Locked In with Ian Bick - Tech Pirate Unveils the Thrilling Story of Getting Arrested For Selling Jailbroken Fire TV Sticks

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Step into the thrilling world of a tech pirate as he reveals the dramatic tale of how he got busted by the cops for selling jailbroken Firesticks. Discover the risks, the undercover operations, and the high-stakes cat-and-mouse game that led to his capture. This electrifying account offers a fascinating look at the underground market for modified tech and the relentless pursuit by law enforcement to shut it down. Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Luis Gabriel: Buy his book: https://tech-pirate.com/products/jailbroken-a-true-story-of-corporate-overreach-police-abuse-of-power-and-modern-technology https://tech-pirate.com/products/jailbroken-the-audiobook Support Luis: https://gofund.me/1bfeba97 https://www.instagram.com/thetechpirate1?igsh=MWJ3NjF6bXpybnUwdw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr https://www.tiktok.com/@kingofthesticks1?_t=8oOy0dHXtwF&_r=1 https://snapchat.com/t/US8p1tqd https://tech-pirate.com/ https://tech-pirate.com/collections/all Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:25 - Transitioning to the Schooling System in the United States 00:08:51 - Transitioning in Florida 00:13:21 - No Set Career Path 00:17:59 - From Pizza Flyers to Fire Sticks 00:22:29 - Selling Raspberry Pi Computers at the Flea Market 00:27:05 - Transition to Fire Sticks 00:31:38 - Explaining the Benefits of a Fire Stick 00:35:54 - Weird Requests and the Demise of DVD Sales 00:40:17 - Investigation and Raid at the Flea Market 00:44:52 - The Flea Market Incident 00:49:29 - Jail Conversations 00:53:53 - The Shocking Label of "Tech Pirate" 00:58:20 - The Imbalance of the Rich Versus the Poor 01:02:39 - Dealing with Legal Charges 01:07:13 - Rebuilding Reputation and Dealing with Smear Campaigns 01:11:40 - Book Launch and Work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maine agent, who turned out to be a homeland sheriff department agent. And by the way, the agency was Polk County Sheriff's Department. So it was a sheriff department. It's just different agents from that department. So they take me back to a car in the flea market. That was the nondescript place we were going to do an interview. So I go back there with him. He reached me where I writes.

And he's like, hey, man, how'd you learn how to jail break fire sticks? And I'm like, what do you mean? What do you mean jail break fire sticks? They're not locked. You can't jail break them. That's just a term. He goes, no, well, you're getting. free TV channels and you found out a way to get movies and how'd you do it.

Lewis, welcome to Locked in all the way from Florida, man. I hope you had a good trip and welcome to Locked in. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. It's definitely the first podcast I've ever done. First time I've ever told this story. So I'm excited. Oh, wow.

This is your very first podcast ever. Very first podcast. And the first time I've ever even told the story to anybody besides my wife and two family members. Yeah. When I saw your email come through, I was like, wow, we've never had a story like this. And I just remember all of the people when I was like, and going through my case would always say, hey, do you want a jail broken fire stick? You want this.

You want that. I was like, this story is going to be killer. So we had to have you on the show. And you just tried out one of the Rick Flair energy drinks. Shout out to Rick Flair for hooking us up with the Wu energy drink. Did you like that flavor? Which one was that? Super good.

This one's pineapple. Yeah. It's dope. I love all the flavors. Yeah. they're really actually good energy drinks. We're comparing it to some other energy drinks out there, and a lot of people have energy drinks,

and it's just some of them are hit or miss. But Rick does a good job with his flavors, and again, shout out to Rick Flair for hooking us up with those. No doubt. Did you grow up in Florida? Yeah, so I was born in Puerto Rico in a town called Bayeim on Puerto Rico. Me, my mom, my sister, and my dad,

we lived there for about five years, and then we moved to, well, my parents split. They went their separate ways and we moved to Florida, the United States. So I was five. My sister was maybe three or four. Okay. And we moved up to central Florida, Orlando. Oh, Orlando's nice.

Yeah, no, Orlando's nice. Orlando's Disney World Universal and all that, but there's definitely a rough side. Don't the residents get a discount to go? 10%. Oh, that's it? 10%. Oh, shit. I thought it was better.

10%. Florida discount. I'm going to Puerto Rico next month. Really? First vacation in like over 10 years. Holy crap. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun.

I'm excited. Nope. Are you going to more specific? San Juan or? Yeah, San Juan. I'm going to try some restaurants, just hang out. I got to bring my phone because of work. Otherwise, I would say no phone, but I'm leaving my laptop here and I'm just relaxing for, you know, five, six days.

And it'll be really cool. Nice. But isn't that a part of the United States, technically? It's a part of the United States. Yeah, it's a territory, you know, so you don't need a passport. You don't need anything extra. You just bring your license, bring your wallet, and your cell phone, you're good. Is it dangerous?

So they can be dangerous. If you're going to Song Huang, that's more of a sectioned off touristy sort of part of it. And most of the island is too. So it can be in certain situations at certain times of the night. Like, for example, after midnight, or maybe it's 10 p.m. It's after 10 p.m. You can run the red lights. It's not illegal.

Like, you're expected to not stop at the red light. in certain, you know, parts of PR. And that's just how it is. It's always been like that. But I'm assuming at, like, the hotels and resorts, that's really? That's not like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's more on the inside and some of the smaller towns and things like that.

Song Huang is, is L.A. So, do they have like Uber's and everything? They have Uber's, Lyft, everything. Awesome. I'll have to get some recommendations to you later. No doubt. So growing up, was it dangerous at all? So we were there for growing up there, maybe the first five years.

So we really didn't experience anything. We would go back every year for summer to hang out with my dad and things like that. But I never saw anything too crazy. Never saw anything too crazy. You just see the news, you know. Shootouts here and there. Oh, casual. AK-47's over here, and AR-15s over there.

Is that like gang-related type of incidents? I think there's a lot of gang-related stuff, but mostly it's drugs. Mostly, if I'm not mistaken, there was a route to Puerto Rico for quite some time. So I think that kind of exacerbated the shootings and all the damage that was going on down there. Gotcha. Makes sense. Yeah. So when you got back over here, it was it hard to adjust to the schooling system, to the environment, the friends, everything like that?

Yeah, it was a little tough. That was a little coming in in first grade, not knowing any English. That was a little rough at first. But we got put in the ESOL class. I don't know. Have you ever heard of ESOL? No. It's like English for second language.

Oh, ESL. Yeah. Yeah, ESL, second language, English speakers. Yes, I know with that. I've never heard it called Esel class. Okay. Yeah, we got put into that. And so we kind of just learned from there, learn from the school,

learn from watching TV, cartoons. And so it wasn't too hard transitioning. And, you know, we're so little that we're able to pick it up pretty quick. Were you guys living better maybe financially over here compared to Puerto Rico? Or were you better off in Puerto Rico? I would say probably better off in Puerto Rico. at the beginning. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a tour guide. So once that split happened and we came here to Florida, it was a little rougher because now she's starting over, you know, having to do things like dishwashing, things like working at flea markets, things like during the weekend and keeping a full-time job during the week. So that was a little rougher. For sure, that first maybe 10 years of her climbing, climbing, climbing back up, that was a little rougher.

So she couldn't be a teacher over here. It couldn't transfer over or anything? She could, but she didn't speak English at first. So it took her like a good year, a couple years to kind of get comfortable with it. And by that point, she was already establishing, you know, a whole new route. So, yeah. How many siblings did you have? So I have one sibling that's a blood sibling, same mom, same dad.

