Corpulent as he was, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, otherwise held fast to his most famous adage of less being more.
Paunchier than he was corpulent, Mies seemed determined to deprive me of a pretty good opening sentence. Such is the way of things when what you want and what is true refuse to jibe.
In either event here’s the rest of the thought:
In contrast to the high priest of modernism’s guiding principle, the current keepers of the movement’s most prominent shrine, the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, have determined to take a more maximalist view of things, keeping their less than gimlet-eyed view, focused squarely on the latter half of the clichéd but still cogent maxim, by expanding the museum into every available inch of the north side of West 53rd Street, that their endowment, their trustees’ wallets, and the city’s zoning laws would allow. Mies, I suspect, has been doing a slow roll in his understated grave ever since.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
It had all begun well enough, when the small cabal of wealthy, industrialist’s wives with aspirations towards posterity; determined, in the late 1920s, to erect a museum dedicated to the housing of their growing collection of modern art, called upon Edward Durell Stone to design the original building. Taking up less than a quarter of a block, that was otherwise filled with brownstones; the white unadorned, marble and glass, facade was a pleasing and clear enough statement of intent to set expectations for the radical nature of the work to be found within. Nearly a hundred years later, while still visible; the Stone building has been couched within the expansionist ambitions of subsequent museum leadership, to such an extent that it can now be easily missed by anyone on their way to the main entrance or to Uniqlo, depending upon which direction one is traveling.
With a free afternoon and an as of yet expired membership, I walked up Fifth Avenue to visit the reopened institution and acquaint myself with the newly designed museum and re-curated collection.
The original Edward Durell Stone Building, 1939.
Upon passing through the new airport-style security entrance, I was carried unceremoniously to the fourth floor by the still cramped escalators where I negotiated my way through the artwork of the latter half of the 20th century. As a result of the fully rejiggered arrangement of the heretofore reliably staid collection, I was left disoriented in a space that had long since been comforting in its familiarity. In an attempt to regain my bearings, I sought refuge among the Rothkos and a particularly fine Krasner. Unfortunately, I wasn’t left feeling any steadier.
The Stone building, 2021
There is a newly acquired funhouse quality to the galleries. The effect is the result of art being hung in a manner where one painting appears to be reflected back upon itself in the form of another painting from an entirely different era bearing a visual relationship to the older work; and which is hung in opposition to it, causing your eyes to reverberate jarringly between the two. The effect can leave one standing in the middle of the gallery immobilized inside of an eye rattling, dissonance-inducing loop
The disorienting juxtapositions are exacerbated by the physical nature of the expansion itself. Having expanded the gallery space 50,000 square feet since the last growth spurt, which itself grew the available exhibition space by nearly 40,000 square feet. The scale of the museum can now leave one feeling that the artwork extends off into a far-away horizon. Having walked a distance that felt perilously close to exercise, I thought that I might have landed inside an old Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover, wondering if I was going to exit on the shores of the Hudson or possibly somewhere in California.
Up until this most recent iteration, MoMA’s permanent collection was ordered chronologically and segregated according to discipline, allowing one to view the works of the collection within their milieu and the epoch in which they were created. Given this stabilizing framework, the viewer could discern the logical underpinnings of the movements that informed the century’s latter half. While these organizing principles can still be observed throughout the galleries, they have since taken on an elasticity, warping the narrative thread and blurring the previously cohesive flow of work.
If it had once been thrilling to walk the galleries in anticipation of seeing the likes of DeKooning, Pollack, Kline and Motherwell et.al., sequenced in room after room, all glaring at each other from opposing gallery walls, as though they were back at the Cedar Tavern drunk and duking it out, challenging each other for artistic primacy and for the right to each other’s women; the energy has now been dissipated with a good deal of the pugilistic dynamic having been directed to neutral corners.
Gone, sadly, are the dedicated galleries for photography, prints and drawing, all of which have now been incorporated into the painting galleries, adding to the already disjointed and crowded nature of the display. Gone also is the pleasure of being able to sequester oneself within the history of a single medium, to be fully immersed within the lone discipline and explore, uninterrupted, its chronology, rather than having to negotiate a collection of disparate works interspersed throughout the broader collection. .
I exited the museum, with my head spinning and the symptoms of my fairly severe ADD inflamed. Characteristic of the affliction is the ease with which one is susceptible to overstimulation. A state of mind that I was experiencing throughout my tour of the new curatorial direction of the permanent collection. My condition hadn’t been helped any, by the expanded museum having been piled to the rafters with work and by the substitution of the formerly regimented, chronological orderliness for juxtapositional chaos. By superimposing works of varying media, eras and cultural context from which the viewer is intended to draw broad associations regarding influences, zeitgeists and contexts; the museum had left me feeling unmoored and with the uncanny sense that the familiar works, which for so long had hung austerely in their designated places, had suddenly been thrust, unaccompanied, into a boisterous cocktail party, drink clutched nervously in hand, hoping to see a familiar face to rescue them from the chaos.
