Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Gang Parole Officer — Then Had To Survive 5 Years In Prison | Michael Dodge

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Michael Dodge grew up in a dysfunctional household, moved around constantly, and eventually found himself caught up in the streets, gangs, and addiction. He turned his life around and became a parole officer specializing in gangs for the Indiana Department of Correction. But after becoming addicted to painkillers, his life unraveled again. Michael committed a crime involving a confidential informant, was arrested, and sentenced to five years in prison — inside the same Indiana prison system he had once worked for. _____________________________________________ Thank you to AG1, HUNGRYROOT & CASH APP for sponsoring this episode: AG1: For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at https://drinkag1.com/lockedin _____________________________________________ Hungryroot: Explore my Hungryroot Digital Cookbook "THE COMMISSARY UPGRADE" at https://hungryroot.com/LOCKEDIN _____________________________________________ Cash App: Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/6pao71et #CashAppPod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Cash App Green features, Savings, Direct deposit, Round ups, Overdraft coverage and Discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick:  https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Arrested on Conspiracy Charges 01:02 Growing Up in Atlanta 02:24 A Tough Childhood 04:43 Struggling to Fit In 06:14 Life in Florida and First Initiation 10:54 Return to Atlanta and Gang Life 13:30 Juvenile Trouble and Boys Home 15:41 Mother's Role and Self-Reflection 16:39 Teenage Years and Turning Point 22:18 Rededication and Family 25:35 Education and Career Start 28:49 Joining the Indiana DOC 31:56 Gang Members on Parole 34:20 Building Rapport with Parolees 36:29 Memorable Field Work Story 42:03 Challenges of the Job 44:40 Problems in the System 48:24 Inexperienced Officers 51:29 Judging Parolees by Their Files 53:20 A Case That Haunts Him 56:36 Power and Discretion 01:00:00 Supervising Sex Offenders 01:07:52 Reflections on Accountability 01:10:30 Drug Testing and Dodging 01:12:00 Needing Mental Health Support 01:13:34 Injury and Prescription Addiction 01:17:24 Suboxone and Family Awareness 01:19:18 The Downfall Begins 01:23:43 The Arrest and Run 01:27:00 Caught and Extradition 01:31:31 The Ride to Jail 01:33:41 Fired and Shunned 01:38:10 Facing Judge and Sentence 01:46:40 Jail and Prison Experience 01:48:40 Sentencing to DOC 01:50:30 Transfer to Oklahoma 01:56:35 Life at Lawton Facility 02:00:40 Adjusting to Prison Culture 02:04:50 Violence in Oklahoma Prisons 02:09:02 Learning from Within 02:14:50 Release and Probation 02:18:54 Life After Prison 02:20:19 Finding Love Again 02:23:23 Looking Forward _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

Come in, we're sitting at a table like this. And my room is packed. And, uh, only one open seat though. And I'm looking around, everybody, you know, a lot of people are standing. I'm like, anybody taking that seat? And I'm like, Dodge, sit here. All right, so long around, boom, sit down,

put a file out in front me. I go to open up the file, and that marshal I didn't get along with. Boom, puts his hand on my wrist and stands me up, right? I'm like, what the, you know what I mean? Like about to take off on dude. Like, what, don't touch me.

About that time, boom, everybody's on top. me. They arrest me on a conspiracy to commit burglary. That's Michael Dodge. He went from running with gangs to supervising them as a parole officer before ending up behind bars himself. After turning his life around and joining the Indiana Department of Corrections, an addiction to pain killers led to a decision that cost him his career and his freedom. Today, he's revealing what it was like going from officer to inmate inside the same prison system he once worked for. I grew up actually in Atlanta, Georgia, but from Illinois, we lived there to I was eight, and then

grew up in Atlanta, inner city, lived there my whole life, lived in Hollywood, Florida for about a year, and also lived in Cleveland, Tennessee for about a year. But the majority of my life, I lived in Atlanta. How would you have described your childhood? Hard, man. It was a very hard. hard childhood. Like I said, I grew up inner city and we're talking back in the 80s, right? Predominantly black neighborhood. So, you know, I felt like what it, I knew what it felt like

to be the minority, right? You know, and so it was a struggle, a single mom, you know, guy she was seeing just wasn't, wasn't what he was supposed to be. And so it was a tough childhood. Where is your dad? He was actually in Hollywood, Florida. But, you know, I don't remember him until about the age of maybe 11. You know, I think once or twice when I was younger, he would pop in and then pop out. But I know the first time I really met him, I moved in with him. I was about 11 or 12.

And, you know, I was not the easiest kid to raise either, right? Very wild, very starving for attention, wanting your mom's attention, you know. So I made life at home as horrible as possible, right? My brother, I have an older brother, and he lived in Illinois, and all I wanted to was go back to my older brother. And that's where all my family lived. My aunts, uncles, you know, my mom just one day out of nowhere, like I said,

until eight years old, I lived in a small, predominantly white. I don't even know if there was a black person or anybody outside the white race that lived in this town at the time, right? And one day just came home and said, you know, I'm moving to Georgia and you're going to stay here with your brother. and maybe your aunts, and they're going to take care of you and tell them, ready for you to move to Georgia. And I bounced literally from couch to couch. I mean, my brother did the majority of watching me.

You know, he was only 18, though. And, you know, I mean, he was 18, right? And he shouldn't have been, he shouldn't have the task of taking care of a child. But he did the best he could, man. I mean, he did good. He did good. But I kind of bounced from couch to couch to couch until she was ready.

Again, as fast as she left, she wanted me back. You know, so it was like, boom, next day, hey, you're moving back with your mom in Georgia. And, I mean, I was, I took fit, you know. And my brother drove me down there. And I had never, I don't even know if I'd been out of Florida, Illinois. That's the name of the town. I don't know if I'd ever even been out of town prior to that. So it was a big shock going from a community of,

maybe 5,000 at the time to Atlanta, like inner city. You know what I mean? Had no idea what I was facing. It was totally lost. And so, you know, I was not the easiest child to upbringing, you know. Was it hard to make new friends when you got there? Very difficult. You know, I was a small kid, man.

I mean, like really small, really scork, scrawny, blonde hair, you know, typical white kid from a small town, you know? And I was definitely an outsider, you know. So going out into the apartment complex, right, you got an apartment complex with probably 3,000 people in it. And going out there and not knowing absolutely anybody was very tough. And, you know, they all kind of looked down on me.

You know, they all knew each other. It's a different color than they were. And I took several beatings. I mean, like, it got a point. I was scared to go to the bathroom at school because I knew what happened in bathrooms. You know what I mean? When I go to the bathroom, man, I was getting, I was taking a beating for something, you know. So it was very tough.

So I always had to earn. I always felt like I had to earn acceptance, right? I always had to do something to prove. And I ended up carrying that all the way through life. I always had to prove myself. And, you know, so I ended up being that crazy little white boy that would do anything that was told, you know. So the gangs love that. You know what I mean?

I was what they call send off now. You know, they didn't call it that then. Like what they call it in prison too. Like send off, you know what I mean? A crash test dummy, you know? So I did a lot of that, did a lot of that.

And then when my dad pops in the picture, it was away from my mom just to get rid of me again, you know? So she was like taking. And my dad did. So they moved me from Atlanta, Georgia, to Hollywood, Florida, right? man, around a whole different group of people. And if you're familiar with Hollywood, there was a lot of Native Americans around that area, you know.

And that was the very first time I can remember that I was actually initiated, right? Initiated into a gang. And I can remember it was December and I was coming home from school and I was 12 maybe at the time. and we entered into this park area. And I kind of thought, man, it was weird that there was just a lot of people in the park that day that typically weren't in the park. You know, I was with my buddies.

And we came down to this little clearing. I was like, wow, I ain't nobody in that area, but there's this guy sitting on his pit in the table. And we come into the little area, and he was like, so I already want to run with this, you know, do you go ahead and drop your boot bag? So I dropped my book bag and I mean they they wore me out for for a minute a little over a minute You know every time I hit the ground boom stop the clock getting back up and I'm 12 years old

You know these kids are 15 16 17 years old And I remember one thing from the initiation is I was trying to get up and had knocked me down and I didn't want to be on the ground right So I was trying to get up and I was on all four trying to get up and I was on all four trying to get up and I was on all four trying to get up and And I can remember back in the day, champion shoes were kind of the big thing. You know, we're talking early 90s, right? I can remember this all blue champion shoe coming and bam, it caught me square, flush, flatten my nose, man. And I'm not thinking about the pain.

I'm thinking, what am I going to tell them when I get home? Blood everywhere, you know, and I'm thinking, well, I'm going to tell my mom or my stepdad or my dad and my stepmom when I get home. You know, how am I going to explain this one? So I was blessed in, you know, brought in. I remember going home and then being like, oh, my gosh, what happened? What happened? And, you know, I make up some lie like I was walking home from school and one of the kids hit me in the face with the baseball bat, you know. So they take me to the doctor and, of course, my nose was broke.

I had a Nike imprint on my hand. Remember Doorman Nike's? I don't know. I might be a little bit older. So they had these Doorman Nike's wearing another big shoe, right? And they had these certain grooves in the bottom of the shoe. But right in the middle of the shoe was the Nike. And they had stomped on my hand so hard when I was on all four trying to get up.

They had left the imprint of Nike on my hand, you know. But yeah, I took a beating. What gang was this? Was this like a street gang? It was just a local street game. They ran under the 6, but it was actually called BIE.I. And kind of find out I end up running under the 6 as I move. So I get in trouble in Florida and they send me back to Atlanta

And I run with at the time it's called insane Insane Insane Gangsters IGD What do you do in Florida to get sent to Atlanta? So what I did in Florida to get sitting back to Atlanta was I was coming home from school And the same park I was initiated in There was a group of guys that were Trying to rape a young lady And I remember being so scared

I just took off running you know and I ran home boom ran inside the house boom locked the doors freaked out but I was IDed that I was there so in Florida since I didn't try to stop or prevent that crime from happening they could have charged me with the same thing they charged the people with that were committing the crime you know these kids again I use age but you know I go back and there was no excuse you know but they were 16 17 18 years

old, you know, I mean, I was a very small, scrawny white kid that just took a beating by these guys not too long ago. So I remember what they dished out. And, you know, when I seen what was going on, man, boom, I took off running, you know, and I wasn't giving up names or anything like that. So they said, hey, listen, they actually down at the police station in Hollywood, Brower County is where it was. They said, listen, you know, you're sending back where he came from, one with pile of charges. but if he stays here, we will pursue charges. So I was on the next flight back to Atlanta. How much time could you have gotten for that?

You know, I don't know. I really don't. I didn't stick around to find out, you know, and I was never told. Never knew what I ended up happening with the case or anything like that. You know, if Florida was kind of behind me, then I wish the trouble would have stayed behind me, but it didn't. You know, I carried the same mindset back in Atlanta. And in Atlanta went back to the same apart.

complex with a little bit more knowledge and a little bit tougher, you know. And there was a couple of apartment complexes that were together. They kind of ran together. And there were some white kids in the other apartment complex that were insane gangster disciples. And this was before insane was kind of shut down. And some of them went over to claim imperial. But I was initiated into insane.

And I ran insane gangster disciples for the longest time. And actually, the first tattoo I got on my chest and didn't get it covered up until later in life when I went to prison. But, yeah, I ran insane all the way up into my 20s. Now, how do they differ from the gangster disciples that we know of today? Well, so the gangster disciples that we don't know of today,

a majority of those are blacks and very few are white, you know. So the insane gangster disciples typically will run underneath the gangster disciples, but they're typically white guys or white kids. You have some, you know, Hispanic or black or, you know what I mean, but the majority of insane are white kids. How was your dad as a parent? Had you stayed in Florida, would it have worked out better? No, definitely not.

you know, I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know about that. You know, after that, he never came, he only came back around once or twice. I went out and seen him in Fountain Hills, Arizona, when I was around 19 or 20, you know, and then the next time I see him after that is he was hit by a drunk driver and killed, but he was on his deathbed, you know, and I end up, having to go to Miami and make the decision on pulling life support or not. And that was the last time I seen you. Wow.

So, yeah. Now, when you're back in Atlanta, do you finish high school there or how do you have finished high school in Florida? No. So I'm back in Atlanta, right? I'm like 13 and I carry a gun to school. So this is back before Columbine and all this, right? So I was just a holder, right?

