Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Wall Street Broker — Then I Went to Federal Prison | Justin Paperny

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Justin Paperny had the perfect life — a privileged childhood in California, a promising baseball career, and by 26, he was the youngest broker at Bear Stearns’ Los Angeles office. But behind the polished image, greed took over. First, it was stealing commissions. Then, he got pulled into a multi-million dollar fraud scheme with a client. At 32, he traded luxury boardrooms for 18 months in federal prison camp. In this interview, Justin reveals how his choices unraveled his career, the reality of life inside a federal prison camp, and how he turned his biggest mistake into a new mission — helping others avoid the same fate. His story is a cautionary tale of ambition, greed, and redemption. #WhiteCollarCrime #PrisonStories #FraudCase #FederalPrison #FinanceScandal #PrisonInterviews #TrueCrimePodcast #redemptionstory Connect with Justin Paperny: Website: https://free.whitecollaradvice.com/google2?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=White+Collar+Advice&utm_campaign=KS-Leads-Search-Brand&utm_content=Brand-Exact&utm_keyword=justin+paperny&utm_matchtype=e&campaign_id=22279642692&ad_group_id=174779004879&ad_id=734949328994&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22279642692&gbraid=0AAAAAC59KDbd9vbZE8r8cORPwr__0suk-&gclid=CjwKCAjwtfvEBhAmEiwA-DsKjqq4EOzZG9qXnXhrGdbvhfgeOeaGsqJOA-Y0j_5b61KcCob5GtNevxoCU0cQAvD_BwE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whitecollaradviceteam/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiteCollarAdviceOfficial Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Get 50% off the Magic Mind offer here: https://www.magicmind.com/IANB50. #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Use code LOCKEDIN for 20% OFF Wooooo Energy Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: Justin's Story & Downfall 02:23 From Wall Street to Prison 06:41 Turning Prison into Purpose 12:12 Building a New Life After Release 24:24 Baseball Dreams & Early Influences 36:00 Breaking into Finance 43:38 The Slippery Slope: Small Cheats, Big Consequences 51:13 Rationalizations and the Cost of Fraud 01:01:12 The Federal Investigation and Plea 01:05:41 Preparing for Prison and Self-Reflection 01:13:21 Life Inside: Surprising Prison Realities 01:28:39 Finding Redemption & Building Discipline 01:35:01 Life After Prison: Stigma, Success & Giving Back 01:44:34 Final Reflections & Outro Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's America's number one for a reason. Cayman Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors. Please drink responsibly. Cayman Jack beverage company, Chicago, Illinois. I found a glitch in the accounting system at Bear Stearns. It enabled me to keep 100% of the commission, not 25%. So it's a $10,000 commission I kept all 10 instead of 25%. Justin Pappernie had it all a privileged upbringing, a rising career as one of the youngest

brokers at Bear Stearns. a life most people only dream about. But behind the scenes, he was stealing commissions and getting pulled into a multi-million dollar fraud scheme with a client. At 32, he went from luxury offices to an 18-month sentence in federal prison. Today, he's turned that prison experience into his life's mission, helping others avoid the same mistakes that took him down. Justin, welcome to Lockton, man. I'm grateful to be here. Congratulations on all your success. Thank you, man. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. I told you that you've been on our spreadsheet for a couple of years now since I went on my team saw some of your TikToks. And you've been sitting right on our spreadsheet.

And I'm glad we could finally make this happen. It's strange at this point in our lives that what we do. Did you ever think, I'm 50 now, you're much younger, that we'd go to prison and try to build a business around it and help people. I never imagined. I'd end up here. I feel like you were one of the first, too, to do that. When I went to prison, I was lost and confused. So I was a terrible, lazy, self-loathing defendant. I blamed everyone but myself in life. I wrote a newsletter recently about, like, the worst part wasn't going to prison. It was envy. I hated you. I hated anyone that was successful because they had what I used to have as a broker at Bear Stearns and then Merrill Lynch and UBS. And for three and a half years, I lived with so much regret.

People knock the 18 months that I served. And it's a very short sentence. I mean, if you, if anyone could have the easiest journey through the criminal justice system, prison related, it was me. But I tell people it was like five years I felt like I served the year in prison in the three and a half years of just self-loathing and so much regret. And then in prison, I still didn't know what to do. That first day, maybe we'll talk about terrible decisions I made, adjusting poorly, forming the wrong friendships. And then I found a friend who's now my partner, Michael Santos, who'd been in for 22 years when I met him. And he finally helped me understand how like all of these bad decisions that I was making was going to define the rest of my life. And I said, I don't want to do that.

So with help from him, I began to get it together and find some meaning through the experience through writing with Michael's help and documenting the journey and sharing my experience from a very, like, honest, I hoped honest and authentic message. I served one year and one camp. We talked about this earlier. I don't want to profess to be a prison expert or consultant or fixer. I'm not. I'm someone who went to prison, learned from someone who helped me.

We share lessons that have guided me primarily through Michael's journey. journey. And we never asked people to do like what we haven't done, which is document and build and try to create a new record. And that's when my life began to change in 2008 when I hand wrote that first blog and sent it home to my mom and put it up on the internet. But it took a long time for me to get it together. Yeah, I read your blog today. And it was interesting. I haven't read a blog and I don't know how long. But I was going through some of your articles and stuff. And it's cool that someone does that. That's definitely a good resource for a lot of individuals. I like to, certainly we film a lot, but writing is very cathartic for me. It's kind of selfish too. It's

putting it out there. It helps me think and create. And people might not read to the degree that they did. But if you have interest in it, I think you'll read. But I share those stories because people think prison can be the worst part of the sanction. But if you're going to a minimum security camp, especially like in the age of prison reform and the First Step Act and trying to be a BOP sending eligible people home and with ARDAP, like five years in prison, isn't five years when I was in in 2008. It's measurably shorter. So it's like you've got to prepare for the hardest part, not standing for count for two years. It's what are you doing? You can't be a banker or lawyer or doctor anymore. How are you going to sustain yourself? And in my case, or the case with a lot of

white collar guys, it's you have that how much money you made before you went in to compare it to. And it's very humbling and hard to start over. And I was willing to do whatever it took to start over, including picking up phones when I came home from prison. But I still enjoy writing and sharing a lot of these prison stories, even though it's been 16 years. Why don't you tell the audience what you do now, too, for your business? So when I went to prison in 2009, I had been a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. I pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, and Judge Wilson sentenced me to 18 months in prison. And when I got there, I presumed I would return home. I had started to sell real estate. Then my partner Michael Santos said, well,

Do you understand with a felony conviction? It's unlikely. You owe restitution. I'm like, I was delusional. I just presumed I'd return to my career. I eventually lost my license. So Michael and I began creating together. So I began documenting my journey through prison. Like what's it like to be a white collar dude in jail? Like standing for count, an educated guy, raised to no right from wrong. How did I end up here? What are lessons I'm learning? So that blog became the harbinger for a book we wrote called Lessons from Prison, which is just kind of a guide book for a white collar guy going through the criminal justice. system, how to begin to rebuild from an authentic, honest perspective. So when I was released in 2009,

Michael still had four years left to serve. He did 26 years. And I'm in the halfway house in Hollywood, California. And a lot of people think, like, when you're free, you probably want to go eat or have sex or do bad things. I'm like, no, I owe 500 grand a restitution. I'm 33. I've got to get it together. So I took my book, Lessons from Prison, and I cold walked into law offices in downtown in Los Angeles, just peddling the book. All these lawyers threw me out. Like, you don't have an invitation. You're not welcome here.

We're going to call security. I'm going to call your probation officer. I'm like, I'm just a dude out of jail trying to make my way. Can you help me? And only one lawyer that day shook my hand. A great lawyer named Mark Worksman. So since 2009, I've run white collar advice, which guides defendants through all phases of the criminal justice system, not as a lawyer, but as someone who's lived it, experienced

it, and helps them get through it with a sense of dignity. in helping them understand, like, what is success for you? What is an outcome we're trying to engineer? And they all say the same thing. I want a shorter sentence. I want to get out of prison earlier. And it's like, well, how do you do that? And they say, well, I don't know.

So lawyers play a vital role, of course. They're crucial to this process. But we're of the opinion. A defendant needs to document and build a record that shows why they're different than the sickening, scathing, terrible department of press releases that just castigate us as scum. They focus on the worst thing that we ever did. prosecutors advance their career on these cases.

These prosecutors are going to become defense attorneys run for office. So I tell defendants, what is success for you? What is success for them? They are your opponent. Whether you agree with that or not, they want to send you to prison and separate you from your family. How do we change that? You've got to demonstrate that you're different. If you created a victim, don't say, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again.

What is your path to make them whole? Are you building a sustained record over time? That's what I said earlier. We're not asking people to do what we don't do, which is document. and build and try to overcome really cynical stakeholders. So even like when you ask about a prison consultant, any dude can go to jail for a year as I did and fancy themselves a consultant or a fixer.

I am not. I'm not. I learned from someone who did 26 years and we help people create for really cynical people with hopes that we can persuade them to give a better probation report. With hopes that probation officer may make a good recommendation to the judge, hopes the judge gives a shorter sentence,

with hopes the case manager rewards them for this documented effort over time, maybe they get more home confinement on probation. The work that defendant has done over a sustained period of time, perhaps the work a defendant does today might influence that probation officer in four years. That's what we asked them to do. And of course, if prison is part of the sanction, we'll prepare them. But it really can't be preparing for that hardest part. Like your home with a felony conviction, you know it well. What are you going to do now? The earlier people can begin to answer that question. We think the more successful they're going to be. And, you know, all of those things are not controlled by some other variable.

Like for a lot of prison consultants, they're depending on, say, the BOP or a government official to kind of get their job done, whereas your job doesn't depend on someone else other than the person hiring you to complete that task. That's right. Well, certainly we're involved in policy. While we're filming this, well, my partner, Michael Santos, was in D.C. last week meeting with BOP leadership. We're trying to expand more furloughs, making sure everyone is eligible to get earned time credits under the first. step back, we think more these prison camps should be closed. They serve very little purpose.

I'm of the opinion if you've created Elizabeth Holmes or Jennifer Shaw with whom we worked. If you created victims and you owe money, we think these camps serve little purpose. You should be home in the community working with the lion's share of that money, going to victims, people with whom you owe money.

So prison reform and policy is a big part of what the nonprofit. I sponsor, prison professors.org. That's what Michael runs. White collar advice was the initial funder of the dot org. A percentage of every sale continues to support the dot org, but we have history and authority there because Michael began documenting it in 1987. He got degrees. He began, he was a published author. He was a professor when he came home.

He creates content that's in every BOP prison. His course is a First Step Act approved program. So I think that level of authority gets him a seat at the table with the BOP. He'll be back in D.C. next month meeting with leadership, trying to expand more reforms under the idea that we should be able to earn your way home, right? You get five years rather than just calendar pages turning, as Michael would say, What if you can earn your way home? Demonstrate why you're a candidate for leniency, the record you're building and documenting. And that's what we encourage people to do. You can't talk about it.

These stakeholders, they're trained to, they look at us as liars, as thieves. That's the impression they have of us. And it's true. Not all. There are many good case managers. I had a sympathetic one. I'm friends with the FBI agent that arrested me. I brought him on my podcast and he invited me to the Academy in Quantigo, Virginia, to train agents.

It doesn't change when they're investigating us. They're only focused on the crime. It doesn't change a case manager in prison is focused on the judge's sentence and the victims. So when they hear, I want to get home to my family, I didn't have bad intentions. They kind of laugh at us. They'll say you should have thought about that before you broke the law. Get out. The only way to overcome that, we think, is to create and document it and build.

But the problem with that is it takes work. You can't fake it. and that's what we encourage people to do. That's what you did. It's why you're successful. You can't tell people you have to show them. And we don't want to be reliant on the BOP or a lawyer or anyone else to engineer the outcome that we want, which is to help people. And we do that just by creating and giving it as much of it away as we possibly can.

