Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Went From Shopping for Celebrities to Rikers Island | Dylan Syer

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Dylan Syer speaks publicly for the first time about the high-profile accusations that upended his life, including allegations of fraud, identity theft, and grand larceny stemming from his work as a celebrity personal shopper. Prosecutors claimed Dylan used access to clients’ finances to make unauthorized luxury purchases, accusations he firmly denies. In this episode, Dylan explains what he says really happened, how the charges caused his business to collapse overnight, and what it was like being sent to Rikers Island while fighting to clear his name. He also opens up about the emotional toll of the case, navigating the criminal justice system, and ultimately being sentenced to one year of weekends at Rikers — a punishment that kept him trapped between freedom and incarceration. _____________________________________________ #RikersIsland #PrisonStories #TrueCrimePodcast #CelebrityLifestyle #LifeAfterPrison #JusticeSystem #RedemptionStory #lockedin _____________________________________________ Thank you to AVA & GOLD DROP SELTZERS for sponsoring this episode: AVA: Take control of your credit today. Download the Ava app and when you join using my promo code LOCKEDIN, you’ll get 20% off your first year—monthly or annual, your choice. _____________________________________________ GOLD DROP SELTZERS: Head to https://www.thedryoak.com/ and use promo code LOCKEDIN at checkout for 10% off your order. _____________________________________________ Connect with Dylan Syer: Instagram: @SireConsultant TikTok: @SireConsultant _____________________________________________ 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 Police Raid, Fraud Charges, and Everything Falling Apart 01:55 Dylan Sire’s Case: The Allegations and Why This Story Matters 02:59 Childhood, Family Values, and Early Influences 05:53 Discovering Luxury Fashion and the High-End World 09:47 Breaking Into High-End Sales and Designer Retail 14:12 Launching His Own Boutique and Becoming an Entrepreneur 22:14 Building a Celebrity Personal Shopper Business 27:47 Industry Shifts, Competition, and Cracks in the Model 33:53 Big Clients, Luxury Spending, and How the Business Worked 38:18 Financial Pressure, Business Trouble, and Legal Red Flags 42:38 Account Freezes, Chargebacks, and Sudden Collapse 47:17 Arrest, Booking, and Arrival at Rikers Island 54:00 Inside Rikers Island: Survival, Fear, and Reality 01:01:56 Bail, Media Attention, and Public Fallout 01:09:01 Court Proceedings, Charges, and Legal Strategy 01:16:20 Sentenced to Weekends at Rikers: How It Worked 01:23:30 Relationships, Trust, and Personal Consequences 01:32:00 Rebuilding After the Case: Frugality, Growth, and Lessons Learned 01:36:00 Final Reflections, Accountability, and Moving Forward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Added up to like facing 25 years on paper. What are the news saying about you? What were those articles and the headlines like? They set my bonds super high. They said it 100,000. And they're like, yeah, you know, he stole over $1.3 million. So after the courthouse, they brought me into a holding cell. And then they moved me downstairs where I was awaiting transfer to Rikers. So do you feel like you were wrongfully accused and convicted them? In this episode, you're going to hear Dylan Sire tell his side of a story that made national headlines, the accusations of fraud and identity theft that destroyed his business and landed him on Rikers Island. For the first time, Dylan explains what he says really happened, how he was set up, and what it was like being sentenced to a year of weekends at one of the most

notorious jails in America. Dylan, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming out. The snow delayed us yesterday, but we're back. Yeah, thank you. It's, this has been terrible the last few days. We got like two feet of snow. Two feet, yeah. It's a lot of snow. I haven't seen that much snow in years. Yeah, no, they said five years is the last time we've had a storm like that. Especially in New York, right? Yeah, five years.

And then we have sub-zero temperatures right now. So it's brutal. And I think it's eight degrees here right now. Yeah. No, it's terrible. It can't be out there for more than five minutes without, you know, your face feeling it's getting ripped on. When you're in the city, do you actually see all that snow? Like, where do they put it all?

Yeah, right now because if it had melted, if it had gotten above freezing, like they would, it would melt, you know what I mean? But at this point, it's, it's just turning into straight ice and there's nowhere to put it like. And I know, I think it's illegal actually for them to, uh, dump it in the river because it's, um, a mix of saltwater and freshwater sometimes, you know, and whatnot. And so it just sits there until it melts. Wow. Which hopefully is sometime soon, but it doesn't look like it. What a mess. Yeah. Well, tell everyone about your podcast that you got going. Yeah, I started my own podcast, the Sire consultant. Um, same things we'll discuss. today just discussing my story. I never really got my story out there and whatnot, the background

of my case and everything like that. And then, you know, my background before my case and then where I'm at now and whatnot. So that's the arc of it. So like a limited series type podcast? No, I mean, I plan on doing it. I feel like I have a bunch of different things I can talk about going forward. But I wanted to put my story out there because my case is interesting because you can look up my information online and it will tell you about my criminal arrests. It was highly publicized at the time, but after that, there's no follow-ups. And I took a long time to think about it and I decided it was time to put my own story out there and give my own take on it for people that didn't know what had happened after my initial arrest. Because if you

go online and you look at my name, it just has all the same syndicated posts of my arrest, but there's no follow-up to it, including my, you have no information on it. Like, the only way you'll know is if I tell you, and I wanted to tell people what had happened to get my story there. I think that's so relatable to so many of the guests that come on the show. Even in my story, too, there was, for so many years, it's just that old article that sits there. Yeah. And there's nothing new to tell the public, basically, how you've recovered from that.

And, like, to me, it's the white elephant in the room, because, you know, I've worked for myself since I was 21, 22 years now. And then I've worked with a bunch of individuals. I don't know whoever looks me up, you know, and they might look me up and I don't know about it. And they don't want to bring it up because it's awkward. And it's not fair to me because I don't have my side of this story out there. You know what I mean?

So it's a whole different thing that I really contemplate about. Like, do I want to put this information out there years later? Because my case is a little older now, but I decided that was the best thing to do to just someone close to me said, own your narrative. And I think that's good words of advice to own your narrative and just put it out there.

And now the elephant's gone and the cloud is lifted. And now I know if people know, they know or they can look it up and at least get two sides of a story. And I think, you know, like anything else in this world, that's extremely important.

Where do you grow up? I'm originally from like the Metro Detroit area. My background is I grew up near the Detroit border when I was younger, I moved out to the suburbs a little further in the Detroit area, graduate high school, went to Michigan State, didn't finish, I dropped out after three years, actually, and then started working.

Like, I got to that point where even though I did three years of college, I hit one of those periods of my life young where I didn't think what I was doing is what I wanted to do anymore. I didn't know what degree to pursue, even though I was pursuing business. I didn't know what to do specifically. So then I ended up dropping out of college working and then I met a bunch of people. And then after all these years has led me to the path that I've led on now.

But I've lived in a good amount of different places. I lived in Boston. I went from Michigan. I moved out of Michigan. I was like 21 or 22. I lived in Boston for a little bit. I went from Boston to L.A. for a little bit.

I went from L.A. to Atlanta for two years. and then I went from Atlanta to New York City where I'm currently at, and I've been to New York since 2017, so almost nine years now. Were you always passionate about business even as a kid? No, no. That's like the crazy part is I love sports. Like that was always my thing. Sports infatuated by sports, I'm going to be a basketball player when I grew up type thing.

Obviously that never worked out. And I never even saw myself being the type to leave Michigan. but I don't know, I just grew older and I grew out of my shell and I just felt more comfortable and taking risks and just like I said, one thing led to another. But yeah, I wasn't ever, it wasn't like an entrepreneur from a super young age. I mean, I mean, when I was 21, 22, I started doing my own thing, as I said. But no, it wasn't something like when I was younger that I want to start my own business or anything like that. What was your parents' background? We came from, to be honest, like upper middle class.

Like my parents divorced when I was younger when I was like five typical custody battle thing. I mean to this day I don't have a, I actually don't have a relationship with my biological father. I don't have any qualms with him. It's just it is what it is. I'm really close to my mother. She was doing like mortgages. And she got burnt though because she was doing mortgages right before leading up to the Great Recession where the mortgage industry collapsed. So she was doing well for a while until that happened.

And then being in Michigan, my stepdad, she got remarried. He did like robotics on, in manufacturing plants, like that supplied parts for the big three companies, the automotive companies. And then the Great Recession happened. He lost his job. Both of them lost their job. So that was like a tough time in my life. That was like around like 0.8, 09. And I graduated high school in 2009. So those were interesting. I think that shaped me a lot to those periods of my life because that was a lot of stress like with graduating high school and deciding what I want to do with my life and my mom and my stepdad and I'm getting divorced at that time. And there was some financial problems and everything like that. So before that, we lived a comfortable life. I'm a,

pretty much was raised an only child, even though I have an older half brother, but he's 10 years older. So there was, you know, we're close, but we're not, can't be that close when you're 10 years older at that age, you know. And so I lived a good life. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't come, I didn't come from a wealthy background, but I had what I needed. You know what I mean at the end of the day. What were some values your mom instilled in you as a kid? Uh, cleanliness more than anything. I feel like I'm like super OCD now, like not where it needs to be prescribed, but like I'm super organized and oriented and I can still be a pessimist don't get me wrong but she was always about that too like don't be a pessimist don't procrastinate you know and um she was just always very hardworking

you know so she's definitely instilled that I mean she's never looked for a handout you know what I mean and she's to this day she's retired now officially they live down in Florida but she still works you know what I mean even though she's retired she's still she's always doing something she stays fit She's just a super good woman. And yeah, you know, I appreciate all the things she's done for me. She's helped me. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet.

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I think with money, I was always interested in the nicer things in life. So like I said, I was always comfortable. I wasn't like, like I said, I wasn't a trust fund kid or anything. things like this, but I was comfortable. And in college, like, finances got tight for my mom and my stepdad before they got divorce. And, you know, I had some scholarships to Michigan State and everything like that, so that made it better. But I, I don't know how I ran into, but I just found a niche for, like, the nicer things in life. Like, and that's kind of how I ended up where I am now. But I just, like, when I was in college, I started getting really interested in, and luxury items. even though I couldn't afford it, but it was really weird.

I got really interested in fashion, and that's where a lot of my story comes from the beginning of my background, from starting on this path that ended up leading to my case and meeting the people that I, you know, met throughout all these years. But I got fixated on, like, fashion for whatever reason, high-end fashion, though, specifically. I don't mean, like, just styling or I just meant, like, I liked high-end brands that were super exclusive.

