Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Founder of Real Estate Empire Falls: Sentenced to Years in Prison at 77 Years Old, John Dimenna

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Founder of Real Estate Empire Falls: Sentenced to Years in Prison at 77 Years Old, John Dimenna · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:00
I committed a $68 million fraud, a scheme to defraud people.
0:04
Even when I got to prison, I had guys asking where the money was.
0:07
You know, at that meeting they said, listen, it's come to our
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attention that there's a $10 million loan that we're not
0:14
aware of that we, we received copies of the loan with
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signatures on it that were not ours.
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And the thing I know I'm in orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, some
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guys dragging me down this hallway, the main prison, and we
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go down this corridor where they're literally dungeons on
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either side. You're the oldest guy walking
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into a federal prison camp. Where you're going?
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What is going through your mind? What really Well, that that
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crisis ended up providing the great opportunity for me it's.
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It's such an entrepreneur dilemma is I've got to get
0:43
bigger to cover what I've lost so that I can become whole and
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then I can double or triple everything.
0:51
All right, welcome back, folks. Welcome back to Nightmare
0:55
Success. It's where you come from.
0:57
What happens when your worst fruit becomes your reality?
0:59
How do you adapt, survive, overcome?
1:01
Set yourself free. Hey, don't forget to hit that.
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Follow, subscribe. Hey, if you like it, share it,
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share it. It's good stuff.
1:09
It helps the show. Well, I've got a I've got a
1:12
great guest here today. Happens to be a fellow member of
1:16
mine at the White Collar support group.
1:18
And I was, I was thinking, you know, when I was I was talking
1:22
to John before we got on this episode is really for people.
1:29
I think will get a lot out of this that that either you are an
1:33
entrepreneur or you want to be an entrepreneur.
1:36
It's got so many life lessons in what what it takes and how you
1:41
do it and the pitfalls that can come and the things that you got
1:45
us when you're sitting in that chair, the decisions you have to
1:47
make, you know, do I take this monstress to pull it back a
1:50
little bit? How do I grow John Dominion, he
1:55
did all that and I when I say he did all that.
1:59
He was a known guy on the East Coast.
2:01
He he, he put together a group Seaboard Properties and it was
2:10
headquartered in Connecticut, but he was in a 40 year real
2:13
estate career, commercial hotels, apartment complexes.
2:19
And I was just telling him he did something that I, I have, I,
2:23
I don't even know if I've even talked to anybody that was able
2:27
to escape the, the crash 2008. But he did, he went for a long
2:33
run on this thing and, and talked his guys into his
2:36
partners that they needed to get out.
2:38
The timing was good. And in 2007 they did get out of
2:42
all their commercial holdings. And as, as it was said, he was
2:47
seeing unofficially as kind of the smartest guy in the real
2:51
estate business, he figured it out.
2:53
And, you know, John says, you know, the sad thing is, is that
2:58
he started to believe that. And in 2017, he was sentenced to
3:03
85 months in federal prison, 2 counts of wire fraud.
3:07
And he's 77 years old. And I think, you know, for most
3:12
of us, I think John probably thought that was a death
3:13
sentence. The pandemic came along and he
3:17
was released in 2020, home confinement and he's home now,
3:23
but it's, it's just an incredible story.
3:25
He, he is an unbelievable writer.
3:28
I, I have, he's been nice enough to share with me some of his
3:33
right. He's got a book that's coming
3:35
out and memoir. It's called the white collar
3:38
Elegy and it's all about his journey and life.
3:43
And he's, he's been published in several, a lot of his writings
3:47
have been published in several publications.
3:49
And he's just, he's, I think if he we were talking, if he had it
3:54
all to do over again, I think that's what he wanted to do.
3:57
He became this great real estate guru, but I think he actually
4:00
just wanted to be a writer. And now it's what he's doing,
4:04
oddly enough. So it's, it's come full circle.
4:07
I can't wait to jump in and all this.
4:10
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Auto Plaza Direct telling Brent from Nightmare Success sent you.
5:01
John Dominion, welcome in. How are you?
5:04
Thanks, Brett. Good to see you.
5:07
So I, I, I feel like I've been inside your head reading all of
5:11
your different things and, and you have such an interesting
5:15
beginning too. You know, you, you, you talk
5:21
about, well, just I'll let you tell it.
5:24
Lead us back into the young John Dominion growing up, your
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family, siblings, getting into the business.
5:34
Well, like my family was, you know, I grew up in a very stable
5:39
environment. My, my father was a general
5:43
contractor and it was a family business My grandfather had
5:48
started. It was very successful.
5:52
And then his two sons, one of them being my father, took it
5:57
over and managed it for, for decades.
6:01
And we were a very close family because my grandfather, he had
6:06
bought a, he bought a farm in Connecticut for the entire
6:10
family, both families, both sons, families to spend the
6:14
summers in Brookfield, CT. And we, we lived there every
6:19
year till I was 15. So we were a very close family.
6:23
I really almost felt like I had two fathers.
6:25
It's like a whole compound. Yeah, and we had, my uncle had
6:29
three children and my, we were three.
6:33
I had an older brother and an older sister.
6:36
I was the youngest so, and we did everything together, those
6:41
families. I mean, we, every Friday night
6:44
we, we, we'd be out to dinner with my cousins during the
6:48
winter and then the summers, you know, we were there together and
6:51
the underpinning, we were all grounded by the family business.
6:56
And it was very much in our lives because we were public
7:02
contractors, public works contractors, which means you're
7:05
always bidding on, on work. So there's kind of an element.
7:09
Tough business. Competitive business.
7:11
Very competitive business. And there's really an element
7:14
constantly of insecurity, you know, because you, if you don't
7:19
get a job, you might go a year without a job.
7:22
And so is there going to be income?
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I can hear my mother asking my father, well, can I go shopping
7:29
now? Did we get a job?
7:32
But actually we were very comfortable.
7:33
We lived in a nice home in Westchester County, which was a
7:37
wonderful community. It was kind of one of these very
7:40
successful suburbs out of New York City that evolved post post
7:46
World War. And they were, they were
7:49
wonderful communities. They were filled with Irish,
7:53
Italian and other immigrants who children of immigrants who had
7:58
been successful and we, they belonged to, we all went to
8:03
Catholic schools and we, we belong to a Country Club in
8:09
Westchester County. So it was a very stable
8:13
environment. I, I, I never really thought
8:17
that I, I, I was never one that was earmarked to be in the
8:21
business. My brother and my cousin were.
8:24
You start your book off that way.
8:26
Yes, yeah. In fact, my my grandfather
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telling me when I was in college because I never wanted to be in
8:32
the business, but I was thinking about it, you know, as it got
8:35
close to graduation, I said, I don't know, maybe I should think
8:38
about the family business. I wanted to be a writer.
8:41
But, you know, I wasn't sure how that would work out.
8:44
And he discovers me. You know, I remember I asked
8:47
him, I said, you know, do you think grandpa I could come into
8:52
the business? And he said, you know, he was
8:54
not that articulate. He didn't speak English, said
8:57
well. And he said well, you know, you
8:59
got your brother Nick. He's on the inside, you know,
9:02
meaning you know, he would be the administrative guy.
9:04
And he said, you know, and you got the cub and he's the outside
9:08
and you. Nothing followed.
9:18
That's your grandfather that says this.
