Bravery Behind the Whistleblower: Inside the ZTE Scandal | Ep. 84 with Ashley Yablon

:: 00:00:00

Host

Welcome to another compelling episode on the No Gray Areas podcast. Today we have on special guest Ashley Jablonski to discuss his pivotal decision as a whistleblower at a major telecom company. You blond's bravery then led to a choice that would foreseeably change his life forever. Let's get started

:: 00:25:18

Pat McCalla

Ashley Yeoman welcome so much to the No Gray Areas podcast. I read your book recently and it's it is a crazy story. Let me let me just intro people with this one excerpt from the book and then I'm going to let you run with it.

:: 00:42:08

Pat McCalla

You say in there, you said in every story there is a defining moment, a precise instant in time when the game changes for good.

:: 00:49:18

Pat McCalla

The whole story from that point forward can be divided into a before and after scenario. Things that happened before the critical event and things that happened after

:: 00:59:09

Pat McCalla

I set you up for our audience there.

:: 01:03:23

Ashley Yablon

Yeah. So I am was the general counsel of the in-house lawyer for the third largest telecom company called ZTE, which is a Chinese telecom. And I happened to start there right when they were under a house investigation where our our U.S. government was concerned that ZTE, as well as my former employer, Huawei, were a threat to U.S. national security.

:: 01:28:18

Ashley Yablon

And what I stumbled upon and I believe that's the part in the book, was Reuters had gotten its hands on a copy of a contract between ZTE in the country of Iran and the contract was for hundreds of millions of dollars of spying technology. Also, Reuters got its hands on an over 900 page packing list, and the packing list detailed all the spying technology as well as all of the US component parts that made up that all the that went into the spying technology, which is against us law.

:: 02:02:11

Ashley Yablon

You can't reexport embargoed or to the embargoed countries. And that's what ZTE had done. And that's what I uncovered was ZTE scheme, an elaborate scheme they had created to sell billions of dollars of spying technology. So our government was correct in the sense that they were a threat to US national security,

:: 02:23:00

Pat McCalla

Well, now let me let me jump kind of to the end of the story, the end of the book to try to get our audience to understand how big of a deal this was for you or how big of a deal it ended up for you because

:: 02:32:13

Pat McCalla

I mean, this podcast is all about the power and complexity of human choice that we make Our choices and eventually our choices make us.

:: 02:39:17

Pat McCalla

So your story fits perfectly. So eventually I'm jumping to the end of the story. Eventually, this company is fined $2.5 billion. Correct.

:: 02:49:06

Ashley Yablon

correct?

:: 02:57:13

Pat McCalla

So

:: 02:57:22

Pat McCalla

like millions. I can kind of wrap my mind around.

:: 03:00:03

Pat McCalla

If we went back 2.5 million seconds, it would take us back about 29 days. So about a month, 2.5 million seconds. If we go back 2.5 billion seconds, we're going back almost 80 years.

:: 03:13:15

Ashley Yablon

wow.

:: 03:14:04

Pat McCalla

when we talk about like millions and billions, that's that's a massive difference. They were fined $2.5 billion. So when you talk about

:: 03:23:01

Pat McCalla

international espionage, life's on the line.

:: 03:26:12

Pat McCalla

Yours being one of them, the main one on the line that that much money involved. People will do some pretty radical things

:: 03:34:11

Ashley Yablon

Well, do crazy things. You know what I like to always tell? I just gave a speech a couple of days ago to a few hundred people and I always say and I think I mentioned the book, I spilled the billion dollar beans. I went to the FBI and and told them the elaborate scheme. And, you know, like I said, ZTE was was making hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars selling to all these countries.

:: 03:57:17

Ashley Yablon

So and spying technology, which was a threat to our lives. So yes, people will do crazy things. They they did all kinds of things which I'm sure we'll talk about here as we move on.

