Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Corrupt Cop Becomes Inmate And Kept It Secret Until Now

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Robert Rodriguez, a former corrections officer, reveals how a tragic night out led to a secret prison sentence he kept hidden... until now. ⁣ ⁣ Robert's links⁣ https://www.instagram.com/royalrodriguez824/⁣ https://youtube.com/@UCjlyzgv1go5ChvFs-plAWig ⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@royalrodriguez824⁣ https://www.facebook.com/royal.rodriguez.826885⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Go to https://OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide during their Red-Hot Sale Event. And use Promo Code INSIDE at checkout for an extra $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details. A big thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks!⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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These interviews are going to let them know who I really was. They don't know to this day. Mom was on drugs. My father got killed when I was 10. How did that happen? Got in a fight with some guy over a girl and they ended up killing them. That's the story we got.

Okay. You know, I was 10 years old. I don't know for sure, for sure, but that's the story we got. So with that, like even before that, I was kind of a wild kid. You know, like in grammar school, I was in sixth grade. And that's the first time I actually pulled a gun out on somebody in sixth grade. And I, um, it was, how do you get a gun?

How do you get a gun in six grade? So I lived across the street from my school. It was, uh, school 77 in Buffalo, New York. And my aunt lived across the street. I was, I was at my aunt's house. She had a 38 long nose. And I had this kid in my school. He was a bigger guy.

He was in the same grade. It was like sixth grade. We was in the same grade. And he was a bigger dude and he was always trying to fuck with me. So I was like, damn, man. One day I was sitting across the street because I got out of school, everybody was getting out of school. I'm sitting on the porch.

And I'm like, you know what? I'm out to show him that you ain't going to fuck with me no more. And I literally ran in my aunt's house, ran upstairs, grabbed the gun, came outside, ran in the middle of the street. He was coming out, getting on the bus. bus on the school bus and I just upped it, aimed it at the bus and the bus driver just threw her hands up. And then my, well, I called her my sister. She was like my street sister. She was with my brothers. She was with my brother. So she comes running down and she screamed and like, Rob, give me the gun,

give me the gun. So I turned around, I throw her the gun and I just take off running. Ran to like a, it was a Boys and Girls Club called Butler Mitchell in Buffalo. And I ran there and just sat in there until the police came. They ended up coming and finding me and charging me possession of a weapon, but they never found the gun. Right. So, you know, they just put me on probation. No gun, sent me to counseling. And going through counseling, the way I was, like, I was a high head as a kid.

And I can't blame it on nobody. I can't say, oh, my mother was on drugs, so that made me like that. It was just me. Because my brother wasn't like that. We all lived in the same household. You know, it was just how I was. So they labeled me, whether the counselor said I was homicidal and that I needed to, like, seek more counseling and all this stuff.

You know, the e-vel of it, when you go to your little evaluation, then they tell you that. So in sixth grade, they labeled me as homicidal. They sent me to this other school. It was like not an alternative. It was kind of like a better school, to be honest with you. It was a magnet school, a Native American magnet school in Buffalo.

And it was cool there. You know, I was just chilling. But prior to that, before they did all of that, At 10 years old, you know, I started selling work because my mom was on drugs. It was me, my brother, my little sister. We didn't have nothing. Like, you open the fridge. It's a thing of baking soda and a thing of water.

That's it. You know what I'm saying? So there was a little spot across the street from us called Helping Hands where they would, like, feed the homeless. So we would have to go over there and eat. So I'm sitting there one day on the block with my cousin. And I see my cousin like, run. running back and forth, running back and forth.

And then he comes up to me one night and he pulls out some money. And I'm like, damn, where you get that from? He was like, oh, yo, you know, my uncle, he was like, you know, Uncle Tommy told me, you work for me and I got you. So I'm like, damn. I was like, can I get on with it? He was like, yeah, I'll put you on. I'll talk to him.

We'll put you on. So how he did it was he was like, okay, during the day, I'm 10 years old. He was like, during the day, my cousin's going to work. And at night, I'm going to work. So I would go on my uncle's house. I'll sit in the dining room with him, and he had, like, a window that he had cracked like this, that basically went through the alleyway to the back of the house. And where the window was at, they would come up to the window.

And he was like, if they put a 20 in, you give them one of these. If they put 10 in, you give them one of these. So I was just doing that. New Jack City. Yeah, it was funny. It was crazy. And I was doing that. And he would pay me like $2.50 a week.

At 10 years old, $250 a week was good to me. This is back in the 90s. Good deal for him, too. Yeah, because he ain't had to pay me what I was worth. Right. And I finally realized that a little later on. Because as I'm making this money for him, you know, I'm kids. So I'm buying like sneakers, little clothes, remote control cars, stuff like that.

So then, like I said, I started realizing, like, I got to be making him a lot more money than what he's really giving me. And at the time, my mother was on drugs. So I go across the street to my mom's house. We literally live across street from each other. So I go to my mother and I'm like, you know, she was on drugs. And I'm talking to my mom. I'm like, yo, this is how much he's giving me, but I feel like I'm worth more than that. So she was like, you know what you do?

You take that $2.50. Go buy an eight ball. Come back home. We'll break it down together. And then I'll help you get rid of it. This is what I'm talking about. Just good parenting, you know? Yeah, I mean.

She was on drugs, though. So that was just what it was. You know what I'm saying? It's sad as is to say. She's clean now. thank God, and she's doing great. But at that point in time, that's what it was. You know, you're either going to, I'm going to do it anyway, so she was just like, I'll

help you get rid of it. You know what I'm saying? So how we did it was, she was like, for every five people I bring to you, just throw me something. And that's what I started doing with my mind. This is horrible. But it's true. Okay.

I believe you. It's exactly what happened. Like, you know what I'm saying? So I did that for a little bit. And then I had what I called my street mom. she would come by and see me out there and she'd be like, you know, get in the car, let me take you over here

because I'm 10, 11 years old. She's like, get in the car, get in the car. She'll take me to the store, buy me little snacks and stuff like that. And eventually she was like, you know, she came and she took me from her mom. She talked to my mom. She was like, I'm going with me

because she didn't like the route. I was going, you know. So she ended up taking me. I moved in with her and, you know, she kept me out of the street. But she was into the same business. She wasn't on drugs and that, but she was into the business. So what I would do, she found this out later.

She's madder and your mom. What do you do it? This is wrong. Listen, here's what we're going to do. Yeah, but she didn't put me on to the game. I just knew she was into the business. Okay. So what I was doing, because she was good.

Like, she took care of me, but me being me, I always wanted more, you know, because now I'm not making money now. I can't go spend money how I want. I got to ask her for money. So what I would do is go into her stash, and I'll chip a little piece off the block, go bag it up in my room, and then I'll sit in front of the house.

And when people would come up looking for her, I'd be like, oh, she's not here, but I got what you want. And then I would just start hustling like that. And how old are you at this point? At this point, I think I'm about 12, 12 or 13. And I'm just doing that just for extra money. Like, I wasn't chipping off a whole bunch. Like, you know, chipping off, making like three, four hundred dollars, and then I'm good for the week.

Because that was my spending money. Like, you know, I did what I wanted with it. Eventually, you know, that stopped. And I got with my son's mother when I was 14, got her pregnant when we was 15. Wow. And I was selling weed then. I was just selling weed. So when she got pregnant, I ended up moving.

to Jersey, started working little odd jobs because I didn't know nobody in Jersey, so I couldn't sell weed no more. You know what I mean? So I was just working odd jobs. It wasn't working. We ended up moving back to Buffalo. When we moved back to Buffalo, I started selling weed again. So we're in the house.

We're selling weed. I met this guy. He was a big time dude. You know, he passed away, but he was a big time dude in the game. And he started dating my sister. So we were just chilling. We didn't have no real business. thing going on, but he would bring me like a pound of weed and be like, here, that's for you.

You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, all right, bad. Thank you, you know. I already had a pound that I was selling. I would break it down in the nickel bags, the whole pound. Just break the whole pound down the nickel. So I'm making a couple thousand off of that. And then he would just throw me an extra one, you know?

So we sitting there one day and because them, because the feds was watching him, they kept seeing him come back and forth to my house. And when they were seeing that, I guess they thought I was a part of what. but he had going on. And how old were you? I was 17 at this time. Okay. 17. So they end up kicking in my door.

They end up raiding. They raided all of his spots simultaneously. But they kick in my door, and this is what kind of made me change a little bit. It kind of made me start going the right way. Because when they kicked in my door, my son was probably a year and some change maybe. He wasn't even walking yet. He was just standing up on the edge of the crib. Right.

And when they kicked in my door, one of the FBI dudes put a shotgun in my son's face. Like, he's literally standing in the crib. And he has a shotgun, swang it around and aimed it right at my son's face. And I'm like, you know, I'm handcuffed in the dining room, but I'm looking into the room. And I'm like, yo, get that shit out of his face. And he was, you know, oh, shut the fuck up, da-da-da-da-da-da-whatever. I was like, yo, that right there, like, it made me be like, you know what? This shit ain't for me.

This shit ain't for me. So me and my baby mom, I was like, let's move back to Jersey. I don't know nobody there. You don't know nobody. We'll go to Jersey. Went there, started working, odd jobs again, wasn't getting the money

that I was used to getting. So I'm literally downtown Patterson, New Jersey, and I'm walking past a recruiting station. And I'm looking, and it's like, oh, $25,000 signing bonus, this and that. So I'm like, damn, this was in 99. And I'm looking. I was like, man, I should try it out.

So I walked in. I started talking to the Army recruiter. He was telling me all this good stuff about the military, all this extra good stuff. You know, they got to sell their selves to you. So he sold me. He was like, you know, you could join the military. You'd be a tanker. He was a tanker.

He was like, man, these are the perks, this is this, this is that. I was like, all right, let's run it. So we ended up going to Brooklyn, filling out all the paperwork. I did the as VAB. Took the ASVAB pass. They got the job as a tanker, which is 19 kilo in the military. Got that. shipped me off to basic training.

So, you know, I'm in the military. I'm doing great. I got awards that, you know, got ranked up, went up to like an E6, got awards for everything I did in the military. And then one day, we came back from Iraq. And I went on leave.

I went on like a, it was a 30-day leave from coming back. And when I came back and went on leave, there was a new sergeant that came in. and he was like, you know, he wanted to meet me because he was my first line supervisor. So he's like, you know, going to my house, there was a female that was staying with me.

I was up in New York. There was a female that was staying with me and he kept going to the house. Like, where's Rodriguez at? Where's Rodriguez at? She was like, he's not here. Like, what do you want me to say? She kept calling me like, yo, this guy keeps coming by.

I didn't know who he was. I didn't have his number because I wasn't there when he got sent to the unit. So I'm like, all right, when I get back, don't worry, I'll take care of it. She was like, all right. So I come back, go. go to formation

and, you know, in the military, you're in formation, you got your company, you're in groups of patoons, one through three or four. You got the lieutenants up front, the captain up front, the first sergeant up front. So I'm standing in formation

and he looks at me, he's like, Sergeant, after formation, we need to step to the back and have a conversation. And I was like, oh, we definitely do. Because I was already hot,

you keep coming to my house. Like, that's not how you're supposed to do it. You know what I'm saying? I lived off post, too. I didn't live on. Post. What do you think he's coming to your house for? All he kept saying was he wanted to meet me.

Okay. So I'm like, why you got to keep coming to my house to meet me? You know I'm on leave. So when we go to the bag of the formation, we started talking, and I got a little upset. And, you know, I started cussing. Like, don't ever come to my fucking house again, you know, whatever. And then we started arguing and we ended up starting fighting in front of everybody. So with that, I got sent to my captain's office.

When I walk into my captain's office, kind of like that. a desk like this. And you know, I come in there with my first line supervisor, the first sergeant, everybody. And I'm standing there. And the captain, he was a ranger. So he looks at me and he's like, oh, you know what happened? I was trying to explain it to him. He didn't want to hear it.

He was like, you know what? I don't believe you. I think you're full of shit. I heard you with nothing but trouble, blah, blah, blah, saying a whole bunch of shit. And then he, like, stood up, slammed his hands on the desk. And he was like, if it was up to me, I snatched your ass from behind this desk. So I like leaned back and was like, oh, really? And I stepped back.

And I was like, sir, with all the respect, if you reach over that desk, I'm going to snatch you from behind your desk. So he just started yelling, get out my office, blah, blah, blah, blah. They sent me to the colonel. Right across the street. So I go to the colonel's office. Everybody's there. We walk in the colonel's office, you know.

He looks at me. The captain tells him what happened, blah, blah, blah, what I said to him. So the colonel basically said the same shit. He was like, you're going to end up either debtor in jail with your attitude, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just looking at him like, all right, sir. I was like, you know what? Honestly, your opinion don't matter shit to me. I don't get a fuck what you're talking about.

And the colonel looked at me literally. He was like, I'll have you out of the military in three days. And his ass had me out had an escort take me around everywhere I had to go clear and everything. He had me out of the military in three days. You know how every year there's that one person that's impossible to shop for? You're walking around the store or scrolling online thinking this person doesn't need anything. But this year, I found the perfect gift. Omaha Steaks delivers the world's best steak experience.

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Terms apply, see site for details. That's Omaha Steaks.com promotion code inside. So when I got out the military, I start, you know. Is that a dishonorable discharge? No, it was general under honorable conditions. It was general under honorable conditions. They just didn't want, you just weren't one of the good men that they were looking for a few good men. And they decided you weren't one of their good men.

Because, you know, I still had a little bit of like street mentality. Yeah. You know, I'm young. I was in my, I joined when I was 19. I'm in my early 20s. So I still had that, you know, dumb mentality, really, because it was dumb mentality. And you showed me respect. Yeah, that type of shit, that type of dumb-ass attitude.

And so after that, again, I started working odd jobs. My daughter was born at this time. So my son lives in Jersey with his mom. My daughter was born with my other baby mom. We in Georgia. Working our jobs for Comcast and just dumb shit. And I'm like, damn, man, this ain't working. So I go to a VA career center.

And I'm talking to one of the guys that's a VA career center person. And I'm like, you know, I'm looking for a job. But I need something that's good, like that's going to pay bills, not these little odd jobs that I'm struggling out here. So he was like, yo, the only thing I got right now is a prison. He was like, man, the prisons are hiring like crazy. He was like, and you're ex-military. They'll hire you like that. Yeah.

So I'm like, you think so? He was like, oh, I know so. He said, man, go in there. Go for the interview. I'll set it up. And I promise you, though, hire you on the spot. So I do that. I go into the interview, speaking to a lieutenant.

And then he's looking like, you know, my little bootleg resume that I made up, you know. And he's looking at it. He was like, oh, you're ex-military. I was like, yes, sir. He was like, were you combat? I was like, yeah, combat arms, 4-6-4 armor. He was like, oh, okay. He was like, man, you're hired.

That was it. There was no conversation. He was like, you're hired. I was like, for real? He was like, yeah, I'm going to set it up for you to go to BCOT. which is basic correctional officer training. In Georgia, it's only 30 days. You go to basic correctional officer training for 30 days.

You don't need nothing but a high school diploma. That's it. So he set it up. I went with a class to BCOT. Did that for the 30 days, came back, and then I started working in the prison. I was working at Roger State Prison. That was the first prison I started working at.

