Locked In with Ian Bick - I Robbed Banks in College — Then Went to Prison Twice | Alex Harper

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Alex Harper grew up in Cleveland, Ohio with a good family and a normal upbringing, but at just 16 years old he made a decision that would change his life forever. While still in high school and later in college, Alex began robbing banks, eventually landing on the radar of federal authorities and being sent to federal prison for the first time. After his release, he tried to turn his life around, but bad decisions and old patterns pulled him back in, leading to more bank robberies and a second prison sentence. In this episode, Alex shares how he went from a regular kid to a repeat federal inmate, what federal prison was really like, and how he eventually found his purpose and truly turned his life around. _____________________________________________ #TrueCrime #PrisonStories #FederalPrison #BankRobbery #LifeAfterPrison #CrimeStory #RedemptionStory #LockedInWithIanBick _____________________________________________ Thank you to K9S.ORG for sponsoring this episode: Donate anytime at https://k9s.org/ Connect with Alex Harper: https://www.instagram.com/votealexharper/?hl=en 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 Robbing Banks at 16 – How It All Started 01:35 First Arrest, Probation & Learning the System 04:22 Life After Prison: Supervision, Temptation & Pressure 06:00 Family, Childhood & Where Things Went Wrong 09:00 Early Gambling Addiction & Sports Betting Obsession 13:25 High School Double Life & First Bank Robbery 15:53 Escalation: More Robberies & How He Avoided Getting Caught 21:22 Bank Robbery Tactics, Mistakes & Hard Lessons Learned 25:54 College Life, Personality & Living Two Lives 29:44 Law School Dreams vs. Gambling Addiction 35:23 Getting Caught: The Moment Everything Fell Apart 41:31 First Time in Prison: Survival, Hustling & Reality Check 53:54 Running Gambling Operations Behind Bars 01:03:12 Released From Prison… Then Slipping Back 01:13:20 Second Sentence & Destroying Family Relationships 01:27:00 Depression, Accountability & Choosing Change 01:37:20 Life After Prison: Recidivism, Struggles & Reality 01:55:24 Finding Purpose, Giving Back & Redefining Success 02:08:00 Why the System Makes It Hard to Stay Free (Final Thoughts) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What was your plan? I was like, man, I'm missing something in my life. So now I hit the bank. And then the adrenaline rushed into the first bank. I was like, that's what I've been missing. He grew up with a good family, went to college, and had every opportunity to live a normal life. But at 16 years old,

Alex Harper started robbing banks a decision that would send him to federal prison twice and force him to either change everything or lose it all. Alex, welcome to Locked In. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. And thank you very much for having me, man. Yeah, I appreciate you, man. You spent a couple days in the city with your family. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I just came back from, I just drove up from New York City. And I was saying, you know, I was starting to tell you a story. So the first time I went to New York, I was fresh home. I got out, I was probably maybe home. I was out of halfway house. So I was maybe home a couple months. And I wanted to go see my uncle. and my son was meeting me up there.

It was supposed to be like this great, you know, thing. Getting off the freeway, police pull me over. Just getting off the freeway. Again, this is the first time as an adult in New York. Police pull me over. They're like, hey, you know, step out of the car. And then when you're on probation,

especially federal probation, once they run your ID, probation comes up. It comes up at your own supervised lease. And then any, which shouldn't happen, but collateral sanctions for a felon, any car you're in is allowed to be searched when you're on supervision, when you're a federal supervision. So as I'm literally just showing up in New York,

having got set foot on anything, anything, they pull us out the car, and they start searching the car, and they car asked me about guns. So they're like, where's the guns? Do you have any guns? And I said, my exact words, because I repeated it at least 15 times.

So I have a felony, I'm not allowed to carry a gun. So he's like, okay, we're going to search the trunk. Are we going to find any guns? Sir, I'm on probation. I'm not allowed to have any guns. Well, okay, we're going to search under the sea. I'm on probation, sir. Not allowed to have any guns.

To the point of his partner, he kept asking me questions. His partner just said it for me. Like, hey, he's on probation. He's not allowed to have any guns. They left us out of 30 minutes. Just me and my girlfriend at that time, we're just sitting out on the curb 30 minutes while they searched the car.

This is my first experience as an adult in New York City. I was like, oh, you guys don't want me here, clearly. So what ended up happening? They let us go. No ticket, no nothing. Did they ever say why they pulled you guys over? Nothing. He just pulled me over.

But the next morning, very next morning, 8 a.m., my probation officer calls me. And he's like, what do you do? Because they gave me permission to go to New York. He's like, what are you doing? What's going on? I was like, listen, they pulled us over, no idea why. They started asking me about guns. He's like, well, did you have any guns on you?

And I said the same thing to my probation officer. I'm on probation. I can't have guns. And he's like, yeah, but did you have any? No. Would have been arrested. No more probation. I can't have any guns, sir.

Why would I, first of all, why would I travel from Cleveland, Ohio, greatest city in the world, to New York with a gun on me, knowing that I'm four months out of the half where I was from federal prison. That's idiotic. But happens. Understandable. Understand it happens, but it was crazy. I wonder how that works in the system with how you could be in New York

and your probation officer still gets notified. Once they run your ID? So once your ID is ran, it's in the federal database. When you're on federal supervision, your ID gets ran, and then it automatically kicks to your probation officer. But they must not see the notes of, like, what happened, right? But it's the same way as if, like, say I wasn't, say my probation officer didn't know I was there,

and I didn't get a ticket or anything, but my ID got ran, he would have known. Yeah, that's how a lot of people got busted for that. A lot of people get busted. Those are technical violations. I see a lot of people that will, like, come here that are on supervisor. at least that don't get permission. They're like, oh, it's fine. You know, they don't care.

They just cross state lines. What are you guys doing? So I did that. I did that. So I didn't, I was so scared to go back to prison. So I went to prison twice. I went to federal prison two times. Once when I was 21 years old, I stayed out for 15 months and then went back in for

seven years. So when I got out after the seven years, I was like, man, I'm just trying to stay out of prison. I don't want to do anything. But the problem is, is that the travel restrictions, they're so strenuous that you have to put in your, basically you have to put in your request two weeks in advance. Then they have to contact whoever you're staying with. So like that's embarrassing that your PO is calling your aunt

to make sure that you're staying on the couch for three days for, you know, for a dinner. And then now it also puts like a level of anxiety on your relative or whoever you're staying with because they're like, man, if his probation officer's calling me from, you know, wherever, does that make me now responsible for him and all those type of things. So I just start not asking for permission and just going.

That's how I found out that anytime your ideas ran, any time your IDs actually ran into a database, it goes directly to your probation officer. Yeah. But I just drive all the time, man. I just get on the road and drive. Like, if you go through an airport, you got a better chance of your ID, you know, getting flagged. It's even embarrassing with the halfway houses when they call your job for, like, the checks throughout the day.

So I work at the halfway house now. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So I'm a vocational education. I'm basically a teacher at the halfway house now. I teach a certification program where guys are able to get a nationally recognized certification without leaving the building in six weeks. So, but then I get them employed.

So I have to make those calls, like, to try to check. So it's weird being on the other side of it because I remember feeling the same way. Like, man, I don't want the halfway house to call my boss. And, you know, I don't even tell them I was in jail. Or maybe I thought. told him I was in jail but didn't get into the specifics and not a halfway I was just calling. So now when I call, I try to be kind of as discreet as possible. I say, hey, he's staying here versus like client or anything like that. But it still is awkward trying to tell it,

even talking to an employer like, hey, by the way, if he ever leaves, you need to call us immediately. If he walks out for whatever reason, if he quits just comes into quits or just doesn't show it for work, you need to call us immediately. Or, the police department because we need to find him. And then they're like, is that like a realistic possibility? And, you know, maybe depending on what's going on. So it's like weird still. So you grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.

Greatest city in the world. What was that like? What was your upbringing like? Oh, so I grew up in the suburbs, man. I was lucky. I actually grew up in a two-parent household, two loving parents in the suburbs. So my parents were older when they had me. So when I got to like maybe I was like five or six,

they were like, yeah, you're on your own. Like basically, I saw my parents wake me up in the morning before they went to work at like 7 a.m. And they'd make breakfast, but I'd just be in the house, I was the only child, so I'd just be in the house by myself until nine when the elementary bus came and I walked down the driveway, get on the bus. Three o'clock when they dropped me off in the driveway,

I'd walk back in and my mom would show up at like four, three 34, and so I gave me like, independence of at a younger age um but my parents would like i said they were loving they always unsteal morals and values and i appreciated so much later on once i understood everybody didn't grow up like that mostly when i went to prison and people were like so my father passed on my second bit and it was weird because i so basically i'm so playing spades the chaplain comes you know when the When Chaplin comes, somebody in your family died, right? So Chaplin comes hits the pod.

Everybody gets quiet because it's like the grim reaper just showed up. So he calls me in the back. Everybody knows somebody dies. When I come back to the table, they're like, you know, what happened? I was like, well, my father just passed and he had cancer. And we were really close. So, again, I had cried in the back, so came up, came up, him back. And they were like, what did you know him?

And I was like, yeah, I know, like, yeah, it's my father. Like, I knew him. I grew up in the house with him. And that's when people were like, oh, I didn't. I didn't even know my father. I've never seen them, da-da-da-da. And then I start hearing more and more stories like that. And then I started to appreciate more that I grew up in the household.

I grew up here. But it was interesting at the same time, because my father taught me how to play poker when I was five. Using the cards, like for recognition to know the numbers, diamonds, colors, all those type of things. Then start taking me to like gambling houses to hustle his friends when I was like eight, nine, not gambling houses. Let me take that back. Where they were gambling at, right?

when I was at 8-9. So I would start gambling probably around like 7-8-9 and then just gambled ever since. So I was just from 7-8. I was just basically the makings of a degenerate gambler from then on out. What do your parents do for work? So my father was a safety and health administrator

and my mother worked in the cafeteria of a hospital for 30 years. So just regular jobs. So my father had a really good job for the time. I got he worked for cei at the time his first energy now and I believe he was a regional man or something like that something along those lines um so he had this that so we grew up in i grew up in suburbs man so it was he had the house built from the ground up um we never really wanted for anything right so i didn't really have the materialistic mindset because i didn't

like want anything so my parents would be like hey you're gonna get these one pair of shoes for school you get this one pair of shoes for basketball it's one pair of shoes for baseball and i was like Okay, that's right. I didn't have Jordans until I was like 20, 19, 20. I didn't have any type of, like, flashiest stuff. So it was cool. But like I said, we were well off. We weren't rich by any means, but we were well off to the point of where, like I said,

we took vacations two or three times a year type thing. Were you an only child? Yeah, well, I have, excuse me, I have a half sister, but my half sister is 24 years older than me. So basically an only child. Basically, I was only child in the home. And my parents, like I said, they were older. when they had me, they were both like mid-40s. So I was like, accident, baby.

So they were like, by the time I'm six, seven, they're in the 50s, they don't have time to be chasing me around doing stuff. So it was like, hey, this is how I. And my father's a military man too, so it was real, too, it was cool, man, life's good. What do you think attracted you to the gambling aspect? So the initial was probably just bonding with my father

and learning the game and Tim taking me places to play and all that type of stuff. I ended up, I was really big in the sports, so I could pick like winners, like sports winners. A buddy of mine, this is probably like seventh, eighth grade. He was Russian, and excuse me, his uncle owned like an actual gambler house. That's why I corrected myself before. He owned like an actual gambler house. So I used to give him like, hey, this person's going to win, this person's going to win.

Just general talking, right? But because I got up at 7 a.m., I watched ESPN for two hours. hours before the bus came. So I could predict winners as best as I can. So I ended up working at the gambling house. I sneak out at night. Like when I got older, probably like 11, 12. I would sneak out at night and then go over with him to his uncle's place.

And then they start letting me deal cards. So I would just go to like deal cards. And it was still like, oh, this is fun because I can watch. Because I was a bunch of hold them hands, hold them in a five-card draw. So it was like, oh, I can watch. and like I'm not playing or gambling, but I'm immersed in it. And there was sports betting going on and all that type of stuff. So it just kind of got stronger from there once I start having disposable income

that I could throw away on gambling. And then I just start gambling. Then I went to prison. And because, again, I was so kind of more well-versed than real-world gambling, I opened up a ticket. So opened up a ticket, start, I was a bookie for probably eight to nine years at 11. Hello, compadre. It's the Priceline negotiator.

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You win? Must be 21 to enter. Years total I did. Do you have any resentment towards your dad for introducing you to gambling? Absolutely not. No, I don't know. What I think, though, what I do is dissuade other people from gambling, right? Like, it's, I enjoy it because I enjoy, I understand that it's not to make money.

Right? I understand that it's not, it's not like a situation where you're just going to be gambling and be like, oh, I came up on $2,000 today. And tomorrow I made $1,500. And the next day it just doesn't work like that. Like, you're going to lose way more. What's funny is that in my notes from like when I was in the shoe, I still have it. I had this whole plan that one part of my job, what I got out would be to go with 500 bucks a week to the casino.

Okay. Play up to a thousand, like make a steady profit. It had it all mapped out because they used to love going in the casino, you know, before I went to prison. Yeah. That was a terrible plan though. I mean, but that was like, I agree. I would love to do that.

On paper, it's great. On paper. I mean, anything is good on paper. Listen, in the shoe on paper, it is great. So I used to go to the shoe a lot on my first bid. On my first bid, so I got locked up two weeks after my 21st birthday. Yeah, tell us about that. So.

And did you graduate high school? Yes, yeah. So I graduated, but I wasn't able to walk for the actual graduation. Me and you both. So that's silly too. So wait, well, let me do that because I'm going to move past it. So didn't know I wasn't walking until three weeks before graduation. I didn't realize I didn't have enough.

enough credits to graduate until three weeks before graduation. So the assistant principal calls me into the office. Well, the dean of students and the assistant principal called me into the office. And they're like, hey, you know, we have an issue. You know, what's going on? What's going on? They're like, well, you're two credit short. Two credit short to what?

