Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR IN PRISON | SETH FERRANTI ( FULL PODCAST )

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Seth Ferranti is an ex-con filmmaker who did 21 years in federal prison for a first-time, nonviolent LSD/cannabis offense. He earned three college degrees in prison, including a master’s, wrote 22 books on gangsters, drug lords, and prison gangs, founded a publishing house and website, Gorilla Convict, and started a career as a journalist writing for VICE, Penthouse, and others. After being released he started making films. He wrote and produced WHITE BOY, which is currently on NETFLIX. He currently has numerous projects in production and development.

I formed this other plan, right? I was like, man, you know, because I was out on bail. I was like, man, I'm going to take the fuck off. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm here with Seth Ferranti, and we're going to do a podcast on Seth Story. Seth was a, you know, I saw on concrete. It was like the, what was it? He said you were like the LSD Kingpin or something.

Yeah, so basically, Zeth was arrested and did 20 you got 25 years did 20 21 years in federal prison for selling LSD yeah LSD and cannabis and cannabis okay so all right check it out so somebody asked me earlier too and like the first question somebody asked me and I didn't even know like where were you born yeah I was born in Lomor Lomor is actually out in the desert they call it the central coast it's between la and san diego okay and you i mean i i kind of know the story so you you grew up there and you said you started basically were just what you start off just yeah no i was i was i was a military brass so i was actually born on like a navy base you know

it's out in the desert that's where like they like they train fighter pilots right you know so um my dad was basically a fighter pilot and um but he was the navy he used to fly off aircraft carriers So we're in San Diego, we were in Virginia Beach, we were in Germany, we were in London. But we always ended back up in California usually until he retired. And that's kind of where my problem started because I was like this California kid and I ended up in northern Virginia, like in this really kind of lily white upper class area like right out of Washington, D.C. When I was basically, you know, like a sophomore junior in high school. And being from California, you know, and at that age, like, you know, everybody were going out partying and just the weed that they got. They just got, like, garbage weed.

It was like all brick weed, like brown shit. And then, like, if they could get LSD or something like that, it was just like super expensive, like $20 a hit. So, I mean, I knew a lot of people. You know, I had a lot of friends that were getting into that stuff, you know, back in California. So I started getting weed sent, you know, from Northern California, you know, like Emerald, Triangle, Humboldt County Bud, and from like San Francisco, I started getting LSD sent. Okay. But you were, how, I mean, how old were you at that time when you were?

Man, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was like 16, yeah. So I was like 16. And at first, I mean, it was just for personal. Right. You know what I'm saying? So I would just get personal. Like, you know, five or six of us, we would kind of put our money together. And, you know, I'd get it sin and I'd send the money.

And, um, but then eventually, like, you know, if, If you do drugs and a lot of young kids, you know, kind of figure this out or at least the smarter young kids figure this out. So when you're young and you're doing drugs, you know, and then finally you're like, well, fuck it. If I can get it, why should I pay for it?

Right. So that's like the first thing. You're like, do it for free drugs. But then, you know, after you do that for a while, you're like, well, fuck it. I don't want to pay for it and I want to make money. Right. So, you know, this was, and it wasn't something that just happened overnight.

So this was a gradual thing. like you know over my first probably nine to 12 months in northern virginia you know where i've like hey man i can make money off this shit you know and then um and then other stuff happened like i started going on tour like at 17 i started going on grateful dead tour and uh anybody that knows anything about the grateful dead tour like in the uh late 80s you know like we're talking like 1988 right you know like what they call shakedown street or the lot i mean it was basically like an open-air drug market. Right.

So, and, and like I say, when I say open-air drug market, I don't mean like cocaine, heroin. There was that stuff around, but it's mostly like, like, I call, you know, like, I'm a weed in psychedelics, dude, you know, I was never into cocaine. I was never into heroin speed. You know, I hate amphetamies. I don't even, like, MDMA. You know, I've never been like an, you know, amphetamine type of guy. So I was always into, like, the psychedelics, you know, in cannabis, you know, hash, mushrooms,

you know even stuff like peyote mescaline you know so that was kind of like where i leaned you know kind of on that side so i would go to these dead shows and the big thing about the dead shows like i mean it's just this big lot and everybody selling drugs so i had two reasons i went to the dead shows one reason is because um i established a connect down in kentucky that grew weed and they grew pretty good weed, you know, compared to the brickweed from Texas, it was coming around. So I would take that weed. I would grab that weed for whatever, 16, 1,800 a pound, and I would take that on Dead Tor, and I would sell it for $200 an ounce.

And if it was good weed, like what they called Kind Bud. And when they say Kind Bud, they were referring to like the bud from Humboldt County, you know, the Emerald Triangle, which I could usually only get in the fall, you know, at harvest time. But that's what they wanted. They wanted that good sun-grown organic bud. Because the brickweed was basically crap. The brickweed, yeah, the brickweed was crap. So, you know, that's what the deadheads wanted, you know, to go with that whole hippie vibe.

So I started going and I started selling Bud on tour, you know, and I was making a, you know, considerable amount of money. Not doubling my money, but, you know, I was usually making like, you know, a thousand, a thousand, 1,200 pound. And it was easier to get, I got better LSD contacts on tour. Because, you know, I had some friends and they could get like some sheets here and there, but they couldn't really, you know, they couldn't really like hit me off. I had to pay like, you know, I wasn't paying wholesale prices. Like they were getting at basically like retail prices, you know, but still, you know, not like they were selling hits. You know, I was getting buying whole sheets from them, you know,

so I was probably getting like paying like a dollar or $2 hit and selling it for $5 hit. But then I knew if I went on tour and I hooked up with the right people, I could basically get it for like 30, 40 cents a hit. You're not making it though. You're just, you just have a contact. Yeah, no, I never made it. So, you know, but. because when I was locked up I met one guy the whole time I was locked out one guy that actually

made LSD I mean because you know it's it's not like it's easy it's not like growing growing weed it's like this guy you got to be a chemist yeah you got to be a chemist so yeah so um yeah so what I know about the whole LSD trade is a lot of times at the shows they would fly in they would fly in the liquid so you know they would fly in like 25 grams you know at a turn But, you know, each one of those grams makes 10,000 hits, you know, to give you the number. So pretty much every dead show, and the dead used to crisscross a nation, you know, they used to play everywhere. And they would play multiple nights.

So every show, every town, like let's say they played three nights in Philly, you know, from San Francisco. All that stuff is still basically made in that area. You know, all the chemists, you know, and a lot of times it's the same guys from the 60s, you know, maybe they have like, you know, they mentored other guys, younger guys and brought other guys into the trade but you know it's like it's not it's not like a big group of people i mean they they keep it pretty you know secret because it's a lot to even like now to even get the precursors and all the other stuff i mean they've outlawed a lot of that stuff so it's really hard to get the stuff to make it you know but i mean like i say one one gram is 10 000 hits so you don't

need a lot yeah he was the guy was telling me like he they would get the sheets of paper and he the you know perforated sheets of paper and he was like it was you're literally just putting like a droplet on each. Yeah, the blotter paper. What what also they do is they actually dip it. All the whole sheet? Yeah, so they dip it. So like what you got?

Like one sheet of 100 hits is about this big. So that's like a sheet. And then they would have what you call like a page. So a page would be like 100 of those. Or 10 of those. So that would be like, you know, a thousand hits, you know, 100. And then they had what you call a book would be 10 pages. And then, you know, that would be like 10,000 hits.

That's like a gram of LSD, you know. But it's all the blotter paper, you know, it absorbs it. And that's pretty much, you know. I mean, it's not a perfect science because some places might absorb more than others. You know, I've talked to a lot of chemists. So, you know, that's basically, they've kind of explained a lot of stuff to me. But, yeah, I've never done it. But I know they would fly it in.

And, you know, then, like, when they get it there, then they would go through the process of laying it on the sheets, you know, where they kind of dip it in it or whatever. Right. You know, and they all would also do a lot of liquid. I remember going to the shows, and this is kind of funny because whenever there were shows, they would have a lot of the deadheads

or the hippie kids would go to the local grocery stores and they would buy all the boxes of the food coloring. You know, like the food coloring, it comes in these like little boxes and there's like 10 or something or sometimes five. Right. And those were like what they would use for the vials. So they would get that food coloring

and they would pour it all out, you know, and clean it out. And then they would fill that up because that one vial in that food coloring, that was like 100 hits, you know, so they would sell vials too. Because some people would do like straight liquid. I even did, I did some liquid one time. So one time I was at some shows in Pittsburgh, like in 89. And, you know, I'd always been a big fan of Jimmy Hendricks. And I used to read how Jimmy Hendricks, he used to take his bandana,

and he would just pour like a whole vial of acid on his band. and then he would wrap it around his head you know so it's not like he was taking a hundred hits but i mean he was absorbed yeah yeah he's still absorbing a lot of that so so one time at this show in pittsburgh was actually right after uh brett midland the keyboardist real popular keyboardist died he like oded on a speedball and um i was like man i was on this jimmy hendricks trip you know maybe i'd seen some documentary or something i don't know or read about it in rolling stone or something so I actually took and I poured three quarters of a bottle basically like 75 hits on a bandana and then I then I wrapped it around my head and this is like this is like before the show

starts you know because back then it was way different back then like you have like free rain in the whole stadium and it wasn't like all the security like they cordon off this area and you can go here with your tickets like back then dude like you gave your ticket you went in the stadium you go anywhere from the lot yeah you can even go back out to the lot you know because a lot's like you know shakedown street so it's like a party and stuff like that so i this one time i did it and i took all this fucking 75 hits right and we're waiting for the show to start and everybody used to go up to the top so this is three river stadium in pittsburg everybody would go up to the top and smoke weed you know because you don't want to smoke weed you don't want to front out the security or

whatever so if you went up top they didn't give a fuck so we walked up me and my buddy he he'd only take maybe like 25 hits he took the rest of the bottle but he drank it you know so you know he took like like really adjusted 25 hits. You know, I don't know how, mine was 75 hits, but it was in a bandana, so it's not like I took 75 hits. Right.

But it was, you know, going into my skin. So we walked up to go to the smoking section, you know, everybody's smoking weed. And so we're up there, you know, everybody got their, you know, big ounces or quarter pounds. We're rolling up faties and we're smoking them.

