Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was Framed for Murder at 14 — Then Spent 17 Years in Prison | John Bunn

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

John Bunn grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and at just 14 years old was arrested for a murder he did not commit. His case was handled by NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella, whose investigative practices would later come under intense scrutiny in numerous wrongful-conviction cases. Despite Bunn and his 17-year-old co-defendant not matching the description of the shooters, both teenagers were convicted in 1992, and John was sentenced to 7 years to life. Behind bars, he taught himself to read, earned his GED at 17, and ultimately spent years fighting to prove his innocence. After being paroled in 2006, that fight continued for another 12 years until his conviction was vacated and all charges were dismissed in 2018. In 2020, New York City settled his wrongful-conviction lawsuit for $5.9 million. _____________________________________________ Thank you to CASH APP for sponsoring this episode: Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/6pao71et #cashapppod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. _____________________________________________ Want a FREE Locked In welcome box? Become a member and get the box + bonus episodes, ad-free listening & exclusive content. Join here: https://lockedin.supportingcast.fm/ _____________________________________________ Connect with John Bunn: https://www.instagram.com/therealjohnbunn/?hl=en _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Wrongfully Convicted at 14 00:34 Growing Up in Brooklyn 03:12 Anger and Illiteracy 06:18 Father's Murder 08:50 Arrest and Interrogation 14:00 Trial and Conviction 20:00 Sentencing and Prison 28:00 Life After Exoneration 38:00 The Guards and the Crime 45:00 Mother and Family 51:00 Stopping a Prison Assault 56:00 Release from Prison 01:03:00 Path to Exoneration 01:15:00 Adjusting to Freedom 01:28:00 Prison Life and Violence 01:38:00 Exoneration and Lawsuits 01:49:00 Advocacy and Public Speaking 01:56:00 Lessons Learned 02:03:00 Conclusion and Gratitude _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

And I remember me said, all right, I got something for you. And right after that, they wound up ushering me over to Lana. Take a couple of different numbers. And he came back like seven minutes or something, like five, seven minutes and so me today was my lucky day that I got picked. That's John Bunn. He was 14 years old when he was arrested for a murder he didn't commit. He was convicted, sent to prison, and lost years of his life, fighting to prove his innocence.

Today, he's telling us what happened after the system got it wrong. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. What was your upbringing like? My upbringing was like, for the first seven years of my life, it was like really good. So I seemed I had a lot of love around me. But I would say I never met my father because my father was a victim to gun violence. So the way the story goes with me was that the day that my mother actually went into labor with me, with the day that they was actually burying my dad.

So I grew up with my mother suffering from depression to the fact that I was her second child and she was a single mom. And I was growing up in that. And I had a big chip on my shoulder, but I didn't realize as a kid, but I had a big chip on my shoulder due to the fact that I knew that my dad wasn't around. My mother was a very attractive woman. And there was a lot of men that used to try to come around to exploit the fact that she was going through her depression. and my dad wasn't around and trying to exploit that. So, you know, I had like the protective element, me growing up during that time in Brooklyn was a real, there's a lot of stuff going on in my household.

By the time I was like eight years old, it was drug-infested in my household. And my mother was a really hard worker, so it was like she would work Monday through Friday and have her weekends to herself, basically, you know, the time off. But it was like it was so hard on her being a single mom. It was like, you know, it was her maintaining food on the table for us, you know what I'm saying, having to work and monitor our day-to-day activities was like an impossible task. So me growing up in that community that I did for the first seven, eight years of my life, it was really good because crack didn't hit the hood yet.

You know what I'm saying? Once crack hit the block, shit changed in my household. My mother never actually associated herself with the drug, but a lot of my family members around it, and it affected me directly, me seeing that and being around it. What was that affected had on you? Anger. I would say anger.

and I mean to this day it still it still fuels me with anger I don't like drug dealers like and I seen the destruction it caused them to my family right you know I had good Christmases until I was like eight years old and then I remember us going through transition and us actually stealing energy from the light poles and things like that you know what I'm saying so it was like it was really tough for me because I was living directly across the school from, I was living directly across the school. I was going through my elementary school. So for me, once my certain family members had started using a drug, I was more concerned

me going to school and being ridiculed about it. So going through that process right there was really, really kind of tough for me. It put a chip on my, bigger chip on my shoulder, and it made me like very impulsive with anger. But I would be willing to lash out for, like, for a lot of different things or anything that could trigger me or just make me feel like somebody is playing with me or making fun of me. I wouldn't allow that. What was your earliest memory of that, of having that anger and exhibiting it and using it? My earliest memory. So as far as I can remember, I have family members that would, like, say, oh, he'd think he's Tony Montana, right?

Scarface was one of my favorite movies. My mother used to always watch Goodfellas in Scarface. So I grew up watching Scarface. Tony Montana was like my god. You know what I'm saying? So I can't remember how young I was when the anger start, like, seeping out my pores. But I was an angry kid since I was young. And I didn't take no shit.

And it showed I got into a lot of things. I got into a lot of fights. I got into a lot of fights in school. I got into a lot of, I used to always get suspended. I got suspended to the point where my grandmother actually stopped making me go to school at some point. I got left back in a third grade and in the fourth grade, right? So, like I told you, my moms would go to work every day. She would leave before I had to be to school.

Being a school was right across the street for me. So I was, like I said, I was getting suspended so much, but my grandma was like, listen man stop sending him to school but she would let me go out at lunchtime to go play with them in the yard and play basketball and stuff like that but she was like ain't no sense to send him over to the school because they're going to wind up sending him right back so um i was having real real problems adjusting in the school elementary setting and i and and i and i couldn't read so i i suck i struggle with the whole reading process like literacy been a big thing to me um and and i and i and i couldn't read so i suck i I struggle with the whole reading process.

Like, literacy been a big thing to me. And I would try to cover that up with lashing out. You know what I'm saying? So it had to be early as second, third grade. I was getting suspended from school out, getting in fights and things like that. I got left back in the third grade. I got left back in the fourth grade. So I was going through a lot of difficulties in the school process.

Did your mom ever sit you down and say this is what happened to your father? or we want a different life for you? My mom didn't never sit me down and say that. My mother, I witnessed my mother go through a lot in my community as far as like, so my father being killed or being murdered, it was an unsolved crime. So I grew up in the same community that actually killed my father. So it was individuals around that I would say had information or probably had the nose, the know about what actually happened.

But my mother was really angry when I was a young kid. And it would come out because my mother would actually, she would drink. And on the weekends, the park was righted directly across the street from my household. So when she would get out there, after she'd get sipping a little bit, a lot of that stuff would start servicing. It would come up. And a way it would come up was she would basically start speaking about it. And usually it would be in spaces where she would say, like, y'all motherfuckers knew what happened to my, y'all know. knew what happened to his father, this and that, you know, y'all know who killed them and stuff like that.

And me being young, I was more embarrassed by that because I would see it. I would visualize it. And I was too young to actually do certain things like that. But it was individuals who she would speak about from the area who she would say that she knew that was a part of it, that was associated with it in some type of way. But no one ever got arrested. And she never had no real facts. But it was definitely, like, circulating that it was. It was people in my own community that knew about what happened to my father. And she was angry.

She was angry. And I think part of her anger is what actually made me angry, seeing my mother actually go through that. Like I didn't know what death was that early on. I just knew that my father was gone and he was never coming back. But I knew that he was killed and he was shot six times in his back. And it was by someone that actually he knew. And the reason why they say that, is because he was still in his towel.

I guess he was in a shower, and he opened the door for whoever it was. And he must have turned his back. And when he turned his back, they shot him in the back six times. He actually lived about, they say, almost two days. But no one knew he was dead to come to go there. My cousin and my mom was like the first people to go to the house, to go check on him, and I guess they found him.

Did you end up making it to high school? No. I didn't. I got arrested in my first year in junior high school. So I like to, I usually tell individuals my process in me going to prison. And it was like how normal kid, I go through elementary school, junior high school, and then go to high school and then college. So I remember, like, on my 16th birthday, I just had blue tree.

And they were shipping me upstate on my 16th birthday to DFI. DFI is what they were called youth division facilities at the time. But as well like all the maximum youth was basically sent that. So I was sent to Goshen Secure Center on my 16th birthday and on my 18th birthday I was sent to Maximum State Prison. So I often say like how a normal kid would basically graduate from elementary school, elementary school, go to high school, go to junior high school, the way I basically was graduating was going from one level of prison to the next. What happened that led to your arrest?

I would say what happened that led to my arrest. I was wrongfully arrested, right? But I feel like it's dynamics that actually go into the process of that because I was arrested on the pretext, right? So a pretext is a legal term, right? That actually they arrest you for one particular crime, but then get you down to the precinct and charge you for another crime. And that's what happened in my particular situation.

I found out years later, later, when I had my hearings, but I was supposed to be on the investigation for a robbery that happened in the community and the projects. that one of the kids in a project said that I was in a robbery, a fight or something like that, right? When they came to my home, they arrested me for a robbery or fight. They were telling my mother that. But as soon as they got me out of my mother's jurisdiction, they started questioning me about a homicide,

and they started speaking about the correctional officers that had got assassinated or killed in my area during this time. I was getting in mischief trouble. Like, I was getting into stuff at the same. time like I was hanging with older guys I was getting into fights I was getting into regular shit I was moving around and stolen vehicles and stuff like that right but I wasn't carrying no guns and I wasn't shooting nobody I wasn't killing anybody so when they came to my house and they arrested me that morning I thought that it was probably

something that I did was involved in be honest with you I thought I still had that chip on my shoulder like you know um like I was tough so to say um the tough guy's stigma or whatever you call it And I didn't know that they was actually going to wind up charged me for a crime of this severity, right? I didn't think that that was going to happen. So I was still in my tough guy element. And then when they got me out of my own over his jurisdiction and got me down into the police car, they started telling me that they already had my co-defendant in custody and that

they knew that I knew about the killing and so on and so forth. And that's what changed the game for me. But the officer. that led the gang of police to my, to my front door was my PAL coach, right? I used to play basketball for him. I was actually really good at basketball at the time. So he was one of my role models. So the morning that the police actually bombarded my house, he was the officer that came and knocked on my door. It was like nine or something in the morning. My mother opened the door, and they actually just raided into my house, maybe 30, 40 cops, detectives outside, all

in a hallway in a building and they escorted me out. They took me down to the precinct and they questioned me for so many hours I lost track of the time that I was in there. At some point during the interrogation, they let my mother come into the room and when she came into the room, she was just telling me, like, tell them whatever they wanted to know, like, tell them what they want to know, they're going to let you out of here. I didn't think she knew that they was trying to charge me with a murder at this time. And when I told her, I said, my, they're trying to charge me.

with a murder. I don't know what they're talking about. And when she actually responded to them and telling them, like, what are talking about? And she, they start, listen, man, you got to, like, ushering her out, like trying to usher her out of the room. It was like a little physical altercation between then, like if she was trying not to leave the room, that was like the only time I seen my mother throughout the whole time of me being interrogated that whole day. Like, after the escort her out the room, at some point, they was telling me, like, they just wanted me to tell him that I seen a gun, that I had to see my co-defendant with a gun.