Two credit shorts to graduate. I was like, you didn't want to tell me that, you know, like, before I picked up these three study halls my senior year, like one of those could have been the science or the math or whatever. And they're like, oh, you know, you can go to summer. school and just you got to take one class in summer school you'll be good and I was like man all right I was like well can I still you know walk at least ceremonially and you kind of give me a fake diploma until I past thing they're like no no again you don't have enough credits to walk I was like

that's crazy like in fact we have a meeting with your dad later on today we've already called him he's on his way in and I was like oh man so then he gets there and he's pissed because he's like so he's pissed at me because he's thinking I knew this whole time you know the graduation party started we're talking my college and all this stuff. He's like, you knew this whole time you weren't graduating. We could have done something. And I'm trying to convince him. I had no clue.

And, you know, I got my senior year of high school was just, you know, whatever. Right. And then by then I was already robbing banks. So I was really just, and I already had a kid. So I had a kid, I was robbing banks. And the senior year of high school just didn't feel like. Wait, you robbed banks in high school? Yeah.

So I was, so I started robbing banks when I was 16. So let me take it back. I robbed A bank when I was 16. And then it was basically like every six to eight months, right? And then when I moved out on my own, so I graduated at, well, graduated at 17, went to school. And then once I moved out, then it started to be like every other month. Like it went from like once every seven months to once every three months to once every month. So by the time they actually caught me when I was 21, I got sentenced for,

four banks in an attempt in a six-week period. So they gave me 57 months because I had, you know, basically for advert behavior. I got a downward departure for advert behavior. Like, this doesn't make sense. You're in college. You're not on drugs. There's no real reason why you're robbing banks.

Like, I was literally in college. I got to rob a bank in the morning and then go to class. Why did you rob that first bank? How does that even come on your mind at 16? I mean, I'm sure every teenager thinks about it, like watching movies and TV, but to actually do it? So, and so I'm going to give you the story, but understand I'm 16 and scared of death, right?

So I'm not, I don't want to make it seem like, oh, I was just went in there. Not at all. Not at all happened, right? So a friend of mine, so I had almost kind of two sets of friends. So a friend of mine, his mother was on drugs, father wasn't in a picture. He lived with his grandmother.

But he was a stick up kid. So he didn't go to school or nothing like that or anything. that like we bonded over sports because we played sports together but then you know we just lived in different completely different lifestyles and he passed away since so you know r-i p to him but his grandmother thought he was selling drugs because he just had money but he was just robbing people right he was a stick-up kid he'd stay out so basically he's hide underneath the car people come out of the club come from over at the car give me everything you got run off into the darkness since his grandmother made him put it into the bank i would just go with him every now to

to the bank. So I had a son. My son was on the way. I was still, I was a kid, so I was like, I don't know if it's my child, but in my heart I knew I had a son in my way. My parents who are loving and great people are like, hey, you're not just going to have a kid on another side of town and never, you know, be an absentee father. That's not, you know, how we raise you. So I started to feel the pressure of I want to provide, like I want to be your father, father, like not just, you know, this is my son. Like, I don't, I didn't want, my parents to have to take on the burden of my son. That was my thought process.

But I'm 16. What am I going to do? And then I'm not only 16, I'm playing three sports in high school. Like, it's just, and then I'm sneaking out at night still going to the gamma houses. It's just kind of, you know, mess around in there. So one day I'm just in the bank with him, man. And then he, you know, in line and does his little transactions. And then I was just sitting there, I was like, man, I could probably rob this place.

I'm like, I can rock this place. Nobody's even paying attention to me. that type of thing. And then, man, like two weeks later, so between that, so between me figuring out or having an idea, I can rob this place, now every bank I go in,

I'm basically casing it. I was like, oh, okay, there's camera here, there's camera here. Oh, okay, well, if I walk in, and so just my mind, that's just how my mind was just working because I had put the thought in my own head

that I'm about to rob, I could rob a bank. So now every time I go anywhere near a bank or in banks, I'm just basically seeing how I could do it. So long story short, man, just one day I was like, I'm gonna do it. Like I was just like, I'm gonna do it. So I put on this huge, like I got my mom's trench, like long trench coat out of the closet.

I had on this crazy wig. I had a hat on the tie. It looked like I was about to rob the bank. I don't even know how they let me in. Like, mind you, I'm 5'8 now. I was probably 5.5, did? 5, 4 or something like, so I'm small anyway. Yeah, man, so I, first note.

So I'm passing notes. That's how I was Robin Banks. I was passing notes. So the first note I wrote was crazy. It was like one of those movie notes. Like give me 20,000 fives. Give me 10,000 and tens. No die packs.

All these things I've seen on the movies, right? Ridiculous. To the point that she's reading and she's like, like, so basically the notes this long. And she's reading and she's like, um, um, and not a longer. she reads the nervous and scared I'm getting because I'm like I'm like come on hurry up like but I didn't wrote this paragraph so she's trying to get to the bottom of it and then she leans over and she says I have to go to the phone for this I was like no no no no so I just hit the counter so the

counter's like in I'm 5-5 so the counter's like here to me so she just was like I just tapped the counter I hit the counter and then she just put the money on the counter like probably like by like this much like again it's only the top drawer money So it was like 22,000, 2,500. So it was about this much money. And I rather than I have no bag. I have no bag, no nothing. So I grab it, slide it off the counter like this,

and run out of the bank with the money in my hand, tucked out. Cut through the projects. Just nobody, I ran probably half a mile before I stopped to even see what was, you know, if anybody was chasing. No guy's chasing me. I didn't see it on news, nothing. And I was like, oh, I got away with you. I was, oh, okay.

And then so 2,000 stretches pretty far. with 16 and don't have like bad habits um so then after I hit the first one now I'm watching like now I become like an america most wanted junkie so I'll start watching that type of stuff and I start realizing that everybody gets in trouble because somebody turns them in like they're getting away it got away for years or then somebody random turns them in so I didn't tell anybody so I just didn't tell anybody that was Robert banks because I was like somebody's going to turn me in at some point so I just never told no one so I would just show up with like money like not like a lot of money because I didn't want anybody, but I would just show up with enough to do whatever I was doing.

And then, right, it went from like every seven, eight months, like every three months. And it was like once a week, once every couple of days. I want to give a quick shout out to canines.org, a nonprofit providing highly trained canine teams to law enforcement, schools, and health care facilities by removing the financial barriers that usually stop agencies from getting them. Formerly known as canines for cops, they've already placed over 326 canines across across 29 states and even internationally, helping seize billions in contraband, recover over 150,000 firearms, support 200,000-plus felony arrests, and protect more than 2 million students

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Well, no. So back then, remember, so this is so. Yeah, what year is this? Yeah, so when I start robbing banks, it's 2000. So like every now and again they may have somebody, you know what I'm saying? Something might flash across like, hey, have you seen this person? but they're still photographs, there's grainy. Like, now they're high-definition 4K.

They got you coming down the street. But back then, it was just like a steel shot. So if you didn't, you know, they had those closed circuit TV. So you also had to get the bank's cooperation to, you know, give the videos. Oh, yeah, because sometimes they want to just write it off. Sometimes. Because all the money's insured. They write off all of it.

All the money is insured. So that is what I found out. The frequency sped up. I dated a bank teller. So she didn't know either Like she didn't know what's going to be I didn't know she was a So I wish I could say like I scouted her

I had no idea she was a bank teller She just so happened to be one And then she was like yeah I work at a bank I was like oh So I just start you know Probing her with just random questions Like hey what would you guys do if you know Somebody comes saying like what's like the protocol

And then so she was telling me like all the money's insured They're basically And side note Don't rob banks Right don't don't rob banks It's not a good thing. But because all the money's insured, the tellers are instructed to just get the best description of you possible.

Because if, so say they don't give me the money and I turn around and I shoot somebody and the thing or do some harm or something, they're responsible because the money's insured. So you shouldn't have, you know, even hesitated to give the money up. That's why when you see banks that says FDIC. So that's how I ended up in the feds because the feds insured of money that I took from the bank. Now, did you know, or how did you know not to use? a gun or a weapon rather use a note? Or did you just pick the note offhand and it turned out being better in the long run?

I picked the note and it worked. I was 16. I didn't have a gun. You're lucky you never used a weapon. I am extremely lucky. So somewhat lucky. It became, so again, after I started doing it, I started to like fine tune how I was doing it. So like, yes, I was lucky I never started using a weapon, but then once I didn't use it the

first time, I was like, why would I need it? Yeah. And then it wasn't until I got to prison that I realized they didn't have. I met a ton of guys. You got the note guys five years. Yeah. And then you got the guys 15 to 20. 15 to 20.

Armed robbery, same money or less. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it was a guy I was locked up with a white guy named Bubba. He was, and he was like, and it's funny, his name was Bubba because he, look, if you think of a Bubba in your mind, like, that's like, I think it was from like West Virginia or something, he had that accent, that twang when he talked to all those things. So he was down for bank robbery too. He got caught.

They get enhanced him because he had bullets. When they caught him, he had already thrown, you know, he caught him in the car, in the commission of the crime, but he threw the gun. So all he had was bullets, like bullet shells, whatever he had in the car with him. And they enhanced them off the bullets. Just simply needing to have a gun, they were just like, oh, well, you're coming from a robbery. You got bullets, so we're going to assume that the bullets had a gun attached to it. And enhanced them for, like, gave him like 20 years.

Not even finding the gun. So that's what spared me, but it actually, so it spared me as far as time goes, right? But because I have two bank robberies, now if I get caught again, I'm careered out anyway. If I get caught for anything. How much were you making on average per haul? $2,500. $2,500. Well, I guess it's a decent amount at that time.

It was decent because people thought I had a real job. People don't have a regular job. So like your regular paycheck, especially back then was, you know, if for 16, 17, 17, 8 year old kid, your paycheck's only going to be 7,800 anyway. So when I'm walking around with, you know, a couple hundred dollars, nobody's really, you know, thinking about it being an issue. And then, especially when I was in college, because everybody broke in college, right? So I'm, if I got 2,000, I can go to BW3s by wings for everybody and I'm a hero. with, you know, 200. What kind of, what was like your personality?

What kind of person were you like? Errogant. Yeah, arrogant. But it was a, I genuinely felt I was just better and smarter than everyone in the world, right? It's like the world. Like, so I'm not even just general in my circle. But I was really standoffish because I was always paranoid. I was always paranoid that either somebody would figure out of what I was doing,

and find out I was doing or rob me or any of those type of things. So I was just always paranoid. I kind of stayed to myself in, or I, I'm a loner by nature, but because I was only child, I'm outgoing, I'm personable. You know, I enjoy interacting with people, but I also enjoy being home by myself. So I was just, at that time, I liked to travel. So I found it was the thing, it was this program. I don't know if they still have it.

It's called X-Fairs. So it was for students, and you could fly anywhere in. in the country for like 60 bucks. Anywhere they flew, anywhere American Airlines flew for like 60 bucks. So I would just take flights, places, like, random place. Like, the matter of fact, the funnest, and it was interesting, you told me we bought something that happened in Minnesota earlier. But the funnest time I've ever had is in Minneapolis, Minnesota, man.

I heard that's a good city. The funniest time I've ever had. And the only reason that I ended up, only reason I ended up going there is because it was the next flight that was leaving. That's a major airport in Minneapolis, right? I think I passed on my way to Alaska a couple years ago. I passed, I stopped at Minneapolis for a few hours on the way to Alaska from here to Minneapolis and to there to Alaska. Yeah, man.

Minneapolis is a good city. Like, it's like randomly good, randomly good city. But I don't know, man. Like I mean, I guess the same. No, not the same as now. I was definitely more arrogant, more like. I know everything, you guys know nothing, ha, ha, ha, I got this great secret that nobody knows. And then I kind of started traveling in two separate circles, right?

So it was like the underworld of disposable people that had disposable income and then, like, the regular people, right, or regular that I'm going to college and, you know, all the straight head, volunteer work, all those type of things. But then, like, I had a whole, like, probably 18 months where I was only dating strip. So it was like, well, by me only dating strippers, I'm in that, you know, circle, but then I get up and go to class in the morning and, like, be on the straight and arrow. So it was like living, living two lives in the same body. And not that I was two different people, like I was the same person, just living in two different spaces. What did you want your career to be? What were you going to college for? So I wanted to be a lawyer initially.

What a plot to us? What kind of lawyer? I just wanted to be a lawyer, man. It just seemed like cool. Like when I was young, it just seemed like the coolest thing. And then because, so one of my teachers told me that I was a good arguer. And they put me on a debate team. And I was like, hey, lawyers argue all the time.

I want to be a lawyer. And then that just happened. So it was either I wanted to be either a baseball player or a lawyer. Those are my two. And then when I got to college, I realized how much, like, like reading and memorizing and all that stuff that kind of went into that. and math, and then I ended up pivoting into public relations. Now, were you using any of the money to gamble, too, once you started making it? Yes, yes, yes.

I was spending the money when I got it. So it was gambling. It was everything but drugs. I never had a drug problem. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason. Cayman Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors. Please drink responsibly.

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The Four Seasons is back for season two, starring Tina Faye, Will Forte, Coleman Domingo, Marco Calvani, Carrie Kenny Silver, and Erica Henningson. After a difficult year, your favorite group of friends continues their tradition of vacationing together now with a baby in tow. From the Jersey Shore to upstate New York and Italy, their getaways are sure to take unexpected turns where comedy ensues. Watch the Four Seasons May 28th, only on Netflix. I didn't even really drink much. Do you think that's based on your environment, like how you grew up? Mm-hmm. Very much so.

So, like, when I would see adults drunk, it just didn't appeal to me, right? I didn't understand it as a kid. Like, why would you get, why would you do anything where you can't walk straight? Like, why would you do anything where you peed on yourself or you've done, like, all of the worst ideas of a drunk person is what, in my mind, my adolescent mind. is what I held on to. So I never really wanted to drink. And then drugs just never kind of appealed to me in that way. Like I smoked weed and stuff, but not like any hard drugs.