9:19
That's my grandfather. That's all right looking back,
9:22
right So when you. You also talk, I mean your, your
9:28
grandpa, you know, you, you talk about that time period where I
9:33
thought it was just interesting from the standpoint that this
9:37
memory of you, yours in the garage in Florida and he's in a
9:42
suit and cufflinks and whatever. And, and your guys are just
9:45
sharing. You say he he shared repeated a
9:48
lot of different stories, but I I feel like that you must have
9:51
had kind of a kinship with him. Well, you know, we, we, I lived
9:55
actually, I ended up living with him because before I went to
9:57
school in Florida, I lived with him for a while.
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So I really did get to know him. We had kind of AI would say
10:07
complicated relationship. He was a very difficult person
10:12
and very powerful and posing and he bigger, larger than life and,
10:20
and very aloof. You know, he was not a warm
10:23
fuzzy person. So it was, it was, it was
10:27
difficult to live with him. And you know, it over there was
10:31
really a period of time where I I couldn't stand being around
10:35
him. But over it's funny, it's funny.
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And over time, I grew really more and more to respect him.
10:40
You know, as I said in my that opening chapter, you know, I was
10:43
at that stage where I was in that obnoxious indifference
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where you don't really appreciate what what these
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people before you accomplished. You know, when I look back, what
10:53
he accomplished, he came here from Middle East, 16 years old,
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no money, didn't even speak the language.
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And how he ended up, you know, being a successful businessman,
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creating incredible infrastructure for for several
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families was it was amazing, but.
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Well, I think it's, I think the other thing you shared with me
11:13
just before we got on, because I, I've and reading bits and
11:18
pieces of your material, it's very evident that you're a very
11:23
good writer. And we were talking about that.
11:27
That would have been something I think when you said, was it when
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you got out of college, John, that you, you left and went for
11:35
a year over to Europe and, and thought you were going to write?
11:39
Yes, right. Yeah.
11:40
And you know, I, I and I didn't, which was puzzling.
11:44
I started a novel my final year in in college and then I thought
11:50
I would finish it. In fact, it was about my
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grandfather. It was called I still have the
11:55
title I it's called Death of the Commendatory.
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Commendatory is a it's an Italian designation of the
12:05
Italian government gives to its most prestigious citizens for
12:09
great charity work or some others significant contribution.
12:15
He never was a commendatory, but he he had that stature and so
12:19
that but anyway, so I went to Italy and I didn't do I didn't
12:22
write and then came back and ended up starting to work for
12:26
the company just temporarily, I thought, and but I actually
12:30
loved it, you know, and and I stayed there for you were.
12:35
With some colorful characters that you described in your
12:39
memoir of your dad. He just says, yeah, you want to
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go, you see you in the yard the next day.
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And you said, well, I'm thinking about Monday.
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He said, no, if you want to come to work for us, you're going to
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come to work for us tomorrow. And the guys that you were
12:54
around, you know, they were, you know, hard.
12:59
You could just tell. I mean, they're they were guys
13:01
that were sweating it out and getting it and loading trucks
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and and you, you were thrown right in the middle of that.
13:08
And you said, I didn't really know how to do any of it.
13:10
You know, I had two hands that I could help with, but and you
13:14
said your dad was was kind of tough.
13:17
I had no skills and you know, they, I started the bit on the
13:21
absolute bottom. I was just a, a Gopher really.
13:26
And but I love the guys. I mean, because it was a very
13:29
interesting mix of people. We had a lot of Italian
13:32
immigrants who a lot of them came from Tyrole.
13:36
It was just northern part of Italy, very hard working.
13:40
And then we had a lot of second generation Americans who were
13:45
World War 2 vets, were a lot of World War, World War 2 vets.
13:49
And they were great guys. You know, they were in your
13:52
face. They wouldn't let anything pass.
13:57
Well, it sounded. Like they they pretty much
13:59
treated you like you were one of the guys too.
14:01
Yeah, they treated me well. I think, 'cause, you know, I, I
14:04
didn't commit as, quote, a vice president with a tie jacket.
14:07
And, you know, I never tried to use my, my, the fact that I was
14:13
the boss's son. I just did whatever they told me
14:16
to do. And my father was always
14:18
screaming at me. So that kind of helped me bond
14:21
with him. Well, he he told.
14:24
To do that. But I think he did it in favour
14:27
to me. Yeah, probably, yeah, he said
14:30
that to me, to me later in life. I don't know.
14:33
He had quite. A time you tell a funny story
14:37
about that When he would check up on you a lot and and you were
14:41
you guys were doing a big job under one of the bridges there
14:44
in New York and you had shown up and he's usually calls me at
14:49
10:00 or you called him at 10:00 from the phone booth to, to tell
14:54
him where you were on the job. And you always sweated these,
14:57
these, these phone calls out and you didn't call him until noon.
15:01
And he said, I've been sitting there, you know, I'm going crazy
15:03
and what's going on? And, and you told him that
15:05
you're, you're way ahead. You guys were getting it and,
15:09
and way ahead. And you're going to be able to
15:11
be ahead of schedule by the end of the day.
15:13
I, I, I dreaded those calls. He, he, I mean, no matter what
15:16
you told him, it was never good enough.
15:19
You know, if you said 50 pipe a day, it should have been 100 if
15:22
you. So I always dreaded the call.
15:24
And if I, if I didn't have anything good to report, it was
15:27
really rough. You know, unfortunately, I think
15:29
I kind of developed these pathological coping strategies,
15:33
how to deal with people that I'm interacting with in business.
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Because of that, you know, I, I ended up really kind of managing
15:42
it by not being truthful. And then, and then I would fix
15:46
it and everything would be fine. So I kind of figured out this is
15:49
a strategy which I, I think I ultimately ended up becoming a
15:54
pattern. And in my later life with when I
15:57
developed the real estate company, I had kind of a
16:01
contentious relationship with my partners.
16:03
And I implemented the same strategies which worked for for
16:07
quite a long time until there were real problems I could solve
16:11
and, you know, ended up being, you know, terrible for
16:15
everybody. Well, and you were there, John,
16:18
in that family company I think for 18 years, which you thought
16:21
was going to be a part time job. It ended up to be 18 years.
16:26
And in that time you got married, you had four kids and
16:31
then the company that all the family was with dissolved and
16:37
you had to figure out something else to do what?
16:40
How did you deal with that? Well, I had been doing some real
16:43
estate deals for the last few years.
16:46
I was at the construction company.
16:48
So a friend of mine said to me, we were still battling to try
16:51
and save the company. And this friend of mine who was
16:54
in real estate, he said, you know, John, why don't you go
16:56
into commercial real estate? Even if you become a broker,
16:59
you're good at sales. He said you, your brother and
17:02
your cousin, you have 12 children, the three of you, and
17:08
you're going to have to get them through college.
17:10
There's no way you're going to be able to come back and be able
17:14
to create a company that can support you all.
17:17
So I went to my father and he he agreed.
17:21
He said, you know, I really think you you should leave.
17:23
You have something, you know, the other Nick and and Frank
17:27
don't have an an option. You do.
17:30
You'd really be doing him a favor.
17:31
So so that's what I did. I kind of looking back, I always
17:34
regret it now. I sometime feel like I should
17:36
have gone down with the ship. I don't know whether it would
17:39
have made any difference. Who knows?
