Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / "The Man with 9 Lives: The Joseph De Gregorio Story”
Transcript
- 0:01What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
- 0:04Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
- 0:07Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
- 0:10nightmares that set yourself free.
- 0:13We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
- 0:15Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
- 0:20These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
- 0:23There's some humor, but hopefully you can come away with
- 0:26a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
- 0:28prisons you built up in your own mind.
- 0:32All right, welcome back nine more success.
- 0:34And now listeners, this is where you come from.
- 0:36What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
- 0:38How do you adapt, survive, overcome?
- 0:39Set yourself free, folks, don't forget to to do the follow the
- 0:45subscribe share this thing out, like it up comment.
- 0:48It really helps the show and I appreciate it.
- 0:50So who are we talking to today? Well, I have a have a guest on
- 0:57here that was he was a Wall Street trader.
- 1:00He's a transplant liver survivor, federal defendant and
- 1:05a mitigation specialist consultant.
- 1:07So it's Joseph and I, I said that I was probably going to get
- 1:12this wrong. De Grario, say it again.
- 1:15Say it, former Joseph. De Gregorio.
- 1:18De Gregorio. De Gregorio, I'll probably only
- 1:22say that once from now that we've gotten it out there, but
- 1:28it's got a interesting history of talks about that.
- 1:31He spent 24 years on on Wall Street as a trader.
- 1:35After the market crashed, he spiralled.
- 1:38By 2016, seventeen, he was drinking heavily.
- 1:41And during that period, he began committing his crimes.
- 1:45July of 2020, at the height of COVID in Manhattan, he received
- 1:50a life saving liver transplant despite not ever being on the
- 1:55transplant list. The moment changed everything
- 1:58for him. Just as he was leaving, as you
- 2:02would suspect, the hospital the Securities Exchange Commission
- 2:05called as it all unraveled. He was charged with one count of
- 2:10securities fraud and one count of wire fraud.
- 2:13But interestingly, and this is one of the things I'm interested
- 2:16in talking to you about, is plea deal carried a 41 to 51 month
- 2:19guideline sentence. And he started tirelessly
- 2:25working on mitigation strategies that lots of times lawyers just
- 2:29don't know much about. And when the sentencing came
- 2:33down, the result was pretty extraordinary.
- 2:35You received only a year and a day, which was a 75% reduction
- 2:39and even more, he served only 25% of that sentence before
- 2:43release. He is now the founder of JN
- 2:46Advisors, a full service federal sentencing mitigation firm,
- 2:50helping out white collar federal defendants and really being able
- 2:55to be the guy that's walk the walk, talk to talk and helping
- 2:59those people out with the same type of mitigation strategy.
- 3:02So I can't wait to unpack all this with Joseph.
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- 4:18accountability, restoring honor, dignity and medicine and the
- 4:21rule of law. Joseph, welcome in, my man.
- 4:24How are you? How are you doing?
- 4:26And thank you for helping me out with your name.
- 4:28Thank you kindly for the invitation.
- 4:31So we were just talking before this and I didn't realize once
- 4:37you had gotten sentenced in prison that you got sick from
- 4:40the liver transplant, which you and I shared.
- 4:43My dad went through some, not a liver transplant with Septus,
- 4:47but Joseph, you went through a lot and and you made it out on
- 4:53the other side, which is a lot of what this show is about.
- 4:56Can you take us back a little bit?
- 4:58Where did you grow up as little Joseph?
- 5:00What was life like? Mom, dad, siblings?
- 5:03Where did all that take place? Sure I was born in in Brooklyn,
- 5:08NY in Bensonhurst on 15th Ave. and 71st St.
- 5:14Went to Catholic school, a lady of Guadalupe right across the
- 5:18street from my house. The church was right across the
- 5:21street and I played baseball growing up, collected baseball
- 5:25cards. You would find me getting the
- 5:28monthly Beckett price guide as soon as it comes out.
- 5:31So I would come home and price my baseball cards.
- 5:35And I saw the similarities when my dad was looking at The Sunday
- 5:41Times and he was looking at his Con Ed stock and I was checking
- 5:45my cards next to him. And then he said, you know,
- 5:49look, this is the same thing you're you're looking at.
- 5:51You know how much your Don Mattingly went up this month and
- 5:54you know, I'm I'm looking at. So I always wanted to work in
- 5:59finance and then. Like, how old would you have
- 6:03been when you thought you were looking at that?
- 6:05Like how old of a kid? Because it's always interesting
- 6:07to me when when somebody kind of just gets obsessed with the
- 6:12market and sometimes it's at a really young age.
- 6:16It started out when I was 12, but then when it really kicked
- 6:20in midway through high school is seeing so many people buying
- 6:26their parents houses, who worked on Wall Street, who's driving a
- 6:30Ferrari. And you know, you see all of
- 6:32this tangible that you can see that these people are doing it.
- 6:37And I went to work right after high school at a firm Co called
- 6:43for bunch of years. I was doing roofing and siding
- 6:48on the time I was doing odds and ends with other things and in
- 6:52construction. But then in 2000, I went to take
- 6:56my Series 7 and series 63. I passed it.
- 6:59And then I had to rebuild a book from scratch, which I did.
- 7:05I started at U.S. Securities and Futures on 100
- 7:08Wall Street. They were the third biggest
- 7:11futures firm at the time. And yeah, I was in the office
- 7:17dialing 2 phones making $600 a day from 7:00 AM to 10:30 and
- 7:24built. That teaches you a lot, doesn't
- 7:26it? Making cold calls.
- 7:28It does. It does and and.
- 7:32So you, so you, you didn't you miss the whole college route,
- 7:35the, the where everybody gets four years older and and you
- 7:39know their their life and you, you're on Wall Street.
- 7:44Yeah, I was the youngest to get the series 7 and I passed it in
- 7:48six weeks. The series 7 when other guys who
- 7:51was taking them 6-7 months. I'm, I'm good at studying,
- 7:56especially cramming and went through the, the, the, the 2001,
- 8:03what happened at 911 down there? And then in 2003 when there was
- 8:08a lot of confidence taken out of the market with the, with, with
- 8:13the Enron and the Ken Lays and the Kozlowski's from Tycho.
- 8:17And, and then we, we in 2007, I saw because I always watch the
- 8:23credit and bond markets first, because that's what predicates
- 8:27what's going to happen into the stock market.
- 8:29And I saw red flashes everywhere, you know, in 2007.
- 8:35But I had clients in Fannie Mae, which was AAA rated by Moody's
- 8:39to the end. It was a, it was over 5%
- 8:43dividend at clients in Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, which
- 8:47was 158 year old institution. If you would have told me that
- 8:51was going out of business, I wouldn't have believed you.
- 8:54And sure enough, by August of 2008, all three of them did.
- 9:00I had just about a $50 million book that got decimated from
- 9:05September of O8 to March of O9. What was that like?
- 9:09What I mean when you talk about something like that, Joseph, you
- 9:15know, living through that, seeing the impossible happen
- 9:22with Lehman Brothers and people that are closing down, what was
- 9:25going through your mind? It was surreal.
- 9:30The owner of the firm that I was working at the time on 40 Wall
- 9:33Street killed himself. And you know, I'm certainly
- 9:37wasn't, you know, even that wasn't a thought.
- 9:39I was just worried about my clients.
