Episode 1: Brad Rouse
“Jail is a penalty box, it’s not a coffin. And if you think that jail is the end of your life, that doesn’t get you moving through that chapter of your story and through the other end.”
Brad Rouse
Finding Purpose After Prison
How do you take someone in the midst of loss, despair, and defeat and give them a sense that this season is only one chapter in their lives?
That question is central to the work of Brad Rouse, a writer and mentor who assists defendants who face sentencing. It's also a question he has reckoned with himself.
Brad graduated from Harvard. In his professional life, he thrived as a New York theater director. He directed the world premiere of Billy Porter's Ghetto Superstar, and his stage work garnered media attention.
But in 2008, his life unraveled due to drug addiction, leading to a guilty plea for participating in a drug conspiracy case. He served a year in The Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn. He writes, "I felt overwhelmed by shame, anger, fear and despair."
Sixteen years later, Brad has found purpose in helping defendants at White Collar Advice. He has also returned to his roots in theater to share his story with a wider audience. He wrote the jail inspired short play Hit the Body Alarm for Obie Award-winning actor Winsome Brown, which she performed in New York City.
"We're in such a period of discord, stress and pain," says Brad. "I have a unique intersection of experiences and a voice that can be a lighthouse for people."
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Transcript
(Edited slightly for clarity)
Melissa Ceria: Brad Rouse, welcome.
Brad Rouse: Hi, Melissa.
Melissa Ceria: I think by your count, you've worked with some 275 federal defendants.
Brad Rouse: It's true, just about.
Melissa Ceria: Helping them tell their story as they face sentencing for their crimes. But it's hard to believe that you were once in their shoes. Can you take us back to that time in your life?
Brad Rouse: Well, it was in the mid 2000s. I got hooked on drugs, illegal drugs, in about 2006. And I had never really done them before. Certainly was not part of my 20s or my teens, and had gone through a sort of period of turmoil in my personal, professional life. And pretty soon after, within about a year, I was arrested by federal agents, DEA, who came into this apartment where I am sitting right now and arrested me for participating in a drug conspiracy. And I went through the system. It took a few years. Part of it was that year at MDC Brooklyn, where I lived in a single room dorm unit with about 100 to 120 guys. Very painful for me, for my parents. Very stressful for everybody. It's just a very difficult and painful process.
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Melissa Ceria [00:02:34] What do you think led you to that point in your life?
Brad Rouse [00:02:38] Well, I'd struggled with alcohol before then, so alcoholism and addiction was part of my story, part of my being for a long time. I had just come through, I had a job loss. I had tested positive for HIV and felt very disoriented. And since I already had a proclivity for drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, I just fell down that rabbit hole and broke the law and ended up in jail.
Melissa Ceria [00:03:05] You describe it so clearly, and yet did you have self-awareness at that time in your life?
Brad Rouse [00:03:11] I don't quite know how to answer that. I mean, I was really addicted to, in that moment, benzodiazepines and meth and those drugs can really hijack your thinking process, really take your brakes away, in terms of making bad decisions. And I made a ton of bad decisions. I was very unwise. I had no boundaries around my body, my apartment, my money, nothing. And at some point I got so far out in like zero gravity, that I just totally lost my way, sometimes up for days at a time. So in fact, getting arrested, getting dragged out of this place certainly saved my life. And so I can only be grateful to be alive today.
Melissa Ceria [00:03:54] And yet, at the same time, you were experiencing success as a director. Your work had visibility. Did you enjoy those periods of success or was that complicated for you at the same time?
Brad Rouse [00:04:05] Look, I love directing plays, and I got to assist Hal Prince for ten years. It was really my dream job. I loved it, I loved the work. But I think you'll find with a lot of people who have stories that include addiction and alcoholism, there's some injured thinking, there's deep healing that needs to happen to kind of move through that into sobriety and happiness. And so, although I cherished and relished every opportunity to work in the theater, I worked some incredible people, I clearly had something profound to work out and to heal from in order to live a happy life, which I do today.
