CHAPTER 29
JUDGMENT DAY
July 5, 2003
Seventeen Months Later
he proceedings were going just the way I had thought they would. They made me want to bolt out of Judge Gleeson's courtroom to the bathroom so I could regurgitate my breakfast in private. Still, it was time to get this madness over with, to put it all behind me. I had been out on bail for far too long, and everybody in the courtroom knew it. Everybody—not only Judge Gleeson but also Magnum and the Yale-man, who were standing beside me, and Alonso and OCD, who were standing beside them. Everyone looked rather dapper on the day of my doom.
For good measure, the spectators’ section was packed to capacity, filled with friends and enemies alike. They sat behind a thick wooden balustrade with a curved top, the so-called Bar of Justice, and were as quiet as church mice. Among them were a dozen assistant United States attorneys (the friends, believe it or not), half as many journalists (the enemies, of course), a handful of complete strangers who were there simply to observe a man's sentencing (sadists, I figured), and my own beloved parents, Mad Max and Saint Leah, who were there for moral support.
We were now ten minutes into the proceedings, and Magnum was making the case to Gleeson that my fine should be much less than Danny's. Gleeson had hit him with $200 million in restitution, payable in installments of $1,000 per month. On that basis, he would fully be paid off in a little over sixteen thousand years, which would be well into the next Ice Age, when money wouldn't mean as much. Either way, I still found $200 million in restitution to be entirely outrageous. Not that I didn't deserve it, but how the hell was I supposed to pay it back? Actually, I wasn't, according to Magnum; it was symbolic more than anything. Yet he still felt compelled to make the case to Gleeson.
Gleeson cut him off and said, “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. O'Connell. Sometimes restitution is almost a symbolic act, but not in this case. Mr. Belfort is an earner, for a lack of a better way of putting it. He's going to earn a lot of money after he gets out of jail.”
“I understand that,” said Magnum, “but the amount ordered in the Porush case was far outside…” Oh, shit! Why was Magnum picking a fight with Judge Gleeson? What was the f**king point? Just let him slam me with a symbolic fine and go light on my jail time. “… looking to negotiate,” Magnum continued. “I just don't want to agree to something that might be off by a hundred million dollars.”
There were a few moments of silence as I waited for Gleeson to explode with something like: “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY JUDGMENT IN THIS COURTROOM! I'M HOLDING YOU IN CONTEMPT, MAGNUM!” But to my surprise, he reduced my restitution to $110 million, without seeming even a bit perturbed. Then he said, “Would you like to be heard with regard to sentence, Mr. O'Connell?”
Magnum nodded. “Yes, Your Honor”—and keep it brief! Alonso promised to make an impassioned plea on my behalf, so don't steal his thunder!-“but only some very brief remarks.” Thank God. “This is a case that we fully understand involves a serious offense, and one that is broad both in terms of the time period involved, the number of victims, and the very large amount of losses sustained by them.”
Well, thanks a lot. Magnum. What are you going to do next, bring up my penchant for hookers and drugs and midget-tossing? Move on, God damn it!
“First,” continued Magnum, “Mr. Belfort recognizes that he was motivated by selfishness and greed during this period of activity, and he saddled himself with a serious drug problem, which I think dovetailed with his guilt over the crimes in which he was engaged and his struggle to…” I tuned out; it was just too painful to listen.
Of course, I knew Magnum was doing what he had to do; if he were to try to minimize my crimes, Gleeson wouldn't consider anything positive he had to say. Yet, in truth, the only person who could really help me in these proceedings was Alonso. Anything said by Magnum would be suspect because he was my paid mouthpiece, and anything said by me would be construed as the words of a desperate man, saying anything necessary to get myself off the hook.
“… and in Mr. Belfort's case,” concluded my paid mouthpiece, “despite the seriousness of the offenses, I genuinely believe that a lenient sentence would be appropriate.”
“Thank you,” said the judge, who was smart enough to know that Magnum would have felt leniency was appropriate for pretty much anything, short of rape or murder.
Now Gleeson looked at me. “Mr. Belfort?”
