Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Survived Inside America’s Most Dangerous Prisons | Eric Van Buren

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Eric Van Buren grew up in Washington, DC in a stable home with hardworking parents and a strong family foundation, but his life took a turn after high school when fighting and drug dealing pulled him into the streets. After being arrested on a state murder charge and beating the case, Eric thought the worst was behind him — until the federal government indicted him on a major drug conspiracy. The feds sentenced Eric to life in prison, and he went on to serve 19 years inside some of the most dangerous federal prisons in the country, fighting to survive both mentally and physically. In this episode, Eric breaks down how a good kid ended up with a life sentence, what day-to-day survival in high-security federal prison is really like, and how he ultimately got his sentence reduced after nearly two decades behind bars. This is a raw, unfiltered story about choices, consequences, and redemption inside the federal prison system. _____________________________________________ #prisonstory #lifeinprison #truecrime #federalprison #survivestory #prisonlife #lockedin #realstories _____________________________________________ Thank you to PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode! Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! _____________________________________________ Connect with Eric Van Buren: TikTok: @ericvanburen4senate Facebook: vanburenforwashingtoncounty Instagram: @vanburen_statesenate Website: https://believe-community.org/ _____________________________________________ 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 Sentenced to Life: Inside USP Lewisburg 00:42 Eric’s Early Life, Ambition & Missed Opportunities 03:53 Growing Up Between DC & Maryland’s Drug Culture 05:48 Family Support, Stability & Early Choices 09:30 School Fights, Identity & Anger 12:00 Gambling, Temptation & Entering the Streets 17:40 First Drug Deals & Learning the Game 23:34 Building Connections & Escalating the Operation 27:39 Life in the Drug Trade: Danger, Paranoia & Survival 33:01 Run-Ins with Law Enforcement & Family Fallout 36:46 County Jail Reality: Violence, Power & Fear 43:06 Release, Reentry Struggles & Going Back to the Streets 47:57 Federal Indictment: How the Feds Built the Case 56:09 Federal Trial, Conspiracy Charges & System Pressure 01:01:05 Hearing “Life in Prison” From the Judge 01:06:12 Surviving a Federal Penitentiary: USP Lewisburg 01:13:54 Prison Politics, Violence & Staying Alive 01:24:00 From Life Sentence to Freedom: What Changed 01:33:34 Adjusting to Life After Prison 01:41:41 Rebuilding Family Trust & Healing Trauma 01:52:06 Creating Purpose After Prison & Giving Back 02:03:31 Final Reflections, Second Chances & Advice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. And it doesn't get real until you get to a place like I did in USP, Lewisburg, and I look out the back, and there's a cemetery out there. For all the people who did daytime and didn't finish daytime, the guy putting the ground back out there. What was the most dangerous situation you were put in as a dealer? It was, wake up in the morning, have your knife in a jail, and wait for something to happen.

Did you witness anything there that lived up to the reputation that prison had? I get an envelope, it's a knife. Yeah, and it's copper. And it's like a pick. It's a knife. How did it feel to give back life? So then he comes, he leads, and he comes back, and he, he, he, he, he, he, He puts his hand in his pocket like this, man.

Is something wrong with them? Man, I'm going to stab you up. So once somebody I tell you that, you can't let him leave yourself. Eric von Buren grew up with two working parents, a good home and real opportunities, and still ended up sentenced to life in federal prison. This is how it happened and how he survived 19 years inside the worst federal prisons in America. Eric, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming up here today.

Thanks for having. Are we up or down? Or we're down, right? Down where? Like you're from Maryland? Yeah. So we're, Connecticut's down? Connecticut is up from me.

Okay. Down from, yeah. Gotcha, got you. Well, thanks for coming today and you're running for office. Yeah, I am. I'm running for State Senate. Awesome. And Maryland District, too.

And it's good to get your side of the story out there before the news starts using your past again. Absolutely. Is this your first ever podcast? No, no. It's not my first time. First time talking about your past, though? To this extent. It will be.

Cool. Do you think it'll surprise some people? A lot of people. So, yeah, I think it will. Awesome. And you have a bunch of books that you've written a child's book. Your story. We'll have all those links in the description of this episode.

All right. Where did you grow up? Was it Maryland? D.C. Yeah, D.C. and Maryland. So the DMV, that's what they call it now. But a lot of people in D.C. used to, you know, move to Maryland. It was a suburb, right?

So, yeah, so D.C. and Maryland. You know, the D. The D.C. guys in prison got up. bad rap. That's true. That's a thing. And I contacted you about that. Yeah. You don't have any DC dudes on your show. Yeah. And so the actual rap comes from, I want to say, you know how you take a, it's like a paradox. You take a, if something happens sometimes, then it happens all the time. there were

incidences in a prison called Lawton in Sydney where guys before they got shipped to the feds before they shut it down from the Revitalization Act

they would actually just it's like a co-named a barbarian type of atmosphere and what I related to was kind of like I forgot the guy When they cut the dude's head off You take a soul

Some people so Predatorial That they want to take They don't want to just knock you out They want to take your total manhood from you So when Highlander So when you wake up You are no longer a man

Um There's a lot of guys in D.C. Who aren't afraid to say that they are the bisexual or homosexual. They ain't afraid to say it. I haven't seen, and for me being from D.C.

and doing 19 years in prison, I haven't seen where there was a disproportionate, how I want to say? It was no disproportionate amount of homosexuality in the D.C. car, and it wasn't any other car. It's just the guys that were on that could defend themselves because if you were like just gay,

it's no big deal in the DC car. If you like to mess with boys, it's no big deal in the DC car. Other cars are abhorred. What the DC car is basically focused on is if when it's time to go, if you're going to go. And if you can't go because you're gay, then you need to get up the compound.

But for me, and I was just talking about this with somebody the other day, somebody, to me, somebody's sexuality never, ever, ever, ever, ever played a role in any of my decisions that I make or I would make in the future because you never know what dudes do behind closed doors, especially with their girls. You don't know. You wouldn't ever bet your life on it that if you closed the door and Matt was a, you wouldn't bet like what was you doing behind that clothes you wouldn't bet your life on that right you wouldn't definitely

wouldn't bet your mom's life on that so sexuality for me it never played a role but i never seen i saw a lot of guys that's how i saw a lot of other cars um and not to call them out but i seen a lot of other cars had being gay because we accept people who are homosexual um as long as they push that knife when it's time to go. They tell us a lot. They like women in the prison. So they know who's sneaking. They know the information.

It's blackmail. It's a tool. Like, you know, and when you were in prison, the prisons that I were in were in was USP Lewisburg and USP Canaan. It's warfare all day, every day. Who raised you? So my mom and dad.

So I, I, I come from upper middle class on. I went to private schools. My dad was in the military. My granddad was in the military. My mom and dad were both in the government. My dad worked for the State Department. He's pretty high up.

So I come from that. My mom and my dad actually raised me to be anything other than someone. wonder who would get incarcerated. Yeah. Did you have your eyes set on public service, the military, following their footsteps as a kid? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my dad, my dad gave up his dream of being a politician to raise us, came out of the military,

and he went straight to work for the government. And in D.C. there's a thing called good government jobs, right? So he had a good government job. So instead of chasing his dream of being a politician, he stayed with his good government job. And at that time, because he was, it was the 80s, and he was a black man, and he was in D.C. And he was in the government. He trained a lot of other people to do his job. So he would get passed over from promotions and stuff like that.

And I seen to take a toll on him. And so I thought I'm never going to be in a job with a 30-year mortgage. I'm seeing what he's going through. I'm not going to go through that. And so I always had a dream of being in public service, right? But it got, how I want to say, it got deferred when I went into the streets. Because once I started getting arrested and everything else went outside the door. I wanted to go to the military.

My mom wouldn't let me. How many of you were there growing up? Me and my brother. That's just it. Were you guys close? On and all, I think for a period when he was younger, we weren't. And then later on, me and him became close. He was on my indictment. I'm going to say that he's the reason I got indicted, but he won't say that.

But, yeah, me and him, like, we became. Like real close. But we're like night and day. Like he is, I'm a, I'm a natural introvert. He's a natural extrovert. Have you come across the two brothers that were serving life in prison that got pardoned by Trump and got let out? From D.C.?

No, they're not from D.C. They're from Connecticut. I interviewed them both at the same time. It's a really fascinating interview. You got to check out that episode. Yeah, I will. They're really good. Yeah.

And their father was actually in public service and for the city and whatnot in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Lenny and Lyle Jones, or Lonnie and Lyle Jones. I think they was on Aaron case. I think so. One of that kind of dark skin. Yeah, you might have. But they was in Louisville, Burd with me, I think. They were in different.

Yeah, I think so. USPs all up and down the East Coast. Yeah, then, yeah, I know them. I think I know them. I don't know. I think they were on, I got in from here, Aaron Harris. He had a pretty huge case. Another guy named Mega that was from, that's from Connecticut.

They had some huge cases in Connecticut. Yeah. Yeah. Good friends of mine. How would you have described yourself before you ever got in trouble? What's young Eric like? Awkward. So it's the 80s in.

And you got to tell us about the 80s. They're the 80s, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in the 80s, there were, if you notice the 80s music, it was a lot of light-skinned black guys. And the stigma for light-skinned black guys that we couldn't fight, we were pretty boys

and stuff like that. However, I got freckles. So being young at the time, and in school, since I looked different, I got treated different, you know, by everybody. When I got to, like, seventh grade, for some reason, the girls all thought my freckles were cute. So all the best-looking girls and top girls of school that all these other guys were dating that were popular.

That was unpopular. They was like, I like him. And I'm like, what the hell? I had to fight a lot. So the young me, I was, every time I think about my childhood, I think that I was more, I think of, like, scared. You know what I mean?

Like, uncertain. That's the best word. I was uncertain about so much about who I was. was, what I wanted to become, how I was going to get there. I had those thoughts when I was that young. Yeah, so it kind of like, when I looked back on my childhood, it made me like, I wasn't sure. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. The Four Seasons is back for Season 2, starring Tina Faye, Will Forte, Coleman Domingo, Marco

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Someone on D-pop wants what you've got. Start selling now. D-pop, where taste recognizes taste. Anything. What changed? What do you think caused you to go down a different path? Like that one moment? Right.

I don't When I was younger I think I became I became a lot of sure myself when other people began to accept me when I was little and I think that's the hard truth

when more people start accepting me I became more sure of myself and then I decided I'm never going back to you know being unsure about anything I'm going to start making better decisions, even though they were little kid decisions. But I'm a stand on.

I'm going to be sure about everything that I do. So that's how I started living my life. And I got into a lot of fights because I wouldn't back down. I would get jumped and I would lose fights and win a lot of fights. And, well. Now, if that led to fighting, what leads to actual criminal behavior? Was that exhibited in your childhood? Or was that later on?

So some may say that. Like, some may say that because I was, you used to fight. So we fought a lot. And I fought a lot. So, so I think, I think people would, would take that in parse it with criminality. But I don't think, I don't think that's where it came from. I know exactly where it came from.

It came from me not wanting to be like my dad, me not wanting to come home upset because I train, the guy to take a job for me that was going to help benefit my my bussing name. I wasn't going to be in a 30-year mortgage. I wasn't going to be like working for the man. Right. Waking up in the morning. Like people, people were like, oh, I wish I had my dad there.

You know, and a lot of times, guys would like, you shouldn't be in here, but you had your mom and your dad. Yeah, my dad was never home because my dad was always working because my dad had to pay the bills because my dad went to send us to a certain school. Like, you get what I'm saying? Like so my dad was never like. Like, you know, when he was dead, sometimes he wasn't dead. You get what I'm saying?

Sometimes he doesn't need to give him his space, man, so he can chill out from the world, you know? Isn't that interesting? Because I bet from your dad's perspective, he thinks he's doing all the right things in his life, you know, raising children the right way. And all it's doing is doing the opposite. That's mean. That's crazy. That's deep. Yeah.

And I thought about that when I was incarcerated, like, man, you know, you get to think about a lot of stuff. I think incurservation is good for you in a certain sense, if you use it in a certain way. And the reason why I'm saying that is because when you go through a period of long suffering, it seems like you get revealed stuff. So things get revealed to that you would never think about when you're not going through it, right? You know what I mean? You don't think really how you impact somebody else's life. Like, you know what I mean?