When I got to prison, I found out that most bank robbers do drugs. Like, that's why they rob banks so they can do drugs. And I did not know that. Didn't I know that. But yeah, so yeah, my upbringing definitely staying in control of your, like, because my parents were older. So it was kind of really, structured, right? So like, not so much like a public image, but when you're in public,

you conduct yourself properly. And, you know, even when, you know, I still say, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, all those type of things. So it was, I never kind of got away from that. So I didn't, like drinking or anything like that. But I like being in the environment of. So even, like I said, like when I, when I was going through my little stripper phase, I would go to the strip, but I wouldn't drink. I would just be there and just hang out and, you know, throw some money, hang out, you know, chill. Like I be by people doing cocaine and all that type of stuff, but I just,

it never appealed to me. But I enjoyed the party atmosphere of it all, because I could party and then go home and be in silence and be by myself. And then when I wanna be social, I go out and like have a great time and everybody around me has a great time, and then I just go back home and kind of relaxed.

And I was chasing girls and stuff then too. So, man, all of those good things, which is just, right, right. Again, it's living the two lifestyles in the same body, right? So I have the same mindset. I never changed, you know, how I was thinking of who I was. But if I'm in the strip club until three in the morning, two, three in the morning, then we go to the after hour spot, I go to sleep for three hours, get up, go to class.

Everybody else, I was in the after hour spot, and the strip club is still sleeping. And then the people I'm going to see in class at the student union and volunteer. hearing at the homeless shelter, they're wide awake because they weren't up last night at the strip club, right? So it was those, it was back and forth for Nashville. Then I had a best friend that was there with me and he didn't know either. He didn't know until one time I needed somebody to go with me to Atlanta and I was like, hey, you know, we're about to go to Atlanta. I'll pay for a ticket. He's like, how are you going to pay for my ticket? I was like, man, I'll pay for a ticket. I just need somebody to go with me because, so botched bank robbery is what happened.

So botched bank robbery. I end up. up going to try to get the money the lady moves too fast i go in there give her the note she moves too fast um she gets the note reads it and then goes to give me the money but she's doing it really really fast and as she's doing it really fast a loan officer behind her guy a loan officer behind her is like why is she moving that's like she's that's weird and and i'm thinking either she's panicking or she was trying to let him know either way either she's panicking or she's signaling either way i you know So, genius, the loan officer kind of sees and he wants to be a hero, so I have on really, really dark shades. So I'm watching him behind her, not her getting the money together.

And I see him look at her and then she set the note up. It was folded. She got to set the note up. So he kind of trying to read it. And I was like, oh, man, he's, you know, he's about to do. He jumps the counter. He tries to jump to counter. So she gives me the envelope.

By then I had, like, a big manel of envelope. I haven't put the money in. So he gives the envelope. go to turn and when I something just says like turn back around and so when I turn back around I hear his foot hit the counter and he's trying to like come over and jump on my back because he's the damn going so I just turn in time and I kind of flip him I use his momentum to go over he hits the red the little you know rail thingies with the rope hits that makes all type of noise I was like oh my god I panic run out I still got the money, but I run out.

I use a park, like, maybe like two or three, like, blocks down, you know, just enough where I can kind of maneuvering, hopping a car real quick and get out. So I get to the car and I'm sweating. I'm like, oh, man, because now I'm like, no, I touched it. All, everything is going around my mind. I touched them. I might have DNA on the door, all this type of, you know, again, I was watching America's Most Wined so much.

It's messed my mind up. So I was like, man, I got to get out of time. I was like, but I can't just go out of town on my own because it's going to look suspicious. So I was like, hey, I was going to say, I was really paranoid at that point in my life. So I was like, I was like, hey, man, hey, you want to go to Atlanta? Because I have friends that went to Clark Atlanta.

I said, you want to go Atlanta? He was like, man, yeah, sure. So I was called the airport. We got the flights and everything. So, you know, I don't have any money. I was like, don't worry about it. I got it. We were just going to go.

And then I thought about it after I called the airport, I was like, I don't want to leave from this airport again. paranoid, overthinking everything. I was like, I only leave from this airport. So we drive to Columbus from Cleveland. It's like two hours. So we drive from Columbus or from Cleveland to Columbus and catch the flight from Columbus to Atlanta to hang out.

So that's when I had to tell him, hey, this is what I've been doing. Or this is what I did. I didn't tell him this is what I've been doing. I said, this is what I did. This is what happened. And then he was like, oh, man. And, you know, but he's so excited. Now I'm nervous again because I'm like, oh, he's going to tell somebody.

They're going to tell somebody that or not. But he didn't. But I ended up, like I said, he was staying with me for probably. We were staying together probably like six months at that time. We were going to school and everything. So he was like, I didn't, you know. By the time, once I got arrested, he was like, I didn't notice what you were doing. Was that the first person you had ever told?

Probably. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's probably the first person I ever, like, told in the actual commission. Like, like, immediately. Like, yeah, no, no, no. He was the first person I told period. I think about it because it was felt necessary.

Like, I felt like I had to at least let you in on what's going on. But another thing that made me paranoid, so I used to get these stolen cars. And when I would get the stolen cars, like, not get stolen cars. Let me take that back. I had a few stolen cars that people had gave me the kind of fence for him. So I sold one to a buddy of mine and I told him the car stolen. This is a stolen vehicle Do not get caught

Because he's a friend of mine So he's like Yeah I'm gonna just flip it Da da da da da have somebody I'm fine The car stolen Don't get caught in the car What does he do

Goes to a park with his girlfriend In the stolen car After hours They pull up They pull him over Or they pull up on or they pull up on whatever Run the plates Car stolen

He gets arrested I found out he gets arrested And I was like Oh well That's him I told him, I don't know what it was. But I finally, he gets arrested, and I started getting these weird phone calls.

Like, and to this day, I think he was trying to set me up this day. Again, I was just too extremely paranoid that it just went. So they're like, hey, we were, I'm going to use the name, but they were like, hey, we were supposed to get a car from such and such. You know, he never showed up. Do you have another one? And I have no idea what you're talking about. Oh, well, do you have another one?

Because we got the money right now. And I was like, no, no idea what you're talking about. So I stopped fencing cars. at that point because I was like, hey, I'm, you know, again, paranoid. So I never came close to telling or interacting with anyone that I'd, like, actually knew after that. So after that, I didn't, you know, kind of mix, I guess business with personal. So, yeah, he was the perfect person I actually, like, told, told.

So now you're 21 years old. How do you end up getting caught? And do you finish college? Did not finish college. So I ended up getting caught. I took a left instead of a right, basically. It's going to be the moral story. That's a good mirror story.

So I park in the parking lot like two, like maybe probably, maybe it's like half a block, but it's just wooded path. Come down a path, hit the bank, hit the bank. There's like four or five guys that's working on a car in like the far end of the parking lot. Don't really think much of it. So when I hit the bank, I come out, run back up through the path. When I get in the car, I'm driving back past the path that I just came up. the same guys that were working on the car,

I'm assuming they tried to follow me, just not close. And then by the time I got in the car and came back past the little entrance, they were coming up through. Now, it was a black car with black tents, and they just pointed at it as I was driving past. And I was like, oh, my God, they know.

Again, my mind was so paranoid. They're like, oh, my God, they know. So the plan was to come out and make a left. Like, come out of the parking lot, make a left, go down the street, take the side streets, get to the freeway. Instead, I'd make it right in that heat construction. Boom, like, soon as I turn.

So I'm literally stuck in front of the bank long enough to see them walk back down through the path, back to the bank, talk to the bank tellers or talk to the people outside. And then I'm like, man, this is crazy. All right, all right, I got to get to the freeway so I get home. By the time I got to the freeway, man, I start seeing cars, like, starting to, like, set up road, like not roadblocks, but just getting in position. I get on the freeway, once I get on the freeway, like three cars popped behind me.

And I was like, oh, well, that's it. That's it. So I ended up pulling over in the, I had a girlfriend with me at the time. My girlfriend at the time was with me. Well, she was in the car. And she was in the car. And then so I was like, man, I don't want to take her with me on some wild police chase.

So I pull over and get off on the exit. It's funny part is, as I'm getting off on the exit, the cop was getting spikes out of his trunk. I just got to the exit too quickly, I guess. And then he, like, seen the car. I was like, oh, and I tried to hurry up. So he put the spikes back and tried to get back in the car. And I have a police chase story later with the spikes.

But it was funny because he was running. And I get in the, I was getting pulling a BP gas station. Just get out of the car and put my hands up. And so because I didn't take him on the chase, I actually turned out better because I didn't take him on a chase, I got a bond, and they normally don't give bank robbers bond. So I got a personal bond, you know, again, first-time offender. And I got, on paper, everything looks perfect, right?

Like, in college, got years of volunteer experience. I speak well, I can present myself, all this type of good things. Again, I still, you know, say, please, thank you, sir, ma'am. So Judge gives me self-surrender. So I ended up getting a bond and I ended up having self-surrender. And at that time, they didn't know about when they arrested you and gave you the bond, they didn't know about the other robbers? Not at the time. So the way they ended up, so when they arrested me, they didn't know.

It didn't take them long, though, after that. So what it has happened is the young lady that was with me, when we both get arrested, they pull us in. I'm trying to get her off. So I'm like, up, I did it. I'm trying to play the scared college kid role. Oh, man, I'm just in college. I'm just, you know, all these student loans, I'm just trying to do, you know,

so I'm thinking to try to help get me off. And then they're like, well, was she a part of it? I was like, nope, she had nothing to do with it. You know, she didn't even know what I was doing. I just told her to wait in the car, which is true, I just told her to wait in the car and it went. So now, shout out to her. She's still alive, kicking, great family,

living her life, wonderful, but this is so stupid. When they go, so when they, the judge, or not judge, the agent comes back in. and he's like, let me see the picture of, you know, in the bank, the bank's still picture, the one I got caught with. So then he's going through, like, so I'm sitting there talking to like the city detective. And then he's over here just kind of, I just see him kind of flipping through stuff. And I'm still, man, I was just, you know, I'm just scared.

And then he was like, hey, can I chime in? I was like, yeah, man, sure. You know, he was like, yeah. So we caught you in this shirt, show me the picture. And then he was like, but there's the same shirt that this person has on. this person has on and this person has on. So you didn't do any of these? No, I didn't do any of them.

He's like, okay. Being like, all right, you didn't do any of them. And I was like, man, all right, you got me, right? So I told them myself, because again, I'm still in my thought process, I'm gonna just take what, I'm guilty, right? I'm gonna take whatever they got. Shouldn't have said nothing.

My first step, first problem. Shouldn't have said anything. They got me, they got me. I should just went ahead and laid down. Yeah. But so when I tell him, you know, they got, you know, all right, these are mine. Because he showed me like six pictures. And like literally like four or five of them were me, like legitimately me.

And but I just took the two that I had the same or three that I had the same picture, the same shirt on because I can't beat that. And I'm still trying to thinking I'm smart and everybody else thinking I can outsmart the police and try to convince them that I didn't do anything. Right thing. So I was like, okay, you got me. I did these. These are mine, right?

So he goes into the other room. He tells a young lady, hey, he's telling us everything. We know everything about it. He told us that he's done these three banks. For whatever reason, she's like, yeah, and then I know. Yeah, and then I helped them pick the banks out.

What? What? So what she thinks she's confessing to, I'm assuming, is the one bank. She doesn't know I just gave them two more. So she's thinking that I'm assuming my assumption is that she's thinking she's helping me somehow, right? And it's not. All she's doing is bearing herself.

So when the next morning at arraignment, when they pick us up, they're like, I'm looking like, why is she here? Like, why did you guys then let her go? Like, what's going on? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were 100% truthful with us except for one thing. I was like, what are you talking about? You told her she hadn't have anything to do it. I'm like she didn't.

Like, well, she said she helped you pick the banks out and da-da-da-da. I was like, what? Like, what are you? Why would you tell them that? Like, where are you? Because now you're on the hook for five banks, right? Like, I gave, they called me for one. I told them about three more and then they added another one on it.

And then, but now you're on the hook for five banks. She ends up doing a year that she didn't have to do. It was crazy. Like, she, like, is resentful to me for it now. And I'm just like, hey, you really, hey, I shouldn't have said nothing. but you definitely shouldn't have said nothing. And so she ends up, like, I mean, turn state witness against me, but that's how she got just a year and a day

because she basically turned into, he made me do it and I was so in love that, you know, I just went along with it, but you didn't have to just say anything. Anyway. How'd your parents react to your arrest? Shock, shock, really. Like, my mom was sad and my dad was just shocked. So that was the first time that, so the night I came, they gave me bond and I came home, was literally the first night.

Me and my dad had like a drink together. Like I guess you, I, so my dad socially drank. Like he didn't drink like a lot, but he socially drank if he's somewhere. He might have one glass and nurse it all night. But yeah, he just poured, pour the drink for me, gave me a drink and we just sat down and talked. And he was like, I would, I never even would think that you would even be able to do something like this. It's like, it doesn't even, like, he's like, it doesn't fit your kid. At this time, he doesn't even know that there's multiple.

He does, he only thinks it the one. She's like, this doesn't even fit your character. I didn't even know why you would do this. And I didn't really have an explanation at the time either because I was just like, I mean, you know, I did it because I didn't want to say I've been doing it before or five years. So, because now I'm embarrassed and ashamed that my parents had to come. Because now the jail part is kicking in.

Before it was just fun and I'm getting away with all. all that stuff and I'm so smart and you know but then when your parents are really like really have to come get you and are really sick with them sick like crying and uh like that really touched so I was ashamed embarrassed um and then like they were like all right we're gonna get you through this like let's move forward you know move past it and then I think so I think my because I as at the while I came to grips with it so I would like joke about stuff like my dad might say something after I got out of prison he might say something like are you scared something like me like you don't want to go through the yellow light what were you scared and I was like that I used to

rob banks not scared right but he would never he would never laugh it would it would be like why do you say like he would be like why don't say that like don't let that go like kind of put it in the past so that's kind of how they all reacted to it and then everybody else around me was like shot still because again two separate worlds right so So the world of disposal income and strippers and drug dealers and gambling houses, like they, nobody flinched, like, nobody even batted the eye. But everyone else was like, oh, my God, what was this? When did this?