And they run up on my, they run up on me at school and check my locker, right? I'm eighth grade, sixth grade, sixth grade, sixth grade, excuse me, check my locker. Boom, gun in the backpack. So cuff me, tape me, you know, I spent a little bit of time in juvenile detentional center in DeKalb County and DeKalb County, Georgia. Get out. I'm on probation. And man, just acting out, acting while, breaking house arrest, you know, getting high, breaking curfew, being stupid. Disappear for a week.

And so they filed a petition to revoke me on probation. Take me in front of a judge, and the judge sentences me to a boy's home in Cleveland, Tennessee. So I go to Cleveland, Tennessee, to this boy's home. home called the Chandole Boys Ranch, and I spent 11 months and seven days there. And it was really a life-changing part for me because while I was in there, I met a group of guys that were good Christian kids, man, and they introduced me to Jesus. And, you know, while I'm there and I'm in this controlled environment, I'm doing great, you know, doing fantastic. So I get out and I come back home. not on probation, and everything was really good for a while. And, you know, I returned.

Unfortunately, my environment didn't change. So I returned back to doing the same stupid stuff that I was doing. And the last grade I completed, though, was eighth grade. And I wasn't allowed back in school after eighth grade. And they had like a little after alternative school I could it went to, but I wasn't interested. So did your mom start homeschooling you or she just gave up on it? Yeah, I just do what I wanted to do, you know. Would you have considered your mom an actual mother? This is a tough question. My boy, she wanted to be. Now, I have a tremendous relationship with my mother today, right? I wouldn't allow her to be. Yeah, I'll take a ball for that. I just, wouldn't allow her to be.

It's a lot of pressure on a kid. Yeah, I wouldn't allow her to be. You know, I held so much against everybody. You know, I had to chip on my shoulder that nobody wanted me to be happy, so I wouldn't allow myself to be happy. Nobody wanted me to be a kid, so I wouldn't allow myself to be a kid. You know, a lot of mine was self-inflicted, right? I was so angry at the world

in the hand that I've been dealt that I refused to be guided I refused authority I refused advice you know I thought I had to figure it out I thought I had been taking care of myself why not just continue to do it I didn't see a fault or an error in my thinking

you know I didn't plan to live right I didn't want to die but I didn't plan to live you know to live was pain right to live was struggle

to live was frustration to live was another upset or another disappointment to live was to watch another person walk out to live was to for another person to give up

you know and I started at an early age man And I carried that. I carried that my whole life. So I will say that I wouldn't allow her to be a mother, you know? And that is what I'll own of it. I'm not going to push the blame on anyone. You know what I mean?

I could have been easier. But hindsight is 2020, right? This summer was definitely one for the books, maybe even one of the best summers of my life. We traveled, we worked, and we had fun while doing it. But now that summer's over and it's everyone's busiest time of the year, it's time to lock in. I used to be one of those people that had 10 different kinds of vitamins in my cabinet

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morning. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 NextGen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com slash locked in. That's drinkag1.com slash locked in. So now when you get back from the boys, walk us through those years throughout the rest of your teens. Okay, so I get back from the boys home. I'm like 16 at the time. And I played a lot of basketball. You know, that's one thing that I really learned how to do in the boys home is we had a lot of spare time. So I played basketball during that time. And so when I first come home, you know, I'd go up to the basketball court and I come right straight back home, you know, and really tried to guard myself because I remembered what it was like to be locked up, right? But you soon to forget that the longer you're out,

right? You forget about the pain behind those doors, right? So as time went on, you know, I'd accept a phone call or somebody stopped by and I'd go out on the front porch, you know, and then it was like someone came by with a joint, we smoked it, and then it was kind of like I got a little braver and a little braver, and before I knew it, I was back out running on the streets, you know, being a delivery boy or, you know, running up on somebody that owed money or, you know, whatever the task was it for that day. You know, I was just back to kicking it again. And I did did that all the way up, you know, lived that same lifestyle, partying every night, you know, running through whatever every night, you know, to drop in acid, living reckless, you know,

living like there wasn't really a tomorrow, you know, and if tomorrow came, then great if it didn't, then, you know, I got everything I needed out of it, right? You know, living in a moment. And I did that up until I was in my 20s. And then I started running dope from my, Atlanta to Illinois because there was money there, right? They're running back to that little small town I was from running ecstasy and stuff back and forth, you know? And I did that for the longest time and I can remember sitting in my house one day, right? I was married at the time, my first, my wife, my first wife. And I can remember sitting there all by myself and I remember this is really what life has to offer me,

then I don't want to do it. I'm tired. You know what I mean? I'm tired. And at that point, I can remember the day that I actually gave my life to Jesus and that boy's home. As a God, if you will provide a way, if you will open the door and provide a way for me to walk away from all of this, then I'll do it.

And I remember going out my front door. And I just took off running. I didn't know where I was running to, but I was running. And mind you, my cardio wasn't great then, so I didn't make it very far. But I remember standing outside this church, first Baptist church, first Southern Baptist church from Florida, Illinois. I remember staring at that steeple and going, man, I don't know. If there's a way out of this, God, you're really going to have to perform a miracle. I don't see it.

And come to find out, I actually knew the pastor's wife at that church. And I was telling them a group of people about my story about how I just rededicated my life to Christ. Ended up at this church, I don't know why. And it was life changing for me because I ended up meeting her husband. And he played a very big role. and me getting my life straight for a while. And he was a very big encouragement.

He opened up a lot of doors for me to do a lot of great things. His name was Bill Thompson. And he was, him and his wife were life changing to me. They showed me I was worth believing in and that I could reach people. and that my story could change someone's life. And they helped me tell my story. They opened up doors for me to be able to tell my story.

And to this day, I'm thankful for the relationship that I built there. So I got my life right. How old were you at this point? 23, 24. We find out that I'm about to have my first child about three or four weeks after that me gave my life right. And I was ecstatic, you know, and the thought of being a father really helped me stay clean, help me make right decisions, help me get into the right mind to be a dad.

And so we had my kids as mom, boom, had Natalie, my firstborn. And I just was a blowing dad, right, a father of a daughter. and then two years later find out we're going to have another son, or have another child. It was my son, Elijah. And then two years later, boom, we find out we're having another son. His name is Logan. And those three got me through a lot of tough times.

And I ended up getting divorced, and the three kids stay with me, and they teach me how to be a man. They teach me how to be a dad. they keep me clean they keep me sober um and they teach me a lot about myself you know i didn't know you know they teach me how to care and how to love um i don't know they give me a reason to live you know and my world revolved around them you know everything i did was for them how were you supporting them what was your work i was a substance abuse counselor so i'm sorry i after meeting Bill and Chris I get my GED and there's a they introduced me to another lady by the name of Debbie

Debbie Kincaid and she was a college teacher a high school guidance counselor but she also taught college classes and she really opens the door for me to be able to go back to school to get my my college degree so I am taking one night class of semester at the time and running fast food at my buddy's fast food restaurant and working full time. And I ended up getting my GD. Then I ended up getting my associates. And then I went on and got my bachelor's in psychology. So after my divorce, I was actually still a substance abuse counselor slash mental health counselor.

And I did that for several years. but I thought that was my calling but man I just got like I said I got sick of feeling like every day I knew I was going to hear bull crap you know every day I knew I was going to hear something negative it was never anything positive about that job ever it was like boom the door was unlocked

and then one person after another you know and I don't know what I was expecting man but was not didn't really think that went all the way through right I felt I could toilet I felt like everybody came in and dropped their crap off, left feeling great, and then I was just stuck with their crap, right? So I got into the criminal justice field and started working with juveniles at a place called Southwest Indiana Regional Youth Village. And I ran their independent living cottage. So when kids would come out of a boy school is what they call, like juvenile detention in Indiana.

I just moved to Indiana. When boys would come out of the boys school, they would typically come to Southwest Indiana Regional Youth Village, and I would help them transition into living a normal life, right? Helping them get jobs, teach them how to pay bills, how to budget, cook, whatever. You know what I mean? Just independent living skills. And, you know, 99% of them were gang members.

I had a couple of kids go home over Christmas break and was killing gang violence. So that really hit home, right? Because I loved that life. And I thought, man, I'm not doing enough. I can do more. It just so happened that a job with the Indiana Department of Corrections had come open. And it was through the parole division. So I applied and got it.

What helped me get it was my knowledge of gangs and kind of the way gang members think. And so it was 2015. I jumped into it and did very good. Did great with it. It ran the security threat group. So if you came out of prison and you had, if you were identified as a gang member to the Indian Department of Corrections, or you had a very violent crime. then you were put on my caseload and I supervised it,

had a lot of success with it. And it was, during that success, you know, I was able to do a lot of drug bust, find a lot of drugs in homes, guns, things they weren't supposed to have. So we piloted a program that Indianapolis Pearl District started, and that was what they called a field team. So the field team just did searches.

They accompanied probation officers, or, Girl officers to houses to do home visits, pop-up visits, and I would run in and search your stuff, right? And, man, we just knocked it out to park. Was it an extensive background search to get that job because of your prior gang history? Yeah, what, you know, so I wasn't completely honest about, you know, of being a gang member whenever they applied. They wondered how I knew so much, but yeah, that wasn't disclosed to the Indiana Department of Corrections. Because you technically didn't have a record, right? Right.

From the boys home or anything? Had no record. And there's no polygraph or anything. No, not for parole. There's not. Or not for Department of Cresions. There's not. I mean, we hear about in other cities like Rikers Island, there's gang members,

Crips, bloods that work there. So it's not far-fetched for something like that to happen. Now, at that point, did you totally denounce gang life like you were out of it? Yeah, I had retired. Okay. I basically retired. Yeah, I just retired from it. I was old enough at the time that I could walk away from it and not be held accountable or be green-lined or anything like that.

What was the training to become a parole officer like? Is there an academy or how does that work? Yeah, it's a three-week, four-week academy. And then you have to pass firearms certification. And that was it. What's the difference between parole officer and probation officer? Parole is more active. on going to homes, going in the home, doing searches,

where probation you typically will go and see them at an office. I have not really heard too many times of probation going to a home. Parole also has that power to just run up in your house, because actually you're still part of the Department of Corrections, right? You're just allowed to live at home. So they can run up in there at any point in time and go through your stuff without any notice, cell phone, whatever, you know what I mean? vehicle, no search warrant, no nothing, at least in the state of Indiana.

You know, and they can just go through whatever, whenever. So you basically sign on that parole release agreement. You sign away your amendment for illegal search and seizure. What's the longest you've seen someone on parole that was under, or on one year cases? So in Indiana, it's two years. The max? Yeah, when they come out now.

unless you're a sex offender, then you get, I think it's 10 years or now they do lifetime in Indiana, lifetime for sex offenders. Would you have any sex offenders on your caseload or no? Because you were mostly gangs. No, typically, they wouldn't let me. Now, once I became a field agent, yeah,

I was always at that desk of that parole agent being like, hey, run me to a sex offender. You know what I mean? Let me run up in that house real quick and see what I can't come up with. But, no, no, I only had, when I ran a caseload, I only had gang members.

No, when you meet with these guys when they first get out of prison, what are those conversations like? Are they in the mindset that they're done with gangs? Or do you find that most of them try to get back into it? Oh, man, they all tell you. They all tell you, I'm done. It's over. That's a prison thing. I don't know what you're talking about.

They should, right? That's what they should tell you. I don't know what you're talking about. And they got me wrong. You know what I mean? Yeah, they don't want to ever tell you on them. You know what I mean? They shouldn't.

What do you think it is? Why can't they leave that behind no matter how much time they do in most of these cases? You know, it becomes such a big part of your everyday life in prison, right? I mean, you know what I'm talking about. We have a routine in there, and that's your family. You know, that's your family. Yeah, I'd be like turning your back on your family, you know. Just like cops, right?

they rest of their life for each other every day. You know, a true, true set, a true clique, a true gang. I mean, you'll bang it out with your brother. You know what I mean? How many people are you going up against? You know what I mean? You're going to bang it out with your brother, you know? And it's just a family.

It's a way of life. You know what I mean? It's normal. You know, it's comfortable. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I know it's odd for the normal person to see it that way. But it's all about walking them all in their shoes, you know? How would you build a rapport with your clients that would come out on parole?

