PODCAST · education
White Collar Advice
by Justin Paperny
Whether you're a defense attorney, a criminal defendant, or someone eager to learn about sentencing, federal prison, and white-collar crime, our podcast is an excellent resource. It's never too soon or too late to begin preparing for a government investigation, and here's why:Statistics demonstrate the potentially life-altering consequences of encountering the criminal justice system. Beyond the initial indignity of an arrest or the notification of a criminal investigation, those targeted by law enforcement face additional challenges:How will this situation impact my career and earning capacity?What changes will my life undergo if I receive a federal prison sentence?How will my family members be affected by my term of confinement?In the face of such complex challenges, consulting with a competent defense attorney is crucial (please note we are not lawyers and do not offer legal advice). A skilled attorney will guide the criminal justice process and help individuals navigate thes
Episodes
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Coming Home From Federal Prison Camp
What happens when you prepare for federal prison, do the work, come home, and still struggle to open a bank account? I've been home since 2009. In this conversation, we talk about earning a living after prison, the shame of a conviction, and trying work you've never done before. I share how...
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Was It a Mistake or a Bad Choice?
I finished Sam Harris's Free Will last night, 1 hour and 14 minutes on Audible, and it made me look again at how I went from USC and Bear Stearns to lying to FBI agent Paul Bertrand. Harris argues we don't choose our thoughts, our genetics, our parents, or our early experiences. That idea is...
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Isn't What You Do Manipulation? Question 11
A journalist keeps hitting me with one question: isn't what you do manipulation? So on question 11, I stop and read her the definition: to control or influence cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously. Then I walk through it. Sentencing advocacy is influence, yes, but so is the government's case…
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Going to Prison Does Not Qualify You to Give Advice
A journalist writing about white collar crime sent me about 50 questions before our call. We cut it to 25, and I answered the first three here. Who I am and why anyone should listen to me: going to prison does not qualify you to give advice, and neither does failing. What matters is what you did...
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Why I Told This Lawyer Not to Ask for Probation
I got a call from someone new to our community, asking me to speak with his lawyer, a guy with more MVP awards than Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Magic Johnson combined. Two things stood out. The defendant didn't know his own guidelines were more than seven years, even after signing a plea...
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USC vs North Carolina and the Ghost of 1995
I look back on playing baseball at USC, where making the travel roster to Stanford felt like a big deal. I remember grounding out weakly against Cal State Fullerton reliever Mark Kotsay, who went on to a 17 year career in the majors, and the years I spent punishing myself over that at bat, a…
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Her Father's Money Came With Two Conditions
On my way back from Santa Barbara, I stopped near Ojai and met with a woman whose husband had just surrendered to federal prison for ten years. I write about this meeting in my new book, After the Fall, chapter 14. She knew he was under investigation but not how severe; he kept her in the dark…
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Just Get Him Home, She Said For Years
Every time we spoke, she'd say just get him home from federal prison. Before he went in, her husband blamed the court, the lawyers, the judge, and the co-defendant who cooperated against him. In prison he complained about his bunkie, the food, the commissary, his job, and asked why he was in a…
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He Called Me Before the FBI Did. He Still Got 6 Years
Nearly three years ago I spoke with a man who told me he was embezzling money. He was not the target of an investigation. I told him to stop the bleeding and not make it worse, and I referred him to five lawyers. He didn't call one. He had convinced himself, the way I once did, that another wire...
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Ippei Blamed Shohei in His Letter to the Judge
Someone new to our community asked how Ippei got 57 months while his co-defendant, Matthew Boyer, got a year and a day. I told him it's not the right comparison. Ippei stole $16 or $17 million, and even if Shohei is the greatest athlete in the world and a billionaire, he's still a victim, and the...
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The SEC Didn't Get Through to Me. Prison Did.
When I went to federal prison I got the severity of my conduct. Standing for count, the 2 a.m. fire drills, visiting with crying parents. You realize maybe you can do better. When I settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission, really a toothless agency, I didn't get it. I had to go…
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She Was Deceived Too
I was on a phone call with a federal defendant and his wife, and twice she said, you got that right. Most people who come into our community went into business with good intentions, then things happened and before they knew it they were in trouble. A small number go into business to steal and do...