- 9:41I was on the phone with all of them non-stop.
- 9:44I stayed at the office till 1130 in the in in the morning.
- 9:49But mostly all my clients knew. I didn't intentionally want to
- 9:54lose the money with these, with all these companies, But there
- 9:57was a time like around Thanksgiving of 2008 where all
- 10:01these contingency lawyers started sending out notices to
- 10:05investors saying, hey, you lost money in the market, we'll take
- 10:08on your case, I'll get your money.
- 10:11So I had three arbitrations, and that was one for Lehman
- 10:16Brothers, one for Fannie Mae and one for Bear Stearns.
- 10:19And so that was in 2009. I settled with all them.
- 10:24I paid them all in full in in 2011 and that's when I began to
- 10:32really drink. OK, so that's 2011.
- 10:36So that's, you know, you, you basically walk into Wall Street
- 10:39around 2000, 2001, 2011. You have lived through the crash
- 10:47personally. Are you married?
- 10:49Do you have kids? Like, where are you in that
- 10:51world? Not married, didn't have kids, I
- 10:54oversaw 8 guys on the company trading floor and I was managing
- 10:58my own clients assets. So you were just a guy that was
- 11:02grinding it out, making good money and and then 2011 happens.
- 11:10What's the next step? It was really disheartening at
- 11:13that point when I settled with all of them, and at that point I
- 11:23was 35 years old. Yeah, young guy I.
- 11:26I was born in 76. So I started, you know, we
- 11:32would, we would go out for dinner, you know, us traders and
- 11:36I would start to, you know, drink a little more and little
- 11:40more. And then by 2015, I didn't
- 11:45realize it because I was coming into the firm wearing a suit
- 11:48functional. I was talking to people all day
- 11:51on the phone. You know, it was not until my
- 11:55body started to show changes. I was, I started becoming very
- 12:01yellowed. My legs blew up.
- 12:03My feet blew up to the point where I couldn't wear dress
- 12:06shoes anymore. I would get these tremendous
- 12:09pains in my stomach. And in 2016 I went to work at a
- 12:17private equity firm and I moved my business over there because
- 12:22they had all these IP OS. We had the Palantir IPO, pre
- 12:26IPO, actually at $8, Airbnb, Lyft.
- 12:32So I said, you know, let me get out of trading, you know, the
- 12:35securities in and out all day and let me put them in these
- 12:39investments to let it sit there grow in a couple of years
- 12:42they'll all come public. But I was so passed to the point
- 12:48and I was lying to everyone. I was lying to everyone.
- 12:52And then I. What When you say you were lying
- 12:58to everyone? You were lying about the
- 13:00drinking or you're just lying? What is it?
- 13:03What is it All? Yeah, well.
- 13:05I was, I was lying about the drinking, you know, it came to
- 13:08the point where it was, you know, you, you couldn't mask
- 13:11that at that point. And what happened was, is I
- 13:15started to rationalize a crime in my head.
- 13:17I said, you know, after Palantir went public and a lot of clients
- 13:22sold it in the 30s from $8. I, you know, did what I did to 4
- 13:31victims. I created 4 victims that I wake
- 13:34up with a pain in my stomach every day that it doesn't go
- 13:37away what I did. They're always in the forefront
- 13:39of my mind. And but I wasn't, I wasn't
- 13:45sober. I mean, I was far from sober in
- 13:482018 and in 2019 and it went, it got to the point Brent, where I
- 13:55didn't even want to go see doctors and then.
- 13:59That's what I was going to ask you, Joseph, when you said that
- 14:01you started turning kind of a yellow color.
- 14:03You had bad circulation. You could your, your legs are
- 14:07swelling up. Did you go to the doctor?
- 14:10Did they did they diagnose you in some form or fashion of what
- 14:14was wrong with you in that early stage?
- 14:17They did so they, I didn't want to go for blood tests.
- 14:21And when I went to go see one of my doctors, he forced me to go
- 14:27to the hospital to get blood. And when I, when I, when I, when
- 14:31I went there, they wanted, you know, to, for me to get admitted
- 14:39and to go into this detox program.
- 14:41I told them I'm OK. And that was January of 2023.
- 14:46Months later when the COVID protocols when placed in
- 14:50Manhattan and you couldn't go to a hospital unless it was COVID
- 14:53related, I got rushed to. In June of 2020, I got rushed to
- 15:00Columbia, NY Presbyterian Hospital.
- 15:03And if anybody remembers, you know, basically March 17th of
- 15:082020, the world shut down in that time period in June, the
- 15:12world was still shut down when you were getting rushed into the
- 15:16basically the epicenter of all the bad stuff of COVID going on
- 15:20in New York. What was going on with that
- 15:23hospital? We could have 4 episodes and we
- 15:26wouldn't cover it. And what I saw and, you know, so
- 15:33they, they stay put two hoses on each side of my stomach when I
- 15:36got there and it was just draining out buckets of bile and
- 15:40they had me detoxing. And they said to me in the first
- 15:46week of July, they said, you know, you're going to need a
- 15:48liver transplant, otherwise you're not going to make it out
- 15:50of here. And I was like 510% cognant at
- 15:53the time. It got to the point where I
- 15:54drank myself into a coma. And what really caused that was
- 15:59after I did my crime, that's when the drinking got to the
- 16:03point where because now I'm thinking what I've done, look at
- 16:08what you look at what you're doing.
- 16:10And you know your your I was this complete Jekyll and Hyde.
- 16:15I was in the thralls of of my huckabolism at that point.
- 16:19And then being in the hospital and hearing I I need a liver.
- 16:22I was never on the list. And July 21st of 2020 we did the
- 16:30liver transplant. The liver they gave me had COVID
- 16:35in it. When I woke up in ICU, I was in
- 16:38a glass room and they immediately started me with
- 16:42remdesivir, convalescent plasma treatments, high, high via
- 16:46steroids. I had 106.8 fever.
- 16:50It wasn't going away. The COVID wasn't stopping.
- 16:53So they had to put me on a ventilator.
- 16:55Wow. And I remember everyone around
- 16:58me in the ICU was, everyone was on ventilators and all I saw
- 17:02Brett was white sheets being pulled over and, and I said, you
- 17:06know, I'm I'm never going to make it out.
- 17:08Right. Well, I mean, I, I can't
- 17:12imagine. First of all, you had to have
- 17:14been really surprised that you got a liver right That but to to
- 17:18have a liver that had COVID, you get on the how long were you on
- 17:24the ventilator? The first time it was 10 days.
- 17:28And then soon as I woke up from that, when when I'm in this
- 17:33classroom in ICU, the nurses saw me.
- 17:35They come running in to pull everything out and then vacuum
- 17:40up my insides. Within 12 hours, I felt both of
- 17:45my lungs like an accordion just collapse.
- 17:49And they put me on the ventilator again for 8 days and
- 17:53they weren't expecting me to get up from that.
- 17:58And I did. And when I woke up, there was
- 18:01actually a priest in front of me and I had septic shock, you
- 18:09know, liver reject my my body rejected the liver right away.
- 18:12There was so many, so many things going on.
- 18:14I didn't even know it at the time until I was discharged.
- 18:16Everything that happened to me when I saw my hospital records.
- 18:21So five years ago today, I was in ICU.