How many inmates? A total of, I think, 12 to 1,400 inmates on the whole compound. How many, how many, how many states? staff? Not enough. They probably had like one officer in each building. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Then they had, you know, you got, you know, you got your utility officers and your lieutenant's Yeah, rack and yeah. You got your, yeah, you're wreck. So we're talking about like, like 50 guys, 60 guys? Probably. Okay. And then you got your outside detail guys. So yeah, it was, it was crazy. What did they start at? At that time when I started there, it was at like, I think 30,000 a year.

What year? In 2000. 2003. That's not bad. That's not bad. No, in Georgia it wasn't. Yeah. Especially in Georgia. Because then, like, for a while, I was still renting the apartment in Hinesville, Georgia.

And then one of the lieutenants come up to me, like, you ever thought about living around here? Like, it was in the middle of the country. Yeah. And I'm like, nah, I never thought about it. He said, man, you won't have to pay rent. Yeah. You know, everything's free.

You just got to live, you know, next to the prison. I'm like, shit. Yeah, you're right there. Like, I could literally. walked to the job. So I was like, shit, all right, I'll do it. Ended up moving on the compound, like right next to the prison. I can literally look out my back window and see the old prison.

So I did that. I'm working. At first, when I first got the job. One more question. You said prison. Like, what is this like a pen, medium, low? The first one, Rogers is a minimum medium. Okay.

Yeah, that's a minimum medium prison. They got outside detail guys coming in and out the back gate, you know, mostly every day of the week. So when I first started working there, I tried to treat it like it was a street, like I was on the street. Like I'm trying to, you know, I'm giving the guys, like I'm talking to them like we guys on the corner. You know what I'm saying? That's how I started treating them. A couple of times, you know, everybody, at first it was, you know, let me test the new guy. You know what I'm saying? And me being who I am and where I'm from, I'm like, yo, I don't, I don't care about all of that.

Like, you want to fight, we could fight. That's how I used to approach people. Like, that's what we're, if that's the timing that you're on, I'm on that same type of timing. Right. You know, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be like the cool guy. I'm not going to front. I'm like, yo, I'm trying to be like the good CEO.

Everybody's like, yo, what's up type. And for a while, that was good. That's what it turned into. So for some, like, I don't know why, but in Georgia, I would like attract myself more to like the black guys because they were i think they felt i felt like they were more like on my level of of thought you know what i'm saying yeah it was like they were street kids so i was i was a street kids so most of the white guys are kind of country right like they're majority of them were and there was like a select few that was like from the city you know like from Atlanta or savannah or something so

one day i'm standing there i think i was standing at the gate waiting for like to run child and this white kid comes up to me and he's like yo can i ask you a question you a question You know, he didn't say, yo, but that's how I talked. He was like, can I ask you a question? I was like, yeah, what's up? He was like, why are you always hanging with the black dudes? And I looked at him. I was like, what you mean?

He was like, you're always with the black dudes. You don't hang with your own people. And I'm like, I was like, there was probably like three Mexicans in the whole building. Right. So I'm like, I just hang with whoever, like, I talk to whoever talks to me. You know what I'm saying? And then he was like, nah, he was like, you know what? He was like, you ain't nothing but a woo-woo lover.

And I was like, what? So this is how I did things, okay? I would approach it like a street situation. You disrespected me. So now I'm going to disrespect you. And even though at the time, I'm not going to front at the time, I didn't really think that my authority over them was what made them not want to fight with me.

You know what I'm saying? Because if I hit you, I'm going to catch a charge. or something like that. I wasn't thinking like that. I really wasn't. I'm like, we're going to go, we're going to fight, and then whoever wins wins, we're going to walk away. That's really how I thought about it.

So when I took them, what I would do is you get to talking crazy, first thing I tell them, hit the fence. So you know you got to put your hands on the fence. I do the fake pat down to make it look legit. Put the handcuffs on you. Then I'll take you to the hole. I'll take you to lockdown. When I get you in the lockdown, this is how I was with people.

I would get him in lockdown. The first guy ever playing, it was probably my whole time doing that, it was probably like four or five people that ever actually happened with. I wasn't just going around doing it for fun. Right. But anyways, the first guy, he said that. So I was like, okay, took him to the hole. I was like, yo, listen, when I take these handcuffs off of you,

turn around and start swinging. And he'll just sit, you know, they're just standing like, what? I'm like, turn around and start swinging because I'm going to swing at you. It's going to be me and you. You ain't with your friends. I don't got a bunch of CO. with me, it's just me and you. Whatever happens here, this is where it happens,

this is where we leave it. And there's no cameras? No, not, once you go into the shower area, there's no cameras in the shower. Right. You know what I'm saying? And then in Georgia at that time, there was probably one camera in the whole dorm

that would just see, like, how it was at Rogers. When you walk into the dorm, it's a room right here in the middle, like they called it the day room. And then it would split hallways. There was no cameras facing down them hallways. And down them hallways would be,

two bedrooms, like a room on this side, a room on that side with like 16 people in each room, you know, down the hallways. So once you get into the shower area, there's no cameras face in the showers. You know, unless it's a situation, you've got to have a camera. Right. So I would just be like, turn around and start swinging. Nine times out of ten, when I took the cuffs off and they spun around, they wouldn't swing. But I still, at the time, I'm in my early 20s, I feel disrespected.

Right. So I'm going to disrespect you now. And then hopefully we could get an understanding out of that. Again, not thinking like, damn, I'm really abusing people because they're scared to hit me anyway because they're going to catch. You know, they might catch a charge. Right. I didn't look at it like that. I wouldn't have told on them.

That wasn't my thing. So anyways, I did that once or two times. Another guy, you know, screaming shit out in the crowd when I'm running child. And he had the boss to say it was him. So after a while of me doing that, I can. I kind of felt like, because then the lawsuit came out against the whole prison. The warden was on there, a bunch of captains, sergeants, lieutenants, a bunch of officers were on.

The shirt team was on the whole lawsuit. In this one big lawsuit were many, like, side lawsuits. You know what I'm saying? And with me doing that, the last guy that I got into it with, he was, like, saying some racist shit to me when I was running child. So I pulled them out, hit him with the same talk. hit the fence, fake pat down, put the cuffs on him, taking him to the hole. And as I'm walking to the hole, my lieutenant's coming by me.

He said, what's so, Rodriguez? I was like, I'm going to just go down here and talk to him. And they knew, because everything we did was covered up. Right. So they knew what I meant by saying I'm going to go talk to him. I took him to the whole same situation. Like, yo, when I take these cuffs off, spin around and start swinging. When I took the cuffs off, he didn't swing.

He spun around and dropped to the floor. But I'm already mad now. I'm already in that zone. So when he dropped, I just, started kneeing them like in the shoulder area, kneeing them in the shoulder and shit, like punching in the back of the head. And I just, after, you know, a few little scuffle up, it wasn't no crazy, nothing crazy.

I got up, I let him walk back to his dorm. And he filed the lawsuit. Right. He added me to that lawsuit. Right. He added that situation. Yeah, to that lawsuit that everybody else already filed against the whole prison. So then when he did that, the rest of the other three or four guys that I got into it

it did the same thing. So now my one lawsuit and that big lawsuit turned to like four or five, you know, nothing came of it. Right. Nobody got fired. Nobody got, none of them got money for it because it was all swept under the rug. Did you ever get questioned? Yeah.

So what happens is when you get it in a situation, you get your statement, you write your little incident report, you turn in your incident report, all right? They go over it. If the inmate pursues it, like he wants to, you know, they say they press charges or they want to file a lawsuit, then they get sent up to IA. So when the IA guys come down from outside, this is exactly what they do in my case. And in everybody's case, basically. Every correctional officer that I know, this is what they did for us. They would come in and be like, do you remember what you said in your statement?

And you're either nine times out of ten going to say, hell, I don't know, I don't remember what I wrote in that shit. So they'd be like, here's your statement. Read it. When you read the statement, you're like, oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I remember. Then I'm like, all right, when I turn the camera on, say what is in your statement, and that's it. Right. So I'm like, okay.

So boom, bop, hit the camera. You know, they do it a little, oh, we're here today, such and such, whatever, whatever. Situation happened with such and such and such, such, what happened? And I just repeated my statement. Is that all you want to say? That's all that happened. All right. click you know good job man go back to work yeah it's it's it's your word against the inmates

exactly or their word against yours more like and nine times out of ten in that situation who's going to come out on top right unless you have actual footage you know then you can't you're not going to win and that's how the whole system was in georgia i'm sure it's like that everywhere else but that's how the whole system was that's what we used to do you know i've seen And then dudes, like, jump on somebody and I would just walk away like, yo, I'm not, I'm not doing it. I'm not getting involved in that one. Right. You know, because that's, I mean, like I said, it's one thing when it's one-on-one.

I'm not, I could take a beating. I can take an ass-wopin. It's one thing when it's one-on-one. But when you got five guys on one guy, I'm not going to be a part of that. So I push, I push off. But I created that type of reputation with the inmates. Like, they know, you know. And I would tell them, like, even after the fact, I'd be like, yo, it was not, nothing personal.

I don't not like you. I don't not, you know what I'm saying? Like, you see how I am around here. I kick shit with everybody. I bullshit with everybody. But when you disrespect me, then it turns into what it is. Disrespect. If you was on the street and somebody disrespect you, you're just going to eat it and walk off,

you being the guy you say you are? No, you're not going to. You're going to address it. I'm shocked, like, all the guys that I know that have gone to, like, Florida State Prison, which I've known a bunch of guys who have just tons of stories about Florida State Prison, is that, like, they're afraid to even look at the guards, like, because they know they'll get their ass be. Because in the federal prison, like, that's just, it's just almost not, I hate to say, I hate to say it just doesn't happen because I'm sure there are places it does happen. But for the most part, it just doesn't happen. Yeah.

You know? But in all, most of the state prison stories that I've heard, and certainly in Florida, the guys that are gone to Florida have been like, like, oh, you don't even fucking look at these motherfuckers. Like, you don't, they'll just, they'll snap you up and yank you out. And the two guards will walk around the corner and just beat the shit. And they go, like, nobody sees nothing. He's like, the inmates don't see anything. The fucking assistant warden unseen, nobody says he's got some bruises.

And the inmates are too scared to testify because it could get even worse. So. No retaliation is going to happen. Regardless if they say it is or they not. Oh, no, nothing's going to happen to you. Bullshit. Yeah. Once you go back in that, in that prison, there's nobody that can say,

you from that. It's going to happen. Like, I work with a couple of guys now here in Florida, and they tell me the same thing. Like, yo, there's one prison. I forgot the name of it here in Florida. They got a jar full of gold teeth. Oh, yeah.

Oh, shoot. We just had that guy. We just had a guy on that went there and he's like, that's true, bro. They got that jar. Yeah, they were just telling me. I was like, are you kidding me? He was like, yeah, as soon as you walk in, they got a jar full of gold teeth. I was like, damn.

They know that they've knocked out of fucking inmates. Yeah, that shit. It wasn't that serious in Georgia. I mean, it was serious. Nowadays, I don't think that goes down too much like that. Because from what I see on TikTok and YouTube videos and all that on the prisons in Georgia, now, I'm like, man, I'm glad I got out of there when I did. But, you know, so that all happened, that all transpired. So anyways, I'm coming up for promotion.

I'm coming up to be a sergeant. How long have you been there? I was there about a year and a half. I'm coming up to be a sergeant based off my run. reputation. Right. So it was at another prison though. The prison was literally across the street. It was called Georgia State Prison. You could literally see it from the prison I was at. And Georgia State is a maximum security, you know, level five, close inmates. So I was on the tactical squad and my boy was like, yo, you should come over here and become a sergeant with me. You know,

he was a sergeant. He was like, come over here, become a sergeant with me. We was on a tag squad together. So I was like, all right, fuck it, you know, more money. So I go over there, I go to the board, you know, it's a, you know, lieutenant major, a couple of guys to ask you a couple of correctional officer questions, nothing too crazy, count situations, all of that. So I'm like, I was like, yeah, let's jump on it. So I did the board, aced it, and then they hired, you know, they promoted me to sergeant, I went over there. So when I get over there, At first, I'm not going to front. I was like, okay, this is a different breed.

This is a different, this is real, like, guys who don't give a shit, which is cool. It is what it is. But the funny thing about it, when I got to the level five, like I said, these are different type of dudes, and they are. They didn't act like the dudes in the minimum medium. They didn't act. They weren't disrespectful. They didn't run their mouth crazy or talk crazy. You know, unless you came at them a certain type of way, then they didn't care neither.

You know what I'm saying? Because I've gotten a fight in there a couple times. So the first time I got into a situation, I was a sergeant. I'm coming in, I'm doing my rounds. And I don't know how other prisons are, like I said. When you go into the dorm, they got clipboards with sheets on their, next to their cell with their pitcher. And you got to sign off on the sheet, basically saying you came through as a sergeant and

did your check. So I got to sign every single paper in front of every door. I walk in the dorm and there was like two flaps open because the girl, the female officer, was handing out ice. So as I'm walking through, you handing out ice. I'm not thinking nothing when I see a guy's cup on the flat. I'm thinking, okay, that's a cup full of ice because she was past itself. Yeah.

She didn't say nothing to me. She said he handing out the ice. So I'm signing the sheets. I'm signing the sheets. I get down close to his door and I see his head peek out. And when I see his head peek out, I look and I like step back a little bit, but it was too late. I was close enough. He grabbed his cup and he threw, he threw the shit on me.

And it was piss. Oh, okay. It hit me right in my face straight down all the front of me. I got mad as hell. So it's not you. It's just, he's just a mental case? Yeah, I guess, and I'll tell you what, why he did what he did after. It made no sense.

So he did that. So I go upstairs to the Central Station. I take my shirt off, wash my face. And I was like, yo, it was in the evening. It was probably like 10 o'clock at night. So there's no reason for me to call to open a cell at 10 o'clock at night. Because if I do that, my supervisor is going to call me, what's going on down there? Why are you opening up a cell?

You know? So I look at the office. I'm like, yo, when I go back down there, I'm just going to wave at you. Open cell 13. She was like, you sure? I said, yeah, open cell 13. She was like, all right, because now I'm going in there. We're going to fight.

Right. I don't care. We're going to fight. And whatever happens happens. So I'll go back down. When I walk in, the officer, when I walk in, the officer's standing. and I said, yo, go out the back door. So she walks out the back door.

As she's walking out the back door, one of the cert dudes are coming in. Just on some random shit. He just happened to walk in. He comes down the stairs. He's like, Sarge, what's going on? I was like, yo, this dude threw piss on me. I'm going to, I'm going to go in that room. We're going to fight.

So he looks at me. He was like, all, let's do it. I was like, no, no, no. Let me get in there. And I want to fight with him. And I was telling the guy, I said, I'm coming in there. We're going to fight. He was like, come on in, come on in.

he backed up to the back of the cell. He was like, come on in. I was like, I'm coming in. So the cert dude stood at the door. I said, don't come in, you know, unless I started getting my asswhip, then come in and get him off of me. But if not, leave it like it is.

