Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Who do you call when you are in trouble? Craig Rothfeld Founder of Inside Outside

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Who do you call when you are in trouble? Craig Rothfeld Founder of Inside Outside · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:02
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:05
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:08
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:12
  nightmares that set yourself free.
• 0:14
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:16
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:21
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
• 0:24
  There's some humor. Hopefully you can come away with
• 0:27
  a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
• 0:30
  prisons you built up in your own mind.
• 0:33
  All right, welcome back. I have your success in and out.
• 0:37
  Listeners, this is where you come for what happens when your
• 0:40
  worst fear becomes your reality. How do you adapt, survive,
• 0:42
  overcome, set yourself free. I've really been looking forward
• 0:46
  to this one, guys. I mean, for anybody can see, I,
• 0:50
  I've been doing, just hitting the research on my, my, I guest
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  here because Craig, well, this is Luigi Mangione hires Harvey
• 1:03
  Weinstein's prison consultant, Craig Rothfeld.
• 1:06
  That's Fox. And then it goes to page 6 for
• 1:09
  New York Post. He's been busy.
• 1:10
  So we've rescheduled a few times and I'm glad that Craig's made
• 1:14
  the time to do this because I've really been looking forward to
• 1:18
  what he's doing, how he's doing it and and how he's become a in
• 1:23
  a player in this arena that's so needed.
• 1:26
  But give you a little background on Craig.
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  And I want to also before we get started, I want to give a shout
• 1:33
  out to Jeff Grant, who actually connected us.
• 1:37
  He's the founder of the White Collar Support Group.
• 1:40
  He's an attorney. He does a lot of great things in
• 1:43
  the re entry world and and he create he connected Craig and I
• 1:46
  together. So I very much appreciate that.
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  Jeff Brand, if you're out there listening, and I hope you are,
• 1:53
  and and folks, don't forget to like share, follow this thing,
• 1:56
  like it up. It helps the show tell you a
• 2:00
  little bit about Craig. Craig was a former finance
• 2:04
  professional who became a consultant a lot of them high
• 2:08
  profile white collar defendants and he this he he's done this
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  after doing an 18 month stint for investment and tax fraud and
• 2:21
  he founded the company inside outside in 2017.
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  The company advises individuals and their lawyers in the post
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  indictment phase leading up to plea and sentencing.
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  And Craig's also involved in criminal justice legislation and
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  reform and was actively involved in the passage of the less is
• 2:43
  Act more parole reform legislation.
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  And, you know, as he state, as, as Craig states, you know, I, I,
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  I coupled my 22 months defending myself in the 18 months of
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  incarceration to become an expert on the New York State
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  Department of Corrections and Community supervision.
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  I now devote my life to guiding clients and, and their families
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  through time and the New York State prison system and beyond.
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  And he goes into all other states too.
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  But he's a, he's a big expert that is a go to guy in the New
• 3:15
  York world. Obviously, you can tell from his
• 3:18
  client base of who he's been with.
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  And I think it's very impressive how he's done it in such a short
• 3:23
  amount of time creating the space.
• 3:26
  And I really am excited to talk to him about what he does in
• 3:29
  this space too. Before we jump into all that, I
• 3:32
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  deserve. Autoplaza Direct telling Brent
• 4:11
  from Nightmare Success sent you Craig Rothfeld.
• 4:16
  How are you? Brent, good afternoon.
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  I'm, well, nice Friday afternoon, as we both just said
• 4:22
  as we slide into the weekend. Slide into the weekend, Yeah.
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  And like I said, you've been a busy man.
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  And, you know, I was think because I when you get involved
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  in these big cases, you know where it's immediate, you know,
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  it's big news. And then how does it happen?
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  You just get a phone call and it says, hey, Craig, we need you.
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  Yeah, I think first of all, thank you for having me on and
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  I'm glad we can do this. And I think this is our fifth
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  attempt to find. This our fifth attempt, and
• 4:56
  we've gotten to know each other through the process.
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  Oh my God, I, I, I was, I knew I was going to be in my Home
• 5:01
  Office today. I was set.
• 5:03
  I was like hoping no emergencies and it's, it's good.
• 5:09
  It worked out perfectly. Finally, finally good things to
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  people who wait. So yes, I mean, when you're
• 5:15
  talking about the high profile cases, the phone call comes from
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  the attorney, the legal defense team, they are the ones who
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  bring you into cases like this. Yeah, it's it's fascinating.
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  I want to get into all that, but I also want to bring it back to
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  your story. Like what, You know, the Craig
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  Rothfeld before you were inside. Outside what?
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  Bring us back a little bit. What where'd you grow up?
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  Parents, siblings. Where?
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  Where'd all that happen? Yeah, I know.
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  I'd love to. I'm 54.
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  I just turned 54 this month, and I grew up in Oceanside, Long
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  Island. For the listeners who know the
• 5:57
  New York Long Island geography, they're aware.
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  For people who don't know, the simplest way I can say it is if
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  you leave Manhattan, you go E for 20 minutes and you go South
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  for 20 minutes, you'll find the town that I grew up in.
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  And I had a great childhood, really, you know, wonderful
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  childhood out in the suburbs of Long Island.
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  I graduated high school in 1989 and I went to the State
• 6:25
  University of New York at Albany.
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  I wound up going with a lot of my friends.
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  I probably could have, I know I could have gone to other
• 6:32
  schools, but at the time it just sounded like, let me go with my
• 6:35
  friends. And ironically, and I tell this,
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  you know, every time I talk and I will ARP this back, I had gone
• 6:42
  there because they had a school of criminal justice and they had
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  a criminal justice major. And at that point in my life, I
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  was going to be an attorney. We had a family law firm, my
• 6:54
  grandfather, my uncle, my great uncle, my dad was the only one
• 6:58
  who wasn't in it. He's, he's was an educator for
• 7:00
  four years. And that was my path.
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  So it made sense. And I, I went to Albany for four
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  years. Halfway through, I decided to be
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  an accounting major instead. Took that started down a
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  completely different path. Wait.
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  Craig, how does that happen? How does that happen?
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  How do you go from? Critical.
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  Justice major to county, because people will ask, people will ask
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  me, Craig, like I was a political science theater guy
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  and I was going to be an attorney.
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  We got two guys out here. They're going to be attorneys.
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  So my thing was is that, you know, constitutional law, you
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  know, all those different things with political science.
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  But theater, I want to be a trial attorney.
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  So I thought theater would be good for the trial room, you
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  know, in front of the jury and all that.
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  But how in the world does a guy go from the criminal justice
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  journey major to accounting? So I had taken an accounting
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  class which I loved and math was oh I hated.
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  So I was. Science was, you know, God bless
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  the scientists out there and, and, and, and the chemists and
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  the biologists and the doctors and the physics, you know,
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  physically, I mean, it just didn't, you know.
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  But math I loved, I loved them. So I took in a county class and
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  it was great. I loved it.
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  It was easy. I did well.
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  And it was time to pick a major. And it's kind of a simple story.
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  I called my mother and I said, yeah, I talked it through with
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  her. And she said, look, she said,
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  you're going to go to law school, which ironically never
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  did, but you're going to go to a law school.
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  And it's really good for attorneys to know accounting and
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  finance. It's a skill that most of them
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  don't have, she said. So why don't you get a degree in
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  accounting and then go to law school with that?
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  You have plenty of time to learn about the criminal justice
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  system. And that was the that that
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  literally is how it happened. That was it.
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  That was it. And, and at the time, most of my
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  close friends, yeah, good for mom.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can blame her, I guess.
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  We cannot blame her. The my roommate at the time was
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  going to be an accounting major. A lot of my friends are going to
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  be a county major. So OK, I'll be an accounting
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  major, you know, and, and, and I mean, I remember her saying
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  things to me like, you know, there's, there's good job
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  stability in accounting. There's you can do taxes, you
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  can auditing, you can work. So, you know, there was there
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  was things that made sense at the time and, and, and their and
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  their accounting program, which it didn't know this until he got
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  there. I'm not saying this because it
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  was me was one of the most reputable undergraduate
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  accounting programs and heavily recruited by the Big eight
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  accounting firms at that time. OK, so it was like a feeder
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  system into a job when you graduated.
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  So all of that together, we put law school and I'll finish with
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  this. I could go to law school at
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  night. There you go.
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  There you go. So that's how it.
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  Happens. So you roll out of college and
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  what happens? I roll out of college, I have a
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  job waiting for me as I, I'm just repositioning myself.
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  Don't mind me. I have a job waiting for me at
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  Arthur Anderson, which at the time was one of the Big Eight
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  accounting firms. And you know, my senior year I
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  was fortunate to be able to have a good time because I'd gotten
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  the job offer the summer in between my junior and senior
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  year. And I think we, I went home in
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  May and moved back home in May and in 93 did a little
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  travelling on the East Coast with my roommate and went to
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  work. I think around June, I think I
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  started working in like June, June or July.
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  And I spent, I spent about a year in public account and was
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  miserable, miserable, miserable. I mean, it's auditing.
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  Auditing is not accounting. I mean, they're related.
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  But I was just not happy. And I left and wanted to get
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  into financial services. And I did.
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  I went and I went to Lehman Brothers.
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  I mean, maybe this is like a foreshadowing.
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  I've talked about it before me. Arthur Anderson's out of
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  business. Lehman's out of business where I
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  started. My company went out of business.
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  I mean, you know, I mean, you got to find some comedy and all
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  this, but and I learned and I went into retail brokerage and
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  was trained in sales, you know, by some wonderful, great people.
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  And, you know, that started my journey in the financial
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  services world. I spent a couple of years, I
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  think almost four years in retail brokerage.
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  I got my MBA, so I should mention that I went back to
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  school. I went to grad school at NYU at
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  the Stern School of Business, got my MBA and said OK, I either
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  want to be an investment bank or a CFOI don't know which one I
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  want to be. And I ultimately left the
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  brokerage industry and basically became like the internal capital
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  markets coordinator for a company.
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  Wow. So that that's a lot.
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  And so, Craig, in the back of your mind, were you thinking I'm
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  going to break out and start my own investment firm or was it
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  just? No.
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  So at the time I was married to to my daughter's mom.
