Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Prison Gang Soldier for the Mexican Mafia | Chris Arevalos

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

After an accident in the military leads him down a path of addiction, Chris Arevalos starts moving weight for the Cartel in the United States. Eventually the FBI & DEA get wind of his operation, leading Chris to be arrested and sent to the most dangerous United States Penitentiaries. While in prison, Chris is given no choice but to join the Mexican Mafia Gang and become a solider in order to survive. Big thanks to Lost Trail Communications for sponsoring this episode: Get a free consultation at losttrailcommunications.com - mention Locked In for 25% off any service. Connect with Chris Arevalos: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071330112875 Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 10% off your order Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com 00:00 Intro 00:26 Lost Trail AD 02:53 Childhood 06:45 Start of using substances 09:06 Joining the marines 10:58 Parents affect on his childhood 14:15 Time in marines 16:35 Getting hurt in the military 18:45 Getting hooked on pills 21:37 BBC News interview 22:24 Feeling of using 23:16 Turning addiction into a business 26:40 Losing the connect 28:47 Lost Trail AD 30:09 How much money he was making 33:25 Did the military prepare him to be a kingpin? 34:45 Mobile drug dealer & new connect 36:18 First meeting with the cartel 40:14 How to smuggle across the border 42:06 Violence with Cartel 45:27 Relationship with cartel 47:25 Close calls transporting across the border 49:50 Thoughts bringing substances into America 52:32 Breaking down the operation 57:05 Money Laundering 59:05 Getting arrested by the FBI 1:02:21 Letting the Cartel know about arrest 1:03:38 Criminal process & the DEA 1:05:14 Plea deal 1:06:44 Conversation with parents about prison 1:07:42 Going to Federal Prison 1:09:24 Con Air 1:13:00 Recruited to the Mexican Mafia Gang 1:15:39 Prison turning a blind eye to stabbings 1:17:05 Going against morals to survive 1:18:07 What kept him going 1:19:03 First mission as a gang soldier 1:20:43 Prison Tattoo as a gang member 1:21:50 Not showing weakness 1:22:37 Job as a gang soldier 1:25:14 Making it out of prison 1:27:08 Changing his life 1:37:00 Power in sharing your story Produced by: https://www.instagram.com/shanedanahy https://www.shanedanahy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Must be 21 to enter. Take this as your sign to go.

Just get out there and go. This summer at Best Western, get 1,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250,000 bonus points. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at bestwestern.com. No additional purchase necessary for sweeps. See bonus point T's and C's and sweeps rules for details. Welcome back to Locked in with Ian Bick. On today's episode, I have Chris A Revelos here to tell his insane story of how he winds up in federal prison after getting arrested by the DEA and the FBI, manages to get sent to one of the worst penitentiaries in America and gets forced into joining

the Mexican mafia gang and becomes a soldier for this notorious gang in federal prison. I want to give a big thanks to Lost Trail Communications for sponsoring today's episode. They are a great company that provides affordable marketing and public relations services to small businesses, startups, and creators. Book a free consultation at Lost Trail Communications. and mention locked in to receive 25% off the service of your choice. Thank you guys, our viewers and listeners, week after week, who tune into the show, who message me on social media platforms, who email me, who want to come on the podcast

and share their story. I would not be here without you guys. You mean the world to me, and I'm excited to see where our journey goes. We have a lot of exciting episodes on the horizon. We have a brand new studio, amazing equipment. an amazing team behind us and we're ready to bring this to the next level. I hope you guys sit back, relax, and enjoy my interview with Chris Arevelos. Chris, welcome to Lockton, man.

Where did you travel to us today from? You had quite the journey. Yeah, I'm from Austin, Indiana, Southern Indiana. It's called Pistol City. I'll get into that a little bit later while it's dubbed Pistol City. We were named that back in the 70s. But I flew in from Cincinnati. airport i flew into la guardia i took the rental up to damberry i wanted to get out into the um burrows in new

york but people were like man whenever you touch down chris just keep going to damberry you know don't be out there mingling getting in trouble because my main objective is to come up here you know and tell about my story about my hometown of austin you know and i didn't want to get in any trouble you know in between it i wanted to make sure you know i made it here you know and then tonight i might cut loose a little though after we filmed this yeah i you have great energy man we've been in touch for the last couple months and um glad we were able to do this and we're the second guest in our new studio um sitting down to record so it's an honor man i'm glad you're here it's an honor to be here and i'm glad to be the second i heard you're having chevy chase up man uh yeah by the time your episode comes out

chevy chase will have the episode will have already dropped that's going to be awesome pretty exciting man heck yeah knowing cheby chase is going to be sitting here in the same same chair That's cool, man. Yeah. So, yeah, let's dive into it, man. You just told me where you're from. Did you grow up there as well? Yes, I grew up in Scott County, Indiana.

But I went to school. I started going to school in Austin, and then my parents divorced, and then my mom remarried, so we moved to Jackson County, Indiana, Crothersville. That's where I went to school. And we moved out there, man, and it was like in the middle of cornfields, you know, in Indiana, that's basically all there is out there is cornfields. So I grew up country. I'm a country boy.

you know and all I really had was my hunting dogs my squirrel dogs and my four-wheeler and my boat you know there was the mascat attack river right down the road from me so I stayed out on the river a lot of fishing you know out there and in Jackson County did you have siblings yeah I have a step-sister named elisa and a stepbrother named Gabe he's 14 my step-sister elisa she's doing really well She just got married a few years ago and they got their own house. She has a wonderful child named Orlando. She keeps him very active in sports, tennis, basketball, occasionally go to watch him do those things. So she's doing very good.

And were you close with your parents growing up, your stepdad or your real dad? Yes. You know, there was alcoholism in the home at an early age, you know, from all I could remember was alcohol and smelling the marijuana smoke. So that led to, you know, a lot of internal problems with the family, you know, between my mother and father. And ultimately, they divorced. But I've grown up around alcohol and drugs on my life. You think that had a negative influence on you as you would get older and start experiencing things for your own self? Most definitely did.

You know, I can attribute most of the failures and obstacles I've had my life due to the substance abuse issues that I've dealt with. And did you have a lot of friends? in high school or were you more of like a loner i know you said you like to to be out in and the farms and in the country land but what was like the high school for you well um so like i said i went to austin elementary until my parents divorced my mother got remarried so then we moved to jackson county out in the country on a off 256 i lived what they they called county roads and uh man we was so far out there in that we didn't even uh the the the mailman didn't need to deliver the mail we would have to go into town in austin to get our mail so you know give you an idea of how

rule i was out there but as far as the high school so um i went to crothersville starting in the third grade you know and had some really good friends up there tanya stid them uh laura meyers and i had some really good friends there at crothersville but i moved back to austin because uh alcohol struck again you know with my mother and my stepfather and uh there wasn't any physical abuse but man there was sure a lot of emotional abuse you know they would just take off and and party and stay drunk you know and leave me to the house all by myself so i didn't have any guidance or any mentors growing up it was just myself you know and uh the country you know whatever i could utilize and spend my time the outdoors nature you know on the river my hunting dogs and guns and stuff like that so i went back to austin high

school uh my junior and senior year and i was already pretty well known you know by that time because i will be coming in on the weekend from crothersville my mother would drop me off to to visit my dad you know and uh my dad he'd quit drinking you know a few years prior to that and now he's he's a he's a man of religion my father he's real deep into the church he's converted his life over to god and he's doing really well so um but but you know i had so much uh anger you know built up inside of me i didn't want to hear anything you know i just wanted to have my own way about life so when i come into austin at my um junior and senior year you know i started partaking you know and the substances namely marijuana and alcohol and um um yeah one time i woke up and i was tripping

i took some acid one night and fell asleep and i woke up tripping and i had already been warned hey you know you can't miss any more school so uh man i try my best get to school in you know i'll I was under influence, so I went there and they could tell something's wrong with me, and they called my dad, and they sent me home, and they had a meeting with the principal, and my dad had to go up there, and he was like, look, you know, we've tried with him. You know, man, his mother is a rough way for him, you know, but he wants to finish high school very badly. So, you know, he was telling him because my dad, he was originally from Texas, you know. He was born here in Texas, or there in Texas, and my grandfather was as well.

but they traveled to different places like migrant camps California, Michigan, Florida, Ohio to pick vegetables. And they ended up up there in Austin. And on the outskirts of town, there was this thing called Mexican camp. And that's where all the migrants stayed. And, you know, they endured a lot of hardships over there, a lot of racism, a lot of unnecessary treatment from other people. And so I heard him through the door telling the principal,

well hey you know we're from the camp and and he wasn't even supposed to make it this far you know uh he was conceived man his mother was picking vegetables you know in a field in jackson county and that's when he would you know that that's how he'd come about so i was like man i start hearing all these things you know i'm like man i don't have no chance i don't have a chance in hell in life you know but um but i do have a chance you know later on in life you know i figured out you know hey there's a power man greater than greater than anybody you know, and I finally found that power, and I was able to turn my life over. But that's about the extent of the high school.

