Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Successful Prison Author | Seth Ferranti

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Successful Prison Author | Seth Ferranti

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

Zeth was arrested and did 20, you got 25 years. Yeah. Did 21 years in federal prison for selling LSD. Yeah, LSD and cannabis. And cannabis. Okay. So, all right, check it out. So somebody asked me earlier too.

And like the first question somebody asked me and I didn't even know. Like, where were you born? Yeah, I was born in Lamar. Lamar is actually out in the desert. They call it the central coast. It's between L.A. and San Diego. Okay. And you, I mean, I kind of know the story. So you, you grew up there and you said you started basically were just what? You start off just. Yeah, no, I was a military brass.

So I was actually born on like a Navy base. You know, it's out in the desert. That's where they, like, they train fighter pilots. Right. You know, so my dad was basically a fighter pilot, but he was the Navy. He used to fly off aircraft carriers. So we're in San Diego. We were in Virginia Beach.

We were in Germany. We were in London. But we always ended back up in California, usually, until he retired. And that's kind of where my problem started because, I was like this California kid, and I ended up in northern Virginia, like in this really kind of lily white upper class area, like right out of Washington, D.C. when I was basically, you know, like a sophomore junior in high school. And being from California, you know, and at that age, like, you know, everybody were going out partying and just the weed that they got. They just got like garbage weed. It was like all brick weed, like brown shit.

And then like if they could get LSD or something like that, it was just like super expensive. of like $20 a hit. So, I mean, I knew a lot of people. You know, I had a lot of friends that were getting into that stuff, you know, back in California. So I started getting weed sent, you know, from Northern California, you know,

like Emerald Triangle, Humboldt County Bud. And from, from like San Francisco, I started getting LSD sent. Okay. But you were, how, I mean, how old were you at that time when you were? Man, I was, I was, I was young. I was like 16, yeah.

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

And, but then eventually, like, you know, if you do drugs and a lot of young kids, you know, kind of figure this out, or at least the smarter young kids figure this out. So when you're young and you're doing drugs, you know, and then finally you're like, well, fuck it. If I can get it, why should I pay for it? Right. So that's like the first thing. you're like you do it for free drugs but then you know after you do that for a while you're like well fuck it i don't want to pay for it and i want to make money right so you know this was and it wasn't

something that just happened overnight so this was a gradual thing like you know over my first probably nine to 12 months in northern virginia you know where i've like hey man i can make money off this shit you know and then um and then other stuff happened like i started going on tour like at 17, I started going on Grateful Dead tour. And anybody that knows anything about the Grateful Dead tour, like in the late 80s, you know, like we're talking like 1988, right. You know, like what they call Shakedown Street or the lot. I mean, it was basically like an open-air drug market.

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

in cannabis, you know, hash, mushrooms, you know, even stuff like peyote, mescalin, you know, so that was kind of like where I leaned, you know, kind of on that side. So I would go to these dead shows. And the big thing about the dead shows, like, I mean, it's just this big lot and everybody's selling drugs. So I had two reasons I went to the dead shows. One reason is because I established a connect down in Kentucky that grew weed and they grew pretty good weed, you know, compared to the brick weed from Texas that was coming around. So I would take that weed. I would grab that weed for whatever 16, 1,800 a pound. And I would take that on dead tour and I would sell it for $200 an ounce. And if it was good weed, like what they call kind bud. And when they

say kind bud, they were referring to like the bud from Humboldt County, you know, the emerald. triangle, which I could usually only get in the fall, you know, at harvest time. But that's what they wanted. They wanted that good sungrown organic. Because the brickweed was basically crap. Yeah, the brickweed was crap. So, you know, that's what the deadheads wanted, you know, to go with that whole hippie vibe. So I started going and I started selling bud on tour, you know, and I was making a, you know, considerable amount of money, not doubling my money, but, you know, I was usually making like, you know, a thousand, a thousand, two hundred pound. And it was easier to get I got better LSD contacts on tour because you know I had some friends and they could get like

some sheets here and there but they couldn't really you know they couldn't really like hit me off and I had to pay like you know I wasn't paying wholesale prices like they were getting at basically like retail prices you know but still you know not not like they were selling hits you know I was buying whole sheets from them you know so I was probably getting like paying like a dollar or two hit and selling it for five dollars hit but then I knew if I went on tour and I hooked up with the right people, I could basically get it for like 30, 40 cents a hit. You're not making it, though. You just have a contact.

Yeah, no, I never made it. So, you know, but. Because when I was locked up, I met one guy, like the whole time I was locked out, one guy that actually made LSD. I mean, because, you know, it's not like it's easy. It's not like growing, growing weed. It's like this guy. No, you've got to be a chemist.

Yeah. You've got to be a chemist. So, you know, so. Yeah. So what I know about the whole LSD trade is a lot of times at the shows, they would fly in. They would fly in the liquid. So, you know, they would fly in like 25 grams, you know, at a time. But, you know, each one of those grams makes 10,000 hits, you know, to give you the number.

So pretty much every dead show, and the dead used to crisscross a nation. You know, they used to play everywhere. And they would play multiple nights. So every show, every town, like let's say they played three nights at a Philly, you know, from San Francisco. all that stuff is still basically made in that area. You know, all the chemists, you know, and a lot of times it's the same guys from the 60s. You know, maybe they have like, you know, they mentored other guys, younger guys and brought other guys into the trade. But, you know, it's like, it's not like a big group of people.

I mean, they keep it pretty, you know, secret because it's a lot to even, like now, to even get the precursors and all the other stuff. I mean, they've outlawed a lot of that stuff. So it's really hard to get the stuff to make it, you know. but I mean like I say one one gram is 10,000 hits so you don't need a lot yeah he was the guy was telling me like he they would get the sheets of paper and he the you know perforated sheets of paper and he was like it was you're literally just putting like a like a droplet on each yeah the blotter paper well what also they do is um they actually they actually dip it all the whole sheet yeah they so they dip it so like what you got like one sheet of a hundred hits is about this big so that's like a sheet and then they would have what you call like a page So a page would be like a hundred of those. Or not 10 of those. So that would be like, you know, a thousand hits, you know, a hundred. And then they had what you call a book would be 10 pages.

And then, you know, that would be like 10,000 hits. That's like a gram of LSD, you know. But it's all the blotter paper, you know, it absorbs it. And that's pretty much, you know. I mean, it's not a perfect science because some places might absorb more than others. Right. You know, I've talked to a lot of chemists. so you know that's basically they've kind of explained a lot of the stuff to me but yeah I've never done it

but I know they would fly it in and um you know then like when they get it there then they would go through the process of laying it on the sheets you know where they kind of dip it in it or whatever right you know and they all would also do a lot of liquid I remember going to the shows and this is kind of funny because where never there were shows they would have a lot of the deadheads or the hippie kids would go to the local grocery stores and they would buy all the boxes of the food coloring you know like the food coloring it comes in these like little little boxes and there's like 10 or something or sometimes five right and those were like what they would use for the vials so they would get that food coloring and they would pour it all out you know and clean it out and then

they would fill that up because that one vial in that food coloring that was like like a hundred that was like a hundred hits you know so they would sell vials too because some people would do like straight liquid i even did i did some liquid one time so one time i was at some shows in in in Pittsburgh like in 89 and uh you know i'd always been a big fan of jimmy hendricks and i and i used to read how jimmy hendricks he used to take his bandana and he would just pour like a whole vial of acid on his bandana and then he would wrap it around his head you know so it's not like he was taking a hundred hits but i mean he was absorbing yeah yeah he's still absorbing a lot of that so so one time at this show in pittsburgh was actually right after uh brett midland the keyboardist

a real popular keyboardist died. He, like, OD'd on a speedball. And I was like, man, I was on this Jimmy Hendricks trip. You know, maybe I'd seen some documentary or something. I don't know or read about it in Rolling Stone or something. So I actually took, and I poured three quarters of a bottle, basically, like 75 hits on a bandana. And then I wrapped it around my head. And this is like, this is like before the show starts.

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

because you don't want to smoke weed, you didn't want to front out the security or whatever. So if you went up top, they didn't give a fuck. So we walked up, me and my buddy, he'd only take maybe like 25 hits. He took the rest of the bottle, but he drank it, you know, so, you know, he took like really adjusted 25 hits.

You know, I don't know how, mine was 75 hits, but it was in a bandana, so it's not like I took 75 hits. Right. But it was, you know, going into my skin. So we walked up to go to the smoking section, you know, everybody's smoking weed.

And so we're up there, you know, everybody got their, you know, big ounces or quarter pounds. We're rolling up fatties and we're smoking them. And then, like, the show starts, you know, so, like, everybody goes back down to the field because then it would just be the whole field would just be, like, wide open and everybody would be dancing. So me and my buddy, though, like, the trip starts, you know, kicking in, right?

So we're like, we're like looking at the steps, you know, and you know, like in a lot of the stadiums, I mean, it's kind of steep, you know, so we're like, you start tripping balls, right? So we don't go back down. We're like, oh, no, we're just going to stay over here. We're going to smoke some more. weed. So it ended up, we stayed up there. And this is, this is like, I mean, they used to play, they played, like, two sets, man. So they play, like, you know, like an hour and a half. And then

they come back, play another hour and a half. So this is like three hours, dude. Like, we're up there. Like, our friends keep coming up trying to, hey, man, come down. And we're like, we're like, look, and we're like, fuck no, like a couple times we would try to walk down on steps. It's too steep, right? Because we're tripping fucking balls, right? So we couldn't walked down. So eventually the show's over and like we stayed up there the whole time. And eventually everybody leaves right. And like the people are going around cleaning

and they're like looking at us like what the fuck are these dudes doing? You know we're just up there like smoking weed tripping. And so I don't even know it seemed like forever but eventually like a dude one of the custodian guys comes to us you know and he was like yo man he's like they're about to lock the doors of the stadium like you need to go now. You need to get the fuck out of here. There's like nobody. There's just like trash everywhere.

People picking up shit. So finally, we actually like, we crawled down, you know, like backwards, you know, on the steps, you know, like crawled down backwards until we got to like the, you know, like one of the main floors, you know, then we could walk out. But yeah, that was crazy. That's the most asset I ever took at one time. And like I can only say, I remember it. But I mean, it was, I mean, I think I had a good time, even though, like, I missed a show and I was, like, scared to walk out. Because it was like a ledge, man.

