Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Price of Greed | Bank Robber Sentenced to 45 years

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

The Price of Greed | Bank Robber Sentenced to 45 years

I would pray to God before these robberies and be like, God, just let me get away with this robbery. Like, I'm done after this. I promise, this is it. And at this time, mind you, I'm all in the news. Like, they have no idea who I am. They're talking about the get down and count bandit. The feds had dubbed me that after I started robbing the banks. And I'm wearing different disguises now.

It started off where I'm fully masked up and gloved up to now I'm putting on, gluing on fake beards, wearing sunglasses and these crazy disguises. I've experienced various highs in my life, but when you do something like that, the tear, exhilaration, whatever, however we're going to label that rush is incomparable. Bro, it doesn't matter how much you change or reform. I can't forget how to do crime. Like, that shit is ingrained in me. I know how to rob.

I know how to sell dope. I know how to get fast money. that is in me so for the rest of my existence no matter how much i change and become a better human being when hard times hit i like a drug addict am constantly having to tell myself like nah don't take that drink don't go down that path because all it takes all it takes is for that one slit and then you're back in it bro so they're trying to get me to serve 30 years right in prison before I'm even eligible to be a free man. And the judge said that during the session.

He was like, your choice today is a matter of choosing between dying in prison or getting out to your grandchildren and living out your golden years. My daughter had been born. She's an infant. And my mom had brought my daughter up to see me. And in solitary confinement, there's no physical contact. You have these visiting booths. there's a plexiglass window separating you,

phones on the other side of the window to where you can communicate with your loved ones. And I remember my mom coming into that booth. I'm shackled to this desk. And I remember my mom placing my daughter down on this desk and allowing her to try to call towards me. And she finally comes across that window, bro, and starts patting on it and trying to get to me.

And in that moment, I immediately, I mean, instantaneously had some major paradigm. shifts. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I am here with Sean Marshall. Sean Marshall received clemency. He is a former robber. I appreciate you guys watching. Check out the interview.

You know, whether it's true or not, and more often than not, I would say you can, there's typically things that led to in your childhood that maybe helped contribute. to, you know, however you ended up, you know, incarcerated, and sometimes not, you know, in my case, I had, you know, raised upper middle class, like I was just a bad seed. But in some people's instances, like you, I hear their stories and it's like, wow, bro, like, you didn't have a chance. Yeah. So I don't know what yours is, but can we start there?

Can we start with like, where were you born, your parents, that whole thing? Yeah, absolutely. So it all began in Colorado, Springs, Colorado. I was born October 7, 1984. My mom and biological father, my biological father is a Creole brother from New York. He and my mom had a quick little fling there in the beginning. And once my mom found out she was pregnant,

You know, went to him, and at that time, he was involved in a marriage. They were having an affair. And my dad more or less threatened her and was like, look, you have this kid. I'm going to pursue parental rights, the whole nine. Was he just trying to scare her? More or less tried to scare off. And what ultimately ended up happening is, is my dad left her a little check.

I think it was like 10 bucks or something, something minimal, and then bounce, just vanish. So I never knew my biological pops. He was gone out the gate. But my mom, amazing woman, former model, clothing designer from Omaha, Nebraska, pretty large family, most of which is out of Omaha

and yeah she made her way out to Colorado doing some marketing and some other other ventures and had me in Colorado Springs it's a

it's a nice place to raise a family I mean it's a military town a lot of backgrounds and cultures exist out there because of that you have people from all parts of the country and abroad living out there and being stationed out there so growing up you know it was a good mixture of kids that I was able to hang out with I was exposed to a lot of different cultures um and I had a decent

foundation. My mom, middle working class, and she loved me. She adored me. I was her world. And in the beginning, as I've explained, I've told my story so many different times, but I always say, like, in the beginning, it was just me and her, and it was perfect. And that was up until I was about two years old, and that's when my stepdad came into the picture. And stepdad, he was much a little bit older than my mom, a successful businessman, an entrepreneur. He ran a business out there, a barbecue restaurant, prominent figure in the community, well-established. And as he was on his rise, that's when he crossed pounds with my mom. And I'm sure in the beginning, he seemed like a good enough guy. I mean, my earliest memories of him, he was decent enough.

I can remember the little family gatherings and all the normal family stuff that people engage in, you know, those earliest years of my life. And we moved out to Black Horse with him. He had this pretty large house out there. so it was cool as a kid being able to explore some of my earliest earliest memories are you know living out in this ranch with horses and being able to venture out into the forest by myself this is still in colorado this is in colorado like the outskirts of the springs okay yeah and uh yeah i just remember being able to have a blast because i had a very vivid wild imagination so as an only kid I had to get lost in my own world, do me. And it was out in those little chorus wandering around, catching snakes, doing my little boys do. That's where I was entertaining myself.

But things were good until they weren't. You know, those first couple of years that my mom was with my stepdad, everything seemed normal enough, everything seemed good. The love seemed to be there. and I remember this one night in particular that I always point to, and I always point to it because I now know in retrospect the impact that that had on me internally and how it ultimately led to a lot of my rebellion later on in life. I didn't realize how impactful was in the moment, but there was a particular night that my parents had gotten into a pretty

heated argument. And I don't remember why they were arguing. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with some infidelity and cheating. My step pops was known to be a womanizer. He had a lot of kids. Papa was a rolling stone. He was all over the place. Right. He's a country, country boy from Kentucky. Smooth talker back then. I said he used to have his way with the women. But I remember my mom and him getting into a pretty heated argument one night. And I had never really witnessed this up until that point. You know, they had always been pretty congenial with one another, but this night, not the case. And I just remember a whole bunch of screaming, hollering, and shouting.

And my mom and dad busting into my bedroom door and my stepdad throwing her on top of the bed. And I just remember her trying to protect me from him and shield me from him while he was ranting and raving and doing this thing with her. Shortly thereafter, I remember my mom and I, like, rushing out of the house and us just trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, us leaving for a short time and coming back just to see my mom's stuff like strewn everywhere, my stepdad throwing all her stuff out of the house and that night was ingrained in my mind like I didn't know it again in the moment but there was an internal shift like regarding my views my stepdad um how old were you

I was probably five six is maybe but that night I was like yeah fuck this dude And that was just ingrained in my heart and mind. Mom wasn't about to put up with the room. She got her stuff. We left. We went back to the city. We got us a little modest place and called the Springs. And again, it was just me and her.

And I thought it would remain that way for a while. I thought she was done with my stepdad. Like after that, I was like, cool. He's out the picture. We can live our lives. peacefully. So we moved back to the city, go back to doing what we do. And it was good, bro. I said, my passion as a kid was baseball, playing sports. So I was, you know, heavily involved in sports and beginning to play competitively or start to get into little leagues. And that was a

lot of my focus back then. And then, of course, with my mom and her standard, is like she had high expectations of me and definitely pushed me to go above and beyond in everything that I did, school included. Like, she just had zero tolerance for bullshit. She wanted the best for me and she was like, look, especially being

a black man in America, you need to push yourself and strive so that you can have the life that you want to make for yourself. And she was like, it's going to start now. So she demanded that I get good grades, A's and B's. Nothing less than that. If I bought him a C, I'm getting hunted.

So you were living with your mom. You thought she was, you felt like she was done with your stepfather. Yeah, thought he was done with them. I said life went back to quote unquote normal. And there's not too much that I can remember from that time. Of course, I have good memories of my mom and I just sharing experiences such as her, like teaching me how to ride a bike.

by pushing me down a hill mind you um but it was just normal normal beginning there's not much that i can point to you know that's too so dramatic or nothing that really stands out in my mind besides the love that i received from my mom right um and something that i've cherished all my life and something that i truly cherish then but didn't last long you know we were there in the city doing our thing for a while, and somehow some way, my stepdad weaseled his way back into the picture. And whatever, there wasn't a lot of resistance from me in that moment. Again, so many of these things that had happened internally, I wasn't even aware of. So when he did come back in the picture, sure, I resented him a little bit and probably

judged him for how he treated my mom that night. But I know we eventually went back to being a family and doing all the things, the traveling and what have you, all the little family outings and gatherings. But, you know, that continued on for some time. But again, I must point back to what I was saying earlier. My focus back then was sports. One of my dreams is, as a child was to make it to the major leagues. So everything that I breathe talked about dreamt of was baseball. I've played shortstop, third base, and every day, whether at school or after school, I'm just, you could find me in some type of sandlot at the ballpark honing those skills.

I was trying to be the best that I could be. And so much of my focus shifted from anything outside of that. Like if my parents, whatever they had going on, really didn't concern me. I was in my own little world and focused on this dream of mine. And, you know, for a while, it was just like normal, upbringing, normal childhood, you know, sleepovers, some of the destructive activities. I remember having an affinity for fire. I was a little boy that loved to play with fire. That was me.

But I was always out exploring, building tree houses, having the sleepovers with my friends, and us just going on these little adventures, whatever that might consist of. I mean, we might have been running around the streets, riding bikes. It didn't matter, bro. We were always fantasizing, role playing, doing what normal kids did in that era. definitely weren't sitting in the house all day. Right. So for years, you know, that was the case until I started getting into like middle school.

