Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Bank Robber Reveals His Secrets | Justin Bott

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Bank Robber Reveals His Secrets | Justin Bott

I pulled out of the bank, went in, you know, about the same kind of thing, had the sight line broke up. Pulled out of the bank and took off and I was going to go up the road, take a left, and take another left, and get on the highway. So I go up here and I take a left and I see this car behind me. I'm like, okay. So I go up a little bit farther and I turn again and the car turns again as well. That's bad. So I'm like, okay. I'm going to keep an eye on for just another second and then I'm going to, then I don't know what I'm going to. do, but I'm going to have to do something. Yeah.

So I pull across the road instead of turning right. And as I pulled across the road, he came behind me. And that's, oh, shit. What am I going to do? Hey, this is Matt Cox. And I appreciate you checking out the channel. And I've got an interview today with Alex Glass, whose real name is Justin Bot. and we'll explain that

he's a he's a bank robber and well a former bank robber and and so we're going to get into that in a second also do me a favor and if you like the video obviously after you've watched it if you like the video do me a favor and subscribe

hit the bell so you get notified leave me a comment share the video also check out my Patreon and Instagram and now we're going to get into it where were you originally where were you originally born how'd you grow up you know that sort of thing so um well i'm glad to be here yeah happy to be here on this um really so i grew up i was actually born in washington state um my parents moved back here when

they were um when i was about three um my dad was from washington state farm boy from washington state my mom ironically worked for the fbi nice and they met up around dc when my dad was in the service and she was working for the fbi so at about three years old we moved out here um so she could take better care of her mom and uh been in south carolina ever since uh most of that time uh not your typical guy that you might have on on a show like this because i i grew up with great parents right solidly middle class um never saw my dad drunk you know mom might have a daccarry and get giggly but that's about it right um but i was just different you know i grew up and was curious about all the bad things.

You know, I was curious about drinking. I was curious about drugs. I wanted to be a tyrant to some degree. Right. Something in me is wired that way. Even now, as I'm trying to do better in life, it's still just kind of wired that way. I always look at things with an angle

about how I can lead the system. Yeah. So that's how it started out, you know. Yeah, we were talking about that earlier and we were just saying, like, you know, do you ever think of, about it. I'm like, I think about fraud every day, constantly. It's just, and we talked about this some because I did our DAP while we were in prison, which is the residential drug abuse

program for those who don't know. And we actually talked about that, how some people are just wired differently. And their mindset is geared more toward criminality and getting around the rules. You should have brought your book. I don't have it published. Oh, okay. For me, it was more about just completing a project because I was one of those guys that I've been an idea guy all my life I've had so many ideas and tried so many different businesses but I was never able to have the focus to get all the way through it right um what did you what did you think I'm sorry what just so we don't get off thought what did you think of uh Ardap I thought if if you're willing to go into Ardap and admit that you're the one that's causing most of your problems then it's

fantastic program that's bro listen fantastic you know it's funny like it's funny because like 80% of the people that graduate are like you know oh i fake my way through and i and you did i no doubt you did but the people that really work of that program and and have to really look at themselves and say hey i'm a scumbag i put myself here nobody else did because everyone you know there's so many people are blaming somebody yep so you know that you put yourself here and you really look at it And you really say I've got to make some fundamental changes. Like I had a program the other day where, I mean a podcast the other day where I was saying, I think everybody should have to take that program.

Like before you get out, you should have to take that program. I agree. I agree. I think that there should be some kind of program, even if it's not necessarily Ardap, you know, something that addresses how you perceive the world because how you perceive the world is different than most people do. Ardab wasn't even about drugs. To me, it's almost, it's really just about criminal thinking. it really is or whatever you know thinking errors or however i can't remember the term we had terminology

for all that though it's great it's great listen jess does it all the time jess she'll say stuff to me she'll go oh super optimism oh she'll she'll make these little she'll make these little little comments i'm like don't don't don't do that she's like i'm just saying i'm just saying you're uh you're awfulizing you know you're off right brings back some memories i had even heard any of that in so long that's just yeah if you read this you'll die laughing because you know what i did i actually pulled a bunch of my um my RSAs so like every once in a while I'll throw an RSA in there listen like they're like I wasn't trying to get the year off right I was trying I only went in the program to stay in Coleman so I literally did seven months one time six months so I did over a year

in something dropped out every time before just to stay at Coleman but you learn so much much about yourself. If you're willing to do the work, you do. You know, but you've got to be willing to do the work. You really do. Because a lot of guys, they do go through there and fake it. Right. But if you're willing to work on yourself, you have every tool available to be able to do that.

And when we got towards the end, in phase three, I became a senior guide. And did you guys have senior guides? Yeah, yeah, they called them, you had like mentors and you had big brothers. That's what they called. It's all the same. They always, everyone has a little, they'll have a little different terminology, but the same exact thing. Yeah.

So when, you know, I became a senior guide and I had to give a seminar. And at the very opening of my seminar and everyone that I gave after that, I would tell everybody say, look, you have an opportunity that nobody else in the world has, most people in the world anyway. You have the opportunity to take nine months and work on you. Right. And you have all the tools at your disposal to help you do that. So if you don't take this opportunity, it's just because you don't want to.

On the street, that's $150,000 program. Absolutely. Like if your family was filthy, rich, and they put you in some kind of a program like that, that's over $100,000 easily program. And you're getting it for, I mean, granted, you're incarcerated, but you're there anyway. You're there anyway. I mean. You know what was funny? I would call my ex-wife.

And, like, I don't really see any difference in me. You know, I'm not necessarily seeing this difference, but I would call her and she would go, what's going on what's wrong what's this what's that and I go what are you talking about she go you called me up you asked how my kids were you know their names you asked how her her new husband is right asked about this you asked about we've talked almost 15 minutes and you haven't said anything about you and I'm like okay she's like usually that's all you talk about is you like I didn't even know you knew my kids names right like and I was like wow what a selfish prick. Like, that

that subtle change was so noticeable to her. It's, yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely, mind altering. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And, and people see it. You know, they recognize. You know, it's like, it's like they say about people with, you know,

some mental illnesses that take medication. Your loved ones can always tell when you go off your medication. Yeah. They're the first ones to be able to notice. Yeah. So it's the same kind of thing. But, yeah, our DAP was really how I got to where I am now because I came, I became a senior guide. So for the third phase, which was the last three months of the program, you know, I was helping people. And I remember one of the, what they call them DTSs, the drug treatment specialist, he came to me and I was

good with my living situation. I was fine where I was. And he's like, listen, I got this guy coming in. And I think you could be a good help for him. I think you guys will get along good. You know, he's got some stuff he needs to work on. I'm going to put you up in a room with him My first thought was shit man A problem You're giving him to me Yeah

Not because you're trying to help me Yeah not because you're trying to help me So got up there Met the dude He's a biker from Detroit Was a gang member In one of the biker clubs in Detroit But me and this guy hit it off

Like nobody's business We're still in touch now He's out I'm out I've seen him since we've been out Squirrel What's up but he and I had some really good talks and he was in Ardap for the right reason and he wanted to do things differently

and that was where I kind of got said okay this is what I want to do I want to be able to go out here and help other people because one of the things that I was plagued with all my life was I always struggled with jobs you know I'd work a job for a year and a half get pissed off at management and quit because it was just hard for me I always wanted to do my own thing so um shit man no so you like you enjoyed helping him it was the first time that you i get what you're saying yeah you were you liked helping him and and it felt good and you felt like it was right for you yeah so that that's the path i've decided to go down now and that's that's where i'm at um i spent 45 years being you talked about being selfish and and just caring about yourself i was the same way

i wrote my story up for something i think i described myself as a taker yeah and that's really what I was. I just, whatever I could get something from somebody, I would do that. So I made the decision pretty much in our adapt to spend the rest of my life being a different kind of person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's, you know, it's funny. It's, it's just life in general. And we'll get into all that, but so I can, we can get, we'll just get through this and jump back because we kind of jumped ahead. But the, the truth is, is that, you know, is that in prison, I definitely learned purpose. Like, to me, I know my purpose was just getting everything I wanted. right you know that was my purpose um and that you know that i went to prison and then i realized well i

really enjoy you know i enjoy writing i enjoy talking to other people i enjoy talking about you know what they've gone through and i and i do i and i enjoy that and unfortunately the the the things and the people that i find the most interesting are the people that have done you know that are and were involved in criminal activity right but also having gone through that whole thing and learning, I also realize that, like, I can't be, like, if you're doing, if you're doing dirt, you know, like, I can't be around you. Like, if you did it and you got, and interesting stories, like, to me, you're, you're an interesting person now. You've had some experiences as a result of, as a result, you know, to the guy who, you know, worked a regular job. Right. And has, you know,

have a wife and two kids. You know, I wish I could have been that guy. And I'm not, I'm not knocking that guy. Like, I have, I know guys that will knock that guy. like oh yeah he's not happy he's not yeah but i he probably is happy he is like i wish i had been that guy it didn't work out but i always find the guys that had done crime interesting but the truth is if somebody was currently doing crime like i don't want to be around you like like you did it you went through it you learned something you moved on like that's an interesting person to sure but the people that get trapped in it and can't ever move forward right well now you're just stuck in this rut and and you you know if you're lucky you you you you feel you

figure it out. And if you don't, well, then you end up dying in prison or, you know, or you end up, you know, you end up on the street or something. Like, it's, it's never going to work out to you, to your advantage. No. And I think there's, there's always those two kind of people in the world. You know what I mean? There's, there's the people that have gotten locked into that lifestyle. I think that a lot of them have gotten there because they just honestly don't know any better. You know, they, they weren't raised with any kind of manners. They weren't raised with any kind of. morals. They just don't have that. I had a cellie one time right before I got out. He'd been locked up for 24 years for manufacturing meth. Right. Okay. During the conversations we had, he told me, I can't wait to get out there. I'm going to start cooking meth again, and I'm going to party hard one good time before I come back and basically die in prison. Oh, listen, I didn't know, I don't know that guy, but I know 50s. 50 or 100 guys that are exactly like, like literally you're listening to this guy work on his next indictment. It's like, you are right now working on your, you haven't made it on the street.

You're already working on your next indictment. And those guys are out there and most people never meet them. No. No, because they're always in prison. Yeah. They'll make it out for six months to a year and they'll go around by. If they make it out of the halfway house. If they make it out of the halfway house.

We have one guy show up at the halfway house and within two hours to be in there, he was in the bathroom smoking meth. made it three days I think for they sent him by I hate the laugh because it's really not but I don't know what else to do

you know I can't cry about it it's like I don't know the other person but it's just like what are you fucking thinking bro like how good is that drug I don't know I don't want to find out no you know

but yeah they're definitely out there and you know I work in recovery work now I'm a certified peer support specialist right which is like kind of like a low level entry level counselor type

person basically what they do is they use their life experience that they've overcome to help support others that are going through the same kind of stuff yeah so i've seen this and one of the things that we talk about a lot is how until somebody's ready yeah there's nothing you can do for them you can't plant some seeds let them know that you're there when they're ready yeah but until they're ready they can't do anything it was the same way with me i was drinking every day i was waking up and drinking every day everybody tried to talk to me my parents they tried to talk to me and my friends tried to talk to me. But until I was ready to do it, nobody was going to get through. Well, let's go back to, so you were, let's go back to, you know, the genesis of that,

which was, you know, you were in school, you went to high school. Would you go to high school? Went to high school. South Carolina somewhere. Upstate, upstate South Carolina, a Spartanburg area, Greenville, Spartanburg's this town's up there. Went to high school was constantly in trouble. Right. You know, not big trouble, just more shenanigans. And, a lot of it just being lazy and not wanting to do my work. Right. It's actually really interesting because I got awarded an award on senior awards night because I was in the Deca Club, which was like business club, basically.