I just ran around partying all the time, you know, and I graduated. I ended up graduate. I had to come back extra six months or whatever it was and to get my credits, but I made it. And then I end up joining the Marine Corps. You joined the Marine Corps. Yeah, I joined the Marine Corps after that. Did you have aspirations before that, or was that like a fallback? because you didn't know what you were doing, you didn't want to go into a college,

or you couldn't get into a college. It was like the mindset. Yeah, and at that point, I didn't even know anything about education. You know, that was the furthest thing from my mind because my mother and father, they only have a grammar school education. I think my mother, she had a sixth grade education, and my father, he had like a seventh grade education. But one thing that my stepdad did do, you know, is he taught me numbers, you know, and he taught me the important of math and being able to convert.

numbers you know so that was a forte of mine numbers you know i was really good with numbers so um but i didn't have any aspirations i would answer your question about college i didn't even know what college was you know my father didn't even know anything about that stuff or or my mother you know but uh in the marine corps though the recruiter come by one day he was in the um the library there in austin high school and uh he was like hey come here so i started talking to him he was like what are you like doing you know this and that and i would be telling you you know i like to hunt and fish and stuff he's like okay he's like you spend time with your family i'm like yeah he's like well's a good memory i was like well my mom and daddy used to take me to his place

called henryville forestry to fly a kite man and i always thought that was cool and he's like well you know there's these people across the world and and they're harming people you know over flying kites it's outlawed and it's banned over there and there's there a chance they might come over here one day you know he was pumping me full of stuff and i'm like man that would be terrible not to be able to fly a kite, you know, and have people over here persecute you. And I'm like, you know, I was like, I want to try to stop that from happening, you know. So that's when I joined the Marine Corps, you know, it was all over because I didn't want people come to America to keep us from flying a kite. Do you think if your parents didn't suffer with alcoholism, your life would have turned out

very differently. Maybe you would have gotten a better understanding of education and maybe had some type of dream to follow? Oh, absolutely. And because, you know, like I said, with my parents with such a limited education you know they didn't teach me much when i come to school but one thing my mother did do though i know i'd wake up every morning to breakfast you know and she'd be put me on that school bus in no matter what if i had a temperature or whatever you know i was on that school bus i had perfect attendance and she would tell me hey look you know i didn't have a chance to be educated and your father didn't either she was like you have to go as far as you can with education she's like it's your passport to the future, you know, but things got rough there in the household after she remarried

with alcohol and they started leaving me by myself. But to answer your question, I know for 100% certain if I would have had mentors, a mother and a father raising me properly, my life would have definitely been for the better. You know, I probably wouldn't, went down some of the avenues that I went down that led me to criminal lifestyle. Were you ever looking at other kids, maybe that you're friends with or other kids in general? saying, man, I wish I had that. Like, I wish I had that supportive family. I wish I had anything, you know, that love maybe that you weren't receiving.

Oh, yeah, you know, and it hurts so much, man, because I will be going to school and there'll be like, I forget what they call it. But it was like a where your parents would come in, you know, like a career day with your mom or your dad, and you invite one of them in, you know, and I remember people, parents coming in saying they're doing this and they're doing that and everything. and my parents never come in. You know, I was one of the very few kids that didn't have their parents come in, you know. And it's very shameful, man, and hurtful, you know.

But it's got to get through it. That's tough, man. You know, it makes people like me have a more appreciation for life and how I grew up because not everyone grows up in, like, that good supportive family. And I don't think at the time when I was in high school, I ever looked at the people that didn't have that, like if the roles were reversed and thought about what they were going through. And, you know, hopefully, like, the people that are listening, even the younger audience, you know, takes that second to really appreciate that and learn from that and try to give back to the world in that sense. Oh, I agree with you. Parenting and parenthood is, it should be priority number one, you know, even if it's unplanned pregnancy, you know, even if your child is out of wedlock or whatever.

I mean, once you find out, the lady finds out she's pregnant, that should be priority number one. Everything should be dropped. You know, you shouldn't choose no man over your child. You should focus 100%. So for those ones that are listening, the teenagers in Indiana and Austin up there that are doing hardships, you know, with unplanned pregnancy, you know, I highly recommend, you know, that you focus on your child, on your children and raising them, you know, morally and ethically sound, you know, to be sound people and productive citizens society.

Absolutely. So you join the Marine Corps. How long do you end up serving in the Marines? Four years. Four years. I was a tank crewman on M1A Abrams' main battle tank. I was stationed in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Jacksonville. I didn't go anywhere.

There wasn't any combats or anything. Wars going on at the time. The furthest I made is that California would fly out here once a year for a CACS combined arm exercise. It would be from a December to March. March, so I'd just be staying out in the Mojave Desert out in the middle of nowhere, man. You see nothing but desert and mountains out there. So I stayed out there, you know, three or four months every year. Then we would fly back to North Carolina.

What time period is this? This is 96 to 2000. And how old are you? 18. Yeah, 18. Yeah, I was 18. When I joined, I was 18. Did you enjoy it?

Like, did you think to yourself at that time period, I like this? Like, I could see myself doing it, or are you still kind of like lost in the world trying to figure it out uh those tanks are still you know they're still so um and we had a sleeping bag so we'd be sleeping on top of the tour i was a gunner i'd be down there in that gunner station falling asleep you know and uh my staff sergeant kicking my helmet you know he's trying to call me and i was asleep we'd be up for two or three weeks you know no sleep is simulated war you know no showers no hot meals morees you know and everything so um i was thinking i was like you know there has to be a better way than this i love america i'm i'm a hundred percent american diehard patriot man

and i love america but um i'm going to do my four years and service and i think i'm going back to indiana because that was a rough life in the marine corps as a combat mOS and like i said you know you're always doing maintenance on the tanks and we had a 50 cow up there browning and um m240 golf inside and then one outside and nine millimeter bread a holster and it got to got really hot inside those tanks in and here we are in 29 palms california 100 some degrees plus inside you know whenever i become a tank commander and we got further out in the out in the desert i told my crew i'm like look you can strip down to your skivvy shorts man you know your green shorts so here we are four jar heads out there and the mojave desert crews and it ain't

nothing but or nine millimeter k bar helmet and a pair of pt shorts and combat boots man yeah so chris where does it turn? Like life is, you did have some trauma in your childhood with the alcoholism, but you managed to pull through high school, get into the military. Where do things take a turn south? That's where it turns south in. While I was in the Marine Corps one night, we had a mine plow on our tank, and we went over an embankment, and we were like this, basically.

And like I said, I was a gunner, and I hurt my back. So they started giving me these pain pills called Tylox, and it was oxycodone. They're very, very potentate. And they would be giving me big tubs of them. So, you know, I got hooked on those. And right before I got out six months, I would probably be, I would be going back to Indiana with big tubs. And I would be taking them to a guy named Claude. He's dead now.

And he was my friend, William Nis. He was his grandfather. And real fast about William. He was six years old one night, William, up there in Austin, and I was like 16. And William had found a bunch of marijuana one time out in the cornfield. So we dried and got it prep ready to go. And I told him, hey, you know, I think I know where to sell this stuff. And he's like, okay, you know, he's six years old.

He's just a kid, you know. He's a hustler. So I went over there to the place, and the guy he hadn't paid us our money, you know. And I'm like, man, I don't know what to do, you know. And William's like in his garage back here. He's got like a bunch of cases of beer. So one night we went over there, and we got into his shed, started to get a bunch of beer. Next thing I know I heard a gun click, the hammer click back.

And I heard somebody say, don't move. Next thing I know I felt beer bust all over me. And William, six years old, you know, a little bitty guy, he hit the guy in the back of the hand with a can of beer and it knocked him out. And I took off running, you know. I was like, I ain't staying around. He's a horn. Hey, help me carry the beer. He's wild, William, you know. But he's doing really good today. He's got his own business going and everything. That's my, that's my homie right here, William. But I was taking the pills up there to Austin. And I noticed

the business started slacking in, and people's like, hey, there's this new drug. It's called oxy cotton. And I'm like, oh, okay. And he's like, every try, I'm like, no, I ain't tried it. And he's like, man, it's better than those tie locks, anything you've ever taken. I'm like, no, I've never taken it. so i come home discharged from the marine corps seems like the whole town you know is on oxy cotton and i'm like let me see one of them they're a little bit around things and i'm like uh he's like this is a 20 milligram i'm like how much it was like 10 dollars i'm like what for a pill he's like yeah in the 40s are 20 and and the 80s are 50 or something like that 40 or 50 i'm like man i ain't paying no 40 or 50 dollars for no pill but that's all you could get you know so i

ended up taking those pills and I got hooked on them. Oh, they made me so sick. The whole town was hooked on them. And the drugs, oxy cotton wasn't around before then, or at least in that area? No, it wasn't around that area. I did some research on it. I think they'd come out in like 95, I think. Who was bringing them in? Is it like a gang? Is it the Mexicans? Is it the white people? Who's bringing them? No, there's no gangs up there, up there and what happened was the people who manufactured the oxies they were targeting doctors in appellations you know poor communities in rural areas so the doctors quit writing the basic prescriptions for pain pills started giving everybody oxies the doctors were getting a kickback see so now all the older people that were on pain medicine you know basic pain medicine

they're getting oxies you know and the word got out so they started with the doctors is who it started with prescribing them. So you're saying like the medical industry helped fuel the addiction? Absolutely. Isn't that wild to think about it? I don't want to say the name of the manufacturing company that made them, but they did get a phylogist bankruptcy not too long ago, and they're from Connecticut. It's interesting to see someone that's a survivor like yourself of the addiction,

and I'm sure you've done a ton of research. Yes. That affected your life. Oh, it crippled me. were making millions people like you, and there's millions of people like yourself that went through this. And it was all because of that one accident that happened to you. Yes. They targeted the lower class rural areas as manufacturing company, and it really hit Austin, Indiana, very hard. It hit us very hard. And actually, you know, we have the largest HIV outbreak in the world per capita up there.

Wow. Yeah, and they had to open up a needle exchange clinic because the virus. was spreading so fast. Former President Mike Pence, he signed in the legislation and made it legal for a Neil Exchange program in Scott County. And he'd come on a news for it. There's been people come up there interview me, BBC News. I was reading that article. Yeah, British broadcast.

And they flew from Manchester, England, over to film me because the feds called me the opioid demon. That's what they label me, man, because I brought so many hundreds of thousand oxies back from the cartel in Mexico. So back to Austin, yeah. So now, you know, it's catching fire. The oxies are catching fire. Everybody's hooked on them and they're injecting him intravenously.

They're injecting the pills. You know, that was the best way to do it, you know. So, you know, right at the time, you know, oxies was everywhere and I'm hooked on them. Everybody's hooked on them. My friends are dying from them and everything. And it crippled me. I mean, I was hooked severely bad on them for like two or three years and I lost a lot. What was that feeling for you that wanted you to keep doing them after you tried them for the first time?

Like, how would you best describe that feeling to someone that's never been drugs, done that kind of drug before? Well, it was the best feeling up to that point. It was the best feeling I've ever had in my life. You know, when I put that needle in my arm with that oxy, it seemed like if I had some kind of trouble on my mind, it was all gone away. It was all gone away. and I had a warm feeling from head to toe.

