'Justice Denied': A Former La. Regulator's Prison Tale

The former regulator has often spoken out against the trial that convicted him, and he has continuously maintained that he was a victim of a political maneuvering in his state.

His book, titled "Justice Denied: How the Federal Court System Failed Former Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown," also carries a similar theme. Mr. Brown writes in his book, "I served six months in federal prison. A day does not pass that I am not asked about the injustice that took place? I will always have to live with the fact that I was violated by the legal system."

Mr. Brown reports in his book that one of the jurors in his trial has since sided with his cause. "[The juror] had finally seen the handwritten notes that were kept from the jury at my trial," he wrote.

"She had e-mailed me a few weeks before going public, telling me that she thought the jury had been misled and that they had made a mistake in convicting me. 'Beth'?as we will call her?says she regrets her decision to vote guilty."

Mr. Brown also champions in his book more transparencies in federal court proceedings, better access for television cameras in the courtroom, reforms to lower staggering legal costs for defendants in courts, and term limits for federal judges.

Mr. Brown is a veteran of Louisiana politics. Earlier, he had served as a state senator and the secretary of state, and later campaigned unsuccessfully for the governorship in 1987.

He was first elected Louisiana's insurance commissioner in 1991 and was re-elected to a second term before his conviction in 2000.

He resigned from his post in 2003 after losing a final appeal of his conviction for lying to an FBI agent. In the trial, Mr. Brown was accused of trying to set up a "sweetheart liquidation deal" for the failed Cascade Insurance Company in his state. He was acquitted of the actual crime, but was convicted of lying to an FBI agent about the case.