Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Donald Trump of Synthetics Arrested by the FBI

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

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August 1st. They called me the Donald Trump of Synthetic. They seize eight vehicles. They take a million dollars clean in the bottom of a safe. I'm running a legal business that happened to start selling these products that were just banned. I'm in my 20s, going to bars, not really doing much, and I found that I had an affinity for the side hustle of selling grass. I went from selling a little bit here and there to friends and just getting enough to have some for yourself to all of a sudden making trips where you're in it with one bad move. So I had put together a little nest egg through doing that of maybe $20,000, let's say, right?

Something like that. And, you know, in this small town that I'm from, the only smoke shop in the town is called OCJ's, Odd Creations Junket. You go in there. This guy literally started the business in 1979, the year I was born, and looks like he hasn't changed much since 1979. So you go in there. He keeps the lights out until someone comes in. Oh, all right, I'll turn them on now, like cheap, crazy dust on everything. This is a, this is a terrible, terrible smoke shop.

This is the only one in town. So it doesn't have to be super good. It's the only option. You don't have any other options. Yeah, and this guy's like an old stoner. Everybody loved him, you know. He's, you know, everybody's cool with him. It's a cool thing.

Yeah, we go see Danny. It's a, you know, it's a thing. So, but he's having pretty good success there. but here's me. I've been doing this little hustling on the side, and I want to do something with this money. I've always wanted to get into business. So then I decide I'm going to do a smoke shop.

I'm going. I'm looking to stuff online. I'm looking from everything from Chinese glassware, from Alibaba and these other online sites to, you know, real wholesale website. So I start looking them up. I'm putting stuff in cards. I'm doing all this stuff. And I said, yeah, this is it.

This is the thing I'm going to do. So I put together a smoke shop, probably spent half of this nest egg that I had, you know, and I'm running the smoke shop. That's all going good and fine. But I'm making maybe $100 a day profit. Not a world killer. People start coming by and they're telling me, hey, there's a town Utica that's 20 minutes away. Is this after you're paying your lease and everything? Or you're making $3,000 a month and you still have to pay for your lease?

No, no, no, that's profit. I'm making about $100 a day profit. but I'm probably doing three or four hundred dollars a day in business. Okay. So it's a business. It's working. You can live off this. I certainly could have.

I wouldn't want to. Yeah. Believe me, it's getting better. So people start coming by. They're telling me this next city over. Same thing. One store in town. And they kind of treat people like shit.

They're just like, hey, take it or leave it. Kind of, they've got attitudes. That's crazy. No one likes going there, but they're the only show in town too. And people are telling me, hey, if you come over here and build one here, people will go there. They don't like these guys, you know. So, so I do it. I go, I start a second one. I have a friend working the first one, and I'm starting the second one. Now, keep in mind this whole time, I'm doing a little bit of side hustling, right? Not a lot, but I'm doing a little bit of side hustling.

But I've got a good friend that just has always been a grower. That's all, he's done it his whole life. He loves it. So I start the second one, and I'm actually going so crazy at that time that we actually build a grow room upstairs in a smoke shop, which is an absolutely terrible idea. You already have scrutiny because you're running a smoke shop, sounding paraphernalia. Why don't we throw a grow room upstairs? Why don't we go ahead and make it official? Yeah, it's a great idea. Brilliant, right?

So, and believe me, there's going to be a lot of brilliant ideas here, right? This is one of them. So I'm doing the grow room. You know, I've got the two stores. It's going pretty good between side hustle money. Both stores are profitable. It's going good. And so a crazy moment, MWK,

a guy that I still noticed, they, uh, Tommy. So Tommy walks in. Tommy's from Colorado, but he's always, he's always traveling around. He's around all these places in West Coast. And he's coming and he's like, hey, you got any of this spice? I'm like, no, what spice? And he's like, yeah, they're selling in all these shops, West Coast. It's this, uh, it's a dried leaf material and they're, they're spraying this chemical that's sort of a synthetic grass deal. They're spraying it on there and it's, it works. It's good. So, uh, He's telling me about it, so I'm going, I'm researching it, you know. What year is this?

This is 2006, 2007. This is just becoming prominent nationwide. Now, keep in mind, this is the original version of what I call K2 spice. It's a synthetic product. The original version was actually really good. Okay. So what I tell people for an analogy is water is, H2O, two atoms of hydrogen, one atom of oxygen.

So imagine if, instead of H2O, you create H3O. It's very similar in chemical structure and still causes the same effect to the human body, but yet it's not going to set off a field test and urinalysis and all the stuff that people worry about because keep mind, it's not like today where there's almost every state has legalized grass. This is, you know, it's banned in every state. This is not legal anywhere. So this product is becoming prominent nationwide. and I am the first person in my area, and to have a leg up, I'm in these two towns that I'm the

only show in town. You know, there's one other store, but I'm the only one doing this. So Tommy comes in, he tells me about all this, and I'm going, you know what, let's try some, bring something, you know? And Tommy was really funny. He was really good. He would, every single thing he ever brought me said, not for human consumption on it. And it was, you know, this obscure federal law that the synthetic drug act,

of like 1987 was if it's anything that's meant for human consumption is you know if it has this this and this it's illegal so he would have not for human consumption on everything so he brings it in and i mean this thing blows up when i tell you it blows up it's going crazy so and then i start making it go crazy so i am running on a local uh radio station i'm blasting this on the radio come get this uh uh magic magic something uh magic smoker you We called it something, the original one, it was Tommy's name, right? So come get this. I'm running on the radio saying this, okay?

I did a sort of like a podcast as Bill Keeler was a local radio talent. I'm going on his show. I'm doing the show. And the guy that's working the show also, he pulls it out of his pocket. Hey, look, I went and got something this morning. It's fantastic. It works. It's just like the real thing.

Right. So it's nuts because I'm bringing it to an area. Nobody had ever heard of it in, you know? So when I tell you this takes off, I mean this takes off. This is now you're going from doing $3, $400 a day to every store is doing at least $1,000 a day on slow days. It's taken off. Super Bowl is finally here. It's not just the biggest game of the year.

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It's go time, right? How do we do this? So I get immediately to work on creating new stores. So I start going around to any little town that was near far enough to have a new location, but close enough that it's got its own people. It's really close. So I go to a third small town near me. town of 20,000 people, I'm going around and asking people, hey, what radio station you

list? I'm interviewing people as you're going out front. Typical things that you would do when you're starting a business, but I'm keeping in mind that this is the number one seller. So this isn't just a regular smoke shop anymore. This is building a smoke shop with the intent that we are going to sell mucho spice there, right? Like, this is, that's going to go crazy. So are you concerned at all that like it could be, it could be illegal or could be made illegal? Oh, at this point, no, it was, this was a tiger by the tail. This was, you know, this was, I've got this thing that nobody else has. Everybody's trying to get into this at this point. People are looking to open stores and I'm demolishing them all because I am pumping radio ads. I'm building

new places. I've got the word of mouth already. Everybody in the whole area was knowing that you could go buy this. So keep in mind, the area that I'm from has like a Walmart distribution center right near there. Over 3,000 people work there regularly pissed tested. They love it. So it's a lot of the works. There are many prisons in upstate New York right near me. Everybody who worked at those prisons,

I can now go and smoke and not fail your analysis. It's huge, right? This thing is really taken off. So it's everybody and it's people that just don't want to deal with the regular, call my guy, go meet them in a gas station parking lot, bullshit. I can go right in, pay this.

I'm a hand sales tax on it. If I get pulled over. I'm telling him, hey, look, I just got this right here at Tebs. I just want this right now. Look at it. So it's taken off. I mean, this is going nuts. So I build the third one, the fourth one. Now I go to Syracuse. So this is, you know, I'm from a small town, it's 30,000 people. Syracuse got, you know, almost 200,000 people. So I go right to a very popular bar area, Armory Square. I, I mean, I must have spent 20 grand on this building. I don't even own the building. Spent 20 grand on just remodeling it, 14 foot high ceilings with big, glass water pipes up and down, built a huge smoke shop right downtown. I start running on, you know, so you've got, the station was called K-Rock, so I'm running on the radio stations in my area, and now I start running on Syracuse radio stations. It is, it takes off. It's going nuts, you know, so I'm building stores. We are, we are going crazy.

I'm actually having to build out a real team now, you know, because I've got to build out people just like a regular business. I've got to have sort of district managers, all right, you take care of this and this story, you do this. It becomes, you know, quite a lot to deal with at that point. But when I tell you, money's rolling in, it's huge. So I start taking off. I start doing all these other ones. I do four of them total in Syracuse.

I had 12 stores all said and done at the end. But I had done four in the Utica, Rome area where I'm from, four of them in Syracuse. I go up. I do one in Watertown. Watertown is a next little place called Fort Drum military base. It's literally half the people in this town. It becomes my best store instantly. It's all these army guys, they all have pissed tests.

They can all come get this. What's happening with the other stores? They're not catching on that, hey, I should sell this? Oh, everybody's catching on. Yeah, everybody's selling it. So in the end, but they're just behind the ball? Everybody, yeah. So not only are they behind the ball on it,

I am getting to the point where I'm running radio stations. We are the name recognition that everybody knows, right? So I'm running on the radio station. I'm pushing marketing as hard as possible. I'm building big huge signs. Normal smoke shops just have like this little, you know, they don't do big, crazy signage. Now you see them all with it.

They want, you know, they want everybody know they're there. But at this time, it kind of wasn't like that. I was going to say it's funny because, like, if you go to, if you go to get cigarette someplace, right? like you go to 7-Eleven to get cigarettes and they don't have them and then you go to circle k to see if they have them and they do have them almost nobody ever goes back to 7-Eleven again like they'll always keep going to circle okay why because they always have the cigarettes i want that they would have to run out for you to even consider going back to the 7-11 that ran out you see what I'm saying so and not just that now that they're going there now every time they

need some you know some uh they need to buy a a soda they don't go why would I go to the old 7-Eleven and they don't even have my cigarettes, they go to the new place. They keep going, you know what I'm saying? Now they're buying all their, now that becomes kind of their go-to move. So basically you're saying that you're pulling from these other places. They're buying their stuff at your place. And they're just kind of staying there at this point, right? Because nobody else, even if these guys come out, obviously they get cigarettes again.

Doesn't matter. This is a place that always has it. And this is a place I'm now, you'd have to fuck up for them to go back to 7-Eleven. Oh, yeah. And I'm leaving out a very important part of this, too. so early on when I'm I'm at three or four stores and I'm realizing there's all these people that are out there trying to push their brand of this spice so you're getting phone calls my stores are getting calls every day from the whole country is onto this and these people are calling I'm trying to sell some version of this to me well as luck would have it the guy that I started with Tommy he's a he's a he's a scientist this guy right like he's into it he's trying he's ordering all kinds of different synthetic drugs and trying him he's nuts he's into it so he's making me stuff that's much better than other people. And very early on, I realized

I've got to make my own brand. I want to control this brand. I actually was getting copied by other stores that were taking our brand photocopying it, making stickers that said legal funk, which was our brand, and selling it in their stores with a black and white face to it. You know,

other stores are starting to copy because people are coming in saying, have any illegal funk? Now, that's the one I want. So we're actually making a better version, too. So this isn't a Circle K-7-11 deal. This is we're making a really good version of this, right? So I'm leaving that part out. And I mean, when I tell you Tommy's a scientist, he's going hard on this. It's a matter of not only what you're doing, but he would put a couple of different ones in one. So the original formula was called

JWH-018. That was the more closely. So that was like the H-3-0. But you'd have H-4-0, H-5-0. They kept making different ones of these, you know? So he's making the best ones possible at this time, right so i go up i do watertown so about right after i do the watertown one it's it's going hard i mean watertown's doing eight 10 000 a day every day is it's going hard uh all of a sudden you start having little news outlets and people start doing these stories of hey there's this new phenomenon and people are catching on you're getting articles news you're different things you know and so the writing is starting to be on the wall a little bit like hey there this is becoming very prominent they're going to have to do something

about it. So I'm watching all of that kind of stuff, right? And my guy, Tommy, is seriously watching all that kind of stuff. If they ban something, it's a, it's sort of a cat and mouse game when it comes to this, right? They ban H3-0, you make H-4-0. They ban H-4-0, you make H-5-0. So about right after I had done Watertown, they had started to do some bans, and they would take like five chemicals at once and say, okay, these are now on the controlled list. This is now considered a controlled substance. So they did, I think the original ban was like five different chemicals. Tommy was ready. Boom. We're on to something else. So, you know, am I worried that this is illegal? I'm not even thinking of that. I'm thinking, again, Tiger by the tail mentality. Yeah, they change it. We're going to

change it. It doesn't matter. They want to, you want to ban this. By the time you get this done, we're going to be on to the next thing. That's not even a problem, you know? So, I mean, that's at least my thinking at the time. It's obviously, I see where that led, but that's, that's my thinking at the time. so uh you know like i say right after we do watertown not only is this start becoming like a deal you're seeing it new stories i i'd had a few reporters calling me i'm not talking to any of them i'm just going hard and people always ask you this at the end and after you don't you know why didn't you stop right didn't you stop well you you're not making the kind of money that i was making and on top of that for me i'd never made that kind of money in my life i was you know

just run around job to job bullshit i'm not making this kind of money so it starts hitting the fan a little bit right uh they're they're onto it you're getting the you're getting the five five chemical ban all of a sudden i get blacklisted by the army so i get served in every single location every store my house uh i had already built a warehouse that i'm distributing uh you know product and everything from my warehouse i get served everywhere that hey just to let you know uh u s army personnel are no longer allowed to step foot in any of your premises list them all out so i'm blacklisted army personnel you know so they're pissed up there right they're not happy about this so we're blacklisted and what's funny is i used to just

kind of go around to all these stores i'm checking in seeing how everything's going see what people are doing and i uh i was going up to watertown i'd hang out for an hour or two just kind of see how things are going i'm noticing all kinds of weird stuff is selling in the watertown store pink stuff different shirts I hang out for an hour, I realize everybody's sending their wives in. Everybody's sending all the women in every pink pipe is all in the other place. Different things are selling in this store now. And that's all they're doing. They're just sending somebody else in.

