Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Norteño Gang Soldier Inside California’s Most Dangerous Prisons | Mario Sanchez

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Mario Sanchez grew up in San Francisco, where a tough childhood and the streets shaped his future. After high school, he started committing home invasions that led to a decade-long prison sentence in some of California’s most dangerous maximum-security prisons. Inside, Mario joined the Norteños — one of the most feared prison gangs in the state. #PrisonStories #GangLife #CaliforniaPrisons #Norteño #PrisonInterview #TrueCrimePodcast #RedemptionStory #survivingprison Thank you to BLUECHEW & GLD for sponsoring this episode: BlueChew: Visit https://bluechew.com/ and use promo code LOCKEDIN at checkout to get your first month of BlueChew & pay five bucks for shipping. GLD: New customers get 50% Off AND a FREE chain with code LOCKEDIN at https://www.gld.com/ Connect with Mario Sanchez: Website: www.relentless-mindset.com IG: @theemariosanchez YouTube: The_RelentlessMindset Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 From Home Invasions to Prison Life – Mario’s Story Begins 03:34 Growing Up in San Francisco’s Tough Streets 05:55 Family Trauma, Survival, and a Broken Foundation 11:00 School, Rebellion & Slipping Into the Streets 16:02 Partying, Peer Pressure & Losing Control 20:55 First Robberies: How the Crime Spree Began 29:44 Arrested: The Day Everything Collapsed 36:43 County Jail, Gang Politics & Staying Alive 43:00 Prison Life: Education, Violence & Daily Survival 47:00 California Prison Politics & Gang Structures 01:01:03 Life in The SHU: Extreme Isolation & Mental Battles 01:14:16 Pelican Bay Level 4: The Harshest Prison Reality 01:26:06 Riots, Rivalries & The Prison Code of Survival 01:33:01 Earning Respect: Becoming a Leader on the Yard 01:39:09 The Turning Point: Choosing to Walk Away from the Gang 01:44:41 Life After Prison: Reentry, Reality & Redemption 01:46:35 The Weight of a Criminal Record & Rebuilding from Nothing 01:52:40 From Prison to Purpose: Film, Writing & Helping Youth 01:56:53 Lessons Learned: Advice to Anyone on the Edge 01:58:44 Final Reflections & Closing Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Bad advice? You talking to me? Kayak. Got that right. We were doing home invasion robberies. What's the San Francisco County Jail? I was technically a North Daniel. Why are the Serenio's an enemy? And as soon as these two white guys come out, we got to rush him.

How does someone even get past the keys to the yard? There's a guy that wasn't clearable. He ended up getting hit or removed from the yard. Mario Sanchez grew up in San Francisco, surrounded by struggle and survival. After high school, he turned to crime, committing home invasions that landed him in California's most dangerous prisons, where he became a Nortenio's. soldier just to stay alive. Mario, welcome to Lockton.

Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Ian, thank you for having me. I've been watching you for a while and appreciate you inviting me out here to the East Coast to check you guys out. Yeah, of course, man. You came for California, right? Yeah, I live in L.A. originally from San Francisco.

But yeah, I've been in L.A. for about the last 10 years. So a little colder out here today for you. A little bit colder, yeah. It's a little bit more chilly out here on the East Coast. Best time of year, though, because it's fall. Like it's not too hot, not too cold, but the mornings, I think it was dropped down like 40 this morning. So you probably had to bundle up. Yeah, it was 80 degrees in L.A. when I left. So a little bit cooler out here. Yeah, I was in Vegas last weekend. And it was definitely warmer. It wasn't like the 100 degree hot, but it was still a lot warmer than what it is now. You can't be walking around

without a hoodie right now. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, very, very nice to be out here. So thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. Plug everything you got. I know you have a book coming out in January and your that you hooked us up with that we are definitely going to be rocking. Yeah, thank you. So you can go to my website, www. www.relentless-mindset.com. You can see my merch there. My book will be out in January. That's also called Relentless Mindset.

And it's really just about my life story about getting in trouble when I was very young, going away. I was incarcerated for about eight years. And then really getting out of prison and just changing my life over the last 25 years. I've been in banking and finance. And so that's what the book's about. And it's just really about changing your life. Have you linked with Hector Bravo at all?

Hector, you know what? We talked via like techs. I was thinking about going down to maybe meet with him as well. But that's someone I'd like to talk to as well. Yeah, he would be great. If he didn't answer you or whatever, I can reach out to him too. I had him on my show here, like almost two years ago now. And I know he worked in some of the higher security prisons in California.

Yeah, I actually really like what he's doing with, you know, his platform and how he's talking about all the stuff that goes on in CDC. So I like that because there's a lot of crap that goes on in the system that people don't know about. And it's cool to see somebody uncovering all that and putting them on blast. Yeah, he's a really good dude. I like how he shares, like the old pictures, too, of him as a correctional officer on Instagram. Yeah. You know who also does that as George Christie from the Hells Angels. Okay.

he posts all like the old pictures from back in the day, which is really cool to see. Cool, cool, very cool. Yeah, so I have some really old pictures, too, that are on my, on my Instagram.

So when you link to my website, my Instagram's there, and you can see some pictures for me, like in the early 90s. Awesome. And we'll have that link in the description in this episode. Cool. Tell us where you grew up,

what that was like. Yeah, so I grew up in San Francisco, born and raised. Growing up, we call San Francisco Frisco. So I know there's a Friscoe, Texas, right? But originally we would call Frisco the Bay Area, right? And born and raised,

come from a pretty big family. My mom and dad, I have four sisters and two brothers. Wow. And, you know, we're, our backgrounds, Mexican, on Mexican-American, first generation, Mexican-American out here. And yeah, I mean, growing up in the city with the big family was a little challenging, but that's where I'm from. What did your parents do for work? Yeah, so my dad was like kind of a jack of all trades, but his main thing was ironically enough. He was kind of in the film business. He fixed like cameras and motors for these big film studios. So that's what he did when I was a little kid.

And then he was also my soccer coach. So I grew up playing soccer from like 6 to 15. He was my coach. He, you know, coached me, coached me down every single day, every single week. Kind of a tough, tough, tough upbringing with him. Kind of tough love. we like to call it. But yeah, that's what my dad did into my mom.

She actually worked for the San Francisco School District. She worked for the school district for about 35 years working with kids. So, I mean, it was kind of easy for, right? Because she raised seven of us and she's running around chasing little elementary school kids for, you know, 30 plus years. If you had to sum up your upbringing in a couple words, what would those words be? Honestly, I would say it was pretty tough because I grew up in a violent, home. Okay. My dad was kind of a tough guy. And unfortunately, I grew up watching him abuse my mom, abuse my sisters and myself and my brother physically. And I mean, this is a long time ago. We're

talking about the 70s and 80s, right? You know, it's a completely different generation from how things are done now. But I think a lot of that had to go with, um, what happened to me years later and when I ended up getting incarcerated and the stuff that I got into. So I think it was tough and challenging growing up. Why do you think your dad was so tough on you? Well, doing some research on my dad, you know, to see how he grew up. And we talk about like generational trauma as well, right? My dad grew up in Mexico, Mexico City.

His mom passed away when he was really young. He was a little kid. So his dad remarried some woman. They used to beat the hell out of him. So he was raised that way. And that's why I say generational trauma where if that's all you know growing up, then you're probably going to possibly repeat that as well. And unfortunately, that's kind of what happened with us.

How did your mom feel about the way he was raising you guys? I mean, it was tough, right? Because my mom was always super sweet, loving, whereas my dad was a tough one, right? So it was kind of like, you know, an ebb and flow. you know, we would be, we would be disciplined by him, we would be hit by him, and then we go crying to our mom, you know what I mean? So it was difficult, but honestly, she really didn't have much of a say-so. That's just how things were. What do you think is the biggest lesson that your parents taught you when you were a kid? I think for my, for my dad really is just really never giving up,

not being a quitter because I grew up playing sports and that was just really drilled into me at a very young age to you can't be a quitter. You can never give up. And you got to give 110% in whatever you do. And I translated that sports into what I did in my professional life years later. And then for my mom, just being very loving and sympathetic and empathetic. My mom is just, you know, the complete opposite of what my dad was. What do you think was the saddest moment from your childhood? Wow. Saddest moment from my childhood? I mean, there's a few things. I mean, there's a few things that that happened but i mean one of the things that i could share with you is that um i remember being a little kid man i'm like eight years old and um i did something uh my dad actually gave me a black

eye and so i'm like you know third third grader and i got to go to school um the next week and my dad and my mom are literally telling me what not to say because obviously i'm going to go to school with a black eye and they're telling me stuff like what not to say if the teacher asked what happened to you and to me that's pretty tough because I'm just a little kid you know what I mean and I'm already going to school with a black guy something my dad gave me and thinking back on that having a lie when I went to school for that that's something that you know I still remember to this day how big of an impact do you think your childhood had on your future a lot because once again with all the violence and stuff that I grew up around.

I think as I got into my teens, and then I became later teens and becoming a young man and going away to prison, I think all of that fell back on how I was raised as a kid. Where'd your siblings end up? Did they go down the same path? No, no, actually, I was the only one of my family that got in trouble.

My oldest brother was brilliant. He actually has a master's in physics. Wow. So he went on to work in Silicon Valley, and he's been out in the Bay Area working in that industry for years. He did great. Another one of my sisters as an MBA. Another one of my sisters as a master's in education. So, you know, and then a few of my other brothers and sisters are all professionals.

Everybody did great. But for me, for whatever reason, I'm the second to the youngest. At a very young age, I started getting into trouble, and one thing led to another. Did it ever make you feel like, why me out of all my siblings? I'm the one that has to face this? You know, as a little kid, I don't know if that's something you can really understand and process. But definitely when, you know, I became incarcerated years later and I'm sitting there and I had a lot of support for my family even when I became incarcerated.

My family really supported me. They're there for me every step of the way. But I think once you're sitting in that cell as a young, young teenager or man, that's when you start reflecting on like, you know, what the hell happened to me, you know? Yeah, it's interesting. I've interviewed so many people that have a big, a lot of siblings and they're the only one out of their siblings that ends up in prison or going down a path of addiction. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I also think when you bring up addiction, too, like when I was young, I started drinking when I was like 12 or 13. So I started drinking and we're talking about like, um, back in those days,

we were drinking like whiskey and like peppermint schnops and like brass monkey. If you remember the brass monkey drink that that became famous because of the Beastie Boys. We were drinking, we were pounding that stuff when we're like, you know, 12, 13, 14 years old. And then after that, you know, he got into like smoking weed and doing other stuff. But, you know, we started pretty young, like drinking hard. Yeah, we were doing Dubra and four logos that when I was in icebow. There you go. Yeah. It's crazy how it evolves. Like through different generations, everyone is, reflects back on that one thing that they did. And what are they drinking now? They're drinking some like, well, now it's all like celtzers. There's white claws.

there's all those different drinks. Seltors were like just introduced when we were graduating high school, but we loved making like jungle juice with the cheap Dubra. Although I remember every party someone was puking because of Dubra. Yeah, I remember we would cut high school and I'd go to my one friend, Souser Rico. And his parents always had a bunch of booze and we'd cut school, make go to his house, make screwdrivers. And then we'd go out and get in trouble.

