NOTE: Let’s stop pretending this is an accident. Philip Kenner is dying because the Deep State decided he was expendable. The Bureau of Prisons is the weapon. Louis Freeh is the fixer. Ken Jowdy is the beneficiary. Roger Clemens is the silent partner who never had to answer hard questions. Kenner blew the whistle on fraud and corruption. The system responded by burying him alive. Trump signed the Right to Try Act to save people like Kenner. The BOP ignored it. That tells you everything. This isn’t negligence. It’s retaliation. And unless the Executive Branch steps in now, the Deep State wins again. This piece, “Deep State Death Watch,” was first published on FLGulfNews.com.
By Richard Luthmann
BOP to Dying Inmate: Drop Dead
(MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA) – Philip Kenner is being left to die a slow, agonizing death by the federal Bureau of Prisons, which denied the Trump-era law that could save him. The 54-year-old inmate is terminally ill with late-stage colon cancer. He has already lost parts of his intestines to the disease after years of delayed diagnosis and neglect by prison officials.
He’s now an inmate at FCI-Miami, a low-security federal prison in Miami-Dade County.
Surgeons had to remove sections of his colon (damaging neighboring organs) because treatment was withheld; the result is that Kenner is now incontinent for life, suffering “immediate and explosive defecation” whenever he eats.
Yet despite this life-altering harm, the BOP still refuses him basic medical care or a chance at an experimental cure. He says powerful Deep State forces are to blame.
“I don’t have access to even the oncologist’s scripts while I’m here,” Kenner said from prison. “The BOP refuses to give me even the simple over-the-counter medicine, let alone the [cancer] prescriptions” he needs.
Kenner actually had a fighting chance on the outside. In June 2023, he was released on home confinement under the CARES Act to seek cancer treatment. While free, he underwent chemotherapy and radiation – and crucially, began using experimental remedies through President Trump’s Right to Try Act, which allows terminal patients to take investigational drugs.
Those homeopathic “Right to Try” drugs were extremely responsive, Kenner said, seemingly slowing his cancer.
But in early 2025, the BOP yanked him back to prison on a technicality and blocked him from continuing the treatment. Behind bars, his condition deteriorated rapidly.
“Originally I was…working through advanced Right to Try drugs on the street… but [after being remanded] I continued to deteriorate on a daily basis,” Kenner said.
He is now far sicker than he ever should have been – and 90 days past his proper release date, by his own calculation, as officials “slow-play” and stall paperwork.
In Kenner’s words, it appears the BOP wants to see him die rather than allow a life-saving intervention. The message to this dying inmate has been received loud and clear: Drop dead.
Deep State Death Watch: Did the Real Fraudsters Walk Free?
Kenner’s nightmare began not with violence or mayhem, but with a controversial white-collar prosecution – one he insists was a fraudulent frame-up engineered by powerful men.
In 2015, Kenner, a former financial advisor to NHL hockey players, was found guilty of conspiracy and fraud over investments in a luxury resort project. But he maintains the real culprit was developer Ken Jowdy, the golf resort owner whom Kenner had actually accused of stealing his clients’ money.
All the evidence, Kenner says, proves Jowdy was the real fraudster all along. A forensic accounting after the trial showed that every dollar that prosecutors claimed “disappeared” actually ended up in accounts controlled by Jowdy and entities under Louis Freeh’s protection.
Several former NHL players – including Michael Peca, Bryan Berard, and Owen Nolan – invested millions in Jowdy’s Cabo San Lucas resort venture at Kenner’s urging. Those athletes indeed lost their money, but not to Kenner.
According to Kenner, Jowdy siphoned off the funds and still owns the Mexican resort to this day, enriched by the scheme. Meanwhile, the whistleblower who tried to hold Jowdy accountable is rotting behind bars.
Kenner bluntly accuses Jowdy of even worse behavior abroad. Kenner believes that Jowdy is essentially “a predator upon small Mexican boys” living luxuriously in Mexico, while [Kenner is] left… in a federal prison facility left to die.” It’s a grotesque picture: the true villain enjoys impunity and profit, as the man who spoke out is punished unto death.
At trial, Kenner’s attorney argued that Jowdy “hired former FBI Director Louis Freeh as his attorney” and used Freeh’s FBI connections to sic the government on Kenner. In other words, Kenner says he was the whistleblower – and he got railroaded for exposing Jowdy’s scam.
Jowdy used entities such as Baja Development Corporation (BDC) to siphon money from investors, including funds from NHL players and other high-net-worth individuals. Documents show that substantial money was funneled through personal accounts or misappropriated for unrelated expenses. For example:
Shortly before the Lehman Brothers deal, $360,000 in repayments to investors created a façade of credibility, masking deeper financial mismanagement.
$75,000 of initial investments were immediately diverted to Jowdy’s personal and operating accounts.
