Locked In with Ian Bick - The FBI Set Me Up While I Was Running for Mayor — Then I Got Sent To Prison | PG Sittenfeld

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

PG Sittenfeld grew up in Ohio in a good family, went to Princeton, worked in nonprofits, and eventually built a three term career on Cincinnati City Council before an unexpected FBI indictment for bribery and extortion — built around an undercover operation he argues never should have produced charges — derailed everything he had spent his career building at the exact moment he was running for mayor. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what the FBI indictment actually looked like, what going to trial and losing some counts actually felt like, what the 16 month sentence and the four months he served inside federal prison actually required of him, and what eventually getting out for appeal, losing that appeal, receiving a pardon from Donald Trump, and then having the Supreme Court rule in his favor actually produced in terms of what he now understands about the federal justice system and the people who run it. _____________________________________________  #fbi #truecrimestories #ohio #prison _____________________________________________ Connect with PG Sittenfeld: https://pgsittenfeld.com/ _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Introducing PG Sittenfeld 00:18 Upbringing and family life 04:20 Going to Princeton 07:20 Moving to England 09:07 Returning to Cincinnati 10:40 Running for city council 14:34 Life as an elected official 18:26 The FBI investigation begins 24:50 The cooperating witness 25:44 The prosecutorial Truman Show 31:36 The day of the arrest 44:32 A year and a half to trial 47:45 The trial and the verdict 52:00 The inconsistent verdict 56:20 Jury selection and deliberation 57:31 Sentencing to prison 01:01:42 Reporting to prison camp 01:05:25 Life inside the camp 01:13:43 The Sixth Circuit ruling 01:15:31 Shocking early release 01:19:41 The Supreme Court petition 01:21:52 Receiving a presidential pardon 01:26:18 Lessons learned and moving forward _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

My guest today is PG Settenfeld, a three-term Cincinnati City Council member and mayoral candidate. He was convicted in an FBI corruption sting and sent the federal prison. Here's how everything unfolded. Grew up a whole upbringing in Cincinnati, Ohio. Actually, same house, my entire upbringing. So, yeah, Ohio and born and raised. What'd your parents do for work? My dad sort of straddled two things across his career.

he started out, well, actually more, the two big things in his career, he started out leading an arts nonprofit that sort of helped fundraise for like the ballet, the symphony, the art museum, things like that. And then he transitioned probably around the time that I was born. I'm the youngest. I have three older sisters. He transitioned into family financial advising. My mom was a career school teacher. She actually, she was my teacher both in preschool. She was my librarian in middle school. She was my, AP art history teacher in high school. So, yeah, both, I mean, loving, wonderful parents, feel fortunate that they're my mom and dad. And my mom is still with us. We invite her over for dinner.

We invite her over for dinner about four nights a week. She accepts maybe one or two of those invitations. And my dad passed about five years ago. How would you have described your upbringing overall? Not one that you would think might lead to a prison or a presidential pardon or to having the need to go to the United States Supreme Court stuff we can get into later. It was very, I mean, this may or may not be the right word. It was wholesome, right? Like, I feel lucky that it was a stable, loving two-parent home. I had three older sisters are wonderful human beings.

Probably could have gone for a brother growing up. We now have three sons. So I'm like, I don't actually have context for this. How are you supposed to do? I know three older sisters. My sons are teaching me. But yeah, it was a warm, loving household. around the dinner table, like you had to fight to get a word in edgewise. People talking about

their day, debate, you know, when I was a little bit older, debating ideas, politics, things happening. I think there was an expectation that you're supposed to be involved, not to like go into politics or run for elected office, but I think there was an expectation, in a sense, a little bit sappy, but like you're supposed to try and make the world a better place. And the world might mean your neighborhood or your immediate surrounding community. So my parents were super civically involved. That was definitely, I think, sort of formative for me watching them do that growing up. But I had a very lucky upbringing and I consider myself fortunate to have had that. Where did you see your career or your life going when you were a kid?

Yeah. I mean, well, a couple of times with Matt and I were chatting a little bit about hoops and basketball and unforgiving rims in prison. When you brick, like the camp, prison camp, they know you just missed your shot. I mean, if you'd ask me, me early enough, I was like six feet tall by middle school, and I made the mistake a little bit of being like, I'm really good at basketball. And actually, I was just a foot taller than the people I was playing around. I never actually thought I was going to have a professional basketball career. But honestly, that probably dream didn't die until like six or seventh grade, which was good because around that time, I did start to get more interested in like the world

around me. If you moved a little bit further, probably by high school, I had sort of twin loves. One was I love writing and I still, this is actually what I'm doing in my life now, journalistic, storytelling, writing profiles of interesting people, stories that are sort of at the nexus of like the American criminal legal system and carceral stories and whatnot. And also I was interested in politics. Politics understandably has a bad rap and most people understandably don't like or think very well of politicians. But also whether people like it or not, politics, this is our like collective conversation

about what our societal values are, what policies we want implemented. So I think if probably by maybe sophomore, junior, senior year of high school, I would have said, maybe I'd like to try and be a writer. Maybe I'd like to try and do something in politics because my mom was a teacher. I think that was always kind of on the board too, but maybe one of those three things. By that point, I knew professional basketball was not in the works. Where'd you end up going to college? I went to Princeton University for college.

So also loved that. I mean, I was, I wasn't, you know, I was never like the smartest kid in any class that I was in, but I did have kind of a geeky streak of like, I love reading good books. I like going to class and talking about those good books. And still some of my closest friends to this day are friends from Princeton. Actually, Princeton is a little unique and a lot of people will be like, oh, you go back for a fifth or a 10th or a 25th college reunion. They go big and go hard for reunions every year. Really? So, yeah. So actually, the only things I have ever missed. a Princeton reunion for my 20th Princeton reunion is next year. I have missed Princeton reunions for a global pandemic, which when they were actually canceled. So that one doesn't really count against my record. The imminent birth of children needed to keep the peace at home. So I thought it was probably one conversation where my wife was like, you're not actually thinking like, I'm 40 weeks pregnant. I was like, no, sweetie. Of course I wasn't thinking about going to reunions. And then my surprising,

dramatic early release from prison happened one week before college reunions one year. And I was like, I'm kind of tempted to go, but I think I need to restabilize my family here. So that's got to be the talk of the reunion. It was, well, there's actually, I don't, I don't want to, we can maybe skip around this story a little bit. After, you know, I was like flying high in my professional life. I got elected to public office at a young age. I was widely expected to become the mayor of the city of Cincinnati and, you know, after that sort of who knows. And I'd brought a lot of idealism to politics, but I was also ambitious and I wanted to rise. And I don't think I ever really tried to hide that. So being indicted on, you know, federal public corruption charges, which I immediately proclaimed

my innocence. I vehemently disagreed with the case that was brought against me. We fought it tooth and nail every step of the way, ultimately successfully. But after being indicted, most people, you know, I think are like a college reunion is not where they're looking to show up when they've been in the pages of, you know, Fox News and the New York Times would be mayor of Cincinnati indicted public crowd. Like the headlines that nobody ever wants to experience or wake up to. My reputation was getting battered. My career implodes overnight.

I still went to my college reunion. And I think a lot of people, you know, you like we have voices in our head, right? So you start imagining and rehearsing, oh, this person's going to make that mean comment or that person's not going to want to talk to me. I've written, I like writing essays about sort of processing my life. A hundred percent of people I interacted with were kind, supportive. And actually, because I think they were like, this guy's showing up vulnerable, they, honestly, what you're doing your podcast, to be honest, they were like, I can be vulnerable with this person. So people confided a lot of their own personal sorrows and pain and heartache in me in that reunions. And it ended up being

unlike any college reunion I've been to before. And it was probably more meaningful. more special. Yeah. We're doing the going after college. I went to you would not know it from my Ohio accent. I actually moved to England to the UK for two years. My senior year at Princeton, I won a Marshall scholarship. This was basically England's thank you, the UK's thank you gesture to the United States

for saving the day in World War II and rebuilding Europe to the Marshall Plan. They said send us 40 of your, you know, like best and brightest. you know, students and people who seem like they have future leadership potential. So senior year when I was sort of honestly at the time, I was thinking, should I try and go work in Washington on Capitol Hill? I think I had maybe sent off some like resumes and applications to work for like the Boston Globe or the New York Times or places like that. And then I won the scholarship. So I got to go spend two kind of amazing years in England where they were, I was very studious a lot of my youth. The education there was outside of the classroom. Like you would be,

at a pub. I know your father did some work for Bill Clinton. So the pub where it's called the Turf Tavern where Bill Clinton famously didn't inhale. There was a whole thing where he was asked if he'd smoked marijuana and he was like, I tried it, but I didn't inhale. Kind of an interesting answer that also says a lot about the times when he was answering that question. But you'd be standing having a beer at the Turf Tavern and the person next to you without trying, like this person would be from Australia and this person would be from Israel and this person from Iran and this person from, you know, some Croatia, you just be having these conversations with people from perspectives all over the world. So it wasn't how I anticipated spending the two years immediately

out of college. I knew I wanted to get back to Cincinnati basically as quickly as possible, but that was the next step and next stop after Princeton. So what happens when you get back to Cincinnati? What happens when I get back to Cincinnati? I started my professional career. Well, a couple things happened. I started my professional career working for an education nonprofit. It was all about sort of like making use of public schools during times when they would otherwise be shut down. So populating them with partnerships, health resources for families, college readiness programming, things like that, include an after school programming. And then actually for the first year, I moved back in with my parents.