And then I have a stepbrother, step sister. In Puerto Rico, they actually just recently moved to Florida. So all together is four of us But it was just you and the other When you guys got here Yeah, yeah Were you guys close at all growing up? Yeah, yeah, super close

I mean it was just us three You know, me, her and then my mom So we were very close Very close small apartment Orlando So there wasn't too much to do yet for us It was probably expensive too I'm assuming in Orlando

Yeah, no Orlando can get really really crazy Especially nowadays Back then You know they had things like sex 8 and that kind of thing, which kind of helped people pay the rent. But my mom quickly got off of that maybe after a couple years. And, yeah. Now, as a kid in Puerto Rico, did you have dreams of what the United States would be like?

And did it meet your dreams when you came over here? Or was it completely different? So as a kid, I didn't really think about what the U.S. would be like. What was really different was, you know, just not a lot of people speak in Spanish, essentially. there's American kids, white kids, black kids over there. It's just like one. There's different colors, but everybody speaks to same language, so you're more like at home.

So that was the big thing. But all I thought about was Disney World back then. So we're like, oh, we're going to Orlando. Disney World's not far. So, you know, so that was really the only thing I thought about. Did you guys get to go there growing out? We did go. We went once or twice, and it was really good.

Really wasn't as expensive as it is now, but it was great. Yeah, it was like a different time period back then. Even like 10 years ago, the prices are just nuts for all of these places. Seriously. Yeah, everything's gone super through the roof in Florida particularly too. Were you in public schools through middle school, high school? Yeah, public schools a whole time. Public schools through elementary, middle, high school.

We actually end up going to six different schools, two elementarys, two middle and two high schools. And they were all public during that time for both me and my sister. Were you looked at as like an outsider or did you start to fit in quickly? Fit in quickly. We fit in quickly. There's a bunch of other children from immigrant families coming in around that time in that part of Orlando. So we were able to fit in quickly and we had some family members here. So it didn't take too long to transition to regular old American life, you know, very similar to how it was back there in the island.

Now, do you think if you went to like Midwest state or somewhere other than Florida it would have been even tougher at, you know, hackler? Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, Florida is full of, you know, people from the Caribbean, people from all over, Spanish speakers. So it's definitely easier to transition somewhere there versus in Wyoming or Nebraska, something like that. Now, if we had like your best friend from the high school days here today, how would he describe you back then? So I would say it would describe me as driven. back then I was always into something. I was coming up with something to do.

I'm motivated. Getting into trouble here and there. And hopefully a great friend, honestly. Hopefully, very protective and willing to throw down, you know, to help out my boys or whatnot. Do you think that side of you where, you know, you're always willing to do something was what ultimately would get you in trouble down the road? Yes. Quick answer.

Yeah. For sure. that kind of eventually that never went away. The motivations stayed there in the drive to keep doing something and coming up with more definitely is what eventually got to that point.

Do you think that your mom was strict on you growing up or was she a little bit more loose because she was a single mom trying to work all the time to provide for you guys? Do you think you had a little more leeway? I definitely had more leeway. Yeah, I definitely had more leeway. My sister was, she kept her a little bit more

in the house, a little tighter. For me, it was more like she didn't want to impede on my sort of figuring out life. So she allowed me a lot more freedom than other kids. She was always watching over, but she also allowed me to make mistakes, learn from the mistakes, and then grow from there. But do you think if you got into trouble, say, in high school, she would then turn strict on you and kind of batten down? Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm mentoring children right now, like local in the area. and I've noticed with the Spanish families that they have a lot of leeway in growing up, but then as soon as the individuals get into trouble, then the parents are very strict, tight leash. It's almost like they want them to kind of learn on their own, but as soon as something happens, it changes. And I wonder if that's effective to give them the leeway or if there needs to be a little more guidance or how that works.

I mean, it's not just Spanish because that was in my family too, but I've just noticed it, you know, mentoring these children. Yeah, no, that's a very good observation. Because for us, you know, me and my wife, we have two boys. And I don't know if I'm not sure once they get to that age, if we allow them to make the mistakes, if we, you know, because right now we're still kind of helicoptering over them and trying not to. But yeah, it's an interesting observation.

I'm not sure. That might be something, might be a cultural thing, honestly, because that's kind of how it was. I guess it also must have to do with the experience of the parent, their childhood, because you're someone that has now the experience running into, you know, bad situations. So that's going to rub off onto your children. And same thing when I have kids. I'm going to know the mistakes I made, and I'm going to be able to relay that.

Definitely. Yeah. I hope they do listen. Our two boys, our two boys are still pretty young. But hopefully with that, everything that's going on, you know, with time they'll listen. and we'll be able to kind of show them to not just say it, but show them that, hey, you don't need to, you know, you don't need to go astray. There's plenty other ways to make things happen. And they can watch this to give a little insight on their dad.

Definitely. Yeah, they're going to watch it eventually. Yeah, I'm always curious when guests have kids, if they'll have their kids watch it. I mean, eventually the kids will watch it on their own. But it is interesting because these guests like yourself spill like deep, dark, you know, secrets or are very vulnerable on the show. And, you know, that it's just a whole new level of parenting is kind of exposed in that way because your kid gets to see something that normal parents and their children would never have conversations about. For sure. They get to see a little bit more adult and honest and kind of the raw stuff.

So and now with the algorithms, I mean, your show is coming up in my algorithm all the time. So eventually it's going to be over to theirs one or two episodes that it might be this one. You never know. For sure, for sure. Now, in high school, did you have a career in mind that you wanted to get into? Did you have a plan in general, life plan or goal? So, honestly, no. My path was to, you know, bring in income, bring in income as much as possible, help out at home.

And so there was no real path or no specific career. like, hey, I want to be an astronaut or I want to be a policeman or this kind of thing. It was more like, what can I do to make the most money as quick as possible? So that was, that's just how my mind kind of worked due to how things were, you know, as we grew up and having to see mom several jobs, that kind of thing. So I'm like, I got to do something now. I can't go to college for another four years or six years or get loans or whatever. Something has happened now. So that kind of led me into the teens and then the early 20s.

Now, looking back on it now, did you ever think that you would be an author of a book that's going to be out a couple days before this episode comes out? If you want to tell the audience, just the name of the book where they can find it, an little brief description. Don't give away all the info so that way they could hear it in the rest of the episode, but just a little teaser. No doubt, yeah. No, your first question, I definitely didn't think I was ever going to be an author. or write a book and get it self-publish it myself. But the book is called jailbroken. It's jailbroken and the subtitle is a story of corporate overreach, police abuse of power,

and modern technology, modern technology being Amazon fire stakes or any sort of streaming devices. And the book kind of just details an event that happened to me that I don't think has ever happened. I couldn't find anywhere that has happened in the United States, period. So when I was investigating my own case, so it kind of details a what calls a raid, a law enforcement raid into a flea market, multiple departments from this law enforcement division. And then how that also turned into like a media circus locally in Florida. Some people heard about it outside of Florida, but it was a big thing there. And that's, I kind of detail what happened there, how it got resolved, and who was really behind it? Because it wasn't as simple as a raid.

There was definitely more to it. Yeah, there's always more to the story, which is why you're here today. For sure, absolutely. It's funny where life takes us. You just never know. And when you're a kid in high school, you don't know what the future, like my high school experience, I never looking back on it, would imagine I'd be here right now. Same here.

Same here. My vision of the future would have been, yeah, you'd figure out something and you would invent something and you'd become a millionaire. there, you know, so for sure I could never, I realize now I can't, I don't have control of all things. So whatever it's going to be is going to be. Did you end up graduating from high school? So not really. Not really. I end up.

