Locked In with Ian Bick - How Inmates Smuggle Contraband and Make Fortunes in America's Top Federal Prison | Mike Peters

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Dive into the hidden world of America's top federal prison, where inmates ingeniously smuggle contraband and build clandestine fortunes. Discover the covert tactics and underground economies that thrive behind bars, revealing a complex web of ingenuity and resilience. From the methods of smuggling to the intricate ways prisoners make money, this exposé uncovers the secrets that turn incarceration into opportunity. Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Mike Peters: Website: www.politrickkks.con YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politrickkks?si=pxJRebfT36yKVyT9 IG: @Readyrockdot Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 - The Profitable Hustle in Prison 00:03:50 - Meeting on the Podcast Set 00:07:53 - From Poverty to Entrepreneurship 00:11:55 - Selling 00:15:56 - Arrested and Incarcerated 00:19:50 - The Wyatt Experience 00:23:56 - Court Experiences and Transportation Journey 00:28:02 - The Stabbing Incident at the Gym 00:32:02 - Fort Dix Hustles and Money Making Schemes 00:36:00 - Hustling in Prison 00:40:08 - A Scandalous Turn of Events in Prison 00:44:20 - Issues in the Halfway House System 00:48:15 - A Crazy Journey to Miami 00:52:05 - The Chicken Patty Story 00:56:07 - The Mindset of Criminality 01:00:07 - Personal Growth and Empowering Others 01:04:07 - Discussing the First Episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The biggest hustle, obviously is cigarettes, cell phones, workout stuff. This is what was in demand. I was with guys that have 60, 70,000 dollars on their books just from hustling in jail, bro, from selling cell phones, from selling things. The phones were $1,200 a pop for, like, a flip phone, you know? And I was with guys who just made so much money. And the way they would get it in, in Fort Dick, there's two fences. So the perimeter truck come around every three minutes or something like that.

They, you know, they figured all that out. So the guys would be inside on the phones, lining up with the guys outside. But because it's a barracks, people could come on it. You know, if you have a military ID or anything, you can come on to the barracks. So they were orchestrated in that little small window of the perimeter truck not being there. You would just see bags just flying over the fence. And you would see guys from inside running to the fence, grabbing the bags and going into the buildings. And by the time the perimeter truck was spit around, the guys were back in the building.

And then by the time they go sweep the building, all the drugs are hidden in everyone's stash spots. A lot of those guys working in facilities. So they was knocking out holes in the walls. I mean, they just have so many creative staff spots. Like, once it got on the compound, you're never going to find it. Mike, welcome to Locked In Man. Pleasure having you. You are a fellow studio and podcast owner and host in Connecticut from Stanford, right?

Absolutely. Thank you for having me, first of all. And absolutely, yes, I got a new podcast studio I just built, and I'm starting a new podcast myself. Yeah, tell us the names of it. We've got to plug you in off the top. You know, we got a lot of Connecticut listeners. Definitely. So the podcast is called Politrics as usual.

It's a spinoff of the clothing brand that I'm wearing now. I make clothes. And what the brand really represents is just identifying oppressive systems. So if you see the logo, I don't know if we have an opportunity to really see the logo. It addresses systems like racism, capitalism,

crooked politics. And so the podcast is just really giving information to assist people to navigate these systems a little better because in my community, there's lots of things that we don't understand or don't fully grasp until it's too late until like we're there. And so I want to give the information

to them ahead of it. time so that we can navigate a little more a little more properly yeah that's a logo right there the polytrix so this this is just the P but the logo was on my back actually the logo was actually in the side of the hat I don't know which oh which one yeah it's that cam right there if you want to show it right right that's the logo um and so you see the dollar sign so it's just symbolism of just oppressive systems and things like that oh and people can rent your studio and you do a couple other things they can rent it so they can rent it for photo shoes they can rent it for podcast they can rent it for movie nights and different things. I wanted to keep it very versatile and I wanted to be able to

to keep it accessible for everybody. Yeah, it's funny how we met. I was supposed to do a podcast there with someone else that was using your studio and I met you there and that guy was running late and we were talking. Right. And you happened to have been to Fort Dix prison where I was at. That's right. Such a small world and you're from Connecticut. That's right. But that's how I knew that this was right. I knew because of the way that happened. And the funny thing about that is the person I was interviewing you, we hadn't spoken for like three or four years. So when he called me,

he was really looking for a sign of the well, like a different place to shoot his podcast. And so when he called me, I'm like, bro, I'm building one right now. Like I'm in a midst of building one. I'm about to be done in a few weeks. You could use mine. And so that's why when you got there,

it wasn't like fully ready. Things were in boxes because I just, he was the first use there. But he never showed up. So you and I just talked, it just felt right. You know what I mean? So I'm like, I definitely have to come up here.

I didn't know where I was going because everything was it. I knew it was going to be a studio because you had all the equipment. It wasn't like I was getting killed, but it wasn't, nothing to was set up. So I was like, what? Because he was supposed to be there and get it all ready for you, you know what I mean? But it just didn't work. But it worked out. It's funny how life works that way, though.

You know, it's all about the connections because me and you probably wouldn't have connected and you didn't know about the show. And when I saw you, it was so funny because he texted me. He's like, yo, he's downstairs. I'm like, okay, I don't know who I'm looking for, right? So I come downstairs and I'm looking at it. I'm like, you look familiar. but like, I don't know you. You know what I mean?

You're like, you know from TikTok. I'm like, nah, but then it's funny, I had just seen a clip of this podcast maybe two to three weeks prior to that. And that's where I saw you from. And I remember laughing. Was it the Rikers Island Guard with the Badoosey and how the women's prison smells? I just remember laughing because I'm like, wow, somebody really monetized the feds. I just laughed.

It was like an inside laughing type of thing. And then you popped up. And I'm like, yeah, this is crazy. Yeah. I was thinking about that earlier about how I literally have a business based off of going to prison. Like, I wouldn't have this if I never went to prison. But it's, it's, everything is necessary, even prison.

Like, you know, the way I look at prison for me was like, do I want to go? Of course not. Like, who wants to go to jail, right? But I was always of the belief in prison to do the time. Don't let the time do me. Like, I used my time very constructively and I focused on what I wanted to do when I got out. Yeah. So for me, jail, prison was like a break because before I got there, life was crazy.

I mean, it was crazy. You know what I mean? And so when it happened, you kind of just say, all right, this happened. And what can I get from this? And I try to extract the most from that experience. But it's all unnecessary, man. Absolutely. Did you grow up in Connecticut?

I did. In Stanford. So you've been there your whole life. My whole life. So that's why, like, when I'm there now, I'm very community-based. Because that's like my people, you know? And that's where I'm most known at. That's where I know the people at.

That's where I know the landscape. So born and raised in Stanford, my whole life. You ever think you'll leave? No. I'm just going to ride it out I'm going to ride this thing out How much is it changed since being a kid Like if you're living there your whole life like that

Oh it's changed so much You know when I was a kid Stanford was a city nobody really cared about You know it was it was Kind of financial but not really financial And in about the mid-90s We had a mayor named Malloy He was actually the governor

He was governor Maloy He was a mayor of Stanford He was a Stanford mayor And so when he became the mayor That's when Stanford became the shift he brought a lot of business there and tax incentives so we got like UBS and RBS

and all these national headquarters came there and it just started changing so like it's different now it's like you go around 5 o'clock it's like New York and Jersey plays everywhere It's like Connecticut. It's like a mini New York City

Correct, correct And South Norwalk They've really changed over the years So it was different when I was younger It's definitely become more of a developed place But I like it I love it because I stay current I stay current with the times.

So I don't mind that it's changing. I'm glad that it's changing. I think it's changed for the better, not the worst. Stanford was different when I was little. It was like, it was different. What kind of area? Was it a good, the safe area?

So it was, it was, it was, it was like, I mean, a lot of people that lived in Stanford ended up to Bridgeford. So once that shift started happening, a lot of the people who were like, troublesome in Stanford were priced out and it ended up in Bridgeport. So Bridgefurt is like a melting pot of a lot of things because a lot of people, you know, could afford Bridgeport.