I've always been fascinated with exclusivity. For sure. What do you think it was about that? Do you think it was not fitting in as a kid? No, I just, like when I grew up, I like, I always, you know, I fit in with the trends. Like I grew up in the, when I was in middle school, I grew up during like the jersey era, like the sports where everybody was wearing jerseys and you'd watch like MTV and like the rappers and stuff like that were wearing football jerseys and basketball jerseys. And I was always fascinated with that.

And at that time, that was exclusive, you know, and sneakie. speakers were super exclusive back then Jordans and all these different things and and then I think it just progressed and progressed and progressed and I started looking into things on my own and I started finding all these brands that had no idea about that had been around for a long time long time you know going back you know to the like your Dior's these designers that have gone way back to the 1940s 1950s and then I realized all this history with these brands and I always liked what other people can't have access to or

is hard to have access to. And I don't mean that from a gloating standpoint. I just mean, I always found that an interesting concept where there's things that are out there that even if you want them and you have the money to purchase them, they're still extremely difficult to obtain. And I built a business model of that. How did you convert that into a business, that mindset? So I looked for like in the world today, everything is saturated. And at that time, things were less saturated, but they were still saturated. I looked at it like, how do you obtain things?

They're super niche and introduce them to a market that doesn't know about them as much and then convert on that because if you can control a market and have relationships where you can obtain niche items that are

that are sold to a specific type of clientele, you can ride that out. You know what I mean? Like things are recession proof at that point. I had a passion for it anyways, so that made it super. interesting in terms of a business aspect for me. And did that start while you were in college the business or was that, would that be after? So what had happened was in college, like, like, Kanye at the time

had released, like, the album, My Beautiful, Dark Twisted Fantasy. And he was like super, you know, Kanye was it at the time, like 2010, 2011. And him and Farrell Williams, I always looked at them, like those guys were so far ahead of the there are people still catching up to those guys and that was you know 20 years ago 19 18 years ago they were killing it in 2005 2006 they created their own brands and i got into like kid cuddy in college like at that time kid cuddy like really took off and i was resonating with his music and i loved his style he had like a dope style and i started looking into what these got little way into i started looking to what these guys are wearing and I'm coming across like these kid cutty's wearing these jeans these are 200, 300.

I'm like, that's crazy. You know, and I'm seeing Little Wayne's wearing these sneakers that are $300. And then Connie is wearing sneakers that are $600 and a pair of jeans that are $1,000. And I'm like, that's crazy. Like, I didn't even know that existed. And I did a ton of research. And then I ended up dropping out of Michigan State. at Michigan I end up working for a super high-end boutique in Michigan and at that time they were the only

high-end boutique and men's they started off a streetwear but then they started catering to like luxury brands and I got an opportunity to work for that store and then that's where like everything took off for me like that's when I started experiencing the brands for myself and I was selling the brands and and that's that's like where I was and I loved it I loved having access to thing even I still couldn't afford it at the time, but I still loved being able to have, understand these brands, the history of these brands and whatnot. So it was really cool. At that period of time, because you couldn't afford the brands,

did you ever do anything that was against your own morals to wear those types items? Or was your head still pretty clear? No, yeah, no, I was good. I didn't do anything. Like, I just worked at the store. Like, the owner would give us discounts and stuff like that. Like, obviously, like, you can't be a slouch walking in and, like, working for a store that sells all these brands.

But I was where I made up for it was like I was on point about knowing the history of the brands, knowing everything down to the fabric, why it's so expensive, why the prices are quote, justify, which I don't agree with that anymore. But at that time, I was totally in that world where I was like, I'm just going to sell it even if I'm not wearing it. But I would save up my paycheck. I worked a lot. You know what I mean?

Like at that store, they worked me to the bone. And I didn't mind it. I loved it. So I got to meet a lot of cool people. And then I would save up paychecks and I would buy what I could. I started getting like little pieces here and there. And you know, you would get a discount on things that wouldn't sell as well. Because we'd have things in Michigan. Like there's no, this is not, Michigan's not New York City. To this day, it doesn't come close to the market of New York City or L.A. or all these other Miami or things like this where they're little, where especially New York, they're fashion forward and they know about these brands. People don't know about these brands. So even if they had the money, it would. it's really hard to convince people in Michigan to purchase these brands because they're like, this is absolutely insane. They didn't know about these brands either. So it was, you know, that made my sales ability to go up to, to be able to sell things to people that they never heard of. They were so expensive. Do you think that taste for the finer things can be addicting? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that's a big problem with people now. It's like, it's an attention-seeking thing.

I think, you know, I'm not going to land at a certain point in time. Like, being, I molded myself into this, bubble of people that only cared about that stuff. And that stuff doesn't matter. You know what I mean? It doesn't make you a better person. Doesn't make you a worse person, but doesn't make you, like your shit don't stink. You know what I mean? So I think a lot of people now it's they want to be seen. The same can be said with watches, cars, clothing, homes, like all these things are luxury items. You don't need them, but you want them. So yeah, I think there's definitely some type of a reaction there where people, they get into that cycle and if they have the money. Or like, there's a lot of people that don't have the money. That's also the problem. A lot of

people don't have the money to be spending on high-end luxury items, but they'll do it anyways. You know, keep what do they go? Keep it up with the Joneses, you know, you don't need these things, but people feel this is necessary. So it's an interesting concept. Why do you end up leaving that store? Ironically enough, I got fired because this has nothing. They thought I was doing some shady stuff. At the time, I was working with a lot of the clients that I gained out of that store, and we would have a lot of athletes. It was one of the wealthier areas in Michigan, if not the wealthiest city, little small city in the suburbs of Detroit called Birmingham. And they always had like the high-end shops. And the basketball players that would come and play the Pistons would

stay in a hotel around the corner at the time. So that's how we would get a lot of our clientele and they would walk through the store. And we would blat, this was like the early days of Twitter, blast them on Instagram and Twitter and coming to the store, we'll take care of you, blah, blah, and a lot of them would come in. Like, I met Carmelo in the store, Carmelo Anthony and some other big name guys. And so I ended up getting fired because I would help sell. This is where I started my side business while I was still working there. I was selling a lot of high-end items that we didn't carry to a lot of the athletes that I met.

And the owner knew it, and he didn't carry because it didn't affect. our business because we didn't sell those items anyways. But then this was like the early days of when credit card fraud had became a thing. And I remember I had a guy reach out to me. And it was hard to sell items in that store, like I said, because most of our items were sold to athletes or phone orders. We didn't have people in Michigan buying those things. So even though we had this beautiful, nice store, people would come in, but they weren't

buying anything, not enough to keep the lights on, you know what I mean? So I was getting a lot of out of state orders. And I remember there's this one time this guy reached out to me via Instagram. I would do a lot of, like I said, outreach on Instagram in the early days when it was a lot easier. And they're like, oh, we want to buy this. We want to buy that. And we were never trained to do like to monitor for identity theft or like chargebacks or send in authorization forms or a copy. Like we didn't do that.

That's not that I didn't do that. Nobody else in the store did that. And long story short, somebody took me and the store for a lot of money. and like chargebacks they were buying a lot of stuff and it was like became one of my top clients and it wasn't an athlete it was just i don't know who the person they probably gave me a fake name and then they obviously gave me somebody else's card and then the chargeback started coming in and then they basically accused me of like being in on that but i didn't even know anybody from new york at that time so that's that's ridiculous but um i got fired because of that but then i ended up starting my own thing and

it was unfortunate what happened but that taught me lessons early on and then I just ended up going on doing my own thing after that once they got fired because I had clients from who I met at the store, athletes and whatnot. So. And your own thing was that business you're describing? It was the same thing. So I had already had connections with different boutiques across the country that sold similar items. But then so for me to not have access to our items, allow me to have access to the items we sold. But now I could sell them on my own, like, and make money off of whatever I charge for them as opposed to at the store. We didn't even earn commissions. I was just, I was like, I worked my way up to a manager, and we were just on an hourly,

like any store like that makes commissions these days, but would even earn commissions or anything. And at that time, were any of your clients well known, or were they just people with money? No, they were NBA players, yeah. I had, I have probably over the years at a certain point in time, not like all at once, but I'd probably worked with over 100 NBA and NFL players. So the early days, I met some pretty, some that I'm still cool with to this day, some athletes that would be, buy from the store. And like my very first client that I would consider my client was an athlete. We're still cool to this day. He's an NFL, well, he's a former NFL guy. And so I just kept those clients as I left the store. And I just went to all the boutiques and started trying to

find all the most exclusive items and then shooting them to the clients. And then I didn't know anything about business though. My parents didn't have a entrepreneurial. So I just did all on my own. no help really and i had to figure out how to form an LLC on my own how to figure out how to bookkeep on my own and how to manage cash because the problem was i would my business model was i would always buy the items first and then get reimbursed on the back end so i had to open up a merchant account and it was hard being that young and not having any business background because the banks at the time were a little more strict about what you do and then so i opened up a merchant account but then at the time, like, it would take like almost a week for the funds to clear when you would charge a card.

So that would hold me up because I needed to buy things for a client, but I would have funds tied up because I never made them pay me in advance. You know, that's how I did it. So there was a lot of hurdles, a learning curve, you know. When I get out of prison, my credit was absolutely destroyed. I didn't really understand how credit worked before that. And once I was out, I felt it immediately. apartments, phones, cards, interest rates, everything was harder. It honestly felt like no matter how much I was trying to move forward, my credit was keeping me stuck in the past. I wish I had known back then that fixing your credit doesn't have to be complicated or

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So now are you reaching out to them weekly saying, hey, we have this new designer coat or a pair of shoes available. Do you want to, or are they hitting you up saying, hey, Dylan, I need X, Y, and Z. Both. A lot of more outreach. Like, I would have contact with the boutiques, with the associates of the boutiques,

whether a manager or a sales associate, they're blasting me with photos. I send out the photos to the client directly. they say how much you know i put my um added fee on it whatever they say okay i want that cool i buy it from the store with my money then i get re i charge their card i get reimbursed on the back end and then sometimes it became a thing where people are just sending me hey can you find me like when things got really well that it took a while to get to just like really make money you know what i mean uh to build my like roller decks yeah to build my roll decks where it's like i would have guys

would buy stuff like here and there, but I was trying to find the guys that were just like constantly buying. But I would have a lot of guys that would buy something like once every few weeks or once a month or you would think that they just disappeared on you, but you just got to stay consistent and they would come out of nowhere like, hey, yeah, I'll take that how much? And then also I, like I said, once I built the Rolodex, I would have people that would reach out to me and say, hey, can you find this? Because they realized I was good at seeking out things as well. And is the profit a set fee for your services? Or are you charging a percentage? on each item. It was dependent on the item. The harder the item was to find, the more I would charge,

the more of a margin I would make. And then if it was something that I felt was like a little more accessible than I would, but, you know, I'd basically charge what I felt. I couldn't set a price because certain clients, I'm not going to, there were certain clients that I know would pay more and there's certain clients that I know were a little more stingy with their money. So, but I always try to make it fair. I was never trying to like give these people prices where they were walk into the store one day and see the item there on the rack and be like, what the fuck? Like, I got ripped off. You know, that was never an issue or anything like that. So, and I would always tell them up front, like what it is. And if they, you know, I would have plenty of people be like, oh, that's too much.

