What to Expect When You're Convicted
May 20, 2025 6:00 AM When a formerly incarcerated 'troubleshooter for the mafia' looked for a second career, he chose the thing he knew best. He became a prison consultant for white-collar criminals. PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: JOHANNA GOODMAN; GETTY IMAGES
From Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud-ridden crypto empire to Elizabeth Holmes' sham biotech company to deepfakers on the internet bilking grandmas of their retirement savings, white-collar crime seems to touch every last corner of tech. For the business titan who may one day end up in custody and can't count on a presidential pardon, it never hurts to know a guy.
WIRED spoke with a self-described former 'troubleshooter for the mafia' who was incarcerated in US penitentiaries for a decade and found a new role for himself on the outside: He became a prison consultant. Now he works with an array of white-collar offenders. He berates and curses the ears off his clients—but it's all part of the no-bullshit approach he says he uses to help them reduce and optimize their time inside.
Once when I was in prison and we were walking out of the dining hall, I stopped and I looked out the window. I said, 'Do you see it?' And the other inmates are like, 'What?' I go, 'It's right there.' And they're stopping and gazing into the sky. Then more people come out of the dining hall and start looking too, and before you know it, so do the correctional officers. Finally, I said: 'Gee, see how easy it is to take control of stupid people?'
I had a prison psychiatrist say that I treated the prison system like it was my own personal amusement park. I was just having too good of a time in there. I would get on the telephone, calling home or whoever, and I'd go, 'Well, if the staff hates me right now, they're going to despise me by this weekend. I have something special planned. I really can't say. The staff's listening in on the phone calls.' So the weekend rolls around, they put extra staff members on duty, wondering, 'All right, what's the dude going to do?' I'm lying in my fucking bunk reading a book. I ain't going to do shit. But I fucking manipulated these people.
I also spent my time helping people. I would help people who were over-sentenced on their charges get into RDAP, the Residential Drug Abuse Program, or an extra halfway house called the Second Chance Act program. I would go through their legal paperwork and say, 'You know what? Let's file in court on this,' and boom, all of a sudden somebody gets resentenced. That made me a folk hero. I thought, 'Well shit, I could turn this into a business.'
When I first got out of custody, there was nobody doing this. My primary clients were people that had financial fraud. Some drug clients, but it was people who ripped people off. Your white-collar offenders. It's people who are scared, angry, and confused. If they reach out to me before they've gone in, I can get them prepared.
Between people on the outside and people on the inside, I may have like 50 clients, maybe 100, at a time. Sometimes my services are free, sometimes they're $3,500, $5,000, $10,000. I even had one guy pay me $50,000. It just depends on the person, their circumstance, what they can afford. I've got four other people who work with me, two women and two men.
When my clients come to me, I tell them: 'OK, so shut the fuck up and listen to what I have to say. You're in deep shit. I'm going to pull your head out of your ass, because your lawyer probably screwed you, made you false fucking promises that they can't keep. First let's take a look at your charges, your federal indictment. What are you charged with? Is it drugs? Is it some type of wire fraud?' And we'll just break your case down.
I'm not a lawyer. I can't give you legal advice. But what I can do is explain the law to you, and I can help you determine whether or not you should go to trial or take a plea agreement. I also teach my clients how to lie on the witness stand effectively, how to beat the polygraph machine. So I'm a full-service kind of business.
I got hit with narcotics trafficking, securities fraud, racketeering, obstruction of justice, and possession of machine guns. I'm not here to fucking judge anybody. I know within five minutes of seeing the indictment whether this person's going to prison. There's no question about it, unless they're ratting people out.
So a dumbass gets sentenced. I have a chemical dependency assessment done on them to determine whether they have a substance abuse issue. If I have a report generated for them and it gets put into their probation report at sentencing and they submit it to the prison, it creates eligibility for them to get into a program to get out up to one year early.
I explain to them it's not what they've seen on TV. I hold their hand and their family's hand, because their families are busy watching prison shows and they're all freaked out. I calm them down. Prison is boring. It's Groundhog Day. Every day is the last day, unless people get into a fight or something. I explain to them the different types of prisons. A majority of my clients go to minimum security institutions, known as federal prison camps. Many have no fences, no walls. They often don't lock the doors.
