This transcript was auto generated using Adobe Premier Pro.
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Gregg Sofer
Ever wonder what is going on behind the scenes as the government investigates criminal cases? Are you interested in the strategies the government employs when bringing prosecutions? I'm your host, Gregg Sofer, and along with my colleagues in Husch Blackwell's White Collar Internal Investigations and Compliance Team, we will bring to bear over 200 years of experience inside the government to provide you and your business thought provoking and topical legal analysis.
00;00;31;18 - 00;01;02;26
Gregg Sofer
As we discuss some of the country's most interesting criminal cases and issues related to compliance and internal investigations. Welcome back to the Justice Insiders podcast. I'm your host, Gregg Sofer. And today we're concluding our three part series of posts titled Crime and Punishment A Unique Dual Perspective Look at an individual federal government investigation that took place in Miami, Florida and involved mortgage fraud.
00;01;03;23 - 00;01;28;27
Gregg Sofer
We're fortunate again to be joined by both the lead prosecutor in that case, Joe Capone, as well as one of the targets of the investigation, Rashmi Airan, in parts one and two, which can be found on our podcast website if you haven't had a chance to listen to them yet. We covered the origins and nature of the fraud at the heart of the investigation, the timeline of the investigation from both Joe's and Rami's perspectives and the eventual indictment and guilty plea.
00;01;29;26 - 00;01;49;25
Gregg Sofer
Today, we're going to discuss more of the aftermath of the investigation and how it impacted Rashmi and our family in particular. And Joe, I want to start with you, because it must have been clear once you came into regular contact with Rashmi as a cooperating witness, that she is quite an extraordinary person. What makes her such a unique person in this story?
00;01;50;25 - 00;02;11;03
Joe Capone
I'm not exaggerating. I read upwards of 50,000 of Rashmi's emails. She just turned over wholesale the hard drive full of emails which are text and put them in a format I can read and review. And she and David didn't try to pick out stuff that was personal or had nothing to do with the case.
00;02;11;21 - 00;02;14;02
Rashmi Airan
Now, Joe.
00;02;14;25 - 00;02;36;22
Joe Capone
Had to read them all because there were many times when an email title might say, you know, fundraiser for so-and-so politician. But there was an off sentence in there that would say, and by the way, we have a closing coming up and I need to get the incentive for them. I need to get the documents. So I couldn't just blow off emails because they appeared from their title or subject line to be innocuous.
00;02;36;22 - 00;03;00;28
Joe Capone
So if you read 50,000 of anybody's emails, you'll get a good sense of the type of person they are. You just I mean, you just can't help but yeah. Spending time with her. But you know, I mean, we're talking about a lengthy investigation. I had a really good sense of Rashmi and I mean, it's better now that we've continued our friendship and talked so many times since all this.
00;03;00;28 - 00;03;35;01
Joe Capone
But I think what I saw in her, what I see in her now is this person who has the ability. She's very, very bright. And that's the ability to zero in on something, almost to the point of obsessiveness, getting something done, accomplishing something. When she was doing this closings for this condominium complex, she was laser focused on getting, you know, getting this done, getting this creating the strategy for for a way to close these units where the developer could pay incentives and just laser focused on getting that done.
00;03;35;15 - 00;04;08;09
Joe Capone
Once she became under investigation, she was laser focused on convincing the government she had done nothing wrong. Once she acknowledged she had done something wrong, she was laser focused on completely cooperating and doing whatever it took to review documents and answer our questions. And so there's a personality trait here, and I've seen it in her new career. Now she is when she gets a hold of something and she wants to achieve, she's energy and smarts, laser focused on getting it done.
00;04;08;09 - 00;04;29;16
Joe Capone
And I've just seen that time and time again. And so it didn't surprise me when we started spending all this time cooperating and ready for trial because I had a sense of her at that point in time that that's the way she was going to be. And she was I mean, she turned stuff around in a day. If I emailed David and said, I've got a question about this file, this closing, what is this document mean?
00;04;29;16 - 00;04;32;13
Joe Capone
I mean, in a couple of hours, I would get a response back.
