The hardest thing about going to prison is knowing you're going to prison. That sounds silly, but if you think about it, the mental aspect of prison, at least the camp I went to, is harder than the physical aspect of actually being in prison. A prison is a physical place, but it's also a state of mind. My mental prison started in July 2015. Physical prison started in August 2018 and lasted only 119 days, but my mental prison has been nearly three years and counting.
Despite my short sentence, I think the DOJ went overboard on me. I think they piled onto an SEC investigation and made an example out of me simply because they could. I recall watching CNBC in May 2017 and Leon Cooperman was on talking about the active SEC investigation into his trading at Omega. They were coming after him for insider trading, alleging he made $4.9 million in illicit profits. Cooperman called the aggressiveness of the SEC, "Way out of proportion to what was reasonable. The process was totally abusive. It's a problem that the government should address," he said. But Cooperman was never prosecuted by the DOJ.
The SEC can be rather aggressive at times. The key is, Cooperman had the money to fight them. He eventually settled, like most do, but not without aggressively defending himself in public. Not many have fought the SEC and won. I admire the hell out of Linda Tilton. She fought the SEC against bogus fraud charges totaling $200 million for eight years, refusing to be bullied into settling like so many others. She fought back and won. God bless her!
I didn't have the money nor the will to fight them like Leon or Linda. I was guilty and assumed it would all be handled in the civil case. No need to file criminal charges, mens rea I figured. Instead, I got made an example of. I was pretty bitter. I've always been a good, honest, law-abiding citizen. A decent person. A people person.
Except now I've been to prison. Prison! With drug dealers and violent criminals! With credit card thieves, gun-runners, tax evaders, fraudsters, and money launderers. It's surreal.
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