Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was A Hells Angels Biker - Then I Went To Prison For 27 Years | Johnny Bartolomeo

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Johnny Bartolomeo, a former Hells Angels biker, takes us deep into the world of outlaw motorcycle clubs. Johnny opens up about the journey of getting patched into the Hells Angels, serving 27 years in federal prison, and running with the Italians inside. He shares his experiences of surviving some of the toughest penitentiaries in the country and gives us a raw and unfiltered look at the harsh reality of long-term imprisonment. #HellsAngels #OutlawBikers #FederalPrison #PrisonSurvival #BikerGangLife #TrueCrimeStories #PrisonGangs #27YearsInPrison Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Johnny Bartolomeo: https://www.instagram.com/official_johnny_bartolomeo/?hl=en https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSiDeaKR8KBaS3AzvN30pFA Shop his merch: https://27str8apparel.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Growing Up in East Boston 00:07:36 Growing Up Idolizing My Father 00:15:18 High School Challenges and Turning Away from Drugs 00:23:11 Joining the Hell's Angels: Age and Requirements 00:31:10 The Media's Agenda and Personal Branding 00:39:39 Reflecting on Past Actions and Seeking Redemption 00:47:57 Reflections on Life's Turning Point 00:55:50 Arrested: The Beginning of a 27-Year Sentence 01:03:28 Filing a Lawsuit for Retaliation 01:10:59 Sentencing Impact: The Dramatic Courtroom Speech 01:18:38 Life in Levinworth Prison 01:26:00 Initiating Chaos at Lee County Penitentiary 01:33:01 Navigating New Prison Dynamics 01:40:44 Adjusting to Life at Fort Dix 01:48:10 Transition from Penitentiary to Fort Dix 01:55:14 Building a Personal Brand: Journey of 27st8 02:02:49 Celebrating Great Friendships and Life Changes Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Johnny, how you feeling today, man? I feel amazing. We are at your apartment, and this is technically Boston? It's August, Massachusetts, yeah. We'll call it Boston. We'll call it Boston.

You know, in the feds, everybody does that. You could be from Connecticut. You can be from Vermont, Rhode Island. Everybody calls it Boston, right? Yeah, you're in the New England car. That's right. Yeah, so you got me outside the studio all the way here, but you're not kidnapping me or anything.

No, nothing like that going on these days, pal. Yeah, well, it was great to connect with you. Shout out to Travis Cullen, who was on the show for introducing us, and thank you for responding to the DM to make this happen. Absolutely. It's a pleasure. I mean, you know, I mean, you're the big time. I'm in the big time now, right? Yeah, this might be one of the biggest interviews you've done. Yeah, excited about it. You just got out fairly recently, too. So I got out a year ago, almost a year to the day.

And the final count was 25 or 27 years, right? 27 years. It's a long time, and it's going to be interesting to see later in this episode what that transition was like and what's different. Did you grow up in Massachusetts? So I grew up in East Boston, yeah. East Boston. What was that like? Did you have like your family? Did you have siblings, mom and dad? So it's idyllic, right?

And I had my mother, Barbara, my father, Charlie, my two brothers, Ronnie and Charlie, and typical middle class home. And, you know, my father always taught a strong work ethic. My mother, a strong religious ethic, right? And, you know, I would just say that just as average, average as average could be, right? And, you know, in that, you know, area, right, in family areas, just everybody was like us. Nobody was doing any better. Nobody was doing anywhere. So it was just basically, you know, very, you know, our neighborhood is very tight-knit or was at that point in time.

You know, everything changes. We had that conversation. But at that time, it was very tight-knit. My cousins lived next door to us. Cousins lived across the street. And, you know, in that day and time, you know, you were cousins, were people that weren't even your cousins. You know, your uncle wasn't really your uncle. But, oh, this is your uncle Ronnie. This, you know, so it was very, you know, that differs a little bit that I could see. The dynamic is, you know, neighborhoods were much closer.

And my neighborhood was very close. And it's something that I hold, you know, very near and dare to my heart. And, you know, I love East Boston. I'm all about East Boston. What did your parents do for work? So my mother worked at the neighborhood. Health Center and my father was a machinist. He was a maintenance machinist who worked on both lades and computers, like the old time machines and the newer machines. And, you know, very talented

guy, you know, he was, but he was a troubleshooter. Sometimes he used to work for this place, Norelco. And he used to say, he'd have the Norelco uniform on 24-7. He goes, if it wasn't for Norelick, I'd be bollicky. You know what I'm saying? So that's, because that's all he, you know, it's kind of all he wore. And he told me that he would go months at a time, just reading all levels until something broke down. Then he might be there for two, three nights in a row, troubleshooting and, you know, resolving the issue with the machine. Who do you think you're closer to your mom or your dad?

Man, it's really hard to say, you know, especially at this time because, you know, I lost both of them while I was in prison. And, you know, it's really tough. So my father was my best friend, okay? And, you know, my mother was, you know, somebody that, you know, I held very dear to my, I love my mother, you know, and I, you know, my new philosophy going forward all the time is, and it's so redundant, people are probably going to shut the podcast off because my philosophy now is do something once a day to make my mother proud. So I have my mother with me

every day. And so both of them, it's hard to pick, you know, who I was closer to. I was very close with both of them, you know what I'm saying? And my father treated me like his son in the house, but outside the house, I was his best friend. And that's kind of how it was, you know, And my mother was a home body, you know, and, you know, just she was the toughest one. You know, when we had a problem with a family in East Boston one time, she said, they want a war. And she banged the table and she said, they came to the right place. And I was like, okay, well, I guess this is the way we're doing this, you know. So she was a very strong woman.

And, you know, just the greatest lessons in life I learned from her and my father. So and you know, I mean, it's hard to really square, you know, my actions because I talk a lot about loyalty and we talk, you know, we had talked about that and, you know, everybody that knows me would say like, you know, people come up to me in the street and like, you're the solidest guy I know on the planet. Like to be in that conversation is amazing, right? So to me, it's, I always say that it's humbling and I say that all the time. But I have to square kind of those, you know, reviews with that I kind of. maybe, you know, gave my loyalty to other people over my family. And that's where I'm at today with it. So that kind of, those are feelings that I have to come to terms with.

You know what I'm saying? Because my parents are gone. My middle brother Ronnie is gone. So, and those are, you know, that was the price of this marathon I ran, you know. Now, that concept of loyalty, did you get that from your parents at all? Or would that come later on when you started, you know, it going down a different path? So, you know, it's an interesting question. question, right? Because we're all socialized by our family, right? So in my house, you know,

and, you know, I know today and in today's day and age, it's a different age, you know, what's silence in the house, what's said in this house stays in this house. But that's what we were brought up with. And I know, you know, there's nothing underhanded at my house. It was just when we have conversations, we don't talk about it to other people. This is our family. I'm going to say business. I mean, it wasn't, you know, a mob family, but I'm saying it. Our family business was our family business and those values were instilled in me at a very young age that when your brother talks to you about something you know that's it you just and your mother says something to you we don't talk about things outside the house so i think in terms of loyalty right when you have to kind of

juxtapose the kind of two loyalties that i had right so but i i never spoke out of school i try not to in my everyday life and i think those are lessons and valuable lessons that were you know handed down to me from my parents do you think that if those lessons weren't handed down to you, your outcome later on might have been different? Sure, of course, don't you think? I mean, you know, especially for me, I am my family, right? I am the lessons that I learned, you know, your socialization. If my mother said, if anything ever happens, you dial 911.

I mean, I would have thought that was, what we do was dial 911, right? But, I mean, I wasn't taught those lessons at my house, you know. Somebody broke into my house one time. I remember it vividly, you know, and we went looking for the person that broke into our house and we found them. We didn't call the cops. Were both of your parents Italian or just one side? So I'm English, Irish, French, and Italian, right? So it's an eclectic mix, right? But European, but both of my grandmothers were Italian. And so we, our neighborhood was an

Italian neighborhood, you know, and everything that we did, the common denominator was that we were Italian. Yeah, sure. So I say I'm more identified with being Italian than anything else. And your family or your direct parents were never associated with like criminal organizations. No, no, my father. You know, my, so my father used to hang out of the bar room. He tended bar and he used to hang, you know, he hung out down Central Square. And he knew a lot of people that were involved in, let's say, other things other than being family men, right? But, you know, my father had the greatest line.

My father had the best one line is the best, you know, like one of them was, I'm hell when I'm well and I'm seldom sick. You know what I'm saying? But he used to say, John, I ain't bad. but the bad don't fuck with me. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that was, you know, my,

everybody knew my father is Charlie Chucha, you know, and everybody knew and respected my father. And, you know, I mean, I just, you know, he gave me that name and I tried to live up to that because nobody ever said anything other than,

hey, Chach, what's up? Hey, Chach, you know, so. Did you want to become like your dad? Did you kind of idolize being like him? Or did you have a different mindset in mind for your, future. So that's an interesting question, right? So of course, I idolized my father and, you know, my older brothers I looked up to. And, you know, so I don't know if there's a short answer to that.

I will say that if we moved a little to the right of that question and we say that I wanted to be like my brothers, I remember I was always Ronnie and Charlie's brother until I got a little older and started to do crazy stuff. And then everybody was like, well, Watch out. Those are Johnny's brothers. Like, you know, watch out. Don't do nothing to them. Be careful. You know, before I was like, be careful.

That's Charlie and Ronnie's little brother. But then I became kind of the big brother. So did I want to be like my father? Of course, I always want to be like my father. My father was a neighborhood guy. You know, the epitome. The quintessential neighborhood guy. Hung down the, you know, the social club and hung out with his friends.

Always had a bear in his hand. You know, I probably see my father drunk once in my life. Like I'm not falling down drunk, but visibly drunk, but he was just a guy that, and he used to say, John, you know what it is about the drinking? I don't miss the drinking. I miss the Kabitsyn, the camaraderie.

You know what I'm saying? So he was a neighborhood guy. He was a bar room guy, and that was, you know, how I, that's what fueled our neighborhoods, especially East Boston when I was a kid. So, did I want to be like my father? I love my father.

He was my best friend on planet Earth. So you can, you know, kind of deduce your own, you know, you can have your own deductions from that. So before you became that guy where everyone, like your brothers knew, or people knew that they were Johnny's brother, what would you say you were described like as a kid before you became that kind of polarizing figure? I like that word, polarizing. I like it. I picked it up in the back of my mind just now. I've been practicing.

So vocabulary is big of me. I love vocabulary, right? I want some points. So I'm always working on it. I'll get something good at dinner tonight now. No, listen, dinner's on. Dinner's on me and Chris from Volari, of course. But no, so I was a hockey player, really.

I mean, a lot of people in my neighborhood would know me as a hockey player because that's what has been kind of telegraphed to me from people that since I started, you know, since I've been out of prison and since I started doing, you know, engaging in forums like these, right, and talking to other people about my story. I was an athlete, you know. I was just a hockey player. But I don't remember being as good as, you know, the legend is always larger than life, right? You know, so I mean, in retrospect, you know, when people think about me and they have this concept of who I was and who I've become, I think, you know, my childhood, early childhood has been romanticized a little bit and kind of been tweaked a little bit.

But I was a decent hockey player. So people would know me as a hockey player. Why do you think you never pursued that further, like as a career, were you not passionate about it? you pushed into it by your family at all? So I was never really pushed into anything. I loved hockey. I was a big Rick Middleton fan as a kid, you know what I'm saying? And I love the Bruins.

And I still love the Bruins today. And I still love anything, Boston, you know what I'm saying? But I was never pushed into anything. I think I played hockey on my own. But I just wasn't good enough to pursue it. I was good in my neighborhood. And I was good. I had, I guess, some, you know, bright moments on the ice and, you know,

playing in Canada and playing in Quebec and, you know, I mean, it kind of ended where my philosophy was, even if we lose every game, we're going to win every fight. So I just, you know, I always talk about like a fear of succeeding. And I don't know if that I even was cognizant of that when I was a child, but I always had like fair of school, fair of like math. So I never really thought I could be good at it. So I started to devise a way where I could get around that, if that answers your question. Yeah. So going into high school, right, what's the atmosphere? Like, is it a big public school? Are you getting into trouble or are you more of a quiet reserved kid or are you starting to become the Johnny everyone knows about? So I'm starting to become

the Johnny everybody knows about, right? And I think I had some instances where I think I backed down from a fight in high school one time, right? And this was like a troubling event for like the next 25 years. You know what I'm saying? So, and I was never going to be that guy again. You know what I'm saying? Anytime anybody ever said, I'm just striking first. I'm grabbing something. I'm just, you know, I think maybe that event. And that's funny that you just triggered that when you had that question, you know. So I became the Johnny that everybody kind of knows from the past from, you know, my days on the street and um you know i began to do drugs i was smoking pot and um you know that kind of played a little bit of role in my life but that was short-lived because i got sober and i i got sober clean and then i

started working on becoming an arch criminal that was the next phase of my life but i really wanted to be like the most dangerous guy on the street i wanted to be the biggest guy you know the toughest guy you know that really intrigued me and i found out that you know somebody had mentioned that today i had said it before that there was a lot of negative actions that got a lot of positive reinforcement, you know, and like violence was that for me. And, you know, being the guy that struck first, I hit somebody with a shovel or hit somebody with a hammer, you know, just we didn't care, really, you know, you know, how the pistol was shooting it. Like I, I thought that was like where my success was and it's so short-sighted, right? But I just thought that, you know, that was my

vehicle. And I didn't have to learn math. I didn't have to go to school. I, you know, that year off, took when, you know, my mother and father said there's no way around high school, John, you've got to go through it. And they were the shot callers in my family. So, you know, I went through it. But once I was done with high school, you know, I kind of went on my own a little bit. Do you think if that first instant that you were talking about with you kind of not standing up for yourself that first time, if that never happened, do you think you go down the path you did? You know, it's an interesting question, right? It's all hypotheticals, right? And we kind of live on those, you know, would have been different? Yeah, I probably would have had.