I was like, if I can save on rent. And it was, you know, I think people, you know, you have your own experience with your parents when you're a kid, right? you're here and they're your parents and they're the authority figure. It's a really blissful year of just getting to, we weren't peers, right, because your parents are always your parents, but getting to experience them in a different way, have those same boisterous, like, talkative family dinners every night. And then, you know, by that time, I was getting re-involved in the city of Cincinnati as a grown-up. I was sort of seeing challenges with the neighborhoods, with job creation, with safety. And I think the thought about like, okay,

politics, including elected politics, elected office is something I want to do. And I want to take a crack at a pretty early age. So I think I'd been home for, if I got home the summer of 2009, it's funny, like the passage of time. It doesn't feel like that long ago, but it is now a very long time ago. If I got home in 2009, I ran for office for the first time in 2011. So I got to that pretty quickly. And how old were you at that point? I started my campaign when I was 12, for city council, which, you know, different cities, sort of different offices loom in different ways. City council were like big, high attention, expensive, competitive races, where at the time I ran a former mayor, she had run the first time for council loss, run again, loss, got on her third

time. The then congressman, same deal. Ran loss, ran loss. So everyone's like, oh, it's cute that you're running and like, you know, you'll get your name out there and maybe the second time, probably the third time you'll get on, a total, like, labor of love campaign poured myself into it was 26 years old, turned 27 right before the election and got elected to seated City Hall as a 27-year-old. Was that common or no?

I mean, not necessarily because I was the youngest person who'd ever been elected to City Hall in Cincinnati at the time. I think that might still be the case. That being said, I think the city did have a tradition of like young people who had their own visions for what the future could be. So probably not uncommon for people maybe in their earlier mid-30s to do it. Closer to like mid-20s, no, that was a little bit of a rarity. And I'm sure I, you know, I look plenty of salt and pepper now.

Those were not yet there during that first campaign. Yeah, I'm not sure if I just never noticed it before growing up, but it seems like there's more young people running now more than ever. Yeah. I think it's a good thing. I mean, I'm like for participation, right? So whether someone wants to fix our criminal legal system or fix the way prisons unfold in the United States or whatever the cause they care about, I mean, I have my own bumpy journey into and then being sort of like ejected out of politics has actually put me in closer touch with like there are so many good ways to reshape our world, reshape the communities around us. Honestly, I think like you're an example of this, right? I know you've just been, you regularly are going to try and speak to people at prisons, talk about reentry issues.

You don't need to be an elected official to do that and to make a difference. So I think that there are a lot of good avenues for being a change maker. But, you know, the ones they seem to get a lot of attention are when people run for office just because, you know, the news likes talking about that and social media. But I would agree with you. I think a lot of young people are rolling up their sleeves and diving in now. Now, City Council, is that a paid position? How does that work? It was, yeah.

So, I think in city county, because in some communities, you'll be like, oh, you get a $25 meal stipend for the once a month meeting. And like, that still can be very noble public service. In Cincinnati, it was a $60,000 a year job. So there was also very, like, you had former cops, former people who had like retired from Procter & Gamble, lawyers, young professionals. So it was kind of a big mix. But yeah. I mean, I'll be on after graduating. from Princeton and Oxford, I wasn't like, what can I do to maximize my earnings potential,

go and run for Cincinnati City Council? So for me, it was about public service and, you know, a city that I always knew I wanted to go back to and call home. But yeah, it did pay a meaningful salary. So do you leave the nonprofit just to focus on that? There was a bridge, there was a bridge period where I was doing both. And then the further I got into my time at City Hall started, was the, you know, by the end was chairing committees, was running, was gearing up for a mayor, a run for mayor. Just, you know, I mean, when you're sort of seen as someone who has like the ability to get things done at City Hall, the sheer amount of time it takes up of the inbound stuff, people coming to you with things.

So after a number of years, I transitioned from like full time on the education nonprofit to part time and needing to pull back altogether. Does being or did becoming an elected official turn out to be what you expected it to be. It's an interesting question because, like, I am a very gregarious person. So in that way, like this job where part of the job is to run around town, meet people, hear their stories, try and help them. Like, I love that. That, then that did meet my expectation. Look, there are also days when you have to cast a vote, right? And your vote is a yes or a no vote. And you know you're going to piss off half the people. And then you get a lot of people, you try and depersonalize it,

but you get some hate mail, right, of like, how could you make that boneheaded decision? I mean, people, people don't always express their frustration in the kindness, most diplomatic way, and assume good faith on your part. Now, the flip side, I will say, is that I first ran for office in 2011. The decade that's unfolded, and I think this is sort of bit, like, how should I say this? You know, this sort of sense of like, we're all, maybe this is naive because, like, when Newt Ging. and Bill Clinton were butting heads in the 90s like it didn't feel all kumbaya. But I think politics from when I started to the next decade started to feel more vitriolic.

Maybe a campaign, the person on the other side of a campaign went from being an opponent to being an enemy. Bases got more fired up, seeming like sort of less fired up by inspiration and more fired up by, look at how horrible the other side is. So as someone whose natural impulses is to try and be a, and by the way, like, if this sounds like politicianese, I'm not running for anything. I don't plan to run for anything again. So like this is how I actually feel. I would rather like focus on the positive, say, okay, you and I don't agree on everything, but what can we team up on to do together? I feel like that is less fitting for today's politics.

So I liked the opportunity to fix problems that I felt like made it a different. in people's lives, that part I liked. The increasing vitriol and hate and sort of just like desire for people to be at war with different parties, different factions, that was not a natural home for me. How long are you on city council for? Well, I was on, so I first elected in 2011. I was on, I got elected to a second term and then a third term was term limited off. That term would have ended when, again, I was the favorite to become the mayor of Cincinnati. I got indicted in late 2020. So because I fought the charges fought the accusation every step of the way, I accepted a voluntary suspension. So technically I served for a full decade on Cincinnati City Council.

The final, whatever, would have been like year and a half was that temporary suspension because of the indictment. So what is it three year terms? It was your, if you really want to geek out on Cincinnati municipal term limits. I got elected to do a two-year term and then citizens voted to change the structure of government. They changed them to four-year term. So I was elected to a two-year term, then elected to a four-year term, then elected to another four-year term. Okay. Yeah. Is that common for someone to stay in city council that long? Yeah, I think a lot of people, I should say, I ran for one federal office and got my clock cleaned. I ended up running in a primary and I ended up running in this.

primary. When I first got into the race, I didn't know this person was going to be also running against a pretty popular former governor. So here I am. I was popular in the city of Cincinnati, and I felt like I had a good vision for what I wanted to offer. But I'm a young upstart city councilman running against the popular former governor. And I was really proud of the campaign we ran, but got my clock cleaned in that primaries and went straight back to City Hall. And they did not, I didn't need to give my seat up while running for that office. So walk us through how you found out there was an investigation into you? I found out, I mean, like, stunned, but this wasn't, I should probably know more about sort of something. Because you, I sometimes hear about people

being like, oh, I received a target letter or whatever, you know, that sort of thing. Well, let me, let me back up a little bit. Part of my political identity and my own, like, policy vision for the city was always saying, how can we boost job creation? Like, we want to bring good jobs to our city. We want to attract investment to the city. We want to boost economic development in the city. So I was kind of one of the, if not the go-to guy for supporting real estate development, economic development deals. A couple guys, a former councilman ends up introducing me saying, I have these out-of-town investors and they want to meet you. To me, this is like, I get asked to do this sort of thing all the time. I meet with them. I still remember

it. It was on a Monday evening for less than an hour. They seem, you know, like fairly normal guys who they're in visiting from out of town. They're saying, we don't have a deal yet. app, but we're looking for deals. I say the same thing to them that I would say to everybody, whether they were from out of town, lived in Cincinnati, rich, poor, black, white. If I can help you guys with anything, let me know. Like me helping you do something that's good for the city, that's kind of what I see is my job charge. Never in a million billion years. These two guys are undercover FBI agents posing as out-of-state, out-of-town real estate investors. and they're basically part of a larger FBI drag net that's being unfurled across Ohio

looking for public corruption. So we later find out I was not a target at the beginning of all of this. There is also, so another character in this sort of saga was a former Bengals NFL player named Chinidum and Dukeway. So he and I had been both sort of social friends. He'd also been a pretty enthusiastic backer of all of my political campaigns. So I had that first meeting with the guys who I don't know are undercovers. Nothing comes of it, right?

