After 6 years of training released inmates after they returned back to their communities “how to go into business for themselves,” we discovered something. Hundreds of students over the years mentioned that they wished that they could have started this training six months to a year before being released. I guess we finally listened and started the first Entrepreneurship training of it’s kind inside the Cheshire Correctional TRUE Unit.
The P.R.I.D.E. PROGRAM sessions are for 90 minutes, once a week for 12 weeks. What makes this program so unique is that we first train each student how to learn before we teach any material. Subjects taught are:
Soft skills, accounting, legal, banking, web-site development, marketing, sales, positive mental attitude, business plan preparation and much more. Service Providers in the Reentry area refer to our program as the famous P.R.I.D.E. PROGRAM. Our first session inside Cheshire Correctional had 21 students. At the end of the session I got a standing ovation. Most of the students shook my hand to thank us for bringing the training to them inside prison before release.
When I got home I was floored when I received in the mail a proclamation from Governor Lamont. We are honored to be recognized as an educational training program that will help people to reenter their communities with the ability to financially support themselves.
For further information about the program or how to sponsor some of the training sessions:
We were prominently mentioned in this article about our friend Chip Skowron. Please feel free to email your thoughts and comments to me at [email protected].
“Jeff Grant, the lawyer turned minister who counseled Skowron before he entered prison, [is co-founder of Progressive Prison Ministries (prisonist.org), the world’s first ministry supporting the white collar criminal justice/economy exiled community]. Greenwich’s taste for schadenfreude, he says, has much to do with brute competition. ‘When anybody shows signs of weakness, everyone is feeding on the carcass—of the person or institution that’s been torn down,’ he says. ‘In Bridgeport, when someone goes down for a crime, the community rallies around to help the family. Here, we cast them out on an iceberg.’”
Chip Skowron pleaded guilty to securities fraud, lost his freedom, and found religion. But, as it turns out, federal prison is more forgiving than Connecticut high society.
LOOK HOMEWARD, HEDGIE
Chip Skowron at his home in Greenwich. “I really feel most comfortable in prison,” he says. Photograph by Jonathan Becker.
In early 2006, before the indictment and the headlines, before he was abandoned by most of the people he knew, Joseph Skowron III and his wife, Cheryl, were living in a tidy three-bedroom ranch home in Greenwich, Connecticut. In the early 20th century, Greenwich attracted flocks of industrialists and their descendants—Rockefellers and Morgans, beneficiaries of Carnegie Steel—who built manor homes on generous acreages. Always prosperous, the town was in the midst of another boom, and Skowron, who goes by Chip, was a member of the town’s new elite, a partner in a hedge fund called FrontPoint Partners. Since 2000, drawn by Connecticut’s relatively low taxes, the hedge funders had all but taken over Greenwich, occupying much of its office space and replacing its stately Victorians with garish mansions, priced to move at $15 million. As VANITY FAIR observed at the time, “The people who can afford to live in Greenwich these days run hedge funds.”
Among the aggressive, often eccentric billionaires who dominated the town, a peacock spirit prevailed. Paul Tudor Jones II, the founder of Tudor Investment Corporation, built a Monticello-like mansion so imposing as to overshadow the yacht club next door. Down the shoreline, Edward Lampert, the founder of ESL Investments, bought a $21 million home, only to tear it down and erect a sprawling new estate in its place. And in the rural backcountry, Steven Cohen assembled a 32,000-square-foot spread that included an ice rink to rival Rockefeller Center’s.
At 36, Skowron didn’t quite have ice-rink money. He had begun his career in finance just five years earlier, as an analyst at Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors. But before long, he was overseeing some $1 billion in assets at FrontPoint, where one of his partners was Steve Eisman, the shrewdly bearish housing-market investor profiled by Michael Lewis in The Big Short. Cheryl was expecting the couple’s fourth child, and Skowron wanted a home to reflect his success. In early 2006, he bought a three-acre tract on Doubling Road, a quiet, curving lane lined with old trees and low stone walls, for $4.1 million. Across the street lay Greenwich Country Club, whose membership roll included Gerald Ford, Tom Seaver, and various Fortune 500 executives. Skowron hired an architect to design a New England shingle-style home of more than 10,000 square feet. Completed, it had seven bedrooms, four fireplaces, a pool, a wine cellar, and a seven-car garage. Views stretched to Long Island Sound.
Cheryl had no interest in the Greenwich social circuit, with its acquisitive pulse. But Chip reveled in it. The Skowrons, already members at one of the town’s several country clubs, applied to join another. Greenwich has a dense calendar of charity galas, and Skowron made sure that he and Cheryl turned up at the right events. He joined the Monticello Motor Club, a speedway in upstate New York where Jerry Seinfeld is a member. One item in his auto collection, an Alfa Romeo 8C Spider, once appeared on a list of Greenwich’s most expensive cars. He traveled widely and lavishly. In Paris he favored the Plaza Athénée; in Barcelona, the Hotel Arts.
