Locked In with Ian Bick - I Thought I’d Die Inside ADX, America’s Supermax Prison | Eric King

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Eric King was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after trying to firebomb a government building with Molotov cocktails, but the real story is what happened once the cell door slammed shut. In this episode, he breaks down how a politically motivated arson case turned into nearly 8 years in solitary confinement, brutal clashes with staff, and a fast-track transfer into America’s most notorious federal supermax, ADX. From the mindset it takes to target the government, to the moment he realized he might never see general population again, Eric gives an unfiltered look at control units, isolation, and life in a place built to break you. If you’ve ever wondered what actually happens to “the worst of the worst” once they disappear into the federal system, this conversation is your inside look at the cost of that choice. _____________________________________________ #ianbick #prisonlife #truecrime#prisonstories #inmatelife #jailstories #justicesystem #worstprisons _____________________________________________ Buy Eric King's Book: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1872 _____________________________________________ Thank you to AVA for sponsoring this episode: Take control of your credit today. Download the Ava app and when you join using my promo code LOCKEDIN, you’ll get 20% off your first year—monthly or annual, your choice. _____________________________________________ 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 I Was Tortured for Taking On the System 01:08 Growing Up in Poverty, Trauma & Survival Mode 02:43 No Father, No Guidance: My Teenage Meltdowns 03:35 Boxing, Catholic Guilt & My First Taste of Activism 04:44 Why I Risked Everything to Become an Activist 05:51 How Poverty Warped My Mind and My Choices 07:06 Parents, Control & My Teenage Rebellion 07:59 I Almost Became a Monk… Then Walked Away from Religion 08:52 Travel, Drugs & Radical Activism Overseas 10:44 My First Arrest: Direct Action, Violence & Consequences 13:10 Looking Back: Was the Violence Worth It? 15:26 Study Abroad: The First Time I Really Felt Free 16:47 Squatting, Dumpster Diving & Living Completely Off-Grid 18:00 Depression, Death & How I Handled Losing People 21:19 Sponsor: Fix Your Credit with Ava 22:51 Ferguson Protests, Solidarity & the Firebombing 26:11 Inside the Attack: Why I Did It and What Happened 29:56 The Arrest: Investigation, Raids & Serious Charges 32:01 County Jail: My First Real Clash with the System 36:16 Court, Facing Time & Walking Into Prison 39:07 Early Prison Life & Meeting Jared Fogle 43:32 Prison Gangs, Race Lines & Everyday Politics 46:09 Fights with Staff, Retaliation & Payback 47:41 Torture, Extreme Pain & Years of Solitary 52:38 Diesel Therapy: Shackled, Bused & Shipped Across America 55:21 Solitary Confinement: Surviving Years in the Hole 01:03:11 My Federal Trial: Beating the Odds in Court 01:06:12 ADX Florence: How I Ended Up in America’s Dungeon 01:11:20 Inside ADX Supermax: Notorious Inmates & Total Isolation 01:16:16 ADX Survival Guide: Food, Conditions & Staying Sane 01:22:01 Walking Out: Release After Years in Solitary 01:30:09 Cutting Ties with the Past & Staying Out of Prison 01:31:29 Family, Changing Views & What I Really Think of Cops 01:39:33 What I’d Tell My Younger Self About Prison & Violence 01:40:47 The Book, the Mission & What Comes Next Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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They rip them off and cut them off. So I think they're going to wreck me or kill me. And then they sit me on the bed and they chain my ankles spread on the bed. Like spread out. So I instantly lose feeling in my feet except for radiating pain. And then they spread you out. So now your hands are cuffed to each corner of the bed. And they're cuffed so tight that like you lose feeling in your hands.

hands, but your body is just radiating in pain. It is pain that I can't describe. I mean, that's hard forward-pointing. They forward-point with me. In this episode, you're going to hear what really happens when you take on the U.S. government, and they decide they're going to break you. Eric King went from a 10-year sentence for trying to firebomb a government building to spending almost eight years in solitary and getting shipped to ADX, the federal Supermax built for the worst of the worst. He's going to walk you through the mindset it took to do it. The moment he realized he might never see another prisoner again and what that kind of isolation actually does to a human being. Where'd you grow up, Eric?

I grew up in Kansas, Missouri. And we grew up in like poor mixed race neighborhoods, stuff like that. So that influenced like essentially my entire life was coming from that background. What'd your parents do for work? I have no idea what my dad did. I stopped seeing them when I was like one, one or two. and then my mom, she worked for a food processing company. So they would do like bids to send food to prisons and schools, like selling them their menu shit.

So she would work like 50 hours a week and I'd have to sleep under her desk and stuff like that. She's successful as shit now, but, you know, we're just just poor, poor family. Did your dad walk out or did they just split? He was really physically abusive. like so after a while my mom tried to leave him and he wouldn't abusive men and then my grandpa had to step in and so they they went their separate ways and I did not see him ever again did you have any type of father figure growing up yeah so when I was early teenager my mom married a guy named Jim and so then he became my dad so I had my grandpa and then Jim um

And then they both died within like a month of each other when I was 17. Brutal. Brutal month. But those two, like Jim was a great dad. I still think about them. Just thinking about them all the time. Great dad. Do you think their deaths impacted your future at all or it was just tough in the moment?

I was already like on the activist like scene and path. But it affected like what I consumed because I got really into drugs and stuff like that. then because they don't teach young people how to handle that pain. No one teaches you how to handle trauma. That's not like a school class. So we handle it with what we have available, which for me was opiate pills. Describe yourself in your teenage years, middle school, high school. What were you like? So teenage Eric was a devout Catholic. I was raised with that. So I wanted to be like a radical monk, like the South or Central American monks that are like fighting, capitalism and fighting repression. So I was going to be a Franciscan. So I went to Mass twice a day.

I wore the sepulica. I said my rosary every morning at 4.30. And then I was a really accomplished amateur boxer. So I started boxing and fighting when I was like eight years old. And so I had about a hundred amateur fight. So I'd get up, say my rosary, go to the gym, take a bath, go to school. Immediately after school, go to the gym, go back to my house, say the rosary, go to bed. So, yeah, I had really rigid. That prepared me for prison, really, that routine. So that's, I mean, that makes you a weird kid, though. Like, you're doing activist stuff.

You're breaking cop windows. You're protesting. But then your free time, you're saying your rosary and boxing all day. So why activism? How'd you get into that? So because I grew up poor. And so when you grow up in those environments and you see, like, the cops throwing people out of their homes.

That's something, like, I like telling people that. when you see that as a child, the police doing the job of the banks. So someone misses a mortgage payment because the bank jacked up their mortgage. And this is in the 90s. So there wasn't like regulations or nothing. So they can't pay their now doubled mortgage. Their stuff's out on the sidewalk. And what do you do with it? You're just stuck now. You don't have moving trucks. You don't have anyone to help you. Then don't want to put you in their homes. So now you're just fucked. And so seeing the police do the job of the banks and seeing the banks just destroy families taught me very early on like, who's my real enemy? It's not the people that live next to me.

It's not someone that looks different than me. It's the people on top of me trying to just manipulate and just rob poor people blind. Why do you think that directly impacted you? Did it happen to you yourself? Because, I mean, a lot of individuals or kids could witness that, but they don't necessarily go down the path you chose. Yeah. I don't know. Some have stuck with me. Maybe it's just empathy. Like just seeing it hurt. And then obviously growing up, like there was times we'd go without food. There's times the lights would get turned off because of power. We'd lose cable. My mom would have to get loans from like my grandpa and stuff. So just the amalgamation of seeing poverty used as a weapon to hurt people who worked hard. My mom worked 50 hours a week and still couldn't afford the power bill. So who's the problem? there. Is it this single mom working her ass off? Or is it maybe these vultures trying to, uh, trying to exploit that? And just that combination taught me that I need to fight for those

people who I saw as my allies. Did you go to your mom about this when it first got, you know, ingrained into your mind to go down this journey? Like activism shit? Yeah. Um, I didn't like go to her. She watched me doing it. She thought it was weird. Like, it's not normal for a child to, to say his rosary every single day and then go to protest. That's not a normal thing for a 13 through 17 year old kid to do. But she, my mom took a very hands-off approach, like as long as I wasn't getting arrested and as long as I was going to school.

So, I mean, I did get arrested a lot. As long as I wasn't getting thrown in prison. So I could basically do whatever I wanted as long as I was going to school. So I didn't have no, like there wasn't a stop doing that. It was just a, God damn it, okay. Did you see your whole life being this, an activist, or the amateur boxing or even the monk aspect? Yeah, it was always going to be the monk.

And then when my dad died, that kind of disillusioned me, like, God damn, like, where was, where was God at? And then when the Catholic Church, when that scandal came out about the child molestation, and then I saw like my bishop and my priest ignoring it or saying that like it wasn't a big deal, that's when I walked away from the church completely. Because like if you guys aren't going to care about children, it goes back to exploitation. If you're going to be a massive organization, you're going to crush people, then I don't want nothing to do with you. So the goal until I was probably 19 was just the same thing always. So then that happens and what happens after 19?

So I'm moving back and forth between here and Europe. I'm studying abroad a lot. I lived in Scotland for a while. I lived in Manchester. Studied abroad in Australia and France and Spain. So when I got done with the church, it just went to centuries just entirely drugs, activism, and travel. So it was still going after the police, going after the government, getting my opiates, seeing the world. And that was sweet for a 19-year-old kid.

