The White Collar Support Group will convene its second annual White Collar Conference October 11, 2025 at 9 am on Zoom featuring Jeffrey Toobin and Joe Bankman.
Toobin is the CNN legal analyst who is the author of The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy (Simon & Schuster, 2025) and will open the conference as keynote speaker.
Brent Cassidy will interview Stanford Law Professor Joe Bankman about the trial and tribulations of his son – Sam Bankman-Fried – followed by a panel on pardons and expungement and one on restoration through community.
The lead sponsor of the conference is the law firm Paul Weiss.
Jeff Grant is the founder of the White Collar Support Group.
What is the White Collar Support Group and how did you come to create it?
“I went to prison in 2006 for over 14 months for SBA loan fraud that I committed in 2001,” Grant told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “When I got out of prison, I wanted to do something to help people and families who were in similar situations. We really had no help at all when I got into my criminal justice issues. It was not talked about a lot back then.”
“When I got home from prison, I attended the Union Theological Seminary here in New York City for three years. I earned a Masters of Divinity degree.”
“I became an ordained minister and worked in the churches. In 2013, my wife Lynn Springer and I founded the White Collar Support Group. It was the first ministry and support group devoted to supporting people navigating the white collar criminal justice system.”
“In 2016, we started an online meeting on a precursor of Zoom. Four people attended the first meeting. And in the nine years and 482 meetings we have had since, we have grown to 1,600 members. We meet every Monday night at 7 pm EST. We have other meetings during the week and other initiatives. We are able to provide support. We are supported by a community of people going through the same issues that we have been through.”
You are also one of the few white collar criminal defense attorneys who has spent time in prison for white collar offenses. Are you still practicing?
“Yes. In 2021, my law license was reinstated by the state of New York bar. As far as I know, I am the only practicing white collar attorney in the country who has been to prison for a white collar crime. That gives you a certain amount of street cred with the white collar community. But I hope it also gives me empathy, compassion and understanding and a real appreciation for what the downsides of bad decisions can be.”
Of those 1,600 members, how many of them are former prisoners?
“They come into the support group at different points of entry. Some come in two years before they ever have a criminal justice issue because they are afraid that they might. Some come in in the early days of their justice involvement. Some come in just before sentencing or just before they have to report to prison. And others come in after prison.”
“We have even had people who joined the group ten years post prison because they want to get their lives in order, they feel isolated and they want to come in from their isolation and join a supportive community.”
You have scheduled for October 11 a Zoom white collar conference. Is this your first conference?
“This is actually our second. Last year we did our first and it was well attended. There were 150 people in attendance. This year we expect between 300 and 500 people in attendance. We have some very well known sponsors who are also spreading the message. And we have a great lineup.”
How much does it cost to attend?
“It costs ten dollars to attend. Our emcee is Craig Stanland. The conference is divided into four blocks of time. The first block will feature Jeffrey Toobin, the CNN commentator and author. His latest book is called The Pardon. It’s the story of the Nixon administration. Pardons are a current issue that he will be able to speak about.”
“The second block of time will be an interview by Brent Cassidy. He has a podcast called Nightmare Success In and Out. He will be interviewing Joe Bankman – who is Sam Bankman-Fried’s father. Joe is a Stanford Law Professor as is his wife Barbara Fried. Joe is going to talk to us about the effects on a family where the son is the subject of such a high profile prosecution and what that kind of prosecution put them through and the aftermath.”
What’s his take on his son’s prosecution?
“He feels his son was not treated fairly. His son was clearly on the autism scale and should have been tried and sentenced with the kind of empathy, compassion and understanding for someone who has a mental and emotional disability. They knew from the time he was a child that Sam was different. While I’m sure Sam accepts 100 percent responsibility for his behavior, it was at least understandable or explainable.”
“Joe is going to talk about that. He’s also going to talk about the system itself and how the system grinds people up and grinds families up – not only from the perspective of a father, but someone who had to finance a defense.”
Then you are going to show a video – Reclaiming Your Online Footprint – with Drew Chapin.