Like I told you, like you impact my team for my campaign. something you ain't even known until I told you but they impacted by that you know what I mean and I think when you're incarcerated you get to know all the impact that you have on people. Did you graduate high school? I did

yep and I graduated high school on time even though I went to night school summer school and Saturday school I went and I graduated on time yeah I was I was I was skipping school because I really was in the

And when I was into a lot of girls, like women. You know what I mean? So I used to skip school and mess with this girl, I messed with that girl. And I didn't have any money. You know what I mean? But at the time, it was like a crack boom going on. Right?

So, but the same girl that they were messing with, with no money. What about college? Was that in the cards for you? So, no, it wasn't. And it's one of my main drivers. when I did graduate, because I went to summer school Saturday and night school, to graduate on time,

I was at the bottom of my class. And when I went to go talk to my counselor, it was crazy because it was a person that was the third in her, and they were to call them first, but she couldn't come. So she was sitting there before me, and I heard her give her to speak, oh, you got this college, you got this bright future, you got this, you got, like she's happy for this girl.

When I walk into her office, she's like this, well, yeah, well, You know, yeah, you're lucky you made it. And, you know, I mean, good luck, good luck. That was just said. And I'm just like, for real? You're going to tell that to a kid? Like, come on. It's been my motivator.

So where do you go if you don't go to college? So my family is in part. I mean, excuse me, is in the government. They got me a job. And the first job I had was working on Capitol Hill. Yeah, that was crazy. And then it segues into, I think, six months later because I was getting paid more money

and I should have stayed in that job. I went to go work for the Department of Labor and I started working for the Department of Labor. Still wasn't selling drugs or anything. And I stayed there for a minute and I liked to shoot dice. And I used to go to these dice games on the weekend and used to see these.

enormous amounts of money from kids the same age as me. And I'm like, I'm like 19, this dude, 16, 17, 18, and they got tons of money down here. And they look free. You know what I mean? And they didn't have to get up in the morning and go to work and go to the traffic and, you know, in D.C. trafficking and go downtown. I think I was working on 6th and E. Street and go there and put your, put this data entry stuff in.

And I was making pretty good money at that time for being a data entry clerk for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yeah. And I just, I just, when I saw it, I just sat there and said, man, these dudes are not smarter than me. That's what I thought. And because I had conversations with them. Like, their thoughts didn't go but so far.

And I'm like, this dude is that smarter than me. they can't think fast than me I win at dice every time because I know that liquor store dice are flawed this is the reason why you can't take liquor store dice to a casino because they don't weigh and when you roll them a certain amount of time

the edges wear down so it's going to roll on the same numbers like people I was thinking like people don't know this and I was able to count especially in long dice games when a four would come when a five

will come like like numbers that you really don't hit and I would load up and I would just like oh I won and then I was side bet stuff the money in my pocket I wasn't really trying to try to try to like gamble like dudes that had a lot of money because they'll keep going to their car until they break you right so um but I met a lot of people and I saw a lot of things and I asked this dude one time he said how how much money you make I said I make I think I was making like $36,000 a thousand dollars a year. But this is in early 90s. This is a lot of money. You know what I mean? For somebody my age, it's pretty good. And he was like, oh, that's all right. You know what I mean? He was asking

my, what's money? How much money you made? Being out here? He said, I make it around that a month. And I'm like, what? I need to stop doing what I'm doing. I need to learn how to sell drugs. And this is four or five, six, that dies? C. Lowe, four, five, six. The dice game. No, we played two dice. So this is just, it wasn't, it wasn't Celo. No, this is D.C.

This is D.C. Reglo old crap. Okay. And the drugs at the time, who's selling them? What kind of drugs? Crack. So they're mostly selling crack. In D.C. A drug of choice is PCP. So they called it Love Boat at one time. And they called it water or whatever, you know, and leak, whatever.

and crunch. But those are like the two primary drugs back in the 90s that you could get some money off of. We, you could get money off of weed. It was like select spots though. Like, you know, it was a place of 751. You used to have it. Southwest used to have it.

And when I mean have it, I'm talking about they used to do 20, 50 pounds a day broken down in the 20s and 50. You know what I mean? And I think that's modest. They used to make a killing. So there was some legendary weed strip. You can make somebody on.

But those are the primary drugs. Heroin, the heroin was a big boy game because keys of heroin was costing a buck 50, $200,000. This episode is brought to you by prize picks, whether you're starting a new routine or making player picks for the first time, trying something new can be hard, but in life and on prize picks, it always feels good to be right. With high-pressure playoff matchups every weekend and elite hoops actions almost every night, the action never stops, and prize picks lets you take control.

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after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, it's good to be right. So how do you get into it? How do you find the right plugs, the connectors, everything? So I'm telling you how it happened. This is happening in a major way for me. So before, the first time I ever sold drugs, I won them in a dice game. A guy I put up, I think, I think I was $400 in the pot and the guy put up a half

ounce of Coke. I didn't know anything about it. I turned to my buddy. I said, man, what is this? How much? You know what I'm saying? Is this right? Man, if you don't take that, I can break this down.

I can make $1,200. I said, oh, that's what. Sign me up. Sign me up. So, so I won. We went to some spot. He knew way out Maryland. and we stood there for 15 minutes.

He got out of his car. We stood there for 15 minutes by a store. It was crazy. It looked like the town or like, you know, like, I don't know, like some backwards town. And, man, 15 minutes started outside the car. Everything was gone. And I'm saying, what?

It took us an hour and a half to get here. And we stood out here for 15 minutes and gone. Is this how it really is? And no, it's not. No, it's not. But so that's the first time. The second time and how I got into it to answer your question was that there was a Coke shortage in 1991 in Washington, D.C. At the time, because of me gambling with people, I met this guy.

He was, according to him, connected. But they used to come down and rob all the jewelry stores. and clothing stores without a gun. They used to go in there, dress nice. They had the ponytail, like Jewish white guys looking Italian. They got the Rolex watches on and everything, and they robbing the store blind. They would take, like, they would go to a place

where they got hand-painted ties, and the hand-painted ties are like $150 a tie, and they would go take 50 of them. You know what I mean? They would go in and try to pay of shoes on and cost $1,200 to walk out of the store with them. they actually well i've actually seen them walk in by electronics and just walk out with them just because the way they look nobody questioned it it was crazy um so they used to fence all this stuff and he had a connection because his brother was dealing with a woman whose father was a

diplomat so in dc especially back in the 80s and in the 90s in dc it was a small world politicians in the street, it was a thin line that was separated both of them. And his brother's wife was bringing back kilos of cocaine from the Dominican Republic through this diplomat. And that's real deal. And he had cocaine. And I knew somebody that needed it. And I told my friend at the time, look, I hook you up with him.

Y'all can go do what y'all want to do. he was like, man, hold on, slow that. Listen, I can't really do that. Because a guy I'm working for, if he found out I'm working for somebody else or getting, you know what I'm saying? Because back then it was, if I'm working for Ian, I'm pretty much got to stay with Ian.

Now it was a Wild Wild West, but back then it was pretty much like that. And he was like, I can't really do that. So I need you to go in the middle and you can make some money. And I'm like, how much money? So he was telling me, I'm just like, what? So we didn't start off like with kilos

or half a kilo. was just ounces. And we would just order ounces. We'd be like, oh, let me get eight ounces. But during the Coke shortage, you can make $3,000, $4,000 off an ounce, like that. So I can make $2,000 off selling weight for one ounce. So if this dude is charge enough $750 during this coach shortage for each ounce that he's getting for free, you know what I mean? We just start, we start rolling. And that's how I, that's how I got to. a name. And people knew that. It called me freckle face. This frugal face, he got, he got some weight if you want to, you know, and then when that kicked off, then once your name is out there and the drought is

over, then everybody else comes back into the fold. But people know your name for having weight. And that's just, my name was just associated with me selling weight. Now, are you the one physically moving it from point A to point B, or do you have people? under you? Well, at this time, it was the early 90s. Yeah, it was just me. Okay. Well, I mean, I would actually get on a plane out of National Airport before it was called Reagan National. Fly to LaGuardia or, what's the other one of, JFK? Yeah. Up there, he would meet me in the air terminal, strap me down with ounces in the bathroom, and I would turn right back around him and fly right back. You know, you can't do that shit now, right? You know what was the security like back now?

And there was no scared. It was nothing. I never felt like nobody was watching me. Never felt like, you know, I never felt like, you know, I never felt like anything. I just felt like I'm going up here and get these ounces and come back. Nobody even knew I went to New York. You know what I mean? It came back.

I'm going to leave. And I come back three hours later. They don't know where I was at. So no drug sniffing dogs, nothing. It was nothing there. Wow. I used to walk on the plane where to distract to me. Just walk, hey, how you doing it?

And then just sit down and then fly back. It was no problem. I wasn't the only one doing it like that then. What was the most you had on you on a place? The biggest order that we had back then was 18 ounces. I didn't know that was a half a key back then, but it was 18 ounces. Now, back then was it safer to fly than drive? Because D.C. to New York's not too long.

And it's not too far. I think it was like the convenience and the thrill of it at the time because I'm young and I didn't really care. And it's like, I don't know, I don't know what it is. And I think if somebody watched Sopranos, they seen when the dude finally got his name in the paper because he did something. It was like, if you get popped, then that's what you get made. Like, you know, I'm going to hold water.

Then everybody's going to do them thorough. And, like, I'm going to go through this process fast. And, you know, so that's how it was with me. You know, I didn't really, when I started doing that, I never had, I never thought twice about at that period. Never thought twice about, I thought it was going to last forever. You know what I'm saying? I thought they really didn't care if you brought drugs back.

I convinced myself about a lot of stuff. Was it dangerous to sell drugs? Hell yeah. In D.C.? Oh, my God. man, this is when D.C. is like the murder capital. I think recently it's like 150 murders, I think, in D.C. It was like, let me tell you, Ian.

It was at least, I want to say, six or seven hundred murders in D.C. And then I bought five or six hundred in Prince George's County. In D.C., in Prince George's County was like an annex to D.C. A lot of D.C. dudes would tell you differently, but it was. You know what I mean? Everybody got family in D.C.

in Prince George County, predominantly. Not everybody, but no, you know what I'm saying, to go back and forth. One is the suburbs. One is in the city. That's just the way they were broken down back then. It's different now. But so you're thinking within a 40-mile radius,

you're thinking about 1,400 murders. Those are murder. That's not the shootings. People getting shot. People not dying. Those are just the murders. It's only 365 days in the years. Yeah. So you're thinking, what, four people, five people a day, murder that you know.

It was a killing field. It was, it was bad. Like how the administration makes it seem now? No, it was really like that. It was really like that in late 80s, early 90s. I really liked that. What was the most dangerous situation you were put in as a dealer? Oh, as a dealer? Oh, man. One night, one night, my best friend who was murdered. He got shot 80 times. just to show you how the violence went.

He called me and said, oh, man, somebody went a half ounce or something like that. And when I get to the spot, it was real deal. It was real. It was in somebody else's neighborhood. And back then, I didn't care. Somebody wants some, I'm going to go back. I'm going to serve him.

So he was like, man, make sure don't know what I see you when you come in the back door in my mind. Like, man, I mean, I'm him. You know what I care about that. You know, they got a gun. I got a gun. and I walk in the back door, make the drug deal.

And when I came out, oh man, it was like people were just waiting for me. I don't know. It's like I ran through gunfire, and it was, I ran down this, like this little walkway.

I don't know how they didn't hit me and my friend. I don't know how they didn't hit us. You know what I mean? Like, I just don't know until this day. We were supposed to be dead, but they tried to take us out, though. They shot.

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Krispy, did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold. I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet.

No. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley 36, 2326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. Got the car up, like, it was bad. So when a moment like that happens, what's going through your mind the next day? Are you like, I got to get out?

the game or let me double down and keep doing it. I love the adrenaline. Yeah, the adrenaline and then I can't believe they just did that to me. I got to go do that to them. You know what I mean? So now you're riding around their neighborhood trying to look out for them, but they're looking out for you because they know you're coming back. So it was, um, it was bad. Um, but I learned very quickly that you, if you want to make money, you can't do that type of stuff. So you just stay in your space. Yeah, I mean, because riding around looking over your shoulder when somebody is actively, actively looking for you to do something to you,

it's totally different than somebody is arbitrarily finding you. You know what I mean? When somebody's waking up every single day to try to find you, that's different. And that's how it used to be. People used to wake up in the morning looking for Ian because Ian did this. And they wouldn't go to sleep until they find you. Right.

