Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Robbed Drug Dealers, Did Home Invasions, Survived Prison & Married a Prison Guard | Michael Bryant

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Michael Bryant reveals how he robbed drug dealers through home invasions, the dangers of that life, and what it took to survive prison. He also shares the unexpected twist—falling in love and marrying a prison guard. This is a raw and real story of crime, survival, and redemption. #CrimeStory #HomeInvasions #PrisonSurvival #DrugDealerRobbery #TrueCrime #Redemption #PrisonLoveStory #AddictionRecoveryv Thank you to THE PERFECT JEAN & NORDVPN for sponsoring today’s episode: The Perfect Jean:  F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code LOCKEDIN15 at https://theperfectjean.nyc/lockedin15 #theperfectjeanpod NordVPN: To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan - go to https://nordvpn.com/ianbick which will also give you 4 extra months on the 2-year plan. There's no risk with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Connect with Michael Bryant: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiSTrraiHOERuXldM-zdNfg TikTok: tiktok.com/@timeservedpodcast 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 Unique Prison Love Story and Social Media Fame 00:04:48 Growing Up in a Business-Oriented Family 00:10:05 Troubled Teenage Years and Searching for Identity 00:14:41 From Couch Surfing to Crime: A Young Father's Journey 00:19:32 Challenges of Living Near the Border 00:24:50 Surviving a Near-Fatal Encounter 00:29:28 Final Capture: The Raid That Led to Arrest 00:34:27 Escaping Arrest Before 20th Birthday 00:39:08 Capitalism and the Justice System 00:43:43 Racial Segregation in Prisons and Integrated Housing Attempts 00:48:40 Sensing Tension in Prison Environments 00:53:02 Inmate Employment Opportunities: Key Roles & Industries 00:57:32 Unexpected Reunion at Church 01:02:11 Rebuilding Family Relationships After Prison 01:06:53 Employment Challenges for Ex-Offenders in the Food Industry 01:13:35 Inspiring Redemption: From Prison to Success Stories 01:16:19 The Importance of Rest and Consistency 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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your miles go further across the South Pacific. Book now at Fiji Airways.com or contact your local travel agent. Conditions apply. Michael. Welcome to Lockton. Thanks for having me. We're at your house in Arizona. Just interviewed your lovely wife. Talked a lot of crap about you. So we'll have to set the record straight. But thanks for having me, man. We've been talking about doing this for a few months. I'm glad we can

make this happen. Thanks for making the time. And thanks for having me on your show as well. That's on YouTube. It will be on YouTube by the time this comes out. And you guys are great, man. I love it. Thank you. My first time in Arizona. We're honored that you flew all the way over here. And it's super cool to sit with you because we've been watching your channel for quite a while now. Well, you guys have an interesting store. It's not every day you meet like that inmate that marries a prison guard. You guys caught my attention on TikTok and you guys are just nice people.

You know, you're so nice. Appreciate it. Yeah, I'm glad we got to me and I'm glad whoever commented on your video saying to do my show. It is cool seeing that. I see so many people tagging me now. I feel like I'm the go-to person. I thought she was like a scout. I was like, oh, Ian Bick must have like scout to look for interesting stories

because she tagged you and me and then I just sent you an email. And so. Yeah, now like whenever someone of celebrity or a regular person's talking about prison on TikTok, I get tagged. Okay. You should do Ian Bick's show. And does it result in a lot of? It all depends.

Like I actually, so here's an interesting story. You might have seen it because it was on the West Coast. So this guy got out of prison for serving after serving, I don't know, maybe like 20 years or something. and his girlfriend had made him a TikTok and passed it to him. Okay. And she, it, like, started to blow up. And he's like, they got married while he was in prison or something. Tall, skinny, white guy.

So this happens. He's getting famous. And then another woman comes out and says, that guy is the person that killed my husband and left my kid's fatherless. Holy cow. This is my take on it. And this happened like 10 or 15 years ago. younger woman probably in her 40s or something her TikTok goes viral so i had seen his

ticot like weeks prior just another like prison story you know i didn't respond or reach out or anything then i see hers and it had my interest because it's not every day you have that and then she went viral because she's like why are we platforming someone this is the whole story yeah yada yada so i actually dmd her and i said hey i'd love to have you on the show and we talk the other day on the phone um so we're going to work out her coming on the show and so is that What he actually went to prison for was that? For killing her husband at the time. Wow.

I don't know all the, I didn't look into all the details, what exactly happened. But it seemed like, you know, she has a nice family, two or three kids. And yeah,

this happened like 10 or 15 years ago. That's the thing with social media once you're out there, you're out there. Yeah. And she was like, well, are you going to have him on?

Like, are you going to edit? I was like, no, on my podcast, I don't edit anything. Like it's the full raw, your story.

You could literally tell you your whole story from start to finish, which I've had guests come on. And I don't have to say anything. And it works out good. Well, because then you get to see how it affected her family and all of those years with him being incarcerated. And then seeing him again, like, pop up on your phone. That's got to be kind of traumatic.

Yeah. And that's exactly what her perspective was, which I thought was really interesting. And that, like we were talking about on your show, what makes, I think, my show special that we have all these different perspectives. Yeah, exactly. So did you grow up in Arizona? Yep. I'm actually born and raised here in Phoenix. I've been here my entire life.

And eventually, we plan on leaving. but for now we're here in Phoenix so you never wanted to leave like before here? I've wanted to leave for a while we wanted to go live in Texas for a little while we like to go out to like Central Texas like Austin and we do a little bit of hog hunting out there a little archery and stuff like that so

eventually we will but because of business and work and stuff like that we're here for now and children are in high school. Do you guys eat the hogs? Generally no. You can donate the meat. The rule in Texas is any hog or any any, sorry, how does it go again?

The only good hog is a dead hog. Oh, really? That's the rule in Texas. Yeah, so you can generally just kill them. You can donate to meat. You can leave them on the side of the road and let the coyotes eat them because they cause so much damage in Texas and they destroy farmers lands.

They'll attack your dogs and cats. They've been known to kill people. So in Texas, they're just like get rid of them all there. Yeah, my dad made it, I told you, it was a chef. He made a really good wild boar. chili one year. Did you try it? It was so good.

Yeah. Yeah. And I normally don't eat like exotic. I look at like those animals like that, deer and stuff as exotic meats in my world. Like I'll never do alligator. Like someone would have to put it on the table and not say what it is. Alligator's pretty good. That's what people say.

Like I'm sure it's great. Like shark. Yeah. Charts great. Catfish I stay away from. Catfish is great. Yeah. I don't do any of that.

I won't eat it. I like the weird stuff, I guess. Yeah. So who did you grow up with? My mom and my dad. dad and I had a stepdad as well. So I have a stepdad as well. So I had a good, good home, good upbringing. My parents were great. You know, I, I didn't get abused. They weren't alcoholics or drug users or anything. They taught me well. They were business owners. And I had a really great childhood,

you know, it was really, really good childhood. Any siblings? Yeah, I have a little brother who is just two years younger than me. And then I have four big brothers and a sister that all live in Chicago. You know, I just realized I've been trying to figure out who you look like all day. Oh, God. Do you know who you look like? Michael Schofield. Yes. Yeah.

Dude, you're literally the little Spanish, a little more Spanish than Michael Schofield. Yeah. And you have his brains. Oh, really? Yeah, you're so smart. Like, you're very business oriented. We get about, when our video went viral, we were getting about 20 comments every day saying I look like Michael Schofield. You really do.

And your arms are tatted too. Yeah. And I have a lot of, I have a full. body suit. So my whole body is tattooed. Wow. Yeah. Your stomach tick. Yeah, the whole everything. Dude, you are Michael Schofield. Yeah, we were getting like 20 comments a day. And I think I watched part of that show a long time ago. And now I want to go back and watch it again. I just finished the whole series. Was it, was it good? Yeah, at the end, it gets repetitive, but I liked it. Yeah, okay. Everybody, because my wife is a former corrections officer, so we get the comparison a lot that

Michael and I think his wife is like a nurse or something like that. Yeah. She, He hooks up with the nurse in prison, well, not while they were in prison, but they end up getting married. They fall. Well, actually, they do kiss while they're inside. Okay. Yeah, similar story.

You should also watch Escape at Dan Amora. That was based on the, she was a seamstress in the New York prison. This happened a few years ago, and she, like, got the materials needed for these two killers to break out. One was a cop killer. One was another killer.

Holy cow. Yeah, it's an eight episode series on Netflix. Those situations usually don't end well. for anybody involved. Like the other woman in Alabama, female prison guard. Right. Somebody died in that story,

if I remember. She died. The guard died. She died. Yeah, she committed to the side now. Oh, wow. Okay.

