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White Collar Advice

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 these difficulties.

At White Collar Advice, our dedicated team focuses on assisting those seeking to learn how to:

Avoid charges or get the shortest sentence possible.
Serve their sentence in a federal prison camp or a facility with the lowest possible security level.
Establish meaning and confidence while in federal prison.
Transition back into society and pursue a new career path.
Create a record that leads to increased liberty during supervised release.
Our podcast offers more than just generic information through a quick internet search. We prioritize delivering insightful and personalized content to our audience.

As the host, I bring a unique perspective to the table. As a successful stockbroker at Bear Stearns and UBS, I specialized in representing professional athletes and hedge funds. My journey through the criminal justice system, including a felony conviction for securities law violations, has given me valuable insights. For an in-depth account, grab a free copy of Lessons From Prison at WhiteCollarAdvice.com.

White Collar Advice has also become a trusted resource for numerous media outlets, including Dr. Phil, The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, The Washington Post, Fortune, The New York Post, BBC, ABC, and NBC.

If you have questions or inquiries, please contact us at Support@WhiteCollarAdvice.com or call 818-424-2220.

I appreciate your interest in our podcast. We look forward to sharing valuable knowledge and empowering you with the information you need to navigate the complexities of the criminal justice system.

Justin Paperny

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August 18 · 1 min
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 are overwhelming, and plenty of people, including him until he went to jail, never start. Maybe you want to engineer an earlier release, so begin answering that. Second, why are you going to prison? There was a breakdown, a fracture, that compelled you to go rogue, to launder money, to break the law. Invest the time in good literature and philosophy, the dead thinkers, and understand what led you here, because then it never happens again and you're in a position to share your story appropriately. Third, it isn't enough to say it in your mind. We're our own best producer. You have an idea, you convince yourself why it won't work, and you never start. Write out what you intend to do, deliberately and methodically. That's work, and if you don't see value in the writing you'll stop on your first bad day. Fourth, and most important, never play the victim. Don't take the bait that it was the judge, the lawyer, or the DOJ looking to make an example out of you. You pled guilty. Own it. The people who own it and never play the victim have much better lives, because claiming the victim turns a 37 month sentence into a life sentence. I don't want that for you or your young family.
August 17 · 1 min
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 trip in Billings, Montana, I'm flying home, and terrible weather in Denver has me delayed two hours, then another two. I'm not complaining. I'm sitting here alone listening to a Jim Rohn audiobook. I'm not standing for count. I'm not doing a fire drill at 2 a.m. When I share those details with my son I'm not glorifying prison, and I'm not glad I went. I'm talking about the perspective I found. If you go through this experience, I hope you find that perspective too.
August 17 · 1 min
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 get home. I reminded him that prison doesn't change the fact that he ran a successful business for more than 20 years and holds an undergraduate and a master's degree. He owned the conviction and accepted responsibility for it, but he isn't thinking like an underdog. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about that in David and Goliath. As a convicted felon looking for work, he's the underdog. So own it, talk about what you learned, say you're a better executive now because you understand the collateral consequences, and don't just talk about it. Write it. Build it out. Document it. There's also value in learning to tell your story. Go to business schools, USC, Stanford, the places I went. Accounting professors will welcome you. Educate young minds on the consequences of cheating, and you never know what comes from a professor who is now in your network. He says he's going to take the advice this time. We'll see.
August 15 · 1 min
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 where you already are, at the bottom. If he's working the fry machine at a fast food place, he still gets to watch YouTube, watch Netflix, turn the channel, meet a girl, order his own food. All of that is an improvement. The worst day out here is better than the best day in prison. They don't see it that way, and that's why these guys keep coming back to prison.
August 15 · 1 min
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, a sentencing memorandum he never reviewed, and the longer sentence he absolutely knew was coming, and he's blaming everybody else. The lawyer is an opponent. The prosecutor is an opponent. The judge is an opponent. I told him how he gets back on track, and telling people what they don't want to hear doesn't always help the sale. He has to own his bad strategy. Not holding his lawyer accountable and not preparing properly for the probation interview and for sentencing is his own failure. Learn from him, do better, or live with continued regret.