And I was the happiest, joyous, a kind, loving person ever, you know, and I didn't care about anything, even if I didn't have a penny in my pocket or a crumb of food on the table. As long as I had that oxy to shoot my arm, I didn't care about you or nobody else. Wow.

It was terrible. And they called me the opioid demon because of it. And it was a demon. It's what it was. How does your addiction, your own addiction, translate into a business? where you're doing illegal activities and you're selling because it doesn't seem like you would have been very functional if you're if you're doing those types of drugs no there's a church that i go to redemption pentecostal church of god it's on wilbur avenue and um right across from that church is these apartments and they're known as wilbur avenue apartments they're two story very small well it used to flood back there in the back because the sewer system was broken and people's sewer just go right out into the yard so um

One time I was sitting there and there was these kids, man, there was needles laying everywhere. And there was these kids putting the sewer water into the needles and they were squirting each other. You know, like with water, it's like water guns, but there were needles. And I'm sitting there in the garage dating at the time. She come out there and she must have been able to see the disgust in my eyes, you know. And she's like this. She's like, well, Chris Revelow, she's like, it doesn't get any better than this, does it? she said you're we're at the um budhoe end of the earth you know she used the a word she you know

she said this is the worst that is she said this is bad i see yeah the only way to go is up from here baby you know i'm out of here and she's all what you're talking about i said i'm going somewhere tomorrow i said i don't know where but i'm getting out of austin you know i'm done with it you know and i counted my i had 14 needle marks in my arm that that night and um when i seen those kids man with those needles putting that sewer water and those needles little bitty kids in diapers and they're going around shooting i was like this ain't the place you know this this has got to be something different you know like i told her we're at the very bottom right now in austin and i said the only way to go was up you know so um that next morning i had a lady named jacky johnson her son passed

because of drugs not too long ago he overdosed and uh i told her hey look you know i want to get out of here and she took me to louisville to a place uh like like a drug place and i stayed in there and i got straightened out and i met a girl and uh we started dating and i moved in with her and uh i told her about austin i'm like look you know i'm from a place up here it's it's oxy heaven you know if if i could find a connect you know i think i could go down there you know and take it over and she went down there with me and she's like man you're right she's like i ain't never seen that like this before, you know, people walking up down the street, you know, holding their arms,

blood running from their arms and stuff. It's not like that anymore, and I'll get to that. It's in a recovery revolution, Austin, Indiana now. You know, and they have people like Lisa, St. Lisa, Patrick Webster, and Kelly Hans and

Shnita Flemingon, those people are at the forefront of recovery revolution. Austin was once known to a place to come from all over the country, basically, and get your oxies. But now they're coming there, you know, to to do recovery and you can get help in a heartbeat and recover because of those ladies so i get with the girl you know and uh she's like yeah i know somebody you know he owns a strip club he's

a strip for him she introduced me to him and he turns me on to some of them i take him up there get rid of him in austin come back and uh long story short he can't he can't supply me you know with enough of them so i meet this muslim dude from detroit he's cool i got nothing but love for the Muslims, man. And yeah, and he's cool. And he supply me good. You know, he's bringing me. I called him logs. He would bring at nighttime. He would bring me about that long with black electrical tape. They would be started out there. It would be maybe 10 to 12,000, you know, at each one. So he'd bring them there. And I would get them off pretty quick, you know, a couple weeks. I moved 10, 15,000 oxies in a couple weeks. So he ends up, he comes to me one time.

he says, hey, he's like, man, you made me a lot of money. He said, and it's time to quit. He's like, I found a gas station. We're going to turn into a tire shop. He's like, I want you to come there and just watch over things, man. You know, you don't have to do nothing. I said, what are you saying? He's like, I'm not going to supply you anymore.

And I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do that, man. I'm from Austin. You know, I'm a natural born hustler. That's all I know. I'm not going to do no business. You know, I'm about making money. Do you think you started getting greedy at that point? Yes, because.

you saw the money flowing in not only that you're talking about a boy that um that on the weekend there was nothing neat at his grandpa's in austin man and i were going old abandoned houses man looking for food and i sometimes i one time i found a uh a box of cereal and the building in the house was infested with cockroaches in and i found a box of cereal man roaches crawling all that box of cereal and i just dumped the whole thing out and i was separating the cornflakes from the cockroaches and the roaches eggs, man, and I didn't even have no milk or anything. I put water in it. So you're talking to somebody from Pistol City that come up with nothing, you know,

in the middle of cornfield. So when I got a taste of that money, it was like nothing else, you know, I was eating, man. I was putting food in my stomach and I was putting clothes on my feet, on my body, you know, shoes on my feet. And, you know, when I got to taste that fast good money from them oxies, there's no way anybody was going to try to coerce me in and start no body. business. How much money are you making at this point? Do you have an idea? Are you struggling to get

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You know, like I say, doctors were getting busted. Some of the pharmacists were getting busted. So for the 40s, they were going for $40 a piece, and I was getting them for like $7 or $8. In the 80s, they were going for 80, and I was getting them for like $10, I think, $10 a piece. And what would happen was you could go down there and piece them out all day long for $80 milligram, but I had three or four homeboys.

that were real close, and I would give them to them on front for like 50 or 60. They'd make 20 or 30 a piece off of them, and I'd have to put no money up to me. I'd bring them straight to their house. They would call me. You know, I'd come back up 65 from Louisville, get off to Austin exit, go pick that money up, and then come straight back. So, you know, I had built a new house. You know, I had got a new Camero shipped in from Cali.

Shipped in. So we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh, yeah. In one week? Oh, no, no, no, not a week. You know, probably in about a couple months. You know, I'm probably making about clearing, clearing a weekly, probably making about, no, nine or ten thousand a week. Which is a lot of money for your early 20s and you've never had that?

Man, especially from somebody from Austin, Indiana. Do you think that if you were never under the influence of the drugs themselves, that you never would have gotten into this enterprise? or do you think if you had found them, even if you weren't using them, the money would have caught up and you would have still sold them regardless? Well, when I left Austin that night with 14 needle marks in my arm, like I said, I got off of them. I went to rehab. I quit it. But I did get on this drug called methadone, and it had a blocker in it. You know, if you do the methadone, you can't get high off any other opiate.

And one of the reasons I've done that is I'll tell you later in the story is I get put up. over a lot you know and i'd have some oxies and i'd be able to eat them and not feel the effect you know so when the cops are behind me getting ready to walk up i would just pop a handful of the oxies and the evidence is gone and i'm not overdosed and i'm not even filling them because the methadone has a blocker in it but to answer your question yeah of course man um you know i knew the ends and outs when i left austin hey you know i know the suppliers and from the marine corps um i used the military strategy the first thing you do to your um to your opponent is a cut their supply line off you know and i knew when people were bringing them i knew when they got their

pills so i went to those people i said look the game's going to change i'm going to flip it over i'm going to lock it down here's how it's going to happen i said you either get in or you get out with me and then what's going to happen is i know you're taking the pills over here on this day i know how much they're giving you i want to give you 10 more and i'm going to give it to you on advance so now you've got all the major players in austin they're like man where's my oxy connection people coming from the doctors they're not coming anymore, you know. So I cut the supply line off. I'm getting all the oxies from the street, and I'm getting them from my Muslim connection.

So basically, you know, you have your out-of-staters that would come in periodically, you know, but I had it locked down at that point. Do you think the military prepared you in, like, a dominance role to be able to assert yourself and take over? Because you were like a quiet kid growing up that liked his alone time, and now you're kind of turning into a kingpin a little bit in this town. You know, in a way you are. Yes, I slowly morphed into it. Like you say, you know, I was quiet coming up in school and everything, you know. And I'm slowly morphing into someone that I just never thought I would be.

And like I said, I didn't wake up one day and say, hey, I'm going to lock the whole town down. I'm going to take over the OxyContin game. It didn't happen that way, you know, it gradually progressed. And with all the money coming in, there was no way I could turn my back on that at any point. because like you say i'm coming from someone of parents that had no education that worked in the fields you know in jackson county indiana you know we had hardly any money coming in just enough to eat and nothing else so there's no way that i could turn down that money but but the military it did prepare me you know because like i say um i would set up like what i call headquarters you know

one week i would go to this house my friend we would sell that house he'd come on i'd switch over to the other side of town. And growing up, I've seen a lot of people getting busted, you know, in their house, selling out of their house. And I say, man, you know, why don't I just be a mobile drug dealer in my car? And that's what I did, you know. I didn't have a place. I wasn't a sitting duck in Austin. I didn't have a house that draw to heat, you know, that they could do surveillance. I had four different vehicles that I switched. You know, one week I would drive one vehicle. Next week, I would drive another one. You know, I rotated the vehicles. Yeah. So your connect ends up saying he wants out.

Right. Where does it go from here? Okay. So by this time, you know, I'm helping my homeboys. Some of them are doing good. Some of them got their children back, you know. Some got their license back. Some of them started business, you know. And I'm like, man, I can't, you know, I can't stop, you know, for myself either. Because I don't know anything else to do. I'm out of the Marine Corps. I never had a job up to that point.

Just hustling, you know, being from Austin, I was just a hustler. and I didn't want to stop. So the Muslim guy cut me off from Detroit. So I tell my girl, she's like, man, what are we going to do now? And I'm like, I don't know what we're going to do. So I started thinking. I said, hey, I know somebody that might be able to turn me on to connection in Mexico, maybe like a high-powered plug, you know.

She's like, well, she broke the laptop out. She's like, where are we going? You know, let's get the tickets. And I'm like, let's shoot down to San Diego, you know. So I'll make the communications necessary. And the guy's calling me. He's like, hey, Chris, he's like, you don't know me and everything. But so-and-so told me, you know, that maybe you're interested in coming down here and talking

or something. I'm like, of course I am. So we went down to San Diego. We crossed from T1 into Mexico, San Yedro to T1 of Mexico. And I had to sit down with Huffy, they call him as the boss, you know, of the cartel down there. He was a lieutenant. He was a lieutenant in the cartel. And I sit down with him.