And then like the show starts, you know, so like everybody goes back down to the field because then it would just be the whole field would just be like wide open and everybody be dancing. So me and my buddy though, like the trip starts you know kicking in right so we're like we're like looking at the steps you know you know like in a lot of the stadiums i mean it's it's kind of steep right you know so we're like you start tripping balls right so we don't go back down we're like oh no we're just

going to stay up here we're going to smoke some more weed so it ended up we stayed up there and this is this is like i mean they used to play you they play like two sets man so they play like you know like an hour and a half and then they come back play another hour and a half so this like three hours dude like we're up there like our friends keep coming up trying to hey man come down and we're like we're like look and we're like fuck no like a couple times we would try to it's too steep right because we're tripping fucking balls right so we couldn't walk down so eventually um like the show's over and like we stayed up there the whole time and eventually everybody leaves right and uh like the people are going around cleaning you know and they're like looking at us like what the fuck are these dudes

doing you know we're just up there like smoking weed tripping and so I don't even know it seemed like forever but eventually like a dude one of the custodian guys comes to us you know and he was like yo man he's like they're about to lock the doors of the stadium like you need to go now right to get the fuck out of here there's like nobody there's just like trash everywhere people picking up shit so finally uh we actually like we crawled down you know like backwards you know on the steps you know like crawled down backwards until we're going to we got to like the, you know, like one of the main floors, you know, then we could walk out. But yeah, that was crazy. That's the most asset I ever took at one time. And like I can only say, I remember it. But, I mean, it was, I mean, I think I had a good time, even though like I missed a show and I was, like, scared to walk out. Because it was like a ledge, man.

It was like crazy. I still, to this day, I have like vivid memories of trying. Like I'm telling you, probably in that however many hours, three to five hours, I probably attempted to walk down those. steps like 20 or 25 times me and my buddy and I just I couldn't do it it was not happening until finally like and you know acid lost a long time too so you know I was still tripping it was just like they were going to lock the door and I didn't want to get fucking you know locked in the fucking stadium um so so I mean how so at some point though like you started I mean you know you you kind of started selling more and more you're making money at it you're you know yeah

Really, I kind of, my business kind of exploded when everybody started going to college. Right. So, you know, first I'm like a sophomore and then I'm getting more into it when I'm a junior. And, you know, like I say, I'm selling to the sophomores and I'm selling to the seniors. You know, and I was kind of like that guy. I was kind of like that dude. Like, if you wanted weed, if you wanted LSD, I was like the dude. And I don't care.

I would sell like 10 sheets. I would sell multiple sheets. I would sell like five or 10 hits. You know, because I was like, whatever. it was all money to me plus i always felt you know i always felt like i was filling the need you know because i felt like people wanted good clean drugs you know and i always felt like you know weed and lSD you know and mushrooms and stuff like that i always felt they were good drugs i didn't feel like they were bad drugs you know i didn't carry a gun i didn't have a criminal organization

you know i'm saying i'd go around beat people up you know a lot of times people pay cash a lot of people times people fronted i fronted stuff to people a lot of times people that i fronted stuff to were my friends and they fucked up the money and i still didn't do i was like well whatever i can make more money right that was always kind of like my attitude so um you were saying you didn't you didn't really feel like it should be illegal anyway i mean it's yeah that was yeah i always tell i tell people to this day this is my big thing right i was never a criminal right i broke laws that i thought were wrong right you know i was an outlaw you know what i'm saying so you know like I say

to me there's a difference you know I mean in prison you got criminals and you got outlaws you know and maybe to the government law enforcement it's all the same

because you know we're breaking the laws of society but I mean there's a difference anybody I mean you know you've been in prison man there's a difference you know a lot of times

a criminal is going to do whatever he can you know criminal like fuck you over for a dollar right you know where like an outlaw has like morals you know

some kind of code that he's trying to live by yeah so you know there's a big difference But, yeah, so I probably really exploded, like, probably like around 89, you know, when I was a senior. So a lot of my friends had went off to colleges, you know, and were, like, freshmen. And so I went to Robinson, and Robinson was a big school in Fairfax County. So Robinson was probably like 4,000 people.

And then we had a sister school that was, like, not even five miles away called Lake Braddock. And Lake Braddock would have like 4,000 kids. And so, you know, for two years, you know, going on three years, I had been selling, you know, drugs, you know, LSD and weed to all these people in these schools, you know, going all the park. And, you know, like I say, everybody smoked weed back then. It didn't matter, you know, if you were a jock, you know, if you were a stoner, you know, if you, like we call them truckers, like the dudes with the big four by fours. You know, if you, you know, some Virginia, you got like the more country dudes, you know, so didn't, you know, the cheerleaders, you know, the popular kids, everybody smoked wheat. Everybody did LSD. Everybody did mushrooms.

You know, some of them did Coke, but, you know, I didn't really fuck with those people. That wasn't really my scene. So when these people started going colleges, like, and these are all good kids from good families, you know, not necessarily like super rich. You know, some more rich than others, but all upper middle class. You know, like all these kids, like they got a Mustang or like a hand-me-down Beamer or Mercedes when they were 16. Right. You know, and, you know, so when they all went off, they went to all these colleges, you know, like Penn State, you know, University of Maryland, you know, Kentucky University, UK, you know, West Virginia University, you know, all the way like Virginia Tech, you know, Radford, you know, VCU, you know, all the Virginia schools. So I just had like all these friends that went to all these different colleges.

and all within, you know, pretty much neighboring states to Virginia. So when they don't, they still need drugs. Yeah, so they're going. And, I mean, you want to go because, like, when you're a senior, you want to go to the colleges anyhow because you want to party, you know, check out the girls and see what college is like. Because, I mean, that's what it's about in the suburbs, you know. You go to school and then, you know, you go to college and it's like a party.

So, like, they're calling me up there, you know, and I'm going and they want me to bring drugs. They're like, hey, dude, what can you bring, whatever? They're like, I need this for me. And like my whole frat, everybody needs shit. So I started going and it just like turned in. It was like just this little kind of local thing, you know, where I was kind of like, you know, a retail dude, but not really a big wholesale. I did maybe a little wholesale, but that was like real small part of my market. It was mostly retail.

Right. You know, hand-to-hand stuff. And it just turned into where, you know, I remember the first time I went to Radford, right? I went to Radford in the beginning of the. semester so late august 1990 and uh radford is like kind of like the sister school to virginia tech radford used to be like an all-girl school but then you know then they changed it so guys could come and um and virginia tech is like right there too so it's these two you know virginia tech is a really huge school but radford's a pretty big school so like august 1990 i go to i go to radford and i had

just picked up some bud that they just harvested in kentucky and back then like sometimes like in the summer like it would get dry man like you couldn't find any weed and if you did find weed it would be like brown you know garbage brick weed with seeds so i was always known for getting the good bud from like kentucky or northern california so this time i brought i brought like a ton of uh not a ton but probably like 20 pounds you know just harvested fresh you know good green bud and um i actually go i go to my dude's house right and my dude has a house and it's it's kind of like a little you know duplex apartment thing so like he has a house right here and then his buddy has a house right here and so i bring bud and he's like man he's like man nobody has bud he's like everybody wants bud i'm like well fucking call him dude

i'm like we're we're here so we break out the fucking triple beam right and first i'm like in his room and like people are coming but you know it was like so many fucking people like it was like crazy so what we ended up doing is we ended up going to his friend's apartment which was like kind of connecting you across away. And we had that door and we put like a table in front of the door like we're a fucking vendor. And me and this other dude, you know, my road partner, we're basically weighing stuff out. And there was like a line.

So there was like a line all through this walkway and all through my friend's house because they would come in my friend's house, the front door, and then, you know, come out in this side door and we'd go and it was like a line, dude. And we like literally quartered, ounce up weed for probably like three hours straight. you know and I would like literally like sitting at the table throwing fucking money in the back like I don't even know how much money I don't even know how much weed I'm selling but you know at the end I mean we still had some left I probably had about five or six pounds left but I literally probably sold 14 15 pounds in three hours all for like quarters and ounces and I just have like this big

duffel bag of money you know and that that was just like that's like what it was back then and I did that and once I did that first I was like man I was like I can make a lot a lot of money doing this, you know, that was my first thought. But second, I was like, man, I got to find a better fucking process because this is like some bullshit because it's, you know, I mean, back then it was marijuana, you know, the war on drugs and all that shit. I was like, man, this is like, this is like too open, you know, so what I did among the people I knew at the different colleges, you know, because I had some situations at other

colleges like that, you know, that was the most extreme situation. Right. That's why I'm telling the story. But, you know, I had different situations like that. It paints a good scene, though. Yeah. Yeah. So I just started finding dudes like some of my friends, you know, like the smartest, most trustworthy or on point friends. And I would just go to them and I say, look, dude, check this out. I'm going to come in. I'm going to drop you like 20 sheets of acid. I'm going to drop you like five pounds of bud.

And then you know, you can do all the hand-to-hand sales. And, you know, this is how much you owe me. And then I'll come back and get it. Right. So I did that at all these different colleges. So I started doing this loop, you know, where I would go down. I would go down 81 in Virginia and hit all the Virginia colleges. Then I would come back through Kentucky. I would go to eastern, eastern Kentucky. And then I would go up to U.K. Then I would come back to West Virginia, West Virginia University, which West Virginia University in Morgantown was like my hugest market, man.

That place, at that time in the late 80s, like West Virginia, like in Playboy magazine, like West Virginia University was always like in the top five party colleges you know like like it was just fucking crazy it was just known right you know what I'm saying they always had like a big football program you know they were always kind of big in football but they were just known it was known as like a super party college so um and I had I had my buddies were in the Delta Tal Delta fraternity and they had this big fucking huge old dilapidated mansion like on frat row and they just used to have these big ass fucking parties so they used to have these have this party it was called the uh and it was called like the it was called like the the backyard

not the backyard brawl but it was called like the backyard something i can't think of the the second name but so it was called like the the backyard brawl or back or something whatever that's it backyard bash you got the word so it was called the backyard bash so they would have this party and there would be like literally 5 000 kids and they would always have right in the beginning of the semester and there would literally be 5 000 kids like going through this old dilapidated mansion and then they have like this big, you know, backyard and parking spot. And they would get like reggae bands and stuff like that. And so I would go to there.

And, you know, at first, like, it would be like I would be selling hand to hand. Eventually, I got one of my dues to do everything. But, like, their parties were so big that eventually West Virginia University, like, told them they couldn't have the backyard bash anymore. They were like, you guys, that party's outlawed. You can't have it. So, like, you know what these dudes did, right? Because these are like some little, you know, little smart. you know also entitled rich kids they were like okay so they called it the

acyard ash you bring the bees okay so they just changed the name like that and still had the same fucking party you know they were basically like fuck the university but um that's what I did I cultivated these relationships I kind of made from friends of mine there were drug users you know partiers into drug dealers and um so you know you're just the distributor yeah so this started like 89 so then by the time like 91 when I'm really rolling uh I'm basically supplying like 15 colleges in five states with uh weed in LSD okay that's a full-time job no definitely like I see at this time too like I didn't work a job because that was my job but I I actually went to

college a couple times just like you know the local community college but it was always like I even I came down to Florida dude I came down to Florida in 89 in the fall of 89. And I was enrolled at, what's it called, the, USF. Okay. I was enrolled. Yeah, I was enrolled in USF, right?

