A True Survivor Story: From Prison to Purpose with Jerry Durand

From Radio Host to Federal Target

Jerry Durand called me from his home office, where he’s been building something called Prison Land for the past four years. It’s a game where players become inmates, buy commissary, and navigate prison life. When I asked him about it, he laughed and said, “You know, you better have a sense of humor. Because if you don’t, you’re going to go through the most miserable time in your entire life.”

Jerry knows about miserable times. He spent almost nine years in federal prison after a currency trading operation collapsed in 2008. But before any of that happened, he was making his living on the radio.

“We did it for quite some time. Many, many years. It was called Wealth Survival and I was on one of the Patriot affiliates,” Jerry told me. He started on shortwave radio, talking to listeners from his dining room table with papers spread everywhere. “I can still see the very first night. I did not know that I, you know, I piled on live. Okay. And there was nobody to talk to. It was just me and my dining room table with papers laid out all over the place.”

The radio show became a lead source. Jerry would bring listeners to seminars around the country, introducing them to different investment strategies. This was 2007, 2008, when the equity markets were tanking. “A good return in the equities market was like negative 2%. Okay. So. They’re all losing money,” he said.

That’s when Jerry and his partners got into foreign currency exchange, specifically something called the carry trade.

The Carry Trade and Swiss Banks

Jerry explained the carry trade like this: “You simply. Get the investors dollars. Convert them to yen. use it. Put it back into the higher interest rate one. And now you’re getting multiples of that.”

The strategy took advantage of the spread between Japanese yen interest rates, which were at zero, and US dollar and British pound rates, which were around five percent. Jerry was flying to Zurich, Switzerland every three weeks for a couple of years, working with international banks.

“Most of our trades were done in Zurich. If you’re going to be in the forex market in any kind of fashion. It was either New York. London or Zurich. We chose Zurich because there are some pretty smart guys over there, solid banks,” he said.

The money was substantial. Jerry and his two partners were doing well enough that they were considering buying a bank in Switzerland. But that’s where things started to go sideways.

“The most dangerous guys in business to me, because I was probably in my mid 50s then. Most dangerous guys in the world were guys who were in their 30s who had never failed,” Jerry said. His two younger partners had different ideas about how to spend their profits. One wanted to buy 10% of the Minnesota Wild hockey team. The other wanted to build a casino in Panama.

Jerry wanted to acquire the Swiss bank first. When his partners disagreed, they found a way to push him out of the company in June 2008.

When Everything Collapsed

“I part of company in June of 2008, never turned back, never. They didn’t start to really do an embezzlement for about four to six months. So the embezzlement occurred after I left,” Jerry said.

But leaving the company didn’t protect him. Jerry had clients who wanted to follow him when his non-compete expired. When his former partners wouldn’t release their money, the clients filed complaints with state regulators. That’s what triggered the federal investigation.

Jerry was at home doing his taxes on a morning in May 2010 when his world changed. “My house was surrounded with cop cars. I mean, surrounded. There’s like 13 of them. And all of a sudden I hear just boom, boom, boom. The windows were just a horse was shaken.”

Federal agents threw him down on his front steps, handcuffed him, and searched his house while he and his wife sat in their pajamas. They separated the couple and grilled Jerry about Trevor Cook, one of his former partners.

“And I said, well, am I under arrest? And they never answer the question. So I was not under arrest. You know, I’m free to go. I hard to go when you got handcuffs,” Jerry said.

Two or three days later, federal agents came back with an offer. “They’re really nice guys. No, we cut a deal. I was like, what? I says cut a deal. I says, no, I cut no deal with you guys.”

Going to Trial Against the Odds

Jerry didn’t know that 97% of people charged federally take plea bargains. He found that statistic out two days before his trial ended. By then, the government had frozen all his assets, leaving him with a court-appointed attorney.

The trial lasted six weeks, from April to June 2012. Jerry was tried alongside two other defendants. The publicity was massive, and Jerry said the jury pool was tainted by media coverage that favored the prosecution’s narrative.

“So the jury actually said to this reporter, we knew these guys were guilty before they ever presented their defense. Now, think about that. So that’s a fair trial,” Jerry said.

When the verdict came back, one of the female jurors was sobbing. Jerry was immediately remanded to custody. “The walls of the courtroom oozed with federal agents, and I couldn’t give you any other word to describe it but that, but it just like they just come out of the walls.”

Jerry was sentenced to 240 months, 20 years in federal prison. He served almost nine years before COVID compassionate release programs allowed him to come home.

Building Prison Land

Today, Jerry is working on Prison Land, a game that simulates prison life. Players become inmates, navigate the commissary system, and experience what it’s like inside. It’s his way of answering the questions everyone has about prison but are afraid to ask.

“Everybody’s got some curiosity about what goes on in prison. How does it happen? What happens? What would it be like to live in it?” Jerry said during our conversation.

He’s been out about four years now and hasn’t let the experience keep him down. The man who once flew to Switzerland every three weeks is now building something entirely new from his home office, drawing on knowledge he never wanted to have.

Jerry’s story reminds me that the criminal justice system can reach anyone, regardless of their background or intentions. A dirt poor farm boy who became a successful radio host and currency trader can end up in federal prison just as easily as anyone else. The system doesn’t distinguish between the guilty and the unlucky.