Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a White Crip — Then Spent Years in State & Federal Prison | Joshua Bentz

Starting point is 00:00:00 Everybody always wanted to fight. That was when we had baby oil. People were heating it up and throwing the baby oil on people, you know, and heated up baby oil will melt the skin off of your face, you know. But we used it a lot for the floor. So when they, you know, especially when the SWAT teams, they would come in, you know, or SSI, they would come in and they would try to get into our cell. They're slipping all over the fucking place.

Starting point is 00:00:24 They couldn't get in, you know. You put a mattress up. They watch your mattress down. We tell them no. And we did this shit just for fun. That's Joshua Bence. He took to the streets at a young age, joined the Crips, and spent years cycling through juvenile detention, state prison, and eventually the federal prison system. After years of addiction, violence, and incarceration, he finally found a reason to change.

Starting point is 00:00:53 So I grew up in Torrington, most of my life, Torrington, Connecticut. And then I bounced around, dude, you know, hanging out. I would go to Bristol at first and then just jumped out into like the streets early, early age. What was your childhood like before you went into the streets as a kid, baby Josh? It was, it was a, it was a broken home. My father wasn't my, my father left my mother when she was one when I was one. And she just went and did her own thing. They started an oil company, Valley Energy oil.

Starting point is 00:01:32 company out in Canton, made crazy amounts of money. And I just wasn't part of that, you know, so I didn't get that silver spoon or any of that, you know, stuff that I thought was great at the time, you know. And I basically grew up with my father and my grandparents. My father was working all the time, so I didn't see him much. So it was really my grandparents were my main caregivers. How'd that make you feel that they were so successful and not supporting you? Oh, man. So they were supposed to pick me up on, my mother would pick me up on Sundays and almost every other Sunday.

Starting point is 00:02:15 It was, I'd be out there, bags packed, ready to go, excited because I loved going over there. They had all the video games. They had everything that you wanted out there. You know what I mean? Like, it was like kids had been over there. They had an in-ground pool, everything. And I would be sitting there waiting when my bags packed, man. And then five minutes before she was supposed to be there, I'd get a phone call.

Starting point is 00:02:37 Oh, I can't make it. I'm sick. Years down the road, I found out that there were literal home videos on those days, dude, that she was out having family gatherings at the house. So it kind of made me feel like shit, dude. You know what I mean? Like I, you know, a lot of times I cried and I cried and I cried. and then it got to the point where I just stopped crying, dude, I didn't care anymore.

Starting point is 00:03:01 I didn't care that she didn't want nothing to do with me. And when I was 12 is when she, you know, asked me to go live with her. And at that point, I felt like I was abandoning my father. You know what I mean? He's the one that's done everything my whole life. So I didn't choose to go that way. And I stayed with him. And I don't think it would have turned out any different, you know, because later on in life,

Starting point is 00:03:24 my mother, you know, she ended up catching a half. habit and ran up a lot of money, like over $400,000 in a year, got sick. She ended up getting aspergilliosis, and that gets in the lungs and the throat. And that was when we finally got a real connection together, was when she was dying, pretty much. And when that all happened, man, it was like we got probably about three months together, four months together and I said, listen, I can't come over here right now. I have to get a job. I'm on probation, you know, and I ended up getting a job and it was crazy because I got a job and it was at a cemetery, dude. It was at a cemetery and it was cleaning the grounds. And I was

Starting point is 00:04:16 excited. So I called the teller. And the first thing I got was her husband, who's a huge joker and jokes like has stupid dark humor like just dumb dark humor and he's like yeah your mother's uh she's she's dead she passed away this morning i said get the fuck out of here no and like i'm like i'm not believing it no she passed away you know she supposedly she joked on on macaroni and cheese getting the kids ready uh for school pictures but she by that time she was doing cocaine to keep her awake because they had her on morphine and all these different benzodiazepines. And I mean, you would see my mom, you know, jolting around and then you'll see you're nodding out half the time, you know.

Starting point is 00:05:04 So, and he was a heavy drinker. And he ended up passing away years later, too. They lost everything. They lost everything because of it, you know. How old was your mom when she passed? 30, it was back in 2004. She was 36, I want to say. Wow, so young.

Starting point is 00:05:22 Yeah, she was really young. She was really young when she passed. How did she pick up her addiction? Did you ever find out? I knew back in the day my mom had a cocaine habit, you know, through her whole life. She just stopped here and there, you know what I mean, especially for the kids. She never really did like hard cocaine until later before she had passed. And then next thing you know, that's when she started smoking it.

Starting point is 00:05:51 she was she was always doing pills pills was the main thing it was percocet you know but i knew about that already i knew all about that from when i was a kid but i looked at it as normalcy you know what i mean it was like you're doing well you got everything you've ever wanted you know you can go out and go to any restaurant you want you got six cars in the driveway you got a beautiful home you You know, and you keep building on to it, like, there's no effect from it. So I didn't see it as no problem, you know. I ate shit. She would have me get them for her sometimes.

Starting point is 00:06:28 You know what I mean? And then it just got, when she got sick is when it was like, it was like a flip-flop, man. You know, she turned around and started doing, you know, cocaine again. And that's when everything changed, you know, it changed to it for, you know, to a bad way. Did your dad ever give you an explanation of why your mom didn't want a part of your life in the beginning before you were 12? No, no, not at all. My mother kind of did. My mother, she's the one that kind of gave me, you know, some sort of.

Starting point is 00:07:03 And I held this against her and for a long time and, you know, was mad at her. But, you know, because she said some stuff to me. And one of the things was, you know, you remind me of your father, you know. So that stuck in my head, you know. And every year they would go to, they owned a house out in Nianic. And it was right on the beach. Beautiful. I loved going out there.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Every weekend we would go or every, you know, every summer we would go out there at least once, you know. And she would have me go. This summer, I thought I was all packed up, ready to go. And that's where I thought I was going. And this one summer, man, that's not where I was going. I was going to a bad kids camp and I didn't even know it, dude. And at that time, my parents had dressed me, dude. And the way they dressed me was not the style, you know.

Starting point is 00:07:56 So me going in there with some, you know, banana republic jeans on and some Levi's, you know, was not the style back then. It was 90s, you know, early 90s. So it was baggy clothes. And I go in there the first thing that's happened. is I'm getting picked on, you know? And there was this one kid, man. We were, we were, we were building, you know, those rockets. They shoot up. The Astis rockets are so fun. Yeah. Yeah. You get them at the hobby shop. Yeah. Well, we were building these things, you know, and we were spray painting, and I'm doing our thing. And there was this one white kid, man. And I,

Starting point is 00:08:35 I'll never forget him. He was way bigger than me because I was small, skinny. I had no muscle to me, dude like i just was a small kid growing up and uh every time he see me he would pick on me pick on me and i'd ask him i said why do you always pick on me what is the reason behind that oh because you remind me of me i'm like what does i have to do with anything right so i got in cool with the with the spanish click over there they gave me clothes they gave me you know everything to make me fit in you know and uh i tried to kind of hash it out with this kid and all i remember is you know we're building this these rockets and i said to him i said listen i said here you know i i can't get this can open can you mind helping me out sure so he helps me out he pops the can open and when he gives

Starting point is 00:09:28 it back to me he slams it in my chest and shoulder bumps me that was it that was the last time i'm having it. Like, and I, I, I, back then, I'd hold my temper, you know, and I always had a bad temper and I'd always let it lose. But I never wanted to fight because I really couldn't fight at that age. I haven't been in enough fights to be able to fight at that age, you know what I mean? So I didn't, I didn't want to fight. And finally, he've just made me go off and he's, I'm like, dude, don't touch me again. And he pushed me one more time. And after that second time, I, flipped the can over, dude, and I just started slamming it into the bridge of his nose. And this kid did not go down.

Starting point is 00:10:12 I'm like, he's a fucking robot, dude. Like, you know, what the fuck is going on? And he starts walking towards me. And I'm like, now I'm nervous, like, you know, so I start walking back and I fall. I'm like, oh, shit, I hurry up, jump back up, grab the can. And as he's coming at me, I used to play baseball. And I was a pitcher. I fucking launched that fucking can right at that man's face, boy.

Starting point is 00:10:33 And it hit him clean. in the forehead between the bridge of his nose and his forehead, cleaned him right out. After he got cleaned out, I was taken up to the front. There were police there. There were ambulance there. All sorts of people that were there. And I'm sitting there flipping out because I want to talk to my mother, you know, and she didn't want nothing to do with me.

Starting point is 00:10:55 And when she came and picked me up, it was pretty bad because, you know, the first thing she said is this is why we don't want you around. because we don't know if you're going to kill me or your sisters while we're sleeping. And I says, why would I ever do that? Like every time you guys ever had a problem, like when the kids had problems in school, who'd you come to? It was me that you came to. When you had problems, that's when you came to me.

Starting point is 00:11:23 When you didn't have problems, I was just thrown and tossed to the side, you know? So it was like, it was one of those things where my underground connections and the people, and the people that I knew was okay when it was good for her. You know what I mean? When it worked out for her, that's when she wanted me around. You know what I mean? Did you end up getting arrested for that? No, no, never ended up getting arrested for that.

Starting point is 00:11:51 I don't know how. But the kid was in a, he ended up getting a, not a coma, but what's the other one there? Concussion? Yeah, yeah. He got a, he got a severe concussion. touching out of it in a broken nose. And that was the first fight you've ever been in? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:10 One of the real first fights, you know what I mean, where there was blood, you know? It was usually just wrestling around or whatever the case may be, you know. It was never fists and, you know, bloody, bloody things happening. And that was the first, like, serious, serious one. Now, how did you get exposed to the streets and being in that? environment. So I remember I was always I was always like kind of a bad kid. You know what I mean? And it was just like little nonsense bad, you know, stealing from the store. We had like a store named Stars that was up next to us, right? And it was next to this grocery store called AMP.

Starting point is 00:12:55 And we, I would always steal like GI Joe's or like just stupid little toys, you know. And I remember my dad you know he he found out because he knew the security guard over there and uh he came home he whipped my ass boy and me i'm the type that i'm jumping out the fucking window afterward you know you're not you're not you're not i don't get grounded like that's not like that there was none of that growing up there was no groundation my groundation was oh you're grounded and i'm out of that fucking house i'm gone i'm leaving so i remember when everything changed And it was that time. And I was that I was still 12 years old and I fucking ran out of the house and I was fucking I was huffing and puffing and I'm like I'm smoking cigarettes.

Starting point is 00:13:44 I'm fucking smoking weed. I don't care. And then I just started hanging around with like the bad kids around my area, you know. And that turned into going to the cities and hanging out with people out in the cities and, you know, hanging around with gang members and things like that growing. up. What kind of gang members? So we had, we had like the old school gangs around our areas. And one was 20 love. You know, we had brotherhood. We had, we had, I forgot what they're called, ECB from New Haven. So those were the type of people that we were around, but it was 20 love mainly. And then something happened where, you know, I don't know exactly what happens because I was so young and

Starting point is 00:14:31 Nobody told me shit when I was that young. But I was part of 20 love when I was growing up. Even though I was, they called it a token white boy, right? So I was a token white boy. What does that mean? A token white boy? Just like a token as far as a black guy, he's the token black guy, you know. Well, I was the token white boy for that gang because it was a black gang.

Starting point is 00:14:55 So there's a certain literature that you actually read as a white boy, you know what I mean, versus being black. Same thing in brotherhood. They would take you as a white boy, but there was certain literature. And, you know, it wasn't everything that I agreed with, you know, but I did it anyway because I didn't care. You know what I mean? And it was probably the stupidest decision of my life, you know, because it was, it went from, that gang and then when that gang kind of dissolved it turned all Crip you know what I mean

Starting point is 00:15:32 I don't know if if 20 Love like just like roll over to Crip or whatever but next thing you know I'm I'm with you know Cribs I'm with rolling 30 Crip and the set that was set up out there was Mob City Crip and that was just a local set and that was just a local set and that local set ended up while I was in prison that local set ended up getting milk what they called it was milked that means it was no more there's no more of it and uh they basically said the floodgates are open that's what they said to us so we had our chance to walk away me and my one of my my my homies we were able to walk away but we really we wanted to but we really didn't want to because there were some portions of their life that was fun,

Starting point is 00:16:25 and then it was a hard decision, you know, because I started when I was 14. He started when he was like 13, you know what I mean? And we were in this lifestyle doing things that we definitely shouldn't have been doing for a long time. And to like walk away from what we were doing was like dishonorable to us, you know? So we didn't want to, we had a choice to do. join either the Harlem 30s, which was the dirty 30s, or we had one big homie there that was, you know, he was insane out from Texas. And we said, no, we're going to go and join Big Blue

Starting point is 00:17:07 with, you know, insane instead. You know, we don't want to do it. Because they had so much bullshit going on. The 30s had so much shit going on that it was just, it was too much. And we wanted the rest of our bid to be easy, but we didn't want to just leave them behind either. You know what I mean? So we went with that set and that was the set. And that set found we found out that set was considered ECB and that met everybody killer. You know what I mean? So we didn't mess with anybody. Nobody messed with us. You know what I mean? We were by ourselves pretty much, you know. Was it common to be a white crip back then or no? It's common to be a white crypt now and people don't even realize it.

Starting point is 00:17:53 Like, you go into the prison system and these kids are joining all the time. You know what I mean? And the crazy part is, is that now that I am the age that I am, I look at it as it's so corny because it's like, why did I do that? Like, I know I was being taken advantage of. You know what I mean? Like, I know I was the gopher. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:18:18 But I was also the first one in. You know what I mean? I was also, if something was going down, it was also the first one in. So you could definitely count on me when I was going in. You know what I mean? When lose, draw, it didn't matter. You know what I mean? And I didn't win every fight, you know?

Starting point is 00:18:33 There were a lot of fights that I lost, too. But I always, I didn't join for protection. This was a, this came from the streets into prison, you know. And it sucked because, you know, once you go into prison, and people know you, now you are, it's a label, man. You're labeled as that, you know, so everywhere you go, you're labeled. And if you leave, you're labeled. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:19:01 So you got no choice but to basically be on the compound. You know what I mean? And when I say that, I mean, you know, you got no choice but to go to the house rep and say, hey listen you know I just got here I'm I'm so and so you know where does everybody eat you know where does everybody sit where do we you know where do we do our thing and uh it was just it was a very bad choice for me dude it was really it really was because it was nothing but problems my entire bid every time they found out I was back in it again and my whole bid was stressful. Like, you couldn't be sick. Like, if you were sick and you were in your, in your cell,

Starting point is 00:19:53 you were, you were considered a coward because you weren't coming out of your cell. But, dude, like, I got the fucking flu. You know what I mean? Like, I'm sick, you know, I, I need to be in the, in the cell right now sleeping. So it was just, it was, it was, it made my bids worse, dude. It made every portion of my bid worse. How did you end up in person to begin with? And how old were you? Hmm. So the first one was I was probably around, well, I got, I got locked up when I was like 14, but it wasn't prison. It was just county jail. So I did a lot of little stints in county jail until I was about 16 or 17.

Starting point is 00:20:35 And it was mainly because I was doing, I was, I was into drugs. You know, I was selling drugs. I was getting caught with drugs. And I would get like a little bid. I'd get a small little bit. I'd get a little six month bid here. I'd get a little six month bid there. And I come home and I start doing it again, you know.

Starting point is 00:20:58 And then it was the year that heroin came out, you know, I was because I was working my way up. I was a party kid. So I worked my way up. It was, you know, it was smoking weed to hallucinogens to, you know, to cocaine, all the, all the way up to heroin, you know. And once I got into the heroin is when my life completely changed. That's what fucked my life up. And that's when I started doing the things that I was really doing.

Starting point is 00:21:30 Getting caught with the drugs wasn't too big of a deal because I never carried a lot on me. But once I started doing things for the drug, that's when it became a problem. Like going into people's houses, you know. And then it got to the point where we didn't want to go on people's houses anymore because it was too risky. So we were going into abandoned houses and just doing copper takes, you know, and just robbing the whole house of copper, you know. And that's what we were doing for a long time was doing it like that, you know. And you were done with school at that point? Did you drop out?

Starting point is 00:22:09 I dropped out, but then I went back and I got my GED at home. it wasn't in prison. I actually got my GED at home. And that's when everybody was, you know, proud of me. But I'm trying to do good, but still in the mix. You know what I mean? And we thought we were the baddest around, especially our home click, our click that was, that was from our area. I mean, we had probably about 40, 50 kids on the street at any point in time, you know.

Starting point is 00:22:42 And we would block people. from even going down that way. They'd see us and they'd go straight because it was a roundabout where we lived, you know, and we would always be out there. But we wouldn't have, like, guns and stuff like that, you know? It was knives and baseball bats. It was a different era back then, you know. What got you into drugs to begin with?

Starting point is 00:23:04 Was it the gangs or something you just stumbled upon on your own? It was the partying, man. It was really the partying. And it started out with pills. It started out with like oxies and stuff like that. And I remember my buddy said, no, I'm not going to let you try this. I'm not going to let you try this. I said, okay, I'll get it myself.

Starting point is 00:23:24 And I got it myself because I wanted to try it, you know, because everybody said it was just like it was like an oxy. I want to try it. So I tried it. I started sniffing it. And then it went from sniffing it to blowing it. You know what I mean? So now I'm blowing it into my veins.

