Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / "Second Acts: Transforming Setbacks into Purpose" with Jeff Grant, Drew Chapin, Brent Cassity

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"Second Acts: Transforming Setbacks into Purpose" with Jeff Grant, Drew Chapin, Brent Cassity · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:01
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:04
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
0:07
Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
0:10
nightmares that set yourself free.
0:13
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
0:15
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
0:20
These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
0:23
There's some humor, but hopefully you can come away with
0:26
a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
0:28
prisons you built up in your own mind.
0:31
All right, welcome back. Now have more success or not.
0:33
Listeners, this is where you come from.
0:35
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:37
How do you adapt, survive, overcome, set yourself free?
0:39
I know I sound like a broken record, but folks, follow,
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subscribe, like this thing up, share it out.
0:45
It really helps the show. We appreciate it.
0:49
So who we talking to today? Well, I am, I am talking to my
0:53
good friends here from the White Collar support group.
0:56
We're going to talk about some stuff really about what happens
1:00
when you get out of prison and what's out there that's
1:03
barriers. And the biggest one is, is we're
1:05
going to talk about a federal expungement initiative and we're
1:11
also going to talk about our white collar support group and
1:13
why we do that and why we do the white collar conference.
1:17
So I want to kind of introduce who these guys are that I'm
1:21
talking to. These are actually good friends
1:23
of mine. So I'm I'm going to make sure
1:25
that I get their intro right. So we've got Jeff Grant, who is
1:30
the Co founder of the white collar support group.
1:32
Jeff is actually an ordained minister and he also got
1:36
reinstated as an attorney. So he's kind of got all the
1:39
angles there. And he he was an attorney New
1:42
York, in New York, and his career got a little derailed
1:47
with addiction and then he got incarcerated.
1:49
But he turned the experience into a mission of redemption.
1:53
Today, he leads a national weekly support group for justice
1:56
impacted white collar individuals and runs grant law,
2:00
helping individuals, executives and families navigate legal and
2:04
personal challenges. And then we've got our own Drew
2:08
Chapin, who I don't know what we do without, Drew, because
2:11
anything that has anything to do with social, with attack, with
2:16
anything with our white collar support group, we're everything
2:19
that we've got going on with this white collar conference.
2:22
We just said, can we do that? Drew Can we do?
2:24
Is that OK? Drew?
2:25
How do we get that out there? Drew?
2:27
So Drew. Drew is the founder of the
2:30
Discoverability Company. It's a digital, he's a digital
2:34
discovery specialist with a 360° background.
2:37
He's been through it all and he's got a lot of experience and
2:41
in entrepreneurship, he's, he's making speeches to Yale and
2:46
Berkeley and all these different places.
2:48
And, and he's a young guy with the type of experience where he
2:53
goes and he talks and people want to listen to what he has to
2:56
say because he's a smart guy. And he kind of tells him how to
2:59
avoid the steps that he went into as an entrepreneur.
3:04
But he helps businesses be front and center online, optimizing
3:09
the search and social and AI platforms.
3:11
He's just a guy. If you need help online, go
3:14
search out Drew Chapin. So I can't wait to jump into all
3:18
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deserve Auto Plaza direct telling Brent from nightmare
3:49
success sent you and folks check out this book.
3:52
He was a he was a guest on the show and an incredible story.
3:57
The book is called Doctor Not Guilty by exonerated
4:00
psychiatrist and internist Muhammad Ali Rafi.
4:04
It's a battle cry and blueprint for anyone misjudged by a system
4:07
that should protect the innocent.
4:08
The book states takes you inside the investigation, the
4:11
courtroom, and hard nights when faith and courage remain.
4:15
You will meet the prosecutors and agents who failed and the
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physicians and families and patients who refuse to
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surrender. This book reveals the truth
4:22
about how power can distort justice and how resilience can
4:25
truly set you free. Read it.
4:26
Share it. Join Doctor Rifai demanding
4:29
accountability, restoring honor, dignity to medicine, and the
4:32
rule of law. All right, Jeff Grant, Drew
4:36
Chapman. Here we are.
4:38
You're, you're so good at that, Brent.
4:40
It's unbelievable. And, and I just want to point
4:43
out that Drew gets invited to speak it like Yale and Berkeley
4:48
and I get invited to speak it like Walgreens and Kroger's.
4:52
So it's. Everybody's got to know their
4:54
platform. Something something's wrong with
4:56
this? So, so guys, everything we're
5:01
talking about right now, it's kind of hot in the in the world
5:06
of talking about justice reform. It's it's we were on Jeff the
5:11
other day talking on another podcast with Sabrina Morgan
5:16
about in my lifetime. I'm 58 years old.
5:22
I think there's more being talked about with justice reform
5:27
and, and, and a light on it more than there has been.
5:31
And why do you guys think that is?
5:36
Well, I, I think at least for White Collar, I can't speak for
5:40
the entire criminal justice reform movement because, you
5:44
know, in, in, in many ways that movement has stalled mostly
5:50
because of lack of funding and lack of focus.
5:54
And if you want more about that, read almost anything that Glenn
5:57
Martin puts on up online. You know, he's, he's very
6:01
articulate on the subject, But there's no question in my mind
6:04
that this is kind of the sweet spot for White Collar right now.
6:09
We really haven't had a voice and our seat at the table in
6:15
terms of generalized criminal justice and for people to
6:20
understand what we've gone through to develop any empathy
6:23
or compassion for us. You know, they painted us with a
6:25
very broad brush. But now we're in a, a climate
6:29
where I think almost anybody or certainly anybody listening to
6:33
this podcast knows somebody who has undergone some kind of white
6:40
collar prosecution or has maybe, you know, 1° of separation from.
