Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Survived Federal Prison in Florida | Legend Tarver

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Legend Tarver went from graduating with a degree to serving time in federal prison, learning the hard way how choices, survival, and consequence intersect in the criminal justice system. Two weeks into his sentence, he found out his then-girlfriend, Amanda, was pregnant, and the couple endured separation, hardship, and the challenges of incarceration while growing their family. Drawing strength from the more than 300 handwritten letters they exchanged behind bars, Legend and Amanda turned their experience into purpose by co-founding 300 Letters, a nonprofit dedicated to treating incarceration as a family affair and helping justice-impacted families heal, stay connected, and rebuild after prison. In this episode, Legend opens up about how he ended up in prison, how that time shaped his life and fatherhood, and how he’s working now to change the narrative for others who’ve faced similar struggles. _____________________________________________ #FederalPrison #PrisonStory #FormerInmate #PrisonLife #TrueCrimePodcast #LifeAfterPrison #InmateStories #lockedinwithianbick _____________________________________________ Thank you to GOLD DROP SELTZERS for sponsoring this episode: Head to https://www.thedryoak.com/ and use promo code LOCKEDIN at checkout for 10% off your order. _____________________________________________ Connect with Legend Tarver: Website: https://300letters.org/ Instagram & Tiktok: @IAMLEGENDFITNESS @300LETTERS @TRUTHBYAMANDA _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 From College to Federal Prison 01:04 Growing Up in Miami & Family Struggles 05:11 Childhood Trauma & Single-Parent Upbringing 13:13 Early Hustles: School, Work & Selling Drugs 17:42 Generational Influence & Entering Drug Trafficking 21:39 High School Drug Sales & Avoiding Police 24:38 First Arrest & College Dreams Falling Apart 28:36 Meeting Amanda & Escalating Drug Operations 32:43 Deep in the Game: Paranoia, Expansion & Molly Trafficking 39:39 The Setup: Law Changes, Surveillance & Arrest 43:39 Amanda’s Role & Facing Federal Charges 48:34 Federal Indictment, Legal Battles & Family Impact 52:59 Pregnancy, Prison & Holding Relationships Together 01:00:57 Life in Federal Prison: Survival, Fitness & Brotherhood 01:09:11 Prison Realizations: Regret, Accountability & Change 01:13:37 Release, Reinvention & Founding 300 Letters 01:17:32 Reentry, Advocacy & Helping Incarcerated Families 01:23:32 Fatherhood, Breaking Cycles & Life After Prison 01:27:01 Final Reflections & Moving Forward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk. When you kind of get into this life, no one ever thinks is going to happen to you. You always think it's going to happen to the next person or, well, that story only happened to this person because he probably owe money or he fuck some people. So that's something I never did. We would never hear a story about me going to steal for somebody, never paying somebody back.

As much as I could, I would treat the game with respect. And some people call it, you know, it's a drug game. So I don't a lot of people frown upon this kind of stuff, but it is a matter of respect, especially me coming from like a Cuban background, my Chezimo background. It was like very, this is man to man. This is how we do things. My guest today is Legend Tarver, who went from college graduate to serving time in federal prison. In this episode, Legend breaks down the exact decisions that led to his incarceration,

what prison did to him mentally and emotionally, and how being separated from his family changed everything. He also shares how hundreds of handwritten letters exchanged during incarceration kept his relationship alive, ultimately leading him and his wife Amanda to build a new life and create a non-profit, profit, helping families impacted by prison. Where'd you grow up, legend? I grew up in Miami, Florida. Sunny place, shady people, right? Now, I've been in Miami, Florida, born and raised, Day County, all around Miami.

So, Miami's pretty big. A lot of people think it's, like, just sand and the beach, but it's pretty big. And I got to see a lot of the neighborhoods. So Kendall, Little Havana, Alapada, Alapagia. Alapada, I got to talk about Alapada because that's why I grew up. I did a lot of the hard living there. What is, that's a city in Florida? That is like, yeah, a little hood in Florida, I suppose.

Okay. But yeah, pretty much Central, Miami, you know. Because if you live out, let's say, Kendall, Homestead, you're kind of like a hour away from a lot of the, a lot of the, when you fly into Miami, Florida, you're not really going to homestead or to anywhere out there. You're going to the central area kind of where I grew up, so. What was your upbringing like who raised you? Any siblings? So I grew up with my mom and my younger brother, my younger sister.

My sister's two years younger than me, Jasm, my brother G. He's seven years younger. And I grew up with pretty much a single parent home. My mom pretty much raised us the entire time. Well, after she left from her husband that she had for like my first, I want to be a save every 10 years. So I kind of grew up in Kendall and like a little farther up there. We're living kind of suburban. I would say that's as close to suburban as I ever got. But she had to leave that. She left that scenario due to domestic violence. So he used to beat her up pretty bad. And at one point, at one point I got in the way and that's when she decided like, yo, I'm not going to let my kids get affected about this. So it's

It could have went really south, and she got us out that situation. And we kind of bounced around Miami after that for a while. So just hood to hood, house to house, her trying to make it, you know? No, is that your biological dad or just someone you remarried? No, no, no, no. So this is somebody, this is pretty much, this is my younger brother's dad. So my younger brother's dad, that's what she ended up marrying. And he was born in 1997.

I think she probably got with him in, I don't know, 94, 93. Yeah. And then I guess he was in my life until about 8 or 10 years old. And throughout that time, I think my mom was just trying to keep it together. And for whatever reason, maybe she felt like the abuse will be normal to her. Like, from what I hear, from what she tells me, I can't believe it now. But she says that my grandma was pretty abusive to her. We're Cuban, right?

So I'm just throw that out there. We're kind of, we're Latin and we're kind of tough, right? You hear, like, jokes on TikTok about people throwing, like, sandals across the room and stuff like that, right? So she says a lot of stories that it's hard to believe now. My grandma's such a sweet little lady. But apparently she was a much different person when she was younger. And I kind of think that she was accustomed to feeling like that kind of treatment was okay.

So when she got a husband that took her out of the neighborhood where she was from right so my mom could probably do a whole podcast our own stuff she has a crazy story as well but um she grew up in coconut grove which is one of the tougher really tougher neighborhoods in um in miami and i feel like finally when she left that and she got a husband and she had like a stable a stable household she probably felt like all right let me just deal with whatever she has to deal with in order to keep this thing together and um she went through pretty big abuse um for a lot of the that time and and I get nervous to talk about it now because this is my first time I'm actually telling her story. I feel like it's her story to tell.

But it's a big part of the way I grew up, right? And kind of the way of the way I treat people and the way I come about it. Because I feel like domestic violence isn't really talked about as much or it's kind of just like brushed off. They don't see like the severity of that. But I saw it first hand. And I saw, I saw him kick her in the stomach while she was pregnant. Like literally try to squish her. Try to kill my younger brother.

So I got in the way and I think he like stopped like right before he hit me. And I think that was when like that was like the last draw for her. I think that's when she kind of realized. Sorry, yeah. That was a little tough. But I think that's kind of when she realized that enough was enough and she had to get out of there. So he moved my grandma. My grandma lived in the little Havana at the time.

And we stayed there for a couple of years. And after that she got back on her feet. just kind of kept it moving from there. Did you think that was your real father? No, I know that wasn't my dad at all. So you knew from the earliest you can recall. Yeah, absolutely. I know who my dad was, here.

So my dad was the legend, right? But he also had like four different baby mamas, right? So four or five, I got to count. But I got a bunch of sisters as well, right? So I'm the only boy. And so he was not really present in my life. He kind of just showed up. I think about the Outcast song, Ms. Jackson,

because he just showed up, like, in graduation, you know what I'm saying? And, well, he popped on my birthdays and graduation, and he was just kind of there, but not there, you know? Financially, he's giving me some money, but he wasn't really there to protect me from, obviously, from the shit that I was going through, right? And so I know exactly who he was, and I knew that this other guy was just, like, now he's the father of my younger brother, right, who I love very much, and we were a family, right?

But he didn't, you know, I don't know. I don't know if he really, I can't remember that far back to see if he really treated me with love or if there was any resentment there or whatever the case may be. But he was obviously going through whatever he was going through in life because I've come to learn that everybody is just going through their own shit. Whatever, the way he treated, my mom was obviously a affection of whatever he was dealing with in his life. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, I know what my dad was. My dad wasn't really just in the picture like that. I'll go see him in the summer sometimes. You know, I'll go with him to his house in Carole City for a couple months and come back. But that's pretty much how I was going. What do your mom do for work while she was raising you guys? My mom, I think her most prestigious job was she was like the HR for a big security firm. So that was like her corporate life.

And she did that for a long time. actually, she did that. And then when she split and she left, she left her husband, which they're not divorced any, by the way, she kept that. But when she left, he actually called her workplace and started saying crazy stuff about her and got her in trouble. I think they probably just let her go for all the drama, but they let her go.

And she had to figure it out with another company. And, you know, it kind of just put her in an unstable situation, which probably was another form of control for him as well. You know? What were some values your mom taught you when she was raising you? Family, family over everything for sure. You know, we did whatever we had to do just to make sure that we were all taking care of ourselves. And, like, nothing else trumps that.

So, you know, I do whatever for my brother, my sister, my mom. Like, even if my brother's the wrong one in the situation, right? Like, or my sister's the wrong one, like, they always write in front of me at least or in front of whoever else. But, you know, behind closed doors, we could be like, all right. look, you know, that was wrong, but to the outside, they're always right, period. You know, like, it's a unified front, if I must say. But so that, she showed me, like, hard work, obviously, resilience. She never let us know, like, how hard she was doing with stuff, which I can only imagine, right?

