Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was SHOT At 14 Years Old | Louis L Reed

Episode Date: April 9, 2023

Exposed to a life of crime as a child, Louis L Reed is sentenced to nearly 16 years in federal prison by the time he turns 22 years old. Listen to Louis's traumatic story unfold in this tell-all interview and find out how he was able to become a symbol for hope & change. Connect with Louis L Reed:https://www.louislreed.org/ Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com/Subscribe to our membership program on YouTube to get early access to interviews, see behind the scenes photos & more:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvVklIft6DMelVW18M0oBw/joinPowered by Q29 Productions, LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Own the Dream. My name is Ian Bick, and you are locked in with Ian Bick. On today's episode, I interview Lewis L. Reed from the Reform Alliance, who spent over a decade in federal prison and now advocates for prison reform. Make sure you guys like, comment, subscribe, and share. And if you're listening to this on our audio streaming platforms, give us a review. Thank you guys for watching, locked in with Ian Bick. We all make mistakes, experience failure, and fall down in life. But if you decide to get back up and use it as fuel to your fire,

you could choose to not let it define you. You can make it through to the other side and turn it into an opportunity. Join me, Ian Bick, as I interview people from all over the country who have experienced the rock bottom of the American... Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari.

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Okay. Welcome to Lockton with Ian Bick. Yeah, what's up, man? It's good to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you. You know, I stumbled across your Instagram one day and, you know, I noticed you by the blue check marks. I did a little digging and I was like, wow, this guy's story. I had a blue check mark before. I know. You got the free one. I'm not paying for mine. Yeah, I had to pay for mine. Yeah, I had to pay for mine. But you deserve it, though. You're verified in real life. Thank you. But I deep dive in your store. I was like, wow, this. This is insane, so I'm happy we got to connect it and have you come out here today.

Yeah. You live like this crazy life and you do so much good in the world now. And, you know, I'm very curious about how you got to the point you're at now. So, you know, starting at your childhood, what was it like growing up? What's your family like? Yeah, great question. And I really get asked that question. I'm from Bridgeport, Connecticut.

And contrary to, like, the public notion about Connecticut, Connecticut is not full of manicured lawns and white picking fences like how you see in Westport and Greenwich. I'm from the grimy dirt of Connecticut. So I'm from Bridgeport. Incidentally, both my parents were incarcerated when I was five years old. And I was raised by my maternal grandmother. And so when I on or around the time when my mom came home, when I was about 10 or so, here comes crack. And so not only did I lose my mom to the criminal justice system, but also her life was diminished for a good period of years due to obviously drug use. And so, in effect, I got involved in criminal enterprising when I was about 12 years old.

I used to be with my cousins who were much older than me. They would put me on a train, have maybe about a kilo or two in a book bag. And because I looked so young at the time, well, obviously I was young. But what they would do is I would just traffic for them. I was a carrier. So they would load my book bag up, take me to New York, buy me two, three pairs of sneak. and I would just jump on a train and go back to Connecticut with drugs. And so that happened when I was about 12 years old.

When I was 14 years old, I was critically injured. I was shot in my chest. I still have a bullet in between my heart and my spine and I had to relearn how to walk. About 15 years old, I had a friend of mine who was killed in front of me, shot six times in both the face and head. And when I was 16 years old, my cousin, who was a year older than me, he was shot 32, times in front of his mother. And ultimately, he succumbed to those injuries. So my life has been like this, this, this chalk full of trauma and drama to say the least bit. And then obviously when I was 22, 23 years old, I got locked up and I was sentenced to approximately 16 years

in federal prison. I mean, by the time you're 18, you've experienced what trauma enough for like one person would have in their entire lifetime. Yeah, man. Look, by the time, I was 18, I had been through things that people who were 81 never experienced literally in the entire span of their life. I know you were young at the time, but what was it like to have, you know, your parents in federal prison or state prison, whichever prison they were in? What was that like for you? Well, they were in federal prison, number one.

The second thing is, is that the conversation around criminal justice reform, it wasn't in vogue back then, like how it is now. You didn't have Sesame Street Muppets talking about, hey, I'm the Sesame Street Muppet and my parent is incarcerated and let's talk about this. You didn't have that. And so there was this high degree of shame. I remember going to school and making up stories because prior to my mom being incarcerated for a white collar offense, FY, both her and my dad, prior to my mom being incarcerated,

my mother was a teacher. She was an educator. And so I would go to school and make up stories like when it come time for parent teacher conference, et cetera, that my dad was this military police officer for some reason, right? Like I wanted my dad to be a cop and I wanted him to be the military. So I would say like my dad was a military police officer and my mom was like a traveling teacher who went to like these remote countries and like taught kids in Brazil and far corners of Africa and not being at home with their own kids.

So it was really shameful. Did anyone find out that they were in prison? No. Nobody found out that my parents were in prison. Not until I actually got older and got the courage and got the temerity to actually talk about I mean, that's a lot of pressure on someone that age to be having to go into school anyways. Like, if I was in your position, I would lie to and say, it's an embarrassing thing. Yeah, it was an embarrassing thing.

But I thought about it. And I said to myself, how many friends do I know who came from two parent households? And probably there were two, three at best. And so when I looked at, in retrospect, my friends who didn't have their dad in the house and or who didn't have their mom in the house, one of them. one of them were in prison themselves and no one talked about it was kind of like this open secret thing it was almost like how when when I was a kid and there was a girl who got pregnant they said that she went down south and going down south was cold was for her being pregnant her having a teen pregnancy so it was it was

very very shameful and embarrassing when I look back at it when I look at the five-year-old me I'm like oh man like there's this kid that was in a corner um a hiding behind this box with this clown mask on, with this smile that was turned upside down that really wanted like my parents' attention. Do you think seeing your parents' life choices affected your life choices? Without question. Without question. Look, one of the things I always say is that if you take a plant and if you put a plant

in a dark room, what's going to happen? It's not going to grow, right? But if you take that same plant and you expose that plant to sunlight to nutrients, et cetera, it's going to flourish. No different than in childhood development. The sunlight and the nourishment is two parents being in a house, nurturing, cultivating, growing that child and or that plant into the maximum of its capability and the fullness of what it was created to be.

Now, there's no influence coming from your other family members saying, hey, we need to remove you from the situation so you don't follow that path. Well, my other family members were involved in criminal. Enterprising themselves. So that was the other thing that I talked about. So I come from a huge family, a very, very big family. My mother has nine sisters. None of them, by the way, which have been involved in criminal enterprise and.

But my grandmother's brothers and her sons were notorious drug dealers in the city of Bridgeport and quite arguably throughout the state of Connecticut at the time. And so I came from a family, in effect, that was influenced by crime in some way, shape, or form, right? So, if, A, if it was my grandfather running numbers, B, if it was my cousins trafficking across the state of Connecticut all the way into Philadelphia, and or C, if it was, you know, an aunt, a great aunt, who was a madam. And for our listening audience, any event, if you don't know what a madam is, allow me to, allow me to grammatically articulate what that is in effect what she was is she was the head mistress and back then what they called

a her house so you know or a prostitution house so you know i came from a family that was deeply entrenched into criminal activity so do you feel this is the first time that i'm talking about this publicly f y so you get an exclusive on locked in so do you feel like you were like a you know a product of your environment and that there was no escaping that like that was the past made for you? I don't think that I wouldn't say it was the path made for me, but I do think that it was the path that was influenced for me. When you come from an environment, don't have both your parents, my grandmother, who's an R.N. at the time working to take care of these other kids who are in the house. There's a generational disconnect. Then here comes the introduction of crack. then also here comes the not the introduction, but the rise of gang activity, right?

In neighborhoods that look like mine all over the country, what do you think is going to happen? I mean, it also poses a question, is it a 10, 11, a 12-year-old supposed to be able to be adapt enough to make the decision, hey, I don't want to go down this path? Not even a 10, 11, or 12-year-old. The brain doesn't fully develop until you're 25. So imagine what it was like for somebody like me who didn't have the emotional literacy who didn't have the fully developed cognitive executive functionings of my brain in order to be able to say, hey, this is not right.

I want to be able to choose this, so on and so forth, at 10, 11 and 12 year old, right? I know 30-year-olds who are still trying to freaking figure life out, let alone, and those are with the skills that and resources that they have, that they've acquired now. What do you do when you are, you know, two times lesser than that age? Yeah, and I mean, I get to ask that question a lot, too. They're like, where are your parents? Like, a lot of people put blame on my parents in my situation. Actually, that now could you look like you're 12 years old?