And then all the thing I had to do was tell him that I seen him with a gun, write a statement and make a video statement, I was going to be good. They was going to let me go. I often reflect, and I think about, like, individuals, like, for instance, like the Central Park Five, right? Raymond Santana, he was one of my tutors when I first went to DFI. So I like to use him as a reference. But in the first beginning, when this happened to me,

like, I couldn't understand how a person would admit to something that they didn't do. But when they actually had me in that interrogating room, it almost got to a point in that interrogation where they almost got made me admit to the fact of something that I didn't do. But I just didn't go that way, right? I got to a point where he was just telling me like, you listen, if you just tell me that he had this gun, we're going to let you out of the day. And I couldn't read a spell.

So they didn't want me to write a statement. They wanted me to make a video statement. So it's like they had me sitting at something like a desk, like we're sitting at now, and the camera is in front of me. And I just remember him saying, like, listen, we're going about to turn this on and you tell us this, and we're going to let you out. And I just remember them turning camera on and me going blank.

And everything going inside of me was saying, don't lie yourself. That's the worst thing you could possibly do. Like, admit to something that you didn't do or put yourself in a crime that you had nothing to do with. And I just shut down. And I didn't say anything. He stood there for a couple minutes, turned the camera back off. He said, you're not going to make a statement? I looked at him.

I started crying. And I remember, me said, all right, I got something for you. And right after that, they wound up ushering me over to a lineup. I was in a lineup with adults. Individuals probably like twice my size. It was supposed to be a stand-up lineup or whatever the case may be, but the individual outside me so much, they had to sit me on a chair and put me on telephone books,

so we was basically raised me up. They made me take a couple of different numbers, and he came back like seven minutes or something, like five, seven minutes and told me, Today was my lucky day that I got picked. And I remember he was saying something after that, like, get ready. You're going to be like get ready for the lights and cameras and all that shit when we were getting escorted out of the police. I tell you no lie, I woke up the next day.

I thought it was like a bad nightmare. But when I woke up and this shit was real, it was like the worst stages of I could be in mentally. I couldn't believe that this shit was real. I thought I was going to wake up the next morning, and it was like a nightmare I was going to wake up from. And it wasn't. I woke up the next morning. I was in custody,

and I stayed in custody for the next 17 years. I didn't have financial means for representation. You know, growing up in the hood, you don't realize that your family is actually suffering through poverty. My grandmother actually worked hard And she had owned the house And it was like During that time she was willing to put the house up for sale

And she was like John If I sell a house, you know That's all we got like you know And I remember telling her grandma I didn't want you to sell a house And nothing like that I was going to be alright The fact that I was innocent I thought it was going to prevail

I thought I thought I thought I thought I didn't think I was going to be able to. I didn't think I was going to go to prison for a crime I didn't do. I thought me being innocent was enough. I didn't think, I remember, like, all the people I would come in contact with, they would always be like, well, if you only do it, you don't got in none of worry about. You know what I mean?

And I carry like that. But getting arrested for killing a correctional officer is a little different. It's a big difference than a lot of individuals that, was going through the same cycle as me. I literally had to target on my back from the beginning. And I had it talking on my back from the beginning, and it felt like it never was going, it never was going to come off.

And I didn't, me being a literary, I didn't really understand a legal process at that time. A lot of things that was going on with me. So I was just kind of like going with the flow. and the abuse was was really intense in my situation because like the head counselors

that worked in Sparfit was saying that the individual with the hot kid was his best friend and he was like one of the most aggressive staff in Sparfit where he had a lot of the individuals that was falling under his you know under his

wing and then we were going to court, I was going to court into the hell pit. You know what I'm saying? So it was a really rough process, that whole little process going to trial. You know what I'm saying? I was thinking that I was going to go through this process. I was going to go to trial. I was going to have my day in court and I was going to have my day in court. And that's exactly what happened. I had a day in court. I had a day trial. You can search far and wide, as they say. You can't find another similar case like the John Bunn case where you pick a jury and get a verdict of a case of this severity in one day.

So the definition of railroad is definitely what I was. I was railroaded and put on the train going one way. But I never thought that it was going to happen to me because I know I didn't do the crime. So my innocence, me knowing that I didn't do this crime was all I needed to do. do all I needed for me to carry with strength knowing I didn't do this. And then making it to have my day in court and then getting found guilty, I don't know. I just know I didn't want, I remember us being escorted the day after we had got found guilty.

And we was escorted back to ourselves. And everything around me had got black. We was walking it and I was like I could just see what was directly in front of me, but everything around me had got black. The night that we had got found guilty, we was in Supreme Court, right? So they kept us so late for the verdict that everybody else had left. So it was just me and my co-defendant in the holding pins. And this is the first time they put us in parallel cells.

And he was right across from me. They put him in a cell and they put me in a cell. And I remember him taking off his belt and him asking me, like, what are we going to do? We're going to kill ourselves. We're going to fight. Right? And I told him I didn't want to die. I said, I don't want to kill myself.

I said, I don't want to die. We're going to fight. He said, that's what we're going to do then. And he took his belt off and he flushed down the toilet. And I took my belt off and I flushed mine down the toilet, right? And ever since then, I've been fighting for my life, you know, fighting for my freedom. to get my life back. My co-defendant was like always a vessel with strength

that I looked at him like, I looked at him like, you know, like strength, you know. Even in my community, he wasn't no sucker, nothing and nothing. And he ain't never take no stuff from nobody. So when we was in there in that cell and I see him do that, that was like my strength, you know? And I carried that when I left there that day. That was the last time I had seen him for,

like another 12 years. I remember shortly after that, I had to do my probation report. And the probation report lady had told me she was, I was asking, when I went to see, I was asking him about him, like, what happened to him? Like, you know, like, she's like, you probably never want to see him again, you know? And since then I felt like I was in it by myself, you know. I was going into the unknown and I didn't know what I was going into

but I felt like I was in it by myself, you know? It was funny because that same woman that did that interview, I always remembered that interview because it was like an open interview for me. And when I had my hearings of recent times and I actually got in court, and like in 2016, she wound up calling in.

the probation report lady, she called in and she, um, the judge had said, uh, she had got a special call and that she went on my lawyers and them to come in chambers and all that. And wound up coming, she wound up coming to the forefront and saying, uh, that, um, she had information that could have proved my innocence back then when she was afraid to come out and say anything. And, um, I feel like that. There's a lot of people like that in the system today that could probably speak out and save somebody life, but they work in the side of the system and they're scared to speak out because they don't want to go against the powers that be. But that bothers me to this day.

It still bothers me. But I won't say that I blame her, but I feel like there was a lot of people that dropped the ball with me. to allow me to actually get to a point for me being wrongfully convicted. And they turn the blind eye. So now when I speak at universities all over the country, I charge them with that tonight. They're going to be the next lawyers, you know? They're going to be the next judges and all that, right?

And it's more than a job to them. Because it's a 9-5 to certain individuals, right? But you can fuck up somebody life forever. and they never can heal from that shit. So if you're not willing to sign up for what you're signing up for, don't sign up for that. Because this is real life shit that go on in here. You know what I'm saying? And if you are willing to turn a blind eye, then this is not to be your profession

or the profession that you should be going into because it takes individuals of courage to actually stand up for the rights of individuals like myself. Running a podcast with a big audience, you would not believe the scams people try to pull. One of the craziest ones is people were to be. tending to be connected to my show, they'll reach out to somebody and make it look like they're a part of my team. Tell them they can get them booked on locked in and then start asking them for money or personal information. And the scary part is these messages can look legit. They know the name of the show, they know what kind of guests I interview and they create the sense of urgency like,

we need you to do this right now or you're going to lose your spot. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here thinking, I don't even know who you are. That's why I'm really careful anytime somebody asked me to send money. If the story doesn't make sense, the account is somebody I've never dealt with before, or they're putting pressure on me to act immediately, I'm stopping and checking everything before I send anything. And that's something I like about Cash App. 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 and 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 sign up 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. I say there's millions of people who's been affected by the judicial system, but it's less

than 4,000 people who have been exonerated to date, right? And I know it's a lot of other individuals that are going through stuff like myself. I actually receive a lot of, how can I say, I won't say hate, I just misdirected anger from individuals who went through the prison system and look at it like me as one of the individuals who made it, right? because I was fortunate enough to become exonerated where it's a negative energy that comes along attached to that because they feel like, why him?

You know what I'm saying? And I get it, you know what I mean? That's why I continue to tell my story and I encourage other individuals that like myself to continue to tell my story, because if we stop telling our story, they forget like this stuff happens. And then the other individuals that left behind are losing, hope. You know, so by us keeping this level of awareness in society, it might send a lifeline

to another individual who might be feeling lifeless at this particular point. So I'm going to keep on telling these stories because, like I said, it's individuals who don't believe that innocent people could actually be in prison. And I didn't, I was one of them as a kid. I didn't think that I could go to prison being innocent, but I wound up ending up there. The way that rewriting history right now or erasing history, it's a big difference between mis-education and this information, dis-education, right? Mis-education and this education. I feel like they purposely are pushing out information that's not real at this point, right,

for whatever reason. I don't know what other reason they're doing it or why they're trying to erase history as we go along, but they're doing it right in front of our faces, right? And I feel like I'm a token of a certain part of history right now, the fact that I was able to break through that barrier, right? But I don't consider myself special.

And let me say this, right? no matter how far I come in life or if I was awarded money and none of the other of that stuff it never changes the pain that is in the side it still resides there

the scars never go away I was thinking that getting awarded would actually like heal me like not even heal me that it was going to put me in a better space in life it really just made me a bigger target in a lot of different ways and it didn't change anything

I bought a bunch of shit that can't do nothing for me. You understand like the jury and all that shit? That was one of the most ignorant decisions I actually made. It doesn't heal the inside scars. It just basically put the glitter on it to make people think that you're better or bigger or made it in life, right? But you can't get none of that time back, right? And in the beginning, when I got out, I was just so happy to be in a space where I was being exonerated, right? And you don't realize that the scars are trying to put your life together back.