And so Stanford was kind of bad. I don't want to say it was so bad because it was never like crazy bad, but it definitely used to be used to be a little crazy. But that's all over right now. How did you grow up? Did you have a big family, siblings? Yeah, so I had a brother. My brother was killed, murdered two, three years ago, rather. Oh, wow.

Three years ago, May 16th, just passed. I have a sister. My family was pretty big. But, you know, as you get older, people start shifting around. and moving around. But we grew up with a lot of community. You know, I grew up in, like, the hood. So a building.

So my building is a building next to me. It's a building behind me. So it's like three buildings on one block. So there were like no shortage of friends and no shortage of like extended family. So that was cool. What do your parents do for work? My father was working at the post office. My mother was a building.

Actually, she was a director of my building. We lived in. So she does a lot of community work as well. And she was just, she was very community. base. So her work was the building, but her work was just everything, just everywhere. It was just, she was an amazing woman. Did you guys grow up middle class, lower class, well off? Lower class. But the thing is when you're, when you are growing up in poverty, you don't know it necessarily. And there would be times I would go to school and tell kids like what I ate. You know,

like, what's your favorite food? I'm like, oh, tuna cassero, what? Or like certain things, they're like, what? And that's when I started to realize like, okay, maybe it's a little different. from where I'm at for where they are. But I had, I was always in top groups in school, like top reading groups and top. So I always had a diverse crowd of friends. So I would go to, like, white kids' houses and stuff. I was like, that kid that would, like, go to all their houses. So I got to see a lot and I got a lot of exposure because of that.

But we definitely grew up three kids, one bedroom type of thing. You know what's interesting about the food is that we grow up as kids, like, making fun of the ones eating, like, the tuna cashroll and stuff. But it's actually pretty good. It's delicious. Yeah. And, like, those type of family style. meals, like as you get older, and even as, you know, me and you both went to prison, where there's meals kind of like that and you learn to appreciate that, like the chicken

patty. The chicken patty, right? I'll tell you the chicken patty story, but the worst dish in it was the beef stroganoff. Oh, because did they put the fucking beans in it? That was the one with the beans, too, right? Yeah, man, that's like a locker day. When they have beef strogan off, like, everybody comes. I've avoided the weekends, too, at Fort Dix because the brunch and they would just put like an

egg. I wasn't a brunch guy in the feds, you know? So what year were you in for? I was there 2016 to 2017, just not even, I didn't make it a full year because it got caught on a cell phone because they were started busting into all the phones. Wow. So I was on a video on a phone, so they locked our whole room up. Oh, wow. Yeah, we were like wrestling on video and someone had it on the phone.

They got into the, it was crazy. Yeah, crazy. And then they shipped me all over. When I was there, I left there 2010. Okay. And so people have phones, though. You know, iPhones and they were really expensive. But it was a lot less known.

Like I see now when I see on the internet, I see guys like posted from there, they're on Twitter still. Like how are they so open with this now? Like, well, because social media wasn't too big when you were there. Yeah, true, true. It was a different time period.

It was just Facebook. There was no TikTok. But where did you get caught? Where? Like, what did you get caught if you're on the phone, you're on Twitter? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

So when I was there, I don't know if you're not going to say this, but when I was there, I was there with Bernie Mae. I'm not Bernie Meade. Bernard Carrick. Who's that? So Bernard Carrick used to be the New York City Police Commissioner. And so he went to jail. I don't know.

I think some type of embezzlement or some type of fraud. And he always maintained that he was innocent, that he was the fall guy. But he tweeted. Somebody tweeted from his account. And it was like a crazy thing on the compound. It was like searching all the rooms and looking for the phones. It was craziness. But now I see guys just like so loose on the phone.

It's crazy. Yeah, Fortix is crazy when I was there. So I couldn't even imagine what it was like almost a decade earlier, you know. People were getting rich in there, bro. Yeah. And we'll get into that later. episode. So did you go high school, college? What was like school like? So I went to Stanford High. I went to two years of college. I finished two years of college. I'm probably five or six

classes off a bachelor's degree. I don't know if it matters at this point, if I should get it or not. I think I will because I have a daughter, you know, just to let her see me finish. But I did go all the way up to five or six classes left in college. I went to, I went to a normal community. Then I transferred the Yukon to Stanford. What were you studying? Business, business management. Just business. Yeah, yeah. Were you entrepreneurial as a kid? Yeah. My whole life, I said I was going to be rich.

Like, since I was five, you know, growing up, like, without things, you want to get them. You know, I see my mother struggling. And I'm like, yo, I'm going to get you together, you know? So my whole life, I was, like, obsessed with just, like, money. And from as long as I remember, I was trying things, you know, trying to achieve things. The most recent, the last endeavors that I've tried was a liquor store. We used to own a liquor store at Stanford. You were telling me about that.

was in COVID. You know, it got crazy. COVID got crazy, but we closed. We lasted three years there. I had another, another store that was a shared space where we involved, like, the whole community. We sold local art, local candles, like things that people made. It was just a dope spot. So I keep trying. You know what I mean? I always try because I don't like authority. You're very business-minded. So I'm wondering where it went wrong for you because you have such a good, you're smart, you have a good head on your shoulder. You're very excited and passionate, your family and community grounded. So what happened? Did it go wrong? Because I made a lot of money selling drugs too.

Okay. You know, I think that I was just applying my intelligence to the wrong things. You know, drugs in our community is the most accessible, fastest way to get money in your pocket. I could wake up tomorrow, buy some drugs, and go back in the house in a pocket full of cash. And so in the beginning, I would sit out there. I would watch everybody and I would just watch. And I'm like, man, I could do this better than them, you know? And eventually, you get in.

And so it wasn't, and I always had jobs, too. I would hustle, but I always had like a nine to five. Even when I went to court, my lawyer is making an argument. Like, hey, this guy's a good guy. He's working. And a prosecutor who's now a judge. She was a dog, bro. But anyway.

Wait, what's her name? Tracy Dayton, bro. Dayton, no, I don't know. Federal judge now, bro. And which city? New Haven or Bridgeport? I wanted to see New Haven. Okay.

Because I read an article where her name in it. I'm like, yo, this lady's a judge. She was my prosecutor. And I remember, I remember, I remember. them trying to paint the picture that, you know, he's working. And she was like, yeah, but as soon as he gets off, he's selling all the drugs on earth. Like, she was like, that job is a front, you know what I mean? But I always had a job and I always did that too.

But that's the most accessible thing, I think, to get, you know, to start off and change your financial situation. How are you first exposed to it? Was it a family member? Was it friends? So my brother, God bless the day. He would hate this story because he always said I blame them. but, you know, I watched and I watched him do it and I'm watching it. And not just him, I'm just watching my whole hood, like, come out with new sneakers.

And I'm just sitting there like, yo, this is easy. I could do this, you know. And so my brother gave me a crash course one day on like, how to hustle because he had to go to jail. He found out on a Monday. He was going to jail Wednesday. And so he was like, yo, man, like, you know, I had a kid. I need you, like, help me out, you know? And he just gave me like a crash course.

Like, yo, this is what it costs. This is what you sell it for. Don't mess with this guy. put your windows up, put your seatbelt on. Like, I'm in a crash course. I'm like hustling 101. And I was like off to the races, but I was like, no looking back. What kind of drugs were you selling?

Cracking Coke. Okay. You just skipped right to the big leagues. Right to the big leaves. I dabble with weed here and there. Like, my boy, I had a friend who would, like, steal little people's weed and stuff and sell it to us. So I dabble with it, you know, but when I actually committed to it, it was right away. How much would you say you were making?

Oh, God. At my peak? Yeah. Oh my God. It vary, man. At a minimum, it's $1,000. I mean, at a minimum. A day, a day. A day. Wow. That's great money. Cash. At a minimum. Some days were better. Two, three,000, $5,000. Just depends, man. But at a minimum, a thousand was like the bottom. Did you get involved with any gangs or violence or anything? No, no, no. So Stanford's not really gang. Stanford's not really a gang place. We definitely got involved with violence for sure. Absolutely. You know, and it's safe for the small. So a lot of the, a lot of the, a lot of the, tension is going to happen really, really close-knit in Stanford because the communities are really small. So there was lots of tension and lots of friction over the years, but I mean, I'm still here.