And some people reach out and say, what does it look like to work with you? Some don't. We say, just come to our free weekly webinar. We give everything away to help you. And that's why I continue to say whatever we're asking someone else to do, we do. and it's all documented. Yeah, I read one of your blogs about how, and I think this is a common misconception, people think that you have the chance to sell the judge at sentencing.

But from my experience, and I think you could agree, is that the judge already has their mind made up going into sentencing. Yeah, I would agree that certainly some judges may rubber stamp the government's version of events in the sentence. Our approach is at times we draw a wedge with lawyers. Some lawyers say, get offline, get off the internet, lay the, low, there's nothing to do. I'm going through discovery, sentencing is six months away. We're of the opinion, judges are very cynical, and the only way they're going to overcome this

cynicism is by trying to persuade, demonstrate to them that you are different than this plea agreement, indictment conviction, or press release. So even if a judge is made, might mind might be made up, that means all of the work you do leading up to sentencing could influence that decision. How do you do that? You persuade a probation officer to show. I'm not just saying I'm sorry because I got caught. Some in our community recently gave back like $27 million paid his restitution at whole. He never once mentioned it. You'd think he'd lead with it.

I paid all the money back. Here's what a cynical stakeholder would say, you had it and you paid it back because you don't want to go to prison. He never talked about it. Instead, it's the lessons he's learned, what he would do differently. Kind of like me, and even you a little bit.

We were raised with opportunity, parents who taught us right from wrong, and I never should have been standing for count in prison. I had every break in the world, yet there I was. and if you can embrace and own that and share it and document it, we've seen really cynical judges, Judge Gorton in Boston, Judge Wilson, my sentencing judge, Judge Selman and Santa Ana,

give shorter sentences by telling defendants you get it. You recognize that I sentence people in this courtroom that didn't have privileges that you squandered, education that you took for granted, and parents that raise you with resources, you know that most don't have that. That matters, and I think that's how we can influence really cynical judges. You've got to put yourself in their shoes, but too many defendants

don't do it. They focus on themselves. Victims are kind of a throwaway. They talk about them, but not really. I accept responsibility buts or howevers, and they're trained to see right through that. So if you're of the opinion, the judge's mind is made up the day of sentencing, the question should be, what outcome am I trying to engineer a better recommendation from probation, the prosecutor, even a pretrial services officer who may visit your home? And then the record you're building now can influence a case manager in probation. It has to be documented. Without that, it's just words to them.

And they discount most of our words that that much I can tell you over 16 years of being in this space. Tell us about your upbringing. So I was raised in Encino, California, which is a Jewish enclave, about 20 minutes outside Los Angeles. And I hit the parent lottery in life, just the greatest parents ever. I grew up around tons of celebrities like the Jackson's a half a mile away from Michael Jackson, and we were very close with the family growing up. And my whole life was defined by baseball. I played in the Pony Babe Ruth World Series. This feels like glory days. Pony Babe Ruth World Series, and that led to a small scholarship offer to play baseball at USC.

And I played baseball at USC from 93 to 1997. And baseball really set me up for this idea of commitment and hard work and discipline. I'll never forget a coach. saying to me one time you were 0 for four today, but you would never know because the team won. So I felt like I was a good teammate. I was a good leader, but baseball defined my life. And then when I graduated USC in 97, I sort of lost my way. I would argue that I was very much influenced by the environment that I was in, right? When I was a baseball player, I was around character and discipline and commitment. And then when I worked my way into the brokerage industry after USC, I was influenced by that environment.

And I immediately began to descend to parts of it that were bad. And I began to admire the wrong people. Maybe someone who would have five drinks before they pull into their house. So they're on their third wife. And they're disrespectful to people, but they make a lot of money. I began to idolize or lionize some of these people. And I realized pretty quickly this is sort of a wretched business. And it was fundamentally different than how, like, my parents had raised me

and how my coaches held me accountable as a baseball player. And it was graduating USC at 23 in bad decisions I began to make that ultimately led to a government investigation and a prison term. What did your parents do for work? So my mom was a paralegal for some really high-profile lawyers, including high-profile defense attorneys. And my dad owns a hardware store. So even though I grew up with a lot of opportunity or privilege, you could say, and a lot of resources, my parents were just blue-collar people. Part of the reason I went to USC to play baseball there instead of like Stanford was because USC's two miles from my dad's business.

So super cool on a Tuesday he could leave at 3 o'clock and go to a baseball game at USC. So he owned the business and he was successful and hardworking, but incredibly honest people. Everyone that my father has hired, except for a couple of people all have been to prison. He had a program at like Crenshaw High School, which is very close by where my brother would go and interview students who had just graduated. he would hire them. So phenomenal parents and my conviction was, I don't know how your parent devastating for them. I think they blame themselves. I had it too easy. I had success too quickly. I made too much money too young and I didn't appreciate it. And that was true. I tended to obsess over what I did rather than show appreciation for what I did. And that all changed in prison. I came to appreciate how much

I had remaining because you're, you know, you're serving time with men who did not have opportunities, who didn't have loving parents, they were going to Hawaii twice a year, going to USC, friends sending them money for commissary, visiting every week, and you get a sense of, like, wow, I have it so good relative to most.

And I wish I didn't need 388 days in prison to find that perspective. But the truth is I did. I did not get the severity of my conduct and how disgustingly I acted until that first day in prison. I literally didn't really get it. I used the analogy when I learned that I was going to be a father.

I'm like, wow, this is incredible. When I was holding my daughter, I'm like, well, I'm a father. Like, just don't drop her. I just, I didn't get it until my mom and brother drove me to Taft prison that first day. And within like five seconds, I had embarrassed myself when the guards started. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount.

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beach fronts. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me up. Laughing at me. It's terrible. What values did your parents instill in you as a kid? Community. My father employed people from the community, supported the community with resources, donated resources. As I expressed in ethics in motion, my second book,

my mom had a policy of extra gifts that we would get at Hanukkah. We would give to people in the community who were less fortunate than us. Very kind and giving, very thoughtful, very honest. I don't ever remember them lying. I don't remember them doing anything that wasn't fair. They placed a lot of trust in my brother and me. We didn't have a curfew. We were, there wasn't a lot of discipline.

We didn't do anything wrong. I was a baseball player. My brother was very successful too. And I was around other people who instilled those same values of hard work and discipline. We grew up around celebrities who were honest, but really judges and lawyers, really successful executives in our community. Those were my role models, which is one when people read my Department of Justice Press release in 2007 that I had played.

guilty, people would call my mom and say, I'm so sorry. We just never expected this from Justin, the baseball player. We never expected this in a million years. What happened? And my mom said, she faulted herself. It was too easy. We doted on him. It was too much. And it wasn't her fault. And part of why I wanted to recalibrate or get it together, my why, it wasn't, it sounds, it wasn't to make money so much. It wasn't to, I wanted to know if I could do it, right? Isn't there a thrill that comes with the success you're having because you know how hard it is to go to prison and to start over from very little. Can you do it? Can you recover from the devastation that we alone created? That was kind of my why. Can't I do it? But also, I didn't want to encumber my

parent's retirement. And I had a tough brother who would visit me in prison. Not that often. He'd say, I love you. But you made your bed, you got to lie in it. You knew right from wrong. You did this. You're not ruining our parents' retirement because of your selfish, greedy, bad. choices. I love you. I'm not hiring you. I wasn't even skilled to work with him. Get it together. So that accountability was very important to me. But when I used to get up at like three or four o'clock in the morning in prison, Michael to get up at one, it was insane. And the dorm would be sleeping and I'd walk to that quiet room to work alongside him. My only thoughts were it wasn't money, it wasn't marriage, it wasn't children. It wasn't a white color advice brand that helps defendants

prepare. It was, can I overcome this? And what does it take to overcome? that and that requires working on days you don't want to. In learning to embrace a great deal of criticism, I think we had a little bit of that pleasing aspect, not wanting to disappoint or tell someone the truth, so we kind of turn the other way and go along with it. I had a lot of that when I got to prison. I was identifying with people that had kind of values that I once had as a defendant. It's part of why I made bad decisions. If you figure if you're in prison and you've lost so much and hurt people, say maybe it's a time to do things differently. Maybe that wasn't working. It certainly wasn't working for me.

And I'm glad I found a guide to help get me through it. But the initial reason or why was I got to make my parents proud. I put them through too much. Did you see baseball as your professional career? Or was it just like something you knew? I'm going to do this through college and then I'm going to go into business. So about seven seconds into my baseball career at USC, I said, that's a wrap. Oh, my, these athletes.

So you see guys like Aaron Boone, manager of the Yankees. I'm fast, quick. that's our Jeff Jenkins played in the big leagues for a long time. Gabe Alvarez, Jock Jones, who played in the big leagues for a long time. He was my roommate, my freshman year. And I remember thinking, if I can travel and if I can get summit bats, that is success. So like when I would see my name on the travel squad to Hawaii or Stanford, I'm like, that's a win. If I get three at bats over the next 10 games, that's a win. So I knew 10 minutes in, seven minutes in, that's it. I still had confidence. I did my best, but I'm 5, 10, and

slow with not a strong arm. That was a rat for me. But it also forced me to get an education. And my first big break was my junior year, I had a cousin who was a managing director at Goldman Sachs. And my mom called him and said, my son's not going to play baseball this summer because when you're in college, you're playing a summer league. He's not going to play this summer. Can he come an intern for you? So he's like, okay, fine. So I remember not playing in a baseball league. Coach Gillespie was upset because you're supposed to when you're planning to school like USC. You were number one in the country my sophomore year. We lost in the national championship game. It's like baseball should be your job. And I knew my career was over.

So when I went to Goldman Sachs and I heard $40, 50 million dollar bond orders and just it's exciting. I felt like carrying those trades, it's like playing baseball in front of 20,000 people. It was very intoxicating to me. And that's when I knew I wasn't going to go to graduate school in psychology, which is what I was studying. I knew that I wanted to go into the brokerage business after interning a Goldman Sachs. And when I told my cousin that, he's like, you're nothing more than he used car salesman. Do not go become a financial advisor. All you're going to do is raise money

and then have some other money manager like me manage it. Go get an MBA. I'm like, you don't know what you're talking about. Please. This guy's worth, you don't know what you're talking about. And he said, okay, go work for another firm and see if you like it. I'm like, where should I go?

He's like, just go somewhere. So I cold called it prudential for a summer. I was a terrible cold caller. That's why I cold walk. I will literally walk into someone's business with my book because people will respond to you differently in person. But I remember when I was a kid, as polite and honest as my mom was, she would drop some F-bombs when cold callers would call us during dinner. And I said, oh, no. So,

like, every time I ever made a cold call, I associated with what my mom would say before she'd hang up the phone. As nice as she was, she didn't like being disturbed. So I cold-called for a summer at Prudential for some senior brokers. And I wasn't good at it. But they said, well, you communicate well enough and you seem to not like on the phone, but you can have a future here. And then I ended up working at Merrill Lynch when I graduated. But to your question I knew it was over at USC really quickly. How did your parents feel about you going into the finance flashy type, you know, world when they didn't really come from that? I think they liked it. I think my mom, my parents like telling, my dad always loved telling people my, as little as I played

at USC. He derived so much satisfaction saying, I'm going to watch my son play this afternoon or my son plays on the baseball team at USC. Even now he supports the program and I play in the alumni game once a year. So that, and then he'd say he was a USC athlete and now he's, he's a broker at UBS, and he got a million-dollar bonus to go there from Bear Stearns, and his clients are Mike Piazza and Trevor Hoffman, and some players who have gone on to be in the Hall of Fame like Piazza or Hoffman, and that's what my son does now. And he can never play in the big leagues,

but he's able to manage money for those who are because he thinks like a baseball player. He understands them. He knows how to approach them. So I think he derived a lot of pride from that, and my mom did too. They loved visiting me at my office in Century City and 2029 Century Park East. I think they derived a lot of satisfaction from that. But I think they also saw that I was enamored, perhaps by the money, and the fact that I might have felt like I had already arrived.

