She faced federal charges of wire fraud, grand larceny, bribery of a public and private official, and the deliberate framing of an innocent person — that last one, the prosecutor told me, being the charge he intended to make sure she never forgot.

Her assets were frozen.

Sensing the total collapse of her defense, she took a plea, for twelve years in a federal prison.

And the governor of the state, presented with the proof of what had been done to me, signed a full and unconditional pardon, clearing my record entirely.

On paper, in the eyes of the law, the five years simply ceased to have happened.

They had not ceased to have happened to me.