It was, like, crazy. I still, to this day, I have, like, vivid memories of trying, like, I'm telling you, probably in that however many hours, three to five hours. I probably attempted to walk down those steps, like, 20 or 25 times, me and my buddy. And I just, I couldn't do it. It was not happening until finally, like, and, you know, acid lost a long time, too. So, you know, I was still tripping. And it was just like, they were going to lock the door and I didn't want to get fucking, you know, locked in the fucking stadium.

So, I mean, how, so at some point, though, like, you started, I mean, you know, you kind of started selling more and more. You're making money at it. You're, you know. Yeah, really, I kind of, my business kind of exploded when everybody started going to college. Right. So, you know, first I'm like a sophomore and then I'm getting more. into it when I'm a junior and you know like I say I'm selling to the sophomores and I'm selling to the seniors you know and I was kind of like that guy I was kind of like that dude in high school

like if you wanted weed if you wanted LSD I was like the dude and I don't care I would sell like 10 sheets I would sell multiple sheets I would sell like five or 10 hits you know because I was like whatever it was all money to me plus I always felt you know I always felt like I was filling the need, you know, because I felt like people wanted good, clean drugs, you know, and I always felt like, you know, weed and LSD, you know, and mushrooms and stuff like that. I always felt they were good drugs. I didn't feel like they were bad drugs. You know, I didn't carry a gun. I didn't have a criminal organization. You know what I'm saying? I go around, beat people up. You know, a lot of times people paid cash. A lot of people times people fronted, I fronted stuff to people.

A lot of times people that I fronted stuff to were my friends and they fucked up the money. And I still didn't do. I was like, well, whatever. I can make. more money. That was always kind of like my attitude. So, um, you were saying you didn't, you didn't really feel like it should be illegal anyway. I mean, it's like, yeah, that was, yeah, I always tell, I tell people to this day, this is my big thing, right? I was never a criminal, right? I broke laws that I thought were wrong. Right. You know, I was an outlaw. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, like I say, to me there's a difference, you know, I mean, in prison, you got criminals and you got outlaws, you know, and maybe to the government and law enforcement, it's all the

same because you know we're breaking the laws of society but i mean there's a difference anybody i mean you know you've been in prison man there's a difference you know a lot of times a criminal is going to do whatever he can you know criminal like fuck you over for a dollar right you know where like an outlaw has like morals you know some kind of code that he's trying to live by yeah so you know there's a big difference but um yeah so i probably really exploded like probably like around 89 you know when I was a senior, so a lot of my friends had went off to colleges, you know, and were like freshmen. And so I went to Robinson, and Robinson was a big school in Fairfax County.

So Robinson was probably like 4,000 people. And then we had a sister school that was like not even five miles away called Lake Braddock. And Lake Braddock would have like 4,000 kids. And so, you know, for two years, you know, going on three years, I had been selling, you know, drugs, you know, LSD. and weed to all these people in these schools, you know, going all the parties. And, you know, like I say, everybody smoked weed back then.

It didn't matter, you know, if you were a jock, you know, if you were a stoner, you know, if you, like we call them truckers, like the dudes with the big four by fours. You know, if you, you know, some Virginia, you got like the more country dudes, you know, so didn't, you know, the cheerleaders, you know, the popular kids. Everybody smoked weed. Everybody did LSD.

Everybody did mushrooms. You know, some of them did coke, but, you know, I didn't really fuck with those people. That wasn't really my scene. So when these people, people started going colleges, like, and these are all good kids from, from good families, you know, not necessarily like super rich, you know, some more rich than others, but all upper middle class, you know, like all these kids, like they got a Mustang or like a

hand-me-down Beamer or Mercedes when they were 16, you know, and, you know, so, so when they all went off, they went to all these colleges, you know, like Penn State, you know, University of Maryland, you know, Kentucky University, UK, you know, West Virginia University, you know, all the way like Virginia Tech, you know, Radford, you know, VCU, you know, all the Virginia schools. So I just had like all these friends that went to all these different colleges and all within, you know, pretty much neighboring states to Virginia. So they all, they still need drugs. Yeah. So they're going. And I mean, you. you want to go because like when you're a senior you want to go to the colleges anyhow because

you want to party you know check out the girls and see what college is like because I mean that's what it's about in the suburbs you know you go to school and then you know you go to college and it's like a party so um like they're calling me up there you know and and I'm going and they want me to bring drugs they're like hey dude what can you bring whatever they're like I need this for me and like my whole frat everybody needs shit so I started going and it just like turned in it was like just this little kind of local thing you know where I I was kind of like, you know, a retail dude, but not really a big wholesale. I did maybe a little wholesale, but that was like real small part of my market.

It was mostly retail, you know, hand-to-hand stuff. And it just turned into where, you know, I remember the first time I went to Radford, right? I went to Radford in the beginning of the semester, so late August, 1990. And Radford is like kind of like the sister school to Virginia Tech. Radford used to be like an all-girl school, but then, you know, then they changed it. guys could come and um and virginia tech is like right there too so it's these two you know virginia tech is a really huge school but radford's a pretty big school so like august 1990 i go to i go to radford and i had just picked up some bud that they just harvested in kentucky and back then like

sometimes like in the summer like it would get dry man like you couldn't find any weed and if you did find weed it would be like brown you know garbage brick weed with seeds so i was always known for getting the good bud from like Kentucky or Northern California. So this time I brought, I brought like a ton of, not a ton, but probably like 20 pounds, you know, just harvested fresh, you know, good green bud. And I actually go, I go to my dude's house, right? And my dude has a house. And it's kind of like a little, you know, duplex apartment thing. So like he has a house right here. And then his buddy has a house right here. And so I bring bud and he's like, man, he's like, man, nobody has bud. He's like, everybody wants bud i'm like well fucking call him dude i'm like we're here so we break out the

fucking triple beam right and first i'm like in his room and like people are coming but you know it was like so many fucking people like it was like crazy so what we ended up doing is we ended up going to his friend's apartment which was like kind of connecting you cross away and we had that door and we put like a table in front of the door like we're a fucking vendor and me and this other dude you know my road partner we're basically weighing stuff out and there was like like a line so there was like a line all through this walkway and all through my friend's house because they would come in my friend's house the front door and then you know come out in this side door and we'd go and it was like a line dude and we like literally quartered outst up weed

for probably like three hours straight you know and i would like literally like sitting at the table throwing fucking money in the back like i don't even know how much money i don't even know how much weed i'm selling but you know at the end i mean we still had some left i probably had about five or six pounds left but i i literally probably sold 14 15 pounds in three hours all for like quarters and ounces and i just have like this big duffel bag of money you know and that that was just like that's like what it was back then and i did that and once i did that first i was like man i was like i can make a lot of money doing this you know that was my first thought but second i was like man i got to find a better fucking process because this is like some bullshit because it's you know i mean back then it was

marijuana you know the war on drugs and all that shit i was like man this is like this is like too open you know so what i did among the people i knew at the different colleges you know because i had some situations at other colleges like that you know that was the most extreme situation right that's why i'm telling the story but you know i had different situations like that it's a good scene though yeah so um i just started finding dudes like some of my friends you know like the the smartest most trustworthy or on point friends and i would just go to them and i said say, look, dude, check this out. I'm going to come in.

I'm going to drop you like 20 sheets of acid. I'm going to drop you like five pounds of bud. And then, you know, you can do all the hand-to-hand sales. And, you know, this is how much you owe me. And then I'll come back and get it. Right. So I did that at all these different colleges. So I started doing this loop, you know, where I would go down, I would go down 81 in Virginia

and hit all the Virginia colleges. Then I would come back through Kentucky. I would go to eastern, eastern Kentucky. and then I would go up to UK then I would come back to West Virginia, West Virginia University which West Virginia University in Morgantown was like my

hugest market man, that place at that time in the late 80s like West Virginia like in Playboy magazine like West Virginia University was always like in the top five party colleges you know like it was just fucking crazy it was just known

you know what I'm saying they always had like a big football program you know they were always kind of big in football but they were just known it was known as like a super party college so um and i had i had my buddies were in the delta tal delta fraternity and they had this big fucking huge old dilapidated mansion like on frat row and they just used to have these big ass fucking parties so they used to have these uh they used to have this party it was called the uh and it was called like the it was called like the the backyard not the backyard brawl but it was called like the backyard something I can't think of the second name but so it was called like the the backyard brawl or

backer or something whatever that's it backyard bash you got the word so it was called the backyard bash so they would have this party and there would be like literally 5,000 kids and they would always have right in the beginning of the semester and there would literally be 5,000 kids like going through this old dilapidated mansion and then they have like this big you know backyard and parking spot and they would get like reggae bands and stuff like that and so I would go to there and you know at first like it would be like I would be selling hand to hand eventually I got one of my dues to do everything but like their parties were so big that eventually West Virginia University like told them they couldn't have the backyard bash anymore they were like you guys that party's outlawed you can't

have it so like you know what these dudes did right because these are like some little you know little smart you know also entitled rich kids they were like okay so they called it the backyard ash you bring the bees okay So they just changed the name like that and still had the same fucking party. You know, they were basically like fuck the university. But that's what I did. I cultivated these relationships. I kind of made friends of mine that were drug users, you know, partiers, into drug dealers.

And so you know, now you're just the distributor. Yeah. So this started like 89. So then by the time like 91, when I'm really rolling, I'm basically supplying like 15 colleges in five states with weed. than LSD. Okay. That's a full-time job. No, definitely.

Like I see it, this time, too, like, I didn't work a job because that was my job, but I actually went to college a couple times, just like, you know, the local community college, but it was always like, I even, I came down to Florida, dude. I came down to Florida in 89 in the fall of 89. And I was enrolled at, uh,

what's it called the, uh, USF. Okay. I was enrolled. Yeah, I was enrolled in USF, right, in the fall of 89. But, I mean, it didn't last because I was like, I was just drawn. You know, I was drawn to like the dead shows. I was drawn to the dead scene.

You know, I was drawn to the, you know, just like to me, because to me being that drug dealer, it was like being a rock star. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And it wasn't even the money. It was a lifestyle. And I'd say, I mean. no you're the guy calling in shots everybody's like hey they need something for from you and you're

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

I mean, generating. I was probably, you know, generating like, you know, a couple hundred thousand a month. Right. You know, but I was literally making, you know, 25, 30 grand a month. I mean, 20 grand, 30 grand a month is a lot of money for a grown adult. Raising a family. That's a ton of money for a kid. And this was like, this was like, you know, 89, 90.