Now, what I've noticed is every person that deals drugs always has like an exit strategy in their mind of how much they want to make and then they get out. What was kind of like your number and plan? So I did have a plan. And what's funny is it feels like the feds come right when you're trying to get out. Like, it's like they know. You know what I mean? And so my plan was like that year.

I was like, yo, this year I'm done. I had like a nice little bit of cat. My credit was good. I had a job. I was about to get a promotion. Like, things were going great. I'm like, yeah, it's time to go. I'm going to go to D.C.

But, you know, drugs were always in my plan. I'm like, I'm going to D.C. and sell weed. Like, I'll scale back, you know. But I did have an exit strategy, and I was going to move to D.C. Because I loved D.C. area. And I was going to take my money I made. And then right before I could do that, they just came, bro. And the way they came was, like, just nuts.

Yeah, tell us the story of the day you got arrested. It was like 6, maybe 5.30 or 6 a.m. in the morning. And I was, like, dead sleep. And they knocked. They had a, so he knocked. They didn't have, like, a search warrant, just a body warrant. And I remember them just, I remember just waking up, man, and just, like, lights in my room. They're, like, banging lights.

You know those, like, stand-up lights. They're, like, knocking it over. And, like, the guy, like, standing on my bed with the gun drawn. He's like, don't move. I'm like, bro, I'm sleeping, bro. Like, y'all don't have to do all of this. And that's how they, that's how they arrested me. And I remember him pulling me to a separate room, trying to get me, like, to cooperate right there on a spot.

He's like, hey, man, help us out. save yourself. Like, bro, what are you talking about? You know? I was like, just taking me when you're taking me. So that's how that happened. And it was just a crazy thing. And I remember not being familiar with the feds thinking it was a state thing.

I'm like, yo, just take me downtown. Let me get out. Not knowing, like, it's the feds and I'm not getting out. So I went, I went, um, they took me to the trooper barracks in Bridgeport. And then they took me to Wyatt. How was that Wyatt? So eventually, eventually I ended up in Wyatt. And I didn't get bail for like three months.

But they eventually gave me a bell. I stayed on Bell for about eight months. and then I went back in to do a five-year sentence. Have you ever been arrested before that and did any time? Like small little, that was like my real first serious rodeo with the law. Everything else was like juvenile little things, you know, little dumb things. But nothing crazy. That was my first real arrest.

So I couldn't even qualify for any relief, no safety valve, none of that stuff because I had two prior convictions. They were small, stupid things, but there were two points. And the way they do the point system, it disqualified you from any relief. So the only relief that you can get in the feds is the 5K1 if you cooperate or if you was the first time a fender or safety valve. But the way that safety valve was working at that time, if you didn't cooperate, they wouldn't give it to you.

And if you had two points, you couldn't get it. So I was priced out of both of those. I couldn't get either one of those. So I got... USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote

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Cocktails up here feel just right. Is Cambria home? Bring a date, your team, or even your mom. Book direct at Choicehotels.com. See you on the roof. I got a five-year sentence. Did you have a lot of co-defendants? 21.

Oh, so you were in, what, a RICO? So it wasn't a RICO, but it was a conspiracy. But the crazy thing about these conspiracies is I don't know, I didn't know these people. Yeah. And so I remember sitting with my lawyer saying, how can they do this? Like, I only know this two guys. He's like, it doesn't matter, man. The way they painted it is like, you guys are all together.

I'm like, who are these people? So they called it a conspiracy, but it wasn't truly a conspiracy. And it just takes one of them to say that you were selling drugs or whatever if you were to go to trial and it's a lose. Right. So two things. So one, the guy who was getting the drugs for me, he was being set up by a guy that was driving him. So the guy that was driving was purchasing drugs from this one kid who was purchasing drugs from me. The driver set everybody up.

So he got the drugs, gave it to the fest. He was like the informant. So we had no chance, bro. We had no chance. And I remember right before I accepted the plea, I remember speaking to my attorney telling him, him, I think I want to go to trial. And God bless the day, he passed away too. I remember him saying, Mike, listen, bro, I don't want you to look out your window in five years and say, man, I could have been home five years ago. And you got another five to do. He's like, take this little

five years, man, just get it over with. So I took it. But I went to the wire. I really thought I could beat it. But I was definitely guilty. How did your mom feel as someone who was involved in her community and whatnot about you getting arrested? So, so I think that she, I think that she kind of always felt it in her heart, you know, because my brother was, like I said, we were both kind of outside. And I think she always felt it in her heart that there was a possibility that I was in the street. I think she was hurt, disappointed, and all that. But she was a woman of faith, a woman of God. So she always told me, you'll be okay. And she didn't, like, bug out on me, but she was absolutely hurt. And, you know, I'm the youngest. I'm like the baby

of the family. So she was hurt. So our audience really loves when I have guests that have kind of lived through what I lived through, so because they get to understand me a little bit more. And I went to Wyatt. So tell us about Wyatt and what that was like in that experience and what exactly why it is. Yeah. So why it is the first stop you go for like Connecticut people because we don't have, well, at the time, we didn't have any other really facilities. We don't have county jails.

Right. We didn't have county jails. So Wyatt is a private facility, privately held facility that houses federal inmates and immigration. So INS was there too. Was INS still there when you were there? They had just closed the pod. Okay, so when I was here, it was, or J-1 or something. Yeah, so when I was there, INS was there also.

But it's not a federal BOP jail. So why it was like the Wawa West, man? Because everyone knows that whatever you do here, once you leave here, it doesn't matter. So dudes is like fighting each other, fighting COs. I mean, it was, why it was crazy, man. The food was terrible. Those little brown trays. That was like what you see on 60 days in and like these type of shows on Netflix

and stuff. That's what it looks like. You have the pods, units. You're not allowed to leave the unit. Two tiers. Yep. And there's all these correctional officers that are like mall cops kind of with the badges and they go over the top. Like they have the patches on them. They have they have like in they had like a sergeant which they don't have in the feds. They had a sergeant. They had a captain. They had a co-capped. They had all these different ranks. It was like the military for a private prison. Exactly. And I was part of the captain's crew because I wanted to move around to jail. So captain's crew at nighttime, we would go out. It popped a cell like 10 o'clock or something, and you would go out and like clean all the pods.

So I would get to go around, get stuff from other pods. It was cool with a load of job because it gave you some movement. Because, you know, Wyatt was like pods. You're sitting there all day with like limited movement. So we was part of the captain's crew. And I was cool, but Wyatt was terrible. I was almost relieved to get into the BOP. I was glad to get into like the actual system.

Now in these detention centers, there's not really politics. Like, because they don't have, if you're the first time guy going to the Fed, a place like Wyatt doesn't give you a clear depiction of what's to come. No, at all. Because no one's checking paperwork because everyone's on pretrial and whatnot. Right, right, right, right. But it's like that when you get into the BOP. Yeah, but you're caught off guard because Wyatt doesn't prepare you for that.

It's a total shift. So is why is nothing like what you're about to experience. Like nothing, none of it. Not from the way they count nothing. Like when you get in the feds, they count differently. It's just totally different in night and day. So why I think why it's just, again, a money grab or something. I don't know.

They're making money off the inmates. They're making tons of money, right? Yeah, you're getting limited supplies, just everything. That's just they're getting paid per head to house people there and whatnot. We were able to order from a restaurant, though, on Thursdays. That's crazy because that did not exist. And we had a kiosk and every Thursday you could order special, like a cheeseburger or a pizza or something. That's definitely a private prison perk.

Yeah, yeah, because like, yeah, we couldn't do that when I was there. But why I was, you know, again, it just. It really doesn't prepare you for what you're about the experience, but it does, it does prepare you for being locked up because that's the least amount of movement, man. When you get to Fort Dix, like you feel like, you feel like, there were times at Fort Dix, man, I felt like I was like home, man.

It's like a college campus. Right, like I'm like sitting on like rails and stuff with my boys and we outside. I'm like, this is kind of like, you know. You're on the block. Like I'm on the block, right. So, so, you know, why it doesn't prepare you for that? And I was relieved to get to Fort Dix.

