Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Doctor — Then Got Sent to Federal Prison for 14 Years | Rich Morgan

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Rich Morgan graduated from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1998, completed his residency at NYU Rusk Medical Center in 2002, and had everything a decade of medical school and training was supposed to produce — until a common dental procedure exposed him to opioids and changed the direction of everything he had spent his career building. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what the ten year opioid addiction that followed that dental procedure actually looked like, what writing fraudulent prescriptions to pharmacies to fuel his addiction and eventually selling prescriptions to drug dealers actually involved, what getting caught after a customer cooperated with the government actually felt like, and what being sentenced to 168 months in federal prison as a doctor — and navigating the federal system as a Jewish inmate — actually required of him before he was finally ready to rebuild what the addiction and the federal system had taken. _____________________________________________ #doctor #prison #truecrimestories _____________________________________________ Thank you to HIMS & FACTOR for sponsoring this episode: Hims: Visit https://hims.com/lockedin to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. _____________________________________________ Factor: Head to https://factormeals.com/lockedin50off and use code lockedin50off to get 50 percent off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until! _____________________________________________ Connect with Rich Morgan: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richmorgan8761/?hl=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-morgan-b45366143 _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps:  00:00 Introducing Rich Morgan 00:16 Growing Up on Long Island 01:04 Parents and Early Life 01:51 Dreaming of Medicine 02:17 The Incident That Inspired Him 03:33 Fascination with Fixing 04:33 Medical Shows and College 05:31 College and Med School 06:18 What is a DO? 08:46 DO vs MD Schooling 09:57 The Growing Prevalence of DOs 11:05 Salary and Residency 12:15 The First Pill 14:09 The Spiral Begins 15:12 The First Pill Experience 17:19 Dentists and Overprescription 19:30 Writing Himself Prescriptions 21:39 Life at the Height of Addiction 23:12 9/11 and Its Impact 26:10 Sponsor Break: Weight Loss by HIMS 27:33 No Oversight in Hospitals 28:56 Pharmaceutical Wild West 31:16 Self-Image and Dope Sickness 33:16 Patients and Slipping Up 38:53 The Deal with a Dangerous Patient 40:49 Arrest and the Fallout 44:00 Sponsor Break: Factor Meals 46:01 Released on Bail 49:01 Sentenced to 14 Years 52:32 Why No Manslaughter Charge? 56:56 The Real Reason for Selling 58:05 Wife's Reaction and Family Drama 01:01:50 Comparing Sentences: Jared Fogle 01:02:39 Meeting Mobsters in Prison 01:04:33 Father's Support 01:06:06 First Stop: Transfer to Prison 01:07:40 Life at Morgantown 01:12:44 Pedophiles in Prison 01:16:51 Respect as the Doctor 01:20:05 Medical Care in Prison 01:23:24 Jewish Power in the Federal System 01:27:00 Power of the Jewish Community 01:28:25 Money and Influence Behind the Scenes 01:31:03 Taking Advantage of Religious Rights 01:33:52 Smuggling and Prison Life 01:37:08 What Happened to His Medical License 01:43:13 A New Career at His Med School 01:48:49 A Bad First Date 01:51:15 Inmate Dating and Visiting Lists 01:56:40 Final Thoughts and Thanks _____________________________________________  To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

My guest today is Rich Morgan. He graduated from medical school, became a doctor, and just 10 years later was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. Today, he's explaining how it happened. I grew up in Long Island. I was a kid of the 80s in Long Island. Very middle-class family, upper-middle-class, you know, basically brother, older sister, younger brother, parents, no issues. I lived a very normal average life. I mean, went to high school.

I was, you know, like a little bit of a geek, a little bit of a nerd, a little bit of a jock. I was like, I was what you call the wanderer. I went from click to click. I was in chorus. I was in plays. And I also played baseball. I wrestled. I was like, I couldn't figure out what I was.

And that's kind of like sums up my character in a way throughout my life. I never really fit into one category. So that was me growing up in Long Island. What was your parents' background? My dad grew up. He's an engineer, industrial engineer. He actually was the CEO of a company called S&S, which one of the world premier brassiere wires.

So I used to work in his factory in the South Bronx. And all my friends were jealous because it was like a few blocks from Yankee Stadium. So I knew all the secret ways to get to the stadium because I worked with them every summer. So everyone would always ask me where to park and we'd always go to Yankee. games as kids. So yeah, my dad was an engineer. My mom was a housewife, but later on in life, she became a teacher and got double masters, like, after the, started with the divorce of my parents in the 90s. And then she's basically just, yeah, she did teaching and she became a children's librarian. When you're in high school, did you have your life figured out? Did you know

what you wanted to get into? I always knew I wanted medicine. It was just something ever since I was a kid, I've always known I wanted health care and medicine was always a dream of mine. It probably goes back to an incident when I was like three or four years old. But in high school, it was never an issue. I was going to go to college. I was going to major in bio and I was going to just see where life went, you know, but I always knew I wanted to be a doctor. What was that incident? So I was three years old and I was chasing my brother. We were playing cowboys and Indians. And my brother was chasing my brother. He's a year and a half younger than me. And my mom said, stop chasing Michael.

And I said, please, I chased him and chased them. And as I turned, wham, I hit my head into the wall, into the corner of a wall, split my forehead open. My mom rushes me to the doctor, the pediatrician, old-time pediatrician, like Little House and the Prairie shit, right? He's got the old bag, you know, and everything. And he looks at me. And he goes, you need some stitches, Richard. I'm like, okay. So he starts to, he's going to numb this up.

I was like, it's okay. You don't have to. I'm like, you sure? I'm like, oh, yeah. And he starts to stitch my forehead, and I still have a scar here, if you can see it. And instead of just crying, I asked him to bring a mirror over so I can watch him do it. And I'll never forget that story. It's actually my first memory as a child.

I was three or four years old, and my mom says, she loves telling it, but I remember it as it's like my first childhood memory of asking the pediatrician to let me watch him stitch me up from a massive, open, aping wound in my forehead. So that's when I realized, you know, I could see myself doing something like this. What do you think it was about that that intrigued you? The way that he can take a horrible injury as a kid, you know, it's traumatic for a three-year-old to cut their forehead open. My mom's like, you're bleeding everywhere. And I'm like, oh, crap. And to see him, like, fix it up like that. And then the blood's gone. I feel fine. Didn't need any pain. killers or anything, which is ironic because, you know, my whole life up until the watershed moment I talk about, I never took pain killers in my life until when everything changed when I was in

med school. So that's, that, it's hard to put my finger on it, but I just remember the feelings I had with a lot of things in life. I don't always remember the date or time, but I remember how I felt. I remember how I felt when I took the first pill. I remember how it felt when he was stitching me up. I said that's something I can do. It just warmed me to see how someone can fix someone like that. And I wanted to do see if I can fix other people, too. Was there any doctor-type shows in your era growing up? You know, MASH was just ending.

I wasn't a MASH fam. Ironically enough, really not even the 80s, and I really didn't get into doctor shows until after college when ER came out. And I started watching ER. That was one of my favorite shows. Ironically enough, because I teach in a medical school, all my freaking students are watching Noah Wiley in the pit. I said, I watched Noah Wiley as a freaking medical student for five years, you know, on ER,

on NBC. And I'm like, it's just so funny. And I speak to my colleagues who are my chairs and my people I work with. And we're all like laughing because the pit is one of the most popular shows on TV. And I watched Noah Wiley 35 years ago, you know, doing his thing. And it's just so funny how life comes full circle like that. And he's doing just as well, if not better, than he did that back then. Where do you end up going to college?

I went to Union College and Schenectady, New York, did four years up there, majored in bio, loved my four years, small liberal arts school, engineering school also in Schenectady, which is near Albany, in the Tri-County area, upstate New York. And then I went off to med school after, went off to, I took a gap year, and then I got into med school. Where was medical school? I went to New York Institute of Technology, College of Osteopathic Medicine, known as NYTCOM. It's an osteopathic school, so I am a DO. And once I completed my four years of medical school, I went on to do a residency at NYU, the Rusk Institute for rehabilitation medicine.

I majored, I became a board certified in PM&R, which is physical medicine and rehabilitation. Now, DOO is that dentist? No, DO is a doctor of osteopathic medicine. and a DO is equivalent to an MD. There's literally no different. You have osteopathic doctors, which are DOs, and allopathic doctors, which are MDs. Essentially, they have the same licensure. They have the same ability to be surgeons, prescribed, and medicines, everything.

So whether you may realize it or not, and a lot of people may not, half of them, you know, there's hundreds of thousands of DOs. In fact, Dr. O'Connor, who was Biden and Obama's doctor, was a DO. So a lot of the surgeon, I think one of the surgeon generals of DO, there is a lot of DOs very influential in the medical world and in politics. And there really is no difference. But what thing that makes Dio's unique is that we focus on the musculoskeletal system, that we believe the body has an inherent ability to heal itself and that we just are there to help it along. So we learn these osteopathic techniques, which mostly are soft tissue, but there are ways that we can

help restore function to the body. And that includes doing myofascial, muscle strengthening, muscle energy techniques. We call them counterstrain. And a lot of times we get confused with chiropractors. And the main difference is chiropractors are not medical licensed doctors. They can't prescribe medications. They essentially, I know some wonderful chiropractors, but they do not have the ability to write prescriptions. And they are not, they're doctors of chiropractic, not doctors of medicine. So there's a slight, there's a difference there. And the main difference between what we do and chiro's do is they learn one main technique, which is mostly a high velocity, low amplitude technique to restoring function, like the cracking that you often see in movies and TV shows. That's

similar to what their primary focus is. Ours are much more soft tissue-based. And patients love the hands-on approach. We found that, and I've always learned that if a DO opens up a practice next to an MD, we will put them out of business within a year where that, I feel very confident in that because of our, not just the ability to provide hands-on technique where the patient can leave without a pill and get better, but we, and this is what I teach in the school, we learn communication styles, ways to really make the patient feel like they're part of the team and that they're that important. They're not a number.

They're not a disease. They are part of the learning and the healing process. And we go along with them. And we encourage them to be a part of that. And the patients see that. and they appreciate that. And that's really what a DO is. Now, how does a schooling for a DO compare to a schooling for an MD or is it the same? Eugenically the same. Most people apply to both. I do tons of admission interviews at our school. I speak with a lot of my colleagues at MD

schools and essentially it's the same. People, often students apply to both MD and DO schools. You can apply to Harvard Med, Yale, whatever it might be. Cornell is a big school in New York. Obviously, Columbia is a big one. And then a lot of students still apply to NYT, or P-com. There's about 42 DO schools in the country, obviously less than MDs, but we're a significant number of schools. And it's the learning is the same. In fact, I can tell you that in many schools and many hospitals, I should say, our students rotate with MD students and we get positive feedback from the residency directors saying that our students seem much more prepared clinically and being able to interact with patients than our MD counterparts.

And we hear this all the time. And it's just, it warms me to know that we're doing the right thing and that we're making a difference in the hospitals that we send our students into. Are DOs less common? There's less numbers of them, but they're growing in force year by year. So, Ian, what I can tell you is when I went to med school, I graduated in 1998. There were 13 DO schools. Today, there are 42 and 70, actually 70, if you include all the satellite affiliates. What I mean is our school, NYT in Old Westbury, Long Island, has a satellite in Jonesboro, Arkansas. We're literally one school, but we have a second campus on Arkansas State. So we have, not only we have the largest matriculating class, we have 1,200 students at our school alone,

but the other school in Jonesboro, that's part of our consortium, if you will, they have, under our umbrella, they have 125 to 130 students in each year's class. So when you combine the two, you can see it's a, it's a very, it's a big force. We have a lot of students with a lot of kids to take care of, and we do a real yeoman's job at it. And I'm really proud of the job that we've done in really procuring and fostering a positive environment for these students to go out into the world. Is the starting pay the same as an MD? Yep, same. There's no difference.

You don't get paid based on your degree. you get paid based on, well, residencies. So our doctors, our DOs, do MD residency. So once you graduate MD or DO's school, you can go into an MD residency. I'll give you an example. Me. I went to NYU. NYU is an MD, quote-unquote, alopathic residency program.