So, I mean, we were young, but we were. We were always drinking and doing stuff. Did you end up graduating high school? I did. I graduated high school in 1990. And I really didn't have a lot of focus at that time, right? And I remember being like a senior in high school, and I had a conversation with a counselor. My counselor, I never forget his name because I'll never forget what he said to me.

And his name was Mr. Randall. And I remember, you know, people are meeting with their counselors because they're trying to to figure out, are you going to go to college? You're going to try to go to university? What's your next game plan, right? And I'll never forget this counselor because he told me, Mario, you're just not college material. And that, you know, sat in the back of my mind, you know, for the rest of my life. To this day, I remember it. And sure enough, you know, a couple years later, I would get in trouble. But, you know, these educators are so-called educators and counselors, what they say to kids or say to kids in high school, they don't forget that stuff. And, you know, whatever, he, for whatever reason,

that's how he saw me. But to this day, you know, 30 years later, it's something I haven't forgot. Guys, if you want to walk into the room like the main character and a romance novel written by someone's unhinged aunt, blue choose tablets are calling your name. It's like giving your downstairs a motivational TED talk and a pre-workout all at once. Stronger, harder, longer lasting. Like, it finally got promoted a regional manager. Blue Chew is the original brand offering chewable tablets for better sex. Yeah, capital B, capital S, like it's a holiday your partner celebrates with confetti. Listen, I swear the last time I used one, my reflection looked at me like, bro, are we allowed to be this confident? My meat telescope didn't just see God, we made eye contact

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That's it. Join Blue Chew's mission to upgrade humanity one thrust of the time. Head to BluChu.com for details and safety info. And big thanks to Blu Chu for sponsoring the podcast. Do you remember how that felt in the moment, what you were thinking? I felt probably like a dumb shit. You know what I mean? Because he's just like telling me straight up like, you know, you're not college material.

Because it's not like I had good grades. I always did enough to like pass my classes. I think I actually did get like a 3.0 in my senior year. But beyond that, I mean, I wasn't getting like great grades throughout high school. I wasn't a good student. I got good enough grades so I can play ball. I played football. I wrestled.

But I always made sure my goods were great enough so I could play sports. Before he told you that, what were your aspirations? Did you want to go to college? What were you thinking? Honestly, I didn't know what I wanted to do, man. You know, growing up, I was a big soccer player, right? And I had guys that I played with that went on to play, like in Division I colleges.

They got scholarships. One guy even went and played for the U.S. national team. So I played with some good guys, right? But once I quit playing soccer, I was like 15. A lot of my focus changed. And I honestly, I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with myself. Do you think sports kept you out of trouble in high school? Definitely.

You know, there was a big discipline with my dad. We had practice every week, like twice a week. We always had games on the weekends. We traveled all over the state going to tournaments. You know, so, yeah, playing sports definitely kept me in line. And then when I stopped playing, a lot of things changed. What were your friends like? What type of people were you hanging out with?

Growing up, you know, it's funny, right? Because we're talking about different areas as we go through like the late 70s and 80s. like in the early 80s, if you remember, like, the break dancing. I wasn't even born yet. You were even born yet, but I mean, obviously, guys are still break dancing now, but right, like this is the early hip-hop years in the late 70s, early 80s. I used to dance, we used to break. That was like the cool thing to do, right?

And then after that, we got into sports. And then after that, you're just like running around in the neighborhood, doing things, drinking, partying, going to house parties. But at a really young age, man, I was like 12, 13. years old. I started going to like these high, these dances, middle school dances, high school dances, dances in my neighborhood. And we'd go to these dances and getting fights ready. And that's the kind of like mischief I was ready and getting myself into. If we had those friends here today, what would they say about you back then?

Probably I was a bully. I used to like the fight. So that's how they would probably remember me when I was young. But I mean, at a very young age, man, I'm talking about in elementary school. I was getting sent home. Middle school, I was getting suspended. Um, high school, same, getting suspended. So it was a pattern, obviously growing up that I was getting into shit. Do you think you were a bully because of the way your dad treated you? Possibly, you know, possibly, because I guess he used to bully me. So I used to get bullied by my dad. So I would go out and go to school and I'd bully people too. You graduate high school. What happens? Yeah, so, um, graduated school 1990. After that, I took some time off. I said, you know what, I'm going to take some time off to

kind of figure out my next move. And I started working. I actually started working at like a furniture store, moving furniture, nothing spectacular. And then I would go out, you know, when I'm not working and party with my friends, we're going out drinking, we're going out doing drugs. During this time in like the early 90s in San Francisco, there is a very big rave scene. Obviously, the rave scene still popping around now, right? But we were doing this stuff in like the early 90s where we were going out, taking acid, taking ecstasy, partying, hard, doing crazy stuff like that. And then I told myself, you know, I'm going to work at this place for maybe like six months. And then I'm going to try to go back to school.

I started going to city college in San Francisco for a little bit. I was going to try to play football. That didn't work out. And then the next thing, you know, I started getting into the school. to like committing crimes. Why didn't sports work out? So at that time at City College, they actually have a really big football team where they're like ranked in the nation.

They're like number one ranked team in the nation in junior college back in those days. And to this day, there's still like a powerhouse in junior college football. And I was trying to play, excuse me, I was trying to play certain position. I didn't get along with the coach so well. He sent me off the field one day. And I just said like, you know, F you guys and I never came back. So I, here we go once again where I had like an attitude problem. You know what I mean?

Someone's trying to yell at me, discipline me, call me out in front of the whole team. And, you know, I basically told them the F off. And I walked off the field and I never came back. Do you ever think about what would have happened if you didn't do that, if you stuck with it? Yeah, you know, it probably would have been a lot different. But once again, we're talking about the mindset of somebody that's like 18, 19 years old. that if somebody pushes on me, I'm going to push back. And I no longer had that discipline because I was used to my dad coaching me a certain way.

And I respected my dad. You know, I didn't get out of line with my dad because he would beat my ass. But when it happened to another coach, like calling me out in front of the whole team, I didn't like that. And I pushed back on it. How does that lead to committing crimes? So now it is, now I'm probably like 19 years old. and this is like my serious hardcore party era doing drugs drinking going out to clubs i wasn't working

obviously you got to make some money right you know you can't get around for free so i had a couple of friends that um i grew up with actually i knew these guys one i knew them since like elementary school and the other guy um i knew since like middle school and they're like you know what let's let's start doing some robberies and um during this time in San Francisco in like the early 90s, there's a lot of home invasion robberies going on where basically a home invasion robbery is like a takeover robbery where you go into someone's house and, you know, tie them up whatever, you have weapons and do what you do. And the next thing you know, that whole summer of 1992, I was 19 years old, we were doing home invasion robberies

every week, every Friday from like mid-June to like early September. So we probably did, like eight robberies, eight different houses during that summer. And, you know, we were going in there. I had a gun. My other friend would basically be ransacking the house. My third friend would be tying people up with zip ties. And, I mean, we were basically, you know, we were basically charged down the road with, like, kidnap, false imprisonment. Like, we're going in people's houses doing some really bad shit at the time. I didn't, I didn't think, obviously. I was a kid. years later obviously I look at it now I like you know what the hell was I doing what the hell was I even thinking but um that's what we ended up getting ourselves into what did that feeling um

what was the feeling you had when you were in there doing those things like that very first time you know and once again this is 19 year old Mario the mindset it was a rush you know you're in a it was a rush you're you're going up into someone's house um you're pulling a gun on somebody you're laying them down. In some cases, you're pistol whipping somebody, you're beating somebody up. You know, looking back on it, obviously, it's really bad. It's horrible, you know. But at that time, as a kid, it was a rush. And after I did the first one, we ended up doing a bunch of them. What was your guy's biggest score? You know what? We weren't really getting a big money. I mean, I think when we did, like, maybe like 10K, we found like 10K cash in the house. But we're, you know,

three teenage kids, right? This is 1992. It's a completely different time than now, right? But jewelry, cash, stuff like that, quick money, because we would literally go party the next week and then go do it again. So we were literally, this was like getting us by week to week. This is the kind of, you know, crazy, stupid shit we were doing back in those days. Now, are you guys staking out the house before you hit it? So my one friend, he would basically, um, drive around certain neighborhoods sometimes. But we would really just kind of like pull up on a certain neighborhood. We were doing these early in the morning. So like for example, early in the morning, eight, nine o'clock, right? Normal people are like in and out of their garage. They

dropped the kid off at school. They're going to work. We'd pull up on people while their garage would be open. And we would just run up on them and like push them back into the house, close a garage and take them in the house. In the middle of daylight. Early in the morning. Early in the morning, eight, nine o'clock in the morning. What kind of neighborhoods are these? Well, San Francisco's, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to San Francisco, but, I mean, there's some really nice neighborhoods in San Francisco. Back in those days, really nice middle-class neighborhoods, affluent neighborhoods.

So we were going to, like, the nicer parts of the city. I remember, like, the Richmond District, the Sunset District. We even did something like out in the Excelsior District, Daily City. So we were all around that San Francisco area, you know, once again, like around 1992. And were you still living at home or were you living? I was still living at home. So what happened at home was take a step back. My dad actually kicked me out when I was 17.

So right after high school, 17, 18 years old, my dad kicked me out. During that year, I lived with my brother in Sunnyvale. I was there for like three months. That didn't work out. told me to leave. I went to go stay with another sister in the Excelsior district in San Francisco, stayed with her for about two or three months. She told me to leave. And then I went to go live with my other sister in the mission. And I lived there for about six months. And then I kind of, I was like worrying out my welcome everywhere I went. You know what I mean? And then during that time

period where I was bouncing around, and I think that has a lot to do with what I got into right after that. My dad and my mom had gotten into it. my mom put my dad in jail so he was no longer in the picture and when my dad left that's when i moved back home and so that whole time that i was doing all these robberies i was actually living back i had went back home and i was living back home with my mom and i think one of my sisters do you think if your dad was at home at the time you would have continued to do the robberies um if my dad was still around i probably wouldn't have lived there and i would have just kept doing like bad stuff you know what i mean I think I had so much instability that year that I was away, bouncing around, you know, and during that time, I'm living like with my brother and my sister and my other.

They couldn't control me. They weren't telling me what to do. I was 18 years old now. And I think that year had a lot to do with me making those steps into committing crimes. Now, doing multiple robberies like that, you probably go on law enforcement's radar pretty quickly. Right. So we were literally in and out of these houses in, like, no more. more than five minutes, like literally in and out. So, um, some of the things that we would do because

obviously back in those lines, back in those days, everybody had landlines. So we were like ripping the cords out the wall. It's like so, like one of the charges we had years later, not years later, but down the road was like, um, interfering with landlines and ripping out landlines. So that's, they charge you with that. Like in the commission of a robbery, if you literally sever a phone line or, or something along those lines, they charge. you with that. That's something we got charged with down the road. Oh, wow. I had no idea that was the thing. Yeah, just severing, like, cutting the phone line. Because back then it was completely different, right? The technology now everything's, um, different. But back in those days, everything was plugged in the wall.

