Locked In with Ian Bick - Ian Bick’s Criminal Defense Attorney Reveals Why They Decided To Go To Trial | Jonathan Einhorn

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Ian Bick's attorney, Jonathan Einhorn, brings his invaluable perspective to the podcast, offering a unique insight into Ian's story and unveiling the truths of the criminal justice system. A seasoned legal professional renowned for his prowess in criminal defense and civil litigation, Einhorn's extensive career spanning decades speaks volumes about his expertise and dedication. With a reputation for navigating intricate legal terrains with unwavering precision and resolve, Einhorn has earned the trust of his clients by relentlessly advocating for their rights. From complex white-collar cases to high-stakes litigation, Einhorn's strategic approach and steadfast commitment to justice have consistently delivered favorable outcomes, making him a trusted ally in the pursuit of fairness and truth. Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Jonathan Einhorn: https://www.jonathaneinhorn.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 - The Importance of Trials and Keeping the Government Honest 00:04:40 - The Reality of Prison Life 00:09:19 - The Beginning of Legal Troubles 00:14:07 - Lack of Complaint from So-called Victims 00:18:59 - The Importance of Going to Trial 00:23:43 - The Government's Intentions and the State Bond System 00:28:41 - Reverse Profer and the Misconception of Snitching 00:33:13 - Arrested by IRS 00:37:55 - The Right of Police to Lie 00:42:45 - Jury Consultants and Prison Consultants 00:47:40 - Throwing Mom under the bus 00:52:10 - Outdated Jury Rules 00:56:44 - Unfair Pre-Sentence Reports and Self-Surrender in the Federal System 01:01:22 - Judicial system and sentencing dynamics 01:06:07 - Making a Positive Impact with Legal Practice 01:10:45 - Lessons from 50 Years of Practice in Law 01:15:36 - Trial Observations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. One of the things that upsets me about a lot of lawyers is there, I say this, and it's true, they're a little bit lazy. You know, they don't want to do the work. It's easy just to have you go in, plead guilty. They do a sentencing memo and go home.

A lot of lawyers are afraid to do trials. My theory is that you've got to keep the government honest. You can't let them get away with whatever they say or want to do. Welcome back to Lockton with Ian Bick. On today's episode, I have a guest you guys are going to love my criminal defense attorney Jonathan Einhorn from New Haven, Connecticut, who represented me during my criminal trial and my entire criminal case in general when I was a teenager, is here on the show to share his perspective of my case.

and also the criminal justice system in general. I am so excited to share John's perspective with you. He's a dear friend of mine. He's a huge supporter of the show. And I really think you guys are going to appreciate his perspective. So sit back, relax, and get ready to lock in with Jonathan Einhorn. Well, John, let's get into it. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

It's an absolute honor. You came all the way from New Haven. And you were my criminal defense attorney during the trial. and I'm sure our audience is going to love to hear that aspect of it today. And, you know, I've been thinking about getting you on the show since I started because I knew you'd be like the perfect fit. Well, thank you. That's nice. It really is fun to be here. And, yeah, it was really an interesting trial.

Happy to talk about it. And I got to congratulate you, too, on how far you've come since then. This is terrific. You've really, and every day you seem to be, you know, headed upward. So that's great. And you follow us on Facebook and I always see you liking and everything. Do you watch the episodes too? Some of them.

I've seen some of them. Not all of them, but I recommend it to anybody. Just some of the stuff's really fascinating. Do you think it helps attorneys in your position, like listening to some of these episodes at all or even the prosecutors? What's like your mindset on it? Well, the prosecutors, it usually doesn't affect. You know, there's really two schools of prosecutors. You've got the ones, and I won't mention names, but like we had in your own.

case who feel that they're doing God's work. And there's nothing you can do is going to change that. If you're accused of a crime, you've got to be guilty, according to them. And then there's other ones who are doing it. They know it's not a long-term profession for them. And so they don't take it as quite as seriously. But I do think it's very helpful, to be honest with you, for people just to see what it's like. It's another world out there.

As you may know, I go to jail. every Sunday, Wyatt anyway in Rhode Island. Good, good place. Yeah, I go every Sunday, you get to talk to people, you know, you see, you're really, you're trying to keep your finger on what's happening. Most people out in the world have no idea. So I do think you have an important niche that you serve and basically educating people. There's a lot of things that are wrong with not only the judicial system, but also

the prison system. Yeah, and I think it gives people that don't normally get a voice. an option to tell their side because you see so often in cases where the news and the media paints like when I got arrested, everything was just one side to the story. Oh, I couldn't agree

more. I had a case this morning where it was a nice lady. It was sort of technicalities on not really welfare fraud, but technicalities on providing services and the headlines and all the papers was a woman accused of welfare fraud, $145,000, which ruined your

life. No, I think you serve an important function in terms of educating people as to not only what it's like in jail, but also what the system is like and where we can do better. And there's a lot, as you know, there's a lot of places we can do better. Yeah, I posted a clip yesterday that's over 5 million views right now about a prison correctional's officer because we have kind of both sides to it. And he was talking about how bad the smell was in women's prison at Rikers Island. because they don't have the right hygiene products. But like a platform like mine is great to weighs awareness.

A lot of the comments were like, this is crazy that this goes on. You don't see like the news really talking about it. And when it is, it's one-sided. I saw the 60-minute episode they did with a warden in a federal prison. And you don't see too many interviews with the act of federal prisons. And I just felt like it was very manipulated. Like it wasn't a real setting. Because when I was in prison, whenever a celebrity would come or a government official, they hide you away and you don't really get to talk to them and whatnot.

Yeah, yeah. It's, I think it's important for people to know what the system is like. And most people, to be honest with you, they don't want to know. They live their own wives. They assume that they're never going to be in those shoes or nobody close to them is going to be in that position, which is a big mistake. And it reflects poorly, I think, on our culture. on our civilization if we don't treat people fairly and honestly and equally. You know, you just mentioned the smell in the jails.

It's funny, there's a big difference I found in terms of smell anyway, between the federal and the state facilities. You've probably had people talking about the state facilities too. Some of them are just an embarrassment. On the other hand, the federal facilities, I think they do a better job. There's more people watching them, I guess, is the reason, with sanitary, with hygiene, with sanitary issues and so forth. But still not a place anybody wants to be.

Absolutely. Did you grow up in Connecticut your whole life? New Haven, yeah. New Haven. New Haven boy, yeah. Did you know you're going to get into criminal defense your whole life? No, I always knew I was going to be a lawyer. But I started off doing like business law and commercial work.

and it's funny. The reason I got into criminal law was basically a punishment by the clerk of the federal court. There was this old cranky guy named Sil Marcoski. He's long dead, so I can use his name. He was cranky, but I used to file the firm I was with, I did all their trial work.

And so I filed a lot of federal cases, but there were civil cases. And so Markowski says to me one day, Einhorn, you're filling up my dockets. You're using all my judges up on these civil cases. putting you into criminal work. And he did. It was meant to be a punishment. And it was terrific. And the reason I think it is is because you actually do something that means something. It's important. You know, you're not dealing with people wanting more money or less money or fighting over money.

You're dealing with people's liberty. And there's nothing more important. And you've tried more cases than anyone else in Connecticut. I have. I've tried more than any of the lawyer in Connecticut, I found out, I don't know why, I had to make a list for some reason, and it was over 100 federal trials alone. The state ones I didn't add up as, I didn't really care as much about, though I've done a lot of them. But, yeah, I've tried a lot of criminal cases and civil cases. And everyone is different.

