Locked In with Ian Bick - I Drank Myself To The Edge Of Death — Then Went to Prison | Joseph De Gregorio

Episode Date: January 4, 2026

Joseph De Gregorio was raised in a good family and built a successful career on Wall Street, but the 2008 market crash derailed everything. After losing his footing, he started his own business, which eventually turned into a fraud scheme—a decision he ultimately took responsibility for by coming clean and turning himself in to authorities. At the same time, Joseph was battling a severe alcohol addiction, drinking himself to the point of needing a liver transplant. He was later sentenced to federal prison, where he faced harsh conditions and medical challenges while serving time in a federal medical center prison. After his release, Joseph reinvented his life, dedicating himself to helping others navigate the justice system through prison consulting and sentence mitigation work, turning his darkest chapter into a mission to help people avoid the same mistakes. _____________________________________________ #IAlmostDied #PrisonSurvival #AddictionRecovery #TrueCrimeStories #LifeAfterPrison #RedemptionStory #PrisonLife #survivorstory _____________________________________________ Thank you to FRONTLINE HEALING FOUNDATION for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://frontlinehealingfoundation.org/ to donate or share their mission. _____________________________________________ Connect with Joseph De Gregorio: Website: https://www.jnadvisor.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jnadvisor-joseph/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 From Wall Street Success to Federal Prison 02:40 Who He Was Before Everything Fell Apart 11:10 Childhood, Ambition & the Drive to Win 19:16 Inside Wall Street: Money, Power & Pressure 30:08 The 2008 Financial Crash That Changed Everything 39:47 Addiction, Burnout & Losing Control 47:32 Liver Failure, Transplant & Near-Death Hospital Battle 01:03:53 Getting Sober: AA, Accountability & Truth 01:11:20 Turning Himself In to Federal Authorities 01:22:13 Federal Prison While Medically Compromised 01:35:48 Release, Home Confinement & Supervised Release Reality 01:40:58 Life After Prison: Education, Purpose & Reinvention 01:52:00 Beating the System: Mitigation Strategy Explained 02:01:53 Legal Tech, Consulting & The Future of Defense 02:09:40 Final Lessons, Advice & How to Contact Him Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Otherwise, you know, you're not going to live. What did your wife think when you broke this news? He probably just dropped a bomb on her. We got to R&D, and he's like, take off your clothes. I put another uniform on. They had another name. You know, they shackle me with the waist, the wrist, you know, feet. and they were like, you know, they put me in a van. I'm like, you know, can you tell me what's going on?

Where are we going? So he's like, you know, the doctor's saying you having like liver rejection or something, you know, we're taking you down to the hospital, Beth Israel. Joseph Day Gregorio went from Wall Street success to federal prison, battling addiction, fraud charges, and a liver transplant that nearly killed them. Joe, welcome to logged in. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thank you kindly for having me. Yeah, we're just talking about all of our mutual connections. It's funny to see how the prison community is.

It's a big world, but small at the same time. Very small block. Yeah, and Justin, who has his own prison consultant company. Is that what you call it, prison consultant? So it's a full sentencing mitigation firm, pre-sentence and post-sentence. And I implement a lot of very unusual mitigation strategies to get the maximum sentence reduction and the minimum time served for my client. And I consulted over 400 cases now, and now I get hired by, you know, top law firms in America.

I have a good relationship with a lot of them. So your focus is on the individual before sentencing? Before sentencing. And after as well, you know, I get hired after sentencing. There was an individual who just recently got sentenced to 20 months. They hired me post-sentencing. and I created a reentry plan for him. I told him how to present this to the case manager to get it into the central file and build it.

And he was let go after four months. And his lawyer left the LinkedIn, left the recommendation on my LinkedIn. You know, he said he never seen anything like it. You know, he served 20% of the time. Actually, when the lawyer called me, he said, Joe, I have a client, you know, if you do that reentry plan for him, How long do you think he'll be out? And I said, you know, Richard, I don't know, maybe like six, seven months. I said it really depends.

You know, he says, no, no, get out of here. He didn't believe it. And meanwhile, he got out in four months, he only served 20% of the time. I wish I had you when I was in prison. Do a lot of the new laws kind of help your ability to do these types of things? Yes. You know, the first step back, the biggest mechanism in the federal system in decades, They have productive activity mentioned in there.

It's not a specific credit, but you know, you want to be as productive as possible and maximize the time in there. So when someone surrenders to prison with a release plan, they need to add to it. They need to build it. And little things like writing a book report. And I know it sounds very grammar school-like, and it is, but it goes a long way in prison. you know, put together an Amazon book list before surrendering. Read with a purpose. I'm not just saying, you know, read any book, but you want to read with a purpose,

something that's going to help you later on in your future. So, you know, you write a one-page book report, why I read the book, what I learned from it. You give it to the case manager. Like once every six, seven weeks, you don't want to inundate the case manager. You want to have a good relationship with him or her because they're the most important person to us in prison. So write a monthly assessment on yourself, a monthly report card as well, the classes that you're taking, what you're learning in those classes, you know, doing your job, etc. You know, you want to separate yourself from everyone in prison and you want to become that purple cow because unfortunately we get looked at the same and you want to prove worthy of why you're worthy to go home early because it's certainly not a right. It's the biggest privilege in the world to be let out early.

And the case manager is a very, very cynical person, you know. So, you know, they look at us all the same until you separate yourself, just like in the courtroom with the judge. You have to separate yourself from everyone. So it's a full service sentencing mitigation firm. It's really focused on white collar, but I've been doing, you know, also drug cases as well. But it really, I like to work with people who are accountable. they own what they did, you know, kind of like myself, you know, I came forward. Basically, I turned myself in and we'll get into that.

But it's good because now I get to pick and choose with who I want to work with. And the pipeline of referrals is more now front to law firms. And, you know, I was just on the American Bar Association. And, you know, I was just three weeks ago today, I was just published. in Bloomberg Law. So it was a big deal for me to become a published author of Bloomberg Law, and they want me to write again. And now I'm like a reoccurring contributor to Bloomberg Law. I don't practice law. I'm not a lawyer. But, you know, it's an honor to be here. And I don't believe in coincidences anymore in life. Yeah, you were just telling me this is the date that you

got released from prison? What was the significance of this date? So this date, December 29th, 2025, three years ago from today, I was let out of the Boston Hospital and sent back to Devons because I had liver rejection in prison because when I surrendered November 17th of 2022, I was put in quarantine. I was put in the shoe for seven days and they didn't give me my medicine. So I got extremely sick. And within a month, they had to rush me out of the prison and they, uh, I was in the hospital from December 12th to December 29th, you know, ankle chained, uh, two guards by my side, you know, I had severe rejection. I had this, um, this machine that was, um, you know, pumping my body. It was called ATG and, uh, it made

my arms blow up and everything. I couldn't call my wife. My wife had no idea where I was. Um, and December 29th of 2022, they sent me back. to the prison. And they put me in the shoe again until January 5th. Well, I guess happy anniversary. I don't know what the opposite that is. But it's good to have you here. And thank you for reaching out and support. And we'll have the link to your website in the description of the episode too for everyone to check you out who's in need of your services. Thank you. I'm willing to help anyone. Where'd you grow up, Joe? I was born in Brooklyn. I was born in Sunset Park. And then at two years old. My family, we moved to Bensonhurst, Italian-American family. My father came from Italy and first

generation. And great, great upbringing, you know, very, very tight-knit community, went to Catholic school and was, I had a, I had a school yard right across the street from my house. I grew up on 71st Street between 15th Avenue and Newtrick for anyone that knows that. And I had a PS-12 was across Street, I was always playing baseball. My life was baseball. I was on the Catholic school baseball team. I was a catcher. I was playing softball in the school yard, fastball, wiffle ball, stick ball, and I was collecting baseball cards. And I would buy the price guide every month, and I would price my baseball cards. So that's kind of like the similarity with Wall Street with me, with how I pivoted into that right out of high school. What do your parents do for work? My father was a machinist, Picon Edison. You

worked in Long Island City at the time. And my mother was stay-at-home mom. She took me to all my my games, my practices. She was actually part of the Little League coach when I was young. Any siblings? Two older sisters. Were you guys close? Very close. And aside from being into sports, how would you have described yourself? I was really, Yankees on my life. You know, growing up, Don Mattingly was my favorite baseball player. I loved fireworks. We would, we would have great Fourth of July shows and it was it was just a great upbringing you know I have your BMX bike and you know you know it was I was confined like not to like I was always in that neighborhood where I grew up I was either on 15th Avenue 13th Avenue 17th Avenue you know and then I'm we moved to

Staten Island when I was 14 years old I went to Susan Wagner high school um to good in school you know and then right after high school, I went directly to Wall Street. What were some values your parents instilled in you as a kid? Working hard, you know, the value of a dollar. You know, I had a paper route in Brooklyn. And, you know, I remember getting the Sunday paper early in the morning on 17th Avenue. I had to bring it back to my house, put all the coupons in there. It took forever.

You know, and then when I went to collect, you know, it was, I would get a dime or a quarter or something like that. And this was like 1984, 85. I was about like nine, 10 years old. But, you know, it was, you know, to be honest worker, good upbringing, to be honest. You know, it was, you know, to be considerate to other people, you know, to be there for other people. Just great. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.

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actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this shell will get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Values all around. How does Wall Street first come into your mind that you wanted to do that? Around junior year in high school, when some of my friends' older brothers were working on Wall Street and did very well for themselves. And they were going directly to Wall Street, too. So it was actually my brother-in-law's best friend that he was working. He said, you know, come to work with me.

and, you know, basically, you know, give you a stack of leads and they tell you to make five, six hundred dials a day. I didn't like it at first. And then I would do like construction. I was doing some odd jobs. I was doing roofing. And I'm afraid of heights. So that job didn't last quick.

And then I went back. Did really well. I remember opening my first account and walking it up and they tore it up in front of my face. and they were like, you know, nothing under $10,000. So I was like, you know, I was like, you know, you work so hard to pitch and open a guy on a telephone. And then, you know, but then I went to a firm U.S. securities and futures on 100 Wall Street, started working with guys from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania. They had a huge trading floor.

