Money: The High Cost of Justice

I decided to set aside for the moment all the extremely serious issues you will face as a white collar criminal defendant – loss of freedom and reputation, trauma to self and family, humiliation, incarceration – to focus on another issue near and dear to our hearts: money. As you contemplate the loss of your life as you know it, the issue of money may not come first to mind. But it soon will. Because the simple fact is that the process of justice can be very hard on the pocketbook. 

White collar criminal defendants come in all shapes and sizes, of course, from multimillionaires to lower middle class. Some, such as yours truly, may have once been at one end of the spectrum but soon found themselves at the other as the unfortunate result of asset forfeitures, court-ordered restitution and the like. In any event, unless you happen to fall within the upper reaches of the upper 1%, you will find that, amongst all your other worries, the issue of money will begin to take prominence. After all, the worst concern faced by any criminal defendant is the thought that their family could fall into poverty or destitution as a result of their wrongdoing.

Money worries will most likely start early in the process. Most of us have to work for a living and typically that living is made in someone else’s employ. That employer, whoever he or she may be, will undoubtedly take a dim view of continuing to employ a criminal defendant. Unless you happen to be self employed or a master of concealment, the unavoidable result is that you will find yourself unemployed quite early in the interminable process. Because the process tends to drag on for so long, you will end up living off of savings.

Now, living off of savings does not at first appear catastrophic. Many of us have prepared for a rainy day, after all. But not so many of us have prepared for a rainy day that stretches on into the foreseeable future and promises a soggy morning of asset forfeitures, a drizzly afternoon of attorney bills, and a torrential evening of incarceration and restitution.  And it is these types of expenses that will now skyrocket just as your income dries up. Of course, there may be some mitigating circumstances, such as not being the primary breadwinner or living in a two-income household. If you’re lucky, your assets will not be seized. But the unavoidable fact is that “justice” in our system and our society is very, very expensive.

Take the expense that first comes to mind: lawyer fees. As a former lawyer myself, I have witnessed client sticker shock many times. An hour here, an hour there. At hundreds, if not thousands, per hour, it adds up way too fast. Despite this, my advice is to go with the best that you can afford. It’s only your life on the line, after all. In my case, the best that I could afford was nothing at all. And truth be told, it worked out alright. Just because you can’t afford Williams-Sonoma doesn’t mean that Ikea won’t do. It’s just that you may have to do more of the assembling and heavy lifting yourself. But at the lower end it’s really the luck of the draw, which can be a risky path to take. As a former lawyer, I will let you in on a few secrets that could help reduce your bill: (1) Many, if not most, lawyers do in fact negotiate their fees. See if you can get a discount. (2) Billing by the hour must be the worst system ever invented: your lawyer is incentivized to work slowly in order to bill as much as possible. See if you can negotiate a flat fee or a cap. (3) Go over your lawyer’s bills with a fine tooth comb. If it seems like your lawyer is spending too much time in meetings or doing research, she probably is. (4) If your lawyer works in a firm, agree in advance who can and will work on your case. The worst thing in the world is to receive a bill listing time for scores of lawyers you have never met or even heard of.

If you have a family, the question of how they will survive your incarceration financially will become of primary concern. If your assets are sufficient, then I congratulate you: this puts you into a fortunate minority and should ease your mind considerably. Or it may be that your spouse or other family members will be in a position to earn enough to support your family while you are away. Unfortunately, here, I don’t have any magic suggestions as I did for reducing legal bills. It is an issue I am struggling with at this very moment. My unfortunate and unwanted conclusion is that my family will have to adjust to a new, poorer, reality.  My only thought is that this is not a time for pride. Our limited social safety net exists for a purpose, so before you go off to prison look into whether your family qualifies for any assistance. Many of us are loathe to ask parents or siblings for help, but as with public assistance this may be the time to swallow your pride and ask family members for help.

Another financial issue to consider is that it does, in fact, cost money to survive in our prison system. Certain essentials, such as toiletries, flip-flops and the like, are not provided but must be purchased in the commissary. Some prisoners manage to survive without outside help by hustling or doing odd jobs for other inmates, but I’ve heard it is not the most pleasant existence. The maximum you can receive in the federal system is around $300/month. Whether or not you will actually need that much depends entirely upon your personal circumstances and proclivities. I, for one, plan to live on less. But the basic fact is that, if you can in any way afford it, you will want to put aside some cash to keep you in flip-flops for the duration of your confinement.

