How to Avoid Federal Prison: 36-48 Months Sought, Probation

How do you avoid federal prison for white collar crime?

Sometimes. Richard Sherman, charged with wire fraud conspiracy in New Jersey, spent three and a half years building a housing nonprofit, logging more than 100 service hours, and staying sober. The government asked for 36 to 48 months; Judge Madeline Cox Arleo imposed two years of probation.

Richard was one of T-Mobile's top business sales associates. He made Winner's Circle three years running, and his book included Amazon, Starbucks, Nike, and Microsoft.

From 2013 to August 2020, he ran a scheme through fake affiliate accounts in T-Mobile's system to push bulk SIM unlocks for a customer. He knew the accounts were fraudulent and he knew it was wrong. T-Mobile found it. The U.S. Secret Service investigated. In September 2022, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey charged him with wire fraud conspiracy.

Two records

When Richard and I spoke, I told him what I tell everyone. The government is building a record. You should be building one too. Nobody can promise the work changes the sentence. It is the only part of the process you control.

Richard started within weeks of the charge, and he kept going for three and a half years.

His mother's evictions

Richard's mother had been evicted repeatedly. She couldn't afford application fees, and landlords turned her away over her rental history.

So Richard founded RenterCertification.org, a nonprofit that helps at-risk tenants find and keep housing. He built a free e-learning platform and course, and worked on it every morning before anything else, for three years. Its partners came to include the University of North Dakota Medical School, the North Dakota Brain Injury Network, the University of Washington School of Medicine, and the University of Washington Doorway Project. In May 2025, the Oregon House of Representatives accepted his white paper on housing advocacy for homeless people with HIV as written testimony.

He didn't pick a cause off a list. He picked the one that had happened to his own mother. A judge can tell the difference between service someone chose for a sentencing memo and service with a reason behind it.

100 hours, timestamped

Richard completed more than 100 hours of community service with Prison Professors Charitable Corporation. Every hour went onto a public, timestamped profile that his judge could read.

A volunteer hour you can't document is an hour you'll describe from memory at sentencing. A dated entry is something a judge, a probation officer, or a prosecutor can check.

The energy drink cans

The energy drink cans were still part of Richard's life when the case began.

In the fall of 2022, his wife, Amanda, helped him clear the house of alcohol. He started going to AA meetings, in person and on Zoom, and began monthly sessions with an addiction counselor that he kept up for three years.

If alcohol or drugs are part of your story, they will be part of the case whether you raise them or not. Three years of documented sobriety tells a judge something no promise at the podium can.

"All work is honorable"

Through all of it, Richard managed a portfolio of about 300 rental units across Oregon, North Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota. He also drove for Uber Eats and DoorDash to cover his legal costs.

When his son asked where he was going, Richard told him the truth: he was delivering food, and all work is honorable.

"Having real, actionable work and goals helped with sentencing but maybe more importantly it gave me purpose and work during this uncertain time."

36 to 48 months, or probation

Richard was sentenced by Judge Madeline Cox Arleo. The government asked for 36 to 48 months.

Judge Arleo sentenced him to two years of probation and a fine. From the bench, she commended his narrative, his community service with Prison Professors, and his character letters. Richard's own lawyer said the result was better than he had expected.

Can you avoid federal prison for a white collar crime? Sometimes. Probation is legally available in many white collar cases, and judges must weigh your history and characteristics under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). What a judge can weigh depends on what you create. Richard buitt a record over three and a half years.

He is honest about what the work guaranteed, and what it didn't:

"Neither I nor Justin would say that you will always get the outcome you hope for, but I know that regardless of what happened I had done everything I could to mitigate and prepare, and even if the outcome was not what I wanted, I knew I had done everything I could and was at peace with that."

Tomorrow morning, before you open email or read anything about your case, spend one hour on work a judge could verify. Write down the date and what you did. Do it again the next day. After seven days, bring your log to our free Tuesday webinar. You'll be in a room full of people building the same kind of record.

Thank you,

Justin Paperny