- 18:27So when I made it to the transplant floor Columbia in
- 18:31September of 2020, it was it was beautiful.
- 18:37It was, you know, I was a few doors down from Bill Clinton's
- 18:41designated room. You know, the nurses were so
- 18:45nice. You know, you, it was just a
- 18:46completely, but still not all there.
- 18:50You're on so many medications. I had to learn how to walk again
- 18:54because I was laying in bed for four months straight and the
- 18:57atrophy, I couldn't believe I couldn't walk.
- 19:00And then as as soon as I got out of the hospital and I.
- 19:04But Joseph, you, the liver, the your body eventually accepted
- 19:09the liver. Is that how this worked 'cause
- 19:11it did OK? They stopped the rejection,
- 19:15that's why they kept me in ICU for a month and 1/2.
- 19:19Wow. OK, so your body finally accepts
- 19:24this liver. You go through what a lot of
- 19:27people died, Septus, you know, ventilator, COVID, the whole
- 19:31thing. You've made it all the way
- 19:33through and now it's in September.
- 19:34This started back in June. What happens next?
- 19:41When I get out of the hospital, I get a phone call, and it's
- 19:47Monsignor Jeff Conway of my church who married me and my
- 19:52wife. My family's been going there for
- 19:55decades. And he says, Joe, I want you to
- 19:58come to the church rectory at 5:00 PM and had dinner with me
- 20:04on Thursday and then we're going to go down to A7 PMAA meeting.
- 20:10So I couldn't drive at that point.
- 20:12I still had my Walker. So he says when you can or if
- 20:16you can have someone bring you here, which I did.
- 20:19And I would have dinner come come to find out I didn't know
- 20:22Monsignor Jeff was a big figurehead in New York City with
- 20:26a a he saved hundreds of lives 43 years sober.
- 20:30I had no idea. And I will had dinner with him
- 20:34and 2-3 other long term sobriety people, 36 years, 31 years.
- 20:39And then we would go downstairs for the meeting, go back
- 20:43upstairs. I would read the big book with
- 20:46with Monsignor Jeff and then I did my steps with him.
- 20:53And then within just a few months of going there, because
- 20:57now I'm out of the hospital and I'm sober for the first time in
- 21:00years, I said to him what I did. I said, father, you know, I got
- 21:06to talk to you. It was just me and him.
- 21:08After the meeting, we're upstairs.
- 21:10We read the big book. You know, we were we were just
- 21:13me and him. And I said, you know, I can't
- 21:17believe what what I've done. This is what what I what I did
- 21:20to four clients and Brent within two days, like it was I get a
- 21:30phone call after that night telling him I get a phone call
- 21:33from the Securities and Exchange Commission wanting to speak with
- 21:36me. And I they said, is this Joseph
- 21:39D Gregorio? I said, yes.
- 21:40They said we'd like to speak with you.
- 21:42I said, would it be OK if I give you guys a call back in the next
- 21:45day or two? They said sure.
- 21:46I took down his name and number. I felt, I felt relieved and but
- 21:54now I knew what I was going to go through.
- 21:56When I started becoming a student of the process, very
- 21:59early on in my case, I went into Manhattan, hired my attorney,
- 22:03Nicholas Kaiser, tremendous lawyer, and I told him, I said,
- 22:09Nicholas, this is what I did. This is how I did it.
- 22:11I was the only one involved with my crime.
- 22:14I had no Co defendants. The firm that I was working for
- 22:17at the time, they had no idea what I did.
- 22:20You know, there wasn't any cooperation agreement or
- 22:22anything like that. I told my lawyer, listen, I
- 22:26don't want to, you know, call the SEC, please call them and
- 22:29tell them that I want to fall on the sword.
- 22:31I own what I did. I just, I don't want to give
- 22:34them the runaround. I've been waiting for this call.
- 22:38You know, I have a second chance at life here.
- 22:40I'm on borrowed time. Just please, just so my lawyer
- 22:43said OK, that was May of 2021. And he really did have to think
- 22:49after going through all that, when he really probably weren't
- 22:53supposed to survive in any of these categories.
- 22:56That would give you a whole new perspective on life, even though
- 23:01you were looking at the great unknown of dealing with the
- 23:03federal system. But here's the thing, Brent,
- 23:06when the SEC called me, I said, you know, watch out.
- 23:11There's people in ICU that they wish they have your problem.
- 23:15They wish they could go to prison for four or five years
- 23:19and just to be alive, just to make it out of there alive, no
- 23:22matter how crazy that may seem. Like to this day, every day I
- 23:25wake up and I and I think of being in ICU for six weeks and
- 23:30I'm endlessly grateful. The pain never leaves the core
- 23:35in me of what I've done, how I destroyed lives.
- 23:38I, I created victims and broke trust and these were long term
- 23:44clients of mine. And so I started studying the
- 23:50federal system. The first thing I started doing
- 23:52was studying federal judges. And when I started reading about
- 23:58how to, you know, not just to get leniency and mercy, but what
- 24:01the process was going to look like and what I was going to go
- 24:05through, you know, I started hearing federal judges like
- 24:09Benita Pearson's. She said, I expect the defendant
- 24:12to take their case as a full time job and to come into
- 24:15sentencing exhausted. That resonated with me early.
- 24:19Then I heard other big two big prominent federal judges.
- 24:23They said, you know, we only take 10% into account what the
- 24:26lawyer says. We know they're paid mouthpieces
- 24:29for the defendant. It's what the defendant shows
- 24:31us. So I had to focus on what I had
- 24:34control over, what I had control over.
- 24:37So in the beginning, you think about prison, but then I said to
- 24:42myself, Joe, just look down. Focus on every day.
- 24:45Look at the immediate steps in front of you.
- 24:47Maximize every day. So I got a job at Amazon 6:00 PM
- 24:53to 6:00 AM on a forklift stowing pallets.
- 24:57My transplant team was not happy about that.
- 25:01I got a job at at a golf course as a golf Ranger getting $15.00
- 25:06an hour 1965 at Amazon. I was doing a lot of
- 25:11volunteering in the evening and then I come home, 930 take 1/2
- 25:15hour to myself and then 10 PMI get on the computer and I was
- 25:19just taking certifications, just taking course, half the course
- 25:22until 2:00 AM. And I was documenting everything
- 25:25that I did. I bought my personal domain, you
- 25:29know, because I wanted the judge to know as much about me as
- 25:32possible and not just what he or she would see on paper.
- 25:36And a couple of weeks after that call, I'm sitting here.
- 25:42I called my lawyer. I said, Nicholas, I'm going to,
- 25:44I have things that I purchased with I'll gotten gains.
- 25:47They don't belong to me. I said, you know, I want to
- 25:51bring, I want to belong to the victims.
- 25:53So he said, OK, bring it up to my office.
- 25:56So I said, OK, give me a couple of days, I'll gather everything.
- 25:59I'll bring it up and everything and anything that I had, I
- 26:03brought up stacks of cash, stacks of $10,000 cash wrapped.
- 26:07I brought up silver kilo bars, all my gold coins, crypto in
- 26:13digital cold storage wallets, I mean, watches, jewelry.
- 26:18And I, I got to my, my lawyer's office and I, we were up there
- 26:23for like 6-7 hours making a list of everything and, and, and
- 26:27assessed valuation. And they had like this walk in
- 26:31safe in their closet in the law firm.