:: 04:08:06

Pat McCalla

when you when you first start learning of this this issue and this was again, for the people who are going to end up reading your book, which I highly recommend, they'll discover that this is kind of your dream job. This is what you had been working for it to be general counsel for a large organization

:: 04:23:02

Ashley Yablon

But

:: 04:29:14

Ashley Yablon

less than a month, it was less than a month when we had what I call the Thanksgiving Day meeting. And you have to remember, everyone there is a Chinese national on a visa, and the only executive who's an American citizen is myself.

:: 04:46:00

Ashley Yablon

So, yeah, within one month I knew I was in grave danger when when it was uncovered that we were under house investigation. And they they pointed to me this should have been a red flag, the first of many, and said, you actually will be the one who stands up to, you know, on C-SPAN in front of Congress and says, we're doing nothing wrong.

:: 05:05:12

Ashley Yablon

So that should have been a big red flag,

:: 05:08:07

Pat McCalla

so crazy. So you're there. The dream job. This company is bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars

:: 05:14:15

Pat McCalla

you're there less than a month or about a month, and they're telling you you're going to be on C-SPAN, telling the world that we're innocent of whatever they're.

:: 05:23:10

Ashley Yablon

correct? Correct. Correct. Yeah.

:: 05:34:09

Ashley Yablon

and again, I always tell people there are two main themes in my book, and it's the theme of probably what your podcast about. And that is. Number one, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. And so this is everything I've wanted and I talk about red flags and obviously talked to her about it, but I saw them, but I didn't see them because I didn't want to see it right.

:: 05:55:07

Ashley Yablon

It was everything that I had dreamt of, everything I'd worked for. So I didn't see the red flags as they were flying right in front of my face. So the conversation was basically me saying, It's problematic. She pointing it out and she was always the voice of reason. While I was skeptical, skeptical, but obviously wanted to keep on because this is everything I've worked for

:: 06:17:04

Pat McCalla

I think our audience can probably all connect with what you're saying. I certainly can, because I think we've all been in this situation. Probably not where $2.5 billion in

:: 06:33:06

Ashley Yablon

right.

:: 06:34:07

Pat McCalla

that's what I loved about your book, Ashley You know,

:: 06:37:10

Pat McCalla

I've never been in a situation quite like that, but there were so many principles and ideas and thoughts that came out of the book where I'm going, I've been in that situation.

:: 06:45:15

Pat McCalla

So

:: 06:45:23

Pat McCalla

love the fact that you're saying you were kind of avoiding or ignoring these red flags. How long does this go on then, before you realize, like, this is serious? I'm in. There's no going back moment

:: 06:57:13

Ashley Yablon

probably that opening line that you you read was the was the turning point. And that was when we were in Shenzhen, China, where ZTE is based. And I'm reviewing the actual contract, the one that there was a subpoena and it was made out to me by our Department of Commerce looking to get a copy of that contract.

:: 07:18:02

Ashley Yablon

So I'm reviewing the contract in Shenzhen, China. And I see in in plain English, a section of this hundreds of millions of dollars, a contract that says a section called How We will Get around U.S. Export Law. And I nearly fell out of my chair. I couldn't believe it was so brazen and over the top. And then I went and I met with the head of Chinese people there, the CEO and the general counsel, and explain this is problematic.

:: 07:44:16

Ashley Yablon

And they kept coming up with more elaborate and over-the-top schemes of how to get around it. And I think the main turning point and this is when I knew I was in what I would say a total pickle was when they a my a Chinese attorney who worked for me as they were speaking in English and in Mandarin, she turned to me in English and said, Ashley, they're lying to your face.

:: 08:07:06

Ashley Yablon

They're not going to comply with the U.S. government and they're going to make you the scapegoat. And when she said that, I knew all of it just came to a head and I rushed back to the U.S. and and figured out what my next steps were.

:: 08:21:11

Pat McCalla

now, what meeting was it? Because in your book, you end up they let you in this room and you have to review it was that that is at the time that you're discussing

:: 08:29:17

Ashley Yablon

Right?

:: 08:41:02

Ashley Yablon

Correct. I was led into a room with it was something out of a great movie.

:: 08:45:14

Ashley Yablon

There was there was no windows in a totally dark room. I walked in. It was pitch black. The only light was from a laptop. And he said, I said, I need to see the agreement. And that 900 page packing list. And I said, You're not going to see that. What you're going to get is 15 minutes to review each one of them.

