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Nina Marino and Joe Whitley welcome Joseph De Gregorio, Founder and President of Sentencing Advocacy Group, to the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section's White Collar Talks podcast for a discussion of federal sentencing mitigation, downward variances, and why effective sentencing preparation begins long before the hearing.

Building on De Gregorio's article, "The Mitigation Revolution: A Practical Guide to Engineering Drastic Federal Sentence Reductions," published in the Summer 2026 issue of the ABA's Criminal Justice magazine, the conversation explores the critical role of the presentence investigation (PSI), presentence report (PSR), personal narrative development, documented accountability, rehabilitation, and evidence-supported mitigation strategies in federal white-collar criminal cases.

De Gregorio has worked on more than 500 federal matters nationwide, including consulting on the widely reported 2025 federal case involving Mathew Bowyer. He is a published contributor to Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Law360, and serves on Law360's 2026 Criminal Practice Editorial Advisory Board. His work has also been featured in Business Insider and Us Weekly.

Through Sentencing Advocacy Group, De Gregorio works alongside federal defense counsel and defendants nationwide on presentence preparation, sentencing mitigation, and post-sentencing planning. He also serves on the National Advisory Board of the Princeton-based Petey Greene Program, supporting educational opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.

The episode offers practical perspectives for defense attorneys, defendants, and families on how early preparation, authentic accountability, and verifiable documentation can help develop a credible and comprehensive federal sentencing record.

Explore the Mitigation Revolution Framework here, and read The Mitigation Revolution in ABA Criminal Justice Magazine. 

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You may have noticed, while driving down a street or highway, the proliferation of cameras on traffic lights and other structures.  Some of these cameras are recording your vehicle license plates and other features.  And in some instances, this data is being stored and made available both to government agencies and private parties.  For law enforcement, the aggregation of this data can be an incredibly powerful investigative tool, helping investigators to catalog a vehicle’s—and therefore its driver’s—historical patterns of movements and locations, as well as its likely future patterns.  But that power is exactly what concerns privacy rights activists like Chad Marlow, Senior Policy Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, and Michael B. Soyfer, an Attorney at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia.  We caught up with them to discuss the implications of this powerful technology.

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We are well into the era of artificial intelligence and TikTok, and both are having dramatic impacts on our lives.  Trial practice, and criminal defense practice, are not immune from that influence, which is perhaps unsurprising given that trials and criminal defense are a mirror, in some ways, of the state of our society at large.  

We had the opportunity to catch up with David Oscar Markus to discuss artificial intelligence and TikTok, and its impact on criminal trials.  David is a highly regarded and respected criminal defense lawyer, host of the wonderful “For the Defense” podcast, and has represented celebrity defendants and politicians in cases of national import, among them Florida gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum, and Ghislaine Maxwell.  

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In this White Collar Talks episode, ABA CJS Chair Nina Marino and program co-Chairs Joe Whitley and Brian McEvoy discussing the upcoming 12th Annual Southeastern White Collar Crime Institute in Braselton, GA, September 9-11th. 

For over a decade, the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Southeastern White Collar Crime Institute has been the premier regional program for professionals engaged in the defense, prosecution, and adjudication of complex white collar criminal matters.

Throughout its history, the Institute has evolved to reflect shifting enforcement priorities and policy developments across federal law enforcement agencies. Programming has been carefully calibrated to address the most current issues in the field, aligned with the changing landscape over multiple administrations. The Institute continues to offer timely, practical insights into the latest developments and trends in the white collar space.

Register now at https://events.americanbar.org/event/64904c10-ce7d-4c3c-b15f-c31449a8e262/summary

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Jennifer Doleac is a Stanford-educated economist, a former college economics professor, and the author of The Science of Second Chances:  A Revolution in Criminal Justice, published by Henry Holt and Company and available in print as of February 24, 2026.  

We spoke with Jennifer about her new book, which is billed as “Freakonomics for criminal justice,” and explores real-world experiments that suggest what policy changes and incentives offer the greatest hope of true criminal justice reform.  Doleac takes the reader through each stage of the criminal justice process, from arrest, to prison, and release, to identify data-driven solutions to make our society both safer and less punitive at the same time.  

Doleac is the Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy focusing on evidence-based public policy.  She is also a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, Time, and Bloomberg Opinion, and host of the Probable Causation podcast on law, economics, and crime.

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When a person is sentenced to death, the case is not over.  Some of the most critical legal work happens after the trial and direct appeals are finished. That’s where habeas attorneys step in, often years later, to uncover constitutional violations, investigate what was missed, and ask a fundamental question: did the system get it right?  

John Hutchins has spent years representing death row inmates in these high-stakes post-conviction proceedings.  He’s also been active in the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project, which focuses on improving the quality of legal representation in capital cases and addressing systemic gaps that can shape life-or-death outcomes. 

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“White Collar Talks with Nina and Joe” episode features Lucian Dervan, discussing the upcoming 2026 Global White Collar Crime Institute, July 13-14, 2026, in Singapore. which will bring together senior practitioners, government officials, judges, and scholars to examine the evolving and increasingly complex landscape of international white collar crime. Hosts are Nina Marino and Joe Whitley.

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In 2007, FBI agents showed up at the home of Portia Louder and her husband Chad.  Their youngest of five children was just three months old at the time.  Seven years later, in August 2014, Louder pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy.  And on the morning of April 21, 2015, she and Chad left their home in Utah on a 14-hour drive to the facility where Louder would self-surrender in order to commence her seven-year sentence.

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This being “Second Chance Month,” it’s a perfect time to share our discussion with Jessica Jackson and Erin Haney—respectively, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Policy Officer of the REFORM Alliance, the justice initiative founded by Philadelphia-born and Grammy-nominated rapper Meek Mill and others.

When Mill was sentenced, in November 2017, to a term of two to four years in prison for technical parole violations, the sentence was a catalyst for the criminal justice reform movement.  In January 2019, Mill and fellow rapper Jay-Z together formed REFORM, following Mill’s release.  Mill and Jay-Z were joined by a group of philanthropists and activists, several of whom, including Boston Patriots owner Robert Kraft, sit on REFORM’s Board of Directors.

Our guests, Jessica Jackson and Erin Haney, each have their own interesting stories to tell about their work in the criminal justice reform movement.  It was a pleasure to welcome them to the JustPod.

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Program Co-Chairs Maggie O’Donell and Aitan Goelman discuss the history of the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s White Collar Crime Institute and the upcoming 2026 program on March 10-13, 2026 in San Diego, CA.  "White Collar Talks" are hosted by Nina Marino and Joe Whitley.

The ABA White Collar Crime Institute is the nation’s premier forum for insights, updates, and expert analysis in the field of white collar crime. This annual event brings together leading practitioners, in-house counsel, judges, academics, and enforcement officials for an in-depth exploration of the most pressing legal, regulatory, and ethical issues impacting the white collar landscape today.