But really, I always tell people too, because, you know, I sold drugs so probably from like whatever 16 to I got busted at 20 so four years but it was really only like nine months where I was at that height so it was that last nine months like 90 you know into when I caught my case

you know the fall of 91 so you know because before like everything I'll explain this is when I'm like putting everything together you know I'm getting all my sources and my contact straight you know I got it eventually, like I didn't even have to go on tour to get the acid because I developed where they would just, they would send me, they would send me like 100 sheets, 10,000 hits. And I was basically getting like 100,000 hits a month, you know, sent to me. And then for the weed, you know, I would

get in the fall to about January. I would get weed sent from, you know, San Francisco from like Northern California, you know, Emerald Triangle Bud. And I would drive down to Kentucky myself and get their bud you know which was that they grew domestically which was pretty good it wasn't as good as a humble bud but you know it was close and then the rest of the year from January until like August I would basically get the the brick pot the Mexican brick pot and um I even dude I used to get a lot of weed out of Fort Myers I would drive down to Fort Myers Florida you know I used to I used to go to Dallas Texas I'd fly to Dallas Texas but I would drive down to Fort Myers Florida and I would get weed from actually it was like Kentucky dudes

that we're getting the weed down here. Like, so they'd grow the weed, you know, all year in the fall. And then in the winter, you know, sometimes they would come down here, you know, to kind of keep the business going. So I'd go down to Fort Myers. And I wasn't picking up a lot, man. And, you know, I pick up like whatever, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, a brick pot, which when it's all compressed like that, you know, it's not that much.

And also what I was doing was, uh, I was flying down to Dallas and I would, I would bring money and I would get like 50 pounds or something, 40, 50 pounds. And I would actually pack it in a suit. case and I would check it and I would and I would fly back with it you know like I was I was doing that like when I was 17 so that was crazy because back then you know back then you didn't you could go right to the airport right and you could say like you could buy a ticket you could say like my name is Joe Smith right and you could pay him cash for a one-way ticket you know no red no no red flags no nothing and I go down with it like I had this green big green

1970s samsonite uh you know suitcase you know huge huge probably like you know this big and i fly down i check it it it was empty you know what i'm saying and i go down and i literally sit at my buddies down there because i had some buddies that went to university of texas of arlington so i'd and they had developed some mexican contacts down there so i would literally go down there sit and wait on the mexican dudes you know until until they have their shit ready i dealt with this one dude named Mexican Eddie. And I would literally get the weed, buy it, pack it back in the suitcase. You know, I'd wrap it and stuff like that. And then I would check it in my luggage. I'd go back buy a one-way ticket, cash. This time I might be Chris Smith. Right. And go to, you know,

Dallas or, you know, D.C. National Airport and go pick it up off the carousel. So, you know, I didn't do that a lot, but I probably did that. Probably like, I don't know, 15 times over the years. you know but mostly I was I was a smuggler you know I was drive I was a driver that's what I would did because I knew I figured out at a very early age if you buy a product or you know drug like weed or LSD in one point you know and brought it to another point you know that's how you made money yeah yeah you could leave that on the table you're not to it's not a big feel um i mean this is pretty casual i'm just like uh you know i'm a director so i'm like i'm like ano with get get everything out of the fucking shot i was thinking the the fort myers thing

i wrote a story about these two guys that ran basically like it was one of the largest um largest bust in that area um from the DEA i think they got called with like 1,200 pounds or something that was just like you know and to just get to get seized to get caught with 1,200 pounds, God only knows what, you know, if that's just the one thing they caught you with. Yeah, that's just the one shipment that you know. But that was Fort Myers. Fort Myers is a big, you know, it's big for marijuana for bringing in marijuana. Plus, what was the other guy's name that we did? The, the, um, the saltwater cowboy. Yeah, he, but he was Tim McBride. Yeah, yeah, Tim McBride. Yeah, he was in the keys. He was in the keys. Oh,

that dude was a huge fucking marijuana smuggler. Yeah, he's, he's, he's, boy, he's an interesting character too. See, that's why I always look, like, I'm not saying for a teenager, I was a big drug dealer for a teenager, but like, when I really look at it, like, after, after doing all that time in the feds and stuff like that, like, I look at it, I mean, I was a small, I was a small timer, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, for a kid, yeah, I mean, and who knows if I didn't get busting, maybe I would have got bigger, you know, you never know, but, you know, once I got in the

feds and even, like, dude, like, Tim, like, I mean, those dudes were just, I mean, they're bringing in fucking tons. So, I mean, we've got an organization or a crew that's bringing in tons. I mean, really what I was doing, I mean, I'm like a minnow. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but it's hard to, you know, it's, you know, you get in front of the judge, you could, you know, they make them sound fucking. Oh, they don't go to fuck.

They make you sound like I was fucking John Gotti or Pablo Escobarro, the fucking suburbs of the fucking feds. Every, every fucking new case is public enemy number one. Absolutely. I always love that, that these guys are getting in front of the judge and they make them sound like just the most dangerous criminal in the world and then they send them to a low or they send them to a camp.

Yeah, yeah. If I'm so dangerous how did I go directly to a camp? No, it's fucking crazy, man. That's our criminal justice system, man. It's, it's, they got all their priorities wrong. So, yeah, what, what, sorry?

Yeah, definitely, um, like I said, I, I had like nine months where I was rolling where like, like, I was like, I mean, I was probably the man but you know like I was really feeling myself like I thought I was a man you know where it was where like I had built everything up over a couple years and you know even too like like as a kid you know I mean teenagers I mean you second guess yourself you know you're insecure you know so I was doing this for several years and you know maybe I still didn't feel how I wanted to feel

and then like dude I had like that nine that last nine months before I got busted like I was on top of the world like I could literally I felt like do anything I wanted I had enough money you know one time right before I got busted dude like I went to Hawaii I just went to Hawaii for two fucking months dude I was like man fuck it you know I was like I'm gonna get the fuck out of here so I put a couple dudes you know that actually they ended up on my case and they they ended up telling on me but I put them I said okay you're in charge of weed you're in charge of the LSD I'm just gonna go to fucking you know just fucking stack my money I'm gonna go to fucking Hawaii for fucking two months and just chill out you know but uh yeah and then like i say i you know i had a bunch of

different girlfriends but i was always the type of dude too usually like i would have like runs with girls you know i would have like six to like i would always have a main girl while i had like a six to nine month run with her and she'd be like my girl even though i might have had you know other girls that i just saw every now and then right you know but that was kind of like you know there's some 80 stuff i don't know maybe people would look down on that today i don't i don't It's a more sensitive world today. So what was the, like, what was the catalyst that brought it all down? Yeah, so basically, I mean, looking back, I mean, at the time, I thought it was like a real bright idea, but looking back, it was probably pretty stupid.

So, you know, the summer, 91, usually, like in the summer, it would get dry. There's no weed, right? So before I took that trip to Hawaii, you know, in the spring of 91, you know, I said, you know, I said, set shit up because I was always gearing up for the fall because with the fall was where I could really make money. So I needed to like get my money up for the fall. So when they harvested in Northern California and Kentucky so I could buy up a lot of bud because you want to buy up in the harvest, you want to buy up of the butt early. Like you want to buy when the farmers are like late August, September, you know, because you can get shit for cheaper. Right. You know what I'm

saying? Then by like October, November, by January. So it's like the weed you can get for 1600 in September by January that weed might be like 3,000. right you know so that was always my my thing because you know i was trying to maximize my profits so i had this bright idea in the spring of 91 when all my friends were going to be home from school you know because school was over i was like you know what i was like i'm going to fucking sell as much acid as i can this summer so i can get my money up for the fall you know and plus like i say that nine months i was making money but i was probably spending money recklessly Because when you got money coming in that young, you know, like water, I mean, it was just going out the door like water.

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

And I would give it away. Because I was like, I only wear new shirts. That was like my thing. Like, I only wear new shirts. I don't wear a fucking old shirts. I don't wash my shit, you know, like I'm saying. So, you know, I mean, I had some shit that I probably wash, you know, keep it real, whatever.

But, you know, that was like my thing. You know, I'm not going to front, like, every fucking shirt I had was, like, brand new. But that was like, that was like one of my things. And also another one of my things was sneakers, man. I was a fucking sneaker head, you know, so the Air Jordan's has started coming out, like, probably like 85, 86. So, you know, by like, you're talking like 90, 91, there's like a fucking shitload of Air Jordans at a shitload.

you know, everybody else jumped on the sneakers. So, like, I literally have, like, hundreds and hundreds of pairs of fucking high tops. Yeah, that sounds like Bozzi. He had, he had, like, a storage unit filled with two, three hundred pairs of sneakers. It was just like, he had a wall, like, in his room that was just sneakers. I was like, are you wearing all the sneakers? He was like, no, I'd never wear them. I just had them.

I just like to go buy them. Yeah, he said, he said, I just like to spend the money, dude. To me, it was, like, just go and spend it. And I always, I always had this thing like, just spinning cash, dude. I just love to spend cash, you know, because everybody else is like credit cards. I just used to, like, dude, like literally. And not like I'm spending over $10,000 or whatever because they still have that $10,000 thing back then. But, you know, I just used to love to go to, like, stores or go to the mall and just fucking drop like five or six grand.

