Ideagen Radio
Ideagen Radio
Global Leadership Summit: Richard Sandler on Michael Milken's Legacy and the Power of Resilience
Richard Sandler joins us to unravel the story of Michael Milken, a financial innovator whose legacy is often overshadowed by controversy. Discover what truly transpired in the high-stakes world of white-collar crime through Sandler's lens, enriched by their lifelong friendship and professional journey, as detailed in his book, "A Witness to a Prosecution: The Myth of Michael Milken." Explore the misunderstood impact of Milken's contributions to finance, philanthropy, and beyond, and see how the Milken Family Foundation has been a beacon for education and medical research long before legal battles took center stage.
We navigate the treacherous waters of the legal system, highlighting the immense power wielded by prosecutors in high-profile cases like Milken's. Richard Sandler sheds light on the unprecedented nature of the charges against Milken, illustrating the complexities and resilience required to maintain one's identity amidst adversity. Despite the odds, Milken's journey is a testament to innovation and the pursuit of dreams, supported by steadfast friends and allies. Join us to understand how Milken's story is not just about survival, but about thriving and continuing to make meaningful contributions to the world.
#Milken #Ideagen #gls2025
Get A Witness to a Prosecution – https://www.amazon.com/Witness-Prosecution-Myth-Michael-Milken/dp/B0C4381G6S
Explore the Milken Institute – https://milkeninstitute.org/
View the entire 2025 Global Leadership Summit here: https://www.ideagenglobal.com/2025globalleadershipsummit
Welcome to IdeaGen TV live from Washington DC Today. I am deeply honored and privileged to have with me Mr Richard Sandler. Richard, welcome All the way from Los Angeles. Huh, yes, thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure to have you, and you know we're here to talk about Richard's book. It's an incredible book and I'd like to begin by reading and citing a first, the first paragraph really, of this book, where you state where you've been thinking about writing this book for over 20 years. So you thought about writing this book for over 20 years. Michael Milken was your childhood friend. You met him at six years old. His younger brother, lowell, was your age and two years younger than Michael, and you all have been close friends since first grade. It's a long time and some privilege.
Speaker 1:And though Michael was the older brother, you were in high school together in the San Fernando Valley of LA, in college together at Berkeley and lived together in the same fraternity Right. Your wives also met as sorority sisters at Berkeley and remain very close friends, and your children are friends. In 1983, just a few years ago, you began working together and you still work together to this day. You know each other well. Yes, we do, yes, we do, and you wrote this book.
Speaker 1:You're on the cover, richard Sandler, a witness to a prosecution, the myth of Michael Milken, and so you and I have had some conversations around it. I've had the privilege of reading the book. I think you did a wonderful job of describing the story and its impact, and you were also the attorney. You represented your good friend. You represented him in this, so you have very intricate knowledge of this, beyond just. You grew up since first grade together. You were part of this, and so I'd like to ask you for our global audience, richard, would you kindly introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about what you're doing now, and then we'll go right into the book.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, you give me a great introduction here. I went to law school, I practiced law for about 10 years and then in 1983, I left the practice of law to go to work with Michael and his brother, lowell, during the days of Drexel really looking, overlooking investments, a lot of it in Drexel deals, working on transactions and structuring transactions, and I've been involved with Mike and Lowell from that point today, both in business and in their philanthropic activities. So what am I doing today? I help run the Family Foundation. I sit on the board of the Milken Institute Prostate Cancer Foundation, so you know we're involved together in a lot of endeavors.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, and so the Milk and Family Foundation has been instrumental in advancing so many different educational and medical research issues. What would you say are some of the most impactful that you've come across? I mean, I know there's many, but what are some that just stand out to you as those that are just changing?
Speaker 2:the world. I'd say you know the focus in education and in medical research. So, if I just pick a couple, we have the Milken Educator Award, a national award program honoring teachers, k through 12 education since 1987, giving out 3,000 awards of $25,000 each to try to basically get the best and the brightest and keep them in business. I think, in medical research, the formation of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. I think the strides that have been made in medical research, cancer research and all disease research because of the approach that Mike has taken and the Institute has taken, has saved literally millions of lives over the years. So I think changing lives, bettering lives, is one of the reasons that we're all put on this earth.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right, and you know, I had the privilege of being asked by Michael to film a piece for the Milken Center for Advancing the American dream, and this was probably five years ago, fast forward. Michael suggested I go on a tour of the new center and I went on a tour here in Washington and what I saw was one of the most profound efforts I've ever come across and it's about to open, I believe, sometime this year, correct, if everything stays on target. Yes, everything, that's the plan. That's the plan, and you're a part of that. Yep, you're a big part of that, and this is Michael's vision. I'd like you to just say what are the? There's four pillars within that center.