Like, Miami's not as expensive as it is now, as it was then. But just thinking back on our living conditions, she was probably doing, like, everything, her power just to keep us good, you know, for a while. And she did a great job, great job. Up until, like, the age of, like, I would say 13, 14, when I decided, like, yo, I got to start chipping in here. Like, I got to start putting some money in the mix some kind of way, you know? And for me, that was just starting to sell.

I started selling chocolates. It was, like, some lady. They used to come to my school and pick us up after school. This lady was completely taking advantage of us. It was, like, me and, like, five of my friends. This is middle school, so we were probably, like, 13. and she'll pick us up right out of school and she'll take us to sell

this big ass box of chocolates like it was a big blue bin probably weighed like I don't know 50 pounds and she would like drop us off like on the main street and be like look this whole street is yours and then she'll take somebody else

and be like yo this whole street is yours and we pretty much had to walk door to door and do sales and do that for a while so and say that we were like setting for like some field trip or whatever completely took advantage of us. But that was my first experience with sales, which turned into a lot of other things

in the future, you know? Do you think that was an unnecessary amount of pressure to be put on a kid, that feeling, even if your mom never asked for it, but that feeling of having to contribute to the family? Well, honestly, that was, like, my money, so I could buy some shoes and buy stuff for myself. Not that it was much, but it was just some way of me kind of, like, I don't know, kind of walking into, like, taking ownership of my stuff. I didn't get, I don't have a lot of nice stuff. I remember days when, like, I remember the day that. I had the nines, which are my favorite pair of Jordans,

had some white-naboard nines, and I'm playing basketball. And the fucking bottom part of the shoe just came off. So that's how long I used to ride my shoes out. Like, they were just like, that's probably the only pair of Jordans I had, I think, honestly, too. And so I just wanted to have some cool stuff or some nice stuff, something I said it was mine. So it started off as like that. But then, like, yeah, I used to chip into different stuff. I want to be like, yo, let me get this money real quick and I'll just pay you back.

Sometimes she won't, you know what I mean? Because she needed it. it, whatever. But yeah, that's kind of, yeah, it was a lot of pressure. It was a lot of pressure. I would say that I've been in survival mode for the majority of my life, you know, just kind of just figuring out what to do to get to the next level and peace, you know. So I definitely had that pressure, like always, always been there. So I'm kind of good with it now. Pressure made diamonds, right? But yeah, definitely, it's always been there for sure. When you were a teenager, did you have plans for the future, career path, what you saw yourself

doing in life? The only thing, I don't even know why this came in my head like that, I think I did like a school project earlier in high school. And then I looked up a career and I saw a pharmacist, right? And I was like, hey, look, they make a lot of money. This looks pretty chill. They just got to count pills our day. So, yeah, that's like my whole kind of trajectory while I went through high school and went

through college was to become a pharmacist. and let me tell you that the officers, the undercovers, had a blast with that when they found out that I was trying to study to become a pharmacist. Yeah, they laughed at that crazy. Well, in a way, you became one just in the legal one. Exactly, exactly. They had a fucking ball, honestly. And that's kind of when I had to completely change gears in my life, too, because I kind of, like, so always, I mean, I'm getting kind of ahead of myself, but so they call me on a sting. I had like some CI kind of set me up.

Some lesbian kind of set me up. I had to just throw that out there because that kind of made me like, I was like, yo, for a point, I was just like, yo, don't ever trust lesbians in business. I messed up. I don't want anybody coming from you. But, yeah, so she kind of set me up. And then I found out later that she got paid for it. And I was just like, yo, this is how this kind of stuff works. She just traded me out for like $1,000 or some shit.

Like, this is my life I'm talking about. And like for me, I always felt like, at least earlier on, I felt like I was just setting drugs to just kind of, you know, get by. It was just something I did on the side. Like, my main thing was going to school. I always had in mind that I'm just going to go to school. I'm going to get my license. I'm going to become a pharmacist. I'm going to live good.

I was like, about 25. I should be driving Ferrari. I'm like pricing Ferraris and shit. Right? And I thought that was just going to be the trajectory. And that kind of completely threw me off. That was like the age of, I'm going to say 19 and 20 when I got. that case where it put me on probation and I had like I had a what do you call that it's not house

arrest but it's called community control where they kind of watched my movement I had a probation officer and he used to just like check up on me randomly every time I had like to write everywhere I was going for a certain amount of time and and that's actually how I got my wife tangled up and everything as well too because of that I needed her help to get some things done and Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond,

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is available now at agg jeans.com. Use code summer 15 for 15% off, even if you've shopped with us before. Whole entanglement. When did you first start selling drugs? How old are you? Yeah, let's go back there. Let's go back there. Okay.

All right. All right. So, boom, I'm selling chocolates, right? This is middle school. I get to high school. Ninth grade was cool. I didn't have a job yet. I think by 11th grade, my junior year,

I got a job at this place called Abompon, which is kind of like a Panera bread, right? And I go to school. I leave school. I go straight to the job. And from the job, I go home. I'm doing that for a while, but I'm like, yo, this money is just laying enough. I'm even selling, like, some of the, I'm grabbing the pastries, grabbing the cookies from there,

taking them to school the next day and selling them. I'm just doing anything for extra buck. I'm like, yo, this is just not enough, right? So my manager actually there told me one day, like, yo, like, you want to get some bud? I'd get you some bud. And I'm like, oh, yeah? And he just took me. And this was like, after this, I sold drugs for like a while, right?

It's every 10 plus years. But this was the sketchiest trap house I had ever seen. We put up to a place. People don't know me. I don't know anybody. It's literally a line outside of the door of people walking up to this fucking fat guy and he has a big ass bowl and he's just grabbing like pounds of weed and he's just putting it in the middle of a little Haiti.

He's just grabbing pounds of weed, putting it in a bowl and just like, here you go, here you go. And it's like a line coming up. I'm like, yo, the police, where's the police? Like, they got to be rushing this spot any second. He took me there and I got like my first, I don't know, ounce or half an ounce or something. And I was like, my friend's already smoking the wheat anyway. I might as well just sell it to them so they don't got to go nowhere else.

They buy for me. They support me, you know? And that's kind of how I started. So I started selling weed like that from my manager. Actually, they put me on. And then I sold weed for a while. And then a friend at school was like, yo, you know, why don't you just start selling Coke? And then his uncle was the plug.

So listen, this is Miami, right? It's access. Like, it's access to these kind of things over there. We live so close to everywhere that it all comes in. So I'm sure mad people have stuff. But, so he's like, yo, you should just start selling Coke. He gives me something. I'm like, y'all, I have nothing to.

I don't know how to do this at all. Well, guess who did know how to do it, my mom? My mom knew exactly how much cut to put into something and to bag it up like this and this sells for this much and this goes for this much. And that's how I started selling coke to a couple of, the high school kids like that. And she kind of, you know, she didn't like, I think she kind of felt like, listen, he's

going to do it anyway, so I might as well make sure that he doesn't fuck this up, you know? And she kind of taught me like, yo, look, you're going to sell some weed and you sell some Coke, like, just don't fuck with crack. Don't fuck with, like, anything crazy because that brings negative energy. It brings bad people around. Like, that's one. So essentially, I just kind of sold party drugs. That's what I've always felt.

Like, none of these people are, like, coming to my door, acting crazy or nothing like that. Right? And it's kind of something that I felt like I could kind of keep under control. So that's kind of how the drug life started. But when I really think about it, it was really a generational thing, right? A little more backstory. They called my dad a legend because he was a drug dealer as well. And he met my mom because my grandma was a drug dealer as well.

So the only reason why they met was because he used to go buy bricks from, my grandma. So my grandma, like, she used to tell horror stories about, you know, people getting found misting and, you know, stuff like that because, you know, she's older. So it's the 80s and cocaine cowboys. It's before cocaine cowboys. So she's telling me stories about stuff that came on cocaine cowboys before it even happened, you know. So that's how everybody met. And obviously, once the drugs started coming into my house and by the means of me, my mom didn't panic. She was kind of familiar with it. And she just was like, Look, if you're going to do this, this is how you're going to do it.

And then that's kind of how it started playing out as far as just me selling drugs and, you know, helping my household, or at least what I thought, I was just doing it just for my household. But, of course, it was a little bit of personal gains, a little bit of everything, a little bit of access, you know, because if I had a friend that told me, hey, look, this is how you trade stocks in the stock market. I would have fucking did that. But this is what I had access to, and this is the people that had around me. So that's what kind of happened. Why do you think those horror stories your grandma told you didn't deter you?

from that life. When you kind of get into this life, no one ever thinks is going to happen to you. Like, you always think it's going to happen to the next person or, you know, well, that story only happened to this person because he probably owe money or he fucks on people over. So that's something I never did. You would never hear a story about me going to steal for somebody,

never paying somebody back, like, you know, doing somebody in the wrong way. I kind of, you know, as much as, as much as I could, I would treat the game with respect. And some people call it, you know, it's a drug game. So it's, I don't know a lot of people frown upon this kind of stuff, but it is a matter

of respect, especially me coming from like a Cuban background, my Cheesimo background. Like, this is, it was like very, this is man to man. This is, you know, how we, this is how we do things. This is like, it's kind of normal. So, so, yeah, so that's kind of how it was. Now, you dealt all throughout high school without ever getting caught? So yeah, throughout high school I was fine. I graduated high school.

I mean, I bounced around a lot of high schools because I got a lot of problems. But it never had nothing to do with for drugs or anything like that. It was always just because, you know, I'm a light skin kid. I'm half Cuban, high black. And we just get most of the problems. Look at Drake, bro. They came down on him like that for what, bro? But, yeah, we always got more problems.

And I was always going to new high schools. So it was always like I had to prove myself. I always had to prove myself and, oh, this guy doesn't like you because of the way you walk and he got nice shoes. Got to fight this guy. You know, so. So I'm sorry, what was the question again? If you dealt all the way through high school without any run-ins with the law. Yeah, so no, never got in trouble in high school as far as that.