And they had competitions. And I ended up going out to San Jose, California, to compete in the national competition because I'd done so good at the district and state. Right. Okay. So senior award night comes around. I get an honorable mention and a little award for going and doing that. The next night was graduation, I didn't graduate on time.

I didn't have all my units. I didn't have all my credits. I ended up having to go to night school to get my diploma to be able to do that. But I've always known not in an arrogant way that, you know, I'm a smart guy, but I'm stupid in a lot of ways too. Or at least was. Yeah. No, I get on the same way. Yeah, I did that.

Sometimes I'll work diligently on something for weeks and weeks and weeks. super focused. The problem is, is typically when I do that, I disregard everything else that's keeping me going. That's always been a problem for me. Right. No, and I can totally get that. So, got out, 1990, I graduated, went into the Army. My brother had been in the Army. My dad was in the Army. So it just seemed like a thing to do. Try to make things right, go in the Army, do this. I remember my parents being a bit surprised that I made it through basic training. They were so happy when I made it through basic training But I ended up screwing that up

You know, I ended up Were you still drinking at that time or were you big drinking? I wasn't really doing it that much at that time I was 19 so it was just beginning Okay But I went to Germany in the Army Ended up getting caught up in some shit there And got kicked out of the Army

What was what? They had a We were in communications. I was in a communications division And over in the barracks at that time, they had these what they called USA direct telephones. Any button that you press would get you an AT&T operator and then you place either your collect call or your credit card call. Well, being in communications, we figured out there was a little knob down there that you could switch. And if you switch that knob, it would dial direct.

Okay. And so we did that. And when I got called in, you know, I'm 19. And I don't know what the world's really like. So I told them how it was done at the MPs or whatever. And so because that happened, they blamed it on me, gave me the rat for it, kicked me out of the army. Okay.

So was it an honorable dish or dishonorable or was it just? It's like right in the middle. There's honorable and mine was other than honorable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it wasn't quite general, but it was. So anyway, I miss out on all veteran benefits and whatnot. so but the bigger point is that this was a life pattern of just you know going a year or two yeah i would go a year or two and be able to to keep my shit together and then being the keen self-sabotage

i would just blow it all up for no particular reason right so you go back to the states so what happens come back to the states um fall in with my same old friends we're out partying all the time this and that and the other always having that criminal mindset we were always looking at at stuff you know how can we do this how can we do that um about three years after i got back maybe two and a half three years after i got back um me and a buddy of mine ended up doing a burglar at a restaurant that we worked at or he worked at um so i got in trouble for that did a little probation it was the first real trouble i'd ever been in so um it wasn't too bad but got a little probation um did that and then so yeah you did you did the burglar i mean you didn't

turn yourself in like the cops arrested you that did you get caught the middle of the burglary or just something led to you no it led to us because they figured it out pretty quick yeah they did figure it out pretty quick there was some things said and i think we'd been drinking that night actually when we did the burglary so it was pretty sloppy and whatnot right so oh i know i know a guy who broke into a guy's house yeah stole his wallet went and used all of his wallet used all of his credit card broke back in the house to put the wallet back and left his ID in in the guy's house like yeah that's that's ridiculous yeah i mean it's funny you know like we were talking about adrenaline gets going you get all excited you get you know you just you just fuck up yeah yeah you do so we did

on that one we got busted and whatnot and um it wasn't too long after that it was that was about 92 93 i think and uh i just kept partying you know partying going to everything uh drinking pot acid used to love acid did a lot of acid back then that was in my book there's a little bit about that um all the acid used and whatnot but anyway so about 1995 i was with this girl and i kept throwing this idea at her of of robin bank said neither one of us wanted to work we want to just keep partying so 1995 november and december 1995 i finally convinced her to Jump in on a bank robbery. What did you?

So we talked about this, like the genesis of that idea was point break. That was, that was as much of an inspiration for me to do that as anything else was. I must have watched that movie 20 times. Can quote you all kinds of stuff. It's a great movie. It really is a great movie. I feel bad. Like, Connor has no idea what point break is.

Even if he does, he only knows the new version, which is nothing. compared the old one with kiana reeves bro when he was Patrick Swayze yeah young and and um what was the other guy then was it Nick um wasn't Nick Nolte what's the Gary Busey Gary Busey yeah Gary Busey was his partner in there I feel bad for you bro like the new movies there's nothing compared to the old movie no no great movie there were great movies came out in the 80s and 90s the dead presidents they were in the mass they're doing the robberies It's like, listen, I'll bet you that movie got thousands of banks rob, thousands of them. It made bank robbery look so fucking sexy.

Yep. And it did. You know, that's what all those movies did. Yeah, right up until everybody starts getting shot and killed and falling out of planes and just fucking, yeah. People always forget that. They do forget that. I love crime movies. I always forget about the part when they go to jail for fucking 20 years.

Well, you know. That's not going to happen to me. That happens. in the in the in the in the in the in the in the groups they call that playing the tape all the way through yeah you got to play it through all the way to the end not just the good parts too so i suffer from super optimism yeah i suffer some super optimism as well you know i never wanted to face the consequences of what i did but i was like i can do this i can do this i'm smarter than them i'm better than yeah yeah me too that's what all of us think isn't it yeah right up until the judge says

fucking 26 years yeah then it's like i was i was off like somewhere i have time to think of about it now. Yep, somewhere I got off on my path. So, um, yeah, we were just hanging out partying all the time and she was working a little bit here and there, but, you know, money runs out and we didn't have anything. And, um, we kept talking about it late night, drug fuel conversations. And after about a week, she was like, okay, let's do it. I'll drive the car. You're going to go and do everything. So went by Walmart and got a devil's mask. and put it on and had her pull up to the bank. I thought about all this all the way through.

You know, I planned it and thought about it. I watched point break about 20 more times and realized you couldn't go into the vault. You just had to stay at the drawers up front, you know, kill time at the vault. So we talked about it for about another four or five days. And then we went and did it. And the first one we did... How did you know what bank did?

even rob like did you i lived in this apartment complex and across the street there was a bank that had a unique setup it was just the perfect setup there was privacy fences on three sides of the bank and then on one side of it was a shopping center and then it was at a big intersection where the roads crossed like this there was a little shopping center right here convenience store right here and the bank was right here with three privacy fences around it and a residential area behind it. I'd been looking at it. Ever since I'm moving in the apartment,

I was like, that'd be a great bank to rob. So we went and did that. And she dropped me off. She pulled up to the convenience store that was at the corner, killed 15, 20 seconds, because I'd already timed it all out

how long it was going to take me to do everything, you know, unless something went awry. And so then I ran through the shopping center to the other road, and she pulled up perfect timing, picked me up, and we will get out of there. Um, well, you missed the bank robbery part. What? I mean, you went in the way you went. I wasn't going to talk about all that. No. I was going to say. Um, so, um, wow. It's, I haven't really recounted it, I guess, in really specific terms, you know, since then. So, uh, forgive me if I'm a little slow sometimes. No, I, I, I'm just curious. Like, like, you know, and we've, we talked about this, you know, off. Like, this is, you know, you know, I've, you know, I've talked to, you know, I've talked to guys. You know, you know, I've talked to guys. You know, you know, you know, you know, I've talked to guys. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, I've. You know, I've. You know, I've who do podcasts and they're always like um like i've had guys actually say well i don't usually want to

talk talk to the guests you know before the podcast and it's like really because the and i'm like oh i always thought oh that's rude or you're being a jerk or whatever but the truth is is that like we had a great discussion sure about adrenaline about like you know going in like and that's what i'm wondering about is is like going up to like me walking into a bank with fake credentials and everything I have a certain, you know, the whole thing, you know, the adrenaline, you walk in. I know certain things. I mean, I'm just wondering, like, were you, did you think about changing your mind? Like, were you, when you're walking towards that bank, are you just like, like, tunnel vision?

That's it. Okay. So it's like, tunnel vision. I'm doing this and that's it. Yep. Yep. I had, uh, I had tried to do it a couple times myself and honestly pulled up in front of the bank and was just like, tried to cite myself up, whatever.

no just can't do it um so i think it was having somebody else involved maybe that that pushed me to go do it um so we pull up she had went in uh maybe four or five days earlier to just do something fake to see if they had a security guard or not so we knew there wasn't a security guard so i didn't have to worry about that it's a fairly small bank there was like maybe two three tellers i don't remember because i had tunnel vision the whole time so two three tellers you know one person in the office something like that um got my devil's mask on i got i got a hoodie on so that i can cover myself up completely had on dishwashing gloves actually because the the vinyl gloves weren't that big of a deal yet you know you get in the boxes that they've got now right um so i dishwashing

gloves because they would grip money good um i wanted to have everything covered so i wouldn't leave any hair dna anything like that um this is gonna make funniest thing is i used to be begun an unloaded BB gun. I knew I wasn't going to shoot anybody. I didn't want to hurt anybody. I know a guy that used a pellet gun and fired the pellet gun in the middle of the robbery. He said his adrenaline, he was yelling, people weren't getting down fast enough. He was, so I pulled the trigger, and it ricocheted off the ceiling and hit a woman in the, in the calf.

And she screamed, ah, I've been hit. And she falls down. And he said, he panics and runs out. the bay never got any money he's like oh my god i shot her it's like how did you think you shot or you had a pelican it's like i don't know i don't know it adrenaline i wasn't seeing straight you you can't think when you're doing that i mean it it all is a blur i mean it really is you know at that time i was 23 years old i've been watching point break you know i go in like a gangbuster got this gun devil mask i'm all hooked up i go over vault the counter just go straight over the counter

And start waving the gun around. I think I had a pillowcase at the time to put the money in. Fillies up with money, blah, blah, blah, blah. Did that jump back over the counter and was gone. Were you worried about die packs or anything like that? Not really. I had a friend of mine, one of the guys that I got in trouble with during the burglary, we had talked about doing a whole lot of things.

And his mom was actually a bank teller. Okay. So when we started getting into doing some of this kind of stuff, He started talking to his mom and asking questions to find out, you know, what was what. So we knew about what diapacks looked like. They're a little bit thicker and they're heavier than a regular stack of money. So I knew kind of how to identify them, but mostly I just wanted to see if I could do it, I think, at that point. So went in there, vaulted the counter, had him fill the bag up, got out.