“I had whistle-blown on their tens of millions of dollars of fraud,” Kenner said, referring to Jowdy and the shadowy allies protecting the businessman.
The result?
Ken Jowdy was never even charged. Instead, Jowdy made off with the riches while Kenner went to prison.
Deep State Death Watch: The Roger Clemens Connection
Prosecutors alleged Kenner mismanaged investments and stole funds from high-profile clients. Kenner maintains his innocence, claiming the real culprit is Ken Jowdy, the Connecticut native now living between Las Vegas and Cabo San Lucas.
Kenner accuses Jowdy of embezzling millions from shared business ventures and orchestrating schemes involving money from NHL Hockey players and Kenner’s Hawaiian real estate development investors.
Court documents and FBI 302 notes detail Jowdy’s alleged misuse of funds for personal expenses, including payments to the late country star Mindy McCready, reportedly for “weekend getaways” with his friend and Diamante “Pitch-Man,” baseball legend Roger Clemens, who was married at the time.
“If you look at the FBI proffers, Jowdy himself admits these were loans from me and the investors,” Kenner explains. “But Louis Freeh, Jowdy’s attorney and the former FBI Director, twisted the narrative.”
Payments to the late Mindy McCready to silence her regarding an affair with Roger Clemens came directly from funds earmarked for the Diamante del Mar project, demonstrating blatant misappropriation.
Other hush money payments (like Brian McNamee) appear repeatedly in the financial records, notably during legal challenges involving Clemens and other prominent figures.
Now, a key witness, Jose Chavez Favela, may unravel the entire scheme.
At Diamante, Jose Chavez Favela was a “concierge” for star athletes. He attended to their every need while in Cabo. And sources say he is ready to give details and name names.
Chavez Favela answered directly to Jowdy. His job was to provide pro sports icons with anything they wanted – usually booze and girls. FBI 302s corroborate these claims.
Kenner claims Freeh—appointed by Bill Clinton and later linked to the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs—used his influence to deflect attention from Jowdy.
“Freeh was on defense calls and ensured the government focused on me instead of Jowdy’s multi-million-dollar thefts,” Kenner alleges.
Deep State Death Watch: The Jowdy Protection Program
According to Kenner, Jowdy’s ties to powerful allies like Freeh and Clemens shielded him from scrutiny.
“The FBI stopped investigating Jowdy’s child trafficking allegations after Freeh intervened,” Kenner says, referencing FBI notes from a meeting on March 24, 2010, that mention Freeh’s assurances to Mexican authorities.
Kenner also points to Jowdy’s use of foreign accounts to funnel money, including to Clemens trainer Brian McNamee, during Congressional Hearings.
“The government traced the funds back to Jowdy during my forfeiture hearings but ignored it,” he says.
Jowdy’s ability to avoid accountability underscores the systemic failures within the U.S. justice system. With powerful allies and a willingness to exploit legal loopholes, Jowdy defrauded investors and manipulated federal agencies to redirect blame.
As Phillip Kenner languishes in prison, battling terminal cancer, the evidence paints a stark picture of justice derailed. Jowdy’s fraudulent empire, protected by political and legal influence, is a chilling example of how power and money can pervert the truth.
Now, does this cabal have a hand in causing a terminally ill man to die inside the U.S. Federal Prison bureaucracy?
“None of [the] crimes [were] violent,” he said of his conviction. “Mine was a supposed money laundering case… after a 10-week trial that was more of a kangaroo court than anything else”.
Deep State Death Watch: Ex-FBI Boss Tied to Epstein Shields Fraudster
At the center of Kenner’s persecution, in his view, is a famous Washington power player: Louis Freeh, the former FBI Director. Freeh, now 73, led the FBI in the 1990s under President Bill Clinton. But in Kenner’s saga, Freeh isn’t a law-and-order hero – he’s the fixer for a criminal scheme.
Kenner alleges that Freeh leveraged his deep connections in federal law enforcement to shield Ken Jowdy and make Kenner the fall guy. Freeh’s involvement is not just conjecture; it was raised in court. Defense counsel told the jury that Jowdy had Louis Freeh on his payroll, and suggested Freeh’s clout prompted overzealous FBI and IRS agents to target Kenner.
Kenner’s 2015 trial may have ended in conviction, but subsequent revelations bolster his claim that Freeh helped orchestrate a cover-up. Freeh’s associates were entwined in the resort deal’s finances – from Lehman Brothers to Danske Bank – moving money behind the scenes to benefit Jowdy. By the end, Jowdy emerged unscathed and holding the entire $200 million resort, a fact Kenner attributes to “the Louis Freeh protection scheme.”
Why would a former FBI chief side with an accused fraudster like Jowdy?
Kenner points to Freeh’s history since leaving government – a history he calls deeply compromising. Freeh’s name appears in Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous flight logs, suggesting he rubbed shoulders with the convicted pedophile who operated a private island of horrors.