Just got in trouble with like a lot of fighting and I made it through. Then I went to Miami-Dade. I went to FIU. I think I didn't get in trouble at all with the law until FIU. I had like little run-ins, little dumb stuff, like just a lot of driving offenses, honestly. Like, little just driving stuff. The only time I got caught was the time I told you about where I got set up for a sting. And I'm like, I'm in FIU and well on my way to becoming a pharmacist.

It's already passed. Organic chemistry, physics. I passed almost all the hardship. I think the one I got to that really was like stumping me was physical chemistry. It's like you mix organic chemistry. and physics one and two, like, it's the worst shit ever. But, I mean, I had tutors. I was like, biology one, biology two.

All the labs, I passed all that stuff. All the algebra, the calculus. I passed all that stuff. There's stuff that makes people just, like, what am I doing? Like, just get out of this because you have to really be in it. I passed all that stuff, and I get to the, I remember it was the semester. I had physical chemistry. I went to do this deal that I was already kind of like, yo, this is, like, it's weird.

It's the kind of annoying. She made me meet her in some weird spot. And I pulled up to the spot And she's like, oh, my boys over there, I get in the car And he was like, yeah, you got the whatever, you got this shit I had like 100 pills, 100 pills of ecstasy And he's like, all right, yeah, the money's right there I gave him the stuff and he goes, is this the ecstasy or something?

I'm like, yeah, you see it? And as soon as I said like, yeah, like, get down, the police coming around and they pulling me out of the car And then the girl's trying to act like, say, yo, what are you doing? what are you doing and trying to act like if she got caught to. But it was like, it was so fake. I could tell.

I already just knew like I got set up. I know I got set up right there. And of course, they were laughing at the fact that I was going to become a pharmacist and everything like that. And that's kind of when like everything started to change for me because obviously I'm dealing with a crazy case. Like I don't know what was going to happen from 100 pills. 100 pills is a lot for me.

I felt like, yo, you hear stories about how much they charge you for like one pill or two. But the fact that had never got in trouble That played into it And the judge The judge stuck her neck out from me And said, look, you're going to FIU You've been doing a good job Your grades are good

So I'm just going to give you a pass We're going to put you on community control Like, you know, time your game up You know, get it right And let's see this through So she gave me a chance honestly And then I fucked that up when I caught my second charge And this was a state case

This was a state case. It was a state case. This was a state case. I was like, I was good. I handled everything. And the school didn't kick you out. You were still able to attend school? The school never knew.

How would the school find out? I don't know. That's a good question. News articles, if there was any. Oh, no, no, no, no. Just anything? No, I guess 100 people is just minor in Miami. Nobody cared like that.

It didn't come out on the news anywhere. It didn't come out anywhere. Except for the person that set me up, like I told you, was going around just telling people, People like, man, so what? Like, he was going to get caught anyways. Like, people were like, yo, that's fucked up. We did that to this guy.

I don't remember this person's name, honestly. I forgot his person's name. But they were like, yeah, that's messed up. We did that to legend. Like, he's a solid dude. Like, what's, you know, he was going to get caught anyway. My uncle, you know, whatever. Pay me $1,000.

Type of thing. I was crazy. Like, that was just, that was my first experience getting sold out like that. Would it be my last? What did your mom think about you getting in trouble? Devastated. My mom had always been counting on me for, like, to be the way out. Like so obviously she probably should have said no to drugs, but I don't think she had much of a choice.

By the time she told me, like, when at the time she found out, we were like, I was selling drugs. We were in something called HUD housing, which is almost like section. It's pretty much like government housing. So you get paid from like how much money you get, I mean, you have to pay rent, depending on how much money you get paid. So she got paid under the table where she used to work at, so our rent would be zero dollars. Like this is how desperate financially we were at that point. So it wasn't much options. And she was devastated, but I just assured her that everything will be okay.

And that's kind of what I did throughout my child. I was like, yo, mom, it's going to be okay. It's going to be all right. Because I was a man of the house, right? Like, I was the one who was, again, since 14, 15, I kind of just took that role on. I had no father figure in a picture. I had nobody to tell me, yo, you need to stop doing this. Let's do this.

No other way, nor the path. And, you know, that's just the, like, it had been building up. my entire lifestyle. I learned how to drive and stolen cars. You know what I mean? Like, I remember driving through, uh, through the Kendall and homesteading area, area around two, three in the morning, going up to garages, smelling, trying to smell the weed, because that's when, that's when the humidity gets enough so that you could smell when somebody's having a grow house and running in these grow houses and trying to take weed from people that were growing it. Because that's a lick in there. That's a quick $100,000 or something like that. Like, so these are the,

dreams that I was having as a young kid trying to make it out, just trying to figure out, you know, what's going to get me out? I was like, yo, I just need just one. Just give me one big thing, one big lottery hit, and I'll be done. I'll go to straight and narrow. That was always my mindset. But that big lottery hit didn't come, right? It never comes until, well, it could come.

I got some money at some point. But so did the feds come, right? Now, at this point, have you met your future wife, Amanda yet? Mm-mm. Where does she come along in the story? because it happens before you got caught the second time, right? Yeah. So the community control happened, right?

So now I'm on a straight and narrow. And I kind of got my probation officer. I kind of got him like where I want him. I know kind of his movements already. I don't have any ankle monitor on. So this is just me writing like a script of where I'm at and stuff like that. So then I had one of my boys hit me up here like, Like, yo, it's college night in Miami.

So it was Wednesday. And he was like, yo, let's go to the Grove. Everybody's going to go. I'm like, nah, bro. I got school tomorrow. I can't do this. Like, nah. He's like, no, bro, let's go.

Just come on, come on, come on. Just a couple hours. So he drags me to this college night. And apparently the same thing happened with my wife, Amanda. She got dragged out to college night as well to go hang out. She had our own things going on to also working, single mom, right? And as soon as we get there and we bump into each other, we're walking down the street.

She's walking down the street as well. And we see his girls walking. I'm like, man, he looked good. We're walking or whatever. And once we get to each other, my boy knows her home girl. So they start talking. And they start talking like two or three minutes. And they're like, yo, let's go get a drink or something.

And they just skate and leave me and Amanda there. So me and Amanda is like, okay, what's up? And we just start talking. But when we began to conversation, it was like we were picking up a conversation. that had been going on for eons. Like, we were just like soul-made right away. It's kind of crazy to explain, I don't know. But we just hung out the whole night.

We had the best time ever. The conversation just flowed so naturally, so regularly. This is the first person, the first girl that can make me laugh genuinely. Like, I'm like, yo, this girl's actually funny. And that was it. Once we got together, it was like inseparable. So that's how I started, right? And whatever we dated casually and stuff like that,

She, like, wants to keep coming around, wants to keep, you know, going past that next layer. And I'm very standoffish at first. I don't let nobody really around me. Obviously, I'm selling drugs. So sudden drugs comes with, what, paranoia? It comes with, like, your guard is up. I remember the first time she came to my house. I had her driving behind me.

I'm like, yo, follow me to my house. And while we're getting, like, into the suburb area, I made her right, a left, a right, and left. And, like, just so she don't know exactly how to get to the house. And then she's like, she didn't say nothing. But later on in life, she's like, bro, I know you try to lose me. Like, you live right there. You try to lose me. So it was kind of dumb.

I was kind of dumb. So you're back to selling drugs by the time you meet her. Yeah. Yeah. So the community control was like a little hiccup. But then once I got a handle on things, all right, I'm back up and right there. So I'm selling weed. I'm selling Coke.

I'm selling ecstasy pills. Why did you decide to do that when you got a second chance? That's because I was in too deep. I was in too deep. I had no other way out. By that time, I was already, the house I lived in, I was paying $2,000 of rent, which seems like nothing now. But it was the house that me and my family lived in. I paid the entire rent and more bills.

So I had no other option. I'm full-time in school. So I go to school. I come home. I do all my work, and then I make a couple of deals throughout the day. So that's the kind of way I saw it. My mom didn't make no money to pay. I had no other way out.

I was in too deep for sure. So that's why I continue. And I also felt like I had things under control. Not to mention, like, by the time I met Amanda, I had got access to Mali. So now I have found a way to get the stuff straight from China and it's way cheaper than Exeter. So it's like, yo, this is going to make me way more money. Just to put an example, I'm making like 400% profit on a brick of Mali. I think it was like 2000.

I'm selling it for like 10. The dude I give it to goes up to. to New York around here, he's setting it for like 30. So the markup was crazy. And I had like crazy access and they were just going like nuts. So it was like, so right at the time when I met her, it was when it like is really turned up. At first, everything was under control.

Like I had been been spending, I've been studying drugs from like 15. I'm like 22 now. And, um, and whatever. I had that little hiccup when I was like 20, but I was like, oh, I'm going to get past that. It'll be fine, you know? And, and then. things really cranked up because I had a middle school friend come to me.

She was just about like Coke or whatever. And then one time I'm out of pills. And she's like, oh, well, you should just get Molly for my boyfriend. And I'm just like, I don't do that because I don't know who your boyfriend is or whatever. But then I got desperate because it was like three, four weeks. I didn't have anything. So I'm like, all right, who's your boyfriend? Like, whatever.

I had never even sold Molly. So I meet this guy. He takes me to this crazy condo. Like, it's fucking sick. Like, I'm like, yo, this is. insane. He was probably like the richest person I know as far as like drug done for a while. And he starts showing me all this shit. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. And he was like, he didn't really tell me how he got it or anything like that. I just knew that he had it.