I nodded humbly and said, “Your Honor, I'd like to apologize to”-Don't do it, you ninny! Don't apologize to the world! It sounds disingenuous!—”all the people who lost money…” and I was off and running, apologizing to everyone, knowing that, despite the fact that I was truly sorry, my words rung so hollow that I was all but wasting my breath. But I couldn't seem to stop myself; my mind began double-tracking a mile a minute. On one track I was gushing out more apologies—
“… make a list of all the people and apologize to them, but the list is so big that I can't possibly…”
—and on the second track I was thinking how much better off I'd be just saying something like: You know what, Judge? I f**ked up something awful here, and I wish I could say it was because of all the drugs, but the truth is that it wasn't. I was just a greedy little bastard, and not just greedy for money but also for sex and for power and for the admiration of my peers and for just about anything else you can imagine. And what makes it even worse, Your Honor, is that I was blessed with some wonderful gifts, and instead of using them in an honest, productive way, I used them to corrupt other people, to get them to do my evil bidding—
“… that when I first started Stratton, I didn't intend it to be this way, but very quickly I knew exactly what I was doing and I just kept doing it until I was stopped. I take full responsibility for my actions. I can only blame my greed—greed for power, greed for money, greed for recognition. I have a lot of explaining to do to my children one day, and hopefully they'll learn from my mistakes. I would just like to put this all behind me and start paying people back. That's the best I can do.” I lowered my head in contrition and shook it sadly.
There were a few moments of silence, during which I refused to look up. I felt my speech had been terribly lame.
I heard Gleeson say, “Mr. Alonso?”
Alonso said, “Your Honor, you've just heard the defendant talk briefly about how sorry he is and about how he thinks about honesty and ethics and how he tries to do the right thing every day, and if I were sitting where you're sitting, I would have to be somewhat skeptical of a defendant who has done what this defendant has done. However, I spent many hours discussing honesty and ethics with this man. It's possible that I'm a pollyanna, but I think that he truly gets it. I believe that he really, really has tried to move on from some point in the last few years and has tried to change his life.
“I don't know if you're aware, but the first time I met him was on the day you threw him in jail for the helicopter trip to Atlantic City.” For Chrissake, of all the things to bring up, why that? “And over the next few months, when he finally got released, I think there was a marked change in this man. I think that he really did think to himself what it was that he had done and, more importantly, what he had to do as a cooperator. I think that he got it. Is it possible that we should be skeptical? Sure. But do I think that there is good reason to believe him when he says what he just said? I do.
“And when he testified at the Gaito trial, he spent more than a hundred hours prepping with me, and it was the worst time of his life. It was a very arduous time, but we spent a lot of time talking about what he did and his past deceptions and fraud, and I do want to add my own two cents that I think there is good reason to believe him about his intention to do what he says he is going to do.”
I snuck a peek at Gleeson, who was nodding. Was he nodding in agreement, though? It was difficult to say. This judge was a cool cat. He wouldn't tip his hand.
“Thank you,” said Gleeson. “I think everyone has demonstrated good judgment in not speaking as long as they might have given the extremes of this case—the extreme criminal contact involving Mr. Belfort, and the extreme cooperation. It is extraordinary co operation, I recognize that.” He looked me dead in the eyes. “It's knocked many, many, many years off the jail term you otherwise would have gotten, but balanced against that are many years of brazen, arrogant fraud.” Now he turned on his incredible shrink ray, and I found myself growing smaller and smaller, as he said:
“You victimized thousands and thousands of innocent people who trusted you, who trusted the people who worked for you. You thought the regulators were a joke and you took them to the cleaner's. You lived the high life”—oh, shit!-“the highest of the high life, and not because your talents got you there—I have no doubt that you are a talented man—but because you were willing to lie, cheat, and steal. Your competitors were placed at a disadvantage, certainly not all of them, but most of them did what most people do, and tried to conduct their business honorably and honestly without basically stealing the money from so many people where you can't possibly apologize to all of them.