And he was like, look, so-and-so spoke very highly of you. They say you're very integrity-oriented my person. You're very hungry, you know, and determined. And he's like, that's what it takes in here. He's like, you have to have loyalty with me, you know, and for sure, never to tell. And I said, I would never do anything like that to you, you know. And he's like, okay. And he's like, I'm going to turn you on to a plaza boss.

And what a plaza boss is down here in Tijuana, there's different markets and stores. they control every section. So he sent me over there. I sit down with Puma, because he's dead now. Puma was his name. I sit down with him, and he's like, what can we do? And I said, man, I'm looking for these things called OxyContin. And he's like, okay.

So they knew what they were. And he went and he's digging through these trash bags, man, full of big tubs, full of pills. So he showed them to me. I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. And he's like, how many you want? You know, I told him. He's like, when you got the money, I was like, I didn't bring it today. I said, I'll bring it tomorrow. And he's like, okay. So the next morning, we get up, you know, we go over there.

And we conduct the trade, the business the first time. I bought the oxies from the cartel. What was that day? And we end up flying back up there to Indiana. But I have the-paying with cash on the spot? Yeah, cash. So no credit or anything. Oh, I never do credit. I never do credit with the cartel. What's it like for a young 20-year-old, you know, early 20s to go and sit down in a meeting with the cartel? Because I'm sure you've heard stories, especially in your time in the military and just in the world we live in in that time period. Were you scared?

Are you like, what's your feelings, your thoughts? My girlfriend was scared. She was very scared. You brought your girlfriend with you? Yeah, she's the one that carried the cash over. She was hard. She was a soldier, boy. She was a real one, yeah.

Yeah, she was a soldier for me, man. She loved me and I loved her, you know, and I'm, look, look, we're going to ride it till the wheels fall off, you know. I'm going to bond you out. Something happens, and I'm going to take to wrap for it. So, you know, don't worry about nothing. You're going to be all right. So, but what it was like, you know, when we went into the plaza, I walked before we crossed the road in, there was a telephone. And there was a cop on the phone, right?

And I'm, like, tripping out. I thought, man, they set me up, you know, this is a heck of way to go. So the dude, the cop's standing there, and I'm staring at him. him and he's looking at me he's shaking his head and he pointed that way and i went down there and there the dude was puma and he's like come here you know so we're sent back there and it's like a storage shed like a roll storage shed it's not like some big fancy place you think and uh it was like a labyrinth man they had like an old poncho uh thing hanging down mexican poncho and he moved that thing and there was like a jewelry case but it had like a mexican artifacts in it and then we walked through there

and there was another poncho and then it went downstairs under the storage shed and then if you're looking from outside the building you're downtown plazza like a mall you'd never think there was underground but we walked down under the stairs and it was dark and i'm like this is where i die you know this is where i die right here so i get down there and they turn the light on and that's where the garbage bags and stuff and they got the pills and everything but i wasn't so much scared i was i was obsessed you know with the money you know that was my main objective I really didn't care who got hurt, who got killed. I didn't care if I got hurt or killed.

My main thing was to get them oxies back to Austin, Indiana, and eat and have my homeboys eat. So let's talk about that. You meet with the cartel. You exchange. You get the drugs. How do you get them back across the border? That's what I was going to tell you. I have the blueprint.

You know, I have the blueprint right here. And when they told me, because they're powerful people, you know, the cartel. They're billionaires, man. And it seemed like they have someone in every. type of business you know whether it be in the political business the mayors governors or whatever they have people also working on the border border patrol and the checkpoints and they also have people working in an airline industries believe it or not over here in america so when i told them my route you know my my routes that i was taking on airplanes they said you know let us get back

with you first you know because i told them hey how am i supposed to get all these freaking tens of thousand oxy-cottons on an airliner man and all the way back and they've got to go through the scanner and they said let us know uh what airports you're going to and i told them and man they gave me the names of people and the schedules yes yeah they said is there a fax machine somewhere near you i said yeah down here at croger over here and they said okay give us address and then go over there and pick the uh facts up i went over there look they had the names of the people had their pictures had their TSA badges, airport badges, and had their schedules for the week, man. I'm like, man, this is some crazy stuff, you know?

And that's how it happened right there, partially. This is all influenced by money, like the power of money, and they just have ridiculous amounts of money. They have an indispensable amount of narcotics and money. And this is 30 years ago, 20 years ago. So imagine how much more sophisticated they are now with technology, because you said they were facts. things over. Yes. Imagine now.

I would hate to imagine what's going on now. It's scary. Are you seeing violence with the cartel at all? I've seen one violent act over there. I went to a soccer game, you know, because the guy was like, hey, you know, I want you hang out for a little bit. I was like, okay. So I was over at a soccer game.

When I'm in a soccer game, the dude had a soccer field in his backyard. This lieutenant did. He had a big, big compound, man. And it had a gate, you know. and we went in before me and my girl go in and we had to give our phones up before we went into the compound they said give us your phones and i was like okay give them your phone gave them their phone no electronic devices nothing they had a metal detector they want got us out of the vehicle they wanted us and everything so we get in there and the dudes are playing soccer they love soccer over there and while they're playing soccer you know um i seen like a few guys going around somebody and i was watching over there and they just started beating the crap out of a dude

I don't know why. It was none of my business. Started beating him pretty good, you know, get him on the ground and kicking him in real good. But then the next day or the next trip, when I was in the plaza, it went down the concrete did, and there was metal bars, you know, like where stuff goes. And Puma was there.

I said, hey, Puma. I said, what's up, man? Let's go out to eat or something. He's like, hold on. Don't come over here. Don't come over here. I said, okay. And he's got a water hose, and he's talking on the phone. He's like, tell him to start cleaning. their mess up and it was red i'm pretty sure it was blood he's like yeah i'm out here right now and

it's hot out here you can smell this stuff man he's spraying it down with the water hose it looked like blood to me i don't know what happened somebody got slaughtered or what wow do you think they were showing you that to scare you not to screw with them or snitch on them or anything like that no but one night what they did do is um when i went there to meet them and they were already gone right for the night well there was another dude a restaurant right there and i sit down there and uh we're eating he's like hey you want some cocaine i'm like no i don't do cocaine he's like what do you do i said oxy cotton he's like i can get those too i'm like really he's like yeah and he's telling me how much he's like hold on he's like come in there so he took me in there and by the kitchen and we're sitting down

and then the walkways here and uh we're sitting and it just so happens one of the soldiers where the cartels sees me he said hey what are you doing i ain't a lot of the cartilage I'll never lie to the cartel. I told Heffy, I'll never lie to you, Heffy, boss. And I say, hey, I'm getting some oxies. You guys weren't here and stuff. I have to come back tomorrow. He's like, who you're getting oxies from?

I said, this guy, I pointed at him. He was cooking. And he ran around the counter and grabbed a hold of the guy. Man, he grabbed him and put his face down there by the flat grill. And the guy's screaming. He's holding on to the thing right here in his face almost on the grill. He's telling him in Spanish. He's like, you know, that's me.

You know he's with me. He knows what he's with us. you've got no business he's not yours and he's telling me hey did you approach him or did he approach you first and i said no man i asked him you know i told him hey i don't do cocaine i do oxies he's like okay and uh he let the guy go he'd come back around there and he said come on and told me my girl come on he's like don't be doing business with nobody else he's like listen when you're with us he can you cannot do business when nobody else you belong to us but you are probably okay with that because they were giving you it for a good price

Yes, yes. Wow. Now, if you had to put it into a word or a sentence, what would you describe your relationship with the cartel as? Are you the connect? Are you a lieutenant? What are you exactly? No, I'm just a purchaser. I was just someone that purchasing the pills, but they thought I was fascinating, and I could tell, you know,

because I have such a country accent and I get very dark, you know, and I told them, hey, I'm from Hispanic descent. and he's like let me see your ID card and i was like see your revelos he's like man i didn't even know they had Mexicans in indiana they said that's what they said i said yeah they have us we're up there a few of us and stuff he's like okay so you know i'll start building a rapport with them you know when i tell them i'll come back you know and i started coming back you know i went down there 42 45 times you know over a three years span man it seems like i was going down there once a month and it was just like they were getting used to me you know they're telling me hey you know uh yeah

let's go eat first though you know and then here's a funny thing one time uh i went down there he's like look he's like things are going to be different when you come back next time and uh i was like what do you mean he's like it just is and uh he's like uh we're having a difficult time Chris i'll be honest with you getting these pills Ian I went down here next time okay they put me in the vehicle they take me down to the plaza and stuff and they pull up to this pharmacy and yeah they pull up to a pharmacy man and there's boxes of stuff stuff outside and there's a little bitty Mexican people coming in and out stuff. And he's like, come on inside. I said, okay. And he's like, sorry. He's like, I try to have it cleaned up better

for you, before you got here. I said, okay. And he's like, I bought a pharmacy, a whole chain of pharmacies. I said, really? You know, I didn't want to ever disrespect them or be out of character, so I was always serious with him. I said, really? He said, of course. He's like, I want to try to accommodate you, man, best I can. So you go across the border over 40 times. Were there ever any close calls with transporting it back? Yes. Give me probably the best or funniest story with a close call.

Well, one time. So whenever you're coming out of the plaza, you have to go through the border patrol right here, and there's like five to six lines, you know, it's inside. By this time, it's got a roof over. And there's like five or six lines, and you have the Border Patrol agents. They're either checking your passport or your ID card. And then over here, there's like two Border Patrol guys, and they have German Shepherd dogs.

So I'm just kicked back. I'm watching my girl, you know, she's got the passport, and she's got the pills on her. And we know what line to get in. We know they showed us a picture. Hey, this is who's working the line, and this is where you go. Don't go outside this line, no matter how long it takes you. Stay in their line.