It's pretty crazy. Yeah. So did you guys have money growing up? Yeah. My parents had a little bit of money. We were probably upper middle class. I would say my dad was the general manager of a really big concrete company. And then my mom owned a trucking company.

She was actually a truck driver. She drove cement mixers. And so she's a real tough. lady. Like we had horses and cattle and they're kind of like ranchers. And so my mom's real tough. She raised me to be real tough. And yeah, we got a little bit of money and a good, good upbringing. All right, guys, I have officially found the best pair of jeans I have ever worn. And no, I'm not just saying that because they're sponsoring the show today. The perfect gene has completely changed the game when it comes to denim. Listen, I used to hate jeans. They were stiff, uncomfortable. And if you've got a little

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Now let's get back into today's episode. What were some morals and still than you as a kid? Well, my mom and dad were really, really big on like no drugs. That was like their number one thing. Like stay far away from drugs. Like everything was bad. Like marijuana, you know, horrible. Stay far away from it.

You know, it's the devil's lettuce. Other than that, you know, don't lie. Just normal stuff. My parents, my parents worked a lot. They worked like 80 hours a week. So when my little brother and I were growing up, because all my other siblings lived in Chicago, when my little brother and I were growing up, we were often like just, you know, figure it out, guys.

Don't get in trouble or, you know, you'll get your ass whooped. And, you know, we had to take care of ourselves. Not take care of ourselves, but our parents were always working. So it was just kind of us, the two of us, looking after each other. And we started to get, you know, into little trouble here and there. And from there, you know, grows and turns into a lot of trouble as you become teenagers and getting kicked out of school and fighting and stuff like that. And a lot of it, I think, was trying to fit in.

I had this thing as a teenager. I just wanted to fit in. I don't know why. I guess it's probably common for a lot of kids. And I started, you know, smoking and drinking and sneaking out at night and having little girlfriends and just finding my way into pretty much any kind of trouble I could get into. And then another part of it was the adrenaline. And then I'm ADD and I can't sit still for very long.

And so all of these little things together just led me down this path of getting into trouble when I had no business getting in trouble at all. I had a great family, great upbringing. There's no crime in my family at all. Like I'm, you know, I was like the shock factor. They were like, what happened? How would your brother describe you as a kid? Like, if he was here right now, how would he say you were back then?

My little brother loved me, like, or loves me. Like, we're very, very close. Like, he loves me. Like, he'll just always say, like, the most positive things about me. Like, we fought as little kids all the time because we're just little, you know, we're brothers and we just, like, argue and fight and wrestle and stuff all the time. But if you were to ask him now, like, he loved me. He's super positive about like everything.

And he just brags about me nonstop. He's like, my brother this, my brother, that. And I'd be like, bro, stop. But yeah, we have a very good relationship, my little brother and I. That's awesome. Yeah. Did you end up finishing high school? No, I got expelled from military school in ninth grade.

My mom and dad said, hey, we're going to send him to a private school, private military school, because I was getting into too much trouble. I got expelled from that school for messing around with a girl. And she told me. her parents or she told her friend and her friend told her parents something like that and we got caught at school messing around so they expelled me they had like a zero tolerance type thing for that then i got expelled again in 10th grade for fighting and then i got expelled in 11th grade for um i had some stuff in my backpack i wasn't supposed to have and i got caught got expelled and my mom was like i'm done that's three times like it's over so she just yanked me out of school and made me get a job and you know no graduation

I got a GED about a year later. Wow. Yeah. Ah, that's interesting. You never finished high school. No. Do you wish, looking back on it, that you got that normal high school experience? No, it didn't really have much of an effect.

I don't think anybody today really discriminates too much between a GED and a high school diploma. And for me, it doesn't really matter much anyways because I own a business. I don't hear. Yeah, I thought high school was good for social skills. Like, if I look back out of now, I didn't need half of the classes. So I probably could have cut my high. high school experience down to like two years. Yeah.

But the social skills and what I was able to build from high school, I think was integral. Yeah, that's true. I've never thought about it that way. Social skills definitely important. In one area, I've always had to probably work on a little bit as well just because I either, people either love me or they hate me. And I'm kind of the same way with other people. I get along really well with some people and not so well with others.

So, and maybe that's from, you know, not going to school. Yeah. And my parents always raised me too. Like, all right, if you're not going to go to college, you got at least graduate high school. But I bet you as time goes on, you, might even start to see that turn into you don't even necessarily need high school. Yeah.

I guess it all depends. Like if your parents have like real like our son is 11 and we have a very specific, you know, education regime that we've kind of, he's, he's online school. He goes to ASU, which is actually, it's a college that has, you know, elementary and junior high and high school classes as well. So he's already online enrolled in ASU. And the goal is to get him into ASU a little bit early and do coding and computing and computer. computer coding because he loves video games and he loves developing. And I think that software and

coding is the future. I don't think there's anything more important than, you know, computer sciences. So, and he loves it too. So yeah, I mean, and if you learn your basic math reading, writing all that by the time you get into high school, there's a lot of BS. Yeah. You know, after that. Yeah, a lot of fluff. Yeah, exactly. That could probably be cut out. Yeah. But the social skills are important too. So like he does boxing and Muay Thai as well. So he, he's at the gym and that's where he gets his social time in four or five times a week. That's awesome. Yeah.

So what happens after? Like when you're done with school, where do you go? So when I got expelled the final time, I think I was 17. It was my junior year. And at this point, I'm kind of drinking a little bit, sneaking out. And you know what happened was my mom and I just, my mom and I are very much alike. We're both type A personalities, really strong-willed. We just fought so much.

She just kicked me out. She said, get out. And I went and couch surfed with different friends for a little while. Then, you know, realized I needed to start making more. money. I met a girl. I had a child at a very young age. I think I was 18 when my daughter was born. And then I had to start making money. So I started, you know, selling drugs and doing other things. I started, eventually we started robbing drug dealers. Instead of buying the drugs, we would just steal the drugs. And for me, there was an adrenaline rush involved and I got addicted to it.

And by the time I was probably 18, 19, we had probably robbed 100, maybe more, maybe 200, to be honest. I have no idea, drug dealers. Me and a buddy of mine, my co-defendant, we were just addicted to it. And we knew that eventually, I think we knew that we'd get caught eventually. In fact, my little brother came over one night and he sat down with me and he was crying. And he was just like, dude, he's like, you've got to stop. You're going to get, you're going to get shot or you're going to go to prison. and my daughter was like maybe six months old at the time.

And I remember telling him, I was like, no, I got this. I'm smarter than everybody else. Like, I got this under control. It's not going to happen. And then like just a couple months later, I was in cuffs and it was all over. Were you trying to like explain to yourself inside of you that it was morally right because they were drug dealers? Like you, it wasn't that necessarily bad. Like talking yourself off of it?

To an extent, maybe a little bit. But for the most part, it was just kind of the. adrenaline. I knew that it was, it's different because these guys are, they're armed themselves, 95% of the time. And it was all about like the strategy of figuring out exactly how to do it and how to, you know, get somebody who's armed to essentially, we call it getting the drop on somebody. It's just when, if you've got a gun on somebody, they can't, it doesn't matter if they have a gun or not. If you've got a gun on them, they can't get to theirs. And it was kind of like the strategy and just figuring it out, every single one of them was different. And we would sit there and plan them for hours and hours or days,

you know and a lot of the time you got to realize to a lot of these guys themselves are under the influence or they're intoxicated or not the smartest people in the world either so it's not like we were not like planning advanced bank heists or anything like that you know what i mean like looking back at it was pretty um you know it was pretty low level stuff but still to there's there's an adrenaline that goes along with it that makes it it's just it's hard to put in the words how exciting it was and for me i like i lived for it and it wasn't until i got arrested and i got sober because at the time I'm just drinking and I'm high all the time. It wasn't until I got sober.

I looked back and I was just like, dude, what was I thinking? And I was able to look back and kind of reflect a little bit on that. And it made no sense once I got sober, like none. Walk us through one of your go-to strategies. So the vast majority of the time, when people think about home invasions, they generally think about kicking the door. We always tried to stay away from kicking doors. And it's like the very worst way to do it.

one because you have no idea what's behind the door. So I'm 35. When I was doing this, I was 17. I look young now. When I was like, you said this earlier when we were talking. When I was 17, I looked like a little kid. The people I was with a lot of the times were a little bit older than me. And one of the most common strategies is I would just go knock on the door.

And they'd see this kid who looks like he's 14 years old knocking on the door. And they would just open the door. And then my buddy would be either behind a wall or somewhere else and pull a gun on them. or we would wait, we would sit out front, like if it was an apartment complex or a house, we'd sit out front and we'd wait for them to come outside and smoke a cigarette. And then we'd walk by and say,

hey, do you have a lighter? And when they'd go to reach for a lighter or tell us, no, we just pull a gun on them. It's the last thing they're expecting. Or if they're pulling in and we know what kind of car they drive. And we know, like, in a general area of where they park.