So what about your parents at the time? Are you living under their roof or what's going on with that, relationship while you're becoming this, you know. Destroyed it. It was, it got bad between me and my dad. I only realized why late on in prison. So my dad working in the department, a state, the state department. This is, this is some high level, and he's moving up in the state department.

I came to his, I came to his job one time, and he had, it was like a little closet door. And he put his hands under. It's probably some antiquated stuff now. His hands under the whistle name, did it like a little whistle name, popped open. It was just huge, this huge area with all these computers and people talking to him like he's the boss. And I'm like, man, what the hell? You know what I mean? So my name was getting put in the Washington Post and other papers because of this things.

It had a baron on the security clearance. I couldn't even come in the building anymore. You know what I mean? So he had to hear about this. and I never thought that what I was doing in the streets affected him in that way. So it kind of, it didn't kind of, but it really, and then my dad, again, he wanted to be a politician. He said, you know, he sacrificed and, you know, did it the hard way, worked hard, worked his way up,

pulled his own himself up by his own bootstrings, and then the sun turned around and then getting to the very thing you're trying to protect him from. So it caused a lot of dissension, so much so. the prosecution wanted to use him against me in a state case one time. So you had gotten arrested before you ever gotten pop for the feds? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I got arrested for murder on something I had told my person at the time, which was my plug,

that he don't need to meet with. So he was trying to meet with everybody to sell weed to. And because he wasn't known or connected, that was dangerous for him. Because what people do is people, not everybody with money has good intentions. And if you're unaffiliated and you try to sell drugs

and you start making some money, they're going to rob you. And I told him that's what was going to happen to him, but he didn't want to listen. And that's what happened to him. And he tried to call me in the middle thinking that if the guys who had the potential,

time to rob them. We're going to rob them if they saw me, they wouldn't do it. But that's not how I work. We're like, oh, if I got, if I got, if I got, if I got, if I got a hurricane, they're going to know that to mess with me. And that's not how that works. If somebody coming to get you, they're going to come get you. I don't care who they. What about your brother? When do you get into business with him? So, so my brother is supposed to be in the MLB. My brother He was exceptionally good at baseball He turned down a scholarship

And went to Southern University Because he wanted to go to an all-black college I don't know what that was about But he wanted to play in the swag And he got down there And I think everything at the time He got down there like around The No Limit, and he's in Louisiana, and the whole little explosion of all of this,

and I think he got caught up in the sensationalism and not focused on what he was there to do. He ended up dropping out. Comes home. There's another Coke shortage. And I think having him with me and him seeing stuff, even though I was telling him, like, bro, it's not like this. It's just a Coke shortage. You know what I mean? It's just money coming in like this because

don't know why I got it. I got it. It's not like this. You know what I mean? But I think that didn't deter him. When he saw it, he started selling drugs. And it caused a rift between me and him. He started selling drugs and somebody told me he was selling drugs.

And so it caused a riff between me and him. I was like, it was bad. He was indicted. Me and him was indicted on the same indictment. And the feds knew that me and him weren't talking at the time he was entitled on the same thing. Do you feel responsible for bringing them into the life? Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. At the time I didn't, because, you know, people go, he's his own man. You know, he's all. He did what he wanted to do and just that and the other. But, yeah, I mean, how's, you know, it was, I had a friend to play basketball. His name, Molo Brooks. He played for West Virginia, played for a lot. He played for a short period of time in the NBA.

But when I got locked up in Lewisburg, he wrote me a letter and told me until I got a life sentence, he always wanted, always wanted to be like me. And I'm saying, what? Basketball. Like, he was right before his time. So he was 6'9, could shoot the 3, could dribble. They didn't want that. They wanted, you know, somebody 6'9 to back people down.

He wasn't built for that. But he was a few years off from making a $20 million contract. He was real good. But anyway, when he told me that, I was just like, man, what? He was like, man, yeah, I always looked up to you. I always wanted to be like you. And I'm saying, wow, it's crazy. Now to break down the timeline for the audience.

How old are you when you started selling drugs? The first time, I want to say 16, when I really got into it, like around 19. And how old were you when that murder case happened? 21. And did you go to jail for that? Oh, I went to, yeah, I went to prison. I mean, I went to jail for the period. They didn't give me no bond.

So I had to fight the case. It took the jury 15 minutes to see I was not guilty. And back then, they didn't care. They were cleaning up cases. And if I didn't want to tell on Ian, then so what? So a person, so instead of telling on what really happened, the person lied. And the jury could see right through a lie, but the prosecutor don't care.

They think they can prosecute you on it. You know what I mean? So they took me to trial. I knew they didn't have anything when they offered me 15 years. I say, for a first degree. Come on, man. You know I ain't do this, man. So my best friend, I said, told you that got shot.

times. When they was investigating his murder, I was a suspect in it because you was best friend of y'all in the streets. So when the police found out who actually did it and found out that me and that person were close to, right? They wanted me to tell on this guy and they said they'll make all this other stuff go away. And when I didn't do it, they prosecuted me. You get what I'm saying? So, so you knew you were innocent, and I was just green enough to believe in the system back then. You know what I mean? Like, I'm innocent.

They're going to see that and I'm innocent. And once I told my mom, they brought my mom in it, when they offered me a 15-year plea, because back then you would get life plus 20. Hey, man, tell the dude, take this plea. You know what I mean? You don't know what's going to happen at trial. To my mom, my mom was like, did you do it?

I was like, no, I didn't. I'm innocent. was like, I'm going to trial then. Then I was like, I'm cool. It's all my mom, no, I was good. And then, like, even when I was exonerated and the jury let me go, I was just like, man, I got to change my life. But you didn't? Yeah, I didn't.

Yeah, yeah, I had to, but. That's crazy. You got a second chance at life after beating a murder charge. Right. And even though you didn't do it. and you still go back out on the streets. You got a taste of what prison was like. Right.

And that wasn't the reality track for you. Right. And it was bad in there, too. Like, it was where I was at. Yeah, give us a story from there to kind of paint the picture. So they had me, I was in D.C. jail for a little while because they had me mixed up with somebody else's charges. Then they sent me to Upper Marlboro in Maryland.

At the time, it was so many people from D.C. in Upper Marlboro, because, like I told you, D.C. and Prinsuals is kind of. were kind of like, they're like one and the same. So a lot of people from D.C. Butchette charges and Prince George's County and likewise. So it was so much violence going on in both places. It was just, it was, it was a real dark time. It was wake up in the morning, have your knife in a jail, right?

And wait for something to happen because something is going to happen. You know, I got my jaw broke when I was in there. Started from a fight, ended with the COs stomping me out. Because I hit the CO. They punished me. They handcuffed me to the bottom of the bench under the, you know, the stools that swing out. And you sit on them. But they had like a lower bar down there.

They wrestled me down, handcuffed me down there and punished me. And then since I wouldn't tell them, because, you know, you don't tell them the cops. You don't tell them anybody. My jaw was cracked. They don't crack it. So I looked like big trouble in a little child. And one of the CEOs felt so bad, they snuck me out of the jail. Took me to some dentist.

When I went in there, all the women in there started crying when they saw me. They was like, what are you doing? I said, it's gunned to fight. You ain't getting no fight? This ain't getting no one person fight. This is, you know what I'm saying? Don't lie to me. Who did this?

They called the police up there. And they were like, man, get him to say something. I know they did something to them. I know it. I was punished. And I never pressed charges against the COs. And I started getting favorable treatment. They was like, well, you ain't going to tell.

Oh, here you go, here you go, here you go. So, yeah. Yeah, so that was a tough time. When I came home, I got my first taste of reentry. I got my first taste of how hard it is. Because I just worked for the government. I was in the union. I just worked for the government, right?

It was nothing for me to get a job when I got out. And after I had this incarceration and I had a previous felony, I took a plea to, I couldn't get a job other than being a courier, which paid a lot. But it paved the way for me to get back into because I drove around all day. So I'm thinking, damn, you know what? Let me sell some drugs on the way. There you go. If I get a couple of pounds of weed and break them down, I can make a little extra this

that and the other. And I was working for this company called U.S. Express. And the person who was my boss was, his name was George Washington. Yeah, he was a good guy. He was a good guy. He came to see me actually when I was locked up. He was a good guy, man. And I started seeing that I couldn't get the job.

I got so frustrated. I got so frustrated. I was just like, man, you know what? I got to go back to what I know doing. How long does your second stretch of drug dealing last for? From, I got out 95, so 95, so my indictment would say 95 to 2000, but it wasn't like that. It was 95 to 98. Then for like about 8 to 9 month period, stop, and then for like five months to 99.

That was my, I got indicted in 2001. I got indicted the day after 9-11. And did you know the feds were on to you? Yeah. So tell us to the start of that. So one day, I was, I invested in a guy's, he had a music studio. And I invested in it. And one day we were coming out.

And once again, we just called it metropolitan area. I mean, D.C. and Maryland at the time, the DMV at the time, was very dangerous. It wasn't like now. It wasn't all these clubs. it wasn't all these eateries. It was just set spots. And if you were selling drugs and people knew you, you know, people were looking for you to rob you,

to kidnap you. So you had to stay on point because this was a real thing. So you get to notice and, you know, how things move, how normal people walk to the store and how they look and how people that's not normal. You know what I mean? So I started saying like, man, what the hell?

It's a car. and then I started saying like man hold on man are they following me so I thought you know and then the car turned off and another car started following me so I brought this information to my to my friend who did a couple tours over in in Iraq at the time and he was like man that's a damn relay team bro let me ride with you so he rolled with me he said yeah you got a fucking

really you know what I'm saying you got a relay team on And I'm like, wow. And I went to my lawyer and was like, man, dude, like, why are they following me? Like, what's going on? At the time in my 25-year-old mind, I'm not thinking about the damage you doing in the community. I'm just thinking about, oh, next load that comes down or make sure I give him whatever money, because they always give you more to what you want. They always did me.

They all put you in your debt coming to them. I said, I know I see guys talking about, I went to them. I just paid straight up for it. And maybe you did. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying you didn't. Not saying you blind. But for me, if I come back, let's say, if I pay for 10 keys, it's 10,000 grams.

I get back. The scale might say 12,500, 12,500, 1,000, 430. You know what I'm saying? Something crazy like that. And I'm saying, dude, I didn't get these extra too. This is an extra burden for me. So my point is I didn't know. you know, that I was doing it enough to get the fed's attention.

And when I started saying, I started thinking like, man, wow. Like, yeah, this is a phase for all to me. And I got scared. A lot of my friends start getting locked up. I got my best friend, he got locked up, and they put him for the death penalty. I want to say Antonio Gonzalez did that But the United States Attorney

Putting up with a death penalty So it was some serious stuff going on around me Yeah So do you continue to sell drugs in or Just when I had a conversation with my dad And one of my favorite rappers The Scarface and he was In the rap mimics

What goes on And one thing he was saying that he was, like, in his son, that he was scared to stop selling drugs and scared to sell drugs. And I got in that place where I was terrified to sell drugs. And at the same time, terrified

to stop selling drugs. And everybody that I know that was selling drugs felt the exact same way. Nobody was just like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna keep doing this shit. You know what I mean? They was just like, man, bro, I don't know how we gonna, how we gonna get out of it? You know what I'm saying?

How are we going to get out? Everybody wanted the exit strategy. At the time, very aggressively, From 95 to 2000, there was an effort throughout the United States to lock up, quote-unquote, gangs and drug gangs. That came from the Clinton administration. So we would go out of town in 95, 96, Soul Train Music Awards, the Jazz Fest in Costa Rica, Vegas, which was a big thing in like early 90s. But it became like, when you go these places, you would see the same crews,

same crew from Chicago, same crew from Michigan, same crew from New York, getting money. Next thing you know, you could start going out to these places, less and less people start coming. You start hearing more and more people getting locked up. You know what I mean? And they did a number, especially in D.C., between 95 and 2000.

