Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Made $40,000 Running an Illegal Prison Tattoo Business | Chris Dobson

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

Chris Dobson reveals how he ran a $40,000 tattoo business inside prison, the risks he took, and how he managed to make it work. #PrisonTattoo #UndergroundEconomy #PrisonLife #TrueCrime #HustleAndSurvive #IllegalBusiness #PrisonEconomy #InkBehindBars Connect with Chris Dobson: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slickphillips_art?igsh=cGtiYmxqcHY0OHAw Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://convictclothing.net/collections/convict-clothing-x-ian-bick Timestamps: 00:00:00 Growing Up in Newport News, Virginia 00:05:53 Growing Up in a Rough Town: Finding Art and Skateboarding 00:11:45 A Catalyst for Change: The High School Experience 00:17:33 Intense Home Invasion Survival Story 00:23:19 Media Misrepresentation and Legal Battles 00:29:30 Overcoming Heroin Addiction and Rehabilitation Struggles 00:35:21 A Life of Trauma and Addiction 00:41:17 Unplanned Robberies and Arrest 00:47:24 The Plea Deal Decision and Its Consequences 00:53:26 Experiences in South Carolina's Kirkland Reception Center 00:59:30 Life in Federal Prison: Long Sentences and Survival 01:05:56 Prison Life: Surviving and Adapting 01:10:56 Becoming a Tattoo Artist in Prison 01:16:33 The Role of Tattoo Artists in Prison Gangs 01:22:13 From Prison Hustle to Tattoo Career 01:28:28 Transitioning Home After Prison 01:34:34 Introduction of the Video Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.a.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing.

It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. Chris, welcome to Lockton. man, straight from North Carolina, right? Yeah, North Carolina. Awesome.

Well, you left the warm weather to come over here. I know. I don't know how y'all do it. I don't know what you all doing up here. Dude, this is a warm day. It's 40 degrees that it's warm. Yeah, it's beautiful. So you got lucky because some weeks it's, you know,

seven degrees or below freezing. Yeah, no, I can't do that. Yeah, well, it's a pleasure having you here, man. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course, man. I'm glad it worked out that we have a mutual connection. For sure.

That's crazy. Which is a very small world that you said, you happen to be sending me the pictures of him early. and it's like, wow, it's a world. So I'm glad that worked out. But did you grow up in North Carolina? No, I actually grew up in the beautiful city of Newport News, Virginia, in the Hampton Roads area. Who did you grow up with?

So I grew up with my mom and dad. We were, my dad was in construction. My mom was a preschool teacher. So, yeah, I think my parents did. much parents you know they did a pretty good job they did their bed the best they could any siblings

yeah I got a brother that's 18 months older than me and then I got a half sister from my dad and she's like 20 years older than me so did your parents stay together your whole childhood no they were

they were together early on there's a big age difference there's like 20 years age difference. But yeah, they split up when I was like 12, I think. Do you feel like that had a big

impact on your life or were you old enough where it didn't necessarily affect you? I don't know if it really I don't really think it had that big of a impact on me. I think towards the end of their marriage it was kind of like you knew that things were coming to an end

Anyway, so when it, when they did finally get divorced, it was like, you know, whatever. Before they got divorced, what were the family dynamics? Like, did you guys struggle for money? Did you guys go like family vacations? What did that look like? No, not at all. My parents, I definitely didn't hurt for anything growing up, like, especially as a young, like, super young.

When we, when I was in Virginia, we eventually moved to South Carolina when I was like 12 or 13. and I think that was about the time where they got divorced and everything but of course you want your parents to be together but you know that I think I was already old enough to understand that just wasn't going to work out so yeah I don't think it had too much

of a bad effect on me my parents like my dad made plenty money so we didn't really struggle like that how would people describe you as a kid? Um, I think as a kid since early on, I think I was a pretty good kid when I was really young, but I don't know what happened exactly, but I can remember, I can't really remember a time where I was, where I was like a really good, really, really good kid. Like, I've always been mischievous, you know, even if I wasn't really bad, bad, I'd always been just always,

always trying to push my, push my boundaries and push the limits. And I think that's, that's probably the thing that got me, you know, headed down the wrong path is I'd looked at all the grownups and the adults and they're all telling me, oh, you got to do this, this and this. You know, you got to work and go to college and get a good job. And when I was a kid, I just looked up at that. I remember specifically thinking, like, I don't want any of this. Like, all these things. things that they're telling me is how you're, you know, how you're supposed to live just did not resonate with me. I was not inspired to, to, you know, do well in school or anything like that. Do you remember the first time you got in trouble? Even if it was minor, but just like the first

time, you know, you got yourself in some hot water. Um, well, yeah, I think I can remember. So I had been maybe, I know it was an elementary school and I had this teacher that was just she was just a nasty lady you know she was a very mean person you know and nobody really liked her and she was just you know she just gave us a hard time all the time and we had a field trip and me and my friend my best friend at the time we're walking around we found some nails and we decided we were going to put them under her tire i think we must have been like like what fourth fifth grade and uh put nails under her tire and good good things think she saw them before she backed over them, but that was like probably the first time I ever

really got in trouble. You guys got caught for it? Yeah. Wait, how did you get caught? She saw, I guess either she saw them or someone saw us put them under. We were little kids. Yeah. But besides that, like, we ran around the neighborhood. We, uh, you know, vandalized stuff. We, um, we were always just getting the stuff that we weren't supposed to. How was it? the neighborhood you grew up in. Was it like a good community? Yeah, I think Newport News, Virginia's, you know, sometimes you got the pockets of bad that you got to kind of look for. Like, Newport News, Virginia is the city where you've got to really search high and low to find a decent part. You know, the whole city is not the greatest. But I think the neighborhood we lived in was

pretty, you know, it was pretty safe. Mom always told us not to, you know, you can ride your bikes to the shopping center, but don't go past that. And of course, like, we didn't listen. But, yeah, I think, I think the, like, the little area we in was not, wasn't too bad, but it was definitely a rough town. What were your friends like? And did you have a lot of them? Yeah, I had a lot of friends.

So growing up, when I was that age, all I wanted to do was skateboard. I was always into art and I always like to draw and stuff. So in school I'd be drawing and getting in trouble for not doing my homework. And then when I got off, I'd be, you know, skateboarding around, just, you know, doing the kid thing. Did you want to go to school for art or anything like that? Anything creative was? Like college? Honestly, just school in general never sat well with me.

Anything about like an established curriculum and all that. Like I was, my first real passion for art was like in green. graffiti and like I guess I was probably more of a vandal than artist at that point but there was something in me that always wanted to express myself and always paint something or or draw or whatever but I don't think I ever I ever had it in my mind that that's what I wanted to do when I got when I got older definitely the the men in my family were they were not there's no way that that they would support me like going into the arts because you just can't make money.

You know, that's, that was the view on, on, um, art when I was growing up. You just, you're a starving artist. You're not going to make money. You need to do something that's going to be guaranteed to make money. Newport News, Virginia, um, most of the people there are either in the military or you're, um, in the shipyard building, building ships because it's got the biggest, um, shipbuilding, it's the biggest shipbuilding area in the country. So I think it's very blue collar in, in, um,

in that most of the men are about, you know, let's go to work, let's grind it out, let's do this type thing. Like, it wasn't too much opportunities in the arts or a lot of school for the arts in that area. So what was your alternative? What did you decide to do? So, like I said, I just never liked school. So I did the bare minimum to get by. and that's that that's pretty much it and so about that point we moved to south carolina we moved to charleston south carolina and that was i think eighth grade or seventh grade so moved to charleston

i think this is where i really you know we really kind of started getting in a little bit more trouble. Charleston, South Carolina is one of those places that if you don't grow up there and you don't have like a family name that everybody knows, it's like that old Southern money type thing. Or if nobody knows your family name and you just move there, you're not really going to fit in with most of the people there. So I never really would have fit in with that crowd anyway. So I just kind of, you know, I kind of started hanging out with the rejects, you know, I started hanging out with the pothead kids. I started hanging out with the skateboarder kids. And you know

what? I loved it. I loved being in a city like that that you could walk around and explore there's endless things to do and endless ways to get in trouble. We used to me and my friends just used to skateboard all over town. We get the homeless

people to buy us beer and that's pretty much what we did. We went to school as little as we could and the rest of it, we were just pretty much free I think at that point my parents were so focused on their own lives and things that they had to do and they were going through divorce and everything like that. They didn't really have too much time or attention to pay towards us. So we kind of just, you know, did whatever we wanted.