And as I learned in prison, we've never fully arrived. We're all works in progress. And we still haven't arrived. We have not. We're all works in progress until the day we die. Do you feel like you let him down about baseball? No. I think my father thought I could have contributed and played more.

But he could see that I wanted to move on to my career. even that last year at USC, I began waiting tables in Encino where I grew up in a very ritzy, expensive neighborhood at a restaurant called Daily Grill. And I think my father, it wasn't like an entitlement thing, but it was almost like, son, you don't have to wait tables. Like, Dad, I want to save a little money. I want to work. I'm never going to work in fast food again, which is ironic because I did pots and pans in

prison. So I ended up working in the restaurant industry again. But I derive pride growing up in that town when people with whom I grew up, walked in and I was their server, right? And I had my USC baseball ring on that said, Pac-10 champions. And of course, it would be $40 and my dad's friend would leave $100 or $200. It was great. But I saved up $15,000, working there over two years. And that led to buying a home in California that I still own where my daughter was born. And I think he's like, just keep playing baseball. You never know. And I said, Dad, it's over. I want to prepare for the next phase of my life,

which is becoming an executive. And baseball's a baseball. over. And frankly, by the time I got to USC, it kind of felt like a job anyway. Because by the time I was like nine, it's travel, it's everywhere. Our whole lives were defined by my baseball. It was over. It was time to do something else. Some things just end. Tell us about your career after college, getting into brokerage and what that looked like. So I started at Merrill Lynch, and I had some difficult experiences pretty quickly because I found they wanted me as a young broker to join a senior partnership. And I I spent many months watching other front junior brokers, USC, UCLA, Stanford.

I saw a lot of these junior brokers merge their book of business with a senior broker because they had to. They were forced to. They were given an ultimatum. And I saw a lot of these junior brokers flunking out of the business for several reasons. One, they ended up managing the senior broker's book of business like all day, which means they're not prospecting. And part of the reason that junior brokers wanted to merge with the senior broker was because

they didn't want a prospect, pick up the phone or cold walk. You have to get business. No one's just going to hand you money. That runs out. The friends and family money, it runs out really, really quickly. You actually have to solicit hustle and get business. So I was never in the office because I was a terrible cold caller. I just cold walked along Ventura Boulevard, where I grew up from Haskell to Woodley to Balboa to recita Boulevard, that's it, into hundreds of businesses.

And I got 10 million bucks in assets after one year just by cold walking. So I faced this dilemma where they said, we want you to merge with a senior broker. And I saw these junior brokers flunking out. and when they did, the senior broker usurped or took their book of business. That's how they grew their book of business. And I'm like, it's a wretched business. I don't want any part of it. So Merrill gave me an ultimatum merger leave. I'm going to leave. I'm loyal to my clients. I'm doing well. I went to a small firm called Crowell Whedon, which isn't in business anymore. And after about a year at Crowell Whedon, I finally began reaching out to a lot of my friends with

whom I played baseball at USC. And it's one thing to be told no from someone you cold call or cold walked into. It's definitely to be told no from a friend. So it took a couple of years, like three years of courage to actually ask a friend that I played baseball what to manage his money. And some said yes. And then I began to go into spring training in Florida and Arizona and spending time with them and hanging out in the dinners and the drinks and the clubs. And I began to raise, get more money under management. And then finally I reached out to a big time sports agent who said, I'm open to sending you business, but it's never going to be at a firm called Kroll Whedon that we've never heard of. He introduced me to someone named Kenny, who was a partner

of Bear Stearns. He connected me to Kenny. And we became a partners. But I was always averse or scared of partnerships because I saw what happened earlier in my career at Merrill Lynch. But, you know, our values change in life. And I like the idea of being the youngest broker. They hired at Bear Stearns in the LA office at 26. But unfortunately, our partnership didn't get off to a great start. And I began to make terrible decisions that I didn't get in trouble for, but I have no doubt the bad decisions I made at Bear Stearns put me on a path where I went to prison years and years later. What were those decisions at Bear Stearns? So when I went to Bear Stearns, we had about $140 million combined.

He had $100 million. I had $40 million. He'd been in the business much longer. So we have $140 million. And the agreement was, I would get 25% of the commission. So you call in, it's $1,000 trade to buy Microsoft. I would get 25% of the commission. Kenny would get 75%.

That was fair, in my opinion, when we started our partnership. And as I talk about through lectures and white-collar crime, you can begin to rationalize some of this unfairness. So after about six months of this partnership, I went into his office asking for a raise because I had closed a hedge fund that was doing like $100,000 to $200,000 a month every single month.

And all I did was spend time executing these trades. I wasn't prospecting as much. My health was suffering. I graduated USC as a fit athlete. I'd put on 30 or 40 pounds, kind of rationalizing long days, eating the catered meals from the mutual funds that come in every day at 1 o'clock,

clothes don't fit anymore. My relationship at home is suffering. I was engaged. She eventually leaves. It's just work. And I feel like I'm suffering to advance our business. I never got a thank you. I appreciate you. You're contributing to our team. A thank you goes a long way. Some people don't need an appreciation or kudos. I did. Value me. I never got it. So after six months of $100 to $200,000 a month, I did what anyone should ever do if they want to raise. It's not based off need. I want. I've earned it. So I walk into his office. and I kind of show him the data. And I was arrogant. I was stuck up, angry. Like here. Here. He's like, what am I looking at? Here.

Why am I looking at this? Do I actually have to tell you? Are you not even going to look at what I've created? You're actually going to make me ask for a raise that I've earned because this guy does 100 to 200 a month of which I get 25 and I'm in at 5 and out at 10 and you come in at 10 and go to Belor Country Club to golf at 3 under the guys you're growing our business? Do I actually have to say it? I'm 50 now.

I was 26 then. Naive, unappreciative, dumb. A quarter century ago. Didn't care that I was already making 500. This is America. I've earned more. So he, like, laughs at me. To the day I drop dead, man.

It will bother me. I'm going to be direct with you. To the day, they're on the deathbed and they're hovering over me. I'm like, uh, yeah. It's like, throws me out of his office. Like, no, thank you, no nothing. I'm enraged. And I'm back at my desk and I'm like, what?

I'm not getting, I'm not, I don't think I'm going to get a raise. I think I'm stuck at like 25%. I'm not getting no more money. Like, and he just left the office right now to go golf or something and I'm working. And I stole the next week when, it's terrible. I was raised so much better than this. I'm not a victim here. It's all my fault.

I had so many other options. The next week, someone called in, and it's a $5,000 commission. I found a glitch in the accounting system. If you look hard enough, you'll find a glitch. I found a glitch in the accounting system at Bear Stearns that enabled me to keep 100% of the commission, not 25%. So it's a $10,000 commission I kept all 10 instead of 25%. And the next week, someone might call in to a trade. It's a $5,000 commission.

I found a glitch that enabled me to keep 100% of it. And the tragic truth is I didn't think I wasn't taking anything to which I hadn't earned. I would go to bed and I'd wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and I'd roll over and think, okay, how much have I taken, but how much am I really owed based on how much I produced and the raise that he wouldn't give me?

I didn't think that I was stealing. And I was. And in prison while walking the track one time, Michael used to hand me philosophy books, Allegory of the Cave, Plato, Socrates, John Locke's, Clean Slate, and I digest these philosophy books. because I couldn't understand them.

I didn't know what that all they meant. I told him one time, you never think I went to USC. I can't understand any of this. Help me understand it. And he would give me 10, 12 hours a day helping me understand philosophy and the choices I made that led me to prison. And he introduced me to this quote.

Like my mentor introduces me to this quote by Nietzsche. And when I read it in prison, I finally understood the cost of my cheating and stealing. This quote was, the cost of something isn't what you attain with it. It's what it costs you. And when I read that walking, that dusty dirt track in prison,

it hit me. I stole commissions from Kenny, my senior partner. What did it cost me? 24 hours a day, I wondered if a compliance manager would find out. 24 hours a day, I wondered if he would find out. I couldn't pick up the phone without being concerned that somebody found out. I began to neglect my clients. The clients who gave me their business, after I cold walk into their office as a young kid out of USC,

I didn't return their phone calls. I ignored them because I was so concerned that I was going to get caught. I was the victim. I wasn't appreciated enough by neglecting my clients and being so consumed with thinking people are going to find out my health suffers. And I wasn't a very good person. I wasn't a good son. I wasn't a good brother.

I stopped volunteering. I had contributed to my community down near USC. I stopped. It was Justin as the victim. Everyone else is to blame but me. I'm not getting my just due. I'm being exploited, taking advantage of. And what did it cost me?

I felt like it cost me my business, my health, my sanity, my relationships. I had attained the money. They're stealing, but at a significant cost. And when I read that quote in prison, I actually went, you can find a lot of solitude in prison. People don't recognize that. They think you're just around hundreds of dudes and you can be. I read the quote. I went by the racquetball court, which was adjacent to the tennis courts.

That's why people think it's a cushy country club. the tennis, the soccer, now there's pickleball. And I just sat there and I thought, yeah, that summed it up. I stole and I didn't get caught for it. But I wrote him a letter from prison apologizing. And I wrote about it in chapter two of lessons from prison with Michael's help, call it the fraud triangle, which is a pressure rationalization and opportunity. So when I came home, besides consulting on white-collar crime, I began traveling the country lecture, not ethics, in white-collar crime. That's why I go to the FBI Academy to speak or business schools all across the country are Fortune 500 companies. I want people to know how good people who are raised with

values, good parents teaching them right from wrong, how you can go rogue in a corporate environment. How despite not having bad intentions is what I hear every single day from someone who gets into trouble, how you can still end up on the wrong side of prison boundaries. How it's one thing to say you have values, it's another thing to live faithfully to them. I was a hypocrite. I said one thing and did another and it eventually culminated with a government investigation where I found myself turning the other way for money on behalf of a client who ran a hedge fund. But wouldn't they have noticed that they were getting no commission? Like to go from that small percentage to then a hundred.

But when you're doing $400,000 a month. They're not looking at the pennies. Look, when you're doing $300,000 or $400,000 a month, and it's like $3,000 here, 5,000 there. And my job is kind of to oversee it and tracking the numbers. It's not so significant. Not when you're doing numbers to that degree. I mean, we have a very, we have a closer relationship with Matthew Boyer, the bookmaker in the Shohei Otani case. I know you're going to interview him next month.

And that's a client. We're very close. And we did an interview last week where it's like, How could Shoah not notice that Ipe stole $16 million from him? Well, if you make $100 million a year in endorsements and it's a close friend that you trust, you might not notice 500 here, 300 here, 500 here. There's so much coming in. In our small space, 3,000, 5,000 here, you just don't notice it.

There was a lot coming in. And he wasn't in the office that much. How much did you end up stealing from him? Around 150,000 bucks, I would say, commissions I took that I was not entitled to. And he never noticed. It wasn't until I disclosed it to the FBI. and he and my partner was very lucky to avoid indictment. Had I responded differently when I learned that I was a target in 2005,

he wouldn't be a broker till this day, still managing money. I did everything wrong as a defendant. I mean, I tell defendants, how do I prepare, do the exact opposite of me, and you're going to be great. So I disclosed it to the FBI, and their exact, Paul Bertrand, my buddy, the FBI agent said, the last thing we're concerned about is the commissions you took from your crooked partner. I said, God, I just want to get it on the record.

How long did you stay up Air Stearns for before you moved on? about a year and a half. And that was a mistake. I was always chasing the money. But part of the reason I wanted to leave Bear because that bad decision-making, stealing from my partner, happened at Bear Stearns. So I said, if I can start and new at UBS,

that's my John Locke-clean slate, man. That's it. I'm good. They'll never know. So when Kenny, my partner came in and said, UBS wants to give us more than a million bucks to move our book of business, I'm like, done.