I mean, if we had three days, I could tell you stories about each one of the cases. They're all, everyone is different. Like your case, for example, was a very unusual, I thought, case. And we actually, even though in the end, you know, obviously you found guilty on some of the accounts, we also had a number of not guilty verdicts and a hung jury on some of the accounts. When I look at it as a whole, I feel like we were successful because we kind of showed our side of it. Yeah. And we proved our point.

Yeah. And if the system didn't have certain laws about, like, mistrial and when it comes to financially, like when you look at one of the biggest people that was an investor that it was a mistrial count. Technically, that kind of showed that the jury was feeling that that was a legitimate investment and they couldn't reach a verdict and I was found not guilty. Well, one of the things the government does in your case pointed it out is they always overcharge. It's insane. You know, nowadays they're doing it more in drug cases, but they overcharge.

In your case, they way overcharged. I mean, one of the things the government's got the ability to do or the judges can do it really is, can be found guilty on one count. And then they can just, by way of conduct, a related conduct, it's called at sentencing, they can try and throw in other things. But they didn't do that in your case. They thought they'd go after you with, you know, like you were public enemy number one, number one, and have all these investors.

And I think the jury said, no, he's being overcharged here. This isn't what's real. And I also found out that the juries don't like making a false statement charges because they were very deliberate in finding that not guilty because it just shows that I was kind of, I feel like, taken advantage. And that's kind of how we met because I went into the postal inspector or the banking commission with no attorney thinking they were my friends. And they talked me through this whole interview with no attorney. Come to find out that they give me a target letter after, not even before. and that's when I got into the car and I searched Best Criminal Defense Attorney, and you were the first name that popped up.

And I looked on your website because you list all the cases you've won. And there's some pretty big cases that you've tried in Connecticut. And I filled out a form and you gave me a call, I think, that night or the next morning. Okay. What was like your first impression of reading what I wrote you on that? You know, I thought that it was unusual because you were so. young, to be honest with you. And it's one of those cases that should have been resolved without really charging you or trying to find some way to work it out. And I remember talking to the U.S.

attorney, whose name I've forgotten at the time, but I remember talking to her about your case and, you know, asking, why is it necessary to go all the way on this? You know, you were, I think, 18 and maybe 17 when some of the acts were supposed to have happened. Why do this to you or to anybody at that age. And the federal system, unlike the state system, doesn't have a lot of motions or procedures where you can work it out. For example, if the case had been brought in state court, we could have found a method by which you wouldn't have had any record.

We could have resolved it, but it was brought by the feds. I think my biggest question has always been how it got to the federal level. Did you ever find that out? No. Well, partly, I think. I ran into a fellow who was a prosecutor, but formerly a police officer, and he followed the case a little bit. And he said they did. They came to the state first, and nobody wanted it.

So they went to the feds. So had the state had taken my case, we probably wouldn't even be sitting here today. No, right. You wouldn't be, you would have gone into some program like accelerated rehabilitation, maybe YO, youthful offender, because some of the acts happened when you were a minor. So probably not. What do you think that says about the case

that the state wouldn't take it? That's funny. In law school, one of the books I remember well, although I don't remember who wrote it, it was called discretionary justice. And the idea was, the concept was that there's more discretion

in the hands of a police officer than there is anywhere else up the system, you know, judges, appellate courts, even prosecutors to some degree, the cop's got more discretion. And you can see that. You know, you get pulled over by a cop. Does he give you a ticket or just say, you know, drive slower? You know, a police officer comes to your house and maybe there's a domestic.

Does he haul everybody away in handcuffs and, you know, and it appears the next day on the newspapers? Or does the police officer have the discretion to say, you know, and talk to you and maybe get a little help? So I think what it says about the system is that if you're going to vest that sort of discretion in a cop, by the way, you better make sure they're trained. You better make sure they know what they're doing. And sometimes it works well. Like, you know, in your case it worked because the cops barren they weren't interested in this thing. Many cases it doesn't work like that, though. It seems kind of unjust too because they can pick and choose what they want to do.

someone for the same offense can get off whereas the other person doesn't. Yeah, absolutely. And it goes even further than that. You can also charge people. I tried, one of the cases I tried, it was after years, it was something called the woman's gifting table. And the idea was that these women would all get together. Everyone would put in $5,000.

It was like, you know, sort of a Ponzi scheme idea. And they'd bring in two new people for $5,000. and those two new people would bring in more people. And it was called a gifting table because the idea was that you'd be called a salad or dinner. My dad's visiting. How are you? Good to see you. You had to say hello.

That was nice. Thank you. You too. It's great to see you. Thanks, pops. A little cameo of is it? That's nice. Everyone on the show loves him.

He's been on twice. Good. Actually, I saw a part of one of the episodes. His interviews, yeah. So the gifting table. Oh, so, and one of the discretionary things was deciding who to arrest, you know, who to arrest in this thing. And they arrested a number of people, some of whom really shouldn't have been arrested,

and other people didn't get arrested who should have been. So too much discretion on these sort of things. It was an interesting case to try, but it was all women. And it was all out of Guilford. And it had to do with basically whether or not anybody was really defrauded or not. And, you know, the interesting thing about the case, we talk about discretion, is that with without exception, every single one of the so-called victims who testified who the government put on said they had no complaint. It was worth it.

They met nice people. They knew it was a risk when they did it. And nobody was angry. and the government was, I think they were a little surprised that that was the way it worked out. And in the end, the loss amount, as you remember, on what's called white-collar crimes, loss is what governs the size of the sentence and so forth. And in their case, the loss was minimal because nobody wanted to say they lost anything. So in a case like Sam Bankin-Fried, where everyone gets their money returned, how do you think that's going to play out?

Well, it's interesting. Even though you've got your money returned, they can still use the attempt and so forth to do it. You know, like the, well, I was going to say Maddox, but you could, under the sentencing guidelines, he's going to have a pretty high guideline to look at, even though people got their money back. I mean, it's a good sentencing argument.

You know, his lawyer will say, you know, hey, there's no loss here, Judge. No, but that just means there's no actual loss. Do you feel like they're getting stricter on those higher celebrities? Like I looked at what happened to Elizabeth Holmes. I was shocked by her sentence. You were? Yeah, I didn't think, because normally you hear celebrities,

they're not getting that much time. I don't know. She was, there's a wonderful book, by the way, called Bad Blood about her, which is great. And it was written by a Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the case. He broke the whole thing wide open. And half of the book was about,

basically her people trying to keep him quiet and how difficult it was to investigate and the other half of the book was about what she really did. And she was basically a bad person. I mean, I do think that her sentence, I thought her sentence was appropriate. But sometimes, for example, sometimes you do have to wonder. For example, all those cases about the college admissions, I forgot how they characterized them, but there was a whole, if you remember, a whole series of... I saw the documentary.

Oh, you did? Okay, yes, yes. I mean, I thought some of that was a little harsh, to be honest with you. I thought they were making an example of the celebrities who were involved. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a judge. I don't think I'd have to put any of those people in jail. You know, make them do some community service, make them make contributions to some good charity.

but I didn't see the benefit of sending them to jail. Something that I've come to learn about you is that because I interview a lot of people that went to prison, a lot of their lawyers never really gave them a chance to fight. It was just take this plea deal and then they get railroaded. In my case, you never really pushed me to take a plea deal. Not that we were offered. I think the one we were offered was like a joke. It was more time than I actually ended up getting.

What did you see in my case that you wanted to try it? Well, backing up for just a sec, one of the things that upsets me about a lot of lawyers is there, I say this, and it's true, they're a little bit lazy. You know, they don't want to do the work. It's easy just to have you go in, plead guilty. They do a sentencing memo and go home. A lot of lawyers are afraid to do trials. My theory is that you've got to keep the government honest. You got to keep mine.