Melissa Ceria [00:04:43] In 2008, you pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy. In light of the work that you do today, how did you present your story to a judge? Did anybody help you?
Brad Rouse [00:04:54] I will, say so the two men I work for, Michael Santos and Justin Paperny, who met in jail in California — and Justin was actually in jail around the same time I was — had they been doing WhiteCollarAdvice.com, earning freedom and all the other ways they help defendants, I would have had a much better journey through the system. I was totally lost, totally disoriented, coming down off drugs, in the middle of that suffered a terrible concussion and was totally lost. I mean, I did get a lot of help from an attorney, Aaron Mysliwiec from other inmates on my unit, from some of the people who work there. So I did get a lot of help. But Michael and Justin do a phenomenal job adjusting people's attitudes so they can accept responsibility for how they broke the law, the harm they've done, and also give just, uh, comfort and guidance that you can move through this. Because at the time, of course, I was so defeated, so humiliated, that I really felt like jail was the end of my life. But as we all know, even the Book of Job has a happy ending. And if you have the proper guidance through those moments of despair, going through the system is very hard, then you can come through the other side and have decades of happiness enriched by the wisdom you gain there.
Melissa Ceria [00:06:14] What was your first day like at the jail?
Brad Rouse [00:06:17] Oh gosh. Look, my first day, the first time, so I went in for four days when I was initially arrested, then went back in later. My first day was, you know, I'd been up for three and a half days. I had a fever from an infection. I was really so.
Melissa Ceria [00:06:35] You were in poor state.
Brad Rouse [00:06:37] I was in a terrible state, so my memories are all pretty nightmarish. I was going back and forth from MDC Brooklyn to the courthouse every day, waiting for my bail to come through, and it takes a while to get into the building, to get out of the building. Shackled hands and feet on the van, going back and forth, coming down off all those drugs. I mean, it was a terrible few days. When I went back, since I'd been there before, it was much easier because I understood the routine and I was going in not knowing when I'd get out.
Melissa Ceria [00:07:10] You didn't know when you would get out?
Brad Rouse [00:07:12] No. When I went in the second time, I did not know when I was going to get out. In fact, I didn't know I was getting out until about eight hours beforehand.
Melissa Ceria [00:07:20] At what point did you realize, Okay, I'm here and I need to come to terms with this. And what were you feeling at that time?
Brad Rouse [00:07:30] That's such a great question. I would say it was sort of just a slow adaptation for me, because since I was coming down off some serious addictive drugs and a head injury, I was really just not processing anything the way my brain would process it now. You know, it's hard enough just to navigate the day to day on a 100 plus man unit. There's people from all over the world, not a lot of English speakers there. So I was just doing everything I could to get by. Slowly, I adapted with a lot of help from the other inmates, a lot of help. And eventually it took me a few weeks, maybe even a few months before I was really in a routine where I was functioning well, where I was exercising, eating better, where my brain was working better. But that took quite a while.
Melissa Ceria [00:08:20] What was the role of your family during that time?
Brad Rouse [00:08:23] My family was heroic. My parents, who are both educators in St. Louis, flew up frequently. My brothers, who are, you know, wonderful men and fathers, they visited me. Obviously, we were all shocked. You know, I'd really been such a square all through high school, you know, getting into Harvard, doing well there, having a good career, really functioning at such a high level. And, you know, I got one speeding ticket my whole life. So I think just the shock value was huge for everybody. It was just as painful for them as for me. When someone goes through the system, their whole family goes through it together. There's a lot of fear for the kind of facility I was in. MDC Brooklyn is, you know, can be a tough place. So certainly they were traumatized and shocked. But when they saw me, whenever they talked to me on the phone, they put on a very good face. And I did my best to put a face on for them. Not a face, but just to make sure that we didn't say or do anything that would make it worse in terms of fear or bad news.
Melissa Ceria [00:09:28] You've written about your time in jail, Brad, and I'd like you to share, you have it there, a short passage that describes the setting and the life in the dorm that you shared with 119 other inmates. Is that correct?