And we can just get out of the car and walk towards them and then, you know, get the drop on them. How would you find these individuals? People would tell us. We had a network of people who, sold and were active, you know, gangs, other dealers. A lot of the times we're in Phoenix.

We're really close to the border. So we have a lot of, we call them Paisas. They're like Mexican nationals all over here. And a lot of the times they would tell us about other Paisos who had stuff. And go get this guy. He's got this or go get that guy. And then we, you know, break them off something. Now, you said you robbed hundreds or at least a hundred.

Yeah, somewhere. It's a lot. Wouldn't World Word travel fast at these group of kids? are robbing dealers? Yeah, yeah. We had a, like a lot of people knew about us. But at the time, it was extremely common. We weren't the only kids doing it at all,

especially even now in Phoenix on a Friday night, 10 drug dealers are going to get robbed tonight. Right? And I don't know. I mean, maybe five, maybe 20, right? But it happens almost every single night. It's so common because we're on the border. There's tons of dealers here.

There's tons of 17, 18-year-old kids out there. making poor choices and it's just a recipe for disaster it happens every night so are normal everyday people getting robbed too out in this area um oh yeah i mean it's a major city so it does yeah like just random people getting mugged or robbed or um you know i've seen home invasions where they thought it was a house and it ended up being the wrong house and they went into like a civilian's house and it's happened are people coming across to the border to do home invasions probably not no people are coming across the border to smuggle things into the into the country or to get here, you know, to live here. But probably not for that reason.

Why do you think you were chasing that adrenaline of it? I don't know. Something about like my brain is wired, weird, I think. Just like severe ADD. And even today, like I'm very, very like adrenaline motivated. Like I like, I like trying to achieve things that like are very, very difficult to do. So, you know, starting a business for. example, it's very, very difficult to, like, build a successful business. And I enjoy failure.

So I don't mind, like, failing 18, 19, 20 times before I get it right and just like going and going and going. But then, you know, another part of the reason, too, is when you're, when you're a kid and you're 16 and 17 and you're hanging around guys that have been dealing, you know, our friends were in their 30s. These are guys that have a lot of money. They've got nice cars. They, you know, they're very active and they're kind of like the guys we looked up to. And so I was probably easily influenced and a follower and I wanted to be cool and fit in. And I think, you know, I've thought about it a lot and tried to figure out exactly what motivated me and I've never been able to put my finger 100% on it. But my hypothesis is somewhere along those lines. What would be your average haul from

a robbery? In the beginning, a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff towards the end, 10, 20 grand worth of stuff. So just depending on, you know, the biggest one we ever got, I don't know how much I can say without getting the, you know, video demonetized. But, um, we got two bricks of black tar, um, and about 15,000 cash on our biggest one ever. Yeah, which is not a lot when you're risking your life and you're splitting it three ways. You know what I mean? It's not it's not that much. How much would you say added up all together over all of them, all the robberies? A few hundred thousand, maybe half a mill, maybe it's pretty good. Split amongst three people over a a couple of years, you know.

Are your parents wondering where you're getting money from? By the time we're doing this, I'm kicked out and I'm not really. My mom wasn't even, my mom is a, like, she's, if you're going to go get in trouble, you're on your own. If you end up in prison, I'm not visiting you. I'm not going to, you know, support you at all. So by then I'm not even really talking to my mom and dad. I'm just kind of out, you know, running the streets and, you know, being an idiot.

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Stay connected and unlock the internet with NordVPN. Now let's get back into today's episode. Now that you're older, do you think about how they felt like with their friends, all their family members because they were, you know, the good family. They never had any trouble. And then they had this kid that was causing all this trouble.

Do you think about how they felt? Yeah, a lot. And I talked to my mom about it a lot. it definitely caused a lot of pain, like especially, especially for my mom, just because, like, she was always so proud of me. And because her and I are, like, we're like twins. Like, if you meet my mom, she looks just like me. We have, like, the same facial features. We have the same personality.

And she just, you know, she never did anything like that. When my mom was in high school into 80s, like, she might have smoked a joint. That was, like, the worst thing my mom, you know, ever did. And so for me to go, you know, do a complete 180 and make these horrible decisions that made no sense. it definitely hurt her my grandparents were like really supportive though and they knew I was being an idiot and they always were trying to just you know talk sense into me and my uncles tried to talk sense into me and I just didn't listen did you have any dangerous close calls like where your life was actually in danger yeah a few times um the worst time what we had was a buddy of mine

my co-defendant and we're still friends today um he did nine years in prison and he's been out about he's been out probably seven or eight years now. He works. He has two kids. He's got a wife and he's doing really well. But him and I, we kicked in a door, which we don't do. When I told him we don't do that, like a hundred times. And we had tried to, we had started outside with this guy.

He just, like, he wasn't scared. We pulled a gun on this guy. He wasn't scared at all. And he kind of, like, backed up and went right through his door and closed the door, like, slammed the door, like, in our face. and my buddy kicked the door. And it happened so fast, like I tried to grab him and stop him

and my buddy kicked the door. And it was nighttime. And when the door went open to, this all happened in under just a few seconds, it was pitch black inside. But we were outside where there were streetlights. So we were illuminated to whoever was inside.

But whoever was inside, they were invisible to us. And then I just heard a gunshot go off. And then I just grabbed my buddy. And then I think he might have shot a couple rounds. I grabbed him and then just, we ran and um we got in the car um we had another buddy with us who was driving and um my buddy eric who um is my co-defendant he he's he said mike i got shot i got shot and um i said no you

didn't you're you're tripping and we're in the back seat of the car and i told my my other buddy who's driving he said go to the hospital because you know i thought he'd gotten shot in just in case where you know we're not far from the hospital so i just go to go to the hospital and i yank off my my buddy shirt actually kind of like tore a shirt open because i'm trying to find a bullet hole and there's no blood anywhere it's like the craziest thing because like in the movies i've never seen anybody get shot before i'm expecting there to be blood everywhere and um you know he's telling me he's like i can't see my vision's getting blurry i can't fill my legs i've been shot and i'm like dude there's no blood there's no bullet hole you're tripping bro you haven't been shot and i'm

talking like trash to him and like um eventually i find like this little tiny pink dot like right on his stomach and i kind of i looked at it and i kind of touched it and he goes oh And, you know, we're kids and we're dumb. We don't know anything. We get to the hospital and they get him in there. And he had been shot by a 22 and it had gone in and cauterized itself. So there's no blood. And it had bounced and hit his, I think it hit his kidney and his liver.

And then like, like, it went through like 40% of like his intestine. And he was bleeding internally. So there's no blood on the outside because it's all internal. And when he went into the hospital, he was probably, he's about the same size as me, like 150, 160 pounds. when he got out, he was like 105. He had lost like 50 pounds. He had almost died.

If we hadn't gotten to the hospital in five minutes, he would have died. Wow. So didn't they call the cops or anything? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when we got him to the hospital, I dropped him off in a wheelchair with the, like, the nurses.

And I just left immediately. I ran out. And I had to call his mom. And, you know, because I grew up kind of with his family. And we were all real close. And that was like one of the hardest phone calls I had to make was like, you know, your son got shot. He's at the hospital.

And, um, but. Yeah, the cops came, they interrogated him. And I think his story was we were just walking on the street and some guys drove by and shot at us. And they believe that? No, we got brought up on charges. But that case ended up never getting, we never got charged for that because it's past the statute of limitations now. So it doesn't matter as much anymore. This happened in like 2008, which was what, 16 years ago, which is well past the statute of limitations.

But the person that had done it was an illegal immigrant. And so these guys most of the time aren't going to testify in court. they leave or they get deported or something like that. In fact, later on, a couple of years later when I was in prison, I had heard that the guy who had done it was deported in Mexico. And for a long time, we thought we might get page two for this. But it was a weird, you know, nothing got stolen. The crime hadn't even really taken place yet, right?

So it was kind of a weird situation. Wow. So did they know that you robbed a house the cops at the time or now? No, they put one and two together because some, Somebody else had called from that apartment complex where it had happened and said they'd heard gunshots. So they kind of put one and two together. And then the cops already had a file on my buddy. He's kind of known for like some other activity and stuff in town.

And they kind of knew. And they, like I said, they brought up charges and ended up dismissing them because they didn't have a case. They couldn't get the grand jury indictment on that one. But from that point on, that's kind of when we were on the radar and like everything else after that. Like it wasn't long after that until we were in prison. How did they end up catching you for the final time? So we had an apartment in Mesa where Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix where we had a lot of things like stashed from like robberies. And it was full of, it was full of all kinds of stuff, evidence like laptops and stolen, you know, money, drugs, guns, a lot of guns.