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300 Words a Day for 15 Months
What would happen if you went to federal prison and said, I'm going to write 300 words six days a week for the 15 months I'm here? Document what you're reading and why. The lessons you're learning. How you became immersed in a government investigation and why it will never happen again. The steps...
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Making the Bad Choice Seem Reasonable Again
At a sentencing hearing most judges hear I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, I'll spend the rest of my life making amends, I'll pay all my victims back. The judge says, we'll see. Then you serve 24 months. You come home to the bills, the mortgage, the rent, and the rebuilding is hard. You walk to...
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The FBI Told His Wife About the Loans
Eighteen months ago a man told me the FBI betrayed him, destroyed his life, and ruined his marriage. He had lied on some forms to get a loan, then began cooperating, and he decided the FBI were his friends because he was helping them. They don't care about your family, your values, or your kid's...
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He Lied, Pled Guilty, and Got Probation
Judge Wilson told me at my sentencing that he was tired of salesmen turning the other way for money, that most don't get caught, that I did, and that he was going to make an example out of me and send me to prison. The truth is I did much worse than turn the other way. I aggressively facilitated…
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The Best Time to Start Was Five Years Ago
Five years is a long time to deal with a white collar case, and finally getting clarity is a good thing. An executive facing sentencing has done his best to show why he's a candidate for leniency, but he keeps missing the message because he focuses on himself. On our call I asked him who the hero...
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Go to Your Computer Right Now and Purge
An FBI agent left a card on an executive's front door, and I told him this on my way home from dinner with my good friend Lawrence. Don't make matters worse. You make it worse by lying and by reaching out to people you shouldn't reach out to, and it's easy to want that because you need comfort...
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They Want It All. This Is a Total Disaster.
An executive texted me: they want it all, this is a total disaster. Earlier this week I did a live YouTube video on how to communicate with the government, starting with their perspective. Eighteen months ago this guy chose not to plan and not to put himself in the shoes of a prosecutor who wants...
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Call Me a Strict Parent
Two things happened in the last 30 minutes. Three kids, about 17, no helmets, on their iPhones, riding e-bikes, ran me off the side of the road and I ended up in a bush. On the way in I thought, if I die, I'm glad my family is taken care of. A little dramatic, since it was a bush, but that's what...
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Michael Santos Told Me About Roman Fabrizi
July 9th, 2008, four or five months into my sentence, around 3:45 in the afternoon just after mail call. Michael Santos asked if I knew the new prisoner who had transferred in from another prison, about 20 feet away, loud, showing off, telling everyone there's no deal he can't close, the jets he...
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Pity Was Worse Than Any Day in Prison
I was working late with Breaking Bad on in my office, season two, episode six, and when Gretchen told Walter she feels so sorry for him I stopped and filmed this. When I was a defendant I took terrible care of myself. In-N-Out four nights a week. A thing of Red Man chewing tobacco every two days....
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Don't Pack Anything You're Not Prepared to Lose
He called 90 minutes before surrendering to the camp at Fort Dix and wanted to know what to pack. I told him the longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive it is to get home. He said he didn't want to talk about the train, he wanted the packing list. So here's my story. Three days...
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How Do I Leave Prison Better Than I Went In
A crypto executive, married with two young children, emailed me. He's going to prison for 37 months for money laundering and mail fraud, and he asked how he can leave prison better than he went in. Four things. First, what is the next right thing for you to do? The consequences of a conviction…
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My Son Asked If Prison Was Kind of Fun
My young son asked me if I'm happy I went to prison. I asked him why he would ask that. He said it seems like it was kind of fun. I told him I'm not happy I went, and I don't want him to go. I speak about it favorably because I learned so many valuable lessons. Here's a small one. I had a great...