Like completely above board, nothing to pursue there. Maybe about nine months later that same year, in Duke, I called him Chin. We were buddies. So in Duquay says, hey, I wanted to introduce you to these guys who are backing this big downtown real estate project that I have. I say, okay, glad to meet with them. And he says to me, but, you know, they're going to want to, oh, and they initiate campaign donations. They're like, oh, I think they're going to want to give campaign donations to you. Okay,

I'd raised a million dollars by that point. Receiving campaign donations when you're a candidate for office and the person who seems likely to win, nothing unusual about that. And he makes one comment where he says, but I think, you know, when this project that I'm trying to lead comes up, these guys are going to want to know that it's going to be a yes vote without a doubt. Never could I have imagined that he has, he'd gotten himself in deep legal trouble. He'd become a a cooperating witness of the FBI. So he's trying to save himself from his, you know, future prosecution. He floats this kind of vague thing that sounds like, hey, like they're going to give you a campaign donation. So I have no idea that I'm on a wire. I believe I'm talking to an old

friend. And my immediate response is nothing can be a quid pro quo. Nothing can be illegal. That might be a slight paraphrase, but that's almost verbatim what I say. I've known this guy in Dukwe for a long time. So then I reiterate what he should have already known, my longtime policy views. The next line out of my mouth is, but what I can say is that I've always been super pro-development and revitalization of especially our urban core. So I reject the quid pro quo. I say, you know I'm always a guy who's cheering for the economic development of the city and don't really think anything of it. I end up then interacting in what I think is a normal and above board way with these FBI undercover agents for the next, I don't know, a year and a half, a year,

year and a half. In terms of your question of like, how do you find out this happening? I don't think anything of it, right? I mean, could not have in any universe fathomed what was unfolding behind the scenes. They had been, there was a parallel investigation of someone else in the city council. The U.S. attorney announced the indictment of this person. And when they announced the indictment of the other person a week before I'm indicted, they start saying, oh, you know, they bring up the downtown real estate project, the people they're describing, I'm like, wait a minute, that sure sounds like guys who I've only ever known as real estate investors who have made lawful donations that I reported in public filings. So I then call a friend who's a lawyer. They're

like, oh, you should talk to another lawyer. That person ends up talking to the U.S. attorney, who at one point is like, we're going to be indicting PG tomorrow. So at the time to intersect this with the personal, my incredible, heroic, resilient, great. wife, Sarah. She is an amazing human. She also in her professional life. She's an oncologist, so she's literally saving people from cancer. She was doing her medical training at the Cleveland world-renowned Cleveland Clinic. So I start this day in Cleveland. I wake up there one morning and have to drive four hours at like 4 a.m. in the morning down to Cincinnati in order to meet eight FBI agents who arrest me in the driveway of my home and charge me with public corruption

charges for receiving lawful, transparent campaign donations. So this was not something where I was like, oh, you know, it seems like they're closing in on me. Like, yeah, I mean, I think you are gathering all these years later. I still, there's a level of shock of like, how could they have proceeded in such bad faith for something that wasn't even illegal? And the part that I think, you know, this case ended up attracting a lot of attention from interesting people. So three people who served as the Attorney General of the United States. And as you

know, and as your listeners know, the Attorney General of the United States is like the boss's boss is boss's boss, boss of most of the people that are doing the prosecuting, right? They run the Department of Justice. Three attorneys general of the United States later say this was a misguided prosecution, resulted in a wrongful conviction. The, I'm rambling here. I'm trying to remove the, specific point I was going to make. Oh, just how shocking this was and this was not something where I like had a sense of, oh, this was coming at all. I was shocked and a lot of other people were shocked too. Now the football player, what did he get himself into trouble for? He, well, so I took this case to trial. We had a three week trial. So I don't really like

the playbook that the feds can use. They're like, okay, you actually have done some, you other person who are going to be a cooperating witness, you've done some things wrong. We're going to totally let those slide, and actually they end up paying him $55,000, I believe, was the number, to try and, you know, deliver other scalps. But we take the case to trial. They obviously need him to take the stand at trial. So he signed a proffer agreement with the feds. I believe the proffer agreement he acknowledged structuring banking transactions, aggravated identity theft, and one other thing. So three felonies, right? And, you know, their response is basically, if you help us concoct a fake crime, then we'll let you off of the.

Oh, that's what I was going to say. The thing that was why I think this remains so shocking is the federal government probably spent between $2 million, creating this whole sting operation, pretending to be involved in this downtown development project in Cincinnati, making lawful campaign donations to me. It's like so much energy, so much resources, so much federal government time and attention goes in not to actually catching or stopping a real crime, but to literally try and create and fabricate a fake crime, which, you know, again, we've contended every step of the way. Like, they tried to create a crime.

They didn't actually succeed in that. So subsequently, my lawyers refer to this in court filings as a prosecutorial Truman show. There was one time when I'm attending an event with the undercover agents. And I don't know this at the time. But if there are, I don't know, let's say 18 people in the room, half of them are undercover people flying in just to like you know like Truman Show pretend to kind of keep up this fake thing it's nuts so now does he voluntarily bring you into the equation with the feds by saying oh this is my friend i might be able to set him up or do the feds bring you to him and say

we want you to go under cover this guy from from from what came out at trial it seemed like the first one of him saying like how can i make good on this this proffer I've arranged to by like bringing them someone. And he just thought of you. Yeah. I mean, so his accusation was at one point I had said, hey, can you raise some money from, although he'd actually proactively earlier that year said, hey, I want a fundraise. Let me know when your next event is.

So like any normal politician say, hey, here, like this deadline's coming up or this event's coming up. Can you help me raise money? He uses that as an excuse to say, hey, he just asked me to come and raise this money. like, let's take a harder look at him. And I think one of the challenges, I mean, like, I know there was also, I mentioned the attorneys general, they filed an amicus brief in support of our appeal. There was one from former federal prosecutors who specialized in public corruption. Like, I know I'm related to people in law enforcement. I know so many people in law enforcement

who do the job nobly and well. I think there are some people who they stray from that path. And instead of thinking, let me go and actually start. stop a real crime. They are like so obsessed with, I don't know, maybe showing their supervisor something. They're like, how can I maybe, how can I have something to show for it, whether it's just or not, whether it's really real? And I think sometimes when you are looking for criminality everywhere, you start seeing it even where it doesn't even exist. And I think that's some of what happened here. And so the, the feds weren't, I guess, upset that they didn't catch you in their first investigation or undercover.

because you weren't a target to begin with? Well, I think they, they, I did have subsequently had another person who served a, for 25 years as a assistant U.S. attorney. So she was a federal prosecutor, aghast, appalled at my prosecution. She worked in the very office that subsequently indicted me. She was like, she and other people were like, you know, they never, because this, the sting, the concocted sort of fake world they created, they really, drew out and drew out and drew out. They're like, they never would have kept it going if they

already thought they had a strong, obviously they ended up getting, prevailing on two out of six counts at trial. It was two convictions and four acquittals. But they were like, if they really thought they had you sort of after the first juncture, they never would have kept going with the expense and the personnel and just drawing at the time because that's risky for them and a sting operation. So, yeah, I mean, people who are a lot smarter about it than I am, I think they probably thought it was pretty tenuous weak case they had. But wouldn't the feds, you know, think to themselves, we tried this months earlier with him and it didn't work, and he's clearly not corrupt? Well, I would like, I mean, don't I wish for like, you know, my family, people who love and care about? I mean,

you know, the most painful day of my life by far was hugging my wife and our then two young sons. We subsequently had a third young son. Like family separation is a, a horrible thing that should be taken very seriously. So yeah, I pray and wish to God that someone would have thought, okay, we sniff this person out to see if they seemed even remotely corrupt. The answer was no. Someone in there instead thought, well, let's try again and again and again. And when we keep failing, let's actually come up with a whole,

concoct a whole fake crime and fake scheme and then we'll use that. I mean, someone clearly, what's the line that I think has been attributed to like Stalin's chief of police or, maybe misattributed to him, but the famous chilling line, like, you show me the man and I'll show you the crime. I think that's the mindset they got themselves in where it was more about winning or prevailing or showing that they hadn't just wasted their effort and their resources than actually doing justice, right? Like, it's called the Justice Department. That needs to be the goal. And some people or a collection of people went really astray. I mean, it's also the time period where you do

have those sexy headlines of the mayors getting arrested or other city councilmen all over all over was that Chicago had multiple ones. Yeah, I think, I think it would be naive not to believe that chasing a headline of like, oh, the guy who everyone says is going to be the next mayor, like we indicted and are prosecuting that person. Again, that's a really perverse motive for why someone would go and bring an unrighteous case, send an innocent person to prison, tear a family apart. But I, I do agree that that's relevant. So tell us about the day you get arrested when you turned yourself into the FBI. Yeah.