It's a puzzle. It's like a puzzle that's all spread it all over, right? And a lot of ways I'm still like a little kid. I'm still like a teenage boy, right? I'm still living out fantasy that I didn't get to do as a 14-year-old kid. Like vying the chains. and all that shit. I was looking up to the drug dealers

in my community with all this different stuff. So them is the fancies of the teenager kid thinking that I really wanted to acquire these things, right? But it didn't add purpose to my existence in no kind of way.

It just made individuals like hate on me even more, right? And I would think, like, you know, when you come from a place like myself and your story does get out there, You appreciate the love that you get, you know? You appreciate the fact that people are embracing you because it's been so long that nobody gave a fuck about you.

You understand what I'm saying? It's like I named my organization the voice for the unheard because it's like I was yelling forever for help but nobody really cared. But I'm not really verbalizing it because all that shit was just trapped in anger. So I'm really screaming for help but I became this big macho,

tough guy to cover all that shit up that it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't cool for me to cry. It wasn't cool for me to show my emotions. So now when I'm able to get an opportunity to tell my story, I don't care about crying. I don't care about showing that I'm hurt. I don't care about nobody judging me for what's real because a lot of these dudes is living a facade. They souls be as scarred as mine, right? But they put up the macho shit.

And I'm not here to judge them because that's what worked for them. but I'm just tired of playing macho, right? Because I know I'm willing to go to the distance or doubt for what I feel is a purpose, right? I'm not afraid of none of that shit, you know what I'm saying? I look at it like this, right? I'm already 50-ish. I'll be 50 this year. I doubt if I got another 50 in me, right?

But I'm willing to go for the purpose that's going to live beyond that because I already understand that sacrifices got to be made in order for us to actually overcome the real struggles. You understand what I'm saying? We stand up for the macho shit with each other, but we don't stand up for the macho shit when it comes down to the real actual facts what's going on in society right now, right? Like, for instance, I've seen a lot of individuals post up

free this person, free this rapper, free this rapper, but you ain't see these same popular individuals say shit about a Nolan Wells. So like the real stuff that really happened in society, people are shot away from that shit. They don't really want to stand on it. You understand what I'm saying? But they're sugar-coated with all the facade mechanisms and make it look like this is what it is,

but that's not really what it is. And I want the kid to see out there, the transparency, the fact that prison ain't for nobody, that when you go in there, you could go, you act, these come out, acting all macho with all the muscles, this shit, but they're not telling you just to go in a visit, right? That's to visit your people. You got to go be stripped butt-necked, you got to wiggle your toes, you got to do the process, you got to open your mouth, you got to go go behind your ears, you got to go through all of that shit, right? You got to be less than a man for another man, right? Just to, whenever they actually want to just come to your cell and

fresh you, they got the authority to do that. But they're not telling you that part of the story. They come home glorifying like they did this prison time, like this shit is cool or this is what this is about. And I've never been a sucker in prison. I've never been weak. Nobody never took none from me. I actually was institutionalized. I let that shit turn me into a monster. So it's not like I'm here speaking about it because I was in there and somebody was doing anything to me. I was to a point where I was so angry, I was willing to kill and die up in that motherfucker before anything. I'm not letting nobody take nothing from me, none of that stuff, right? But in hindsight, when I look at it for what it is, it's animalistic mentality. That shit

is unhumane. That shit is not meant for no other human being. Individuals store feces in mouth to throw it on other individuals, putting razors in your butttocks, in your asshole where you got to carry around on a string so you can pull it out and try to cut another person. All this stuff is animalistic mentality, but they're not telling you none of this stuff or how you living, but you've got the kids idolizing this shit where all the rappers are saying, free this person or come home or this person come on from jail and they're being looked at like a hero, but the individual that actually, um,

going to college, going to school, doing the right thing. They looked at it squares as nerves. That's been like that forever. We need to change that narrative. Because at the end of the day, right, the same individual that's the popular cat, that's the rap cat, the killer, killer. Once they get jammed up in jail, they got to go get the nerd lawyer. Right?

That's the nerd. That's the square. That's the one that you're giving all the money to, right? The one that actually went to school, got an education, and now is a big. big lawyer out here. You understand what I'm saying? But that's the one that you're going to depend on to save your life. So the narrative needs to change for our younger generation. And I want to be definitely one of the vocal points of that and not only vocal but action.

Like, you know, doing things to give them examples and role models, you know. Like I had a role model like I did with the officer that was. my basketball coach, but then that all went downhill when he was the officer that actually led them to come arrest me. So I look at it in two different ways. I was like, damn, that was my hero at one point, right? But then he told my mother, he brung them because he didn't want them to kill me. So I didn't know how to even gauge that.

Understand I'm saying? An individual that I looked up to, like, he couldn't do no wrong. He used to come in my classroom, speak to my teachers, speak to our classes. You know, this is the individual that I actually looked up to that couldn't do no wrong, that I idolized, I looked up to what I wanted to be like. And he wanted to be an individual that was a person that was played a part in me being removed from my family for so long. So at this point, it's like I want to lead in the right way if I can. and there's set out certain examples where it ain't got to be about no tough guys shit

or no street stuff where you can really tell the kid that it's important. That's the toughest things to do. A lot of us don't want to do that because we don't got the discipline to go to school and get an education because it takes discipline to do that.

That's the tough part, right? So it's easy to take a skate route to take a shortcut because individuals lack discipline. But, yeah. Now, who are these two guards that they said you killed? So one of them was named Niger, and one of them was named Mel Kim. I don't know them personally. They were from my area.

It was said that the allegations that was said as the streets was talking, that it was, like, they was involved in some criminal activity and it went left. I had a bad reputation in the community myself. So I'm thinking that we was basically somewhat like a four guys, so to say. So they were saying that it was a carjacking, that individuals came and tried to carjack these individuals, right? The word on the street was it was a deal that went bad, but they were saying that it was a carjacking.

And as I was telling you during that time, being in stolen cars was like our thing. Like, it was like a group of us that used to be hanging around with each other at one point, maybe five or six kids, young guys, and we all used to be stealing cars, right? Now that gunpoint actually stealing the cars with a screwdriver, right? And we were known in the area for being in stolen vehicles. So when he associated that crime with a stolen vehicle, I felt like that is kind of like what try to fit the narrative of we were the individuals that had something to do with it. I'm not sure.

But they were definitely from the community. They lived in the community. And one of them was on probation. And one of them was a correctional officer who'd been on the force for a little bit of time. And now they're in, what, their 20s or they're grown adults? I would assume so. I didn't know them. I didn't know them personally.

So I would assume they was in their 20s at the time. And you were how old? 14. 14. And now when you did or when you got offered that deal about flipping on your co-defendant, do you know if your co-defendant got that same deal against you? By the cops? We never took a deal.

No, remember you said they were offered you. Oh, yeah. I don't know. So they offered me deals all the way until the day that they were deliberating on my one-day trial. They offered me six months, five-year probation to testify against them. or they say he did it, and I denied it. It was never came out in our hearings that they ever offered him any deal at all. But they offered me the deal.

They offered me six months, five years probation, even at trial. Mind you, they was saying that he was the one that aided me in the murder. They were saying I was the one that actually committed the murder, and he aided me, yet they were giving me the deal and didn't give him the deal. Was he connected to them at all? to the officers? He just lived in the projects. So he was as innocent as you were.

Yes. He got exonerated as well. We both got exonerated. But I'm saying at the time he was innocent, like he didn't do it. No, he was wrongfully convicted. Yes, yes, sir. So now if they didn't do the lineup

with you having to stand on a chair or the books, do you think you ever would have got picked in the lineup because there's a huge height difference, right? And if so, why didn't your lawyer bring that up a trial? So the lawyer that I wound up going to trial with was an 18B lawyer and he was suffering from the beginning stages of dementia. I found that out years later. He wasn't fit to represent anyone. So I was really placed in a fixed fight all together.

My co-defendants attorney testified against, testified about that years later in the hearing. It actually said that Vinoka was suffering from the beginning of state of dementia. mentioned it wasn't fit to represent anyone, more or less individual that was facing a murder trial. So my representation was inadequate. I didn't have representation. My lawyer didn't ask any questions, the course examination the whole time. There was no course examination from my attorney. Not one question. My co-defendant at the time, he was out on bail. He was out on bill for another crime, right, a robbery case. And when he was arrested for this, we was not together. I guess he was arrested in a different, at his sister apartment, and I was arrested at my mother's

house two days later. So he got arrested two days prior to me being arrested. I'm not aware, like, how they came and got him. It's just like word of mouth. Like I heard different things over the years, different stories or how they came and got them. But I believe that they came and got them because of the robbery with the cars, like trying to put that narrative of it was a carjacking. So the fact that he had previous cases dealing with the stolen vehicles and my reputation was based around stolen vehicles, they tried to make it look like it was a stolen vehicle, botched robbery that went bad. Now, did your lawyer, even though he was ineffective, did he try to get you to take that six-month deal they offered?

Yes. And why didn't you take it? Because I didn't do the crime. So that was still in your mind from when you were thinking in the interrogation? Yes. It was never an option for me to say I did something I didn't do. I was never going to admit to a crime that I didn't do. I've done stuff in my life.

I never killed anyone. but I damn sure wasn't going to admit to a crime that I didn't do. Now, what about your mom? Where does she play a part in all of this? I know you mentioned your grandmother, but during the trial, during your arrest, how does she support you? My mother been there every step of the way,

but she just wasn't in a financial position to actually do anything. Actually, actually, this whole situation even, drove my mother into a deeper depression. And I felt like at some point, the alcoholism played a part in it, you know what I'm saying? It affected her. Like, I felt like my mother always felt like that was her, how can I say it?

Downfall or? Not downfall, her release. You get what I'm saying? So I felt like she would basically like, you know, like, I don't know how mother would feel losing a son to the system for a crime that she know that he had nothing to do with. So my mother knew I was innocent because she knew I was in a house when this happened. So I felt like it was a part of her felt like guilty because she felt like how I can't get him out of there. Like she felt like it was her job to get me out of there. And a big part of that was I blamed my mother a long time

because I felt like my mother was supposed to get me out of here, right? Thinking that my mother had some type of authority or could do something that could actually not realizing that the system could put you in the catch-22 where it ain't no way out, right? I'm thinking that my mother was supposed to do something to come to my aid because at that time, your parent is your superhero.

