“Business Talk with Jim Campbell” – syndicated nationally on the BizTalkRadio.com Network with over 300 affiliate stations, and “Forensic Talk with Jim Campbell” Monday April 27th 6 – 7 pm on 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, WGCH.com. 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Show features leaders in the worlds of business, politics and sports. For weekly email blast on show guests, send email to: [email protected].
Listen on YouTube:
Show Notes:
Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq., GrantLaw, PLLC
43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, NY 10036-7424
Jeff is an attorney and counselor-at-law providing private general counsel, legal crisis management, and dispute strategy and management services to individuals and families, real estate organizations, family-owned and closely-held businesses, the white collar justice community, and special situation and pro bono clients
Now again in private practice, for over 20 years Jeff served as managing attorney of a 20+ employee law firm headquartered in New York City, and then Westchester County, NY. Among other practice areas, the firm engaged in representation of family-owned/closely held businesses and their owners, business and real estate transactions, trusts and estates, and litigation. Jeff also served as outside General Counsel to large family-owned real estate equities, management and brokerage organizations, in which role he retained, coordinated and oversaw the work of many specialty law firms, including white collar defense firms.
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison (2006 – 07) for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, majoring in Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community.
On May 5, 2021, Jeff’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Entrepreneur’s #4 Most Viewed Article of 2020: I Went to Prison for S.B.A. Loan Fraud: 7 Things to Know When Taking COVID-19 Relief Money: by Jeff Grant, April 2020: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/350337
White Collar Support Group Website Page: We held our 250th online support group meeting in March 2021. We have had over 310 participants, and average about 25 attendees at each meeting: https://prisonist.org/white-collar-support-group/
Episodes of White Collar Week Podcast (video & audio):
Big thanks to Bob Kosch for having me on his New York City radio show and podcast, Greater Good Radio with Bob Kosch. Thank you Bob for your empathy, compassion and friendship. – Jeff
________________________
Greater Good Media, LLC, parent company for “Greater Good Radio with Bob Kosch” is advancing a unique, but controversial economic plan called “RESET” which could save U.S. citizens from the worst recession in over eight decades. The plan also advances a logical position for what we can do to combat hate in order to prevent violence and torment against other groups.
Jeff is an attorney and counselor-at-law providing private general counsel, legal crisis management, and dispute strategy and management services to individuals and families, real estate organizations, family-owned and closely-held businesses, the white collar justice community, and special situation and pro bono clients.
Now again in private practice, for over 20 years Jeff served as managing attorney of a 20+ employee law firm headquartered in New York City, and then Westchester County, NY. Among other practice areas, the firm engaged in representation of family-owned/closely held businesses and their owners, business and real estate transactions, trusts and estates, and litigation. Jeff also served as outside General Counsel to large family-owned real estate equities, management and brokerage organizations, in which role he retained, coordinated and oversaw the work of many specialty law firms, including white collar defense firms.
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison (2006 – 07) for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, majoring in Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community.
On May 5, 2021, Jeff’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Entrepreneur’s #4 Most Viewed Article of 2020: I Went to Prison for S.B.A. Loan Fraud: 7 Things to Know When Taking COVID-19 Relief Money: by Jeff Grant, April 2020: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/350337
White Collar Support Group Website Page: We held our 250th online support group meeting in March 2021. We have had over 310 participants, and average about 25 attendees at each meeting: https://prisonist.org/white-collar-support-group/
Sample Episodes of White Collar Week Podcast (video & audio):
When lawyers through greed or hubris or desperation become white-collar criminals – sent to prison and disbarred – their stories often feel like car crashes. We gape at the wreckage of their lives and move on.
But what happens afterwards, once they’ve done their time? How do they pick up the pieces?
Jeffrey Grant found a path to redemption. Seventeen years after he pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $247,000 through a 9/11 disaster relief loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York earlier this month reinstated his law license.
“I’m beyond excited, but I also take the responsibility very seriously,” he told me. “I’m really grateful for a second chance.”
His journey is extraordinary, from opioid-addicted real estate lawyer to federal prison inmate to seminary student to head of a criminal justice nonprofit. And now, at age 64, he has come full circle to practice law again.
But this time around, he intends to do it very differently.
A 1981 New York Law School grad, Grant, before everything fell apart, headed his own 20-employee firm, Jeffrey D. Grant & Associates, in Mamaroneck, New York, serving as outside general counsel to large real estate companies.
“I viewed life as a competition,” he said, describing himself as akin to “a paid assassin.”
“It was me against everyone else, or me and my client against everyone else.”
After a sports injury, he was prescribed the painkiller Demerol and over the course of a decade, he became addicted to prescription opioids.
When he couldn’t meet payroll for his firm, he borrowed money from client escrow accounts. With a New York state attorney grievance committee investigation pending, he surrendered his law license on July 28, 2002. That night, he attempted suicide by overdose, he told me.
He wound up in rehab, embracing recovery with three meetings a day. He’s been clean and sober ever since.
But his past caught up with him in 2004, when he learned there was a warrant for his arrest. “No one was more surprised than me,” Grant said. Once informed of the charges, though, it “all came rushing back.”
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he had applied for federal financial aid and falsely claimed that his firm had an office in New York City. In reality, he merely had an arrangement to use a conference room on occasion in the city.
Did he somehow convince himself this qualified? I asked. “I was a lawyer who represented sophisticated businesspeople,” he said. “I knew better.”