They thought it would be less. That's too much. I'm not paying for it. So now, do you hand deliver to them or is it always shipping? At the time, it was, I mean, always throughout it was probably 95 to plus percent shipping items. Sometimes I have a client come in town and I would hand deliver them something or whatnot. I always try to reach out, uh, link up with the clients in person, if possible. Or if I went to a city and traveled, I'd always try to, uh, meet up with them in person. I was always trying to make it more than just like, hey, I'm buying you things and delivering and making money off you. I like a lot of these guys I became friends with, you know, I went to, I've been to their homes, some of them. I've been to, saw two of their weddings. You know what I mean?

I've met their kids. I've, you know, anything and everything. So I always try to make it just as much of a friendship as it was a, um, uh, a business, you know, relationship. And how do you verify that all these products are real? I mean, I've worked with some of the like most stores that go back, you know, one in Boston I worked with for years and spent millions of dollars with them with clients. They, they were, uh, mom and pop and they went back to the 70s. Like they were the OGs of bringing in men's high-end wear and stuff like that. So like, it's just one of those things. If you know, you know, it's like you have these high-end department stores, you know they're legitimate. I'm not buying from some third party. I'm buying from a very well-known established business and they still all

exists to this day, all of them, you know. And what's the most do you think you made in a year doing this business? I definitely, I was definitely doing well over a million dollars in revenue. That's including the sales. No, yeah, sales gross revenue. I was definitely doing well over a million at the height, several millions of dollars in gross revenue. And then, you know, with, you know, I was probably making the top. I probably made like near 500 to a quarter million I netted in year. Do you bring in employees? Do you open up space? Or is this all just, you? That's why I crushed it because I had, I had never had any overhead. My overhead was my apartment. You know, I would write that office, my office because I work from home all the time, you know, where I travel and write off all the

expenses because I'm going to cities and I'm buying items. Wherever I was at, I was always buying items for clients and sending them back. I'd always try to go to the boutiques. I never visited and develop a relationship with them. Oh, I buy items for this person, this person, this person. And they would give me their numbers. I would work with them. So I'd had a whole Rolodex now of all these boutiques across the country. And then, yeah, so that was the way it worked. Now, are there more of people like you that exist in the country too like these personal boutique shoppers i guess so at that time like no that's why we were like the few of us that existed were able to do so well now it's like i i got out of it a while ago even before my case because i got sick of it because everybody and their cousin

was doing it and like a lot of athletes would just start bring like their friends would do it for them or their um manager you know it was usually like a family member or something like that and then i was just like i don't want to do with this anymore you know and it and be things became too accessible. That was, that's what I loved about it. Things were not accessible, as I said to you earlier. They were niche. And then once everything, once the brands, the brands didn't used to want to work with athletes. Like they, they thought that was like, no, we don't work with professional athletes. We work with high-end, wealthy people that are under the radar. Once they realize that, you know, but a lot of these companies are publicly traded now. So they have to make sure they're

constantly growing. Once they realize they could tap into the athlete world, then, you know, these NBA players are making, you have guys making $10 million a year. They don't even play. They're sitting on the bench. You have the top guys making, you know, top contract. Now it's like $60 million a year. Forget about baseball and football. So the market is billions and, no, it's got to be trillions of dollars.

Like the contracts are insane. The Dodgers alone have a one plus billion dollar payroll. So the money is insane. So once these brands realize they could tap into the athlete market, they just, they let go crazy. And then they started, it used to be hard to find sizes for athletes because they're so big, especially basketball players because they're high or football players because they're size. And then once the, like you said, once the brands realized that was a whole untapped market, they opened the floodgates and everything became super accessible. So my relationships became less and less because other people were able to go to them because they would have more items to sell.

And of course, associates are doing that because they're getting paid commissions or hitting target. sales goals and whatnot. So it ruined it for me. I'm sure social media changed things a lot too because the brands can reach out directly or these individuals if they're just sitting on the bench, they're now recording on social media, them wearing, say, a Gucci outfit. Yeah, everything is exposed now. You have pages that follow certain high profile of people telling you what they're wearing, the price point of what they're wearing, where you can find it. I was doing a lot of internet shopping by then too, like finding boutiques overseas. They would ship it to you when there was a, there used be a price discrepancy. You could find something in Europe for cheaper and they would ship it to you

and the import duties would be so low you would get it for cheaper than it would be in the United States. That doesn't exist anymore. They price matched all across the world. They figured out, they figured out a long time ago that they were losing money on that. And then, yeah, there's just no exclusivity anymore. The exclusivity that exists now in the luxury market for, like, watches and high-end, like, handbags and things like that, or these, like, super high-end jackets that can be, like, I've seen Jack kids start $50,000. Like, yeah, they'll tell you it's like, that might be like a one of four in the world. But who is, you know, you got to find a billionaire at that point basically to find that.

You know what I mean? A lot of athletes can't fit certain things as well, even if they want it. So, yeah, they killed the exclusivity. And social media worked to my advantage at first because I could do so much cold outreach. And then once I got a little following certain people, you know, back then you could see who's following you. Oh, my, I know this guy on this team. he follows him like he must be legit and i would just cold outreach instagram all day long and then now it's like that gets buried amongst if you try that now you're never going to get you know you had to

get in an inner circle athletes don't like people that they don't know and i got in the inner circle with a lot of athletes early on now it's like you can't do that unless you're you know managing them or whatever it is you know or you know somebody personally from a long time ago so what year and where were you when you walked away from this business? It was actually right around the time that things, it was right before COVID. Like I was still buying things, but I had pivoted to like watches mainly, high-end watches. I got more so out of the fashion. Like I still had a few clientele, but I really wasn't doing it as much because, like I said,

the exclusivity was gone. And it wasn't worth me to, you know, make lower, I was making a killing on watches, selling high-end watches. That became my new thing. That was super niche still at the time. And then same thing, that's gotten ruined as well now. But it was right before COVID. It was like, I was tailing off in 2018.

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I never had any contact with them directly, but I had a third party that worked for them that reached out to me in 2015. No, actually summer 2014. So I worked with them for a long time, and I would do the same thing I did with everybody else. I would send them photos to their third party team member. And then they would give me that person's credit card information. And then I would charge their card just like anybody else.

But lesson learned, and I didn't do this with any of my clients, not just this client where I end up getting in trouble with. But I would never, same thing, I never learned my lesson. I never did authorization forms or kept people's IDs on file. Or I would do the big no-no. and I would ship things that didn't go directly to their billing address, which can lead instantly in a chargeback. And there's no way for me to prove that that person received that item. So I had dealt with this person for a long time, or at least their team member for a long time, was buying them things over a long period of time, just like I was for my other really good clients. And then in 2019,

right around the time I was done wrapping up, I was still buying a lot for this person and my other top clients. And then I got a notice at my bank account one day went to go log in. And my bank account was frozen, but it didn't say it was frozen. It literally said my checking account, my business checking account was like, it was literally like negative $999 million, something like that. But I guess that's like a bank code where like when they freeze your account, they just put that automatic thing in the system. So I was like, what the fuck? Negative 999. So my business account was frozen and I reached out to like a lawyer that had helped me set up my company and I was like what's going out with this and then I was I ended up getting a chargebacks

hundreds of thousands of dollars in chargebacks spanning I think chargebacks typically you're only allowed to go like six months back before the bank like won't do a charge back because that's past their period of time where they're in their terms of agreements where they'll help you out this person was somehow able to get over that and I got hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars in chargebacks and then they froze my account as well so that person so I lost out on all that money came out of my account and then that's when that whole thing started but that was 2019 but I didn't get arrested until 2021 so I was wondering what had happened with that I knew that these chargebacks had happened with this individual um but the person I dealt with

never reached out to me. We just ceased doing business. That was it. They never reached out to me and I'll reach out to them and crickets, but it's not like I had any idea what was going on. And I had this lawyer look into it and he had somebody that worked in his firm that worked for, it was like a former DOJ prosecutor. And they're like, we don't see anything. And the federal, like there's no indictments against you or anything like that. So I just took the L, like a fat L, a crazy L, hundreds of thousands of dollars that got put, that got given back to that person. They got reimbursed to that person. And I just kept moving out with my life. Like I said, at that point already, I was still doing well with the watches. It didn't crush me.

Obviously, it was a major, major sting. So they got the money back, but it was, did you have that money to make up for it or no? Not to make up the amount that was taken, but I was still doing well. Like, at that time, I had invested also, like, back into investment properties in Michigan. I was doing, like, buildouts on two commercial properties that I purchased. So the credit card companies ate the cost then? Yeah, yeah, because I wasn't able and nor did I try to pay them back. And then I had like a, I had a A-Mex that like I racked up like a large bill and I couldn't pay the A-M-X off and full. I think like I had like a 120,000. Like I was, I had one of those charge cards where like you don't have a set spending limit.

Like they'll raise it with the amount. So at one point I got it up to like they would allow me to spend like $250,000 a month on it. And I always paid it for years. And then I had like a $120,000 balance. I needed to pay off because of all the items that I was buying for the clients. And then they froze the account, or I think before they froze the account, the chargeback started coming in. And then after the charge back, I think that's when they froze the account because they took

the money first, then they froze the account. And then I wasn't able to pay it. I had some money in some other accounts. And I had to settle with them for like, I ended up paying still like 90,000 of it off over the 120 that owed. So we settled. And then I just moved on and, you know, I just took the L. and then nothing came about it until like, you know,

the case, when I got arrested in 2021. So Amex was the person, or Amex was the card that that person was using to buy merch from you? Yeah, Am I, well, it was a master car as well. It was, it was a little bit of both. It was mostly Amex. And Amex, you tell Amex like a business, like, spit in your taco.