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  We're we're no longer married. I'm blessed and remarried and I
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  hit the jackpot here. But at the time, my former wife
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  was getting her master's degree in Philadelphia.
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  So we moved at the University of Pennsylvania.
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  So we moved to Philadelphia and the job I took was with
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  Connective, which was a Fortune 250 energy company.
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  It was the merger of, if there's anyone listening in Jersey and
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  the Delmarva Peninsula, it was Delmarva Power and Light and
• 12:43
  Atlantic Energy merged. And we, they, we, we were doing
• 12:47
  debt financings and securitizations.
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  I mean, which you know, for the finance people listening, they
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  get it. For the non finance people, it
• 12:54
  sounds like a headache, but you know, I spent two years doing
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  that and, and my goal at that moment and just so you know,
• 13:02
  where we are right now, where where where circa 19 with circa
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  1999, 2002, 1001 time frame. And I did this thinking, OK, let
• 13:13
  me get corporate experience if I want to go to the CFO route.
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  And I got the job to this day was one of my favorite jobs.
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  The people there were Incredibles in Wilmington, DE
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  and I was all prepared to become an investment banker at Morgan
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  Stanley in debt capital markets. And a couple of things happened
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  that ultimately, you know, made me choose something else.
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  And I don't know if you want me to go into it or not, so I
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  figured I'd pause. But you know, there were like 2
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  formative things that happened that ultimately took me down the
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  very entrepreneurial path I've been on my whole life.
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  What happened? You got my curiosity up.
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  Sure. So growing up, you know, have,
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  you know, like many of us, you have really close friends or you
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  know, some of your best friends from high school and you know,
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  one of them worked down on the floor of the New York Stock
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  Exchange. They you know what they used to
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  call $2.00 brokers? They had an agency firm very
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  close to the family, grew up together.
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  And I'm down in Philadelphia, and I'm, you know, doing all
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  these complex financial transactions.
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  And my former partner, who wasn't my partner, calls me on
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  the phone. And, you know, he was
• 14:32
  complaining about what the price was to buy a seat on the New
• 14:35
  York Stock Exchange. And we spent about an hour and a
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  half on the phone. There's no embellishment about
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  what I'm about to tell you. I picked up a pad.
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  I pretty much put an entire financial statement together for
• 14:45
  him, started running some calculations and I'm like, look,
• 14:48
  you can finance the purchase. I'm like, and if you paid
• 14:50
  principal and interest no higher than his rate, it's lower than
• 14:54
  you leasing a seat right now. And they're like, he's like, OK,
• 14:58
  I'll call you tomorrow. He calls me the next day and
• 15:00
  says, get up here this weekend. And I started moonlighting for
• 15:03
  them. I started working on putting
• 15:05
  together a private placement memorandum to raise the money.
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  And then the planes hit the towers 911 and he said, listen,
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  you can always be an investment banker.
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  Why don't we try to build this company together?
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  I mean, it was a ten person company.
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  He's like, let's just do it. He's like, you could always be a
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  banker. And I was like, you know, at
• 15:29
  that point, everybody's going through their own thing.
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  And I said, you know what, let's do it.
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  And that started really that decision and and then starting
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  in what was my previous company on January 1, 2002 really is the
• 15:48
  first point or the first block in this whole journey that gets
• 15:52
  us here 23 years later. Well, I think it's the reason I
• 15:57
  wanted you to go through that is because I like this show for so
• 16:03
  many different reasons, because, you know, it's a show of it goes
• 16:09
  into 1100 prisons and and, and it's about people who get
• 16:12
  knocked down and they get back up.
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  Re entry is really tough. I mean, I'm sure you know,
• 16:18
  anybody who's listening to this and has gone through what we're
• 16:22
  talking about. It's it's one of the tougher
• 16:23
  things. You know, we talked about going
• 16:25
  to prison stuff re entry's after trying to rebuild back your
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  world. And I think it's always
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  interesting to hear somebody's back story, Craig, because you
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  were setting things in place that really were building blocks
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  to once you got knocked down, you had had that built up in
• 16:47
  your mind how to build that back in.
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  You know, the one thing that they the one thing about re
• 16:52
  entry for people is they don't take your brain.
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  You just can't give up. But your your brain still works
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  as it did before you went through the nightmare.
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  And I think it's interesting that you went through these
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  steps and you then started building a company out of those
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  steps of all that experience you had that has put you where you
• 17:13
  are, which I think's kind of fascinating.
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  I appreciate that. And you know what, if, if you
• 17:18
  want, let's just let's like kind of take a side tangent for a
• 17:21
  moment and then we can come back and pick up 2002.
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  You said something and you, you and I have known each other for
• 17:28
  a short period of time. This isn't rehearsed for
• 17:30
  everyone who's listening. That you said something that's
• 17:32
  almost identical to something I've said before when I've
• 17:36
  talked is that, you know, when I was indicted and I knew I was
• 17:42
  going to do time, you know, there were, there's things that
• 17:47
  I've always said, which is one, they can take my money, they can
• 17:51
  take my freedom, but they can't take my brain right there.
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  They, they, they can't, they can't take my mind, they can't
• 17:57
  take my creativity, they can't take my will, they can't take my
• 18:00
  spirit. They can't take those things.
• 18:02
  So they can take whatever they want, but they weren't going to
• 18:06
  win. And I've always felt fortunate
• 18:09
  and, and I always hope it comes off the right way because
• 18:12
  there's a lot of things I'm not blessed with a lot of skills, a
• 18:16
  lot of things. But somehow my chemistry was
• 18:19
  wired to just never give up. You now know you're not knocking
• 18:22
  me out. And I think that that's the
• 18:24
  important message that I want to convey to people who are inside
• 18:28
  and listening to this is that there are, you know, there are
• 18:30
  things that people can take away from you.
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  And then there are things that nobody can take away from you.
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  And they're only taken away from you if you allow them to be
• 18:39
  taken. And I think that that's a really
• 18:41
  important thing. And I can tell you that when I
• 18:45
  was inside and I went through my process, you know, of Oh my God,
• 18:50
  how the hell did I get here? And then what did I do wrong?
• 18:53
  And then forgive myself and then I knew I was going to be
• 18:57
  successful again. I did not know what it looked
• 18:59
  like, but I visualized it. I dreamt it.
• 19:02
  I had, you know, I had things that I would have been doing for
• 19:06
  a couple years working because I, it was almost four years from
• 19:08
  the day I was indicted till I went in.
• 19:09
  So I rebuilt, so I visualize what that feeling was going to
• 19:14
  feel like again, and it's not what I was doing.
• 19:17
  I mean, you couldn't make this up, and we'll get to that later.
• 19:19
  But I think that that is such a critical message is that you
• 19:26
  know it's over if you allow it to be over.
• 19:29
  And it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean you don't
• 19:31
  crawl through. You know what it doesn't mean.
• 19:33
  It's not like the scene, you know, when Tim Robbins is
• 19:36
  crawling, you know, you know, I mean, it is, but the the reality
• 19:42
  is if you get up next day and you just keep taking the
• 19:45
  punches, eventually you learn how to deflect them.
• 19:49
  Well, and I think cause Shawshank, you know, for all of
• 19:52
  us that have gone to president becomes one of those.
• 19:54
  It has so many different metaphors in it.
• 19:56
  But I think the one of this so impactful is, is that.
• 20:01
  Andy Dufresne, he chips through a wall for 19 years with that
• 20:06
  vision in his mind of Zeewon Tineo.
• 20:09
  And every day he takes that wall out into the yard and he's got
• 20:14
  holes in his pockets and he lets that wall out.
• 20:16
  And that's his daily victory for staying on task.
• 20:19
  And he he, he's got this vision in his mind for 19 years that
• 20:24
  Zeewon Tineo is where he's going and nothing's going to keep him
• 20:26
  down. And he does it every single
• 20:29
  night. And, and it's, I think it goes
• 20:31
  back to what you're talking about, Craig, is you got to have
• 20:33
  a vision and, and not lose whatever that purpose is so that
• 20:39
  you, you can, you can stay on task with it.
• 20:41
  That you don't, that's the thing that makes you get up.
• 20:44
  You know, that's the thing that that if you don't have that you,
• 20:48
  it's easy to stay down because what are you getting up for?
• 20:52
  Absolutely. And, you know, you don't
• 20:53
  necessarily have to have what it ultimately is, but it's that
• 20:57
  feeling. And I think that that's the
• 21:00
  spirit that gets you to, you know, to the finish line is
• 21:04
  knowing that and holding on to it.
• 21:06
  Totally agree. So you end up, you know,
• 21:10
  professionally, you're doing well and you get into creating
• 21:14
  your own company. How does it get into or did you
• 21:20
  feel like you were getting into a Gray area?
• 21:24
  If did you feel like when things happened that you were like on
• 21:29
  the edge or did it? Was it all a surprise?
• 21:32
  No, I knew. I mean, so 2002 I joined 13
• 21:38
  people at the company, at my former company, 11 of them are
• 21:43
  no worse than like a first cousin or an uncle.
• 21:45
  I mean, it was just all blood family and without getting into
• 21:51
  all the systematic changes in the industry, we took that
• 21:54
  thirteen person company, which at the time was doing about $6
• 21:58
  million in revenues and turned it into, over a 10 year period,
• 22:03
  a $46 million company with 120 plus employees and five regional
• 22:09
  offices. I mean, you know, I'm guilty of
• 22:11
  a bunch of things and right at the very top of the list is
• 22:13
  absolute stupidity. And I mean, you know it is.
• 22:18
  And when I explain why, you know, the listeners are going to
• 22:21
  laugh and be like, yeah, you know, you're an idiot.
• 22:22
  You were stupid, but you know, so and we systematically grew
• 22:28
  it. And that's never been in
• 22:30
  dispute. And that's one of the things, by
• 22:32
  the way, that I held onto inside.
• 22:34
  I knew the mistakes that I had made.
• 22:35
  Well, I don't even like calling them mistakes.
• 22:37
  I knew the bad choices I made. I knew the wrong decisions I had
• 22:40
  made, but I knew what was real. You know, you can fail, but it
• 22:43
  doesn't mean it all was not real.
• 22:45
  It was a whole lot of real there.
• 22:47
  And though that's what I held onto and knew.