August 14 · 1 min
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 won't, and here's why. A consultant in Florida who has been to prison twice told someone he might as well go to trial, because if he loses the sentence is the same either way. That guy got nine or 10 years. Another guy, apparently because he has some followers on Instagram, told a doctor to take the deal since he would get the mandatory minimum of two years for identity theft. The doctor got four years. We're not lawyers. I have a degree from USC and I teach from 17 years of lived experience, much of it learned from my partner Michael. Nobody but your lawyer should be reviewing your indictment or your plea. That's why they went to law school and that's why you hired them. What you can influence is the process. Be vested with your lawyer. Make sure they understand the facts, and stop telling half truths, minimizing, and dodging. I don't want you signing a plea you don't agree with because you didn't work well with your lawyer. Ask better questions, like why haven't the Dodgers won in August, and what are you doing to work better with your lawyer.
August 14 · 2 min
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 visited me twice a month in prison, was in his second year with the Montreal Expos. He finished third or fourth in Rookie of the Year voting the year before, then got off to a bad start and felt the manager wasn't a fan and wouldn't play him against lefties. I was in Montreal watching the Braves play the Expos. Chipper hit a pop fly, Brad dropped it, and Brad had a bad game. He thought he was getting sent down to the minors. That night at dinner in Montreal, Chipper recognized Brad, called us over, and for 10 or 15 minutes told him he was there for a reason, that he was a hitter and a force, to go through the process and stick with it, that these are the ups and downs of baseball. Brad appreciated it. It was a veteran talking to a younger player. When I saw Chipper in the Bahamas with his family I didn't disturb him. He won't remember me. If you have five or ten minutes and something worth telling someone, you never know what it does for them.
August 13 · 2 min
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 years. What I said was that a judge may give a longer sentence to account for the reductions: a year off from the First Step Act, another year to offset the drug program, and up to 12 months in the halfway house for good conduct. Three years with FSA, RDAP, and halfway house. He said that's exactly what happened, that his judge knew he would get a year from FSA and a year from the drug program, so he gave him the two years. I asked how he knows. He said he just knows, from the way the judge spoke to him and the way the judge listened to victims who had it out for him. My answer was to prepare differently. Recognize the strategy is flawed and isn't working. Write a letter to your judge. Write a letter to the probation officer who will approve your job in the halfway house, and if that job is KFC, nothing wrong with the colonel, though you probably want something else. Ask better questions about what you can create that doesn't exist, instead of playing director in your own mind.
August 13 · 1 min
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 men who were taken into custody at their guilty plea, remanded that day, and never saw freedom again. You're free, and that's your chance to prepare. Make sure your judgment and commitment order is correct. Did your lawyer ask for a specific prison, not the closest prison to your home, which could be several places or a detention center? Did he ask for specific programming like the drug program? The judge may say it's up to the Bureau of Prisons, but he's happy to recommend it. From his 323 number, his lawyer could have asked for the drug program at Lompoc, but they have it at the low, not the camp, so the closest could be Yankton or Leavenworth. Ask for a specific prison, a specific surrender date, specific programming, and lay out a plan for how you come out of this. In the camps, boredom is what you have to overcome, and then you prepare for the hardest part, which in my case was coming home. You're still free, dude.
August 12 · 30 sec
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 shake your head. Don't give a look of disgust, because the judge will interrupt the victim, chastise you, let the victim continue, and then give you an extra nine months in prison.
August 12 · 1 min
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 victim. Think about what was stacked up behind that head shake: a plea agreement he didn't agree with, Department of Justice press releases that were made up, banks firing him, losing his job, losing friends, not working well with his lawyer, not vested in the probation report, the sentencing memorandum, a terrible allocution. It hit him while the victim was speaking and he couldn't take it anymore. Had he identified what success was, he would have kept taking it a little longer. Nine additional months in prison.
August 11 · 1 min
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 prosecutor. His guidelines were 41 to 51 months and he got 18. He wanted to know why he wasn't home working and paying taxes, why he was in prison at all. He said all of it in front of men who had been in there five, 10, 15, 20 years for nonviolent drug crimes. A buddy called me from Montgomery to tell me about it. Learn to read the damn room.