“There’s no question drugs had a lot to do with it, but I can’t blame the drugs,” he continued. “I was desperate, clutching at anything I could.”
Grant served 14 months at a low security prison in White Deer, Pennsylvania – but it was a “real prison with bars,” he said, not one of the so-called Club Fed camps where white-collar offenders typically do their time.
As a “privileged kid from the suburbs,” he said, “I had to learn hard lessons there. But it was exactly what I needed to wipe the last smirk off my face.”
Released in 2007, he knew he wanted to use his experiences to help others. He’s Jewish, but a pastor he knew suggested he consider attending a seminary.
“I didn’t know what that meant,” Grant recalled. (His first reaction: Is that where you train to be a monk?) But he discovered that seminaries, at least the progressive ones, “are basically places where you learn about social justice and faith.”
In 2012, he earned a master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He’s been baptized, but he’s also still a Jew. “I’m a double-belonger,” he said.
Grant and his wife Lynn Springer went on to co-found Progressive Prison Ministries. Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, they say it’s the world’s first ministry focused on serving the white-collar justice community.
It includes a weekly white-collar online support group for people “who have a desire to take responsibility for our actions and the wreckage we caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy.” More than 310 people around the country have participated, according to the group’s website.
From 2016 to 2019, Grant also served as the executive director of Family ReEntry, a criminal justice nonprofit with offices and programs in eight Connecticut cities.
Three years ago, he began the process of getting his law license back. The first step was taking the multi-state professional responsibility exam and completing CLE. He also submitted “about 12 inches of paperwork,” he said, including his personal story.
He wrote 14,000 words. “I wanted to tell them everything, the whole story, warts and all,” he said. “It didn’t make a difference to me if strategically it was the right thing to do.” He added, “I let go of the outcome.”
He had a hearing via videoconference last May. “I was scared,” Grant said, but he was surprised to find that the panel members questioning him were “kind.”
“They were thorough and probing, but they were not out to tank me. They were supportive,” he said. “It helped me remember the best parts of being a lawyer.”
On May 5, his license was officially reinstated, and he promptly launched GrantLaw PLLC. With an office on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, he’s offering his services as a private general counsel specializing in white-collar crisis management.
That might include helping a white-collar defendant interview defense lawyers and other specialized counsel, reviewing the lawyers’ work product and billing, and acting as a sounding board, all with the goal of achieving a better and more-cost-efficient outcome.
“Most white-collar defendants are very bright, who have a lot of professional experience and are highly educated,” Grant said. “They don’t realize they’re in trauma – and are making generally very bad decisions while in trauma.”
They need “someone who understands trauma,” he said, “and somebody to trust.”
Given his life experiences, it’s hard for me to imagine a lawyer more uniquely qualified.
Jenna Greene writes about legal business and culture, taking a broad look at trends in the profession, faces behind the cases, and quirky courtroom dramas. A longtime chronicler of the legal industry and high-profile litigation, she lives in Northern California. Reach Greene at [email protected].
Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
When lawyers through greed or hubris or desperation become white-collar criminals – sent to prison and disbarred – their stories often feel like car crashes. We gape at the wreckage of their lives and move on.
But what happens afterwards, once they’ve done their time? How do they pick up the pieces?
Jeffrey Grant found a path to redemption. Seventeen years after he pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $247,000 through a 9/11 disaster relief loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York earlier this month reinstated his law license.
“I’m beyond excited, but I also take the responsibility very seriously,” he told me. “I’m really grateful for a second chance.”
His journey is extraordinary, from opioid-addicted real estate lawyer to federal prison inmate to seminary student to head of a criminal justice nonprofit. And now, at age 64, he has come full circle to practice law again.
But this time around, he intends to do it very differently.
A 1981 New York Law School grad, Grant, before everything fell apart, headed his own 20-employee firm, Jeffrey D. Grant & Associates, in Mamaroneck, New York, serving as outside general counsel to large real estate companies.
“I viewed life as a competition,” he said, describing himself as akin to “a paid assassin.”
“It was me against everyone else, or me and my client against everyone else.”
After a sports injury, he was prescribed the painkiller Demerol and over the course of a decade, he became addicted to prescription opioids.
When he couldn’t meet payroll for his firm, he borrowed money from client escrow accounts. With a New York state attorney grievance committee investigation pending, he surrendered his law license on July 28, 2002. That night, he attempted suicide by overdose, he told me.
He wound up in rehab, embracing recovery with three meetings a day. He’s been clean and sober ever since.
But his past caught up with him in 2004, when he learned there was a warrant for his arrest. “No one was more surprised than me,” Grant said. Once informed of the charges, though, it “all came rushing back.”
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he had applied for federal financial aid and falsely claimed that his firm had an office in New York City. In reality, he merely had an arrangement to use a conference room on occasion in the city.
Did he somehow convince himself this qualified? I asked. “I was a lawyer who represented sophisticated businesspeople,” he said. “I knew better.”
“There’s no question drugs had a lot to do with it, but I can’t blame the drugs,” he continued. “I was desperate, clutching at anything I could.”
Grant served 14 months at a low security prison in White Deer, Pennsylvania – but it was a “real prison with bars,” he said, not one of the so-called Club Fed camps where white-collar offenders typically do their time.
As a “privileged kid from the suburbs,” he said, “I had to learn hard lessons there. But it was exactly what I needed to wipe the last smirk off my face.”