So if you sever the phone lines, they charge you with that. Now, do you hit the same neighborhood twice or you move on to the next door? No, we were doing different neighborhoods. But the thing was, our MO was like every Friday. So what's crazy was we were doing this every Friday. And we were getting away smooth. I thought we were getting away smooth, you know. So that was kind of a rush too, because, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're hitting these licks every week and, and, and we're getting out and, um, getting away. And it's kind of, it's kind of a good feeling to be like, I'm getting away with all this stuff, you know? But, yeah, we were, we were getting away with everything doing it like every Friday, like clockwork. All right, everyone, let me flex real

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How does it end? So, how does it end? So the way it ended was, and this is like probably late August now, 1992. And I have sisters, right? I have four sisters. I mentioned my sisters, right? And, you know, I'm a kid.

I'm flashing jewelry to my sisters. Like, hey, look at what I got. You want to buy it? Like, I'm trying to sell jewelry to my one sister, right? My oldest sister. And she still had a good relationship with my dad. And so she told me. my dad that um you know mario which is what they call me mario mario he's trying to sell me some jewelry i

think he's like doing stuff like you know he's doing something shady he's up to something so my dad who was actually on probation at the time now because of what he got into with my mom my dad told his probation officer on me keeping eye on my son i think he's doing something So my dad literally gave the cops a lead. And so from that point on, they started watching my house. And what happened was it was one Friday morning, September the 4th, 1992. I'll never forget the day because that's the day everything ended. We went out to go hit this lick early in the morning.

It was kind of a botched robbery. It didn't go well. So we ended up leaving. We ran out. And so I'm sure when we ran out of that botched robbery, those people got on the phone and called the cops so within you know 30 minutes i'm already in route to going home the cops are already waiting for me at home because this is the same ammo of all these robberies that have been happening for that whole summer so as soon as i pulled up to my house

i went inside i was inside for maybe like five minutes there's a knock on the door and it was a copse and like he already had like a gun like in in i didn't know at that time but that I should have never opened the door because they didn't have a search warrant but like an ignorant person who didn't understand the law I opened the door and when I opened the door they grabbed me, get on the ground, they put the gun on me

and I was still wearing what I just ordered this robbery so I had a coat on, I had addresses in my pockets of like robberies that we did the one we just did I had my gun tucked away inside the house so that's how everything ended that day. Why didn't the robbery go well?

So we went in and this particular person was just like kind of being difficult. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, even though we were doing these robberies, like, man, I wasn't trying to go in there and kill anybody. You know what I mean? You hear a lot of these stories where these kids go into a robbery. They do a robbery. Someone ends up getting killed or multiple people end up getting killed.

And now you got a murder robbery. You're getting life. You know what I mean? And you don't even have to pull the trigger. You could be with the guy. And in this day and time, you're going to get life. So even though we were doing these robberies, man, I wasn't trying to go in there and kill anybody and hurt anybody really, really bad.

We were doing what we were doing, but we were still coherent to that. So anyway, the guy put up a fight. We just thought it was best to leave. So we left abruptly. And I'm sure they called the cops right away. And that's how they kind of tracked things down quickly that day. Now, when you're doing this with multiple people, is it like the movies where you always have that one person that's kind of the more violent one out of the group or is kind of the lone will for calling

the shots that was me so like i was the one who had the gun every single time so that was me you know telling people where to go laying people down pistol whipping hitting people that was my job when i got every got everybody on the ground or whatever or um put them in a corner somewhere then my other friend would literally zip tie them or tie them up and then my third friend is already going through the house looking for stuff so that's how we did it every single time. What happened to your friends? We all went away.

So as time went on, that day, like, literally, like, within a 30 minutes to to an hour later, because when I got dropped off, the cops followed their car too. So they got arrested probably, like, 30 minutes to an hour after me. And so we all got arrested the same day, three of us. And did they end up getting the same time as you? No. So we ended up in the San Francisco County Jail. So I'm Mexican-American.

They're both Chinese. These are Chinese-American kids that I grew up, right? So in this era in San Francisco, there's a lot of, like, Chinese gangs, and they were doing a lot of home invasion robberies. It was like that was their thing. So in any regard, we ended up going to San Francisco County Jail for about a year, fought the case. We initially had like a 47-count indictment.

So every time you run into one of these houses and do a robbery, that's also a burglary, an assault, a kidnap, false imprisonment. So each robbery, even though it was one dwelling, a home, you're racking up like eight charges every single time, seven and eight charges every single time you walk into a house. So they hit us with like a 47-count indictment about a month later, like pretty quickly. They hit it because there's so much evidence. They made us go through these lineups. As soon as I got into the county jail, I shaved my head quick.

to like try to change my appearance. But when you go into these lineups, they have you talk too. Because, you know, when you're doing a robbery, you're yelling at somebody, get on the ground and move over here and you're yelling at somebody, right, in the commission of a robbery, right? So they, a smart person is going to like,

I'm not going to forget this dude's voice, you know what I mean? And so in these lineups, they picked us out, you know? So that's why all this evidence built up so quickly. and so we ended up fighting this case for almost a year in the county and our first offer my first offer was like 25 years because I had so many charges and then the next offer they made me was like 15 years and I'm like 20 years old now right and I'm like going to court and they're offering me and I'm like thinking my life's over you know what I mean and then the third offer they made me was like 12 years. And we're still not like taking any of these deals, you know what I mean? Because it's, it's a lot of time for a young kid, you know? And the final offer they made me was 10 years and four months. And they told me, if you don't take this deal, you're going to have to go to trial. And I wasn't going to go to trial because they had so much evidence, you know? So while I'm,

while they're offering these deals to me, they're offering my, my crimeies, you know, know, less time because I was the one that got caught with the gun. So in the end, one got eight years, the other one got like seven years, and I got 10 years four months. What's the San Francisco County Jail? Like, is it as notorious as the L.A. County Jail? Well, I've never been in the L.A. County jail, but I've definitely heard a lot of, like, crazy stories about, you know, it's pretty bad. San Francisco County was also pretty bad. I, you know, so you have, like, the different races and factions, right? So you have the blacks, you have the whites, you have the others, you have the Mexicans of those areas where the border brothers, the Paisas, which are like

the Mexicans from Mexico. And then you have also the Nortainos, which is like the Northern, the Northern gang, right? So those are the different factions during that time. And for me, I was getting into a lot of fights. So like right away, I think, Like probably within the first month or two, I beat up my cellie. Because so in that time in San Francisco County Jail, they had different tanks. Like a tank would be, you would be in a in a tank with like six other guys, five other guys, right? So there's like a set of bunk beds, a set of bunk beds, a set of bunk beds. It's a pretty big space, right?

And then you're in a big tank, right? And then there was also the San Bruno County Jail at that time, which is a part of San Francisco County at the time. And these are tiny little cells that were like, really small cells, right? So I remember the first time I went to the hole, I had a cellie. He was on the top bunk. And even though he called himself like a border brother or a Paisa,

he would also start like talking like gang shit to me like, you know, I'm a Sudenial and like talking crazy to me, right? In the cell. And, you know, I'm 19 years old. I'm 20 years old. Like I'm down to fight anybody right at that time. And I remember I pulled him off the top bunk. I pulled them off the top bunk, had them on the ground, and I just started, like, pounding on them.

You know what I mean? And it was, this was already after hours, so it's not like we could walk out of the cell. We were locked in our cell. This is, like, almost, almost lights out in the evening. And I'm just, like, pounding this dude, beating them up, like, manhandling him, there's blood everywhere. And the guys directly across from us on the tier, they're like a couple of black guys, and they're just laughing at me, like, damn, he's beating his ass.

You know what I mean? They're going all crazy. and then everybody knows there's like a cell fight you know what i mean because there's a lot of noise happening right and so they call the deputies the deputies come um pull me out the cell handcuffed me take me to the hole that was the first time i went to the hole and then um after that i was pretty much in the hole a lot that whole that whole year i was in the county because then um i went to a visit and um in the visiting room my sister was visiting me and um And I told her there is a, there is like a Sudenio, a couple people over from me.

And I told her, I'm going to have to cut this visit short because I have to rush him. That's just the way it was, where it's on site. You know what I mean? Where if there's any potential enemies or whatever, it's on site. So even though I'm in a 15-minute visit talking to my family member and we're all behind glass, I still got to go take off on this dude. So I literally sit down with my sister for like five minutes. And then I'm like,

I got to go and I walk right over to this dude and I hit him and I rushed this dude in the middle of the visit where everybody's at. You know what I mean? So this is the kind of shit we had to do. And another time I was in another holding tank and I, excuse me, not another holding tank, they put me in another, I was on the seventh floor at 850 and they put me in a tank. And as soon as I walked in, I could tell there was like a couple other like Sudanials in there at the time. And like I'm over here by myself and there's a couple of them on. that side so I already know like I'm not gonna stick around here so I'm like pacing back and forth like thinking to myself like what do I got to do and then like not even within like five to 10 minutes

I go to the other side and I just rush I rushed them and that's just how it was like um when I say on site you're not waiting around you're not going to go to sleep and hope um you're gonna get through the night you're not gonna be in the shower and have somebody rush you you're gonna go take off on them first and do what you got to do so That's what I learned in the county jail where you always got to be the aggressor. You got to always take off first. You can never become a victim. If you feel like you're not in a good predicament and you got to do something, then you got to go handle that.

So that's what I was taught in the county jail. Before you got there, you weren't clicked up with anyone. No. And it'd be very, very clear. I was never in a street gang. Years later, I never got clicked up in a prison gang. but I was technically a Northennial. And what that means is, you know, when I go to the county jail, I could have just said,

I'm an other. I'm not a gang member. And I probably would have had a much different road. And it also may have been very difficult because I would have been like on my own. Or I could have been like, I'm another. Like, you know, I'm not affiliated. But for me, I made the quick decision that, all right, I'm going to gravitate towards the Noretenios, I'm gonna be a North Daniel. I'm Mexican, I'm Mexican American. I'm very proud of who I am

and my culture and where I'm from. And that's who I'm gonna run with. So I made a choice to go run with them, even though I was never affiliated with anybody on the streets. How would you have fared if you were independent and didn't click with anyone? I mean, then at that point, people may have tried to, like, punk on me, you know what I mean? Or I may have been more of a target because I wasn't affiliated with anybody, but I made that choice to kind of gravitate towards them and run with them. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying.

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thousands of products at every style and budget. Now is the time to save big on must-habs for your patio, backyard, and beyond. These savings won't last. So don't wait. Shop Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance now through May 25th. Wayfair, every style, every home. And from that point on, that's just the way it was. So are they not considered a prison gang then? So years later, as we get into the prison stuff, yeah.

So there's the prison gang, which is La Nuestra Familia, which is the Northern California prison gang that was formed in prison in the late 60s. they gave birth to La Nuesra Rasa, which was birthed in the California prison system, probably maybe late 80s or 90s. And they're also known as the northern structure. And then below them would be the Nortenos, which was what I was. I wasn't clicked up in the NF. I wasn't clicked up in the structure.