There's probably over 25 firearms in the apartment at the time. And I had a buddy there who was with me. and I had gotten there early in the morning. It was like seven in the morning. And I had come in and I looked around like, bro, there's too much stuff here. We got to get rid of some of the stuff. We either have to sell it or throw it away.

And there was this big glass jar. There's a name for them and I can never remember what it is. But it's like, do you know like the water, the plastic water jugs, the big ones? Oh, yeah, let go in the dispensers. Yes. They make them out of glass occasionally. They do?

Yes. And you can fill them for like quarters. People put like money in them. I don't, I've just seen plastic. Actually, yeah, I've seen glass ones. So we had a glass one that we had stolen and it was full of quarters. And there was like maybe $300 or $400 a quarters in there that we just found in one of our robberies. And so I had broken it with a hammer, pulled all the quarters out, put those in a pillowcase.

And then I took the big glass jug that was mostly broken, put it in a pillowcase also. And then we started throwing all this other stuff in there that was like essentially evidence that we wanted out of there because it just made no sense to keep it. We weren't going to sell it. We didn't need it. So I told my buddy, another friend of mine, I told me, he said, take this downstairs to the dumpster. We're in these weekly apartments that, I thought like we were laying low and they were real quiet, but it turns out later on these were like one of like the most well-known like drug apartment complexes in the valley. And I was, like I said, I was an idiot.

So I told my buddy, I said, look, take this stuff downstairs, throw it away. And we're going to start cleaning this place up. he goes downstairs. At the time, I was partying pretty hard. I did a line of cocaine. And I went outside to smoke a cigarette. It's probably 8.39 in the morning. And we're on a third story, by the way.

And these are like weekly apartments. And he's walking down the stairs and there's a white guy in like jeans and a t-shirt walking up the stairs at the same time. And I didn't pay much attention to it. But I lit my cigarette. And I kind of looked away. And then I hear, get on the ground, you piece of mother cock, and I look down, and my buddies all the way down by the dumpsters, and there's three guys with like AR-15s pointed at his head.

And the other guy who was coming up the stairs points at me and goes, that's him. And so I just take off running. And I have stuff in my system. I'm high. I jump off the balcony. Like I run through this hallway, and then on the other side of the hallway is like a balcony. I just jump right off the balcony. And I land in this huge bush.

and the cop who was behind me. He's obviously not jumping off a three-story balcony, right? I jump right back up immediately, and I just take off running. My little brother has an apartment right across the street from there. So I hide behind an auto zone for like five minutes, and then I run to my little brother's apartment complex. I get inside. I, well, I kick in his door.

I get inside and his friend is in there. Her name, it doesn't matter what her name is, because they're still friends to this day. She's in there with her boyfriend. My little brother is gay, by the way. So the girl is his best friend. And then she's in there with her boyfriend. They're like watching TV on the couch.

And I kick in the door. And I said, I need a cell phone. And they gave me a phone. I called my daughter's mother at the time. And I was like, hey, you got to come get me. They raided the spot. Now, my daughter's mom is Native American. She works on the Indian reservation.

And so she's like 45 minutes away. And I'm high, ADD. I look out the window. There's like, dude, there's a helicopter. There's cops. There's plane-closed cops walking around like this, like looking both ways with their hands on, you know, on their hips. And there's dogs.

And I'm like freaking out. Well, my brother's, my brother's best friend and her boyfriend, they're freaking out. Like, yo, we're not staying here. We're leaving. So they take off. And I'm just sitting here at this point waiting for my daughter's mom to come. And what feels like an hour or two passes, but it's probably only been 20 minutes. So I, um, I changed it all my brother's.

clothes. I go downstairs and I walk out to the parking lot kind of looking like, yo, where is she at? And there's another plane closed cop. I don't realize he's a cop. He's on the phone. He looks at me and he said, he looked at me dead in the eye. And he's probably about 10 feet away. And he goes, don't run. He said, or he said, you better not run. And I just took off running. And there's a fence between that apartment complex and Pima Community College. I jumped over the fence. It had metal spikes at the top. And when I jumped over the fence, I heard like a sound.

It was like, that's, I still remember that. It was like, and I fell over the other side of the fence. The metal spikes ripped my shirt open. And I looked on my left arm right here. And there were two, um,

uh, taser prods in my left arm. And one had fallen. No, it was one. It was one taser pod. I ripped the last one out because the other one had fallen off when I came off the fence.

And he's behind the fence still trying to like, you know, probably reload his taser. I get up and run. I hide on another apartment complex for like six hours, and I just wait for the sirens and the cops and stuff to go away. When the sun goes down, eventually I cross the street. I know this area really well.

Like this is kind of like my stomping grounds. I cross the street. I call this girl I know. She drives me to the reservation. And I hide out on the reservation. This was the day before my 20th birthday. So this all happened the day before my 20th birthday. On my 20th birthday, I'm hiding out on the reservation with my daughter's mom and her family.

And I can't even get out of bed because I jumped off a balcony. I tore my stomach open. I'd gotten tased. Like, I'm all messed up. I can't even get out of bed. And on my 20th, on my 20th birthday, I lay in bed all day. The day after my 20th birthday, I'm still there, just kind of laying low. And my daughter's, my daughter's mom's sister is a probation officer.

She finds out what's going on. she reports me that I'm hiding out there. And my daughter's mom had gone into town to get me a birthday cake a day late. And she's in town getting me a birthday cake and the phone rings. It's the house phone. So I pick it up and I go, you know, hello. And it's my daughter's mom's sister, my daughter's aunt. And she goes, Michael, what are you doing at the house?

So I'm just hanging out for a couple days. And she goes, who's there with you? I said, just me and my daughter. Ten minutes later, I hear a speaker. It goes, you know, Michael, we know you're inside. We know your daughter's inside. We don't want to kick the door open. just come out and I came out and they arrested me and you know that was it wow I tried to tell it

I've told that story before I just I tried to condense it as much as I could because I know we don't want to do a three hour video wait so um how did your parents react when they found out did you call them no at this point I probably hadn't even spoken to my mom in probably like nine months it had been a while since I had talked to my mom we had just kind of had like this major falling out and she had told me too like if you get her arrested, I'll never visit you, you're on your own, like, figure it out, you know. Was this how you saw it ending? No, not at all.

I don't know what I pictured happening, to be honest, but that wasn't it. So it was, but I kind of needed it to get, you know, perspective on just how ridiculous all of the choices I was making were. So in the end, everything worked out, fortunately. And, like, even, like, my daughter's aunt who had called the cops, like, we talked today. She was just over here a couple months ago at my daughter's birthday party. And like, I don't blame her. Like, she did her job.

She's a probation officer. She's law enforcement. That's what she's supposed to do. And I'm an idiot who's putting the whole family in danger, you know. They were allowed to come on the reservation to get you? So she's a probation officer for the reservation. What they do is the police department from the reservation will call this or the city police department. I'll call the reservation.

And they'll come get you together. Okay. So they didn't need a federal or anything like that. No. And that's why, like in my brain, I was like, oh, I'll be safe on the reservation. That's what I was thinking. Like in the movies, you're safe unless it's like the feds or something. No, no. They'll just call the local, they'll just call the local police department on the reservation, and they'll just come down there and get you together.

So where'd they bring you and what do you end up getting charged with? So they brought me to Maricopa County. I went to Sheriff Jail Rapio's Jails, lower Buckeye Jail. I was charged with armed robbery, home invasions, kidnapping, burglary, theft, weapons, just all the stuff they found in that apartment. So there's all kinds of stuff in their trafficking, stolen property. I think in the beginning there was about 35 charges I had. The majority were F2s, which in Arizona are like the second highest, only behind an F1, which is like homicide. But I sat in county for 13 months fighting it. My daughter's mom, she got a check from the Indian Reservation, and she bought me a lawyer.

If it wasn't for that lawyer, I probably would have gotten 12 years in prison because that's what my plea agreed. My plea was 12 years, just 12 years flat. And I sat in county for a year waiting for the year. waiting for them to lower it, and they didn't. And eventually she got me a lawyer. The new lawyer comes in, he goes, hey, I know this prosecutor. I got it down to seven years with five years probation.

See, isn't that crazy that a public defender, you know, and then a paid lawyer gets a better deal because of their relationship? Yeah. That's nuts. It was overnight. Why don't they just offer the people the lower deal to begin with? Wheeling and dealing in the background of the courtrooms.

It's literally a business. It is a business, right. Because that's like a bit, it's making a business deal. Exactly. It's what it is. It's the, you know, not everything about capitalism is perfect. Like I'm a business owner. So like I, you know, I like capitalism, but it's not perfect.