Released in 2007, he knew he wanted to use his experiences to help others. He’s Jewish, but a pastor he knew suggested he consider attending a seminary.
“I didn’t know what that meant,” Grant recalled. (His first reaction: Is that where you train to be a monk?) But he discovered that seminaries, at least the progressive ones, “are basically places where you learn about social justice and faith.”
In 2012, he earned a master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He’s been baptized, but he’s also still a Jew. “I’m a double-belonger,” he said.
Grant and his wife Lynn Springer went on to co-found Progressive Prison Ministries. Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, they say it’s the world’s first ministry focused on serving the white-collar justice community.
It includes a weekly white-collar online support group for people “who have a desire to take responsibility for our actions and the wreckage we caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy.” More than 310 people around the country have participated, according to the group’s website.
From 2016 to 2019, Grant also served as the executive director of Family ReEntry, a criminal justice nonprofit with offices and programs in eight Connecticut cities.
Three years ago, he began the process of getting his law license back. The first step was taking the multi-state professional responsibility exam and completing CLE. He also submitted “about 12 inches of paperwork,” he said, including his personal story.
He wrote 14,000 words. “I wanted to tell them everything, the whole story, warts and all,” he said. “It didn’t make a difference to me if strategically it was the right thing to do.” He added, “I let go of the outcome.”
He had a hearing via videoconference last May. “I was scared,” Grant said, but he was surprised to find that the panel members questioning him were “kind.”
“They were thorough and probing, but they were not out to tank me. They were supportive,” he said. “It helped me remember the best parts of being a lawyer.”
On May 5, his license was officially reinstated, and he promptly launched GrantLaw PLLC. With an office on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, he’s offering his services as a private general counsel specializing in white-collar crisis management.
That might include helping a white-collar defendant interview defense lawyers and other specialized counsel, reviewing the lawyers’ work product and billing, and acting as a sounding board, all with the goal of achieving a better and more-cost-efficient outcome.
“Most white-collar defendants are very bright, who have a lot of professional experience and are highly educated,” Grant said. “They don’t realize they’re in trauma – and are making generally very bad decisions while in trauma.”
They need “someone who understands trauma,” he said, “and somebody to trust.”
Given his life experiences, it’s hard for me to imagine a lawyer more uniquely qualified.
Jenna Greene writes about legal business and culture, taking a broad look at trends in the profession, faces behind the cases, and quirky courtroom dramas. A longtime chronicler of the legal industry and high-profile litigation, she lives in Northern California. Reach Greene at [email protected].
Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
“Ugly confessions from beautiful people… It’s like a car wash for our shame and secrets.”– Nadia Bolz-Weber
_________________________
Huge thanks to Nadia Bolz-Weber for having me on her podcast, The Confessional. We got into some deeply personal stuff, and Nadia’s blessing at the end is the most beautiful and poignant prayer I’ve ever heard – it brought Lynn and me to tears. I am so deeply grateful. – Jeff
Link to the podcast on The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weberhere.
Listen on PRX:
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Show Notes:
Co-Founder of Progressive Prison Ministries
“I was dressed up looking the part, but deep inside, I was just vacant. I just was not someone I was proud of anymore.” – Jeff Grant
She writes and speaks about personal failings, recovery, grace, faith, and really whatever the hell else she wants to. She always sits in the corner with the other weirdoes.
Transcript:
Nadia Bolz-Weber: My name is Nadia Bolz-Weber and you have stepped into The Confessional. Joining me today is Reverend Jeff Grant. I’m delighted to have him with me in The Confessional. I can’t wait to hear your story. Welcome, Jeff.
Reverend Jeff Grant: Thanks for having me here, Nadia.
NBW: Set the scene for me, tell me what was going on in your life that led up to the moment you want to describe.
JG: I think the word that comes to mind is grandiosity. My family and I went on vacation, probably five times a year. It was always the same. There was no backpacking or skiing for us, we went shopping. We would fly out to Los Angeles and stay in the Chateau Marmont and to rub elbows with the stars that were staying there. I remember, once we were at this store that’s pretty well known. We were just spending a ton of money. and at the time, I was probably high on three or four tabs of Demerol.
The young women who worked there were just paying me with scotch. My ex wife and my kids were just picking out whatever they wanted and they just piled it up on my lap. I fell asleep in the chair and when I woke up from passing out, the clothes on my lap were over the top of my head. I was just a prop. I pulled out my black American Express card because that’s what I thought people were supposed to do, and paid for everything. We left with shopping bags worth of clothes, This was our life. There was never a day that there weren’t shopping bags and new acquisitions. It was a sickness. It was something that we took pride in, in this sick way.
NBW: Were you raised in a wealthy family, or was there a novelty to it for you?
JG: We were raised in a Jewish ghetto, on Long Island. This was the swinging ’50s, and swinging ’60s and my parents were into all kinds of crazy stuff that people were into back then.
Mostly what they were into was ignoring their children. I lived in a neighborhood of parents that were absent. We raised ourselves and we did a pretty bad job of it in a lot of ways. We didn’t really grow up with any character or ethics. We were alone, so we created rules, and we learned rules, and we developed this arrogance that didn’t serve us, certainly didn’t serve me later in life. This contempt for authority was pervasive all through my childhood and then when I went to school, and ultimately when I became a lawyer
NBW: What was your law practice like?
I had a good practice, successful.. I had about 20 people working for me. and I owned a bistro that was in the neighborhood.