Like, that's a good life. Now, were you getting arrested in other countries, too? Yes. Because it doesn't stop. You don't stop being who you are just because you're overseas. So I got arrested in Manchester twice. I got arrested in Glasgow. go. And that was for the same stuff, doing union stuff, doing anti-bank stuff. Sometimes just being in the

wrong place of the wrong time. I got arrested in Athens doing the austerity protest because people were burning a bank and I was there. That's where I learned to throw like Molotov cocktails and like show like that. So, but it's never, it's never prison. It's just you get arrested. They talk shit to you and then, what are their like booking processes compared to the U.S. or, it's a lot of? Is it similar? It's not. They just take you in. Like, and in the UK, I got asked like two questions. Like, what's your name? Where are you from? Where do you live? All right, in the cell. And so that was it. No holding cell. I didn't have to like sit and wait around. And Greece is just you only got thrown in the holding cell. There was no, what's your name? Where are you from? What are you doing? It's just. And there was like 50 people. So you just get dumped in there. Whereas here, it takes a full goddamn day. Just sitting around. doing nothing all day. Now, at that point, you had never committed an act of violence or anything like that. What do you consider violence? Well, I mean, in your case, throwing a Moldov cocktail? No, I had. At that point, you didn't? Yeah, just I didn't get arrested for it. Oh, you said you were

learning about it. Yeah, so I had been doing it wrong. Um, so in Greece, yeah, so when I was a kid, when I was like 16, we would just take socks and stick him in a beer bowl. bottles or liquor bottles and then I dip the sock in gasoline and throw it thinking that it would like set a cop car on fire and it does not like it just hits the cop car and just burns until it burns out. Um, and I had multiple like assault on police. I did time in juvie for breaking into rich houses. Um, I guess I was just breezed over that. When I was 12, I went to juvie for breaking into rich houses. Um, because I didn't feel like they should have more than the rest of us when and my mom worked so hard.

And so I had multiple assault on cops for like at protest or being out of vance and just like bop them on the head. Like leave us alone, boop with like flag pulls or- You would hurt them? As much as it can. I was a kid. So just a little flagpole, just.

And so you do like a week or a month in jail and then they just let you go. But no like no arson's that I got arrested for, no shootouts that I got arrested Bonjour, compadre. It's the... Priceline negotiator! How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget.

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not a sponsor of this promotion for at that time. Now, what do you think that achieves, you know, putting your hands on someone that didn't do any wrong to you personally? In this case, is it the cop? Yeah, I mean, why attack a third party that, you know, is just doing his job or her job? I don't consider them third parties. I see every single police officer as the arm of the state doing what the government wants, and that's usually at the disadvantage of poor people. So every single person I see with a badge I see as a legitimate target. And I still do, even though I might not do it myself, I still see it that way because if they're told to do something, they will do it. If they're told round these people up, they will round us up. If they're told shoot us, they'll shoot us. And so if you are

going to blindly follow commands, like I already know I'm an enemy of yours. We have nothing in common. We're not friends. So when the cops show up and say, you can't organize this union, like now you're, who are you with? Are you with the people? Are you with this company? You're with the company who's trying not to give us health care. Right on the head. But do you ever disassociate them from their job, you know, as a human? Because they are human like you. They are human. And I understand that they have families. They have emotions. They have hopes and dreams. But when you, you choose a path of being a repressive force, you can't just take off the badge. You don't just take that off and go home. There's a reason why one-third of partners of police say that they get

abused. Like, you carry that with you, I feel. And so I don't make that separation. I wouldn't kill a cop or nothing, but I'm not going to shed tears if someone does, if that makes sense. Now, what about the actual act of, say, firebombing a cop car? What does that achieve? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So why do it? I was a child. And as a child, that's considered, like, you think that it's like a righteous act of rage. I am mad at what you're doing. So I will attack what you use, your symbols, your products. And I still understand people using that as like a means to express their rage. Like, I get it. But I acknowledge that we're not going to stop the police by torching one car. But it feels good and it shows like, I'm angry. So it's basically throwing a tantrum, I guess.

Do you wish you handled it differently now looking back on it? I mean, I was a kid. So young Eric didn't know. They didn't know that you have to build stuff up instead of tearing stuff down. But when you're a kid, it's I want to destroy what hurts us. as opposed to I want to build up something that keeps us safe from being hurt. So young Eric had to learn these lessons. Otherwise, I wouldn't be older, Eric.

Now, when you're getting arrested overseas, do you start to get banned from travel? Do they play on like a no-fly list or anything like that? No. Because you're not kidding. You're not doing prison time. So, like, the embassies are never involved. They never care. In Greece, I don't even think they knew I was American.

They didn't talk to us. So even after I got my terrorism case, I was never put on no-fly list. So now you could travel to... I have to get probation to approve it, but I've been to like 30 states now. You probably can't get TSA pre-check, though. I have clear.

Oh, you have clear. Yeah, so I still get to go past security. I don't wait in a single line. That's crazy. I'm burning through those things. It's ridiculous. That's wild. Yeah.

So now, who pays for those trips? When you're a kid, you're studying abroad, how did you have the money to go to these different countries and whatnot? So this is a very stupid story. Because I was so, I told you I was addicted opiates real bad. And in Kansas City, they have places that do clinical trials. Like, they will pay you to take medicine. And so a lot of those clinical trials are like testing out suboxin shots that we now see in prisons. Or testing out like how much suboxin it takes to relieve you of addiction. So like I would test out, they would give us like dilauded three times a day, like eight milligram shots. And then they make you withdraw. a day and then see how much Suboxin would get rid of your withdrawals. And they'd pay $7 or $8,000. So I take that money, go right over.

Or get a loan. I get student loans. But most of, I probably made $30,000 doing clinical trials over like eight months span. Now, what's your family think about what you're doing? Like your mom, you know, in your college years, didn't she checking up on you seeing how things are going? She, like, we have to imagine how much trauma that woman was experiencing. lost her brother, lost her dad, lost her husband.

She's working constantly. So I would basically just tell her like, I'm going to Rome. And then if I got in trouble, like, she would help. Like, I went to Egypt for a couple weeks because I was trying to get into Palestine. This was in like 2004. I was 17. And obviously it didn't happen. But like, I got stranded out of a hotel there.

And so that's when I called back, mom, I need help. And so she would loan me 300. to fly back to Germany. But she let me live. She let me experience life and like learn hard lessons. And then if it became too hard a lesson, that's when she would step in and be like, all right, let's get you right back on the right path here, kid. Now, why the other countries did you think you were making an impact in the other ones?

You didn't live there. So sometimes I did live there. But like permanently, you're from America. Class struggle doesn't stop at our borders. I don't believe that borders like differentiate us from each other. people in Greece are still people in America, basically, like we are facing these same mechanisms of repression. So if I'm over there in Greece and the government just said, now the retirement age has to be 75, and we're going to cut your pay, and you're losing benefits. And they want to riot? I can relate to that.

I understand that. And so as a human being who understands poor versus rich, I'm riding with you. Like, I'm putting on the black bandana and I'm in the streets and we're going to. going. Same in Glasgow, same in Edinburgh, same in Manchester. It's the class struggle doesn't stop just because you're not in my imaginary line, if that makes sense. What were you studying in? Interpersonal relations. So it was nothing. I was studying nothing. It's just a fake degree. At one point in time, the degree I had to declare, it was like some international relations. it was to be a lobbyist for nonprofits. I never wanted to do that,

but you can get student loans that way. And once you get the student loans to study overseas, you get a visa. So now you can work over there, you can live over there. So I just stopped going to school and I have the visa. Did you end up graduating? No. So you never went back after you stopped going.

I had enough, this is once again, I was a moron kid. I had enough credits to graduate. I passed all the classes. but because I was an idiot, I was like, it's not fair for me to have a degree if people who can't afford college can't have one. Like, I'm not better than them. So even though I have this higher education that I'll use

to help myself and help others, I don't need a piece of paper to establish something better than someone else in the workforce. So when do you come back to America and stop traveling? It's back and forth. So the last time I went overseas was 2013. a year before I got arrested. Okay.

And I was in Glasgow for two months. And are you working any type of job at all, or is it just... Over there? Between both places when you're back and forth. Yeah, I'd have like... Just stupid, like day labor jobs, like laying down sod or painting houses or stuff like that. But the main income was those clinical trials. So that funded your life for what, like 10 years?

It funded it for about three or four. Yeah. And then before that, it was credit cards that I never, I would never pay. And then just, just jobs. Also, I didn't have, like, many expenditures. Like, I would eat food. I would dumpster dive. I would live in squats.

I didn't believe in living that lifestyle. Like, that's why this sort of space behooves me. Because, like, goddamn, people really are successful. It's because I've never wanted or had that life. I didn't. I was more than happy eating black beans out of a dumpster for, five years. So what do you think that experience taught you those years living like that? It taught me that we don't need much to be happy. Like that the idea we have of happiness of like consumer stuff,

I need more stuff. I need to buy this. I'll be happy. I need to buy that. I'll be happy. It taught me that that's not real. Happiness is a manifestation in your head of like an acceptance of where you are and who you are. And so it that's what it taught me is that like you can be over the moon thrilled and so of nothing. but also you can be pretty fucking upset when you see people that don't do anything having so much. So do you think you're genuinely happy at that time? No.

I was still like manically depressed because I lost my entire family. You just explained the point of happiness that now you weren't happy. So I can be happy with my situation but not be happy with what I'm experiencing like internally. Does that make sense? Yeah. I was happy not to have shit. I was happy to have to steal water to shower or do all that. that stuff. I didn't need nothing, but I still had deep, like, trauma and repression because I held

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Thanks to Ava. Now go rebuild smart. So you catch your case in when, 2014. Yeah. Tell us about that. What happens? So activist stuff once again. So the police murdered Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and that's a three-hour drive

from Kansas City. And a lot of people hear this story like, oh, he deserved it. He was a drug addict. He was an 18-year-old kid. He was a child. I don't care what. I don't care if he's the biggest gangbanger on earth. He's a child.