00;04;33;24 - 00;04;40;05
Gregg Sofer
So let's skip ahead. Was there a trial and tell us what happened?
00;04;40;05 - 00;04;47;08
Rashmi Airan
The trial was in April. Go back to your side of the.
00;04;47;08 - 00;05;08;15
Gregg Sofer
Well, you know, that's a that's a nice thing. I mean, look, the fact of the matter is, again, this is such an unusual situation to see a prosecutor in someone who they prosecuted, have these discussions and learn so much about each other. It just it's a different aspect of the system that I think almost never happens. It'd be nice if you could do this in every case.
00;05;09;05 - 00;05;29;28
Gregg Sofer
I think as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney, even just to be able to show the true person to the people who are making decisions about what what's going to happen in those folks lives, it doesn't happen. Most cases are processed in a way where you don't get that kind of in intimate sort of interaction often enough to to really get to know someone the way you've described.
00;05;30;12 - 00;05;48;25
Joe Capone
Mean. But from my perspective, most people who go through this, of all the defendants I've ever prosecuted, there's been very, very few of them where I felt, you know, really friendly towards them at the end. I mean, there were a number of defendants who I liked. I thought there were basically good people who made bad decisions and did wrong things.
00;05;49;27 - 00;06;16;20
Joe Capone
But I've never encountered a person I prosecuted who not only, you know, completely threw themselves into confessing and acknowledging and admitting they did, but who wants to keep reliving it over and over again? Most people really that I've encountered, you know, even the ones who are completely forthright and honest, they plead guilty to accept their punishment, put it behind them.
00;06;16;20 - 00;06;39;03
Joe Capone
They don't ever want to think about it again. They just move on. It's in the past and that's it. But Rashmians career choice or second career now involves or kind of reliving this over and over and over and making a kind of making a deal out of telling people all about it and and keeping them from doing what she did wrong.
00;06;39;17 - 00;06;55;13
Joe Capone
And that's unique and unusual. And in my experience and I think that's why this has gone the way it's gone, why we've stayed friendly with each other and and this has continued on and we've gotten to know each other is because of that. That made a big difference.
00;06;55;13 - 00;07;17;00
Gregg Sofer
And Rashmi, I guess this is a good time as any for you to discuss that. I mean, why not? Obviously, these were painful times. It sounds like it required you to completely rethink your life, what what success was, what the kind of potential consequences for your reputation were enormous. You had built all of this, and here it came tumbling down.
00;07;17;19 - 00;07;34;29
Gregg Sofer
Why not just go do your time, which we will eventually get a little bit to going to prison and then just completely forget about this, completely get this off the radar screen. Move on with your life. Why? Why are you still focused on it? What what are the good things that are coming out of it?
00;07;35;29 - 00;08;03;02
Rashmi Airan
So I would I guess it started because when I came home from prison, well, even when I was going through this investigation, not investigation, sentencing phase, when I got to the point of seeing in sentencing, preparing for sentencing, I like I said, I became very spiritual. So I ended up having like a very positive outlook in a very weird way.
00;08;03;05 - 00;08;26;18
Rashmi Airan
I guess I had the mindset that I don't know why this is happening, God, but I'm going to trust you. And you, if anybody is listening to this podcast and is offended by using the word God, I'm not trying to offend anybody. But let's just say the universe like higher power, whatever it is you believe. I definitely had this feeling that I don't know what's to come of this, but I really believe that something good will come from this.
00;08;27;06 - 00;08;51;10
Rashmi Airan
And so I'm just going to go with this and have faith. So, you know, this was what my family, my friends, everybody felt this from me because this is how I was living every day, not knowing at this point what my sentence was going to be and what would happen to my children like all of that. And so, you know, fast forward, I come home and I had been this person all throughout even the day I left for prison.
00;08;51;10 - 00;09;13;16
Rashmi Airan
Yes, there were a lot of tears, but even on the day I left. So when I came home, actually, David was the first person that said, you know, the way you have handled this is so unique. You know, you if you feel comfortable talking about it, you should apply the title. So that was kind of the first notion and it really was just to help people through my story.
