White Collar Advice

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...