That's, that, when you said tunnel vision, that was really about the best way to describe it. um when you start going in there that's your sole mission and in my mind you've got to get away yeah yeah so if there's a pile of shrubs or whatever out there you're going through that shit yeah um so you're going through over under yeah um yeah yeah no matter what uh and i've also come to the conclusion that fear will outrun anger yeah if somebody's mad at you and they're chasing you and you're scared of them you're probably going to run faster than they are because you're you're going to get that adrenaline going so what when you go in the bank i mean like like the it's just a bunch of tellers like they immediately just go in the drawers and just start handing over the money

right away like that nobody puts up a fight nobody says anything nobody just runs nothing they just they kind of stand there in shock oh they stand there in shock for a second so we kind of have to prod them along um you know tell them do it now you know right put it in here so because they'll just stand there in shock until you god and they're trained i mean they're like they're they're they're trained to don't give the guy any trouble just give them the money immediately it's not your money give it to them out of the bank like they wanted to get you out of the bank before something happens to us customer or right and that was one of the things that I found out from that friend of mine who talked to his mom was that they are trained to do whatever um in fact one of the ones that I did I carried

in a walkie talkie with me and I told them I said don't hit the alarm I got a police scanner I'll know if you do right I didn't know it until later after I got arrested and everything when I look at the paperwork, I found out that they did not hit the alarm. Right. They waited until I left and called 911. So if I would have gotten to do any more, if I would have had that knowledge, I would see if I could make them click like a chicken or something, you know, just something off the wall just to see. So you got the money and you're out of the bank. Out of the bank. We take off. We'd found a route that would get us quickly to another town. And her friend worked as a bartender in Appleby's. So we said, we'll get there as quick as

we can. Right. And then she'll swear we were there the whole time at Appleby's hanging out. So we did that and went and had a couple drinks just for appearances. And we went back out to the car and started looking at everything. What year was this in? 1995, November of 95. Right. Because there's no, it's not like there's cameras on everywhere. Right now, there's cameras just everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, they can walk around. They can do a small perimeter and find somewhere where they've got your tag number. Somebody, some, some business, someplace has a tag number or something. Yeah, but Back then, we didn't have to worry about that.

You know, they weren't even on the outside of the banks. So I had air pull right up to the front and drop me off at the door. So we got home and we went through the money and we had $5,000. Yeah, yeah. I heard that like the average bank robber gets $3,500. Like that's the average or something like that? It's not very high. No.

I mean, that was, that was, I heard that, by the way, I heard that before I even went to prison. I don't know if it's higher now, but $5,000. Yeah, got $5 grand. I was mad as hell. Not going to lie. I'm like, man, we just robbed a bank. We got $5,000. You're looking at, like, with a gun, because it doesn't matter that it's a pellet gun.

At that time, it did. Oh, it did? Yeah, the law had changed since then. Because it in, like, seven years, like minimum, you're getting set like $7. Just for a gun, yeah. Back at that time, it was just counted, I think, as a weapon. But it wasn't considered a firearm because it has to be propelled by an explosion. Right.

So, yeah, we're mad as hell. You know, we got $5,000. That goes pretty quick in any kind of world. and if you're partying it, it goes even quicker. Yeah. So a month to the day, a month, December 7th, 1995, we found another bank we were going to do. And this- Your girl's down. She is down for anything, bro.

That's, yep. She was. Because she's robbing the bank. She's probably thinking, no, no, I'm just driving the car. No. You're getting charged with bank robber, conspiracy to rob a bank. The way they've got it turned is a hand in one is a hand in all. Yeah.

So if you have anything to do with it, you're all the way in. But yeah, she was, she was as dumb as I was. So we ran through that party and, you know, just that's not an exciting story at all. So we found a second one and we went to do it and it was set up a little bit differently. So there was a big parking lot for a grocery store and a couple little stores beside it. And there was a couple of trees over there. So she was going to go parking the parking lot. And I was going to hit the bank and then go over to the parking lot and get in the car.

Went into this bank. Same way. I think I had a little bit of supervillain in me and wanted to be notorious. So I wore the same devil's mask as I did in the first one. Nice. So, yeah. Make sure there's a link. Right.

You got to do that. It does seem cool to have a theme, you know? It does. I wanted to be the Joker or something. In the movie, it seems. In the movie version, it's cool. But in reality, it's like, I really want to do this vastly different.

Right. They catch me for one. They got me for one. Yeah. Yeah. So. But I get it. I'd have done the same fucking thing.

Yeah. You know, so did that, went in, did the same exact way, had, you know, the mask, hoodie gloves, had the BB gun, vaulted the counter like I did before and jumped over the counter and told them to fill the bags up. They fill the suitcase or the pillowcase up. And I thought about that $5,000.

And I said, this ain't right. Where's, where's the big money? Where's, where's the other money? Well, as it turns out, the, the, they've got a top drawer, which is the till, like you'd have a grocery store or something. Yeah. There's a drawer underneath it. This got all the banded money where they can refill their drawer. So I was like, yeah, put all that in here too. So they put all that in there. I take off out of there and there was, as I run out the back door of the bank and go, this. way. I ran by the drive-thru. And there was a woman in the drive-thru sitting there gawking at me. So I ran up to her car and I tapped on the window. And I was like, you got to go. And she just looked at me and I said, go. And she beat feet out of there. I still don't know to this day if that's the person that followed us, but somebody followed us from the bank. Went back to a friend of mine's house that I was staying with at the time, dropped my car off and got her car, switched everything over, went to her house to do all the count of the money.

So we get back there and I took all the money into the bedroom and was sitting there starting to go through it and count it, had pencil and papers, I could write everything. Now, I'm all excited. You know, yeah, this is going to be a lot better than $5,000. Yeah. You know, and all that, I get started with it. It's a great big pile of bed and I'm all happy and whatnot. And she comes walking there and she's like, hey, baby, there's a cop car outside.

I was like, just one? She said, yeah. I said, okay, well, if it's just one, that's fine. And she said, uh, now there's two. Shit. You know? So. Well, sweetie, you're going to have to take this money and go out there and just admit what you did.

Yep. So, of course, being the, I'm going to put money on your books. I'll stay out here. I'll stay out here and take care of you. Exactly. Yep. So. we sit you know we're just sitting there stunned for a moment and her sister lived next door to us

it was family land and all that so we get a phone call and it's her sister and she's like there's people from the FBI over here saying that y'all robbed a bank and need to come outside which i already knew once once we knew there's two cops out there that's i know but you have to you have to admit like even when things were going wrong in my case there was still this little part in me that said it's a coincidence it's not they're not going to figure it out it's not like it's up right up until you hear the voice and they say it's like then it's just like this just makes it real it's so real it's like suddenly there's just at least before there was a one percent chance yeah that sliver well my philosophy when I planned these things was always that if I can get away from the bank you'll be all right

I'll be fine yeah but now you've got this money with bands on it and yeah that wasn't that didn't mess us up i mean oh okay there was i would think the bands could be tracked back to that bank or something like i mean i would think something i would be concerned like well we got caught on that one so yeah yeah no no that's what i mean i'm saying like if you're i thought you were trying to say that i figured even if they caught me when i was away from the bank i could still say that wasn't me but but not if they've got the bands on the money yeah no i'm still I got what you're saying. Okay.

Yeah. So, they asked you to politely come out. They ask us to politely come out. I go and look out the window and by that time there's like 10, 12 cop cars out there. And they're all behind their cars with guns out because they think we've got a gun because I had a BB gun. Yeah. So they think we're armed and dangerous.

And that's when I decided I wasn't ready to die yet, I wasn't going to run out there and a hail of bullets because that was my idea. It was, fuck it. I'm not going to let them take me alive. Yeah. that's that's a bunch of macho bullshit so what was it sundance uh what's the sundance kutch cassidy and sundance kid yeah it sounds it's beautiful it's a it's very romantic it is yeah yeah only if you get to leave the theater afterward definitely helps so we sit there for maybe three or four minutes and like what are we going to do what are we going to do well stupidly

we hide the hide the money and mask and everything under the bed and they'll never fight they'll never find it there right this is here when we got here we've been set up yeah right um so we we go out and surrender you know and that was really all we could do um they charged this with two banks um i got 63 months i guess so five years got into the federal system in 96 and it was a completely different federal system back then as two they were they were kind of phasing out the club fed days Right. You know, so it's still kind of sweet, but not as sweet as it was maybe five or ten years earlier. So that was the first time.

Yeah. didn't do much in there, really. Just, you know. Where'd you go? Spent most of it at Butner up in North Carolina. I signed up just to kind of break my time up to go to the drug program. And they sent me to Lexington, Kentucky for that. Was that art app? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. Yeah. It was, I'm not even sure if they called it Ardap back then, but it was something. Okay. It was, it was an intensive residential drug program.

All right. So I went up there, didn't like it, purposefully pretty much flunked out, just messed with the DTSs. And after we were like, yeah, get out here. So it went back to Butner and finished it up there. Got out, met a girl, got married, bought a house, was doing great. Everything's fantastic. for about seven years and i think it was that that memory of prison that kept me on the straight and narrow for a little while tried to build something and then one day about 2007 i was just like

this isn't what i want i'm leaving left her um gave her the house said i'm i'm out so i went off and that started a whole other spade of just partying all the time you know jumping into this relationships whatever i was good for 16 years and that's how long it stuck with me It stuck with me, I guess. And then I got into another situation with the girl. What were you doing for work at this time? Like warehouse work, menial general labor stuff, really. Like I said before, I always had a problem with the job

because I knew that they were just using me to make money for themselves and get themselves rich. And I always thought enough of myself to think, you should be the guy up there at the top that's... Then you got to work and work your way up there. You do. You really do. Or you hit the lottery or you have to have a rich family member.

Rich parents will help. But you don't have any of that and you work your way up. Yep. You got to work your way up. But at that time, I wasn't willing to do that. So I worked all jobs here and there, tried business ventures with friends and whatnot. But when you're partying all the time, that's your, that's your mission. You're not, you're doing this to be able to pay for partying.

Yeah. You know, so nothing ever went anywhere. I had good ideas and had a lot of people that supported what I was trying to do, but I didn't have the follow through and whatnot to be able to pull it together. Yeah, I've shot myself in the foot quite a few times too. Man, I'm telling you, dude, I'm like the world master of self-sabotage. And that's one of the things that I'm most aware of now of anything else is before I make any kind of big decisions, make myself stop and think about it for a minute. Do an RSA?

Huh? Do an RSA. Do an RSA. I can't even remember what it stands for. What is our rational self-analysis? Rational self-analysis. I remember doing those damn things all the time. Good Lord.

But that's what a lot of people need. You have to stop for a minute and think about what you're doing. Normal people do that. Like they don't necessarily need it. You know, fuck-ups need that. Like, I need that because I'll take the shortest route. But like a normal guy who's lived a good life and has and his thought processes are normal, he just naturally does it.

He doesn't understand how you came to your analysis of the situation, you know, because you immediately snap or I snap or I immediately say the first thing where these guys are a normal person's like, well, I want, I'm going to say this, but if I say this, this will happen, then that'll happen and that'll happen and this will happen. But if I do this, then this is that. And that's what I want to happen. So I'm going to do this. Yeah.

I don't do that. You know, well, I do now. But normally it's, fuck it. Let's, let's fake it. Let's change this. Let's fix this. Let's do this. Call so and so.

I'll verify the employee. Like, I immediately go fraud. I immediately think this is the easiest, quickest way to get what I want. And it's guaranteed. Yeah. Even though it's not. No. I think it is.

Yeah. It's the same thing. It's the way it works in your head. Yeah. One of the things that I always said to some of my guys in R-dap and stuff was if you worked as hard at trying to do something legitimate as you did at trying to do dirty shit. Yeah. Then you'd probably be successful at it because you work very hard to be in a criminal.