They really gentrified D.C., meaning that they really, what I was told when the, but from the feds is that Angelina, Angelina Jolie,

Brad Pitt, the Clintons, and somebody else, they didn't want me here. And I'm saying, man, they ain't no Washington. I'm saying,

Bill Clinton from Arkansas or something. Like, you know, he ain't no Washington. You don't get to say who. You know what I mean? And, they don't want you here.

I guess they have residency. some residents did. And the FBI agent told me that. He said, I'm going to get, he said, he told me you going to lock me up. I'm going to put you on an indictment and you're going to do a whole lot of time in prison. And the whole time I'm sitting there thinking, like, man, yeah, what up, dude? But that's what happened. So tell us about the day you actually got arrested.

So the day I got arrested, we were, I was promoting a group that I had. And I was, there was, I met this, I met this girl in D.C. who said she worked for a radio station in Pittsburgh. It was WAMO. And that she wanted to get my music on the radio station. And that, you know, it's not like, this is late 90s, 2000. This ain't like now. Like now we can hop on the Zoom.

You know what I mean? Other ways to do business. Back then, you had to go see the person. So I'm going to go up there and see the person taking my demo. You know what I mean? we sit down and talk about what songs he going to play why I need him to play these songs and um

on the way up there my my buddy had just bought a Ford Mustang GT and we were in Somerset, Pennsylvania and I guess the police seen two black guys and a brand new Ford Mustang GT and he

pulled aside this look he stopped and got right behind us. And I got locked up that same day. I had a warrant. Of course, I had indictment had already came down. Federal indictment came down. So I had a warn out for my arrest. And this is crazy because this is crazy. So the state troopers barracks that they took me to had just gotten the computer that checks for federal warrants. They just got it. I'm talking about it's three days old, and I get pulled over.

The NCIC wouldn't have never showed I had a federal warmth, but the actual federal warmth was, I don't know, it was, it was like a divine, you know what I'm saying? It was like it was meant for me to go to prison. And I went to a prison in Somerset. Then I went to a prison, I went to jail in Somerset, and they moved me to a jail in Johnstown. Then they put me on a flight to Atlanta, Georgia, for their holdover. I was there for a month.

They took me to Roanoke, Virginia, and then they sent me to Charlottesville with my case. And what was the final indictment? What was on it? What were the charges? Right. A one count indictment. Oh, just one count?

That's not really like the feds. That's what I'm trying to tell you. For 50 grams of more crack. When I saw that last, I said, 50 grams, I said, I got the wrong. You know what I mean? I'm not coming out of my house unless this is a half out, I mean, half a brick, a couple bricks. I'm not coming out for 50 grams, not even two ounces. So I said, they got conspiracy to sell 50 grams.

I'm thinking it's like the state. But this is 50 grams of more was used in so many cases. and what it did, it set the statutory maximum, the minimum at 10 and the maximum at life. For that, for that amount? For me and you to conspire your 50 grams of crack because crack was 100 to 1. So one gram of crack was equal to 100 grams of cocaine.

So it was like, that's what the indictment read. That was the punishment for it. started you off at a minimum of 10 and had you at a maximum of life once they find you guilty then they take you the sentence and I don't know if I don't know if I see anybody on your show say this

they take you the sentencing and that's when the real time comes in so they'll give you a pretrial indictment I mean I pre-trial PSR and you'll see oh I'm on facing 12 to 15 years for this offense

and then they'll give you a post-trial and your post-trial And your post trial is looking like Mine looked like this 50 grams of more of conspiracy Right crack for conspiracy But then I had enhancements for 205 kilos

A machine gun Obstructuring of justice because I said I sold powder And I didn't sell crack Which was the actual truth And hold on Um instruction adjustment was the same And I was the plug so I got a two Two level enhancement for being a plug

So my sentence went from 12 to 15 years to mandatory life. So do you plead out or do you go to trial? Yeah, I went to trial. Again, you go to trial, okay. They didn't even offer me a plea. In my case, they ain't even come to me and ask me to tell them nobody. I was the target. But you had co-defendants.

I had 42 of them. I had 42 co-defendants. And they all got charged with conspiracy, just the one count? Yeah, so what they did is they went into an area. in Virginia, and they indicted the whole area. And anybody in that area who sold drugs in that area were part of that same conspiracy. Even if you're going to know each other, it's the way the conspiracy language is the way that it is. So I can have 42 people on one conspiracy and don't none of them know each other.

And by law, that's legal. Now, do any of them testify against you? Yeah, nine people. Were those the only people you knew out of the case? So, oh, man. You asked some good questions. So I knew one person. Which was your brother?

He had already played guilty. He wasn't even at trial with me. Okay. People that came to testify against me. I knew one person. And the rest of the people, me and you have talked longer than I ever talked to them. So just think about this. I'm selling drugs and let's say me and you selling drugs and Mac the plug.

How are we going to meet the plug? Right? We can't just walk up to Matt and say, hey, we want to buy drugs from me. So why would I allow somebody that you're dealing with to walk up to me and talk to me? That's not how that work. You can't walk up and just talk to anybody in your job like that, right? You got a boss, you know, the CEO comes down. You don't come up to their CEO and say, hey, CEO. But that's how they make it to the jury.

Like, anybody can come up to you, and since you're a drug dealer, you're going to sell them drugs. Like, if your guy came up to me, I wouldn't deal with you no more. You know what I mean? Like, like Ian, that's your guy. You know what I mean? Why is he coming to talk to me about anything? I don't care about girls, about his mom, but I don't care. I don't know this guy.

That you know this guy. That's your guy. I came to deal with you. And it's the reason why I really didn't deal with people face to face. You know what I mean? It's the reason why I sent other people to go deal with people. I thought I was being, you know. So in my trial, they stated that the reason why they didn't have any cooperating evidence,

is because I dealt with everybody singular and I never physically gave drugs to him. It's in my transcript. It just don't make no sense. They had me like almost a mastermind. Like, oh yeah, he physically didn't deal with you. And the reason why it didn't corroborate because they were lying.

You know what I mean? I had one guy that I sold a cord of key to, a powder cocaine to buy a jet ski and a Honda Corps for my son's bomb so I paid nine ounces for it powder he got mad because he didn't know how to cook the powder

in the crack he wanted me to show him how to do it so I said yeah for extra $25,000 I'll show you that's not how I went to trial when it came to trial oh that was all cracked and he was buying a quarter key from me every three days for six months. I don't even know this guy.

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I don't even know this guy, but that's why it doesn't corroborate because it's a lie. Now, whenever someone takes a plea deal on a big indictment like that, is that used against you, too, at trial? Like, did this is a prosecutor say, oh, someone else on the indictment pled guilty to selling drugs, so he's selling drugs? Yeah, so for prison, that's a good, that's a good. That's a, that's the number one question. because a lot of dudes say they're not snitches, and they don't tell,

and a lot of older school guys. And not just a lot of mafia guys were really on this. But they used to take mafia indictments. So to answer your question, the law changed. They can't use your plea agreement against me anymore. They used to be able to do it in law. When they could do it in law, then a lot of people who took pleas on conspiracies were considered rats.

Because then they could use your, that law changed. It changed, I want to say, early 2000s, where they couldn't use that anymore. A lot of Italian guys that were with me up, USP Lewisbury got out on that. And they went home on that because they had used other people's plea agreements

in their cases to, you know what I mean, to get them, you know, to get a guilty verdict. So no, but legally, no, they can't use it against you. from an intelligence point of, yeah, they can use against you. Yeah, I'm saying, if I'm saying, I'm trying to tell you, I'm innocent. I'm like, man, Ian already said you're guilty. You know what I'm saying? That I never come out at trial.

It never come out in the transcript. But, you know. It's inferred, yeah. It's definitely inferred. You know what I took a plea, you know, there is no plea. Like, one, it's a case called Alfred, but it's a plea where I just plead to the crime and not the time, meaning that I'm just going to plea out because I like the time that's coming with this plea.

There's very little of that in the feds. So if a guy did that, it would be different than somebody else playing out. But it's a lot of old school guys. A lot of old school guys that think that people are rats because they took a plea. But 97% of cases in the feds are pleas. 97% so everybody please out, basically. The ones that take the trial, you get a greater penalty. And that's it.

So you lose a trial and you get sentenced, how much time? Life. Oh, they give you life in prison. Mandatory life. I couldn't believe it. When I seen it on my PSR, I thought it was just like, you know, the state they come in and say, man, you're facing 150 years. You'd be like, oh, you know what I mean? But they're not even going.

You get a good lawyer, you're good. In the feds, you can get who. You can get Jesus Christ to represent you. You see if people, you know, Mr. Stewart got six months. You know what I mean? She's worth $600 million. What lawyer, what law firm you think representing her? You know what I mean?

So all that trying to buy a good lawyer to get, that that's not going to happen in the feds. You're going to get found guilty. You've seen what happened to just recently. But puffed at it. Got off a couple, couple of you. You're not going to beat the whole in the whole. type, just ain't.

So I didn't think I was going to get life. When they gave me life, it's crazy. Everybody in the courtroom almost fell out. So I was like one of the second, like the second person to get life for selling drills with no violence, nothing in their case. In Charlottesville, Virginia. And it gave me life. And then he asked me in, where did I want to do it at? Like he was just very not.

What? Yeah, yeah. I'm sending you to life. Yeah, where do you want to do that at? You know, and I always tell myself, I miss my opportunity to say, I want to do it at your house. But, yeah, I went to, yeah, I went to prison, had life sentenced at 27 years old. So by that point, you know, when it's at sentencing and you know you already got life, is sentencing just a formality at that point in your mind? like it doesn't have the same emotional impact for you?

No, it hit me. And I know the guys get on here. And people, and I said it in my mind too, right? They get, and they talk to us. Never trust anybody who got a life sentence that said that they just ate the life sentence. Don't ever trust nobody like that. They're lying.

When you get a life sentence, the people who aren't in the streets who care about you are going to tell you to tell you. They're going to tell you to tell on whoever you got to tell on because life and affairs, you don't come back from you die. And it doesn't get real until you get to a place like I did in USP, Lewisburg, and I look out there's a cemetery out there. So all the people who did daytime and didn't finish daytime,

they got putting the ground back out there. And your family got a fight to get your body back. People don't know that. So the first thing I did when I got life, when I got life, I was numb. I couldn't believe I had life. I was like, I, and I was just like, man, I'm not going to accept this. You know what I mean? I'm not going to accept me having life.

Even though I got life, I'm not going to accept it. That's my first thing. The, man, the marshals, when I got back, they said, man, this guy, he said, man, do you trust you a lawyer? I said, no. He just like, um, said, don't nobody in this court house trust him. she ended up getting disbarred she stole my Rolex so when I got locked up I think one of the reasons I got locked up is because I had a I had a Rolex a oyster perpetual but I got it iced out but even Rolex diamonds though you know what they was doing it was right chopped up right

and uh but it looked it looked apart and uh when the police had it pulled this over I had a jacket on. And for some reason, you know how your wrist get caught. My wrist was caught under it. So when he get pulled over, the first thing that was shot in this, he was, when he's seen that, he was like, oh, no, I'm on them. You know what I mean? So when they took my stuff, I think I had like $200 some odd in my pocket,

had my watch. She took all of that. They gave it to the marshals. When the marshals gave it to her, she never put it in my property. Not the money, not the watch, not nothing. And the actual marshal say, do you trust her? Like this, no, he said, man, you need to get up. You need to go up to that prison, get in the law library, and give this time back.

That's what he said. He was hurt. And that's, I was like, damn. Like, I felt, you felt other people's pain. When I came back into my unit, everybody started crying in. No, every single person in there was crying. Every single person. I didn't even make it to my cell before one of the deputies

that was back and forth in the jail. Dean, that's his name, Dean. He came to me and said, come here, come here, Van, Pierre. He's like, this man, listen, at the time, there was a Sesquahana serial killer in the same block as me. He was like, man. He liked the redskins of commanders like I did.

And so we used to talk all the time. So he was like, man, listen, give me any information about this dude. And they told me they'll get your life sentence. Just like that. And I'm sitting there saying like, mind that. You know, for me, I can't take another, I can't put enough, what I'm going through, and I'm going to put that on another man. You know what I mean?