You know what I'm saying? My mother always been my superhero no matter whatever her shortcomings was or what she didn't have, it didn't have. I always knew that if my mom was around, I couldn't get in trouble because I got my mom. You get what I'm saying? And I never had a dad's.

I never knew how to balance that. I never met a father. So my mother was that for me. You understand what I'm saying? And this was a funny time for me because my sister was also four years old. My mother had gave birth to my little sister, and she was in a new relationship. And it was a whole other, you know, a time in life for my mother

where she basically was saying, like, even though I was only 14, she still had to care for an infant. So it was like, I can't get caught up in what you got going on too much because I still got to care for this infant at this particular time. You know what I'm saying? And I was somewhat like a man child, I would say. Like I had that chip on my shoulder. I had that element to me.

So I felt like she did everything that she could possibly do during that particular time. But I feel like her hands was tied. Like once I got into the clutches of the system, There was nothing that my mother could do that possibly get me out of there. She went to every organization that was up and running an innocent project, the second look program. My co-defendant mother as well, she was very involved in, like, getting us the resources that we needed to basically get a voice to our story.

And a lot of the people that she reached out to, she would let my mother be the forefront of that because they were more willing to help a young kid more so than help her son at the particular time, you know what I'm saying? So a lot of that stuff I led, I led the forefront in making it happen because they were more willing to try to help a kid that didn't have a record and more so than the individual

that they felt that possibly could have been involved in something. You understand what I'm saying? So a lot of programs that his mom pushed to me, my mom would jump on it. They would accept my case at some point, but then at some point they would basically, like leave us stranded. They would say like we did as much as we can. There's nothing else we could do. It got to one point where we actually did polygraphing, polygrafting, testing by the

individuals who had tested bin Latin at the time. It was supposed to be like the top investigators and things of that nature. And they came and did the polygraph testing on us and all of that. and it was no deception in either one of our stories. But they said it wasn't admissible. So it was like we would climb this hill and then we would get to a certain point and have all this hope and have our parents, our mothers, and them feeling like,

yeah, we're going to get a break. And then they say nothing we could do, we're sorry. And we got denied and things of that nature. And it was always like pushing for another appeal, another appeal, do this, do that. So I gave up hope as far as me, getting an appeal of being let go on the outside like that. I felt like I was going to do 25 years on my initial bid and um because the jailhouse law has said the jailhouse laws was like saying

the life term for a juvenile is 25 years. So I already had wiped out the outside world and basically like once I do a quarter they're going to break me out. So that that's how my mind was working. I was already blocked the outside world out and I was institutionalized. as I was being. And I was feeling like I do my 25, that they were going to crack me out. But luck, I mean, I always say, I don't look at myself as no hero for this shit.

I just feel like I was in the right place at the right time to stop a real bad person from doing some real wicked shit. And even though being in prison, it was like some of the most negative shit is applauded as being cool or accepted, right? YouTube, Spotify, and Apple listeners. You're only getting part of locked in.

The rest is for members. Exclusive podcasts, behind the scenes, vlogs, live Q&A's with me, ad-free episodes, plus a merch box when you join. Go to eunbick.com and become a member. When I was able to stop this predicate rapist from actually assaulting a female staff that I was working for in transitional services,

she came back eight months later, and she's one of the most courage, I would say, courageous, courage people I know on this planet, the face of this earth. She came back into this jail. I'm telling you, if you would have seen the condition that she was in when this happened to her,

you would say she was never coming back. She was only like 26 years old when this happened to a young lady. And she came back eight months after she got assaulted. And she came and seen me on a lunch break one time. And they called me out. And she came to see me, he's like, how are you doing?

I know you got parole and everything. And I was in shock. And I was asking like, why was you ever coming back to a place like this? And she was like, I'm not going to leave until I get you out. And she kept her word. I went to the parole board and they act like they didn't have no knowledge of actually what actually happened. She came and seen me after the hearing,

and she said, what? Don't worry about it. And whatever she'd done, I wound up getting a letter, like in the mail the next week, saying that they couldn't make a decision on my hearing, that it was going up to the special commissioners, and they were going to get back to me in the near future.

And one day, I received a letter like 60 days after that on like a Wednesday and saying that I was going home that, Friday. Ah, man. I remember I couldn't believe that shit was real. I went out to the yard and I called my mom. I said, Monty, let me go. I went back in my cell.

I locked and I didn't come back out to the day I was getting the fuck up out of it. I mean, I didn't come back out. I stayed in. I locked in. But she got me out. Whatever she did, she spoke up for me. And it got me out. that, but I got released on life parole.

So when I got released in society, I was just happy to be home again. You know what I'm saying? I was happy to be home. And then the reality kicked in after a little while that I was on life parole, like, you know, what I was going through. And I remember, I remember, I remember my co-defendant mom seeing me one day. And it was like a funny thing and she's like, yeah, I know you home, but the fight didn't stop. Like, you know.

And I took that in because I know that, like, I was excited. My family was excited. Everything was like a big celebration. I was out of there and all that. But I realized that I left someone behind. And I know that she felt like that. Like, you know, she's still fighting. And just because I'm home, the fight don't stop.

And my mom wasn't really there. I came home criminal-minded. Like, I was institutionalized. I went in for crimes that I didn't do. But growing up in prison, I developed a criminal mentality before I came home. So I wasn't in a state of fighting for my life when I came out or even I was coming out trying to be this shit. You know what I'm saying?

Trying to be a gangster that I thought I wanted to be or whatever, whatever a street nigger, whatever that shit is called. I only know how to put it in terms because what is a what is a, what is a, you know, gangster what is the street do right what is i don't um i felt like i lived all that real life to the realest degree but none of that shit really makes sense right um do that like you know uh consider the street dude that like a dude that commit crime sell drugs or raw people what is that what is that what's the definition of that you understand uh so i came home and um i got caught up i wanted to doing the violation i did a year violation

And I remember when I did get on that violation, I was on Rockets Island. I was fighting for, I got arrested with another, for a gun charge. And I was fighting for my life all over again. And I remember, I don't know if you ever, I'm pretty sure, but I don't know if you ever played the Mario Brother game. But I was really good at that when I was young. And I remember I used to get down there, I used to pray, right? I'm not a big religious person, but when I went on that violation, I used to pray a lot.

Right. And I used to talk to God. I used to feel like I was having conversations with God. And I would talk to him. And I would say, God, you know, I wasn't ready when you let me out. I wasn't ready. And for some reason, every time I used to close my eyes, I used to see the Mario Brother game, like the images that come up and I used to always, and I were talking, I

would tell him, I say, God, you know, if you give me another chance, I'm not going to go down the wrong pipe again. All I need is one more chance. Like, let me out of here. Like, it's, I don't want to, I just ain't what I want for me. I don't want this. And I always, I always felt like it, that, I got to quit it on that case, actually. I fought, I went to trial with none.

another individual. We both, actually, he took a mistrial. He wound up getting acquitted as well, but I wound up going all the way to verdict. The trial was like a two-week trial, and they deliberated for 28 days. And I don't know if anybody know what it's like being on edge for the liberation for 28 days, but it was a lot of heavy praying going on for me during that time. And, um, I remember the guy that was charging me took a mistrial the day before I was acquitted because one of the jurors actually had put him for a leave and they were on and a leave so they were going to let a substitute juror come in and it was a funny space for us. So it was Eva, we both take a mistrial and if we both took the mistrial, then they were both

going to bring us back to trial again. But if he took the mistrial and I stood for the verdict, they wasn't going to bring him back the trial because they didn't have enough evidence to trial them by herself. So I remember me saying, you know what, I'm going to stay with this jury. You go home to your son and I'm going to take the verdict. The next morning I came into court and they gave me a not guilty verdict that next morning, early in the morning before my mother can even get to the courtroom. And I often look at that and say, like, God balanced the playing field for me.

And I've never been back to prison since. I got out after that And shortly after that I remember me going to my mother house one day And I was saying to my mom I said, I feel like it's even going to go All good or it's about to go all bad And she was telling me she said

Well I did as much as I could do for you You out here And she said She said this to me She said She said it's like you let them make you into What they wanted you to be And

And shortly after that, I met Ms. Francis Robles from the New York Times. Ms. Francis Robles, I call her my angel. She's the angel for a couple of us that's involved with the Scarcella cases. But she reached out to my attorneys and told him that she wanted to sit down with me. And when she actually did reach out to me, she said she wanted to sit down and have lunch with me. And when I did have lunch with her, she told me she wanted me to tell her my story from A to Z and without missing anything. And I did that as far as to all my recollection, everything I could remember. I sell it like two different times.

And everything I was telling that she already knew. Everything. It's like she had information. know she had. She had information I didn't have, and she had a lot of files that was in our case files that we never had. And she told me that she had evidence that could actually help me prove my innocence. And before she actually printed the article, she wanted me the lawyer up and make sure I had proper representation and going forward. And I call on my angel because that article changed my life. That's why I tell people, don't never stop telling

the story and keep speaking out because you never know who could get who could get the graphs of your story and can actually you know it could it could have an effect on where you're going um after i printed that story in the new york times we had maybe like five or six different articles in the new york times after but um my co-defendant he his lawyer kept putting into motion after motion after motion after motion i was on the outside already so my lawyers was taking a different approach towards it but his lawyer wasn't it He was being he was still on the inside, his mother kept the pressure on. So they kept putting in motion, motion, motion.

And so whatever motions got accepted. His first court dates, I wasn't, I didn't know that he was back in court. So I think I seen it on social media or something like that, that he had a court date. And I reached out to my lawyers and they said, yeah, we've been monitoring it. He does have court days. But they're not. really talking about you so we don't feel like you had to go down there and I was like huh anytime he goes to court I need to be in court because when his name is brought up

my name is brought up right the next court appearance he had I went and when I went they kept him in there like briefly they did like the procedural stuff and they were sending him back and after they send them back I remember the judge asking the district attorneys who's this John Bunn guy get me some information on him you know let me get some information on him and um find out what he's doing and i remember me standing up there in court and i said i'm right here your honor and she told him let him in and my lawyer stood up beside me rebecca freeman um and she started saying something hi john i'm i'm his lawyer yonna saying her spill and she said come up here and she opened a thing uh let me welcome to the uh

to the podium and um I remember I asked me like, so, so what are you doing now? What is life like? What's going on in your life now? And I remember me going to speak to her and no words came out. I had the biggest knot in my throat, you can imagine. And I just, I was like I was talking, but no words was coming out. And I just started crying.