And when I did get to middle school, the things that changed was kind of the environments that I was now allowed to explore. Because early on, my parents tried to keep a good eye on me and sheltered me to whatever extent. But as I started approaching middle school and getting into those years, my stepdad would allow me to go to work with him. And he was downtown in a pretty seedy area, his restaurant. And most of the times when I would accompany him to work, like I was exposed to the most, bro, because I'd be left to my own devices when I'd go to work with him. Like, he'd go, he was a workaholic. so when he was at work he was doing his thing zoned out so i'd go with him and i would like going with him because the reins were let loose like my mom if i would ever hang with her that

would never be the case like she would definitely keep a close on me but with him shit i'm about to be in the back by the sewers playing with the vagrants that were around the restaurant doing the most. And I remember even a lot of his employees back then, but they were like ex-cons and had dark past themselves and involved in all the wrong activities. And just hanging around the pit, as it was called,

the barbecue pit. We would just call it the pit. I would hear all types of crazy stories or be exposed to smoke. and drinking and porn, stuff like that. And that's where a lot of the seeds started getting planted early on. And I also remember one of the first times where I started getting exposed to like the criminal aspects of life. And there was this dilapidated house that neighbored, this restaurant.

And this family, you could tell, dire straits, like, they did not have a lot struggling in every sense of the word. But this little kid that was about my age, I think we were probably around, I don't know what, 10-ish or so, whatever, around that age, 11. I remember being at the pit hanging out with this kid one day. We're in the back of the restaurant closer to his house. And he had been gone for a little while riding around on his bike. And I remember him coming back, like zooming back on his bike and skid into a stop before me. And I remember in his hands seeing this brand new wireless Sega controller. And I was, I knew that was.

beyond his means. I'm like, how the fuck did this kid afford that? I'm like, that's crazy. And he's showing it off to me like, look what I just got. And I'm like, Dan, that's crazy. I was like, where'd you get that from? He was like, bro, I just stole it. I was like, you stole it. What the fuck are you talking about? He was like, bro, they have this game store up the street. He was like, I just go in there and take what I want. And I was like, you take what you want? Like, what are you talking about? He was like, bro, it's easy. He was like, I just go in there, whether I want a video game he was like a controller it doesn't matter i just go in there and get whatever i need and i'm like it's just that easy you walk in and do that he was like yeah he was like i can get

you one you want me to get you a controller i bro and in this moment i'm scared to death i'm like i feel like i'm being you don't quite know what conspiracy is yeah yeah but i'm feeling it i'm feeling guilty like my old compass is freaking out right now like what is this kid talking about like we're conspiring to rob this place. Like, what is happening? But I just remember in this moment not really knowing how to answer that question because I have been raised properly. So I know good and well, I should be telling this kid like,

fuck, no, I don't want the controller. But there's another side of me that's like, hell yeah. Like, I want that. Let me get this because I can't afford it. And I know my parents would never buy that. Like, they had no problem providing for me. But one thing my mom used to tell me a lot when I was younger, she was like, look, all I had.

have to do is put a roof over your head and clothing. That doesn't mean that I need to be getting you name, brand, and designer this down and the other. If you want that, you're going to have to get a job, little boy. And that's, you know, one of the reasons why early on in life I started hustling and mowing lawns and shoveling snow and all the, all the things just to make money. Because if I wanted the New Jordans or whatever, I was going to have to work for that. My parents definitely instilled that in me at an early age, like the value of a dollar and how to earn it. So when this kid, you know, gives me this choice, I'm like, man, I don't know. But I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. What's what's the harm that can come with it? Clearly

this kid does it all the time. So I tell him, I'm like, yeah, hell yeah, go get that. So he pedals off. And about 10 minutes later, skids to stop in front of me with this controller. And he's like, here, bro, just gives it to me. Now I'm freaking out because I'm like, okay, I got to come up with the next part of the plan. And that's how do I get this home without my mom noticing. Like, fuck my stepdad. He's not even that observant. But my mom, she would definitely notice that.

So I'm like, how am I going to get this home? Keep this on the wraps. So I don't even really come up with a plan. I'm like, well, guess I'll just deal with it when I cross that bridge. Get home, unpackage it. I get to plan my little, I think NBA Jam, or whatever I was playing back then on Sega, having a blast. And I remember, sure enough, my mom coming in later that night as I'm playing and very

observant, quickly called me out and was like, boy, where'd you get that controller at? And I was like, oh, my friend let me borrow it. She was like, oh, okay, well, you need to make sure your friend gets his controller back immediately. I'm like, cool, whatever. So next day, end up getting rid of it. I think I threw it away in the trash can or whatnot. But I know after that experience, another little seed was planted.

Now you know it's possible. You've seen the fruits. Yeah. Of this forbidden tree into that sinful life. Yeah, you're getting golden. Yeah. I'm like, shit. Okay.

But I don't act on that immediately. This is something that's just planted in my mind, just sits in there, and I don't even really reflect on it too much. But I do remember that that stayed with me for quite some time. So life continued on, bro. You know, the situation when my parents was kind of back and forth, they would have their little rifts, they would separate, then get back together, and this became a cycle. You know, we would have these good periods, and then they would have this huge blow up, and then go their way. and then somehow end up back together. And we were constantly moving, you know, not too much,

but we moved, you know, here and there. They had their houses or my dad would, my stepdad would have his house. My mom, she would have hers. And it just became a thing. But again, I constantly reiterate so much of that I didn't feel affected me at that time because I was hyper focused on sports. in baseball. So as life continued on, bro, that was all I was engaged in, doing my thing.

But towards the middle of middle school pride, those latter parts of middle school, well, I started again being more and more immersed in these very toxic environments. And, you know, the two that I can point to in particular is that environment around the because every day I was meeting characters. As a kid, I shouldn't have been exposed to. That's the perfect name, by the way. The pit. It just sounds like something nefarious is going on to the pit.

The pit, yeah, bro, but it was, I'm on the real. Like, every day I was down there, I definitely was in the pit, exposed to all the crud, bro. Because I said there were vagrants down there, drug addicts. It was horrible and I'm just soaking up all this bullshit that they had to feed me because they're telling me stories. I'm entertained by it. I was having a good time. I didn't see anything wrong with it. So I'm just absorbing that.

And then the other environment that I started to kind of become immersed in was that of my stepbrothers. Now, as I was saying earlier, my stepdad had, I think, seven. seven, six, seven children. Four boys, three girls. Boys, a mess. A mess. I think there was only one of them that was on a decent track. And they were much older than me, mind you. So at this time, 12 years old or whatever, these guys were like 20 plus years, my senior. And a couple of them in particular had some pretty extreme drug habits. and struggled with alcoholism. And the drug habits were crack addictions, bro. So it was definitely extreme. And, you know, for those earliest parts of my life, my mom and stepdad had tried their best to shelter me

even from that part of the family because they knew what was inevitable. They knew once I started getting around my stepbrothers that I would likely start emulating them and absorbing a whole bunch of their philosophies and trying to be like them. And sure enough, you know, when my brothers migrated out here from Kentucky and other parts of the country, you know, one in particular that I really revered,

you know, it was all bad, bro. You know, he would stay at my stepdad's house every once in a while and we would constantly kick it, but it was, you know, hanging out with him where I really started to see like those darker sides of the addictions really get exposed to like pornography and all this other crazy shit because that was his babysitter for me. I remember many times when he would come over and be babysitting me and as my parents were out doing their thing and as he'd lock himself in the bathroom and get it high, I'm sitting there knocking on the door bugging him like what are you doing come out and play with me and he's like brother get

the fuck away from the door or slide me a porn magazine or something i'd be like oh he'd be like yeah go entertain yourself man fuck out of here so as a kid you know i started hanging around my stepbrother a little bit more and you know he had done a little bit of time here and there and i'm hearing these stories hearing about this life of crime that he's glorifying and you know all the hearing about all the fruits of their criminal lives and you know and they never tell you the real of that existence it's always the highlights yeah it sounds exciting yeah that sounds very exciting they're all they're only telling you about the thrills the highs the girls the money all of the instant gratification and it sounds so alluring and he seemed cool in my eyes like my brothers

my stepbrothers, they didn't seem to be losers to me, even though they had these dark pasts and were struggling with their addictions. I never saw them as being less than. And it was only in their darkest moments when I would even question who they were. And when I say those dark moments, there were plenty of times when my stepbrother would go on these alcohol dinges and get very violent. Like he was a very violent drunk. And there were many times where he would show up to the house or to my, to the pit and these drunken rages and wanting to fight my stepdad and they would get into these physical altercations. I mean, to the point where they're drawing blood from each other and fighting in the parking lot of the restaurant and patrons are looking out like, what the fuck is going on? Police are showing up and taking my brother to the detox unit and or arresting him all together.

And I used to witness this all the time. You just get accustomed to it, though. It just becomes a part of your existence. You become kind of numb to it. It's kind of, it's funny because, you know, you see guys like that. And then two weeks later, you're talking to them and there's just the coolest fucking guy ever. Yeah. And then a month later, they do, they, they're just this despicable human being.

