We meet every Monday, and the topics vary; however, a few issues rise above the rest.
One of those issues is Judgments, particularly as it relates to our family and friends trying to reconcile our choices and actions.
This article was written with the group in mind, however it’s lessons apply to everyone.
The author Cheri Huber stated the following in her wonderful book, “There Is Nothing Wrong With You,”
“When you judge someone else it’s simply self-hate projected outward.”
When I look at my own judgments of others, she’s right.
However, there is another component of negative judgments I’d like to add to this and explore.
I believe we judge people/circumstances/situations negatively when we don’t understand them. When the person/circumstance/situation doesn’t fit into one of the many boxes we have in our minds.
We, as humans, love to put things in boxes. We love to label things.
We do this because if something doesn’t fit into a box, then it’s unknown. And anything unknown, according to the oldest parts of our brains, is scary.
Anything scary is a direct threat to our survival, and our brain’s primary function is to keep us alive.
So we have to label it, and because it’s scary, it’s inherently “bad.”
Hence, negative judgments.
Now, all of a sudden, this scary, bad, unknown thing has a label, it’s no longer unknown, and we’ve taken a step towards keeping ourselves alive.
We have the illusion of control.
Why do I say illusion? Because we don’t really have control over anything, only our response to any given situation.
We, as members of the white-collar justice impacted community, are in the minority.
I read this online; please fact check me if I’m wrong,
“White-collar crime makes up just over 3% of overall federal prosecutions yearly.”
Three percent is not a lot. It’s barely a blip on the radar. And this is important because it ties to what I’ve been discussing.
To our family and friends, what we’ve done, and what we are currently experiencing or have experienced is unknown.
It’s scary.
I think we’d all like to believe we have the capacity for compassion, and for the most part, we do.
However, compassion becomes a challenge when we face something we don’t understand, and we feel fear (even if it’s fear for the person we love).
Fear clouds our thinking.
It becomes easier to seek control in the form of negative judgments so we can feel better about a situation.
Now, obviously, I can’t speak for every person on the planet, but I know I’m guilty of this.
And I bet if you’re honest with yourself about negative judgments you’ve made in the past, you’ll find you’ve done it as well.
Equipped with this awareness, we can change our perceptions of those who judge us negatively.
We can see that they are either:
Experiencing an inner turmoil that’s eating them up inside, and they need to project that self-hate elsewhere.
Or
They’re afraid.
Even equipped with this perspective, it will most likely sting when someone judges us; we’re human beings having a human experience, after all.
But, if we’re able to bring awareness into the situation and understand where their negative judgments are coming from, we can do something that sounds counterintuitive to every reaction we want to have:
We can feel compassion and empathy for them. Because they either hate something about themselves or they’re scared.
This may sound ludicrous,
“Someone calls me a “fraudster,” a “crook,” a “liar” and I’m going to feel empathy towards them?”
I’d argue yes, and here’s why:
Viktor Frankl said it best,
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Here is something essential to note:
We have the right to be angry at negative judgments; we have the right to be hurt.
As long as we are choosing these responses and not reacting with these responses. And, when the moment passes, we make a critical choice:
Will we choose to stay angry and hurt? Or will we choose compassion and empathy?
When we choose compassion and empathy, we seize something that may seem foreign for many of us:
Agency
The moment we have agency in our lives, we change the narrative, we open a new chapter.
When we live with agency, we give ourselves one of the greatest gifts we can wish for in our situation:
The ability to reinvent our lives into whatever we are meant to do.
Bill Baroni and Bob Kosch are members of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings.
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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.
Link to the show on iHeartRadio:
Listen on YouTube:
Show Notes:
Bill Baroni
William E. Baroni Jr. is an American Republican Party politician and law professor. He represented the 14th legislative district in the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly. In 2010, he was named by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to serve as the Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
He resigned from his position at the Port Authority on December 12, 2013, during the inquiry into the Fort Lee lane closure controversy. Baroni was convicted on seven counts of conspiracy and wire fraud in relation to his involvement in the closure and sentenced to two years of imprisonment and 500 hours of community service, later reduced to 18 months. On May 7, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the conviction in Kelly v. United States.
After nearly two decades without practicing, Jeff Grant got his law license back this May.
He served over a year in prison for lying about office space to get federal relief money after 9/11.
He then went to seminary and opened a ministry serving white-collar defendants.
Jeff Grant started his law career the way many young lawyers would dream of starting. He launched his own firm shortly after graduating from New York Law School in 1981 and grew it, first in Manhattan and then in Westchester County, adding employees and clients. He served as outside general counsel to two large real-estate companies and kept adding staff.
But then the cracks appeared.
