My name is Sam Zhadanov.  I am 69 years old. I am not a criminal. I am a
   professional engineer/inventor.

   For 22 years in the United States I worked my way up from a machinist to
   chief engineer to the head of my own manufacturing company.  Hundreds of
   thousands of people today benefit from my medical device and consumer
   product inventions.

   All of that work has been stolen. People that were employed at my
   business were thrown on the street.  Tools of my trade, my equipment,
   materials, facilities, bank accounts, as well as all of my family's real
   estate property and lifetime savings, even savings of my 89 year old
   mother...everything that was earned in a lifelong struggle of hard labor
   was confiscated by the United States Government.

   My ideas, my patents, my mind, my productive energy were put away, hidden
   behind prison walls.  Prosecutors have demostrated to me how a family or
   ordinary engineers, defenseless people without political connections or
   teams of lawyers can be crushed and erased by the might of the United
   States Government.

   The "Crime" that was assigned to me was that I manufactured small plastic
   containers.  In 1991 I was approached by two businessmen who brought me a
   product sample of a small plastic perfume container and told me that I
   would get the manufacturing contract if the price was right.  I developed
   the technology that enabled us to meet the low cost requirements and I
   received the job.  My customers were selling this product through retail
   variety stores.  As they informed me a year to a year and half later,
   these plastic containers became popular with store customers to illegal
   drugs.

   Almost from the beginning of this job, government agents placed my
   factory under surveillance. They parked daily across the street and
   observed through open building gates how small plastic bottles came out
   of the machine.  For months they watched, while millions of containers
   were being manufactured, picked up by the customer and sold to the retail
   system, to be ultimately filled with drugs.

   Factory gates were always open allowing unobstructed view of the
   manufacturing process from the street.  It was obvious to agents that
   people inside are not aware of any illegal nature of their activity, or
   the illegal use of their product. Yet their plan was not to interrupt. It
   is unconscionable to imagine that public officials who's job is crime
   prevention would not alarm the unsuspecting manufacturer.

   Yet instead of preventing the crime, their plan was to create the crime
   and to make it flourish! As case documents show, this case was carefully
   planted and seeded by Philadelphia US Attorney's office for a period of
   two years at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars.

   Even when my customers started getting doubts about the legal nature of
   their product and abandoned its manufacturing and distribution, they were
   convinced by the planted government informant to renew production and
   that the product was perfectly legal.  This conversation is recorded on
   tape!

   My customers did not share their concerns with me, knowing that I would
   immedately stop the manufacture of their product.  However, changes in
   their behavior started worrying me.  Even though dozens if not hundreds
   of general retail stores continued to openly carry this product, I
   decided to be sure, just in case.

   I brought samples of the product to my attorney, described my concerns
   and asked for a legal opinion.  The legal opinion letter and verbal
   assurance made it clear that I had nothing to worry about. As I recently
   found out, even the Congressional definition of Drug Paraphernalia does
   not include packaging materials or plastic containers.  Federal Appeals
   Courts have ruled repeatedly that manufacturing of items like "crack
   vials"are perfectly legal.

   This information gave me a new understanding of what was done to me and
   my family: US Attorneys office fabricated a crack vial case and decided
   to turn it into a major drug conspiracy. I was chosen to take the fall
   knowing that manufacturing of plastic containers is not a crime, they
   decided to charged me with the drug conspiracy to distribute 10 tons of
   crack cocaine.

   Since my factory, over a period of 3 years, prouduced plastic containers
   with  a total volume capable of containing 10 tons of crack powder, I
   would be guilty of conspiracy to distribute 10 tons of crack, punishable
   by 10 years to life.

   Payments received for my work constituted money laundering punishable by
   up to 20 years of imprisonment.

   From a plastic manufacturer contracted to make plastic products, they've
   turned me into a drug dealer.

   Under threats against members of my family, with no money to fight,
   after seizing every penny I had and destorying my business by scaring
   away all my customers, Federal proscecutors started pressuring me to give
   up fighting and plead guilty in exchange for a very light sentence and an
   opportunity to save my business.  If I didn't agree, they threatened to
   put me in jail the rest of my life and go after the rest of my family.

   According to my lawyer, I had no resources to mount a successful defense.
   I did not know at the time that my layer, recently a Federal prosecutor
   himself, had alternate reasons for closing this case this way.  I later
   found out that while he continued to represent me, his legal fees were
   under the control of the prosecutors to be released under certain
   conditions.