Tears was coming down. And she was like, uh, don't worry. She told my lawyer, uh, she said, you need to. So whatever, she was saying, she's like, you need to have all his stuff ready by the next court date. and we're going to go through this with a fine-tooth cone. And that's how I actually got back in the court. And that's how I got my sign to Judge Simpson. I firmly believe if we went ahead, Judge Simpson,

that we probably wouldn't have got a fair shape because the criminal integrity unit that exists in New York City right now, the one that actually overturned a lot of these cases, that dissect these cases, they actually, when they got my case, they asked me to sign a muzzle in order for them to turn over certain files to me. So they were asking me basically to shut up

and stop talking about this. Don't do no interviews. Don't go in the paper. Don't basically muzzle me in order for me to turn over my file. I didn't do that. I didn't, I went against that. And they didn't work with me.

By the graces and by the way the cars were playing out for me, I wound up getting a fair judge, a courageous judge, by Lander with Judge Simpson. And I felt like sometimes just the oil of cars are lining up the right way for you in the universe. And everything was lining up for me the right way. But a lot of individuals don't get an opportunity where everything lined up for them right there.

right like i was just out of the gallery the gal of last night and it's and it's and it's and it's funny to me because i feel guilty being around like it's like a sign of guilt for me being around other individuals that i know for the fight and they ain't get they and they ain't get they break but they're looking at me you know what i'm saying as a guy that actually did make it through and it makes me feel like a like a guilt trip like damn i should be able to i want to do something for them you know what i'm saying Like, I feel like I should be at a, like, try to balance the playing field out with them, but a lot of times I can't. And then it just made me feel like a sound, like, I feel like, like, you know,

like Survivor's guilt, I would say, somewhat. But I appreciate the individuals that still fight for guys like myself, right? Because you don't have programs for individuals that are released and exonerated. There's nothing for. If you come out and you're awfully convicted, there's no programs, there's no resources for you. Basically, you got to figure it out on your own. And if you don't take big loans from other individuals that's willing to try to give you a loan that believe in your innocence and in your fight, that you would basically be out here and trying to have to start from scratch, from zilch.

And there is no relief systems, right? One of the things that work for me is that I went and I signed up for Social Security. I did all these things saying that I had effect, that I was mentally affected by this. Ever since I've been released since prison, I've been going and telling my parole officer that anybody wanted to listen to me, that I never did this crime.

You understand what I'm saying? And I'm telling this to anybody out there is listening that they need to follow this same. They want to know, like, how I got to where I'm at. And I'm going to tell you right now that anybody's willing to listen, you stand on your truth and don't never change that. And you keep on reiterating that

every time you get a chance, to because it was from the parole officers to my to my counselors at the programs they were sending me to and to my psychologist. Everyone knew that I maintained my innocence years after me being released from prison. I still was letting them know the mental effect that had on me. And I'm glad I made it to the point that I had at this particular stage in my life now. But it was a lot. It was a long, long ride getting here. It ain't just, it ain't, I ain't just.

wake on one day and it was just like that for me. You know what I'm saying? And a lot of what's different in my situation is that I was out here actually being hitting the ground, you know what I'm saying? Being a person out here fighting, still fighting while I was on the outside. A lot of individuals come out because they feel like they let go, that they don't feel like they need to go back and fight to correct what was wrong because they're just moving on in life.

and I let them know that they shouldn't take that approach. If you was wrong, don't never give up. Don't never stop fighting because you never know when you would get your break. You understand what I'm saying? Even if you don't get exonerated, right? The energy and the fight is basically it's the movement, it's the cause. You can't never stop fighting. And there's other individuals that are going to come behind that can follow in your stane footsteps.

So I encourage everybody to keep fighting no matter what the states are, what's stacked against you. Don't never give up on your truth. If that's your truth, stand on it and keep fighting. And one day, the truth will prevail. So now, after trial, you get sentenced to life. 20 to life. 20 to life.

Yes. And then as a juvenile, they were usually getting parole at 25. Was that standard? So I was sentenced to 20 to life, but I was legally sentenced. So they came back after they sentenced me to 20 to life, and they sentenced me to non-al life. They had to bring me back to Nana life. So every two years that I would go to the parole board,

they would just keep giving me two years, two years, two years. But it was like a jailhouse law, right, that people were saying. What I mean like a jailhouse law, it's like that was like the word in the jails. Like once a juvenile do 25, they're going to let them, they can't hold you longer than that. That's like a life term. At this point, I already spent more of my life in prison than I did on the outside. I was only 14 when I went in.

I already had like 16 in at this time going on 17 years. So I spent more of my life in prison than I did in the outside at this particular point. It wasn't nothing written as stone that I would get out. So in my mind, I thought 25 years would be the point for me if I ever made it out, right? So the illusion of making it out was just that. Like, I didn't really believe I was going to make it out. It was like a fantasy. So I would fantasize, like, about things on the outside or my last memories.

Through my whole 17 years, right, I still had a fantasy of the girl that I had a crush on before I went to jail. So the girl that I really liked it that was, I had a crush on that I would want to be my girlfriend in there. My first day out, I went to go see her because that's what my mom was stuck at. I was still stuck in that element in that time. I still wanted her. She didn't have kids moved on in her life and all that. When I went to seen her, the next day after I came home, it was like a reality check for me.

You know what I'm saying? She embraced me. She was telling me like, oh, you know, how happy she was to see me and I was home and everything out of all. But she was in a full-blown relationship. And she didn't have kids. And life don't stop for nobody. You know what I'm saying?

And it didn't stop for me. It stopped for the people basically around me, like my mother, my sister, and that's why, like, to this day, I do whatever I can't, you know what I'm saying? But the world don't stop ticking, and only in your mind you're thinking that, you know, the world is waiting on you on a particular way or you have a place in this world or things of that nature. But things are happening so fast that people, they forget you fast, you know. Throughout the duration of my incarceration, the only ones that, like, stayed consistent were coming to see me was my mom and my sister. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, people will forget you fast.

I was too young to actually have girlfriends like that, so I didn't have any girlfriends coming to see me. It was girls I met over the years that might have heard of my popularity in jail. So that's how much people feel like prison is cool. That's why I want to change that narrative. Like, you become so cool in jail that the, popularity of being cool in jail and make individuals from the outside feel like you're worthy of some recognition, I guess, right?

I don't know how that works, but I created enough popularity inside a prison that individuals, the girls, I met girls on from the outside where I was inside that started coming to visit me and things of that nature. And like, you know, bringing me drugs and shit like that to try to get in, well, to sell into the facility and all that stuff like that. So, yeah, before I went in, I didn't have no girlfriends. I didn't have none of that. So I want to make this point, too, because this is a real live shit.

I never talked about this, right? So coming home with the relationship thing is, you know, being in a relationship with a woman, the final type of woman that you like, you know what I'm saying, is kind of, is difficult, especially for individuals like myself that grew up in prison. And I tell people this, and I just really start looking at it a certain way, right? So, like, I grew up masturbating the pornobics, literally. Like, that's just the reality of this shit. The only access we had to females was pornography magazines.

So from 14 on up, the only access I had to, like, seeing women in that particular way was, like, in pornography. You feel I'm saying? So when you get released from prison after all these years of fantasizing about these women you see in these magazines and all that, how are you not going to come out and be attracted to that same type of person? So when they say why a person will go to the strip club or why you will go to see these different, because these is the shit that's been embedded in a person, my mind since I've been a kid, literally, since I was 14 years old looking at pornography.

It was my only form of release of release. least for myself to have access to a woman, which is not normal at all. You understand what I'm saying? But coming home and then being in a healthy relationship with a woman is kind of like expecting some unrealistic stuff. You get what I'm saying? It's like unrealistic for an individual to come out here, especially in my category. I can't speak for nobody else, but I'm saying like finding that being a healthy space with a woman has been really been in a sense. some not like an easy uh not like a it's not been an easy task so to say a lot of times we attracted to um i'm attracted to things that i felt like was appealing to me you know what i'm saying

like the the bad the pretty girl this that that you know what i'm saying but that doesn't necessarily mean that's a good woman for for for a person when i'm mad in my life now i'm starting to i start to realize that you get i'm saying like so I've been in survival mode so long of me out here fighting for my life. It wasn't until like the last five or six years I really start living. Right. So I'm starting to live from a perspective of them there still with teenage fantasy still involved in my mom because that's when my life basically stopped that.

You understand what I'm saying? At that point from 14 years old on, I just been fighting for my freedom. I ain't have no, it wasn't no breaks in there. It was, it was just all about like trying to prove my innocence. And then getting to a point being fully exonerated is like a fantasy that you never think that you ever going to get to. And then when you get to that point, it's like, damn, I, now what? You know what I'm saying? The target's become because everybody feels like you got money or they associated yourself with you being exonerated with money.

I've been in places where one of the first questions I asked was, did you get money? Did they give you any money? Or they're going to pay you? Or they're going to give you this as like that's a part of the healing process of, I mean, it definitely doesn't hurt. They never could give you enough money to get back any amount of time that you spent wrongfully convicted inside of prison for a crime that you didn't commit. There's no amount that could actually equate to that, right? And then it puts you in a space where you're here, this point. person get this particular amount, this person get this particular amount, and then you start

looking at why ain't get this or why ain't get that? And it puts you in a bad space. So, you know, it's a funny thing making adjustments and being exonerated because you would think that it's like the glory day, but it's really not. It actually puts a lot of pressure on individuals and a lot of people don't know how to deal with that pressure because we, We institutionalized. So we be in a society, and this is like unfamiliar ground. You understand what I'm saying? But I think for all the people that have been supportive, you know,

during the course of whatever I've been going through, I appreciate all the people that have been understanding and supportive of, you know, of those facts. But it's really difficult really coming out here and getting your life on track and meeting your mate and me and the woman that you want to be in tune with. Oh, that's not an easy process. So I want people to know that, you know, when they judge you, you judge me for, or judge other individuals like that, that's not an easy process.

And when you look at our background and what we've been immune to and what we come from, you should know why we look at our track of the certain things, you know, because this should have been embedded in a person's mind since I was 14 years old. I've been looking at pornography. So why I wouldn't I want to go to the strip glove and look at, The images that, you get I'm saying, that's somewhat similar to what I've been raised to being attracted to. So now in prison, are you technically labeled a cop killer? Yes.

One of my first names, they was calling me CO. That was one of my first nicknames in prison, CO. And they gave me that nickname because of the correctional officer that was involved in my case. So when I first got to Spaffet, it was a guy in there by the name was Cyril. Cyril, I remember him. And I will come in the mess hall. When I'm going to come in the mess hall, he would always scream. First he's like, that's it because I was on the news.