So I drive. I wake up. I set my alarm at 3.30 a.m. Same time I set my alarm to come and do the locked in with Ian Bick podcast to get up here to Ian Bick, HQ from Cincinnati. Drive down, get arrested. I mean, there were so many kind of moments that felt like out of a novel along the way. But I remember one of the FBI agents or in my drive.

driveway. I mean, hey, let's go behind the house so that no one has to see this. And I'm thinking, like, do you really care about, are you like, you care about my PR? Like, haven't you kind of come to ruin my life? It's just such a funny thing. And then, you know, they put me in metal handcuffs. My arms are behind rather than in front of me. And I remember asking like, you know, is that too tight as though he's putting like a loafer on my foot as a shoe salesman or something like that? We then drive down to the courthouse. And, you know, I'm looking out the window at neighbor like a city I love neighborhoods I'd work to read but I just remember a really sad discordance between you know being in the backseat handcuffed of an FBI vehicle and sort of literally

driving by a city you've poured yourself into and sort of feeling like some of your own personal dreams and your dreams for what you want to do and accomplish for your hometown feeling that sort of slip away I would this was during the COVID era so I remember people before were wearing masks I'm in a U.S. Marshal's whole. holding cell that day. The one thing that was a little bit of a surprise is we actually got to put in, I got to say put in my not guilty thing. You often don't get to do that until like several weeks later. And I think people sometimes do that just as a placeholder, right, knowing that they're going to plead. Arraignment. The arraignment. Oh my God, I should, I should, after all of this,

every little legal term and lexicon should be seared into my brain. So put in our not guilty that day. I'm granted bail on my own recognizance, drive back up to Cleveland. So in the same day, I get arrested, I'm sitting in a handcuffed in a U.S. Marshall holding cell while this, you know, like crazy theatrical over-the-top press conference is happening. I can't see it, but it's both like dominating the local news and making the national news. And that day is bookended by, you know, kissing and hugging my baby and holding my wife. Of course, how we felt at the beginning of the day and how we, I mean,

there was a sense of we don't know what the path ahead is going to look like, but we have entered a, you know, challenging, disorienting new realm. I mean, anyone, it's probably hard, and this is part of why I think your podcast is, is a service in this regard to, for someone who's never been churned through the American criminal legal system, fairly or unjustly, it's hard for someone who hasn't had that. And now, like, 70 million Americans have. have family members. So like a huge number of people have, but a huge number of people haven't. It's hard to do justice to how bewildering, disorienting, sort of just like not knowing what's

going to happen next. So that was, I mean, I think in sort of, you know, I believe that any day, even the roughest day of your life can be full of like love and beauty. But that day was also an inflection point, right, of like a before and after the day I was arrested and indicted. Who is your first call to once you're released? Is it to like the mayor or is it to your family? One of my best friends, a guy I consider my best friend, again, I'm Charlie Rickers. He's one of the most talent. I don't think he'll object to my mentioning his name on this podcast.

He's probably one of the most talented trial lawyers in the country. He makes a, he does very well on the plaintiff's side. But he also like he has a heart for the accused, for the wrongly accused, for people who he thinks like justice is not being done. So even though it is not sort of like how he pays his own bills, he gets fired up and does some criminal defense work. When I have a person of that level of talent and he's also my best friend, you know, he's the person who picked me up from the courthouse that day. So that was one of the, I remember talking to my sisters and they were, you know, you have to, I think you probably have experienced this. Like there are moments that

are both really grim and how do you get through it? Like you have to find the levity and the laughter. And I remember, so I'm driving, spent the day in this holding cell, been released on my own recognizance, I'm speeding back up 71 to get back to our baby and to my wife, Sarah. And I'm on a conference call with my three sisters. We did the thing we're like, I call you. And then they patch the next person and the next person. And so forth. And one of them asks like, oh, what did you wear today?

I was like, what a funny question to wear. And I was like, I think I had like, you know, my J crew jeans and my Banana Republic. So I was like, I made some joke about like, yeah, like it paired really well with ankle shackles. And we all laughed. And it's just one of those things were like, I mean, it was a horrible day, right? Like one of the worst days of my life. But it doesn't mean you can't like you have like sometimes you have to like love your way through and laugh your way through. So yeah.

Now, how long does it take for the news to hit? Is it that very same day? Oh my God. I mean, by the time I'm back in Cleveland. And also I didn't have my phone on me like while I was. in custody for that day. And I'm not even, I mean, you know, like 500 messages, 99% of which were like, we've got you, we've got your back, we don't believe this, stay strong. But I'm like trying to catch up on stuff. I mean, again, like literally that day, Fox News, the New York Times,

saturation coverage in the local media. So some, I don't think it, you know, like, it is very painful for someone to be churned through the system when there's no news about it. It adds a particular element when it's also like big news and is spread all around. And that was the nature of this one. Now, does the donation ever actually get made by these undercover agents or no? Yeah, that's part of what was so crazy. So they make these donations. I immediately, as you're supposed to, file, report them in a filing with the Federal Election Commission. So you or any other human could spend about two seconds on a computer and say, okay, PG-Sidinfeld receive this donation from this person at this time.

Like everything and the, another reason why the case ended up becoming a big deal, at some point we can get to the Supreme Court aspect of this story is in our system. If you, you know, we think about free speech as you getting to say whatever you want without the government come in and shutting you down, right? Also, another form of free speech is you're saying, I believe in you and the policies you want to enact and your values. I believe in you as a candidate. I want to help you get elected.

So I'm going to make a campaign contract. for them to, like, normally when you think about a public corruption case, you think about, like, a gym bag full of cash or, like, someone redoing someone's deck off the, but whatever, like, sort of money, personal embezzlement, money in the pocket, right? The quid in the quid pro quo here was a lawful publicly disclosed campaign donation, which is why from the get-go a lot of really brilliant lawyers who I've since enjoyed getting to know and become friends. friends with were like, wait, what? Like, where's the other hat, like the seedy part of this that we're

missing because you're saying that if a donor and a candidate for office or officeholder agree on a policy and that person then says, oh, and I want to help you get reelected, if that's bribery in America, guess who is indictable today? Every single politician in America, every single person in Congress. And I would argue it actually gets a little bit worse. The only people who would ever be able to run for office without fear of being indicted under this crazy charging theory, or, you know, like billionaire self-funders, anyone else that needs to raise money. Because the inverse, if you think about it, too, would you give money to someone who are like, I disagree with all of your views?

Let me send you $50. That's not how the system is set up. You support people with a campaign donation where you agree with their views. Yeah, why wouldn't they at least have tried it to give you the bag of cash or a gift? Well, there was probably some naivete where, They actually, they did try some stuff that was like a little bit more on the edges. And I rejected all of that. The naivete part is I was like, you know, I mean, in 10 years at City Hall, people were different stylistically.

They had, they spoke differently. They had different education levels. If I screen people out and was like, okay, you have to speak like this, go to this school, talk in this way. And otherwise I won't deal with you. Like, you got a bunch of characters passing through there. I didn't assume bad intentions on their part, but when they would, so I actually ended up, they made some donations, and this is really like in the weeds, and you're allowed to receive a donation from an LLC, but not from a corporation. What would a corrupt person do if they got the donation from a corporation? I think I can make this work.

I return the donation and painstakingly walk them through, hey, I know the rules are confusing, but here are the rules. here's how you can fix it and make a lawful compliant campaign donation. Does that sound like someone that's trying to be corrupt to you? But again, I think the feds were so hell-bent on getting something that they blew past that and many other indicia of non-corruption. Was your campaign hurting for money at the time? Oh, my God. That's the other thing is I'd already raised a million dollars.

So they end up in some donating $40,000. They actually go to a political action committee. $40,000, like, that's meaningful money. But the notion that it had any bearing at all on my strength and viability as a candidate is completely crazy. I mean, they – and, I mean, again, this is all unfolded so publicly that, like, they know who they are. There were people who were willing to, like, blow right by the common sense sniff test on this and what their motives were. I mean, I think we've discussed some of those. Yeah, because, you know, you're going to have those people that are thinking, well,

the corruption comes from, he benefits from the campaign money, but if you already flush in the accounts, then it doesn't make any sense. Well, but also, I mean, like campaign money can buy yard signs and pay for radio ads and like organizing events. Like, it's not legally allowed to go to you, the candidate, right? So, yeah, I mean, if you wanted to prove that someone's correct. The other crazy part of this whole thing was the accusation was PG's official action was helping advance the redevelopment of a blighted, dangerous building in the middle of downtown