00;09;14;26 - 00;09;35;29
Rashmi Airan
And I don't know, I applied to like five TED talks. In the meantime, I wrote to my Columbia law professor Nice. He wasn't my professor. He was the head of the criminal law section at Columbia. I had never taken a criminal class at all and I kind of cold call wrote him and I sent him an email. I said, This is why I am I'm a, you know, class of 98 grad.
00;09;35;29 - 00;09;52;26
Rashmi Airan
I was Ted scholar, top of my class. This is what my life story is. This is what I've just gone through. Would you allow me to come and share my story with. He taught a seminar called White Collar Crime Black Letter Law. I join you with Judge Rakoff and I'm in Rakoff in the Southern District is an amazing judge.
00;09;53;11 - 00;10;11;06
Rashmi Airan
And so I said, would you allow me to come in and share my story? And so my probation officer had allowed me to travel and she said, As long as you go spend your money. And I had a bunch of miles saved up. And I say, you stayed with a family friend. So that's how I flew up there.
00;10;11;10 - 00;10;39;29
Rashmi Airan
And that was how it started. Like you let me come in. Judge Rakoff took me to dinner that night with Professor Coffee, and from there word began to spread. I then got accepted into a TED talk, and as I as I prepared my TED, I saw this really kind of how I understood what the power of my story is, which is, of course, aside from the fact that I took accountability and I'm very vulnerable and that has definitely developed over time.
00;10;40;23 - 00;11;06;08
Rashmi Airan
I wrote a lot of Bernie Brown, and that's giving me a lot of courage. She's given me a lot of courage, but I would say that over time I have come to understand the power of, you know, what decision decision making means when you're a young professional does not matter what profession you're in and how every single decision matters and how ethics matter.
00;11;06;18 - 00;11;31;08
Rashmi Airan
And so it sort of has coincided with the huge push sort of globally for ethics and compliance training and risk management. And so I think I've gotten a lot of traction because there are a few other people like me, former felons that share their story, but they do it. I would say no offense to either of you, but they're both white men.
00;11;31;13 - 00;11;42;16
Rashmi Airan
They're all, you know, the two or three of them that I know are white men. And I'm not. And I don't fit the mold of a typical white collar crime criminal.
00;11;43;17 - 00;12;11;10
Gregg Sofer
Okay. So well, let's skip ahead to after the trial. The trial defendant is sentenced, trust me, is now going to be facing a federal judge to sentence her. I assume it was the same federal judge who heard the actual trial testimony so that sometimes is helpful also because at least that judge got to see you Rashmi, sort of lay all this out, got to know you for a long period of time.
00;12;12;29 - 00;12;14;20
Gregg Sofer
Tell us a little bit about the sentencing.
00;12;15;10 - 00;12;38;18
Rashmi Airan
Yeah. So I'll back up because prior to me testifying once I planned, which is December 2014, right before Christmas, I made a very conscious decision that I was going to tell everybody in my life. So this was like the beginning of me holding myself accountable and sharing it with people. And I really did not know if the US Attorney's Office would issue a press release.
00;12;38;18 - 00;12;57;19
Rashmi Airan
I think there was maybe a minor one. I don't remember, but I just I know enough people in Miami that I just didn't want people to read about it or hear about it except for me. So I made a spreadsheet. I started calling people in my life and one by one I would pick up the phone and I would share the story completely and cry and recall.
00;12;57;19 - 00;13;23;10
Rashmi Airan
And, you know, people were shocked and at the end of every call to ask people to write a letter of support for me, I would say out of the 200 or so calls that I made, only one person surprised me and she actually just passed away two weeks ago. She was like a second mom to me and feeling so hurt that she said the things that she said to me.
00;13;23;10 - 00;13;45;04
Rashmi Airan
But I to let it go like out of 201 person is not such bad odds. The judge got 182 letters of support in my favor. And so, first of all, that process was very healing for me, right? Because I mean, we're talking I call people from elementary school that I hadn't talked to high school, college, law school, my investment banking days.
00;13;45;04 - 00;14;11;28
Rashmi Airan
And then I called people I called my kids friends, parents, my kids teachers. I called everybody and everyone wrote me letters. And then on top of that, David had made the decision that instead of trying to call character witnesses at sentencing, that he wanted to try to create a sentencing video. So because we had in his eyes, he said, we have so many incredible people and content that are very valuable.