So I look at her, I wave, she opens the cell. I run up in there. I run up in there, me and this, yo, I really, I was like, I'm going to get my ass whoop. Like, this is the one he's going to beat the shit out of me. Because we're trading blows face-to-face. Boom, boom, boom. and everyone, like, I would, I connect, he connect,

but when he connect, I felt it, like, through my body. Like, it was like when he hit me, I vibrated. I was like, oh, shit, I don't know how long I could do this. All right. But we trade in blows, trade and blows. And then finally in my head, I'm like, he's going to knock me out. Because every time he hit me, I swear, like, the vibration in my body, I was like, this dude's going to knock me out.

And if he does, ain't no telling him what's going to happen when I'm knocked out. I don't know. You know, I don't want to be knocked out. He starts stomping me. Then the dude comes in and grabs him. Yeah. So I just scooped down, grabbed them, picked them up, and slammed him on the bunk. When I slammed him on the bunk, he just stopped.

So, you know, I put his hands behind his back, cuffed him because I had to take him to medical because of the situation. Right. So I cuff him up, me and a cert dude taking him to the medical. As we walk and I look at him, I was like, yo, can I ask you a question? He was like, yeah, what's up? I was like, why the hell did you throw piss on me? I don't know you.

I never had a running with you. He was like, you was the first one to come in the door. I'm like, what? And that was the reason. There was no other reason. So he took him to medical, you know, nothing was wrong. We had a few blows. It wasn't nothing crazy.

He wasn't swallowed up or nothing like that. So they were just like, oh, he's good. Brought him back to the dorm. And I was like, man, I say, yo, bro, next time, warn me. When I come in here, just be like, yo, Saul, you better get out of here. So I know not to walk to your cell and get pissed on me again. So that was one situation that happened. Another situation that happened when I was a correction officer.

I'm running showers. And in Georgia, they call it SMU. They don't call it the shoe. They call it SMU, special management housing. And that's where they keep the worst of the worst. Like these two buildings in Georgia State Prison, they were called L&M building. They look like straight dungeons. Like you could literally stretch your arms like this, and that's wall to wall.

The bed was right there. The sink was right at the head of the bed and the toilet was right next to it. You had no room at all in themselves. They were so small. So one side was all locked down, solid doors, chains on the door, literally chains with locks from the door to the base of the wall. The other side was cellhouse was like, you know, bars. So I'm in the cell house. I'm running showers.

As I'm running showers, I'm running showers and haircuts at the same time because I'm trying to get it all done in one shot. So one dude's like, yo, take me, take me for a haircut, take me for a haircut. I'm like, all right, chill. You see I'm running showers and haircuts. I got you. As soon as I get a chance to get you, I got you. He didn't want to hear that. He kept getting frustrated because I kept walking past.

But how I used to do it was I'm going all the way to the back of the cell, to the cell block. And I'm running showers from the back all the way to the front because the showers are next to the front. So I feel like I'm going to get the back first. So then by the time I get to the front, it would be easy money. Pull you out. Boom, put you in the shower. I'm walking past his cell with a guy. I got him cuffed.

I'm walking past. He whips an orange at me. and the orange literally just flew right past my face. The dude in front of me, the inmate, he'd like lean forward. He was like, damn, sorry, you're going to get me hit? I was like, my bad, my bad. So I'm coming back and I'm like, yo, you better not throw nothing, bro. And when I go to walk past, he whips another orange at me.

So I'm like, I go out, go to my boy in the other building. I was like, yo, go over there and grab sales, such and such, bring him to the barbershop. He was like, why are you going to do it? I was like, he ain't going to come out for me now because he threw something at me. So he knows, you know, if I come out for you, you're going to, you know, put hands on him. I was like, he ain't going to come out for me. So just go grab them for me and bring him. So he was like, all right, he goes and gets him, he brings him.

I'm standing in the barbershop. And in that unit, when you walk into the barbershop, it's like a cell. It's got the bars on it. Like, you go in there and we lock you in. Right. And then you get your hair cut and then we pull you out. So he comes, as soon as he turns the corner, he's handcuffed, as soon as he turns the corner, he just sees me standing there behind the barbers chair.

He was like, oh, shit. And I was like, yeah, you know what it is, right? He was like, Sarge, wait. Nah, bro. I was like, yo, my man was with me. But like I told him, don't jump in unless he starts whooping my ass, then get him off. That was my thing.

Like, if he starts beating the shit out of me, grab them and get them off of me, man. So I don't get too beat up. But I'm like, that's what, that was my thing. Like, we're going to fight and whatever, whatever. It doesn't matter. So my boy takes the handcuffs off, and he closes the door.

And when he does, I just, like, I'm behind the chair. So I just reached over the chair, grabbed him and pulled him into the chair. When I pulled him into the chair, he, like, literally, like, stomach first. So he's, like, all fucked up sitting in the chair with his stomach, set of his back. So I just started, I had him by the shirt, and I just started rocking him, hitting him in his face,

him in his face. Started switching hands. I beat him. I ain't going to even lie to you. I beat the shit out of that kid. So after I got done, like I said, my adrenaline is rushing. I'm still in my 20s. I'm like 24, 25 at the time now.

Right. This was like right before I caught my case. So I'm rocking him. Go to take him to the hospital floor. I'm mad as hell. I'm pissed off. My adrenaline's running. I'm all on fumes.

I'm like, man, I'm just, I'm hot. So I'm not even paying attention to the guy. I'm just like, he's crying and I'm just walking him to the medical floor. Like, I don't want to hear shit. I don't care. You shouldn't have threw shit at me. You know, I had that attitude. get him to the hospital floor

as soon as I walk in, again, I'm not even paying attention to this guy. As soon as I walk in, the nurse leans back. And she's like, God, damn, what the fuck happened to him? And that's when I, like, looked at him. I was like, oh, shit. This dude's face was so swollen.

His eyes was almost closed. And from him crying, he had puddles of tears sitting on his cheeks. They wouldn't roll down because he was that. swollen. I was like, God damn. I was like, there ain't no way I could explain this one, man, for real. But I genuinely, after I seen that, I genuinely felt so bad. Because I lost it. Like, I didn't, I didn't have control of myself when I did that. So when I'm walking him back,

like, you know, there was nothing broke in his face. Thank God. He was just a person that if you, you know how you, you tap somebody, they whelped up easy. He was that type of person. He just welted up easy and got swollen. My wife's like that. Every time I, yeah. You might not want to say that on here. Like a blowfish. No, but he was one of them that just swelled up fast, welted up easy. So that, I'm walking them back, and I looked at him. I said, man, I'm sorry, man.

He was just like, it's all right. I was like, no, it ain't all right. I was like, I lost control. And I apologize. I was like, if you want to file an incident report, you want to file a report, you could do that. You know what I'm saying? I'm not even going to, I'm not going to file one. I'm not going to say that I didn't hit you.

if you file a report on me. I'm not going to say I didn't hit you. And he was like, no, it's all good. It's all good. I know how this shit works. You know how this shit works. Y'all are going to stick together. You're going to sweep it under the table.

And I generally felt bad. But I was just like, you know, what can I do? I told you to do it. You don't want to do it. I get it. I get it. I get their mentality. So I was like, all right, whatever.

That incident, it was times where, like, some of the inmates, like I said, I used to try to be cool with everybody. I'm in my early 20s. I'm still a kid. Right. You know what I'm saying? I'm just starting to learn how to conduct myself as a respectable person, you know? So they would come to me because, you know, they seen how I acted, how I talked, how I kicked it with him.

Some of the inmates that come to me, be like, yo, Saas, can you ask that dude if I could get him head up with him? One of the guards. And I'd be like, oh, yeah. If I could get what? A head up one-on-one. Oh, okay. Yeah, let's go in the room so I could get on one. Oh, okay.

Oh, that's how I thought it was at all. Okay. Sorry, yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know what you're thinking. But a head-up. I just, like, talk to him. Like, I have a conversation with them.

Oh, no, no. Where I come, you say, yo, let me get a head up. Okay. Let me get a one-on-one. So I go to the officer. I'm like, yo, what's his name? He wants a one with you. What's up?

You down? And he'd be like, they'd be like, hell yeah, I'll give him that. And we go put them in the little room, lock them in the room and let him fight. You know, that's what would have. Like a fight club. Yeah, but it was, it didn't get to like that. Like, when we were like, yo, it's not first blood or nothing.

Obviously, sometimes you get hit, you're going to bleed. But we're like, we're not trying to kill each other. Just get an understanding is what we called it. And it was a lot of times it was the inmate's idea. Right. Like, if you mad at an officer and he won't give you that, and then you come to me and ask me if it's okay to do it, and I go to the officer and be like, do you want to?

If you don't, it's cool. Right. But if you want to put hands and see what happens. happens, let's do it. And sometimes I'll obviously be like, hell yeah, I'll do it. I had this new guy come in. He was an ex-marine. He was, he was, he was crazy. White guy. Glasses, he looked square as hell. But he was, he was serious. And he was running showers one day. Somebody threw something on him. So he comes out, comes up to me. He's like, can I go in there, please? I'm like, what? He said, just, just open the cell, let me go in there. He's like, I'm going to whoop his ass. He threw something on me. And I'm like, you sure? He was like, yeah, I was like, so you know how we do this, right? He was like, yeah, I ain't saying shit. I was like, but if you heard him, we got to take him to medical and you have to write a statement on what happened. Now, if I get him to agree to this, you know, head-up situation, this is how it's got to go down.

You know what I mean? Don't go in there trying to kill a kid. Right. Or vice versa. Like, I'll tell the inmate, like, don't try to kill him. Just get an understanding. You know, like a brother, me and my brother fighting. We're going to fight, but we ain't going to fight to kill each other.

We're just going to fight to get an understanding. And that's what I did. So, oh, my God. I had to run in there and grab the Marine off of him because he went crazy. Like, I think he had a flashback or something because he was starting to whip his... And there's no room.

The Marine was big as hell. Cock Diesel. He ran up in there and just started... They just started fighting. And I had to grab him because he just wouldn't stop. He just kept hitting him, hitting him. I was like, oh, shit. Right.

And then grabbed him, pulled them out. But it was shit like that that we used to do at Georgia State Prison. Now, again, there's inmates in there that... They didn't play either. It's not like they just had their way. You didn't have your way. And it wasn't all the time that they would agree to give a new head-up fight.

You know what I'm saying? So, you know, I've seen all that extra shit with certain teams running in on people. We had a shock shield in Georgia State Prison. We got the electricity running through the shield. And they hit you with it, hit you with the electricity, pick you up off the floor, slam you on the ground, and they just keep pressing the electricity. The whole time screaming stopped resisting. Right.

How the hell am I resisting? You hit me with electricity. But yeah, situation like that, stop resisting, stop resisting. You're like, damn, he's not resisting. Because as a supervisor, like as the sergeant, all I had to do is hold the camera. Right.

While the cert runs in there. So I'm holding the camera, you know, naturally when it gets too over with it, I drop the camera, you know, camera falls, situations like that. What happened? It was getting too crazy. I had to drop the camera to run in there.

Right. You know what I mean? Shit like that. But it was all, yeah, it was all cover-up shit. everybody told everybody what to say, how to say it, how to write it. You know, when you go to IA, IA would tell you what to say, how to say it. Right. Don't, you know, don't say it is.

Just say what you said here, boom, leave it at that, you know? And I was just like, damn. But again, I'm in my early 20s. I don't know no better. I'm just like, shit. This is what we're doing. You know what I mean? So then I'm a sergeant.

I'm on the tax squad. We're going through the whole state of Georgia, raiding prisons. shaking him down for contraband, you know. So the guy that told me to come over there to work, you know, to go for the sergeant position and come over there, me and him got cool. I'm not going to say we were friends because we hung out maybe two times outside of the job. And he would always, for like a whole year, he was like, yo, come to my town, come to my town. And I'm like, why?

What is so good about your town? And he's like, man, my boy owns a bar. It'll be free. We're going there. We have a good time. It's a laid back scene. We could chill, have some drinks, no drama. So for about a year, I was like, no, I'm not going over there.

Because it's literally Jessup, Georgia. If anybody knows anything about Jessup, Georgia, it's probably like population 1,000. It might be more now. But back in 2006, yeah, there wasn't that many people there. The bar was literally on a highway with nothing but trees around it. You got the bar and then a hotel right behind the bar. There was nothing else on that street. You know?

So eventually I'm like, all right, all right, I'm going to come with you. I was going through a personal situation at home. So I was like, you know what? I'll come out there. I'll come out there, stay tonight with you. I was like, but you got to come pick me up. I'm not driving because I know him will be drinking and you are an hour away from me. So he was like, all right, I'll come get you.

So he comes and picks me up. We go to his house first. We start crack open. We used to drink MGDs at that time. The Miller genuine drafts pop that pop a pay soap and we start drinking. Can I ask questions real quick? What kind of money are you making at this point? I mean, you start making not great money, but now you're a lieutenant.

Yeah, and I was making probably close to $40,000 a year at this time. And how long have you been working there at this point? At this point, it was only three years. Okay. I only been to three years. It was 2003. I started working there, and I got up to that position in 2006. Okay.

So 2006, going towards the end in the end in the 2006. Yeah, I was, but I was still living on the grounds. Yes, you're going to have a house. No bills. Exactly. I got no bills. You know, I think the rent was like $100 a month. Everything included.

The only other thing I had to pay for was cable. So I'm paying $100 for rent and $30 for cable. Right. It was nothing. All right. So, yeah, all my money was basically coming to me. I end up going out with him. He comes and picks me up.

We go to his house. We start drinking. He's like, y'all, I'm going to take you to my boys. He owns the bar. It was a bar called the Yeager House in Jessup, Georgia. He was like, we're going to go there. And mind you, it was a corner bar. It wasn't a nightclub. It wasn't no sports bar. It was a little corner bar. You walk in and it could probably fit 50 people in there. Okay. So then it's me, him and his wife. He's like, we're going to go over there. We're going to have some drinks. We're going to chill, whatever. Everything's good. We don't got to pay for nothing. Okay, cool, whatever. We go. We get to the bar. We start drinking. Next thing you know, this girl that I used to mess with, she was a correction officer with me. And, you know, I had her, like, she was like my little side chick that I was messing with. But we both understood what we were doing. Anyway, she shows up.

I didn't know she was coming. When she shows up, I'm like, damn. So she walks in the bar, she walks up to me. She's like, here, hold my keys, because she don't have no pockets. She was like, can you hold my keys? I was like, yeah. So I grab a car keys, put them in my pocket. We're chilling

We're having some drinks Next thing you know I see my boy Well I'm not even going to call him my boy I see the guy He brought me Well I seen him over there I'm arguing with his wife

So I walk over there I'm like yo you good He was like man I got to take her home She's bugging out She's tripping I was like all right well we'll go with you And he was like No no no no stay here

Stay here because I'm coming back So I'm like oh okay bet You know if you're coming back You know I'm with your friends Who you introduce me to So I'm thinking everything's kosher. Like, all right, cool, go ahead. Well, I'll be here.

He only live 10 minutes away. So he leaves. I go up to the table where we were at. Little table in the corner, she was sitting at the end of the table. She had her drink on the table. I got my drinks here. I had two crowning coax and a corona. I'm sitting there.