You know, and I would buy mostly myself, but sometimes it might be girls. I might bring some guys in my crew. I'd buy them shit, too. And I would just go on these fucking whatever, whatever I had, five, six, seven, eight. just fucking drop that shit in the fucking mall in a day but so i'm i'm i'm fucking you know doing all went off on a tangent again but yeah yeah so uh you know i'm trying to get my money up because i was fucking spinning reckless like how i just described and so i just had this fucking awesome idea i'm like fuck because i knew it's going to be dry i knew there's going to be no

weed i'm like you know what i'm like i'm just going to fucking pump out as much fucking acid as i can in the summer of 91 and I'm going to make as much money as I can so I got my money stacked for the fall so I can fucking make a killing because I know the falls is when I'm really gonna make the killing every fall that's when I made a lot of money

so all my friends are back from the colleges so they don't have the whole college to sell to it's just all my fucking high school friends from these two high schools Robinson Lake Braddock and so dude so literally acid is going for like five six dollars a hit

I flooded the areas with so much fucking acid Like usually I would do like You know 10,000 hits a month But that's like all the colleges So now I'm fucking I'm like fucking I'm gonna get like 150 sheets I'm gonna get like 15,000 20,000 hits And I'm gonna flood it all my people

Are in Fairfax County You know there's no colleges So I actually The price of acid that summer Went from like five six dollars a hit Down to like one to two dollars a hit because I flooded it so much you know like you know

I mean looking back I was a fucking dumbass you know cut my own throat but whatever you know at the time I thought I was fucking brilliant I was like yeah so not only did I flood the area but it was just I mean there's fucking acid everybody's just tripping all fucking summer

and eventually what happened is there was this kid I mean I never met the kid but he was like a little 15 year old kid he was at this big field party in clifton you know clifton was like the kind of rich real ritzie area in fairfax county where they have like the million dollar houses and they would have like these big you know five six acre lots so the kids that live there when their parents you know just like when any

parents would you know go on vacation you know they would throw parties except they would throw like these big field parties you know and people people would be like stages for bands or they might bring like fucking uh skateboard ramps and all types of shit so it'd be like this fucking crazy fucking scene and so there was this big party but eventually like all parties out in the suburbs you know eventually the cops are called so this one kid was tripping balls on acid

and the cops came and somehow he was running through the woods naked and like a cop was chasing him you know and the cop like tackled him and for some reason this kid grabbed the cops

you know service revolver and uh on July 18th Get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18. Long bendy Twizzlers candy keeps the fun going. Keep the fun going. Keep the fun going. So luckily, only shot him in the arm. Right.

You know, so, I mean, whatever, flesh wound, but, you know, I'm sure it was painful, whatever. I don't know if he hit the bone. I don't know all the exact details, but I know he shot him in the arm. And so once this happened, you know, and then that kid, like, you know, whatever, he said, yeah, he was blamed it on the acid. Of course. Told him where he got the acid from. Which he could have been drunk and the same fucking thing would have happened. And who knows.

Yeah. I mean, I always say, look. if it's in you, it's in you. The drug is not going to bring it out. Just like in prison, like when they talk about dudes do homosexual shit. If it's in you, it was in you before, you know, in multiple ways it was in you.

I was just when I'm in prison. Bro. So. But so this happens. And actually the dude that sold him the acid was actually, I knew him personally because at one time I had sold, he went to Lake Braddock. I had sold to him.

you know for probably like you know my first two years but by this time like there's like seven people between me and him because you know he was a cool dude but he was like this metal dude he actually ended up on my cakes but uh you know he was he was this metal dude and i just thought like the way he sold drugs he would just sell to anybody you know so i didn't you know so there was like seven people separated you know between me and him but it was still all my shit so um this kid said he got it from this guy his name was dave the metal guy and And, yeah, and they started an investigation, man. And really, it was like, you know,

and this is how law enforcement in this country reacts, too. Like, if you do something to law enforcement, like if you shoot a cop or something, like they go hard, man. They don't fuck around. Like, you know. They take it seriously now. Yeah, they're like, man, you know, like you touched one of ours. You know, they're like a gang, like any fucking gang of the mafia.

You know, you, you know, just like the criminals, you touch one of theirs, they're going to go hard. The fucking cops go harder than everybody. So they basically had like a witch hunt. that summer, man. It was like an LSD witch hunt. So the domino's start just pop, pop, pop, pop, right to you? Yeah, like, where the fuck is this shit coming from?

And also, like, everybody knew my name. Everybody knew Seth, right? Because, you know, now Seth is more common because you got like Seth Rogen or, you know, Seth McFarland. So there's, like, some famous people named Seth. But back then, like, dude, like 91, like nobody was fucking named Seth. Right. You know what I'm saying?

So, like, my name stuck out. so everybody you know everybody's Seth so they keep hearing Seth Seths Seth they don't know my last name or anything but everybody's hearing Seth so because I was kind of like this whatever this infamous you know you know myth

you know I don't know if you want to say legend or whatever you know I was just a dude that supplied all the fucking drugs to all these colleges so you know a lot of people knew who I was I'm sure Colby will use legend in the in the clickbait title he'll come out with it'll be legend yeah you know a lot of

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

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

like you know a lot of the dudes I mean they're just like I was always a dude like if there was a problem like I was a dude that they would call right you know what I'm saying because whatever I'm not to say I'm not a tough guy but you know I mean I'll fight I don't whatever you know but these are all middle class soft white kids yeah so so basically like it's not even my deal but they call me to come handle it because a dude Chris he's like man I got this problem whatever so I fucking roll down there with like a couple other dudes and I don't even know it's a fucking sting it's like a sting that they set for Chris Miller they didn't even set the sting for me but fucking Chris fucking calls me and I get drawn into

the fucking sting so boom and then they're like oh we got fucking Seth right you know like who yeah they were trying to get to you they're but they had no idea it's just it was like a flupe thing you know and and like I say still I didn't give anybody any drugs and I didn't take any money that doesn't matter you know yeah because that that's at the time though i thought i was i was like you know so look so it's state so i get arrested on state and so they they take me back to the station and fucking like the DE agents there and they're like blah blah i'm like man i don't got nothing to say you man i'm like man fuck you talk to my lawyer and they're like well you lawyer's gonna want to suck our dick you don't know how much trouble you're in blah blah blah you know

we know everything's coming from you blah blah blah and then then another fucked up thing happened because I had this one kid was holding like 120 sheets for me and so they found about out about him through Chris and so then they go right and they get that right and then I'm like oh fuck so then they got all my fucking product too so now because before they had like they had like 10 sheets right you know it would have been a state then they go and sees you these guys give them the information they go and get another 120 sheets now so now they got like 130 fucking sheets so now they're fucking it was like the biggest LSD bus in Fairfax County ever. Right. You know? So, yeah, and so then it's state, you know, whatever, I get my parents bail me out. The feds come in at that time? Yeah, the feds.

So this is like early July. And, you know, I hire. People don't realize that. You know, like the state will grab you for something. And then sometimes they don't have enough to prosecute you. So they'll give it to the feds because the feds have even a lower bar as far as conspiracy law. Right.

And then even then you can sit there and think, oh, they don't have anything. They don't have me on tape. They don't have me on this. They don't have me on that. They don't have any product that I got. So they got nothing except that's what I was thinking. But what ends up happening in the feds is, it doesn't matter. It's just what people say.

They'll put four people on the stand that say they bought from you and you're done. It's over. You're like, they got no money. They got no tapes. They got nothing on me. They happen to have four guys that say I did it. Boom. You're looking at 30 years.

Yeah, because so I was thinking at that. time because I was even like I was like boom I didn't I didn't sell any cop right I didn't take any money from any cop you know I got I got hooked into the sting or whatever and I got arrested but I didn't sell anybody anything and then the even the other 120 sheets it was I mean it was mine but it was somebody else's house right you were watching too much law and order you know what I'm saying so I was like man I'm like I'm good so uh you know I hire a state lawyer you know whatever paid him with like I paying him like 10 grand cash drug money and he even the stupid lawyer even asked me.

You know, his name was Michael Rieger. And he was like, I hope this is not drug money. I was like, what the fuck? I was like, dude, I'm like, fucking, like, fucking 20. I just gave you 10 grand cash, dude. And you're like, I hope this is a drug. And I was arrested for the biggest LSD bust in fucking Fairfax County. That's my part-time.

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

You know? Like, I didn't even lie to the dude. I didn't even try to lie. I'm just looked at it. I'm like, come on, dude. Are you serious? So, uh, so I got the state case, but, like, they're investigating the whole time. So, like, as soon as I get the state case, dude, it's like, it's like nobody wants to talk to me because the fucking DEA is going around talking to everybody.

so it's like so I got until I got you know the federal case it's it's about maybe like a month and a half dude and it was like crazy because like I don't know who I can talk to and like also I have like a load of weed at this time I'm trying to fucking move I'm trying to get more money right I had I didn't have that much but I probably about 40 pounds you know what I'm saying so I'm like fuck dude because like it's like every other day it's like because I can tell like I'm calling people what is some dudes owe me money and like dude are just like dodging me like they don't want to talk to me and because you know back then I knew anyhow like when somebody gets busted it's like they're hot yeah yeah they're so nobody wants to

fuck with them but see so it was that but at the same time it was the investigation behind the scenes and the DEA so I don't know who's given information who's not given information you know they're like going to the chicks they're going to like people's girlfriends they're going like my girlfriends they're going to fucking everybody the feds don't fuck around and they're going to all these little fucking rich kids and they're threatening like give information on Seth or you're going in jail for 10 to life. So, you know, like I say, for a long time, I had a big thing when I was first locked up where I was like, oh, fuck snitches, all this.

But, you know, whatever. I mean, what did I expect them to do? It was my fault for putting those people in that position. You know, that's how I look at it now. Right. But, uh, that's actually how I look at it. Actually, when I hit the halfway house, I actually called like five of my co-defendants that all cooperated against me and apologized for putting them in a position where they had

to. I said, because the truth is, I was smarter than that. And I knew better than to put you in that position. And, you know, the idea that they were going to hold up was insane. That's comical. I mean, they got the fucking, the fucking mafioso killers. They don't even fucking hold it. The whole thing, like, I'm not saying, I know some super thorough dudes that I was in prison with,

and I know some super thorough dudes that, like, you know, were in Pelican Bay and walk, like, level four yards. And, like, still to this day, they're, like, fucking. Yeah, snitches and fuck them guys. And they would never. But I always tell them, I'm like, dude, if you're in the life, if you're in the life or you're in prison and you want to hold those values and that attitude cool but

dude if you're like you're trying to live a normal life you know and like and there's still some of my buddies are like I can walk I can walk in the US I'm like okay dude whatever that is that going to help you out here I was going to say don't commit crimes and and you know yeah then you get to do 30 years fuck no I see I see like my whole mindset you know life is about change life is about evolving so I see

you know I put people in bad positions and whatever they did what they were going to do anyhow. So, you know, but, yeah, so I'm having, like, this month and a half thing where, like, then my lawyer, he's like, oh, it's going federal. So we got to hire a federal lawyer. So then I had to get, like, five more grand. I'll pay this federal lawyer five grand. At first, that first, that first.

