Politicians, Prison & Penitence on the White Collar Week Podcast with Jeff Grant
Jeffrey D. Grant
Private General Counsel/White Collar Attorney at GrantLaw, PLLC, White Collar Support Group, Featured in The New Yorker & on the Rich Roll Podcast
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Ep. 16, Guest: Bridgeport, CT Mayor Joseph Ganim
Today on the podcast, we have Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim. After five terms as the mayor of the largest city in the state of Connecticut from 1991 to 2003, Joe was brought down in a corruption scandal for which he served six years in a federal prison. After his release from prison, in 2015 Joe ran again for mayor of Bridgeport and he was reelected. He is currently serving his seventh term as mayor.
Controversial? Sure. But what I find most fascinating about Joe is his resilience and resourcefulness - his willingness to take risks and subject himself to public scrutiny after all he'd been through. Certainly, his story is a lesson to other people convicted of felonies that life is not over once you go to prison.
Full disclosure: In 2016 and 2017, I served as Co-Chairperson of the Advisory Board to the City of Bridgeport Mayor's Initiative on Reentry Affairs.
So coming up, Mayor Joseph Ganim on White Collar Week. I hope you will join us. - Jeff
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White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Ep. 13: Everything but Bridgegate with Bill Baroni
Today on the podcast, we have as our guest, Bill Baroni – or as they called him in federal prison, Billy Bridgegate.
Bill was arrested, tried, found guilty and served time for his role in the infamous Bridgegate corruption scandal that destroyed the presidential aspirations of former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie. Bill’s conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court! Today he is felony-free and talks with us about his journey.
We are calling this episode “Everything but Bridgegate” because Bill can’t discuss the nuts and bolts of the scandal due to pending legal matters. But what Bill does share with us is an amazing story of power, abuse of power, ambition, navigation of the criminal justice system as it applies to people prosecuted for white collar crimes, and ultimate vindication.
So coming up, Everything but Bridgegate. Bill Baroni. On White Collar Week. I hope you will join us. – Jeff
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If you have a friend, family member, colleague or client with a white collar justice issue, please forward this email; they can reach us anytime – day or night! Our contact info: https://prisonist.org/contact-us.
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You can find all episodes of our podcast “White Collar Week with Jeff Grant” on our website prisonist.org, our Facebook page, Podbean, YouTube (video), SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Information About our White Collar Support Group…
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All Episodes:
Link here to Podcast Ep. 15: A Brave Talk About Suicide, with Guests Bob Flanagan, Elizabeth Kelley, & Meredith Atwood
Link here to Podcast Ep. 14: Recovery & Neighborhood, with Guest: Tom Scott
Link here to Podcast Ep. 13: Everything but Bridgegate, with Guest: Bill Baroni
Link here to Podcast Ep. 12: The Truth-Tellers, with Guests: Holli Coulman & Larry Levine
Link here to Podcast Ep. 11: The Blank Canvas, with Guest: Craig Stanland
Link here to Podcast Ep. 10: The Ministers, with Guests: Father Joe Ciccone & Father Rix Thorsell
Link here to Podcast Ep. 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest: Taxgirl Kelly Phillips Erb.
Link here to Podcast 08: The Academics, with guests Jessica Henry (Montclair State), Cathryn Lavery (Pace University), Erin Harbinson (University of Minnesota & Jay Kennedy (Michigan State).
Link here to Podcast Ep. 07: White Collar Wives. with Guests: Lynn Springer, Cassie Monaco & Julie Bennett. Special Guest: Skylar Cluett
Link here to Podcast Ep. 06: Madoff Talks, with Guest: Jim Campbell
Link here to Podcast Ep. 05: Trauma and Healing when Mom goes to Prison, with Guests Jacqueline Polverari and her daughters Alexa and Maria.
Link here to Podcast Ep. 04: One-on-One with Tipper X: Tom Hardin
Link here to Podcast Ep. 03: Compassionate Lawyering: Guests, Chris Poulos, Corey Brinson, Bob Herbst & George Hritz.
Link here to Podcast Ep. 02: Substance Abuse & Recovery During COVID-19: Guests, Trevor Shevin & Joshua Cagney
Link here to Podcast Ep. 01: Prison & Reentry in the Age of COVID-19: An Evening with Our White Collar Support Group.
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Welcome to White Collar Week with Jeff Grant.
It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is in community.
If you are interested in this podcast, then you are probably already a member of the white collar justice community – even if you don’t quite know it yet. Our community is certainly made up of people being prosecuted, or who have already been prosecuted, for white collar crimes. But it is also made up of the spouses, children and families of those prosecuted for white collar crimes – these are the first victims of white collar crime. And the community also consists of the other victims, both direct and indirect, and those in the wider white collar ecosystem like friends, colleagues, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, law enforcement, academics, researchers, investigators, mitigation experts, parole & probation officers, corrections officers, reentry professionals, mental health care professionals, drug and alcohol counselors – and ministers, chaplains and advocates for criminal and social justice reform. The list goes on and on…
Our mission is to introduce you to other members of the white collar justice community, to hear their very personal stories, and hopefully gain a broader perspective of what this is really all about. Maybe this will inspire some deeper thoughts and introspection? Maybe it will inspire some empathy and compassion for people you might otherwise resent or dismiss? And maybe it will help lift us all out of our own isolation and into community, so we can learn to live again in the sunshine of the spirit.
Along the way, I’ll share with you some of the things I’ve learned in my own journey from successful lawyer, to prescription opioid addict, white collar crime, suicide attempt, disbarment, destruction of my marriage, and the almost 14 months I served in a Federal prison. And also my recovery, love story I share with my wife Lynn Springer, after prison earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, pastoring in an inner city church in Bridgeport CT, and then co-founding with Lynn in Greenwich CT, Progressive Prison Ministries, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community. It’s been quite a ride, but I firmly believe that the best is yet to come.
So I invite you to come along with me as we experience something new, and bold, and different – a podcast that serves the entire white collar justice community. I hope you will join me.
Blessings, ?????
Jeff
Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div. works with people prosecuted for white collar crimes (and their families) who want to come out of isolation and join a supportive community that will help them navigate their journeys through the criminal justice system – to new ethical, productive, joyful lives on the other side of their issues.
He is Co-Founder of Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community. The ministry hosts an online White Collar Support Group every Monday night. After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison for a white-collar crime he committed when he was a lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry — earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York with a focus in Social Ethics.