I don’t go to see art as much as I would like and unless I’m visiting a permanent collection, I mostly come up against names and works that are unfamiliar to me. My days of complete immersion in the artworld and of being informed as to its vagaries, are long in the past and don’t register with me as they once might have. But having once lived in that world, I retain a thread of attachment to it and am not without the capacity for forming opinions. What I’ve come to recognize in my recent travels to the shrine on West Fifty Third Street, is that those who are in charge of steering the vision of what is seen and what is said, have looked squarely into the face of Mies’s dictum and rejected it wholesale. In having taken a more expansive curatorial route there is now recognition that the “less” in Mies’s dictum, in the case of the history of the museum’s collection, has equated to orthodoxy and the exclusion of a broad swath of artists; both of which are ideas that are anathema to the ideals from which Modernism was sprung.
Today in the rarefied world of museum curators, where the gatekeepers who have traditionally been the vigilant guardians of the fixed ideals of their institutions, change comes hesitantly and in increments. Arguably, the most influential of all museums, the MoMA, has used their most prestigious platform: the permanent collection, to take a stand for a broader purview of thought and a greater diversity of artists. It would appear that they have thrown their long since stacked deck in the air and celebrated the broad change that is the result and that has been a long time coming.
Recognizing that my own views around art may have long ago calcified into something closer to taste and discernment, it gives me pause to consider that I have come to rely upon the comforts of reliability to inform my museum going experience. My couple of hours spent in the galleries at MoMA were a reminder that discomfort and being challenged were a large part of what brought me into this world years ago. In revitalizing the museum, the leadership at MoMA they have opened the door wide for rediscovery
Brad Spencer is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
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“After my arraignment in August 2021, one of my daughters suggested that I listen to a podcast with Jeff Grant as the guest. That is all it took for me to find the Monday night White Collar Support Group and to visit. I did this for a couple of weeks, and after each time, my mood would sour. My wife noticed that I was in a decidedly less upbeat humor after spending time on the call. I was sure that this would be temporary, and so I stuck with it. Still, I was downcast after each successive call…and I was six or so visits in. When does the pick-me-up actually deliver the lift?
Finally it struck me – Jeff Grant is not a mood-lifter, he is a deliverer of reality. This, in turn, eventually lifts one’s mood. When information can cut away the fog of distortion and magical thinking, then the real work of taking care of oneself can begin. Information is therapeutic if one has the stomach for the real world; if one does not, however, then the future will continue to be illusory and evasive, and who can live in that? Progressive Prison Ministries provides real shelter for courageous people with real problems. God bless PPM.” – Brad Spencer, Alabama
Join the Federal Bar Association SDNY Chapter and Washington State Chapters, along with co-sponsors JAMS, NAMI-NYC, NYCLA, Westchester County Bar Association, for a **FREE CLE** program on how mental disabilities impact the prosecution, defense and disposition of cases, and how the federal courts can be more responsive. The panel consists of seasoned legal and medical experts who will provide an overview on the intersection of mental health and the law. Monday, March 21, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM. This is a hybrid event.
Program Planner: Nancy Morisseau | Agency Attorney, NYC Department of Education; President, Federal Bar Association-SDNY Chapter
Moderator: Elizabeth Kelley, Esq. | Criminal Defense Attorney, L/O Elizabeth Kelley
Panelists: · Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq. | Private General Counsel, GrantLaw, PLLC · Dr. Joette James | Chief Inpatient/Outpatient Neuropsychologist, HSC Pediatric Center; Forensic Psychologist, Private Practice; Assistant Professor, George Washington University Dept. of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences · Miriam Krinsky | Executive Director, Fair and Just Prosecutions · Dr. George Woods | President, International Academy of Law & Mental Health
AGENDA
6:00 – 6:05 PM | Welcome and Introductions · Nancy Morisseau · Elizabeth S. Kelley, Esq.