“It's important to the sentence I'm imposing that you have apparently turned your life around. What I've read about you in the 5K letter, what Mr. Alonso said about you, has sunken in to me. It does seem to me as though you've turned a corner. I guess the most important and hard-to-predict question in this entire process is what that translates into by way of how much punishment you deserve.” He paused and let out a great sigh, the sort of great sigh King Solomon would have produced if he had been faced with sentencing a redeemed Wolf of Wall Street.
I clenched my ass cheeks and said a prayer to the Almighty. He had sentenced Danny to four years, which after deductions, amounted to a bit less than two. The way Magnum and I had figured it, Gleeson would have to sentence me to less.
“It's a very, very difficult decision. I've thought about it long and hard, and I have determined that a prison term of four years is appropriate, and that's what I'm imposing.”
A sudden surge of murmurs from the spectator section.
My stomach began churning before my mind could put it all together. The kids—what would I say? More tears. I dropped my head in defeat. I couldn't believe it. It was the worst end of the spectrum, exactly what Danny had gotten. My brain began whizzing through the calculations. Forty-eight months was how much after deductions? There was fifteen percent off for good time, which was 7.2 months, plus eighteen months for the drug program, equaled 25.2 months total, deducted from forty-eight—between twenty-two and twenty-three months in jail.
Then Gleeson said, “I'm imposing restitution in the amount of $110 million”—no big deal, I thought—”payable in the amount of fifty percent of his gross income.” Holy shit!
A rigoletto of murmurs from the spectator section! Were they laughing at me? It couldn't be, but it sounded like it. What were my parents thinking?
Time seemed to slow down; I could hear Magnum asking Judge Gleeson to recommend me for the drug program…. Gleeson agreed…. Now Magnum was asking for a delay in reporting…. Gleeson recommending ninety days. Although Magnum and I had spoken beforehand about delaying it until after the New Year, he now said that it shouldn't be a problem. He was asking Gleeson to allow me to serve my time in California, to be near the kids. Gleeson, of course, agreed.
Suddenly I noticed Gleeson rising from his chair, and that was it; it was over just like that. There would be no appeals, no Hail Mary passes, nothing. I was going to jail for almost two years. And the fine—fifty percent! A nightmare! Could I ever pay it back? Maybe. I would have to hit a home run. In the meantime, I would be forced to make twice as much as everyone else to live the same life. Fair enough, I thought. I could do that easily.
Outside the courtroom, the whole crew was gathered in the hallway—Alonso, OCD, the Mormon, Magnum, the Yale-man, and my parents. It was still all a blur to me. I hadn't recovered from the shock yet. There were lots of glum expressions. Apologies from Alonso and OCD and the Mormon, wishing it would have gone better. I thanked them, promising to keep in touch. I knew OCD and I would. As different as we were, we had learned much from each other. In spite of everything, I considered myself better off from the encounter.
Then I turned to Magnum and the Yale-man, and we exchanged hugs. They had done an amazing job, especially when it had mattered most. If someone I loved were in trouble, I would recommend the law offices of De Feis O'Connell & Rose and never look back. We would certainly keep in touch.
Now I hugged my parents, my father first.
Mad Max was cool as a cucumber, the proverbial Rock of Gibraltar. But that was to be expected; after all, nothing calmed him down more than a good catastrophe. Inwardly, I knew he was crying for me, but I think we both knew that that wasn't what I needed from him now. With the saddest of smiles, he extended his arms toward me and held me by the shoulders. Then he looked me in the eyes and said, “We'll get through this, son. Your mother and I will always be there for you.”
I nodded in understanding, knowing that they always would. They were good people; perhaps the only good thing to ever come out of Stratton was the financial security it left them with, a result of my father's salary when he had worked there. They would grow old with grace, with dignity, and with gentility. They would not be burdened with financial worries. I was proud of that.
My mother had tears in her eyes as I hugged her, and I could feel her crying in my arms now. And that was exactly what I needed from her. I needed to know that there was one person in the world who hurt more than everyone else combined. My mother was a brilliant, complicated woman. Leah Belfort was a woman of the highest moral fiber, who had watched her son live the sort of life that stood for everything she detested—hedonism, ostentation, and a lack of regard for others. Yet she still loved me anyway, perhaps now more than ever, simply because I needed her to.
