This Too Shall Pass

I know others will disagree but I wish we would stop these postings celebritizing those who are in jail.

Much like the shooter in Oregon, Let's focus less on those who did wrong and focus more on those who are symbols of what we want to see.

How about we hear about good things going on in our community and a little blurb about who these people are?

Disclosures should be put on these postings that it takes a certain degree of wisdom and understanding to read articles that are not all "pie in the sky, rainbows and butterflies."
It also takes a sense of wisdom to understand that not all people in a certain situation are all the same. This is called stereotyping. Ignorance and stereotyping typically go hand in hand.
As a general rule of thumb it is good to REALLY research something prior to throwing stones. I also had the initial reaction as voiced by theNEWnewhaven, and I can truly understand it. But after digging into the situation and really "fleshing" it out, I found out why this man's writings were posted along with the other many good things that are going on in our community. The very fact that this man is in jail should really be raising some eyebrows.
Lawrence Dressler is as a whipping boy for the decadent imprudence of the big bank's practices, so it was that there were also other honest working men and women of America that became labeled as the conspirators. Newspapers smearing their names as if they'd hustled millions, while the real swindlers sat in their yachts and vacation homes smugly congratulating themselves or getting off with a fraction of time as they had plenty of people whom they could turn in. Never mind that these people would've had to have been psychic to have known that the documents given to them that were already authorized by the big banks were fraudulent.
The Big Banks like the "convict" stereotype. In fact, they're counting on it.

He is wrong, as I see it, in complaining about his car ride rather than luxury in an ambulance

I'll save my empathy for the victims of Dressler's crimes, not him

I thought too,that ambulances were luxurious, extravagantly comfortable
carriers, until I was forced via an accident , into one

It is instead like being tossed into the back of a pickup which has no shock absorbers,---no fun or comfort at all.

TNNH

Thank you for expressing my sentiments exactly. These 'memoirs' are a slap in the face to victims.

Mr Dressler can certainly write his jail biography, but to have it published in a local newspaper while he is serving time is just an insult to everybody.

Maybe NHI just has a publishing fetish for the plight of jailed, white-collar criminals.

I just don't get it.

When Dressler gets out, look for the NHI radio spot.....

[Ed.: Yes, I hope he comes on radio! There may be some quite interesting stories to tell that weren't allowed to be told while he was in custody. We publish the stories of people from all walk of life -- heroes, zeroes, and the rest of us who fall in between. We have a "fetish" for trying to report on what life is like in all corners of our society -- including in jail, where lots of people are housed with precious little reported about what happens there. That doesn't mean we therefor approve of the crimes someone committed, anymore than we approve of the crime committed by a defendant whose side we'll print in a story or a crooked politician's whose explanation of an action we publish. We see Dressler's series as a way for people to get a peek inside the jail, not to call attention to any particular "plight" of an inmate. We've never published any pieces by him trying to defend the crime he committed. I can't understand why people consider it an "insult" for someone to be able to talk. The state gets to talk about what these people did wrong. The judge or a jury does too. When someone is arrested and/or convicted, that person has a right to speak too. I could see how publishing an inmate's self-serving articles trying to get back at people who jailed him or trying to inflict pain on a victim would be offensive; I wouldn't want to publish stories like that. I find these dispatches informative. I do understand that not everyone does -- just as not everyone finds it informative to read about City Hall, the police, neighborhood meetings, a music festival or a theater. We try to offer lots of choices! We're not insulted if a reader chooses to read some stories but not others.]

Fire18,

The problem here is, a white, priveleged Lawyer got some jail time for having his fingers in the pie, and is being extended 'press privilege' because of what -- that he is a whipping boy for big banks. What BS.

Is NHI in a position to exonerate him?

You don't have to look far to find a bunch of poor black men behind bars, wrongfully convicted, who really did nothing, and are afforded bupkiss.

White Privilege never sees it's own arrogance.

[Ed.: We have never published Dressler calling himself a whipping boy for banks. That was a commenter -- a lone commenter defending him amid other commenters criticizing him. We have written many more articles about sentencing disparities, the racial disparities especially, like with "White Boy Chris" in the Operation Bloodline series. We interviewed dealers, defendants, their lawyers about racial and criminal-justice concerns in Operation Bloodline, thousands upon thousands of words and audio and photos and video ... I'm still trying to figure out why that means we should allow only those folks to speak, and not someone who's telling us what life is like inside a white-collar prison. We did series of articles about the injustices of wrongfully incarcerated men like Scott Lewis, including repeated interviews with them, including a radio interview and transcript about his and Stefon Morant's experiences. I'm trying to understand this feeling among some commenters that we should silence some people -- especially in this case when we're not giving space to a defense of what Dressler did or suggesting there's an injustice beyond the disparate sentences handed to cooperating witnesses and the people they recruited in real-estate scams. In fact, we are the only news outlet that wrote dozens of stories about that real-estate scams and others in New Haven, holding white-collar criminals' actions to light. Finally the "bupkis" line amazes me -- there is absolutely no comparison to the amount of words we've written and stories we've written about "poor black men behind bars, wrongfully convicted" versus these prison diaries. If you're interested in those stories please read them. If you're not interested in an occasional article about someone else's experience, please don't feel obliged to read it.]