17:41
Those are the kind of things that haunt you.
17:43
But anyway, so I decided I went into the biz, started my own
17:48
investment, real estate development investment business
17:51
in 1987. Couldn't have been worse timing
17:55
and say it was like starting a brokerage investment business in
17:58
1929. There's an 8780 thing blew up.
18:03
I mean, it was the worst real estate recession.
18:05
I can say 40 years in the business.
18:07
That recession, late 80s early 90s, was worse than anything.
18:11
Including. 2008, because it, it was a debacle everywhere.
18:17
I mean, I remember a real estate pro telling me in 1989 that real
18:23
estate as an asset category is over.
18:26
It'll never come back because so much money was lost.
18:29
I mean, that's, that's, that's how bad it was.
18:31
So now I was floundering. I mean, here I am with four
18:34
kids. This thing didn't work out.
18:36
I had $200,000 from an IRA. Looking back, that was a lot at
18:41
that time. I went through it, you know,
18:43
with this real estate company. And so that was really like,
18:48
like one of the worst periods other than, you know, what
18:52
eventually happened to me in that late 80s, early 90s, trying
18:56
to just survive that that real estate crisis.
19:03
But you know what, really with that, that crisis ended up
19:07
providing the great opportunity for me.
19:09
So what everybody was doing in the early 90s was becoming
19:14
managers of real estate because everything was going back to
19:17
financial institutions and they were overwhelmed with properties
19:21
and they needed managers. So I started to try and and and
19:28
do some property management, but I had no platform.
19:32
So I knew some guys who were in trouble, Seaboard Development,
19:36
and they had a little management company.
19:38
I went to them and asked them if I could buy it and they said
19:41
yeah, they sold it to me very cheaply, 25,000 and they take
19:46
half down. I borrowed it from my father and
19:49
that's how I started. But I I couldn't get any
19:51
management because I was still too small.
19:53
And then I realized, hey, wait a minute, you know, the right
19:56
opportunity here is buying properties.
19:58
Everything was on on the market and cheap.
20:01
I mean everything. 'S cheap right now, right?
20:04
Buildings that were two hundred a foot were going for 40 and
20:06
nobody was buying them. So I started to go out and try
20:10
and raise some money. I had a little management income
20:13
so I was starting to like barely.
20:16
Keep How old would you have been, John, at that time period?
20:19
How old was I? Yeah, but that when you were
20:22
getting that started in like 1991?
20:24
Yeah. So I how old was I?
20:27
I missed your question. I'm sorry.
20:29
Yeah, how? How old?
20:30
How about what time period? How old would you have been?
20:33
Oh yeah, right. So it was 1992, so I was 50.
20:38
Like I always tell my kids, you know, the best part of my career
20:40
was when I was 50. So I between 50 and 65.
20:46
That was great. After that, before and after was
20:49
done. It's a good run, but.
20:52
So I had, I started to go out to try and raise money and it was
20:58
very, it was very difficult. And in fact, I had one group,
21:02
someone introduced me to a A, he was an Indian financial planner
21:09
and he's, his clients were all professionals, doctors, lawyers,
21:13
accountants from the Indian community.
21:16
And he said that. So I met him and he said, well,
21:20
you know, I'd like it. Why don't you pitch your real
21:22
estate deals? I have these seminars twice a
21:27
month and you can come and pitch your deals.
21:30
So I had a little property I was buying from a bank, an office
21:33
building, and we raised the money and about a week before
21:39
the closing, I started getting calls from all the investors he
21:42
brought in. And so they wanted they wanted
21:45
their money back. And we?
21:46
Hadn't. Even closed yet.
21:49
So I don't know what happened. So I said sure to all of all
21:53
these investors. But then I called up the fellow
21:56
introduced me and I said, you know, I'm getting all these
21:59
calls. He said about tomorrow this
22:02
fellow is going to be arrested. And because apparently I was
22:06
running the Ponzi scheme and so these people all knew about it.
22:10
So now I was, I had the deal, but I had, I thought I had.
22:15
So then I went to these, I called this fellow Bill Merritt,
22:19
who my wife and our wives were friends and I had done a deal
22:26
with him before I left the construction company.
22:31
And so I called him and he had just left a big company that he
22:35
had been working for. It was a, it was a, a, a post
22:40
AT&T startup had became very successful.
22:45
It was a, it was sort of an early tech company had been very
22:51
successful, but then it kind of blew up.
22:53
And so he and one of the other principals were out on their
22:57
own. They, they had, they had left
22:58
the company with some, some substantial amount of capital.
23:03
And so I convinced them that this was a good thing to do.
23:06
I said, look, you know, we should start buying these Class
23:09
B office properties because they were all over the place in
23:12
Fairfield County, Connecticut. I think we can, we can fix them
23:16
up. We can, we'll get lots of
23:19
tenants away from the A buildings.
23:21
And anyway, so that was a strategy and they they bought
23:25
into it and early struggles, of course, but we became, you know,
23:31
very, very successful and we really went against the grain.
23:35
We were contrarians. And after the first five years,
23:40
everybody was starting to take note of us and saying, you know,
23:44
God, you guys really made the right decisions.
23:46
And then little by little, the real estate market started to
23:50
come back. And by 2005, 2006, it started to
23:56
hurdle forward commercial real estate.
23:58
I mean, everybody was back in private equity was raising
24:03
money, financial institutions were falling all over themselves
24:09
to what? What?
24:10
Were you thinking, John, because you know, at the beginning it
24:13
wasn't easy at all. I mean, I remember you talked
24:15
about that you guys walked into the one building that you had
24:19
identified had a beautiful lobby, needed to be fixed up.
24:22
Your strategy was, you know, we're going to get, we're going
24:26
to get new tenants in here. We'll be a little bit below
24:28
market what the other buildings are doing and we'll get these
24:31
guys in here. And you know, one of your
24:34
partners was really tough on the fact that he he he was hounding
24:38
you, hounding you, hound you. But it did work out.
24:41
And I'm wondering like when you when you finally hit that Crest
24:45
of how did you feel about that? Because that, that had to feel
24:49
like you a sense of accomplishment that you'd gone
24:52
through the real struggles of the real estate world, but you
24:56
had really identified a niche market to, to go into and, and
25:01
at the time that you, you know, 2006, 2007, you guys were the
25:08
players in the market. Yeah.
25:10
You know, I, I, I, I really figured out that I, I thought
25:15
I'd believe I really knew what I was doing and that I had figured
25:18
out a niche and that I had actually had a good template for
25:23
to be successful in business. I, I remember reading Jack
25:27
Welch, who I got to know a little bit and he used to say he
25:31
always wanted to be number one or two or whatever businesses he
25:34
went into. And so I decided, you know, that
25:37
we had to be number one or two and we were going to, we, we
25:42
came number one in Class B office buildings in Connecticut.
25:46
We really weren't number. One which is a big deal.
25:49
And so then when we sold the properties, I, I employed the
25:54
still believed in that strategy and I decided that I was going
25:58
to now have to try and embark on acquiring the most best
26:05
diversified real estate portfolio in an urban area in
26:10
Connecticut and we'd have the best properties.
26:13
And actually we did accomplish that.
26:15
The problem was we overpaid and the properties didn't perform
26:20
well enough to support the investments and that was really,
26:24
you know, the beginning of of our demise.