:: 09:03:08

Ashley Yablon

And I said, There's no way I can do that. So those were the rules they gave me. They projected the the like you said, the the contract on on the on the wall, literally on the wall like a projector.

:: 09:15:23

Ashley Yablon

And as they're scrolling through it, it really was. And

:: 09:20:19

Ashley Yablon

any international contract and I won't bore you or your audience with legalese but any international contract is split down the middle with one half being in English and the other half being in, in this instance, Chinese.

:: 09:33:09

Ashley Yablon

And I'm reading through the agreement quickly as I can. And as I was scrolling and scrolling, I said, Stop, scroll back up and he scroll back up. And like I said, there was a section called How We Will Get Around US Export Laws. And it was so brazen because it even had a diagram, a picture of all the shell entities and companies that ZTE had created in order to create this illegal elaborate scheme.

:: 10:01:01

Ashley Yablon

And that's what I saw. And then that that same day, that same meeting a little bit later that afternoon is when they told me I will comply. And then that's when the attorney turned to me and said, They're lying to you, they're speaking in Mandarin. They're going to destroy all the evidence that the government is requesting and they're going to make you the scapegoat.

:: 10:20:05

Pat McCalla

And so you go back to your your hotel room, not a very nice hotel room.

:: 10:24:20

Pat McCalla

Again, we

:: 10:25:10

Ashley Yablon

Yeah,

:: 10:33:19

Ashley Yablon

I was numb. I was actually numb. I called my wife and I told her what was happening and she said, ironically, Ashley, you have to get home. but by the way, they're stopping ZTE employees. It's on the news. They're stopping them at the border, at the airport. And I thought, my gosh, if they're going to stop anyone, it's going to be me.

:: 10:56:06

Ashley Yablon

You know, the attorney for the company, the head attorney. And not only that, if you think about it, I'm also the unicorn, because not only am I the head attorney for a ZTE, but I'm also the other attorney. I was the assistant general counsel for Weiwei, which was also under house investigation. These were the two Chinese telecom companies.

:: 11:16:20

Ashley Yablon

And like I said, here's the attorney for Bo, and I was fearful of getting home so that that whole plane ride was a was a white knuckle ride all the way back to to the US.

:: 11:28:02

Pat McCalla

like, You don't know what you're going to walk into,

:: 11:29:19

Ashley Yablon

I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get through security. I know if I get through customs, I don't know.

:: 11:35:06

Ashley Yablon

That was that was the fearful part.

:: 11:37:15

Pat McCalla

you had any conversations with the FBI up at this point?

:: 11:41:10

Ashley Yablon

Not to that point, no,

:: 11:44:15

Pat McCalla

on the way to the airport? Well, you're still in China. You just there's someone who is with you that tells you forget what you saw.

:: 11:53:04

Pat McCalla

Or something.

:: 11:53:20

Ashley Yablon

I yeah, I

:: 11:56:00

Ashley Yablon

I can't say too much about that because that rides a fine line. But I got a look from someone that was very clear that my I needed to forget what I knew and

:: 12:06:16

Ashley Yablon

the look told me get rid of the notes you just took of everything you saw

:: 12:11:17

Pat McCalla

Yes, It was the notes you had.

:: 12:13:07

Ashley Yablon

right,

:: 12:14:13

Pat McCalla

Yeah. So

:: 12:15:15

Pat McCalla

you're flying back to the U.S. You now know this is serious.

:: 12:18:21

Pat McCalla

This is got moment like that. I read at the very beginning of this podcast where your your life from this moment on is going to be different than your life was

:: 12:26:16

Pat McCalla

Before

:: 12:27:02

Ashley Yablon

For sure. For sure. It'll it all changed at that, that moment. And and then from there on out.

:: 12:33:12

Pat McCalla

on covering that and unpacking the story a little bit. But I want to key in on this, though, for a moment, because you did have a choice.

:: 12:39:11

Pat McCalla

You could

:: 12:40:01

Ashley Yablon

Yeah.