00;14;11;28 - 00;14;28;13
Rashmi Airan
I won't be able to call more than two or three witnesses at a sentencing hearing. And there's way more than that that we want to make sure the judge hears from. So that's like, what do you think about the idea of having a sentencing video? And I was like, this is your territory. I have no idea if this is what you recommend.
00;14;28;13 - 00;14;54;10
Rashmi Airan
David I trust you 100%. So whatever you recommend is what we'll do. So he he knew Billy Corben from something else, like they were friends. And if you have a Billy Corben is that he's a documentary producer. He produced Cocaine Cowboys, which just recently got rereleased on Netflix. So he produced the 1330, the, you know, Miami, like he said, some really, really interesting, amazing things.
00;14;54;24 - 00;15;33;18
Rashmi Airan
So he called Billy and said, hey, can can you have his clients? A really good friend of mine for years, she's getting sentenced. We give me a recommendation for somebody to do sentencing video. And Billy was like, if she's a friend of yours out there, say so he did it basically at cost. And she produced a 12 minute or so sentencing video with 14 people, which included my parents, my husband at the time, you know, friends, very prominent people in our community, including Kendall Coffey and some other people that were, you know, smartly included because they knew me well, but also knew my judge, some of them.
00;15;35;17 - 00;16;10;22
Rashmi Airan
So that was played in court. Of course, David did his entire presentation. And then honestly, Joe, Joe stood up and of course, he fired if I won. But he also I remember feeling like Joe or David said to me, kind of something like it. Basically, Joel was like a defense attorney up there for you. I mean, not really, but like the kind things that he said to you about all the help that you did, I will share with you something that still to this day shocks David, that, you know, that there's the two attorney rooms outside of the courtroom, prosecution and defense or plaintiff in defense and so I'm in the in the defense room
00;16;10;26 - 00;16;36;11
Rashmi Airan
with David and Margo, and they're putting me for the for the hearing. And in walks Joe, I don't even know what we said, what was said, but he gave me a hug. And my memory of this is he said something like, You're going to be okay. Larry said. And Joe walked out and David's like, In all the years I've been doing this, never has the prosecutor come in and hugged my defendant.
00;16;36;12 - 00;16;57;06
Rashmi Airan
Like, it's really a testament to who you are and how far you've come in this process and how long that's not. Joe And then I remember then the sentence, whatever. So all of it was played at the sentencing. You're right. And then on top of all of that, the courtroom was packed. So, you know, and standing room only people were marshals.
00;16;57;06 - 00;17;17;21
Rashmi Airan
And we asked them to wait outside. We basically almost all 180 people that wrote me letters also came. So I had like friends from college that surprised me. I didn't even know they were coming. They'd get letters, they drove down from Charlotte overnight just to be there. They flew in from New York just to be out. Like, I had no idea that a lot of people were coming.
00;17;17;21 - 00;17;40;21
Rashmi Airan
And, you know, we had strategically placed certain people in the front row that I was around the video that we knew would be important for different church to see. And when I got sentence, you know he basically oh and then of course on top of all that was my allocution. So my allocution was very vulnerable. There were definitely tears.
00;17;41;09 - 00;18;05;00
Rashmi Airan
I, of course, apologized to the judge. I apologize to my parents then I apologize to my community. And I owed it. I mean, I cried so many times, the allocution, and I remember just breaking down. And so when he sentenced me and he actually said when he sentenced me, he said, you know, whatever, whatever. But I disagree with your attorney.
00;18;05;00 - 00;18;36;17
Rashmi Airan
You know, that has because we, of course, ask for house arrest. I don't mind shaking, showing us I don't know why he said, but but as an attorney, we should have we should have asked I don't know what I would something like as an attorney, you should have known better and should have asked more questions and I'm sentencing you two a day in prison with a couple of out to be services use like all that stuff and I collapsed and was crying uncontrollably.
00;18;36;17 - 00;18;41;24
Gregg Sofer
Did you expect that? Well, what were you walking in there expecting that to happen?
