Maria Elena Infantino

Former Deputy Attorney General, Delaware,  defense attorney, entrepreneur, and a former prisoner and addict.

From 1974 to 1979, Ken was a deputy attorney general for Delaware with statewide authority and jurisdiction prosecuting all manner of criminal cases, thousands of them, from investigations through trials and appeals. Then, as a defense attorney, he represented the first person in the state to be prosecuted under a drug law requiring a mandatory minimum sentence. A veteran of winning  more than 400 jury trials and about 200 non- jury trials, Ken has seen the system when it worked well.

He says, “During my unlawful incarceration, I learned as much as any lawyer on the planet about prisoner civil rights issues and other prison related issues. I learned about all types of post-conviction litigation, where I got a good look at the state of what America now calls its criminal justice system.”

Ken is acutely aware of the dangers of drugs as a former cocaine addict who spent five years (four unlawfully) incarcerated. Having recovered and having  educated himself concerning addiction, and being active in of NA/AA meetings  for years, and learning what he describes as a “boatload of information about addiction and related behavioral  problems”, Ken has seen that punitive drug laws and incarceration only make the problem worse. Treatment is needed, not prison. Ken is also a member of the Speakers’ Bureau for LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), and a former Rotarian.

“These laws strip us of reason and judgment,” he says of mandatory sentencing laws. “They endanger officers every day and do nothing to stem the flow of drugs. There is a better solution: legalize, regulate and tax.” Ken explains that he could see from his first mandatory-minimum case that the war on drugs would be a futile catastrophe. He advocates for a reformed system to legalize and regulate drugs.

Ken is a graduate of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, Kenyon College. and The Peddie School.  He lives in Delaware, where after retiring, he founded Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, a fast-growing nonprofit organization  created to address the myriad problems plaguing today’s criminal justice system, including a Church Reentry Program to ai.d prisoners reentering society. 96% of inmates will  be released; When we help them we help our communities

Jim Nussbaumer composed his first novel – a football saga – at age eleven on the shiny turquoise typewriter he found under the Christmas tree.  The book was entitled Reaching for the Goal.  While his life has taken many turns since then, his focus on the Quest has never wavered.

Following tours of duty at Kent State University and in the U.S. Air Force, he spent the next twenty-five years in the financial services industry, excelling in a field he loathed – though not immune to its perks.  By his thirties, running his own independent agency, he became an experienced public speaker and wrote a monthly column on financial security for Senior Forum, a regional Ohio newsletter.  He then launched his own monthly client newsletter, Retirement Insights, which became hugely popular and evolved into a self-help publication with a nontraditional, nonreligious, spiritual slant.

Despite a long, successful career, in 2007 – faced with the pressures of an economy in freefall; the loss of one wife to cancer and two to divorce; the needs of his children and demands of an upscale lifestyle; and responsibilities to panicking clients – he illegally withdrew $100,000 of client’s funds to try to recoup the value of their investments and rescue his floundering business.  The strategy failed and landed him a sentence of ten years. 

His time in prison has been hell, and has also been unexpectedly fruitful, resulting in his return to his first love, writing, and the series that begins with The Master of Everything. The manuscripts were painstakingly handwritten in lined notebooks (he has no computer available in prison) and the material just keeps on coming. 

JOHN POTASH has been featured on CSPAN’s American History TV and has been interviewed on dozens of radio stations around the U.S. and abroad. His work has also been published in the Baltimore Chronicle, the City Paper, Covert Action Quarterly, Rock Creek Free Press, and Z magazine. He has worked counseling people with mental health issues and addictions for over twenty-five years.

In May 2015, Potash released his book: Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA’s Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac and other Activists. Potash completed graduate studies at Columbia University. He published his first book, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders, in 2007.

Rev. Maria Dancing Heart Hoaglund was born in Tokyo, Japan, daughter of Lutheran missionaries. She spent her childhood growing up in Japan, attending Japanese public schools through the eighth grade. As a result, she is bilingual and bicultural, and has used her language and cultural skills in a variety of ways through the years. After finishing high school at Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan, she moved to the United States for college. She graduated from Yale College, and later attended seminary and received her Masters of Divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary in 1984.



In 1985 she began parish ministry at Church of the Crossroads in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she was ordained in the United Church of Christ. She continued in parish ministry for ten years, serving a variety of U.C.C. churches in Hawaii and in the Great Northwest.



She changed her focus of ministry in 1995 when she began working as a bereavement coordinator for a hospice program in the Puget Sound area. She added spiritual counseling to her repertoire that same year, and has continued with this work to this day. Maria also trained in spiritual direction (1994-'97), and serves as a spiritual director and consultant. Because of her broad universal perspective, her ministry has an "inter-faith" quality. She also continues to preach and perform weddings, memorial services, funerals, and other rituals, sharing her universalist perspective.



Maria self-published her books, The Last Adventure of Life: Sacred Resources for Transition (July, 2005) and The Most Important Day of Your Life: Are You Ready? (June, 2010). In May of 2008, a 2nd edition of The Last Adventure was published through Findhorn Press with a new subtitle: Sacred Resources for Living and Dying from a Hospice Counselor. A third edition came out through Finch Publishing of Australia in 2009. These books can also be helpful for those who desire to deepen their spiritual life by examining their questions and doubts around death and dying.



No matter what our religious or spiritual background may be, we must all face our death one day. The sooner we can come to terms with "the most important event of our life" the better. May Maria's books and holistic resources be tools to assist you and your family members and friends in being "proactive" and more comfortable conversing about this topic and everything associated with it. May they also help all of us as we move through all the changes and transitions that are required of us in the shifting, momentous, transformational times!