:: 12:46:04

Pat McCalla

you make that choice? And I think, again, this is why I love your story. Ashley, you didn't know when you made that. You knew it was going to be serious, but I don't think you knew how serious it was going to be.

:: 12:56:06

Pat McCalla

Did you?

:: 12:56:22

Ashley Yablon

No, no, I didn't. I never knew

:: 12:59:23

Ashley Yablon

when you read my book and obviously if you did you see the ramifications and the fallout from what happened. And obviously I had no idea. I knew it was huge what I was in the middle of, but I didn't know what was going to happen.

:: 13:11:15

Ashley Yablon

I think to your point, you know, I'm an attorney, my wife is an attorney. All my best friends are attorneys. But I ended up hiring five different lawyers that I was personally paying to represent me. And I struggled with what to do. My criminal lawyer again had to hire a criminal lawyer. And my criminal lawyer said, we need to go to the FBI.

:: 13:33:13

Ashley Yablon

And for about two weeks I sought the advice of everyone and I went back and forth. And I won't bore your audience again with legalese, but we've all heard of attorney client privilege. You know, you're so that's with your client comes to you and tells you they committed an illegal act in the past. You have to keep that confidential as an attorney.

:: 13:52:20

Ashley Yablon

The exception to that is when your client comes to you and tells you they're going to further a crime in the future.

:: 13:59:05

Ashley Yablon

And that's what ZTE was no longer, no longer. And so that's when you have a duty. You actually have a duty to go report that as an attorney.

:: 14:10:03

Ashley Yablon

And I struggled with this because I felt for the point you brought up earlier, this is my dream job.

:: 14:18:18

Ashley Yablon

It's everything I wanted. I didn't want to see these things. But I don't mean to sound corny. I really don't. But this is true. I, I felt as an American, this is something I had to do. And I saw it as important because if not me, then who? Right. There's no one else who's going to number one. And number two, we're not talking to petty crime.

:: 14:38:21

Ashley Yablon

We're talking a crime against our country and our national security. And so the one instance that that happened was my criminal lawyer said to me, I turn you in, and I said, I don't see how I can do this. And he said, Ashley, I don't see how you can't. And when he said that, something about that flipped the switch for me and I knew that I had to go.

:: 15:00:17

Ashley Yablon

And so he set up a meeting with the FBI and and I ended up telling them for two straight days everything I knew, all the players, all the shell entities, and laid it out for him for two straight days.

:: 15:13:05

Pat McCalla

What I love is I think on your website it talks about this and maybe in the foreword to the book, it says something about what is easy is not always right.

:: 15:21:08

Ashley Yablon

Right,

:: 15:34:09

Ashley Yablon

Right.

:: 15:58:13

Ashley Yablon

right.

:: 15:59:06

Pat McCalla

So you were in that place. You made that decision. You go to the FBI for four, two days, you're unpacking everything.

:: 16:04:00

Ashley Yablon

Correct.

:: 16:05:08

Ashley Yablon

So I give all that information. The FBI, they take my laptop, they make a what they called a preservation copy of it.

:: 16:13:23

Ashley Yablon

And I'm told to go right back to work. And so I do my understanding from the FBI was they were to take that that what they created a 32 page book became a 32 page affidavit and present that to a judge to do what we call it. They were going to do a raid, an old school raid on USA, but they needed the permission of a judge to do it.

:: 16:35:03

Ashley Yablon

But that was to be filed under seal, meaning never to see the light of day. Not a public record. No one would ever know about it. That was my understanding. So fast forward a couple of months. I'm going to work one morning and as I'm walking up to the office, my phone rings, my cell phone and it's a reporter.

:: 16:54:08

Ashley Yablon

And he had gotten a copy of that affidavit and my heart fell to the ground. I couldn't believe it. He said, I'm writing a story about it and you want to make any comment? And I said, That's confidential. You shouldn't have access to it. He said, Well, I do, and I'm writing the story. And I knew well, I spoke to my attorneys.

