Our way of life and the freedoms we enjoy are worth defending, but there are no written instructions on how to live life, or a “how-to guide” for those moments when your gut tells you that you are doing the right thing, only to find out that you are violating the law. Just like you and thousands of others, I found out the hard way that the actions I took violated laws and were considered a pre-planned conspiracy, or a scheme to defraud under U.S. Title 18. I make no excuses for my actions, and I deeply regret making the wrong choices, but in the words of Henry Ford, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”
This is my journey: I am a U.S. Citizen born in December, 1963 in the Dominican Republic, to an Evangelical family. My father was a Pastor and Missionary, and my mother graduated from Missionary school and afterwards pursued a career in Nursing. I am a father of five. I have four wonderful biological children who are grown, and I made sure they are well educated, and my adopted son, who is now my youngest protégé.
My brother and I experienced exceptional hardship during childhood. Our mother could not deal with the sacrifices of a missionary life, and divorced my father when I was only six years old, and started a new life for herself. My brother and I were abandoned in a strict and remote boarding school. I would not see my mother again till the age of 22. As a missionary family, we traveled constantly throughout Central and South America. We could never attend school, and friends, “well,” I was never able to make any friends in the few months we spent in each country. We were also left in El Salvador for two years alone by our father, and as fate would have it, an insurgency war broke out against the government. We saw human nature at its worst. Nightly gun battles and tank shells falling in our neighborhood. I saw bodies of young boys, “guerrillas” as they called them, lying dead on the street every morning.
As challenging as that was, we finally came back to the United States, and I had no education, no supportive family structure, and poor communication skills. The only thing I had going for myself was a desire to learn and do better. I started working at the age of 16 washing dishes at a restaurant, got married at 19 years old, and had a child by the age of 21. While working for a financial services company in Chicago as a mail clerk, I worked hard to learn every aspect of the business. During my free time, I asked other department managers to let me learn what they did, networking was important to me. Two years later, thinking I was ready for a manager’s job that came open, I applied within the company. “I learned a hard lesson.” They would not give me a promotion because I had no education.
Determined to fix that problem, I enrolled in a free GED program, and English as a second language classes, and three months later, with my certificate in hand, I took out loans, and I enrolled in college. After 18 months of working full time and taking night and weekend classes. I was approached by a friend to interview for a management position at the bank where she worked. This was a great opportunity for me to start a career in finance.
I became a Bank Manager in my mid-20s, and to be honest, I was lost. I had no management experience, no completed college degree, and had to direct a large department where every employee was older than me. So I read books on effective management to teach myself. It was sometimes difficult to juggle work, college, and family at the same time. While I thought I was a superhero, in reality, I was diluted. My marriage failed, as I had no time to dedicate to my family and the important things in life, like the two children I then had. We divorced, and I became the background father who only saw his kids on visitation days and two weekends a month. My lack of a supportive family upbringing had made relationships difficult. My new mission became making more money to provide a good life for my children.
All throughout my adult life, I have felt a need to help people. I believe the hardship I experienced growing up, coupled with my religious upbringing, the missionary work my father did, and how selfless and compassionate he was, ultimately left me with a sense of purpose. At my bank job, I volunteered for community outreach programs, but I felt trapped in a dry corporate world where titles and dollars made the person, and I began to feel empty. Soon, the suits, the nice car, and the comfortable flat on the lakefront began to feel false.
My brother and I separated for a few years, but he had a similar career path. I came to find out he had also struggled and had to educate himself through books, seminars, and courses. He was now an accomplished consultant to the Hotel Industry.
In September 1996, he contacted me and asked if I would visit him in Ohio to discuss a possible business opportunity. He was on a consulting project for a major U.S. hotel chain. I arrived in Dublin, Ohio, and met my brother, and he showed me the town. While driving, he explained that Ohio at the time had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. He also said that as a result, there seemed to be more jobs than people needed to work at the hotels. We brainstormed, and the idea took shape. We needed to create a company to bring new employees to central Ohio and solve a problem. The most appealing part to us was the opportunity to help people in need of work in other states with high unemployment. We had found our calling!
To make a long story short, we developed a business plan, I quit my job in Chicago, and three weeks later packed and moved my belongings to Ohio. We started working out of the basement of a small townhome, and it became our operations center. We sold the idea to our first hotel client and started relocating people from New York, Chicago, and Michigan. We had no experience in the staffing business, but we educated ourselves, and before long, we had brought hundreds of families to Ohio. Our company took off, and many years later, after our humble beginnings, we grew the company for the next 21 years, and reached sales of $160 million a year.
Reflecting back on our success, I can now see that the struggles we endured as children, the hardship we experienced as teenagers, and the lack of a family structure may have given us resilience and a fighting spirit. We became determined to succeed, and by all accounts, we did. Imagine two poorly educated Hispanic boys who grew up without a mother, financial help, or support, managed to create a large company and employ over 200,000 people. Our company became widely known and operated in 22 states, our employees admired the work we did, our humanitarian nature, and the many awards we received for helping minorities just like us. We were blessed for doing good!
How did you get here, you might ask? The answer is simple and goes back to what I said in the beginning. There is no “how-to guide.” In life, there are moments when doing the right thing in your mind can have dire consequences. Driven by a passion for our employees and to save the company we created and cherished for 21 years. We acted in the only way we knew how; instinctively, we justified our actions as caring not for ourselves, but for the greater good. We saved our company from failure, we saved thousands of employees from losing their jobs, but in the process, we violated laws that we were not aware of. No excuses, we took responsibility for our actions and faced sentencing. In the words of the judge who presided over our case:
“You were driven not by Greed, but by Passion for the company you created.” “You should feel good because your company is doing well, unlike many other cases I see.”
Since my indictment, and while under home incarceration for four and a half years, I focused on positivity, making amends, self-improvement, supporting my family, and making positive contributions to society. I started an online business, then became a Consultant in the Renewable Energy Industry, and also held a second job as an Electric Vehicle Consultant. I am also working on a tech business plan for a new company.
I deeply regret the actions I took, and I will not be doing that again. On May 29th, 2025, like many of you, I will be reporting to a Federal Prison Camp to serve a 38-month sentence. I have prepared over the past four and a half years for this moment. I will journalize my experience for those who wish to gain insights, reflect, rehabilitate, read, and learn, and prepare for all the good opportunities that life will bring.
Joining Prison Professors and getting to know Michael Santos’ story have been inspirational to me. With my experience in the employment field, I hope to help provide a path for my fellow inmates to rejoin society, find the perfect job, and become successful. I hope to be an inspiration to those who read my journals.