Do you think that's what you needed, like some extra supervision and care on you? I think I think if I had somebody that, and I definitely don't want to put this on my parents because they really did try to do. tried so many different things to get me right, but I just wasn't receptive to any of the stuff. I think if I had somebody positive that I could relate to, then I might have taken their advice. But, you know, a lot of times you have people that you can't really relate to and they're telling, oh, you need to clean your life up.

You need to do this. You need to do that. It's like you don't, bro, you don't know what I'm, you don't know who I am or what I'm going through. So I can't really, I can't relate and I can't really, you know, take any advice from you. But yeah, I think if I had a, like a mentor that was successful in the things that I was interested in, I think that would probably have helped me out a little bit.

Did you dabble in any drugs or alcohol in high school? In high school? Yeah. Yeah. So in, I was always, like, from the time I was very, very young, I started smoking weed. and, you know, smoking weed, drinking, having a good time. It was mainly like, it was mainly a party for me. It wasn't like I was a drug addict.

I just like to, you know, I like to get messed up and I like to have fun, you know, go to parties and do all that kind of stuff. But it wasn't really, it wasn't really that bad of a, of a drug thing at first for me. It kind of took a little bit more. just more of a progression to get there to the harder drugs. Do you end up graduating high school? No, I didn't, I, uh, I was, all my, all my senior year and I got pulled out of, out of high school and I didn't get a finish.

Who pulled you out? Your parents, or? Yeah, so, anyway, so like I was saying, we, I was like a, you know, I was like a, you know, I was a bad kid, but more like a mischievous kid. You know, like a little knucklehead. I wasn't really doing anything that extremely bad. Like we, you know, we ran around and did, you know, kid stuff like, like everybody does. And, but things all kind of changed by the time I turned, I think I turned 16, 17.

things. There was one incident that was, I would say, was the catalyst for my real downfall. And it was the story I didn't know if I was going to share it, but I think it's probably the other things won't really make sense unless I shared the story. You don't share with us. But, so anyway, we were living at my mom's house in Charleston. And so I had a, there was a girl that, um, my brother used to hang out with and whatever. And she came over and she brought another girl over that we haven't, I hadn't seen since I was in middle school. And anyway, so she came over and we kind of, you know, hit it off or whatever.

It was no real, it was just, you know, fun kid stuff, whatever. Um, nothing serious. So she came over. and then she left and then, you know, a couple days later, she came back over and hung out. And then, you know, I'd see her like once a week every, every once in a while. This went on for like, you know, three or four weeks. And so me and my brother and one of our friends were hanging out of my mom's house and we're kind of partying. We're just like, you know, we're drinking.

We're smoking some weed, like having a good time, whatever. And this girl starts calling my phone. She keeps blowing up my phone. and all of us are like, dude, we don't want that girl over here right now. She's going to kill her vibe. We're just trying to hang out. So anyway, she just keeps on calling, calling, calling, calling. And I'm like, bro, like, no, I'm not doing this.

So that went on, I think about 30 minutes later, I hear it, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop at my front door. And I'm like, damn, this girl just really rolled up to her house and she's just going to knock on the door. Like, whatever. So I turned the music down low, and I turn the lights down and everything. and so we're all sitting on the couch. And the way the house was, there was a door in the front.

You walk through, there's a kitchen on the left and then a living room on the right. And there's these big sliding glass doors on the back of the house. So she went around the back of the house and she's knocking on the back of the door, you know, looking through the big glass doors at us. And I'm like, fuck, I guess I got to let this chick in.

So my brother's think, no, I'm like, I'm like, dude, she's right there. I got to let her in. So anyway, I slide the door open. She takes like two steps in the house and my front door just boom, like two kicks, boom, boom. Door flies open. There's like four dudes. They're run up in the house and, you know, he, the one guy, he's running straight towards me. And I didn't even think about it. I just clocked him in the clock. They're running in. They're trying to, they're trying to do something. I don't even. Never seen the dudes before in my life. Don't even know what's going on, but I know they're like on some bullshit. So they ran. I clocked the one guy in the face and his front tooth just knocked right out like a cartoon character. Boom.

Anyway, so I look over me and this guy are tussling. We're fighting in the living room. Just the house is getting wrecked. I look over. I kind of got this one guy a little bit subdued and whatever. and I look over and one of them's got my brother and he's pinned up against the kitchen counter and he's just

dude's just beating the shit of my brother boom boom boom boom boom boom so I go over and one guy's blocking me like blocking the doorway to get in the kitchen and I can't get through and I'm like bro get the fuck out of the way so then me and him start fighting I'm fighting him now the guy that I was just beating up on like gets back behind me and he's you know he's jumping on me

so we're all in this tussle and I'm like dude y'all just get the fuck out of here get the fuck out of here like y'all win whatever you all just got to you know y'all got to get out here anyway this just went on and on and on like it went from one person fighting this person and this person and you know at this point it's it's getting to the point where like I don't know what's going like where's this going to end you know like are these people come did they come in to try to kill us did they come in to try to rob us I don't know all I heard was when he came in he was like who is it who where is he so apparently he came in because that was the girl's like crazy boyfriend that was

come they come chasing they were still together i guess i didn't even know that she had a boyfriend she certainly wasn't acting like she had a boyfriend anyway so this is where things kind of took a turn for the worst so one of them's got my brother and i can't really see this but this is what happened after I can after I put the pieces together but you know in a high intensity situation like that you're just trying to you're trying to survive you know it's it's four on two right now and we're you're trying to you're just trying to survive um so one of them had my brother pinned on the ground and he had his knees like over his arms like this one of them's kicking him and dude's just like beating the shit out of his face so I guess my brother reached in his

to his side right here and he had a big folding buck knife and managed to get it open and stabbed up just um so i heard one of oh mother he stabbed me he stabbed me so one of the kids gets up and he's like stumbling i say kids either i think they were like 19 i was 16 and my brother was 18 stumbling this way this way i'm stealing all kinds of blood going on um the girl is in the bathroom and she's bleeding. I'm like, what in the fuck is, you know,

just, what the fuck just happened? So immediately my brother, he, in his face, he's like, eyes swollen shut. Like,

they beat him up real bad. So he gets on the phone. He's calling the law. He's like, listen, I need somebody, I need somebody down here. I need like,

these people just broken in my house and I think I killed one of them. And I'm like, what, what do you, like, what does that even mean? And so I remember I looked at the girl and she somehow got in the middle and got stabbed in the ass Yeah, and there was like a big old chunk of like I don't know if it was fat or coagulated blood or something just like flopped out on the ground

It was it was a crazy crazy ordeal so at this point I'm like dude I got to I'm I'm I'm like trying to figure I'm trying like this just came out of nowhere it's like me and you just sitting here and all of a sudden this is happening So anyway I walk out front And I see one guy He's like he's holding his abdomen Just like trying to walk But he's like he's you know messed up And the other two friends just hauled ass

Like everybody else hauled ass And like left their friend So I get out to the end of the driveway And I'm kind of like holding his I'm like dude like Like I see you know At this point I see blue lights in the distance. I'm like, bro, just fucking, like,

are you good? He's like, having trouble breathing and everything. And here come the cops. They're zooming up, zooming up the street. Cop pulls up, puts his gun on me. You know, I got blood on my hands. I got, it just looks crazy. And this guy's obviously really hurt.

So he pulls the gun and he's like, you know, put your hands up, put your hands up, blah, blah. So I put my hands up And at this point The kid fell down Like on the side of the street Like rolled over in the You know in the side of the on the side of the road

And I'm like dude like The homeboys hurt real bad like y'all need to like get you And so they just ran his partner ran up to me Tackled me on the ground I'm like yo like let me explain Let me explain the story These people broke to my house Like I don't even know what's going on

I was like but y'all need to help this kid I'm telling you he's hurt bad So they handcuffed me throw me in the back of a police car they go in the house get my brother i see him come out with handcuffs and he goes in the back of another police car and my view i'm sitting in the back of the cop car but i can see the kid on the road and nobody's helping him he's just sitting there like gurgling um so finally the cop I'm like yo like an ambulance comes and like the ambulance finally comes and they're sitting there talking like nobody's even really checking on this kid finally they

go over there to the kid and they grab them and like you know try to do the little chest rub on them and they're like like dude this this this he's dead he died yeah so anyway i remember you know there's sometimes in life where shit happens and you know that right then forever life is not going to be the same, you know? So even though this was obviously like a self-defense, like a home invasion, you know, gone wrong,

they get my brother, my brother's telling the story. They get the girl, she's telling the same story. Everybody's telling the same, you know, the same story. Like, we're sitting here, mine, in our business. She knew a little bit more than they, than we knew because she almost like set us up for this whole thing to happen. Yeah, because how would they know

where you lived, all of that. Exactly, exactly. So, um, I go down, you, they take me down to the station. I'm still, I'm, I'm a minor at this point. I don't even think I was, I might have been 17. If not, I was about to turn 17. Um, they take my brother and like, I can't, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm shot. I'm, I'm shell shocked right now.