And when business gets involved in the justice system, that's not fair, right? It's not fair for people who one guy commits the same crime, but his family has money. So he only gets five years. And meanwhile, somebody who who doesn't have money gets 20 years. Did you know you're going to plead guilty or was there any thought to go to trial? No, I was never going to go to trial. Yeah, because in Arizona, if you go to trial, they will smoke you. Yeah.

Yeah, if you go to trial for those kinds of charges, you get 24 years. It's like always a weird number. Like, you'll see guys come back from court. Like, you know, what happened? And they found me guilty. And then a week later, it's sentencing. And it's like a weird number, 23.25. You're like, what?

How are you treated in county jail? County was county. You know, county jail sucks. I'm half black and half white. So I run with the blacks in county and in prison. County sucks. It's the worst experience. There is nothing worse than county.

You just sit there waiting. I don't know. Is you're half black? Yeah, I'm half white and half black. I thought you're half Spanish. No, no. My dad's black and my mom's white. Oh, yeah.

Interesting. I speak Spanish very well, but no. Okay. Yeah. So in prison, I run with the blacks. And even that, like, was not a big deal. They don't, in Arizona prisons, it's all about segregation. So just once you pick your race, that's who you're run with the whole time.

So not necessarily gangs, just race. Yeah, no gangs are active really in our prisons. The only prisons, the only gangs that exist in our prisons are prison gangs. So street gangs don't have any presents really in our prisons. Did you run into any people that you robbed or associates? One time I thought I saw somebody I robbed. I used to run into associates all the time. I'd run into people I knew from the streets like on a regular basis.

It was a pretty common occurrence. Well, associates of people you robbed because if you... Yeah. One time I saw these kids and I saw a kid and he was a... He used to hang out with this group of kids that we robbed. We had robbed the same group of kids like three times because like they were just easy to get and they were just like these dorky white kids that

had a lot of weed and we used to just rob them. Like I think we got them like three times and I ran into one of them on a three yard and I just don't think he recognized me. But it wouldn't really matter because in prison, I don't know how like it is you know in the feds or in other states but if you robbed me and then we ran into each other in prison

there's really nothing you can do. Like we could fight. That's it. Yeah, I just feel like at that point the money's already gone. You guys are both arrested for something. What are you going to cause an issue for? Yeah. It's water under the bridge.

And usually the rule is the races will be like, the races don't want two people from different races fighting most of the time because there's always the potential for like a riot. Like if a black dude fights a white dude and something goes wrong, it can cause a riot and shut the entire yard down. So a lot of the yards in Arizona, they don't even let two people from different races fight. Like a white guy and a Mexican guy can't fight.

But it depends on the yard. Some yards aren't like that. On some yards you can fight. It just depends like on the way the yard is structured and the politics of that yard. Now did they have certain phones like the blacks had a phone, the whites had a phone, sit in that certain tables.

Tables, yes. On Steiner and Mori, they had tables. These are three and four yards. There were tables like the blacks had a table, the whites had a table, the Mexicans had table, on the yard. But in the Chow Hall, it's always segregated. So like in the Chow Hall,

the blacks always have the section closest to the door. the whites usually have the first section and the Mexicans and then the chiefs I think have like the middle sections. And what if you sit at the wrong table? You get beat up. Really? Oh yeah.

Yeah. But that wouldn't really happen. Mainly because if you're a new guy, the day you get there, somebody's going to come up and, you know, check your paperwork, see what you're there for, ask you a couple of questions and then kind of give you, you know, they're going to realize like,

oh, is this the first yard you've ever been to? Okay, here's the rules. Or if you've been down for a long, time, then you already know the rules. But yeah, I've never seen anybody sit at the wrong table. I did see a white guy give a piece of pizza to a black guy one time, and he got beat up really bad for that. And he didn't know.

Why do you think it's so segregated? There's a lot of, like, stories in prison about why segregation exists in Arizona. The stories that I heard were that back in the day in the 80s and in the 90s, the blacks were pretty much just, like, bullying all the other races. and the other races teamed up together against them to stop that from happening. And it's been that way since the 80s and 90s. Because pretty much what was happening is like the blacks were extorting everybody. Now, I don't know if that's true or not.

Those are just like rumors. I wasn't in prison in the 80s and 90s. There's not too many people around that are, you know, from that time period. Well, I can't the prison just intervene and just say, hey, you guys have to sit next to each other. You got to do this, like to start breaking that or start breaking that down. They're trying to now. Like right now in Arizona, they have what they call IHP,

which is like integrated housing program. And I got out a long time. I've been out for nine years. They started doing this stuff like in 2018, I think. And I don't think it's working. It's just, it's, it's been that way for decades. And it's really hard to shift those mindsets, I think. And people get used to that kind of structure.

On top of that, there's, you know, obviously I'm never going to advocate for segregation, especially being half black and half white. But there is positive sides to it as well. having that structure keeps everything kind of organized and you kind of know like if you're a little dorky guy you weigh 120 pounds and you're five foot three and you go to prison as long as you're not you know as long as you're not like a chomo or you know you don't have bad paperwork nobody's gonna mess with you like some guy can't just walk up and steal all your store some some guy can't walk up and extort you that's not the way it works because the races protect all of their own members

and your race isn't really going to extort you from the inside either. Like, it's, it's everybody's like on a fair playing field and the race is kind of enforced that. And so although, yeah, don't even wrong, like segregation is horrible. There's so many stupid rules. Like, you know, if your buddy's Mexican and you're white, you can't smoke a cigarette together. Like, that makes no sense. Stupid. But, but on the flip side, there are, you know, positives to it as well.

Whereas, like, I've heard of other prisons where there's, like, no structure. And that's like the Wild West. If you get there and you have a bunch of commissary, dudes can just run up and steal it. And then you have nobody there to, like, advocate for you. You know. So why did you pick the blacks over the whites? So when I went to county jail,

as soon as I got there, they pretty much approach you. And they go, like, what are you, black or white? And I'm like, well, no, they actually... Ready or not? Summer is coming. And Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance is on now. Right now, through May 25th,

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Wayfair, every style, every home. They walk up and ask them, I'm Mexican. The Mexicans always walk up. I'm like, what's up? Arrasa? And I'm like, I'm not Mexican. Like, what are you? I'm like half black and half white.

And they're like, well, you got to pick one. Do you want to roll with the blacks or roll with the whites? most of my friends on the streets before I went to prison were black it was just I don't know just like an easier choice it just made sense you know and then the white on top of that it's easier to be it's easier to roll with the blacks and look really light like I do than it is to roll with the white boys and they know you're half black the skinheads give you a hard time for stuff like that I've seen it happen there is a guy

in prison I met once who's half black and half white and he did run with the white boys and they bully they pick on people there's a lot of bullying in prison speaking which the pizza story you got to tell us that which one about the um the white guy gave a black guy's slice of pizza okay yeah um so there was a white guy in the chow hall i wasn't there i was on the yard when it happened and so we just heard about it later on the white guy gave a black guy a piece of pizza he didn't know when the black kid was hungry and he just gave it to him and later on the white boys just they wait for you to go to the bathroom and you know coming out of the bathroom washing your hands and somebody just comes behind you and hits you in the back of the head.

And then four guys are, you know, beating you to a pulp for giving somebody a piece of pizza. It sucks. That's like the negative, you know, dark side of it. It's horrible. There's a lot of racism and, you know, the structure of the way the prisons are run out here. Did anyone give you a hard time, any acts of violence against you or anything? No. No, I had a good head on my shoulder. Like, I had a really good understanding of how prison works.

And it's hard to put into words, but, like, I was very good at navigating. prison. There's rules, right? Like, I'm sure just like where you were like in the feds, there's a very clear set of rules. And if you can learn to like navigate them, prison's not that difficult, right? Don't get in debt. Don't get high. Uh, you know, don't talk crazy about people. Be respectful and, you know, it's simple. I pretty much worked, worked out, read books, played poker and did my time in peace seven years. Yeah, because I think when you, if you're, you're patient, you're smart, and you take a step back for a second, analyze the room. It's pretty easy to read through people in prison. You kind of get a feel

for things. Yeah. That's like why they always say like when you're going to lunch hall or something, just scope it out. Yeah. See where everyone sits and then you kind of, you know, find your way from there. And you can usually feel stuff too. Like it's hard to put into words, but you can feel things in prison. It's like the atmosphere. Like before, a lot of the times when dope would hit the yard, like you could feel it. You. You You'd walk outside into the yard at like nine in the morning and like you could feel tension in the air. And that's because all the fiends are, you know, trying to get high. Or before like, you know, a riot or something like that, you know, were to happen.