So I was 16 or 17 when I approached, we went to a bunch of different schools. So by that second high school, I was kind of over it. I told my mom, hey, please let me do this high school equivalency test, which is like a GED. but if you're underage, if you're 16, 17, you can take this test and get a high school diploma versus a, you know, a GED or whatnot. So after a lot of talk, a lot of disappointment on her, and she allowed me to do it.

So I went and did it, signed up with the guidance counselor, took the test, got my diploma, went right into the job market at 17. What was your first job? So first official job was working at a movie theater, being the kid that rips up the tickets and I was that kid for a little while and then it progressed from there. Yeah, was that a good paying job at 17 years old? Could that provide for you?

No, it wasn't full-time. I tried to get full-time out of it and it was still part-time and 25 hours a week and that kind of thing. And I wanted full-time work. So eventually I left that and got into other things that were full-time. So it was little rough at first, but there wasn't much. of shit to pay, right? It's just drinking money, little bills here and there.

I was still staying with my mom. She was allowing me to stay there. So, yeah, it did what it needed to do for that time, period. I've been going into movie theaters now and just getting the popcorn and leaving. It's so good. It's literally the best popcorn. It's so good, man. When I was there, I was cleaning up that popcorn.

So, you know, I kind of got over it. I ate so much of it and smelled it. Yeah, your clothes probably smelled like popcorn the whole time, too. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. It was a fun job, though. What job came after that? So after that, there was a couple in between, there's a pizza place that worked at. So during this time, I lived in Kissimmee, Florida, which is similar, it's nearby Orlando. They're well known for, you know, Disney hotels.

So they have a big long, have you ever seen the Florida Project, by the way? So it's a movie that covers this strip of motels. It's like six miles long in Kissimme. and a big thing there was getting pizza flyers to these hotels. Like pizza places will pay you. Here's a thousand flyers. Go out there and put them under as many doors as you can and get out of it. We'll pay you cash. So that was what I did next.

And it was good money for, you know, 17-year-old. It's like $100 a day. And it was cash. So I was doing that for a while. Once that kind of slowed down, I got into warehousing. And basically working warehouses, slinging heavy-duty cables. and things like this, and that kind of carried me into sort of what I'm still doing today, which is logistics. So that a bunch of different warehousing jobs, forklift driving to anything you can imagine in the warehouse and then moving into other things.

How are you feeling during that time period where you like, I want something more for my life? I wish I was making more money. What was like your mindset? My mindset, I was happy. I was happy because I was making good money, like as how I saw it. my few little bills, I end up being able to move out. You know, I have my car early in life, paying all my stuff. And so it felt great.

It felt great being able to pay bills and work. The work was heavy duty labor, and I loved heavy duty labor at the time. So it was, I loved it. I loved it at first. Things eventually changed a little bit. And that's when the 2011, sort of the job market slowed down and they end up cutting positions. and then I end up doing more warehouse work just harder, which is selecting product for food companies

and having to load it onto trailers, and that's a little more hardcore work. Would you say that was your catalyst for choosing the route you would take, getting into like the fire sticks and whatnot, or would that come later on? That would come later on, but yes, that definitely was part of it because I was doing different things but not making much more, right? I was still at 25,000 a year, 30,000 a year working 40, 50 hours.

And still in Florida, that's nothing. You got to make a lot more than that to be able to pay your bills and still have fun. So that was definitely part of the frustration that end up leading to doing extra things to bring in more income. Things like I was also buying stuff on Craigslist, refurbishing it like fitness equipment, ellipticals, treadmills, redoing that, repainting them from, selling them on the weekends. I was cutting grass. I bought a lawn company. And I was doing all this on the weekends in between my warehouse gigs to try to bring in,

you know, more income. Yeah. I mean, one of the most, probably one of the biggest search topics I'm assuming on Google are like side hustles. I know that always comes up in news articles like people want a side hustle, whether it's Uber or DoorDash or finding something to do. And I think when you're when you're not making your full salary at the job or it's a job you don't want or a middle job, you're going to automatically look for side hustles.

So it's interesting that that was kind of what brought you. Like if you were in a job where it was like a six-figure job and you loved it and you were happy, you wouldn't be here today because nothing would have ever happened. Correct. Correct. I haven't been doing more jobs and more random stuff on the weekends and after work and this kind of thing. So for sure, you know. But then again, that's my own fault.

I can't blame anybody for that. I should have went to college. I should have, you know, done this the right way, done that the right way. So I wanted to do it the hard way. So I knew, you know, get to work. Like, I didn't have a problem with working many extra hours because I knew, hey, you chose this. So make something happen out of it. Like, do something with it.

So bring us to the time period and tell us what year you stumbled upon the fire sticks and what your idea was and how you took it to the next level. Sure. So fire sticks have always kind of been a thing. they've been around since like 2014 so it's been about 10 years now since they released the first fire stick and that's always been

just a thing with friends like everybody knows if you that you can use a fire stick and load as many apps as you want apps for movies apps for TV legal apps and you can also side load other things on there so that's always been

sort of like common knowledge thing and people would ask me about them because I was good with it like friends would say hey can you you side load me a fire stick that has these sort of movies on it. Okay, boom, no problem. So eventually, if we fast forward to COVID, when COVID hit, Florida didn't close. Florida was closed maybe a couple days.

So it was like get back to work, right? So that didn't change. What changes, more people end up going to the flea market. More people came out. Some people were working from home. Kids were at home too. So the bills didn't stop. There was no deferment for your rent or no extra time to pay this or pay that.

It's like keep on going. So during COVID, I noticed that there was a huge increase in people in the flea market. I wasn't a vendor yet. I was going there to shop and, you know, meet people and talk to people there. But when I noticed that massive increase, somebody mentioned to me about the fire sticks. Like, hey, listen, the lady that used to be in this booth right here, man, she used to have people lining out the door. And she was selling fire sticks. And I'm like, it's 2020, bro.

Who's buying fire sticks, right? You can do it yourself? Go to Google. It's YouTube it. And he's like, no, she had a huge line of people, blah, blah, blah. So eventually that led into me renting that booth that she had for so many years. But it didn't start with fire sticks. It actually started with, I don't know if you've ever heard of raspberry pies.

They're these tiny little computers, like the size of a credit card. No. So these computers, they're called Raspberry Pies, and they were made to introduce poor people like we were to having a computer without having to have a huge PC that's multiple hundreds of dollars. It's $35 for the computer. So they introduced that, and then I rented the booth and introduced the Raspberry Pies to the customers there. Like, hey, your kids are home. They're not doing anything, right? They're doing at home school.

but, you know, that was kind of going sideways during COVID. So this at least allowed them to work on a computer, learn how to code. They had programs to learn how to code for kids, build games and this kind of thing. So that's what I really started with in the flea market was those tiny computers. And you were pretty tech savvy. Were you always tech savvy or I didn't know how to code or anything at high school? Yeah, and I definitely still don't know how to code. I know basic stuff.

but I've been tech savvy because of Google, you know, because of things like I get obsessive. YouTube, yeah. YouTube, yeah. And before YouTube, it was, you know, Google and things like this. And it was like reading. I would obsess about something to learn it as much as I can, probably to turn it into a hustle later. And I would get really good with it. So that's how I came across those things.

And eventually I was able to teach, talk about it and teach about it at places like the flea market. So you didn't want to, like, offer a class. or something or to charge, I feel like that could have been lucrative. Yeah, you know what? It may be an online class or something like that. But what I saw with the Raspberry Pies was they were designed for poor people, essentially to use and be able to do what people are doing in labs or whatnot. Buy two or three pies, put them together, build a program, that kind of thing.

But where are the poor people at? They're at the flea markets. You know, they're at the regular places where we, you know, where we're at. So that wasn't reaching them. They never heard about a raspberry pie. So when I saw that, I'm like, why is the marketing not getting to the people that need it? So that's how that kind of went.