I had three kids been fat and out of shape and my wife yelling at me to go to work today. I mean, who knows, right? I'm saying, but I really don't know. But it was a, you know, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a dramatic, it was a dramatic shift. Ready or not, summer is coming. And Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance is on now. Right now through May 25th, get up to 70% off everything home at Wayfair.

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afterwards. But I brought like brass knuckles to school one day and got suspended for it. Why do you do that? The quintessential question, right? Who knows? You know what I'm saying? Just that part of me was like, you know, this is who I'm going to be. I'm going to stop being that guy, you know. And then I got into a fight in school, you know, so I got into like a few fights in school. So that kind of was the impetus, right, for where I would be after school. Did you know in high school that you weren't going off to college? Yeah, that was a foregone conclusion. I wasn't, you know.

I was doing drugs in high school and then I stopped doing drugs and then I just wanted to be that guy. I wonder what would have happened if you didn't stop doing drugs? Because that could have led to a different lifestyle too. You know, I'm grateful every day that I don't use drugs. And, you know, funny that me and you were in the same place at different points of our lives, right? We were in Danbury. and I started smoking K2. As crazy as that might sound, right?

And I stopped doing it because I had a conversation with myself and listen, you're not that guy. If guys from your neighborhood seen you today, they wouldn't believe it. So I stopped doing it. But the craziest thing about addiction is sometimes I think that might be a good idea to do that again. So that's how I know for me that my philosophy now is that, is that, I got enough fucking problems in my life. I certainly don't need that, you know. And at the end of the day, really, the reality is I don't have any problems.

But there's something I say to myself and I whisper to myself, right? And we were talking about gratitude. And, you know, there's degrees of gratitude to me. And this is why I'm so grateful for everything I have. This is my humble little apartment. You almost barely fit on the first floor, right? In the second floor. But it's beautiful to me.

I love it. Because you know what? There was a guy that was a dumpster diet. Ivan today. Just picture this in your mind. And he found a blueberry muffin in a package. And it wasn't opened. And he ate it. And he was like, I don't have to get sick. You know, I can have something. God is so good. So juxtapose that with your problems today. And tell me you can't be like a zillion percent grateful. It could always be worse. A zillion times worse.

So you get out of high school. You end up graduating because your parents wanted you to graduate. It wasn't an option. Wasn't an option. What do you do next right after high school? You know, I'm in the streets at that point. I'm selling drugs. I'm finding ways to make money because I wanted to do the least amount of work to make the most amount of money. And, you know, that was my goal.

So, you know, I got arrested for selling dime bags, right? I had dime. I used to sit. I used to lay out on a chair on the corner. I had my sneakers I used to take off because, you know, it was important to have tanned feet when I was a kid, right? So I had one sneaker with the dime bags in it and one sneaker with the money in it. So you came by and I was like, yeah, just grab one and put the money in the shoe. You know what I'm saying?

So I got arrested for doing that. Kind of little out in the open, but that's how I was when I was a kid. You know, I mean, I don't, you know, who knows where the mind was at at that point in my life. So I got arrested for selling dine bags. And the two detectives were like, tell me who gave you the pot. Tell me who, you know, like, and it was a couple of my friends. Obviously, I won't name them now. either, right? But I didn't say nothing, obviously. And they came down and bailed me out. And I was

like, oh, that's cool. They built me out. I'm good. So all the take was that. I'm back out of jail. I'm good, you know. So I just had this skewed concept of that I could do whatever I wanted to do. I'm just going to do whatever I want to do. Did you see people around you throwing, like in those scenarios throwing people under the bus, which where you refused to do? Like, just that small instance of they wanted you to rat on your friends. I should know what I know. So I'm sure people have, right? I know many instances where people have, you know.

But my thing always was is that it's my neighborhood's small. You know what I mean? And like I would never, I couldn't disres. I love my father and my mother and my brothers, right? I could never, you know, do that to them. I could never ever take the focus off myself, put it on somebody else. because in my neighborhood, you know, that was the worst thing you could be. And it's interesting because it plays such an integral part in your story later on,

like that more trouble you get and ultimately end up in prison. That's why I asked you those questions because it's going to be interesting to see how you evolved and how you still stayed to that, you know, mantra and character even throughout everything. So how does someone like you, you're like a low-level street drug dealer, escalate into, you know, like the hell's angels. It didn't even sound like you were interested in bikes in high school at all. Right? So, yeah, how do we make that quantum leap?

Yeah, that's a huge leap. So from dine bags to, you know, keys of methamphetamine. So, you know, and, you know, I have to preface this and I always do, right? So the club didn't make me do anything. You know what I mean? I use the club as a vehicle, right? So what happens is as I get into the club, I'm the guy that ran around my house going like just as a kid.

So I just had a kind of a fascination with motorcycles. And to be honest with you, when we talk about my father, the first bike that my father bought me, I'm sure I hounded the balls off them to get it for me, was a bike that looked like a motorcycle. It was a pedal bike with front and back shocks. And people in my neighborhood that know me will remember that bike. It was like, you know, one of a kind.

And so I always had that fascination with motorcycles. My uncle Bobby drove a motorcycle. He lived down the street from me, you know, and I always had a motorcycle. And I was like, wow, motorcycle, you know what I'm saying? So I did have a fascination with motorcycles, which is really odd because I never really, you know, was into motorcycles per se as I kind of progressed and traversed true, like that time period between high school and the Hells Angels. But I remember when I had like a claim,

I got a claim on my back. I had a lawyer in Boston. And a couple of my friends were riding motorcycles. I was like, yeah, I want to get a motorcycle. I just want to go. I'm going to go to the lawyer's office. I'm going to get a loan from him, you know, make it toward my case that I'm going to have a settlement and I'm getting a bike.

So I did that. And I got a motorcycle. And, you know, I went into Lynn to get some accessories. And, you know, there was a guy there. And he was like, hey, what's up? You know, I got some accessories. He owned a motorcycle shop. And my uncle Bobby ran security for one of the biggest nightclubs in Massachusetts.

At that time was the palace. It had like 30 clubs in one building. It was amazing. And, you know, guys in the club had their parties there. And that's kind of how I intersected with guys in the club, you know. How long does it take to build a relationship just to get to the point where you're able to be in that area? Because you're a new guy with a bike and you're young. You're in, what, your early 20s?

Very early 20s, yeah. Maybe not even your 20s. Well, early 20s, early 20s. But the answer to that, the simple answer, right, Ian, is everybody knew who I was. Everybody knew my family. I wasn't a guy that had to be vetted. They knew. Guys knew, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I was a guy from East Boston. I was, you know, had a little bit of a reputation. So it wasn't me going to them. They were like, hey, why don't you wear a security shirt and come hang out at the party with All right, sounds good. Was it common for someone that young to join a club like the Hells Angels? Is that a common thing? So I'm sure there's age requirements, right?

But I was over that threshold. But when I got into the club, I was the youngest guy. And now I heard somebody say I was the youngest guy in the club. I was the youngest guy in Massachusetts when I got in the club. Now, I've read like or I've heard interviews where they say that the club doesn't actually have like an actual leader of it. there's separate entities and there's people that step up, but there's not like a main person. Is that the case?

Is that true? You can interpret that any way you want, right? But I know that I'm a member of the club when I'm a member, when I'm getting in the club, whatever the case. And, you know, I didn't become a hell's angel or get in the club, right? I'm not the guy that is going to like listen to everybody else, right? So I'm almost, you know, the club's a larger entity than. me. I'm just Johnny Bot. I got a story. Part of my story is I'm a hell's angel, right? And I was in the

club. And I just think the things I did, I did are my own volition. So I don't know of any guy that is in the club or was in the club that is a guy that blindly takes orders from people. So it's always, you know, it's always fascinating to me to hear people's perception of the club. So I don't know if nobody ever told me what to do. I mean, I, I've, you know, I've, you know, took a lot of initiative on my own to do certain things because I wanted you to think I was, you know, listen, let me do it. Let me take care of this. That's so interesting that it operates in that way, or at least it did back in that time because it did for me. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that. I think they have, because TV shows, movies and whatnot have made it a certain way.

Right. And it's not necessarily the case all the time. And everyone has a different perspective. were you like kind of like a liability being that like you know young hot-headed maybe type of individual so I think the distinction you could draw when you asked that question is a lot of people I had a lot of respect from a lot of people and you know the most amazing thing for me Ian is in hindsight when I look at this right is like for instance girls that like I had a crush on like girls that I liked and like girls that you know I'm They wanted the boyfriend. I would have been it in a minute, even for a little while.

So they would write me letters and be like, I remember you were so nice to me. You know, you always looked out for me. You know, you took care of me and you never ever tried to do anything. And I'm like, only if you knew I was in love what you like. You know what I'm saying? But I guess my point to that is, you know, people have memories of me that I was a protector to people.

So, I mean, I. you know, I wasn't really that guy that was doing disrespectful things. I knew that I represented the club, right? And that meant a lot to me. You know what I'm saying? I've represented my family name. I've represented myself. So I was crazy with people that I thought deserved for me to be crazy with them.

Not for people that were my allies and my friends and people that I respected and knew. I was always, you know, I was always trying to be the best guy that I could, of course. You know what I'm saying? I would never, I'm not a bully. I never acted as a bully. I don't think anyway. You know what I'm saying? The way that I see it from my perspective is I never bullied anybody.

You know, people, one guy called me down in his shop one day. It was like, hey, I want you to have this $10,000 in this pistol. I'm going to, you know, rob some people. Do you know these people? I'm like, I don't know them. So if I have any problems, I'm good. Yeah, you're good. I didn't call him.

He called me and said, I just want to give you this package of money. And like at that point in time, when that happened, And this guy later wound up headless in the harbor. I remember reading when I had nothing to do with me. But I remember reading that in the Boston Herald about, I don't know, eight to ten years into my bid. And I was like, oh, shit, that's that. But when that happened, when things like that happened for me, I was like, I'm doing all the right things. This is like, nothing could be better than this.

Some guy just gave me 10 racks. And she just said, do you know this guy? And I'm like, no, don't worry about it. You're good. Wow. So that was, to me, that was like, you know, Fortune 500, I got this going on. Now, when you were moving drugs, are you allowed to do your own separate thing or was that all tied under the club? I mean, you know, it's another interesting question, right?

But I sold drugs on my own. Okay. You know, I never derived capital for anybody else. I don't want to give you what I got to give you anything for. Now, are you allowed to use drugs yourself when you, you? you're in a club? I never used drugs. I was sober, right?

Yeah. When I got into the club. Because I know like some, like mobs and stuff have some rules about not using drugs. But I guess you didn't have to worry about that because I didn't use drugs. You didn't use drugs. So when you were selling,

how old were you at that period when you're actually in the club and you're moving way? So I remember, you know what? It's the craziest thing too because when I got into the club, that's when I started to have problems. I remember I had, I had this connection for Valiums when I was a kid to sell Valiums.

I had like my whole furnace at my house was non-functional, but it was filled with volumes. If only my parents knew. But and I was given like little baggies of 100 until about 15, 20 people in East Boston. And then every week I'd give them another bag. They'd give me the money. You know, it was the best thing in the whole world. I was paying like 10 cents a piece for them. And I was getting like a dollar each for them.

It was like, you know, I found the way to print money. It was amazing. But now that should just. I was just a neighborhood drug dealer. That's what I did. I sold drugs. You know, that was my, that's how I derived capital, derived income from selling drugs.

And, you know, when I got into the club, I moved on to bigger things, you know what I mean? But bigger quantities, you know, but my thing was, you know, whenever you're into bigger quantities of drugs, the largest sums of money, and if you don't have a machine gun,

you're stupid. You know what I'm saying? People are going to try to rob you. I know people were robbing other people asking me if it was all right. I know I wasn't above that. I never had a problem, but I always was ready for that.

So why do you think you ultimately wanted to even join the club then? If you had your own thing going and you were, you were doing well, you know, and you knew that going bigger would mean bigger problems. Or was it more of a hobby for you? So I just think it was like, you know, I mean,

I thought it was the ultimate step that you could make. You know what I'm saying? So for me, I just thought it was, in other words, you're doing a podcast with so many million followers. And now you're doing a podcast with 30 million. You are,

instead of being known in Massachusetts, now you're known all over the world. So that was the, I think I took that next step thinking that, you know, I wanted to be an ass criminal. And I thought I found the home. Yeah.