6:05 – 6:20 PM | Mental Disabilities, Forensic Evaluations and the Courts: A Global Perspective · Dr. George Woods
6:20 – 6:35 PM | Mental Disabilities, Forensic Evaluations and the Courts: Trends in the U.S. · Dr. Joette James
6:35 – 6:50 PM | Trends in the Prosecution of People with Mental Disabilities in the U.S. · Miriam Krinsky 6:50 – 7:00 PM | Mental Disabilities and the Federal Courts: A Returning Citizen’s Perspective · Jeff Grant
White Collar Criminal Justice Community Continues to Expand Resources and Reach
Greenwich, CT (March 14, 2022): Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., the world’s first ministry devoted to serving the white collar justice community, will hold its 300th consecutive White Collar Support Group meeting online on Zoom this Monday, March 14, 2022. Co-founded by Connecticut resident/NYC white collar attorney and ordained minister, Jeff Grant, Esq. (Jeffrey D. Grant), the ministry’s mission is to help individuals prosecuted for white collar crimes to take responsibility for their actions and the wreckage they caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy. The support group was founded online in 2016 online as a way of reaching out to justice-impacted individuals and families suffering in isolation all over the country and providing them solutions in a supportive community.
Progressive Prison Ministries’ goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. Its 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.
“I am so grateful for the opportunity to be of service to this hugely misunderstood and greatly under-supported community,” said Jeff Grant. “When we held our first support group meeting in 2016, we had only 4 participants. Now, 6 years later, we are holding our 300th meeting with over 450 members.”
“For years, Jeff Grant has made it his mission to make sure that no one feels the isolation that can come from being a former inmate,” said Bill Baroni, former ‘Bridgegate’ defendant whose conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In addition to providing resources and community, Grant is the leading advocate for ensuring white collar-related issues are included within the ever-evolving debate around the criminal justice system. “When we started the ministry in 2013, people who had been to prison were pariahs with little opportunity to have a second chance,” said Grant. “A decade later, criminal justice reform is an important national conversation; we are proud of our work to enable white collar justice advocates to have a seat at the table.”
To date, the community has been a featured source surrounding white-collar related issues, including a recent profile of Grant and the White Collar Support Group in the New Yorker. Grant’s work has also been featured in major national media Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, Reuters, Forbes, and Greenwich Magazine as well as major podcasts such as The Rich Roll Podcast. Grant has also been a Main Stage presenter at prestigious conferences such as The Nantucket Project. In addition to being a popular interviewee, Grant has helped thousands of his community members navigate their past and push towards re-establishing themselves as productive contributors to society.
With both Law and Master of Divinity degrees, Grant provides a unique perspective of understanding about what and how his community members are coping with and facing ahead of them. Grant himself spent almost 14 months in a Federal prison for a white collar crime he committed in 2001.
According to former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who served time in a Federal prison, “Jeff created a network of welcoming, non-judgmental, and understanding men and women that share their similar experiences in an open and nurturing environment.”
The weekly Monday meeting is held online on Zoom beginning at 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT and last approximately 75 minutes. During the meeting, members are given the chance to reflect on their healing process as well as embrace those who are new to the group, which continues to grow with each weekly gathering.
Complementing the weekly meetings include an ongoing blog on Grant’s widely regarded site, prisonist.org, where meetings are recapped, dissected and materials are gathered for community members to continue to work on their own. Grant’s White Collar Week podcast has also become a critical source for his community, providing a platform for those that have gone through the journey to tell their story and provide personal insights into their healing. Guests have included current and former politicians, financial executives, white collar criminal defense attorneys, federal agents, judges, Hollywood producers and more.
Established in 2013 in Greenwich, CT, Progressive Prison Ministries is the world’s first ministry devoted to serving the white collar justice community. More information is available on its website at prisonist.org and on its social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About Progressive Prison Ministries’ Co-Founders:
Co-founders husband and wife Jeff Grant and Lynn Springer were featured in a twelve-page article in Greenwich Magazine: The Redemption of Jeff Grant. After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost 14 months in a Federal prison for a white-collar crime he committed when he was a lawyer, Grant began his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City with a focus in Christian Social Ethics. In May 2021, Grant’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
About GrantLaw, PLLC:
Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq., Private General Counsel/White Collar Attorney, 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, New York 10036-7424, GrantLaw.com, [email protected], (212) 859-3512
I joined Fr. Joe and Fr. Rix on their podcast, Recalled, to discuss the 300th meeting of our White Collar Support Group, Mon, March 14th, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT. Please join us! – Jeff
White Collar Support Group: We are a community of individuals, families and groups with white collar justice issues 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. Our experience shows us that many of us are suffering in silence with shame, remorse, and deep regret. Many of us have been stigmatized by our own families, friends and communities, and the business community. Our goal is to learn and evolve into a new spiritual way of life and to reach out in service to others. This is an important thing we are doing! To join our next support group meeting: [email protected].
Watch on YouTube:
Father Joe Ciccone Opens Up the Inaugural Interfaith Service in Honor of N.J. Governor Phil Murphy, Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver and Their Families:
Some people mentioned in this article are members of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT.
Law360 (February 25, 2022, 4:43 PM EST) — When Gordon Caplan felt the handcuffs click around his wrist one day in March 2019, he thought his life was over. And in one sense, it was.