You can feel it in the air. And it's like a weird thing. And then on those days, you just kind of chill, you know, mind your business. Read a book. Do whatever? You know, don't go get out. Don't go get in the mix. Do you think prison prepared you and helped you for the business you would end up starting and running after?

Yes. Well, prison itself. is really just time. So time helped me and, you know, prepared me. Prison's just time. It's just whatever you make of it, right? You can go into prison and prepare to get out and commit more crime if you want.

Or you can go to prison and get out and prepare to, you know, a lot of guys go to prison and they prepare to be counselors and, like, drug coaches and helping people stay sober and stuff. I've got so many buddies that get out and they do that now. And they prepared their whole time in prison just reading books and manuals on like sobrients. and they get out and they live it.

But for me, my story was a little unique. I had a job telemarketing when I was in prison. When I got to a minimum yard, I was able to get this job. At first, I paid two bucks an hour. And over time, we started to make more money. And the owner of that company was able to kind of negotiate with the wardens to motivate us more, to pay us more and give us commissions. And so we started to make good money while we were in prison.

And I learned sales. I learned phone sales. And I got really good at it. and then I got out and I went right into phone tales as soon as I got out and eventually started the business and built it up and so for me yeah without prison I never own the business I own today yeah it's interesting to think that you have to go through you know your worst times yeah um and they directly affect sometimes your best times yeah it's it's a different experience for everybody so for some people it helps them and for some people it it hurts them I have um I lost a buddy um

what's today Friday I lost a buddy Tuesday night he passed away one of my close buddies um rest in peace his name was tom and he worked in there with me um doing telemarketing i knew him for 15 years i met him in 2010 when i was on steiner he's a great guy and um just had a substance abuse issue and prison didn't help it you know and so for him at prison didn't help he went you know i've been out for nine years in the last nine years i've been out he's been in and out probably three times just can't cope yeah some people can't break that cycle yeah do you think more prison should have those types of of services that were available to you?

For as far as like the job? Yeah, yeah, it would be my dream. In fact, I think about this all the time to bring those types of jobs to like every single prison in the country. I think every single prison should have it. And a lot of people think that it's slave labor. You're making inmates work for $2 an hour.

And now it's not $2 an hour anymore, by the way. This is, you know, back in 2010. Now these guys are making like $6 or $7 an hour, which once again sounds like nothing. but when you have no bills, no bills, and it's just honey buns and ramen noodles, $6 an hours a lot. And a lot of these guys are working overtime because they have nothing else to do. And so they're saving hundreds of dollars every week, which is a lot more than even your,

you know, typical American saves. Most Americans have no savings. You got guys in prison saving with 300 bucks a week, right? What's that every year? $15,000 a year. And they're getting out of prison with 10. I've seen guys get out with 40 or 50 grand. I got out with almost $10,000.

Yeah, I interviewed a Warren at a correctional, a work release correctional facility, and they're working. They can buy their kids' Christmas presents. They learn spending. They give a piece of their money to pay to stay there as well, like in the facility. Room and Board? Yeah, room and board. We paid room and board too.

Yeah, but like that's how it should be. Like, I sat at a camp for, you know, a year and a half. There's guys that do 10 years at a camp. They're just wasting away. Yeah. At that point, your minimum security, you literally could be working. Yeah. And you could trust the inmates enough to go out.

out, put ankle monitors on them for the day or whatever you got to do. They're not going to escape. They can leave the, they can escape if they really wanted to at the yard. Have them go to work, do their thing, come back and make money. 100%. It doesn't make sense. Every prison should do it. Because you have, you have millions of Americans incarcerated, maybe not millions, but, you know, a million or however, whatever the number is that are, a lot of them are just doing nothing. Teach them a job skill. And in Arizona, Arizona is really, really good about that. So I'd like to say that about like the Arizona prisons. In Arizona, some of the jobs inmates can have include, some of the jobs inmates have Hickman Farms.

It's a big farm where they produce eggs. They produce like tens of thousands of eggs like every day. They're a massive egg producer. Swift Trucking, it's a big trucking company. The inmates fix all the trucks. They do the upholstery, the painting, the engine repair, transmission repair. They work on the frame and, you know, they do every single aspect of automotive repair out there. That's out at the Buckeye Prison.

there's programs out here that help, you know, they train dogs for like canine units. There's programs like where I did telemarketing. All of the signs for the state are made here by inmates. Arizona does a good job. And those jobs, inmates want those jobs. We want to have those jobs because it's better than sitting on my bunk doing nothing. I'd rather be working, even if it's only a dollar an hour. Yeah, they should do something to really get it and save up money.

And I mean, granted inmates are doing it on their own by hustling and stuff. stuff. Why not doing it in a legit way? 100% the legit way because if without those jobs a lot of the times in the prisons, the hustles they're doing are not legal. And I've seen people catch cases over the stuff they do in prison. You know, like you and I were talking about, you just having a cell phone.

You know, gets guys more time. And I've seen guys with five-year sentences get turned into eight-year sentences, nine-year sentences. Your kid was going to be six when you got out. Now she's going to be nine. Now she's going to be ten. Did you think about that? It made no sense. So I interviewed your wife whose episode will be out by the time people hear this.

And she was a prison guard at the facility you were in. Yep. For, I think she said about a year before she left. And I asked her what her first impression of you was. Okay. What was your first impression of her? I still remember the day I met her because it was the, my wife was the property officer. So she was in charge of like all the property for the inmates.

And when I had gotten moved from medium security down to minimum security, She's the one who's in charge of, you know, handing you your property back. And I remember I had asked her, I said, hey, could I have my Bible? You know, because she's supposed to hold my property for 72 hours to go through everything. But I was like, hey, could I just have the Bible? So I have something to read for 72 hours. And I remember thinking the very first thought I had was like, well, she's really pretty. Because you don't see a lot of like, you know, really pretty guards.

And they're like, it's occasionally you do. But that was the only thought I had. Oh, she's really pretty. That was the exact thought I had. Did you ever in a million years expect to be married to her? No. No. No.

We didn't like each other a lot when when I was actually. in prison. I'm sure she probably told you that. Oh, she left the story for you. Yeah. Yeah. There's a certain incident. Yeah. She wanted you to tell. Okay. Like how we talked to the bird. I guess there was an incident. Yeah. Yeah. So I was standing in line to get my property. The property lines in the state prisons are really long. And so property is going to be like if you order a pair of shoes or a CD player or a TV, you have to go up to the property line and stand in line to get it. And it's only opened like Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between four and five, right? So it's like an hour and you'll stand in line and just wait. And it's like

summer. It's like 115 degrees. It's hot. And I'm standing in line for like 30 minutes, waiting to get my property. And I get like to the very front of the line. And this dude tried to like cut. Like he's like, hey, I just got to ask her a question real quick. And I was like, no, bro. Like no. Because like anything will slower down and like maybe I don't get my property that day. And I can't even remember what property it was. I think it was some books or something my dad had sent me. and so I said something like he tried to cut in line and I said I said you're tripping or something like that and she thought I was talking to her and so I go up in line and she's like what did you say I was like nothing I wasn't I wasn't talking to you she's okay and then she gives me my

property and I leave well my buddy was right right behind me in line he was picking up property too so he jogs to catch up with me like a minute or two later and he goes dude she wrote your DOS number now I'm like oh god so that means like they're going to flip your house because She wrote your number down to go find out what house you live in. And so I go back to my house. I get it ready to get flipped essentially. And getting your house flipped is for the audience. It's just like if they come in, they're just like, you know, search yourself.

They're searching myself essentially. So I go back. I get my house ready to get flipped. And sure enough, as soon as count time rolls around, she comes over with some other guard. And she's like, Brian, we're doing a random search in your house. And I was like, and I was like, bro, I wasn't even talking to you. And she's like, okay, it's random. I'm like, oh my God.

So they flip my house, tear it apart, and then they leave. And so I have to put it all back together. And then I was just pissed. Like I, and then so I saw her again a few days later. And I was like, dude, like I was literally not talking to you. Like, you flipped my house for nothing. And she's like, okay. So that was the incident.

That's funny. Yeah. So out of seven years, how much do you serve on that? I did six years, 10 months, and three weeks. I did the whole thing. And then seven months, or a week after prison, you run into. to her at the church. Yeah, about a week after I get out, my buddy called me from that same yard, and we had gone to church together while I was in prison. So he calls me and he goes, hey, he's like,

let's go to church, bring your daughter. And we were like, we were like best friends. And so all right, cool. So I get my daughter. We drive down to Tucson. And it's like the biggest church in Tucson. It's called Victory Worship Center. And she happened to go there. And he had mentioned it. He's like, yeah, some of the guards go to this church too. So we run into each other at church. And I've got my daughter who, my daughter's eight at the time and she has her son who's two, maybe three, I think he had just turned three.