Before Dix was crazy. Were there lots of groundhogs? Groundhogs and cats. An immense amount of wild cats. I've never seen anything like it. Like just loads of cats running around this prison. Did you ever get transported from Wyatt to court? I did.

Yeah, share that experience. Oh, God. So I'll show two experiences about transport from Wyatt. Okay. So Wyatt to court, first of all, it was just wrong. Like, they would put us in these patty wagons, and we're in the backpacked up, these hard benches. Like, we go to court.

and if you had court and my court was in New Haven, but the bus was going to all different court houses. So you would be sitting on that thing just in the back just shackled up waiting and waiting and waiting for people to finish court. So court was like an all-day thing, you know. And so it was a hard, it was very hard. I think that's part of their tactic to make you like cop out quick.

A lot of guys were in there like, you mean, I'm ready to just take a deal. I'm tired of court. You know, whether they were guilty or not, they're like, man, I'm tired of this transport back to court. And they were ready to just plea out. So it was a Court was a rough experience

I heard they changed it now I heard they used vans and stuff now Yeah we had a van But they you're waking up at like 4 a.m. 4 a.m. They're giving you a bag lunch at every courthouse and you have to go I think it's Hartford First then Bridgeport then New Haven They leave you there at the crack of dawn all day

And then you do the same stop It's literally an all day thing It's nuts and then you get back They got a little tray waiting for you Which we just said it's nothing The food was like nothing And it's like nine o'clock It's like really late

Everybody's locked in. You missed the whole day. Court was a mess. Imagine if you're on trial going from court to there every day. Craziness. Yeah, and that would be nuts. It's torture. So the biggest mind, like, so I told you about transport, right?

So when I got transported from Wyatt to Brooklyn, you got to take 95. My building is visible from I-95. So just think about the psychology of being on a bus, starting a sentence, and seeing home and riding by there and not being able to go. It was crazy. I was like, I cannot believe I'm looking at my house, but I'm sitting here like shackled up at my waist

and I'm going to start a five-year sentence. It's crazy. That's how I felt passing through Danbury because I went to Danbury for a little bit. Crazy. The low passing through where I own the club and everywhere. I literally passed right the exit to this studio, you know? Crazy.

It's nuts. Which club? Which club is your own? Tuxedo Junction. Oh, I heard a tuxedo. Yeah, yeah. That was my joint. I was a third owner of that,

but I had that for, from 2014 or 2013 to 2016. Nice. We did a lot of hip-hop shows, EDM, Taiga, Big Sean, Chief Keep, a bunch of people like that. Cool. A whole different era back then. Listen, life would change you.

Yeah. Life would change. So tell us about Brooklyn, going to Brooklyn, what that was like. So Brooklyn, all right, so that's different, right? Because now I'm a Connecticut guy. So I'm dealing with those Connecticut stereotypes. Everybody think like you saw. off and all this stuff. And in Brooklyn,

everybody clicked up because that's their, that's their local, like, county, you know what I'm saying? So getting into Brooklyn was different, though, because soon as we got there, it was like business. We was like, I was like, oh yeah, this is jail. Like, soon as you get there, CO's waiting for you, shackles waiting for you, it was a different experience. But I remember being

so relieved that we had Hot 97 in New York radio. Because one of the things that I hated about why it was the radio, the music, all we can get was like Hartford Station or wherever up there, and it was like terrible radio. So the first thing I was excited about being in Brooklyn was to hear New York radio. But Brooklyn was much better. It was rowdy, though.

It was definitely rowdy. But I find that if you show respect in there, you're good. You know, anywhere you go. If you just go and do your thing, you're fine. And that's like Ay Wyatt, but it's not private. It's under the BOP control. It's still a pre-trial spot, but it's a BOP pre-trial prison. Yeah.

And even them, a lot of guys there don't know how to do Fed time. They're fresh off the street. They have that kind of mentality, which is why it's rowdy. Correct. There's not really structure in that regard. Correct. It's different when you get to the actual compound because those guys, you start bumpings to guys that have been down 10 years already, 20 years already,

and they kind of got this thing to a science. You know, and they're not going to allow you to just do anything. Like, I've seen all types of fights with cutting lines and lunch lines, people fighting in the actual, in Fort Dix. There was a guy cut and dude just, they just started brawling. Really, at Fort Dix there was a fight. I didn't see any really fights because it normally got squashed quickly by the higher-ups by the inmates because they didn't want to.

want to bring heat to the unit. One of my, I don't know how much I could say on this show. Say everything, yeah. One of my roommates got stabbed. Really? Yeah. So, tell us their story. So, there was this guy there, just Dominican inmate, and his guy didn't bother anybody.

He had been down like 18 years already. And he would just play the guitar. Every time we'd go into the gym, he'd just be playing the guitar mine in his business. And the dispute started over laundry, man, over, like, the machines. And the guy who was in my cell was, like, trying to bully the guy. you know like I'm using it blah blah blah and this guy was like four months from going home the other guy the Dominican four months from going home and stabbed this dude in front of the unit right in front of 02 the guy was in front I think the guy lost his eye he stabbed him in the face no he stabbed him like a bunch of

time it was like a real stabbing what happened when the stabbing went down all the alarms went off you know they locked the whole prison down and they moved uh they moved the guy out but it was crazy did he come back on the yard the other guy was gone they shipped them out and they took the other guy to it And a couple people have seen the victim in transit, but I never, I'd never seen him again. Like he went to medical and I'd never seen him again. Now at a place like Fort Dix where there's no cells to get locked into, when the compound's on a lockdown, what happens? Everybody in the building, they lock those buildings. So you're locked in the building.

You can't leave the building. Once they recall that compound, as big as that compound is, it's a ghost town. You know, you ever been caught in a move? Yeah, and you're stuck outside. The doors are locked because they can't open them. That's right. That's right. It's like you're stuck on the campus, like just screwing around hanging out outside.

You just stuck outside and they know they got you and they got right to a shot and stuff like that. Yeah. So tell us about Fort Dix. Like just describe it for the audience of what it looks like and why we're calling it a college campus. Yeah. So Fort Dix was structured like a, so Fort Dix is a bit, it was a barracks first. It's a fort. And he took a piece of that fort, fenced it in and made it a prison.

So it's barrack style prison. So my room was a 12. I was in a 12-man room. Some guys were in two-men. To be at a two-man, you had to be there like forever and have some seniority and some juice, you get a two-man room. But I was new there, so I had a 12-man room. And the doors never locked inside of the building.

We could roam the building all night, but the building door is locked. But Fort Dix was cool. We had a basketball court. We had a weight room. We had a botchy ball court, handball court, baseball field. Baseball field.

Yeah, a track. But it was huge. I think to walk from one side to the other. It took a half a mile. Yeah, it was a long, long walk and everything was like medical had its own building, commissary at its own building. Ardap had his own building. Yeah, the different housing units.

And there was two sides. So there was one side that mimicked that. And on the other side was huge, the same. It's probably the largest federal prison in America. Definitely. Oh, it has to be. It has to be. And you were on the east side, right?

Yeah, everyone goes the west side first. And then they go that they switch. I was on the east side. Right. So the intake is on. on the west side. Yeah. But the shoe was also on the west side.

Yeah. So the rumor, the thing we always knew, like the west side guys, you go to the shoe for nothing, bro. You take a pepper, you're in the shoe. You take a pepper out of the kitchen, you're in the shoe. But the east side, it was more work because they had like bus guys over there. So we always said east side get away with everything.

And people that would come from the east side to the west side were way route here. We were like, these guys are like, we called the east side like the projects, because it was just like no law, because it took a lot for them to put you in a shoe. But the west side, you go to the shoe.

for anything, but it was such a large compound. Now, back then, was it a big chomo compound? Definitely. Now, I told the TikTok that went viral about how when I was walking the yard, I used to see guys playing like dungeon and dragons in the field. Was that a thing? No. No, they weren't like out in the grass hanging out all the chomos.