And you felt that way, too. I know. You can't let them get away with whatever they say. say or want to do. And so I think it's important to go to trial. I think if you have, you know, long as you're not going to get absolutely nailed to the wall via trial, I think it's important to go to trial and assert yourselves. And what I saw in your case was I thought we had a triable case.

And we did, based on the jury verdict. It's a triable case because one of the things I'll never forget was the greed of some of those people. I don't think the jury liked that at all. You know, without talking details. I mean, there were some high rates of return that you were offering. And these were adults. These were people, I don't know, 50, 60 years old who thought, wow, this is terrific. Sure, I'll take this kid, right?

How do you sympathize with those people? So I thought a jury was going to be upset about that. And I think they were. Yeah. And I mean, you saw how passionate I was about going to trial because every little thing they'd say I was all up and spoke about. We got to prove this wrong. We got to do this and we got to do that. Right.

I think it's important to go to trial, to be honest with you. And I do think there's too many cases where lawyers just are either afraid to do it or just don't want to be bothered. And the other thing is there's a lot of lawyers who really have never tried cases. It's funny, years ago I did this huge insurance fraud case up in Hartford, and it was in federal court. And anyway, I was local counsel for a huge, Washington law firm, and all these, there were maybe 10 defendants, and their lawyers were all

these hot-shot lawyers from New York, and they were all talking about, oh, I'm a trial lawyer, I'm a trial lawyer, and they were charging huge amounts, but I'm a trial lawyer. That's how they characterize themselves. But when you got right down to it, virtually none of them had ever tried a case. You know, they were in the trial departments of, you know, these enormous firms, but that doesn't mean they ever tried cases. They did, like you're saying, they got a client, tried to work out a plea agreement and never set foot in court. Now, defendants are, because I've talked to them a lot, they're afraid of, one, the Fed's conviction rate, which I think is just based off of the plea deals.

Right. And then two, that I think a lot of societies under the impression if you go to trial that they're going to penalize you for going to trial by more time. Can you explain that? Sure. Well, the second thing, it's called the trial tax. I think that's Norm Patis's phrase, actually. But the trial tax is basically what you're talking about. you go to trial and you're going to get burned.

I found that that is not the case. Particularly your case is an example. I think most judges, at least in Connecticut, are pretty fair about that, that they're not going to punish you. I mean, you don't get the three points for acceptance if you go to trial and you lose. As it is now, if you plead guilty,

you'll get three points off for acceptance. But, you know, usually these things, when you work out the plea agreements at all, it sort of gets buried in there anyway. So I don't think there's a real trial tax in Connecticut. The other thing is that sometimes it's impossible to negotiate a fair settlement. Sometimes, you know, the prosecutor, like you were saying, sometimes the prosecution will make an offer that's obscene.

You know, my feeling is that anytime anyone's offered a sentence by plea bargain of 15 years or more, go to trial. What do you got to lose? I think, you know, you need to do that. But that's the first. What was the first thing you said? About the conviction rate. Oh, so yes, there's no question.

There's a high conviction rate in federal court. What the feds do is they only bring those cases that they really think they can win. I mean, they've got, you know, all the assets of the United States government behind them. you know, a friend of mine says that he was talking to a client about going to trial and the guy wasn't sure and my friend Frank says, hey, they got aircraft carriers and jet planes. You got me.

And it's true. They do have that financial ability. But I do think that a jury is the best as you saw again is your best protection from that sort of abuse. But yeah, there's no question that the conviction rate is high. And I think the misleading part about that is that it doesn't say why it's high.

And I think that is because on many cases, you have no choice but to go to trial. And it also, even though the conviction rate may be high, it doesn't show you where you may end up by way of a sentence, you know, in the end. And I thought with my trial it really helped paint the picture of who I was to the judge, which I thought was very helpful. and do you think that had I taken a plea deal, the judge would have felt the same way? Or do you think he would have stayed to the plea deal whatever I was offered? He more than likely would have assumed that the government knew what they were saying when they said all these horrible things. It's called, basically what you're talking about is basically it's called a slow plea. I mean, sometimes you go to trial just to let, not your case, but sometimes you go to trial just to let the judge know what's really going on here.

What are the facts? And, you know, so they call it a slow plea in the sense. that, you know, you're putting on the case. Testify, the judge hears everything. And he doesn't just sit there for, you know, one morning or one afternoon and listen to, you know, the facts in sort of a compressed fashion. Do you think that the government ever intended my case to go to trial when they took on the case? No, I think they thought you'd probably fold.

In most cases, they do that. sometimes they're obnoxious about that too. I had one I tried in, I think it was July, last July. I just remember this young prosecutor just kept telling the judge, you know, Mr. Reinhorn's client shouldn't be gone to trial. He shouldn't be going to trial. It's not in his best interest. The judge says, well, that's between Mr. Ryanhorn and his client.

And I did. I got not guilty verdicts on all the mandatory minimum count, so it was worth it. Wow. But, yeah, usually the government, isn't crazy about going all the way to trial. And my biggest complaint, by the way, since we're talking about the government here, obviously, is I just don't like the idea that you can bring an indictment against somebody,

incarcerate them, hold them without bond, not your case, but hold them without bond, and then keep getting continuances while you make your case. My theory is if you arrest somebody, you should be ready to go to trial the next day. and that poor person shouldn't sit in jail for six months while the FBI and the DEA or whoever are out there looking for evidence. That's unfair. No, yeah, it's sick, especially in the state level where it's required with money to get out.

And the feds that you just have to, it's mostly a signature or a danger to community or a flight risk. Right, exactly. Danger to the community or risk or flight. Yeah, the state, I'm not crazy about the state bond system. I just had one where it was a fellow who got out on a $350,000 bond on a child porn case. And then they brought a couple of related charges against him. And the judge just gave him two more high bonds, which makes no sense, right? You know, he's not going anywhere.

He made the first bond. Yeah. Yeah, the bonding system needs, it needs a lot of help. Do you think the state should replicate what the feds have for a bond system? I think that would be a good idea. I don't, the bondsmen are a pretty good lobby, and they've been doing it all these years. But, and it works, it works for the feds. I think the other thing that differentiates the feds from the state a little, sorry, is that the feds have, obviously, the FBI and what are there, any other agencies at their, you know, at their beck and call.

So if someone runs off to the DR when they're out on bond and the federal government, he's back. I mean, they have no problem with their contacts and so forth. If it happens with the state, it's a lot tougher to bring somebody back. Yeah. Yeah, but I agree with you. I think the state should adopt the federal system. Something I learned that the feds could be even stricter, though, with the bond. I mean, they banned me from social media, which I think, looking back on it, we probably could have challenged that, like, from the get.

Because I feel like that was unconstitutional, seeing how everything's playing out with Trump and whatnot. And there even was, that's funny. I forgot there was a case, I don't know, a couple months ago where the Second Circuit found that was unconstitutional. It was excessive to ban from it. Because I feel like if I was banned, like, if we went through this all again, that would be like a great case that it's uncount. And I feel like our judge found that later on. it was already a year later when I got my social media rights put back. Yeah, yeah.

It's a – there was a recent case on that, too. They shouldn't be doing that. That's a bridge too far. And just the restrictions on, like, it really feels – when I was on pretrial, I felt like I was already guilty, just with the restrictions and showing up to pretrial supervision and all of that. Oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, I could tell you stories about other people. Well, it used to be that pretrial supervision was fairly lenient, you know, and usually it worked out fine.