And in 2021, Congress uncovered that Freeh had quietly funneled six-figure payments into trust funds for multiple Biden grandchildren. Notably, the only Biden grandchild Freeh didn’t lavish money on was the one born to Hunter Biden out of wedlock.
These stunning connections – to a child sex trafficker and to the First Family in a Democrat administration – paint Freeh as a consummate “Deep State” insider trading favors and protecting his friends.
Kenner and his allies don’t mince words about the ex-Director: Freeh is “a Democrat Party hack” who “either defends pedophiles or [is] maybe one himself,” citing Freeh’s Epstein ties.
In Kenner’s case, Freeh’s role was to defend an alleged predator (Jowdy) and bury a whistleblower. The pattern is one of brazen corruption: Freeh and his cronies put their thumb on the scales of justice to ensure the well-connected walk free, while Kenner, who lacked such protection, was crushed under false accusations.
“This one now is stretching into north of two decades,” Kenner said of his ordeal, describing it as a protracted Deep State revenge for exposing fraud.
Deep State Death Watch: From “Right to Try” to “Right to Die”?
Kenner’s plight underscores how key reforms championed by President Donald Trump are being sabotaged from within. Trump’s administration passed laws like the First Step Act (to reduce over-incarceration and improve inmate release incentives) and the Right to Try Act (to give dying patients a chance at experimental treatments). But inside the Bureau of Prisons, those laws might as well not exist.
“Absolutely… the President has given people all the tools… to take care of people like me,” Kenner said. Yet the BOP bureaucracy is “playing the long game” – effectively waiting out Trump’s reforms in hopes that “eventually… the MAGA movement will fall out of favor” and they can go back to business as usual.
In Kenner’s case, officials have flouted multiple policies with impunity. After his February 2025 re-arrest, Kenner should have been re-released within weeks under BOP’s own rules, since he hadn’t violated any conditions.
“The BOP refused to follow their own policies,” Kenner said – instead keeping him locked up 23 months (and counting) longer than allowed.
Those two lost years proved devastating: a warden at FCI Englewood in Colorado held Kenner in limbo for 62 weeks and blocked his transfer to a medical center, essentially forcing him into the risky surgery as his only treatment option.
“He had an unchecked decision to hold me and subject me to a horrible, life-altering surgery if I wanted any treatment whatsoever,” Kenner recounted, noting it would never have come to that “if the BOP had followed any number of their policies” – from compassionate release for terminal illness to granting his earned First Step Act time credits.
This bureaucratic cruelty has been documented. In May 2025, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General issued a scathing report labeling the BOP’s cancer care a “systemwide catastrophe,” citing delays in diagnostics and treatment leading to unnecessary inmate deaths.
Kenner is living proof: BOP staff sat on his cancer diagnosis for over 100 days with no treatment, until the tumors nearly broke through his intestinal wall. “Only a miracle” prevented the cancer from metastasizing in that time, his clemency petition notes bitterly.
Even after surgery, the abuse continues. In FCI Miami, prison officials have forced Kenner to wear adult diapers and publicly soil himself if he wants to eat in the chow hall – threatening to throw him in solitary confinement if he defecates in the cafeteria again.
When Kenner begged for a simple accommodation (a “grab-n-go” meal pass to eat near a restroom), he was told the price would be transferred to a distant medical prison; when he agreed, his request was simply ignored by the warden.
“Collectively, they chose a deliberate path to harm Kenner,” his clemency filing concludes of the officials who have denied him relief at every turn.
Today, Kenner’s only hope for survival lies in extraordinary intervention. He has applied for executive clemency, and his petition (Clemency Application No. C326519) is pending review by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin – a Trump appointee whose job is to advise on pardons and commutations.
Martin was appointed in 2025, after President Trump’s return to office, in an effort to correct injustices like this. Kenner is exactly the kind of inmate Trump’s justice reform agenda was supposed to help: a non-violent offender, elderly and terminally ill, who has been mercilessly mistreated in federal custody.
“The Bureau of Prisons should have had me released on a compassionate release… after their four-and-a-half-year delayed diagnostics,” Kenner pleaded, noting that under the law, BOP was required to advocate for his release once he was deemed terminal.
“They refused. They refused to follow their own duties,” he said.
Now it falls to Trump and his pardon attorney to do what the BOP will not. If they fail to act, Kenner – a whistleblower who dared to expose high-level corruption – will likely die behind bars in a matter of months.
Such an outcome would render Trump’s Right to Try Act a cruel joke for prisoners like him. In that case, the law might as well be renamed: the Right to Die Act – a death sentence for those the system deems disposable.
The clock is ticking for Philip Kenner, and by extension, for the credibility of the reforms that promised inmates a fighting chance. If justice and mercy don’t arrive now, “Right to Try” will mean nothing more than a right to die in prison.