You got to answer that for yourself. So for me, if it's, it's true. crazy because when I talk to my dad about this, my dad, again, straight-laced guy. He a deacon in the church, high up in the government, work for the State Department, some top secret stuff. I don't even know where he'd be at that a lot, a lot of time when I was younger. Straight lace, right? Black Republican back then. You know what I mean? Like, ultra-conservative, this dude. You know what he told me? He said, man, when you start playing baseball, you can't want to play football when things go bad.

That was his advice to me. You know, my mom is like, man, I don't know how you can sell drugs and I don't know how you can do all this stuff and get all this time and don't tell on nobody. I tell on everybody. You know what I mean? So for guys that say that they're not, they don't have people around them that care about them

and love them and wasn't telling them to tell. But I can't believe that that's true. You know what I'm saying? Because you have to have somebody around you that have to be in the street and have to have to subscribe to. what guys call emeritus

is really not old murta because you don't want to you know but you know just keep your mouth shut you know so where did they send you first after you got life

to Louisburg penitentiary um when when we pulled up to the penitentiary it looked like an old castle I think it's over 100 years

old now like an old castle and I heard stories when I was younger Al Capone been in here like you know all these guys been in here and John Gotti was in there

like it's like what? And then welcome to the big house on there. So in the back of the day, I'm going to see you to the big house. I'm like, I'm going to the big house for real, like the real big house. And everybody on the bus was scared. Everybody.

I'm talking about they were north. Oh, who going here? Who getting off? I mean, I can't go here. My kids, my kids can't see me, can't come to a place like that. And snowing in here. Like, they were scared. It's these huge walls. It's a castle. It feels like, you know, once you're going there, you're never coming out.

It just feels, looks like it. And they sent me there. When I got there, a guy I was talking to was another, it was a white guy. I was talking to the whole time I was up there. He had been incarcerated inside a penitentiary. And he was just telling me like the ends up. He said, now, listen, when we get off this bus, I can't say nothing to you. What I'm saying?

Well, why that? You know, you're just my tour guy. Like, I need to know. Like, you know, white and black people can't talk to each other in prison. And I'm like, man, this is 2,000. What is it? They say the 60s or the 70, what are you talking about?

It was real. So when I get in there, my first day in there, it was my first night. We go back in the sales, and I want to say the hold over the shoe was, it wasn't C block,

it was A block. in um in louisbourg and when i go in there louisberg is unlike these newer newer jails i don't know how fort dix was or danberry but this but it's one this old school it's it's one tier and then you go up the steps and then you want another tier and you can't look down to the other tier so when you're on one tier you just on one tier um they had these old clangy doors like, you know, make it like you were in the submarine. Like, you know, them told them, I hate, though.

I'd rather have bars than those doors. Man. And the dude pulled the lever back and the doors closed. I'm like, man, where am I at? And I get in there and I got my hands. I could touch the walls and my celly. He had done time in the, he came in with me, you know, on the same load as I did.

And he did time in Virginia. And he was telling me. He was like, man, look, you know, when you get here, you want to do X-Y, this is how it is. I don't know how it is in the feds. While he's talking to me, I get a note slid under the door. So somebody come over to vent and say, hey, I got a message for both of you guys. Where y'all from? So I'm like, the guy say, excuse me, he's from New York.

He was like, I'm from New York and he's from Virginia because my case was out of Virginia. And I said, I'm not from Virginia, from D.C. Like, oh, I, okay, I'll be back. So open up the envelopes and there were two kites, two letters. One letter to him from guys from New York. So the dude already knew.

And another letter from guys from D.C. for me. I just walked into block. And they was like, We expected some homies to come. Which one are you? You know what I mean? So I write my name down on it, my street name. You know what I mean?

Boom. Send it back up there to him. I get an envelope. No, this is for you. I get an envelope. It's a knife. Yeah. And it's copper.

And it's like a pick. It's a knife. And said, man, you know, we wait for you to come. When you, they probably send you to J-block. When you get down the J block, holl at the homie, nail the, like they give me all these instructions and we at war with the niatus.

Neatis, I'm like, what? You got war with that. So I'm in here, my first day in prison, I get a knife. I ain't been here six hours. I get a knife in an envelope telling me, don't worry, it'll go through the metal detectors. And then I get instruction from the vent

on how I get on the comment. Because back then, they didn't let you on a compound. You had to actually, this early 2000s, you had to actually, it was called Quay. I had to actually sell myself to a parole board to get on the compound. So I had to go up there and answer all the questions, right? Take your shirt off. They want to see all your tattoos. If you're running with somebody, if you're affiliated, they read your case to you.

And when they read my case, it was like, you got a conspiracy, but you didn't have any trails in your case. You didn't have no, because I had no, I had no phone. taps, no wiretaps, no money, no drugs, no pictures of me and these guys together. Not nothing. Just testimony that I saw them drugs. And it was like, man, what happened? I said, well, some dudes got up there. They got busted.

And the DEA wanted to knock me off. So they asked these dudes to testify against me. And they did. And they said all the drugs they got knocked off with, they came from me. And my counselor is like, son of a bitch, you can't trust anybody. Like, damn, he made? I mean, I'll take them. And that's how I got on the compound.

I got out of A block, which was like the shoe. And I walked through the metal detector because they told me I had to my knife. I want to see if this knife really, I'm thinking I'm going right back to the shoe. So when I walked through the metal detector, the dude said, what, you've been here before? I'm like, this. Nah. He said, you know what J Block got? know. He's like, it's at the end of the hall. So I walk. Pass over top of the infamous red top.

And you got anybody else from USP Lewisburg asking about the red top. Infamous red top, I go on cell side. That's what they call it. I go on the sale side. I go down the J block and I go to my cell and lo and behold, my cellie is the guy Nellty. I'm posing me. So he asked me. He said, man, hey, you went here and full home, this, that, you know, we had war with the neathas. Another one of my homie, Sean Branch, he just, you know, they just did something on the yard because of it is. I'm like, man, it's crazy. And, and, um, how much time you

get? I said, I got life. I thought he was going to be like, damn. Like, you know what I mean? He was like, how many life sentences you get? I said, I got one. Oh, man, you good. And he started calling people to the sale. This person got two life sentences. This person got three licenses. This person got 13 life sentences. I got 300 years. And what's crazy in is all the people I just named just, they're home there.

Because laws change. They were all there for drug charges. Drug trafficking or they got over-sentence due to something like, at one time in D. D.C. They had this thing that was started by Hillary Clinton. where she was going to go after child predators. So now anybody, they should call a super president. 16 and 17 years old, they were Title 16 in D.C. as adults.

So now you were taking a child and charging them as adult and then giving them adult time. So a lot of people got back based on that. Now, these guys, you're running with that approach you that slid the knife under your door, it's at the D.C. car? That's a DC car. And that's when I learned about the cars. I said they didn't know about no car. I just knew that this guy was from D.C.

I was from D.C. I went to Child Hall that day. I just seen this just now in one of your, what's names? I went to the Child Hall that day. And the Child Hall is, if you ever seen Goodfellas, the Child Hall is the visiting room in Goodfellers. Because Goodfellers was in USP Lewisburg. So when you see the scene about the visiting room,

that's really the Child Hall now back then for what's the name? it was the living in a living when you sell drill you don't want a lot of people around you I didn't go a lot of places because you could get hurt kidnapped shot killed having that many people around me at one time oh it gave me anxiety and it didn't look like it was any order to it was guys rushing to put their trays away and putting their silverware and it was milk machines and juice machines. It was this huge. I'm talking about a huge child.

I mean, it was huge. It's the biggest child I ever seen. It is crazy huge. It got three separate sections and I'm looking at all this, what's the name? I'm saying, the police walk. I'm like, man, what is going on?

Bro, just to eat? And I went and got my tray and I sat down in the wrong section. I sat in the New York section. And I pulled me sitting in the D.C. section. This is what I learned about the cars. And this got me like, my second day there.

So nobody told me when I'm with the child that I had to sit in the D.C. section and where that was at. And then nobody didn't know me. So they're just like, what are you doing? I sat down in New York session. And the New York dude came up to me. T. He was like, where are you from?

And I'm like, I'm not asking no questions. Where I'm from? Why? You know what I mean? So the guy out, I was in the whole way. He was out. He's from New York. He's like, oh, I know him. He's from Virginia.

I keep telling you I'm not from Virginia, dude. You know what I'm saying? I'm from D.C. So I tell him, I'm saying, I'm from D.C. So the dude says, oh, no, D.C. do sit down that joint. I'm like, okay. I wasn't going to move. I thought I was getting tested.

I wasn't going to move. I'm like, all right. So, D.L.N. No, you don't understand. So he walked down and got one of my homies down there. A guy named Tony Burgess. And Tony walked up and said, where are you from home?

I said, I'm from D. D.C. I said, man. he all right, he can sit down, we usually eat down here. You know what I'm saying? So when you could just trade next time, man, just come down and eat, eat down here. He talked to the dude and do something, yeah, you could go ahead and sit there, man, go ahead and finish eating. I was like, I'm going to finish eating anyway.

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Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. That's when I got school. I bought the cause, about everything. Did you witness anything there that lived up to the reputation that prison had that you were describing on the, coming in on the bus? Yeah, so I've seen some things,

but I think, I think the, the thing that I witnessed, like the most was that, the alpha male, like, like, let me get you saying. Like, let's say, let's say, let's say you walked out into the, into lobby and there's nothing but werewolves out there. And all of them like, like, you know, that would be to me more intimately, date than somebody, one of those actually grabbing you doing something to you.

Have I seen violence in there? A lot. A lot. A lot of violence. So one of the things I learned was how serious things can get, that every fight is a fight to the death has a potential to be the fight to fight to the death. You want to keep your circle as small as possible. Usually the most hate in the, in the most.

most deceitful things are going to come from your people inside your own car, your homies. And there's this super alpha. So just think, I'm in a maximum security prison, penitentiary, Lewisburg, all these alpha males in there. And there's a hierarchy to the alpha males. So it was some people that was so, like, like, I felt, I felt, one thing that I felt one time was that are real sexual predator, it's a feeling with that. There was a feeling

when this person used to get worked up. You could feel it like a beast. And you would have to just step to him. Like, dude, you need to either chill out or, and if he reacted in any type of way, you have to have your knife on him when you say it. You know what I mean? If he respect you, he may calm down.

but just to feel and not only that just to be around people who thought about hurting you all day long C-Os and who woke up every day training to hurt you um one of the craziest things that I saw in in in in in in Lewisburg um I seen a lot of people get stabbed and there's one nurse used to save I'm talking about I'm talking about punness like stab, stab, 12, 13 times, like, dogged out. And this lady used to save him. And she was like an angel. But we were working out downstairs.

And this is how the penitentiary is. It's totally different from a medium, totally different from a low. Anybody who did time in a penitentiary between 2000 and 2010, they couldn't operate in a medium or low. It would be extremely hard for them to do that. Most of them that got sent down there didn't want to go. And if they did get sent down, they got sent right back. And the reason being is that the penitentiary is so serious that what I learned is one day that people were dipping their knives in feces and having rusted knives so they could kill you.

So they can poison their knives. So when they stabs you, if you happen to survive the shots that they, and they study where to hit you at, and how to pull the knife, and it's not just somebody stabbing you. It's not like somebody cutting you like this. It's not like somebody's wrapping it to their hand, and because you got to have that joint wrapped to your hand because the blood going, because you're going and taking the person out. It was a very serious place. the penitentiary is a very very serious not a lot of games you know what I mean

there is some comic relief but it's tolerated but it's very it's very so one day we're working out in these these people are big on respect and if you if you and Matt work out at 8 o'clock at night and I work out in the daytime usually

I couldn't just come down at 8 o'clock and start working out that's disrespect to you I don't even have to know you and Matt. That's just disrespect. You ain't need to be down here. I would have to ask you to get in with you. Hey, can I work out with you guys? I don't usually be down.