These days the probation officers are mostly younger, younger people, kids, and they're a lot tougher on keeping an eye on you. Although, I'll tell you this, I hit this one case where the guy got out on supervised release. I can't use his name because it's still alive, but so he asked for permission to go on a, boat trip to the Bermuda, I guess it was. And I make the motion. And while the motion is pending, I get a call one day from an agent. He says, hey, you know, your client is on this boat. I said, it's impossible.

You know, we have a hearing coming up next Tuesday. He says, no, we think he's gone. And he did. He went. He went. And they picked him up, took him off the boat. And we worked it all out. so he's back home free, but it's interesting that sometimes,

I think he's the, he's unusual in that regard. Most people, they take their conditions very, very seriously. Oh, he was able to get back out from that because you had told me it happened when I saw you the last time. Oh, I did, yeah. Yeah, but you said he was locked up. Oh, he was like, I got him out finally, yeah. Oh, wow, that's awesome that he got out, but he's still fighting his case and whatnot.

He ended up pleading. It was a white collar case, you know, and we ended up working out something. He hasn't been sentenced yet. But the problem with things like that, though, is it leaves a bad taste in the judge's mouth, you know. As we saw in my case. Well, you mean in New York? Yeah, when I went out of state to gamble. Yeah, we were a kid, you know.

But yeah, the judges just don't like that. It's just the idea that somebody would do that sort of like a slap in the face to the judge. And that's why they don't forget it. Yeah. Now, one of the scenes kind of from my whole story that went viral and it was featured in the HBO doc was when I did that first reverse proffer with the federal government. Yeah, yeah. And people think that like any type of proffer is technically like snitching or whatnot. But can you explain what a reverse proffer is?

That's a good question because a lot of prisoners are nervous about that too. A proffer is where you go in and essentially they call it queen for a day. And you go in, you can say anything you want and you're protected. You can't get convicted. You know, you're in there on a white collar case and you say, by the way, I robbed the package store downstairs on the way here. Well, they can't use that against you. Queen for a day, that's the idea.

And that's a proffer. And basically the only time you'd be willing to do that is if you're trying to set yourself up for, you know, a guilty plea, you certainly wouldn't do it if you go to trial. A reverse proffer, and I like reverse proffers, because they're educational, is where you sit there, like you did, say nothing, and just let the government tell you what their evidence is. And it's educational. You get to hear what the case is all about. And as long as you don't say anything, you know, or, you know, make crazy eye movements or, you know, or, I don't know, lose control. It's a terrific opportunity.

The downside these days on negative downside, obviously, is that a lot of pretty. If they hear you're coming out of jail to do a reverse proffer, they think it's your snitching. They think it's a snitch. And it's not. It's not a snitch. And it's tough to convince people who aren't familiar with the system that a reverse proffer is not a snitch. You're just sitting there listening. Now, our reverse proffers, like what I went through where it seemed excessive.

Like we were at this table. It's just me, you and my dad. And they had law students. Like they had the FBI agents, postal inspectors, U.S. attorneys. the whole room was filled against us. Is that regular? No, that was a little unusual. I don't know why they had the students there.

Oh, I know. I think it was interns or something. Because it was the summer 2014. They were summer interns. And in your case, there was a number of different agencies involved. But they still didn't have to have everybody there. I think they all were there, to be honest with you, to see how you'd react. Yeah.

I was getting frustrated, though. Yeah, but you know, you were good. And you know, I really annoyed them when I was. I went on my phone at the end to promote a show because I was still running. I think that's what upset them the most. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was running the club during all of this. Oh, yeah.

I mean, they would try to revoke my bond because of how girls dressed up at the club. Remember, I would run a show. That's right. That's right. What was it? It was a pajama night or something? No, they would just, the prosecutor just talked about how they were girls running around half naked because the city of Danbury got involved.

That's what it was. And they were like extorting me basically with the ambulance. And you got that ruled that what they were doing was unconstitutional because they needed to provide ambulances. No, I do remember now his – that was a really strange argument. I don't think the judge took it too seriously, but the clothing argument. Now, can a public defender set up a reverse proffer just as well as a connected paid attorney like yourself? Yeah, anybody can do it. You can just, you know, contact the U.S. attorney.

And they usually don't turn you down because they're hoping that you'll – see that their case is so strong that you just better plead. Now, a lot of times on TV, we see that people are able to do when they know about an indictment coming. And I remember you kept me updated on when we thought it was going to be because you were in constant communication. And people are able to turn themselves in, which we thought I was going to be able to do. Why do you think that didn't happen?

And can you talk about like behind the scenes? Usually the standard is that you get a call and you turn yourself in. Around that time, we had a new U.S. attorney. and they're refusing to do that courtesy. It's a courtesy gesture. And, yeah, they wouldn't do it. That's unusual. And I, that position changed pretty much after that.

Yeah, you know, the idea of doing a perp walk. I mean, that's New York. We don't do that in Connecticut. I mean, they were excessive. They brought everyone. I was 19 years old that I got indicted in January 2015. And it was just like, were you shocked when, I think my dad called you or someone called you and you met me at the courthouse.

Yeah, I was. And I think that the, it doesn't, you know, it sounds like something out of the Al Capone days. I mean, nobody cares. These perp walk ideas. Nobody really cares. They, I guess, I don't even think the agents like it anymore. It's extra work and who cares about putting on the show. A lot of resources, I'm sure, put into that.

Yeah. And I think in your case, or any case where, even the IRS is just involved. They show up with tons of weapons. I've got a case where a guy has an insurance agency. So it was just basically a labor department benefits issue. That's all. A pure and simple white collar issue.

And they got a secret warrant, actually, to search his place. Fine, they show up. But there must have been 20 agents with guns there. I mean, this is an insurance agent? You know, so, yeah, that's... I told the TikTok about how the IRS arrested me and people don't believe that. Can you explain that there is a criminal division for both the post office and the IRS? Oh, yeah, they're armed.

Oh, yeah, they're armed. And they claim, I'm sure it's true, that their regulations require them just in case there should, you know, be some trouble. I can't imagine in the history of the IRS or the post office anyone's ever tried to have a shootout. They're going to do an audit and then the guns start going off. God. But, yeah, that is one of their procedures. The other part of the procedure they usually have, too, is they like to do it at like, you know, five in the morning or something. And I remember I had one case.

He was a lawyer, actually, and it was a child porn case. And they go to his house. It was Homeland Security, I think. And they got all their guns and all their weapons. And the, oh, the poor family was upset. Actually, the wife came downstairs, half-dressed, as I recall. I mean, everyone was upset. It's five o'clock in the morning.

And they do that for the element of surprise, I guess. Now, on the federal level, there's a ton of child pornography cases. I met so many people in prison that are chomos as they call it because they thought I was one. How do you feel about representing those types of cases? I don't mind. I've tried a number of child porn cases. They're not winnable because under any stretch of the imagination, because once a jury sees the first picture or even hears about it, They just want to go and strangle your client.

And the only ones I've tried is where clients really insist, for whatever reason, that they're not a purve or whatever. I had one where we had a really good offer on the case, and the guy had this strong mother, and she kept saying, you know, we're not going to, we're not going to, he's not going to plead. He's not going to plead. And I had experts who showed that he really did have child porn on his computer,

and the mother wouldn't let him plead. And we went to trial and he got some good time. I had another one where the guy was in the submarine service. And I guess if you're in the submarine for long periods of time, you look at porn. But this was in his home. And it was an interesting case. So he's in his home.