• 22:50
  So from 2002, you know, you know, to 2008 to even 2009, we
• 22:56
  were fine. We were growing, you know,
• 22:58
  growing, growing, growing, growing.
• 22:59
  And the financial crisis hit. And you know, the, the, the
• 23:03
  short version of this story is you had a convergence of trading
• 23:06
  volume plummeting and rather than being conservative and
• 23:10
  retrenching, we view this as an opportunity because so many
• 23:14
  people have gotten laid off to get like a once in a
• 23:17
  generational talent. Mm hmm.
• 23:19
  And that's fine. But when your expenses grow at
• 23:22
  the same rate that your revenues do and then something hits
• 23:24
  skids, you have a problem. And the reality is at that time,
• 23:29
  the decisions I should have made were to either fire people or
• 23:33
  cut their payouts in half and not worry about losing the firm
• 23:38
  because ultimately I lost the firm and we didn't make those
• 23:41
  decisions. And So what would happen is our
• 23:43
  regulatory capital would go in and out of compliance.
• 23:47
  And, you know, so I basically borrowed non good capital and
• 23:52
  that was money that was owed to us and I made a good capital.
• 23:56
  I mean, they were real receivables.
• 23:58
  But when you do that and you sign a FINRA focus report,
• 24:01
  you've committed a crime. That's it.
• 24:03
  You know, the thought process was by the time they figure it
• 24:07
  out, if they ever figure it out, you know, we'll have fixed it.
• 24:10
  It'll be a slap on the wrist. And you know what I tell?
• 24:14
  I listen, I don't, I, I never blame anyone else.
• 24:16
  I take full and complete responsibility.
• 24:18
  No one had a gun in my head. But what what I, you know, do
• 24:22
  say, because I don't want to minimize it, but what you know,
• 24:26
  I do get to say in this situation is that there's a lot
• 24:28
  of mitigating circumstances. There are a lot of people who
• 24:31
  knew what was going on. You don't go to prison for only
• 24:34
  18 months if it's what the stories say they are.
• 24:37
  And it doesn't mean I shouldn't have gone, but it wasn't me
• 24:40
  sitting in a room all on my own. There are a lot of people at the
• 24:44
  table. But you do the wrong thing in
• 24:47
  that industry. You piss people off, which I
• 24:50
  did. You can go to prison.
• 24:52
  So what happened was as we shut the business down at the end of
• 24:55
  2011, Brent, we still had money in the bank.
• 24:58
  We, our investors wanted to put more money in, but the SEC
• 25:02
  wouldn't allow them to do it the way they wanted.
• 25:04
  We shut it down. I knew I'd get barred from the
• 25:07
  industry and I did. I took a, a bar, you know, for
• 25:11
  our client, you know, our clients, our friends out there
• 25:14
  listening. It's something called an
• 25:15
  admission waiver and consent. So you basically admit or deny
• 25:18
  nothing. And I thought that was it.
• 25:23
  I thought like, OK, I'll get on with my life, I'll rebuild and
• 25:26
  away we go. I'll never forget Brenham in the
• 25:28
  room with 9 attorneys and an accounting specialist in me.
• 25:34
  And I'm talking about taking this bar.
• 25:37
  And what does it mean to do an admission waiver and consent?
• 25:41
  You're not going to jail. No one ever goes to jail for
• 25:44
  this. You have nothing to worry about.
• 25:46
  Just take the bar. I mean, I mean, it's amazing,
• 25:49
  right? They were wrong.
• 25:51
  It's fine. So I signed it and then 26
• 25:56
  months later from the day we shut the business down, January
• 26:00
  1, 2012, in February, we're almost at 11 years.
• 26:03
  But February 6th, 2014, the feds passed on my case and the
• 26:09
  Manhattan District Attorney came knocking on the door.
• 26:14
  You know, you and I talked about this.
• 26:15
  I, I thought it was interesting that your case wasn't a federal
• 26:18
  case because, you know, usually in, in business transactions
• 26:21
  and, and money, it's because everything crosses state lines.
• 26:24
  It's usually, but in your case it was state.
• 26:32
  Yeah. And what I you know, I don't
• 26:33
  know. When they when they came
• 26:33
  knocking out the door. I mean, I was told that they
• 26:36
  had, you know, who knows? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:37
  Well, I no, I mean they but. But the the thing I was going to
• 26:41
  say to you is what, you know what everyone says to me?
• 26:43
  He's like, what state? What?
• 26:45
  How is that not a federal case? Yeah, yeah.
• 26:46
  No, that's what I thought, 'cause that my, my case was
• 26:48
  federal, it was insurance, it was in 25 States and it was no
• 26:53
  question. But I.
• 26:55
  Think you know what? I'll tell you what the, the, the
• 26:57
  state part, I think that I, I think ultimately why I became
• 26:59
  state was, yeah, we also, we also ran personal expenses
• 27:04
  through the business and did not pick it up as income, which as
• 27:07
  you know is tax fraud. And you know, we did it for the
• 27:10
  right reasons to instead of paying $1,000,000 in taxes, pay
• 27:12
  half of it's wrong. The bottom line is wrong.
• 27:14
  And you say, you justify it by saying you know what, we'll make
• 27:17
  it up in business and we'll file amended returns.
• 27:19
  But it was wrong, plain and simple.
• 27:21
  It was wrong. And that's, that's OK.
• 27:24
  I'm at peace with it. Yeah.
• 27:25
  And I think, you know, I've had so many entrepreneurs on this
• 27:29
  show. It's, it's the entrepreneur
• 27:34
  dilemma too. Is it you're growing, you want
• 27:37
  to keep the momentum going, you make decisions, you think you
• 27:40
  can make it up. The last thing I want to do is
• 27:43
  let somebody go because I value that person.
• 27:45
  And, and I know that I got to have this over here and I got to
• 27:47
  pay for that over there. And so you at times you can
• 27:51
  rationalize something that if you look back on and it's like,
• 27:55
  well, I didn't actually need to do that, but it it's it's it's
• 27:58
  that you can also get intoxicated to the success part
• 28:03
  of it too, is you don't want to necessarily do a lot of changes
• 28:06
  to things because things are so good right now.
• 28:10
  And and that's a whole nother dilemma we.
• 28:13
  We could talk, of course. And look, I was in my 30s, so I
• 28:17
  was young. Certainly, you know, a little
• 28:20
  arrogant with some hubris. And, and you're right.
• 28:23
  You, you feel like, how do I get out?
• 28:25
  It's as if you, you know, like you, you know, and, and, and
• 28:30
  it's a shame, but so many people are in that situation that I've
• 28:35
  been in. I mean, and, and, you know, my
• 28:37
  executive coach said it best. She said it best.
• 28:40
  She's like, look, in the moment of truth, you choked And, and
• 28:43
  that's the reality. You know, I did know better.
• 28:46
  We didn't know what was right from wrong and.
• 28:49
  And it's humble. I made the and you made the
• 28:51
  wrong decisions and the wrong choices.
• 28:52
  And you know what? Sometimes you you, you pay a
• 28:55
  dear price for that. So I want to take a break here
• 28:59
  because I recognize a couple of sponsors on the show.
• 29:02
  But when we get back, I want to talk about that knock on the
• 29:06
  door. What was going through your
• 29:07
  mind? How you how you took those next
• 29:10
  steps to to deal with this unknown?
• 29:12
  Because dealing with the unknowns are the scary parts.
• 29:14
  And you know, it's scary scary. It's scary before we do that,
• 29:20
  you know, a lot of you probably don't like how you show up
• 29:22
  online. There's probably a lot of you
• 29:24
  out there listening to the shows like I don't like Google when I
• 29:27
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• 29:30
  there's no hope when it comes to managing your reputation on
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• 29:49
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• 29:58
  They're even launching a Do it And of course, I also want to
• 30:13
  recognize that the I'm Your Success podcast is sponsored by
• 30:18
  the White Collar Support Group. It's the world's first support
• 30:21
  group devoted to people navigating the white collar
• 30:23
  criminal justice system. I'm a member of the White Collar
• 30:27
  Support Group, and I can tell you this is a bunch of people
• 30:29
  who help each other through the criminal justice journey for
• 30:31
  free. Whether you're just starting
• 30:33
  your journey or you made it through to the other side, this
• 30:35
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• 30:38
  7:00 PM Eastern Time. For more information, go to
• 30:41
  prisonist.org. That's prisonist.org.
• 30:44
  Start here. So Craig, you you get the knock
• 30:48
  on the door. What happens?
• 30:53
  I'll tell you what happens, by the way.
• 30:55
  I'm going to jump in and say it too, because Jeff Grant's been a
• 30:58
  very good friend to me as well and we both share him in common
• 31:02
  and he brought us together and the work he does with the white
• 31:06
  collar group is, is, is, is fantastic.
• 31:09
  I mean, it's a, you know, it's basically a 12 step program for
• 31:12
  white collar criminals and, and, and even none.
• 31:14
  I mean, I, you know, there's no, you know, he welcomes whoever
• 31:17
  comes and you know, if Jeff's listening, he'll he.
• 31:20
  Will I'll make him listen. Yeah, he's, he's doing, he's
• 31:24
  doing, he's doing good work. He's doing good work.
• 31:29
  So in January 2013, going to take a step back, we had learned
• 31:35
  that the Manhattan District Attorney had opened up an
• 31:38
  investigation. So I tell people this all the
• 31:41
  time. I mean, you know, it's, you're
• 31:43
  going to, you know, it, it, it first of all, in the moment
• 31:47
  you're feeling one way and then, you know, retrospectively, you
• 31:50
  think you felt way. And as time goes on, I believe
• 31:54
  when I look back on it all that from January 2013, business has
• 31:59
  already been shut down a year starting to rebuild my life to
• 32:03
  February 2014 would the worst 13 for 13 months of of my life.
• 32:09
  Because you wake up every day wondering that's the the dread.
• 32:13
  Is it going to happen? Is it going to happen?
• 32:15
  When's it going to happen? Is it going to happen?
• 32:17
  When's it going to happen and isn't?