You know, I actually had a great relationship with my people. I did. I kicked it with them. She'll talk to them like they were human beings. You know, all these parole agents, they want to talk down to them or talk ugly to them. I gave everybody on my caseful respect. You know, they're individuals. They're human beings sitting across from it. They made different decisions that I was making at the time.

And I knew that. I understood that. I understood that. Maybe they were reachable. You know, maybe I could change your life. Maybe I could kick them advice that they pick up on, you know? Not everybody picks up what you put down, but some people will. And if one or two of them picked up what I put down

and they were able to change your life, then great. Great. What is the most popular gang coming out of prison in Indiana? It depends on what area you're in, you know. On your caseload, would you see a lot? My caseload, I had a lot of Imperials, which was really tough. I had a lot of GDs or vice lords. I would say that was a majority.

Yeah. No. Are most of these guys trying to find work and change their life around, even if they're not separated from their gangs? Are they trying to do the right thing? Very few. You know, it's almost like when they hit the street, they're on vacation, right?

When they're in prison, they're at work. It's keeping it a buck. You know what I'm saying? Like, if they hit the street, man, So I just time, it's a vacation time, right? And then when I go back, then I'll go back to work. I'll plead my case on why I should go back on vacation. It's just the sad truth of it.

Do you have a story that stuck out from you from your time as a parole officer? I do have one. And it's embarrassing, right? But I can tell it now. I don't have anything to be embarrassed about. So I was a field agent at the time. Let me tell you this real quick. So I was a field agent, right?

And then I did really good at being a field agent. So I was the first person ever out of Evansville, and there was very few of us that were able to do this. But they actually sent me to the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy to become a police officer. So I went and went through the India, Ilya, I went through the whole program to become a police officer. So towards the end of my career at Department of Corrections,

I actually was on a team where I worked with Indiana State Police and then marshals where we served felony warrants. And that was the big part of my job towards the end of my career, was chasing people, finding people that were what they consider delinquent or had committed violent crimes. And that was probably the funnest I had. The craziest story, right? So I'm searching after this female, right? And then she's out of like Bloomington or Fort Wayne or something. And they hit me up and they're like, hey, we think she's in your area. And they're like, hey, she's really small, though.

So like, no crap, she's like really a tiny chick. And so they send me the description. And I can't remember how big she was or nothing. And I was really good at finding people, right? Because I know I talk to people. So somebody had doing it to say, we're like, hey, she's at this house. So I went in, boom, sitting up on the house,

sit up on the house for like five or six hours, boom, see her go in. When we get a whole team, hey, she just ran up in this house, you know, get everybody ready, shoot them down here, we'll run up in there. I visually seen her going in the house. So, Tatea comes, boom, boom, boom, we run up in the house, we're going all the way through the house.

Daw is going all the way through the house. can't find this female nowhere So at one point in time We're standing Like everybody's in the kitchen And I'm leaning up against this dryer Right I'm like man I know she's in here

I know she's in here Dogs like running around me and stuff You know dogs doing what it does And couldn't find her nowhere So we leave I look like a jackass We leave And it's up

I get a call from EPD Like Two or three days later the day had snatched her up and I'm like no I want to talk to this I want to find out where she was at so boom I go to Vanderburt County jail and I'm like hey you know so I was at that house we do you remember whatever

where's you at man a chick was in the dryer I was leaning against the dryer dog was running around me I was my pride was hurt so bad from that yeah how effective are the dogs with finding people good good especially canines here in Indiana

we tracked somebody up underneath a porch at a house and only crawl space was from the back to get in but he was all the way at the front of the house a lot of the houses in evansville are shotgun style so you know you hit the front door and you got right straight out the back so on the cross space this house was through the to the back so we let the dog go through the back and i mean i don't know how many times his dog re-gripped on this dude as he was yanking him to uh the out the back of the crawl space But yeah, they're good to find people, man. Do you have to give them one of their, like, belongings to trace it, or is it just any human?

Any human. I don't know how they do it. You know, I was never part of the training. But, yeah, they'll track them down. They will track a person down, seriously, especially if you put them in the vicinity. I partnered with Hungry Route to create an online digital cookbook because I know a lot of you watching may have just gotten out of prison and are tired of eating prison commissary food, which is a lot of you. is why I called my cookbook the commissary upgrade. And even if you haven't been to prison,

I'm sure just hearing about prison food on the show all the time makes you sick of it too. When you scan this QR code or just click on the link in the description of this episode, it will take you to my cookbook where you will see some of my favorite recipes that my girlfriend Letitia and I cook at home throughout the week. There's the Swiss burger, black bean avocado pockets,

chicken fajitas, pork chops, pork chops, and more. These are all quick and easy meals to make for you or your family, and they come out way better than any type of prison food you can make with commissary. And guess what? Not only will Hungry Root send you all the ingredients you need to make these recipes so you don't have to hit the grocery store on your own, but they also have a massive selection of snacks and other recipes if you don't like mine. And you know how important it is for me to keep my snack bar stocked at the studio for my guests, so I have Hungry Root set up on auto delivery. And like the meals, these snacks are definitely a commissary upgrade. Explore my digital cookbook on Hungry Route today

and find recipes that are right for you. Go to Hungryroot.com slash locked in to access my cookbook, the commissary upgrade. What do you think is the worst part about being a parole officer? Nobody checks on a parole probation. Nobody checks on. Nobody checks on. those people's mental health. You know, they're just expected to be okay. You know, they're just expected to do the job. You know, nobody ever checks on if they're okay. You know, nobody ever checks to make sure they're all right after some of the stuff they see, some of the stuff they have to go through. What do you think was one of the worst things you saw? You know, going in these houses and seeing the living conditions

that some of the children were living in was horrible. You know, roaches everywhere. You know, there's something about, it seems like, and I never could figure it out. When you ran into a dirty house, you could always open up the stove and there would be dishes in the stove.

I never could figure that out. Why a person would put dirty dishes in their stove? Still bogles me. But, yeah, that would be. probably be the worst is just seeing that a cycle never breaks, you know? Like, you know, so I'm going into some of these hotels in Evansville down off of like fairs out. They got a certain street called fairs.

And some of them hotels down there, me are so bad. I would infest it with bid a bit of bugs. And you see these kids all bit and ate up. And, yeah, it's horrible, man. Now, what do you think the ratio is of, of, uh, people that are successful on parole versus unsuccessful? I would say 30% make it off without being revocated. So do you think it's even worth it then to have parole?

Are they better off in prison and then reacclimating after? Is the parole useful? Because isn't it supposed to be to kind of like a halfway house in a sense on the federal level? Right, right. Well, yeah, I mean, I want to see people come home. you know, I want to see him get a shot. But I guess what does the system do wrong?

Is the problem they're just throwing them out? Right, they don't prepare them. You hit it on the head. They don't prepare them in prison to get out. I mean, I want, you'll find out later. My story, I was never prepared to transition to the outside, you know, and somebody that what I consider to be successful

that went to prison for a little bit of time coming back out, I had to relearn everything, right? Because there's two ways of life. Two totally different ways of life. I've been out a little over a year, and I'm still transitioning back to the street. You know, I still won't spit in my tooth seat

in my sink. I still spit toothpaste in my toilet. I still drain my ramen noodles in my toilet. Can't break it. I drained my ramen too. Not in the toilet, but I like drained ramen. You know what I mean, though? But you know what I'm saying?

Because, you know, you do something like that inside a facility, man. I mean, you caught up for something like that. No, you said in Indiana, they're usually on parole for just two years. Why would someone go on the run at that aspect? Is it because they're committing a new crime? Yeah, typically. They either got a new crime, can't pass a drug screen. Just don't want to report.

You know what I mean? don't want to file guidelines because some people will come out of prison and never even report. Where do they go? Just out. Just on vacation, buddy. You know what I mean?

Hit the streets on vacation. Never even report. We'll file a warrant three or four days after they're supposed to report. Now, the ones that do flee the state, is there a certain level where you'll actually pursue them

and go for, say, the marshals, like a certain level of crime? Yeah, see, as a police officer, I had the extradition to where there's a team in Indiana. that they'll send parole to go and extradite them back. Really, any violent case, any violent crime, they want them back. But if they get picked up in any state, depending on length of time they have left,

because in Indiana you have three different times, right, you have earliest projected release date, projected release date, and then mandatory release date. So like if their MRD date, mandatory release date is far enough out, far enough out, and the Department of Corrections can hold them for a while, they're going to go get them. You know, but if they're in another state and they got new criminal charges and Indiana might only be able to hold them for a year or two, but yet the sentence they may be received in that other state is longer, then Indiana will probably just write them off. How many people are on your caseload at any given time? I mean, I was running a caselo to like 90, 95.

How do you keep track of them? Are you basically working 24-7? Yeah, I was always working. That phone was always going off. If it was not a parolee, then it was a sheriff or a EPD officer or a Marshall or ISP. Yeah, always going off. Do you feel like you were well compensated to do that? Heck no.

I made pennies. It is, you know, and what they make you believe is why you're doing it. The cause. You ain't doing it to get rich. That's what they'll tell you. Like, you want to raise why? Like, we're letting you do what you dream. You know what I mean?

You wanted to help people. You're helping the state of Indiana. I made pennies. Where I made my money was off duty. When I became a police officer, right? I worked off duty gigs making 50, 75. $100 an hour. You know?

I mean, I was bringing $18 an hour. So now if you're a parole officer who gets a phone call on the weekend, are you expected to respond to that? No, you don't have to, but a lot of times, well, you're not expected, but yet expected, right? Because you never want one of your cases to hit the news because that's a lot of paperwork, you know, and it looks bad on you if it hits the news. So, you know, typically, yeah, you got your phone with you, you know, and if that phone goes off, boom, you'll answer it.

Did you find that parole officers were experienced enough to do the job? Like, say they're a younger parole officer and they have a guy that just got out of prison for 20 years. Are they equipped enough to handle someone like that? Heck no. Tech no. If they were correctional officers and then got promoted up to being a parole officer, depends on what kind of time they did as a correctional officer, what prison they came out of. But no.

No. just anybody with a psychology degree or whatever come in there and they had no idea with, they can't handle these guys. You know what I mean? And you know as well as I do when you sit across from somebody

and you're reading them right off the bat. You know, right out of the rib, I already know within the first couple of minutes if I can get over on you or not. You know what I mean? And, you know, a lot of people are young, naive. You know, a lot of parole agents to get caught you know, doing dirty things with the parole, you know what I mean, having relationships

they shouldn't be having. Sam isn't on the inside. You have a lot of, you know, correctional officers having relationships they shouldn't be having. I would say that's the biggest thing you see as a parole agent while a lot of parole agents get in trouble. Now, isn't a big part of the job, though, becoming friendly or friends with the individual while keeping it professional too? Yeah, it is. How do you keep that line where it's just the right amount. You know, that's a trick, and that's why a lot of people aren't good at it, is because they can't find it.

They're either over-friendly or not friendly enough. You know, so people would just, this is what I always would train because of FTO, right, field training officer. This is I always training people to make them feel like you're being over-friendly, but just know where the line is, right? You got to sell something. You got to sell them on it. You know what I mean?

Make them believe that you. you might be a little weak or naive. But just know that they're on bullshit all the time. 100% of the time they are on that. You know, just know that. But at the same time, be fair firm and consistent. Be the same way every day, right? I would rather know, okay, hey, that person is going to be a jack wagon.

Every time I see them, I know what to expect. I'm not even surprised rather than, one day everything's cool. The next day you're going to try to hold me at an accountability level that you didn't hold me to the previous day. And that's where you get hurt, right? That's where you don't have that respect. But if you come in every day being fair, firm, and consistent,

no matter what kind of day you're having, every person, every individual is different. It would be fair, firm, and consistent with that person, with that individual, every day. Do you find that parolees are given a clean slate when they get out and not judged? or do you think that they're judged by their file? Like, say it comes across the person's desk? Yeah, they're judged by their file.

Black and white. They're judged by their conducts because parole sees everything that that person did in prison prior to coming out. So they see every conduct, they see every class, they see everything. I mean, so like you'll get a case file six months to a year prior to that person getting out

and you've got to approve their placement, right? They have to submit a placement. If they're going to be on parole, they have to submit a placement. So then the parole agent will get the placement investigation, and then they'll go out and investigate it. Call the family member, whatever it is, and get approval. Go out, look at the place if they want to, whatever. And so that parole agent's already making judgment by what the place looks like that they're moving to, the family member they're talked to, their criminal history. what they did in prison, what classes they did and did not take, what conducts they got, what, you know what I mean, if they didn't get any conducts.