Just take the money. It's great. He's like, well, I'm negotiating with the branch manager. I said, negotiations are over. UBS is great. It's better for our clients. Let's move. And it took a few more weeks.

And during that three weeks, I wasn't focused on the huge bonus that was going to come my way at 27. I already had money. I had invested it wisely in some real estate. I just wanted to start anew. I'm like, this is, man, no one's ever going to find out.

And no one ever did until I disclosed it. And then we went to Bear Stearns. We went to UBS. June 16, 2001. And then my life changed forever, June 16, 2002. one year after I went to UBS. That's when the trouble started.

What happened? Tell us. So a gentleman named Keith called. He ran a small hedge fund of about $6 million. And he asked if he could transfer his hedge fund over to UBS. I said, sure. Now, the prior year, we weren't doing that well because we didn't bring over to UBS as much money as they had expected from Bear Stearns.

Part of it was because of what I mentioned earlier that I'd begun to neglect some clients while fixating on getting the raise. so not every single client transferred with us to UBS. So we didn't bring over as much money as they had expected. When they give you millions of dollar bonus, they were disappointed. So we felt pressure to get our numbers up. And as hard as I was working, trying to get it together,

they weren't to the degree that they wanted. So that changed the 16th of June 2002 when Keith called, said, can I transfer the $6 million hedge fund over? I'm like, of course. The problem was I worked with Keith earlier in my career at Crowell-Weeden, and I would hear things that he would say on the phone to close the deal. For example, he'd say, Ian, I'm long Cisco. I think you need to buy 3,000 shares by the clothes. And you're like, yeah, but Keith, I don't want to buy Cisco.

I already own Microsoft. I have too much technology. And you'd say, Ian, look, look, look, look. Like, you're the only one that knows this. There's some information I've heard about Cisco. It hasn't come out yet. He insinuates there's some inside information to compel you to make the trade. You do. He gets paid a commission. So I heard him saying, he lied. But my feelings for him didn't dissuade me. My job was to raise money. Plus, I wasn't ethical either. I had taken commissions. My job wasn't to judge the morality of my clients. It was to raise money, keep my job, and justify the bonus they gave me. So he transferred the $6 million in. Can you imagine what happened after he transferred the $6 million? What happened? That's a wrap. It's all gone. In

about six months, he lost the $6 million. Yeah, he spends it. He lost it. I mean, such a bad trader, my kids are going to watch this someday. They're going to say, kids, I'm 50 now. Your father's learned a lot after going to prison. I got it together. But this is what I was thinking at 28. You're going to be disappointed and do better than me. Elisa. and Jason, do better than your father. When he would call in to do a trade, if he went long, we went short. If he went short, we went long.

We did the opposite trade because we knew every trade he would do would lose money. And it did. So our other clients and Kenny and me profited, his investors lost money. So he lost $6 million. Then he raised another $6 million.

He's like, oh, he raised another $6 million bucks. And he's doing $100,000 a month in commissions. So here's the first big red flag, according to the FBI. Even though we didn't speak to his investors yet or attend any meetings yet, if you raise $6 million and lose it and then you raise another six, clearly he's saying things that might not be true.

Like I presume he wasn't going on a presentation saying hi, hi, Ian, it's good to see you. I'm Keith. Yeah. I'd love for you to give me your million five. I'm down 100% this year, but things are going to turn. Imagine telling someone you're down 100%? Yeah, I'm just down 100%, but I think there's a shift in the market.

You'd be like, dude, call get out. Call security. What? So we knew if money was continuing to come in, together with what I heard him say when I was a broker with him, we knew he's lying to people to raise money, of course. But we're turning the other way for $100,000 a month in commissions. Now, compliance is beginning to go rogue and totally freak out. They're in our office like every third day.

Heavy losses, complex trades. This guy's going crazy. Do you see the commissions this month? All he does is lose money. I'm like, well, it's my job. I'm executing the trades as the broker. Every trade ticket's that unsolicited. Those are his clients, not mine. These are the rationalizations that are part and parcel to white collar crime. I know he's raising money and losing money. He has to be raising money by line. Unsolicited. He manages the money they're his clients. Those are the rationalizations,

no different from when I stole from my partner. Underappreciated, never told thank you. My numbers are up and he won't give me a raise. I'm just going to steal instead of finding another way. Didn't think about firing him, God know, we need to justify the bonus we got. So I'm like, well, what do you think we should do? They're like, well, is he going to raise more money? Like, I don't know. Maybe. And he does. He raises more money. Now compliance is really freaked out. I said, okay, I have an idea. I have an idea. This is what we're going to do. We're going to work, we're in Connecticut, right? We're going to work with compliance in Stanford, Connecticut, and compliance in New York, and compliance in my office here in Century City.

We are going to create a disclosure document. I'm a 28-year-old broker. My branch managers, like his ears are line. I like this idea. This kid's really innovative. If you go to USC, yeah. The compliance manager is over here like, okay, this kid's on to something right here.

My senior partner's like, what is this kid going to say? None of us thought about firing him. We just wanted the gravy training commissions to continue. So I'm like, here's my idea. We're going to create a disclosure document. They're like, go on. I'm like, okay. We're going to create a disclosure document that says,

if you or anyone invest money in this hedge fund, you indemnify UBS. UBS did not endorse, solicit or recommend this investment. If you invest at your own free will, you lose money, you don't sue us. They're like, we like it. This is very good. I'm like, yeah, they're his clients. We're just executing the trades. Are we all on the same page here?

This is where the group thing comes into effect. We want the commissions to continue. Nobody wants to step up and lead and make a decision. So it's either to agree and turn the other way because we didn't want to have difficult conversations like, yeah, we could lose him, fire him. The commissions go away, but maybe we don't damage our brand and reputation. And maybe one of us, like my dumbass won't go to jail because you can't put UBS in prison. You put executives who are tied to the account like me, and I deserve to go. So we get this document created. And I called Keith and I said, any time you send us money,

get this disclosure document signed. He's like, sure, no problem. We already knew he's lying to people. He probably buried the document inside of 40 pages for his offering memorandum. And when the paperwork would come back with a check, we just, like, throw things away. Do we have the disclosure document? I held that document like it was my firstborn. I'm like, oh, we have it. Like, we're totally protected, man. We're good.

The money can continue. And that disclosure document, like, it emboldened me. It enabled me to double down and go from turning the other way to take commissions, knowing that he was lying to people to actually getting involved in the fraud. like there's the sane in prison, there's nothing your biggest client won't do for you or to you. And it eventually got to a point where he needed help, right? You're paying $100,000 at least a month in production. He knows I don't want to lose the account.

He knows we schemed with UBS. That's part of the reason UBS scratch a check rate and a half million dollars to victims. I contributed to that. Everyone's paid in full. It doesn't replace the shame they went through, but at least everyone's been paid back. And, but he knew that he kind of had us. so he finally asks me to attend a meeting and I said dude I don't I don't really want to go to the meeting

I'm good and he's like no I need you at the meeting I'm like I got something he's like I need you at the meeting and he knew that I was going to go and he and I knew that I was going to go and I filmed a video I haven't posted yet called how you go from rich to poor it's by attending a meeting like this you go from rich at 28 with every opportunity and blessing in the world Imagine a room that feels calmer, warmer, more inviting. That's the quiet beauty of Serena and Lily.

Every piece is designed in-house, crafted by expert hands and made to live effortlessly with what you treasure most. Choose from over 150 fabrics and finishes, including bespoke sizing, and let their complementary design team guide you. Start your transformation at serena and lily.com. Discover thoughtful luxury at serena and lily.com. to pour by line to people and eventually going to prison. Wait, but why didn't you just take over the trades yourselves if he was making all the wrong investments? It was his hedge fund. People were hiring his hedge fund, the GLT venture fund. People were hiring him. And UBS was just the custodian of the assets. It's like a prime brokerage account through Canada.

Our job was just, you need a place to execute the trades. And we got really good trading and pricing at UBS. We did big trades. We had a lot of other hedge funds too. My whole business was professional baseball players and hedge funds. He needed a place to execute the trades, a Bear Stearns, a UBS. we just executed the trades with really good pricing, and the commissions were really significant. So he had to trade it somewhere. And your issue is you're turning a blind eye to his behavior? Without question. I mean, when you see six million in and six million out and millions more in with losses,

clearly he's not raising money by telling people the truth he's lying. There's no question. And the losses are tragic. And my God, without 100%. But I would sleep at night by focusing on the good things you do. When you're committing a crime and you're knowingly crossing the line, You focus on the good things you do in life. I'm a good enough son.

I'm fair and honest enough around my community. You just focus on the good. Because if you focus on the bad, you can't sleep unless you're insane. And I don't think I am. Some people have called me insane. But I don't think I am. You just focus on the good.

But eventually you're going to attend a meeting and he's going to need help and call in favors because of how much he's produced. And I did. I attended a meeting. And that's when it went from, kind of willful blindness turning the other way. Maybe I can get myself out of this to a clear-cut case of securities front.

What did he ask you to do? I attended a meeting with, there was Keith and an elderly investor, like in his late 80s, and he asked me to attend the meeting. And before the meeting started, I knew that Keith's hedge fund had less than a million dollars in it. And the meeting opened by this elderly investor had like an advisor there. And the advisor said to Keith and me, hey, do you think an elderly investor should have $3 million in a basket of gross stocks? It's like, wait a second.

Right before the meeting started, I saw that his hedge fund had less than a million. And this guy thinks he has $3 million. And I later learned that that money had been lost for years. Years before Keith ever hired me, he'd been working with this elderly investor, the money was gone for years. And he kept at this ruse or charade that the money still existed by sending him statements every single month, account balances that were fabricated and made up. for years before he met me. So at this meeting,

Keith wanted me there to provide comfort, to give him credibility or credence he had not earned. So the advisor looks at me. He says, do you think you should have $3 million in stocks? And I'm like, this is really uncomfortable. Like, what am I, I got a tea time somewhere.

Like, what am I doing here? And I immediately, instead of ending the meeting or getting out, I said, no, he's a crook. What are you talking about? He's less than a million in thatge fund. What are you talking about? That would have protected me.

So not only was he losing people's money, he was saying that he made them money, too. And this is the first time he found out. For years before he even hired us, he had said that he made money. The reason he transferred his money to UBS is because Bear Stearns Prime Brokerage fired him. He didn't tell us that. He needed to find a new place for his money. Bear Stearns fired him because of all the losses in the trading, which is ironic to say that Bear Stearns was in compliance.

It's the reason they went out of business. Regardless, they fired him. And so the advisor looks at me and I try to hedge my bet. And I said, well, if I were an elderly let's not call him elderly he was 90 unforgivable it's so strange to talk about this on podcast

and TV and stuff but I did it and this is my life and I choose it I told he said if you were 90 years old would you have three million dollars in a basket of gross stocks I said well if it were my money at 90 I'd have it in fixed income

if it were my money he's like good idea I'm like good okay I answer the question honestly, what would I do? I just told him, this is great. Can I go now? So I'm literally like trying to get up to go. I'm like, that's a wrap. Been good spending time with you. And he said, Justin, here's what we'd like you to do with your help. Would you please allocate the $3 million that remains the way that you would allocate it if it were your money? And I looked at Keith, who's smiling, because he knows I'm going to help him. And here's what I thought. I've already been to three brokerage firms.

I got this million big bonus. I don't want the shame and embarrassment of resigning. My production's not up. I never thought about doing the right thing in that meeting. I want to be clear. My parents were phenomenal, like lessons of virtue and right and wrong. But I stopped educating myself after USC. I stopped reading good literature and holding myself accountable.