• 32:21
  That weird though, Craig, because I, you know, I get a lot
• 32:26
  of phone calls from people because of this show getting
• 32:28
  ready to go in and, and they asked me like, what's the, the
• 32:33
  unknowns? That, that, that I think once
• 32:35
  you find out like I got a five year sentence and once I found
• 32:40
  out I had that, I hated it, but I at least started dealing with
• 32:43
  that, you know, I, I could at least deal with what I was
• 32:46
  dealing with. The unknown is so scary, and I
• 32:50
  always say you know it. It's what nothing's ever as bad
• 32:53
  as your mind makes it out to be. And it's because you can build
• 32:56
  up so many things. But then once you know what it
• 32:59
  is, then you're dealing with that.
• 33:01
  Start tackling. It you're right.
• 33:03
  Yeah. No, you're right.
• 33:04
  And I'll tell you, I say it all the time.
• 33:06
  The day I took a plea in New York State, which was in July of
• 33:10
  2000, 15 I, I, an enormous amount of weight went out of my
• 33:15
  shoulders. They knew what my sentence was
• 33:17
  going to be and I knew what the checkered flag was.
• 33:20
  And then the day of sentencing when I went in those that first
• 33:24
  week or so was in. It sounds crazy that you're like
• 33:27
  at Rikers Island with this enormous sense of relief, but
• 33:30
  it's the, it's the reality. It's like, OK, this is really
• 33:34
  over. We've really turned the page
• 33:36
  here and we're now marching towards something else.
• 33:38
  So I agree with you, which makes that 13 months, the dread so
• 33:44
  terrible. And it's ironic you were just
• 33:45
  talking about, I guess one of the sponsors.
• 33:47
  I was using one of those reputation management programs
• 33:51
  at the time, just from the business shutting down and
• 33:55
  everything. And you can pay to see who's
• 33:57
  like monitoring, you know, looking at you.
• 34:00
  And it was very clear to me a day or two before, like that's
• 34:03
  some form of the government was like hovering on my site.
• 34:07
  And it's like, not that I knew, but I kind of knew.
• 34:11
  And I was in the shower getting ready to go, get ready to work,
• 34:16
  go to work when they knocked on the door.
• 34:18
  And by the, you know, grace of God, my kids are sleeping and.
• 34:23
  How old were your kids? You know, at the time we're
• 34:27
  talking 2000 and, oh, in the indictment, 2014.
• 34:34
  So they were born, what, 2004? So 10 years old.
• 34:42
  Yeah. 9:00 and 6:00. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:47
  So that. Yeah, I mean you, you it's, you
• 34:49
  know, you, you kind of go numb. You have no idea what's going to
• 34:53
  happen at that point, you know? You know, I walked out the door.
• 34:58
  The police were like, oh, I'll be home tonight.
• 35:00
  I mean, I saved in the Tombs, the famous tombs, you know, for
• 35:04
  the weekend. I was there Thursday night,
• 35:05
  Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, and I got let go
• 35:07
  Monday. But, you know, so now, yes,
• 35:12
  you're right. On the one hand, that kind, OK,
• 35:14
  fine, It happened. Now you get a whole new set of
• 35:17
  uncertainty that you have to try to like, organize your brain
• 35:20
  around. Did you go once you got your
• 35:25
  sentence at 18 months? Did did they did they remand you
• 35:29
  immediately and you went to Rikers?
• 35:30
  Yeah, So state's different than federal, right.
• 35:33
  So in the state system we had a negotiated plea, OK.
• 35:38
  And agreed upon plea, it's called a promise sentence.
• 35:41
  You go before the judge is what we did in July of 2015, Your
• 35:45
  honor, I plead guilty to XY and Z.
• 35:48
  And she says, listen, as long as you behave and you don't screw
• 35:50
  up, I promise I'll sentence you to 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years.
• 35:53
  They schedule sentencing the day you're sentenced in New York
• 35:56
  State. You go in, that's it.
• 35:58
  Sentencing day is the day of remand.
• 36:00
  No matter what the crime, no matter what, whatever it is.
• 36:02
  That's the difference in in federal, in federal, some people
• 36:05
  do get remanded the day of sentence, right.
• 36:08
  But but people, you know, white collar crimes, for lack of a
• 36:12
  better word, you know, and several other nonviolent crimes
• 36:17
  in fed right, you get to you. Know, and it's all really up to
• 36:21
  the judge. On the door, Yeah, yeah.
• 36:23
  I remember Seth Williams, who was a guest on the show.
• 36:26
  He was the Pennsylvania District Attorney and he thought that he
• 36:31
  was going with his family to dinner and they immediately
• 36:35
  remanded him. And that was the end of that.
• 36:37
  And you never know, that was a federal deal.
• 36:40
  Yeah. And then, then the journeys for,
• 36:42
  for federal and state are, are different.
• 36:46
  They're very different. You know, they, they happen
• 36:49
  very, very, and I know them both very, very well.
• 36:51
  But you know, as you know, if you go into a camp, you drive
• 36:55
  up, you know, you knock on the front door and say hello, I'm
• 36:57
  here in this, in the state system, you go to a county jail
• 37:02
  the, the day you're sentenced. And down here in New York City
• 37:07
  and the five boroughs, you go to Rikers Island.
• 37:10
  They, they used to be some county jails, but you go to
• 37:11
  Rikers Island. Yeah.
• 37:13
  That's the you know. Tell.
• 37:15
  Me of a camp. It's Rikers Island has been all
• 37:18
  over the news. Craig for you here you are this
• 37:27
  guy that's you know, up until this point you've lived except
• 37:31
  for the the few months of hell, a good life.
• 37:35
  And what were your thoughts walking into Rikers Island?
• 37:37
  Because there's nothing good I've ever heard about record.
• 37:40
  It's like I've never heard anything good about Conair going
• 37:42
  into the Oklahoma Transfer center.
• 37:44
  I've never heard anything good about Rikers Island.
• 37:47
  What? What was going through your mind
• 37:48
  as a guy going in knowing you're going to Rikers Island?
• 37:53
  So I think the, at the time I didn't know it, but when, when
• 37:58
  the day I was arrested, February 6th, 2014, it was a Thursday.
• 38:02
  As I mentioned before, I wound up spending, you know, Thursday
• 38:05
  night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night.
• 38:07
  So four nights and then four days in the Tombs, which had
• 38:12
  similarities to Rikers. And those four days actually
• 38:15
  took away a tremendous amount of mystery to a degree.
• 38:18
  So I really, I was, I just at least understood certain things
• 38:23
  and movements. I had talked to people who had
• 38:26
  been there before. I talked to people who have gone
• 38:28
  in and my approach was just to just keep to myself, you know,
• 38:33
  you know, keep to myself, be were polite, be respectful,
• 38:38
  Don't get involved in anyone's business and, you know, hope for
• 38:41
  the best. I mean, that's part of it,
• 38:43
  right? I mean, it really is.
• 38:46
  And, you know, I'll never forget that visual of being take
• 38:51
  getting to Rikers. I mean, ever forget the visual
• 38:54
  of, you know, you get there and there's like 5 different holding
• 38:59
  pens, one for each borough and guys are like, it's as if it was
• 39:05
  a camp reunion. I mean, I'll never forget it.
• 39:08
  They're like throwing sweatshirts back and forth to
• 39:10
  each other. How are you?
• 39:11
  How's this one? How's the, you know, you know,
• 39:13
  oh, what are you doing back? What I mean, you know, for a
• 39:16
  long time, Rikers was like a housing shelter.
• 39:19
  You know, people would go there when it got cold.
• 39:21
  They commit a crime when it got cold so they can get three
• 39:23
  squares, you know, and hang out with their buddies.
• 39:25
  I mean, and I am not embellishing.
• 39:27
  It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen or experienced.
• 39:30
  And ultimately I was with my former partner, which was great.
• 39:33
  We had each other. We got taken to a dorm and we
• 39:38
  walked into the dorm at like 9 O clock at night and there were 58
• 39:42
  people in the dorm. We were 59 and 60 and 41 of them
• 39:47
  were bloods. And you just, you know, you just
• 39:54
  take a deep breath and, and try to, and try to figure it out.
• 40:00
  And, and we did, you know, we, we found out about 9-10 days
• 40:05
  later that they thought we were undercover cops.
• 40:09
  So it took them, they had to figure out who we were.
• 40:12
  They stole our ID numbers. They had people run it and
• 40:15
  they're like, OK, they really, they're not undercover cops.
• 40:17
  They they committed a crime. And then you had the most
• 40:21
  incredible, you know, sort of, you know, I don't.
• 40:24
  People said we're going to ecosystem.
• 40:26
  I mean, it's, it's in retrospect now.
• 40:29
  It's fascinating. There's so much to learn from
• 40:32
  it, so much that's been written. But you know, you had the four
• 40:36
  high, the four highest ranking, you know, you know, members of
• 40:40
  the Bloods there were stationed in the Four Corners.
• 40:43
  And you know, half the people in the dorm wouldn't talk to me at
• 40:47
  all. They just wanted nothing to do
• 40:48
  with me. They wouldn't talk to me for
• 40:51
  whatever. Reason.
• 40:51
  Did you know at that time, Craig, how long you were going
• 40:53
  to stay there? She Well, that's a great
• 40:56
  question because according to New York State sentencing law,
• 41:00
  according to New York State criminal procedure law, this
• 41:02
  state is supposed to take you into custody within 10 business
• 41:06
  days, which is 2 weeks. And nobody sues the state when
• 41:09
  they don't do that. So but you were supposed to
• 41:13
  basically Rikers New York County is holding you as a favor.
• 41:16
  Every other county is holding and one of the very first things
• 41:21
  I guess you learn, I learned it was going to be in the book or
• 41:23
  as a prison consultant was what happened with me and my former
• 41:26
  partner. After 10 nights, my former
• 41:28
  partner got tapped on the shoulder.
• 41:29
  He said you're going upstairs and said what about me?
• 41:31
  Like, no, you're not on the list.
• 41:33
  Next thing you're not on the list.
• 41:35
  I found out the judges clerk didn't sign my commitment papers
• 41:38
  on one line. So I got trapped in Rikers for
• 41:40
  another 4 weeks. So I spent 5 1/2 weeks at Rikers
• 41:44
  and it was, it was informative, formative, and everything else
• 41:52
  you could think. What happened was is, you know,
• 41:55
  like I said, I, I kept to myself.
• 41:58
  I think people there, like half the people there realize that,
• 42:02
  OK, you know, I'm not in anybody's business.