And then they're reading their crime, you know what I mean, what they went to prison for. Do you have a case that's really stuck with you that maybe you made a mistake on or wish you did something differently? Yeah, there was a gentleman, man, I just, I really liked him. Awesome about him. And he came out of Branchville Correctional Facility, part of state. And I had had him. He got revoked, went back, came back out to me. And he was a high-ranking member of GDs. And me and him just had an amazing relationship, right? Or he just communicated. His

wife kept calling me, telling me he's making, you know, Katie. He's making Katie. He's making Katie. and I called me in office, talked to him about it, whatever, and I never once felt like he was under the influence, pop up at his house, never smelt anything, never, you know, walked through it, whatever, never got the inclination that he was doing it. And I ended up getting a call a couple months after him being out that he was killed, that he died from when he was making.

he had held some of the fumes and it killed him and you know the wife you know she blamed me and she had every right to blame me you know um I should have pushed a little bit harder you know it was believable you know what I mean I just refused to believe it because he was kind of succeed in my eyes he had a job he's being successful you know I didn't want to give him a hard time I didn't want to label him I didn't want him you know he was doing everything he was supposed to do never missed an appointment Uh, there's always where he was supposed to be. And, you know, I wanted to give him a fair shot, right?

And, uh, I was trying to give him a fair shot. But, you know, I went back and I probably should have been a little bit harder. Does that affect the way you handle cases when something like that happens? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you take tips a little bit more serious. If you took every tip serious, you know, it's insane. You probably get a lot from like girlfriends that are mad or, you know. I would tell my guys when they come out, hey, listen, no mess with no female for six months. The last thing you want to do is tell them you're on parole.

You know what I mean? Because they will blow up that phone. They do that in prison. They call the counselors and police managers and say, ah, so-and-so's on a jack right now. Hey, I never had that problem, right? When I was in prison, the only people I communicated with was my kids and my mom. But, yeah, it's crazy. man, I wouldn't even listen to my messages a lot because I knew it was just angry females.

How many of those turn out to be true? A lot of them, 99% of them. Oh, they do turn out to be. Oh, yeah, yeah. Man, they're telling dirt. Man, every time, what are you going to call them snitches or not? You have a good story from that? No, I don't really have a good one.

The best, and it was a sad story, was, you know, I mean, she would blow me up. Every day, I'm telling you he's making K-2. And I'm like, why do you want to see him to go back to prison? If you don't want to be with the man, just cut ties with him. But, like, why you keep calling and telling me that I'm falling up on it? I don't see nothing. You know what I mean? He was just doing it at somebody else's house, you know?

Yeah, that one haunts me still today because he could have changed the world. He really could have. He was an older guy, but the amount of all the amount of. that he could have reached. Yeah. When you make the decision to send someone back to prison, do you have discretion at all? Do you have some leeway? Like maybe they pissed dirty once.

Do you kind of throw that under the rug or how does that work? See, that's what's dangerous about the power they give parole agents in the state of Indiana is, man, all the parole agent has to do is file for a warrant. And I mean, 90, I've never seen the parole board go, no, we're not going to issue the warrant. Never seen the parole board say no. So you're giving all these power to these people that are emotions, that have emotions, and they get mad at their parolee

for not doing something. Boom, go follow warrant. So you think they have too much power? Too much power. I had too much power. I had way too much power. I mean, I don't see it until now. At the time I loved it, right?

Tom I thought it was untouchable, especially once they gave me that badge, you said I was a police. officer and on my best it said police you know what I mean I thought it's touchable you know what I mean and the dangerous thing about me is I could be a parole agent one moment and well so if I entered the house as a parole agent I could enter the house as a parole agent and search without a search warrant but if I decided that I want to be a police officer when I enter the house and I'd have thought for the search warrant this never was. happened, but let's just say

mid-walk, I decided, you know what, I want to be a parole agent? You know what I mean? Who can tell me that I decided or didn't decide what I wanted to be? You know what I mean? Now, as a police officer, before I filed criminal charges, you know, I

had to make sure that, you know, if I was doing a search, that I applied for a search warrant, if it wasn't in plain sight. But I could go into the parole agent, something, walk out of that house, right, and be with a parole agent, be like, hey, did you see that bag of dope in there? You did, okay? So you're telling me, you've seen that bag of dope in there? And then get a whole of a judge and be like, hey, you know, parole agent was in there while doing a search or while walking through the house

in plain sight, visible sight, they've seen a bag of dope. So apply for a search warrant, see if the judge is signed off on it. Go right back in that house and grab that bag of dope. It's crazy. What do you think was a weirdest thing you saw? Where's saying? In someone's house? I'm sure you've seen a lot. Yeah, it would definitely be, you know, probably when messing with some chomo,

child molesters, chomos, what are you going to call them? You know, you see some pretty awful stuff in their videos. While they're on parole. Yeah, while they're on parole. You know, and then you've got to question your parole agent on, are you really watching these people? because that's a serious freaking job to have, man. You know, you've got a convicted, convicted, not alleged, but convicted, sex offender.

You know, there are strict guidelines that they have to follow while in parole, no electronic devices. They have an electronic device that has to be the flip phone that cannot be Internet accessible. They can't have the video game, Xbox 360, PlayStation 5, because you can get on the Internet through that stuff. you know, where they live, they can only live so close to a school or any place that a children congregate, who they visit, you know, they might not be able to visit their family if their victim was a part of that family, you know, and, you know, making sure they have to do a polygraph every three months,

and making sure that they're doing their polygraph, and you're looking at the answers to their questions, that you're, you know, they're also in what they call like a Psalms counseling. I don't know what Psalm stands for, but I don't know if it's just Indiana or not, but you've got to make sure they're participating in their Psalms, and you're talking to the therapist, you know, and some of these sex offender parole agents, because a sex offender parole agent will only monitor sex offenders, or at least should.

Some of the smaller counties or smaller districts, they would run a mixed caseload of both. But your bigger counties like Evansville, Indianapolis, you know, Fort Wayne, Gary, Newcastle, you know, they're a sex offender parole agent, typically will only have sex offenders on there. Sometimes their caseload, a caseload of 40 sex offenders is a lot because there's so much it goes into those people, right?

And, you know, there's a level of accountability. you're holding them guy, them people at that you're not holding other people at because something small, right, can be huge in the big scheme of things. There's a gentleman that I can't remember his name.

Anyway, he was a sex offender out of Mount Vernon, Indiana. And I had went with the pro-agent, this is kind of a crazy story. I wish I'd remember him. But anyway, I'd went to it with the parole agent two or three times.

And I was like, man, I'm telling you, there's something going on in this house. Like he had a bunch of little TVs in different places. He was living with his parents, though. And I don't know. It was creepy, airy. Like, we'd go out into this garage.

It was just like, you know how you just get that feeling that some weird stuff has happened in here? Got it every time. Well, he wasn't doing things to children. His thing was he was doing it to women, right? and Halloween, you know, they got to be checked in Indiana. They got to stay home or go to a fire station and be there between trick-or-treat hours, you know. They got to hang signs in their windows.

Do not give out, I do not give out candy, please not approach door kind of stuff. Well, this guy ended up abducting like a 19-year-old girl. and took her like on a three-county chase, man, and was doing horrible things right before they caught him. And there were signs that that dude was going to do something prior to doing it. Do you think these types of individuals should even be released from prison? I mean, because the conditions are just so extreme. That's a burden on everything.

Yeah, there's no reason that anybody's convicted of a sex offense should ever hit the street again. Not if it's founded. You know what I mean? There's a lot of alleged, right? But if it's a founded case, yeah, never hit the street. Very few. How do you even truly enforce these conditions anyways?

Because they can easily just have, as soon as you leave, you know, walk out the back, have something buried in the backyard. I mean, granted, technology is getting better for probably, you know, detection or whatnot. Right. And you know, these prisons, they try to keep them together, right? You usually typically have one prison that does all of the treatment, all the interviewing, all of the counseling. And that's just a breeding ground. You know what I mean?

They go in there and they give advice to each other and they congregate, you know what I mean, and glorify their crimes to each other that a lot of them will come out more intelligent on how to get away with their crime. I mean, look at every type of criminal does that. You see it with bank robbers and prison, drug dealers, fraud guys. So there's no reason why the sex offenders aren't doing it. It's the same thing. But they've classified it as a mental health, a sickness. You hear me?

You don't get me started on that one, man. I mean, I'd go on a rant on that one, you know. But, yeah, dumbest thing ever. And then you're entrusting, right, that they're being supervised correctly. You're entrusting the state of Indiana will put effective. And the majority of them are, okay? I'm not, but I've been out of the game for a while. But you're trusting that the state of Indiana is going to put effective people with no human error over watching someone that is unpredictable.

It's almost, like you're better committing them to, like, a psychiatric type facility just for those types of offenders. Right. And having it until a court decides, you know, whether or not they're good to reenter society. Right. Because you meet so many sex offenders like a five years in prison. I couldn't tell you how many I met in the feds, kitty porn, five-year sentence. Are you really changing in five years? I don't think so.

Could you get out in less time than five? We, so we've classified it as a mental health issue, right? A mental health, yeah, a mental health problem, whatever, that the way that they're wired genetically or whatever. And like you said, you're going to fix that in five years. Because you don't know, it's statistically proven that they might have. have 10, 15 different victims before they ever even caught, right? So it's something they've done over and over and over and over and over again. And then you're at home in prison. In Indiana's obvious, I'll be, first of them, I don't care what judge, legislator, our governor. I don't care.

Y'all are weak when it comes to sex cases. No, that's just I think the country as a whole. Week. I'll call them weak. It's crazy how many people are undercover too. I mean, look at the guy from the Wheel of Fortune. Did you see that news article? No, I've seen it. The host or whatever, he just got caught on an airplane in a child chat room or something, and he just got fired and they're investigating him.

Wow. Crazy. You know, and he'll get these high dollar lawyers, right? I mean, I might get something out of it, but I don't know, man. It's sad, right? Because we hold people that have committed crimes because of an addiction or whatever at a higher level of accountability than we hold

people that traumatize kids, women, men for life. Show me the reasoning behind that. You know what I mean? Show me how that makes, make that make sense.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, I tell people all the time, yeah, the life that they live in prison is not glorious, right? Unless they get, because not all of them get sent to a sex offender yard, right? Some of them get sent to Jim Pop.

And yeah, they're taxed or they're the one holding the dope or they're the one that, you know, is holding a pocket or whatever. They're getting extorted, whatever. But still, that doesn't give satisfaction to the victim.

You know? Matt's sad. I mean, it's really sad. It is. You guys know my story. I owned a nightclub when I was 18 years old, and I can tell you right now, I might have been the king of overdrafts. I was 18 running this massive nightclub, and let's just say I wasn't exactly the world's

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It's like a, I forgot. Prostatic advice or whatever. I can't think of what they actually call them. But yeah, all the time. That's common. It's common. Or they'll try to tell me, man, I can't pee standing up. I got to sit down.

Oh, yeah? Man, it's from prison. Really? Okay, yeah, I ain't going for you. Ain't in prison, homie. You go ahead, stand up, do your thing. You know what I mean? But yeah, they'll try to sit down to go pee and boom, pop a bag.

You know, that's the one that I've seen a lot of. How do you know who to kind of, like, turn your head to and the ones that you really have to actually police and see? Well, I can always tell by I'm walking in the door, right? One egg can tell another addict. You know what I mean? One person that's high can tell another person that's high or been high. You know, there have been times that I try my hardest not to revoke somebody because of a drug screen. And you'll find out later in my story why.

But a lot of people, though, they do get revoked because of positive UDSs during drug screens. but I never would. I mean, I never would. I never filed a revocation for that. When you were a parole officer, what was the one thing you wish changed in the system or one maybe tool you needed or support you needed in the system,

aside from more pay? I would say that the tool that I would have used the most, you know, it would have been nice to have more support in the aspect on the mental health side. To make feel like it was okay, man, you need a day, hey, go ahead and take that day. You need somebody to talk to, boom, we got you covered, you know. To me feel like it's okay not to put on the Cape today.