00;18;42;21 - 00;19;02;02
Rashmi Airan
I mean, I was hoping for house arrest and I really kept praying and thinking that that's what would happen. David tells me he thought I was going to get two and half years. I think kind of everyone thought that everyone that knows more than I do about this stuff, it was definitely more than I expected. But as I had learned, I was very lucky.
00;19;02;28 - 00;19;11;08
Gregg Sofer
What was crushed. We talked about a5k1. Can you tell us what that is, what the government did and what your expectations were about the sentencing?
00;19;11;24 - 00;19;37;22
Joe Capone
Well, we had kept her exposure at six months with that plea to a 371 conspiracies and the maximum statutory penalty for her would have been 60 months. We had combined a case from Tampa with this case, and we structured the plea agreement so that we recommended that both run concurrently. And so her maximum, I anticipated would be 60 months.
00;19;38;11 - 00;19;48;19
Joe Capone
I had anticipated the judge would go below my recommendation. I had no idea what he would ultimately sentence to. But a year and a day is probably in the range of what I expected.
00;19;49;09 - 00;19;52;13
Gregg Sofer
What did the trial defendant get terms of a sentence.
00;19;53;02 - 00;19;54;03
Rashmi Airan
You got three years.
00;19;54;28 - 00;19;59;16
Joe Capone
I think it was 30. I think it was 30 months. That's my recollection. Was 30 under.
00;19;59;21 - 00;20;00;00
Rashmi Airan
Yeah.
00;20;00;29 - 00;20;28;24
Gregg Sofer
So we're close to the end of the court proceedings. I guess we're at the end of the course of court proceedings. But there's one more difficult part here and this Rashmi you had to do alone, and that is, I assume, surrender to a facility to start doing your time and actually serving that time. And then, as you pointed out earlier, earlier, you had to also have supervised release afterwards.
00;20;29;21 - 00;20;52;05
Gregg Sofer
But tell us a little bit about your experience in it was lots of movies made about this and people talk about prison all the time and have lots of different expectations about what that looks like and what people are experiencing. Can you tell us a little bit about what the anticipation was like and what was actually like going in and serving time?
00;20;52;05 - 00;21;23;07
Rashmi Airan
So I was given 60 days to surrender I from the date of sentencing. So up until that point in time, I had not told my daughter, who was nine. I had told my son on the day I pled, which was six months prior. So, you know, after I kind of process the sentence and sort of personally dealt with it with my family, about two weeks later, their dad, who we were I had had already been separated and went living together.
00;21;23;07 - 00;21;42;18
Rashmi Airan
So he and I decided, you know, we would tell the two of them and I we together made a very conscious decision that we were going to be honest with them, even though they were nine and ten. I've always lived my life in this way that I think it's most important. I mean, I learned through this process also grown to be very transparent.
00;21;43;05 - 00;22;10;27
Rashmi Airan
So we told them the truth, which was that Mommy had to go away for a year. I the both of my kids are athletes. And so we I use sports analogy and I basically said, you know, for example, I said he was playing football at the time my son. And I said, you know, honey, if you're if your coach says, go run a five an hour and you are listening and you go run a seven and out, he might pull you up or a set of downs because he's going to be really upset that you weren't listening.
00;22;11;17 - 00;22;30;03
Rashmi Airan
So there are consequences to your bad decisions, but not mistake. I said in real life there real life consequences. Mommy has made some bad decisions and for that she has to go away for a year. And so it gave the kids I mean, you know, it's a very emotional moment know my I jumped into my lap and was hysterical.
00;22;30;03 - 00;22;48;06
Rashmi Airan
You know, she was really upset, didn't understand that. But over the 60 days, they had a lot of time to process, to ask a lot of questions, to I was allowed to travel, thankfully still. And so I remember I took them to Chapel Hill for the first time on the matter for July 4th with my best friend from college.
00;22;48;06 - 00;23;04;05
Rashmi Airan
And we saw the fireworks there and went hiking. And like all of us are doing all this time, there have been just moments randomly where one of them would say to Mommy, but what are you going to eat when you're present? But Mommy, what are you going to wear? But Mommy, can we come visit you? Will we be able to talk to you?