6:43
And like, OK, we talk about this now, you know, I got to talk
6:49
about this with my kids. I got to talk about this with my
6:51
friends. You know, it's not OK to stick
6:54
my head in the sand and just pretend it doesn't happen or
6:57
somehow to, to dismiss people because of something they did
7:05
wrong. And then, and then, you know, a
7:09
kind of a cancel call, cancel culture effect of where all of a
7:14
sudden I, I can't accept them as being human anymore.
7:20
So I think we are in, in that age of enlightenment.
7:22
I think part of it has to do with the current administration.
7:26
But this has been going on for, you know, 10 years now of where
7:30
white collar is a, a national topic.
7:34
And I think that we are taking the right approach by talking
7:41
about it in a a spiritual realm first.
7:44
I mean, obviously there's a lot of practical implications and
7:48
things that people have to get through.
7:49
But the three of us, the reason why we come every week to the
7:52
White College Support Group, I think it's because we understand
7:55
that if we dedicate our lives to service and to helping others,
7:59
then the benefits of that not only accrue to them, but to the
8:04
culture in general and to ourselves.
8:08
And so I mean, that's why I'm proud to be on this podcast with
8:11
the two of you for sure. Well, I mean, I think I think
8:14
you bring up a good point because we all met each other
8:18
through finding the white collar support group Jeff, that you
8:21
created with your wife Lynn. But one of the big three, you
8:27
know, there's three pillars, housing, jobs.
8:30
And the third one when there's is community.
8:33
And community is such an important thing because
8:38
strangely enough, when you're in prison, that is your community.
8:42
And everybody has been, they've hit the rock bottom in that
8:46
moment of time. But when you get pushed back
8:49
out, you've got to figure out how to live in a society where
8:53
you've got something that's it's tattooed on your forehead and
8:56
it's not going away. And one of the things that we
9:01
all have talked about is why is it that and you do a quick
9:09
search on ChatGPT, all 50 states except Alaska has some form of
9:17
expungement. There is no federal statute for
9:23
expungement as a federal ex felon.
9:27
And that's one of the things that we got talking about as a
9:30
group is why is that? Why should somebody who's been
9:33
federally convicted be different than somebody who's in the state
9:38
of Missouri or the state of Florida or wherever?
9:40
And I think that's really what it's a state of fairness really,
9:44
you know, it's, it's what does it mean 'cause as we all know,
9:48
the, the presidential pardon is the only path really to some
9:55
form of what you can seek in that realm.
9:58
And that's tough. It's a tough, tough road to hoe.
10:02
And you know, Drew, when you go, when you speak like you just
10:07
recently went to Yale, you walk into a room as a federal ex
10:14
felon. And I think one of the things
10:16
that's interesting about all of that that happens when you go
10:20
into I've been lucky enough to do that too with a college group
10:24
is they look at you kind of funny when you walk in.
10:27
But I think once once they relate to you and you share with
10:30
them and you do. Can you share with us how that
10:33
all works for you when you go in and and make those steps to
10:37
introduce yourself to someone and you are you're the ex felon
10:41
talking. Yeah, and and not to pick on
10:44
something that you just said, but you said when I walk into
10:46
the room, I'm a guy walks in as a federal ex felon.
10:49
I think that's the point about this federal expungement thing
10:53
is I'm not an ex felon. I'm I'm a felon.
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You know, that that status remains.
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And even if I were to be somebody who received a
11:02
presidential pardon, I would still have that record and I
11:04
would still have that felon label.
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And so I think that that's, you know, not, not to, I will answer
11:09
your question not to go too far off on a detour, but that's kind
11:13
of the point of this federal expungement thing is that
11:15
there's no off ramp. There's no way to, to, to say
11:20
like, OK, I walked in. I did what I was supposed to do.
11:24
You know, I I paid the price for the mistakes or the poor choices
11:27
that I made. And, you know, now that's behind
11:30
me. It just isn't.
11:32
And so I just wanted to under score that.
11:35
I think it's a nice way to connect those those two dots
11:38
there. But yeah, when I walk into these
11:43
classrooms, really my mission is to help people understand how
11:51
somebody can go into a situation like in my story where I was a
11:54
startup founder who started a company that every good
11:57
intention and had no plans to to go astray or to make any kind of
12:04
the poor choices that I did. I'm trying to show them like,
12:07
look, you can go into these things and not be a bad guy or
12:13
have any, you know, sort of ill intent, make poor choices as a
12:18
result of things like, you know, immense pressure that startup
12:23
founders feel, mental health, all these different things that
12:26
you can set up on, on an individual, an organizational
12:29
or, or systemic level and end up where nobody wants to be in
12:36
federal prison and with that lifelong label being a felon.
12:40
And so it's part cautionary tale.
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But I think more than anything, what I do is I go in there and I
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talk about how people can be objective and be honest with
12:50
themselves and look at the situations that they're in and
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try to avoid making these seemingly unimportant decisions
12:58
that end up being the whole, the whole thing.