They had a bond pit and options pit, a credit market pit. And I started just taking everything in. And I would be at the office at 615 in the morning. morning till 1030 and they saw how hungry I was and slowly I started building up a book of business, you know, to a million dollars, then to 10 million. And then I started really studying the market. At first, I was studying fundamentals, balance and income statements, 10 Ks and 10 ques to like look to the future and see the earnings of a stock. But then when I started working with these guys, they called certified master technicians, CMTs, they're all about charts. They're all about

charts. And so when I started studying charts, that's the crystal ball for me. And I, not that I threw the fundamentals out the window, but I was just looking at a chart. Like if you would give me the symbols, I wouldn't look deep into the earnings. I'd look at the charts. You know, you could do a bunch of different studies on it. You could see where the stock is going. And really was consistency that, you know, it would be like six out of 10 stocks that I would do well on when other guys at the firm, maybe two or three, you know, they were batten two, 300. And then they, and then from there, it was like all referrals started coming in around 2003, 2004, you know, all my clients started sending me two, three of their golfing buddies to three of their business partners. And then it grew

to, you know, at over 50 million under management. And my clients were all. speculative traders. And so when I first got my license, my series seven, and I passed it in six weeks, I studied full time for it. I started pitching the richest zip codes in America. I basically, you know, I searched for the richest zip codes in America. I bought my leads from, you know, there was a lead person, you know, for all the firms. And I just start, they're hard, they're hard to get. I mean, you know, big guys, but all you need is like a few of them and then to make them money. So my business grew quick. And then in 2007, I was working at a firm on 40 Wall Street.

And they gave me my own office. They give you a big sign-on bonus to come on to the firm. And every time I would go to the ticket window, because it was still at the time where when you got off the phone with a client, you had to write out the buy, sell ticket and bring it to the ticket window. they would execute the trade. And, you know, there would be a group of brokers. They always wanted to know what I was buying and selling. And, you know, then I had, I helped some guys. I really didn't want co-cullers. Like, everyone had co-cullers. I just wanted to focus on my business. I really wasn't

hanging out at all. You know, I didn't have a girlfriend. I just my, I used to wake up to Bloomberg. I watch in TV, go to bed to it. I used to work on Saturdays. I started pitching overseas. accounts. I started pitching the UK. I started coming into the firm sometimes at 3.30 in the morning, 3 o'clock and started pitching UK. I wanted an international book and I got some of those clients as well, which I did well. And then 2008 happened. And so August of 2008, the owner of the firm that I was working at took like the top producers to the Bahamas. And so it was like five. It was like five or six of us, and at the time, as soon as we got there, the market started, started collapsing. And this was really at the infancy stage of the collateralized mortgage obligation, the crash that

happened. The owner of the firm never came out at his hotel room. And we were, you know, knocking on the door, you know, telling him to come outside. And, you know, finally he opened the door at the day three and, you know, he was just glued to the CNBC and he says, you know, look at what's going on. And, you know, I knew what was happening because my sales system was calling me and I was talking to some clients. So we race back to New York. I had clients in Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers. Fannie Mae for a while, AAA rated to the end. It was like a 6% dividend. Lehman Brothers was 158-year-old institution. If you would have told me that when it was going out of business,

I wouldn't have believed you at the time. And it did on September 8th or September 15th, one of them. It was a Monday, September 15th of 2008, where Fannie Mae had come in that was out of business, Lehman Brothers. And, you know, every day you come in, you see your money line imploding and just getting less and less. and you're not intentionally wanting to lose your client's money. It affected me severely.

I was at the firm until 2.30 in the morning, 1.30 at least talking to everyone. And I had a few arbitrations. And arbitrations is when a customer sues you civilly for lost amount that you lose them in the market. There was a lot of lawyers at the time after the 2008 crash. that was sending out contingencies letters to everyone. They were like, we'll take on your case for free. We'll get your money back from the broker who lost you money. And three of my clients did do that.

And I settled with all of them in 2011. And it was a destroy and rebuild process. You know, not only did my book get destroyed, but everything that I earned, I gave it back. So it was, and then in, that was 2011 when I settled the arbitrations. So by this time, between 2008, 2011, there was so much going on with the brokerage business. You know, the owner of that firm killed himself on 40 Wall Street, the owner that didn't come out of his room. and, you know, he wound up committing suicide in his house in Minnesota.

And, you know, a lot of brokers left the business. You know, I stayed. I rebuilt it. But it was then and only then where I started to drink. We would go out. We were like trying to, I don't know, escape or numb the pain or, you know, guys called it liquid lunch on Wall Street. They said, you know, let's go out, you know, for a drink and started going out to dinners and or lunches.

And one thing led to another, a very slippery slope with drinking. And then in 2011, it got even worse. And then in 2015, just continued to get worse. My health started rapidly. I was functioning. While, you know, I was in a suit functioning all day, but I had a glass of vodka by my bedside, you know, three in the morning to stop the shakes. And, you know, I was rotting on the inside and totally distorted my lens, became a Jekyll and Hyde. The snowball going downhill happened so quickly.

And I destroyed my liver. And in June of 2020, in the middle of Manhattan, in the middle of COVID in Manhattan, the epicenter, I had a full liver transplant. I was never on the list. And I got rushed to the hospital in Staten Island, June 26th of 2020. And I had all the COVID protocols in place where you couldn't go to a hospital. unless it was COVID related in New York City, at least in the five boroughs. And I was completely yellow.

I was 300 pounds filled with bile. I had bruises all over my legs and all over my body. I couldn't put dress shoes on. I'll show you the pictures. And so when they rushed me to the hospital to Staten Island, June 26th, I don't remember because if you, Basically, I drank myself into a coma. And I woke up at New York Presbyterian Columbia University Hospital on 168 Street, Manhattan. And I had two hoses on each side of my waist.

They were connected, just the yellow bile that was coming out of my body. And I was hooked up to a lot of different things. And they said, you know, you're going to need a liver transplant. Otherwise, you're not going to live. And they have what's called a Meld score, M-E-L-D. It goes from zero to 40, and, you know, 40 being the most severe. And I had a 40 score. So I wasn't going to live long at all.

They said, you know, the doctor told me, you know, I'm surprised you're still alive. And so long story short, they wanted to see if I would be able to withstand a liver transatlore. plant. And if I tell you what was going on in that hospital at that time in July of 2020, just people dying everywhere, you know, I thought there was no way I was going to make it out of there alive, especially with the shape that I was in and, you know, everyone in there for COVID. And then finally, July 21st of 2020, doctor comes in my room. room. And I was in a room with a big room with other people. And he says, you know, we have the perfect liver for you. We're going to do the transplant tomorrow. And I didn't, I didn't, I didn't

believe. I didn't know, like, I wasn't all there. I was maybe 10% cognizant at the time. They had me heavily detoxing. They had me, you know, I was laying in bed the whole time. I never got up. you know, needing to get with the nurses, cleaning, taking care of me constantly. And so July 21st of 2020, they gave me the full liver transplant. It was 13, 14 hours. They said it usually, it's like 8, 9 hours. And after I woke up from that, I'm in a glass room in ICU. And everyone around me was on ventilator.

and I, you know, I woke up. I didn't even know if I was, I didn't know what was going on. I woke up, I had 110 staples down my body. They call it like the Mercedes-Benz incision because it looks just like that. It goes down and bolt on size and I had these giant staples, you know, oozing out. And I'm in the bed and I'm looking around and the hazmat suits, you know, staff, doctors, nurses, they were just full hazmat with, you know, with these, with these breathing apparatuses. They weren't just wearing regular masks. And the doctor comes in and he says, you know,

the liver we gave you had COVID in it. The liver had had COVID in it. And he said, you know, we're going to start treating you. And I just woke up from intubation and I still maybe 5, 10% incognin at the time. And so they started treating me with, I had 106.8 fever. My body started attacking the liver, so I started having liver rejection right away. And they gave me remdesivir, convalescent plasma, and high dose of IV steroids to try and stop the rejection. I mean, to try and stop the COVID. They were treating me for the rejection as well. So now I'm in the glass room and I see you. And I see them coming in.

The nurses, everyone coming in, and they were bringing in the ventilator. And I remember them just putting the tube down my mouth and with this mouth strap. And they put this over my face. And I just remembered, I don't remember how long I was on it. I know now, but I was on the ventilator for 10 days. I woke up from that. And when I woke up from it, you know, you have the tube down your throat. So you start choking.

And they saw me. I'm in the glass room. So the nurses see you, you know, when you wake up. And they came rushing in, you know, they ripped the tubes out. They vacuum in all the liquid from the inside of your lungs and your stomach. And within not even two days, I think it was, you know, 12, 12 hours or so. I had no concept of time. I felt both of my lungs like an accordion just collapse.

And I had double respiratory failure. And I just remember I was in bed and also my, and I just, so the nurse saw they come running in. I hear it telling the doctor, he's having, you know, both of his lungs just collapsed. And I saw them bring it in the ventilator. And I said, this is it. you know, there's no way I'm going to wake up from this again. And because I learned afterwards that when you're on the respirator, the ventilator, it's pumping your lungs.

So when you come off of it, your lungs are like weak and it's used to the pumping. So double respiratory failure was common because I don't know how high the machine was on. I mean, I don't know all the particulars with that, but I couldn't breathe at all. And then I just remember them putting the tube down my mouth. And they were calling my wife to tell her to come up. And she was, they let my wife come up for three hours a day. My wife was there every single day for four months that I was in the hospital from June until October of 2020.

And so I was on the ventilator that time for eight days. I woke up from it. And when I woke up from it, and being on the ventilator, I just remember, I remember hearing my dead uncle calling my name, the way he said my name in Italian. I remember I was traveling. It was very surreal. And then when I opened my eyes, there's a priest at the end of my bed. And I don't know if he was giving me the last rights.

I don't know if they expected me to wake up. But I call my wife. my wife comes up again i'm still in ICU in the glass room everyone around me is on ventilators 85% of the people aren't waking up i'm seeing the white sheets being poured over the pulled over them and um i woke up and now i had sepsis then i had septic shock um then i had cytopegliavirus which is this blood infection because when you have a a liver transplant they use these giant clamps like when they cut you they they pull you open like it like i don't know like papa hood or something however you want to think of it and i actually saw a video on it when i came

home what a liver transplant was and um so you people do get CMV the cytomeglyar virus because your body's just wide open and just any sort of bacteria could get in there and so then they started treat me with that and um you know still in bed so now this is like uh end of august of 2020 i'm in ICU for a full month now and uh finally made it to the transplant floor i was in ICU for six weeks so the first week in september 2020 it was like in the in the middle of the night and i was fighting to stay up i didn't want to fall sleep because i thought i wasn't going to wake up and I just wanted to see my wife the next day. I just like when my wife came to the hospital, I cried when she came in.

I'm not afraid to admit this. You know, I cried when she came in and I cried when she left because I just wanted to see her the next day. Like she was the reason why she's the hero in the story. You know, I'm just the guy who stayed alive long enough to make it up to her. But, and they said, you know, you're getting out of ICU. we're going to take you to the transplant floor. And so they, you know, I had these giant staples and I'm in so much, you know, you're in so much pain.