:: 17:12:20

Ashley Yablon

We tried to figure out we couldn't get it stopped. And the bottom line was my wife and I were sitting at home sweating to death in the heat of summer and here in Texas and hitting the refresh button on that laptop and soon enough, the story comes out. We jump up. My wife says, we got 30 minutes to get out of this house or we're going to get killed.

:: 17:35:00

Unknown

your No gray Areas team, we just want to say thank you so much for listening. And if you're loving this episode, would you just take a moment and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you're listening from? If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on the new podcast episodes that drop every other Wednesday by leaving a review and subscribing, you help others discover our podcasts inspirational messages to effectuate positive change in their lives.

:: 18:00:11

Unknown

Okay, let's jump back in to this episode.

:: 18:03:14

Ashley Yablon

soon enough, the story comes out. We jump up. My wife says, we got 30 minutes to get out of this house or we're going to get killed.

:: 18:10:20

Ashley Yablon

We throw bags together and we scramble out. And that's we went into hiding. That's where it started.

:: 18:17:21

Pat McCalla

By the way, I love the way that you did the book, because the book actually starts at that

:: 18:22:21

Ashley Yablon

Yeah, it does. Yeah.

:: 18:26:02

Ashley Yablon

Yeah,

:: 18:38:20

Ashley Yablon

right, right,

:: 18:40:10

Pat McCalla

Okay, so let's just back up really quick. How far into it are you now?

:: 18:43:22

Pat McCalla

Are you. Are you you been there for three months? Six months,

:: 18:46:13

Ashley Yablon

Yeah. Let's see. I had been there. goodness. I was a summer seven, eight months, I guess about close to eight months. Yeah.

:: 18:58:04

Pat McCalla

are unraveling pretty quickly.

:: 18:59:12

Ashley Yablon

Real quick.

:: 19:07:08

Ashley Yablon

Yeah. And so when we're in hiding, my phone is blowing up.

:: 19:10:08

Ashley Yablon

Every news agency in the world had found my number and was calling me, and I'm calling my attorney, and we he basically sets up a meeting with the FBI. And so we go back to the FBI and he says to him very clearly and in fact, we're sitting here and my attorney says to me, says, Ashley, I've been coming to the FBI for 40 years representing clients.

:: 19:31:11

Ashley Yablon

And he said, I've never seen the level of heavy hitters that they brought in to meet with you. And I said, well, great. So my my attorney explains to him, You've ruined his life. Number one, he's going to lose his dream job. That's a given. Number two, no, he's never going to. His career is over to because no one's ever going to hire him.

:: 19:51:12

Ashley Yablon

And number three, you put his life at risk. And I'll never forget the head person from the FBI said if this was the Mexican Zetas, he'd already be dead. If this was the Russian Mafia, he'd already be dead. The Chinese, he said, are about third on the list. And I said, Is that supposed to make me feel better?

:: 20:13:04

Ashley Yablon

And yeah. And so

:: 20:15:20

Ashley Yablon

from there they said, No, we're sorry. We don't know how it got leaked. And then they they said, Well, we'll give you we'll put you in the witness protection program, you and your wife if you want. And I said, Well, please tell me I have other options. And he said, Well, we can do as I said, we aren't at our house.

:: 20:32:07

Ashley Yablon

We figure it's probably bugged. He said, We can do a sweep of your house. He also gave me what I affectionately called the bat phone, which was a number that I could call it any time, and the FBI would be there in about 3 minutes. And I actually had to use that at one point. But and that was what I was given.

:: 20:50:01

Ashley Yablon

And so I had to go home to my wife and make some make some decisions.

:: 20:54:06

Pat McCalla

Yeah. Let let me just read another excerpt out of the book that goes along with what you're saying that can help our audience understand the serious situation you were in.

:: 21:02:15

Pat McCalla

wrote, If Donna and I wanted to talk to each other about anything sensitive, we maintained the practice I mentioned before. We'd go into the backyard, turn on the sprinklers and speak in a whisper.

:: 21:12:18

Pat McCalla

So you're you guys are so concerned about your house being bugged, people watching you that you're I mean, again, this is like a movie.