They're going to take care of you. I said, okay, so we're standing there in line. My girl's already passing everything, and I'm watching. man these two dudes out of the left corner my eye just take they're probably about 15 people back from from the check from the guard and they just boat start running dogs man they unchained their dogs and their german shepherd tackled the people right there in the line in okay it's like me and you're standing in line for something you know there's five or six lines you're going to a basketball game just imagine out of corner of your eye you see two mexican people just boat you know out of nowhere and then the people let the dogs lose big German dogs and they tackled them, man. I guess, you know, I don't know what made them a boat. I don't know why if they lost their nerve or thought they might get busted or what,

but man, they're over close about three lines over from them German Shepherds. Then boys just took off and I looked, man, them dog just jumped on top of him and started eating, you know what, out of him. But that didn't stop you or discourage you because you were just focused on the money and selling it. Yes, plus I never had anything on me. When I crossed, I never had nothing. And my girl, she took it across every time.

She had the passport. Wow. Yeah, so when she threw that passport, man, he didn't ask her. But when I went up there, if you don't have a passport, they say, let me see your idea or passport. They say, I'll have a passport. Here's my ID. Then they start asking you questions. Hey, where are you coming from, Indiana or Kentucky?

What was you doing down here? What business? You know, how long was you there? I was like, I was over here just buying some things, visiting. Okay, how long was you staying? This and that. Where are you going now? things like that.

Now, Chris, the types of drugs you were bringing across the border and large, large quantities, these are drugs that kill people. Yes. Did you feel bad about that at that time period? I know your outlook on it is way different now. But during that time, are you ever thinking, hey, I shouldn't be doing this? Well, outside the oxies, I've never did methamphetamine. I did some cocaine.

And I've only brought back, you know, just a small amount of cocaine, maybe 50s. 50, 60 pounds of cocaine as all I've ever brought back with me from over there. And the reason of such a small quantity is because in my town, I had a few businessmen, you know, that they liked doing cocaine. I won't mention their name because some of them are still alive and they have legitimate businesses. And they did cocaine. And they would tell me, hey, you know, when I got out of the Marine Corps, hey, can you like cocaine? I said, no, I don't do that stuff.

And he's like, man, I love it. It makes me feel like Superman. And one of the people did that owns a big business up there. And he's like, can you get it? And I'm like, no, I can't get it. You know, but when I started going over there with the cartel, I went to the guy and said, hey, you still do that cocaine? And he's like, yes.

I'm like, look, I'm like, what do you give them for a key, which is a little over 2.2 pounds? I'm like, you're probably giving, what, 40 for a key from Chicago? It's probably cut all the pieces. I said, I'll consider 25. and it says it's going to be pure Bolivian cocaine, probably a 90, 95% pure anything like has ever hit the streets of Indiana. And I'll guarantee it, and I don't need the money up front.

All I need is a guarantee that you will have the money when I bring it to you. He's like, consider it done. So I bring back like 10 or 12 pounds my first time of cocaine, and I take it to Austin. And there's a highway called 256. The highway that I was raised on, it goes, out in the fields and stuff out in the country and I would take it out there you know and bury it for a night or two and then I'd make sure no one was following me nothing happened because I don't

want to get these people in trouble they own businesses and I'm very close to them and when I finally felt safe you know I'll tell the guy look you're ready to do this you know but um to answer your question you know I never felt bad because at the time is because I knew where it was going to this guy was probably going to break it up with a lawyer I know a lawyer up there right now, you know, and they partake in that stuff, you know, some of the law enforcement. And I thought, well, I got a good idea where this stuff's going. It's not going to hit the street. They're probably going to use it periodically on the weekend. So I really didn't have any regrets with that. Yeah, but you're moving a lot of weight in general. How, describe your whole operation,

how much money you're making, how you laundered the money, day-to-day operations, how many people are working for you and what, like, the inner workings are. Yeah, so I had, Six planes in the air one night. I had six commercial airliners up in the air one night. And I'd have these what I call transporters. And I would bring the people from Indiana, my transporters. I would put each one on a different flight. And none of them, none of them.

Every one of them thought they were the only person. None of them knew about the other ones. The one never knew about the other five. So I figured, you know, one of them gets caught. They tell on me. They're telling on me. They're telling on themselves. They're not,

and the other five is going to make it, see? So I had these transporters, and like I say, the best I ever did was I had six planes up in air one night, at one night, six commercial airliners. One of them was going to Washington Dollies in Washington. One of them was going to Hartfield, Atlanta, and Jackson.

One of them was going to Raleigh International, and then one of them was going to Chicago, ohara and then i forget where the other two were going but that's basically how that went in i had the transporters because i would tell the cartel hey this is the six airports i want to try to do something big you know i started out one two and i said if i can do one or two can you not give me the information on six uh tsa you know airline people you know that that'll be work in the airport and their days he's like yeah but your schedules might conflict they may not I'd all be working at the same time.

You know, and it just happened to hit the jackpot one time when I was down there. They said, you know what, Chris? And he's like, man, we got six. We got clearance for six airports, man, today, you know, which was tomorrow at this point. He was like, for tomorrow, you know, I'm like, man, that's cool because I brought eight transporters with me, you know. I'll keep two with me and I'll put six up on the planes. So, like I said, I have the blueprint, you know, and I don't want to give the details,

but we strap them down, you know, in the motel room. You know, I had six different motel rooms, man, in San Diego, California, and I would visit each one, you know, and I would give them the final details, the final, the master plan was what I called the master plan. You know, I'm like, look, this is the plan, this is the details, you know, it's very simple. You're going to get on the plane. You don't worry about it. You keep it right in your luggage. When it goes through the screening process, the woman or man are going to be there. They know what you look like.

They know your name. They got your information. There's nothing to work. worry about and so that's the many as I had at one night six but that's how it worked I would strap them down I already had information from the cartels of the schedules and one of the flights and everything and that's how that's how it works what do you make on on a drop like that yeah so like I said those business people up there I suspected they were paying 40 for a kilo of cocaine cut all the pieces and I told them I would entertain 20, 25. So I ended up getting them for, you know,

20. I said, look, you're making, you're spending 40. I'm going to give it to you for 20. I'm getting it for 10, you know. So I'd make 50 or 60,000. Each, each spot. Yeah, no, off all. Oh, total. Yeah, off. I make 10 a key. So, and you're sending what to each location about one kilo? Yep. So the way it is now with TSA and airport security, would this be possible? possible in this day and age? Or is this only because it's before 9-11 era? Well, I mean, I'll never underestimate the power of the cartel. That's for sure. Because, you know, money talks in this world, and that's what greases the will, you know. And if you find

somebody that can be breached, in other words, you find somebody that would be willing to be breached, you know, and influenced with money, then the cartel, like you said, they have endless amount of money. So... Like in the prison system, We see guards become corrupt all the time over money. And we think America thinks that it's a secure system when it's not. There's breaches everywhere. Oh, yes, yes. Law enforcement, everything.

Of course, politicians. Everybody's got their hands in it, you know, for the money. But to answer your question, I don't know if it will be possible or not, but I know anything's possible when you have a billion dollars, you know, at your disposal, like the cartel. How do you spend your money at that time? And how do you clean it? Because you have to clean it, right? You can't just pay cash for everything.

No, and that's what got me. It's what got me busted. So let's talk about that, too, how you got busted and what you were doing to clean it. Yeah, so what happened was, well, to clean it first. Yeah, because the money was being accumulated, man, we would be having it on top of the mattress counting it, you know, and it'd take like hours to count this stuff. And then we finally went and got a money counting machine and made it easier, you know, for stuff. Man, we would be up hours counting that money. That was the worst part.

I started telling people, no more 20s, man. Go get hundreds, man. Please, I'll give you a discount, man, because it's taking an ungodly amount of time to count this money. You know, I prefer 50s and hundreds as possible. I'll give you a discount if you do that for me. So, you know, it took a long time. But what happened, though,

oh, man, I don't want to get too much into the details about laundering the money, but to make a long story short, I bought a lot of gold. You know, they would call them logs, and it would be like 10 gold coins, double eagle coins, you know, and it would be ounces, you know, and it was like back then, gold was an all-time high, $12, $1,500 an ounce. So I bought a lot of gold.

I bought a lot of gold off those Muslims. I called him, I said, man, you know anybody up there in Michigan? He's like, yeah, come on. So I go up there, I come back with pounds, man, of those logs of ounces of gold. And I would just go out there into the country on that farm, man, and bury it. There was a big, big beach tree, man, out there. My mom's out in the field. And I knew nobody would ever mess with that.

They owned a property. And I buried that gold, man. I buried it. And that's basically I just invested in gold. Because you can't really trace that gold, you know. If you go to sell it, you know, it's basically, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. So you had a system. You're making great money.

It seems like you're running this whole operation pretty much by yourself. So you weren't exposed necessarily in that realm. How do you get arrested? how do they come on to you yeah so um so when i read the paperwork what had happened was um i'm flying in from san diego that night just me and my girl and um i'm getting waiting on my bag to come out and i heard somebody say chris revelos i said yeah he's like a special agent detective bracket fbi i and he looked like a crackhead man i have no i'm not disrespecting the fbi i'm not disrespecting the fbi i'm he looked like a crackhead in he had a nikey windbreaker skinny gruffy looking

a pair of blue jeans a pair of Nike shoes on and he nzipped it and he had the FBI badge here and he's like you're under arrest and I'm like for what he's like failure to appear traffic violation Jefferson County Kentucky I said what is the feds doing you know arrest me on a traffic violation he said come with me I'll find out they take me into a room into the airport sent me there they got my luggage out looking for it where's the pills where's the pills I ain't saying nothing and they pull my stuff out pull my debit card out and he's like here's how i was tracking you and i'm gonna sit there handcuff like that there's d a u.s marshals homeland security around me sitting there you know

staring at me and stuff and he breaks the laptop out and he brings it in front of me he was like uh two days ago he's like you uh wired um i don't know it was 64 000 i think from uh louisville he's like to well as far go account san diego and he's like you only have 34 dollars in your pocket he said we're $64,000 go to. I ain't saying nothing. Man, I looked on that laptop. It had where I ate at, all the Mexican restaurants, all the clothes I bought, the times of days, everything.

They track you, you know, with your debit card, credit cards. They know exactly what you're doing, the feds, man. Anytime use any time, electronic transactions, they're on you. So when I, okay, so he's like, well, we end up going to jail, me and my girl. And I didn't have not one pill on me. This is the crazy thing. We didn't get caught with any pills, man. Zero pills at the airport.