But there was a huge influx in the late 90s when I went there where they took a large number of DOOs. They took a chance. And they did so well. because our specialty DO's osteopathic medicine really aligns with physical medicine and rehab to the point where I feel that it's such a marriage, a perfect union to be able to apply, you know, what we do in PM&R is restore function. And that's exactly what DOs do in their everyday life. So I went to an MD residency, essentially, and I wasn't looking to, but they loved me. I love them. I was, I fortunately matched with them. There's a residency matching program. And you, I'm, I there and I spent my three years there. So it really worked out well. And I'm blessed to have gone there and I loved every minute of it. Now, you mentioned something significant happened to you in medical school. What was that? So in medical school, I had just started my rotations. I was a third year student.

And what happened was I started to have wisdom teeth pain. And my tooth pain was really becoming a real problem. And I'd never had problems with my wisdom teeth. So never had any surgeries, never took a pill in my life and ended up having this horrible pain. So I went to the dentist and he proceeded to start my wisdom teeth extractions. He said that they should all be pulled. So I said, fine. I listened to him. I had all four pulled. The first three went fine. The fourth one is what messed me up, Ian. The fourth one, I developed a 103 fever, lockjaw, abscess. I had a horrible infection in my mouth, a peridontal abscess, it the tooth. So he had to send me to the oral surgeon to get it drained surgically. And they prescribed me Vicodin. And I had never taken a pill. So let me

share this with you. I never took a pill in my life because I had a horrible pill, a gag reflex. My mom tried to slip when I was four years old. Again, back to that day. Sometime after the injury with my brother, I had an ear infection as a kid. And I refused. I didn't take pills, but my mom knew that so she tried to slip an antibiotic pill into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich not not making this shit up ice I as I take a bite out of it um I see what she did I threw up all over the place the peanut butter the pill everything to this day in I have never I have an aversion to peanut butter I don't eat peanut butter for the my last 50 plus years of my life and I hated pills because of that incident so the

ironic thing is I never took a pill up until this this infection into my mouth, I had no choice because I was in so much pain. I took the pill. The first pill I took was in 1997. Ten years later, I was arrested on a conspiracy charge. That tells you how insidious and fast and deprave this disease was and how much the disease of addiction affected me and led me down this 10-year path to my prison sentence. And it's, I never forget that because it's like, I don't, I don't even take pills. I forced myself. My mom's like, you got to take it. I'm like, that's why my ex-wife like blames my mom on my addiction and my prison sentence. Like literally, oh, your mother did everything.

She's the reason you went to prison. I'm like, listen, I own my mistakes. I mean, I didn't like stop her because I let her blame whoever she wants as long as she doesn't blame me. And this was a long time ago. Now, obviously, I own everything I've ever done. But it is amazingly ironic that the very first pill I took, I'll never forget it, was as a third-year medical student on my OB-GYN rotation from this. I had to take two weeks off to 10 years later in 1997 to 2007 where my arrest occurred. And it tells you how insidious and how progressive this disease was that really grappled me.

So what ends up happening? You take that first pill. The first pill was fine. It wasn't even that big of a deal. The pill took the pain away. It was like a low strength Vicodin or hydrocodone, as most people know it. Just regular strength. It didn't do much.

But then what happened was I was continuing to take the pills, even if the pain wasn't like a 10 over 10 or four of a five over 10. If it was even a little bit, I was just taking it as prescribed every four hours, not realizing it was as necessary. What happened was I started to notice a euphoria that I felt really good on it. But it did more than that to me. And it was like it empowered me. It made me feel more confident like I was on top of the world.

It made me feel like I can take on any situation. It gave me like a confidence to be around people or deal with stressful situations. It was quite amazing. And like I said, I can't always remember specific dates or times. What I remember was the first feeling I had, not just so much from the first pill, but the first time it gave me that euphoric feeling. And I remember I wanted to feel that again. And it was slow and insidious, one pill, then two, then three.

Oh, let me go to the dentist and get this prescription refilled. He gave me three refills. I mean, if you ask me, dentists cause more addicts than anything in the world because dentists just wrote prescriptions for Vicodin like it was fucking candy. I mean, literally, they would literally write three refills, 60 pills of Vicod. I'm like, holy shit, it's like I got a bank of pills here. And I can save them up. I can get a refill here and there.

And it's like, they set me up for failure. But hear me, I did my part. But they certainly didn't make it easier. If I didn't have the tools in front of me, then I couldn't have done what I did. But there was just this, there was this ignorance. There was this thing where, and I spoke into dentists since then at some of my other talks, and they're like, one dentist's oral surgeon told me, Dr. Morgan, you know, I would say more addicts were created by dentists than any single practice that I know because they were definitely overprescribed by dentists more than any of the specialty. Do you think that's because it's less regulated than they and doctor? It was much less regulated back then. So what I mean is these were Schedule 3 drugs. Vikidin, Tyler number 3,

drugs like that were scheduled three drugs. What does that mean? That means you can go and get a regular prescription back then. I can just get it refilled. It wasn't like what we call a triplicate prescription where one copy goes to the pharmacy, one goes to the federal government, to the DEA, and then one goes to the doctor. So it wasn't like that. Obviously, a lot's changed over the past 20 years, but back then there was no regulation, Ian.

It was so easy to doctor shop, which was really how my addiction really took off. When I realized what the pills were doing for me, I had to have more. So once I got my license, I was off to the races. I was able to literally write prescriptions for myself using a fake name. This is really how I did what I did. I would write prescriptions with a fake name on my Palm Pilot. We didn't have regular cell phones. I had a Palm Pilot.

And I would keep track on my Palm Pilot of every pharmacy I went to. Most of the pharmacies were a joke, one with a three-letter name that I won't mention. but that three-letter name pharmacy made it very easy for me to fill whatever I wanted it. It was ridiculous. I would go to the pharmacy as my patient. I would write the name Joe Smith, and I'd write the name on the prescription. I'd walk in, hi, I'm Mr. Smith. I'm a patient of Dr. Morgan's. I'd like to fill this prescription for Vicodin. Like, no problem. Have you been here before? I'd always say, no, this is my first time here. Do you have insurance? No, I don't have insurance, but I plan on getting it the next time I come in. And then I'd say, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd

I'd change the name, the number on the top of the prescription where it said my name and I'd write my cell phone number on the prescription. And I'd say, yeah, you can just call the doctor whenever you want. I'm going to come back in about an hour and I'll pick up the prescription. I'll pay cash this time, but I'll have my insurance on subsequent prescriptions, which I never did. I go to my car. The pharmacy would know without call my cell phone. Hi, this is Dr. Morgan.

I just left the pharmacy and I'm saying, hi, this is Dr. Morgan. Yeah, I wrote a prescription for Mr. Smith. My DEA number is so and so. my license number is so and so. And essentially they'd fill it. They'd no problem. 45 minutes later, I walk in with the cash and I got my prescription with refills. And I did that.

I'd write down that, this is how sick this disease is in. On my palm pilot, I would write down the pharmacy I just used. I'd write down my name, date of birth, and address that I used on that prescription. I'd write the day I filled it because I'd never go to the same pharmacy more than 30 days apart, less than 30 days apart. I had a list of 35 pharmacies in the tri-state area that I used to do this. And this lasted for about two and a half, three years. I got away with it for a really long time. Now, did I get prescriptions filled all the time?

No, some were smarter than others. Some of the non-three-letter pharmacies were really hard. But that's why I always fell back to that one because it was really a joke. And back then, like I said to you earlier, there's no system of oversight. There was no system by which the pharmacies were linked by computer to know that I just filled a prescription at pharmacy A, and then I can go to pharmacy B. That's all different now since I've been home. There's something called I stop. I stop now has been around about eight to ten years, I believe I was told, and they basically prevent doctor shopping.

By law, physicians now have to, once they write a prescription for an opiate, they actually have to go on eye stop by law. If they don't, they can lose their license. It's that serious. They have to run the physicians, the patient's name to see if they've gotten this person. description or any other opiate in the past 30 or 60 or 90 days. And they can tell because in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area, I stop helps prevent doctor shopping. So that's a system they didn't have back then. So all the pharmacies can view that. Correct. Even if it's a CVS over here, Walgreens over here, they could both view it. Whereas before back then they didn't have that. Before that, there was no oversight. I could walk into, I can walk into two CVSs on the same. I just said the three letter name. Sorry about

that. I said I could walk into two pharmacies on the same block. And even if they were, maybe not CVS, but definitely CVS and Dwayne Reed, which I did all the time. And I could fill one and then fill the other. But it had really affected my life. I would literally go to the pharmacy before I went to work because I had to have my pills. I had to have, it's funny, when my addiction was at its height, it wasn't even so much that I had to have the pills inside me. I had to have them on my body. There was a comfort it knowing that I had the ability at any time to get high, that I had the ability at any time to maintain that level of confidence and feeling of superiority that I can do anything on these pills. I never felt so great. It was just such a unique euphoric feeling. So, you know, all the TV

shows you see about doctors with addiction, you know, doapsick is one of my favorites. And when I watch that, I look at Michael Keaton. I say, that's me. That was freaking me. And I know exactly what he went through. So that's kind of like how it started, how it kind of progressed. And yeah, it was, it really just took off. And it was just, it was the oversight made it very easy for me. And it was unfortunate. You know, one event happened that we all know about 9-11. And that really affected me. I was actually working at Bellevue Hospital on the day the towers got hit. And I was, my addiction was just starting. I hadn't started with. oxy yet. I had just started with Vicodin, dilaudits. I would go into friends' medicine cabinets. I would

literally go to my parents' house. I take just enough pills so it wouldn't look like they were missing any. And I would feed my supply that way. I was crazy. I did everything that a normal addict, quote-unquote, would do. And on the day of 9-11, it really affected me. And I, you know, dealing with the people at Bellevue, I treated a lot of the victims. There weren't many victims. But Some of the patients are some very famous people that are known today that were the last survivors. This woman was pulled out after 12, 13 days in the rubble. She's a very famous woman. She was my patient.

So I got to treat a lot of those patients on the 9-11 and go into Bellevue every day. It really affected me, like, very viscerally, you know. And I got home that day. You know, we started the blood bank efforts at Bellevue. That memory wall that everyone sees. The reason why it affected me, too, is on that memory wall every day I went to work after 9-11. There was one face that I looked at. And that face, I looked at the face.

And he didn't look like me, but his name was Richard Morgan. That's my name. And what's scary to me is that someone named Richard Morgan died on 9-11. And I was there at Bellevue, you know, treating these people. And it's hard to say, I know it's just a name. But when you see your name on the memory wall and I looked into his eyes every day, it really affected me. Like, I can't even get to tell you the frustration, the sadness, the regret. I wished I could stop doing what I was doing, but I was going down this rabbit hole and I didn't know how to stop.

I didn't have to ask for help Ian. I was a freaking fucking mess. And I didn't know what to do. So that really affected me. And my drug use now had looked back and had processed this many, many times. I realized a lot of it stems from that event. And my drug use really took off after that. I went from Vicodin and other Tylen number threes.

I went right to oxy. But interesting enough, the first time I took oxy wasn't even, quote, unquote, my fault. The first time I took oxy, I was working at a practice in Murray Hill in Midtown Manhattan. And a patient who was post-op for a back surgery came back and said, Dr. Morgan, these pills were described by the orthopedists, but they didn't work for me. And I looked at the bottle and it said oxycodone. And I had never taken any oxies, but I was doing other stuff. And he goes, can you take these for me? And I had this thing where I didn't understand boundaries between doctor and patient.

I told patients to call me rich. Like I didn't even have them call me Dr. Morgan. I thought that was normal. But I learned due to my sentimentality that you need to set boundaries, I didn't do that. He gave me the pills. I put him away for safekeeping. And what happened was I found an excuse. I rationalized, justified, and minimize a reason to take one or two of his pills.

And again, I can't tell you the day it happened. but I can tell you the feeling I had. The biggest high I ever had on Vicodin, multiply it by a thousand. And that's how the oxy felt. And I knew I was never going to be the same after that. That was the most incredible feeling I ever had in a good way of what being high was like. And it took me to new heights that I didn't realize. And obviously, the decisions I made after that led me down the path of destruction.

Are you trying to lose weight this summer? If so, weight loss by Hymns is here to help. Hymns offers access to an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wagovi pill and the Wagovi pen designed to help you lose the weight and keep it off with support every step of the way. One of the biggest reasons people are turning to Hymns is the results. When combined with diet and exercise, Wagovi at Hymns can help you lose up the 20% of your body weight. It works by helping regulate your appetite, so you naturally eat less and have an easy easier time keeping the weight off.