So he'd be like, that's the kid that kill at COs, that's a kid like kill, I kill the COs like that. And I would look at him and I would walk. So I would never say nothing when I would come in the mess hall. I would just see people they look at me, but they were looking at me because I was on the news and they knew my case. And then one day when I was coming in, the mess old, he just stopped calling me like,

you see-o, and I turned and I look. And I wound up sticking on me, and wanted to become my nickname after a while. Like, people that start doing that to me, calling me, you know, C-O, when they see me, when they see me. Like, as I like to, as a reference, I wasn't answering to it as a nickname at first.

I really just ignore it, but there was them basically no, like, this is the kid that's in for the CO case, you get what I'm saying? So, yeah, that was how basically I was known in the beginning. How did the inmates treat you, aside from that, what you were just describing, but the inmates overall, were you idolized because you allegedly killed the CO? No. I didn't have many friends. I was going through so much issues with the staff and the police and the correctional officers

that nobody wanted to be associated with me really. So for my second day being in Sparfit, the staff that was working there had sent some guys to try to jump me in the bathroom. So it was only a few guys that actually along, like the beginning stages that I wound up getting cool with, and usually those would be like the individuals that was like had shit like had props i had had status you get i'm saying the average individual didn't want to associate themselves with me because i had the target on my back like i had like the uh the staff was really out to get me right so um i got beat up a few times like really bad uh i got my nose fractured

um it was it was it was it was known that the that i had beef with the police it was uh It was one particular time where they beat me up, he smacked me up and beat me up so bad that my family members came outside of the Sparfit Juvenile Center and was waiting for the staff to come out. And they didn't leave. They wound up having to keep them locked in there for like two days. They stayed in the jail for like two days and won't leave because my people was outside posted waiting for them to come out. So that's one of the things that made them kind of like back off from me in Sparfit after that incident happened where I got beat up really bad. And my brother and my cousin and them came out there and posted up and they wasn't leaving. And then like the head supervisors that wound up calling me down and calling my mother and saying, listen, we don't have to get the police and stuff involved and all it is.

They have to leave. They was basically making a staff that had assaulted me sleeping to the staff from. They couldn't leave the facility. So I didn't have a lot of individuals So I ain't have a lot of individuals That wanted to be associated with me Like most of the popular individuals Were like cool with like the staff

So They wasn't willing to go against You know what I'm saying Getting their special privileges A little shit like that To be my friend You know what I'm saying I try to associate with me

And I wasn't being really too talkative So it was only a certain chosen a few individuals that I was cool with. And usually those were the individuals that was like, like been there longest and had their self-establish and all that. But the majority of individuals wasn't messing with me. They was trying to stay away from me. What about in the adult prison as you got older,

how are those guards treating you just the same or did eventually time go on? So what worked for me is that the fact that I went from DFI, and then I transferred into maximum state prison, my file didn't follow me as direct, right? So it would take them time to basically find that out. But if they got wind of it, like for another dude told him, like, yo, you know, he killed a cop because it was individuals that was in there that knew my case. So if they wanted to tell an officer, like, they wanted to, like, be their friend and try to get extra points,

you know, he's a cop killer, shit like that, or he killed a CO. They would tell him after wow. But then I would realize the shift in the energy. Like, once the officers start knowing, you get what I'm saying? But it was like this, right? If I was in a facility long enough to where they seen how I was carrying myself and conducting myself, I never been in no gangs, I never been in no religion. So I always been like a neutral, hold my own.

You understand what I'm saying? I always dealt with individuals that had other. I was a respected, as I went on, my name started getting respect. I was putting them, I was doing whatever was necessary. put respect on my name, you understand what I'm saying? In prison, so as time went on, it was like other individuals that knew me, that I had respect of other individuals

that was neutral, like shorty get busy. He hold it down or whatever, you know what I'm saying? And when they would see I wasn't on no knucklehead shit, they would allow me to maneuver. But if I just got into a facility and they found out like that, before I could get myself established, then it's, it's, it's, bad is going to be all bad.

Or if they found out and it's by a particular officer, then it'd get bad. You know what I'm saying? So I've been in places where, at first, it's regular. They ain't bothering me. And then when they found out, when they found out, they set me up with weapons, put shit in my cube in my cell, try to set me up, do all the type of shit. You know what I'm saying? My co-defendant actually, they beat them up and knocked out all this.

back teeth to where he had to have, what you said, we constructed him surgery and all of that stuff. They almost killed him in Attica, you know what I'm saying? And they put them on a wheel. So the whale is, I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but the whale is when they beat you up so bad that by the time your people come visit you, whatever facility they send you to,

when your family get there, they say that you want to transfer. And then by the time you get to the next facility, your family go there, they say you want another transfer. So they could do that for an X amount of time, and they don't got to tell you. What they're not going to tell you what's the next facility that you're supposed to go to because it's a security breach? So they did that to my co-defendant and his mom for like two months at one time after he got,

what happened to him in Attica. And that was always a fear of mind, getting lost in the system. The fact that we had mothers that wasn't allowing them to lose us, our moms was the type of moms that would call a facility just because every day, you know, and check on us. I'm going to send somebody to see it because they knew what was going on with us, you know what I'm saying? And it was. Yeah, go on? Yeah, you can say. What do you think was the worst thing you saw in prison, either something that happened to you or just witnessed in general to another inmate?

I mean, it's a few worse things. I mean, I've seen individuals store feces in their mouth to spit it on other individuals. Worse. I've seen the police be really, I mean, I've seen the police be grown men up to make them cry out for mommy. I mean, they beat me to our pissed blood. They had me in a bad situation. I remember they had me, um, S-HU. on a loaf for about like two weeks.

Had me in a gown. They wouldn't give me no real clothes and they wouldn't turn the lights off. Loaf is like some real hard shit. You can't even eat it. It's like rock. You know what I'm saying? When you're at S.HU, you only get one visit like a week.

So I got a, I got a, I was getting a, I got a visit like when I was in there like every other month. I did like eight months in SHA. and I was getting visits like every other month. I didn't want my family to come see me like that in there. And the conditions, I ain't want my mom to be coming up there like that. But I don't know. So my eyes doesn't seem so much.

I don't know what's worse. You know what I'm saying? I didn't see it a lot. I didn't see it all. I mean, people get stabbed, the death, cut, you name it, raped. I've seen it. The worst thing I've seen, I say, was a, assault on that woman.

And that's what would lead to your parole, right? Yes. Can you tell us that story? You told us about earlier about how you got the parole from it, but what exactly happened in your involvement? And also, what year was this in your sentence? The year of this incident was 2005. I was released in 2006.

The incident happened in 2005. I had started facilitating ART. I became a master facilitator at ART in transitional services. So I was a master facilitator up there. I was actually the one that was bringing the other guys on to work with me to facilitate the anger regression training. This particular supervisor was a goddess counselor, but she was working with us,

and we was supposed to be showing her the ropes. like we were kind of like training her on she was like on job training so to say but she was working with us as our supervisor but she was green to the prison system she had been given a small case load and she was our supervisor but she didn't have control of who they actually assigned to our case load so i guess um this one particular individual was trying to sign in the PC but he didn't want to give up a name so i guess his previous visits to her on his quarterlies, he was trying to sign in. But this particular morning, when he came up to do his quarterly,

the officer had left his post. And he went into office and had his quarterly. I guess he was trying to sign in the PC again. But the way it works in prison is that if you don't give a name up, they're not going to allow you to go to the protective custody. He was just trying to go into protective custody because he wanted to get into transfer because he owed other individuals money.

So the fact that he had 25 of life already, he didn't want to sign in under nobody. that shit's following from prayer to jail or jail or he a rat, he a rat, because once you sign in, it's going to follow you. You never come off your jacket. It's going to catch up to you. So he was trying to basically sign in to PC saying his life was in danger but wasn't giving up a name, right?

This particular morning when he came up there, like I said, the police had, the officer had left his post. So when he went in to basically turn his pass and there was no officer there, he proceeded and went in to have his quarterly, went into her office. had his interview with her. And I guess when he was leaving, he came out, going to the hallway and looked out the door and the officer still wasn't there. So when he seen the officer still wasn't at his post, he closed the door. And I don't know all the details in between, but I know that he wound up, you know, the things that punch holes in paper.

Yeah, a whole puncher. A whole puncher, right? They look like a big stapler. He hit over the head with that. cracked a skull damn that open and um i don't know if he crushed that windpipe or not but i know by the time that i got there right she was like wheezing she was gasping right she she couldn't speak she was like making funny noises her pants was pulled around her ankles a shirt was over her head and she was unconscious and she was basically like making like noises like a pig but yeah like it was

like one of the some shit that is like a nightmare one of the most funniest, like, craziest noise you could kind of emulate, right? What happened was when the officer came back to his post, he realized that her door was closed. So he must have thought that she left the building or went somewhere. So he came down the corridor and came into the classroom and basically was like, did y'all see Krista? Where's Krista at?

Well, we had actually classes. We had classes in session. So at first, I'm like, she's in the office. It really didn't pay me no mind. I didn't raise a red flag to me and then. I'm like, is she down? You're like, you sure if she's not down, this check the office?

So we had an office that went down in the back. So I don't know, I was like, so I don't know, go check in the back. But we was in the middle of class. So he's like, all right, so he closed the door. But mind you, after he closed the door, I'm sitting there, I'm like, why he? Something my instincts went up, right? I don't know what it was. My instance went up.

So I'm like, hold on, why? So I came out the door right behind him. He was going back to where our office was, like the inmate office for the facilitators. So I'm like, yo, she's not in her office? He's like, nah. I'm like, if she not backed it? He's like, nah. So I started to proceed to walk down the hallway, right, on my own.

I was like, man, I started walking. And then my other co-facilator came out to hallway, right? He was in the back where he had went to in the back office. He came out with him. So when he seemed like, yo, son, what up? I'm like, oh, you ain't see him. I don't know what Chris. He just started walking down behind me.