Starting point is 00:23:41 And I struck. with that since since I was about 15 years old, man, you know, and still to this day I struggle with it, you know, I haven't had no relapses, thank God, but it's, it's been, it's a struggle because, you know, you sit there and when something goes bad, it's, there's, there's your excuse to go get high, you know, but it was, it's been a struggle for a long time. It's been a fight, you know, trying to stay on the right track. And, you know, I basically have putting my goals in front of that, you know, especially now that I got a wife and, you know, and I had a wife before too,

Starting point is 00:24:23 but she wasn't, she was a whole different type of person. You know what I mean? It wasn't somebody that, you know, I wanted to be with long term after I found out a lot of the things that I found out, you know. So was that the copper takes that ended you up? in prison? Did you get caught for that or something more specific? It was it was it was more it. They never caught me for that. They never caught me for that. So it's just a buildup of the county jail stints and the drug charges and and the and the drug charges, you know, because I've,

Starting point is 00:24:53 I've gotten hit with, you know, um, identity theft and, uh, um, fraud. And, and because if I, if I had a chance after like, when we took stuff from people's houses and, we had a debit card and an ID, yeah, we're doing ghost drops at the bank. You know what I mean? We're going to the bank and acting like we're putting money in and taking money out. You know what I mean? And we just would do stuff like the just stupid stuff, dude, you know? But around that time I got hit with the fraud, I already got charged with it.

Starting point is 00:25:31 And it was, I think Bush was the president. And he ended up passing a law where it was minimum, mandatory, five years for any fraud cases or identity theft cases. I can't remember which one it was. I think it was the identity theft. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to jail, minimum five years. And this is like my first real bid. Like, I'm young at this time, you know.

Starting point is 00:25:53 This is state prison. Yeah, well, I was waiting. I was in New Haven waiting to get sentenced for this. And it was just a, it was a scary time because, and it was. hard for me to even watch the news because I was I was always in segregation. You know what I mean? I was always getting in trouble. Always. It would and it was and it was for stupid stuff. It wasn't even for really fighting. It was it was for contraband, you know, it was for stuff that I wasn't supposed to have, you know. I never had a lot of, a lot of problems in prison. I went to prison

Starting point is 00:26:29 and I always got along with people. Like my jacket told its own story. You know what I mean? I never told. I never had any reason to tell because it was always me that did it. You know, it was me telling all myself. That's what got me in trouble, you know, because I thought being so young, I thought when the cops said, oh, yeah, well, help you out. They're going to actually help me out. And they never did. So after that, I stopped talking to these fucking guys.

Starting point is 00:26:58 They didn't get a word out of me anymore, you know? So I knew you weren't there to help me. and I definitely knew that you weren't there to help even if I was going to tell on anybody else. So absolutely not. You wouldn't even get a word out of me. It was a lawyer. I want a lawyer, you know, and it didn't matter what it was. It was a straight lawyer.

Starting point is 00:27:19 And that was my first, that was my first bid, bid. And it wasn't, it wasn't long. It was only 18 months, but they ended up sending me to NYU. And at NYU, we call that. That's our gladiator school. And I found out being around the country and getting arrested and going to different states and stuff like that. Every state has a gladiator school. If it's a juvie detention or lock-in, it is a glad.

Starting point is 00:27:51 They call it gladiator school. It doesn't matter which one it is. But our gladiator school was Manson Youth Institute. And they sent me there. now I had no fighting experience yet that's where I got my fighting experience you know I had to fight almost every single day there until

Starting point is 00:28:14 well let me let me start here because the first thing that ended up happening was three black dude I was in the cell with a black guy and he was way bigger than me and he was cool with me we got along and next thing you know know, three black kids come in and they're trying to get at me. I'm on the top bunk.

Starting point is 00:28:35 And I know that you can't get me if I'm standing up. You know what I mean? So I'm standing up and I got my fistballed and I'm ready to, you know, punch, kick, whatever I got to do, you know. And the kid on the bottom bunk stood up. He's like, this ain't fucking happening in my cell. Get the fuck out of my cell. And they got out of his cell. So he had some sort of respect, you know, in there.

Starting point is 00:28:58 And, uh, I sat, I sat there for. about another week with, you know, not much issues except for every time I went out to the chow hall, like there, there was somebody trying to get at me, you know, and it was always like gang members. And I didn't really realize why because I didn't, I didn't say I was anybody there and nobody recognized me there, you know. So every time I was sitting at the chow table, somebody would try to come up and swing on me. And I started having to watch out the side of my eyes. And it was always, it was always like a black kid or sometimes even Spanish kids, you know.

Starting point is 00:29:37 They were always trying to fight. Everybody always wanted to fight. That was when we had baby oil and we had, we had Jolly Ranchers. And what we did with those jolly ranchers is we would clip the door. So you could get out before anybody else could get out, you know. So if you knew somebody was coming. in, you were ready because you had baby oil on the ground or heated up and you had your door popped and ready to go.

Starting point is 00:30:07 You know what I mean? Or if you were trying to get out there while they were taking chow, you were able to open your door and catch them at chow. So that's what we would do. And between baby oil, baby powder, and Jolly Ranchers, man, that's what we used a lot of. And they stopped, they stopped selling an commissary after a while because people were heating it up and throwing the baby oil on people, you know. And heated up baby oil will melt the skin off of your face, you know. But we used it a lot for the floor.

Starting point is 00:30:40 So when they, you know, especially when they were trying to, the, the SWAT teams, they would come in, you know, or SSI, they would come in and they would try to get into our cell. They're slipping all over the fucking place. they couldn't get in, you know, you put a mattress up, they watch your mattress down. We tell them no. And we did the shit just for fun because it was, that's what we did there. There was no fun there, you know, 23-hour lockdown. And you only come out of your cell once a day for an hour. There was literally no fun there.

Starting point is 00:31:14 So our fun was fucking your prison up, you know. We would take the toilets. We'd throw corn on the cob down the toilet. Sheets, sheets down the toilet. just to flood the cells to come out of our cell, you know, just to clean up, just because we were that bored, you know. Now, was that the prison that you joined with the Crips at? I didn't join in jail. I didn't join in jail.

Starting point is 00:31:38 It was before you went to the prison? Yeah, I joined at home. That was when I was going from cities and jumping into the cities. So, 20 Love was local out our way where I grew up. And then once I started jumping and going to the cities to go get, you know, marijuana or drugs or anything like that, that's when I started meeting new people. And that's when I joined. Like going to like New York City? Is that what you're referring to? No, no, city like Hartford, Hartford. Within Connecticut. Yeah, it was it was our cities. Yeah, Hartford, sometimes Bridgeport.

Starting point is 00:32:18 But mainly Hartford and Waterbury, man, you know. Hartford was the bigger one because Waterbury was mainly Spanish, you know, but then they have a, they, they have two different sides in Hartford, and I would always be on the Albany side, Albany Ave side, you know, and then they had the south side, which was, you know, mainly Spanish. And they had two separate gangs over there, which was Latin Kings, and one was Los Alitos. And they were literally on different streets. There were two different streets. There was one street here, and then you had one street here, and you had Latin Kings over here, Los Alito's over here. And they would literally be killing themselves, each other on those streets. But I was usually on off of Albany Ave, you know, gray street, anything over on that side.

Starting point is 00:33:04 I was hanging over at. And that's where I ended up, you know, basically flipping over and joining and moving over because 20 Love was fading away, fading out. Did it ever come back, 20 Love? Is it gone? Not that I know of. I don't hear about it, you know. I don't even think it's on the watch list anymore in DOC. But I haven't been into DOC since 2014, 15.

Starting point is 00:33:31 So when you were there that first time, it was on the watch list, 20 Love? I don't think so. I don't think so. It's been a long time since 20 Love was on. But weren't you just a teenager? You were like 16 or? Yeah. And it was already long gone by that point?

Starting point is 00:33:47 Yeah. Oh, wow. Now, were the Crips big in prison in state prison? Crips were, yes. So we're Bloods. So it was, it was, bloods were really big in state prison. And it all depended on what prison you're speaking of, you know, if I was. That first one you were at.

Starting point is 00:34:06 Yeah, yeah, that was. So a lot of white kids were, were in Spanish gangs. A lot of them were in Spanish gangs. But yes, they were very big. Crips and Bloods were very big. bloods were bigger, you know. I would hang out with other people, too, that were in gangs, but they weren't like, they wouldn't, they wouldn't have a problem with our gang, you know? Like, I knew some people that were nettas, you know, and they're not, they're not really anything big, right?

Starting point is 00:34:38 They're not even supposed to bang when, when they leave the prison. And they do, but they do. and I would talk to one of them. And this was in the county prison. I would talk to him. And we got along really well. And he ended up going up the way. He went up to the prisons.

Starting point is 00:34:57 And he went to NYU. And I came, I went to court. And I came back from court. And they're like, yeah, you're not going back there. You're going up the way. I'm like, so where am I going? Oh, you're going to NYU. I'm like, what?

Starting point is 00:35:16 I says, why would I be going to NYU? Like, I'm over 16 now. You know what I mean? Like, I'm thinking, like, I'm not going there. I'm going to an adult prison. Well, no, I went to NYU. And as I was there and all of that craziness was going on in the beginning, within a few months, I think it had to be about three months.

Starting point is 00:35:38 I end up getting called into the captain's office. And they're like, so, what, gang are you part of? I said, what? Now, you're never really supposed to deny, but when it comes to the police, you can deny. I says, we're not, I'm not part of any gang, you know, I had no tattoos or nothing at this time, you know, I was, I, I says, I'm a little white boy from, from Torrington, that's what I used, you know, I'm a little white boy from Torrington. I said, I don't, I don't get in no, none of that shit. And, uh, he ends up, he ends up looking through my whole Jackie, he can't find nothing. He puts me into the to Seg under investigation. I was under investigation the rest of the

Starting point is 00:36:20 time. And I had I had 18 months, you know, so I could be sitting in here for the rest of the 18 months, you know, minus those three months that from the beginning. And they, I start hearing somebody yelling my name. And it was the kid that I knew from. county. And the reason I ended up getting pulled in there was because there was a letter, a letter sent to me. This letter had, Nieta, like, signs on it and, and just gang signs on it, you know, and it wasn't, like, towards me. It was just the way he was writing the letter and it was gang affiliated letter. So they tried to affiliate me as a Nieta. And I said, I'm not a Nietta. So now I'm like,

Starting point is 00:37:09 in my head, do I, you know, if they're going to affiliate me, I got to tell them. that I'm a Crip because if they affiliate me as a Nietta, now you got me affiliated completely wrong. And that could, I don't know if that could bounce back to me in a bad situation or not. So I end up hearing this kid. And I'm like, yo, why the fuck would you do that? Why would you do that, dude? And he's like, my fault, man, I didn't know you were coming here.

Starting point is 00:37:39 I thought you were going home and this and that. well they intercepted that fucking letter and the way we talked to each other were through the back windows and it echoed and we could be on one end of the the building to the other end and you can hear each other and he got me uh he got me to he he he got message to me basically saying don't worry about it I'm going to take the I'm going to take the whole charge he said you know just let me go in there first so I said okay and then within a week or two, we get moved into the same cell.

Starting point is 00:38:16 I'm like, oh, man, this got to be bad. There's got to be something wrong with this that we're getting moved into the cell together. You know, so they put us in the cell together. Now I'm thinking they're listening, you know. I'm fucking paranoid as shit, you know? And we would come out of our cell literally for, they would say we had an hour to use the phone and the shower,

Starting point is 00:38:40 but we didn't have no hour. like being in ticket block, right? They in ticket block 23 and 1. No, you literally have either the shower or the phone. You choose. You got 15 minutes out. That's it. You know, so we would choose a lot of the times the phone because we would shower in our cell,

Starting point is 00:39:01 you know, and showering out there, we had to be shackled because we were under investigation. So we're shackled completely down, you know, down to our. boxers trying to shower like that. That shit just sucked. I mean, you know, it was easier to use the phone, you know? So, but he ended up, we ended up going under an investigation. I think I had a few months left.

Starting point is 00:39:26 It was before Thanksgiving. And he, he ended up going in there first. And they give us almost an attorney. But it's a, it's another CO. That's all it is. It's a CEO supposedly for us. Oh, like a disciplinary. hearing officer type thing. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So he, uh, he goes in there first and comes back out

Starting point is 00:39:49 and he gives me a wink. You know what I mean? He goes back to his cell. And I go in there and they're like, well, um, they just took, he just took all the heat. He just took all the rap, said that you're not part of his gang and da da da da da da and uh, and uh, we'll be letting you off soon. I'm like soon, well, how long soon? If I'm not convinced. Oh, well, we don't have no open spots right now. So I'm like, all right, sweet. So we throw me back in there. And we're back there.

Starting point is 00:40:20 We're having a blast. We didn't give a fuck. We made the best of any situation. It didn't matter what prison we were in, dude. We made the best of any situation. And we made the best of our situation. And he would get riddling. And we used to call that poor man's Coke.

Starting point is 00:40:35 You know, we'd crush up his riddling and get wired up and just start flooding the cell or doing something stupid. You know, that just something dumb that kids do, I guess, you know, that that are locked up 24-7, you know. But I thought it was the coolest thing when I was that age. I did. I thought it was cool that I went to prison. And I thought it was cool that I went to prison multiple times, you know. I come home and now I'm a certain age.

Starting point is 00:41:05 And I'm like, that shit is fucking embarrassing, dude. Like, this shit is embarrassing. I got to tell these people that I was like. locked up, but they don't know the real me, you know. So it's, it's, it's hard, you know, to try to explain yourself to a normie, I guess you can call them, you know, somebody that's never been in prison or never had to dealt with anybody being in prison to why, why I'm a felon, you know what I mean? And I got, I got multiple felonies, you know, and it's, they're ridiculous. It's, it's, it, I got, I think I got like 12 or maybe even 15 felonies. Like,

Starting point is 00:41:42 I got a ridiculous amount of felonies. And I just, to be able to, to have to tell somebody that is, is fucking embarrassing. You know, I never thought it would be embarrassing. I always thought it would be cool. And now I know people that are in higher positions and good jobs and just doing very well. with their life. And they're telling me, oh, yeah, I did this and I did that. I was on a yacht. And I was, you know, and then I'm like, yeah, well, I was in fucking prison, dude. Around a bunch of fucking dudes, you know, and a bunch of sausages all day long.

Starting point is 00:42:22 How was your day? You know what I mean? It was just, it was fucking horrible, dude. It was. When I look back at it, it was a horrible experience because it fucked me up mentally, you know. It might have changed. me for the better to slow my ass down. But, and I probably will, you know, back then I would have been more apt to probably

Starting point is 00:42:44 hurting somebody versus now. You know what I mean? Now it has calm me down to the point where I don't want no more problems. I don't want no more trouble with the, with the, with the ATF, with the feds, with, you know, with any police, like, I still get nervous even though I'm not doing nothing when a cop is behind me. And like, you would think that by now I should be okay, but I'm not. Like, I just still get nervous, dude, you know, because I was, I was selling drugs for when I, when I was home and I was doing well, I was doing well because I was selling drugs and I was selling a lot of drugs. And so paranoia built up throughout the years.

Starting point is 00:43:26 And it was, and it got bad to the point where, you know, being in and out of prison and having to watch your back and watch other people's back. and, you know, always being aware and always on point, I was literally just like completely PTSD'd out, dude. You know, I would hear a bang and I would startle, you know, would startle myself or something drops and I'd startle. And it was and it's got to the point where it's got my anxiety levels up on a consistent basis. I'm always like, feel like I got high blood pressure, even though my blood pressure is fine. I feel like I have high blood pressure.

Starting point is 00:44:08 You know what I mean? And I don't feel normal when I go into places, you know, because when I go into a restaurant, I don't just let them put me anywhere. I don't, oh, we got a seat right here in the middle. No, I won't take it. I literally tell them, no. And I know it's probably embarrassing for my wife as well, you know,

Starting point is 00:44:26 because it's like, no, we're not taking that. I want a bench seat. I want my back towards the wall. And I want to be able to see the entrance. and I want to be able to see wherever the exit is. Where is the exit? You know what I mean? And I'm asking these questions and they're looking at me like I'm fucking, I'm a mental

Starting point is 00:44:43 case, you know, but really I'm just being aware, you know. And it's it's fucked me up pretty bad, dude. Like, you know, I've seen many counselors and therapists and I just, I've tried going on on depression medications. I can't do it, you know. And I get depressed. I get very depressed sometimes, dude, where. I just, I, I, I, I feel like I don't want to be here sometimes, you know, and I, I, I, I, I, I feel like, I feel, I feel like I feel like I'm literally that guy that you don't want to be, you know what I mean? Like, I'm the reason to not do whatever stupid fucking thing you plan on doing. Don't do it because this is what happened to me. You know what I mean? Because I got caught for literally fucking for everything that I did. There wasn't a thing in the, dude. I could have. I could have.