I was a walking cliche. I would judge you, but not look within and hold myself accountable. accountable. It was a naive, arrogant punk who thought the rules didn't apply to me, who had never overcome any adversity because I was spoiled and doaded on and everything came so easily to me. I never thought about doing the right thing. I didn't, which is why I said, yes, I'll help you allocate the money. And then I put on a damn show. I got up with a marker, went to a white board. And I'm like, right, so here's what I would do. We got three mill here. I say we take a million and put it in T bills. Can someone get me the interest rate on T bills? Okay, so then I begin to

calculate the rate that he's going to get. Made up money. I think we should keep maybe 10% in equities. Let's do the Dow 30. Maybe the dogs are the Dow. It's down, this and that. So I allocate money that did not exist. They get up, they shake my hand and say, thank you. The meeting ends, I start going, I start yelling at my client, having a cigarette outside, hardly even smoke. I'm like, give me a heater. I need one. This is bad. Light it up. Like, we just lied to him. And that's when he told me he hired me years ago, dude, it's been gone for years. If I tell him the truth, it could kill him. I'm like, that's the rationalization I needed. If I deliver him the truth that his money's been gone for four years, that could kill him. I don't need that. You're right.

That's how you convince yourself, but it was fraud. It was deceit. When I tell people, the easiest part of a felony conviction was my 388 measly days in a minimum security camp. The easiest part of the process, learning from a mentor, getting fitter and stronger. People are disgusted when they find out what's possible in a camp, and at times I get it. That's the easiest part to recalibrate. The hardest part is, I have children now, your father went to prison. My wife telling her parents, I'm in love with a man who went to prison, the lifelong stigma and shame that accompanies having gone to prison. Regardless of what I do in build and create, there will be people. I know because I see my TikTok, YouTube, and other comments that say, you are a scum, you are a criminal, you are a thief.

Someone last week said, you speak too clearly. It's too direct. Where the ums and ahs, you must be a crook. That's how you stole from people. And you get to a point where, I don't know about you, you might not be there yet. Someone who went from kind of a people-pleasing aspect to reacting to everything, you get to a point now where I'm 50. I'm numb to all of it.

It doesn't have the response that I thought it would. When I see those comments, I take it as a learning lesson. I've become stoic. I'm appreciative of the fact that someone took a time to leave a comment. I'm numb to the feelings that come with criticism or praise because I've done this for so long. And I know the fallout that follows a felony conviction. It is lifelong. And I choose to talk about it.

I'm not a victim. I choose to be here. I choose to go into this space and the criticism that comes with it. But there is a numbing to this life that I didn't expect. Also in isolation, because I feel so people relate to it. And I hope you never get there, but I've gotten there after all these years. So when people knock that I serve one year in a camp, I agree. It was easy.

It's nothing like I see TikToks on comments on TV. You weren't in a camp. It was a country club. Don't care. Fine. I wasn't in a low or a medium like you at Danbury. You're right. I don't care.

That wasn't the biggest consequence for me. It's some of the things I endured in prison and learning to accept them in the sense of humility that helped me understand the consequences of bad children. When does that choice start to unravel and the consequences present themselves? After that meeting ended, six or seven months later, that advisor for that elderly investor sent a fax to my branch manager at UBS and with a cover letter that said, is this true? And I was on a lunch date in Century City at the time and I lied to this nice woman and said, there's a client waiting for me, but my branch manager said, get your effin ass back to the office.

and I made the walk from Houston's in Century City to the Century City Mall to my 30th floor in Century City and I walked in. It was Kenny, my senior partner, Kate, my assistant, who had begun dating Kenny, two compliance managers and my senior and my manager. And everyone's playing dumb. Like, oh, what's happening here?

We don't know this hedge fund client. In that day, that advisor's accountant, or that advisor sent to facts that just said, is this true? And I read a document where Keith was sending letters to his investors, stating that if he lost money, UBS would insure their investment for full market value, and he would sign my name. And it was a forged signature. And I later learned when he's in my office letting me bitch

and complain about my senior partner who didn't give me a thank you or appreciate me, and he would lure me in and listen under the guise of sympathy. On the way out, he would grab UBS letterhead, write a letter, forge my name and sent it to his investors to give them comfort their assets. We're in good standing. That day, the elderly investments advisor sent a letter that said, is this true? And that's when the investigation started, January 5th, 2005 and my branch manager said, would you be willing to speak with corporate counsel the next day? And I was naive and dumb, right? I thought we were all aligned. I'm like, sure. So I interview with UBS corporate counsel the next day for like 10 hours. And at the end of that investigation,

it didn't go great because they said, we don't want you to come in until this is resolved. Like, what about Kenny? My senior partner, like, don't worry about Kenny. I'm like, all right. Then it got resolved a few weeks later, January 16, 2005, when they called me in and I was fired and they gave my security card and I'm standing outside my big office and there's two big dudes like taking my USC degree off the wall like the you know the photo from the country club or the golf tournament that I contributed to they're taking everything out they're boxing it up and they like walk me down to my car these two big dudes everyone gives a look like we're sorry we'll call you nobody calls nobody feels sorry for you felt like the movie jerry mcguire walking out like let's see

how they do without me nobody thinks about you nobody cares you get on with your life I'm fired that's January 2005. Then the FBI shows up April 28, 2005. I'd go to prison three years to the day later. And they walk in like every email I'd ever sent. Holy good God. Every email I'd ever sent at Bear Stearns in UBS, they had. Do you know there are people right now at the FBI Academy in Virginia?

All they do is read our emails. And they beautifully put them together with highlights. And they said, this email from three years ago is connected to what he sent last week. It is remarkable. They are really shrewd and smart people. So they had every email that I'd ever sent. They wheel it into my home and they have the whole FBI outfit on like the pants, the shirt. It was like the shoes.

It's like, yes, we all know you work for the FBI. And they said, we want to talk to you about your role in the DLT Venture Fund. I said, I should probably get a lawyer. They said, good idea. I hired a lawyer. I was naive. I was defiant. I didn't accept responsibility.

I said it wasn't my fault. I said UBS was complicit because they allowed this account to continue. They were part of this disclosure document. I didn't know that UBS had given them all of that information and paid me as a rogue employee. I lie to the FBI when I meet with them a month later. They asked me questions. Did you see this? No, they provide me with evidence.

I'm like, oh, that's a problem. Did you see this? No, they provide me with evidence. That's a problem. So I lie to the FBI, which gives them the impression that I'm really a bad guy. Because if you were to speak with David Willingham, the U.S. attorney at the time, he's now an excellent defense attorney in Los Angeles. We've done some work together.

Or Paul Bertrand, the FBI agent that arrested me, he was on our weekend. weekly webinar, he would say there was a chance that Justin avoids prosecution because we knew he was a rogue broker that turned the other way for money and we knew UBS was complicit. They knew all of that. But their exact words were when he lied to us with defiance and arrogance, that was the sexiness we needed to proceed. And then after that interview, nothing happened for a year. I just moved on with my life, got a real estate license. And then a year after that, I read a press release that my co-defendant or Keith had pled guilty and he was cooperating in an ongoing probe. I'm like ongoing probe, that sounds very legal. And at the end of that press

release, it references an unindicted or unnamed co-conspirator. So I call my lawyer. I'm like, they're referencing some unnamed and unindicted co-conspirator. That can't be me. I've been selling real estate for a year. I think they've moved on and forgotten about me. If I was really a big deal and a threat to the community, would they really be letting me sell five and ten million homes to celebrities in Calabasasas, California. I need to get back to my showings now, have a nice day. And he said, yes. You're the unindicted, unnamed co-conspirator.

In fact, I just spoke with David Willingham, the U.S. attorney. And you can plead guilty. You don't want kind of conspiracy with a cap of 60 months, or you can go to trial and lose. I won't be the one to take you to trial because you're going to lose. They're going to give you a few days to make a decision. I'm like, I've been selling real estate for a year. I've moved out with my life.

I'm in a different spot now. I don't really want to talk about those earlier days in my career. I'm making better choices. And literally I had a few days to decide if I was going to accept a plea agreement. If not, they were going to come and indict me. And I'd either go to trial or eventually negotiate a plea after the indictment. So I called my lawyer and said, I'll sign a plea agreement. I don't even know what that means.

And then as soon as he told the U.S. attorney, I would sign a plea, they're like, great, continue to live his life. We know what he's doing. We'll get back to you. We have two upcoming trials. So we don't hear from them for like three or four months. I'm like, great. I thought they forgot about me. Now I'm willing to accept responsibility for God knows what.

And now they say, we'll get back to you in three or four months. What I didn't do well is, it's terrible. It's what we strive to do through our work. It's the reason Michael's in D.C. With Bureau of Prisons leadership, because he has a documented record going back to 87 of advocacy and how he could be an asset. It's all documented. It's all engineered.

I didn't begin to engineer a path to getting the best outcome at sentencing. I was like, they're off the grid for four months. So am I. Thanks. Have a nice week. I didn't do anything to demonstrate why I was different than the eventual press release that came out that sent mom to therapy. Holy good God, those press releases, you've had them. I read them.

They're not great. So I should have been thinking, how can I persuade my lawyer to persuade the prosecutor to get a better plea? That it's more factual because I can assure you 99% of the dudes or dudettes watching. this video if they pled guilty. Don't agree with their plea agreement. Most don't. Want to know why? The lawyer doesn't know the entire story, all of the nuances behind the offense, which is why they end up defaulting to the government's version of events and plea agreements are signed that aren't totally factual or accurate. And that sets the tone. I'm yelling. That's the first thing a probation officer is going to read. The press releases, the plea agreement, victim impact statements. What are you doing

now to influence that person? I didn't. I'm like, oh, cool, I got four months respite. golf, a lot of eating and self-loathing sat in my house all day, a lot of chewing tobacco to the point where the gums are bleeding, getting fatter and chubby or the pants are too tight. I'm like, it's just part of the journey, just unbutton them. It's good. Go sell some real estate. It's going to be great. Then you get so delusional as a defendant. Like, four months became four and a half months, and I'm like, I think they forgot about me. This whole thing is gone. I think they've forgotten about me. There's just not going to be any plea agreement. I'm not going to prison. This is crazy. And unfortunately, as soon as you think that you then get the call from the lawyer, It says, I have a draft of the plea agreement. You need to sign it. And I did. And I pled guilty January 22nd, 2007, my birthday. And February 25th, 2007-ish, I pled guilty to one kind of conspiracy to commit fraud in front of Judge Stephen Wilson. And the only reason I didn't get years in prison and probably have $8.5 million in restitution because of two incredible people.

Cindy Nexon and Bob Tissarro at the Securities and Exchange Commission, reached out to my lawyers, Bob Corbyn and Joel Athe and said, we're going to give Justin a second chance at veracity. We want to know how this fraud happened at UBS and how Connecticut, New York, and Century City, turn the other way and allowed this to happen. We think there can be some compliance changes as a result of this investigation, as a result of this case.

So for one year at great legal expense, I spent time with the SEC and Midwiltshire, walking them through how this whole fraud came undone, how it started. And as a result of that, they really came to bat for me at sentencing. They wrote a letter to the government stating that UBS was not a victim in this. They were complicit. So the $8.5 million that UBS paid, they do not have a right to get it back.

Even though all the victims were paid in full, the government hit me with like $500,000 or so in restitution, $5.35 to be specific. That I guess went to taxpayers or something like that because everyone was paid back. And at my sentencing hearing, I did nothing to mitigate or prepare. Nothing that I encourage people to do, to demonstrate, to set the tone. The anchor they have of us is that we're criminals and thieves. That's the reality. Talk a lot in our work of this concept of thin slicing. People form a judgment on you by looking at you, tattoos, you went to prison. There is a judgment whether you like it or not. There is a judgment against people that have gone to prison. And I never thought to change that judgment. Judges are hardworking. They're discipline. They contributed to their community. It's a life of service, whether you like them or not. They respect people who have. have similar values to them. I did nothing to convey to Judge Wilson how I am like him in any way. Instead, he saw me as a thief who took advantage of an elderly investor. And as he said in my sentencing, turned the other way for money. And I'm going to make an example out of you and send you

to prison. And he did for 18 months. And I surrendered the 28th of April 2008, three years to the day after the Fed showed up. Like so many people who go to prison, I gorged myself at a Carl's Jr., adjacent to a gas station on the way to Taft camp, ate to the point that I was sick. Western bacon, fries, the shake. I mean, I ate like I had a date with the electric chair. You've never seen anything like it. It was actually quite impressive. So my mother and brother driving me there, huge regret having my mom go with me. No planning for prison. Zilch. Even though Michael Santos had been in prison for 22 years and documented everything, my mom would send me his blog and my response was I actually have the email. I ain't read no email from some drug dealer that's been in prison for 22 years.