26:29
So when the all the when all that happened because you were I
26:35
think 65 years old when you cashed out the on this on this
26:40
first go and it was a it was a great situation.
26:45
Everybody got more than the you, you guys put your, your
26:48
portfolio out on the market and you got more than what you had
26:51
valued it at. And like you said at the time,
26:54
this is the first time really that you had real money.
26:57
And but it wasn't that you were going to take that and go home
27:01
and, and watch the waves flow in on the beach.
27:05
You you thought I'm going to take this to the next level?
27:08
Well, I did struggle with the decision.
27:10
I was the decision was do I just go small and the partnership
27:18
with my partners because they were difficult and and just go
27:23
small, get rid of all the overhead and just little by
27:27
little do a couple of deals and kind of coast like it out.
27:31
And I had a fellow who worked for me.
27:33
He was like my general. He was my general manager.
27:38
He oversaw the leasing in the construction.
27:42
And, you know, he was convincing me.
27:43
He said, you know, why don't we just go small?
27:45
You and I had a couple of people and my accountant told me the
27:48
same thing. He said, John, you know, just go
27:52
make your life simpler. And I was very close to doing
27:56
it. And then the building came on
27:59
the market and I called another good my really my closest friend
28:04
who was a fellow who encouraged me to go into real estate.
28:07
And I said, you know, I'm thinking about buying this
28:09
building. I don't know whether I should or
28:11
not. He said, what you know, why
28:14
don't you do what? You've got this great
28:15
reputation, you got all these investors, they'll follow you.
28:19
Why don't you do it? So, so I spoke to my one of my
28:24
partners and Bill Merritt, who I had the closer relationship
28:28
with. And he said, OK, I like, I'd
28:31
like, let's do it. But he said let's not syndicate
28:34
it because I'm not sure of this, this property.
28:38
So we should just do it ourselves, the three of us,
28:41
which meant I'd have to put up $2,000,000, half of what I have.
28:45
I mean, that should have ended it for me.
28:47
I mean, I mean, why would looking back now, why would we
28:49
use all our money? That's not make any sense.
28:52
You know, we've, we've made a fortune for these guys.
28:55
We can't have them take a risk with us, you know, Anyway, so we
28:59
did. And really that property did not
29:02
work out. On the 1st go.
29:05
Yeah, First go was an office property and it was had a lot,
29:10
it was what we liked a lot of tenants, but we had two big
29:13
tenants and both went out the first year.
29:17
So that was really a problem and I tried to disguise it and and I
29:22
kind of did for a while. We bought something, we bought
29:24
something else, but we kind of got behind on our first deal and
29:29
even though I did a. So that's, that's an interesting
29:32
point though, John, because that happens, that happens you, you
29:35
get, and especially in business, you get something that didn't
29:37
quite work out, you get another piece and, and it, but the, that
29:41
first one always is the one that kind of weights you down and can
29:44
you catch up enough to make it whole?
29:47
You know, it's, it's, it's such an entrepreneur dilemma is I've
29:51
got to get bigger to cover what I've lost so that I can become
29:57
whole and then I can double or triple everything.
30:01
And that's it's not an uncommon thing.
30:04
No, Yeah. Well, you know, and what
30:06
happened is I was, I was good at keeping it going, almost too
30:10
good. So I ended up buying whole
30:13
portfolio after that. And at the end of the day, now
30:16
we were strangled by this portfolio.
30:19
It looked beautiful on paper. It it, it was just what I wanted
30:22
it to be. It was the best diversified
30:26
urban portfolio in Connecticut, maybe even New Jersey and, and,
30:32
and you could put every building on a brochure.
30:35
It looked great. They were leased up, but they
30:38
want cash flowing. And so I kept trying to finance
30:42
out and the financing that hoping that we would be able to
30:48
develop enough income to support the financing and to create the
30:53
cash flow. Yeah.
30:54
And then I was able to hide it from everybody until until I
30:57
didn't. Well, let's talk about that
31:00
because how, when did you know, John, that you weren't going to
31:06
be able to to make and cover everything that you were trying
31:12
to? Well, you know, make happen
31:14
really till the very end I was concerned.
31:17
I kept coming up with a new strategy.
31:20
I started to get some, I, one of the strategies was a fellow I
31:24
met who said that he was going to raise a whole bunch of equity
31:28
from Australia. And I went with him for like a
31:33
year and a half where he led me down and he turned out to be a
31:37
real crook. He ended up, he ended up in
31:39
jail. He's still there.
31:43
And so I wasted a lot of time with him.
31:46
Then I was able though to I started working with Mez
31:49
lenders, but then then I became dealing with marginal mis
31:54
lenders. You know, guys went outrageous
31:56
terms so I'd get the money, but a week later I was already.
32:00
Almost like a hard money loan. Yeah, it was hard money.
32:04
And then at the very end, though, I was working with AI,
32:09
formed another private group to raise money to take out our
32:14
whole group. It was going to be what they
32:15
call a recapitalization. I don't know whether you heard
32:18
of a recapitalization, but I went to a Wall Street firm and
32:22
they were very positive about it.
32:23
And in fact, we, we, we had an investor from Bahrain that was
32:27
going to invest $200 million, would have taken everybody out.
32:32
So I don't know whether they're boring you with all these
32:34
stories, but so the guy from Bahrain.
32:36
Oh no, that's interesting you. Know he offered us $195 million,
32:41
but I really needed to get to 200 something over 200.
32:45
So I said to these guys, look, bring them up, let's have
32:48
dinner. I can give them a tour of the
32:49
properties that usually wins a more.
32:52
So we came up, we had a great tour.
32:56
We had the steak dinner. He loved everything.
32:58
He was very enthused back. He went back home, he went back
33:02
to New York. The next day, he had someone
33:04
call us and he lowered the bid to 180 million.
33:08
Oh man, yeah. So and I.
33:10
Oh man. My partners to go along at 180
33:14
million. So, so then, then the very then
33:17
we did find another group that was going to put in 50 million
33:22
and I thought we could work with that.
33:24
And he was, I, I, we had a, a proposal, I signed it and I
33:31
thought we had a deal. And he called me the next that
33:36
Monday after the weekend. And so unfortunately the credit
33:39
committee turned him down because this was, this was now
33:43
2015, no, 2014. But you know, still the the over
33:48
the fallout from 2008 was a good ten years before it really.
33:54
Sure, you know, Yeah. Scared everybody.
33:56
Then there was one more thing that I tried and it was it was
34:00
introduced to somebody who had done a funding with the Israeli
34:06
bond market. It was a terrific program on
34:09
paper. The Israelis were just looking
34:11
to invest in New York, in American real estate and the IT
34:19
was an unbelievable program. Very low interest rates, very
34:23
long term payouts, almost it almost we're barely paying it
34:28
back. And it was during that period
34:33
when my partners found out about everything and so I never really
34:38
could execute that. So you were close on two or
34:42
three things. Yeah.
34:44
I don't know whether we could have, we would have executed
34:46
that anyway. But and then just one more
34:49
thing. I had put together another
34:51
private investment group and I had said to them, look, my
34:55
investor pool, they they want to get out.
34:58
I'd like to put together a new private company.
35:01
We're going to provide some capital to this company until we
35:06
raise enough money to buy them out and then this new company
35:10
will go on to buy and build that company up with more properties
35:16
and but again that that didn't happen.