No, it's just like I've talked to people and I've been on podcasts and they always put the blame on my parents for my situation. Yeah. And, you know, a part of me, because I was an outlier in the sense where I felt like I was on a different mental level than most kids my age. So I kind of was aware of the choices I was making. like which actions I chose. So I don't necessarily put the blame on them. But you're still 12. Yeah, I get that.

That's the thing about it, right? Like no matter how much of an outlier you are, no matter how much of a precocious child that you were, you were still 12 years old. And so I'm not saying that, hey, this is the issue on your parents. But what I am saying is that there's too much responsibility to place on a 12 year old. Agreed. So the first time you're shot and you almost die from that injury, Yeah. What's that like?

Now I realize how traumatic it was. At the time, I was a part of the things that were happening around me. Per capita, Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the 90s, led the nation, if not arguably, the state of Connecticut, and homicides and assaults. And so I was just like, this is just another common thing that happens. But was it like for me in the moment, it was skisks? Gary. Keep in mind, the person who shot me was 25 years old. So this was an intentional act. It wasn't, and he and I, we actually had an argument over a drug deal. I sold someone a $5 vial of crack cocaine for $3. And a person wasn't satisfied with the quality of the product

came back and wanted their money back. And this person who at the time had just been released from incarceration himself gets into an argument with me, My intention at the time was for me to go home and get my gun, come back and shoot him. But from what I end up gathering was someone around him told him, hey, you need to do something to this kid because he's going to most likely do something to you. So he ended up shooting me. And when he shot me, I'll never forget this, Ian. I got shot up the street from my house. It was August 17, 1991.

I get shot up the street from my house. and my grandmother, who's an RN, and my sister, who, by the way, was shot in her face the year prior by her then-boyfriend, who she subsequently had a child by, both of them come, and they're standing over me. My grandmother, who's trained in emergency medicine, she's so in shock that she can't even administer first aid. It's only by the grace of God that what ended up happening was that there was a cop that happened to be coming up the street at the time that the shoot the shots rang out and there's an ambulance that's following the cop so they are rushing in the direction of where the shots are coming from as I'm literally laying on my friends um a floor of bleeding out now this isn't a wake-up call at this point

like you survived by a miracle not a not a wake-up call at all but for do you think if it wasn't for your age it would have been a wake-up call like if you were 10 years older negative and it just propelled you to get back right into what you're doing it if it if you're not a negative if you're If anything, what it did was it perpetuated this notion that I had was that nobody was going to hurt me ever again. It created more of a monster. It put gasoline on the fire. Without question. So you recover what happens next after this?

So I recover. How old are you at this point? I'm 14 still. I'm not even in high school yet. This is in between eighth grade and high school. There goes my basketball playing career. I had aspirations to play Paul. And what end up happening after that is that, you know, I'm still in high school, obviously, going through my rehabilitation to the extent that I could.

But for the most part, I get involved in drug dealing. I get involved in crack cocaine and trafficking heroin. Are you using it all? Negative. I never used, I never drink and or smoked and or used drugs in my life. And what about alcohol, any alcohol? Never. So you were never, like, fueled by alcohol or drugs?

Was it the money aspect? It was the money. It was the money in the lifestyle. It was a money, definitely the money in the lifestyle. And the lifestyle that I was influenced by was, in effect, closed bank rows and hose, right? Not to be too crass. But when I saw the guys who, when I looked outside of my window, who had popularity in the neighborhood, who had all the girls in the neighborhood, who had the best cars in the neighborhood, who had the best cars in the neighborhood. those guys who were the guys who stood out on a corner all day long and they weren't winos.

They weren't transients. These were the people who were actually sold drugs and I said to myself, I want to be like those guys. Now, are you guys like running in a gang? What's the, what's the group of people you're around with? Yeah. So in effect, the people that I'm around are folks who from my neighborhood, you know, people that I grew up with some who happened to be a little bit older than me who saw kind of like my trajectory and knew what my criminal enterprising talent could be. And they took me under their wing and developed me. Number one, the second thing is that at or around that time, I was also hustling for my sister's boyfriend, who she again, subsequently had a child with. So there was a degree of like safety and protection that I had in

and with him. And yeah, that's what it was like. It was a family affair, so to speak. And what I mean family. I don't mean family by being related to someone because everybody you're related to ain't family and everybody who's family you don't have to be related to. So I'm just kind of like me from a social perspective. Now going back to the gun incident, was it normal for someone your age in that type of community to just have a gun? Yes. Yes. It was normal for someone my age to have a gun. It wasn't normal for someone in my age to be shot. I didn't realize the magnitude and the impact. that it had on the city when I was shot, especially by someone who was significantly older than me, right? Because back then there was a, there was a, there was something, an unspoken rule where you just did not do anything to kids. You didn't do anything to pregnant women. You didn't do anything to women. You didn't do anything to women. You didn't do anything to elderly. And you definitely didn't do anything that somebody who had a mental deficit, right, like who was handicapped in some way, shape, or form. You just didn't do anything. So, so. So, So when I was shot by someone who was older than me, that was a violation of one of those five street unwritten principles.

And that person in itself was young. 25 is still young. 25 is still young, but 25 is much older when you're 14 as opposed to when you were 25 and somebody's 35. Absolutely. Do you finish high school? Do you graduate? Yeah. So what ended up happening was I end up graduating through a, you,

placement program. So I continue to obviously get in trouble, et cetera. And on or around the age of 17, 18 years old, I end up getting kicked out of school and I was placing an alternative program. And so ultimately I ended up graduating, but that was through an alternative program. And do you go to college? No. So I went through the school of Hard Knocks. I matriculated through the school of Hard Knocks. I didn't go to college until I get incarcerated, but I definitely had a PhD. in criminology long before I matriculated through a formal education without question. Now, what happens during the period of time post high school and the time you're ultimately sentenced to federal prison?

I have three kids when I'm 17 years old. You have three kids. I have three kids. Wow. Ghetto triplets, we call them. Three kids by three different women when I'm 17 years old. That seems to be a reoccurring thing. Yeah.

So I got three kids by three different women at the age. I'm 17 years old. I am probably making more money at the time in my life than I had ever prior to such. And, you know, in between that time, I'm just basically in effect living my scaled down micro version of what Puff Daddy and Jay-Z and the rest of those cats in rap videos and in the rap culture are actually living. And so I ultimately say, hey, there was this turning point. Talk to you about turning points. It was a turning point where I'll never forget this. I was in a car with my then-girlfriend, one of my then-girlfriends.

And I had circled around the block where, you know, I had some product out and had some guys who were out there selling for me. And I never forget that there was one guy who was actually selling drugs to this woman who showed up pregnant, which violated my personal. principles. It just, it infuriated me. And I took him to the side and I gave him a verbal berating. And when I got back in a car, I remember this, this young lady who I was involved with, she said, what was that about? And I was telling her, oh, yeah, he tried to sell this woman, you know, some drugs who was pregnant. She said, let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly. She said, you're upset that he tried to sell a woman who was pregnant drugs, but you're not upset that he just tried to sell drugs to begin with, let alone the fact that he's selling your

drugs. And I was like, hmm, that makes a little bit of sense. But, you know, ultimately, you know, I kept selling drugs. And then finally, what ended up happening was I did a six-month stint in the state of Connecticut. And when I was in for six months, I was talking with this guy who was involved in white collar crime. And he was a CPA. And he said, man, you have. You really intelligent. He said you're actually too intelligent to be selling drugs. And I was like, what do you mean by that? Right. And I'm like, I'm actually like relatively lucrative at what it is that I do. He's like, yeah, but you're nickel and diamond compared to what you could be doing. And I said, tell me more. And so he said, hey, have you ever thought about, you know, getting involved in

embezzlement and what they called at the time paper hanging, which was, you know, the creating facsimile checks? And I was like, nah. And he said, he was. was like yeah let me put you on to game so he ended up giving me this game where it's like hey you can literally take a check that has been written out to you and you could in effect do the puff daddy remix to that check and make it more than what is actually has been written out to you and I was like really and he was like yeah he was like you can actually go into a bank and open an account and cash this check and or deposit the check for about you know two to three days and then it declared And when I looked at the risk versus reward and I looked at what the return on that investment was going to be, I'm like, wait, I can actually go in and get $10,000 in less than an hour and it's usually taking me about three days to make $10,000.