• 42:05
  It's very sad. A lot of people couldn't read
• 42:07
  there. Like I people brought me their
• 42:08
  papers to read. I mean, I'll never forget
• 42:10
  reading one gentleman's medical papers for him.
• 42:16
  And I wrote letters for some people who would just dictate
• 42:20
  them or really didn't know how to write.
• 42:22
  I shared my books with everybody.
• 42:23
  So I was able to fit in. And I felt really fortunate for
• 42:27
  that. And, you know, it would it.
• 42:29
  Violence broke out in the dorms a few times.
• 42:31
  And, you know, the this couple of the senior people in the dorm
• 42:35
  would come over. You're right.
• 42:36
  You're OK. Yeah.
• 42:37
  And so I felt very grateful for that because it could have gone
• 42:40
  a completely different way. And, you know, so but it it,
• 42:45
  it's, it's, it's an inexplicable experience.
• 42:49
  It is as horrible, you know, from a structure, infrastructure
• 42:54
  standpoint as everybody. Yeah.
• 42:56
  You know, no, there's a there's a huge difference.
• 43:00
  And I've said it 1000 times on the show, there's a huge
• 43:03
  difference between jail and prison.
• 43:05
  Because, you know, I only spent four days in or five days in
• 43:11
  jail because I was brought back to from my civil trial.
• 43:14
  I, I'd already been at Leavenworth for a year and a
• 43:16
  half and it was the worst five days of my whole experience.
• 43:23
  And I could not wait to get back to Leavenworth, which is a very
• 43:27
  strange thing to say if if because Leavenworth sounds like
• 43:30
  a horrible thing. And you know, it's in the movies
• 43:33
  and all that. But the difference is so, you
• 43:36
  know, in jail, you've got, it's so transitory.
• 43:39
  You know, you get everybody, you know, somebody could be in there
• 43:42
  for a DWI or somebody could have just, you know, killed his wife.
• 43:46
  Whereas in prison, people are learning how to live in that
• 43:50
  environment. They're not there for a few days
• 43:52
  or weeks or whatever. They're living there and that's
• 43:55
  their world. And it just feels different.
• 43:58
  Not that fights and things can't break out on that too, but it's
• 44:01
  just a different living environment.
• 44:03
  They're both primitive, one's just a lot worse than the other.
• 44:09
  You know, what are the line? What?
• 44:10
  But for the grace of God go I or something like that.
• 44:12
  I mean, I look back, you know, look, you're always surviving,
• 44:16
  right, Brant? We both know that Rikers Island
• 44:19
  is really just survive. And, you know, with what I do
• 44:25
  for a living day in and day out and the calls I get, I I, I look
• 44:28
  back and and it's a miracle that no one ever laid a hand on me,
• 44:33
  that I never got punched, that no guard ever.
• 44:36
  I mean, it's an absolute miracle.
• 44:40
  And you know what? I want to, I want to, you know,
• 44:42
  take some credit for yourself. You want to be like, OK, I knew
• 44:45
  what to do. I behaved the right way and all
• 44:46
  of that. But the reality is someone you
• 44:52
  never know over me. Yeah.
• 44:54
  You never know. Yeah, you really don't.
• 44:57
  Yeah. So you get out of there after
• 44:59
  four and a half, five weeks, what do they take you?
• 45:05
  New York State, they, they kind of do like a, it's like a
• 45:08
  clearing house, a clearing system.
• 45:10
  You they recall reception facilities at that time when I
• 45:14
  was there, they the three biggest reception facilities
• 45:18
  were Ulster County, Ulster Correctional Facility, which is
• 45:21
  in Napanac, kind of Ellenville, NY.
• 45:23
  That was a medium downstate Correctional Facility, which is
• 45:26
  in Fiskill, New York. That's where everybody that was
• 45:28
  kind of in maximum security or had medical, psychiatric issues,
• 45:35
  Elmira Correctional Facility, which is up in Elmira, NY.
• 45:38
  And then there's a couple of other ones, you know, in Buffalo
• 45:41
  and upstate New York. But from here you either went to
• 45:44
  Elm, you went to Ulster or Downstate.
• 45:46
  So I went to Ulster and I spent almost 8, about 8 weeks at
• 45:50
  Ulster. And what happens there is they
• 45:51
  basically, you know, they score you, they screen you, they do
• 45:54
  their medical, they take their assessments.
• 45:56
  And it's basically, where are we going to put you?
• 46:00
  You know, they, you know, they got to figure out where we going
• 46:02
  to put them, which is the right jail and stuff.
• 46:04
  And I spent eight weeks there. It's the, it's probably the
• 46:08
  safest prison in the state because in that reception, so
• 46:10
  you can't go anywhere without a police escort.
• 46:13
  So, you know, they run it or fashion it as a military, you
• 46:18
  know, style boot camp thing. I mean, they talk about, oh,
• 46:20
  they're preparing you to go upstate.
• 46:21
  There's nothing about what happens at Ulster, the reception
• 46:24
  facility that has anything to do with like, it's like a joke.
• 46:27
  It's like everything gets easier.
• 46:28
  You didn't prepare me for anything.
• 46:30
  You gave me the worst here. But and then I, I, they call it
• 46:36
  the draft that was put on the draft, right?
• 46:38
  And I was taken to a prison on 1/4 of a mile from the Canadian
• 46:43
  border called Ogdensburg Correctional Facility.
• 46:46
  So I did 5 1/2 weeks at Rikers, I did two months at Ulster.
• 46:50
  I did. I went up to the Canadian border
• 46:52
  for almost six months. And then I started to wait.
• 46:55
  And that was a medium security facility.
• 46:57
  The other big thing for listeners who have never been
• 47:00
  through this, whatever in New York State, it's medium or mass,
• 47:05
  OK? The minimum they have right now,
• 47:07
  they're down, I think the four or five minimum security
• 47:09
  facilities. The only thing that happens in
• 47:11
  minimum security facilities is work release or the shot Miller
• 47:14
  Shock military boot camp. Like everyone's in the media.
• 47:18
  It's not like this. Can't you know the proliferation
• 47:21
  of camps in the federal system? Like I went to a medium security
• 47:24
  prison. I worked in the in the library
• 47:26
  with someone who was in for murder.
• 47:27
  Like it was no joke. You know, it would be the
• 47:30
  equivalent in BOP of, I think, you know, kind of a, you merged
• 47:35
  low and, you know, if you took medium and took low, medium and
• 47:39
  all of low and put them together, you know, you know,
• 47:42
  guys who've been in a long time whose security classification
• 47:45
  dropped no different than the Bureau of Prisons.
• 47:46
  So I was at Ogdensburg again. I, I feel like I got lucky, you
• 47:51
  know, 400 people, very small, no blind spots.
• 47:54
  There had been no violence there in two years.
• 47:59
  We had cooking facilities. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't
• 48:02
  want to glorify this, but, you know, to the extent for those of
• 48:05
  us who have been in it was great.
• 48:07
  And then I was very fortunate. I got approved for one of my
• 48:11
  first two work release programs. The state has a work release
• 48:15
  program called industrial training, where you work for the
• 48:18
  Department of Corrections. There's a company called
• 48:20
  Corecraft which they own and that was in Hudson Correctional
• 48:24
  Facility in Hudson, NY, and that began my journey back home.
• 48:28
  So almost literally halfway in, I got the Hudson in September.
• 48:32
  So I was in about nine months and then my last nine months
• 48:35
  were spent in Hudson and then the work release facility in
• 48:39
  Manhattan. Wow, that's quite, a, quite a
• 48:43
  journey within that system, Craig.
• 48:48
  Like, like in Leavenworth, there was the big dorm rooms of, you
• 48:53
  know, 5050 beds, you know, so there's a hundred guys.
• 48:58
  And then and then on two floors, on the main floor, they had what
• 49:02
  would be normally cells, but they had doors.
• 49:05
  So there were two men in there. What what was the layout of like
• 49:08
  where you were? Was it open dorm or was it were
• 49:12
  there cells or was there both? Yeah, open dorms, you know, So
• 49:16
  Rikers, just just picture a big like rectangle in Rikers, 20
• 49:20
  beds down the left side, 20 beds down the middle, 20 beds down
• 49:23
  the right. Like a World War 2 like
• 49:25
  Infirmary unit or something. I mean, you know, you're,
• 49:28
  you're, you know, you're 2 feet from the person to your left and
• 49:31
  your right. No bunk beds or anything.
• 49:33
  In Department of Corrections, a couple of medium security
• 49:37
  facilities have individual cells, but most of them, they're
• 49:40
  all dorms. I mean, think of a camp bunk, 48
• 49:44
  beds, 12 of them had bunks, double bunk.
• 49:48
  They don't double bunk anymore. It's they've abolished that in
• 49:51
  New York State. And you were in a queue.
• 49:54
  So it was AI was I was 6 foot by 10 foot cube with half walls
• 50:02
  that came up about 3 1/2 feet. So you actually had your own
• 50:05
  little cube space when you lie down and went to bed at night,
• 50:08
  you know, you had a divider between you and the person's bed
• 50:11
  sitting next to you, but it was open.
• 50:13
  I mean so. Why it was?
• 50:14
  Cube or whatever. Yeah, You know, you had your
• 50:16
  bed, you had a little 2 army lockers, like a little one that
• 50:19
  was kind of like a night stand. And then you had a 4 by 4 metal
• 50:24
  locker and that was your that was your world.
• 50:27
  That was that, that, yeah, that was your world.
• 50:29
  That's your medium security living quarters in New York
• 50:32
  State. So I'm curious, Craig, when you
• 50:35
  go through all this, you get to the point where you know you're
• 50:40
  getting out three or four months, what was going through
• 50:43
  your mind on on getting out? Yeah, everybody has, you know,
• 50:49
  go, you know, and talk to people about how they count time.
• 50:52
  Do they not count time and stuff like that?
• 50:56
  You know, when I had gone in, I, I, I didn't know whether I was
• 50:59
  going to do 18 months or, or 36. Cause in New York State you
• 51:03
  can't you, you, you can get out in 18.
• 51:05
  The Max you do is like 2/3. I was confident I was getting
• 51:08
  out in 18 months. I always what?