And then a transplant floor was like from heaven. It was just beautiful. It was like a couple of doors down from Bill Clinton's designated room. Like he had like these five rooms combined into one. You know, ICU was hell and the nurses. and you know they they saved my life and then the nurses in the transplant floor that you know they all heard about me and they're like you know we heard about you and you know I was so happy that you hear that you know you made it here and everything and I had to learn how to walk again

because I didn't I wasn't out of bed the whole time you know you know pooping yourself pain you know, and then, and then when they clean you, they push you to the side and you have, you know, 110 stables. It was just like, you know, but then the feeling of getting up from just getting myself to sit up in bed, and then the physical therapy guys, they were all great. I mean, everyone was just, they were my angels. And then, you know, I remember just feeling like Pinocchio with the strings. I just collapsed. I had no core. The first time I tried to get up from the bed, I just collapsed on the physical therapy guy. And I just remember like, oh, wow, I cannot walk. And when you lay in there for, you know,

all of July and all of August, not waking up, I had such severe atrophy. And you think to yourself, yeah, I could walk. I mean, it's walking, you know. And then when you realize you can't, and you can't even get your feet in front of you and having no core. And then I went through a very, very deep acute therapy and, you know, it was just first standing up from bed and then walking. And again, my wife being there every single day, driving in from Staten Island to 168 Street, you know, it was like in Washington Heights. And, you know, she's there by herself. And there was a lot going on in Manhattan at the time. I believe there were riots going on for George Floyd riots, you know. And so there was just a lot.

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years and um i get a phone call my mullah says uh monseena jeff wants you to call him now monseignee jeff Monsignia who married me and my wife, my parents go to the same church for, you know, 30 years on Staten Island, he found out I had a liver transplant. So I call him like, hey, Monsignia, Jeff, how are you? He's like, I'm good. He goes, listen, I know you, you're not able to drive yet. And I want you to come have dinner with me at the church rectory on Thursdays at 5.30. I said, okay. He says, and then after we're going to do. go downstairs to an AA meeting at 7 p.m. I said, okay, I'd never been to AA before. I had no idea what it was like just from what I see on or I saw on television or what you hear about. I had no

idea, Monsignan Jeff was 43-year sober. He was like such a big figurehead with AA in the New York City area and like the five boroughs. He saved so many people's lives. And it was divine intervention. You know, I had a resurrection from that hospital, you know, leaving the old Joe behind and coming out with never being on the list. You know, you, you know, everyone else, you know, you saw so many people who didn't make it out of that hospital. And then, uh, so I, I went there with a walker, went to have dinner with him and three, four other long-term sobriety people, you know, 36 years, 28 years. And I, you know, I told them what just happened to me.

They, you know, and then we went downstairs to a meeting. A couple of weeks. I didn't say anything. I was just taking it all in for, like, the first couple of weeks. And then we would go upstairs after the 7 p.m. meeting. It was like from 7 to 8. And then from 8 to 10, I would read the big book with Father Jeff. And then I did my steps with him.

and when I came out of the hospital and I was sober for the first time and having to still be on this earth and you know you realize the destruction you left on the ground I saw you know I had clear skies and and Ian I saw that I left destruction down below and I had it atone for what I did so I One day, it was after the AA meeting, we were upstairs reading the big book, and it was just me and Father Jeff, and I was like, listen, Father, I got to talk to you. He goes, yeah, what's, what's going on? I said, listen, you know, I did some that, you know, I have to, I have to atone for. I have to come clean. I have to turn myself in. And I told them what I did. You know, I got greedy. I stole, I stole from clients. long-term clients.

Didn't matter if it was in the throws of my addiction or the peak addiction, you know, so many other people drink the way I did. They don't commit the crimes that I did. And so I told them everything that I did. And he said, okay. I said, you know, I want to turn myself in. He says, okay, within a week after that, you know, I started looking up lawyers. and I started like looking at what the process was going to be like.

I get a call from the Secures and Exchange Commission on the telephone. And I said, is Joseph? Yes. This is so-and-so. We'd like to speak to you. And I felt relieved. And I was like, you know. So, you know, every day I wake up and I think of the people in ICU, like they wish they had my problem.

They wish they could go to prison for X amount of time just to make it out of the hospital alive. So I was, so I told the person on the line, the SEC, I was like, would it be okay if I give you guys a call back in a few days? He goes, sure. I took down his name and number. I hired a lawyer. I went to, I went to see a few lawyers. I hired that lawyer. I said that when I went to my lawyer's office, you know, I was like, you know, I was like in tears in the office.

Like my wife couldn't believe what was going on. She couldn't believe what I did. I'm telling her everything that I did. And, like, you know, it was, she was there with me. I was telling my lawyer, I was like, listen, I own what I did. I take full responsibility for what I did. This is what I did. This is how I did it.

I don't want to give the government the runaround. I said, just please tell them that I want to fall on the sword. There's, this is, you know, and that was May of 2021. So my lawyer said, okay, I'll call the SEC. see and let them know. And, you know, he said, you know, you can't go into the firm anymore that day. You have to walk away from the business. You know, I had other open positions, other clients that I just had to go radio silent on. And like for two, three days after that, you know, I wasn't answering my phone. I couldn't talk to clients. So I started looking online for a job. And I went to work at Amazon

at a warehouse on a forklift stowing pallets from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. I got a second job at the golf course, $15 an hour. I was a golf ranger. I was getting 1965 at Amazon. And I was grateful for the work. I felt great for the first time in years. It's like just to get out of that greed of Wall Street and just, you know, getting a transplant, someone had to die for me to live.

being sober and I felt great, you know, and regardless of going to prison or anything, you know, I just, I was just so grateful for the work. My doctors at Columbia, New York Presbyterian, they weren't happy with me working at Amazon on a forklift because it was a stand-up forklift. And it was, but I said, no, I said, I'm going to do it. And so that was May of 2021. In June of 2021, I created a website. I wanted to document everything that I was doing. I wanted to show the judge that I'm maximizing every day, that I'm creating a new track record because I read a lot about post-defense conduct, how important it is leading up to sentencing. And then I started studying federal judges like Benita Pearson. She said, I expect the defendant to take their case as a

full-time job and to come into sentencing exhausted. That resonated. with me early on, that it's not just about hiring a lawyer and just waiting for sentencing. And then two other prominent judges, they said, like, we only take 10% into account what the lawyer says. We know they're a paid mouthpiece for the defendant. It's what the defendant shows us. So that really resonated with me. And I realized that I have a lot more control over my case than what I thought. So in the same month, of June of 2021. I call my lawyer one day and I'm like, his name is Nicholas.

I said, you know, Nicholas, I have things that I purchased with Elgant Gaines. I said, they don't belong to me. I said, they belong to the victims. I said, you know, what do you want me to do? He said, bring it up to my office. I said, all right, I'll give me a couple of days. And Ian, I got everything. I mean, jewelry, watches.

I brought up stacks of cash, gold ounce coins, silver kilo bars. I had six duffel bags, and three of them were like the big hockey duffel bags. He had to send his assistants down with dollies to come up. So we'd go up in the office and he's like, he's like, Joe, I've never seen anyone like this. I never seen anyone like you. He says, he goes, you know, some. else would have maybe give it to their loved ones or I said, Nicholas, listen, my possessions and not my identity. These do not belong to me. They belong to the victims. I said, and I want to come

clean the right way. I want to do, I want to try and write this wrong as much as possible. I know I can't completely write this wrong. I said, but I have control over this. And I said, I said, you know, I have two judges, one in the courtroom and one upstairs. And I said, I just, So I said, what do we go to do? He goes, sorry, let's make an assessment. So I was in his office that day for about seven hours or so all day. And we made a list of everything and like an assessed valuation. And he said, all right, the government will come pick it up.

They had like this walk-in safe in the wall firm. I left everything there. And then started speaking at AA. I remember the first time I spoke and opened my mouth. and told about my transplant and, you know, I didn't realize, you know, that was that was the beginning, the infancy stage of AA for me in 2021. The way I'm tied in now to it. So then it was, it was different because like the first time I opened my mouth, I didn't realize how compelling my story was. I didn't know about how my transplanted me telling the story about how I was going to tell others

in recovery. You know, like they say, you got to give it away to keep it. And, So I started leading at meetings. I started speaking at meetings, speaking at detox clinics. And, you know, Father Jeff became my sponsor. He held, he held me to, you know, he held me accountable as well. And, you know, he was the one who brought me in to start speaking at detox centers. And then, so that was, you know, I still, I still didn't get a plea deal until December of 2021. I wound up getting a plea deal in. December of 2021, December 27th of 21, one count of securities fraud, one count of wire fraud, restitution, $1.2 million. And I didn't disagree with anything. I signed it right away. The U.S. attorney had it back first week in January of 2022. And the early mitigation, I think, in my case, the way I came forward, I believe did help it because they did give me a minus three points because I had 25 points. And it was 22 minus the three points for acceptance of responsibility. And that on the sentencing guidelines is 41 to 51 months. So they had it back right away.

And, you know, I had a fiduciary responsibility as a broker. You know, I don't know, I didn't know what to expect. So I was, you know, when I was studying like, you know, the prosecutor controls 80% of the courtroom and, you know, judges only take a small percent what the lawyer says, like, I didn't want to have any regret versus preparation. I wanted to leave it all out there. And if I would have got the 41 to 51 months, so be it. I mean, I believe in, like, justice, you do something wrong. You should pay for it. I don't. And so I pled guilty March 1st of 2022. My case was out of the Eastern District of New York, which is in Brooklyn. And I had my pre-sentence interview March 30th of 2022. Now, when I started studying about this process,

about not only what the judges expect and, you know, just, I knew that the pre-sentence interview is the most important part of the journey. And my lawyer, even though he was great, he didn't, he accepted a lot of the mitigation that I did, like early on. I wrote a 4,000 word letter to the judge. And I said to him, my heart pushed the pen and like everything, because I wanted to judge because I found out that these mitigation lawyers were only these, these capital offense, these capital lawyers that were, they were handling the pen.

the death row inmates, they were the only ones implementing mitigation. I said, you know, why isn't it used more? And my lawyer said, you know, Joe, you don't need to do that and stuff. And I was like, no, I was like, you know, I'm going to tell him, yes, yes, I do. I was like, listen, I'm in the driver's seat. This is my case. And I want you to, you know, implement all this mitigation that I'm doing. like he went when I gave him the 4,000 word letter to the judge before my pre-sentence interview,

I said, Nicholas, call the probation officer that's conducting my interview and tell them to kindly read this letter ahead of the pre-sentence interview, the pre-sentence investigation, and fully attach it to the pre-sentence report that gets created from the interview, fully attach it. And he was like, Joe, I said, please, just just calling because it was three days before the interview. And I wrote it, you know, pen to paper. Because mitigation is basically humanizing yourself to the judge, you know, letting them know everything about you. You know, judges are human beings making human decisions about our lives.

And judges know, you know, no one's perfect. We're all flawed. No one's flawless. We all make mistakes. And the more they know about you, the better, not just what the charges say on paper for me, right? So when I was on my pre-sentence interview, I remember my lawyer saying, oh, it's only a 20-minute interview. They've got to go over background information, where you were born, your upbringing, who your siblings are. Would it be okay to call them?