00;23;04;05 - 00;23;23;05
Rashmi Airan
Like all the things that a kid wants to know? Most importantly, Mommy are going to be safe and coming back to us like that's all they cared about. Or so the day I surrendered. So, you know, you always make a better call to make a request. Whatever that official term is, you make a request for designation as a request.
00;23;23;15 - 00;23;48;02
Rashmi Airan
And I had requested Coleman, which is the minimum security camp for women in Florida. And I had found out some time in mid-July, like a month in that I had been assigned to the FTC in Miami, Federal Department of Corrections in Miami. And I was really upset. I remember because I know it's a 12 story building in downtown Miami with no fresh air and no windows.
00;23;48;02 - 00;24;14;15
Rashmi Airan
And I was like, How am I going to be there for a year? How will I make do with that? Because I had always been told that great, great quote Coleman was me. Fresh air. There's like a space you can kind of run and, you know, you could create like an ashram experience. So Joe I mean, Joe, David and all of my friends and convinced me and like tried to calm me down and say, well, look, at least if you're in Miami, all of your attorney friends can find a way to come see you.
00;24;14;24 - 00;24;31;00
Rashmi Airan
And then you can have your kids since you more often, which honestly, I did not want. I did not want my kids to feel like mom is only downtown ten miles away. We need to go see her every weekend because I do not want my children every year to spend their lives visiting their mom. That was not what I wanted, but I feel.
00;24;31;00 - 00;24;31;17
Gregg Sofer
That sure.
00;24;31;26 - 00;24;41;24
Rashmi Airan
So. But really I had no choice. And I was going to figure it out. As it turns out, Bob, he kind of messed up because there was a.
00;24;42;22 - 00;24;43;20
Gregg Sofer
The Bureau of Prisons.
00;24;44;04 - 00;25;06;20
Rashmi Airan
Yeah. Sorry, Bureau prisons messed up or something, because even the morning of surrender, David had called to confirm. Just to confirm my client was your own face as opposed to you surrender to this location and blah, blah, blah. There was a defendant, I don't even know who was who was already in that facility that there was a what's the word?
00;25;06;20 - 00;25;07;20
Rashmi Airan
No contact.
00;25;07;20 - 00;25;08;15
Gregg Sofer
Or separation.
00;25;08;18 - 00;25;29;19
Rashmi Airan
Separation that Joe had already filed. So I couldn't have been I should not have been assigned there. So but at this point, I actually I don't find out until I have already surrender, something like that. So I surrender. And then. Oh, yeah. So as I'm waiting for the marshals office, it was now way past noon when I was supposed to surrender.
00;25;29;19 - 00;25;35;00
Rashmi Airan
I had been waiting since 1130. It's like 2:00 and they haven't got me. And the marshal comes out and says, I.
00;25;35;06 - 00;25;37;14
Gregg Sofer
Can't get into prison. That's that's a new one.
00;25;37;14 - 00;25;54;28
Rashmi Airan
Yeah, well, they were like, we're so sorry. But there's been clearly have been some mistake. There's a separation order. You're not allowed to be in this facility, but at this point, you already passed your time off to surrender here. We'll have to file a transfer request for you. David's really upset. David's like, I checked this this morning. How could this be?
00;25;55;08 - 00;26;12;20
Rashmi Airan
You know? Anyways, I surrender. He, he and Margot then called Joe and. And tried to. And Joe agreed. They filed it. They file an agreed order with the judge like the next day, asking if the biological release be because of their error. And I can go 4 hours later. And so I'd drive right then and surrender to Coleman.
00;26;12;22 - 00;26;34;06
Rashmi Airan
Of course, the judge denied it. So David was just upset because he had heard stories of a people waiting months to get transferred but be like even when they get transferred, you could get stuck in the hell of of the transfer process, which is like, what if I get stuck on a plane going to Oklahoma, waiting for two months and then for two months, and he didn't know what was going to happen.
00;26;34;06 - 00;26;55;00
Rashmi Airan
And he was really worried for me, but he couldn't do anything about it. So I was really blessed. Again, I spent ten days in Miami and then, you know, after after the phones and emails were turned off, the guard came in and said, you know, ready lists of names, these the names of people that are transporting tomorrow. And I was on that list.