His name, um, Mel, right? So Mel, he comes walking out behind me. I just want to give him his props too with this because a lot of times he don't get recognized. It's Mel Hart. He started walking down a hallway, too. So I'm walking down basically the hallway and I get to her door and I see the light

is out because she had like a small window in her, um, and her door. So I see her light is out, but I take the knob and I try the door and I open the door and the shit opens up. When he came by her office, he looked at the light,

seeing the light was off and just kept it moving. He never tried the door to go into the office, the officer. So when I turn the door and I open the door, I look around and I see her feet like hanging out from like the side of the desk.

but I just see her feet like her pants her feet up like this and I can hear the noise I'm like I hear the noise I'm like so then I start to walk in and I see this this dude in a corner he's in a corner you can I'm saying I proceed I go around um that's and I see what I see and um by this time they're coming down the hole right behind me so um the cat that was in a corner he tries to go out the uh like out into the hallway

but now the officer and my man is coming down like yo this motherfucker uh you know what I'm saying what I'm saying and um the officer looked in the room and when he seen he ain't even see her he seen her feet and there's threw the stick at the nigga right he threw the stick at him he didn't even know what dude he threw the stick at him Duke picked the stick right up right

so now like at this point my man walked in behind me to see what happened he like he walked in like the room behind me and I'm coming out the whole whole Because Duke already in the hallway. So when he's seen it too, he come out too. He's like, yo, this, yo, and then we basically, I don't really want to go into too much, but me and him

wound up getting into a physical altercation with Duke. You know what I'm saying? The dude that actually did the situation, he wanted to pick up the stick. He tried to, like, defend itself. He made to do a couple swings. That shit ain't go far. And it ended up bad for him in that level.

But the, the, you know, the, The thing about it was he was a predicate rapist that he was serving 25 to life for his third rape case that a predicate rapist mean that you had to be convicted three times of it, right? So he was serving 25 to life on a predicate rape case, but he also was affected with the HIV virus. So if he would have penetrated her, he would have gave her the virus. So you stopped him just in time? Stopped him right in time. And the reason why they could gauge it is because. the phone calls that she was making to the other staff

at the time that the interview was. So they could tell how much time he had alone with her. So if he would have had any more time alone with her, you know what I'm saying? Ain't no telling what he would have did. So you end up getting out after how many years? How many years were you paroled? 17.

So you did 17 inside? Yes. Now, can you fill in the gap? of getting fully exonerated, what the rest of that story was? All right. So what part, though? So when you say filling the gaps? Howard, you briefly mentioned getting exonerated at the end,

but how does it happen exactly? What's the smoking gun to flip it? So the smoking gun was basically like I got, basically had to basically have a whole new trial, right? I never should have got convicted in the first place. They never had enough evidence. There's no physical evidence in my case. It's blood, its fingerprints, is all that.

It don't match me. It don't match my co-defendant. Right. In my particular case, right, the individual who said that the perpetrators came to carjacked them, right, he said it was one on his side and another person on the other side of vehicle. And him and the other individual who's the other individual who's done. deceased, right? And inside the vehicle, right, it was almost a pint of blood by one of the

perpetrators, right? It's believed, right, that both of them had weapons. The guy that at the cease was actually reloading when they found him. So he actually got off a full low and was reloading. So it was guns going off at the scene. He got a whole round of his whole shit. there was blood at the scene in fingerprints on the bikes and in the car and on the scene that didn't match none of us right the DNA and all that was done at the time when i was when we was going to trial the DNA laws wasn't an effect they didn't exist so basically we went to trial the DNA stuff all that shit came up and they basically just washed to the side they never even gave us the results because it didn't match us they didn't care but it never came up to the trial, it wasn't admissible at that time where it could prove a person innocence. The DNA laws came after we had got convicted, right? The EXI specializes in a particular science that could put together a crime scene without using DNA, without using DNA.

The fact that DNA was involved, it helps, but they actually could put together a scene without actually using DNA. It's like a special kind of science that they specialize in. And a lot of individuals don't take cases like they do, but they specialize in this particular thing. And along with it not being any physical evidence, the fact that all the DNA evidence basically proved that it had to be other individuals that was there, right? Because if there's only two individuals, you're saying, come to this car jacking. It's only you and him in the car at the time that this car jacking happened. where is all this other blood

and all these other fingerprints coming from if it don't belong to these two guys. You ain't saying with three of them. You ain't say it was four of them. You say it was these two guys, right? You're saying it was me and my co-defendant

and it didn't match either one of us. To no prevail. There was no physical evidence that matched us to the case. There was no DNA that matches to the case. It was no fingerprints. They had a bunch of fingerprints,

palm prints, that didn't match us to the case. So from the beginning, they would come in to see me saying, Oh, John, if your palm prints don't match this, you're going home. All this different shit, but it never, none of this stuff never matched. It didn't fit. None of it, never, because it wasn't us.

So it couldn't match, right? So we just never had got a judge that was really willing to rule on a real law, right? We just never got a judge that was willing to give us a fair shake. So when we got an opportunity to get our case into a judge that was really willing to be a judge. And here on the case, it was like basically a no brain. in our case. Like, it was, how did these guys get convicted in the first place? And how many years after you getting released from prison was this?

10. 10 years. So this was 2015? 2016. I got released in 2006. Yeah. Yes. The incident with the cop was 2005.

2000. The incident with the rape was 2005. And we got our conviction vacated. in 2016, but we wasn't fully exonerated. So after we got a conviction vacated, the DA decided to appeal the decision. And when they decided to appeal a decision, it could have kept us in limbo for the next 20 years.

So at some point, they decided to stop fighting us and drop the charges. And drop the charges. Oh, so you didn't have to even go to a new trial? No. See, that's so crazy. out like a DA from that had nothing to do with that original case is so focused on trying to retry it.

Yes, but I think it's a job to them. This is a nine to five. So it's not personal for them. Like, it's literally a nine to five to them. Like, I don't think they, they personalize it like that. I don't think they look at it like that. I think they get so jaded by the lived experience of individuals coming in and out being their revolving door and the fact that you will feel like how if a if a person so a lot of people

feel like how does person even get bringing for this crime how does this person even get mentioned to be involved this he had to have something to do with it it just don't happen like that right so they don't believe that his officers out here actually like scar sellers that actually out here building cases and setting people up in railroad them this is because they want them off the street you know um i feel like it this happened to me because it could happen to me because it could happen to me. So when they asked, like, why did it happen? Because it could happen to me. Why wouldn't it happen to me? I didn't have nothing to stop it from not happening to me. I didn't have family in position that could pay for a defense. I didn't have financial means to get, you know,

everything was around me was basically saying, this kid's, like, it's drugs in my household at the time. It's a bunch of shit going on in my life at the time where it's like, you know, we could throw this kid away. What happened to the cops that were involved? Did you ever run into them again, get to talk to them? The cops that was involved, Scarsella, from what I know today, he was involved in like another 50 rogue cases, like botched up cases. I don't know how many of them were heard in court to this day, but I know like it's over six to this day that actually,

besides me and my co-defendant, like six other cases that have been heard to of him having a patent of actually doing this stuff. But to be honest with you, they were still giving him awards after the fact that I was exonerated. So there was no penalty for that. A lot of people asked like, what happened to the officers that did this stuff in your case? What happens to them? Do they get charged? This and not only in my case, but a lot of this one particular officer is responsible for numerous cases,

and numerous lives being taken away and nothing was done. I could see if it was a mistake in one particular case and it went wrong and it just, it, it, they got it wrong. But this particular officer made it a pattern to do this to, to mess people lives up. So that right there is a whole different hit. I don't know. At one point, I felt like I don't focus on him because that is going to take away from where I'm at and what I'm doing.

And if I focus on that and what everything he took away from me, I'm just going to be living in that same misery over and over and over again because there's nothing I'm going to be able to do to even out the playing field, right? So I try not to focus on that because I feel like it's just a distraction for the things I'm trying to accomplish. I try to stay on a positive level and things that I'm doing on the positive shit to keep me going. And I feel like if I focus on exactly what he'd done, it's just going to keep me in depressive state. And no matter how far you come from the trauma that I experience, I feel like you always just to blink away from going back into depression. Like something could trigger you or me or individuals that have paths like myself

to go back into depression over, over, over, over, over, over, issues over other people might look at it as minute, but it could be a trigger to me, you know. and it has set me right back to being in a depressed element, you know. And so I try not to focus on things that could be put a negative taste in my mouth. I try to stay in a positive with it and there's keep pushing forward, pushing with purpose, not allowing them to take me off my square. Did they ever catch the real perpetrators?

They never did. Did they ever reinvestigated it once you were exonerated? I don't even think they looked. So it was an individual, right, in my case that actually came out and said that he had, that he knew that we didn't do it, that he had known of individuals that did do it, right? And when he came to the forefront and started speaking, he blamed it all on dead people. So he did a polygraph and test, gave up information, knew certain stuff about the case. But then whenever he was going to basically tell on people that. actually did, did do the crime, he gave up individuals that was already deceased.

So it didn't play out, pan out. So basically they only, they didn't honor his statements like that. You understand what I'm saying? So the individuals that in my case, it never was, never was came out of who was actually responsible for it and anything like that. And you were able to reunite with your co-defendant once he got out? Yes. So it is, so our relationship is kind of.

of like, it's always going to be brother. Like, I always going to look at him like a brother. But it's like, it's awkward. Time breaks us, it breaks. So I felt like the system put a wedge in our families at some point, right? Because we both innocent fighting for our life, right? But when you're in a survival mode and you don't have nobody else to blame, at some point you start circling around

and start blaming the same people that's going through the struggle with you. And I feel like at some point our family stopped blaming each other. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like his family looking at it like, oh, he's home on parole, you know what I'm saying? Why he ain't out?

Yeah, my family at some point where he was older than him when this happened. Like so, but it all basically falls down to like the system was the one wrong and all this. They was the one that actually disment to our lives, right? And that's who we should be focusing our energy towards.

You know what I'm saying? But at the end of the day, that's like my family now. Like, we've been through so much, we've been through so much pain. It's like, that's more longer my friend and my co-defendant. It's just like a family member. Like, I just look at him like an older brother at this particular point. Now you're able to sue? I sued already.

We both sued. And you were able to settle or go to trial. Yes, yes. I was able to settle. Yes, yes. Now do you feel like that makes up for the time you lost or? No. I feel like it makes me a target, and that's what I was saying earlier.

I feel like it just makes me a target. So having the effect of actually suing and actually being awarded, right? It's just like you get the same type of energy or rapper would get, like being in the hood that made it. It's like the same kind of shit. So like in our culture, in the urban culture, right, I feel like it's a dynamic there where it's always a competitive nature. Like this person want to be bigger than this person.