I'm teaching my clients the politics of prison life—how to deal with staff, how to deal with other inmates. You don't want to hang out with informants or child molesters. And some of the staff members are fucking cuckoo. They're unprofessional. They're not well trained. They have their own emotional and personal issues.
I give people that psychological peace of mind. I have a lot of clients that are family members of people in custody. I'm like a cross between a marriage counselor, a psychologist, a life coach, and a priest. So that calms the people.
My wife said that I need to be nicer to the clients. I think maybe I'm desensitized because I've been doing this shit for so long. I get frustrated. I sometimes go off on people. I say, 'I don't know who's dumber, you or a fucking lawyer, listen the fuck up.' I mean, my ex-wife said I didn't have one ounce of human kindness. She knew me the best.
—As told to Elana Klein
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TechCrunch
27 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
Introducing Bounce, a tool to move your following between Bluesky and Mastodon
A major development showcasing the potential for the open social web was unveiled Thursday at the online conference known as FediForum. From the makers of Bridgy Fed, a tool that connects decentralized open social networks, like Mastodon and Bluesky, there now comes a new project known as Bounce that will allow users to migrate their social network followers across networks powered by different protocols. This is a significant step towards making the open social web a more viable alternative to the locked-in ecosystems provided by tech giants like Meta, Snap, Google, TikTok, and X — and where you may be able to delete your account and export your data when you leave, but not actually migrate your account to a new app. Today, Mastodon, Bluesky, and other social services that run on their protocols (ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, respectively) allow users to move their accounts within their protocol network. That means a Mastodon user can migrate their account to another Mastodon server, while Bluesky allows users to move their accounts and data from one Personal Data Server (PDS) to another. (The latter is still a work in progress because you can move off of Bluesky's PDS but not back to it!) However, it hasn't been possible for users to move their accounts or retain their followings by moving from one network to another. Now led by a nonprofit called A New Social, the makers of Bridgy Fed have developed technology that will make this type of migration possible. Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW Image Credits:Bridgy Fed diagram (A New Social) The tech builds on Bridgy Fed to allow users to 'move' their Bluesky account to their Mastodon profile's bridged account (an account that listens for your Mastodon posts and then replicates them on Bluesky so your Bluesky followers can see them), then take the bridged account and 'move' it to the user's Mastodon profile. How all this works under the hood is technically complicated because both platforms have different ways of handling migrations. That's why Bridgy Fed has to function as something of a middleman, enabling the transition with servers of its own, custom-built for the purpose of bridging and moves. Currently a proof-of-concept, the technology will launch into beta in a few weeks — but not for the casual user. 'I don't want to go as far as saying it's a tech demo, but it was really important to prove that this is possible,' says New Social's CEO and executive director, Anuj Ahooja. There are some complications at present, too. You can't move back to Bluesky's PDS because the social network hasn't built out that technology yet, for starters. Also, if someone on Bluesky who isn't bridged interacts with your 'moved' account, you won't see that once you're on the Mastodon side. But the team is working on developing a feature that will notify you of off-bridge interactions, Ahooja says. In addition, Bounce alerts you to how many of the people you follow aren't bridged, so if they ever do bridge, you can re-follow them. Image Credits:Bounce screenshot (A New Social) Ultimately, the team hopes the technology in Bounce would be obscured from the everyday open social user, who could instead decide simply what app they want to use and then go through a few short steps to move their following. And while today, Bounce supports Bluesky, Mastodon, and Pixelfed (an ActivityPub-based photo-sharing app), the longer-term goal would be to support any open social platform and protocol, whether that's a long-form blogging platform like Ghost, or even other networks like those running on Nostr or Farecaster. 'We're trying to create an interface for the open social web to handle some of these tougher movements that you have to make,' explained Ahooja. 'So, if you're unhappy with something Bluesky is doing — or even if you're not unhappy, but you feel like a platform on the ActivityPub side is doing something that you really needed to do…[you could] do these couple of clicks on Bounce,' he added. Bounce is the third project from A New Social. In addition to Bridgy Fed, the organization also launched a settings page a few weeks ago that makes the process of preparing to bridge easier and allows you to set a custom domain for your account. The overall goal at A New Social is to shift the power of social networks back to the people, not the platform makers, by giving them tools that let them move their account, their followings, and leave if a platform ever fails them in some way. This motto of 'People not Platforms' is now emblazoned on merch A New Social sells, like tees, hoodies, hats, cups, and stickers that help monetize its efforts, alongside its Patreon.