This store's numbers are still never stopping, you know? So I ended up opening three more stores after that, right? So I do a total of 12 stores. I mean, getting towards the end of this, we are pulling. in money. We are, you know, this thing is I have two different district. I have somebody running the three main stores. I have somebody else running, you know, four stores from Syracuse, a different person running all the Utica Rome stores. And you kind of convince yourself, like, we're skirting a gray area. This isn't illegal. We're just skirting a gray area. Right. You know, I've got bank accounts with a bunch of

money in it. We're going and counting money. You're doing, you know, a hundred, we'd go count, get money from every store, you're doing $120, $150,000 a week in cash sales. Plus, you know, a bunch of credit cards, other stuff. It's pretty crazy, you know. It's going full-fledged. It's going hard. And, you know, the reminiscing. Yeah. I can see it in your face. The good times. Yeah, these are really the good times because a lot of other people, they're committing crimes and they know it's coming to an end. Eventually, right? Like, you had to know, this is coming. They are going to catch up to me.

Well, I thought I was pretty cocky. I thought I'm just that good. You're never going to get me. Yeah. I'm that good. You become emboldened. And people think that it's, people think, that's easier than people think. Right.

But I know what I'm doing is illegal. Like, I'm not, let's not, like, you're thinking, okay, they just ban this. Okay, we're going to switch this. We're going. Okay, cool. Let's keep going. Like, you're thinking I'm ahead of them. Right.

And so I'm thinking I'm ahead of them, but I'm also thinking we can stay ahead of them. They're publicizing these upcoming bans. We know when this is going to happen. They're saying, hey, this is going to be reviewed in Congress in two weeks. And we're getting solicited by people because everybody's watching it. So we're getting solicited by people that are trying to sell this stuff. And they're saying, hey, buy our stuff. We're up on the laws.

We're not going to let you have anything older that's outdated or no good anymore, you know. And keep in mind, there's also some other bad stuff that's happening at this time. time. At this time, okay, so my analogy, the H20, H3O, H40. Now, by the time you make H470, you're pretty far away from the original formula, right? We're not talking, you know, just a regular synthetic product anymore. You're talking about something crazy. And you're getting stories like, you know, in Florida, people are eating people's faces. You're getting crazy stories. Do you remember that? Yeah, like, I think I remember, like, when I was in high school or middle school, people

saying, I don't know if it's the same thing called, like, bath salts or something, but I remember people being saying, like, in Miami is like a literal zombie, like, trying to eat somebody. Yeah, you know, there was a kid that, like, ate his neighbor's face or something. Wasn't a kid or was it? Yeah, and the story ends up being overblown for what it is, but it's a, you know, it's true. And people are, like I say, you get so far away from the original formula, and it's crazy

because here it is the federal government thinks they're helping. You're coming in. You're hurting this. You're banning all the very close formulas, the ones that are more natural and more likely to be natural and like the real thing. And you're making these, you're not making these people, but you're having people go and create formulas that are far off.

This is made in some lab somewhere, and it comes in as kilos of powder, and you're taking it and you're putting it, dissolving it in alcohol and spraying it on a dried plant material, you know? You don't really know what the effects are at this point. You don't know, and you don't know who's done that. Now, me, I know, I know who's doing mine, and I trust him. So I know that what we're doing is good.

And the proof is in the pudding because everybody loves what we're doing. We're outselling everybody, right? And I know what's going on the street. Keep in mind, I would be going to, I'd go to Vegas to all these trade shows, these smoke shop trade shows, right? And I remember going to Champ's trade shows where literally a whole section of the trade show is nothing but like K2 and Spice. area. There's people selling truckloads of a dominia leaf and marshmallow leaf and the actual

materials used to make it. Those guys are making killings. You'd have people that buy up the whole supply by truckloads of it for a couple hundred dollars a pound and then selling it. They found an arbitrage opportunity. Right. Nuts. So I mean, I would be going to these places and I would be seeing everybody do it. So there's a lot of people and there's a lot of people doing it way bigger than we're doing it. I just happened to be killing it in the area. that I'm in. So, but everybody's doing this. And at this point, every other store is doing it

too. I'm getting blacklisted because I happen to have one that's very popular with the Army, but, you know, you go to convenience stores, Circle K's and 7-Elevens, and people have a similar product there. Everybody wanted in on this. And that

will sort of rock you to sleep too. That'll let you think, well, everybody's doing this. Right. Go on. It's Bob Dave, Joe. Everybody's doing it. So what's What am I doing that's any different? If they're going to get anybody, they're going to get Paul. Yeah. He's got a huge operation.

He's all over the country, right? Like you're thinking, you're certainly not on their list. No, and then, you know, a little secret for everybody out there is nobody knows what the federal government can do when they come in, you know? I had only known of state things, you know, and when things happen on a state level, you know, if you've got enough money to post some bail, you're fine. So I know at any point in time, you know, I mean, I've got a safe. I'm trying to stack a million dollars of brand new $100 bills in this thing, right? Like I've got, I'm like going to the bank and exchanging some like old shitty ones and getting brand new crispy ones. How many you got? Oh, you got $30? I'll take those. And I'm trying to

stack this to make a million dollars clean in the bottom of a safe. I'm fucking around with money at this point, right? Like it's, it's pretty crazy and everybody's doing it. So I just think I happened to, in my mind at the time, I'm the person that happens to be really good at this in Rome, New York. You know, there's another guy who happens to be really good at this in Tampa and in Los Angeles and wherever else. I just happen to be the guy in Rome that's really good at this. So I'm, you know. I have a question. Are you married at this point?

Are you living in a nicer house? Are you still living in your one bedroom? Yeah. So I went from smaller apartments to, you know, as the money's coming in more and more, I, you know, I had, you know, a nice five bedroom house in the city. But then as I start to be this person that everybody knows. when I tell you I'm this person, everybody knows is, you know, I've got these, I'm on, I've got these stores that are in every town nearby. I've got, I'm on the radio all the time. People are reciting my commercials to me. Like the commercials go teb, tebbs, tebb, tebb, people would drive mine cars yelling it out at me.

I just, everywhere I go, it's sort of like that. So I'm in the middle of town, and that gets a little sickening when you're making a lot more money than everybody else is, right? It's a, you're the first person people when they need money. You're the first person they call for a loan. And first person, when they need anything in the world, you know, somebody, as soon as they get arrested, like, I had Rome police booking in my phone. So I know, all right, who is it this time? I need bail money, you know? So I, so I'm, I'm living in a five-bedroom house in the city. I go to a really nice house that's sort of two miles out of town.

And that was the last house that I had. But yeah, I'm living in a, married? A nice house. I've got, you know, at the time, three kids married. um all extravagant with that shit too like i went to uh atlantic city and got married i was the first one to get married out on the pier in atlantic city they got a little mini water show sort of like the bellagio so i'm yeah i'm doing that i'm married i got uh i went and bought an r v and this ends up being a money laundering charge but i bought a i bought an rv for uh two hundred

five thousand dollars and because i flew to texas to go get it it's uh it's nuts but so i buy a brand new 40-foot diesel pusher RV. And I've got people managing this for me. I'm leaving sometimes two, three weeks at a time. I'm driving all around the country in this RV. I mean, I did a trip that was nuts. I went to the arch in St. Louis, down to see my sister in Louisiana, over to the Grand Canyon, Vegas, L.A., Mall of America, and back. That's the kind of stuff that I'm doing at the time. And again, this is, this is all legit. And what's crazy is on the last ones of these RV trips. That's when I'm starting to get some of these crazy calls in, right? Like, people are, uh, hey, uh, the health department stopped by here, because there's,

it's starting to get where they're trying to come at you from any angle that they can. They tried a few health department passing things. They try, uh, they, they, they've tried a lot of different things. I had, uh, I had a couple of raids from a local police department, the Herkimer Village Police. Oh, and then this guy's the captain has me out front. He's trying to have a heart to heart. People are getting hurt on this. They're using this.

They're getting hurt. And, you know, me being in that mindset, I'm trying, you know, I'm out there telling them all. I didn't make them do this. So you're shutting down the ABC lounge? Is that what you guys are doing to? People are getting, you know, that bar across the street sells alcohol. People kill each other driving drunk.

Like, are you shutting them down? Like, what you're doing is perfectly legal. Why would they shut you? saying yeah like somebody's telling him to do that right and you know you know what you're doing is hurting people but it's by their choice i didn't like hurt people my way of doing it they came in and decided to purchase something and some people are screwing their lives up with it they do it in a bar they do it at a casino 7-11 like people are going they're getting off work going to buying two six-packs going home and getting drunk and beating their wife and fucking kids like shut down shut down 7-11

if that's what your real concern is. Yeah. And what is what are they? I'm sorry, one more time. When they come in and raid, what are they raiding for? What are they saying we're here to raid your place for what? What are they looking for? So at the end, when they came in and did the raid, they were, they had made buys in April of 2012.

And they were, and that, the buys that they made in April 2012, they were looking for the chemical that was in that batch. And what's crazy is when this all happens, so they end up doing 14 search warrants at the exact same time. So I am the Syracuse area DEA's only target. I'm the only person they're targeting. And that's because they had to do 14 of them. So you've got, you know, the FBI, all these, you know, the whole alphabet there, you've got local police, you've got all these people in each one of these. When they're doing 14 of them at the same time, trying to make them simultaneous. So when they come in,

I'm handcuffed, I'm sitting in a chair. I'm at my warehouse. There's about eight people there. And I'm by the door. And one of the undercover DEA agents comes over and he's showing me on his phone. He says, hey, this guy, I'm like, no, I don't know the guy at all. And he's like, yeah, that's me. And looking close from him, okay, he's like, yeah.

So I went to your store and I made a couple buys and he's showing me pictures, the stuff they want. And I'm like, so? You know? And he's like, yeah, that's, you know. that's, you know, it's band now. And I'm like, yeah, well, I'm aware of the ban on July 9th, and you're going to see. Book Club on Monday.

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independent optometrists. When you used to have everything here, nothing here, right? Which was true, and it's crazy because they have somebody that comes in that looks completely out of place. Everybody else is uniformed. This guy comes in, and I don't know who he is, but he must be something to do with a lab guy. He comes in, he does something for a while, because I can't see around the corner where he's at. He comes back out, and he kind of shakes his head. He's looking at somebody and it kind of shakes his head, and I'm going, yeah, you know. Right. I've got the new batch.

I'm aware of that law. Everything I have is good, you know? So they are just interviewing people. There's eight people there in this warehouse. They're interviewing them and letting them go one at a time. And so now it's just me there. And so at the end, I'm like, all right, where are you taking me? I'm trying to figure out, in my head, I'm trying to figure out the bail situation.

What do I have to? I have to call to try to get some money to come bail somebody out, right? And keep in mind, they are bringing out my safe is in my warehouse. They are bringing out trash bags full of synthetic products, all kinds of weird stuff, cash. One bag was full of cash. They took everything from everywhere. And keep in mind, the number that is in my paperwork is not the correct number, these scumbags, just a side note. It's not the same number. And yeah, so, they're taking all of this stuff out so i'm i'm thinking for sure i'm you know it's i'm going somewhere and at the end the guy says no no no we're just we're we're sending this to the lab uh we know where to

find you and uh gives me a card says you you better call an attorney that's it they uncuff me and they leave i'm going wow i'm shaking i'm like wow so i uh this is a crazy day and so by the time i get out and they take my car they take everything they seize eight vehicles they take all these vehicles so i get a ride i go home i'm watching myself on the six o'clock news raids all over all these stores and uh all the feeling the punch in the gut though but even then it's still not like hey this is this is over this isn't the end this is like ah they they got me kind of knew this was going to come i kind of knew this day was going to come but i've got this you know i'm going to bail out it's you know, all of that kind of stuff.

Are you allowing yourself to think that at some point they will come up with something and I'm, what am I looking at? Or you thinking, no, I'm just going to keep beating them. Yeah, you're always, life is always about risk versus reward. Right. And so earlier, that's why I never got into anything hard. It's risk versus reward. The risk is lower than the reward.