I drink my drinks, drink the corona, order two more, put them back down. I'm like, y'all, I'm going to go smoke a cigarette. So she's like, all right, go ahead. You know, I'll be right here. So I go outside, I smoke a cigarette. I come back in. She's sitting there, and I see her like, she drinks her drink. She's chilling.

I grab my cup. Next thing you know, I look at her, and she, like, put her head down on the table. And I'm looking. I'm like, damn. So I'm thinking in my head maybe she started drinking before she came. Right. You know, and maybe she's just got a headache or something. So I didn't bother her.

I didn't, you know, you're okay? It's not like she passed out and, you know, but when she put her head down, she ended up passing out. So I'm just sitting there. I drink my two drinks again. Grab the corona. I started drinking the corona. And when I put the corona down, I'm standing there and it's like I started getting hot. And I started feeling lightheaded.

And I was like, damn. So, I mean, as a drinker, you always think, let me smoke a cigarette. Maybe that'll help. I don't know why. People think like that. That's how I used to think. Let me smoke a cigarette. Maybe that would help.

So I'm like, I look, she slumped, sleep. Again, I'm thinking we're good. We around people that he introduced us to. So I go outside, light up another cigarette. As I'm smoking the cigarette, I'm probably halfway through, and I smoke Newport Hundreds at the time, probably halfway through the cigarette. And I see the bouncer and another guy,

the guy that he introduced me to as his brother. He didn't work there, but he was there like if it was his place too. So the bouncer and the guy that he introduced me to The one that brought me there They come walking out carrying her So I look and I'm like Yo where y'all going And they were like oh we're going to take her home

And I'm like what For one she lives an hour away She lives where I lived near the prison So I'm like Y'all don't even know where she live I say you know what? You could take us To this dude's house Because he you know that's who we're here with

Right That's who I came with. So bring me to his house. So the one dude got mad. They, like, open the back door, put her in the back seat. The one dude goes back in the bar. He's pissed off. The other guy looks.

I go jump in the passenger seat. And I don't know why he decided to still go through with it. I have no clue. But he still decided to jump in the car and drive off. So I gave him the keys. He jumped in and he drove off. He's speeding. We end up getting in an accident.

I don't remember exactly how the accident went. All I know is I wake up in the car. It's upside down. I'm looking around. He's gone, and I can't see her because she's in the backseat. I'm in the front. So I climb out the car and I sit down next to the car because when I climb out, there's no lights on this highway.

It's nothing but trees around me. I'm not running into no woods. I don't know where the hell I'm at. So I'm like, I sat down next to the car. Do you have a cell phone? I'll get to that. Okay. The whole night, I got my cell phone and I had a universal pager because I was on the tax squad.

So if something happened in the prison, they would page us. Right. And we had like an hour or two to get to the prison, get ready, and go wherever we had to go. All right. So when the state trooper comes, he starts asking me questions, who was driving, who was driving. I was like, I don't know. I don't know who was driving. Still not, I'm still not knowing that she's hanging out the back seat of the car.

like out the back window. I'm literally sitting when I climbed out I sat right down when I climbed out like I'm not going nowhere I don't know where I'm at. I didn't go to the back of the car

I didn't know she was hanging out the back windshield. Okay. Okay. So when the state trooper comes he picks me up. We started talking. He's like who was driving.

I was like, I don't know. I don't know. And he was like, that's impossible. You're the only one here. And I'm like, well, I don't know who was driving. So then she wasn't hanging out

out the back windshield and that's when you know ambulance pulled up next thing you're, know they all, you know, throughout all the commotion, they put her on the stretcher. And they start walking her to the ambulance. So I walk over to her while she's on the stretcher. And I'm like, yo, you okay?

She wasn't like wide awake looking at me like, yeah, I'm good. You know what I mean? You could tell her she was like, in and out of it. But she's like, I'm good. Are you good? I'm good. I'm good. I'm standing here.

You on the stretch her. She was like, damn, what happened? What happened? I was like, I don't know. They put her in the ambulance. As they're putting her in the ambulance, the state trooper. grabs my arm. And when he grabs my arm just off of my natural defenses, I turned, spun my arm and I grabbed him by like the forearm. So we both holding each other like this. And I like, like,

jacked him back a little bit. So he let go and then I like straight on. Not like hard, but just like a little slight push to back him up. And he tripped over his own foot and hit the ground. And that was it. He hopped up. He grabbed me. Turn around. Put your hands behind your back. So I did all of that. He handcuffed me, and his exact words was, I don't care who was driving. I'm charging you. That was the exact words. So I'm like, damn, I was like, fuck it charged me. Because in my head, I knew I wasn't driving.

So charge me. We go, he takes me to the hospital. Now, mind you, how I am, I don't know how everybody else is, but when I drink, while I'm drinking, I don't feel shit. You know, I can start feeling the buzz and everything, but at that time, I was consuming a lot of alcohol. So I don't know, I didn't know when I was drunk. You know what I'm saying? I felt the little buzz and I'm like, okay, cool. It never hit me until I stopped drinking.

Even to this day, if I have a few drinks or whatever, it don't hit me until I stop. When I stop, that's when the liquor like settles in and I'm just like, oh, shit, I'm feeling nice. You know what I'm saying? So that's how it went, I guess that night. It hit me all in one shot. So he ends up taking me to the county jail. They booked me. I don't even remember being booked.

I don't. I don't know if I hit my head, had a concussion. Sometimes your memory's coming in and out. I don't know all the specifics of that. But I don't remember being booked. So I wake up in a cell and I'm looking around and I'm like, what the fuck? And in Jessup, Georgia in the county jail, they got little like speakers on the wall with a button. They're going, you hit the button and then the police come.

What do you want? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I was like, oh, I'm like, can somebody tell me why I'm here? Because again, when we crashed, I didn't know if we hit nobody. I don't know what happened. Right. All I seen when I came out that car was our car, well, her car, in the middle of the street.

You know what I'm saying? And mind you, I used to mess with this girl. So I drove that car plenty of times. My handprints, my fingerprints probably all over everything in the car. I put in her stereo system. So the trunk, obviously, my handprints are all over the trunk, all over the insides. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Because I was messing with her for like a couple months before this even happened. Okay. So the little sheriff girl comes back on the thing. She's like, I can't tell you why you're here. You got to wait for the inspector to come. So I'm like, what? You can't tell me what I'm charged with? She was like, no, not your case.

We can't tell you. You got to wait. So I'm like, damn. All right. So I'm sitting there. The same guy who brought me to the bar knew all the little sheriff deputies that worked at the county jail. So then they come, one of the ladies comes, she opens myself. She's like, yo, you got a visit.

We're not supposed to give you this visit because you haven't seen the inspector yet. But what's his name? His name was Moni. She was like, Moni told us that, you know, he knows you and da-da-da-da-da. So we're going to let you see him and he got a girl with him. So I'm like, okay, I go out to the visits, my baby mom. And she's sitting there and she's crying. And I'm like, yo, what's going on?

What happened? Because, again, I don't know that somebody died. Right. I didn't see none of that. I didn't see nothing. All I seen was the car that I was in. So I'm like, what happened? And then she looks at me and she was like, yo, you kill somebody.

I was like, what? In my first, like, in my head, I'm like, damn, did I, like, shoot somebody? Because I always had, you know, weapons. Right. So I'm like, did I shoot somebody? Like, what you mean? She was like, you got in a car accident and you kill somebody. I was like, what?

So me knowing how Georgia is, I'm like, yo, you might as well just forget. about me. Right. She was like, what you mean? I said, they're going to try to fry me. A body in a car accident and DUI? I was like, I'm going to get so much time. You ain't going to be around.

I know that. So she ends up, you know, we end up talking a little bit. I look at him. I'm like, oh, what happened? I wasn't there. I left to bring my wife home. When I came back, you were gone. Right.

That's what he tells me. Right there in the county jail. So I'm like, all right. I was like, well, let's see what happens. So I'm waiting for my arraignment. I get arraigned. I don't. hear nothing for like two days. Then they come and say, I got a bond. So I'm like, oh, shit,

let's go. I call my mom. My mom was like, I got you. She bonded me out. I get out. As I'm driving home my baby mom. I'm like, damn, I'm looking at my property and all I got is my universal pager, my ID and stuff like that. And I'm like, damn, like, where the hell is my phone? My baby mom looks at me. She's like, oh, what's his name has your phone? Monty. She was like, Moni got your phone. I'm like, how the fuck did he get my phone? And she was like, I don't know. He called me from your phone. So I'm like, damn. So okay, I get home. I call him. I'm like, yo, bring me my phone. He was like, all right, I got you. As soon as I get around to it, I'll come to your house and bring you your phone. I'm like, all right, he comes to my house. I'm like, yo, just out of curiosity, how did you get my phone?

He was like, oh, you left it in my truck. I was like, for real? He was like, yeah, you left it in my truck. I was like, okay, all right. So you drove there in his truck, went to the bar, never had your phone, never used your phone the whole time, and then got in the car, never... Exactly.

Don't never recall losing your phone? No, but check it. So here's where it gets kind of interesting. He says that to me. I left it in his truck. Right. Right. The investigators are investigating every.

everybody. Okay. And his statement to the state trooper was he came back to the bar. I was gone. He went to look for me. He couldn't find me. So he went home. Then he turns around, and I didn't find out none of this until the day of the trial. Like when I went there and we picked the jury, this is when I found out what I found out. We go there, we pick the jury. Right? We pick the jury. My lawyer's like, I had a public defender because I'm not going to hold you. The lawyer's like 100,000, 75,000. I'm like, I don't got that kind of money. Fuck correctional officer making $40,000 a year.

I don't got $100,000 to throw to you. Right. So I'm like, you know what? I got the public defender because I really, I'm like, there's no way I'm going to get convicted. You can't convict me. I know you can't. In my head at least. Right.

They didn't tell me everything that was in the case. Like the evidence or anything, the day that I picked the jury, he's like, yo, let's go to this back room and talk for a minute. Who? The lawyer, my public defender. So I'm like, all right, we go to the little back room where they have the little interviews, and he's like, yo, listen, you're going to lose. And I was like, what do you mean?

I swear to you, this is exactly what he says. He says, you're going to lose. And when we lose, they're going to give you 37 years. Sheesh. The homicide by vehicle is a total of 15 years. Two counts of serious injury by vehicle is 10 apiece. Okay. DUI, reckless driving, a year.

piece. That's 37 total. All right. So I'm looking at them. I'm like, damn. I'm like, is there anything we could do? Like, why do you feel like I'm going to lose? Did they ever bring you a deal prior to this? No. Okay. No. So I'm like, why do you feel like I'm going to lose? Now, mind you, this was three years later. This happened in 2006. They didn't bring me to court to 2009. All right. So I'm like, why do you think we're going to lose? He slides me three pieces of paper. And on each one of them papers, one paper is a statement from the guy who brought me to the

Barmani. And he's like, in his statement, it says, I seen him get in the car and drive off. The owner of the club, which was his best friend, wrote in his statement, I seen him get in the car and drive off speed and out the parking lot. Some random female that I didn't know, I never heard of this lady. Same thing. I seen him get in the car and drive off. So he's like, with these three statements, you're going to prison.

Right. He was like, there's no way. And then he was like, Georgia, they go by hearsay. Right. You don't even have to see me do it. Somebody could tell you they see me do it. And you say, oh, well, this person told me they seen them drive away. And you get convicted in Georgia.

They go off a hearsay. So I'm like, damn, when he told me that, I'm like, so I'm like, wait a minute. But I heard that he told the state troopers that when he came back to the bar, I wasn't there. So he went home. he pulls out a statement that he wrote to the state troopers saying that when he pulled up to the scene, the state trooper gave him my phone. Exactly.

Okay. So I'm like, why would the state trooper give him my phone? Right. Like, ain't that like some type of evidence or something? But he was like, I guess he knew the state trooper, and he told the state trooper that he knew me and this and that. So the state trooper gave him my phone. That's what his next statement said.

The other statement that he's supposed to be said that, oh, I came there, he wasn't there, and I went home. Right. Didn't see it. Right. Wasn't even around. So I'm like, damn. Okay. I'm like, you know what?

So what can we do? My lawyer is like, look, this is the deal that they're going to give us. 15 years. You serve 14. One year on probation. That's my deal. I'll pull it up on my phone right now for you. That's my deal.

What about tracking down, of course, by this point, it's the day of trial. So I was going to say, what about tracking down the bouncer that drove the vehicle? Exactly. So this is my theory. I don't know how true this is, but this is my theory of what happened that night. When we crashed, he's seen my phone because I'll tell you what. When I petition for my phone records to come in, there was one phone call made after the accident. Two, the guy that brought me to the bar.

Okay. If I'm calling you, how are you getting my phone? Right. So just me, I'm not saying it's facts because I don't know if it's facts, but I feel like when we crashed, the guy got my phone. He found it in the mix of the crash or whatever, got my phone, climbed out, called Monty. Monty came to the scene, picked his ass up, and took off.

Okay. And he gave him my phone. Because I know damn well I had my phone on me. I don't leave nowhere. without my phone. Right. I keep my phone on me at all times. But that's how that situation happened.

So how is my phone making a phone call to you? And then all of a sudden, you get my phone. Right. You know what I'm saying? So I feel like it was some shady shit there. I really do. And then all of a sudden, you telling me you wasn't there. You left.

You went home. So how are you writing a statement willing to testify against me saying that you've seen me drive off? So you think that these guys were friends with the bouncer? Yeah, they were. More friends, more friends than you guys. Of course. How he introduced me to him was like, this is my brother.

Yeah. The guy that was driving, he was like, this is my brother. This is my best friend. The owner of the bar, that's my best friend. The bouncer, this is my brother. Now, I mean, let's just be real. You're a work friend. Exactly.

Yeah. This is the first time we actually went out and hung out. You know, he would come to the river when all the rest of us from work were at the river, he would pull up. It was never a me and him going out, partying all the time type situation. You know what I'm saying?

And that's what I'm saying. Like, the only thing I could think of is, how did you get my phone? And then on my phone records, there was one phone call place after the accident. That don't make sense to me. Did you grab my phone and call your phone? Right.

You know what I'm saying? Mind you. I'm not knowing none of this stuff yet because I don't have my paperwork, my transcripts, nothing. But when he told me that about the three statements and all of that, that they were willing to testify me, they were there in the courtroom that day. I seen them, all three of them, just sitting there.

I'm just like, are you kidding me? So I'm, you know what? I was like, all right, I said, so what's the deal? He told me the deal, 15, 14 to serve one year on probation. So I'm like, he was like, you'll be out and probably eight. He was like, if you don't, and we go to trial and you, lose, you'll be out in 20-something. Right.

What do you want to do? You know? So I'm like, for one, I'm not, when they were asking me who did it, who did it, who was driving, I'm not going to tell you anyway, even if I knew. That's not my job. That's your job. You are a police officer. But how many police officers actually fucking find out what's going on without somebody

telling them? Right. I was going to say, you should have said something. You should have. I should have. I should have. I should have. And now that I'm a grown man and I'm older and I've realized that.

that, hell yeah, I should have said something. But back then, I'm just on that smart-ass mentality that, you know, that I don't give a shit mentality. You know what I mean? And that's what it was. So it was like, I'm not doing your job. You do your job. I don't know who was driving.

