Coming Home From Federal Prison: What I Wish I'd Known

Matt recently asked me what I would say to someone who did everything we discussed to prepare for prison, then came home and struggled to open a bank account.

He was talking about himself!

He had prepared for sentencing, had a productive time in prison, and started working on how he would earn a living afterward. Now he was home, dealing with problems that preparation hadn't eliminated. “Nothing I say is going to undo those consequences,” I told him.

I've been home since May 20, 2009. Seven banks have ended their relationships with me. I've had to find new institutions, explain my conviction, and ask people to consider doing business with me. No amount of preparation guaranteed that a bank would accept me.

Matt and I spent the next half hour talking about life after federal prison: how I started working, mistakes I made, our families, and why I didn't enjoy coming home as much as I wish I had.

Finding a Bank After a Felony Conviction

When banks ended their relationships with me, I worried about what would happen to my retirement account. I didn't want to cash it out. I needed to find an institution willing to take it. I could be motivated and still have a bank turn me away. I needed an introduction to someone who could help.

So I worked on developing ten new relationships, hoping one would lead to a broker or banker willing to consider my circumstances. Eventually, I found someone. Then I lost another banking relationship. That time, they gave me three months. “All right. I've got three months.”

I told Matt to expect problems even after preparing well. He might need to adjust his spending, accept work beneath his previous skill level, or build a business he hadn't considered before. He had already gone from making enormous amounts of money to very little. I knew how much time a person could waste comparing what he used to have with what he had now.

Preparing for Release While I Was Still in Federal Prison

Before prison, I would look at friends on LinkedIn and resent them. Someone was joining a club, building a business, or traveling the world. He had done it the right way. I hadn't. I hated him anyway.

For three years before I surrendered, I didn't handle bad news well. I would chew tobacco, sometimes have a cigarette, and eat poorly. I neglected my health and family while thinking about how unfair my life had become. That continued into the first months of prison.

Michael Santos began mentoring me. Initially, I didn't listen very well. He encouraged me to spend less time exercising, read with a purpose, and understand the decisions that had brought me there. Around that time, I noticed men who were scared to go home. Some weren't visiting with their families because they worried about paying restitution and supporting themselves.

I mentioned it to Michael. “You're no different,” he said. “You're on that same path.” I told him I wanted to do something different. He encouraged me to help people without expecting anything in return.

My mother also had something to say about my future. She would visit and tell me she loved me and supported me, but I wasn't going to consume my parents' retirement. “You went to USC. You have a brain. You're young.”

I was afraid of going home dependent on them. That fear helped get me working alongside Michael.

Writing a Prison Blog Before I Had a Business

I started writing blog posts by hand and mailing them home. My mother put them online. Letters began arriving from people who had read them. Someone's father was coming to prison, and what I wrote had helped.

I liked the feedback. It fed my ego. I would run over to Michael's cubicle and show him what someone had sent. Some men thought I hadn't been in prison long enough to write about it. They called me a tourist. I wanted to prepare to go home. I wasn't particularly concerned about whether writing made me look weak to someone in prison.

Michael pointed out that plenty of men regretted how they had spent the years before surrendering. I wasn't the only one who had neglected his family, ignored his health, or lied to the government. People were reading because they recognized some of what I described.

On Thanksgiving in 2008, we were walking the track when I asked him to help me write a book. He said that meant putting myself out there and choosing to build a business around these experiences. Was that what I wanted?

I enjoyed helping people. A man would arrive at prison and look for me because he had read the blog. Someone would come over during visitation to thank me in front of my mother. That felt good. I wanted to continue.

For the next five months, Michael interviewed me in the mornings. He would write pages and give them to me the following day. We worked through the edits together. A week before my release, Lessons from Prison arrived at mail call.

I still had a difficult transition to the halfway house ahead of me. But I felt better prepared because of what I had done inside.

Looking for Work From the Halfway House

One of the first things I did after leaving prison was look at my website. That's when I discovered my mother had taken some liberties with the editing. She didn't like me calling myself a fool and a fraud. I had been hard on myself in the writing, and she had softened some of it.

People who read the blog began calling me at the halfway house. My phone number was on the website. My probation officer supported what I wanted to do, but he told me I couldn't take money while I was still in the halfway house. I could help people for free. My approved job was answering phones at Sotheby's for my friend Sam.