13:03
Fortunately, both in that classroom when I'm speaking with
13:06
students and also in my career when, you know, now I'm running
13:10
my my own firm. But before, when I was like
13:12
applying for jobs and talking to start up founders and trying to
13:15
get back to the work that I do, people look at it and they hear
13:20
the story and they go, yeah, obviously what he did was not
13:24
correct. Those are definitely poor
13:26
choices. But I understand how he got
13:29
there. And I understand how a lot of
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people that are maybe in this room or maybe people who are
13:35
interacted with, you know, earlier this week or whatever,
13:38
are doing something similar. And and that's a really, really
13:42
big, you know, kind of switch that I like to make sure that I
13:47
flip and have people really open up their eyes to how much of
13:51
this is going around. And I will say I think that is
13:55
part of what is kind of shifted this conversation in a more
13:58
macro, you know, zeitgeist kind of way because not only are more
14:03
people touching the criminal justice system either directly
14:06
or through a family member or a friend, or they're reading
14:09
stories or they're hearing about it on TikTok with people like,
14:12
you know, Sabrina Morgan or any of these other influencers are
14:14
out there just like talk, sharing their stories they
14:17
weren't doing 10 years ago. And it's all good.
14:20
Like it's all just kind of this rising tide of of awareness.
14:24
Yeah, I think. There's a lot to that.
14:25
What you just said there, the social media, you know, people
14:29
can say there's a lot of bad things about social media, but
14:31
one of the things I think in social media has allowed people
14:34
to, especially with the re entry community, criminal justice
14:40
reform, sharing stories, cause stories are really what connect
14:44
so many people because they can relate.
14:46
They turn the movie on in the brain.
14:49
And I think, you know, you look at Porsche loud or you look at
14:51
Sabrina Morgan, all these different people, you've been
14:54
successful on that platform is people are connecting with them
14:58
by by them sharing what experience they've shared or
15:02
they've experienced. And those people connect
15:04
themselves into that world and and relate.
15:08
And you can never get anything done unless somebody can relate
15:11
to you. And, and I think that's a huge
15:14
part of that. The.
15:17
The bigger part of what we're doing is, is a lot of people,
15:21
when we said we wanted to go after a federal expungement
15:25
initiative statue, they said, well, that can't be done.
15:29
That can't be done. And, and I think it's for us and
15:35
I, I'm, I'm speaking as just a, a mindset.
15:39
I, I kind of think we're the perfect people to do that.
15:42
Because when we, when you get out of prison, everything is you
15:45
can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do that.
15:47
And, and so we're used to walking and, and pushing through
15:51
barriers just to try to be able to be around.
15:55
And I think that the other thing that you have to do when you get
15:58
out of prison, you have to do a lot of enacting dots, you know,
16:01
to be able to get to where you want.
16:03
And that's a lot of what this is with this federal expungement
16:07
initiative is who can we connect dots with that have influence
16:11
that believe and relate to what we're trying to to get done?
16:18
Yeah. You're, you're definitely right,
16:21
Brent. There's no question that
16:23
visibility and just showing up over a course of years has
16:28
created access. So when when I was I, I, I was
16:33
in attendee at a webinar. I mean, this is how the federal
16:36
expungement initiative got off the ground.
16:39
I was in attendee at a webinar and it was moderated by Doug
16:43
Berman at Ohio State Law. And one of the panelists was
16:49
Rachel Barkum at NYU Law. And, you know, Rachel was
16:53
formerly on the US Sentencing Commission and she was Justice
16:56
Scalia's law clerk at, at the US Supreme Court.
16:58
You know, a, a, a, a big name, someone who understands
17:03
sentencing and understands certainly has a, a huge heart.
17:08
And one sentence just came out of her mouth while they were
17:12
talking about pardons and talking about kind of what's
17:14
going on in, in the world of this administration and former
17:17
administration. And the sentence that came out
17:19
of her mouth was, you know, there's nothing preventing
17:23
Congress from passing a federal expungement law.
17:28
And I just, like, I stopped that in my tracks.
17:32
Like, did I hear what I just heard?
17:36
You know, I couldn't rewind it. And but I did call her up the
17:40
next day. And I said, is that true?
17:45
And she said, oh, yeah, it's true.
17:47
But no one's ever gotten this off the ground.
17:50
I mean, there have been some some minor attempts, but there's
17:58
it might be a good time for it to happen.
17:59
I mean, there's certainly wind, bipartisan wind at our sails in
18:04
terms of the criminal justice reform.
18:06
And with all these pardons that are going on, maybe there's room
18:09
for something that's a longer term solution like an
18:13
expungement law. And we got to talking about a
18:16
little bit. And I said, well, I think our
18:18
white college support group might want to get behind this
18:21
and push this. And if we do, will you be, you
18:25
know, a, a Co founder? And she said, well, if you get
18:28
Mark Osler and Doug Berman on board, I'll do it.
18:31
So we called up Mark and we called up Doug and both of them
18:34
were very enthusiastic. And mostly because the, it's a
18:41
natural place for the conversation to go right now.
18:45
It's like, what are we going to do to balance what's going on in
18:51
terms of the federal view towards crime?
18:55
And, and, and especially if the Trump administration now is
19:00
talking about a crime bill. And if we're going to get tough
19:04
on crime again, if that's the, if that's what's going to be
19:07
happening, well, why not balance it with an off ramp?
19:14
I mean, certainly we all know that that the, the logical thing
19:21
for and, and it happens in a lot of these States and happens in
19:24
other countries is you enter the system, there's got to be a way
19:27
to exit the system. But in the federal in, in
19:32
federal criminal justice, there is currently no way to exit the
19:34
system. So we start to rally people,
19:37
including the two of you and a bunch of other people who are
19:40
policy makers and lawyers and academics.
19:45
And we put together this team and we are moving forward.
19:50
And, and, and also, you know, big, huge thanks to the pro bono
19:55
department at Paul Weiss, who's given us time and done research
19:59
for us. And I think we're in a place
20:03
right now where we are in the next few months.
20:06
I don't know if the few is 3 or I don't know if you is 9 months
20:10
but a few months. We will be talking to senators
20:14
probably on the Judiciary Committee about sponsoring a
20:17
bill and then what all that what would go into that bill.