They're good about chargebacks. Yeah, like a lot of businesses won't take Amex because of that reason. They also charge a little higher of a fee, but it's mostly because they are so, reputable for giving back the client money, especially this client. They're not, that's probably God knows that's one of the best clients. So they're obviously going to give them their money back or whatever. So did the cards come after you at that time at all? They didn't ask you for the bill or anything? They never did. No, the card company never came back to me. So they just refunded the client's

money and that was it. And they ate it. Yeah. And obviously I paid what I could for like my charge card. That had nothing to do with the money that they weren't able to get back. But yeah, they ate it. And Amex and MasterCard never came after me. No, they never sued me or anything like that. Now, this middleman person that you were dealing with, did you know who he or she was working for? Yeah, yeah, it was a high-end, super high profile, A-Less celebrity. And so a couple of years go by, you're doing the watch business? Well, yeah, so I was doing the watch business, and then that even started to slow down into COVID because, like, you can't sell watches and source, I was sourcing watches from all over the place,

and I was traveling to Europe a lot because I had a friend that had a store there and we came up with a... Throughout my journeys in life, I went to Paris for Fashion Week. I met a good friend of mine who's still a good friend of mine. We ended up becoming partners in the watch business.

He had a good friend of his that was a client that had worked at a watch store and we realized we could buy watches in the United States and I could bring them to Europe and we could sell them and make... We could chop up the margins three ways and we were making good money.

So a lot of people like, oh, after my case happened, they look at my Instagram still. I leave up all these things because I was doing business and it didn't even have anything to do with this person. I was selling millions of dollars and watches and revenue over the course of like two years. We did millions and millions of dollars in watch purchases and selling. And so I was focused on that because it allowed me to travel. And that was my new niche. I fell in love with watches, high in watches that people couldn't get. And then that winded down into COVID because the world shut down. I wasn't able to travel and whatnot. And then COVID, I was pretty much just coasting. I was like working on the,

I got kind of screwed over. I was working on a commercial property in Michigan that was finishing up. I was doing a full gut renovation build out. And then I got shut down with the, when, you know, COVID with the full shutdowns in March 2020. And, but I didn't get arrested until February 2021. So I kind of just coasted through COVID. I got a few PPP loans. Super low just to carry my for my commercial property and like my shopping business with the watch. I didn't get in trouble for the PPP loans. I took out what I was allowed to take out. I didn't fake the numbers or anything like that. So my case had never had anything to do with like the PPP loans or anything like that. So how do you find out then that there's a case against you? So it's like I shouldn't know.

I always had this weird feeling in the back of my head that that like freezing, that account stayed frozen throughout my account and nobody could ever tell me anything on it. I contacted. to chase. They sent a letter to their legal department and they just they just kept it under wraps. They were like, oh, we don't know. It's weird. They just didn't say anything. And then I just, so much time went on two years. Literally, I just didn't think about it. But I should have always known. Like, that was always going to be something, right? That that was. So 2021 comes. I remember it was the day after the Super Bowl, February 2021. Yeah. And then I'm sitting there and like, I live in Queens at the time and it's like 7 a.m. and I had a townhouse and I had a friend living with me

at the time and it was like three stories and we had a video intercom where you could ring it like how a ring but it was like it's all built-in video intercom in this townhouse and they were ringing it was like 7 a.m. I'm like the fuck and I go downstairs and I look at the window and I see like mad police officers like more than five between five and 10 or something like that. I'm like what the fuck and then I'm like half awake so it feels like a dream and I go down you have to go downstairs to like click on the intercom to talk to them and then um I didn't talk I think I don't even remember if I clicked on the intercom to speak with them I think I just because they were banging on the door right and I'm like I have to answer it because this is clearly a situation I went you I was like three floors

and you had to walk down a set of stairs to get to the it wasn't the street level there was another staircase that got you up to uh it was off the street the unit and then you would walk up the stairs to get into my and then you would be at the ground level and so I walked down the stairs to get to the door and they pretty much immediately they didn't like aggressively push open the door but they either asked my name or they were like are you Dylan Sire I can't remember which if they asked my name or they already knew my name and either way I said I'm Dylan Sire and they immediately put me in cuffs so they raided my place they raided my townhouse and then they put me in cuffs and they brought me up to the living room and they put me down on the sofa and then they my uh poor friend at

the time had no idea what was going on and they brought him down but they told him straight up they're like look like we're just here for him you don't got nothing to worry about so um yeah they raided the place and then that's and then they i asked for the search warrant and then i saw and then it went back to the going back to the chargebacks this episode is brought to you by gold drop seltzers and this is when I actually drink. I'm sober, but I still like having something in my hand that feels like part of the moment, not an afterthought. Gold Drop fits perfectly.

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it was like a 10 count indictment. Like they had a grand jury indictment against me. I don't remember exactly, but it was like identity theft, possession of criminal stolen property, like a bunch of different, they like added up to like I end up facing 25 years on paper, but they didn't severely overcharge me. It was 25 years I was facing 10 count indictment.

And I read through the search warrant, and they were looking for like high end valuables. They were looking for like watches. I had already sold on my personal watches. Even before then, I only had like one or two watches. I sold them to fund the properties in Michigan. I was just like, it's COVID. Nobody's, I don't want these.

I kind of started moving on from watches as well. They became less accessible. And I made money off the watch. All the personal watch, I wear them for six months and make money and sell them. So it was like, it was a freebie, you know. And they were looking for things in the apartment. They were looking for all these watches and whatnot and high-end valuable items.

And they're like, tell us where these items are. otherwise, you know, this is a nice place. It was new at the time I was renting, but they're like, we won't mess up the place. And I was like, everything that's on this paper, like, if it's here, it's in plain sight. Like, I don't need to tell you. Like, you're going to find it regardless.

I did have, like, my safe, though. I had, like, 40,000 in cash that they took because I had a lot of clients that when they would come to, like, for watches, all I guys would pay in cash. So I had 40,000 in cash that they took. They were like, do you want to open the safe or do you want us to open the safe? I was like, you can open the safe. I was like, I'm not going to make it easy for you.

I think the detective at the end was like, I'm glad we opened it because if you had opened it, it would have caused like a legal issue or whatever. I had like some jewelry. I like some Cartier bracelets in there. Nothing super, super crazy. It was mainly the cash that they got that was like the most valuable. But they had fro. But at that time, I didn't know going later on.

I found out they had frozen all my accounts, though. They put everything under civil forfeiture. So they froze all my bank accounts as well. But I didn't know that at the time. They didn't tell me that. you know what I mean. I just thought it was, they were looking for the possession, she was possessions in the, in the townhouse. So they bring you to the police station and do you get bailed out that same day?

No, so I was, they kind of had me down in the living room, a handcuff for like an hour or so. And then they were all these agents, not agents, they were, it wasn't the feds, it was the NYPD. And then they came in and they were going through the apartment, the townhouse. And they were, I'm seeing them bring down bags and boxes and whatnot. And then they keep me there for a while and they're like, all right, we're going to take you in. They were nice enough. At first I was super standoffish. I like the guy was like trying to talk to me.

They had like one guy that kind of watched over me and I didn't talk to him. And then he kind of started lighting up. And he's like, you know, like with the cashless bail in New York, like you'll be out by tonight. And in my head, I was like, really? I was like, okay, I guess that's not that bad. I wish you never said that because you fucking lied. Lied his ass off. I don't know if you meant to lie.

I don't see why he would have, honestly. But I'll get back to that. But they were actually pretty cool. They let me go put on like real clothes. It was February. So it was, and we had a big, that was the last time we had a crazy snowstorm. So there was a bunch of snow on the ground still. And it was super cold out.

They let me grab a jacket changing like bullshit sweats and everything like that. They even let me brush my teeth, which is crazy. So I know people out there have terrible. I remember, you know, hearing your story, you like get rated at five, six in the morning. and like you don't know what the hell is going on. I didn't know what the hell was going on either, but they were, they became a little more. I definitely got some courtesy for sure.

They could have been straight assholes, but they lightened up a little bit because they also saw I wasn't, I wasn't giving them a hard time. I just wasn't talking. And I wasn't talking shit to them or anything like that. And then they put me in an unmarked car. They took me to the DA's office in Queens for some reason.

I sat in holding cell there for a little bit. And then they moved me over to Central Booking after that. And I sat in Central Booking, for a while. I didn't have a lawyer retained. I didn't have like a lawyer at the time, but they let me take a number before I left. I had a guy that I just happened, everything comes full circle. I just happened to know somebody that worked with me on an insurance thing. And he told me that his dad worked as a criminal defense attorney. So I took the son's number and I kept that. So I was in central booking. And then that's when they fingerprinted me and everything like that.

And then after that, I waited for a while. They took me over to the Supreme Court, the courthouse. So this is all during COVID when there was like a reassure. It wasn't the, it was a year after COVID had started, but there was a big resurgence of COVID at the time. And so there was nobody in the court house, obviously. It was just, and they put me in front of a public attorney. And I got 30 seconds. He's like, do you have any priors?