With great care, I held her by the shoulders, the same way my father had held me. Then I forced a smile and said, “It's all right, Mom. Four years isn't really four years; after deductions it's less than two. The time will fly by. It'll be okay.”
She shook her head, perplexed. “I just don't understand how you got the same time as Danny. That's the only thing that doesn't make sense to me.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess it seems a bit unfair. But that's how life is sometimes, you know?”
She nodded. In fact, at the age of seventy-one she knew this better than I.
“Anyway,” I continued, “Gleeson was right, Mom. You know it.” I shrugged. “I think everyone knows it. I was the mastermind behind the whole thing, not Danny, and after everything that went down, how could I not go to jail for a while? Besides, Gleeson's a smart guy: He knows all about the drug program and about good time. So he really only sentenced me to two years, which is just enough to send me a message but not enough to ruin my life.” I winked. “It'll give me a chance to catch up on some reading, so it's not all bad, right?” I forced another smile.
“When are you and Nadine gonna tell the kids?” asked my father.
“We're not,” I said tonelessly, “at least not yet. Why worry them now? We'll wait until before I go; then we'll tell them together. Anyway, I gotta get going. I got some packing to do.”
“Oh, you're going to California?” asked my mother.
I smiled proudly. “No, Mom, I'm not going to California; I'm moving there.”
They looked at me, incredulous. “Now?” asked my father. “Do you think that makes sense with this sentence hanging over your head?”
“No,” I answered nonchalantly, “I'm sure it doesn't, but I'm still doing it. See, I made a promise to my little girl once, and I'm not about to let her down.” I shrugged, as if to say, “Sometimes love outweighs logic, you know?” Then I said, “You understand, right?”
No words were necessary; they were parents too.
So it was that I became a resident of the state of California, whether the state liked it or not. Within a week, I found myself a beautiful home on the water, less than a dozen blocks from the kids, and I went about doing just what I had sworn to Alonso that night: I made up for lost time, quite content to spend my last three months of freedom lost inside ordinary life—cooking for the kids, watching TV with them, driving them to school, soccer practice, volleyball practice, and play dates.
And then, after a three-month extension, time ran out.
It was New Year's Day of 2004, a sunny Thursday, and I was due to report to jail the next morning. The way I figured it, I had two options: Either I could show up on my own or make the marshals come look for me. And while neither option thrilled me, I had resigned myself to the former. The kids, of course, hadn't the slightest idea of this, but they were about to find out.
At this very moment, they were walking down the stairs, all smiles, while a nervous-looking Duchess trailed behind them. John and I were sitting in their living room, which, in one last dose of irony, bore an odd resemblance to Meadow Lane's: the rear plate-glass wall with its awesome view of the ocean, the shabby-chic furniture (a bit more formal here, though), the dozens of throw pillows and doilies and overpriced knickknacks scattered this way and that, and the sandstone fireplace rising up to the ceiling. All revealed what I had suspected about the Duchess all along: She liked her beach houses decorated a certain way.
“Don't worry,” said John, who was sitting across from me on the couch. “I'll treat your kids as if they were my own.”
I nodded sadly. “I know you will, John. I trust you more than you can imagine.” And, indeed, I did. I had come to know John well over the last six months, come to know him for the man he was— kind, generous, responsible, charismatic, self-made, and, above all, a man who, true to his words, treated my kids as if they were his own. They would be safe with him, I knew, and they would want for nothing.
“Hey, Dad,” Chandler said happily, as she took a seat next to me on the couch. “What's up with the family discussion?”
Carter, however, didn't sit down; when he was twelve feet from the couch he executed a sliding maneuver, whizzing along the terra-cotta floor on a pair of white sweat socks. He grabbed the top of the couch and vaulted over the back, like a high jumper, and landed right next to me without incident. “Hi!” he chirped happily, and then he leaned back and put his feet up on an Australian zebrawood coffee table.