Like, I can't put two thoughts together. I just don't, I don't, I don't, when something that traumatic happens, you're trying to process. And you're just. in a state of like a state of shock like what what in the fuck just happened um so anyway they let me go back with my um with my mom and them because my brother you know was like this you know this is what happens then i'm the one that that did it and whatever so get back to the house there's news there's news crews there's uh reporters out there there's a helicopter flying around in the sky all this stuff the next morning first thing on every news channel um one person murdered and two

stabbed and they had my brother's name on the news saying um he's you know this person this man murdered this person and and attempted murdered on this other on these other two people and I'm like, dude, this is not what happened. Like, murder is not the word to be used in this situation. But that's the messed up thing with media and with news. And when you're on the wrong side, they always, they'll, just to make a story, they will smash your name out to make you look so bad. And they made, they had him on there looking like he was some kind of serial killer or something.

So he sat in the county jail for about 45. days until they had this preliminary trial and he got when he when that came up he was he got clean and they let him go oh so they cleared them yeah they cleared them especially in like southern states like south carolina someone breaks into your house and they get killed eczema is unpredictable but you can flare less with ebbglis a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema after an initial four-month or longer dosing phase about four and ten people taking ebb gliss achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin and 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Ebglis, Librikizumab, LBKZ. A 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection is a prescription medicine

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Yeah, I interviewed someone that got jammed up. His name is Chip Williamson. It was like he killed his ex-wife's new lover because he confronted him in his own home. And he ended up getting charged with murder. But then he later, this was I think in South Carolina, but he later got acquitted. Really? Before it never even went to a trial. But because of COVID and everything, it got dragged out for years.

Yeah. So this guy, at this point, like I said before, like I was a mischievous kid. you know, I was doing whatever, but I wasn't like a bad kid. And like with the drugs and everything, I did drugs because they were fun at that point. I think, you know, the sad part that a lot of people don't really mention is like, a lot of times people are going to get into drugs because it feels good, you know,

because it's fun. Like it doesn't always have to start from trying to cope with something. However, now at this point, in my life after this whole situation I look back on it now and I see like a traumatized kid that you know what are you supposed to do now like your name's been on the news everybody knows you now is being like the kids that the kids that killed this guy

and got away with it almost um so there was no more yeah uh come over to you know, come over, we're having a party at my parents out. There's none of that. We don't get invited to any functions or anything like that. We're kind of like pushed out to the outskirts of people. The only people that will really hang with us now are the like true bad kids

and drug kids and you know that that whole circle. And from being from now trying to deal with this in my life I am using drugs for the first time that I can clearly say I was using them to like cope with my with with this situation. I was overwhelmed with anxiety. I was overwhelmed with I guess PTSD, whatever. And the only thing that would make me feel okay was to either drink myself to oblivion drugs like the whole thing.

What kind of drugs are you using? So at this point, I think mainly like drinking a lot and probably taking, you know, taking some pills like Xanax and pain pills and all that. And eventually that, you know, I graduated from using, you know, pain pills to doing heroin. Were your parents aware of your drug use? Yeah, I think them too. I think that whole situation right there was just traumatic for like everybody too. You got to think these they're putting they're they're putting on the news that your kid like did this. So they're they're kind of messed up by it too.

And they're going through like they're trying to rebuild their own lives. They're kind of recently divorced and they're trying to like figure out how to how to live like as they're trying to build new relationships and everything. So at this point we were just done like with our parents like it. It was kind of like, not that we got kicked out, but it was like, okay, now I'm, you know, you're on your own type thing. So being that we had this reputation, I just got, I started just living, like I started living on the outskirts of society, really. So I was selling weed. I was, you know, doing whatever just to, like I didn't really hold down any jobs or anything like that because I was usually too messed up and I'd um the only thing I could really do to make money was you know sell drugs and that's

kind of just the way it went for a while and um yeah I I think the drug use just kept getting worse and worse and worse because now you're you're you know covering up trauma with the drugs and then you're you know at the same time causing all these other situations in your life from the drugs and um yeah I was just going down real fast. And I, at this point, this was, this was before like all the fentanyl and everything like that, but people were still like dying from heroin. I overdosed and died three times. And I was just in so much pain.

I didn't care if I was, if I was alive or I was dead. Like I just, it didn't matter to me. I was just like, whatever, like life is. life sucks and I don't really care what happens next. Did your brother experience something similar to or what happened to him? Yeah, I think we both did, but I think he probably had it a lot worse because he was the main person that was, you know, afflicted by this whole thing. And he went down the same path.

He, you know, got on drugs and everything. And I don't think that he ever, you know, got any help or anything like that. but I think it was just a long, a long journey of drug use. Why was your parent's solution to this pulling you out of school? My parents' solution to pulling me out of school? Yeah. Like why not keep you in school, try to get things on track,

maybe go to a rehab around that age? So, yeah, so that did happen. So, yeah, after this whole thing, I got real, you know, I got bat off on heroin, and this was a really fast progression. zero to 100. Like I just, I,

the months after that, the month of a year after that, I was just going down. Like, I was going to, I was going to kill myself, you know. Um,

so they did, they, they put me in a rehab. I went out to a rehab and, uh, stayed out there to rehab for about a year, almost, almost a full year.

And I finished, I got, I graduated, I got my GED out there. It was in New Mexico. and yeah, I really did. At that point, I felt so much better after a year. There was thing.

There was therapy. There was groups. There was all this stuff. And I think I worked on myself a lot or I was trying to. I really felt like I was good. And when it was time to come home, like I was 100% convinced that I was just, you know, done with, done with that lifestyle and done with the, with the drugs and the alcohol and the whole, and the whole shebang.

But came back home, came back to Charleston, got around the same old people, same old friends, and then just like, shh, I'm,

within weeks, I'm back. I'm right back where I left off. Yeah, who you surround yourself with is a big part in a lot of individual stories. Absolutely.

How old are you when you got back? Oh, probably before I was 18, probably 17. Oh, so it was, so when, Did you, they pulled you out of high school sooner than senior year, like 16?

Yeah, I think, well, I think it was, I'm pretty sure it was the beginning of my senior year. Okay. Yeah. So probably like almost 17 or around that? Yeah, something like that. Okay. So you get back, do you go and live back with your parents or do you get a job? No, I lived by myself.

I got a, I got a place at a big house that was kind of close to the College of Charleston campus. and I was just renting a room in there and at that point I had a little job I had a job like doing some construction stuff and I was like making decent money and whatever but I still like being at that it was like a party house it was like animal house you know

and we everybody we just there was just a party all the all day long every day so you're one of those guys that wasn't at college but lived on the college campus yeah yeah you could say that so I was college age and I probably looked like I could have been

at the college, but I was not. And, yeah, just me, when I'm, you know, when I was that age, there's, there's no way I'm going to be at work at 5 o'clock in the morning, you know, if I've been partying all night and doing whatever. So I guess it went from that to, you know, you have a job. You're kind of stable and then you lose the job and then you're just kind of back, back whaling out, whiling out again. So in the,

meantime coming back i was i got in a bunch of trouble like here and there but nothing really stuck um i got like a assault charge because i got in a fight with my upstairs neighbor um i got a strong arm robbery charge because one of the friends of the kid that got killed i was at someone's house and he came up behind me and tried to choke me from the back of a couch so he came up behind the back at the couch and tried to choke me and my girlfriend at the time jumped on his back and tried to claw his eyes out and all this crazy stuff and then we got in a fight and then he lost and then she like ran his pockets and didn't say anything and then you know two days later I'm going to jail for strong arm robbery because she you know stole this dude's stuff anyway that got

dropped um yeah I think we got I got locked up for D for a DUI like got my license taken away it was just a constant it was a constant trial like I never not had some kind of case looming over me and where are your parents and all this have they given up on you?