Cincinnati. So if you really wanted to prove corruption, you would think, how can we get someone to agree to do something that's clearly a disaster for the city and the people they represent? My, the thing I, the, you know, we talked about the quid. The, the action that I was accused of taking was helping with a revitalization of something that was a blighted, dangerous eyesore. The whole charging theory is really crazy. You would have thought I was like a casino or something that you would have thought it would be like let's do something that's clearly not in the public interest this was the opposite this development was strongly in the public interest so what happens when the dust settles you know a couple days later um do they force you to resign

or uh yeah i had the in those sort of weeks that unfolded you know it was i'll be honest with you it was hard i now i look at politics and i look at politicians differently than i did when i was in politics and when I was a politician. And there are individuals I admire as a collective. It's not a cohort that I hold in the highest esteem as having like the most courage muscles necessarily. But so I end up needing to leave my seat, accepting that voluntary suspension. And my life gets a lot quieter and honestly ends up being, I mean, the beauty was I got to go from being loving, supportive husband. and father, but who was really busy running around town, being Mr. Councilman and Mr. mayoral candidate, to getting to, you know, channel my love into, like, showing up in every

possible way as a husband, as a father, honestly trying to do it as a friend. Because life had kind of was kicking the shit out of me at that time, but I kept a buoyancy and an upbeat attitude about things. I actually would, something kind of strange ended up happening where friends would be like, PG, we know you're still in the thick of this storm, but you seem like you're doing pretty well. Could you talk to my friend who's having a really hard time? So as I'm like navigating all these, and this made me feel better, but as I'm navigating my own crises, I start kind of doing this like ministry of trying to support and talk, including like strangers. So there was a lot of that during that period. And then, you know, a year and a half

between the day of the indictment and arrest and when I went to trial, a year and a half went by. a lot of the time is getting ready to, you know, go and give it your all and defend yourself at trial as well. Because you're a high profile in your community, it wasn't hard to go out, go out to eat, you know, interact, maybe go to the gym, just do things with your family. Yeah, there's another adage that I sort of, when I encourage people of like, don't sideline yourself, you know, I mean, if someone forcibly sidelines you in some way, but like don't opt out because then whatever bad crisis has befallen you, that's,

bad thing number one. But then you're compounding it by then sort of like withdrawing from community, especially when times are hard in your life. Like you need, you need your people more than ever. So no, I never. I mean, I wasn't going to like political functions, but that, you know, you don't go not because, mostly because like that's, that's not my idea of how I would spend my discretionary time anyway. But no, we're like, you know, go to, go to baseball game, go to do my grocery shopping like I would normally, take my kids to the park. And maybe because people, like, thought this prosecution smells fishy and not right. I think, like, one person in.

And, of course, like, I also, I pulled back my online presence a lot at the time. It's interesting, and you would be more fluent in this than I will. People will say things online that they would never, ever dream of saying in person. And I think the answer then is like, okay, well, don't live in the, like, kind of fake online trolley world. live in the real world of real humans. And when I would do that, 99.99% of the time, if I had an interaction with a stranger, it would be saying, same as like the messages I got on that first day, like, hey man, like, stay strong.

You know, we got your back. We, you helped me with this thing. We know who you really are. So, no, I both out of like personal desire and because I thought it was important, try to never sideline myself, including things outside of Cincinnati, like going to my college reunion. Before trial, did they offer you a plea deal? Yeah, they did. They offered me a plea deal that included the possibility of zero prison time. And, you know, I mean, of course, you're so desperate for relief and release. But the notion of lying and saying that I had done something. Now, by the way, people do this in our, it's important that I say this. For me, the notion of not being truthful by saying that I committed some crime or done some misdeed that I hadn't done, that did not like,

mesh with my own sort of, you know, sense of character and integrity. It's also very important that I say, I understand why some people do that in our system every single day to mitigate ruinous potential legal costs to mitigate the potential punishment. But even though I was offered a plea deal that could have resulted in zero present time, it was a very easy to, which also, I mean, if you're like, does PG, do you really think you're innocent? Like, I think that's Proof. When you turn that a plea deal that could include zero prison time, and it was an easy decision to turn it down. It was like, no, to me, the righteous thing to do, the right thing to do, the thing that's on the side of the truth is to fight this every step of the way. And that's what

I did in the next step was trial. So you go to trial, what's a damning piece of evidence against you? What's a smoking gun that, you know, causes the jury to go against you? It's funny that you use the smoking gun thing because I don't get to see the initial indictment press conference at the time, but I go back and sort of get see it later. And at one point, the U.S. attorney, having brought these charges, this is almost verbatim, but he's like, if you're looking for a gotcha moment or a smoking gun, we don't have that here. So I think what the strategy really was at trial, let's be honest with our, I mean, I'm all for the presumption of innocence, but it's an ideal more than it's a reality. And I would underscore that.

If you were talking about a politician walking into a courtroom in a case revolving around the role of money and politics, that set of ingredients, it's not the presumption of innocence. It's the presumption of guilt. So I think a lot of their strategy was just sort of try and make things seem tawdry and like isn't this whole system kind of sinister. And I think they remember things like, you know, and then the person handed PG the check. I was like, did you want me to receive a check with my toes? Like, you're allowed to receive a lawful campaign contribution in your own hands. So I think a lot of it was sort of creating atmospherics. And obviously at some level they were successful, though it probably doesn't take pushing jurors too hard to make someone think, oh, isn't this just another sleazy politician?

Now, look, the flip side is jurors acquitted me on four of the counts. Obviously, that was nowhere close to the outcome that we fought for and thought would have been. in the right and the truthful outcome. But they clearly, they had some misgivings, too, about it. But I think the main strategy was like, let's sort of smother this person with atmospherics. And what were those four counts you were acquitted on? The four, they were all public corruption charges or bribery extortion. There were two big phases of the sting. And the two were from the first phase of the sting. One other thing, again, were maybe a little bit in the legal weeds here. But the jurors, and this is the

juror's right to do, you know, I mean, like the, I suppose. the sacredness and sanctity of the jury deliberation room. But for the exact same conduct in the exact same time period, they found me simultaneously guilty and not guilty on counts that had the same element. So it's like that actually just logically, that does not make sense. Like it's one way or the other. You know, you never know what kind of like, oh, well, it's, you never know what kind of negotiations are going on there. But the ultimate, so acquitted on, you know, bribery extortion, whatever. And then those were also, those are the two that I was, there were the two convictions. You know that happened to me where it didn't make sense. It's a, I forgot the terminology,

but it's legal. It is. Yeah. Basically, there does not need to be like a coherent logic to the outcome, right? And it is, I mean, it is pretty crazy when like somebody has the same elements for the same conduct and the same time period. And you're like, we, in my case, it was all about my intent. That was mine intent to defraud. How are you, don't have the intent on this day, but on the next day, you have the intent. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So the intent, like, this wasn't in either case of like the, the gun did or didn't have blood on it. Like that, that was not like the sort of evidentiary nature of my case or of your case. When something's all about intent, but it wasn't this day and that day. It was the same moment, like, you know,

A jury, you can't say you had corrupt intent and not corrupt intent at the exact same time on the exact same set of decisions. It doesn't make sense. And it also is their right. I think it's called inconsistent verdict or something like that. Correct. But yeah, that happened to me. And then also what happened to me was when they were deliberating, they said they couldn't reach a verdict.

And then the judge forces them to go back in and says you have to reach a verdict. People have asked me, you know, you're a good person to evangelize about this. people have asked me, I mean, I now, I speak at like law firms and law schools all across the country on a pretty regular basis like you. I also go and visit people in prison. I'm trying to be a faithful Catholic, so I see it as a Matthew 25 mandate. When people ask me about reforms, one of the things I say to them is when a judge says, and you must come back with a unanimous verdict, it's actually a really weird thing to say because they do not have to come back. I know the system wants that and it's geared towards that, but it's a strange thing to say you need to do this thing that you actually don't have to do.

A split jury is like a lawful. It's not what the prosecution wants. It might not be what the judge wants because then things can be retried and it backs of the docket. But it's such an odd thing to tell people that they can't do something that they can do. And if you're a law abiding ordinary citizen sitting on a jury, you're going to listen to the judge. Right. And in most cases, you'll probably be scared. Right. You know, you hear about contempt of court, this and that. So, of course, they're going to come back and reach a decision. What do you, how did you feel at the time of the inconsistent jury verdict? Did you like, I mean, were you mostly just sort of like devastated or were you thinking like, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense.

Well, so when my counts got read one, they charged me with 15 counts because that's what the feds do. The first like three were missed or a hung jury couldn't reach a verdict. So I was like, wow, we got this. Then it was not guilty. Then came all the guilty verdicts. In that order? Yeah. It was mistrial, not guilty.

and then everything else was guilty. But it just didn't make sense. And looking at it and I'm like, okay, we got a great appeal here. Like the appellate court's going to throw this out. And my lawyer was like, you can't appeal based on inconsistent verdicts. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I actually the same thing where the courtroom deputy was actually the person who was reading

the completed jury form. So he's going to read the verdict. You know, as to count one, how do you find sitting there? He says, not guilty. And I'm thinking to myself, as the prosecutors have said, this is all so intertwined. So I'm like, we're going to go six acquittals in a row. Gets to the second one, not guilty. Tears are streaming down my face.

They are tears of joy, of relief, of vindication, of freedom, gets to count three, guilty. And I'm like, and I actually remember, you know, my wife, again, the hero of this story. I should tell one story about her in just a second of backing up on one thing. But consoling my wife afterwards, part of her, I mean, all sorts of anguish in that moment. But she's a brilliant radiation oncologist. Part of what was nagging her, which is like, they have landed in a place that like there's not internal logic on that. And I think that kind of almost made it more difficult. But, you know, we talked a lot about the day of the indictment.

