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and his culpability involved in that murder, is different than what we would determine,” the former 960 group agent told me. “For him there’s this whole discernment about what he’s truly respon- sible for. I think there’s a potential Filipinos got killed, but to Le Roux if he says ‘Handle a problem,’ and Dave Smith killed some Filipinos, he doesn’t feel he had them killed. ‘I told them to handle the fucking problem. However they did it is on them.’”

How long Le Roux himself would stay in custody was any- body’s guess. His fate will rest in the hands of a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, who will decide his sentence after the cases in which he provided information—including some that may not even yet be public—are resolved. At age forty-six, Le Roux’s possible futures range from life in prison to as little as ten years under federal sentencing guidelines. Or the judge could throw the guidelines out the window and give Le Roux time served. He will not be charged for any of the seven murders he admitted to—indeed, the government stipulated in Le Roux’s cooperation agreement that they lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute him for the murders anyway—although the judge is allowed to factor them into Le Roux’s sentence.

If the case follows the path of other cooperators, a prosecutor from the Department of Justice will someday stand before a judge and argue that Le Roux’s cooperation entitles him to the lesser end of the sentence that his charges allow. His one request on the plane back from Liberia was that he not spend his life in prison, and he’s likely to see it granted. Having already served five years or more, he might be back out on the street while still in his fifties. But as Le Roux himself noted in his testimony, there are no guarantees. “I think he’ll get fifteen,” the former 960 agent speculated. “He’s got ten more to do.”

If and when Le Roux is released, federal authorities could place him in witness protection. They could deport him, setting him adrift to find a new life—or restart his old one. Technically, as part of his plea agreement, Le Roux also agreed to forfeit all the pro- ceeds of his crimes. But officially, as of the RX Limited trial, the