And to do that, you got to do stuff to actually join those gangs, do hits. you receive certain things, bonds that you have to abide by by laws because you're now a member. Me, I was just considered like, you know, a North Daniel, which was basically the lower level, but I'm an associate. These are the guys I hang out with. These are the guys I run with. So you have like your shock callers and that are like clicked up gang members. And then us, we were like, you know, a step below them, but we all are together.

Now, does that knowledge that you were just explaining come from your time? prison or is that something you research after years later um you learn while you're in there it's kind of like everything you're you're you're learning on the job you know what i mean like in in jail right like you know i'm sure you know like in the county jail that first day you walk in versus a year later you pick up so much knowledge you learn from different people um you pick up so much game from people that you're around and so in the county jail you're you're learning certain things right but once you get in the prison it's a whole other ballgame and that education that you learned

in the county jail you're getting like a bachelor's in the county jail right and by the time you're in prison and leave you got like a master's in crime and gangs and politics and that's just how it is do you think that year in county jail

made you worse as a person at that period in your life for sure for sure it made me a lot more violent it made me a lot more temperamental because you know literally when you watch walk into a place and you know you can't be there and you go attack somebody like you literally got to just press a button in your brain like I got to go take off on this guy so you're you're always

doing stuff like that that is pretty crazy like you look back on it now I mean you can't act like that in society you can't just go around in the public slapping people hitting people fighting people you're going to end up in jail but in jail in prison that's how it is where if you're somewhere where you're not supposed to be or you feel threatened, you got to, you got to immediately take action and take off on people. That's just how it is. So you end up getting sentenced to the 10 years and four months. In California, do you have to do all of that time? So back in those days, in the early 90s, you had half time. So off of that 10 year, four months, I should have probably did, like, you know, maybe six years, five and a half, six years.

I ended up doing almost eight years. Bad behavior? Yeah, bad behavior. Yeah, bad behavior. you know right when I got into the system so right after the county jail um after I got sentenced they sent me to San Quentin about two weeks later so San Quentin back in those days was the Northern California reception center and so they send you to San Quentin to process you get all your paperwork together figure out where they're going to send you classify you and then from there they ship you off to wherever they're going to send you so I was in San Quentin for only about a month. And honestly, it was, you're pretty much on lockdown because in a reception center, you basically,

you're in your cell all day. You maybe can go to the yard like twice a week. You shower like three days a week. Go to the child hall every day for morning and for morning and then chow hall in the dinner time. But, yeah, you know, it's pretty much lockdown where there's not a lot of movement in the reception center. San Quentin at that time was it pretty notorious? Well, that's where they had death row at back in those days. So, you know, not only did they have death row there, but there's a lot of different sections.

I was in Carson's section, C-section. Back in those days, anybody that had 10 years and above, that's where they sent you. And then they had different sections where people were like doing their time. But in those days, San Quentin, I think it was like level one and two. It wasn't, you know, like a high security prison in those days. I think they had like level one and two, and then they had death row, and then they had the reception center. How old are you when you started serving your sentence? So by the time I got to San Quentin, I just turned 21.

Are you scared at all of being 21 at that time? You know, that first day you pull up to San Quentin, and, you know, it's a huge, huge structure, huge facility, big priests of real estate. And you see that big sign when you're pulling up on the bus and it says San Quentin State Prison. And like, like, you're there now. You know what I mean? And initially, I remember I was intimidated. I was like, fuck. Like, I hit the big time now.

You know what I mean? But yeah, those are my initial feelings pulling in the bus into the gates of St. Quentin. Like, I hit the big time. And yeah, it was a little, like, intimidating. Because it's a reception center, are people not pulling up on you right when you get there? Or do people come up to you over the way? Yeah.

So being that it was a northern. California reception center um there's only people there from northern California so there weren't like any soon anios there um back in those days um and um you know as soon as you pull up though like people that are like working in the in in um in the reception center and r and r they're like hey where you from you know right away they're hitting you up like where you come from you know what I mean so yeah as soon as you pull up and you know they take you off the bus and they're processing you and everything you're going through R&R, which is receiving and releasing.

They're hitting you up already. Where are you from? Blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. Why are the Serenios an enemy of you guys? So, you know, obviously getting in, as I got further along in a prison and getting into things years later. So, and, you know, the information that I'm sharing with you, Ian, this is all like, you know, it is common knowledge because there have been people that have. talked about this way before me. So, you know, we're going, we're talking about state prison in, in the 50s and 60s, right?

California. And I believe, like, the Mexican mafia, which is, like, their parent gang, right? Their parent organization, they were birthed, like, in the, I think, the late 50s. Okay. So this is a long time ago, right? And then they ended up giving birth to, you know, the Sanadios, right? Just like the NF gave birth to the NACA birth to the Nortenials. but back in those days the Mexican mafia was the Mexican mafia was primary like a southern

California originated gang but now in the 50s and 60s you're starting to get a lot of like northerners from northern California so the the story goes and like I said the story goes is that a lot of these northerners from northern California felt like they were being oppressed by the Sudanians where they're like maybe trying to tell them what to do and like you know punk on them or whatever so that's when um the northerners kind of broke off and said you know we're going to start our own thing because we're not going to let you guys tell us what to do so we're talking about since the 50s and 60s this rivalry has been going on in California between the north and the south I hear it's a lot different now which is a good thing because me, I'm a lot older now,

and I hate to see the Mexicans fighting with each other. I hate to see the Latino community fighting with each other. Obviously, I'm much older now. I look at things a lot different. But in those days, as soon as you walk into prison, they're telling me the Surydinos are your enemy, and this is already like indoctrinated into you as soon as you walk in. And I'm sure it's the same for them.

As soon as they come into the system or the prison system, they're indoctrinated to believe I hate Nortenios. And then the Nortennials are indoctrinated to believe, I hate the Sunaos, they're my enemy. But after all, we're all Mexican. We probably some of us are related. We're all from the same cities and country of Mexico. And now that I'm a lot older,

obviously I see the world completely different. But when you walk in as a 19, 20, 21-year-old kid, you're indoctrinated to go against these people and vice versa. Yeah, that's something I never really understood. You know, people from the same races, the same cultures are so against each other because they're clicked up with different gangs. Yeah, it's really unfortunate, man. And I look at things completely different now, Ian, like, you know, I think, like, for example, I can't really speak on L.A. because I didn't grow up in L.A., but even in Northern California, all the different cities in the Bay Area,

whether it's like, you know, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Salinas, all these different areas. There's a lot of street gangs all over the Bay Area, right? And basically, there, a lot of these kids end up going to prison. And I see this new generation of kids, right, where, you know, I just mentioned to you, these prison gangs were started in the 50s and 60s. we're now talking 60, 70 years later.

It's a whole other generation of kids. They're all coming up with the same indoctrinated bullshit to hate each other. And it's really unfortunate because, you know, these kids that are, you know, 15, 16, 17, they're going to end up the way I did. And so the way I look at it now is like these communities, my community, the Mexican-American communities, the Latino communities, there's not a lot of leadership, which is very unfortunate. And that's why you have a whole new generation of kids that are 13, 14, 15,

that are going to be going to prison in a couple years now. You know what I mean? So it's really unfortunate that this is still going on with the violence against each other because supposedly they're your enemy. But in actuality, man, we're really all the same. Years later, I actually met a lot of Sunaniels when I was in prison. I worked out with them and we'll get into that in a little. little bit, but worked out with some Sudanios, played sports with some Sudanials, and you know,

we all got along. And it's just unfortunate that at a very young age, they're being indoctrinated to believe this is how it should be. And it's really bad. And I hope there's better leadership in our community. So this just doesn't turn into a whole new generation of kids that end up in prison. Well, I think having these types of conversations, too, with people that are ex-members helps, it goes a long way too, especially like the tango blasts and any type of gang member who's coming on and talking about the X. That's why like the blood and Crip episodes, some of them are like still, like I don't get how you can kind of renounce it, but you still say you're a blood forever, you're a Crip forever. Yeah. And they're not necessarily saying they're an X member. But I think

the real change happens when you come on, you say, hey, I'm an X member. Right. This is what we did. It's not cool what we did. And, you know, we need to do better in the future. And if you look at other race is too Ian right so do you see like you know i'm just gonna like hypothetically do you see jews fighting against each other never right never do you see white kids on the street fighting against each other rarely unless they're in like a cripp and blood like a gang like and then and then even in in l.a like the bloods and cribs they don't really go out each other no more like they put their um they put their you know belief to decide and they have a lot more peace over the last 20 years but you still have like in the in the in the latin communities the mexican communities whether it's

california chicago um texas you know states there's you know different type of gangs right you know they have their own gang cultures over there out of state but like in california like um we're still being indoctrinated at a young age to go at each other and and you look at the mexican community you look at the latin community right now if you want to talk about a whole high level where the government like I'm sure you see like all these ice raids happening all over the country right now right and you would think during this time where all of these ice raids are happening and I'm brown right um you would think a community would maybe come together come together better and support each other help each other put some of your bullshit to the side

versus still this gang banging nonsense. You know what I mean? So that's how I look at things now. You know, I would love to see people be more leaders in their community, do better, educate the kids, be more of a positive influence, teach them the right way, not the wrong way. So once again, you don't have a whole new generation of kids going away for prison for life. There's so many kids that are, you know, 17, 18, 16 years old that get tried as adults that go to prison. And they're never going to get out.

They never even did anything with their life. You know what I mean? So that's how I look at things now. And, you know, if I can say some things to people or just shed light on what we're talking about right now and thank you for the platform, it's just that like you got to teach your kids better. Like I know there's a lot of ex-gang members. They have kids now. And I'm sure they're not, they don't want their kids to go to prison like they did. You know what I mean?

so people just got to really educate and lead and do better and hopefully we could change some of the statistics that are happening right now. You know, it's interesting with the gangs too is its environment is a big part because you look at, say, a low security federal prison, all the Latinos will stick together and all the blacks will stick together and all the whites will stick together. It's not like one group of Hispanics against another. They're all kind of grouped together. But if you go to a medium or a higher security prison, you start.

to see the divide by different gangs. Yeah, yeah. And like for me, when I got into prison, and we'll get into it a little bit more. But like in California, you have different levels, right? So level one and two or like lower medium security. I don't know what that's like because I never been on a level one and two. Level three is like a step away from level four.

So when I initially went into the system, I was a level three for only like a few months because then I got in trouble and I became a level four. And level four is where you have like the really big politics, right, where, you know, usually people are all there for an extended period of time, whether that's, you know, 10 years stretches, 20 years stretches, life. It's completely different, you know, so you're around people that they're playing for keeps. This is like serious. This is their life. This is where they live. They're not going anywhere. So the politics, like on a level four yard are very different than the politics on a level one yard.

So tell us where they send you first after reception and how you got kicked off of level three yard. Yeah. So after San Quentin, I was only in Quentin for about a month. And I got classified. They gave me, I think, like, 52 points, which is literally like, I was like one right up away from becoming a level four, right? I think the threshold was like 53 points.