“Drew was a Silicon Valley tech startup founder who himself got into trouble. He’s an expert in reputation management. He knows a lot about tech and he will show that five minute video. He has a lot of information about how people can manage their reputations online and hopefully reinvent themselves after prison.”
“The next panel is about pardons and expungement. It’s going to be Mark Osler, Doug Berman and Todd Haugh on that panel. The White Collar Support Group has a federal expungement initiative. We are seeking to get federal expungement legislation introduced into Congress.”
“The power of the pardon is exclusive to the President of the United States. But a pardon is not expungement. The pardon is a forgiveness, but you still have a criminal record. Many states have expungement laws, where you can get your record expunged. But the federal system doesn’t have that. There’s no reason Congress couldn’t pass an expungement law.”
“With all the pardons handed out by Presidents of both parties, we feel it’s time to get bipartisan support for a federal expungement law.”
“The panel is going to address pardons and what life in the criminal justice system would be like if people could exit the system with an expungement so that every sentence doesn’t have to be a life sentence.”
“There are about thirty of us on our federal expungement initiative. The laws themselves are draconian enough. So there should be a way for people to exit the system. In a previous interview, we discussed the differences between individual and corporate criminal prosecutions. Corporations get these deferred and non prosecution agreements. Those are rarely given to individuals. Individuals are stuck with criminal records in the federal system for the rest of their lives. And of course, that affects their livelihoods, it affects their ability to do routine things like being a baseball coach in their son’s baseball league.”
“An expungement would give individuals the opportunity to honestly answer the question – have you ever been arrested or convicted? And the answer would be no. What a wonderful gift that would be if you met the criteria.”
And what would the criteria be?
“I would imagine there would be certain kinds of crimes that would never be eligible for an expungement. You would have to work through a certain amount of time after your release from prison – let’s say seven years. Then there could be some things you would have to do during that time after prison – have a job, pay your child support, volunteer – things like that.”
“But it would be a culture shift and a way for a rising tide to lift all boats. In order to have a job, someone has to give you a job. In order to volunteer, someone has to allow you to volunteer. The culture of pardons and the culture of expungement is such that the entire community is committed to the betterment of the criminal justice system. It helps people navigate their way from problem to pardon, from the entry into the criminal justice system to their exit.”
“Now obviously, not everyone will be eligible to get their record expunged, but even if they don’t get their record expunged, just by trying they will have lived a better life and that will benefit everyone – their children, their families, and society as a whole. It will interrupt the intergenerational cycle of mass incarceration, which is our ultimate goal.”
The final panel is on restoration through community with Michael Gaines, Gina Pendergraph and Pamela Winn. What is meant by restoration by community?
“These are three members of the White Collar Support Group. Each has their own criminal justice system story. And storytelling is a very important part of what we are trying to accomplish. They will talk about how they were able to move from a life of isolation into a life of being part of a larger community that has received them.”
Other than restoration through community, what kind of restoration is there?
“We believe that restoration through community is the only accessible path for most people in the system. Granted, there are people who come home from prison, have access to a lot of money – they have the resources, they have families, they have jobs. And they may think they don’t need community. But the reality is that most of them are living with underlying issues that they fail to address or don’t want to address – issues like shame, stigma, deep seated trauma.”
“People who come into the White Collar Support Group self-select. There are far more people who come home from prison who do not join our group than who do join. People who do join have to do the work. They have to look at themselves and be committed to transformation. Not everybody who comes home from prison is willing to do the work.”
Is it fair to say that the White Collar Support Group was modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous?
“Definitely. I’m 23 years sober and AA changed my life. There is no doubt that was the spiritual center of both my sobriety and then my re-entry back into society after prison. It wasn’t a big leap for me in founding the White Collar Support Group that I would use the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous as the building blocks to put together the group.”
Who are the sponsors for the conference?
“Our conference sponsors – and also of our group – are law firms, bar associations, service providers. Our title sponsor this year is the law firm Paul Weiss. Also the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, the Women’s White Collar Defense Association, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the Legal Action Center – those are a few of our sponsors.”
[For the complete q/a format Interview with Jeff Grant see 39 Corporate Crime Reporter 36(13), September 22, 2025, print edition only.]