And if you're not a fan of injections, Hymns also offers access to the new Wagovi pill, so there are no needles needed. Ready to reach your goals, visit Hymns.com slash locked in to get a personalized affordable plan that gets you. That's H-I-M-S.com slash locked in. Hems.com slash locked in. Weight loss by Hymns is not available in all 50 states. Gobi is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk A-S to get started and learn more, including

important safety information, will go be clinical study information and restrictions. Visit hymns.com. That's it. I'm switching to Hems. Now, because you were working in hospitals and other facilities, there was no safeguard in place for when you're writing prescriptions to a patient. It's so funny you say that, again, no. There was no oversight. I'll give you a great example. as a resident at NYU, okay, patients were getting discharged all the time on my, on my floor. And I would literally go down to the pharmacy myself.

I write the prescriptions for the patient. I would go to the pharmacy and pick them up. No one would notice if I wrote an extra prescription for Vicodin or Percocet or whatever. They weren't checking anything. It was a hospital. What doctor's going down to take a hot patient's prescription and then pocket it? I did that all the time. I realized that that's how messed up the whole thing was.

So there was no system. It was not like Nurse Jackie. I can, you can get pills. There was no oversight, Ian, it was ridiculously easy. Now, thank God things have changed, and you can't do that today. But this is the Wild West of pharmaceuticals back in the early 2000s. I mean, drug reps for Purdue were taking me out to Nobu. I was going to spice market.

These are all top restaurants. Tao was a big thing that we went to. The drug reps were throwing money around right and left. Obviously, if you're maybe not aware, but they pass laws. They can't do that anymore. They're not allowed to spend money. They have to give a drug-related talk. It has to be, you can only, you can only do, like, more than 50% of the dinner has to be, you know, of some sort of educational material provided.

They, we didn't talk shit. We went to Tao. They fed us, they boozed us up and literally did you're like, hey, Dr. Morgan, you're one of our top prescribers. Enjoy the sushi. You know, and that's what it was like. Again, wild, wild west, pharmaceuticals, the pharmaceutical reps. So when you watch Doapsic, which is about the rise and fall of Purdue Pharma and what they did, and it's frustrating to watch because it makes me angry when I see what the drug companies like Purdue knew about Oxy

and what they did to actually feed the addiction of all those minors in West Virginia and Virginia and all over the Midwest. It's really awful and that they knew what they were doing. And it's always bothered me. But you know what? I've owned what I did. I know my place. And I, you know, that's why I did everything I could to atone for my sins and do something positive with it. How come still to this day you don't need a license to pick up a prescription?

It's just date of birth and last name. Interesting. I think I don't take opiates. I have had them in the hospital because I did have a major back surgery and I've had some dental procedures. But I always get permission when I do it. I'm very honest about when I do take them. It's very rare, but I have taken them. But as far as I know, when you fill a prescription, you do need to show a formal ID, especially if it's a triplicate.

It does. It does. Yeah. So if you go in for, if you're just picking up, you know, Tylenol or you're picking up lysinepro or Zocor or blood pressure pill or GLP, you're not, you don't need to show any real formal ID. But if you need any triplicate, any a schedule two drug or higher, which means any opiate, any like it is. Any sleep pill, Ambien, Sonata, those medications, you have to have to show ID. They do double triple checks. I've seen it because I go to the pharmacy.

I take some blood pressure pills in here and there. And I do take eye drops as well for medical condition. But yeah, I've never been asked for an ID in those situations. But everyone who takes a schedule two, which is a very high, a powerful opiate or a benzodiazepam, which is like Xanax or Valium, you have to show ID. How did you think of yourself back then when you were writing those prescriptions to yourself and conducting yourself the way you did? The funny thing is, I felt totally normal.

I felt totally with it. And I never really looked at myself in the mirror and said, what the freak am I doing? I never said those things because I was just being myself. You know, I was getting away with it. But it wasn't so much about what I was getting away with Ian. It was more that there was a time. And again, this is like a gray area.

I talk about a lot of gray areas because I don't remember always dates. But there was a point where I stopped trying to feed the euphoria. And I was just trying to prevent the dope sick. Because when you're on as many pills as I was taking a day of oxy, and I don't like to tell war stories, but I'll just say it this one time, at my height, I was taking 1580s a day. 15 oxy 80s a day is a shitload. That's 1,200 milligrams of oxy.

That would kill a horse. And I worked up to that dose. But I was so consumed with preventing the dope sick, which I would not wish on my worst enemy. Those were the worst days of my life. In other words, if I went 12 hours without a pill, I was up Schitt's Creek. I started to get the sweats, the shakes, horrible splitting headaches, gastric pains that would blow you away, things coming out of me from both ends that were just not pleasant to look at or see. I would never wish dope sickness on my worst enemy. And it was horrible.

And I was very good at minimizing it. My wife would say, you know, at the time, she'd be like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I just don't feel well today. I was able to, like, wheeze on my way out of everything. Because she just saw me as a doctor. She didn't see me as an addict. And I was able to hide it all this time while it was going on for many, many years. I was really good at.

There was one thing I was good at. And as you learn in recovery, we're only as sick as our secrets. And I was a big fucking sick. So very big with my secrets. So I was able to hide it for a very, very. a long time, but all good things come to an end. How do you think you were with your patients? Actually, I was pretty good with my patients when I was under control, when I thought I had control. But it was, I had good relations with them. The pills helped me communicate better. At least

that's how I justified it to myself. But ironically enough, later on, I started to act weird around my patients. I started to combine, because I couldn't afford the oxies, they were really expensive. So I started popping Xanax too. I was taking a shitload of Xanax. I was taking about 10 to 15 Xanax a day on top of that. And the Xanax, for those of you don't know, is a benz-a-asepam, and it's a depressant. It puts you to sleep. But the balance of the two, the Xanax I took, I justified to myself to take it to prevent the dopesick.

But I was taking those a lot of times with patients. And I would have my secretary come and say, she'd see me sleeping. and she'd come over to me and say, you know, Dr. Morgan, you okay? And I'm like, yeah, what's up? And she'd be like, oh, your patient just left because you fell asleep in front of them. Like this happened a number of times, Ian, like I had my secretaries literally embarrassed because a patient walked out of the room and I was falling asleep in front of them. And it really was very embarrassing to me.

But my patients, when I started the height were the reason that I eventually went to prison because what happened was I was working at a practice, an urgent care center out in Farmingdale, Long Island, one day a week on Fridays. And the very first time I'll never forget this day, these young kids came into the office, 22 years old kid. And he says, hey, Dr. Morgan, I don't want to take too much of your time. I was just in a car accident. I need some pills. If you can help me out, I'll get out of your way. And I said, he just said, I need, he wrote down the names and he wanted like, oxygen.

He wanted something called Narcos, which is like Vicodin times 10. It's like Vicodin with no Tylen. It's really like a powerful form of Vicodin. And he wanted soma, which is a muscle relaxing. And he said, for your troubles, here you go. And he lays $1,200 in cash, $1,200 bills on the table. And I said, what the fuck? Am I taking this money?

He's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. He puts another thousand down. So he in front of me on this Friday, he has about $2,000. 22, $2, $2,300 and $100 bills. And the drug addict in me says, this one time I will do it because I need this money to feed my habit. So I said, I'll do it this one time.

And of course, I did it. And that was really the beginning. So then what happened was ran out of the money. I needed more. And then he came back to me like every month. And he would come back with another $2,000 just for like three or four prescriptions. And I'm like, this is the easiest fucking money ever made, you know. And then this is what happened.

I come to work about a month later. And I'm not kidding. In the end, there were 20 fucking people outside the dregs of society with my patient waiting for me. They all heard about what he was doing. And they all wanted a piece of the action. And I'm like, this is fucked up. I literally pulled this kid aside. I won't say his name because he's on my docket.

And I said, listen. I'm done. I'm not doing this. I don't know what the fuck you thought you were going to do by in telling every person you know that I'm just going to be giving them prescriptions. Get the fuck out of here. He's like, I'm so sorry, please. I didn't mean anything by it. He sent everyone home in the next half hour.

I didn't see any of them. But again, I minimized it by allowing his roommate and one other guy. So there were three guys total that I was selling prescriptions to from that point on. And I minimize it in my head by, I would like take, we had these triplicate pads. I would take middle of the pad of like something I hadn't used, figuring that the feds would never know. And I'd write that. But I'm thinking, oh, no one's going to ever pick up on that because I was doing them out of order.

You know, the addict's mind doesn't realize what they're doing. So I was doing this over the next couple of years. But what happened was I ended up getting into a car accident. my sister, who's a pharmacist, actually down the road here in Ingleheim Boringer, my sister works here. I've never been to Ridgefield, Connecticut. My sister works here. So she was laughing when I told her I was coming here today. And my sister knew that there was a problem because she found pills scattered all over my car. And they had an intervention for me, and I was sent to rehab. So I was gone for like three or four months. I was sent to Florida. And I mean, I fucked up in rehab too. I got kicked out of two rehabs, almost got arrested in a rehab. that's another crazy story too but I ended up coming back and ended up the day I got back I never took another pill but I still practiced addict behavior so I came back when it's my practice and I'll never forget the first day I came back I guess the first patient I bought the prescription from me knew I came back I don't know how we knew we must have called the office every day for

three months he comes in I remember it was raining he comes in slamming the door. It was late in the day. It was like 6 p.m. He's like, where the fuck have you been? And his eye, he's like half balding. He's got like bug eyes staring at me. Where the fuck have you been? And I'm like, excuse me? I said, I had, I had a medical condition. I told him I had cancer and I was getting treatment for it. I just, I just said cancer. I don't know why I would lie about that. But, you know, I was scared. But look in his eyes freaked the fuck out of me. And I literally said, he's like, I need something now. I'm like, what do you need? So, the thing I need to tell you is that while I was away, my wife at the time called me and told me that there was a guy following at our house.

Like shot, it was someone outside our house for a while and I knew it was this kid. So I got scared. I started to fear for myself. So when he came in, I thought of that incident that she told me about and I said, this is one of those watershed moments where the right thing would have been to call the police. But I also knew that I'd be incriminating myself. So I'd be bringing myself down. So again, bad decision, typical addict behavior. I decided that if I just kept writing the prescriptions for him, I never used again.

But if I wrote the prescription from him, I wouldn't have to worry about any kind of like fearing of my safety or anything like that. And that's what I did. And I continue to write some prescriptions for him. And then ultimately what happened was him and his roommate took pills, a bunch of stuff, not just the pills that I wrote, but a lot of other stuff. And his roommate overdose had died. His roommate died, and he died. He had, like, 18 drugs in the system. It wasn't just opiate.

He was on speedballs, cocaine, meth. Like, there were, like, I saw the tox report because it was sent to me after they, I got served with a lawsuit. It was a $50 million lawsuit. And they tried to incriminate. At the time, what happened was they found the pills at his bedside. And what happened was this is February 4th. 14th, Valentine's Day 2007. And the roommate gave me up.

The one who bought the pills, he ratted me out. And then the feds within three months built a case, got an indictment. And they arrested me the day after Mother's Day on May 15, 2007. And that was it. That was the last day of the first day of the rest of my life. So I was walking out to my car. and I hear a quiet day in Oceanside. I had a Toyota Camry.

I go to open the door and I hear Dr. Morgan and within 30 seconds, three black SUVs pull out, throw me against the car, handcuff me, read me where I writes, and tell me that I'm under arrest for conspiracy to distribute oxycodone. My wife and my one and a half year old at the time are standing at the front door. And the cops look at me and they go, do you have any guns in the house? And I said, no. They go, do you have any prescriptions in the house? I said, yes.

They go in the house. They take all the prescriptions. There's a couple of boxes of them, hundreds of them, unused, of course. And they put them in the car and they take it. They drive me to Melville, Long Island, where their DEA offices. So I was arrested by the DEA diversion division, if you will. And that's when I had the toughest interview. My dad hired me an attorney, a very prominent attorney, Murray Richmond and his daughter, Stacey, Richmond.

and Stacey was my attorney. They represented DMX and a lot of famous rappers and other people in the Bronx. And ended up, you know, letting me continue to practice for like two years. I got out on my own recognizance. And then I fucked up. I was out practicing. I got a job. I left the practice I was in the city.

And I ended up going to work in Rosedale Queens. I rented out a small room. I was doing no fault for a lawyer, my friend set me up with. And what happened was I never took another pill, but I was taking, I decided I missed that that high, but I wasn't going to mess up. So I decided to take Sudafed. So Sudafed back then was like the ingredient that was used in meth. So I was buying Sudafed from the pharmacies.