Brad Rouse [00:09:42] Between 100 and 119, depending on how full it was on any given day. So here it is. Warehouse together in Brooklyn. We had no access to a yard or a gym. Fluorescent lights stayed on 24 hours a day. 100 shouting voices could rise to deafening levels. Tensions remained high as inmates did not always conduct themselves peacefully. One man heard about his mother's death on the same day another man went free. A vicious fight could erupt between cousins or friends. Once, a man died while sitting on the toilet. Despite the stress, jail certainly saved my life.
Melissa Ceria [00:10:18] What would you say was the toughest part of your year there?
Brad Rouse [00:10:21] You know, I will tell you, I almost don't remember the worst parts anymore. Certainly the pain I caused my family was hard. And certainly just the despair, the humiliation, the defeat. I certainly remember all the emotional pain, just laying in that, my bunk. You know, there were times in the summer where there was no air conditioning, times in the winter there was no heat. Just the physical strain of all of it was difficult. But, uh, the way I reflect on it now, I only really have good memories of it. I mean, I just, although it's very painful and difficult, some of those guys helped me so much. I remember their stories. We were all in it together. I heard incredible stories from men from all over the world. Every night, I think you like this, there were a lot of very religious men there, all different traditions all over the world. And every night, the Christians and I went into the corner and would sing kind of Spanish language kind of Bible camp songs. And so there'd be circle of guys in the corner every night at about 9:00 o'clock, sing these like Bible camp songs, pray together. And then there was this concentric circle where everyone went around and gave each other hugs. Well, that's incredible thing. First night it happened, I couldn't believe it. But even though there were men in there that had broken the law in serious ways, had done real harm, were facing very long sentences, my memory really selects those times for the men who really helped me heal. Because, you know, I'd gone so far out with drugs, alcohol, isolation, really unadaptive behavior and thinking, that these men really brought me back to earth. Help me heal. And there was a psychiatrist there who did a phenomenal job with me, the doctor there. And it was not easy to see anybody. But once they were there, they're individual staff members and the people I remember. A great corrections officer is like incredible how they can just walk in the room and bring peace. There are many individuals that helped me so much, and I'm so glad I'm alive and healed from that very dangerous moment in my life, that that's really what my brain focuses on now. And of course, I mean, I have stories that are so funny I can't even. It was a phenomenal experience, and I can only feel grateful for it. Really made a man out of me.
Melissa Ceria [00:12:43] It sounds, from what you're saying, that these individuals sort of gave you a trust in life, again, in a way that maybe you hadn't experienced a few years prior to that time?
Brad Rouse [00:12:54] Certainly, that's part of it. I think another big part of it was, look, I went to Harvard. I worked in New York theater. There's really nothing more like detached from, like, real life on Earth than those two things. Right? And living with these men from all over the world, I really was I gained a lot of wisdom, much more adaptive attitude towards myself, towards my body, towards reality, towards the future. I mean, it was like when I was young, trying to navigate a stormy sea and overcast skies, and between the men of my unit and the people who helped me get sober. The sky just really cleared up. I got my North Star back and I was really able to navigate back to shore, and that has given me a new birth of happiness and purpose that I honestly couldn't have imagined as a sort of tormented young person. And I'm happier now and more optimistic than I've ever been in my whole life.
Melissa Ceria [00:13:51] You seem to have gained a lot of clarity the way you describe it. Were you also more forgiving of yourself?
Brad Rouse [00:13:57] Well, I am now. Look, I went through an atonement process for the laws I broke. I went through an immense process of people I harmed the things I said, and did, during that bad period. You know, angry voice messages I left, lies I told. There was a lot of reckoning with ancillary behavior in relationships. And I've done that work and my heart is light again. For a while, you know, really my heart was like this lead rock in my gut and my eyes went dark. And I've really gone through healing process. And the light came back into my eyes. A twinkle came back in my voice and I really feel lighter now. I mean, I just can't remember a time except as a small child, where day to day I felt as good being in my own body and in this life as I do today.
Melissa Ceria [00:14:47] That's wonderful. And did you stay in touch with some of the men that you met there?