20:21
I mean, what does it really look like?
20:23
And, and that's not an, it's not easy in terms of figuring out
20:27
not only what's the right thing to do, but then politically and
20:31
diplomatically what we need to, what we need to accomplish in
20:35
order to, for the, for the goal to wind up something like where
20:40
we, where we hoped it would go. You know, Jeff, I was thinking
20:44
while you were talking, you had a big thing happen when you got
20:48
out of prison that you worked really hard at and you got
20:52
reinstated as an attorney, your law license.
20:56
And I wonder because you and I talked a little bit about this
21:01
recently, but that is a sense of redemption expungement, because
21:06
it, you have to go through a process where they basically
21:09
certify you again that you are a you're, you're good enough to be
21:17
a reinstated person that have your law license back.
21:22
And I think that's the biggest thing that we're talking about
21:24
here. And I also think that's probably
21:26
what gave you even more confidence to think this is
21:27
something that that, that feeling that that gave you.
21:31
How can we, how can we bridge that into a, a bigger purpose
21:35
for people? But you would think, and then
21:39
this is what there's a lot of talk all the way around, but
21:42
most people who serve time, they the reason why this is such a, a
21:47
heavy feeling is, is that you feel like when you serve time
21:50
that you, you almost should get a certificate that says, I'm
21:53
done. Here you go.
21:55
Thanks for serving your time. Now go out and do good and, and
21:59
be good and, and get your second opportunity working.
22:03
And that's not at all what happens.
22:06
It's it's worth it really starts, you know, you, you, you
22:09
think, Oh my gosh, the worst thing that's going to happen to
22:11
me is I'm, I'm going to lose everything and then I'm going to
22:14
go to prison. Oh my gosh, what a nightmare.
22:16
And then the thing that you think least about is re entry.
22:22
And that's the thing that stays with you the longest and that's
22:25
the thing that you have to work through.
22:28
And one of the things that really enthuses me about this
22:32
federal expungement initiative that we're working on is it's,
22:34
we're not trying to recreate the wheel and reinvent something.
22:38
There's some really good things out there from from states that
22:43
all it needs to do is be re crafted a little bit for the
22:47
federal level. And you can just take bits and
22:50
pieces from different States and have a really good new statute.
22:54
And and that's what I'm encouraged about is, is we're
22:56
not starting from scratch. There's a lot out there.
23:02
Yeah, I'm just, before we get Drew's take on it, I, I just
23:06
want to be really clear about something.
23:09
Although we've decided to take the lead advocacy on this, you
23:12
know, as a white collar support group and as people who've been
23:16
prosecuted or or convicted of white collar crimes, we're doing
23:19
this for benefit of everybody. I mean, it just happens to be a
23:23
point in time where we think that we can be a voice for this,
23:29
but we're not doing it just for ourselves.
23:31
We're doing it for anybody and everybody who has been convicted
23:37
of a federal crime. Now, certainly there are some
23:40
crimes when this all kind of gets, gets worked out between
23:46
our, our committee and then talking to the Congress as it
23:51
gets worked out, some crimes people have committed, some
23:56
crimes will never be able to get an expungement.
23:59
And then the length of time, for example, that it will take to
24:03
get an expungement. I, I, it's going to take years
24:06
probably, I mean, probably, I don't know.
24:07
I'm, I'm guessing I'm, I'm shooting from the hip here, but
24:11
it could be 7 years post release before you even qualify for an
24:15
expungement. So this, you know, this is like
24:18
a long term project and very different than than the climate
24:25
of, of pardons right now. And I think that that's what
24:29
makes it possible because we're really looking at people's
24:33
redemption stories. You know, like, for example, if
24:35
you have to have a job for seven years, then someone has to give
24:38
you a job. If you have to do volunteer work
24:41
for seven years and someone has to allow you to volunteer, I
24:44
mean it, it takes the makes the entire community somewhat
24:48
responsible. And that that culture change
24:52
happens slowly and it happens over time.
24:55
And I know from other projects I've worked on with other
24:58
nonprofits and thing that if that culture change is possible,
25:03
it will happen somewhere in the future where it will become like
25:06
a regular part of, of the way that things are handled.
25:11
And it'll be long after the three of us are forgotten.
25:14
You. Know, Drew, I I think you've
25:17
been out. You've been home.
25:22
What? How long has it been now about?
25:24
2 1/2 years. 2 1/2 years. And I've been able to watch from
25:30
the moment that you got out to where you are now.
25:32
And I would say, you know, looking from watching, I'm not
25:39
in the middle of it with you, but you have been a successful
25:43
re entry person and I know it hasn't been easy.
25:47
How do you like when you go into the situations that you've gone
25:51
into? How do you work around this
25:54
thing that hangs around your neck?
25:58
Yeah. I don't know that you work
26:00
around anything. I mean you, you really sort of
26:03
like work with it. And I mean that in pretty much
26:08
every way that you can that you could mean that.
26:11
I mean, professionally, this is an experience that I really,
26:18
when I'm speaking to potential employers or people that I'm
26:20
going to work with or whatever, I talk about this as, you know,
26:25
kind of like my earned secret or like what makes me different or
26:28
what, you know, something I try and demonstrate like, Hey, look,
26:31
this is an experience that I had and I learned a lot from it.
26:34
Here's AB and C and that makes me different than that candidate
26:37
or that other person you think about working for.
26:39
And it's a strength and and so that's, that's a big part of it.