Okay. So just that was, like, just the retainer. So paid him cash. He didn't even ask me if it was drug money. He just took it. You know, he just took it. He was, like, just happy. guess to get it. So um yeah so then this fucking shit goes federal right and I'm just like

fuck man so then I got to go through the whole fucking arrest process get bailed out all that fucking shit again and um and still at this time I'm not really sure like what I'm really looking at because I'm not really I'm not like up on the mandatory minimums you know what I'm saying I'm not up on the federal sentencing guidelines you don't have any idea like are you thinking three years, five years? Are you, what do you hear? I mean, you're hearing anything? Yeah, I'm thinking maybe like, I'm thinking like maybe three to five years.

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

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

once they start talking to prosecutors you know they're like you're looking at 20 to life I'm like 20 to life I'm like what the fuck like are you serious 20 to life I was I was like flabbergasted and then they were like whoa you know you might get like uh you could probably get like whatever Or like four to six years, you know, if you, you know, bus bring some of your contacts here, you know, like they wanted me to bring some people from San Francisco, like some of my deadhead friends, you know, they want me to bring in.

Yeah, they want you to cooperate. Yeah. Yeah, so they wanted me to set them up. And I was like, man, I don't know about that. So that was like how they presented my choices. They were like, oh, you can do $20 to life? Yeah. Or you can bust these motherfuckers cooperate.

Yeah. And I was like, Or you can go to trial, lose, and definitely get life. Yeah, but I was even like, I was even fucked up like, you want me to cooperate and I'm still going to get time? Yeah. I was like, what are you fucking? Like, I mean, I thought when people cooperate, like, they get off.

Like, they don't even go to prison. So they were like, no, it's not like that, whatever. So I formed this other plan, right? I was like, man, you know, because I was out on bail, I was like, man, I'm going to take the fuck off. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I'm going to fucking get the fuck. fuck out of here. Fuck these motherfuckers, right? And like I say, I had some money. So, you know,

I was always a big sports fan. Right. And, you know, back then it was all newspapers. So, like, we would get the Washington Post every day. So when you get the Washington Post, you know, and you go, like, I would go right to the sports section. But the section right before the sports section is the metro section. And so I remember, like, you know, over the last couple years of my teenage years, I would see like headlines like in the metro section, like, you know, so and so, this person like commit suicide at you know great falls you know jumping into the potomac river so that kind of always stuck in my mind for some reason so i was thinking i was like man i was like how can i just like disappear make set ferrante disappear so there's like no set frante there's

like no case so i came up with this i devised this plan i'm like i'm going to fake my suicide on the banks of the potomac at great falls national park i'm going to make it seem like i jump in the river and the area where I was going to jump in where everybody committed suicide it's known as like class five rapids you know because the water's like crazy and there's rocks so you know they got like professional kayakers go there but you know only like the super most craziest professional ones so I was like man I'm going to stage my suicide in this area I'm going to jump everybody's go-to move yeah I'm like I'm going to jump in the fucking water so I came up with all this fucking big plan and then too because I had another problem

you know because you know what my parents had put their house up for bail right so so then I talked to the lawyers right so I told the lawyers you know because I was like I didn't bring it up but I was like you know I started pursuing the cooperation thing I was like well what happens if I say I'm going to cooperate they're like will you plead guilty and then they're going to release you on a personal reconnaissance bond they released the lien against your parents house and it's no longer the collateral and I was like once they said that I already had this suicide plan, but, you know, I didn't want to, I didn't have enough money to cover, you know, because I don't, it was like, I think they put up 75 grand or something. So I didn't have enough money to cover that for my parents.

So I didn't even want to fuck my parents, right? So then the lawyers, you know, when I asked them about the cooperation and they told me about this, I was like, they said PR. I was like, PR, I was like, what the fuck does that mean? Right. And they were like, well, you know, they're going to release you on your own recognizance. I'm like, all I got to do is like, tell them I'm going to plead guilty and I'm going to cooperate. All right. And they were like, yeah.

so I was like okay I was like set it up right so I fucking sign the paperwork they fucking went to the courthouse pled guilty they fucking cut me loose and then they told me like I'm gonna have to do these fucking debriefings right right but I was already planning I already had everything planned like I was fucking gone yeah you know what I'm saying so I went and they did like all this fucking transpired like from the time I signed the paperwork till when I fled I mean it was only fucking like a couple days right and uh so I took the fucking a fucking off right I fake my suicide I took off you know I got rid of the rest of the weed I had and I took off to California and um like for real dude like I thought I mean because I just went

I was like on a nine month high like where I was on top of the world and then like everything fucking crashed so then I was like fucked up and then like I came up with this plan and I executed it and then I was I was like on top of the world I was like man I was like I'm that fucking dude like fuck these motherfuckers right like you know i felt like i got my fucking swagger back or whatever because like when they when i got busted and all i should like dude my fucking moxie my swag was just like gone i was like at the lowest point but you you'd also thought that you pulled off the the faking the suicide right because didn't you that wasn't there's something in the newspaper or something about you committing suicide and yeah so you thought you

thought it was a lock yeah so so so i go to l a flight of l a and i'm actually i'm staying on Point Magoo military base. So I know this girl, her dad's like the X-O, this girl named Nancy. So she was like an old girlfriend. So I went out there and I'm staying on the base. And, you know, Point Magoo is a little bit up from L.A. But I was having her drive me down to L.A. every day because, you know, back then they had like the big newsstands, you know, like on every corner with like all the newspapers from different

places and all the magazines. You know, you don't see that as much today. Sometimes in the big cities, but not really. with all the newspapers from the different cities. So I was going to get the Washington Post. Like every couple days, I would go to the Washington Post. So the first time I went, and I saw it said, you know, Fairfax, LSD Kingpin commit suicide.

And I fucking saw, I was like, fuck, yeah, I got these motherfuckers. Because I was thinking, like, boom, now seven years. Like Seth, note Seth Ferranti. My parents can have me declared legally dead in seven years. Right. You know what I'm saying? No body's found or whatever. They don't know what the fuck is up.

And my body, you know, I figure. my body was going to float out to the fucking Atlantic Ocean, you know? So I keep going back, and I'm fucking like, I'm on top of the world again. I'm like, yeah, I'm the fucking smartest, motherfucking outlaw. I can outsmart the fucking feds. These motherfuckers can't fuck with me. And I'm like 20, too, so I'm like fucking, you know, you know, when you're 20, it's all like that false bravado.

You think you're living in a movie or something. Yeah, dude, like I was. I was like, I was like, you know, catch me if you can wasn't even out then. But, you know, I thought I was catch me if you can, you know. but uh you know i just didn't know the name of the title of the movie but i thought i was that dude so uh i keep going down and i'm reading the papers kind of you know a couple of my uh code offense are going to trial you know everybody like two dudes ended up uh going to trial everybody else like six other dudes ended up pleading guilty so i'm reading all this in the papers and then it was

probably like two weeks after i go back down and um like i'm still on my fucking high dude and i get the fucking paper and I open up to the metro section dude and I was just fucking crushed because it said it was like fucking prosecutors declare Fairfax County LSD Kings Penn suicide of hoax

and I saw the headline I was like what Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush and a refreshing anti-bacterial mouthwash all designed to work to

together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. Like all my planning, everything, dude, I was like, what the fuck? I'm not dead. So I start reading the article, right? And it's like they said the U.S. Park Rangers, you know,

dragged the river for two weeks and they didn't find a body. and I was like reading it more and then like it went on to say like you know where you know I allegedly went in you know there's like a dam like after that so I mean I was like fuck dude it wouldn't have been washed out to see

it would have been stuck in this one area and they would have found the body. I like seriously fucked up man I fucking staged I staged my suicide was a good two weeks yeah so I staged the suicide on the wrong side of the dam so that's I mean I had a dime so look

I thought it was smart as fuck and i mean really in a way you think i mean i did i was real innovative and i came up with this fucking crazy idea and i almost pulled it off just that one little fucking detail man next time next time you know so that's how uh yeah so that's how that whole shit transpired so then uh then they made me for some ungodly reason these fucking and i know why now i learned later at the time i had no fucking clue so i learned later because when i was in prison i did all these Freedom Information Act, you know, on all my case and everything, you know, because I was a, you know, I was a megalomaniac researcher like that. So you might know about stuff like that.

Me too. So, uh, so what I pieced together after the fact. So what happened was there was this dude name, uh, Henry Hudson. He was like the assistant prosecutor, like the, you know, the assistant US attorney. Yeah, he was assistant U.S. attorney. Yeah. Name Henry Hudson. like on my case at the time in the Eastern District of Virginia. So all of a sudden, right after my case, this dude transfers to the Eastern District U.S. Marshal's Office, and he's the head of the U.S. Marshal's Office. And so I guess, like, you know, he felt like I put a black mark on his record

or, you know, like I made them look bad or I outsmarted them. He was your AUSA? He was your... He wasn't the prosecutor on my case. case. My prosecuting of my case was this chick named Christine. Right. He was like the, he was like the assistant U.S. attorney. So he was like the second highest dude in the office. Yeah. So she was underneath him and your case was underneath his caseload. Yeah. So this dude, he goes from second in charge of the U.S. attorney's office to number one guy in the U.S. Marshals in the Eastern

District of Virginia. And this dude makes me top 15 U.S. Marshals list, I guess out of revenge factor or he's pissed off or I'm the black mark on his record and he has higher aspirations right you know so um yeah so I mean I had no clue so so for two years like I'm prancing around the fucking US like eventually I started selling weed and not LSD but I started running weed from Dallas Texas up to St. Louis and I'm just like carrying on you know war on drugs I'm still a drug dealer like you know really in retrospect when I look at it I was really really really stupid. I mean, I'm trying to fucking be the biggest drug

dealer I can as a fugitive at the height of the war on drugs. So, you know, but I mean, retrospect, age, you get some clarity. So you know, at the time, you know, I got blinders on, whatever. I thought I was a cool guy. So this dude, so I'm actually U.S. Marshals, fucking top 15

most wanted for fucking the whole two years, I'm a fugitive. I have no fucking clue. Because even when I was a fugitive, like I would watch all the shows. I watched like America's Most wanted you're like I'm doing research dude I'm like a researcher that's what I do you know like when I do something like I research it right so I'm watching America's Most Wanted I'm watching fucking like unsolved mysteries I'm watching all that shit because I'm figuring out like how do they catch these motherfuckers and so a lot of times like I'm seeing shit like the nightstocker

Richard Ramirez it's taking like three months to match up his prints yeah so you know I'm I'm like fuck dude like I'm low profile I don't have any murders I'm never even beat nobody up you You know what I'm saying? I'm like, it's going to take them forever to match up my prints because I'm, you know, I feel like I'm not a high priority.