And first the agents found out somehow he had child porn. And so they went to the magistrate to try and get a warrant. And she wouldn't give them a warrant to arrest him for, child porn. So they went anyway. So they knock on the door and they say, you know, hi, we're agents, whatever, A and B. And we understand that you're the victim of identity fraud. And we just wanted to check out your computer. Now, most people would say, get away from my door. But he said, oh, sure, come look. Come look. Come look. Find the child porn. He gets arrested. And that's legal that they could lie? Yes, they can lie. It's perfect. That's an interesting question.

And yeah, in this country, the agents have the right, police have the right to lie to you. I've had a number of those cases and gone to the Second Circuit. But it doesn't seem fair. You can't lie to the police or the agents. That's a crime. If you lie to a federal agent or a U.S. attorney, that's a crime. If they lie to you, it's a proper investigative technique. I had a guy who was actually, was a Rochester case and gets a knock on the door.

And I think he'd been hiding. And they said, Rochester gas and electric. And he said, I don't need anything fine. He said, well, we got to check your, you know, your gas meter and all that. He opens the door and they arrest him. Wow. So they can, yeah, they can lie. And they do.

And more often than not, it's unfair. And when they're asking you questions, is it nine times out of ten they already know the answers to those questions? That's the interesting thing, again, about getting back to the proffer session. A lot of a proffer session is a test. Yeah, and sometimes all the questions they'll know the answer to, and sometimes they'll start off testing you because they know already, you know, some of the Mr. Jones was, you know, he was sleeping in your car that night, wasn't he? And you know that when you got in there the next morning, there was, there were drugs in your car, isn't that true?

And you found a gun in your car, isn't that true? And, you know, and things that they know. So, yeah, they use that and the proffers. And they also use the, you know, the lies a lot. It's upsetting. Something that I've been thinking about recently is what do you think that if, you know, when I got charged, if we didn't file that extension to push the trial back, and if we went to trial within the 90 days or whatever the limit is, do you think we would have had a better chance? Because I felt like it gave them so much time to gather new stuff. Right.

And that's one of my biggest complaints about federal trials there. The judges are very lenient on waivers under the Speedy Trial Act. I don't like any continuances at all. My theory is that if they indict you, they should go to trial the next day. And the more time you give them, the more they're going to find. But I don't remember specifically in your case. I mean, part of the good part was you weren't in jail, of course. but usually speaking, the judges in interpreting the Speedy Trial Act are very lenient.

I have a couple of trials coming up now that have been continued. One now, it'll be over, it'll be about a year and a half, and my client's incarcerated, by the time it gets to trial. That's insane. It is. It's not fair. And the judges, you know, are very, I'm not sure why, but I, I, I'm not sure why. I think almost all of them. That's not to say all of them, I guess.

I had a trial, I think last January where the fellow had just been indicted in November. And the government was furious that we went to trial so quick. Wow. It was a good thing, though. Yeah, I mean, I felt like they gathered so much more from that initial discovery we got to what they had. And my mindset was, because I remember telling you, push it, push it, because I had the club. And I'm just trying to keep this club going to pay everyone back. which ends up backfiring in the end.

Another cool part that I'm glad I got the opportunity to experience was picking a trial. There's an art to that. People literally get hired to do that. It was just me and you in our case. But actually, I think we had our private investigator helping us too. I think so too. I think she helped too. But for the most part, a jury selection is terrific.

That's closing arguments are the best part of any trial. There's no question. That's what it means to be a lawyer. But selecting a jury is also fun. and there's a difference between the state court jury selection process and the federal system. So in state court you have what's called individual voir dire. It goes for weeks. Your jury selection would have taken weeks.

In the state system, you don't have individual voir dire of a jury. The judge asked the questions. And I think the judge in your case allowed us, you know, a few things. But for the most part, it goes very quick, maybe a day for jury selection. but it's really interesting to see who you, you know, and to see how you get a jury. It's not really a science. It really isn't.

I mean, even lawyers who have been doing it a long time, like I have, it's, you know, you go by your gut, but there's no real scientific basis to it. I think I had mentioned the case earlier where I did a big insurance fraud case up in Hartford. and they had tons of money. Money was no object. And they hired a jury consultant.

And I think she charged about half million dollars. That's crazy. I know. A jury was out three hours. I mean, how could that be worth anything? That's like prison consultants, a big waste of money. I mean, we hired a prison consultant that didn't do anything for me. I remember that, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a rip-off, those guys. And it's a lot of ex-cons that went to prison for fraud that are starting these prison consultant companies. And there's some fraud involved, too. I mean, not a little while, but I remember some cases where some of them had been indicted some of those consultants. Now, I think there were two standout moments from my trial that are kind of hot topics. One being my business partner who was, you know, equally involved and how he was able to get an immunity deal pretty much because he only got charged in the state to say whatever he wanted to say.

Can you talk about how that works in the feds? So in your case, there were two people charged you and this fella, and I won't use his name. his lawyer figured out pretty quickly that they weren't interested in him at all. They just wanted to use him to get to you and that he was better served by doing a quick plea and then telling him about you. Now, he really didn't add too much about you either. I mean, he didn't know that much. But in his case, I think it was a smart thing to do.

It was smart because he was a minor player. They were all focused on you. was obvious to the lawyer of that. And that sort of brings us back to the Draconis case, too, you know. She went to talk to the police three times. Her lawyer, and I think he did the right thing. He took her to the police. The idea was to show that Dulos was the murderer.

He's the one who did it. She was just a girlfriend. And supposedly, she was just going to say, listen, I, you know, this is what I did, but I had nothing to do with her murder. In the end, I guess it backfired. I don't want to say backfired. In the end, the jury didn't buy it because no fault of the lawyer, the client in three proffer sessions testified differently three times.

Which probably hurt her the most to show that she was lying. Yeah. Yeah. At that point, I'm sure the jury thought, you know, you're not consistent. Now, the next big thing is that, you know, testifying on your own behalf, where we see in cases where, like, if you don't. testify, you might look guilty, but then if you testify and mess up like Sam Bankman was terrible on the stand, how did you feel about putting me on the stand?

You were great. See, the thing about you was you were your own best witness because you took, I think you convinced the jury about the mid the deadlock counts and the not guilty counts too, because you were honest about it. And you have a believable persona. I've had clients who insisted on taking the witness to hand who were just horrible. I mean, I don't even know where to start.

Just, you know, fighting with the judge, you know, which obviously you were brought up better than that. You would never do that. But fighting with the judge, making long, long speeches that had nothing to do with anything. And then the other problem with the client testifying too, and I've seen this backfire, is that you're putting your client on the witness stand

to do battle with an experienced prosecutor, right? And so I had a, this was a murder case, I guess, and I had the guy on the witness stand, and he insisted on testifying, nice guy. And, in a matter of speaking, but he came over well on direct, but when the government got him, they showed. You know, they just used him sitting there

to make them look not like a fool, but like a criminal. Remember they like stopped my trial and got the jury up so the prosecutor could say it's like a cocktail party we're at because I wasn't, he was trying to bait me. Right. And I was just sharing a story. It was literally like a theater when you think about it. I wish we got it on film. Oh, yeah. Because when I testified for two days, the courtroom was packed.

They had all the law students from Yale there. Yes. The head U.S. attorney was there. Yes. It was fascinating to see. You know, and you were good. And you didn't try and embellish or make-up stuff. Some people think they're smarter than they are.

I'll tell you a quick story. I hit this guy out of Middletown, and he was, this is a couple of years ago, but he was really, he was a dangerous guy. And so in his house, they found on his bed a whole bunch of automatic weapons, some serious stuff, AK-47s, and God knows what else. And in his basement, he had a marijuana grow with the, the blue barrels and the lights, you know, and the pulleys, the whole thing.