Yeah I think they pretty much just you know So coming back and and you know failing from rehab was the final straw And there was a couple It's that's that's they're Keeping everything in chronological order is really tough because there was a couple rehabs and there was a couple chance

And there's a couple short stents in jail. Of course. And then, you know, at some point your parents have to be like, listen, I can't, just because you're ruining your life, I'm not going to ruin my life too. Like you've tried to do, I've tried to do everything we can for you. But at this point, like, I'm sorry, you know, like, I've, I think they, they literally tried to do everything in the world for me. And you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Absolutely. And I don't think like looking back on it, I don't think that I, you know, when I was living that, I understood like trauma and, you know, the drug use being a symptom of like PTSD and, and all this, all this, um, anxiety and everything. But, um, yeah, I think as I've gotten older of kind of like trying to figure out why things went the way that they did. but I don't know where I was going with that. So share with us what exactly happened that would land you in prison. Okay, so. And then how old you were? Okay, so let's fast forward.

So I went a couple years like this, like, you know, messing up a little bit, going to rehabs, you know, doing good for a little bit. An addict's lifestyle. Yeah, going back, you know, doing the, you know, doing. the right thing, going back to jail. Like, it was just this constant, like, like roller coaster. So, I guess let's fast forward, like, two or three years of living like that. So now I'm 21. Same old thing.

At this point, I'm like, I'm pretty, I'm just at a low point. Like, I don't really give a shit. I'm, like, doing lots of drugs. Like, I'm drinking all the time. and I had two friends that we, you know, kind of that I hung out with. And we were broke. We didn't have any money. And then someone told us, hey, listen, there's, I got a way you can make some money.

Like, I know, I know some people that are, you know, going to be coming into town. And, you know, it's these, they're girls. They're coming from, they went up to Columbia, South Carolina. They picked up a little pack. And they're coming back. So when they come back, it's going to be an easy thing. Just go ahead and. and, you know, do your thing, get them.

Like rob them. Yeah. So they put us, you know, through the grapevine, they kind of got put up to this and hit the first one. You know, don't really think anything of it. We hit them. There's, like, nothing that we were looking for in their car. Like, they didn't, we didn't get shit.

We probably got, like, probably less than $100. And that, so that wasn't enough. So then we kind of, we kind of went on a spree of robber of arm robberies like some of them were random some of them were like a little bit targeted trying to trying to get drugs or trying to get people that had money or you know one of the things that we were doing was getting like the college age kids they were like selling drugs on campus and we knew that we could rob them there wouldn't really be any repercussions from it so we had a couple of

things like that. So that night, yeah, we hit a couple, we hit a couple licks. And afterwards, like when we did it, I had sunglasses on, I had a band-in, I had gloves on. Like, I was full disguised up.

We got, you know, we got the money. Everything else that was incriminating, like, you know, IDs, purses, whatever we put in a garbage bag. and with our disguises and all that kind of stuff and tied them up in trash bags and went behind a restaurant you know

turned the car off for a while and threw the bag in the dumpster at the restaurant so we didn't have anything incriminating on us all we had was like money and maybe you know maybe a little bit of weed or something so about an hour later we're pulled up at a convenience store going in to get some beers

and well all three of us went in the store I'm the first one out I'm walking towards the car cop car pulls up behind me blue lights I'm like oh shit but I'm like dude I don't have there's I've got nothing on me there's no way for me to get in trouble like I don't

there's nothing to link me to anything I have nothing on me so I'm held at gun or not at gunpoint but he just like detained he's like just wait right here here comes my friend he comes out the store he's like yo come on over here and they separate us

to put me in the back of a cop car they put him in the back of another cop car and they're kind of talking to us and I'm like dude like I don't you know like that you know they're saying like have you heard of any robberies that have gone around town I'm like no I've got

like I got nothing like I don't know what you're talking about so I'm feeling like we might we might skate on this and I look over and the girl the third party was a girl. Third person there was a girl. And she was the driver for us. She's coming out the, uh, the corner store there. And one of the cops, she's like standing there for a second. And then

she walks towards us. And one of the cops like goes over there, hey, do you know these guys? She's like, oh yeah, that's my car. And I'm seeing her talking like to the cop. And the cop starts grilling her. And another one comes over and starts grilling her. And I see tears start coming down her face. I say, oh, shit. That's. It's all, it's over now, buddy. So she gets in the back of the cop car and takes them back to the dumpster where we threw away all the incriminating shit. You guys should have burned it. Dude, we were not thinking that much, obviously.

It was not enough to get thrown into that dumpster. Yeah, exactly. This was not, these were not well thought out, planned out robberies. These were just like spur of the moment. We just need a little bit of whatever. What was the time frame? Like how was it days apart, hours apart? Yeah, hours apart.

This was all the same. All the same day that you guys hit this? So you robbed the same girls on the same day too? Yeah. Okay. It was a progression. Like I think it took us like, you know, a couple hours, but we hit this, hit this spot, hit this spot, hit this spot. Honestly, didn't get, didn't get it all.

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Did any, like, anything serious, like money was. And for weapons, you said it was armed. Do you have guns, knives? We both had a gun. Okay. So, yeah, the girl took them back to the dumpster where we threw away all of our incriminating things. Guns, the gloves, the disguises, the IDs.

So at this point, like, there's nothing we, like, I'm, you know, I'm dead. Like, it's over with it. And I didn't really know what was happening at the time, but this is what's getting explained to me a couple days later by my lawyer. The other kid I was with You know I'm sitting in jail I'm like you know I'm gonna tell you know I ain't saying shit

I'm gonna tough this up While my other two were just like Singing like Canaries And both of them pretty much told everything And Got You know It helped him out pretty good

So I sat So at this point I was in county jail For about three months When did they arrest you that same night Yeah, I went from there straight to jail. No, but like that, that they brought her the dumpster. You guys were already arrested. Yeah, we were in the cop car.

When they came, it was like an hour or so later after they took her, they took us straight to jail. Okay. So, yeah, I'm sitting in county jail and I'm like, things are starting to like, you know, all the drugs and alcohol are wearing off. And I'm like, dude, this is, this is really, this is really, really bad. Um, most of the times I've been to jail. I'm like, oh, whatever. I'm not really thinking like, looking at serious time. My lawyer came to me and explained to me. He was like, you know, in the state of South Carolina, each arm robbery is minimum of 10 years, maximum of 30 years. Um, so right now with four arm robberies, you're looking at, what, 120 years? If you got the max. So I'm like, damn, dude, this is, this is not, this is not good.

And I just remember sitting in my cell and being like, dude, I'm like, this is it. It's over with. So my lawyer came to me one day and he said, you know what? I've got something that we can do that might help you out. He's like, you're young and the judge might give you sympathy if I get you out of this jail and put you in a rehab. And he said, when every day that you serve in that rehab is possibly a day that's going to be coming off your sense. So I went to rehab in Louisiana. When I did the program as a 90-day program,

I got out of that program and they said, you can't stay here anymore, but you can go to our other facility in Oklahoma and trained to be a counselor. I said, yeah, well, I'd rather do this than sit in jail. So I went out there. I got licensed as a drug and alcohol counselor. I got licensed to work in the detox facility.

I got all these, I was doing every single class that I possibly could so that when I went to court, I would, you know, hopefully the judge would give me some leniency. Anyway, so it's time to go to court. I come back home. The next day I'm supposed to go to court, we get a call that morning and say, hey, the court date's been postponed.

You don't have to, you're not coming in for another like two or three months. months. So I'm like, shit. Now I'm, you know, back in Charleston. And I'm like, I've got to do, you know, I've got to do the right thing. So that lasted for a couple days. And I didn't really get right crazy back into everything. But I got, I couldn't stay with my dad anymore. That's where I was supposed to say. He kind of kicked me out. So now I'm back on the, the street and I'm kind of running around. I get, I was going, I was at a Wendy's and I was coming out of Wendy's and right when I stepped foot outside, an unmarked cop car is right outside and they turn on their lights and come

out and put their guns on me and they're like, drop the Wendy's, drop the Wendy's, drop the Wendy's. So I'm like this. I'm like, dude, it's like, I don't, he said, drop it. I'm going to shoot. I was like, so they take me and they put me in jail. And a detective comes to talk to me. He's like, yeah, he's telling me the story about another arm robbery that took place. I'm like, dude, what do you? Like, this doesn't even make sense. So when I got, when I came back home, they locked me up on another arm robbery that I didn't do.