And a funny thing about it, too, in my transcripts, when I finally get my transcripts, in my transcripts, there was a video recording of the girl that got in the accident with me. She didn't die. Yeah. It was somebody in another vehicle. Oh, okay. We hit another vehicle. They shot off the road into the woods and smacked the tree.

Somebody got killed in that. Right. That's why I didn't see that there was another vehicle, so I didn't know why I was being arrested or that somebody died. So anyways, I'm looking at her video when I get my transcripts, and she's like, the state troopers like, so who was driving? And she was like, you need to be finding Richard. Because Richard is the one who was driving.

That's exactly what she said in the video. And the state trooper was like, not worried about him. We're worried about Rodriguez. How is that any type of investigation? Right. If she's telling you in the video, you need to find Richard, that was his name, that was the guy's name. That's all I knew about it. But I didn't say that. She was just like, I got the video. She was like, you need to find him. No, we're not worried about him. We're worried

about Rodriguez. That was it. So to me, all odds were against me anyway. For whatever reason, I don't know. For whatever reason, I have no clue. I can't even answer that for you. But that's exactly what happened. So you take a plea. You take the plea. I take the 15, 14 to serve one year on probation. And I'm like, fuck it. It is what it is.

So I tell the judge, I'm like, can I get a week to get my affairs in order? He was like, yeah. Then the family stood up, you know, said their peace respectfully. And he was like, okay, well, you got one day. Mind you, I lived in New York. I didn't live in Georgia no one. Right. I had to fly back and forth every single time I had a court date.

So I'm just like, All right, I leave, go grab something to eat, go to the hotel, eat, next morning, wake up, come back to court, go to jail. So I get sent to the county jail in Jessup, Georgia. When I get there, at first, you know, obviously they know I was a correctional officer. They put me on PC. So I'm in PC. I'm chilling in PC. There for like three weeks.

The sergeant of the jail comes up into myself. He's like, yo, you want to work outside? I'm like, huh? He was like, you want to work outside? He was like, you know, I know you used to be a correctional officer. I'm not worried about you running. He was like, do you want to work outside? I could get you out of here so you don't got to be in here all day.

I'm like, for real? He was like, yeah, he was like, you know, if anybody knows Georgia, the inmates work at the courthouse, they work at the police stations, they work at the sheriff's stations. They clean up, you know, free labor. Right. Because they don't pay you in Georgia, nothing. Right.

So he's like, you know, you go outside, you work, everything's good. It's being trapped inside the fucking cell all day. Exactly. So I'm like, hell yeah, let's do it. So at first they'll come and get me at like seven, bring me back at like seven at night. Cool. I'm out there. I'm washing police cars.

They was in a, it was their shit, like their actual building was being renovated. So they were stationed in an old high school in Jessup, Georgia. They had the sheriff's department and the police station right next to each other inside the school. But if you know in Georgia, the classes are like, you come outside and you walk down hallways to go to your classes. But it's outside. It's not inside. It's not like New York where it's all one big building. You got to stay inside.

So my room, like the police, the sheriff, the police is here, here. My room was outside the door. You go down the little hallway into a classroom. They gave me my own little section. You know, they was like when we pull in because it was a little split driveway between where they were at and where I was at. It was like the cars are pulling, they'll beep, you come out, clean the car, park them, put the keys in this little rack, blah, blah, blah. You know, so I'm like, all right, cool, this is sweet.

I'm not in prison. I'm not in jail. I'm out here. I was doing the right thing. Every day they needed me, I was doing my thing. I ended up becoming really good friends with a guy named Captain Popple. He was the captain over the Jessup Sheriff's Department. So me and him started talking.

He starts asking me about my case. He says, I'm going to look into. I'm going to talk to the judge. that don't sound right. And then he was telling me about the guy, the guy Richard. Okay. He's like, oh, I know him.

He's well known around here. He's a troublemaker. He's this, he's that. He's a short dude. He's shorter than me. They're the worst. Black hair. You know what I'm saying?

So if you were to see him and me, you would think we were kind of related because he looked like a Hispanic dude. He looked like he was Latin. So, okay, he's telling me about him all. He's a troublemaker, whatever, whatever. So I'm like, yeah, okay. Okay, whatever.

I don't believe you're going to do nothing for me. Whatever. Just, it's cool. We got real cool. So in the little room that I was in, I had my own little refrigerator, I had my own TV. Because, you know, while I'm sitting there waiting for a car to pull up to wash, there's nothing for me to do.

Right. So they made sure I had a little TV, a little refrigerator. You know what I'm saying? And then he went and bought, or I don't know if he bought it or not, but he brought me this little-ass grill. And he was like, yo, you know, instead of putting your money into the county jail, just have your people send your money here, cash.

And when you want something, take one of the unmarked cars, go to Walmart, get your little meats and whatever, and then come back and you could cook right there. And it's funny because if I would have heard somebody saying this shit, I would have been like, you're full of shit. Right. There's no fucking way they let you do that.

But that's exactly how they treated me. Now, maybe it was the perks because I used to be a CEO. Right. And they were just like, you know, we trust you a little bit more than we trust other people. I don't know if that was it, but that was it. That's how they treated me at the county jail. So the captain would come up to me like, man, I don't want you to leave. If it was up to me, I'll let you do your whole time here.

So he was like, let me make a few phone calls, see what I could do. So I'm thinking like, oh shit, that's sweet. That's not going to happen. No, it's never going to happen. I was going to say there's no way. There's no fucking way. So I'm there for four months. He helped me there as long as he could.

after that he comes up to me, he said, man, I can't, I can't keep you. You got to go through process and you got to go through, you know. So I'm just like, all right, whatever. Four months go by, they sent me the reception, a prison called Jackson State Prison in Georgia. When they pull up into that prison, it's a big-ass parking lot.

They pull in. Everybody gets out the van or the bus or whatever. You're still shackled and all that. but you're all in the parking lot just walking around inmates there's no there's no like yo you guys stay right here don't move right they get you off the van and they say yo stay close because they're going to call your name and everybody's just walking around kicking it with each other talking I was scared of death man why I was because do you think these guys are somebody's going to recognize how can you not recognize me I mean it was it's been three years since I was a CEO now yeah

This happened in 2006. I didn't go to prison to. I didn't go to Jackson to 2010. It was February 2010 when I actually went to reception. All right? So I'm like, I got kind of a little couple of years span to hopefully people forgot me. So that's what I was basing it off of like, okay, hopefully they forgot me. So I'm standing there.

I'm scared shitless. I'm like, oh, my God, if somebody recognized, what can I say? There's nothing I can say because everybody's going to turn on me now. even the guys that I came there with and was laughing and joking in the fucking van somebody comes up and says, yo, you used to be a sergeant at the rda-da-da-rah, it's over with. Nobody did.

The whole, the whole, I'm sitting there, I'm chilling, no issue so far. I'm like, good, I made it. I go inside. I made it through the parking lot. I go into the, they call our names, we go inside one big room with the showers, stand in a circle,

they tell us all the strip. Now, what I thought I heard him say, was stripped down to your boxers. Because I didn't know, because I never been in a situation where I had a whole bunch of inmates in a room together and told them all to get naked. It was always one-on-one or like outside detail type shit.

Right. You know what I'm saying? I'm thinking I'm coming from the county jail. Mind you, it's my first time dealing with this. I'm coming from the county jail to a prison. What can I have on me? That's how I'm thinking. I'm dumb.

I'm green. I don't know what the fuck is going on. So I thought I heard no saying it down to your boxers. So I stripped down to my drug. draws. Everybody else butt-ass naked. And I'm like, oh, shit. But before I could even think to move, that one of the COs pulled up on me. He was like, can you speak English? I was like, yeah. He said, well, take your fucking boxes off, stupid. I was like, oh, shit. That's when I realized they got real. Not knowing. They start talking to you like you're a dog. Oh, man.

So, you know, they got a table with a sergeant, a lieutenant, and a CEO who's doing your paperwork. determining what housing unit you're going to go to and all of that. So you go, they stand in the line right behind each other. You walk up towards the showers. They throw some powder on you, on your head and on your shit. De-lousing. Yeah, you go in there, you take your shower and all that. They shave your head.

In Georgia, they shave your head, all that. All that. Yeah, you're fucking looking like a rea. I looked like I was back in basic training in the military. So we go through all that. They dress you out. You get dressed. go up to the table

they tell you your shit and as the dude is reading my paper with my charges and everything and whatever they put your ex-employment stuff on there right he's reading the papers and he just fucking stops and looks at me and he's like you're not supposed to be here

and I'm like what he was like hold on a minute picks the paperwork up and he goes outside the door comes back in the whole CERT team they grab me handcuffed me and they take me to myself they put me in lockdown they put me in PC so I'm in lockdown nobody no problems no issues I'm in lockdown the whole time I'm there

going through the processing part you know that you go to the little classes you take these little fucking courses to figure out your IQ and shit bullshit like that so I go through all that shit next thing you know they they classify me they put me at close security first time ever in prison right car accident close security There was a death. Yeah, well, God damn, it was an accident. I hear you. So I'm like, what the fuck?

So they're like, okay, you're going to go to, the first prison they sent me to was Making State Prison in Georgia. That was the first prison I hit after reception. I hit Making State. When I get to making state, there was a warden there called Warden Head. This is in 2010. He's doing inspection. He stops in my cell.

He reads my name. looks in my window, you know, I'm standing there. He looks back, it looks back like that. And he's like, open cell, such, such, such, such. They open the cell. He walks in. He's like, Rodriguez. You know, you got to talk low because they can hear it through the vents.

Yeah. He's like, what the fuck are you doing here? I'm looking at him like, what? You're the warden, sir. Like, this is your prison. Right. What do you mean, what am I doing here? He's like, you're not supposed to be here.

I'm like, why does everybody keep to, telling me this shit. He's like, bro, I'm going to transfer you. I can't have you here. They're going to kill you because they ended up closing down Georgia State Prison. And that's where I worked at. And they sent half the inmates to Making State and then the other half of the inmates to Hayes State Prison.

So here's a funny thing about that. Making State and Hayes, right? I'm going to get you out of here. So I'm like, all right, whatever. I don't know how everything works being on that side now. So I'm just like, fuck it. I'm going to just ride it out until I hear something. So they run a yard one morning.

I ended up being real tight with this Mexican dude next door to me. Like we talked through the vent, then we both go to the yard, down the dog cages, and talk through, talk shit through there. I'm trying to coast it. I'm trying to figure out how to fuck I'm going to coast 14 years in prison without getting found out. So I get back to that street mentality. Like, now I got to go back to like survival mode.

Right. And that's what I started thinking as. So then we get on the yard and this dude that you said, I used to know from Georgia State Prison, he was an inmate. His name was Rico, big, big dude, cool as hell. Me and him, we never had an issue. He was always cool. I used to take him to go get insulin all the time.

So as I'm sitting there in the cage, they bring him out to come to the yard. And he walks past me. And he's talking shit. He was like, he's very flamboying, loudmouthed. He's talking shit all over the plate. Then he looks over at me. He looks back. He's like, Sarge?

I was like, oh, shit, here it goes. This is it So I looked at it And I was like What up Rico He was like man I knew your ass was one of us Swear to God

That's what he said I knew you was one of us I knew you was gonna end Being one of us I'm like damn He was like yo he was telling everybody He was cool as hell He was this he was that

Like I said I never did nothing Unless you disrespect him Right That was the only time I reacted Other than that It was smooth sailing with me So boom Two weeks later

Never seen the compound yet Two weeks later they ship me. They ship me to Hayes State Prison. This is where the other half of the inmates that I knew were sent to. Right. So I get there.

When I get there, you know, they come through whatever. They take me straight to, they see the paperwork. They take me straight to the hole. They take me to the SMU. Go there. They put me behind the glass.

There's like a glass wall that they put you behind if you're like a cutter. or something like that. So I'm like, and when they put you there, all you can have is your legal material. You can't have nothing else,

no food, no nothing. Right. So they put me behind the glass and I'm saying that, I'm like, damn, why the hell am I back here? Like, I'm hungry. I want to eat, you know what I'm saying, shit like that?

You're a commissary. Yeah, so when the warden's coming through, he comes through and he looks at me and I'm like, sir, he was another guy I knew. He was the head guy over the tax squad at the time that I was in the tax squad. Now he's a warden of his prison. So he comes in, his name was Rick Jacobs.

He comes in, he's like, Rodriguez, what the fuck? And I'm like, sir, I don't, what do you want me to say, bro? I can't tell you why they keep sending me to these places. This is where I'm at. And I was like, I don't like being behind this glass. I'm hungry. I want to eat when I want to eat. Like, you know what I'm saying?

I can't go to the store. I can't buy no commissaire. I can't do nothing back here. He was like, all, I'll put you in a regular lockdown cell. So you could get your store. It's a certain limit, though. It's a different kind of store. But, you know, it's not.

It's a different list. Yeah, it's a different list. It's limited. Exactly. So you know that. So, okay, boom, he puts me out there. I'm chilling there for like a month. He comes back.

He's like, yo, I'm going to try to get you transferred. He was like, there's a prison that is for ex-correction officers, ex-police officers, you know, shit like that. He was like, I'm going to try to get you there. I'm like, all, cool. I was like, but, yeah, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't want to be in the hole no more. All right. And he was like, what you mean?

I was like, just put me on the compound. He's afraid that's going to go bad. Exactly. He was like, I can't do that, man. He was like, if something happens to you, blah. I said, man, listen, at the end of the day, I don't care. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. I was like, I'm telling you now, I don't want to do 14 years in a fucking room.

23 and 1. I don't want to do that. You already got six months knocked out. Yeah, but still, it just didn't feel good to me. Like sitting in this room, six steps that way, six steps that way. I'm like, I need some type of laughter or some type of something. So he ends up leaving. They sent another warden there named Warden Tatum.

Tatum comes in. He's like, yo, Mr. Jacobs told me everything about you, blah, blah, blah. He was like, what do you want to do? I said, sir, please. Obviously, you can't transfer me because I've been here like three months now. Can you put me on the compound? He was like, you sure? I was like, yes, put me on the compound.

I don't give a fuck. He was like, this is what I'm going to do. They had a dorm in a building. in there it was j building in hayes there was a dorm called the faith-based dorm okay okay so i think they got they got that in the feds right yeah faith and character-based dorm when you go there and they they have different ones they have like they also like uh the the military dorm they've got like just for different types of programs okay so this is this was called the faith and character-based norm model inmates to them you know so he was like i'm gonna put you in there you get in there you stay

out the way you know try to keep your head low I'm like, I bet. I go, they put me in there. Finally, I'm in population. I got a fucking, you know, everything. It's open bay, though. There's no cell house. It's an open bay.

It's just a bunch of bunks downstairs, a bunch of bucks upstairs. Got a day room. So I'm chilling. I end up meeting this kid, the Spanish kid, because they end up giving me a job at the library. So I'm going to the library. I'm getting out. I'm doing my thing.

I meet this guy, this Spanish dude. He was from the Bronx. So I'm like, oh shit, we started talking. I'm from New York. You're from New York, blah, blah, blah. You know, I lived in the Bronx for a couple of years, you know, too. So we're talking, we kicking it. I don't know what he is.