And you keep it. Yeah. And you get to keep it. Nobody gets to come along and take it. You don't have to look over your shoulder. You don't have to go to prison. You don't have to disappoint your family. none of that stuff so um so not all of that 16 years was a struggle there was some of it that

was good yeah but i still had this mindset of just i i really don't know how to explain it other than just being a negative angry person you know every little thing that would come my way that didn't go my way it was terrible and it would spiral into just being a miserable thing and i had this one girlfriend that i had after i after i left my wife we were together for about a year and on our final big breakup um she just kept taunting me she was trying to get me to hit her and she said you know what you're going to do you're going to die miserable alone and unhappy and man that shit hit me you know i was like damn you're not happy you're you're almost never happy something can always be better you always find something wrong with shit so that was one of the big things that i worked on you know

in the second time and i finally got it turned around but yeah a lot of people just like i said before you know there's two different kinds of people there's people who don't understand okay why don't you understand the hard work pays off i just don't think that way we don't think the same yeah so i trudged along and and and managed to survive but that's really all i was doing was surviving um being a taker like i said before you know just just um reaping the reaping the benefits of what my people who loved me had done and borrowing money and staying at couches and everything else um just being a user and to take her. All right. So I was living at my parents' house because they've got an RV and we're gone. And I met this girl and ended up moving her in with me and a couple of kids. And we ended up

having a child. And that's when everything really changed for me in a couple of ways. Because in the first way that it changed me was it made me want to be this good person, but I never wanted that much responsibility in my life as having a child. So it kind of drove me a little bit and same at the same time. And her and I fought constantly. We were together for five and a half years. And out of all that time, we probably actually lived together maybe a year and a half, two years. The rest of the time, we fought so much that I couldn't stay there. Right. We'd just fight all the time. Had all kinds of arguments constantly. The pressure being a dad, couldn't find a regular good job because I couldn't stop drinking long enough to be able. I think the last year that I was out,

I went through four jobs because I'd show up drunk. So, and they'd fire me. They don't like that. No, they tend not to. Yeah. So I was at a point where I didn't want to live anymore, you know, like we were talking about before, I told one of my best friends when I was 30 that if my next 30 was going to be like the first, I didn't want to live them.

I was just that miserable of a person inside and everything. So at 45, in the situation I was in, I was pretty much ready. to kill myself um i was just that low right but i had this daughter my only child and how can i do that to her you know um so in my mind i think i had to do something to dramatically change the course of my life um suicide wasn't going to be it didn't have any money screw it i'm going to rob banks again um threatened her with that a few times and then i find made good on it. I was like, you know, couldn't work, couldn't stop drinking, couldn't do any of that. Screw it. I'm going to go back to what I know. I did it back in 95, so I've learned

lessons from it. Right. Maybe I'll be better at it this time. So, um, started looking for banks. Found it. The first one I found was in my hometown and the layout was really good. I was doing it by myself i didn't have a driver this time so you know i made sure i did things like parked far enough away from the bank that cameras wouldn't see my car but you could still get to it but i could still get to it and there was some kind of sight line something breaking up the sight line you see what i'm saying so like so i get the other side of something and then go away yeah so the tellers don't run outside and say he was in a blue ford exactly yeah no tags no cameras no nothing just far enough away to where i get to it quickly because what i always figured when i was doing them was a minute a minute or less

door to door from the time i laid my door to the time i get back and that's about what it takes yeah um so i parked on another street and i remember when i was running to the bank um didn't have my mask on yet because i wasn't close enough and i just stopped and i stood there for a minute I was like, Justin, are you really going to do this? I was like, you're fucking A right, I am. And ran in there, didn't use a gun this time, didn't use anything. Still had a mask on, hoodie gloves, all that. I think I took a grocery bag because I didn't really care.

But having learned from the last one, I just went in there. I said, well, you don't have to say much when you go on with a mask and gloves in a bank. They kind of know what's already going on. So, but I'd go up with the bags and I would hand each of the tellers a bag. All these are small banks. I never went to anything because you don't want to have eight tellers that you've got to manage with one person. So I went in, I handed them bags. I said, fill them up with money.

I want the bottom drawers and the top drawers both. Got it. Yeah, yeah. Not just getting those top drawers again. Did that and said, don't give me any die packs and don't give me any tracers. Right. And at that point, they're still standing there looking at you kind of blank. So I was like, do it now.

now and that'd get them moving so while they're filling the bags up i do a loop around you know just spin around in the bank to make sure nobody else is making any kind of moves or anything right and i take off and you know seconds later i'm sprinting back to my car as hard as i can go jump in the car take off and go pass a cop on the way right he keeps on going i keep on going like okay i'm good i mean no like even though you didn't have a gun and you didn't make a threat you didn't anything, they just handed over the money. Yep. Okay. That's what they're trying to do.

No, I mean, I know guys have robbed them with bank. I mean, robbed people are with a note. But I also knew a guy who he said, he said, I have a weapon giving the money. And the woman said, let me see the weapon. And he's so he shows the weapon. And she's like, fuck. And she just, you know. She's a veteran.

Yeah. She's been robbed a few signs. four, maybe many times. Yeah, she was kind of like, let me see the weapon. You know, because he's got no math. He's like, hey, give me all the money in the thing. And she goes, let me see the, he goes, I got a weapon. She goes, let me see it.

And he's like, oh, okay, you're good. We're good. She's got bigger balls than half the convicts, I know. Oh, okay. So you, you're gone. Got out of there, called her and was like, meet me at a certain spot, handed her a band with $2,000. And she's like, oh, my God.

I didn't think you were really going to do it. it was like yeah i did yeah so ran around doing what i do you know party and doing all that for a while i think we've got 17 18 000 out of that one um that that other one where we got busted on before back into the 90s yeah how much was that um 22 okay 22 and some change so figured out that was the trick so yeah yeah that was half of my logic going into this with a foggy drunk brain is oh you can do it better this time you know what you're doing it so you're professional now i'm professional now yeah so did that got away fine scot-free um you know how money is if it's easy come it's easy go yeah so that shit went quick yeah um

so about another month later um ironically i went and hit the bank that i hit the very first time because it still had those three fences around it it still had the same setup so This time, because I didn't have a driver, I just pulled into the residential area behind the bank. It's the middle of the day. Everybody's at work. I just pulled in somebody's driveway. And there was a big enough hole in the privacy fence that I could squeeze through it. And I already scoped it out.

Busted in there, went in, no gun, no note. I didn't want to leave anything behind. Right. I didn't need a note. And like I said, when you got a mask and everything, they know what it is. So went in that one, did it. Went just fine. got away

20,000 or so off of that one. That was about average 20 to 22, 23. Ended up doing four before I got caught on the fourth one. How did that happen?

Somebody followed you? Yep. Oh, okay. Yep. And I heard about it from a guy in jail, actually. Well, I knew kind of what went on, but it was funny the way it happened.

I pulled out of the bank, went in, you know, about the same. kind of thing had the sight line broke up pulled out of the bank and took off and I was going to go up the road take a left and take another left and get on the highway so I go up here and I take a left

and I see this car behind me I'm like okay so I go up a little bit farther and I turn again and the car turns again as well so that's bad so I'm like okay I'm gonna keep an eye on for just another second and then I'm then I don't know what I'm gonna do but I'm

have to do something. Yeah. So I pull across the road instead of turning right. And as I pulled across the road, he came behind me. And that's, oh, shit, what am I going to do? Is this just a regular person or this is a police officer? Yeah, he was in a little Hyundai something or another. Came out of a pawn shop that was close by. And just happened to see you running or just happened to pick up on what was going on. Yep. I'm going to follow this dude. Yep. And call 911. So after I got across the highway and started going down the road, I had blue lights behind me. Yeah. I knew at that point it was over, so I panicked and tried to run and crashed. Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I just robbed a bank 45 seconds ago. Running from the cops is the least of my problem. Yeah, that's the least of my problems. So I get blue lights behind me, and I stomp on it and end up crashing into a tree. I was going to say, you know, that we talked about the typoics, I knew a guy who robbed a bank

with someone else like actually took a hostage to get them in the bank got a bunch of money put it in there it was a blue dye pack had it in they had it like in a bag and they were driving in like a stolen vehicle and he's like man we're going like 50 60 miles an hour and we're driving and the die pack goes off and he said you have no idea how much he said how much it blows apart he said blew apart and he said the windshield straight blue he so I'm I'm covered halfway in blue. He's covered all in blue. He said the windows are completely,

he said, we're literally driving, rolling the windows down, trying to look out. He said, it's that bad. He said, I finally had to stop and we ran. He's running down the street completely blue. Covered. Yeah.

Like it's, it was, he said, and he said, and it stains, and it was over. Yep. So I definitely, I can't imagine being driving, trying to outrun the police. Especially with all that adrenaline. I mean, it's,

it's so much adrenaline. Matt that it about makes you sick. I mean, you're ready to throw up just because it's that much adrenaline. You know guys, guys will throw up like they'll get into, I had a buddy who got into a fight and right after the fight, we were driving and he said, pull over, pulled over and puked.

It was just the adrenaline. It hits everybody differently. Yeah, and it will definitely do that. That's where the tunnel vision came from. I mean, I remember specifically after that first one running to get to her car and literally, I couldn't see anything in my peripheral vision. and it was all just right in front of me, what I've got to do right now. So the cops chase you,

you'll lose control and rack? Yeah, they started chasing me. I wasn't really going fast. I was trying to figure out what to do, trying to calm my mind down, because I still got the adrenaline just going. I'm like, you've got to stop and think. This person's following you.

What are you going to do? Blue lights behind me, shit, hit the gas, tried to make a turn that I knew I couldn't make. Right. But, you know, no matter how, badass anybody says they are when you're right in the middle of that shit it's hard to think so stomped on the gas tried to make a turn i couldn't make it was actually a little building

i crashed into crashed into the building cops come running up guns all that yeah whatever fuck off did you get you get out and or they drag you out or the car or did you get out and immediately just no he came over to me um i was sitting there like well i mean i i hit a building at like 45 miles an hour. Oh, okay. So you were in bad shape. Yeah. Well, I wasn't in bad shape, but I was stunned, you know, at least airbag popped, all that kind of stuff. So I'm just kind of sitting there. And he's, next thing I know, I got a gun on my face. Yeah. All that. So, um, yeah, my fear, you know, my fear to me that the whole out trying to outrun the police, you know, to me, I'm already thinking, well, eventually they're going to catch me. And

to the truth is I'm probably better off pulling over and trying to get out on my own because I may end up getting shot. You know, I, you know, these guys, they're adrenaline. is going. They think I've got a gun. If they think I've got a gun, then I end up getting shot. Right. You know, so to me, I mean, and I've known guys who have been chased by the cops in there, I literally like just hit the brakes,

hit the brakes, you know, pulled the emergency brake and jumped out of the car just as soon as it was done with their hands in the air, you know, and immediately dropped down on the ground because they were like, look, I mean, like, they'll shoot you in the car. Like, they can always say, I thought I saw a gun, I thought this. Some of the cops are super I don't want to use the word

vigilant, but they're just overly enthusiastic about possibly putting a bullet in somebody's head, you know, and you're, you just rock the bank. You're running for the police. He's in fear. You know, and he's just going to take advantage the situation, you know.