Speaker 2:What are those? So the four pillars that I think make up the American dream and people's ability to make it to, to achieve their American dream are medical research and public health Very important part of all of our lives. Education and the educator makes a difference in lives Entrepreneurship People come to this country because they have opportunities and access to capital so that they can take that dream and realize it.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely right, and I don't know how many people in the world I know many are familiar with the work that Michael is doing through the Milken Foundation and everything that you're doing, but for anyone who's watching this that's not familiar. I implore you to take a look at the Milken website To just get a flavor of what is happening and the impact that you're having, Having had the privilege of attending these summits and events over the years. It's profound. The organizations that you're bringing together, and so you know Michael Milken. You grew up with him, your childhood friends, and so now we look at your book A Witness to the Prosecution. In this book you delve into the investigation. We're going back now. No-transcript. Richard, what do you believe were the key misconceptions or misunderstandings that maybe the public, the media and even the government had about Michael Milken's role in the financial revolution.
Speaker 2:So I'll just start with the way you introduced the question. You know you said this predated the Milken Foundation. It actually didn't. I think one of the misconceptions today is that Mike has done so much in philanthropy because of what happened back then. He was doing this before the foundation was founded, years before this happened. The judge who sentenced him even commented how impressed she was on what he had done before any of this happened.
Speaker 2:But the greatest misconception is that Mike did something really bad. Okay that he pled guilty. He did plead guilty certain felonies, he did go to prison. That is a true statement. But the misconception is and I had the same misconception when this started if the government comes after you, you must have done something wrong. If you pled guilty, you probably did something worse than what you pled to. And what I learned was the process is so difficult and the power of the government is so great that that assumption is not a true assumption.
Speaker 2:Now today we actually hear the terms lawfare weaponization of the Justice Department. Obviously, the new president prior president, you know was subject to a number of indictments himself and I think people are now realizing that everybody that is targeted by the government doesn't necessarily a criminal. Not that the government does not have the right to go after people that violate the law. But I think the misconception is and that's one of the reasons I wrote the book because it keeps getting written over and over again that Michael Milken was involved in insider trading. Nothing could be farther from the truth and because of his problems, he is now trying to rebuild his life and he's gone on with philanthropy for that reason. Again, nothing could be farther from the truth. Mike's no different today than the young guy I grew up with. He's no different today than the guy who was on the top of the world in the heyday of Drexel Brown.
Speaker 1:And that's incredible to hear from you as a guy who has known him since first grade.
Speaker 2:There's not many people that can state that right. Right, and you know, look at the reason that I got involved in this. As I was there, you know we hired experts in this field. Okay, none of us ever dreamed we'd be part of a criminal prosecution, right? So we went out and hired the lawyers and I helped organize work with the lawyers on a day to day basis as part of the legal team and what we did. But I learned a lot about the process, and can I just read a quick part from the book that talks about it?
Speaker 2:The United States Supreme Court OK, in a case called Berger versus the United States in 1935, stated what a US attorney's job was. It was written by Associate Justice George Sutherland and he said the United States attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereign whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is, in a particular and very definitive sense, the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. Now one of the prosecutors. The line prosecutor in our case, who came to a class that I taught on this subject at Stanford Law School, many years later made this statement in the class. So just you will contrast this to the Supreme Court of what the prosecutor's job is.
Speaker 2:The criminal justice system is basically an exercise in raw power. I probably didn't understand it when I was the prosecutor. I certainly understand it now. It is very much an uneven game where the government has enormous power exercised by very young and very inexperienced people. A good prosecutor has to be energetic, black and white, zealous, ambitious, personally ambitious, because that was drives the engine. So that's kind of a contrast to a good prosecutor. Has to see that justice is done and that everybody is treated fairly.
Speaker 2:In our case, mike had been extremely successful in disrupting the financial business. He created a market within a market called a high-yield securities market. He financed people and companies that had never been financed before because they couldn't access the market People like Ted Turner, people like Steve Wynn, people like Greg McCaw, and I could go on and on and on. I got a lot of notoriety when an individual that he'd done business with admitted to really egregious violations of the securities laws in insider trading and in order to get a good deal for himself, said I can give you somebody more important to me, the government, which I learned afterwards. They now had a vested interest in Mike being guilty before they looked at the first document or talked to the first witness.
Speaker 1:Incredibly insightful, richard. I've had the privilege of reading the book and it's just startling. The book provides, by the way, as you know, never before seen court transcripts and insights into your defense strategy, which I think is profound on so many levels. Profound on so many levels. How did your perspective on the legal and the financial systems evolve as you literally witnessed firsthand firsthand, your friend, your childhood friend since first grade, being prosecuted in a process and media frenzy that surrounded Michael Milken's case?
