Istayed with friends in Dallas and tried to figure out what to do next. In the genealogy section of a public library, I found information on a little baby who had died at a very young age. He would have been about my age if he had lived. His name was Bruce Jones. I sent away for a birth certificate.

A friend knew someone who had a print shop, and I made myself a Texas driver’s license in the name Bruce Jones. But I was running out of money; it was time to go.

I took my last $400 and got on a bus to Brownsville, the southernmost city on the tip of Texas. There I walked across the bridge into Metamoros, Mexico, showing my Bruce Jones ID to get a 60-day visa.

Then I took a two-day bus ride to Chetumal on the border of Belize. I went to the border crossing, and with a combination of luck and boldness, managed to cross without showing any ID.

It’s not possible to explain the exhilaration that I felt on the final leg of the journey to Dangriga. It didn’t even matter when I arrived and found out that Ron had lied and never been in touch with his friend John Zabaneh who wanted nothing to do with me.

I soon made plenty of friends. In Belize, most people have nicknames, and soon my pals noticed that I could get things done. They said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and my name is Will Jones to this day. It also added another layer of protection for me because my IDs still said Bruce Jones.

And as far as the authorities knew, Robert Widdowson was still in the U.S. All I had to do was not contact anyone in the States, and I was safe.

Belize turned out to be a strange little country. It had been a British colony that gained independence in 1981, just 10 years before. So it was a new country that was badly underdeveloped.

I had a lot of skills from my years of academic training. And because I was a fugitive, I had no ties and no responsibilities. I didn’t have to worry about making money to support others or plan for the future. As long as I could eat and have a place to sleep, I would be okay—it was very liberating.

So I decided to use my time to help Belize; it’s not often that you get a chance to help start a country. I also swore off all drugs (except ganja, which I used very discreetly) to keep myself safe. And I preached and lived by one principle:

Do the right thing.

I became a development specialist. I worked on projects all over the country. I helped start an organic farm at the prison. I taught agriculture to university students. I assisted on nature documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic.

Eventually I moved to the far south of Belize where most folks were Maya living by subsistence farming as they had for millennia. I began writing grant proposals and over the years brought millions into the south for development projects. I got involved in marine conservation. The Belize Barrier Reef had been declared a World Heritage Site on the basis of seven paper parks that had been drawn on a map. I was hired by the Belize government to prepare conservation management plans for five of them.

For nearly 20 years, I worked for the country. Sometimes I was paid, sometimes I was not.

I did have fantastic adventures. Belize was a bit like the old west. There was little infrastructure or bureaucracy, especially in the south. I lived deep in the jungle in a tent for three years where I met all kinds of wildlife: hundreds of snakes (many venomous), tapirs, wild boars, monkeys, ocelots.

I was attacked by a mountain lion and managed to walk away unhurt after spending 20 minutes with it. In another setting, I was shot at by a major figure in the drug world at close range. I grappled with and chased down a burglar who threatened me with a knife. I dove up and down the barrier reef, meeting sharks, turtles, manatee, and whale sharks. I even lived as a lobster fisherman for two years in a tiny isolated coastal community that you could only reach by boat. It was great fun.

But it was lonely being a fugitive.

Then in 2003, a young Belizean woman from a small village began flirting with me. I was much older, but she came from a terrible family situation and wanted to be taken care of. Even though we didn’t know each other very well, she moved in with me.

It was difficult. She had little life experience and behaved like a little girl. I was working pretty hard at the time, and she fell in with some older girls. It didn’t take long for a drinking problem to appear with the party mentality that went with it. But we persevered. I tried to remember her family background and what she’d been through as a child.

Then in 2006, she became pregnant by someone else. At first I was angry, but as time went on and her belly grew bigger and bigger, I was drawn to them. When her son was born, the father was nowhere to be found. I took him in my arms on his first day and realized that I was going to raise him as my son.

I’d never had children—I’d had a vasectomy in 1980—but now it was time. We became a family. My wife—we now qualified as common-law—settled down a little, and my consulting work began to bring in some money. She had no idea that I was a fugitive, but it was constantly on my mind.