I don't even know what happened. I wasn't even in the area. It had nothing. I didn't stick once I got, once I finally did go to jail. But the problem is I went to jail. on an arm i was in arm robbery on it i was in jail for arm robbery when i'm waiting to go to trial for some armed robberies that happened two years before right so that doesn't look good even though i'm not guilty of these of these robberies but they

like officially charged you with yeah they charge me with it so yeah so at this point you know my lawyer's pretty much saying like you're like you know sorry buddy but all the stuff that we talked about earlier, like with the rehab and everything, like that stuff's off the table. So you pretty much just wasted two years. So I go, the,

it's about time to start going to court again and they're coming out with me with pleas, came out with me with the first plea of 30 years. And I was like, dude, you can stick that where, you know, where, like, I'm not, that, I don't care, I'm never signing a 30-year plea. So I think it was a month later,

they came back and they said, okay, 15 years and, you know, that's what we're going to. I said, I'm, you know, I'm not going to take that. Third time they came back, they said, okay, we're going to give you, we'll give you 10 years for these ones in 2011. And, but you're still going to have to face this charge right here that, you know, in, what was it, 2022 or whatever? 2013 right?

Or excuse me, 2013. Yeah. I was like, dude, no, we're not doing that. So, finally they came back and they're like, all right, we'll just, we'll do 10 years. We'll run it all together if you take the plea right now.

I said, shit. I mean, I don't, it's not going to get any better than this. So I took the plea. Wait, why would you agree to that if you had nothing to do with the new one, which is the only way your old chart, just got jacked up to 10 years. Pretty much my lawyer told me

you're 100% dead on the arm robberies from 2011. There's no way you're getting off of this. But that's only because you got a new charge, right? Yeah. Because before he was optimistic. Yeah, but at this point, I don't know what it was. Did they have something on you? No.

It was 100% bullshit. And I can tell, I'll admit, you know, I've done, I did my time for these armed robberies. tell you that I did them. And if I did another one, I would tell you that I did it too. So anyway, 10, 10, it was the best I was going to get. I talked to everybody. I got a second lawyer's opinion. He was like, dude, if you can get 10, that's a miracle. He's like, there's people going up the road all the time with 20 years. And, you know, South Carolina doesn't play that. Like, they will put you, it'll put you under the jail. So, yeah, they're, they're hard on, the armed robberies.

You ever hear of Jump Suit Pablo? He got booked in South Carolina for armed robberies his first time. Really? He robbed a couple gas stations, but like in the same night and he got 10 years. Really?

He was 18 or 19. Yeah. They don't play. I'm just, were you hanging out with those individuals that committed the so-called third robbery or whatever or second robbery?

With the one from the couple years later? Yeah. Like how did they tie you to it? Someone must have said something. It was 100% bullshit. Really what it was, I was supposed to be gone at this rehab and whatever. And I came back to go to court and they pushed my date back. You know, I'm not trying to get all 10 full hat conspiracy theories because I don't think I'm that important.

But I do believe that they wanted me to go to prison. And whether it was from all these other things or whatever, but they, They wanted me to go. So I think that somebody had to go down for this shit, and it was easier just to pin it, just to put it all on me. And there was no, there's times in your life where you know that this is the best thing that I can do

is take this plea. And I kicked myself in the ass for it for years after that because I thought that maybe I could have gotten something better, but at the time, felt like taking the 10 years was the best that I could do. How do you feel now about that? Well, I mean, I look back on it now, and it's kind of water under the bridge. Like, yeah, I spent my entire 20s in prison, you can say.

I spent it from 20, really 21 to 31 if you count the two years in rehab. So, yeah, it took a lot of my life. away but I think that that's the only thing that there was no that I was just I was out of control there was nothing that that was going to that was going to fix me except for like facing some serious consequences and that's just the that's just what happened that's what had to be it had to be I was I was just at the I was at the end of the road I was just like I just kept got this has got to be over with and I think foolishly as so at this point I'm 23 you don't really know how long in what you're about to sign up.

You don't know what you're really signing yourself up for going to prison for this amount of time. Like you don't really know. And yeah, so that's what it was. So you take the 10 years, where do they send you? Yeah, so I take the 10 years. So this point I've been sitting back in Charleston County jail, for a while and if anybody knows about Charleston County Jail you don't want to be there and I just didn't give a shit just get me out of this jail like and you're hearing horror stories about prison you know

South Carolina prison is not is not it's like a third world country then you're hearing all these horses I didn't care I was like dude I've got to get out of this I've got to get out of this county jail so yeah so first you know just like everybody I think most States have like a reception center. They have a huge facility in Columbia, South Carolina called Kirkland. And yeah, I get,

I get sent there waiting for my placement on a yard. Yeah, Kirkland, Kirkland is a, it's a, I'm just starting realizing how bad, like things start really setting in for me. Like,

you look like you're in Auschwitz. Like, dude, they got your, they got these cut, you're, um, jump suits all frayed on the end

when you go to South Carolina they shave your head completely bald um spray you down with the with the uh with the uh lice killer and everything I mean it's it's rough

are you allowed to let your hair grow after they shave so you always have to be shaved not shaved but has to be I think it has to be left like a half inch long like a buzz cut yeah so yeah I'm sitting I'm like, damn, this is, you know, reality is really sitting in. And so for, I think it was 45 or 60 days, I sat there, they don't let you out just to get, you know, just to get a shower.

Things are getting pretty rough. I had a, you know, there's no real things going on. Everybody's just pretty locked, pretty locked down. There's really not any movement. So, yeah, we're stuck in the cell pretty much all day, every day. just get your food through the flap and all that. So, you know, everybody's sitting there and they're saying, you know, you don't want to go to this prison.

You don't want to go to this prison. You don't want to go to this place. And by the time, just like Charleston County, by the time my placement on a yard came up, I didn't care where they sent me. I just said, I want to get the fuck out of this, you know, out of this prison here. So I'm waiting. Every day, you know, everything, every Monday, it's a couple days a week they come through and then they read off the names. Like, they'll be like, you know, this name, Lieber, Johnson, you're going to McDougal, Smith, you're going to Perry.

Like, they just start listing off the places and they come to me and they finally come to my room. They say, Dobson, Lieber. And I'm like, fuck, man. Like out of everywhere you could send me, they send me. me to the absolute worst institution in South Carolina. So now I'm like, okay, great. Now I'm going to, you know, who knows what's going to happen now. So I get shackled on the bus and we're going down.

And I think people can act as tough as they want to act. But when you actually are on the way to big boy penitentiary, you're going to be scared. And I was especially scared. I was 23 years old. I was a skinny white kid. Like, I was just not, I didn't know what was going to happen. Yeah, we get down there and it's kind of like I expected.

I think it was probably worse than I expected. Got down there. My room had no air conditioning. The windows were broken out of it. It had expanded metal, you know, metal with holes in it. So when it rained, it rained on you. At night, there's mosquitoes flying around in your room. Like, it's a rough, it's a rough, uh, rough situation to be living in.

Who approached you when you got there? So South Carolina is really tight on, like, where you're from. You know, there's a lot of, there is a lot of gangs and everything like that. but the first people that approached me, like I was like, I'm from Charleston, and, you know, that's another thing. People, if you're from Charleston, you're pretty much locked in with everybody from Charleston.

And nobody else around, like, that's not from Charleston is going to have any way to, you know, penetrate the kind of like Charleston bond we got going on. And is it mixed race? Uh, yeah, really. Yeah. It's really not like, of course, like, you know, you'll have the thing. Like there's, I think South Carolina is just so,

at least when I first came down in, in the lower part of the state, it was just so majority black that I don't, there wasn't too many big, like, there wasn't like a big population of, of Hispanic people. There wasn't like a big population of white people. There was, you know,

and there was kind of a mix up going on. There wasn't, it wasn't like out west where everybody's super, racially segregated. What was the most surprising thing to you about that prison? So I got there, um, you know,

I'm on the bus and everybody's, you know, the bus, everybody's talking shit. Oh, when y'all get there, you'll better, you,

there's people that are, that are fresh coming in, and there's people that have been there, and there's people that come from other prisons, prisons going there. So when you get there, you got to get a knife, ASAP,

because they, they're killing people down there. And I was like, shit. So I got there. I get, I get in my room. My roommate's got a life sentence.