And I understood it as something totally different. And I was like, no, I was like, this is very important. I have one bite at the apple. One bite at the apple is in my Bloomberg Law published piece from three weeks ago, December 8th, a Bloomberg law contributor. Can't believe it. But if you just Google Joe DiRoglio Bloomberg Law, you could read about the one bite at the apple, the pre-sentence interview.

And I was like, Nichols, I have one bite at the apple here. I said, I'm indirectly speaking to the judge. everything I say on the pre-sentence interview is a matter of record. The pre-sentence report that gets created from the interview, the judge relies heavily on, more so than the sentencing memorandum. I said, you know, I respectfully disagree. This is not just a 20-minute interview. I said, I've been preparing for this all month. There's certain things that I want to, you know, say to him and get off my chest. And so mine was on Zoom because the COVID protocols was still in place. So my lawyer was on one window. The probation officer. started. You know, I said, you know, thank you so much for reading my, my letter to the judge before it and thank you for fully attaching it to the report that gets created from the interview. So after he was done asking me the questions where I was born, grow up, you know, if he said all that, what my lawyer said he was going to do. And then I wanted to take control of the floor. So I said to him, you know, sir, do you mind, you know, if I say some things,

you know, sure. You know, you know, they think. I think, you know, he thought maybe I was going to put my foot in my mouth, but I didn't. You know, I just want to address the victims because the victims always come first. You know, I have a pain in my stomach every single day, right now sitting here with you. And it's never going to go away for the rest of your life. Even if you pay back restitution, it never goes away. When you create victims, it's just, it's a pain that you can't even put into words. And, you know, you say to yourself, oh, what if someone did that to my father? Or would have someone did that to my father? Or would have. someone did that to my uncle or whatever. So I was on my pre-sense interview for two hours, and I just let everything, you know, come out of my heart, you know, just saying about how, you know, put in the victims first. I identified with the victims.

Then I, the remorse, the humility, the shame, the lessons learned while never be in another courtroom again. and then the plan going forward. And so I was on it for two hours. And midway through my lawyer tried to interrupt me. He goes, all right, Joseph, that's enough. You know, they have enough from you. And I was like, wait, Nicholas, I'm not done.

And I asked the officer, I was like, sir, you don't mind if I continue, right? He was like, no, no. And he's like, go ahead, please. He goes, you know, however, I have all the time. He goes, I was like, thank you. So, you know, I just wanted, because I, Because when I studied the process of going through this, it was like, you know, I mean, you know, lawyers agree to what they do. But there's certain things that, you know, especially with sentencing mitigation and especially with the pre-sentence interview and implementing a lot of things that they don't teach you in the courtroom.

Because to me, I think that the battle is won outside of the courtroom and not inside the courtroom. I mean, they're great at legalities and, you know, case law comparing your case to other cases. Yes, but the defendant has so much control over their outcome. And, you know, I wanted them to know about, you know, how I felt deep to the core of me. And not only that, but who the core of me is. And two months before my pre-sent interview, two months before I even pled guilty, I started paying restitution back. I started paying restitution back nine months before sentencing.

And I remember calling my lawyer. And I said, you know, Nicholas, I said, I want to start sending you a check every month because I had my bank accounts were closed. And I said, I want you to earmark it for restitution. I said, keep it in escrow for me. Keep it in like a law firm escrow account. I said, I don't have an account. I go, you know, I'll send you up like a money order or a check.

I said, I'm working at Amazon. I'm working at the golf course. And we said how much you send. And I was like, you know, I'm making like $3, $3,500 a month. I said, I'm going to send up like $4,500 a month. So he said, no, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joe. This is not $20, $30,000. Don't worry about it.

I was like, no, no, no. I was like, please, I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. This is what I want to do. I said, I want to start, I want to. I was like, you don't think it, you don't think, you know, the judge sees that I'm, the judge, they know how much. I'm making. I'm making 19 and change at Amazon. 15 on the golf course as a golf ranger.

You know, I said, you know, I'm volunteering in the evening. You know, I'm doing AA, doing 3 or 4 in persons a week, 3 or 4 Zooms. There were many days I was doing two meetings a day. And then I would come home, 9, 9.30, exhausted, take a half hour to myself. And then I'd get on the computer and pass courses. And I just started dedicating myself for education. and I started just passing course after course. So my lawyer said, no, just hold on to it. And that was January of 22, right after I signed my plea deal, actually. Sorry if I'm backing up.

But so I said, no, no, please take it, hold it. I said, I'm going to send it to you every month. I was like, you know, four or five hundred. You know, I just, restitution is the most important thing to me. And so, so I'm documenting everything that I'm doing. every single day. So from May of 2021, when I got the call from the SEC, I created a website. I was basically writing down everything that I was doing. I was voice texting it into my iPhone. Like if I was on the forklift in the Amazon warehouse and something came over me, I wanted to write about or put

on, you know, just talk about remorse, redemption, talk about the work night. Anything I was, I just wanted the judge to know like what I was doing every day leading up to sentencing. because that's extremely important post-defense conduct. And I was sentenced September 14th of 2022. And, you know, leading up to sentencing when you prepare your sentencing memorandum, it was like a month before sentencing, I was, I started studying things at night on the computer, like how side-by-side brain comparisons, like brain scans, you know, the regular mind versus the alcoholic mind, how it affects the gray matter in our brain,

the decision making, the rationale, not to make an excuse for what I did. I take full ownership what I did, but I became this complete jekyll and hide. I deviated from all the values I brought up with. I went down this bad path over a period of time. And a few years before that, I just paid all my clients back to losses from the 2008 crash. So I said, certainly did not want to steal from them. Like it was, it was just, yeah, when you're in the throws of your alcoholism, you know, there was nothing stopping me from continuing to drink myself to death. And so I just wanted my lawyer to put some of that into the memorandum, to put the website. I wrote like a paragraph and what I was doing, the restitution, how much that

means to me and, you know, how dedicated I am because that's, all right. So I remember that the sentencing got underway, you know, and then my lawyers stood up like midway through and said, Your Honor, you know, I propose a year and a day for my client. And the judge looked at the U.S. attorney and said, do you have a problem with that? And they said, no, Your Honor. And the judge says, you know, neither do I, and I was sentenced to a year and a day. Frontline Healing Foundation exists for the warriors among us, our military first responders and law enforcement who carry the weight of service long after the uniform comes off. For many of these warriors, the battles don't end at home.

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fight alone. What caused you to steal in the first place? Were you trying to make up losses from that 2008 crisis when you started your business? Or were you able to get on your footing and business was good and then something else happened along the way? So after the 2008 crash and after I settled in 2011, I had a 70% of my book was destroyed. I rebuilt the book back. I was actually doing okay for myself. I was working at a private equity firm. And we had all these pre-IPOs, Airbnb before it went public, we had Lyft before it went public, and Palantir before it went public. And that's the reason why I got out of retail and I went to work at this private equity firm.

And I said, all right, whatever I have on the management, I said, I'll bury this, put it in these companies that are going to come public over the next five years or so. And no, I got greedy. I stole from my clients and I own it. But I was making money still. I mean, it didn't make any sense for what I did. And anything that I was doing at the time didn't make sense. I mean, I was gambling.

Okay. I mean, I had a private driver because I was always intoxicated that I could not drive. So, you know, I couldn't hide it to the point. Like, you know, when the owner of the firm sees you coming in with a driver and leaving, he's like, you know, what's going on? Why can't you drive? and then when you can't put dress shoes on anymore, you know, lying is very hard,

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you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years, savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. See site for details. That's when like professionals turn into criminals. What did your wife think when you broke this news? He probably just dropped the bomb on her one day. One day, everything's good and then the next day, you know, it's even worse than just getting the transplant.

So the day I got a call from the SEC, the next day I called a few attorneys and I said, you know, I want to come in and talk to you. And I told her in the car, driving to Manhattan from New Jersey. And completely blew her mind. She was, I destroyed, she was destroyed. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. she she didn't she did not believe anything that i was saying she couldn't believe what i did um it was a lot of repairing to do with that as well a lot of repair because this is a destroy and rebuild

process the whole thing um victims lives people who loved you uh people who expected great things from you people who relied on you they expect great things from you and then you let everyone dead it just reminds me of that cascade effect of the stock chart of a stock going to zero. And now you have to slowly rebuild your credibility. I mean, she's still with me to this day. She said if I ever do anything wrong again, she's leaving me. I mean, she's never going to put up with that again. I mean, I was lying to her as well.

Everything that I was doing, I was lying to everyone. So, yeah. You must have a great sense of remorse now, like when dealing with clients. Because I'll interview a lot of people, and it's one thing to say you're sorry, but your actions kind of have to reflect that. So you probably have a great sense of when you're meeting with people that are facing sentencing or prison, whether they're actually sorry and conveying that to the judge or not. Because not everyone goes to the extent that you've gone to before prison. I know in my case, I got like a job a month before sentencing to give money for my paycheck to it. But I also had bad conduct after sentencing, I mean, after conviction, but before sentencing that played a part.

And I got my bond revoked. But I was a little too little too late towards it. So it's interesting that you have that perspective, especially when dealing with your clients now. Yeah, when I speak to someone, and thank you for sharing that. When I speak to someone, the first thing I want to do is see, you know, if they're fully accountable, see if they're fully remorseful because, you know, I take their case as serious as mine. I work at it nonstop, you know, just like I worked on my case. I did 160 miles an hour to sentencing.

I left nothing to chance, no regret versus preparation. I left it all out on the table. And I could tell when someone who's not genuinely remorseful, I could tell when people, say, oh, well, I don't have to pay that back, you know, after this, you know, and, you know, and, and now I'm, I started working with a lot of law firms and, you know, when the lawyer calls me, he says, Joe, I got a, you know, a client that, you know, I'd like for you to talk to. I say, sure, you know, the first 60 to 90 minutes, I'll talk to them and I want to see if they're holding themselves accountable. I want to see if, if there's pain in the core of them for what they did. And I don't want to have to make

them realize what they've done. It should be your six cents. It should be in your gut. And that should just come out of you. And I could tell if it's coming out of your pores or not. And I'm very, very selective with who I work with. And, you know, now consulting on over 400 cases, every single one, more or less that I took on, was someone who was devastated at what they did. And a lot of them, believe it or not, 60, 70%, percent, there's some sort of addiction, whether it's drugs or alcohol. And then it spirals because they can't cope with leading up to sentencing. And I get calls at 2 in the morning.

You know, I get up from bed, I go sit inside, I go talk to them, you know, whether they're they're saying, you know, I had a client a few months ago, call me and say, you know, Joe, I just, you know, over the weekend, my brother had to come over and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, so there's a lot that it's, it's, it's, um, getting them mentally strong because the, the, the defendant with a weak mind that is not mentally strong for sentencing, they have the worst outcomes and the ones who are very strong, you know, they have the better outcomes. Because to everyone that I consult, this is the worst thing that happened to them in their life, you know, 95% of them. You know, with me, it's the second thing going to prison because mine was the transplant and making it out of there alive. So I wake up every day with endless gratitude. Every day I open my eyes.