And he's the only one in the house with him with his mother, right? So I put him on the witness stand. He insisted over my advice. And he, you know, he comes over like a choir boy. He says, oh, I don't know anything about the guns and the weed. None of that stuff. It's just not mine. And I'm sorry, but I don't do that type of stuff.

So the prosecutor gets him on cross-examination. Again, an experienced prosecutor and says, well, let me see if I can ask you this, Mr. Jones. He says, the guns, all those automatic weapons on your bed. If they weren't yours, who's were they? And my client says, they're moms. Ask her. She's sitting in the courtroom, right? Through his mom under the bus.

And then the prosecutor says, I see. And what about the blue barrels and the pulleys and the lights in the basement that were used to grow weed? He said, those are moms too. She's right there. Oh, man. They found him guilty very quickly. But yeah, that's the thing. an experienced prosecutor will tear you apart.

As an experienced criminal defense attorney, can you kind of tell how the trial's going and what the jury's thinking? Are you looking at the jury? What's your mental process? So it's really tough to read the jury. Everyone tries. There's no question.

I try. I have my clients look at the jury and see there's a couple little clues sometimes, but it's tough to read the, to read the jury. Forgetting about the jury for a second, though, you can tell how the trial is going with evidence and so forth. Yeah, you can get a good sense.

I usually ask the marshals or somebody and say, what do you think? You know, how's it gone or whatever? They were taking bets with my case. Yeah. And I said to say they were taking bets too. You were telling me, and they were telling you too because the marshals are really nice.

And when you're there every day, they come to know you. Yeah. And, you know, we had bad days and we had good days. Like, there were some really good days. and we had some bad days. I remember, like, I was talking to Al the other day about when they brought Al, the owner of tuxedoes on,

as their witness, and that backfired. And then my uncle, who they flew all the way out from California, but that helped us. He was their witness, but he helped us. Yeah. Sometimes they overdo it. But it's interesting that the idea about, of reading a jury is really tough.

And I think even in the biggest, highest profile cases, you know, it's tough to do. because jurors generally don't make faces or, you know, or let on. They're usually, the judge talks some about what they got to do, and usually they're pretty good. But at the verdict, there's this interesting thing. I know I told you about at the time when the verdict is going to come in, right? You've done your closing argument. Jury's already deliberated and they come back in.

You always look at the jury because if they don't look at you, and this is true, actually, not just an old wife's tale. Usually it means they don't want to look at you because they found you guilty. And if they look at you, and in your case, a number of the jurors looked at us, I remember. It means that they found you not guilty. Wow. I didn't know that. I didn't realize that.

It sounds, you know, it sounds crazy. But it really works. You know, when they come in, I think it's human nature. You know, if they just decided you're going to jail or not that you're going to jail, but you're guilty, they don't want to look at you. When you send a case to the jury, how are you feeling in your mind and your gut? Like, I know how I felt. And it's like probably the longest waiting period, especially if you're going to, you know, I could go on for days, but how are you feeling as the attorney?

Same thing. I mean, I've forgotten there's some poetic description of it, but the time period when a jury is out, time stops. And, you know, most lawyers figure, oh, if the jury's out a day or two, I'll do some work or whatever. You can't do it because all you're worried about is, you know, what's going to happen. And I think in your case, in most cases, the jury sends back notes. I don't remember if they did or not. So my jury was interesting because the prosecutors were hoping for same-day verdict, which would have been a bigger win. Yeah.

And I remember it went on for days, and we were trying to negotiate a back-door deal to maybe plead out. And if it went out a couple more days, we probably would have got something. Yeah. But we were up against the clock because it was Thanksgiving. Right. Remember they sent back a note saying, well, what happens if we can't reach a verdict? We're thinking we had it. It was going to be a hung jury on everything.

Yeah, it's tough to send a jury home before a holiday or before even a weekend. I mean, you know, just human nature, you know, you send a jury out on a Friday. You know, they don't want to come back again the next week. Or they go home and, you know, ignoring the judge's, you know, restrictions, talk to their significant other. You know, and that person says, seriously, the guy's guilty. What are you wasting time for? You know, don't go back Monday. Or don't stretch this thing out.

Yeah, do you think those rules are outdated in a world of social media? Because there's no way no one went home and didn't Google my case or anyone's case. It's human. Any case. I agree with you. I agree. I mean, the judge always tells them not to do it. Once in a while you get a juror who owns up to it and says, you know, gee, my husband just told me, check this out.

So, yeah, the problem is you don't want to allow a jury to be influenced by some, you know, some nutcase out there who, you know, has written a blog on you and says the guy's obviously guilty. He was doing this or whatever. Or I researched this case and found out that, you know, he was selling drugs or doing something crazy. So you don't want to allow that sort of evidence in. Is there any way to fix that in the system?

The only way to fix it is in a really serious case, serious murder cases, multi-murder cases, mass murder cases. They just keep the jury locked up. They just keep partly for their own safety, but also so they won't do that stuff. So going to our verdict, I remember the first ones read were not guilty. Those first couple ones. And I was like the feelings and then we got like the guilty ones. But just seeing the reaction of the jury saying not guilty.

It's great. And then seeing the prosecutor side, it was just, it was a surreal experience. The courtroom was packed. Like everyone was there. it was really a sight to see. One of the things that happens, at least in Connecticut, probably everywhere, is that when a verdict is about to come in, the U.S. Attorney's Office always calls their office so other people can come and support them and listen.

So if they lose, they've got some support, and if they win, they can all celebrate together. Do you think if we weren't up against the clock, it would have been a different outcome? I don't know. It's hard to tell. The timing is always, you mentioned Thanksgiving. That's always an issue. I think you'd be naive to think that, um, that jurors don't consider that.

Yeah. I mean, they're paid next to nothing. They, you know, parking is a hassle. Uh, I guess food is good. But still, you're losing your job. Uh, you know, you're out, out of work. You're away from your family. Um, you know, during jury selection, getting, getting back to that for, again, for a second.

Some judges are more liberal than others. If you used to just stand up there and say, you know, I have, I have daycare issues. I got to take my kid to the bus. every morning, judges say, well, I'll go home. And then you get some other judges who will say, just stay put. This is your obligation. Yeah, you know, I actually got called for jury selection because it's been over seven years in the state court.

Oh, okay. And to talk about what you were saying about state court is I was there the whole entire day and they didn't seat one juror. Yeah. And they had only gone through like the first 20 people. I know. So that meant it could have been on for weeks. But I also heard that they were trying to make a deal.

It's right up to the last second. That's probably part of what it was. Yeah. But some of the judges are pretty good. I mean, I just think if someone doesn't want to sit on the jury, I don't want them. You know, I don't want someone there who's looking at their watch and thinking, oh, gee, I got problems at work, you know, who's watching the staff and so forth.

So I'd rather not have them. And you can't, you know, you can't force that to happen. Although there's an old Connecticut law, and I can't remember, basically it's a form of conscription. What happens is I was trying a case years ago for a car dealership, I guess, out in Milford. And we're sitting there and we ran out of jurors. And the judge says to the sheriffs, he says, all right, go out to the Milford Green, find me 12 people. And he did.

He went out and he brought these poor people. You know, they were playing checkers or having coffee or whatever. I don't think that happens anymore. I don't even know if it's legal anymore. But he brought him in and we got our jury. Something I realized with the federal system, too, is that when you're found, guilty and you're already on bond, there's a good chance that you'll remain on bond, whereas in the state, they're taking you into custody right then and there.