And I said hi to her after church and I was like, hey, how's it going? I'd ask her, I was like, hey, like, you know, does anybody get pizza? I'm going to take my daughter to get, you know, Peter Piper pizza after this. Do you want to, you want to go? I just ask her.

I don't know why. Honestly, I don't even know what made me ask her. Like, I wasn't planning it. It just, I saw her. And I just asked her. And she was like, sure. And so we went and got pizza with the kids. And then we were hanging out

and the kids, you know, I don't know if you guys have Peter Piper back on the East Coast. It's like, it's like an arcade for kids. It's like a Chuckie Cheese. Yeah, kind of like Chuckie Cheese. But the Chuckie Cheese is out here like really burnt out. Yeah, we don't have any left. Okay. They're kind of run down out here.

The Peter Piper's are, you know, a little bit nicer. So, but essentially the same thing. So the kids are, you know, playing around doing arcade stuff. And I think me and her are actually playing the basketball game. To this day, we still play that thing. Like, every time we ever go wherever we see that game, like an arcade, we'll sit there and play that for like, like an hour just trying to beat each other's scores. But when we were there, I asked her on a date.

I was like, do you want to go like hang out sometime? Not with the kids? And she's like a date? I said, yeah, okay. Now, she always, you know, envisioned herself going into law enforcement or military or something. Do you think it was hard for her to, you know, date and eventually marry someone like yourself with your criminal history?

Probably. I would think so. When we first met, we were both kind of, I guess. It's kind of like rebuilding. She had left the prisons. I had just gotten out of prison. She wanted to move to Phoenix. She hated the city.

She hates Tucson. Even to this day, all her family lives in Tucson. She hates going down there. She wanted to get out of Tucson just because it's not, you know, there's not as many opportunities as there is like in a bigger city like Phoenix. But we were just like at this weird place in life where like it just kind of like worked. Like neither of us were planning it. When I first got out, and it's funny because whenever I tell the story on my own,

channel our audience doesn't like this. I was dating like four women because I had been in prison seven years and I was pretty young. I was 26 when I got out. So I had a Tinder. My little brother, he's like, oh, you're going to get a Tinder. You got to get a P-O-F account. And so I did. And I started having dates and I'd go out on these dates. And even my wife, like she knew this. I told her, I was like, hey, I just got out. Like I'm kind of like, you know, I went out on a date, you know. And she's like, okay, I get it. But, you know, she wasn't really obviously looking. for something like that either. And so after a couple weeks, I kind of like called all those other girls.

I was dating. I was like, hey, this isn't going to work. It was too stressful for me too. I can't manage like, I can barely manage one person. Like, it's hard to date multiple people. Dude, it was, it was a nightmare. And it was causing me like severe anxiety. And I was dealing with only being out of prison for three weeks.

And so like I have like this anxiety and I'm waking up at night. Like, you know, not sure where I am. I'd wake up, you know, two in the morning freaking out because it's pitch black. And I didn't know where I was and just trying to figure it out. So I called it off with either girls, and Raquel and I started, you know, dating more and more regularly. And it just, like, worked. Like, we're the exact opposites, but, like, we balance each other.

I'm really high, strong. She's really mellow. You know, I'm always, like, go, go, go. And she's kind of just, like, go with the flow. And we balanced each other out. We got along. Like, I don't think we had our first argument until we had been together for, like, a year and a half.

Like, literally, we don't fight ever. Like, we have, our version of a fight, like, our, worst fights are like somebody's like small arguments. And I just get irritating, but I'm going upstairs. I think it also helped too that her dad had a little criminal history. So I'm sure she could be understanding and sympathetic to that. Yeah. Yeah.

Her dad was a really big part of her life too. So it, um, and right around the time, um, her and I started dating, he, his health had started kind of going downhill too. So that kind of, I think, maybe played a little bit of a part in it. How did you build the relationship back with your family? Well, fortunately for me, my mom was full of crap. when she said that she wouldn't visit me or help me out. When I got to prison, after a year in county,

I can't remember if I wrote her a letter. I hadn't spoken to her in a couple years at this point. And I think I wrote her a letter or it might have been my dad actually wrote and just said like, hey, we love you. You know, we got your back. And I'm really stubborn. And so like that opened me up. And I remember like I just,

I remember like I felt like this big, just like a relief. that my mom and dad were like still there because I hadn't talked in like two years. I had done so much bad stuff by them and I just thought like I'd never hear from them again. And like them just like my dad just kind of reaching out and telling me that was like a huge relief. And they came to visit me. And my stepdad who I called dad, you know, when I say my dad, that's what I'm actually talking about. My stepdad was like he was in my corner, like whatever you need. He didn't want to see me go downhill from here.

I think he realized, he's, my, my dad is the smartest person I've ever met in my whole life. Like, he's a genius. He knows everything about everything. He's the guy, like, if you call him, he knows this. He knows everything. And so, um, he knew this is either going to go one or two ways. It's either over for Michael from here, or he's going to, you know, get his act together. And I think he saw some potential in me.

And, um, he pushed me towards that. And my mom did too, of course. My mom, you know, uh, pushed me towards that as a, well. And my dad started sending me books. The first books he sent were Winston Churchill's autobiographies. He had a six-part autobiography on like his journey through World War II and navigating like the political

you know, like sitting down with Hitler and Roosevelt and Truman and like just all the like the political sides of like navigating World War II. And I remember reading it. I was like oh, that was like super interesting. And then he sent me another book and another book, just like all history. And they started sending me like physics books and like I just became like this huge book nerd. I had been a

book nerd as a kid too. I read a lot when I was a kid. In prison in seven years, I think I read like north of 800 books. Wow. Yeah. All nonfiction. Just like history, um, psychology, just anything my dad sent me. And he saw that like, I was enjoying it. And so he, I'd call him and we'd talk. And he was like, oh, do you want to check out this book I read? Like, we read a lot of the same books. So he was, he was really big into helping me. That, that's probably the number one thing that, like, really steered my life in the other direction. Did you know coming out of jail in prison that you weren't going to get back into the life you had before? 100%.

I knew that in my mind, in my mind, I thought it was going to be actually a lot further ahead than I am now. I thought by 35, by 10 years out, I'd be like, my company to have 200 employees. That's where I saw myself. I knew. I knew when I was in prison, I was going to get out and take over the world. There was nothing.

It's all, like, in my mind, the only thing that can stop me is myself. That's it. As long as I have a clear path, I designed the course. I try to project what obstacles are going to lay ahead. I'm really good at overcoming obstacles. I'm really good at like finding solutions to problems.

I enjoy obstacles. I enjoy failure. I love failure. I love like trying something and failing at it. To me, that's the best part because then once I can figure out why I failed and defeat that part of the failure, the next part's, you know, easier. So for me, I knew I was going to get out and just crush it.

I thought I'd be a lot more ahead than where I am now. I'm doing good now, but not where I thought I'd be. Would have been some challenges building a business. with a felony on your record and coming out of prison? None as far as like a felony goes. If you want to be a business owner, you made a really good point. You said something earlier about telling guys when they first get out,

you know, I would say the same thing you said, don't start a podcast the day you get out of prison. Don't build a business the day you get out of prison. I have a friend, her husband's getting out. He's been in prison for like 10 years. And she's like, he's going to start a pest control company the day he gets out. I'm like, no, don't. Don't do that.

Did he work for a pest control company when he went in? she was like no I see what does he know about pest control she's like nothing go get a job doing pest control for two years

work your way up the ranks until you're the general manager and then go start your own pest control company yeah people are not willing to work at the bottom like I always get a kick out of like I'll see people

that don't have jobs and they complain about not having jobs and it's like okay did you go to this restaurant and get a job as a dishwasher and they're like no

well why not and honestly the whole food dishwashers that I would hire, some of the capped out ones were making $22, $23 an hour walking dishes. And with overtime, they'd make crazy money with the full benefits. But they're not willing to do that. Yeah. It's hard work. Yeah, a lot of people that's a big piece to it. You have to be able to do that. You can get, and the food industry, I tell people in all my talks when I go into prisons, you get a job at any restaurant. Yeah. Unless like you're a sex offender, they'll hire

murderers, they'll hire people, you know. The two charges they look out for are going to be a lot of the times wire fraud and then sex offenses. Yeah, any like white collar stuff. You'd be surprised how many people like wire fraud or like anything with fraud or identity theft and stuff? They get worried about those ones. Well, so a lot of these places, though, don't check for those charges federally, just sex offenders.

Oh, okay. So if you have, what I saw as a manager at Whole Foods is if you had state shoplifting or robber or stuff, you wouldn't get hired. But federal, like mine didn't come up on the background check. Yeah. Their federal search was just for sex offenses. Sex offenses. That disqualified that.