And I still got almost six years in federal prison. And they didn't catch me with not one pill or her. But they knew what you were doing. Yeah, because, and another thing he showed me, he was like, and this is how many times you crossed the border. Because remember I had to give my ID and they input the information. He's like, what are you doing? Crossing the border all these times and stuff.

So what happened when I got the paperwork, it said they got a phone call. man the Louisville interdiction unit got a phone call that me and my girl might be coming back in with possession of narcotics and stuff and um it was a guy i was a guy that told all me i'm almost 100% sure i know who it was and uh so so basically you know that's all it was that's all they had you know somebody had called so i was doing really good under the radar man really good you were lucky you weren't caught with the drugs or the money otherwise you would have been really in trouble and And it also makes you think if they didn't tip their hand, they probably could have caught you with something that seems like they were a little eager to grab you. They was. They wasn't. And they were just, I read the paperwork. It was like a two-page summary, man, simple saying they got the phone call.

Did the cartel like sent anyone to come visit you to make sure you're not going to snitch? As we bonded out that night, I bonded to south of Jefferson County jail in Louisville. I bonded out. And then like two days later, I went straight back down there. I told Hepie what happened. And he's like, look, he's like, if you want, he's like, you want to chill for a little bit. And he's like, or he's like, you ain't got to cross no more. He's like, you see that guy standing there? I looked over there, some big white dude, man. He's like, yeah, he's like, he's going to meet you over there in San Diego.

He's like, don't cross no more for a while. I said, okay, I'm like, well, I don't want to take nothing back now because they could be expecting me, you know, to do something. So I don't want to, I want to chill for a little bit. Plus, I still had an ungodly amount of oxies up there stashed anyway, you know, enough for last me for a couple months. But I went back down there and told him two days after I got busted, man. You weren't in fear of your life going back over there and telling him because he could have thought you were bringing heat or wearing a wire.

Exactly. He could have just killed you and been done with you and then that's it. That's what my girl said. She didn't go with me that time. She always wanted to go with me before. Dude, this is like Ozark. This is the way this is old things play it out, Ben. I know because like you have some country boy like me from the cornfields of Indiana, man,

from rural country, you know, coming from nothing, and I end up being with the cartel in the bed with the cartels, man. Wow. So how much, did you realize how much time you were facing at that point? No, and how they convert the pills on my lawyer. Well, so when I went to jail, okay, so I go back to Louisville court, right? And the FBI guy was like, hey, come here. I need somebody introduce you to.

I said, my lawyer didn't tell you, I'm not cooperating. He says, they got nothing to do with cooperation. I go over there, man. He introduced me to a guy. he's talking to somebody and about 30 seconds later he said you Chris Revelos and I said yeah he said DEA he starts getting his handcuffed he said you're under arrest I said for what I said I just got arrested 30 days ago I bonded out he's like he just got bumped the federal my man and he said there ain't going to be no bond for either he said I already talked to the judge and he said you ain't

going nowhere that's what he said I thought you were a flight risk exactly and what's that feeling do you know like you're you're caught at that point like you're yeah Yeah, so I said, well, since there's no bond, I'm going to get some high-profile lawyer, you know, like Johnny Cochran or something crazy, somebody like him. How old are you when this happened? I'm in my early 20s, man. What's your relationship with your parents when this is going on? Oh, they don't know nothing. They don't know anything.

Oh, heck no. Wow. They don't know nothing because when I pull up to see my dad, I'm driving some 19, early 90s, four-door, buickless saber, a grandma-looking car, man. You kept under the radar. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I never had no shiny rims. I never had no tin.

I never had no boom, boom coming from my car. It was like when they sent me, he's like, there's old average Chris, man, driving in Grandma's car, four door, you know? Average clothes, man. Do you end up taking a plea deal or you go to trial? Yeah, so I said, I went, they sent me to Odom County, Kentucky, LaGrange County, or LaGrange, Odom County.

It was a federal holdover. I do about 11 months there, man. It's a pretty cut and dry case, you know. hey, you know, they've got you here crossing Chris, you know, somebody said you've been bringing this many pills across at a time. If you don't take the plea bargain, they're going to take those 40-some times you cross times the amount the person said you had, and that's a lot. Or you can plead to a simple possession with intent. I said, how much time he's like, you're looking about five and a half, six years. I'm like, man, I didn't get caught with nothing.

And he's like, the feds can do that's called ghost dope. They said, all they do have to have is somebody's word that you are doing it, man. Wow. Isn't that crazy? But when they want you, they can get you and they can add it on even if they don't have the proof. And a lot of it's intimidation and tactics because they tried to press me in that regard, you know? And they have the full weight of the government that they could use. They could do whatever.

I remember I'd hear stories they would call up witnesses knock on the door and say, hey, we're going to indict you if you don't testify. Oh my God. Things like that. They were intimidating you. They were saying they were going to indict my dad if I didn't take a plea deal. No, man. We can't do that, man.

It's wild what they can do and the power they hold. Like you say, it's the United States ever government. Powerful country in the world, man. I don't want to go against them. So what's that conversation like with your parents saying, hey, I'm taking a six-year plea deal? Yeah, so my dad, they'd come visit me, you know, over there and stuff. I make sure I was okay. My sister and stuff, I'm like, she's like, what?

was going to happen i'm like look i'm probably going to do five and a half six years they start crying and stuff you know and i'm like they was like we didn't even have no idea you know you were doing this stuff i'm like we're not supposed to have an idea you know and he's like man we're going be praying for you you know they're very big in the church my dad's very religious stepmom phil it's going to be praying for they pray for me finally you know i took the deal man i took it i took a lock plea because i heard these stories hey you can get with the attorney general for 120 months and then go on there and the judge bump it to 200 months, you know. So my lawyer's like, man, we're going to get you a C plea, I think it was, a locked plea.

This is guaranteed. This can't give you anything else for you withdraw the plea. So I took a locked plea for six years, I think it was. And when you go into federal prison, well, one, what federal prison did you go to and what security prison is up? Yeah, so what happened is I kind of got screwed over because I'm out on a case from Scott County for intimidation and confinement. I put a dude in the trunk, man, and I was riding around with him. escape from the trunk through the back seat i went in to my homeboy's trailer and campbell's trailer court i come back out and the door was open in the trunk i'm like no man no and i heard like like that right

there and i was dark outside i can hear his feet going down the road he just must escape from the trunk man so i'm out on a confinement intimidation and uh the feds have me and i can't make it to court so they put a detainer on me right so that gives me like six after points and that bumps me to high security, USP, United States penitentiary. They put you in a penitentiary? Yes. The first time ever arrested with a military service record, you go to a penitentiary? Yes, Big Sandy.

You went to Big Sandy, the most dangerous federal prison in America. Yeah, we had Chad Marks on here to talk about that. You know Chad Marks. Yes, yes, blood on a razor wire. Yeah, because he's like, man, I know the same people you know in there. They send me to the most dangerous federal prison in America, man. what's that late for your first time and i'll tell you what it's like for the first time i ain't got no problem to tell you what it's like because it changed me big man i went there uh i pulled it up

and there's like six guard towers on the outside and there's one little bit lower in the middle and it was double razor wire man and uh with with an electric thing going through the middle so i'll pull up there they get me out of the van the dude comes out with the freaking machine gun on m16 well i could tell you about con air first real fast so um when they ship me from i pled guilty they took me from uh oldham county to litchfield grason county kentucky i did like 30 days there because i was already since i was waiting to be processed you know bop bureau prison send me where they want so one night they'd come there they'd come at night and they write your name and destination on the window they put a revelos uh usp big sandy uh a t

all the way ATW and the dudes are like who's a revelos and uh little old Chris man yo they's like man what'd you do bro I'm like nothing got some pills he's like man you killed somebody didn't you I said man you know me I've been there 30 days I ain't no killer man he said man my brother's in Big Sandy they're on lockdown they get killed all the time man is that's where you're going I said how you know they said that's what USP Big Sandy's like you're going all the way that means they're going to transport you on on the van so um they take me to um yeah yeah they take me okay i'll tell you when i violate what happened but but uh oh yeah so they take me to the airport man and um in lexington and and so they flies from lexington to um Atlanta Georgia man and then from

uh Atlanta Georgia they flies uh on on the con air the federal thing but but when uh but i was looking because The sun was coming up. I could see outside. And there was like six U.S. Marshals formed perimeters with submachine guns, man. And I'm, like, thinking, I don't belong here, man. I'm from Austin, Indiana. These other dudes are big timers. You know, I'm thinking, but, hey, this is where I'm at, man.

I got to, you know, it's time to man up, man. So they get us on the plane. Oklahoma City, spent a couple weeks there, process me, fly me back to Atlanta, then bused me from there to Big Sandy. So I'm a big Sandy. Dude is like guards like, is he any good? He's like, yeah, he don't have any. because he made me take my paperwork with me man he's like he don't have any kitty charges no

sex offender charges nothing and he's he didn't cooperate so he's good to walk he's like okay so they take me in there i'm waiting on the gang unit the s i s i s to come in he's like uh man are are you with the uh california mexican mafia i was like what yeah and he's like he's got a oh three three number which is kentucky i said no i said i'm not with no mafia he's like you ain't no South Sider. I said, no, I'm not with none of that stuff. We don't have no gangs in Indiana. They's like, okay, man, you've got the shortest prison sentence we've ever seen here at Big Sandy. These dudes got double life, lifers, everything. And I'm like, I wasn't saying nothing. I didn't know what was going on. He's like, my lieutenant will come in in a minute. So he'd come in.

He's like, man, he's like, the best thing for you to do, Mr. Revelos, is to go back there and check into the hole and in a year your points will drop and you'll be medium custody you'll never see the the yard here he's like you don't belong here man your your type of people do not belong here i said man i can't do that you know he's like no one will even know you're here it's like nobody even knows you're here i said yeah but i know though you know and i can't live with that man i'm not pc up i'm not no check in person man and people told me i could walk here i don't have any sex charges no kitty charges and i didn't cooperate they said i could walk Is that true?