I had broken the main rule of being a fugitive—no ties. What did my status mean for them? If I was caught, I would be gone for life. Even if I wasn’t, I didn’t have papers. I couldn’t take them traveling. I didn’t have credit cards, so I couldn’t purchase outside the limited shops in the south. I had no family ties and no explanation for that. Most importantly, what was the right thing to do?

Finally in 2010, at the age of 65 and facing 15 years, I presented myself at the U.S. Embassy and turned myself in.

I was taken to the U.S. in chains and eventually transported to New Mexico where the same federal prosecutor who’d pounded his shoe into the carpet was at the same desk waiting for me.

Luckily, I had a fantastic legal team. We decided to delay proceedings for about two years, so I would have served some time. Then we made a plea agreement with the prosecutor in which I pleaded guilty to nine years.

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines leave little room for modifying sentences, but judges are able to make changes in special circumstances and if they are willing to do the extensive paperwork. My sentencing judge had shown a willingness to adjust sentences in the past, so we focused on her.

We wrote a long legal document that covered much of the paperwork that she had to fill out to ease her burden. We made a presentation that I was a good person—I’d never been in trouble before, and I hadn’t been in trouble since. A letter-writing campaign by my sister and an old friend produced 46 letters of recommendation to the judge, the most she’d ever received. Many were from college buddies who were now doctors, lawyers, and professors. And folks in Belize put together a video of people that I’d worked with—mayors, executive directors, and teachers—speaking directly to the judge, telling her that I was a good guy and please send me back to Belize as soon as possible.

In other words, we argued that I didn’t need more jail time, that I’d been punished for two years, that I was already rehabilitated, and that I needed to return to Belize and continue raising my son. The judge agreed and let me go.

I returned to Belize in late 2012; he was waiting for me, but his mom was not. Now he lives with his grandmother a few hundred yards from me, and I see him every day. He stays with me two or three nights a week. My leaving was hard on him, but we’re working through it. He’s a good kid, and I’m a good dad.

I’m very proud of my life. I believe that manufacturing MDMA and Heaven was the right thing to do. Even though I have not taken any psychedelics since 1991, I feel that the insights I gained from my experiences with those substances have empowered me to live a righteous and courageous life.

It’s criminal that my government has made them a crime. My goal now is to participate in the conversation about the idiocy of the War on Drugs, which is, of course, actually a war on us.

We need to stop prohibition and legalize.

You can read Rob’s full story in his book Heaven’s Tale: From Scientist to Kingpin, from Fugitive to Father

Ibumped into my old friend David of Texas Monthly at the coffeehouse. I hadn’t seen him since I’d verified a story that they had published about MDMA a year before.

Over steaming, foaming cups, he told me about his latest venture, Yoga House, which he had just opened up by the UT Law School. It was a two-story house that had been converted into a school and studio for yoga and martial arts. It was run by a couple, Ron and Betty Eckelbecker.

When David asked me about my life, I explained that the Supreme Court had just issued its ruling. I told him that I knew that I should do something, but I was a little paralyzed. I had avoided dealing with it for so long. Now that a decision had come down, I wasn’t really prepared.

David reacted very strongly. He said, “I think my friend Ron can help you.” He scribbled a phone number on a piece of paper. “This number will only be answered between 6 and 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Call and let it ring three times. Hang up and call again. Ask for Ron.” He seemed shaken. His fear was contagious, and it helped motivate me. I promised I’d call.

That Tuesday, I called Ron. I let it ring three times and hung up. When I called back, the phone was picked up immediately. “Yes.”

I asked for Ron. The voice asked who I was. When I gave my name, he told me to go to the entrance of the University of Texas Law School, turn right on the sidewalk, and wait in the phone booth at the first intersection.

I rode over to the law school and entered the phone booth. In about three minutes, the telephone rang. When I picked it up, the voice said, “You’re not being followed. Cross the street and come down to Yoga House. Bring your bike inside the front door.” He hung up.