And now, you say, isn’t that enough? Unfortunately no. I have gone through all the “mandatory costs” that come first to mind but there is one more. You may find yourself, as I did, considering whether or not to “splurge”on what many view to be a non-mandatory supplemental cost: hiring a prison consultant. In my view, as well as my experience, this really isn’t a voluntary cost at all but an essential one, as important as hiring a good lawyer. The unfortunate fact is that lawyers, despite their high fees, do not know everything. Not even close. And this lack of knowledge includes things you might think they should, in fact know: minor things such as prisons, parole, life behind bars, the sentencing process, the Bureau of Prisons, or how to successfully prepare for life after incarceration. These are all issues that will come to concern you greatly and you must watch out for misinformation: my lawyer told me a number of things that were just plain wrong.

Just as with lawyers, with consultants you often get what you pay for. The main thing is that you find a good personal fit, someone you trust, someone who will help you bravely face the present as he prepares you for the future. I did, and it really helped prepare me for what lies ahead. Unfortunately, prison consultants, despite their importance, are not seen by our system as essential, so it’s not as if you can request the court to appoint one for you. If you can’t afford it, I urge you to reach out to consultants and others in this white-collar community of ours. If your experience is like mine, you will find that there is more support out there than you expected. After all, just because we’re felons doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It just means that, more likely than not, we’re poor.

This blog post was also published here, on the Etika LLC blog: The High Cost of Justice. 

Stay good and be free. 

Be good and stay free.

Sentencing: The End of the Line

My sincere apologies for the delay in relaying the big news and also for the road trip accounts which ended somewhat mysteriously at an Ikea store in Utah. No, I didn't drown myself in the Great Salt Lake, get lost in the ball pit at Ikea or just keep on driving until I reached the Amazon (though I was tempted - by the latter, not the former). But sometimes life just happens to overtake social media. 

My short excuse is that somewhere in the Nevada desert I became too preoccupied with what awaited me down the road in San Francisco to continue to air my anxieties for all to see.  The long excuse has something to do with a self-imposed media blackout after the prosecutor got wind of this little blog and twisted my words in a filing to the judge until it sounded as if I were an unrepentant scumbag.  

More on that later.

Before I get to the big news I would like to thank everyone who supported me along the way with calls, messages and e-mails. You really helped to keep my spirits up, so much so that I now look back on my little road trip with warm, fuzzy nostalgia - I almost want to do it again! Although it is a bit anticlimactic, this weekend I will post the account of the final leg of my trip - from Utah through Nevada and on into California. 

My apologies to those who called - including Walt Pavlo, whom I've mentioned before - for the spotty mobile services out there in the wilds of Wyoming. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk with you but that I couldn't hear you. It turns out that that big red coverage map they tout on the Verizon ads may be a bit overstated. 

For those new to this blog a brief recap: I stole money back in 2010 from a Russian oligarch, was caught and reached an agreement last Fall with the U.S. prosecutor handling my case, an honorable gentleman with the same last name as mine: Sprague (different first name though - Doug). I pled guilty in December to one charge - transportation of stolen money - which carried a maximum sentence of 10 years and a big fine. 

Doug Sprague, the prosecutor in charge of my case.  

Because Mr. Sprague and I could not agree on all the facts, we did not reach a formal plea agreement. Nor did we - as is typically the case - hammer out a sentence to be presented to the judge for approval. The federal sentencing guidelines, which are no longer mandatory but are often still followed, recommended a sentence of between 7 and 10 years.  The government was asking for a sentence at the lower end of these guidelines, or approximately 7 years. 

It actually gets a little complicated here, both because sentencing and the guidelines are very complex and because different governmental representatives were requesting different amounts. For the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that I walked into U.S. District Court on Monday facing the possibility, maybe even probability, of a long, involuntary vacation.  Because we had not reached a plea, my fate rested in the hands of the judge to a greater degree than is typically the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson

My sentencing was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. before the Honorable Judge Thelton Henderson. I'm happy to report that I made it washed, shaved and on time, though in case anyone is considering following in my footsteps, I wouldn't recommend driving a rental truck with a car trailer in downtown San Francisco. I wasn't in the best of form, however. I was very nervous and struggling with my fight or flight instinct; a little voice in my head kept telling me to run off down the street. Though she had much less riding on the outcome, my lawyer was nervous too. 

