I think the Feds have a baseline deal and you negotiate improvements on it the best you can. Depends who you can give them. Also they try to get paid while ratting before the busts. A grand or two a week, whatever you can get.

Big difference between being a low level shithead marked for death who has to rat to live, vs being high up the food chain, get busted and they need you to give them bigger fish. Leonetti was allowed to keep his illegal money.

I am known on here as the biker apologist---part of why my opinions are the way they are is that in biker cases many times the biggest pieces of shit go scot free and get paid into the millions. The more shit they stir up, the more they squeeze the Feds for. There is cash incentive for those guys to kill someone and spin the story onto others---then go to the Feds with the "inside info" and demand more money because the streets are "really heating up."

Supposedly the first rico case the government ever lost was in like 1980 against the hells angels. The jury simply did not believe the angel that was ratting and then it got worse as word leaked that he was paid over a million dollars to turn. Essentially the jury thought the governments witness was worse than the people he was testifying against. But he got a free life none the less.

And now are book deals and movie rights. Basically, these guys try to get paid any way they can. But after testifying they have no value.