The FBI Told His Wife About the Loans
White Collar Advice
Eighteen months ago a man told me the FBI betrayed him, destroyed his life, and ruined his marriage. He had lied on some forms to get a loan, then began cooperating, and he decided the FBI were his friends because he was helping them. They don't care about your family, your values, or your kid's Little League. They care about victims and prison. He also hid from his wife that he had put her name on the loan documents to get the fraudulent loans, and he figured she would never find out, until the FBI told her that her husband put her name on the loans, that they had to interview her, that she...
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He Lied, Pled Guilty, and Got Probation
White Collar Advice
Judge Wilson told me at my sentencing that he was tired of salesmen turning the other way for money, that most don't get caught, that I did, and that he was going to make an example out of me and send me to prison. The truth is I did much worse than turn the other way. I aggressively facilitated a fraud at Bear Stearns and then UBS, and I schemed with my colleagues so the commissions would keep coming. I'm flying up north to see several people in our community. One of them is a young kid who worked in healthcare, obstructed an investigation, got nervous and scared, lied, was indicted, pled...
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The Best Time to Start Was Five Years Ago
White Collar Advice
Five years is a long time to deal with a white collar case, and finally getting clarity is a good thing. An executive facing sentencing has done his best to show why he's a candidate for leniency, but he keeps missing the message because he focuses on himself. On our call I asked him who the hero of this story is. He said no, who? Five years in and he didn't know. The hero is the executive during COVID who didn't cheat, who has a wife and children and a business, and who didn't submit fraudulent applications. He found a way around it. That's who you have to identify with, because that's the...
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Go to Your Computer Right Now and Purge
White Collar Advice
An FBI agent left a card on an executive's front door, and I told him this on my way home from dinner with my good friend Lawrence. Don't make matters worse. You make it worse by lying and by reaching out to people you shouldn't reach out to, and it's easy to want that because you need comfort right now. Focus on what you can and cannot control. You don't know yet if you're a witness, a target, or a subject. Too many people at this stage play director in their own mind, jump straight to the worst case, can't function, and make really bad decisions. So before I refer you to three lawyers I...
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They Want It All. This Is a Total Disaster.
White Collar Advice
An executive texted me: they want it all, this is a total disaster. Earlier this week I did a live YouTube video on how to communicate with the government, starting with their perspective. Eighteen months ago this guy chose not to plan and not to put himself in the shoes of a prosecutor who wants it all. As a defendant you can make moves financially, transparently, without risk of getting in trouble. You can invest in real estate and disclose it. They could still take the real estate, and it's harder for them if it's illiquid. But if you pled guilty, you created victims, and you tell them...
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Call Me a Strict Parent
White Collar Advice
Two things happened in the last 30 minutes. Three kids, about 17, no helmets, on their iPhones, riding e-bikes, ran me off the side of the road and I ended up in a bush. On the way in I thought, if I die, I'm glad my family is taken care of. A little dramatic, since it was a bush, but that's what goes through your mind. Will the wife remarry? Hard to find someone as witty, but in time, perhaps. The point is I had insurance. You prepare for the worst outcome. Right before that I got a call from a doctor in Texas facing sentencing in three weeks who told me his lawyer said it's time to begin...
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Michael Santos Told Me About Roman Fabrizi
White Collar Advice
July 9th, 2008, four or five months into my sentence, around 3:45 in the afternoon just after mail call. Michael Santos asked if I knew the new prisoner who had transferred in from another prison, about 20 feet away, loud, showing off, telling everyone there's no deal he can't close, the jets he flew on, the models he slept with. I said no. Michael said that's Roman Fabrizi. Walking the track that afternoon he told me Roman Fabrizi isn't a person, it's a type of prisoner: the one who mocks other prisoners who are willing to try and build, and who cozies up to staff hoping for a benefit, more...
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Pity Was Worse Than Any Day in Prison
White Collar Advice
I was working late with Breaking Bad on in my office, season two, episode six, and when Gretchen told Walter she feels so sorry for him I stopped and filmed this. When I was a defendant I took terrible care of myself. In-N-Out four nights a week. A thing of Red Man chewing tobacco every two days. My teeth would bleed and I wouldn't stop. I was punishing myself because I felt like I deserved it, and I got so used to the pain that I didn't even try to get better. Right after I was sentenced I played in a charity golf event at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, and an old friend, a retired...
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Don't Pack Anything You're Not Prepared to Lose
White Collar Advice
He called 90 minutes before surrendering to the camp at Fort Dix and wanted to know what to pack. I told him the longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive it is to get home. He said he didn't want to talk about the train, he wanted the packing list. So here's my story. Three days before I went to prison I looked at the Taft commissary list, saw white Reebok shoes and a Timex watch, drove to Big 5, bought them, and surrendered wearing them. They told me I could donate them or send them home. I think they went to the correctional officers trust fund. Don't pack anything you're not...
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How Do I Leave Prison Better Than I Went In
White Collar Advice
A crypto executive, married with two young children, emailed me. He's going to prison for 37 months for money laundering and mail fraud, and he asked how he can leave prison better than he went in. Four things. First, what is the next right thing for you to do? The consequences of a conviction are overwhelming, and plenty of people, including him until he went to jail, never start. Maybe you want to engineer an earlier release, so begin answering that. Second, why are you going to prison? There was a breakdown, a fracture, that compelled you to go rogue, to launder money, to break the law....
info_outlineWalking the track at a minimum-security camp isn’t what defines your future. What comes after release does. People who assume prison is the finish line usually struggle most when the structure disappears.
Literature matters in prison because it puts suffering in context. Reading about people who endured war, poverty, or decades of confinement—and still rebuilt—changes how you see your own situation. Justin’s example is blunt: compared to people with no family support or education, many white-collar defendants start with advantages they ignore.
Prison doesn’t have to define you. What you do with perspective does.
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Justin Paperny