I'm in. Right. Right? So that's what I'm always weighing risk versus reward. So at the, at the, the whole time, I am never thinking that the risk is something crazy, right? Because in the end, the risk that they were threatening is a continuing criminal enterprise. Right. Because you're running, you have, you're conspiring with five or more people from three or more different locations to run a criminal enterprise. So in the end, that's the threat. Nobody knows it. That carries a mandatory minimum of 20 years. Right. Keep in mind, right? So I don't understand.

that this gets the risk nobody knows what the feds are going to do when they come in people know what happens on a state level because it happens all time and when you're from a small town like i am there no but there's no federal trouble there no one ever gets in it may be some drug thing here or there but you don't know the inner workings of what happens when the feds come in when they come in they bitch slap everybody and take everything and then they say it's guilty until proven innocent and you know you don't realize that at the time so at the time what do i think is the worst case scenario a couple years yeah so they they leave hey you better get a lawyer and i am uh you know i'm taking it serious but i'm not taking it as serious as it is right so i go home feel sorry

for myself for the rest of the day watching myself on the news everyone's calling me what happened all that kind of stuff so i get up in the morning first order of business let's go find an attorney right now i go when i talk to les lewis my guy who's my favorite attorney ever. The problem with less is he does state city stuff where I'm at. I'm being charged in federal court in Syracuse, which is 45 minutes away from me. And, you know, I've always thought if you're going to go get an attorney, especially for something important, you want somebody who knows everybody in that building. Plays golf with the judges and the DAs and, you know, that's who I'm looking for. So I'm going and I'm interviewing these attorneys. So I go into Jeff DeRoberts. He's

prominent Syracuse attorney. He's telling me, oh, we're going to get this thrown out. This is not, it's unbelievable. 16 days, yeah, you didn't even know. You didn't know, you didn't know, you didn't know, you know, you know. You know, it's nothing. We're going to get this thrown out. My fees, 25,000, blah, blah, blah.

So I'm like, wow, okay, it's not so bad. And then I go into my attorney that I end up hiring George Hildemrant. And I sit down, I tell him the story. And George Hilderant tells me, you're going to federal prison. Right. whoa he's like oh yeah you're going to federal prison it's just a matter of how long that's that's it's just semantic from here but you're going to federal prison and i'm like well it's been 16 days they passed the law july 9th i'm only in possession july 16th uh and keep in mind a part that

i'm leaving out here is they seized you know 100 000 grams of you know product right and the only thing i'm having a problem with we had i told you the health department tried doing some weird things We had this old batch that was still legal in the state of Maine. It was only banned by the health department in the state of New York. And we were slowly sending this batch to Maine, right? It's civil. Is that criminal or is that civil? Yeah, it's only civil if you have a health department.

It's like a health department violation. It's not a big deal. So we're taking it and we're slowly, it's just, it's what you can fit in one little bin this much. There ends up being 8,000 grams of this batch, right? Which you never sold. So. But you didn't sell in that, you didn't sell in the area.

Never sold it. It's the only thing, the only problem is I'm in possession of this 8,000 grams. Okay. So I go into George Hillamrand's office and it's 8,000 grams. So you look at this, when you have a synthetic drug case, they have to find the equivalent and they convert it to what its equivalent would be in grass. That's how they do it in the federal system. Right.

So I go in there and he says, no, no, no, they're not going to, this isn't going to be 8,000 grams of that. They're going to convert this to something different. And it doesn't matter that it's been 16 days. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You're going to federal prison. Right. So I go, wow. And I had been to see maybe three or four attorneys, but I just liked he was up front.

He was prominent, everything. So I end up hiring George Holdenbrandt. And sure enough, as we go in to, as we go into the process, he's hearing from them and they're telling him that they are going to charge this as a methyl something. It's a real long name, but it's basically like ice is what they're making this the equivalent of. Why not grass? It is what it more closely represents. And they have a three-tiered system that determines what this is more closely to. what it's more closely to in chemical structure.

And there's all these different rules behind it. So, for example, if you took one gram of something illegal and mixed it in with 99 grams of something that's fully legal, baby powder, and you mix that in, that all becomes it. So that's the argument. And they're saying we're going to charge this. And the conversion is 347 to 1. So 8,000 grams in the federal system is probation.

it's nothing it's not it's not a big deal multiply that 8,000 times 347 it gets a little it becomes a big number right right and so what is that number 10 years 20 years my guideline ended up being 87 to 108 that that was my guideline range for that for that level and yeah so 87 months yeah yeah 87 months so it's wow seven years this is nuts but But, you know, the whole time, this is what happens with attorneys, they tell you, there's all these extenuating circumstances. They can, you know, this isn't like normal. They're, you know, we're going to have an evidentiary hearing where we're going to argue this out. So what it was was I ended up taking a plea bargain to agree to possession of 8,000 grams of AM2201. And the deal was that we would agree to disagree and argue later at an evidentiary hearing what that converted to.

So when I went in to jail, it was I could get, if I win that evidentiary hearing, I could get probation, time served in probation. If I lose that, five, ten years, like not good, right? So the whole beginning time that I'm in this county jail, my life is hinging on this evidentiary hearing. So that's a big one, right? Do you guys bring in your own expert? So we did. We hired one chemical expert, which George found, and they had two experts, and only one of them shows up to the hearing, which is crazy. And so we had this evidentiary hearing, and it's pretty crazy. The evidentiary hearing is you're in a courtroom, and it's weird, and the judge is sitting there listening to everything, and you're both making your case to this argument. My attorney opens up with a screen on. the wall and it is the definition of what what this chemical is and it refers to it as a synthetic grass product it's now this is this this definition is on the DEA's website DEA.gov so he says that

and so they're there he says that she's on the stand their witness and she says oh no that's that's outdated information that's what we had at the time we've we've since learned that these chemicals more closely resemble other things, and that's their argument, right? And so he says, would it surprise you to know that that's on the DEA's website this morning? And she says, I just don't know why that's there. That's outdated information. We, there's these three prongs, and I forget what they are, but I'm telling you, we crushed them on two out of three. For sure, we crushed them on two out of three. And I remember when I first hired my attorney, he had said, hey, let's, let's, let's, let's, Let's hope we get Judge Hurd.

He sentences drug cases very favorably. He's got a son who's like, you know, addicted and, you know, he sentences drug cases very favorably. Let's hope we don't get Mordue. He's the senior judge in the district. He's a former prosecutor. So, of course, I get the Honorable Norman A. Mordue. So, yeah.

So I'm in a county jail. I have three or four. You're in the county. When did you go in the county jail? When? So I'm in, you had, you went from, you had, you had, um, you interviewed attorneys. You got your attorney. You had an evident, you pled guilty. You have an evidentiary hearing. Why are you in the county jail? Yeah. Why didn't they let you stay out until, so, uh, so I was, they had let me stay out, um, um, from the original time. So I hire, uh, George. We go in. I do the original, uh, plea with the stipulation that will, we'll, will argue the evidentiary hearing later. down the road and uh at the time oh man i was taking uh all kinds of uh pills you know just whatever you know just uh it was pretty crazy at the time overweight just going nuts making tons

of money and not thinking too much and uh when i was out i had gotten pulled over in a gas station parking lot and i had two of them on me and they ended up i stayed overnight in the in the local city jail for that, got out the next morning. They came and got me like literally a day or two later. The feds did. Seven deep marshals, you're revoked. You're coming right now. You were on pretrial release until sentencing and that violated your pretrial release. Violated it. You're done. You're getting put in as of today. So that's what brings me to this county jail. I end up having, so we're Our evidentiary hearing is getting pushed off. So I'm in this, so I'm in one county jail.

I'm in, originally in Nida County Jail. And then Anita County fails to produce me for a hearing. Judge gets pissed off and says, no, bring them to this one. So it brings me to Kuyga, one that's closer because keep mine, Anita's 45 minutes away from Syracuse. So they bring me to the one that's closer. I have the evidentiary hearing from there. I have like two or three guys in my unit that are dying and waiting on seeing me

because they have the similar cases, and now they're trying to do this to everybody. So there's a lot of people that are wondering what's happening with these hearings, whose side are they going with? I come back with the bad news, and now there's like four people, all kinds of, you know. Wait, you lose the evidentiary hearing?

I lose the evidentiary hearing. I get a thing in the legal mail that, hey, we've found with them, whatever. So my lawyer's telling me, you know, don't worry too much about this. You know, that obviously is terrible, but don't worry about it. you know, we're going to make a pretty good case at sentencing that, you know, you were running a legal business that happened to start selling these products that were, you know, just banned for 16 days before your actual date of arrest. You know, he basically tells me there's this huge case for that, right? And so we get to sentencing. And no, I mean, in the federal system,

you have a guideline range and that's it that's what they go by so my guideline range is 87 to 108 I get sentenced to 87 months yeah goalie's face it's like yeah yeah yeah that's eight eight years right what is 87 months yeah yeah so yeah so that's pretty tough and and and what's crazy is at the time he's telling me for a limited time at McDonald's enjoy the tasty breakfast trio your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles

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and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash V-I-Porter to learn more. Or you're going to get R-DAP, you're going to get this drug program, which gets you a year off, six months of it's going to be in the halfway house, all of these things. That's all true, right? Now, keep in mind, at the same time, right when I am charged federally,

literally like a month later, I get raided by New York State, because I'm still running all these stores, you know, I get rated by New York State claiming tax evasion that I'm not paying my sales tax. And I was behind, I was completely not paying attention to sales tax. I had less Lewis for that case. I gave my check for $187,000 to go perfect with it. But what they did was they basically said, hey, these first couple years where we don't have accurate returns from you, we're going to assume that you were making the same numbers these couple years as you weren't in the last ones, you know, which is nuts because, you know, it picked up heavier and heavier as we went. So they said that I underpaid $500,000 in sales tax, which is

absolutely not true. I paid them. I did an accurate accounting and paid them. But what, so when they come in, they're basically saying, hey, we, we can run this consecutive to your federal time. But they're saying, listen, you just plead guilty to it and we'll agree to run this concurrent with your federal time. So I'm thinking, got to plead guilty to it. I'm already in federal custody. No problem, right? So I go plead guilty and the judge says, I'm not going to accept this two to four that you've agreed on. No, this is half a million dollars. Grand Larson, it goes from 3,000. The grand Larson can be as belittal as street. This is the way upper end of this and says, So I end up getting sentenced to a two to six instead of a two to four.

And this matters a lot. It runs concurrence. You don't get the ARDAP if you've got the second charge, right? You don't get the year off. So I had a detainer. So because I had a detainer from New York State, not only did I not get ARDAP because you can't go into ARDAP if you have a detainer, but I also got no halfway house time. They, I was done with New York State, all six years had maxed in,

November of 2017 and my release date was May 21st of 18. They did not send the paperwork to remove my detainer till May 2nd or 3rd, like two weeks before I got out. So I had no, and then they offered to put me in for the halfway else. I had three weeks to go. You're offering right now, you're going to submit paperwork right now. I have three weeks. I'm going home. So, so I never got any of that. But during my sentence, they came out with law. They called it drugs minus two. So drugs minus two was everybody who had a drug case, your sentencing guideline went down by two levels.

So you got what that new number was. So I called my attorney asking what was happening. He said, no, they're not going to bring anybody back for it. They're just going to run through and do everybody's. I get legal mail one day saying, hey, your sentence has been reduced to 70 months. Boom. Yeah, real. So, but I knew I had it come in. Everybody knew he had it coming, unless you were like, unless you had been a career criminal or something else. They had two caveats that you wouldn't get it, but I got it. So, yeah, and, you know, we're getting to the end of it there, but listen, the, you know, the person that I was in, whenever I started this, in this county jail, the, the person that I was compared to the person I was when I got out after doing. 60 plus months in federal prison. As you know, it's completely different. Uh, you know, federal prison, it's, it's pretty crazy. Um, like I say, so I had, the minute I got to federal

prison and you tell people, I got 87 months. In your mind, that's a huge number. You saw what he just said, 87 months want to throw up, right? Yeah. They're like, yeah, whatever. That's go, you know, be out in no time. What do you, what is, what is? That's not worth unpacking. What are you even worried about? Why are you even upset right now? That's like 87 months. So, yeah, it's pretty crazy how some of those people are. But, yeah, so I end up, I lose the evidentiary hearing. I, I'm sick. I'm sick. They come and get you real quick, too. As soon as you get sentenced, we make this huge argument. I stand up. I'm real nervous. I'm bumbling and what I don't even remember what the hell I said at my sentencing. But, you know, whatever it was, wasn't good enough. So I get sent to state to seven months.

You know, we're going through. I go to a couple different little county jails to something in Albany County Jail. Then I go to MDC Brooklyn. This is my first taste of federal prison, right? So this is a, MDC, Brooklyn is an eight-story building with 8,000 inmates in this place. And it's crazy looking. You drive right through downtown Manhattan. to go get in this thing. You're on a bus. You're seeing real people doing real things. And you've been

in a cement bunker for, you know, a year. And, uh, you know, so I, I get to MC Brooklyn. And it's like, wow, this is pretty crazy. So first night, first night, uh, they're just, you go in, you go see medical dental, you go see all these different people. And, uh, so I get done with all the medical stuff. And they're about to put people in cells. And they're just taking people as they come in a line. All right, you two going here. You two going here. You two going here. you two going here. So there's this, the two in front of me are a black dude with dreads and a white dude who is tattooed from his wrists to his neck with a big red cross on his neck, all tattooed up. And the black guy with the treads is like, I'm not going in there with him.