Caplan had been the co-chair of the international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. He had helped build up the firm’s private equity practice. He was named 2018’s “Dealmaker of the Year” by The American Lawyer, one of the top 50 merger and acquisition lawyers by the Global M&A Network, and a private equity MVP by Law360.
But in 2019, Caplan gained a different kind of fame when he was indicted in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal.
“My persona was based on my career,” Caplan told Law360 in an interview. “And losing that meant losing my persona. I was very proud of what I built and what I had done and accomplished and was always trying to do a bit more. And then, in a moment, it was gone. No one’s fault but my own.”
Caplan admitted he paid William “Rick” Singer, the mastermind of the scheme, $75,000 to have a test proctor change his daughter’s ACT score. The scandal made national headlines, and its shame ran deep. Willkie cut ties with Caplan. He pled guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, served a one-month prison sentenceand saw his law license suspended for two years. His fall was so sudden and so complete, he contemplated suicide.
“As soon as I was arrested, I knew my life had changed dramatically. And to be direct, for a good portion thereafter, I didn’t think I would survive. I didn’t think I wanted to survive, to live,” Caplan said. “But once I decided to live, then it was about just moving forward through my own created, very difficult situation. That’s what I’ve been doing since, one day at a time.”
Now, nearly three years after his arrest, Caplan is trying to start over, with a new company and a law license newly reinstated by a New York appeals court.
Returning to a profitable law practice will be “not impossible, but difficult” for Caplan, according to Stephen Gillers, a New York University School of Law professor with expertise in legal ethics who has studied attorney disciplinary proceedings in New York.
The two-year suspension imposed on Caplan by a five-judge panel of the First Judicial Department was appropriate, Gillers said, because his crime concerned a personal matter and did not involve his work as an attorney, and because Caplan has paid the price for his crime in other ways.
“He has suffered a great deal as a result of what he did. He has a felony conviction. He is humiliated. He lost his perch at a major American law firm,” Gillers said. “And it’s almost certain that he will never have the same income from law practice that he had before all this happened.”
But that is no longer the point for Caplan, who described starting over as “invigorating.”
“It’s not what I hoped for. It’s not what I ever dreamed would be the case. It’s not easy,” he said. “But what I always loved about what I did was building, and now I’m building again in a different way.”
For 18 months, he has been building up a strategic advisory business called Dutchess Management. The limited liability company, started in 1998 as a holding company for his family’s investments, now has 10 employees from various phases of Caplan’s life.
Two of its employees Caplan met during his longtime involvement with the New York nonprofit PubliColor, which offers after-school arts programming to middle and high school students who are at high risk for dropping out of their underperforming schools.
Dutchess’ chief operating officer is Anna White, who worked with Caplan for years when she was the coordinator of Willkie Farr’s private equity practice.
And then there is Bill Baroni, who serves as an adviser at Dutchess.
Baroni’s résumé includes a stint at Blank Rome LLP, serving as a New Jersey state senator, and working as co-head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Baroni also served time in federal prison for his role in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, known as Bridgegate, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction. In a unanimous decision written by Justice Elena Kagan, the court found that because the lane closure that caused the gridlock was motivated by political retribution, not money or property, the fraud charges couldn’t stick.
But Baroni had already spent three and a half months in prison by the time his conviction was overturned. He met Caplan in 2019, as he was preparing to serve out his sentence in the same facility in Pennsylvania where Baroni had been incarcerated.
“We were introduced because I wanted to know what it was like,” Caplan said. “And right away, he came up and saw me and met with my family. And when I was inside, he kept in touch with my family every single day. And he’s become an incredible partner and a very good friend.”
Baroni echoed that sentiment, recalling the first time they spoke on the phone, late one Friday night, and feeling “from that first conversation that this was somebody whose contribution to criminal justice reform was going to be something he’d take seriously.”
“I will take the people who have spent time in federal prison over most of the people I worked in politics with,” Baroni said, adding that prisoners are more honest, more loyal, and have been through something “really hard.”
“What I and Gordon and others have committed to is doing something with that experience to make positive change in the system,” he said.
Baroni and Caplan have worked together on the Prison Visitation Fund, which gives money to family members to ameliorate the costs of visiting loved ones incarcerated in out-of-state federal prisons. They advocated for Kyle Kimoto, who was sentenced in 2008 to 29 years in federal prison for running a telemarketing company that had engaged in a deceptive credit card scheme. Then-President Donald Trump commuted his sentence in January 2021.
Dutchess Management has worked on prison condition and reentry projects as well, according to Caplan. He said Dutchess has advocated for getting people released from jail due to health issues at the height of the coronavirus, sought early release for people who were over-sentenced for drug or white collar crimes, helped the International Bar Association get people out of Afghanistan, and worked with the Aleph Institute, which helps people rebuild their lives after a conviction.