I'm going to choose this thing over here rather than choosing that thing over here. So I had a career shift. I had a changing career. I went from selling drugs to actually being involved in white collar crime. So you left the drug life completely? Left the drug life completely. And you know what you just said is actually really interesting because that's like one of the issues

with the criminal justice system today is that a lot of people go into the system and they're leaving a better criminal. It was the Department of Connections for me. It wasn't the State of Connecticut Department of Corrections. It was the State of Connecticut Department of Connections for me. And so in effect, that's what actually helped me in my pivot in order to graduate, so to speak.

And so when I up-leveled, you know, you have to consider that by the time I get indicted, I'm probably making on average about $40,000 a week. I remember one time where they had raided, when I say they, I'm talking about the U.S. Secret Service at the time who was investigating me, but they weren't investigating me. They were chasing this ghosts because I had things in multiple fictitious names. they went into an apartment that I had and they got $240,000. Wow. And 80,000 of it was in counterfeit money and they didn't even know.

Like I'm in prison like all of these years later and I get this, I get this receipt in effect where they're saying like, hey, you know, as a result of your conviction, so on and so forth, there's certain things that you can reclaim and there's certain things that obviously the government sees, et cetera. and they never charged me for the $80,000 in counterfeit money. And this is during the 90s, right? Yeah, this is during the 90s. So there's not even like, I don't even think American Greeds a thing yet. Like there's no financial fraud. The Wall Street hasn't blown up yet. It hasn't.

None of that. None of that. We were just doing this literally with a computer, a laser printer. We were using quick checks or quickens, the software, et cetera. And we just did that. And I just, the same crew that I had. that was actually selling drugs, I took that crew, and I 10xed it. And so I'm like, who do you know who's in different places, like literally all over the country? And we're just

going to be FedEx and this stuff like out, out, out. And they'll cash it. They'll create, we'll create the IDs for them. We'll ship the IDs. They'll cash it and we'll just get a percentage off of it. So that six months period of time you were in prison was not only a life changing moment to affect your future, but it wasn't a wake-up call at all. You weren't thinking, wow, I'm a felon now. Like, this could, I get out. I have this another chance. No, because at the time when I was incarcerated for that six months, I used my youthful offender. Okay. Status. So in effect. You got to get out of jail free car. I got to get out of jail free car.

So you were going into this banking crime enterprise with no record. No record whatsoever. So you leave the drug game and you're on to this, you know, fraud aspect. I'm on to this fraud aspect, but I say I need cover. I need legal cover. So what I end up doing was I end up going to school for a year and I became a medic. Okay. And I'm working for a medic. Yeah, I'm working, yeah, an actual paramedic. So I'm working for American medical response and on a per diem basis because I have to be able to justify in my mind. I have to be able to justify the cars, the properties, etc. So that was in effect my cover. And the reason why I had to justify it, it wasn't because of the authorities. I wanted to justify it for the street. I wanted people and

I wanted to give the perception for the folks who once knew me in the street that I was actually this working guy. And this was your first job ever? That was my first job ever. Okay. And are your parents out of prison by this point? My parents are out of prison by that point. My mom is in, you know, full recovery.

She's on her way into being into recovery. My dad, he's out of prison. You know, he's up in Buffalo, New York. My dad is originally from Harlem. But he leaves Connecticut, has a brief intermission in, and, and, and, you know, he's out of prison. Harlem and then goes up to Buffalo. So why aren't your parents stepping in and say, hey, you got to stop, you know, doing what you're doing so you don't end up like us? So my parents are going to step in when I'm a parent of three children myself and I'm approximately 20 years old. What are they going to say?

I mean, there could be some direction. Yeah, but you know, you often have to consider that my parents both come from the life as well. And when I'm saying the life, I'm talking about like the life that I'm actually living and leading. And so my parents took the position as to where, hey, it's not what you do, but it's how you do it. I remember one time in particular, I was going to shoot somebody. I'm just backing up a little bit, a few years back. I was going to shoot somebody and I had stopped by and I was talking to my dad and I was like, Dad, this is what happened. This is what's going to happen. And if something does happen as a result of what's going to happen, I need you to be aware of X, Y, and Z and my dad say, who's in the car with you? And I told him my friend, I told him one of my

friends was in a car. He was like, is he going? I said, yeah. He said, don't believe in co-defendants. And he said, oh, by the way, it's sunny outside. Anytime you're going to do something like that, it should be in a rain. It leaves, rain washes things away. So the- Now, this is a normal advice. A parent should be giving their kid at this age. It's almost like my dad talking to me about the birds and the bees, right? Like, it's like, yo, look, don't do it this way. If you're hell bent on doing it, then if you're going to do it, do it this way. Now, looking back, on it now, do you think they were enabling you at that age? Yeah, without question.

And do you respect that decision, what they made? Like, I understand their point of view because they came from that lifestyle. But now that you're older and more mature. Yeah, now that I'm older and more mature, and as I got older and as I got developed in my career, I can see that my conversations with my parents shifted and it changed. And their conversations with me elevated and it was far much more mature. And them owning responsibility for their outcomes, we've had conversations prior to my dad passing about 18 months ago. We've had conversations where it was like, hey, if I knew now what I know, if I knew then what I know now,

I would have redirected you in a way that would have been far much more conducive to what your real inner potential was. Could they have stepped in and stopped you? No. There was nothing. No. That's something I'm always fascinated about with like fate and destiny and like how. life progresses because it's like a domino effect once you once you get going like i look back on everything i've been through and all it would have taken was like one person to step in to like stop

that house of cards from crumbling yeah but it just never happened and it just like it kept going and going and going and there was there was no stopping me really at that point yeah to carry that out yeah i think that for me you know that's like trying to jump in front of a train that was moving at 120 miles an hour after it has left the station and it is in full full motion. Now back to the fraud enterprise you're running. How does it come to an end? Well, it comes to one in one of two ways. Number one, the U.S. Secret Service, they're looking for a ghost. They're running around and they're chasing this guy who is living under all of these different names. They don't know it's me. What ended up happening one night was I went through a breakup.

This is how every story starts. I go through a breakup, man. Now, keep in mind that at the time that I'm a medic, I get involved in a relationship who has no idea what's happening on the illegal side of things. And so, you know, she thinks that all the money that I got coming in is me working a lot of overtime. And so I go through a breakup. I end up cheating on her. I go through a breakup.

I'm nursing a broken heart. And I see my cousin. And my cousin tells me, hey, let's hang out. And I'm like, all right, cool, let's hang out. And he was like, oh, let's hang out with some girls. And I'm like, all right, what's better than to nurse a broken heart, right? Get involved with some other babes. So I hang out with these girls.

And on the way to go pick up the girls, my cousin was like, hey, let's stop and get some weed for the girls. I don't smoke weed. I'm like, all right, let's stop and get some weed for the girls. When we stop and get some weed for the girls, in my part of town, keep in mind, the section of town where I'm from, I should say, get out of the car and this guy comes up to me, and he pulls out a gun and he robs me. So I get out of the car,

a guy robs me. When a guy robs me, he takes some, in retrospect, some nominal stuff, right? Take some jewelry. He didn't even know I had money in my pocket, but I was so incest that the audacity that you had to rob me.

I just literally took up the money that I had in my pocket and I threw it on the ground. I was like, take that. I'm like, take that as well. I'm like, threw my car, my car keys. I'm like, you want a car, go take my car? Because in my mind, I said to myself, I'm going to come back and I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to kill you with those chains on. I'm going to kill you with that money and my money in your pocket. And hopefully I can catch you in my car. He didn't take the car. He passed on the car, picked up the money, grabbed the jury, and he ended up leaving. Well, what ended up happening was that in an effort to retaliate against him, I end up shooting him. I end up shooting someone else.

And unfortunately, I inadvertently shot a five-year-old at the time. as a result of, you know, retaliating. This was the same night of the robbery or a different day? This was a different day. So you went out and hunted him down? Went out and hunting him down. Now, I'm sure the CPA in prison that taught you this, he wasn't a part of that aspect of the lifestyle.

