the Outlaws and the Angels. He also attested that the FBI had asked him to fake his own death in order to further their investigation against the Hells Angels, to which he refused. The defendants shook hands with Mullen and thanked him for his testimony. Under a special arrangement approved by U.S. District Judge Edward H. Johnstone, defense attorneys subpoenaed each of the codefendants as witnesses, entitling them to per diem witness fees. The total cost of the case was estimated at $1 million. Barger reportedly celebrated his 50th birthday in the midst of the trial by partying and smoking marijuana at the home of Thomas Clay, Michael O'Farrell's lawyer, in Goshen, Kentucky. Following a three-month-trial, the longest ever in the history of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, Barger and O'Farrell were convicted on October 28, 1988, on the felony charge of conspiracy to transport and receive explosives in interstate commerce with intent to kill and damage buildings. Barger and three other defendants were also convicted on the misdemeanor charge of knowingly converting a copy of a government document, while five others were acquitted of all charges. He stated following his conviction: "I think we won very handily in there. It was just too bad that Irish [O’Farrell] and I were convicted, but we will probably win an appeal. I think it was a devastating blow to the government, and I couldn’t be happier with the verdict except if I had been found innocent myself." On March 10, 1989, Barger was sentenced to 57 months' imprisonment at the Federal Correctional Institution, Phoenix in Arizona. He took up running for exercise in prison, saying: "I'm slow but I can go on forever". While imprisoned, Barger received dozens of requests for interviews every month but continuously turned them down as he was collaborating with a screenwriter at the time to have his life story turned into a film and was unwilling to compromise the commercial viability of the project. At Christmas 1989, he sent one of the prosecutors in the case, assistant U.S. attorney Cleve Gambill, a card from prison, showing him posing on a towel as if he were on the beach, with the message: "Nice weather. Wish you were here." Barger appealed his convictions, contending that the government's investigative conduct had deprived him of his Fifth Amendment right to due process, that he had been