After rupturing his Achilles tendon in a basketball game in 1992, he was prescribed opioids for pain relief. He said he quickly became addicted and continued to take them daily for the next decade.
He made a habit of borrowing money from his clients’ escrow accounts to cover payroll, which he was in danger of not paying because of his personal spending habits and inattention to the business.
And after the attacks on September 11, 2001, he lied about his office location on an application for a low-interest Small Business Administration loan. He wrote that he had a satellite office just a few blocks from ground zero, but he had only an agreement with another firm in that building to use a conference room, which he had never used. He received a $247,000 loan and used it to cover personal credit cards, which he said were used to keep his firm afloat, and other personal expenses.
A New York attorney grievance committee launched an ethics investigation into his misuse of client funds, while federal prosecutors initiated a criminal inquiry over the loan.
Grant was disbarred in December 2002, five months after surrendering his legal license. He pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and money laundering and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2006. In the interim, he went to rehab, and he said he has stayed sober since.
On the road to recovery
He served nearly 14 months in a low-security prison, where he attended services for a range of religions: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam. After he was released in 2007, Grant spent a couple of years volunteering. Then a friend recommended he attend seminary. Grant was hesitant.
“I was a Jewish kid from Long Island,” he said. “I didn’t even know what it was.”
But he enrolled in Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, earning his master of divinity in 2012. He accepted a position as an associate minister later that year in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and later became an ordained minister in an Independent Catholic church (not affiliated with Roman Catholic). He said he was also baptized as a Protestant and still identifies with Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism.
In 2013, he and his wife founded Progressive Prison Ministries in Greenwich, Connecticut. He says it’s the world’s first ministry helping people prosecuted for white-collar crimes. His work came to include mentoring, career counseling, and spiritual support.
But something was missing, he said.
He said that while he loved doing “the good work,” it could get frustrating. The people Grant ministered to always had legal questions, he said, but he was barred from giving legal advice.
In 2018, he decided to try to get his law license back.
‘Light at the end of this crazy tunnel’
Grant submitted a motion for reinstatement to the New York State Bar at the beginning of 2019 that included a tell-all, 10,000-word narrative of how he’d unraveled his life and then worked to put it back together.
The committee on character and fitness investigated him — lawyers need to show remorse and prove that they’ve changed and are trustworthy and honest in order to be reinstated — and recommended his approval in October 2020. But a state court still needed to officially OK it.
Every day for the next several months, Grant checked to see if his name appeared on the court’s docket.
Then, on May 5, Grant saw it: He was a lawyer again, effective immediately.
He hasn’t struggled to find work since, he said.
Grant says he’s one of the very few practicing attorneys who have been prosecuted and incarcerated for white-collar crimes. His clients seek him out because of his past, he said.
“It brings hope and comfort that there actually might be light at the end of this crazy tunnel,” he said.
Some of his old clients even gave him a shout when he shared the news that he had his license back, asking for him to represent them once again.
Four decades after graduating from law school, Grant says he feels content.
“This might be the first time in my life where I feel like I’ve arrived at where God needs me to be,” he said.
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Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq.
GrantLaw, PLLC, 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, NY 10036-7424
Now again in private practice, 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.
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.
“Ugly confessions from beautiful people… It’s like a car wash for our shame and secrets.”– Nadia Bolz-Weber
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Huge thanks to Nadia Bolz-Weber for having me on her podcast, The Confessional. The original podcast dropped on May 5, 2021, link to article and podcasthere. On July 22, 2021, Nadia posted never-before-heard bonus content, see below – Jeff
Link to the podcast bonus content on The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber on Substackhere.
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
“God, please help me not be an asshole, is about as common a prayer as I pray in my life.”— Nadia Bolz-Weber
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.
In this episode, Jacquie is joined by John Lawrie, Ed.D., an associate professor of criminal justice and retired super max corrections officer to discuss punishment versus rehabilitation, changing the culture of COs, and teaching the next generation of lawmakers about these important issues.
Criminal Justice Cafe: Transparent conversations about controversial subjects within the Criminal Justice System… from the inside out.
Watch on YouTube:
Jacqueline Polverari:
Jacqueline Polverari, MBA, MSW is the founder and Executive Director of Evolution Reentry Services, focusing on the needs of women who have been impacted by the Criminal Justice System.
Jacqueline has over 25 years’ experience as a professional with proven successes in business leadership, mentoring and therapeutic environments. Her experience working with trauma culminated after spending almost a year in Danbury Federal Prison Camp for Women and observing the trauma women experience related to being incarcerated. She has since dedicated herself to Criminal Justice Reform and Reentry services with a special focus on trauma and reentry services for women relating to incarceration. Jacqueline is an active member of the National Association of Social Workers, JustLeadershipUSA and #Cut50 and speaks at conferences and symposiums throughout the country. She most recently designed and hosted the first retreat for women convicted of a white-collar crime in the country in October 2019. Jacqueline is working diligently to continue her education and has returned to school to obtain her Doctoral Degree in Social Work with a concentration in Criminal Justice.