Yeah, yeah. The feds, if they already took a chance on you, sorry, they're willing to give you a little longer chance, usually. I mean, every so often, you know, someone gets put away. I had a fellow, same judge you had, actually. I wouldn't say who he is, but I had the trial with him, and it was. It's a really interesting case, actually. I'll tell you, the guy had sickle cell anemia,

which is a very painful disease. And one of the things that they give you for sickle cell anemia is painkillers. Well, this fellow was selling some of his painkillers just so he could buy insurance coverage and so forth. Anyway, we lost the trial. I think it was a partial loss. It was. And I think the judge took him away.

They had him taken away right away. Wow. But that's not the common thing. That's not the usual thing. That's against the norm. Yeah. Usually it's, usually is, you know, the probation officers have been watching you. And usually the probation officers in the federal system are better than the state system. I mean, they pretty much can report to the judge all about you. You know, what you do, what your family's like.

Have you been, you know, what your urine samples and so forth are like? You know what I thought was unfair, though, leading up to sentencing is that, the probation, they do a pre-trial, or a pre-sentence report. The person that writes a pre-sentence report wasn't my pretrial officer. It was a third party that knew nothing about me, wasn't at the trial. I think that was more favored towards the government in that sense and not to me. It wasn't neutral. Yeah, I don't, I'm not a big fan of those pre-sentence reports either because there's two things.

First of all, for the facts section, they usually just take the government's version and incorporate it, you know. So if the government says he did A, B, C, and D, they just write it, just like the government wrote it. And the second reason I don't like those is because in the federal system, I don't know if they do this in the state system, but the probation officer is allowed to go back and have an ex parte conversation with the judge. You know, no defense lawyer. You know, the federal judge will say to the probation officer, so what do you think about

this? And, you know, he'll give his opinion, which is really not fair. Now, presumably the judge is smart enough not to, you know, base everything on that. But it just seems to me unfair. Now, had I, you know, I got myself into trouble by going out of state to gamble. And that's how I got my bond revoked. Yeah. And had I not had that, which was miserable at the time, but looking back on it was the best thing that could ever happen to me,

I would have been able to self-surrender and do normal things. But do you think I never would have got prison time? Because when you look at my sentence, he departed way lower. Like I was facing 12 years. The government asked for like eight and I got three and a year a house arrest. Had I not gotten my bond revoked, do you think I would have ended up with zero? We think you would end up the same place. I don't think that would have made a big difference.

Did you ever ask about that or find out? No, I don't think he would – the judge would probably talk about you. I don't think so either. But I just took the significance of that only as it related to voluntary surrender. self-surrender, which is a great thing. The interesting thing about the federal system of self-surrender is that usually the judges aren't in too much of a rush. I mean, they know you're going in, if that's the sentence. So, you know, you get a voluntary surrender for 30 days and then you say, you know, my father's sick. I'd like to have another, you know, two weeks. They'll do it.

You know, or I need an operation or rather have it here than in the Bureau of Prisons. You know, they'll do that or there's a I don't know big holiday coming up can we do that with my kids so yeah they're the voluntary surrender system works well I I don't think I've ever seen us a real snafu with it and you also have the chance to get figure out your designated location whereas yeah I think it hurt me that I didn't get to self surrender because I went to a low and we were convinced I'd go to a camp yeah and I went to a low yeah why do you think do you think that was deliberate no you know oops the bureau of prisons is so, they're so difficult to deal with.

You should have gone to a prison camp. There's no question about it. I have another one right now where the, and I've had other cases like this where the judge recommended Danbury because it's close to home. And the Bureau of Prisons put my client in Florida. I ended up in Wisconsin at one point. There you go. Yeah, I mean, the Bureau of Prisons basically sees where the available beds are.

And it's frustrating to the judges because, you know, the judges will say it's a sentencing, You know, I will recommend that your client go to Danbury, you know, or Fort Dix or whatever, but there's no guarantee the Bureau of Prisons is going to listen to me. And often, if you talk to them, their representatives, they say, oh, we try to, you know, follow the judge's request. But I don't think they try very hard. Do you think judges are aware of what's going on in the prison system? Somewhat. I think some of them are really. I think some of them think that everything is hunky-dory in the prison system, which, you know, really isn't.

One particular judge, I'll say his name, Judge Underhill, he actually went to check on a case, I remember. And another judge went to Danbury, if you remember, there was a big class action case there. Recently. Recently during COVID, yeah. Mike Shea, actually, is a judge. and he actually went there and checked it out. And I think that's great. You know, I think you can't live in an ivory tower

and assume that everything is going smoothly or cleanly or, you know, or fairly. I know it's a push to ask a judge to do that. And certainly a lot of the older judges have no interest in, you know, doing that. Something I realize is that judges kind of like get a sense of both sides, which is their job to do so. And they can feel like our judge, you would get up and shake your hand and he felt the emotion. He would ask how the client's doing.

I know. Do you think prosecutors take it too far and not caring ever about the defendant? Some of them do. Some of them don't. I mean, there's a couple of prosecutors I like, I won't use names, but there's a couple of prosecutors who I've really liked that they're concerned about the client. They, you know, they want to do the right thing. But some of the judges, and it's a fairly recent thing that's coming off the bench,

shaking your hand. I know three judges who do it now. And I think it's great because they really are concerned about. I thought our judge was very fair. Yeah. I thought we got a lot of wins. Yeah. We didn't have that many losses.

And overall, even on motions on everything. And then the prison sentence, that was my fault. Like, I attribute that one to be. Like, I did what I had to do, and we were trying to understand mine, and I made it difficult for you to defend me on that matter. But when we look on it now, who would have thought this would have come from it? Yeah. Yes, he's a very good judge.

And I think that the interesting thing about the judicial system, both federal and state, is it used to be a lot more political. I mean, it's still pretty political. I don't want to minimize that. But it used to be much worse. And, you know, both in the state and the federal system, we ended up with judges who were, I want to say, wholly unqualified to be a judge, except that they were somebody's brother-in-law or, you know, well, you get the idea,

they're politically connected. But, and it's not just Connecticut. I mean, it happens all over the country. I love reading about these New York, not recently, but these older New York judges who got there because they were, you know, big politicians, big-time politicians. Now I think it's a little more, they're a little, they scrutinized it a little more. And the quality of the judges is not just because there's someone's, you know, brother-in-law or something, but really the,

they should be a judge. What was your thoughts on my sentence and what the outcome was? I think it was a little higher than we would have hoped, but it wasn't totally out of the ballpark. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't crazy. He's, I don't think I've ever seen this judge really give a vindictive sense. And that was even after trial too.

Yeah, after trial. He departed very highly. Yeah, he did. He departed a lot. Yeah, there's a number of judges. who I would trust implicitly, you know, like him with a good sentence. Did you have a conversation with the prosecutors after the sentencing? I can't recall.

We probably did. We usually do. Most prosecutors don't like really to admit that it's less than they thought. They'll give you some shuffling thing like, yeah, well, that's right. Yeah. That's good. Do you ever talk to the prosecutors now about the case at all? Your case?

Yeah. Actually, not that often, but we have talked about it. Oh, yeah. I wonder what they think of everything that's come from it now. Do you think it's negative or positive? I think it's positive. I think I'd be more interested, actually, in hearing what the judge thinks about it because I think it's very positive.

And I'd love to integrate my platform with the system because states are now asking me to come and speak and letting me into the prisons. And I talk. I got to go to a county jail in Arkansas. But Connecticut's not adopted. that. Yeah. At least not yet.