I used to be in the morning. You're like, come on. We can work out with us. If I didn't do that, it'll be a problem. And it's a problem because there's a flow. So if I see people on a pull-up bar and there's three different sets of groups of people going on the pull-up bar, you can watch and see who goes first, who go next,

and you stay in line. Bro, this one Mexican dude ain't do that. And he didn't do that. he went up there and he got on there and he got back down and he went up there again and did it you know what I'm saying dude's like man I don't know who is this dude with like you know what I mean somebody need to get him you know what I'm so before you get hurt see somebody come over there and talk to him he went back up there and did it again when they called the bail because it's a 10 minute move they had that in them what's the name 10 minute move yep yeah okay 10 minute move so they had a 10 minute move and when they had a 10 minute move

nobody in that is crazy. This is the crazy. This is, I don't know if you ever heard this before. In the penitentiary, it's a person that's going to get stabbed. And everybody else knows except for that person. So that's an anomaly. But nobody moved to go out on a 10-minute move. So when nobody moves, we don't move.

Because you know something going to happen. So when nobody moved, the lady cut the lights out and said, everybody got to get out. and it was like somebody was what they were doing is when you go up the steps it was like a little lip and they were kicking this dude head

I can't it was some somebody had to think about this some diabolical kicking this dude head and it sounded like a vase cracking blocker blocker and it was just

I'm talking about this dude had to be dead they were kicking his head and I was just like they didn't want to stab him They wanted to show everybody that they, you know what they do to people who disrespect. It was one of the, like, one of the most graphic things I had to walk past and see and just the sound when I hear it now. This man, school was cracking and you can hear it. It was crazy.

How far into your sentence were you when you gave back life? 19 years. 19 years. Oh, so when you got life back, you were released right away. way. So it took me like, I think it's seven to eight months to be released. Okay. And how many different prisons over those 19 years were you in? Just three. All penitentiaries? Because you had life. No, USP Lewisburg, they closed it down and made it to shoot. Excuse me, the smooth. That's when I got shipped to Canaan. And then I got snuck out of Canaan. That's what she told me. But my unit team

didn't want to put me in a lower facility, even though my points called for it. So I got a one-count indictment, non-violent crime. It's a conspiracy. It doesn't carry a whole lot of points, but I had life. So my points were saying that I need to be in the medium, but my charges were saying that I need to stay right here in the penitentiary.

And my unit team was telling me that you're never going. to the to a medium you know i mean you're never going there and um to my benefit he got into it with my counselor and my counselor was transferring and despite him she said i'm going to ship you to a medium oh so you got to a medium yes i got the school keep uh for your so you can have life in a medium security prison yeah that's got to be a lot cushier wait it was like night and day yeah describe that difference so you don't know how much you miss trees So, and I'm talking about specifically from Lewisburg, because Canaan, you can see the, like, the trees and the grass and stuff like, but in Lewisburg, it's a wall. It's a fence.

And then there's a big wall and there's towers. You forget how cars look, how trees look, you know what I mean? You forget small things like that. And it has a profound effect on you. Then there's no wall. You can see people coming and going to work. You get what I'm saying? makes you feel like you're a part more, you know, part of society.

They had night yard. You know what I mean? I'm like, well, y'all are you? I'm saying, that's not happening. And even though I heard it happened in other penitentiaries, that ain't happening in Louisbourg. Yeah, I had no yard at no night. You know what I mean?

So it made you feel freer. It was less a lot of things. But then K2 came and they tightened everything back up. What were the biggest politic changes between penitentiary? And a medium? It's pretty much. The politics were made up in the medium. What do you mean by made up?

In the penitentiary, there's real politics. If you do this, this happens. If this happen, this happens. You can't do this. You know, in the medium, it's made up. That's end. You know what I mean? You can do what you want to do.

You know what I mean? In the penitentiary, I don't care who you are. And I was in there with Willie Falcone, the Cali Cartel, the head of the boss of the Cali Cartel. I was in there with all types of guys. You know what I'm saying? They didn't care who you were. They didn't care who you were, what you did.

If you crossed the line, they were going to bust you. You know what I mean? In the medium, no, it's not like that. It's a lot more relaxed. You can cook in the medium, right? So you got guys that got... What's those things do you put in the water? Stinger.

Ain't no stingers in the penitential? No, I'm using that metal for a knife. You know what I mean? I'm not even trying to get caught with the stinger because where I got my stinger, I got my knife at. I'm not trying to get caught with that. For what?

You know what I mean? Like, it's none of that. There's no cooking on no death. There's none of no cooking on no what's the name. It might have changed now. When I was there, it wasn't none of that because why would I have a stinger? If somebody had a stinger inside the unit

and if somebody probably did, it was put up by somebody like in CMS or something. You know what I mean? and then they would bring it out. You know what I mean? But it wasn't like how everybody that's go buy a stinger and then you thought, no, no, right.

What about commissary? Did it change it all or is it the same between the penitentiary and the medium? Yeah, so it changed while I was in prison as well because they went to a whole new system. The old system was great.

The old system was the person that was doing your food and your commissary. They would go talk to independent vendors. You can pretty much get what you want in your prison. Then they got, then they changed it all up. But the conference,

Commissary in the USP is for lockdown. So I shop different at commissary. So I got to have a lockdown bag because we're going to go. We're going to get locked down. I got to have a lockdown bag. And you might not have certain things like ice creams. You know, little ice creams they sell.

And people buy up everything. So it made a new stock of, let's say, Cheetos come in. And when you go to the store, even though this came in yesterday, ain't nothing. You know what I mean? Because the people already put their bed in, you know, on the compound, they get as many bags of Cheetos. Usually dudes that own stores and stuff like that. In the medium, it's not like that.

Dudes aren't on it like that. You know what I mean? It was just, it's totally different. Even though I came from a good food spot in Lewisburg and USP Cane and the food was always either cold or warm. Now, what's a lockdown bag for the audience to understand? A lockdown bag is when you put soups, probably some chips that you can melt down in the soups,

some fish, like ready-made stuff so that if you stay on lockdown for more than a week or a week or two, or sometimes a month, you will still have food other than those cold, solid boxes that they, baloney and cheese, or it looked like baloney and cheese, that they have, and they're going to give to you. So, yeah, so, so you can have something other than a brown box with bread that I don't think that's really bread.

That bologna, that you can see the color that they put in it, and the cheese is not really, you know, and those cookies that taste horrible. Now, 19 years in to your prison sentence, What happens? So in the Trump passes, Trump makes retroactive the first step back. It was previously called a Fair Sentencing Act, FSA. Obama brought it out in 2010.

Jeff Sessions, Sue Sponte, comes up and says, hey, I'll give you up a down vote right now a day. I'll pass your bill, but it can't be retroactive. We'll make it retroactive in the guidelines. And Obama, you know, made that deal. So his fair sentencing act wasn't retroactive. Trump comes along later on and makes it, parts of it, retroactive. Now, don't make the whole thing. But just parts of it retroactive.

When they did that, it gave my judge a chance. to go back and look at my sentence and determine if he wanted to give me life again because I was still in the life at 20 and 5 kilos if I still if I if I if he still wanted to give me life again and I believe it was it was because of me learning the law and him seeing that and him knowing by my legal filings

that that I definitely he had changed. I can't tell you how I know that, but he could have gave me life. He didn't. He gave me 22 years. He could have gave me life again. Oh, he could have.

So the guidelines didn't change then. It still would have been life regardless. It's 205 kilos, yeah. So all that did was allow the judge to revisit it? That's it. Yeah, and prior to that. Oh, because before was mandatory. Right.

But he could still give life on the new, gosh, that makes sense. He could have gave me life and he didn't. You know what I mean? And I wrote him a letter just recently thanking him. You know what I mean? Now, at the time of that hearing or however it goes, do you have a lot of incident reports on your record? What did your prison file look like? No, so I was the proverbial jailhouse lawyers, but I got the audit-winning litigation in my book.

I was a, I was, when I first came in prison, they still had a Pell Grant program. A guy, Mankan Norwood, very known in the federal system. jailhouse lawyer he's very known very popular he taught me law the professor took a liking to him

he was already like he's one of those guys that you come down to laundry he remember your name and your number for everybody that's in there like this dude had a phenomenal mind he taught he made a curriculum taught it to me

and then I taught that curriculum to other people for eight years in USP Lewisburg. So when I got, when I went, when I went up for this, this new sentence, the actual attorney who helped me, actual attorney who helped me is a professor now at UVA and I talked to her a law class, but I had asked her to get me 30 years.

And she was just like, now I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you out. You know what I mean? I'm going to ask for time, sir. And I'm just like, man, don't do that. You know what I'm saying? My judge's crazy.

This, that and the other. Don't do that. And she's like, no, I'm going to ask for time, sir. I'll say, no, I'm asking for 30 years. You'll make them mad. And I was basing that off of all the years I've been fighting. You know what I mean?

Helping guys out. And being a jailhouse lawyer and helping guys out, I got past this. I'm in totally honest with you. A lot of guys didn't let guys, you know, jump out there with me because I was helping a lot of people come home. Now, were there incidents? Yeah, you're not going to go through prison.

I don't have an incident. You're not going to have that. One of the craziest incidences that I had was in Canaan from a guy I thought that was my friend, right? And you don't really have friends in it. in prison, right? But I thought this guy mean, this guy was cool. So I helped this guy get in contact with somebody out when they was doing all those urban novels. I knew somebody that was helping people publish them independently. I just hooked them up. And they're the ones that

help me with the book. They published independently published my book to auto-win litigation. So they were trying to change words in my book. So we were going to back and forth because my book is like it's made for you to follow it so you can help you get out of prison if you don't know the law. It's my winning philosophy. It's not about law. It's my philosophy about how you win a legal case. So this guy knew I was in I was in talks with them and going through some things with them. And the people that he had over here in his ear who don't get nothing because you were in prison, was telling them, I'm really talking to them about stealing his book,

a urban dog. It was crazy. They convinced this guy this. I don't know how. So he comes in myself one more. Like, you talk to him people? I'm like, no, I haven't talked to him. I told y'all I'm beefing with him.

You know what I haven't talked to him. He's like, yeah, well, I talked to him another day. I'm like, that's good. You know what I mean? As long as y'all straight, I'm cool. Because, you know, when you vouch for somebody in prison, that's a big thing. You know what I'm saying?

So if I'm vouching for you, Ian, and you got a, and you're, in your, um, and your independently publishing books, that's a big deal. If you do him wrong, I'm on the hook for it. So, so he, um, so he was like this man, um, he walked, he walked out the sale. I could tell from his demeanor that something was wrong. So let me go and put my shoes on, man, because I don't know what's up with this dude, because he, I don't know what's going on with him. So he come back and like, man, you knew you vouch for them people.

So now I'm like this man, now you're questioning my integrity. Now I took it like he was to question my character. Like, what? And I'm like this man, man, close my door. You know what I mean? Because if I vouch for him, we don't need to talk about that no more. They're good. So then he comes, he leaves and he comes back and he puts his hand in his pocket like this, man.

Is something wrong with them? Man, I'm going to stab you up. So once I tell you that, you can't let them leave yourself. The dumbest thing I ever did in my life, Ian. The dumbest thing I ever did in my life. And, um, my celly at the time, I think he was trying to stop it.

I don't know what happened. I think he was trying to stop it. But then he runs out the, he ran out to sell, I guess they'd get the rest of the homies try to stop it. I don't know what happened. But this dude came in there and like he had a knife and me and him got to fighting.

And I'm fighting to get the knife out his pocket before he pulls it out and tried to stab me, and I end up getting a hold of a knife. This is crazy. Get a hold of the knife. I use his leverage to bend them over the toilet, like push him over the toilet.

And when I did that, instead of doing what you pose to do, we'd just stab him all the way up, I kind of calmed him down, was talking to him, and gave a knife back to him. Yeah. And, um,

me and him sat there and talked and we got everything like off, you know what I mean? And it was like, wow, this was going on at the same time I was up for commutation. Obama was doing all those commutations. I was up for commutation. So this happened while that was going on. And I'm just like, man, bro,

it's like, it's like a force trying to keep me in prison. Like, you know what I mean? It's like something that wants to kill me. You know what I'm saying? Because why was somebody close to me knowing what I'm going through, right, with the publisher, have some people that don't know what's going on, talk them into thinking something that's not even true.

And then you come at me with a knife. It just seemed like, it just seemed like something evil. So you ended up, what, going to the shoe for that? No. Listen, that's even crazy. And I was up for, remember I was telling you, the lady was trying to smuggle me out of jail? Yeah.