On an early four-hour pass from the halfway house in Hollywood, I put on a suit and took copies of Lessons from Prison into law offices around Los Angeles. The suit was about five sizes too big. I had become a runner in prison. Walking into those offices was uncomfortable, and some visits went badly. Still, I felt good about doing something I had committed to while I was inside.

Starting a Business After Prison: My First Client Got a Refund

On August 17, 2009, after I completed my time at the halfway house, an executive from Idaho hired me. I didn't know what to charge. Three hundred dollars? Five hundred?

“What feels good to you?”

He didn't know. Neither did I.

“How about three thousand?”

After making fifteen cents an hour in prison, three thousand dollars felt like thirty thousand.

We talked about prison placement and what he could expect. The work was much more limited than what we do today. I assumed he would be allowed to surrender to prison later. Then he went to sentencing, and I didn't hear from him. Three hours passed. Four hours. A day. It occurred to me that he might have been taken into custody in the courtroom.

When he later called from prison, he told me the judge had been concerned about his safety. He lived in a small town. Victims had come to sentencing, and they were angry. According to my client, the judge thought he could be harmed if he remained there. The marshals took him into custody.

I had failed to prepare him for that possibility. I told him I was sending his money back. I was embarrassed. I even recorded the refund on my probation report. If I ever earned a one-star review, that was it.

Matt asked how I convinced the first person to pay for my experience. That was the story. Someone had read my work, called me, paid me, and received a refund because I had made an assumption I shouldn't have made.

Talking About My Conviction and the Effect on My Family

My parents hadn't wanted me to speak publicly about my crime. During a prison visit, my mother said, “They're going to look at you as Bernie Madoff light.” I had helped facilitate a Ponzi scheme. I understood her concern.

When I came home, I worried about how I told the story. Were people judging me? Did I sound like I was making excuses? Later, I thought about how my children would see me. I also thought about my wife having to tell her parents she was marrying someone who had been to prison. I chose to speak publicly and build a business around this. My family also has to live with it.

Being open about what I did helped when people called me, though. Someone would say he didn't want to tell me about his crime. I would tell him about sitting in a meeting with an 87-year-old investor who thought he had three million dollars. The money was gone, and I helped give him the impression that he still had it.

“Is it worse than that?”

“No. I just didn't pay my taxes.”

“Okay. Tell me what's going on.”

Many people who called eventually became close friends. I had made terrible decisions myself. I wanted them to feel comfortable telling me what had happened.

Learning to Write and Speak After Prison

Writing brought opportunities I hadn't considered. A real estate firm read my blogs and offered me work writing for its agents. I remember thinking about how strange it would be to write in the voice of an agent whose life was so different from mine. I tried it for a while. Eventually, I decided I didn't want to keep doing it, but I was willing to explore different kinds of work.

Public speaking took practice, too. At Cal State Dominguez Hills, I would speak to several classes and test different openings. One audience thought I was too funny for a serious subject. Another thought I needed to lighten up. I kept trying to find where the story worked.

My son Jason recently started playing the flute. “I suck,” he told me. “You should suck,” I said. “You picked up the flute nine seconds ago.”

I encourage people coming home to find places where they can practice speaking. Call a Rotary Club or a Chamber of Commerce. Ask whether they need a speaker. Learn what holds an audience's attention by getting in front of one. I had to become comfortable with some embarrassment. I couldn't expect to be good at something I had barely started doing.

What I Regret About Coming Home From Prison

Matt and I are driven differently. He talks confidently about earning money again, lawfully this time. Fear has often driven me. I was like that as a baseball player. I could get three hits and immediately wonder whether I could do it again tomorrow. I would tell myself I had better keep working.

After prison, I worried about supporting myself, paying restitution, and building the business. I didn't want to rely on my parents. I worked, but I didn't enjoy being home as much as I should have.

I was back in my own bed. I had my Kiehl's lotion. I no longer had to stand for count or use toilet paper that felt like sandpaper. Instead of appreciating it, I was thinking about making money and paying restitution. I wasn't ready to date. I could be eating and thinking about the blog I needed to write to bring in a client the next day.

That's a regret I shared with Matt. Before a recent dinner with me, he recorded a video about how much he appreciated being out for a meal, outside prison. During our conversation, he said he still had moments when he couldn't believe he was home. He had been out for seven months.

I told him he was doing a better job of enjoying his freedom than I had.

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Justin Paperny