I mentioned my lawyer talking after the other counsel person had gotten indicted the week before. My lawyer talks to the U.S. attorney. She calls me, hence, and is like, you're going to be arrested and indicted tomorrow, hence the early morning drive from Cleveland, down to Cincinnati. I go after getting off that call, I go up and I tell my wife. And, you know, in that moment, she could have been mad at me. She could have been scared. She could have chosen aloofness. But I've just narrated close to the most sort of like shocking, awful thing you can go and tell a spouse like, hey, I'm about to be charged with a crime that could have really serious implications for our family, for my freedom, for all of these things. And she immediately reaches out her hand and says, for better or worse, first words out of her mouth. And it was an act of unconditional, unwavering love and support that weirdly, you know, if that day and that time was one of the worst, lowest moments of my life, that moment was one of the most beautiful moment that I treasure of light. I mean, you know, and in politics, everyone loves celebrating a winner, right? And it's

fun to celebrate when things are going well and you're succeeding. There is like a beauty and a profundity to when people are there for you when things are awful and bleak. Like, wow, that is really anchoring too. So I know, I feel like I wanted to share that story because I've said how Sarah is the hero of this story. And I just, I wanted to undergird one example of how she's been there. Because this is a political type of trial, are you guys caring about the person's politics when picking a jury? Are you allowed to ask that? Yeah, I mean, I think the one thing that we, if we could, there's something, like, I think we, I think, you know, I give my trial lawyer credit. Like, I think he did a good job. He ultimately set something up that's set up for a really effective appeal that, you know, far down the line ended up being successful. You know, I don't, I understand why and I don't blame people for being skeptical about the lawful role of money in politics. But it made it a little bit difficult to screen and be like, okay, we're going to go with, we want conservative jurors because they'll be appalled by the government overreach.

Or I'd served in office as a Democrat. I was a popular office holder. So like, well, we want Democratic jurors. It seemed muddled in different directions at the same time. Yeah. How long to take for the jury to deliberate? They deliberated for three days. Yeah.

I watched a lot of, it's funny, I wonder if I have like a cognitive dissonance where I can't, I remember while I was waiting for the verdict to come back, I remember watching a lot of whatever episode of Stranger Things at the time. And I have not gone back and watched it since. So maybe there's like a mental block. But yeah, they deliberated for three days. So you get convicted. What happens? Do you get your bail revoked? No, no.

I remained free on bail while some other stuff was, I mean, pre-sentencing, no. So I was remained free. My bail was not revoked. We contested, you know, things that seemed shady every step of the way. So it got a little bit drawn out. So from my, the day of the verdict to when I'm sentenced, another year and three months goes by, I end up getting sentenced to 16 months, 16 month term. of incarceration. The juror of the prosecutors had argued for something like the four to five year

range. We'd said, and by the way, the court's own pre-sentence investigation, which, you know, you know this, maybe some of your listeners and viewers know this. This is like the story of what happened, who you are. There's a verbatim line in my pre-sentence investigation report that's been this person's job who works for the judge and the court to go and come up with this that says there are no identifiable victims associated with this crime, which while I strongly agreed with the sentiment, what a disorienting thing to hear when you have been indicted and prosecuted and convicted of something to say, and there were no victims in this crime going back to, what did he actually do?

He tried to help blighted building in the heart of downtown, not be a blighted building in the heart of downtown. So we had argued, let me do, let me help what I've already been doing in my, let me help what I've already been doing in my adult life, help my community. I will volunteer, you know, for free for, you know, we proposed several different organizations that said we'd love to have PG and the judge ended up landing on 16 months. How does he come to that? You know, we had like 200 people submitted letters. A lot of them were from law enforcement, from police officers, from prosecutors, from nuns and rabbis, family members. I think he thought, you know, the jury reached the conclusion

that they did, you know, I honestly, I don't entirely know. I mean, look, he, I disagree. I mean, again, a lot of this is sort of born in my faith views, but there was an act of family separation there that I could not, I couldn't do that in that same person. Now, obviously, like, I'm, I believe in accountability and I believe that there are things that need to be punished, like, in this particular case and knowing all the facts, um, He might felt like it was an act of leniency. That's certainly not how we saw it. So I don't know entirely.

I mean, I guess he went in between the two things that were asked for by the opposite parties. How was he as a judge? Was he varied by the book? Or do you think he brought his personal feelings into it? This is, let me, I guess, be as charitable as I can. You know, he's intelligent. He was engaged and took things seriously. I just bring such a strong level of bias in this because I think the whole thing was such a miscarriage of justice.

And if, you know, the attorney generals of the United States, if Bill Barr, who by the way, Attorney General Barr was the Attorney General of the United States when I was indicted. So the person who ran the entire Justice Department that indicted me, disagreed with the prosecution. if John Ashcroft and Bill Barr and Michael Mukasey can read a 25-page brief that has the seminal facts, that has the outline of what happened, and that has the law very clearly and say, you know, shouldn't have been a conviction, should have been prosecuted. I would like, it's just hard for me to see how to someone. So I don't know what I'm not going to be a judge in this lifetime, right? And I also have some friends who I greatly respect who are judges.

So for me, like, I disagreed with the outcome with the punishment. So it's a little bit hard. I can't give an unbiased answer to how he presided. So you get sentenced and what happens? We are, so that's October of 2023. And there were small moments of grace. I mean, they felt small to me. Like you're still moving forward with an act of family separation, making this person

who is trying to save people from cancer a single mother. overnight. So, but they, one of the small acts of grace was, okay, you can stay home for like Thanksgiving and for Christmas. But on January 2nd, 2024,

I, but that is the hardest day of my life, no question. In Cincinnati, I hugged my wife and our sons who are then ages four and one. And they know that daddy's going to daddy camp. We talked to like child psychologists and teachers.

So we tried to social, them to daddy's going to be going away. I've heard other dads say like, Daddy has to go in a timeout. I didn't want to put it like that because we were like, this is bullshit. And when you're old enough, we're going to teach you that this was total bullshit. But did let him know, daddy doesn't have a choice about going to Daddy camp for a little bit because you want them to know, like, I wouldn't be leaving you if I didn't have to. So say an anguish goodbye that morning. one of my three amazing older sisters and my aunt Ellen come to town. They drive me from Cincinnati to FCI Ashland where, you know, the whole routine of a strip search and them giving me, I remember

like on the day I went in, I think I'd probably weighed 175 pounds. I remember after, you know, you come in your civilian club, I'm wearing like a white t-shirt and, I don't know, khaki pants or something. I knew I wasn't going to stay in those, but a guy throws down a green jump shoot that's fitted for someone who weighs about 450 pounds, you know, the incredibly painful, like, canvas slippers or whatever. Then I make my way over to the camp. And I'll be honest, I, from almost the first moments in the camp, it felt like a sort of scene out of like Matthew 25. So it is, it's January of 2024. It's not freezing cold, but it's cold. So I'm hungry. I'm cold. I'm a stranger in a strange land. And the men there, not all of them and not

immediately, but like one guy comes and gives me something like a sweatshirt to keep me warm. Another guy brings me a toothbrush. Another guy brings me a jar of peanut butter. My sally, who ends up becoming a really good friend, I subsequently, after my early release, pardon, victory in the Supreme Court, not to preempt the plot here. I end up going back to prison to visit him. I go to a different prison to visit another friend. My sely is sort of, you know, I'm like kind of a deer in the headlights.

So I'm like, hey, can I, like, how's this work? How's that work? Fast forwarding a couple weeks. We can talk. I mean, you and I could talk prison stories for like 10 hours. I've never written poetry before in my life, but something about being incarcerated got some of those creative juices flowing. And one morning, I remember being my Sally's name was, he went by Crum. Remembering like, hey, crumb, I've written this poem. Like, can I run it by you? And I read it? And he's honestly like, yeah, all right, not bad. Like, you're not Walt Whitman, but not terrible. So then I think the next day, I'm like, hey, Crum, what would you think if I took this poem and anonymously posted it on the board out front. Like, could that get me, could, could I,

get my ass kicked for doing that? And he's like, dude, if you want to run your weird literary experiment in prison, like, you go be you. So I'd like, anyway, I thought from almost the moment I got there, there was a kindness and a sense of like, we're all in the same boat. We're all wearing our, prison greens together. We came here through different walks of life. People might have different levels of innocence, murky, totally guilty, but kind of we need each other's kindness to, to, you know, get through the days and get through the months. Did you hire a prison consultant at all? I didn't.

I did not. And this goes back to maybe my enjoying being a student. I talked to one guy. He'd been a former elected official who had also gone to prison. And he set a line to me. He was like, no one wants to go to freaking prison, right? But when I knew I was going, it was like, I'm going to get an A plus in prison. This was his line to me.

So I sort of took that ethos of like I want to learn as much before even going in, learn as much as I can, talk to as many people as I can. You know, I remember talking to one guy. I was like, you know, you're probably not going to get your ass kicked in a camp, but gambling might get you. And I'm like, I'm not a gambler anyway. So I tried to go in a little bit knowing like the rules of the road. Now the flip side is, you know, there's like from Princeton in politics to federal prison.

Like there's a lot of space in between those. So it was still a very new world that had to have a steep learning curve for me. But to a one of the biggest surprises was because I kind of went in there and based on what other people told me, thought like, all right, dude, keep your head down. Like don't ask people too many questions. Don't be too sort of like, don't be your kind of upbeat, curious self. Like things that are considered good qualities in the normal real world, there might be a little bit much for people in prison.