What's your education? Blase, blah. And then so this guy doesn't know shit about shit. there's it's impossible they bring me in front of the judge they they uh you know catch me off guard they're telling i have the means the flee uh i live in this seven thousand dollar uh town home which i did but i had my friend living there so he put like 2,500 into it so i was paying like 4,500 4600 which you have places in new york city there 30 50 thousand dollars a month plus so it don't even wrong it is expensive but it wasn't what they made it out to be so they're like he's a flight

risk which i did have a lot of history of traveling to Europe and went out. So they took my past, they made me forfeit my passport. They tried to do the electric monitoring, but the judge is like, that's not necessary. But they set my bond super high. They said it 100,000. And they're like, yeah, you know, he stole over one point, I think it was like 1.2. They accused me of 1.2 or 1.3 million dollars that they said I had stolen. And then so after the courthouse, they put me, they brought me into another holding cell in the courthouse. They brought me into a holding cell. And then they moved me down. downstairs where I was awaiting transfer to Rikers. I didn't know I was going to Rikers because I'm

thinking I'm listening to the detective in the back of my head like yeah you're going to get out cashless bail and I'm like I just got a hundred thousand dollar bond I don't think I'm getting out tonight like I had the guy's number written down the lawyer the son I called him I said it's your dad still a criminal attorney's like yeah I was like well I'm in a bit of a pickle a debacle here so he put me in touch with him I'm calling him off the the phone and the holding cell and I get on the phone with him. He's like, yeah, he's like, so he was the one that told me. He's like, yeah, so they released a press kit about you, the Queens District Attorney, and all your assets are frozen. I was like, I don't have any

time to process any of this. This is all, like, I got arrested at like 7 a.m. I think I got into the, you know, into Queens and the holding cell originally at like 830 or so. And then it goes into the afternoon and it goes into the evening. I'm still at the courthouse in the evening. And I got a hold of him. And then, you know, he's just like, I told him, I was like, I think I'm going to Rikers. He's like, that's crazy. And then, yeah, I end up going to Rikers. And even in the, I had some crazy experiences. Like, my first experience with this, I'd never been arrested in my life. I say that in my podcast. I, like, before that, I'd never been in a holding cell in my life. So to go from zero to a million was pretty intense. And there was this guy in the

holding cell in the courtroom waiting to be transferred to Rikers who clearly had been to Rikers before because he said it and they knew him by a name basis which I thought was crazy and he was wild now he was trying to act out so much that he didn't want to go to Rikers so he was trying to get sent to the hospital and he was like before that we were at Central Booking and I recognize his voice he was trying he was flooding the cell and the holding cell and he was trying to shimmy the door off the hinge and he looked at me he was like I'll fucking stab this white boy right here and I was like bro he was like this smaller guy so I wasn't really threatened but I was like bro what the fuck bro like what did I do you like

so that was like my first experience within the first not even 12 hours and then eventually the paddy wagon for Rikers comes by every so often and then they end up chaining me that we get in the you know they cuff our wrists and then they put us on the bus and I'm cuffed with a guy next to me and then yeah they took us to Rikers and I think I got it got to Rikers around like nine o'clock at night so I got this initial arrest happened around like 7, 8 a.m. And I didn't get to Rikers until like 9 p.m. And I'm in a holding cell with like 25 guys. It's just benches, one toilet,

overfilled holding cell like super small, 20, 225 guys. There's not enough room to lay on the benches. So most guys are laying on the floors. And I just ended up taking my jacket and just laying on it. You know, it was like nearly impossible. you know they got the lights on full blast obviously alarms keep going off i learned later on you know

the alarms are always going off when there's always some type of fight or whatever um and then people are slowly getting processed and intake slowly they're like one person every two hours or something like that and i'm like i just got here there's 20 other guys here this is going to take an eternity long story short i end up sleeping a little bit throughout the night on the floor um and i end up getting brought into I started getting, so I'm AWOL at this point because I'm not processed. So I'm in this Riker's holding cell. I didn't get brought into medical until like 2 p.m. the next day. So it was going on almost 24 hours from my initial rest.

And it was going on 12 hours plus before the last time I spoke into my lawyer. So nobody knows what's going on. I also asked the lawyer, I gave him my mom's phone number. I was like, can you reach out to her? Because obviously she's going to hear about this. So she doesn't at least have a heart attack. but I felt bad because I was like I knew what I was going through and I was always feeling I was already feeling terrible from this like crazy environment but I was thinking about like my friends and family like what I'm just trying to think you have nothing but to sit there and think you know so I'm like I didn't get processed until the next day I'm still not in the system and I'm like what are they thinking you know and obviously as you know you've done people who have done Rikers before have their experiences it's you know one of the most if not the most notorious jail in the country so like I said to from never being arrested to going to that without having any idea of the environment in

or what to expect was super crazy. And then like I said, I ended going through medical. That took forever. Then I had to go through the psych evaluation. And that's, I think, what it really hit me was the psych evaluation because this girl was talking to me, asking me questions about my background and blah, blah, blah. And she was a younger girl. So it was weird because it wasn't like I was talking to somebody older.

She must have been my age. At the time I got arrested, I was 29, I think. yeah it was 29. It was a few months before my 30th birthday in 2021. And the girl's asked me these questions. And she's kind of like asked me questions about like, I don't remember exactly what, but I had a feeling she knew what was going on about me personally. Like obviously anybody else, she doesn't know what their circumstances are. And I asked her a question. I don't remember I asked exactly. But I was like, do you know what's going on or something like that? Like, did you see something? And she's like, I read an article. So I'm like, bro, what the fuck? And she's like, yeah,

She's like, you know, just because of like your high profile situation, she's like, I feel like, um, like we're going to put you under suicide watch. And I never at any point in there during my initial arrests or ever felt suicidal or that's where I was like thinking about. Um, but I was like, that just was like a gut punch because I was like, damn, like, you know, this is a real thing. And they like, they had somebody assigned to me eventually when I went into the dorms. Um, because what had happened since it was COVID, you had to like be there for two weeks before they moved you to main housing. So I never got to. main housing because I end up getting bailed out or bonded out.

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With the door hinge, but he was cool. He calmed down. Why do you threaten to stab you? He was just trying to say whatever. He was bluffing. He was just trying to say whatever he could to the staff to get taken to the hospital. Because nobody wants to go to Rikers. They'd rather go to the hospital and be admitted to a hospital or psychiatric.

or whatever, they didn't go to Rikers. And he ended up being in the same dorm with me. I ended up spending six days before I got bonded out. I had bad luck, too. Like the weekend came, and there was a holiday. It was like President's Day. So I lost like a day there because of the courts are closed. And then my bond was so high, I had to figure out how to put up the bond.

I ended up putting on my properties as collateral. That's how I ended up doing that. The properties in Michigan? Yeah, they let me put up the properties. So those were under collateral until my bond got released when I got sentenced. So I did six days. Rikers and it was just a super high intense environment because it was people you know like I said it was COVID and I felt bad because there was people that were in there they were arrested for like one guy that

that I was chained to on the bus I became cool with her became cool with him older black guy we would play like scrabble and shit to get the time to pass by during the six days I was in there and um a lot of the other guys were younger but it was a lot of like drug possession from what I was hearing a lot of You know, petty crime type things. The guy I felt bad that I was cool with, he was in there for not failure to pay parking tickets. Like it's COVID. People are dying.

You know, it is an insane situation. They're bringing people back. They released so many people initially. And some people were back in there because they missed their court dates to report back because a lot of people got released for minor offenses. And a lot of people that were in there were brought back because they missed their court date. So there were people, a lot of people were just. and they're from super minor infractions.

And it was a hostile environment because, you know, like I said, COVID, it's Rikers anyways. And for the most part, you know, the days went by pretty quick, actually. But then I had like weird instances, like at an older guy, like I learned the phone system and whatnot. They made it free or whatever. You didn't have to have money on your books to do the phones. And like one guy, but you would have a limited amount of minutes. I think it was 45 minutes a day that was broken up and said. different times of the day where you could speak on the phone. And this one guy offered me Suboxone

once to take his minutes. I'm like, bro, like, first of all, that's for people that are overdosing or having opioid issues. You know what I mean? If I take Suboxone, I'm going to die. Second of all, I don't do hard drugs anyways. And I'm like, I'm good. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm good. But he literally tried to trade me Suboxin because he was going down to the clinic and getting suboxin. And some of them would go down to the clinic and, you know, treat for alcohol addiction and whatnot methadone. They were either doing methadone or suboxin that was given to them by the staff. And he was like, I got some suboxin.

Like, you want it? And I was like, no, I'm good. I'm good. So it's like just a bunch of crazy things. There was a fight that broke out in the middle of the night when I was sleeping. My bunk was towards the front, or not bunk, it was a cot. It was all cots in the dorm was spread out. And then you had like one community bathroom.

And you weren't allowed to leave the dorm. You know what I mean? I went down to psych a couple times. That was about it. and then all of a sudden I wake up in the middle of the night this commotion and then I feel like this like heavy like itching in my chest and there's this commotion I realized that these two guys got into a fight in the middle of the night when the lights were off

and this guy just like beat the shit out of somebody and the CO end up spraying off the uh was it they don't have pepper spray but it's like some type of mace but you know they like have a they have the they try to get you to stop fighting before they do it it and the guy end up spraying it off the problem is everybody gets affected by it it spreads everywhere so anybody that was in that initial area thankfully i was towards the front they all uh got like in their eyes so i'm seeing guys run to the bathroom and their eyes are insanely red and they're like snot coming out of their mouth and whatnot and that was like damn like that was and they were so pissed at

the CEO for doing that like they were cursing them out and threatened to beat the shit out of them and then the guy the guy's ass beat got taken out and then what's called the turtles come in and they're these guys that wear full riot gear and they have batons and riot shields and I can see him at the doors and they walk in and they're there for any type of response like any type of fight or any times a CO's in danger or whatnot or like I said fights and whatnot so they come in and they they call them the turtles because they I guess they look like teenage mutant turtles literally and they're intimidating because they're big as hell and you really can't see their faces because they wear these shields like it literally looks like you know they're wearing full riot gear and

And they walk in, they're like, everybody, put your fucking face down. Like, don't fucking look up unless we tell you to. So they had us all, like, put our faces face down into the cot. And they dragged both the guys that were fighting out of there. And then the guy, they got the shit kicked out of him. I guess he ended up starting it for every reason. He was just being weird. I never saw him again.

And the guy to beat the shit out of him, he ended up breaking his hand. But he came back in the door in the next day with his hand wrapped. And that was probably the craziest thing I saw during my initial arrest was, like, the mace being deployed and whatnot. and the turtles. So you get bailed out and you go, say, on Google to look up your case. What are the news saying about you? What were those articles and the headlines like? So it was basically like one article that was spread throughout all the different syndicates across like CBS.

It didn't matter if it was New York where I was arrested. I saw New York. I saw L.A. I saw Detroit. The Detroit Free Press put an article out about me where I'm originally from. I think the AP News is what released the original like news article with the statement from the DA like I said they put out a press kit

and it's all these articles but it just said the same thing over and over again and just said my age where I was arrested who I was accused of stealing from $1.2, $1.3 million dollars, the charges and he's due back in court February 17th and if you to this day go and look at my name that's still the only article you'll ever see

like I said that's why I want to do this podcast because I never got to tell people my story. So if you go on the internet, it's just one story. It's like trial by media. And of course, when I got access to my phone back going through social media, I had a large social, I had like 10,000 followers at the time on Instagram or something like that throughout my years. And I'm getting trolled, super trolled.