Among friends and family, Skowron was known to be generous, loyal, and fun-loving—a griller of burgers and sharer of beers. But he was emotionally exhausted, wrung out by the pressure of keeping up appearances and increasingly troubled by a sense of emptiness. “I wanted to be somebody that was important,” he recalls. “I wanted to accomplish, succeed, to be satisfied. It was all illusory.”
In November 2010, the façade began to slip. Press reports indicated that Skowron had become a target of a federal investigation into insider trading spearheaded by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Marshaling tactics traditionally associated with Mafia and narcotics investigations, Bharara and his team uncovered webs of criminality that stretched across the hedge-fund world and beyond. Skowron stood accused of bribing a French doctor with wine, cash, and travel in exchange for confidential information from a clinical drug trial—a scheme that allowed FrontPoint to dodge some $30 million in losses. He was suspended from the firm, which quickly collapsed. More than 200 people lost their jobs. Charged with securities fraud and obstruction of justice, Skowron faced up to 30 years in federal prison.
Like many people contemplating a once unthinkable future, Skowron found himself drawn to religion. He read Scripture obsessively. As he considered whether to fight the charges against him—charges he knew to be legitimate, and which did not encompass the whole of his insider-trading résumé—a passage from Matthew seemed especially relevant: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
Skowron decided to plead guilty and was sentenced to five years. Prison remained a frightening prospect. He knew that Cheryl would be left alone with four children in the big house on the hill. But incarceration also presented an opportunity. Perhaps, through the crucible of imprisonment, Skowron might escape a life of grasping narcissism from which he could not otherwise tear himself away—a life he had come to believe would destroy him. What he didn’t yet know was that the challenges of prison would pale in comparison to those of coming home.
Skowron was far from Greenwich’s biggest hedge-fund manager to face prison time. Following a seven-year investigation, Bharara’s office accused SAC Capital—the firm run by Steven Cohen, Skowron’s first Wall Street boss—of trafficking in “inside information on a scale without any known precedent in the history of hedge funds.” Cohen avoided criminal charges, but SAC was forced to admit to an institutional culture of illegal trading, paying $1.8 billion in fines before shuttering in 2013.
Still, Skowron was prominent enough to become a cartoon of financial excess. New York highlighted his Ferrari 458 and Porsche Cayenne; a New York Post headline sneered, CHIP’S OUT OF LUCK. With his blond hair, blue eyes, and prominently dimpled chin, Skowron made a natural subject for Wall Street caricature. But he’d spent most of his life pursuing a less narrowly self-interested profession. When he was 11, his father was power washing their home, in Cocoa, Florida, when he fell off the roof. Skowron discovered him crumpled and unconscious, a picture of powerlessness. The scene terrified him. He decided to become a doctor, the kind who could fix such injuries.
After college, Skowron received a full scholarship to a combined M.D./Ph.D. program at Yale. During his residency in orthopedic surgery at Harvard, he used his vacation time to provide medical treatment in places like Kosovo and Guatemala. But he quickly grew disenchanted. No matter how many surgeries he performed, there was always pressure to do more. The older doctors he knew seemed discontent; many had failed marriages. His disillusion was bewildering, akin to losing faith. But Skowron had lost neither his sense of exceptionalism nor his outsize ambition. Soon after dropping out of Harvard, he decided to go into finance.
His timing was good. Eager to add an intellectual gloss to his already fantastically lucrative empire, Cohen was hiring professionals with Ivy League pedigrees and turning them into specialists in areas like energy and technology. Skowron’s background made him perfect for health care, one of Cohen’s favorite sectors. Instead of saving lives, Skowron could make a fortune tracking real-world events—the discovery of a new treatment, say, or the failure of a clinical trial—that might spark profitable volatility in health care stocks. In 2007, only six years after beginning his career in finance, he made $13.5 million.
Skowron’s fall was jarring. But he quickly had reason to think that, in pleading guilty, he had made the right decision. On his first day in prison, at a medium-security facility in Pennsylvania, another inmate extended his hand.
“Hi,” the man said. “My name is Chip.”
Unbelieving, Skowron replied, “My name is Chip, too.”
“Let’s be clear about this,” the man said. “I’m Chip 1, you’re Chip 2.” Noticing that Skowron was holding a Bible, Chip 1 quoted from Romans: “Just remember that all things work together for good.” They embraced, and Skowron felt confirmed in his newfound belief that he was being guided by God.
About 70 percent of Skowron’s fellow inmates were drug offenders, many of them poor young men of color. He saw gentler versions of Hollywood prison tropes: friction between inmates and guards, black-market intrigue, prisoners who liked to stir chaos just to thwart boredom. But the distance between his expectations of prison life and its reality was vast. Skowron had imagined that things would be horribly dull: rows of men staring into space, counting hours. In fact, prison was dynamic—rich with incident and culture. Some of what happened there seemed to shimmer with biblical resonance. One day, the prison was beset by a plague of snakes; they dropped from a light fixture onto men watching soap operas and rose out of a drain in the shower, where an inmate known as Joe the Greek was bathing. Then there was Chuck, a powerfully built gym buddy of Skowron’s, who began rapidly losing weight. By the time an appropriate doctor was consulted, his cancer was beyond curing.