No. But there were a few guys pressing the chomos. Really? I remember there was one guy sent the guy to the store. And I remember him saying, like, next time get me butter cards or something like that. He was mad because the guy got him the wrong thing. But they was pressing the Tommos. There was definitely guys in there that were pressing those guys at Comic Series to buy them stuff and all that type of stuff for sure.

Now, meeting me, could you see why they assumed I was a Tomo at Fort Dix? Definitely. And why is that? I mean, you're white. That's the first thing. You look so young. You look so like you don't look like you would break the law, man. You look like your crime would be.

You don't have like your facial hair. Man, there's just certain things that we're looking at, bro. I don't know. It's just. No, you're a guy that's there for drugs. and I'm looked the way I am. I haven't, like I'm older now, but I look exactly the same, a little chubbier, and I tell you I'm there for fraud.

Do you believe me, given your position? Maybe. Maybe not at first. Because a lot of the guys there for fraud are not that young. Right, right. Maybe not at first, you know what I'm saying? But, you know, over time I will believe it. But at first, I think the general assumption is that it's chomo stuff.

Just like I think the general assumption For me, it's like a violent crime or drugs. You know, you see it's coming. You probably think either it's drugs or it was violence, you know? Something I was intrigued about at the Chow Hall is that the Chomas had their own tables. Yeah. They were separated. Was it like that back in 2010?

Definitely. Because there's so many of them, they have to have their own tables. And they're so protected, though. Like, you know, as much as we dislike them, you do anything to one of them, bro. They'll ship you. You'll never be seen again in that federal system. They'll ship you somewhere, bro. you used to never be heard of again.

Yeah, because it's such a big compound. It's like a safe zone for them. Definitely. Now, let's talk about the economics and the economy of Fort Dix and the hustles and the money and just like the everything about that. So when I was there, the biggest hustle, obviously is cigarettes, cell phones, workout stuff because this is what people, this is what was in demand. And so I was with guys, man, I was with guys that have 60, 70,000 dollars on their books just from hustling in jail, bro, from selling cell phones. from selling things. The phones were $1,200 a pop for like a flip phone, you know?

And I was with guys who just made so much money in Fort Dix. And the way they would get it in, did you ever see a move happen in Fort Dix? The way it happened, the way stuff will come in over the fence? No. Tell us about it. Oh, my God. So, you know, in Fort Dix, there's two fences. So the perimeter trucks come around every three minutes or something like that.

They, you know, they figured all that out. So the guys would be inside on the phones lining up with the guys outside because it's a barracks. And there's a camp, too. Correct. And there's a camp as well. But because it's a barracks, people could come on it. You know, if you have military ID or anything, you can come onto the barracks. So they were orchestrated in that little small window of the perimeter truck not being there. You would just see bags just flying over the fence. And you would see guys from inside running to the fence, grabbing the bags and going into the buildings. And by the time the perimeter truck was spit around, the guys are back in the building. And then by the time they go sweep the building, all the drugs are hidden in everyone's stash spots. Because, you know, a lot of those guys are, working in facilities. So they was knocking out holes in the walls. And they, I mean, they just had so many creative staff spots. Hadaday presents in the red corner, the undisputed, undefeated weed whacker guys.

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a com for complete details and a copy of the power drain limited warranty. Cummage is a registered trademark of Cummins and Graham and Hemmy are registered trademarks of FCAUS LLC. Once it got on the compound, you're never going to find it. Those buildings because they're so old and they're built with bricks like the bathrooms and stuff are literally, I would say the best federal prison that's old school like that to hide stuff. Definitely. Because guys were like with hooch, they would break the bricks and drop a line all the way down. So CEOs would be breaking bricks in the bathrooms because you would smell the mold. And they would have like false cutouts and the guys that worked in maintenance would come into buildings you could hire with a drill to drill a hole.

That's right. It's so nuts a hiding spot. It's literally like a maze of stuff. One thing all the inmates will say it for, it takes to any CO in any prison you in, they would say, yo, you're visiting. I live here, bro. Yeah. We're here 24 hours a day. You're never going to know this place like us. Well, and it's one CO per building. Right. So you have 400 inmates in a three-story building. The medical guys are on the bottom.

then your second floor, third floor in the bathrooms and stuff. What we used to do was play chicken with the cops. So the cops would come up one staircase. You go down the other. And you go down the other. And the Spanish guys are all yelling, Bihondo. Yeah. Did they have that back then?

Yeah. So Bohando is from the street, though. Okay. A lot of Dominicans used to say that. It's like behind you, behind you, you know. But yeah, they forever. Lookouts. It's really set up.

Like, you really feel like you're in the hood. Yeah. And I think people, so I associate prison with cameras, cells. everything like that. There's no cameras in a lot of these lows and camps. I think there's a couple old school cameras, like on the sides of the buildings. But in the building, there's not a single camera. No.

Maybe in front of the CEO's office. Right. But there's nothing on these. It's a free-for-all. Right. It is. What was your hustle in prison? So I didn't start hustling right away when I got the Fort Dix.

And Fort Dix, I just was kind of chilling. I had a friend who ran like the numbers and stuff. So like when he would go around numbers, he would give me his phone. So I would just in there on the phone. and I still was kind of like in the street. I wasn't like my brain didn't fully switch over it like to prison yet. So I still was eating snicker bars and bad food. I wasn't working out yet, none of that.

I didn't really still hustling until later. And I really started hustling later, though. I really started making money selling protein powder, cell phones, tunas. I had a guy, he may see this program. Joe Farragamo. He was the husband of Mobb Wies, a woman, Carly, I think her name, and mob wives, but he was in there with me. And so I would sell him like tuna fish because he worked out, you know, everybody went

protein. So I just made so much money just selling whatever I could get my hands on. But in Fort Dix, the Newport was $21 at a time. One Newport was $20. Just one cigarette. One cigarette. One filtered cigarette was $20 at a time. Now tell us about the currency, about how when you make a sale, how you convert that

currency, whatever, it's a tuna pack, whatever it was at the time of mackerel, into actual cash on your books and how that works. Yeah, so there's a few ways. ways to do that. So because at Fort Dixon, when I was there, macro was the currency. And so everything you got was macro. So you wanted a pepper from the kitchen, it was macro, whatever. But then you get guys who work out, they want to eat the macros too. So one way to convert it was to sell them a bunch of macros because you hustled up a bunch of macros, and I can sell you $100 for like $70, which is a little cheaper than the store, right?

Because they're a dollar something on the store. Because they're a dollar something at the store. So I'm going to give you a little deal and then you're going to send them money to me. That's one way to do it. people books of stamps was also another way to do it uh currency because the forever stamps actually gain value so if a guy had like a hundred books of forever stamps and he had them for five years he bought those things like whatever sense per stamp and now they're almost double because stamps go up so stamps are also currency too and people especially like a dominicans and stuff they were sending a lot of those books to those bodegas and stuff because they were selling those books of stamps to the people outside so it was lots of things.

different ways to convert to cash, you know what I mean? But for the most part, the macro's currency was good on the compound only. But then you had to convert it back to cash somehow. What do you think was the most interesting or outrageous thing you saw at Fort Dix while you were there? Well, at Fort Dix, I didn't see it with my own eyes, but the most outrageous thing I heard about was that they were all, they were prostituting in there before I got there. There was like a prostitution ring of COs in there. What?

Yeah. So when I got there, it had just gotten broken up. And there was one CO, she would come around during count time and like talk shit. And she would say, like, I try to let y'all be men, but like, y'all told on us. So I knew that was like a big scandal, something that happened. But apparently there was a ring of COs that were prostituting themselves to inmates for money. And then it got caught. So that was the crazy thing I heard about because I didn't think, I couldn't even fathom that.

I didn't think that that type of thing was happening in prison. You'd think that we're the only criminals here. Yeah. Yeah. Fort Dix is known for its scandals. I mean, there's the cell phone. I read an article one year where it was just like they confiscated like 20,000 cell phones one year or whatever. And then when I was there, the notorious scandal was the Chomos were running a ring of child porn on a tablet in the library because you know the Chomos controlled the library.

Right. They definitely did. They ran that shit. They were the head of the head librarian. It was untouchable. You couldn't be in the lie. We would be made fun of if we were in the library. alone by herself.