Brad Rouse [00:14:51] I did not, I wish I could have. I mean, there's obviously rules. When I got out, I was under what's called supervised release, which is a kind of probation. So there's no contact with anybody who had a felony for several years. So that really made it impossible for me to maintain any of those connections. But I still think of them often. I actually ran into one of my, uh, bunkeys by accident, who was working on a construction site near near a theater I was working at.
Melissa Ceria [00:15:21] What was that like?
Brad Rouse [00:15:22] I mean, it was great. He looked great.
Melissa Ceria [00:15:24] Oh, that's wonderful.
Brad Rouse [00:15:25] Great a guy, a great father and did some things for me that were just incredibly kind at low points for me, and it was great. It's a very powerful experience to live through with someone else. Very intense emotions for everybody. Very stressful living circumstances. But, uh, we survived.
Melissa Ceria [00:15:45] Today you work for WhiteCollarAdvice.com, and you help defendants with their pre-sentencing reports. Can you describe what kinds of crimes you cover?
Brad Rouse [00:15:55] Yes. The pre-sentencing report is sort of a government document, and I don't work on that. But we worked in the sort of pre sentencing phase just to kind of help people. It's not legal advice. It's really kind of adaptation advice. It's mitigation advice. And we work with a wide range of different laws that get broken: health care fraud, money laundering, mostly white collar. The drug conspiracies, embezzlement, all kinds of ways that people cross lines, do harm, and end up in the federal system.
Melissa Ceria [00:16:28] How did you end up finding this work?
Brad Rouse [00:16:31] It was really a miraculous moment. I was directing the last musical I directed Off-Broadway in 2018, and there was no new jobs forthcoming. I went on to LinkedIn and just started connecting with anybody that was either in theater or in justice related work, in non-profits or otherwise. And I, by happenstance connected with Michael Santos, who's really the founder of these companies and the visionary behind them. And, he interviewed me for a podcast like this. And a few months later, out of the blue, said, Do you want to come work for us? And it came at just the right moment. It was a total miracle. I just am super grateful for them, for giving me the opportunity, and I've been doing it ever since.
Melissa Ceria [00:17:16] Did a part of you feel a little bit hesitant about diving into this work, given your own experience, and maybe reliving certain emotions, or you felt completely ready for it?
Brad Rouse [00:17:26] I felt totally ready and totally grateful to get work. It was very hard to get any sort of work with a felony record.
Melissa Ceria [00:17:35] Even for people who knew you prior to this?
Brad Rouse [00:17:38] I think especially for people who knew me prior to this. It was very hard to get any sort of employment. There were certain obviously Winsome Brown, who I wrote Hit the Body Alarm for. She gave me opportunities. But in terms of settling in, because I do need to work for a living, I needed steady work. And this job gave me steady work, which I still do, and it was just a total miracle. I just could not be more grateful for this work.
Melissa Ceria [00:18:08] Can you give us a sense a little bit for the environment that you work in? I mean, how easy or difficult is it for people today to commit the kinds of crimes that you help people with?
Brad Rouse [00:18:21] How easy is it for them to commit them?
Melissa Ceria [00:18:23] Are they always aware that they've committed a crime?
Brad Rouse [00:18:27] I would say for the most part, yes. For the most part, there are people that have really crossed the line, even if it's just a short period of their life, but not all of them. We have a very elaborate health care system, and I've certainly worked with professionals in that field that might have signed a marketing document that ended up being an illegal conspiracy of some kind. So there are certainly some people I work with that end up crossing lines that they didn't even know the line was there when they crossed it. But they're still responsible for crossing it. They need to come to terms with what happened. There is a process of understanding why the line is there, what harm is done by it. And so, I mean, I've worked with really upstanding people who I care deeply about and respect for their careers, for their families, for a long life of work and service. So sometimes their lives go off the rails like mine, and sometimes they enter into some kind of business arrangements without doing the proper due diligence, end up catching a case, and end up going through this process, which is difficult. But look, it's part of life. A lot of people catch cases, a lot of people cross lines. I am grateful for the opportunity to help them move that to like, reconnect, you know, get back into the world. We want everybody back, everyone going in the system, we want them back in their communities, working, connecting, helping people avoid their mistakes, raising their children. We want everyone back. So being a part of putting people on that path back is something I love to do.