It wasn’t all grim. One day, an inmate known as Gunz offered to give Skowron a tutorial on curried jack mack, a delicacy involving the bone-in mackerel sold at the commissary. Another prisoner, Kareem Burke, who went by Biggs, provided a pepper and an onion for the dish—a rare stash of fresh produce. Burke, who had cofounded Roc-A-Fella Records in the 1990s with Jay-Z and Damon Dash, was in prison for conspiring to distribute marijuana. Despite their differences, he and Skowron bonded quickly. Both men had lost their mothers at a young age; now, in quick succession, both came to consider themselves born again. Their high-profile friendship attracted others, and they were soon joined by a large group of inmates for regular meetings in Skowron’s bunk. The gatherings resembled AA meetings: discussions of sin, suffering, and the search for meaning and consistency in the wake of trauma. Burke spoke about his guilt for failing to support his older brother, who had been murdered years earlier. Others regretted infidelity. Many admitted their failures as fathers.
Prison ecology isn’t known for rewarding vulnerability, but the bunk became a foxhole, fostering a spirit of confession and mutual reliance. Among the men who met there, Skowron found he could expose himself in a way he had never been able to before. When news of his legal trouble broke, his Greenwich social circle had vanished. He was ejected from his country club, and his family felt humiliated by the publicity. Worried that he might be wearing a wire, former business associates wouldn’t speak to him. The abandonment surprised him. Skowron believed he’d had deep, nuanced relationships. On reflection, he saw that most of them had been based on the conference of status. Virtually none of his old friends visited him in prison.
As his relationships with the other inmates deepened, he became ashamed of his pride in his education and his wealth, which had insulated him in a cocoon of superiority. He saw that it had enabled a false, destructive worldview—the kind that, widely held, abetted mass incarceration. The people in prison were not who he had expected them to be, and prison, he now believed, was not where the vast majority of them belonged. Increasingly, he felt, they were his brothers.
Following his release, in November 2015, Skowron returned to live with his family in Greenwich, where they remained comfortably situated at the house on Doubling Road. There was the pool and there was the billiard room, with its Oriental rug and its Monaco Grand Prix posters. There was the view of the country club. Skowron’s office, paneled in dark wood, was like a stage set, accessorized with props from a prior life: framed credentials on the wall, a shelf dedicated to Ferrari paraphernalia, a photo with George and Barbara Bush.
Skowron was barred from working in the securities industry, but he quickly took ownership stakes in several businesses—apparel, medical marketing, health care, car sales—drawing on many of the same qualities that once made him an effective hedge-fund manager. Within two years, he found himself meeting with a top executive at HSBC, slipping almost seamlessly, he marveled, back into upper-corporate echelons. He enjoyed driving his silver Porsche Panamera, which smelled sweetly of his cologne. He kept his taste for fine wine.
But Greenwich was full of social trip wires. At Whole Foods or the park, Skowron was likely to encounter people he had caused to lose jobs or money. His neighbors were polite but distant. Not long after coming home, Skowron suggested to his wife that they have dinner at Mediterraneo, a favorite restaurant downtown. “I’m not going to that hedge-fund hangout!” she said. Ultimately, citing the Parmesan-encrusted halibut, he convinced her—only to run into Gil Caffray, a founding partner of FrontPoint.
Shortly before going to prison, Skowron had met with Jeff Grant, a former lawyer and onetime Greenwich resident who had spent 14 months in federal prison for wire fraud and money laundering. Grant, who had become a minister, counseled numerous hedge funders during Bharara’s insider-trading probe, and the chilly reception that greeted Skowron in Greenwich was familiar to him. It could seem in part like an aversion to self-knowledge; to interact with men like Skowron was to confront the sometimes suspect means by which the town maintained its status as one of the world’s most privileged enclaves. “It’s a mirror on themselves,” Grant says.
On Friday, Oct. 18, 2019, 9 am ET, Michael Kimelman, a former hedge fund founder and manager who was convicted and incarcerated for a white collar crime (who is a member of our online White Collar Support Group), was our guest on Criminal Justice Insider with Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant – The Voice of CT Criminal Justice. Live on WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven, rebroadcast at 5 pm. Live-streamed and podcast everywhere, see below. Sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – Now More Than Ever.
Michael Kimelman is an expert on disruptive innovation and personal disruption; he uses the lessons of his own life to offer inspiration and insight to others — from formerly incarcerated youth to global CEOs — on overcoming personal and professional challenges. His mission is to empower people with the skills and mindset to become resilient and prosper in the face of adversity. Michael was a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and then founded Incremental Capital, a New York-based hedge fund. He is currently the head of Blockchain Strategic Development at Loop Media, Inc., and is the co-Founder of Crypto.IQ, a strategic advisory and media firm with a focus on digital assets. Michael’s website: https://mikekimelman.com
The Criminal Justice Insider Podcast with Babz Rawls Ivy and Jeff Grant is broadcast live at 9 am ET on the first and third Friday of each month Sept. through June, from the WNHH 103.5 FM studios in New Haven. It is rebroadcast on WNHH at 5 pm ET the same day. Podcast and Archive available all the time, everywhere.