But little did I know because I'm an addict was that there's an act that allows the government to control and monitor Sudafed purchases. You're not allowed to purchase more than three grams in a one-month period. And I was buying like five grams. So on March 22nd, 2009, I'll never forget it. I was in the shower. And my wife knocks on the bathroom door and she says, Rich, there's two U.S. Marshals here to arrest you.

And I said, what the fuck? They knock on the door. And they say, Mr. Morgan, can you please come out? And I say, but I'm naked. I need clothes. Like, we'll get your wife to get your clothes. I said, why are you here? They said, you know why I'm here.

I said, I don't. I said, I haven't sold any prescriptions. You violated the terms of your parole. You basically purchased all the suit of fed. I said, but I'm an addict. And they said, I don't care. That's not my job. I'm just here to do my job. And they arrested me. And that was the last day I saw freedom for until I got sentenced to 168 months. As you know what's done in months. And I was sentenced on May 19, 2007, to 168 months in prison. I'll be honest, over the past year, my fitness journey has been a little bit of a struggle. Sometimes I fell off the bandwagon, didn't eat right, eat fast food, didn't eat clean, and felt like crap most of the time. But for the last couple months, I've been dialed in and started using Factor Meals.

Factor makes chef crafted, dietitian designed, ready to eat meals, so you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. Factor meals are ready in just two minutes and require no prep and no cleanup. So even on the days your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable. Mondays are my favorite day of the week because that's when we get Factor delivered straight to the Lockton with the NBIC Studio, where all my guests and my employees, me included, get to enjoy Factor meals throughout the week. I have some of my personal favorites right here. This is the homestyle herb chicken. I eat this probably five times a week for lunch.

five times a week for lunch. They got cold pressed juices. They got smoothies with caffeine in them so that way you can skip the energy drinks. I've been loving these keto chocolate chip cookies. If you have a sweet tooth like me but want to stay away from the desserts, these are a perfect option and they taste better than regular cookies. We got our overnight oats. We got our blueberry super food bar and one of my personal favorites, the chocolate peanut butter bar, packed with protein, great snack either before my interviews or before I hit the gym, absolutely to die for. Let's Eat Real. Head to factor meals.com slash locked in 50 off and use code locked in 50 off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year

while supplies last until October 31st, 2006. That's code locked in 50 off at factor meals.com slash locked in 50 off at factormeals.com. See website for more details. And remember, guys, I will never promote something to you that I don't personally use. You see me talking about Factor every day on my social media. Go try it today. Wait, so why did they leave you out for two years and why didn't they report you to the, what is it, the medical board? They let me out because I was, I got out on my own recognizance awaiting trial. And the judge at the time, I'm at my arraignment, this guy, Judge Boyle, he allowed me to continue, my lawyer was good. She allowed me to continue to practice until I was convicted. I hadn't been convicted yet.

Oh, so it wasn't like a deferred prosecution? No, no. I was just, we just kept delaying delaying the case. It was, we were going into motions and, and status, sentencing, status of sentence, you know, all that stuff. Status conferences, they call it. So we go to court. We're preparing, you know, I don't think the intention of me was to ever go to trial. I was going to plea. I was going to plea to, like, you know, my lawyer said I could probably end up doing five years, you know, at the most. And I thought that was a lot. I'm like, shit, I don't want to do five years for popping pills. Well, you did more than pop pills, Dr. Morgan. And she taught me one thing that I never learned, never forgot to this day. And she said, never, whenever you're questioned by anyone, feds or otherwise, remember every

question they ask you, they already know the answer to. So please be honest with them. And that's exactly what I was. The day they interviewed me, then they came back. They interviewed me again. And they basically told me, you know, we know what you did. We know you took the pills. We know you wrote prescriptions in the middle of your pads and then try to like deceive us. Who the fuck do you think we are? They're like cursing me out. They knew everything I did and it was scary. I felt naked. I felt hopeless. I was like, oh my God, I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was. So I just was very brutally honest with them. I told them everything I did that in the case. And they agreed to let me, they fought to keep me incarcerated, but my lawyer fought and proved that I was.

I wasn't a danger or a threat to anyone. I have no criminal record. I was an upstanding member of my community, a practicing Jewish doctor from Long Island, and I wasn't a threat to violate. So they let me out. And the day that this arrest happened with the pseudofed, they took me right to the same office from a year and a half, two years that I was at the first time. The same prosecutor looked me in the eyes. Who the fuck?

You know, we let you out. We were nice to you. And this is how you were past. I said, I popped some pills, lady. I didn't kill anyone. I mean, what I did was to myself, and I'll never understand the attitude they took. And they make it, she made it look like I killed her first borny. And it was like, what the fuck?

I just took Sudafed. I fucked up. I admitted. But to sit here and say that I destroyed your conscience and your life, they made me about to be like Hitler. And I was like, I just popped some fucking Sudafed. My God, calm down, lady. And I was just, I was blown away to their reaction to what I did. I said, I'm an addict.

I fumped up. I said, you know, I learned my lesson, but now they wanted to throw the book at me. They wanted me to get the max, which was 20 years. And I'm like, shit. I, if I do 20, I don't know how the hell I'm going to live in. I mean, that's crazy. So I went to, you know, obviously by then, now I was in Nassau County Jail. I was in there for like four months.

And I had seen the latter day. I had very few visitors and stuff. And then I got sentenced in May and I was sentenced to, I guess at the time it's easy to look back and say, wow, it was only 14 years, 168 months, but you know what? It could have been 20. Now, everyone who I met in prison, which I'm sure we'll get to, always said, Doc, who the fuck did you kill?

I said, I didn't kill anyone, you know? And they were like, how did you get so much time? I'm like, I sold a lot of pills, you know? So one thing I learned was there's something Ian called relevant conduct. So even though I wrote, let's say, 10,000 prescriptions that were. sold, whatever the number is. I wrote like a hundred, ten times that from myself. Because I wrote them for myself and it was part of a conspiracy, they call that relevant conduct. So every pill prescription I wrote for myself was included in my conspiracy charge. That's what I had a hard

time grasping, which is why I got 14 years. And that was really what affected me. The day I got sentenced, I almost passed out. My sister had to catch me. I was at the eastern central I slip courthouse, the federal courthouse. My dad, my mama there, they were devastated. I mean, it was like I saw my life pass before my eyes. And my wife didn't even go to court. And my sister had to catch me. And that was like the last time I was outside for many years. Now, that guy that you were selling to, was he just using or was he reselling? He was reselling. He was reselling. He bought them to distribute them. And he was the primary rat on my case.

He received, if you guys know, a 5K one letter. He got the 5 case, which is assistance to the DA. And he didn't do any jail time. He got six months probation. Now, how come they didn't charge you with manslaughter for his roommate's death? Because they couldn't prove I did it. Like I said, he had 18 drugs in the system. And it wasn't.

Opiates usually don't just cause the overdose. But he had Coke, meth. He had lots of things. So the family knew that there was never a case against me for his death. They used it to indict me on the conspiracy charge. However, the family did serve me while I was out on supervised release. The family served me with a $50 million lawsuit. But obviously, I had medical insurance malpractice at the time, and I didn't make anywhere near that.

So I did settle out of court with them and the insurance company, like $15,000. Maybe I gave 15 and the insurance paid $15. They ended up getting 30, I think. total. But, you know, it's easy for me to say, well, I didn't put the pills in his mouth, but I still own everything I did. Whether or not he got some pills from me and some from other doctors, because there were other doctors there, they couldn't prove that the specific pills that he took from me with all the other drugs in the system caused his death. It's just too much to prove. And the family is low from middle of Long Island. I don't think they had the legal wherewithal

all the fees to maintain a prolonged law. sue, especially with me in prison, it would have been very challenging. And an uphill battle, even today, it's very hard to sue doctors and win. There's a lot of red tape. It's very, very challenging to prove, unless you know, these doctors that are like the obes at Columbia, whatever, that they're spying on their patients and shit. So there's a lot of craziness out there and a lot of crazy guys I met in prison from that standpoint.

But, yeah, they never charged me with that. And I was never really worried about that. But at this point, it didn't matter. I was going to prison for 14 years. So I just saw everything that I had ended, losing my family, my job, my profession, you know, my self-worth, you know, and that was the worst part, you know, you know, realizing what I did and how to come back from that was really hard. I had to figure out what I could do next because it took me a long time to realize what I could

even do with myself. Now, when people, you know, hear a doctor, you're working at your own practice, $2,000 doesn't seem like a lot that the guy handed you. compared to what you were probably making at the time. It's funny you say that because I actually didn't make that much money. You know, I was not a businessman. I did not put myself in the best situation to succeed. I'll be straight.

You know, my first year out, you know, people have these images of doctors making $250, $500,000 and whatnot. I made $125,000 my first year out. I wasn't killing it. My wife wasn't working. She was a doctor's wife at the time. And I was making enough money to do okay. And I'm not trying to justify the sales. of the medication. For me, the money was about having the cash to pay for the pills that was untraceable.

That, to me, what it was about during my addiction. When I came home from rehab, it wasn't so much about that about the fear that I had for my family safety to continue that, yeah, I know I took the money. I'm not saying I didn't. And since then, I've owned it. You know, I've atoned for my sins and done my time. At the time, though, I was fearful for my safety and my family safety. And again, And since I hadn't been arrested at the time, my fear was incriminating myself if I came forward with any information about what he was doing to me. So I knew that anything I said would put me and my family's life in jeopardy or at least, you know, their future if I was to go away.

Before you started selling and you were using your own money, your wife never noticed the money missing? There was no money missing because I used the cash. But I thought you weren't selling at the time at that point. Which, um. You said you had no money, you were hurting for money, and you were, that's why you started selling, too, for that extra. Well, I didn't have the liquid cash, you know, the money from our accounts, we never kept a joint account. We had my own account and she had our own account.

We always kept our separate accounts. That was the way it worked out, and I was glad because she really didn't have, if she ever needed money, I wrote her a check. Or back then, you know, there was no Venmo or Zell. I was just like giving her a check. So if she needed a check, she had access to her own checkbook, but she didn't really have access to my personal account. It was the way it worked out. So, yeah, there were always that ability to keep secrets from her and give her money whenever she needed, but not really knowing the nuts and bolts of my spending and earnings, so to speak. But she knew what I made.

And, you know, the money came in from there. But for me, having the liquid cash was just easier for me to make the transactions at pharmacies and doing it that way so that I can avoid putting anything on a paper trail, so to speak. So that's why the money for that, what I'd said was I needed the cash to purchase the pills where what I meant to say was in addition was so that there would be no paper trail. And then I could have that cash and not even worry about having it. And the pills were expensive. We're talking $10, $12 a pill. Now, since I was away, I learned what the street value was. It was like a $10 a dollar a milligram.

So the pills that I met guys in prison, they go, Doc, yo, doc, the shit, they're selling in West Virginia because I was in West Virginia. They were like $80 to $100 a pill. Like, it's insane to think. $125 they were going for when the restrictions were even put in place. So people were paying crazy money for a pill. But yeah, then I learned, like, in rehab and prison, like how people were ingesting these pills.

I mean, I was popping them like regular pills. But apparently, these pills had a matrix in them that was a powder. So people were crushing the pills up, injecting them, liquefying them and injecting them. Some people were snorting them. You might see these old TV shows where 20 years ago, that's what people who were really addicted were doing it. I never did. I'm popping them like candy.

I never thought of it. I'm like, shit, I've never even thought of that. Like, breaking them up and shooting them and snorting them. To me, it almost made me feel like that's a worse stigma, if you will, because that makes me feel like a crack or cokehead. And I'm going to take pills like that. So, but yeah, it was kind of freaky to think about, like, how that was going on. But it was not so much, like I said, I was struggling for money.

It was more about how can we avoid any kind of exposure that would put any suspicions on me for making my pill purchases at a pharmacy? again, I was sick enough to want to go to a pharmacy to get these pills filled. I did not want to go on the street. Like, what's the difference? If I bought them on the street versus at a pharmacy, I almost felt like I was legitimizing my drug use, you know? And I even oftentimes, I had patients that would literally some of the patients would go

to the pharmacy for me. I would write them a prescription, hey, can you pick this one up for me too? I mean, it was ridiculous. I was sick in the freaking head. You know, the things I did were just insane. And thinking back on it, it's like, man, I know addiction makes you do insane things, but, man, it really does. It takes it to another level, especially when you think back on it when you were at the height of those things, where you just weren't thinking straight. Now, how does your wife react when you first get arrested?