In the fall of 89. But I mean, it didn't last because I was like, I was just drawn. You know, I was drawn to like the dead shows. I was drawn to the dead scene. You know, I was drawn to the, you know, just like to me, because to me being that drug dealer it was it was like being a rock star yeah you know what I'm saying and it wasn't even the money it was a lifestyle and not to say I mean you're the guy calling in shots everybody's like hey they need something for from you and you're they're they're they treat you with

respect and you know yeah I mean I know and then and then too it's like just the the chicks do because like like I would have like I had like multiple girlfriends just like at colleges I would have like different chicks like I would like if they were in the dorms I would move them out get in an apartment just so I had like a safe place to lay my head and I would pay like their apartments. So like I said, I was making a lot of money for a teenager. Right. I mean, I always tell people like I was making like 20, 20, 30,000 a month. Like not generating like I was making profit. I mean, generating. I was probably, you know, generating like, you know, a couple hundred thousand a month. Right. You know, but I was literally making, you know, 25, 30 grand a month.

I mean, 20 grand, 30 grand a month is a lot of money for a grown adult. Raising a family. that's a ton of money for a kid and this was like this was like you know 8 99 90 but really I always tell people too because you know I sold drugs so so probably from like whatever 16 to I got busted at 20 so four years but it was really only like nine months where I was at that height so it was that last nine months like 90 you know into when I caught my case you know the fall of 91 so you know because because before like everything i'll explain this is when i'm like putting everything together you know i'm getting all my my sources and my contact straight you know i got it eventually like i didn't even have to go on tour to get the acid because i developed where they would just they would send me they would send me like a hundred sheets 10 000 hits and i was basically getting like 100 000 hits a month you know sent to me and then for the weed you know i would get in the fall to about january i would get We'd sent from, you know, San Francisco from like Northern California, you know, Emerald Triangle

Bud. And I would drive down to Kentucky myself and get their bud, you know, which was that they grew domestically, which was pretty good. It wasn't as good as a Humboldt bud, but, you know, it was close. And then the rest of the year from January until like August, I would basically get the brick pot, the Mexican brick pot. And I even, dude, I used to get a lot of weed out of Fort Myers. I would drive down to Fort Myers, Florida.

You know, I used to go to Dallas, Texas. I'd fly to Dallas, Texas, but I would drive down to Fort Myers, Florida, and I would get weed from actually. It was like Kentucky dudes that were getting the weed down here. Like, so they'd grow the weed, you know, all year in the fall. And then in the winter, you know, sometimes they would come down here, you know, to kind of keep the business going. So I'd go down to Fort Myers. And I wasn't picking up a lot, man. And, you know, I pick up like whatever, 50 pounds, 100 pounds of brick pot, which when it's all compressed like that, you know, it's not that much.

And also what I was doing was I was flying down to Dallas and I would I would bring money and I would get like 50 pounds or something 40 50 pounds and I would actually pack it in a suitcase and I would check it and I would and I would fly back with it, you know, like I was I was doing that like when I was 17. So that was crazy because back then you know back then you didn't you could go right to the airport, right? And you could say like you could buy a ticket. You could say like my name is Joe Smith. right and you could pay them cash for a one-way ticket you know what I go no no no red flags no nothing and I go down with it like I had this green big green 1970s samsonite uh you know suitcase you know huge huge right like you know this big and I fly down I check it it it was empty you know what I'm saying and I go down and I literally sit at my buddies down there because I had some buddies that went to university of Texas of Arlington so I and they had developed some Mexican contacts down there. So I would literally go down there,

sit and wait on the Mexican dudes, you know, until they have their shit ready. I dealt with this one dude named Mexican Eddie. And I would literally get the weed, buy it, pack it back in the suitcase. You know, I'd wrap it and stuff like that. And then I would check it in my luggage. I'd go back buy a one-way ticket, cash.

This time I might be Chris Smith. Right. And go to, you know, Dallas or, you know, National Airport and go pick it up off the carousel so you know I didn't do that a lot but I probably did that probably like I don't know 15 times over the years you know but mostly I was I was a smuggler you know I was drive I was a driver that's what I would did I because I knew I figured out at a very early age if you buy a product or you know drug like weed or or LSD in one point you know and brought it to another point I you know that's how you

made money yeah yeah you could leave that on the table you don't have to it's not a big deal um i mean this is pretty casual i'm just like uh you know i'm a director so i'm like i'm like a no with get get everything out of the fucking shot i was thinking uh the the fort myers thing i wrote a story about these two guys that ran basically like it was one of the largest largest bust in that area from the DEA, I think they got caught with like 1,200 pounds or something. And to just get, to get seized, to get caught with 1,200 pounds, God only knows what, you know, if that's just the one thing they caught you with. Yeah, that's just the one shipment. Yeah, but that was Fort Myers.

Fort Myers is a big, you know, it's big for marijuana, for bringing in marijuana. Plus, what was the other guy's name that we did? Cowboy. The, the, the, the, saltwater cowboy, yeah. Yeah, he, but he was... Oh, Tim McBride. Yeah, yeah, Tim McBride. He's off.

Yeah, he was in the Keys. He was in the Keys. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that dude was a huge fucking marijuana smuggler. Yeah, he's, uh, he's, he's, boy, he's an interesting character, too. See, that's, that's why I always look, like, I'm not saying for a teenager, I was a big drug dealer for a teenager. But like, like, when I really look at it, like, after, after doing all that time in the feds and stuff like that, like, I look at it. I mean, I was a small, I was a small timer.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, for a kid, yeah, I mean, and who knows if I didn't get busting, maybe I would have got bigger, you know, you never know. But, you know, once I got in the feds and even like dude like, like Tim, like, I mean, those dudes were just, I mean, they're bringing in fucking tons. So, I mean, we got an organization or a crew that's bringing in tons. I mean, really what I was doing. I mean, I'm like a minnow. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but it's hard to, you know, it's, you know, you get in front of the judge, you could, you know, they make it sound fucking.

Oh, they don't go to fuck. They act like I was. fucking John Gotti or Pablo Escobar of the fucking suburbs of the fucking feds. Every fucking new case is public enemy number one. Absolutely. I always love that that these guys are getting in front of the judge

and they make them sound like just the most dangerous criminal in the world and then they send them to a low. Or they send them to a camp. Yeah, yeah. If I'm so dangerous, how did I go directly to a camp? No, it's fucking, it's fucking crazy, man. That's our criminal justice system, man. They got all their priorities wrong.

but um so yeah what what sorry yeah definitely um like i said i i had like nine months where where i was rolling where like like like i was like i mean i was probably the man but you know like i was really feeling myself like i thought i was a man you know where it was where like i had built everything up over a couple years and you know even too like as a kid you know i mean teenagers i mean you second guess yourself you know you're insecure you know so i was doing this for several years and you know maybe i still didn't feel how i wanted to feel and then like dude i had like that nine that last nine months before i got busted like i was on top of the world like i i could literally i felt like do anything i wanted i had enough money you know one time right before i got

busted dude like i went to who i just went to huai for two fucking months dude i was like man fuck it you know i was like i'm gonna get the fuck out of here so i i put a couple dudes you know that actually they ended up on my case and they they ended up telling on me but i i'd put them I said, okay, you're in charge of weed, you're in charge of the LSD. I'm just going to go to fucking, you know, just fucking stack my money. I'm going to go to fucking Hawaii for fucking two months and just chill out, you know. But, yeah, and then, like I say, I had a bunch of different girlfriends. But I was always the type of dude, too, usually, like, I would have, like, runs with girls.

You know, I would have, like, six to, like, I would always have a main girl while I had, like, a six to nine month run with her. And she'd be, like, my girl, even though I might have had, you know, other girls that I'd just saw every now and then right you know but that was kind of like you know there's some 80 stuff I don't know maybe people would look down on that today I don't it's a more it's a more sensitive world today so so what what was the like what was the the catalyst that brought it all down that yeah so basically um I mean looking back I mean at the time I thought it was like a real bright idea but looking back it was probably pretty stupid so uh you know the summer 91 you Usually like in the summer it would get dry, there's no weed, right?

So before I took that trip to Hawaii, you know, in the spring of 91, you know, I set shit up because I was always gearing up for the fall because with the fall was where I could really make money. So I needed to like get my money up for the fall. So when they harvested in Northern California and Kentucky so I could buy up a lot of bud because you want to buy up in the harvest. You want to buy up of the butt early. Like you want to buy when the farmers are hurt like late August, September, you know, because you can get shit for cheaper. Right. you know what i'm saying then by like october november by january so it's like the weed you can get for 1600 in september by january that we might be like 3 000 right you know so that was

always my my thing because you know i was trying to maximize my profits so i had this bright idea in the spring of 91 when all my friends were gonna be home from school you know because school was over i was like you know what i was like i'm gonna fucking sell as much as much as as I can this summer so I can get my money up for the fall. You know, and plus, like I say that, nine months, I was making money, but I was probably spending money recklessly. Because when you got money coming in that young, you know, like water, I mean, it was just going out the door like water.

I didn't give a fuck. I was just like fucking spend money on anything. I didn't give a fuck. I was really, I was dumb. I was a type of kid. And I'm sure, you know, you might have known kids like this, but I was a kid that I would buy like some expensive polo t-shirts or whatever. And I would wear that shit one time.

And I would give it away Because I was like I only wear new shirts That was like my thing Like I only wear new shirts I don't wear a fucking old shirt I don't wash my shit You know like I'm saying So you know I mean I had some shit

That I probably wash you know You know keep it real whatever But you know that was like my thing You know I'm not gonna front Like every fucking shirt I had It was like brand new But that was like That was like one of my things

And also another one of my things was Sneakers man I was a fucking sneaker head You know So the Air Jordan's has started coming out like probably like 85 86 so you know about like you're talking like 9091 there's like a fucking shitload of air jordan's at a shit load you know everybody else jumped on the sneakers so like i literally have like hundreds and hundreds of pairs of fucking

high tops yeah that sounds like bozzi he he had he had like a storage unit filled with two 300 pairs of uh sneakers it was just like he had a wall like in his room that was just sneakers i was like are you wearing all the sneakers he's like no i never wear him i just had him I just like to go buy them. Yeah, he said, he said, he said, I just like, I just like to spend the money, dude. To me, it was like just go and spend it. And I always, I always have this thing, like, just spinning cash, dude. I just love to spend cash, you know, because everybody else is like credit cards.

I just used to, like, dude, like literally. And not like I'm spending over $10,000 or because he still had that $10,000 thing back then. But, you know, I just used to love to go to, like, stores or go to the mall and just fucking drop like five or six grand. You know, and I would buy mostly myself, but sometimes it might be girls. I might bring some guys in my crew. I'd buy them shit too. And I would just go on these fucking whatever, whatever I had, a five, six, seven, eight.

And I would just fucking drop that shit in the fucking mall in a day. But so I'm, I'm fucking, you know, doing all, went off on a tangent again. But, you know. Yeah. So, you know, I'm trying to get my money up because I was fucking spinning reckless,

like how I just described. And so I just had this fucking awesome idea. I'm like, fuck. because I know it's going to be dry. I knew there's going to be no weed. I'm like, you know what? I'm like, I'm just going to fucking pump out as much fucking acid as I can

in the summer of 91. And I'm going to make as much money as I can so I got my money stacked for the fall so I can fucking make a killing because I know the falls is when I'm really going to make the killing. Every fall, that's when I made a lot of money. So all my friends are back from the colleges.