Fri., Sept. 6, 2019: Khalil Cumberbatch, Chief Strategist at New Yorkers United for Justice Fri., Sept. 20, 2019: Aaron T. Kinzel, Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn Fri., Oct. 4, 2019: Charlie Grady, Outreach Specialist for the FBI CT Community Outreach Program Fri., Oct. 18, 2019: Michael Kimelman, Former Hedge Founder and Manager who was Convicted and Incarcerated for a White Collar Crime Fri., Nov. 1, 2019: Corey Brinson, Former Attorney Convicted for a White Collar Crime who is running for Hartford City Council Fri., Nov. 15, 2019: Cathryn Lavery, Ph.D., Professor of Criminal Justice at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY
Season Two Guests:
Fri., Sept. 9, 2018: Kennard Ray, CT Unlock the Vote and Candidate for CT State Legislator Fri., Sept. 21, 2018: Louis L. Reed, National Organizer for #Cut50 Fri., Oct. 5, 2018: Sue Gunderman & Beth Hines, CT Reentry Roundtables Fri., Oct. 19, 2018: Venice Michalsen, Assoc. Professor of Justice Studies, Montclair State University Fri., Nov. 16, 2018: Andrew Clark, Director of the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, Central Connecticut State University Fri., Dec. 7, 2018: Glenn E. Martin, Founder/Consultant of GEM Trainers and Past-President and Founder of JustLeadershipUSA Fri., Dec. 21, 2018: Fernando Muniz, CEO of Community Solutions, Inc., and community leader Rosa Correa. Fri., Jan. 4, 2019: New Years Retrospective Show Looking Back at Past CJI Guests. Fri. Jan. 18, 2019: Peter Henning, Law Prof. at Wayne State University and “White Collar Watch” columnist for the NY Times. Fri., Feb. 1, 2019: Jeffrey Deskovic, CEO of The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation who was Exonerated after Serving 16 Years in Prison Fri., Feb. 15, 2019: Jeffrey Abramowitz, Executive Director for Reentry Services, JEVS Human Services, Philadelphia. Fri., Mar. 1, 2019, Rollin Cook, CT Commissioner of Correction Fri., Mar. 15, 2019: Dieter Tejada, Justice Impacted Criminal Justice Advocate Fri., Apr. 5, 2019: John Rowland, Former CT Governor Fri., Apr. 19, 2019: Gregg D. Caruso, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning & Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland Fri., May 3, 2019: Michael Taylor, CEO of Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center in the Greater New Haven area Fri., May 17, 2019: Tarra Simmons, Esq., Attorney & Criminal Justice Reform Advocate, Washington State Fri., June 7, 2019: Louis L. Reed, National Organizer for #Cut50, Part Deux! Fri., June 21, 2019: Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop
Sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – Now More Than Ever.
On Friday, Oct. 4, 2019, 9 am ET, Charlie Grady, Outreach Specialist for the FBI CT Community Outreach Program, was be our guest on Criminal Justice Insider with Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant – The Voice of CT Criminal Justice. Live on WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven, rebroadcast at 5 pm. Live-streamed and podcast everywhere, see below. Sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – Now More Than Ever.
Listen on SoundCloud:
Watch on YouTube:
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The Criminal Justice Insider Podcast with Babz Rawls Ivy and Jeff Grant is broadcast live at 9 am ET on the first and third Friday of each month Sept. through June, from the WNHH 103.5 FM studios in New Haven. It is rebroadcast on WNHH at 5 pm ET the same day. Podcast and Archive available all the time, everywhere.
Fri., Sept. 6, 2019: Khalil Cumberbatch, Chief Strategist at New Yorkers United for Justice Fri., Sept. 20, 2019: Aaron T. Kinzel, Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn Fri., Oct. 4, 2019: Charlie Grady, Outreach Specialist for the FBI CT Community Outreach Program Fri., Oct. 18, 2019: Michael Kimelman, Former Hedge Funder and Author of Confessions of a Wall Street Insider: A Cautionary Tale of Rats, Feds, and Banksters Fri., Nov. 1, 2019: Corey Brinson, Former Attorney Convicted for a White Collar Crime who is running for Hartford City Council
Fri., Nov. 15, 2019: Cathryn Lavery, Ph.D., Asst. Chair & Graduate Coordinator for the Iona College Criminal Justice Department
Fri., Dec. 6, 2019: “Free Prison Phone Calls” Show, Guests to be Announced.
Fri. Dec. 20, 2019: John Hamilton, CEO, Liberation Programs
Fri., Jan. 17, 2020: Serena Ligouri, Executive Director, New Hour for Women & Children – L.I.