And he, every time I needed it, he had it. And it was super cheap. Like 2000 was crazy. For the pills, I was paying like four or five thousand for like a thousand pills. So he said to me, two thousand is like half of what I pay. And I could charge even. more and it's cleaner and it's better. And so that's kind of what happened. So before I knew it, I'm making like, I don't know. I think I made like one time, like $50,000 and a week. And I was just like blowing away.

Blowing away. And I was like, oh, shit. It would be hiccups with that, though. It wasn't always steady. Coming to find out it was coming from China. Did I say that already? Yeah. But yeah.

So it was coming from China. They had like weird shit all the time. Customs were getting involved. You lose it sometimes. There's a lot of weird things that would go on, but once, like, it was rolling, it will go nuts. And I was able to pull away from, like, doing, like, the little stuff and just only do that. So now I'm just doing, and it works better because I'm like, I only got to do that one deal a week or two weeks, and I'm making the same amount of money.

And I'm doing that. So, when Amanda met me, I'm like, yo, I didn't really want her around as much, but she was just like, why are you acting so weird? Why are you asking so mysterious? I didn't ever really tell her what I did. But I'm like, yo, you really want to know what I do? And she's like, yeah, like, stop backing. Like, I don't know.

She probably thought it was like another girl or something like that. I'm fine, just come by that. And she comes and I'm like bagging up a bunch of a bunch of fucking pills. I had this machine that you put like the Molly all broken up and you put it over the capsules and it will bag up 100 at a time. And I'm like, so like everybody's going to the club every night and I'm here at home and just bagging away pills, bagging away pills. And like it got to a point that I remember I wanted to,

wanted to see how far my reach was. So I made like a custom color of pill. I bought it from the place. I got a custom color. And I went to the club like the next couple of days just to see. And I looked around and everybody had the same fucking pill that I had that I made. So I was like, yo, this is kind of fucking serious. And that's kind of like the heights of what it got to.

And she saw that. And she was just like, yo, what? But I don't think she was really scared about it. And I had a shirt also like, yo, this is going to be, this is okay. Like, let me say you first, why? Because this substance is not like on the list of substances that you could get charged for. People who were actually getting caught with this are getting the cases thrown out. Because it's an uncontrolled substance.

It hasn't been identified yet by the feds or whatever. Our problem was about the time that we got caught, like maybe two months prior, they had passed a new law that just looped all of those substances into one thing. and then they had the points and everything ready for that substance. So I thought I was getting away with a loophole. I thought I had a loophole. At least that's what everybody told me, and that's what I told her. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason.

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So you didn't know that the law got passed? No, no way. Oh, so you knew what you knew afterwards when you were. actually charged. I'm thinking like, bro, I'm thinking like, this is way better. Like, I'm not, like, because ecstasy pills really get you fucked. And I'm like, this is way better. Even this, this thing is even going to be, like, thrown out.

If I have to take it there, all I got to do is pay for a lawyer. This is what the people telling me, right? I have to pay for a lawyer is going to get thrown out as soon as they test it. So, um, so I thought it was going to be good. But like, literally two months before I got caught, that's when that law came into play. And is she making money with you on it? You're breaking her off? No, honestly not really, bro.

So what is she gaining? Is she just being a supportive girl friend? She was literally just being supportive and she was just there with me. She was my woman and she was just, you know, nah, it was no, it was no like transaction like, yo, here, keep this money for this. Obviously, like, you know, I gave her some money here and there, like whatever bar of stuff. We went out. We had a great time. But it was never like a transaction like that.

She was literally just doing it to help and got caught up in the whole scenario. Now, did you think she was going to be the one you married when at that stage in your relationship? No, I don't know. I was thinking about marriage at the time. Remember, my dad, he was, you know, again, three or four baby moms. Like, I didn't even know if marriage was going to be a thing for me. But just going through everything that we went through, like, being a soulmate, for sure. I knew like this is the only girl I want to be with. But at that time, I wasn't thinking about marriage.

Honestly, I wasn't. But not looking back at it, best move I ever made by far. Do you regret bringing her into that lifestyle, looking back, Of course. She didn't need to be involved in any of that. I was already in a downward spiral and she just came down with me. But like, I honestly kind of feel like we have free will, but God's path is God's path. And the way that we have walked this path together, I feel like it put everything just the way it was supposed to happen. You know, maybe that's what I needed to know that she was the one for me. That's a stupid-ass idea. But maybe that's what I need.

it, maybe like the things that it took us on in our incarceration, like the lessons that we learned, the values that we learned, the fire that was lit inside of us to start a nonprofit afterwards, I feel like all that kind of had to happen for us to get to where we are. And truth be told, she's the powerhouse behind the nonprofit. Like, it was her that was completely adamant about starting it. Like, she just absolutely had to make something happen. and that's what brought us here. It said,

it's what bring me over here to you, right? Yeah. Did she know that you had already gotten arrested once for selling drugs? Or did you keep that from her? No, she knew. She knew that I had got arrested. She knew I was on community control because I had to go to AA all the time. I had to do a bunch of,

I had to hop through a bunch of hurdles just to stay in community control and keep it cool. So she knew all the things that I was going through. And she just, what she just kind of helped me do do that and by help me I mean like all she did for real was just send money in Western Union that's the only thing she did she never touched the drugs she never had to meet anybody weird any sketchy stuff literally all she did was sending money in Western Union and the only reason she got in trouble was because she kept the Western Union information in her notes and her phone this episode is brought to you by Gold Drop Seltzers and this is one I actually drink I'm sober

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your next hang, keep them in the fridge, or bring them wherever you're going. If you're being intentional about what you drink, gold drop seltzers belong in the rotation. So what happens? How long does this go on for before you guys both get in trouble? So when I all came to a head, right? It was a lot of things dealing up to this point, I guess, like, you know, weird stuff happening. In the neighborhood, I kind of felt like weird things were going on. But honestly, we go to one day to a cruise to Bemini. It's like a day cruise.

So in Florida they had that at the time. I don't think they happen anymore. But you were able to go to this cruise to Bemany for a day and come back. You didn't have to have a passport or anything. Just go with your eye. because we're Florida citizens. And I was like, all right, cool, that won't violate my probation or anything. Like, I didn't even think about it.

I didn't even think about it. I was just, oh, it was a day, a little boat. It's like a little boat ride. So we went on there. We had a great time. We got, you know, messed up, you know, drinking and everything. And we come back from the cruise, and we're walking off. And then both of us get pulled to the side.

Everybody has to walk through a thing, but we get pulled off to the side. Our friends keep walking. We were two friends. And they put us into this room. And I said, oh, no, we just got to talk to you guys a little more. I was like, it was kind of weird. But I was like, I had Dres at the time. So I'm thinking, had my dress, I had my mouth full of goals.

Like, you know, I looked apart for sure. So I'm thinking like just doing the classic profiling, which always happens to us still to this day in every airport. It didn't happen to us to this time coming here, though. Oh, the both of you guys get profiled. All the time. Really? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And, I mean, come on. She looks like the Miami Kim Kate. They're thinking she's smuggling something. Right? And at me, I got Derez down to my fucking ass. I got a mouth full of goals. I'm coming off to the boat.

I'm thinking they just want to probably check us for some weed or something, right? So boom, they check us. They're, like, you know, messing with us, bothering us. And then I forgot, they said some weird stuff along the way. But I kind of just discarded it a little bit. And at the end of everything, they were just like, oh, no. Because then they're like, oh, aren't you on probation? Yeah, you're legend, right?

Legend Tarra, right? Yeah, we've been looking for you. It said, like, we're a little weird stuff like that. I'm like, what? And then, like, yeah, don't you're probation? why did you leave the country? I'm like, what do you mean left the country? Yeah, the Bahamas is not, it's not U.S. land.

Right, right? Right now you're not on U.S. land, which I find out later that that's the only reason they were allowed to harass us that way because we were coming in to, we wasn't protected by the law. So there was no real probable cause in our case. So they pull us over, they harass us, and then they said, all right, so here's what we're going to do. You leave your phones, and we won't tell your probation officer

that you violated probation right now, Or we could just go to jail today. We'll call him right now. You violated, buddy. You're in violation. You go to jail. I'm like, fine. Go ahead.

Take my phone because I had a burner phone while I was doing my stuff from. So that phone had nothing. And Amanda gave him her phone as well. So on the way home, obviously, we panicking. I'm like, yo, oh, my God. We got to get everything out of the house right now. We got to fucking discard everything. I call one of my boys.

I give him my money. I give him the drugs. I give him everything. And he takes her out of there. The whole house is cleaned out. worst night of our lives because we're just like, yo, like, what just happened? We're trying to process everything.

Like, we just got harassed by. We don't even know who, right? And they took away these phones. And I'm trying to think, bro, did I have any pictures of anything? You know, because people do stupid stuff and take pictures of shit. I always was one of those people that would not. But I was like, bro, did I have a picture of anything in that phone?

Whatever. Amanda didn't even think. I don't even think she thought about the Western Union information she had was a weird-ass Chinese name on it. I don't think she thought about that at all. and whatever nothing happened from that like it was months and I was like yo what happened like they took well they gave us back the phone they give her the phone and I let her tell you the rest of the story but they give her the phone back we got it back and then when she came to me and told me

about it I was like yo fuck them they don't got nothing like if they got something they would have rushed our house like they wouldn't have tried to talk to you so we let it ride like that but by this point like I'm still trying to process it so I'm talking to really close people about it And actually I had one person tell me, I have a connection at Homeland Security. I could run some names and we'll find out what's going on with your circle. Because I was like, yo, somebody got to be telling like, why did they pull me over?

Why did this happen? So I wrote all my closest friends, all the people that I dealt with, and I gave it to her. And I was like, yo, check this out and see what's up. She came back and was like, yo, these two names got red flags on them. This one, you really got to be careful with this one. They're just watching it.