   Prosecutors and my attorney skillfully coerced me into signing the guilty
   plea agreement, which I never even read.  I placed my life into the hands
   of people who betrayed my trust and used my lack of competence in these
   matters foreign to me.  This happened one week before my trial was
   scheduled to start.
   During sentencing, prosecutors attached me with distortions and lies, but
   my lawyer abandoned me and did not rebut a single statement. I received a
   sentence of 5 years imprisonment to be followed by 5 years of supervised
   release.

   I have been in prison for almost a year. but they have not broken my
   spirit. I know that I am innocent and I have not given up the hope that
   justice will prevail.  I am now fighting for the chance to have a FAIR
   TRIAL. If such chance is given me and I cannot get a lawyer to defend me,
   I will represent myself.  I intend to prove my innocence and expose the
   documented conspiracy, corruption and criminal conduct by Federal
   prosecutors.

   22 years ago I brought my family to America from the despotic regime of
   the Soviet Union in search of Freedom and Justice.  I am now prepared to
   die as a decendent in the America "Gulag" for that Freedom and Justice.
   Sincerely,  Sam Zhadanov 1/2/96
     ###
   I am inclosing this letter to explain why I am taking action, that may
   cost me my life, by declaring a hunger strike.

   For the last year, while in Federal Prison Camp for non violent
   offenders, I have been surrounded by many people, among them doctors,
   lawyers, publishers, professionals and intellectuals, mostly first time
   offenders, who are in many ways victums like myself.

   Many of them are guilty of violations, not crimes. Yet some of them are
   serving prison terms of up to `15 years.  That's longer than served by
   many murderers and rapists!

   They are among a rapidly growing number of victums of the New Federal
   Business Enterprise, the likes of which this country has never seen. Its
   bureaucrats use their enormous, unlimited power to accuse and convict
   thousands of innocent people, so that they can be stripped of their
   property and savings.  Forfeiture is a lot more popular than taxation,
   that's why politicians look the other way.

   With endless resources behind them, Federal proscutors terrorize most
   into submission and acceptance of guilt.  We are turning into a new type
   of totalitarian state and we don't even know it. Most Americans are
   unaware of the growing threat to their freedom and property.

   It is time to sound the alarm, to bring this horror story to the
   attention of the American public.

   For much of my life I endured the oppression of the former Soviet Union.
   Now I am reliving the experience in my new home where I came in search of
   Justice and Liberty.  With what had happened to me and what I've learned,
   I cannot remain silent.

   I am declaring this hunger strike to take a stand against corruption and
   injustice towards me, my family and hundreds of thousands of Americans
   that cannot be heard.

   I ask you to help me bring my story to your readers, listeners or
   viewers. What happened to me can easily happen to them and their children.
      Sincerely,  Sam Zhadanov 1/2/96
      ###
   DECLARATION OF HUNGER STRIKE
   FROM: SAM ZHADANOV, REG #42489-053, ALLENWOOD FEDERAL PRISON CAMP
         MONTGOMERY, PENNSYLVANIA 17752
   On Thursday, January 18, 1996, I will begin a peaceful hunger strike to
   protest the corruption, abuse of power and denial of my human rights by
   prosecutors Pamela Foa and Paul L. Gray, assistant United States
   Attorneys for Eastern District of Pennsylvania, their agents and my
   former attorney Peter Ginsberg of the law firm of Gold and Wachtel.

   I DECLARE this hunger strike in support of my motion to grant me my
   constitutional right; a jury trial which I never had. I was convicted and
   sent to Federal Prison for 5 years without a trial. because of illegally
   obtained guilty plea agreement and a secret pact between prosecutors and
   my lawyer.

   During my case, prosecutors uncovered my attorney's financial
   manipulation and seized his legal fees. During a secret meeting between
   my lawyer and prosecutors held on April 12, 1994, it was agreed that
   these funds would be released to my attorney by prosecutors at their
   discretion, at the conclusion of the case.

   Of course, I knew nothing about this arrangement:
   A prosecutor and an ex-prosecutor teamed up to dispose of the victum and
   divide the spoils of their business arrangement. A lions share, close to
   $1,500,000., all of my family's savings and property, was taken by
   prosecutors and a bone thrown to hyena-lawyer for selling our his client:
   he would receive his legal fees and avoid possible prosecution.

   Here is an example of my attorney's cooperation with prosecutors:

   Normally, pre-sentencing reports from probation and prosecutors offices
   are submitted days in advance with copies to be provided to the defendent
   for review and response.  In my case, these reports were secretely sealed
   and handed to my lawyer in the courtroom just minutes before my
  sentencing.