35:20
So you were close. You know, that's the that's the
35:22
crazy thing about these, these nightmares that that manifest
35:26
themselves. There's times and things and
35:28
places where you think you've almost got it or you think, if I
35:31
could just have that next meeting, I think I could solve
35:34
it. Right.
35:34
Yeah. And you look back on it and you
35:38
think, gosh, if that could have or would have, then, yeah.
35:43
So John, when how did it happen? Did did you get a knock on the
35:48
door from the Federal I? Remember, I was sending you that
35:52
chapter, it's called The revelation is I thought that I
35:56
still had band aids on everything and no one was aware.
36:00
And my partners asked for a meeting.
36:03
We had regular meetings, but I was a little concerned about it
36:07
was something that was a bit of a red flag.
36:09
And at that meeting they said, listen, it's come to our
36:14
attention that there's a $10 million loan that we're not
36:18
aware of that we, that we received copies of the loan with
36:22
signatures on it that were not ours.
36:26
And that's, that's at that meeting is in my, I told them
36:30
everything that we were really in bad shape.
36:32
The company was behind, I had put on this debt and I, you
36:37
know, explain to them I was trying to save the company.
36:39
I know I shouldn't have done it. And so they asked me to resign,
36:47
which I did, you know, a looking back, I, you know, maybe I
36:53
should have tried to negotiate something, but I felt so guilty.
36:57
I felt, you know, that maybe there was, there'd be some value
37:01
in it if I just admitted everything resigned.
37:03
But once I, I signed it resigned, I was done.
37:07
I was wiped out everything. So, and then I, I, from there,
37:12
I, I went to, I went to, I hired a lawyer and I decided that I
37:20
would go to the, to the US Attorney's office and turn
37:24
myself and tell them everything because I knew I was going to be
37:26
in legal trouble and try and cooperate with everybody.
37:30
I cooperated with my partners. I cooperated with the
37:34
government. Unfortunately, none of that
37:37
helped me and it didn't help the investors either, because what
37:40
happened is my partners, they completely panicked.
37:44
And these were two very sophisticated businessmen.
37:48
We had 100 investors, easily worth half a billion.
37:52
And they, you know, they wouldn't want to lose money.
37:54
And we had a lot of properties. It was cash flow.
37:58
We had too much debt. But, you know, I always felt
38:01
some more money up, restructure the loans.
38:04
So what they did is a week after our meeting, they filed
38:08
bankruptcy. And.
38:10
Then they resigned and they brought in a specialist and the
38:15
and the the bankruptcy court ordered the liquidation so.
38:19
Everything. Wow.
38:20
Yeah. Well, and and it probably could
38:24
have been saved through a couple of different transactions that
38:28
could have happened. Look, it doesn't.
38:31
It doesn't mitigate what I did, but.
38:34
No, no, no. But I'm just saying if everybody
38:36
would have stayed into being sane and rational to figure out
38:40
the solution to it, even with your situation is stepping out,
38:44
they probably could have saved themselves.
38:47
When you went to the US Attorney, John, did did, did
38:51
they know about what was going on or were you telling them
38:54
something that they didn't know about they.
38:55
Didn't know about it. They didn't know.
38:58
Wow. My attorney, my attorney said to
39:00
me, He said look, it's going to come out.
39:02
I think you better off if you go in.
39:04
He said, I have a relationship with this US attorney.
39:07
I think he'll be sympathetic to to your situation and why don't
39:12
we do that? So I agreed to it and I went in
39:14
and at the very first meeting with the US attorney, he was
39:17
very nice to me. Said, you know, I've seen a lot
39:23
of men in your seat, guys like you'll get behind and then
39:27
they're the other guys who just lie every day.
39:30
I know you're not one of them. But you know, at the end of the
39:33
day, he didn't give me a very good deal.
39:35
He was very, you know, it didn't matter all that, you know.
39:40
Was was you like I know your wife has been through this whole
39:43
thing. You've been married 52 years.
39:45
Is was she along knowing about this as it was going or was it
39:51
something you came home and said, hey, listen, I resigned.
39:54
I went to the US Attorney. I talked to them about what
39:56
happened. That's in the memoir, too.
39:59
That scene, it's pretty. It's brutal.
40:00
I had to, you know, tell her. You know, everything she know
40:05
she did say to me after she said, you know, you've been
40:08
creeping crazy hours and she saw me waking up every day and day
40:11
at the perspiration. You know, you have to.
40:15
But you know, she she didn't have any idea that you know, we
40:18
were and it was such an undoing. I mean, it was it was one day we
40:23
all of a sudden we were wiped out.
40:24
I didn't have, you know, a decent bank account.
40:28
I didn't have any residual. I showed up but anyway.
40:32
That happens a lot to people who own businesses or entrepreneurs.
40:36
Everything goes back into their business and they're reinvesting
40:39
to try to make it bigger. And then all of a sudden
40:41
something like that happens or anything can happen.
40:44
And all of a sudden you're wiped out.
40:46
And they're like, well, why weren't you saving back?
40:48
And you're like, I, I know I should have.
40:50
I, I Yeah. Yeah.
40:54
So, John, how how long did the process last from the time that
40:57
you went in to tell the US attorney that here's what
41:01
happened to you were making a plea bargain with that Justice
41:09
Department? It took about a year and a half.
41:11
You know, I went in in 2016 and I think I signed the plea
41:15
agreement in September of 2017, I believe, you know, So it, it
41:23
took that long because they had to go through the financials and
41:28
they were very complicated because we.
41:29
Sure. I'm sure it's very you're
41:31
talking about millions of dollars.
41:33
And, and there was a lot of loans from intercompany loans
41:41
that had to be reconciled. Actually, they never did
41:44
reconcile them. I don't know why they did.
41:46
They couldn't. But the, the workout specialist
41:50
didn't seem to be really the right, the right person.
41:54
You know, if you ask me, they weren't able to pick.
41:56
And what really troubled me is that they, they didn't do well
42:01
in the bankruptcy court. They, they, I mean, to me, they
42:04
made a lot of mistakes. First of all, they, they
42:06
declared bankruptcy in Delaware, which to me was a real mistake
42:11
because Delaware is debtor friendly.
42:14
It's not borrower friendly. If they've done it in
42:15
Connecticut, they aren't that sophisticated.
42:18
They're borrower. I really think that the the
42:20
bankruptcy court would have worked with with Seaboard and
42:24
its affiliates. Instead, the Delaware bankruptcy
42:28
judge said. Liquidate everything that way.
42:31
Yeah, it just went from bad to worse.
42:33
That way the secured lenders will be will be taken care of.
42:37
And then what really was awful is that the US attorney
42:43
determined that the total losses from the liquidation was $68
42:48
million. And they attributed all of it to
42:51
me. And they wrote up in their
42:55
documents it sounded like I committed a $68 million fraud, a
43:02
scheme to defraud people. Even when I got to prison, I had
43:06
guys asking me where the money was, you know, like.
43:08
Yeah, for sure. So I want to get in.
43:14
I want to get into John, the whole thing of you're the oldest
43:19
guy that walks into your federal prison camp.
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That's prisonist.org. Start here.