August 11 · 52 sec
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 going to prison and to document your own journey. More than 9,000 people have done it, and there are more than 14 million words on the website. You can share that work with your judge, with probation officers, and with the halfway house when you need a job approved, whether it's KFC or something else, and that gets you passes and gets you to home confinement faster. It doesn't end at sentencing. I hope this experience becomes an asset for you the way it did for me.
August 10 · 1 min
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 the letters were a lie and said nothing about his character. Two, he wrote that he was so arrogant in the courtroom during the trial that there was no way they were going to give him a break. He knew it was off putting to the judge and he couldn't help it. Three, he told Don King, his former promoter, at the beginning of the trial that another lawyer on the team cared more, understood the case better, and was more vested, and he wanted that lawyer to take the lead. They said no. He acquiesced. So what is your demeanor like in front of a prosecutor, a probation officer, and a judge, and what are you agreeing to?
August 10 · 1 min
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. What I read made me sick. The DOJ convicts most people. They have endless resources. Your name versus the United States of America, and people thin slice it, they form a snap judgment, that's a wrap. So why lie? In this indictment a cooperating informant got the executive to say he would help raise money for another deal, something he wasn't supposed to do. There was no deal. There was no opportunity. They just wanted him to say he would. It was a superseding indictment. He went to prison. At the end of the cartoon, Skeletor tells He-Man, I like to win and I cheat. At least Skeletor tells you. You know where you stand with him. The DOJ does it under the guise of justice, and the odds were on their side anyway.
August 7 · 1 min
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 the judge is inclined to give a shorter one, to balance it out. And he talked about the lawyer, and how credible the lawyer is. He studies the defendant, the background, who they are, the offense, how they got into it, whether it was a one-time crime or something that went on a long time, and the circumstances behind it. Then he assesses how well the lawyer sells it, and whether the lawyer sells it honestly. We're going to golf in a couple of weeks. I'll share more when I get it.
August 7 · 2 min
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 he would make it back. It became a Ponzi scheme, about $7 million, friends and family. I spoke with him 17 months ago and asked what he thought his judge would want to see. He told me he had an MBA, that he got it. I have a degree from USC. So what. That was me at 26, a broker at Bear Stearns thinking I was big time. I told him to wait tables, pick up trash, come to my club and pick up the balls, do something that shows he can earn a living as a law-abiding citizen paying taxes, and build the record he had yet to build. He didn't. At sentencing the judge asked him if he had ever done anything lawfully, if he had ever earned a living that didn't involve cheating and scheming and stealing. Same question I asked him 17 months ago. Six years. I'm angry because he has great parents and a loving family who wanted him to do more.
August 6 · 1 min
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 with a civil agency, and his lawyer proudly said he doesn't admit or deny liability. In 17 years I've watched people go to prison for embezzling $35,000. If you get a pardon or clemency, you should be above reproach. You should set the standard for how to behave. Santos doubled down instead, and he made it worse for everyone who is actually a candidate for clemency. I think it's a real shame, and I think he's an embarrassment.
August 6 · 1 min
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 news in prison, started complaining to Michael, then apologized because he was serving a quarter century. Michael told me he was my friend and he was there to listen. He said my 18 months was traumatic for me and I should not compare it to him. So I told the man thank you, have a great vacation. Whether it's 18 months, three years, a year and a day, or probation, it's severe in your own life. You don't have to argue or convince everyone.
August 6 · 2 min
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 Carlos Mendoza, who isn't even his judge. Mendoza enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school, served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, came home, went to junior college, college, and law school, and Obama appointed him in 2014. Then I asked the doctor why he became a physician. To help people, he said. His father was a physician, he wasn't a great student, he was 35 when he finally finished, and he still has medical bills. The DOJ press release says he went to medical school and into private practice to bilk Medicare. He says that isn't true. I told him it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the probation officer and the judge think. Study your judge. Mirror those values. We started our work today.

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