Feb. 7, 2020: David Garlock, Program Director, New Person Ministries, Lancaster, PA
Fri., Mar. 20, 2020: Tiheba Bain
Season Two Guests:
Fri., Sept. 9, 2018: Kennard Ray, CT Unlock the Vote and Candidate for CT State Legislator Fri., Sept. 21, 2018: Louis L. Reed, National Organizer for #Cut50 Fri., Oct. 5, 2018: Sue Gunderman & Beth Hines, CT Reentry Roundtables Fri., Oct. 19, 2018: Venice Michalsen, Assoc. Professor of Justice Studies, Montclair State University Fri., Nov. 16, 2018: Andrew Clark, Director of the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, Central Connecticut State University Fri., Dec. 7, 2018: Glenn E. Martin, Founder/Consultant of GEM Trainers and Past-President and Founder of JustLeadershipUSA Fri., Dec. 21, 2018: Fernando Muniz, CEO of Community Solutions, Inc., and community leader Rosa Correa. Fri., Jan. 4, 2019: New Years Retrospective Show Looking Back at Past CJI Guests. Fri. Jan. 18, 2019: Peter Henning, Law Prof. at Wayne State University and “White Collar Watch” columnist for the NY Times. Fri., Feb. 1, 2019: Jeffrey Deskovic, CEO of The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation who was Exonerated after Serving 16 Years in Prison Fri., Feb. 15, 2019: Jeffrey Abramowitz, Executive Director for Reentry Services, JEVS Human Services, Philadelphia. Fri., Mar. 1, 2019, Rollin Cook, CT Commissioner of Correction Fri., Mar. 15, 2019: Dieter Tejada, Justice Impacted Criminal Justice Advocate Fri., Apr. 5, 2019: John Rowland, Former CT Governor Fri., Apr. 19, 2019: Gregg D. Caruso, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning & Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland Fri., May 3, 2019: Michael Taylor, CEO of Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center in the Greater New Haven area Fri., May 17, 2019: Tarra Simmons, Esq., Attorney & Criminal Justice Reform Advocate, Washington State Fri., June 7, 2019: Louis L. Reed, National Organizer for #Cut50, Part Deux! Fri., June 21, 2019: Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop
Sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – Now More Than Ever.
On Friday, Nov. 1, 2019, 9 am ET, Corey Brinson, a former attorney convicted for a white collar crime who is now a prison and pardons consultant running for Hartford City Council (and a member of our online White Collar/Nonviolent Support Group), was our guest on Criminal Justice Insider with Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant – The Voice of CT Criminal Justice. Live on WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven, rebroadcast at 5 pm. Live-streamed and podcast everywhere, see below. Sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – Now More Than Ever.
Corey Brinson is the founder and chief executive officer of the Second Chance Firm, LLC. Mr. Brinson works closely with professionals who are the subject of federal prosecution and are expected to surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a period of incarceration. Mr. Brinson also works with people with criminal records who are seeking a pardon in the State of Connecticut or with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Brinson is also a registered and active lobbyist in Connecticut and advocates for broad, sweeping criminal justice reform.
Mr. Brinson brings his unique experiences in the criminal justice system to his prison consulting, pardon, and lobbying work. He has experienced the entire criminal justice system. Specifically, he has tried a murder case to verdict, obtained not guilty verdicts in felony cases, represented white-collar defendants in state and federal criminal court, and has argued for criminal defendants at sentencing hearings in federal court. Additionally, he has obtained and advocated for pardons for clients before the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles.
In 2017, Mr. Brinson was convicted in federal court of a white-collar crime related to unlawful banking transactions concerning a client’s multimillion-dollar securities scheme. He served 16 months in a federal prison camp and a halfway house. Mr. Brinson is also a 2018 graduate of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program, which provides inmates with significantly reduced sentences and improved life skills.
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The Criminal Justice Insider Podcast with Babz Rawls Ivy and Jeff Grant is broadcast live at 9 am ET on the first and third Friday of each month Sept. through June, from the WNHH 103.5 FM studios in New Haven. It is rebroadcast on WNHH at 5 pm ET the same day. Podcast and Archive available all the time, everywhere.
Our Facebook Page (best place for information, news, articles, events):
Community Foundation of Greater New Haven website: https://www.cfgnh.org/LeadingOnIssues/IncarcerationandReentry/CriminalJusticeInsiderRadioArchives.aspx
An article about each show is published a few days later in the New Haven Independent (newhavenindependent.org).