He would always tell me to stay away from crime. This is one of the advice rules of life that he gave me. He said, look, he said the feds or whoever will always allow you to get a little bit of money so long as you stay away from violence. You stay away from violence, you're going to be good. stay under the radar. You don't stay away from violence. You're going to be on a radar. And so what ended up happening was I end up going back to retaliate against this guy.

Five-year-old inadvertently gets shot. When a five-year-old inadvertently gets shot, in effect, that just up the ante with law enforcement. Now, keep in mind, when I did the shooting, you know, I've disguised myself, et cetera, but I did the shooting with two other people. one person who ended up getting caught in the car he was supposed to have dumped the car he ended up getting caught he didn't tell on me my cousin who ended up getting away end up getting arrested six months later for something unrelated out in texas uses me now as a get out of jail free card he says hey if you let me go on this thing i'll not only tell you about a major shooting that's happened that happened out in Connecticut, but I'll also tell you about this guy who the feds is looking for, but it's not the

guy that the feds are actually looking for. This is the guy that they're really looking for. And so he was able to put, connect both dots. It's always the people closest to us. It's always closest to us. The guy you shot in the five-year-old, what happens to them? So now or what happened at the time? At the time. Did they survive? Yeah. So one of the guys, one of the guys he ended up surviving, the five-year-old, he was, injured in the shoulder. He now has full range of motion, you know, with his arm, et cetera. But it was a traumatic experience for both of them. Did you know in the moment that a five-year-old was shot? I did not know. And I knew the, I knew the parents of the five-year-old and also

knew the five-year-old child as well. What's your reaction when you found out? I'm sick to my stomach. Literally, I am sick to my, I'm so sick to my stomach that I go, I go to the hospital. And this is the first time that I'm ever saying this publicly. I go to the hospital. I take X amount of dollars, put in a brown paper bag, and send someone inside of the emergency room and have my person who I know, who mutually knows the family and knows the dad to give money to the dad. That's how, like, upset I am with myself as a father, aside from the human being. And aside from the fact that going back to my earlier point about how there are just things when you were in the street, those five things that you just did not knew, and that did not.

do and that's how I was raised. And this is still another moment that you had an option, an opportunity to leave the lifestyle and you didn't. That's correct. So after that, you don't get arrested right away because they don't arrest it. They don't know. It wasn't until your cousin tells on you. Not until my cousin tells on me. Your cousin tells what happens. How do they arrest you? So my cousin tells on me, uh, and that turns up the heat. So now you have the U.S. Secret Service in conjunction with the Connecticut Fugitive Task Force. Now I'm one of Connecticut's most want it. What a title. Yeah, it is. I've had a lot of titles in my life, but that was the one. Well, you got better titles now. Yeah, I do. I do. So the Connecticut Fugitive Task Force and in conjunction with the

U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Marshal's Office, in conjunction with ATF, now there's this manhunt. They're looking for me. They know that I'm involved in the white collar crime. They know I've been involved in this more serious crime and they're just raiding every house that they got intelligence from my cousin of where I am. But I am in so many different locations. So I have properties in Connecticut that my cousin didn't know that I acquired after he had went to Texas. So I'm kind of like hiding out there. But Ian, I was the type of cat where if I knew that they raided the house, literally I would be at that house 15 minutes after they raided it because I knew that they weren't going to be coming back to that same house because I knew that they were trying to flesh me out. And so they would be

one time I had a place in New Haven, West Haven, Connecticut. And I was up the street and I saw all of the police activity and I'm like, oh, they're raiding my loft. And so when they left, I waited about 20 minutes and went right into the loft and ended up staying there for about three weeks. And they never knew that I was there. I'm shocked like what you were able to build up at this age. Like you're what, when you got arrested, how will you do, 23? 23. So you've acquired properties, you have bank accounts, you know how the system works, you have the logic behind it.

And I have about, maybe about 300K in, you know, liquid. So you might have been even like too smart for your own good at this point. I definitely was too smart for no direction. You had all this ambition. Yeah, yeah, a lot of ambition. Too smart for my own good. And ultimately those house of cars came falling down. So they arrested you.

I'm sure they don't arrest me. I actually turn myself. You turn yourself in? Yeah, I turn myself in. Why did you decide to do that? I turned myself in with the intention that, oh, so here's the other piece of the story that I didn't tell you. Yeah. I turned myself in because I had an alibi.

I had an alibi defense. I wasn't at the shooting at the time when the shooting happened. Let's hear this one. So I end up going to a business owner who I knew. And I'm like, hey, look, there was a shooting that happened. I need to be somewhere else at the time that this shooting happened. He was like, okay, how can you be here when you were there when that happened? I'm like, let's get surveillance equipment.

Let's time stamp the surveillance equipment for the day and or around the time that the shooting happened. And I'll just incidentally come in here. I'll purchase something from you. You'll give me a sales receipt for that day. And that's how that end up happening. He was like, okay, great. I slide them, what I have to slide them. And that's what we end up doing.

end up staging my alibi. And so I'm like, you know what, I'm going to turn myself in and I'm going to go to trial and or I'm going to present this evidence to the court at the very least and they won't get me on the shooting. Because the fraud wasn't. The fraud is not into consideration yet. I don't know that the Secret Service is actually involved. Oh, you weren't aware. You were just turning yourself in for the shooting. That's correct. I don't know that the Secret Service is involved. And so when I turn myself in for the shooting, they give me this astronomical bail. I think it was like 500,000 at the time. And I'm like, all right, I bail out. And so my lawyer tells me, wait, before you have to, before you just spend money on bail, let's go to an

evidentiary hearing, we'll present the evidence. The judge will probably reduce your bail significantly so that you don't have to pay the 10% of the 500K and, you know, you can get released. And this is a state case. This is a state case at the time. In between time, I'm sitting in pretrial in the state of Connecticut Department of Connections. And my lawyer comes to see me one day and who's like, hey, I got some news for you. And I'm like, what's going on? And he was like, I was just contacted by the United States Secret Service office, U.S. attorney's office.

There's probably going to be an indictment for you. And I play shock. For what? Why would they indict me? And so he's like, they're investigating you for bank fraud. And so I'm like, okay, cool. And so I hold off on making the bell. We end up in a brokering a deal where ultimately what ends up happening is that I end up pleading guilty.

I don't go to trial. I admit due out the course of the investigation as well, the federal investigation, which is far much more intensive than the state investigation. I end up admitting that the video was fabricated. I also end up admitting for all of the fraud that I had done. And I end up copping out to 20 years suspended after 15 in the state that's running concurrent with a nearly 16 year sentence in the feds. And all of my time was to be served in a federal institution.

Which everyone knows is a cushy situation to always take the Fed time over the state time. Yeah, without question. Now, was there a weight off your shoulders when you admitted to the shooting? There was not just a weight off my shoulders, but there was like this, this gravity that had been lifted from my conscience. Because every single night in my nightmares, not even in my dreams, but in my nightmares, I always thought about what that child was going through as a result of what it is that I had caused, the harm that I caused, right? adults you can in effect be responsible for your actions you do something you're in the street you probably know that this is going to be the cause and effect as a result of whatever happened but that child he was so innocent how was your community um looking at you because i'm sure there

was word around town that they knew you were involved with it or even when they found out of rumor had it that i was involved yeah did they know it wasn't intentional which everybody knew that it wasn't intentional but you have to also have to consider that on or around the time that I had inadvertently shot that five-year-old would end up happening as well unrelated to me was there was a major homicide where there was an eight-year-old who was intentionally killed. He was a witness to a homicide where some guys who I knew went and killed both him and his mother. His name was B.J. Clark, B.J. Brown, his mother name was Karen Clark. And so the entire city was in their uproar around the notion that something could have happened to kids.

And I catch my case six months in the wake of that major incident. It's just kind of crazy that this is like in this town in Connecticut. You don't like, not a town, a city. A city. People from Bridgeport would take exception to you calling. But like I'm from Danbury and the type of stuff you're talking about right now, it's so close to Bridgeport, but so far off. Like people live very different lifestyles the way I. grew up was way different than the way you grew up. Well, consider this. Bridgeport borders Fairfield,

Easton, Trumbull, and Stratford. The people in those communities, they don't live those lifestyles, literally five minutes away from Bridgeport. But it just so happens that when you have such a concentration of crime, poverty, educational disadvantages, etc., you have a recipe that is going to produce the product of what it is that we're talking about today. Absolutely. So what's it like as a 23-year-old kid to step into a federal prison knowing that you're spending over the next decade in that environment? Literally, I was going to kill myself.