Melissa Ceria [00:20:03] On that subject, Brad, what do you think is important for people to know about when it comes to helping others get back on track? What are the best means of support that you've seen that can really help individuals step back into life after an episode like this?
Brad Rouse [00:20:20] So as soon as someone gets arrested, gets a target letter, as soon as the process starts, getting, uh, trying to shift them into that, that thinking of adaptation, of accepting responsibility for what they did. And the sooner they are thinking all the way through the process to their life after, the sooner they start on that path, the better. I mean, jail is a penalty box, it's not a coffin. And if you think jail's the end of your life, that doesn't get you moving through that chapter of your story and through the other end. So staying in touch with people, if someone knows somebody is going through the system, staying in touch, you know, the social shunning is certainly painful, but it's part of it. It's part of the process. People are seeing their names in the papers, getting on the local news for their case. But, you know, my bosses do a phenomenal job getting people ready to mitigate their circumstances and move through. And my part working with the story aspect, how does this fit into someone's whole life story, including their childhood, including their future, and really helping people move through it? Just support people. Send their mail, stay in touch. It really could be anybody moving through a system like this.
Melissa Ceria [00:21:40] Certainly for anybody who goes to jail, there's a loss of freedom, right? But what else does one lose, in all of this, that you have to reclaim in some new way perhaps afterwards?
Brad Rouse [00:21:50] There's the loss of freedom when you're in the government building. And I do want to distinguish between the kind of facilities that our clients are going to, which are mostly minimum security, low security camps, which are very different than, say, state run jails, like county jails like Fulton County or Rikers. Those are very different situations. And, you know, my focus on this work is with people going through lower federal facilities. But for those men and women who we work with, there's the discomfort of being in jail. There's the loss of your reputation.
Melissa Ceria [00:22:30] Right.
Brad Rouse [00:22:31] The hit to your name, seeing that in the newspaper, in the local news. Friends, family, loss of relationships, loss of medical license, business license, broker's license. You can devote your whole life to getting your M.D., serving patients for decades, catch a case and suddenly that's all gone. Those are very painful transitions to move through. Very difficult things, to adapt. It's very painful. It's a primal experience. It's physical. It's a real blow. But, we have to move through them. We have to adapt. We have to live. We have to survive. Loss is part of people's journeys. I mean, the journey of going through a justice system, the way we sort of atone for bad decisions in a government setting. The people atone for bad decisions. They have other kinds of loss. And going through that primal, almost sacred season of despair is a very powerful experience. And the sooner we can orient ourselves back towards the light, towards healing, towards gaining wisdom, towards the long future, where we use our stories to help other people who are going through the same thing and, you know, in the future. So loss is just part of most people's stories. I mean, this is in a government setting is different. But, you know, we all have those primal moments. And it's important that we stay alive through them and get our hearts open back up, when we're ready in the natural healing way. But it does happen.
Melissa Ceria [00:24:07] Because your view of the justice system changed over time?
Brad Rouse [00:24:10] It has, I have to say, honestly, I've gotten more respect for it since I started working in it. The federal system, it has huge power, and when I was in it, of course, I was just full of so much negative emotion that I couldn't really see it for what it is. And it's very important to have a justice system that reckons with harm. We want to make sure victims don't take justice into their own hands. We want there to be an orderly process to reckon with harm that's done. And, you know, "white collar offenses", can do a lot of harm. You know, certain kinds of securities frauds. You can take people's retirement funds away. You can do real harm to others. And I think that I can see the logic behind a lot of the processes. I certainly believe that the vast majority of the judges and the prosecutors and the agents in the federal system take their jobs very seriously. I think they undergo very serious training. I've been very impressed with the thoroughness and care that judges have made these very serious decisions they have at sentencing, where you have to balance, you know, the victims and the law. They're big decisions, and I've grown over time, my respect has grown for the people who dedicate their lives to that field. Obviously, when that power gets abused by individuals, it's magnified because of how much power we give to these people who work in that area. But I for the most part have been impressed.
