My Story — Why I Chose to Fight, What I Learned and Why I Help Federal Defendants
Federal Defendant Advisors, LLC helps federal defendants and their families understand what’s coming, prepare for sentencing and prison, and make smarter decisions at every stage of the case. This is practical, real-world guidance from someone who has been through the system himself.
Andrew Bassaner
“Attended Some College”: How My PSR Erased My Story
How a Single Line Rewrote My Education, Character, and Sentence Long before I ever saw my name typed in a Pre-Sentence Report, long before my life was reduced to bullet points and sterile paragraphs written by someone who met me once, my trajectory had already been bent—quietly, bureaucratically, and without my consent. The PSR would later pretend my story began when I started making “choices.” That’s convenient. But my story actually began when adults made choices about me.
Andrew Bassaner
What Is a Federal Prison Advisor?
The Complete Guide to Federal Prison Advisors A federal prison advisor is a non-attorney professional who helps defendants and their families understand, prepare for, and navigate the practical realities of the federal criminal justice system—before, during, and after incarceration. This role exists because the federal system is not just legal. It is procedural, administrative, psychological, and deeply consequential in ways that are rarely explained to the person whose life
Andrew Bassaner
RDAP: The Most Misunderstood Year of Freedom in the Federal System
What RDAP Really Is (and Why Most People Never Get It) In the federal system, time is the only currency that matters. Not justice.Not fairness. Not even guilt or innocence. Time. RDAP—the Residential Drug Abuse Program —is one of the very few mechanisms that can legitimately reduce that time, by up to 12 months , under the authority of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And yet, RDAP is also one of the most frequently misunderstood, misrepresented, and mishandled programs in fe
Andrew Bassaner
REENTRY IS HARDER THAN PRISON
Why Freedom Feels More Dangerous Than Confinement Most people assume prison is the breaking point. They imagine release as relief—an emotional exhale, a return to normalcy, the moment when life finally resumes. For many federal prisoners, that moment never arrives. Instead, release often feels like exposure. The walls disappear, but the structure disappears with them. The rules vanish, but so does the clarity. Inside, life was constrained but predictable. Outside, everything
Andrew Bassaner
Federal Prison Reality: What It’s Really Like and How People Get Through It
Federal prison is not what most people imagine. That misunderstanding alone causes more damage than almost any rule violation or disciplinary incident. The danger is not simply that people are surprised—it is that they enter a closed system with expectations that are fundamentally incompatible with how that system actually works. Federal prison is not constant violence. It is also not a summer camp. Those two extremes dominate public imagination, and both are wrong in ways th
Andrew Bassaner