Private General Counsel/White Collar Crisis Management
GrantLaw, PLLC, Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq., 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, New York 10036-7424, (212) 859-3512, [email protected]
Now again in private practice, 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, family-owned and closely-held businesses, the white collar justice community, and special situation and pro bono clients.
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.
Today we have a Great Dude in Fraud. Jeff Grant is a true story of an unexpected life. From being a lawyer to going to prison for SBA fraud related to 9/11 and now getting back his law license. I think you will find this episode fascinating on many levels. Jeff’s podcast, White Collar Week, and his support group has become such a community for people that never thought this could happen to them. Please take a listen and let me know your thoughts. As Jeff says,” It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is in community.” Spot on.– Kelly Paxton
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Kelly Paxton is one of my very favorite people, a shining light in the often dark world of fraud investigations. I was thrilled when she asked me to be the guest on her podcast, Great Women of Fraud – link to podcast here. We go deep into the relationship between criminal defense attorneys and experts, and how to present a client’s best case to prosecutors. Get out a pen and a pad folks, you’re going to want to take notes.- Jeff
Kelly and fellow investigator & friend Brian Willingham were recent guests on our White Collar Week Podcast, link here.
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Great Women in Fraud is a podcast to help those working in fraud. Hosted by Kelly Paxton, Certified Fraud Examiner, Private Investigator, and Pink Collar Crime Expert. Kelly is a former special agent turned investigator specializing in embezzlement and workplace dishonesty cases. Great Women in Fraud interviews outstanding fraud professionals so you can continue to move forward in your career. Origin stories, tips, resources are just some of the amazing fraud content you will hear each Tuesday. Be sure to check out www.greatwomeninfraud.comfor even more information.
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Listen on Spotify:
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq.
GrantLaw, PLLC, 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, NY 10036-7424
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 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, 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.
Now again in private practice, 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.
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.
Licensed Private Investigator, Social Media Intelligence Analyst
K Paxton LLC, Principal
Kelly Paxton has more than 20 years of investigative experience. Kelly is a Certified Fraud Examiner, Private Investigator, author, and podcast host-founder of Great Women in Fraud.
Ms. Paxton started her career in law enforcement as a Special Agent for US Customs Office of Investigations in 1993. Ms. Paxton was recruited by US Customs for her expertise in finance. She worked white collar fraud, money laundering and narcotics cases. She also was responsible for the district’s undercover operations and financial reporting of these operations. Kelly worked as a contract investigator doing over 1000 security background investigations for the Office of Personnel Management and Department of Homeland Security.
Kelly has worked in the public and private sector. Most recently she worked as an investigator for Nike. Her investigations include embezzlement, conflict of interest, intellectual property, Open Source Intelligence and fraud. Kelly is also the proud owner of pinkcollarcrime.com, a passion of hers about embezzlers in the workplace. She founded Great Women in Fraud in August, 2020. Her book, Embezzlement How to Prevent, Detect and Investigate Pink-Collar Crime, was published in December, 2020.
Congratulations to our friend Craig Stanland on the publishing of his first book, “Blank Canvas: How I Reinvented My Life After Prison“! Craig is a powerful example of how to come back from the depths of professional and personal destruction and despair, survive and evolve in prison, and become a better, more fulfilled person living the life God intends for him. These lessons are universal – I’ve read a review copy of Craig’s book and I highly recommend it for anyone navigating life’s difficulties. I guess that means everybody! Five stars! – Jeff
“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we
cannot change, the courage to change the things we
can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
— REINHOLD NIEBUHR
I spend half of my time wishing I wasn’t in prison,
the other half wishing I had made a different choice. I fantasize about going back in time to the day I discovered the loophole I exploited. I see myself at the dining room table, staring at my laptop. A black-and-white composition notebook to my right, the pages filled with notes, yellow Post-its stuck everywhere. I look like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.
The puzzle pieces were coming together. I had discovered a treasure map that only I knew about. I feel the excitement I felt, the pure rush of it all. My performance at work was not what it used to be; my paychecks were shrinking. My need to buy more things, to fill the hole inside, was growing. This was a lousy equation but I had solved it.
I wish I could travel back to that moment, to speak louder than the rush and say, “Stop. Don’t do this. You have everything you need. This is not the way.”
I would have made a different choice. The first domino would have never fallen, the criminal complaint never filed, the investigation never initiated. The FBI wouldn’t have aimed fifteen guns at Kyla. I wouldn’t have hurt the people I love. I wouldn’t have to strip naked, lift my balls, spread my cheeks, and cough.