Are you nuts? You're going to put it. And the guy's like, listen, you're going in there. You two together. You're going in there. He's like, I'm not. And even the other dude's like, no, man, what are you crazy? And this guy. And they're telling him, listen, go get the lieutenant. I don't care. I'm not selling with him. I don't care. He's getting ready to call. I'll go in with him. So I go in with this white dude. This is my first night in MDC, Brooklyn, and this dude is crazy, right? This is a fun, fun story, right? So listen, I go in there. This guy is in the middle of serving a 20-year sentence in Oklahoma State Prison. Okay? So he's in Oklahoma State Prison. He's gang-related, all this stuff. He stabbed somebody.

got 20 years. He's, he's in all these gangs. He's doing real, real prison time with real prison people, right? And he was in the shoe, and he said, I can get a phone anywhere I'm at. I'm always getting these phones. And I get a butt-friendly phone. I'm like, but-friend, yeah, yeah, you boof it. And I'm like, you boof the phone? Oh, yeah, that's nothing. I get through the metal detectors, all this stuff. He's in the shoe with a phone. Well, he had had a previous Selly that was gay and he had they had a phone with his sally but out out on the unit and they were calling all these like gay chat lines this guy was in all these they were in newspapers at this time they were calling through all these newspaper ads they were calling these places and they were

extorting people so he would go and he would call people and say uh get to say all this crazy stuff to him flirt with him this this and this then he would call them back and say hey listen this is detective ronald sanders you've just used an fcc communications device to solicit a minor you're in big trouble blah blah blah and he would get people to pay him money and send money to people out on the streets so it crazy so they're doing this he's in the shoe he's doing this he's calling this guy well he gets a guy from connecticut who is gay he goes through the whole rigumor with him and the guy is gay and is scared to death that his mom is going to find out that his that's his one big thing cannot find out that I am gay and it's huge so he's calling him he's extorting

this dude he got this dude to send $25,000 cash in a shoebox to his girlfriend he has got this guy sending him cash all the time telling him you're going to I'm telling you're going to go to jail you're going to be busted blah blah blah they got like $300,000 from this guy whose parents are loaded who's living in Connecticut and he leaves the shoe and he leaves it to this other guy and tells him, give me a piece of the money that you get. You're going to pay me for what happens, but I'm going to leave this guy to you.

You just introduce yourself as my supervisor. Keep it up. Trust me, this guy's good. He's going to send money, blah, blah, blah. So he does all that. He leaves the shoe. The next guy gets on the phone with the guy, tells him all this crazy stuff,

and the guy's telling him he's not going to get a little bit of money at him, trying not to get money anymore. He says, I'm on your street right now. I'm coming to your house. You're going to jail today. hangs up on him. So he's trying to play tough with the guy. The guy goes upstairs and off himself. Oh my God. Because he did not. He couldn't have his mom know. And so they come in. They find the whole story. They're getting records. This can find out that somebody is in a state

prison and doing this. So now it's federal. They come in. They're there. He's being brought to court in Connecticut to answer for this. Right. That's that's this guy's story. This is my first night in. This is this guy's story. Wow, okay. This is the kind of people we're going to hang with, all right, I guess. And he's doing all these other things, too. He's doing, he was telling me his stories from the streets before he killed somebody.

He went to jail. He was doing some crazy stuff that was funny. He did a bunch of rental insurance scams. He was like, he, this is a completely tattooed guy. Oh, tattooed from here. I mean, this guy, you take one look at him and this guy's like. But he was good on the phone. A.B. or something crazy.

Yeah, he's obviously very charismatic on the phone, I guess, right? So, but he's doing everything on the streets. His story is just great. His whole life is just crazy. Doing rental insurance scams. He scammed his own girlfriend, robbed his own house, had her claim it on the rental insurance and told her after. Yeah, but I got us money, right?

Everybody's crazy stuff. Yeah. Who hasn't done that one, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So he's, that gives me a view of what I'm in for, right? And then to make it even crazier. So that's the, the first night.

Now you go upstairs to your unit. So once you pass your medical everything, you go up to your unit. So I go up to the seventh floor, literally second day. And I go up to the seventh floor and right when I get there, when you get into a unit, people are kind of wondering, what are you all about, especially when you're like a guy like me, they want to know if you're at Chomo. There are all kinds of different stuff. They want to know, what's your case?

What are you doing here? What's up? They're asking all this stuff. And so I'm telling my case is a little rare. It's not often to see people. that have a similar case to mine. So this guy, a young guy, comes right to me, hey, I heard you've got an AM-2201 case.

And I said, yeah, yeah. So he starts asking me some questions. And really, he's, originally he's asking me so he can, you know, because people will send him over. Hey, see if that guy's really here for that. Ask him some questions. See if that's, you know, if the story matches up, if that's right.

So originally it's just that. But then once he realizes that's what I'm there for, he is doing the same thing. He has an evidentiary hearing. And this four guys, so mine was 8,000 grams. His case is like 250,000 grams. It's like, I'm telling him, he's like, so what happened? I tell him the whole story of the evidentiary hearing.

And I'm like, yeah, and I lost. And he's doing the math on his. Like, you know, carry the right. Fuck. Like, you know, not good. Crazy number. And so, you know, I depressed him for a little bit. But, you know, so he kind of heard my story.

And he's like, yeah, you know, Ross Albright's here. And I go, the guy from Silk Road? And he's like, yeah. So I'm like, oh, sweet. So we sit down with him, play a little cards. Now, Ross was, his attorneys were very smart. They told him, do not discuss your case with anyone, anytime, any reason ever. You know, so me not knowing he's already told everybody this and made this very clear.

So, you know, I'm sitting down playing cards. So I want to know, is the Silk Road guy? Let me ask him some questions. So I ask him about that. and, you know, what was going, he's like, listen, my, you know, in front of everyone, my lawyer said not to discuss my case at all. Oh, all right. I just, that was kind of crazy. It's you, you know, this is a guy who's in the national media. They're trying to give this guy a life sentence, which they did. And, you know, here he is in the same unit as me. So it's like a wake up to jail. And this guy had double bunk, everybody's double bunk, but him.

His top bunk is full of books. The whole thing all the way. So I'm like, great. I literally, I used to joke with him that I got to have my library card kind of deal, you know, and I just go and borrow books in the same unit as him for a couple of weeks, you know, but that just lets you know. That's like a prequel to what you're about to see here. So I go from MDC Brooklyn to where we stop, Cannon, and you don't know where you're going, and all of a sudden bus stops at Allenwood.

Allenwood is a complex, has a penitentiary, a medium, and a low. So stops there, boom, I'm getting off. I'm going to the medium. All right. So I go to Allenwood Medium. First night I'm there. I go up, they assign you a unit. And I'm on my way to the unit.

I run into this guy, Tim, that I was in the county jail with. Now, this guy is, he's, this guy's nuts, right? This guy is crazy like white power. racist kind of guy. He has a tattoo going all down his arm with a bunch of grenades and it says six million more down his arm. So this guy is a crazy lunatic, right? But it's crazy that I see him because when I was in, so I was originally in a night of county jail and that's where I met him. So I don't know this guy from a hole in the wall. I met him there. Well, I had not been produced for a hearing. So I go over to Cayuga County Jail. When I'm in Cuyuga County Jail, when I'm in Cuyuga County Jail,

I'm with two co-defendants of his one of them guys name is terry he's literally going to trial while i'm there and tim is taking the stand in his trial against him right he's literally got like all the stuff from it he's got witness list all this stuff because you can't really call somebody out like that and not be able to he's like look he's on all his crazy facts and so when you're on your way to go to federal prison you're hearing all this stuff about you better have your paperwork straight and you need your sentencing minutes and you're this and that. And so I get to a medium, which is crazy because it's a lot rougher than the lows. And as soon as I get there, the first guy I see, I know this guy testified against somebody else.

I'm like, what the hell is going on here? So he's very weird because he knows I went to Cayuga County Jail. He knew the whole story. And he's like, hey, what's up, man? You need anything. I'm going to talk to the store guy in your unit, all this. He's happy to help. And he's like, yeah, you know, so you're, you're on a 10-minute move.

So I got to keep going. I got to keep it moving. And so I'm just talking to him briefly. And he's like, come out to the yard tomorrow. We got to walk the track together. We got to talk, you know. I got to make sure you're not going to say anything. Yeah, that's his worry.

You know it. He's got to, he, because you never know that bus shows up. Who's on it? They know my dirty little secret that I've been, you know, cooperated on somebody, whatever else. And so I'm like, damn, man. And this is nuts because I get to my unit. And he is, you know, in jail, there's, you know,

you got your car. So I am a white guy from upstate New York. So my car's eight guys on the compound. A white guy's from upstate New York. It's not a lot. And he's running the car. And so, wow, okay. So that's pretty crazy.

Nobody knows. Absolutely nobody knows. And I'm getting there that's, you know, first of all, I don't want to fight this. This guy's nuts. This guy is jacked up. He's crazy. And I'm going, wow, this is a crazy predicament. So long story short, I never say anything.

I don't tell nobody about this guy. I don't give it shit. That's, I'm getting there. Does he ever address it to you? Like, did you hear something? When he walks the, when we go and we walk the yard, he's asking me questions, trying to pry who you're with, all that. Now, I'm not telling him I know, because I don't even want to get into that. Right.

He asked me flat out, was Terry there? Because he took the stand against Terry. And so he's asked flat out, was Terry there? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, he was there. And, you know, but no, he never, you know, that that was it. somebody else was in his case, so I knew a few people in common, and, you know, these guys were all not, you know, he's one of the, he's doing crazy stuff. But, so I get to the unit at the medium, and the medium is a crazy deal. So the first speech you get, somebody,

whoever's in the unit, they come up to you, you got to get your paperwork. These guys were really on that. I want to know who's who, and they tell you, basically you got to get your sentencing minutes, because in the federal system, you have a guideline range. And if the judge goes above or below that guideline range, he has to state, for the state, for the reason for the record why he went above or below that guideline range so they tell me you got to get your sent in it's got to come straight from your lawyer get it just get it sent in here and when you see your name on a sign for legal mail you go get somebody they'll go pick it up so that's what i do i tell him hey legal mail's here and stuff's here so and they're telling me i knew how to play pinnacle so

there's very few guys that i could relate to in this unit but vini giatino's there vini is a vini's God, she's middle of late 60s, old mob-related guy, five life sentences, killed 60 people, okay? This guy killed 60 people. And what's funny is, at the time I'm there, there's a book going around the unit called The Butcher, and it's about his co-defendant Tommy Karate, who's in Allenwood Penitentiary and him. And so I get there, I know how to play Peanokel. He's like, yeah, come there, you know, you got to, you got to. Got to get you, as soon as you get your paperwork in, as soon as I do, you get like six man cells.

I get right in a two-man cell. My cellie is a guy called Johnny B. Another related guy. He's fun as hell. But so me, Johnny B. Vinnie, we're playing Pinole every day. That's all Vinny wants to do. He's got five life sentences. He's got nothing better to do.

He got away from the penitentiary. His goal is to be left the fuck alone and play Pinole every day and let this time pass, right? And so he's sort of a jail mentor to me. at this time. So, oh, so this is like a lesson and, hey, this is what it's going to be, right? Now, at the same time, my personal life is going to shit, because now I've been in jail a little over a year, and my wife at the time had come to see me a few times, but, you know, you knew that was coming, answering the phone less and less. You know, some things are coming, so she's out. And then, like, a few days after I get to the medium, I get on the phone with my buddy Jay, and he's

like, yeah, yeah, she's pregnant. You know, I'm pregnant already. Oh, great. Here we go, right? So you got that sick feeling, but that kind of motivates you. I'm doing tons of push-ups. I'm getting in shape. I was a fat-ass when I went in.

I'm, you know, I'm doing great, you know, letting that, you know, obviously that's sickening, but you're letting that motivate you, you know? So I had about a year of this, right? And Vinny was just the entertainment for you. Tried to get me not to go over to the low. You've got like a review every year. Vinny is literally this guy is one of the most entertaining people I've ever seen

I would ask him he's you got to get comfortable with somebody I learned very early you don't ask somebody how much time you got right the first time I go to this guy this guy's telling me he's from Utica yeah my case is from Utica too he's close by me blah blah blah I'm like yeah how much time you got he's like life plus 88 oh like foot and mouth what you learn very early probably should stop asking that question

And then I'm coming there with, poor me, I got 87 months. These people are hearing 87, and it sounds like a vacation to them. They're like, 80s and the ones, go stand in the corner on your head. Yeah, this will be over for you. You know, what are you doing? Vinny always talked to you. What are you doing? You know, it'll be over before you know it.

Forget about her. Forget about all that stuff. You're fine. Sit right here. We'll play pinnuckle. You're fine. That was Vinny's attitude towards everything. So I got comfortable with Vinny.

And I would ask him questions like, what would you do? do? If they let you out, you all of a sudden got out tomorrow, what would you do? And most people would tell you some sort of life plan. He's like, oh, there's a few people would be real scared of that. I tell you right now. He's like, there's a couple people. He's like, there's a couple people. I'll be at the door with a shotgun. And as a matter of fact, guy right now owes me money. And I tell you, you don't want to see me. I'll tell you that much, you know? And he was, he was just very matter of fact. I remember when I first got there, I'd go up to his cell and he would point, you see this bed right here? I'm going to die in that bed right there, right?

so don't fuck around I don't need you know I came here to have the peace from the politics that go on over there but I'm not going to be disturbed in this it's going to be a problem I don't know this is it so that's just the kind he was but he was he was the right so I tell you the book's going around the unit and so he's like I said hey I heard there's a book going around about you and he's like yeah did you read it yet I'm like no but I will you know so now I'm reading the book about a guy who is a serial killer for all intents and purposes basically working in the cell with him Is this you're selling? No, but there's only three Italians there.

So I'm selling with Johnny B, who's the other guy playing Pinochle with us. There's only three Italian. Vicarina is the other Italian guy that's there. Definitely name. Yeah. So Vicarina's the other guy there. Vic is old, like, almost like, almost wheelchair old. And there's eight Italian guys on the whole compound.