45:23
So you go through this whole nightmare, John, and you finally
45:30
get to the point where they're telling you that you have an 80
45:33
five month sentence. And I'm assuming at that time
45:37
you're either 76 or 77 years old.
45:40
You're the oldest guy walking into a federal prison camp where
45:44
you're going. What is going through your mind?
45:49
Well, it was horrific, you know, leaving my wife and, and I
45:56
wasn't leaving her in a good way.
45:58
She had just filed for bankruptcy.
46:00
We have no money. My kids are wonderful kids, but
46:03
they're, they're not really financially capable of
46:06
supporting her. So she had broken her ankle and
46:11
she got $100,000 from a landlord.
46:15
So she had that to live on. They did, they even take my
46:18
Social Security away. So she didn't have that.
46:21
So it was, it was horrific entering prison and when you I,
46:28
I was sentenced to Devon's FMC Devon's, it's a medical facility
46:36
in Massachusetts and the protocol there is for all new
46:40
inmates in the in the prison camp, they put you in the shoe
46:46
for anywhere from two days to two weeks.
46:48
But I didn't know that. So I think I'm, you know, I'm
46:51
going in there. Next thing I know, I'm in orange
46:53
jumpsuit, handcuffs, some guys dragging me down this hallway,
46:58
the main prison, and we go down this corridor where there are
47:01
literally dungeons on either side.
47:04
There's there's all sorts of screaming, moaning, fighting
47:08
inmates. I mean, I, I guess couldn't
47:10
believe that you know what I'm saying about God, how the hell
47:13
did I get here? Which is what, everybody.
47:15
Yeah, surreal. You're walking into a movie set.
47:18
Yeah, I mean, you know, here I am.
47:22
So anyway, and I put you in this dungeon, which is really what it
47:25
is. It's freezing cold and I was
47:28
there for three days. There's no windows.
47:32
You can't sleep because there's the lights are on.
47:35
The the it's the fan never stops and there's groans and screaming
47:40
all night long. The food is horrific.
47:43
It's like dog food. It was filthy.
47:47
So those first three days were really tough and then I finally
47:52
was sent to the camp. The camp seemed like The Four
47:57
Seasons after, right? Exactly.
48:00
But it was still, you know, it isn't like I went there saying,
48:04
oh, Gee, this is great. This is going to be fine.
48:07
And you know, I was there like every new, new inmate scared to
48:11
death. And when you arrive after the
48:14
shoe, you know, you haven't showered, you're grubby.
48:16
You're the good news is, as you know, that a lot of the inmates,
48:20
they're very welcoming. Everybody's been through it.
48:24
And so, you know, all of a sudden guys came up to me and
48:27
yeah, they said, listen, can we help you?
48:29
You know, they gave me some food.
48:30
And then do you need any clothes or extra blankets or pillow?
48:34
And so I bonded right away with it.
48:37
And because I was the oldest guy, it actually kind of served
48:41
me well. And then no one could believe my
48:44
sentence, you know, that I was so long for someone my age.
48:48
Yeah, so and I and. 85 months at 77 years old.
48:52
And the second day I met a really great guy.
48:57
Steve was just a terrific guy. And he had been in there for
49:03
five years and he was young, young.
49:07
He was about 60, but a seasoned veteran.
49:11
And he really was my mentor, helped me get through
49:16
everything. And, you know, he said very
49:18
early on, look, you got to get a routine.
49:21
And for some reason we bonded and he trusted me.
49:24
He sent me the first week. I don't know.
49:26
He said, you know, I really trust you.
49:27
I can tell you anything. And so that relationship was
49:32
really what got me through. And he left early on.
49:35
But you know, as you know, you need that that introduction to
49:40
get through that that first you do.
49:43
It's such a good point too, John, for anybody who's who's
49:46
going or getting ready to go in, it's you will find somebody.
49:51
I find a lot of people that are helpful, but having that one
49:54
person that kind of takes you under their wing and and teaches
49:57
you the inmate rules. You know, they'll, they'll give
50:00
you the pamphlet that says this is what the prison rules are,
50:02
but the inmate rules are what you need to live by and that
50:06
person who does that for you. It's a lifeline, really, in a
50:11
new. World, you know, avoid this guy.
50:14
This guy's a good guy who you know, so it really, really means
50:18
a lot because, you know, there are a lot of people I feel like
50:23
us who, you know, got in trouble, did the wrong thing.
50:27
And then there are other guys there who are in there doing,
50:30
someone said to me they're doing life on the instalment plan.
50:33
You know, the guys have been criminals all their lives and,
50:37
and they're hustling you while you're there.
50:41
So, and it's not that obvious all the time, but so I, I that
50:48
the answer your question, the beginning was tough.
50:51
You know that between the shoe and then it's just a challenge
50:54
of really believing where you are and adjusting to it.
50:57
I think the worst thing getting. Adjusted.
50:59
The CE OS, you know, they just, they make you feel so badly
51:04
about yourself. You know, they make you feel,
51:06
you know, you know why you're here.
51:08
You're a bad guy. That's why you're.
51:09
Here you're a number. Yeah, right.
51:13
Yeah. And so I, I, I didn't have any
51:16
Cos that I, I think I never say I bonded with or became friends.
51:21
I mean, the the basket was, you know, somewhat decent, but, you
51:24
know, yeah. But it's how did you do your
51:26
time, John, like a lot of people do their times different ways.
51:30
How did how did you do your time in there?
51:33
Well, here was the hard part is, you know, I thought, well, right
51:35
now I'm here. I'm going to be a writer.
51:37
I always wanted to be a writer. I'm going to write about this
51:40
experience and maybe I become good enough to get published or
51:44
some value will come from my experience.
51:48
Well, the first day they closed the library, which wasn't much
51:51
of A library to begin with, so there's now no room to go in and
51:55
write. And the dorm where we resided in
51:57
was freezing cold. You just couldn't sit at your
52:00
bunk and write. You couldn't even read, so you
52:03
had to keep moving. So the only way I'd write is I'd
52:07
write at my bunk for like 10 minutes in the morning.
52:10
And I just started writing a journal.
52:12
And, you know, I didn't like the journal.
52:15
It was just, I did this, I did that.
52:17
And I started to write some poetry, some prose poems.
52:22
And I thought, well, you know, that can be be like a daily
52:24
thing, that maybe at the end there'll be some kind of
52:27
narrative arc. And then I learned that I could
52:30
get, you know, in the computer room to get your emails.
52:32
I learned that I could send myself emails and I could write
52:36
some longer vignettes. And so that's kind of what I did
52:41
well, and then I, I, I got a routine.
52:45
My job was dishwasher, which doesn't sound great, but
52:48
actually I got to like it, you know, because you.
52:50
Get pretty good at it. Number one, it was warm.
52:54
It's the only warm place. And I don't know, there's
52:58
something about the tactile there, something about it that I
53:01
that I liked. And, and also you get, you know,
53:05
you could eat early without the crabs and, but you know, you'd
53:11
be done it like noon time because I had the morning shift.
53:15
I mean, at 5:15, you had to be there.
53:18
And then I, I, I would come home from, come back from, from work,
53:23
I'd shower and then I'd have the afternoon, I'd walk and then I
53:27
would try and do as much riding as I could, but it would have to
53:30
be 20 minutes in and you got to wait 20 minutes and go out.