26:43
It's, it's certainly true, you know, in personal situations and
26:50
in relationships with like friends and family members and
26:53
all that kind of thing. And a lot of that really comes
26:57
from community. I know we haven't talked about
27:00
it yet, but the White Collar conference, it's coming up here
27:04
in October. I'll be moderating a panel
27:07
called Restoration through Community.
27:09
And I really think that's the story.
27:11
You know, like I wouldn't have the language.
27:14
I wouldn't have these tools in my toolkit to have gotten back
27:20
to my career and to talk about it as a strength and to do those
27:23
things unless this community existed and we're able to engage
27:27
every week and and more. But I really think that so much
27:31
of that is finding strength in community.
27:34
You know, Drew, Drew, what what I think is remarkable about your
27:39
story or your, your, your redemption story, your post
27:42
prison story, is that this was a conscious choice that you made
27:46
that you were going to, that you were going to lean into it.
27:49
I mean, we know a lot of people and there are a lot of people in
27:51
the White House support group who make another choice and they
27:55
and they, they don't put their, their.
27:59
And there's nothing wrong with that.
28:01
But that's, that's a, you know, that's totally like a personal,
28:03
you know, style decision. Yeah, No.
28:06
No, no judgement, but how do you think that it's affected your
28:10
ability to become an active part of the business world again
28:14
having made that choice? Well, I think I disarm it in a
28:21
way by by owning it. A lot of people live in fear of,
28:26
oh man, I made these poor choices in the past.
28:28
I went to prison or or not or, you know, whatever.
28:31
I went through the criminal justice system, whatever that
28:34
means for that person. And I don't want people to find
28:38
out. And then it becomes this thing
28:40
that's just kind of like locked up and makes them nervous and
28:44
goes, oh, man, like what happens if somebody finds out?
28:46
How am I going to explain this? I'm going to do that.
28:48
And so my, my thought process on that has simply been to just
28:53
open it up and then I have nothing to worry about.
28:56
And frankly, that was a lesson of like all the things that I
28:59
did wrong before when running my startup is when the company
29:04
wasn't achieving the kind of success that we were hoping for.
29:07
I was so nervous. I was kind of like, oh man, I
29:10
need to guard this. I can't tell the investors
29:12
they're going to be so mad, you know, all that kind of thing,
29:15
how much easier my journey would have been.
29:17
And I probably would have avoided this catastrophic
29:19
outcome if I were just open and I had just been objective and
29:23
honest with myself and honest with the people around me.
29:26
And I find that freeing. I find I find a lot of freedom
29:29
in in my personal professional life now afterwards, just
29:34
totally disarming it by acknowledging it, pointing to it
29:38
and saying like, yeah, this is here in the room with us, you
29:40
know, Yeah. And.
29:41
I think and I feel that same way.
29:43
Drew, is it somebody said to me, if you don't own your story,
29:49
somebody else will, right. And it's after we go through
29:54
everything that we go through, you at least you can own your
29:57
story, at least own your story, know how to tell your story,
30:02
what she went through and what it means.
30:03
And, and I think Drew, you just said a good, really brought that
30:06
up in a strong way. Is it that it can be almost a
30:09
superpower of yours when you go in and you tell them why?
30:12
I because of the way I experienced this, This is why
30:15
I'm different and what that means to your organization.
30:18
But taking all that about what it would mean if you could walk
30:23
in and you were someone who had been totally expunged and now
30:29
you're in a different realm, I don't even know what that would
30:31
feel like. Well, you did bring it up, at
30:34
least for me a little bit there, Brent, because when I got my law
30:37
license reinstated, that was like a hand being passed over me
30:43
that this guy's OK, right? That and, and that's affected me
30:49
in, in so many ways, not just with my self esteem.
30:52
It's, that's certainly true with my self esteem and, and, and the
30:55
fear that I, I walked life with. But I think that my daughters
31:02
are, are proud for me to be their father again.
31:06
And you know, there's a big difference, you know, for, for,
31:10
I mean, I have grandchildren at this point, but for my, for my
31:13
daughter is to be able to say that, you know, the difference
31:16
between this my father, you know, he went, he went to prison
31:18
and that, or this is my father's a lawyer.
31:21
You know, that, that, that, that's a big difference.
31:24
And, and it made me take a step back and, and really realize how
31:32
much I hurt my family and I hurt the people around me and what
31:38
they must have been living with through all of these years.
31:42
And, and not, not just because of the, the, the tag of felon
31:47
that's been put on us, but the double life, the lying, the
31:52
looking over my shoulder, being so obsessed with my problems
31:56
that I wasn't able to be present there for, for my family.
32:01
And now everything is changed. But let's face it, very few
32:09
people get their law licenses reinstated.
32:12
What we're talking about is a, a, a project that has a, a, a, a
32:19
specific task to grant expungements to a lot of people
32:25
over time. And the reason for that is
32:29
because why not? I mean, why shouldn't our
32:34
criminal justice system look different than the way that
32:38
we've known it? Why can't there be an exit?
32:41
And just because this is the way it's always been, or does it,
32:45
it's not a good answer, right. All right.
32:48
So you enter, you, you, you pay your dues, you do what you got
32:53
to do. And if you get everything right,
32:55
then you have a a a good shot of exiting.
32:58
Yeah, and I think you bring up a good point too on, on a sense of
33:02
pride. You know, you go through this
33:04
and there is an exit and you can pridefully say that you've
33:08
exited that and you've moved on. There is no exit right now.
33:11
It just goes on and and it, it, it's, you know, it it all also
33:18
falls, you know, you got recidivism, you got these.