I was up. My transfer was in. Ah. By the, my computation there, and my transfer was in. Oh, so that could have messed up your whole medium. Man. So the, um, The CEO that was there.

He came to schoolkill. He got transferred to school kill. He got a better position. And he, and one day he came in my cell, and he was like, hey, why you and that guy was fighting?

You know what I'm saying? He said, I knew you had control of it. And I'm saying, I'm saying, I don't know why you thought that. I know you had control of it, man. I ain't want to ruin your transfer, man. I don't want to let you know that I knew that.

What y'all was fighting on? But man, and then he was like, man, ho, ho. Was it because he's the ass home? Like, yeah, it is. You know what I mean? The dude was just a straight, you know, he didn't get in stand down Atlanta. You know what I mean? It's just, you got these guys that just, you know what I mean, real emotional.

You can't be emotional like that in the penitentiary. You can't follow your emotions. You can't work out of emotions. I see a lot of younger kids, like when they were coming in in the medium. They were like real emotional. And I'm like, bro, you know, you, if what you're about to get into? right? It's going to send you to the penitentiary

and when you get there you're not going to be able to do act like this at all. How did it feel to get back life? Man. Having life you physically feel like you're carrying around

a thousand pound gorilla. So that's the first feeling that leaves you. It actually felt like somebody climbed off my back. I felt lighter, right? Then you don't believe it.

You know? And then you start thinking about all your relationships. For me, it was my kids. Because I watched my kids grow up through pictures. When I left, my daughter was nine. It's 19 years later. My son was three. It's 19 years later.

His sister, who I was raising, 19 years later. She don't even remember, you know what I mean? When I, you know, the years I was in her life, you know what I mean? So, and knowing that I could never do that again, you know what I mean? It's not enough money in the world to do and have no life sentence. I don't care what nobody's safe. That is misery. And you've been to prison.

You know that is something different. It's a different type of. And my prison bit wasn't just all smooth. You know what I mean? I went to the smooth. You know, I was in some serious I seen police In the smooth slam people

Knocked their teeth out their mouth Shoot people Were rubble I've been in cages working out And the person next to me He's getting shot with a gun You know And so I've seen some stuff

And it's You have to survive mentally And one thing The guy Minka told me when I first got incarcerated He was like, man, listen I want you to do this. Every week, I want you to check your mental. If you, and see if you got better,

if you stayed the same or you got worse. And if you didn't get better, then you're in a world of trouble. That's exactly what he told me. So I used to try to make those mental checks on myself. You know what I mean? I got big into spirituality, reading dream books, you know what I mean,

learn about how your brain works, neuroscience and stuff like that, because your brain plays tricks on it. And it'll have you accepting things that you wouldn't necessarily accept. Tell us about that first day out of prison after 19 years, what that was like. So I got a buddy in mind who at the time, his Toctaw Company was doing pretty good. So I want to juxtapose this when I got out of jail in 95. So I got out of jail in 95 because I got exonerated from the tribe. My buddy picks me up. He got a convertible 300 Z, Nissan 300 ZX.

He got the TV that pops out the, I don't know if you want to remember. So the TV used to come out the, they had a disc. it transformed came out he had the trap in his car and I was like man this is some double 07 man what in the world I've only been gone for like 16 months

it changed this much and we used to drink Don Perriyan they weren't drinking they was drinking Christall so I'm just like hit a bottle of crystal and I'm like dude like you know what changed and I got out this time

my buddy had a tow truck company So he was locked up with me. He got out. He bought a tow truck with his last little bit of money, slept in his tow truck. But what he did is get good with dispatch. So the dispatch started giving him all the more lucrative jobs. He went from one tow truck.

And five years later, when I came home, he had 76 tow trucks. He had a truck that could tow other trucks. he really blew up. So when he came home and he picked me up, when we were driving, his phone is going off, like, chiming, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. And I was like, bro, what is that?

You know what I'm saying? He's like, every time there's a toe or something like that, my phone dinged. I'm like, it's been dinging off the hole. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, that's money. And when I was about to go into the halfway house, he pulled a bunch of credit cards out his part.

like this. And I'm saying, in 95 it was money. You know what I'm saying? Now we got credit cards. So one of the biggest things that when I first got out, I was I was really seeing like the difference in time. Things definitely changed from one way. A guy picking me up in a rental car who got a making $6 million a year from his company. You know what I mean? And then another guy was just selling drugs back in 95. You get what I'm saying? It was like it was totally different. I felt like my first day out,

I felt like it was a sign that, you know, that your life is different now. So I just kind of followed that sign. What was the first thing you ate? Oh, we went to, so we was going to the halfway house in D.C., Hope Village. And we stopped in Baltimore and ate at Sylvia,

I think it's called Miss something. It's right there on the wolf. And it was Eggs Benedict. Very boogie. Right. Eggs Benedict.

I want some eggs Benedict. Yep. And that's the first thing that I ate. What about your family? What happened with your parents? Your brother? What did that look like when you got home?

So my brother only got five years. And he did this time, came home. And again, I was telling you, like, I had thought for a long time that my indictment, even though they wanted me, even though they were listening, I felt like it got started because of him. Me and him fell out. So I don't know why, but we hadn't talked for like 10 years in my bit. We hadn't talked. Right before I came home, my nephew, who is playing football collegiically down, he was, he was, he was, his mom had reached out and said, you know,

hey, you know, your nephew's really good at playing football, this that, and the other man, when you get home, want to have you in his life and stuff like that. And my brother was dead. And that's the first time I got to talk to my brother in like 10 years. And, um, I, and my heart couldn't take, um, any more like anger or hold things against people.

I was just like, you know what, man. Family way more important than, you know what I'm saying, than mistakes. And everybody made a mistake. So to me and him, when he came home, man, he looked out for him. He was him and two of my other partners. Everybody else, nobody else did. The only other people that wanted to help me wanted to use me because I went to jail for life, and knew I could make some money.

I was going to shut up. You get what I'm saying? So I'm not going to do that. So I'm not, no, I know you got a condo and a truck for me. and, you know, I know what that comes with. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not being nobody else's scapegoat. You know, yeah.

And your parents? My parents were, so, so, so, my mom, my dad is, my dad, like he'd been in the penitentiary before. So I don't know what it is about this dude. You would think he did time. You don't really get advised.

You don't get him, like, one, emotionally one way or other. He's like real old school. My mom, when I, um, It's crazy because when I was waiting for the decision, I got on my call links, opened up my email, and a guy next to me was like, man, hey, I need you to help me with this right here because I told you, I was a jailhouse lawyer.

How should I word this? So I'm wording something for them, this, that, and the other, and I look over. He's like, man, go back because my call links was ticking. Let me go get you, and I did it, I looked back over, and I read something from my lawyer. And it said, you know, what's the name had granted your petition, this, that. Hold on.

Gave you 22 years and, and I'm saying, no, this, this, this, what? So I asked the guy, I said, man, read this for me. And when you read it for me, my head to sit down. And I got up and I was in the days. And the guy said, man, you had life. He didn't know, I was in the medium. You know what I mean? He didn't know why I had life.

He was like, you had life. He's like, this man, hey, this guy right here, this gave back his time. So when he said it, other people that knew me inside the unit, It was like, you get your time back? Hey, he got to use the phone. So everybody is making noise that I gave my time back. And I'm saying I'm numb. Like, it's like I'm in the days.

And I'm like, I got to call my mom. And my mom plays golf and she don't usually answer the phones. I'm going to call her. And I know she ain't going to answer from it. I got to try. I call her. She picks up. And I say, Mom, they gave my, I gave my time back.

She was like, what does that mean? I said, they took my life sentence back and gave me 22 years. Yeah, but what does that mean, though? And she was just like, that's all she kept saying. What does that? I don't understand what that means, Eric. Call me back when you can tell me what that. So I said, okay, Mom, so I walked outside.

The move was on. So I walked outside and I walked to the yard and I just stood there with three other guys that I was, you know, you walked the yard with. And they were just all. They were in awe. And I was in like, Man, I can't believe this. Man, it felt so good.

Is it hard to adjust to a new life where it's not that fast money that you're used to making, even though there was such a big time gap in between? Man. And I heard the other guy, Mitchell, was talking about this, man. It's like you lose a superpower. So I had an idea for a dice game. This is a good example. had an idea for a dice game.

And so I came with my own dice game. And I said, oh, man, I'm going to get this, you know, patented, if I can, this thing. I didn't know it costs all that money. You know what I mean? Oh, I'm going to get it developed. Didn't know what it cost all that money. You know what I'm saying? But I got my mind set on something, get it done.

But now you need the money to get it done. So now I got to go out and ask people for money, which is hurting my ego. You know what I mean? And I'm saying, I got an idea. Let me pitch this idea. That's what people in the real world do. You get an idea to pitch it.

You get an investment, right? Man, I'm going out here pitching this guy I did, and dudes are looking at me like I'm crazy, and people like, you know, second-guessing, and they don't want, you know, because everybody can't see your vision. And I start feeling like, like, man, I need to go do something. You know what I mean?

I can't, I can't do this. me going around asking people for money and giving people the privilege to tell me no. And so I was at, I was, um, we were in the MGM and, um, on the National Harbor. And my man, he got like a little private suite and the concert and stuff like that. So we were in there. And I was telling him how I felt. And Ian, he told me, he said, man, he said, that's your ego talking.

He said, you think Mark Zuckerberg cared, who told him no? until he got what he needed to get. He said, he knocked on as many doors he had. You know what I'm saying? To get what he wanted to get? He said, man, this is just how it will work. That's your ego talking. You know what I mean?

So it kind of brought me down to earth and thought, but it's very hard. The transition from prison to the real world's heart, vulnerability, small talk. You don't do no small talk in the street. You don't do small talk in the street. You don't do small talk in prison. That'll get you hurt. social settings,

Walmart, that was a huge thing for me when I came home. I couldn't go to Walmart, gave me too much anxiety. It was too many colors, too many little kids, too many people, too much disorder. You know what I mean? People with their carts and everything. It was just overwhelmed. It gave me so much anxiety, I couldn't even go in there. One of the biggest thing I had to do, I had to go talk to a therapist because

Ian, I tried to walk across, like, it's like, you ever been in a park, and they got like little bridges that connect from one side to another, and it goes over a little body of water. So I'm walking over one of those one time, and in the middle of it, I felt like, you know, in those dreams where you feel like you'll fall in so you get down to the ground and you feel like you're stuck, I did that in real life.

I couldn't move. I was so scared to be on that bridge. I was stuck. I felt like the bridge is going to fall, and I don't know what was going on. But I had, I had to get over bridges. And they get me some time today, bridges. I couldn't go over them.

I couldn't walk over them. I couldn't drive over them. I never had that problem before, right? I had got married when I got out. So that was an adjustment. Marriage in itself is an adjustment. but you come home from prison doing it. Oh, my gracious.

And having somebody that love and care about you that don't know what you're going through and don't know how to help you and they're trying, that's some serious stuff. The penitentiary message you up. You think a certain type of way in the penitentiary. And when you come home after doing all that time to me, it's different from,

because I don't did 16 months before waiting, trial nine months before. And I kind of, I guess I know you had a three, you had a three year bid. I don't know if you did the whole three years or not, but three years and 19 years is a significant difference when you, when it conditions you institutionally. And I'm saying that to say that somebody coming home from 40 years to me is way more institutionalized than I am at 19 years and I'm institutionalized where you get out a prison and for 18 months, I couldn't walk to the shower without my shoes on. Like I couldn't, I wouldn't walk to the shower without no shoes on.

You know what I mean? I wasn't doing that in my own house. You know what I mean? I couldn't watch TV without positioning myself at the door and, you know, and my wife at the time was like, man, dude. Like, you know what I mean? Like, wanting to do small things. Like, it's 1 o'clock in the morning.

Let me go outside because I've never been outside than 1 o'clock in the morning almost 20 years. You know what I mean? and needing your time to think, right? Because not everybody can find success when he leave prison. Like you saying, like I watched you. You say you was on a grocery store, but people really didn't know you can come up in the grocery store, right?