And maybe it was just this particular camp. I don't know what your experience was, but I actually got to be who I authentically am there. And because so many men there were, like, hurting. And, you know, they were hurting from things going back to childhood trauma. They were hurting because they were separated from family. There was actually something where I kind of maybe almost pretended like, you know, God has sent me here to maybe just be like a listening ear for other people or to talk something through or to be a part of the Bible study with other guys. I actually liked, didn't like being in prison, and it was painful every day being away from my,

you know, wonderful family. But I like the proximity to people who were hurting. I didn't like that they were hurting, but I liked that, like, I was right there to kind of be a resource for them. So, yeah. What surprised you the most as someone that, you know, has never experienced prison? Um, well, I mean, there were individual things. Like, I remember one. So, like, I guess guys could have fans that they would plug in, right?

So, like, not a ton of electronics. but I remember watching some guy come up and take literally like a nail clipper, disassemble it and start doing some sophisticated electrical work. Am I being like, holy shit, you are unbelievable. Like, if you gave me the rest of my life to take a disassembled nail clipper and like do complicated electrical work, like I wouldn't be able to do it. So guys, I think what was refresh, I shouldn't say surprising, but what was refreshing was at this.

And by the, like, there are places where people have done horrible evil. things. I'm not condoning that at all. Most of the guys where I was were either drug dealers, many of whom had also been addicted to drug in the grip of addiction and addicted to drugs themselves. And then white collar guys, lawyers, doctors, politicians, businessmen. So I actually found the community to be like, you know, smart and curious and conversate. Like they were enjoyable to be around for the most part. And they were stimulating conversation. Again, I don't want to say that was a huge surprise. I mean, I could always talk about prison. in cooking. Same as with like doing complicated electrical work with seemingly like the bit the scraps

of a nail clipper. How some of these guys created like tamales and stew like with a garbage bag and like a contraband pepper and some 190 degree water. Like you're creating some Michelin restaurant shit with that. I don't. So I mean the food that now the food in the chow hall was grotesque and disgusting. but people's individual culinary pursuits, that was a little bit of a surprise. I don't know. What do you tell people when they say what was the biggest surprise? I mean, I was really surprised by the politics. I went to a low first before I went to a campaign, which is super political.

And I, you know, had that experience of being labeled as a sex offender and navigating the gangs and the cars and all of this. Like, had I went to a camp first, which I think I should have been sent to a camp first, I would have had a totally different experience. there. But then I also wouldn't have what I have now because then I wouldn't have the same experience that helped me build the platform. But what's interesting too is, you know, no matter who or where you go to prison, you can relate to say a guy that is serving life right now in a pen or just off of a conversation about food. You know, everyone has an experience of making food in the garbage bag, whether you're at a low, a camp or a max, you know? It's a really like humbling experience I feel like brings people closer together, even from completely different, you know, cultures.

Yeah. Yeah, I tried to, I was at the largest, several months back was at the largest women's prison in the state of Virginia where most of the women that I meant on that particular day were serving life sentences for murder, for homicide. Was it the D.C. jail where people have been held for a very long time pre-trial. And yeah, no, I agree that there is. is, yeah, I think it forces you, the least popular people in the camp were the people who thought they were better than everyone else. And I think like the same thing that's true in prison,

look for the, like, you might be innocent and that person might be guilty. Like, you might have done a white collar thing. They did something. Like, look for the shared humanity. I think if that makes sense in prison, probably would make sense like in the rest of the world, too. This is another small one, but it was, if not surprising, just kind of a lie. thing, the TV room of it being, okay, black TV, if I've got this right, in our TV room, the order was black TV, sports TV, white TV, Hispanic TV, and don't mess with the other person's TV. And I think the only time when all TVs were showing the same thing was actually during the Super Bowl. But the Hispanic TV, so guys would plug in their headphones to their radio so that when TVs were

playing different stuff, you know, the noise wasn't interfering. So everyone actually has their headphones on listening to the Super Bowl. The Hispanic TV is like 15 seconds ahead. The particular year I'm in there, the Super Bowl ends up being won on some like crazy fourth down conversion. The Hispanic guys are like going crazy. We're like, oh, you're ruining. Like, we know what happened now. So, I mean, every day there was something lively like that.

I've shared this with other people. I tried to basically take the attitude that rather than, you know, like, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm in prison. I'm away from my family. to be like, I am a movie director and I've been sent here to do research for a future movie project. Or I'm a not. And honestly, or I'm a journalist. And I'm because of all the stuff I'm publishing now, like you said. But for the experience, you wouldn't be having this podcast journey and adventure. I don't, I'm not glad that I went to prison, but it probably makes me a better journalist, a better writer,

gives me access to subjects that are like, I trust this person to tell my story now because of his own lived experience. And so, yeah, I would say 85% of the time, I was almost able to pretend my way into like, I am journalist, I am director, I am novel writer, which means if that's your 85% of the time, you're only prisoner sort of wallowing 15% of the time. And I didn't even wallow that much of the time. Do you think you got special treatment because you were a little more high profile or a politician? No, no. I mean, the guard, the, no, I mean, first of all, like, the guards, like I never got sent to the shoe,

but also I never did anything that would have warranted being sent to the shoe. The guards were happy to demean me and be hostile towards me, same as everyone else. No, I mean, I don't know. I don't think I got special treatment. Guys did know who I was when I showed up. Some people were interested in that. So that might like initiate them starting a conversation. But mostly I was like, I was social and I was nice to everybody.

So I think that was the driver of my true. And I never, because I didn't believe, like, I never walked around like I was, you know, different or better than anybody else because I didn't think I was. So what ends up happening? Okay. So, you know how I feel about my case. Like, I thought it was the bullshit of all bullshit. And so, of course, we're appealing it. But I'm not able to stay out while the appeal is unfolding.

So oral arguments occur for my case before the Sixth Circuit of the United States, you know, the august chambers and sort of like regal courthouse. that happens to also be in Cincinnati. Oral arguments happens. I am not allowed to attend oral arguments because I'm behind razor wire fences 100 miles away in Ashland, Kentucky wearing my prison greens. So oral arguments happens. Fast forward, I believe, six days, six days later. I had a light, my job was like distributing supplies around the compound, helping new guys get settled in. Some days would be busy. Some days would be very light. Have a light morning for my prison job. So I'm sitting there. Our cubes, our bunks, our cells were not, the beds weren't bunked.

So I'm sitting, we're sitting across from each other. My Sally and I, like almost pretending our beds or couches. We're chopping it up. I was probably, I would write all the time. So I might have been writing something. And another guy comes in, looks at me and is like, you don't know, do you? And I'm like, know what? And he's like, I just got off the phone in the prison phone room with my wife.

And she said it is all over the news back home that the Sixth Circuit is sending you home immediately. I'm like, stand up. Like, I mean, my heart, I mean, I would have like, I wish there was like a video of it. You could see my heart like burst out of my chest. I swear to, I did not believe him. But when you hear that, you're like, holy kiss, I stand up, hug my celly, hug the guy who's delivered the news. Start running to the prison phone room, running to the prison phone room. I've been incarcerated for four and a half months at this point.

And look, I mean, even with all of the, like, redeeming stuff that I'm narrating, being able to be there for other guys, the Bible study, I became a cheesecake making, you know, one man cheesecake making machine, love making cheesecake, like for all the redeeming stuff, you want to be, you want to fall asleep in your bed next to your wife. You want to kiss your child goodnight, right? So when you hear something like the guy said to me, you're like, holy, so I sprint to the prison phone room, call my wife picks up and she says, have you heard? And then I think almost immediately we're both like bawling, just absolutely correct. Because I was not expecting to be. I mean, being released, when you were already incarcerated, being released early pending the final outcome of the appeal is unbelievably rare, right? Unbelievably rare. And about three or four hours later, my wife pulls up outside the prison. I walk out with like a big box of letters. I still actually have. Again, this is, I'm not trying to make you my like therapist psychologist here. There are two or three items of clothing from prison that I'm like, I'm holding on to that.

And they're like, if someone saw them, they wouldn't be like, oh, it's your orange jumpsuit or whatever. Like one's a gray t-shirt. One's like a sort of knit overlayer. And there might be like one other thing. I walk out in that stuff, which I still have and will sometimes like, where's a night shirt to bed, have my letters. And that night, I walk back into our house.

My kids jump into my arms. They're like, you're like, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. This sounds like a joke, but I've always shared this detail. It's true. Our dog comes, like, we're having a family hug. Like squealing, jumping up and down. The dog, like, runs in, puts her paws, like, up. The dog gets in on the family hug.

And, yeah, it was, I'm a big believer that sort of, like, hard things and beautiful things in our, in life often come intertwined, right? And we often want, like, okay, let's have the good stuff happen. something things are very much intermingled. God, it had been such a challenging stretch, but being back home that night was maybe the most joyous, you know, day, night in my entire life. Now, how long does the appeal take to play out? Well, so that is May 15th of 2024, four and a half months of incarceration, shocking early release ordered by a panel of three federal appeals judges. We're like, well, we're going to win this appeal. Like, they wouldn't

send you home to then be like, okay, actually, now you got to come back. Nine months go by, and there's a two one split decision in which they say we are upholding these convictions, reinitiating the chance that I could be reincarcerated. But one of the crazy and very rare things was all three judges in three separate opinions say, Supreme Court, you really need to look at this case. We think the law needs clarification. One guy had a full-throated, I hope to someday get to shake his hand, Judge Bush on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He had a full-throated dissent being like this conviction should not happen in the first place.