I always think about the people in ICU who didn't make it out of there. They wish they could go to prison for 41 to 51 months. I was so grateful for the work. You know, I recently put together a whole structured mitigation plan for an individual. It was just to get started too. It was like a 12, it was 12 things that I wanted him to do. And he called me a few days later. He says, you know, it's a little too much. I'll just start doing three of them. And I was like, you know what? Just, you know, I think, you know, maybe it's better off that you and I don't work together. Like, you know, if, you know, and you can sense it, it's very, very, it's just, it's so, believe it or not, not a lot of people value their freedom.

A lot of people value their freedom differently. Like, everyone automatically thinks I'm just going to hire the best attorney and that's it. And they just wait for sentencing. I don't know what they do, you know, hang out or go out. They don't work. You know, I tell them, you know, you got to create a new track record. you got to work you know um it's very important if there's victims do you identify with the victims do they keep you up at night i mean like i'm i'm going to be it doesn't matter even when i pay them back in full

you know i have i pay 20% a month of gross and i never miss a payment i put more in fact i always pay more than what i'm supposed to and the redemption is a lifelong commitment it doesn't end when you're done what you're sentenced, it doesn't end that restitution. It doesn't end when you're off supervised release. You know, every day I wake up, I want to be better than the day before and the day before that. If, you know, someone had to die so I can live. I mean, I'm so grateful to be sitting here with you today and talking to you, you know, because, you know, then I, you know, I surrendered to prison November 17th of 2022. And, you know, I started studying about how to get out of, out of prison as quickly as possible. I say, you know, what does the Bureau of Prisons really look at?

What do they really, really expect from me? And the biggest thing to the Bureau of Prisons is having a good reentry plan, is having a good release plan. Because every cynical stakeholder, a case manager in prison, the unit manager, which is the case manager's boss, a judge, how do you separate yourself from everyone else that comes in the courtroom? How do you separate yourself from everyone else in the prison. And they have the recidivism rate etched in the front of their mind of 67%. I think the federal is 53%, 60 plus for state. But still, they figure like every 10 guys that come in front of them, five or six is going to

reoffends. And it's my job to make them understand, like, I'm part of the 33%. I'm part of that 40%. Like, I'm never going to be in another courtroom again. But they don't know that. And just like the judge. The judge only has two documents, the pre-sentence report and the sentencing memorandum. And they only see us twice, once when we plead guilty and once when we're sentenced.

And when a judge looks at you in the courtroom, like they're studying body language. I think they're experts at body language. I think when the judge looked at me and, you know, when they, you know, and I read books about that as well. I wanted, you know, nonverbal cues. A lot of it's like everything I wanted to know, everything about the, the, the process. But then when I was released, I was released, excuse me, when I got to prison, around the 30-day mark, we have that team meeting where we meet the case manager for the first time. And it's a very important meeting. You know, the case manager holds all the cards

on us getting out early. And they're not the nicest person. They work in a prison all day. They're very cynical. A lot of guys are busting their chops all the time saying, hey, I'm eligible to go home. How come I'm not home? And, you know, what's going? on here. I'm supposed to be at the halfway house already. So I already understood that, that they're overloaded with work. They're getting inundated constantly. They work in a prison all day. They're around people with a criminogenic mindset, and I'm going to be viewed the same. So when I went into my first team meeting, you know, the guys were telling me, you know, my lawyer had two guys in FMC Devons, and they were waiting for me. So, you know, they said,

oh, you know, you have this so-and-so. She's the toughest case manager in the prison. She's not going to do anything for you. You know, I didn't listen to the noise because, you know, that expression, misery loves company is very true in prison. Like, you know, guys, you know, they're miserable, so they want you to be miserable kind and so I was just like, all right, you know, if she doesn't let me go, she doesn't let me go.

What do you want for me? So I, so she said, you know, she went over my Spark 13, 13, my pattern score, you know, because those surveys, when we surrender to prison, those surveys we take on the computer are very, very important. It's like these three or four quizzes that they want to see if you have a criminogenic mindset. And I already knew going in day one, you have to take those surveys right away. That's how your first step act credits start kicking in. That's how I get the earn time credits. So, you know, as soon as I surrendered, I got my 12 cop out forms. I put in for every class. And, you know, I went to computer uploaded my contact list and then I completed the surveys and you know I remember one of

the questions was if you're walking out of a supermarket one day and you see a bag of money on the floor are you going to a turn it all in B keep some if you're behind on bills like you know just of course you know I'm going to turn it all in so as soon as I completed those surveys then I I saw it out like in my unit like who knows all about the the programs that's going on And I wanted to find out, like, the guy who's, you know, programming the most and what was available. There wasn't a lot going on because of COVID, there's even less going on now because of all the staff shortages and everything. So, you know, if you have your health, prison is just boredom and missing your family. But I had a lot of health issues, you know, and I got terribly sick in prison.

Like when I surrendered November 17th, they put me in the shoe. After I went through R&D, they walked me into the shoe because of the COVID protocols was still in place. And my doctors at New York Presbyterian got in touch with FMC Devons two weeks before my surrender. And they say, you know, he's very unstable. You know, I was still healing. You know, I still had, you know, every day.

thing was, you know, I was, I was really fragile. And so, you know, they're like, you know, he just had a liver transplant. He takes his anti-rejection meds twice a day. These are the milligrams. He takes his immunosuppressants twice a day. These are his, yeah, okay, we got it, this and that. So when I surrendered, I surrendered with my medications, right? And they threw it out. They're like, we give you generics here and everything. But I had my release plan in a big yellow envelope. I wrote in the front of it, legal docks with a black Sharpie so they didn't throw it away. And I had my contact list in there. I had some medical paperwork in there. And they walked me to the shoe. So I knew I was going into solitary. My lawyer told me, he says, you know, you got to get quarantined for seven,

eight days. I was like, you know, no problem. I was just in a hospital for four months, you know, Ian. I mean, you know, so I'm going to lay there. I told the guard, just give me the two biggest books. He gave me Alexander Hamilton biography. Great book. It was 748 pages. How they put his mom in the sand pits in the jail in St. Croix and he escaped it. So it was pretty interesting book. And maximum achievement by Brian Tracy.

Unbelievable book. You're lucky they gave you books. I know. I know. I found that later that I was lucky. Some guards don't do that. No. No.

No, so I didn't get let out like one hour a day. They just closed the door for the seven days from November 17th until Thanksgiving. You know, the shower didn't work. You know, of course, it's dirty, right? I'm drinking water from the sink. I knew I was going to get sick. And they didn't give me my medicine, the 17th, the 18th, the 19th. and now here I am taking them twice a day.

And every time I hear the keys and the guard coming down the tier into the shoe, every time you enter the shoe, I would wait. You know, you got to wait until, because the door's are thick. I'm the only one in there. You know, it's small. You know, I love the setup, by the way. You showed me upstairs. The present cell, yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, when he got close to my door, I started banging on the door. door, I said, hey, I just self-surrender. Can you please get me my medicine? You know, I had a, had a liver transplant, I had a full liver transplant. I have to take this, this, you know, twice a day. I said it's three days now. I didn't get it. First guard says, you know, I'm not a doctor. And I remember the next guard, he says, you should have thought of that before coming in here. And I knew this. Listen, I did this to myself, you know, I deserve everything I get, right? I mean, I put myself there. So finally on day four, a female guard in Tavine and said, you know, she put her ear

to the door and I heard her saying, what? Oh, I'm going to get your medicine. Okay, let me find out everything. And so that was November 21st. And then I already started feeling like all these abdomen pains on the second, third day. I started feeling really, really not right. I knew something was going on. I knew something was going to happen. And so when they released me from the shoe, I went to general population. I was in H unit. There's about 1,200 guys in Devin's in Devin's, and each building's like 200. There's four buildings on general population, so there's like 800. And there's like two or 300 in the hospital wing. Really bad shape and, you know, how they were treating those old timers. So,

So they started taking blood from me. They started calling me up to the hospital wing, and I started walking up the compound after I was let out. So November 27th, they took blood. November, you know, December 1st, they took blood. The fifth, they took blood. And I remember kind of asking the nurse, you know, do you know my results? And they're like, no, we can't tell you anything. We can't tell you the results.

So then, you know, I asked them again. I was like, please, can you tell me the results? They were like, you know, if you ask us again, you know, you know, they were going to write me up or something? I was like, all right, you know, there's none I can do. And so all of a sudden, December 12th of 2022, I'm laying in my bunk, reading a book. And the guard comes over and he says, you know, you have to go outside the lieutenant's office, get your jacket. And I'm like, why? You know, I didn't do anything wrong. You know, you get called into the lieutenant's office. You think, you know, so they said,

they call it a bus stop at Devons. It's like this little bench outside the lieutenant's office. They call it a bus stop. So he was like, go to the bus stop. I'm like, what are you talking about? We're in a prison. Where's the bus? You know, he's like, no, it's the bench outside of the lieutenant's office. So I get my jacket and I'm sitting out there and this was like 4.30. It was after the 4 o'clock count. And the two guards come out and they say, you know, come with me. And they start bringing me down to the bowels of Devons. And I start, you know, we'll start walking down the big, and I'm like, oh, this is where I came in from when I surrendered. I'm like, why am I going like to R&D? So we get to, we get to R&D, and he's like,

take off your clothes. I put another uniform on. They had another name. You know, they shackle me with the waist, wrists, you know, feet, and they were like, you know, they put me in a van. I'm like, you know, can you tell me what's going on? Where are we going? So he's like, you know, the doctor is saying you having like liver rejection or something you know we're taking you down to the hospital beth israel in boston i said okay i was like i was like and you know i'm i'm feeling all these pains in my abdomen i'm like you know i knew something wasn't right you know just missing a few days when you have a transplant it's like i have to take them for the rest of my life you know i take them twice a day and everything so i i get to the hospital they chain me to the bed you know ankle

chained, you know, one arm. I had two guards sitting by my side 24 hours a day. In eight-hour shifts, two new guards came in. And as soon as I got there, you know, the doctors, they did a biopsy. They said, you having severe liver rejection. They started treating me with IV steroids, and it didn't stop. So they did another biopsy on December 16th. So I was like four or five days there. When I got there, it was December 12th. So then that, you know, they were. And then, they were a little bit of they started treating me with what was called ATG, which I found out later is this rabbit protein. It's basically to stop your immune system so your body stops attacking the liver. Because your body, when you have liver rejection, it's your body realizing you have a foreign

object that you have something foreign in your body and it starts attacking it. And so they have to just completely shut down your immune system. And it wipes out your T cells. It's not good. all right i mean if you have no t cells you're very prone to cancer um so now i'm i'm like hey can i can i call my wife or anything like you can't call anybody you know you they didn't even let me get up to go take a shower right this was like a weekend it was like December 19th the nurse said you know you got to let them walk around let him walk the floor or something like that so yeah i

wasn't talking to the guards and uh you know i was just laying there um i'm i'm And so they let me walk around December 19th. You know, I have these thick ankle chains on and I'm walking with this treatment that they're giving me this intravenous and I have the machine. And I'm like, everyone's looking at me because I'm making this sound, you know,

and I'm walking by every room and everyone's like this, you know, because they hear the chains come and it was like, I don't know, like, you know, I was like, can you take the ankle chains off so I can, because they were really, really big chains. So he goes, all right, that's enough walking. I was like, listen, can I take a shower?