And I remember one time I was sitting in the library and a tromo passed me a note telling me to meet him, meet up with him later. But anyways, the FBI had an undercover inmate in the prison. And this is all in the news. And one day the FBI, they put us on lockdown. We thought it was a quarterly raid, you know, when they like empty the buildings. Right. But the FBI came in, full team dogs and everything.

And they arrested like seven inmates, dragged them out. That's crazy. Fort Dix is known for the scandals. Yeah, Fort Dix was magical, bro. Like, you know, if there was such a thing as having a decent time in prison, it was there. But it was just a different type of place. Now, you didn't do your whole time there. No.

What happened? So my over, so when I first, the way they classify you in the feds is based on points, point system at the time. I don't know how it is now. So if you don't have like a GED, if you don't have certain things, you get more points at it. And the higher points that you get, determined. in the jail you end at, the custody level. So I never really supposed to go to Fort Dix.

But they had me like for no GED, all these different things that were not true. And it raised my points up. So by the time we got it all cleared up, I was there for like 18 months. And so once they realized that my custody level actually was lower, they sent me, they sent me away. And I was also eligible for Ardap. And that's what I went, I went to a camp. I went to Cumberland camp. Oh, I heard that was a great camp.

It was cool. It was cool. I had a lot of fun at Cumberland. That's when I really started making, like, money. That's where I met Joe, uh, Joe, for. Origamo and Bernard Carrick and they were there at the camp. Now, the currency and cost of goods is so much cheaper at a camp because it's easier to get it in. For sure.

So even one time in the camp, I bought some stuff in. So one time, so the way the way Cumberland camp was, it was an open compound and all day, the fences were open. You could just walk off the compound if you wanted. So you could just walk away and just leave. But at night, they had a gate that would lock. And that gate kind of kept you in. you couldn't leave to the street. But I worked overnight at the powerhouse.

So that was like HVAC, you know, stuff like that. So my job was overnight. And we had like a really cool CO. He was like, yo, bro, just don't leave this. He said, you leave this room. I can't help you. He said, but in here you could do whatever you want. You know, we were like lifting weights in there because they had like those metal grates on the ground.

We were like making weights. And he didn't mind. And it company didn't have any weights. So one night, my brother, we had orchestrated a move. I sent like maybe a thousand dollars home. I'm like, yo, bro. I need a bunch of stuff. He said, I got you.

So the way it was set up was there's like the compound. There's like a road. There's like a hump, a median, and then it's like another road. So it's like two-way traffic and there's a median in the middle. And so I remember just crouching down, crouching down, waiting and watching my brother headlights. I'm like, all right, I see him. It's nighttime.

Perimeter trucks are doing anything. And I remember him not stopping. Like, yo, when I come, just grab the bag and run. But when I say I grabbed this bag, this bag was like the size of like a five-gallel Black bag. In there I had Marlboros, Newports, Black and Miles,

Planet of the Apes, DVDs. I mean, we had MPD players, Patron. I mean, I had, like, you name it. Whatever you could think of to make it so comfortable in a gel, I had it in there, bro. We had acci and softest.

I should make it food. Man, we had so much food in that move. And I remember getting that bag and getting back into the compound saying myself, like, I'm about to get rich, bro. And just, and the next day,

they caught like 80% of that stuff, bro. Like, I don't know if guy saw us or they just knew and they allowed the move to happen, that they got like 80% of our move, bro, the next day. Yeah, we had it hit it really well too. Like, it was crazy. I was at a camp too in in Wisconsin. That was my last stop. And the way when bags come in, the breakdown is so fascinating because you're passing off food to people. People are coming in. You're paying off lookout. You're doing everything. And like protein powder would get divided into the creamer bags because the rule always was get it into the communal garbage can as soon as you can. That's right.

And just put it on the bottom and then you pay the trash guys off to take it first thing the next day. That's right. Just everything's gone. It's out. And then the protein looks like regular creamer. That's right. And the breakdown is just so fascinating. Everyone's helping out, though.

It's like a NASCAR pit stop. That's exactly what it is. Right. That bad comes in. Everyone's flying to help out. It's like piranhas. You throw something in the water in a piranha. That's how it is.

Yeah. So did you stay at the camp the rest of your time? So, yeah. So, no. So I did stay at the rest of the rest of it. the time I did ADAP at Cumberland. Then they sent me home. And then I went back to jail.

For a violation? For a violation. So at the time, and it's crazy because you will probably be like, that's crazy. When I was there, cell phones obviously are a problem in the prison. So, but we know that the halfway houses fall under the same jurisdiction and rules as the prison. So a 100-series shot, if they write you one in the halfway house, it's just like the same as in a prison. And so when I was home, I was running late one day to the halfway house. and I called her from a cell phone

to tell him I was running late to the Apple House and the guy's like why are you on a cell phone why are you not on a pay phone I'm like bro it's 2014 where's their pay phone

there's no pay phones bro I'm just calling you to tell you I'm running late and he wrote me a 100 series shot for that and so the 100 series shot is equivalent in the prison that's equivalent to a knife that's equivalent to an escape

that's equivalent to those type of things assault on a CO you know and he wrote me that but the difference was I was in the real world and so when the BOP saw that they just treated it like 100 series shot.

So he took my year back that I had gotten off for the RDAP but sent me back to jail. And then I end up in Miami. Yeah, that's a problem with ARDAP because you get that year, but you're still under federal custody pretty much. That's right. And you have to abide by their rules.

I've known guys at loss of the year because they had poppy seed bagels. Crazy. And it popped up in their test. It's a whole new world. And I even, I have this paperwork. I probably should have brought it today. But I appealed this decision all the way up to the highest BOP

because you know you have remedies, right? They say, oh, you got remedies and stuff. So I went BP8, BP 9, I went all the way to Grand Prairie, is it? Grand Prairie is it? Grand Prairie sexist. And I didn't get the final response until I was home, bro. And what did they say? No, you should have used a pay phone? I'm like, bro, where was there?

Payphone? Like, they stuck to their guns the whole time. And the phone issue is still an issue to this day because now when I was at the half, this was a couple years ago, when I was at the halfway house, you can only still have a flip phone. So a smartphone would have been a hundred series shot. Right. And the crazier part of that is the halfway house I was in was shared with.

state inmates who were allowed to have phones. Yeah. It just, and the whole time, so the whole time I'm sitting in jail, I'm saying to myself, somebody with common sense going to see this and say, you know what, this is a mistake, but. Which halfway house were you in? I was in Waterbury first. Which, what, Chase Center?

Chase Center. I was there, too. We literally lived the save, the save life. Chase Center was. So when you got there, they probably fired everybody, though, bro, because it was crazy in there. Like, they were not feeding us in there. People were writing on the walls like feed us, bro.

Turnovers insane. Because it's young kids that are looking for the case. I had two. different case managers in a span of four months. Crazy, bro. My case manager was trying to, like, have sex with me, bro. Yeah, I'm sure. I had a couple attractive women to case managers, but the food's terrible.

Terrible. There's little, limited food. Like, limited. When it runs out, it runs out. There's no visits pretty much. There's a tiny visiting room. They're so strict. That's right.

And that's another for-profit establishment. Exactly. And I had a friend, and all these things being true, they even would write to a shot for sneaking food in. I had a friend that lost his year. He got a shot for bringing the subway one day. They wrote him up for that. Like, it was enough nuisance shots, and he lost his year.

It's the craziest thing. They would be fed guys that would literally walk outside and say, call the marshals, take me back. It's crazy. You almost rather be in prison. Yeah, you're getting drug tested constantly. You're getting pissed tested constantly. They don't treat you like that in prison.

At all. You might as well go back. At all. So when I went back, when I came back, though, I went to Hartford. It was like night and day. And I remember saying to myself, man, if I would have come here first, I would have made it. You know, they had more resources to set up.

It was just a better half-house. But Waterbury was like the pits, man. Why did they send you all the way out to Miami? So, you know, you ever here at diesel therapy? And they put me through that. How was all over the country? I think, I think. It's a real thing, right?