Wow. That's interesting. So then what happens next after that? Once you joined, how old were you exactly when you were joined? So I think I was, man, I'd be lying if I told you. I'd have to, so I was, so I got in the club around 1996. I was born in 68.

I could do trigonometry probably a problem, but I can't do simple math. 1996, you said? Yeah. So, 1990, say, because I went to jail in 96. That's when I was born. Yeah. Oh, you were only in the club officially for a year before. Not even, right?

Holy cow. Before I went to prison. Wow. So how does it make you feel like when there's all these, like, headlines and stuff about, like I read the news articles from when you got arrested, they made it seem like associated way even bigger than what it might have actually been. Sure. You know, of course, everybody has their agenda, right?

And everybody, and rightly so, right? I'm saying if I'm a reporter for a newspaper, I want to sensationalize something. I don't want to just tell you, well, you know, this guy, he was a pretty bad guy, you know. He sold some drugs. I mean, you want to optimize your audience. Right? So we want to do today, right? You have to.

Right? I want to optimize my audience. I want to sell some shares that's a neighborhood legend on them, right? I mean, so of course, I mean, everybody has their agenda. So I think the trick in life is to not be mad at the people that want the, I want it to be the biggest arch criminal in the world, right? I don't know if I wanted to go worldwide. But I want, so of course, I want to maximize my audience. I want everybody to know who I was.

So I'm sure that, you know. government entities, they have to justify budgets, right? You know, reporters have to justify why they're working for a newspaper or a media arm, right? So it's understandable. In a way, that's what you wanted. You know, you wanted that. 100%. I loved when they are.

This is really? Oh, this is great. When they read this, they're going to think. But I never thought that about myself. You understand? You know, everybody else was convinced that I was this, you know, maniac, right? But, you know, and I always talk about that, you know, the role for me was, it was easy, but it wasn't, you know, I still, you know, today I, I think I'm where I'm supposed to be, you know, as opposed to back then, I was, you know, I don't know if that was the right career path for me, you know, but I got a 35 years sentence and I kind of, you know, ponded on that for a little. I had a little time to think about that.

How long did it officially take you to be patched into the club? So, I mean, everybody always gives you a time frame and this and that. I think I'll give you the words of a psychologist I had. It's a case-by-case basis. Yeah, so in your case, how long it's taking? In my case, it was, you know, shorter than most, not as long as many. And that was only because of your reputation. Well, I mean, there's nothing nobody.

I didn't need to be vetted to get in the club, right? everybody knows who I am so I think so this is how things work in life right I'm saying so we can you know project this question onto any question in life right I was introduced to you by somebody so we have a little warm market that we created we talked you know what I mean you're not meeting me on the street for the first time right so if you did you'd be a little leery if somebody ran up to you and said hey you're i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm gonna give me an interview and you're like whoa hold on okay so what's your story, you know, I don't, who is this guy? You think he's crazy, right? So you could kind of just juxtapose those two questions with each other, right? People know who I was. So,

I mean, I didn't have a problem moving in any circle. Back then was in Massachusetts, was it just the Hells Angels or were there other clubs? I mean, there were other clubs. I'm saying I got my cases for killing another guy in another club, right? I'm saying, so is that, what were leading up to that? Yeah, so there was, I guess there was other clubs. Yeah. But was there other options for you to join at the time. So, no, that is the most, I'm going to say interesting question, but I think it's the most transparent, right? So if I grew up in Florida, right?

I wouldn't have been a hell's angel, I'd been an outlaw, right? Right? I'm saying it's a geographical thing, you know? If I grew up in Texas, I'd be a bandito, right? And, you know, if that's what I wanted to pursue, you know? So I think it's a very geographical question. And I think it's a question that's, it's not so complex. It's very, it's, you know, a lot of these questions that we ask, oh, we ask even like questions

I ask myself, a very rudimentary. And they have very rudimentary answers. And I think that's one of them. So you said you wanted to become like this arch criminal type person. You don't just do that for, you don't just do that by moving weight and moving drugs. Right. What were some other things you were doing to become that person? person. I mean, you know, I, you know, my case is about, you know, the cases that I have in court

that, you know, my friend's family had a problem one night and we went into, we drove as fast as we could there. I grabbed the first object, which is a shovel and I started beating a guy down with a shovel, you know, so, I mean, I pulled a guy over on the side of the road and started beaten with a hammer through his helmet. You know what I mean? I ran a guy over and killed him, you know, deliberately, right? Those are part of my case. Those are things that I have done, right? So in the very brass tax of things, brass tax,

I perpetrated acts of violence. I'm a murderer, right? So you could label me as that. It's not really hard. I'm saying my paperwork is there. You can find my case, you know? Now, are these individuals, are these innocent? Like, it's not someone on the street that you're walking by

and you just attack them with a hammer. Right. Like these are provoked scenarios, situations, or part of the lifestyle that you are living? A perceived enemy, right? Yeah. So let's say this. If me and you play chess, right, Ian?

And you put me in checkmate? I'm not going to flip the board over. I'm not going to call the cop telling me you're cheating, right? So if you put me in checkmate, you know, you put me in check. We'll play a game, right? We're engaged in something that we both know is real and happening. Okay. So this isn't news to you and it's not news to me.

So at that point in my life, I was engaged in, you know, for my last year of my life before I went to prison, I was hunting people. Do you, when you think back on it now, how does that make you feel? Okay. And this is the most interesting question, right? and this is the dramatic shift I've had in my life because for me we're all shaped by our own experiences I'm sure we can say that so I had events happen in my life so like my brother Ronnie dying and probably one of the most traumatic events that happened to me based upon my no physical and mental reaction that I had had episodic

I was, you know, the ground was, you know, I went in, they, they were calling me one Sunday morning to make a phone call. Then, you know, you could ask till you blew in the face to make a phone call. You'll never get one. When they're inviting you to make a phone call, it's catastrophe has struck in your life, especially when you're in jail. So when I made that call and I had just got off the phone with my father, I had a ticket in Lee County Penitentiary. I was running a basketball ticket. And I just got the lines from my father. And 15 minutes later, they're telling me to call my father back.

You know, I mean, for people that don't understand it, there's pay phones. There's a one-way call. You make it. Nobody can never call you back on the pay phone. They would have to call the administration. The administration would actually have to accept the call, would have to call the case manager, just a chain of events. And this is 15 minutes later.

So, you know, I didn't even walk to the counselor's office. I kind of like vibrated, I was like, because I knew I thought my mother died. I knew it was a death. And when they told me that my brother Ronnie had died,

I just remember like coming out of whatever I was in saying to my father, no, no. And then like I was, like, the case manager was giving me tissue. I was like, I was crying my eyes out unconsciously. I just remember coming to like crying,

sobbing, you know, and saying, no, no, no, no, no. you know so what i had to do was process these failings in prison where i wasn't going to the wake i wasn't going to the funeral i was talking to people no this was like this is my 39 year old brother at the time that is like my best one of my best friends you know and he would do anything fly anywhere come see me whatever i needed i had and um you know it was traumatic for me and what i had to do from that point on was juxtaposed these feelings that I had that my mother had she was distraught it almost drove my mother drove my mother to mental illness so I had to put these

feelings side by side what I engineered these feelings and other people when I took somebody's brother somebody's son right and it's a hard feeling to come to grips with because I just five seconds ago told you, oh, I'm a murder. I'm this and that, right? But I have to square those feelings today, right? Because I'm not any younger. You know what I'm saying? I'm, you know, it's, I'm looking for extra innings, you know, overtime. That's what I always say. But at some point in time, right? I mean, do we, do we pay for these sins that we made? And, you know, I, I knew I was contrite when I was going to go to prison. I didn't want to go to prison, but, you know, ignorance wasn't a defense right so yeah I feel you know bad that I took somebody's life

that I engineered those feelings and other people that had nothing to do with it like my mother if somebody engineered those feelings in my mother I'd hunt them down and try to hurt them right which would be you know perpetuating the same you know conduct but no I feel you know I'm contrite about that. You know, so as best I can, right? I lost my mother and father. I got to deal with those feelings. So it's a lot of failings that I just try to do the best I can with that today.

You know what I'm saying? And like I always say, I try to do things once a day that makes my mother proud, right? So that's what I do. That's my new philosophy. And, you know, somebody made a comment the other night after I did a podcast saying that, oh, this guy talks about this, murder and this and that, right? And everybody can have their opinion. Right. I'm sitting in this chair today, like making my story public to people, right?

So, of course, they can have those. I'm not mad by any stretch of the imagination because, you know, you're welcome to have your own opinions and stuff. So, I mean, I was that guy, right? Like, I'm not that guy today, right? I try not to be, right? Because old habits die hard. Like, I don't want to kill anybody, but when I'm in my car sometimes and they talk about

road rage, I can see why that happens. those feelings that you were just expressing that you experienced when your brother died do you think if you experienced those feelings before getting into that life you never would have gotten into it or even did those acts to begin with it's a great question and I'd have to say

on its face I probably wouldn't engage in any of those activities and that conduct that course of conduct yeah in hindsight Ian I'm saying you know hindsight sees 20 20 and I always say that

we can only live life going forward, only understand that in reverse, right? So sitting here today at my kitchen table, right? I could say, yeah, I wouldn't have did that. But what I am, I don't know. But I'm saying I would like to think that I'd have, you know, live a prudent lifestyle where I wouldn't want to experience, you know,

the negative consequences I had to go through. On one hand, but one hand, I am who I am because of that. Now, we were just talking or you were just saying about how, you know, like eventually do you ever have to face the consequences of those actions? Do you feel like that, you know, a 35-year prison sentence equals, you know, or axes off taking someone's life? That was a part of that lifestyle. You're asking from my perspective or the people that- Your perspective.

My perspective is, it's a great question. And my perspective is that, I mean, I don't think anybody should be given prison time. for you know i think that for murder you know i mean if somebody you know we talk about all the time about you know perpetrating acts against minors right and we hate those type of people in jail right i think like my perspective is different so my my humble opinion i you know you if you kill somebody you probably should get killed for it i mean right and then you know i mean just i'm grateful that didn't happen to me right i'm saying an eye for an eye but do i fail that way today i'm not sure it's you know it's a convoluted bunch of thoughts I'm having about just a thought provoking question can we finish this interview

in about three four hours let me take a walk no I got to keep you on your toes you are very good but I mean so the short answer is is was 35 years enough as I'm sitting here with you today my prison centers flew by but when I was doing it and I was waking up in the middle of the night and I was learning patience and I learned a lot and I you know I've made made such dramatic change in my life. So, I mean, I guess that, you know, the people, I don't like to talk about myself and so fires, oh, I'm the best guy in the world, I'm this, and that, right? Other people can tell you that story.

I can only tell you about other people and the impact they've had on my life, right? But so other people are going to have to make a determination. Wow, this guy, I don't know, you have to make your own determination. But like, for example, he's changed. He's doing a great job. He's doing a lot of community service. So I think that, but is that. If that was your mother, if that was your father, if that was your son, if that was my brother,

what I think that was just? I don't have the answer to that question, I guess. So this person you murdered was an arrival motorcycle club? Yeah. And how old was he? What are the details of it? 44 years old. And you guys got into an encounter that night.

No, I just ran them over and killed him. And this was someone that you had to take care of on your own regard. The thing is, Ann, here's the way. and you can call it a justification. You can call it anything you want to call it. I'm not an apologist insofar as my actions are my actions. Am I contried about it? I wish it didn't happen.

But there's no way I can go back and change the past. Right? So what I would say is if you're my friend, Ian, right? And I know that people are actively looking to cause harm to you. I'm going to try to eliminate the threat. That's the way I felt about it. So I felt as a, contrite as I am today, I felt that I was doing the right thing back then.

And that's a totally fair answer because no one knows what happened that night other than you and the other people that were involved. So after that happens, this happened at night, are you caught right then and there or what happens next? Are you on the run? I remember running as fast as I can, right? I remember running, right? And so there's fences in this place. I just get out of the street. get into these yards and the fences are like waist high.

So I'm not even, I climbed a few of them, the first. Then the rest, I just ran as fast as I couldn't flipped over them. Really, honest to God. So, and I remember there was these people in this yard. They were having like a barbecue. It was like in July, right? And I remember this kid, like if somebody ever came into my yard, I'd be like, yo, what the fuck?

Yo, get. So he came up to me and he was like, hey, you know. And then like he kind of looked at me and seen like, yo, this guy is on the not a mission the mission leave this guy alone he was like horrified it must have been bloody you know i was i was a mess right i was running as fast as i could in the fences and just you know falling over them so i remember when i like darkness hit right and i was in this yard and i was like it was quiet it was still i was i was good i was under the cover of darkness i was under the cover of in a little bit of a a brush maybe in somebody's yard and nobody had detected me there and i was just there and i was just

And I remember seeing a guy, I was looking at his window, and I seen a guy with a cup of coffee watching a TV program. And I could hear it. And I remember just sitting there like this. And I remember saying to myself, John, your fucking life will never be that easy again. I just knew it. And I felt it. And I was like, you know, this is the beginning of this next chapter you are in. This is, you know, and I didn't even know the guy died.

but I had made arrangements and we'll leave that story and you can interpret it any way you want somebody come and got me and they brought me the paper it was the next day I had hit out the whole night fucking tired

hungry you know but like I used to say to my mother when I used to call from the hole she used to say why are you in the hole again I said ma I'd rather call you from the shoe than from the hospital I'm all right and she was like all right

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Buy your tickets now at IMAX.com. That's where you're the safest in prison in the shoe. Well, in the fight, I didn't go to the hospital. I ended up in the shoe for somebody else going to the hospital. That's what I meant to my mother. Very safe. But anyway, I remember reading the paper, and I realized at that moment that the guy had died that I had hit.