How much were you making from that? Not too much, not too much. So the raspberry pies were $35 to build them, put them together. And with cases and things like that, that's probably 50 that you're putting out. and I would sell them for, I think it was 75, so it's like 25 bucks per, and I might resell maybe five during the weekend. So it was really nothing. It was really nothing.

It was more getting out there and bringing in just a little bit more to pay just the next bill, that kind of thing. So it wasn't lucrative sidehust or anything at that point. Yeah, I'm surprised I've never heard of them. I've got to look it up after. I'm curious what kind of like, are they still around now? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And they're still 35 bucks? I think that changed because there's been a, you know, the chip shortage since COVID. There's been a shortage in the chips that they use to manufacture these things. So they are still around. There's a couple different variations of them now. They're better. But I think they're a little bit more expensive. Now, was it doing what you're doing completely legal?

There was no issues with that at all? Not as far as I knew. No. You can resell, you can do it now. There's companies that resell Raspberry Pies. So as far as I knew, that 100% legal, never had an issue, never had anything come up. So it was going decent, you know, little by little. Except maybe sales tax.

I don't know if anyone's charging sales tax at the... Yeah, no, everybody's charging sales tax for sure. Wait, but Florida's no state taxes, right? Yeah, there's no state tax. There's no, so when you found... Income tax. Exactly, yeah. You're funding at the end of the year, you say no, you know, there's no state taxes.

You're paying your federal. But as far as collecting sales tax or selling, best believe everybody is doing that. Yeah. Oh, okay. Isn't it all cash there or no? For the most part. I mean, I had my square. I had other things.

Some people had squares too. But yeah, everybody's specifically in that area is doing tax to make sure you don't get run up on, you know. Yeah, the concept of the flea market has drastically changed as technology has changed. Were there, like, police doing checks and whatnot? For that type? No, they were no guy. No, they were there. They were doing checks to make sure there's nobody fighting and throwing bottles and, you know, nothing crazy like that. They were there. They were buying stuff, you know, from the flea market. But there was no checks to make sure everybody's above board and that kind of thing. I think it's sort of like an unspoken thing that every once in a while you're going to come up in the flea market and find something that you can't find anywhere else and maybe in that gray area.

So how did you transition to fire sticks? So as the raspberry pies went, and this was only over the period of maybe a month and a half when I came in with the raspberry pies, I kept hearing about the fire sticks. Like people would bring them to me as I'm selling the pies at my booth, hey, can you fix this firestick for me? Can you get all the old stuff off it and do something with it? I can't see my movies, et cetera, right? People, this would happen. And also vendors would. asked me about it. Hey, Lewis, what are you waiting for? Like, didn't I tell you the lady had that

boo for four years and all she sold was fire sticks? Like, when are you going to start making money? So I'm not blaming them. I chose it. Um, but eventually I switch over and say, you know what, all right, fuck it. I know fire sticks well. So I'm bringing in five or six. And I know it's not illegal. Here's the thing. I know it's not illegal because no one's ever been arrested for it. I checked the federal laws. There was no federal laws at that time. That's changed now. Um, no issues with it, right? And if there was, an issue, it's a civil thing. If you sell a fire stick with a movie and a movie company, whatever sees it, they'll have to see you civilly. You know, there was no lead criminal part of it.

So eventually I transitioned to the fire sticks, brought them to the market. And sure enough, they were very popular. I would load apps on there. So with a fire stick, the whole thing with jailbreaking is side loading, right? Jail breaking really just means side loading apps. You're not breaking anything because fire sticks are unlocked. They're not locked. So, but that term has been used for marketing and used for, you know, whatever around the internet. So I started bringing those in there, adding apps that people wanted. And the most popular thing was local news, local TV, regular channels.

Like, I thought I was going to get, hey, man, can you get the pay-per-view fight from, you know, can you get HBO Max and whatever? No. They just want a local stuff. So that was cool. I added local apps on there. One was lowcast. I don't know if you have ever heard of lowcast. It sounds kind of familiar.

It was pretty big. It was a pretty big act back 2019-2020 era. And it was getting people local channels. That's what it was doing. It was perfect right to your TV. That actually got shut down as I was during my process. Once I got raided, they got shut down. Unrelated, but they said that guy that was running it,

who was a former FCC commissioner, His name is David Goodfriend. He worked for Bill Clinton. This guy, he's a lawyer. He built this program in order to get people local channels, and specifically during COVID. And then that got shut down. But that was the most popular thing by far from customers was that low cast. So that's the main.

Explain to people why they would want a fire stick. Because in today's world, all these TVs are now smart TVs. But back then, you didn't, there was the smart TVs were just coming out or didn't really exist as much as they do now. And you would have to buy a fire stick. So explain what the difference was between a TV with a fire stick and a TV without it. That's a great point, by the way. So the difference between why you would want a fire stick when you have a smart TV sitting right there is because the smart TV's processor just, it ain't doing it. You know, you might be able to stream a couple things from Netflix, but once you do multiple

processes, the RAM is just not good enough. So versus getting a phone. Firestick, Firestick 4K specifically. It's got like 4 gigabytes of RAM. You can watch YouTube, Netflix. It could be running programs in the background. So the fire sticks just, they far surpass anything a smart TV even today can do. And also people with non-smart TVs from years ago where it's still, say, if they bought a TV in 2016, that wasn't a smart TV, but it's still a great TV. But they don't have the smart TV capabilities.

That's why they would get a fire stick too. Absolutely. Because it turned your TV into a smart TV. Smart TV, essentially. Yes, you're exactly right. Yeah, if you have a TV that doesn't have any sort of thing going on in the background, plug in a fire stick, and now you have all the apps that you want, or you can remove apps that you don't want, which you can't do on the smart TV also.

You can customize it as like just how you want it and plug that bed, plug it in, you're good to go. Would a jailbroken fire stick need Wi-Fi too or no because it's preloaded with everything? You do need Wi-Fi. Yeah, you need Wi-Fi. If you take it home connected to your Wi-Fi. you're good to go. Without it, you just got a regular stick on the floor. Even with movies loaded onto it, you still need Wi-Fi? So, all right, that's a good point.

So that would be downloading, right? So that's the downloading or streaming, which came up during this whole thing, right? If you're downloading content from the Internet or from any other place and you're putting it onto a fire stick, your computer, anywhere, now that's where it crosses the line, right? because you have it on your hard drive. So for what I was doing, it was 100% streaming. Nothing was being captured on there. Nothing's being downloaded from anywhere in the Internet. So you would always need Wi-Fi

because you're not physically carrying a copy of it. So now walk us through the process. Someone comes up to you and they hand you a fire sticker. Are you doing this right then and there for them on the spot? Or do you have to take it home and they see you the next time? Right there and there on the spot. And that was part of my case, too, that not only was I selling these proprietary devices, but I was teaching other people how to do it by demoing it, right?

So like, let's say, like you said, somebody brought me a fire stick. Hey, Lewis, man, I bought this years ago at some place and it's not working. It's just freezing or whatever. Okay, cool. How much time you got? You got 10 minutes? I plug it. I have two TVs, plug it in right there.

And I'd see that they have old apps on there or 50 apps on there. And it's just slowing down freezing the fire stick. So I just do it right there, boom, boom, clean it out. Okay, you're good to go. You really don't need to even add anything. I'm just cleaning out your old stuff. And then if they did want something specific, let's say they wanted sports, I'd say, okay, well, there's a new app called Pluto TV or whatever it is.