And then you become a level four, right? So I was already at 52 points. And then, so they were going to send me to a brand new prison in Southern California called Centinella. And Centinella, so this is California, early 90s. Prisons are being built all over the state, Central California, Southern California. This is like the big crime wave of California in the 90s where there, I think at one point there was like over 30 state prisons in California, which is like,

a lot. So, um, they sent me to Centinella. It's like a 13 hour bus ride. You send you down there, you know, shackled down, ankles, belly chain. 13 hour bus ride of Centinella. I'll never forget. I think we stopped it. To Hatchapie is like right before you get into L.A. County. And, um, you know, the, the bus picks you up early in the morning. By the time you get to the prison, it's like, you know, five, six o'clock in the evening. I remember. I remember. walking, you know, getting off the bus, going to R&R, and you're like, you pull up on the prison, right? They're already prisoners program and they're on the yard, right? So you see, you know, hundreds of people on the yard already, you know what I mean? And, you know, of course,

they're checking you out, like, who the hell are you, you know, where are you guys from? You know what I mean? And to me, when I first got there, it just didn't look good because it looked like this was a Sudanian prison, you know what I mean? And we were literally the first bus from San Quentin to get down there. And so, you know, there's like maybe, you know, three, four Nortennos on our bus and it looks like there's literally, it looked like there's hundreds of Sudanios on the yard, but, you know, it might have been 50, might have been 100, and then obviously it's black, whites, whatever, but I was like, okay, this doesn't look good, you know what I mean? So, um, we go into, you know, um, our, our buildings, um, we got to, um, we got to,

got to go through reception you know they got to classify you every new prison you go through they got to classify you before they allow you to go out to the general pop general population to the main line so you're in classification for like maybe a week and then they classify you and then from there they let you go to the to the main line right and so for me um you know i already had met some dude on the bus um he was from sacramento and he's like telling me like this doesn't look good like we're going to have to get off and get out here. So I ended up getting a cellie after I got out of classification. He was from Sacramento. And he told me like, we got to get some pieces. You know, we got to get, we got to get some, you know, we got to get some knives. And we got to go make a move because if we stay here,

it's not going to be good. So this is an OG telling me this. You know what I mean? He's, he was probably like in his mid-30s. He's already did, you know, multiple stretches. And I'm 21 years old. So I'm taking his lead. This is what he's telling me. You know, this is the guidance he's given me. So we go out to yard a couple times. We go to Chalal a couple times.

And, you know, the Sudanials are just like eyeballing us. Like, they're looking at us like, you know, like, you know, we're watching you guys. You know what I mean? But there's not enough of us. So we're not like a threat to them neither. You know what I mean? So on that yard, as I went to yard a few times, there's probably. like maybe 10 to 15 northerners right and on that yard it seemed like there's maybe 50 to 100

southerners so we're like outnumbered tremendously you know what I mean and at that point it's only a matter of time before they probably flex on us and either you know try to tell us to like you guys got to go or they're going to like physically do something to us you know and it's only a matter of time in those type of situations. So we ended up getting some pieces from, excuse me, we ended up getting like some steel rods, metal rods that we had to make into knives. And so we had a friend on the yard crew

gave us like these big pieces of steel, like these are big welding rods. So the plan was to take them back to our cell, turn them into knives, and come out to the yard in the next few days and just rush. rush some Sudanios. And by creating a melee and starting it,

we're going to get sent to the hole, and we're probably getting it shipped off to another prison. So that's what the whole game plan was. And I'm like, okay, let's do it. You know, I was, I didn't care. You know, I was just like, this is what I'm being led to do. This is what I'm being told to do by my celly.

Like, this is how you're going to get out of this situation because if you just stick around here, it's just a matter of time before, like I said, they're going to try to punk on you, they're going to try to pressure you, or worse, do something to you physically. You know what I mean? You're not going to sit around and become a victim, you know what I mean? So we went to our cell, started sharpening these welding rods, turning them into knives.

And this was between yard and chau. We were literally in the first cell in this big building, right? bottom cell on the left side and um so we hear a bunch of COs walking into the um building like 30 to 40 deep there's going to be a shakedown they turn off the water we're stuck in ourselves with these pieces and like they're walking straight to our cell we're like fuck you know like we're in the first cell so we try to hide um the the welding rods we like put them in like a little lunch box tucked it in the corner but keep in mind we just pulled up so we have nothing in our cell but our mattresses are bedding nothing like our clothes we don't have nothing you know what i mean so there's like nowhere to

hide anything you know what i mean and so um we put um the welding rods in the corner put it in a box hide it but as soon as the CEOs came to our cell and pulled this out they're going to search our cell because they're shaking down the whole building um they found the welding rods quickly you know I mean. So as soon as they found the welding rods, they can see that we were sharpening them. And they're like, you guys are going to the hole. So that's how we ended up getting off the yard. And, you know, like I said, looking back on it, it's kind of a rookie mistake. You know what I mean? Because I think when you get caught with something, any kind of contraband, it's on you. It's really on you, right? It's not, doesn't get, you're not looked at as in favor. You know what I mean? But that's what happened?

we were in the first cell and they came right to our cell and they found him so from that point on that took us to the hole I ended up staying in the hole for like three months um they gave me a a DA referral so they can try to charge you with more more things because you got caught with like a weapon or a inmate potential inmate manufactured weapon and so um yeah the DA referral they didn't pick it up. The district attorney didn't pick it up. But what they did do was because I got caught with that, they gave me what was called a shoe term, a 10-month shoe term, which is like sending you to another prison, which is a security housing unit. And so I ended up getting my first shoe term, which is a-USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home

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type of person, you'd have a different experience in prison? You know, I just knew at that time, you know, my own common sense, right? Like, it didn't, from what I was being taught, even like in the county jail or even Quentin, that if you go somewhere down south, you're always taught, like, you got to get off and not stay down there. Otherwise, you may just stick around and become a victim. You know what I mean? So even though my celly was telling me and kind of guiding me on what we needed to do, I already

had it in the back of my mind like, man, I'm not staying down here. I was down in the Imperial Valley, which is literally the Mexican border. So that's how far down south we were. Where do you go after that? Yeah, so in Centinella, when I got my 10-month shoe term, they sent me to the Corcoran shoe. So the Corcoran shoe at this time, it was considered to be like a very notorious prison. What was happening there at the time was the, they called it the Gladiator fights there at the Corcoran shoe. When I got there, it was already under investigation by the FBI because a lot of inmates were fighting and getting killed on the yard.

So these are yard fights where usually there are fist fights, but sometimes there are, you know, other things happen. And so basically there in the shoe, you go to the shoe when you get in trouble for something. So everybody in the shoe, it's like you caught another case within the prison, you know what I mean? So people are there for like stickings or like assaulting staff or like getting caught with a weapon like I did. I mean. So everybody's there is for some type of like disciplinary action. But there you have like the worst of the worst, right? So you got like all the bloods and the crypts. You got, you know, the Soudanios. You got the different white gangs like, you know, the skinheads and Nazi lowriders. And then you got the Nortennials. So you have like the worst of the worst. They put us all together.

And it's on site with everybody. So there the blacks and the northerners are considered allies. whereas the Southerners and the whites are considered allies. So the northerners and the blacks are fighting against the Southerners and the whites. So anytime we go to yard, immediately it's a fight. Like it jumps off. So and we're not like in a big main yard, right? These are, you're in a, you're in a building with like maybe, you know, I think it's 10 cells on the top, 10 cells on the bottom. So these are small.

It's not like the main light, right, where it's a huge. building, right? You're going to the yard and some of these yards are integrated. So as soon as you go out, like if you have, like in my case, the first time I went to the yard, in my case, I was a northerner. They had me in the first cell, and the cell right next to me was a white cell. So as soon as I go out to the yard, I'm waiting out there with my cellie. And as soon as these two white guys come out, we got to rush them. And that's just how it is. So like, for example, if the Southerners went out there with the blacks, they would get into it immediately. If the blacks went out there with the whites,

they would get into it immediately. If we went out there with the Southerners, we got into it immediately. When I say immediately, there's no hanging out on the yard for like five or ten minutes looking at each other. As soon as you walk out that door, you're rushing each other, like instantly.

So that's how it was. And so in the corkron shoe, I ended up getting into like another four or five, you know, different types of yard fights there. And so they actually let you out for the yard and the shoe together? Because when I was in the shoe, it's you're in your own separate cage. Yeah. So back in these days at Corcoran, Pelican Bay is different.

And we'll talk about that in a little bit. But Corcoran's shoe, it was integrated yard. And you would go to a yard. These are small yards, though. I mean, these yards are probably like 20 or 30 feet wide. They're kind of long and narrow, like maybe 40 to 50 feet deep. And typically, if you have like people out there, they're programming, you could have like 10 or 20 guys out there, but that's it. And it's just a

wall, right? You're playing handball or you're working out and that's it, right? And there's a toilet and a sink out there. And that's how the yards were. But, you know, and down the road before I actually got transferred again, I was actually on a segregated yard with only Northerners. And there was like 20 of us on the yard. And so, you know, at that time, obviously there was nothing going on unless we're like taking one of our own guys out and that happened too but um because there's so much crap happening at the cork and shoe at that time and they had so many COs under investigation for literally killing inmates i think there's like six or seven murders during that during that time that era where people would go out and fight and basically once you start fighting they they gave you like

10 10 seconds to to get off right if you don't get on then they start yelling you get down, get on, right? Get on the ground. If you don't get down, they'll shoot the block gun first. Back then they had block guns. The block gun just shoots out like these big wooden projectiles, right? They're not pellets, they're blocks, like they're big, right? And they shoot out like, I don't know, 10 at a time out of a canister.

I forget, 5, 10, whatever. And they shoot the block gun first. And if you're still fighting, if you're still engaging, and it looks like somebody's, like, getting beat up really bad, or even worse they'll pull out the real gun the mini 14 and they'll shoot people so during that time like six or seven inmates got killed um and i remember when i right before i got there they had just shot a black dude they'd shot him in the head and and fucking killed him because he was i think he was fighting him i'm not sure if he was fighting a sudanio or a white dude but um they killed him and like this was

happening regularly you know so the first time i went out and got my first yard fight They shot the blocks at us. I got on the ground. But I never got shot at by a real gun. But, you know, that's just how it was where if you're on an integrated yard with somebody you're not supposed to be with, we weren't programmed with anybody. There wasn't any peace treaties. There wasn't any understandings.

As soon as you go out to the yard, it was on. Now, who are you personally most afraid of out of all the gangs? Honestly, I'm not afraid of anybody. I wasn't afraid of anybody. but I just knew that the Sudanios were supposedly my main enemy, you know what I mean? That's, once again, that's what you're indoctrinated to know and believe and think as soon as you walk in. But, you know, they probably looked at us, you know, I used to look at Sudanios like, you know, like, you know, bring it on. And I'm sure they looked at us the same way bringing on.