- 26:33I said, what are you going to do with it?
- 26:34He said, I'm going to call, you know, if someone from the
- 26:37government, they'll come and pick it up.
- 26:38I said, OK, so that was, that was June of 2021.
- 26:45I didn't get a plea deal until December of 21.
- 26:50So when I came forward in May of 2021 with the SEC, it took seven
- 26:55months to refer it over to the DOJ as a criminal matter.
- 26:59And then I remember everything like yesterday.
- 27:03Now, December 27th, 2021, one count of securities fraud, one
- 27:08count of wire fraud. It was originally a level 25
- 27:13point offense. A -, 3 points for acceptance of
- 27:17responsibility, so 22 points on the sentencing guideline charts
- 27:22was 41 to 51 months. I didn't disagree with anything
- 27:25in the plea deal. I signed it right away.
- 27:27They had it back first week in January, the US Attorney of
- 27:312022. Then I plead guilty in March of
- 27:36March 1st of 2022. My case was out of the Eastern
- 27:40District of New York, which is in Brooklyn, Southern Manhattan.
- 27:45And then March 30th is when I had my pre sentence interview
- 27:48and I was preparing for this even before I pled guilty, you
- 27:53know, I knew I started studying the importance of the pre
- 27:56sentence interview and I was on mine for about two which.
- 28:01By the way, for those you know, listening down the Cayman
- 28:03Islands, the pre sentencing report is the thing that follows
- 28:07you all the way through, you know, to your case manager.
- 28:11And after when you get out, it's it's your document of who they
- 28:16say you are. And so many people don't have
- 28:20any idea and a lot of attorneys don't really say, well, it's not
- 28:24a big day. Just go down an interview.
- 28:25It is a huge deal. Recent reports called PSRPSI.
- 28:29It's it's a huge deal. Absolutely.
- 28:33Call it our Bible in prison because all they do is reference
- 28:36it. Every single stakeholder just
- 28:38references that. And then also the judge only has
- 28:41two documents that sentencing, the sentencing memorandum and
- 28:44the PSR. So when I was on my PSI and he
- 28:49went through his questions for the 1st 20 minutes, half hour,
- 28:54two days before that, I sent my lawyer a 4035 hundred word
- 29:01letter to the judge and I wrote it from the heart.
- 29:06My heart literally pushed a pen. Brent and I, I just kept writing
- 29:11until I stopped and I emailed my lawyer and I called my lawyer a
- 29:16couple of days before the PSI, March 28th, I called him, it was
- 29:22March 30th, my PSI of 2022. And I told Nicholas, can you
- 29:26please e-mail that interviewing officer?
- 29:28This letter that I wrote for the judge, I, I would really
- 29:33sincerely appreciate it if not only he can read it ahead of the
- 29:36interview, but if he could kindly fully attach it to the
- 29:40report that gets created from the interview.
- 29:42And he agreed. The probation officer, I thanked
- 29:45him. We, you know, we started off
- 29:47after he was done. I said, would it be OK if I
- 29:50speak? And I had all my talking points,
- 29:52you know, already, you know, always putting, you know, the
- 29:56victims first. And you know, that acceptance of
- 29:58responsibility, the remorse, the humility, the shame, the lessons
- 30:03learned, your plan going forward, why you'll never be in
- 30:05another courtroom again. This is all very important to
- 30:08express during during that interview, you know, you have
- 30:11one bite at the apple. You're indirectly speaking to
- 30:14the judge. Everything I say becomes a
- 30:16matter of record. Then the officer is going to
- 30:18give that recommendation to the judge.
- 30:20They're going to say, do you think he was really remorseful
- 30:24or was it a performative remorseful?
- 30:28You know, so it's all it's, it's very, it's, it's a big deal.
- 30:32I viewed every part of of me going through my case as a big
- 30:35deal and I was, I had it in my head that I was looking at 41 to
- 30:4251 years. I, I said, no, Joe, you're not
- 30:45looking at, you know, four years.
- 30:48And that makes me that made me like, you know, push the, the
- 30:52pedal floor the gas pedal, do 160 miles an hour into
- 30:55sentencing have no regret versus preparation.
- 30:59And I wanted to leave it all out there.
- 31:01And if I were to get 41 to 51 months, so be it.
- 31:04I did something and I, I, I believe in justice.
- 31:07It's people do something wrong in life.
- 31:10I, I believe, you know, you should be held to account.
- 31:14I think that's one thing actually in this world is
- 31:16missing is empathy and accountability right now.
- 31:19So then I was sentenced September 14th of 2022 and I was
- 31:28sentenced to a year and a day and.
- 31:32Well, take me through that. How did you feel?
- 31:34Because you want to walk in that room.
- 31:36You have no idea, you know what the guidelines were when the
- 31:40judge came down with that sentence.
- 31:43What? What in the world went through
- 31:44your mind? Well, when I was working on the
- 31:50sentencing memorandum with my lawyer, and I recommend anyone,
- 31:54don't leave that up to your lawyer.
- 31:55Be proactive. I was in the middle of
- 31:57everything with my lawyer. I was actually in the driver's
- 32:00seat and he was in shotgun and I, and I hired him on that
- 32:03basis. I said, listen, I'm going to be
- 32:05in control of my case and you know, I'm going to tell you
- 32:08things that I want done that it's going to be very unorthodox
- 32:11for you and you're not used to it.
- 32:13But, and that's why I hired Nicholas.
- 32:16He was all on board with incorporating all this stuff.
- 32:20He really didn't know. And when I was doing my
- 32:24sentencing memorandum, we submitted it about 5 weeks
- 32:29before sentencing. And you as a defendant, you get
- 32:33the right to read the government sentencing memorandum that they
- 32:37submit. And it was, it was a page and
- 32:411/2 that they submitted to the judge.
- 32:44So when my lawyer sent it to me, he said read it, call me back.
- 32:49I read it like 7-8 times. I called him, I said this is I
- 32:53don't know, this is the only sentencing memorandum and the
- 32:56only one I'm ever going to read. What?
- 32:58How is this? He says, well, the first thing
- 33:01is, is if it's only a page and a half long, they usually dump on
- 33:04the defendant for pages and pages and pages he goes.
- 33:07So that's a good sign, He says they commend all your
- 33:10rehabilitation efforts. You turn around, your acceptance
- 33:14of responsibility. Everything that I did, you know,
- 33:18there was, I incorporated this restitution framework into my
- 33:24case. I started paying restitution in
- 33:26January of 2022, nine months before I was sentenced.
- 33:31And that was another thing that I called my lawyer one day,
- 33:34Brent, and I said, I told my lawyer, I said, listen, I'm
- 33:37going to, I'm going to be sending you like 4 or 500 a
- 33:40month and earmark it for restitution.
- 33:45If you can put it in escrow, earmark it for restitution.
- 33:48I said, and next time you're speaking to the US Attorney or
- 33:51whoever about my case, nonchalantly bring it up to
- 33:54them, say, oh, by the way, my client, Di Gregorio, he's paying
- 33:57restitution. He's not waiting before it's
- 33:59imposed on that sentencing. He's paying now and I'm holding
- 34:03it in house in our in our account.
- 34:06So first, you know, he said, you know, just hold on to it.
- 34:10You know it, it's not going to make a difference.
