Hey everyone, welcome back to Grace Over Guilt. I'm Dan Kaufman. Last Monday, I told you about who I was before the fall; the life I'd built, the identity I'd constructed, the comfortable lies I was telling myself. Today, I'm going to tell you about the moment everything collapsed.

This is the hard part. This is 2022. This is the arrest that changed everything.

THE SENTENCING THAT WASN'T

Before I get to 2022, I need to tell you about what happened in 2021. Because this is where things started to really fall apart in ways I couldn't control.

I was supposed to be sentenced in 2021. The night before my sentencing date, I got a text from a client. He said his entire office had COVID and that I should get tested since I'd been there a couple of days before.

So I did what any reasonable person would do. I called my attorney and left him a message. And then I texted him. I said, "What do I do? I might have COVID. I can't go to court tomorrow and potentially infect everyone."

And you know what he told me? He said, "Don't show up. I'll handle it."

So I didn't show up. And the judge issued a bench warrant for my arrest.

Now, at this point, you might be thinking, "Okay, well, you turn yourself in and explain what happened, right?" That would be logical. That would be sensible.

But my attorney told me to lie low. He told me not to turn myself in. Can you believe that? I had a bench warrant out for my arrest, and the man who was supposed to be guiding me through the legal system told me to just... wait.

Looking back, I should have fired him right then. I should have gotten a new attorney, turned myself in, and faced whatever was coming. But I trusted him. I trusted the process. And that trust cost me everything.

So I went on living my life, realizing now that it was just borrowed time.  We went on several vacations that year, and we had a fantastic time.  We did Disney before Christmas, we went to Sanibel Island for our anniversary, and a few other places that year.  It was a great year.  But little did I know what was going to happen and how everything was going to come crashing down around me.

THE ARREST

2022 came, and the warrant caught up with me. It was in January again, and I was arrested again on a Friday evening. But this time, I wasn't getting out in a few hours. I had to sit in the holding tank the entire weekend before I could see the judge.  When I saw the judge on Monday morning, he laid into me and scheduled sentencing two months out.  So I had to sit and wait.  Sit and rot.

For two months, I sat in jail waiting. Two months of not knowing what was going to happen. Two months of anxiety and fear and regret. My attorney, the same one who told me to lie low, kept telling me it would be fine. No jail time. Trust the process.  My PSI (the pre-sentencing inspection report) came back with the same thing: no jail time, probation, that's it.

And then came sentencing. And I wasn't fine. I was sentenced to eight months.

Eight months. For something I didn't do. For depositing a check that a client had stolen. Eight months of my life, gone.

But that wasn't even the worst part.

THIRTEEN DAYS

Thirteen days after I went to jail, my wife filed for divorce.

I want you to sit with that for a second. Thirteen days. Not even two weeks into my sentence, and the life I had built, the family I thought I'd grow old with, was officially ending.

I can't fully describe what that felt like. There's a special kind of helplessness when you're locked in a cell, and your life is falling apart on the outside. You can't fight for your marriage. You can't have hard conversations. You can't hold your daughters and explain what's happening.

All you can do is sit there. And think. And wonder where it all went wrong.

The divorce was finalized in late September 2022, while I was still incarcerated. I walked into jail a married man with a family. I would walk out single, with no home to go back to and a relationship with my daughters hanging by a thread.

That's what I lost in 2022. That's what the arrest cost me.

I spent a lot of time in the beginning blaming other people, while sitting in my cell for 16 hours a day. I blamed my client, who gave me the stolen check. I blamed my attorney for giving me terrible advice. I blamed the legal system that seemed designed to punish people regardless of their innocence.

And honestly? Some of that blame was justified. I was failed by people and systems that should have protected me.

But I also had to face my own part in it. The lies I had told myself. The half-truths I had told my wife. The way I had chosen to trust blindly instead of asking hard questions.

I wasn't innocent in the sense of being blameless. I had made choices that led me here. Maybe not the choice to commit a crime because I didn’t, but choices about who to trust, how to communicate, and what to prioritize.

Sitting in that cell, I had to hold both truths at once: I was wronged, and I also contributed to my own downfall. That's not a comfortable place to be. But it's where the real work begins.

That's Episode 4. That's the story of how I went from the guy with the plan to the guy in the cell, watching his marriage dissolve from behind bars.

Next Monday, I'm going to tell you about the long wait, the months in jail, what I learned, what I struggled with, and how I started to piece together a new understanding of who I was.

If you're going through something similar right now, if your life is falling apart in ways you can't control, I want you to know that this isn't the end of your story. It might feel like it. I know it felt like it for me. But there are more chapters ahead. Harder ones, but also better ones.

Grace over guilt.

I'll see you on Wednesday.