About

I was born in Miami Florida in 1981 and moved to Sugar Land, Texas in 1985 where I was raised until going off to college. Sports was my passion growing up and I played varsity football at Clements High School starting on the offensive line my senior year in high school. I had hopes of playing football in college but ultimately felt it was best for my future to pursue a business degree from the University of Texas at Austin rather than play Division III college football.

I graduated from high school in 1999 and chose to attend the University of Texas. I had a passion for business and dreamed of being an investment banker. Rather than a finance degree I ultimately opted to pursue an accounting degree as UT Austin had a five-year program to graduate with both a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree in accounting. Immediately upon graduating in2004 I passed the CPA exam and became a licensed CPA.

After graduating and obtaining my CPA, I went to work for Deloitte, where I worked as an auditor until taking a position in 2006 as a Senior Consultant with FTI Consulting doing forensic accounting and litigation consulting. The job worked out well until the Great Recession hit in 2008. The firm had to cut back and couldn’t afford to promote new managers. So, I sought out other opportunities. I met up with an old fraternity brother whose father owned healthcare facilities, one of which had serious operational issues. He’d been considering shuttering the place and gave me six months to turn things around. At the time, the facility had only 12 or 13 outpatients and a challenged reputation.

I researched every aspect of the business and focused on customer care. By providing more comprehensive care, our costs went up but we made up for the lower margins with more patients and a better reputation. We went from 12-13 patients to 85-90 in just one year and the year after that we grew to 180.

I felt very happy and fulfilled in my work and sought to repeat that success on my own launching Novus Healthcare in 2012. Once we obtained the appropriate licenses to operate, we began to grow by building a team and acquiring clients.

I fell into legal problems due to inadequate record-keeping and poor decision-making. Our collection of data and paperwork failed to keep up with our growth and I made decisions I now regret manipulating paperwork and attaching doctors’ signatures electronically to ensure we could bill for our patients promptly to maximize our cash cycle and meet our obligations. I learned a valuable lesson from that experience. I focused so much on growing the business that our company failed to sufficiently meet our compliance requirements. By taking our eye off the ball in pursuit of profits, we lost the entire company and I was charged with health care fraud in February 2017 and released on bond. It was an expensive lesson but one I know not to repeat.

Refusing to accept responsibility and hold myself accountable for the poor decisions I made at Novus I began fighting the Department of Justice relentlessly. Through that fight, I continued to make poor decisions and ultimately was broke and unemployed until I hit rock bottom in February 2018 when I was arrested on a bond violation for online gambling and was detained in a federal detention center for two months. That was the pivotal point in my life when I made a conscious decision to accept responsibility and do a thorough inventory of my life and my character. I made a promise that if I was to be given a second chance I would not squander it. In April 2018, my prayers were answered and the district Judge released me from the detention center and put me back on bond. While I continued to fight my legal case I changed my playgrounds and playmates, attended counseling, and started participating in a 12-Step program called Regeneration. With that program as God’s vessel, I began to set the foundation and lay the groundwork to rebuild and transform my life.

While laying that groundwork I remained unemployed and was actively searching for work which was unsuccessful. I even humbled myself and applied for jobs bartending or managing in restaurants and was not given the opportunity. I believe they felt I was overqualified as a former CEO and licensed CPA with a master’s degree from UT Austin. In December of 2018, I was blessed with the opportunity to begin my new career for a local residential and commercial roofing company, as a commission-only sales person. The company generated approximately $2 million in annual revenues when I came on board. The owners tasked me with creating new opportunities. I began researching new markets and launched a new government subcontracting division with a focus on commercial roofing on military bases throughout the continental United States. As a result of that new division, the company’s sales and employment roster grew rapidly. The company now does in excess of $16 million in revenues and employs more than 100 people.

Throughout the building of my new career, I continued my legal battle with the Department of Justice. It wasn’t until February of 2021 that I was able to reassess my legal situation. My transformation, which began in 2018, continued to evolve, and through that reassessment, hard conversations with my lovely wife Amy, and well-respected friends and mentors, did I make the decision to accept responsibility for my conduct in 2012-2015 at Novus and instructed my attorney I wanted to plea guilty. I ultimately pled guilty in March of 2021.

Now comes a critical point in my journey where I will be sentenced to federal prison on January 18, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Chief District Judge of the Northern District of Texas Judge Barbara Lynn. I am blessed at this upcoming chapter in my life with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, an amazing and loving wife, and my best friend Amy, an incredible boss Jonathan, phenomenal and forgiving coworkers and employees, and loyal friends. It is unclear what this chapter holds, what my sentence will be, and I would be completely lying if I didn’t tell you I am terrified to begin my sentence. That said I am determined to persevere through this upcoming trial and return a more refined and improved version of myself.

Enduring adversity and overcoming life’s challenges were critical during every seeming failure in my life. The thing about failure is that if you only fail once you give up. I refuse to give up. With persistence, you turn every apparent failure into a mere setback from which you can rise again to reach even greater heights.