He's like, it's true. He's like, but he's like, with your Hispanic last name, he said the Mexican mafia is going to be on you like white on rice, man. And he's like, take him back there. So when I get back there, man, they put me in a cell, and there was no one there. Here come an Indian dude, a real Native American. They said, are you Mexican?

I said, my dad's Hispanic. My mom is white. They said, hold on. And then a few seconds later, here come like two big Mexicans, man. They had Versace glasses, gold teeth with diamonds and stuff, like on the movies, man, all tatted up. And I was like, hey, what's up, guys? He's like, what's up, guys? He's like, who you run with?

I said, I don't run with anybody. He's like, but you're Hispanic. I say, yeah. They said, get him upstairs, strip him down, check for tattoos. So I go up there. These are the inmates that are stripping you down. Yeah, yeah. Mexican mafia, man, from California.

And so I go up there and they're tattooing on a dude, MS-13. He's getting a big MS-13 tattoo covered up, and there was some Mexican dude. And you could see his shank, man, sticking out from his sock. His name was puppet, man. He ended up being my homeboy. And I go down to my boxers, man. They shut the door and they said, take your boxers off too. And I'm looking at him.

And then, like, you know, like, screw you, man, you know. And he pulls his thing up, man, this big ass shank, man, big piece of metal. I take my boxers off real fast. No problem now, man. I take them down. So I'm standing there butt. naked in you know me and like five other dudes there man and uh they said turn around i turn around they said you're not with no gang i said no and they said your paperwork looks good man

he's like you have two choices uh chris i said yeah he's like one you can run with us or two you can run for the door and uh i say you make it pretty easy i said i don't have much much options here i said uh i think i'll go with you guys and they said no we don't need no think man he's you either with us or you're not i said i'm with you man i'm with you 100% they said good get him downstairs and take care of him uh i got dressed put my boxers and stuff back on they took me downstairs they gave me two big bags of commissary in all brand new stuff bro um they gave me a radio sony walkman brand new uh headphones sweats and in the plastic all brand new hygiene food all exclusive stuff man brand new shoes took good care of me man now can you explain to the audience

what would have happened in that moment if your paperwork was bad like if you were a rat if you were a sex offender a choma whatever you want to call it if you cooperated with anyone what would they would have done to you in that moment they would have slaughtered me man they would have slaughtered me man they would have hung me off the rail and the prison would have allowed that oh yeah the in usps man, they turned a blind eye. I don't know how many people I've seen get stabbed at Big Sandy, and I was actually part of two stabbings, man. And that one time I was holding on to that dude, man.

We went in the cell on him, and I was holding on to him. He was a big old dude, man. And then other four homeboys were stabbing. You know what out of him. And they told me, you know, when you go on there, just hold on to him. Make sure he don't move him. Man, he was begging for his life. Chelsea, Chelsea, he was yelling.

Chelsea, I love you, baby. And he died? Yes, man. I was looking up at him. I'm like, who in the heck is Chelsea? You know, there ain't no Chelsea in here. And I'm looking up at him, dude, and he had tears come out of his eyes, man. And then dudes was just stabbing, you know what, out of him.

It must have been somebody he really loved, you know, and probably seen him, you know, in his mind when he was dying. He did die right in your arms. Yeah, man, and he defecated on me, too. Oh, man. I'm not, I'm being serious because I've already, yeah. You know, I've already went past that stuff. man and ask for forgiveness but um i'll never forget he you know because he defecated on me man it scared

him and he was yelling for chelsea man but back to your question you know those dudes they would have slaughtered me you know and it held me over the rail probably you know and made me an example because uh you cannot be an informant or a sex offender in usp they will kill you no you didn't have a choice to join you i know they gave you a choice but you didn't have a choice to join that game you don't have no choice man i mean you had to go with it i'm sure there's things that went against your values like yes yes and i had to i had to abandon any moral and ethical shred of humanity i had to be self-abandoned because when i was looking around and i seen the the type of atmosphere and the environment that i was in at that high security federal prison i knew that the type of person i

was at the time, you know, being benevolent, very loving and compassion person, those morals and ethics had to be self-abandoned and they have to be abandoned now with a complete disregard for human life, man. I had to forget any good things that my parents taught me up in Austin, Indiana, any country values that my grandparents taught me that stuff had to be completely abandoned. I could not have a shred of humanity, well, not one shred within me, man, to survive in a place like that. What kept you going? Like what made you wake up every morning and give you hope? Were there a happy moment you cling to? No, there was no happy moments, man. So you just turned dark and demonic? I prayed, man. I prayed, man. I prayed one night. You know, I told God. I said, you know, this is something terrible, God, that I have to ask you.

But I have to make sure, man, that whenever it's my time to do whatever these people ask, that I have to be able to stand up in the moment and complete. whatever mission that they give me and I'm sorry man and I'm asking for forgiveness in advance in advance and I'm asking you to harden my heart man I'm asking you to give me the darkest heart as heart possible and then after that I just looked in my mirror the first time they put me on a mission man I told myself in the mirror I'm they's like Chris you got to go home you got to get home man you know no gone yeah yeah because one time my first mission they called me up there they said we got something for you do in the morning it wasn't like can you do this will you do this um you might have to no we got something for you to go over to be a unit there's five shanks over there we're

shanks over here you need to bring them back i'm like man it's a one-way movement you know you're going to get caught i'm thinking and they told me you're going to get pulled over it means stopped by the guard when you get when you get going man because when they call work call they's like go up there to the unit they're not going to see you go in but they're going to see you come back out you got to make it they're going to ask you hey where you go and tell them you forgot your id card you're going to work they're going to want you they said put put the shanks man over over top of your feet and um right there is the scar man right here's a scar wow yeah and what happened was i went up there man and um i got the shanks and um there was five of them and i was putting them on top of my

foot right here and then i put my sock back over top of it and then i put my boot on and when they call work call i come back out man and and they and i got pulled over like they said and um they said where you going i said i forgot my idea just like the homeboys told me tell them and they won me you know with that metal detector said raise your left foot up right foot and they went under me they never went on top just like they told me they're not going to want on top of you and i thought man when i put that left boot down i had the shanks in it and And it didn't beep. And I was good, man.

I went back up there. That was my first little thing I had to do, you know, with the mafia, man. It was bring those five shanks back. Did they make you get a tattoo in prison? They told me I was going to be partaking in this thing called HVT, which is high-value targets, and anything like that would bring heat to me, that they were going to be putting me close to people that they weren't able to get to. And since I didn't have any tattoos, and that was a strength,

they consider the strength and they were going to use that ability. Now, Chris, when you make the decision in that prison to go down a dark path and go against your morals, are you hoping that you can find peace down the road and that you're going to be able to go back to the old Chris after you start down that path? Is that ever a thought? And I know you're able to regain your identity again later on, but in that moment, are you able to, you know, take a second think and pray and just, you know, maybe wish, hey, you know, whoever's looking after me right now, I hope I can get back to that good-hearted person that was raised on good morals.

And I have to do whatever I have to do right now to survive. But I want to get back to that old person no matter what I have to do in these coming years. Well, I know the importance of not shown weakness in a place like that because if you show just a little bit of weakness, man, they'll see it, you know. and then they'll kill you for it because they don't want anybody weak with them. So, you know, with that being said, no, Ian, I have to be honest with you, man. I wasn't even thinking about getting out. I was thinking about making it, you know, from day to day, not knowing what they're going to come with me next.

You know, if I had to do this or I had to do that, man, I would just living from second to second day to day. And there were some very aggressive, hardcore killers in there. And one thing I learned from the Marine Corps is how you, be aggressive people as you have to become the aggressor. So I become the most aggressive, dark-hearted person I could, man. What were they calling you in prison? What name did this Mexican mafia give you?

Yeah, so I was tired of people. We were to be talking, and they were like, yeah, they stabbed so-and-so over there and being at like 15 times in the dude still alive. and I remember that dude that I had to hold his leg, man, and he lived for a few days, man, you know, and then he ended up dying. I thought, man, how terrible that must be maimed, stabbed 20 times. So we went on lockdown one time,

and they had me hold the shanks in myself. And I thought, man, I remember a time that my grandpa from Kentucky were sitting out on the porch, and it was concrete, and he showed me, look, you can sharpen your knives like this on the concrete, find a rough spot. Well, there was a rough spot on the concrete floor, and man i was thinking i i did have a little bit of compassion i guess in a sense if you call it that because i'm thinking i would rather see these people if we're going to stab them or they're going to

get stabbed i would rather them die quickly you know then have to be maimed man or or whatever you know with with wounds and stuff suffering so during lockdown man one time we were on lockdown for like four months and i'll just be sharpening them shanks man and up to that point the the shanks only had like a tip on them but i was able to form uh the tip and one side narrow it down so much that had like an edge man so when we come out of lockdown during the mornings i would go upstairs and i would disperse the shanks but before lockdown at night i would go back up there and get them all together and i would have to sleep with them that's what they made me do man sleep with the shanks you know and every morning I would go distribute the other shanks to the to the homeboys.

That was your job. Yeah. What would be like the job description title of that? What is that called in the prison? I was just a soldier. You were a soldier, so you're a Mexican mafia soldier. Yes. Uh-huh.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, and I have the paperwork to prove it too. I brought that with me, man. This is from a general. This is the camera, record me? Yeah, yeah. This is a letter from a general in the Mexican mafia, and they call me machine. and the reason they call me machine is because those knives were sharp and show so good

I took them to the shock collar of the unit and they said man that looks just like a machine you know come from the machine a machine would do and then another guy's like that's it you know he's the machine you're a machine man that's your nickname I'm like okay you know machine yeah machine not the machine but machine wow yeah so that's how I got the name machine so you end up making it out alive because you're here today you make it out alive you get through prison how old are you when you get out um in my early 30s man are you wanting to get back to what you were doing before do you want to get back to selling drugs or are you trying you got a second chance at life again yes yes so young what direct path and direction do you take yeah but i have to be honest with you when

i first got out i was um people like to use the word institutionalized but i don't like to use that word you know, because it's such a broad area, you know, that could cover. Yeah, I would come home, and every day I would clean my apartment and my boxer shorts, you know, and I would be doing burpees, you know, cleaning a little bit, doing burpees, you know. I was very structured and very discipline, you know. That's one thing that they did teach me the mafia in their structure and discipline, how to do my time. So when I come home, I'm not going to lie to you in there sometimes. I would be kicked back on my couch wishing I was back in there, man.