I said to myself, if I got X amount of time, I was not going to do that time. This is before we end up plea bargaining and getting, the numbers finite, etc. But I was facing initially 80 years maximum, and I said, there's no way. These people are beat. There's no way. I'm going to take some Benadryl.

I'll just go overdose on Benadryl. But ultimately, you know, with the support of family, I have a lot of family. With the support of friends in my faith, my faith in God is literally unapologetic about my faith. It was those things that actually helped me get through every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year. But I'm sure you still had like that criminal like crime aspect mentality,

your first few years in prison. My first five years, I was a mess. Like, literally, my first five years, I was like, man. Getting into trouble. Yeah, I was getting into trouble. I'm like, you're not going to tell me what the, what the, I remember one time this, this officer had wrote me up here, gave me a ticket for insolence. And when I read the ticket for insolence,

I didn't even realize that I told him this, but I'm like, man, I spend your whole life in one day. You can't tell me what to do. I tell you what the freaking do. And when I say I spent your whole life in a day, in effect is that, you know, the money that I spent on a daily basis was more than probably what you would see

in your entire legal career. I was being smart and sarcastic, but I was just like those first five years or so, I was just a mess. Who are you running with in the prison during that time? The Connecticut car. Okay. Yeah, folks from Connecticut, Boston, really people from New England.

Yeah, it was a New England car. And what federal prisoner are you at? I'm at Raybrook, New York. And that's a medium. Yeah, so I'm incarcerated at the time as well with John Gotti Jr. Yahweh bin Yahweh. Who else? I was incarcerated with a lot of different people.

How are you being treated by individuals like this? Oh, I'm good. I'm good. I was always one of those people where I socialized. Because my dad used to tell me $100 bills don't spend only in Bridgeport, which in effect meant that you need to be able to get out and see and be able to socialize and network with people who don't look like where you come from. So I've always been one of those people where I've been able to go into rooms and really

make associates in the rooms that I've been invited into. Now, you had like this awesome hustler mentality. Are you hustling in prison? No. Nothing. No. Not even those first five years. And why is that?

I mean, I played some blackjack every now and then, and I ran a gambling. We had a casino, the Connecticut casino that I subsidized, but I was more behind the scenes than I was up close. I just, I just didn't want to, like hustling in prison, the ironing clothes and like making food and things to that nature. I just didn't want to do that. For me, that was the equivalent of being back on a corner. And in my mind, I had graduated from being on a. the corner. I wasn't a nickel and dime guy anymore, right? And so how could I be socializing with the likes of, you know, John Gotti Jr. and other people, right, you know, who welcomed me

into their social circle when I was going to be running around kind of like doing this novice stuff. It just wasn't me. Are you trying to learn those first five years of other crimes? Without question. So you had that mentality that when you were done with this sentence, you were going to get back into it. Yeah, I was going to get back into it. What changed your mind? was the defining point during your time in prison that you were like... I remember it very distinctly. One of two things end up happening. One, I had a person who was part of my Christian community.

And I was traveling in fence with being in a Connecticut car and also being a Christian car as well. One person who literally saw untapped potential in me. And we were in a yard one day and we were frattingizing and we're cracking jokes and we shoot a dozen, et cetera. He walks up to me. He says, hey, Lewis. He's like, let me talk to you. Actually, they called me Canali.

Just FYI. Canalli? Yeah, my street name is Canali. Okay. So he's like, Canali, let me talk to you for a second. And when we talk and he said, how long are you going to be on this sentence and not realize the purpose that God has placed you in life for? And he began to walk me through my own testimony. He said, by your own account, both of your parents were incarcerated, your sister was shot when you were 13, you were shot when you were 14.

You shot people. Your cousin was killed. Has somebody killed in front of you? He was like, you've been through things that other people have died in the process. They've experienced a microcosm of what it is that you've experienced. And they've even lost their mind in the process. They didn't make it, et cetera. He was like, how long are you just going to allow your potential to be squandered?

And I can tell you it was almost like one of those come to Jesus moments. Like I saw the celestial lights from heaven like, and I was like, you're on to something. And he said, look, I want you to do, he's like, I'm not asking you for much. He said over the next three months, he said, just stick with me. Just stick with me. Next three months. If it doesn't work, you can go back to whatever it is that you were doing.

Within those three months, period, I enrolled in school, higher education. I read a book called He motions by Bishop T.D.J. which was transformative for me. And the third thing is that I begin to really understand what my power was, right? My power to just live and my power to show up and my power to influence and my power to just, you know, just be who I was. And within that three-month time period, I said to myself, at the end of that, we had an evaluation, so to speak. He's like, what you're going to do? You're going to go back or you're going to keep moving forward.

I said I'm moving forward and I never looked back since. Now, if that conversation was given to you 10 years prior, would you have followed that advice still? I would like to think that I would if I wasn't drunk and influenced by all of the things that I had going on for me and around me, right? And so it's interesting when you're in the street, when I was selling drugs, my number. I had an old school cat who would tell me, yo man, when you in this game, you need either have a time frame or a number. And what he meant by that was that you need to either

have a certain amount of money that you want to be able to reach by a certain time or whatever comes first, you stop. So for me, when I was 18 years old, my number was 10,000. I don't know why 10,000 was a big number for me, but for 10,000, I wanted to have $10,000 and I want to have $10,000 within a year. I reached that $10,000. I'm like, hmm, now I want $25,000. and I'm going 25,000 within six months. Hmm, I'm able to get that, so I wanted to just keep going up. And so I would like to think that in retrospect, if somebody would have had that conversation with me 10 years prior

and I had reached my number, that I would have probably walked away from it. After this realization, what's your typical day in prison like for the remainder of your sentence? Everything is dramatically shifted. Now I'm teaching courses. I'm working in Unicorn. I'm the administrative clerk in Unicorn,

So I work literally for the associate warden. And I also work for the quality assurance manager. And these are people who actually took a gamble on me because they remember when I first walked into the institution. Right. So you probably know what it's like to be incarcerated. When you're working in Unicor and you have the administrative clerk job in Unicor where you're running quote unquote inmate payroll, you are doing quality insurance inspections. I'm responsible for quality, not quality assurance reviews, but I'm responsible for inspections, literally. Outside inspectors would come in and make sure that we were ISO 9,000, 2001 certified, right?

That's a certification to make sure that we were accredited, so to speak. I was responsible for that. And so with that responsibility, I begin to take accountability of my own life. And so every day, now it's a matter of me grinding, in a different way. I'm going to work. I'm stacking my paper. I'm learning everything that I can learn about these systems, right? I'm light years ahead of everybody else because I'm on a computer every day. I have access to technology in a way that other people don't. You know, I'm teaching courses. I'm doing post-secondary education courses, basically correspondence where I'm getting my

degrees, et cetera. So I'm just up-leveling, up-leveling, up-leveling, up-leveling, up-leveling, up-leveling. Can you explain just briefly what Unicor is for the listener? Yeah, so, or our viewers. So Unicor is the federal prison industry. So in effect, it's the factory. It's the most premium job that you can get in a federal prison on any compound where there is a factory. So in effect, what they do is they produce clothes. You have several different types of manufacturing plants.

Some produce furniture for the United States government. Some produce clothes for other correctional institutions, et cetera. So I just happen to be in an institution that not only produce clothes for other institutions, but we also produce 30-round ammo cases for the United States military as well. And that's a closest job in prison that'll get you to a livable wage like compared on the street. That's correct. Every other job in prison is paying you cents an hour. This will pay you actual dollars.

They're actually paying you dollars an hour. And I had premium pay by the time that I left. So I had longevity, premium pay. So in effect, I was probably making about, I don't know, $8 a day. And when I came home, I had about $7,000 saved, you know, which was enough to springboard me. So I didn't have to look for handouts. Do you reflect back on that you had a, like, not every prisoner that's in federal prison has this opportunity. Did you get time to reflect back on that, that that opportunity shaped you into who you would become?