NBW: What kind?
JG: It was a new American restaurant, a bistro, it had 36 seats.
and the reason I opened the restaurant was to meet clients, and I met them.
I was a backslapping, good old boy kind of guy, who people liked, I think, but everybody likes to know the owner of a restaurant. I would go over to their table and schmooze with them.
And I became the general counsel to some major real estate companies. and the money was flowing and the spending was flowing.
NBW: When I hear you describing being this successful owning businesses, being an important fixture in the community, the money’s flowing, the spending’s flowing. That sounds like you were living the dream , but what was the reality?
JG: I think it was living the dream but the problem is that it had its dark side and that was the anxiety of having to always have more and to grow way beyond my comfort zone. My payroll was about $125,000 a month, which means I had to make $1.5 million a year just to pay the over-head. The weight of that was just crushing. I thought I could solve problems by becoming bigger. It never even dawned on me that the way I could solve personal problems or business problems was to become smaller, to simplify life.
The more things ramped up and the more complicated they became, the more I turned to drugs.
I had doctor friends who kept prescribing and I kept manipulating them into it.
NBW: Can you describe that manipulation?
JG: Sure. Mostly, it was because I was the lawyer in this group of people and I held all their secrets. Everybody wanted my time, but not to pay for it if they could avoid it. What I did was I traded my time for drugs. I lived this double life where I was a great dad and family man and I own restaurants and real estate and parts of health clubs and things like that. Every night, I was stoned out of my mind.
I had a client who had broken his neck and so he had an unlimited supply of Oxycontin. He walked into my office one day, I guess he knew that I was taking prescription opioids at the time. He just opened up his hand and he dropped the pile of Oxycontin on my desk.
He said, “I think you might like this.” Once I started the Oxycontin, there was no turning back. In fact, I couldn’t even go to work. I spent afternoons sitting in his house, watching the golf channel with him.
NBW: So What happened?
JG: What happened was I stopped being able to show up to work regularly. I was just too out of it, I was too stoned.
The day came when we ran out of money in the law firm.
You just can’t not show up at your business for a year or so and expect it to be healthy
my office manager had come into my office and told me that we weren’t going to be able to make payroll. That I had to come up with some money. I remember just feeling desperate. What was I going to do?
I said to her, “How much money is in the escrow account?” She looked at me like, “What are you doing?” I said, “We’re going to borrow some money from the escrow account.”
At any given time, we had several million dollars in escrow sitting there that was client’s money, that was meant to be transferred to clients for the sales of their houses, or sales of their building, or sales of their businesses.
I had no money in my operating account and to transfer the money from the escrow account to the operating account was just two pushes of a button on a computer. I thought that I would borrow it and pay it right back, which is I guess, the great lie of everybody who gets involved in these things.
She checked me and she said, “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” I said, “Yes,” and I felt nauseated. I knew that it was wrong but on some level underneath I also knew that it was absolute and utter destruction. And that I didn’t have the character to do what really needed to get done.
I could’ve called my banker, that would’ve been sane. I could’ve called a friend,
I was just not able to do it because I was just so full of shame. instead what I did was I invaded the client escrow account and I took my client’s money. `
NBW: What did that voice of shame– What was it saying?
JG: It was telling me that I was that fat kid from first grade who got picked on. I was the kid who would sit in my room and cry when my parents were screaming at each other.
There I was all alone. There was nothing I had. I had an empty well. I had nothing in reserve. Nothing.
NBW: You made this choice to take money out of the escrow account … and it made you sick to do it, but then did it keep feeling that way every other time you did it?
JG: I think the answer to that is yes, but I became increasingly numb. Less guilty, but more shamed, was feeling shame in everything. I was dressed up looking the part, but deep inside, I was just vacant. I just was not someone I was proud of anymore. The reasons I had become a lawyer, the initial goal to help people, I wasn’t helping anyone anymore. I was just trying to make enough money to survive.
It wasn’t long after that, that there was an investigation into my finances by the grievance committee of the bar…and we fought it for over two years.
Once the investigation started and I was compounding the lying that were depositions and I was lying through the depositions, because what choice did I have? I was living a lie and I probably believed the lie in a lot of ways
During those two years was 9/11. That really threw me for a loop. It’s like it is right now in COVID. The world was spinning out of control. There were advertisements on TV and on the radio for businesses that were in economic distress to borrow money from the Small Business Administration, just like there are now. I applied for an SBA loan but I lied on the application and said I had an office about a block from ground zero.
They lent me the money, $247,000 but it didn’t do anything to save my firm because my firm was heading down.
I took most of the money and I repaid personal credit cards that I had run up trying to save the business. That was money laundering. That was a violation of the terms of the loan. I think a lot of people are probably doing that right now. The lesson I learned was that you can’t save your business and your lifestyle at the time.
One day in July of 2002, I couldn’t handle it anymore. The news was just not good in terms of trying to save my business. I called up my ethics attorney and told him to resign my law license for me. I’ve got one last prescription from a doctor friend. AndI went home that night. After my wife and kids went to bed, I took 40 tabs of Demerol and tried to kill myself.
NBW: It’s amazing, you’re alive. It’s astounding.
JG: It didn’t kill me—
I wound up going through detox and then seven weeks in rehab.
When I came out of rehab, I went to my first recovery meeting. That was eighteen and a half years ago. After 9,000 meetings, I’ve never touched another drug or drink since.