It's really good with sports. I'd add it to them and, you know, $20 or whatever to do that service. So I'd do it right then and there. I definitely wasn't hiding anything. I wanted people to see. So if they bought another one, just do it yourself at home, you know? No, if they're paying you $20, why don't they just do it? download it for the app store for whatever or those not available in the app store on the fire stick so most were um but some weren't some weren't available in the app store and that's where the side loading comes in and that's where you become valuable to them correct but also the other part of it too is like getting off the bloatware right so most of people that would bring me their stuff it's just got so much crap in there and shit that's just freezing up the entire process um but they they can't figure out how to delete it uninstall it and that kind of thing that was a real

valuable thing too because they might have the best newest stuff but they it's just it's not fast enough they got to get all that crap that companies put on there you know whether it's amazon or any other company that sells these devices there's a lot of stuff in the background that slows it down now can people buy a fire stick from you if they didn't have one like if i came to you at the flea mark and say hey i want a fire stick that's jailbroken they can get one right then there from you or do you have to bring you one to jailbreak so i would always have someone i'd have ten on me or whatever it is tent with me that weekend. So yeah, if they don't have one, they can always come to me. I've already got the fire stick optimized and ready to go. So if they didn't have one,

just buy one, you're good to go. And how much does that sell for? Because what were they like 39 bucks back then or 49 bucks? Yeah, yeah. So what would you sell them for? So I was buying the Firestick 4K. That's all I ever dealt with the 4K fire sticks. They were 50 bucks at the time. I was selling them for 80. So it was just a $30 markup. with an unforgettable getaway. Fiji Airways sale is on now. Fly nonstop round trip to Fiji from just 748. Or enjoy a sunny Fiji stopover on your way to Australia

with round trip fairs starting from 839. As a One World Alliance member and American Airlines Advantage program partner, your miles go further across the South Pacific. Book now at Fiji Airways.com or contact your local travel agent. Conditions apply. For doing the job of like what we said.

What was a weirdest request you've gotten to put onto a firestone? Because I'm sure you get some weirdos, right? Most definitely. Yeah, the weirdest request was probably somebody asking for, you know, how do I say, triple X content. Porn, yeah. Yeah, you see. Porn.

Porn on there. Hey, man, like this, porn, that porn. Okay, well, br, they don't have an app for that. You got your phone, you know, so that definitely happened once or twice. you know, they just wanted porn on their thing. And I'm like, I don't know. I can't help you there because there is no app that just has that. Just do it on your phone.

You could technically download, I guess, a video, right? And then put it on if you went that far. You could, but I would never cross the line in downloading. That's where, that's where, you know, I was watching the line. I knew that downloading, right, when you, I don't know if you remember the DVDs, VHS, this kind of thing. When you first put it on, you see the first thing. Five-year prison warning, FBI. For recording it.

For recording it. Speaking of which, I used to, when I would go to the city as a kid, you would see all these people on the side of the road on the blankets with the DVDs. And I'm like, Mom, Dad, that movie's still in theaters. Can we get that one? They're like, no, and I never really understood why. And then I found a guy or my dad had a connect that would give them really good movies. And I realize that these are all like, it's like stolen footage or whatever from the thing.

Right. In fact, that's that five-year FBI warning thing at the front. You're physically holding a copy of the thing. I mean, that's been illegal forever, you know, for as long as I can remember. And speaking of which, that business has kind of gone now that no one uses DVDs. Like, when I go to the city a lot, probably once or twice a month, I don't see that anymore. It's all the fake purses and whatnot. It's not DVDs anymore.

No, streaming has taken over everything. Yeah, now that you have these sites where you can go on the movie sites and see movies that are still in theaters. So it's changed drastically. Drastically. Yeah, that has completely went, you know, streaming. So those guys, unfortunately, they are out of business. So how long were you doing this for that everything was like kosher or under the radar? There was no issues. Did you have a good run? And how much money do you think you made? So how long was I doing it for before the investigation started? Two weeks.

That's it? Two weeks. You had a two week run? I had a two week run. Now, this is just at the fire. at the flea market, you know, on the side, I'd, of course, do it. But I wasn't selling them. This was for friends. But this is the whole weird thing about this thing. Two weeks from changing from Raspberry Pies to Amazon Fire Sticks, they start coming in with secret recording devices and microphones and all type of shit.

So people had been there for years. The lady that was there before me was there for years. There's other people in the market. So it was really weird. I don't know how that took place, but it was two weeks. Do you think it was a jealousy thing? Someone snitched you out? So if there was something to snitch on, I would say, yeah.

I mean, if you're, listen, I got fire stick. I also saw some weed. I also got some coke. Okay. Well, yeah, there's something to snitch on. But if it's a fire stick that's not illegal, at least from how I was doing it, I just, I don't, that's the weird. I don't know. But I feel like if you call a police officer and you say, hey, this guy has, like, they could

spin it. This guy has hack technology, jail broken. It sounds salacious. It sounds bad. Yes, you're right. And that's kind of how they sold it. As in somebody said, I don't know if you ever seen anything about this case specifically, but they went up to the shit. This is what they said. They went up to the sheriff's department and said, hey, I was just at the Arbondale flea market. And those people got some kind of fire stick. And they say, there must be something illegal about this and the police say, well, like what? Well, they're getting free TV, free channels, and they're watching free movies. Something's got to be wrong. And that's what set off the whole thing, right? So supposedly that's what happened. Now, once I got into my case, got my discovery,

no, that's not what happened, but, you know, that's what was sold. So like you said, it could have been interpreted wrong. But yeah, it was very shortly after switching the fire sticks that it wasn't just me. it was also a couple other vendors that came under investigation. So I don't know who set it off, but yeah, it was a weird, weird time. So how do you find out for the first time you're under investigation? And by who? Who's investigating you? So I don't find out until the investigation started in 2020 and October of 2020.

I didn't find out for two months until December of 2020 when I'm getting rated by multiple. multiple agents. That's when I found out, okay, something's going on, right? I didn't know that it was how long this had been going on until I got my discovery a month after that. So I had no idea when it was going on that these guys were coming in here with cameras and microphones and, hey, man, you got this, you got that, you know.

No idea. And either of the other vendors. Bring us through the raid. Describe the day, what happened, and the whole scenario. Okay, yeah. So it was Saturday. December 19th, 2020. So just regular Saturday at the flea market.

As a vendor, you want to get there early, get set up. Because once the sun comes up, people are coming in, right? So I'd be there at 6 in the morning Saturdays, getting set up. I get set up at about 8 a.m. The first people start coming through the flea market. A guy stops by my booth, right? And hey, man, you got any fire sticks? My wife bought one recently or whatever.

I said, no, I don't. I actually didn't. I had a different type of streaming devices, which is called a Ziozziomi stick. He's like, oh, okay, well, you mind if I make a phone call real quick? Yeah, yeah, whatever. He goes, leaves, makes a phone call supposedly. He comes back.

Okay, you know what? My wife does want that. I'll take it. Okay. And I showed him how it works, right? Gave the demo, turned on the TV, did the whole thing. He bought the stick. He went away.

Maybe 10 minutes later, a lady comes up. And she brings me her fire stick, like, we were talking about earlier in the interview. Hey, can you fix this? I'm fixing it for her. Here comes six guys. Louis fast quarts, we got search warrant for a whole thing.

I mean, they come in fast, you know, not with their guns out pointed at me, but they're gripping, right? And I'm just shocked. I'm just, I couldn't even react. Time slowed down.

First time I've ever felt real, real shock. Time slowed down. I couldn't hear anything. My hearing was gone. And then finally, when I snapped back out of it, They're like, come on out of the booth, man. You're going to be cool?

You're going to be cool? I'm like, cool about what? Motherfucker, what are you talking? Like, what is this? Right? So I finally come out. I come out of the booth. The guy's like, you got to come with me.