- 34:12I said, no, listen, I said the judge knows I'm making not even
- 34:164000 a month working at Amazon, working at the golf course.
- 34:20If I could send in 1015% of that, it's certainly going to
- 34:25help me. It's not going to hurt me.
- 34:26So my lawyer said, OK, And then I brought another small check
- 34:30with me to sentencing. And I mean, I did a lot, a lot
- 34:35of other work too. I mean, I, I breezed by it a
- 34:38little too fast, but ultimately I, I had a 7 figure restitution
- 34:43going into sentencing, no cooperation agreement and I got
- 34:49a year and a day and I started studying immediately.
- 34:54How do I get out of prison as quickly as possible right after
- 34:57that? So you went in what?
- 34:59What was? What was the date that you?
- 35:01What was the date that you were supposed to go in?
- 35:05So the sentencing was September 14th of 2022.
- 35:08I reported to Federal Medical Center Devons November 17th of
- 35:142022. OK.
- 35:16For a couple of couple of months in between there, which it's
- 35:19kind of like living in purgatory, waiting to see where
- 35:21you're going to go. Let's take a break there because
- 35:24I want to talk about how you handled prison and how you got
- 35:27through that because I know you also have some issues health
- 35:29wise Before we do that. A lot of people don't like how
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- 36:12Success Podcast is sponsored by the White Collar Support Group,
- 36:16the world's first support group devoted to people navigating the
- 36:18white collar criminal justice system.
- 36:20I'm a member of the white Collar Support Group, but I can tell
- 36:22you this is a bunch of people who help each other through the
- 36:24criminal justice journey for free.
- 36:26Whether you're just starting your journey or you've made it
- 36:28through to the other side, this is great space for you.
- 36:31You can join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
- 36:36And if you want to know more information, go to
- 36:38prisoners.org. That's prisoners.org.
- 36:41And it'll also give you information about the White
- 36:43Collar Conference on October 11th.
- 36:46So Joseph, you, you make it through it all and voluntarily
- 36:53surrender to a medical facility, correct?
- 36:57That's correct. So walk us through that.
- 37:02So walk it in, going in, going through intake.
- 37:07Within the hour, they walked me into solitary confinement and it
- 37:13was so FMC Devens is an administrative prison.
- 37:18It's, you know, all levels of security.
- 37:19So it was actually one of the the shoes or the solitaries that
- 37:25you see on TV. So when he walks me in, I asked
- 37:29him politely. I said can you could just give
- 37:30me the two biggest books you have and.
- 37:33Smart. And gave me Alexander Hamilton's
- 37:37biography, 748 pages. And he gave me maximum
- 37:41achievement and he closed the door.
- 37:46It was not, you know, not the cleanest.
- 37:48The the shower wasn't working. I had a drink through the sink.
- 37:51I knew I was going to get sick. And then I, I see that a day
- 37:58goes by, you know, and they didn't open the door until
- 38:02Thanksgiving, November 24th, not even for an hour a day.
- 38:06So one day passes, they didn't give me my medicine.
- 38:11Two days passes, they don't give me my medicine.
- 38:14Now the guards were sporadically walking around sometimes 3-4
- 38:18hours during the day and I would catch them passing by and the
- 38:22doors are so thick in in solitary.
- 38:25I was banging on the door saying hey listen I just self
- 38:27surrendered. I had a liver transplant please
- 38:30I just need my immunosuppressants and my anti
- 38:32rejection meds you know, you know and the guard says I'm not
- 38:37a doctor and he walks away. Next guard says, you know, you
- 38:42should have thought of that before coming here and he walks
- 38:45away. And then it was at night time at
- 38:48the end of day three where this female guard, she heard what I
- 38:54said. She and she was she put her ear
- 38:57to the door and she was what they didn't give me.
- 39:00Are you kidding me? You have a lipid transplant.
- 39:02They didn't give you your medicine.
- 39:03I said no ma'am, please. And and I just want my medicine,
- 39:07that's all. So they finally gave it to me.
- 39:11So then when they took me out of the shoe on Thanksgiving.
- 39:14After day three, is that without your?
- 39:16Medicine and at the night time at day three, yeah.
- 39:19OK, so I was already 70. It's past 72 hours of and I take
- 39:24it twice a day, 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM right.
- 39:28And, and plus I'm drinking out of the sink.
- 39:32You know, I have no, I got no immune system at all.
- 39:37So. But again, this is something
- 39:39that I did. I put myself there and you know,
- 39:42the first thing when they close the door and I, I and you lay
- 39:46there and solitude, you know, it's, it's a good, you can make
- 39:51it a good thing or you can make it a bad thing.
- 39:53And I was just thinking about what I've done.
- 39:58I just kept thinking about my victims.
- 40:01I just kept thinking about what are my victims doing right now?
- 40:05The hurt that's in their body, the hurt that I hurt them, I
- 40:08broke their trust. And you know, you lay there and
- 40:10you and and and and you and so then when they let me open the
- 40:17door at Thanksgiving, I go into general population and they
- 40:21started taking blood tests from me the day, Friday, the day
- 40:25after Thanksgiving. And it was all abnormal labs and
- 40:32December 12th of 2022, I wasn't even there a month.
- 40:37They rushed me out of the prison and they don't tell you, wait,
- 40:40what's what's going on? No, you don't know.
- 40:42You're not told anything when you're an inmate.
- 40:44No, so I'm in my unit laying on my bunk reading a book and the
- 40:50guard says get your jacket, go to the bus stop.
- 40:53Now bus stop in the compound is just you're waiting outside the
- 40:56lieutenant's office. So I, I, I go there and 22
- 41:02guards come out. They sit, come with me.
- 41:05I go down to intake, the receiving an intake and they
- 41:08start, you know, they took off my uniform with my name on it,
- 41:12put a different name. You know, they, they, they
- 41:14shackled me and everything and they put me in a van.
- 41:18I'm like, you know what, what's going on?
- 41:20They said, you're having liver rejection.
- 41:22We're bringing you down to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in
- 41:26Boston. I said, oh, OK.
- 41:28And thank goodness. So I get there and, you know, I
- 41:36was had two guards by my side and 24 hour shifts, 8 hours
- 41:40each, you know, chained to the bed.
- 41:42I couldn't call anyone. No one.
- 41:44My wife had no idea where I was. I couldn't call her.
- 41:47She had no idea. I couldn't, I couldn't get in
- 41:49touch with anyone. And I got released December
- 41:5529th. I wrote 2 huge pages in the
- 42:00nurses to the to the doctors. They saved my life.
- 42:03And you know, I wrote endless gratitude letters for them, the
- 42:08nurses and the doctors there. I bet there's real deaconess in
- 42:11that transplant unit. So they draw me back.
- 42:15It was like 11:00 PM on December 29th in the middle of a
- 42:19Blizzard. It was, it was.
- 42:21It was snowing every other day at Devon's.
- 42:24I got to, I got to tell you, Joseph, listening to that being,
- 42:28being that sick, being in the hospital, being chained to the
- 42:32bed, more or less saving your life again and then going back
- 42:39to prison. I can't imagine what a mind buzz
- 42:42that is to be walking through all that.
- 42:46You really don't think of it. You're just going through it.
- 42:50Yeah, you're just going through it.