I was sober for about 20 months, and I was going to three meetings a day to recover. I got a phone call from a federal agent, who told me that there was a warrant out for my arrest in connection with the misrepresentations I’d made on that loan. I knew that I was cornered.
Two weeks later, I appeared at the US courthouse in Downtown Manhattan and turned myself into the US marshals. Downtown Manhattan then was still like a war zone, post 9/11. There were checkpoints and barricades and military outside of buildings with machine guns. I felt like the biggest criminal in the world. I knew that I had taken advantage of a national emergency and had profited from it by borrowing this money.
NBW: Jeff, it strikes me that at the beginning you talked about how it never dawned on you that you could solve your problems by getting smaller, or asking for help – that like, the grandiosity you inhabited in this life you built drove you to keep going in the same direction that was destroying you.
But you also started out by telling me about your wife and kids – what happened there?
JG: My wife had had it with me already. When the time came that I got arrested, I guess that was the last straw. She threw me out. Any money I had, I dedicated to paying for her and my kids’ rent and overhead. I couch-surfed for two years waiting to go to prison.
NBW: You went from high-end retail vacation, having all the luxury goods piled up and paying for them, to you covering their basic expenses and sleeping on people’s sofas.
JG: Yes. That was pretty much the case right up to when I went to prison in 2006.
NBW: Wow. Tell me about going to prison.
JG: On Easter Sunday of 2006, I reported to Allenwood low-security correctional institution in White Deer, Pennsylvania.
On that compound of 1,500 men. There were five former stockbrokers. There was one former lawyer that was me and there were two former doctors and basically 1,500 drug dealers. For the next 13 and a half months, I learned how to navigate life in a prison of people who– the type of person I had never really met in my life.
I learned incredible life lessons while I was in prison about respect and dignity and humility and character. I met some of the most fascinating, interesting, intelligent people I’d ever met in my life.
NBW: You know what just kind of dawns on me is when you were describing your childhood, you were like, “We had to parent ourselves and we weren’t good at it. There was no one there to teach us about character and responsibility.” You literally just described that you finally learned those things from drug dealers in prison.
JG: Yes. I’m getting the chills. You just telling me that, but that’s true. I knew nothing about how to treat other people. I knew nothing about how to treat myself. When I came out of prison I was different. My motivations were different, the things I cared about were different, I was broken, I was softer, I was gentler, I started to volunteer.
I volunteered in drug rehabs and in residential criminal justice organizations until the day came when I didn’t really know what I was going to do and I went to the pastor of the church that I had been going to and I tried to describe to him that I want to live a life of service, but I don’t know what that means. He said to me I think you should consider going to seminary.
NBW: It’s a sucker punch.
JG: Yes. I had no idea what that meant.
NBW: That’s probably the only reason you agreed to go.
JG: I thought a seminary was where monks walked around in robes.
NBW: Sure.
JG: I didn’t know. He explained to me that a progressive seminary was really a place to learn about social justice. I applied to Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
It was the first time I’d ever told my story anywhere. I had to write it in my application
NBW: What’d that feel like?
JG: It was horrifying. It was the most frightening thing I could imagine. It probably felt more frightening than going to prison because I had to tell the truth.
NBW: Yikes
JG: I was as surprised as I could be when I got the letter in the mail that I was accepted to seminary and it wasn’t easy.
It was also a time when all the students were involved in Occupy Wall Street, and they were down fighting against the one-percenters and I had been a one-percenter., They didn’t know what to make of me, but I learned about the underground economy, and I learned about showing up for people because it was the right thing to do not because they could afford my services, for example.
NBW: Can you tell me who and what did you harm through the crimes that you committed?
JG: It took me probably 10 years or more to recognize that I hurt anybody. It was only when working with other men who had been through similar circumstances and counseling them that I was able to talk to them about the wreckage that they had caused and then finally recognize in me that I did that too. That I’d hurt my ex wife, I hurt my children, I hurt my community, I hurt all the people who were dependent upon me, I hurt my clients. I hurt the fabric of the profession that I made my living in that I hurt people’s ability to trust lawyers.
NBW: Jeff, can you name what it is that prevented you from seeing that? You just had a long list there, what kept you from seeing the fact that you had caused that kind of harm?
JG: I think that primarily, it was self pity, and also, it was the only way I knew how to cope. I had to compartmentalize. It was unbearable to look backwards.
NBW: It’s amazing to me how often our coping mechanisms involve some sort of mental gymnastics we have to perform in order to justify our behavior – where we basically just cant let in competing information about ourselves
JG: Later on, I asked friends, “You must’ve seen I was crazy, that I was acting crazy, that I was on drugs. Why didn’t you ever say anything?” They all said, “We did say things. We all told you that you needed help. You just couldn’t hear us.”
NBW: How many of us have those people in our friends and family groups, who we see them spinning out and we’re totally powerless. We do the brave thing of confronting them or saying something or going like, “This isn’t okay, and you need help.” They have a million justifications for why they’re actually fine and you’re wrong.
JG: Exactly.
NBW: The guilt that so many people carry because they can’t help this person in their life.
NBW: Jeff, Before we go, I’d love to hear about the work you do now.
JG: I met a woman in recovery who later became my wife and We decided to start a ministry to support white collar criminals and their families. No one had ever done it. There’s so much stigma and shame and schadenfreude for these people who – their families have been destroyed and they can’t get jobs and they’re facing prison sentences or they’ve come home from prison.