So they don't have the whole college to sell to. It's just all my fucking high school friends from these two high school friends from these two high schools, Robinson and Lake Braddock. And so, dude, so literally acid is going for like $5, $6 a hit. I flooded the areas with so much fucking acid. Like usually I would do like, you know, 10,000 hits a month, but that's like all the colleges. So now I'm fucking, I'm going to get like 150 sheets.

I'm going to get like 15,000, 20,000 hits. And I'm going to flood it all. All my people are in Fairfax County. you know there's no colleges so i actually the price of acid that summer went from like five six dollars a hit down to like one to two dollars a hit because i flooded it so much you know like yeah i mean looking back i was a fucking dumbass you know cut my own throat but whatever you know at the time i thought i was fucking brilliant i was like yeah so um not only did i flood the area but it was just i mean there's fucking acid there's just everybody's just tripping all fucking

summer and eventually you what happened is uh there was this kid i mean i never met the kid but he was like a little 15 year old kid he was at this big field party in clifton you know clifton was like the kind of rich real ritzie area in fairfax county where they have like the million dollar houses and they would have like these big you know five six acre lots so the kids that live there when their parents you know just like when any parents would you know go on vacation you know they would throw parties except they would throw like these big field you know and people people would be like stages for bands or they might bring like fucking a skateboard ramps and all types of shit so it'd be like this fucking crazy

fucking scene and so there was this big party but eventually like all parties out in the suburbs you know eventually the cops were called so um this one kid was tripping balls on acid and the cops came and somehow he was running through the woods naked and um like a cop was chasing him you know and the cops like tackled him and for some reason this kid grabbed the cops you know service revolver and uh you know luckily only shot him in the arm right you know so i mean whatever flesh wound but you know i'm sure it was painful whatever i don't know if he hit the bone i don't know all the exact details but i know he shot him in the arm and um so once this happened you know and then that kid like you know whatever

he said yeah he was blamed it on the acid of course told him where he got the acid from but she could have been drunk and the same fucking thing would have happened and who knows I always say look if it's in you it's in you

the drug is not going to bring it out just like in prison like when they talk about do homosexual shit if it's in you it was in you before you know in multiple ways

it was in you it was just when I'm in prison bro so but so this this happens and actually the dude that sold him

the acid was actually, I knew him personally because at one time I had sold, he went to Lake Braddock, I had sold to him, you know, for probably like, you know, my first two years. But by this time, like, there's like seven people between me and him because, you know, he was a cool dude, but he was like this metal dude. He actually ended up on my cakes. But, you know, he was this metal dude. And I just thought, like, the way he sold drugs, he would just sell to anybody, you know,

so I didn't, you know, so there was like seven people separated, you know, between me and him. but it was still all my shit. So this kid said he got it from this guy. His name was Dave, the metal guy. And yeah, and they started an investigation, man. And really, it was like, you know, and this is how law enforcement in this country reacts too. Like, if you do something to law enforcement,

like if you shoot a cop or something, like they go hard, man. They don't fuck around. They take it seriously now. Yeah, they're like, man, you know, like you touched one of ours. You know, they're like a gang, like any fucking gang or the mafia.

you know you know just like the criminals you touch one of theirs they're going to go hard the fucking cops go harder than everybody so um they basically had like a witch hunt that summer man it was like an LSD witch hunt because the domino's start just pop pop pop pop pop yeah they were trying to find yeah like where the fuck is this shit coming from and also like everybody knew my name everybody knew Seth right because you know now Seth is more common because you got like Seth Rogan or you know Seth McFarlane so there's like some famous people named Seth. But back then, like, dude, like 91, like nobody was fucking named Seth. Right. You know what I'm saying? So like my name stuck out. So everybody, you know,

everybody's Seth, Seth, so they keep hearing Seth, Seth, Seth. They don't know my last name or anything, but everybody's hearing Seth. So, because I was kind of like this, uh, whatever, this infamous, you know, uh, you know, myth. You know, I don't know if you want to say legend or whatever. You know, I was just a dude that supplied all the fucking drugs to all these colleges. So, You know, a lot of people knew who I was. I'm sure Colby will use a legend in the clickbait title he'll come out with. It'll be legend. Yeah.

I mean, you know, a lot of people. The infamous legend. Yeah. You know, but it's underground. You know, underground legends. Yeah, yeah. I'm not mainstream or celebrity or nothing. You know, I've always been more notorious and infamous.

So they start hearing my name, and then they got this guy, Dave Crago, you know, so, like, during their investigation, And so he ends up actually setting up another friend of mine, this guy named Chris, that was actually getting shit right from me. You know, he set him up in a deal with like a DEA, like a NARC. And then it was like that was like the state case. And then they pulled me into the state case, right? Like they tried to set up a deal like the cop got a certain amount like 10 sheets, but he wanted 20 more. and he wouldn't give the money, you know, until he got these other sheets. And like the dude, Dave, I mean, whatever.

I mean, he was an informant. But, I mean, he was basically a pussy dude. And then the other dude, Chris, I mean, he was like, you know, a lot of the dudes, I mean, they're just like, I was always a dude, like, if there was a problem, like, I was a dude that they would call. Right. You know what I'm saying? Because whatever, I'm not to say, I'm not a tough guy, but, you know, I'll fight.

I don't know, whatever, you know. But these are all middle class, soft white kids. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, like, it's not even my deal, but they call me to come handle it because the dude's Chris. He's like, man, I got this problem, whatever. So I fucking roll down there with like a couple other dudes. And I don't even know. It's a fucking sting. It's like a sting that they set for Chris Miller. They didn't even set the sting for me. But fucking Chris fucking calls me and I get drawn into the fucking sting. So boom. And then they're like, oh, we got fucking Seth.

Right. You know, like who. Yeah, they were trying to get to you. They're, but they're. They had no idea. It was like a fluke thing, you know, and like I say, still, I didn't give anybody any drugs and I didn't take any money. That doesn't matter. You know, yeah, because that's at the time, though, I thought I was, I was like, you know, so look, so it's state. So I get arrested on state.

And so they take me back to the station and fucking like the DE agents there. And they're like, blah, I'm like, man, I don't got nothing to say to you, man. I'm like, man, fuck you. Talk to my lawyer. And they're like, well, your lawyer's going to want to suck our dick. you don't know how much trouble you're in blah blah blah you know we know everything's coming from you blah blah blah and then then another fucked up thing happened because uh i had this one kid was holding like 120 sheets for me and so they found about out about him through chris and um so then

they go right and they get that right and then i'm like oh fuck so then they got all my fucking product too so now because before they had like they had like 10 sheets right you know it would have been a state. Then they go and sees you these guys give them the information. They go and get another 120 sheets. So now they got like a 130 fucking sheets. So now they're fucking, it was like the biggest LSD bus in Fairfax County ever. Right. You know? So, uh, yeah. And so then it's state, you know, whatever, I get my parents bail me out. And, um, the feds come in at that time. Yeah, the fed. So this is like, this is like early July. And, um, you know, I hire. People don't realize that. You know, like the, the state will grab.

you for something. And then sometimes they don't have enough to prosecute you. So they'll give it to the feds because the feds have even a lower bar as far as prosecution. Right. And then even then you can sit there and think, oh, they don't have anything. They never, they don't have me on tape. They don't have me on this. They don't have me on that. They don't have any product that I got. So they got nothing except. That's what I was thinking. But what ends up happening in the feds is doesn't matter. It's just what people say. Right. They'll put four people on the stand that say they bought from you and you're done. it's over you're like they got no money they got no tapes they got nothing on me they

happened to have four guys that say i did it boom you're looking at 30 years yeah because so i was thinking at that time because i was even like i was like boom i didn't i didn't sell any cop right i didn't take any money from any cop you know i got i got hooked into the sting or whatever and i didn't sell anybody anything and then the even the other 120 sheets it was i mean it was mine but it was at somebody else's house right you were watching too much law and order you know what i'm saying so i was like man i'm like i'm good So, you know, I hire a state lawyer, you know, whatever, paid him with like, I paid him like 10 grand cash, drug money. And he even, the stupid lawyer even asked me, you know, his name was Michael Rieger. And he was like, I hope this is not drug money. I was like, what the fuck? I was like, dude. I was like, dude. I was like, dude. I was like, dude. I've been saving that on my part time job just to give you 10 grand cash, dude. And you're like, I hope this is a drug. And I was arrested for the biggest LSD bust in fucking Fairfax County. That's my part-time.

I've been saving that on my part-time job just to give to you. And I just came out. I'm like, boom, here, 10 grand, dude. Like, I walked right into his office. It was in an envelope and he was like, I mean, it was just like so comical these dudes like to save their ass, like the shit.

They'll say, I'm like, yeah, dude, where do you think it's from, man? You know? Like, I didn't even lie to the dude. I didn't even try to lie. I'm just looked at it. I'm like, come on, dude. Are you serious?

So I got the state case, but like they're investigating the whole time. so like as soon as I get the state case dude it's like it's like nobody wants to talk to me because the fucking DEA is going around talking to everybody so it's like so I got until I got you know the federal case it's about maybe like a month and a half dude and it was like crazy

because like I don't know who I can talk to it and like also I have like a load of weed at this time I'm trying to fucking move I'm trying to get more money right I didn't have that much but I probably had about 40 pounds you know what I'm saying so I'm like fuck dude because like it's like every other day it's like because I could tell like I'm calling people what

some dudes owe me money and like dudes are just like dodging me like they don't want to talk to me and because you know back then I knew anyhow like when somebody gets busted it's like they're hot yeah yeah so nobody wants to fuck with them but see so it was that but at the same time it was the investigation behind the scenes in the DEA

so I don't know who's given information who's not given information you know they're like going to the chicks they're going to like people's girlfriends they're going to like my girlfriends they're going to fucking everybody the feds don't fuck around and they're going to all these little

fucking rich kids and they're threatening like give information on Seth or you're going to jail for 10 to life so you know like I say for a long time I had I had a big thing when I was first locked up where I was like oh fuck snitches all this

but you know whatever I mean what did I expect to do it was my fault for putting those people in that position you know that's how I look at it now right but that's actually how I look at it actually when I hit the halfway house I actually called like five of my co-defendants that all cooperated against me

and apologized for putting them in a position where they had to. I said because the truth is I was smarter than that and I knew better than to put you in that position. And, you know, the idea that they were going to hold up was insane. That's comical. I mean, they got the fucking,

the fucking mafioso killers. They don't even fucking hold it. The whole thing, like I'm not saying, I know some super thorough dudes that I was in prison with and I know some super thorough dudes that like we're in Pelican Bay and walk like level four yards and like still to this day they're like fucking.