You know what I mean? Like that's the thing with like Mexican culture, right? I don't know if you got a lot of Mexican friends or our culture. man like we're known for being very very macho tough guys right where all right you're gonna have to fucking kill me then you know what i mean like i'm gonna go get into it like you're gonna have to kill me or i'm gonna or you or i'm gonna kill you you know what i mean and that's just like our culture how we are so it and it and it kind of carries over to like the whole street gang stuff and prison gang stuff because that's how we're raised and that's just how we are you know where we we call ourselves like we're

soldiers. And that's why I think the Mexicans have such a hard time not going against each other when they should do better is because there's so much pride involved, so much ego involved, so much machismo involved, where we're not going to let that other guy get the upper hand. And that's just really comes from our culture. Now, guys like you that weren't in the higher rankings of these prison-type gangs, what do they call yourselves in it? Nortenio. So I was considered a Nortenio.

or a northerner and then you have and you know you have your your Emanos would be like the northern structure and then the Cardinals

would be like the NF those are like the different breakdown but they don't go broadcasting who they are you know what I mean because they keep that on you know

you don't tell people you're affiliated you don't tell anybody anything like that you know what I mean but I was considered like a northerner and does every group

of those individuals you just listed have their own like command yeah Like a shot call or someone that, I don't know what the other posts are. Yeah. So back in those days, yeah, like, so the NF and like I said, I'm sharing information that I know is already out there. You know what I mean? And the reason I say that is because I'm pretty respectful and careful about the information that I share because I still have respect for those guys. You know what I mean?

Even though that's something I walked away from years ago. But I also believe there's certain things that I just, like I never mentioned any names of people. I don't drop names. But yeah, back in those days, they had like, they would call it like the messa. They had a table where there was like maybe four or five high-ranking dudes at one table calling shots for the entire organization.

And this information's already out there. I mean, there's been cases where a lot of these high-ranking dudes are dropped out. They've testified against people. They've put people away for years. So this is all information that's out there already. So I just want to be clear about that. I'm not like sharing super privy information.

But yeah, they had a messa and they would control everything for the entire organization. After you left the shoe and you went to the level four, what was that like? Yeah, so from the Corcoran shoe, I stayed there for right around 10 months, 11 months. I ended up catching another shoe term there. So when I caught another shoe term there, they ended up sending me up to the Pelican Bay shoe. shoot. So they gave me another 18-month shoe term. Wow. And in Pelican Bay, it's a lot different.

Like, you're mentioning, like, the, what is it, like the dog cages or something? Yeah, you're putting, like, he literally, it's a dog kennel outside. Yeah, dog kennel. So up there, it's a little bit different. The Pelican Bay shoot, you're, you're in a much smaller pod with, like, you know, five cells on the top, five cells on the bottom. Very, very small. So you're, like, literally in your cell looking at a wall.

You don't see nothing. There's no windows. you can't look outside. And so there they have a very small yard. You only are allowed to go to the yard, which is sally. And you can go to the yard every day for about an hour. But when you go to the yard, the yards, you know,

like you mentioned, like the cage, right? So it's like a little dog walk, right? You know, 15, 10 feet wide, 20, 25 feet long. And you go out there for an hour and you stare at the sky if you can. Usually I think there was like a mesh or metal gate on the roof. So if it was a sunny day, you might catch a glimps. of the sun or a little bit of sunshine most of the time up there though um there's a lot of uh a rain it rained up

there was like miserable weather up there rain like seven eight months out the year um so you would go to the yard you know whether you would some in some cases i would rotate with my celly i would go to the yard one day he would go to the yard next day and we would just go that way you give each other like a little space you know what i mean because you're in the cell with each other every day um or you would go to the yard together if you want you know but um Yeah, in the Pelican Bay shoe, it's basically 23, 24 hour lockdown except the days you can go to yard every day. And that's it. You're not going anywhere.

That's crazy how much time they would sentence someone for solitary out there back then. Yeah. Well, I mean, 18 months, I ended up, I had, I think I had half time on that because I only stayed. Because up there, you're not, over there, you're not integrated with anybody. So all the problems I had in Corcoran when I was fighting, fighting with other people. and doing stuff and that's how I caught more time. In Pelican Bay in the shoe, you're not integrated with anybody. So you're going to sit in that cell for, you know, six months, 12 months,

and you're going to make up your good time. Actually, you're going to get your, I think you can still get your half time in there because you're basically good behavior because you're not getting into any trouble with anybody there. You know what I mean? You're in a cell with your cellie and that's it. You know, so during that time, even though I had an 18-month shoe term, I think I maybe did like, you know, like eight, nine or ten months in the Pelican Bay shoe.

And then they let me go out to the main line. What do you think that does do you psychologically? I think for some people it can be very, very destructive. I mean, keep in mind, there are some guys that had like indetermined shoes or they're validated gang members where they're in the shoe 15, 10, you know, 15, 10, 20 years, like slam down. me i was only um i was in the hole in the shoe total about two years just around but um one if if you're gonna you're gonna spin it into something positive which i did you're gonna develop personal discipline right so you're gonna get up every morning you're gonna you know roll up your mattress that's our program we roll up our mattress you're gonna work out every single day you're gonna read you

every single day you might have some writing you need to do every single day maybe watch a little bit of TV. That's a positive thing where you're disciplined, you know what I mean? Or the negative where maybe you start losing your mind. You're not used to being alone. You can't stand being in a cell with another man for a duration, a long period of time. You might get depressed. You might just want to sleep all day. You know what I mean? So there's various ways to do your time, right? You know, myself personally when I was in the shoe I started like reading anything that I can read you know I started getting into like philosophy Zen Buddhism sociology like stuff like that so I was educating myself learning about different different you know philosophies and reading different types of books and

stuff like that um so that was my experience but like I said I also know there's some people that cat out right some people j cat out and they lose their mind. And that's the flip side to it. Describe these shoes in Pelican Bay. What was that like? Yeah. So like I said, you're in a little pod.

There's five cells on the top, five cells on the bottom. Some people have single cell. Some people you're in there with some people have a cellie. And you're behind glass. So it's a metal door. There's glass on the door too. So nobody can like throw anything at the COs or anything like that. And like I said, you're just like looking at a wall.

You have no movement at all. 23 hour lockdown. You shower, you know, three days a week. They feed you in your cell, you know, breakfast and dinner. They give you your lunch when they bring you your breakfast. So you're slammed down, 23 hours a day and that's it. Toilet in the cell. Toilet sink in the cell.

And, you know. If it's a single cell, one bed or two? It'll still be a bunk bed. There's bunk beds in every single cell. Some guys, I did see some guys, like when you walk to the shower, right, you go of the shower you walk by people's cell you can see if somebody's alone or there's a two man two men in the cell i seen a few guys some people have single cell status because maybe they they assault their their celly they get in fights and they can't get along with anybody but in my case

i always had a celly and there's a desk in there too or um in the pelican bay shoe i don't think it had a i don't think it had a sell excuse me a desk the corkron shoe um there's a desk there's a is a desk, I think, on the main, excuse me, the Corcoran shoe, they had different beds. So in the Corcoran shoe, you have, they call it bedrock. They have one bed on one side, but one bed on the other. So they're single. And then in the Pelican Bay shoe, you just had bunk beds. But as far as I recall, I don't think either one had desks.

When you get out of the shoe after that long, a period of a time, do your people come up to you, like with a care package, kind of fill you in on the politics that have been going on, or anything like that? Yeah. So for sure, as soon as I got out the shoe in Pelican Bay, I think initially they sent me to B facility. And yeah, as soon as you pull up, you know, the same, same program every single time, every time you got to go past classification. You got to stay in classification before they house you. And as soon as you pull up in a classification, you know, your people are coming in

to get at you to let you know what's going on. You need anything. But also to, you know, to keep in mind because the politics are so heavy between the Mexicans how we do our time and I'm sure between some of the whites too. Everywhere you go, you got to show your paperwork, right? So every, you know, when I went to Quentin, I had to show my paperwork. When I went to Centennial, I got to show my paperwork. When I go to Corkin and Pelican Bay, every single new unit I go to, if I'm not cleared by my people, I got to show my paperwork so they know what I'm in there for and what of trouble I've been in since I've been in prison, right? So once again, as soon as I get to the main line, Pelican Bay, I got to show them my paperwork to see who I am. They cross-reference, they check

it, they do whatever they need to do, and they clear you and you're good, and then you can program with your homies. But in some cases, when new guys would pull up and they didn't get cleared right away, we would have to put security on them. So for example, let's say you pulled up and there's something iffy about your paperwork or there's something questionable about your paperwork or in some cases somebody says something about their paperwork or they had a their controlling case that they came to prison for something didn't didn't match out we would have to put security on a guy like a cleared person would have to put security on somebody um for you know maybe a week two weeks until they actually got cleared.

So we were very, very secure about who was allowed to come around and be around. What would happen if they didn't get cleared? They would get hit and they got to go. Hit as in hurt or? Yeah. So if there's a guy that wasn't clearable,

like maybe he had a sex crime on the streets, you know? Or he did something in another prison and got in trouble with the homies. If he wasn't cleared, usually he ended up getting hit or removed from the yard because he wouldn't be allowed to function with us. Now, you were mentioning earlier that the politics and these main prisons are a lot different than

the jail. How is that? Well, I mean, in the prisons, like on a level four yard, you're around very high-level, you know, convicts and people that are part of organizations and gang members. You know what I mean? In the county jail, you really don't run into that too much. it's more like a hit and miss where if you run into somebody

that was affiliated. But in prison, you know when you're on a four yard, you're going to be surrounded by guys that are affiliated or have a lot of time. So after Pelican Bay, where do you go? So I was at Pelican Bay on the main line.

I think I was there on the main line for almost like two years. A couple of riots happened in 96 and 97 and 96, there was a riot between the Sudanians and the blacks. They locked down the prison. And then after that, only the northers and the whites. And the others were allowed to go to the yard

because the southerners and the blacks were locked down for a long time. And then there is talk that we were going to get into it with the whites. The whites ended up rushing us. And that turned into a melee. Some shit happened. I got into it there as well. But they ended up letting me go back to, my cell during that time. A lot of people went to the hole. A lot of people got sent back to

their cell because during this time, the hole was packed because the blacks and the Sudanios were going off on each other. And now you had a whole new war with the whites and the North, and the Norentonios. So the holes were packed, so they were sending some people back to their cells. And then they would put you on some kind of modified program until they figure out what's going on. So I was in my cell, but during this time, because I had been protesting. On Pelican Bay, there wasn't nothing going on for the longest time. There weren't any fights going on. There weren't any riots going on. But when it jumped off, it jumped off, you know. So I programmed up there for like almost two years. During that time, I'd put in a transfer to go to New Folsom, which is in Sacramento. Sacramento is a lot closer to where I'm from than Pelican Bay. And so during that lockdown, my transfer came in and I skated out of Pelican Bay. And I went to New Folsom. When two gangs go at each other that are that you're not a part of, you're not a part of that war, what do you guys do? Say you're on the, the rec yard that day and they pop off. Do you guys just stand there and walk to the side? And that's it. Yeah, get out of the way. When it happened between the blacks and the southerns, this was like mid, mid-96, I think it was mid-96 or end of 1996. And it was a big riot. It was like 100 people. So it was a big riot. And us, You just make sure that your people are protected.