He's like 60 something years old. He'd always joke. He'd be like, I get out in, uh, 20076. Shit, I'll be 150 years old, still a young man. I was like, oh, damn. That's crazy that they put you guys at the same cell. Yeah, but the crazy thing is that I didn't really, that I got those 10 years and I'm thinking I'm serving in eternity.

When I get there, I'm like one of the people with the least amount of time. Everybody's like, oh, you're just passing through. I'm like, what? I'm be here for eight and a half years on this 10 years. And it's like nothing. Everybody's like, oh, it ain't nothing. You know, 45 years.

Life, life, life, 60 years. Like, people got a lot of time. Yeah, that's something I learned about the feds is they're so quick to hand out 10, 15, 20 year sentences that some people are on like their second 20 year bid. Yeah. Because you do 16 years, say on 20, you could do two of those or even three. In some cases, if you're 15 years old or 20 years old.

It's absolutely crazy. Imagine doing three 20-year sentences. Yeah. Dude, I do, they broke me. Trust me. After that, it's over with, buddy, I'm done. But so I think one of the most surprising things was everybody's talking about getting a knife. And I'm thinking about like this prison shank wrapped up.

dude, I asked my roommate, he's like, yeah, go down there and talk to whoever. And I go in there, I'm like, dude, like, you know, I'm here. He's like, oh, you're here to get a knife? And I'm like, he's like, yeah. Or I'm like, yeah. And he goes under his bed, pulls out, pulls out his little drawer. And he's got, like, real, like, switch blade knives, like, folding knives, like from the street. I'm like, what the fuck?

I'm like, so was everybody strapped like this? So everybody's strapped like that? They got people with dag on with things looking like machetes walking around. I'm like, dude, this is, this is not good. So anyway, luckily for me, because my time was, my time was going down, I got, I got process, I got reclassified to a medium, a medium security. So it was like level two. And that was originally on level three and then level two.

So I got moved to a little bit Chiller of a place And I was there for a while Did you ever have to use that knife at that first place? No, but I did So, man Anyway

No, this was at the second place So I get there The thing about like a big Like a serious prison like that People aren't really playing around as much as they do when you get like lower custodies. You know when you're in a bigger prison like that,

that it's not like a fight. People are going to go outside and fight. It's going to be like if you mess up like you're playing with your life. Like people really are getting stabbed to death and stuff. So, but I get to the lower, the lower place. And then that's almost like worse than the more security place because, you know, if you stay in your lane, you're pretty good.

You're not, you're not really going to get, you know, people aren't really going to just single you out. Like you're minding your own business. You're kind of fine. Like everybody's there doing long, sense of time and everybody's,

for the most part, are pretty chill. You get to the lower custody places. Like, it seems like you got a bunch of younger, just like knucklehead, knucklehead kids just doing whatever. So I got there.

Um, I could tell that I was being kind of scoped out. So my roommate was like, dude, they're like, I'm telling you right now that you got, you got eyes on you. So don't be getting a bunch of canteen and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, just me. I said, fuck it. Like, we're, I'm just going to go get my, you know, my bag of canteen. So I got it.

Put it in my room. Came back out and I'm watching and there's people like Kind of circling around like acting scam like dude I'm not like I wasn't born yesterday. I know what's going on So I walk back to my room and like nobody's everybody kind of like just walks off whatever And I came back out and I see them send this little tiny dude in my room these little skinny dude Because that's like what they do with these bigger prison gangs. They'll take the young the youngest weakest kid and then make them be the crash done.

me to do you. Yeah, send off mission. Yeah. So he goes in there and I get up and haul ass and I go in the room and slam the door behind me. So it's just me and you know, when you slam the door, the door locks. So it's just me and this little skinny ass dude in there. And I just wore his ass out. You know what I mean? Blocked off everybody else. And kind of thought that that's, that was a good idea. But it turns out that wasn't that wasn't a good idea because people really can't take a loss. And I think it's a bigger loss when you're like trying to be part of some gang and some like some skinny white dude just beats the shit out of you and yourself. Like it's not a good look. So that kind of spurred things off to where, you know, I had a little bit of problems, but it kind of got squashed and whatever. How did it get squashed? well we had we had all that you know all that kind of going on and then it stirs up this this whole hornets nest and then you got to you know have to there's a lot of people that like to get to be um there's a lot of people that like to be involved in shit they shouldn't really be involved in and i think that's a big difference between like somewhere like south carolina and somewhere like california which doesn't make it any less dangerous but you have kind of it's like the blind leading the blind. There's no like real structure.

It's like everybody's just winging it almost. So yeah, they're trying to stir some shit up. Then you have like the Charleston crew and they're all like, nah, y'all ain't going to just jump my boy like that. So we all, you know, a bunch of talk. The 2026 National Sports Collectors Convention is almost here, July 29th through August 2nd in Rosemont, Illinois, just outside Chicago. This is the ultimate collector's experience with over

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Okay. Were you trying to better yourself? Were you getting into more trouble? It was kind of your mindset. Yeah. So, anyway, as time went on, dude, the first two years,

like on some real shit, I was just trying to figure out, like, how am I going to survive in this place? Like, I was almost trying to fit in. Like, I was trying to be someone that I really was. I was trying to like act tougher and harder than I was and I just kept on you know getting in stupid conflicts and getting locked up and all this stuff and I started I started drawing again and you know at first it was just a little you know a little bit here there like a little just just for fun little scribbles and doodles and whatever and then I had someone approached.

me and they said, hey dude, have you ever done any portraits? And I'm pretty good at drawing portraits. So I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started drawing portraits. And one in particular, I drew this portrait for this guy. He'd been locked up for a long time. And he had an old picture of his daughter, like this big, and it might have been 15 year old picture. And it's the last time he's never talked to his daughter, like nothing. Like, has no communication with his family. They all kind of cut him off. Anyway, I was like, yeah, dude, I can give it my best try. cry. So I took it and I spent so much time on this thing. And when I got done with it, I was like, dude, this is like, I really knocked this portrait out. So I give it to him. He sends it back home. And like a month later, he comes back to me. Dude, this dude, he's like, tattoos all over his face just looks like thugged out, thugged out.

Fucking comes in. He's like, dude, I need to talk to you. Fucking starts crying. He's like, bro, like, I got my daughter coming up. to visit me, you know, and, you know, at the end of the month or whatever, he's like, I sent that portrait home and everybody's been talking about it. And he's like, dude, I've had all kinds of letters come in. He's like, so getting him, getting me to do that portrait form made such impact in his life. Like, I was like, dude, this is actually pretty cool. And then all of a sudden, I'm doing drawings. And then all these people are like, are looking at I'm like, dude, like, you're starting to get some respect for things that actually mean something.

All this stuff, the fighting and the shit that you did on the street, it's bullshit. It doesn't have, it doesn't hold any weight. There's nothing, anybody can do that. Anybody can be a knucklet. Anybody can sell drugs. Anybody can fight. Anybody can stab people. It's, it doesn't take a, there's, there's, these are all empty things.

At this point, I felt like I was starting to have something to be a little bit proud of. Like I had these, I had, I had something that, that was valuable to people. And I was starting to get respect from people that, you know, that, that was actually meaningful. So after drawing, that was like my hustle for a while. I draw portraits. I make it a little money on it. How much would you charge for a portrait? Oh, it's hard to remember, but not a whole lot.

Like, back, you know, in prison, like 20 bucks is like a lot of money. So I was probably getting like 20, 30 bucks or something. Did you do cards too? I think at first I used to do cards. Like back in the day, I just had like a little hustle doing that. But yeah, I started doing portraits. Really started spending all my time drawing. And something like came, like something was like that was nurturing something like within my soul.

When I'd sit down and draw, I'd get like an escape. I'd sit there and for hours would pass and I wouldn't even think about being in prison. All would think about is doing these pictures. And then I was getting, feeling a little bit better about myself because I felt like I had something to offer. Yeah, and this went on for a while. I did that for probably six months or so. And everybody, you know, if you can draw in prison, everybody's going to come up to you and be like, dude, do tattoos. and I had a couple little, like, kids in the dorm, like,

or younger dudes in the dorm that would let me kind of practice on them and stuff. Practice tattooing? Yeah. And they would be, you know, they, I'd be like, dude, don't tell anybody because I don't want to, like, this is just on the low, like, really did it for, to pass the time. Didn't really do it to make money. I didn't really see it like that. It was just cool.