Speaker 2:It really drove home the fact that people make the difference. Okay, it's always about the people, and if somebody is trying to protect themselves at your expense, if, as this prosecutor says, a young prosecutor thinks it's in their interest to find you guilty, they're not. I don't necessarily believe that the young prosecutors were doing anything that they thought was dishonest. They were just absolutely convinced before they started. Okay, so they use the power of the prosecutor. Now look at what's the power of a prosecutor. A prosecutor can decide who to investigate. A prosecutor can decide who to indict.
Speaker 2:When a prosecutor is talking to a witness, they could let the witness know that if they could help them, we could help each other. If you don't help me, I could indict you. Prosecutor has that power. Once they indict you, they could make things to the press, like we had to deal with Now in the public. You have been convicted, and so it just made me realize that people are people and you've got to be careful with who you deal with in life and how you conduct yourself and always make sure that you conduct yourself the way you want to. But there's only so much you can control, and so you associate with people that you feel you can trust or that you can work with profound advice.
Speaker 1:I mean that is and that's based on advice. That is um, you've lived it. Yeah, this isn't just some. You're writing a book and you're a young guy trying to just give some advice.
Speaker 2:You've lived it Right and so so we have a situation now where prosecutors are threatening witnesses. Witnesses are telling stories. It's gotten very complicated. They're not able to prove what they thought they could prove, but they had another tool available. They also went after Mike's brother, who was not even involved in the transactions with the individual who originally told the government that they could help them prosecute Michael Milken. So they put tremendous pressure on Mike and his family for many years because people are going to say, well, if he didn't do anything, why did he plead? Because the risk in a white collar case of going to trial are tremendous. One of our lawyers who started the Williams and Connolly firm right here in Washington DC, edward Bennett Williams, stated to me at the beginning I am convinced that Mike Milken is innocent. What I'm not convinced is that I can prove to a jury that anyone that was as successful as he was and made as much money as he did didn't do something wrong in a very complex case.
Speaker 1:he did didn't do something wrong in a very complex case. Yeah, sometimes there's no words that can describe what you just described, and so eloquently and I know that this is personal for you. I know that this is personal.
Speaker 2:This is your friend. I mean, I knew who he was before. I know who he is now. I know what he did and I know what he didn't do and what he pled to. He did, except when you read the book, because I go into detail exactly what he pled to. Nothing that he pled to had ever been the subject of a criminal prosecution prior to the time and, I'm pretty confident, probably not since that time.
Speaker 2:But what was really interesting is when we went to be sentenced. The process is you file a sentencing memorandum with the judge telling the judge why the sentence should be very light. The government files a sentencing memorandum with the judge giving their side of the story. The government sentencing memorandum in this case said I know he pled to these things that aren't all that serious, but he did all these other terrible things that you should take into account. We said we didn't do it.
Speaker 2:The judge said I'm going to hold a hearing, I'm going to hold a mini trial, going to hold a mini trial and since there's such a divergence between the two sides, I'm going to give the government 20 hours to pick its best one, two or three cases. Just show me that he violated one more law than what he pled to Show me. He did one of these things and I will take everything you said into consideration. In sentencing and she held a hearing over several weeks, we thought it was kind of unfair because we had to prove a negative. They said he did all these things. The only thing we were allowed to do is say that he did and then she ruled that they failed. And she later said publicly that she did not believe the government could prove that he did one other thing than what he pled to. And again you could read what he pled to. It was a bunch of regulatory violations that some people even questioned whether they were even violations of those regulations.
Speaker 1:And so, what is it? What do people come away with? What is it that? That? That, that aha moment. I know the answer. I want to ask you what do you want folks to come away with from this book?
Speaker 2:A Witness to the Prosecution we want to come away with actually three things. George One, I want them to know the true Michael Milken story. Who was he? What did he accomplish in finance, why was he such a disruptor, why was he so good at what he did, and what kind of person is he?
Speaker 2:But number two, I want them to understand away from Michael Milken this could happen to you. I want them to understand how the process works and how difficult the process is. And the third thing I want them to see is that, no matter what happens to you in life, if you never forget who you are, you can move on and lead a productive life, even when life has dealt you a very difficult hand. Look what Mike Milken has accomplished before this happened and since this happened. He has this unbelievable ability to get up, dust himself off and go about trying to be productive, and he does it, which I think is amazing, without bitterness. You don't hear him complaining about what happened to him before. You just see him trying to make a difference in the world today.
Speaker 1:He took that traumatizing experience and is literally continuing to change the world on every level, and I think he's, if I may, I think he's able to do it because he has good friends, like you.
Speaker 1:So I want to salute you in this process and I want to ask that our global audience take a look at this book A Witness to the Prosecution of Michael Milken the Myth of Michael Milken, by Richard Sandler. Richard, thank you for your inspiration. You're a good man. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.