One cause of our nervousness was the use by the prosecutor, Mr. Sprague, of several misleading sentences from this blog in his rebuttal of our sentencing memorandum. You could also say that I put my foot in my mouth - or my thumb on the keyboard - with a sentence he cited that sounded, in isolation, like a putdown of my probation officer. My lawyer told me that she wouldn't be at all surprised if that one ill-considered sentence got me an extra year or two.

KC Maxwell, my court-appointed lawyer

The assigned courtroom was grand and imposing, with high ceilings and wood panelling, the type of stereotypical courtroom you often see in movies. I sat with my lawyer nervously watching the clock and taking surreptitious glances at Mr. Sprague across the room, appearing so deceptively benign in his blue suit. Finally, about 2:50 p.m. the judge rolled in in his wheelchair and court was in session.  I was last on the docket, though the two cases before mine were mercifully quick - the poor man just before me was facing up to 5 years in prison for smoking pot while on parole, which helped me put my plight into perspective and provided me with a lesson to remember for the future.

Finally, I heard my name, stood and walked like a zombie to the podium; I actually do not remember the walk - it was as if I teleported from the back of the courtroom to the podium at the front. The judge turned first to me and I read my prepared statement into the microphone. My lawyer jabbed me several times with her elbow, shook her head and waved her hand, which leads me to think that my presentation was less than perfect. But at that point I couldn't make the words come out fast enough - I just wanted to get to the end as quickly as possible. I will post my speech later but it's easy enough to guess what I said: I expressed my heartfelt remorse in at least one hundred different ways. 

My lawyer spoke next, listing all the reasons why I deserved a light sentence (we were requesting a year and a day). Then the prosecutor spoke, telling the judge why I am the worst human being to walk the face of the earth since Job. It got very confusing with all the "Mr. Sprague's" being thrown about - I couldn't at times tell whether the speaker was referring to me or the prosecutor.

Finally, the big moment: everyone had said their piece and it was now the judge's turn. He read from some prepared remarks and quickly came to the magic words: "downward departure". To my ears, these were the most welcome words in the English language, better at that moment than "I love you" or "You're the sexiest man alive." Although I am decidedly heterosexual, in that instant I fell in love with the man. What the words meant was that the judge had determined, based on the arguments, that I deserved less time than called for by the guidelines and requested by the government. 

He went on for a few more minutes about his views of me and the case. I hung on every word, waiting for the number I knew must surely follow. He was clearly convinced by some of our arguments explaining my contrition and how I tried to make amends, but expressed his doubt that my addiction was fully to blame. It was apparent that he had spent a lot of time with the materials and had clearly carefully considered his position. I will not be one of those prisoners - and I've heard there are many - who complains incessantly about their judge and how they didn't get a fair hearing (though you may find me complaining, every once in a while, about the prosecutor).

As the judge spoke, I realized from the way he read from his prepared remarks that he had determined the sentence beforehand based upon the filings and that nothing we said in court that day had any bearing. It also became clear that he hadn't taken offense at my blog postings. More good news.

Finally, when I was about ready to shout out "How much, your honor," he said it, those words that would determine my fate: 4 years and two months. 

And that was it. There was a bit more talk about restitution, how much time they would give me before prison, stuff like that. The judge also wished me best of luck and the prosecutor shook my hand, as if I had just won an award. But I was no longer listening; I had my number and that's all that mattered.

Now, 4 years is not a trifle, it's a long enough chunk of time. And of course I wish that the judge had pulled another number out of his hat - two years sounds awfully nice to me. My lawyer told me she thought I deserved less. But I walked into that courtroom having decided long ago what sentence I could "live with". That's not to say I would  have killed myself if I got 7 or 8 years, but I would have been awfully depressed. It just so happens that 4 years was the number I'd had in mind all along. 

In part, that's because the the actual number is not as bad as it sounds. The judge recommended me for an addiction treatment program, which will take one year off my sentence. With time off for good behavior (assuming, of course, that I don't misbehave) we're talking about 2 years and a couple months. It also happens to be the number that the original prosecutor on the case - who was unfortunately transferred to another office - proposed way back when this all started. I held that number in my head as a sign of fairness: Mr. Sprague backed out of his predecessor's offer and that rankled me more than anything. 