Like, it was like, damn, you know what, we're doing some tattoos. We're passing time. you know, doing the thing. It was just a, you know, a fun way to pass the time. So the words started getting out. Like, you know, people walk by and say, that's the tattoo man. Let me see that.

And because I've got my drawing up to a pretty high level, that was translating into my tattoos. And pretty soon I was getting like, I was getting decent, but I needed to, there was things I just couldn't figure out by myself. And there was a guy across the yard who was like infamous in the Department of Corrections for his tattoos. Like if you saw his, like you saw someone tied up with the best work, you'd be like, yeah, that's the dude. So I kind of got my balls up to go approach him at one point.

He was on, you know, we were on yard or whatever. And I brought some of my drawings out. I was like, yo, what's up, dude? Like I've seen some of your stuff and whatever. I was like, you want to take a look at some of my drawings and whatever? He's like, yeah, sure, man. So he looked at him, he's like, he's like, yeah, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty good. It's pretty good.

And I was like, you know, I started building this like rapport with him a little bit, a little mutual respect. And eventually I got moved from my dorm over to his dorm into his room and almost had like an apprenticeship under him. He like, he was legit. Like he was a tattoo artist on the street. and he really, really, really, like, knew what he was doing, actually. So at this point, I'm, like, all in, dude, I'm starting to, I'm getting fired up about, like, tattooing in general. And I'm not thinking about the street.

I'm just thinking about this is a cool way to pass time. I can make some money. I can do whatever. And I'm really, like, enjoying the whole thing. What was a guards attitude on tattooing? So. Because I know every prison's different. Yeah.

And I've talked to a lot of people about this. I think South Carolina, it's almost seen as like a respectable hustle. You know, there's people making wine. There's people selling drugs. There's people making knives. There's all this stuff. If you're doing tattoos, they're like, eh, whatever. I've had CEOs, like, sit there and watch me do tattoos and not really give a shit.

What were they using for the gun? So I'd use, like, whatever kind of motor you could find. a lot, I'd get them out of the clippers. Yeah, that sounds about standing. Yeah, out of the clippers, like, sometimes you get hold to somebody in the maintenance department, and they'd find, like, a old printer or something and just bust them open, you get, like, 50 motors out of it.

I think they would use the radio somehow, too. Yeah, you guys do that. Like, the CD players. Yeah, the clear radios that have the wind in it. Yeah. What about for the needles? What do you guys use? So, we would get, like, the pins that you, like, a click pin,

take the spring out, make a candle, and then you hold both ends with with toenel clippers and stretch it over the flame until it straightens out. I never heard about this one before. Yeah. Wow. So we do that. Me and him got to the point where

we would have like a bunch, we'd have like crash dummies of our own. They were making like, they were burning the soot for the ink, making the needles, like collecting all the motors. And then they, we'd have them like,

hoarding motors and stuff. So if we did get, if we did get, um, shook down and they took her stuff, if they shook you down and South Carolina finds your tattoo shit, they'll take it and then give you like some minor,

minor charge. You might lose like your phone privileges for a couple weeks or something. It's very, like nobody really cares. What do you think was the most common tattoo people would ask you to do in there? The most common tattoo? Yeah. Loyalty.

The words loyalty? Yes. I think a tattooed loyalty. 10,000 times. Or like, maybe respect. It was mainly lettering tattoos were the most popular. What was the dumbest one you've ever done? The dumbest tattoo? You know, the silliest. Oh, God. That's a loaded question right there.

Like, would guys put their girls' name on them? I think the dumbest tattoo, and I never got this. And I bet you've seen this too, is when people get their prison ID number tattooed on them. It's actually a good idea. I should go give a A prison bad shot out on me. I have my prison nickname tatted on me. Do you? Yeah, Mick Lovin.

Yeah, and I got the portrait done too. What I did was this guy that came on my show, he was an ex skinhead turned tattoo artist. He had his own shop and I said, listen, if you do something funny on me, I'll promote your shop. So we went in as like, you want to do this portrait? He doesn't really do portraits, but it came out great. And we made a video of him doing it. And it got like almost a million views on TikTok. And hopefully it brought him a lot of business.

For real? Yeah. So that's why I said when you get your shop Like I'll do the same thing We'll come up with something like silly Maybe we'll do the prison ID for me Yeah absolutely Yeah I'm down

So yeah This is how it went And now I think for the first couple years of being like The tattoo man Like I'm telling you I started having Time started getting a whole lot easier

for me You know, as you know, I'm sure a lot of your guests, a lot of people watching know, like, we can talk about like prison being okay and being cool sometimes, but it's always, there's always drama going on. When you're the tattoo man in prison, you're almost untouchable, especially if you're a good tattoo man. All, it doesn't matter what gang, what color, what race, whatever, they all want tattoos. So nobody wants to get rid of you. If any problems start up, because a lot of drama starts up out of nowhere.

Like all of a sudden, like someone has a problem with you for nothing. You're like, what the fuck? Like, I remember one time I was smoking a cigarette in this person's room and the ash fell like off my cigarette

and went to his roommate's shower shoe and I didn't even see it. And this like started, this dude like wanted to kill me over this. I was like, you know, like little things like that happened in prison. It's just like, what the

like everything doesn't have to be so damn serious all the time like can't we just act like decent human beings every once in a while did you ever try to talk someone out of getting a tattoo like say a young kid you're like do you sure you want to get that gang tattoo you're sure you want this I would all the time especially when I got to the lower security prisons um first of all I didn't I tried not to do like face or hand tattoos not really because I I cared about what, you know, I was trying to protect them, but just I don't want somebody walking around with a brand new face that just draws too much attention.

But yeah, so I quit doing, towards the end, I quit doing anything gang related, like in that, in prison that seems to be a lot of what people want. But if there's something that was obviously gang related, I'm just not doing it anymore. And they were okay with that? Yeah, it was just too much, too much. too much drama, like too much heat. You know? Like I tattooed one,

a gang symbol on somebody. And then they went back and apparently the gang that they were part of had a giant problem with a white person tattooing this gang symbol on them. And it was like this huge thing. And I was like, dude, all right, I'm done. There's no more.

I'm not doing that anymore. It's over with. Do anyone ever ask for a refund or say it came out wrong or anything like that? No. No bad experience. experiences. What was the price? What were you charging people? Well, so to answer your question, that's why it was good for me to almost apprentice under this guy,

because this guy's been, he's been around for a long time. He was like, dude, never, when you get tattoo, they pay you before you even put the stencil on, before you anything. He said, money on the wood, you take it, and then I'll take your canteen and I'll put it in my locker, like and it's over with like there's no no nothing because it's prison man not you know I think a lot of good people you know are in prison there's also a lot of shit shit people in there and that's just the cold hard truth like there's people that are going to be constantly trying to extort and manipulate and run game and all this stuff and yeah the to to nip that in the bud if you don't have the money like was it one step price or

different prices depending on the size. So eventually I went until I was $100 a day. That was my rate, which is pretty good. Pretty cheap for tattoos. Yeah, pretty cheap for tattoos on the street, but pretty good for tattoos in prison. And are they paying you cash?

Like cash out or anything? So at this pay, I'm getting paid. At that point, they had green dots. I don't know if you remember those, but it's like a prepaid card that your people can have on the street and then their people on the street can get like a number.

It's like before, I guess before cash app and all that kind of stuff. But what, do you have to do that over like a contraband phone or something? Yeah. To communicate it.

Yeah, I had a cell phone for the last five years. I was locked up. It makes time go a lot easier. They should just give everyone cell phones. I know. Well,

to me, to me some things are worth the risk. I knew when you're locked up all that time, the easiest way to get institutionalizes, bro, you're sitting back there. All you see is this prison world. And sometimes that's the easiest way to go

because you don't have to think too much about the street. But when I got that foam, I made an Instagram and I started taking pictures of my tattoos and I started taking pictures of my drawings and very inconspicuously I would post them on Instagram. By the time I came home, I liked 10,000 followers on Instagram. Wow. You know, and I was able to reach out to a lot of tattoo shops on the street.

