My name is Justin Paperny, and I’m writing this biography from the Taft Federal Prison Camp. I never expected to be incarcerated, but I know I can’t blame anyone else but me for the challenges I’m enduring.
I violated securities laws. As a result, I victimized the profession I pledged to serve. I contributed to the loss of resources for investors, and hurt my family–among others. While serving this sentence, I am building plans to make amends. I have to find a way to rebuild and live as a contributing member of society.
My parents gave me every opportunity to live productively, and from an early age, I believed I was destined for success.
I was born on January 22, 1975, in Tarzana, California. I excelled in sports, especially baseball. My parents supported me, and coordinated me for me to play on great teams. Baseball became my passion, leading me to Montclair College Preparatory School, where I graduated in 1993. My skills on the field opened doors, and I got to play on several World Series teams. After graduating high school, baseball coaches at the University of Southern California invited me to play on the team. I looked forward to making a mark on the world.
While playing on the USC Baseball team, I also completed academic courses that led to my Bachelor of Arts degree in 1997. I played with many talented athletes, and quickly realized that while many of them would advance to the major leagues, I’d have to find a way to earn a living after graduating.
I began my career in the financial services sector, with Merrill Lynch. I went through their training program, studying for the necessary licenses to become a stockbroker. I worked hard to build a book of business, and advanced my career by moving to opportunities when other brokerage houses recruited me. After Merrill Lynch, I transitioned to Crowell Weedon, Bear Stearns, and then UBS. As a young man I was ambitious, hungry, and driven to succeed. My clients were high-profile athletes and influential hedge fund managers, and I thrived on managing their substantial portfolios.
Yet, somewhere along the way, ambition blurred my judgment.
In 2003, one of my clients, a hedge-fund manager, started to manipulate records to suggest his fund was performing well. He led his clients to believe their accounts were performing well, when the hedge fund manager had made trades that resulted in substantial losses for people who trusted him.
I learned about his fraudulent manipulation of records. Yet rather than abiding by my responsibility and doing the right thing, I looked the other way, feigning ignorance of what he was doing. Those actions resulted in a government investigation, which in turn led to a criminal charge for violating securities laws.
The ordeal shattered my life for a while. In the beginning, I didn’t have the good character to accept responsibility and move forward. After several bad decisions that exacerbated my problems, I accepted a plea agreement and admitted to violating securities laws in the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse. Judge Wilson sentenced me to an 18-month sentence.
I’d never known anyone who’d been arrested or served time in prison. Since I didn’t know anything about life in prison, I didn’t know how to prepare. Several months passed before I went to prison. I felt as if I was serving time, but the time didn’t count toward the completion of my sentence. I ate too much, and spent too much time with the pillow over my head trying to make sense of all that had gone wrong in my life.
Despite pleading guilty, I hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that my problems stemmed from my own bad decisions.
Unexpectedly, life began to get better soon after I surrendered to the federal prison camp. I made a friend who’d been incarcerated longer than two decades–and he still had several years to go. His name is Michael Santos, and when I told him that I had surrendered to serve an 18-month sentence, he said that he’d serve it with me–which made me laugh, but also somehow eased my burden a bit.
Despite serving more time than I could comprehend, Michael had a lot of energy and hope. He always seemed to be working toward something positive, focused on the life he intended to build once he got out. He intended to build a career around all that he’d learned while serving decades in prison, and he expected that he’d be able to leverage his work in ways to change the system. While serving his sentence, he’d earned university degrees and published books that university professors relied upon to teach people in prison.
We began working closely together. I shared with him the lessons I’d learned about business and investing, and he helped me stay productive in prison. He got me on a plan of waking early, writing daily, and memorializing all the steps that I’ve been taking to prepare for the next phase of my career. The idea is that I’ll build a consulting business to people who have the same kind of turmoil that complicated my life for the past several years.
I could have used that guidance at various stages. Instead of complaining about what I didn’t do in the past, however, I could work toward doing better while I’m serving this sentence. Some of the projects that I’ve completed so far include:
- Finishing a manuscript that I’m titling Lessons from Prison.
- Writing a daily blog that describes how I’ve been using my time inside.
- Completed several personal-development projects that I’ve enjoyed.
- Worked on a business plan for the consulting practice I intend to build.
All these efforts, I hope, will put me in better standing when I transfer out of here. I surrendered on April 28, 2008, and after more than ten months inside, I’m super excited to have news that I’ll be transferring to the halfway house on May 20, 2009.