Yeah, without question. And let me also say this as well. So the entire time that I was incarcerated for 14 years, keep in mind, I never met a prisoner. I never met an inmate. I never met an ex-con. I never met a convict. I met people who were incarcerated. I met people. I met fathers. I met mothers. I met aunties, uncles, cousins, et cetera. And one of the reasons why I always say that is because oftentimes we take the pejorative that they give us, right? And we adopt it as our own. I'll tell you a quick story. there was a guy his name was Baker and on every

at every institution anywhere in the world there's always a Baker he was an officer and Baker would always see me and Baker wasn't the kind of guy who was big on inmate communication and when he would call you it was inmate read

with a lot of emphasis on an inmate portion of it right and so I remember one day I had threw something in a garbage it was a juice that I was drinking I threw it in a garbage and it bounced, it rimmed out, and it fell on the floor. And he was like, inmate Reed, come over here and pick this up. And I went over there and I picked it up.

And I was about to put it in the garbage can. And he was like, no, that goes into the recyclable bin. And I put it in a recyclable bin and I went to go walk away from him. And I turned back around, I said, A Baker, no what just occurred to me? And he looked at me quizzically. He said, and I told him, I said, it's interesting how we as a society or you as a society because as you tell it I'm not part of society but you as a society you put a lot of premium on compost going into this container and plastics going into this container

and trash going into this container which is cool but we don't put that much emphasis on human potential why is it that we can discard human potential away in a way that we don't do with the care and delicacy and with the empathy that we do with this plastic bottle. And ever since that day, when, but from that day, which was around year seven, going all the way to year 13 and a half or so, year 14. And you're about 30 years old. Correct. When I left the institution, I was one of the few people on that compound that Baker would speak to who say, read, what do you read in today? It wasn't an inmate read anymore. It was read. What are you reading in? what's that? And he used to call me, he used to call me Malcolm Luther Reed. That was his affectionate

name for me. So you had a first name. Yeah. I graduated from, I graduated from inmate Reed to read to Malcolm Luther Reed. But it just goes to show that when you have conversations with people and you humanize things just a little bit, you can actually shift the entire narrative of how people actually see us. Well, because the system, you know, set you out to dehumanize. humanize people. They take away your first name. Yep. They strip you down. Yep. And some of these guards are- They replace your first name with inmate. They don't take away. They replace your name first name with me. And the people that are supposed to be the staple, like the counselors, the case managers, the people that are in place by the systems and, you know, society's eyes to help

you are not there to help you. They're there. They're just there. They're just there. And so I was one of those people where I literally transform like the Raybrook correctional institution into a university, a university for learning and for every person that I had came in contact with. But you look at it now too and it's like how could the system's designed to fail in essence because you have a case manager in our unit at Fort Dix, which is one of the largest, you know, federal security prisons, has 400 inmates assigned to his caseload. It's impossible. You have a 400 to 1 ratio. He's going to get burnt out. He's not going to give a shit. my very first day meeting the case manager, he looked at me and he said, you're not going to

farewell here. You know, you're one of them referring to me as a sex offender. And he didn't even take the chance to look at my file. Which is his responsibility to do so. Exactly. And like this is at the end of the day. It was like 4 p.m. on a Friday by the time I saw him. I'm surprised he was still at 4 p.m. on Friday. I'm very surprised. These guys like, because you know there's certain times where you could go see them and you have to be in your dressed up and everything. And just like to see that, I'm like, I'm not going to get the help. Like, I need on any essence, on any level. So which for me actually springboarded and lit this, this catalyst for me to be an advocate,

to ultimately do what it is that I'm doing now. I had to advocate for myself. I mean, look, when they would increase the prices of honeybuns from 30 cent to 37 cent, I was the first person in front of commissary saying, no, we're not going in there. We're going to protest. We're going to shut this place down, right? Because I'm like, wait, you're increasing. the price of the food that we get on commissary, but you're not giving us a cost of living

adjustment based off of our work assignments. So for me, that was unfair. Oh, and by the way, while we're on the conversation of people were supposed to help us, why don't we have access to unit team every single day? Why isn't there open house? Why during open house is it that they're having lunch and they get pissed with me when I walk inside of the unit. team office because I'm interrupting their lunch or I'm interrupting their social hour. Like, what the freak is going on here, right? And so when I think about kind of like the catalyst for me of how ultimately I got into the work that I'm doing now, it came from when I was in prison. How old are you when you get out of prison and how long had you end up serving?

I think I was about 36 or so and I served 14 years. Did you know before you got out of prison what you wanted the rest of your life to look like? Because you had a lot of time to reflect. I knew that I wanted to be involved in human services. I knew I wanted to help people. And strategically, very intentionally, when I begin to study, I said to myself, I was going to go into a field, specifically in substance abuse counseling, that was going to have the least probability of me getting a rejection because of my criminal history. So I'm saying, in effect, when you translate that, it's like, wait, I'm going to go into this field because most of the folks who do, counseling, you know, they don't, some of them have backgrounds. Some of them have, you know, criminal histories. Some of them have, you know, substance abuse histories, et cetera, right? But that's

more to their advantage than is, than it is at a disadvantage. Now, the world's very, very different from how you left it going into it. I went in when they had beepers. I came home when they had smartphones. So what is the biggest challenge you have to adjust to? Technologically, that was an adjustment. It wasn't really big. I got over that relatively easy. But I think that the major challenge was for me to live a pro-social life without criminal and addictive thinking. And what about reintegrating with your kids? That was a challenge because I had developed a relationship with my children that was in theory but not in practice. Keep in mind, I saw my children relatively every other weekend for the entire weekend.

So you were open with them that you were in prison? Yeah, yeah. They came to see me. It wasn't like we weren't, I didn't, I wasn't estranged with any of my children. We saw one another with regularity. We have frequent contact with each other, et cetera. But you also have to consider that when I went in, my kids are about five years old.

When I come home, they're 18. So you missed a very important aspect of their childhood development. Yeah, without question, without question. And so now I'm trying to parent through the lens of them being five years old. And they're like, hey, daddy, like, you're not even daddy anymore. You're like, your dad, right? One of my daughter doesn't even call me dad. She was like, hey, right?

Because she developed this notion as to where, because I was gone so long that she just didn't have the degree of comfortability calling me dad. And so there was all of these different moving pieces emotionally, psychologically, spiritually that I had to recalibrate and I had to do it really, really, really fast. Did you get to have like that sit down conversation that your parents should have had with you saying like, hey, guys, this is what I did. I don't want you doing that. It didn't come in a Cosby format, right? Like it just didn't come in a form of like clear and Cliff Huxable on must-see TV Thursday night, you know, in the guise of the Cosby show. It didn't come through that.

It came through moments where they went through their growing pains that I pulled up alongside them. And I'm like, hey, ah, you can't do it that way. Not that you, not what you do, but how you do it, it's that you can't do that at all. because you have far much more at your disposal at your age than I did at my age. You just saw what it is that I went through. You just actually went through it with me.

Do you want to go through that for yourself? Or what is it that you want to do? Thank God to date. All of my children are very well adjusted. Had you not made that change yourself in prison, you could have changed those three lives, your three kids' lives by not steering them on that right path too if they weren't already taking that on their own. Yeah, without question. So what do you end up getting into when you get out? So I get out. I springboard my career in human services. I am working for an

organization that does permanent supportive housing for people who are justice impacted, who have dual diagnoses that's mental health and addiction disorders, and people who are chronic experiencing chronic homelessness. Then from there, I'm not satisfied. I think about what, my reentry experience was like and how I went to a lot of these social service organizations and all they wanted to do was put me in front of a computer and say here here's a resume writing course which did nothing for me and so I convinced the largest city in the state of connecticut bridgeport where I'm from that they needed to have a government office for reentry affairs not only did they believe in the concept but I was in that position for two years so the interesting

thing about that though is that the mayor is also a a felon. He had just gotten out of prison. He had just got, so the mayor of the city of Bridgeport, he was a three-term mayor. He gets locked up in the feds, does eight and a half years. After he gets finished with probation, et cetera, then he reruns from mayor and is reelected. I love his story. Like that's like such a redemption story. I follow him and I always like, I was rooting for him to win because that's just like

someone that was able to, you know, come back out top and literally get back and manifest to get back into his position. So you get this job, where does it go wrong? What happens? Who said it went wrong? I do my research. I do my research. So what ended up happening was this.