That makes sense. And obviously, if you can't work at a supermarket or any type of retail, if you have shoplifting on your thing. Yeah, yeah. They're not going to hire somebody to shoplifting. But yeah, but people are not willing to work from the bottom, you know? When I started the podcast after I quit my job, which I tell people, I quit my job six months too early, I should have waited a little bit.

And I got in my head and thought I was like done. And I should have just waited and I would have been really good. But everything worked out, but I was driving Uber. I even had an only fan's What? Yeah, I hadn't an only fans for a couple months. That's weird. I made 10 grand in two months.

Holy cow. That's insane. I have no only fans now. But I did what I had to do, man. Yeah. And that's part of the journey, you know. I was driving Uber all day or all night recording podcast. It's so weird.

This app shows that my credit scores pretty good, but I couldn't get the car loan. Are you using myfico.com? No, it's some other company. Oh, you should get up my FICO account in Instead, FICO scores are the ones used by 90% of lenders, and other credit scores can vary up to 100 points. That would have been helpful yesterday. Get the scores lenders used. Get the right FICO credit score for your credit goal, including your FICO scores used for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.

Visit myfico.com or download the MyFICO app to get started today. Us guys would get in the car. You work a lot. I have a feeling you work more than I do. And I work a lot. But it's different, you know. It's different. And also you have a family.

Yeah. You're forced you when you have a family, take time and stuff. That's one big mistake. I made a lot. My kids are probably, my kids will look back and, but, you know, when I was a kid, my parents worked the same. My parents were like 80, 90 hours a week. My mom owned a trucking company.

Yeah. You know, she was a truck driver. She was working nonstop. You know, my kids are going to look back and do the same thing. And I got to stop. You know, I know that my daughter's 16. She graduates next year. You know, that's probably the biggest mistake I've made since I've been out.

But going back to the point of like, getting a job and working from the bottom, a lot of the times, like, in my brain, it's a challenge. I would love to not want a business and to just go get like some random job and just like, every day. Dude, like, how fast could I get through the ranks? Like, because I look at it like, it's a competition. So, like, just pick any company that has 100 employees. All right.

All I got to do is be early every single day. Never call out. Never argue. Do exactly what I'm supposed to do. Just show up. Do the job. Don't complain. and go above and beyond.

And if you study the other employees that are there, you're going to realize like, that guy's out back smoking a joint, that guy's 10 minutes late, that guy's arguing with his girlfriend in the parking lot, that guy's lazy, that guy took an extra break. It's not hard to like rise above,

you know, like to get to the top, you know, of... But here's what the problem is. You get someone like me or you and I've worked, you know, in that, and I moved up the ranks and we have that attitude and we want to go all the way of the top. Yeah.

And then the corporate system set up the fail where they put someone in the bad position that's not qualified because they played a favor. And that's what turned me off about Whole Foods. If they promoted me accordingly to what the work I was doing, yeah. Yeah. I'd still be with them today. Bad management got in the way, promoting the wrong people. You know, everything's on their timeline, whereas entrepreneurs, we don't have a timeline. Right.

I could be number one on Spotify tomorrow. if it works out that way, you know? If I grind, that's why I do that. Yeah. But at Whole Foods, when I got team leader, I was team leader for almost two years, built up two good departments. Was that, you know, $33 an hour, a little under. That's pretty impressive, dude.

Yeah, I was a little undervalued at that point for what I was doing in the sales I was making. And what is Whole Foods real quick? That's just... The grocery store. Okay, we have them here, I believe. You probably do. Okay. They were saying, you know, associate team leader wouldn't be a store team leader, which would have been salary and stuff, was still another year or two out.

I already thought I was at that level where I should have been at that level. But the problem was I was good in my department. They didn't have someone to replace me when they want me to leave. That's the problem with corporate. No one, they don't have and they don't have the right management in place to say, hey, we should do this, we should do that. We should move this person. Let's take care of him or hey. you take your cap $40 an hour, keep running this, you're good, take care of you for another year or two, you know.

And then this is a plan or they'll sit you down and say, hey, this is what we have in mind. They don't do that. Did they try to keep you when you left? No, because I wasn't going to a competitor. I was going to go do TikToks. Yeah. My mind was made up. They knew that, you know.

Do you ever swing by the? Yeah, I go in there all the time. Okay. Yeah, I like them. It's always interesting seeing how the prepared foods department is turned. My dad shops here. He was like, yeah, the hop bar's disgusting. But, you know, that gave me my roots.

It gave me a chance. And I proved a lot of people wrong that had a negative opinion on me for being a felon or being, oh, that's, I had all those whispers. That's a kid that went to the person. Years too. Like, you didn't just do it for a couple months. A lot of guys would do two, three months. Oh, I did two months.

I did what I could. You did years and then you made the, you know, decision. Like, it was a smart choice. I see guys get jobs for three months and they're like, this isn't for me. Like, how do you know? I think you got to do at least a year if you're getting out of prison any type of job because it helps you. It has steady income. Yep.

I wonder if you add up the time in limbo of finding a job that you want after prison, how much is this wasted. If you've job topped four times. Yeah. So just go get a McDonald's 15, 16, 17. I'm sure they'll even pay like 18 or 19 an hour because a lot of these places are desperate. I always recommend construction jobs because they pay out here at least. I don't know how it's. They'll pay out there too.

A lot of these people can't find employees. So you just do that, you know. or Target's paying like 2021. I don't know if Target will hire. I guess they probably would. Some depending. But you do that for those four or five months that you're waiting to find your dream job. You have some good money saved up.

You're getting the car, the license, this, and that. Yeah. For me, it's easy because I went right into sales and telemarketing. They don't care. If you can sell. Yeah, I interviewed a woman. I don't know if you're familiar with her story, but interviewed her at Spotify the other day. She was a drug trafficker of meth, went to prison for four years.

got out and then got a job. She was like, I'm going to work in tech, got a job in Microsoft. San Francisco passed a law where they had to hire felons. They wouldn't hire her. She fought back. She got the job. And now she's moving through the ranks. Wow.

So they passed a law that they have to hire felons. Yes, the San Francisco passed an ordinance or whatever. That's crazy. I've never heard of that. Corporate had rejected it. Yeah. But they didn't realize about the law. So there was like a loophole. She got in.

like she put her mind to it same attitude that you had you know yeah she was an addict most of her life this and that and then bam as soon as she went to prison got it together like a light switches you know yeah and that's what i hope when people hear stories like yours and stuff that that just clicks for them yeah and people get inspired by different ways you never know what's going to inspire you yep like i get inspired for random things like i was at the spotify event last night and that's inspirational You're seeing other creators, you're seeing this, you're seeing that. Just to know it's possible. I think that's what people need.

They just need to see the possibility. A lot of people don't share their stories either. There's a lot of inspirational stories that the people just don't share their stories. I run into business owners all the time that are felons, all the time. Like, it's a regular occurrence that I'll meet a guy who owns a company with 40 employees. And he's like, yeah, back in 1994, I did eight years in prison. Because that's society. Do share your story.

Like help, you know, like motivate people. And guys like Tim Allen or Robert. Downey Jr. can really come out and change that narrative because those are the guys that have stuff. And Robert Downey Jr., there's always been the memes of him and he's done articles. And it's becoming more normal, you know, and Jelly Rolls doing a great job with that. Jelly Rolls awesome. You've got to normalize it, you know, that people make mistakes. It start changing the narrative and then start pushing it.

And a lot of people do change. And the more that, like you said, the more you push that narrative, the more you see other people getting out and succeeding. It's kind of like the snowball effect. You have to just, you know, show them as possible. Absolutely. And people see it and they're like, oh, I want to do it myself. What piece of advice would you give to people that are listening to the show? Just anybody listening to the show?

Anybody. Or if they're getting out of prison or a family member relative of someone that's incarcerated, what's your like one lesson, your takeaway from your story? It's not over. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what happened yesterday, right? It's all about, you know, today and just what you want, put your mind to it and go get it. It's that easy.

Like, that's how I look at the whole world. If I want something, I put my mind to it. I figured out. And I go and get it. And the only thing standing in your way is yourself. That's it. Just figure it out. Work.

Every time I work, something good happens. When I don't work, nothing happens. Like, when I don't work, like, if I take a day off, I'm like, oh, nothing happened. Like, every now that I need some rest. So I get, like, you do got to rest and relax. But when I grind and I work, like just like you, right? Like, when you grind, stuff happens. You create your own luck.

Consistency. Yeah. Speaking of rest, I got to get some rest. All right. Michael, thanks for having me out here, man. It was a pleasure sitting down with you and talking with you and your wife today and doing your show and definitely keep in touch. And we'll see in the East Coast soon. Sounds good, man.

We'll be out there. Thanks. Awesome.