Some people are like, I don't give a fuck, fuck that guy. But a lot of people were like, yeah, like, you know, saying crazy shit, you know what I'm saying? I didn't take it to heart too much because I know how people can be on the internet. but I was just pissed at it. It just got put out so much. And I felt like I was guilty before I saw your interview you just did with the Chris Lees and Todd says like in this country you're guilty now and you have to be proven innocent as opposed to you know,

you're innocent to proven guilty. That's how I felt. I felt it was trial by media. Nobody knew my story. I didn't have any co-conspirators. It was just me. They weren't looking to anybody else. Nobody was involved in this.

It was even the people I had business deals with. They never looked into them because they had another. thing to do with it. It was literally just me and my only client. That was my client that I dealt with for a period of four or five years. But I was just mad that I didn't have the ability to tell my story, especially to this day. So that's why I decided to finally put out my own podcast, tell my own story, my background, where I came from, how I got involved with all these different people. And then the other part, going back to Rikers, during my initial arrest, was I was sitting in a cell they had a TV on and they had TMZ. And TMZ is like, yeah, Dylan, Sop. And Dylan Sop.

of a queen's arrested today and they're talking about me and I'm just sitting there like at one other guy in the thing they didn't put up a picture I'm just in there like scratch in my head I'm like you've got to be kidding me like I'm sitting here that was another slap in the face to see them talking about me in the TV but while I was in there nobody knew you know some people are like oh what are you in here for I was like allegedly a fraud you know white collar crime and they're like what's your bond everyone's to know what's your bond is I was like 100,000 they're like what the fuck 100,000 because everybody else is like 5,000, 10,000.

Some guys, you know, it's fucked up. Guys got dollar bail. They can't even, they don't have any money. They don't have any family. I don't have anybody to help them out, you know? Thankfully, I had family and the properties and whatnot. So they didn't go after the properties, though. That's why I was able to put them up as collateral.

They didn't freeze the, they didn't put a lien on the properties. That was weird. They froze all my accounts, but they didn't put a lien on the properties. And they knew about them. So, like I said, it wasn't a federal case. It was a state case. So maybe that's something to do with the jurisdiction. But, yeah, just super weird.

No, I'm sure the audience is curious by now why you don't say the person's name when it's all over the news. Is there a reason to that? Because you could just look at my name. I just, that person, look, it's a long time ago and they already, it's like public information

and I don't like to feed into it and I'm still, what happened in the past, happened in the past, but like I'm just salty about it because I don't even know the person. You know what I mean? I said that. I never had the person's number.

I never met them face to face. and I have to see them on TV every single day anyways. They're on like four different commercials at any given time, especially during Sunday footballs. So like people will figure it out, you know, they can look up my name. It's right there. But I just don't like to talk about it.

You know what I mean? I like to talk about the story and what happened because I felt like the whole situation was insane, but it's not a secret. You know what I mean? Did that person ever address the claims? No. So you end up getting arrested.

You get bailed out. How long does it take for the case to play out in court? A year. So I got arrested in February 2020. I got sentenced in March of 2022. So they originally came at me. Like the first, like before there was any type of discovery, you know, the assistant, the ADA is talking to my attorney. So I retained my attorney.

Great guy, older guy, to this day, still a good friend of mine, even as a client. He's like, he's like a, he could be my grandfather, but he's like a father figure, you know. We have a like a more of a personal relationship. Like he's a mentor. I can call him for anything. has nothing to do with that, you know, I've never been in trouble since this bullshit. And he used to be the, him and his partner were the head of the, they represented the union for the transit authority in New York City.

So they were super connected and whatnot. So I got lucky with that, not knowing really who he was going into it. The ADA contacted him and they're like, we'll give him a three year plea. I was facing 25. So they shot for the moon. Then they offered me three years. He called me. Like, they were offering you three years.

I was like, not three years for what? Like, I didn't, this is, no, absolutely not. I laughed. I was like, that's insane. I put, thankfully, it was COVID. I didn't have to ever go into the court. It was all over Zoom. I had like a court hearing every two to, in between two to four months.

And at one point, the ADA got a different job somewhere else. So they had to switch to another prosecutor. So that kind of started the clock over again. And the discovery process for them was a mess because they seized so much stuff from my place. I had receipts going back to 2014. They arrested me in 2021. I felt bad for the paralegal. They had to send me all the receipts they found in my place.

It was like thousands. They had to give me a thumb drive. It was like thousands and thousands of pages of just receipts alone. But they're accusing me of stealing watches, using money to buy watches. I'm like, did you guys not know I was selling watches? They didn't. And then when my lawyer brought that to their attention, I had, thankfully, I had everything, like, super prepared, like, accounting-wise, like, all the watches. Because what would happen is, I told you, I had a friend at a store.

We were doing business dealings. would bring the watches to Paris and he would sell them in a store and we would chop up the profits. His store would wire me the money. I would buy the watches in the United States and I would bring the watches back to Paris and then his store would sell them and then we would split the margins. They didn't realize I was selling millions and dollars in watches. On my indictment, it was like, or the press release too, stole, um, for some reason they mentioned five watches in particular in over $400,000 in watches. I'm like, I sold five watches. I'm like, I sold hundreds of watches for millions of dollars were the 400,000.

I was like, you guys are way off the mark. But the point was, I didn't steal, I didn't use money. That was a whole business. And I had all the Excel sheets to prove that. And once you brought that to their attention, they started realizing that they were pretty incompetent about the whole investigation.

There was also accusing me, like, pull pictures from my Instagram, like, oh, look at the things that he was buying. I'm like, that was for a client. Like, my Instagram was also advertising. I never distinguished what was mine personally. I posted a lot of personal. stuff. I never distinguished what was mine and what was purchased for a client. For me, it was free

advertising. If I buy something super exclusive, I would always take photos of it, try to do like cool photos, aesthetically pleasing photos. That was why a lot of people end up following me over the years. And I would post it on Instagram. I'm like, oh, you think I purchased that for myself? I'm like, here's the invoice and the guy paying for it. So they realized quickly that like they didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. And then it went from three years down to like, it kept dwindling down. I got sentenced to March 22. We worked out to deal with them to do weekends at Rikers for one year. 52 weekends is what I did. So I went from 25 years, facing 25 years. They offered me three years. And then they're like, all right, we'll give you a slap on the wrists. We can't let you off.

I try to do community service. They're like, no, that's not going to happen. I was like six months community service a year, community service. I'll do it. I don't care. I don't want to do Rikers, weekends. We spoke to them to the ADA. That was our negotiation with them. They had to go to their higher ups and they agreed to it. And I also had the civil case as well where they're like, oh, you owe $1.2 million in restitution or whatever. We end up settling on that. I think I paid. They also over, I never said anything because why would have they overvalued a lot of the items they took from my place. They're like, we value this item at this. I'm like, that's not what it's worth whatsoever, but it worked in my benefit because they looked like they got more for

restitution purposes. I paid them out. I think I settled to make it go away. So they took the $40,000 cash at the place. That I think I had some investment accounts. They left the properties alone. I had some investment stocks and whatnot. I think I had another 50 to $75,000 in stocks. They sold those, liquidated those. I had some other cash. And then the value of the items that they took, I think it amounted to be like in their eyes around. 250,000, 200 to 250,000. So we signed off on that. That was what they took. But remember, they accused me of stealing 1.2 million. They were happy with the 200,000. So they were happy. And then they gave me some items back. When I got sentenced, they gave me some of the things they took back. Some possessions

that were, you know, not extremely valuable, but I was glad to get some things back. So it was a very bizarre scenario. Where does that money go back to Amex? No, it goes to the Queens County. I guess they auction off the items. Like they seize it. It gets they get a check. They write it. I guess it goes to whatever they designated it for. Is that because the AMX never, well, someone must have reported this. Did you ever find out? Yeah, it was like a private investigator on the, on the individual's side. Oh, that just triggered all of this. Yeah. And then that's where all the chargebacks came in. And then Queens County tried to take the DA was like, we would like to thank our prosecutors for working so hard, or our detectives for working so hard on this.

this for the it got delayed i realized because of COVID that's why it took so long from 2019 to 2021 they're like giving themselves a pat on the back but they they failed to really mention that it was some investigator in california that gave them all the information it just passed down they're like hey this is your jurisdiction like do you want to take this on so what did you plead out to so like you said i was facing 10 count indictment like all like first degree identity theft second degree all these different things i applied to uh attempted to grand larceny in the third degree, which for like less than $3,000 is what it means. Why even attempted that that's, I mean, I wasn't going to argue with the, but I don't know.

I think they, they, like, so I could have gone to trial. Here's the other thing that I wanted to let people know. I could have gone to trial. I had retained my lawyer. It cost $100,000. They just bled me for two years ago. They bled me for all those chargebacks. I owed my lawyer $100,000.

That's what his services cost. And then they got me on the restitution. like they took like straight cash like 40,000, the investment accounts and then some money and checking accounts. I think that amounted it to be like around 100,000 that was like they could have been liquidated. You know what I mean? The rest were just possessions. So I was, I ran out of money. You know what I mean? And I'm like, I can take this to trial and try to just get off completely. But he's like, if you take it to trial, he's like it's going to be another 150,000. And then now I'm rolling the dice. And I know they're going to be pissed off too if I take it to trial because I'm going to

them, but I was like, had to really think about it, pros and cons. I'm like, do I, do I try to pay $150,000? Which I couldn't. I couldn't at that time. I couldn't afford it on $150,000. It wouldn't have been possible. And then risk rolling the dice and somehow losing he said, she said type thing. Or just taking the quote slap on the wrist, the attempted grand larceny, which they offered me, 52 weekends. I wasn't really worried about the charge because I work for myself, you know, so I just decided that was the best route to go. So what happened to the middleman? Because he or she sounds like the real criminal in this. It sounds like they were stealing from their client.