And there was this whole big article about, you know, you read the newspaper articles and that was the article, you know, like, you know. And I was like, oh, man. But they didn't know it was you off the bat or they knew or they had you dead to rights. So, no, they didn't have me dead to rights. It was, it was. So there were, the way the government claimed it, there was evidentiary issues in the case.

because it was my car, right? Why would you use your own car, John? Well, so the thing is, is, right? It's a great question. It's like, you know, that's why they say, stupid criminals, you know, the guy running through the woods with the LA gears that light up, right? The sneakers.

You were doing that too? Why are you doing? No. Oh, okay. I wasn't that stupid. But, okay, so I had my car, but I was just going surveillance and then an opportunity presented itself

that I just, I don't know, I couldn't pass it up. I didn't, there, there was, was no such thing as consequences until that day came when I was sitting in that yard saying okay these are the consequences but what happened was and you know when I did the podcast with Mike Lee right bean shooter and he there was that great little short that he used the clip talking about my father saying oh handsome because that's what had happened they were asking him of you know this is kind of give it a little substance they were asking my father on a grand jury hey this is john's car

That wasn't, the ignition wasn't popped. The keys were in it. So how were we to, you know, think that it wasn't anybody other than John that used it? So, you know, and he was, my father was like, a lot of people had access to that car. It was in my driveway with the keys in it. Many people would come over. Would it be people that you didn't know? Oh, a lot of people used the car.

You know, my father was very vague. And then they, when they ask him what I look like, he said at the end of the, you know, the inquiry that they were given him, you know, they have a bad disson. You know, I said it on Mike Leasho. And my father said, what do you look like that day? Handsome. Handsome kid. You know, and that's, you know, they said no more questions, you know. But that was the kind of event that precipitated that questioning.

My car was my car. Well, my keys in it. My red Cadillac. Did they arrest you that right away that next morning? So they had the grand jury before even going to arrest you? Yes. Oh, so they didn't technically have hard enough evidence to book you. I'm sure they did.

and you know what happens, right? The Fed's never come knocking on your door saying, let's go, you committed the crime last night, right? They're saying, hey, wait a minute, we got this guy. Oh, hold on. We were in the middle of a drug investigation. And I, like, said, like, here, let me get this silver platter. Here, won't you take this?

Did you know, you were under investigation? I mean, you know, we had an idea we were, of course. But were we under investigation? You know, that's that, that's me telling myself, they don't know. Yeah, but no one said to you, hey, keep it cool. were under investigation. Like, people know,

you know when the feds are investigating, the mob knew that, everyone, you know? Right. So, I just, it's a, I didn't know per se, I had a failing we were.

I mean, I would see cars, I would see feds at my game. So I knew they were looking at us, but I felt like, you know, I was in the club. They're just, you know, that's what they do when guys are in the club. We're looking too deep into this.

Do you ever wish that you, you know, took a backseat and took it easy that night looking back on it or no, because you did it based on you had to do that for your character and what you believed in your principles. So how do we get here today, though, Ian? You know what I'm saying?

How do I get to be the person that I am today? Don't I have to go through everything that I went through? I think that for me, you know, no. I just, whatever I went through, I went through. I just did what I did. Do I feel like, oh, I should have never did that? I don't know, because then my life would have took a different turn. And who would I be today?

of course but I think you beyond that you help the person that might be in those shoes I think I can do that today yeah by giving that opinion though you prevent them if you're if you were sitting in a jail cell 10 years later and had that thought that other person could have that thought that's listening to it right now you know that's going through that no it's interesting and I know the value of that now I know the value of that before before if anybody came to speak like in a prison or you know if anybody came to speak that the fuck I was one of these guys. Oh, if I can help just one kid.

No, asshole. See you later. Right? But I'm saying, I just think that's because, you know, youth will, for me, youth blinded me to a lot of things. You know what I mean? I wake up every morning in pain, right? I used to see guys walk in that length and be like, oh, the guy's fucking fake it for a check.

You know, we don't understand until we're in the middle of it. For me anyway. I can't give you advice. My best advice got me in prison for 35 years, right? I just hope that maybe I could tell you or somebody that's listening about my story and maybe they can find value in it. When did the feds eventually pick you up? How long after? So the murder was 95.

We got our case in September and 96, so at least nine months. They waited on it. 10 months. So they didn't take a body for, I mean, they didn't have someone in mind and the papers, nothing. They were just saying it's unsolved. Yeah, they wanted me for questioning. I knew, you know, at that point, after. after the fact, they wanted me for questioning.

I knew it was only a matter of time. And, you know, people would give me the advice, you know, go to Brazil, do this, do that. And I'm like, whatever, I'll just handle it. You didn't want to? Just handle it, whatever. Figure it out. You know how we get through today? The same way I got through yesterday.

You figure it out. That's what we do, right? And you made your own bed and you wanted to, you know? You know, listen, this is it. Whatever the case may be is. So do they, do you self-surrender or do they raid you? No. They fucking broke the door down.

Give us out, Dad, yeah. Oof. That was a tough day. It was September 5th, 1996. And, you know, SWAT teams, helicopters, snipers on roofs. Now, if you, that's your tax dollars at work. You know, if anything, I would have a 380 in my house? And I didn't, of course.

Thank God I'd have a gun in my house. It would have been more time, right? but I mean just it was a serious serious day and I remember getting arrested like then busting the door down was the first thing I heard I was with my girlfriend at the time and chaos anarchy they just came in before I even woke up there was agents on me handcuffing me I was naked in my bed right well my girl and they true like I think they purposely put the like the worst mismatch clothes. I'm like a fanatic when it comes to like matching, right?

So they put the worst mismatched clothes. I think it was like a jean shirt with striped, cut sweatpants that I used to wear in the gym. And I was like, and I figured, you know, and I told the guys, I remember I was in the back of a state trooper vehicle that they were transporting us to,

whatever, the police station. And I said, this ain't nothing. I'll be out by noon. And 27 years later I got out. Did you know what was happening while you were being arrested for it? No. No, because

you know what? You're involved in this lifestyle, right? Where it's like, if me and you were like 20 year old kids and like we killed like your girlfriend's lover, right? And we buried her and they came to knock down our door. We would know this is probably what this is about. But I was engaged in so many

you know, unseemly activities, right? As you could say, drug dealing. I was doing everything. Driving hook is around. I mean, you know, you name it. I was making money from it. You know what I'm saying? you know, gambling, lending money, you know, everything that's legal today.

What did they actually end up charging you with when you read the indictment? So really, I was charged with possession one intent to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine. That was my indictment, and that's all my indictment turned out to be because they were threatening us, right, what murdering the aid of racketeering

in becoming a death penalty case. And, you know, they gave me a memorandum. I could show you paperwork that, you know, said if you just plead out to this, nobody else is going to get in trouble. You know, we're not going to bring anybody back to a grand jury. And if they don't testify,

we're going to stop their time and start running grand jury time. You know, so, you know, guys from the club said, listen, we'll get you a lawyer if you want. Do you want to fight this? And I was like, yeah, it wasn't worth it. So they were technically letting you take the fall for the body,

but not, but they wanted you to take the plea deal so they didn't wrap anyone into it. Like they were going to leave it as is with no one else involved. Right. So they said, you know,

and I'll give you a word for word. I remember it. It said that pleading guilty will have an extremely beneficial effect on all your friends. And then they named them. Now, couldn't they have played hardball

and say, we're not giving you a deal like this unless you, you know, testify against me? Sure. I'm saying they, of course, that's their first thing.

You know, they always, I remember when I was the first day when I got arrested, they said, you know, John, Sherry is not going to be, They are.

My girlfriend at the time, Sherry's not going to be all right. She's at the house right now. She's really upset. She wants to know when you're coming home. You could help yourself. And did they even give you any type of offer? Never gave me an offer on paper. Never to cooperate.

No. But do you think they knew better? So chauvinistically, I'd like to say yes, right? But, I mean, there are some people that, you know, with big time people that cooperated. So I don't know. I really don't. I can't answer that question. I'd like to think it because they know that I would never tell.

You know what I'm saying? And, you know, judging by that first interaction with them, when I, you know, I wouldn't even pay attention to them. I was just like, hey, can we get, you know, are we going somewhere now? Are we going to like to get locked up somewhere? Why do you think it never became a RICO case? It never became a RICO case precisely because I pled out. Oh, so they. No, this idea is it.

Because if you don't plead out, we're going to charge you with murdering the Ato Racketan. And they named individuals who they were going to indict and what statutes they would indict them on them. Ah, so they went to you hoping they'd either flip you or plead out and then that makes sense. I didn't realize it operated out. No, yeah, that's the way it turned out. That was the kind of the dynamic of the case. Yeah. But it doesn't always work that way.

You know what, Ian, I can only speak to my own experience. So do you think that members of the club were worried at all about you testifying or they knew that it was straight shoot? Yeah. So, I mean, it's a good question, right? But I can't get into the minds of anybody else. So I don't know. Okay. So they give you that deal or that for the 35 years, you sign it right away or do you think about it? Well, you know, I take a few days to like, you know, I already had guys in the club come and say, we'll get a lawyer. I'd be like, nah. So it's just I wanted to get it. The plea deal wrote up the best I could. You know what I'm saying? And there were some revisions that I did make to it. Because I remember at first, I couldn't challenge it on a 2255. And I said, there's no way I'm saying. signing this plea agreement if I can't challenge my sentence. You know? What's going through your mind at the time? Yeah. I'm sorry.

What's going through my mind at the time? So this all comes in stages, right? So I'm the guy that don't give a fuck about nothing, right? Shooting people in the middle of the street, you know, shoot my, I never shot nobody in the middle of the street, but, you know, shooting off a gun in the middle of the street, getting into fights in the middle of the street, running people over in broad daylight, you know, pulling people over in the, so now, so now fast forward, that, That's the guy that, you know, fuck everything.

Let's see what they do. Now, when they arrest you and you get into a cell and you're wearing an orange jumpsuit and the whole world stops, now it's like, what the fuck did I do? What conclusion that I think? I mean, did I have a different, you know, interpretation? And I realize this is how this was going to end? Yeah. So now you're in that position and you start thinking to yourself like, what I thought of.

first anyway was my mother my father you know my girl the girlfriend at the time my brother my you know what my my friend like my friends my freedom i somebody owes me three grand i mean you know i'm thinking of all this stuff you know what i'm saying i mean you know i got to go pick this money up i got to you know where's my bike where's my car with you know just things that in the moment the materialistic things and the things that mean most of you in life you know they begin to disappear and you're like you know this is my new reality right and um i remember i remember i remember it like it was yesterday i looked out i was in wired detention facility and i looked out and i seen this dead bug on a windowsill and i said well this is how this chapter starts john is that

me is that me is that you know is that what i've become i'm dead and it's all the way over and i thought like you're dead kid you know we use that terminology in my neighborhood, oh, kid, you're dead. Like, you know, betting a game, you know, kid, you're dead. You know what I mean? So I thought that, you know, that was kind of, that exemplified me sitting on that ledge was that dead bug, right? And what I did say to myself, well, this is the newest chapter.

Yeah, I was in Wyatt, too. Oh, was you? Yeah, we literally have lived each other's views in a different way. Yeah. So then. And, you know, who would know it? This guy looks like Mclovin. We just talked to Sean O'Brien on the phone.

right the head of the teamstice who's a friend of mine that's a big fan of yaws right and he said hey they call you mclovin and i look i said yo this dude looks like mclovin yeah that is that's what they called me at four six that's great that's great you had you had them re-edit the clause about the 2255 and then you signed it after that yeah and how long was that like a week maybe shortly thereafter so your proceedings went very quickly so i'm not sure if we could say they went because i was in wyatt and I got transferred out of Wyatt Farm. I said it's retaliation, so I filed a lawsuit that, you know, they retaliated against me.

So now, what I did was is I get this complaint in the mail from them. What is that? Yeah, what is that noise? Somebody outside? I don't know. Is someone outside? Probably Mike Lee.

Let me see. Can we stop that for one second? Yeah, this is it. What is that noise? Is someone throwing rocks at your window? Mike. What, does he know

we're recording? Are you outside? Yeah, I know. I'm in the middle of a fucking podcast, you want me to come

down and fucking over the real fire you? So you're just saying you got kicked out of Wyatt? So, and the thing is,

is what I said was it was a retaliation. So I filed a lawsuit saying it was a violation of my constitutional rights

because, you know, it's a retaliatory transfer. Why they, you know, why are they transferring me? So they came back

with this, response to my complaint and they had like about 30 disciplinary infractions that I had accumulated since I was there. One of them was starting a group demonstration, flooding a whole unit. You know, everything short of taking hostages. So, I mean, when I read it, and it was funny because I was writing my book in hindsight. And when I was at Lewisburg, I was writing the 700 pages that I had accumulated. And it was so good because I went and printed it and I was telling about all these things I did and I'd be like you know some of this stuff there's no record of this almost unbelievable but then I got the lawsuit that they had and you know the decision from judge

hugoogian in um in Rhode Island and it was everything listed that I did and I was like oh well shit his you know so it wasn't a retaliatory transfer they had no Jennifer Egan was um like she was like the assistant warden there and she had called the marshals three times will you please get this guy out of here and they were didn't respond, didn't respond until on the fourth time she called him. This guy just flooded on a whole unit. He didn't start of the group demonstration. And that's the day that they had transferred me to Plymouth.