Fri., Sept. 6, 2019: Khalil Cumberbatch, Chief Strategist at New Yorkers United for Justice
Fri., Sept. 20, 2019: Aaron T. Kinzel, Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn
Fri., Oct. 4, 2019: Charlie Grady, Outreach Specialist for the FBI CT Community Outreach Program
Fri., Oct. 18, 2019: Michael Kimelman, Former Hedge Funder and Author of Confessions of a Wall Street Insider: A Cautionary Tale of Rats, Feds, and Banksters
Fri., Nov. 1, 2019: Corey Brinson, Former Attorney Convicted for a White Collar Crime who is running for Hartford City Council
Season Two Guests:
Fri., Sept. 9, 2018: Kennard Ray, CT Unlock the Vote and Candidate for CT State Legislator
Fri., Sept. 21, 2018: Louis L. Reed, National Organizer for #Cut50
Fri., Apr. 5, 2019: John Rowland, Former CT Governor
Fri., Apr. 19, 2019: Gregg D. Caruso, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning & Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Fri., May 3, 2019: Michael Taylor, CEO of Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center in the Greater New Haven area
Fri., May 17, 2019: Tarra Simmons, Esq., Attorney & Criminal Justice Reform Advocate, Washington State
Fri., June 7, 2019: Louis L. Reed, National Organizer for #Cut50, Part Deux!
Fri., June 21, 2019: Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop
Sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – Now More Than Ever.
Barbara (Basia) Skudrzyk reported to the Satellite Camp at Greenville Federal Correctional Institution on June 3, 2019 to serve a thirty-three month sentence. She has been a member of our White Collar Support Group for about nine months, and will be writing letters regularly for publication on prisonist.org. Dear Jeff, Thank you for staying in touch and being a tremendous guide during this life-altering experience. It’s day nine here at Greenville, and I would not be as strong and prepared if it weren’t for our team who have gone through the system or just started the process. Having a space that is safe and not being judged is essential to accept what is part of this “captive” experience. I’m sure each Camp/FCI has its own culture and set of rules, but I believe there is one underlying current that can help anyone to get through this journey. This IS a journey, and NOT a destination. Through Progressive Prison Ministries we create an environment, a trust walk, that gives you the integral skillsets to manage a system that doesn’t have readily identifiable rules and guidelines.. In order to get through this journey you have to MOVE and think FORWARD. My best advice in these nine days is to develop a schedule that develops you into who you want to be. In my case, I am awaiting orientation which will be in 3 – 4 weeks. Programming is very limited so the best you can do is request to be wait-listed on whatever you can join. I wake up at 5:30 am, eat breakfast at 6 am, walk the track for 3 miles and then read until lunch. After lunch I go to the education center and volunteer. Yesterday I was able to help a young woman write her first resume. She’s scheduled to leave in two weeks. It was a great exercise and confidence booster knowing she now has some preparation as she has to get a job within fourteen days of leaving. I’ve sat in on the PAWS program to learn more about the process and some of the GED classes. If there’s an opportunity to volunteer while you’re waiting to be considered for a job – do it! Stay active. While sitting writing this letter in the library I observed a woman crocheting. She’s been in the system 8.5 years. I asked if she would be interested in teaching me how to crochet, so now I have another project to fill up my time. As we’ve all been advised, lay low, be humble and do not gossip. There’s plenty of opportunity to engage, but don’t do it! If you open up your mouth like I’ve seen many women do, it’s equivalent to throwing food in a koi pond – the fish are on top of one another waiting for the bait. Don’t be the bait! There’s a PA system with announcements on the hour. I’m trying to decipher what it all means. Depending on where you are and who the announcer is, you can get a lot of “WHA WHA WHA WHA WHA!” Some advice that I would share with someone preparing is continue to keep an open mind, don’t pass judgment – when you’re frustrated run or walk it out. Don’t vent to anyone, just write it all out or lean on your group. Navigating a system of unknowns only gives you strength and resilience for the next day. Don’t fight the system and be okay with hearing “I don’t know” from many people around you. Make sure you have your contact list of friends and family. You can have up to 100 contacts – 30 of these you can only email. Make sure you mail a contact list to yourself the day before you report, with full addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Stay positive and take this time to read what you never had time to read. I’ve read 3 books in one week! You have a $90 budget for commissary, so plan the night before on your essential needs. You can plan on two different outcomes depending which route you take: Route 1: you can put on the pounds by purchasing extra snacks and sweets, or Route 2: focus on essentials only and budget your money on communication and development. Develop a plan to workout and lose those pounds that have developed through all the years. Just as in any environment, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Don’t try to be a super hero or someone who thinks they can change the system. This doesn’t mean giving up. Create a culture within yourself to make yourself stronger, wiser and practical. “Walk cheerfully and with a sincere and open heart as you can, and when you cannot always maintain this holy joy, at least do not lose heart or your trust in God” – Padre Pio Love & Blessings, Basia (or “Webster,” my new camp nickname!)
Barbara (Basia) Skudrzyk reported to the Satellite Camp at Greenville Federal Correctional Institution on June 3, 2019 to serve a thirty-three month sentence. She has been a member of our White Collar Support Group for about nine months, and will be writing letters regularly for publication on prisonist.org.
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for staying in touch and being a tremendous guide during this life-altering experience. It’s day nine here at Greenville, and I would not be as strong and prepared if it weren’t for our team who have gone through the system or just started the process.
