Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK Document 497-1 Filed 09/10/24
Page 4 of 115
December 15, 2023
Sara Fisher Ellison
Dear Judge Kaplan,
I have written hundreds of recommendation letters in my career. I’ve written them for high
school students, college students, PhD students, colleagues. I have written them for job
applications, college applications, scholarships, internships, award nominations. Some
have stretched on for pages, with tremendous detail. Some are short but nuanced. Some
are emphatic. Some heartfelt. This one is by far the most difficult I have ever written. I
have been stewing over it for months, not sure whether Caroline would even ask me―what
would a judge expect a mother to say in such a circumstance, after all?—but hopeful that
she would afford me an opportunity to help her in this very small way. And I thank you,
Judge Kaplan, for your attention to this over-long letter. Do understand that I tried to edit it
down, but every part seemed like an important piece in understanding who Caroline is and
how I see her. And know, also, that I have longed to have a voice for the past year, to
protect and defend Caroline, but knew that any public statements could backfire
spectacularly. So I held my tongue.
Let me start, predictably, at the beginning. Caroline did not come easily. Month after
disappointing month went by without success in our attempts to start our family. I prayed
and cried and prayed some more, considering adoption, wondering whether my life could
be full without children. After surgery and several more months of fertility treatments, I
was pregnant (and overjoyed and very sick to my stomach). The weight of all of those
hopes and dreams was a lot to place on a little baby, I know, but she was perfect. And as
she grew, we could not believe how perfect she continued to be. As a baby and toddler,
temper tantrums were non-existent. We took her everywhere with us—to grown-up
restaurants where she sat quietly in her car seat while we ate dinner, on trips abroad,
where she played in the local playgrounds or hiked along ancient walls or to monuments
with us, even to concerts and the theater (!) where she said quietly mesmerized by the
action on stage, too young to clearly articulate her thoughts but obviously very engaged
and interested.
We remember her first word, “duck,” her first joke, “ma-da,” used as a single word to
denote both of her parents simultaneously, her proto-language she constructed because
her imperative to communicate outstripped her young mouth’s ability to form sounds, and
one of her first phrases, betraying an essential aspect of her personality, “by self.”
“Caroline, let me help you with that.” “No, by self,” was the typical response, often
emphatically. We nicknamed her the “by-self baby.”