So they went my, you know, stint as a jailhouse lawyer. Now, Wyatt, for people that don't know, is the federal holding detention center, like kind of like a county jail, but for Fed cases, for like Boston or Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, you probably knew a ton of people in there at the time. I know. Everybody, I'm saying, you know, that was, excuse me, half my neighbor. was there. But there's not many politics in a place like that, or at least when I was there back then, maybe there was. So it's, it's, it's almost ironic that you mentioned that because at

that particular time, there was South Bay prisoners, right, from South Bay Jail doing time as, it's because there's a contract facility. It's run by Cornell Corrections. I don't know if it still is or not, but it was Cornell Corrections. It was a privately run facility. And they had a contract with the state or the county to house county prisoners. So we were pretrial detainees at the time, right? Because we didn't get sentenced yet. So they were all in a block with us. And I remember one of those incidents that they, you know, locked me up for that they showed on this response to this lawsuit was that we got into a huge beef with these kids because these, the black kids was like, oh, that's, that's our phone. And I was like, what do you mean it's your phone? There's nobody on it.

Yeah, well, that's our phone. You can't. I can't use it. I went, I'll fucking smash you with this fucking phone. And that was, we got it to a huge beef with me and all my co-defendants and guys that I know against those guys. And then they separated us. So, so it was a, uh, not much politics there, but the, the, the county guys were with the county guys and the fed guys are kind of with the fed guys. They kept your co-defendants in the same. So we were dispersed around the jail when we first got arrested. Some went to Plymouth, someone to Wyatt, someone to Wyatt in different units, but I had two in the unit with me. And there were there guys that actually got sentenced on your,

case or they got released? So there were guys that got sentenced on my case? Did anyone testify against you? Against me? Yeah. So I never went that far, right? So I took that plea deal that we had talked about to, you know, get everybody out of trouble and nobody else got into further trouble.

Nobody had to go to grand juries. So that's the way they, you know, that they had framed it for me. That's, it's in your best interest and the instance of your friends. Yeah. I think that was the exact verbiage they used. So we never got. like Ian to that level where people were on the stand. So that was just, everybody pled out.

Yeah, I didn't know if anyone was like threatening to testify or anything like that. So I mean, guys got bail. We knew they were going to testify. We knew they had cooperating informants that were on our case, you know, because I just did the me test. I'm not going to get bail. How this guy get bail? You know what I mean?

It's pretty, because it's the same charges. So it's pretty self. Some, I had the most charges, right? I had, well, I had because I had the violence on top, right? Even the lead guy in the indictment only got 20 years for a continuing criminal enterprise. But that's the most of carried. But he wasn't involved in act of violence that were, you know, telegraphed in the indictment. How long were you in these facilities before you actually got sentenced?

Man, I think between, because I got transferred finally from Wyatt, right? They sent me to Plymouth County Correctional Facility. I had a tough time there because once I got there, they knew why I was coming there. You know what I'm saying? They had this book saying, oh, yeah, you're a time. guy, you know what I mean? So it was, but you know, I ended up. So I'd say about two years. Oh, two, it's still, even with a plea deal, it's still, yes. Yeah, it was a long, long time. Do you feel like that was intentional or are they trying to look at other cases or?

You know what? So, listen, the way I always say this is that, you know, these people didn't put me in prison, these administrators, these prison guards, you know, if anything, you know, I was the antagonist, right? I started problems in their prisons. I, so I was the antagonist. I don't think anybody did anything personally toward me, like to retaliate against for some sort of retaliation. I don't even know what it would be in retaliation for. I had a big case, right? I had a serious case. And at that time, you know, we had a very high profile bunch of guys. And I don't think it was anything intentional that they did. I just think, you know, sometimes caught the process of going to court and getting your case adjudicated and getting your time and getting sentenced, getting

designated takes a long time. What was the max a judge could have sentenced you on per your plea deal? Well, I mean it started out as a debt penalty case, right? So life imprisonment? No, per the plea deal, though. Life, oh, life imprisonment. I had a non-binding plea agreement with Judge Young because Judge Young didn't do binding plea agreements.

You know what I mean? And, you know, so yeah. So how nervous were you going into that, knowing that it wasn't a done deal. You know what the thing is, I don't know if nervous is like the right term to use. I was, you know, I was upset about, you know, my mother and my father and just my family, you know, that they had to go through this and, you know, and I'm thinking to myself like, okay, John, you, you knew this was like the logical conclusion, right? But, you know, I just kind of felt I was contrite about that and I wasn't nervous per se because like I say all the time, I looked around

the day room and there were suckers doing this. Like people that I perceived. as suckers doing this, you know? And, you know, it's a funny term that I use, right? Like, the suckers, this is how you get money, suckers on the street, right? But when you go to prison, you become the sucker. Everybody's like, oh, look at this fucking pair of sneakers. They're like $80. They're like $20 in the street.

Because you're the sucker now. I'm the sucker. Did the judge say why he chose 35 years? Yeah, well, he sentenced me to 420 months. I gave a speech in court that was, you know, pretty dramatic, right? And it was just ad-lived. I didn't think of it.

You know what I'm saying? I just ad-libbed it. And, you know, I had said to the judge about, you know, if me and you were in a foxhole, Your Honor, we would either leave together or die together. And if the enemy ever wanted the secrets that we had as Americans, I would die to not give them up. I said, but you sit in front of a flag. The American flag sits behind you and you want people to cooperate and to tell, you

know about other people it's just i i couldn't you know when i put those two things together i really couldn't come to terms or square that reasoning you know and he had said that you've done nothing but sally the names of the people that serve this country and you've done nothing but serve your own needs you know so in that speech that i made i'm convinced kept me in jail for the whole duration of my sentence because i had actually one right remember when i put that clause in to have a 2255 I actually won. Judge Zobel said that, listen, you are no longer a career offender. You know, the two predicate acts that you have as a career offender. You're no longer a career offender.

However, it doesn't affect the lentier sentence. And she could have did something for me, but I believe she didn't because of that speech I made and, you know, Young was her friend. Of course, they're all, like me and you are friends. If somebody disrespects you, I'm with you. You understand? And that's just the way it works in all circles. We're just not going to allow you to go back to prison. no I'm not going back so he gives you 35 years when you hear that like 400 they say it in months

420 months are you trying to add that up in your head I thought I did better than 35 years I said wow this after I said this this guy's going to give me a better deal 400 months sounds better than 35 years so yeah it's a you know but I had to come to terms with it right so and I always say this to people and people used to say man how do you do this it's you You know, right, that you had a prison sentence. You had a wrap your head. At first you were like, there's no, how much time did you get? 36 months.

Okay, there's no way I can do 36 months. I got this business going. I got this going. My daughter, but I don't know what your situation is, but I can't do this. But then slowly, right, you acclimate yourself to it. And you wrap your head around it, you know. Me, it was a little harder to wrap around because, you know, it's like I tell everybody. When you got five years in on a 35, you still got 30.

When you got 15 in on a 35, you still got 20. You know, I mean, it's when you got 30 years in, you're still going to do five more years. It's almost untenable to the human mind, right? But for some reason, you know, I'm frugal, right? My friends say I'm cheap, right? But I'm frugal. So the couple of years I had invested in working out and eating good, I never wanted to lose that. So I just kept going a day at a time.

Now, when you get a sentence like that, I know when I got sentenced, I'm the first time I met with like the counselor, I'm mapping out. All right, good time. this is my release date, but on a 35 year sentence, is that even a thought in your mind or it doesn't matter? I didn't even think about it. You know, I just, it's time to go due time. You know, I went to Levinworth Penitentiary,

went to the case manager, said, I need a copy of my PSI, right? Because you could just walk in and get it at that point in time. Now they're illegal to possess in prison. But, you know, my homeboys, they all knew. Everybody from Boston read, read the Herald, read, you know, the USA Today, Discovery Channel specials.

You know, they've seen, about my case. They knew who I was. You know, I mean, not saying that I'm anybody special, but in other words, to be vetted, like, is this guy any good? Is he, you know, who are you? Like, your case probably wasn't that big. Like, who are you? Your paperwork? No, I got treated like shit.

Yeah, well, so, you look like McLeovin. I'm saying, why I look like a chomo. That's why they treated me like shit. You know how they operate at Fort Dix and whatnot. The New England car at Fort Dix didn't even approach me until I was already in hot water for doing absolutely nothing. And there

there was trouble because they didn't even offer me any help to check my paperwork. They just automatically labeled me as no good. That's fucked up. It is fucked up. But, you know, these other policies of prison, right? So it's a whole other area of, no, operation for us, right? This is a whole other thing that in society, none of that stuff flies. But in prison, it's just the way it is.

I would say that's the number one thing I wish I knew. And if God forbid I ever had to go back, I know how to handle myself. But I wish I knew. I wish someone said, hey, you know, get your paperwork because I went to trial. You know, my paperwork's very good out there. Some person testified on me. Christine, if you want the trial. Yeah.

So, well, there's cases where you can take a deal after trial, you know. Sure. It was 90%, you know, clean and then sentencing minutes would have showed. But anyways, I just wish I knew that. I wish someone told me. Right. You know, and that's why they got prison consultants now. Those guys are a scam.

Listen, you know what? I knew they were scams. I paid three grand for one. Listen, a guy I know in Lewisburg camp told me, Johnny, I paid $25,000 to just somebody to tell me that I wouldn't get raped in a camp. I was like, all you had to do is give me a fucking full commissary audit. I would have did that.

You go to prison, you know who you pay? The rabbis. They got the pull. Huge. Huge. That's why everybody, you know, changes their religion to Jewish. So you get to Leavenworth. Who approaches you when you get on the yard there?

Who are you, like, running with? Is there still cars at Levinworth? No, well, just Boston, the Boston guy. The guy that just seen me come and who was a dear friend of mine became a dear friend of mine. He was a skinhead. He was a member of the Aryan Resistance militia there and just a great guy that I got along with very well. And people don't understand about how prison and the rules of prison differ from society. So when I say those things, people might even take a step back and be like, wow, what?

But that's just the way prison was, especially when I was there. But he brought me to the Boston guys. And were there any notorious people during that time? Because Leavenworth is a pretty famous prison. Sure. There was a lot of notorious people there. You know, I mean, you know, from my area, the Charlestown guys, you know, Pat McGonigal was there. Pat McGoole.

And he was a notable child style figure. You know, Georgie Whalen, who's dead right now. You know, Ricky Ack, Stevie Coleman, Peppy Galvin. You know, there was a bunch of people there that. you know from charlestown you know there was um notorious criminals gangsters like steve kessler was there john stanfer was there um henry barelli was there joe masaro was there um you know um what's that uh let it peltier that everybody knows his name it rings you know they're trying to get clemency forever um uri call was there i'm saying you know the who's who were there any of the notorious like

Boston bank robbers there during that time? Sure. Those guys from Charleston I mentioned. Those are all Amicah guys. But none of the ones that you would know because you're talking about like Hudson and stuff like that. So those guys weren't even in jail yet. That wasn't even a thing yet. Okay. And you guys all associated together. We played hockey together. But in prison, you're like the Boston like that. We played hockey together at Leavenworth. We had a hockey league. What do you beat hockey? It was Boston against everybody else. But like what kind of hockey? Street hockey. You know, we had myelick sticks, myelick balls. How do you have sticks? Well, they let us have them. Did you guys have weight pits back then?

So we had a weightless pit because after the riot, there was a huge riot, the crack riots, before my time in prison where they took all that stuff. So we had a bunch of dip bars, bunch of pull-up bars. And yeah, that was our work. The weightless pit, that's what I call it. I interviewed a guy last week that was a bank robber back in the day and he was at Leavenworth and all that before when the weights were there and all of that. Right.

So that's before 80-something. I wasn't there. Yeah, it was in the 80s when that happened. So you go to Leavenworth. And you're running with the Boston guys. Boston guys. I'm with the Boston guys. How long were you at Levinworth for?

I was there for like five years. Oh, so you had a... Moving yourself sounds simple. Until it isn't. The packing, the truck rental, the lifting, the mess. Now imagine moving with United van lines. United's pros know how to transport your things safely and seamlessly. No guesswork, no borrow dollies, no hassles.

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Were you keeping your nose down or were you getting into trouble right off the back? So, I mean, the thing was I wasn't trying to look for trouble, but I wasn't shying away from it. You know, we had issues. The Boston car had issues. You know, our friends had issues. We had issues over tables. where, you know, we had with a serious crew that had just come to the line. We had issues with the tables.

