like giants, their eternal conflict the stuff of timeless myth. The work, a vivid illustration of the absurdity and horror of human sin, terrified me.
At that point I was no longer a practicing Catholic, and barely believed in God. My father’s suffering before his premature death made ideas like an immortal soul and a loving God almost meaningless. Besides, I didn’t need to think about them: my career was going well, and my increasingly secular reading helped me erect an intellectual scaffolding that buffered me from questions of faith.
Back in the United States, we interviewed Edward several more times in a U.S. district courthouse. We discussed his personal interests and professional skills and detailed every crime he had ever committed. During breaks, I talked with Edward about his family, but also about Spanish literature, the city of Paris, and the beauty of the French language. Our relationship was professional, but as the interviews continued over a period of several years, we got to know each other so well that I considered him something like a “work friend.” The work paid off: Edward’s cooperation helped secure the conviction of the architect behind the entire scheme, who was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
Edward was ultimately sentenced to time served, since he’d already spent so many years in federal custody. He’d then have to self-deport, as he had no immigration status in the United States. When we at last said goodbye to each other, I wished Edward and his family good luck, telling him I’d always remember our conversations. Edward was emotional, affirming through tears that while he knew his word might not mean much, he would speak up for me anytime and anywhere. He thanked me, telling me he hoped to see me again on some happier occasion. He also apologized for his actions, saying he was sorry for the many victims he’d harmed, which indirectly included his own family.
I was moved. Though I am neither a priest nor a judge, Edward had essentially made a confession, an allocution, before me. That took humility, and I could sense his genuine remorse, his honest awareness that what he’d done was wrong. This, unlike the blind violence depicted in Goya’s painting, was real power.
I think about Edward often, especially when we pray the Confiteor at Mass. It’s a kind of collective confession in which we admit before God and each other the wrong we have done. Even as we profess our guilt, we ask for help, acknowledging we can’t stop sinning alone. St. Basil writes in similar terms, describing evil as “alienation from God.” We can’t just think our way back, though. We have to actually do something: “With a small turning of the eye, we are either facing the sun or facing the shadow of our own body.”
Facing our shadows: maybe that’s what Edward was doing during our sessions all those years. Eventually, I did something similar. After reaching a point of spiritual despair, I sought help, and together with a Jesuit spiritual director, undertook the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The self-scrutiny—not unlike my job, though I was never on the receiving end of the interrogation—was painful. In prayer, I vividly relived some of my worst moments, the times when I judged the faith of others, including loved ones, betrayed friends, or turned a blind eye to those in need. It was wrenching, but also cathartic. I recall the peace I felt when I received the sacrament of reconciliation: “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
These are words that all of us—habitual sinners that we are—need to hear, again and again, for the rest of our lives. It will never be easy to name our sins and accuse ourselves, whether privately in confession or publicly at Mass. That’s why we need God, and each other, and the great humility of people like Edward.