These guys keep to themselves. Now, by no means am I like in with the Italian guys. But I'm like hanging with them and playing Pinole with them every day. So I'm not really like a part of their. car or their group, but there's very little people that will come in. And literally the fact that I knew how to play Pinnacle and plus had money to gamble,

Vinnie's the best Pinnacle player I've ever played against my life. I probably lost $500 this guy. We played for quarters and he smoked me. I literally got bought him something from the store every week, bought him something. So he loved me. It's his little entertainment. He's

got five life sentences. It's nothing happening for him. So I'm what's happening for him at that time. So, so yeah, so I'm talking to him every night. It's literally we're, we're playing. I worked at Unicorn. So I go to Unicorn. As soon as I find out I can do Excel spreadsheets and stuff, I'm in the business office at Unicorn. As soon as I get out, it's Pinole, the rest of the night, all the way to 10 o'clock count. And, and, you know, everything in between. I literally cooked with these guys. Vinny was the best cook I ever seen

best. This guy's already been in 25 years. I mean, it's, uh, his, his story is absolutely. crazy he's he's he's pre 87 law he's he's five life sentences so uh yeah so man viny would uh all these italian guys they got nicknames right like uh his nickname was cojack and uh and so uh i said i said hey why'd they call you cojack and he's like because i always get my guy you know he's like just the way he talking because i always get my guy you know and i said well how come how come they don't call you a cojack in here you know like everybody else still has whatever their street name was they're still being called that in here you know and and he leans over and he goes,

they're still looking for that guy. Just the tells you the kind of guy that he is. He's just a riot. So, yeah, the medium is a little different atmosphere. Tough to be in because you're locked in every night. A lot of lock-ins. One thing happens, you're done. My year comes up.

I'm dying to get over to the low, you know. Why did they send you to a medium to begin with? I had an assault. This kid, Matt Pritchard, this kid lived next door to my sister. My sister was being an asshole, being loud as hell, but just a terrible neighbor. And he pushed in her door, my mom's there, and he pushed my sister, spit in my mom's face. Like, this kid did some crazy. So I was drunk leaving a bar, early 20s.

All I did was hang out in bars. I was drunk leaving a bar, and I had a little bat that I carried in the car. And I gave him 17 staples in the back of his head. you know, I did actually plead guilty to a felony for that when that was a rough one. That was early life before all this craziness, you know. But yeah, I gave him 17 stable. So that charge, I had a detainer that boost your points up. That's into the medium.

Yeah, so I had, I think, 15 points. I think it's 14, you go to the low. I had like one or two too many. It was really close on the line. Yeah, I came in with two points. Oh. And because of a detainer. Oh, but your time put you at.

At the, yeah, but then the detainer, when the detainer came off, I was like, I think I had one or zero. But it still didn't matter. Like every time I get the, when I went to the meeting, every time you talk to a counselor, they'd be like, why are you here? They'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're going to be here for a little bit. I was there for like three years. And as soon as I got to 20, they're like, we got to get you out of here. Yeah. I didn't want to leave.

I didn't want to leave. Oh, yeah. I didn't want to leave because, you know. It's very nerve-wracking. Well, because everybody talks, everybody goes to low and it's open bay. And then they come back, they're like, bro, it's sucked because it's, it's loud. And they tell you, there's 600 chomo's on that yard. There's 1,200 people.

There's 600 chombo's. Vin even telling me all the time, you don't want to go over there. You'll be right back. What are you nuts? There's 600 chomos on that yard. They're all rats walking around. There's just nuts. You tell me, it's crazy stuff.

This is the thing. Like, I don't, I didn't care about the chomels. Like, they keep to themselves, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, you're never going to be bothered by a chomo. Yeah, there's no badass chomo. Yeah. Actually, I take that back. there was a guy who was like a former Marine

and he beat the shit out of multiple people because guys he didn't want to be called a chomo he didn't want to and guys every once where you get somebody fuck you fuck you fuck and he'd be like hey man back on them what you're gonna fuck and he beat the tar at him he actually beat so many guys' asses

eventually they shipped him other than that though and that was because people were attacking and were yelling at him or calling him names or being disrespectful and other than that they keep to themselves and so so they didn't bother me because and they didn't go in the TV rooms like they were excluded there no rights as you would call it they have no rights to do nothing you go away and i'd say

half out of the 1800 inmates there's really between 1800 to 2,000 inmates at the low half had charges by the time i then when i first got there i think it was like one third but they keep arresting these guys yeah so eventually and a lot of people were you would you would find out like you, because you kind of knew who they were, and you were like, yeah, if you do the numbers, like it's not, it's not, but maybe 20, 25%, maybe 30%, but you start to realize, like, no, wait a minute, this guy is here for a drug case, but he has a previous charge. You see what I'm saying? Like, they had previous charges.

So they would be like, yo, bro, I'm good. I'm here for this. And they'd be like, oh, okay. And then if you start doing the number, you'd go, you shouldn't be here at all. You know what I'm saying? And then you realize, oh, wait a minute. you had another charge from the state or you had a charge before this is your second time here that kind of stuff would um you'd find it but yeah it ended by the time i was done i'd say it was

probably half a half of al one what they didn't bother me what bothered me was it was so one i didn't like not having a cell door closing the door because it was quiet and it was so loud all the time it was always loud at least in the medium you got to walk in your door close your door and it was quiet. I mean, is that, is that your? Oh, yeah. And it had to be awkward. So if I wanted to come by, it was awkward for me to come by yourself. But in the low, it's just, it's, you're walking right by anyway. So you could just come strike up a conversation, any jerk off anytime, strike up a conversation. You're trying to read a book or do something different. But you said, so did you, so when you got to the year and you went to the low, did you try and stay in the medium?

No, no. I, uh, so Allenwood medium didn't have weights. I think, Allenwood pen is one of the only pens that still has weights. The medium didn't have weight. Somebody threw a weight through a window. They took them from there. And the low had weights. And when I went to jail, like I said, I was doing, I was doing pills when I first went to jail. I was a fat ass.

I didn't care about health at all. I read a great book, Timothy Ferris, the four-hour work week from Timothy Ferris. Then he read another book called The Four Hour Body, and it's all about just hacks on your body. So I read this thing. I increased my bench press. I was benched. 3.20 when I got at Allen Woodlow. I was, uh, so I wanted the weights. I wanted to get over. It was all about when I get out. And there's something about, uh, your wife leaving you when you're in

there. There's something about that. Yeah, just that's sitting on your shoulder. That's great for you to have. You need a chip on your shoulder to make you go out there and kick ass. And that was sort of mine. And, uh, yeah. And funny story about that. So then I go to the low and, uh, my buddy Jay is one of my best friends in the world. I talk to him all the time, and I call him. And one of my ex-wives' best friends, she was best friends with this girl for years, is at Jay's house because his girlfriend and her are very good friends. So he says, hey, you want to talk to Katie? I get on the phone with her. We kind of go back and forth a few times. I get her number. I start calling her, start getting a little crazy. You got the emails I'm sending just getting a little

crazier and crazier. She used to be one of my ex-wife's best friends, and we're still together today. And so she was with me the whole rest of the time in the low, was great, sending in all kinds of stuff, bringing my kids to see me, was a great person to me. And, you know, that makes you feel good chip-wise, too, you know? Upgraded. She's so much of a better person. Everything about it is just, you know, that part of it's crazy. But, yeah, the low is a different way. world and people don't realize this it's just crazy i mean you're only going over in a little fan i mean can see the place and i get my stuff put it in a bag and drive over to this little place but it's you change a whole world i tell people that about like when you go to the shoe you think of a month's gone

by it's you've think of how much has happened to you but basically just go lock yourself in the bathroom for 30 days that's what i've done i haven't left these four walls for 30 days it's uh it's a whole different world than you're living yeah i just like that entire world world becomes that that prison like there's it gets to a point where it's almost like nothing else exists other than like it's everybody you communicate everybody well well because you're still communicating with people on the outside but for the most part like your whole world is in there I know exactly it's insane yeah and you're like this is my life it is uh it's different the day you're going there it's like you just took up and moved and you're going to start a new job and

a new life and new people and you just left the old life behind and so when I when I go over to low, I'm bringing messages from Vinny. So Vinny writes down messages. They know somebody's there. I know I'm looking for a dude Paulie when I get there. So I get there. Pauli. Pauli. Anthony. Tony. Pauli. So Pauli is what I'm looking for when I get there. First day, I'm going into the child hall and I hear this high-pitched, you John. It's this guy, Kwan, very good guy. He's from Rome, New York. There are, I have met three people ever in federal prison that were from Rome, New York. Not very common. And I happen to have known this guy for a long time. He's just there for random drug charge. But as weird as it is, he's there. He's like

running the whole blood car in this low. There's 600 Jomo's. Not a lot of people that are, that I'm going to end up hanging out with. And my first, the first person that I know, which is very weird for me to know somebody in here. Like, if you came from a bigger city, you'd know a bunch of people. There's a lot of people that you'd run in contact with. I don't know anybody. It wasn't expecting to know anybody. So that's crazy.

So I ask him, hey, I got to find Pauly. I got a message from him from next door. So the guy goes and meets me on the next move. And that's how I get introduced to him. So I give him the message and he calls over a guy that's in my unit. Hey, this guy's in your unit. You just got here from next door. make sure he gets whatever he needs,

all that kind of stuff. But I got to meet the very few good guys that are there from, that are there in the low. And the low was, it's a different animal. It takes them getting used to, there's no TV rooms. The medium I was in, there's not even TV rooms. There's TVs in the center of the units.

Yeah. That's it. Like you get to the low, and I would tell people it's all the time. So you're at the low. There's a bunch of TVs on the wall. and you got a radio and you're tuning into 103 is that TV, 1061 is that TV, and you have a headset in yours.

It's a room full of TVs and you just pull out a plastic chair and you're watching TV. At the medium, there were no TV rooms. At the low, there were TV for us. Right, yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. That's what it was here. So at the low, it's weird to get used to because you go in there and you're like, okay, this wasn't there. It's kind of crazy.

I could just come in here and watch any show. And TVs are very controlled. Somebody has every TV. You're not going to go in there. You're not, it's not like I'm going to go, hey, let me just throw this on. No, that's not happening. You've got to kind of get in wherever somebody who has similar interests. If you like football, I'll go watch football with you, whatever it is.

So, yeah, and the TV rooms are just, they're nuts. People are crazy. So, yeah, this is so funny. This guy, so at the low, John Corniglia, he's just this, John's this great guy. John is actually pre-1987 law. So he's got parole coming up. He's been there. See, he's been in prison so long.

He's got parole coming up. He would tell you he went from the pen to the medium to the low. You go out to the yard and there's a landfill right there. And it's full. It's not even used anymore. And he's like, yeah, you see that? That was a lawn when I got here. That was they built the whole landfill, filled the whole thing over the years, bringing

trash, bringing trash, filled it, sealed it, and don't even use it anymore. I've been watching that since that was a flat lawn when I got here. You're like, wow, okay. Yeah. So John's pre-87 law, his co-defendant is Gene Gotti, and he is allegedly, the guy that actually shot Paul Castellano, that famous Sparks Steakhouse shooting. He is allegedly, and it's in a bunch of books. Yeah, there was, I think, three shooters. It was the driver and Paul Castellano.

he's allegedly one of these guys. So when I tell you this guy, you know, all these Italian guys that got something going on, but this guy's like literally a legend. It's kind of crazy. So one of the other guys was in the low with me. Oh, okay. He was probably in his 60s gray hair, short, stocky guy. I can't remember his name.

But everybody, same thing. They were saying like he was one of the shooters. You know, they all put on the Russian hat, you know, and he was supposedly one of the shooters, you know, he would never say that, but everybody, that was like the rumor for Siden Marastrian. Yeah. Oh, no, you would never ask him that, but he is, you know, he carried himself like that. You could tell this was a guy who's been a legend this whole life. He's a John God, you know, Gene Gotti's his co-defendant. John Gotti's really tight with him. He's, you know, this guy's got stories. Yeah, yeah. But what's weird is, so like John's, you know,

74, whatever he is, right? Like, he was, he was old at the time. And, you know, you'd think somebody old and not able to defend himself nobody would ever think of even looking at this guy sideways just because he just carried that kind of respect i was i was going to say i was also locked up with two of the guys that were um uh gosh what is the the it was there's a movie um donnie brasco yeah two of the guys that got taken down by the donnie brasco thing were in the medium and the show the donnie brasco would come on tv and and and people would be like hey hey Pauliards hey Jimmy

hey they got Johnny Brasco and these guys would go off that motherfucker they'd start screaming and hollering I mean sorry yeah I know well listen that gives me a flashback so when I was at the medium my my guy

god why am I drawing a blank on his name right now Vinnie so Vinny would do the same exact thing he was like part of the Luftanzaheis so like he was like involved in that somehow and he would do the same thing. Just somebody they may look good in the movie. He was a rat.

He wasn't this tough guy. They make him look in the movie. Yeah, he didn't like any of that shit. He was, he was real furious about that stuff. Oh, they'd have a real wake-up. Vinny is rooting for anarchy. He wants, like, the world to end in the craziest way. He's rooting for something to be so bad that the United States government can't hold him

anymore. Like, he's looking for craziness in life. And what's crazy is so after Johnny B left, my next celly started to backtrack to the previous prison, but after Johnny B left, I got John Petra Selly. So John Petracelli was an Italian guy, real cool guy, 45 years old. He had, oh, God, so John had six co-defendants. They had a racketeering case, and there was a homicide in the racketeering case. John was actually the one that stabbed the guy.