Another guy came by with a big crazy cannon camera. I swear to God, like a paparazzi thing. And they're taking pictures of the booth. And I had a sign that says free TV guy up top, free TV guy. Here's another sign. I fix fire sticks. That's what my sign said. He's taking a picture of that.

And I said, well, God damn, this is something different here, right? So the main agent who turned out to be a homeland. There was multiple people involved. I think this guy was like a homeland sheriff department agent. And by the way, the agency was Polk County Sheriff's Department. So it was a sheriff department. And it's just different agents from that department. So they take me back to a car in the flea market.

That was the nondescript place we were going to do an interview. So I go back there with him. He reached me where I writes, and he's like, hey, man, how'd you learn how to jail break fire sticks? And I'm like, what do you mean? What do you mean jail break fire sticks? They're not locked. You can't jail break them. That's just a term.

He goes, no, well, you're getting free TV channels, and you found out a way to get movies, and how'd you do it? I'm like, all right, if I was to learn how to do it, YouTube, Google, online, they're everywhere, right? He busts out a paper from its glove compartment that says robbery, theft, and related crimes, Florida State Statutes. And I'm like, he gets it to me. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? Is that robbery that has done to do with me? This is, you're in the flea market, right? You're buying a fire stick.

So he keeps going on with it. I'm telling him, that's not right. You're not telling, you know, this is bullshit. So eventually we end the thing and the discussion. And here come the other police. ready to take me to jail. So as I'm going to the guy, the cop that's going to transport me to jail, I've unfortunately had been to jail back in the day, you know, my early 20s. So it's nothing crazy. I knew you put your hands behind your back. Don't go crazy. You're going to put the cuffs on and

you'll be all right, right? So I turn around, put my hands behind my back, ready to put the cuffs. The guy, I swear to God, the cop says, no, no, it's okay, man. We'll put it on from the front. And I'm like, okay, it's just a day is getting weird and weird. I've never seen an officer. or I don't know if you've ever seen this before. I'm like, all right, put it on from the front. We get, and it wasn't just me, by the way, that got taken. It was me. I was 34 at the time.

It was some elderly folks. The oldest person was like 92. So it was three other vendors, separate parts of the flea market. The second oldest was like 89. And then there was a middle-aged lady. and they all got taken too, right? So the oldest guy, he gets put in the car with me, it's me and him in the backseat.

And he's mad as hell, just like I was. We get transported up there. We get taken up to the jail. And what I write about in the book was a lot of these weird things were going on at the same time. We get to the jail. I've never seen police do this either.

One cop says to the other cop, as we're waiting in the jail car. Hey man, says, had they to be a cop? and the other cops like, yeah, tell me about it. Like, what is this? Right there I could tell that they were shocked that they just raided the flea market

and took me and like old elderly folks to jail, to Polk County Jail. Polk County is known as a rough fucking jail. So anyways, we get taken in there. I try to give, I know these elderly people have never been to jail. So I try to give them just a little rundown, hey, it's going to be all right.

You're going to get processed. your family's going to get you out. I didn't know them before this day, but I'm trying to help them, right? You'll be all right. So anyways, and that's how it went. That's how that part of it went. And who do you call when you got processed

for like your phone call to bail you out if you even had a bail? Yeah, so my wife, my wife, when I was, before I got put in the car to go to jail to get transported to jail, one of the detectives actually called my wife. I think I asked that he'd do that. And he did. And I highly appreciate it. He called her and said, hey, you need to get ready to post bail.

And she's just shocked. Like, for what? Well, Lewis is getting taken to jail. He got taken away from the flea market. And she's like, what? For what? She's thinking of fighting, you know, she happens at flea markets. They're stabbing and stuff like that from time to time, something like that. And he's like, I can't explain it. Just pull up his name. You'll see it. So she was definitely the first one that knew about it. And as I got to a cell where I can make a phone call, I called her too just to make sure that she got the initial phone call, which she had. What was her reaction? Was she mad at you? Was she upset?

So she was shocked. I don't know if she had time to be mad or upset. I think she was shocked and confused about how this could be possibly happening. How long to take you to get bailed? out. It was pretty quick. It was maybe a day or two. I think it was like a day and a half. I got out at like four in the morning. She was ready. She knew I was getting out. They gave me one phone call as I'm getting processed out. And she was there to pick me up with two kids in the backseat. And yeah, it was quick that initial phase and we just got the hell out of there.

Was anyone in jail asking like, what are you in here for and you got to tell them I'm here for hacking fire sticks? There was one guy. Yeah, there was one guy that was, I was pissed when I got in there. So I was, you know, not being cooperative with the jail officials. So, like, as I'm getting in there and they got the old people locked up next to me or whatever, I'm like, hey, you guys got the worst of the worst in here today, huh? You're proud of yourself? And they just didn't pay attention to me, which I don't blame him.

But one guy is like, what would you do? Whatever else? I was like, fuck it. I'm going to tell him. Yeah, I'm here for fire sticks, bro. You know, the Amazon fire sticks? And he's like, what? You know, that became a thing or whatever, but I know it's getting out of there quick.

So usually I would not say that, you know, in my past, I definitely know not to go blabbing about what you're doing there. But that was just too funny and too rare. Yeah, I feel like everyone that's ever been to jail or prison always has that one person they meet in there. They're like, why is this guy in prison or it's such a crazy crime? And I feel like this falls into that category. It's like so strange. It's one of one. I mean, you're one of one.

How is the press spinning it? When you got out and you look on your phone, you're looking up your name. How is the neighborhood, the community, and the press spinning this? So that's the other fucked up part about this was how I knew this was going on press. And the whole thing was a day after I got out. I'm at home. By the way, one thing I forgot to mention is they took my cell phone so I couldn't call. I was looking for lawyers.

So I grabbed my wife's cell phone. I'm in the backyard and I'm looking for lawyers. So I'm researching as I'm research for lawyers, somebody texts my wife's phone. And I didn't think nothing of it. It's her phone. But I happen to look and it says, my name in all caps. Lewis, what's going on? And I'm trying to figure out who it is.

And it's a co-worker. And I'm like, how would this coworker get my wife's cell phone? Right? And then the next text, next text, they're like, is this you they're talking about? And they show a picture of their press conference right away I knew. Because this guy, our sheriff, right? He holds press conferences regularly. I never would have thought it would be one for this.

And so as soon as I saw him, I knew, holy shit, he is right now holding a press conference, that's 20, 30 minutes long about this. And that's how I was introduced to the fact that this is going everywhere. This ain't just you get out, go fight your case as a private citizen. This is going to get put out to the world. What were your actual charges and what were they labeling you as? So my actual, my charge was a promote or sale of an intercept device, which is an old Florida law.

You know, that's like an example would be like, you know, New York City. If you're going from one building to the next building, you're connecting cables together to each get free, HBO, whatever. That's an intercept, you know, device. So that's what they hit me with, which was a felony three carrying up to five years. I did have a prior misdemeanor history as a kid, you know, my early 20s. So during the press conference, the sheriff having to mention that about my prior history from 10 years before. And I'm like, shit, they're going to try to ram me with the five years. It ain't going to be no, you know, plea deal or whatever.

So, yeah. Wow. Yeah. And did they have like a name for you? Like I know sometimes when there's these weird things that happen, people. Oh, there were multiple names. Give us some of the names. So right off the bat, there was a tech pirate.

That one came out. And by the way, that's the name of my merch. I eventually embrace it. It's been four years now. I like that one. Well, I appreciate it. I had a couple going through my head because I'm always thinking of like the thumbnail title, like when I'm listening to someone. But I want to hear your other ones to see if we met in the middle on any of them.