You know, my job was so unique within the Department of Corrections in the state of Indiana that I traveled the whole state, right, as a part of that field team. I might be doing searches in Indianapolis. I might be in Bloomington. I might be in Gary, Hammond, Fort Wayne, some little poduck town. You know, I traveled the whole state doing it. Yeah, mental health is a big thing, man. It's a huge thing.

Do you think that played a part in you kind of going down a bad path again? Well, yeah, it definitely played a big part in it. I actually got hurt doing a serving a warrant. Tell us about that. Rain in, boom, raining in the front door. I do wanted to tussle. So, you know, we tussle, boom, boom, boom.

I come down on my shoulder, and my neck kind of went to the side and I hurt my neck. So the doctor puts me on pain pills, right? So at first they're using it for the pain. And well, then I felt like, man, damn, I'm Superman on this shit. You know what I mean? And, like, it didn't matter how many I ate, I needed more, you know. It didn't matter how many I took, I needed more and more and more and more and more.

So, I mean, at one point, I was getting 160 a month from the doctor, but I was also taking family members, and I was also getting them off the street. And I was also, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, at one point at the height of my addiction, you know, I was taking about I think 25 to 30 oxies a day, oxies hydrocodone a day. And I never quit. You know what I mean? They gave me so much energy and I worked so hard that, you know,

I was answering my phone first ring. Got to go. Got to go. And, I mean, I would sit outside houses and doing stakeouts when I was trying to find a warrant with the marshals and ISP. I'm sitting out of 24 hours straight, not even about an eye, you know what I mean? Just eating them, eating them, eating them, eating them. And the more I got governor coins, I got commissioner awards, commissioner coins from drug bust and finding people.

So it was like the more I ate and the more I produced numbers, the more was expected. You know, wasn't expected to have a bad day, right? When you're finding this person, got to keep the state of Indiana safe, you know, kind of mentality. Why do you think you couldn't ask for help in that moment? Pride. You know, my pride kept me from asking for help. I like the notoriety. I like feeling I couldn't be dependent on.

You know, I hate them also to, get rid of shame, forget a childhood, to be numb, you know, not to feel anything because it was like when I ate them, I was happy, making me that euphoric feeling, you know. I fell in love, man. You know, I fell in love with pills. That was my wife. You know what I mean? It was.

It all went back to your childhood, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll resort back to things I never. faced as a kid, you know. It all resorted back to, the pills accepted me. You know what I mean? It made me feel great, you know. They never made me feel bad, you know, unless it didn't have them. And then it got to where I wasn't high anymore, but I had to take them to function. I wasn't getting high. I took them not to be sick. And, you know, I couldn't get out of bed unless I was eating a handful of pills to start my day.

If not, I was automatically in the withdrawal process by the time I woke up the next morning. I was our sick withdrawal. When I finally broke down and went to the doctor in March of 2018, 2019, he equivalented, the amount of pills I was taking as to using 3.5 grams of heroin a day. And they put me on Suboxone, which is another horrible drug, you know. They just swap one for the other. But Tom, I thought I was convinced I was doing the right thing, right? I mean, the doctor was prescribing it to me.

I wasn't stealing them. I wasn't taking more than what I was prescribed to take. I wasn't withdrawing. I wasn't sick. I mean, that doctor wasn't going to hurt me. I mean, he's got, you know, like just like being a police officer, he was sworn to do the right thing. You know, so he was pushing the Suboxin, Suboxin, Suboxin.

So I was taking eight milligrams three times a day. Who does that, right? I ended up, he told me six months. Six months should be off of him. Two years later, I'm still prescribed eight milligrams three times a day, getting 90 pills a month, but I'm only taking a half, right? I won to a half a day because I win myself down. Two years later,

Right. So, yeah, the appeals was the beginning of the end for me. Did your wife notice anything in the early stages of this? At the time, no. No, I kept it pretty hid, but a couple months into it, everybody around me knew except for my kids, except for law enforcement and my kids. My whole family knew I had a problem. When did it start to interfere with your work? when do you start mixing your personal life with your work life? I had a confidential informant. I mean, he was good.

I tell you what, he was straight up rap. Hey, I'm telling you, well, he knew everything about everything. I mean, he helped me so much get my name out there in the eyes of law enforcement because I don't know where they hung out at. But he always had the dime on everybody. So it'd be like, boom, call me up, tell me whoo-wit-woo-woo. And he was always right on.

And it's crazy when I tell you how I actually got in trouble. This dude's straight up dirtbag. He really was. He was shitball. I ain't kidding, man. Call it what it is. He was good. He was straight up snitch.

And I think that I had asked him, hey, you know anybody's dealing pills? and he knew right then why would I ask him that but he didn't say nothing and then he turned me on to a couple people dealing pills and then

where I got in trouble was this dude calls me he's a freaking rat he calls me and he's in my paperwork he calls me he's like hey my sister-in-law is about to drop off a batch at Miami Correctional

facility. She's been running dope to her husband up at Miami Correctional Facility. I'm going to tell you when she's going to run it up. She's been renting a car from this place. I'm going to tell you when she's going to run a bag of dope up there. Get her. Okay, I got you. So, a couple weeks go by, I get a phone call. About to happen. I call internal affairs at Miami correction facility. I'm like, hey, it's just about to run some dope. You get a name. about throwing some dope in there to her husband. She's scheduled for a visit at this time. IA's waiting on her.

Boom, she comes through the door, got the dope on her. They stop her right when she comes in. Got the dope on her, right? Call me. They're like, yeah, we got her, man. She's trying to run heroin and methane. They went to search the vehicle. She had tobacco and weed out on the vehicle.

And I'm like, all right, you want a question? I said, yeah, let me all right here real quick. But say Mirandaizer, boom, put me on the phone and I ask her a couple questions and she's, you know, talking crap, right? Okay, I don't need to talk no more. I call a prosecutor to get a search warrant for her house in Newburgh. Go back and get the search warrant, go in there, being an ISP officer, we run up in there. Just me and him. Run through it and we find some stuff.

I overlook some stuff. We find some more stuff. Um, the dude told me, the rat told me, uh, there's going to be pills in there and there's going to be a big black garbage bag full of money. Okay. I didn't see it. All right. So we left, filed a new criminal charge.

The guy that was with me filed new criminal charges on it. And, uh, I called him like, hey, it wasn't there. I mean, see nothing. he calls me a couple days later he's like man you missed it let's go back I'm telling you it wasn't there he's telling me you missed it let's go back so I'm all right so I go back get the keys to the power complex

we go back in there right I'm like damn this place is empty this place is empty so I ran up in here he's like oh man I don't know man I don't know man we do whatever we look around ain't nowhere in there I don't told you that dude ain't nothing in here

we leave he texted me a couple days later and he's like I got these tools for sale I'm in Bamberg County I got these tools for sale you know by advice use tools

I'll look but don't never text me that again and delete this text message simply always said he gets pinched still in tools from a construction side. He gets pinched. And I'm thinking,

this ain't good for me. Because usually I kept him out of jail. Like, if I knew that he was looking or whatever, I kind of be like, no, I ain't doing nothing with it. We ain't messing with that guy. He's pointless. He's useless. You know what I mean? And I go

and visit him, why he's a Bamberg kind of jail. I'm like, so what is it? You don't get me out of here? Now, I ain't do, homie. You know what I mean? You put yourself there, bro. And now I ain't do for you. I can't, how am I going to get you out? out of there. You know, it ain't happening. May 20th, or May 5th, 2020.

My son's birthday. My youngest son's birthday. I take the day off work. U.S. Marshals call me. Hey, we got this gig. We want you to help us on. Pays 100 bucks an hour. A high-profile case. We just need you to run a lead car on it. Run the lead car. We're going to transport a middle car. you know, we do. I mean, I don't know, bro.

It's my son's birthday. It's my son's birthday we got plans. 100 bucks an hour, pay you two hour minimum, only going to take an hour to do the job. Come down to the command post. I mean, all right, I'll be down there. I show up down there, right? Me and this one U.S. Marshal, we have problems anyway.

And it's weird that he's there because they know I don't like working with dude, you know. Come in, we're sitting at a table. like this. And my room is packed. And, uh, only one open seat though. And I'm looking around. You know, a lot of people are standing. I'm like, anybody taking that seat. And I'm like, I dodge, sit here. All right. So, boom, sit down. Put a file out in front of me. I'm talking this, you know, I go to open up the file and that marshal I didn't get along with. Boom, puts his hand on my, on my wrist and stands me up, right? I'm like, what the

You know what I mean? I'm about to take off on dude. Like, don't touch me. About that time, boom, everybody's on top me. They arrest me on a conspiracy to commit burglary, obstruction of justice, and theft. I don't know what y'all talking about. I don't know what y'all talking about, do whatever.

Because I really didn't know. In Vanderbork County, I had no idea what you're talking about. They showed me the text message where dudes asking me, if I knew anybody I wanted to buy these used tools he had. had. I mean, that's me. Or it's me, but I didn't know he stole them tools.

Nowhere down in there does it say anything of the such. Did you tell him to delete it? Hell yeah, I told him to delete it. I don't want that on my phone. So anyway, they charged my prosecutor, prosecutes me. $10,000 bond. Right? $10,000

cash bond. So I go back, get booked in, I'm on the phone. Hey, come get me. And call the lawyer. Come get me. And call back a couple hours later. And my wife at the time was like,

lawyer wants you to wait until tomorrow morning when you appear in front of a judge. He'd get your bell caught and have it. I was like, yeah, that's real easy. He ain't the one sitting in this, you know what I mean? All right, whatever. Next morning I go in front of the judge. He chops my bell in half. $5,000 cash, I can get out.

So when we post a bell, we get out on the way home, I'm like, wait a minute. They don't get me out of Newburgh for going in that house. Because he done snitched on me. Same dude, he don't rat it on me for something I had nothing to do with. I know they're going to pull the, you know what I mean? I know you're going to give me on that one. Pack up the things. You know what I mean?

We're packing up the things. boom, we run out of town, right? Go through our Terre Haute area. And I tell the kids, don't turn on your phones. Your phone's turned off. You can't be on the phones right now.

And everybody's got, everybody's on my plane has their phone turned off because I didn't want them to ping where I was at. So I drive about an hour out of the way, turn on my phone,

and call my mom, right, on a Saturday. I'm like, hey, Mom, what's up? Just wasn't checking on with you. She's like, what have you done? Woo-T-Woo? Just had eight Indiana State police officers out here stront of the house with ARs.

There's guns all pulled out, want to know where you're at, telling me I'm lying. I don't know where you're at. And I'm like, oh, man, you know, sorry, Mom. I'll take care of it. Call my lawyer.

And I'm like, hey, they're about to get me out of Newburgh, Warwick County for some bull crap. So I'll check. into it. He was on vacation in Florida. I'll check into it and I'll call you back. So he calls me back an hour later and he's like, yeah, yeah, they're about to get you. He said they're charging with a level two, burglary committed with a deadly weapon, and that's it, standalone charge. But it's a level two. In Indiana, they go from level one to level

six, level six being bull crap to level one being like, damn, you're about to do a long time in prison. And they had me at a level two, burglary committed with a deadly weapon. So I'm thinking, oh, I'm up. You know, my max is 30 years on that. So, boom, we're going to hiding. I wasn't running. I was just hiding.

And about a week goes by, I see this Dodge Ram. I'm out in the country, right? I see no cars ever come down this road. I see it's Dodge Ram. I'm standing on a porch. I see it's Dodge Ram. like just dead rolling by and I'm like yeah it was about to happen I see I had Kentucky plates on

yeah it's just about to happen but we'll go up in the house I'm like hey kids you know make sure you stay in took my suboxin you know what I mean saying bye to everybody and I mean it wasn't minutes and there they started pulling in boom boom boom boom boom and uh surrounded the whole house there's a couple barns they had the barns they had the barns surrounded, calling me out with a bullhorn, you know what I mean, over the mic. So I come out and they tackle me. Same team I worked with, serving warrants, tackled me like they didn't even know who I was, cuff me up, boom,

throw me in a vehicle. And leave me sitting there. I'm thinking, man, I hope that, you know, this one marshal ain't the one transport. And this is my, he don't shoot me on the way back. I ain't going to make it. Well, you know, it's him. dead ass silence and they drive me to Knox County because Warwick County did not want me in any other jail. Warwick County wanted me back in their jail. So it was about an hour and a half drive.