She's like, but son, you're going to the same prison as him. He's been in prison a long time. I read his books. I'm like, you're reading books of a guy in prison. What's wrong with you? No, the books are great. He wrote a book called Inside about life in the penitentiary. Thankfully, you're not going to the penitentiary. I'm like, mom, it's not camp. It's prison. She's like, there's no fences or barbed. I'm like, who's sire do you want? I'm looking for sympathy here. I'm going to prison, mom. She's like, yeah, but it's not like where Michael was in the penitentiary. You're going to a camp. I already wrote him a letter. I'm like, you wrote a letter to a drug deal. He's been in prison for 22 years that I don't know.

She's, yeah, he's expecting you. So, with no preparations. My mom and brother drive me to the low security prison, which is where you surrender. And I walk in. And I walk in and this is what I say. Oh, hello. To the guard. I'm Justin Beperni. I'm here to self-surrender.

Nice to know you. And there's like four guards and they all look at each other and they start laughing at me. And they said, we don't shake hands with inmates. And I thought, okay. Hmm. This can't be more embarrassing than getting sentenced or the press releases. I've endured so much shame with this part. It's just part of the journey, but I did regret not preparing.

And after the guards stopped laughing at me, I proceeded through my first day in prison where, you know, you sit in a holding cell for several hours. But I began to think what would I be doing at home right now? And this was a switch for me, and I think it's good advice for anyone going to prison. I said, if I were home right now, I'd be on my couch chewing tobacco with my teeth bleeding. I'd be eating in and out burger. Do you know in and out here in Connecticut? No, it's not out here. when I'm on the West Coast.

We'll see you next month. We're having it. Animal fries. Together. Animal style. I'd be chewing tobacco with my teeth bleeding. I'd be eating in and out burger. My blinds would be closed.

I'd be watching golf. I'd have such envy for my friends who were building businesses, getting married, selling businesses, traveling. Such envy for them. I hated all of them. Why don't I do something different?

So it kind of began to change sitting in that jail cell where I did like 100 push-ups, a couple of hundred push-ups. And I said, I'm going to begin to do like the opposite of what I was doing when I was at home. Let's somehow find some meaning through this experience. And that's what the first day began to look like. It took about three hours to get processed over to the camp. And of course,

everyone knows you're the new prisoner because you have the uniform mom and like the Jeff Spacoli shoes from Fast Times of Richmond. I, they were orange shoes. And I'll never forget that first day. I thought it was so strange. They just throw you out into the camp. They're like, go there and get your laundry and a pillow and then go to the dorm. I'm like, what dorm? The guy's like that dorm. I'm like, that dorm. And he's looking at me like, my God, we got one here. That dorm. I'm like, okay. So as I'm walking to get my laundry,

I was stunned at how many guys were like smiling and happy? I'm like, why is this guy smiling? I've never seen someone happy in my life. Why are all these guys smiling in prison? They're in prison. What's wrong with them? But you know, you can have great days in prison. So I get the laundry.

I walk up to D dorm and I walk in. And the first thing that hits me is the smell because you have so many guys, it's just 150 guys in the dorm with cubicles. And you know, the microwaves and the cooking is a stench I'll never forget. Not always bad, but you have so many things competing. And there's a guard at the front of the dorm and I tell them, you know, cubicle, 16 upper. I was at an upper bunk because I was young.

And he's just like, just go there. And I walk in and I just like sit there probably around maybe 1230 or so. And I just sat there thinking like, like I'm in prison. I can't believe I'm in prison. I'm sitting here in prison. And men are walking around me that I don't know. And then I see all these men flurry out the door. And I'm like, where are these people going?

And they went down to the chow hall. And I'm like, oh, my first time in the chow hall. And I'm wearing the uniform. And I'm walking in line. And everyone begins to ask you questions, right? It's inevitable, some care, some down. How long are you here for? I saw my sentence is 18 months.

And I tend to be, I'm an introvert by nature. I prefer not to talk if I don't have to. And I said 18 months. And just like that, I began. to kind of identify with people who I thought would be more like me. We associate with people have similar values. It turned out some of those guys were complainers and enablers and blamers and the victim like I was as a defendant for three and a half years.

And it took a long time in prison to say, I don't want to do that anymore. That's what led me here. I want to do it differently. So I was learning from the guys I wrote about in that blog that had the two blessed to be stressed tattoo on his neck. I learned so much from him. Or Sergio, who went home to work in fast food, who was raised by his brother because his father died, he never complained, expressed appreciation for what he had.

I'm like, I want to learn from a guy like that. that, who never complains, who didn't have blessings that I took for granted, finds the good in life. I want to learn from a guy like that. That's why prison was so transformative. And then I walk into the chow hall and there were like there were some racist sitting together. And I'm like, well, this is a camp. I thought it wasn't, I thought it wasn't supposed to be that way. And one guy said pretty directly to me, like, you sit on that side.

I'm like, okay, I can sit on that side. And then at the end of our first meal, guys started knocking. I'm like, why are people knocking here? and apparently it's a sign of respect to knock when you're done or I'm done eating. I never once knock in prison. I said, I'm not going to do it. And then I left. I went up to the dorm and I just sat there for several hours and then a dude came up to me and said,

hey man, let's walk around the track together and talk. And I regretted doing that. That was a mistake my first day because it turned out to be someone who complained a lot but also spent a lot of time speaking to staff. And I was not a proponent of speaking to staff because if you, you tattletail on another prisoner to staff, they could be searching the locker and bad things happened. I regretted that and it was difficult about a week later where I said, I'm never going to talk to him again and I didn't, but you live like eight yards from him. That's uncomfortable.

I wish I'd have taken more time to like understand my environment, settle in, embrace the idea of saying no, I don't want to go for a walk. Thank you. And that was that first day in prison. And I made a lot of mistakes in those early months as some people do. But the guys, they were pretty cool and I think they could see I was humble enough and I didn't complain. I did my job. And I shouldn't be rewarded for doing my job, but in your prison, a lot of guys don't do their job. At least where I went, a lot of guys don't do their job.

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Book now at Vigyairways.com or contact your local travel agent. Conditions apply. I'm going to do my job, and that job was pots and pans in the kitchen for the first five months. When I got to the camp, I was assigned to pots and pans. That's where they stick everyone. The kitchen. But at the low, you more or less are assigned as an orderly. Yes.

But you just pay that off. Like, you just give whatever you're getting paid to one of the other. inmates. Yes. I mean, I really didn't want to clean these bathrooms. That's what I was assigned to. I'm like, I'm not cleaning another man's shower. That was, that was tough. Actually, after the smell, I think the first thing I did was go to the showers and toilets to see what they would look like. Is that the first thing you did? Yeah, they don't even clean them well, though, too. They just throw bleach at it. Yes, I know. They just take a bucket of bleach and throw it and then scrub and call it a day. I saw some things on the walls that you find perspective. And I remember thinking, I'm glad that I'm not going to be here all that long. And you learn to just

sort of accept it and not complain about it, you know. But as a reminder, I didn't endure county jails and transit and con air, things that so many good people have had to endure. I surrendered straight to a minimum security camp. I was in handcuffs for like two minutes. Like I said, I had a very easy experience one year in a minimum security camp 16 years ago. Lucky. And I'm so lucky and I'm so fortunate. It changed when, you know, I met, finally met Michael. And like that second or third day, he came up and introduced himself. He said, how are you doing, young man. I'm like, do not great. I'm here for 18 months. And he said, I'll serve every day of the sentence with you. And together, he began to mentor and guide me and helped me prepare for, you know,

the hardest part, which was coming home. He had received my mom's letter and said, I knew that you were coming. And your mom, Talley, is very kind and very nice. He used to hug her in visitation. Say, your son's doing just fine. I don't think you're allowed to hug, but he would. He'd been there for so long. He probably had some additional liberties. And I began to use the experience productively and make the most of my time in prison rather than lamenting and blaming and excusing, which would just set myself up for a life sentence. What do you think was the most interesting aspect you found about prison coming from someone with a background like yours that had heard of prison, but had never been there before?

The most interesting aspect was how little correcting actually goes on. At the time, there was no first step act and really second chance that could just pass. no one was really benefiting from it. It was a sign on the prison softball field that said preparing offenders for re-entry, but it was just a sign. It was a platitude. There was very little follow-through. I was surprised that prisoners could essentially do what they wanted all day.

I found that to be so interesting. You could watch TV for 12 hours a day, dude. You could exercise for 12 hours a day. You could sleep for 12 hours a day. That was stunning to me because you would think you should be programming and developing skills and building and release planning and sharing and growing your network. And that stunned me. I want to be clear about that.

I couldn't believe it. You really have to be self-directed, disciplined. Some guys loved it. That was interesting to me, too. Some dudes loved it softball four days a week. Batchie ball. Now it's pickleball. I got a call from a wife who said my husband's the pickleball champion.

I'm so upset. All he does is play pickleball. He's got a great tan. He's fitter and stronger. Does he care that I'm home with the kids? That surprised me how much fun some people had. It surprised me how dark. and lawyers and bankers were scared to go home at the end of a one, two, or three year sentence

for wire fraud, mail fraud, or tax fraud, because they didn't know what awaited them on the other side. It was interesting to me that guys left prison and came back. His one guy said, they wanted me to work at Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is what they would want you to do near the halfway house in Hollywood, where I served three months to finish my sentence. So I'm not working at KFC. I was a banker. Well, why do they want you to work at KFC?

No one would hire me. Why would no one hire you? Then you begin to reverse engineer what he did in prison. Pickleball, softball, soccer, TV. You did nothing to demonstrate why you shouldn't work at KFC. And to those who work at KFC, all work is honorable. The point is most white-collar dudes don't want to work at KFC. And he violates and the probation officer sends him back because he wasn't working at KFC. That was interesting to me at how many people squandered the opportunity. And I did for a few months too. For a good three months, I squandered my prison term thinking everything would be fine on the other side until Michael asked me on a scale of one to 10 with one being the worst and 10 being the best, how well am I preparing to go home? And I was showing off one day in his cubicle. I sounded like a fool.

I'm like I ran 12 miles today. I did 15 pull-ups. I'm getting yoked again. I feel like I'm a USC athlete. He's like, hey, bud, let me ask you a question. I'm like, yeah. He's like, how much are people going to pay you to do those pull-ups or run those miles? And I said, well, I don't think anyone's going to pay me. You say you should begin to understand how your decisions are going to relate to the rest of your life. And that was my aha moment. And that's when I went from exercising four or five hours a day to an hour and a half a day and getting in the quiet room with him at four or five o'clock in the morning and saying to him, I just don't know what to do.

I have no idea what to do with my life. Zero. I need help. I'm begging you for help. And he can be direct and hard. And you serve 26 years, including eight years in the penitentiary. is no mincing of words. It is a true master. Everything documented. Some people can endure it or take it because he's so direct. He's so hard. He's so honest. He's so deliberate. Even now we've been partners

for 16 years. Sometimes I will tell my wife, that's hard. But I began to learn from him. And he said, I'm not going to ask you to do what I don't do. And I said, what does that mean? He said, you've got to document your journey. Do you think you're the only white collar guy in here who's struggling? It doesn't know what to do. The banker, the lawyer, the doctor, who hated the lawyer they hired who didn't know how to influence or persuade a probation officer or judge. Do you think you're alone? Are you that naive that you think you're different or special? You're not. Why don't you begin to engineer a plan out of here by being authentic and telling the truth for once? You have no idea what to do. You want to get help and learn. Don't talk about reading books. Do it. Why did you read the book?