Not that all cops are bad, but sometimes you've got all you need is one dickhead end up with a fucking bullet in your head. And that's all it takes. And there's plenty of them out there. Yeah. Because, yeah. So did that.

was standing there, and one of the cops was really cool to me. He's like, you smoke? He said, you smoke? And I was like, yeah, he said, you want a cigarette for you, a jail? I was like, yeah, that'd be great. So I'm standing there. He moved the cuffs around to my front and gave me a cigarette, and I'm sitting there smoking it.

And something that my girlfriend had said to me earlier that day, she's like, just please come home to me today. And in my drunken, stupid mind, I'm like, I've got to get home to her. So I try to run. Oh, my God. What are you doing? I'm drunk. I'm not, you know, I'm drunk, adrenaline, whatever it is.

So I run up to this one cop and I knock him down. He rolls down a hill. I find out later he broke his freaking ankle. Oh, my God. So I'm like, they're just, they're going to crucify me. But I tell you what, Matt, when it all comes down to it, when I landed in that jail cell, I passed out for like hours. When I finally came to the first emotion that I really felt, was right it's over yeah now i can try to rebuild from here um it wasn't exactly relief but it was

there was a sense of i can't yeah yeah it's over destructive life like i was i've got to do something different um and that's where i started trying to live for my daughter and said okay you got to figure out a different way to do shit and this is your opportunity to do that so i got you know, jail was, jail was 10 times worse than it was in 95, 95, 96. There wasn't a lot of gang activity. The feds wasn't that big a thing back then. No, no, the feds were, they were still looking at basically bank robbery, mobsters, like, like more high, I don't want to say high brow, but, you know, more sophisticated types of crimes as opposed to now where it's basically almost like a state prison. Yeah.

It's a big state prison. It's just a big state prison. if they decide they want to get you for seven grams of coke or meth or whatever they're going to get you with seven grams and lock you up for 10 years yeah so the the the people that i met in prison the first time as opposed to the people that i met in prison the second time was so vastly different i remember when i got out the first time i one of the things that i said often was i met a higher caliber of person in prison than i did outside of prison um you know we knew guys in there that They were smuggling opium from Afghanistan.

You know, had another guy that was, he was on the run for seven years in Columbia before he finally got arrested and thrown in a Colombian prison and they extradited him. So it was just, I met a lot of good people under that time. This time was completely different. There was all the gang activity. There was all these people that run around just on dumb shit all the time. Were you in a medium or? I started out in the medium, yeah.

Okay. Started out at Beckley, West Virginia. Did you end up in a low? Ended up at a low at Ashland, Kentucky. Got nervous as hell because the first time I talked to my attorney, she's like, you know they're probably going to career criminal you over this. You didn't know what that was. I was like, okay, all I know is that means a shitload of time.

Yeah. So I was like, just flabbergasted. And I was like, well, she said, well, I got to check it out thoroughly to make sure, but you're looking like that. So, and you know how public defundated. are there they'll talk to you once every month or two maybe yeah yeah so I'm sitting here for weeks just bugging out thinking I'm going to prison for 20 years um as it turns out the way it works is that 15 years from the last time you were incarcerated for a crime right 15 years is the cutoff

for whether they're criminal oh okay so they can't use those crimes against you for the purpose of career criminal now I had five years of supervised release when I got out back in 2000 had I violated and gone back to prison for at any time for any amount of time it would have counted yeah and I would have been career criminal but because that didn't happen and like I said I did learn a little bit from the first one so I didn't use a weapon I didn't threaten anybody any of that um I got 45 months nice um I did a plea deal I had four banks I did a plea deal they dropped two of them in exchange for the guilty plea for two of them so I got counting for two bank robberies and got a 45 months in it did 35 months yeah and that was okay

so yeah I knew a guy who robbed a couple of or I think he robbed three banks with a with a note he got roughly basically like 30 I want to say 36 months might have been 40 months but roughly the same amount of time sounds about right I mean and when you tell people out in the feds that are just getting in and stuff they're like why the hell didn't I rob banks instead of selling drugs yeah or listen counterfeiting too is it's another one that you these guys that can counterfeit like they they tend to get very little time for something that to me has could have huge a huge potential as long as you're not using a weapon listen the moment you start using a weapon they have an issue with anything yeah with anything well see here's the thing about counterfeiting because of course you know at 23 i'm in prison i'm still fairly criminally minded right so i'm going through the sentencing guideline manual you know the book they used to yeah to decide and i'm looking for what's got the least amount of time and counterfeiting was it. But what I learned later on was that the feds will actually take it and

they'll count each bill as a charge. They can. They'll stack it. But if you take a plea, typically you can take a plea, you know what I'm saying? But if you, like, go to trial, oh, no, you're done. Like, that's just, now we have the opportunity to really just destroy you.

Like, we can give you 30 years. You could have taken three years. Now we're going to give you 30. Because you passed $500,000 worth of fucking money. like every dollar bill is is possibly a three-year charge yeah so um man um oh gosh gosh i talked to a guy the other day that actually chad um marks yeah he actually i think got 40 years he actually went to i mean he actually went to trial it's like you're guilty like what are you doing you're guilty he's like i thought this i thought that you know but yeah he got 40 years um for something that he probably

gotten you know 10 or 15 for something like that i don't know chad well but we've i've i've seen his his post on facebook a good bit he's very active in the in the in the in the community with trying to help people out now so yeah yeah he's he's he's and he's a nice guy like he's genuinely like well i talked to him before we we did the podcast for like 20 minutes and and just seems like a nice guy was telling me all the different things that he's doing and he's like look you know he got clemency or is i don't know it's it's it's i want to say clemen but it's I don't think it was it was basically what I think they modify the knock off time off your sentence they modify it so there's another name for it but right anyway um or was it the second chance act because of no no anyway whatever the point is is that he got out he did like 17 years and now he runs a legal he runs a consulting firm he also runs a um he also runs a what do they call it um it's like a legal he does legal work for for for people um he's doing some great work from everything I've seen because I've seen him getting some people off.

Yeah, well, he and this other guy that was on 60 minutes, like they've won like sorcery in front of the Supreme Court. Like they've done stuff that like career lawyers who've been doing it 20 years don't do. And these and he's doing great work. But then again, he also had 16 years to hone his craft or no 17 years to hone his craft. I mean, God's sakes. Yeah, because you have to find something to do with your time in there. Yeah. You know, it's one thing we obviously said.

I'm sure you've heard it. you know, everybody that's got their own way of doing time. Yeah. Some people, you know, go grab a Bible. Some people exercise. Some people do legal work and hang out in a law library all the time. Well, that's what I said was, you know, I didn't want to play. I didn't want to join a softball league.

You know, I didn't want to learn how to be a chef, you know, because they have the culinary arts. They had culinary arts. So I didn't want to be a chef or chef. I don't want to be, I didn't want to join a softball league. You know, I didn't want to play handball. I didn't, so I didn't want to learn to play the guitar. So, you know what I'm saying? There's like all these things that, but listen to her guys that are amazing in there.

That, like, let me play the guitar and you're like, oh, my God. Like, this guy is phenomenal and then they join bands and they're amazing. But, you know, I just started realizing, I started talking, like I would talk to someone like you, and you hear their story, maybe bits and pieces. And then one day you cut, maybe even you hear it in two hours, they tell you their whole story because they have plenty of time. So they drag it out. They tell you every little instant.

And by the end of it, like, if you, if you're, you know, like, if you're, If you can keep me, you know, like, wow. I mean, like, like, like Bozac, when I talked to him, we talked for like two hours or so in the cafeteria. And I mean, like at the end of it, I was like, bro, we got to, you got to write this down. Like, we got to do something with this. What can we do with this? This is a great story. It's the same thing.

And then, you know, the problem is you meet so many guys like that, but nobody can write their stories. Like, they can't write their stories. It's very difficult to write your own. You wrote your own story. It is. You know it's hard. It's tough. It's hard to see.

you as you truly are. So what happens is people write their stories, they become like a, like a superhero. And it's like, but that's not really you. Right. Like as I was writing my story, I kind of started to realize, I'm a dickhead. Like this is not really, if I had to rewrite it multiple times to kind of go back and realize, you know, you made yourself sound like a supervillain, but the truth is, you know, this was stupid. You're dickhead here. You don't mention that you were scared to death. And that's what I was about to come out of my mouth was I was scared death the whole fucking time. Yeah. Um, yeah, but the amount of talent in there is amazing. I met so many talented people in there, charismatic, good people. You know, they just, they're wired differently.

Yeah. And we know, Boziac and I were talking about this the other day. Boziac's a guy that I do, um, uh, others, I do, uh, other podcasts with us. And we were talking about, we were answering questions and one of them was like, what programs would be good. And we talked about Ardap. He and I had talked about Ardap. He and I had talked about Ardap. But the problem is like because recidivism is ridiculous like that it's through the roof and well but you're you're so set up to fail when you get out yeah and and i'm not saying that a lot of these guys aren't they're just not putting enough effort in um but also like there's no one i think everybody should have to take an ardap tile either programmed something inside or out i mean you could scale down art app so that it was

just about behavior modification because a lot of it's just art app really all 95% of it is behavior modification so some type of a program like that there should be more of an incentive to take the program and pass it you know a year okay but you go through hell for that year and if you could you could give everybody that year and then people go to art app maybe they get two years so there should be more of an incentive and then when people get out like I got lucky I got out I had like three four hundred dollars to my name right so I had a little bit of money only because I wrote books and I got lucky and was able to actually get a book deal, a couple book deals while I was incarcerated. And I was a part of an option of one of my books. So that money was basically

gone by the time I got out. Sure. Luckily, while I was incarcerated after going to Walmart and spending $300 of my money that I paid, you know, of my own money, luckily a few weeks later, the option hit again. And I got a nice little chunk of money. I was able to buy a a new, a Jeep, and, you know, and get a year's worth of insurance and had enough money. I remember I had $1,000 left over and I thought this $1,000 I'm putting it aside in case anything breaks on the cheap. But I saw so many people would go. They have, their family would come in. They would give them a bunch of money.

They would, you know, they would, they would help them. They'd come visit them. They've got a place to stay. They've got everything. And with their first paycheck, they're buying a $150 pair of Nikes. Yep. And it's like, your family gave you a chunk of money. Your brother-in-law got you a job.

You were everybody pulled together. And with the first bit of money you got, you spend it on a $150 pair of fucking Nikes. You're coming straight back to prison. And they do because their mindset is, I still want to be a baller. I still want to impress anybody. I still want, as I cry broke all the time. Everything I've bought, do you know, I don't think I bought, no, that's not true. That's not true.

The only thing I don't buy at Ross or Marshalls, the only thing I don't buy is these t-shirts, because I buy these t-shirts at Target, because I really like the way they fit, and you can get two for, I think, $26. So they're like $13 a piece. To me, that's a lot of money for a T-shirt. Everything I buy is at Ross, Marshalls, Bells, everything. I'm exactly the same way. If you gave me a million dollars right now, I can't imagine spending.

I used to buy blue jeans that were two, three hundred bucks for a pair of blue jeans. I still have blue jeans. I still have blue jeans that I bought in Walmart three years ago. And I'm glad. Yeah. I mean, I was actually, when I was riding down here, I had everybody come with me. And we were talking, you know, just about your story a little bit and stuff. And one of the things that occurred to me, I was like, I wonder how that is to live the way you lived, you know, you had an exorbitant amount of money.