So they drive me like halfway and then a Ward County Sheriff comes and he picks me up and he takes me on back. One conversation I'll never forget is I'm in the back of his, vehicle. He's got this metal music just banging screaming, right? First time I was broken. You know, so I'm staring out the window and I was just lost, man. You know, I just, everything I have worked for, everything I had sacrificed, everything that people had believed in me, you know, all the time that people had put into me. It was at that moment that the shame and the guilt hit me. I had gotten so sick.

You know, I had gotten so wrapped up in my addiction that I didn't care about anybody else but myself. And the decisions I had made they were going to feel the pain for and how selfish I was. And it all hit me like a ton of bricks. And I can remember being broken, man. And he turns down the radio. He actually turns radio off.

And I wish I could remember his name, but I can't. And he said, you know, they just out of nowhere. He's like, you know, they, I typically only deal with sex offenders. He goes, I have no idea why in the world they sent me up here to get you tonight. And he said, maybe it's to tell you this Jesus hasn't forgot about you and he sees where you're at right now

and he's the only one that can pull you out of it and I'll never forget that what was going on with your job at that point when you were on I guess when you got arrested the first time are you just a no call no show and that was it on the lamb like when you got arrested and then No, I got a letter within 24 hours saying I was fired.

Wow. Not even suspended pending outcome. Fire. But I don't understand why they did this so abruptly for that first charge over the tools. You know, you were a good agent. You have a good career. Why don't they just call you in and ask you about these texts? Right.

So come to find out in the big scheme of things is during the time I had had suspicion that this one U.S. Marshal was having an affair. with my confidential informant's wife. We even bring this up in my trial, right? The guy that turned you in? Yeah. Okay. We even bring this up with my trial.

He failed to show up because he was federal. For whatever reason, he didn't have to report to my trial. My trial was underneath him, you know. So he didn't come to disposition that we have for, we requested for him, nor did he come to the trial to testify, you know. But, you know, whether he was or he wasn't, I don't know. I don't even, it's not for me to say, man. I'm not going to make accusations, you know, but there was a lot of beef between him and I, you know. I have my suspicions.

Other people, not just me, other people, had the suspicion as well. You know, there was a lot of jealousy of the position that I held, you know. And for as many people that thought I deserved it, there was that many people that didn't, you know. And I didn't realize how much hatred there is inside the Indiana Department of Corrections. What I did was wrong. I should have been fired. I should never went into that house. I'm not justifying what I did, right?

I knew better. I did not go back in that house with good intentions. Okay? I should have been held accountable for that. So I don't want to sit here and make it sound like I'm justifying. I didn't do anything wrong with you will. I was completely dead wrong for that. Now that second charge, the major charge, was all because you guys conspired to go back in that house

and you went in that house with your gun on you? With my firearm. Just attached to you. You didn't like kick down the door and you're searching. You just went in, but you took the key illegally. You found the key? The apartment complex manager gave me the key. But you used your official, like, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You got the key you go in. Now, had you found that money or drugs in there, you would have taken it for yourself? 100%. Yeah. I can admit that down because it's not alleged. You know what I mean?

I did it. Now, why do you tell law enforcement about that house to begin with in the first time and not the second time? Is it because the opportunity presented itself that you could get away with it? Oh, yeah, I didn't think that. Well, I didn't even think about the second time during my initial arrest the first time. It wasn't until I got out. And I was like, wait a minute. I know he's going to get me.

I know he is because I know it. Why wouldn't he? He's going to tell me, telling me about something I had, this text message and saying, he said that I watched out for him why he ran into the house was what he said, is I watched out for him why he ran into the house, stole the tools. And I was like, well, then make the text message make sense. You know what I mean? No, but with the house you went into to begin with, you alerted your law enforcement college. the first time. Oh, yeah, on the initial search warrant. Yeah, yeah. So why not tell them the second time about it, say, hey, guys, the confidential informant, you know, said it's still there, let's all go back.

Why do it alone? Because I wanted the money in Adobe. Because the opposite represented itself. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, I wanted the money in the pills, you know. So now they bring you to jail, county jail. Do you get bond again or no? Yeah, yeah.

So next day we get to, the jail, he drops me off. You know, they treat you, they treat you bad. They treat you like you betrayed the team, right? It's almost like in prison, you know how like the game, remember you're getting in trouble with the game. They took him to court. Yeah, when I'm getting took to court, right?

Like, really took to court, but like, they're really taking me to court without taking me to court, you know? So they put me in this cold cell, you know. How to feel to be on the other end of that instead of being the hunter, you're the huntie? And, you know, you're getting taken. in by your colleagues. A lot of shame, man.

A lot of shame. A lot of shame. I couldn't look at nobody. You know what I mean? Yeah. So now you get bailed out. So I go in front of

the judge, 10,000 bail again. Pretty cheap bail. Yeah, 10,000 cash bell again, you know. But during my arraignment, the Ward County is trying to get the judge to revote bail and hold me with no bond. So my lawyer's in Florida on vacation, right? So he's fighting the case over the phone

from Florida, and they order some kind of assessment on me. So they come, they do the assessment. He holds me another night. They come do the assessment. Next day, they get me back into court, so I've been in jail two days. And she's during COVID, so everybody's like, isolated, right? And the assessment came back to hold me without bail. That was a flight risk. Because I knew how to escape, you know, I knew how to get away, whatever. So my lawyer's fighting, fighting, fighting, and the judge goes hit and chops my bell in half, lets me out on five cash. So I'm out on the street, fighting my case on 10,000, five out of each county. Yeah, fighting my case from the street.

How long does that go on for? Two years. I fought my case for two years. What are you doing for work? Do you get a pension at all? Do you get a type of pay? Yeah, I had a little bit come in, but no, I couldn't find a job nowhere because of a background check. You know, I hadn't even been convicted, man.

It was all alleged. And still, nobody touched me. And so I started working for this job for like $13 an hour, man, just trash, doing horrible, horrible. recycling. It's called Jack Cor, a terror hole, horrible. And then my son actually knows someone that works for this Casey Distribution Center.

And, you know, I went in and sat down during the interview, and was just completely and totally 100% honest with them. And, man, they gave me an opportunity. It was a good paying job. Loved working there. They let me off for every court date. Never gave me a problem.

supported me 100% all the way through it. It was a great place to work, great organization. Did any law enforcement reach out to you and stay friendly? Not one. They all cut you off. Not one. Ian, I would risk my life with these people.

Risk my life for them every day. I didn't get a single phone call, chirp, text, mail. It's like I had the plague, man. I was a traitor. I had betrayed the blue And so I had a sour taste Against law enforcement Hated them

Hated law enforcement Seriously All law enforcement I hated Because it's kind of like You know if we're truly brothers And that's not That's not conditional right I mean it shouldn't be conditional

But to them it was What happened to your wife Uh She was in law enforcement also. What did she do? Yeah, it was over. Yeah. What was her line of work?

She was a correctional officer at a prison. That's crazy, right? So she separated from you right away? No, no, not right away. But the two years leading up, down fighting the case, yeah, she wasn't on the team. And she was not on my team no more, you know what I mean? My kids really got me through it. You know, they was on a team.

They was solid, you know. My mom was on my team, you know, but my wife was not on my team. Yeah, she wasn't a team player when it came to that. And she made decisions that were best for her. I get to prison, you know, and that's when the divorce comes through. and yeah she took everything you go to trial or do you take a plea deal so

like this prosecutor was a bulldog Ian like she was horrible to me dirty and it was election year and so get this if you remember back I got arrested May of 2020 right right before George Floyd right before the

the cop female cop that said Taser Tazer Taser pulled the gun shot dude. And I'm thinking, you cock suckers. Y'all couldn't have picked a different time to do this, right? They're going to run me through it now, you know? And so it was like really anti-police, like get all these crooked cops out or whatever.

So, yeah, it was all bad. But when I get a prison, yes, you leaves, what was you asking? I'm sorry. If you went to trial. Okay, so. Or it's a couple of a deal. Yeah, two years go by. I'm waiting on a plea deal.

I get one for four years out of Warwick. Nothing ever out of Vanderberg. My lawyer's like, I don't really think you're going to prison, Michael. I think I can keep you out of prison. You know, so it's a paid attorney, right? And I'm like, I'm really believing in him. I'm liking what he's saying, right? You know, so I'm like, no, I tell him no, I want to four years.

Well, his story changed to come right before trial. I'm like, I don't know if we can keep you out of prison. And I'm like, what the fuck? Two years, bro, you've been telling me I'm not going to. going to prison, he's going to get probation. Now you're telling me you don't know if you can keep out of prison. He's like, yeah, you know, this attorney, man, she's just, she's just really dead set on prison. And I was like, yeah, okay. So he's like, let's do a bench trial. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. We had a hearing where we're trying to get evidence thrown out. Well, the judge

wouldn't let the evidence thrown out, right? So at that point, it's when he changes, do a bench trial, you know, because she ain't offering you nothing. We take this in front of a jury. You know you're going to get maxed out, right? So we do a bench trial. And, yeah, that was pointless. I mean, that's pointless. There's no drug court options or deferred prosecution or anything?

Nothing. Nothing was brought up. So we do a bench trial on fighting. I go back and it took the judge two weeks to come up with this decision. So I go back and I'm like, hey, night before, I'm like, hey, you think they're going to tell me tomorrow? And he's like, no, no, no, no. They'll let you off for two weeks. You'll get sentenced and you'll just have to report.

Okay, cool. I'll help my son. Tom, I'll catch him later since November 1st. Go and he finds me guilty. Well, boom. I mean, man, this chick was so ugly. Like, I mean, he didn't even say. guilty and she's already standing up asking for my bell to be revoked. And I'm just like,

I mean, she's quick. I'm like, hey, you better do something, you know. And I've tried to fight it. And he's like, no, we're going to go ahead and revoke his bell and hold him until sentencing. And I'm blown away by this, you know. So, yeah, they put me in Ward County. I sit in Ward County for three months. Are you there in a cell alone, like, segregation? No, no, I was in Pop. How was that? Well, I'd set and sell alone for like five days. First five days because it was COVID protocol. I was going crazy. And they were like, well, we were just planning on leaving you in here?

And I was like, no, no, I can't handle it. I can't handle that. And so I had to sign off, boom, that I wouldn't hold them accountable to anything that would happen to me in Jim Pop. So I hit Jim Pop and, I mean, I never had no problems. You know, and then I went to take a shower, Boom. At that time, I hadn't had my insane tattoos covered up.

You know, so people that were imperials had recognized that those tattoos, you know, and I'm older, right? I'm in my 40s. So I never had no problems, man. A lot of times, Imperials would run around with me, you know what I mean? You run up underneath me, ask for advice, stuff like that, you know, shot collar, would come over and he'd ask for advice, things like that. But I never had any problems.

So law enforcement never checked you for gang taxes? tattoos when you applied to the, that's crazy. I had tattoos, right? Yeah, but not gang tattoos. But they didn't check me for no gang tattoos, no. But the prison does, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was flagged the moment I walked into Ward County.

You know, and I took off my clothes and everything to picture everything. How did it feel to be on that aspect? Because I'm sure you were the one that used to do that to inmates. No, I never took it. I never took pictures. Oh, you never did? No, they were already confirmed when they came to me. Okay.

I would never degrade somebody like that. You know what I mean? I just wouldn't. I wouldn't feel comfortable. So how to feel? It was just another part of the process, right? And I had to get into that mindset now that it wasn't if I was going to prison. It was when I was going to prison.

Now, they did a pre-sentence investigation on me. And the pre-sentence investigation, the recommendation was for house arrest, intensive probation and drug screening. You know, so I get that back, and I'm like, ah, I hit paydirt. You know what I mean? I'm going home, homies. You know what I'm saying? And sentencing time, I'm sitting in front of that judge, and I'm like, I'm going to go home.

You know, I'm going to get to eat, bathe, you know. And the judge reads that pre-sentence investigation, he's like out loud, right? He's like, that's not going to happen today, Mr. Dodge. You're getting a DOC number today. And I was like, oh, you know, it. Dang it. So state recommends 17 and a half years, right? That's what the recommendation was, because that was a presumptive. Man, I went white, about passed out.