And that really, really hurt me to see people not care. And there was a riots uprising, whatever you want to call it in Ferguson. So I went over there to see how I could be an ally. Like, what can I do to help? And that included, like, getting people water, like water on the front lines. Like, being there when the National Guard was firing their exploding missiles at us, which prepared me for prison when they shoot those little grenades in your cells when you're rioting. But so when I came back from Ferguson, I was squatting and staying in people as couches and stuff.

And there was no tear gas. There was no bullets. There was no helicopters. And that made me feel really bad. I felt like I was privileged to be able to sleep comfortably why this poor community was going to war with the cops. And so I was doing like little direct actions around Kansas City, fucking up cop cars. vandalizing ATMs, like sabotaging banks. And like that wasn't helping the people of Ferguson.

They didn't know I was doing that for them. So eventually it became, let's attack a government target and solidarity with Ferguson. The government's supporting the police. I'm anti-police. I'm anti-this building. So that's when I ended up throwing the two Molotovs at the congressman's office in downtown Kansas City.

And was anyone there at the time? No. You decided to do this? Because that's like, that's worker consciousness. I would never hurt another working class person ever. Like this is just a poor janitor. I would never do that.

So we watched the building for a week to see like when they left, when they rabble, rabble. So I went there at 2 a.m. Just walked down the streets of Kansas City with a backpack full of molotives and guns. No cops. No one cares.

And then just stood outside the building with the Molotovs. Neither of them went inside the building. I'm a horrible, horrible throwers. So, like, the window was on, like, the side of the building. It's, like, 10 feet up. And I hit the window frame both times, like a jackass. And then just got a ride home, just went home. So when it hits a window, doesn't it explode and catch anything around on fire?

So it caught the window sill on fire. Like, it caught, and, like, the brick of the building caught on fire for a little bit. But that stuff's not flammable. So it just burns out very quickly. Just fire, fire, fire, fire. nothing um and our molotovs my friends made them because we all wanted to do a different part um so they made them and it was gasoline styrofoam and paint thinner never never do that never have paint thinner um and so the goal was how them spread out when they exploded but really it just meant that

paint thinner when it has error just dies like it won't won't so they just burned out really So you would have been okay with that whole building being destroyed, torched up. I was insisting on it. What about if people lost their jobs and were out of work? Oh, no. These government employees, no. But didn't you just say they were equal to you? The janitors would have been.

And I would have felt empathy for that. And that's something honestly that I didn't, at that time I didn't think about. I thought about the lobbyists and the aides and the assistance and the congressmen. fuck you, you're union busting, you're doing things that are hurting the communities. So I didn't care if they lost their jobs or their space. But when I looked back on it, I did have that about the janitors and that working class of people. And that is, that is something that nowadays I'd be more conscious of. Now, did you ever try to call the congressman's office to talk to them about your issues and concerns? The answer to that is a hard no.

I didn't, I don't, I'm not at that point going to legitimize them. I'm not going to go to them be like, I'm not happy with you supporting the police in Ferguson. I'm not happy with you increasing the police budget. I'm not happy with you cutting, cutting wages or participating in that process. No, because fuck you. You're not my friend. You're not my ally. You're not my dad.

I don't need to tell you that you're frustrating me. You know you are. You know that your city is. is impoverished. You know that you're doing things to benefit banks and big corporations. You know you're doing this. So I don't need to tell you how sad I am. I will show you how mad I am and just end up hurting myself. But why not have a conversation with them? Would you have a conversation with a pedophile that was hurting kids? Would you be like, I don't like what you're doing, buddy. You better stop it. I see them on the same level. Like you are hurting people that cannot defend themselves.

you are hurting people that are not able to fight back in a way that will keep them safe also. And maybe you would. Like you got a much bigger heart than me. Like maybe you would be able to have like a conversation with people. But I was not and I still don't think I would be. But all right, saying you still wouldn't be okay with it, would you still result to going to violence? No, no. So there's got to be some in between, right?

I've, uh, now that I've grown up like that anger, like I said, like nowadays, I've, would like to use my anger to build up, to enrich communities, to help, like to be a service to people. So the anger is still there at these people, but it doesn't do me or my wife and kids. And you go to get thrown back in prison. Because next time it's not going to be 10 years, like next time it's going to be the 25, 40, 45, and I'm not willing to, I'm not willing to do that right now. So you throw the fire bomb, you go home. How do you get caught? So I keep going after that too. Like, we do other stuff, like shooting up, government buildings, banks and stuff like that.

With guns? Yeah. Dry by is at night? No. You just walk up to it. During the day. No, it was still a nighttime, but you just, do, do, do, do, do, do, do walk right down the street. You got a saw-ar shotgun, you got 380.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pup. Just walk back. Not smart. Like, I was not a smart kid. I'm not, I wasn't clever. How old are you at this point, 2014? 2014. I was 26.

So I wasn't a kid. Was I 26? Yeah, I was 26 years old. I'm not a kid, but I was reckless because I didn't care. I didn't have anything. I didn't have a family. I didn't have a home. Didn't have all I had was my dignity. And I was willing to put that on the line for my causes. And I eventually get caught. I'm balancing houses, sleeping on different futons, because I'm underground. And then the cops end up fighting. out where I'm at. And one day I just leave the apartment I'm staying out to go to work. I worked at a taco shop. And the cops just roll up on us with the SWAT ban, the get down. And the car, my friend's car was filled with guns. And it did not get searched. Thankfully, a miracle it didn't get searched. And so I was the one who went to prison. Yeah. Who arrests you? Is it the feds? Or CCPD. and then the feds end up interviewing me in the Jackson County jail, the holding jail. And then that's when the feds pick up the case and say, you're going.

Who picks it up the FBI? Yeah, FBI. And I'm sure the, I'm sure the ATF was involved in the investigation, but the FBI is the ones who did the charge. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember.

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Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at Mintmobile.com. Purches and interviewed me and all that, jazz. Did someone tell on you for the postal or I mean the intended congressman building or I have to assume so. Because how would they have linked that to you? I assume they linked it to me because of like being able to put together a profile of all the other stupid crimes I was doing.

But it seems it behooves me to think that they just put one and one together without someone also doing this. But I can't prove it. But I'm 100% certain of it. Now during this time, are you also actively posting on social media? I didn't have a smartphone, I didn't have social media. I had the account still and my friends would post on it. And they'd be like, we got another one or Kansas fights back again. And I didn't think nothing of it because back then you don't realize that the cops can use that against you.

Everyone else probably realized that, but I didn't. I didn't care. So, yeah, they were posting shit for me and it was to my detriment. What did you end up getting charged with? when the feds picked it up. So I got four charges. I got possession of explosives, possession of explosives on government property, use of explosives, use of explosives on government property.

And so they offered me the first plea deal was 70, which is audacious. Like, no one's going to say yes to that. And it's above the guidelines. I didn't understand the guideline system back then. And so the second pre deal was 30, which I was going to take. 30 years. Yeah, I was like, that's, that's not the worst. And then the third one was 120 months, 10 years.

And that was a, that was the last one. They're like, you're going to trial next week or you're taking this plea deal right now. And at trial, as you know, maybe the listeners know, if you go to trial, you don't get the same plea deal time. You get much more time. So I took the 10. So how long does it take to play out up until trial before you take the plea deal? How long are you sitting in county for? I was at Core Civic America.

I was at CCA, the private jail for the feds. And I was there for 16 months. And that was a very hard 16 months. Why? What was your experience like? That's where I learned what like racial politics were. So I learned like who you have to ride with that it doesn't matter what community you were raised in. It matters who you are now.

And also I had really, really hard encounters with the cops. because I fight cops. So I did a lot of time in the shoe there for assaulting the staff. So of that 16 months, 11 were disciplinary seg. And there was lots of pepper sprains of me. At one point in time, I got pepper sprayed real bad and got put in a cell and they turned off the water. So once an hour, they would have to bring me a styrofoam cup of water. But that also meant I had to bathe in my toilet because I had the pepper on me.

So it's burning every day. I had to pee underneath the door. And so then the cops would pepper spray you for that or they'd rush in, bring the team. And I'm not tough. Like, I'm not, you see how tiny I am. But I just had a bad attitude that, like, you're not going to get me. And that led to me getting pretty hurt. So what about the correctional officers?

Why attack them? They lock the doors. And I understand that's their job. And especially with those private places, I think they're only getting like $9 an hour. But they treated us the same way that we felt about them. Like the food was shitty. You almost never got any recreation time. They would talk down to you.

And then the main thing, they lock the doors. And I don't care if that's what's giving you your paycheck. You're making a conscious decision to participate in a system that's locking up poor people. And so I don't respect you. I don't care about you. And that never changed to this day. So what would you do to a correctional officer? A lot of times it was just shit talk, but there was a time where one was really disrespectful

to a poor friend of mine, so I punched them. There was another time I punched one. There was another time I threw a shoe at one and got charged with assault. It was really weird. Like the shoe thing, they were searching myself and there, I'd get all your shoes out. You'd only have one pair, and I had two. And they said, give us the second pair or you're going to go to the hole. So I just take it then, take it motherfucker, and it hit him.

So I got three months in sake for that. Now the lawyer that's representing you throughout this, what does he or she think about you in the case? Yeah, she was a public defender out of Kansas City. And she was sympathetic. She was cool. She didn't have any judgments. She thought that maybe I was behaving poorly.