Paul,

This is an extended, installment piece about a white collar criminal doing soft-time at the same country club prison reknowned for housing banking fraudsters like Bernie Madoff.

I will reiterate my position about this being a story of privilege coupled with your poor editorial decisions that give this man an undeserved public voice while being incarcerated.

Methinks the Editor doth protesteth too much.

(especially when he is answering my direct responses to Fire18.)

Paul,

You really don't see the difference between this and the Bloodline Series?

One is reporting, one is memoir.

Does Mr. Dressler get paid for this serial???

As Barretta would say -- "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."

Simply put, I find the comments that complain about publishing these articles without merit. NHI and Paul Bass have, in fact, been intense and arguably brutal in attention toward the issues of real estate scams in New Haven over many years. I even think he's gone too far in his opinions at times, since it is perfectly legal to purchase investment properly, add improvements, and sell at a profit, even if that drives up housing prices in an area (something other home owners in that area likely appreciate). No one who read all of those articles would harbor the slightest thought that Mr. Bass is easy on anyone involved in such situations that were proven crimes. I find Larry's writing interesting, funny, and self effacing and I'm glad NHI has published it.

Nathan wrote: " I even think he's gone too far in his opinions at times, since it is perfectly legal to purchase investment properly, add improvements, and sell at a profit, even if that drives up housing prices in an area (something other home owners in that area likely appreciate)."

Wow. Did he read the articles? The indictments? The guilty pleas? The point is that the properties were never improved. They didn't drive up property values; they drove down property values. They weren't sold at a profit. They were left to rot and mortgage money was pocketed. Often they were flipped to fake owners as part of a scheme to steal money and walk away from the houses. In other cases, the owners kept ownership and let the places rot. People admitted they did this and went to jail for their crimes. If it's "brutal" to report that, then expect lots more "brutality."

Nathan's understanding of what happened with these properties may not be accurate, but I think the overall goal was to back up the New Haven Independent and to dissipate some of the negative defecation that Bill Saunders so poorly expels from the world in which he can not seem to see the forest through the trees.
Even if the author did actually dip his "fingers in the pie" which he didn't as Bill would know by now if he'd actually read the comments that he seems to so intensely follow, that's not the point.

Chill Bill. Who are you? A troll that lives under a bridge with a computer looking for anything to bash so that you can to excuse your own failures?

You keep using the words "white & privileged." Perhaps you are not. If so, neither am I. But never, never do I let that stop me from success and an amazing life. Bitterness will only hold you back Bill. Therapy may help you. Perhaps talk to a close friend. If you're looking for something to be miserable about, I guarantee you, you'll always find it. Let it go and allow yourself to enjoy life.
As for myself, thank you NHI for the behind the scenes look into what is going on at the correctional facilities. It's our country, it's our fellow humans, we should know. Thanks.

My comments were misunderstood by Paul Bass. I was not addressing any of the properties involved in the collection of legal cases of which the author was involved. Rather, I was commenting on statements by Mr. Bass in situations not related to illegal activities generally which seem to generally condemn "flipping". My position was stating that there is nothing wrong with legal real estate speculation which involves purchasing properly, making improvements, and selling it for profit, even if that drives up prices.

[Paul: Agreed. There's nothing wrong with baking a cake or selling a hot dog or building a bicycle, either. That's a straw man argument. To buy a house and improve it and sell it is legal; whoever suggested otherwise? There's a subtler argument to be made about how flipping is done -- cheap and fast for a quick buck and turnover, versus a quality job (say, the way Neighborhood Housing Services does it). There's also an argument about a preference for homeownership, although often the homeowner doesn't have the means to do the renovation, so the flipper serves a useful purpose; and often people need to rent, not own, and a landlord serves a valuable purpose. I don't recall ever saying it's illegal or de facto a shady practice to buy a distressed property, restore it legitimately (without stealing mortgage money or flipping it to yourself or a straw buyer under false pretenses to deceive a lender), and then selling it to a new owner. And of course making property nicer drives up prices, because it drives up value. That in and of itself can be quite positive. It all depends how it's done, as long as a deep-pocketed developer isn't coming into a neighborhood and squeezing out people who've been there a long time through shady means, which we've seen happen, say, in parts of New York. New Haven was beset by shady flippers, first in the late '90s, and then in recent years, who had no interest in improving distressed properties or property values, and we've paid quite a price, as have some of them. It's always easy to sound smarter than everyone else in a comments thread by mischaracterizing and simplifying other people's arguments, which I recognize is the preferred style of argument by many on the web; I don't know that that advances debate in a constructive fashion.]