Having a space that is safe and not being judged is essential to accept what is part of this “captive” experience. I’m sure each Camp/FCI has its own culture and set of rules, but I believe there is one underlying current that can help anyone to get through this journey. This IS a journey, and NOT a destination. Through Progressive Prison Ministries we create an environment, a trust walk, that gives you the integral skillsets to manage a system that doesn’t have readily identifiable rules and guidelines.. In order to get through this journey you have to MOVE and think FORWARD.
My best advice in these nine days is to develop a schedule that develops you into who you want to be. In my case, I am awaiting orientation which will be in 3 – 4 weeks. Programming is very limited so the best you can do is request to be wait-listed on whatever you can join. I wake up at 5:30 am, eat breakfast at 6 am, walk the track for 3 miles and then read until lunch. After lunch I go to the education center and volunteer. Yesterday I was able to help a young woman write her first resume. She’s scheduled to leave in two weeks. It was a great exercise and confidence booster knowing she now has some preparation as she has to get a job within fourteen days of leaving.
I’ve sat in on the PAWS program to learn more about the process and some of the GED classes. If there’s an opportunity to volunteer while you’re waiting to be considered for a job – do it! Stay active. While sitting writing this letter in the library I observed a woman crocheting. She’s been in the system 8.5 years. I asked if she would be interested in teaching me how to crochet, so now I have another project to fill up my time.
As we’ve all been advised, lay low, be humble and do not gossip. There’s plenty of opportunity to engage, but don’t do it! If you open up your mouth like I’ve seen many women do, it’s equivalent to throwing food in a koi pond – the fish are on top of one another waiting for the bait. Don’t be the bait!
There’s a PA system with announcements on the hour. I’m trying to decipher what it all means. Depending on where you are and who the announcer is, you can get a lot of “WHA WHA WHA WHA WHA!”
Some advice that I would share with someone preparing is continue to keep an open mind, don’t pass judgment – when you’re frustrated run or walk it out. Don’t vent to anyone, just write it all out or lean on your group. Navigating a system of unknowns only gives you strength and resilience for the next day. Don’t fight the system and be okay with hearing “I don’t know” from many people around you.
Make sure you have your contact list of friends and family. You can have up to 100 contacts – 30 of these you can only email. Make sure you mail a contact list to yourself the day before you report, with full addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
Stay positive and take this time to read what you never had time to read. I’ve read 3 books in one week! You have a $90 budget for commissary, so plan the night before on your essential needs. You can plan on two different outcomes depending which route you take: Route 1: you can put on the pounds by purchasing extra snacks and sweets, or Route 2: focus on essentials only and budget your money on communication and development. Develop a plan to workout and lose those pounds that have developed through all the years.
Just as in any environment, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Don’t try to be a super hero or someone who thinks they can change the system. This doesn’t mean giving up. Create a culture within yourself to make yourself stronger, wiser and practical.
“Walk cheerfully and with a sincere and open heart as you can, and when you cannot always maintain this holy joy, at least do not lose heart or your trust in God” – Padre Pio
I received this email from a new member of our Confidential Online White Collar Support Group from Ohio. I was so moved that I had to share it with you. This is exactly why I became a minister to those with white collar and other nonviolent criminal justice issues. Please feel free to email your thoughts and comments to me at [email protected]. – Blessings, Jeff
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I heard Jeff Grant on the Rich Roll podcast about a month ago and knew I had to contact him, if nothing else, just to thank him for opening up and helping me realize that there are many others going through difficult situations…many, much worse than mine.
I emailed Jeff a day or two after the podcast thanking him, and he responded immediately to let me know I could contact him at any time to discuss my situation. That was an invitation I couldn’t pass up. A day or two later I sent him a long email telling him what i had done, the guilt and shame I felt (on the podcast, Jeff clarifies the difference between guilt and shame, something I hadn’t contemplated before), that I was beating myself up daily for the mistakes I had made.
Once again, Jeff responded immediately with five points: 1. He thanked me for trusting him, 2. He told me he did a lot of the same stuff, 3. He told me there is always a way through, 4. He asked me to join his Monday night support group, telling me it’s the isolation that destroys us, and lastly, 5. he asked me how old my kids were. I immediately felt hope, and took him up on his offer to join the support group.
Approximately 13 years ago I signed someone else’s name to several loan documents as a co-signor, someone very close to me. I knew it was wrong. At the time, I thought I was just signing their name, not wanting to think it was as a co-signor…at least that’s the lie I was telling myself. I have not missed a payment since signing the docs, but that doesn’t take away from my transgression.
That was 13 years ago, and not one day has gone by where I haven’t thought about what I did, asking myself how I could have done that. On top of these loans, I piled up more and more debt, to the point of being overwhelmed, I couldn’t see a way out. I was waking up at 1, 2 or 3 times every night, and my mind would immediately go to what I had done. I kept wondering how I could have done this, that I needed to call the lenders and confess what I had done, that I could go to jail, or I could be homeless, what would I do with my belongings, how do I tell my kids and family, what would I do with my cat, and the list goes on. I was literally beating myself up to the point of living with anxiety and being depressed, seeing no way out. I would spend days at work with my head in my hands, looking at co-workers, and telling myself that they would never do something as foolish as what I did…my mind was my prison.