This person feel like they're the biggest or that, that, right? You got to be the best. If it's basketball player, you got to be the best basketball player. If the rap, we've got to be the best. That's the part of the whole dynamic and the mentality. And what I mean by that made me a target is like, Like by me being exonerated, being all over the newspaper and all in the media, it just made people in my area focus on the fact that I'm going to be getting money or I could

get money or he's going to get money, he's going to get rich, he's going to get that, right? So it's basically like, put the, made a target on my back. So now I got away about my family, I got away about all the repercussions that could come from an individual who feeling like I'm rich in the hood. You get what I'm saying? So that was like my biggest adjustment problem, you know what I'm saying, as far as like having the means to where people feel like you got the type of money that they feel like you could change their life overnight. And then people that actually feel like they know you that feel like, well, he was in jail with me. Everybody felt like you owe him something for some reason or another, right?

The entitlement, the fact that they feel like, well, he was with me here. People won't remember if they gave you a honey bun 10 years ago. You get what I'm saying? Oh, you don't remember I was. Oh, you know, like before. Like, so all that comes with that. All the people filling tight on so many different levels. You can't tell everybody, yes.

It's hard to tell a lot of people no. And it just put a negative, like, it puts a negative target on your back. But it also, you know, it frees you up to be able to do a lot of different things. So I don't want to say it's all negative, you know what I'm saying? Because I wouldn't give it back, you know what I'm saying? But, I mean, it puts you in a space where you've got to be on point even more. You know what I'm saying? I feel like I got to watch my back just as much as being in the street.

Like, it's still up, you know what I'm saying? It is. It's still the same shit. I don't got, you know, it's no happily ever after. You know what I'm saying? It's just I got to be on point even more. You know what I'm saying? Now I got my gun.

I'm legally able to carry and conceal. Now I'm saying. Now I got to think of protecting myself, protecting my family, things of that nature. You know what I'm saying? That's why like getting to the point where you feel like you want to buy nice things as a trophy, like the jury and all that shit.

At the end of the day, you feel like it's a reward for you as something. I came to far as something I always wanted to acquire. But then it puts a target on your back where a person gonna wanna come kill you for this shit, not realizing everything you've been through to get to where you have, But they still take that shit away from you in a blink of an eye just because they want what you got. You know what I mean? What do you do now?

I'm a public speaker, but I taught them all over the country speaking at schools, universities, churches, you name it. I run a nonprofit called a Voice for the Unheard that's based in literacy because when this happened to me, I couldn't read. So I'm responsible for two successful book drives that gather over 100,000. books i started two libraries on ragged silent um i travel all over the country i spoken at duke university georgetown university a daffin university washington state university um so my life i come someone like a like a movie for me you know i'm saying it's like it's like i tour all over the country i speak i tell my story i won um i won kong i said damn i'm about i i i I run...

Congrational or... No, I was about to say. I won conflict resolution workshops. Oh, okay. So I started my own program from when I was inside. It was called A-R-T, but I took a lot of spins off from everything that I learned from the inside, A-R-T and A-V-T and A-V-P

and started my own program called All Before R, Reason Before Reaction. And I wrote my own curriculum. Well, not me by myself. What helps a couple of other individuals, help me develop a curriculum, which is I call my own. I want to give a big shout out to Anthony Sims. He's another individual who was wrongfully convicted. I went for a crime, went to prison for a crime that he didn't do, serve 25 years. They paroled him on his 25th year, let him out, granted his 440 and still denied him.

So he's out right now. So it's a lot of individuals like that. that actually went to prison, that they just don't want to grant you your innocence because they don't want to be a liable to have to pay you for that. You know what I'm saying? Because if you found exonerated,

then it's steps to take for you to actually have to get a payout. And a lot of times they don't want to admit they wrong, so they won't do that. But with the likes of Anthony Sims, I created a curriculum that's very impactful. I travel across the country and actually speak to youth all over, tell my story.

Basically, I open my life up to an open book and try to let these people benefit from it so they don't make the same mistakes I've made. But I also speak a lot of things. I also push the conflict resolution narrative because I had a lot of anger issues that I didn't realize until I was always full of doubt. And they was so much stirring inside me.

I didn't know how to deal with that. And I feel like it's a lot of individuals just like me that are just not willing to come out and speak about it openly because they might be ashamed or embarrassed about it. I just feel like there's no reason for me to be ashamed and embarrassed about what's my life story. It is what it is, it's what I live. So I have no reason to be ashamed of it.

What do you think is the most important lesson prison taught you? Most important lesson that no one is innocent. You had someone on your podcast the other day and said that in prison, no one innocent. So I had to learn early that me being innocent wasn't going to help me in there, right? That just looked at as another sign of vulnerability or another sign of weakness.

So if you being in prison, people don't feel sorry for you. There's no sympathy in prison. The person next year, if you tell them, You know, I can't take this, man. I can't take it. I want to hang up. He'll probably pass you the rope. You get what I'm saying?

Because he want to come out and see how that shit looked for a person to hang up. You get what I'm saying? So there's been individuals when that commits suicide on galleries I was on. And, you know, then, you know, the reaction is dudes want to go see that shit. Like, they want to see it. You know what I'm saying? Not like, damn, that's fucked up. It happened.

You get what I'm trying to say? So some of the most harsh realities are, implored it in prison. So when I say there's no innocence in prison, it's like when you go in there, you have to adjust and adapt to that environment because it's predator of prey. And I learned that it's kill or be killed.

You gotta be willing to kill it be killed. That's that's that's the philosophy and that's the mentality. That's what I learned to be in that place. It's kill to be killed. and you have to be able to portray that, that energy. A person has to know that you're willing to go to the extent to die for yours and perhaps hurt somebody to the extreme measures if they try to do, for protecting yourself if they try to harm you any particular way.

So I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't portray prison as a positive place. I feel like it's one of the most negative experiences I could experience. I don't portray as that's where you should go to learn. your lesson to get your life in order. I feel like individuals say that they learned of valuable, you know, of they became better people from going through the experience that they went through. I don't feel like that subjects me to that. Like, I told you, I came out of there a criminal.

I came out of prison with a criminal mentality. It didn't make me a better person, me being in there. I got to a point where I felt like my fear triggered my aggression. So it was like when I was on my ride to Maximum State Prison from DFI, I remember us on the bus and we was talking like having a conversation. Like if this person tried this, what we supposed to do. Like it was a fear. It was an unknown fear going into an environment where how it was going to be. We hear people getting cut, raped and stabbed.

Being in DFI, that wasn't our coaching DFY before I left. It was mostly fistfighting. Like, most you have as an individual might pick up a pin and stab you or something like that. But the culture was individuals with a fistfight, right? Going into adult maximum prison is the stories you hear about individuals being raped, and the years about being stabbed and being cut are really real. So it triggers a different environment. I mean, it triggers a different feeling to me.

me going into that because I didn't know what I was walking into. So I feel like all that fear, the fright, and me all stirred up to by the time I got off that bus ride that I was overly aggressive. Like it triggered me to be on some, like any little, like whatever's on, I'm going to be on. I ain't playing no game. Like I got to let people know I ain't having that shit. You know what I'm saying?

And that's the kind of mentality that I was going into a wit. And I feel like prison don't make people better people, I'll have to say. Like, I have people allowed to say that time. I don't feel like you could come out a better person, but I don't feel like that's the narrative that want to be put out there. Like prison can make you a better person because that's not reality. You understand what I'm saying? You could be a better person without going to prison.

You need to be a better person to not go to prison. You know what I'm saying? Unlikely if you could avoid it, if there's something that happens to you. you where you put in an app space like myself, I just wanted to be known that like no one is innocent in prison. And when a person said that on your part the other day, I respected it because I said like people don't understand that. Like by me going in there, I never, I never ever acted as if I committed the crime. I never owned up to I always maintain my innocence it's no matter who I was around.

However, that that was like followed up with all the aggression, right? Me being innocent, yeah, but I'm still on my shit. I'm in there robbing people. I'm in there cutting people. I'm in there doing all the same shit, a person that was in there for a crime that probably, you understand what I'm saying? Like, I didn't adapt it to that mentality. So I'm in there doing, I'm actually, while I'm in, while I'm in prison,

I'm advancing into the criminal lifestyle while I'm inside for a crime that I didn't commit. You know what I'm saying? Like, so I already had the police on my ass. I had the staff and the police viling fucking me up every chance they get going to beat me up every chance they get. I damn shit wasn't going to let no earmark

get away with nothing. I'm already going through with these. They're doing the worst to me already, right? These are the people that's doing it to me. The average, these dudes don't, they had run down on another inmate, but they ain't going to run down to cut no staff. They ain't going to run down to cut no police.

They're going to leave that alone. They're scared to get involved when they come down to the COs. So my situation was like I'm already going through it with the people that these motherfuckers don't want to get into. They already put me through hell. So I'm damn sure not going to let another inmate put me through anything that's in the same position I'm in. I get to let my anger out on them.

You get what I'm saying? So that's my mentality on that, like, you know? And I realized early on, that I told you like the second day I got jumped in there I realized like early on that me being innocent wasn't going to help me survive that wasn't what was going to help me survive in there I just thought that was going to be the key for me to get out of there but it wasn't wasn't going to help me survive inside um I wasn't one that was going to a little library studying law I know a lot of guys was and all that that was never my thing I was never like really

strong and reading and all that. So me being in a law library is not some place I wanted to be. So it was like a lot of guys that did time with me, they seen me. I used to be out in the yard. I'm chasing a bag. If a nigga got the, if a person was getting weed in jail, you know, I was doing if a person was getting weed in jail, that was my shit. They got to set it out.

And dudes to tell you, I was Brooklyn, I'm Brooklyn. And if a dude was getting bud and all that, I'm on your ass for I don't get how big you is what it is, nigger. Pause. How they say you're going to set that out. And that's the type of time I was on, you know what I'm saying? I was definitely a leader. And I was on like, I was, I was on, I was on, I was on, I was on, I was, I was on, I was, I was trying to make a name for myself in prison, you know.

And that was the ignorant, that was the ignorant side of myself. I thought that, you know, that that shit meant something in real life. But in a grand scheme of things, you can't come home and put that on a resume nowhere. It don't matter how many people. people you cut, how many people you stab, how many houses you had on lockdown, you come out here, that shit don't mean nothing in real life when you're trying to get your real life in order. You know, it just go down to a waste of time. So, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I got released out of all that time and I came out here basically with nothing. You know, my mother was still living in the same apartment that I got arrested in. I just came out of grown man with nothing. I went in a kid, you know what I'm saying, with nothing, and I came out, you know, a grown man with nothing, and still trying to figure it all out. Well, John, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Yes, sir. Thank you for having me, boss, man. Yeah, my pleasure.

And, you know, I wish you'd continued success in the future. Yes, sir.