33:20
But it does give an incentive out there for a, a person who is
33:26
in the federal system that went through the prison system of the
33:30
federal government. There would be, it is a built in
33:33
incentive. If you know that so many months,
33:37
years, whatever and you're you're expunged.
33:42
I would think that would also fall into a helpful thing with
33:45
recidivism. Hopefully you never know so.
33:52
Not to, not to take over the hosting job here, but I, I feel
33:56
like, you know, we've, we've, we've talked a little bit about
33:59
the white collar support group, but I don't think that for
34:02
anyone who's, who's logged on here kind of knows what we're
34:06
talking about. We do meet once a week on Monday
34:10
nights from 7:00 to 8:15 PM on June.
34:16
And at this point, we've had 1600 members come through on a
34:21
typical Monday night. There's probably about 40 people
34:25
online. And to me, my favorite thing is
34:30
when someone comes on for the first time and they're scared.
34:34
And we've probably heard from them during the week or they've
34:37
reached out during the week and we've gotten them the, the log
34:40
on information. And then all of a sudden they,
34:42
their face pops up on the screen and they're freaking out.
34:47
Like they can't believe that. Oh my God, like I've been going
34:51
through this alone for sometimes years and there's like 40 people
34:57
here who are going to give of themselves freely and share and
35:01
provide me resources and, and the answer is, yeah, that's,
35:06
that's right. And I, for the, for the life of
35:10
me, I don't know how we can be, how, how people don't know about
35:18
us. I, I, I, I, I don't know that
35:20
because basically, basically, if you, if you put in ChatGPT or
35:23
you're putting Google white collar support group, our name
35:25
pops up. So you can't be doing a very
35:28
exhaustive search if you haven't found us.
35:31
But I appreciate that people are scared and they're afraid to,
35:35
they're looking for the needle in the haystack.
35:38
And, and I can tell you that there are a lot of things that
35:41
people will, will, will do in order to gain some form of
35:46
advantage in their criminal justice journey.
35:49
They'll hire people, they'll spend a lot of money.
35:51
They'll, they'll do all kinds of things they don't, they don't
35:54
want to leave that stone unturned.
35:55
We don't charge anything. We're all volunteer.
35:58
We're doing this out because we, because we're doing this out of
36:01
love and, and healing and self healing.
36:04
And it's the greatest thing I've ever experienced in my life by
36:09
far. It's the greatest, most
36:11
fulfilling thing I've ever I've ever had.
36:13
Yeah, I. Can see that and it and it, it
36:15
gets, you know, there's a lot of people that get really something
36:19
from it. And and it's, it's a very
36:21
impactful, which I think is a good transition to talk about
36:25
the white collar conference because we had a white collar
36:27
conference last year. And Jeff, you want to talk about
36:33
what we're what we've got is a lineup of of coming October
36:37
11th. Yeah.
36:38
Sure. I have to I, I, I have to I, I
36:41
have the flu got people out there.
36:43
I have the flu people out there. I usually have like better
36:45
lighting so. Yeah.
36:51
You see, you see, we are sure it's the lighting.
36:54
Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. That's for.
36:55
Sure, the. Lighting, right?
36:57
Not what I said when we first got on, we all know.
37:00
Each other really well and the fact that we're playing this so
37:03
straight, it's like blowing my mind before.
37:06
We got on. I told Jeff he just looked like
37:08
hell and he his face really went sad.
37:10
And I said I'm just kidding, you look fine.
37:15
Me Vane, what are you talking about?
37:20
That's I I put, I put on my dark blue jacket to like to lose 10
37:24
lbs right. So, so our conference last year
37:31
went great, no doubt about it. It was, you know, it was our
37:35
first time and we didn't know how it was going to be received.
37:39
And it was mostly our members telling stories.
37:42
And we did, we did the best we could, but it was, but it was,
37:47
it was universally received well.
37:50
And it gave us some impetus to, to reach out more and to try to
37:54
find topics and, and to try to find speakers who would be
38:00
impactful. But also who we could connect
38:05
with on a on a very different level.
38:07
So our first speaker, our first keynote is Jeffrey Toobin, who's
38:13
the CNN commentator and author of the book The Pardon about the
38:17
Nixon administration pardon. And it's very topical right now
38:21
in terms of what we're going through in our criminal justice
38:23
system. And Jeffrey to pro and just to
38:26
have, you know, gotten his attention and his approval is an
38:33
amazing get for us. You know, and I'm, I, I, I don't
38:37
know that he's actually going to talk about us on CNN, but I'd
38:40
like him to. But we're, you know, there's no
38:46
question that having Jeffrey as a as a keynote, you know, it's a
38:51
big win for us. And then I've been to two
38:54
criminal justice conferences recently, one put on by the by
39:00
the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the
39:03
other by the American Bar Association.
39:04
And people came up to me at these conferences and said, how
39:09
did you get Sam Bankman, Freed's father, to, to be a speaker at
39:15
your conference? Mary said, Well, we asked him,
39:18
right? It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't
39:20
that hard given the fact that he is genuinely one of the nicest,
39:27
most earnest people of heart that I've ever met.
39:35
And, and so Brent that I got on the, on the Zoom call with him
39:40
and he's offered, he's agreed to be interviewed by Brent in a, in
39:47
about a 40 minute conversation. And then that's going to be
39:53
augmented by a full episode of nightmare success that will be
39:57
in the can by the at the time of the conference, probably be
40:00
released a day or two after. And I've talked at length with
40:07
Joe Bankman about, about Sam, about the effect on his family,
40:11
about what it means to be a, a family that goes through such a
40:16
high profile prosecution. And he has.
40:21
Some very interesting thoughts and reflections that he's
40:29
willing to share with us that I think anybody who's going
40:31
through it will be able to relate to.