The other two felt varying degrees of torn, but obviously came down on the other side. So we were like, okay, when you have a panel of judges saying Supreme Court, you should take this case, you should revisit it, I was stunned that they didn't side with us because they had released me. But we were all like, you know what, let's go in at the highest court in the land. So that decision comes back in February of 2025. So fast forward, we are about three months later, we are, have my petition for writ of certiorari ready to submit to the Supreme Court of the United States. The incredible law firm of Jones Day can't speak highly enough. They took on this entire case and this entire appeal pro bono after the trial stage.

they took on the entire appeal pro bono, believing these are their words, not mine, that it was the single most sort of aggressive, overreaching, misguided sort of distortion of the lawful role of money in politics that they'd ever seen in any case in U.S. legal history. So they're treating me like the president of the United States, so invested. We're days away from submitting our petition to the Supreme Court of the United States. I am getting ready to take, and again, like the possibility of prison is hovering over me, right? Getting ready to take my oldest son on a camping trip. So fast forward to May. Getting ready to take my oldest son on a camping trip the next day. My wife is eight months pregnant, expecting our third

child. And I learn that afternoon that I have received a full and unconditional pardon from President Trump, from the President of the United States. We had not applied for a pardon. I had no knowledge sense that something might be in the works. I was like no one on earth was more shocked by that outcome than I was. Obviously, it was a profound relief. I was incredibly grateful. My wife got home from her job at the hospital. I walk into find her in the bed room I tell her what happened. And we are like, wow, this is unbelievable. We're also, there was a moment where like, what a crazy, like getting a pardon is a, like, what a weird crazy moment to experience. Like, everything that has to happen for that to, you know, sort of unfold in that. And that.

moment. So experience that pardon, unbelievably grateful for that relief because it takes being re-separated from my family off the table. We initially think, oh, the case is probably mooted, but the trial court had assessed in the context of our family budget a meaningful fine that was paid. There's a Supreme Court precedent that a pardon does not undo property already in the government's possession. That fine was already sitting in the U.S. Treasury. So it turns out, we're not mooted. So we then go forward with our Supreme Court petition anyway. And in April of this year, it's a little bit wonkish. And I'm not trying to play lawyer here. But we end up unanimously, the court ends up unanimously vacating those final two convictions via a mechanism called a GVR,

grant vacate remand. So I had a lawyer friend jokes like PG, congratulations. You're the most exonerated guy in U.S. history. You got both the executive branch and the judicial branch to, you know, side with you and kind of getting rid of these convictions. So it's been a wild journey. Now, isn't there one type of pardon that the president can sign where you get the money back you've given towards, say, like, restitution or court fines? I think I don't know because it didn't apply in my case. I think, yeah, that the president can, some of his clemency can alleviate restitution. I didn't have, again, there were no victims in this. I didn't have restitution. The only thing was as part of the punishment, the trial

judge assessing this fine that was already in the treasury, that a pardon does not undo. And that's what kept the case from being mooted and allowed us to still go forward to the Supreme Court. So how did you get the pardon? I was like, I can't sit here and pretend that I was a fly in the Oval Office. Like, it came as a shock, piecing some things together after the fact, and this is like somewhat deducing, because we were days away from submitting the Supreme Court petition and because the government would have had to defend the case in front of it. Potentially there was like some cross, like maybe the Solicitor General's office and the White House Counsel's office, I think the case, the looming fact of our filing

our Supreme Court petition might have put the case a little bit more on the profile of the Oval Office and of the White House, who then kind of when they're thinking, like, what, I do believe that they thought the case was, you know, unrighteous and horrible and they don't like, I don't know, this sort of like lawfare, whatever you want to call it. But also the government would have had to defend it in front of the justices. So I think that combination might have contributed to them saying. But the truth is like, I don't know. No one is like, hey, here's the exact reason and why and how.

But you don't think someone submitted one on your behalf? Or like, how does it just randomly come on the radar when you haven't even submitted the, you know, the appeal to the Supreme Court yet? Well, because we had, I mean, it was very much known. Like, there is paperwork that you file saying we are going to be submitting something. The case had profile with the Justice Department knowing that we were about to file our petition. So like that part was known. It wasn't some secret that we were going to be appealing. And that that gave it, I think, profile in both DOJ and in the White House. You know, it's interesting hearing from someone that's on the opposite political party that they got a pardon from Trump too. especially in today's climate, of everyone hating on pardons and going back and forth with each other. Yeah, look, I mean, I...

We have a very polarized country, as you might imagine. Like, I have more nuanced views on these things. I mentioned my Catholic faith and, like, I take seriously, like, welcoming the stranger. So that means that there are policy views in this administration that, like, you know, my own... I don't agree with. at a personal level, this act of clemency and grace, which we believe was, you know,

we didn't seek it out, but believe was warranted. Like our family has unbelievable appreciation and gratitude for that. And I'm also, I don't know, I think this is, maybe it's a Catholic thing. Maybe it's having sort of like what I've seen of the system. I have dwelt on this notion of grace, right? Like justice is when the deserved outcome happens. right? Obviously, I don't think that's what happened in the first stages of my case. Grace is, it's unearned by definition, right? And I don't know, I wish we lived in a time when people,

I don't know, were more pro grace. Can I say that? I don't know, people going back to kind of what changed in politics from the time I started, like, these are very vitriolic and what's the, German, or Schadenfreude, like sort of almost seem like wanting bad things to happen to other people. I don't know. I think, I think like our country needs grace. So it's actually, I never expected in my life to receive a presidential pardon, but I want to be on the side of like, yeah, letting grace be a compounding thing. But no, it was, it was a total shock. And in terms of, I mean, my team at Jones Day are some of the most respected, um, lawyer, expect, respected, experienced high profile lawyers in the country. They had a goal. That goal was to go

win a Supreme Court case. Not so I think it came to our team as a big surprise as well. What do you think this experience taught you overall? Oh, it taught me a lot of things. One, I mean, I've kind of, a lot of things. You know, I was already an advocate for reforms in the American criminal legal system. There's no substitute for seeing it firsthand. So, you know, a lot of my bandwidth and energy in my life going forward is going to continue to be involved in that. At a personal level, I mean, it's made me grateful I married the woman that I did. It's taught me that I'm a pretty tough guy. Like, you know, some serious punches and arrows were thrown at me. And I feel like I've come through

it whole and buoyant and like I haven't lost, you know, I guess my optimism. What else has it taught me? It has, it has deepened my faith. You know, I, I think I don't wish suffering or unjust outcomes on anybody. But I think that that's part of what we are given as human beings. And I think, you know, finding our inner resilience, even when things are really challenging and stormy around us, that's possible. What else has surprised me? I don't know.

I guess I'm still processing it at some level. Probably part of the reason why I keep going back to both speak to people at prisons who I don't know and also go back to see friends of prison I do know is like I am not someone that wants to say okay let me shut the door and pretend that whole episode that whole chapter my life never happened like it did happen and I want to redeem it and pay it forward and keep learning from it so I don't know maybe ask me the question again in a year or two what do you have going on now yeah a lot of um I would say writing and speaking are probably like 90% of I'm going to back up one other thing like I don't want to say this changed it

But family time is precious, right? And you learn that when it's taken away from you. So if you said, PG, what's the most important, you know, I've given talks at Harvard and, you know, like top law firms around the country and been published in the New York Times this year. I said, PG, what's the most important thing you've done in the last five months? Coaching kindergarten track. I said, no, I mean, I'm like, I know that sounds a little bit sappy, but it was magical and it was awesome. It was a bonding experience with my son who was on the team, but it was also just joyful. You know, it's like, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, I probably wouldn't regret, like, not having gone to give that next, like, talk at this law firm in Washington, D.C., but you would regret if you, you know, pass up the opportunity to coach your son's kindergarten track team.

So family, number one, but I do still have a pretty busy schedule of writing and speaking. One example, people want to go check it out. One of the most recent pieces I wrote for the media outlet, the free press, was about the number two. I got great access and did a deep dive profile of the number two official at the Federal Bureau of Prison. So this place where, obviously, I was incarcerated and they were overseeing my incarceration, the second in command, he wasn't there when I was there, is again, named Josh Smith.

He is the first person in the history of the Bureau of Prisons to have pre-examined. been in its custody, and he's now helping call the shots there. So stories like that, where there's always a human story, maybe a legal question, a carceral prisons issue. I like if there's a faith dynamic. So yeah, so doing a lot of writing, a lot of journalistic writing, sort of reported essays, and then, like I said, going and speaking at various venues around the country. Well, PG, I appreciate you coming on the show today. This is great. Ian, we got to get you out to Cincinnati, and thanks for having me today. Yeah, I've got to make my way out there. I've never been. Yeah, let us let us know and I know you continue to visit

prisons around the country too, so we'll come come do it in Ohio. Definitely.