And now everybody can figure those small things out. everything everybody has to uh has to i got a friend so his name billy lightfoot he was on he's supposed to been a been on my case and me and him had a falling out because he was just doing too much he's buying jaguars and lexas he was doing way to bring it too much attention to himself and he had went um and me and him split apart he was just too he was too high profile too turned up for me that's not me He goes in New York thinking he could solve his problems, get into something. A murder, a murder and an attempt to murder. He did 25 years not being from New York in the New York system.

He just came home. And he is struggling mentally. He straight called me during the Christmas holiday struggling mentally. And I thought that took a whole lot of courage because a lot of guys don't do that. I'll call a lot of guys and be like, hey, man, make sure you, you know, because when you come home, man, you're on one of this and I'm all right.

So could you sleep when you first came home? Yeah, I was good. I wasn't. You know what I mean? You did more time than me. How are you good? Tell me your secret because when I first got out of prison, the first two days I was out of prison,

I didn't sleep. I think I slept two hours and two hours. That was it. I could barely eat. You know, it took me like almost a month before I could actually get a regular eight hours to sleep. That's for me coming home from prison. And till this day, you know, you got, I don't go a month without not being able to sleep eight hours because of me having dreams. Either I was in prison or I'm getting out of prison or something about prison, you know.

How have you been able to rebuild your life since coming home? What does your life look like now? So I had made a promise to my godmother that I wasn't going to sell drugs anymore. She had wrote me a letter. I told her that. I told her that I wasn't going to sell drugs. And if I ever did sell drugs, I would disappear. I mean, I don't see how you can make, I don't see why you would take the risk of selling drugs

living inside the United States. I don't know why you would do that. Because they give you, they give you so much time. You know what I mean? So you have a four or five year run. You make all this money. So what?

Then you get 30 years. I'm 52. 30 years. There's no more 30-year bits. Yeah, that million dollars in a year doesn't make sense over the 30. My dad said that. My dad said that.

So, um, um, so the first thing I did say, you know what? And I started while I was in prison. I need to change who I am. Because if all my best decisions got me a life sentence at 27 years old,

I'm making the wrong decisions. So I started in prison changing, changing my mentality, changing my wisdom. One of the things that helped me change, and it's crazy, is that I saw Miguel Rodriguez washing dishes, and that's the head of the Cali cartel, him and his brother, right? Me was on the same tier, me and him used to talk.

He didn't speak English, but I was talking. is a little interpretive, but the slop sink was right across from my sale. And one day I saw him washing dishes in the same slot sink that I washed dishes in, brushing his teeth in the same slop sink that I was, and I knew then. This is a cocaine god. You know what I mean? Yeah, these two billions of dollars from cocaine. He told me he made more money in pharmaceuticals.

local companies than he did selling cocaine. I thought he was lying at the time, but I guess they had their own version of Walgreens and understanding opioids and stuff that now. Yeah. Like, and I'm saying this dude is a multi-billionaire, right? He's washing dishes in the same slop sink as me. And it was just like, it was like, it was like the universe revealing this to me. Like, dude, like, what do you?

Like, come on. You know what I mean? And that was an eye-opener. When Barack Obama won Iowa, not the presidency. But when he went in the Iowa and won the caucus, when he's supposed to come out with dead last, eye-opener. I said, somebody lied to me my whole life. Somebody told me I can't be anything, you know what I'm saying?

Other than a singer, a rapper, a dancer. You get what I'm saying? Somebody that's going to entertain somebody. I can't become something like what he's trying. to become. And I knew, and it wasn't, it wasn't nobody that didn't look like me. It was people that looked just like me, telling me that. That, that's when I knew, oh, they tricked me. I wouldn't ever sold drugs if I knew I could be the president, and I'm telling the truth. I wouldn't ever did it. And, and that gave me an eye-opener. And just me having, um,

one time it was a situation where a friend of mine told me I should have robbed somebody and killed them and I didn't and I knew that when I said that I didn't do it and that I wouldn't do nothing like that that it made me a target

because then I knew I wasn't ruthless enough to be in this and the person that I was talking to was ruthless enough to not only do that to him but to do it to me and when I

that whole culmination of that and watching my mom come up hurt seeing me in prison that's me watching my watch my daughter come up don't want to come see me my son don't want to come see me

because it hurts too much because not that they don't want to see me it hurts too much to leave one time my son told me man it brought tears my eyes he was like he like hey dad we're about to leave the visit

he was like hey dad I was in Louisbourg he was like hey dad look he's a little kid he's like look I've been talking to the to the CEO and he had he cool he gonna let you out just get in my pocket and I'm gonna walk you out the worst thing

y'all who you talk about going back to your cell man out of it I was out of it I was so angry and hurt and like I disappointed this little kid and I you know what I'm saying this just disappointing my family and so when I got out when I got out of prison I made a constant conscious effort to give myself a chance. Somebody, this girl that I wrote one time told me that I didn't give myself a chance. And I'm thinking, Ian, come up, man. You know, I don't count it over a million dollars. You get what I'm saying?

Like, get myself a chance. You know, you're talking to, like, once your ego subside, I'm like, yeah, she's right. I never did because the hardest thing to do was the right thing. And I did it in prison. I did the right things in prison. And that's hard to do. You know what I mean? Didn't get into any like vice.

Now, I did have a ticket at one time. Yeah. I did that ticket. When I was in, when I was in school care, I did have a ticket. It didn't turn out too good, man. They cracked my head open, man. Yeah, but. And so in my mind, I was like, you know what?

I'm going to give myself that chance. Because, I mean, for real, for real, if you want to fall back on. what you already know? You got plenty of times to fail, fail, fail, when you get tired of failing after all the time you fail, now you go back to what you want to do. That's if you want to do it. So that's always an opportunity for somebody who wants to take those type of chances. So this, I said I came out during COVID. So it was, get my paralegal certification. I had the opportunity of meeting a phenomenal attorney,

Brittany Barnett, she helped get Alice Johnson out with Kim Kardashian. Her and Kim Kardashian are tight. She started her own law firm, Brittany. And I got the intern as a paralegal for dope, right? This woman is phenomenal, she's a phenomenal woman. So when I was, in the halfway house that kept saying, man, use your translatable skills and, you know,

get certified in your translatable. What's transfer, you know, what's translatable. So I said, man, every single day, I was the, I was the peacekeeper. I wasn't a peacemaker. If you come to me with a problem, I'm going to find a way to keep the peace because I'm trying to go home to my family. It's, it's nothing unless somebody was actually trying to hurt me, right? And it was a couple guys that I had to walk around with a knife, you know what I mean, and be ready to stab them because they were just miserable. It depends on the time you got a different type of misery. People wake up just one day just miserable and just want to hurt you.

But no reason. You don't have to do anything to them. And so I got, so I got my certification and mediation. So then I started working for a nonprofit and got certified as a cognitive behavioral therapist. And I go into prisons and I teach guys the seven habits of highly effective people and how to be effective and make, you know, this basically your life is about the conflict and then the decisions you make from that conflict and it's a gap between. And so I teach that, you know what I mean?

So I pattern my life to change who I was first, getting to the community instead of thinking how I can sell kilos of cocaine in the community, how I can help the community, right? It's the same mindset. This is a different energy. And then I got asked to run for state senate. Right? The president in the NWACP in the chapter where I'm at,

she asked me, you know what I mean? Like, this person is going to run in a pole, you should run. I'm like, man, I've been incarcerated before, right? And I really was a gangster. I mean, I really was out there. I don't know if I'm the right person to try to run for the state senate. But then I started looking and I started saying,

man, why not? You know what I mean? My own brand of politics is for the community. And I just changed, I just set my mind to change my life. Now, I'm telling you, I got tested before when I first came home, Tyson Fury and Dante Wilder was going to fight

before COVID shut everything down. and Dante Wilder a buddy of mine was going to the fight I'm in the halfway house so he called me like we're going to go to the fight this weekend I'm saying how are we going to do that it's in Vegas number one

I'm in D.C. Don't worry about that I said bro I can't hop on no plane I don't have an ID I can get you an idea don't worry about that like what we know

and we're going to go out here and have fun bro I can't lead a halfway house I'm gonna leave a halfway house. Oh, no, you know, such as such. That's, what's name? That's my girl, People's, man. I already paid her, man, you're good.

She's gonna let you leave. For the weekend? She'll let me scorn for the weekend. You know, and then COVID had happened. I think that's what saved me, though, Ian. You would have went back to prison? I think I would have went back to prison. Not because of that, but because I'm back in that lifestyle.

You get what I'm saying? Just that quick. And you got to turn down stuff like that. that brings you back in that lifestyle. You know what I mean? That have opened your doors. Like who you have around you. Who you have around you is indicative of who you are.

That's true. You know what I mean? So. Now, this knowledge you have now, this newfound life, do you think you could have achieved that with a lesser prison sentence? Oh, my God. Absolutely.

How many years do you think? For me? Yeah. Fair. At least about 15. Oh, so only four different? I mean, me getting 15, not getting life. So 15 I do like what?

I'm saying actual time in there. Oh, you know, to me, I don't think you do, for even the most severe situation. I was in the, I was of a severe mindset. Ten years is, that is the maximum amount. Given somebody 20 years is really taking away who they actually are as a person. Ten years is a long time. Ten years is, so I thought they were going to offer me a cop for ten years. I was going to tell them no, because I was thinking,

I can't do 10 years. You know what I mean? Like, you know, 10 years is a long time. But after going through prison for 19 years, not knowing if you were going to ever get out. So I never woke up except for the last nine months of my bed knowing that I was going to get out of prison. I always woke up thinking the reality says I'm going to die here.

So it takes something like a totally different. But for me, if they handed out 10 years to drug dealers, you're overweight. 10 years for a drug dealer, you're overweight. Unless you really plugged in. Yeah. And then you look at like a manslaughter case where there's lives taken and they get three to five years. Right.

You know. Or other cases where they get less time for that for craziness, you know what I'm saying? Fraud cases, they take all this money from people and get, it's just ridiculous. And you ruin people's lives. Yeah. I mean, you have to look at it like they say drugs ruin people's lives, which is true. But what about the people that steal, say, $100 million, ruin people's lives, maybe even worse than drugs if those drugs didn't specifically kill someone. Right.

And they get a fraction of the time. I never thought that was fair. When I got life, this is going to be crazy. When I got life, the guy, it was a guy who was working with the Taliban, he got 20 years, a U.S. citizen, right?

Now, check this out. One of my first conversations with Miguel Rariegas was that, how did you get 30 years? And I got life. I asked him that, you're the head of the Cali Cartel. If there's any conspiracy,

my drugs had to come from somewhere from your cartel. You got 30 years and I got a mandated life sentence. Why? You get, what I'm saying? It doesn't make sense. Why did you let 40 people go to get me? You let 40 people back into the community and all of them sold drugs again to give me a life sentence.

That don't make any sense. What would you tell your teenage self before you ever picked up a drug to sell if you were sitting across from him right now? What would you say to him? I probably tell him that, you know, you could become the president. like the people lying to you, I think that's the most compelling thing I could tell myself, you know, because I would know what that meant, that you can actually become, don't let people tell you that you couldn't do that, you know what I mean, because I believe that, you know what I mean, all the jokes,

he put a black man in the white house, he got to paint it black and all this dumb ass, you know what I'm saying, but all that's reinforcing what you can and can't do in life, you know what I mean? And I will make sure I tell my teenage self that, Like that. And then not only that, that life is going to take you on the journey. It's going to want,

that it's, life's going to take you on the journey that's going to take you on. You can prolong that journey. You know what I mean? Like my mom was like, Eric, you should just went to law school.

You know what I mean? I'm, I'm a paralegal. And I'm beating judges. I'm beating United States attorneys, assisted United States attorney. They don't want to let people out, but they got to let them out,

because I'm filing things pro se. And that's phenomenal if you think about it because they don't respect pro se and that I'm helping people get their sentence reduced and some people get their convictions overturn when lawyers can't do that. And the majority of my friends are lawyers now and they're like, I don't know how you do that.

You get what I'm saying? And I could have just skipped all that other stuff. You know what I mean? It's really been like a serious lawyer, but I just didn't, I didn't believe in. Well, Eric, I appreciate you coming on the show today, man. You did great. Thank you.

You crushed it. I'm glad we could hear your story today. And best of luck with the election. All right, thank you. And we'll have the stuff to all of your stuff, the books, and everything in the description this episode. All right.