- 42:51And then when they, when they get back to Devon's at 1:00 in
- 42:55the morning and again, this the snow that was coming down and
- 43:01these guards were driving fast in the van in the snow.
- 43:06And so I remember telling them one time, you know, can you, can
- 43:10you guys slow down a little bit? They weren't happy with that.
- 43:16So they put me back in the shoe because I had a quarantine again
- 43:20because I was admitted to the outside hospital and they had
- 43:23the BOP, had the protocols in place still.
- 43:26So they walk me in and I was like, you know, just please just
- 43:31give me my medicine. That's all that I ask.
- 43:33Just make sure, please. They're like, we're going to
- 43:36make sure, Dee Gregorio, we're going to make sure.
- 43:40December 29th, December 30th, New Year's Eve is when I first
- 43:46got my medicine. I miss, you know, I miss how
- 43:50many and again I'm banging on the door when God's walk gods
- 43:54are walking by. Can you please get me my
- 43:55medicine? You guys just sent me to Beth
- 43:58Israel Deaconess for rejection, please.
- 44:00I said I'm a minimum security guy.
- 44:02I got a year and a day here, you know, just all I want is my
- 44:05medicine. And it was it was all on all of
- 44:12fell on deaf ears. And then I asked for the medical
- 44:17director and the medical director came in my cell on New
- 44:21Year's Eve to take blood from me.
- 44:24And she gave me my medicine. And she says I'm going to leave
- 44:29this with you. She left the bottles with me
- 44:32until January 5th when we're going to get you out.
- 44:35And you got to stay in here a week and you got to, you know,
- 44:38from the 29th to the 5th, here's your medicine.
- 44:41I said thank you so much. Thank you.
- 44:43And so that's when I, you know, not only my myself, friend, I
- 44:51saw so many people, but the mistreatment there, there were
- 44:54no doctors. OK, there, there was one doctor
- 44:57at Devon's and he was there three days a week.
- 45:00This the, the CE OS became nurses.
- 45:03You know, I had acute kidney injury twice.
- 45:06I had him walk up to the, the compound from each unit where I
- 45:10was to the hospital wing. It's like a quarter mile walk.
- 45:14And they had to give me Ivs. They wanted to give me Ivs in my
- 45:18wrist right, right here. So one of the guards who was
- 45:22playing nurse one night, he gave me the IV here and I was like, I
- 45:26was like, Sir, please, that's you got to hit an artery.
- 45:28I don't, don't do it there. I've never got an IV there, Sir.
- 45:32And he goes, listen to you, Gregorio.
- 45:34You get to take it or you got to go back to the hole.
- 45:36Which is it? So he he pokes me.
- 45:40Blood shooting everywhere. Well, Sir, it's OK.
- 45:43Don't worry about. Listen, I'm just going to go
- 45:44back to my unit. So he goes, duh.
- 45:46Go back to your unit. So, yeah.
- 45:50In fact, when I came home, Inspector Horowitz on YouTube
- 45:56did an unexpected visit at Devon's.
- 45:59Really. And yeah, it's on YouTube.
- 46:00And it was so ironic. That's one of the first things
- 46:02that I saw when I came home was the unexpected visit with the
- 46:08over two dozen violations. You know, they had floods
- 46:12everywhere. There was the mold everywhere,
- 46:14you know, the vent lungs, it was called.
- 46:18But it was not even a veterinarian clinic.
- 46:21Brett really wasn't. No.
- 46:24And I, yeah, I've you and I shared a little bit before we
- 46:26got on about my dad experienced in 2015.
- 46:31What they did is they had he, he had a colonoscopy while he was
- 46:35in prison and they perforated his colon.
- 46:37That caused septic, septic shock.
- 46:39And and he kept saying, you know, something's wrong,
- 46:43something's wrong. Well, it finally came down to
- 46:45where he collapsed and was more or less non coherent.
- 46:52And they, they, the, I think there were three or four people
- 46:56that carried him up to where the CEO station was.
- 47:00And so there's this guy's dying. And that was when they finally,
- 47:04and then it was so bad that Mary in hospital couldn't take him.
- 47:08And so they, they took a helicopter and he went to Barnes
- 47:11hospital, was in a coma for a couple of weeks.
- 47:15He ended up surviving. But it's amazing what can happen
- 47:20in a situation like that when you know something in prison,
- 47:26you just don't want anything medically to go wrong when
- 47:28you're when you're an inmate, because anything and everything
- 47:32can go wrong when when you're under that care.
- 47:36And you're just lucky, Joseph, that you know you were able to
- 47:41step by step survive. It's like you survived all these
- 47:44different things all the way through.
- 47:45It's amazing. Well, I'm again, I'm sorry to
- 47:49hear that nightmare you and your family and your dad endured
- 47:55because I'm very passionate about healthcare and the BOPI
- 47:59now know and anyone that I consult that has health issues,
- 48:03I tell them, make sure you bring the medical release form.
- 48:06Make sure you bring your HIPAA form.
- 48:09You know, there's another thing that people aren't aware of
- 48:11unless you're in that situation. So I was also an inmate at
- 48:15Leavenworth and I was on a visit with my wife and a the CEO that
- 48:23was the visiting cop pulled me aside and he said, Cassidy, can
- 48:27you come back here and speak with me?
- 48:29And I'm thinking, well, this is behind the red line.
- 48:31Why is he allowing an inmate to go back here?
- 48:33And he said, I just wanted to tell you that I have a friend of
- 48:36mine that's Aceo at Marion. And your dad has been taken to
- 48:40Barnes Hospital and he's, they think and believe that he's in a
- 48:45coma. But inmates and families are not
- 48:49alerted to an inmate's situation unless there's a death.
- 48:53And a lot of people don't realize that it's it's very
- 48:58primitive on how information is transfer.
- 49:01And I would never have known except for the Co that took it
- 49:06upon himself to to share that information with me.
- 49:11Yeah, they don't. They don't let anyone know until
- 49:15the heart stops. Yeah.
- 49:19So when you how long? So how long were you in prison,
- 49:23Joseph? So I surrender November 17th of
- 49:252022 when I was released March 21st to home confinement.
- 49:30OK. So when I, when I surrendered, I
- 49:33had a, a blueprint, I had a re entry plan that I created I was
- 49:37working on before I even got sentenced.
- 49:40And you know, around the 30 day mark when you meet your case
- 49:43manager and you have that first team meeting, you know, I, I
- 49:47brought it in with me. I sat down, she said what she
- 49:51had to say. And then I wanted to present
- 49:53this release plan to her. Because to me, it wasn't just a
- 49:56mere document. This was like a mindset that I
- 49:58embraced. You'd plan it out, Yeah.
- 50:02So I asked her, can you politely read this?
- 50:04I put a lot of work into this. I know how important it is to
- 50:07the BOP, but it's even more so important to me.
- 50:10Can you put this in my central file?
- 50:13And she scanned it and so she, you know, scanned it.
- 50:17He filed, you know, electronic file.
- 50:20And I said, you know, I'm going to grow this.
- 50:21So I'm going to write a book report after every book that I
- 50:24read. I'm going to do a monthly report
- 50:25card on myself with classes that I'm taking, what I'm learning in
- 50:29the class, etcetera. And and I was handing in book
- 50:34reports and handing in the monthly report card.