I was like, I didn't take a shower for seven days, you know, seven days when I surrounded and take a shower. Now another time I didn't take a shower and seven days. I'm like, I just want to take a shower. So he's like, leave the door open. You're leaving the ankle chains on. And I remember asking the nurse, I was like, can you please let my wife know where I am? And she was like, I'm sorry.

sir. I'm like, I can't. I can't do anything for you. And I was like, all right. I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, I wrote them such a letter for saving my life, those nurses and doctors, because they were unbelievable. And they hung it up in, in the kitchen. And I walked over. They let me walk over and see it. I was like, you know, I can't thank you guys enough for everything that you've done. And so December 29th, They drive me back to the prison three years ago today. So this is why this day. It's symbolic. Yeah.

Yeah, December 29th. This is 2025. December 29th, 2022. It was a snowstorm up in Devon. Boston, it wasn't snowing. It's like a two at two and a half hour ride. And they were driving fast. Like I remember telling them, can you slow down?

Because they didn't even seatbelt me and I was shackled and I was sliding everywhere and I'm in so much pain. And I'm like, can you please slow down? And they're like, They're like, if you tell us that again, you know, I was the only one in the van. I remember when they came to pick me up when I was getting discharged from the hospital, December 29th, it was like at 10 p.m., the guards that were watching me, there was like a private contractor. They weren't from Devons, but they had a book with them.

So whoever came into my hospital room, every nurse, every time the cleaning lady came on, Every time I had a meal or anything, they had a log into the book and they would give it to the lieutenant at Devons, like to make sure. So my wife found out where I was. My doctors in New York found out where I was. And they told my wife. So now my wife called the hospital and said, you know, my husband's up there, you know, what's going on with him. And this is, you know, my wife is the hero in the story, right?

I mean, I'm just a guy that stayed alive long enough to make it up to her. But what you put your family through, what I put my wife through, and, you know, her, the way she was there for me every day during the transplant, and then she comes out of that, and then I have to tell her about what I did. And then she goes through the whole case. Like, the worst part of the journey is going through your case. Like prison's the easy part, going through the process. of all the unknowns is the hard part.

And if you have your health, prison's the easy part. If you don't, you know, I didn't have a medical release form. I didn't have a HIPAA form on file. This is how I learned now. Every person that I consult with that has health issues, I say, you know, please get a medical release form, get a power of attorney, get a HIPA form signed, bring it over to the records department, to the prison when you surrender,

make sure you get a copy of it, have it on file with the doctor at the prison. And so if anything happens to you, when your loved one calls the prison, they have to tell you what's going on. If you don't have those three things on file, they don't tell you anything unless you're dead, right? And then I created an emergency contact with one of the guys in my unit. I said, listen, if anything happens like that again, where they sent me out of the prison, I had to go to the hospital, call your wife.

and tell your wife to call my wife. So that was a good thing for anyone to do as well. Any emergency, even if you get sent to the shoe, you know, you get a disciplinary infraction or some. It's always good to have an emergency contact to let your loved ones know. Because, again, it's worse on them, you know. So December 29th, they put me back in the shoe until January 5th. Again, they didn't give me my medicine the 30th, the 31st.

And then finally, I said to the guard, I was like, give me a cop out for him because I'm filing an administrative remedy. I said, I got to file. I got to make this, you know, formal BP8, BP9. You know, I was like, you guys, you know, I just got out of the hospital for liver rejection. And, you know, I just want my medicine. I was like, you can leave me in here as long as you want. Just give me my medicine. And because I remember telling the guard, I said, I was like, this is a fact.

federal medical center. I was like, how is this a medical center? I was like, I can't even get my medicine. He goes, listen, we'll get it for you. I was like, no, I don't think you understand. I got to take it twice a day. And when I went to the hospital, they put me on all different medications. So when I went back to Devin's December 29th, I wasn't taking those same medications. I was taking completely different ones, different milligrams, potency. Now I was on four different things because the first time he brings him to me on New Year's Eve, they were the old ones. And so, you know, I was like, no, you know, he opens the slot, he gives it to you. I'm like, you know, sir, he's the cyclobenzoprene.

I, you know, I mean, cyclosporin. I was like, you know, I'm taking tachrolymus now. I'm taking mycophenolate. I'm like three. And I had them all memorized in my head because when I got discharged from the hospital, I wanted a printout. And they didn't even make me have a printout. So I made sure I memorized exactly what I was taking so I can tell them.

because they don't care. And again, I put myself there. I did this to myself. So it wasn't like something, you know, but you say to yourself, okay, you know, medical center, it wasn't even a veterinarian clinic. Like, you know, a veterinarian clinic was better than FMC. Devons. So then when I went out, when I got in January 5th, when I went back to general population, they let me out of the shoe.

I told my case manager, I said, you know, you guys are going to kill me in here. I was like, you know, I don't know, you know, I'm a minimum security guy. I got a year and a day, but it is going to be like a debt sentence. I was like, you know, why can't you guys just get my medicine right? You know, because I had to go to pill call and they were still giving me my old medication at pill call and I had to tell the nurse then. And I remember telling her like, you know, these are the old medications. I was like, I'm on this, this, this, and this now.

And she's like, well, take these. It's still anti-rejection meds. It's still immunosuppressants. I was like, no, I was like, I don't think. She goes, well, I don't have them. You got to come back tomorrow. So now I'm missing another day. So like, you know, every day, you know, and then when I went back to my unit, January 5th,

everyone's sick. Who's got pink eye? Who's got COVID? They don't want to go to sick call because they're going to get put in the shoe, right, for quarantine. So, you know, I see like, all right, this guy is touching the computer. I'm not going to that computer. you know, the phone, because now my immune system is zero. You know, I have no immune system,

you know, because I had to stop the rejection. They had to shut down your immune system. And now, you know, so you think about all these things and you have like such heightened awareness. And, you know, you're saying, you know, everyone's sick around me and all this stuff. And so you can't avoid it. There's no way you can avoid it, you know. So I started pleading my case to my case manager. And I was like, you know, I want to go to home confinement. And I said, you see my reentry plan. You see the release plan. I'm building it. You know, I'm writing the book reports. I'm writing monthly report cards. She goes, DeRigorio, I've never seen anything like this release plan in 22 years working in the prison. She said, I showed the unit manager it. I showed the

head lieutenant your release plan as well. We were all thoroughly impressed by it. I want to thank you for coming in here as prepared as you were. I was like, I was like, listen, I'm never going to be in another courtroom again. I just want you to know if you sign off on my release, you know, your name is going to be in good standing. I'll never do anything to jeopardize. Like, you know, so she was extremely tough, but she got the release process going. And then she explained to me how it works.

Case manager has to sign off on it. the unit manager has to sign off. Then the head lieutenant has to sign off to make sure you don't have any disciplinary infractions. And then it goes to the associate wardens. They all each individually have to sign off. And, you know, I'm not going to meet them. So having the release plan scanned into my central file is a big deal because they say,

okay, wow, okay, this is different. This guy has a plan in place. This is good. You know, you eliminate the recidivism rate out of their head because it's very important to do that. You have so many cynical stakeholders that holds sway over your freedom that you're not going to meet. You know, and then the warden has to sign off on it. And it doesn't end there. Once the warden signs off on your release, my file leaves the prison and it goes to the residential reentry center.

And where we are in the northeast, that's a Philadelphia. That Philadelphia office handles every male and female coming out of federal prison. They're the ones who get in touch with the halfway house. They get in touch with your future probation officer. And they do the home inspection, you know, they make all the arrangements. So having that release plan in my central file was very detrimental for me getting out after serving a little over 25% of my time, right? I got out March 21st of 2023.

I surrendered November 17th of 2022. I got admitted to the outside hospital again in February 5th to the 10th because I had acute kidney injury because I was, I had, you know, I was going to the bathroom the whole month of January. You know, I couldn't stop. And I was completely dehydrated no matter how many, you know, you're allowed to buy one case of water. I remember someone else, you know, telling someone else, buy a case of water for me. You know, I'll buy whatever you need for $12. And, you know, I just was trying to hydrate as much as possible.

But because of the medication switch and the rejection of all what I had to, So I couldn't stop going to the bathroom. That caused acute kidney injury, which, you know, I left there having stage three chronic kidney disease, which I have now. And so when I went to home confinement, I had a drive to Newark to the halfway house. I gave that case manager my release plan as well. I pitched it the same way. I pitched the release plan like it was a Wall Street IPO. Like, you know, like it was a prospectus.

I said, look, you know, before surrendering, I studied the importance. of having a viable release plan. I know how important it is to the BOP, but it's even more so important to me. I'm gonna be 100% compliant. I'm gonna maximize the time, be as productive as possible. You know, I'm not gonna inundate you.

I said, I'll give you a progress report every week. I told the halfway house case manager. This is a Bose moment. It's 10 blocks from the train to your apartment door. 10 basic, boring city blocks until the beat drops in Bose clarity. Streetlights become spotlights as you strut down the sidewalk, your own personal runway. With Bose, you get every note, every baseline, every detail, just as you should.

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with up to 581 miles per tank in the Forrester hybrid, longer range, better fuel efficiency, and legendary symmetrical all-lawful. wheel drive standard the Subaru forester hybrid visit suboru dot com slash hybrid to learn more maximum range based on EPA estimated combined fuel economy and a full tank of fuel actual mileage and range may vary because i had to put my ankle bracelet on and i got sent home the same day i was there for four or five hours wow lucky you i had to wait like almost a month to get on home confinement really yeah a lot of people i mean everything's so different now um with the new laws and

pushing people home, but before it was just a mess. I feel like I'm doing too much talking. No, you're doing great. The audience loves when the guest talks and just tells the story. So you go on home confinement from there, and how long are you on the bracelet for before you're completely done? You max out. March 21st of 23 till July 10th of 23.