Yeah, snitches and fuck them guys and they would never. But I always tell them, I'm like, dude, if you're in the life, if you're in the life or you're in prison and you want to hold those values and that attitude cool, but dude, if you're like you're trying to live a normal life, you know, and like, and there's still some of my buddies that are like, I can walk, I can walk in the US. I'm like, okay, dude, whatever. Is that going to help you out here? I was going to say, don't commit crimes and, you know, yeah, then you get to do 30 years.

Fuck that. No, I see, I see, like, my whole mindset, you know, life is about change. Life is, life is about evolving. So I see, you know, I put people in bad positions and whatever they did, what they were going to do anyhow. So, you know, but, yeah, so I'm having, like, this month and a half thing where, like, in my lawyer, he's like, oh, it's going federal. So we got to hire a federal lawyer. So then I had to get, like, five more grand. I'll pay this federal lawyer five grand.

Only five grand. At first, that first. Okay. So that was like just the retainer. So paid him cash. He didn't even ask me if it was drug money. He just took it. You know, he just took it.

He was like just happy, I guess, to get it. So, yeah, so then this fucking shit goes federal, right? And I'm just like, fuck, man. So then I got to go through the whole fucking arrest process, get bailed out, all that fucking shit again. And still at this time, I'm not. really sure like what I'm really looking at

because I'm not really I'm not like up on the mandatory minimums you know what I'm saying I'm not up on the federal sentencing guidelines you don't have any idea like are you thinking three years five years are you what do you hear I mean you're hearing yeah I'm thinking maybe like I'm thinking like maybe three to five years even the

fucking federal lawyer I hired right he's telling me he's like oh you're a good kid from a good family he's like still you know he has that 80s mentality right you know like he's thinking like before they changed the laws in like 88 or whenever they went in effect 88 or 89 so he's like oh maybe you might get like eight to 10 years at the most and so but even I was like man fuck that I was

like I'm not doing eight to 10 years and um you know so like I said I basically uh I had I had some product I had money that I was trying to collect you know I had the weed that I was selling you know while all this shit is going on you know even though I have to be careful who I'm selling it You know, I'm trying to fuck with people that, you know, the DEA doesn't know about or that they haven't talked to or whatever. Because, you know, I did fuck with a lot of different people. So, um, I'm getting my money up. And so then, uh, basically I come up with this plan, you know, like my escape plan. Because I'm like, I'm like, because basically like my lawyers tell me, they're like, they're like, you know, eventually, you know, once they start talking to prosecutors, you know, they're like, you're looking at 20 to life.

I'm like 20 to life. I'm like, what the fuck? like are you serious 20 to life I was I was like flabbergasted and then they were like whoa you know you might get like you could probably get like whatever

like four to six years you know if you you know if you uh you know bus bring some of your contacts here you know like they wanted me to bring some people from San Francisco like some of my deadhead friends you know they want me to bring in and I'm like big buys yeah yeah so they wanted me to set them up

and I was like man I don't know about that So that was like how they presented my choices. They were like, oh, you can do $20 to life? Yeah. Or you can fucking can bust these motherfuckers, cooperate and get less time. And I was like. Or you can go to trial, lose, and definitely get life. Yeah.

But I was even like, I was even fucked up like, you want me to cooperate and I'm still going to get time? Yeah. I was like, what are you fucking? Like, I mean, I thought when people cooperate, like they get off. Like they don't even go to prison. So they were like, no, it's not like that. whatever so um i formed this other plan right i was like man you know because i was out on bail i was

like man i'm gonna take the fuck off you know what i'm saying i'm like i'm gonna fucking get the fuck out of here fuck these motherfuckers right and like i say i i had some money so um you know i was always a big sports fan right and you know back then it was all newspapers so like we would get the washington post every day so when you get the washington post you know and you go like i would go right to the sports section but the section right before the sports section is the metro section. And so I remember, like, you know, over the last couple of years of my teenage years, I would see, like, headlines, like, in the metro section, like, you know,

so-and-so, this person, like, commit suicide at, you know, Great Falls, you know, jumping into the Potomac River. So that kind of always stuck in my mind for some reason. So I was thinking, I was like, man, I was like, how can I just, like, disappear, make Seth Ferranti disappear? So there's, like, no Seth Fronte, there's, like, no case. So I came up with this, I devised this plan. I'm like, I'm going to fake my suicide on the banks of the Potomac at Great Falls National Park.

I'm going to make it seem like I jump in the river and the area where I was going to jump in where everybody committed suicide. It's known as like Class 5 rapids, you know, because the water is like crazy and there's rocks. So, you know, they got like professional kayakers go there, but only like the super most craziest professional ones. So I was like, man, I'm going to stage my suicide in this area. I'm going to jump. Everybody's go-to move. I'm like, I'm going to jump in the fucking water. So I came up with all this fucking big plan.

And then, too, because I had another problem, you know, because, you know what, my parents had put their house up for a bail, right? So then I talked to the lawyers, right? So I told the lawyers, you know, because I was like, I didn't bring it up, but I was like, you know, I started pursuing the cooperation thing. I was like, well, what happens if I say I'm going to cooperate? they're like will you plead guilty and then they're going to release you on a personal

reconnaissance bond they released the lien against the your parents house and it's no longer the collateral and i was like once they said that i already had this suicide plan but you know i didn't want to i didn't have enough money to cover you know because i don't it was like i think they put up 75 grand or something so i didn't have enough money to cover that for my parents so i didn't even want to fuck my parents right so then the lawyers you know when i asked them about the cooperation and they told me about this i was like they said PR i was like PR bond i was like what the fuck does that mean? Right. And they're like, well, you know, they're going to release you on your own recognizance. I'm like, all I got to do is like, tell them I'm going to plead guilty

and I'm going to cooperate. Right. And they were like, yeah. So I was like, okay, I was like, set it up. Right. So I fucking signed the paperwork. They fucking went to the courthouse, pled guilty. They fucking cut me loose. And then they told me like, I'm going to have to do these fucking debriefings. Right. Right. But I was already planning. I already had everything planned. Like I'm, I was fucking gone. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I went, and then, like, all this fucking transpired. Like, from the time I signed the paperwork till when I fled, I mean, it was only fucking, like, a couple days, right?

And so I took the fuck off, right? I fake my suicide. I took off. You know, I got rid of the rest of the weed I had, and I took off to California. And, like, for real, dude, like, I thought, I mean, because I just went, I was, like, on a nine-month high, like, where I was on top of the world, and then, like, everything fucking crashed. So then I was like

fucked up and then like I came up with this plan and I executed it and then I was like on top of the world I was like man I was like

I'm that fucking dude like fuck these motherfuckers right like you know I felt like I got my fucking swagger back or whatever because like when they when I got busted and all that shit

dude my fucking moxie my swag was just like gone I was like at the lowest point but you you'd also thought that you pulled off the faking the suicide right because didn't you

wasn't there something in the newspaper or something about you committing suicide and yeah so you thought you thought it was a lock yeah so so so I go to L.A. A flight of L.A. And I'm actually, I'm staying on

Point Magoo military base. So I know this girl her dad's like the XO. This girl named Nancy. So she was like an old girlfriend so I went out there and I'm staying on the base and you know Point Magoo is a little bit up from L.A but I was having her drive me down to L.A. every day because you know back then

they had like the big newsstands you know like on every corner with like all the newspapers from different places and all the magazines you know you don't see that as much today sometimes in the big cities but not really with all the newspapers from the different cities so I was going to get the Washington Post like every couple days I would go to the Washington Post so the first time I went and I saw it said uh you know Fairfax LSD Kingpin commit suicide and I fucking saw I was like fuck yeah I got these motherfuckers because I was thinking like boom now seven years like Seth

Ferranti my parents can have me declared legally dead in seven years right you know what I'm saying nobody's found or whatever they don't know what the fuck is up and my body you know I figure my body was gonna float out to the fucking Atlantic Ocean you know so I keep going back and I'm fucking like I'm on top of the world again

I'm like yeah I'm the fucking smartest motherfucking outlaw I can out smart the fucking feds these motherfuckers can't fuck with me and I'm like 22 so I'm like fucking you know you know when you're 20, it's all like that false bravado. You think you're living in a movie or something. Yeah, dude, like I was.

I was like, you know, catch me if you can wasn't even out, out then. But, you know, I thought I was catch me if you can, you know. But, you know, I just didn't know the name of the title of the movie. But I thought I was that dude. So I keep going down and I'm reading the papers. You know, a couple of my code offense are going to trial. You know, everybody else pleads guilty. You know, out of everybody, like two dudes ended up going to trial.

everybody else like six other dudes ended up pleading guilty so i'm reading all this in the papers and then it was like probably like two weeks after i go back down and um like i'm still on my fucking high dude and i get the fucking paper and i open up to the metro section dude and i was just fucking crushed because it said uh it was like fucking prosecutors declare uh ls Fairfax County LSD Kings penned suicide a hoax and I saw the headline I was like what like all my planning everything dude I was like what the fuck I'm not dead so I start reading the article right and it's like they said the the US park rangers you know drag the river for two weeks and they didn't find a body and um I was like reading it more and then like it went on to say like

you know you know where you know I allegedly went in you know there's like a a dance like after that so I mean I was like fuck it wouldn't have been washed out to see it would have been stuck in this one area and they would have found the body I like seriously fucked up man I fucking staged I staged my suicide it's a good two weeks yeah so I staged the suicide on the wrong side of the dam so that's I mean I had a dime so look I thought it was smart as fuck and I mean really in a way you think I mean I did I was real innovative and I came up with this fucking crazy idea and I almost pulled it off just that one little in detail, man. Next time. Next time, you know. So that's how, yeah, so that's how that whole

shit transpires. So then, uh, then they made me for some ungodly reason these fucking, and I know why. Now, I learned later at the time, I had no fucking clue. So I learned later, because when I was in prison, I did all these freedom information, actually, you know, on all my case and everything. Yeah. You know, because I was a, you know, I was a, a megalomaniac researcher like that. So you might know about stuff like that. Me too. I see. So, uh, So what I pieced together after the fact. So what happened was there was this dude name Henry Hudson. He was like the assistant prosecutor, like the, you know, not the assistant pro.

Yeah, he was assistant U.S. attorney named Henry Hudson, like on my case at the time in the Eastern District of Virginia. So all of a sudden, right after my case, this dude transfers to the Eastern District. district U.S. Marshal's office. And he's the head of the U.S. Marshal's office. And so I guess like, you know, he felt like I put a black mark on his record or, you know, like I made them look bad or I outsmarted. Was he, he was your AUSA? He was your, he wasn't the prosecutor in my case. My prosecutor in my case was his chick named Christine. Right. He was like the, he was like the assistant U.S. attorney. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry, never mind. Yeah. So, uh, so she was underneath him and your case was underneath his caseload so yeah so this dude he goes from second

in charge of the u.s. attorney's office to number one guy in the u.s. marshals in the eastern district of virginia and um this dude makes me top 15 u.s. marshalsless i guess out of revenge factor or he's pissed off or i'm the black mark on his record and he has higher aspirations right you know so um yeah so i mean i had no clue so so so so So for two years, like, I'm prancing around the fucking U.S. Like, eventually I started selling weed and not LSD, but I started running weed from Dallas, Texas, up to St. Louis, and I'm just, like, carrying on, you know, war on drugs. I'm still a drug dealer.