And it's, it's, it's, if you don't have that problem, it's so hard to rectify. in your mind you know it just doesn't especially since other people can be alcoholics or addicts of some kind and and they manage it somehow yeah like but this guy's a lunatic oh no he would turn and it's crazy because just like you said it was day and night when he was sober this is he was the most lovable uh charismatic compassionate compassionate human being on earth and I used to love spending time around him, but the moment he got that liquor in him, bro, and especially the crack, once he was mixing the two, because he would just sit there and smoke crack all day, and then start down in bottles of gin, like it was water. And, yeah, once that got in him, it was over. I mean, there were times you tried to fight me, he would turn on anyone in an instant.

And yeah, that became like a cycle, but again, this was someone that I revered and someone that I definitely looked up to him and the other stepbrothers of mine and even the cousins of mine that I was starting to come around and all of them, you know, a couple in particular, they're deeply immersed in the gang lifestyle. They're walking down that dark path. And I'm just taking these notes, these subtle cues and notes from these. guys, because this is a very formative period of my life. I mean, middle school, going into high school, that's when a lot of kids are forming their identity and trying to figure out who they are. So all

these elements that I'm being exposed to, and especially when it comes to the black men in my sphere, these were my role models. I mean, my stepdad wasn't anyone that I aspired to be like. I was actually trying to be the exact opposite of him. So outside of him, the only other black men that were in my sphere were drug addicts, drug dealers, gangsters, these guys that are thoroughly immersed in the streets. And this is what I'm starting to think is normal, huh? Say it again. I was going to say the path to follow?

Yeah, the path to follow. Yeah. So normal, that's what's right before my eyes. And the only thing I'm really seen. So I'm like, this must be the way. And with everybody's expectations of me as a kid, I mean, I used to hear, you know, you're square or you're not hard enough or whatever, and you start taking that stuff to heart. Like, yeah, you're right. Maybe I should dumb it down a little bit or maybe I should sack my pants a little bit or, you know, change my lingo and walk and talk, especially to be cool because that's all most kids are concerned about at that age is how they're perceived.

And at school, I just wanted to be the cool guy. And for the most part, I was, always was a popular kid. But I was always fine to be even more popular, especially with the gals. So as I'm seeing, all those are the guys that are dating the, that are dating all the hot chicks, even though they're losers and jerkoffs. And they're not going to go anywhere, but still, that's what women, especially in high school, are attracted to. Yeah. And that, that right there and just being immersed in these different circles is what shifted so many of my ideas on who I should be and who I was.

You know, and I started losing that vision of becoming a major league baseball player that starts taking the back seat. And you start, I started assuming these other little identities and personas and wanting to be the cool guy, the bad boy that the girl. were drawn to. And little by little, you just start adopting these little nuanced behaviors and playing the role. You start playing the role. It starts as an act and eventually becomes you. But at that time, it was just an act for me because everything that I was portraying was the farthest thing from who I really was. I wasn't hard. I wasn't violent, but I started to portray that. Like, you know, I'm starting to get into fist fights at school just to prove how tough I am to the girls and to my peers, you know, these- But eventually you are that tough guy because you're getting into fights all the time and you are that hard guy, yeah.

Exactly, exactly. So that is what started to begin to happen, you know, towards these latter parts of middle school and suddenly, you know, sports and academics are not a priority in my life. It's now impressing girls. It's now my identity in being that cool kid. And because of that, you know, the behaviors begin to change. But what's interesting is I've lived a double life. Well, I was very good at being what my parents thought I should be in front of them, but behind closed doors and when I was with my friends,

but I was a completely different character, something that, exact opposite of what my mom raised me to be. And for a while, I was able to hide all that. Now, granted, some of the behaviors would come out because when I'm getting suspended from school for fighting and things of the sort, like, of course, my parents are called and they're like, whoa, what the fuck is up with you? You know what I'm saying? What are you doing? But I'm sure they probably are writing it off his normal teenage behavior. Like, you know, he's a boy going in the high school. Like, this is to be expected. Um, so I don't think they gave it too much thought until about my freshman year because that's when things

started to get a little bit out of hand because by now I'm like experimenting what weed and smoking a lot with my friends skipping school beginning to get into way more fights and parents are getting called a little bit more and more here and there and it got to the point where they felt like they had to intervene they're like okay something's happening we don't know what it is but it's probably the circles that he's involved in. And so not only did they try to distance me from some of these family members of mine that they knew were bad examples, but I remember them trying to pull me out of public school there for a minute and put me in private school for a year and stayed in private school for about a year, played the role, did whatever I needed to do

to appease my parents and make them feel like I had changed or that I was walking this straight path and then went right back to the bullshit but about that time bro it was kind of too late um how old were you so this is freshman year of high school when things are getting kind of crazy like my circle of friends are nothing but misfits gangsters and losers of course at the time you said it earlier like you don't see that then the cool kids all the cool kids that existed back then or what later became losers like they're the nobodies in the world.

Right. And it's all these nerds that we used to make fun of that are now running these Fortune 500 companies and living the grand life, you know, because they put in all the work necessary to get there. Right. But at the time, we're like, man, I'm trying to be cool. Fuck all that.

Getting straight A's and studying and working hard. like, oh, that's not appealing. So, yeah, to answer your question, it's about freshman year of high school when all this is happening, when my parents are thinking about these moves that need to play, take place. But again, it's too late, bro. I'm too immersed in it. I'm too narrowly focused on who I want to be or who I think I should be. And peer pressure, those expectations in my peers, bro, that was too much.

Like, I had to meet that. and I was such a people pleaser, like I was willing to do whatever was necessary to be liked. And that was fucking dangerous, especially with the stuff that I was flirting with back then. And I say it was dangerous because now it goes from just getting in fist fights at school and skipping school and, you know, trying weed and smoking that here and there to maybe even trying alcohol here and there to now my friends are getting in. into criminal activity. You know, there were numerous lunch breaks of ours

where I remember us going to like the 7-Eleven across the street from the high school and friends of mine just taking whatever they want off the shelves, pocketing it, and engaging in these little petty thefts. And I remember the first time I saw it, it kind of reminded me of what I felt when that kid next to the pit brought that controller to me

because my moral compass, no, I know better, bro. I know better. I know this is wrong. But it felt so right. And when you see your friends constantly get in away with it, it empowers you. And when everyone in your circle is engaging in this behavior, you start to question, like, is it really that bad? Like, this is normal. This is what they do every time they go out.

And no one's getting caught for it. No one's being held accountable. Why wouldn't I indulge in it? Why the fuck would I pay a couple of things? bucks for this candy bar when I can just get it for free like well and then there's always the justification like oh they're insured they have plenty of money they won't miss it it's a huge corporation yeah exactly so eventually it got to a point bro where now when we go out to these little stores or we're hanging out i'm engaging in it and it you know the first time it was

terrifying you probably know this like the first time you dip your toe in that pond it's terrifying on as hell, but you just get acclimated to it. And one thing empowers you to try the next and empowers you to try the next and you just keep pushing the limit. So it went from us stealing little candy at the 7-Eleven and, you know, pilfering these little cigars off the shelves for us to smoke to maybe stealing CDs at the CD store or little tapes, cassette tapes, for those of you that are unaware of dating myself. So you go from that to still and maybe close some articles of clothing from the clothing store when you're out.

And it just got progressive and more progressive to the point now. And we're into my, what, sophomore junior year of high school, well, I'm thoroughly immersed in the gang lifestyle because so many of my best friends at the time, full-fledged gang members. So even though at the time, I hadn't yet been initiated into a gang, like, I'm inheriting their beeps. You know, we're having these gang brawls at school and at the mall. And it's not even my fucking problem. Half the time, I'm getting in these fights because of something my friend did or rivals that he's getting into it with. I'm just backing up my friend. So they hated him. I hated them. And man, there were plenty of bloody brawere

where we're just getting into it at the schoolyard or it was on site, bro. Like there was so much bad blood between us and some of these game rivals of his that it didn't matter where we saw each other. There were times where we saw each other at the grocery store and we're going at it. Patrons just looking at us like, what the fuck? The middle of the mall. It didn't matter. There was a time where I remember catching one of these game rivals.

so to speak, coming out of a grocery store and he just, he tried to swing on me and there were a couple of my partners there and we just jumped them right there in the parking lot. Bash his head in with this rock, sent him to the hospital, but that was just like a way of life, though. Sometimes they would get us and leave us bloody and battered. Sometimes we get them and back and forth it went. and it never got to the shooting part because the way I grew up, bro, it's not like these kids nowadays. Like nowadays, they're so quick to pick up guns and shoot each other. You didn't get respect like that in the streets when I was coming up. Like, if you were one of those kids that

only played with guns, they looked at you like you were a coward. They wanted to know you could fight. And it's interesting because being a handsome kid, bro, like I used to get a little bit more flack because of that. Like they'd be like, oh, you ain't tough. You're a pretty boy or this down the other. So it seemed like I was getting in more fights even behind that again and trying to maintain this tough persona and image than I was, even with the gang stuff. You know, I was constantly trying to prove how tough I really was because they'd be like, ah, nah, you can't fight. So here, let's go. Let's prove it. Let's see. So I'm constantly getting into it, bro. Constantly. And again, these patterns of behavior are just getting worse and worse.