JG: And If I sit down with someone who has been prosecuted for a white collar crime and we meet in a diner, for example, and we sit down, and he doesn’t know that I’m gauging him from the minute that we shake hands.If he’s wearing a $50,000 watch, I already know that that’s what he’s using to hide behind. There is so much shame there. There’s so much that he can’t talk about. There he is, with his arms folded in front of him and using that watch as a shield.
NBW: That’s extraordinary. I love that this is the work that you do. It’s just incredible.. where are you at with self-forgiveness?
JG: I would love to be able to tell you that I’ve forgiven myself but it’s so different than feeling like I’ve been forgiven. Because in my heart, I really do feel like I’ve been forgiven. Whether that’s Jesus or God or just the universe has opened up again so that it’s allowed me to feel like a whole person maybe for the first time in my life. I honestly do feel forgiven. Do I forgive myself? Maybe on a good day. It’s fleeting but I do get to experience it every once in a while.
NBW: I guess sometimes for myself when I don’t feel that self-forgiveness, I just have to rely on redemption. I feel redeemed. A lot of my mistakes or my f ailings have gone through some fucking spiritual dishwasher and are to be useful for other people. It wasn’t all for naught. The end sum is more than just the harm that was caused, that there has been good that’s come out of it, and sometimes I just have to lean on that.
Well, I’m really grateful for you sharing your story and I just absolutely love the work that you do in the world. It just feels subversive in the most spiritual sense of the word. You know? [chuckling]
JG: Yeah.
NBW: Well, keep doing it, friend. Glad you’re out in the world.
It’s the Isolation that Destroys Us. The Solution is in Community.
_______________________
Podcast Ep. 25, Guest: Seth Williams, Former Philadelphia D.A., Part Two
Today on the podcast we have Seth Williams. In a two-part interview, Seth describes his fall from grace from being elected the first African-American District Attorney of Philadelphia, America’s 5th largest city, to being tried for corruption charges, to becoming a Federal inmate serving 5 months of his 60-month sentence in solitary confinement, to his new life of faith and service.
A member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Monday evenings, Seth goes into stunning detail about his poor choices, prosecution, prison experience and his lessons learned.
So, coming up. Seth Williams. Former Philadelphia D.A. On White Collar Week. I hope you will join us. – Jeff
Click here to watch/listen to Part One of this interview!!
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Listen on Spotify:
Listen on SoundCloud:
Watch on YouTube:
______________________________
If you have a friend, family member, colleague or client with a white collar justice issue, please forward this post; they can reach us anytime – day or night! Our contact info:http://prisonist.org/contact-us.
______________________________
Guests on this Episode:
Seth Williams
Seth Williams is looking for new opportunities in criminal justice reform, crime prevention, recidivism reduction, reentry, teaching, and workforce readiness.
An accomplished leader and strategic visionary who identifies opportunities for program, productivity, performance, training, and educational improvement. Excellent interpersonal, research, analytic, planning, and implementation skills. Strong ability to relate to a wide variety of people and to develop effective strategic plans that produce results. Proud father, Army Vet, gym rat, avid saxophonist, recently re-committed Christian. With a singularly unique perspective of the criminal justice system as a former District Attorney, criminal defense attorney, and federal inmate. Finally living a life of authenticity!
You can find all episodes of our podcast “White Collar Week with Jeff Grant” on our websiteprisonist.org,our Facebook page, Podbean, YouTube (video), SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Entrepreneur’s #4 Most Viewed Article of 2020: I Went to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud – 7 Things to Know When Taking COVID-19 Relief Money: by Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div.. Link to article here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Steal Money from the Feds? First, Meet Jeff Grant, an Ex-Con who Committed Loan Fraud, by Erin Arvedlund: Link to article here.
Hannah Smolinski YouTube: Thinking About PPP Fraud?: Hannah Interviews Jeff Grant About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud. Link to article and YouTube video here.
CFO Dive: After Serving Time, Fraudster Cautions Against PPP, Other Emergency Loans, by Robert Freedman. Link to article here.
Fraud Stories Podcast with Mark Lurie: SBA/PPP Loan Fraud with Guest: Jeff Grant. Link to podcast here.
Forbes: As Law Enforcement Pursues SBA Loan Fraud, Jeff Grant Talks Redemption, by Kelly Phillips Erb. Link to article here.
Taxgirl Podcast: Jeff Grant talks Desperation and Loans in a Time of Crisis with Kelly Phillips Erb on Her Podcast. Link to article and podcast here.
Business Talk with Jim Campbell: Jeff Grant Talks with Jim About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud and What to Know When Taking Coronavirus Relief Money, Biz Talk Radio Network, Broadcast from 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Listen on YouTube here.
Babz Rawls Ivy Show: Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant Talk SBA / PPP Loan Fraud and 7 Things to Know Before You Take Coronavirus Relief Money, WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven. Watch on YouTube here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO: Link here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Episode 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest Kelly Phillips Erb. Link here.