And that was like the biggest thing that happened when I was there. And I'll never forget what happened. But this guy, Steve Kessler, who was a dear friend of mine, you know, Gary Gilmore, who was the last guy to get shot by a firing squad. I don't know if you know who he is. But he talked about Steve Kessler in his book. So Steve Kessler was a heroic figure to me. You know, just a great guy, mentor to me in prison,

but probably one of the most dangerous guys in the federal system at the time. He killed a guard escaping from Rocky Butte jail in Oregon and they sent him to the feds because he was the most dangerous man in Oregon, they said. Anyway, there was this crew that came in and was trying to command there some tables in the white section.

The white people sat there. We sat what the island is, with the Mexicans, what we were all together. There was a black section and then everybody else. And they come over and try to take these two front tables. I remember I was sitting there at breakfast and this Chinese guy that never said nothing to nobody he was really mad there was guys sitting down

and I'm like yo what the whole dynamic changed and I was like wow what the hell fuck are they doing so I was getting mad right and my friend Pauli was like just relax I'm like yeah but you're sitting at our table John relax you know this is an older fellow older than me

and so at lunch I was like Kesla what the hell these fucking guys are sitting on the table they can't he's like John can't can I just enjoy my lunch please these guys were seasoned i'm like i just want to go grab something to hit somebody with something like they can't do this they're making a mockery of us you know they're making us look bad everybody in the child hall is looking at them sitting on our tables so he was like when you just let me eat lunch so he ate his lunch and then we kind of devised the plan and um that night everybody

brought like plastic knives he you know called everybody together made a plan and we were down there going through metal, like five or six metal detectors to get that a child hall. And, um, unbeknownst to me because he didn't tell me to get a knife. He didn't tell me to do anything. You know what I'm saying? I'm like a younger kid, right? And I'm like, Kes. And he was like, just relax for a second.

I was like, right. He goes, come with me. We walk over to the table that they're sitting at. There's a guy just standing up like God. Like, you know, like it's just, you know, such dramatics in prison, right? My friend Kessel said, uh, there was two seats open. He goes, hey, you mind if we sit down? guy's like trying to be a high guy you know he's like yeah man what's up the guy's like oh nothing

Kessel was like no nothing's up he said um hey listen and I'm sitting down I'm like this fucking guy got me over here and this I'm this is this shit's ready to jump off right here so I'm just sitting with him and I always with him so I would go anywhere with him and I almost kind of the same it was like you know you had to juxtapose those two positions right it was like I was scared of shit but I was like honored to be there and he was like yeah listen my man he goes hey listen i understand i've been in prison a while he said um if my friends were coming on the line you know i would do the same exact thing as you so i get it 100 percent he says uh but i just want to let you know there's people in this child hall tonight

that are willing to die for this table so you guys have a good dinner and i'll talk to you later it was the most it was such the most impactful like incident without violence i've ever witness to my whole life. And that was it. They got off the table. Oh, no, that was it. Nobody ever sat there again. They got another table.

You know, guys were talking to them. They went somewhere. They kind of, you know, you know, went somewhere else. I don't even know where they went. I wouldn't even remember where they went. But they never sat there. Why are tables? Because I realize this at Fort Dix.

Why are tables and placement so important in prison? So the thing is, is I think when, you know, us as inmates, right? And we're inmates that like you, like yourself, that wasn't like a pedophile that, you know, got wrongly accused of this because you look like McElovin. I love you to death kid, but you look like McEloven, right? But I'm saying so, but now you fight for your honor. I'm not a fucking pedophile. I'm not a chump.

You know what I'm saying? So, but it means something to us, right? And as the more serious you are as an inmate and the more serious you are as a convict, like it's a direct affront to you and your people. right so i remember in lee county when this black dude sat at our section i had come from levin went to petersburg got a disciplining from petersburg and went to lee county penitentiary and i went over to the guy and listen i had a little more tact with me at that time because i had a little more experience you know and you know i know that hey you know what somebody you want to tell somebody

where to sit get ready to get stabbed because i don't want to be told where to sit right we don't Do you like it when somebody makes you uncomfortable and says, hey, listen, my man, you can't sit there. I don't want to be that guy because I know that there's going to be opposition. So I went to the guy and I said, hey, my man, I don't know if you just got here or not. Listen, enjoy your breakfast. Sit here. Do your thing.

And, you know, but the Italian guy sit in the back here, this our section. And he just looked at me and went, government don't own these tables. And I was like, listen. Now it was like, you know, now he just put his foot in my nuts. And I was like, listen, my man, check this out. don't sit here at lunch, all right? Because these tables are taken. So I went back and, you know, miserable.

I'm like, ah, fuck. Why couldn't it just work out? Well, like, hey, oh, I'm, because when I walk into a child hall in prison, I don't care if I don't know nobody and I know everybody wherever I went, I could see where I sat. It's easy.

You know, and 99.9% of the people in prison realize that. So I go there, go back to my unit, tell a couple people, listen, there might be a problem here in the child hall, man. I just give this guy ultimatum, and he's one of these crazy guys. I come to find out later, he was really medication nuts. So I go back in there, I go early, I sneak out of my unit because I want to make sure this guy don't sit at this fucking section.

I already told him he couldn't sit there, right? So I go in there, he's like right in front of me somewhere. So I just watch his play. And he takes his train, he goes like he's going to a whole other section. I'm like, thank fucking God, you know. And he bangs a U-turn and goes sit right at the table. He was sitting at. So I go to his friend in the line

I go around the whole line He's serving the eggs I'm like yo and I knew him from North Carolina The guy was from North Carolina I was like yo you man And the cop was like yo yo yo Get out of here Get out beat it

This guy's working So everybody's looking at me I'm like I told So I just ran as fast as I could And stoved on him And that started World War III Everybody got up

The cops came in They had guns That was like probably And to this day what I'm told, of course, I don't see no training videos, of course. But to this day, I'm told that that's a training video at Lee County Penitentiary. So would you dive for them and well, I just ran, I got a run and start and knocked them out and I punched them as hard as I could. And now are your, is your crew running with you and hop in? Well, of course. Everybody's standing up.

You know what I'm saying? Everybody. Now, I've talked to guys in witness firsthand at lower security prisons about the knocking on the table. What's that like in the penitentiary? I mean, I always thought it was just dramatics. You know what I'm saying? Like, you got to knock the table before you leave. It's whatever. I did it. Sometimes I wouldn't.

I mean, I don't know. It's like, you know, to me, right? It's another thing is these these kind of boxes we fit ourselves into in certain situations. Like when you talk to the cops, you got to bring somebody with you. It's so dramatic because I remember going over and talking to like a lieutenant who was the SIS lieutenant. This guy from this gang says, come over. I want to talk to the lieutenant. And I'm like, all right, I'll come over with you.

And he starts telling the lieutenant, yeah, this guy can't get out, but this guy can. This guy can't get out, but this guy can. And afterwards, I'm like, yo, bro, do me a favor? Don't never take me to talk to the lieutenant with you again? So in other words, he's talking to the lieutenant, like, tell him, saying, like, he can get out, but he can't. Like, I hope that I'm not at somebody's mercy that you just dictated that I couldn't get out of the hole, right?

I would just go, listen, so when I went and talked to the ward and somebody that said, hey, Lurgeon, you really should take somebody with you to talk to somebody. I said, my man, check this out. I'm going to talk to the warden about my wife's visits. Whenever I go talk to the cops, I talk to the cops anyway, I want to talk to the cops. You know what I mean? I'm not giving, somehow I'm giving information. I took a 35-year sentence, but somehow, like, I'm giving information to the police about prison stuff. No, you know what I'm saying? So I always thought that was kind of dramatic. And, you know, we had talked. It's not like I'm the toughest guy in the world, and I dictate what goes on. You know, people had some issues about that. And I would tell them,

Hey, listen, my man, check it out. You know? I'm not, I'm going to talk to them. Here, this is, hey, want to read my wife's letter? How she got kicked out? This is what I'm going to talk to? You know, so, but I just think it's a lot of prison dramatics. But there are cases where guys, you know, go to trial, don't snitch and then become jailhouse rats.

I'm sure that's why they have those in place, right? Okay, so check this out, right, Ian? Nobody on planet Earth, who's anybody, is going to talk to the warden in the middle of a fucking in Chow Hall and telling him, yeah, this guy's got wine, this guy's got a knife, this guy's, right? Yeah. That stuff happens behind closed doors. That's when they got a number.

They call, they'll go to arts and crafts and somehow find their way into the back door. This don't happen in the middle of a child hall. This is prison dramatic, Ian. So why is- Ian, this is prison dramatic? Why do they do that then? It's a show. It's like guys going to the shower with their boots on.

Yeah, what tell us about that thing? The boots are unlaced. Did you go to the shower of the boots on? I live a clean life in jail, brother. you didn't do that. Never. Really? I go on my shower shoes. Even at the penitentiary? I live a clean life. What about the chair? I never, I just draped my towel. Listen, I didn't have 900 things. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I left my broad at home. I went and just took a shower. So what do you think about these guys that tell these war stories about how they had a guy outside

garden them with a shank and they're not war stories, but it's prison dramatics. And some people, I don't know. Maybe they're tipped up what is. So these are things according to me, right, Ian? So this is my life. And it's interesting. I can't talk to you about, like, like, gang members that were in jail that, you know, did that stuff. All the more power to them. I got guys that I love to this day that they, you know, they acted in that manner. And that's fine for them. But I never did.

All right. So let me ask you something. These guys you were running with, did they follow your lead too? Like, were they going to the shower with Bhutan and stuff? Or no? Or was it solo? Like, what you're saying? So, but it's, it's, it's, it's.

funny the way you frame that question, right? Were they following me? So I'm not one of these self-shot callers in prison. I was the shot call. I ran the prison. It wasn't like that for me. You know what I'm saying? So did anybody look up to me and, you know, take my example as I, you know, performed the acts that I did or didn't. I don't know. You have to talk to them about them. I can just talk to you about other people and I can talk to you about my own subjective experiences. I don't know if people followed me. No, I don't mean like follow. I meant like did anyone else do that. Was it normal to do that? Yeah. So like the guys I hung out with that, you know, some did and some didn't. You know, none of them ever said, you know, like, Ian, look, when there was a stabbing

the day before in Leavenworth when the two gangs got down, I'm watching my friends back because there's tension in the unit. We don't know what's going to happen. But on Tuesday morning at eight o'clock, no. So why did you get kicked out of Leavenworth? Why did I get kicked out? out of Leavenworth? Oh, I dropped down on security level. What happened was, is, what happened was initially, they said, oh, we're closed in Leavenworth. We're making it a medium. It's not going to be a high security institution anymore. And they said, everybody's getting transferred to Lee County. And I was like, I don't want to go to fucking Lee County and then fucking D.C. A brand new joint opening up, fighting for TVs,

fighting for tables. I'm like, what? So I went to the fucking, my counselor, because I knew they had made a mistake in my, my classification. I only had so many points. They had me as a prior prison stay, which jacked my points up very high, but it wasn't a prior prison day. It was my pre-trial stay. So she did all the calculations. I was really a medium, which I knew I was. I could have went any time. But I liked Levinworth. I liked hanging with Kessler. I liked all my homeboys from Charlestown. I like playing hockey. You know what I'm saying? So at that time when I said, oh, this is the time I'm going to flash that card right now. And I went to Petersburg. And I ended up.

of getting into a wreck in Petersburg and going to Lee County anyway. So you got what you wanted. I didn't get what I wanted. I got the medium, but I was only in the medium for like six months. It was. How hard was it to adjust to a medium after starting in a penitentiary? I wasn't ready for it. And it was a brand new medium and there was fights over TVs.

You know, we were getting into wrecks. And somebody ended up stealing something for me and I fucking bashed them in the Chow Hall again, you know. Are there rules just different? Like, why is it hard to adjust? So I wouldn't say it was different. And so far is the reason why I was, you know, that I got out of there so quick, it was just a brand new institution. When we got to Leavenworth, of course, there was a natural order of things, right?

And that's been going on forever, right? How long was Leavenworth there? Way before I committed crime, probably way before I was a gleam in my father's eye, right? So there was a natural order of things, you know? And this wasn't like that at all because it's a brand new penitentiary with some of the most dangerous people because it's a pen. They're coming from every institution in the country. They're just transferring in there, right? And now you've got to say, this is my table.

That's my TV. We need a white TV in the block. We need a Spanish TV in the block. We need a black TV in the block. Because left to the free play of forces, right? The numbers are going to take everything. Right? Then you get to a joint.

Your friend's coming. Like, hey, Johnny, what's up? Where's our TV? Wow. Oh, wow. I don't know what I mean? I don't want to be that guy. I never want to be that guy.

When I got to McKean, there was that. And we kind of changed the landscape a little bit when I got there. Being a part of like these cars in prison, did it make you feel like you were on the outside again, like internally, like being with around people? No, because, you know, I always say we laugh to keep from crying. You know, it was a facade we put on until we can get back to our families. What about other motorcycle club members,

Were they in, did you encounter any in person? Yeah, so I mean, one of my best friends in Leavenworth was an outlaw, two of my best friends. Okay. You know, and they, you know, we had a situation with another racialist gang. There were white guys that, you know, had a personal problem with my friend RV. That was an outlaw. And, you know, we handled it. And he loved the situation.