Well, so the racketeering case, if you have a racketeering case, if you have a racketeering case, if you have a racketeering case with a homicide, it's mandatory life. They came and offered them 20 years, offered them all 20 years. But with these guys, how it has to be is you all have to take the deal or nobody can. And people don't understand that because when you allocate you, you say, yes, I did stab Bob, but I have to say that, hey, I did with you stab Bob, right? You have to like, you have to implicate somebody else. So these guys can't, They all take a plea or nobody does. So everybody wanted it, but one holdout.

They don't take a plea. It's mandatory life. There's no other, it's not a surprise game. There's no guess what the sentence is going to be. It's a mandatory minimum. So John Petruselli gets life. And you see the difference between active, lively, Vinny, crazy, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, and John was just, he'd watch the TV and he'd see a pizza commercial and he'd go, never going to eat pizza again.

He'd see a girl. I'm never going to have sex again. And he just sewed down and he just felt like a burden on everybody. He had great people, great family coming in, doing all this stuff for him. And he's like, all I'm ever going to be is a burden to people. That's all I'm ever going to do. So you see those people. That's the life you're living there.

And there's 200 lifers at Allenwood Medium. There's 200 of these guys there. Then you get to the low. There's none of that. There's none of the mediums. There's people going home all the time. And I don't know what the max sentence is, but it's not a lot. There's not a lot of people sitting there with stuff.

still 18, 20 years left to go on their sentence when you get to these lows. At the low, I would say there were a few people that had those outrageous sentences, but only, and we were talking about out of 2000, there's a couple, and they're old. Yeah, they're like, because they start lowering your points when you get to be 70, 75. They're like, this guy's, well, that's this guy going to do. This guy's got 20 more years to go, and he's 75, he's dying here. And he's not climbing two fences and getting through the barbed wire, and he's not. And he's not stabbing.

He's not hurting anybody. Like, come on. Like, get him out of the medium. Let's, we need that sell for somebody who's truly going to be a problem. So I'd say, yeah, it's very, very few. But most people, like, I think the average law sentence at the medium was probably in the 20s, probably 15 to 20. And at the low, it was probably 7 to 10.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's way low. And your side to be pretty high, though, right? Like when you got there because you had just got under the 20 to go, right? Mine was still, it was still, no, it was still, I still had 20 to go. Yeah, so you're, that's, that's crazy, because when you get there, you're telling people 20 years and you're around a bunch of people that are averaging. Well, what's worse is when you go to the medium and you're sitting at a table at the medium, you don't get to complain at all.

Because the moment you're sitting there, like, yeah, man, I got 26, fucking, 26 years for, for a white collar crime. And you're thinking you're going to get a little sympathy, because when I first got there, I'm complaining. Like, like I realized right away, probably within a month or two, but my cousin said, stop complaining. Like nobody wants to fucking hear you're complaining. You see that guy over there? He's going to die in here. See that guy?

And that's what happened. I was at a table like the first couple of days and they were like, oh, what do you hear for? Because they're trying to figure out if you're a show or not, right? And I'm like, oh, a bank fraud. I'm like, yeah, I got fucking 26 years for bank fraud. And one guy's got like, he's got like 45 years. And then this guy has got, you know, whatever, you know, 60 years.

And this guy's telling me, yeah, I'm going to die in here. I'm leaving here in a box. And you realize. like fuck like this sucks i'm saying like you guys are this is horrible so i and like i said i a few weeks later i was with my cousin who was locked up and he was like yeah listen you need to stop fucking complaining because nobody gives a shit about your he was nice about it but nobody cares about your your your time you're you're gonna leave here a lot of these guys aren't leaving here and there's a lot of guys there that just aren't leaving all even in like a box yep and

they're all trying to have that level of bravado like they don't care but inside you know it's you know you know that you know inside you're like oh geez and you know like the movies make it look crazy right so like like bank robber guys you know you're you're in a movie they go in they fire one off into the ceiling just to let them know they mean business then they go rob the bank yeah that's like an enhancement that's like 60 years on your sentence you're running with those guys that just changed you possibly getting 10 years to 25 years like that little shot that didn't you didn't we weren't trying to kill anybody you weren't trying to 15 years because you fired just to let everybody know you're serious what if the difference between having a note

and having a gun three years 10 years three years and doing this to show him you have a gun is 10 did so now yeah yeah I actually met somebody who only got three my guy Ivan Ivan was nuts and he he was just all messed up on drugs robbed one bank got caught and he went in he slid bank tell her a note. And then he looks at her and goes, I'm sorry. She tells the story to him. He apologized to me. He's very nice about it. He was shaking. He said me a note. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about this. So you get the light ones. But then, yeah, that's what happens. People see it on TV. You're doing all the stuff. You see somebody do it. You think it's a great idea. You go into a bank. Realize you discharge a firearm in the bank. You're getting an enhancement. It's

adding 20, 30 years on your sentence. And you run into those guys. That's real. People do that. They're in there going, you're like, wow, that's, it's pretty common and it's pretty crazy when you're thrust into that. And you're in my situation and you think, 87 months, Jesus, just for, you know, this was legal, 16 days. Everybody justifies whatever the hell you did to yourself, you know, that this is, I've been wrong. This is crazy.

I don't belong here. And it's nice to get that rude awakening of like, hey, listen, man, what are you crying about? All these guys are. And when you see the ones that are. aren't leaving, that'll make you realize it. So, yeah, the, the, the, the low is, uh, much better than that. I found the weights, the, the moves, moves always happened, you know, 10 minute moves were clockwork in the medium. It was, you'd have a move, not go for three hours. You don't know why. You still don't know why. It just moved in to happen for three hours. You know what's funny. You, you know what moves are,

right? I'm assuming you're like moving from yourselves to like the next unit or outside. or something. I don't know. Right. Yeah. Well, I feel like I've explained this to him. Yeah. So, like, if you have, let's say, in Coleman, you had three units, three big buildings. There's four units in each building. So, but there's three, let's say, how, let's say a big apartment complex. And but the, the, the rec yard is across the compound. Maybe, maybe a hundred yards or 200 yards across. So you have to walk there. You can leave your building and you have to walk the rec yard or or you have to walk to the education or you have to walk to Unicorn, right? So what happens is the compound's closed, like the door's locked.

You can't get out. But once an hour for 10 minutes, they unlock the door and then they announce it. And they'll go, 10 minute move, 10 minute news, move. And the CEO will open the door for 10 minutes. And so everybody, all these buildings, they flood, people flood out of them. And they're going this way and this way and this way and this way. And you got 10 minutes. Because in 10 minutes, they're going to be like, close the compound, closing the compound.

and they close the compound if you're if they close that door and you're still on the compound then they can they don't always typically give you a shot but they'll yell at you but they'll lock the door and then you're having to bang on the door to let get the guard to open it up and they might open it up and be like what are you doing so you know what I'm saying and then they might write your shot like no you the compound was closed and you were outside the door and they'll write you a shot you can lose privileges whatever but yeah you have 10 minutes so it's a it's a controlled movements. Yeah, and this is an announcement

that we're hurting these cattle. We're getting everybody to where they have to go and you have to get everybody back from places. So the last move is they'll announce this is the last move. So if you're on the yard, you know, you better get back for this point. Yeah, because you're not out here anymore. It's not a, yeah. Listen, I'll tell you something that was funny.

There was a guy that was a he was a show. I want to say he was what I shouldn't say that. I don't know. I think he was. And this was at Coleman and it was almost positive. I'm 90% sure he was Joe.

He had nowhere to go, right? Like he was, I think he was going like to Florida. And at Florida at the time, they didn't give them halfway house. So in Florida, the halfway house is what, now they make them do it.

Now they have to give it to him. But they called him to R&D to leave. And he doesn't show up. And they called him and called. They called him for hours. worse. Finally, they closed. They do a total recall. Everybody has to go back to the unit. And they found him hiding on the rec yard because he had nowhere to go. He's like, I want to stay here. When you release me, I have no money. You guys are basically, like, there's nobody even picking me up.

You know, you guys are giving me a bus ticket, like to a place to the middle of Chicago where I have nowhere to stay. Like, I'm just coming back. And he, yeah, they had to drag him out. drive them to the bus thing, put him on a bus, go, you know, nowhere to go. Like, that's a weird. They remind you a shawshank. Yeah, the guy in Shawshank hangs himself because he just didn't know how to deal real life. It does, but at least he got on the bus.

Like, this guy wouldn't even leave the prison, you know? Like, it's funny. I mean, it's sad, but it's funny. I guess it would be, I don't know if it's sad or funny because it's a show, but if it was, but I can imagine a regular guy who's been locked up for 10, 15 years and he has nowhere to go. And some of those guys, you know, 20, 30 years, like they, everybody's died, given up on them, you know, you know, we talked about this beforehand.

People give up on you, you know, they give up on you. You get there. And like, like we had mentioned that, that you really figure out, like you've got, you've got your group of 20 people that you're surrounded by on the street when you had money and you were a big shot and you would have said, bro, I got an amazing group of friends. I got, you know, all these people that love me, that I'm, we're good friends. We're good buddies. Call these guys at any time.

They would show up and help me move. They'd do anything. Help me change a tire. Pick me up. Like, these are good buddies. We always hang out. We go to barbecues. We're good friends.

And then you go to prison and you realize that three of those guys were friends. If you're probably lucky if you get three. And out of those three, if they stick with you for the six years, where they still answer your phone call at the end of the six years. And I mean friends, not family, but you're probably doing pretty good if two or three of those guys. Yeah, and not a lot of people had that. And that was one of the worst things about seeing the chomos too. These guys have bigger circles than anyone you know, everybody's supporting them. And you're like, it makes you hate your people even worse because you're like, oh, God, this guy's, you know, a bunch of kids. And all everybody is, he's got a bunch

of friends. And, you know, people are writing them, sending them money. I'm here living like a scumb I got nothing and this guy's doing that. I tell people all the time, it's like it really going to jail makes you realize what would happen if you died. It makes you realize that. What would have happened if I would have died on that day instead of just gone to jail? If I had died, same thing. I got removed and some people moved on.

Some people, you know, I know the ones that would have grieved and I know the ones like my ex-wife who would have, whatever, he's gone now. Let's keep going. I've mentioned this before when people are talking about their wives. I've been like, well, you know, you're typically the only people, and I'm not saying because I've, who called me? Somebody sent me a text or yelled at me for this. Typically. And actually, that's not true.

They saw a short. They didn't hear the whole thing, the person that Kate called me. And this is a horrible thing to say, hopefully they don't want to see this because it actually applies to them, but they would be upset with me. But it's true is that the guys I knew, right, during the 13 years, the guys that went into prison, now if it was only a couple of years, maybe you have a 50, 50 chance to your wife's going to stick around for a couple of years. Maybe she can hang. If she really was in love with you and cares about you and you have kids, there's probably 50, 50 chance she's going to hang around. But let's say you got 10 years. Unless you left, you went to prison and you've got $10 million.

real estate and you can keep her in the in the same lifestyle as when you went in there's about a 99% chance she's leaving like if you were the sole you were the breadwinner and she had a little part-time job and now she has to go get a full-time job and raise a kid without you and you can't provide for her and she's got to go move into a two bedroom and get help from her friends and and like you're done the marriage is over You're going to be going on for a minimum of six to seven years.

The relationship is one-sided now. There's nothing you can do. You're calling one time a day for 10 minutes, and all you can do is say, can you look this up for me on the internet, can you mail me a book, can you tell so-and-so-such as a like, it's a total one-sided relationship. Maybe you can put your son on the phone and your wife, you read the email, and you can say, why did you get into a fight with the kid? Well, you can't do that.

You have to do this. So you're just a complainer. You're just, give me, give me, give me. It's completely one-sided. So that ruins the relationship. The moment she doesn't answer a phone on a Friday night, the next day, it's a, you heard those guys on Saturday morning, where were you? Why didn't you answer the phone?

That's horrible. So those relationships are done. But the only people that maintain their marriages were people that had $10, 20 million when they came into prison, were able to keep their wife. in the lifestyle they were accustomed to, and those wives typically stayed. Other than that, those relationships were doomed. They were just over. They were done.

And I had met a guy that had been to federal prison before. When I first got locked up, this is funny. I think I've told this story before. But you'll get this. What this guy did was I was being held in a private, like a geo, or so like a private facility. And I was there with him. He was my cellie. And every day he was getting a letter or two.

And he'd open it up and he'd see, this is when you could get photos sent in. He'd see the photos and he'd go, and he'd tear him up and throw him away. And I mean, I'm sitting there in the cell and I'd be like, who's, I go, who'd you get a letter? Get a letter? What's going on? And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's my ex-girlfriend. And I go, oh, wow, bro, she's beautiful. You're lucky.

That's a, he'd go, no, I said my ex-girlfriend. And he'd be like, yeah, thanks. She was, she was very pretty. He'd tear him up and throw him away. And then he'd take the thing and he throw it away. And I, and this went on, I was there for two weeks. He's getting at least one or two letters a day. And I went, well, this chick is fucking, she is writing like every day.

He's the, I know, I know. She's upset. And I was like, well, I was like, why? He said, well, we had been dating for about four years. He's, I've been in prison before. I did like five years before. Got out. He said, I actually was, had a regular job.