She thought that I was being dumb, not taking the plea deal, because I was resisting it for a long. time. But mostly, like, public defenders are buried. Like, they're swamped. I think she had 20 cases. So mine is getting the one hour a week attention or whatever they can give. And then, like, that's, I think I only saw her, like, three times. So you, yeah, so you cop out to the 10, then where do they send you? So I do the 10. I sign that. And I started off at a low security prison. They send me to Englewood. And if no one knows, that's where like Jared Fogle is. You were there with Jared Fogel?

Yeah. So what creep? What was that like? Weird? Because like, I'm not a sex offender. I'm not a rat. But I'm a first time offender of a certain age with a certain background. So low security.

And so like the sex offenders like kind of ran that yard. It was weird. There was like a non-sex offender section to eat at and it was like three tables. And the rest were them. And Jared had like a little posse. And he would like go play tennis every day. It was super skinny. Like just having a tan playing tennis all day.

Just a real fucking creep that guy. But yeah, I did about a month and a half at Englewood. So if you stand up to authority figures, why not go after, say, a pedophile like Jared? So, and that's a good point. That's a hypocrisy that I thought about a lot. I was really trying to stay away from politics. Like, I know it sounds like, oh, I'm into violence because property destruction and cops, but I didn't want to lose good time and be away from my family more,

which is essentially saying that this sex offender is more valuable than my wife. And I know there's a hypocrisy of that with the cops. But at CCA, you don't lose good time. It doesn't affect your federal time. So I had to make a conscious decision. is or are these creeps worth the time it will take away from my wife and kids? And I decided like there's 600 of them. Like, who's that going to hurt myself?

So I just, I let it go. Now, by that point, you have a wife and kid? Yeah, I have two kids. And how are you able to find a, say, someone that aligned with your values? Was it in your activist group? Yeah, she wrote me. She wrote me my second month in prison. And I was in the shoe. I was burning alive. And I get this beautiful letter like, hey, I heard about you.

Here's what's going on my life. I hope you're okay. Please write back. And so I write back. And then she writes back. Right back again. She writes back. And she lived in Denver. And so she drove 10 hours to visit me. And then 10 hours back. And I didn't have contact visits. This was over a video screen. So she's driving 20 hours round trip to talk to a friend who we can't hold hands. We're not in the same room. But she's just showing this immense love and she's helping me grow as a person. So we got married in June. I got locked up in December or September. We married the next June in prison or in jail.

So we couldn't touch each other. The lieutenant had to pass our rings back and forth. But she stayed with me. We're still married today. I've been together 12 years. But so, yeah, I mean, that's how we got together. and she would visit me at Inglewood because it was in her backyard.

It was like a 20 minute drive. So we got to spend four days a week together holding hands. The kids would be there. They knew me as dad. And it was just really, really special. She's still my best friend. She's shout out my wife. So in Englewood, you really mellowed out.

Yeah. So I would still write stupid shit. This is what I didn't. This is where I didn't use my brain. Because when you have the case like I have, your emails have to be read and approved. It's not like other emails where they just process every two hours or whatever. So my emails had to be read by them.

So I would still talk shit to them via my emails. Like, hey, honey, officer so-and-so is a small dick piece of shit. Just stuff like that knowing they had to read it. And eventually that's what led to me getting in trouble was the guards would read the emails. And then at visiting, they would treat my family like shit. shit. Um, and they would do stuff like follow me into the bathroom and call me a fag and a bitch. And you just have to, you have to swallow that. And then one time officer Egglington, I still know his name that fucking ho. Um, he got mad at us for something. And he like barked at me

that he was going to have this kid beat up my daughter. Like he was like, King, you fucking punk. I pay my taxes. I'm a, I'm a member of society. You're trash. My kid will beat your daughter. daughter's ass. We're a real family. What? My daughter heard this and she was three. So she was scared to visit me after that. So I sent her a letter and it was a drawing of us as stick figures at his tombstone. It was like Officer Eglinton died like a bitch or something. Something's stupid. Just to show her that like we don't have to be afraid. Like you're safe. And at a low security, you can seal your letters. Maybe you can in a camp too. I don't know. but someone told the guards I was drawing that.

And so they opened my letter solid, put me in the shoe, like they grabbed me from the library. That's where I was working. Put me in the shoe and immediately drove me to Florence Medium, like that day. So you got to Florence. What happens there? So I was in Florence Medium in the shoe I started for three months because they referred me to the FBI for threatening a federal agent over a stick figure of cartoon. So I was in the shoe while they figured out, are they going to prosecute me? or not.

Just the stupid as shit, dude. So once they decide they're not, they're like, King, do you want to walk the yard? Yes. Yes, of course I do. And so I hit the Florence main line, and I'm in the white Kansas City car, of course. It might be the Midwest car.

I don't even remember. I roll with Kansas City Cats. And, like, that was kind of awakening to me because Florence Medium is still, it's on West Coast politics. So the racial stuff is really, really tight there. You're eating with whites. You're living with whites. You're working out with whites.

You're watching the white TV. You're, like, you can be friends with people of other races, but like your interactions are mostly going to be through, like, gambling. Or casual small talk. So coming from like a non-racist background, like, that was difficult because, like, I have friends of every race. Like, and they didn't really like me there because, like, it's almost like a race trader shit because I was in prison for participating in a Black liberation movement. Um, so I had difficulties with that.

Like, that was tricky. Do you have any altercations there? Yes. I got, I got, uh, I got worked a couple of times. because I allowed a gay black kid to be in my yoga class. I taught yoga. And he was only a gay guy on the yard at that time. So he was gay and black.

And people didn't like that very much. Yeah, and there was a few times that I just caught heat. Nothing serious. I didn't get stabbed or nothing. I didn't get ran off the yard. But there was a constant threat of like Eric, you are walking that line, bud. and you're going to cross over eventually and you're going to get fucked off. So I just really tried to walk that tightrope.

But, yeah, I had lots of problems. Those white guys don't like me. How long were you there for? I was there for, including the shoe, I think 14 months before the fight with the lieutenant. And tell us about that. So there was a lieutenant there, bitch-ass Wilcox. and he'd been a lieutenant for a long time, just a bully, like a brother type, like big stocky, taking testosterone type dude.

And he would just harass me, he'd treat us like shit. And one day a dude tried checking in and they wouldn't let him, so he punched a different lieutenant. And I wrote my wife an email, excuse me, and it was like, this lieutenant got fucked up today, hilarious. Like, God bless him. I didn't care that it was a check-in. I care that you were fighting staff. And so Wilcox read that.

And he called me down to his office. And usually when a lieutenant called you down to their office, you go into their office. He took me into a mop closet. That's what it is, a mop closet. And he started shouting at me, calling me all these names, a race trader, a terrorist, the F slur, the N slur. Like, you fucking in lover, you terrorists, you bitch, do something, you bitch. And I'm laughing.

I'm like, I'm not going to do that, dude. Like, I know how this game works right now. I'm not doing it. And eventually he just got, like, tired of me laugh at him because I'm tiny.

And he pushed me. And I fell against, like, the, it's like a filing cabinet. And I was just so confused because, like, that doesn't usually happen. So then he punched me.

And then he punched me again. And after the second punch, like, Florence is a medium, but it's still a pretty serious medium. And, like, you can't let someone fuck you off. why, you can die. If I fall and hit my head on this counter or cabinet, I can die. So I lit his ass up.

Four punches, boom, boom, boom. And as you may remember, I used to box. So even though I'm not Mr. Hard Pants, I am still capable of defending myself, especially if you don't see it coming. And so I lit his ass up and he fell in his pile of blood. And people might not believe me about this because of how I look or talk, but it's in the book. We have pictures of it. So he ended up falling down in a pile of his blood, and then the rest of the cops rushed in. And for that brief moment, it was the best moment I'd had in decade.

And then when the cops rushed in and threw me on the ground and started stomping the shit out of me, that's when it stopped being the best moment. That's when it became a very bad moment. Because they're kicking you in the back of the head, kicking you in the temple, punching you, stomping your groin, hyper extending your leg, twisting your ankle, just doing all this vicious shit. And you don't know if they're going to stop.

You never know if they're going to stop. Like, they might kill me. And eventually they take me outside and they slam me on the concrete, put their knee in my long so you can't breathe. And then striker chair down to the basement. What's a striker chair? Oh, yeah. So a striker chair, that's a chair that they sit you in. and they strap like seatbelts around you, basically, around your chest and your arms.

And it's a wheelchair and so you can't move. You can't defend yourself. They are in complete control of your body. And they say that's to stop you from hurting yourself. People are full of surprises, especially when you travel together. Thankfully, Verbo is not. When you book a Verbo, you get Verbo care and 24-7 live support. So your house doesn't surprise you like your friends might.

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It's downstairs, so they have to lift a striker chair down these stairs. And I think they're going to throw me down. And there's a little cell down there and it's got a steel bed on it. Not a concrete bed, like a steel bed. And they put me up against the wall. And they take metal shears like scissors and a hook, a metal hook.

And they start ripping my clothes off. They rip them off and cut them off. So I think they're going to fucking rate me or kill me. And then they sit me on the bed and they chain my feet, my ankles, spread on the bed. So I come spread like spread out. And my ankles, they have the, the they have the cuffs on as tight as they can go. So I instantly lose feeling in my feet,

except for radiating pain. And then they spread you out. So now your hands are cuffed to each corner of the bed. And the cuff's so tight that like you lose feeling in your hands, but your body is just radiating in pain. It is pain that I can't describe. I mean, that's our forward pointing.