You're getting into these petty crimes. I'm really getting into this violent aspect of my life and just lashing out. And it's crazy because I was not intrinsically a violent person. But the more I played that role, that's how I begin to express myself, bro. I became very, very violent. Like it didn't take much to get me to go from me. zero to a hundred back then. You could just be looking at me wrong.

And I'd be like, what the fuck? What's up? Like, what's on your mind? Like, you're trying to do something? I was always trying to fight over the stupidest shit. So I'm doing that. My friends and I are now. It went from the petty thefts to burglaries.

You know, we're engaging in little burglaries. And like, we're sneaking out with each other, breaking into cars, still in car stereos. breaking into businesses and then it's getting into like motor vehicle theft and I remember around like 15, 16 well 15 is when I started having my little run-ins with the law.

I remember getting ticketed one night for like some underage drinking. They had caught us partying. And then I remember shortly thereafter some friends and I getting arrested for trying to do a little smash and grab at a pawn shop. We had stolen a car, ran it into the building. Yeah, bro, it's getting crazy.

It's getting crazy, right? Because we're not up to this point. We had never been caught for anything. And I'm living this double life. I can't stress that enough. Like my parents, I'm hiding all this from them. They still, for the most part, are thinking like I'm this good kid. Yeah, he gets in a couple of fights here and there.

They have no clue how deep that well really is or how deep that hole really goes. Right. And this one night in particular, you know, some friends and I, I don't know what even inspired the score, but we're like, hey, we're going to rob this pawn shop, whatever. So we steal a car, drive it into the shop. We try to do our thing. Long story short, we ended up getting arrested that night. and that was the first time I'd been arrested but even then it wasn't a big deal because my boy and I that got caught we ended up going to juvie for maybe a couple of weeks

getting what's your mom's name at this point she's got to be she's got oh she's livid she's fucking livid now she's like because she it just seemed to happen overnight you know she goes from having this kid that's academically inclined playing sports seemingly on the right path, very charismatic, like, seems to have everything going for himself to now a problem child and is getting arrested. And she was like, what the fuck? Where did this come from? And I don't even, I remember that night I got arrested for that first time. I was more fearful of her reaction than I was actually getting charged. Right. Because at this point of my life, like, disappointed my mom or fearing her wrath was worse than anything imaginable or experiencing her wrath,

I should say, was worse than anything imaginable. Because I did used to get some good ass whoopens. I will say that. That was another thing about that era I came up in. Parents had no qualms about whooping that ass with a belt or whatever. And I used to get my fair share of those. So when I got arrested, I almost preferred to be. locked up opposed to going home and dealing with that ass whooping and everything else that

was going to come with that yeah i remember my i remember my dad telling me one time he's like listen if you get arrested he's like you don't want to call me like it was like it was like okay so definitely don't get arrested he's an asshole he's an asshole on the best of circumstances yeah yeah yeah real shit and that's how i felt uh I feared my parents, because even my stepdad, bro, he, fuck. Some of the worst beatings I got as a kid came from him. Like, he did not play. I remember calling the cops on him once.

This was when I was like, I want to say five, six. I was very young. And I remember him beating the shit out of me one night. And I got, I was butt naked and somehow slipped his grit and ran to the kitchen and dialed 911. And before I could talk to an operator or anybody, he snatched the phone from me and was like, boy, I'll give you a reason to call the cops and begin to wop my ass even more. And what's crazy, we'll get back to the arrest here and just say.

But what's crazy is that night, that same night I got that ass whooping, my stepdad made it a point to take me to the police station after that. He had some friends that were police officers. So we're going down to the police station He was like, oh, you want to tell them what I did to you? I was like, yeah, you're fucking right. I do, yeah. So we go to this police station. He was like, I'll let you tell him what I did.

We go, we have this little sit down with a couple of these officers and we go to this room. And I remember my stepdad and my mom like prompt me. Yeah, go ahead. Tell him what happened. And I'm like, yeah, this dude just beat me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Throw him all the way under the bus. And they just get to chuckling.

and they're like, they're like, let me tell you something, kid. They're like, your parents so long as you're living under their roof can do whatever they want to you. They brought you into this world and they can take you out of it. And I just remember as a kid, especially being that young, five, six looking at this cop. Like, are you fucking serious right now? I was like, okay. And that's probably another shift that occurred within me when I'm looking at these authority figures telling me like, yeah, good luck, kid. Because he told me, all right.

He was like, if your dad wanted to throw you through a wall, he can do that. And I was like, oh, is that right? I was like, duly noted. And I was like, yeah, this is the last time I'm going to deal with y'all. But, yeah, the wrath, bro, nothing to play with. So when my mom, when that night came, there were a lot of tears, bro, a lot of disappointment, obviously, a lot of shame. And I remember even feeling it myself temporarily. you know because again I knew better I was raised better and here I am this is one of those moments

it's interesting because when you're in that fast lifestyle there's rarely those times where you slow down enough to really see your true reflection and it was in that moment sitting in jail waiting to be released and on probation where you do start to reflect a little bit but it's not enough like I'm starting to wonder, like, maybe I should change my path or shift course a little bit and examine some of the parts of myself that need to be changed. But it didn't have any lasting impression on me, bro. Because when I got out, even though I was starting to think about some of these choices I was making, well, you get out.

The girls at school are pat me on my back. like that's what's up you's a bad boy for real because there weren't too many of my peers that were catching criminal charges at that age so they're like oh he's a bad boy this is he's he's the real deal so it just gave me more street cred peers of mine are like yeah let's go so I'm empowered bro that stuff just emboldened me because now they're looking at me like yeah you use a gangster for real and you just there's a certain respect that comes with that and it's intoxicating to say the least right and how much of a people pleaser I was to see how people were applauding that behavior and to see how much people were aching it on and to see how excited they would get

even to watch me fight or to just witness me do some of the things that I was doing back then like, bro, you feed off of that. And that became my life. You know, you just, I became entranced and to the point where now I'm leaving home, like 15, 16, I'm out. I'm thoroughly immersed in gangs now. Like, I'm initiated to four-corner hustlers, and I'm doing my thing running with my little crew out there.

and the behaviors just worsened. So all of the experimentation is just getting out of control with the alcohol. I never got too carried away with the drugs, the hard drugs, simply because of all that I witnessed with my stepbrothers, you know, and seeing crack addiction up close and personal. Well, I made a vow to myself as a very, young kid that I would never go down that path. Right.

But I did start experimenting with cocaine. You know, my friends and I are now selling it at this point, because you name it, we were doing it, bro. Everything from the thefts to selling drugs, whatever. We're in these streets, they're doing whatever we can to get by. And like I said, we're living on our own. So whether we're living house to house, eventually. it got to a point where me and my boys got her own apartment.

But up to that point, well, we're just in the streets fucking running wild, living life on our terms, getting high, only concerned about sleeping with women, chasing the different highs, whatever the next robbery or score was going to be, we're always looking for the next thing to get involved in and still involved in all of the gang fights and all of that. Mostly, mostly you guys are selling drugs or are you just, you're just doing everything across the board? Oh, across the board. It was ridiculous because, well, let me put it like this.

We were mostly relying on selling Coke there for a while. And I remember one night we had gotten raw. for some ounces that was funned to us by one of my older gang affiliates. And I remember when that happened, not having the money, bro, to pay for this debt. And I panicked because I was like, fuck, we just got wrong for all this cocaine. I can't go back to my fucking gang affiliates and be like, hey, I'm out of this money. like my bad right so i'm like what do we do yeah you don't have any more coke to you don't have anything else to sell so don't have anything else to sell um don't have much money because we're

blowing it as much as it's coming in we're blowing it just as quickly and it's crumbs bro in retrospect we thought we were doing it but we weren't doing shit bro we're sitting we were out there taking all these chances with our lives and doing the most for peanuts you know what i'm saying we're getting thousands of dollars whatever it was it wasn't worth the risks right at all and it was not as glorious as most people will make it seem in these movies and everything else when they talk about the life of crime like bro we were bottom feeders but the kids on the street that are taking these huge chances are are making nothing you know 50 a couple hundred bucks a day standing on a quarter making five bucks a sale five bucks a sale but at the end of the day it doesn't

that up for being being put in a position where you could get shot you could get arrested you could get you could have a pistol on you and sell a $10 crack rock and end up with 15 fucking years because you got two felonies like you know you don't even know that nobody tells you that till you're sitting in prison until your attorney is explaining you've been arrested twice here's how the law works and you're going yeah yep and again none of us no one in my circle at least no one I knew had done any crazy amount of time or had suffered any of these extreme consequences that come with that life. So we're thinking we're doing it. We're thinking with our little hundreds or thousands, whatever we're making in the streets, we're doing the damn thing because we got the new J's on or we got the new fits and we looked apart. We look like we got money, but it's nothing. But when you get robbed, when you get robbed for that money, we'd. Yeah, we're out. Right. And so I remember spending a lot of time contemplating like fuck what are we going to do and i finally get the nerve to call my boy and i'm like hey i'm sorry man i got we got robbed and he was like cool let's sit down

and talk so we go meet him and during this meeting you know he was like well it's unfortunate that's part of the game you know it's happened to the best of us but he was like i'm i need my money and he was like we're going to get my money and one of the things that he had suggested was armed robbery. He was like, well, you know, the quickest way we can go ahead and get some of this cash is go pull a couple of nicks. Because we had already grown accustomed to robbing drug dealers and everything else. But he was like, well, let's just hit a couple businesses or whatever. Cool.