______________________________
Louis Reed/Babz Rawls Ivy PSA:
Some very kind words from my dear friends Louis L. Reed and Babz Rawls Ivy in this brief PSA. Thank you Louis and Babz! – Jeff
______________________________
All Episodes:
Link here to Podcast Ep. 24, Ex-Philadelphia D.A., Seth Williams, Part One
Link here to Podcast Ep. 23, The Vanishing Trial, Robert Katzberg
Link here to Podcast Ep. 22: The Goddess, with Guest: Babz Rawls Ivy
Link here to Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO
Link here to Podcast Ep. 20: Reinventing Yourself After Prison, with Guests: Glenn E. Martin & Richard Bronson
Link here to Podcast Ep. 19: Insider Trading Charges Dismissed, with Guest: Richard Lee
Link here to Podcast Ep. 18: Is Your Life a Movie? The Producers, with Guests: Lydia B. Smith, Bethany Jones & Will Nix
Link here to Podcast Ep. 17: #TruthHeals, Systemic Abuse & Institutional Reform with Guest: Vanessa Osage, feat. Guest Co-Host Chloe Coppola
Link here to Podcast Ep. 16: Politicians, Prison & Penitence, with Guest: Bridgeport, CT Mayor Joseph Ganim
Link here to Podcast Ep. 15: A Brave Talk About Suicide, with Guests Bob Flanagan, Elizabeth Kelley, & Meredith Atwood
Link here to Podcast Ep. 14: Recovery & Neighborhood, with Guest: TNP’s Tom Scott
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 13: Everything but Bridgegate, with Guest: Bill Baroni
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 12: The Truth Tellers, with Guests: Holli Coulman & Larry Levine
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 11: Blank Canvas, with Guest: Craig Stanland
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 10: The Ministers, with Guests: Father Joe Ciccone & Father Rix Thorsell
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest: Taxgirl Kelly Phillips Erb
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 08: The Academics, with Guests: Cathryn Lavery, Jessica Henry, Jay Kennedy & Erin Harbinson
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 07: White Collar Wives. with Guests: Lynn Springer, Cassie Monaco & Julie Bennett. Special Guest: Skylar Cluett
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 06: Madoff Talks, with Guest: Jim Campbell
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 05: Trauma and Healing when Mom goes to Prison, with Guests: Jacqueline Polverari and Her Daughters, Alexa & Maria
Link here to Podcast Ep. 04: One-on-One with Tipper X, with Guest: Tom Hardin
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 03: Compassionate Lawyering, with Guests: Chris Poulos, Corey Brinson, Bob Herbst & George Hritz
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 02: Substance Abuse & Recovery During COVID-19, with Guests: Trevor Shevin & Joshua Cagney
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 01: An Evening with Our White Collar Support Group, with Guests: 16 Members of Our White Collar Support Group
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 00: White Collar Week with Jeff Grant: What is White Collar Week?
______________________________
Jeff Grant
What is the White Collar Justice Community?
Welcome to White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, a podcast serving the white collar justice community. It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is in community.
If you are interested in this podcast, then you are probably already a member of the white collar justice community – even if you don’t quite know it yet. Our community is certainly made up of people being prosecuted, or who have already been prosecuted, for white collar crimes. But it is also made up of the spouses, children and families of those prosecuted for white collar crimes – these are the first victims of white collar crime. And the community also consists of the other victims, both direct and indirect, and those in the wider white collar ecosystem like friends, colleagues, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, law enforcement, academics, researchers. Investigators, mitigation experts, corrections officers, parole & probation officers, reentry professionals, mental health care professionals, drug and alcohol counselors – and ministers, chaplains and advocates for criminal and social justice reform. The list goes on and on…
Our mission is to introduce you to other members of the white collar justice community, to hear their very personal stories, and hopefully gain a broader perspective of what this is really all about. Maybe this will inspire some deeper thoughts and introspection? Maybe it will inspire some empathy and compassion for people you might otherwise resent or dismiss? And maybe it will help lift us all out of our own isolation and into community, so we can learn to live again in the sunshine of the spirit.
Along the way, I’ll share with you some of the things I’ve learned in my own journey from successful lawyer, to prescription opioid addict, white collar crime, suicide attempt, disbarment, destruction of my marriage, and the almost 14 months I served in a Federal prison. And also my recovery, love story I share with my wife Lynn Springer, after prison earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, pastoring in an inner city church in Bridgeport CT, and then co-founding with Lynn in Greenwich CT, Progressive Prison Ministries, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community. It’s been quite a ride, but I firmly believe that the best is yet to come.
So I invite you to come along with me as we experience something new, and bold, and different – a podcast that serves the entire white collar justice community. I hope you will join me.
It’s the Isolation that Destroys Us. The Solution is in Community.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is the world’s first ministry supporting the white collar justice community. Founded by husband and wife,Jeff Grantand Lynn Springerin Greenwich CT in 2012, we incorporated as a nonprofit in Connecticut in 2014, and received 501(c)(3) status in 2015. Jeff has over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery (clean & sober 17+ years), and executive and religious leadership. As Jeff was incarcerated for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001, he and Lynn have a first-hand perspective on the trials and tribulations that white-collar families have to endure as they navigate the criminal justice system and life beyond.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is nonsectarian, serving those of all faiths, or no faith whatsoever. To date we have helped over three hundred fifty (350) individuals, and their families, to accept responsibility for their actions and to acknowledge the pain they have caused to others. In accordance with our commitment to restorative justice, we counsel our members to make amends as a first step in changing their lives and moving towards a new spiritual way of living centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance, empathy and service to others. Our team has grown to over ten people, most with advanced degrees, all of whom are currently volunteering their time and resources.