I’d be free. The short film of my suicide would have never been produced.
The voice was there and I knew it. I chose to ignore it. In those moments of clarity, when I calculated the damage done, my heart tightened. I felt like I was always on the verge of a heart attack. I tried to erase the pain with lies, and it usually worked — at least for a little bit.
I wish I had listened to that voice. But I didn’t. Now I’m sitting in a prison library trying to start over. I will never have the freedom to paint whatever I want if I continue to fight what can’t be changed. I must do what I am afraid to do.
I have to practice acceptance.
I don’t want to. It feels like giving up, passive. Fighting equals progress. But does it? What am I fighting against? As much as I wish it existed, there’s no such thing as a DeLorean time machine.
I’ve locked myself in a past that can’t be changed, in an existence that fills me with shame and regret. Fighting isn’t progress; it’s running away from the truth.
I was wrong: Acceptance isn’t giving up, and it isn’t passive.
It is an act of courage to say,
“I accept that I betrayed myself and chose to commit a crime.” I hit the Enter button, the single keystroke that started it all. “I accept I made the choice to continue in the face of the universe screaming at me to stop. I accept that I’m in prison. I accept that I hurt the woman I love, my family, my friends. My finances are in ruin; I’m getting divorced. I’ll have a criminal record until I die. I accept that I don’t trust myself. I accept that I’m scared.”
Holy crap, that felt good. I don’t feel as trapped. I feel something extraordinary. I’m in prison but I just gave myself freedom. No one else, nothing external, I did this.
A thought pops into my head: This is my life now. What am I going to do with what is left of it?
This episode is a must-listen if you, a friend, family member, colleague or client are going through criminal justice issues, or any life altering situation. Our discussion centered on identifying with and comparing the experiences of the white collar justice community to Bobby’s family of Sikh heritage. Bobby’s family migrated to England and found themselves strangers in a strange land, refugees living in liminalty between their old world and the new, between traditional and contemporary values, navigating prejudice and distrust.
Similarly, people prosecuted for white collar crimes and their families often find themselves stigmatized by their former friends and families, and the business community – people without a country, mourning the past and afraid of the future, struggling to find acceptance of the reality of their new and very difficult situations. It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is in community. Link to podcast on Bobby Jagdev’s website: go.bobbyjagdev.com/ep17.– Jeff
Meet Rev. Jeff Grant. Once a drifter. Now a traveler.
One who through suffering, pain and wreckage discovered a community. Hiding in the shadows. Under the abject shame of rejection. A community providing acceptance and belonging to fellow travelers.
Rev. Jeff is an ordained minister serving the white-collar justice community. His position holds a special reverence. His divinity – granted by the seminary – and protected by the state. Enables him to provide confidential counsel to those in need of crisis support. A crucial nexus for travellers that have just entered a liminal state.
Jeff’s own story is a rise, fall and rebirth of biblical proportions.
Once a big-time real-estate lawyer. Owner of his own firm and a restaurateur. His meritocratic rise was buckled by an addiction to prescription opioids.
An addiction that prompted poor judgement. As his firms’ cash-flow faltered and personal debts mounted. Ethical boundaries became blurred. Disbarred for re-appropriating client funds. And eventually jailed for fraudulently claiming 9/11 disaster relief funding.
The richness of his big-baller lifestyle soon disappeared. And through the ashes of devastation, a richness of spirit emerged…
I met Jeff through a mutual friend and old friend of the podcast; Craig Stanland. Craig was in fact one of the first travellers to have sought Jeff’s counsel.
This is a conversation that drifts between two disparate liminal communities. The white-collar justice community and subjects of a diaspora.
You may wonder, how do you draw a commonality between these two very distinct groups? The root cause of shifting liminal states is largely incomparable. However, acceptance, belonging and accountability are all very relatable.
Whilst Jeff share’s his experiences within the white-collar justice community. I share my experiences of being a child of the Empire. And how our coerced liminal experiences impacted us, shaped our value systems and carved out routes of accountability.
This conversation took place on Easter Monday. Receiving blessings from an ordained Christian minister – regardless of my religious affiliation – was a real gift.
Jeff is warmly spoken. His charisma is alluring. And his presences creates a safe space to express our inner spirit. That is Jeff’s gift.
A gift he doesn’t exercise through preaching. But by shepherding those seeking his counsel with the empowerment to realize this gift for themselves.
A few weeks following the recording of this episode. The Supreme Court of the State New York reinstated Jeff’s license to practice law. Travelers seeking his counsel are now able to be served in greater ways.
Blessed to welcome the first master of divinity and now practicing attorney as a new friend of the podcast. – Bobby Jagdev