Dutchess also does traditional business advising work. Its LinkedIn page says it aided Hudson’s Bay Co. and Insight Venture Partners — both former clients of Caplan from his Willkie days — on a stand-alone e-commerce company for Saks Off 5th.
“The team and I get deeply involved with businesses that are evolving or going through transitions and helping them get through it — through a lot of analysis, through negotiation, through some investing, through coordination and introducing them to other opportunities,” Caplan said. “The world is going through an industrial revolution on steroids. Everything is being digitized, and COVID has only accelerated that. Traditional businesses that don’t understand that and/or haven’t been able to jump on that are left behind.”
While Caplan doesn’t yet know what his newly reinstated law license will mean for the scope of work that Dutchess does, he said he hopes to “prove worthy of it.”
“Now I can use the legal part of my brain on problems again, and I hope to put it to good use,” he said.
Caplan speaks of Dutchess’ profitable work and its pro bono efforts as both being integral to the organization.
“I’ve built a small group of extremely bright, hardworking people who are focused on helping growing and evolving businesses get difficult things done, and at the same time, doing a tremendous amount of work to help people that could use our help that are not otherwise for profit,” he said.
It’s not unusual for people with past white collar convictions to return to their former careers with a new sense of purpose, according to Jeff Grant, an attorney and minister who runs the White Collar Support Group. The group boasts 450 members and holds weekly video chat meetings in a format not unlike that of Alcoholics Anonymous, with the serenity prayer, member testimonials and resource sharing. They discuss a topic each week, which might be something concrete, like the First Step Act, a 2018 federal law geared toward reentry after prison, or something more philosophical, like gratitude.
Nor is Caplan and Baroni’s new focus on criminal justice reform unusual. Many members of the support group — which Grant says is diverse, but majority white, mostly male, and skews toward people in their 40s and 50s who were fairly successful — have emerged from their convictions and prison time with a transformative life experience and a fresh perspective.
“For Gordon or Bill or anyone from our support group who you would ask, there’s just a new definition of success,” Grant said. “I have more opportunities to have a profound place in the advancement of society. Some people don’t have to go to prison to do that. But I did.”
Grant was disbarred about 20 years ago for dipping into his clients’ escrow accounts, then served a nearly 14-month federal prison sentence for applying for a fraudulent disaster-relief loan for his law office, falsely claiming it was impacted by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. His addiction to prescription opioids was in part to blame for “a waterfall of bad decisions,” he said.
After prison, Grant went to divinity school. He started the support group a few years later, out of a concern that people with white collar convictions like his were “suffering in silence and isolation all over the country.” The support group — which has always been virtual — took off during the pandemic, as video calls became the norm, and after the group was featured in the New Yorker.
“Prison is not the worst thing that can happen to you,” Grant told Law360. “The worst thing that can happen to you is not having a comeback story.”
Grant’s law license was reinstated last year. His law firm’s website mentions both his past opioid addiction and his federal prison sentence — hardly the typical fodder of an attorney bio. But Grant is interested in working with people in crisis, who are going through what he dealt with.
“There aren’t many lawyers who will help someone prosecuted for white collar crime to navigate the system, and navigate their lives and their issues all the way through to a place years out where they have a chance of getting their life back or living a life that’s joyous,” he said. “Criminal defense lawyers, you usually don’t see them again after sentencing.”
Baroni would agree. In addition to working at Dutchess, he also teaches criminal law at Seton Hall University School of Law. He said that legal academia often focuses on investigation and prosecution — Fourth Amendment issues, trial practice — but not the “third phase” of criminal law, which he calls “jail to home.”
“It’s coming back to society, it’s getting civil rights back, it’s conditions of incarceration,” he said. “There’s an entire body of law there that even a number of criminal defense attorneys don’t necessarily appreciate or focus on.”
Caplan said in his former life as a corporate deal lawyer, he didn’t give much thought to issues of incarceration. Now, he said, he’s lived it. And while he had the resources and family support to navigate reentry, the difficulties of banking and getting insurance and starting a new career, he knows most people don’t have the same resources he enjoys.
“I think the overwhelming majority of people in prison are there for basically drug offenses and-or relatively petty fraud offenses, and the sentencing at the federal and state level in this country is extremely punitive,” he said. “And then the conditions in federal penitentiaries are not geared to success. They’re geared to failure. Recidivism is extremely high. Being a felon — that’s a life sentence. Even if you spend a month in jail, if you’re a felon, you’re a felon for life.”