No doubt. No doubt. The other ones that he, by the way, this guy's great with nicknames. They're like, well, these guys are casual thieves. So we got casual thieves. We got criminal entrepreneurs. We got, that's the three that I can remember off the time of my. Criminal entrepreneur.

Criminal entrepreneurs. Yeah, that word. I like tech pirate better. I was thinking a flea market hacker. That could be pretty funny. As one or flea market bandit. No doubt. That would be funny.

But tech pirate is definitely, and that's awesome that you embraced it. I love when people take. what they went through and spin it into something positive. Yeah, for sure. Which you've been able to do with your book that's coming out. And then is that merch for sale? Can people buy that? Yeah, yeah, it is.

Yeah, it's for sale right now. So by the time this interview comes out, there'll be the hats, the shirts, and everything. I can't believe we called you a tech pirate. Yeah, yeah, man. It was an interesting thing. And there was a lot more than that. But it was a very shocking thing when it all went down. And of course it affects everything, right?

Because I'm getting the text from work, from a work friend saying, hey, what the hell's going on, man? You're on the news. So when that all went down, I couldn't watch it, by the way. When the press conference came out, I'm like, all right, I know what this is. Fuck. Hurry up to me a lawyer, man, because this is getting crazy. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place.

Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our sin. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 N-EX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials, no credit cards or alien

encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. So right away my job found out, you know, so. How did they react? Did they fire you? No. So the first day back going into work, um, I, um, I'm. I'm driving the work.

I don't have my cell phone. The police still have my cell phone. So I'm just driving in the work. I get in there hoping that somehow nobody saw anything, right? And the full denial. So the person that texts me is a friend. So he didn't say anything. It didn't matter.

As I'm rolling in there, the first people I'm seeing out there, a guy comes up to my car. Hey, Lewis, man. I'm sorry. I saw what happened, man. And this guy is known as the biggest, like the guy with the biggest mouth, kind of, you know, the guy that talks a lot. So I said, fuck, he knows.

It's over. So he, I'm sorry. I was like, dude, don't say anything else, man, we're good. Don't worry. I'm taking care of it. I get inside the office and, you know, multiple people are, they're kind of looking up and down. You could tell. It was weird right off the bat.

I go into my office and then here comes my manager who I only see once or twice a year. He doesn't live in Florida, right? He flies back and forth. So he comes in there and I knew it was like, okay. I'm still in the aisle. I'm like, well, maybe there's a good reason for this. So he pulls me in the office and he's like All you do is get his phone out.

Lewis, what the hell is this man? And I'm like, oh, fuck, it's over. So they, but they didn't terminate. They were going to suspend me to terminate. I mean, it was like, hey, there's nothing I can do. He gave me that whole spiel. There's nothing I can do. Corporate found out.

Corporates in New Hampshire. I'm in Florida. Corporate found out the saint like the next day. He said, there's nothing I can do is out of my hands. You do what you got to do. I'm like, okay, so I'm definitely not coming back from the suspension, right? This is termination for, I know what this is. He's like, I'm not saying that, but, you know, if I was you, fight this case, it sounds ridiculous.

And I told him, it is, you know, and I'll beat it. But he's like, all right, cool. And he, as he's, like, giving me the spiel, he gets a phone call. He walks outside of the office, and I'm just thinking, like, fuck, what am I going to tell my wife? I got these two little kids at home. Like, this is bad. like these bastards they're trying to do this they're trying to screw up your whole shit right so my boss comes back in maybe like one minute later and he's like hey man i don't know who you've been praying to

but it worked he's like corporate reverse the decision to suspend to terminate and uh you're gonna get a chance but you have to get it dismissed you can't there's no if you get charged with anything you're done right and you're on the investigation by the way here at work uh for your laptop and all that kind of thing. So whatever happened there, it worked. I mean, somebody in corporate saw what was going on. They're like, bro, I have a fire stick. Like, there's no way, this is not a felony.

Like, this is not a, this is weird. This is, let's wait to see what happened. So somebody stepped up and brought in some logic, you know, to it. So that saved me for that time and being able to provide. Well, see, it's so important that we're talking about this because you were not proven guilty yet or even in a situation to be proven guilty. And meanwhile, your job's at risk. You didn't kill anyone.

You didn't hurt anyone. This is pretty much a misdemeanor if it's criminal at all. And you're at risk of losing your job. And that's solely because of the media, how the media spins it after you got arrested. That's screwed up. Correct. That's what's wrong. That's what's fucked up here because, like, I get it.

Let's say somebody kills somebody. else, right? Let's take the most extreme example. I'm sorry, you're not going to see it on the media on multiple channels. There's not going to be a press conference and it's not going to YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and everywhere else. It's just something that happens every day. Yeah, I mean, if the court deems you able to get a bail, get released, and be in society, you should be able to hold your job, unless you're like a figure of public office or something. But, I mean, even aside from that, you look at the senator, what's his name, Bob Menendez, that was arrested by the FBI and now convicted,

other day, but arrested and he was still able to be a senator. And meanwhile, you were at risk of losing your job. That's so crazy. Right. That's the imbalance of the rich versus the poor. It's like, hey, good luck, buddy. Hope you got a lawyer and figure it out. Well, now you don't have a job.

So, you know, luckily for me, I got saved other people that have got these press conferences on them because it happens pretty often. Most of them got terminated. I'm sure. And they had to kind of go with a public defender and try and see what they can figure out. Yeah, it's like the people getting fired for only fans and stuff. Like, who cares it's not hurting you? Right.

That's a fact. It's silly. That's a fact. What did your lawyer say to you when you got a lawyer? What's his reaction to hearing about this case looking at the documentation and what they have on you? So that was tough. Finding a lawyer that could understand what streaming versus downloading is, which it's not easy to understand.

It's a confusing thing, right? Looking for somebody that can sort of work in that area, that was tough. So eventually when I found, and it also was during Christmas and New Year's and everybody was off for a two-week period when it happened. Once I did get a call back from a lawyer, I'm interviewing them to like, hey, have you ever heard anything like this? Have you have any experience with tech and this kind of thing? And they say, yeah, yeah, we've had a case, certainly not yours. I mean, this is different, but we've had similar cases. And we think we've got an in with the office, the sheriff's office, and we can talk them, talk.

to them and that kind of thing. So they, but then they said, you also have to know that if you lose, it's five years in prison, it's this much $100,000 fine. Not only that, if there's somebody behind this, like a cable company, they can come after you for every instance that you sold a fire stick or whatever. So they were kind of putting the tough love, giving everything out there at first. But it didn't sound like they understood what this really was and how to fight it. because I wanted to fight.

I wanted to go to trial and, like, they put it out in public. I wanted to go back in public and put in the trial and beat them. But it just, it's not a common thing. So it was hard to find a lawyer who understood this well. And the lawyer that I went with, I was so desperate to get an attorney that I just went with that person that called me back, you know, right after New Year's. You know, yes, sign me up, please. Let's get this, like, let's start fixing this thing. How was your family reacting towards you, like your mom?

What did she have to say about this? and your sister? So she heard about it pretty quickly after two. I definitely didn't tell her. She saw it on the news in Ocala, Florida, which is 70 miles from where I live in central Florida. So she was calling to make sure I was all right. And I tried to break it down to her mom.

I really don't know what's going on. But I know you've already seen the news. So, you know, and she was 100% supportive, 100% supportive. And so was my sister. You know, both of them. And they were the only two people that know that this has ever happened, besides my wife who's sitting out there,

now everybody's going to know because you have a huge platform. But they were, those three were just hardcore support. And, you know, if it wasn't for them, I don't know. I don't know. What would have happened? Wouldn't have been good? How long did the legal process take for you? How long did it, were you going through it before it ultimately reached a conclusion?