Nobody's coming at you, and you kind of get out of the way. And that's what we did. But some prisons, there's different politics. You know what I mean? In some prisons, if, you know, the blacks and the Southerons got off, in some cases, then maybe the Norens helped. Or the whites would help the Southerners. But where I was at, when that happened,

it was strictly between the blacks and the Southerns. and then when the whites rushed us, that was strictly between us and the whites. On these yards back then, was it mostly male COs or did you have females? Mostly male COs. I don't even remember seeing a lot of like female COs. I mean, female COs might have been doing something different, somewhere else, maybe some kind of desk job. But back in those days, I rarely saw like any female COs on the yard.

Were the wardens heavily involved, like walking the yard talking to people? Not really. You know, you would see the lieutenants on the yard all. the time. I think they had like the different gang, gang units would always be on the yard watching stuff, you know, the spell. I think they had, I think back then they called it IGI, which was like some institutional gang, something, right?

They would be on the yard watching who's who monitoring what's going on. But, yeah, I rarely saw any, like, female COs back in those days. I would love to sit down with like one of those wardens from back in the day of, like, those California type penitentiaries? Like they probably have so much knowledge. I mean, back in those days, like, you know, Corcoran and Pelican Bay were considered like two of the worst prisons during that era. So, you know, I didn't get tossed any softballs when I pulled up.

You know what I mean? I went from Quentin to send me down south. They sent me to the Corcoran shoe. They sent me to the Pelican Bay shoe. They sent me to the Pelican Bay main line. then I went to New Folsom And New Folsom was a lot different than those other ones.

Where was your family in all this? Were they staying in touch with you? Yeah. So thankfully, thankfully, man, my family was very supportive of me the entire time. My family visited me when I was in Centinella. As soon as I got shipped down to Centinella,

I remember my sister and my mom drove way down there to a Mexican border to come visit me. When I went to the Corcoran shoe, Corcoran was about three or four hours away from San Francisco. They would come visit me there. And then even when I went way up to Pelican Bay, Pelican Bay is on the Oregon border, which is about seven, eight hours away from San Francisco.

They would come visit me there too. So my mom, my sisters, I had a little brother, my nephews. It's crazy because I remember, like, my nephews are like little kids, right? They would come to see me. Their uncle. I was like, their cool uncle, right? And, you know, every time I saw my nephews or my little brother at a visit, they're getting taller. You know what I mean?

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Same by, you know, when they would come visit me. You know what I mean? Because even when I was in the shoe, these are behind the glass visits. You're not like able to intermingle, you know? So you'd like put your hands. hand on the glass and they would put their hand on the glass to like say hi um and then obviously they're only there for like maybe an hour hour and a half and then they got to go but um they took the time out of their busy schedules out of their work lives out of whatever they had going on back

home to make time for me to come visit me all the time and you know i always appreciate that back in the 90s what was the food like at these prisons shit i mean because i feel like the california prisons back then is what gave the influence on like the movies we see about prison food and everything in the 2000s. I mean, I think anybody like if you don't have commissary, you're going to starve. You know what I mean? I don't think any prison had good food. You know what I mean? It's all the same food. It's processed food. Beans, rice, stews, oatmeal, you know, like really poorly prepared food. But hey, if you don't have any commissary, you got to eat, right? So, you know, thankfully, if you have commissary and you can eat, then you have a little bit more flexibility on what you eat.

And I always thankfully had commissary and I ate other stuff. But you know, man, top romans and rice go a long way. You know what I mean? And tuna, canned food. Can food top ramen and rice go a long way if you're in prison. Do the Nortangos cook together and eat together? Sometimes if we're in a good setting where we can actually do that, you know what I mean? Yeah, we would spread and put a bunch of food together,

eat with each other like in the day room. We did that when I was at New Folsom because it was a different setting. It was very different there versus, you know, the Pelican Bay main line. But yeah, in the New Folsom, we would get together and we'd eat. Now, do you go your whole bid with that mentality of kind of fighting to survive or do you have a change somewhere along the line where you're thinking about the future? So when I was at New Folsom, a few things happened while I was at New Folsom. where I ended up with the keys on the yard for a very short period of time.

We got into it with the whites there as well, a new Folsom. And a few of the higher-ranking Northerners got rolled up off the yard. And I ended up with the keys for a very short period of time. But I was in charge for a very short period of time. And I say that because after I called one shot, which was, the northerners to rush the whites because something else happened, I got rolled up off the yard. Somebody snitched on me.

My own people snitched on me. So when they rolled me off the yard, I'm like, my own people, here I am. I've been like a loyal soldier, five, six years, did everything the right way, fell in line, you know, did a bunch of things to help us when I was, you know, a northerner.

but the second I get you know the keys of the yard and I called something some my own people are telling on me so when that happened I had a light bulb moment and I said all right if I keep doing this I'm going to go to the hole I might get an indeterminate shoe where I never get out of the hole I might catch more time I might have to go do a hit and that at that point that's when I walked away from being on the gang side. I walked away and made other, made other choices and decisions, and I went away from that. It's interesting how a lot of the people that renounce gang life have a moment where their own gang kind of portrays them or betrays them. Well, if I take it a step back, I even had a light bulb moment when I was up in Pelican Bay where

I remember by now I'm like 24, 25 years old. And I literally was literally was looking. I was looking at myself in the mirror and I'm like I question myself like what are you doing like you know like you know I even though I grew up you know kind of kind of tough with my family like my family was there supporting me the entire way you know what I mean and here I am getting all this different trouble extending my time but that's just how it was that's what I had to do but finally when I got into a position where I had enough experience under my belt I didn't want to do this anymore I didn't want to catch time. I didn't want to get life.

Because there's a lot of dudes that go to prison for one, two, three years that never get out. They'll do something, get caught up. Or they'll catch 10 years. They'll catch 15 years. And for me, I wasn't going to do that. I made a choice where when I had that moment where my own people basically snitched on me, I said, fuck this. And I went in another direction.

How does someone even get past the keys to the yard? So, like I said, there are. as a couple main dudes on the yard. And so kind of is taking a step back. Because when you're at Pelican Bay, you're technically up there with like all the big hitters. So you have a certain level of education and certain level of character that you're around or gangster that you're around up at Pelican Bay. So when I came down a new Folsom, it's like you kind of got clout. Like he just came from the bay. He knows what's up. You know, what I mean like he was around this guy he was around these guys like he was around some of the

the heavy hitters so when you come down to another prison it's like you already got clout and so when I came to new Folsom that's how you kind of looked at and so when these other incidents started happening and other dudes started getting rolled up off the yard and they maybe didn't have any more like made men on the yard I ended up with the keys and literally like it happened where I'm in my cell, and somebody runs up to my cell and they're like, they just rolled this guy up off the yard. You got the keys now. So it's not like an actual physical set of keys. No, no, no.

They're telling you. Yeah, like, this guy just got rolled up, bro, and like, you got the keys now. Can you say no or no? If you say no, you're probably going to get hit by your own people. You know what I mean? So it's not like you can politely decline, you know what I mean? and be like, no, thanks, but no thanks. You know what I mean?

No, it's like, okay. And you're just like, it's like, this is your moment and you got to do what you got to do. How does it feel in that moment? Because not only are you a target from other gangs, but also now the correctional officers. I mean, at that time, at that age, keep in mind, Ian, I feel like I was very well educated.

I learned so much. I was schooled down, gameed up by some really good dudes, heavy hitters, ranked dudes. I've been around a lot of good people. So I felt like I guess it's my moment, you know what I mean? I didn't shy away from it. I wasn't scared of the moment. But I didn't want the moment neither.

You know what I mean? But when it's bestowed upon you, you got to take action. And that's what I did. So what happens next after that? when I walked at that point, when I decided to walk away, now at that point you become basically, you know, SNY or PC. You go on a dropout yard.

And dropout's a very, very interesting word. Because technically, I was never in a street gang. I was never in a prison gang. But I walked away from being an active northerner. So they call you a dropout. To me, I'm not a dropout because I was never clicked up. I walked away. I chose another path.

And, you know, people are still going to call you, oh, you're a fucking PC and this and that. And that shit doesn't bother me, man. I'm much older now. I know exactly who I am. People can say whatever the hell they want. I don't even care what my own mom thinks of me. I know who I am. You know what I mean?

But that was a choice I made. I knew a lot of repercussions came along with it. But for me, my whole point in going that direction was I want to get out. I want to change my life. I want to do something with my life. And that was a decision I made. How much time do you have left in your sentence when you make that decision? So once again, when you go in that direction,

you got to go through a whole other reclassification and processing because they want to make sure that you're not going to go to one of these yards and just assault people and take off on people. So you got to go through like a whole reclassification during that time. I'm sure you heard of the Menendez brothers. Yeah. I was on a little yard with Eric Menendez during that time. Yeah.

So that's a little piece of history. He was in the hole for contraband. And we played handball. But now I'm on a little yard, like the Adseg yard, administrative segregation yard. I'm on the yard with exudanios, some whites, some blacks, some northerners, and then people like him. and we're all programming together to show that, you know, we're changing our ways or we can

get, we can all get along. So, yeah, I was, so once you go through that transition, then they're sending to the main line, but on the other side, right? And I was at New Folsom for about another six months. Then I got sent to Mule Creek, which is like a lower level three, actually. I got an override to go to Mule Creek. And from Mule Creek, I ended up, paroling in March of 2000. So when I left Folsom, I did like two more years and I got out. It's so crazy to think that you got out of prison that long ago, but the memories are still probably pretty vivid in your mind. Man, I used to have nightmares about this shit for years, man. You know what I mean? Like, I think I used to dream about prison every month, once a month,

you know what I mean, for the last 20 years. What do you think was the most reoccurring dream? I think I had a dream where I was like, they're like, oh, he's no good. And they're like chasing me on the yard or some shit. You know what I mean? But literally, I remember. I mean, it's been 25 years now. I walked out of prison 25 years ago. But I remember for at least 20 years.

Not so much anymore. But every single month, once a month, I would have a dream that I'm still in prison. Yeah, I dream. I have a lot of dreams. Or I guess it's a nightmare about being back in prison. And I'm not even doing anything wrong. Yeah. It's funny.

Like when you're doing things wrong, like back in the past, you don't even think about being a good prison. And then when you're out and you're doing things good, that's when the dreams of being in prison happen. Yeah, it's crazy. Like, I mean, I live a completely different life now. I do a lot of different things now. And yeah, but it's crazy because it's the trauma, right? It's the trauma, things that you did, things that you saw, things that you participated in, a certain thing. that was once again indoctrinated into you,

a certain belief system you may have developed. It's deep, it's deep in here now, you know what I mean? It's deep in here now, you know? And you're not, you're not going to forget that stuff for the rest of your life. And like I said, thankfully, I don't really have those dreams so much anymore, but for a very, very, very long time I did. Tell us how you rebuilt your life after prison. So when I got out of prison,

I didn't have any skills, man. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do, but I was very, very motivated. And I literally, right before I paroled, I remember a few months before I paroled, I wrote a list, like a to-do list of like, I need to get a job. I need to make a certain kind of income.

I need to get a place to live. I need to get a car. Like really basic shit, but I just been locked up for eight years. Like, I don't have nothing. I don't have a dollar to my name. You know what I mean? So when I got out, I ended up getting into sales.

I learned pretty quickly. I had a gift to speak with people and communicate. And I spoke pretty well. So I got into sales. I had a couple like really low-level sales jobs. I worked at a modeling in talent school, selling. That's where I learned how to cold call people, develop some phone sales skills.