Starting point is 00:45:33 took a shit in the woods and I would have got a fucking goddamn, I would have got arrested. And they would have threw a felony on me for it. You know what I mean? Like, they fucking hated me over in that courthouse. They hated. I got one of the funniest scam texts the other day. The guy texts me pretending to be from some government agency and tells me I have an outstanding warrant that needs to be handled immediately, which considering my history is probably the one

Starting point is 00:45:58 scam that has a chance of getting my attention. So I'm reading it like, wait, what did I? I do now? Then he tells me that if I don't take care of it immediately, the police are coming to arrest me. And I'm thinking, buddy, I've actually been arrested by the federal government before. I could promise you they do not send you a courtesy text first, although I wish they did. That's the thing with scams, though. They're trying to get you to panic before you have time to think. Somebody you don't know suddenly needs money. There's some huge emergency, and you have to act right now. That's why I use Cash App, because having security built into the financial tools I use actually

Starting point is 00:46:38 matters to me. Keeping your money safe from fraud deserves to be a priority, and Cash App treats it that way. With security lock, Cash App requires a successful Face ID or biometric authentication to access your account. It's like your money is protected by your own personal bodyguard, even if your phone is lost or stolen. Plus, if you're about to send money to someone new, When Cash App notices something looks a bit off or that you might be falling for a scam, it will send you a warning before the money is sent to confirm that everything looks right. Download Cash App and spend with peace of mind today. New Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use code Secure 10 in their profile at Signup

Starting point is 00:47:22 and send $5 to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply, download Cash App today, and make your money work for you. Visit our link in bio. Cash app is a financial services platform, not a bank, banking services provided by Cashapp's bank partners. Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. What happened after that first 18 month sentence? So I came home.

Starting point is 00:47:49 I was good for 30 days. What were you like 18 or 17? Yeah, I was 18 and a half about that time because I had I had to wait. You got to remember. because once you come home, you know, you got your probation and stuff like that. So I didn't, I never really violated probation. I didn't, I, I wasn't a, a probation violator, you know, I was just, I would catch a lot of tickets in prison.

Starting point is 00:48:16 That, that would be my thing. And it was always for contraband. It was never for like assaults or fights in the beginning. You know what I mean? It was just, it was, it was always like, oh, you had a hot pot that was turned up to. high, you know what I mean? Or you had three hot pot, just the stupidest shit. And they would come into myself all the time.

Starting point is 00:48:39 But after I left and I did that, I was probably home for 30 days before I caught more charges. And then I went in. They gave me kind of a slap on the wrist because I went to an intensive inpatient program, you know, and I did that. And that was day top. that that was like a oh what's the word for it it's like a place where you go where they basically embarrass you to get clean so if you do something wrong

Starting point is 00:49:14 they literally had you walking around with a dunce cap on or a big sign that said you know what you did wrong or if you had to do something you had to they'd give you a toothbrush and you'd have to clean the outside of the dumpster outside or the toilets or the or the baseboards you know it was it was a way to humiliate you you know and to get in for them to even accept you you had to sit in a room full of people that you did not know and you had to either scream i need help three times or you have to sing happy birthday at the top of your lungs and it was fucking very very embarrassing

Starting point is 00:49:57 just to even deal with that. But I did it just because I didn't want to go to prison, you know? And most of the stuff that I did for court was a manipulation tactic, you know. I didn't want to go to jail, so I went and did that. You know what I mean? And it's always worked. I've always figured a way out to not go to prison this one time. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:50:20 Like, even though I got my bids and I have my bids in me, there was always a way I was able to talk myself out of something. I was always able to manipulate a situation, which, you know, works for me in some, sometimes, but other times it doesn't anymore. You know what I mean? Because I don't, I don't use it in a negative way anymore. It's, it's, it's one of those things that I've, I've really have put behind me because it didn't help me for shit in the federal system. The federal system was a whole different monster. But I went away. I probably,

Starting point is 00:50:56 when I went to day top, I was in there probably for two or three months before I got tired of that. I ran from that place. So after I ran from that place, I ran with a Spanish kid. And we were young. I knew nothing really about fucking where we were in Bridgeport, you know,

Starting point is 00:51:16 but I know now, you know, we were by the train station. and everything else. And this is the fucking weirdest situation I was in my whole life. Like I literally had to walk out because this guy picked us up. Another Spanish guy said, oh, yeah, you want to, you guys smoke weed and this. Yeah, of course. I do.

Starting point is 00:51:36 I'm just thinking about going to go get high now, you know, like I just want to go get high. I want to go get to Waterbury and I'm good. You know what I mean? And we're sitting at this guy's house. I'm sitting there. We smoke together. I'm sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. And they're not coming out of the back.

Starting point is 00:51:55 I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And I peek around the corner and I see this young Spanish kid that was with me getting plowed out by this 300 pound Spanish dude that was probably about 15, 20 years older than us. You know what I mean? And I'm like, oh my God, dude, their chomo out would have. each other right now. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:52:22 Like, this is a fucking weird situation. I'm like, listen, I'm leaving. I got somebody to come pick me up. So I left and I fucking, I started just walking. And I made a couple phone calls and I finally got picked up. I'm like, listen, just drop me off in Waterbury. I got dropped off in Waterbury. And once I got the Waterbury, I got what I needed.

Starting point is 00:52:43 And then I called my family and then they came and picked me up. But I also got violated. You know what I mean? So now, now I was able to do what I wanted to do for, you know, my 24 hours. And then, you know, they violated me. And I ended up having to go back to court again. And then they tossed another three years on me, you know. And then that's the three years where it was just me going from prison to prison to prison, you know, getting into fights all the time.

Starting point is 00:53:15 And it wasn't, and it was, it was mainly because people were stealing. Like they were putting me in prisons that people stole at. That was when like level two prisons were open. And people would steal all the time. And I ended up catching three, you know, class A tickets back to back and got kicked out of this place. And this was the best level two you could be in. It was Burgeon, Burgeon, C.I. It was right across the street in summers across the street from, um, Yukon.

Starting point is 00:53:44 And it was, it was, I guess it used to be a. pound for the state police to train on. So everything was nice. Everything was new, you know. You literally somebody could just drive by and throw a pack over to over the fence. It was that low, you know, and you were that, that close. Like, you would see, like, the, the broads walk down the street from the, you know, or jogging from the, from the college, you know. And I ended up, I had a good job there.

Starting point is 00:54:14 I had it made there, man. And I got myself fucking kicked out. because I didn't want to listen. And it was over something stupid. My third and final ticket was literally because my headphones were too fucking loud. They gave you a ticket for that? They gave me a class A ticket for that. Yes, because I said, no, I'm not turning them down.

Starting point is 00:54:33 I says, no. Nobody's complaining but you. You know what I mean? I was very confrontational with the cops. Always, always, always. Because I just didn't like to be told what to do. I didn't feel like that they had, like, we're already locked up. We're already doing our time.

Starting point is 00:54:47 So why are you going to keep fucking with us for no reason? You're consistently fucking with us for no reason. And you know that we're in a level two, that we get these luxuries, and you utilize that to your advantage to be like, oh, well, I'm going to go fuck with this dude, see how far I can push them. And they have this little area that they'll put you in the SEG, but then they move you, you know, and then by the time they moved me, they fucking shut that place down now, you know, and I had, I had, I was the laundry guy over there. So the laundry guy made fucking tons of money,

Starting point is 00:55:25 dude. At the end of the week, we would, you know, me and my buddy, and I knew him from home, we'd come back when laundry bins full of commissary and hygiene. And we just had, it was just a moneymaker. But our money was not regular cash like it is now. Like, in the feds, the way to make money there is cash. You know what I mean? Yeah, you have your, your trades, you know, your stamps or whatever you guys use as a currency within that prison. But a lot of the guys go home with fucking hundreds of thousands of dollars or, you know, thousands of dollars. I know I went home with $3,000. You know what I mean? And that was just pushing fucking tobacco and some, some other shit, you know, at the end of my bid. If I did it in the beginning of my bid, I, I would have

Starting point is 00:56:12 came home with way more, but I tried to stay out of trouble. But anyway, yeah, they shut Burgeon down. They fucking put me in the ticket block, man, and sent me to Corrigan. So I ended up going to Corrigan. That was right before they changed it to a gang unit over on that way. I don't know what it is now, but I had to go in there, and the first thing I noticed was the toilet. dude, you fucking hit that toilet. And he, you know, my cell, he's like, why the fuck you hit the toilet?

Starting point is 00:56:49 It's not going to let you go off for another half an hour. I'm like, what? I'm like, so how do you shit? Like, he's like, you just got to time it right. I'm like, what to fuck, dude? So it was another situation where I was just locked up 24 hours a day. You know, they would say 24-01. but it never was, you know, and I'm just sitting in there.

Starting point is 00:57:18 And all you get to do is really look out your window and then they let you out. You get your, you know, little 15 minutes to go out, shower, or use the phone. You know what I mean? So again, I'm going back and forth. Do I need to call anybody? Do I not need to call anybody? And I remember I'm sitting in there. I'm waiting for the shower.

Starting point is 00:57:41 this one dude comes out and I look I see he left his little 50 cent shower or his little 50 cent soap dish on the thing and then another guy comes out afterward after he got locked back in and when that guy came out of the shower he picked up that soap dish and he put it in his stuff well the other guy didn't fully shut his door yet you know so a fight ensued on the top tier. Well, the guy that got the soap dish, you know, that stole the soap dish, was pretty much trying to say that, no, that's my soap dish. I just forgot it out there.

Starting point is 00:58:22 He's like, I just brought it out there. And I walked away to get my stuff and come back. Well, they fought the guy that left his soap dish hit the other guy. And dude, that dude's nose, I never seen it open up. That thing opened up just like a vagina. It just opened up, dude. And I was like, what the fuck? And it's just leaking.

Starting point is 00:58:44 I'm like, oh, my God. So me and my cell here, we're both. We're trying to get our heads in this little window to look at what the fuck's going on. So the cops come in. They got to run all the way around. They're chasing these guys around the top tier. And they get one guy in. And the guy that they got in was the guy that got his nose split.

Starting point is 00:59:07 Well, that guy put his hand on the top of the fucking door. dude and the fucking the the the CO was trying to push him in got him in the rest of the way but he kept his hand there this the the inmate kept his hand there CO slammed the door boom fucking fingers came right off call it call the medic call the medic next thing you know you got the fucking medic in there this guy's missing fingers his nose looks like a vagina I'm like oh my like that was one of the worst fights I seen in DOC in Connecticut Because not you don't see too too much, you know, you see regular fights, but you don't see like heavy duty shit in the state of Connecticut. Yeah, you just don't.

Starting point is 00:59:51 There's it, you know, maybe back in the day you did, but nowadays, you just don't see that type of stuff anymore, man, you know. And, and that just, that was like, it's just one of those things that sticks in your fucking head, dude, like, you know, over stealing. And that's, you know, because we, we look at people who steal, man. You're right in between, you know, a chomo and a fucking, you know, and a, uh, and a, and a, and a, and a, and a, and a, and a, and a, and a, you know, you're right. You're right in the middle there. You know what I'm saying? Like, we don't, we don't look at people that steal in a good light at all. You know, a thief is bad. So if you were a thief at home, you better not be thieving nothing in prison. You know what I mean? So that's where you learn those rules, you know? There's a lot of different rules that you learn when you go into that motherfucker, man. You know, even talking, you know, talking to your buddies. At home, you talk to them a certain way. You think you got buddies in there and you start talking to them a certain way and it could turn really bad.

Starting point is 01:00:56 And that's what ended up happened to me, you know. We were fucking all joking around. I think I was in Bridgeport County at this point. This was on a whole different bid. And I'm at Bridgeport County. and we're joking around going back and forth. And they're saying, you know, pretty disrespectful shit. So I'm saying pretty disrespectful shit.

Starting point is 01:01:19 Well, I fucking said suck my dick. I was young. I didn't know, you know. And that ended up turning into a bad situation. They didn't beat me up. They didn't do nothing like that. But after we were done joking around, they, I went to the shower. and I'm in my boxers.

Starting point is 01:01:42 I'm fucking throwing my towel up. And next thing you know, that fucking goddamn thing goes flying over to the right. And he comes in with a fucking poker, dude, right to my fucking throat. He grabs me by my throat. And I'm small, dude. I was small at this time. This is when I just got out of, like, MII. Like, I'm not, like, a big kid, bro.

Starting point is 01:02:02 Like, I'm not big, you know. I got no muscle to me yet, you know? And he put that fucking poker up to me at two. two black dudes behind me fucking watching out. He said, you ever tell me to suck your fucking dick again? I'll stab you in the fucking throne and leave you here. I'm like, oh, my God. And then I talked to my buddy about it that I actually knew from home.

Starting point is 01:02:23 He's like, yeah, you can't say that here. I'm like, I mean, we were just fucking roasting back and forth. I didn't know. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't know the rules like that, you know? Like, most of the time I'm fucking locked up, you know? Like, when I was in MII, like, I was locked. Like, I was locked up the whole fucking time, you know, the county jails.

Starting point is 01:02:43 I didn't talk to anybody except for people that I really knew, you know. I stayed to myself, really. But then I fucking started opening up a little bit and started talking to other people. And that's when I started finding out what the fucking rules were, you know. But now I take a lot of those rules home with me, you know. I've changed a lot. I don't, I'm not a big joker anymore. I don't joke with a lot of people anymore.

Starting point is 01:03:07 My brother even told me one day He's like, you've changed I'm like, no, I just grew up bro Like I had to get out of that I had to get out of that fucking That mental stage Because it was always getting me in trouble You know

Starting point is 01:03:22 They've always said crime don't pay Right But it did at one point Crime paid at one point And it doesn't anymore It don't no matter what you're doing You can make all the money in the world And you're gonna get caught

Starting point is 01:03:36 at some fucking point. And I just came to the conclusion where it's just not fucking worth it. I'll just blue collar it and fucking slow grind it until I make it. You know, I rather do that than sit there and be a piece of shit on a consistent basis to try to get a penny. You know what I mean? And hope that, you know, I become this huge big drug dealer, you know,

Starting point is 01:03:58 that I'm fucking, you know, making that much money. But every huge drug dealer I know has no money. after they go to prison. They got no money after they go to prison. You know, their people will send them money. But besides that, I don't see nothing good come out of it anymore. So I had to change. Now, what happens after that three-year violation?

Starting point is 01:04:23 So the three years, after the three years, I was home for a while. I was home. Shit, I don't even know how long I was home for. I was home for a good long time. I got married. I, I, I calmed down. Still in the gang or no? I was, but I didn't hang out, you know.

Starting point is 01:04:44 I didn't, I didn't go around, you know, flaunting or anything like that. Not only that, where I was at, I mean, Harwinton, I was staying. I had a house in Harwinton. There's not, you're not going to find no gang members hanging out on the corner in Harwinton. You know what I mean? So I, I knew I was safe, you know? I knew I was good. And I know I probably still got a target on my.

Starting point is 01:05:06 back. I don't, I don't really care. My family's more important. You know what I mean? Like, I just stay away from the nonsense. You know what I mean? I never really left, but I don't, I don't sit there and I don't represent. You're not going to see me rocking colors and, you know, doing all of that stuff. I just don't do any of that stuff anymore, you know. But I ended up getting married and I got married to a horror and I ended up finding out that she was cheating and that's what ended up getting me more time and that's what ended up getting me my five years was because we were together and everything was good for a while and I started seeing little things here and there. I was bringing her up to my mom's beach house, you know, at this time and she she, she, she,

Starting point is 01:06:06 She was constantly on the computer, and it was when, I want to say it was MySpace that it was on when MySpace was on. It had to be around like 2009 or so, 2008. And I noticed her kept talking to somebody on there. I'm like, oh, who are you talking to? And I found out that, oh, it's just a co-worker that I'm talking to. And now I find out about this coworker. And this coworker, he's got a nice car, you know, not a bad looking guy, you know, handsome looking dude. I'm like, what the fuck is going on?

Starting point is 01:06:37 Because she used to be a whore back in the day. I thought she changed it a little bit, you know? But she didn't. She definitely didn't. And I'm, that, that turned into a vicious argument back and forth, you know. And then I, for her to get me out of the house after that situation happened was she let me let me have her cousin borrow my car right i let him borrow my car he did whatever he did with it and then he got into an argument with his mother ripped a donut in her in her

Starting point is 01:07:22 yard right and ended up coming back hours later he was only supposed to be gone for an hour me and him get into a fucking argument now he had a half-and-a-half At this time, I'm clean, you know, I'm doing good. I was doing well. And he called me a piece of shit after I argued with him about him taking the car. And that just set me off. And I should have just sat my ass down and left it because he already brought the car back. Everything was fine.

Starting point is 01:07:57 But no, I let my temper get hold, you know, take hold. And I went and fucking chased him. down, went down the street, and he launched a lighter at my car in front of somebody's house that was, she was, she was fucking raking leaves. So I get out of the car and I get out of the car with a fucking machete, you know, and he takes off running. I said, listen, I said, go down the street, meet me around the corner, you know. Oh, I'll be there, I'll be there. And this is right around the corner from the police station. This isn't far from the police.

Starting point is 01:08:37 This is a walk away from the police station. And he never came. He never met me there. So I went back home. I calmed down for the day. Me and my wife were getting, you know, we were fine. Everything seemed fine. We were laying down for the night.

Starting point is 01:08:55 Next thing you know, don't, don't, don't. I'm like, who the fuck is at our door knocking like that? You know, they're like, oh, 20, Portland Police Department, you know, open up. Da-da-da-da-da. I'm like, what the fuck? So come to find out, I got arrested because he came back to the house when I didn't know about it, right? He came back to the house and he slid in through the window and my wife let him in.

Starting point is 01:09:26 and what ended up happening was she pretty much told him to go fucking press charges against me, you know, and just not those exact words. She was, she was, he said, he said, I'm thinking about going to the police station. She said, do it, you know, do it. So. And it's crazy because she bonded me out that night. She fucking still bonded me out that night. So what did you get arrested for? Threatening?

Starting point is 01:09:55 Threatening. I don't know if they gave me an assault third degree or something. I don't know. It was like a $500 bond. I got bonded out that night. I was home. You know what I mean? It wasn't nothing big.

