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How do you help a family member write to the judge before sentencing?
Someone in your family is days from a federal sentencing hearing, and he is frozen. He isn't preparing. He isn't calling anyone. When you ask whether he's ready, he changes the subject. You can see the problem more clearly than he can.
Wendy Finley could see it. Her ex-husband, Tom, was five business days from sentencing with nothing new on record for the judge. His attorney hadn't raised it.
She had been watching my videos for months. One day she emailed to thank me for the free content. She wasn't asking for help.
I wrote back the same day with three questions. Was he ready? Did he have a personal statement? Was he prepared to speak to Judge Carter?
She said she didn't know. Probably not.
We were on the phone that afternoon.
Forty years, then one fund
Tom was 73. He had practiced tax law for forty years and built one of the larger tax practices in Dallas. He was a CPA, a Navy veteran, and a graduate of the University of Texas law school.
In 2019, a man Tom had once represented brought him a cannabis investment fund. The man had changed his name. He showed Tom a driver's license and told him the fund was legal. Tom took him at his word, didn't dig further, and drew up the agreements.
The fund raised more than $2 million. The man spent investor money on personal expenses. The prospectus and website contained material misrepresentations, and Tom had signed off on documents he hadn't read carefully enough.
He pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in the Central District of California. His law career was over. Judge David O. Carter would sentence him.
The afternoon of the first call
I interviewed Tom that afternoon. By his family's account, he was too overwhelmed to do this work alone. Most people are, days before sentencing. They can't write clearly about their own lives. They can answer questions, if someone asks them.
You can be the one who asks. Sit down with your family member tonight with a notebook, and start with questions like these:
- Where did you grow up, and who kept the household running?
- What was the hardest job you ever had?
- What did you do in this case that you would do differently now?
- Who was hurt, and do you know their names?
- What do you want the judge to understand about you that the government's file leaves out?
Write down the answers in his words, not yours. That notebook is the start of a personal statement.
Over the weekend
Through the weekend and into the next week, Tom's life came out one answer at a time.
Muskogee, Oklahoma. A mother working two jobs. Sacred Heart Catholic School. The Navy, and submarine service: a boat carrying 16 nuclear missiles, 90-day tours spent avoiding Russian detection. Law school in Austin. Forty years of tax practice. Two divorces. A mental health crisis. The liquidation of a coal magnate's billion-dollar estate across Australia and Africa.
That became his personal statement to Judge Carter.
It named the offense directly. He failed to do due diligence. He signed off on materials he hadn't examined carefully enough. There was no excuse for those failures, and the statement didn't offer one. It named the investors who were harmed. It didn't ask for sympathy. It showed the judge who he was outside the offense.
The friend
A character letter from someone outside the family can show a judge something relatives can't. We found a friend of Tom's who was willing to speak for him, interviewed that friend, and turned the interview into a character reference letter.
We also drafted the oral remarks Tom would deliver himself.
Five days. A personal statement, oral remarks, and one character letter.
In Judge Carter's courtroom
Tom stood up and spoke for himself.
Judge Carter sentenced him to 10 months of home confinement and probation. No prison.
If you're the Wendy in your family, start the notebook today with the five questions above. Then book a $500 diagnostic call with me. Tell me the date of the hearing and what's been created so far, and I'll tell you what can be built in the time left. If the call isn't worth it, you get the $500 back. If you move forward, it applies to a clearly defined scope of work.
Thank you,
Justin Paperny
Written by
Justin Paperny
Founder White Collar Advice