But, you know, lo and behold, I had no fucking idea that I'm fucking a federal U.S. Marshal's top 15, most won a fucking fugitive. So,

and like I say, this dude Henry Hudson, he, he did the paperwork, you know, because later on when I got caught, you know, one of the U.S.

marshals told me, like, he's looking at my jacket, you know, and he's looking at me and I look like when I, when I got caught, I looked like a little college kid, and he's like, he's like, who did you piss off? Right.

You know what I'm saying? Because there's like anybody else on the top 15 most wanted list is like violent, has guns, murders, whatever. Yeah, they're dangerous fugitives and you're selling a product you can't even OD on. I'm selling fucking hippie drugs. Right. So whatever. So, you know, but I came to find out this all later.

So, you know, by that whole time, really, when I'm a fugitive, I was selling weed. I was running weed Eventually like in L.A. My money ran out And that girl got sick of me Living in her parents' house So you know I had to fucking roll out

So you know She didn't want to Her parents didn't know I was a fugitive But she knew So after about six months She was kind of like Dude you gotta like

The novelties worn off She was like Yeah it was cool seeing you again And having some sex and shit But now you gotta balance A motherfucker because there's no This relationship's not lasting There's no future

you're a fucking fugitive fucking drug dealer you know what I'm saying at the height of the war on drugs she's like she saw no future like what she's gonna have my kids when I go to prison I don't know but uh so uh yeah

I kind of she told me kick rocks I go to Dallas Texas I hook up with Mexican Eddie right you know my fucking brick pot dealer you got fake IDs Oh I got tons of fake ideas I mean that's a whole other story I'll take another half hour to tell about the fake IDs

but I got a whole fucking bunch of fake IDs that I got through researching through books. I learned how to do it. And I meet some guys, and they're from St. Louis, you know, and I'm selling drugs, you know, weed in Texas at Harrigan's restaurants, these other restaurants. And one of the guys, one time he goes to St. Louis, so I'm like, can you sell some weed?

And so I go up, I take 20 pounds. And like over that next year to 18 months, I make like I have like my second little fucking marijuana empire. and then eventually I get arrested for like a quarter pound of weed with the same guy who took me up there but it was in his truck so he claims it

he actually was selling weed for me but it was my weed you guys got pulled over or something no we were in the back of a Burger King parking lot oh that's right yeah the Burger King parking lot it just got robbed like two weeks before I just dropped off like three pounds we were just waiting for the money and smoking a joint cops fall up

dumb luck and I didn't even know he had the quarter pound on the truck but you know he did the right thing he claimed it he said it was his but they still arrested me and took me and it matched my prince you know released me then i came back and bailed him out got his car out of the impound you know and got my money for the three pounds and um yeah but then in three days they match it my fucking prince so then the fucking the fucking midwest fucking fugitive task forces looking for me they go to his house first because they got his real name he starts driving him around st louis to all the people i fucking sell we to and then eventually they found some dude that I just fucking loaded up.

Threat to give him 10 years to life and he brought him right to my hotel. Boom. Extradited back to Virginia. Sentence to 25 years. 304 months. Did you, you didn't, I mean, you just pled guilty to 25 years?

I'd already pled. I had already pled. I pled before I left. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I pled because I pled to the 20 to life and told him I would cooperate. Because you were never going to be there for the sentencing.

Because I was going to be dead. Right, right. Okay. But I wasn't dead. My whole plan backfired. So then when I came, they held me to that plea, and they fucking, and obviously, they didn't give me any credit for any cooperation. And they enhanced me five years for 60 months for taking off, you know, obstetricious of justice

and failure to appear. Right. So 25 years. Yeah. Did you do a 2255? Did you do anything? I did everything. Oh, okay.

you went through the whole process of trying to lost everything yeah yeah dude back the end of the 90s you couldn't get you can get any play for anything only if you went to trial you could have went to play so I would say that to any of your listeners really I mean you got two choices when you get busted man either fucking cooperate fucking fully and fucking get as little time as you can if you're not going to do that go to trial man that's that's only way you're going to retain your rights so you know like I'm saying you know uh don't try to do anything halfway don't try to outsmart the motherfuckers like i did you're just going to get fucked yeah um 25 years bro what the fuck and then i i heard on the uh on the other

podcast where you're talking about the you were talking about um you know being uh the different prisons and uh you know the whole thing and uh you mentioned coleman and and uh whitey bulger yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like i was in the mean medium there at uh coleman i used to write whitey bolter yeah yeah you told me you told me that um dude dude he has the most awful handwriting yeah fucking you can barely read his writing dude it's like he was also like a hundred he was like 70 something you got like a fucking magnifying glass dude i'd send him the rolling stone article about my case it came out in 97 when i was in when i was in fcii beckley and he wrote me a whole fucking letter on the rolling stone my rolling stone article

like i still got that i don't know i think i might put it up up on eBay one day. I was going to say that any letters from him would be worth something. Let's see if somebody give me like, I'll start the bidding at 10,000. All right. So we're going to do another podcast

about just about what you're doing now because when you went to prison, you start writing and that's, you know, and although I mean, although the true crime story is cool, you know, to me, I mean, that's like, like you're at a spot now in your career where I'd love to be in a few years from now, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. No, the whole prison, I mean, it was a lot of time I had to do, but whatever, I got three college degrees. I got a master's degree. I started writing books. And every day in prison, my thing was, what can I do today for when I get out? So, I mean, everything I've done, it was all planned, dude. I mean, I'm very methodical. You know how I do stuff. I do everything one step at a time. You know, I research. I'm not trying to jump from one to 10. You know, I don't mind taking the steps. I'm very methodical. So prison, even though I had to do 21 years, I was very methodical in that 21 years, and I did everything that I needed to do to put me in the position where I am now. You know, I started writing true crime stories when I was in prison. I didn't write any fiction stories. Like, I've heard how you started writing, it's like some of the gangster guys stories and some were of what, fiction, kind of fiction, started that way? No, everything was pretty much nonfiction. My first book, prison stories was true, but I wrote it as fiction because, you know, I didn't want to be like a,

snitch in prison. Right. And they're always so worried about, oh, what if I tell you something that I could get? Well, then let's not talk about that. Or we'll change the names. But so, yeah, I started doing that. I was the same thing.

Like, I heard your interview before. So it's basically like, look, I'm in prison. And when I was in prison, I saw all the other guys. They're learning to play an instrument. They're taking horticulture classes. Or they're playing softball. And it's like you're spending 10. years of your life or 15 years and you're an amazing you know handball player but when you but you came

in with no education you've only sold drugs you know you're an amazing handball player when you get out but you're you're in your 50s now the fuck are you going to do when you get out of prison none of and the guys that were taking horticulture are only concerned about taking it because they plan on buying burning a bunch of houses and growing marijuana and the guys that are taking the stuff as far as like um i forget what they called that class where it was basically about how to run a restaurant. So highest failure rate out there, get a restaurant. So what you want to do is you want to put a guy who has no money

in a situation where he can open a restaurant and fail. Or real estate. Or real estate or something. It's like you don't have any experience of no way to do this. So my point is, to me, I thought, what can I do in here? And the one, you can't really work, but the one thing they will let you do is they will let you write, they will let you publish books, they will let you write stories,

you can write for magazines, and you can make money that way. you can't run a business but they can't stop you from doing that's the one thing they will let you do and there were so many amazing stories I would hear guys tell stories I heard for years I'd listen to stories and I think how is that not a movie how is no one written your story and they can't write their own stories because you don't see yourself the way you really are so that's when I came in I wrote my own story and then I started writing other guys stories and you know I hope I figured someday I'll get out of prison, I'll have all these stories, and I'll try and get them turned into documentaries or movies. IP. I started collecting IP. And so, but you, you know, but you're way ahead of where I am.

I just like to be where you're at at some point in the future. That's my, like my goal. That's like, that's my dream. That's what I laid in bed at night in my bunk and thought, well, if I get out, I could do this, and I get to this, and I do it. And I had a whole building block in my head, you know, plan. You got, well, that's how you do it. You got to manifest it. You got to talk about it. You've got to put it out there. You've got to make it reality. I'm a firm believer in, you know, like moving forward, positivity and just saying what I'm going to do and then doing it. Right.

You know, I'm a firm believer in that. Like, I don't, like even in prison, prison is a very negative place, right? And when I first started running, you know, even the guards, the other prisoners, they'd be like, you know, you can't do that. They'd always told me, like, I can't do this. And like, I would read the policy and I'd be like, man, I can do this. Yeah. You know, so, and so even out here, I'm like, I won't. not, I cannot stand negativity.

Anybody that is like negative or like second guesses me when I'm trying to do. And like I say, sometimes like, you know, I'm doing these documentaries now. You know, I got white boy on Netflix. And, you know, some people that might be like the pinnacle. But to me, it's just like another ladder on the rung. You know, I want to be the next Quentin Tarantino. I want to do, you know, scripted, you know, fiction, fictional like drug, you know, crime movies. you know sometimes maybe based on a real event but you know like dude like i want to do like

a hundred million dollar budget movies right you know like i'm not fucking around like i'm already looking right now from do this documentary stuff i'm looking to jump to like the three to five million dollar indie flick and then you know then i'm looking to jump to like a 20 million you know 50 60 and then you know i want to do like a fucking marvel movie right i want to do the purple man i don't know if you know who the purple man is he's this criminal character He's like in a lot of Spider-Man comic books, but he's like, he wears like a gangster suit and he's all purple. And he has like these, uh, I don't even know how to say it. It's like, is it called fur, fur gnomes or something?

So it's like he can emit from his body. Pharamones. Ferramones. Ferramones. So he can permit those from his body and make you do what he says. So that's like his superpower. But he's like a villain. I had an ex-girlfriend like that.