Like I reached out to local politicians and they want nothing to do with me, which is, you know, it's frustrating because I have such this big platform that could be used to be helpful. No, I think you've got a, you know, big readership or listenership as they say. Yeah. But yeah, I think it'd be good. And even schools, I mean, I think it'd be educational to go to schools and talk to kids. We have a thing. I'm trying to remember what day it's on, but there's once a year we do this thing.

It's kind of, you know, get out into the community. It's really, it's Law Day, they call it. And, you know, this would be perfect for Law Day, letting the kids see. Usually we do mock trials with the kids who are terrific. They're great. But I think they'd really enjoy hearing some of your work. Yeah, I'd love to get involved with whatever.

I'm always trying to, you know, like I'm open. Even interviews. like if you have people that you think would be good on the show. Okay, sure. I mean, we had Thomas Leaf, who was small world that he said that that house that he got, you live in now as his old house or something like that. Well, actually, it's more complicated than that.

So my first house, I don't even know if he was born yet. My first house was, it was in Westville, New Haven, Connecticut. And my first house, I sold to his parents. And then years later, I don't know, maybe fourth house or something, I bought a different house from his parents. Wow. So, yeah, so, so his small world.

Are you, what do you think of the outcome of everything? When you look at what's come from it, and you look at my whole case, and you've seen, like, we've known each other now for, what is it, over 10 years. Over 10 years. Yeah. And you see how I've, like, grown since then.

I'm not like the same little chubby kid that showed up at your doorstep that one day. What do you think about everything? I think it's fantastic. to be crass for a moment, you've turned, you know, chicken shit into chicken soup. How's that? That could be a good poster. But, no, I do think that what you've done is you've made, I don't know, you've done good things. You've used it to your advantage.

Not only changed your life, but I think it helps other people. That's why I said I'd be interested in seeing if the judge had a chance to follow this. Because I think it's very beneficial. You know, the people you interview are people that the world should know about. They should hear about them because there's not a lot of other opportunities to hear about some of the people. You know who I had to reach out was the judge's intern or clerk? Not like the head clerk. Like, you know how they law students?

Yes, yes. Yeah, whatever it was. She reached out to me and she's like, hey, just wanted to say, you know, I respect the growth and I was there during the trial and just to see how. Oh, really? Isn't that nice? I forgot her name, but she reached out there. very nice and she said, I watched the content. Yeah.

And she's not the same clerk anymore, but she's just, she's a surprise by how everything came out. And I thought that was so cool because you see that from that aspect, but you don't really see it from like the law enforcement aspect or the prosecutor aspect. And I'm just trying the best I can. Like you saw, like, when we met with the prosecutors about restitution and stuff. Right. I just think all along, like, I've just been trying to do the right thing.

I think what I'm paying now is try, shows a sign of good faith. that I'm trying to do the right thing. And, you know, hopefully they'll eventually kind of see that and give a little credit for that. No, I think what you've done is show that more so than 99% of people who have been convicted, you've showed that you can turn into something positive. And you have. You turn your life around. And this is terrific.

And I'm sure you've got a lot more distance to go. I have no question about that. And speaking of distance, you're still practicing law. Oh, sure. You don't just do criminal law, though, right? No, I do any kind of trial work. Because there's a lot of people from Connecticut that watch our show. Okay.

And I do actually, I get a lot of messages from people that are still actively going through cases. So I want to make sure, like, we plug you in. Oh, thank you. If anyone needs a good attorney to reach out to you. I won't do divorces. I just, that's horrible. But, yeah, any kind of trial work, criminal civil trial work. I do some interesting accident and malpractice cases.

Yeah, I could tell you some good stories about some of the malpractice cases. We could sit here for hours. Yeah, I could do for days. Yeah, you've been practicing law for how many years? Well, almost 50. You say it like it's a bad thing. That's awesome. No, it's fun.

I have no regret. I look back and I think, wow, where did all the years go? But then the benefit is, like we were saying, I could tell you about cases for the next couple of days. Do you ever have regrets about trials that you've lost? or anything like that. At Hyundai of Glendale, Lisa New,

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pH 711465. Do you ever think about what you could have done differently, or do you just have to always keep pushing forward? No, I think every trial you do is a learning experience. Any lawyer who says anything different is just wrong, because every trial is different. I remember having a trial once, it was a black kid, and he had a group of girls who were stealing checks

and depositing them, giving him the money. and I had one of the girls on the witness stand and I really beat her up, I remember, and she had maybe six children for six different men, and I really beat her up. And then I won the case, I got a not guilty verdict on it, but I remember this one juror,

big black lady came up to be afterward, and she said, you know, you didn't have to do that. You didn't have to, you know, you didn't have to beat up that girl like that. And I thought, you know what, she's right. and you learn a lesson. Sometimes what it means is, just to share this with you, you need to listen to the music of the courtroom,

and that's always been my theory. You need to pay attention to where the judge is coming from, and, you know, what's happened. I remember it was a double murder case out of, it was out of Bridgeport, the really bad people in Father Panic Village. And my client,

who's still breaking rock, I think in Louisiana, had one of his two murders. A fellow was parked under a headlight, under a street lamp, and he went to the car and he shot him in the head, I guess. And so they had his mother who had watched it from, you know, a window.

And so my cross-examination went something like this. The government first put her on. What did you see? I saw this. Okay, so I cross-examinated. And I said, you know, isn't it true, Mrs. Jones, that the street lamp above the car wasn't working that night? And she says, Mr. Reinhorn, your client killed my son. I said, but wasn't it true that the lighting was really not good enough to tell that it was my client?

And she goes, again, Mr. Reinhorn, your client killed my son. And it's like, okay, I think I get the picture here, right? Yeah. That's the, that's the easy. You kind of see how, yeah, you get the tone of it. I got the tone of it. I should have gotten it the first time. What advice would you give to someone that, you know,

you find in maybe a position like mine at a young age going through the criminal justice system that maybe the next Ian that stumbles upon your doorstep, what advice would you give them? You know, I think you need to be polite to law enforcement. You need to be respectful because they're doing their job, even though you and I both know some of them are not the nicest people, but you need to be polite, you need to be respectful. And then you need to know some basic criminal law rules, I guess, that they tell you on TV all the time. And one is, you know, never make any statements. Never do that. I forgot, a friend of mine used to say that confession is good for the soul, but these cops are not priests. Yeah. You know, so, you know, you don't want to admit anything.

You don't want to say anything. I want to talk to my lawyer. That's important. And you need to realize, as we were talking about earlier, that they have the right to lie to you. So if they come to you and they say, you know, your buddy just admitted that the two of you robbed that package store. Let's just talk about it. We'll make it easy on you. And for all you know, your buddy wasn't anywhere close. Yeah.

So those are the basic things. But, you know, nobody wants to get involved in the criminal justice system, much less, you know, incarcerated. It's scary. Yeah. It's a scary world. No, you need to, you need to focus. I mean, the thing that you had and have that most people can't say is you had a

mission. You had a tuxedo junction, you know, you had something you were doing, you knew where you were going, you had a plan, and now you still have a plan, of course. I always have a plan. Yeah, you always have a plan. And I think that's great. I think a lot of people out there don't have any direction and they need to, I think that'll keep them out of trouble. Absolutely. Well, John, thank you so much for coming today. This was an absolute pleasure. I'm glad we got to do this. Me too. And I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful for our friendship over the years. And I'm excited to keep watching you, win, and I'm sure you're excited to keep seeing this. I've got to come to one.

Next time you have a trial, you've got to let me know because I'd love to see that perspective. Sure. Not in the defendants part, but just in the back, just watching. I will definitely do that. You'll enjoy it. Awesome. Well, thank you, John. All right.

Well, thank you very much.