White Collar Advice

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.

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.

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.

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 take it from you.

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

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 record that actually moves the outcome.

This episode is about that mistake.

Federal sentencing guidelines give a judge a starting point, not a final answer. I have been to more than 1,500 sentencing hearings since I came home from Taft Federal Prison Camp in 2008. I have heard judges mock defendants who claimed conduct they could not document. I have watched upper-guideline sentences handed down because a man wrote a letter saying he cared about his family but never once identified with the people he hurt. And I have watched defendants get below-guideline sentences because they sold the second car, moved to a smaller house, sat for a proffer, and kept every record.

In this episode I walk through what judges actually say at sentencing, what the sentencing memorandum cannot do for you, and what thirty to ninety minutes a day between now and your hearing can build that no lawyer can manufacture after the fact.

If you have been charged, are a target of an investigation, or are waiting for someone else to engineer your outcome, this episode is for you. The guidelines are only the guidelines. What you do today is the record.

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.

• 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 guidelines are advisory after Booker, but judges calculate them in every case and explain any deviation. Most sentences remain within or near the range.
• The Presentence Investigation Report is the document that carries your guideline calculation forward through the entire prison system. The PSR interview is one of the most important moments in the process.
• Understanding your likely range early gives you time to influence it. Our federal sentence calculator provides that number before your attorney, the probation officer, or the judge does.

Justin Paperny

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 defendants don't know: the guidelines are advisory. United States v. Booker made that clear in 2005. Judges must calculate them. They don't have to follow them. This episode explains how the grid works — your offense level on one axis, criminal history category on the other — and what moves each number.

Three levels off for a genuine guilty plea. Role adjustments that can add or subtract years. Cooperation motions that can go below a mandatory minimum. These aren't technicalities. They're levers. We also share something Judge Stephen Bough told Michael directly: the guidelines are generic.

The 3553(a) factors are where the judge finally looks at you as a human being — your history, your circumstances, what you need to become a contributing member of society. That's your opening. The defendant who shows up with nothing gets sentenced by the grid. The defendant who shows up with a documented human story gives the judge something to work with. The math is the starting point. The record you build is what changes it.

Best,

Justin Paperny