- 50:37And there were there were many people sick in in Devons, even
- 50:44in general population. How did you know Joseph to do
- 50:48that with the case manager? With the release.
- 50:53Plan meaning your to make sure that she scanned that into your
- 50:57central file to give yourself a book report and and a status of
- 51:03of report card. Are you?
- 51:06Where did? Where did that knowledge come
- 51:08from? So I didn't know that she was
- 51:10going to E scan it up and she was going to do that.
- 51:13I thought it was just going to go and like in your file, one of
- 51:17these meals. And so I said to her, you know,
- 51:23I would like for you to, you know, kindly just, you know, put
- 51:25it in my file. And then when I went to her and
- 51:29said, listen, I'm eligible to go home.
- 51:32Can you please put me in or how does this work?
- 51:35Do you need anything from me? And so she says, she says, yeah,
- 51:39I could start the paperwork. So from the case manager
- 51:44approving your release because we don't just get released from
- 51:47prison. I mean, you know, you know how
- 51:49it is. The unit manager then approves
- 51:51it, the unit managers, the case managers boss.
- 51:53Then it goes to the head Lieutenant to make sure we
- 51:55didn't have any disciplinary infractions.
- 51:58Then it goes to the associate wardens.
- 52:00They may be 3 or 4 in each prison.
- 52:02They all individually have to sign off on it.
- 52:06Then the warden signs off. And it doesn't end there.
- 52:09Once the warden signs off your file, actually leaves the prison
- 52:13and it goes to the residential re entry management for the rent
- 52:16for the RRC. So where I live, it's in the
- 52:19Northeast, that Philadelphia residential re entry center
- 52:23handles every male and female coming out of a federal prison
- 52:27and they do the home inspection and they're the ones who issue
- 52:30our release date. So it influences a lot of
- 52:33people. And then I gave it to my case
- 52:37manager at the halfway house, continued to build it, gave it
- 52:43to my probation officer when I started supervised release July
- 52:4710th of 23. I still have one year left of
- 52:50supervised release. I'm on supervisor release right
- 52:54now and I e-mail my probation officer every 90 days with what
- 53:00I've done. And the first thing I did when
- 53:04when I came home was I started working with prison professors
- 53:08and I started working with White Collar Advice.
- 53:10Well, when I started working with prison professors, I was
- 53:12consulting people going through the federal journey.
- 53:16So people started having tremendous outcomes in their
- 53:19cases. It's all verified on the
- 53:21Trustpilot reviews. But I'm very passionate about
- 53:24this. I take this very seriously.
- 53:26And everyone that I consulted, you know, I take like it's my
- 53:32case. So then from there I went to the
- 53:35lead consultant at White Collar Advice and I started.
- 53:39So that was, you know, in in September 23 and then that's
- 53:47when I joined Columbia University Business School
- 53:50justice through code. Someone from Wall Street had
- 53:54knew someone who ran this program and he said, you know,
- 53:58it's, it's all, you know, all paid for, but you know, you have
- 54:02to pass the onboarding process. I never coded before.
- 54:06So I went through that. I passed that.
- 54:09That led me to a lifetime subscription to Coursera, that
- 54:14one that Columbia pays for that I take full advantage of that.
- 54:18If you go to my LinkedIn, Joseph D Gregorio have 80 plus
- 54:22licenses, specialization certifications, and it's
- 54:25actually all for mitigation. Every single one that I took is
- 54:29for launch of my company, yes. And then from there I went into
- 54:35Defy Ventures this year in February.
- 54:39It was 17 week business entrepreneurial tech camp and
- 54:44I've. Heard good things about Defy
- 54:45Ventures too. And oh.
- 54:46They're amazing. And they're and Justin was on
- 54:49this show from White Color Advice and but Defy Ventures.
- 54:54I've had two or three people that have been on this show that
- 54:57were either part of the program or worked after that with them.
- 55:01So they've they could, from what I understand, from where the
- 55:06people I've talked to, they do good work.
- 55:08They're they're. Quite a real service.
- 55:10I'm still in it. So the first the first seventeen
- 55:13week we ended May 21st of this year and it was pitch night.
- 55:18You had a pitcher company and they had all these big prominent
- 55:21tech names and volunteers that so my company came in first
- 55:25place. I went on pitch night and then
- 55:27now I just finished the pre accelerator and now I'm starting
- 55:32the accelerator with the five ventures.
- 55:34September 8th or the 9th it starts and that's 5-5 months
- 55:38it's. Kind of like Shark Tank, right?
- 55:40Yeah, yeah. But in the meantime, I'm taking
- 55:433-4 tests at a time on Coursera, like up on the top of my tabs
- 55:47now, you know, I have 3-4 classes exams that I'm taking.
- 55:53I think I must have took over 1000 and 1000 exams cause each
- 55:57certification on Coursera is, I think there's like 10 tests
- 56:00within each one. But it's been great.
- 56:03I've been passionate about AI, very passionate about, you know,
- 56:08bringing something very different that no other company
- 56:11is doing in this space. And so it's next generation
- 56:16mitigation what I'm doing. Next generation mitigation is
- 56:20called JN Advisors. Just advisor.
- 56:25Advisor JN Advisor. So how long have you had that
- 56:30set up now, since you've done all of this?
- 56:33I just set up after I resigned from White Collar Advice in
- 56:37June. OK, so it's been been 2-3
- 56:39months. Yeah, so I had.
- 56:42Wow, You've done a you've done an awful lot, Joseph.
- 56:46I mean, you did an awful lot while you were going through
- 56:48being, you know, the, the, the federal investigation, the
- 56:53indictment and all those different things that you had
- 56:56and, and prepared yourself for. And you had the, the nightmarish
- 57:01experience of being someone that, that needed medical care
- 57:05while you were in prison. But you, you stuck with the fact
- 57:08of of staying ahead of the game with your plan and doing the
- 57:12right things, getting into the right hands to be able to get
- 57:15yourself out of there and then continuing to educate yourself
- 57:18once you got out being an expert of what you are talking about
- 57:23because you've been through it all.
- 57:26You know, redemption's a lifelong commitment to me.
- 57:29There's two judges, one in the courtroom and the the biggest 1
- 57:33upstairs, upstairs. And I just wanted to do I just
- 57:36wanted to do this the right way. I I did wrong for that period of
- 57:40time that it wasn't me and this and other people drink the way I
- 57:45did and they don't. They didn't do what I did.
- 57:47It doesn't excuse me from crossing the line of breaking
- 57:50the law. I'm not saying that.
- 57:53No, you're lucky that you're alive.
- 57:55You you've you've got 9 lives. So how old are you now, Joseph?
- 58:0049. OK, 49, so you're getting ready
- 58:03to drop over into that 50 category and join us.
- 58:06Yes, with with everything that you've gone through this, this
- 58:12crazy life experience that you have, what do you think's your
- 58:15greatest take away? I mean, all I do, I mean I
- 58:22constantly, the victims are at the forefront of my forefront of
- 58:26my mind and it's in the core of me.
- 58:29And I try to turn that inside out and make it into the biggest
- 58:35positive because I'm also on the governance committee for the
- 58:38formerly Incarcerated College Graduate Network.
- 58:42Yeah, I did. I had Pamela Wynn on here.
- 58:44Do you know Pamela? She was one of the founders of
- 58:47that early on. Sure, sure.