I'm gonna say no names right now, anything like that. But the one they told me that you gotta be careful for, he actually owed me money because I had gave him something. And then he called me with a weird story from the barbershop. He was like, oh my God, they just pulled me over and took everything and they just fucking left. And I don't know who they are. They had masks on and they had all this stuff and I'm like in the middle of the street. And he was like, yeah, bro, something, they just pulled me over.

And I kind of thought like he was trying to rob me, but I also knew like he was a pussy. I'm like, he wouldn't do no shit like that to me. So I'm like, something's going on, you know? So I was like, so come to find out those guys that took that was feds, you know? And then they probably met up with him later and flipped him, made him a CI. And everybody's moving like nothing's going on. They don't know, nobody knows, nobody knows. I don't even think I told Amanda that I knew this information about who's ratting and stuff.

So I just let it go like that. And again, nothing was in my house no more. Like that's it. I took everything out. I said, yo, we're done. We're done right now because something's fucking going on. One day we're going to, like, I think it was a job interview. I think it was a job interview for my mom or for Amanda.

And we all left my house together. We never dropped together. We all had different cars. But this day, it was me. It was my mom. It was Amanda. It was the kids. We were all in the car.

And we, as soon as we back out and leave, the police swarm us. Everybody swarms us. They got us on the car. They got us on the hood. They got us all, like, you know, detain, cuffed up. They separate us. They don't want nobody to talk. They're running in the house.

They're looking around for everything. Moving everything around, breaking everything down there. And actually, the only thing I had in my house was money. I kept the money in the attic. And then they didn't find that. And I know they wouldn't find that because I had got robbed before. And even the fucking thieves didn't find that shit. I'm like, if them niggas ain't fine, y'all ain't going to find it.

But so. So they searched everything. They couldn't find shit. They took us in to Homeland. They took me and Amanda as a Homeland Security. And they pretty much had us there. They're questioning us. They're like, yo, we know this, we know that.

Like, just tell us. They're coming at us. Amanda staying solid. She's just like, she's like, oh, why you send this money to China? Like for T-shirts because at the time I was a rapper. So I forgot it completely letters out. So, but yeah, I was a rapper. So my rap group was called BTM.

money and we used to buy a bunch of shirts and stuff like that and perform and everything like that. I got YouTube videos that you go check. Make sure you go check that out. So yeah. So she's like, man, that's just T-shirts. I don't know what the hell are you talking about. Like that's what we send the money to China for. And whatever, they had her on the information from Washington.

They had her charge her already. So they were ready to charge her. For me, they didn't have shit yet. And that night, they took her in. They took her into the feds. And they let me go. And I'm like, yo, what the fuck is going on? Like, this shit's fucking crazy.

I had to bail her out. She got home like three days later. Worstime of her fucking life. Right? Because she's a fucking girl. She had never been in trouble ever in her life. And so she was like, yo, what the fuck? She's flipping out.

But yeah. But I was just like, bro, these guys are so lame. Like, to me, it just felt like more of a personal vendetta than it did about about the situation. And the whole reason, another thing, too, the whole reason why I feel like we got in trouble was because they were trying to build a RICO case with BTM, with the rap group.

And they thought that when they got me and Amanda, that we would just flip and sell, because obviously my friends were flipping. So they thought that we were going to go ahead and tell on everybody. But that wasn't the case, right? So it was just me and her. And even if they wanted to get somebody,

I had nobody flip on, you want to get somebody, go get the guy in China, right? So I'm like, yo, go get him. But I think they wanted to build the case. They fell flat on their fucking faces. And then me and her just ended up, you know, having to do the time for that. Now, do you guys get bailed when you guys get arrested?

So she bailed out. I didn't have a case on me at the time. So what I had to go do was I had to go and I had to go debrief with them. I had to go, like, let them know everything and they set responsibility for it. So I pretty much told them like everything was my fault, like, you know. And this was like in the hope. that she will get time off, you know? So I told them pretty much that, look, that's all my shit, like, whatever, she had nothing to do with it,

and yada, yada, yada. But they weren't flying for that. Well, I mean, no, yeah. I mean, well, yeah, they flew for it. They gave me my charge. But they still gave her time is what I'm saying. Oh, absolutely, yeah. They didn't care about that.

She still had to do her time for that. Now, you said kids. Did you have kids already, or did she have kids? I'm thinking about the kids, but no, we had, no, she, we had her oldest, which is my son as well. I've raised him since the age of three. But honestly, he's my stepson. So she had a kid at the time. Yes. Okay. Yeah. When I married, she had her kid. I met him at three. So by that time, he was probably like five. He was going on six. Now, when you guys got arrested, you were still only dating. You guys weren't married? No. No, no, no. We didn't get married to

it when she came home. After prison. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay. So how long is the legal process or take for both your cases? How long was, okay, so I think she was, she bailed out. She She probably stayed, like, for six months out. And then she had to self-surrender. We actually, like, dressed up the self-surrender as, like, a trip to Orlando. Because she went to Coleman. And it's called FTC Coleman in Orlando. So we went to – we took the whole family up,

and we went to, like, Universal Studios and stuff. And the next day, she just kind of self-surrender, and we just came home all together without her. So she took a plea deal before you pled out, or – I don't know. if like I don't know if this time she had obviously she had be sentenced right I don't really remember how it was but yeah she went first for sure and then and then I then I then when they finally had the indictment on me I never bonded out I just stayed there oh okay so you they indicted you

after she surrendered me after yeah because remember they had all her shit first already they had all her shit already they had her on the phone everything like that so her case went through the system pretty quickly I would say so yeah I mean she bonded out and whatever that whatever that amount the time was. Was it even a thought for her to go to trial or she knew she was going to plead guilty? You don't take those guys to trial, right? I got 97% conviction rate. But honestly, you know, the whole time, like, I'm trying to tell her too because she's like flipping out by her life. I'm like, babe, like, it's not going to be nothing. You probably won't get probation, right? Like, you're your first time ever getting in trouble. You probably was you going to get probation and

you'll be back or what's the worst you're going to give you? A couple months. She got sent us to 24 months. Now, how is your relationship to both of you guys together? after she got charged in that waiting period between getting arrested and going to prison. Say again? How was a relationship with you two before she got sentenced to prison after she got arrested? Okay. Was she mad at you? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, what was your relationship? I mean, it was just, she wasn't like, she'll have outbursts, but it wasn't, like, directly mad at me. But she was definitely stressed to fuck out, obviously, you know, high stress. And then just me, it would just be me repeating myself that everything was. going to be okay making like some fake promises because I didn't really know what's going to happen. I didn't know what's going to happen in my life because I'm like, yo, well, when she got sentenced, I'm like, yo, if they get her that much, what are they going to give to me? Like, I'm going to get fucking five, 10 years for sure at least because I'm actually the one, you know, doing the shit, right?

She didn't do nothing but send money. So like, she was stressed out. She was in a bad place because she had to leave her oldest son, you know. I didn't know if I was going to have to leave him when I. I didn't know if they were going to have enough to indict me, honestly. I was like, yo, maybe they don't got me. I was like, maybe I get away with it, you know, because I felt I didn't have anything incriminated on me. They never found any drugs. They never found anything except the phones.

So once I got, once I actually went to jail, the charge was conspiracy, you know? So I was just like, I don't know. I didn't know if anything was about going to happen. So either of us, I always think positively, and I kind of felt like I was just thinking positive throughout that. But, you know, the realists and me kind of,

I kind of learned that, yeah, she was going to have to do time, and so was that. Because now we know that's what, it's guidelines, it's points, it's all a point system. So that's what that controlled substance. That's what it held. It held, I think 24 months for her. I got sent it to like 47 months. I only had to do about, I don't know, 30, 33 or something like that, because I did the ARDAB program. How did her family react to her getting arrested?

Her family got completely ghosts. Nobody helped. They actually just kind of like, I don't know, incarceration is like a very taboo subject, right? A lot of people don't know how to handle it. And they kind of just turned their backs on her. They were just ashamed of what she had done. I was the, like, black sheep.

She always said me that she was the black sheep of a family. Now I'm the black sheep. And it's probably furthered her as well. So it just kind of just, They just kind of turned their back on her. And thank God for my mom because she just stayed there the entire time. And she took care of everything that we needed to get taken care of, commissary. She watched my oldest son while he was, you know, home.

Because at some point I had to leave too, right? And so she had to watch my son, you know, and watch him. And then when Amanda had her kid, when Amanda had our son, and, you know, he had to come back home. at what, three months old? He had to come back home at three months. She had to watch both for them now. No, you didn't know Amanda was pregnant

when she went into prison? I did not. Yeah, so this is how it happened. It was so fucking crazy. And I probably remember the day that I got pregnant, honestly, but too much. But honestly, so we self-surrender her, and she, two weeks later, has to go

and do the check with the doctor, I guess the initial check, whatever they tell her. They tell her the results. She calls back home. I'm still home free, right? And she calls me back and tells me that she's pregnant. And it was the weirdest thing because I was, like, ecstatic, but it was still, like, tough, right? Like, she's going to be pregnant in prison.

So it was, like, kind of like the silver lining and our experience. I knew she was going to have a kid. And for whatever reason, I just knew it was a boy. I'm like, yo, I know that's a boy. I know it's a boy. And she was, like, happy, but I can tell sad at the same time. And it was just the weirdest thing. I would go visit her all the time.

I'll take Dorian to go see her. And I was like, what, every two weeks? Every two weeks was visit. So we'll go every two weeks. Up until the time I had to go to prison. On top of the time, the indictment for me. So, yeah, it was really kind of crazy. Was your plan to stay together?

Did you guys make a plan before she went in? The plan was never to break up. You know, I didn't know where it was going to end, honestly. But if I have to say so, I really feel like Legend, Legend Jr., that's our youngest, I feel like he was the glue that kind of kept us together the entire time. I feel like if he wasn't in the picture, who knows, maybe she might have been like, you know, fuck this guy.