So I get the job. I'm in a position for two or three years, about two years. We replicate the model all throughout the country. I mean, we are killing it. We replicate the model in all major cities that includes New York, L.A., Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, all major cities throughout the state of Connecticut. Medicaid. We are killing it. And you're killing it. You got great press on you. You're a felon that in the public's eyes that got out, got this prestigious position. Yeah, I'm like the story of like what other

people should be, right? When society points to me. And then in part, the mother of my then almost 21 year old child brings me back to court for child support arrears that accrues while I'm incarcerated. And I'm like talking about baby mama drama. I'm like, what? So, They arrest me for such. And prior to me being arrested, there was a breakdown in our negotiations. First, she says, hey, you owe me X amount of dollars. If you don't pay me this, I'm going to bring you back to court. I say, let's negotiate something.

I owe you $18,000. I believe it was $20,000 at the time. I said, I'll give you $10,000. She's like, all right, cool. I said, I'm going to give you $3,000 up front. And I'm going to postate you a check for $7,000 for about two to three months. months later. I had to do some speaking gigs or something. She was like, all right, cool. I give her the check for $3,000. She cashes the check for $3,000. Two to three weeks later, she calls me,

it was like, I need the rest of that money. I'm like, I'm not giving you the rest of the money. We have it in writing. We have an agreement between us. I don't care. I want the rest of the money. You're not getting it. She, at the time, she had closed the child support case out. then she goes back and she reopens the case. I find out that she reopened the case because I got a letter in the mail saying that the case was reopened. Oh, okay. Well, you want to play those games? I'm going to call my bank, tell my bank that you reneged on our agreement.

And what I want to do is not only put a stop payment on the check that's post-dated, but I also want the money back from the check that I had wrote to you. So I had the bank pull the funds from her account, and redeployed as it back into my account. Which is legal or illegal? Which is legal. Okay. Which is legal at the time.

Yeah. One or not at the time, which is legal. She went to the police and, in effect, said that I defrauded her and I pulled the money from her account. There was no way that, obviously, I can electronically. My bank pulled the money from her, but they end up arresting me. Now, this is terrible in the eyes of the public. Oh, without question. This is like everything you work for is falling apart by this.

Yeah, I am a political appointee for a mayor who himself went to jail for public corruption. And the public doesn't look at it like as a personal matter. This is a political matter now. And so what do I have to do? I have to leave that position under fire. And what are you feeling when you get arrested the third time in your life, whatever, you just finish the sentence and now these bad articles are coming out? Not only do I finish the sentence, but I am doing so.

well that my supervised release that I have five years on, I'm cut off after 18 months. That's awesome. That's how great that I'm doing at that time. And so I have a suicidal ideation. Never forget, I went to a local grocery store, got some over-the-counter sleep aids, went down to Seaside Park. I drove into the park after dust because there was no admittance. And I parked, and I composed the text to everyone, you know, who I thought,

was deserving of hearing from me, i.e. my last words. And I was going to take some over-the-counter sleepings. I literally had the bottle. I had bought a Gatorade. And every time I look at the icy blue gatorade, and like in my mind, I'm always reflecting back to that moment. But I took the bottle and I was about to drink it. And as I was going to do it, this is a true story. As I was going to do it, I heard a small voice. It was a scripture that says, don't rejoice. Don't rejoice. against me my enemies. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me. And when I fall, I shall rise again. And the B clause of that kept reverberating in me. When I fall, I shall rise again. When I fall, I shall rise again. When I fall, I shall rise again. And I said to myself,

wait, I've been at the lowest of my life when I was in federal prison. my freedom was taken away from me, my dignity and a lot of sense was taken away from me. I've been lowered in this. This job doesn't make me and this job sure in heaven's name can't break me. And so slowly but surely, I built myself back up from that moment. By the grace of God. Oh, and that just shows your growth as an individual because there would have been times in your past life where that would have propelled you to get into more crime or to, you know, when you

you had bowl when you whenever there was a traumatic moment happening to you you use that to re-engage in that bad environment yeah without question so you what happens when you you put those pills down and you drive what's your next what's your next move um i literally went to my church um i had to keep my church and went to the church lock myself into the church prayed all night because i didn't feel safe for myself um was at the altar praying all night long um and then ultimately what ended up happening was that someone who knew about the work that i had did looked past the problems, and they looked at my passion, and was like, hey, come work for me, and I worked for them for about six months.

And then through a mutual acquaintance, through a mentor of mine by the name of Glenn E. Martin, who I watched his trajectory when I was incarcerated, said, hey, you know a guy by the name of Van Jones? He's actually recruiting for this national position for this bill called the First Step Act. and I think that you might be good for it. Went met with Van Jones, met with Jessica Jackson, who's the legal mentor to Kim Kardashian, and got with that team, we end up passing the First Step Act and the rest is history. Now, what's the First Step Act? Yeah, the First Step Act is a bill that President Trump signed into law in 2000, 2018, I should say,

that to date has released more than 20,000 people from federal prison. it has corrected the crack cocaine disparity and made that retroactive where people who are black, brown, and poor white in effect when Obama passed a law back in 2010, left those folks behind. This bill said, hey, we're going to go back and we're going to get those people out. The other thing that the first step back did was allowed people who, like you, ended up in Wisconsin and happened to be from Connecticut. if you are from a certain geographical area, you can't be placed beyond 500 driving miles

of your last known address. The last thing that the First Step Act did, well, I shouldn't say the last thing, but the most preeminent things that the First Step Act did was it restored dignity for women who are incarcerated. So women who are incarcerated on a federal level won't be shackled while they are giving birth and in labor, which you don't think that you would need an act of Congress to do,

but we did. The second thing that it did was it provided free feminine hygiene products to women who are incarcerated. And last but not least, women who are incarcerated on a federal level, they won't be strip searched by the opposite sex. Yeah, I remember when we were reading, like we all had the printouts, the prison system distributed all the printouts of the First Step Act. And we were all hoping because it was all great content, like great, you know, mission statements and whatnot that it was going to take effect then. But it took several years for it to actually, you know, be implemented. Yeah, some of it was retroactive immediately. The crack cocaine provision was retroactive immediately.

The extra seven days, the 54 days a year, that was supposed to have been enacted immediately. But you know how the Bureau of Prisons drags his feet, DOJ drags his feet, etc. So you're not really seeing the full rollout of that until relatively recently. Now, what's it like to be this person that's literally been at the rock bottom and then rise to this platform where you're working with these big, advocates, you know, Kim Kardashian, Van Jones. What was that feeling like for you? I think I didn't look at it in the moment. I'm one of those people where I'm always looking at the moment and I'm saying, how can we convert this moment into a movement? I don't maximize the moment enough. I don't say, wow, not only did we do the biggest thing since the 1990 crime bill in the positive direction.

The first step back, by the way, is the only criminal justice reform bill that's been affirmed by all three branches of government, passed by U.S. Congress on a bipartisan level, signed by the president that nobody thought would support this bill. And as of June of last year, it has been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. So it's literally unimpeachable. Pardon the pun. But, you know, I'm one of those people where when I look back on it, I'm like, wow, like I did some cool stuff and I'm still doing cool stuff, right? But in the moment, I'm so mission driven that Yeah, Kim K may be tethered to this. Yeah, Vivica Fox may be tethered to this

and all of these other A list influencers. But I'm trying to get my people home. You know why? Because the people in the prison house don't care who's in the White House so long as they can get back to their mama's house. That's it.

That's my constituency. Now, it didn't stop there for you. You took that, you know, a great experience and you ran with it. Yeah. What did you get into after that? Yeah, so... What have you been able to build?

So we've been able to pass 30 bills in effect impacting about 650,000 people after Cut 50, which was the organization that I was a part of that passed the first step that led on passing the First Step Act bill. And we work with a lot of other organizations that are out there as well because we do work on a bipartisan basis. What that means on a bipartisan basis, basically we work with Republicans as well as Democrats and independents, everybody in between. But I went on to be an executive at Reform Alliance. Reform Alliance is an organization co-founded by Jay-Z, Meek Mill, Robert Kraft, Van Jones is the founding CEO. And I went on over there to do some great work

around supervision as well, making sure that people aren't being re-arrested for technical violations, et cetera, like how Meek was. And you're still a part of that organization? No, actually, as of recently, I can't, I'm not a part of that organization anymore. I actually, I have a new position that hasn't been publicly announced yet. but yeah I'm not a part of that organization anymore so what are the kind of like projects you work on

on a day-to-day basis now yeah yeah great question uh so I recently did a a project with kerry Washington called unprisoned it's the most all right let me how how do I say this articulately it is the highest the most watch premiere show on Hulu in the history of Hulu I hope I said that well if I didn't just edit it it. It's the most watch premiere on Hulu. And it's called Unprison. I am a consultant producer on there. We have another project that I can't name that is going to be an extension of that project, which we're extremely excited about. Start of my own nonprofit organization as well, which is called Mobilized 365. Recently, I was named by LA Wired as a February of this year

of the top 10 entrepreneurs to watch in 2023. And I'm working on a book as well, which is around a prison traumatic stress disorder. Are there challenges you still face years later after prison of being a felon, though? Of course. You know, legal restrictions, collateral consequences, right? Like, you know, I relatively recently applied for life insurance. And I was denied life insurance because I have a criminal history. I tried to open up an Airbnb account.