So it was about two months, two and a half months. Which is pretty quick for the legal process standards. It is. It is. Had I gone to trial, it could have been, who knows, a year or whatnot. But from the initial raid, arrest, media campaign, down to it being dismissed later, that was about two and a half months. Did they offer you a plea deal right away or anything like that? Yeah.

Yeah. So about a month into it, they offered me to take a misdemeanor for, who knows what the hell of that thing was. something about a copywriting a cable company or something like that. It was a misdemeanor charge. First degree misdemeanor. No jail time, right? Just pay fines and do community service. I refused it.

So they did offer it. They did offer it. But I said no. Did your lawyer think you should take it? Yes. The lawyer thought I should take it. I disagreed with the lawyer. The lawyer then reminds me, you do know it's another $2,500 to go to trial, right?

Like, you want to go to trial for this? You know how powerful this guy is, this sheriff in your county is, right? It's everywhere. The video had 300,000 views. There's only, like, 300,000 adults in Polk County, right? So she's like, are you sure you want to do that? I'm like, yes. I mean, I definitely wasn't sure.

I just like, yeah, no, yeah, I don't, no. Like, we have to get this completely dismissed. I can't lose everything for a misdemeanor, lose my job still and the whole thing. So, yeah. So what ends up happening ultimately? So ultimately, the next, she spoke to them. Honestly, I'm not sure what got it from the misdemeanor to the final agreement, but me and her were talking one day. And she's like, hey, I'm going to speak to the prosecutor's office and see if we can work something else out.

Okay, cool. Otherwise, prepare for trial. I'm like, yeah, let's like, let's go. Let's go to trial, right? she pulled off something last second and what they what they said was all right if you're willing to pay us for the time we spent investigating you and then pay some other stuff some fines or whatever we will agree to dismiss it and you won't get right you won't have a no contest you won't have a guilty not guilty it'll be dismissed so I didn't want to do that I didn't want to do that I didn't have the money to take it the trial but I wanted to take it to trial but I wanted to take it the trial but I wanted to take it the trial. But once that dismissal thing came up and I knew that we can end this thing and I can keep my job, even though I knew my reputation was destroyed. Reputation's gone.

I said, let's do this and then we'll figure it out from there. So that's what end up happening. I end up paying them for the time that they spent investigating me, which wasn't that much. And we went from there. Do you think they just never had the evidence to begin with and you called their bluff? And if so, I wonder if a lot of people in America that happens to where they're just, the government doesn't have the evidence to convict, but people are just so scared by the thought of trial. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

They're not even willing to call a bluff because it could have turned and they could have said, fuck it, let's go to trial. Correct. Correct. And they had what they thought was evidence, which is a pile of fire sticks, right? They had them already. They had the bags, the exhibit A, that was there. All those exhibits were there and it's fire sticks and it was my TV. and it was this kind of thing.

So they had items, but those items were not, they obviously realized that, okay, you can't win with these items. You need more. Like, were they downloading? Is that what's happening? Do you have CDs with movies or whatever? They didn't have that. So they had a crap load of stuff,

but crap load of worthless stuff that I end up getting back as my case is dismissed. As my case is dismissed, I end up going to the sheriff's office. Here's all your felony jailbroken equipment back. So, right, let's say if there's a drug dealer that gets busted for a couple kilos of cocaine, if he beats that case, do they give them back the kilos? No, I don't think it's ever happening in history.

So I went back and here's all your fire sticks, here's the TV, here's all your stuff, and out the door. So did you go back to selling fire sticks again? No, no, that was over. What about going back to the flea market? Have you been back since? Just a shop, just a shop. But I'm like, with that county, I'm done. And, you know, I still have to live there.

I couldn't just leave. And now I'm doing this interview. So that's a little tough because I do have to live there. It's your side of the story, which I think is the difference. Exactly. Yeah, it's been four years. And I definitely didn't want to, I didn't want to, I wanted to move on from this whole thing. It's been four years.

But it's not working, right? It's as I'm doing much better now, I'm coming, doing much more money at work and this kind of thing. But it still follows you because it's all over YouTube. It's all over different places where they pull you up. It can come up. So it doesn't matter. Who cares if you are found not guilty? Who gives a shit if it was dismissed?

Doesn't matter. It's a permanent smear campaign. Here you go. Merry Christmas. Yeah. Was there an article that came out that said it all charge is dropped. Everything's good. He's living his life now.

Was there a positive article? Or no? Or is it still when you search your name, all the negative stuff? All negative. Yeah. And I think that's what's fucked up with the country too. It's like good luck to you, buddy. Go sue.

those companies that got that stuff up. So, yeah, there's no nothing. I definitely knew that there was not going to be an apology or anything like that. But goddamn, at least take down the videos that, because there's multiple things that went out during that time. Like, take that stuff down at least, bro. Like, you guys, this is not law and order. This isn't, this is just a get back from, you know. Well, guess what?

Now there's going to be your side of the story that pops up when you search your name on Google. No doubt. Which is just as powerful. Absolutely. Do you feel like you've been able to rebuild? your reputation in the community since then, or is it still an uphill battle? So, yeah, I have been able to rebuild a lot of my reputation. I've always been extremely hardworking, especially when it comes to, like,

working my normal job. Like, I go hard 24-7, you know. So that has helped. And also, people were on my side right off the bat. And I didn't know this at the time because when my case went out to the media, people were commenting like crazy everywhere on Facebook and, you know, these other places. And they were mad that they did this, right? That they even put this all together and got into this investigation thing.

So I didn't know at the time, but I mean, thousands of people were sending support through comments and that kind of thing. So that helped once I found out that that was really happening. People had my back as far as in the community. So I have been able to rebuild for the most part. But also the thing is that stuff never comes away. So eventually it's going to come up again. No matter how many. I've left.

I've already changed three employers since that happened. And the reason I've done that is because it comes out. It comes out. And as I'm in the manager, right? At my last couple places and that comes out and it doesn't matter, right? It's like, what the hell is this, man? You know, so it fucks up anything you have going on. So you got to keep moving.

I can relate to that, man. When I was at Whole Foods, you know, I was a manager. and when I'd hire someone new or anything like that, I'd always get the weird looks or curiosity because of my thing was all over the news. And especially towards the end, when I was starting to make content, people were like, are you the guy on TikTok?

Like, I could never imagine working a regular job after everything I've done now. Like, I just feel like for the rest of my life, I'm always going to now be doing this or content or anything because how could I go back to a regular, job when I'm so out there on the internet. It's tough.

For sure. No, absolutely. What do you think are your biggest life lessons that you've learned from this whole experience? Why do you think that the universe put you through this to begin with? So biggest life lessons. So what I learned was that with law enforcement, it's not just whether the law was broken or this kind of thing. It's all about influence, right?

That how strong influence. influences isn't just like on social media. It's also in all levels of government. I wasn't really aware of that before. I figured it was, but after going through my case and seeing all the evidence that was against me and who was behind it and this whole thing, I realized that we are little compared to the amount of influence they have.

So, I mean, that's not the best thing, but it's a good truth pill, right? It's like a good rare pill to realize that. So now I'm just extra careful. I am at home most of the time with my family. I'm not running around the streets and doing this and doing that. So it kind of did calm me down a lot more. And so for that, I'm thankful. Awesome.

Well, Lewis, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your story with us and giving me the opportunity to interview you and coming from Florida. I hope you enjoy the rest of time in New York and safe travels back. Thank you, bro. Appreciate the opportunity.

Seriously. Thank you. Of course. And best of luck with the book launch and everything else you're working on. Absolutely.