This guy took me on a crazy, crazy whirlwind, and I'll probably be better off without him. But I feel like that was kind of the glue that made sure it was like, yo, we're not done here. We're just getting started. and starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need.

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Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. And it's a lot more to do, you know. Now, how does she find out that you got arrested? Does your mom call her? Because you said you didn't get bailed out once you got arrested? Yeah, my mom told everything. My mom was always the one in the middle. And was your mom visiting her when you went away?

My mom used to go visit her. I'm sure it slowed down. I probably went to like once a month and said every two weeks. It's like a four-hour drive up to Orlando. So, you know, it's not something that's, you know, that very easy. And then you know how the whole visiting experience is. You got to drive up. You got to, you know, wait forever. Then, you know, they check people all crazy and stuff like that. So, yeah, I think she would start cutting it down to like once a month, but she was there the entire time.

Were you still selling drugs when Amanda went to prison? Or did you put it on the back room? So when Amanda went to prison, I stopped selling like, obviously I stopped selling all the ecstasy, the coke and everything like that. but I did sell a little bit of weed because I was pretty sure that, like, cops didn't care about weed. I never heard anybody get in trouble for weed. So I was like, fuck it, I just sell weed, which was never my preference because weed is always so bulky and it smells so much. I just feel like it's a heat up, and I just never wanted to mess with it. But, yeah, at some point, I started, like, sending money over to California. My boy would just mail me some stuff in California.

I had to put, like, the money in magazines, and then, like, zip-locked the magazines. and then send it through the mail. And Ali enough, that was just regular, you know. It's so interesting how this case played out that they indicted her. She got sentenced and everything the case goes through and then they go after you. It is. I mean, I honestly feel like they didn't have enough, but the fact that I had to self-surrender, like, I feel like about, I mean, look, I could have probably went a route where I was just like,

fuck Amanda and no, let her deal with it. And I do anything, I probably wouldn't have got in trouble, you know? because they didn't have any evidence on me, like your strong heart evidence. But, of course, she could have went and rated on me. And it could have paid out a bunch of different ways. But this way that it played out, I feel just like, obviously I'm not going to leave my wife stranded. You know what I mean? So I had to go ahead and accept responsibility and do what I had to do.

But, yeah. How long are you awaiting in the county or the detention center before you take a plea deal? Like six months. So your case goes pretty quickly, too. Is that quick with feds? I got, yeah. I don't know. I feel like they kind of moved.

It was nothing to fight. Like, I'm dead to rights. Did you take the first plea deal they offered you? Yeah. Wait, you had a federal case too, correct? Yeah, I went to trial though, so I don't. You went to trial? Yeah, and I was out on bail, so it was a different situation.

Wow. No, soon I walked in there, they were like, do not go to trial. You go to trial, you're going to get completely worse. And this is like the people who are in there. Like, yo, do not go to trial. It's going to get completely worse. Take whatever they give you. Get your lawyer.

Which now I know, like, a lawyer. doesn't really do much. As far as I'm concerned, they have the guidelines and whatever those guidelines are is pretty strict. Like, all right, this is what they have in your case,

this is what you're going to end up doing. But my lawyer did do something because remember that judge I told you about, he had to go talk to her and sweet talker, so she wouldn't do, I think my cases ran concurrently instead of consecutively.

So since I was on probation when I got in trouble, if they did it consecutive, I would have had to do my Fed time, And then soon I came home, do the state time, too. Because I violated probation. Oh, and they actually followed up with that and charged you. So while I was locked up, he had to go and talk to the state judge and do it.

And again, she blessed me and just let it run concurrent with the time. So I did both times at the same time. So you take the plea deal for 45 months? 47 months. 47 months. Where do they send you? So they send me to the same facility, Coleman. As she.

Yeah. But she's on a different yard. She's in the camp. I'm in the low. You're right next to each other. Coleman also had a medium, I believe. It was right next to her as well. Isn't that so kind of weird?

You dropped her off there and then, like, less than a year later, you're turning yourself in or you're getting brought there? Well, weird to say the least. Weird to say the least. So we're literally on the same yard. The job that she had, she would be, like, kind of mobile and like the little truck, so she'll be driving around, and she could see me, like, running on the yard at times. Obviously, we don't have any communication.

We can't have any communication. So we would send letters to each other. I was sending letters to my mom. My mom would send it to her. She would do the same thing, right? And if it was on the phone, like, we'll put the phones together and do the speaker thing. Everybody around it would be like, you guys are crazy for doing this. Like, if they find out, they're going to take away your communication altogether.

They're going to take away your phone. They're going to take away everything. But, like, we just took the risk. And it's so many scenarios where God just kind of showed his face. and like we just didn't get in trouble for things that we were for sure supposed to get in trouble for, that I just know, like, this is just kind of like God's path

that we had to walk this and it has happened that way. So the letters coming back to the letters that sparked the name for our nonprofit, which is 300 letters, right? So that's the amount of letters that me and her wrote to each other while we were incarcerated.

I think in that time when we were both on the yard probably was like a year, a little more than a year because I had to wait my time, she had already been doing time, you know? So she came home probably like a year before I did. Now with the phones you were calling your mom on the wall phone your mom was three weighing

her in. Yeah. Which is highly illegal for the prison rules. And they never found out. They never found out. And then when it came to the letters, I even had a married couple. So she had a lady that was there with her. And I had a guy that was there with me, an older guy. And he found out I was doing that. He was like, bro, could you send something for my wife too? He hadn't talked to her in years. They had no, what do you call that when you could talk to each other? Oh, you got the permission through like the counselor? Yeah, I can't remember the word for it right now. But anyway, they had no communication.

So he actually sent it with me too, and I sent it to her. And like a man that told me like tears coming down that woman's face from being able to read her husband's voice or read her husband's words, you know, because they hadn't been able to do that. And he didn't want to risk losing the communication. Now, what's going on with her pregnancy while you're in prison? So I would get pictures of her being pregnant. most beautiful pictures ever.

And she was able to be pregnant in the prison up to about six months. And then she had to go to a halfway house where she was able to finish out her pregnancy, have the baby, and then be with her another. So she spent six months there at that halfway house. And she was able to be with Little Legend. And after three months, she had to go back to the prison and finish off her sentence. And you're finding all this out through your mom. who's kind of the intermediate area. Yeah, we're still talking the entire time.

I actually got to meet a little legend when she gave him back to my mom. So I met him at three months. I miss, obviously, I miss the birth. I miss her pregnancy. I miss all the important stuff. Do you ever think about what would have if you didn't have, say, someone like your mom in the picture?

I mean, both kids would have ended up in the system. Man, what? Like, she's the hero in the story, which is why we call one of our programs, 300 heroes, and that's for the caregivers at home. So we have a support group for them. them and they get to just, you know, talk about everything that's going on because a lot of people can't relate to this stuff. There's not many people who would even like to talk about it because,

right, it's so frowned upon, right, in common society. It's such a stigma around incarceration that people don't want to talk about it. So we're normalizing the experience. We're bringing that communication, bringing that community around it so that people could heal together. My mom would have a group of women that were going through the same thing just to talk about like, yo, how are you doing with this? And, you know, just. learning a little more about the system and how, you know, honestly probably was set up, not set up, but like, well, yeah, set up to fail in some way because communities in poverty usually do go down this path

and how the statistics lead up to these kind of things and how everything is by design. So they, I feel like, you know, that would have been an education that she would have to have at that time. So now we're giving that to the families that we help with 300 letters. How old were you when you got to prison? How old was I? I think I was, I had my 25th birthday in prison, so I was like 24.

And you had never been to prison before ever in your life. I had, no, I had little probation, little run-ins with the law, but I never envisioned that I would end up behind the bars. I always thought that, you know, that was for losers. Like, yo, y'all got caught, like, slames, right? So now that's why I'm like, I would never be a two-time loser. So I would never get involved in anything that's going to even halfway get me into some shit, which is why I'm kind of hesitant to talk on the show a little bit.

But now that, you know, statute of limitations is over and fine. I'm comfortable with talking about it. But the feds is just the most creepiest thing for me. Like, they listen to everything. They know everything. And it's like you never, I've heard horror stories about people just getting charges for saying, yeah, on the phone. Just saying a word and like, oh, I'm charged for this and that, not, not, and that. So, you know, as you know, once they want you, they're going to get you.

Tell us about your federal prison experience what that was like. So I went to FCI Coleman, which is one of the fitness camps. They called it a fitness camp because they had like the most fitness stuff going on in there, which I was excited about because I wanted, I had already been working out in the detention center for six months. I thought I was like really like that. I was like, I thought I was like that. So I was like two 10 when I walked in there and then I walked then. As soon as I got onto the yard, I remember I walked into like the room that they had, just like a black.

a black, like a little black floor, open mat floor. And I walked in and it just dudes doing crazy, pliometric burpees like some crazy. Like he's like going under the knees with it. And it was just like the room was all hot and foggy. What the hell is going on in there? And, you know, that would eventually be the place where I got into fitness. And I eventually ended up leading that class as well.

Because it's classes that they had. And then so as I got to learn more about the yard or whatever, they were telling me that the prison that I was in was like one of the most known around the nation for fitness. I guess they just had the access to weights and to that kind of, they had that kind of program going on. So they had classes like the old day, push-up class, yoga, whatever legs. They had a whole program. So you could literally work out all day if you wanted to. I didn't. I worked out like three or four hours a day.

And I also had like the ARDAQ program. I don't know if you're familiar with it. So, yeah, so you could get a year taking off your sentence if you didn't have any guns involved in case. And if it was like a non-violent, probably, I don't know. But I was definitely there for that because I wasn't trying to be there for four years. So that actually kept you busy for the entire morning, and then you could go out an afternoon and work out. So as soon as I got there, obviously, they're asking you, all right, so who are you from the ride with? Because I'm mixed, right?