It really is, man. And I remember, I remember going back. So when I got the shot, so when I got the shot, they came and got me on a day. I thought I was going home. home confinement. Again, they keep like mind fucking me, bro. I got all my stuff packed in the corner. I'm laying down. And the marshals come in. It's almost like when I got indicted. He's like, come on. I'm like, come on where? He's like, come on, bro. I'm like, you got the wrong guy. I'm like, I'm going home today, home confinement. Like, you got the wrong guy. He's like,

no, we got the right guy. So I go back to jail. And you go through the system where you're back to Wyatt and stuff. Back to, back to the, like, square one. Back to Wyatt. The courthouse first. or just straight to wide? Just straight to wide, bro. And from there, they're like, okay, we're going to send you back to where you came from. Where we classify,

if you still are a kid point, you're fine. That's what they should have done. That's what they should have done. But as soon as I got to the camp, I'm in the shoe. They sent me right to the shoe. So I did two months in the shoe.

Wow. And so in those two months, I read the whole Bible, bro. I was so confused. I'm like, God, what is going on, man? What are you trying to get me to see? Like, this is crazy.

So I just remember cracking the Bible open and reading it from the first word all the way to the last word. And so once they reclassified me, they go, no, you're not coming to the camp. I'm like, so I sat in the shoe, and then they sent me to Miami. But before you go there, you go from there, you go to... You thought a soft mattress meant comfort,

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Tickets are on sale now at Yamava Theater.com. Only a Yamava resort and casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win. Must be 21 to enter. Philly, you go from Philly to the airship, bro. And did you take the plane? Yep, I was on Conair. It was in New York.

It was Stewart Air Force space or something, right? That's what it was. Yeah. And it makes no sense that you go all the way to Philly just to come all the way back. They're routing. Whoever's in charge of BOP routing needs to get fucking fired. I'll tell you. So not only was that.

that doesn't make sense. So I'm on the bus. You know, they don't tell you where you're going, though. So I'm like joking with the SEALs. Like, where am I going, man? He's like, yo, you're going to Miami, bro. I'm like, yeah, right. Why would I go to Miami?

I'm from Connecticut. Why would I be in Miami, bro? He's like, all right, man, I'm telling you. You're going to Miami. And so I remember sitting there and we got to the airship, and I'm watching each bus that goes to like Canaan, that goes here, you know, ground stuff. I'm watching them leave.

And I'm like, yo, this guy might have been telling the truth. I might really be going to Miami. And lo and behold, bro. What was your experience on Conair? Give us that setting. It was crazy, that was like. I remember just,

so first of all, my plane had tape on the wings, bro, like duct tape. I tell people that all the time. Did you get on that plane? Yes, it was probably the same plane.

Like, it's terrifying. So you want to strip, it was a lot of guys that never been on a plane. This was their first time being on a plane. I remember this one kid

from Rochester. I wish I knew his name. I remember him refusing. Like, I'm not getting on that plane. And I remember the COSA, bro, you're getting on that plane. And he was like, not going.

He's like, you sure? This is before we even leave, like, the jail. Like, you sure, man? He's like, I'm not getting on the plane. Bro, when I say it was like

six, seven COs came back, they was going to drag that man on that plane, bro. He was getting on that plane. But I just remember getting on the plane and seeing women on the plane and just thinking about this, this is like craziness.

And the marshals are saying, don't look at the women, don't do this, don't talk to them. It's crazy. And all the marshals are like overweight. They're eating fast food in front of you. They have, like,

they have guns on them, but they're, like, secured with like those big contraptments on them or whatever. And then you're shackled. You shackled at your waist. You shackled at your feet. It's crazy. You weren't at that one piece monkey suit thing.

It's crazy, man. It was a crazy experience. But I remember just saying to myself, this can't be real. But it was real. It's so nuts. The whole, you went through the whole system. I did, bro. So Miami is it a low that you want to?

So Miami is a low. So now there's two lows in Miami. I'm thinking I'm going to the compound. I'm thinking I'm going to the outside compound. But I go to a building, bro. That's the worst. And a cadre program. Because you only had a few months left at that point, right?

I had about nine months to do there. And it was a cadre program. So now I'm in there. I'm listening to Miami radio. I'm watching Miami TV. I'm around all these Miami people. You're in cells, a building of cells. Yep, two-man cells.

It was night and day. And I started working in the kitchen near, though. Oh, so you were able to hustle. I had to hustle, bro. Yeah. So that's where the chicken patty story comes in that. You got to tell us the chicken paddy. Yeah, give me this one.

So in Miami, it's a building. food is awful. You got limited movement. So I decided to work in the kitchen. I'm like, I don't have a lot of time here. I don't want to spend a lot of money. This is stupid. I'm going to live off the land, you know. So I go in the kitchen and we had gotten a new food administrator. This guy came in. He was like a human. He's like a good guy. He's like, just because y'all are inmates, I want to give y'allity food. So he started bringing in like ice cream cones and drumsticks and all this stuff. But then he switched the chicken patties out. So before that, we had those, you know those little thin like chicken patties McDonald's, McDonald's used to have back in the day.

Yeah. We had those before him. But when he came, he switched like these thick, juicy, like, chick-fil-a-patty. Everybody kept saying, yo, we got chick-fil-a patties. So, like, the rumor on the whole jail was we got chick-fil-a patties. So I'm in the kitchen. I'm on the line, bro. So one day, it's six of us on the line.

We all decided we're going to take chicken patties. Because the chicken patties sold for a dollar each. So we, like, we can fill the cart up and get them upstairs. We'll make money. You know, we'll be fine. But nobody's counting the chicken patties. So we're, like, just stuffing trays with chicken patties on the line. We get them all into the bottom of the,

the cart, we think we're good, and somebody told on us, bro. Right? So now we're waiting, just we see the CEO, like, looking around the cars. We're like, oh, God. We were on the line. We're watching, like, yo, they got us, bro. We popped. So when he comes over, he's like, everybody into the office. He takes the whole line, six of us. He's like, who did it?

He's like, who did what? You know, who did what? He's like, bro, a lot of chicken patties in the man. Who did it? We said, we don't know what you're talking about. Maybe anybody did it. Maybe somebody did it. The cars are unlocked. Anybody could have did it. He said, well, listen, if you guys don't tell us, I'm going to pick two people and send them to the shoe.

So we're like, bro, you got to do what you got to do. But before we get in there, he has, like, all the chicken patties, like, spread out on the table like, like, they busted kilos. It looked like a drug bust. He's like, what were you guys going to do with 96 chicken patties? He's like, 96 chicken patties? What were you going to? I'm like, bro, we're going to eat them, bro.

We're going to sell them and we're going to eat them. But we tried to take, it was two boxes, bro. We didn't even realize it because we were just stuffing, stuffing things. And so nobody admitted to who did it. He picked two guys and threw him in the shoe, for seven days

they were in a shoe. I was not one of them, but I was guilty. Oh, man. We all were guilty. The whole line was guilty, bro. Wow. We all were taking them.

It's crazy, that is nuts. 90-something. The chicken paddy bandit. So you did nine months in Miami and then from there you went home? I did. What do they give you when you leave the prison?

If you have money in your books, you leave with the money on your books. If you don't have money on your books, then they give you like I think it was like 20 bucks or 30 bucks it's something like light in a bus ticket Oh, they give you a bus ticket? They didn't pay for a flight? No You could you could pay for a flight But if you don't pay for a flight they'll they'll pay for a bus ticket They gave me a flight from Wisconsin. Yeah, they gave me a bus ticket

I went to Oklahoma too did you go there? Yeah, terrible Yeah Oklahoma you never touched the ground It's a terminal. It's crazy. Yeah, it's literally it you pull up to the terminal It's crazy and you go into the tower right into jail do not pass go, do not collect $200, bro, right to jail. It's crazy. It's so cool to talk to someone that had this literally lived in the same experience I did, you know, like six or seven years earlier.

Yeah, yeah. I did four years all together. When I lost a year, I went back. It was a total of four years. So I pretty much did the whole, the whole thing, man. Now, talk about that year part for a second. Fed guys, unlike the state, have to serve more time because parole's gone. There's no parole in the federal system.