Why? And then so what ended up coming out, people thought I had a drug problem. Like, people sincerely were like, you must be on cocaine. It's what it is. It's got to be cocaine. Because it's like, you don't smoke crack. So it's got to be like cocaine or heroin. We don't see any track marks.

Cocaine it is. And I was like, no. No, man, not at all. And then even my gambling habit really wasn't a gambling. I mean, it was a gambling habit. But like, if I didn't have money to gamble, I would just go deal cards at the gambling house. Right. So that would be my fix if I wasn't actually gambling.

But I was sports bed all the time. I just makes the game more interesting to watch. So right. So it was just like, shit. And then I'm sure it was a lot of embarrassment. I'm sure for my parents, like to their peers and like to the family, I'm sure it was, you know, they're embarrassed. So I, that's the, that's the regret I have about all of this. Like I feel like everything happens for a reason and I'm doing so much great stuff now in a reentry space.

And I go around the country and I talk about post-incarceration syndrome and try to work with professionals on how to, you know, work with guys coming out that have post-incarceration syndrome. And so I had to go through. that to know, you know what I'm saying, my bigger purpose and how to help people. This episode is brought to you by Subaru. Go further in a long-range Subaru hybrid with up to 581 miles per tank in the Forrester Hybrid. Longer range, better fuel efficiency. And legendary symmetrical all-wheel drive standard. The Subaru Forester Hybrid.

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Yeah. So I got arrested August 5th. I was sentenced December 12th. Oh, that was quick, so you pled out. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because I was already, so I was on house arrest. Once they gave me bond, they made personal. So I was on house arrest.

So I was still taking college classes. They were still letting me go out and take, classes. I mean, I was taking real classes. I was at, like, the community college taking real estate, just to get out of the house. Because I knew I was going to jail. It was, it wasn't like, if I beat the case, no, I'm going to jail. An honorable criminal. So, so, yeah. December 5th, you get sentenced. December 12, I got sentenced. January 21st, I had self-surrender. I turned myself in January 21st, 2006. How much time?

57 months. And federal prison? So the state kicked it to the feds at some point? No, no, only went fed. It went straight to the feds. But the estate was the ones that arrested you that day? Yeah, yeah. I got arrested that day, but the federal agent was already around, I guess.

Aren't investigated. Yeah, yeah. So when I was questioned, the federal agent was already on site. Okay. Yeah, it was in the jurisdiction. I never even got a rain in the state. I got, or at the local level, I went straight to the federal building the next day. Where did yourself surrender to?

Elkden. So I was at, I was. was the FCI Elkden, which in retrospect probably wasn't the best place to put me, right? Like, again, on paper it makes sense, right? 21-year-old kid, never been in any trouble, all these great things on a resume. But it's 45 minutes from home. The Elkden visitation was in the evenings. So Elkton visitations were Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 4 to 7.

And then Saturday, like, 9 to 1, I think, something like, or 10 to 1, because it was out to count. So 10 to 1, and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 4 to 7. So I'm straight from college. I'm getting visits Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I'm getting visits all the time. So then once I'm getting visits all the time, I start bringing in weed, because what else am I going to do? Because I'm getting all these visits, and so I start bringing in weed. So I had a little bit of money left, so I opened a ticket because I'm a gambler. So I realize everybody else in there, either gamble. Everybody in the low, either gambles or smoke cigarettes, everybody. Or is super religious. Those are the only two type, the only thing. Sometimes it's a mix of everything. You would see the

religious guys smoking cigarettes over. Listen, the religious, so sometimes the religious guy, then I, so I counted to, because I try to look at the psychological aspect of it, right? The religious guy, a lot of times weren't religious and are trying to find something to hold on to, or to, they're trying to find something to help push them through their time, right? And religions, it just seems like the easiest, most structured type of thing. Like whether it be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, whatever it is that, you know, people grab, at that point, you fall back to,

I want to say when you're at your lowest, you kind of try to find something to give you that hope to get you through if you don't internally already have it. So the religious guys were almost worse as they were just everything else. Like, so I also sold like, like, theme books. Right. What's that? Excuse me, pornography.

Oh. So I also sold pornography. So when I got to Elkton, yeah, let me take a step back for context, right? Yeah. So for context, when I got to Elkton, they were like, oh, so I had a self-surrender. So when I walk in, I'm the only person there, right? Because when they're doing intake and everything. And I almost got sent to the shoe immediately.

So my lawyer told me, don't wear a bunch of clothes. There's nothing, everything you're going to walk in was going to get sent home. So I was like, okay, no problem. So I had on basketball shorts and a t-shirt. So when the cop starts pat me down, he's like, you got anything on you? I was like, yeah, I got 38 in my pocket. Because I'm joking. I'm thinking this is a joke, right?

He's not got on basketball shorts and a t-shirt. You know I don't have anything. He was like, he's like, what? Like steps back makes this whole dramatic. You have a what? What do you have? What's going on? I was like, yo, no, man.

And again, at this time, I'm 145 pounds, five, eight, 145 pounds, man, with a white t-shirt on and it's a basketball short. You know, I don't have anything. But yeah, they put me in a hold and selling everything for like two hours. This is because I said I had a 38 in my pocket. So anyway, fast forward when they come to do the initial intake, because I'm still sitting in this cold-ass sale, he was like, well, what's your educational background?

I was like, well, I'm just coming from college. Like, literally I had class last week. And then he was like, oh, okay, would you mind being a tutor? I was like, sure. I'll be a tutor, I guess. So I became a GED tutor before I even hit the compound. So that gave me access to the copy machine because I'm a tutor. So because I access this copy machine, I can run my tickets.

I can run all that stuff. And then because I run tickets every day, somebody who's like, hey, can you copy this, like, porno magazine for me? I was like, sure I can. But while I'm going to do it, I'm going to run off four more. And then so I'm going to give you your copy. And then I got four more. So now I'm selling, like, porno books for like a book, book and a half of stamps. Can you tell everyone what a ticket is that doesn't know?

about gambling. Yeah. So the, so a ticket would be where you put your place. Like where, like so they will all be on one thing. It's almost kind of like a receipt.

Right. So you put your parleyes in, parlays or whatever it is you're betting on or gambling on one kind of slip. And that's considered a ticket and you turn your ticket in. In federal prison, with prison period,

so you make Xerox copies of the tickets and the tickets end up being this big. the tickets have the entire schedule of that day slate on it. And you could pick the team or you could pick the overs and unders on the same ticket. Like overs and numbers are normally by letters and the teams are normally by numbers. So that way when you get the sheet of place, like you can look at it and exactly tell, hey, everybody took the over on San Antonio or everybody took San Antonio. That way you kind of figured out by eyesight exactly what kind of people were here.

And then also, all texts are in effect. So all text and effect mean any type of technical violation you lose, meaning if you wrote the wrong number on something, if you turned it in late, all those things matter. So your ticket is the receipt that you have for the plays that you put in so that's where you can get paid. So I would have to run off. So basically, I would make a schedule.

I write out a schedule every night. Well, I would have some, I would pay somebody in the library to type up the schedule for. for maybe like six weeks. So like literally typewriter, tat, tat, tat, tat. So they were typewriter, a whole schedule would come out on a big sheet of paper. I go to the copy machine, shrink it,

put four or five on the same thing. So now this whole big sheet is now just a sliver with the games and everything on it. Cut them down and now I'm just passing out the sliver to the sliver paper with the games on it to people that wanted to play, like gamblers. And then they would keep that and they would give me back whatever the actual numbers that correlated with the slate that they had.

So that was my entire routine all day, like basically all mornings. So the mornings I would go make the copies. I would fill in the lines, go make the copies, split them up. By lunchtime, I'm actually passing out the gambling slate for the day. And then by recall, which is on like 3.30 or just after recall, like recal, like recal. like rec call at like 4.30 after the 4 o'clock count, I would start, my runners would start bringing me back the plays from their respective units. Now, was no one running a ticket there already that you were able to just kind of set

up shop there as a new person? Oh, no, there were tickets. But so the ticket I started initially, it was funny because it was when the cash money, young money was out. So my first ticket was called Young Money. So I would just go around like a popcorn vendor at a basketball game, like peanuts popcorn. And NFL, NBA, NFL, NBA, NBA, MLB. And now I'm walking around with the tickets.

And it was such a kind of marketing tool that even though there were other tickets out that people were already playing and all those type of things, it was almost like funny. Right. Like people would be like, man, what you got? Let me see what you got. And so that's how I built up this clientele of the ticket because So one thing I learned is being in the gamut houses growing up that as long as you pay people Like on time or early, they'll keep playing with you, right? Long as there's never a discrepancy about their money because they lose so much that when they win, they want to feel like a winner

So I'd be on the rec yard and I'd be taking bets off the rec yard until I got big enough to actually have runners in the in the units. So there were probably, when I got there, there were probably three tickets, maybe about three tickets. But mine, because again, I'm going on a rec yard and just walking around with tickets, I'm getting plays everywhere versus just in the units. So, yeah, so then I ended up, it was, and I don't know where he's at now, but it's just a Jamaican guy named president, and he was a fixed radios. So he would just, he would sit in his window and just watch the Look out on a wreck. He wouldn't lead a unit really much because he just fixed radios.

People would bring their radios to him and that's how that was his hustle. So he just saw me walking around on the rec yard so much. He's like, you know, what are you doing? Like, yeah, what's going on? Because it just, it's just, it was foreign, right? A, in prison, you don't walk up to people, right? Just randomly. And there's certain areas where you can't just walk through, right?

Like, this is, so like the, if the serenios are playing handball on one of a handball course. This is a closed section type thing. But I didn't know that. I was just so ignorant to the fact I'm just going wherever there are people at. And because it's like, it was like, I guess it was probably

you're so stupid that you're harmless and people would just let me kind of matriculum. I didn't know Spanish or anything like that. So they were just like, what's dude doing? And I'm walking around MLB, NBA, NBA, NBA. Who wants to play a ticket? They're like, I guess, man. Like, this kid is.

crazy. So that's how I just built my ticket up. So president seen me moving around and he was like, what are you doing? He thought I was selling something. Like actually like selling something. I was like, no. So I told him what I was doing and he was like, he was like, do you think you could sell and that's how I got into tobacco game? He's like, do you think why you're out on the rec yard, you could sell my cigarettes for me? Because he didn't leave it. He didn't like, he didn't like, you leave the unit. And I was like, yeah, sure. I can, you know, I'm out here, I guess. I can sell cigarettes. Like, who do you want me to sell them to? He was like, anybody that wants to buy I was like, okay, cool.

Come to find out the chaplain, again, I don't know this. This is all in like my first. So I opened up a ticket probably three to four months after I was there. By the summertime, I had my ticket up and rolling. So I got there in January. So, you know, again, within the first three, four months, I just set the ticket up. And again, it just started out because I just knew lines. So I would move the lines.

So I would have better lines than everybody else because I would just move them. I didn't understand the structure of like uniform. Right? Like so some so if the Lakers are giving up six, but I think the Lakers are going to lose I would have Lakers giving up four, right? And then that that two point difference brought in so much money and then so that's what I would do with a lot of the games I'm moving. Sometimes I get hit because I move the lines and sometimes most of the times you put something else with it right. So if I take the Lakers and the Lakers is the only line that's different and I move it two points people would take the Lakers on my ticket and then maybe play everybody else on everybody else's ticket.

Anyway, so kind of find out President is connected with the chaplain. The chaplain is bringing Jamaica's cigarettes, like 40 going north. He's just bringing a Jamaican. Not on some, like, I work with you guys, just you're Jamaican, I'm Jamaican, you guys like cigarettes, I'm going to bring you cigarettes. So he's bringing them like two packs a week or three packs a week or something like that, and he's not asked for any money. So he, so President started selling them to me for $100 a pack.

So he's son of $100 a pack. I would cut them in threes. So I eat cigarette for a book. A book of stamps is like $5. So basically each cigarette got me like $15, $20 cigarettes in the pack. So I make like $300 off of the $100 investment. And I just started doing that. So that went with the ticket money to help my ticket grow.

So that's how I got a big enough ticket. So that's what to answer your question. There were other tickets. But I started out just so, I guess, again, the marketing aspect of it, that my ticket grew faster. because once I got the cigarette plug. When you're established with a ticket like that, how much could it bring in, say on a football Sunday?

Oh, on a football Sunday, you can make like a thousand, two thousand. Profit? Yeah, profit. No, all profit. That's with the losses counted in for all of it. And that's easy. And depending on how big of a ticket, like I've had like really big good football weekends where like I've made like $5,000.

And again, it's compound money, right? So a book of stamps is $5. So if I made 400 books, that's the two grand. Like, you see what I'm saying? That's the two or whatever the math is. But if I made 200 books that weekend, right, which is not difficult. It's really very common. Is if you're in, say, say average prison yard probably has six to eight units.

So if you make 20 out of this unit, 50 out of this unit, but you might make 200 out of one unit because everybody missed. Right? everybody took the same thing that day and everything died so you just make you see what I'm saying so if you get so you get a situation where so in the real world gambling if you get a push you still get some money right it's voided and you can still get money in prison gambling ties lose all ties lose so I actually made more money during baseball season than I did during football season because it was easier to push they all push right but you have probably probably 60 to 70 percent of your baseball games in and one run, right? If the home team gets a run at the end of the game, now again, this is before the new rules where, it's before the new rules where, you know, runner starts on second and, you know, all that type of stuff.

But most of the games are one-run games. So I'd make more money during baseball season than football season, but the volume was higher during football season. So, I mean, with the college, yeah, but I've also lost thousands on a football season. football weekend too. So like you get a like so the first two weeks of college first three weeks of college they all play non-conference games. So the favors just come on and blow people out. So you might lose like you might lose a thousand on a Saturday and just hope Sunday's better.