You know, so I only know where to my lawyer. And I'm like, hey, you better fix this. Like, I don't know, you're going to fix it, but you better fix it. You know what I'm thinking to me at my age, 17 and a half years, that's a life sentence. You know what I mean? It's a life sentence for me. It's a life sentence for me. So he was the first one I was going to take out.

You know what I'm saying? And lawyer stands up. They fight back and forth a little bit. And Judge comes out with 10 years, Indiana Department of Corrections, and I'm thinking, you know what I mean? But he goes, I'm going to chop it. He chopped it up. Five years in, five years on paper.

So I get back to the cell It hits me You know, I'm like whatever Just do my time man Try to get some time cuts Whatever Sitting there another like two, three weeks They were only on me to reception diagnostics

In the RDC in Indianapolis I'm telling you what I've never been to The only other state I've ever been to RDC at It's been in Oklahoma Man that's hell That's got to be the closest thing to hell in Indiana

I mean, that's just a horrible place, right? Anybody's ever been to prison in Indiana? I'll tell you, R.D.C.'s freaking hell. So I'm in their six weeks, though. They keep me in their six weeks, and they take me to prison, right? I finally get, boom, classified, sent to prison. I'm there a year, right around a year.

And they run in, and they're like, hey, case manager, I want you to see you, counsel. So I want you to see you. And so I go and I'm just, you know how that feeling gets, man. It's like, man, I hope to God something bad didn't happen with my family, you know. So it's a call, it's a long walk to that office and just that emptiness in your belly, you know. And I sit down and she puts paperwork from me and says they're transferring you. So I'm thinking good, you know, I'm about to lower class, right?

get to go to a medium or get to go to community corrections, maybe a low, whatever, you know. So I was like, all right, well, where are they sending me? Oh, we can't tell you. We don't know. Like, it's never seen one come through like this. Like, you know, so I'm like, well, what happens if I don't sign this paper? You know, you don't sign a paper. You get wrote up and you're going to go anyway.

So I just go ahead and sign it. Boom. When they get in me, that's what I asked. We don't know when they're going to get you. Next day, boom. Early in the morning. So pack your act. I was in a two-man cell right in prison.

I was in my, I wasn't in an open dorm, I was in cells. So they come over my intercom. They're pack your act. They're coming to get you. So I'm giving my stuff away thinking I'm going to a lower prison. And they come and grabbed me, take me back to RDC, which I thought was a little weird. Why didn't they just take me to the other prison? Because it was early in the morning.

Why didn't they just tape me where they were gone? But I didn't put no much stuff. into it. I'm in RDC from early that morning to 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock again. The next morning, they come, they grab me out, take me down, and put trip gear on me. And when they're walking me out, I come out, and I'm in the Sally Port. and I noticed that's weird that they got these vehicles

and the Durango was in the DOC Durango was in the middle and I'm like that's weird but I didn't put him much thought into it right so he buckles gets me in buckles me in he's like

hey man just try to get as comfortable as you can it's going to be a long trip and I was like man there ain't no way that Indiana is not that big of a state this can't be that long of a trip right so I thought he was just playing with me and we go to take off

and I'm like, many, there's vehicle, they ain't turning off nowhere. They're going with this. So we got 70 and we hit Illinois. And I'm like, hey, like,

Indiana's going to frown upon y'all taking me out of the state where we're going. Wouldn't say nothing to me. Go all the way through Illinois. We hit Missouri. And now I'm thinking, you go, like, Hey, where y'all, ask you, hey, where y'all taking me?

Like, seriously, man, where y'all taking me? Wouldn't say nothing. All the way through Missouri, and we hit the Oklahoma border where you can go to Arkansas or keep straight and go to Tulsa. And we get into Tulsa, and they stopped for gas. And I lean up, and I'm like, hey, man, come on. like, you know,

why around? You know what I'm saying? I mean, put yourself in my shoes, man, I'm still a human being. You know, put yourself in my shoes

where are you taking me? And he said, all I can tell you that we're not leaving this state. So we drive like another two hours. I end up in Lexington, Oklahoma. And man,

the way they do is not even professional. Like Indiana, if anybody from Indiana, like, and DOC's watching this, y'all need to fix it. They all just like, boom,

here you go. Like they delivered a people. piece of mail. Oh, here's this shit, you know, and getting a vehicle and get out. And then I got these Oklahoma Cowboys that are like wanting to rub me up.

You know, why are you here? I don't know, sir. You don't know. I don't know. If you don't know and I don't know, that we need to call them dudes to come back. Because somebody knows. Oh, you got a weird case. I don't come to me like that. I got no weird case.

You type my name in. I And I will say the majority of law enforcement I served with, they have weird cases. What we call weird cases, sex case, right? So the majority of them have weird cases. So they're asking you got a weird case, we do whatever. And I got a weird case. Check me out.

Ro my license plate. I'm good, right? I mean, I shall have with law enforcement. But so in Indiana, they stopped shaving heads. because they had shaved the Native Americans head it was against his religious beliefs and got sued so they stopped that in Indiana they don't shave your head

and like Oklahoma don't care about that Oklahoma them boys are for real man I got in boom shaved my head, shaved my face and gave me this piece of meat that looked like salami to kind of find out wasn't salami it was baloney right

but they made it look like salami and I said three weeks and their reception diagnostic center in Lexington, Kentucky. And all the time I'm in there, though, I manage to make sure you don't go to Lotton correctional facility. And I didn't even know where Lotton was, right? I never heard of Lotton.

I didn't know anything but Tulsa and Oklahoma City in Oklahoma. And, I mean, everybody I come in contact with is like, hey, just make sure you don't go to Lotton. You're good as long as you don't go to Lotton. It's three weeks go by and put me on the bus. and end up at a lot in correctional facility. I'm sick. You know, I'm like, I mean, I did two years at a lot in correctional facility,

which is like 13 miles from Wichita Falls, Texas. So they literally took me that far from my family. Why do you think they interrupted it a year in? Man. Usually they would just do it right away, and they'd put you through that, send you the worst, you know. Right. It's a little weird that they're.

waited a year. Did you file any emotions or appeals or anything that pissed them off? Oh, they was angry anyway, right? Like, so during my trial, man, you know, it's almost like a wedding, you know, like you got people that sit on the prosecutor side and you got people that sit on your side. Well, my side was blank. I had like two, three people on my side, you know, I did not have a fan base and did not have very many people sharing for me. Not many people were on my team. I got it. But man, there was a lot of people on the other side, right? So Like, there's DOC, DOC people, you know what I mean? You know, I embarrassed Indiana Department of Corrections.

You know, I gave him a black eye, man. I embarrassed Indiana State Police, you know, I did. And I think that, you know, they were gonna make my time as miserable as they could make my time. I can't say that right, I'm not making accusations because I don't know, but you're right. And even my probation officer, she's just, just like, man, that's just weird that she said she'd never heard of it. Now, when you get to a

new facility, do people know who you are because you're so far away or how does this work? Or are you keeping it a secret that you're a cop? No, actually, when I first hit the yard, I, nobody believed me. That you were a cop? No, nobody believed I was from Indiana. Oh. They said, you federal? No, I ain't federal. No, why are you here? You're still? You're still? You're state didn't just send you here. You know what I mean? Like nobody believed me, you know, but no, I was told by an old school, you don't lie. You lie, it's going to be worse. You're honest with what you are. You hold yourself right. You know, you stay humble and you take what comes. And I did that, you know. And, you know, Oklahoma, it was a different.

I mean, Oklahoma is so different. The prison system over there is so different than Indiana's. You know, everything's ran by cars over there. Kind of like in the feds, yeah. Yeah. And I ain't trying to make no enemies, you know, but the white car over there was a lot and at least was a bunch of dope heads. I mean, there was some good white people.

Okay, I'm not going to say there wasn't. But the majority of that white car was just, it was bad, right? K2 was real bad. They called it Deuce. Real, real bad, man. And, I mean, so I really stood on my own for the longest time until my shower, my job was cleaning a shower, you know. And I have made friends with this dude, damn grumpy. And he was a Serennial.

And I made friends with him because the way I worked out. I worked out from literally the time my eyes open to the time I went to bed. I didn't do anything else. I did not gamble. I didn't play board games. You know, magic is a really big game out there. I didn't get in none of that. I worked out.

I ate and I showered. You were sober too? totally clean. And, you know, I held myself, you know, it's humble. You know, I didn't look for smoke. I didn't cause no smoke, but it wasn't, you know, afraid to back away from any smoke, you know. And I actually had a problem with the Mexican that was kind of a,

wanted to want to believe he was a shot collar, you know what I mean, but wasn't really, you know what I mean? And Grumpy watched, Grumpy was a shot caller. and he watched how I handled that situation. And I think, you know, he's seen I was willing to just take whatever was going to happen to me and not run and pay for protection or run to the white car or, you know, I went in solo and just was willing. I knew if I didn't what was going to happen, right? And I don't know, you know, and we worked together, Grumpy and I did.

And he loved how I worked out, you know, and there wasn't many people in there that could work out with him like that. You know, we did Seals and Avengers and Superman's, and, I mean, couldn't know I run with him, you know, and I refused to let him outwork me. And he refused to let me outwork him, you know. So it was, we just pushed each other. And he kind of took me into the fold.

And I ran with that car, the Mexican car, the whole time I was in Oklahoma. and, you know, I had a good prison experience out there at a horrible yard. I've seen a lot of horrible things happen, you know. So how did you handle that situation? What exactly happened with that guy? With the Mexican. Yeah. He felt that I had disrespected him.

You know, so he was a loud mouth, you know, and I think through life we all learned. The louder ones are the scarter ones, and they're just not going to do shit. You know, it's the ones that don't say nothing. It's your watch. So he was just boom, boom, boom, barking. He was woofing, is what I call him. He's cool woofing. You know, so he was woofing and woofing and woofing.

And finally he got sick of it. And I was just like, you know what? They pop these doors today. I'm going to that cell. You know, and he had been all night, I guess, talking out the door. I couldn't hear him but talking out the door how he was going to put something cold in me, whatever. So, boom, they popped the door. I'm on the opposite side of the run

as soon as they popped the door, you know, boom, I come out, take that left, boom, walk to the right, walk in front of the showers, boom, take that next right, walking in front of the showers, all the Mexicans are out on the run. Well, I had befriended a couple white guys in there, right?

Stand-up dudes. Stand-up dudes. Well, they wasn't going to let me go in by myself. right, but I was like, listen, I don't owe you nothing. You do this, you do this on your own accord. Like, I ain't owing you nothing. And they're like, no, we got you, we got you. So, like, they were behind me coming, right?

And he had just come out of sale. I just went right up to him. It wasn't loud about it or nothing. And the gym ground weight over was on the other side of me because they were the, like I said, they were the shock collars of the cell, other pods. And I was like, hey, hey, money. Should, what are we trying to do?

While you're trying to catch one, I was going to hang up and, should we go right here in your cell and handle that business right quick? But now, you keep your name out, you keep my name at your mouth, I want you, I want to hear about you screaming out this door no more that you're gonna try to put in something called in me. Man, should I ain't got nothing on me?

Dude here can watch the door, you do can watch the door, we just go in here and catch this fade right quick. Oh man, I ain't got no problems, man, I ain't got no problems, man. I was like, all right, well, listen, we'll walk away from this. you know and so I'm going to walk away from this one I don't want to smoke either right

but I can't let you call me out my name like that I was the end of it so what was the worst thing you saw in that yard you said he saw bad things all right a couple things real quick I hadn't been on the yard three weeks and I'm standing on a run talking to this white dude and I see this dude come flying out of a cell you know like just right off to the side of me and I'm like man he came out with force and he had this sock

and he had swung it so he had swung it and I couldn't see who he was swinging at but so he had swung it and the dude and inside had grabbed a sock and yanked it from him so he takes off running down the cell boom goes down the stairs and he's out in our day room, right?

He's pacing, and he's walking, he's pacing, he's walking. And two dudes come out of the cell, they're yelling for him to come back up, yelling for him to come back up. And he's letting him and he's coming back up. So they run back in the cell, come back out, go down the downstairs, and remind you this about lights out.

So they come down the stairs and I see the guards coming in, right? So the way ours pod was like an X and you had a bubble in the middle and they policed from that bubble. Right. So nobody was in the pods. Right. So they policed from that bubble. But they would come in to lock us down.