She was stunned. She was absolutely stunned, because you got to remember, I hit everything from her. She knew I was addicted because they sent me to rehab. So the time context is I was in rehab from April to August of 06. I got arrested for the first time in May of 07. So over that time, she knew I was an addict. She knew that I was in recovery. She was driving me to meetings and stuff.

I was going to meetings every week. But she didn't know about the pill writing and the selling for money. So you got to remember, the first time she saw or knew sniffed, any of that was the day I was arrested. So that was something we never really talked about. She never once visited me in prison, Ian. I have two daughters that never saw me in prison. And I, she basically just, she didn't completely, she didn't want to visit me because she didn't want my kids to be brought to a prison. But I spoke to her, like I call the three times a week for 15 minutes because as you know, we had 33, I think 300 minutes a month.

I never used it up, but I would call three times a week for 15 minutes. It would be five minutes with her, five minutes with each of my daughters. Here's the funny thing. This is going to blow your fucking mind. about six months after I ended up in federal prison. My mom, I call my mom, and she says, rich, you're not going to believe what happened. Pam, my wife, her dad was arrested. It was arrested for solicitation of a 13-year-old minor in Queens Boulevard.

He was in Rikers Island. I was like, what the fuck? I said, my kids, dad, my wife's father was arrested. I could not fucking believe this. My mom sent me the article. You ready for this? they thought what he did was not as bad as what I did. I said, you know what?

I'll take 20 years of my crime over his anytime. Now, did he beat the charge? Not really. What happened was he got it. The lawyer got him out saying it was an entrapment, but they had all the texts and everything. But he still, I think he pled no contest because he still had a file as a child sex offender,

level two for 10 years. He wasn't allowed at my kids' bat mitzvah. He wasn't allowed. Pam had my wife had to figure out a reason to tell my daughter why he couldn't be there. So he was up shit's creek. My freaking, so my wife has her husband in federal prison, her dad in Rikers Island for, he was only there for like three weeks or three weeks, whatever it was. But he got out. But the fact is her world just fell apart.

Someone who was just wanted to be a doctor's wife and live in a luxury life on Long Island. Just realized everything just blew up in her fucking face. So you got to think about it. And I'm like, I'm in prison reading this email. I'm like, yes, I'm no longer the badass. He's the badass. And when I got home, they all said what I did was worse than him. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

I'm a God in prison compared to what he did. You know, I'm just an addict who sold some pills, big deal. He's like, and this is the time he was caught. As we know, I was in prison with pedophiles. My God, there's usually a long trail of him. And the fact is, I know what happens to them. I've seen it with my own eyes. And to think about what he did and to hear her family tell me that what I did was worse

and what Pam said that I did was worse, you'd be fucking kidding me. I'm like, I would take 20 years or more, Ian, for my crime, for over one month of what he did. It's not even close. Yeah, he got out, but he's always going to be a child predator and everyone knows it. And to me, there's no escaping that. And I'll never understand that philosophy. Everyone I know agrees with me, but you know what? I can't speak for what their thoughts are on that.

And you know what's crazy too? And we had talked about the soft camera because you showed me a picture of you. But Jared Fogel got the same time as you. I know. How does that make? He got 15 years. Around kind of the same time. He got the same sentence as me.

However, he got a lifetime of level three sex offender. How does that happen? I don't know. And I didn't kill anyone. I sold pills. I was an addict. And, you know, I paid for my time. I did my sentence, but you're right.

It's just like everyone's time is different. You know, and what's scary is, I mean, there's murderers. I was with capos in the mob. I met some really people high up. In fact, I was in the halfway house with a guy who supposedly, and he would talk about it all the time, was the shooter in the Gambino case, the Castellano case in front of Spark Steakhouse. They say he's like, yeah, everyone tells me I pulled the trigger.

And he's got his own Wikipedia page, but I was there with him. To this day, I'm still. Is that the one that's doing podcast now? Can I say his name? Yeah, John Carniglia. John is a great guy. He's so sweet guy. We came friends there.

I still keep in touch with him. I remember being with a friend of mine. And I go, hey, you know, my friend Jared, he's like, I said, you know, we were going up to visits Union College. And I said, hey, you want to see me talk to John? John who? My boss, John, I call him. So I have his cell phone. John did 40 years.

He did 40 years, lots of bodies, all this. He got out. He had a big party. All his capos brought, like, this Italian food into the habit. So it was like, I'm not kidding. In hundreds, there were literally 50 to 100 Italian dishes brought from one of the places where he's from in Sheep's Head Bay, where they all live in Brooklyn. And he brought all that food.

So I called John on the phone. I'm like, hey, John, it's Doc. He's like, yo, Doc. How are you? Good to hear you. I said, I told my friend, Jared, he couldn't talk. And I got him on the phone. He's like, he couldn't believe the conversation I was having him.

Jared's like loves the internet. He's Googling him and looking. He's like, holy shit. Sparks, Castellano, this and that. He's like, how the, he's like, Jared, he's a pediatric cardiologist. He does, he can, he has everything he needs. But he, for him to know me, we grew up together to know. know someone who knows people like this blew his mind. You know, it was, it was fascinating for him. I was

glad I could provide him with a little entertainment, but it was a lot of fun. And I've met some really cool people in the way. In fact, you probably know this. Some of my best friends are from prison. Like I, some of my closest friends to this day, because we're always going to be brothers. And I still remain friends to this day. And they are my closest friends. How did your dad react to your arrest? He was a prominent businessman. Yeah, my dad was a prominent businessman. He was working hard. and I think he was really devastated. But you know what? My dad recovered and my dad, without any doubts, I can say this with all honesty and without

even blinking an eye is my fucking rock. My dad is the only person who visited me every single year, Ian, on my birthday for eight, nine years. Every year he came. He'd made the eight and a half hour drive with his best friend. He never missed a birthday. In addition, he financially helped out my wife at the time and my kids, with their rents. The day I got sentenced, I looked my dad in the eye before I left the courtroom

and I said, Dad, I need you to do a favor for me. I need you to be the father that I can't be until I get out. And he's like, I got you. And he took that to heart, Ian, and he literally was the father I couldn't be. He took care of my kids in every which way. He did what he could to help them out. And in addition, he visited me. Now, I'm not, Mike, I love my brother and sister came a couple times as well, not every year because of the, they had to work. They had families. My brother has a wife and a kid also. My sister has two daughters and she went through her own hell. But the fact is, I, my dad made it a point to always be there for me. And to this day, I will be eternally and forever grateful to him. He has literally got shits for years for me for a lifetime.

I will always be grateful and indebted to him. And he is, like I said, my rock through all of that. And to him, I owe everything. So now you got 14 years in prison. Where do they send you first? They sent me after Nassau County Jail. I was sent, did four months there. I got then sent to the airport, obviously, in, you know, Stewart Air Force. Then they flew me to Oklahoma.

I spent, I was in Chickashe, if you know, of Grady County. That was the worst of the places. I was a month in Chickashechia, Chickasaw, Chickasay. Oklahoma. I was in the jump shoot from a brother where art that was crazy. I was literally right out of the 50s in. And it was like 30 guys in triple bunk beds for a month. They had something called tiger commissary.com. You literally, you had to get your family to go on a website to purchase the contents of the commissary. And then once a week you would get it on a Thursday. It was the worst fucking prison I'd ever been in. It was really just a county jail, though. After that,

I was sent to Elton, Ohio, which is an FCI. It's a low. So the FCI there, Elton, was a 2,000-man prison. They had a couple of different big units, and I spent two years there. That's where I did the first, you know, real hard prison time. A lot of chomos there, a lot of pedophiles, crazy people. They had an R-DAP, a drug treatment program, but I couldn't be a part of it because I still was more than 10 years out of my sentence. you can only start to do it from 10 years in.

And I had what's called, yeah, so once I became under 10 years, I was able to transfer. You get something put on when you can't transfer until you're less than 10 years. It's a PSF. You might have heard of it, a public safety factor. Once you become under 10 years, you're eligible to be transferred. So I use my Jewish ability because I know the Jewish community had a large influence in federal prisons. and I reached out to them and I wanted to go to Otisville. And I try to get moved to Otisville and they said,

okay, we'll see what we can do. I'll try to get you out of Otisville. I'm like, and I'm like acting it out because this is all through emails. So they basically sent me to Morgantown. I'm like, what the fuck? I don't want to go to Morgan Town, West Virginia. I'm trying to get out of Hicksville. You sent me into the heartbeat of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Like, what the fuck? So they sent me to Morgan Town and I figured, oh, well, my last name's Morgan. Let's just send him to Morgan Town. I'm like, it was probably that stupid. So I wanted to be near my kids. I wanted to see my family and I wanted to make it easy for my dad. So they sent me to Morgantown, which is further than Elton. It's like I'm literally Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia.

It's all in that same area. And what I learned was West Virginia, I think other than Texas has the most federal prisons in the entire system. It's ridiculous. They sent me to West Virginia, which Elkton is an FCI, but Morgantown is not a camp. but it's a low. But you have a lot of freedom of movement. So what I liked about it, Morgantown prison used to be called the Kennedy Center.

It was owned by the Kennedy family. And it was sold in the 70s from the Kennedy estate. The Onassis and the Kennedy sold it to the federal government, and they made it a prison. But it still has these campy, beautiful hills. They used to be a golf course there. And what's funny about this is Barbara Walters did a special in the early 80s. It's on YouTube.

And if you watch it, Barbara Walters is, walking around the camp in West Virginia, that was the Kennedy Center, and she's watching the inmates play golf. How well do you think that went with the public on TV on 60 minutes? Not well, Ian. They literally took down the golf course the next day. They made it more of a prison. So talk about a camp. Like when people think about campy prisons, they think about Morgantown, what it used to be in the 80s and 70s. And then obviously they changed. It's still like a camp. We had a lot of freedom of movement. And I was like the, you know, the head Jew there because I was there for so long. People came and went with their 36-month sentences. But remember, I got 14 years. So I was literally

in charge of what we called the kosher nostra. That's what we call the Jewish community. And it was great because we had things, as you know, in prison, when you have something people want, people want to buy it from you. And our big hustle was the food. We got special meals every year on Passover. And those went a long way. Let me tell you. Not only that, we got great juice for the services on Friday and Saturday nights. All this is great barter material. I mean, I had other groups of every ethnicity could think of black, white, Latino, everyone coming to me, hey, Doc, can you get us any grape juice?

I'm like, yeah, what do you got for me? Like, I got you. How many cans you want? No, the currency was cans. It was tuna. We didn't use stamps there. There were some people used stamps, but we used mostly cans where they were called tuna or macrules.

So I mean like, I mean like, you know, 20 cans, you know. So, well, listen, you know, when you have something people want, it makes you desirable. It makes you the ability to have some influence in power. And in prison, that's what it's about. It's about setting your standards, setting your goals, and providing a service for people. And we were able to do that, and I was able to do that. I did it with a couple things. I ran the recreation department.

I got in with the COs there, the correctional officers. So I ran the rec department in Worgantown for six and a half years. I had access to Gatorade because we gave it out of prizes. So I had tons of Gatorade. We had a popcorn machine that me and my friend Stacy had. And we basically ran the popcorn machine. And we would sell, we could, you know, do whatever we want the popcorn. We, you know, distributed it for a fair price.

And I had the Gatorade. We did the same thing with, you know. So I had my little hustle. And it allowed me to maintain. Now, you, the thing is, as you know, you can't give shit away. You have to, if you give stuff away, kindness equals. weakness in prison. It was the first rule I learned. This old black man came up to me. I'll never forget my first day in NASA County Jellie gave me two pieces of advice. He said, kindness equals weakness

stock. And he goes, less association is the best association. And I never forgot those two things. Stay low. Stay out of the fucking way. Don't get involved in stuff. And just do your time. Do your bid. And I let and then I just slowly as after, you know, a few years, I start to bid off other people as they say. You know, I would start to, you know, I saw so many people come and go after all my time, you know, people come in with their 36 month sentences. I say, I'd take shits longer than your fucking sentence. Get the hell out of my office, you know, because I had my own office. So it was fun. You know, I mean, you make the most of your time, but it's the influence that you have to help others and give them what they want and then get something in return.

What about members of the Jewish community in prison that were sex offenders? Were those protected? Well, at Elton, no. No one was protected. And in Morgantown, there weren't our sex offenders. You weren't allowed to be there because it was a lower. It was a camp. They called it FCI.

Morgan Town's unique because if you look it up, it's an FCI, but it was more like a camp. They did not, because it was technically an FCI low. Pedophiles are not allowed at a low. They can only go to a medium and higher. So, Morgantown. was classified, not as a place where pedophiles can go. So I wasn't with pedophiles for the last six and a half years. At Elton, totally different story.