I did it. I found myself in a peaceful oriental setting—mats around the floor, incense burning, flowers, candles. A small table with books and pamphlets stood in front of me. I parked the bike, and a voice said, “Come this way.”

A white-robed man led me down to the end of the hall into what seemed like a meditation room. We arranged ourselves on cushions in front of a flower-draped altar.

This was Ron. He seemed peaceful and extremely composed. His eyes and voice were clear and bright. He was happy to be alive, like he had reached some kind of enlightenment. He told me that David had told him about me and asked what had been going on in my life. Was I being watched?

As I told him all the action, he became more agitated, and finally burst out, “You have to disappear now. Don’t wait a minute more. Meet me tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. in the Japanese teahouse that the art department set up by the creek.”

The next day, I met Ron for a second time. He’d told me to be sure I wasn’t followed. I came via the LBJ library complex where I could have seen anyone. I rode all over the complex and didn’t see anything suspicious. Ron was anxious. “Okay,” he said.

He filled me in. Nine years ago, he was in North Carolina when the phone rang. It was his partners who told him that a new shipment of hashish had arrived at the farm that they used in the countryside of Kentucky. He was to go check on the shipment—100 kilos—and make sure it was passed to the right people. He drove 14 hours and arrived the next morning.

It was a setup. As he entered the barn, they surrounded him. He got 13 years for drug trafficking. He’d always studied martial arts, but now he had lots of time to practice. He got good. He’d recently been released on parole. David heard about him and worked out a deal with the parole board to get Ron released. A few months after release, Ron married a woman who taught yoga. The two of them moved into Yoga House, which David had just purchased. They were business partners.

Ron then explained that one of his old friends from the penitentiary in Merion, Illinois lived in a foreign country. He and his friend had set up a pipeline to get people out of the U.S.—a kind of underground railway.

“I’m checking now that they’re ready to take you.” He said that I would have to follow his instructions to the letter. I agreed.

He told me to meet him the next day at 11 a.m. at a certain bench on the main mall of UT. Make sure I wasn’t followed. I knew that I was being watched, so I was sincere when I said I’d try. I’d seen the footprints in my rug. I went directly home. I opened my suitcase and started to pack. It took me all night. I had a house full of treasures.

I put in some pictures, cassettes, a blank diary, a few pieces of clothes, and that was it. At 3 a.m., I crept out the back door and checked the neighborhood. I didn’t see any cars or vans on the streets, nobody strolling around slowly. It was quiet. I went back inside, put the backpack on, and went for the bike. I took a long circuitous route, eventually landing back at the business school.

I scooted inside and got everything up the elevator to my office on the seventh floor. I finished up what I could. At five minutes before 11 a.m., I went one flight down the stairway. I got on the elevator and went up five floors. Then I walked down one flight and then across the glass walkway that connected the two buildings. Down the stairway two floors, then across the building to the elevators to the ground floor and the rear entrance. I went all the way around the block then cut back to the main mall. Ron was already there.

After looking around carefully, he passed me a small piece of paper. He said, “Memorize what’s on that paper, and then eat it.”

I laughed, but I did it. He told me that the guy was expecting me. All I had to do was get that far. He told me that I had to be prepared to not look back.

I stood up and walked away. Not much left to do now. I picked up the backpack and bicycle at the office and carried them both across the glass walkway of the business school, down into the basement, then through a tunnel that connected to the library. I must have looked strange carrying the bike, but at that point it didn’t matter much.

I went up into the library, across some stacks, then down the stairway and out the side door. Jumped on the bike and rode. I stayed on bike paths and rode all over the city, stopping periodically to be sure that no one was following me.

I took my time, reminiscing to myself about life in Austin. Finally, around 5 p.m I pulled up in front of a laundromat northeast of campus. I locked the bike to a pole and went inside. No one else was there. I watched carefully that nobody was passing or watching, then I slipped quickly out the backdoor. I squeezed through a hedge into the back alley.