Yeah, nothing, nothing. And I didn't want to go after anybody. And I didn't want to go after their team because, like, this person has way more money than I do. So it wasn't worth the battle. So I just let it go. So is it basically, to sum it up, they were using that, their client's credit card, buying stuff for themselves from you? to be honest I even to this day I don't I can't tell you what exactly happened because I was dealing with them for so long and like they only accused me of stealing from this client from like October 2017 to like February 2019 when the chargeback started coming in but I was working with them since 2014 you know so but it doesn't make sense what the crime is someone must have no I know but they I know and but they never wanted to go after them either so and like I can't press them to go out of I think like I was the fall guy. They were happy with the headline and they got some money out of it. They got, you know, I don't think they even thought it was justice.

You know what I mean? But from your perspective, do you think that that middle person was the one that was the one stealing? I couldn't tell you because this person has such a large team that it's impossible to say. So do you feel like you were wrongfully accused and convicted them? Yeah, I mean, look, the way I look at is who has a white collar crime that usually typically like as yours isn't turn into a fed case because it was technically I was buying and sending things across state lines so we even my lawyers like I don't know how this is in a federal case thank god it wasn't because it would have cost way more and I wouldn't have got that type of sentence at all

you know what I mean but also I've never like who gets faces 25 years and then gets weakens and then gets charged that is allowed to plead to attempted grand larceny and then I get restitution but it's not even nearly it's a million dollars less than what I was accused of stealing So it doesn't make any sense. So now when you get sentenced... Objectively, it doesn't make any sense. Normally when you get sentenced to say prison time and state court, they take you right away. But because this is weekends, how does this work?

So the whole thing was completely unorthodox. So my lawyer is like, you're probably going to have to do an allocution where you have to get up in front of the court. And he's like, you still have to tell him you did this. I don't care what you think or what you don't think you're going to have to tell him you did this. You're pleading guilty. If they say you did this and you're sorry, you have to do it. You know, as that was called, I believe that's what it's called allocution, where you confess your crimes in front of the judge, right? So we'd go for sentencing. The unorthodox part is the judge is like, the ad is like, we did it. We came to an agreement. He's going to do 52 weekends, served out Rikers. The judge is like, that's a thing. They still do weekends. The judge didn't even know about it. The judge is like, yeah, that we call, we confirmed. They still do it. They're like, okay, whatever. Sounds good to me. And then they were like, we extended it two months out. So I didn't have to report. I. got sentenced like March 20th or something. And then we extended to like May 7th where I was

able to report for weekends. Tell us about what a weekend's like at Rikers. So I like tried to look up information before I did the weekends. I was like what what did the weekends entail? Like if you try to look up weekend sentencing, there's really no information about it. It's extremely rare doing my podcast starting out and putting my story out there. I had a few people reach out like, oh, I did it or people like I didn't know that exists. A lot of people don't know it exists. That's the predominant reaction. A lot of people are like, oh, I knew about it, but that was back in the 90s. It's typically for DUIs owing child support, alimony, things like that, very minor offenses. So mine is definitely super, and my 52 weekends was also very unconventional. But when I looked it up, there was really no information about it. And my lawyer knew about it because he had a former client that did it. And he told me about it, but he also didn't know anything. about it. So I, to get to Rikers, you have to take a bus over the bridge. So I drove at the time. So there's a parking lot on the other side of the bridge. So my first time I reported in May, I drove to the

lot, parked, got on the bus. And street closed, my street clothes, drove, took the bus over. You walk into the visitor center. And then I'm like, hey, I'm reporting for the weekends, whatever that means. And they're like, oh, okay, okay. Take a seat, you know, and they look into it. And I hear I'm like, calling dispatch. They didn't know which facility I was going to. So like my anxiety is to the roof because so in the other crazy part about my weekend sentencing was even though it's 52 weekends, it was only Saturday morning to Sunday. So I would go in Saturday morning. I think 9 a.m. was what was written down by the judge. I had to report by 9 a.m. Saturdays and I would get released at sometimes they got released later, 5 p.m. on Sunday. So not even a full weekend? No, it was it was I

guess about 32 hours or so approximately. And during the week, you're not on house arrest or anything. No supervision. I could do whatever I want. As long as you reported, no supervision. Nobody, like, no like type of PO or anything like that. You know, most guys will come and they say that, you know, they didn't actually do the crime that they were accused of, but then get sentenced to say like a long sentence.

Right. But your sentence is such a sham like it's believable that you didn't do it. I would have COs. They're like, how long are you in here for it? Because they knew I did the weekends. And I never really got to talk to the weekend. I found out at the time, there was only like two or three. And I've spoken to a reporter like since like in the last three years, each year there's only been about four or five guys doing weekends for the full year out of a Rikers is approximately right now anywhere around 5,000 inmates. So five out of 5,000 is insane. But I was there for 52 weekends. That was the thing where they got me. Most guys would that I was in there with. I met one weekend guy that I did time with because he would come in before me, but we would get released at the same time. But he was only there for like three months. months but he did like third uh he did Friday night to Sunday evening or I heard some guys did

Thursday to Sunday morning or something like that so usually everybody did it longer but they would do it um they would do longer stays for the weekend but they would do it for like three months they would knock out three months so is there a separate unit for you are you getting like a different cell every time how does this so that's where the anxiety came from I didn't know what was going to happen and they finally bring me to so I was basically in PC at all times I was never put in general pop i was never put in the main houses i was originally put in uh the facility called west facility and it's just these different pods um but your cell you're secluded so it's pc um and then nobody can get there's no nobody can get to anybody else you're beyond these like insane i think it used to be like a

quarantine thing back in the day so you have these crazy like hospital like doors and they're super heavy and then there's like a door and then through that door that's the main door they lock and then through that door was like a little, like, area where they have, like, cabinets, not cabinets, but a shelf, whatnot. Because some guys are in there for a long time. You can see they have, like, newspapers over the windows. They have, like, hella books and commissary stacked up. But for me, I've never had anything.

So, and then you would go in, it was a big room, it had its own shower, it had its own TV, had its own toilet. So I'd be in the same cell for 32 hours. And then every week I would go in there for a while. It was, you never knew which cell. You would get put it in a different cell, but in the same housing unit. which was called West Facility. And I guess that's where they would put the people that were agitators,

people that couldn't stay out of trouble, you know what I mean? They were that maybe ratted people out. I don't know. But it really wasn't as much communication because you could never be face-to-face with someone, you know. This just sounds like one mass of inconvenience. Like, I want to be grateful.

Like, I learned a lot from what happened and I understand it could have been a lot worse. Like, it sucked ass. the biggest challenge was like the mental aspect of it like being secluded for 32 hours. I know people can be like I'm not putting anything down on anybody's story or looking. My story is definitely completely different than people that are in there. They have no bail. Can't afford bail. They're in there.

They didn't do a crime. They're in there for a very low misdemeanor. You know what I mean? Or falsely, whatever it is. There's a lot of people in Rikers are getting, you know, they're in there right now. It's completely unfair treatment. It's a disaster in there. It's a humane.

It's super inhumane in there. Everything, it's disgusting. It's disgusting, right? And even for me, it was disgusting with the weekends thing. But I still want to be grateful that at least I knew that I was getting out the next day every single time, right? The first day, I didn't know what the hell was going to happen. I'm like, I hope they come from me. What if they forget?

How do I get a hold of anybody? Do I get phone time or whatever? And, yeah, it was surreal. So you never even ordered commissary, probably, right? I couldn't get commissary because commissary. Yeah, they didn't. nothing happened on the weekends, no security. So what started happening?

I started learning the tricks of the trade as time went on. I realized, like, one garland time is that you bring any snacks? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, oh, I'll just bring some snacks next time. So I was like, all right, I'll try it. Where's that happens is they confiscate or whatever. So I started bringing things slowly but surely like snacks. And then I realized by the end of it, I was bringing hell of snacks last.

But I ate like shit and that takes up. I don't like eating like crap. That took a mental toll on me. You know, I would stay up super late the night before. and get no sleep so I could try to sleep as much tired as they possibly could. I would bring in books, though. They would let me bring in books. I had the TV.

So that's how I passed time. I would basically try to get in there, sleep into the evening, stay up for the evening, crash late at night, wake up late Sunday, and then boom, like three hours, four hours, and I was out. But that messed with you mentally because you have to reset going into Monday or going into Sunday night. And I hated that, you know, and then eating like shit all weekend and sleeping like shit all the week, all weekend long in there. So now during this time, are you dating? Are you married?

What is that like going through this? Hey, I can't see you this weekend. I'm going to Rikers. So I started and so I really kept it to like super close family who knew about it or with my friend group. Like I didn't really tell anybody basically. I would still go on the weekends. I would go out Friday night sometimes to stay out as late as possible. I literally go out. One time I went in with a hangover though, a really vicious hangover. And I was like, dude, this got to be the worst. This is the dumbest shit you could ever do. I have a blasting hangover in Rikers sitting in the cell. I remember just like, what the fuck is?

This is ridiculous. So I started in May and December. I reached out to a girl that I knew we were friends for a while back. She had left New York. And I took her out on a, I planned a date with her. We started talking for a few weeks and I planned a date with her. I was supposed to be on a Monday. And I didn't tell her.

She knew I got arrested, but we didn't bring it up. You know, I found out later she knew. back when I initially got arrested. She knew this story. But this is, I got arrested in 2021. Now this is almost 2023. It's December of 2022. So almost two years later.

And I asked her out and we agree. And then I would always put my phone away when I would go in for the weekend. They would give me a bag where I would change it on my street clothes and change into the jail clothes. And I would put my phone in there and turn it off. And I like, This episode is brought to you by Perfect Bistro Cat Food. Cats, this ad is for you. Has your human ever called you picky?

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Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heighten? taste? Mmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a recess. Get back and we were texting and I remember and I was like, hey, would you just, you know, I disappeared for a whole day and a half, you know.

I didn't tell her, but I was going to tell her a person and we ended up getting dinner that night. We were supposed to get it on Monday. She was like, oh, do you want to get dinner tonight or whatever? Instead, I'm hungry. I was like, sure. And I'm like, she's like, what about 8 o'clock? I'm like, fuck, I got out.

Like, I got three hours to get mentally prepared. I just did the weekends. I got to get, you know, ready. and we go on this date. And at the end, before I got a chance to tell her, she told me that she knew I did the weekends. Because I told, like, one of the very few people I told, she ended up hanging out with her.

It was a girl, they were friends, and they were hanging out the night before, and she told her, she was like, oh, you know, Dylan does weekends, right? And she's like, what do you mean? What does that mean? She was like, yeah, he's in jail like right now during the weekends.