And then Sunday comes up and you mess around and lose another, you know, $1,500 on the Sunday. And then you're like, hey, hope I recoup this during a week. So I can open up next weekend type type day. So in the free world, when someone loses big, they don't have to go to bed near their bookie that just took all their money. So is it weird, you know, like walking into a guy that just paid you, say, 500 bucks and he's in the shower or anything like that? No, you definitely become the universal villain, right? Like, so every, but it becomes more of a, because, you know, in prison, it's a lot of camaraderie,

right? So even though, yeah, you're playing my ticket, we also win Saturday, ate lunch together. you know all these other things like and then when someone won i always made a big thing of it because again i always learned i learned early that like people enjoy winning and everybody loses so much that you want to you know celebrate so i would make a big deal when people won which so it's been a couple times where i was like i was like hey got a winner got a winner over here man he got me because you got it seem like it hurt like you got it like he got me man he hit me for And people be like, hey, man, don't tell, you know, I owe people.

You're like, bro, you can't tell people that I hit for 100 books because I owe out a lot of that. And I may not want to pay. And I was like, oh, okay. So I actually got got beat up by accident. So I don't know that he's been ducking people this entire time, right? I don't know you're in prison. If you're a bad, you know, bad pay master, you just, people stop letting you owe them. Right?

So I don't, he'd never owe me because in essence, I'm the drug dealer of choice, right? Gambling in prison is a drug of choice of most people, right? Again, that's what you get religion, gambling and tobacco, right? Now they're smoking K2 and it's all the, it's all crazy. And that started happening toward the end of my second bid, where the K2 start, which is dangerous as hell. And I saw I got to smoke K2 and he forgot out of talk for like three days. Didn't say a word. Anyway, so guys as far as like, so the guys telling me like, hey, man, you can't be telling

people that, you know, I hate that. I was like, oh, my bad. But the word had already got out because I had already, you know, oh, man, such a, such hit for da-da-da-da-da because of advertising, right? I want to make a seem like some, like casinos, right? When you hit a jackpot in a casino on a slot machine, bells, whistles, ding, ding, ding, all this stuff happened. So anyway, long story short, I come out to give them the money.

And there's like people like close. It's just, you can tell when something is just off. So I'm like, I'm like, hey man, you know, come get you. And he's like, no, no, no. He started trying to like, like, like, wade me off. And I was like, no, man, come get this. So I, because I got to go do something else. And I want to get this off of me because if I get caught with your,

I think it was like 120 books or something like that, whatever it is. But it was over 100. But I was like, if I could call with your books, I'm out of that. And I still have to come back and pay you, man. So, you know, come get your money. And then so he was like, hey, come walk with me. Walk with me. So we started walking the track.

And he was like, man, I owe people. Hey, just kind of slide it to me. I was like, man, this is great. And I'm not about to do all this because I'm so green to how prison works. I'm young. I'm about to do all this, man. I'm here, man. So I just, like, we probably make it halfway around the track.

And I just pull out this little, like, so a book of stamps is probably like, like, a book of stamps is tiny. But five books of stamps is probably like that, bit. So I pull out the sleeve. I just handed to them. So I got five books. So they're in two things. So it's 10, five book things. They're probably like this and it's like this long.

And I have it on my waistband so I can make it through. So I pull it out to them and I hand it to them like literally like this. Here, man, here. As soon as I hand it to them, I look, I give it to them, I look. And I turn because I'm about to leave. And I see the same guys I were kind of hovering around coming down the hill to the track. And I was like, hmm, that's peculiar. Do do, do, do, do, do.

Because, hey, NBA, MLB tickets, I'm back on my tickets. Man, he didn't, he made it almost like another halfway around the track. He didn't make the whole lap. So he made like another halfway around. And then they caught him as he came around. And they were like, you know, you could see the conversation. And then they just jumped him right there. So he owed like three or four different people.

And I guess whatever explanation he was using, didn't work. So they beat them up right there, stomped around it right on the track. I was talking about on the track. And I was like, I kind of feel somewhat responsible for that. But like in other situations,

like I would like buy the whole TV room like to say somebody's making burritos or, you know, casillas or something. I would buy the whole tea room like cassidias. Like if you, I would have different things. Like if you play with me all the time, I just give you a free play.

Like I just like, no, don't worry about it. This one's on me type thing, right? Or if you've been losing, losing a lot. I was like, don't worry if this was on me. Let's try to see if you hit, like, you know, because I was in, so by me, again, being on those gambling houses in the free world, like, I've seen people mortgage, car note, wife's wedding ring. Like, I've seen them really go back, like, be, like, down bad, just chasing the gamble. Right? So, you know, again, I was ignorant to the prison part, but I was very, very conscious of the losing gambling part. So I think that helped me also because people probably, A, I was younger, so I was probably non-threatening. And then just the empathy that I showed them when they lost, right?

Like, oh, man, that did lock up. And then I played tickets myself, right? I played other people's tickets. So I would be sweating the ticket right along with them. Like, or if I got too many bets on a certain team, I'd push it off onto another ticket. So it's like, people would be in the TV room like, I got your ass a day. I got you. I'm about to.

And I'd be like, yeah, but you don't know. already sent your play. I took half of what you bet. So say you bet five books on a five pick. So if you bet five books on a five pick at 25 to one, I took three of those and put the same play in on someone else's ticket. So if you hit, I hit and it's cushions the blow. So a lot of times even that, like I would just, I was a gambler so I could understand the gambling mindset. I think that made it easier for people to lose to me and still be kind of cool with me. But I did try to, somebody did try to rob me before, though. I did. almost get robbed. Well, I got robbed, not almost got robbed. So at Elkden, they have side of TV

rooms. So I was trying to learn stocks. So they had the Italian TV room, the black TV room, the Mexican tattooed TV rooms. And I would go to the Italian TV room and watch from outside the glass because I could watch the ticker. Now, I could listen to the game from the big TV room and I could watch the ticker for the stocks. And the Italian guys would, every now and again, let me even come into the room and just kind of hang out. out. Actually, I actually got really close with them after a while. But there was a hallway leading to the other side to thing. So I wanted to watch, I was watching the ticker for the stocks and not wanted to go watch. I think it was Sons of Anarchy at the time, but it was something

like that on FX. And again, in prison, like shows that people watch are like an event. Like people like make food to watch a show that comes on every week. Like people like get strategic chairs and this. So the TV room gets packed, the little small TV. room gets packed, so I'm trying to hurry up over there, and I didn't go back to my cell and basically get everything off of me. So there was a little, like, it's a closet where they hand out supplies during the day, but it's supposed to be locked at night because I'm walking through the hallway, the door cracks, and I was like, oh, the door's cracked, and they just snatched me in the thing.

Again, at this point, I gained a little weight, so I might have been 160, right? So they snatched me in. And so I'm fighting because I'm thinking that I'm actually, my mind, I'm thinking I'm trying to, try to rate me, right? I'm thinking because, again, I'm just, you know, so I'm like, man, they're trying to, so I'm, like, fighting and then I realize they're only grabbing my pockets

and my, like, they're letting me, I'm hitting them and they're letting me hit them because they're grabbing my pockets and my socks and taking my shoes off. But I had on, so you have on a pair of shorts, I had on two pairs of shorts, one had a string on it. And then I had on the jogging pants over the top of both of those. So they literally took my pants off.

Like, like, as I'm fighting, they take the pants off, take the shoes off, and then I just get out the room. I'm assuming that they thought they had the Western name. So I just fight all my pants and everything. But I got on shorts and said it's not like I'm naked and just take off. So I go get the homie. I'm like, man, somebody in the closet, man. They just tried to grab me.

Like, I'm in full panic. Man, that's crazy. somebody da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-and- then he was like all right come on so so like three homies come around the corner now this is a low so it's funny now because I made so the second bid I went up so I was at my bid at a medium but I went to a USP so I'm from the low to the USP back down so it's funny now because going to get the homies at a USP is completely different than going to get the homies at a low so in retrospect it's like what was y'all really about to do but again they wanted to you know, keep up appearances.

They're like, man, somebody just tried to rob my little homie. They come around the corner. They're gone. Whoever it was, already gone. So I never even found out who tried to rob me. Again, because all they got was my pants and the shoes I had on. So I seen the shoes that I had on the rec yard being sold, like, maybe like a month later. And they were custom, you know, custom shoes in prison or just somebody went to hobby craft

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So how much time do you do on the first bid? 57 months. I did, no, no. I got eight months good time. So I ended up doing, what's that, 49 months. How old are you when you get out? And what year is that? I get out at 24.

No, yeah, no, 25. I get out at 25. I'm back in prison by 27, so 2005 to 2009. I'm back in prison by 2011, I get sentenced, and then I get out in 2018 on myself the second bit. What were you thinking when you got out of prison that first time? What was your plan? So when I got out of prison the first time, A, the bid was too easy, one.

First and four months. Clearly, you're a little bit good. Yeah, listen, the first bit was way too easy. I didn't learn anything. Like, absolutely nothing. But let me take that back on. I learned a lot, right? But I didn't learn how to, I wasn't emotionally mature.

I didn't learn financial literacy. I didn't learn, like, anything I was going to actually need when I got back in the world. I learned a bunch of prison stuff, though. Because prison was the new thing. Prison was exciting to me on my first bid. So my whole first four years, again, 21 years old I'm at a low

so it's not like it's like any real element of danger like it's danger minding prison but let me take that back because it's definitely element danger

first week I'm at Elkden so Elkden is a was I don't know it if it still is but it was a disciplinary low so it was also an ice detention facility which is funny not because they do the whole ice thing

they used to do an ice sweep from the facility once or twice a year they did ice sweep where in the middle of the night, you look up, whole soccer league, gone. Like, whole soccer league. Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, everybody, gone, right?

And it was just what it is because it was a detention spot or immigration spot. So first week I'm there, they're like, hey, you got to get up, you got to get toilet paper on Wednesday. So Wednesday they gave you two rows of toilet paper and, like, the shit shower and shave. Yeah. The other thing. So it's a bottle, soap.

and they basically give it to you and say, hey, everything you're going to do, you're going to do it. It's like the three and one. The Bob Barker. The Bob Barker. And I don't know if it was Bob Barker like from the price is right. But whoever Bob Barker is has.

It made a killing. Oh, my goodness. It's a monopoly. He's that generic soap, generic shaving cream, all that stuff is all Bob Barker stuff. So they were like, hey, you got to get up on Wednesdays. You got to go get the toilet paper stuff.

I was like, okay, that's cool. So I'm in line. When a homies come and say, hey, get out of the line, we're going to go eat first. I'm like, no, man, I'm already here. I'm just, because the line is out of laundry and just a long line down the compound. You're just, you know, just in line of hundreds of guys. You're just waiting to get your toy paper.

Everybody's kind of laughing and talking, like, no, man, I'm already here. I don't really want to do it. He's like, no, because, again, I don't know prison rules. I don't know when somebody taps you and say, you need to leave. You need to leave. So I'm arguing with it. I'm like, no, man, I'm already here, man. Y'all woke me up, told me you how to be here.

Like, I'm here. So he's like, all right. I was like, oh, they, the homies go, they mob out, they go to, um, they go to breakfast. I don't know, six steps, you know, move four, six steps later. Mexican come hit another Mexican with a lot, like, maybe like four people in front of me. Bam, bam, bam, bomb, bomb, bomb, blood everywhere. I was like, oh, my God, where am I at? Like, oh, my God, this is crazy.

Like, I don't know that this is a one-off. Like, this isn't necessarily happening in the lows. Like, that happens all the time everywhere else, but then the lows that happened. So I was like, oh my God, man, the most dangerous place in the world. This is fucking crazy. And I, like, not run to the child hole, but kind of like, try, again, going to the homies. Hey, man, did you see? So I tried to tell you, man, to get, you know, to get away from it.

I, da, da, da, da. So it was like, that was my, that was, I thought I was in danger, right? I thought it was of me a danger, but it really wasn't. But anyway, so I didn't really learn as much as I should. So my problem was when I came home was I was, I was. trying to catch up to people that were like in college. Like I was like, okay, I'm going to leave this, again, two different worlds. So I'm going to leave this world alone and I'm going to get back to trying to get my degree.

Because I was a public relations major and I had an associate it. So I'm like, man, I want to finish my degree. So my initial thought was I was going to finish my degree. And then I had a rental property. Well, I didn't have a rental property. I got one at the time. So I was like, I'm going to get some rental property, get my degree. And really, to be honest, I had no.

concrete plan other than I'm about to try to get back to where I think I'm supposed to be, like where I felt like my trajectory was taking me. So I came home. A buddy of mine, his father gave me a job, third shift at the gas station. So I was behind the glass of cashier at the gas station, which was cool because I could be out without actually being out, right? Like I still interact with people without actually being out. But then I'd get off at three in the morning.

and I'd go to the after-hour spots and hang out, right? Because this is comfortable, right? This is, so it's like, I'm leaving the lifestyle alone, but I can still go to the after-hour spots. I went to Strip's clubs a little bit, but it didn't have the same kind of luster, right? Because now I'm just a customer.

So I didn't ever stop doing a strip club thing so much. And then I just started working, man. I had a good job and everything. So I was a telemarketer with the scamming companies. Like, some of the scams, man, are a while. So I was a scammer. I didn't know I was a scammer. So the way they were running their scams,

so satellite radio or XM number was 888, 800, 1, 2, 3, 4, right? What they did, they bought 800, they bought 800 and 900. So what it was happening was people come across their thing where they needed to pay their serious satellite bill. And they were like, call this number for customer care. And the number is 888. But it looks, people are just so used to dialing 800 that they're just dialing 800. So they call us and we sell them DirecTV and ADT home security systems and direct TV.

Which is ironic because I was literally fresh out of jail selling home security systems, which is crazy. But I end up being good at it because even back then. So now everybody knows about Google and Google Maps, but back then they didn't. So I would Google their house address, their home address. So it would basically go like this. somebody had called in thinking they're calling serious salary to pay a bill. And they'd be like, hey, I got this message on my radio on a pay a bill. Okay, sir, what's your name?