40:36
And then I'll just mention third, then we have a panel of
40:39
people from our Federal expedition initiative.
40:41
We do have Mark Osler and Doug Berman and Todd Hoff from
40:47
Indiana University Kelly School of Business, and they're going
40:51
to be talking about the, the, the guts of pardons and
40:55
expungement and what it really means.
40:57
And again, I've been to two attorney criminal justice
41:02
conferences recently and I can tell you that they are not
41:06
covering pardons. Well, nobody knows what's going
41:09
on. Nobody knows the history.
41:13
They're covering it because they think they have to, but there's
41:17
no real good information that's being passed around there.
41:21
And what we're, we're hoping is that people who've dedicated
41:24
their lives to the academics and the understanding of what all,
41:28
how all these pieces go together.
41:29
They're going to be shared, be able to share with us some
41:32
important information that's going to help us all make good
41:35
decisions about pardons and expungement laws and things like
41:38
that. You know, and I, I think just
41:42
get with that line up. I, I the anybody who's invited
41:46
the and, and the reason why with Joe Bankman, I think it's such
41:51
an important thing to have him is that we always say when
41:55
someone gets indicted and convicted, it's not just them,
41:58
it's their family that has to family goes to prison too.
42:02
They just have to live on the outside.
42:05
And so that that's just an encouragement for people who
42:09
have been affected, who are listening.
42:11
You've been affected on the 'cause you know, I think
42:14
there's, I think there's 80 to 85 million people that are
42:17
affected with some kind of record.
42:20
So that that means there's a lot of people family wise that have
42:23
to deal with this and what it means to you and how you get
42:26
through life and you know, how you survive.
42:29
So tune in TuneIn. If if you've been a part of
42:33
that, I think these people you can get something from and it's.
42:38
Go ahead, Drew. Oh, Drew, Yeah.
42:40
Drew, Drew, what are you finding different about this year's
42:48
conference than the focus we had last year?
42:51
I mean, I mean, we've been talking about this.
42:53
We've been talking about it like for six months now.
42:55
And all of a sudden it's it's here in three weeks.
42:59
And what, what, what, what do you find most interesting about
43:03
what we're offering and, and trying to reach out to the
43:06
community about? Yeah, you.
43:08
Know, and I've said this, I know I've said this to you directly,
43:14
but I feel like last year we were trying to figure out how to
43:17
run a conference first and foremost, like can we do this?
43:20
We're building it really for the people that are in our community
43:23
is, you know, 15 or 1600 people. And we're trying to re engage
43:27
with some folks who maybe haven't, you know, shown up to a
43:29
Monday night in a little while. But we're trying to like, you
43:31
know, just use this as a touch point for the, for the
43:34
community. This year is very different in
43:37
in a way that I think is really constructive and is going to
43:41
help us get to these goals that we're talking about in that it
43:45
we're engaging, of course with all the members of our
43:48
community. We're tying everybody in and
43:50
everybody has something that everybody in our community has
43:54
something that they can touch as part of this.
43:56
But it's, it's far more like external.
43:58
Like we're really bringing in a lot of folks and a lot of
44:01
stories and a lot of people who are not just directly criminal
44:05
justice, you know, criminal justice system impacted a really
44:10
kind of casting a wider net. And I started this by talking
44:13
about awareness about how, you know, we were talking about how
44:17
these topics are kind of in the zeitgeist more and more.
44:21
And I think that what we're doing here is really moving the
44:25
ball forward in terms of that awareness.
44:28
I mean, it's, it's with everything.
44:30
It's with our federal expungement initiative where,
44:33
you know, we're out there educating a lot of people,
44:36
people in our group, lawyers, legislator, legislators, even on
44:42
simple things like the fact that there is a difference between a
44:45
pardon and an expungement. And this is what it is.
44:48
A lot of people just don't know. A lot of people use those terms
44:51
like interchangeably or you know.
44:54
Having. People go through the thought
44:56
exercise of thinking about what happens after sentencing.
44:59
Everybody goes, oh, so and so got in trouble.
45:01
How much time are they going to get?
45:02
Wow, six years, 10 years, 20 years, whatever.
45:05
And then they kind of like move on.
45:07
They don't think about the the part afterwards.
45:09
So that that awareness is really important, important and in and
45:12
in my panel that I'll be moderating restoration through
45:16
community. I mean, not to get on the
45:19
soapbox too much, but a lot of people big picture everywhere
45:24
are struggling because they're not engaging in their
45:26
communities. They're not out there talking to
45:28
people, They're not out there connecting.
45:30
It's contributing to some of the worst things that are happening
45:32
today. And So what better to do than
45:35
show folks, look, internal, external lawyers, legislators,
45:40
everything like, look, this is the power of community.
45:42
Here are some real stories from some real people and, and in
45:47
many cases this community and communities like it really saved
45:51
lives. And so it's incredible stuff.
45:54
And that's why this is so important.
45:57
And really like the difference between last year and this year.
45:59
I mean, last year we were getting together, we had really
46:02
meaningful conversations and stuff, but it was for us.
46:04
Now it's OK. Like we're going out there,
46:07
we're talking to more people, we're bringing them in and and
46:11
really moving the ball forward in important ways.
46:14
That's good, Drew. Yeah, yeah.
46:18
Would you record that? Let's let's.
46:20
Oh, we are recording it. Good for us, you know.
46:24
Brett, sorry I blacked. Out what happened.
46:28
Yeah. You know, Brent, I, I think Drew
46:31
made a, a great point that kind of leaps over because when we do
46:35
wind up testifying before the Judiciary Committee, we, we put
46:43
our bill in and then we're going to have to, we have to go to
46:45
Washington, you know, together with the actual plan.