What did you learn from the book? And how would the book help you moving forward? In fact, read this book and give me a book report in a week. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Read it and come back to me with a book report. I'd read it five pages in. I'd say, I don't understand. it. I read it 15 times. I don't get it. It's esoteric. What am I reading here? He would spend hours helping me understand it, helping me convey it in a way that someone could relate to it and learn from all of the terrible mistakes that I had made, lying to the government, lying to my lawyers, getting exploited by a reputation management company. After all these DOJ press releases came out, I paid him 16-5 on a credit card with money I didn't have because they promised me they

would suppress the releases. The truth was I wanted to pretend that I wasn't going to prison, and I was too lazy to try to build a record on top. So I want to do it differently, but I couldn't do it on my own. And I asked for help and I got it. So I tell people prison was so productive once I began to learn from him because it was better than any college that I had gone to, to learn from someone like that. And we talk sometimes, like, I don't want to be sycophantic when I talk about Michael,

this guy who served 26 years. At times I can't help because he changed my life. Which is why before we went on air, I'm like, don't call me a prison consultant. I'm not a fixer. I'm not an expert. I served one year, 16 years ago. Everything we teach comes from the lessons that Michael documented through 26 years. And we give it all away for free.

At prison professors, our nonprofit, it's all free. Some people need help and guidance. They might retain our team. And once I began to embrace that message of authority and honesty and share the most sickening things I ever did, like lying to a 90-year-old investor, lying to my mom and telling her I can't go to Mother's Day because I was sick, but I sat at home eating and chewing to bed.

because I didn't want to hear my family ask me, are you going to prison? Acknowledging the envy that I felt for others. And then I'm driven in part by fear. I'd get three hits in a baseball game. At times I wouldn't think, can I do it again? I wouldn't say, I'm going to do it again tomorrow. I'd say, can I do it again? Always been motivated by fear.

And that fear drove me, finally, to begin preparing with Michael's help. And it drove me when I came home. My release was not enjoyable. There was nothing about it that I enjoyed being free. I mean, did you enjoy your release? Was it, were you two driven? Did you enjoy it? Your home?

I'm free. Did you enjoy it? No, I'd say you don't really enjoy it until after supervised release is done. If I had to do it all over again, I'd say I would never have gone to the halfway house. That was miserable. I didn't understand at the time why guys would walk out and say, take me back to prison. And then looking back at it, I realized now why they did that. Because the whole halfway house thing is a total shame.

am and it's just there to make money some of these corporations is not helping anyone. And they're just more restrictive. The food was worse. The rules were worse. You're micromanaged. You have case managers that don't really care to be there. There were people that were young. I was young getting out of prison.

These individuals are younger than me using it as a stepping stone from college as their first spot to somewhere bigger where they wanted to be, maybe an actual prison or whatever their field was. And they just didn't care. I think I had like three case managers in a three-month period at this halfway house. So then you have that. And then you have the probation aspect. I think if COVID didn't happen, I probably would have violated over something silly, like a silly rule.

I wasn't doing anything illegal, but they come up with all these rules. You know, you can't open credit card. You can't do this. You can't travel. Everything silly, but COVID happened. So it was very relaxed. And I had a terrible pretrial release officer that was after me from day one before I was ever convicted. luckily I had a better experience with the actual supervised release one.

But I didn't feel free-free until I got off of the, until I got off of supervised release. But even I'd say those years after, you're still kind of under the wire with restitution and the financial litigation unit on you. Flu, yeah. I think now I feel more free that I have a little bit more power because I'm actively paying them. I'm in communication with them. I'm sending large payments. I'm taking control of the narrative, you know. But I think if I was just making minimum payments or below that, I would always live in that fear that they still have power over you.

There's the fear they have power over you. They can aggressively try to collect and put you out of businesses. I think they tried to do me in 2019. For me, I think the – I felt the sense I had to play catch-up. But it's also for people going to prison or if you've been to prison, it's one thing to say you're going to do it, right? It's one thing to say, okay, I want to use this book as a lessons from prison as a tool to bring in business. It's one thing to say I'm going to cold walk into lawyers' offices. I would attend sentencing hearings in Los Angeles.

And I would literally go there, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple and a Coke. And I'd see a doctor, lawyer plead guilty. And I would follow him to the bathroom. And I'd say, hey, I was in this situation about 15 months ago. I empathize with you. I just got out of prison. I wrote this book. You'd find value in it.

Some took it. Someone threw it in the trash one time. And I said, it's your book. You can do whatever you want with it. It was one thing to say that I was going to do that in prison. It's nothing to do when you actually come home. So I derived, I was driven and I didn't enjoy. I wasn't thinking about sex and food and dating and marriage and kids.

My parents were. I was, can I overcome this crisis that I alone created? Others have done it with so much less than I ever had. Longer sentences, not having resources or a degree from USC and loving parents, they have done it. can I that drove me and Michael still had four years left to serve and my probation officer wouldn't let me communicate or see him he didn't get out until 2013 so I'm like I kind of feel on my own here and it was a wonderful test to see if I could follow through so even the lawyers threw me out when I cold walked and for weeks of times the phone wouldn't ring and you wonder how you're going to make my initial restitution is only 150 bucks and I had a mortgage payment due and health insurance there was a sense of of I'm trying. I'm following. There was dignity that comes with trying and putting myself out there. And I tell people, as hard as my transition was, I'm grateful my probation officer, Isaiah Murrow,

allowed me to work with convicted felons day one. That was only because of the plan that I built in prison. He told me that. I'm grateful within two weeks. He let me begin traveling the country, albeit initially for very little money, to speak on ethics and white color crime. So grateful he approved my travel. He didn't have to do that. I began to begin. to appreciate everything that I had rather than compare myself to friends who were building and had more. That perspective really helped me. I thought about my friends in prison a lot who had many years left to serve. And what are they doing with their time? And are they... So that was very helpful for me. But I was... I was driven to pay down that restitution. There's no doubt. I was driven to see if I could

actually succeed. I was driven to make my parents proud. And there were times they'd say relax, things are going fine, enjoy yourself. And I couldn't even dating many, many months. I'm like, I don't, it's a Tuesday night. I need to be working. There's no date. I have a blog to. It was before AI and all that.

You actually had to write. You actually had to sit there and say, I'm going to write something today. I'm going to write, I'm going to spend 10 hours writing a newsletter or a blog that I help someone reads. The beauty of that is I have the knowledge from it, the skill set from it because I did the work, as opposed to a computer generating something for you in three minutes that You can say you wrote, but you don't understand it. You don't internalize it.

I felt I was developing knowledge along the way by trying and failing and embarrassing myself. Many instances, public speaking in front of thousands of people, didn't go well. That sucked. I ain't getting invited back, but I tried. And that all started from beginning to try in prison and reprioritizing my values in prison and getting away from the enabling, people pleasing, turning the other way person that I was in prison. And that's why I sent you that newsletter. And in that, I shared the story of my friend Arthur and Lessons from Prison, who all he did was make fun of the drug guys.

All he did, the guy had the two blessed to be stressed. He said, what type of thug gets a tattoo like that on his neck. Guy makes too loud a noise in the battle. What a thug and criminal raised in a barn. And I would listen to it kind of chuckle and laugh and turn the other way. And I shared the story of a guy who was in a Utah State Prison at 19, and he got like, he had like 1623 tattooed on his arm, symbolic of like some white supremacy or something. I work with him in the kitchen. One time he asked me for advice because he had a daughter and he's like, what is a dividend? You know, it's a Dow 30. Merck is a pharmaceutical

company that pays a dividend based on profits. He wanted advice should I maybe set aside some money from my daughter because I was teaching a class in prison that Michael encouraged me to teach about setting aside a little bit of money for your kids. He's like, I don't know what a dividend is. Would $50 help my daughter? So I'm walking with him and through that story, he tells him about going to the state prison and 19 at Utah and he felt like he had to get it to survive. And Andrew, he says to me, Arthur, I call him his name is Andrew. You're a Jew. Why would you associate with white trash?

And finally, it got to a point where that piling up, he makes fun of that guy, Sergio, who had a fast food restaurant job after his release and we all gave him a hug. And Andrew's like, I'd rather stay in prison. I said, that's it. And that's when it hit me. Like, I'm a hypocritical fool, man. I'm enabling this. I'm allowing it.

I'm turning the other way. It's kind of what sent me to prison. I'm writing this blog about being virtuous and understanding how and why you went to prison, learning lessons, holding your lawyer accountable, having tough conversations, and I don't do any of it. Like, I'm a big of fraud as I've ever been.

Stand up for something. Take a stand, be disciplined, say no, walk away, make a hard decision. And when I began to do that, and Michael would notice too, but he let me learn on my own. He didn't chastise me or embarrass me, but he would call out the,

hypocrisies subtly. You're beholden to this routine. You're beholden to these people you think you need to associate with. It's your life. He'd say, I'm doing 45. I know what I'm building towards. I'm going to change this wretched system through policy reform. I'm building. I'm creating. I'm going to document it. I'm going to change this wretched system that makes failures of so many. I'd love for you to work on it with me. It's your life. You begin making better decisions. That's the directness that I needed. But it wasn't until many months that I began to do that. And finally, over time, like I wrote in that newsletter, you developed like an ethical muscle memory. I made a good decision.

It's like, I can rely on that next time. I made another good decision. I'm going to rely on it next time. Then they don't become as hard because you have a history you can rely on. That's why prison can be so beneficial. For someone like me, who did it, who broke the law and there should be consequences. I know we send too many people to prison. The sentences are too long.

I think so many of them should be civil, not criminal. It's part of what Michael's advocating for with the BOP, closing prisons, more furloughed. those, that is ongoing. And I think in the coming months, great things are coming because of that advocacy. There's no, there's no, no question. But prison was easier for me because I did it. But it was also harder to understand how I did and why it would never happen again. And it's very humbling to acknowledge how far you have fallen and people that you have hurt. And it's, you know, that's why the prison was so easy. It's a lasting stain. It's forever. What's something you can tell your 18-year-old self if you were sitting across from him today? What would that piece of advice be? I never read a book on how to field a ground ball. I never did.

I just took thousands of ground balls. I never read a book on how to hit a baseball the other way. If there's a runner on second, would know out your job is to get him to third. When you do it enough routinely, repetitively, and you develop the skill, it happens. It's effortless. It's subconscious.

It just happens. albeit some failures along the way. I never had to read a book on how to be an ethical, good student. I had good role models or how to be a great baseball player. I did it every day. I wish I did that as an 18-year-old or after I graduated USC. I wish I continued to cultivate character,

to learn from thinkers, understand the consequences that follow bad decisions, understand the importance of repetition, and had I made good decisions as a broker and not rationalize this is the way the culture is, is and built that ethical muscle memory, I would not, I think, have turned the other way at 30 or taking commissions that I had not earned for my partner at 27, 27, because I'd have had a record to rely on. I got dumb after college. In my 20s, I read two books, Bo Tiger Woods golf

books. I wasn't learning. I wasn't developing. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't creating. I rationalized that I was successful enough making a lot of money as a broker. I got dumb. I think reading is a superpower. I think reading and developing knowledge in retaining that knowledge and understanding why you have read it is the only true superpower that exists. Till this day, I'll read a lot of books and I'll write book reports about them and I'll put them on my website. Someone recently mocked me. I wrote a book report about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'm like, this is a story of Virtue versus Vice. You got Charlie Bucket,

humble, grateful for the one bar of chocolate and you have Aruka Salt. It's never enough. This is a great story. And some guys like, man, I took you seriously. You're a joke. You're writing a book report, I'm like, this is a great book with my daughter read it too. It's great. I don't want her to be Veruca Salt. I want her to be grateful for what she has. Right? That is what I wish I had done at 18. I wish I continued it. Instead, I started doing that at 33 in the midst of a 388-day federal prison sentence and had I continued doing that at 18, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have gone to prison and my life would be fundamentally different. You can't talk about cultivating character. It's very cliched. It's platitudinal. It's just happy talk, man. You have to develop and do it every single day. And I just stopped doing that. And I paid a heavy price for it.