Like, you know, really, in retrospect, when I look at it, I was really, really, really stupid. I mean, I'm trying to fucking be the biggest drug dealer I can as a fugitive at the height of the war on drugs. So, you know, but, I mean, retrospect, age, you get some clarity. So, you know, at the time, you know, I got blinders on, whatever. I thought I was a cool guy. So this dude, so I'm actually U.S. Marshall's fucking top 15 most wanted for fucking the whole two years.

I'm a fugitive. I have no fucking clue. Because even when I was a fugitive, like I would watch all the shows. I watch like America's Most Wanted. You're like, I'm doing research. Dude, I'm like a researcher. That's what I do. You know, like when I do something, like I research it, right?

So I'm watching America's Most Wanted. I'm watching fucking like unsolved mysteries. I'm watching all that shit because I'm figuring out like how do they catch these motherfuckers and so a lot of times like I'm seeing shit like the nightstocker Richard Ramirez

it's taking like three months to match up his prints yeah so you know I'm like fuck dude like I'm low profile I don't have any murders I never even beat nobody up you know what I'm saying

I'm like these can take them forever to match up my prints because I'm you know I feel like I'm not a high priority but you know lo and behold I had no fucking idea that I'm fucking a federal

U.S. Marshal's top 15 Most won a fucking fugitive. So, and like I say, this dude Henry Hudson, he did the paperwork, you know? Because later on, when I got caught, you know, one of the U.S. marshals told me like he's looking at my jacket, you know,

and he's looking at me, and I look like, when I got caught, I looked like a little college kid, and he's like, who did you piss off? Right. You know what I'm saying? Because there's like, anybody else on the top 15 most wanted list is like violent, has guns, murders, whatever.

Yeah, they're dangerous fugitives and you're selling a product you can't even OD on. I'm selling fucking hippie drugs. Right. So whatever. So, you know, but I came to find out this all later.

So, you know, by that whole time, really, when I'm a fugitive, I was selling weed. I was running weed. Eventually, like in L.A., my money ran out and that girl got sick of me

living at her parents' house. So, you know, I had to fucking roll out. So, you know, she didn't want to, her parents didn't know I was a fugitive but she knew so after about six months she was kind of like uh dude you gotta like

the novelty's worn off she's like yeah it was cool seeing you again and having some sex and shit but now you gotta balance motherfucker because there's no this relationship's not lasting there's no future you're a fucking fugitive fucking drug dealer you know what I'm saying at the height of the war on drugs

she's like she saw no future like what she's gonna have my kids when I go to prison I don't know but uh so uh yeah I kind of, she told me, kick rocks. I go to Dallas, Texas. I hook up with Mexican Eddie. Right.

You know my fucking brick pot dealer. You got fake IDs. Oh, I got tons of fake ideas. I mean, that's a whole other story. That would take another half hour to tell about the fake IDs. But I got a whole fucking bunch of fake IDs that I got through researching through books. I learned how to do it. And I meet some guys and they're from St. Louis, you know, and I'm selling drugs.

You know, weed in in Texas at Harrigan's restaurants. other restaurants and one of the guys one time he goes to st. Louis so I'm like can you sell some weed and so I go up I take 20 pounds and like over that next year to 18 months I make like I have like my my second little fucking marijuana empire and um then eventually uh I get arrested for like a quarter pound of weed with the same guy who took me up there but it was in his truck so he claims it he actually was selling weed for me but it was my weed you guys got pulled over or something then what? No, we were in the back

of a Burger King parking lot. Oh, that's right. Yeah, the Burger King parking lot had just got robbed like two weeks before. I just dropped off like three pounds. We were just waiting for the money and smoking a joint.

Cops fall up. Dumb luck. And I didn't even know he had the quarter pound on the truck. But, you know, he did the right thing. He claimed it. He said it was his, but they still arrested me

and took me in a match my prints. You know, released me. Then I came back and bailed him out, got his car out of the impound. You know, and got my money for the three pounds. And, yeah, but then in three days they match up my fucking prints.

So then the fucking Midwest fucking fugitive task forces Looking for me They go to his house first Because they got his real name He starts driving him around St. Louis To all the people I fucking sell weed to And then eventually they found some dude That I just fucking loaded up

Threat to give him 10 years to life And he brought him right to my hotel. Boom. Extradited back to Virginia Since since to 25 years 3004 months Did you you didn't I mean, you just pled guilty to 25 years? I'd already pled.

I'd already pled. I pled before I left. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I pled because I pled to the 20 to life and told them I would cooperate. Because you were never going to be there for the sentencing. Because I was going to be dead. Right, right. But I wasn't dead.

My whole plan backfired. So then when I came, they held me to that plea. And they fucking, and obviously they didn't give me any credit for any cooperation. and they enhanced me five years for 60 months for taking off of, you know, obstetricist of justice and failure to appear. Right. So 25 years. Yeah.

Did you do a 2255? Did you do anything? I did everything, man. Oh, okay. You went through the whole process of trying to. Lost everything. Yeah. You know, dude, back then in the 90s, you couldn't get any play for anything.

Only if you went to trial, you could have went to a play. so I would say that to any of your listeners really I mean you got two choices when you get busted man either fucking cooperate fucking fully and fucking get as little time as you can if you're not going to do that go to trial man

that's that's only way you're going to retain your rights so you know like I'm saying you know don't try to do anything halfway don't try to outsmart the motherfuckers like I did you're just going to get fucked yeah um 25 years bro what the fuck

and then I heard on the on the other podcast where you're talking about the you were talking about you know being the different prisons and the you know the whole thing

and you mentioned Coleman and Whitey Bulger yeah yeah yeah yeah like I was in the medium there at Coleman I used to write Whitey Bolger yeah you told me that dude he has the most awful handwriting yeah

fucking you can barely read his writing dude it's like he was also like a hundred he was that was like 70 something you're like a fucking magnifying glass dude i'd send him the rolling stone article about my case it came out in 97 when i was in when i was in c i beckley and he wrote me a whole fucking letter on the rolling stone my rolling stone article like i still got that i don't know i think i might put it up on ebay one day i was going to say any any letters from him would be worth something let's see if somebody give me like i'll start the bidding at 10,000 um all right so we're going to do another podcast about just about what you're doing now because when you went to prison you

started writing and that's you know and although i mean although the the true crime story is cool you know to me i mean that's like like you're at a spot now in your career where i'd love to be in a few years from now you know yeah the whole the whole prison i mean it was a lot of time i had to do but whatever i got three college degrees i got a master's degree i started writing books and every day in prison my thing was what can i do today for when I get out so I mean everything I've done it's it was all planned dude I mean I'm very methodical yeah you know how I do stuff I do everything one step at a time you know I research I'm not trying to jump from one to 10 you know I don't mind

taking the steps I'm very methodical so prison even though I had to do 21 years I was very methodical in that 21 years and I did everything that I needed to do to put me in the position where I am now you know I started writing true crime stories when I was in prison I didn't write any fiction stories like i've heard your your how you started writing it's like some of the gangster guys stories and and uh and some uh some were of what fiction kind of fiction started that way no everything was pretty much non-fiction my first book prison stories was true but i wrote it as fiction because you know i didn't want to be like a snitch in prison right and they're everybody so

they're always so worried about oh what if i tell you something that i could get well then let's not talk about that or we'll change the names but so yeah i i started doing that what i was it was the same thing like i heard your interview before. So it's basically like, look, I'm in prison. And when I was in prison, I saw all the other guys. They're learning to play an instrument. They're taking horticulture classes or they're playing softball. And it's like you're spending 10 years of your life or 15 years and you're an amazing handball player. But when you, but you came in with no education. You've only sold drugs. You know, you're an amazing handball player. You know, you're an amazing handball

player when you get out but you're in your 50s now the fuck are you going to do when you get out of prison none of and the guys that were taking horticulture are only concerned about taking it because they plan on buying burning a bunch of houses and growing marijuana and the guys that are taking the stuff as far as like um i forget what they called that class where it was basically about how to run a restaurant so highest failure rate out there get a restaurant so what you want to do is you want to put a guy who has no money in a situation where he could open a restaurant and fail or real estate or real estate or something it's like you don't have any experience of no way to do this so my point is to me I thought what can I do in here and the one you can't really work but the one thing they they will let you do

is they will let you write they will let you publish books they will let you write stories you can write for magazines and you can make money that way you can't run a business but they can't stop you from doing that's the one thing they will let you do and there were so many amazing stories I would hear guys tell stories I heard for years I listened to stories and I think, how is that not a movie? How is no one written your story? And they can't write their own stories because you don't see yourself the way you really are. So that's when I came in. I wrote my own story and then I started writing other guys' stories.

And, you know, I figured someday I'll get out of prison. I'll have all these stories and I'll try and get them turned into documentaries or movies. IP. IP. I started collecting IP. And so, but you, you know, but you're way ahead of where I am. I just like to be where you're at at some point in the future. That's my, like my goal.

That's like, that's my dream. That's what I laid in bed at night in my bunk and thought, well, if I get out, I could do this, and I could do this. And I had a whole building block in my head, you know, plan. Well, that's how you do it. You got to manifest it. You got to talk about it. You got to put it out there.

You got to make it reality. I'm a firm believer in, you know, like moving forward, positivity and just saying what I'm going to do and then doing it. Right. You know, I'm a firm believer in that. Like, I don't, like, even in prison, prison is a very negative place, right? And when I first started running, you know, even the guards, the other prisoners, they'd be like, you know, you can't do that. They'd always told me, like, I can't do this.

And like, I would read the policy and I'd be like, man, I can do this. Yeah. You know, so, and so even out here, I'm like, I will not, I cannot stand negativity. Anybody that is like negative or like second guesses me when I'm trying to do. And like I say, sometimes, like, you know, I'm doing these documentaries. now you know i got white boy on netflix and you know some people that might be like the pinnacle but to me it's just it's just like like another ladder on the rung you know i tell i want to be the quentin the next quentin tarentino i want to do you know scripted you know fiction fictional like

drug you know crime movies you know sometimes maybe based on a real event but you know like dude like i want to do like a hundred million dollar budget movies right you know like i'm not fucking around Like I'm already looking right now from do this documentary stuff. I'm looking to jump to like the $3 to $5 million indie flick. And then, you know, then I'm looking to jump to like a $20 million, you know, 50, 60. And then, you know, I want to do like a fucking Marvel movie. Right. I want to do the purple man.