Starting point is 01:10:10 But this kid, you know, he's, he was a piece of shit. You know, at the end of the day, he was a piece of shit. And I found out, anyway, I found out that, you know, she was talking to this kid from her, work at at Home Depot and it goes further than that down the line and we she ended up wanting to work with animals so she got a job at Little Guild of St. Francis and while she was working or I'm sorry let me back it up so that situation violated me I forgot I was on I was on a I was on special parole at that time. That situation violated me, but they didn't violate me for almost three weeks. And then I had to go back to do the rest of my time that was left over as long as I beat those

Starting point is 01:11:08 charges. So I had to get a lawyer. I beat those charges. And then I came home. And when I came home, her cousin was the one that came up to me and told me that she told him to go and press those charges against me and write that up. So after all, all that happened, I stayed with her not thinking anything of it. You know, I got her into a place that I said, you know what, this, you know, we can't afford much right now. So I got to kind of put you in the hood, but, you know, at least everything's paid for, you know. So I put her in, you know, a little project building and she had my vehicle. She had everything of mine. Got home. And that's when she got a job at Little Gild of St. Francis in West Cornwall, and it was an animal shelter.

Starting point is 01:12:01 And I would help up there, you know, and they gave us an apartment upstairs. So I'm like, you know, we didn't have too, too much stuff. So I fucking used the attic part. I started growing marijuana up in the attic, you know, indoor marijuana. I got like 20 plants up there, you know. And I would help around the animal shelter. I would help, you know, fix, like, the crates or anything. I would even help with the dogs, you know.

Starting point is 01:12:30 I got a pit bull that was not food friendly to actually eat out of my hand at that point, you know. And that dog was there for so long because of it. And she was, while she was working there is the same time I ended up catching my five years. And even though it was a piece of shit situation that I did, you know, in my heart at the time, I feel like I was like she deserved it. You know what I mean? Now I look at it like I should have just walked away. But at that time, she's like, I'm going to my sisters.

Starting point is 01:13:18 I'm going to, you know, I'm just going to drink over there for a little bit and hang out. I said, okay. You know, now she's got our only car Little Guild had their own vans, right? And she goes there, does her, is drinking. She's like, I'll be home at midnight. I said, okay. Midnight comes around.

Starting point is 01:13:39 I call her. I said, where are you on you on your way? Oh, no, no, no, not yet. You know, making excuses. One o'clock comes around, two o'clock. I'm calling. Three o'clock, I'm calling. And I'm like, fuck this.

Starting point is 01:13:54 I went and I stole the little guild van. I jumped in that van and I went all the way from West Cornwall down to Torrington. And I drove by her sister's house. And I didn't plan on doing anything because I know how fucking stupid it was. I had to be kind of like on the low about everything. And I look in and they got the door opened so you can see through the screen door. And she's sitting on the couch with this guy. And this guy is her husband's little brother that was 17 years old that she was having an affair with.

Starting point is 01:14:32 He spoke no English. He was from Guatemala. He just came over. So, and now, mind you, she's 24 at this time, you know, she's 24. Kids 20, or the kid's 17 years old. She's 24 years old. The kid's not even of age, you know. and she tried to tell me that that that wasn't happening.

Starting point is 01:14:54 I went home. I went home. I was furious. I was ready to kill everybody. Everybody was about to die that time. So I came home, and once I came home, I'm sitting on the front porch. I'm waiting, and I'm drinking, and I'm waiting. And she finally pulls in.

Starting point is 01:15:14 It's like 4.30 in the morning. I'm like, so do you have a good night and this and that? And we start arguing back and forth, arguing back and forth. I said, fuck this. And I pulled out the gun out from out the closet. And I loaded up two bullets. But when I loaded up two bullets, I turned around to grab a cigarette, unloaded both bullets, you know. I said, I got one in here for you and one in here for me.

Starting point is 01:15:38 We're both going on this one. I said, now you're going to tell me the fucking truth. I said, are you fucking around on me? And she, no, I'm not messing around with nobody. I said, and I forgot the kid's name. I says, you're not messing with that man's brother. You're your sister's husband's little brother. Like, no, no, no, we're just friends.

Starting point is 01:16:00 I said, you're fucking lying. I said, you know how I know you're lying? I said, I took the van and I seen you. I seen you. I just didn't knock on the door. You know what I mean? I said, I'm not going to fucking knock on the door. Your sister lived behind the police station, you know?

Starting point is 01:16:16 So, once she came. in she fucking she she she was arguing back and forth with me blue smoke in my face and that's when I took the gun and I followed the smoke and I went right to her face with it and pulled the trigger and she just jumped and then she grabbed the gun and then after she grabbed I let her grab the gun she put it back up at the shelf I sat at the end of the bed I said listen we're going to talk about this and we're going to get this fucking figured out okay okay, but I'm tired right now and this and that. Like, we slept in the same bed together that night and everything, you know.

Starting point is 01:16:54 But there was a lot of argument between us before we ended up sleeping, before we ended up going to bed. Like, it was to the point where, you know, she tried to leave the room. I stood in front of the door. So that's a whole other charge in itself. And I didn't even know that. You know, that's like a kidnapping. It's one under a kidnapping.

Starting point is 01:17:18 I forgot what the fuck it was called, but it's, it's called something. I can't remember the name of it. But he, he ended up, or she, she ended up fucking, she ended up trying to leave. I wouldn't let her. And she was, she sat back down in the bed. I sat back down in the bed. I said, listen, we're going to talk about this as adults, this and that, turn into another screaming match again.

Starting point is 01:17:46 And, uh, she ended up swinging. at me. And she punched me in the eye. And I just laughed it off. You know, I just laughed it off. And I just grabbed her by her shirt and I pushed her back up on the bed. And however, I can't remember how the conversation ended. It was basically her saying, let's just go to sleep. You know, I'm tired. Da-da-da-da-da-da. I said, okay, whatever. I wake up. I notice I got a black fucking and I. She's downstairs working normally. So I go down there with fucking big glasses on and I show her, you know, and, you know, we're literally laughing about it.

Starting point is 01:18:26 Like, it was just like one of those things that we were literally laughing about. And even though it was a serious situation, it was just like a laughable moment, I guess. I don't know. I was just fucking nuts. So I end up feeling bad because of the whole situation because, What I did was kind of fucking, like, mind fucking, you know what I mean? And I was like, listen, I'm going to get coffee and cigarettes. So I left to go get coffee and cigarettes.

Starting point is 01:18:55 I got flowers and a teddy bear. Brought it back to her, you know, like to say sorry. She's like, yeah, I want you out. Like, what? You know, it kind of fucked me up. Like, I didn't get it. Like, what do you mean you want me out? Like, you got my dog.

Starting point is 01:19:12 You got my, you know, you got everything here of mine. Like, how are you kicking me out of like our place? And it wasn't really ours because we got it because she worked at Little Guild of St. Francis. You know what I mean? So it was really hers and Little Guild of St. Francis. And I didn't really even know, really look at the lease to see that, you know. So now I got to figure out how I'm going to get 20 marijuana plants and all my guns out of this house.

Starting point is 01:19:45 without the workers downstairs seeing it because you've got to walk on the side of the building and then where you have your car parked is where you got to fill everything in, you know. So I called my buddy up. I said, listen, I need your help. I need you to come over here like ASAP. I got to get some stuff out of this house. So we took fucking big moving boxes, filled it up with plants, dude. Just filled it up with plants.

Starting point is 01:20:13 Got those into the car. the guns we put under blankets and we carried the blankets out like we were carrying out like curtain rods and shit like that and we put those into the back seat we got all that out the only thing that I forgot was a cup I had full of bullets it had like three different types of bullets in it and I left I left I went to my buddy's house and I stayed there and I stayed there was almost 72 hours before the police came and arrested me. And she didn't call the cops until almost three days later talking about, oh, yeah, he tried to kill me.

Starting point is 01:20:56 He held me hostage. You know, he grabbed me by the throat. They took pictures of her throat. All this other shit. She had no marks on her at all. Like she had no marks on her. When the cops asked me, I still had part of my black eye. I said, no, this isn't from her.

Starting point is 01:21:17 I was breaking up something for a little guild. It was a piece of furniture and wood came up and hit me in the face. So I, like, stuck up for her, you know, and she just put it all out there. And she put it all out there because she went back to her sister. And her sister told her to call the cops. And she waited till then to do it. Like, I'm sitting there like, dude, this has. happened like, you know, two, three days ago, bro.

Starting point is 01:21:44 Like, and you're arresting me now for it? Well, that's when they called. Like, I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck is going on? So they booked me on attempted manslaughter charges, possession, even though they didn't have no firearm, possession of a firearm by a felon, assault in the second degree. and then what was the other one? It was, I can't remember the name of the other one, but it was like kidnapping.

Starting point is 01:22:17 It was like kidnapping. Oh, and then, don't forget, strangulation. I got a strangulation charge. After going to court the first day, they dropped most of all of that. You know what I mean? They dropped the attempted manslaughter charge. They dropped the possession of a firearm,

Starting point is 01:22:35 unless they find a firearm. But I gave the firearm to my father. My father then gave it to his buddy. And his buddy was a drunk who hung out at cop bars. So for some reason, this guy wanted to talk about having this firearm and gave it up. And he gave up the gun. The only thing that saved me was her saying, no, that's not the firearm. I literally, I had to get on the phone with her and be like, listen, please, please don't tell them that that's the firearm.

Starting point is 01:23:17 So she literally said, no, that's not what the firearm looked like. And that kind of saved my ass, you know. I didn't know what to do because I'm trying to fight this case. I got, now I got restraining orders on me, you know. And then they end up letting me out. So I end up getting out. I think my bond got dropped and I ended up making bond. And she contacts me all drunk talking about let's get back together.

Starting point is 01:23:56 I said, I'm willing to work on it and talk to you about it, you know. And she didn't like the fact that I was, I like called her back to back one day for on one day. and she called and reported it that I was breaking the restraining order after she was the one that stated that she wanted to fix things. So I'm just driving. I'm driving to my dads and I get pulled. I get fucking, you know, four or five cops pull me over. Get out of the car. Guns pulled everything.

Starting point is 01:24:28 Like I'm in Harwinton, dude. Like you're having me fucking lay on the ground like all this type of shit. Now mind you, I just came back from. I just got done copping fucking a bunch of cocaine and all sorts of shit. I had my buddy over here. He's literally putting it in the Louis, you know, the prison purse. And whatever he couldn't fit, we're stuffing in the middle of the, where the stick is at.

Starting point is 01:24:58 And we got everything hidden, but they only wanted me. They weren't looking for drugs. So they ended up getting me, and I got arrested for that. And I ended up getting time. That's where I ended up catching the five years for doing that. And during that five years, I was served by a marshal for a divorce from her. And her, it stated that there was a baby involved. I'm like, what?

Starting point is 01:25:32 So I look, I said, this ain't my fucking kid. I come to find out it's fucking Guillermo. or whatever the fuck his name is. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, like, it literally shows you she was cheating on me. Like, there was a reason why I did it. You know what I mean? Like, even though it was a scumbag way to react and I know that now, like, I could have

Starting point is 01:25:54 just fucking said, fuck you, I'm leaving. And that's how I should have dealt with it. And I didn't. I was more of a reactor than just somebody who thought before doing something, you know. and I've always been like that because I've had problems growing up I had a lot of problems growing up as a kid between, you know, like I said,

Starting point is 01:26:16 depression and anxiety and just I just didn't feel welcome or wanted a lot of the times, you know, and so I just did my own thing, especially when I got high, you know. I remember one time, and this is before, you know, these prison bids,

Starting point is 01:26:33 my father pulls up on me and I'm in my fucking boxers, dude, and only in my boxers in the street, covered in blood. And I'm covered in blood is because I'm fucking, I'm literally taking blood out of my veins, dude, and just spraying it on myself, dude, just because I was mad about something. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:26:51 Like, I was fucked up, dude. Like, I just did fucked up shit, you know? And, you know, how they say fucking, even females, they're cutters, dude. No, dude, I was a cutter too, dude. I didn't care. Like, I would fucking, I like to see it. Like I liked to feel it.

Starting point is 01:27:08 You know what I mean? It was fucking, I was fucking weird, bro. Like, it was just a weird situation for me, you know, being that type of person and like just hating my life, my entire life. You know, I fucking hated everything about it. And I came home from doing those five years. Do you do the full five years or how much time? Oh, yeah. I walked that motherfucker pretty much to the door except for six months, dude.

Starting point is 01:27:35 Six months I was in the hell. halfway house. And how old are you when you got out at that point? Oh, that was back in 2015. That you got out. Yeah, that I got out. So it's 2026, 30, I don't know, 35, 33. Something between 33 and 35 is when I got out. And you still haven't had really a stable job for a long period of time at that point? From when? Since 2015? Just in your life?

Starting point is 01:28:08 Leading up to that sentence. No. No. No. Not leading up to that sentence. No. But 2015 is when I came home. I said to myself, I'm not ever going

Starting point is 01:28:20 back to jail. And I was like talking to my buddy. I'm like, listen, I need to get some fucking pussy, dude. Like, you know, what's going on now out here? you know and we're in a dope halfway house we're in bishop street and in waterbury dude it's like you go in and they're like apartment buildings inside of an apartment so like six people are only in

Starting point is 01:28:45 there you know what i mean or no five people it was two two men and one one man bedroom so we would be in this thing and we weren't a lot there's so much that we weren't allowed to have but i got over on those counselors every fucking chance i got i got dude like we snuck a fucking whole air conditioner in there dude we had we had butcher knives for for cutting food and all sorts of shit dude like they didn't ask where I went they didn't ask where I what I was doing nothing where you going mall oh okay you're gonna be gone for three hours yep and it was just it was just like that dude it was just that that place was so lax and they didn't care what I was doing as long as I had a job and I got a job

Starting point is 01:29:30 right when I was allowed to get a job. I had it already all set up. You know, my buddy set me up with it. And I was doing just everything that I could in there to just have fun. And my boy's like, listen, you ever tried Tinder? And I said, no, what the fuck is Tinder, dude? He's like, dude, just swipe right or left, you know, and choose which ones you want. I'm like, all right, fuck it.

Starting point is 01:29:57 I'm swiping, you know? I'm swiping right and left. And she pops up my wife. Not my ex-wife, but my current wife. And I told her straight up, listen, I'm not looking for nothing, you know. I just got out from doing all this time. Like, I'm looking to just get some vagina and, you know, that's it, you know. And she's like, well, I just got out of a long relationship.

Starting point is 01:30:26 I'm not looking for nothing serious either. And that was supposed to be the, the, the situation between us. And it's been now, it's been 11 years later, you know, that we've been together and married. And, you know, it's just, you know, we had our ups and downs, especially with this Fed case. This Fed case put us in a fucking situation. What happened with that? Well, I, I end up. So this, this starts back a little bit further.

Starting point is 01:30:58 I started a business. It was a construction company with my buddy Kareem. This is after 2015? This is after 2015. When you got out. When I got out. So I started a construction company with my buddy Kareem. He had his own business.

Starting point is 01:31:16 I had my own business and we started putting work together. And we were picking up, you know, two, $300,000 jobs, dude. Like we were making really good money. And he and. ends up fucking, you know, doing his thing on the last job that we got, we were able to kind of stay in the apartment, right? So, or in the house because nobody lived there. So we were able to stay there.

Starting point is 01:31:47 We were able to sleep there if we needed to or, you know, just so we could wake up early and start the job. Well, that's when I, that's around the time that I relapsed, you know, I felt like things just weren't going right and I had to stay up so long. So I was like, well, cocaine will keep me up long enough, you know, where I can finish this job up. So I started fucking doing cocaine and then it turned into crack. And while I was doing that, he finds out. And I'm thinking he's going to be mad.

Starting point is 01:32:22 No, he wants to get in on him. Like, I'm like, fuck, dude. Now it's like less for me. Like I'm pissed. You know what I mean? Like, now I got to share shit. I got to get you shit. And I just, I just didn't want that to go that route.

Starting point is 01:32:37 I wanted to keep my little fucking bathroom secret, my bathroom secret, you know. And he ended up getting high too. And he started getting paranoid. And he's like, oh, you're, you're taking money out of the business account. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about, dude? So our friendship and our business relationships started to. to like hemorrhage. And we kind of split off from each other.

Starting point is 01:33:04 And after we split off from each other and we finished that job, we went and did our own thing. I went, I was still doing the construction, but I went more full speed into selling drugs. And I was selling mainly cocaine. He was selling heroin. So he would come get heroin from me or he would come get cocaine from me. And he was selling heroin because he was actually doing it. And I was getting the cocaine from him because he had a plug for the cocaine.

Starting point is 01:33:37 So I was getting, it was like we were transferring back and forth, you know. So I start doing all of that and I'm selling a lot. I mean, it turned from powder to crack very quickly because I knew how to cook and I knew how to cook well. So I had people in and out of that house. And everybody that I had kind of, I had like about six people working for me selling drugs. I never did a drug deal while I was doing this, you know, unless it was somebody that came right to me. You know what I mean? And then I would give them their shit.

Starting point is 01:34:22 But if somebody called up and said, listen, I want, you know, I want an eight ball. I would always send somebody out. But I always gave them a cell phone. I told them that right when you get on the car, you put it away, you know, and have your seatbelt on, check all your lights before you go. You know, I tried to be as safe as possible while doing this. But it seemed like I was being followed because every once in a while, my brother or one of my guys who were selling would get pulled over.