Yeah. A lot, I think a lot of women are like. that especially on men but uh so but he's like a super villain so i want to do like the purple man movie you know i also want to do uh i want to remake the princess bride right oh nice nice i love the you guys don't even know the princess bride i want to remake the princess bride with like with with good cg i nice you know like a tokenistic version of the princess bride but keep the humor and the sweetness and then uh another movie i want to remake i want to remake uh you know harder they come you know the classic or harder they fall the classic jamaican movie okay yeah so it's like from

1971 you know it's about uh you know jimmy cliffs in it so he's about like a up-and-coming reggae you know dance hall guy but like he's involved in crime so i want to remake that just like think how they remake scarface right so i want to remake uh you know that old jamaican movie except you know set it in like you know the hip-hop era you know and have a guy who's like he's trying to be a rapper, but he's involved in crime and he ends up, you know, going to jail for being a crime. Like a lot of the stories we, you know, heard about in federal prison. But, yeah, my whole thing, man, where I started writing, because I kind of looked at it, I started taking college classes and I was like. When you were in prison. Yeah, yeah, when I was in prison. Which is

difficult, by the way. Like, everybody thinks that, oh, yeah, they offer this. Listen, man, you basically, you're doing everything yourself. They might have some person who's supposed to help you, but they're half asked about it. So it's basically all on you. And plus, when I first went in, they had the Pell Grants, right? But about 96, they abolished a Pell Grant. So they didn't even fund the college courses. So my parents paid for all my college courses.

I did all my shit correspondence. So I got the A degree from Penn State. I got the BA from Bachelor, or from University of Iowa. And actually, that was one of my best moves when I got on that program because University of Iowa is like famous for this writing program. you know you got to the writing program you got to go there you know it's like on campus but a lot of the instructors that i was doing correspondence courses through were the instructors from that famous writing course you know doing like extra work for extra money right and so i i had the benefit of these

instructors and i was taking all writing heavy because in there you can go like a business administrative route or you can go like a humanities route you know and if you go like a humanities liberal arts it's like a lot of writing creative writing journalism you know reading a lot of books and writing papers and eventually I got my master's degree I got my master's degree from University of California but during that whole time that's how I learned to write

you know so it's not like I just started putting pin to paper or whatever I like took college courses you know and I learned to write I already was creative you know I was kind of creative you know my whole life you know I used to write poetry playing bands all that shit like that

you know I was like dungeon master right you know what I'm saying creating all these worlds and shit it's so funny like they don't know they don't know what that means yeah so uh-huh master is dungeons and dragons that was like the oh no wow listen there's so many things there's so many things that people i'll say to somebody my age and i'll always look over at colby and colby's just like he has no clue what i'm talking about that's the 80s shit the 80s was a wonderful time but pre-internet was i think it was a better

world really but uh you know so the whole time i'm getting these degrees i'm writing so first i started writing i said i my first big success was actually writing prison basketball so you know because like like in there dude there's like these dudes they're like phenomenal basketball players dude and like how you're talking about like they spent all this time they spend like 10 15 years just playing basketball but you know i mean they can never be professional because they're when they get out they're gonna be too old but like in there dude like these dudes are phenomenal basketball players so i started writing about this one guy named ron jordan he was from harlem he had like that rucker park game dude and this dude was built like a linebacker right he was maybe

like 6-1 like 240 right but this dude could like slam dunk he had like all the handles he like embarrassed dudes they they call him ron jordan the abuser because he used to like abuse people he would like do all the stuff like fake somebody out act like he's going to the basket and with the easy lay up but he would pull it back to let the dude guard him again you know because it was just like the the man-on-man like macho shit dude this dude and he could dunk and he could shoot threes this dude was scoring like 60 points a game and everybody you used to come out the gym to see him. So that was like my first big success. I started writing about this dude and the other prison basketball players. And yeah, I was writing for this website

called Hoopsight, you know, which now they're like on, I don't know, they're like, I think USA Today or something bought them. So they're like this big. But that time, they were just like this little kind of hip hop, you know, hip hop basketball website. And then I started writing for Slam, which is kind of like a hip hop basketball magazine. And then from there, I started doing the more gangster stories. I started writing for Don Deva and Feds, which are like they call like, you know, the street the street Bibles. Yeah, they wouldn't

even let those in. Like those are like the most popular magazines in prison, man. Guys would get them sitting in. They'd have the, they started putting, alternate covers. Yeah, fake covers. Like you get one of those magazines in prison. Like, dude, the line is like 200 long. Everybody

wants to read it. You know, so I started writing for them. Don Diva, Feds, and really, I formed a journalism career in prison because that was like the only thing I could do. I was like, what the fuck can I do? I was like, I can write, you know? So, and then really my biggest break came, this is probably like early 2000s. I just started writing really like around 99.

So, you know, at first I was just writing like in the prison. Like I was doing prison sports newsletters, like that they post on the board. and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I was doing that. I did that for six years while I was taking the college classes. So then I started doing the Don Deva stuff in the prison basketball. And then there was this editor of Vice named Jesse Pearson. So this was like when Vice was just basically a magazine. They had a website, but they weren't huge like they are today. So this is like early 2000s. You know, so they're like this kind of low rent GQ. You know, they have this big thing. It's like dues and don'ts where they do like the fashion like dress like this and they make fun of

people they take pictures so he had he was a big fan of my work from don diva so he reached out to me you know and um i started writing dude dude they were paying me like dude they were paying me like 500 a month right to write a column i wrote a column like 1200 words called i'm busted and it was in every magazine for like fucking two or three years 500 like i was living like a king on 500 a month 500 bucks in prisons a lot of fucking fuck dude i was like everybody thought i was like a millionaire yeah you know what I'm saying and so that was like my first big break because I started writing for that and then uh I kept for I kept writing for vices they kept growing it I was like their prison guy you know I'll do like their prison and then I got more into true crime then I started doing stuff for

penthouse I started doing stuff for the fix war on drug stuff and um how the whole white boy thing came about is uh you know I started writing him around 2005 because I started doing my street legend stuff like I had all this material from Don Deva and Don Deva and Don Deva could only eat some magazines so they can only fit like so much and I had all this extra material and I like all the dudes they kept coming back to me they're like dude

what about this picture or what about this you want to use some of the stuff so eventually you know like they were upset with me because everything was not in the magazine that they gave me you know so eventually

I came up with my street legend series I've published prison stories 2005 street legends 2008 so at the same time I reach out to white boy Rick because I'm in FCI Gilmer and Beckley Beckley

FCI Beckley and FCI Gilmer in West Virginia and there's all these Detroit dudes so I'm hearing about this dude white boy Rick hold on you know who white boy Rick is okay you guys saw the movie yeah yeah I haven't seen a bus in the trailers and stuff yeah all right so I start writing him because I want to put him in like my street legends book

yeah right and basically my street legends books are just like all these African American drug lores that are part of you know the lyrical lore of hip hop right you know and gangster rap I kind of I just kind of romanticize and glorify it and I make them into these Billy the kid you know

Jesse Jens type figures. Because, you know, I was writing, I was writing for my peers in prison. And also, I was a white guy writing about African-American dudes, like, in prison. Like, you know, that doesn't happen. I mean, you've been in prison. That's not like, that's not like something normal, you know. And the only reason I even have the juice to do that is because, you know, I had the long sentence.

I'd been in a little bit. And, you know, the longer year and the more stripes you get, you know. So by the time I do this, you know, I'm like in 10 years. So, you know, I got a lot of stripes. and I played sports. I was a sports fanatic. I'm like really athletic. I would be like the only white dude

like out there playing ball with all the black dudes. Like I was like the dude like you know you go to the yard like you go to the yard at lunch I'm playing ball. You go to the yard and recall I'm playing ball.

You know I play like three hours straight I didn't give a fuck that was like how I did my time. Yeah I actually sat at a table in the library with five guys that were writing five black guys that were all writing urban novels.

I was only one writing true crime. And I was the white guy at the room or at the table because I was the guy that, you know, as racist as this is going to sound. It was basically, you don't have Google what you've got as a white guy. So they'd say, you know, I don't understand. How do you say that? Hey, Cox. It was always, hey Cox, hey Cox. And I'd be like, no, it's this, it's that.

Are you sure? Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, this. Yeah. So, I mean, I was, you know, to sit at that table, everybody thought I was like a, you know, like, you must be a cool guy to be sitting at the table with all those guys. because the white guys and black guys very seldomly mix in prison. You were just Google.

Yeah, I was Google. Yeah, I had a purpose. You were like that smart guy from the 80s that Google fucking made obsolete. Yeah, exactly. In prison, only in prison. Yeah, but in prison, you still need that guy. That guy who knows everything.

Out here, I'm semi-smart, but in prison, fucking super genius in prison because the IQ is so low. But anyway. No, that's what I tell people too, right? Because look, like, since I've been out, like, dude, I've been to cans, man, I go to Sundance.

And I'm around like, dude, these people, they went to Harvard and Columbia. And do they just speak? And I'm like, I just want to be around them so I can learn to speak better because they're like so eloquent and they use all these fucking big words. And like, like I feel like a brute around them.

Right. But like in prison, I'm like, like you said, I'm like the super genius in fucking prison. And then I get out around all these fucking talented writers and filmmakers and people that went to all these Ivy League schools and come from all this money. And I just, I feel like a fucking brute. dude yeah i'm telling you it's it's fucking crazy this this is like my my my biggest fucking

delimit today you know because a lot of people that are like oh no you're eloquent you can talk and i'm like no i don't talk like that i'm a fucking i talk like a brook i talk like an educated brute yeah that's how i kind of talk about my friends on the outside i'm like a i'm practically a thug around these guys and to me it's like as far as like masculinity like i'm like a four or five on the masculinity's different one to one oh yeah there's some tough dudes in prison they got tough In prison, I'm like a one, maybe a zero. I might as well be wearing a dress when I'm in prison. Now, here I'm a five.

Prison, I'm a zero, practically. I'm this far from being a fucking punk in prison. I mean, that's how they look at you. You're a soft white guy. You're harmless. But yeah, it's funny how everything changes out here. Yeah, so, you know, so white boy Rick, I started writing him, right? And like, I want to tell his story, right?

But I want to like romanticize and I want to make it gangster. You know, I want to glorify it because that's what I'm doing in my street legend series. And that's, I'm hearing these, all this stuff about him. Like, who is this white kid that was running all these, you know, black organized crime in Detroit when he was like 16 or 17? And I kind of identify him with him too, you know, because we were both young white dudes. We both got a lot of time. You know, we were both involved in stuff as a teenager. So, you know, there's a lot of similarities, you know, so I'm writing him and we start writing.