00;26;56;08 - 00;27;17;26
Rashmi Airan
So the next day I was transported. And I will say to anyone that's listening that the worst days in this process of surrender and the day you're transferred anytime that you're having to transfer, because you are after the days when I know you're still I was full of fear. I was in shock. I mean, everything you can imagine was horrible.
00;27;17;26 - 00;27;36;18
Rashmi Airan
I got strip searched. I had to squat and cop. I had to whatever. I got every medical test possible I got. I had to take all my clothes off and put them in a box and ship them home. I got to what type of clothing? I was handcuffed and shackled and when I went through all of it and it was very humbling.
00;27;36;18 - 00;27;55;24
Rashmi Airan
It was very much a moment where I was like, Thank the Lord. Nobody I know can see me right now and observing and visualizing this because they would be so upset and I would be humiliated. I would be feel you know, it's that moment where you're like, I can't do this now.
00;27;55;24 - 00;28;01;12
Gregg Sofer
So how did the two of you get in contact after Roshni was released from prison?
00;28;02;05 - 00;28;05;17
Joe Capone
But at some point during that time, you came to Washington, so okay.
00;28;05;17 - 00;28;26;05
Rashmi Airan
So I came to D.C. whenever it was. And I remember reaching out to David and I sent David an email and this is the first time I was actually speaking in DC. I had been to lots of other cities, but I hadn't been to DC it and I remember I was going to DC and I knew Joe was in DC and so I emailed David and I'm like, David, I'm going to DC.
00;28;26;05 - 00;28;38;25
Rashmi Airan
Would it be okay if I reach out to Joe? I'd really like to say hi to. He was like, okay, sure. I don't see there's any why? There's any reason. I was like, is there any reason? It's some sort of a release? I'm not allowed to talk to my project. I mean, I don't know what the rules are.
00;28;39;25 - 00;29;08;03
Rashmi Airan
And so he was like, No, feel free to talk to him. Okay. So I emailed Joe and he met me at Starbucks. And, you know, I think I remember it was just like one of those moments. I can't believe I'm seeing my prosecutor again after all this is done in a Starbucks. I remember we hugged, we took a picture, we chatted Joe by this guy, knew what I had been doing and was really like what the right word is.
00;29;08;03 - 00;29;30;18
Rashmi Airan
I think you gave me lots of praise, which was really nice and and then I went back, I think I was back there again. At some point you and I had lunch and then after he retired. So at this point he'd already gone to the department of Treasury. And at some point he had let me know that he was planning on retiring at the end at some point.
00;29;31;07 - 00;29;57;06
Rashmi Airan
So after he retired, I reached out or something and I was like, How do you feel about us presenting together? And so two months later, Lily, he retired like December 31st, whatever it was, 2018, 2019. And two months later we had a gig in Philadelphia for Baker Telly, where we gave our first presentation, which was actually not it's not like we planned it.
00;29;57;13 - 00;30;13;20
Rashmi Airan
We didn't have like an outline, we just kind of off the cuff rest and we shared our stories and sort of very spontaneously had a conversation in front of an audience of 300 people.
00;30;13;20 - 00;30;41;06
Gregg Sofer
Well, I appreciate very much you having this conversation in front of our audience, and it really is a you know, again, we're titled The Justice Insiders this really to have both of your perspectives from the inside of an experience like this from the beginning to the end of a significant white collar case, is is very illuminating. And this is happening right now across the country.
00;30;41;06 - 00;31;01;24
Gregg Sofer
In many instances. It doesn't usually go this way. And very rarely do you get an opportunity to hear both sort of participants in in something like this, explain their perspectives and what they went through. And I can't thank you both enough for sharing and really do appreciate your time. Thank you very much for joining us.
00;31;03;21 - 00;31;04;10
Rashmi Airan
Thank you so much.
00;31;04;27 - 00;31;26;06
Gregg Sofer
Many thanks for joining us on The Justice Insiders. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the podcast or subscribe, rate and review the Justice Insiders. I'm your host, Gregg Sofer and until next time, be well.