Starting point is 01:34:57 they would get pulled over by a lot of unmarked vehicles and they would never find anything. They could not catch what I was doing. Even when I had to go meet somebody one time, I literally left it in a fucking trash bin on the side of Cumberland Farms and told the other person to leave the money in a different trash bin at a different gas station that was right across the street so I can watch that other that other, that other, that other, that other, that other, that other. a trash can. And they didn't even know that I was there yet. You know what I mean? So once I seen them put the money in, that's when I know that you, you, I can give you the address or the, where the, where I put my drugs at. And I would sit there and I would watch them. I'd literally watch them and see who's picking it up and, you know, what they're doing and where they're going afterward. And I, I, I kept it like that.

Starting point is 01:35:57 for a long time and then I started noticing like people walking up and down my street that I've never seen in my day of my life they're like they got to be mid 20s dude walking a dog looking like a married couple and you know old people that I've just never it just didn't something didn't seem right dude you know and then one time we got not a knock on the door and I told my wife, no, I'm not answering. I said, I need you to answer. It was homicide cops. I was like, what the fuck? Like, I'm upstairs listening to this. I'm like, oh my God, why is homicide here at my house? And then even though they were homicide cops, they were there for a kid named Derek. Now, Derek, let's bring you back real quick. Remember, I went to jail because I violated and my wife,

Starting point is 01:36:51 my ex-wife said, yeah, go ahead. it, that's Derek. I gave him a job at my company and I gave him a job selling drugs for me. He ended up, he ended up using my vehicle, my company vehicle, to go to Target and steal video games. So for some reason, homicide cops got involved with that. I have no idea why they never came back and questioned me. I never got bothered again by those cops, but I knew that there were feds walking up and down the street

Starting point is 01:37:33 because there were people that never walked. People that just didn't walk up and down my street like that. And they were definitely walking up and down the street. They were definitely watching me. And it got to the point where now I'm switching back and forth. I'm selling heroin and cocaine. because I relapsed on heroin. I relapsed on heroin because I'm doing so much cocaine that I couldn't get to sleep.

Starting point is 01:38:00 So I would fucking do a little bit of dope, but I would only sniff it, you know. I would sniff a little bit of dope to try to get me to come down. And that was the only thing that worked. Nothing else worked. So I would get my dope from Kareem and he would get his cocaine from me. But he would be getting 10 pieces, 10 pieces, 10 pieces, 10 pieces. He says, you know, and he'd be sitting in my kitchen just smoking. And I'd be just doing my thing down in the garage.

Starting point is 01:38:30 And I literally let him know, you know, like, listen, bro, like, we got to try to figure something out. And so we can, we don't have to be doing this out of our house. And we figured out a way to do it. And he fronted me a bunch of dope. I fronted him a bunch of cocaine. He gave me the money back. I gave him his money back, but I said, listen, I said, you know, I did a bundle out of that.

Starting point is 01:38:59 You know, I got to give you the money for the bundle. He said, okay. He checks his stuff. And he's like, yo, you stole from me? And he thought I stole from him. So it ended up turning into a fight in my yard. Now, we're slipping all over the place because my whole yard is mud. You know, we're literally fighting into mud, dropping our cell phones, and we're fighting in the mud.

Starting point is 01:39:22 And he ends up, like, two hours after this fight, he ends up finding it between his seats. He ends up finding dope between his seats. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? I said, don't ever come around my house again. Like, I was done with him after that. Like, you're going to fucking swing on me over fucking some dope, dude. Like, a bundle of dope, like, someone cheap as shit you can get, you know? I was just so infuriated with him.

Starting point is 01:39:48 But I was a big fucking gun enthusiast at the time. so I had some fucking vicious firearms. And he got to the point where he was knocking at my door all hours of the night. And I cut him off from the cocaine. So he wanted crack. And he kept coming. And my wife would tell him he's not here. He's not here.

Starting point is 01:40:10 He's not here. And my wife started getting, like, freaked out, feeling like she was in danger. So I see him pull up one day. And I'm in my fucking in my garage. and my garage windows were tinted out prior to me even getting into this house they were already tinted out so i'm watching him come up to my house and i'm cleaning my fucking sks and i had an skis that i turned into a bullpup and so i basically turned a rifle like this into something like this and it had fucking pistol grip on it you know that stock on it it was fucking it was such a nice gun they got that

Starting point is 01:40:47 fucker um but anyway i i seen all of this going down and i'm like fuck this he's not coming back again you know so after he pulls away and starts leaving i watch where he leaves i load up my firearm dude and i get in the car i get up there and i fucking i know where he's going and he's going around uh winston highland lake so i fucking i don't i drive by him and then I spun back around so we're kind of coming for each other like towards each other and I roll the window down and as we're passing each other and I'm ready to pull the trigger I look behind his car and there's a fucking goddamn guy and his daughter and those bullets dude those projectiles do not go straight they flip they flip flop and I know that you know what I mean

Starting point is 01:41:47 And I know that every one of my projectiles is not going to hit a fucking car that's moving at that speed. So I pull the gun back in immediately. And today, this day, I thank whoever's out there. If it's God, if it's, you know, whatever higher power that's out there, I definitely think that because I could have killed a little girl and her father without even thinking twice about it. Because I want like it was just in my head I wanted him dead I wanted him gone I wanted him to stop and that's how I knew how to get him to stop you know and I just after that I fucking I was like yo we got to hurry up and get out of Connecticut I just can't be out here no more because I'm going to end up I'm going to end up hurting some as the third time I put a gun to somebody's fucking head and you know two other times with somebody very close to me that I I put his fucking face into a puddle dude you know and um I put a loaded pistol right into his fucking his temple because he was stealing from me. And I just, I knew I was going to end up hurting somebody or killing somebody at some point. And we ended up finally getting out of Connecticut and got down to South Carolina.

Starting point is 01:43:06 And we were down to South Carolina for maybe, maybe a year. My wife had to keep coming back up for surgeries because she got hurt and she was in the middle of disability. So I get a call from somebody I did that five years with. And we were cool, you know, but we weren't like cool like that. Like, we're not fucking best friends. So he ends up calling me. He's like, hey, I want to come down and I want to come visit you. I said, all right, come on down, come visit, you know.

Starting point is 01:43:38 And he's from Hartford. I'm thinking to myself, like, this guy is not going to come down here. Like, you know how many times people told me they were going to come down here? Like, you know how many times people told me they were going to come to And they didn't come. Well, he took me up on that fucking invitation, dude. And that's what put me in the situation with the feds. Because what ended up happening was we hung out for two, three days.

Starting point is 01:43:59 And we were just partying, chilling, getting Airbnbs, going to the resorts, hanging at Myrtle Beach. You know what I mean? Just fucking having a blast, dude. And he's like, all of a sudden, can you get guns? I'm like, bro, everybody can get guns out here. I said they're in the classifies, dude, like literally in the newspaper. You can go in the newspaper and find people to sell guns in the newspaper. It literally will say to you, you know, 9mm for sale and it'll tell you what kind, you know, and you can buy them.

Starting point is 01:44:32 He's like, all right, but I want I want to get like brand new, brand new guns. You know, I said, well, fucking armory, you know, you go right to the fucking armory. I said, the best thing for you to do, though, is get yourself an address down here. So then when I'm transferring on them to you, it's to an address to a South Carolina resident. So we did everything as legal as possible. You know, there was transfer papers. There is, you know, bills of sales, everything, you know. He even got pulled out.

Starting point is 01:45:06 He got pulled over with like, I forgot how many guns he had. I think he was like six up in Virginia. And they let him go. He had all those guns on them. him all the bills of sales everything they let him go and he went fucking home and he did whatever he did with him well he liked talking on messenger so he had everything on messenger everything to the point of taking a picture with me and him were strapped with both you know each had a nine millimeter on us on the back of my at the back of my car where it showed my license plate number

Starting point is 01:45:43 But the way they found out what gun and was what was by zooming in, the serial number was fucking pointing out. So they were able to read the serial number on it. Once they were able to read the serial number on it, they were able to trace it back. They didn't trace it back to me because I didn't buy the gun. My wife did. So they traced it back to my wife. Now they're calling my wife, you know, and I'm like, don't say nothing. no saying nothing to these people you know you don't know what the fuck they're talking about well they

Starting point is 01:46:17 the way they got me was not only his text messages and one of his text messages had a picture of me and my wife on there and saying that's the plug and that's the plugs plug you know and then had pictures of all of my personal firearms and loading them up and unloading them and what i what i had personally and what he could get you know there were thousands of people of this shit. And he ended up, I remember the ATF, they came to the house and I says, I told them this big elaborate story, you know, yeah, fucking these guys, they just call me up. He's like, well, how did you sell them? I said, like, in the newspaper, I said, they fucking call you. He's like, did you make a profit? I said, it's, what do you think I'm not going to fucking make

Starting point is 01:47:06 a little extra money? You know what I mean? Of course I made a little extra money when I sold it. That's where I fucked up too. I didn't realize because I made a profit that that's considered sale of a firearm without a federal firearms license. If I didn't make no profit, that's not, you can't charge me with that. But because I said I made a profit, they were able to charge me with that. But aren't you a felon anyways? You shouldn't even have the gun?

Starting point is 01:47:35 Yeah, yeah. But they didn't charge me with that. They fucking, they did not charge me with felon. in possession of because none of the guns, they never, they never caught me with one gun. It physically in hand. In hand. They never caught me with one gun. Even my own guns that I had.

Starting point is 01:47:52 Like, we all said they were hers. She was licensed. You know what I mean? So we all said it was my wife's. But you just brokered the deal. So they charged you with that. Yes. I brokered the deal.

Starting point is 01:48:04 So, but she got arrested too because they said that I lied to them, which I, did and I didn't know they had a tape recorder in their fucking pocket while they were talking to me. Can't lie to the feds. Can't lie to the fucking feds. And I remember dropping my son off and my daughter off at work. They were both security guards. I was a security guard. And I'm not even supposed to be a security guard, but I knew somebody.

Starting point is 01:48:30 And they let me in to be a security guard. They said, just all you need to do is retire in three months. You know, I'm going to resign in three months. I said, okay, I'll do that as long as I get there. to make the money, you know what I mean, and do this job. So that's what we were doing. And I dropped them both off at work. And I pull in and I look outside and I live in a black neighborhood.

Starting point is 01:48:53 You know, there was only one other white family there besides us. And I look over and I see this little fucking like Ford Focus or whatever, right? Brand fucking new. It's parked on the opposite side of the street you would drive on. I'm like, something's wrong with that. And he's parked in front of fucking. a black person's house right now. I says,

Starting point is 01:49:14 those are two white dudes. You know, like, now I'm being like fucking super, like, you know, racist towards these white guys. Like, yo, you're not supposed to be in my neighborhood, you know? And I'm looking at them. I'm like, that's the fucking feds, dude. And I can't see him clearly, but I can see him clearly enough where one of them was baldheaded.

Starting point is 01:49:36 One of them had hair. And that's what it was in the car. And I'm like, fuck, dude. Dude, that's the fed. So I called my son. I said, dude, tell me I'm bugging right now. Please tell me I'm bugging.

Starting point is 01:49:48 I think the feds are outside right now waiting on me. He's like, no, no, no, no. You're fucking bugging. This is my son telling me this. Like, I fucking sure hope so, dude. I sure hope so. My wife's in the bedroom, just doing her thing hanging out. I said, listen.

Starting point is 01:50:04 I said, I think the feds are outside right now. I said, I'm going to go down to the one stop. and I'm going to see if they follow me or not. If they follow me, I'm probably going to get arrested. I'm just letting you know that right now. She said, okay. So I already know her heart fucking dropped in her fucking ass. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:50:25 So I took my little McDonald's fucking orange juice with me and fucking went out there like I didn't know nothing. And when I pull out, I pull out back up. I back up opposite of them and pull towards them and fucking yank the gas. I'm fucking out, dude. And there's only one way in, one way out over there. So they're coming around the fucking bend, you know,

Starting point is 01:50:48 and meeting me. So we're coming at each other like this. And I'm fucking turning. I fucking turned again. And we lived behind Garner's Ferry, which was right next to Fort Jackson, you know. And now you're on military property. Even if you're not beyond those gates,

Starting point is 01:51:07 You're still on military property. So there was nowhere I could really run to without turning in this into like a military situation as well. Like the military police could get involved as well. So that's when I stopped at the one stop and going to the one stop. And as I'm getting out of the car, they're like, put your fucking hands up. I said, whoa, whoa, what did I do? This and that. They got the whole street block off.

Starting point is 01:51:33 I mean, the whole street. They had South Carolina department down there. they had regular their regular state cops or whatever the fuck they were. Then they had all the feds that were in on all unmarked cars. Both sides all of a sudden were all blocked off. Like I've never seen so many fucking cops blocked off. So, uh, and, and the barbershops next to the one stop. So everybody hangs at the barbershop down south, man.

Starting point is 01:51:58 Like, it's like the movies. You know what I mean? They're hanging at the barbershop. And they're fucking just watching this fucking white boy get fucking just thrown to the ground and fucking, you know, gun to the head. And I'm like, oh, my God. So they get me in the car. I'm like, what's going on?

Starting point is 01:52:17 Why am I being arrested? You know why you're being arrested. You didn't tell us the truth and this and that. I said, oh, my God. She's like, we're going to arrest your wife right now. I said, you got to be fucking kidding me. I said, for what? For what?

Starting point is 01:52:32 She bought, oh, she bought the firearms. I said, listen, I made her by the firearm. I made her. I physically made her do it, you know, and they weren't fucking having it. So I'm like, listen, please do not. She's sick. And she was.

Starting point is 01:52:49 She was sick. I said, please do not. I will, I will, I'll shut my mouth. I won't fucking kick your fucking windows doors, none of that shit. I won't do nothing like that. I will be a fucking grown ass man. And I will fucking go quietly. as long as you do not fucking put her on a plane

Starting point is 01:53:11 and make her go through the fucking extradition process and then put her in prison up there. So they got on the phone with the fucking, the prosecutor and the prosecutor says let her fly down here. She's got 24 hours. So they let her fucking fly down there. Thank God they let her fly down there

Starting point is 01:53:33 because she would not have made it. She wouldn't have made it. She would have probably killed. herself literally because she's she's got vicious mental problems herself and uh with everything going on she was already like super fucking emotional and then just in a bad way dark cloud everything the whole situation the whole nine and uh yeah she got her we got her to get on a plane got her to come down there they fingerprinted her and after they fingerprinted her they let her go me However, I had to go through the whole fucking process, dude.

Starting point is 01:54:11 I had to deal with Sinton County down in South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, Richland County. And then they moved me after they, I couldn't wait to move, man, that fucking place was so horrible. It was so bad in there. They literally, the gangs ran those units. The gangs run those jails. They're nothing like Connecticut prisons. You know what I mean? Connecticut prisons, honestly, they're soft as baby shit compared to any other fucking prison that I have ever been in.

Starting point is 01:54:45 Connecticut is very soft. They're very soft on predators and they're very soft to each other. You know what I mean? This was a whole different monster, dude. These dudes would literally go to the CO and be like, listen, you know, and they'd be a part of a gang. And be, listen, this guy, he's, you know, so-and-so. I need him on a one-on-one real quick. quick. So they'd let them come out of the fucking pod to go into their pod, lock that pod.

Starting point is 01:55:12 They would fucking do their little one-on-one. And then they'd let them out fucking either not bleeding or bleeding and let him go back into his pod. And they went back and sit down. And that's how that fucking jail ran, dude. A lot of GDs, a lot of fucking bloods. You know, and that's how they ran it, dude. They fucking would let them fight it. And you'd go outside in the rec yard and it was it was concrete all the way around you know concrete all the way around even a fence that went across the way but motherfuckers would wrap things around batteries drugs around batteries and toss them up and over and fucking in and now you got your weed or you got your fucking drugs you know it was mainly weed you know a lot of things that I did when I first

Starting point is 01:55:58 got arrested was I smoked dude because I smoked so much before I fucking I went in you know so like the weed was my I'm finally free you know and that's what I was doing down there and then one day dude it was I think it had to be two months maybe

Starting point is 01:56:18 maybe 45 days they called my name and I got transferred I'm like oh thank God and I'm thinking I'm gonna go somewhere even I'm gonna be somewhere better you know fuck no they fucking they they

Starting point is 01:56:33 they threw me on a fucking Bluebird to Georgia. So I had to go to fucking Georgia, their transfer station over there. And that's, I think it's Irwin County. Irwin County is what they're called. And I sat over there. And I'm like, well, it's cleaner over here, you know. But, dude, the COs were just pieces of shit.

Starting point is 01:56:55 Like, they would come in and just shut the TV off on us for no reason. Like, they would just do things to just piss everybody off. And we were, it was 24 hour lock. down. Like there was no coming out. Your shower was inside your cell. I've never been in a cell that you went in and there's a shower in there. And the fucking cell would get so, so much humidity in there. Like the walls are dripping. It's like, it's like a summer day in like a shitty prison out in Connecticut. You know what I mean? The walls are fucking dripping everything, dude. And I was like, well, it's not that bad as long as the, you know, it's pretty cool. It's showers in the fucking,

Starting point is 01:57:32 you know, in the cell because only two people are using it. So we get to keep it pretty fucking clean. But it was very hard to shower with another man being literally in the cell with you. You know what I mean? Because he was on the top bunk. You know, all he had to do was turn around, you know?

Starting point is 01:57:50 So you want to try to like keep everything covered as much as fucking possible. And then you got to clean up all the shit. Like all the water everywhere. And like it would just make a fucking mess. But it was a pretty clean prison where I was at, and then they fucking moved me out of there. They threw me on another bluebird, and then they brought me to the tarmac, dude. And once they hit that tarmac and those fucking con air, that was a whole different process, dude.