Progressive Prison Ministries’ goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. We have found that these individuals are suffering from a void but are stuck, and don’t know what to do about it. Our objective is to help them find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what may seem like insurmountable problems. Many of those we counsel are in a place where their previous lives have come to an end due to their transgressions. In many cases their legal problems have led to divorce, estrangement from their children, families, friends and support communities, and loss of a career. The toll this takes on individuals and families is emotionally devastating. White-collar crimes are often precipitated by other issues in the offenders’ lives such as alcohol or drug abuse, and/or a physical or mental illness that lead to financial issues that overwhelms their ability to be present for themselves and their families and cause poor decision making. We recognize that life often presents us with such circumstances, sometimes which lead us to make mistakes in violation of the law.
All conversations and communications between our ordained ministry, and licensed clinical relationships, and those we serve fall under state privilege laws. This is one reason that attorneys often allow and encourage their clients to maintain relationships with us while in active prosecution or litigation situations.
If you, a friend, family member, colleague or client are suffering from a white collar criminal justice issue or are experiencing some other traumatic or life-altering event, and would like to find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what seems like insurmountable problems, please contact us to schedule an initial call or appointment.
Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved, Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.
Huge thanks to Tracy Fox for having me as her guest on her podcast, The Happy Self. This was one of my favorite interviews, definitely worth a listen if you, a friend, family member, colleague or client have a white collar justice issue.
Tracy Fox is regarded as a Top Executive Coach teaching personal and professional success and happiness both at home and in the work place. Tracy is a sought after Speaker, Bestselling Author of Four Books and an NYU Certified Executive Coach specializing in helping people maximize their potential.
Tracy works with men and women individually as a Personal Coach and with Top CEOs, Managers, Elite Athletes and Artists in an Executive Coach capacity. She has spoken at over 100 locations including Corporate Retreats, National Meetings and Retail Locations such as Lord & Taylor and Equinox Luxury. Gyms. Additionally, Tracy was recently hired as the Executive Coach for Jersey Mikes Corporate Office in Manasquan, NJ and was also just awarded the Woman of Distinction by the YWCA.
Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div. is an ordained minister with over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery (clean & sober 18+ years), and executive & religious leadership. He works with people prosecuted for white collar crimes (and their families) who want to come out of isolation and join a supportive community that will help them navigate their journeys through the criminal justice system – to new ethical, productive, joyful lives on the other side of their issues.
As an ordained minister, conversations and communications between Jeff and those he serves fall under state clergy privilege laws. This is one reason that attorneys often allow and encourage their clients to maintain relationships with Jeff while in active prosecution or litigation situations. Not a prison consultant; not a prison coach.
Sometimes referred to in the press as “The Minister to Hedge Funders,” he regularly uses his experience and background to guide people faithfully forward in their lives, relationships, careers and business opportunities, and to help them from making the kinds of decisions that previously resulted in loss, suffering and shame.
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison for a white-collar crime he committed when he was a lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, with a focus in Christian Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He, and his wife and partner-in-ministry Lynn Springer, then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice/economy exiled community.
Jeff can be reached on the ministry’s website, prisonist.org.
Hannah Smolinski is a CPA and the founder of Clara CFO Group, a virtual CFO and consulting services firm providing small businesses with financial clarity as they grow. Her experience working for one of the world’s largest accounting firms inspired her to bring that level of financial expertise to the small business community through financial strategy, best practices, and knowledge to realize their missions.
Please check out Hannah’s informative and topical videos about SBA PPP & EIDL Loans, and other financial topics, on her Clara CFO GroupYouTube Channel.
The ministry hosts an online White Collar Support Group every Monday night. After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison for a white-collar crime he committed when he was a lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry — earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York with a focus in Social Ethics.
Jeff has over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery (clean & sober 18+ years), public speaking and corporate training. Sometimes referred to in the press as “The Minister to Hedge Funders,” he uses his experience and background to guide individuals, families and organizations forward in their lives, relationships, careers and business opportunities, and to help them to stop making the kinds of decisions that previously resulted in loss, suffering and shame.
_________________________
More on SBA PPP & EIDL Loan Fraud:
Entrepreneur’s #4 Most Viewed Article of 2020: I Went to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud – 7 Things to Know When Taking COVID-19 Relief Money: by Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div.. Link to article here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Steal Money from the Feds? First, Meet Jeff Grant, an Ex-Con who Committed Loan Fraud, by Erin Arvedlund: Link to article here.
Hannah Smolinski YouTube: Thinking About PPP Fraud?: Hannah Interviews Jeff Grant About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud. Link to article and YouTube video here.
Fraud Stories Podcast with Mark Lurie: SBA/PPP Loan Fraud with Guest: Jeff Grant. Link to podcast here.
Forbes: As Law Enforcement Pursues SBA Loan Fraud, Jeff Grant Talks Redemption, by Kelly Phillips Erb. Link to article here.
Taxgirl Podcast: Jeff Grant talks Desperation and Loans in a Time of Crisis with Kelly Phillips Erb on Her Podcast. Link to article and podcast here.
Business Talk with Jim Campbell: Jeff Grant Talks with Jim About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud and What to Know When Taking Coronavirus Relief Money, Biz Talk Radio Network, Broadcast from 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Listen on YouTube here.
Babz Rawls Ivy Show: Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant Talk SBA / PPP Loan Fraud and 7 Things to Know Before You Take Coronavirus Relief Money, WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven. Watch on YouTube here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO: Link here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Episode 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest Kelly Phillips Erb. Link here.
