Michael Douglas simply played the role of Dad Wednesday in a Manhattan courtroom. The Oscar winner turned up in support of son Cameron Douglas, who is currently appealing the 54 extra months of prison time that was slapped onto his initial five-year sentence for narcotics distribution after he was caught with heroin behind bars.
Douglas wouldn't say much to reporters outside the courthouse, only noting that his son's case was "on appeal" and "clearly" he's hoping for the best, according to the New York Daily News.
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Cameron's attempt to shorten the second leg of his sentence followed a report that he was nursing injuries after being attacked in prison. Officials said that any information pertaining to an alleged attack could only be released with the prisoner's permission.
"I'm not suggesting Cameron Douglas shouldn't be punished for this," defense attorney Paul Shechtman told the Second Circuit Court of Appeals today. In court documents he called his client's 54-month sentence "shockingly long " and "maybe the harshest sentence ever imposed on a federal prisoner for a drug possession offense."
The case is currently under review.
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Cameron, who was facing a minimum of 10 years, was sentenced to a relatively lenient five years in prison in January 2010 after copping to narcotics distribution and turning state's evidence.
Not long after he testified against an accused drug supplier in October 2011, prison staff caught him with the opioid dependence medication Suboxone, as well as a small amount of heroin. He pleaded guilty to having drugs in prison in a deal that entailed another 12 to 18 months behind bars.
Before he was sentenced, however, prosecutors learned via another defendant in a drug case that Cameron had lied about how he got his hands on the contraband and Judge Richard Berman threw the book at him, saying he had never seen a defendant act so "recklessly and wantonly and flagrantly and criminally."
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"While we recognize that many of the words that the district court used to describe Cameron's conduct -- 'reckless,' 'manipulative,' 'destructive' -- were apt, the simple truth is that Cameron Douglas is a heroin addict who has yet to shake his habit," Shechtman stated in his brief.
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