• 51:10
  So I started counting days, you know, like I still have the
• 51:13
  books 1234 to. And then when I got to, and I, I
• 51:17
  liked calendars. I had printed calendars.
• 51:19
  Some people can't do it. I loved exit it off.
• 51:22
  I did the same thing. Highlight of my, yeah.
• 51:24
  So it's like the highlight of my day and the I'm not sure we I I
• 51:32
  think I forgot what you were asking.
• 51:33
  I was, I was just curious what's what like in your mind knowing
• 51:37
  that you're going to get out of prison?
• 51:40
  What what were you thinking about that whole re entry thing
• 51:42
  of getting out? Oh, that's a great so my my
• 51:48
  prevailing thoughts pretty much in no particular order at all
• 51:51
  times where make sure I speak to my kids every day, which unless
• 51:54
  I was in transit, I managed to do and also didn't manage to get
• 51:58
  into a fight. I was very lucky.
• 52:00
  I had some people who looked after me everywhere I was and I
• 52:04
  was able to talk to my kids every day, thank God.
• 52:08
  And so that was a priority. I wanted to read as much as I
• 52:11
  could right. I wanted I literally I say to
• 52:13
  people all the time, like I don't recommend going to jail.
• 52:16
  I wouldn't go back for this, but there were two things there that
• 52:19
  I wish, you know, you, you know, you could sit down and just sit
• 52:22
  on your bed and think for an hour or two a time.
• 52:25
  Like be still. I mean, how often are we still?
• 52:27
  When was the last time you was still?
• 52:29
  I mean, and I don't mean still like you're sleeping, like just
• 52:31
  be still. And you could read, I read 51
• 52:33
  books when I was 52 and you know, a lot of them were, you
• 52:37
  know, well over 1000 page books. So like, you know, in
• 52:41
  retrospect, I enjoyed being able to do that.
• 52:44
  And what I told my kids was an adult time out.
• 52:46
  But you know, the, the I just what I kept doing was keeping my
• 52:51
  eye on my kids. I knew I had work to go home to.
• 52:56
  I knew I had employment when I went home.
• 52:59
  I was planning to write the book.
• 53:02
  OK, so I'd spent time in the real estate industry.
• 53:04
  When I left the financial services industry, real estate
• 53:06
  seemed to be the smartest thing to do.
• 53:08
  Real estate brokers and property management.
• 53:10
  I was blessed. I had worked for almost 2 years
• 53:12
  before I went in. I literally had rebuilt my life
• 53:14
  and I was fortunate to be able to go back to work right away.
• 53:17
  So to me, I was very focused. Like I was very focused, you
• 53:22
  know, I was already writing a business plan inside for the,
• 53:26
  you know, you know, the people that I was going back to work
• 53:28
  for, you know, I was already formulating ideas from my book
• 53:32
  and I was thinking of my kids. And that's where I kept my
• 53:35
  focus. That was my that was exactly
• 53:38
  where I kept my focus at all times.
• 53:41
  And the visualization techniques we talked about, you know,
• 53:45
  earlier in, in, in in our chat here.
• 53:49
  I think that those, you know, those are the things, you know,
• 53:53
  I had, I had a prayer book in there and you know, there are a
• 53:58
  lot of those, you know, daily prayer books or daily
• 54:00
  affirmations, and I had three or four of them.
• 54:02
  There were days I had to read them 10 times a day.
• 54:05
  You know, you know, do you know, don't play what if right?
• 54:09
  Don't you know, you can't borrow from tomorrow, you know, turning
• 54:13
  things over and, and you know what they help.
• 54:15
  I mean, and you know, I, I, I, you know, I don't mind saying,
• 54:17
  I'm not embarrassed to say it. There were days I literally took
• 54:20
  it out and read those 3 entries that I, you know, 10 times a day
• 54:25
  and it, you know, just to be like, OK, just stay here.
• 54:27
  Just stay here. One of the things I tell clients
• 54:29
  all the time and I'll take a sip of water is, you know, 'cause
• 54:33
  there's something to glorify about it.
• 54:35
  I mean, it's horrible. There's something that, but I
• 54:38
  say this all the time, you know, all you got to do is turn the TV
• 54:43
  on and you could say, thank God I was in prison and I wasn't
• 54:48
  there. And it doesn't make your pain
• 54:52
  and suffering any less. It doesn't make your family's
• 54:54
  pain and suffering any less. But it it is, in my mind, a way
• 54:59
  to remember that you're still here and no one knows what's
• 55:03
  going to happen tomorrow. Right.
• 55:06
  You don't. And I think the thing that you
• 55:09
  just walked us through is, is that you have to, I think you
• 55:14
  have to struggle in prison because there's so many things
• 55:17
  that are out of your control to try to do things that are in
• 55:20
  your control so that you feel like you're still yourself.
• 55:22
  You know that for me, I was always worried about turning
• 55:24
  into prison, Brent. I didn't really even know what
• 55:26
  that was, but I feared it. I didn't even know, you know,
• 55:29
  what is prison, Brent? I guess it's institutionalized,
• 55:31
  Brent, you know, But you know, I would, I would exercise, I would
• 55:36
  read books, you know, I had AI felt like I had a good prison
• 55:38
  job. Like that's kind of a weird
• 55:40
  thing to say, but I, you know, I, I thought I was keeping busy
• 55:44
  doing like I got forklift certified.
• 55:46
  I would have never gotten forklift certified, those type
• 55:48
  of things. I just felt like, you know, you
• 55:52
  learn that it is more of a mind hack is is how can I feel like
• 55:57
  I'm still in control of myself so that I don't lose myself?
• 56:01
  And that's kind of that's kind of a weird dynamic in prison.
• 56:06
  And I think the people who do get institutionalized are the
• 56:09
  exact same people who get institutionalized on the
• 56:11
  outside. You know, it's a bad marriage,
• 56:13
  bad job, bad childhood, whatever it is.
• 56:15
  And then you get stuck in that world.
• 56:17
  And you know, the crazy thing that you see is you and I both
• 56:21
  know is there are people that get stuck in the whole Shawshank
• 56:26
  thing where the walls become, you know, the arms that surround
• 56:29
  you as comfort. And then you become afraid of
• 56:32
  freedom. And that's only because you hate
• 56:34
  that routine so badly. But it's the thing you know the
• 56:37
  best. And I guess that's one of the
• 56:39
  things what, what you and I are talking about, Craig, is you got
• 56:41
  to continue to keep yourself in tune with yourself.
• 56:47
  Like you said, being still to think to, to and, and plan.
• 56:51
  And, and like you were talking about, you were seeing and
• 56:54
  visualizing how you were going to do that.
• 56:57
  You weren't seeing yourself in prison.
• 56:59
  You were seeing yourself doing things that were beyond that.
• 57:02
  And I think that's a big deal for people who are listening to
• 57:05
  this, whether you're on the inside or outside.
• 57:08
  You're right. And I mean, you, you, you hit on
• 57:11
  some real important things, which is, and you talked about
• 57:14
  controlling what you can control.
• 57:16
  I mean, you hear it all the time.
• 57:17
  It's not some like great trade secret, like routine, right?
• 57:21
  You know, I had a routine everywhere I was when I was at
• 57:26
  Rikers, we did like, you know, body workouts.
• 57:28
  I did that the same time every day.
• 57:30
  I had my coffee twice a day at the same time.
• 57:32
  I had my oatmeal, peanut butter, like you, you know, I wrote my
• 57:35
  letters at the same time every day.
• 57:37
  And it it matters because it's it is the thing that you shower
• 57:41
  at the same time every day. Yeah.
• 57:42
  The things that you can control. I try to make my phone call the
• 57:44
  same time every day. And you're right.
• 57:46
  When you go upstate, it was the same.
• 57:48
  When I went upstate, it was the same thing.
• 57:50
  I was walking and running 100 miles a week, you know, like I
• 57:53
  knew that my salvation was going to be on the track.
• 57:56
  I knew that. And I too feel like I wanted, I
• 58:01
  worked in the library. I mean, I learned how to like
• 58:04
  code books, like when else would have that?
• 58:06
  And it got me out of the dorm. And I love to read.
• 58:10
  And, you know, people like the people who work in the library,
• 58:14
  You're right. You, you know, and now you know,
• 58:17
  you know, I joke around about it with my clients when I'm we're
• 58:20
  comfortable enough to do it. You know, in New York State
• 58:24
  clients have tablets now and they have tablets in federal
• 58:27
  prison. My clients can now make phone
• 58:29
  calls in New York State prison from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM at
• 58:32
  night from their bed that they can e-mail.
• 58:37
  I get emails quicker from my clients sometimes on, you know,
• 58:40
  J Pay and Securus than I do from people and, you know, not
• 58:43
  incarcerated. They, you know, they the
• 58:46
  education programming that is so, so available now and you
• 58:53
  know, so. How you do it?
• 58:59
  There are things that there are more and more things available
• 59:02
  now than there have been in in in the past if you want to take
• 59:06
  advantage of it. Right, well, let's, let's talk
• 59:09
  about you get now, because I, I'm fascinated on how you, you
• 59:14
  know, the, the going through a nightmare is one thing,
• 59:19
  surviving it is one thing, but then being able to use what you
• 59:23
  went through and help other people is a whole another thing.
• 59:28
  How did you start stepping into that?
• 59:31
  So I got out June 8th, 2017 and I went back.
• 59:40
  I was went right back to work and, you know, started to resume
• 59:44
  life and my criminal defense attorney was Mark Ignifolo.
• 59:52
  And I'll bring up a few names between here and the end that
• 59:55
  have had profound impacts on where I am today.
• 1:00:02
  You know, Mark was the first. I would say he means he was my
• 1:00:04
  he was my criminal defense attorney.
• 1:00:07
  And he and Ben Brockman at the time were partners and.
• 1:00:10
  Ben is been an incredible friend and mentor in person to me in my
• 1:00:16
  practice and I went to see Mark. I said, look, I'm going to write
• 1:00:20
  the book. I have, you know, a 2 1/2, three
• 1:00:24
  foot stack high of papers I brought home with me, no books
• 1:00:29
  with interviews and everything. You know, I had it.
• 1:00:33
  I'm ready to go. I said would you write, you
• 1:00:35
  know, we were catching, would you write the forward for me?