Okay, home address? All right. Day of birth? Home phone? And they'd be like, wait, is it, shouldn't you guys have all this? Is this serious? And I'm like, oh, no, sir, you call DirecTV. But it's good you did because we have a great special going on.

Like I said, it's a scam. Because now you got them on the phone and they've already given you their information. So it was either some direct TV. or ADT home security systems. So I would take their address that they just gave me, pop it into Google, and basically do the street view and say, like, give them a hypothetical about their house, right?

So say, for example, you have four windows on the backside of your house. Somebody could easily get on your patio, climb up. I'm just talking them through how I would rob their house, basically. And people were like, oh, my God, you're right. That could happen. Of course it could.

I'm like that, right? So I was very good. And more of the stories, I made a lot of money selling home security systems because I would really just scare people in the buyer. So then I ended up getting a rental property. My rental property, the upstairs, somebody breaks my house, takes this copper. So it was my excuse. I need money because I need to renovate.

So you know what? I know I can go get a quick 2,000. So, but when I hit the first bank, it was the adrenaline rush, like the rush of it because so and this is going to sound completely stupid but just to the context of your question so when i came home before i started robbing banks again i was like bored i was like man this life stuff is easy like i had my own apartment house i had a rental property car my parents were doing fine i was only gone four years so that 21 to 25 phase a lot of my friends were either doing the exact same thing like still in school or they had dropped out of school and were just working like it wasn't

I didn't feel like I missed anything because there was nothing really big that happened. But I missed a lot of my son's life at the time. So I was like, man, this is boring, man. This is crazy. I need something. Because I'm still kind of dipping and dabbing, but like, like I'm going to after our spots, but they're not as entertaining. The strip clubs aren't as good.

So I was like, man, I'm missing something in my life. So then I hit the bank. And then the adrenaline rushed into the first bank. I was like, that's what I've been missing. That's it. And that's why I started hitting banks again. I only made it. So I robbed five banks the second time when it hit me.

And then. And you were on supervised release at the time? Yes, absolutely on supervised release. Why didn't you just go get like a credit line on your house or something? You probably would have got more money than what you got for the banks. I definitely would have. We know what it was. Again, I didn't learn financial literacy when I was in prison.

I didn't know any of that. So what ended up happening was when I was getting my parents are great people. And shout out to them. They cleaned up my credit when I was in. So they paid off, you know, any outstanding debts. Student loan didn't kick in. I didn't have to pay any student loan back. So I had, like, really good credit.

So that's how I ended up getting the property because I just had really good credit. And then same thing happened on the way back. I didn't get property the second time. But, yeah, it was a plethora of things I could have did. I didn't even get a credit. I never had a credit card. I didn't get a credit card until I got out the second time.

I could have just went and got a credit card or a credit line. And anyway, and I could have did it all. I could have got a Home Depot line of credit and fix it up just much, much easier. But it was almost kind of like how like a heroin addict would be like, oh, man, I was clean for X amount of Zine that had that first hit and I just, you know, fell off the wagon. Or alcoholics like, man, I was sober for, you know, X amount of time. I had one sip of champagne at a, you know, at a wedding, and then the next thing I know I'm on a bender. And that's what happened.

Like, I had that first bank. And after that, I was like, oh, I'm Billy the kid again. I'm smart. I forgot I was smarter than everybody else. So I'm just about to keep hitting banks. This is what I'm about to do. I'm like, but I'm going to be smarter this time. I'm only going to hit like one bank a week.

And then I'm going to just make sure I scout that bank throughout the week. So that way when I hit it, I can get away. And now just 2,000 every week to add to that big brain and thinking, oh, it's so far out, right? Unrealistic because you're not hitting the bank every week for 52 weeks. It's just not happening. It's not realistic. But that was kind of how I was thinking.

And then so once I hit the first bank, man, I was like, oh, I'm off and running. And then now because people knew already that had robbed banks, because I went to jail, right? So everybody knew the bank robbery part. It felt more comfortable. Like it didn't feel like I was hiding, right? I didn't tell people still, but it didn't feel like I was necessarily hiding it because you're assuming I'm being called a bank robber anyway. Because that's not. Might as well own it.

Might as well be that. Right? So, yeah, so that's why I didn't start hitting banks again, man. It didn't take long, though. They got me quick. How they catch you like fingerprints? No, no, no, no. So the bank I got, the second bang I got caught with was more of not a fluke because, again, I think everything kind of happens for a reason. It was more of, all right, so this is what happened. I hit the bank. And this is one of the banks I had hit before. Wait, the first case? Yeah. Dude, you went back to the same bank? I went back to a lot of the same banks.

I already knew the landscape of the bank. So I knew the landscape of the bank. I knew the landscape of the neighborhood. So I knew, okay, I can cut through this one, hop this fence, and I'll be at my car. So I hit the bank, and I'm like, all right, I come out. Guard chases me. I didn't even see the guard.

I never saw the guard until I was in the parking lot coming out of the bank. When I'm coming out of the bank, guard starts chasing me. I hit the fence. And when I hit the fence, I leaned back against it. instead of kept running, I just leaned back against it. He couldn't get over the fence. So he's like, I could, I could hear him struggling. I could fill him on our back, like, hitting the fence trying to get over it.

So he's like, I guess he did one of these and it's kind of scanned. And he didn't see me and he dropped back down. So I was, oh, man. So I go wait for a minute, kind of shuffle down the fence, get to the car or hop another fence and get to where the car is at. But like in that little probably five, six minutes span, like the police have been called all those things. Getting a car, I'm heading to the freeway,

but it's a long line of cars. I didn't realize, so it's the freeway here entrance. On the other side of the freeway is the police station. So the police are coming this way as I'm in line to make the turn. So he's just driving slow looking in all the cars. So now I'm like, man, I'm a black guy in the suburbs on an early Saturday morning.

I'm sure the description went out as a black male. I was like, oh man, in my mind, my license had just got suspended that week for an unpaid parking ticket. I just got the notice in the mail. And I was like, man, I don't want to get busted for fucking my license, right? So when he comes, I just get to act like I'm playing with the radio and shit. I look back in the mirror, he gets like two, three cars down and just whips a due turn and gets in the line of cars. I was like, oh, fuck. So now I'm like, man, I get on a freeway as I'm, I grab the money because it's in an envelope like this.

I grabbed the money and toss it out the passenger window when I make the turn to get on. So I'm like, cool, I don't have the money no more. You know, at least I can get away with that. So I'm driving, and he's not, so he's basically is pacing me. He's not, he doesn't have his top flashes on just the grill flashers, and he's pacing me. Just kind of staying close, close, staying close.

So I'm like, oh, I got him. I'm probably like maybe three miles down. I say he's probably just going to follow me for a little while and he's going to drop off. So, you know, like, you know how you can go up, but incline on a freeway and look back, like see in your rearview mirror, like back in the distance,

four cop cars screaming. I said, oh, he's just waiting. He's staying close and waiting until they come. So I was like, oh, man, that's crazy. I was like, so I got in front of a car where that way he was like a car behind me and just punch it, boom. So I'm in a Lexus at the time.

So I got this ES 350. So it's like a Lexus sedan. It's not the, you know, like the sports Lexus, but it's still faster than the Crown Vicks that they're driving at the time. So I just punch it. And then so now I get off the freeway. I'm heading down the side streets. I'm so far ahead of the police that the people in front of me don't hear the sirens.

Right. So I'm going like 80 flying down the street. And now when the police come as the, when people start hearing the sirens, they're stopping and they're stopping the police. Right. They're not stopping me because I'm already in front. They're stopping the police. They're getting away. So I keep getting in the way.

I keep getting on the freeway, but they're sending up roadblocks ahead of me, so I keep having to get off the freeway and then get on and get off. Because I'm so far out from my house, I'm probably 30 minutes from the actual city. So I'm like, man, I got to get on the freeway to get back home if I try to take the streets. I mess around and get lost, and now I'm just riding around the circles. So I get on freeway, get off the freeway. So this is the Spike story I'm telling you about. So what they're doing is they're trying to set up roadblocks in front of me,

so the cars are stopping, and then they can. catch up but I'm just hitting a shoulder or you know weaving and driving like a madman we've not so the guy gets the spikes I just look up and it's a clearing I'm like why is it so where the cars go so the I look up and the cop is the front of me but he has the spikes his his cars and this is a freeway don't mind you so his car is stopped and then he's about to roll the the spikes out to try to get so I just gun it at him it's because I'm you're not you're not He's got, as I gunned at him, he gets scared and just throws the spikes. But it wasn't enough.

So he didn't squeeze me down far enough to the lane because I went at him. So I had enough to get around the spikes and got out. So I'm going for a while. Again, the Western name backs up. So when I get to exit, I'm about to get off. So he set the roadblock up. So I'm about to get off the exit. They must have figured out the pattern.

So he's waiting on me. He hits my car with the electric. Guy standing out outside with a thing, hits my car when it was electric pulse things. At the time, I figured out what it was in my discovery. But at the time, I thought he shot my car with like a beanbag gun, because I just heard, too, and the radio goes off.

But I didn't, I thought the radio just went off because I'm doing 80 on the exit ramp. So, yeah, I didn't even really, right? I know it went off, but I wasn't, I didn't put two and two together. I don't know that my car doesn't have any power to probably about a mile down because I got off the exit ramp, gave me more speed,

and now he gets back in his car, he's just following me waiting for my car to die. So I'm like, but he's driving so slow, then I'm like, oh, I can, you know, I can do it. So I look up on the freeway as I'm driving on the side, I'm looking up on the free when I see the cars coming, like the police cars, they're trying to get ahead and come back this way.

So I was like, all right, I'm going to double back and go this. Okay, I got them. Again, I'm thinking I'm smarter than everything else. So I was like, oh, I got them. So I was like, I'm a fake. like I'm, you know, turning. Then when he tries to cut me off, I'm going to go back. And I had this whole maneuver in my mind that I was about to do.

This whole grand theft auto fast and a furious move maneuver I was about to do in this luxury sedan. And so I turned, he cuts me off. I go to go and reverse. And he just goes to go and I was like, oh, what? Like what? So I hop out, run. And jump to railroad tracks.

I see a sign that says, for sale 365 acres. So now I'm just out in the middle of this field. And then the police come and I was like, oh, this is it. This is, this is it. Because they're about to jump the curb and beat me up. So I was like, oh, got it.

And I just kneeled down in the middle of the, in the middle of the field. They beat me up, though. It's still, they beat me up into the news chopper came. The news chopper came and I heard the cops saying, Hey, chopper, chopper, chopper, chop. And I was like, chopper. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Take me to jail. Take me. And no bail this time, I'm assuming. No bail. No bail.

And so this is when the, so this is the interesting part. So the state picked this one up. They didn't pick up the first one because it was, I robbed the same bank. And they felt like I was praying on their neighborhood. Exactly what the prosecutor said. He's like, oh, he's praying on our neighborhood. We want to give them 20 years. I know based on the, so in the fed just sentenced off your base offense level.

And the state, you know, there's a sentencing structure. But I know I'm only supposed to get six max. Max. That's it for a second time offense on supervised release? Well, without the supervised release part. Because they can run the supervisor release while. So I can get the six and then 18 months on top of the six. But you got close to six your first sentence.

No, it's close to five. 60 months is 57 months. Only a year difference. I agree. I agree. All right. So you thought it would be six. But my base offense level.

So it's only my second offense. It's not like I had multiple offenses before, then got the bankrupt. It's only my second. And it's nonviolent. And it's not violent. And then I have my GED. Because if you don't have your GED, that also works against you as far as sentencing, which is another crazy way to be prejudicial.

If I don't have my GED, I get an extra two years. I'll get my high school blind. It's crazy. But anyway, I was only being looking at 72 months. Would have been like my max. but the prosecutors first thing because again once I get locked up I'm on Nexus I'm in a lot library I'm looking at all this different things but um the prosecutor's like no we want to give him 20 years he's out here praying we want to lock him up so he doesn't do this again so in the state

they had so in in the state they could give me three counts of fleeing and eluding two counts of tampering with evidence three counts of um robbery and then two counts of kidnapping that's how he was trying to layer it to get to the 20 years. But in the feds, it's just on our bank robbery. None of those other charges even exist. There's no fleeing and looting in the feds. It's not even, like it's almost like they expect people to run, so they don't even give you that.

So my lawyer is like, hey, we get this ran in the feds. We, you know, we have a better shot. Now I was like, well, let's get it ran in the fed. So she calls in a favor to the district attorney. District attorney picks up the case, right? He's like, oh, open and shut case, easy. Yeah, sure, I'll take it. State won't drop it.

to the state wouldn't drop my case and they're like, well, that's double jeopardy. I'm talking to my lawyer, like, that's double jeopardy. Like, I, because again, I'm in the law library and I'm halfway smart. So I'm like, they can't do that. And she's like, no, what they're doing is they're charging you with robbery,

fleeing and looting, kidnapping in the state. The feds is only charged you with unarmed bank robbery. I was like, that sounds like the same thing. I don't know, like the technical part. Like, I'm not a lawyer, but sounds like, It sounds like you guys are charging me six different times for the same occurrence. And then so she was like, yeah, but the problem is now that the feds picked it up, they're not going to drop it.

So you might really get charged with both. And I was like, man, is there any way like we can work around it? So she talked to the district attorney, and he was like, well, what does he have to give us to, you know, drop the case? I was like, I had shit. Like, because I wasn't, again, even the criminal lifestyle I was. living before wasn't, A, I would have never told anyway. But even in criminal last hour before, I didn't have anybody to really tell, like, tell on, like it wasn't.