They forward pointing me. Um, and the captain would come in. Captain, Seroni. I forget something like that. And he put his hand over my mouth. So I couldn't breathe.

So I think he's going to suffocate me. And then they leave. They'd come back like, we're going to get you fucking raped. You're dead. You're fucking dead. They put the shield over my chest and face and push on it. So you can't breathe. But it doesn't show any bruises.

And they did that a couple of times. They did the rounds on that. And then I spent the next seven hours just just staring up to the sky and pain just trying desperately to to like relieve it in any way possible. Um, I ended up having to piss on myself on that bed. Because they're not letting you up to use the bathroom.

So you just try to like turn your hips just a little. And it, it sucks. Like I still, like I still can't use these fingers most of the time. Still have numbness all down here through here on my legs, hip. Um, because that fucks up your nerves.

Like your body's not meant to do that. for that long. And yeah, that was, that was not fun. That was really brutal situation. That hurt me. How long were you there for? Seven and a half hours. But just in general, where do they move you to? So I did seven and a half hours, four point it, then two hours in soft restraints around your body. That's where they put like rubber things in your chain to your waist. And then they, at nighttime, I think it was like 10 p.m. they drove me to USP Florence. And they put me in the shoe there. and that shoe, I was in a cell that was just covered in shit. Like a bug had been in there, some of mental health issues. So the walls were covered in shit, and I guess he was flooding because the water was turned off on the toilet, not the sink. And the toilet was filled with shit.

I couldn't flush it. And I had half a mattress, so my body is just destroyed. So I'm laying on concrete, basically. and the room is just, it just reeks of human shit because it's covered in it. And I was in there for five days. Eventually, SIS interviewed me there. They did the deposition for the FBI. And I thank God we have all this on tape, like, because of the trial, the later trial.

So, like, people won't believe me. Like, it sounds like a lie. But they interview me asking what happened. saying basically that like this FBI interview and we'll see if we're going to prosecute you or not. And then after that, the next day, they get me up at 3 a.m.

and we drive the 10 hours to 11worth. And why 11worth? What would they do to bring you there for? Oh, yeah. Sorry. So when you assault a staff member seriously in the feds, you can't stay at that prison.

And because Florence, the compound, like Wilcox's son worked at the pen, tentory. And so did Wilcox. So I couldn't stay on that compound anymore because they might kill you. They might fuck you off. You might fuck them off. So we, they decided Leavenworth for whatever reason. And that was a scary drive too because it's the middle of the night. You're in your car with two cops that are armed. There's a car behind you with three cops. There's a car in front of you with three cops and they all have guns. And at one point, the halfway point, we stopped at an abandoned gas station. and they took me out all the cops and they made a circle

and a woman came behind me and said, get on your knees. I think they're going to kill me and say, I tried escaping. And so I get on my knees and they pull my pants down. And they're like, pee, this is your piss break. Like, no fucking way. Once again, I think they're going to kill me because they all have guns. And so I had to sit there and try to force out piss. They're just pushing as hard as I can, just spritzing.

eventually they just lift me back up, pull my pants up, and we just finished driving at Leavenworth. I get dumped in that shoe. How long were you at Leavenworth for? Six months. And do you get to go walk the yard or now? No. They could be in the shoe for the whole six months? I was never out of the shoe again except for four days for the next six years.

I was in there for six months, no visits. They took my phone calls then. I got put on a communication management restriction. so no phone calls for the next five and a half years, no visits for the next five and a half years. And after Leavenworth, this is like, people hear about diesel therapy, this is what that shit is.

After six months at Leavenworth, Oklahoma, Atlanta, transfer centers, USB McCreary. And this whole time you're in the show. So how much time do you think total you did in the shoe, like eight years, seven and a half? And I imagine you lost all your good time. No, because you can only lose a certain amount per year. And because of CCA, you don't lose good time there, but you accumulate it.

So I still had like eight months of good time when I left. It's wild. So now why, I know diesel therapy, but why even move you to different shoes? So when I was at Leavenworth, they said they weren't going to prosecute me for the assault. So they had to move me, I'm now in prison. So they moved me to USP McCreery because I had an enhancement now, a staff assault enhancement. and because I have a staff assault, when they're transferring you,

you're in the shoe because you violently hurt a lieutenant. And I land up McCreary and I'm putting the shoe there for two months because they're trying to see, do they want me on the yard? Am I safe with the staff? And then eventually they decide yes.

But I'm only, I'm on that yard for four days before staff sets me up to get fucked off there. What do they do? I keep forgetting that. you don't know the story, so I just stopped talking. On my fifth day, so I was there for a total, on my fifth day, they come and wake me up at 4 a.m.

and say, King, you need to come to the lieutenant's office. So I'm triggered. It's like, oh, no, not again. And they take me to the lieutenant's office and they say, we've intercepted email saying that you're going to get fucked up today. Are you safe to go out to the yard? And if you say no, they put you in protective custody, you're in the state. shoe and now you're basically a rat. And I'm not gonna, I'm not doing that.

So I say, of course I'm safe. They're like, are you sure? Because we have these emails. I'm like, yes. I know what's coming. Yes, I'm safe. Yes. I'm like, okay. So they walk me through the kitchen to this area. And it's like chain link fence area. And there's a dude waiting there for me.

And he's from the group that they just said it was going to fuck me off. and there's like three cops standing around watching. God damn it. So I walk up to him, he introduces himself, I introduce myself, and he takes off. He's a tall dude. I'm 5-7, 150.

He's probably 5-11, 180. And so I'm just practicing defense. I'm just trying not to get beat up. They have weight classes for a reason. I'm not going to beat this guy. And so after about a minute, the guards tackle us. and I get put right back in the shoe.

And where do they send you after that? So I get in three more fights in the shoe. They put three more people in the shoe to fuck me off. In yourself? Yeah. They put a Mexican dude in there. They said he was white. And after a day, he jumps me.

We have like a 15-minute fight. I'm a bloody mess. They gave him a half-strip of Suboxin to do their work for him. And then they put another guy in there, a white dude who hates me from that same group. and he gives me the business. So after that, they send me to USP Lee in Virginia. And I'm put right in the shoe, staff assault. And then nine days later, they fly me back to Inglewood to face charges

because they're going to prosecute me for the staff assault after they said they weren't going to. So at Englewood, they have the camp, the low, and the transfer center. All three go to the same shoe. So I was placed right in the shoe. Inglewood, and I do the next two and a half years there. So do they end up charging you? Yeah, the next day I'm there, I go to court, and it's causing serious bodily harm to a federal agent. It's a 20 years.

It's a 20 piece. And so I'm in that shoe, and I lose my mind. I'm done, dude. So I'm setting up barricades. I'm running the team. I'm getting, I'm fighting staff. I'm throwing piss at staff. destroying the range

because they're not it feels like I have nothing to to lose at that point. No phone calls, no visits, no emails. Like you've taken everything. Everything that matters is my family, so if I don't have it, bleh. And I'm too stupid to realize that this could affect my case.

Like, this can hurt you. It didn't click. And it took a long time for it to click. what caused that was I was on a I was on the range I was in like I think they called a hot cell

where you're in a cell but you have nothing just your mattress your sheets and that's it and officer Gustafson comes to search my cell there's nothing in it

so I cuff up and they walk me to the shower and I'm in nothing but my boxers nothing else and they put me in the shower and they throw my mattress out and they're just calling me names

and a month prior Gus, Officer Gustavson would call him Gus this fat bitch Gus had started harassing this black kid saying oh yeah you can't do nothing come find me and he says his address 3 321 such and such street

I'm in Denver I remembered it that kids from Chicago I'm in Denver and so when he's trashing myself I shouted out to him. Like, all right, you fucking ho. All right, three, three, two, one, Johnson Street, whatever. Like, I'll see you. And cops don't like that.

Not one bit. So he takes me out of this, out of the shower. I'm cuff by my back. He's like, all right, we got to wand you. Metal wand you. I'm in my boxers. So I lift up my foot to get wand and he slaps, he slaps, he slaps my ankle bone with the metal wand. And that hurts like, fuck.

So I slammed my foot down and it's like, dude, don't do that to me. I don't do that. He's 6.2. 250's fat, just worthless piece of shit. And so he's like, lift it. So I lift it again. He does it again. So he tells me to lift it again.

I'm like, dude, I'm not doing it. If you hit me again, like I'm not doing it. I'm done. And so I go to lift it and he hits it again. I slam my foot down. And then the second my foot moves, I'm in the air. and I end up waking up and I'll puddle my own blood

and I'm like drowning because he's got my face in the concrete and my head is busted to shit I blacked out because he had picked me up and slam me on the concrete and I saw that scar right here I ended up getting seven stitches

I had to go to the hospital had a concussion for like a month could barely stand puking every day and he wrote me a shot for assaulting staff and another guard co-signed it saying like yeah I watched it

I watched it happen it was a piece of shit. I ended up beating that shot, thankfully. But that was when my wife was like, what matters most to you? Do you want to win these charges? Do you want to come home to me and the kids?

Or do you want to spend your life waging war against these people? Because if that's what you're going to do, fine, tell me that way I can adjust. That way I can change my expectations of our future. and that really hurt me. That really hurt. It hurt knowing that I was doing that to someone I love. Just like the trauma, like I'm throwing away my future

for people I consider worthless. Like, what does it matter to them if they get shit thrown in their face? They go home. They might be mad. They'll put pubes in my food the next day. That happened a lot. They'll pepper spray my food.

