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I settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission and I didn't get it. It's really a toothless agency. I signed the papers. I lost the license. I went home.
I had to go inside.
What got through
Standing for count. The 2 a.m. fire drills. Visiting with crying parents.
Count runs several times a day at most facilities, including in the middle of the night. You stand in your assigned spot while staff walk the unit. Movement stops until the numbers clear, and if they don't clear, they run it again.
None of that is the hard part of a sentence. It's the daily reminder that for 388 days the schedule was not mine.
Then you sit in visitation across from your parents while they cry, and you did that.
That's where I started to think, maybe I can do better. The SEC settlement didn't get me close to it.
Small numbers, real prison
A lot of people are serving time right now for very small frauds, $10,000 to $50,000 PPP fraud. Many go to prison for obstruction with no financial loss at all.
I've said for years we send too many people to prison and I still say it. For me, at least, the inside is where it landed.
Then there's George Santos
He went to prison. He got clemency he didn't earn. He came home. Then he's betting on Kalshi, the prediction market, on whether he'd show up somewhere. He gets caught. They take $17,000 and ban him from the markets.
No prison. No probation.
People go to prison for $17,000.
So here's my prediction. He's going to keep breaking the law. He's been shown there isn't much waiting on the other side of a decision like that. I could be wrong. I don't think I am.
Them and us
Prison worked for me because I understood the severity of it. The clemency told him he probably isn't going back.
It is indeed a two-tiered system of justice, them and us.
Watch the Short here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AEqXxm268KU
Written by
Justin Paperny
Founder White Collar Advice