Just opposite was the apartment where Lorraine Rost, the secretary at the office, lived. I went upstairs and knocked. That morning I’d told her that I might stop by.

She was flustered standing in the doorway. There had always been an attraction between us, but it seemed more immediate for her. She asked me in.

We sat on the couch, and I told her the truth. I was disappearing, and I needed shelter for the night. I needed the company of a woman. Could I stay with her until the morning?

She told me that I was asking too much, just too much, but then of course you can stay. We spent a warm, sexy night with each other. Thank you, Lorraine. I’ve always treasured our one night together.

In the morning, I walked three blocks over and deposited the key to the bike lock with my old friend Alex. He was having breakfast. I asked him to keep an eye on the bike.

He wished me love and luck, gave me a hug, and down the stairs to the street and around the corner I went.

I took a cab to the Austin airport for an 11 AM flight to Dallas Love Field. All the way to Dallas, I sat with my eyes closed, picturing that piece of paper that Ron had passed me, making sure that I had it memorized, and trying to peer into the future. The paper said:

 

John Zabaneh

Dangriga Town

Belize

 

You can read Rob’s full story in his book Heaven’s Tale: From Scientist to Kingpin, from Fugitive to Father

Voices—male and gruff—yanked me awake. The bedroom door banged open. Heavy hands grabbed my arm and flung me face down, naked on the floor. Dust from the carpet filled my eyes and nose. An icy metal tube slammed into the back of my neck, in the soft part just below the skull. The barrel trembled with the hand that held it, and a drop of sweat splashed onto my ear. I tried to lie very still.

A brittle voice screamed, “D…E…A.”

Hands pulled my arms back, hauling at my shoulder joints until my chest rose off the carpet. My grunt surprised me. More icy metal squeezed the bones at the sides of my wrist.

When the hands suddenly let go, the side of my face smashed into the carpet. At least the gun was no longer shoved in my brain. The hands dragged me upright and guided me out the bedroom door.

They left me standing, handcuffed and naked, in my kitchen. I tried to hold the cold metal away from my back, but my arms tired. I could see more agents dumping out trash barrels in the backyard.

They had me dead to rights. It was a familiar story: An old friend was caught and threatened with a long sentence unless he gave them someone important. Me. He came with an agent and a wire.

It was my own fault. I had been one of the first to take advantage of “designer drugs.” Some chemicals that get you high, like MDMA, can be slightly changed in shape—thereby becoming a new and legal substance.

I had found an analogue of MDMA that had the same effects. I called it “heaven” because it was the hydroxyl analogue, MDHA. I had been manufacturing it in increasing quantities for two years—it was selling well.

But just a few months back, the DEA invoked a new law called the Temporary Scheduling Act. Using it, the DEA could place any substance in Schedule One for up to 18 months while they studied it to see if it really needed to be scheduled.

Now my drug, MDHA, had been listed and had the same penalties as heroin. I should have stopped manufacturing, but my partner had stiffed me, and I was under a lot of pressure from wholesalers. So I had gone ahead and set up one last batch. Now I was facing 15 years.

But my lawyer David had a plan. Only Congress shall make the law. Why was the DEA, the enforcement agency, the sheriff, making laws? David argued that temporary scheduling violated separation of powers and was therefore invalid. Actually, the law that Congress passed delegated the power of temporary scheduling to the attorney general, a member of the Cabinet, and thus, the executive branch. But the executive is not supposed to make laws—it carries out the laws.

To make matters worse, the attorney general then turned around and sub-delegated his authority to the DEA. It’s a dangerous situation when the enforcer can also make laws. Delegation of the power to schedule is particularly sensitive because it includes severe criminal penalties.

So David had written up the legal arguments in a document and submitted it to the judge. They came for me early on the day he was going to consider the brief. Guards wrapped me in chains, took me to the empty courtroom, and left me there.

I was alone in the halls of justice. The size of that room made me feel insignificant, as if the law was much larger than me or anyone else. There was no intimacy there; I hoped there was mercy.