Melissa Ceria [00:25:43] As a writer and as a director, you've worked with words your whole life. To what extent do you think that language can help sort of determine an outcome for your clients?
Brad Rouse [00:25:54] Well, certainly in terms of a longterm outcome, which is reckoning with what happened and setting themselves to like a better future, you know, having the right language is key. The language and taking responsibility for what happened has to really acknowledge the law and the victims. It can't rationalize or justify conduct that does cause harm, but it also can't go too far. It has to just be right. I mean, I think that especially in the very profound disorientation of going through the federal justice system or any major despair, or grief, or loss, anytime there's an earthquake in our lives, it's important that the language is accurate, truthful and proportional to like, move us in the right direction. I've certainly worked with guys who were like, "This is the end of everything. I'm going to be mad about this forever. I'm never going to be happy again. I'll never have a moment of peace again. I lost everything." Totally understandable that those feelings would create that sort of cataclysmic language. But hopefully, over the period of weeks, months and years, that language can settle in a place that's real and helpful and pointing towards a future that's better.
Melissa Ceria [00:27:11] What was it like for you when you took your story to the stage and shared it with a larger audience? Were you concerned about people's reaction? Were you excited to hear feedback? How did you prepare yourself for that?
Brad Rouse [00:27:26] Well, the first time the piece I wrote for Winsome to perform, which she did three different places, she did it beautifully, incredibly well. That was like one really, just from my jail experience. Then over time, I started to write more about what got me there, talk more about how that connected to my life before and after. Slowly but surely, I gained confidence. With a lot of addicts, and I count myself squarely in that camp, there's often a lot of secrets and shame in our stories that come into our stories that are unreckoned with, and in time, a good healing process, I think, allows us to make amends, to see our lives in the light of truth, in the healing light, and slowly move us back. So it's a long process.
Melissa Ceria [00:28:18] You describe finding such a deep sense of purpose in your life and your work, Brad, what are your hopes for the future?
Brad Rouse [00:28:26] Well, I want to always do this work. I mean, just getting to know everyone I've gotten to know through this work has been an honor. It's been very moving. It's expanded my worldview. And each of these people is going back into a home and families, and it feels great to be part of that very complex, important process of reckoning and healing. I don't know, I just want to do, I want. My brothers have children. My brother's now a grandfather for the first time. I'm going to do everything I can to help young people. I think that the world now for young people is particularly challenging to navigate, especially with the way technology is shaping thought and consciousness. And anything I can do to use my voice in my story to help people stay healthy, stay alive, keep moving in the right direction, help others. I mean, that's really, I can't think of anything better.
Melissa Ceria [00:29:25] And maybe there's even an opportunity, as I hear you saying this, to introduce this work at an earlier stage in somebody's life, almost as a preventative measure for people maybe, who are more at risk for some reason, or another. Is that something that you could imagine?
Brad Rouse [00:29:40] Certainly, when I'm working with clients, I talk about, you know, the way trauma affected my story, the way certain kinds of trauma, I can say, put me at risk for falling into the trap of addiction and isolation. When I think about the trauma in my own story, it really was like an injury to my thinking. And I do talk about that a lot with people who are newly sober, people who I talk to through work, friends. And certainly there's a way for people to, you know spot that in young people coming up. You know, there are a lot of young kids living in darkness and despair, living in a lot of disorientation, hurting themselves. There's a lot of harm and self-harm in our world right now, and there's also a lot of help. There are a lot of people like me that devote ourselves to being helpers, being in helping professions, and any possible way I can use my voice to be a lighthouse for people, I would love to do. Because of course, it takes my worst moments, my worst choices, my most painful days, and turns them into, my greatest treasure. And that's an incredible. I'm very lucky to get to feel that way. It's the best feeling I can imagine.
Melissa Ceria [00:31:00] Brad, it's been wonderful talking with you. Thank you for sharing your story.
Brad Rouse [00:31:04] Thank you. Melissa.