You know, in jail, you got, we know how divisive, a divisive. How do you pronounce this word? Devicesive. Okay, let's say divisive then. So now it's a very divisive environment, right? Especially racially divisive, right? When we get into these high security institutions. So when you've got people that have the same culture, same beliefs as you, right?

You kind of embrace them, right? Maybe a different motorcycle club, but here's this guy. He's seven feet tall, six and a half feet tall, whatever. Big corn-fred dude from Wisconsin. Ha-ha, what a hearty laugh. I fell in love with the guy. You know what I'm saying? And he had the same beliefs and morals as me.

And he was just like me. And, you know, we ended up, we had created a lifelong lasting friendship. So in a penitentiary, what takes precedent, I guess, precedent the race or the car? So the thing is, in the penitentiary, it's race, right? And then when you drop down to medium, so like, for example, I'll give you a perfect example. Leavenworth, we had one of my home boy's herb from Dorchester. like when the shit happened like the yard split in half

you know what I'm saying so and Herb was on the other side than us but obviously we love Herb Herb loved us but obviously we're not just seeing what happens hopefully there's no violence it's just hopefully we can you know resolve this diplomatically

you know most times we did right but then you could place that side by side with Fiatin New Jersey was a medium that when I got there it was the black guys and the white guys if anything happened it's Boston against the world yeah well when went to a place like New Jersey, you're probably in the minority, like Boston guys.

There's always a big Boston car. Even in Levinworth. Oh, yeah. Fort Dixis, New Jersey had a lot. Yeah. So you go to Fort Lee County Lee. It's a Lee County Penitentiary, right. That's new, yeah. Tip of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

Where do you go after that? So from Lee County is where I went to Ferton. Fairton. I had just got married. Okay. I got married and divorced to the same woman twice in prison. How did you meet her? in prison. She sent me a letter.

Were you like a notorious guy that just randomly sent you a letter? So the funny thing with her is, she was married to a guy named John and she was going out with a guy named Bart who happened to being another motorcycle club. And she's seen my name and, you know, just the rest is history. I mean, you know, I felt stupid in love with her. And what happened to that? So, I mean, we got married. We got married again. We got divorced again. We got divorced again. And today we're friends. She was supposed to come down this weekend. Oh, you got married twice to her? Married twice. To her.

Divorce twice. This is a whole other podcast. Holy cow. But I think people are interested in the psychology of a woman writing a letter to someone they don't even know from the outside. Right. Because of the serial killers and those convicted killers. It's very interesting, right? And again, I wish I could, you know, tell you what goes on in her mind and what she felt.

I mean, she's sane, rational person. I love it. She's a great person, generous person, one of the best people I met, did so much for. for me was there for me for like 90% of my bid, you know, and I love her today, you know what I'm saying? But I don't know if I can adequately tell you what went on from her mind and the actions that she took, right? I can only talk subjectively my own experience. Yeah, well, it's interesting to hear your perspective, though, like what was in your mindset when a woman reaches out to you? She's the feds. But you eventually cave in. She's the feds. You caved in, though.

She's the feds. There's only one explanation for Natalie coming to visit me. She's wearing a wire, and she was like, drop dead gorgeous, had like, you know, the true religion jeans on the high heels. She had, like, a tie-dye shirt that looked like it cost $1,400. You know, just everything about her was amazing. The first words I ever spoke to her when I was on the visit was, I forgot my socks. Because I got my socks. She had to get strip search in and out. And that was the only thing I could muster to say to her.

She was amazing. And I was looking at it like, okay, where's the wire? I'm looking, you know, because I thought she was the feds. Why else was she? I had 20, fucking 25 years left on my sentence. How did she win you over then? Just, you know, we talked for three days and it went by in 15 minutes. And then she came back again and, you know, it just, they said the rest of the history.

Oh, my God. This was, you know, I always say when I wrote the book and I did, right, that there's going to be a chapter. Along came Natalie. So how do you end up at Fort Dex? So what happened was is I was in Ferton, right? And everybody calls a Farrington. That's what I used to call it. It's not Farrington.

It's fair. And they have a camp there too, I think. They had a camp there. There was a medium and a camp. So I was there and I remember I was working out in the yard and they said, Bataleo come to the unit. So I went to the unit and there's like all my friends in the vestibule of my unit waiting for me. And I'm like, this don't look good at all. Like this looks like somebody's going to console me.

Like, you know, I thought it was maybe somebody died. I was like, oh, the fuck. And I went there, I'm like, yo, they're transferring you, man. The guys from R&D came, man, it's, you know, they're, and I'm like, transfer him, you where? So what had happened at that point in time, too, and these kind of these events kind of transpired at the same time, right?

Is that they had the SMOO program, special management program in Lewisburg. And I remember these cops talking to me saying, man, surprising, you're not there. Like, you know, because what they're doing now is, is if you had three drinking shots, You know, they're just putting people in there. They need people in there.

So when they said I could go to Fort Dix, I was like resist it. I was like, no, I don't want to go. I'm going to continue my school. You know what I mean? And I had, you know, been involved in like, you know, these courses over there in Fertin where they had these professors coming in. So but then I thought about it long and hard.

I put a lot of thought into it. And I said, you know what? Maybe I should just go get to the lower security because they had me shook like going a fucking smooth program. Because you're going to get into a wreck in this. You're just going to get more time. That's all that was happening, you know. So I went to Fort Dix.

They just, my points had dropped and they were ready for me to leave. Now, Fort Dix is night and day from where, from Leavenworth. Night and day. And on many levels. I'd rather Leavenworth, tell you the truth. And is that because there's too much freedom and not enough structure? No, I wouldn't say that insofar as, you know, freedom. I'm saying we love the freedom, right?

There was phones everywhere. There was, you know, I was doing crazy shit in the visitor room. Yeah, it was great in that regard, right? Right? But it was hard, very hard for me to get away from the two-man cell. Very hard to live in the dorm environment for me. Yeah. But they do have two-man cells, but you have to work your way up in that. And listen, the councilor loved me.

She goes, you're a real convict. Everybody says they're a convict. But she goes, I can't put you in a two-man right now because somebody will put a charger in your boot and they'll get you in trouble. And then we'll have to figure that out. Just work with the orderly. And before I did all that, I was under investigation for heroin, cell phones, steroids, and gambling. now something i realize is that the guys that came from the pen always uh had a hard time adjusting there and the guys that came from like a medium act that kind of acted out acted a little bit more

crazy and reckless and those guys wouldn't last long yeah so there's always that oh man fuck this put me back in the pen you know it's a lot of it's like again for me that was a lot of prison dramatics i loved it i appreciated it and don't forget natalie was from new jersey philadelphia south philly area so it was real close for her to commute you know so and that was another thing. So I just really tried to stay out of trouble, but I really didn't do a good job because how long were you there for before that happened? I don't know. It was like three months, four months. Wait, you got racked up with all those charges. And then I got, you know, I mean, I was, I was in the hole for over a year there too, very close to a year over a year. At least it was

air conditioned. That was the one saving grace, right? What side were you on when you were on? I was on. So I had intake. What do they call intake? I forgot. R&O. Yeah, no, no. They call it, A&O. A&O. So I had A&O on the west side. Imagine you forget that. Jesus Christ. Yep. A&O in the west. A&O on the west side. Then I went to the east side. Which building were you in? I was in 2003 first. Then I got transferred to 41. I was in 41.

Because listen, here's what happened. All my homeboys were in a room. There's a bunch of my homeboys there. Stevie Cappacetti, Biggie, Danny Akecicella, Jay Allen, who has since passed away. God rest of his soul, died of an overdose. great kid from South Boston. But they were all over there. My friend Salsovoka from New York was there. And I wanted to get in their room,

which was directly below my room, right? So I'm like, I'll just wait for the counselor, right? That's what you just get a room change, whatever, right? I'm in a low security button. It can't be too hard to do that. So I wait for this guy, and I waited for like three fucking hours. I'm like, already aggravated as it is. So the guy comes in and I'm like,

I said, you're harder to get in touch with then the president. I said, how are you doing? I'm about telling me. He went, what do you want? I want, well, I want to get just a room change. I said, I'm on 3.11. I want to go to 2.11. My home boys are in there to go better early.

I don't want to have to get into a wreck up there. You know, people staying up all night and stuff. He goes, yeah. He goes, handle your problems on your own. We don't do room moves. So I said, oh, you want me to handle my problems on my own? That what you're telling me? I said, you got Century access in this computer?

And he looked at me. Like, Century is what they look up inmates, right? And like, you know, only a seasoned convict would know that, right? Not nobody that just walked in the door. So I said, you have a century access? And he looked at me and he goes, what are you talking about? No, I said, if you have, can I mind if I sit down? I said, so he's just looking at me.

So I sat down. I said, well, if you got century access, right? I said, it's interesting, right? Find out how I handle my problems because the last time I handled my own problems, the whole jail got locked down and they gave us bag lunches for a week at Lee County Penitentiary. So see how that one works out. And he went into the thing. He's looking.

He's looking at me. And he said, go to the. lieutenant's office. So what do you mean? Go to the lieutenant's office. Go to the lieutenant's office. So with the RAM declaration of deals, we're pledging our allegiance to the American people with great deals on the RAM 1500. Back with the legendary Hemi V8 and the RAM heavy duty. With the available Cummins turbo diesel delivering 1,075 pound feet of torque, all backed by a 10 euro 100,000 mile power train limited warranty because nothing stops RAM. Hurry in for the declaration of deals. Excludes the EV, the applies to 2026-mile gear vehicles, non-transferable,

visit mopar.com for complete details and a copy of the power drain limited warranty. Comments is a registered trademark of Cummins Inc. Ram and Hemmy are registered trademarks of FCAUS LLC. What the fuck am I going to the lieutenant's office for? I didn't do anything. He goes, you're threatening me. You're threatening your whole room. I said, I...

What? I want a room move. You told me to handle my problems myself. So I ended up going to the lieutenant. There's a counselor and they said, listen, Batonemiah, just go up to the lieutenant's office. I go up to the lieutenant's office. In other words, I'm in the hole.

They write me for threatening my... him threatening my whole room, right? So I appealed a ticket, right? So I ended up beating the ticket, right? So it's like, you know, there was a problem with the evidence. That's what they said. Because I said, I didn't, my appeal said, all I did, I said, if I say, I'm going to burn your house down, that's a threat, right?

I made an illusion to fact. These are past events that happened and I was trying to. Use those past events so you could correspond what my behavior might be if you want me to handle my own problems. So the DHO at the region threw it out. And, you know, so but when I went to him, the counselor, and I was like, hey, no hot feelings. And he goes, yeah, you know, I wish they didn't write you off for threatening. You know what I'm saying? You know, he's backpedaling now.

And I said, no problem. He goes, but I think it's best if you leave this unit so we don't interact with each other. I said, boss, I ain't got a problem with you. Listen, I've been in these places for a long time, short memory. You know, yesterday's yesterday. No big deal, you know. And he was like, no, I just think it's better. He said, I just wish they wouldn't have wrote you up.

I'm threatening. I said, well, can I say that you said that to me? He goes, yeah, you can use that. And that's kind of how I, another facet of my appeal. You said, I wouldn't threaten them. And then they sent you to 41. So I went to 41, yeah. Was Rivera there, the counselor?

Listen, the best. You like Rivera? She loved me because she was like, you're a real convict. She helped me get my wife's visits back and everything. because my wife had said something derogatory on the phone and there was a new captain there she had an Irish name what's her name

whatever her name was and I'll think of it but my wife said something on the phone and she tried to take my wife's visits unilaterally and Rivera was like it takes a conspiracy to do that you gotta have sanctions for that so she went to this meeting

I ended up getting my visits back with my wife so she's hit her mess she know what because she said you're a real conflict. She was the one that said, just help my orderly buff the floors, and you're going to get a single room. Don't worry about a double room. Listen, she gave me the greatest compliment. I'm in the hole, right, on this investigation.

And I said, hey, Rivera, what's up? She was like, hey, Batala Mayo, what are you doing? And I was like, hey, what the hell is going on? She goes, Batalameo, listen, they're playing checkers with a chess master. Don't worry about nothing. You're all set. You know what I'm saying? She goes, the investigation is going to be over soon. I thought that was a great compliment she gave me.

What a year were you at, Fortex? Oh man you're going to make me try to do this math again So I got married in 2007 9 2008 2009 to 11 maybe Okay now you weren't there when my bunkie got there Was it weird to see going from a penitentiary Where Chomas aren't allowed to four dicks

That aspect of it for you? Yeah of course I mean of course I mean it's the undesirable population right And everybody got a story It wasn't my wife I'm saying they want to just, you know, so the thing is, is the funny thing is that the dynamic had started to change a little bit, right? So you're saying they weren't at the penitentiaries. Now they have penitentiaries dedicated to pedophiles, right? So when we were at McKean, right, the warden had told

SIS to come to tell us that, hey, listen, McTaget, Batalameo, if you ask anybody for paperwork anymore, whenever you ask a pedophile for paperwork, we're taking four of your guys. So every one pedophile you asked. So they started doing that stuff everywhere. You know, everybody's protected now. You can't even get your PSA. eye. It's a whole different animal now. Why don't they just put them in their own facility? Like we're just talking about. Because it just makes too much sense.