I don't know who he is. But we, as we're getting close to each other, you know, trying to, you know, form that friendship. I'm like, you're listening. You know, you got my back. I got your back. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to, like, get somebody to like,

okay, now I got somebody that's going to hold me down. Nobody knows I'm a CO, though, except for the warden. Like the officers, nobody knows nothing but the warden. How did they do this? I don't fucking know. Don't ask me. But that's exactly how it was.

The warden was the only person that knew. So I'm kicking it with him, come to find out he was one of the head of the Latin Kings. Okay. All right. So as we're kicking it and we rocking together and I'm showing them like, bro, I don't give a shit. Like, if it's a problem that you have, we're going to handle the problem together. You know what I'm saying? I'm like back to military mode, back to street mode.

to start getting back on that proving myself shit. So that's what I was doing with him. He ended up liking me so much. He was like, I want you to be my number two. So I'm like, word? He was like, yeah. He was like, all that jumping in shit, mind you, it was just me and him. And then, you know, obviously, like all the Latin's on the pound, they respected him.

They knew who he was, whatever. So he was like, that's what I wanted to be. I'm like, all right. So he gave me the crown. He made me number two. So I'm like, bad. We rocking. Nobody's finding out nothing.

knows nothing. I'm chilling. Does he have any idea? None. Okay. None. Because I definitely didn't go in there talking about, well, look, me and you got cool, so let me tell. Hell no.

I'm not doing that. Right. And how guys would recognize me. It was one guy coming to the library, right? Now, this dude, I remember him more than he remembered me. Right. But when I seen him, I was like, oh, shit. So I'm sitting behind the big desk.

Like, it was like a hide type desk. When you come up, you sign your name, then I hand you whatever. So I'm sitting there and I see him And I'm like, oh shit I was like, let's see if he recognizes me He comes in, he locks eyes with me He starts walking towards the bench He's like, yo

He was like, damn, you look familiar I look at him like, for real I was like, where do you think I look familiar from? He was like, wasn't me and you locked up at Georgia State Prison? Must have been that. I said, you know what? That had to be it.

He was like, yeah, I was in this building and you was over here You was the guy, the Mexican guy in the last cell down at the bottom. I was like, yeah, man, that was me. And that's how I ran with that shit. Every single time somebody recognized me, they didn't recognize me as being the correctional officer. They just seen my face. They knew they knew me from somewhere.

And how many people are going to think that they got a correction officer in the prison with him? Right. They're not going to think that. So automatically, they automatically jumped to, damn, you was with me at this prison. And, you know, a lot of them. were from Georgia State Prison, so I worked there. I knew the whole unit, I knew the whole prison, I knew officers, so I could tell you everything

you're telling me. And it just vived. It just worked. You know what I'm saying? And that's how I got by. So anyways, I become who I become with this dude as a king. And then he goes to transfer and he's like, yo, I'm going to leave you over everything. Like, you got,

you're the head now. You're the man. Right. So I'm like, oh, shit, cool. Now mind you, like I said, I come from the street. So I know how to conduct myself. I was a wild kid. You know what I'm saying? So I know how to be a street kid.

I wasn't trying to be. But at this point in time, you put me in prison. I'm going to go to whatever the fuck means I need to to make it. So then... How long had this been had you been locked up at this point? It was probably, I want to say, when he left, it was about August or September, 2010 still. Because mind you, when I went to Macon in February,

where I went to Jackson in February, March I went to Macon. I was at Macon for two weeks. Right. And then they sent me to Hayes in the end of March. So at the end of March in 2010, I met Hayes. I meet him like a month later, probably like a month and a half later, because I was in the hole for like a month

before they actually let me out. When I got out, that's when I met him. We started working at the library. So I knew him a couple months. You know what I mean? And when you're with the same person every single day, rocking every single day, a couple of months feel like forever. So he ended making me who he made me, and I'm like, cool.

And then he leaves a lot of fights, a lot of stabbing is going on between, you know, other gangs and all that and that. We had a big-ass fucking standoff on a yard one time. And that's when I was like, you know what? I'm going to try to do things different as a leader. I'm going to try to do things different. So I approached the other head dudes. And I was like, yo, is there any way we all can meet together and have a conversation, a real conversation about what the, what the fuck are we really doing?

You know what I'm saying? So they were like, I bet we talked to the STG, which is the head of the gang shit for the officers. I don't know why they call it the STG. Don't fucking make sense to me. But that's what they called them in Georgia, the STG.

So he comes up and he's like, yo, I'll get all you guys together. We go to the gym and we all, you know, you guys have a conversation about what's going on, how can we stop it, how can we prevent some of this shit? So we all end up meeting and we're like, yo, listen, this is what we're going to do. From now on, you police your own people. If one of my dudes do something stupid, we'll take care of it, how we take care of it.

You know what I'm saying? If one of your dudes do something stupid, you take care of it, whatever. If you don't or if we don't, then it is what it is. You handle it, how you handle it. So we started rocking like that. So now we all got a mutual respect for each other. At least the heads did. I can't say everybody did.

So it's probably about around Christmas time. I'm on the yard. to the yard, the big yard, and I'm walking around the yard. And as I'm walking around the yard, at Hayes, the search team used to stand next to the administration with the camera and they record you. So as I'm walking around the yard, I'm not stopping in nobody's cut or stopping in nobody's circle. I'm just, yo, what's up, what's up, you know, guys pulling up, you know, we're shaking

hands, how you doing by everything good? Right. They're recording this. I'm not knowing they are. Like, I'm not knowing they focusing on me walking around the yard. So, like two weeks later. I'm coming out of work, the warden stops me. He's like, yo, Rodriguez, come here.

I go up and down like, yes, sir. He said, come here, I want to show you something. So I go into the administration area. He pulls out of TV with the camera, with the tape and everything, he puts the tape in. He's like, what's this? And I'm looking at it. And it's me walking around the yard.

And I'm like, I'm on the yard. He was like, why is it that you can walk around this yard and stop and speak to all these guys when all of these guys are heads of different crews you know gangs yeah i was like we it's just a mutual respect thing that's all like you know we're trying to keep it peaceful and he you know he went into the spiel like you know you're running the gang yeah now he does okay that's why that's what he's getting to yeah yeah now he knows so he's like used to be a correctional officer what the fuck are you doing surviving that's

exactly what i told him i say you know what's funny you send me to one prison and the warden comes to me and say, how the fuck did you get here? You shouldn't be here. He says he's going to ship me. He ships me to your prison. And you and the other warden that were here said the same thing to me. How the fuck did you get here? So guess what? I'm going to live here and I'm going to live how I want to live here. And that's the only thing I know. I'm going to survive. And he was like, man, I can't have that. I can't have you here like that. You got too much power. How? How do the, what about the other hand? head to the other gangs.

Are you shipping them? No, they didn't. But I'm like, by going around the yard saying what's up to people, that's showing you, I got too much power, that's crazy. He was like, I'm going to ship you. So I'm like, okay, you couldn't ship me back then when I first got there. Now all of a sudden you can ship me. So I'm like, whatever.

I ain't believe him. I really didn't. I go back to my dorm. Two days later, I'm in class. There's like, in the dorm that I'm in, the central station's in the middle. They got a dorm here, dorm here, dorm here, dorm here. And behind the Central Station is the barbershop and the classroom. I'm in the classroom.

And I hear, you know, Surte team coming up the walk. People start hollering. 12, 12, 13 coming up to walk, 13 coming up to walk. Okay, I'm sitting there. I look up. The teacher looks at me. He's like, Rodriguez, you're all right? I was like, they're coming for me.

He was like, why you say that? I was like, because I know they're coming for me. So they come in, they go to my dorm, then they come back around. As soon as they walk to the door, they open. in the door, it was like Rodriguez, come on. He looked, he was like, how the hell did you know? I said, man, I just know these people. So they end up shipping me.

They sent me to the actual prison that I figured they were to send me to in the beginning, the ex-police, the ex-crasia. They sent me to that prison. It's called Long State Prison. Four dorms, that's it. The whole prison is four dorms. It's like 60-something people in these dorms. Right.

That's the whole prison. So I'm there. I'm doing good. I'm chilling. I get with this dude from, he was an ex-Delta force. Bad-ass dude, man. Bad-ass white guy. They put us after, under, from 13 years or under, you could go outside the gate and start working.

So I'm there for a little bit before I hit my 13-year mark. When I hit my 13-year mark, you know, I'm playing, you know, I'm the model, the model inmate. I'm not getting in no trouble. I'm with a bunch of ex-police and all that shit. What the fuck can we get into? They're not with the bullshit. shit. So I go and I'm like, yo, go to the warden. It was a female. And I'm like, can I, can I start going out the gate? And she was like, let me look into it. I got to get your security drop from close to medium because you got to be medium or minimum security to go out the gate to work. You can't be close security.

So she's like, I got to get your security dropped and all that. I'll look into it. She ends up doing it. I end up going out the gate. No problem. I start working like at parks, cleaning up parks and cutting grass and shit. So the people would ride by and throw cigarettes at us. Right. You know, I didn't smoke, but a lot of the guys did in the prison, cigarettes were illegal at this time. So they were like, shit. They're getting the cigarettes.

They're smoking on detail. I'm looking at it like, how the hell can we make money off of this shit? Right. So I look at my boy, and I'm like, yo, we got to figure out a way to get this shit in. Because we could sell this shit. We ain't even got to go to the store. That shit will pay for all our shit. You know what I'm saying?

Right. We were trying to figure out ways at first. It was like under the boot thing, cut your boot open, put it in there, smash it down, and shit like that. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. So eventually he was, I was like, we got to figure out another way, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, man, the only other way I could think of is to buff it. Right.

And I'm like, I said, man, I'm not doing that one. What has this come to? Yeah, I'm like, I'm not. How did I get here? I'm not doing this one. How bad the things just go. Like, what, I was like, I'm not doing that one. He was like, well, let's see if one of these other guys would do it.

So at first, we had a guy who would bring in a pack of cigarettes. Like, we would take the sandwich wrap. Yeah. And put the whole pack in, roll it up as tight as we could roll it. Probably got it down to like that big. And he would go handle his business. And everything was good. But it was like more and more people wanted more and more cigarettes.

So now we're like, okay, this one pack. every day ain't good enough. We need like four or five packs. So my boy looked at me. He was like, man, I'll try it. He was like, let me get it. I'll go try it and see what up. So I'm like, all right.

Because mind you, we making money for me and him. Like we get the pack in. We're splitting it down the middle. And we eating good, like a box full. We don't got to go to the store. So our money's just building up. Yeah, I think that split's got to change. If I got to put it in my prison purse.

And you know what's crazy? The split didn't change. We're going 60-40. And I would have agreed to it because you're going through what you're going through. I'm not, but he was just like, let me try it. He tried. And then he was like, oh, it's not that bad. And I'm like, sure to God, I swear it to you, he said, it's not that bad.

I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. I was like, all right, fuck it. If it's not that bad, let's run with it. So it went from him and the other guy bringing it in to then he was like, man, fuck him. We could just cross him out. I'll just put two. And I was like, for real? He was like, yeah.

So he put two. Eventually it got to where I think he started getting greedy because the little deal we had just started like dwindling away. Right. To where he started, like you said, he started feeling like I'm the one putting this shit up my eyes and bringing it in. So, yeah, I'm not. I'm doing it myself. I think Mary Shelley just realized what's happening, what Booth it. He's putting in his prison purse.

So he started bringing it in. He got up to like five packs. Yeah. And I'm talking about whole cigarettes, not like broken down tobacco. Sometimes it'll be broken down tobacco. But it got to like, we had like whole packs. It's like the whole cardboard. Yeah, not the whole cardboard.

Then it became half a carton. Now the most it got to was five packs. Okay. But, because, you know, when you go in there and you sell a whole cigarette, that's five, Five packs and one trip? Yeah, one trip. One trip. One trip.

Oh, that ain't shit. When I got to another prison, they were shoving like 15, 20 bombs. Yeah, 15, 20 bombs, little, little, look like golf balls. They was doing 20 at a time. Yeah. So me and him ended up not, you know, he realized like, this is a cash cow and I want it all for me. Like, you ain't doing nothing, which I can't be mad at you. You're right.

You doing all of that. I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm cool. I'm cool. I'm not doing that. So anyways, you know, I'm doing all. We were doing all of that, whatever, whatever. I was from that town.

Like, I was in Heinzville, Georgia when I was in the military. So that's where they sent me. That's where this prison is at. It was in Little Whissy, which is right between Jessup and Hinesville. But we would go to Hinesville and clean the parks up. So I know people in Hinesville. So I'm calling a couple of my friends. I'm like, yo, you know, swing by.

I'm going to be at this park, you know, throw some cigarettes out or, you know, whatever. My boy threw out, he threw out like a half an ounce of coat. Jeez. And when he throws it out there, I'm like, damn. So I started, you know, having this other person bring my stuff in for me. So when he throws it out there, I'll wrap it up. I give it to my boy. I'm like, yo, you know, bring it.

it in, I got you. I was like, we want to make some money off of this joint. You know, they were bringing in cigarettes. I started having people drop off, you know, drugs and stuff. So I do that, bring it in. He comes up. I put it on the mirror, start, you know, rationing it out to like 20s. So the whole shit that night.

But as I'm sitting there, you know, bagging it up, they called 12. So I slipped my mirror under my box. and I guess some of the shit got on the floor I got rid of it thank God because the very next morning they had a shakedown they come up in there with the dogs and everything so naturally the dog stops in front of my box and sits down

I'm like oh shit I had a half of summer sausage open in my bowl so they thought that's what it was so that's what I told her the warden she came she snatched me out She had a whole bunch of little statements from the guys in there saying that I was bringing in drugs And I was bringing in cigarettes

That is fucking true The inmates would never tell on each other It's not true I don't believe that A lot of people don't What about the code? There ain't no code on the street You think there's a code in there?

I know dudes who would tell on you for a sandwich I hear you I'm hungry Exactly I don't get no store call P.Dall got to go. Hell yeah. You got to get up out of here.

So she had a couple of written statements saying that I was bringing in cigarettes and stuff like that. She was like, you want to talk about this? I was like, nah. I don't got none of that. I don't know what they're talking about. Did you tell it? Like, look, I'm a former CEO. No, I, you know what?

I never tried to use that. I never, because, you know, I felt like if I tried to use that, they would tell each other. Yeah. And then obviously it would get out. Yeah. So anytime I went somewhere. I never used that. If you knew me, then you knew me.

I never went in saying, oh, hey, excuse me. I used to be a, hell no. I don't want you to know nothing. I want you to look at me. If you don't know me, then you treat me the same way. You treat everybody else, so nobody else will find out. So she ends up shipping me to another prison, back to a level five. So I'm like, all, fuck it.

Augusta State Medical Prison is where she sent me. I'm staying in a building called the Y building. As soon as you walk through the, you know, you got the administrator, side with the classes, everything. Then you got the gate, and then it's the prison side, like where the dorm's right. As soon as you walk through the gate, it's the dorm right here. You walk in, you go to the left, it's right there. It's Y Building.