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Start Thinking Like the Underdog You Are
About six months ago a former accountant who served 15 months for payroll protection fraud called me with one question: how do I disclose my felony conviction to potential employers. He didn't take the advice, because he called me today with the same problem while I'm in Montana still trying to…
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Matt Cox on the Fry Machine and Freedom
Matt Cox on the guys who won't take a job because it pays a hundred dollars a day instead of 300 or 400. Work five days at a hundred and you have 500 you didn't have before. He says they would rather stay in prison than do something beneath them, and he asks what's beneath you when prison is…
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He Told Me His Lawyer Wouldn't Let Him
A doctor back east called me. I spoke with him about nine months ago and he told me his lawyer wouldn't let him do the work. I said he could have a different conversation and try to engineer something different. He said no, he won't let me. So now he has a probation interview that isn't correct…
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Instagram Followers Don't Make You a Lawyer
I'd rather be in prison than on a fast boat in the ocean, but my kids love it and I love my kids. When I got off the boat in the Bahamas I had a kind text from a guy who scheduled a call with me for Monday. He asked me to review his indictment and his potential plea agreement before we talk. I...
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What Chipper Told My Best Friend Over a Drink
I saw Chipper Jones at dinner in the Bahamas and it took me back to 1999. I'm not comparing myself to a Hall of Famer, the second greatest switch hitter of all time behind Mickey Mantle, but it shows what one conversation can do. My best friend Brad Fulmer, who came to my sentencing hearing and...
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Stop Playing Director in Your Own Mind
Back from the Bahamas, wrecked. I got a text that said please call me immediately, so I opened a Coke Zero and called. He told me I didn't know him, that he was on my live YouTube video two weeks ago and made a note of something I said, and that it proved why his judge gave him an extra two…
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I Was Just Sentenced, What Should I Do Now
Someone left the courthouse and texted me: I was just sentenced, what should I do now? I don't know if he's married, if he has children, how old he is, or the length of the sentence, so I answered on a macro level for anyone who was just sentenced. Start with gratitude. You will serve time with…
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How to Get Nine More Months in 30 Seconds
A case study in 30 seconds on how to get a longer federal prison sentence, probably nine months longer. Your victim, someone you hurt mentally, financially, and emotionally, is speaking to your very cynical judge who used to run the fraud division. They're describing the damage you caused. Don't...
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He Shook His Head and Got Nine More Months
Did you ever see Animal House? Thank you sir, may I have another. Someone asked me why a defendant would shake his head in front of the judge while the victim was speaking, and why the judge gave him an extra nine months for it. He had had enough. He didn't believe the victim was actually a…
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Learn to Read the Damn Room
A guy on his second day at Montgomery federal prison camp stood in the chow hall and complained. The judge said at his sentencing it was clear he would never return to another courtroom. He paid his lawyer around $800,000, a former prosecutor who ran the fraud division and knows the judge and the...
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Before Prison I Said Lock Them All Up
Before I went to prison, if you had asked me about people in prison I would have said they're all bad, lock them up, they're felons, they're criminals. Then I went, and I saw guys working hard who never had the opportunities I had and squandered. Prison Professors gives you a way to help people...
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Three Mistakes in Seven Pages of Undisputed Truth
Three takeaways from the first seven pages of Mike Tyson's autobiography, Undisputed Truth. One, he wrote that from his character reference letters you would have thought he came up with a cure for cancer, had a plan for peace in the Middle East, and nursed sick kittens back to health. He knew…
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At Least Skeletor Tells You He Cheats
I read something this morning, then wasted time watching Masters of the Universe, and Skeletor's line at the end took me right back to what I read. Someone home from prison, prosecuted under the Biden DOJ, asked for my thoughts on his indictment. I told him I'm not a lawyer but I would read it....
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Why He Asks for More Time Than the Judge Wants
I had dinner with a prosecutor tonight. I wasn't expecting it. I was at my club working on our legal directory, which will have about a hundred lawyers in it soon, and a friend who golfed with him brought him in. Two things stuck with me. He admitted he may ask for a longer sentence when he knows...
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The Judge Asked If He'd Ever Earned a Living Lawfully
I've attended more than 1,500 sentencing hearings. This one was a guy who graduated college, went straight for an MBA, and built a business raising money to make investments. Three good quarters, then a bad quarter. Instead of telling his investors he lost money, he covered it up and told himself...