46:53
They want to hear stories, You know, they want people.
46:56
I mean, we and we have, we have poster people that we're, we're
47:01
not only are they going to make the kind of impression that we
47:06
want to, that we, that we want to make in order to move the
47:09
bill forward. But the the primary thing that
47:14
they have to explain is how an expungement would actually
47:19
change their lives. How would it change the
47:21
trajectory of their lives? And right now we use the case of
47:26
Babs Rolls Ivy, who's a very, very dear friend of mine.
47:30
And she went to prison for 30 days about 18 years ago and
47:35
she's been handcuffed ever since then.
47:37
And she worked her way back and she worked her way through the
47:40
inner city in New Haven, CT And she's become a, a, a very well
47:46
known person in terms of, of community service and being on
47:50
boards and things in, in New Haven.
47:52
And she worked her way back now and she's a law student.
47:56
And that's, it's incredible my, that my friend Babs is in law
48:00
school right now. It's blowing my mind, but she
48:04
can graduate law school and have absolutely no confidence
48:09
whatsoever that she's going to be able to be a lawyer, that the
48:14
Bar Association is going to accept her, or that she's going
48:17
to be able to get a job. But with an expungement, all of
48:22
those things become easier to the to the X power.
48:28
I don't know what it is. And I would love for her to not
48:33
have to run that gauntlet of, of doubt and shame and people
48:42
looking at her, you know, through, through kind of eyes,
48:46
like, you know what, why are you really doing this?
48:48
Like what's what's, what's your motive?
48:51
And I can speak for Babit. She wants to be a, a, a defense
48:57
attorney. I mean, she wants to be a, a
49:01
yeah, work for the state. She wants to help indigent
49:04
people who can't afford attorneys, you know, so she
49:07
wants to be a public defender. And she's in her 60s already.
49:14
I mean, this is how she wants to spend the rest of her life.
49:17
But she's going to now devote 3 years of her life to go to law
49:20
school with no guarantee whatsoever that on the other
49:23
side of that, she's going to be able to do what someone who did
49:26
not have a felony will be able to do.
49:28
That she's a perfect person to put before Congress and be able
49:31
to say this is somebody who her and her family's life and the
49:36
life of the community can change if there is a federal
49:40
expungement law. Yeah.
49:42
And it takes a lot of courage. You know, that's one of the one
49:45
of the things I really love about having this show is I, I
49:48
feel lucky enough to sit down in this chair and listen to people
49:52
who have to try to overcome their situation of re entry.
49:56
And and I try to focus this show on people who actually do that,
50:03
that courageously step forward and make the most other re
50:06
entry. But when I say that, I, there's
50:09
so many good stories over the last Four Seasons, but each and
50:13
every one of them has the struggle of being legally
50:17
discriminated against. Yeah, I want to say that again,
50:20
they're legally discriminated against.
50:23
And what we're trying to talk about here is to take away that
50:26
so that when someone goes through this, when someone does
50:31
the things that they need to do and have the courage to step
50:34
into their new opportunity, that they can truly step into their
50:38
new opportunity. Yeah.
50:40
And that's what we want, guys. What else are we missing?
50:44
Anything. Jeff, I think you've done a
50:46
great job hosting the show, though.
50:48
Thank. You, Greg, you know, now that
50:55
Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah, I suppose.
51:03
I suppose we should give dates and times everything, right?
51:06
So. If you want more information
51:08
about the federal EXPEND Expungement initiative, that's
51:11
federal expungement.org. And Jew has put together a
51:16
beautiful, beautiful website there with, with a lot of
51:19
information in the faces and BIOS of all of our supporters
51:22
there, or at least some of our supporters and information about
51:27
the conference is at white collarconference.com, right?
51:30
That's not a hard one to remember.
51:31
White collarconference.com. And it's going to be the morning
51:34
of Saturday, October 11th at 9:00 AM Eastern.
51:38
So you people on the West Coast, sorry, it's going to be at 6:00
51:41
AM, but it's only, it's going to be 3 hours and it's going to be
51:45
packed with a lot of information and a gathering of the tribe.
51:49
By the way, if you, if you tune in early, we did this last year.
51:52
I hope we're going to do it again this year.
51:54
We, we, we opened up the room 1/2 hour early and just for
51:57
people who hadn't seen each other in years and things,
51:59
everybody just kind of networked and it was, it was fun for that
52:02
to happen. I hope we do that this year.
52:05
And I will be speaking on October 9th, 2 days before the
52:11
conference at Bethesda by the Sea Church in Palm Beach.
52:16
So I know that's a little erudite on Palm Beach, but we
52:20
definitely want to, you know, bring the message out there.
52:22
And Drew, where are you going to be speaking over the next couple
52:25
weeks? The first week of October, I
52:29
will be at Berkeley and and then the conference and then there's
52:33
a there's a little break, so stay tuned.
52:36
Stay tuned. All right, guys, Have we done
52:39
it? I.
52:40
Think we have OK. All right, I want to give a
52:44
shout out to Homestead Financial lets me use this podcast room.
52:46
I really appreciate it. If you get home mortgage and
52:49
ease, go to Greg AFTI. If he knows all that stuff,
52:51
won't know about anything more about what I'm doing.
52:53
Go to brickcassidy.com and I spell it wrong.
52:55
I spell it with ATY, not a DY. They used to say to my people
52:59
when I was writing my emails back from Leavenworth.
53:00
Stay strong. I'll do the same.
53:03
Nimer success in and out. All right.