So this is the problem I've had all my life. Are you with the Latin people? Are you with the black people? Because my dad's back. My mom's Cuban. And like, who are you from the ride with? And I'm just like, you know, I'm like, yo, I don't know. I ain't know who to pick.

I was just cool with everybody. I've always been cool with everybody. And but the Cubans came and they eventually got me set up. They had me like, it was cold up there. It was cold. I'm a tropical, man. Look at all this stuff I got on right now. I got like seven different layers right now.

But I remember they gave me some sweats. They gave me some food for like the first. week because my commissary didn't get there yet and um whatever again i was cool with everybody but the cubans are the ones who looked out for me first and then i just kind of ended up riding with like the miami people and the fitness car it was like it was like a fitness car so i'm riding with them all the people that work out and with them did you feel the need to hustle at all like create a hustle because you had that hustler mentality right you know from selling chocolates and then eventually the drugs no i didn't feel like that like we're in prison but what are we

doing like y'all you're in the fatuna packs like people just to pay and math You pay for stuff in macros if you want it to make your food, you got to pay with it. I'm like, this is stupid. It was nothing hustler about it. I actually remember being in prison with Big Meach's brother. You familiar with Big Meach? Yeah, of course. So what was that Terry?

I don't remember his name, honestly. He had glasses. He kind of reminded him with my dad a little bit. And Big Meach was, who know, probably the inspiration for my rapper with BTM, right? BMF, BTM. Who knows what I was thinking. I remember seeing him, that was like a realization point for me because he'd be like, oh, that's Big Mee's brother.

Like, you know, like, he bawling. He got all the commissary. And, you know, he don't even, you don't even eat the chow hall. All he do is cook. And I was like, wow, this is the idea of bawling in prison. Like, bawling in prison means that you just eat a bunch of food that you're buying a bag and you don't have to walk to the chahaw. That's when I, like, looked around and I said, this is for the birds.

This is some BS. Like, what am I doing here? I compare myself, like, the amount of money I was making, which was like a couple hundred thousand dollars to guys who were there with me who were running pill mills and getting millions of dollars and got the same amount of time as me. Or scammers who got the same amount of time as me, too.

You know, scammers like doing fraudulent stuff. And Miami is really big. Like the Haitians, they know all the tricks of the trade. And they call them boiler rooms. They'll just be in there, like just typing. all the little formula through turbotax. I remember it was some guys that had turbotax chains in King of Diamonds before

because these dudes were just running it up with the numbers and they figured out. And all you got to do is go to the bank and cash out of the check. So I'm in there with these guys who are like making crazy money at the same time as me. I'm like, yo, what was I even doing?

Like I was just wasting my time, wasting my life and for peanuts apparently. And so looking at one of the most, big meets is one of the most prestigious people as far as like at my life at the time right and the urban life big me like he used to throw the craziest parties he had the biggest money he was the best drug dealer his brother's in there making food and that's the best way he could exhibit that right exhibit like the ball of lifestyle and i was like this is not for me this is crazy i'm another number and i look around the room and

it's a bunch of gentlemen in here who are just like me who had the same circumstances who you know just came up in poverty and we're just trying to do better charismatic dudes dudes who have so much potential that don't really belong in these situations, but they just kind of were guided here because of the exposure they had or whatever they were exposed to. So now my mission now is to expose people to different experiences. I never even got on the plane until I met Amanda. At 22, she was the first person that took me to California in my first plane. I'm like, wow.

You know what I mean? Like I had never left Miami. And, you know, as I sat down in my son. sell, I just realized like I hadn't done anything with my money. I made $100,000. I never took any trips. I never did any cool things. I ain't by my wife no cool purses. She always brings that up. She's like, you ain't buy me no bag. Like, I was doing all this stuff. And I really did nothing with the money, but just wasted in clubs on bottle service, on stupid-ass shit. So like, I kind of remember we just realized that I had no exposure to anything. Again, if somebody

would have told me, hey, look, we can make some money on Wall Street. We could make some money doing this, I would have just done it because I had the drive. I had, you know, I had the mentality for it, but my energy was put into something that was just presented to me and that, that was just easy for me to access. So, so yeah, man, now my mission to just expose people to different things because, like, I was in the juvenile detention center other day, like talking to the kids, and again, I just see that same ideology that I had. Like, this is it for me. Like, this little circle is it for me. So it's not. Somebody right here in the next corner disrespect me.

Yeah, I'm going to have to go over there and check them, and I might have to kill him, right? Like, that's the way they were thinking. And it's just so much more than the block next over. So much more to life. So much more things. What do you think surprised you the most about prison? What surprised me? Yeah.

I think I was, well, first of all, prison to me felt like, it felt like I just told myself that it was the Army. I'm like, yo, this is like a brotherhood. It's the same thing as Army. There's no really no chicks. These guys have a structure. We got to wake up at this time. Our bed better be done. It was like, you know, it was a bunch of like militant kind of things going on.

So when I met guys, I never expected to meet like murderers, killers, whatever, whatever were there. I just met a bunch of guys. I just met a bunch of guys that all had a story that were all, you know, going through whatever. And it kind of just landed them in the same spot as me. So I guess I was I was in a low though too also So you know I know the mediums and the penitentiaries have way Way more things to worry about like I told her stories about you can't even get out Can't get out the room without your boots on and where I was at guys just walk around in sandals

So like this is a little more chill this is you know but um I think the biggest The biggest um aha moment for me were like though these are just normal people just like me you know And we just all got fucked over in the same system When you were in there, were you thinking about the future with Amanda, with your baby, just you personally? That's the only thing I was thinking about. I was in competition with myself to be the best dude for when I come out, like, she could still have eyes on me. I was like, I was worried about if she would even like really like like like like me still. So I'm like working out crazy, going crazy.

I'm taking every single class. I'm learning everything I could do because now, you know, I got a kid that's depending on me. And I got to come home and I'm not selling drugs. So I got to make sure that I have a job or a career that is going to be. to, you know, be able to provide them what they need. That's what we are as men. We're providers, your protectors. And that's the one thing that you don't feel like in prison.

You feel completely helpless. Like, that just strips away everything that you have, right? As a man, like your identity, you just feel like you're just not who you was. I remember seeing dudes and be like, yo, this guy probably, like, amazing on the street. But over here, he's just wearing the sand closes me. You got a bad barber, so his hair cut ain't even looking right. You know what I mean? So it's just, yeah, you just kind of see like what you really need to have to focus on.

So I'm taking all the classes. I'm doing all the things. I got obsessed with fitness. And I was like, this is probably going to be the easiest pathway for me to make it out in a situation where people don't really care about my background or care about what let me hear. And that's exactly what I did. I'm in one of the best gyms in Miami. It's called Legacy. and I've been there for about nine years now.

I was actually hearing about it while I was in prison because we used to watch all the shows and stuff together, right? And remember Wags, wife of girlfriends or whatever? I think it was a couple of other girls there that used to go to this gym called Legacy and they were like, man, everybody goes to that gym. All the athletes, all the trainers. I mean, they were like, all the influencers, everybody go over there.

And so they were talking about one of my friends that I called as soon as I got out. So I didn't know him at the time, though. The name was Sean Casey. Didn't know this guy. As soon as I got out of prison, my job with Equinox fell through because they saw my ankle monitor. Right.

And so after that, they were like, yo, you ain't going to work here anymore. Great. Now I got to figure out the whole plan again. And I called this guy. I didn't know him at all. And he was like, yo, look, I can't guarantee anything, but pull up. So I do go. And, you know, I worked out with him.

I met the owner. You know, they all, I guess, liked the vibe. They were messing with it. And they were like, yo, I can see some potential here. And they gave me a shot. And that opportunity ended up being what set me up to do everything that I'm doing in life now. I provided for my family. I started the nonprofit.

You know, I was able to do that because of him answering that phone call and being some welcoming. And that's something I feel like, again, goes back to that brotherhood. It goes back to, like, you know what I've been through. And through that bond, even if I don't even know you, we know. that we got to look out for each other because nobody's going to come to save us. Like, this is it. We are the people who's going to make the change.

So when we started at 300 letters, it actually began like, I wanted to make clothes that were, like, empowering, right? 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.

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no credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Like, that's why I got this generational healer's shirt. Right. Oh, and I actually got a shirt for you, too. Oh, it's over there. Oh, bad. So I got this shirt for you too, right? And when we made it, I wanted to be something that was, like, empowering for people who were going through the incarceration experience, because everybody comes home. They don't want to share what they been through. They don't want to talk about anything. They feel like it's a mark on their on their lives that they can't talk about. It's a good quality. Absolutely. Everything I do is a good quality. You ain't been listening to this old time? Come on, brother. Listen. So like that

shit that you got in your hand right there says felon because we're changing the narrative, right? So we're going to call us felon for the rest of our lives. So that one says formally entrap leaders overpowering negativity. We got to change the narrative. So that's what starting the nonprofit was about. It was about gaining control of our story and using it to show people. that we're not the worst thing that we've ever done. You know, we're bigger than one experience. It's just one experience. Just like, you know, going through a sickness or going through a divorce or going

through a domestic violence relationship and you had to get out and figure out who you were again, there are other things in your life. That's not your life. You know what I mean? That's just something that happened in your life. That's one chapter. And that's what 300 letters is about, you know, it's about taking control of narrative. And that was great.