The situation kept getting worse as I made some money in an investment and reinvested it in another company, that has since tanked. I have no idea how it will turn out, but once again, I wondered how I could have been so foolish. I now owed the IRS money, and I have to set up a payment plan with them, just one more entity that I owe money to.
Jeff’s email helped me almost immediately, telling me that he did some of the same things I did, there is always a way through, and it’s the isolation that destroys us…those words helped me more than he knows. I still had to dial into that first support group, which was for me a huge step, one I tried to avoid, but knew it was a critical step to help me get through this, and realize that I’m not alone. I kept seeing Jeff’s words: it’s the isolation that destroys us…he was spot on. I’ve sat through three meetings to date and they’ve helped me immensely. Everyone on the call is so supportive. Everyone is at a different timeline in their journey. Some have gone to prison and are now out doing great things. Some are in the early stages of their journey, scared and wondering what the road ahead holds for them. Some talk about how they will be heading to prison shortly, and speak to their fears of the unknown.
For these people, and really for all of us, Jeff and those who have spent time in prison, are a great source of encouragement and support. I now realize I’m not alone. I realize we all make mistakes, but we’re still good people, and good things can come from our mistakes. Several in the group speak to the fact that their time in jail has actually given them more focus, and given them direction with life post-incarceration. They all want to serve and help others in some capacity. I realize, like Jeff said, there is always a way through.
Jeff called me the day after my first support group meeting and helped talk me through my situation. He made me realize I have a “business issue”, and gave me guidance on how to handle it. He laid out a course of action and suggested I seek counsel from an attorney in my area, which I did immediately (I had been avoiding this for several years). I’ve followed his similar advice and I know I’m going to be okay.
It looks like I will avoid jail time, and I now have a plan on how to “get through” this…as Jeff has pointed out, there is always a way. That being said, the little devil on my shoulder, at times, still want’s to hold me hostage to what I did, so the support group is critical to my healing process.
I’ve attended three meetings, and they’ve become a regular part of my Monday evenings. One last thing that has helped me immensely is saying the Serenity Prayer daily, I cannot change what I did, and I’m much better off accepting my mistakes than beating myself up over them. I cannot change what I did.
Completely unsure how he got there, a man finds himself locked in small shack, on a sandy beach next to the ocean. The shack is very small, and somehow it is also air tight. No air can get in and he starts to panic that he will soon run out of air. There is door in the front of the shack and another at the back.
He runs to try the front door, but it is locked. No matter how hard he shakes the handle or kicks the door, there is no way to get out there. Then he runs to try the back door, but it also is locked solid. He tries to control his breathing, slow it down to save his air, but it is no use – his fear is rising.
Just then he sees a small table in the corner with two objects. A key. And a match.
Relieved, with the key in hand, he rushes again to unlock the front door and escape to the outside, filled with cool air. He tries, but the key does not fit into the the front door lock. It must be for the back. Feeling now a little uneasy, almost weary, he runs to the back door with the key. But the key will not unlock that door either. How could he not have the right key to save him? Who put him in this strange place and left him the wrong key?
The man is left with just a single match as his tool to escape his horrible situation. The air is running out and he feels it getting harder to breathe. He knows that his time is short. He will die if stays in this house any longer. Just before all the air is used up, he wildly strikes the match and uses it to set the house on fire.
The flames grow up the walls and to the ceiling. They encircle him as he cowers in a corner. The house is burning around him, it is getting hot, and the flames are too fierce to jump through. Soon the roof will collapse on top of him. At the very last second, he stands up and with all his might crashes through the burning flames, jumps out of the house and onto the beach just as the roof collapses down in a fiery crash.
Rolling on the sandy beach, he is burned, charred and nearly dead. But he survived. He makes his way to the water and collapses into the cool and comforting blue ocean. Sitting in the water, he starts to understand that although he did not possess the right key to elegantly walk out either of the doors, he had somehow been given a way to escape – even if he had to burn down the whole shack in order to survive.
After a short while he understood that the next choice is his. Will he spend the rest of his life resenting that he had not been given the right key to escape his shack without being burned, or resent all the all other people in the world that had been given the right key to escape their shacks? Or will he heal and recover, in gratitude for the second scarred and broken life he had been given?
Click here to read an excerpt from Jeff’s book, “Down & Out in Greenwich CT: An Insider’s View of Opioid Addiction, Prison and the Road Back to the Boardroom.”
From Defy & Hustle: OPIOID ADDICTION, FRAUD, PRISON & now MINISTRY
Radio/Podcast: Hear the transformational story of Reverend Jeff Grant on Defy & Hustle Radio with Noreen Ehrlich and Kelly Trepanier on WGCH.com or WGCH 1490AM Greenwich in which we discussed ethics, white collar crime, money, morality and learn how Progressive Prison Ministries helps individuals, families and organizations start their lives over after white collar and nonviolent incarceration issues.
He’s been through the darkness and now he helps others regain health and love.