I was denied an Airbnb account. Well, they gave me one. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. They actually reversed the decision because I met with the executive leadership team, right? So the thing about it is that I shouldn't be exceptionalized, though, right? They wanted to meet with me because of my public profile because of the folks that I've been tethered to and who I can walk into a room with and whose calls I can get returned.

So it's those little things, those legal restrictions, that, no matter how, you know, I could have more degrees than a thermometer. I could, you know, literally sleep on Jay-Z's cot. If he had one in his mansion, it doesn't mean anything because when you have that scarlet letter, you have that scarlet letter. Now, something you just mentioned was Meek Mills' probation violations and the whole country and the world knows about what he went through. I was doing some research on your scenario and that in a way applied to you because

you had probation and dealing with these issues with one of your baby mothers and this and that. Yeah. What's your opinion on these probation sentences and how it can, it's ultimately there to derail someone? Well, look, probation should be a springboard to success, but what's happening is that is creating a trapdoor to failure for many people. When you think about it, the United States prison system is comprised of approximately two million people. The United States supervision system is comprised of about 4.5 million people. Think about that. On any given day, on any given day can be remanded back in custody, not because

they committed a new crime. Allow me to interrupt our regularly scheduled program and to bring you this breaking news announcement. If you are under supervision in the United States of America, there is the probability, not the possibility, but the probability that you can go back into custody without committing a new crime. What does that mean? That means that for me, for instance, if I am in the house with my family, my mother and father who are so-called convicted felons,

and I was under supervision, the officer came to the house, he or she could potentially say, you are in violation for frattingizing with people who have criminal histories. Back to the clink you go. Oh, but it doesn't stop there. If during this podcast,

let's say, for instance, this was drink champs. No plug to drink champs. Locked in is where you need to be. But if this was drink champs and they were drinking and I was in the presence of alcohol and part of the conditions of me being under supervision was that I stay away from the presence of alcohol back to the clink that you go. Just being in the presence of it.

Oh, it doesn't stop there. Let's say for instance if I had a nine o'clock appointment with my supervisor lease officer but I end up showing up at 10.15 because I had to go to a job interview. Technically I could be remanded back into custody because I'm late for an appointment. So those are just one of the many, many so-called violations that you can commit that would actually land you back in prison. But you know what it also does? It also kills any sense of trying to do greater than what society wants you to do. Like in my scenario, you know, smart, intelligent, go-getter.

Who said that you were intelligent? Okay, maybe not intelligent. But let's say go-getter, right? Ambitious. Me and you can relate on that. The system is not designed for me and you to get out of prison and start a business or go to that next level or be a big figure. It's okay, go get a job. And if you're not doing this because these probation officers, these figures are not trained to deal with someone on that level.

It wants you to be like that normal person working the job, showing the pay stubs. And any way around that. They want you to have a job, not to have a career. Exactly. They want you to have. And look, in all labor, there is dignity without question. But I think that people like you and I, we're not cut to be working a warehouse job. When I came home, yes, my first job, I was working at a car wash.

But while I was cleaning rims and putting air fresheners on mirrors, I was saying to myself, there's more for me than this. This is not going to be my ceiling. This is actually not even my floor. This is just a stepping stone. It's a stepping stone, without question. What do you think is the biggest thing that needs to be changed next in the system? I think that one of two things. Number one, we need a national clean slate initiative.

When we're talking about clean slate initiatives, this is what I mean by that. If after you serve your time, you're off supervision, et cetera, if you haven't committed a new crime within three to five years, let's say for instance, if you have a felony conviction, that felony conviction immediately needs to be wiped from your record. There's no need to have an indefinite issue hanging over your head. forever. Now maybe there might be some argument there as to where that that crime or that conviction isn't wiped out from a law enforcement purposes, right? But from a public facing perspective, there's no way that you should be denied life insurance because you have a conviction. There's no way that you should not be able to get housing because you have a conviction. What does that got to do with the price of cocaine in Colombia? Absolutely nothing, right?

So maybe for a misdemeanor after a year, that needs to be wiped away entirely. That's the first thing. The second thing is fines and fees. Fines and fees are actually putting people back into incarceration the same way that technical violations are putting people back into incarceration. Think about this. If you, in effect, get a court fee because you caught a case, they levy a $500 penalty against you and you can't afford it. But you complete the term of supervision without incident.

but because you didn't pay this $500, you're going to go back into prison. What sense does that make? Like literally, I have to hold the microphone when I say that, not only to keep it from shaking, but what sense does that make? Why are we locking people back up because we're criminalizing poverty? It just doesn't make sense. It's one of those asinine things that we need to change. Those are the two major things that we need to change in addition to, obviously,

eliminating technical violations while people are under supervision. Lewis, what's the message you send a 12-year-old? you that's holding a gun in his hand that's going through that and beyond that what's that message to the person that is you know covered in darkness and can't seem to find the light yeah um the first thing that i do is i give that i give that 12 year old me a hug and i whisper in his ear and i say you may not have had the father that you want it and you may not have had the mom that that you want it. But somebody wants you,

and there's somebody that wants you is me. And I believe that there's more in you than you are allowing yourself to be and allowing yourself to grow into up to this point. You haven't even scratched the surface of the fullness of everything that you can do. That's the first thing that I do. The second thing that I,

that's the first thing that I say and or do. But next, immediately, following that is psych 101. I'm going to ask you to put something down, but I'm going to give you something that's going to be equal to or greater in value than what it is that I ask you to put down. I'm one of those people where I don't believe in cancel culture. I don't believe that people are discardable. I don't believe that grace can't go to the lowest of lows or the highest of highs. I just don't believe it. I also believe in something that my grandmama used to tell me. If you're going to call somebody out on something, you need to call them into something greater and up to something

higher. So back to that 12 year old me and the 12 year old that very one may be watching this, I'm going to call you out of whatever it is that I see you in, but I'm going to call you into something greater and up to something higher. And that 12 year old me, I'm going to call you out of the streets and I'm going to call you into, you know, maybe the aspiring rapper that you wanted to be at that time. or maybe, you know, because technology really wasn't a thing for us, right? Or maybe I'm going to call you into being that basketball player that you wanted to be honing on your craft, but I'm going to call you into something greater and up to something higher. Very well said.

Thank you. Lewis L. Reed, with the L. I said the L this time. That's right. Thank you for coming on Lockton, man. It's been an absolute pleasure. You have a super inspiring story. Appreciate you, man. You know, I'm glad you followed me because I'm excited to see where you go, the projects you have coming out.

and the power of social media, man. Wait, let me just say this. Somebody sends me a reel that you do and says, hey, you got to check this guy out. And I get a lot of stuff. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to check it out. I'm going to get a check it out. Then they bump it back up.

And they're like, hey, you got to check this out. When I check it out, I'm like, oh, I got to check this guy. I got to check this guy. I got to tap into this cat. So I appreciate everything that you're doing. And me and you, we're going to stay connected forever. Everybody related ain't family and everybody who's family you don't have to be related to.

You and I are we family from now on. Absolutely. I mean, I preach every day to people that ask me for advice. It's look at your message requests. Yeah. Social media is powerful. Like, I think it's so stupid that they spam, like it goes to spam. Yeah. You're like that thing you're waiting for when, you know, you're at home, you're praying, you're looking for that miracle. It could be on your Instagram DMs. That could be your next relationship. That could be your next business opportunity. I remember I got an HBO documentary made about me and that was an intern shooting me a message on my Facebook spam.

And from since that moment, I checked my message. message request every single day because you don't know when that life-changing moment's going to happen to you. Yeah. And when it comes, you got to run with that puppy to the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt. This is dope. It's been a pleasure, man. Thank you. Appreciate you.