I was perched on the edge of my wooden chair, uncomfortable, trying not to fidget. I felt foolish in my bright orange scrub suit. My life was at stake, and I was not allowed to speak. My presence was a mere formality.

The prosecution team came in and sat at a table about 20 feet away. Seven men in three-piece suits crowded together, whispering. I tried not to stare at them. The young prosecutor with the mustache from my first hearing was there. He led the team. He was here to vilify me, but he knew almost nothing about me. I was merely a case to be won or lost. My life went on his report card.

My lawyer hurried in as the judge entered. We all rose. The dais was high against one wall; the judge presided over us. He barely glanced at me. To him I represented a legal principle.

David whispered to me, warned about my demeanor. Don’t stare harshly at the judge. Be calm, but don’t smile. Act respectfully.

They began. The judge was lordly. The prosecutor was harried, nervous. My lawyer stood and stepped to the prosecutor’s table. They exchanged pleasantries and sheets of paper. The whole thing was too civilized. My patience was running thin, and my fingernails were bleeding.

The prosecutor stood and spoke. My lawyer stood and responded. They droned on. I needed to use the bathroom. The discomfort continued to build. The hard wooden chair was cutting into my buttocks.

Then everyone was silent. The judge rifled some papers and read a statement. He thought that the attorney general should not be able to make criminal laws. The judge said that the sub-delegation from the attorney general to the DEA was also improper and clearly violated separation of powers.

“Case dismissed.”

I was numb.

My lawyer was shocked.

The marshals came to escort me back to jail. I had to pick up my clothes and check out. They took off my chains. When we got to the courtroom door, I looked back. The young prosecutor was bent over the table, slamming the bottom of his shiny black shoe into the plush carpet harder and harder and harder.

A few days later, I received a note from David: “Government appealed. Papers attached.” My heart jumped when I saw the heading: Widdowson vs. United States of America.

No date was set, but David said that he had expected it and would handle it. I went about putting my life back together. I began a career in journalism, became a well-known personality on public access TV, and was also hired as a systems analyst on a huge research project at UT.

Ten months went by, and I nearly forgot about the case until I got a letter from David with a copy of his brief and some notes. He had presented at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and felt that it had gone well.

Sure enough, a few months later, the 9th Circuit issued their ruling:

Delegation of the power to make criminal laws, even to the attorney general, violates separation of powers.

The dismissal of my case was upheld. I was still in the clear.

Not for long. This time David called me. The government had appealed again to the Supreme Court. It seems that there was a similar case in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In that case, called Touby v. United States, the judges had decided that the delegation to the attorney general was perfectly proper—the opposite of my case. When two circuit courts disagree, the Supreme Court must step in to decide. So my case and Touby were put on the 1991 calendar.

The DEA had a real problem here. For years it had struggled with a way to combat designer drugs. How can you outlaw a chemical that hasn’t even been made yet? They had tried a law called the Federal Analogue Act which states that any substance that’s similar to an illegal scheduled substance, and has a similar effect, is itself scheduled. But similar in structure and similar in effect turned out to be nearly impossible to define, especially with harsh criminal penalties at stake. The Analogue Act was useless.

So they came up with temporary scheduling. It was all they had. If the Supreme Court ruled that temporary scheduling was unconstitutional, the DEA had no way to fight any new drug. We had them on the ropes.

In these cases, the Supremes studied the proceedings of the two circuit courts to come to a decision. They began deliberations. A few months later, I got the call; the Supremes voted 9 to 0 for Touby and against Widdowson. The DEA’s temporary scheduling of MDHA was proper. The DEA could now re-issue the warrant and re-arrest me.

David and I huddled. Officially, he advised me to stay and face the music. But then I asked him if he’d had clients who had run. Yes, he answered. I asked him if any were still free. He said yes. I asked, what did they do? He said they left the country. OK. Now I knew what I had to do.

Time to go.

You can read Rob’s full story in his book Heaven’s Tale: From Scientist to Kingpin, from Fugitive to Father