And then I call the probation officer right away. Let him know. I just got the bracelet off. he wanted me to meet him the following week at Newark Courthouse, and I brought the release plan with me there again. You gave him one, too? Yeah. Yeah, and I tell all my clients, this release plan, you're going to, you know, I created for them. It's usually 20 to 25 pages, and then they grow it in prison, and they continue to expand on it, whether on home confinement of the halfway house, and you continually grow it until you're off supervised release.

you know, because I feel like it gave me a high degree of liberty and freedom on home confinement. Every time I emailed the case manager at the halfway house and said, you know, I want to go for a walk. I want to go to the supermarket with my wife or I wanted to, they just didn't let me go to anyone's house. I couldn't go to anyone's house unless they did a home inspection. So like for Easter, I couldn't go to the family's house for Easter. I wasn't going to have a family member, you know, my wife's aunt going to have a home inspection because I had to come there for Easter. So, and then, you know, I continually build and I'm still on supervised release now. I get off July 10th of 2026. So they give you how long? Three years.

Oh, three years. Okay. So 2023. Yeah. And how does supervisor release work with your line of work because you're dealing with felons or people that are about to become felons and everything like that. So when I, when I came home, I was volunteering with Michael Santos, a prison professors during my case. I created this course with him that got distributed into prisons. He's a great guy, Michael Santos, and, you know, I learned a lot from him. And he offered me a job. He says, when you come home, you've got to consult. You know, we have people for you to consult. You know, they saw how hard I worked on my case.

I was working at it nonstop. I was sleeping for me before. Every 20 hours, my eyes were up. It was working two jobs, volunteering in the evening, you know, soup kitchen, homeless shelter, you know, three or four in persons a week, three or four Zooms, taking courses at night. They say, you know, just share everything, you know, and help. So when I went to meet my probation officer, I gave him the letter from Michael, and I was like, you know, this is what I'm going to be doing. He approved it because he said, you know, it's not like you're hanging out on a corner with known felons. He says, you know, you're just sharing your story and helping people through the process.

So they approved it from day one. And then when I started doing this on my own, you know, they approved it, you know, because you have to get everything approved. Because as soon as I came home, someone from Wall Street introduced me to Columbia University Business School, Justice Through Code. It's for formerly incarcerated people. And it's, I never coded before. I mean, I traded on a Bloomberg terminal for 20 years. I didn't know that I was tech proficient, you know, proficient with technology.

And, you know, a guy from Wall Street, this guy, he says, you know, call him. He goes, the guy that runs the program, he actually did 17 years in Sing Sing. And, you know, he's, he does very well for himself now with software engineering. So I said, all right, I called him. Great guy, good guy, Dario. And anyone listening, look out, you know, you could reach out to them. It's a great, to fully funded. But I had to pass the onboarding process.

And once I passed, it was 20 weeks. It was five months. So the cost. The cohort that I was in, we won the Capstone project. And so our team came in first place and it was an ATS system, bypassing the ATS system, you know, when we submit a resume and as we were felons, you know, how do we bypass the system so we can get into somebody in front of someone to get a job? And so when I graduated from that, Columbia University Business School,

They gave me a lifetime membership to Coursera. Now, Coursera is like $100 a month, but you can take any courses you want. So when Dario said, you know, you have a lifetime membership to Coursera, I said, really? He says, yeah. So I dove into education. I started taking three or four courses at a time. I have my AI engineering, machine learning from IBM, Microsoft. I have 80 certifications and specializations.

They're all listed on my LinkedIn. I all passed them from Coursera. I was waking up at 4 in the morning, studying from 4 to 8, then started consulting. Then from like 1 to 5, I would do another class. Then from like 10 to 2, I would do another class. I was taking three classes at a time, and I wanted to take all ones for mitigation. Like, how can I do something completely different that no one's doing in this space? Because I know there's a lot of prison consultants out there, and a lot of them do a great job.

I mean, I was working for the biggest one in the field. But I wanted to, you know, do something my way completely different, something that they weren't doing. So I wanted to incorporate, like when I think. when I passed the University of Pennsylvania, the compliance rebuild, I looked at the seven DOJ, the pillars of compliance that the DOJ holds, you know, Sony and Apple, you know, they hold these big Fortune 500 companies account to the seven pillars of compliance. So I said, what if I apply this to the human being? And I started applying it to human cases. And I started having outcomes, 93% sentence reduction. My client had a 168 month guideline sentence. He was sentenced to a year and a day. I applied the compliance rebuild. I applied the same restitution framework, the same personal backstory attached to the PSR. We did a lot more mitigation. Basically, every single certification we applied to this case. And it's a lot of work, but I dedicated myself these last

well, even when I was going through my case, so four years was all dedicated to education because upskilling and redeveloping ourselves is like the most important thing. Like even if you're not formally incarcerated with the technology and the age, we're going with AI now and everything and machine learning. And, you know, so I passed Google predictive analytics, the advanced, you know, so now I can go over 10 years of sentencing history of a judge. You know, I wanted to, you know so i so every time like you know what with it's a custom tailored suit like every client that comes to me it's even though it might be the same charge or wire fraud or securities for it or bank fraud money whatever it is it's a custom tailored suit to them and then from columbia university

uh business school i went into defy defy ventures great organization for formerly incarcerated people there's a great guy out there, Kyle, who brought me in, because I was going to continue with Columbia University Business School. But I found out about Defi through someone in Columbia University Business. They said, Joe, we know, you know, we know you want to start, you know, do this on your own and continue to help people going through the process. And, you know, you should go into this entrepreneurial, this tech, entrepreneurial tech boot camp called Defy Ventures. So I reached out to them and, you know, I had a few Zooms with this person. And I said, all right, we're going to, I said, I definitely want to do it.

So that was a 17-week entrepreneurial boot camp. Then I went into the pre-accelerator with them. And now I'm in the accelerator program. I've been in it for a year and a half. And when I pitched my company, JAN advisor, it came in first place on pitch night. And they have a lot of great tech entrepreneurs, like, volunteering. You know, Roy Bahat was on there, you know, he's a big guy with Bloomberg, you know, big tech guy. And these guys volunteer. And, you know, they take you under your wing. They mentor you

and everything. So, you know, I'm very fortunate to find, you know, I didn't know all these organizations were out there for people who were formerly incarcerated, the way they help, you know, the way, you know, if people look them up, like I would tell anyone to look up Columbia University business school justice through code and look up Dario. You know, you connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll direct you. Even with Defy Ventures, you know, the hardest thing I think is finding a job. So I wanted to start my own company and I wanted to do this the right way. I wanted to help as many people out as possible in their families. And, you know, I started just with White Collar, but now I do other federal cases, you know, but it's, you know, the education I'm still involved with.

I'm still, you know, learning a lot. October of this year, I was just on the American Bar Association podcast called The JustPod. And the American Bar Association is not going to have anyone on, especially an ex-felon. right the only people that are on are like prosecutors judges u.s attorneys and top lawyers so they reached out to me on lincoln they said you know we think you'd be an interesting guest and i went on it that was the first podcast i actually ever did and i was really nervous because i'm like all right the guy who's who's who runs this he's like a former u.s attorney and now he's he's a lawyer and he's the chair of the white collar for the bar association and but no it was

great. They made it very easy for me and just to, like you, just relax, sit here and talk. So then from there, you know, I did some with Business Insider. They reached out. And then a few weeks ago, you know, Bloomberg Law just published my piece, how to get, how to get a judge to reduce your clients, how to get a white collar sentence reduced by the judge. Like if anyone just looks up Bloomberg, law, Joseph D. Gregorio, it'll come up. How to get a judge to reduce your client's white collar sentence. And I put the 14-year case in there, how we got this guy that had 168-month guideline sentence reduced to a year and a day. No cooperation agreement, just like me. You know, I had a 75% reduction in sentence with no cooperation agreement, still owing, you

know, restitution. He was the same way. And then I put in there because I consulted with the Matt Boyer case, the bookie and the show Hey, Otani case. I helped him with his precent's interview. While I was working with that former company, they wanted me to prepare because I do a lot with precent's interview preparation. Not to rehearse them or coach them, but just to like realize the magnitude of what they've done to identify with the victims. You know, because very, very, easy to me. For me, it was natural, like the remorse, the pain, the core in the middle of me, that pain's never going to go away for the rest of my life. So when I see someone like, you know, and he was remorseful, man, like he was, he was a good person. Like he didn't, you know, he, you know, so I prepared him for his precent's interview. You know, he had a great outcome. I believe the government wanted like four or five years. He got a year in a day as well. and then I started helping a lot of people with early release.

Like I just had someone come home after four months of a 20-month sentence, a 20% served in the federal. It's like it's like unheard of. You know, no one ever, even the lawyer left the recommendation on my LinkedIn profile. I didn't even know he left the recommendation. Like you get an alert. Like I'm only on LinkedIn, by the way. Which we got to work on.

Yeah, I'm never, yeah. We got to change that. for you. Thank you so much. I appreciate your help if you could. Now, so I'm only on LinkedIn. So the lawyer left the recommendation because I worked on my first compassionate release. I got someone who was serving a life sentence out after 27 years. So he's out now. He's in a Bronx halfway house. And they didn't want to let him go. Even though he got a compassionate release out of the Eastern District of New York, the penitentiary that he was in in California, the ward didn't want to let him out. So the lawyer was having trouble with this.

He says, do you think, you know, you could do some about this? So I got some legislative contacts that I had involved with the pitcher. And I started, you know, I started a very, very heavy advocacy campaign for the compassionate release. So he was supposed to be in the Bronx halfway house by August 15th of this year. And we got him there a week later. But he's still in the Bronx halfway house now. and it was very difficult, you know, with the BOP not wanting to move him, because then when he moved to Victorville penitentiary, he was on lockdown because something happened. I believe a

stabbing happened. So they've not, he, he didn't have no disciplinary infractions. That's why I took on that case. He was serving a life sentence with no disciplinary infractions, 27 years in, GPA, you know, he had a 4.0 GPA. He saved two. inmates' lives. He was a very, very, you know, high-profile inmate. So, and so he's, he's out. And then he wrote in the same recommendation, this lawyer's name is Richard Levitt. He's in New York. He's a great lawyer. I do, I do work with him. And he left that 20 month out in four months. You know, he said, I've never heard of anything like this. You know, you know, people don't realize how much sway the case manager has over our freedom, and they can, with the swipe of a pen, push us out

and get us out. But you have to climb to the top of the totem pole, and you have to prove worthy of why you're worthy to go home and how different you are. And I use the purple cow theory because it's so true. If I'm driving down a farm road and I see 200 cow, one's purple. My eyes are automatically going to gravitate to that purple cow. And that's how we have to be in prison. That's how we have to be in the courtroom at sentencing with the judge. That's how we have to be with the case manager in the halfway house and the probation officer. You know, so, you know, there's many stages of the journey. And, you know, all of the stakeholders are very cynical. And they think that, you know, we're going to be back or reoffend, but they don't