And that's what they say in the fed is, like, it's people that told, wish they were to told, and that didn't have anybody to tell on, right? So I didn't have anybody to tell on my first bit. And at that point, my prison morals and all that stuff kicked in. So, telling them just wasn't possible. So anyway, I'm telling my lawyer, like, I don't have anybody to get, I don't have anything to give them. She's like, well, have you done anything else that you want to, like,

Maybe if you give them something you did, then that'll work. I was like, I can give them a couple other banks. Like, that's, you know, I'm joking, though. I'm just like, I don't have shit. In my mind, I'm like, I don't have nothing. Like, I was like, I can give them a couple other banks. She's like, well, I'll see if they'll take that. I was like, well, see if they take it then.

Like, let's go with that. And so I ended up, they ended up pulling me down. I ended up proffering. I gave a proffering statement against myself for two other banks. And they, so they took the two banks, went to the state, told the state, told the state, hey, we're picking the case up. The state told him we want him to get double digits at least. And they're like, hey, it doesn't really work like that.

You know, we got to send him in his base defense level. So I ended up taking a binding plea to eight years. That's how I got the 97 months. I took a binding plea or the eight years. I took a binding plea to eight years, which was two years over my max of 72 months. in order for the state to drop the case in federal or state to drop the case and it just be ran into fed. So I actually took more time.

And so I gave them two banks that I did, just two random banks that I did. So it would clear them up off there, you know, whatever. You don't have to look for them, whatever. Somebody looked like a hero. I don't know. Did you have restitution? Yeah, yeah.

I still got restitution. How much does that amount? I don't know where's that now. initially it was 12,000 because it was the initial 9,000 some change from the first case and then like another

$2,300 from the second one. But I didn't have to pay restitution for the two additional banks I gave them. So they just used that to, okay, clearly he's off your books. So I took two extra years over my max in order to avoid the double jeopardy of getting sentenced to the state and the feds.

And what's your parents' reaction in this case now that you're popped a second time? Oh man, this time it was like, it was a whole, what the fuck is wrong with you? What are you thinking? You have a son out here. Why would you do this? But it was, so the second time, and this is where the shift in mentality changed. So again, me and my dad were really, really, really close.

So my dad had contracted cancer in 2001. When the remission, went to remission, fought it, fought it, was going through chemo and everything. And one of the last conversations we had, he was like, man, I'm, you know, I messed around to outlive my mom. now because he's not working anymore. He just was living off of what he had. He's like, I'm messing my money now because, you know, just, I'm beating cancer so many times. And it was like a joke. But then I get locked up. So I got locked up on Father's Day. When I get caught, it was Father's Day weekends, a Saturday Father's Day weekend. So when he's coming, he's coming up to see me, he's, so initially love my father, man. My father was like, tell him you didn't do it,

tell me you it with me. And I was like, no, Dad. No, no, not this. I took him on a chase. This one's over. This is, he was like, he was like, and just tell him, you know, I'll just tell him you was with me doing yard work, you know, da, da, da, da. I was like, nah, you know. So then we go to Raymond, he hears everything.

He's like, oh, yeah, it's over. So he's still coming to see me. And my biggest thing at the time, I was like, man, I'm about, because, you know, I think I'm about to get 20 years at the West name, and I was like, man, just make sure my son doesn't hate me.

Like, I really felt that. Like, I was like, I already missed. So he was four when I left the first time. And then I just started to kind of, you know, We reconnect and all those types. Well, my parents were bringing them every week, every other week. So it wasn't like I didn't see them for four years. I saw them a lot.

But it's different parenting from a visiting room and then being there with them. So my biggest thing was like, man, just make sure my son doesn't hate me for what I did. And that aspect of it. So it was more somber because we thought I was about to get so much time. And then my father, who again, beat cancer so much, the stress of my cancer. case and everything else just weighed on him and I could see him like dying in front of me through the glass so every time he'd come up you come up every weekend and see me in the county and he just gets smaller and smaller frailer and frailer to a point he couldn't come because I was in

the county for seven months so probably came maybe the first three months and then he couldn't even he just couldn't physically body couldn't come to the point of when by the time I got sentenced he was terminal so when I got like that when I got like the when I got like that a couple months, maybe about a month or so, they told him he only had six weeks left to live. And he ended up, they told me he had six weeks left to live. He ended up living four more months. And I think it was all because he just wanted, you know, I mean, he was trying to see me or whatever, see it through. By that, man, by the grace of God, man. Shout out, Judge Oliver, man. Judge Oliver and the U.S. U.S. federal judge in Cleveland, Ohio,

he gave me 72 hours to go home and make peace with my father. It was crazy. Like, it was Like to the point of prosecutors, so before he gives me the 72 hours, he issues a psychiatric evaluation because he's like, this doesn't, what it? This doesn't make sense. Something's wrong with you mentally that we have to figure out because you're a good kid. Again, on paper, everything lines up. You have a Lexus. You're right around Alexis. Like, what else did you need, right?

They, you know, drug testing me, so I'm not, you know, not on drugs. They're getting the reports from my PO. My PO's like, we've never had a problem with them. So he ordered a psychiatric evaluation, which they never give me, by the way. They didn't give it to me. They didn't give me the psychiatric evaluations until I came home. Anyway. So the prosecutor, so when he says, hey, my judge told me that she's going to ask the court for it.

Or my lawyer told me that she was going to ask the judge for it. And the judge granted it, ankle-minded her, all that stuff, prosecuted stuff. But what is going on here? Wait a second. I don't know. You just order a psychiatric evaluation. How are we letting them back? into the community, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

At this point, though, so my mom and my mom and sister are only people in the courtroom with. Like, none of the home, none of my friends came, none of the females came, nobody. Just my mom and my sister, and I hear him in the back, and they bawling because you're hearing the prosecutor just talk so crazy about me, right? He's a minister's society, all this type of shit.

So I hear him in the back bawling, so I just break down too. So now I'm sitting there in front of the judge crying like a baby. So the bailiff comes, gives me tissue. It's not ugly cry, full ugly cry. There's nothing cool about this shit. So as the prostitutes going through his on,

into the mic, into the mic, all this type of stuff. So the image that you're trying to sell, like narrative that you're selling and I'm just this cold-hearted criminal isn't matching the scared kid that he's, you know, in front of him. And my, again, courtroom's empty except my sister and my mom.

So it really looked like, so what he's trying to say is just doesn't add. So Judge Oliver was like, nope, I'm giving them 72 hours to go home. You have to, you know, once we get the ankle monitor on them, you know, so it put me in the, actually put me in the county for like, like two days until they got the people to put the ankle monitor. I had to get everything set up at home and set the house arrest off up. So I went home, man, got a chance. Sat with my dad, 72 hours, man, made peace with him, which was so crazy because, you know,

I'm telling him. And again, I'm so emotional. And I'm like, man, you know, dad, because he's bed ridden at this point. So I'm sitting on his bed, like, just deaf bed. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, man, I just feel like I let you down. Like, you know, I know how you raised me. I know the values and morals. And I know how hard you worked, you know, for me to be this better person.

And everything, I'm in a 2,500 square foot home, four bedroom, three bath. This is where I'm going to house dress on. You got a, we got a jacuzzi in the house, right? And so I got this huge park. There's sitting on like a half acre of land. Like, it's not a, you know, mansion, but this is a very nice home and a very nice neighborhood

that you worked hard to put me in for me to put myself in these terrible situations. And I was like, man, I just feel like, you know, I failed you. And he was like, you did. Zach, come on that's on me. Yeah. Yeah, you did. He was like, but, you know, you're still young. You still have time to make it up to me.

And I was like, yeah, dad, but you're going to be gone. He was like, still. You still got time to make it up to me. I may not be here to see it, but you know, you know, what you need to do. I was like, man, so it was humbling because it wasn't the, it was no level of this is okay. Right? My parents never say like, like, we still, it was like we still love you, but this was dumb as shit. is wrong what is and then my mom even my mom on that she was like I don't know where we went wrong

for you to do these things it's like all that stuff like hit me so hard because i like i again i respected my parents so much that to let them down in that way was like really you know me like really i went into like an 18-month depression like real depression like so i'm in at so when they sent me to mckin because now my point my custody leveling up so now i'm at a medium so Not at a low anymore. So anyway, let me take a step back. They give me the 72 hours, make peace with my dad. I have a self-surrender to the federal building,

and then they end up taking me to CCA, like a holdover. And I'm at the holdover for like two weeks, and then they take me to my, they put me in transit to start heading to my parent institution. But by the time I got to my, so when I'm in transit is when the chaplain came in and let me know my father passed. So my father passed before I even made it to my parent institution. So when I got to my parent institution, you know, they were like, you know, what's going on?

I was like, man, my dad just passed. So they got me like under suicide watch and, like not like paper suit suicide watch, just, you know, they check ins and all that type of stuff. So they were like, you know, is there anything, you know, going on? And I was like, man, I still hear my dad's voice, you know, like encouragement, just random stuff. So they're like, you're having auditory, auditory hallucinations. That's what he called auditory hallucinations. He was like, we're going to prescribe you. And I'm not taking any medication.

Don't give me any medication, man. Because if they prescribe you medication, you don't take it, they put you in the shoe. So I was like, I don't give me any meds. Plus, I've seen people take meds and they turn into a zombie for two and three years. And then now they get off meds six months before they go home and they don't even know who they are or how to function. So I didn't take any meds. So they started making me go to the psychologist, the psychics. psychiatrist every two weeks I had to go.

If I didn't go every two weeks, they were gonna put me on medication. And then if I didn't take the medication, they were gonna put me in the shoot. So I was going every two weeks. So they basically diagnosed me as a sociopath, which I don't know how you just do that. But then they put it in my father out of a sociopath. And then, but at the time I'm going through such a depression, man, like I opened up a ticket so as I got there because again, I fall right back in the bidding. So open up a ticket as soon as I get there.

start running poker tables and all that stuff, but I'm just self-destruction because inside I feel so terrible that I'm even being here. Then my father passed, and I'm not there with my family to mourn, right? I'm not there to comfort my mom, you know, because she just lost her husband of 30-some years. Like my son just lost his grandfather and father in the six months, man. My son's mother's acting, you know, doing, doing whatever she's doing. And like, so she started keeping my son away from the family because of my actions.

But she really couldn't because my parents took care of my son while I was in my absence. So when she tried to do that, they were like, we take them to school every day. Like we pay for all the activities. You know, you can't really do that. But again, just the fact that they had to go through that type of negotiation, right? So all of that stuff was planning on me. I was suicidal for a little while. All that type of stuff.

But then what ended up happening, well, get to McKean just fucking up. Again, I'm so depressed that I'm getting in fights. I'm smoking weed. I'm bringing in weed. I'm trying to do everything. But now this isn't a low no more. This is a medium. It's like things are really, you know what I mean?

Things are more severe. Like the prison rules apply much more here, all those type of things. So they had called me trying to bring weed in and it was like, oh, yeah, we're tired of you. And then they put me under investigation. I come out. There's an incident. I'm not even involved. I'm just there.

Somebody gets stabbed. They're like, hey, all of y'all are getting shipped out. You especially because we have all, you keep getting all these, racking up all these tickets. Come on, you're out of here. And that's how I end up at the USP. So I'm in a full-blown depression, though. I don't care, like, what I'm, you know, like barely showering. not worried by hair cut.

Like, I'm just, like, again, self-destructing from inside out until I get to the USP. And now I started seeing people like dying, like getting killed, getting damn near killed. I was like, you know what? Kind of like my life a little bit. Like, now I'm, I got five years left. I don't have 60 and, you know, not double life sentences or not. Because the higher you get, the more time people have.

Like, so you might be sitting next. I was almost in a unit for lifers, like technically lifers, 40 years here, 50 years here. You have people that's been locked up since the 80s. Like, you know me? At some point,

they were somebody, maybe even gang leaders or whatever. And then now, you know, they're just in the fed. So the feds give you a number. So your number may be long, you know, it's months, right?

And then some people's number is just say deceased. They don't even give you the West Night. So when I got there, man, like I started seeing people dying. I said getting damn near killed. And I was like, you know, I love me a little bit, but I started trying to just work on me, man.

Like I asked people to send me, like I got a subscription to a newspaper. I started asking people to send me like nonfiction books so I can start to try to try to try to try to try to try to try to try to try to try to try. Like I learned to try to try to try. Like I learned to play piano. I'm taking carpentry plumbing. I ain't picked up a hammer or wrench since. But I'm taking everything that they have to offer because I'm like, I got to try it.

I don't know what I'm a need, but I can't never come back here again. Because I know if I come back, I'm going to be here the entire sense. sentence, right? I know they're going to career me, and I know I'm going to be in a situation like USP the entire time, and I don't want to do this. Again, people are dying, people being killed, even just the rules, right? Like, even just the stressfulness of living, like, you know, I say you can feel tension with a knife type thing, or you cut the tension with a knife, you can feel the tension when you walk in. Like, it just feels heavy on you. So it's like, I don't want to live here the rest of my life, right? Or I don't want to die here, or I don't want to end up killing somebody because I'm

here. So that's what snapped me out of depression, man. After that, I was like, yeah, I need to try to figure out what I'm going to do after prison. Did you go home from there, or did you get to work your way back down? We're more down on one level. I made it to the medium before I left. And on that sentence, how long do you end up doing? What do you say? 2011 to 2009? Yes, I did seven years. I was trying to get you the exact months. But I did seven years. So from, what, I sent this January, 2011. No, February. I sent it's February of 2011, and then I got out June, 2018.

Do you think you were able to find what you were looking for? What do you mean? You mentioned that feeling, you know, in between prison sentences about, you know, Oh, the adrenaline rush? Oh, fuck, no, no, no, no, no. There's no, there's no other rush like it. I'm just smart enough not to not do it. No, it's like, so, I mean, I'm sure there is.