And I think I shared this with you, my very first day at Elton, I was there. And I was hanging out this group of Indian guys. I don't know what the fuck was, they were. And I just got to know some of the Italians on my unit. And one of them comes over to me, this guy comes over and goes, yo, Doc, what the fuck you doing? I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, stay the fuck away from those guys.

You know who they are? I'm like, no. He goes, those are chomo's. I'm like, what the fuck's a chomo? He goes, they're diaper snipers. I said, what's a diaper sniper? He goes, they're tree jumpers, dude. I'm like, oh, you mean they're pedophiles?

He's like, yeah, they're fucking fuck kids. Stay away from them. And I look at them. And I'm like, there was like a group of like, you know, dark skin guys, Indian, South Asian mostly, I think. And then later I learned that these, there was, there's three types of child predators. Okay.

There's the type where, and I learned this in, in, in, in, in, in, in, and Elton. The first type is the type you can almost justify. What I mean is this, a 15 year old kid, a 15 year old girl dates an 18 year old. And the mom gets pissed, kid, girls underage. So technically it's a, it's a crime. And if they cross state line, they leave to go to the mom can prosecute. And I met a guy like that who was actually prosecuted. He was like 19 dating like a 16 year old. And obviously that's child predatory. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, there's at least an age. And. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, gap where it can almost be justified.

Not that I am, but that's the first case. The second type of pedophile would be the guy who would have a laptop, bring it in for repairs. I heard this story so many times, Ian. The guy brings the laptop in, gets a repair. The guy who's repairing it finds 50,000 photos of underage girls and kids and doing all this crazy shit, like from the dark web. Then the guy gets arrested, and he guns away. Again, totally fucked up. Those guys did like five to ten years.

I met a lot of those. You know what I mean? I heard that story all the time. The third type is the worst type. These are the guys that I was hanging with for that first day where I was told by the Italian stay in the way. These are the guys that were literally fucking their neighbor's kids, sexually assaulting kids for years, keeping it quiet. And this is the worst part. They were actually traveling to other countries.

I don't know if you ever met. These guys would go to Thailand, go to Bangkok, whatever, no pun intended. And like, there's a underbelly group of people that go to these other countries to buy and be with kids. Or they're crossing state lines like Jared Fogel. Exactly. Exactly. Anytime that you involve state lines with that, that's what you want for these guys. Because then the feds take them and they lock them away.

So those are the three categories. I've met each category in my time. And it's pretty amazing. It's always hard for me to wrap my head around that sort of sickness, if you want to call it. But, you know, hey, listen, I know they have rights, but it's fucked up because, like, Elton became a place after I left, where they actually put, there's a whole unit just for trying to re, to trying to like, re-re-abilitate a pedophile, which obviously no one believes. But there's also a federal guideline that allows them to keep them as long as they want,

even if they're beyond their sentence, they can actually say they're not ready to re-reabilitate it. So I believe that there is some sort of guideline that gives the judge leeway to extend a sentence if they're not ready to be rehabilitated back into society. So again, I'm sure there's legal issues, but that's not the humor there. But, yeah, those are my experiences with them at Elkton. But, yeah, there were no pedophiles in Morgantown. Did they think you were one on your first day when you got to Elkton? Never, because they knew, I told them right away.

I didn't, I know, I know you thought I looked like, Jared, a little bit. The picture you showed. Yeah, it was, I showed, you know, an AI picture of me with the Shawshank guys, uh, red and Andy Dufrain. And, uh, he's like, yeah. you look like, you look like Jared Fulgo in the picture. But yeah, no, I never was actually ever thought I was a pedophile because the good thing is I had a 14-year sentence that holds water with a lot of guys at Elton. When you get 14 to 20 years, people look at you differently.

They know that you're not a pedophile, not a rat. I talk too easily about medicine. I was known as Doc from day one. I had a tremendous amount of respect from all the communities, the bloods, the Crips, the MS-13s. I was with a lot of MS-13s at Elkton. And I got mad respect. So, like, I was the doc on the unit. I actually treated conditions, and that was another hustle.

Guys were getting to fights at night. My friends would be beating up people. And I go, go, Doc. I need some help. One kid came up to me after the lights went out, because it was, it's a mess hall sort of living arrangement. We're all in one giant unit with bunk beds and everything. And I go, I had a relocated shoulder.

He's like, I said, I had to reset his shoulder because that was what I did. And I reset it. He was so thankful. He said, whatever you need, doc, I got your back, man. So I provided, like, I got free protection. I got free mad respect. I got food when I wanted. You know, I was the doc on the unit.

So you need to find your niche. And once I found that, I was good with everyone. And again, if you remember the story I told you the beginning where I said, you asked me about high school. And I said, I didn't fit into one crowd. This is exactly how I was in prison. I didn't fit into one crowd. I was with the Jewish community, of course, but I wandered through every community and got the same amount of great respect from everyone because I was a doctor.

I could help them out. I was a member of the Jewish community, the OG there, who could provide them with something that they needed. I was able to work my way and to develop really positive relationships with everyone while I was there. One guy I met is an Elton name. His name was Hector. He was a monkey with one of my Jewish friends, Hector Guadalupe, and he started this thing he wanted to do. And I found out about it when I got home.

My friend Scott reached out to me and said, hey, I've got to put you in touch with Hector. He's starting an organization to help rehabilitate and help foster a positive environment for inmates coming out of prison by starting a physical fitness training programs. He formulated into something called the second U, the second U with a letter U. And it's become such a big phenomenon that he was voted by Anderson Cooper as one of the top 10 heroes two years ago. So he was on the Anderson Cooper. And I was part of this. I've been still a member of the second U.

I haven't done as much because I've been teaching so much now at my med school. But the second U is a wonderful program. I know him well. We like brothers from another mother. and I'm so happy for everything he's been able to accomplish with that. As a doctor yourself, what did you think of the medical situation in prison, you know, how they treated patients and everything? It was awful.

It was awful. I mean, I dealt with the dentist. I will say this. I went for an eye exam because we call them, as you know, if you get glasses in prison, we call them the Chomo 5,000s. Do you remember that name? So the Chomo 5,000s for you guys who are new for this, most of you watching. But the Choma 5,000 are these prison glasses that you're given that you need to get an eye exam.

And everyone knows, oh, you got the Chomo 5,000. So I had to get my Chomo 5,000s because I couldn't bring my own glasses in. So what happened was I went for an eye exam and turned out I had elevated ocular pressure. I actually had horrible pressure. Normal eye pressure is 12. Mine was 26 to 28. So I needed surgery in my eye because it was called glaucoma. So I needed surgery for glaucoma.

So I got to be, I was put in a van with two U.S. Marshals. I had to go to an eye doctor in some small town outside of Lisbon, Ohio, and literally go to an eye doctor who saw me, said I needed surgery. And I got eye surgery in prison. Now you're thinking, oh, God, that's the worst place. I will say I got good treatment, except they take you to the eye doctor in a van with two marshals. I'm in an orange jumpsuit, shackled at the wrist, shackled at the feet, sitting in the fucking. waiting room with two marshals, one on either side of me, and there was like two or three elderly patients, because glaucoma's an old person's disease, as I was always told. I was the

youngest one there. I'm like 37, 38, 40 years old, and here I am in a doctor's office with everyone else with glaucoma, who's like 80 years old, sitting in an orange jumpsuit with my hands and feet shackled with two U.S. Marshals. It was the most embarrassing, humulating shit I've ever been through. You know what I mean? It's like, you can't just bring me in the back. You can't just put me in the back door. No, it's like, you know, I've already lost everything in my life. Let's embarrass them a little bit more. And, you know, I laugh at it now because I've embraced who I am now, and I've made

a career out of my honesty and what I've been through. But back then, I was like, are you kidding me? I was ashamed, you know? I mean, I'm in the middle of a 14-year sentence sitting in a doctor's office trying to help my eyesight. I don't want to go blind. And here I am shackled with. in an orange jumpsuit with two U.S. Marshals.

Like, I'm the worst criminal in the world. I mean, there's just easier ways to handle it. So long and short of it, I think overall the medical care sucks. I think it's better in federal prison. And for whatever what it's worth, they did me good with that. And the best part about having glaucoma in prison, believe it or not, I get to go off campus. Every three months, I got to go in the van at Morgantown and go to the doctor in town in Morgantown, West Virginia. I got off campus every single quarter. So it was a great

feeling. I had to go for my appointment. So I got to go in the car with my friend who was a town driver. We had actually inmates with the town drivers. And that's the kind of privileges you get when you're at a place like Morgantown. So I got to do that. So that was cool just to get that once every three months. It was something to look forward to to get some sense of freedom. Now, aside from the food that you're describing before, why do the Jews have so much power in the federal system. It's a great question. Especially with like Otisville and things of that nature. The reason, the best way I can explain it, Ian, and I'm sure you might be familiar with this, is there's very few rights inmates have in prison, but one of them is your right to practice

your religion. They say no to nobody. I mean, I first learned what a Wiccan was in prison. Have you seen Wiccans in prison? No, it's a Wiccan. A Wiccan is someone who practices witchcraft. It's considered a religion in federal prison. And they actually have a T-Pie and they actually have a TP and they have a sweat lodge. Yeah, for the Indian, the natives, right? Native Americans have it, but Wiccans have something too. So Wiccans get to practice as well. The Native Americans have that sweat lodge. The Wiccans have the witchcraft things they practice. I don't even understand it all. But the people love the sweat lodge because they had access to their smoke and their, you know, there's got smoke piece pipes and they got tobacco for free. Tobacco was banned in the

feds in 2002 or 2003. So I had heard of all about the history of the feds. And, what was banned and not. But the fact is, rights or religion has become such a big thing and inmates hang to it. Because Jews had such influence because we have a very unique set of religious laws that allow us and they're well established for thousands of years that the inmates get to have and there's nothing the feds can do about it. So what are those include outside meals if you declare yourself kosher? What people don't realize, if you want to be Jewish, you have to do it from the beginning. You can't just declare yourself Jew. So when I was in MDC. Brooklyn, because I was there where P. Diddy and everyone else, Luigi Mangione, I spent, I forgot to tell you. Yeah,

I started at MDC Brooklyn. I was there for a couple months. At MDC, Brooklyn, you take a test. I don't know if you remember this, but you actually take a test to prove you're Jewish. And I don't mean like, oh, what's Moses's 10th birthday? You know, I'm saying, what does the word kosher mean? What does halal mean? Like, they ask you these phrases that only Jews would understand. understand what it means to be kosher. And you take that test and once you pass, you're good. But a lot of non-Jews would try to come into our community, which is fine. I welcome them with open arms.

We had a lot of Latinos that would say they were Jewish. I'm like, this one guy, Charlie Lopez, I'm like, Charles, you're not Jewish. You're like, I am now. They didn't care. Hey, they passed the test. That's the thing. The feds can't deny you whatever religion you say you are. It's almost like this whole thing with like the LGBT community.

Like you can declare yourself what you are. No one can take that away from you. It does not matter. You declare yourself Jewish. Yeah, you have to prove yourself. So one hustle I had was I helped the inmates pass the test. I knew the questions that they were because I'd been in so long. I don't still remember all the questions.

But back then, I'd be like, yeah, this is what you need, ABC. Throw me a few cans and I'll make sure you pass the test. So yeah, it was crazy. So people, once you were declared Jewish, you were good. So having that food. for kosher for Passover. That week of food is very unique. We got pastrami, we got sliced hamps, sliced beef,

all this really special food that had to be brought from outside because prisons didn't make it. There was an organization called Jewishinmate.com that was sent in all the food. And there were multiple organizations. I forget the other one, but there were two organizations that supported Jewish inmates incarcerated all over the country. And they were the ones that helped me transfer from Elkton to Morgantown. Yeah. So how do they have that power to help someone move? Because I've seen that, especially with Otisville, which is a, you know, it's a highly regarded and hard to get into.

It's very hard. Otisville is where every Jew wants to go. Because as you know, with every prison in the system, they're mostly run by pastors. They're mostly run by non-denominational chaplains. However, Otisville is the only prison in the entire system of 100 plus prisons that has is run by rabbis, because it's in Otisville. So everyone wants to go there because they know every kosher right and regulation is going to be monitored there and obliged. You know, you might be familiar with CCAs. These CCAs are these private institutional prisons that contract out to the feds.