We're done. And mind you, up to this point, I'd already been engaged in burglaries and this down and the other. So armed robbery wasn't too far out the realm of what we were already doing. And I'm like, fuck it, let's go. And that's kind of what began my journey into that realm. And it's very, that's extremely intoxicating. Because I remember the first time we did an arm robbery, like being terrified to death, bro. I mean, my heart was jumping out of my chest, you know, just plotting that score,

going into that establishment and then booking it from there. But I can't even, huh? I was going to say, well, what happened? What was that? I don't want to put too much detail out there, but I just remember it was a convenience store. And cameras, guys behind the counter with possibly with a gun,

and the police actually investigate those crimes. Exactly. Unlike a burglary where they take what was missing? and they store it somewhere. They're actually looking for the guy that's Robin 7-Elevens. Exactly. Yep. So we go in there, masked up.

We had stolen a car, did our thing, bro. But I remember going into there, like, terrified to death. Like, that's, I've experienced various highs in my life. But when you do something like that, the tear, exhilaration, whatever, however we're going to label that rush is incomparable. Like, I haven't felt too many things like that in my life. And I've been in some pretty crazy situations from being beaten damn there to death. Like, I found myself in some pretty life-threatening situations and stuff that would get that heart in adrenaline pumping.

But nothing compares. But what do you end up getting? hundreds bro is peanuts it's nothing but again we're just doing it out of necessity we're trying to take care of this drug desk we're like fuck it let's do it we go in there we handle business bro we appease my gang affiliate and supplier and he was like cool bro and he's impressed and it's crazy because we're kids bro we're teenagers and these dudes that are guiding us had done prison time, not a lot. And the two in particular that I was up under had just gotten out of prison, had done like a few years inside. These dudes were like late 20s, early 30s, and they're just

misguided the fuck out of us, which again, as I look back at that, I'm like, bro, that's crazy. What are these grown-ass men, one, doing with teenagers? Because these were our everyday guys. Like, I'm sitting here kicking it with these dudes all the time. These dudes are up at the high school picking me up hanging out with the chicks that we're hanging out with and I'm like it's so crazy now when I look back on that time of my life because I'm like these grown men

that had no business even being around us bro and they were doing the most just poisoning our minds sending us on these little missions like had no regard for our lives whatsoever but proclaimed to love us

same thing that they probably went through that somebody did that same thing that they just thought this is a natural progression of being in this life yeah and what other options do they you know i'm not justifying it i'm just saying that like in you know to them in that lifestyle it's like what other choices do i have i've never really had a job and they think oh you don't make anything in a job anyway you know what are you going to make 10 bucks an hour i can make that in three minutes yeah but you can't consistently make that and not end up in prison you know but they don't think that far in advance yeah you know and let's face it it you working at mcdonalds isn't cool

you know those same guys who come in and order a cheeseburger from you and humiliate you and make you feel like you know and that's everything when you're a kid when you're in your teens that's everything what your peers think of you yeah yeah so these guys were perpetuating the cycles that they had come up under They're more or less probably emulating the things that they had seen. You pointed to it like, well, it's just cycles. We were all perpetuating these cycles. And with me, bro, again, after that drug incident,

that first robbery, that armed robbery, that first taste of blood, so to speak, was all it took. Because then, you know, you go from spending all day selling dope to maybe make a few hundred dollars profit or pocket, maybe on a good day at thousand bucks to now like oh i can just go in an establishment and make potentially thousands of bucks if i robbed the right place in a matter of seconds like forget drug dealing i'm about to go to this robbery stuff so instantly i remember my crew and i can't even say it was my crew but our crew back then shifting our entire focus because the same guy that was

us Coke, he was like, you know what, let's just form a crew. So we had our little armed robbery crew now. And now we're just going around, bro, plotting all these scores, little businesses here and there. We started scoping out like check cashing spots because the more we're getting away with the like smaller robberies, the more we're inclined to. You know what? We need to up to any. We need to go ahead and start robbing banks. We need to start robbing check cashing spots it's even more now it's federal they have a budget yeah they'll yeah and listen they've got and they've got cooperating witnesses down they got people just waiting to find out something yep so you got these kids broling these older eyes dudes ripping and running the streets

and granted i'm still selling a little dope here and there still abusing drugs here and there i mean a lot not here and there we're barely eating like we're probably doing more drugs and drinking than we are eating anything valuable or real sustenance. And that was our life, like running the streets, chasing the highs, living on our terms. We're living on our own at this point, teenagers, not answering to anybody, really. And even though I'm on probation, like the standards are so low, the expectations are so low to where they're not even really messing with me. Are these all like convenience stores or are these?

Oh, it's various businesses, bro. Hotels, convenience stores, various establishments, bro, all across the board. I mean, we were predators. Let's call it what it is. We were praying upon whomever and that's the unfortunate reality because we really had no regard. At this point, like my moral compass is now gone. Right. I'd silenced my conscience and everything that I'd raised to be, I can't say it enough.

Like, I was the exact opposite of that. And initially, when I was just acting and playing the role, I can't, we all, I keep pointing to that, but it's real, bro. You can only play a role for so long before you eventually become it. And I always liking it to, like, method acting, you see these actors that really become that role and assume that role as they're playing that part and sometimes it can lead to their ruin prime example was heath ledger when he played the joker they say that that role consumed them and it's probably why he ended up OD in and dying um i was going to say they they say like joe peshy acts like they're like he thinks he's in the mob like he thinks he's a mobster he's a tough guy like you're like

you're like five foot three bro you're not you're not a tough guy yeah you know you didn't kill all these guys you're not a monster so but they they believe that like they play these roles some of these actors get so immersed in those characters it really becomes a part of them uh and i think i know with me those initial years those very formative years in my life role it started off as a role and it became very ingrained in me it was very real and now it's not a game so we were out here doing the most right um you name it we were doing it and i'm earning stripes this whole time so not only are we getting in a way with 99% of the stuff we're doing, and that's empowering in and of itself.

But the status that I'm acquiring all the while in doing this, because to my gang affiliates and those that are over me, they're like, man, this little kids got heart. These little dudes, you know, me and my best friends at the time, 15, 16, whatever it may be, teenagers, they're looking at all this stuff that we're doing. And the lengths that we're willing to go to, they're like, bro, yeah, these motherfuckers are the real deal. Yeah, you're like, you guys are soldiers. And they're feeding that. And, you know, they're telling, they're having these conversations with us. Like, yeah, they're saying those type of words. Like, you guys are soldiers. You're real. You're this down and the other. And it just

affirms something within you. So all of that stuff that I've been raised with, the good morals and values, that stuff's out the window now. Because in my circles, that upright existence, that's not what was respected. You know, it's who could be most treacherous, who could be the hardest, who could be the most violent. That's the stuff that was revered and respected. And those were the people that I was trying to impress. Those were the only people in my circle. Right.

So years of this is happening. Like, we're just going, going, going, going. And I remember, you know, now we're approaching 18 years old. When I turn 18, my juvenile probation transfers over to adult probation. But again, there's not a lot that comes with that. It's just like, oh, stay out of trouble, whatever, finish school. And I remember still being in school somehow, some way throughout all this bullshit. Like, I'm still managing to skate by through school.

Grades aren't the best. But I'm now senior year of high school, I'm considering joining the Marines and had actually enlisted. because a friend of mine at the time matter of fact my girlfriend her brother had enlisted and he and i were going to do the buddy program together and go to the marines so we enlist i'm talking to the recruiters blah blah blah go through the whole process and i remember the recruiter first asked me he's like well what do you want to do i was like i just want to blow some shit up he was like oh well perfect we're going to put you in the infantry and he was like uh you guys are definitely going over to the middle east

right after this, because this was shortly after 9-11. So everything's kicking off over there. They're like, this is where we're going to ship you as soon as you get done with basic training. Cool. But I want to spend another little summer with my friends. So worst to sit, I don't know, I say it's the worst decision now, but I probably would have been one of those guys that went into the military and ended up getting court-martialed

for some crazy shit because I was so criminal-minded. Right. So I probably would have been over there raiding palaces and. doing all types of stupid shit and been one of these military veterans that ends up coming back home spending time in the feds because I lost my mind or did something crazy. Who knows? I have a buddy named Sharif who went to Afghanistan and nicest, calmest guy you'd ever know, and ended up shipping opium back because they don't check like their packs and all the stuff. And he was shipping, you know, every few months shipping fucking tons of fucking, not tons, but whatever, pounds of opiates back to the until he eventually gets caught. And it was just like, you talk to this guy, you would never, never see.

He was like, I know, I don't know what I was doing. It was so easy. Yeah, you're in a, you're in a position of trust when you're in the military. So it's easy to find those loopholes and take advantage of them. And then when it catches up to you, you know. They don't play around with those sentences either, though. 10 years, 15 years. Oh, yeah.

No, they don't. And another thing about the military, bro, it's either going to bring out the best in you or the worse than you. And I think the mindset that I was in, it would have just exacerbated, like, my criminal philosophies and those violent tendencies. Yeah. Or then you get out and you're even more lethal. Yeah.