Starting point is 01:58:22 They took my wedding ring, and my wedding ring is worth a lot of fucking money, dude. Now, I'm in the middle of fucking East bum fuck, and I'm like, shit. dude, they're going to see that it's got diamonds in it. So I turned the diamonds upside down, you know, and made it so you can't see the diamonds. That motherfucker took my hand and went like this and everything. He looked at the whole ring. And he's like, yeah, you can't take that, would you? I said, listen, you got to figure out a way to get this sent.

Starting point is 01:58:53 He's like, oh, well, you could just give it to her and she'll send it off. I'm like, what? No, like, I'm not doing it like that. Like we need to have some, we got to do something. So the woman fucking did me a solid and she fucking wrote down everything on an envelope, you know, a folder envelope and let me drop it in there. And she sealed it in front of me and everything. I'm like, thank you very much.

Starting point is 01:59:16 I appreciate it. My dad got it. And it's crazy because there was a fucking hole. It was ripped probably from going through the machine. You know what I mean? It went through the fucking machine. And it ripped the bag. and it was hanging out of the bag when my dad got it.

Starting point is 01:59:34 I almost lost the ring, man. And I would have been devastated, devastated, because it was not a cheap fucking ring. And anyway, back to the tarmac. We get on there. We get to the one tarmac. We're waiting, trying to figure out what plane we're going on. We all get split up.

Starting point is 01:59:56 You know, some of us wishing we were going with others. I hope I'm going with you. You know what I mean? Just the bullshit talk. And they got us on our planes. And I'm like, oh, my God, why are they taking me to fucking Oklahoma? Dude. So they fucking take me and they throw me on the plane.

Starting point is 02:00:16 And I think we got off in, I want to say we got off in Colorado. But I'm not 100% sure. I'm not 100% sure where we were. But there were two prisons next to each other wherever we ended up afterward. So we got off of the plane and we got back on another bluebird and then we got brought over to the Oklahoma Transfer Station. I'm like, oh my God, I just went from somewhere semi nice looking and clean to the most dirtiest, fucking filthiest place you can ever be in. Oklahoma was no fucking joke, dude. I mean, I know Georgia prisons are pretty fucking bad down there,

Starting point is 02:01:02 but I was only at Irwin County in the 24-hour fucking lock area. I didn't get to see the rest of the prison much. You know, I got to walk down the hall. That was it. But to see the insides, I didn't get to see the insides. But that fucking Oklahoma prison was pretty bad. It was the same transfer station that the Tiger King, he was there. just left and they moved him because of me the media kept coming in front of the fucking

Starting point is 02:01:35 building and they didn't want it there anymore so they fucking they moved the tiger king out of there like and i was telling my wife all about it and it was funny because the commissary is called tiger something you know what i mean it was just fucking it was a weird like scenario but anyway yeah i i sat there and they they have scams down there like commissary scams so you got to be careful where you put your money on like they literally have websites to put you can order people commissary right so like i can go on your books and i can order you commissary but if i go on to the wrong website it could be a letter off that money's going nowhere and my wife did that she went to the wrong one she got ripped off because there's so many

Starting point is 02:02:27 scam sites for their fucking website. It's ridiculous. Like, it's so hard to find somebody and find a, find one that you're not going to get screwed on. You know what I mean? And she, she ended up, she never got her money back, but she did send me the money again and she didn't really have the money. You know what I mean? I left her with a certain amount to send me, but, and my credit cards, but she needed that money for fucking rent and everything else. And, uh, dude, that fucking place was horrible. I got there literally just after they got off like this huge lockdown. There was a huge lockdown nationally.

Starting point is 02:03:18 There was a national federal lockdown for, uh, an MS-13 killed a black hand, right? So those are like the OG Mexican Mafias. You know, they got a big fucking black handprint on their back. Well, one of the MS-13s killed one of them. And they did a big national lockdown. And I just missed it. And I was like, oh, thank God. Because every prison was locked down.

Starting point is 02:03:44 Every single fucking one of them. And they weren't locked down for a couple days. They were locked down for a long time. And then they housed all the MS-13 gang members in a certain prison. I don't know which one that they put them in. But Oklahoma, man, the first thing that I seen in Oklahoma, because at first I was in like a dorm area, and the dorm area had multiple bunks.

Starting point is 02:04:15 Like it just looked like a third world country because you had like hang up your sheets if you wanted to wash them, put a sheet in front of the toilet to take a shit like just dirty county jail slash the cops didn't give a fuck like the cops did not come in there unless you're all sleeping that's how bad they did not give a fuck

Starting point is 02:04:42 so there was this kid he was a young kid he was rapping over and over again he would just rap and it was like the same lyrics but it sounded like he said I'm going to stab you right something about i'm going to stab you and i'm like dude is that what he's saying like i ask another white woman like is that what he's saying he's like yo just you know ignore it ignore it i said i am i'm just i'm just wondering like you know like is he fucking saying that shit well one kid from cali man fucking was like bro what the fuck are you saying you're gonna stab me like you know

Starting point is 02:05:19 and uh they get they go back and forth and and he's like he's like I apologize I didn't mean for for you to think that this and that he's like I'll stop doing it well he didn't stop doing it he kept doing it the kid from cali went up to him again said something to him again and they got into an argument this time like a real argument back and forth and next thing you know bro they're swinging fucking hands and they're right in front of my bunk I'm on a bottom bunk and I'm like what the fuck so my first reaction is is to get up and move out of the way. Because if I'm getting hit or if I get hit,

Starting point is 02:06:00 I'm going to the hole too. You know what I mean? Like, there's no fucking getting out of it. Like, I'm in the mix. So I get up, I move out of the way. And dude, you should have seen everybody. And it was mostly black people in there. And they all just, all their heads fucking turned at me.

Starting point is 02:06:18 Because where I moved to, I was actually doing a smart move. I was actually putting my back towards the window where the cops could see inside. But he, they thought I was, I was running to the door. Like I was scared. But it wasn't that I was scared. I was, I didn't want to get hit. Like, you know what I mean? And get in the mix.

Starting point is 02:06:40 But they thought I was going to tell her something. And it was fucking hilarious because everyone's head fucking just turned towards me. And I'm just, I'm just sitting there like, dude. And I just sat in the corner and I had my arms crossed and my. and my back towards the fucking window watching them going back and forth and this kid that said he was going to stab

Starting point is 02:06:59 the, you know, that said he was only rapping was fucking putting it on this kid from Cali boy. He was beating him up good and the kid from Cali just wasn't taking it. He said fuck this and he turned around, grabbed the fucking fiberglass mop stick and wrapped it around

Starting point is 02:07:16 his kid's head. And next thing you know is kids got fucking fiberglass just stuck in his fucking face. There's blood all over the place. All the OG fucking dudes, they're getting up. They're mopping the fucking floors

Starting point is 02:07:30 because there's so much fucking blood. And I'm like, oh my God. It's fucking like the UFC in this fucking place. And don't nobody give a fuck. Don't nobody care. I ended up actually going in, they threw me in a dry cell in that prison and then put me in seg in that prison.

Starting point is 02:07:46 Because over a fucking breakfast tray, dude, all because I mouthed off to the cop. They don't care what you do to each other. But you fucking mouth off to a cop and you're fucking going into a fucking dry cell and then two sag, dude. So the way we get our food was through the beanhole every single time was right through the trap in the door. So breakfast comes along and my bunky taps on my bunk. He's like, yo, you're about to miss breakfast. I'm like, oh, my bad.

Starting point is 02:08:18 So I get up. He's like, there's no trays left. I said, how is there no trays left? I said, you, you know how many people are in here. How are there no trays left? I must have gave it to somebody else. I said, yeah, but that doesn't have nothing to do with me. I said, what the fuck are you talking about?

Starting point is 02:08:35 I said, give me a fucking tray. Like, I just wake up. Now, I'm mad. Like, I'm already angry. You know what I mean? Like, I'm fucking mad that I'm even at this prison right now. Like, I'm fucking pissed. So I'm going back and forth with him.

Starting point is 02:08:48 And the first thing he does, is he fucking puts his hand on his taser, gets the fucking thing charged up, gets on his walkie, and fucking, he's like, you got anything else to say? I'm like, dude, all I'm asking is for a fucking tray, bro.

Starting point is 02:09:06 Like, get me a tray, bro. Oh, you're gonna ask me one more time for a tray. I'll get you, Trey. I'm like, bro, stop fucking playing games. Give me a fucking tray, dude. Fucking hits the button on me, bro. I'm like, oh, my fucking God. Now they're all coming in, tasers out.

Starting point is 02:09:27 I'm like, now I got to turn around, get on my fucking knees. They fucking drag me out, hog-tie me, and they literally got four fucking officers fucking lifting me up, fucking hog-tied, and they slide me into a fucking dry cell dude and left me in there. I'm like, you got to be fucking kidding me. So I'm sitting in there hog-tied for hours, hours. I don't even know how many hours I was in this fucking little fucking,

Starting point is 02:09:55 and it was this little pissy smelling dry cell. I was so fucking mad, dude. Because I didn't do nothing wrong. All I did was ask for her fucking tray. Like, dude just cranked this fucking guy the day before, you know, across the head with a fucking mop. And I'm asking for a tray and I'm going to fucking seg for it. So anyway, somebody comes down.

Starting point is 02:10:19 They're like, you good? I said, I've been good, dude. Like, I've been all right. All I wanted was a tray. Like, you turned this into a huge fucking problem for no reason. So they never, they still never, I still never got a tray. Still never got a fucking tray. Well, they took me out of the hog tie.

Starting point is 02:10:39 Let me sit there for a few more minutes. And they're like, all right, pack your stuff. You're going back. No, I think I'm going back to the same spot. No. They fucking brought me to the fucking shoe. I'm like, what the fuck am I going to the shoe for? Oh, you got seven days.

Starting point is 02:10:54 I said seven days for what? Like, what the fuck did I do? Like, tell me what the fuck my charge is. I never even got a ticket for this. I never got a ticket for this. They'll fucking lock you up for days, sometimes weeks, and then let you out if they know that it was just a junk ticket. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 02:11:14 So they fucking put me in there. And it's so weird because Oklahoma, they let you use the fucking phone there when you're on, when you're in the shoe, you get to go use the phone. So I had to call my people from the fucking shoe, which was pretty cool, you know, you get to do that.

Starting point is 02:11:28 Like, but it was just, it was fucking such a fucking weird fucking place. And then they brought me back out of there. And now once they bring me back out of there, they put me in the blocks. So the blocks is a whole different. So you move from the,

Starting point is 02:11:48 the general population dorm area, right, where everybody's just like doing their thing. And then they move you to the blocks once blocks open up. They're much smaller. There's probably about 12, 12, you know, rooms to each one, six and six. They were very small, you know, but they were fucking around in a circle, you know. And they literally put me in the Serenio Crip fucking block. I'm like, oh my fucking God. Like, I'm, I'm over here with these fucking guys right now.

Starting point is 02:12:26 Like, and in my heart, I want to say something. But at the same time, I'm like, dude, I'm in the feds. Like, none of this will go well. I already know. So I kept my mouth shut. And I just fucking did my time there, dude. And I didn't talk to literally nobody at Oklahoma, dude. How long were you in Oklahoma for?

Starting point is 02:12:50 About 45 days. And then would they bring you back to Connecticut? Dude, they fucking, it's, do you see the fucking way they turned? They went, like, it's crazy because they went from South Carolina to Georgia and to Oklahoma. And then from Oklahoma up to fucking Rhode Island. So they took a home. Oh, to the Wyatt Detention Center, right? Dude, that was fucking motel.

Starting point is 02:13:15 Eight, brother. Like that place was a whole different lifestyle I'm like dude I can live here all fucking my whole time Is that where you fought your case out of? Yeah I didn't get to talk to a lawyer except for in Richland County And the Richland County lawyer was like Dude you're looking at 10 fucking years mandatory

Starting point is 02:13:37 I'm like he's like and that's the smallest sentence you're looking at I'm like what? No dude no Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, are you my lawyer? Yeah, I'm your lawyer. Come to find out, no, he's not my fucking lawyer. Like, he was my lawyer down there if I wanted to speak to a lawyer, but he's not my

Starting point is 02:13:58 lawyer. You finally get me out of Oklahoma and I'm fucking, I head up to Wyatt. They gave me a fucking goddamn four inch thick mattress, maybe even six inch. Got some springs in the fucking thing. They gave me a pillow. they gave me a fucking radio. I was like, what the fuck is this place? Like, this is the nicest prison ever.

Starting point is 02:14:22 Like, they're all so nice here. And they were, dude. Like, even the fucking cops, they were just nice cops, dude. Like, they gave us extra toilet paper when we asked. I fucking never had a cop give me an extra roll of toilet paper. They don't want to give that shit. So I get up there and I'm fucking doing my thing up there. And they're in the holding because this,

Starting point is 02:14:44 is during like the end of COVID time, right? So they're still trying to transition into opening up everything. So they had half the area I was in was all ICE detainees. And then the other half was us. So when they were out, we couldn't come out. And when we were out, they couldn't come out. But they got more time out than us. And they had different rules than us.

Starting point is 02:15:12 and they had, you know, more things that were, they got treated better than us. You know what I mean? Like in all, in everything. Like, they were supposed to, they got different food, everything. You know what I mean? Like, they were treated way better than us. And, but I didn't mind it up there because they had fucking ice cream up there.

Starting point is 02:15:37 You can order fucking out. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, like, every. week they had a different tray you can order like terriaki chicken wings you know buffalo wings pizza you know all sorts of different shit and then you had the guy that came around with the fucking ice cream cart that had the ice creams in it they had the frozen fucking uh like hot pockets and and freezer uh you know the the pizzas i'm like this is fucking straight dude like this ain't bad like i could literally do my time here you know so

Starting point is 02:16:12 So I'm fucking sitting there, still haven't talked to a lawyer. I get my indictment in. My indictment, I was like, oh, my fucking God. I'm like, I have somebody look up at, you know, which each one holds. And I'm looking at fucking 65 years, I'm thinking in my head. I'm like, this can't be fucking true. Like, I'm like ready to fucking just tie a fucking sheet around my neck, dude, and do the fucking, you know, to hop up. off the second tier, like, I was ready to go.

Starting point is 02:16:45 Like, I am not doing 65 years. There's no fucking way, dude. Like, you're not going to catch me even in fucking court, dude. Sorry. Like, it's over with. And I ended up fucking, finally, like, two days later, like, I'm stressing for two days. And I'm talking to my wife.

Starting point is 02:17:05 I'm talking to my wife in the cell, dude. Like, I'm in the cell talking to my fucking wife on the GTL tablet. I'm like, what the. What fuck is this, dude? You know, like this. This is mind-boggling to me because I've never got to experience this type of fucking, like, luxurious fucking shit, you know? Like, I'm in the fucking cell talking to my wife, texting with my wife, all of this stuff. And, you know, my day was filled with fucking handball and all that other shit.

Starting point is 02:17:35 I was like, this is great. And I fucking got that fucking indictment. And I'm shit in my pants. dude I'm like fuck dude like I really fucked up this time you know I really did it I'm gonna lose everything like before I lost everything but it was all gainable regainable this time I'm losing things that are not regainable dude like I'm losing my wife my fucking you know my stepkids you know like just things that you just don't get back you know memories and fucking just people that are not going to be in my life anymore after fucking 65 fucking years, dude. So I end up fucking doing my thing and I'm waiting. Finally, somebody says to me, and I forgot what cop it was, he says to me, he's like, dude, you got a legal call coming up on so-and-so day, be ready.

Starting point is 02:18:33 I'm like, I'm fucking been ready, dude. Like, let's get this fucking moving. So I go in I'm so excited to finally talk to an attorney And I talk to an attorney I find out that I have three attorneys dude I literally have a legal team dude

Starting point is 02:18:52 And didn't even know it Like I had a whole fucking legal team Plus all of their attorneys That were From like Yukon and Yale You know just coming out of school they're doing all the lighter work, you know, getting my information,

Starting point is 02:19:11 getting all of this stuff. So my main attorney says to me, she said, how are you in there? Like, I'm okay now that I'm up here. I said, this place is sweet. I'm all right. I said, but I'm not okay with this fucking indictment.

Starting point is 02:19:27 I said, what am I supposed to do about this? I says, what? I'm never seeing my family again. That's what you guys are telling me? She's like, what? She's like, what are you talking? talking about. She's like, fucking back up real quick. She's like, Monday, you're going home. So what the fuck do you mean I'm going home? Like, yeah, you're going home Monday. She's like,

Starting point is 02:19:48 I already talked to the prosecutor. They're letting you out on bond. We just got to get the fucking judge to say yes to it. And if the prosecutor is on board and everybody else is on board, even the fucking arresting officer was on board, you're going home. We're giving you an opportunity. I said, okay, let me see what the fuck this opportunity is. Well, the state of Connecticut, a lot of people don't understand because when you go to jail in the feds and say you got a downward departure and all that other shit, they look at that stuff and they think you fucking told. But the state of Connecticut has something called support court. I don't know if you had an opportunity of support court. Well, support court is 18 months to two years long.

Starting point is 02:20:39 And you go once a week, every week. They have one now in Hartford. Their main one was in Bridgeport, and now they have one in New Haven. But Bridgeport was the only one at first. Who is the judge running that? Judge Underhill was the first judge. He's the first judge that started running it. The Hartford one, I can't remember his name.