:: 21:20:06

Ashley Yablon

Yeah,

:: 21:25:23

Ashley Yablon

yeah, yeah. And I mean, I'm smiling now, laughing. It obviously wasn't funny then, but yeah, this is how this is how it went and

:: 21:34:09

Ashley Yablon

Yeah, it was, it was very scary. You know, my wife, it's also detailed in the book, followed by a Chinese gentleman in a car as she walked the dog.

:: 21:43:21

Ashley Yablon

We went to go have dinner a good 25 miles from our house. We sit down and two Chinese gentlemen come in, something out of a movie in black suits, white shirts, black ties sit directly next to us at a table and throw down their menus and just stare at us. And that's when I had to use the backbone.

:: 22:01:08

Ashley Yablon

FBI came and you can read about it in the book, but you know that death threats, we're going to kill you. We're going to you know, this is coming from ZTE, from ZTE, these phones. We're going to kill you. We're going to kill your family, your children, your children's children. It went on and on and on. I gave all that information to the FBI and like I always say, the FBI is in the information gathering business, not the information giving business.

:: 22:27:15

Ashley Yablon

So I never found out anything. What happened with those or what they found when they swept my house?

:: 22:31:22

Pat McCalla

That's a great line,

:: 22:37:00

Ashley Yablon

Yeah, for sure. No, no, they're not. They're not giving me reports and daily briefings. No,

:: 22:46:20

Pat McCalla

this story comes out, you guys are in hiding, but you end up you still go have to go back to the building.

:: 22:52:13

Pat McCalla

Tell us about that day.

:: 22:53:16

Ashley Yablon

that's that is the everyone who asked me that at a speech I gave the other day, someone asked me what was the scariest event of all those.

:: 23:00:12

Ashley Yablon

And I said, well, there's so many, but the one you're about and we're about to talk about is the scariest one. And that was again, remember, I was paying out of my own pocket five lawyers went through all my savings, sold my, my wife and I sold everything we owned just to pay these five lawyers to represent me and my employment lawyer said, you need to go back to work.

:: 23:21:01

Ashley Yablon

And I said, You've got to be kidding me. And sure enough, we worked it with the FBI. I had plainclothes officers at the building because we had a building. ZTE did. And I remember going up that elevator and as I walked in the glass doors, the receptionist, the Chinese lady saw me, dropped her phone and said, my God, it's him.

:: 23:42:20

Ashley Yablon

And I walked around the corner and, you know, like in the office you have all the cubicles. 80% of our office, again, were Chinese nationals, something out of the movie. As I rounded the corner, all the Chinese nationals stood up in unison and you could hear a pin drop. It was so silent as I made my way to my office, which was I actually had an office with a door at the very back as an executive, and my door was covered in yellow police crime scene tape and I had to turn that off.

:: 24:13:03

Ashley Yablon

I get opened my door and I had a six foot by six foot whiteboard that I used to describe things. It was erased and in all caps with three exclamation points was the word die. So

:: 24:27:13

Ashley Yablon

that's what I was greeted with as I as I came to work. My heart was pounding. And all of that situation certainly didn't make me feel any better.

:: 24:36:18

Pat McCalla

about your your security guy.

:: 24:39:15

Ashley Yablon

Yeah,

:: 24:40:04

Ashley Yablon

Great point. So I had three Chinese lawyers that work for me, and when I came in I noticed that where their office was, the actual door was taken off the hinges and pulled in front because their office was catty corner to mine. So you could actually you could look in, we could look in and see each other's office and that they were all gone.

:: 25:04:16

Ashley Yablon

But the door was taken off of that office and a large desk was pulled to the front and a huge Chinese gentleman, one I'd never seen. And again, something out of the movie, black suit, white shirt, black tie was there every day to monitor me. His job was to watch me. He was there before I got there in the morning, and he was there as I left in the afternoon.

:: 25:25:19

Ashley Yablon

So I had a

:: 25:27:10

Pat McCalla

or anything,

:: 25:28:03

Ashley Yablon

he saw me and he was he just wanted me had his had his arms folded like this on his desk and didn't move. He was like a century man. I think I mentioned that in the book. But yeah, I had my own security security guards to monitor me.