In short, I can live with my number. I deserve 'it', or if not 'it', than at least something. I did wrong and I long ago prepared myself to suffer the consequences. More than anything, I was tired of waiting, tired of feeling as if my life was out of my hands. This is the bookend on a long painful process, that moment of finality I've been waiting for. I heard my number and now I face my sentence with relief. 

How I Became a Criminal Narcissist

A popularly held belief is that most criminals are psychopathic narcissists, suffering from a personality disorder that causes them to be self-serving, egocentric and uncaring.  I'm not a criminologist, just a criminal, so have no idea whether this holds true.  I'd like to think at the very least that I don't fit the bill although I suppose I'll learn soon enough whether the prisons are filled with such types. But the theory is undoubtedly appealing in that it helps explain to a layman how a criminal can commit a crime when most normal people would be deterred by concern for the victims or the threat of punishment. 

What I do know is that becoming a defendant in a criminal case, after the bad deed is long past if not forgotten, can force narcissism upon even the most selfless of cons.  Where before your life was about ordinary things - work and family and stealing $10 million from an oligarch - suddenly, overnight, everything is about you, you you. What you did, why you did it, what your punishment will be, whether you have made amends, where you will serve your time. 

Your lawyer focuses on you, the judge focuses on you, the victims focus on you, your family focuses on you. You are now, whether you want to be or not, the focus of undivided, if not admiring, attention. Our 15 minutes of fame come in all different varieties after all.  Of course, the whole experience is so inherently awful that you'll never confuse it with winning an academy award.  But it is nonetheless a disorienting time that can mess with your mind. If you're not careful, you can come to believe that you're worthy of all the attention.

Because the process is so overwhelming, it's hard not to fixate on yourself and your plight while, embarrassingly enough (yes, I am guilty of this), discounting others' everyday trials and tribulations as trivial in comparison.  A standard response from a criminal defendant taken from an actual exchange: "Oh, your boss was rude to you at work?  The dog peed on the rug?  Someone honked at you on the freeway?  Well, la dee da. I'm going to jail for 10 years so please forgive me if I don't really give a sh@*t." 

Inevitably, you, the defendant, begin to think that you and your plight are the center of the universe. Believe me, I know of what I speak.

The system itself encourages the fixation.  For example, as part of the sentencing process, friends and family are forced to participate by writing recommendation letters to the judge in support of the defendant. At the very time when these people are most likely hurt and sad and, quite possibly, hating your guts, they must sit down and write letters that extoll you to the heavens as a saint on earth, the next messiah, a modern-day Gandhi. And you, the defendant, must encourage them to reach for the superlatives. For me, this part of the process was painful and embarrassing, as I imagine it was for some of the letter writers. When all I wanted was to hide under a rock in shame and embarrassment, I had to go out and ask the world to sing my praises.  Oh well. Just another aspect of the narcissism the defendant needs to make it through. 

But, lest we forget, regular life goes on.  And on.  And on. The wheels of justice grind oh so slowly. Over the months and even years that you sit, nervously awaiting your fate, some will be born, others will die, wars will start, stars will collide.  Fixating endlessly on the poor, stressed criminal in your midst can be a recipe for disaster. Because where the defendant inevitably turns into a narcissist, those around him must suddenly become the reverse.  (Forgive the digression, but is there a word for the opposite of narcissism? Selflessness? Humility?) 

Where before the defendant's friends and family undoubtedly talked openly about themselves - their hopes, their plans, their desires - they must now subsume all of that to the insatiable demands of the defendant/narcissist.   As a result, everyone suffers: the narcissist because all he can think about is 'poor old me' and those across the table from him, who force themselves to think only about 'poor old him' while putting their own lives on hold.

So my advice, as hard as I know it is, is to embrace life, ordinary life, regular life, everyday life. Don't let the system get you, change who you are, unless of course it helps you change for the better. Defendants, think of others, think of your family.  You are not the only one who is upset or suffering. In fact, in comparison, it is those that surround you who are suffering the most. Families of cons are the forgotten heroes, those who were forced to suck it up, gather the pieces and carry on despite the devastation.  If anything, they suffer more than the cons as they struggle to survive amidst terrible feelings of shame, betrayal and heartbreak.

Friends and families, my advice: don't put your life on hold. Make the defendant in your midst listen to you: to your concerns, your feelings, your thoughts. You owe it to yourself.  And you owe it to him. Your con may struggle at first, overcome with the narcissism the system forces upon him, but in the end you will be doing him a favor by drawing him out of himself, if only for a while.  And you will be doing yourself a favor, by reminding yourself that life goes on.