They don't give a shit. They don't follow any federal guidelines of laws. So you go there, you're fucked. You'll never get a Jewish meal even if you say you're kosher. And I've heard horror stories about that. But Otisville, it's like the Kremlin, La Cremont. It's literally the apex of where Jews want to go because it's run by the rabbis. And they know that every kosher meal they'll ever need is there.

I try to get there. They wouldn't let me come. I don't know why. I think because at the time I had too much time. And they felt that I would be better for the Jewish population of Oregon Town. And I made it work. I really, I'm not going to say it was my first choice because it wasn't. But you know what?

With everything else, you know what? I put myself in that position. So I had to make the most of my situation. ended up doing it. But behind the scenes, is this just a money thing? You know, like, are they donating to DC to the BOP? Like, how do they have that pull? It's amazing. I do know this. They used to be higher up Jews in power in the BOP, in the Bureau of Prison. So there is some Jewish influence and oversight that look at all these numbers and make sure that the Jews are taken care of. But you got to remember, the BOP is scared of death of anyone who's got that

much influence and power. And they know that the Jewish organizations that are out there that are doing, you know, pro bono work, there's Labavich or rabbi is going over all over the country, going to promote Jewish communities in prisons and colleges. And the rabbi, my rabbi, my rabbi Grevich, who I met in prison and I, to this day, I still speak with him. He comes to talk at my med school with me. We do a thing for the Maimonides Society. I'm the advisor for the Jewish community at the school. And the rabbi comes on Zoom with me every year, once a year, and he talks about me, what it was like for me in prison. And we do like a joint thing together. So he tells us the stories about what it's like to be Jewish in prison. And I share my Jewish

experience and how my faith got me through prison. So yeah, the Jews have a lot of influence because they will go to any lengths to ensure that every Jew is taken care of. When you got rabbis traveling all over the country, because the red, the red, 35 years ago before he passed away asked the rabbis to do this, they started doing it. And they will do whatever he said. Rabbi Schneerson, who passed away was like, you know, was close to like a God figure for there's no God person, but he's as close to the highest echelon of understanding of power that any Jew could have in any community.

People look to him with love and care. And he was such an important figure in the, Jewish community back then, and he asked at the time for rabbis to go and never forget those less fortunate. And that included inmates. It included soldiers on the front lines, inmates, and college students. And the rabbi came to our prison in Morgantown, and he took care of the WVU community, West Virginia University, which I've become a fan of, believe it or not, I love the Mountaineers because of my time there. You know, I grew akin to it. I mean, it spent, you know, fourth of my life there. So at the time. So, yeah, I mean,

the Jews have a lot of influence because they will not let it go. They will make sure they won't leave anyone behind. And the feds know that. So they make sure they don't want to deal with, you know, the media backlash. They don't want to deal with. But the laws are very clear. Religious rights is number one. Inmates don't have any rights.

We can't write. We don't have the right to bear arms again. Obviously voting we can now. And I got my right to vote back many years ago, which I'm very blessed and grateful for. And I exercise it every year. But we lost the right. Our religious right is something we really cling to in prison. And the feds are serious about it.

They don't mess around. They're like afraid of us because whenever I asked for something, I got it. We got it. We were very good. We got chala every Friday night. Chala is some very valuable stuff. You know, it's not just a little dinner roll here. And we're talking about a full freaking kala that we got mailed to us.

The chaplain got the chala. He gave it to me and we ate it. It was like our last meal every Friday and Saturday. It was the best. So we got our great juice, which you can't buy on commissary. Again, we got barterable items that people want. And here and there, you know, we would do it as a community and made sure that we were all taken care of. Now, how do you feel about the inmates that take advantage of that, you know, say in Danbury where I was, they were smuggling in cell phones through the rabbi.

He didn't know it was in there, but their fellow rabbis or family members would give the food, the kosher, your food to the rabbi. The rabbis was smuggling in phones. They did. The rabbi didn't know. So he never got charged, but he got released from the, he got fired. Yeah. That's the thing.

Our rabbi was really good. He would never smuggle stuff in. And we never had that issue. But there were a few communities where stuff like that was going on. I think the imam, there was an outside imam, obviously for the Muslim community. And that was, that was an issue. I think they, the feds are not playing. Like, if they ever catch you, they're not going to arrest them, but they'll ban

for life from the federal prison. And the rabbi got suspended a few times for something that they said he brought something in, he didn't do. I'm like, it was bullshit. I'm like, he's the nicest guy in the world. He's never done anything. He's never smuggled anything in, but they don't care. And during COVID, I was already home for three years, but I had friends that just came out

during COVID, and they were telling me the shit that was going on during COVID. Like, they put everyone on lockdown. There was no outside community. They literally, you were literally like in solitaire. for until COVID was over. And people who weren't in prison don't understand it because people don't give a shit because they're like, well, you're just in prison,

you committed a crime. I'm like, when you got 20 years and you're spending and you've atoned for, working on atoning for your sins and trying to make a better life, and you have no freedom of movement where you're spending a lot of your time, it's a big deal.

And I fell for those people because I was there. You would feel for them too. I don't know what it was like in Danbury, but, man, COVID was a mess. It really screwed with the whole prison system and it put everyone on an essential lockdown for 12 to 14 months. So, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

But as far as the smuggling goes, people smuggled cell phones in a lot. The thing is, so Elton, Morganstown was in a valley. So there was a hill. There was a road outside where people can traverse and drive freely. So there were cop station, but no one like paid that much attention because you got to remember at Morgan Town, most people had less than 36 months. They wanted to go the fuck home. They did not want to mess up their business.

bid. They wanted to do their time. Less associations, the best association, do their time and get the hell out of Dodge and go home to their wife and kids. But there was a group of people who didn't get money. They didn't have an ability to survive and get money on their book, so to speak. So what happened was this road became a venue for way people would toss things into the woods. And they would, people got in cell phones. They would text them. They would send a quick text and they shut their phone off that package is arriving tonight. Then they'd pay some young, like a Latino kid, let's say, who had no money coming in. And they would pay him to go run the hill. It's called running the hill at Morgantown. They would go run the hill at one in the morning. They'd leave the bunk,

leave the unit because we had like bungalows. It was crazy. Elton, Morgantown had bungalows. So they'd leave their bungalowler. They'd sneak out the back window, whatever, like 1 a.m. The package would be on the hill. They'd get the package. And if they made it back with the package, they would get half the package because it was, they're taking all the risk. So they worked out deals for these guys to make some money on the side. So it really worked out for everyone. And a lot of times they were caught, but this happened all the time. I mean, guys would run the hill, families would drop packages off. They weren't smuggling as much stuff in through the visiting room. The visiting room was much harder. That was another story because I saw people trying to do stuff

that there that would blow your mind. Like intimate relations, you know, people always say, well, can't you have conjugal visits? I'm like, not in the feds, dude. They don't do conjugal visits, but that didn't stop people from trying, Ian. Let's just say people would go to the visits. As you know, we wore beige jumpsuits. And when you go up to the top, let's just say there were a few incidences where I noticed, and everyone knew about it.

Guys were putting holes in their pockets. They would literally take the stitches out of their pockets so that there was easy access for their significant other to do whatever they need to do to get their family, the release they needed. Let's leave it at that. So, yeah, it happened. Some of them got caught. One guy got caught, like, banging his wife on the patio.

Like, he got to go out there, and he's like, he's got her stuffed against the wall. And the cops, like, what are you doing? And we saw him getting taken in. He went right to the shoe. Probably didn't do too much time, but hell, he's probably thinking it was worth it. Hell, I would have said it was worth it. You know, but for me, it's like, you got families and kids up there, you know, show a little decorum. you know but who am i if you're a guy who's doing 20 years you finally got less than five years you get

to come to a place like morgan town and you're doing something like this who am i to say that's not right or you know i i don't judge people for what they do i understand what they do it's just not something i would do so that but i saw it happen i wasn't surprised in any of it so yeah those are some of the things that i saw going on what happened to your license when you went to prison your medical license. So interesting. When I got, when the day I got indicted, I voluntarily surrendered my license due to the advice of my attorney. And the difference is I could have fought and fought. And if I lost it, it would have been revoked. However, there's something in the system. And thank God for my lawyer at the time. He gave me some great advice. He said, Rich, voluntarily surrendered your license.

When you voluntarily surrender it, you have a chance to get it back. If it's ever revoked, you don't because you're showing in good faith that you're surrendering. it at this time with the possibility of restoration. So here's what happened. I got indicted. Once I got convicted, the day I got convicted the next week, I got a letter saying that my license was surrendered. It's no longer active, but it's still in the system. So because I surrendered it, once I got out of prison back in 2017, I called CPH, which is the Committee for Physicians Health. And I found out through my sources up there. It's an advocacy group that speaks for physicians with chemical dependencies.

And they said that, Dr. Morgan, yeah, your license was surrendered. So by law, you have a chance to get it restored because you never had it revoked. So it's funny you bring this up. I just before I came here today, I just reached out to, I was given permission two or three years ago to start filing for restoration of my license. But due to financial restrictions, I just haven't had the funds because license. License restoration is a very niche form of law. It takes a lot to get, it's about $20,000 to get your license restored. And I just didn't have that kind of income. I got two daughters in college. It's a lot of expenses, credit card debts. And I need to, I just didn't have the liquid assets to afford this. And I'm still building up my nest egg. So what happened was I've had some really good friends that have been with me through thick and thin. I'm a girlfriend. And I have people that have offered to assist me. And I finally should have the ability, to have the funds needed to get my license restored.

And it looks like it's going to happen. So I'm going to actually look to retaining the lawyer within the next week or two. And it's about a year and a half, two-year process. And my license was suspended in 2009. And I'll be one of the first physicians after 17, 18 years to get the license restored because I teach in a medical school.

I give back. I give talks. I've been compliant with CPH, the Committee for Physicians Health. For six years, I've been getting drug tested every week for six years. I have mental health meetings with a psychiatrist every quarter. I meet with a work site monitor. I have a system of checks and balances set in place.

I do meetings, anonymous meetings every week. I have an intercare group that I meet with other professionals and non-professionals every Monday for the past six years. So I have a system set in place that has allowed me the opportunity to restore my license. which is a really blessing. And talk about a story of redemption. And, I mean, it's such an amazing thing. And people ask me, what would I do if I get my license back?

And the fact is, our medical school has a clinic. We have a free clinic for underserved community. And I would work in the clinic. My medical school gave me an opportunity when I came home. I came home from prison. I hadn't have a job. I didn't have a licensee in. What the hell was I going to do?

I got a job at a restaurant called Sugarcane in Dumbo in Brooklyn. I was working there for three years. And it was a lot of fun. I loved it. I was so happy to be free. I embraced it. I'm serving food. I'm serving Asian fusion.

I'm serving sushi. I'm serving drinks. I'm having the time in my life. People are like, why the fuck are you so happy? I'm like, because I'm free. And I'm living and enjoying every day I'm free. And they didn't get it. I just had a different attitude and a different perspective on life that you might be able to

understand that people who've never been incarcerated don't. So two year, three, two and a half. half years into my serving, my good friend, Adina, a leader calls me, and she's a neurologist and a colleague at the school. She's like, Rich, you've got to share your story with the medical students. We do this monthly meeting called CPR. It's called clinical practice reflections. We bring a doctor in or anyone to share a story. And I spoke to the dean and he set it up. January of 2019, I go into my medical school on stage, and I said that and there, I'm going to be honest with everything. I sat there for two hours in front of 300 medical students and 40 faculty

and I shared my story. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when I was done, Ian. And once I was done, I stopped a thunderous applause, something I never heard of in my life. And I had just done Dr. Rods, by the way, when I was in the halfway house, but I'm sitting on this stage. And the dean comes over and said, Dr. Morgan, I've never seen this in my life. She goes, two hours, two hours, you spoke, I didn't see one student fall asleep or use their cell phones. And I was like, really? And then one of the faculty members gets up and looks at the dean and says, if you don't fucking hire this guy, you're crazy. I had a job the next year as a part-time faculty. And it was the greatest day in my life. I was crying. I mean, I'm at a restaurant working part-time at my med school. Then COVID hits. And I get a call

from my chair that I was teaching this class called Dr. Patient Relationship. I'm helping students do physical exams and stuff. And she goes, Dr. Morgan, Rich, I want you to know that I just lost a close friend from COVID. She's a doctor at Columbia, which I lived in Washington Heights. And she said, her friend just committed suicide. And she's like, I realized how precious life is. And I want to do something for you. I want to offer you a full-time job. And she told me the salary. And I literally dropped my phone. I started crying. And I said, this is the best day of my life. I said, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And from that moment on, I've been full-time faculty and working at my med school, teaching the Doctors of America. I am a course director. I teach the doc. I literally

coordinated the class for first year students on how to do physical exams. And I love it. And I've been doing it now for five years of the clinical director. And it's just the most fun. I've developed amazing friendships and colleagues. I share my story every other year at the school, I continue. And the one thing about this generation, Ian, they're the most non-judgmental, amazing students. They do not give a shit that I was in prison. They don't want to know about prison.