From there, I went to go work at a gym, 24-hour Nautilus back then, and then it turned into 24-hour fitness. I learned more different type of sales where I'm engaging with people face-to-face, quick sales, closing people on the spot, started developing my sales skills. And then from there, I got recruited to get into finance.

And I started doing loans, home loans. This is 2002, 2001. Pretty quickly, I got into doing loans, like, not even a year or two out of prison. I started learning how to do first mortgages, second mortgages, home equity lines of credit, personal loans, learning how to read credit. And then the rest of history, I got into finance. And then pretty much for, like, the last 20, 25 years, I've been in, like, finance and banking and stuff like that.

Thankfully, I was able to. able to build a pretty good career for myself. I got into doing these loans at a really great time because five years after I got out of prison in 2005, I was already a millionaire from doing home loans. I was making like in 2003, I think I made probably like 50 grand that year, right? 2004, that's when like the mortgages, the subprime mortgage era was really kicking in. I made like $250 grand in 2004. 2005 I made 800 grand 2006 I made like 600 grand

then they had the mortgage collapse and so I stayed in real estate in banking I worked at Wells Fargo home mortgage years later which was interesting right because I remember I had a moment when I was at Wells Fargo home mortgage in San Francisco there's a branch on 22nd admission I used to work at that branch they asked me to

so back in those days when you're at a bank nobody's allowed to go in the back vault by themselves. You always have to have somebody with you. And I remember one of the girls at the bank, there was nobody around to go in the vault with her. So she asked me to go into the vault with her. And I just the first time I've been in a bank vault. And I remember just looking around the bank vault

and it was a trip like, you know, keep in mind my whole background, Ian, I've passed every background check I've ever taken. I've never told anyone of my business about my background. And the way I got around those loopholes is because back in those days, if you filled out a job application, they want to know if you've ever been convicted for a felony in the last three years. Well, obviously, if I got convicted in 93, I got out in 2000, I wasn't lying on job applications because I got convicted seven years ago. So that was my little loophole that I found to get all these jobs. So right out the gate, I started getting good jobs and I got into sales.

I got into finance. I got into mortgages. I got into banking. And I worked at, you know, probably like four or five different banks, subprime banks, retail banks, Wells Fargo, wholesale banks. And I always had really, really good jobs. And my background never came up. Wow.

Yeah, I was just going to ask you that if your background had any effect on your life, you know, when you were rebuilding and even now, but I guess that was the answer to that. Well, actually, it did pop up. Recently? Yeah, recently. So, so back in about, and this is why I wrote the book. This is why I decided to write my book. So my whole career, I passed every single background check that I've ever been involved in.

But I didn't mention that I actually ran into some trouble in 2014 where I, I went back to jail. And the bottom line is I went back to jail for a bank robbery. I beat it. I fought that case for seven years. That's another long story. Bottom line is I beat it. And so right when the bank robbery got dropped,

I started getting recruited to go work in another mortgage bank. But now I had to get a license, a mortgage license, a state mortgage license, NMLS license. and the case got dropped. I'm getting recruited to go be a sales manager at this other mortgage bank. I passed my test. I get my license. Now I'm a licensed mortgage banker by the state and federal government.

And I'm managing a team of like 10 loan officers. Everything is perfect for me. This was like my mindset was like, I'm going to ride off into the sunset now. This is my last job. I'm going to retire in a few years. I'm going to just ride this till the wheels fall off. That was my game plan. Well, you know, with the financial markets, they go up and down, right?

In 2022, the financial market started getting all crazy. I think that's when they had like the big crypto crash. Interest rates shot up. A lot of these financial firms started laying off a lot of employees. The bank that I was working for, I was working for the number one reverse mortgage lender in the country called American Advisors Group, AAG. they started laying people off. They laid off like 500 people, right? And there is a word that I might get laid off

because the markets are all jacked up and it's interfering with business. The company's losing money. So they told me, Mario, we're going to have to lay you off. But if you want to become a loan officer, which is a demotion, you could stay on board, be a loan officer, but we have too many managers right now. We've got to let you go.

So, I mean, I didn't want to lose my job. So I took the demotion even though I didn't want to be a loan officer. But by being a loan officer, I had to get licensed in like five other states. So I started applying all these other state licenses. When you do that, that's when it triggered an FBI background check. When they did the FBI background check on me in 2022, it pulled up all my prison history from 1993. It shows what I went to prison. for how much I got sentenced for.

And now the cat was out of the bag. This was the one background check I flunked after being in a career 22 years. And how has that affected you? So when that happened, they suspended me immediately because of my background. They gave me an opportunity to try to clear it up. But then they fired me. They fired me like two weeks later. They're like, we can't keep you.

You know what I mean? You're a convicted felon. and you know and keep in mind as a convicted felon and I'm sure you know because I heard your story as well when you got out different jobs you had you know nobody's hiring convicted felons for banking jobs or um any like white collar jobs right especially someone like me who who had like um I got a hold of people's social security numbers in the past when I got in trouble when I was younger and the crimes of violent felonies that I had we're not supposed to have jobs like that supposedly, right? They want us, society wants you to go get a blue collar job, go get a trade,

have a, or maybe if you're smart enough, become an entrepreneur, do something good for yourself. But you know we're not supposed to have these white collar jobs. And I did for over 20 years. Finally, they suspended my license too. And at that point, I haven't been able to work in mortgage banking now for the last three years because of what happened. So what do you do now then? Yeah, so right now I run a loan modification office in the Valley, which is basically we help homeowners that are in jeopardy of losing their home. So now I'm on the other side of the business. I'm actually fighting against the banks. Previously, I was working for the bank. So I do that. I also recently started doing some consulting for a startup in San Francisco that does real estate. Everything I do is not license related. It's still in the real estate field, but I don't need licenses for what I'm doing. And then I'm also obviously working on my book. And that'll be out in January.

And also, too, another thing I didn't mention, I did a short film when I was out on bail for the bank case. And we're raising capital for a feature film. As a matter of fact, I've seen one of the guys you had here in the studio, like the Italian kid from power. Oh, yeah, Gianni. Yeah. So we want him to play the lead role in this film that we're working.

working on. It's called Tunnel Vision. And so that's about an Italian guy that was in the hip hop scene, a promoter. He ended up going to prison. And so we made a short film about this film. We're now doing a feature film and we're raising capital for that. We're in the final round of funding for that. So I have the real estate stuff that I do. I have my book. I have the other film stuff we're working on. So that's how I keep myself busy now. Yeah, I found like doing these interviews, it's so interesting that there's so many people that have these long careers after prison. and then want to come out and talk about their experience in prison so many years later, because there's never just been that platform available to people.

And it's becoming more common to talk about it. And it's really cool because, like, people like you that obviously you've been there and you know what it's like to come out and try to figure things out, right? I think for me, for the longest time since I was, like, in a white-collar job, I always wanted to keep it secret about my background because I had a career. And I had a good career that was paying me well. I don't want to bring up anything that would jeopardize that. But when I finally did everything right and I still flunked that background check and I lost my job

after doing everything right for 22 years, that's when I said, fuck it. I have a story. I now have a good story. I have an interesting story. I want to share it. I want to see if I can help anybody with my story. And then also, too, with the podcast, social media. 20 years ago, people that have been in prison weren't talking about this stuff.

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Some media and it's so much out there. It made me more comfortable to come out, sharing my story and that's what I'm doing now. Yeah, my whole thing is, you know, put your story out there in your own words. And then what can anyone say badly? You know, like if you air it all out there at the bad, but also the good because you show how you redeemed yourself in the end, what could they say? Yeah. I've had some guests come on where their bosses see it and then they're all worried,

like, oh, I'm going to get fired this and that. honestly, I think the boss looks more of a scumbag. If you came on the show where all these stories are redemption stories, where you shared how you were addicted and you did something crazy and you went to prison, but you came out on the other end, that boss, if anyone got fired from coming on my show after sharing their story or redemption, I would light their boss up on social media saying never go to that place again because that's just wrong to do that. You know, the person, we're all about second chances in the country.

And I've only been sharing my story really, like maybe like the last six months. now. So I'm not really out there like you are, you know what I mean, or some other people that have maybe been talking about the prison stuff for the last couple years. But my face has only been out there for like the last six months. And I haven't had a moment yet where someone I worked with or in the past called me up or anything. So that hasn't happened yet. It'll happen. But ironically enough, there's a dude who saw one of my interviews on another platform. He emailed me off of my website. And he's like, hey, my mom might lose her home. Can you help? And literally right now, he became a client and we're helping him and his family save his mom's house. So I did get like a positive lead

where someone like needed my help for a real estate transaction. So that has come out of this. But so far, nothing negative from any other former employers or people that I work with. Yeah, I think anyone that hates is just like as jealous that they can't own their stuff. It takes a lot of courage to go out there, especially on a big platform. form and sit there and really own it. It took me a while to kind of overcome that. Yeah. But now it's the best thing that could ever happen to me because then what could someone say, oh, he's the one that went to prison. Okay, I talk about it every day. Yeah. And for me too, like it, like I said, it was for the longest time, it was something tough for me to talk about. Like when I wrote my book and I told myself,

like all this prison stuff, I've never talked about it with anybody in my life. You know what I mean? But when I wrote, wrote the book and I'm talking about stuff I've never shared with anybody in the past, it was tough and and because of the whole stigma of ex-gangster ex-gang member too there's a big stigma with that where people want to talk shit online and and try to throw you under the bus but if you don't know my entire story if you weren't there in the 90s with me you don't know what you're talking about what's a piece of advice you would tell your teenage self if you're sitting across from him right now i really would have just been there to like put my arm around put my arm around my younger self and give him better guidance,

which was like all these, all the, all the drinking, all the drugs, all the partying, doesn't lead to anywhere, anywhere positive. And even to this day, I think, and you know, being incarcerated yourself in the past, I think if ex-convicts eliminated drugs and alcohol from what they do, you're automatically going to eliminate half of your problems. You know what I mean? Because how many stories do you know of people that got hooked on drugs or they drink too much? They do stupid shit.

They commit crimes. They do different things. But for me, like, honestly, I think if I didn't develop so much of like this party lifestyle and doing drugs and drinking at an early age. And even recently, man, I mean, even recently I quit drinking. Like, totally quit drinking. I'm with you. I just quite a week ago. I totally quit drinking.

I quit doing drugs like, like 10 years ago now. like a long time. I think, and that allows you to focus and really develop yourself, right? You know, I think what helps ex-convicts too is like, if you really want to change your life, number one, you got to eliminate stuff that's bad for you, which is drugs and alcohol. You got to do the personal development, self-development, emotional development, physical development, educate yourself. That's for somebody that really wants to change.

If you want to keep on doing the same old bullshit They got you in trouble Go ahead, they got to sell for you You know that But if you really want to change Those are all the different things You need to work on individually To just be a better person

Absolutely. Well, Mario, I appreciate you coming on the show today, man. It's a great conversation. Thank you, Ian. I really appreciate your time. Yeah, and we'll have the links to all your stuff In the description of this episode.

Thank you, man.