know it unless you really prove it. So I was emailing my probation officer every 90 days. Like what I did over the last 90 days, all the classes that I was taking, Columbia University, you know, then going into Defy, then passing all my courses on Coursera. You know, I passed MIT, Yale, University of Michigan, you know, Google, Microsoft, PR. I passed my associate for public relations because of the dreaded DOJ press release. That's another thing I wanted to add to mitigation that no other firm is doing because, you know, when we plead guilty and you have that DOJ press release, now that digital footprint is

there forever. And I had many instances where clients tell me, you know, know my my kid is being bullied at school now you know because you know that press release right you know they're you know they're you know who's having you know you know that press release is very heavy you know i had it you know in march of 2022 you know you google my name you see you know and so i wanted to have a PR wing to drown out as much as possible with good with good data because we're moving, you know, everything with judges and everything, it's just factual data. It's not just, you know, asking for leniency and mercy. You know, you know, you have to,

like, you have to separate yourself from everyone, but there's things that you can do to, like, now, I'm starting to see, like, my press release, my DOJ press release getting suppressed, like it's getting more suppressed and more suppressed, just like yours. I'm sure you have so many different, you know, if you, if you Google your name, you know, I'm sure you can. case doesn't come up right away. It might be on page two or three by now. Yeah, it's all social media. It's my website. It's everything. It's really incredible. That's the power in sharing your story, even the guests, because our SEO is good with the show. When I put the guest name, the interview will come up now before the news article. So they get to share their story, and that's what people

click on when they search their name. So that's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, because that was a big deal. And then another big deal was the restitution amount. Like, there was a lot of discrepancies with cases that I saw actual loss versus intended loss. So I passed my forensic accounting. You know, that was the advanced forensic accounting I passed, University of Virginia. You know, that was very, because everything that I passed was to provide my client, you know, the most solid ironclad mitigation case that they can get the maximum. sentence reduction and serve the most minimum amount of time, you know, the lawyers don't know about the, they never, a lot of them, I should say they don't challenge the amount. They don't know how to

because they're going to have to hire an outside forensic accounting. They're going to have to pay, you know, so forth and so on. But I do all that for my clients, you know, if, if I have to, you know, and now you have with this new administration in May of this year, a whole completely 10 DOJ focus areas of what they're going at now. I mean, white collar cases are dropped by the wayside. There's about 3,600 a year now. It used to be over 10,000 a year. You know, now health care fraud is number one. Crypto fraud is on the list. You know, trade, you know, with the sanctions. So it's, a lot of it is, but any, there hasn't been now any case that I can't put together.

an ironclad mitigation. Like I have to assess it. I have to digest it. I have to see of what could be. Like I don't just take on any case. I want to help whoever I can. That's really that owns what they did. Like, you know, I mostly everyone that I work with, you know, they're fully remorseful.

And, you know, greed takes over a lot. I mean, I got taken over by greed. I mean, it was, you know, it was just, that's why it was just so great to work at Amazon. you know, 19, 6, just to get away from that greed. Yeah, it's very humbling. And in fact, that's what the judge said to me at sentencing. I see you ate your humble pie, DiGregorio. She said to me at sentencing because I was working in Amazon and working at the golf course getting 15 an hour.

And, you know, when, you know, when you understand, like, you don't even need to hire anyone like me. Yes. You know, you want me to hire. I will definitely help you get the best outcome. But it's really all education. It's really all everything that I did. You know, I started studying mitigation. I started studying capital defense attorneys.

Then started studying judges. Then I started studying U.S. attorneys. And then I started studying case managers. And then you know, so there's so much information at your fingertips nowadays to not do everything you can. Leave it all out there for your own case. Like, you know, don't just leave it up to your lawyer because mostly everyone that goes through this process does that. They just leave it up to their lawyer.

The lawyers, 95% of the lawyers, every, I've read over a thousand sentencing memorandums now. 95% of them are below average. And I tell them, you know, stop citing case law, the comparisons, start implementing some compliance mitigation in there, you know, start adding this to the sentencing memorandum to show the judge that they've rebuilt things that they've destroyed because they want to see, like, do you really recognize the harm that you've caused? Do you, have you rebuilt something you destroyed? Are you going to be in another courtroom again? And, you know, there was a professor at Indiana when my Bloomberg law piece came out three weeks ago from today. Someone on, and he was a mitigation lawyer.

Now he's a professor at Indiana University. He reposted it and said, when I started, when this guy said, when I started talking, his name is Todd Haw. He said, when I started talking about how lawyers don't implement mitigation back in 2012, I never thought the compliance rebuild, the way Joseph D. Regorio, this Bloomberg law piece, I'm glad I clicked on this. I'm glad I did because I just learned something in 14 years. I've never actually thought about of to apply a compliance rebuild based off the seven DOJ pillars of compliance. You know, and now I started helping, I started talking to firms and I started talking to companies about identifying the high performance guy who's wrapped up in a $5,000 suit like I was,

who's the biggest liability and the biggest risk, you know, and to prevent something like me happening because you can see... You can spot when someone's, whether they're using or whether there's greed is getting control of them, you can spot their performance before the investigation happens, before the DOJ or the government says, we got to investigate, we got auditing you. You know, you have to audit your employees and to see, you know, who's under the pressure, who's, you know, because there's ways now that you could, the way you were mentioning to me earlier, Before we were talking about when we got started, you know, I was a liability wrapped in a suit.

I was functioning. I was a high functioning performer until I wasn't, until I couldn't put on dress shoes anymore, until I couldn't hide it anymore. I was completely yellow, and I needed a liver transplant. But I was too late. So, you know, I'm starting to, you know, speak about compliance, rebuild. I mean, you know, there's, there's just, you know, for anyone out there, you know, if you go to jannadvisor.com, I mean, you can even call me. My number 646, 5888-1-8-2. I know I'm going to be

getting calls, but I'll take your calls. I'll listen. I'm more than willing to help out anyone go through this. I know how wretched it is going through the process and how hard it is on our families and loved ones. And, you know, whether you're someone who has someone in prison that wants to get out. I could create a release plan for them to get them out, you know, and to, you know, but they got to be committed to build it. I'll give you another perfect example. There's been a lot of people, again, going back to how people value their freedom. It's weird how I could talk to someone and they don't value their freedom. They value their freedom differently. And I don't want to do all that work or, you know, I have, I have the three best lawyers in Manhattan that I hired. I don't think I need to do all

that. And mitigation is the future of federal sentencing. And I think more lawyers are now implementing it. And there's a reason why my lawyer, who I hired from my case, became my first client. So when I came home, because he didn't think I was going to get the outcome that I did, he didn't think I was going to get out as quickly as I did. And he was always doubting me saying, you know, why do you got to do that? Why do you need that letter attached to the PSR? Why do you need the release plan? Why are you paying four or five hundred a month in restitution nine months before sentencing if it's not 1020 grand and i'm not putting him down he's a great lawyer you know but they don't teach those things in law school right with mitigation again was only for capital defense attorneys why isn't all federal attorneys

doing this for for for drug cases you know guys are serving very long sentences for you know you know for things that you know i mean you know you've seen what you've seen you know we all have unique going, unfortunately, it's to the same destination, but we all have unique experiences. Yeah, it's a whole new world for them, what you're talking about, especially in new cases. I mean, I was shocked by everything you were describing that you've done. I've never heard of that on the show, and I've interviewed over 500 people. Really? So I give you kudos for that.

I mean, thank you. I mean, it's interesting because when the top 1% law firms call me now, there's been so many instances where I say, I'm not going to work with him. You know, listen, a lot of these guys, C-suite execs, big hedge fund guys, or some celebrities, they're egotistical maniacs. They have a big ego, right? And, you know, you have to put that aside. You have to, you know, the government's here.

You know, you have to get to work. You know, you've got to push that aside, you know, that's, you have to start mitigating your case nonstop, 258, let alone 24th, not even 24-7. And yeah, let your lawyers battle, you know, talk about, you know, case law and compare. But I have actually done better case law and comparisons now with the AI and machine learning. My lawyer could only do like 16 to 20 cases. I was doing five, 600 cases in history using machine learning. And so my lawyer was like, oh, my God, he goes, you know, I usually compare like 20 cases max.

And I was like, you could do 200. You know, so they should hire someone now with AI and machine learning. I know a lot of law firms, a lot of big law firms that are getting involved with, you know, getting good guys up that know how to, you know, with machine learning and AI because I said this on the American Bar Association, the JustPod. It's called the JustPod podcast. I said, you know, the lawyers who are not going to embrace this machine learning and Google predictive analytics, because a lot of his predictive analytics as well, if you can go over 10 to 12 years of sense, sentencing history with a judge and see where he gave leniency and mercy. What were the mitigating factors? Why he gave downward departures. There are certain profiles, right, for each judge, right? So they all, you know, some of them are for the guidelines. Some of them aren't. Some of them, you know, have, you know,

all different circumstances where they give variances from, you know, no two judges are alike. So the ones who really don't implement that, I'm not saying they're going to be left behind, but You're not going to be a sought-after lawyer in the future if you don't implement mitigation. You know, because right now we're in, you know, we're moving to AGI, general intelligence. We're not in general intelligence yet. AGI has come in third quarter of 2026. You know, Elon Musk talks just spoke about this recently. You know, the AI, we're in, we're in the first phase of AI.

And general intelligence is going to have the PhD, the IQ of Albert Einstein. AGI. That's going to come out around September of 2026. And then after that is super intelligence, right? And they don't even have any idea. And I'm obsessed with this, right? I, you know, yeah, I follow, you know, I read as much about it. You know, I took all my engineering, IBM and Microsoft. I got all my AI and machine learning engineering. You know, it's very, it was, they were nice, rigorous certifications, but this is the future. And, you know, I wanted to resale and upskill and redevelop myself, like, you know, but I also wanted to bring as much mitigation to the future. So if two years from now, I want to still be standing tall as a company. Three

years from now, I want to still be standing tall as a company because I've absorbed all this education. And, you know, I'm still going to be always trying to do better and learn more. And a lot of these lawyers that, you know, my lawyer is all on board for mitigation. Now, this year, alone, I had 126 cases that I consulted on, 36 new lawyer partnerships. And I just actually did a post on this LinkedIn the other day, two days ago. I did a 2025 recap. There was 26 cases where we had 86 to 92 percent sentence reductions. I mean, I'm having an outcome better than mine, right? Because I didn't implement any of this for my case. I mean, I just came forward. And I basically turned myself in on a phone call from the SEC. Like the SEC, the SEC,

just called me and said, is this Joseph? Yes. I said, can I call you back in a few days? Sure. Boom. And I just walked myself into prison, basically. Joe, you're a funny guy. Well, Joe, I appreciate you coming on the showman. We'll have the link to your website, to your LinkedIn, everything, in the description of this episode for the audience. I'm sure you'll be getting calls from this. You made a good case. If I was still going through my situation, I'd definitely be hiring you. Thank you, kindly for having me. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for being a terrific guest. Thank you.