But who's it hurting? It's hurting me. So that was a real, wake up call her just being honest with me. And a lot of times families won't be, they won't hold their, uh, prison or loved ones accountable because we have so much going on. We can't put our burdens on them. But my wife, she was really honest with me. And so when I was fucking up, she would tell me. And when I was hurting her, she would tell me. And that helped me grow as a man to conceptualize family, like what matters. Um, but sadly it had been like a year of me doing that

shit. And in that time, I had lost mail also. So, communication management variable. So no emails, no phone, no visits. And now I could only write letters to my wife, no friends, no other family. And when they know you can only write one person and that's the only thing you have to live for, here's what they did to those letters. Or I'd get like nine rejection in the row saying sexually explicit conduct, sexually explicit materials. There was nothing. sexual in these letters. But that's what they would do to fuck with me to get back at me. And that was hard. Like being isolated from the world that way in the shoe with no communication, that, I mean, I guess it prepared me for ADX, but that was fucking hard as shit to do. And it,

it brought me and my wife closer, but it brought us closer the hard way. It brought us closer the way that I had to change. And I had to be more vulnerable. I had to be more honest. I had to be more honest with myself. And so I'm not going to say I'm happy I went through it because I'm not, but it did help us grow as a couple. So what ends up happening to the case? So in the federal system, no one goes to trial. I don't know if you did.

No one does because the consequences are so severe. And they're not offering me a plea deal. They're saying you can ask the judge. You can ask the judge to go within your guidelines. My guidelines are 15 to 20. Not doing it. So I go to trial and my wife supports me. She's like, yeah, like I believe in you.

Less than 1% of federal trials win. 90% of them take a plea deal, 8% get dismissed, 2% go to trial. 1% of that 2% wins. And my trial lasted seven days. And in the last two days, I testified on my behalf. And no one does that either because they can use that against you. And I went in front of that jury and told them like why I had a right to defend myself. Why prisoners hate staff?

Why there's such tension on prisons? What prison politics means? Why I couldn't allow him to attack me. And God damn, that jury said like, yeah, you're right. You did have a right to do that. And they had nine guards go and testify. ADX captain, my captain, Gus went and testified against me

saying that was violent to staff. After you cracked my head open. And so they had captains, wardens, lieutenants, a nurse, all testify against me and the jury looked at them and said, like, you guys aren't credible.

Eric's credible. And it was my word against his. They have the pictures of like the mob closet, his blood everywhere. They have his hospital records. There's no can. cameras. And I guess I'm just really, I got really lucky. I got really lucky. And I got emotional on that stand because like this is my life now. So I had to be vulnerable with the jury just like my

wife had taught me with her. Like it's not right. It's not right that they get to do this to us. It's not right that they get to pepper spray us because they don't like us. It's not right that they get to shit in ourselves and tear up our wives' letters and turn off our water. Like, of course I had to fight back. What choice did I have? And when that jury said not guilty, I cried like a bitch. I sobbed because it was so unlikely, you know? Like who? But no one does it. And I foolishly, foolishly thought that because I won at trial, it was going to be better now.

I won. I'm not guilty. I have low security points. I have 13 points. Up to 15 is low, I think, or whatever, it doesn't matter. 13 is low. So I think I'm going to go back to a low at most of medium. And instead, I got sent back to USP Lee. And that was some of the worst time of my life. U.S.P. Lee is in Virginia, and it's hot, it's August, it's hot as shit, and it's an old, oldish prison built into the mountain. And so there's ants in your cell bad. And so you're dripping sweat, ants everywhere. They're biting you. You're waking up. They're in your nuts.

They're in your face. You'd go to take a bite of food. There'd be ants crawling on it. Just fucking disgusting. shit. And my second day there, Syke comes to my door. Because I'm in the shoe, of course. Syke comes to my door and says like, hey, Eric, we know what we're going to do with you. And I'm thinking, send me to a medium. And instead they say, we're going to start your ADX process. And I say, you must be fucking stupid. There's no way that's happening. And the next two months would be

just a horrible, horrible dish of aunts, staff sexual assault, staff abuse, and ADX referrals. And what is ADX for the audience? ADX is the only federal supermax. It's the administrative maximum. It's essentially the highest profile prison in America. It's definitely the most restricted. It's where, like, L. Chappo is, a unabomber. Larry Hoover was there for 12. 20 years, Jeff Ford's there. Thomas Silverstein was there for a long time. It's the final road in the federal system. Like, there's nothing beyond it. So when they told me I was going there, it felt surreal because I'm not one of those guys. I'm not a tough guy. I'm not a gang leader. I'm not a terrorist

with a body on me. I'm not infamous. But they said I had leadership status. with the left, with the left wing. And if you've been to federal prison, you know the left wing in prison does not exist. But they said I was a leader. So my packet, they give you a packet to say like why you're being referred. And I have like 56 shots.

But like that doesn't matter. Everyone's got a bunch of shots. Maybe not everyone. A lot of people have a bunch of shots. And so my packet said staff assault, even though I've been found innocent. and then leadership status. And so they give that to you a week before you have your call with Region.

You have to do an interview with Region. And they decide if you deserve to go or not. And so Regent would ask you, are you a leader? No. Are you going to assault staff more? Absolutely not. Are you violent? Nope.

Are you gang affiliated? No. How do you explain all this stuff that happened? Poor judgment. Raval, rabble. And then you don't know what they're going to, say, so a week after that, I'm in the shoe, obviously still in the shoe, you're doing the referral, and they give you a piece of paper under your door. And the paper has two boxes. One says approved,

one says declined. And then it has a checkmark and approved. And that's it. Like, I thought it'd be like this big, like formal declaration. Approved, not approved. And when you get approved, they come and knock on your door because I had a cellie. And they're like, pack up, you can't be cellies anymore. Because now you're an ADX prisoner. So I got to be single cell, which was nice. The last two weeks at USP Leo, I was single cell. But it's kind of scary because at that point,

I already done four years straight in the feds. And there had been violence. There had been the sexual assault. stuff. There have been communication restrictions. There have been my family falling apart. So then you hear you're going to this hellhole prison and it's just like, when is this shit going to stop? Like, did I, did I bring this on myself? Is this, is this a consequence of Trump being so anti-left at that time? I was the only open, I was the only open, like, anarchist an anti-fascist in prison at that time.

So is this retaliation for this? Is it retaliation for fucking up that lieutenant? Four years prior. And it was all of it combined. So after two months, the referral process was fast. It took two months total. And a week before my birthday, July. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task,

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So from Lee, you have to drive to Atlanta. You drive, shackled. And then Atlanta, I had to do two weeks in the shoe by myself, of course. And then you go to Oklahoma City, two weeks there in the shoe by yourself. And you're on three-man hold always. So it always has to be two guards and a lieutenant walking with you. Because now you're an ADX prisoner. And then we fly to Colorado and we drive from Colorado.

like Denver, I think, it's a two-hour drive to Florence, to ADX. And I am terrified on that bus because who's at Florence? The lieutenants I fucked up and all their friends. So I'm thinking, are they going to set me up? Is this all set up just to kill me? Like, are they going to say I'm going to ADX, but really they slipped me into the pen and they give some dude a pack of cigarettes to stab me? That shit happens.

So I'm terrified. I feel like I'm having a heart attack my, my, chest is going like numb. I can barely breathe. I'm seeing weird colors. I might have been having a stroke for real or a minor heart attack. Um, and there's some native dude there. He's going to the mental health ADX, which is at the penitentiary. Uh, people don't even know about it. It's a mental health unit, special mental health unit or some shit like that. But the whole time he's saying, you're not going to ADX. Like, trust me, they don't send people a two years to that prison. You're not going. That's only for long-term people. And, um,

I'm letting this little motherfucker get in my head. Even though I know he has mental health issues, his arms are covered in the deepest scars, you can imagine. And he intentionally did it to go to the mental health version of ADX. But I'm letting this fucking weirdo get in my head. And we roll up to the penitentiary. And I'm thinking they're going to call me here to set me up. And they start calling off names in alphabetical order.

Like, Bennett, Davidson. Erickson and they skip K, they skip King. Oh shit. Like, am I really going to Supermax? Um, and then I think, I still think in my head they're just going to save me for last to get me fucked off. And then the door closes and we just casually drive this bus right to that person. It's me and a white GD. He had, uh, he had killed people in South Carolina State.

Um, and we just. just roll right up to the gates. And it's a small red building. It can only hold 470 people. It usually only has like three something at a time. It's never full. And I get kind of triggered even talking about you. See me like rubbing my neck and stuff. And the gates open. The guards hop out. Everyone, they do the bomb. They check underneath for bombs. Everyone has their machine guns. And then they walk beside the bus. And it just drives so slow. They're looking around. And no one's in.

No one's getting in the compound. It's a huge compound surrounded by security. But it's like a two-minute drive to go around this building. And you pull up to a big garage. Like just a big, just a big fucking garage. And they open the door and the bus just pulls in. And one of the guards hops off the bus is lieutenant there. And they're like, all right, guys, come out.

She just walk off the bus. you're shackled, of course, but you walk off the bus and it leads you right to R&D and they put you in a little baby holding cell and then they just process you. It's so weird, like so anti-climactic. Now, are you in the shoe in ADX

or is there general population or what does that like? So the whole prison is a shoe. There's every unit you're in is 23-hour lockdown. Whether you're in Sam's unit, the step-down unit, the pre-release unit, or like GP, I guess, you're single-celled, you're in a concrete box,

you're always on three-man hold, you're never around another person, and it's just quiet dog, like, it's quiet, it's a quiet prison, at least in my range. I was placed on C unit, which at that time used to be the shoe. But so, like, if you fuck up,

in another unit, they put you on C unit. And you still get your TV and everything, but the unit's small and the cells are shitty. They're dirty, there's pubs everywhere, and the lights suck. And I was placed in that unit for a year. I didn't have any, like, discipline, but it's a, like, a feel-you-out stage.

