In the fall of 2020, Daniel Muessig was urging everyone he knew to get out and vote.
As federal drug charges go, the one he was facing was nothing.
He was what a kingpin looked like in Squirrel Hill—a pleasant and prosperous Jewish neighborhood in the East End of Pittsburgh.
We’d both probably be in better shape if we didn’t like specialty pizzas quite so much, and, yes, we’ve both smoked our fair share of weed.
And when he needed an innovative way to drum up business for his law practice, he came up with a way of getting his name out into the world that worked so well that it destroyed his career.
In a viral ad that could be a Mr. Show sketch, we’re introduced to a series of seedy characters.
It was hilarious—but not to any of the judges or prosecutors Daniel encountered when he actually tried to work as a defense attorney.
When the mills closed, Dale Worton was part of a group of workers who protested the loss of their jobs and the devastation of their communities with tactics Daniel describes as having ranged from “throwing blood into the pools of steel executives” to “dynamiting the entrance to Mellon Bank in Homestead” to “oh so many dead animals and stink bombs being tossed into family parties and mansions across western PA.” Dale liked boats and prostitutes and listening to Led Zeppelin cranked up to 11.
He was operating an illegal business in a store built out of the laundry room of a building he didn’t own—and it was so popular that cars would be lined up around the block.
His crew operated in plain sight, storing their product in orange lock boxes at construction sites and buildings.
A 63-year-old man only marginally involved in the business hanged himself when the indictment came down and he realized how many years he’d have to spend in prison.
Daniel and his wife let themselves believe the Justice Department wouldn’t bother with him, and eventually they even made plans to fulfill their long-held dream of adopting a child.
Instead, when he reports to prison on May 11, he’ll serve a minimum of five years—unless President Biden finally makes good on his promise.
But if you listen to him tell his story, sometimes peppering it with pop-culture references and jokey asides and sometimes lapsing into deep sadness, I defy anyone who’s made of human parts to truly believe that this man deserves what’s being done to him.
That’s five years for committing a “crime” that’s been made entirely legal in states from Maine to Oregon and from Michigan to California.
He’s pushed hard for insurgent democratic socialists, even selling his customers on his favored candidates while he packaged up their weed, but he’s also sucked it up and voted for the most mediocre centrists to keep right-wing Republicans out of office.
Some people reading this article may be prepared to take the pledge and do the electoral equivalent of shooting the hostage next fall.
Starting on May 11, he’s going to wake up in a cell every day for the next 1,875 days.
He doesn’t have to do it.
Ben BurgisTwitterBen Burgis, host of the Give Them an Argument podcast and YouTube channel, is a philosophy instructor and a columnist for Jacobin.
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