Well, and I think the best part is that you were, you know, you said multiple times throughout this conversation about how it was just a year. You know, you just went to prison for the short period of time. But that time there impacted the rest of your life. Yes, it's, I appreciate you saying that. It was just one year, you know, and in the totality of, our life. My little boy, he's seven. He says, dad, you begin to learn about death at six and seven. You know, he knows people die. And he says, I really want you to live to be a hundred. I said, but I'm doing my best, you know. I'm trying. And if I live to be 100, I would be wonderful. It would just be one year in the totality of my life, one percent. Yet it's such a defining moment. And so many people, including the government, seek to define you for that out of character, moment or make the totality of your life that one moment. And I have found meaning and challenge

in helping people understand that and recognizing only they can change that narrative. A lawyer's paid to say why you should get liberty and I hope they do it well. I think judges discount it. I think judges discount a lot of what prosecutors say too because they want to advance their career and become a defense attorney run for office. Maybe president. I don't know. Which leads me to believe the defendant has got to do the lion's share of the work. And if that one measly year in a minimum security camp, together with meeting Michael and sharing lessons that he learned through 26 years, compels people to say, yeah, I may only serve a year or two, right? Because that's what's happening now in the Bureau of Prisons. More people hopefully going directly home for these

BOP directives we're advocating for. Ardap, good time. Five years or four years, seven years is not what it once was. So I tell people in the totality of your life, it will be brief. But we get a lot of calls from people who have been home three years, five years, ten years, and they're struggling. They're not working. They're not making money. Why? They're still talking about their time in a minimum security. How the government screwed them, took advantage of them.

The lawyer who took advantage or screwed them and took all his money. And it amounts to a life sentence. And that was very scary for me. It should be scary for anyone listening to this. I recognize with Michael's help, this experience was harder on those that love and support me. My family, the fact that they would visit me and the pain of watching my parents sit in a visitation room and making that long drive

and I wanted to be aware of that. So yes, it's just one year and it's defined. And I feel odd too. You know, I talk about this is an odd life that we have. I mean, it's odd to talk about these terrible things. It's like, imagine you've got an F on a paper. And now you have to go tell the world. With the RAM Declaration of Deals, we're pledging our allegiance to the American people.

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Cummage is a registered trademark of Cummins Inc. Ram and Hemie are registered trademarks of FCAUS LLC. No, because society doesn't train you to do that. And that's why it was so hard for me. To do it? To do it. Yeah. I mean, I didn't talk about prison until almost four years after. Yeah. Yeah. It's...

And now it's... You build up that armor and your shield and it's therapeutic and you're inspiring others to do it. Well, part of, I think, what I convey, try to convey it to people is part of the reason I share the, like, the devastation of what I did with total and still embarrassment and a lot of shame. It's one, I probably did worse than you did. Or two, as human beings, like, we can become better. You can overcome it. We can learn from those who have gone through it. It sounds very cliche. But we can make bad decisions. It's how you respond to it.

I wanted to respond to it by documenting what I was learning with hopes that a doctor, a lawyer, a mom, a son who was reading the blog or book or who comes across all everything that we give away for free. They're white-collar advice or prison professors. You can say, you know, this is a path for me. But not a path that is a prison expert or a prison consultant. Any dude can go to jail for six weeks or six years and fancy themselves a consultant. They're not an expert.

There's got to be a depth and breath, and I don't want to profess to say that I am. I am not. I want to be honest. This is what I learned. Maybe it will help you. This is what I wish I had done differently. Maybe you should consider doing it. I've attended 1,500 sentencing here, and here are notes from those hearings.

Maybe you want to implement some of what Judge Wilson or Selma said. So even though it was one year, the impact I hope that it's having, sounds kind of self-serving because I'm in business at White Collar to make money and I get it. And some people who watch this may call on irers. But if they don't, there's a way through it. but it's got to come back to what you said, what would you do as an 18-year-old? I wish I continued to learn and develop

because if you don't, I can assure you if you do not begin to demonstrate why you're different, you're going to fall prey to the government's version of events. They are your opponent. They want to send you to prison

for a very long period of time to advance their career. If you are not working full-time to overcome it, you can't really tell me that you want a shorter sentence or you want more liberty. You can't tell me that if you're not willing to have a tough conversation with your lawyer.

You can't tell me that. You can't tell me that if you don't believe you should prepare for a probation interview because your lawyer said it's a 15-minute interview without recognizing that probation officer is going to recommend how long you should serve in prison. And they're going to be at your sentencing hearing. And the judge will probably open up. Did you read the PSR? Yes.

Did you discuss whether your honor, yes? Do you know how many defendants hear that is sentencing hearing? And they're like, well, I guess the PSR is a big deal. It's crazy. One year in a camp, but it's totally defined. It's defined mind. entire life. Everything I've learned has come from it. And I think about prison all day, every day. I had a prison dream last two nights ago. Do you ever have dreams that you're still in prison? I do. Sometimes you

get dreams that you're going back. Those are the worst ones. Those are more of the nightmares. I had it two nights ago. Judge Wilson was sending me back to prison for a violation. Eric B. and Raq Kim, E. E. and Cindy Lopper at the sentencing hearing, nobody said anything, and they sent me back for six months. I said, I can do six months. Just tell me why. Nobody says nothing. I go back for six months to prison. I have a lot of them, especially when I'm getting ready to talk about prison. You know, people leave a lot of comments that say it's trauma, but I don't think it's trauma when I have them because I wake up so grateful that I'm in my own bed. Like, how many do you have? Is it like once a month? How frequently? Yeah, I would, I mean, a lot more recently

only because of that project that just did. Yeah, that'll be a little skewed. You can't ask me right now in present day, but before, yeah, maybe once a month. Once or twice a month. If you twice a month. Let me ask you a few questions. If you didn't do this, what was the plans when you came home? What do you think you'd be doing right now if you were building this brand? I was dedicated to Whole Foods. That's where you were working. When I quit, I was a manager making, with overtime that year, I was going to do over 100 K. And it was, it was going really well. You enjoyed it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I was dedicated to it. I treated it like a business. And I loved it until I didn't. Once you're an entrepreneur, in life, you know, that there could be distractions along the way that, you know, kind of keep that flame down, but you're always an entrepreneur at heart. So it just took someone to kind of move that dirt, move that, you know, casing for that flame to come back out again, which was my friend, uh, to convince me, hey, there's more for you out here. And I'm not saying whole foods was beneath me. I'm just saying that there was more for me. But what I'm hearing is you, you, you

express gratitude for the job. I love the job. You appreciated the job. You're going to interview Matt Boyer next month in California, and he talks about in his book, Recalibrate Working at Chevys is a bus boy. And because of how hard working and deliberate he was, this guy, Mickey, who ran a big commodities firm, said, I want you to come and train for me. And he went on to be their biggest commodities broker.

You never know who's watching. There's also a humility to you and a willingness to start over. And therein lies some of the issues with some, okay, not all. I'm not indicting every white collar defendant. But some don't want to do, I picked up phones for three months in the halfway house for minimum wage, and I was grateful to have a job. It was better than doing pots and pans in prison or standing for count, right? So I appreciated picking up the phone where just a year and a half earlier I was a high in real estate broker.

And before that I was a broker at Bear Stearns, right? I appreciated the fact that it was like part of the journey. It was a step. For some people, it can be very hard to work at a Whole Foods or pick up phones. But it's just part of that journey. It's something you absolutely have to do, but it's hard for some people. It didn't appear to be hard for you. No, I mean, I tell everyone that comes out and that meets with me and they want to get into podcasting or social media or whatever that are fresh out of prison, I say work the regular job first.

Yeah. Because it's the most humbling experience ever, and it'll give you that headspace you need to grow into something like this. If I did this, the second I got out of prison, I would have been missing a huge part of the person I am now. Because you would have felt the pressure to have to make money. and it would have influenced the way that you did it instead of just doing it, letting it happen organically so your true self can come out because you had another job. And you make bad decisions too. Like now, after experiencing Whole Foods, I know if this fails, I can always go back to a regular job because I have that in me. It puts in a perspective, you know, and you're not making dangerous decisions.

Right. And, right, that makes a little. So last one did you know, like, hey, this is something, this is something I can do? Was it one interview? Was it a video you did that went, had crazy reads? When did you think this could be my thing? So I quit my job in August and I lived off my credit cards driving Uber, DoorDash, had an only fans for a little bit. I was just hustling, you know, working side jobs and it and maxed out all my credit cards.

Couldn't put my friend paid the rent for me at my apartment and it was I would say when I really got the feeling that I was going to make it in this was the following June when I got a pretty good amount of money in one month. And I could see the potential of it. Because people talk about how much you can make on social media and all of these things, but seeing is believing, you know? And I'm at a very low level. Like, say hypothetically if I made 40 grand in one month, right? Which is a ton of money.

There's creators that can make a $7, $8, $9 million in one month, you know? So it's all about that perspective. So I'm at a very low totem. I'm at the bottom of the totem pole in that creator space with that because there's so much more I can go in that sense, which is the benefit of working for yourself because there's never a cap. Right. As a team leader at Whole Foods, my cap was $41 an hour. So whatever that comes out to a year, plus overtime. In this world, there's no cap.

There's always a part of a business lifeline where you feel things have changed. So I had a client, Ridgefield, Connecticut, and he was sentenced by Christine Hall. and it was in April of 14-ish, and we had some outcomes that month where I knew, like, okay, it's going to be okay. So, like, you had your experience where you had a good month, and you're like, okay, I had that in April of 14, a few months before my daughter was born, where judges were commenting on some of the things that our team was helping them create. And we use that analogy of kind of like taking word out of a judge's mouth, like anchoring is the philosophical term, right? they have a position of us, they have an impression of us. You're a rich hedge fund manager who had a jet, and you know I'm going to say it, so you better address those realities before I say it and recognize that you get it.

So really honest, authentic messaging. But we had several really good outcomes in one month, and I said, I told my wife, we had only been married about two years. I said, I'm going to stop traveling the country. I'm no more speaking events. I'm tired of going to New York or Chicago for two days. This is all I'm going to. to do. And plus Michael is already home and beginning to do the nonprofit. And so, but we all have

those moments. And even after that, you make that change. You begin to turn out events. And three months later, you're like, what have I done? It's a terrible decision. I need to get back on the road. Yeah. But you have those months where you say it's, it's going to be okay. And I will tell everyone watching, I was home for five years. I was released May 20th, 2009. And it wasn't until April of 2014, almost where I felt like I can kind of appreciate some of the success and the work that I had put in and felt like I would be able to truly sustain a family five years, five years.

And even then it's been very, it's so many difficult times after that, you know, too, is so much people come into this space and I don't mention or talk about them to give them credence, but they regurgitate our work. They steal my work. I shouldn't say my work. They steal Michael's work.

You go to so many people's websites. It's literally copy taken directly from our, Michael's stuff to them. It's like in the age of AI, at least you can prompt it to give you something a little different, but are you too lazy to even change it? So there's always going to be headwinds in part because I've only served a year

and some people don't like that, right? It is what it is. You just have to do the best with what you have. Well, Justin, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Yeah, I'm grateful for the opportunity. Congratulations on your success. Thank you. Same to you. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys all in California next month.

One month. Awesome. Yeah, next month and I appreciate you coming out here today. Thank you.