And then to get out here and not have that, it had to be kind of tough. It's, and you know, I get it. It would be different if it was, the difference is it's not like I was still out and lost it. Right. When I went to prison, you know, that, so by the time 13 years goes by and you get out of prison after 13 years of me, all the money I use, I spent on Core Links so I could write. stories, print them out, email them to people to put into Word, and then send them back. Like, I had a whole process down. Right.

So, I'm eating, I'm eating soups. I'm eating every meal, every meal I ate at the Chow Hall. Yeah. And, you know, look, some of those meals are good. Some are good meals. Hey. Some are horrible. Some are horrible.

But, you know, listen. It'll fill you up. Yeah, you'll stay a lie. You can be fine. Yeah. Didn't go to commissary a lot. And when I did, I bought coffee or creamer. I taught the real estate class.

So guys would give me coffee and creamer for, I hustled certificates. Ah, yeah. But getting out here, I think after going through ARDAP and being so humbled that, and even now I get out and I have those moments where I want to buy a new vehicle. And I can afford that. And it's like, bro, what are you doing? you've got a brand new car like I bought a I got a little Jeep compass it's to me I would say it's a chick's Jeep I got a little chick jeep everything works the AC works the the the brakes work the it's got Bluetooth that's magic to me isn't it everything so so I just have to keep telling

being trying to be humble and you could ask my girlfriend it's hard she's constantly looking at me I'll say something and she'll look at me and I'll be like fuck like you're right you have to be thankful and humble and I have to remind myself over and over and over again to do it. Yep. Because naturally, I, you know, naturally I want to be driving. I want to drive a, I want to drive a $100,000 car. I want to live in a half a million dollar house, which in Florida is a million dollar house anywhere else. I was going to say in Florida, that's a shack, isn't it?

No, no, in Florida, half a million dollars, that's like a million, money goes far in Florida. Really? Yeah, as long as you're not on the coast. Look, you saw what we are. Like this house No, I get that It's probably worth I think these things

This is selling for like This is like a $300,000 dollar house Okay But bro, this house is huge It's a year and a half old Okay Now, you know, somewhere else In California it's probably worth $2 million

Right So I'm saying, you know I just have to constantly be humble And try and be thankful For what I have And I think that's something That prison and Ardap Put into me

Because I had a friend named Pete who used to say, and everybody's heard me say this, you know, you cannot go to prison with the same mindset that you had prior to prison, go through prison and get out with those same thought patterns and not expect to go back to prison. You really can't. Right.

I mean, we were talking about that earlier. You know, definition of insanity. Yeah, yeah. Keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Right, but it's the same thing. Look, you drank that whole time. You happen to stay straight,

but only out of the fear of going to prison. and then you finally got to that point, same, same issue you had before, start robbing banks, go right back to prison. I mean, what did you expect? Of course you're going to go back to prison. Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed in my mindset. Nothing had changed in my personality. And, you know, it goes back to what I was talking about with recovery until you're ready to do that.

Right. And whatever it takes to get you to that place where you're ready to do that, you're not going to do it. So, well, so you're, but now you got out, you're starting, you've started it, but you've started it, but. You're still doing the groundwork for a reentry program, Phoenix Reentry. Yeah. Is that the exact name? Phoenix. Phoenix Reentry Resources is actually what it is. When we were in Ardap, I don't know if you guys had to do this or not, but you had to be a part of a committee.

Of course. Of course. So I had a friend of mine, let me tell you a quick story about Ardap right quick, because you were talking about how you kept dropping out of Ardap or something. Yeah, I dropped out twice. Okay. So let me tell you how I got into Ardap, because. because I was in for robbing banks, no matter whether I used a gun or not, it was considered a violent offense.

They don't want to give you one year off? They wouldn't give me my one year off. So I'd been at Beckley for about two years, and my custody level dropped to a low. So they put me in for a low, and when I got designated, they designated me for Oakdale, Louisiana. It was SCI, Oakdale. I was like, where the hell is Oakdale? I had to look it up and find out it was in Louisiana. So they got me designated to go there.

I talked to my mom. She's like, Justin, that's 800 miles away. Yeah. We're not going to be able to bring your daughter to see you.

Yeah. You're going to miss that. So I'm sitting here brainstorming. You know, I'm talking to everybody. They're like, well,

if you get a shot, it'll kill your transfer, blah, blah, blah, I'm like, eh. The ARDAP coordinators have almost as much

power as the wardens. Right. And the one that we had, um, at Beckley, I had interactions with him. He seemed like he was one of the only people there that at least acted like he cared whether he did or not he acted like it right so i snagged

him going across the compound one day and i said look and i went and basically fed him this whole line about family acceptance and whatever blah blah i need to be in our dap i need to be in this ardap whatever he starts getting on the phone and making arrangements to get me into ardap and it ended up the the morning one monday morning i was on the call out to go to R&D to pack out to go to Oakdale and I was on the call out to go over to move to the to the RDAP building so everybody's kind of freaking out a little bit figuring out what to do with me this guy stayed on the phone all day to get me to be able to stay in that RDAP program so I just thought it was funny when you were talking about that earlier I meant to mention that but uh no no you're it's the

same thing you're lucky to end up on a bus man you ain't even kidding you ain't even kidding because I very seldom do they stop a transfer they have to make the phone you know they have to they have to go to um shoot what is it um grand prairie grand prairie thank you they got to go to bring grand prairie you get somebody even on the phone there is hard for even for them so you got lucky but that was the same thing i was supposed to be transferred it hadn't gone through right they were saying we're going to transfer you and i said oh no no i'm going an art app can't do that so i go over there immediately talked to dr smith was the phd woman that runs the program you You know, the word that you're saying, their coordinator, you're calling it.

Yeah, they call it DAPC. Right, yeah, Dapsie. So, we threw out RSA and did the same thing to me. I was like, RSA, I ain't heard that shit in a while. So same thing. She got me in there. And then, of course, six, seven months later, I drop out again. Yeah.

And she just, no, because she thinks I'm there because I want the one year. I never told anybody, right? I mean, like my buddy Pete knows. I drop out because I figure I got the, I've got a management variable on me. You can't move me now. It's good for a year. six, no, about three months later, they called me and they go, okay, we're going to transfer you. And I went to a camp because I had like, listen, when I went to the medium, I had like,

I had like three points. I don't have any violence at all. It kind of surprised me when I heard you were even at a medium. Well, because I had 26 years. Okay. The time. Right. So I was like, what are you talking about?

You know, I was like, no, no, I got a management variable. She said, I know, but they're pushing people to go to camps. And so I'm going to call and have it removed. And I'm like, I didn't know it was that easy. Like, you guys made it sound like you couldn't remove it. And they were like, well, I mean, in this case, man, we got to be people to camps. You should have never. You should never have been in the medium.

You shouldn't even be here. And I was like, you know, you're as soft as cotton. No. You got your female counselor telling you, my God. And I was like, I was like, we can't do that. And she was, I said, I'm supposed to go back to Ardap. She goes, you are? And I was like, yeah.

I said, I've already had a meeting with Dr. Smith. And she said, next, she goes, when? I go like next week. And she goes, oh, gosh, okay, well, I'll hold off then. I won't put it in right now. So hopefully you'll be on the call out next week. I said, yeah, definitely, immediately go back and send an email. Yeah.

And sure enough, luckily a week later, I did get a meeting. She said, okay, no problem. And a week later, she put me back in. But it was the same thing, transfer. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that you learn in there is, is you've got to work, you've got to work the system as much as you can. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, they're not looking out for you. No, not at all. It's a terrible whole system. I don't know if you have seen all the news stuff lately. It's just been. Oh, what? With COVID? So much going on with the BOP and.

Oh, they're falling apart. Oh, they are. And you know, they can't. My buddy Pete, who said literally, he's like the most senior CEO, a correctional officer, the most senior, you try and use the correct. I want to say cop, you know what I'm saying? Because the inmates say cop, you know, oh, yeah, the cops over here, the cop. So the most senior correctional officer on the compound at the low is, has 18 months.

You have to think the most senior before would have 20 years, you know, there'd be five or 10 guys that have, you know, 15 and 20 years there. Now the most senior ones, 18 months. He's like, literally, we're telling the counselors how things work. This is what you do. and they'll come to them and say hey man this is what's going on what like I'm not even sure

you know like I don't even know what and he's like well fuck if you try this did you call so and so did yeah yeah I'll do that yeah that's a good idea it's like Jesus God almighty you know you got inmates there have been there 25 30 years and they're like they know the whole place they could run the whole place practically

they could use a computer but that's how bad it is like and the the budget is they're being crushed by the budget and they have no budget they have this this nobody wants to work there that the guys are getting set like the the CEOs are getting are getting are getting COVID and then getting it again and then getting it again and then quitting their job like I'm done because it's so it's just everywhere in there it's so you know

not that it's dirty because Coleman was super clean but the fact is right how do you get rid of staff when you've got 180 guys living together you can wipe that place down every single day with peroxide or or or bleach or whatever you want to wipe it down with, you've got 180 guys. You just can't get rid of the staff. You just can't, you know, the showers, you know, it's moist. There's the, no, you know, it's like, you know, where's that? There's no, there's really no happy medium between keeping them in from escaping and being

able to have showers and toilets and sleeping in bunk beds. And, you know, it's just, people just aren't meant to live like that. So it's a problem. No, and I kept up with a handful of guys that I was in there with, you know, some in the RDAF, whatever. And there was guys in there that didn't go outside for a year and a half. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You know, did not go outside. Yeah. You know, they're on lockdown all the time. The short staffing thing is making them basically because the one thing that was ubiquitous all the way across the BOP that I saw was nobody really wanted to do any work. Yeah. CEO wise. You go ask them to do something

And that pisses them off They didn't get a job They didn't get a job as a CEO Because they wanted to change the system Clean up Like I'll talk to cops who'll say You know I genuinely when I got hired Wanted to make a difference

Like I really thought You get a CEO job You're like I'm trying to kick back And make my 80 or $100,000 With some overtime Yep I don't want to do any work I don't want to do any work

Right So yeah and So they Now they put everybody on lockdown Like on the regular you know just for no particular reason y'all are getting a lot down for the next week two weeks

I mean because at this point this is they're still able to use COVID as an excuse and you know this is the thing whenever I talk about prison is that you know the truth is that I know a lot of guys get in there and they hate on the COs and they hate on the you know

but the truth is it's like listen like I probably I met one or two people who are in prison who probably should shouldn't have been there. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I've met five or six that shouldn't have been there for something. Now, almost everybody across the board shouldn't have gotten the time they got. Like it's insane the time. Like, you know, okay, you broke the law. You fucked up. You need five years. But they gave you 30. Your first offense. Right. Even their second offense for something that's always minor. It's like, are you sick? So you had a gun that was at your house five miles away and they enhanced you because they found a gun when they searched your house that you didn't bring to the drug thing. And now you got 15. years because yeah it's like holy shit like you know it's it's there's there's all kinds of

reasons but you know the the truth is is that look 95% of the guys that are locked up like I don't want to live in my neighborhood you know they're just they're and not so much because not because they're criminals or they did something wrong but because they're in there and like we talked about they're they're just plotting their next indictment and to me, but also by the same token, the best people I've ever met in my life I met in federal prison. So you know what I'm saying?

Like, where's that? Like, and that to me has to be there need to be programs. And these guys are going to fuck them up. They're going to fuck them up. Yeah, they're not, there isn't any government system that's going to work to try to fix this.