They want to know. What was it like? What is it like? Was there sex happening? Was there drugs? Like, they won't want to know. I guess, you know what I said again? I'm like, I guess prison's the place to be because it was boring as shit out here.

You guys are all just playing candy crushing your fucking phones. And I'm in prison doing nothing. But apparently you think it's the greatest thing. It's so funny because the grass is always greener and where you and I were and you see the perspective what other people see what we went through. They want to know. The students were amazing and they continue to be amazing. Every year I share my story in it, I get a student came up to me this past year and said, Dr. Morgan, I want you to know that I literally, I'm eight years clean. I'm a heroin addict and I've been clean for eight years and now I'm in med school.

And I look over in the eye and I say, you're the reason I'm here. I said, I share my story every other year, but because of you, if I make the difference in one person's life where I connect on a visceral level, then my job is done. And to me, that's the most important thing when I can make a visceral positive difference in someone's life to make them realize they're not alone and share that story and help them recognize the signs and symptoms of addiction in their colleagues. Because that's really one of the platform I stand on it. And I want to make sure that they know that, you know, there's help out there. Because if you remember what I said to you when I was on 9-11 and I said I didn't know how to ask for help, I learned over the last 20 years to ask for help. And I told you I was on Dr. Raz. I did two episodes with him. My first episode, he says, do you have a message? The very last thing Dr. Ross said to me was, do you have a message for everyone out there who's struggling? And I said, never be afraid to ask for help.

And to me, that was the most powerful, important thing that I could think about to make sure that people know that there's help. And I always talk about my journey, what I've been through, and to never be afraid, you're not alone. And when they hear my story, they know they're not alone. And that's why it's so impactful for me to be able to share a lot of what happened to me and then see students come up to me and tell me, Dr. Morgan, I just broke my ankle last week. But because of you, I'm going home to throw out the Vicodin prescription I was prescribed. And to me, it makes all the difference in the world. And I've heard this many times.

And to me, that's why I do what I do. You know, it's interesting that that era of judgmental people will eventually be gone. Like, I notice that's a lot of the older people that are so judgmental, you know, walking around my parents' neighborhood. And those are the ones that are like, you know, criminal felon, this and that. But now this younger generation, even as they get older, they're way more accepting. And maybe that's because of politics or everything that's happened or TV shows or podcasts. But that era. You shared that with me earlier.

And I agree that, you know, the older generation is definitely like that. But one thing I've learned, Ian, and one of the things that I read about, I read the book when I came home by Eckert Toll the Power of Now, and I practice mindfulness when I can. It's one of the techniques I use. As the watchful thinker, I know I can't control anyone else how they think or act. I can only control my own actions. If you're going to think the way you are, that's on you. I can't control that. I can only set my own examples for how I act in society and how I feel in the present moment. And that's how I view myself. That's how I live my life. And I no longer. let I, the one thing that's changed since I've been home is I'm much more assertive. I don't take any shit in the sense that if I was ever timid, if I was ever ashamed, I'm never that going to be like, well, I don't want to ever regret saying that. If I feel a certain way, I'll say it. I'm open and honest, but I'm also assertive. If I feel a certain way, I'm not going to let you know, it was the same thing when it came to, you know, dating when I came home. You know, my wife wanted nothing with me where we haven't been together since the last day we were together was the day I

got sent to prison back in 2009. We haven't been together in 17, 18 years. So when I came home, you know, dating and stuff, I was actually, you know, talking to Letitia about it. I asked her, she's like, I was like, you know what? I was like, what was it like? I mean, my biggest fear was I went on a date while I was in the halfway house. My friends said, what's this Tinder? I don't even know what these websites were. So I had one of these shitty Obama phones. It had like four gigs. Like literally, I had one app and the phone, like, died because it couldn't only hold one app, but I downloaded, I think, Tinder or, you know, one of those sitch dating sites. Hinge or.

Not Hinge. It was Tinder. Bumble. Not Bumble. There was another one that actually met my first girlfriend. Plenty of fish. Plenty of, plenty of fish. Yeah, P-O-F, P-O-F.

That was popular. That was popular. Yeah. So I go on a date. I sneak out of the halfway house. I'm in York Street. You know, by the Navy Yard. Brooklyn and I snuck out of the halfway house to go on a date. I told them, you know, I was doing a

four-hour pass. I'm like, so I go to take this girl for coffee in Brooklyn. We're near where my restaurant is and we meet and I were talking and, you know, I found some clothes to wear and I'm sitting there. I'm thinking, shit, I just left the halfway house to go on a date. This is really kind of cool. So I said, you know, I work in a restaurant and this and that. I said, she started talking about something medical and I said, oh yeah, no, I used to be a doctor. And I realized why I fucked up because why is a guy in a restaurant, how did he used to be a doctor? Why are you in a restaurant? I realized she's like, you were a doctor.

I don't understand. You're in a restaurant. Why would you become a server if you were a doctor? And I realized, all right, let me start my honesty now. I said, I'll be honest with you. And I told this to the girl the very first day. And she said, I said, I'm actually living in that halfway house. I'm an inmate.

I got out and I wanted to go on. date with you. The color drained from her fucking face, Ian. She couldn't finish the coffee fast enough. Literally, as soon as she finished it, I got to go. She left the coffee house so fast, your head would have spun. And I realized maybe I need to tone down on the honesty for the women when I first start. So what I started to do after that was, I want you to see where I am now and what I'm doing. And then I'll peel the layers off like an onion. And this way you get to see me. And this is what I do with my students. I don't tell my students right away. Now a lot of them know when they come in because I interview with them and they all vet you

now and they say, oh my God, you're the Dr. Morgan that did all that stuff. Like, I'm so impressed. It's an honor to meet you. But most students still don't know me. And I'll be like, I'll be a positive, I'm full of energy. I make the class engaging in fun, this lab we do where we learn how to do physical exams. And then they'll hear my story at my talk and they'll blow their minds. They're like, that's Dr. Morgan, the one who teaches DPR and he's like an ex-con. I'm like, holy shit, that's amazing. Like, they, they see where I am now. And then when they hear about the past, it opens up like this, wow. It's different when you just say, hi, I'm Dr. Morgan. I'm an ex-con. You don't want to do it like that. So I let them see what I'm about first. And then I let them

peel the layers and then they can see what I become. And I think it's more visceral that way. Instead of just telling a girl, yeah, hi, nice to meet you. My name is Dr. Morgan. a federal limit and a server. Some people are into it though. Like when I first got out, my story was so publicized locally, you know, people knew about it. And that would cause intrigue. I also think it depends on the crime too. Like I saw some clip.

Someone was like they're building a dating site that will tell you if you're a criminal or something because there are real psychopaths out there that you don't want to get stuck on a date with. 100%. But you don't also want to discriminate against the ones that have turned their life around or, you know, didn't go to prison for a crime. say against a woman or a violent crime. Well, I don't know if you noticed this. There's not only the right to religion was one thing, but there's another thing that inmates have that people don't realize on the outside.

Inmates have control of the visiting list. So what I mean is inmates, everyone, I'm sure you saw this too. I had friends who were inmates who had like 15 fucking women on their visiting list. Every woman, every week, a different woman in the visiting room. I mean, it was unreal. I would see two in one day before.

You know what I'm saying? Two different women in one day. You did? I would, no, not me. Oh, I thought you meant you. No, no, no, I didn't have any girls. But you see a guy going up there with two different women, right? Well, they would go to one in the morning.

The Saturdays, right, because you could do it Saturday and Sunday. And then they would come in the second and the afternoon show. Ian, it blew my mind. And so the right that inmates had that don't people don't realize, if the spouse tries to call a prison to get the visiting list, they're not allowed. They can't get any of that. They can't get any of that shit, which is amazing. So inmates take advantage of it. They have 15 different baby mamas on their phone list.

They can call them all day long. Send me money, honey. I need another 50 bucks. Put it on my books so I can get commissaries tomorrow. And then they got, hi, honey, yes. Yeah, I need, are you coming with the kids this week? Yeah, can you please just put like $100 on my books? I just need it to get some supplies.

I got to do laundry and stuff. I need this and that. Yo, baby, come on. I can't wait to see it. I mean, there you go on the phone all day. We're five different women, five different. It blew my mind. The best is when they both come at the same time.

And then they get caught. You hear about it on that later when they're they're on the phone with them. And she's yelling at him. The catfights, too. There's been a few catfights up there. Sometimes the wife will just, you know, they'll come on a day. They're not supposed to. They know what's going on.

They're not stupid. They figure it out. But then they'll call the counselor, the prison, say, hey, he's on a cell phone. He's going live right now. I've seen that too. I haven't seen that, but I've seen it the other way where the wife is responsible for sneaking the stuff in or they're part of the package distribution that I mentioned earlier. like when they're dropping packages on the hill, you know, they do whatever it takes.

They think it's normal. They don't think what they're doing is wrong, but they're only going to get him jammed up, as they say, and he'll end up going to the shoe, and they'll do the time. One guy, they had a phone. They found the phone, but all they had was like his wife's cell phone number, but they couldn't link it. But they, when they find the cell numbers, you get called, you know, Dr. Morgan to the lieutenant's office.

So I never got in trouble, but it's almost one time. This is a funny story. I was at Elkton. And we had this guy, I'll never forget this piece of shit, Charles Torres. Turns out he was a Latino who came part of the Jewish community. He found out he was a huge snitch. He literally snitched that there was a big New Jersey government thing where 27 government workers, officials went down back in the early 2000s.

And he was the reason. He wore a wire of everything. But he lied to us, didn't tell us. And Elton is a medium. security so you couldn't mess around with chomo's child predators and snitches was a big deal so we found out he was a snitch i one of my friends looked him up and and i didn't say we would disinvite him but we we we stopped talking to him we started giving him a little shit and one day you hear morgan 7191 1053 to the lieutenant's office now and when you get called lieutenant's office you

going to the shoe. Like I've never seen someone not go. I go to the lieutenant's office. I'll never forget this. I'm shitting a brick because I've never done anything wrong. And I'm in the lieutenant's office. Lieutenant's big black woman calls me over. Who's standing next to her? Charles Torres. This fucking piece of shit. He went and ratted me out to lieutenant that they found out who he was on his case and he says he feared himself. Do you know this man? She looks at me. I go, yeah. He's in the Jewish community. Do you know why you're here? I was like, no. I said, we're part of the same community. I said, the guys, I had no issues with the guy. Well, he has an issue with you saying that you found out about his case. I said, I don't know what you're talking about,

ma'am, lieutenant. I don't know, no idea. She goes, listen, you know what's going to happen now? I said, no. We can't prove anything, but now you two are married. Now, I didn't know what being married meant. I don't know if you know what being married when a lieutenant says it. This is what being married means. You and Mr. Torres are now married. What that means is if anything happens to him. If he sniffles the wrong way and goes to the shoe, you're going with him. I don't care if you're in a different unit. He was in the drug rehab unit. I still had 10 years left, so I wasn't in a drug unit. So he ends up getting, I end up getting married to him. So if I sniff the wrong way, if I go, if I go to the shoe, he goes to the shoe. If he goes to the shoe, if

he goes to the shoe, I go to the shoe. We are literally linked. So that way, they're protecting each of us to keep ourselves to eyes forward. keep your head down, do your time, and stay the hell away from each other. And that was it. That was the one and only interaction I had with lieutenant. But it scared me. But I shut the hell up. I was like, you motherfucking rat. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, you went to lieutenant for this? Now I know your whole story is true. So since then he got out and then he went back to prison for like underage shit. So I'm out of the good riddance. But man, that blew me away. And that was me representing the Jewish community. So, well, Rich, I appreciate you coming on the show today. This was a lot of fun.

I had a great time, Ian. I appreciate you giving me a chance to share some of my story, tell some anecdotes, and just to see what this is all about. And I can't thank you enough for having me. Yeah, and I wish you the best and hopefully you get your license back. Thank you very much. I'll keep you updated. Definitely. Thank you.