And when you had that start, I'm like, yo, I love this, right? Like, it's greatest empowering. But I'm like, we need to take more. action though. So we sat there, me and Amanda, we talked about, you know, what work for us? What could we have used when we came home from prison? And the mass incarceration problem is so huge, it's so massive. But we just wanted to lock in on actually coming home and we wanted to lock in on the family because I feel like that was the key to our success coming back. I feel like just us being able to identify that family is the only way we get through this. And it goes back

to those core values of our mom and still didn't mean. Like this is it right here. This this front right here is what is all about. And I feel when you have that structure in your life, that family structure, you're more likely to succeed. Honestly, that's what got us through it. So we give child therapy. We give, I'm sorry, we give child therapy, we give family therapy, we give personal development coaching, we give daycare services so that when people come home from prison, if they have a

young one like we did, put the kid in your daycare, so now you can go out and pursue your career. not only do you go pursue it, you pursue it with a well-done resume with confidence now that you spoke with my wife for a couple months and she got you right and she got you understanding that, yo, look, you're not that experience. You are a person that learned these values throughout that experience. And she helps you magnify that. And that's what you're going to walk into the workforce with.

Because I remember when people went back to the prison and spoke to us and somebody told me that too. And they came and told us like, yo, you guys are going to be good. And I remember how uplifting that was. So now to this day, we're going back to the prisons and we have. workshops in the prisons. We go to the homestead correctional institution. We go there like twice a month in home, yeah, Homestead, obviously. That's the women's. I actually went to the Everglades Correctional like three weeks ago and I worked out with the men again. We did like a fitness thing with my church, Voo Church. They're a pretty big church down in Miami. And we did a, we did a fitness

thing and it was just so surreal like just going back and working out inside the yard and seeing the gates and seeing the clouds above and remembering like, yo, how I feel in that moment, like, y'all, I'm going to get out of here soon. I'm going to do something amazing. And this didn't happen for nothing. Like, everything has a purpose. Everything has a purpose. So it's just about trying to find out what that is and realizing, like, you can't skip

the process. Everybody, like, I'm in sales, right? I sell personal training. I sell everything, right? But you're always trying to sell the result, right? And you want to talk about how somebody's going to feel at this moment. But nobody ever talks about selling the process. Like, how about selling, like, what you're going to learn along the way?

Like, the character risks is you're going to learn along the way. And people want to skip it. People want to skip the process, but you can't skip it. You know, how many episodes you've been in already? Over 500. Over 500. And I'm sure you're a G, you're a gangster doing this because of the 500. You can't just get to episode 500 and just want to get to that point.

It has everything in between and all the experiences and moments in between is what make us the humans that we are. Yeah, you learn and grow. It's all a part of the journey. Absolutely. What was it like for Amanda to visit you when she got out and the role's reversed? Because you were visiting her when she was in and then she gets out and starts visiting you. So crazy, right?

So she, much harder for her because now she got a little baby that is literally throwing a bottle across the car after he's done. He drinks the bottle and just throws it across the car. She has to pull over. She's taking a four-hour drive and like having to get the baby situated and coming. So she's bringing a two-year-old. young kids to come see me. I mean, it's a visit, bro. It was four-hour drive just to sit there and share a recess.

That was the first thing I gave legend. That's the first thing I felt. I'm a Reese's piece. And that's what it is. It's like, you know, we were just happy to be together. We're just happy to see each other talking about, all you're doing in prison, just talk about what you're doing when you're going to get home, right? And I'm glad that our time was just so, like, short.

And, you know, it was like, I mean, short compared to a lot of people, right? Like somebody in our board, Bruce Brian, my good friend, he did 29 years. I think he had like a life sentence at first. And he got exonerated because he was wrongfully convicted. So. I think I've heard of Bruce. You probably have. I think someone's connected me to him.

Probably, yeah. Josh Dubin. He works with Josh Dubin and the Innocence Project. And I found him because I watched Joe Rogan show. And I literally just saw a show. And I was like, let me just look up his name. This is easy. I looked up his name on Instagram.

He popped up. He didn't have too many followers. He had like six, seven thousand. I'm like, okay, maybe he'll write back. I reached out. He did. We connected instantly. He's now on our board for 300 letters.

One of my mentors in the space, and he knows so much more about it than I do. Honestly, I am very much still in the fitness world. So, you know, that's what I do day in and day out. I spend a lot of time doing that to a high level. And I try to learn everything I could about this space as well. But Amanda kind of takes the forefront on 300 letters and does everything. So I've always been best at connecting the dots and networking and meeting with people. So that's kind of what I did with Bruce.

I just brought him to the table. And I was like, look, this is what we're doing here. I think that you can magnify this. And I think I would love to have you a part of it. He was all for it. And he just knows so many more people in the space. And again, we just like, you know, touching the iceberg as far as it comes to all the impact that we can have. But he's put me in contact with a lot of people.

And we've helped over 700 families already in the past, what, I'm going to say like four years. over 70, 700 families. We've raised over half a mill with the mission that we have. And I would safely say that 85 to 90% of that is all from donors, not from grants. So everybody thinks that you're going to start a nonprofit and that the government is going to flood you a money. That's not the case, especially in the demographic that we know, right? And I never think that I would be here, being an advocate for the,

easily the hardest people to advocate for, right? These are, we're supposed to be a scum on the earth as being felons. So not only do we have to present ourselves as higher than everybody else because we're expected to fail. We're expected to go back to prison to fuck up. They're ready to see us and be like, huh, told you so. So now we've got to hold ourselves to a higher level. And then we've got to ask people for money to help us help these people who they think

deserve to be there for whatever reason, right? Everybody thinks, oh, you're in the jail? You're supposed to be there. when they don't see the numbers. And also don't see the family that's involved. They don't see the children that were abandoned. They don't see the caregiver and my mom that has to stay there and figure out

how she's going to pay for this financially. You know, when the breadwinner went home, went to prison. I don't even know how she did that. Honestly, I really don't. But they don't think about any of these factors when there's so many people who are just left victim to this that don't deserve to be, you know, a victim of it. and just like any other initiative, these people need support, right?

How was the conversation with your son for the first time when he was old enough to explain him that both parents were in prison when he was born? We call him a Tupac baby. Because the only person I could think of that had a baby in jail was a Finnish occur. So we tell him he's a Tupac baby, and we even have a video of the time. We used to tell him that, but I think it went over his head. And then Amanda recorded him one time I told him, and he was just like, tell me the truth.

Like, he was just fazzing out. It's the funniest thing ever. Does he remember anything? Of course not. He was just born in there. He doesn't remember anything that happened. He just sees pictures and knows that. My oldest does.

My oldest remembers he, I feel like he was, he's been here before. Like, my oldest, he's just like a grown man, but in a kid body. And he was a lot more like just kid. a bunch more of a kid when I left him at six. I had to come back. He was like almost eight already, a little change. He was so serious. I even feel like he had a full mustache already.

He was just very serious. So he definitely dealt with it. You know, both his parents are gone. And he had only my mom to take care of him. Did you and Amanda get married right away after prison? We got married, I think maybe two years after, three years after prison, possibly. And how long has it been since you got out of prison? prison. It's been, I got out on 17, so what we are now, 26? It's been almost 10 years.

Wow. It's almost 10 years. The nonprofit has been for like five years. And I think we're coming up on our five year anniversary. Yeah, we're coming up on our five year anniversary right now. Did you know when you're in prison that that prison experience would be so impactful on your life and your mission, your purpose? Um, I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know, I don't know why I was going through. And I think a lot of times when people go through these experiences, they know, never know why. Because if we knew why, then everything would be so much more simple, right?

We would go through it a lot more pleasant. I didn't make any sense to me. I felt like a loser. I felt like I can't believe I'm here. I was just saying I had just got my bachelor's degree in communications. I felt like, you know, I'm supposed to be doing, you know, something else in my life. I'm supposed to be a rapper. I'm supposed to be, like, blow it up right now. I'm literally in the TV room watching a guy that I made a song with. He had just, like, blew up on a song. And I'm like, I was one song away from this, you know. I could have been on there. I thought that was, I thought I was so much more higher.

I thought so much highly of myself that I would never be caught in a situation like that. But that's what God had for me. And I learned lessons. And I actually got pulled out of so many situations that that's just what was supposed to happen. I got friends. I got life now. I got friends that's not here to talk about it, you know, close friends that I would have been, I'll probably have been right there with them, honestly.

What advice would you give your teenage self if you could sit across from him today? Nah, I wouldn't be able, I don't know. If I saw my teenage self, I would grab him around the shoulder and I'd be like, yo, stay with me, little homie. I'm going to show you how this goes. Because I feel like,

I feel like that's what's missing now. I feel like that, I feel like that, that masculine figure that could really guide you along the way as was missing in most of our situations. And then I hear a lot of these stories and it's always the same. I'll watch a couple of the shows. It was always the same. The dad's not there.

And so that's why it's so big for me to be a father and my household and just to be present. Like, you ain't even got to be the best, but just being there can make tons of difference. Why do you think that hits for some fathers and not for others? Because you got to make the decision yourself. You got to be the one to want to try. change the curses or the cycles that's been going on. I could have easily been like the same way, which I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to have a bunch of girls that I could just, you know, go to the

house whenever I felt like it and like, hey, look, this is my house. And also this is my house and this is my house. Right. But you have to man up and you got to say like that's not what a father is. A father is actually being present. A father is showing this person away. He's devoting and sacrificing. is giving up a lot of things that you probably feel like, you know, you could be doing

or cars that you could be driving, right? Or things that you, like, you know, just to give this next person, it's selfless, you know? So it's something bigger than yourself. It's fatherhood. And it's a massive project, but it's 100% worth it. Well, legend, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Thank you for having me, brother. Yeah, it was great to have you.

And stay tuned for our next. next episode with your wife, Amanda, to get her perspective. It's going to be a lot more juicy. She's got a lot more stuff to talk about. Oh, stop. You did amazing, man. And I appreciate you. Of course.

Hope you like that shirt. Oh, I'd love it. I'll be wearing it. All right.