Jeff Krantz is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
“…They’ve got a name for the winners of the world, I want a name when I lose”
An Introduction
Even without wading too deeply into the sea of affirmational pablum that populates the internet, particularly that which lives on in the self-publishing platforms of Medium and Substack; the trend of couching one’s topic of choice, within a format of bullet-pointed, Panglossian optimism, is pervasive and appears to be the prevailing method of acquiring the number of readers necessary to give voice to one’s literary aspirations and maybe earn oneself a couple of bucks to supplement a day job’s wages to boot.
Admittedly I’ve based my observations above on an impossibly minuscule sample size that in no way should be mistaken for something that could be substantiated with any plausible, statistical credence. To be blunt, my conjecture is wrong. Wrong and easily disproven for any one who’d like to have a go. The research is perfunctory with enough factual truth to keep things on the rails. All in all, it’s a nice piece of writing that fails.
Most stories of failure that come over the transom, tend to be tales of those who have overcome impossible obstacles while bucking stiff odds. Defeat arises to amplify victory, mutating into validation; a banner of triumphant determination in the face of sacrifice. Stories of true failure are rendered quietly. The soundtrack of defeat lacks an orchestra. There is no moment of uplifting accompaniment. It’s a day-by-day grind, that eventually wears smooth.
Failure stands in stubborn opposition to articles like: “Grit is a Key Ingredient for Success”
Over the past ten years I have frequently been wrong and wronged, both mundanely and spectacularly. Much of my experience, whether voluntarily or compelled, has been re-examined as anecdotes recounted to a predictable cast of recipients: family members, friends, lawyers, therapists, doctors, and support groups. All of whom, to a lesser or greater degree, have, seemingly, had only my best interests at heart. In my recountings of defeat, there have been moments of petty ridiculousness and those of life-altering tragedy. The implications of these stories have burrowed deeply within my mind; hibernating only now and again to deliver moments of occasional respite for my otherwise preoccupied mind. I hold no illusion that attempting to exorcise the collection of failures stored securely in the terrariums, bell jars and shadow boxes of my mind where such things are maintained and where I spend far too much time and where they occupy far too much space, will be a futile endeavor. Maybe I can reduce their footprint some, perhaps they’ll become a bit more subdued.
I don’t have a plan for this, the little corner of the self-publishing world that I appear to be claiming, but whatever it turns into, (if anything) I don’t foresee telling it in order, I will, however, try to to give enough context so you have some idea where you’ve landed in the narrative. I absolutely promise to leave out the punchy, bullet-pointed sentences and the optimistic promise that some aspect of your life can be resolved reading whatever I put forth in seven hundred and fifty words or so.
“In this the most dubious of worlds everything happens dubiously”
Jeff Grant is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
Life in a halfway house comes with rules and constraints
As I approached Watkinson House on my first day out of prison in Hartford, Connecticut, I saw there was a large group of guys hanging out in the parking lot.
It was summer so they were all wearing baggy shorts, long t-shirts, flat brimmed baseball caps and Nike Air Force Ones. I recognized the uniforms. They were probably on a cigarette break before they hustled back inside to watch a few more hours of mind-numbing television.
The front porch smelled like old wood in need of a paint job, but the door had a very modern surveillance system. I pushed the buzzer and looked up into the camera. A businesslike yet gentle woman’s voice asked me if she could help.
I quickly rifled through my now institutionalized brain for the shortest and most succinct answer possible. “New resident,” I replied.
The door buzzed open and I stepped inside. To the right, another large group of men sat in a dayroom watching television. The office was to my left where two women sat behind a counter. I introduced myself and presented them with my papers and my bag of clothes.
The familiar process started all over again. There were forms to fill out and drug tests to take. I had an initial meeting with a counselor. They searched my bag and my body — aerosol containers, sharps, electric shavers and alcohol-based products were either discarded or tagged and stored.
Once processing was completed, I was escorted up to a room up on the third floor where I would have three roommates; I was assigned an upper bunk and given a supply of sheets, blankets, towels and basic toiletries — I was an old pro at this already.
I started to make my bed when my first roommate walked in — a bald Latino man named Hector. He looked pretty tough; his arms were sleeves of gang tats. He looked me up and down, and then asked if I was a cop. I said no, and then I asked him if he was a cop. He smiled. I think he liked my response.
I could also tell that he was stoned. When my other roommates showed up, it was pretty clear that they were all stoned. Hector pulled out a bottle of some cheap liquor, and they all got drunk right there in the room. I suppose that they had a right to be suspicious when I didn’t drink with them, even after I told them that I would be five years sober in a few weeks.
Nonetheless, Hector — stoned, drunk and barely able to speak — had an idea: He had a few tests to put me through to prove I wasn’t a cop.