So I'm in Y Builder. I'm chilling. I'm trying to be under the radar. Like, I don't want nobody to know who I was, you know, at Hayes, like, you know, being in the gang and all that shit. I didn't want nobody to know nothing. I'm like, this is a new place. Latinos, we already stick together as soon as you walk in.

You walk in, you show your paperwork. Your paperwork's legit. ain't nobody fucking with you. They're going to accept you in. My charges say DUI, homicide by a vehicle, you know, I don't got no crazy charges. So nobody ever pressed me. I show them my paperwork. Look, there's my charges.

I'm here for that. You know what I mean? Everything cool. So I'm chilling. I'm just hanging with the regular people, minding my business. Next thing you know, I didn't know, but when a GD was there from Hayes. But he wasn't ahead. He was just a GD from Hayes,

and he ended up getting transferred there. So I'm sitting there in the dorm. I don't even recognize him. I'm just going about my everyday business. You know what I'm saying? I worked on the hospital floor then. So I'm going about my everyday business, minding my business. It was a situation that was about to pop off

between the Hispanics and the GDs. So he comes with his head dude over to my dorm. And when they walk in, he comes up to me. He's like, he says my name. And he's like, yo, Mighty, can I talk to you? And I looked at him. I was like, what? He was like, I need to talk to you, Mighty.

I was like, who are you? He was like, oh, I'm such and such, da-da-da-da-da-da. He was like, we were at Haze together. I was like, dang. Because I was there for like six months. Nobody knew nothing about my gang affiliation, nothing. I was just a regular Latin dude with the Latinos. You know what I'm saying?

Mind in my business. If we got a ride, we're going to ride. That's what it is. But he ended up telling people, oh, yeah. that's such and such, he's such and such, blah, blah, blah, you know, the head over there, the head over there. I was like, damn. So then that's when the gang shit started coming back into play again. Wouldn't you just say I'm not interested? Well, honestly, I was like, you know what? I'm for my people, first and foremost. So when you come to me with a situation and we could

try to prevent somebody from getting killed or any bloodshed, then I'm going to stand up for it. You know what I'm saying? Because I wasn't about that killing each other and going to war and shit. I didn't want that to happen. I wanted my time to be as smooth as I could possibly make it. So when they came to me about the situation, I was like, all I'll talk to some people's, we'll all get together and we'll see if we can, you know, fan this out and squash it. Right. And it ended up happening like that. And once that situation happened, it was over. There was nothing else I could do. Every time something that came up, yo, go get mighty, go get this, go tell them to come over here. So then what I did was I started

hanging real tight with the bloods. Because, you know, the East Coast Bloods, they banged the five-point star. And then the Latin King's got the five points of the crown. So it's a mutual respect of the five. That's good. If it makes sense. And gang world. Yeah, okay.

It's a mutual respect of the five. Right. You know what I'm saying? You five star, five crown. They're kind of connected. There's a feeling. Yeah. There's like a, there's an understanding.

Yeah. So there's like the five and then the six. The six is the GDE's and all of that, the folk nation, all of that. And then the fives is the king. and the bloods and some vice lords. So I ended up getting real tight with one of the had bloods over sex money murder. It's the East Coast set.

And me and him got real tight, real close. So then me and him started rocking real tight. And then me and him came up with a plan to like, you know what? We should try to unite all of our people to make one big powerhouse. You know what I'm saying? And that's what we ended up doing.

Like uniting everything under the five. as one, like not as one, but like a mutual respect. We all hang together. We kick it together. We eat together. We go to child together. Stuff like that. But they knew how big he was.

He was in there. He had a few stabs, a few things going on. So anytime something happened, they would take him and lock him down and keep him hidden for months at a time. So while he was locked down, I'll be out there doing my thing, sending him food, sending them phones, all kind of shit. So his people showed me the respect that they would show him because they need to be. knew how tight me and him was.

You know what I'm saying? So it was still rocking right. Every time they had a problem, they would come to me. If it had to do anything with the Bloods or the Kings or anything, they would come to me. And it ended up turning bad because every time something happened, they would come and lock me down. Because they're like, oh, you're the head of this shit and you're not controlling it. So now we're going to put your ass in hold. And it would be like three months here, six months here, nine months there.

Like, God damn, bro. So that was going on with that. I was cool, though. I was comfortable. I was living comfortable. Nope. To this day, nobody's still. These interviews are going to let them know who I really was.

Okay. Because they never, they don't know to this day. And I still talk to them, some of them. I still talk to some of them to this day. And they're going to be like, yo, you know what I mean? But it is what it is. So yeah, how I made it through there, I don't, I don't fucking know. I couldn't tell you.

But I made it. And again, they was always like, oh, we used to be locked up here. That's how I made it. And then when I got in gangland, they definitely ain't going to think I was an ex-CO. They're like, that's this dude from over there. You know what I mean? So, as, you know, as time's going on, it's money being made. At the time, I'm buying cigarettes and selling them because I ain't caught an officer yet.

I stood in my dorm. I did the least amount of shit I had to do to be out and about with people. You know what I'm saying? I go to work. I come straight back to the dorm. You know, I stay in the door. I didn't go to the child. I didn't go to the child hall because I would buy cigarettes, sell them,

and that'll fill up my box because I didn't smoke. You know, I'd buy phone so I could have a phone. So then one day, the guys come up to me. They're like, yo, come out, come to child with us. Because once a month in Georgia, they give you baked chicken the whole quarter of late. So they're like, yo, come to child with us, get your chicken. Chicken Day. Yeah, it's chicken day.

Everybody's happy. Let's go. Let's go get this chicken. So I'm like, man, y'all know I don't go out there. They're like, come on, just come get the chicken. So when we come back, we can make a meal. and put all the chicken with it. So I'm like,

all right, fuck it, let's go. So as I'm walking out the dorm, the officer there, she looks at me, and she was like, oh, hell not. And I looked. She never heard her,

she never heard me speak. She never talked to me. I never had no interactions with none of them. It was just straight, work, home, or I mean, work, sell, work, room, but boom.

Would she recognize you? No, she was just like, oh, hell no. Then I looked. I was like, what's up? At this time, I'm so comfortable. I'm not thinking they've

recognized me. She didn't recognize me. But she was like, what the hell are you doing out the room? I'm like, what you mean? I'm going to child. And as I'm talking to her, you know, she's from Georgia. She was like, you ain't from Georgia, are you? I was like, no, I'm from New York. She was like, oh, so I seen, I never caught a female until this time, but I know dudes who would catch him, catch the officers, they would bring them phones, cigarettes, all that. So finally, when I seen the interest she had, I'm like, oh, I might have something right here. So when I, I I go to child, I come back from child, you know, I walk up to her and I start kicking it with her, just general conversation.

And she's like, yeah, I've never seen you come out, you know, we talk and just bullshit. And I was like, yo, like, let me give you my number. She was like, what? I was like, hey, no, you're going to get me caught up, blah, blah, blah. I was like, man, just take my number. I don't want nothing from you. Just conversation. You know what I'm saying?

When you go out there download an app, you know, like the text now app or something, and just kick you with me or just, you know, text me, whatever. So you're giving her the phone number to your contraband cell phone. Yeah. Okay. Because she showed interest. Right. And everybody knows, like, it was that easy in Georgia.

It was that easy. You give a girl a little conversation, and then once I get you on the phone, I'm in your ear all day. As long as they don't come in, I'm in my bed. Like, if I'm on love connection. I'm in your ear all day. What she looked like? She was a black chick. Okay.

She was a slim black chick, a little skinny black chick. Is that all right looking? She was pretty. She had a pretty face. She ain't had no real body going on, but. But in prison, she doesn't fucking matter. Yeah. She's in eight.

She's a four in the street. In prison, she's fine as hell. In prison, she probably was one of the baddest ones there. But, yeah, so we started talking. She ended up texting me. And then we started talking, then I would talk to her every single day. And that's all that a lot of times that's all they want. People will be like, I don't understand how they get with inmates.

I don't understand how they ended up with inmates. We got 24 hours of nothing to do. So we're going to talk to you more than any dude on the street. We're going to show you all the attention that you're looking for, all of that. So that's what I was doing to her, giving her all the attention. And we talked for a little bit. And then finally, I was like, yo, bring me something to eat. She was like, what you mean?

Oh, Seth, that little bit. That's that little bit. Just going to reel her in. Before you know it, she's moving keys for you. It wasn't never keys. It was packs of cigarettes, though. Right. But, yeah, I reeled her in with the food.

It's still contraband. Yeah, you can't bring me anything. Yeah, I was going to say she could still get in trouble. Of course. So she was like, what do you want? I was like, whatever. Just grab me a burger. She goes and grab me some burger king.

She brings it in. When I'm in the dawn, I'd see her come in. So I go sit next to the tea. She clicks the door. I walk out. I go to the little, they had like a little box and they slice it out, other Central Station. She slides it out. I open it.

It's the Burger King. So I had the shit, put it under my shirt, like try to flatten it down a little bit. Walk back in the door and go to my bunk because I had it sheeted off. Go to my bunk, eat the food. When she gets off, we get on the phone, she's like, was it good? I'm like, hell yeah, you know, gassing it up. I'm like, damn, I was like, yo, you know what? You know, as we're talking, I'm like, yo, we can make a lot of money in here.

She was like, what you're going? Oh, you're going to get me fucked up. You're going to get me locked up in there with you. So what she don't know is that I was a CEO. Right. So I know how to get the shit in. Right. I never did it, but I know how it works when you come through that front gate.

You know what I'm saying? I know what comes through the metal detector and what comes through the x-ray machine. I know what doesn't. Go get a big gulp. Stick the shit in the big gulp and then put the big gulp on the side and walk through and then lean over and with your car keys and you get. Exactly. They'll never check it.

And they didn't. At that time, they weren't. Right. So that's what I told her. I was like, yo, I'm going to send you money to grab a can of cigarettes. This was the first thing I did. I said, I'm going to send you money to grab a can of cigarettes. The can in Walmart or whatever is $30-something for loose tobacco.

Right. The bugler tobacco. out of one can you get nine packs out of nine packs they go 200 a pack you break it down and then the $20 for this much but see how I did it was I was like

yo I'm going to have it I'm going to buy it I'm going to have it vacuum sealed all of that so all you got to do is put it on your stomach put your vest on put your shirt on and just walk in they're not going to smell it

because it's going to be vacuum sealed so just walk right in that was the first thing she brought me was a can of cigarette So I'm like, when she did that, she was like, oh, that was a rush. Really? Really? You're done.

No. It's like, okay, if that was a rush, I was like, shit, bring two. You think you could bring two? And it went from like two, the most she strapped was three-packed, three cans of cigarettes. And she was doing that every day she came in. And they did three on, two-on, three-off, shit like that. That was their shift in Georgia. So every time she came in, she was bringing three cans.

So then finally, the big gulp. I'm like, yo, I know when you come through that front gate, you don't put that cup through that damn metal detector or the x-ray machine. She was like, no, they make us put it on the side of it. I was like, you know what you need to do? I'm going to send you the money. Go buy me four phones. At the time, it was the 3G, the little touchscreen, 3Gs.

I'm like, yo, go get like four of them. I was like wrap them up. You know what I'm saying? Electrical tape. I don't know why the fuck we thought electrical tape was like going to stop it from being detected. Who the fuck knows who came up with that? But everybody brought their shit in an electrical tape.

So I was like, just wrap it up in the electrical tape. I was like put the phones in there because they were like this big. They weren't big phones at all. Like put two, two, whatever. Pour the ice in the big gulp. Put the top on it. And then bring it through. Put the cup on the side.

side, walk through, grab the cups, boom, you in here. She did it. She got through with the phones. Hit the door. I come out. I'm like, what up? She was like, go to the ice room, get ice. So I'm like, all right, I go to the, open the ice chest, four phones.

So then I started having to bring me four phones every day she came in. And I was selling at that time, the phones were going for like four to five hundred a pop. At that time. This was like 2000. And I want to say 14 or 15. I want to say 15. I think it was 15. She was bringing in four phones a pop,

and I was selling for 400, but as time went on, the phones started going up and going up to like 1,000 to 1,500, sometimes 2,000, depending on what's going on. But when I first started doing it, that's how much they were going for,

4,500 a pop. And I was flipping them like crazy. Two months later, she can go shake down the guy's lockers that you sold them to? So funny thing about it. She was on the tax squad. So this girl, I got her name tattooed on me. Right.

I'm not bullshit. I got her name literally tattooed right on my side right here. So. I see you getting strips or just funny. We have an officer. Oh, that's crazy. But the funny thing about it, they never figured it out. Right.

Because it looks like it looks like it could say something else. You know what I'm saying? How I had them do it. It don't look like it says her name. It looks like it says something else. because the situation came up about that where they thought somebody told them one of the inmates

One of the no snitching Stick to the cold guys Yeah one of the super thugs They get jealous Told them that I got her name tatted on me So they ended up searching me It was right there But they didn't even tell

I'm like damn I'm done They're just looking I don't see it I was like cool So that happened But anyway she started bringing phones in for me We was making so much money She literally went and bought a drop top Mustang.

You're so good to me. Yeah. And then everybody, like, after a while, everybody found out about it. Like all the other COs, they'll come up, oh, I heard you bought, what's her name of car? Oh, that's not a good situation. It's not a good situation. That lasts about a week. Exactly.

That shit didn't last long at all. So then I'm sitting there one day and I see the cert team come in. They're coming up the walk and look and I'm like, damn. That's crazy. What did they do? in here. Yeah, like, damn. Somebody's in trouble.

I wonder who they're here for. It's probably Jimmy. He's been moving. Right. That motherfucker been up there doing good. They come in and I think, I really think they gave me a chance to hide my shit. Right. Because they knew where the hell I slept at.

I slept on the bottom floor in the back in the corner. But when they came in, they shot straight up the stairs. So I'm like, oh, shit, 13, boom. You know, my shit was put up anyway. I don't pull it out to like after 5 o'clock. I don't pull my phone. out till after five. And it was like 3.30. So I'm like, yeah, I'm good. They go upstairs. Then they come down the stairs and I'm mean like, you know, walking to the front like,

nothing's going on. They look, Rodriguez. I was like, yeah. They were like, come with us. I'm like, oh shit, what's going on? So they come down. I'm like, what's going on? They were like, I don't know what the warden told us come get you. I'm like, damn, I wonder what I did now. So we go into the warden's office. He's sitting there and he's like, literally just like this. And he's like, I got a few questions to ask you. I'm like, I'm like, I got a few questions to ask you. like, all right. He's like, what you got going on with officers such and such? I'm like, I don't even know who that is.

He was like, so you mean to tell me you don't know this, that? I was like, nah. He said, so you mean to tell me that she's not bringing in phones for you and putting them in the ice chest and you're coming out and picking them up and she's not bringing in the tobacco? Oh my God, that motherfucker told me everything I was doing as if he was sitting next to me doing it with me. Literally. And I'm like, I have no clue what you're talking about.

And he was like, really? I was like, yeah. I was like, if you feel like that's what I'm doing, then put me in a hole. I've been in the hole so many times for the gang stuff. I was like, if you feel like that's what I'm doing, put me in the box. I'm already in prison. What are you going to do to me?