   These documents contained wild distortions and lies that could have been
   easily disputed, if only addressed.  However, my lawyer did not even ask
   for an opportunity to prepare a response. Instead, he not only chose to
   ignore these severely damaging reports, but decided to hide their
   existance from me.

   He knew that such disclosure would intervene with the "smooth" and
   non-confrontational sentencing, the last requirement for the release of
   his legal fees.  Putting up resistance would, at the very least,
   antagonize prosecutors and jeopardize the release of these funds.

   I learned of the existance of these presentencing reports a year later
   while reviewing case documents.  At the conclusion of the case, my lawyer
   did everything possible to obstruct my efforts to file an appeal and
   reopen the case.

   Is this justice?
   Because of corrupt prosecutors and a greedy, unethical attorney, I have
   to spend the last productive years of my life in prison, forfeit my
   life's work, bring poverty and suffering to my family and cause the
   irreversible decline in the health of my 89 year old mother.

   I DECLARE myself innocent of crimes, fabricated by Federal Agents and
   charged to me!

   I DECLARE myself a victum of Government terror and abuse!

   The incredible truth about my case, exposing how the governemt framed me
   with crimes I did not commit, is hidden in the prosecutors files and
   sealed court documents.  Nevertheless, I was able to obtain documents
   that prove my allegations beyond a shadow of a doubt.

   For the past year, here in prison, I have been trying to bring the truth
   to the attention of authorities.  Each time, my requests have fallen on
   deaf ears.  Authorities did everything possible to sweep my case under
   the rug, because they are afraid of the truth coming out.

   I have been pushed to the brink of frustration.  It seems that the only
   way an ordinary man, like myself, can bring attention to the justice is
   to sacrifice his own life. I am 69 years old and I am proud of the life I
   lived.  Now I am prepared to die in the American Federal Prison by
   starving myself to death.

   Presently my health is in very poor condition.  When I was imprisoned,
   authorities ignored my urgent need for the treatment of a serious dental
   condition.  Since then, this untreated condition had rapidly
   deteriorated. For several months now, I have been living in a state of
   daily physical torture.

   The infection has been eating away the remaining bone tissue in my mouth,
   causing increasing swelling of the entire face, and spreading upwards
   towards my brain.  I cannot sleep at night from the constant pounding
   caused by the swelling in my head.  In the morning, after a sleepless
   night, I have difficulty seeing, as my eyes often are closed from the
   swelling.  My mouth is constantly full of blood and chewing food causes
   excruciating pain.

   The seriousness of my condition had been  documented and confirmed by the
   Bureau of Prisons cannot and will not provide this type of specialized
   treatment. However, government officials have repeatedly denied my
   requests for outside professional medical treatment, which by their own
   admission, I desperately need.

   I, therefore, declare myself being held in a state of physical torture, I
   declare this hunger strike to protest the inhuman treatment that I am
   receiving.

   I DEMAND that I am immediately released on bail, so that I could
   undertake the necessary medical treatment (as government agreed before, I
   am neither dangerous nor a risk of flight).

   I DEMAND an immediate intervention of overseeing government agencies to
   restore and insure the "Due Process" which was denied me by corrupt
   prosecutors and lawyers.

   I DEMAND that Federal agents are prevented from disposing of my family
   and business property, which they illegally confiscated, until the
   outcome of my trial.

   I REQUEST an independent inquiry into mind-blowing facts surrounding my
   case, that not only substantiate my attorney's outrageous misconduct, but
   point to conspiracy and corruption in Philadelphia US Attorney's office,
   not excluding the possibility of high level bribes.

   My case has been officially named "Belkin's" conspiracy.  Yet Henry
   Belkin, It's alleged leader and organizer, is free and in business, while
   innocent people like myself have been given long prison terms.

   Let my suffering and possible death be on the consciousness of those
   government officials who orchestrated, implemented or allowed these
   atrocities against me and my family,
   Sincerely,  Sam Zhadanov  January 2, 1996


   This was something I've been asked to post regarding Sam Zhadinov, a
   Russian emigr┌ who has been imprisoned and lost his personal assets
   and business because the small plastic bottles he manufactured MIGHT
   be used for crack cocaine storage.

   Take this information and resend it to anyone who can help him get a
   new trial.  He needs pro bono criminal and civil rights attorneys.

   All follow-ups or comments to            jpresser@netaxs.com, please.