Hector asked me if he could continue to store his cell phone and charger in a hole in my mattress. He had been storing it there while my bunk was unoccupied. We both knew that cell phone possession charges were among the most egregious offenses in prison. It wasn’t a big leap to guess that they weren’t allowed in the halfway house either and that we could get sent back to prison if we were caught.
I told him to forget about it — I was White, not stupid. He seemed delighted with this response.
For his next test, Hector took off his shirt, exposing his hairy tattooed body — he explained that he liked to shave his body hair so that his chest and back were smooth. He proposed that I shave the hair off his back.
I figured that this was my Mendoza Line — I was in a halfway house my first night out of prison about to shave the back hair off of a Latino gang member. When I was finished, we wrapped our arms around each other and laughed.
He pulled a big plastic box out from under his bunk and showed me a huge cache of sundries. He was running a bodega for the benefit of the guys who couldn’t get passes out of the house. Of course, he marked them up two to three times their cost.
“Go ahead, Papi,” he said. “Take one. No charge.”
I went for the Old Spice push-up anti-perspirant stick. Things went pretty smoothly with Hector from that point on.
The halfway house had a culture unto itself, but with none of the checks and balances of prison. Quickly dissipated was the prison culture that honored respect.
For example, in prison, if I were in the television room and put my book down on my chair, nobody would have touched it for hours. At Watkinson, my book was pushed onto the floor and I found a guy sitting in my seat.
In prison, phone calls were automatically cut off after 15 minutes. In the halfway house, guys hogged the phones for hours even though there were lines of other guys waiting.
In prison, meals were served in a line and doled out somewhat systematically. In the halfway house, it was a cattle call of first come, first served. I wound up eating a lot of cereal and peanut butter those five weeks.
Watkinson House did however have Alcoholics Anonymous meetings most nights and took us to even more meetings in the van. Fortunately, as a federal client, I was eligible for a pass in three days (it took Connecticut clients 20 days to get a pass). As soon as I was issued a pass, I could go outside on my own.
I had not been on a computer in 14 months. I was hoping that I’d at least have some email. I met with my counselor to find out how and where to do that because there were no computers available to clients at the halfway house.
The only place that she could think of was at the state’s employment agency, called CT Works, which was a pretty long bus ride from downtown. Clients who achieved level four status were allowed to go to the public library downtown and use the computers there, but I was short-termer and only had a level one status.
I received instructions for a pass and then filled out a request. I explained exactly where I wanted to go and why, including the address and phone number I got from the Yellow Pages in the office. My pass was approved, so on my assigned day after breakfast, I was handed a three-hour pass — barely enough time to accomplish my mission – along with directions to CT Works at the edge of the city. I walked out the door of the halfway house feeling like a free man.
It was my first taste of freedom. The one-mile walk to downtown felt great. I caught my first sight of the Connecticut state capitol, a rib joint, and the arena where the Hartford Whalers used to play. But mostly there were people, real people, and they were going to work, wearing work clothes and sitting on benches eating breakfast.
I got to the center of the city and found the bus stop on Main Street in front of the State House where I would catch the No. 40 bus to CT Works. I asked a few people in line to make sure I was waiting for the right bus — with only a three-hour pass I didn’t have any room for error. They were very kind, especially given that I was dressed like a guy only a few days out of prison.
It took about a half hour to get to CT Works, located in a large factory building that had been restored and repurposed into a business incubator housing all sorts of services for poor people. I had to register to become a client and then wait in line for a computer. By the time I finally got on a computer, two hours had passed since I left Watkinson House, and I was worried about getting back in time. I logged on to my Yahoo account and saw I had lots of spam but no messages.
Now I had to hustle. The bus stop for the No. 40 bus back downtown was across the street. Every minute seemed like an hour, as I waited for that bus to come from Windsor back into Hartford.
Time seemed to slow down as I thought about the repercussions of arriving at the halfway house late. When the bus got downtown, I still had 20 minutes to walk up the hill back to Watkinson House. But the bus had let me off on Main Street in front of a Burger King.
The poster with an Oreo shake in the window looked so good it practically had my name on it. I knew I was not supposed to stop anywhere unless I had a pass for it. But it was as if my body had a mind of its own. I couldn’t help myself. I found myself in line ordering the biggest shake they had.
Soon, I was walking up the hill and slurping down my shake. At the corner before I got back to Watkinson House, I licked the last drops off the straw and threw away the remnants in a dumpster behind one of the housing projects.
I walked into the house on time and the women behind the desk were practically falling out of their chairs laughing. I asked if everything was okay.
One of the women commented that it was a good thing I was leaving in five weeks — I would never make it there if I couldn’t figure out how not to not to drink a Burger King shake on the streets without a pass. She said at least five people saw me.