And, yeah, that first day, it's, like, so surreal because you do your R&D shit and then they walk you down this like checkered hallway and the hallway slopes bad and I guess that's the underground aspect like the prison's built into the ground and you pass B unit

which is the control unit that's for people to have a set amount of time and then you pass the recreation where like the campers would come and like make your food and do your commissary bags and at the end of the hall is C unit, and that's a disciplinary unit. And so everything's electronic. They just, they open an

electronic gate. You walk through, they close it. You walk to another one open. You walk through. They close it. You walk down five stairs. And then the units are just a hallway. And there's eight cells. There's eight cells in the hallway. And I was put in, it was a lower. So there's a lower, A top, B lower, B top. I was in A lower. And just walk you up to yourself. Outdoor, outside door opens. Electronically, the inside door is already open.

You walk in. Your hands are cuffed behind your back at this point. So they close the inside door. You stick your hands behind your back. They already there. But behind you into the bean slot, they unlock it. They step out, close the outside door. And now you're in your tomb.

You're just in your concrete box. You have to figure out how you're going to do your time. Are there any windows in there? Yeah. There's a really skinny window. It is maybe three inches by two feet. But when you look out your window, you see a wall. It's just a wall.

And it's the very top of the window. They're like right above the wall. There's about an inch or two of sky. So you can just see the sky. So you can tell when it's dark. because that's when the floodlights come on. But yeah, you're not seeing shit. You're seeing blue.

What about for a wreck? Is that built into the cell too? Like through another door? Or they bring you to a different unit? In range 13 it is. That's a discipline, discipline unit. But in our cells, you, inside rec is just a room across. So your cells are right here.

There's a little walkway for the guards. And then the wreck is right here. So you can see people going inside rec. And it's just a room. It's like the size of two or three cells. And it's got a pull-up dip bar in it. And that's it. And what about a shower in your cell?

Yeah. Shows in your cell. Outside rec for C unit was a big concrete box with a chain link over the top. In other units, you have dog kennel cages. So like, let's say you're in D unit. everyone on D unit that signs up for rec would go to a dog kennel cage. So you would have that hour to talk to other people. But not in the same cage?

No. Never in the same cage. So you guys are always separate. Yeah. Who are some of the individuals? Is there anyone notable that you ran into? I ran. The coolest guy ran into Quaita.

And he's a member of the New Aestra Council or Commission. And he's an old man. He's like 70 or 80. but he's done just gobs of time. He was at Pelican Bay. He was at Old Folsom, New Folsom. And he'd done 15 years of ADX left. Got accused of killing somebody.

Came right back. And so hearing his stories about him and Corny and like the Gun album, the GUN album that they put out, and like just all this wild shit. Like he was my favorite person to talk to. there was a Puerto Rican cat who was an Iowa state prisoner and I saw he was on true crime, the TV channel because he was going to court one day, broke out of his cuffs,

stabbed and killed a guard, stabbed another guard, stole the police van and drove, drove away to escape. What? So he was interesting. I, uh, I, there was a jihadi I was really cool with. I won't say his name because he's free now. But he got put in for transcribing, speeches for bin Laden into English, which was a free speech thing. Like the ACLU got involved

because like, do we have free speech or not? Even if it's for violence, do we have it? And the answer is no. Richard Reed, the shoe bomber. I never got to see him, but I got to yell at him through my dog kennel because he was in the lifer unit. And the at that point, the last three months, I was in the pre-release unit for people getting out of ADX. And so that wreckyard was the dog kennels. So I could yell from my dog kennels like, Hello, Richard.

He's from England. Hello. I got to, so him, I got to shout to Larry Hoover because he was in the lifer unit. So he was going to medical. And so that little vestibule area, KA and KB, like it was just shared.

So when he walked out of his unit, when he walked over to the bubble, we could see the bubble too. So I got to yell at Larry, like, all right, Larry. Wayne Perry, the DC hitman, Silk is his prison name or whatever.

He goes by Silk. So my wife got to hire at his family a lot. Got to say hi to him. Eric Rudolph. the Olympic bomber from, sorry about that, the guy from, he bombed the Atlanta Olympics. For a small period of time, KB or KA, I mean the lifer unit, they got to come out of mop one of their orderlies, like mop the bubble area. And our inside wreck area was right there.

So there's a big gate, like a big old school prison gate that separates our inside wreck from the bubble. And he walked up to the fence and what's up? I was like, nothing. I think I got some of your mail. The guards have to give me his mail instead of him because we both had the same name, Eric. So he's like, oh yeah?

Oh yeah, where's it at? Where's it at? What else you got? So he's like talking like a brand guy. Like he's from the brand. Like he's got the shaved head, big guy's mustache. What else you got? Nothing, you fucking weirdo.

Like, go away. I gave it to the guards. I told him to give it back. back to you. Like, that's the convict shit to do. Take your mail. I don't have anything else to say to you. All right. All right. And they didn't let people mop anymore after that. But I got to see a lot of gang leaders. Yeah, just leaders of the AC. I got to see a couple brand dudes. A grip of New Aster cat's like, there's got to be like 10 of them in there on leadership status. And they're all such chill people. until they're not.

Like, if you, if you cross that line with them or you're a different, you're a different group, but like, just the most respectful guys and they have so much power. Like, they could have, they could have an army of thousands,

butcher whoever they wanted. Um, but you talk to them and they're just, hey, friend, how are you? Not, not shaking hands,

but through the doors or shouting. So those were the, uh, those were the big ones, big ones I met and got to, got to holler at. How does commissary and the food in general compare to the other prisons? Is it all the same across the board or is it different?

So commissary is good from a shoe perspective. So if you were in the shoe and you had this commissary, it's dope. But for a, it's our yard. So it's fine. They have like two bags of coffee, Taser's Choice and Keefe. They have peanut butter. You can get a couple bags of chips. They have shoes, weightlifting gloves for pull-ups, I guess.

There's one candy bar, one type of cookie, ramen. Like, just, like, take a yard commissary list and, like, compress it to the bare minimums. And that's what we got. It's expensive, of course. You could spend 300 months just like any yard. And then the food, the food used to be the best in the bureau when they had, before they went to the national menu. Because they wanted to keep those dudes fed.

Like when it's just nothing but the brand and D.C. blacks and Mexican Mafia, you're wanting those dudes fed. But by time I got there, it's just garbage. Like, it's the same national menu. Friday's bad fish day. Thursday is grilled chicken. Tuesday's breaded chicken. And I was on the no meat tray because I'd prefer not to eat meat if I don't have to.

So I got three beans salad four times a week, black beans, just like I went on I was free. It's weird meat patty that or non-meat patty. You couldn't tell quite what it was. It's not soy. It's not tofu. It's, it looks like grass. And we didn't, like, I guess they used to get pints of ice cream on Wednesdays.

We got the little cups, little cups. The same shitty brand cereal that everyone else gets. the same shitty brand cake for breakfast. For one or two months for breakfast, we got French toastics on Wednesdays. And they were so goddamn good. God damn, they were good. And then that got taken away for brand cereal.

How long did you end up staying at ADX? I was there for a year and eight months. And do you go home from ADX? I go to the halfway house. That's crazy that you go from ADX to halfway house. And so they're like scheming bastards, too. They can't officially release you to the halfway house from ADX. So the last day you're there, they drive you to the penitentiary or they drove me.

Other people get flown to their local prisons. So they drive me to the penitentiary. I spend one night there and they get released from the pen. And my wife, my lawyer, my friends, my family are all there just to pick me. up on the side of the road. They don't let them come up to the gate. So they're just, they're sitting on the side of the road in the middle of Florence. And that's a, that's a weird moment. That's a surreal moment when you get to walk out that door. I don't like see your family and kids. Because I, I didn't have contact. Like, I was five and a half straight. And obviously, a lot of people have

had it a lot worse. So I'm not complaining at all. But I have 10 years to do seven and a half in the shoe, none of it was PC. Like, it was just, it was hard. It was hard to transition. That was your first time ever, like, being with your wife on the free world, right? Yeah. And she stayed with you the whole eight years? Well, nine and a half, yeah.

Wow. And she had never, like, met you, right? Well, we got to do contact visits at Inglewood and then contact visits at Florence Medium until the lieutenant stuff happened. But like hang out with you outside. Yeah, that was our first time. Wow. Same with the kids.

Like, they had to relearn me. Because that five years I was in, like, transitioning from the prosecution of freedom, I saw them maybe three times. And I didn't get to hold them a single time. So they grew up. Like, they went from five to 12, five to 10, whatever. and then 11 to 16. So they grew into like new people.

