White-Collar Crime Subject of Business Lecture
The couple was sentenced to 24 and 30 months in prison for defrauding Nick’s employer out of $1 million through fraudulent invoices. They sent their two daughters (at the time, a freshman and sophomore in high school) away to live with friends, downsized their lives into about 15 boxes and reported to separate prisons about 100 miles apart.
“As soon as I stepped inside the Alderson Federal Prison, I lost my identity and became #11708401,” Carolyn Ryberg said on April 15 at the inaugural event in the Ethics, Morality and Law Lecture Series event, hosted by the Concordia School of Business.
Moderated by Hank Shea of the University of St. Thomas School of Law and former federal prosecutor, the lecture series confronted the little discussed issue of white-collar crime to a crowded Centrum.
“Nick and Carol have no obligation to be here,” Shea said. “They aren’t getting any extra credit. They are doing this for you.”
Through guidance from Shea, the couple told the story of the events that led up to their felonies.
“Our time in prison turned our lives around,” says Nick Ryberg. “The anger started melting away and that’s when I found my faith.”
Prison gave both the Rybergs a chance to reevaluate their lives and confront the coping mechanisms they had relied on to be OK with the deceit they were living.
“Stepping into prison was self-surrender in the truest sense of the word,” Nick Ryberg said.
Though the Rybergs found faith amidst felonies, they both are quick to reiterate that their story is not “a Hollywood high,” as Carolyn puts it, but rather a process of forgiveness and redemption, a story they feel called to pass on to others. “Our journey began with missteps. A million dollars begins with a single penny,” Carolyn Ryberg said. “If you always tell the truth, you’ll only have one story to remember.”
A lie is always a lie. If you practice a lack of integrity, that’s what you will get good at, Nick Ryberg said.
“If what you did today in private was on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow, would you be OK with it?” he challenged the audience.
Live your life accountable for your actions, the Rybergs urged. Don’t fall into patterns of compromising your ideals and values because sooner or later, those missteps take on lives of their own.
“No one wakes up one day and decides to be a felon,” Nick Ryberg said. “It can happen to anyone and we are living examples, and there are even more like us.”