• 1:00:39
  Yes, I will. And we talked and he said
• 1:00:42
  listen, you know, I I have another idea.
• 1:00:47
  And he said, you know that, you know, the state system probably
• 1:00:50
  better than anyone I know. And there was one guy who used
• 1:00:54
  to do the state who had unfortunately passed away.
• 1:00:57
  You know, at the time they were several very good federal
• 1:01:01
  consultants, one who's a dear friend, family and mentor today,
• 1:01:06
  Joel Sicler of the Justice Advocacy Group.
• 1:01:08
  And he was mine because I didn't there were no New York
• 1:01:11
  consultants. And he's like, listen, we will
• 1:01:15
  be behind you. He's like, we will refer people
• 1:01:17
  to you. Start slow and steady and we'll
• 1:01:20
  open you up to our network. And literally that conversation
• 1:01:26
  with Mark. And then I think 3 weeks, two or
• 1:01:29
  three weeks later, Joel called me and I said, look, I got a New
• 1:01:33
  York case. I want, you know, do you want to
• 1:01:35
  handle it? You know, I'll pay.
• 1:01:37
  Tell me what your hourly rate is.
• 1:01:38
  Why don't you do it? I'll start to teach you things.
• 1:01:42
  And I was like, oh, OK, maybe somebody's telling me something
• 1:01:47
  here. Let's do this and you know, one
• 1:01:52
  becomes 2 comes three and 4:00 and 5:00 and 6:00 and 7:00.
• 1:01:58
  And I said, you know, I don't and I'm not.
• 1:02:01
  What I'm about to say is not me being disparaging about about
• 1:02:03
  anybody. I didn't want to just tell
• 1:02:06
  people, look, I went to prison for 18 months.
• 1:02:09
  I'm an expert, hire me and stuff like that.
• 1:02:11
  This is me. This is how I'm built.
• 1:02:12
  This is about anybody else. You know, I was like, I I need
• 1:02:16
  some sort of education here back remember the ark criminal
• 1:02:21
  justice major here we are. So I wanted to get I looked for
• 1:02:26
  certificate programs in criminal sentencing and sentencing
• 1:02:29
  advocacy. I found one not at John Jay of
• 1:02:31
  all places, which is great founded at Arizona State
• 1:02:34
  University. Little did I know they were one
• 1:02:36
  of the first online like premier whatever schools and I got in to
• 1:02:43
  get a certification in criminal sentencing and sentencing
• 1:02:46
  advocacy. And I'm like, OK, then that
• 1:02:51
  ended and I was like, you know, wait a second, you know, people
• 1:02:54
  like, oh, you should go to law school.
• 1:02:55
  I just lost my 40s. I'm not giving my 50s away.
• 1:02:58
  I have no, I no desire to do any of that.
• 1:03:00
  But it was clear to me that I could get a masters with, you
• 1:03:05
  know, I could take certain classes from the certification
• 1:03:08
  and roll into a masters. And at that point already, you
• 1:03:11
  know, I've got 30203040 clients and I did it and you know, that
• 1:03:17
  was kind of June 2017 to January 2020.
• 1:03:25
  And then things, you know, then it's that's when it in February
• 1:03:30
  2020 is was the first major change in Catapult.
• 1:03:35
  And that's when the second person who I owe an inordinate
• 1:03:42
  amount to in my career as author, Idala brought me into
• 1:03:45
  the Harvey Weinstein case. And that's when things took on a
• 1:03:50
  different level. And, and you know, take a deep
• 1:03:54
  breath for, you know, for a second there.
• 1:03:56
  But you know, that that's, that's how it happened.
• 1:03:59
  It wasn't a, you know, like I said, it wasn't a grandmaster
• 1:04:01
  plan. It wasn't the images.
• 1:04:03
  It wasn't the images I had in, in in prison.
• 1:04:07
  And, you know, here I am. I'm, I mean, I'm 474849 years
• 1:04:13
  old. I mean, my kids are older and
• 1:04:15
  stuff like that. And I'm in grad school again,
• 1:04:17
  getting another degree, but it mattered to me.
• 1:04:19
  You know, there they are. They're right.
• 1:04:20
  They're right there. And, and it mattered to me.
• 1:04:24
  I, I listen, I wanted it for myself.
• 1:04:26
  I love to learn. It's, you know, and I wanted it
• 1:04:30
  for a credibility standpoint. I wanted it because I knew I'd
• 1:04:32
  be writing to judges and, and BOP officials and lawyers and
• 1:04:36
  stuff like that. And I, I just, I wanted it.
• 1:04:39
  I needed it for me. And I knew it would matter in,
• 1:04:41
  in, in the practice. And so I did it.
• 1:04:44
  Well, I think it's, it's, it's inspiring and impressive that
• 1:04:49
  you, you did it that way. I mean, it was slow, steady.
• 1:04:52
  You look, you used mentors, you used education and you, you
• 1:04:55
  continue to set yourself into a position, but where you are is
• 1:05:00
  you can really help people, Greg.
• 1:05:02
  I mean, there's so many things that the attorneys can't do and
• 1:05:11
  you bring that to the table to help those families navigate a
• 1:05:14
  world that is scary. And you know, I, I'm curious
• 1:05:22
  when you get into these, these, you know, high profile cases is
• 1:05:28
  what it, what does all that feel like to you now that you're
• 1:05:31
  where you are? So, you know, you set me up to
• 1:05:34
  say a couple of things that that I, that I like to say.
• 1:05:38
  I guess if there's somewhat of the sermon or part of all this
• 1:05:42
  is, is that the one thing that I, I share with people all the
• 1:05:46
  time is, and this goes for anybody, you know, you have to
• 1:05:51
  you and I both talked about the whole believing yourself.
• 1:05:53
  They can't knock you down. You have to remember what you
• 1:05:56
  were good at. You have to remain, never let go
• 1:05:59
  of the things that you do. And the reality is when, when
• 1:06:02
  the consulting opportunity presented itself to me and I
• 1:06:04
  started doing it, I was like, look, I've done this before.
• 1:06:09
  I know how to build businesses. I also know how to lose them,
• 1:06:13
  right? I mean, what Great.
• 1:06:15
  I mean, like, how lucky am I, right?
• 1:06:17
  I know what not to do. And so, yeah.
• 1:06:22
  So the reality is I had that belief in myself that, OK, I can
• 1:06:28
  do this again. And I think that for the people
• 1:06:31
  that are inside now, people are listening is who might be going
• 1:06:34
  in or the people who are out, you know, you have to remember
• 1:06:40
  what you're good at and, and, and then figure out ways to, to,
• 1:06:46
  to, to do that. It's not going to be a quick
• 1:06:48
  fix. It's not going to happen
• 1:06:49
  overnight. But you know, that's something
• 1:06:51
  that I, that I wanted to say, you know, when I decided to take
• 1:06:54
  the Weinstein case on. And now I'm going to answer your
• 1:06:57
  other question. I talked to 20 people, 2019, not
• 1:07:04
  21, but religious leaders, clergy, politicians that I had
• 1:07:11
  relationships with, many attorneys, friends, family, my
• 1:07:17
  current wife and there were there are three things that I
• 1:07:24
  always say as takeaways from from that.
• 1:07:30
  The first was basically what both a New York State Assembly
• 1:07:36
  men said who had worked for Legal aid and the rabbi said,
• 1:07:40
  which is the bottom line is nobody judges people who work at
• 1:07:45
  Legal Aid and represent murderers, and nobody judges
• 1:07:48
  people who works at the defender offices.
• 1:07:51
  And you know, we believe, you know, if you believe in things
• 1:07:55
  about society and spirituality and rigid, once somebody goes
• 1:07:58
  in, they're paying their debt to society, they have rights to you
• 1:08:02
  have innocent families and you're not defending them.
• 1:08:07
  So that's 1/2 was, you know, you're either in or you're out.
• 1:08:13
  You don't get invited to this party and decline and get
• 1:08:16
  invited again. So you're either a prison
• 1:08:19
  consultant and you're not taking inventory or you're not make up
• 1:08:23
  your mind. And the third was, and maybe
• 1:08:27
  it's the one that is the most emotional.
• 1:08:29
  That is I instantly, I instantly reclaimed my story.
• 1:08:33
  Now it was my story, wasn't anyone else's story.
• 1:08:36
  It wasn't the bad articles. It wasn't the, you know, the,
• 1:08:39
  the, the, the articles about how I failed.
• 1:08:42
  It wasn't misinformation, which there's some now it's like, OK,
• 1:08:45
  this is my story. Yep, I did go to prison and here
• 1:08:48
  I am and and and and and I'm and I'm coming back and, and I'm not
• 1:08:54
  ashamed of saying it. You know, I own the narrative at
• 1:08:57
  that point. Now I own it, you know, I, I was
• 1:09:01
  on the 'cause. If you don't, they do.
• 1:09:04
  Yeah, and I was on the author. I dialed PAL hour last night and
• 1:09:07
  he and he went off mic for a second and he said, can I tell
• 1:09:10
  people you went to prison? And I mean, it was, it was like
• 1:09:12
  I'm I'm like, I'm not doing this if they don't know that.
• 1:09:15
  Like, I mean, right. I mean, it's it's my story.
• 1:09:18
  It's my story. And so it's who I am.
• 1:09:22
  And so now it now, now we're in the phase of just, you know,
• 1:09:27
  incredible gratitude, really, you know, just, you know, I'm
• 1:09:32
  healthy, my family's healthy. I'm blessed.
• 1:09:35
  I have a wonderful practice. You know, you couldn't make this
• 1:09:39
  up if you tried. I say to people all that, yeah,
• 1:09:43
  I said, I have been approached. I say to people all the time on
• 1:09:45
  February 6th, 2014, when I was like sitting in front of a judge
• 1:09:49
  hoping to make bail, you know, if I pulled some of you aside
• 1:09:52
  and said, listen, let me tell you what's going to happen.
• 1:09:55
  You know, let me tell you what's going to happen in late 2025.
• 1:09:58
  But I mean, you, you forget it. They wouldn't forget the jail.
• 1:10:01
  They would have put me in a psych ward.
• 1:10:02
  I mean, just no, you couldn't make it up if you tried.