He's like, what the fuck you're talking about? So she knew, but then I had told her before, I was telling her, and then she was like, oh, yeah, I already knew so-and-so told me. I was like, damn, what the fuck? I was supposed to be the one to tell you. But she was cool with it. And then, like, literally, she's amazing.

We got married. We ended up getting married. She hung with me through all the weekends. I would hang out with her the night before. I would check in. And, yeah, she was super supportive through that whole process. And then we ended up getting married. We've been married for almost two years now.

We got married a year after we started dating, a little more than a year after we started dating. I met her in December. We got married. the following, following February. What did your mom think about all this? I think I always gave her a heart attack during the initial arrests, the weekend. She was always worried because, you know, she never, and I always kept, I never really told her about, like, what it was like on the weekends and stuff like that.

Because there was a couple times. They were like, I just wanted to rip my hair out because it was such a shitty experience, like you said. And going back, I don't want to take away from anybody that was in there or is still in there for long periods of time. Injustly, but it was still, it doesn't matter who you're. Nobody wants to do with that shit. Nobody wants to be in Rikers and nobody wants to be in solitary, which kind of mess. Even if it's 32 hours, it still messes with you to have no out social contact with the world.

I had the ability to get the phone, but I swear I was just like, I don't need the phone. I'm only here for 32 hours. Let the other people who need the phone have the phone. So I would never call anybody or anything like that. And guys would mess with me, the CEO sometimes. They'd be like, oh, you're probably happy you get away from your wife for the week. I wasn't married at the time. They didn't know what my story was.

They're just, you're probably happy you get away from your family for the weekend. I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, I was just bullshit. Because none of them knew my case either. You know what I mean? I only told some CEOs once because there was like a group of them and they were just bullshit. They're like, what are you in here for? I'm like, you can just Google my name. And they're like, what?

And then they did it right in front of me and they're like, what the fuck? But besides that, I never told anybody, any of the other inmates that I did come across. I would have conversations a few times. Like, I would get out with the weekend guy that we got out at the same time. He never asked me. And so we never talked about it. And the other inmates, they didn't even know what the weekend thing was in there. Some guys would try to talk to me across from the cells.

I would usually try to just keep to myself and ignore them. But a few times I entertained, you know. There was one guy in there once and he was talking about I overheard him and I felt bad because whether he did it or not, I don't know. But he was claiming that he was falsely accused of murdering like his girlfriend and he had been in there for six months and he hadn't even gone through like anything yet. He was still like way pre-trial. and he had been in that unit for six months. So some guys are in those same solitary spot. And they let them out, but they put him in like,

you don't even get open yard. They put you in like a cage area. So like they get some yard time. But I think it's like an hour. The rest of your 23 hours in that cell. So it's that was, we were talking and I was like, I'm doing weekends and these bullshit.

He's like, oh man, why don't you bring in like cigarettes, Lucy's and stuff like that? You could sell them and make good money. I'm like, bro, I don't need the money that bad. And I'm like, why would I do that? I already have it good. Like if I do that, they're going to, like,

they're going to revoke my sentence and I'm going to go to court and have to do it all over again. Like, I remember one of the, there was one captain that was super cool. He would tell me stories. And he was like, yeah, one guy came in hammered once that was doing weekends, like got to the visitor center where you would always have to check in before they would put you on a bus and bring you to the facility and change. And he was like, he was so drunk. I had to put him like, I had to call the court. And they, they put him in the main housing area and in a holding cell. And he probably got a sentencing, a weekend sentencing revoked. And, you know, they laid the hammer down on him probably.

So I was like, I was never going to do anything that put me in jeopardy of, you know, bringing in contraband or whatever like that. So snacks are not contraband. I end up bringing in a remote because no commissary. So security on the weekends were the only one security were the only ones that could give you batteries for the remote. Most of the time I would get into a cell. There was a new cell every week. There would never be a remote. Or if there was, they took the batteries out of it.

You need to get security to give you the batteries, secure. you didn't work on the weekend, which makes no sense. Like, who gets off? Security gets off at the weekends at Rikert, apparently. So I just snuck in a universal remote with my own batteries, and I end up having that the whole time. I had it so you could, they'd change out all the TVs to flat screen TVs.

So every weekend now I was able to hook it up to the TV no matter what. Because otherwise I would have to ask for a remote, and chances are a guy wouldn't give you to anyways. And I have a, I talked about my podcast. One of my first experiences I got a remote from somebody. it was like the Stanley Cup finals. I wanted to watch late at night and I put it on and I had the volume up and then it was so loud I couldn't turn it down.

I'd already given the remote back and everybody's asleep now and I couldn't fall asleep asleep the entire night because I had the TV on too loud. I'm sitting there taking the toilet paper and trying to put it in my trying to like slam the pillow in my ears. I stayed up all night like it was a terrible idea. So I was like I got to figure out a way to do this. So I got a remote and then they ended up moving me to a different facility up one point during the summer randomly. they went to check in.

They're like, oh, you're going to NIC now, which is called a Stans for North Infirmary Command. That's like the medical facility of Rikers, like where anybody that gets like, God forbid, stabbed or has any type of medical situation going on, they bring them there. But I was also put on a floor again in solitary. So it was like cells this time where I could see all the way down the row of cells. But same thing, you weren't allowed to get out of your cell. Like nobody was allowed another cell. And those ones, same thing.

It didn't have a shower. It was like an actual cell, like a small cell. and it had like a TV in it. And then I left my stuff. I used to keep my stuff in that bag. I would always leave the remote in the bag, so I never had to bring it back in. But my bag got left over in West Facility,

so I had to restart now. Now I had a remote, but there was no sound. So you had to get a radio through commissary, which I didn't have access to. So what I do, I bought a radio and snuck in the radio so I could tune it to the frequency of the TV.

And then eventually they moved me back to West facility again. When you finished your sentence, did you have probation? Or was that it? No, that was the other, that was part of the pros and cons as well as why I decided to do it, because there was no probation period. There was no restitution. Like when I was done, I was done.

And then I can get my sentence, what is it, sealed? Oh, so it's not even on there. That was like a third. No, it is right now. But like in like four more years, it can be completely, the record can be sealed. Okay. How have you been able to rebuild your life since then? You know, what are we two or three years later since you completed that?

I completed the 52 weekends in April of 2023. Yeah, so it'll be three years now almost. I lost it. The learning lesson was I was able to focus more on myself. And COVID helped do that anyways. Like I started like stop caring about a lot of the things I cared about at the time. Like I'm completely out of the fashion thing. I really don't, I still like nice things, but I don't really care.

That's not my business anymore. So I was falling out of that. I lost some friend clients. some of them just distanced themselves and I've come back. There's more people that I realized doing this. They didn't realize that that even happened in the first place, which I was kind of surprised by. I just assumed that everybody knew about it,

but not everybody did know about it. So now I'm coming out. And some people are like, you did that? And I'm like, yeah, but it was two years ago, three years ago now. And they're like, whoa. So they're interested in the hearing about it when I told my own story. But I just dealt with it. I closed my inner circle because there's a lot of people that I helped out.

I put a lot of money in their pocket. by buying things and, you know, I was young and stupid and being naive and spending more. I mean, I was doing well for myself, you know what I was investing money. I had, I was buying things that retained value or upkept in value or rose in value. And, but a lot of people I helped out. I had to cut off because they never like hit me up. Like, yo, bro, what's going on? Try to hear my side of the story of it.

They just took it for face value. they distanced themselves to even though it's like what do you have to distance yourself from you're not the one that's in trouble you know what I mean nope they never went after anybody that I associated with it was literally always me so even the guy that I lived with like that's a whole different thing but even I don't talk to him to this day because he you know he distanced himself I'm like bro a lot of people I thought were like close friends really weren't close friends so there was a learning there was a growth thing there and then I just continue to chugging along and like a lot of people like, look, I don't care. You didn't hurt. You never did anything to me. And that's the other thing. I'll point out a lot of

athletes out of all the people I deal with. I had started my own business in 2013 buying and selling the high in items. Since 2013, I got arrested in 2021. Not one person, not one client or friend or whatever came out and said, oh yeah, he ripped me off. You know what I mean? Not one person. So I was able to see, like I said, who were friends, who weren't friends, kind of cut that off and then just build upon, you know, a lot of those guys, the athletes, I still, I'm good friends with them and whatnot. So I keep in touch because it's good for networking and whatnot. So I've, you know, recently started my own business again. And I was doing that. I was still doing entrepreneurial things even while I was locked up. So yeah. Are you more cautious with how you conduct your business

now? Just in regards to. I'm cautious with everything, spending money and way more frugal about things. Like, like I said, I would go on Instagram and I would intentionally flex because it looked good for the optics. Like, it looked like I was living a luxurious lifestyle. A lot of the items I was purchasing were, and posting were for clients. Some were mine. A lot of going out and spending money, I would split it up amongst four other individuals who also had money. So it's not like it's just me spending insane amounts of money by myself. It's like there's always, there's always, there's always, two sides of the story, right? But yeah, I'm frugal about money more so. I'm more conscientious about like putting money into things that I think will create long-term value. Like I said, personal relationships. I don't really open myself. This is me opening up myself. You know what I mean, telling people what they didn't know about me. I have a lot of support though from people. I've had, it's like this cliche thing. People say like people that don't know will support you more than the people that were closest to you. And that's kind of how to work out. Like I still have a

large Instagram following outpost things. People interact with me. They respect my opinion. I don't necessarily know why sometimes. People reach out to me like I think it's cool what you're doing. I'm glad you're telling your story. I didn't know about that. But it's people I don't even know. It's people that have been following me on Instagram. I've, I never even met them where a lot of people like I said that I would go out and party with them and pay for everything. And it's not about the money. It's just like, hey, like I took care of you. I didn't need anything from return. But it's just like you could have just asked like, hey, hope you're doing good. man like if you need anybody to talk to like that that would have been simple i would have been happy with

that you know to this day there's some people i think they're you know they just everybody's got their own problems right so they're like not my problem i guess so that that was a learning lesson too you know people people be selfish when you need somebody you know when you need people to help you out you know people show their true colors yeah definitely well dillan i appreciate you coming on the show today absolutely appreciate it man yeah thank you for letting me show my story of course thank you for sharing and uh i wish you the best in the future and i'm sorry you went through what you went through. It's all good.

All growing opportunities.