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Thank You, Have a Great Vacation
Someone stopped me at the water park in the Bahamas today while I was with my family. It happens about once a month. He was complimentary about the videos, then said we've got to acknowledge I only served 18 months, that it was nothing. He said it kindly. It took me back to 2008, when I got bad...
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Freedom Doesn't Prove You Changed, Conduct Does
Freedom doesn't prove you've changed. Your conduct does. George Santos was sentenced to 78 or 87 months for fraud and identity theft, went to prison, complained, got clemency, came home, and then bet in the prediction markets that he would be somewhere. He made $35,000. He got caught. He settled...
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Study Your Judge, Then Mirror Those Values
I had an early Zoom call with a doctor indicted in Florida and his lawyer. The doctor couldn't reconcile two things: the FBI agent told him at his arrest that they were in the bottom of the eighth inning, and his lawyer told him to sit back, relax, and wait for discovery. So I brought up Judge...
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Nobody Can Take This Investment From You
I read a quote from Warren Buffett. He wrote that the best investment you'll ever make is in yourself. Learn to communicate on paper and in person. If you can't get your idea across, it's like winking at a girl in the dark. Nothing happens. Get good at it, raise your own value 50%, and nobody can...
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Mackenzie Shirilla Is Documenting Herself Into a Life Sentence
58 pages of conduct reports. Sex toys on a video visit. Stolen earrings from the kindwear room. Fake eyelashes. Mackenzie Shirilla has a 2037 parole hearing. Parole boards don't believe words. They look at records. She is off to a bad start. Justin Paperny
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Federal Sentencing Guidelines: Why You Don't Have a Math Problem
Most defendants I speak with think they have a math problem. Loss amount, offense level, criminal history points. They obsess over the guideline range and do nothing to change it. Earlier today I spoke with a defendant back east who has spent weeks on the math and almost no time building the…
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The Executive Who Practiced His Apology for Weeks and Still Got 18 Extra Months
He rehearsed his apology for weeks and still got 18 extra months. In this episode, I explain why vague remorse fails in federal court, what judges actually look for, and why the people who get better outcomes usually start building their case for leniency long before sentencing day.
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What Are the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and How Do They Work?
Key Takeaways The federal sentencing guidelines create a point-based system using offense level and criminal history to produce a recommended range in months. Every enhancement — loss amount, victims, position of trust, obstruction — adds points and directly extends the likely sentence. The...
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Federal Sentencing Guidelines 101: How to Calculate Your Prison Range
The federal sentencing guidelines exist because before 1987, two people convicted of the same crime could receive wildly different sentences depending on which judge they drew. Congress decided that was unacceptable. The Sentencing Reform Act fixed it — at least on paper. Here's what most...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Whether you're a defense attorney, a criminal defendant, or someone eager to learn about sentencing, federal prison, and white-collar crime, our podcast is an excellent resource. It's never too soon or too late to begin preparing for a government investigation, and here's why:Statistics demonstrate the potentially life-altering consequences of encountering the criminal justice system. Beyond the initial indignity of an arrest or the notification of a criminal investigation, those targeted by law enforcement face additional challenges:How will this situation impact my career and earning capacity?What changes will my life undergo if I receive a federal prison sentence?How will my family members be affected by my term of confinement?In the face of such complex challenges, consulting with a competent defense attorney is crucial (please note we are not lawyers and do not offer legal advice). A skilled attorney will guide the criminal justice process and help individuals navigate thes
HOSTED BY
Justin Paperny
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does White Collar Advice have?
White Collar Advice currently has 300 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is White Collar Advice about?
Whether you're a defense attorney, a criminal defendant, or someone eager to learn about sentencing, federal prison, and white-collar crime, our podcast is an excellent resource. It's never too soon or too late to begin preparing for a government investigation, and here's why:Statistics demonstrate...
How often does White Collar Advice release new episodes?
White Collar Advice publishes regularly with 300 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to White Collar Advice?
You can listen to White Collar Advice on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts White Collar Advice?
White Collar Advice is created and hosted by Justin Paperny.
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