Matt Cox on the Fry Machine and Freedom
White Collar Advice
Matt Cox on the guys who won't take a job because it pays a hundred dollars a day instead of 300 or 400. Work five days at a hundred and you have 500 you didn't have before. He says they would rather stay in prison than do something beneath them, and he asks what's beneath you when prison is where you already are, at the bottom. If he's working the fry machine at a fast food place, he still gets to watch YouTube, watch Netflix, turn the channel, meet a girl, order his own food. All of that is an improvement. The worst day out here is better than the best day in prison. They don't see it that...
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He Told Me His Lawyer Wouldn't Let Him
White Collar Advice
A doctor back east called me. I spoke with him about nine months ago and he told me his lawyer wouldn't let him do the work. I said he could have a different conversation and try to engineer something different. He said no, he won't let me. So now he has a probation interview that isn't correct, a sentencing memorandum he never reviewed, and the longer sentence he absolutely knew was coming, and he's blaming everybody else. The lawyer is an opponent. The prosecutor is an opponent. The judge is an opponent. I told him how he gets back on track, and telling people what they don't want to hear...
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Instagram Followers Don't Make You a Lawyer
White Collar Advice
I'd rather be in prison than on a fast boat in the ocean, but my kids love it and I love my kids. When I got off the boat in the Bahamas I had a kind text from a guy who scheduled a call with me for Monday. He asked me to review his indictment and his potential plea agreement before we talk. I won't, and here's why. A consultant in Florida who has been to prison twice told someone he might as well go to trial, because if he loses the sentence is the same either way. That guy got nine or 10 years. Another guy, apparently because he has some followers on Instagram, told a doctor to take the deal...
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What Chipper Told My Best Friend Over a Drink
White Collar Advice
I saw Chipper Jones at dinner in the Bahamas and it took me back to 1999. I'm not comparing myself to a Hall of Famer, the second greatest switch hitter of all time behind Mickey Mantle, but it shows what one conversation can do. My best friend Brad Fulmer, who came to my sentencing hearing and visited me twice a month in prison, was in his second year with the Montreal Expos. He finished third or fourth in Rookie of the Year voting the year before, then got off to a bad start and felt the manager wasn't a fan and wouldn't play him against lefties. I was in Montreal watching the Braves play...
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Stop Playing Director in Your Own Mind
White Collar Advice
Back from the Bahamas, wrecked. I got a text that said please call me immediately, so I opened a Coke Zero and called. He told me I didn't know him, that he was on my live YouTube video two weeks ago and made a note of something I said, and that it proved why his judge gave him an extra two years. What I said was that a judge may give a longer sentence to account for the reductions: a year off from the First Step Act, another year to offset the drug program, and up to 12 months in the halfway house for good conduct. Three years with FSA, RDAP, and halfway house. He said that's exactly what...
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I Was Just Sentenced, What Should I Do Now
White Collar Advice
Someone left the courthouse and texted me: I was just sentenced, what should I do now? I don't know if he's married, if he has children, how old he is, or the length of the sentence, so I answered on a macro level for anyone who was just sentenced. Start with gratitude. You will serve time with men who were taken into custody at their guilty plea, remanded that day, and never saw freedom again. You're free, and that's your chance to prepare. Make sure your judgment and commitment order is correct. Did your lawyer ask for a specific prison, not the closest prison to your home, which could be...
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How to Get Nine More Months in 30 Seconds
White Collar Advice
A case study in 30 seconds on how to get a longer federal prison sentence, probably nine months longer. Your victim, someone you hurt mentally, financially, and emotionally, is speaking to your very cynical judge who used to run the fraud division. They're describing the damage you caused. Don't shake your head. Don't give a look of disgust, because the judge will interrupt the victim, chastise you, let the victim continue, and then give you an extra nine months in prison.
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He Shook His Head and Got Nine More Months
White Collar Advice
Did you ever see Animal House? Thank you sir, may I have another. Someone asked me why a defendant would shake his head in front of the judge while the victim was speaking, and why the judge gave him an extra nine months for it. He had had enough. He didn't believe the victim was actually a victim. Think about what was stacked up behind that head shake: a plea agreement he didn't agree with, Department of Justice press releases that were made up, banks firing him, losing his job, losing friends, not working well with his lawyer, not vested in the probation report, the sentencing memorandum, a...
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Learn to Read the Damn Room
White Collar Advice
A guy on his second day at Montgomery federal prison camp stood in the chow hall and complained. The judge said at his sentencing it was clear he would never return to another courtroom. He paid his lawyer around $800,000, a former prosecutor who ran the fraud division and knows the judge and the prosecutor. His guidelines were 41 to 51 months and he got 18. He wanted to know why he wasn't home working and paying taxes, why he was in prison at all. He said all of it in front of men who had been in there five, 10, 15, 20 years for nonviolent drug crimes. A buddy called me from Montgomery to...
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Before Prison I Said Lock Them All Up
White Collar Advice
Before I went to prison, if you had asked me about people in prison I would have said they're all bad, lock them up, they're felons, they're criminals. Then I went, and I saw guys working hard who never had the opportunities I had and squandered. Prison Professors gives you a way to help people going to prison and to document your own journey. More than 9,000 people have done it, and there are more than 14 million words on the website. You can share that work with your judge, with probation officers, and with the halfway house when you need a job approved, whether it's KFC or something else,...
info_outlineThis episode comes from a rough week—the kind where you know exactly what to do and still don’t do it.
I record this after getting a call no one wants. Months earlier, someone in the community said he was cooperating and his lawyer told him that was enough. Probation. No prison. I pushed back and pointed him to an interview with Paul Bertrand, the FBI agent who arrested me. Bertrand said something that stuck: in his entire career, only one person avoided prison because of cooperation alone.
I urged this person to prepare anyway. Build a record. Make amends. Don’t treat cooperation like insurance. He didn’t listen. He trusted the lawyer. Trusted that his case was “different.”
Then the text came during dinner. Two years.
This episode breaks down a hard truth people don’t want to hear. Cooperation can shorten a sentence, but it rarely keeps you out of prison by itself. Judges look for more than information. They look for proof that you won’t be back.
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Justin Paperny