Go Directly to Jail

Well, I have news.  And, unfortunately, it's not good.  

How I wish I was telling the world, as I have at various times in the past, that I'm the proud father of a new baby, or that I married my sweetheart or that I published a novel.  But no.  Not today.  Today, my news is bad.  Thankfully, I don't have cancer, nor is a close family-member sick.  News related to death, dying and sickness is always the worst.  But among the various sorts of non-medical bad news, this is about the worst that I can think of.  Worse than getting fired, worse than divorce.  Worse - dare I say it? - than having your dog die.  In fact, my news ranks right down there with a burning house or a broken leg.  Come to think of it, I'd actually rather break my leg. On a good news scale of one-to-ten, my news is about a zero.  One if I'm generous.

Sorry, I didn't mean to drag this out, especially since I already more-or-less gave the news away in the title. But now that it's time to announce my news to the world, or, in any event, to my own limited readership, it's surprisingly hard to say.  It's bad, it's embarrassing, it's pathetic.  If I had a rock to crawl under, I'd be doing it right about now.  But here in sub-zero Wisconsin, all I've got are snow drifts.

So here goes....Scrunch up my face, open my mouth, force the words from my throat:  

I'm going to jail.

There.  Putting it in tiny type helped a bit.  As did the fact that, for me anyway, writing is easier than talking. But it was still hard.  The truth is, I can hardly believe it.  I know it's true but it seems like a bad dream, like I'll wake up and it will all be gone.  I'm not saying I'm exceptional, or that I don't deserve punishment.  But as bad as it sounds to say, I always thought of jail as a place for someone else. Which, come to think of it, is probably what most convicted felons say.  Or wish.

The announcement is not exactly cathartic.  I didn't really expect it to be. But I decided to put it up here for all to see as a way to, at the least, come out from the cave I've been hiding myself in.  My friends and family all know already anyway and telling them was much harder than writing the news in my blog.  I sprung it on them as a wonderful Christmas/New Year's present. Now they are diligently drafting me letters of support, telling the judge that, despite my misdeeds, I am still a good person.

In this post I am not going to discuss my crime or my punishment.  That's all for later. But I do want to emphasize that my crime was a nonviolent one, committed while I was a lawyer in the Wild East (Russia) for a notoriously corrupt oligarch.  That said, it was still a crime, a federal felony no less.  And I in no way intend to try to justify myself or blame others.  To paraphrase Popeye: "I yam what I yam and I done what I done."

Going public is actually not for me, although to keep myself honest I pretend that I'm writing a personal journal. I've been hiding away from the world in shame for far too long. By pretending all is well I realized I was doing a disservice. My true and abiding hope is that through honestly sharing my experiences, I may be able to prevent someone, sometime from actually committing a crime. I don't overestimate the influence I will have, but even if just one person questioned their actions as a result of my mistakes I would have brought some meaning to my senseless crime.

I don't intend to leave you hanging.  Or not for long anyway.  In coming posts, I will chronicle my experiences as I wend my way through the criminal justice system and face my punishment.  Let me take you along with me on a vicarious trip I hope you will never have to take and have not taken before. In fact, by writing I hope that I can prevent at least one person from taking this very trip.  All you criminals out there: please read my blog!!!

There are several moving, heartfelt blogs out there written by ex-cons (several of which are listed in the favorite sites link on my homepage), but, maybe unsurprisingly, the thoughts and experiences of this population are underrepresented on the internet.  As an eternal optimist, I decided to try to make the best of a bad situation and use my gift for writing to chronicle my journey.  In so doing, I  hope that maybe I can open hearts and minds, and raise awareness of important issues related to incarceration and the criminal justice system.  I hope too that I can help others going through the same thing as me. Being labeled a felon can make you feel awfully alone, upset and confused. Knowing that you're not the only one out there can be of some comfort.  As I've already said, I also hope that maybe my writing will deter others from following in my footsteps. My experience?  It's not worth it.  Crime doesn't pay.

As I like to say, just because I did a bad thing doesn't mean I'm a bad person.  Unfortunately, we as a society are often too quick to categorize, placing people into baskets of good or bad, worthy or not worthy. I hope that I am able to bring some subtlety to the topic, to open a few eyes, and to further debate.

I'M GOING TO JAIL.  

There we go.  I said it again.  No turning back now.