And that was that was a hard transition too because I had to relearn them. And then they had to relearn me because you change. Like you change when you're going through like that amount of brutality and that amount of isolation. It affects you mentally, physically. And so we had to relearn each other because you love each other, but you don't really know. You don't know each other anymore. So that was, that was tricky. What year did you get out of prison? 2003. So a couple, three years ago. Two years ago. December, 2020. So it's been two years and two months. What was your plan when you got out? I, I had privilege. I got, we need to say right now,

I have immense privilege. I had people that care about me. I had wild support, even when I had no communication. So I had it better than most. So my lawyers, one of my lawyers at the time or two of them offered me a job at their law firm. It was just a two-person law firm, but they offered me a job as a paralegal. So my game plan when I got out was do my bitch-ass halfway house time, live with my family, and be a paralegal and just do the best I could. And that's exactly what happen. It was hard. Like there was bumps in the road and halfway house can be really tricky if you're not ready for it. But the game plan was be a paralegal and I made it happen. What about disassociating yourself with the types of people that you were committing crimes with to begin with? Do you still

actively involve yourself with that or do you step aside? There's different levels to like to that sort of world. So am I friends with people? bombing shit right now? No. No, I can't. I can't risk that. And my friends with people that still organize and do prison support and protest, yeah, yeah, I am because I still respect that. I still respect that level of empathy and care. Whether you agree with it or not, like, I don't care. But their hearts are in the right place. And I think deep down we all want close to the same thing or I hope we do, which is for, uh, for all of us to have enough. Always, that's what I feel. We all want to be happy. And my happiness doesn't have to take away

from yours. And so that's, that's where my people are at. Um, but if you're committing crimes, I'm over here. If you're doing drugs, no, you're drinking. No. Uh, if you're talking about crimes. I'm over here. I'm still able to do lots of deep prison support. I do letter writing nights. I raise money. I raise awareness. I give people's names out there. But no, I'm not hanging out with anyone actively doing any crime because my family's worth more to me than that. Were you able to sue the prisons at all? Tried. We had such a good lawsuit too. We had a Bivens for the for the amount of torture

and then we had a tort claim for the skull getting cracked open and we had it and my lawyer missed the deadline and I was sick because that would have been a real claim God bless them they they kept wanting to add more and more

and more stuff to the case to make it bigger and bigger and bigger instead of just focusing on just focused on the assault like that is a win people that have had less than this have won. And I think they just got overwhelmed and we missed the date. And I'll never, I'll never forget reading that letter like the judgment saying like it's been dismissed due to an error.

You waited too long. I'm still sick about it. I could have funded my whole family. Where's your relationship at with your mom? Oh, great. So it was really, like she's a, she's really right wing. Um, she's married to an ex-Police sergeant. They've been married a long time. I mean, they're good people. My mom is a great person. Um, her husband, one of my stepdad's now is he makes her happy. And that's all that

matters. We go along just fine. But me and my mom were getting close to being distant when I went in because our values were just so different. And then when I was in Florence medium, my brother died. He died in a house fire. Someone had lit his apartment on fire. So that brought us closer together. And then her and my wife, like my wife and her grew close because that's how my mom, I learned to re-know me, like know this version of Eric. And so when I got close to getting out and then when I got out, me and my mom, like, we're tough. We've been through a lot together. Like I lost my dad, my grandpa, my brother. She lost her son, her dad, her husband. So we've we've lost together, but we've also grown together. So I love the shit on my mom. She's,

she's a 10 out of 10 person. I don't care if we don't agree on things. I don't care if she supports shit that I find vile, because it's the opposite way too. I support things that she finds vile. But our common ground is that we love and respect each other. It doesn't have to be, you're a fascist bitch or you're Antifa scum, whatever left-wing slur they want to throw at people. she's a class act and I honor her greatly. So do you think her husband has helped you open up your reviews a little bit more? No. But you just said you loved it respected him now?

I respect him for how he treats my mom. So you don't respect him as a person? I respect that side of him. I don't respect his profession. I don't respect how he's been as a police officer. I don't. And they know that. But me and him, I think, because I've been successful,

successful post-prison. Like, I like him. Like, I get along with him just fine. He's a shy, he's a shy fellow, a man of few words. But I can be in the same room with him for forever. And it's never uncomfortable. I never feel any anger or tension because there's, there's more of life than like being bitter at someone who, I know that's hypocritical because they're family, but I just have more things to focus on with him than what he used to do as a career. Would you ever call the cops if you were in danger or needed it? There's sometimes when you legally have to. Like, let's say someone breaks into your house and destroys everything.

If you want your insurance claim, you have to file a police report. Same with car wrecks. You have to or you get punished. So I've avoided calling the cops so far in my life with assaults. robbery, stuff like that, small things that can be settled in-house. I believe there's other ways to hold each other accountable. I believe that there's ways as a community that we can look at an issue and say, you've caused harm, you need to heal that harm, and you probably need to heal yourself,

and how do we accomplish that? Because my issues have all been in-house. It hasn't been strangers. What if your family's life was in danger? Would you call the cops? How would a cop solve that? Well, if it was a 911 call and there was an emergency. What emergency?

Like, they show up afterwards? No, if they showed up in the moment. What? The chances of that happening are so rare. Hey, it could happen, you know? Like, what I call my family? What I call the cops of my family were in 9-11, maybe? Because it could happen, but you call the cops after something happens.

After you get robbed, after you get raped, after you get shot, after someone bumps you and the offends you, or there's someone at a bar. barbecue you don't like. There's cops don't prevent crimes. If they did, we wouldn't have any crimes. We have the largest police force in the world. We wouldn't have crimes if they prevented them. If anything, they increase crimes because more things have to become illegal. So, can I say I would never call the cops? No. I don't know. Like, I'd be, I'd be a hypocrite up my own ass, be like, I will never, ever. And then be a liar if I ever do. But, Off the top of my head, in my heart, I can't think of a reason why I would have to unless I had to. Do you ever think you'll change your mind about cops?

We are. I was six when I first started hating them, so I'm 32 years in. No, I think they're scum. I think they're the scum of the earth. I know what they're capable of. I know what they'll do. I know what they want to do. and I don't believe in the few good apples.

If there's 10 pieces of shit in a room and only nine of them are actual bad people, that 10th person is still okay with that. They're still spending time with them, so there's 10. Every single police officer in our country that is actively a cop has seen other cops do illegal stuff

and not done anything about it. So if you're okay, with them breaking the law that you're supposed to uphold, if you're okay with them abusing people, if you're okay with them doing whatever, making them laws for themselves because they're offended or upset, if you're okay with that and you stay on that force, you're just as bad as them. And so that's why I cannot, I can't see active police officers as anything but an enemy of the state, enemy of the people. But once they retired, then you're okay with them?

No. When I said active police officers, I meant, if you resign from the force, because you realize, holy shit, what are my, what are my coworkers doing? Then, like, fair enough. You had a good heart and you saw something you left. But if you retire as a cop, why, you did that shit for 20 years, you've done things that I am not okay with, guaranteed. And that includes my stepdad. That's why I do not respect that part of his life.

I don't. And he doesn't respect that part of my life that does what I do. So, no, I don't. if you retire as a cop. But there is a way for you two to see eye to eye with each other now? On issues? No. No, in general. Like, you treat them as a human being.

Yeah, we just exist. Because I'm not around them very often. I see them once every three months. And we exist around each other. We don't bring up harsh topics. We don't talk about politics. We don't talk about stuff that will hurt us. We talk about family stuff.

We talk about food. We talk about silly things. That way we can both. pretend like the other one doesn't make them sick with their beliefs. What advice would you tell your teenage self before you ever got yourself involved in activism and took the path you chose? Would I have the knowledge now to tell that young teenager the advice? Yeah, yeah, everything you know now.

All the experience in prison, the nightmares, everything. It's not going to be the answer like a lot of people expect. It's not going to be like, don't do it. It's not going to be, it'd be like you're going to make it. like there's a there's an end to this that you're going to go through really hard times i would warn him there's going to be times that you cannot imagine how bad they are and you're going to carry those with you when you're free you're going to have that trauma you're going to have that anxiety but you're going to find the love of your life you're going to grow as a person you're going to

develop a level of empathy you didn't used to have you're going to see the world better than you used to see it you're going to get through it you're going to be okay don't let them break you don't let these bastards break you um i would encourage eric to to stick with his heart because he has a good heart teenage eric has a good heart and adult eric has a better heart i feel so i would just i would encourage him to see it through tell everyone about the book oh yeah can i hold it yeah of course so i wrote a book called a clean hell um anarchy and abolition in america's most notorious dungeon I wrote it as a piece of therapy. There's no books out about winning that federal trial.

There's no books out about ADX somehow. I did both. That's two rare things. And it felt like I'd be doing a disservice. You don't make money off these books. So I felt like I'd be doing a disservice not to let people know what's really going on in there. And it's not just my ADX story. It's the story of the prison itself.

It's the story of the men there who will never get to. tell their stories. There are people that have been there 10, 15, 20 years we've never heard of, and their voices will never get heard. And that felt bad to me. It felt bad to me that what is happening in this fucking hellhole is literally buried. The stories are buried besides these punk-ass 60-minute segments that are all bureau approved. People need to know about what medical's like. They need to know how commissaries used as a weapon. They need to know about how the TV is a chain. They need to know about what the guards do, how they treat our families. And so I put that in there.

And because I filed that lawsuit, we have things like pictures. This is me being striker chaired. We have pictures in here of me being four pointed. Like we have it. We have pictures of Lieutenant Wilcox all busted up. There's a good one of the four pointed. Yeah. Like we have this shit.

Because otherwise, like people wouldn't believe it. People wouldn't believe me. That's Wilcox. Oh, bust it up, you clown. But so it's a story of what this prison's about, not just me like, look at my suffering. It's not about that because there's more of prison than just what you experience. As you know, like, there are stories that need to be told that will get, that will vanish. And I wanted to do my small part to make them stay alive.

And PM Press gave me that option. P.M. Press is a real publisher. And they're like, we believe in you, we'll take a chance on you. And we put out a really special book. Like, it's good. It's not just a boring-ass prison book because those do exist. I support them, but, like, they're out there. So I got really lucky that I got given these opportunities.

Well, Eric, I appreciate you coming out here and coming on the show today. Yeah, I appreciate you too, bud. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah, well, the link to the book in the description in this episode. Yay. Thank you.