I'm, like, I'm not saying, like, if I start driving NASCAR or something like that, Like I wouldn't feel like the same type of rush, but it was, it was everything that encompassed it, right? Like it was the feeling that I'm getting away with something. It was the, I'm outsmarting the police, right? It was the actual adrenaline rush of being in the bank, right? It was scouting the bank, right? Doing a lap around the bank to see, I'm doing a lap around the bank to see, like, okay, there's a Chevy Cavalier, a minivan in the F-150. probably a loan officer or a guy that's in there

I'm going to get a different bank right even just the selection process of that all of it that went into it like is what I think gravitated me toward to keep doing it right and just the adrenaline rush was what I could feel that's what I knew was happening but everything else around it

not the lifestyle but just all of the came into the planning, the execution and escape was what I was addicted to but there's no way to replicate that really like in the sense of like legally like I mean I'm probably is like I guess do you think having purpose

now helps you keeps you out of trouble yeah so so I think that everything I went through was the purpose I just didn't know at the time like even now so again I go around a lecture on post incarceration syndrome but I had to go through it to understand I had to go through that depression to realize right it had to hurt

in order for me to help others right so I go speak to industry professionals, probation officers, caseworkers, all that stuff, to try to give them more insight on individuals that are coming out of prison and just like why, you know, people may do what they do or how they feel. And like, so post-incarceration syndrome is, it's not a recognized diagnosis by the medical community yet. But basically, it's a social, it's a social anxiety disorder. So a lot of things, people say, oh, you burnt out because, you know, you wear your shower shoes to the shower when you get home, right?

Institutionalized. Institutionalized, right. Post-accarceration syndrome. What it is, in a sense, it's the constant feeling that you could be incarcerated again, right? It's the constant feeling that the sentence isn't over. So that's why you hold on to a lot of your prison, you know, manuisms by your stuff because it's almost like in the survive, your body's feeling like, I can't let this go because I'm going to need this again, right?

The mindset, all those things. Like, I had a problem with keys when I came home. I couldn't hear keys jingling because I was a bookie. So I did tickets anytime I heard keys, guards, you know, nobody has keys except the guards. So I was always on high alert. I had to find out where the keys were. When I came home and people just didn't understand,

they're like, that's fucking weird. Like I was like, no, man. Stop jingling your keys, man. It's bothering me. Even just the fact that like people that come out of prison don't like crowds, right? Because you've seen so many bad things happen in the crowd. You've been hurted in a crowd so much it gives you the your body automatically responds as if you're still in that traumatic experience that you were once in Right? It's similar like PTSD when people come home and they and they hear like

So I had a I had a teacher his computer teacher he was you know, we were ninth-tenth grade so I don't know what war he probably fought in but we'll call it Vietnam. I don't know he was old All right, but if you whistle He would like spas like because for him, he heard bombs. He was in active combat. So the whistle would bring back the bomb thought.

So even though he know he's in the classroom with kids, the whistling would just do something to him, right? In that same light, if you're in a situation where you think you can go back to prison at any time, everything that reminds you of your arrest of incarceration is going to trigger something inside your body. And it's going to influence your actions. It's going to influence your thoughts.

influence how you kind of move around even just survivors remorse right there are people that get out of prison and they feel like bad because they left all their friends and homies in prison right so when they go back it's like oh okay and back da da da right um so being able to go through that and then also be able to being a gd teacher that's crazy that sound allow me to connect with people i probably wouldn't regularly talk to right so you're a gang leader with you know 15 bodies But you can't read the birthday card that your son gave you. Now you're a little bit more vulnerable. And again, I was so naive and ignorant to, at the time,

so naive and ignorant to just prison life and that we're not even supposed to be talking because you're the head of whatever you're ahead of and you don't talk to blacks, right? So we're not even supposed to be talking, but it's okay because I'm your GED tutor, so now you can be more vulnerable. Like, hey, I've been, you know, my son's been writing me letters

and I want to write them back. but I'm embarrassed because I don't really know how to spell. My handwriting is terrible. So I would write guys letters for them, like, to their family. So it gave me that level of empathy too because it's like, when we get back on this compound, you're still a shot caller. But in this classroom, you're just a person that doesn't know how to read and wants to write to his family.

So that gave me a different perspective also. So now when I'm going around trying to help guys is because I have the empathy that I was that built up while I was still in prison versus just hey now I'm just gonna help people right so now I work in like community corrections and so I actually work with guys that come out of the hat or come out of prison like immediately like the day of and now so I can try to help them stay on the path like of like or try to get them on a path or solid foundation and I just try to can like let them know like man this is like you want to stay out forever right so you don't have to try to kick because I did that I tried to catch up

You don't have to try to catch up. You want to try to build for forever. You want to try to stay out. So if your goal is to stay out, you don't have to. Like I have a term called ordinary success, right? Like, everybody thinks, you have an idea of what success is in your mind. But ordinary success is you went to your job, came home to your place, your space, when your refrigerator, you know, enjoyed your life, right?

Just that's success. Like, that's a vision of success. It doesn't have to be Mercedes-Benz. It doesn't have to be hanging out over here, over there. Like your success doesn't have to be dictated by other people's perspective, right? Whatever it is for you is successful, that's, you know, whatever living a happy lifestyle for you is and staying out of prison is fine. Ordinary success, man, just boring, ordinary success.

And then being the best version of yourself, right? As long as you're pushing and striving to be the best version of yourself, and that's going look different for everybody. Best version of me is going to be different than the best version of Ian, right? But as long we're both striving for that, especially coming out of prison, like, that's what, you know, guys really got to focus on. But instead, a lot of times, you know, you've been watching love and hip-hop and, you know, all this type of type of shit, or just, you know, your own personal imagination, right,

sitting in your cell, like, man, if I was home, I'll do-da-da-da-da, and now you go try to chase those things, and they're already gone. Like, you're never going to be able to catch up to the money that you're lost before you're not going to be able to get the car that you were driving before because all that stuff is gone right and then not moving forward how do we really get yourself in the position to move forward what do you need you don't have your GED let's start to figure out if we can go get you your GED you're like you know what I'm saying let's start to look like this let's start to put things in place that you're home for 30 40 50 years right that you're able to to die in your

home with your grandkids surrounding you right like or just be around your loved ones more than just and out of their lives. And sometimes it gets through, sometimes it doesn't. And I tell people like, hey, your journey may be to go back to jail. That's a, you know, mine was, I had to go to jail twice. Like, to be able to deliver messages, like they'll be able to try to really help people. I had to go to jail the second time. It hurt.

It was a terrible experience to go through. But I needed it to be able to talk, talk it better to, like I said, industry professionals and to an individual that's coming home because I can't say, hey, you should be better when I'm not, right? So it's just everything I went through, man, just helped me get to a point of where I can speak to people, like, honestly. I can be me at all times because I carry my story with me.

I can be me because I generally want to see people be successful. I generally want to change the post-incarceration system, right? or adjusted because what happens is they everybody looks at criminal justice reform as like sentencing right sentence reform or how like the actual incarceration conditions are and we forget that we're letting people out right in in californ county alone in cleveland ohio we let out 5 000 um 5 000 people return to Kyle county every year that's people have to go somewhere people have to do something you have to put things in place you can't just send us something and then let them out and say figure it out That's why our recidivism rate is so high.

No one leaves prison. Like, I can't wait to go back to prison. No one leaves prison and it's like, you know what, it's nice here in the spring. I'll be back. Like, it doesn't happen. So somewhere there's a shift in your mind that the risk of going back to prison is worth it, right? Once you get your risk reward, and it could be flawed. You have flaw logic.

But you've made the decision that I'm going to take these penitentiary chances because prison isn't as bad as, you know, whatever, whatever your justification is. And that's where I think the system fails those coming home because they just let you out. It's like, hey, you should be happy that we let you out of prison. It's like, no, my sentence ended and now I'm out. Right. But what do you have for me now? Nothing. Right. I was like, though I'm an adjunct professor at a community college now as well and i'm always trying to bring some of those resources into individuals that are coming home into a reentry space because those aren't resources that people would think that they're eligible for right you don't think that you're eligible for like the GI bill that's going to cover

you know you to go to college right you don't think that you're eligible for some of these other certification programs where if you get the certification now you can make an extra three four dollars entry level. Like maybe you're able to be more promoted and all these different things. And you just don't know because nobody tells you. Like even your probation officer, they just give you the rules until you follow them. They don't break them down for you. They don't explain it.

Right. And even some of the rules are fucking ridiculous. You can't be around any known felon. One out of every three black men have a felony. Where am I going to go? Right. Right. My barber, my barber, shout out of day.

My barber is my, is my, my, mentor, right? He went to prison once, never went back again, one of the greatest people I know, sincerely. But had I not been around Dave coming home, especially the second time, I wouldn't have been able to see, again, the ordinary success, right? Like, I'm like, man, you're going on another cruise? He's like, yeah, man, I'm going to, you know, like those type thing. Like, yeah, me and the wife are going to go, you know, four days in the Bahamas on a cruise and da-da-da-da. Like, now I don't have my passport, but this is how I can go to the different stuff, like, oh. Like, it's just regular stuff, right?

And you don't get those regular stories because they're not as exciting, right? You get the, this person came out of jail, drug kingpin returns back to the city and goes right back to the top. And then it's like, yeah, but then two years later, you know what I'm saying? Dead are in jail.

Now, you don't, and the reason you don't get the ordinary success stories is because they're living their life, right? Guy goes and gets a job at, I don't know if you have a Lincoln Electric out here, but guy goes and gets a job at Apple. He works in the Apple plant. All they do is just ship out iPhones all day.

He works on the shipping dock. Makes $26 an hour, full benefits, goes home, drinks a beer, watches Jeopardy, plays with the dog, you know, and that's it, and he's happy, right? That guy's never going to come out and say, hey, look at me, be like me. He's just happy. He's just successful and he never went back to prison. And there aren't enough times where we glorify that part, right, of just staying out. Like, that's a, it's hard as an everyday walk because there's so many collateral sanctions, right?

There's so many doors that close for you once you become a felon. Like, I just ran for office. So I just ran for office in suburb outside of Cleveland. They took me to the Board of Elections three times to get me removed from the ballot because I'm a felon. No other reason. Legitimately, the paperwork says they put my entire 2005 plea agreement in the briefing to try to sway the Board of Elections to take me off of the ballot, all because I was a felon. And I won. I won twice.

But it's the fact that I had to go to court for something that happened 15 years ago, right? Actually, they were only using the 2005 case. So that's 20 years ago that you're bringing up just simply because I'm a felon, right? There's certain places you can't live. No matter how much money you make, some HOA's just don't take felons. It doesn't matter. Don't matter how much good you're trying to do. Some schools won't let you work there or work with them because, you know, you're a felon.

I had a young lady I was trying to help get find a job. And in her sentencing transcripts, the judge says she can't work anywhere that serves alcohol. That's half to, that's like, because again, as a felon, there's a lot of places I just can't work. So now you're saying I can't work at any restaurant. I can't work at any hotel. I can't be a vendor at a baseball park. So she, we got her job at Taco Bell. But it was a Taco Bell.

Cantina, like the ones that sell liquor? So it wasn't, they didn't sell liquor, but it was connected to a gas station that sold beer. And they were like, yeah, she can't work there. Like, yeah, but she, you know, she works at the Taco Bell part. They're like, it doesn't matter. They sell, on the premises, they sell alcohol. So it's like you're painting her into a corner where, yeah, she can go find something else, but it's just going to be so much harder.

And you have to be intentional about not going back to jail because there's so many things that are in your way about it. And it turns into the more good you try to do in your mind. Like, hey, every time I try to do something good, I get violated for leaving the county. You know what I'm saying? Like silly shit. And it forces people to be like, you know what? I'm just going to think I'm a criminal, I'm just going to go be a criminal.

Or if you think I'm a drug addict, I'm just going to go be a drug addict because you're treating me like one. And then that's how the recidivism rate just keeps staying the same. Like, there's no reason why there should be a 60-something percent recidivism rate. Like, what are we doing?

Like, there has to be a problem here. It's flawed. I've even talked, so I've gone, like, to Capitol Hill and spoke with people about, there should be a third. So every prison should have a third part already come in and do pre-release training or pre-release classes, right?

And that's when you put in the financial literacy, all these other things, emotional maturity, all that thing. Because my pre-release person twice was somebody that was in prison with me. I get out before you do. How are you running a pre-release class? And I get out before you, how are you going to prepare me? You've been in longer than me, and I get out before you do.

How can you possibly prepare me for being out and staying out? Right. And that's where, like I said, we're not intentional about the post-incarceration piece. So I'm trying, I try to do my best to bring awareness to the post-incarceration piece because we're losing people that, like there's some people that just, they're going back and forth to jail. That's just what they want to do. That's their life. That's their journey.

So be it. But then there's people that are like, man, I'm, what else I'm about to do? I got to. And then they may start out with breaking small rules, small laws, and after a while, it just turns. into, you know, bad behavior. And then these are people that go back but could have been saved, right? But if had you done more

as far as a system structure to try to save them. Yeah, man, but to long, that was along with the version of, yes, my purpose, my, my, my, my, my, I think my purpose guides me and helps me,

moves through life and accept everything that's gone, gone on in my life thus far. Well, Alex, I appreciate you coming on the show today, man. You're an incredible storyteller and, uh, Just a great guest all around. Oh, man.

I'm glad you enjoyed me. I enjoy being here, man. I appreciate you. Yeah, it's all about giving the guests like an open space to talk and run with it. And it's even better when the guest can bring it back to the question doesn't wander because then the audience appreciates you. Okay, all right. That works.

I try to be as concise as possible, man, but I want to give you details to kind of, again, illustrate just not even just my general thought process, but then people that may think in the same light. even just being an inspiration man hopefully my story inspires others to just can be successful and and or not even successful because i don't i don't want to just keep kind of kind of harper on that but just understanding that being yourself and staying out of prison is enough right you don't have to do and be this huge thing like you're not going to catch anything just be happy right i got a bunch of little kids around me so like when i come home and i get that energy from the kids like that's enough like i don't have to. I do have a lot of accomplishments and other stuff that I'm doing, but that's what I come

home to. Like, that's the, the, if nothing else, if I work the ordinary job, but my three little kids are home every time I got home and ran to me every day at the door, that, you know, that would be enough. So just trying to get that to people that you don't have to take chances that you don't need to. You can just live life, man, and be happy. I love that. Well, safe travels back. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.