:: 25:41:15

Pat McCalla

So where does this go from there, then? You're back at work. You're going to work there? They're under investigation. Where does this go?

:: 25:51:22

Ashley Yablon

So what happened was this kept on and ZTE actually took my laptop from me.

:: 25:58:09

Ashley Yablon

They didn't allow me to have a laptop. They didn't allow me to have phone. But I said, I'm here to work, I have a job to do. And it was like a torture. They were going to they were going to just try to torture me to to quit, and I just wouldn't do it. And finally, after about 30 days, my wife says to me, You realize you're in a hostile work environment.

:: 26:17:19

Ashley Yablon

And, you know, here I am an attorney that deals with that on a day to day basis for a company. But when it's you, you don't see it. And they put me on administrative leave, which sounds great. But I couldn't quit because my employment lawyer said I need to preserve those claims. So I'm sitting at home maybe getting paid.

:: 26:36:19

Ashley Yablon

gation went on with ZTE until: 2017

:: 27:05:20

Ashley Yablon

But for me, for three years, no one would ever return my call. I couldn't get a job.

:: 27:10:12

Pat McCalla

handing out resumes, and you're not even

:: 27:12:02

Ashley Yablon

over I sent out. Well, let me just say this. The I sent out and applied for over 500 jobs and not only did I

:: 27:21:15

Ashley Yablon

apply for jobs as a general counsel, but even entry level like entry level attorney positions, and no one would even return my phone calls.

:: 27:29:12

Ashley Yablon

So for almost three years I just went to go work for my wife and work for her. But the investigation continued on against ZTE. To what you alluded to at the beginning, the ZTE ended up settling with our government and paying the largest penalty. At the time, it was $1.2 billion with some caveats of ZTE. If they were bad players, they'd have to pay more.

:: 27:55:08

Ashley Yablon

WILL Of course they were. And they broke the rules and had to pay another 1.2. So it was, like you said, about $2.5 billion. The largest penalty ever assessed and paid by a company was one that assessed against ZTE. I fell through the cracks. I, I call myself a whistleblower, but I the laws at the time didn't allow to me to recover anything.

:: 28:20:04

Ashley Yablon

I didn't I didn't recover a penny. Now the laws would have entitled me to roughly 30% of that 2.5 billion. I'm not good at math, but I think that's a lot of money.

:: 28:31:14

Pat McCalla

That's a lot of body. Again,

:: 28:32:19

Ashley Yablon

So

:: 28:38:13

Ashley Yablon

yeah,

:: 28:41:05

Ashley Yablon

yeah,

:: 28:48:19

Ashley Yablon

yeah,

:: 29:09:03

Ashley Yablon

yeah,

:: 29:14:15

Ashley Yablon

yeah. At the time. Yeah. To your point, I had no idea I'd end up

:: 29:17:23

Ashley Yablon

hiring five lawyers going through every bit of my savings selling.

:: 29:23:01

Ashley Yablon

I ended up like having garage sales, selling everything that we owned just to raise money to pay. Attorneys borrowed from family and friends, hired five lawyers. And then, to your point, didn't realize then that I potentially would have to go into hiding. I'd get death threats, I'd lose my dream job, I'd almost lose my career, and then no one would even call me back.

:: 29:46:18

Ashley Yablon

Here I am 40 years old, been general counsel of a multibillion dollar international company, and I can't even get a callback for an entry level position. So yeah, it takes a toll on you mentally and physically. And that's that's that's kind of the tip of the iceberg. Really. Yeah.

:: 30:06:01

Pat McCalla

So where you at today? Like you know, you've you've obviously processed some of this. You've written a book. Do we. Am I allowed to talk about maybe the movie

:: 30:17:02

Ashley Yablon

Yeah, sure. No, no, we certainly can.

:: 30:21:21

Ashley Yablon

to kind of catch up.

:: 30:23:01

Ashley Yablon

really needed a break. So in: 2018

:: 30:53:08

Ashley Yablon

And yeah, I wrote the book, went out a speak about it quite a bit. And then to your point, yes, we're in the process of working on the movie. We're just finishing up the script, which is excellent.