Now I'm not running into a convenience store and getting a little bit of money. Now you're thinking, let's go take. Let's do a bank takeover. It's like, what? Yeah, we'll dip tie everybody in the bank, go in the vault. Like, are you fucking, like, yeah, you're going to get way more strategic. You're going to, you're now plotting. I was already considering we were already plotting on check cashing spots and banks and armed vehicles.

So I can only imagine what we would have been on had I gotten military training and now I got tactical weapons that I have access to. We would have been a mess, bro. But so what had happened. is during that time, I'm considering, I'm really considering this military opportunity. I'm even considering finishing up school early to get into the military quicker. But for whatever reason, bro, something in me, it was like, just stay one more summer, chill with your friends, and then go that following year. And it wasn't long after that that I was going to prison for the first time.

Some friends and I, we had, we just, the short of it is we had planned to rob this hotel, bro, this one evening. And it was one of those acts of desperation. I don't even, it was this dumbass plot to rob this hotel that we were staying at. We thought it was ingenious because they're like, don't never suspect the people that are staying here, the ones that robbed it. We ended up getting caught for that role. And it was just my co-defendant, Walter and I at that time. The rest of them got away, Scott Free. Is this like robbing the cashier, the head desk?

Yeah, the head desk, yep, the front desk. What do they have? Peanuts. Oh, stupid, right? Right. Who didn't have cash anymore other than a convenience store in a bank? Crazy. I mean, they dealt with a lot of cash back then.

It was a whole different era. Right. Right. So, you know, back then, those drawers were full of money, but nothing worthwhile. I mean, come on, get real. Maybe at most, a couple thousand. But for us, that was enough. Like, shit, that's a good score for the night. We could go party off of that, do whatever. And then tomorrow, go hit another score. That's how ridiculous our mindset was. So we get caught for that. well how do you get caught like i mean you rob the place you run out you jump into a car and yeah so we rob it mind you this is the plan was we had a friend of ours that was going to be the getaway driver he didn't even know he was

going to be the getaway driver but this guy we used to party with he stayed up the street from there we this guy that we sold coke to we didn't have a car at the time so as we're sitting in this hotel room we both come up with this idea to rob this place and everyone agrees at some point like this is feasible like this is doable let's go so the plan was to go rob them come back to the room change clothes call our friend like we're just going to hang out have him come pick us up then we're going to leave the place boom done deal now keep in mind on this particular night it's snowing like crazy.

Well, it's beginning to snow like crazy. So the ground is covered in snow. And it's two separate buildings. So you're the building where we're at, and then you have the front desk in the check-in area where all the guests come and do their thing. So we're like, all right, we're just going to creep down to the front desk,

do our thing, run back to the room. Boom. So everything goes according to plan. We mask up. We get the little sawed-off shotgun. We go down there. running the spot do what we do jet back to the room and as we're jetting out of the lobby a thought occurs to me i'm like bro it's fucking snowing out i was like we're about to leave tracks everywhere leading right

back to the fucking room now granted they would end at the sidewalk of this other building because there was like a little awning right so there wouldn't be tracks literally going to our room but i know just from past experiences and run-ins with the law, been in plenty high-speed chases with them, the whole nine, that once they get the canons involved, they're going to get our scent. So I'm like, fuck, this thought occurs to me as we're running back to the room.

So my... That's a little late for that thought. It's way too late. It's way too late. But the only thing I can think of that will give us a little bit of time, I'm like, let's go to all three floors, because there's multiple floors.

I'm like, let's run. The span of these floors, all of them, door to door, to our scent is everywhere. And then ours is at the top of this third level, the corner at that. So I'm like, this will give us enough time to change, have our friend come get us, and we can get the fuck out of here by the time they even deploy the canine units. So I'm like, that'll give us by us time because I know they're going to have to go door to door at that point, especially if our scent is everywhere. So we get to the room, get away with it, we shower real quick, we change clothes, and sure enough, as I'm changing clothes or we finish up showering, police show up and they do exactly as I anticipated. They're going door to door. And you hear them knocking. And they're asking, they're like, hey, there was a robbery that just took place. Did anyone see anything? There's just cause for concern because the dog is tracking this scent.

everywhere we don't know if these guys are at this location or what we just know that their scent is over here somewhere so we hear them going door to door boom boom and as they're doing it now I'm trying to come up with another plan because this dude that was supposed to pick us up has not showed up and I'm like fuck our getaway driver and now I'm like we can't just walk out there now because dogs are everywhere they're going to definitely smell us so I'm like I don't I don't know what to do. So our two girlfriends are in the room with us at the time. It's me and my boy, Walter, and our two girlfriends.

So my girl, she was like, what should we do? And I tell her, I'm like, answer the door when they come. Me and Walter are going to hide. And it'll just be you and Javanna. And hopefully they'll see these two women and think nothing of it and go on. Like, hey, check in like they've been doing with the rest of the guests. And once, Nikita, that was her name. And once she's like, hey, no one's here.

It's just me and Jumana, blah, blah, blah. We didn't see anything. In my mind, I'm like, the police will go. So they end up making their way to our door. Boom, boom, boom. Subtle knock. You could tell they don't know we're in there. And my girl freezes.

She was like, I don't know if I should answer the door. So I'm like, fucking answer the door. I was like, if you don't answer the door, this is going to be all bad. So she freezes, bro. She doesn't do it. and sure enough, now there's suspicion because they know they can hear someone's in the room. So now multiple officers

are beginning to gather outside the door and I'm like, fuck, we got this shotgun in here. There's no backdoor so we can't go anywhere. I'm like, what? I'm looking at the sillings to see if there's ways to crawl into it or somehow get out of this room.

I'm like, oh, we're fucked. I don't know if we're about to get in a shootout. I don't know what's about to happen. I'm like, this is all bad. So I'm trying to play out all these different scenarios in my mind. And as I'm doing this, the phone rings. And it's the front desk and like a detective or whatever, a negotiator. They're on the phone.

And they're like, hey, who are the occupants of this room? Blah, blah, blah. We're talking. I think they were talking to my girlfriend, Nikita at the time. And she's telling them, like, it's just a couple of us in the room. they're like, oh, okay, that's cool. We just want to pull you guys out for questioning. There was a robbery at the hotel. Do you guys mind coming out and talking to us? So we're like, sure, why not? So we stall a little bit and I'm like, I got to hide this shit. Now, what we did have

going for us is that shotgun had never been fired. So gunpowder residue, the stuff that these canons normally are sniffing for, I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, they're not going to be able to smell this gun. What I don't consider is the shotgun shells are fucking right there. So they're still going to smell something. But I'm like, let me stash this shotgun under the credenza. So we lift up the credenza, throw the shotgun, the shells, the cash, everything, the masks, the whole nine, anything that could possibly incriminate us under this credenza and then put it down. I'm like, fuck it. We're just going to play stupid. Like we don't know what's happening. We're going to play along with the police and see how this goes. So one by one, they have us come out of

the room. Guns are drawn on us. Canons are out there. There's tactical units everywhere. We're like, this is crazy. So we come out and one by one, they're pulling us out and they have the desk clerk out there standing some ways down the path trying to identify us. Now, what I don't know at the time is he can't identify us and what he tells them later on is like these dudes are way skinnier than I thought because we had these baggy ass clothes on when we robbed the place so when he sees us we're like a buck 40 soaking wet baby faces we look like kids bro so when this dude sees us he was like that couldn't have been them right these dudes were way bigger way more menacing like look at these little cute kids like they didn't rob me so they pull us into this

neighboring room and they do a search of the room and they don't find anything so they're going we hear them going back and forth on the radio they're like 10-4 all clear blah blah blah all the stuff and my mom like I can't believe we just got away with this shit so one of the officers in the room he was like we're about to let you guys go uh he was like it's clear he said but he runs there was a couple of things he runs my girl's record Nikita at the time she's a runaway so she has to go home. They run my record. They see I'm on probation. And they're like, well, we got to take you in, blah, blah, blah for, because I had a warrant because I, whatever, didn't meet some type of probation standard. And they had issued a bench warrant for my arrest. Nothing big, but they're like,

we need to take you in so you can get this cleared up. And then Giovanna, they're like, we need to have her parents come get her, whatever, whatever. And then my boy, Walter, they're about to let go Scott Free. So as we're waiting, we're all there. I'm sitting there in disbelief. Like, I can't believe we just got away with this shit. This is crazy. And I have no problem going to jail now just for this little probation violation, opposed to being arrested for armed charges. So as we're waiting, I'm somewhat relieved. But we're sitting there waiting for Jamana's parents. They finally show up. They pull her out. And shortly after they pull her out, bro, we hear like a little bit of conversation over the radio and uh we hear them reinitiate the search

so we're like oh fuck so we hear them go back in the room we hear them lift up the credenza and then we hear like all this other police chatter and blah blah blah and then he's like yeah we're going to we're going to be taking you in on formal charges yada yada yada so what ended up happened is Giovanna ended up telling on this. I mean, did she not realize you were in the clear? She realized we were in the clear, but what I think happened is that her parents pressured her into cooperating with the police and just telling them what happened and where the gun and shit was. Right. I mean, that's evident what happened. That came out later. Like, we didn't know that in the moment, but it came out later in the discovery when the facts of the

case came out, what transpired. But that's... is ultimately what happened. Like she ended up getting pressured by her parents and the police to go ahead and throw everybody under the bus. So we end up getting arrested that night, bro. And what came of that was a 10-year sentence. Oh, yeah. 18 years old, just had just turned 18 years old. And my boy and I were both sentenced to the Department of Corrections for 10 years. the buddy system the buddy system the wrong one

should have took my ass to the Marines yeah instead I signed up for a life of suffering yeah bro 140 pounds soaking wet 18 years old pretty boy I'm going to big boy prison now

gun charge right yeah it's all down yeah so they get the they get the shot They get all the shells. They get everything. And they connect us to a string of robberies. Because we had been dubbed the Screen Mask Bandits.