I know what you're trying to do. You want to catch her so you can hang her up. But I wasn't going to let you do that. You want to put me in a hole? Put me in a hole. I've been there plenty of times. I'm still going to, I'm still going to function. I'm still going to get my phone.

My boys are going to bring me my phone. They're going to bring me my food. Like, what do you want to do? He was like, no, I'm not going to lock you down. I'm going to catch you, though. I'm going to put you back in the dorm. I'm going to catch you. So I get back to the dorm.

I'm like, damn, damn, she was supposed to come in that night. I'm like, shit, what the fuck going on? So when I finally pulled my phone out, I had like mad called, Miss calls from her. So I call it back. I'm like, what's going on? She was like, yo, they called me this morning and told me I needed to come in. They needed to talk to me.

She was like, as soon as I got in there, the warning said, let me get your. phone. And I swear to you, this is the truest story. This shit is crazy. The warden said, let me see your phone. She gave him the phone. He went through her phone. She had my name in her phone. It had a New York number because that's what my phone, you know, Verizon, you could call and get the prepaid and you could get your number from anywhere. You don't have to have a Georgia number or nothing. I always got New York numbers. Why wouldn't she have a separate phone to contact you? Why put your name in her real iPhone or whatever it was?

Who the fuck knows? You have to know this is coming at some point. There's too many people that are involved. There's too many eyes. Exactly. And we're in a dorm where 60-something people standing there all day watching anytime somebody goes in and out that door. She got my name in her phone.

So my phone's put up. So the warden's like, you know, I heard you messing with Rodriguez, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's going on? Da-da-da-da-da. And it's funny that you got a guy in your phone. and his name is, you know, Rob, and it's got a New York number. Like, he was like, don't you think that's kind of funny, whatever? He was like, you know what?

Do me a favor. Call him. And let's see what he says. But my phone's put up. Right. So you call it. Go straight to voicemail. It's off.

So that was the good thing. So she's telling me, like, all of this. And I'm like, oh, shit. She's like, so he told me he knows what we're doing, blah, blah, blah. They're going to try to put me in jail. I said, yo, did he catch you with anything? Did you have anything on you? She was like, nah.

I said, well, he didn't catch me with nothing either. So what is he going to put you in jail for? He's going by what people are telling him. I was like, right here, it stops. We're not doing nothing else. You're good. He didn't catch you with nothing. He didn't catch me with nothing.

He didn't connect anything. Just leave it alone. And the worst that they could do at this point is transfer her and ship you. Exactly. And that's what I told it. I was like, just leave it alone. Don't worry. I was like, yo, listen, I promise you, they ain't going to get shit out of me.

I'm good. I'm already locked up. What can you do to me? So she was just like, I bet. I said, you know what? You know what I want you to do? I was like, we made some good money, right? She was like, yeah.

I said, yo, come back in here tomorrow and quit. Quit and walk away. She was young. She was in her 20s. I'm like, quit, walk away. You can find something else. I know you can. You got enough money right now

that you can sit there for a little bit if you want to. So I'm just personally offended that the warden would accuse me of this. When I've done everything I can do to put, I put my heart and soul into this job. She was on a tactical squad. I don't deserve this. Exactly. Come in there and do that.

Completely offended. And if she leaves, she gets kind of like a good recommendation. She'd go do something else. Exactly. Because you didn't get fired. Apply for the police officer. You didn't get fired. You didn't get nothing.

She ends up coming in and quitting. We still talking for a little while. She finds a job. I think she found a job making coverage or something. Who's making more money than making coverage than she was as a correctional officer. I said, see? You're good now. We ended up

stopped talking, you know, time. She was, years. Yeah, she was just my, you know. I understand. I understand.

Yeah. You know. You bastard. I didn't, I ain't going to lie. Yeah, I did look for it. Except for one.

One, I didn't look for, like, I was going to say I didn't look for them. But once I found out that it was easy for me to snatch them like that,

right. Then every chance I got, I was searching for another one. Right. You know what I'm saying? But I made, I made some good money, but then it got to a point where like, it was like, when that situation happened, I was like, okay, that's too close.

So at Augusta State Medical Prison, they had outside detail. A few places would go do this, do that. So me, I'm like, yo, let me get one of these people to start and bringing it in. So I started doing that again, paying somebody to wrap it all up, drop it off at a certain site, they'll come, grab it, you know, put it up there, and bring it on in for me. So I was doing that. I lasted at that prison for a while

for probably like three years at Augusta. And then out of nowhere, they just, it was like my last three years in prison. I was going on my last three years. Out of the 14, I was at like nine. And they sent me to a prison called Dooley State Prison. It was somewhere in Georgia. A lot of prisons in Georgia.

They got 50-something prison in Georgia. Sheesh. Yeah. So they sent me to Dooley State. That was the first minimum medium I hit besides the police one. So they sent me there to Dooley and I was like, okay, here, I'm not saying shit. I don't want to know nobody. I don't want to talk to nobody.

I'm just going to do my last little bit of time and go home. So I get there and, man, I erased the shit, but I wish I still had them. So when they're transferring me, they transfer me single man transfer because of my status according to them. Because what I was told from them, from the cert team, was that I was on the top 200 list of the governor's worst inmates in the state. Never been in trouble. I got one DR for a phone. The only reason they labeled me that was because of my gang status. So that was it.

It wasn't because I was violent or I was stabbing people and fighting. No, that wasn't it at all. Had I getting in fights, of course. I was in prison for 12 years. You don't think I fought somebody? Hell, yeah, I didn't. Never got in a stabbing match. Never stabbed nobody.

Nobody ever stabbed me. Thank God. So they transfer me to Dooley. I'm on my way to Dooley. I don't know what's going on. When I get there, I had a migraine real bad. But, you know, you can't transfer with your meds on you. Right.

They have to hold your meds, and then they give them to medical and medical, whatever. You go through that process. So what I had, I had prescription at Cedron. I didn't know I had high blood pressure at the time. So I got this real bad headache. I'm palely white. I'm feeling like I'm going to throw up.

When we get to Dooley, when we get to Dooley, the whole cert team comes out, all the wardens come out, like Warden, Deputy Warning Care and Treatment, Deputy Warden Security, all of them. Lieutenant's, Captain, a couple sergeants, they open the van and they, you know, they get me, they bring me to medical.

And I'm wondering, like, why the hell are all of these people here for me? And I don't know yet. So I get into the medical part the nurse comes in and she just looks at me and she's like okay she starts doing her thing she connects me to all these little heart monitors I guess I had a regular heartbeat

from what she was saying so they end up sending me to an outside hospital I get to the outside hospital to do their thing everything's good I get my migraine my excedron finally so the shit goes away I come back to the prison and got to go back to medical to do the

reval or something like that so when I get up there the nurse is standing there and she's staring at me and I'm looking at it I'm like, you're all right? Now mind you, I'm in minimum medium now. I'm not in close.

So, you know, that's different. You could be in the room with a nurse by yourself. I mean, there's another nurse in there most of the time, but sometimes they'll step out. It's minimal medium. Yeah.

You know what I mean? They don't look at you as a threat no more. So she's in there and I'm like, you're good? And she was like, yeah, she was like, I just can't believe you're the guy. And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, yo, when you

were being transferred here, I guess the warden got a call that you were coming here, and she was like, you should have seen him. They were going crazy. She was like, the warden called everybody. He locked the compound down. He called all the cert team, everybody to come when you come to the back gate. And I'm like, why? She was like, according to them, she was like, you're some big time gang member and they're scared

of you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because this first time I hit minimum medium. But I'm like, I don't even like, I don't even be doing shit. And she was like, to be honest with you, when they said it was a Mexican guy, I was expecting to see this little old guy come walking in. Right. You know what I'm saying? She was like, but then I've seen you and I was like, oh shit, no wonder why. But I'm like, no wonder why.

I'm not like that. Like I'm chill. So she was like, oh, okay, whatever. But I guess she took a liking to me. So now I got to go back to medical because I got high blood pressure. So every time I got to go, you know, they check my blood pressure, all of that. So one time I go up there. and she's just all laughing and joking

and being all super friendly and she was like, I know you got a phone, let me get your number. And I looked at her. And at her, at first I'm like, this has got to be a setup. Right.

So I look at it, I'm like, man, I ain't got no damn phone, man. But this is going on for like two months. Every time she sees me, let me get your number. I know you got a phone. You want to act like you don't got a phone. I know you got a phone.

Everybody in here has a phone talking like that. So one day finally, I wrote my number on a piece of paper. I walk up there, get my blood pressure checked. And she's like, you still ain't going to give me a number? And her little nurse coat with the little pocket right there, I just slid my number in her shirt.

I was like, use it if you want. If you don't, I don't care. Walked out. She ended up using it. We started talking. What she looked like? She wasn't ugly. She was a little thick, but she wasn't ugly.

She had a pretty little face. She was a little thicker than what I'm used to. Right. So, you know, I was just like, but it was cool because now you know you got me on my shit again yeah so I'm like okay we start talking we're kicking it every day she's telling me all her problems everything going on with her baby daddy and this and that and blah blah blah and I'm just like yeah trying to talk her through it whatever finally I'm like yeah why don't you bring me like a pair of slippers or something

because these joints that I got on fucking my feet up she was like for real what kind of slippers you want I said, man, bring me like a pair of Jordan slippers or something. Those are real comfortable. She was like, how are you going to get them? I was like, yo, I know the orderly that works up there with you. Like, just bring them in and throw them somewhere and let them know where they're at. He'll pick them up and bring them to me.

Don't worry. He's good people. She was like, all right. When she comes back to work, I don't know how the hell she got them in. She brought the slippers in, dropped them in the thing, and they brought them to me. So I'm like, all right. So then I'm thinking, I'm like, you know what, I got to keep trying little bitty things. Because at first, I tried the cigarette thing with her.

She was like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Right. So I'm like, all right. I said, well, you know what? Bring me some polo socks. She went in, well. You're going to be full.

You're going to be decked out completely. I had the polo socks, the polo draws. I had the Timberlin hat. I was bugging out. I was bugging out. It was funny as hell. And I had pictures of all of this shit. Like, on my old Facebook, I had pictures of all of this shit.

But so she started bringing me the little stuff. She would put the underwear on and just walk in with them. And then drop them off and he would bring them to me. And eventually she was just like, I was like, yo, we could make some money in here, man. Because, you know, sometimes when we talk and she's like, well, I'm in a little jam and this and that. And I'm like, yeah, well, I'll send you some money, you know. And then it got to a point. It was like, yo, we could start making money.

And then I broke it down to her the same way. you bring me a can nine packs $200 a pack $1,800 for $30 I'll split it with you down the middle we can do that shit every day the more cans you bring

the more money we make and it just went like that boom boom boom and then it went from that to then it turned into yo bring me a phone how's the things going up there with this and that and she just started bringing in phones

and she brought in the phone like twice and then she was like, I'm not doing the phones no more. I'll just bring you the tobacco, that's it. I'm like, all right, fine, let's stick to the tobacco. It's the same thing. It's the same charge. The same shit. But we never got caught.

She never got caught. She never got caught. She was bringing it in faithfully. Everything was called. I actually met her when I got out. Really? Yeah. I got out.

I was in Georgia for about a day. I went to Atlanta to my brother's house. And she actually met me at my brother's house. And I was like, my brother's house. like, yo, bro, you got to help me on this one. He was like, what you mean? I was like, bro, you got to be like, look, I don't like people in my house. I'm very private, blah, blah, blah.

So he was like, all right, I got you. I got you. She pulls up to the house. I come outside. She's like, oh, what's going on? I was like, chilling. She was like, can we go inside? I said, man, my brother don't like people in his house.

If he don't know you, he don't like you in his house. He was like, for real? I was like, yeah. Then he comes outside. He's like, yo, what's up, Rob? What's going on? I was like, yeah, I was going to invite her in, but he was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no offense. I don't like people in my house.

If I don't know, yeah, we ran with it. We ran with it. I was like, yes, I don't got to do nothing. Because I really wasn't trying to do nothing with her. She was cool as hell, but I was like, no, I can't do it. But, yeah, that's how that went. And I was like, damn, that was straight, though. I met her.

I was cool with it. I was like, damn, okay. Did you go to, like, a halfway house when you got out? No. It was crazy because it was during. When COVID, right, it was December 2020 is when they let me out. They came to me Monday and was like, yo, you go home next Monday. Call your people and make sure all your shit is in order.

You're paroling next Monday. I was like, what? Shot back to the dorm. Call my mom. I was like, yo, everything's straight. The address. She was like, yeah, everything's good. Come on.

They called her, ran through it because I did interstate compact. I went from Georgia back to New York. And everything was good. The next Monday I walked out the gate. I was on parole. They told me I had to be on an ankle monitor when I first got home. So when I got to New York, I reported

and they were like, nah, you don't got to be on an ankle monitor because of COVID. He was like, when we pull up to your house, we're just going to pull up. You come outside and wave at us, and we're going to pull off. I was like, okay, bet.

And I actually got a good parole officer, which he knew, you know, like, oh, you were a correction officer, oh, you were in the military, blah, blah, blah. So they, they treated me different. Right. I didn't get in no bullshit and no trouble or nothing.

Like, they didn't come bother me all the time. You know, he would come wave at me and keep it pushing. The whole time I was on parole until October last year. And the whole time, he was just waving at me. Never came in my house, never tried to search nothing. Yeah, I didn't have to deal with none of that shit, which was great. Yeah. But, yeah, that was the end of that one.

I was like, thank God. But, you know, like, I'd be trying to tell people I grew from that situation. You know, prison really humbled me. prison really humbled me. And it really made me realize a lot of shit about myself and about the system and about a whole bunch of shit because I was doing all types of crazy shit in there, not crazy like fighting and nothing like that, but just like the wrist taken with the phones and the drugs and the cigarettes and all of that shit and the gang life. Like, I never believed in gang life ever. Right. Like when I was at home, my brothers and them, they got like a little

neighborhood crew that they hang with. You know, they called herself a search. a certain name, and I never wanted to be a part of that. I always wanted to be myself. But when I went to prison, man, I took anything I could get to make it. And it's hard. I don't understand it. Like I said, every time somebody recognized me, they always was like, yo, we were locked up at this prison.

And you're damn right. I'm going to run with that narrative. I don't give it. Damn, yeah, we were locked up there. Hell, yeah, I remember you. You were in cell 32. I was in cell 35. Yeah, I'm running with it.

And they ate it up. people like I think a lot of people would think like officers would tell or something like that but by the time I got back like I said I got I got my accident in 2006 by that time I went to prison in 2009 I never ran into a officer right that I knew it was wardens and and you know deputy wardens and dudes over the whole like area type shit so it was never issue with officer talk you know what I mean because I didn't know none of the office They were all brand new. Right. I never ran into another officer that I knew. It was always a warden or something like that. I was like, damn, I think that's how I really made it. Because officer-wise, come on.

They're going to talk. Yeah, yeah. They're going to talk anyway. They know somebody in the prison. They're friends with somebody. Exactly. You know, he used to do this. Exactly.

But fortunately for me, I never ran into an officer that recognized me. It was always like a warden. or somebody of higher rank, you know, who I guess took it a little bit more serious than to be telling people. I don't know. But that's how it worked. That's how I made it through that shit. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching.

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