And he starts telling me like this totally opposite story. You know how like he was in a foreman and, you know, the police prostituted him and buried him. and I didn't really get it at first because I'm like I'm like man I don't I don't I'm not writing about informants like my my base is like the other prisoners you know and I'm in like medium security prisons I'm like these dudes ain't gonna fucking if I write some shit they're gonna be like you're writing about snitch you know or whatever so it took me a couple years to kind of get my head around his story and and how to write it and like I say it took me to get older and it took my writing to evolve and it probably took me going to a low yeah where you know they don't carry it like the same you know because i did 12 years in the mediums and then i did nine years in the low so it was like this kind of evolution in my writing where you know i went from writing this hardcore death before dishonorship to uh you know more about the injustices of the drug war because i started seeing the bigger picture more you know as i got older and i started writing more and like i say also going to the low gave me more room

to explore this stuff with not being considered this or be considered that so um yeah 2012 I wrote this story about his case for the fix dude and like the shit fucking went viral dude like it was my first experience of having the prison basketball shit was pretty popular but like this shit like fucking went super

fucking viral on the fix this is like drug war fucking site right and um just brought a ton attention to me you know and um the whole time I was already thinking you know because I was writing books uh you know from 2005 until I got in 2015

I wrote eight books and then when I got out I took two of those books and I divided it up the chapters you know and put 12 out like digital books you know to make it like 20 even though it's like from the same material and then I had a couple more so I think I got like 24 books out right now but once I started doing the books you know and I was kind of doing the journalism and I was like man really I want to do movies I want to do visual stuff you know but it was just kind of, you know, learn it in. Like, when I took my master's degree, I took, like, a lot of film type courses, you know, at least reading the books as much as I could in there. And I, I did have a couple, like, they would let me send in some DVDs, you know, so I could watch

different shit. But, uh, really, like, everything I was doing, man, was basically for gearing up, you know, so, you know, I even, like, dude, I read a whole bunch of books, like, like, books on, like, like, shots, like, explains all the different shots, like in narratives and stuff like that. And, you know, I just went crazy. And, you know, I just went crazy. so I was like, you know, reading, because in there, that's all you got time to do is read. You know what I'm saying? So it's like you might as well educate yourself. I don't think I read five books since I've been out in six years.

But, you know, yeah, so I kind of hit the ground running. And, you know, I did more pieces on White Boy Rick Story for like Vice News and Vice and some other places. So, but still when I first got out, though, I was just a journalist. I was working as a journalist. And then I met the dude Sean Wreck, the director of White Boy. And he had transition studios. He had just done this movie, a murder in the park that was on Showtime.

And I actually interviewed him for that, for that for Vice. Right. And he found out about my backstory, and we started talking. And at first we were going to do like this prison expozy, like on how all these sub-industries are built around the prisons. Right.

You know, like Keefe coffee and all the hotels and how it's all kind of interconnected, you know, with the dude, like the senator brings the prisons there. and it's all his friends, the businessmen, who form all the businesses around the prison. So we were looking at something like that. And then we were talking,

and I showed them some, it was like right when they announced like the white boy Rick movie with Matthew McConaughey and I had shown him some of my articles. I go, did you hear about this? And he's like, yeah, I heard they're going to do that movie. And I'm like, you know, I know this dude. And I'm like, check out.

Here's these articles. You know, I wrote like four or five articles about it. And he's like, he's from Cleveland. So he's like, yeah, I heard about this dude. You know, he's like, I heard about this dude, man. and then he was like man he was like you got access to him and i was like yeah he's like i'm looking to do my next doc man let's do this you know so it was just like lucky i made the right relationship at the right time when he was looking for something you know and there was a

hype because of the white boy rick movie so it made him interested and um for that he actually he had actually you know told me like he came with a couple different proposals like you know let's do it like this let's do it like this you know trying to lessen you know know, maybe kind of my role or just kind of, you know, by the idea or whatever. And I told them, you know, I knew how to tell a story, but I didn't really know how to make a film. So I told him, I said, look, man, I said, you know, I want to be by your side. You know, I want you, you know, whatever. If you can give me something at the end, whatever, but you don't got to pay me nothing now.

I say, I want to, you know, keep by, I want you to mentor me. Also, I asked him that because this dude had cut his teeth doing like crime stoppers. He did like 200 crime stopper shows. You saw all the networks. Yeah. And he had won like nine regional Emmys in Ohio for all his work on these 200 shows. So I knew dude was something special. I knew he knew what he was doing.

Because when I walked in his office, he had nine fucking Emmys. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, man. So I made the deal with him. I said, look, dude, I'm, I'm going to get you everything you need for this film. I'm going to get you all the access. I'm going to get you all the people you need to make this film. And I go, I just want you to, uh, you know, involve me in the process, man.

And, and he was very fucking cool about it. So like a lot of times we would do the end. interviews and I would be there sometimes I might watch the camera sometimes not but always at the end of the interview when he was done he would give me five minutes in the director's chair so you know actually white boy so I got a writer credit and a producer credit on that and Sean rec emmy winning director trained me how to be a director you know mentored me over that like you know nine to 12 months that we did the shooting you know and then I worked with his editor you know and as we edited it, you know, over like the next nine to 12 months.

So that was like, you know, so really, I mean, Sean Rick, I mean, he taught me a lot. And then also like Rick, man, Rick's, Rick's still my real good friend to this day. You know, Rick, there was a lot of interest in Rick. He had the Hollywood movie, man. Rick didn't have to, you know, give us our blessing or participate in that, in that white boy documentary. He did that because of our relationship because I told him because I said, look, dude, I said, I want to make films. I said, this dude got the money to make this film. And I go, first off, you know, our first goal was to get him out.

Yeah. You know, and he had got this other guy out from a murder in the park, right? So that was kind of like his track record. But that was like the first thing. But I said, I told Rick, I said, the second thing is I want to make films, motherfucker. I said, do this for me. Because, you know, he was kind of first. He was like, oh, who's this guy and his representation?

We don't know about this guy. He only made this one of film. Who the fuck is he? But I told him, I said, look, I believe in this dude. I've seen his, you know, team. He can do it, you know? and I go, this is my entrance into the film world and what I want to do.

And so, like, I will always be indebted, you know, to Rick, especially, you know, for giving me that opportunity by giving his blessing to that. But also, you know, to Sean Rick for teaching me everything that he taught me. And it's on Netflix right now. Is it playing on Netflix?

Yeah, it's on Netflix. So it was on, what was it on before Discovery? No, it was on stars. It was on stars for 18 months. And now Netflix. Yeah, they went on Netflix. And it was crazy because when it first came out, it first came out probably like

almost three years ago and when it first came out I knew it was a good film right but this is like pre-pandemic this is like pre-Black Lives Matters exploding all over the world internationally you know this is pre a lot of things

and I think when at first I thought like everything that's happening now was going to happen when it first came out man because I was like man this film is awesome man Sean Rick and his team you know I contributed to it but you know I'll give credit where credit is due I mean, that was Sean Wreck and his editor, you know. I was probably like the third most important person on that, or maybe the fourth.

But, you know, I knew it was a good film. I knew it was powerful. And it did. It helped to get Rick out. You know, not that it got Rick out by itself, but it helped. But I thought everything that's happening now was going to happen then. But I think because the world, the way the world was, you know, people, you know, they didn't believe it or, you know, there was too many rabbit holes. Or they didn't believe in the level of corruption that we were showing and exposing.

you know and plus I think everybody was still kind of in the rat race of America you know capitalism trying to make money so um you know so it had like a you know 18 month run on stars and you know it didn't really get a lot of recognition or turn a lot of heads and then you know then like we signed the Netflix deal and um it went on Netflix like right at the end of pandemic you know like last April and I think it might have something to do with like the Tiger King effect maybe but it man it went on Netflix dude and it just fucking explains. it was like it was brand fucking new man so the first two weeks it was on Netflix it's like top 10 on Netflix not top 10 documentaries like top 10 movie series everything for two weeks straight right New York Times did like

a little fucking write up on it and then you know like I say they said like in April and May like it had 20 million fucking views right so it's crazy because that just for me it put a lot of wind in my sales because I had a bunch of different stuff I wanted to do that I'm working on now, but I didn't really have the money.

Right. But it just kind of blew me up. And I always look at it, like, I look at it like sports. Like, all right, New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. Everybody knows Tom Brady's a man, but all those other free agents on that team are getting big contracts. Yeah. So, like, I was part of something that has been extremely successful, you know, on Netflix

and that a ton, and it's, it's like recognition, the recognition value, dude, like, you could talk to anybody. You know, most people, they know fucking white boy Rick, and they know fucking white boy. on Netflix. You know, it gives that recognition like that name value where I do like

I could just meet somebody on the plane and be like, oh yeah, I did white boy on Netflix. And they'd be like, you know, they know it.

Yeah. Yeah. So now, dude, I got a ton of shit, man. I'm doing a, I'm doing a cannabis documentary cannabis docu series

on Humboldt County called Tangle Roots that I just, I just premiered the teaser at the Emerald Cup, which is like the World Series of cannabis just last weekend. You know,

I got on stage and got to talk about it. I had all the farmers with me. I'm doing an LSD docucus series that I'm going to premiere the first episode of it in San Francisco on Bicycle Day. You know, that's like when Albert Hoffman, that's like when Albert Hoffman first synthesized LSD and took it and discovered LSD.

They call it Bicycle Day on April 19th. All right. So I'm doing it at this thing in San Francisco. And then I also got this other docu series. I'm working on about the Mafia and Heroin called Dopeman. and so I'm making arrangements I've kind of come up with this plan because all this stuff I do

it's kind of niche it's kind of true crime it's really hard to get in the film festivals I've been going to all the big film festivals I've been to Kansas I've been to Sundance you know I've been talking to all these people and I'm kind of seeing like these target market audiences like the Emerald Cup

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

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

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

You know, and like some of these docu-series that I'm doing now, you know, that are like 180, 225 minutes. I mean, these are like, I mean, we're spending like, you know, $500,000, $750,000 to complete these projects. Hey, if you like the video, do me a favor and subscribe. Hit the bell for notifications. Also, we're going to have any links that link to,

to Seth's story or to anything that Seth wants me to put in the description. We'll be in the description. There'll be a bunch of links in there, hopefully. And that's it. And I appreciate it. See you.