And you were wearing the screen mask? Screen masks. So we would wear those masks from screen. Okay. Yeah. We would always wear those during our robberies. So they had connected us to this long string of robberies. Because remember, for years.

my boys and I were running in this crew doing our thing right and now it's all catching up to us because there's an MO like there's a certain pattern they know that we are these guys that have been doing all these robberies um so now that they have us connected to this they're like yeah these are the screen mask band this blah blah blah blah blah blah blah they got us we're hit so we finally signed a deal for 10 years bro and it's now real The real consequences of this lifestyle are now, I'm now being faced with that. And I was sent to Lyman Correctional Facility. And this was 2003 when I pulled up to Lyman. And at that time, that was by far probably one of the worst prisons in Colorado. It was a lifer camp. Most of the guys that had been sent there had been there for decades and there for like murder for some pretty serious charges.

And the reason they had sent me there is because of my violent history. Because even in the county jail before going to prison, I'm still fighting. I broke this dude's jaw in the county jail and it caught some more assault charges behind that. And this is before I'd even been sentenced for the robberies.

So they're like, oh, you're a little badass. Okay, well, we got a place for you. Don't worry about it. Right. Yeah, you think you're tough? We're going to send you where the tough guys are. So they instead of sending me to Buny because typically they send the younger gang affiliates

to Buena Vista. Somehow I missed that train. They were like, all right, you're just going to go to the big boy camp. Yeah, I'm pulling up to Lyman, 2003. Buck 40 soaking wet, thinking I'm hot shit. And stepping into hell for real. But that time wasn't all bad.

You know, I, from day one of stepping into that prison, I had some guardian angels watching over me. And literally, day one, like, soon as I came out of orientation and stepped foot into that first pod that I was placed in, like a very grounded group of brothers took me under their wing and you i think i don't know what compelled them to take me under their wings as they did but i mean i'm sure it was god first and foremost but i think that in their eyes they saw this naive kid that could have very easily gotten swallowed up by that environment and i would have for it not for their mentorship and guidance and uh the moment they recognized that they

I feel like they knew they had to act. And, you know, when I stepped foot into that pod, you know, these guys took me in, made sure I had everything that I needed. They orientated me and let me know the do's and don'ts of prison life. And, you know, the things to not get involved in. And that began a real deep spiritual journey for me and kind of helped me to begin doing that internal work and undoing a lot of what the streets and all that indoctrination had done to me throughout the years. And in all I ended up serving five years on that sentence. And most of it

was constructive. You know, there was a lot of violence that I witnessed while I was on the inside murders, riots, this, that, and the other. But those mentors of mine really made it a point to try to keep me away from all of that. They took me under the wings. They made sure that I was reading and educating myself. Once they recognized that I had artistic abilities, they pushed me to start educating myself and honing those skills. And there was one guy in particular that I met in there as guy, he was a lifer named John Sherman. He was serving life for murder at that time. And when I met him, he had already been down for damn near 20 years. but he had worked his way up to earn the warden's trust and he had more or less like his own

paint shop in studio in the prison so they had the maintenance shop and he had his own section bro where he was able to paint um he did all the signs around the prison he had painted these massive murals around the prison and back then that was kind of a rare thing you know the Colorado prison system changed a little bit here late. And you'll see murals everywhere now. But back then, you didn't see a lot of that in these prisons, but they allowed him to do that back then. But this guy in particular took me under his wing and began to pour into me. He began to teach me all these fine art practices. And I would just spend days with him as he's teaching me how to draw and he got me to start assuming the mindset of an artist because it was more than just

teaching me the technical skills he wanted me to start questioning life and to start questioning my reality and to start questioning myself and even through my art start encapsulating these broader messages, but I was just the budding artist then. So much of what he was pouring into me was lost on me at that time. Like it, it was in there somewhere. And eventually later on in life, as we'll get to, it sprouted and came out of me. But at the time, the things that he was instilling in me, I didn't really understand the value of them. But all, all that to say, like, I had these great men around me that were trying to challenge my belief systems, trying to give me to think differently about the life that I was leading. And many of these men didn't think that they

would ever get another chance of living life. So they, I feel, felt a responsibility in raising me like the children they had abandoned. You know, they wanted to give me an opportunity to live a life that they may never be able to live. And through me, they felt like they were going to be able to live vicariously. So for five years, bro, that was my existence, you know, of me pushing myself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And these guys, through working out with them, I ended up gaining like 40, 50 pounds. Mentally, you know, these dudes are just forcing me to read all of these philosophical books, spiritual books, and getting me to really start thinking deeply about life in existence. And I would have never even started thinking on these levels

were not for these guys. Because going into prison, I mean, yeah, I was educated to some extent, but these guys were making me think on a whole different level. All in all, bro, after spending that five years inside, like I thought I was ready for life. You know, everyone saw the art potential that I had. They saw, you know, the charisma. and personality and character that I possessed. And they just knew like I was destined for greatness. They're like, bro, you're 23. You still have a whole life ahead of you.

You can get out of this and put your past behind you. And anyone that reared me behind bars, everyone, they never thought I'd come back to prison, bro. When I left in 2008, I spent exactly five years inside before I was finally parole on that sentence. and then what was it February of 2008 is when I was released and when I was released bro there was no one inside of that prison that thought I was coming back you know they thought that they had done their due diligence in rearing me um they had seen a transformation because the transformation was real everything that I endured because while I was in there I ended up

finishing my education and getting my GD I ended up taking a whole bunch of vocational classes and getting all this training from like the technical trades and construction to that computer information processing. I was trying to absorb as much as I could while I was in there. So whatever class they offered, I was taking it, especially when it came to self-help and betterment, like I was absorbing what I could. So when I left, thought I was prepared. But I didn't leave prison with the right mindset, first of all, because I was very prideful, bro. 23, had some muscles now, good looks, a little bit of talent. I was like, shit, you can't tell me nothing.

I just survived hell. I was ready to take on the world. But you hadn't really been humbled. I hadn't been humbled. at all exactly not like i should have been and going out i had the right mindset and that it had shifted like i had these grand goals now i had this path that i wanted to be on it was still kind of vague i knew i wanted to be an artist but didn't know exactly what that was going to look like in keeping mind in 2008 i didn't have the skills that i have now like i barely knew how to i didn't know how to

paint. I was just getting into that was good at replicating things, but not creating from my own imagination. So what were you, what were you, you're saying you were doing art? Was it tattooing? Because I saw, you know, the tattoos on Instagram are, you know, I know, this is, remember this is in 2008. We're not talking about now. So back in, yeah, I had done a little bit here and there, but most of what are good that are on Instagram is what I'm saying. Oh, that's current stuff. Right. Okay, but actually I was going to say, I know it's not from back then. Yeah, no, so we'll get to that. The stuff back then that I was doing was a lot of portraiture, you know, celebrity portraits,

and I'm just replicating what I'm seeing in magazines. You know, I would take these celebrity pictures and replicate them. That's all I was doing. And I was learning a lot through doing that, but when I got out in 2003, bro, there wasn't really any real skill that I could rely on, whereas now, and we'll get to how I got to where I'm at, but I didn't have that skill base. And also keep in mind, 2008, this is the heart of the recession. I'm getting out to instability.

My mom's unemployed at this point. My stepdad's filing for bankruptcy and about to lose his restaurant. So I'm stepping out to a pretty precarious situation, right? But I tried in the beginning to do it the right way. Like when I first got out of prison, bro, I got two jobs immediately. And I was willing to do whatever work. It didn't matter. But I got a job at a polling agency and was doing that for some time.

And I started working at a hotel ironically, doing some concierge type stuff. And I also was doing like these little side gigs, modeling and shooting commercials and what have you. And got enrolled in the Art Institute and was about to really seriously pursue an art career. but life started happening bro you know financial responsibilities are beginning to weigh on my shoulders there were some family emergencies and a death in the family that had occurred there was a lot of stuff that piled on top of me very quickly and when these pressures mounted the first instinct wasn't to go back to the criminal lifestyle. My first instinct was to go take out loans and do it the right way.