53:35
And then at night, we had a, at 7:00, we had adult education, it
53:42
was called. It was really just movies and
53:44
videos. And then after that, you know,
53:47
you'd kind of hang around your bunks and chat with everybody.
53:51
You know, there'd be these gatherings.
53:54
And at 10:00, it was lights out. And then.
53:56
Yeah. Lights out 10:00 so he's over.
53:59
In that routine, and I ended up too, I started walking an hour
54:03
every day. So it was the kitchen work, an
54:06
hour walk, walking and then whatever writing I could do.
54:11
And I would say that after a while, the day he started to
54:15
just move. Yeah.
54:18
You get into these routines and it's, it's, I'm interested, you
54:24
know, John, on thinking that you had 85 months and you're going
54:30
to do 86% of that time. And then all of a sudden, well,
54:36
I'm not even sure if it's all of a sudden.
54:38
When did you find out that there was a possibility that people
54:42
were going to be let out because of what was going on on the
54:46
outside? Well, what happened is, you
54:49
know, as COVID evolved, you know, we heard that there were a
54:55
lot of inmates dying in prison. And the warden, we had several
55:01
visits where he made us aware of how serious this was, that there
55:06
were issues, especially in prison environment because of
55:09
the closeness. So we ought to start wearing
55:12
masks and, and then we started hearing stories about that
55:18
inmates were applying for compassionate release and were
55:23
being released. And, you know, and then it, it
55:26
became, it was almost ghoulish where we start counting the
55:31
deaths and you're almost rooting for the deaths to go up.
55:34
Hey, you know, but 30,000 a day. And it was before the
55:40
compassionate release. There was this directive
55:43
supposedly that came from Attorney General Barr
55:47
encouraging the Bureau of Prisons to release elderly
55:52
inmates early for home confinement.
55:55
So that whole period, it was probably about nine months where
56:01
we, we realized that COVID was becoming a potential escape
56:07
hatch and everybody started applying for compassionate
56:14
release, sending letters out. And and then, you know, I was
56:18
one of the, I was in fact, that was the first one to be granted
56:22
compassionate release. Well, you fit the profile of
56:26
everything that was said that needed.
56:29
I mean, you were 7778 years old and you were in the exact zone
56:36
of what COVID was taking down at that moment in time, whether it
56:40
was the nursing homes, retirement homes or whatever it
56:43
was, it was that that age group that was really hit the hardest,
56:47
but. You know, you had to go back to
56:49
the court where you were sentenced and that judge had to
56:53
make the decision. So they had a hearing and I was
57:00
able to attend the hearing via Zoom.
57:03
Was a very surreal experience. I bet.
57:06
I was in this room in the main prison.
57:08
It was a huge room and I was about 50 feet from the screen by
57:14
myself in this long desk. And there was this Zoom call on
57:19
a believe me, it was like a size of a movie screen.
57:22
And the judge was at the center. And then all these people where
57:25
I had investors who were speaking out against me and my
57:31
lawyer and the prosecutor and they all, you know, I just sat
57:38
there and listened to what you. But I could see myself up there
57:43
and. Sounds like a movie.
57:44
Yeah, I mean, I looked awful. You know, I, I lost 40 lbs and,
57:51
you know, so I was there. And these glasses that they give
57:53
you, I don't know whether you wear, you know, these big black.
57:57
Yeah, I had the reading glasses that I bought from the
57:59
commissary. My son who saw me said he didn't
58:03
recognize me, didn't know who the heck that guy was.
58:05
And so I didn't, I know I didn't recognize myself, you know.
58:09
In fact, that was upsetting 'cause I really looked like I
58:12
was dying. I couldn't believe how skinny I
58:15
was, you know, and, but anyway, so I left that.
58:19
Did you know right that day? Did John?
58:22
Did you know right that day that that was going to happen?
58:24
Or how did that work? No, the judge said that he
58:27
would, he would, he would, he listened to the arguments and
58:31
he'd make a decision soon, was what he said.
58:33
I really didn't think he was going to grant me the decision
58:37
because the victim spoke out against me, the the US Attorney.
58:42
He was not sympathetic at all. I thought he might be after I
58:46
one of the reasons I think he wasn't is he and my attorney
58:50
were good friends and I had filed a 2255 familiar with a
58:55
2255 where you file an appeal because you didn't feel you had
59:00
adequate representation. And so I don't know whether that
59:03
was the case or not. But anyway, he was he was
59:07
passionately opposed to my release, so I wasn't.
59:11
But you know, anyway, a few days later, I got an e-mail from my
59:15
daughter said you released the your brother's picking you up
59:20
tomorrow. I couldn't believe it.
59:22
Wow. Yeah.
59:24
Wow, so you heard it from the outside instead of the inside?
59:27
Yes, right. Yeah.
59:28
You heard from the outside before you heard from the inside
59:31
the prison that you were released.
59:32
I. Mean I came out of the room and
59:35
I told everybody and all of a all of a sudden everybody was
59:38
was gathering around my bunk. It was like I I maybe had a
59:43
magic bullet that something, whatever I had would.
59:45
Spread out. Yeah, Yeah.
59:47
Rub off on them. I, I, I really could.
59:50
I was speechless. I almost couldn't say anything.
59:52
I didn't know what to say, you know, I was.
59:54
I can't imagine, John, I mean, I the, the, the fact that, you
59:58
know, if, if you were doing like a year or two, but the fact that
1:00:01
you were looking at 85 months and all of a sudden you have
1:00:07
this hearing you've been in for 18 months and they're, they say
1:00:11
you're, you're going to be out tomorrow.
1:00:13
I just can't even imagine. Is because apparently once the
1:00:19
court makes a decision they're required to get you home within
1:00:22
24 hours. I mean, if the secretary, you
1:00:26
know, called me to his office told me he had booked a flight
1:00:29
for me home the next day, I mean, I just couldn't believe
1:00:32
it. My brother picked.
1:00:34
Me up, What was it like? Well, you know what we say what
1:00:37
my brother took me to the airport and I say in one of my
1:00:42
chapters memoir that I don't care what anyone tells me.
1:00:47
That car drove to the airport and never touched the pavement.
1:00:52
That was the way that I felt and it was very surreal because as
1:00:57
you we talked about earlier, it was dystopian in the airport was
1:01:01
nobody there. That was everything's closed,
1:01:05
the only people gate, you know. So it was, you know, a
1:01:11
remarkable I, I, I was, I would say from the time my, my, my
1:01:17
daughter, my daughter's e-mail till the time I got home, I was
1:01:21
just floating. Well, and the other thing too,
1:01:25
John, this was a whole new experiment that went on in this
1:01:28
time period with this home confinement, because before any
1:01:33
of this happened, it was normal that you would go and you go to
1:01:39
a halfway house and then you go to home confinement for four,
1:01:43
5-6 months. They were putting people on home
1:01:46
confinement for years and with an ankle monitor.
1:01:52
But I know that I've talked to several people how restrictive
1:01:58
some of these were and how unrestricted others were.
1:02:01
What was your home confinement like?
1:02:03
Well, you know the normally when you you see a compassionate
1:02:07
release, it's supposed to be time served and you're just the
1:02:12
one supervised release. But the judge added a home
1:02:16
incarceration to my conditions during my period of supervised
1:02:21
release. And home incarceration is the
1:02:24
most restrictive form of house arrest.
1:02:28
So I couldn't even go to the mailbox.