• 1:10:05
  And, and it, and it, and it's great.
• 1:10:08
  And you know, when I get the calls on these, I, I, I'm very
• 1:10:13
  humble about it. I feel, I feel very fortunate.
• 1:10:16
  You know, I, of all the things that I've lost, I say this all
• 1:10:22
  the time and it wasn't always this way.
• 1:10:23
  It's a journey to get here. But of all the things I've lost,
• 1:10:26
  now the thing that matters most is my name.
• 1:10:29
  There are a lot. There are people out there who I
• 1:10:31
  think still don't like me. There are people out there that
• 1:10:34
  I hurt. There are people out there that
• 1:10:36
  I let down. There are people out there who
• 1:10:38
  wish I made different decisions and that, you know, look, I
• 1:10:40
  can't control that. I can only I, I, you know, I
• 1:10:43
  owned it. I took responsibility, I went to
• 1:10:45
  jail. I'm paying restitution.
• 1:10:47
  I still do it like, you know, and, and I can't control that,
• 1:10:52
  that part of it. But, but losing your name is to
• 1:10:56
  me is, is the worst. And I feel fortunate that I'm in
• 1:11:00
  an industry now where I am respected by the preeminent
• 1:11:05
  practitioners in this country. And I, there's not, I, I, you
• 1:11:09
  know, God, I, I can't, there's nothing in the world that I
• 1:11:11
  would want to do to risk that. No clients worth it, no moneys
• 1:11:15
  worth nothing. And so I'm mindful of that,
• 1:11:18
  right? That's the first thing I'm
• 1:11:19
  mindful of. And, and I, I say thank you to
• 1:11:22
  the point where they like, stop thanking me.
• 1:11:24
  Thank you. Well, and I think the other
• 1:11:26
  thing of it is too is, you know, this is kind of a weird
• 1:11:28
  fraternity that we're in, but there's a certain amount of
• 1:11:31
  pride that happens when, you know, I look and see that you're
• 1:11:33
  being interviewed by this person or that person or whatever,
• 1:11:36
  because you're also the voice of a community that is coming back.
• 1:11:40
  It's being heard, it's doing something, and you're giving
• 1:11:43
  back in a way that's helping people move forward.
• 1:11:46
  So it's when people step out and they do good things after they
• 1:11:52
  get out it it, it's, it's helping take the black eye off
• 1:11:56
  of a lot of different people because of the, the narrative is
• 1:11:59
  always bad. You know, that everybody's an ex
• 1:12:02
  felon. All ex felons need to go back to
• 1:12:04
  prison and, and they need to stay there.
• 1:12:06
  Whereas there's a lot of good stories out there of people who
• 1:12:11
  have made the most of their chance getting out and and
• 1:12:14
  getting on their way and didn't give up and more resilient and
• 1:12:19
  can make it. And and I that's that's what I
• 1:12:21
  love about your overall story. So I really look forward to us
• 1:12:25
  talking is because you, you have that whole package of things
• 1:12:29
  that have happened to you and you're in a good you're you're
• 1:12:33
  in a great. I mean, like I said, they this
• 1:12:35
  would be a great Netflix series of all the different clients
• 1:12:37
  that come. It needs to be not just a movie,
• 1:12:40
  just a Netflix series of what happens the week after.
• 1:12:42
  But Craig, what do you think? I mean, we've talked about all
• 1:12:49
  these different things. What do you think's your biggest
• 1:12:50
  take away from all of it? Wow, I don't know that anyone's
• 1:12:57
  asked me that question before. What is my biggest take away
• 1:13:00
  from all of it? I I don't know.
• 1:13:05
  I I don't know The things that are immediately popping in my
• 1:13:07
  mind is don't do the wrong thing.
• 1:13:09
  You always have other options. I mean, that that was the first
• 1:13:11
  thing that came into my mind. It's a good one.
• 1:13:14
  You know, at the end of the day, I had other choices.
• 1:13:17
  At the end of the day. The irony of my choices is that
• 1:13:19
  the choices that I was afraid to make old because I thought, I
• 1:13:23
  say it all the time. I didn't make certain choices
• 1:13:24
  because I thought we would lose the business and I ultimately
• 1:13:26
  lost it anyway. Yeah, I think that that's one.
• 1:13:30
  I, I mean, I think you have to. You have to find ways to always
• 1:13:35
  stay positive. You have to, you have to, you
• 1:13:38
  know, it's very much a one day at a time gig very often.
• 1:13:42
  Sometimes it's an hour at a time.
• 1:13:45
  And so, you know, I think that that's a take away and, and I
• 1:13:48
  think that clearly, no, you know, both, I say this to my
• 1:13:56
  clients all the time, both positive and negative.
• 1:13:58
  No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow.
• 1:14:01
  And you have got to, you've got to find ways to reel yourself
• 1:14:05
  into the here and now. You know, nobody knew that that
• 1:14:08
  horrific tragedy was going to happen yesterday morning, you
• 1:14:12
  know, with the flight. And you know what, everybody who
• 1:14:14
  got sentenced to federal prison in 2015, 1617, nobody knew that
• 1:14:20
  Donald Trump was going to be president and he was going to
• 1:14:22
  pass the first step back and holy cow, and then COVID and
• 1:14:28
  holy cow. No one knows what's around the
• 1:14:30
  corner. No one knows what's around the
• 1:14:32
  corner. You know, you have, you know I
• 1:14:35
  did. We're not being political now
• 1:14:37
  Donald Trump's back in office. We know that he's made some of
• 1:14:39
  the most sweeping criminal justice reform in modern
• 1:14:41
  history. Maybe it's going to be more.
• 1:14:43
  Now. I can tell you in New York
• 1:14:45
  State, you know, you know, you know, the death of Robert
• 1:14:49
  Brooks, for the people who know about it at Marcy Correctional
• 1:14:52
  Facility was beat to death by 14 corrections officers.
• 1:14:56
  It is I, you know, if, if we're ever going to get reform in New
• 1:15:00
  York State, if we're ever going to get meaningful reform, if
• 1:15:02
  we're ever going to get legislation passed in the state
• 1:15:05
  that some light similar to the first step back.
• 1:15:08
  Now is the moment, you know, and my and and I have clients in
• 1:15:11
  there jumping out of their skin hoping.
• 1:15:13
  So you know, what I say to my clients all the time is I can
• 1:15:16
  say things to you that nobody else can say to you because I
• 1:15:18
  was there. I did it and I lived it.
• 1:15:20
  I get I have that right to do that.
• 1:15:23
  Yeah, and that's what makes you great about doing your job.
• 1:15:27
  That's you walked it, you've lived it.
• 1:15:29
  Yeah, I mean, I think the other take away is, is it's brutal on
• 1:15:32
  the families. I mean, I think that that's the
• 1:15:34
  the the family, it's as hard if not harder on the families.
• 1:15:38
  A huge part of my job is talking to the families.
• 1:15:41
  Huge part of the job. You know, it's not one mom or or
• 1:15:44
  spouse that hasn't cried on the phone with me.
• 1:15:46
  I mean, you know, they're they're powerless and they think
• 1:15:49
  that, you know, you know, those are those are those are my take.
• 1:15:54
  My other big take away is that if you any light that you can
• 1:15:59
  shine on this process, my my quote that gets out there all
• 1:16:03
  the time is it's a Byzantine black hole.
• 1:16:05
  I just love saying that if you know what's going to happen, if
• 1:16:09
  you can tell someone like this is going to happen, this is
• 1:16:11
  going to happen or it just takes anxiety away.
• 1:16:13
  This happens. Don't worry, it's hard enough.
• 1:16:16
  You're going to be so anxiety riddled to begin with, But if
• 1:16:18
  you can kind of walk them through things that are going to
• 1:16:21
  happen, it it at the family and the individual, I mean you're
• 1:16:25
  really paying it forward. Yeah, those are good, great
• 1:16:29
  takeaways. Greg, how?
• 1:16:31
  What's the best way for people to get a hold of you?
• 1:16:33
  How old? Are you they?
• 1:16:36
  They guessed the two easiest ways They three.
• 1:16:40
  You can call me. The phone number is
• 1:16:43
  212-202-5556. I'll I'll repeat all of this if
• 1:16:49
  they have, you know, if you're well, whether you're inside or
• 1:16:52
  outside, but my e-mail address is pretty simple.
• 1:16:55
  It's my first name, Craig, which is Craig and it's at and it's
• 1:17:00
  just my company insideoutsideltd.com.
• 1:17:05
  And if you just Google inside outside, or you Google Craig
• 1:17:09
  Rothfeld or Microsoft Edge or Bing or whatever, it'll, it'll,
• 1:17:13
  you'll find me. It'll it'll, it'll it'll it'll
• 1:17:16
  pop up. Well, it's, it's great and I, I
• 1:17:19
  appreciate you sharing all that. So we're talking about gratitude
• 1:17:22
  stuff. I, I want to say I had this
• 1:17:26
  place real close to my home here, Homestead Financial, who
• 1:17:28
  lets me use this podcast studio and all the fancy stuff.
• 1:17:31
  And if you've got home mortgage needs out there, Greg Aftiev is
• 1:17:36
  your guy. Don't forget to like share
• 1:17:40
  whatever you can do and make the comments if you got time.
• 1:17:43
  I know it's kind of a hassle to leave a review on Apple.
• 1:17:46
  It helps the show. Just go to Apple podcast and and
• 1:17:49
  Scroll down if you want to know more about what I'm doing at
• 1:17:52
  brentcassie.com. I spell it wrong.
• 1:17:54
  It's with ATY, not a DY. And as I used to say to my
• 1:17:58
  people when I was writing my emails back and forth from
• 1:18:01
  Leavenworth, stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 1:18:03
  Craig, man, I've I so admire what you're doing and how you're
• 1:18:07
  doing it. And I appreciate you coming on
• 1:18:09
  the show today. It's good, good for everybody.
• 1:18:12
  To do this, thank you. I end I end all my emails and
• 1:18:15
  calls the same way as you. Stay strong.
• 1:18:17
  Stay, stay, stay, stay strong. Thank you so much.
• 1:18:20
  It's this has been great. I'm glad we got to do it
• 1:18:22
  finally. Me too.
• 1:18:24
  Nightmare success in and out.