:: 31:05:18

Ashley Yablon

It's really fun. Really fun.

:: 31:08:07

Pat McCalla

huge. Congratulations on those things for sure. Let me, let me show our audience the book.

:: 31:12:08

Pat McCalla

There's one behind you on your shelf, but

:: 31:14:08

Ashley Yablon

Yeah.

:: 31:15:03

Pat McCalla

I highly recommend it. And you were kind enough to send us a signed copy that a week after we dropped this podcast, we're going to give away to one of our audience members. But

:: 31:25:20

Pat McCalla

am I missing? Anything. Is there anything that you'd like to before we start wrapping this up, is there anything that you would like to share that maybe we didn't touch on

:: 31:32:15

Ashley Yablon

I think that's. I think you've covered most. You hit the highlights.

:: 31:35:17

Pat McCalla

sure?

:: 31:36:07

Pat McCalla

Tell us how we can connect with you, how our audience can get a copy of the book, that you have a website? Correct? What is that?

:: 31:42:05

Ashley Yablon

Yeah, sure. Thanks. It's actually a blond, so just my full name.

:: 31:46:17

Ashley Yablon

A.c.h. Y y ab alone.

:: 31:49:12

Pat McCalla

again, Ashley, thank you so much for joining us. We want to finish up with this ironic thing. We do the two truths in a lie. We've gotten to know you pretty well.

:: 31:56:17

Pat McCalla

before I jump into that, I just want to say thank you. And, man, I just want to honor you for making that difficult decision.

:: 32:04:03

Pat McCalla

Not not an easy one and one that went and really obviously, as our audience heard, it changed your life. But this is why you fit so perfectly with what we talked about. And really the premise of this podcast is human choice. There's a power to it. You mean I'm a person of faith? And so I believe that we were created with this power of choice and there's good and bad on that.

:: 32:24:22

Pat McCalla

We make choices and eventually our choices make us. And your story is certainly with that. So I just want to honor you and thank you for making that difficult choice

:: 32:33:05

Ashley Yablon

Thank you.

:: 32:35:23

Ashley Yablon

Yeah.

:: 32:39:21

Pat McCalla

your decision

:: 32:40:23

Pat McCalla

part of that was was based on, you know, international espionage.

:: 32:45:18

Pat McCalla

So thank you.

:: 32:46:23

Ashley Yablon

No. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

:: 32:50:06

Pat McCalla

Well, two truths in a lie. This is a fun part. You're just going to give me three statements and I have to try to identify which one might be a lie.

:: 32:58:16

Ashley Yablon

Okay.

:: 32:59:11

Ashley Yablon

First one. I won $10,000 in a scratch off in the Texas lottery. That's one. Two. I have my private pilot's license. And three. I was a child model and actor.

:: 33:17:21

Pat McCalla

Those are good. Those are good. Okay, I'm going to go with the middle one. Is is being true. I think I think you that you went got your private pilot's license.

:: 33:26:14

Ashley Yablon

I did. I did. That is true.

:: 33:50:14

Ashley Yablon

You are correct. Wow. Very good. How did you figure that?

:: 33:55:02

Pat McCalla

I don't know. Literally, that

:: 33:58:19

Ashley Yablon

that's funny.

:: 34:02:15

Ashley Yablon

I was a child actor.

:: 34:05:04

Ashley Yablon

Acting and modeling. Yeah. I did. As a kid. Did a bit of that. We did some commercials and a radio and TV and then print work and a lot of stuff for magazines and stuff like that.

:: 34:18:09

Pat McCalla

good. Well, thank you so much, Ashley. Really appreciate you being on the No Gray Areas podcast. And again, thank you for the choices that you've made.

:: 34:26:08

Ashley Yablon

Thank you so much, Pat.

:: 34:27:18

Host

as we conclude this episode. If you want to learn more about his story or check out Ashley's book, visit his Web site.

:: 34:34:16

Host

Ashley Jablonski As you go into your week, remember from the episode that the right choice isn't always the easy choice. We'll see you next time on no gray Areas.