He said, and I was drunk. driving a vehicle with a buddy of mine, and I knew he was, we were driving drugs. He's like, I don't know why I wasn't really involved in the drug thing, but I did drive him. Because we got pulled over. The drugs are in my car. He said, we got in trouble. We both got indicted, whatever. He said, and I played guilty and I'm getting three years. And that was it. Like, he had three years. There was something along those lines where he was getting like a mandatory. Maybe he had a gun in the car. I forget what it was. Well, I think it got five years. He goes, but I'm probably going to do about three years. four years. And I was like, he's like, so I broke up with my girlfriend. And I went, why? He said,

well, he said, you haven't really experienced this yet, but you're going to notice that the guys that have the hardest times are the ones that are trying to retain a relationship on the street. He says, and you'll see these guys on the phone, just their guts are getting ripped out every day. They're calling their wives, screaming, where are they? Where were you last night? Why didn't you answer the phone? He says, I mean, it's, it's agony. He says, and I'm not going to go through that. Because I'm not going to do that to myself. So I explained to her, I'm going to go to prison. I'll be out in three, about three and a half years.

And if you're single, when I get out, we'll get back together. But if not, we won't. And in the meantime, I think you should find somebody else. You're a beautiful girl. I don't want you to waste three and a half years waiting for me. I don't want you to come see me. Don't write me letters. He was, and she's, and he'd been locked up, like, a month or two.

He's, he'd just gotten here waiting to go to another, going to his final prison. Like, he'd been sentenced. Like, he'd been locked up six months while he was. he's waiting like this had been going on for months he only been here a little bit he was in a county jail before that or the marshals holdover like she's still writing every day he's like yeah she's really upset and i was just like i was like bro sounds like she's gonna wait he's i know it seems like that he said man she's like she's 22 or 21 whatever she's a pretty girl she'll get over it he's like she's going to find somebody else he said i don't want to do that he had a very he was very

pragmatic about the situation exactly he may have been wrong He may have been wrong, but he knew that he was like, even if she waited. He goes, if she waited, it may even be worse. He goes, you know, I'd be laying in bed. I'd be one of these guys. He was just super, like, very matter of fact. Like, he knew he'd been in before. He'd seen what had happened.

He wasn't going to do that. He wasn't going to do it to her. He wasn't going to do it to himself. And I always thought to myself like that. He probably was the most sane person that I'd met. that was handling it probably the best way for him. Honestly, probably the best way for her, too. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and he just didn't want to roll the dice on that. Didn't want to roll dice on maybe she sticks around. Maybe she goes all the way through it. Maybe she doesn't. But I've had that, and I know the piece that comes with, okay, that's over. There's nothing in the street to worry about. Now, when you have kids, there's always that part of it to worry about. But everything's out of your control.

The sooner you get to that realization that this is out of your control, the better. Right. And it is, it's a stress reliever and it lets you say, all right, now I'm going to improve myself, right? Which obviously you did. I'm going to read as many books as I can. I'm going to learn and try to do as many things to improve myself. And some people, it's crazy, but some people need jail. It's part of your story. You just, you embrace it and you say, hey, look, this was, I was a complete asshole before. Yeah, I was a doucheback before. Like, I'd still be a, listen, trust me, I'd still be, I'd still be a douchebag. If I could have maintained it, I would have maintained it. I would have maintained. it you know like there was nothing changing me like when the cop showed up i'm just going to another place like i'm just kind of like the whole i'm changing the formula i'm getting i'm getting

indicted or i'm getting a charge i'm on probation i'm just switching it up continue the fraud i get the cop show up to raid the offices like i take off i commit more fraud i know it's coming down i go to another locate like at any point i could have stopped and said let's go ahead and fix this now before it gets to be too insane, I just kept thinking, they'll never catch me, they'll never catch me, they'll never catch me. By the time they do catch you, now you've dug such a fucking hole. But only a lunatic does that. Only a lunatic does that. Yeah. Well, and so you still think, you still think the same thing, right? You still think that you would... I would have kept going and going. Is that what you...

Yeah, no, I mean, like, you think that you could easily be in that life if some things had changed. You're like, yeah, I loved being that. I loved committing fraud. I've never, I've never lied about that. I daydream about it to this day. You know, if I didn't have a, if things, things, I got out and things went, and I expected things to be tough, things went so well for me. But I used to say that if things tanked, that I would commit fraud again. Like if things got so bad where I'm riding the bus and I'm working, I'm working a horrible

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Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox and use the code Cox at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide. Like if I got to that point where it was just so bad, nothing was working, like, yeah, my go-to move would probably be probably. I'm not going to lie. It would be fraud. Like I date, you know, listen, it's not so bad now because now I focus focus, mocus, mostly on YouTube and writing and things like that now. But there were years, two, three years out of prison. I'm driving by a vacant house and I'm thinking, hmm, that'd be nice. That's a nice house. I noticed nobody's, nobody's, nobody's. living in that house you know what I'm saying like I mean I'm I'm laying in bed at night you know calculating but but luckily everything you know just being a doing the right thing worked out you know and there's a there's a certain amount of luck things could have gone back but I was very proud I was very same thing pragmatic very reasonable with my into my expectations of life it was very low it you realize in prison like I don't need much to be

happy. Yeah. I was way happier. That's such a good thing. I wish that on a lot of people that you could feel that feeling that what really matters to you because it goes back on what I was just saying. You feel like you died and you could go look back on that death and see who was there for you and who wasn't. And it also let just personally wise when everything's taken from you. What is important? And you start to get an understanding of that. And appreciation. of those having an appreciation for the small things in life is really good now you can sound so silly right it's the same shit you bad said to you it's the same stuff that you that you shrug off your whole life i've been like but the whole the whole money doesn't buy happiness it's like the fuck out of here only

poor people say that like i listen i had all the little things like yeah whatever and then you go to prison and you you know what poor is and you know what having nothing is not even your freedom you've got nothing and and you start to realize like some of my best moments were in prison my happiest times were in prison you start to realize that and you're like this is insane I have nothing and yet I'm so happy so content and you've seen that there are a lot of people with it worse and that's a great life lesson too all these guys that lifeers I'm gonna die right here in this bed you know and you know hey I've I've got a date I'm I'm going to get out of here I am going to turn it around when you want it to be this this is going to be a part of your story

but it's not the whole story right the ending hasn't been written yet and what's in the middle i always tell people it's like life's a lot like poker in that way poker's just such a great analogy for life sometimes you put all your chips in and you lose and you know you need luck you need some other things there's a lot of things that have to happen you go to the end of a poker tournament and talk to talk to the person that won and they're telling you about 10 crazy hands and luck and good decisions luck and you have to stack that one after another one bad move you lose them all but if you just continue playing great hands and doing the right thing it's going to come along yeah so it's it's crazy how you learn that right it's a good thing yeah yeah it's a good thing

to have yeah i was going to say it's funny too because uh i never met one guy in prison that that when he was at his lowest missed his Maserati or nobody ever missed this. You never heard anybody say, man, bro, I fucking miss driving my Ferrari, bro. It was always like my kids, my, all the people and things that you, all the people you took it took for granted before is the thing that you miss at your lowest point in prison.

and all those things that you thought were so important, you realize, like, I don't even think about that. I don't even think about that car. I don't even think about that house. I've never once thought about going on a vacation or no one. I miss my, I miss my wife. I miss my kids. Those are the things that you,

and yet they were so available when you're out there, you just didn't appreciate them. So, I mean, I think it helps you reset your priorities. And if you're lucky, you stick with that. And if you're kind of a shit, then you probably lose that at some point. you probably everybody starts to lose it you have to kind of read i think you have to every once want to give yourself a little talk and say hey get your fucking head out of your ass you're in a good

position so what that guy cut you off you know in traffic you go a fuck what's it going to cost me an extra 12 seconds you know 10 seconds 30 seconds like i don't care you know i pull over i'm driving a little too fast i get a ticket i'm lucky i'm driving it all i'm happy to pay that ticket yes sir officer I'm saying? Like, I mean, it's, you got to get your, you got to, I think every once in a while I have to remind myself, like, you're, you're lucky to be here. Yeah. And there's a great saying that I always try to remember to myself. And it's like, uh, if you let words bother you and stress you out, that is just the worst thing you can do and everybody will have control over you. Because if you allow just words to do it, that everybody can speak words. You will,

allow everybody to have control over you, and the sooner you can take a deep breath and let things pass. And having been through what we've been through, it's so much easier to do that, to take a deep breath, reset. And it's going to be real hard to get back to your low point. Things have to take a real crazy turn to get back to your low point. And the ability to get back to where you were and better to rewrite the ending, you know, you have that now, you know. I mean, for me, I, you know, the goal is always, for me, is to get fuck you money. You know, people always ask you, when's it enough? When is, you had all this money, millions, this, that, when is it enough?

When I have fuck you money, that's when it's enough, right? And, and what is that, you know? Like, there's a, there's an article written about me, they called me the Donald Trump of synthetic drugs, right? And, which is crazy because, like, at the time, he wasn't president. He wasn't, you know, he was just, he was an entrepreneur, a rich guy, and I followed him on Twitter because, guess what, the guy has always had, fuck you money, has always been able to say whatever he wants to say, and that's the goal.

When you have a private plane and some fuck you money, that's where it's at. Now, I may, in my life now, want to get there a different way, but that's the goal, right? So they write this story, and they just assume because I follow him, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, like they assume because I follow these guys that I'm a libertarian that doesn't give a shit about the laws you know and you know again Donald Trump of synthetic drugs so I'm you know I mean Donald Trump's an entrepreneur he's not a that's crazy before he was even president

these guys are trying to blast him and blast me for being a person that follows him but there's something to be said for that is that not the goal right I mean it'd be nice it'd be nice but when everybody says when is enough enough when will you say you've got there I mean that's it I don't think when I have I was going to say I don't I don't know it's like someone who said you ever hear these guys oh if I won the lottery I'd quit my job I did I I well whatever if I won the lottery I don't I don't think if I had 20 million dollars I think that Colby would be here next Tuesday and we'd be doing a fucking I'm saying like I like my life

I don't think that money would I'd have a car nicer house I still do the same thing every day I've told that I told I told my wife one time I optioned my life rights and she goes what if they make a movie

like what if you make a bunch of money what if what if this happens and I went I don't think much would change and she goes you don't think so I said well I said I think we'd have a little bit nicer house

and I think we'd have a little bit nicer cars but I don't think anything would change because I'm doing everything I like right now right getting changed yeah maybe maybe a little less interviews and just only pick the very best yeah yeah yeah like I mean probably would it would up our game a little bit I'd have a little bit more time than maybe what scroll on TikTok like what I'm what's going to change I'm going to go on vacation an extra day like honestly if you go if you go to the keys four days is enough yeah I'm saying the truth is

It's like, oh, I'm going to go on two weeks. You've been on a two-week vacation. You better be traveling because you can't go to, go to, well, no, Venice. You could probably go to Venice. There's a lot of museums of Venice. But I don't think, still two weeks is too much. You better be traveling. You know what I'm saying?

Like, you can only vacation so much before it gets to be a pain in the ass. And you're like, I just want to go home for six months or something. I just, and even then, what are you going to do? If you don't have a job, what are you going to do? sleep late catch up on my Netflix okay there's two months now what like no I think it'd be now what I got to start my YouTube channel over again yeah but this but that's not when I say like FU money mine wouldn't be so that I can turn around and not do anything the FU money is to go impose my will on the world and I'll give you an example right I'll give you an example

Elon Musk sold his interest in PayPal he got I don't know, somewhere near $200 million for this, right? You can go buy an island. You can go buy a couple million dollar island. You can, that's some F you money, right? Right. What did he do? He went and spent, just bet on himself. That's what I mean.

When I say FU money, that is, you go and pose my will on everything, every way. It's, uh, what you're saying that I'm misunderstood. It's funny you use Elon Musk because I, I, like, am fascinated. Like I am, too. I'm fascinated because I always think, and I've, Pete and I, my buddy Pete and I have thought about this, where it's like if you, if you gave me $200 million, I would probably do a lot of things, but the one thing I probably wouldn't do is think, how can I further humanity? Right. I'm saying, like, how can I, we go to them? How can we, it's like, like, you're, you're on some next level shit.

And would you bet every penny of that? Can you imagine that? Have you seen the Netflix documentary about the space? Oh, how close he came over and over again. This guy is watching wrecks of rockets and this guy's got a set of balls on him. He's all in. Oh, everything. Not just that Tesla was the same way.

