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From one former defendant to another, let me be direct as I close out these ten pre-sentencing emails and podcasts. You want the same thing I wanted—a shorter sentence, more liberty. Too many of you are going to miss it because you wait, or you think someone else will do it for you. I know because I did the same thing, and I regret it every day.
Michael Santos was the one who finally held me accountable. He told me the truth: if I didn’t create anything in prison, I’d come home with nothing but excuses. He didn’t let me off the hook. That conversation changed everything for me.
On October 12, 2008, sitting in a cubicle at Taft Federal Prison Camp, I handwrote my first blog. I didn’t know it then, but that single page became the foundation for everything I’ve built since. Creating that asset gave me back a sense of control. It was proof I wasn’t wasting time. Proof my family could see. Proof I could point to later when probation officers, judges, and case managers needed to know who I was becoming—not just who the government said I was.
That’s the lesson. If you sit and wait, you lose. The government writes the first version of your story. If you don’t respond, their version stands as the only version. Judges, probation officers, and case managers don’t care about adjectives or apologies. They care about dates, specifics, documented action. A single page, created early, matters more than promises made the night before sentencing.
I don’t want you to end up like the physician I saw in Hollywood—sitting in a halfway house, assigned to work at KFC, unprepared and embarrassed. All because he thought cooperation or paying money back would be enough. It wasn’t. He didn’t create anything.
Look instead at people in our community who acted. David Moulder ignored his lawyer’s advice, wrote his narrative, volunteered, and created behind the scenes. He ended up with probation when the guidelines said 48 to 60 months. Augustine and Mossimo documented service and built records that later influenced release programs. They didn’t wait for a lawyer’s memo. They created assets that lived on paper.
That’s what my handwritten blog taught me. Creation is everything. Start small. One page. One date. One act of restitution documented. One hour of service recorded. Build on it. Over time, that record separates you from the government’s version and gives judges something else to cite.
I’m not here to sell you fluff. Cooperation alone won’t save you. A polished lawyer-written memo won’t save you. Judges have told us over and over: treat sentencing like a full-time job.
If you want help, we’re here. If you want to do it on your own, do it. But do something. Don’t make silence your strategy. Because the truth is, the first page I wrote by hand in 2008 was worth more than all the excuses I carried before it.
Justin Paperny