The blood drained from my face. I was busted. Was I going to go back to prison over a milkshake?
She told me to relax, the feds were way too busy to bust guys over something like this, but she also gave me a warning. They sometimes take away the people they don’t like for the smallest infractions. The people they like, they leave alone.
She turned out to be right. In my five weeks there, there were shakedowns where they would overlook stuff from some guys, but handcuff and take away others.
Jeff Grant is an ordained minister with more than three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law, reentry, recovery and executive and religious leadership. After serving almost 14 months in a federal prison for a white collar crime when he was an attorney, he is dedicated to helping people move forward in their lives. Earlier this year, Jeff’s New York law license was reinstated and he was featured in The New Yorker magazine. Jeff hosts a weekly online White Collar Support Group, is the host of the White Collar Week podcast and is the editor of prisonist.org.
The author is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
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“If you are going through hell.. keep going.”- Winston Churchill
I joined the White Collar Support Group last year, after I pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud. I am not known to reach out for help too often, one of my shortcomings, but I knew this was something I could not face alone. I had not told anyone but my spouse about my legal troubles and hid it for well over 2 years. I knew I had to seek out others who had exposure to the impossible to understand American justice system. I found the group through a Google search and a link to an article in the New Yorker magazine titled, “Life after White Collar Crime”.
I was a bit hesitant at first to join, worried it might be some strange cult, but after talking with Bill from the group my nerves were settled. I did not feel judged and was able to express my feelings at that point in time. I logged on to my first Zoom meeting that week and mostly just listened to the different stories being told, but I found everyone to be incredibly honest and real. I was moved so many times during the meetings that I had to turn the camera off because I did not want anyone to see a tear rolling down my cheek.
I always feared making mistakes since I was very young because I did not want to be judged. I put extreme pressure on myself to excel at everything I do, so much so that it ended with disastrous results. What I found in the group is that most of them have felt this same pressure and also (temporarily) destroyed their lives as well.
Through the group I have watched others go through what I have gone through and also what awaits me. As I get ready to self-surrender this month, it gives me great hope that all these smiling people will be at the Zoom meeting when I return to society stronger and better than before. I know life after serving will be hard, but I have confidence that with the help of Jeff Grant and the group members, it will be much smoother than doing it alone. I am forever thankful for finding this group.
Mike Neubig is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
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300. For the over 425 men and women who have attended any of the White Collar Support Group’s 300 meetings hosted by Jeff Grant, this is a meaningful number. For those who have been indicted, convicted and /or served some sort of sentence for a white collar crime, every waking minute of every day is filled with worry and suffering.
The worry centers around: how will I pay for a criminal defense lawyer? Will I be able to survive incarceration mentally and physically? How many years will I be away? How will I support my family financially? What will happen to my spouse and family relationships while I’m away? How will I rebuild my professional life after my release? What is wrong with me that I was able to commit a crime? Would it be easier to take my life?
As brutal as these questions seem, every one of them and more fills the obsessive mind of convicted white collar justice impacted individuals, and their families. In an instant, the problems of yesterday that seemed so significant, turn into ones of basic human survival and what seems like life and death at every turn.
The negative effect on one’s psyche is immeasurable. Often times, hopelessness and depression set in, daily tasks become difficult, and it is near impossible to imagine a future with anything but the present pain. Life seems like it’s over and that you are alone as no one has experienced exactly what you have.
Fortunately, for the over 425 attendees of the group, there is hope. Every Monday night, a we gather on Zoom. We in attendance range from those with recent arrests and indictments, to those who have been out of prison for more than twenty years. We have our routine of the serenity prayer, the introduction of new members, resource sharing, then a new topic relative to the challenges with which we all struggle. Often, much of the session is dedicated to supporting those who have an upcoming sentencing hearing or are soon to report to prison.
Those who have attended one of Jeff’s meetings can tell you that the impact on their lives is immediate. Attendees get questions answered, receive encouragement that they will make it through this difficult time, receive advice on how to handle their stage of the process, and realize that they are not alone in their crime, nor the collateral damage associated with it. One after another, attendees state that they are ecstatic to have found this resource and express gratitude for the care and concern of everyone. And the wish that we had all found this group earlier in our journeys.
Although much of what the group members are experiencing are a few years past for me, I can say that the meetings remain the safest, least judgmental and most accepting space I have available. There is something about commonality, shared experience and true acceptance that brightens the human spirit and allows me to move forward knowing I am not alone, there have been many before me and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
As the group moves toward its 300th meeting, the days of suffering will surely continue to pile up. But thanks to Jeff’s selfless dedication and the caring hearts of the group’s members, those days will be more manageable. We have a resource and friends to reach out to and in the end, all will find a renewed life of hope and acceptance.