- 58:50Yeah. She she, she's, she's quite, she
- 58:53has quite the story herself, who she was pregnant and yes, the
- 58:58whole story of her, her episode was 3 or 4 episodes ago.
- 59:02And she's just, she's quite an inspiration.
- 59:04But I also had Tyler Foster on that's in law school right now.
- 59:07That's it's a part of that. So it's it's I'm a big fan of
- 59:11that organization. I was just on a zoom with Tyler
- 59:14the other night. He's a great guy.
- 59:16I just had BBQ with him when he was up in Saint Louis doing Yeah
- 59:21Small World stuff. Yeah, yeah.
- 59:23And I'm also on the national board of advisors for the PD
- 59:26Green program out of Princeton, half hour from my house here.
- 59:30That's great. Well, I've I've had them on too.
- 59:34It's a small world. I have a lot of shows to catch
- 59:37up. Jeffrey Eberwitz.
- 59:38Jeffrey Eberwitz. Bromowitz, Yeah.
- 59:42Yeah. So, yeah.
- 59:44So your so your take away is is that you want to give back and
- 59:48and and give back from your experience the.
- 59:50Biggest thing is when people get you know, in involved with an
- 59:54investigation, they just think they're going to hire the best
- 59:56lawyer and that's it. And the real battle is 1 outside
- 59:59of the Corp one. You know, the prosecutor
- 1:00:02controls 80% of the courtroom and you have control over that
- 1:00:0720%. And you know, when you when you
- 1:00:10say yourself, the judge looks at the lawyer has a paid
- 1:00:13mouthpiece, what am I going to show?
- 1:00:15So I just wanted to create as many clusters and mitigation to
- 1:00:18over shadow the government's version of me because they had
- 1:00:21this bolder version of me. And I just wanted to shine the
- 1:00:25correct light on who I was deeply inside and, you know,
- 1:00:31deeply committed to AAI. Do 3-4 in persons a week.
- 1:00:34I, I lead at meetings, I speak at meetings, I speak at a detox
- 1:00:38clinic once a month. So yes, I mean, it's, I mean,
- 1:00:43it, it, it's never going to. I just want to let people know
- 1:00:48that like, you know, you have control over the case.
- 1:00:51And if you think hiring a lawyer and just waiting to go into
- 1:00:54sentencing, you know, you're, you're not, it's, it's not it,
- 1:01:00that's not how it is. I mean, you have to really take
- 1:01:04control over things where people will say, you know how many?
- 1:01:08So I'm, I consulted over 300 clients in the last almost 2 1/2
- 1:01:13years. Every single one of them, their
- 1:01:17lawyer said the PSI is just a 20 minute interview, right, right.
- 1:01:23Another thing was that arose a lot was like Joe, the loss
- 1:01:26amount, they would come to me and say, hey, the loss amount,
- 1:01:29you know, it's not correct. That's why I just passed the
- 1:01:32forensic accounting and fraud, because that's another big thing
- 1:01:36because that makes the points go up.
- 1:01:38You know, we're down tremendously.
- 1:01:41And then, you know, there, there's, there's, there's a lot
- 1:01:44of different, you know, mitigation that the, the, the
- 1:01:49lawyers just don't know. But also like, the biggest thing
- 1:01:55was when this case, I had a lot of case, I had a few cases that
- 1:02:00was over 90% reduction in sentences.
- 1:02:04And the guy, one of them was facing 168 months and he got a
- 1:02:11year in a day, another person 126 months and got a year in a
- 1:02:15day with that person. I worked with him for 18 months.
- 1:02:20He did everything that I did for my case.
- 1:02:24You know, he implemented restitution framework 9-9 months
- 1:02:28in advanced, you know, all these different things.
- 1:02:31But the, the PSR, when he was sentenced, the judge said that's
- 1:02:37the best pre sentence report he's ever seen.
- 1:02:40And this was a judge on the bench for 32 years.
- 1:02:43Well. That's quite a statement.
- 1:02:45Well, you know what it is, Brent?
- 1:02:46When they have the recidivism rate of 67% etched in the front
- 1:02:51of their mind, a judge, a case manager in prison, your
- 1:02:54probation officer, case manager at the halfway house.
- 1:02:57So how am I going to make them know I'm part of the 33%?
- 1:03:00You know, I'm, I'm never going to be in another courtroom
- 1:03:03again, you know, but they don't know that.
- 1:03:05Just like when you go to prison, how am I?
- 1:03:07How am I going to separate myself from everyone and get out
- 1:03:10of here? Because we got looked at the
- 1:03:11scene. And to me, in my opinion, the
- 1:03:13judge knows that we're human, we all make mistakes, no one's
- 1:03:18flawless, we're all flawed. And if you could story tell your
- 1:03:23story the right way to the judge, because it also goes into
- 1:03:26neurolinguistics about 22 times retention of a story.
- 1:03:31More than just readings facts, you know, I mean, that's
- 1:03:35scientific proof. So yeah.
- 1:03:39And, and I think I think the other thing too on that, I'm a
- 1:03:42big, obviously big fan of the storytelling because we've had
- 1:03:45this show here for four years. But being able to tell your
- 1:03:49story and that's not only going to help you in front of your
- 1:03:53case manager or the judge. It's going to help you when
- 1:03:55you're looking for a job. It's going to help you socially
- 1:03:58with you can own your story instead of somebody else owning
- 1:04:01your story. It's a difference maker and how
- 1:04:05you enter the world and make your opportunities after you get
- 1:04:09out. It's just a big deal.
- 1:04:11It's a really big deal if if people want to Joseph get a hold
- 1:04:15of you, what's what's the best way?
- 1:04:18Go to www.jnadvisor.com No S you could find me on LinkedIn,
- 1:04:26Joseph De Gregorio or you could call me directly 646-588-8182.
- 1:04:32I'm a phone call away. I want to help as many people
- 1:04:36get the least amount of time as possible and be with their
- 1:04:40family. I love it.
- 1:04:43That's a great passion to have and and you have the experience
- 1:04:47to help these people, which is fantastic.
- 1:04:50I want to thank Homestead Financial Home Mortgage.
- 1:04:55Let me use this podcast from all the fancy lights and cameras and
- 1:04:58everything. Anybody's got home mortgage and
- 1:05:00he's out there. Greg FDF is your guy.
- 1:05:02He knows all that stuff. Check out my book if you're
- 1:05:05looking for one. Nightmare, success, loyalty, the
- 1:05:08trail, life behind bars, adapting, and finally breaking
- 1:05:11free. Leave me a review on Apple.
- 1:05:13That's always a big help. If you want to know what I've
- 1:05:15got going on. brentcassidy.com. I spell it wrong.
- 1:05:19I spell it with ATY. Not a DY, as I used to say to my
- 1:05:23people when I was writing my emails back and forth from
- 1:05:26Leavenworth. Stay strong, I'll do the same.
- 1:05:28Joseph, I I appreciate you being here as a guest.
- 1:05:31I think you gave people a lot of good information about how to
- 1:05:35take charge of your own case and not just sit back and and and
- 1:05:39wait. Be out in front, be aggressive,
- 1:05:42be your best advocate and good stuff.
- 1:05:46Good advice, appreciate it. Thank you kindly for having me.
- 1:05:51Nightmare success in and out.