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“Working with Justin helped me find my voice. I was able to explain the context of my choices to the judge and receive probation.”
Can you prepare for federal embezzlement sentencing?
Brenda Campbell stood in front of business students at the University of San Diego and explained how she stole from her employer.
She had been assistant comptroller at an RV dealership. She charged personal purchases to company credit cards, then wrote false journal entries to book them as business expenses. She knew the accounting system well enough to know the entries were lies.
The students asked how it started. They asked why she kept going. They asked what happened when the FBI showed up. Brenda answered every question without knowing how long she would be away from home. She gave the same talk at Whitworth College.
"It felt good to turn my difficult moment into an opportunity to help others."
The letters from San Diego
The University of San Diego students wrote down their reactions. Brenda put those pages in her sentencing submission. At the hearing, the judge asked her about the presentations and pointed to lines from the students' letters.
"The judge acknowledged the narrative. He said that I'd obviously taken ownership without making excuses."
Prosecutors asked for 33 months. Brenda received 20.
Pizza shop, bunk bed factory, newspaper
Brenda grew up on Inlet Island near Lake Tapps, outside Seattle. Her first paychecks came from a pizza shop, a bunk bed factory, and the local newspaper. After college she kept the books at a home security company and at a distributor of semiconductors and computer parts. Then the dealership.
She read my book Ethics in Motion while waiting for sentencing. She recognized the slow slide it describes: watching coworkers cut corners, and asking a little less about it each time. That went into her narrative alongside the credit card charges.
"Nobody wakes up one day and decides to go break the law. I hurt people and I needed to own that. When it was time for my Pre-Sentence Interview, I was ready."
By the hearing, she had described the theft to our team, to her probation officer, and to two rooms full of students.
After 20 months was announced
"I felt depressed and anxious during the hard waiting process. Now, the end is in sight."
Write down the three questions about your case you would least like a stranger to ask. Brenda heard hers from college students before she heard them from a probation officer. Answer yours out loud this week.
Continue reading: Ethics in Motion.
Thank you,
Justin Paperny
Written by
Justin Paperny
Founder White Collar Advice