And I've had three jobs lined up at the best tattoo shops in town from me showing my pictures to these people. None of them knew that I was in prison showing the pictures of the tattoos. Was it hard to adjust to like the equipment on the street versus in prison? No. So this is another crazy thing. A couple years before I came home, like, this is how it works in South Carolina. If you got the money and you can pay somebody to do it, you can have whatever you want. So the last couple years, I had a full street set up. I had real ink.

I had ink caps. I had, you know, I had a pin machine with the cartridges and everything. So I was already good. How much did that cost you? Probably a couple grand, right? Yeah, I guess it was a, first I got like, I got street needles. I got needles. Then I'd make like the tubes and stuff.

And then I get the tubes. And then I'd be like, dude, I just wish I had a big bottle of ink. Then I get the ink. And then, you know, I just acquire all these things. So eventually I just had everything. How much money did you leave prison with, saved up? Tell me your hustle. Yeah, I think I had like almost 40 grand.

in my bank account. Holy shit. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. I was hustling for a long time. You know, I was hustling, I was doing tattoos for six years, probably straight before I came home.

Good for you, man. So, and there was that and there was other things that you can make money off of whatever. But my goal, at that point in my life, dude, like when I was saying, I sent that picked that portrait home to the guy, and I started getting this, this. feeling of being like like like I'm being you know I'm starting to become somebody I'm starting to actually stand on something like it's not a bunch of bullshit like I think it feel like the whole reason I was down this went down this crazy path as a kid is because I had no direction I realized that art and tattooing was my that's what I do

that's that's was my calling so I put my all into it like all I did was draw and do tattoos and eventually I especially after having a phone and reaching out to some people on the street I realized that I could do this when I came home and it could be a job that I love to do I can make as much money as I want um it's going to be something that that I can do forever and right now I have all these years and all this time and I've got no distractions I need to sit down and when I get out I can be better than 90% of the tattoo artist on the street. street. And, you know, I was concerned when I, when I was getting close to getting out, I was, I was concerned if I was actually going to be able to get a job. So like I said, I think it was

about two weeks close to when I was getting out. And I reached out to the shops that I was talking to. I said, yo, I got something to tell you. And he's like, what? I was like, dude, I'm in prison. The one guy was like, shut up. man. What are you even talking about? I was like, nah, for real.

I was like, shut the fuck up. I took a selfie of me like next to the prison toilet. He's like, oh, damn, there's no way. And,

yeah, so I was just prepared. The whole time I was preparing for what I was going to do when I came home. Like, I had to do this because, dude,

you know, it's a crazy story, but one thing I want to touch on is that, I don't think people, you know, people hear these crazy prison stories and they hear all this stuff. But the majority of being in prison is like a mental torture for me especially. There's, you don't, you, you don't have anything. Everything you have has been taken away.

You're watching your friends on the street get married and having kids and doing whatever and you're just stuck back here. Everything that you see is negative. like it's it's it's it's um it's torturous to be in prison like it's not it's not humane like you're you're back there and for me the escape from that was was this view that when i come home i'm actually going to be able to do something with my life and i had i started having goals and i was reaching them and i was getting better at things and i think this without that i would have never um i don't think i would have ever made it if i didn't have had finally find something to keep me,

keep my hands occupied with and, and just keep my mind focused on the goal. Oh, you found your purpose. Yeah, I found my purpose. And there must have been a part of you that was like, maybe I wanted to just stay in prison because this is working. Before you found that job. Yeah, no, I wanted to get the fuck out of there so bad.

There was definitely no part of me that one. to stay. So yeah, when I did come home, it just made everything that much easier to get back on track. How many years did you end up doing on 10? Eight and a half. And so when you got home, was your family there? Were they supportive? Yeah.

So during this time, I worked, I did a lot of soul searching and everything. And I really did my best to repair the relationships with my, with my parents especially and with my, the rest of my family. And I realized that all the other friends and stuff I had, there weren't friends. You know, I was locked up almost 10 years. And who came to see me? My mom and my dad. And that's it.

You know, I think I had a friend. I had a friend come one time. I think my brother came one time. So you really get to know who you're, you know, who's really got your back. And all those people that you thought had your back, they're not there. You know, when I was doing, I was doing time, you were doing fine, as they say.

But so when I came home, my dad had moved to Florida. My mom had moved to North Carolina. And I knew that I couldn't go back. I couldn't go back to Charleston. There was no way. I was, even though I knew, I really felt like I was okay, who knows what would have happened if I went back there. So, yeah, release date comes.

I have everything set up. I've been working my ass off this whole time. I'm feeling good. I'm all so nervous. And then it's time to walk out those doors. And, you know, my mom picked me up. It's just a crazy experience coming home. just the feeling of all you've seen is gray walls and heavy doors and all this shit we drove from

we were all the way in the upstate of south carolina and she lives all the way on the beach of north carolina so it was like a six hour drive or something stopping at gas stations just like overwhelmed by all the all the things um got back to my mom's house and i remember i'll never forget this. When I grabbed the door to open it, I felt like I almost ripped the door off the hinges because I haven't touched a regular door in so long.

Every door was these heavy steel doors. I grabbed it. I felt like I was going to pull it, like ripped it straight off the hinges. It's like, what the hell? And I got in her house and I'll never forget the sensation of walking on like a wooden floor because I've had nothing but concrete under my feet for almost

10 years. So it felt like I was walking on a trampoline. like it had give that nothing i had had had any give so and then overwhelmingly all the little objects and trinkets on the walls and paintings and everything it was just like what the i just wasn't expecting that part of it so i come home my mom tells me she's got this little like apartment over her garage thing she's like you can stay here until you get your feet on the ground. So anyway, my step sister and her boyfriend just broke up.

So she's up there. And my mom's like, oh, yeah, you're going to stay in the guest bedroom right beside us. And I'm 31 years old at this time. I'm like, I can't do this. So I stayed there for like two weeks, moved out, got my own place. And, yeah, the rest is the rest is kind of history. So like I said before, I reached out to a lot of tattoos. shops when I got out out my best friend was in town he I got in his car him and his girlfriend

um drove me to go apply for that some of the tattoo shops and the first shop I walked into they're like dude we love to have you here just I just didn't really get the vibe for it second shop was it was the same thing they were trying to get me to work there and I was just not feeling it in the Third shop I went to was, it was just the fit. You know, it felt like old friends and ended up working there for two years. So I got to, I had a job two days after I got out. Yeah, two days after I got out, I'm a professional tattoo artist. And I got to pretend to my clients like I didn't just get out of prison, you know?

I feel like that's one of those jobs where it's okay to be covered in tattoos. one's going to judge you because you're working at a tattoo shop you I would say you almost you almost get it's like advertising I think you got looked at weird if you're not covered in tattoos at these jobs and that was another thing like me like I have a lot of tattoos but I was like the least tattooed person in the entire shop was like the only one that didn't have a tattoo on their head yeah my tattoo artist doesn't have any of his like forearms or anything done but it'll have like the upper body done but so you'll never know but from the outside when he's just wearing a shirt and pants he doesn't look like he has a single tattoo on him.

Yeah. Yeah. Dude. So, yeah, since I came home, I just, I excelled really quick at getting clientele and at booking appointments. My tattoos just exponentially got better really quick after being around some other season tattooers. And honestly, my tattoos. if I sound arrogant, forgive me. But when I came home out of prison,

the day I came home out of prison, my tattoos were better. My prison tattoos were better than 95% of the people's tattoos on the street, the tattoo artist on the street. So that was kind of shocking too, like going to these shops and then seeing everybody's tattoos and being like, dude, what the hell?

Like, y'all, y'all been out here in the free world and you can't even figure this out? So yeah. What's some advice you wish you could tell your teenage self? I think I would have told my teenage self that you have absolutely no clue what kind of pain and suffering you're about to put yourself through if you don't get your shit figured out. Because I think we're all good and we all figure out. ways to cope and whatever, but being in prison for that long, it does something to you. Like, it takes a toll on you. It, I think you can come out and, and become a better person from the

experience, but I don't wish, if I could have prevented my, my younger self and really showed myself what life could have turned into, if I was, still went down that path, then I just would have tried to show myself, you know, what, how bad things could really get. And it's time to, to focus on something. And yeah, that's about it. Well, Chris, I appreciate you coming on the show today, brother. For sure, man. Thank you for sharing your story and, you know, safe travels back.

Absolutely. Thanks, buddy.