I don't know if you know who the purple man is. He's this criminal character. He's like in a lot of Spider-Man comic books. But he's like, he wears like a gangster suit and he's all purple. And he has like these, I don't even know how to say it. It's like, is it called fur, fur gnomes or something? So it's like he can emit from his body. Ferrimones, pheromones.

Ferramones. So he can permit those from his body and make you do what he says. So that's like his superpower. But he's like a villain. I had an ex-girlfriend like that. Yeah. I think a lot of women are like that, especially on men. But so he's like a super villain.

So I want to do like the Purple Man movie. you know i also want to do uh i want to remake the princess bride right oh nice nice i love the you guys don't even know the princess i want to remake the princess bride so sad bro with like with with with good cg i know like a tokenistic version of the princess bride but keep the humor and the sweetness and then uh another movie i want to remake i want to remake uh you know harder they come you know the the classic or harder they fall the classic jamaica movie okay yeah so it's like from 1971 you know it's about you know Jimmy Cliffs in it so he's about like a up-and-coming reggae you know dance hall guy but like he's involved in crime so I want to

remake that just like think how they remade Scarface right so I want to remake you know that old Jamaican movie except you know set it in like you know the hip-hop era you know and have a guy who's like he's trying to be a rapper but he's involved in crime and he ends up you know going to jail for being a crime like a lot of the stories we, you know, heard about in federal prison. But, yeah, my whole thing, man, where I started writing, because I kind of looked at it, I started taking college classes and I was like. When you were in prison. Yeah, yeah, when I was in prison. Which is difficult, by the way. Like, everybody thinks that, oh, yeah, they offer this. Listen, man, you basically, you're doing

everything yourself. They might have some person who's supposed to help you, but they're half-assed about it. So it's basically all on you. And plus, when I first went in, they had the Pell Grants, right but about in 96 they they abolish a pilgrim so they didn't even fund the college courses so my parents paid for all my college courses i did all my shit correspondence so i got the a degree from penn state i got the BA from bachelor or from uh university iowa and actually that that was one of my best moves when i got on that program because university iowa is like famous for this writing program you know you got to the writing program you got to go there you know it's like on campus but a lot of the instructors that I was doing correspondence courses through

were the instructors from that famous writing course you know doing like extra work for extra money right and so I had the benefit of these instructors and I was taking all writing heavy because in there you can go like a business administrative route or you can go like a humanities route you know and if you go like a humanity's liberal arts it's like a lot of writing creative writing journalism you know reading a lot of books and writing papers and um eventually I got my master's degree I got my master's degree from University of California. So, but during that whole time, that's how I learned to write, you know, so it's not like

I just started putting pin to paper or whatever. I, like, took college courses, you know, and I learned to write. I already was creative, you know, I was kind of creative, you know, my whole life, you know, I used to write poetry, playing bands, all that shit like that, you know, I was like dungeon master, you know what I'm saying, creating all these worlds and shit. It's so funny, like they don't know, they don't know what that means, but a dungeon master is. Dungeons and Dragons. That was like the, oh, no, wow.

Listen, there's so many things, there's so many things that I'll say to somebody in my age, and I'll always look over at Colby, and Colby's just like, he has no clue what I'm talking about. That's the 80s shit. The 80s was a wonderful time. But pre-internet was, I think it was a better world, really. But, you know, so the whole time I'm getting these degrees, I'm writing. So first I started writing, my first big success was actually writing prison basketball. So, you know, because like in there, dude,

there's like these dudes, they're like phenomenal basketball players, dude. And like how you're talking about. Like they spend all this time. They spend like 10, 15 years just playing basketball. But, you know, I mean, they can never be professional because when they get out, they're going to be too old. But like in there, dude, like these dudes are phenomenal basketball players. So I started writing about this one guy named Ron Jordan.

He was from Harlem. He had like that Rucker Park game, dude. And this dude was built like a linebacker, right? He was maybe like 6-1, like 240, right? but this dude could like slam dunk he had like all the handles he like embarrassed dudes they they call him ron jordan the abuser because he used to like abuse people he would like do all the stuff like fix somebody out act like he's going to the basket and with the easy lay out but he would pull it back to let the dude guard him again you know because it was just like the the man

on man like macho shit dude this dude and he could dunk and he could shoot threes this dude was scoring like 60 points a game and everybody used to come out the gym to see him so that was like my first big success I started writing about this dude and the other prison basketball players and um yeah I was writing for this website called hoop site you know which now they're like they're like on I don't know they're like uh I think USA Today or something bottom so they're like this big but that time they were just like this little kind of hip hop you know hip hop basketball website and then I started writing for slam which is kind of like a hip hop basketball magazine and then from there I started doing the more gangster stories I started right for Don Deva and feds which are like

They call, like, you know, the street, the street Bibles. Yeah, they wouldn't even let, they wouldn't even let those in. Like, those are like the most popular magazines in prison, man. Guys would get them sent in. They'd have the, they started putting, alternate covers. Yeah, new covers. Yeah, fake covers to get in there. Like, you get one of those magazines in prison.

Like, dude, the line is like 200 long. Everybody wants to read it, you know? So I started writing for them, Don Deva, feds. And really, I formed a journalism. career in prison because that was like the only thing I could do I was like what the fuck can I do I was like I can write you know so um and then really my biggest break came um this is probably like early 2000s I just started writing really like around 99 so uh you know at first I was just writing like in the prison like I was doing prison sports newsletters

like that they post on the boards and stuff I was doing that I did that for six years while I was taking the college classes so then I started doing the Don Davis stuff in the prison basketball and then there was this editor of vice named jesse pearson so this was like when vice was just basically a magazine they had a website but they weren't huge like they are today so this is like early 2000s you know so they're like this kind of low rent gq you know they have this big thing it's like dues and don'ts where they do like the fashion like dress like this and they make fun of people they take pictures so he had he was a big fan of my work from don diva so he reached out to me you know and um i started writing dude dude they were paying me like dude they were paying me like

five hundred dollars a month right to write a column i wrote a column like 1200 words called i'm busted and it was in every magazine for like fucking two or three years 500 like i was living like a king on 500 a month 500 bucks in prisons a lot of fucking fuck dude i was like everybody thought i was like a millionaire yeah you know what i'm saying and so that was like my first big break because i started writing for that and then uh i kept for i kept writing for vices they kept growing it. I was like their prison guy. You know, I would do like their prison. And then I got more into true crime. Then I started doing stuff for penthouse. I started doing stuff for the fix, war on drug stuff. And how the whole white boy thing came about is, you know, I started writing

him around 2005 because I started doing my street legend stuff. Like I had all this material from Don Devin. Don Deva can only, it's a magazine, so they could only fit like so much. And I had all this extra material and I like all the dudes, they kept coming back to me. They're like, dude, what about this picture or what about this you want to use some of the stuff so eventually you know like they were upset with me because everything was not in the magazine that they gave me you know so eventually i came up with my street legend series i've published prison stories 2005 street legends 2008 so at the same time um i reach out to white boy rick because i'm in fci i gilmer and beckley beckley fcii gilmer in west virginia and there's all these detroit dudes so i'm hearing about this dude white boy rick

hold on you know who white boy Rick is okay you guys saw the movie yeah yeah I haven't seen about seeing the trailers yeah

yeah all right so I start writing him because I want to put him in like my street legends book yeah right and basically my street legend's books are just like all these African American drug lores

that are part of you know the lyrical lore of hip hop right you know and gangster rap I kind of I just kind of romanticize and glorify it

and I make them into these Billy the kid you know Jesse Jim's type figures because you know I was writing I was writing from my peers in prison. And also, I was a white guy writing about African-American dudes, like, in prison. Like, you know, that doesn't happen.

I mean, you've been in prison. That's not like, that's not like something normal, you know? And the only reason I even have the juice to do that is because, you know, I had the long sentence. I'd been in a little bit. And, you know, the longer year and the more stripes you get, you know. So by the time I do this, you know, I'm like in 10 years. So, you know, I got a lot of stripes.

And I played sports. I was a sports fanatic. I'm like really athletic. Like I would be like the only white dude like out there playing ball with all the black dudes. Like like I was like the dude like you know you go to the yard like you go to the yard at lunch I'm playing ball. You go to the yard and recall I'm playing ball. You know I play like three hours straight. I didn't give a fuck.

That was like how I did my time. Yeah. I actually sat at a table in the library with five guys that were writing or five black guys that were all writing urban novels. I was only one writing true crime. And I was the white guy at the room or at the table because I was the guy that. you know as racist as this is going to sound it was it was basically you don't have google what you've got as a white guy so they'd say you know i don't understand how do you say that hey cox hey cox i'd be like no it's this it's that are you sure yeah i'm sure okay this yeah so i mean i was

you know to sit at that table everybody thought i was like a you know like you must be a cool guy to be sitting at the table with all those guys because the white guys and black guys very seldomly mix in prison you were just google yeah it was google yeah i had a I had a purpose. You were like that smart guy from the 80s that Google fucking made obsolete. Yeah, exactly. In prison, only in prison. Yeah, but in prison, you still need that guy, that guy who knows everything.

Out here, I'm semi-smart, but in prison, fucking super genius in prison because the IQ is so low. But anyway. No, that's what I tell people too, right? Because look, like since I've been out, like, dude, I've been to Cairns, man, I go to Sundance. And I'm around like, dude, these people, they went to Harvard and Columbia. and do they just speak and I'm like I just want to be around them so I can learn to speak better because they're like so eloquent and they use all these fucking big words

and like I feel like a brute around them right but like in prison I'm like like you said I'm like the super genius in fucking prison and then I get out around all these fucking talented writers and filmmakers and people that went to all these Ivy League schools and come from all this money and I just I feel like a fucking brute dude

I'm telling you it's fucking crazy this is like my my biggest fucking delimit today, you know, because a lot of people that are like, oh, no, you're eloquent. You can talk. And I'm like, no, I don't talk like that. I'm a fucking, I talk like a brute. Right. I talk like an educated brute.

Yeah. Among my friends on the outside, I'm like a, I'm practically a thug around these guys. And to me, it's like, as far as like masculinity, like I'm like, I'm like a four or five on the masculinity. From one to one to 10. Oh, yeah, there's some tough dudes in prison. They got tough motherfuckers. Oh, in prison, I'm like a one.

Maybe a zero. I might as well be wearing a dress when I'm in prison. Now here I'm a five. Prison, I'm a zero. I'm this far from being a fucking punk in prison. I mean, that's how they look at you. You're a soft white guy. You're harmless.

But yeah, it's funny how just everything changes out here. Yeah, so, you know, so white boy Rick, I started writing him, right? And like, I want to tell his story, right? But I want to like romance, romanticize and I want to make it gangster. You know, I want to glorify it because that's what I'm doing in my street legend series. And that's, I'm hearing all this stuff about him. Like, who is this white kid that was running all these, you know, black organized crime in Detroit when he was like, 16 or 17 and I kind of identify him with him too you know because we were both young white

dudes we both got a lot of time you know we were both involved in stuff as a teenager so you know there's a lot of similarities you know so I'm writing him and we start writing and he starts telling me like this totally opposite story you know how like he was in a foreman and you know the police prostituted him and buried him and and I didn't really get it at first because I'm like I'm like man I don't I don't I'm not writing about a performance like my my base is like the other prisoners. You know, now I'm in like medium security prisons.