They can play Dungeons and Dragons. Do you ever see them? You ever see them? Like when one of them recognizes another one, they'll see them like, oh, just come in? And it's like a lover feel. Like their eyes light up and they recognize each other. And then the next night they're playing Dungeon Dragons. It's amazing. They love it. Life is great over there. I had one write me a- eating fucking honey buns. I had one, write me a note at the Fortix

Library. He slipped me a note saying to meet up with him after. I never went to the library again. You handled a little different than I would. So it's weird. I got approached all the time for that. God bless you. So where do you go after you get kicked out of Fort Dix? So from Fort Dix, I got a disciplinary to McKean.

They gave me, I had no shot, no nothing. It was just under investigation, but they had something called a greater supervision transfer where SIS would engineer the transfer. And I went to a security level higher, which from a low one to a medium. And that's where I met Kevin McTaggart. I had a great bit over there.

One of the best guys I ever met. And then you eventually worked your way down to a camp. So from McKean, I went to Devons to have my hip done. From Devons, I got kicked out of Devons from being too close to female staff. And that's a movie in itself. But we'll just, we'll save that for later. So you got your hip replaced at Devons? Well, I got it at Boston Medical Center.

Did they do a good job? Huh? They do a good job? They did a great job. And who pays for that? Huh? Who pays for that? Books of stamps.

And max, I had to pay. Wait, you had to pay for your own? Yeah, the doctor. I asked them how many books of stamps to get this fucking thing done? So the government pays for it, I guess. I don't know. I didn't pay for it. That's fine.

But it was probably so bad that they had to operate it. Well, just to give you an idea when I was in McKean, the director of the hospital, seen me walking and went, hey, you, come over here. What's wrong with you? I got it. arthritis in my hip and he started the process that's good so where do you end up the wall where did you leave from what do i go home from yeah louisberg camp i was at the drug program and you and you completed the drug program yeah i did yeah how many years was it that was 27 years out of 30s so when i

walked out the door it was 27 years that's my clothing line right 27th straight how many uh how many years a good time did you lose i think i lost from the two assaults because that that's what i got found guilty. It was the two assaults. I think I lost, I don't know, three, four months. Oh, that's it. Not bad. For all the trouble you were getting into, that's it. Well, you know what? And Wyatt, right? That was a private facility. Thank God. They didn't follow you to the feds. Yeah, it doesn't count against you. It doesn't count. And I didn't know that, but thank God it didn't follow. So you get out after 27 years. Tell us about that. What is that like? What's the biggest difference and what's the first thing you're doing? So, I mean, I'm walking

what a box of property down there. My friends are yelling, yeah, don't worry, but you don't have to go, just come, walk right through. Come to the parking lot. Fuck it. Your time's up. Don't worry about them people. They're just busting my balls, you know. And so, you know, like a lot of, you know,

and I don't want to sound like, you know, I've got, you know, Stockholm syndrome, right? But there was a lot of great people that worked in these places that I met along the way. And one of them was a counselor at Lewisburg camp that, you know, to have an impact on people, you know, it's the greatest thing. It's the greatest gift that God, has given me is to have an impact on people because they tell me I do, you know what I'm saying? And this action that this officer made, he processed me out, whatever, see you later.

Everybody's saying, see you later. I had, you know, good rapport, whatever. But don't forget, I've been in jail 27 years. There's lie lieutenants that call wardens and say, hey, what's up about Talemaire? How's he doing? You know what I'm saying? That became wardens from offices. I've been in the system that long.

So this one counselor walked me out. and, you know, unheard of that you shake anybody's hand. In a prison setting, I would never shake an officer's hand. He walked me out. He goes, come on, I walk you out, but to all the mail,

just a great guy, been there forever. I was his orderly. We had a lot of laughs together, and, you know, a lot of time together. I worked for him. He was just a decent fellow. And he shook all of my friend's hands,

and he shook my hand, and he goes, yo, this guy is a really, and you weren't telling my friends anything, but he said, this is a special guy right here, man. You know? and, you know, my friend Gio, my friend Mikey and my friend Leo, came to get me, you know, and it was just people that I'd known my whole life that were there to get me.

And it was just, you know, listen, did that same, the day that I walked, I still fail the same today. Like, it's still amazing to me, you know, it's still such a tremendous, you know, I'm high on life, really. It's just been such a tremendous whirlwind for me. Like, I feel like I've been so blessed, like, and I waited for like almost 5,000 days for my data. and it never did, but I still fought,

and then when I finally had my day, you know, it's just, it's amazing. What's something that you expected this world to be like now, and it turned out it wasn't like that. I thought I'd have a million broads, but I don't have any. And I thought money would be hard to come by, but I'm, you know, my clothing line, I'm making a few dollars a day, you know? So that's really, I mean, to be honest with you, right off the hip, that's what I got for you. And how do you come up with the clothing line?

I know you said that wear the name, but why did you start it and tell people where they could find it, too? So the thing is, is that my brother Charlie had a benefit for me, okay? And he was, he made these shirts for me. And they had FJB, and on the back, it said, free Johnny Bot. So the time never materialized, meaning the party never materialized. And when I got home, he said, hey, I got a box of shirts in my office. Why don't you sign them and sell them?

You know, I almost spit my coffee out at him. I said, who the fuck is going to buy a share with my name on it? Right. So I signed them and I sold them, you know, and I was, I was on Instagram and I found out the power Instagram. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. So I was always playing like what numbers. And, you know, I always say that when I began to learn, I began to have self-worth. And when I began to have self-worth, I began to dream big.

And I began to dream about, in while I was in jail about writing a book and, you know, thinking about how it would be and sitting here with you today. I didn't even know who you were, but I figured I'd be sitting down with somebody. I dreamt big, you know. I dreamt that I could be a brand. You know what I'm saying? And once I sold them, I was always toying with this 27, right? Because that's how many years I was going to be, S-T-R-8. And I wrote it down one day.

And I was like, that's pretty clever, 27 straight with the letter at the end, I mean, with the number at the end. So that's, when I sold all those shirts, I made a hoodie. And on the back I wrote, I've often regretted my words, but never my silence. What a big Boston B, with my signature, right? And those sold. And I put 27, I get to put 27 STRE.

And then the signature works. So I put my signature on every shirt. And thank God, right? People, there's a demand for it. Like it's, I always said so humbling, right? It sounds so cliche and so corny, right? But it is just so humbling that, you know, I got my man Bean Shooter made a guest appearance, right?

Throwing fucking rocks at the fucking air conditioner, right? But I've been in the North End. What Mike Lee, Bean Shooter, he'd become a great friend with. me right and he kind of put me on the map what instagram i was like bean shooter bean shooter now like you know people saying johnny but because you know i was what mike you know and we we we kind of fostered this relationship through my friend eco which mike wanted me to be on his podcast which i was of course you know and we've just you know i mean that's i always say that the most important thing for me is building relationships the relationship i have with you now the relationship i have with

people so i think that's the most important thing and you know through these this networking you know Mike wears my shirt and people will stop buying stuff off my, you know, website. You know, hopefully that will happen. You know what I'm saying? And I have a link that, you know, I can put up when, you know, when this comes out. Yeah, I'll put it in the description for you. And, you know, it's official underscore Johnny underscore Bartolomeo on Instagram. And, you know, follow me.

I got like almost 6,000 followers. I think this is the greatest thing in the whole world, right? Everybody's like, I've been on Instagram for 10 years. I got 300 followers, 400 followers, 400 followers, 1,000. followers. So I, me, I, you know, I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I've met a lot of great people. And it's just been, you know, whirlwinds, amazing to me. It's a tremendous, tremendous experience. And that's like in closing, like if I could say something in closing, like, your day is going to come. I waited almost 5,000 days for my day to come. Got shut down every

minute, you know, went beat down, you know, but I just kept fighting every single day. And I kept doing my thing every single day. You know what I'm saying? And I started to envision. that the day would come. And it came from me, man. And it's just the greatest fucking thing in the world, man. I'm so blessed. Now, you came from an era where there was none of this. Like, guys were coming out of prison.

Like, what we're sitting down now doing, this wasn't acceptable. This wasn't a thing. You were like, you were pariah when you come out of prison, right? Is it weird to do that coming from your time? So, again, right? My, the, the biggest thing you could ever take away from me and talking to me is the only thing that's constant is change.

So everything changes, right? So if you're fluid enough to be, you know, ready for that change and to take advantage to that change, I think that's who has the advantage, right? In Eastern philosophy, they say be malleable, right? Be like water and you can adapt to anything. And I think there's a lot of power in that. And I think it differs a lot from Western philosophy in that vein, you know.

So to me, I just, you know, I just reeducated myself to, to be malleable as difficult as it is. You know, people my age and Mike's age, right, we're 55 years old, 56 years old, 60 years old. People are bitter at the world. They can't enjoy their lives. I don't never want to be caught in that trap. I just want to enjoy my life.

What are the psychological effects you think you've seen from doing that many years in prison and then coming out? Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's a question that, you know, has a lot of different, answers to it. There many fold the answers. But one thing I can say is mental health is real because I suffered from anxiety. That's what I got this diagnosed with. I remember I was one time I just, I had like this weird period of deja vu and it just kept, you know, perpetuating, perpetuating. And I was like in my head and it was just weird. And I was sweating. I was racy. And then, you know,

I had another episode where I looked outside my cell door. I was in the shoe. And I just forgot completely where I was. You know, and I think that's an effect of prison. You know, and so mental health is real and psychological effects are real. I mean, I always try to rise above my situation. And I always try to be, you know, view my situation as a third party and just try to stay and just be like, hey, John, listen, you know this is going to happen. Just go with this. You know what I'm saying?

You can get through this. If anybody can do it, you can do it. So a lot of positive self-talk as a result of the psychological experiences that I had that were not so comfortable. Now, we heard about young Johnny at the beginning of this episode. Now that we're at the end of it, do you think that you are the same person

that went into prison coming out? I mean, just not even in prison, out of prison. I'm definitely a different person, right? But, you know, and somebody asked me this, and I thought it was a very good question, but I regret that I lost my mother, my father, my brother, you know, but I'd never want to be anybody else by Johnny Bart.

That's the way I feel wholeheartedly. And I'm a hundred times different person. You know, I went from living an antisocial life to living a pro-social life and building relationships. That's what I do. And I'm so blessed to be able to just make that transformation. And I don't know why. And I told Mike this.

I think on his podcast, I told Jeff the other night that, like, I got like the guy that was supposed to be on the plane, missed the plane, the plane crashed. I almost got survivor syndrome because I got guys like Kevin McTenie. tag it that are still in jail from 1984 and they're still in jail and they don't have this this this this like tremendous tremendous gift that i've been given because if i got what i deserved i'd be dead a hundred times over right i'd be hanging somewhere with getting whipped you know what i'm saying but instead i got no i've been blessed do those thoughts keep you up at night at all i sleep good that's good well johnny thank you so much man for this opportunity mike thanks for interrupting us

throwing fucking rocks Well, you know, everyone comments on my YouTube We need a bean shooter interview So this is his cameo Listen, we got the cameo We got bean shooter Dude, he's a legend too I don't know it was more of a legend here

Him or you No, he's a fucking Boston, he's a Boston icon You guys are both legend He's a Boston icon Listen I wrote on my Facebook earlier Going to Boston To interview a former Hal's Angel And I didn't say your name

And all the comments are Bart, local legend Bart, Bartolomeo, legend that's crazy so listen here's you know what the crazy thing is here i got i got interviews for you right i got nicky varano right he owns strega right and let me tell you about nick next a close friend of mine i want to give him a shout out because this guy right and there's one thing i didn't know about i was telling him like never drank a drop of alcohol in his life and it's listen his greatest accomplishment in life forget about the restaurant business he's made two of the greatest human

beings you would ever meet on planet earth nico is his son, he's got a sweat house, he's got a couple of restaurants. And I try to think to myself like, would he treat me any different because he treats everybody so good? He's such a wonderful kid. His daughter Marina, right, is probably one of the, she's the prettiest

girl on the face of the planet, right? But his wife is beautiful, Michelle too. So, I mean, these kids, it's just the conclusion that I've drawn from being back, you know, talking to him and, you know, just a great guy took care of me, all his friends, tremendous connections. But this guy has made two of the

the best human beings on planet earth. Forget about what he's accomplished in the restaurant business. This guy's a great guy. So proud to say I'm a friend. We talked to another friend of mine today, right? Who do we talk to? FaceTime. Sean O'Brien.

Yeah. Right? He's a fan. Sean O'Brien said, oh, that guy Ian Bick. I love him. From Teamsters, yeah. So these are the people that I associate with myself from not living an anti-social life no more to living a pro-social life.

These are the relationships that I fostered. And now McLeodin. And listen, this is a great one too. And listen, it was a, listen, thank you for coming to my house. Man, I had a blast today. It was great. I'm glad. Hopefully it was something different for you.

You know, I know you were nervous about what questions I was going to ask you, but I think I did good. I think you did amazing. Let's hope it's great. All right. Thank you, John. All right, buddy.