You know, I had formed such a good alliance and a brotherhood with these people. people and there was times i had a girl a friend and she's like man what is wrong with you you don't say nothing i'm like you know what if i could walk out that door right now and go straight back to big sandy i would do it man you know that's just the way i had morphed into something man that was um it was i don't i can't explain i don't have the words you know i was a very very different person man yeah i can't imagine no but um did you see yourself like looking in the mirror and thinking, wow, how did I become this person? No, it's slow process over time, you know. And then like I say, if you're in there for five or six years, man, that you don't realize who or what you've

become, you know? It changes you. It changed me, you know, it changed me and it made me someone that now look back at it, that it disgust me. It's repulsive and nauseating. How do you find peace from that? God. And how did you go about that? How did you get back on the right track? Man, it's supernatural. So I started going to Ivy Tech College, right? And one time I was in class, and the guys were saying, you know, we got a big term, lab project coming. My dad's going to help me do this. Oh, who's your dad?

Dude worked at Cummings Factor, and the other dude was like, man, my uncle works there. He's going to help me do this. And other guys like, yeah, this, I have family this. And I don't have, Chris, I don't have nothing but myself, you know, I don't have. have no nobody and uh man i went home and i kind of felt alienated you know kind of displaced i was like man i wonder if i'm even wasting my time you know going to school is this a wasted time or what i'm like man if you can show me something god man so um like two weeks later i get a phone call i go to store my girl somebody called said as a representative michael murphy from north i said okay so he calls back

he's asked my name yeah it's me he's like man i'd like to come down there oh first it was uh president sue helps from run the college real fast on that she requests i get email says when i'm a zoom meeting she zooms me uh she's talking to him he wants to hear my story i'm telling her on zoom she's like okay so then i get a phone call next day from christopher waltz marketing ivy tech he's like man can you be up here 830 monday morning yeah there i go man it's like this a big studio cameras and stuff he's like we're going to do a we're going to do a website site called taking Hoosers to the next level president wants you be on it i said okay yeah if you google taking Hoosers next level man i'm on there that's awesome yeah it's cool and then um like two weeks later

that representative calls he's like hey president elbserman says she wants to do a commercial with you it's going to be called next level jobs chrisorevelos i said okay so uh we go to austin to my sisters and film it go up to campus and film and um i'm like man this is some crazy stuff going on you know i asked god that one time hey show me something man so um you know i'm like man i'm not still sure what's going on here because i've never had much success in my life you know and i had a lot of hardships man you know and stuff growing up well um so i go to church you know i'll go to church where my dad goes and um the preacher jeff mons man from redemption pentecostal church of god right behind a police station directly across those apartments man where the kids were squirting the things where i left

yeah jeff mons preaching there and uh he's saying hey you know if you put your your faith and your heart into god man he'll make you shineer uh shineer brighteth in the stars you know god will and um we recorded that man we recorded that with michael murphy and um i said hey where's it going to be going he's like we're going to get some air time you know on tv maybe some some billboards and definitely you're on YouTube channel with Ivy Tech. I'm like, man, this can't be happening, you know? So

I go to church again and, man, I got a lot of stuff on my mind and Jeff Mawins, man, the preachers saying, giving a sermon exactly what was on my mind. I was thinking and I'm like, man, this is two weeks in a row. This has happened to me. This is very weird. So I

go to tell God again, you know, hey, you know, this stuff's happening. I don't believe in a coincidence, you know, I kind of feel guilty from the things that I've done, you know, because, man, I'm the least deserving. I was a sinner, man. I committed violent acts on people. I held that dude, man, when he defecate on me and he was yelling for Chelsea, man, you know, and maimed him, man. And I said, I don't deserve none of this.

For sure I don't, you know. and I'm saying, you know, please forgive me. So, so my friend calls from Fort Wayne, Indiana on FaceTime. He's like, man, are you there? I'm like, yeah, hold on. And I'm like, what's up? And he's running down the highway in this dark. You can hear cars coming.

So you're ready for this? I said, yeah, man, he puts it up there. And there's a big billboard, man, of Fort Wayne, Indiana with me and Ivy Tech, man. And they got me on the billboard, and it's illuminated, you know, just like the preacher said, he's going to make me. God will make you shine brighter than the stars, man, if you commit to him and surrender like I did. So with all these things happening like that, Ian, I started feeling guilty, man. You know, I started feeling bad and all these things from the past that I had done, they started weighing in on me.

So I went to church again, a third week in a row, and Jeff Monge is talking about this thing called conviction, man. with the Holy Spirit and I don't even know what that stuff is or nothing and he was like yeah whenever you have a feeling of guilt and everything you know um and you feel you know disgusted about the person he used to be he's like it's conviction coming on you man and you can't run for hide from it so i felt that's what was happening to me man i felt like the holy spirit had convicted me from what i know about the church man and i could not run or i could not hide from it in i thought man it's just something passing in my mind it'll be okay so i took vacation you know i went and partied i went did worldly things man to get my mind off of and then it just made it worse man i woke up the next morning

feeling even more sick man and feeling like you know that i didn't want to be that person anymore and i didn't want to do that stuff no more man and and i tell you what i have the messages here um real fast my dad asked me to drop these belongings off to the church in union town indiana I went up there. First, I got the stuff off this dude named Jacob Howe. He's a preacher at New Covenant Church in Austin, Indiana, and he's a really good guy, Jacob. He gave me the stuff. And when I'm putting in the truck, he's like, careful, I pray for you. Man, he put his hands on me in. And I had chill bumps, man, and like a real bad guilty feeling, man. I couldn't. I had to go. I just like, sorry, man, I got to go.

I dropped the stuff off at Uniontown Church, man. There was these elder people in there. Some old woman would come up there. She said, you care if I'm. pray for you i said i just come and drop the stuff off i got to go but i'm not going to turn down no prayer man uh this guy named kelly reid the preacher there he put his hands on me man and all these things i had done in the past was flashing through my head they said hey uh i said i got to go and he's like want you come to church sunday i said okay sunday i come in i go up there and i sit on the church man here come that little old lady in the walker she said are you ready i said yeah i'm ready

i don't know what you're talking about she gets me up there at the pew and i'm standing there you know i didn't want to say no to these people and that kelly re guy said what are you praying for i said man i think that the holy spirit's been dealing with me he's like so he wants to uh he wants to be touched by the holy spirit man that's the last thing i know i woke up i didn't have my shoes on my feet i was drenched and sweat and i had a vomit all over me man they said they cast a demon out of me uh i and that's what they said and they have video i never watched the video because i'm scared of death to see it, man, but they said they casted a demon out of me. And ever since that happened, all good things have been happening to me. I'm not sitting here telling you you got to go to church

or you got to be a certain religion or nothing. I'm just telling you that when the Holy Spirit convicted me, man, there's nothing I could do to escape it, man, and it's made me a better person. What do you do now for work? What's a... Yeah, so... Yeah, so I just completed my degree with Ivy Tech, my socialist's degree in advanced automation, robotic technology. Congratulations. I appreciate it. Three years full time, man. It was a job, I tell you.

So I completed that, and then I had these people call me, and he's like, man, we'd like to get you into electrical engineering program. I said, okay. He's like, but you've got to be pursuing a bachelor's. I'm like, man, I'm done with school, man. I just finished three years, you know? Yeah. So he's like, so a couple weeks ago I went to Purdue Polytechnic, man, and I signed up for the bachelor's program. I'm pursuing my electrical engineer bachelor's now.

That's great, man. Yeah, I'm going to be an engineer, man. Kids, family. Yeah, I have a son, man. He's 22 years old. He's with his girlfriend and stuff. What about you? Are you married at all?

No, never been married, man. Single and I've been single. Ready to mingle. You got to guess, you know. I got to find a right woman come along, you know, man. It takes time, man. You've been through a lot. That's what I'm saying.

It's going to find someone to be comfortable with that. Exactly. You know, I've got to find somebody, you know, I see my mother out there, you know, doing things you shouldn't have. And then, you know, those girls from Austin, they spoiled me, man. You know, they did in high school and stuff, you know. So I'm like, hey, you know, always when I'm dating somebody, I'm like, always kind of being cautious and stuff.

I'm like, oh, I remember when this happened with that girl, she had a boyfriend, you know. Do you and your son have a good relationship? It's broken, broken relationship. It was good, you know, but he went off to a place, you know, to get itself together. And he got itself all the way together. You know, I guess he's kind of dealing with some abandonment issues probably, you know, where I was in and out of the system and stuff and everything. That's why I go back to, I want to reiterate,

and I want to make sure, you know, that people know it's very important to take care of your kids out there. Also, you know, when you comes to addiction, Ian, I want to bring hope, man, with this message to all my people in Austin, man, all my supporters and everyone I love in Austin. You know, that the addiction, you know, that's going to bring you down, you know. It's time to push that needle to the side. It's time to push that piece of foil to the side, man,

because there's something better for you. Absolutely. Chris, thank you so, so much for coming on the show today. This has been an amazing time chatting with you. And I'm glad you got the opportunity to come here and open up and be comfortable and create a safe space to share your story. Because it's the first time I've ever given it, man. It's powerful, man. And don't ever let that, you know, don't ever forget that. Our stories are powerful. The way we explain our stories are powerful. And you don't know how many lives you can change with the power. of your own and getting to the other side of that. That's what people tell me, man, you know, that no little bit, they're like, man, you have an amazing story. You know, if you could just talk about it, you know, be brave enough to open up about it. I know it hurts, man, there's some hard stuff, some wounds, but, man, you might be able

to help somebody, and that's my main objective. I'm also very honored to be here, man, on your show, locked in, you know, with Ian Bick, this thing's taken all blowing up. Man, you've got celebrities coming in. You've got politicians coming in, man. And it is a complete honor to be here. Thank you, Chris. And I wish you the best and, you know, stay in touch.

And good luck with finishing school. Thank you so much, man.