No, but just like Ardap, look, it doesn't matter that you're right, half the guy, or 80% of the guys might be faking their way out. But to save the 20% is still, save so much for overall it saves the taxpayer so much money they don't if you do the math that program more than pays for itself and it saves the taxpayer so much money absolutely and what would save the taxpayer even more money is if these people had some way to get themselves back into society

in a decent way because the truth is and this is what I was going to get at and this is me just being a fucking narcissist is that most guys are not going to have the savvy to set themselves up to be able to get themselves back on their feet even with the halfway house because the staff at the halfway house

doesn't want to help you they're making $10 an hour they don't give a shit they hate you and they just hate it like they're doing everything to want to fucking make it as hard as possible dude I had a dude made a statement and said that I hit him

that I punched him right a halfway house staff well I cussed at him a little bit because he took my phone everybody had smart phones you're right everybody he took mine and he showed me where they put the rest of the phones and we came out of there and I was cussing him you know I was mad right to my brand new phone and uh

so are you not allowed to have it when you were there no the the policy was that you could have a phone that couldn't get internet yeah I mean it's just stupid it's just stupid it's like what are you doing yeah why you're gonna try to get us back in the community, but you're not going to give us any access to be able to do it. I can't have my laptop. I can't have a smartphone or an iPhone or a cell phone or smart, whatever you want to call it. I can't have any of that stuff. I can't have access to this. It's the, the halfway house is worse than being in prison.

To me it was. It was more, they were on me more. If you're not mentally prepared for it, you're right. You're right. Because it is, it's them giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Right. It's what they're doing. It's a test, pretty much. but yeah this guy accused me a hitting him so I get called up there by the head of the halfway house I don't know what they're called

so for the next 10 hours I'm like shit I'm going back to jail because this son of a bitch lied on me and I said they're bugging out 12 15 hours later within 24 hours he recanted his statement got to keep working there the whole rest of the time everything

I'm like you try to get me sent back to prison you get to keep your fucking job yeah yeah So probably because there was a camera, probably because somebody else wouldn't back up a statement, not because he felt bad, but probably just because there was a reason he recanted his statement. You know, where did you get hit? Where is it on the camera? Where were you standing? Okay, then the camera should have gotten.

Or we talked to so-and-so. He said he didn't hit you. Or, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it is a fucked up situation. He had to. But anyway, that's the kind of people we have to deal with in there. And it's the same way in prison. Guards are the same way.

I mean, they know that you're disadvantaged. They have almost complete power over you. So they take advantage of that. And they use it there. Whatever they want to do to you, they can pretty much do. Yeah. So, but you're absolutely right. There's a lot of people in there that, that have tried to go through that change of mind like you and I've had, you know, because obviously you went through it too.

You got in there and I can't do this shit anymore. Yeah. Let me live different. When you talk about the resourcefulness to be able to get, to get their plan together and everything else, they might be able to do that. but the resources aren't really there for them to do that. All right. You know, you can't even get a resume typed up in Word document or anything. You've got to use a typewriter and put it on paper.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you want to learn anything besides plumbing or construction, you're just shit out of luck. You can't get any of that stuff. So, but I believe that prison is a place that you're taking a time out. And if you're going to be able to get through to somebody and help them change their lives, that's the place to be able to do it because their life's pretty much on pause.

So when I was in ARDAP and I helped my buddy squirrel out and that was when the light went on for me and I said, I want to help these people that are in there that want to do better but they don't really have the resources to be able to do it. So when I got out, almost immediately

when I got out, I started brainstorming about doing a reentry organization specifically for the feds. I took about a month off when I first got out and just kind of got acclimated. I was fortunate enough. My parents were like, you know, come stay with us and we'll try this again, you know, whatever.

And so I took a minute and I went up to a temp agency, I remember, because they said, yeah, we got a job. It's okay that you got a felony. We'll get you into the job and everything. I get up there and they pull up my background and they're like, oh, no, we can't hire you. I was like, okay, well, that's fair enough. You know, they were nice about it and everything. So I go to drive away and they called me and they said, you need to call this person.

at the Justice Resource Center and said they work in a reentry division as soon as i heard reentry i was like really okay so i called i didn't get that person i got another another person that her and i sit there on the phone for like 45 minutes talking about reentry stuff um and that led me down she ended up getting me a job but that led me down the path and introduced me to the whole reentry and recovery community up there in ashville right and uh she told me she said you need to become a peer support specialist. And without even asking what it was, I knew what it was. And she told me it's somebody who uses their lived experience to be able to help others who are struggling with, you know, either substance abuse or mental health challenges or whatever. I came up with the idea of a

phoenix one day when I was walking around the track in prison and I was like, that's what I want to be. I want to be like a phoenix. You know, I'm born 45 years of my life up. I want to rise up out of these ashes and do something with myself. So I came up with the Phoenix idea. I had these five or six guys that I still talked to on the inside. So I started up a newsletter and just started working on putting the pieces together. You know, I don't know anything about business. I don't know anything about any of it. So it's, it's taken a lot longer than it would for somebody else. But I've been out for two years, June 26th, and I've been working on this since I've been out. It's the longest project that I've ever worked on. It's the hardest that I've ever worked on anything.

And it's not, bro, that's not like, like what you're talking about doing is not easy. No. You know what I'm saying? It's not like you're, so it's, it's, it's a lot of struggle with very little payoff. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, until you, you reach that finish line. And even then it'll be a struggle. Yeah. I mean, I'm like, I've got a lot going on right now. So I'm, I'm, I'm war out. But I know that if I push to the end of the. this, it's going to be, it's going to work. Right. It's going to. Um, there's a huge gap. I mean, we had a, we had a book at Beckley that was like that thick of reentry resources. I sent out like 20 letters. How many I got back? Zero. Everything they've got is outdated. Everything that

they've got is broken. And they really don't care. Not that I'm concerned about. Did you guys have the computers? They had these reentry computers. You go to the library, you get on this reentry computer, you could pull up supposedly resources. None of them are hooked to the internet. Yeah. So none of them are updated. It's useless. So what are the people doing there that really want to try to do something?

If you're good and resourceful, you can find resources, but it'd be a lot better if they were available to them. Well, you know what's interesting now and now because of the COVID and stuff? Like all, even all the stuff that is you could kind of manipulate to help you in some way, like getting a resume or something. that none of that's available now no so now you're in even a worse position to get out of prison now you're really screwed and you get and in the halfway house like okay how much time do i get in halfway house people are like oh it's great you get to work and live there for free they're

taken 30 percent of what i make yep they're there plus you're paying your taxes so you end up you're basically working for less than half um yeah because they take that 30 percent off you're gross not right right so i'm working for less than half so if i'm making you know whatever you're making 15 bucks an hour you're working for a lot now you're working for about six bucks an hour seven bucks an hour if you're lucky and so you know you're trying to save that you're trying to drive the but even after i got a vehicle they wouldn't let me park it in the parking lot that took another two weeks so i had to have my buddy drive take keep my vehicle at his at his gym for a couple weeks like a vehicle sit in the parking lot for two weeks do you think that that's not an opportunity

for somebody to steal the vehicle i don't i have p i p i don't have liability my car it's stolen, I'm done. It's not financed. I couldn't get financing because I wasn't allowed to get financing because I had to get permission to get financing. They said, no, you can't get financing. You're in the halfway house. We're not allowing you to get financing. How am I supposed to buy a vehicle? Ask your family. My family's not helping me. They don't have money to help their convict brother who just got out of prison and lives in a halfway house. Like, who would help me? Right. You know, like where are you going to stay? You can stay with your mother my mother lives in a retirement community i can't stay with my mother like there are you know

i'm saying like there was i was in a really bad spot i got lucky that an ex-girlfriend took pity on me and said you can live in my spare room and then when i was like i can't do that i'm not going to do that to you i'm not going to do that to you know she was she was like no no you'd be helping me you'd be helping me as like i'm not helping you right i'm paying you like 600 bucks a a month and you're throwing in food. I'm going to eat you out of the out of that 600 I care and fucking tea it. You know, it got, listen, it got so bad. She finally came to me after a month or two and she's like, listen, I wasn't anticipating coffee. You drink a lot of coffee. And I was like, I was like, well, how much? I'll pay it. I'll pay it. But it was the same thing. When my car

broke down on probation, my car broke down. I live like four miles to a bus stop. I'm not saying And I can't walk that in the mind. I could take an hour and walk that. I could get dropped off there and walk back. That's like a couple hours. Assuming the buses run on time, I could drive the bus for another hour and a half to where I worked. That's fine. I could spend an extra five hours a day so that I could go work eight hours.

I could do that. You're right. It's not impossible. But I'll tell you what it doesn't do. It doesn't make me not want to commit fraud. So the fact is, when my vehicle broke down and I went to. to my probation officer, and I had $1,000 that I could get a new vehicle for. She said, you can't finance anything.

And I was like, why? She said, well, you have a financial crime, and we don't feel comfortable letting you finance anything. And I was like, I said, I don't have a car. She's always going to figure something out. I said, I don't have anything to figure out. My figuring it out is let me go buy a brand new vehicle, which I can afford because I have the pay stubs for.

And luckily, I didn't listen to you people. And I went and got three credit cards when I was in the halfway house, which were, which I, you know, I got secured credit cards because I knew this moment was going to come something. So luckily, I didn't listen to you and I can do it, but you have to give me permission. We argued for two weeks before she finally said, I'll let you spend $300 a month on a new vehicle. I said, then I'll have to get a used vehicle. She said, then you get a used vehicle. I said, but don't you understand?

If anything goes wrong with the used vehicle, I don't have the money to pay for the repairs. If I get a new vehicle, I at least get a bumper-to-bumper warranty. I don't, I'm not trying to buy, get a brand new Lexus or a Lamborghini or something or a Porsche. I'm trying to get the cheapest bumper to bumper I could get, which was my Jeep. Right. And so literally, when I came back, I was a lot of spent 300 bucks. I spent 375 bucks. She was furious, furious.

And I was like, and I was just gambling that she wasn't going to violate me for an extra 75 bucks. But she could have. She could have. Absolutely. So I'm saying everything is against you. Yeah. I mean, you can't get, people don't want to rent to you if you've got felonies. Oh, yeah. That list that they put out in prison of all these companies that hire felons. Yeah, they'll hire a felon if it's 7, 10, 15 years old, but they're not hiring you straight out of prison.

It's not going to happen. Yeah. So, well, look, I mean, you know, it's obvious. The government's felon us in a lot of ways. Right. You know, look, here's the problem. It's that could you make it? You could make it, but it would take someone who is extremely resourceful,

manipulative, and someone that is super humble and super appreciative. I mean, you would have to change your mindset so fundamentally. And the truth is, by the time you get out of prison, you're probably pretty fucked up. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some of that, yeah. Right. So if you haven't had some kind of a life-altering experience, prison to get you your head right, you got a long road ahead of you.

And probably you're just going to get re-incarcerated. I mean, the way it works now, you almost have to be like the perfect candidate to turn your life around to be able to really do it. Right. You know, all those things you said, resourceful, smart, driven, humble, all those things have to be there. But there's a lot of people that are falling through to cracks just because it's so freaking hard to do.

