At a meeting I never should have been in, I watched an elderly investor and his accountant sit across the table and say they believed they had $3 million in a hedge fund. They were calm, polite, and completely unaware that most of their money had vanished. I’d never met them before. I’d never spoken to them. But I knew right away that what they believed wasn’t true.
There was less than a million left in the hedge fund. And worse, I later learned the money had been gone long before I ever worked with the hedge fund manager. The fraud had been running quietly for years.
The Decision I Made
After the meeting, my instinct wasn’t to tell the truth. My instinct was to protect myself. That’s what I prioritized. And I wasn’t alone.
My partner and I went straight to UBS compliance and the branch manager in Stanford. We explained what we had seen and said we believed this client was misrepresenting facts to investors. We told them he was generating big commissions—six figures every month—and that we were concerned. But not concerned enough to walk away.
Instead of reporting him or pushing for action, we helped write a disclosure document. It stated that any investor who chose to work with this hedge fund was doing so at their own risk. That the investment wasn’t endorsed, solicited, or recommended by us. That we were simply brokers executing trades.
The goal was clear: keep the money flowing, but shift the liability somewhere else.
The Result
That disclosure document didn’t save me. It didn’t protect me. It proved I knew what was happening and chose to stay anyway.
When prosecutors reviewed my conduct, they didn’t just focus on the initial trades. They looked at that disclosure document as a calculated decision to preserve a profitable relationship while distancing myself from the fallout. It undermined any claim that I was unaware, naïve, or trapped. It was evidence of intent.
Judges understand mistakes. What they don’t accept is self-preservation at the expense of others. And in my case, that disclosure wasn’t about transparency. It was about shielding my commissions while the fraud kept going.
Why This Matters to You
You might be under investigation right now. You might be preparing for a proffer, a pre-sentence interview, or standing in front of a federal judge trying to explain your conduct. If you’ve made decisions that protected your paycheck instead of doing the right thing, own it—clearly and completely.
Don’t dress it up. Don’t hide behind legal advice, office culture, or what compliance allowed. Judges see through that. Probation officers do, too.
In my case, I tried to craft a narrative that minimized my role. I thought if I could point to a signed disclosure or a conversation with compliance, I’d be fine. But I wasn’t. Because every decision I made pointed to one thing: I knew it was wrong, and I stayed in anyway. And that’s exactly what the government said at sentencing.
If You’re in a Similar Spot
If you’ve taken steps to protect yourself instead of protecting others, your best move now is to document what you knew, when you knew it, and what you did next. Not just for the sake of transparency—but to prove to the court that you understand the difference between legal cover and moral responsibility.
You don’t get credit for checking boxes or hiding behind paperwork. You get credit for showing insight. And that insight has to be supported by a written, measurable record of change—before your sentencing date.
That meeting with the elderly investor didn’t end my career. My decisions after that meeting did. I didn’t tell the truth. I didn’t walk away. I just tried to protect myself. And if you’re doing the same, you still have time to make a different choice.
What are you doing today that proves you’ve stopped protecting yourself and started telling the truth?
Join our weekly webinar every Tuesday at 11AM Pacific / 2PM Eastern to learn what judges, probation officers, and the BOP need to see before sentencing. Or schedule a personal call with our team to start documenting your effort—honestly and clearly.
Justin Paperny