No, it's 85%. Yeah. So you're not. Like some of these Fed guys, they get 10 years, I mean, state guys, they get 10 years, they're serving a fraction of that. Right, right. Fed guys, that's not the case. At all. Like, off the five, I'm doing four.

You know what I'm saying? So I did most of the sentence with the feds. It was my first time being in prison. It was a lot, but I made it. I'm here. And did you have to go back to the halfway house? Yeah. So when I came back out, so when they released me, you know, criminality is a mindset, bro.

It truly is a mindset, you know. Even in that moment, I'm still trying to be. the system, bro. I'm like, yo, I'm telling my mother, like, my, listen, they're going to give me a bus ticket, but we're going to buy a flight, you know, because, you know, you have to be on account at the half house by the time you got to be there. So my release date was Valentine's Day, actually. But if you take the bus, it's a 36-hour commute time because it was from, I was in Miami, so I'm coming all the way up to Hartford. So they allied at 36 hours for travel on the bus. So I'm like, I'm going to take a plane, be home in two hours, chill for 33- hours and then turned myself into the half house. And my mom, I remember her just being like, bro, just get home, man. Like, you keep playing, keep playing. But they released me out there and I got on a bus. You just did the whole bus ride.

I did the whole bus ride. I went and bought a cell phone right away. I went out to the street to Walgreens, bought a phone and just remember calling everybody. Like, yo, I'm out. I'm out, I'm out. I'm out. And just lining things up for one. Now your federal ID works like a real estate issued ID.

It does. You could use that anywhere. You can. Like as a driver's, well, not that drive, but you can use it to get on a plane or it's a valid. It's valid. That's what we're interesting. It's verified by the fence.

Yeah, it really is. So here's a question for you. Do you think that you needed to do that extra almost a year in prison to change your mindset? Or did you have that, were you going to be changed regardless whether you did that year? Yeah, no, that additional year was not necessary to me. It really frustrated me more because I didn't understand it. You know, I had been doing everything right. The day they took me back, I had an interview, like a job interview.

about to get a job. I'm like, what is the point of this? Am I supposed to, like, be rehabilitated? Am I supposed to be doing good? Or are you guys just, like, putting a hammer down to me for something that I felt was, like, warranted. And so I don't think that that year, my mindset didn't really shift to way after prison. Like, prison didn't shift my mindset.

So that year, I didn't need that at all. But I did it. What were your plans when you got home that second time? So the plans were to do parties and stuff, like party promotion, because I had done a little bit of that before I went, you know, before I went to jail, I did a little bit of party promotion and, you know, I thought I was popping still and all of that. So I thought I was going to come out here and just kill them with parties. And then we did a few parties and it just flopped, like lost money. You know, we did a boat ride. We had Charlemagne on it. We had DJ

cell phone on it. It was a really good, really fun boat ride, but we didn't make any money. We lost money. So I tried a bunch of things, but I always thought that I would just do parties and stuff like that. Were you on supervised release during that period? Four years. Did you have any complications, what was your experience? So my first, my first, my first, um, P.O. was really cool. Um, his name was Christopher Rogers. I hope he sees this. He was so cool.

Um, I think he moved to Florida, but him and I, like, he, we had like a, it felt like an uncle almost. He was a black guy. And he was kind of like not worried about me because I think the general consensus about me was that I made a mistake. Nobody really was really framing it. Like, I was like this career criminal. So he gave me a lot of leeway, you know. Um, Then they switched them, and I got this other woman who was like, buy the book. And so she was different.

But she was cool, too. I think as long as you had a job and long as you kind of was out the way, you were good. And ultimately, I got a probation early, though. Oh, you did. Yeah, I did a motion. I did the early termination motion. A friend of mine had did in North Carolina. He told me, yo, do this.

Do this. Try it. So I went on Google. I looked up a sample motion on how to do it, and I did it. And it worked. Yeah, for most drug offenses, I'll let you off early. If it's fraud, they won't, if there's restitution, I had to do my whole three years.

They want you to pay all your money. Yeah, yeah. And if you paid the money quickly, you have a chance. Yeah, but otherwise, if you owe millions or anything, they're not letting you off. In some cases, they do, but most of the time they don't. That's right. It's pretty crazy.

It is. They hold you by the balls for years and years. For sure. So what do you think you learned about your whole experience? Going to prison, going through the criminal justice system, what did you take from it that you want to share to others? So I learned a few things about myself. I also learned a lot about the system

and just how flawed it is on so many different levels, especially when I got sent back for using the cell phone. I'm like, if this is happening to me, how many more things like this are happening and how much is this happening to other people and it's unnecessary things? And, you know, they frame prison

as if it's supposed to be rehabilitive and it's in the interest of justice and things like that. And if it's truly an interest of justice, why would you send somebody back for you to a cellular phone, right? So I just, I realized that it was a machine that was like kind of on autopilot

and a lot of people would slip through these cracks and, and, but what it does show you is who you are, man. It makes you really resilient. Every prison I showed up, you gotta show up as just yourself. It's just you. And you show up against all these people and you got to figure it out.

So it showed me a lot about myself, but it also showed me just how many different things that were going wrong in this system and I could see how somebody could fall through these cracks. Now, if you could go back to your teenage self when you were out on the street, hustling, selling drugs, would you change anything?

And would you tell yourself anything? No. You know, it's funny because, again, I have a different understanding of life now, and I understand that that was a necessary part of my life. I learned a lot in there, man. I got certified to be a personal trainer, and that's what I came home and started doing.

So I just learned a lot about myself and how to be a man. And, you know, because you're around a lot of other men and a lot of things like that. So I wouldn't trade it. And I kind of spoke it into existence. I used to always joke around when people like, yo, the fed's got to come get me, bro. They was like, why you never get caught?

I'm like, because I'm smart. I'm like, the feds got to get me. These little cops jumping out, the feds got to get me. And guess who got me? The feds. The feds. What's next for you? What do you want to do?

Where do you see yourself going five years from now? So today, I'm just heavy in my community. I did a book bag giveaway. I do these vendor shows and pop-up shops. my community. I'm doing my podcast to inform the community. And so what I'm doing now is really just using my vessel, using my experiences, using my life to just empower people and give them information. So they don't make some of the same mistakes I made. It's like I made them. I don't want you to make them. So my biggest, my biggest mission here is just informing people and trying to

help people at this point. Like, that's pretty much it. So whatever that leads me to, that's cool. How do you make sure your kids don't follow down the same path you did? So I have a daughter, which is, I guess, you know, is a little different. I don't think she's going to be out there. Slinging cocaine. But I don't know if there's really a way to prevent that, man. You know, my parents preached to me, bro, until I was, today with blue in the face. Like, don't do this, don't do that.

Don't go there. Sometimes you've got to learn on your own. That's like how life teaches you. Life is like a teacher. So, you know, the best day I could do is just try to inform her and educate my daughter so that she can make informed decisions about life. There was things that I was misinformed about. So even in hustling, like the rumor was that you had to have a kilo of cocaine to go to the feds. Like that was like the generally accepted rumor.

If you don't have a key, you don't call it a key, your state material. And in my mind, I said, well, as long as I'm statement, I'm fine because I'm getting all this money like I'll get out of that, right? But that was wrong. And so you didn't have to have a kilo. You could be anybody and call them. people and be on a federal indictment. So I think information is power and just informing people so they can make better informed decisions.

And so I want to arm her with information about whatever she needs to know about. So she can navigate. But ultimately, the choice would be hers and whatever she does in this life. Definitely. Well, Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Awesome.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. And again, I know this is going to be great because the way it happened and I know it's going to be awesome. And we're going to do more work, man. Yeah. If you need anything, reach out.

I love your energy, bro. Thank you, man. very high level. Thank you, man. You got a good hat on your shoulders, and I'm excited to see what you come up with. And we'll put your links to your podcast, your studio in the description. And I'm actually posting the first episode today. Oh, awesome, man.

Today. I don't know when this. This will be on a couple weeks. I'll get it up a little sooner because it was such a good episode. I just want to make sure that when they get there, it's there. Awesome, man. Well, thank you, Mike. And I have a safe trip back to Stanford.

Thank you, Bill.