Not a lot of it, bro. it's it's what is recidivism that's a massive that's not cracks that's people falling into a swimming pool then there's like it's like it's not like a little there's it it's really a few people the people that are falling through the cracks are the ones that are succeeding because almost nobody succeeds right if you look at recidivism it's it's fucking outrageous it's nuts absolutely it is and i've seen people who have gotten out who seem like they were going to do the right thing they were going to do the right thing and then one or two things go wrong and the next thing you know they're like

they're in such a jam and what do they do they go they rob a bank or they do something like I know guys that rob banks while they were in the halfway house yeah I know within a few months yeah I've heard of that I know guys we Jess and I knew a guy that literally was telling people in the halfway house that he was going to start he was going to do heroin

he's like I don't know how long I'll be on supervised release he is because I mean I'm going to go back to heroin I mean I just I love it and I this and I that he died a year later year later we got she got notified by a mutual friend that said hey remember so and so yeah boom here's his obituary it's you know he didn't have nobody ever talked to him right he got in trouble for like stealing it using company credit card he ended up getting like 14 months or something ridiculous didn't go to ardap didn't get this didn't get that got three months a halfway

house put him back home he's back on fucking heroin boom he's dead yep i'm not saying that's the bop's fault or anybody's fault but his own, but I'm saying you could have certainly, oh, and by the way, this guy, he was an engineer. So he made over $100,000 a year. He had a, it's not like he was a guy that didn't, didn't contribute a lot to society. This was an upstanding guy. Yeah. I've met guys from NASA. I've met lawyers. I've met doctors. I've met all kinds of super smart guys that end up in federal prison because they just, they did something slightly stupid that in another country would have probably just gotten your probation. Yeah.

Said they get five years, 10 years. They get back out. Everybody's left them. It's over. They're rebuilding their whole life. Yeah. Got to rebuild your whole life. I mean, and it's true.

It's, I think what I meant was you've got a, there's a good portion of them now, I think, that they don't know any other way. Yeah. You know, so you have to start at a fundamental level of retraining them how to live. Yeah. And I think I never want to leave anybody behind, but certainly there's some people in there that are trying that are trying a little harder than others. You know what I mean? They're really trying to do something with themselves while they're in there.

And then you've got others that they jump in there and they jump straight into the dope game in there. Yeah. Because a lot of people that haven't been in prison, they don't understand. It's just like in society in there. It's just like it is out here. You can't have booze unless you can get it smuggled in. you know yeah um those kind of things but it's just a regular society so people jump into it there they never they never leave that they're not ready to move on from that mindset i guess is what i'm

getting at so but the people that are they're still hard pressed for resources they're hard press for there is no planning going into them getting out yeah um like you said the halfway house doesn't really do anything yeah the advice of the halfway house and probation officer my probation officer or my advice to, you know, reacclamating myself to society was you're a smart guy, you'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. Like, okay. Yeah, and I'll admit, I'm probably smarter than the average bear.

But what about the average bear? What about the average bear? Yeah, you're saying, like, what do you know? Like, and luckily, for me, I didn't, I don't think much about that because I'm solely thinking about myself. But now that things are going okay, now it's like, well, no wonder the average guy keeps coming back. And that's why.

You're saying figure it out. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Um, my probation officer was awesome. Uh, she came out the first time she told me, she said, look, I'm not here to try to set you up. I'm not going to try to surprise you and trap you unless you give me a reason to. I want to see you succeed. And by every count, her and I had a great relationship all the way through it.

So I think the, and I've dealt with state probation officers too. And, and there seemed to be a little bit of a difference there, you know, to me. Um, but so anyway, while I was in our DAP, and I was able to help people. I was actually a senior guide through the last three months and then they asked me to stay over as a mentor and teach classes.

So I stayed over and taught classes and that was just what I had a passion for. You know, I always had a problem with a regular job before in a corporation or something trying to make somebody else rich. Here's something I can do and actually contribute to society and help.

So let me look at going that path. I got out, I got a job at some plastic injection molding and whatnot, worked on getting my peer support specialist, did the work, went an intern for for Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness, which is where I work now, and did some volunteer work for them and got an opportunity to go to work full-time for them. And I tell you what, the difference that it made when I went from that corporate, you know, whatever job to this job was monumental. I mean, it was, you're not going to make somebody rich now. You're going to try

to help people. Right. And that just made me happy in a way that I'd never, never had before. And that fueled me just pushing harder on Phoenix because I want to be able to help the guys in there. And I know enough about how the system works to, to possibly be able to really do that. So I brainstormed with a bunch of people. I've talked to a lot of people on Facebook and connected with groups, you know, from people

from fam and a couple of the other groups that are out there. and I've got a newsletter that goes in to the federal prison. But the project that I'm really excited about is Sunrise is the company that I work for. They're a peer-led organization, which means that it's all peer support specialists that run it. It's all people with this lived experience. So the person who's struggling, they're able to relate to that person because they've kind of been there. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's not somebody with a doctorate degree that's never been struggled for anything.

thing telling them what's what and they're not going to believe them. So you get a better chance to connect with them. There are these peer led organizations all over the country. So what I'm working on doing is building a database of peer led organizations and the contacts with the people there in every city that's got a halfway house. Right. So wherever there's a halfway house, I'm in contact with these guys in prison. I can put them in touch with a person with a phone number at this peer-led organization when they get to the halfway house, okay? Then they've got a local access

to the resources and everything. They've got somebody that they can connect with and understand because they've been there. They'll know about jobs. They'll know about all the resources that are available to them. Right. Basically what the halfway house is supposed to be doing,

but they don't. Yeah, yeah. So it's plugging them into that network. And the other big thing that it does is, you know, when you get out of prison, you're like, okay, what are I going to do now? A lot of people just fall back to their old friends, their old ways, which puts them right back in the same thing. They get out and get introduced to this kind of organization. It's people that truly care. They're in

recovery too. They're going to invite you to go do things. They're going to replace that social element as well, in a lot of cases, you know, not every time. But in a lot of cases, they're going to replace that social community that you had. And that's going to make getting down that path so much easier. Right. So that's the big thing that I'm pushing on the project now. But there's so much more. I mean, I've talked to a lot of life coaches out there on Facebook. There's some good groups for those. I had a great response for people who are willing to volunteer their time to have conversations with inmates that were still in prison and help them with life coaching and planning what they were going to do when they get out. So we've got that. I've got a college professor that I know who's

willing to help me write some correspondence courses, not necessarily for a degree, just to be able to get the knowledge of how to do basic bookkeeping for a business. Because that's one of the things about people that are in prison as well is they're not really of an employeee mindset. They're more wanting to go work for themselves, at least a lot of them. Yeah. I can't tell you how many people came to me. Can you help me write this business plan? Right. You know, but they just don't have the knowledge to be able to do it. That's actually a hustle in there. I know guys that We're charging guys like $100, $200, $200 to write a business plan. I was like, what are you doing?

Everybody's hustling in there, aren't they? What are you doing? Everybody, they listen to every business plan that somebody came. They'd be, man, that is a good idea. That's a good idea. And they go, man, can you write up a business plan? Yeah, man, it's like $100. Give me $100 in commissary or $100.

You do one or two of those a month. And it was basically, his business plan was the same basically over and over. It was just horrible. People are just horrible, just praying on people. Oh, yeah. You're in there with a bunch of criminals what you expect. So, but I got a ton of ideas, you know, for what can be done with this thing. But I think the big thing is just I try to catch people about a year before they get out or so.

Yeah. And get them connected with resources in their area and then start helping to develop a plan. You know, but a little bit down the road, really the way I sum up the best is I want to revolutionize rehabilitation in prison. Right. Right. I want to be able to offer them the resources they need to be able to be successful when they get out. And you have to. The easiest thing. Well, easiest. One of the things would be good is to actually be able to go in like every once a year or something to multiple prisons and kind of give a presentation or explain. Like that would be the perfect thing to try and get to them so that they know it's available because the staff's not going to help. But, you know, if they were to allow you to come in and have that conversation. And the other thing is, you know what I mean, guys? So luckily in Florida, they have what's called the flow bus, and that is where they allow you to get your driver's license.

Do you know how many guys I know that we're getting out of prison that are going, you're going to the halfway house and you don't have an ID. You don't have a driver's license. And I was like, why didn't you go to the flow bus? Bro, I did. I put in for it twice. And they canceled the last minute this time. And the other one was full. And then I had, I owed this much money on back parking tickets.

So I had to pay that off. that was $800, and I couldn't get it paid off, so I couldn't get my driver's license. I could get an ID, but it was like, like, you would think that they would have something set up. The federal government would have something set up to say, listen, we're quashing this guy's $800. He's been locked up 12 years, drop it. Like, let's get him a driver's license. Let's get them that, like, it's all on you. It's all on you.

And I get it. I get that it's your fault, that you're there. and I get that whole thing. But the truth is that these are guys who have, a lot of these guys have never had a job. They don't know how to fill out paperwork. The anxiety is overwhelming and the staff doesn't want to help. And so they get out.

There's no help. They feel more comfortable going to a drug deal than they do filling out paperwork to try to get a fucking driver's license. Somebody needs to be able to help in some way. It leaves them hopeless. I mean, it leaves them hopeless. And that's... Right.

It's just a cycle. Yeah. It's like me. I was hopeless. I turned to crime to solve my problems. That's what people are going to continue to do unless you get them some kind of avenue to be able to reenter society. Right. You know, and it was tempting for me to jump in there and jump into the legal fight of, you know, squashing mandatory minimums and conditions in jail and everything like that.

Look, there's a lot smarter people that are doing that than me. And I'm going to leave that to them. This is a problem that I see that I can do something about. Right. and that's what I'm that's that's my jam it makes me happy to do that because I'm able to connect with guys that are where I used to be they want to get where I am now okay if you want to get where I'm now I'll help you yeah now I'm not going to work harder at it than you're going to yeah I was just thinking that a lot of these guys will they'll take advantage they'll be like

sure they do this for can you basically they want you to give give give give give now or even just take up your time to talk to you yeah because you know when you're inside outside communications a big deal so even just having somebody to talk to would be a big thing to them but um i'm working on some some kind of vetting kind of things you know to decide who who who really wants to change you got to show me you know that that you're you're really trying to do this before i'm going to dump a bunch of effort into but if you do that i'll give you everything i got right um i've got a person that i've helped out in salt lake city um they had uh their was the first step act credits refigured okay she was in a halfway house and at two o'clock in the afternoon they said

your time has been recalculated you have to be out of here by four o'clock where are we going to go they don't give a shit we don't care but you can't be here at four o'clock yeah so her and i worked a good bit that night and we got her a hotel room yeah so that she'd have somewhere to stay and then we started working on trying to get her a plan together so you know if that's the kind of organization I want Phoenix to be. My newsletter is completely interactive. I invite everybody that gets the newsletter. Email me back. We'll start a dialogue as much as we can and several people have done that. That's showing me that you're really trying to do something. Right. So, but going back in there or going in there and doing motivational speaking and stuff, I would love to do that. I'm waiting on

the time limit before I can, but that's something that I'll have in the works coming up. So I'm excited about it. It's, you know, complete completing that book was a big deal and I got something completed. Now I want to get this all the way there and get it completed and be able to change people's lives. And if you like the video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Leave me a comment and I will try and respond back to you. And please keep me in mind for Patreon. And thank you very much. And check out the resource center, all of his stuff in the description, his links in the description. And I appreciate it. And I'll I'll see you guys.