So he'd just come in to lock us down and they go stabbing him. Poking him, poking him, poking him. And, you know, of course, the guards yell and stop it, stop it, stop it. And about that time everybody comes up to the top run, it's, you know, I don't have been at that yard. three weeks. And it was just like it was almost a pay-per-view event. You know, people are hollering, wooing, you know what I mean? Screaming. You know, kill him, kill him type of shit. And I'm like, damn, man, humanity has just like, this is crazy. You know what I mean? And I mean, I'm watching it. And, uh, I mean, like, they're stabbing this dude's trying to get away. And they're just

like him, boom, boom, boom, boom from both ends, you know, and he's trying to get away. and I don't know how many times they've poked him until he just they're going to run no more and I mean it took it took so long for the green team ERT

seals or what they call it cert a week it took so long for them to get there that it was over and I mean they had enough time to run back upstairs and flush the knives you know what I mean

like and then And Mother's Day of 2024, a guard allowed two houses to cross. And I don't know how many people died that day. I really don't. It'd be in the news, but there was several people died that day. And I remember watching that from my cell. I could see it.

I got where my cell was. I overlooked a yard. And, I mean, it was just complete chaos, man. Was it just a gang war? Yeah, it was a gang war. And you were able to stay away from that? Yeah, I was two to all the different houses. I was in a different house from that, and those two houses crossed on movement.

And it was it. You know, when you hear about your prison experience, I wonder how these prosecutors and the people in your case that pulled those strings to make that happen feel about it. because your situation was wrong but didn't deserve death and that very well could have happened to you in a place like that. Right. A lot in correctional center. I don't know who did the research on that and who does ICOTS to say, you know what, let's send one of our inmates to a lot in correctional.

You probably ought to check his job duty if anybody out there for the Department of Corrections watching because, yeah, they definitely put my life at risk. When you're in prison, does it make you think of why some of your parolees were the way they were and, you know, how you maybe reconsidered sending them back to prison at looking in hindsight when you were in there? Did you think about those cases at all? 100%. You know, I came to the assumption in there that every prosecutor, every judge should have to spend a little bit of time in prison. because we just hand out these years like they're nothing. You know what I mean? Years just handing out.

Time in there is time. Time in there is different than time on the street. So a day to us is a day in prison is an eternity, right? Because we have to come up with a routine. We have to come up with our own bit, right? We're doing our own bit. And we can't let people bit off of us and make our time harder. You know what I mean?

So we have to come up. our own time. We've got to figure things out, you know. And so a day to us is, a day out here is like 10 days in prison. This time is so slow. And, um, but not only that, until you're behind those doors to feel the pain that's there, we can't describe it, right? And, you know, these parole agents that just get these warrants and just send them back because of a positive drug screen, I mean, it's a sickness, man. It's an addiction. Prison doesn't fix that.

We don't have, like, the classes that you get in there, everybody's doing it to get out of prison. You know, the people you hire to teach those classes is bull crap. Like, I had to take classes in Oklahoma, right? Victim Impact class. I took that class seriously. I really did. because I didn't think there was victims in my case.

My victims were my family. I didn't realize that. You know what I'm saying? I didn't realize that my victims were my family, man. They were innocent bystanders that were punished because of my decisions. It took that class for me to see it. But it wasn't the teacher that showed me that.

It was me going back to myself and reading the material. You know what I'm saying? I had to do a I tell you how much I learned from them because I don't even remember what they were because I was just doing them to get the time cuts I was just doing it to get the time off my sentence and our prison systems aren't set up

for rehabilitation they're not I mean some people go in there with the right mind right I went in with the mindset I'm going to come out here with a sharper spirit a sharper mind and a sharper sharper body. If I can come out with those three things, then it wasn't all for nothing. You know, so I got in there and I started reading, you know, because I'd be honest with you,

and other than the Bible, I had never read a book before my life. Man, I found out that I loved to read. I found out that I had an imagination. You know what I mean? I didn't know I had those things. So I did learn a lot about me in prison, and I did spend some seg time, right? you know, unfortunately. And, you know, it's during that quiet time and sec time that you are forced to face things in your life that you ran from, you know? And it was during that prison time, man, that I had to face things, you know. I had to accept responsibility for things that I hadn't accepted responsibility for.

And I had to forgive people that had done things to me that I had never forgiven. You know what I mean? And, you know, in Oklahoma, I missed a lot of things. So my son had an amazing football career, my middle of son. You know, I missed his senior year of high school, you know. I missed his last football season. He suffered from that because I never, ever missed a football game. And I wasn't in the stands.

That affected him, man. You know, we worked so hard, both of us. but he put in the work, but, you know, I was there supporting for that last, you know what I mean? And there was pain there, that old season. It was pain on his part, and it was pain on my part. The thing that I still deal with today is I missed the birth of my first grandson, you know, and I missed his first breath. And there's pain there.

You know, I never got a visit I was in prison. The whole time I was in prison, I didn't get a single visit, single in-person visit, not one. I was in prison just right at three years. And, you know, in Oklahoma, my family couldn't make it to Oklahoma to visit me. You know what I mean?

And he said an example out of me. And it took being there in Seg to understand that. It took me to be there to understand that hopefully nobody else does make the decisions that I made. And I was wrong for what I did. And it wasn't law enforcement's fault that I did what I did. And it was my fault. It was my decision making.

I had to accept responsibility there, you know. And I had to understand I was not a victim, man. you know I chose everything I did I chose I had a decision in doing addiction played a big part of it but you know I still made the decision how much time do you end up serving I did just under three years and you got parole no I got probation they they parole the one nothing to do with me that would have been an interesting uh I was sweating that would have been your own department yeah I was sweating bro so how does that work if your sentence was five and then They just cut the other two and put it, transferred it to probation.

Right. So what is it? I got five flat. They just chalked up the other two. Is that seven years probation then? No, I got five years. They just chalked up the other two. Oh, they got rid of the other.

Probably one nothing to do with me, homie. I mean. It would have been interesting to your story if you had gotten parole just to be on that, you know? No, I don't know. It would have sucked. Not for you, but just overall, you know? Yeah, they would have, I wouldn't have made it. And they would have made it.

How has probation been for you? I'm assuming you still. on it. It's been great. It has been. Yeah, yeah, I'm still on it. I've only been out of prison. I got released June 12th, 2025. And at first, I had worked with my probation officer before going to prison around. I was a cop I worked with her. Actually, the rat that got me, I call him what he is. You know, you hear me? Like, I don't know if I can say or not. She's supervised him once. So she knows what kind of duty is Do you guys have a good relationship together?

Professional. She holds me accountable. At first, I mean, she told me straight up. I did not want you on my case. I didn't want you to get out of prison. Don't me straight up. She's honest with me. Like, she don't candycoat nothing.

You know what I mean? And I was just kind of like, dang, I was rude. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Like, why, you're going to be rude to me? I'm going to rude to you, you know? And she said, no, she said, no, she goes, you know what, you're doing the right thing. I judged you off of black and white.

I judged you off of the kind of person you were prior to going to prison. I was very arrogant. I was very cocky, felt untouchable. Because I thought I was above the law, Ian. I did. And I was shown I was not above the law. And since getting out, when I got out, I, like, I got out on an Indiana only releases two days a week, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

So my actual release date from prison went until June 15th, when I got out on the 12th. The 13th, I started applying for jobs. And, I mean, applying, applying, applying. And I had several interviews and got several notes, you know, because of my criminal history. Because it does not look good on paper, and it's, you know, I'm convicted with a burglary committed with a deadly weapon, obstruction of justice, theft. Get this, conspiracy to commit burglary, but there's no co-conspire.

So how they got that charge is beyond me. It ended up, I just took whatever they wanted to do out of Vanderbork County because they were going to run them at the same time. So I was just like, whatever, man, I'm tired of fighting. I just went to, I want to do my time, you know. So I just took whatever. Went in there with the open, please let the ships fall where they may kind of thing.

and every time I was stupid and it was quite dangerous. But yeah, they ran at the same time, giving a little over four years for those. But now she holds me accountable. I've tried everything to get to see her like every other month. You know what I mean? Every month. She does not bend the rules, break the rules, adjust the rules.

There's an expectation. I'm to meet that expectation. And it's once I meet that expectation and everything is fine, you know. But if I don't meet that expectation, then I know what's coming, right? I know. So, and she's a no bull crap kind of lady. She's got a job to do. How are you doing today?

Still trying to find my way, right? I was able to end up getting a job, right, at a factory. And I went in, it was just dead honest with them, didn't try to hide nothing, you know. they gave me a job and they've been decent to me, you know, they've been good to me. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do for the rest of my life, you know. I'm still searching, right? I still feel like there's something else I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm doing good. I'm sober and clean.

Go to work. Divorced why I was in prison. And when I first got out of prison, I want to tell the story real quick. I hope this is there. I don't really hope this is there. We won't cut it. It's your time, brother. So I was scared of women, right?

Because I seen women get you back in prison. And I'd been out about six months. And six or seven months, I don't know. I was friends with someone on Facebook, right? So I always thought the type of woman that I would get. It would be a woman that I wouldn't want to have a future with, right? Because I'm a convict. So I've got that mindset.

I'm a convict. I'm only going to draw convict type women, whatever that is. I'm not trying to talk ugly on disrespect women, but I just didn't think of somebody I wanted to have a future with. So, but there was somebody on my friends list, right, that she had sent me a request. And I don't know why I accepted it as a friend request, but I did. And because I knew of her but didn't know her.

And we had a mutual friend. So I get a hold of my mutual friend. I'm like, hey, you know, you know anything about her? We'll do whatever. And she's like, she knew very little. She was a private person who knew very little. I was like, I know I'm going to shoot her a message. So this is some old schools type stuff.

We messaged each other for like four or five weeks. Never heard each other's voice. she wouldn't even give me her phone number. I had to ask like three times. I was about to give up. We're having fun messaging each other, but if you're not willing to give me your phone number, then I get it, right?

I'm not going to ask again. I told her, listen, I'm not going to ask again. My arms are folded on it is what it is. I'm not going to ask again. If you ain't going to give it, I get it. So she gives me her phone number. And we text each other for like two weeks. Still have never heard each other's voice.

And I finally got up enough nerve to ask her if she'd go out on a date with me, right? So we went out on a date and have pretty much been inseparable. You know, she lived in another state than I did. But I didn't tell her about my history or about my past, right? She never brought it up until we had dinner. And I was so scared and so nervous because I was really starting to like her, but I had to tell her, man, you know. So I explained my story to her thinking that we just have a nice dinner and we had a nice conversation and that would be the end of it. And for the first time I didn't feel judged, you know, I felt accepted that you made mistakes and it's okay. And we ended up getting married and we have a beautiful

blended family. I treat her children as are my own and she treats my children as they're her own. and life is good. I still feel like I have something else I'm supposed to be doing. But I don't know what that is, Ian, and I don't know if I'll find it or not, right? But for the first time of my life, I'm happy, right? I'm sober, clean and happy. So life is good, man.

Well, Michael, I appreciate you coming on the show today. This was such an incredible episode, and he did a beautiful job telling it. Thank you. Thank you. I thank you for having me. Literally started watching you. I don't even know how,

I don't know a lot about technology, right, but when I first got out, my kids set up my Facebook for me, and I don't know how you popped up on it, but, man, I've been watching you, you know, for over a year now, and whenever that came up on my screen that you were coming to Indiana,

I thought, what? Yeah, yeah, that dude ain't never going to hear my story, you know. I seen all the people underneath that were commenting, And I thought, I'm going to shoot him a direct message. Nothing else was still watching. And when you responded back, I thought, at first, I'm going to be honest with you, at first I thought, man, I wonder if this is a scammer. You tried to talk yourself out of it too.

I did. You said, well, do you want me to, do you want to hear my voice first? Do I do I do this? I was already sold on it. Right, right. You know, because I didn't want to waste your time, man. And, you know, you have a lot of great moving stories on here. I mean, you do a great job with interviewing.

And not just hearing the story, but you do a great job. we're getting the person to talk, man. And so I've really enjoyed it. I'm really thankful for this, Ian. Of course. And I hope it helps, you know, bring you on your journey to figure out what your purpose is. And I'm sure you will discover that.

I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you. All right, buddy.