Starting point is 02:21:01 but I was just there just a couple weeks ago speaking. Like my old probation officer literally called me. It was like, hey, Josh, can you come on down here and speak for me? Like, that's how well that I did. But I fucking was like, all right, let's see what, you know, I says, what do you think is the chances of me coming home? She says, I'm cautiously optimistic. Last time I heard that shit, I went home. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 02:21:28 Like fucking my lawyer said some shit like that. And I went home. I'm like, dude, I'm fucking going home. You know, I'm excited. Shit. She's like, so just be ready. Monday. Just stay out of trouble till then.

Starting point is 02:21:41 He said, okay, perfect. I knew the fucking guy that was running the visits. And I said, C-O-so and so. I said, you mind if I use the computer real quick? He's like, yeah, no problem. Just no nudie sites. I said, okay. So I got on there.

Starting point is 02:22:01 I fucking made a Gmail account real quick. Made a fucking Facebook account real quick. Made a fucking messenger account real quick. Boom. Now I'm on there. I'm talking to my wife. This whole time I'm talking to my wife going back and forth. Bing, Bing, Bing.

Starting point is 02:22:15 And I'm telling her, listen, I'm coming home. Coming home Monday. Like, I'm still going to get sentenced, but I'm coming home to fight my case from home. She said, are you fucking serious? I'm serious. At first she's like, who the fuck is this? Because it was like under some fucking crazy name.

Starting point is 02:22:36 But then, you know, she realized it was me. And she's like, okay. I said, then you can come and move into my fathers and you can get out of your mother's house. And we can, you know, we can start getting out on our fucking life again. And she's like, all right. And as I'm just so submerged into Messenger, I didn't realize that the fucking captain and his. fucking little goonies fucking were walking around, dude.

Starting point is 02:23:05 And they were checking all the computers to make sure nobody was on anything they weren't supposed to be on, you know? Because like you're not even supposed to play the solitaire games while you're waiting, you know, but someone of the cops let you play them. And he's like, excuse me. And I didn't even fucking hear him. I didn't know he was talking to me. And I didn't even know he was a cop at first.

Starting point is 02:23:30 And he's like, excuse me, sir. And I'm like, yeah? He's like, are you on fucking Facebook right now? I said, yeah, I'm talking to my wife. I said, she's on my fucking visiting list. I said, it's not like it's a big problem. I'm just telling her that I'm going home, you know. She's like, he's like, get the fuck off of this fucking computer right now.

Starting point is 02:23:56 They fucking put me in a holding cell. I'm like, oh, my God. I just fucked this up. I'm not going home Monday. And he fucking, they left me in there all day fucking long. And they're like, take him out. And I'm like, where am I going? He's like, dude, just go back to yourself and don't say a fucking thing.

Starting point is 02:24:19 I said, okay. So I went back to myself. Nothing happened because it was a fucking Friday, dude. By the time Monday came, I was already gone. dude. So you had to go going home, you got bail? Yeah. So,

Starting point is 02:24:35 whoops. So I, I got to the drive as long as fuck because you, you go in a van just like around here, you know, locally. And it was just such a long fucking ride. I'm like,

Starting point is 02:24:52 I hope I don't have to go back to this fucking place, dude. And I end up fucking. talking, getting into the prison and now I'm, my, my guts are in knots. Like, you know, they're trying to feed me that fucking, that, the baloney sandwiches. I'm like, I don't want none of that, dude. None of it. None of it. I just want to see the judge.

Starting point is 02:25:14 You know what I mean? That's all I care about right now. Finally, I fucking talk to the judge. They're like, we're going to let you out today, this and that, da, da, da, da, da, da, you'll fight your case from home and da-da-da-da-da. and I'm trying not to smile, nothing, just fucking be serious and do my thing. And they let me,

Starting point is 02:25:34 they let me fucking go, dude, my dad, my wife, everybody was fucking there to come get me and get me home. And I talked to my lawyer and she's like, listen, there's some things that you have to do. I said, what do you mean? And then she's like, well, we got something called support court that you have to be part of. especially because of your drug background.

Starting point is 02:26:02 There is no drug use. The cop or the judge stated your medical marijuana card is null and void. You're not allowed to use that. You have to have a job. You have to, they gave me a million different stipulations. And one of the biggest stipulations was support court, you know. And what you do is you tell them about your week. Every week you have to journal about your fucking thing.

Starting point is 02:26:31 And then you have to build a project at the end of this. And if you fuck up or anything like that, you don't go straight back to prison, which was fucking really nice. They actually let you write like why you did something wrong, like a fucking, an essay of why you did something. It's the weirdest, you know, situation. But they truly believe in rehabilitation. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 02:26:56 And I was like, okay, so I'll do this thing. I fucking pass this thing flawlessly. No dirty urine. No nothing. Because I told myself, man, they let me out this time. I'll never do fucking nothing wrong again. Nothing. I don't give a fuck.

Starting point is 02:27:15 I don't care what's going on. If it ain't somebody hurting my fucking family, you know, or me seeing a fucking crime happen, such as a girl getting, you know, raped or a kid getting kidnapped. I'm not intervening. Like, I don't care. Like, I don't want nothing to do with any issues anymore.

Starting point is 02:27:33 Like, this is my last opportunity. I know it is. You know what I mean? Like, I know this is my last chance. Like, I have so many, so many charges on my fucking record, dude. Like, I know the next one is not going to be a fucking five or eight year sentence, dude. You know what I mean? like alone just for violating my probation right now

Starting point is 02:27:58 and I only got like four months left. If I violate right now, it's six years mandatory right off the bat. Six years. That's not including the whatever the charges. And I go straight back to federal. I don't go to fucking state. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 02:28:13 Like I don't play with this. I might go there for a little while, but I'm going back to federal, you know? And I go home and I fight my case for fucking like two and, like two and a half almost three years dude and it's basically me trying to take all the fucking blame most of the time so my wife didn't go to jail and she ended up with four years of probation in the end and i sat there and i fought and they charged me with all 34 guns dude and i only sold 20

Starting point is 02:28:52 1 Guns or something like that or 20 guns There was another girl involved Down in South Carolina That I told him not to get involved with That gave that got him 14 guns But because she rolled over And told she never got arrested

Starting point is 02:29:14 So the same fucking thing That those fucking agents said to me Which was if you let us, if you tell us exactly what happened, you and your wife, well, nothing will happen to you guys. And I made up this fucking big elaborate story of fucking guys in sweatpants and that I was selling to and fucking different hoodies and different what each guy looked like, you know, just this fucking elaborate story, dude. And she fucking rolled over, dude. And fucking next thing you know. And she had a cocaine problem.

Starting point is 02:29:48 and she had a kid and I remember her cousin was my pot dealer my weed dealer and he's like yo the feds were just here and she's screaming in the background fuck y'all fuck y'all y'all are going to jail y'all i don't even know y'all like that i don't give a fuck about your life da da da mc like listen i don't know you like i never met you ever why would you even bring me up like i'm trying to like talk Karata like fucking telling on me. Like, I don't know you. And she wasn't trying to hear it. But she didn't go to jail.

Starting point is 02:30:24 And 14 of those guns were not actually my guns. You know what I mean? And two of the guns, out of the 34 guns that were, that ended up getting seized, right? Or that were sold. Two of the guns, one was found in a homicide. One was found at a, um, um, I think it was a domestic violence case or some shit like that. Those two guns were actually her guns.

Starting point is 02:30:55 So I was charged with guns that were found on a fucking body, dude, that were not even my firearms. You know what I mean? But I got caught with it. And then I went during sentencing, you know, the fucking judge said, you put 34 bombs in the worst city in the state of Connecticut. it and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And I just wanted to be like, no, I didn't, I didn't do that. That's not what I did. You know what I mean? They fucking added shit on. And they do that with

Starting point is 02:31:25 ghost dope as well, you know, fucking, I knew a lot of people that, you know, got, that only had a a fucking gram or two of methamphetamine, but got hit with 100 grams, you know. They do that shit a lot down south, dude. And, but they, but I was grateful because it. at the end, I put in a lot of fucking work, dude. I was doing, um, I was doing, um, I was doing Habitat for Humanity. That was part of my project, uh, support court. I did, I completed that flawlessly. Then my attorney got together with somebody from Massachusetts and they have something over there,

Starting point is 02:32:11 this woman and, uh, one of the. prosecutors started it over there. Her son was stabbed to death by somebody over, I think it was another female. And it was, it's just like support court. It's the same thing. And what it is is basically taking, taking, what's the word? It's when you take, take, why can't I remember that word? I've used it a million times, brother.

Starting point is 02:32:53 It's when you take the... God, I can't remember the word here. Fucking guy. It's like my head went blank. But anyway, it's... You're taking responsibility of everything, even though that's not the word. Accountability?

Starting point is 02:33:15 Accountability. Thank you. Jesus Christ. So, yeah, accountability. When you take accountability for, you know, your actions. And it teaches you as well of all the, all the different victims that could be involved in your case that you don't even know about, you know, such as my case, right? I put 34 street bombs on the street, right? That could have hurt 34.

Starting point is 02:33:48 people, which could have hurt, you know, 34 families. And those families could have, you know, and it's a roller coaster and it goes downhill. It's a domino effect, you know. So one little thing could hurt multiple people that we don't even think about half the time. We think about our families, us and the main victim. But then the main victim has a sister, you know, and that sister, you know, they also have a brother and they have a mother and they have a, you know, you understand what I'm saying so they it makes you look at everything that you did in a different light so you could take that type of accountability and then in the end you can speak or try to speak to one of the victims where the attorney or whoever's running the group sets it up and who set it up for me

Starting point is 02:34:45 was my attorney and my wife, I considered my victim because I was the one that pressured her into getting the firearms. And it gave her an opportunity to speak to me without me talking, you know, or saying anything or getting mad. I had to shut the fuck up and I had to sit there and I had to eat every fucking word that came out of her mouth. No matter if I liked it or not, I had to shut the fuck up and just eat it. And I did.

Starting point is 02:35:15 You know, I, and that was another class that I passed flawlessly. And it, and it, out of all the programs and everything that I have done in my entire life, support court and restorative justice were the two programs, and I've said this multiple times to even people, other people, those are the only two programs that have ever changed my mindset. And it wasn't for the court. It was never for the court. Ever.

Starting point is 02:35:46 I, you know, at first, I'm like, oh, perfect. This is a way for me to get out of jail. Then I found out it's not a get out of jail free card. You still have an opportunity to go to jail. You know what I mean? They don't care if you get in trouble or not. I'm like, all right. So I took full advantage of it.

Starting point is 02:36:03 It took full advantage of that fucking, that, those, both of those programs. But I did it in a way for me to help me. And it changed the way I thought. Like, I enjoyed helping people after. Like it was weird, dude, like my mindset just like something clicked in my fucking head, dude, where I'm like, that's what I want to do is I want to give back. Like, I want to be able to help others out now. So for the two and a half years I was home, I came up with this nonprofit organization

Starting point is 02:36:39 called Center to Saint Incorporated. And I basically built. my life around that name, right? Sin her to saint. And even even my head tattoo, down to my head tattoo and down my arm. Like if you, if you read my tattoos, there's literally a story in my tattoos. You know, I have back here, there's a skull with a halo around it back here. There's another skull, but it's got, it's got the, what you call it, the horns on it. And one's whispering in my, ear while the other one's whispering in my ear. It's like I'm being torn to two different ways.

Starting point is 02:37:21 You know what I mean? But I built my brand around that, right? And I started bringing it onto the street. And when I was home, I had brochures. I was reaching out to the mayor. I had people in the boys and girls clubs. And what I was trying to do was do a mentorship program plus give back to the low-income schools and, you know, the kids in the low-income schools and at-risk

Starting point is 02:37:54 youth, right, to help pay for things that they actually wanted to do, to keep them away from the gangs, to keep them away from the drug life and or doing drugs. It was, okay, well, you want to play football, then you're going to put everything in the football and I'll pay for your football. you know and that's what it was supposed to be for i had i had everything all written up all done up i was in the middle of school i was doing hvac um i had two months left and my i my my main grades were 80s you know i had 80s 90s i think i had 170 it was math because i'm fucking horrible about math but i i was two months away from graduating that i was doing uh like

Starting point is 02:38:43 I said I did Habitat for Humanity as my project for support court. I did, uh, I painted one of the, the food, the food shelters at, um, in Waterbury, the inside of the food shelters and, uh, or the soup kitchens, I mean, I'm sorry. And then I did, uh, my buddy put this Easter egg hunt together for all the kids in Waterbury. and he asked me if I wanted to help him and I said yeah and I fucking did it and then the following year somebody killed him and his wife ended up keeping it going and asked if I wanted to be part of it still and I said yeah absolutely you know and we fucking went and I donated stuff and I helped them out we had big block parties and you know what I mean and and it was crazy

Starting point is 02:39:41 because I was so far out of the gang life that, you know, even though I was, he was a, he was one, he was a gang member, but he was a complete opposite of what I was. But nobody, nobody knew that. Like, I didn't, I didn't bring any of that up because that's not what I wanted in my life anymore, you know, but I was out there celebrating one of them, you know what I mean, fucking sending up red and white balloons and, you know, I, I showed a lot of love to that. kid man because he he I was down so much that he literally was the only person that would try to say listen bro like it's not that bad you know what I mean you're home right now deal with it you

Starting point is 02:40:29 know what I mean and then figure it out afterward like that was my boy and the way I found out was by my probation officer coming and telling me that you know my boy chico he got he got murdered and he was murdered by his own friend you know and it was just one of those things and and right after that i think it was after it might have been before i lost so many people that year um my baby sister she died you know what i mean so now i'm fighting these demons while i'm trying to be good dude you know what i mean like i'm fighting all of this shit well, I'm just trying to be good and stay out of the nonsense. I did it.

Starting point is 02:41:14 It wasn't easy, but I did it. I was able to do it. And now I'm back to the point where I'm working a fucking kind of a dead end job, dude, but it's enough to pay the bills. And, you know, it takes money off my rent. I don't really got to do much, you know. But it's not what I want to be doing. and in the mix, I'm building my platforms slowly but surely to try to get this brand out there

Starting point is 02:41:49 because the brand is going to be part of the nonprofit organization that's going to help the kids. So every purchase, right, every purchase and it's going to be all high quality streetwear, you know, I'm not going to get like some Chinese fucking, you know, bullshit. It's going to be high quality streetwear, where it's going to be expensive, but it's going to be worth, you know, the $150 for the hoodie. It's going to be a nice fucking hoodie. You know, the material is going to come from Italy or France. I was looking at a couple of different sites. And that's what I'm trying to push, dude.

Starting point is 02:42:26 I'm just trying to push awareness now, dude. Like when things are going, you know, when you see every day, you know, fucking. child predators snatching up kids and you're seeing all of this shit go down. And all you see is all this negativity and you got all these people judging people who were in prison and they don't even know us. You know, they don't know our story. That's what I've been pushing is to get my name out there, get my story out there. and hopefully one day get my nonprofit back up and actually moving and running

Starting point is 02:43:09 to where I can actually start helping, you know, putting in the work to help others. What slows me down is my job. You know, I have to work, I have to have an income coming in. So if I don't have that fucking income in it,

Starting point is 02:43:24 I got no money, you know what I mean? So I got to work the 24 fucking seven fucking job because it's a mom call 24-7. and it's just really hard to get my platform out there and get everything else. Like I get a lot of haters sometimes, dude, on the fucking platforms, dude. You know, because they're like, why are you talking about prison or why are you even doing this? Or what the fuck, you know, oh, you're just a fucking piece of shit.

Starting point is 02:43:52 And I'm just like, dude, you have no fucking clue what I've been through at all or what I've done in my life to change my life. You know what I mean? Did you end up having to serve time for that? I did. I did. Not a lot. Not a lot. I ended up only doing two years.

Starting point is 02:44:09 But it was the longest two years of my fucking life. Because I, that two years, I'm going into a medium because my points weren't low enough. Because you're a criminal record. Yes. And they told me straight up that I won't. fucking see a fucking i would i'll never see i'll be dead before i see a fucking lower camp yeah yes dude so i was stuck there the entire fucking time and the yard that i was on was petersburg and if anybody knows anything about petersburg they know it's a walkable yard it is a

Starting point is 02:44:54 walkable yard but there is LGBTQ t fucking lm nomenopi fucking, you know, people on that yard, which to me, whatever, it's not a problem. I don't care. They don't fucking bother me. Leave me alone. That's all, you know what I mean? As long as you leave me alone, I'm fine.

Starting point is 02:45:16 And they didn't, you know what I mean? They didn't try to get into your businesses. They had their own car, dude. It was fucking crazy. But it was also an S-O yard. There's S-Os there. Now, that's the part that bothered me because I grew up differently, you know, like you don't, like they're not supposed to walk the yard, right?