Washington Post
29 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Prince George's teachers union votes no confidence in superintendent
The Prince George's County teachers union issued a vote of no confidence Wednesday in schools Superintendent Millard House II, citing concerns that his leadership has caused 'widespread dysfunction' across Maryland's second-largest school system. About 80 percent of voting members supported the action, the union said, which was conducted via a virtual vote. The vote came as the union is bargaining over its latest contract with the school system. Its current agreement expires June 30.
Fast Company
29 minutes ago
- Fast Company
People are obsessed with the McDonald's Snack Wrap. These files prove it
After nine long years, McDonald's has finally announced the revival of the Snack Wrap, one of its most beloved—and most copied—discontinued menu items. To herald the wrap's return, the brand made an entire digital archive dedicated to documenting fans' fervor for the Snack Wrap. The wrap returns after a number of other fast food chains, including Burger King, Wendy's, Chic-fil-A, and, most recently, Popeyes, have made their own dupes of the item in its absence. McDonald's' attempt to reclaim its Snack Wrap dominance comes as the company continues to face difficult financial headwinds; reporting its second consecutive quarter of sales declines in its first-quarter financial report on May 1. Now, the company is betting on fans' Snack Wrap nostalgia to score a boost this summer. On McDonald's' official website, a cryptic official statement from Joe Erlinger, McDonald's USA president, simply reads, 'It's back.' Accompanying the statement, though, is the link to a website called the Snack Wrap Files that's a wealth of Snack Wrap-based information. Per the site, the Snack Wrap will be made with McDonald's' McCrispy Strips in two flavors: ranch or spicy. It will be available as a combo meal and, at last, it has secured a spot as a permanent menu item. The Snack Wrap Files also serves another purpose: The site, which has a simple, early web vibe, is an archive dedicated to all of the times that McDonald's fans have yearned for the Snack Wrap since 2016. It's back. According to its FAQ section, the Snack Wrap Files was created 'to highlight the bond fans have with the Snack Wrap.' 'The Snack Wrap was phased out nationally in 2016, but it never left fans' hearts,' the website reads. 'From countless social media posts to full-fledged petitions, they never gave up on their favorite menu item. They're the ones who inspired us to make its return to the menu happen.' And McDonald's is dedicated to spinning that return into a dramatic, full-blown campaign. Currently, there are 10 folders on the Snack Wrap Files site, three of which are unlocked for public viewing. A countdown at the top of the page marks the time remaining before the other seven files are unlocked. In the 'Media Materials' folder, users can find official photos of the new Snack Wrap and FAQs about its return. Under 'BTS,' they can take a peek behind the curtain at McDonald's' creative team poring over Snack Wrap ad materials. But 'The Fandom' folder is where the site really shines. Within this section, the McDonald's team has compiled a highlight reel of fans' most fervent pleas for the Snack Wrap's return. Some are on the tamer side, like an email that reads, 'Is it true you're bringing back the Snack Wrap??!! I will be so excited!!!!!!' and another sharing, 'In fact I am 13 weeks pregnant and my biggest craving is something I can't have. I am due July 14th, 2025. Will snack wraps be back before then? Please just give me a hint.' Others take a more desperate tone. 'Where is the snack wrap. You guys promised me 2025, it is 2025. I do not see the snack wrap. Please get back to me, this is an important matter,' reads one inquiry. 'When the snack wraps are dropped I'm going to do a challenge where I try and eat 1,000 in a calendar year,' another says. 'If I record myself and post it on tik tok or something will you give me a reward?' One emailer resorted to a direct threat: 'I hope you're not playing with our emotions because I swear to god the people of the US will riot if you pull the rug from underneath us!' Whew. In three days, 23 hours, and 40 minutes (at the time of this writing), the Snack Wrap Files' cryptic 'Reaction Clips,' 'Merch Concepts,' 'Internal Emails,' 'Promo Codes,' 'Playlist,' 'Voice Note,' and 'Credits' folders will be unlocked.