Every time he's gone into something, he's almost gone bankrupt multiple time, borrowing multiple money. You're betting everything you've got and it's been multiple times his bets have paid off. But still, the same thing. is I'm going to start and the things that he's taking on are it's insane

who the fuck thinks I'm going to build I'm going to build an electric car that nobody's building I'm going to make it affordable and yeah but there's no way to generate that

well then I'm going to build a series of areas where you can regenerate or recharge the car and are you out of your fucking mind bro? None of that's going to happen and then no I'm going to build rockets and we're going to go to not to the moon, not to outer space and build maybe maybe like a hotel that people can go and do kind of like a tourist thing. No, no, we're going to go all the way

to Mars, which is about 2,000 percent harder than going to the moon. And we're going to do that and we're going to build a city of a million people because I think we need to do that just in case something goes wrong here on Earth. Like you give me 200 million and honestly, I'm probably going to do some stuff, but it's more entertainment-based for me. I might build some stuff. I might do a little bit of stuff. But it's furthering humanity and saving the environment is not a part of my agenda. I'm buying Twitter, buying Twitter because he feels like, there's not enough free, there's not a free, there's too much censorship. I'm buying Twitter. Like that's insane. Like, that's at a price higher than anyone else would. I don't care. But what's crazy that he's, he has a story about

that they ask him, a guy tells him, hey, listen, I know why you're going to fail. And he says, well, really? Well, tell me. And the guy says, the reason you're going to fail with this Tesla deal, the reason you're going to fail is because all of these legacy automakers, they make almost 40, 50 percent of their money comes from selling the parts on the older vehicles. That's where 40 to 50 percent of their revenue comes from, and you don't have any older vehicles to make that revenue from. So you're going to fail. You don't have, they've got a model that

you can't repeat. And he said, oh, okay, well, watch this. And instead of doing what they did, he went and figured out a way to manufacture and increase that process, whereas margins were big enough to cover not having those. Right. And one of those was, I'm going to, I'm going to build a vehicle and we're not going to spend 20% of the of the profit margin on advertising. Like, then how are people going to buy your vehicle? Well, we're just going to hope it's organic. We're not going to, we're not going to, like, are you out of your, listen, every, that is as dumb of an idea as the guy that walked into the first meeting and said 30 years ago and said, listen, let's bottle water. Everybody at that table had to go,

who the fuck let this guy in? What are you talking about? We're going to bottle water and we're going to sell it for more than soda. Who let him in? Jennifer, did you let this fucking nuttrap? How many meetings did he have to go where he was laughed out of the meeting

until somebody said, well, let's look at this again. Well, how is it? I don't, okay, well, we could try it on a small scale, maybe. And I don't know about you guys, but bottled water is tremendously. fucking profitable. It's the dumbest fucking idea. And you know where most of the bottle of water comes from. Now, they're taking it right out of a tap. They're filtering it and taking it out of a tap. And they're still selling it to me for a dollar and 80 cents. Are you out of your

fucking mind? I mean, that's an idea that like is the, it's the dumbest thing ever that turns into Elon Musk has had multiple stupid ideas, in my opinion, that have made billions of dollars. Like, and I'm sure every time he pitched it, it, even when he talks about Tesla stock and people are like, what about Tesla stock? Like, you feel like it's a good value? He's like, it's really overpriced, honestly. I mean, you're like, several times. This is your company. Don't say that.

What are you doing it? He's like, yeah, I don't know why it's so high. I don't. It's really over. Because if you do the cost analysis and you start breaking it down, you're like, what are you doing? I mean, he's very honest about just everything involved. And it's, and I think it's part of that honesty is why so many people back him and love him. Yeah.

And that's the F-U money we're talking about. Remember, they were the boycotters. We're talking about boycotting Twitter. Then I'm, then I'm, okay, if that's what you're saying, I would love to have F-U money. So they said, we're going to boycott Twitter. Remember that? They're going to boycott Twitter. He comes right out and says, if you think you're going to use money to manipulate me, fuck you.

Yeah. Says it right out to anybody who thinks they're, if you're not going to, advertise on my platform, you got the wrong guy. What was the other thing? He used the Princess Bride analogy where... You've seen the Princess Bride? Where he goes... Yeah, he does the whole thing where he says,

Offer me money. Offer me. Like, he starts telling that... He's about to... He's fighting the guy. He's going to kill him. And the guy's begging, and he's like, offer... Like, beg.

And he said, beg, you offer me money. Offer me fame. Offer me. He's like, offer me these things to spare your life. He's like, because it doesn't matter. But I'm dying for you to offer me these things. You got, he talked, Elon Musk does that. He goes, during a thing where they say, well, what do you think?

And he goes, it makes me think of the princess bride, which is a kid's movie. And he's like, you know, he goes, when they say, when the guy says, offer me this, offer me that. He's like, I don't care. That's great. And he even says, too, when he says, oh, yeah, like they stop some big advertiser. And he's like, yeah, he's like, it'll probably bankrupt us. Yeah. He's like, but I'm not going to not do or follow.

what I think is right. So, yeah, will it bankrupt? Yeah, probably. You'll probably bankrupt this. That's fine. And if you ever want to have a few money, if that's not your idol,

if that's not who you want to be like, that's how you get there. You out-execute everybody else. That's what he's done on every level. He out-executed the United States. He out-executed us in the... We're paying for rockets. He made him reusable.

It made him for 10% of costs. How about that, bro? That was, you know. How big is our budget? He out-executed the United States. I mean... Listen, when those things were coming down and crashing one after another, after... And now, now when they do it, it's...

It's just, like, it's insane. The other thing was the boosters were supposed to get, I think, 10... He figured 10, you could get 10 uses. Some of these things have done, like, 22 times. Like, they've gone up over and over. He's like, oh, it's like, there's no way this one's not going to... There's no way this one's going to land. This is the 22nd time it's gone, whatever that is, whatever that number is.

And they're outperforming, even what they were hoping was the best, was like, we were hoping to get 10 or 12 uses out of them. This one's been used 22 times. And they're still no landing and landing. Like, they've got it down landing. And then you're using that to create another billion dollar company. So now you go put the satellites up there. Now you have internet everywhere.

You can be in the middle of the desert. You've got Starlinked to your phone. So you use SpaceX, your second billion dollar company. company, you know. Well, you know, and he's also got the boring company. He got the boring company. He's got the one with the, he's got all of it. It's like everybody's like, you know, why are you, why a boring company?

Why would you? I don't understand how that, okay, well, if he does make it to Mars, the bulk of civilization's going to be underground for a long, long time. Will there be Glass Dome City someday? Sure. Maybe we've seen Star Trek. Yeah, maybe in 200 years. But for the majority of them, or you're going to have to bore, you know, through the ground.

And he's, guess what? I happen to have a boring company. you know and if you're getting these these uh rockets up there and if you've ever watched they said like the first um um is it trillionaire or something like that one of the first trillion somebody i'd seen one of these where they were like the first trillionaire will be the person that figures out how to go to the asteroid belt grab one of these asteroids and get the minerals and bring it back and it doesn't take much it's putting a couple rockets, a couple of pushes to pull it out and you can pull it right into orbit around the moon

or around, well, Mars or the moon or whatever and just use it. Most of those asteroids, not most of them, but lots of those asteroids have as much raw material for metals on one of those asteroids as we do on all of Earth. so they can easily whoever gets that guess what that just you just who knows what else you find there yeah who knows something we don't know about something that's well look this thing does it's 20 times stronger yeah well I tell you what that happens you don't want to be having a ton of your money and precious metals that's for sure they're dump all that stock immediately but yeah he's I'm I'm fascinated I watch

tons of stuff on on colonizing Mars I watch it all the time my wife laughs about it I am a nerd as well. I'm a nerd with anything to do with Elon. I'm just fascinated with people who have outdone other people, you know, who you have a ton of people trying to do what he's done. He's done it better than everyone else. I mean, you, car companies were some of the biggest companies in the country. And he out came in and competed in a space that was really crazy. What about, I wonder about these, these Tesla bots. Like initially when they come out, it's like anything. When you first come out, like they're not great. But in five years, from now, they're going to be fucking 10 years from now those things are going to be amazing. The first generation or two is never the best. You have to work out the kinks. But Jesus, those things. And five years after they first hit the market, they're going to be, they're going to be 10. 10, it's going to be fun of it. They're going to be knocking on your door trying to sell you aluminum siding or something or, you know, solar panels or you're going to

be like, it's going to be like a normal human being. Yeah. It's going to, they're going to be. be insane. That would be crazy. You walk into a factory and it's all robots, but not in the traditional sense of a big arm robot. It's actual walking around robots and they don't need a lunch break. They don't need... No. Imagine you're saying what? They're going to be what? 30,000, $40,000. So I can pay a human $70,000 a year to do this job or I can just buy two of these robots that work 24 hours a day. That's going to be a problem. You know, that's going to be... Yes. But once again, you're going to, he's going to... And he's already said, oh, the robot thing will be, it'll be a much bigger moneymaker than anything else I've got going. Yeah.

And can you imagine that? That's what I mean by saying, I want to get on that stuff now. I, you know, I'm fascinated with that in a way that I never did. You know, I'm from a small town and nothing changes there, right? I've told you that nothing, nothing changes there. And you get low- You said they built three more buildings. Yeah, you know, new Starbucks is the excitement of the town, right?

And when you don't get away much, you don't realize what's happening in the rest of the world. And the rest of the world, crazy things are happening. You know, you go to Las Vegas. You go back two years later and there's crazy stuff there, you know. The rest of the world is doing these crazy things. And unless you get out a little bit and see what everybody's doing, it gives you that, you know, for me, it gives you that thirst to get out and do more, you know. That's kind of what I thought I was doing. When I was scouting locations in Ohio, I was going to move this chain to, like, you know, I was going to go to 50 stores really, really quick, you know.

Uncle Sam put a stop to that. Uncle Sam put a stop to that one. But, you know, that's why, you know, nowadays, I wouldn't go back to the same thing. I, you know, I've got five kids. That's crazy. I can't go. Five kids? Got five kids.

I can't be doing anything. It's going to bring me to jail. You know, I've got a little four-year-old, so it's crazy, me. And Katie, so we've got a four-year-old daughter. So I actually have a grandson that's one year, one years old, right? And it's crazy. We went on a little vacation and come back and oopsie, you know, so I have, all my kids are in their 20s.

I have three kids that can drink, you know, and now a four-year-old. You know, oopsie comes along. But it, you know, having a kid later in life that's young like that, it keeps you young. but after all that I've been through, I've, you know, I'm in a place now where I would never do something for a living that I can't bring my kids to, you know. I mean, I was always in the gray area, but even smoke shopish. I just, there's so much out there. And you learn this. Like, you were a person that went and read a bunch of books and you learn about the world and you say, I don't have to do that anymore, you know?

I don't have to do something that's in a gray area. I don't have to do something that I can't bring my kids to work. now I'm not doing anything that I can't bring them and show them and you know that I can't be proud of you know in that way so you know learning you learn about the world too going to going to prison because you meet people from everywhere doing everything stuff you can't even think of you know how long when did you get out I got out in May of 2018 so I did my I did my three years on post release I immediately knew I wanted to wanted to go to a business-friendly state with no tax. I went to Dallas in Tampa, you know, I was going to go to one of those two places. I went to Dallas and there was an ice storm, the worst ice storm they've ever seen in 100 years, the week I was there. And then I came to Tampa and had beautiful trip.

Last day was at Anna Maria Island, fantastic. And I said, this is where I want to be. So I moved to, you know, because now when you're off the post-release supervision, that's it. No babysitter. Now it's time to go hard. Now it's no babysitter. It's go time. You know, I came down here.

I was doing a CBD business at the time. I was making these honey sticks and these other products. Went to a trade show and this guy was selling a freeze-dried ice cream sandwiches. And I was buying them and people were buying them like crazy. It was doing great, you know, and it was dropped with CBD on them, you know. So they were selling like crazy. and so I originally got the first machine to try to replicate and fill the orders he couldn't fill. At the time, I didn't realize why he couldn't do it,

but one run takes you an entire day to do in this free-strap machine. It looks just like you're drier, you know? Okay. And you load in trays of food in there, and it takes all the water content out. So an ice cream sandwich turns into like a styrofoam brick-looking shape, but you could leave it out. You can seal it in plastic as long as you don't let it get exposed to oxygen. You can leave that out for 10 years and still eat it, you know?

room temperature. So that's what they do with space food. So that's why freeze dry products have become so popular because the shelf life is amazing. You know, you get something that's chocolate, you got to move it, nonstop, the shelf like, the heat, you know, and different things. So, so that's, you know, I was supplementing that. I got my first machine to sort of do that. And then I started me being me testing everything, you know, having everybody try all this different stuff. People were trying skittles, lemon heads, all these different products and loving them. Like, oh, this is fantastic, you know? So I knew that was it.

Like I said, you got to find the thing. That's all I've been looking for. Find the new thing. Something that interests me, but yet is that I know is it. So I was onto it before anybody else. Fuel on the fire, you know, poor fuel on the fire on that. And, you know, I went from, you know, a little 1,200 square foot building to, you know, three decent sized buildings.

You know, I've sold products to thousands of stores, probably in about 4,500 stores and making my own candy now, doing some pretty crazy stuff, you know, trying to get innovative and do, you know, expand that. And, you know, when you get out and you have nothing and you're starting over from scratch again, you just need that one little start. And some people go back to something crazy because they can't get that. You know, that wants everybody always tells yourself that, right? Like, I just need that like 100,000 to start up with something, you know? So, you know, now that I've got into this, I poured fuel on the fire of that and doing really good with it. Hey, you guys. John is thinking, hey, you guys, John is thinking about sponsoring the podcast. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say at this point.

so buy some of the candy so right did I yeah yeah you are you gonna use this is the fucking thing all right hey you guys John is thinking about sponsoring the podcast so do me a favor click on the link and go buy some of the candy it's really good it's free dry it's really good it's freeze dried actually I I love I love redhots. These are like red hots. They blow them up. You know, he puts them in the thing and blow them up like they're good. I love red hot. You know what else I love? You know what else I love, which these are red hots. I love red huts as a kid. I loved red huts as a kid. You know what else I love which he's got? Which is lemon heads. I didn't even think they made lemon heads

anymore, but they're delicious. Hey, thank you very much for watching the video. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notified a videos like this. Also, please consider joining our Patreon, it's $10 a month, and it really does help Colby and I make videos like this. We'll leave all of Bliss Life's links in the description box, so you can go in there and click on that and check it out. And maybe in the future, we may be doing some ads for freeze-dried candy. Bliss Life, free dried candy? Bliss Life free dried candy. That's a ton twister. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys watching. Please consider sharing the video to friends and family. See ya.