Starting point is 02:45:37 Like, even in the DOC, they don't walk the fucking yard. You know, there's been times that I've been in a cell, you know, and I would literally extort the the predator that was in there. I remember, I just told my wife about it one time. He fucking, I had him in there. I couldn't get him out of the cell, but he would make me food every fucking night. and when he would make me to fucking food I'd slap his fucking food out of his fucking hand

Starting point is 02:46:02 and eat my bowl in front of him Like I was a piece of shit I was a piece of shit kid man I really was I didn't give a fuck But I mean to me I felt like they deserve it Like I feel like that's the one charge That there's no coming back from dude That's the one charge

Starting point is 02:46:19 You can't fix bro There's something broken in you dude And it's broken in you for life You know what I mean Because when you have fantasies about that that's a fantasy. Fantasies usually come to light or life. However you want to look at it,

Starting point is 02:46:35 they usually come to life. And bro, that's just one fucking charge that I don't believe that you can ever come back from, dude. You know, you'll never, you'll,

Starting point is 02:46:47 it's not fixable. I've even had counselors tell me, my counselor told me the other day on the phone. He's like, dude, he's like, he's like, when we're in training,

Starting point is 02:46:56 he's like, they tell us that, That's the only, that's the only, like, problem. They call it something else, you know. That's the only symptomatic something that can't be fixed. And it can't. It truly fucking can't. To me, I feel they should all be castrated and fucking put down.

Starting point is 02:47:15 You like fucking dirty animals. Like, that's how I feel. You know what I mean? Is your dad still alive? My dad is still alive. Do you have a relationship with him now? I do. I do.

Starting point is 02:47:25 In doses. you know um we do talk but we don't talk a whole whole lot you know i'll talk to them maybe on the weekend or during the week you know mainly because i you know if i'm around too long we just don't we've sometimes we get into these fucking stupid arguments that's just not to me it's not worth it man i don't want to i don't want to deal with it i don't want to deal with the nonsense i don't want to deal with fucking people, dude. I really don't. Like, I go out and, like, my good time going out is going to fucking Walmart, dude,

Starting point is 02:48:00 and going window shop. There's nothing wrong with that. You know what I mean? And there isn't. And that's what I've come to fucking realize, dude, there's nothing wrong with going to fucking window shop at Walmart. As long as I'm not fucking stealing shit. Like, dude, like, it's okay to go there and just look at shit that you want, you know

Starting point is 02:48:17 what I mean? And walk out and have them look at you crazy because they always fucking look at me crazy. You know what I mean? I'm fucking tattooed from head to toe, you know, and they fucking probably think I'm fucking robbing the place. I don't know. Like, people are judgmental as fuck, dude. Did you ever officially leave the gang?

Starting point is 02:48:34 Where are you at with that? Officially, no. Unofficially, I don't go to meetings any longer. I don't speak to anybody within it. I don't send nobody. money no more. I don't talk to any of them anymore. So it's like, it's one of those things that it's just like, I don't know, catch me fucking if you can, I guess, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, what else am I supposed to say? You know, yeah, I didn't, I didn't do it right. And they're probably

Starting point is 02:49:16 probably going to be fucking other Crip members talking shit about it. But it's like, to me, Like, what's more important? Somebody I don't fucking know, dude, or my wife and my kids and my family. You know what I mean? Like, what am I going to go fucking shoot this guy for you and go do a fucking life bid and you're home with your family and now I'm not home with mine? Fuck that. No, dude.

Starting point is 02:49:44 Like, so now I just stand on my own too, dude. I tried to do man time when I went to the feds, but I had no choice. I had to go to white independent. And that was a little rough because at first I thought it was like racial, like very racial, you know. And I know some of them are. Some of them are very, some of the USPs and white independents are very racial. But this wasn't. And I was, I was happy of that because I was able to actually have pictures of my wife in there.

Starting point is 02:50:20 Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to because my wife. wife is fucking black in Puerto Rican, dude. They would have fucking, they would fucking poke me off the yard, fucking, you know, right off the bat, dude. Oh, you got a black wife? Okay, bye. You know what I mean? Like, but no, I was able to, I was able to talk about that.

Starting point is 02:50:36 Like, the yard was considered a non-active yard, right? But to me, being after being on that yard, I don't believe that there are non-active yards. like I feel it's a semi-active yard because there were still rules. They still checked paperwork, right? But like many USPs, there was no hands-off policy. So if you were black, right?

Starting point is 02:51:14 And I had a problem with you. Usually I would have to go to your rep, and talk to you or I'd have to go to my rep and my rep would go talk to your rep and then we'd set up a fade and we'd you know we'd fade it out there if I had a problem with you you could be at the card fucking table playing cards and I can hook off on you and that's how it was so it made it more dangerous people don't understand that those fucking non-active yards could be more dangerous because the fucking structure is not there. They stabbed up somebody there, right?

Starting point is 02:51:54 They stabbed the guy up there because what happened was, was they fucking, they had this big thing where they changed the warden. And when they changed the warden, the warden said, I want to clean this fucking joint up. So what he did was everybody that was eligible in USPs, there were high ranking gang members or high ranking reps, right? He took him out of there and brought him to them. fucking Petersburg brought them over there and for fucking almost a month straight like every day

Starting point is 02:52:27 you know we're I think they they still get locked down every day but it that's when it started there was this big congregation when all these new people came in and right after that congregation we had you know all the white boys in one area we had you know certain black dudes in this area certain black dudes in that area the Spanish dudes over here Spanish dudes over here Even had the gay dudes over on the fucking On the bench man

Starting point is 02:52:55 You know fucking over there congregating Everybody was congregating bro And you know when a problem's about to go down in prison You can cut through it like a fucking Like with a knife You know what I mean You have that feeling you know it You know something's going to happen

Starting point is 02:53:12 You know when you're going to get locked down You know when something's going to pop off you just get that feeling inside where it feels like fuck dude not today you know what i mean like all i wanted to do was fucking have my 15 you know on the phone my fucking wife from my kids and now you know the shit's about to be locked down for fucking months because somebody's probably gonna fucking get hurt pretty bad well they cleaned it all they started cleaning it it was the congregation was about cleaning up the fucking yard and what happened was was many

Starting point is 02:53:45 of the gang members dude they started finding out that there were fucking people uh in the gangs that had bad paperwork they weren't properly checking paperwork they uh they had fucking weird charges or they started messing around with punks you know what i mean so they started fucking cleaning up that yard started smoking people dude started smoking them and one dude got smoked and he ended up in the end he got poked up and left out in the middle of a fucking yard dude and they closed wrecked down. We walked inside like nothing happened, dude. And then they locked the jail down.

Starting point is 02:54:21 They locked the jail down because they miscount. They had a miscount. And they had a miscount was because his fucking dude's outside bleeding right now. You know what I mean? Like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? So he had all of that shit going on outside. And then they found him. They dragged them in and they fucking,

Starting point is 02:54:43 they ended up having to bring them to an outside hospital. dude. Wow. Yeah, there was this one time. I mean, I wasn't there for this. I was there for the aftermath, but the cops were so fucking bad there. So this kid, he was in the white car, he would, he would mouth off to everybody. And what happened was, was he got his fucking head. He got his head cracked open. Literally fucking bounced off the table onto the fucking floor. Now, when I met this kid, I met him afterward. I figured, I found out the whole fucking story and everything. And he fucking had this fucking horseshoe across the side of his fucking head

Starting point is 02:55:23 because he had to have brain surgery none. He was fucking mentally retarded now. And they, what they did was he tried to go to the cop and say, hey, I need medical attention. And the cop made him go up into his fucking cell and lock in. So he went up to his cell locked in. And he went to his cell locked in. Now, after a fucking getting hit in the head that fucking hard,

Starting point is 02:55:49 you don't tell somebody to go up into their fucking cell, and then they go to fucking sleep. You know what I mean? Like, that concussion could kill you. So they popped his cell, called his name. He didn't come. They called his name again. He didn't come.

Starting point is 02:56:05 The cops ended up going up there. And when the cops ended up going up there, they fucking trying to call him. And he's like, uh, uh, you know, not for. really fucking responding quite right. And they fucking snatched him by his arm and his leg and pulled him off the bunk. He fucking hit his head again on the ground, dude. Fucking boom.

Starting point is 02:56:24 Hit his head on the ground again. Dragged him all the way to fucking medical. And then after medical, that's when they found out that he had fucking brain damage, dude. And he had to go to an outside fucking hospital. He came back months later with this big fucking horseshoe on his fucking head. Like, I don't know if he ever got a lawsuit. of it because, dude, I seen some of those cops do some fucking wild shit, dude. I seen, you know, the SIS officer bring people into the back and literally beat on them

Starting point is 02:56:57 and laugh doing it, dude. They would beat people in the fucking segregation area in the back there and laugh about doing it. And they would talk about the shit afterward. Like, they'd be walking down the fucking hall talking about it, laughing about it. One of the guys, S.I.S. James, I remember him, man. He was a piece of shit. And so, same thing with fucking, you know, there was this other guy. I don't remember his fucking name, but he would stop people and he would just start patting him down.

Starting point is 02:57:26 And he started patting one guy down. And the guy took his hand off the fucking wall and scratched his head. And this dude had a fucking just flipped out, just flipped out on him. And he fucking smashed his hand up against the fucking wall. that took both his pants pockets and literally ripped both his pants pockets off of them. Fucking turn them around and handing him the fucking goddamn pants pockets. Now he's fucking telling him. He basically told him to go back up to the up to get to the laundry, right?

Starting point is 02:58:03 Well, when he goes up to the laundry, now they're going to charge him for the pants. Like they just would do just shitty shit to us, dude. you know what I mean? Because because it was an S-O yard, they would treat us like everybody was an S-O. Not understanding that there's people there that are, you know, they had gang dropouts and they had fucking, and they had R-DAP there, dude. So if it was on your sheet to go to R-DAP and you ended up at that prison, you had two choices. Either stay there and try to get home to your family or.

Starting point is 02:58:42 crash yourself off the yard. You know what I mean? Like, it's, that's a fucking hard decision, dude. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody really wants to go on that yard and be like,

Starting point is 02:58:53 oh, I can't ever walk a yard again if I fucking stay here. You know, let me go crash this dude in the fucking head and go to the next fucking prison, you know. No, nobody, nobody that knows that they're going home

Starting point is 02:59:05 is going to want to do that, dude. They're going to fucking do it, you know, and take their fucking chances and say, hey, hopefully I can't fucking, I don't ever have to come back here again. I don't got to worry about walking another yard.

Starting point is 02:59:17 You know what I'm saying? But the yard was walkable. It was semi-safe there, but there was the politics were so unstructured that, bro, like, you get undercover's in there. Plus, like, you know, anybody could get it in there. And they had the D.C. boys in there. The D.C. boys, if you've been to the feds, you know. about the DC boys.

Starting point is 02:59:42 They're one of the biggest troublemakers in the fucking federal system, dude. They don't fucking shut the fuck up, dude. They just don't. They always try to extort you. And being over in Virginia, that was their county. You know what I mean? Like where we were was their county prison. So being at their county fucking prison, they had majority over everybody, every fucking buddy.

Starting point is 03:00:11 So they thought they ran the fucking prison, dude. And I really don't think I ever have met anybody from D.C. that I actually liked, dude. Not one fucking person. And most of them were undercovers, dude. They were all undercover queers, dude. You know what I mean? And it was fucking, it was a weird situation.

Starting point is 03:00:33 It was just a weird situation. But then I fucking finally made it home. I got to that halfway house, dude. and they made me pretty much walk everything to the door. So when they're talking about, oh, FSA fucking points, and you can get this and can get that. They don't get, my, my, my fucking people there literally told me,

Starting point is 03:00:57 listen, don't do any programs. It's not going to help you. I said, fuck you. I'm going to stay on my good boy shit. And I stayed on my good boy shit the whole time for until the last like maybe four or five months. And I was like, bro, none of this shit is helping me.

Starting point is 03:01:12 Like, what the fuck is going on? Like, I've been up for a halfway house and I'm not getting my halfway house. There's a fucking problem, dude. Like, they were just looking over us. They didn't care. They didn't care. Like, if we didn't stay on top of it, they didn't stay on top of it at all. So I'm like, you've got to be fucking kidding me.

Starting point is 03:01:33 This is shitty as fuck. So I did all of that work for nothing, dude. Like, I did so much work for nothing. and, you know, all it did was help me maybe, you know, but it wasn't, they don't give you really nothing useful to utilize, you know what I mean? So it wasn't really that helpful. But I ended up fucking finally getting to a halfway house.

Starting point is 03:01:57 And then when I got to the halfway house, I had to be careful of even the fucking people at the halfway house because them, the ladies at the halfway house at Draplick Center in Bloomfield. bro, I don't give a fuck I am throwing them under the bus bro, they are the worst fucking women that you could ever imagine meeting because they would literally

Starting point is 03:02:20 okay you, your pass and you would see that it was okayed and then they would change it the next day, right before you leave they would change it by like fucking five or ten minutes and if you didn't check right before you leave to double check your times, you wouldn't know and you would come home late. And guess what?

Starting point is 03:02:44 You're going back to fucking jail, dude. Like, I remember I came home after getting my fucking tooth pulled and I'm on the phone with my wife and I'm talking and you hear how I talk. I swear when I talk, but I'm not fucking angry. She comes out of the fucking room. She's like, Mr. Pence, Mr. Pence, are you all right? Is everything okay? I'm like, what are you talking about?

Starting point is 03:03:07 She's like, well, you're swearing and, you know, can you just cut down on the swearing if everything's all right? I'm like, what? I said, fuck, no. I'm not going to cut. I said, that's how I fucking talk. And I walked away. Like, I was so mad. And I'm like, telling my wife, I'm like, this fucking bitch got the audacity to tell me how I need to talk.

Starting point is 03:03:31 Like, I'm a grown fucking man. I'm probably older than you. Like, and you're going to tell. me how I'm supposed to talk. Like, get the fuck, Adi. I was so mad. But you're letting everybody smoke marijuana in the house and drink in the house. Shut the fuck up, dude.

Starting point is 03:03:49 Like, and the shit that they did to try to get people to go back to jail was crazy, dude. Like, they were so, they were so, they would patronize people to the point where they just wanted the fucking snap, dude. I thought somebody was going to really end up putting their. hands on one of them because they were just bad they're just bad they were just bad people dude they were just horrible fucking people but you were also able to know in those halfway houses who the fucking chomos were in there because you knew who to stay away from in there because they didn't they didn't have regular cell phones they had flip phones you know or they had or they weren't allowed to use the computer you know so they had one of those things you could tell you know

Starting point is 03:04:36 And, and, and then you can look them up afterward and be like, yep, that's him. That's the guy. You know what I mean? And, and it was fucking weird to me because I didn't even know at first. Like, I didn't think nothing of it. But then somebody's like, dude, yeah, those fucking cell phones, man. He's like, you got to watch those cell phones because those, those are the cell phones, those flip phones. If they got a flip phone, they're a chomo.

Starting point is 03:04:59 You know what I mean? What would you tell your younger self today if you could sit across from him, your 12-year-old self? Oh shit. Fucking don't do it. Don't fucking do it. I mean, I would literally, I would literally have to say, oh, man.

Starting point is 03:05:23 There's so many different options out there and so many different choices and so many different avenues that you could take. Just don't take that one. You know what I mean? it because that's what really fucking brought me down this rabbit hole, dude, that I have kept spiraling out of control, you know?

Starting point is 03:05:48 I was known as the bad kid, so I felt like I had to hold that persona. You know, everybody was always telling me I was a bad kid. I was the, that's the bad kid. Even in school, that's the bad kid. He gets in trouble. Oh, he's crazy. he's crazy. So I felt like I had to put that persona on

Starting point is 03:06:10 and I had to be that person because that's what everybody said I was. You know what I mean? They all said I was crazy. I was a bad kid. So I felt like I had to show them. Yeah, okay. Yeah, if I'm crazy,

Starting point is 03:06:24 then I got to show you that I'm crazy and then I got to show you that I'm a bad kid. I got to give you, I can't not be the bad kid now. I can't not be the fucking psycho you're claiming me to be, you know? And I used to take fucking pride in it. But if I was to look at that kid now, I'd fucking slap him in the fucking face.

Starting point is 03:06:44 To be honest, would you really? Because, I mean, dude, the shit that I did was stupid as fuck, dude. It really was. The shit that I did was stupid as fuck. You know, I can't say I regret everything in my life because some of the stuff that I have done has saved me. and especially with the drugs, but it also made me the man I am today and how I look at certain things

Starting point is 03:07:15 and how I carry my respect. But there were ways that I could have gotten that instead of having to do as much prison time as I did and having to go through all the impatience that I had to go through and doing drugs to hide my, you know, my feelings. And there were just other ways around things, you know.

Starting point is 03:07:40 And I'd probably try to take the fucking kid under my wing, bro, man. And just tell them, you know, listen, like, we can do something different. And we can really make a lot of legal money together. You know what? Anything. Anything. Just to fucking don't go down that path, dude. You know, because that path really, like, it fucked a lot of.

Starting point is 03:08:03 my life up, dude. Like, I can't. There's, there's a lot of shit that I, every job that I actually really want to do, I can't do because of my history. You know what I mean? Like, if I wanted to be even a security guard and I can't even be a regular security guard, let alone an arm security guard. You know, you need a guard card for that. And to get that, you have to be a non-felon. You know, so it's just, it fucked my life up in so many different ways that it's just like I had, I felt like I had no fucking chance after the first one. You know what I mean? After the first one, it was just fucking rapid. It was rapid fire all the way down, dude, you know.

Starting point is 03:08:47 And I, I've fucking, I lost my whole fucking childhood to drugs and being incarcerated, dude. know, or an inpatient program, you know, that's just as fucking bad, you know, like, I don't know. It was just, it was just horrible. I would try to at least fucking make sure that that kid didn't go down that same fucking path, you know. Well, Josh, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Absolutely, bro. Thank you for having me. Of course.

Starting point is 03:09:19 And we'll have the links to your social media and everything in the description. Awesome, awesome.

Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a White Crip — Then Spent Years in State & Federal Prison | Joshua Bentz

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.