I'm like, these dudes ain't gonna fucking, if I write some shit, they're gonna be like, you're writing about a snitch, you know, or whatever. So it took me a couple years

to kind of get my head around his story and how to write it. And like I say, it took me to get older and it took my writing to evolve. And it probably took me going to a low. Yeah.

Where, you know, they don't carry it like the same, you know, because I did 12 years in the mediums. And then I did nine years in the low. So it was like this kind of, kind of evolution in my writing where you know i went from writing this hardcore death before

dishonor shit to uh you know more about the injustices of the drug war because i started seeing the bigger picture more you know as i got older and i started writing more and like i say also going to the low gave me more room to explore this stuff with not being considered this or be considered that so um yeah 2012 i wrote this story about his case for the fix dude and like the shit fucking went viral dude like it was my first experience of having the prison basketball shit was pretty popular but like this shit like fucking went super fucking viral on the fix this is uh like drug war fucking site right and um just brought a ton of tension to me you know and um the whole time i was already thinking you know because i was writing books uh you know from 2005 till i got

in 2015 i wrote eight books and um then when i got out i took two of those books and i divided divided it up the chapters, you know, and put 12 out like digital books, you know, to make it like 20, even though it's like from the same material. And then I had a couple more. So I think I got like 24 books out right now. But once I started doing the books, you know, and I was kind of doing the journalism. And I was like, man, really I want to do movies. I want to do visual stuff, you know. But it was just kind of, you know, learning it. And like when I took my master's degree, I took like a lot of film type courses, you know, at least reading the books as much as I could in there. And I, I, I did have a couple, like, they would let me send in some DVDs, you know, so I could watch different shit. But really, like, everything I was doing, man, was basically for gearing up, you know. So, you know, I even, like, dude, I read a whole bunch of books, like, books on, like, shots, like, explains all the different shots, like, in narratives and stuff like that. And, you know, I just went crazy.

So I was, like, you know, reading. Because in there, that's all you got time to do is read, you know what I'm saying? So it's like, you might as well educate yourself. I don't think I read five books since I've been out in six years. But, you know, yeah, so I kind of hit the ground running. And, you know, I did more pieces on White Boy Rick Story for, like, Vice News and Vice and some other places. So, but still, when I first got out, though, I was just a journalist. I was working as a journalist.

And then I met the dude Sean Wreck, the director of White Boy. And he had transitioned studios. He had just done this movie, a murder in the park. It was on Showtime. And I actually interviewed him for that, for that for a, for a friend. vice right and he found out about my backstory and we started talking and at first we were going to do like this uh prison expoise like on on on how all these sub industries are built around the prisons right you know like like keefy coffee and all the hotels and how it's all kind of interconnected

you know with the the dude like the senator brings the prisons there and it's all his friends the businessmen who form all the businesses around the prison so we were looking at something like that and then we were talking and uh i showed them some it was like right when they announced like the white boy rick movie with matthew mccanahy and i had showed him some of my articles i go did you hear about this and he's like yeah i heard they're going to do that movie and i'm like you know i know this dude and i'm like check out here's these articles you know i wrote like four or five articles about and he's like what he's like he's from cleveland so he's like yeah i heard about this dude you know he's like our age so he's like i heard about this dude man and uh then he was like man

he was like you got access to him and i was like yeah he's like i'm looking to do my next doc man let's do this you know so it was just like lucky i made the right relationship at the right time when he was looking for something you know and there was a hype because of the white boy rick movie so it made him interested and um for that he actually he had actually you know told me like he came with a couple different proposals like you know let's do it like this let's do it like this you know trying to lessen you know maybe kind of my role or just kind of you know by the idea or whatever and i and i told him you know i knew how to tell a story but i didn't really know how to make a film so I told him I said look man I said you know I want I want to be by your

side you know I want you you know whatever if you can give me something at the end whatever but you don't got to pay me nothing now I say I want to you know keep by I want you to mentor me also I asked him that because this dude had cut his teeth doing like crime stoppers he did like 200 crime stopper shows you for all the networks yeah and he had won like nine regional Emmys in Ohio for all his work on these 200 shows so I knew dude was something special I knew he knew what he was doing because when I walked in his office, he had nine fucking Emmys. So, yeah, man, so I made the deal with him. I said, look, dude, I'm going to get you everything you need for this film.

I'm going to get you all the access. I'm going to get you all the people you need to make this film. And I go, I just want you to, you know, involve me in the process, man. And he was very fucking cool about it. So like a lot of times we would do the interviews and I would be there sometimes. I might watch the camera, sometimes not. But always at the end of the interview when he was done, he would give me five. minutes in the director's chair. So, you know, actually white boy, so I got a writer credit and a

producer credit on that. And Sean Wreck, Emmy Winnie director, trained me how to be a director, you know, mentored me over that like, you know, nine to 12 months that we did the shooting, you know, and then I worked with his editor, you know, in him as we edited it, you know, over, over like the next nine to 12 months. So that was like, you know, so really, I mean, John Rick, I mean, he taught me a lot. And then also like Rick, man, Rick's still my real good friend to this day. You know, Rick, there was a lot of interest in Rick. He had the Hollywood movie, man.

Rick didn't have to, you know, give us our blessing or participate in that, in that white boy documentary. He did that because of our relationship because I told him because I said, look, dude, I said, I want to make films. I said, this dude got the money to make this film. And I go, first off, you know, our first goal was to get him out. Yeah. you know and he had got this other guy out from a murder in the park right so that was kind of like his track record but that was like the first thing but i said i told rick i said the second thing is i want to make films motherfucker i said do this for me because you know he was kind of first he was

like oh who's this guy and his his representation where oh we don't know about this guy he only made this one of film who the fuck is he but i told i said look i believe in this dude i've seen his you know team he can do it you know and i go this is my entrance into the film world and what I want to do. And so like I will always be indebted, you know, to Rick, especially, you know, for giving me that opportunity by giving his blessing to that. But also, you know, to Sean Rick for teaching me everything that he taught me. And it's on, it's on Netflix right now. Is it playing on Netflix? Yeah, it's on Netflix. So it was on, was it on before Discovery and then Netflix? No, it was on stars. It's on 18 months. And now Netflix. Yeah, they went on Netflix.

And it was crazy because when it first came out, it first came out probably like, you know, almost three years ago and um when it first came out i knew it was a good film right but this is like pre pandemic this is like uh pre black lives matters exploding all over the uh you know world internationally you know this is pre a lot of things and i think when at first i thought like everything that's happening now was going to happen when it first came out man because i was like man this film is awesome man sean wreck and his team you know i i contributed to it but you know i'll give credit where credit is due i mean that was sean wreck and his editor you know i was probably like the third most important person on that or maybe the fourth but uh you know i knew it was a

good film i knew it was powerful and it did it helped to get rick out you know not that it got rick out by itself but it helped but um i thought everything that's happening now was going to happen then but i think because the world the way the world was you know people you know they didn't believe it or you know there was too many rabbit holes or they didn't believe in the level of corruption that we were showing and exposing you know and plus i think everybody was still kind of in the rat race of America, you know, capitalism, trying to make money. So, you know, so it had like a, you know, 18-month run on stars and, you know, it didn't really get a lot of recognition or turn a lot of heads.

And then, you know, then like we signed the Netflix deal and it went on Netflix, like right at the end of the pandemic, you know, like last April. And I think it might have something to do with like the Tiger King effect maybe. But, man, it went on Netflix, dude, and it just fucking exploded. It was like it was brand fucking new, man. So the first two weeks it was on Netflix, it's like top 10 on Netflix, not top 10 documentaries, like top 10 movies, series, everything for two weeks straight, right? New York Times did like a little fucking write-up on it. And then, you know, like I say, they said like in April and May, like it had 20 million fucking views.

So it's crazy because that just, for me, it put a lot of wind in my sales because I had a bunch of different stuff I wanted to do that I'm working on now, but I didn't really. really have the money. Right. But it just kind of blew me up. And I always look at it, like, I look at it like sports. Like, all right, New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. Everybody knows Tom Brady's a man. But all those other free agents on that team are getting big contracts.

Yeah. So, like, I was part of something that has been extremely successful, you know, on Netflix and that a ton, and it's like recognition, the recognition value, dude, like you could talk to anybody. You know, most people, they know fucking white boy Rick and they know fucking white boy on Netflix. Right. You know, it gives that recognition, like that name value where I do like,

I could just meet somebody on the plane and be like, oh, yeah, I did white boy on Netflix. And they'd be like, you know, they know it. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so now, dude, I got a ton of shit, man. I'm doing a, I'm doing a cannabis documentary, the cannabis docu series on Humboldt County called Tangle Roots that I just, I just premiered the teaser at the Emerald Cup, which is like the World Series of Cannabis. Just last weekend, you know, I got on stage and got to talk about it.

I had all the farmers with me. um i'm doing an lsd docucus series that i'm going to premiere the first episode of it in san francisco on bicycle day you know that's like when albert hoffman that's like when albert hoffman first synthesized lsd and took it and discovered lsd they call it bicycle day on april 19th all right so i'm doing it at this uh this thing in san francisco and then um i also got this other docu series i'm working on about the mafia and heroin called Doatman. And so I'm making arrangements, you know. I've kind of come up with this plan

because all this stuff I do, it's kind of niche, it's kind of true crime. It's really hard to get into film festivals. You know, I've been going to all the big film festivals. I've been to Kansas. I've been to Sundance. You know, I've been talking to all these people. And I'm kind of seeing like these target market audiences,

like the Emerald Cup or like an LSD specific event or like a mafia specific event. Is these are almost like, like I think I can use these, like my sundance, you know, because I mean, you know, maybe I could get a sundance, maybe not. But, you know, sundance is only once a year and all my stuff's going to be finished up, you know, like in the next six to eight months. So I'm looking for waves. Like, how can I create the hype, you know, in the press and make enough noise, you know,

to make the streamers notice. Yeah, I got white boy on Netflix, but it's not like I got a direct cook up to Netflix, you know. So you still got to, you got to make the noise. That's why they have the film festivals because, You know, they write about these things, and that brings the attention of the Amazon's, the Hulus, the Netflix. And really, in today's game, it's not about going to the theater. It's not about going to DVD. It's about getting on these streamers, man.

That's how you're going to make your money back. And that's how you're going to keep working. And really, really, like anything in life with film, it's, you know, it's about you've got to keep working, man. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So you got to get this stuff because, I mean, that shit's expensive. We spend, like, white boy, it costs like $250,000 to make. you know and like some of these

docu series that I'm doing now you know that are like 180 225 minutes I mean these are like I mean we're spending like you know 500, 750,000 dollars to to complete these projects hey if you like the video do me a favor and subscribe

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