1:02:30
I could not go out. I couldn't even take a walk
1:02:33
before you after a year, they let me take a walk for an hour a
1:02:37
day for a few days a week. So it was very, very
1:02:41
restrictive. But you know, my own feeling was
1:02:44
these, I'm not in prison. I'm here with my wife in a nice
1:02:48
little condo. It's not fancy, but it's great.
1:02:51
And so, and then I, I just decided, well, now I can really
1:02:56
do all the full time to riding and, you know, and that's what
1:02:59
I've done, you know, the last four years.
1:03:03
And, and we were talking about, John, how ironic that is that at
1:03:08
this point in your life, you're doing what you were planning on
1:03:12
doing when you went to Italy before you entered the family
1:03:15
business, right? Yeah.
1:03:17
To, to be a writer. And, and it's it's come totally
1:03:20
full circle. And I am confident.
1:03:23
I am confident that when you release this book, it's so
1:03:30
powerful. And you are so authentic and,
1:03:35
and I don't even know if, if you, you write so well, but
1:03:40
there, there's, there's a, a texture to it that you feel like
1:03:44
you're there when you're describing certain moments and
1:03:48
times. And I, I'm, I'm excited for you
1:03:53
to take this next step in your how old are you now?
1:03:58
82, just turned 8282. Yeah.
1:04:01
So you're so the next 10 years, you're going to be this prolific
1:04:04
writer that that you'll be on these shows.
1:04:07
And they say, well, here's how I got to where I'm at, being on
1:04:10
the New York Times bestsellers list.
1:04:13
I went through this journey. It gives me, you know, it makes
1:04:16
me feel good that, you know, that you found it, you know,
1:04:19
compelling and authentic. And most of the people who have
1:04:23
been through what we've been through found it that way
1:04:25
because, you know, my goal is to not just tell my story, to tell
1:04:30
everyone's story through my story.
1:04:33
You know I'm trying. I'm trying to make it a bigger
1:04:36
story, you know, about what it means to be human and which is
1:04:44
difficult. We all struggle with trying to
1:04:47
do the right things and, and trying to deal with what what we
1:04:53
what when we don't do the right things.
1:04:55
And and that the people would read it.
1:04:59
And you know, when you write, you really write.
1:05:01
I do anyway. You write to be read so that you
1:05:04
write something that's illuminating to the people who
1:05:07
read it, so that even though people maybe never been
1:05:10
incarcerated, but it will tell them a little something about
1:05:13
human nature themselves. Yeah, no, I, I I'm a big.
1:05:17
And, and hopefully it will promote, you know, reform and
1:05:21
criminal justice cause the one thing I can see is that the
1:05:24
system it does not doing what they think it's doing.
1:05:28
Yes, it's it punishes people. It's very good at that.
1:05:31
But it certainly isn't helping anyone become better people or
1:05:36
transitioning or you. They have to do that on their
1:05:38
own, productive. Yeah, it's very, very almost
1:05:41
difficult. I think you that one of the deep
1:05:44
things that you said in the one of the pieces that I read was
1:05:48
talking about walking and seeing the, the, the graveyard cemetery
1:05:56
of the prisoners that had died while they were incarcerated.
1:06:01
And I thought it was really kind of profound how you talked
1:06:04
about, you know, I think you were talking about your wife
1:06:07
said she wanted to be cremated. And you said you'd really
1:06:09
thought about that. And that everything that you had
1:06:12
been through and the life that you had lived, you wanted
1:06:15
somebody to feel the weight of lowering you down into that
1:06:19
grave and that you were here. You actually were here and you
1:06:27
know that that feeling that they're going to have to put you
1:06:31
down and your body's there and you were here.
1:06:34
You did live a life and and had all those things that happened
1:06:38
to you and how you survived it. No matter what I was or wasn't,
1:06:44
but I was here. I fought the fight and, you
1:06:46
know, yeah. Fought the fight, yeah.
1:06:48
I I'm interested, John, with somebody who has lived, you're
1:06:56
82 years old. What?
1:06:57
What do you think's your biggest take away through all that
1:07:00
you've experienced? That life is a is a long journey
1:07:15
and I would say that I still haven't figured out how to
1:07:23
really put a, a, a complete circle around it where I can
1:07:32
say, you know, oh, well, here here's my story and this is what
1:07:37
it means. It seems to me that the life and
1:07:42
human nature is so complex and I don't know whether we ever get
1:07:46
to the bottom of the complexity. But if from my own personal
1:07:50
point of view, you know, I still, I'm very conflicted
1:07:55
about, you know, myself and the kind of person I am, I don't
1:08:00
think you ever really come to terms with that in a in a
1:08:04
positive way. Maybe some people do.
1:08:06
I think that at the end of it all, we all, at the end of our
1:08:09
lives, we're all struggling with this, the summary of a resume
1:08:16
for our lives. And I think that for most of us,
1:08:20
if we're honest and authentic, it's a very checkered resume and
1:08:28
a lot of ups and downs, whatever and, and, and a lot of things
1:08:31
we're not proud of. You know, that song regrets.
1:08:35
I've had a few. I'm not one of those.
1:08:37
I have a lot of regrets. And I think I think we're all
1:08:41
honest. We die with a lot of regrets.
1:08:44
And I think everybody has nobody.
1:08:46
Nobody leaves this world perfect.
1:08:49
But you know, John, you have lived quite a life and you've
1:08:55
had a lot of accomplishments and you've had some things that have
1:08:59
been mistakes or what you might term as failures, but you've
1:09:04
done them all. And you know that that's you.
1:09:06
You have lived a life that so many other people probably
1:09:12
haven't experienced. And you took risk.
1:09:15
You, you, you built, you were known as a guy in the industry.
1:09:19
And then, you know, looking at how it all went down, maybe
1:09:25
things could have been done differently.
1:09:26
But I really do think that your talent, where you sit now, I
1:09:33
can't wait for your book to come out because I think it's going
1:09:35
to be one that's going to be something that sticks with
1:09:38
people, something that they read and it stays with them.
1:09:41
And that's when you know you have a good book.
1:09:43
And that's what I think you have.
1:09:45
Yeah. Well, thank you.
1:09:47
Appreciate it. For Speaking of being grateful
1:09:51
and, and I, I just want to give a shout out to Homestead
1:09:54
Financial who lets me use and do my podcast here at this podcast
1:09:58
studio. For anybody with your home
1:10:02
mortgage needs, Homestead Financial, Greg Afdev is your
1:10:05
guy. Hey, I've got a book out there.
1:10:07
By the way, we're talking about books.
1:10:08
Mine's a nightmare success. It's it's on Barnes and Noble
1:10:11
Amazon. I really appreciate everybody
1:10:16
always, you know, with the likes and the shares of the comments.
1:10:19
If you got time, please leave me a review on Apple.
1:10:22
It helps the show want to know any more on me.
1:10:26
It's Sprint cassidy.com. Spell it wrong.
1:10:29
It's with a Ty, not a DY as I used to say when I was writing
1:10:33
my emails back and forth from Leavenworth.
1:10:34
Stay strong and I'll do the same.
1:10:36
John, thank you so much for taking the time out today to to
1:10:40
Share your story. It's impactful.
1:10:43
Thank you, Brett. Thanks for having me.
1:10:46
I'm her success in and out.