So what I ended up doing was compounding myself in this ridiculous amount of debt. I'm going to check cashing agencies to take out these loans and then going to other check cashing agencies to pay back these loans. And I'm just taking out all these different loans here and there to handle the debt. that are arising and thinking that this is the way that civilians do it like this is how law abiding civilians handle debt and little did I know that's very irresponsible financially and that ended up catching up to me because now these agencies are threatening to garnish my wages um the there's possessions of mine that are being threatened to be repossessed there's family members

of mine that are needing my assistance as I'm trying to build my life from scratch and they're asking for my help like all this crazy shit is beginning to pile on my shoulders bro and it reached upon a point where I was just like fuck it you know what I know how to make some quick money and if I would have just been patient because so many opportunities were ahead of me but I didn't have the faith or the patience to let these things play out whether we're talking about the modeling agency or the talent agency that I was working for. Like, they had gigs lined up for me, bro. I was about to start being and appearing in these different roles.

And I'd already shot a couple of commercials and was doing this down the other. And then when it came to the Art Institute, well, I was already, my tuition's fully covered. I'm starting school here in a couple of weeks. My friend and I are out here performing concerts and on stage, opening up shows for people. like there were things that were developing but again the immediate pressures that I'm having to take care of were overwhelming to the point where I'm blinded

by that I can't see the long term right so as I've become drowned in that well I panic and another thing that you must keep in mind and it's something that I've told again countless times through stories that I've told I was a child bro you know when they talk about arrested

development. When I went into prison, I was 18 years old. I came out 23. There was so much life experience that I did not have. There was so much emotionally and mentally and spiritually that I lacked. And when I came out into the free world, though I looked like a grown man, though I looked like a grown man, though I comported myself as such, bro, I was far from that. And when life happened to me, I reacted as a childhood, bro. I reverted back to that 18 year old mind and did what 18 year old Sean would do in those circumstances. And unfortunately, what do you think that was? I hop right back in armed robberies. I was like, I know a quick way to solve my family solutions or I know an immediate way to resolve these financial pressures

that I'm feeling. And so what happened is that I go into this situation thinking like I'm just going to do this one robbery to pay this one little debt off. This is the last one. This is the last one. I'm going to do this other robbery to just do just this one time. And I remember this is how ignorant my thinking was. I would pray to God during before these robberies and be like, God, just let me get away with this robbery. Like I'm done after this. I promise. This This is it. Just help me get through this one robbery. And bro, it just kept compounding because I would pay this one debt and then something else would happen.

And opposed to just doing it the right way, I'm always looking for the shortcuts. And then you get accustomed to that. It's intoxicating. You get accustomed to that fast money. It takes so much restraint for a criminal. a reformed criminal to do the right thing when you know how to do the wrong thing

and it's so much easier you know these civilians that are out here they're like just do the right thing kid it's all right like it's easy to say that but when you're considering how to feed yourself or put a roof over your head and you know how to go sell dope or you know how within 10 seconds 30 seconds

to go get tens of thousands of dollars it takes a lot of discipline and restraint to just tough it out bro or to go work overtime or some nothing paying job to make ends meet like the restraint that that requires yeah people i always get the question like do you ever think about committing fraud that i'm like every day like every day you think i you think i'm oh no i would never are you kidding me do you know how tempting it is well it's like the best thing i can equate it to is like a drug addiction because that's a lifelong battle right you struggle with that anyone that struggle with that knows that there's not a point where you're just done with it like that is a fucking demon that constantly lurks behind you right and hovers over you and the

same thing with the criminal mind bro it doesn't matter how much much you change or reform, I can't forget how to do crime. Like, that shit is ingrained in me. I know how to rob. I know how to sell dope. I know how to get fast money. That is in me. So for the rest of my existence, no matter how much I change and become a better human being, when hard times hit, I, like a drug addict, am constantly having to tell myself like, nah, don't take that drink. Don't go down that path. Because all it takes, all it takes is for that one slip and then you're back in it bro you're back in it because once you're going to fuck it the um the the you know the thing is i used to always say when people say well why why did you

commit crime i used to always say well you know i needed the money but then you know when you go to prison and you really start thinking about it it's like well wait a second i did need the money the first time i did it but when you've got a couple hundred thousand in the bank or half a million or a million now why are you doing it you know it was like it's it's not the money like you've got i've got a million and a half in the bank why am i now laying in bed plotting another scam is it it's certainly not for the money you know now i'm actually justifying reasons why i need to do another scam so yeah it's absolutely you know the money becomes irrelevant of course that's a huge plus and it gives you a reason to do it but it's certainly not the the um the deciding factor

in that decision it's the it like i said it's like walking out of the bank going wow like that rush over your whole body you're just like it was amazing yeah and that's so intoxicating and that's the danger in that life that we at one point led and it's one of the the reasons why I'm so adamant about telling this cautionary tell because I wish I would have had those forewarnings when I was signing up for the things. I would say they should teach a they should teach a class in high school all through high school. They should teach the federal sentencing guidelines and whatever state sentencing guidelines that you're in because people or high school students would it would blow their mind to realize that are you telling me that for doing

something that's stupid i could spend this much time in prison and then even if it's a minor chart even if it's something like oh three months listen three months three months might as well be three years because the truth is your your life is devastated when you walk out after three months you don't have a house all your shit's gone all none of your buddies are waiting there with your clothes and and a stack of cash to get you back on your feet your car's gone and you've got bad credit like you are in a horrible situation now yeah yeah you're in high school you never even think that you think oh well you only go to prison if you like kill somebody or something wrong and they just need to know the true consequences all and on what that entails

but yeah bro to get back where we were like that's when I crumbled you were in a bad spot you felt like hey my go-to move I'm gonna go back to it so the robberies begin and again it started off with these small

businesses the stuff that I was accustomed to doing and what's interesting this go this time around my weapon of choice wasn't even real. Like I had a BB gun when I had a BB gun because I knew what I was doing and I knew the traumas that I was not trying to inflict upon my victims. And I think that's the interesting thing about some of the choices I was making back then because I was very measured in how I was going about it. Like I knew that I was victimizing people, but I was going to try to

lessen that victimization somehow. Like that's how I rationalize it in my mind. I'm like, well, if I'm using a BB gun there's no real threat and maybe the trauma won't be that bad and that's how I was able to live with some of those decisions that I was making and then I was like if I'm congenial and nice to these people as I'm robbing them like it's not so bad I'm taking insured money like it's all good and that's how I'm rationalizing it because I know full well what I'm doing and all the damage it's causing because I'm very conscious now at this point of my life especially with all the growing and maturation that had taken place during that five years in prison. So, well, I know what I'm in. I know the chances I'm taking. I know exactly what I'm doing.

But it's not enough still to determine me from Robin. And it goes from again, the progression is ridiculous because it went from the businesses to now check cash in spots to eventually banks. And there was a close, call that occurred with one of the bank robberies. And at this time, mind you, I'm all in the news. Like, they have no idea who I am, supposedly. I'm in the news. It seems like every other week they're talking about the get down and count bandit. The feds had dubbed me that after I started robbing the banks. And I'm wearing different disguises now. It started off where I'm fully masked up and gloved up to now I'm putting on, gluing on fake beards, wearing sunglasses and

these crazy disguises like it's getting pretty methodical and well thought out and every week they're airing this stuff on the news like yeah the get down and count bandit struck again and it's becoming intoxicating in the sense that not only am I getting away with it and the thrills the highs and blah blah blah but people in my circle are now enabling the behavior because they're like let's just hit a robbery let's hit a lick they're egging it on themselves like let's go on shopping sprees let's go get this for that another and it gets to a point where i'd robbed this bank right and during the incident uh die pack ends up going off we get away that day barely by the hairs on my chinny chin um but it was after that robbery where i started having

some epiphanies like whoa you're taking some crazy chances with your life for what. I mean, granted, the money was cool, especially when we started robbing the banks and stuff. But I'm like, is it really worth it? And I remember telling myself that and deciding like, no more. I'm done. I can't be out here taking these chances with my life. I just got done doing five years in prison. And here I am out here in these streets again on this bullshit. Like, this is crazy. What am I doing? But it was too late, bro. A week after that incident occurred. The feds came a knocking. And how did they, how they got on my trail? Yeah. So the story goes, and I still to this day, don't even know the legitimacy of this,

but they say that my bank surveillance photograph had been circulating through various police precincts. And they say that an individual, old school, of mine. I won't name him because I don't know what liability you'll have. We put his name out there. But this guy, just to give the people context, in high school, you already know about the fucking idiot that I was. I was a misfit, bro. This school, high school resource officer that supposedly saw this picture, he and I had the worst blood imaginable. Like, he was constantly breaking up house parties that I was at. He was constantly. trying to catch my hand in the cookie jar because he knew I was thoroughly immersed in the criminal lifestyle. What is a resource officer? Is that like a police officer? Yeah, police officer. Okay. I was stationed inside the schools.

Oh, okay. Sorry. Yep. Yep. So this police officer, like he was constantly throughout my high school years trying to catch me. It was this huge game of cat and mouse between me and him. And there were verbal confrontations with him. Like, I could not stand this clown.

Um, this photograph of mine is floating across these precincts as they're trying to figure out who I am. Now, as the story goes, apparently this officer sees this photograph. Now, mind you, in this photograph, I have a fake beard on, glasses, the whole get up. He sees this photo and he was like, I think that's, I think I know who that is. And they're like, who is it? He was like, that's Sean Marshall and they're like okay possibly but and keep in mind I had put on 50 pounds since he had last seen me now there's certain facial features I guess maybe or that distinctive I don't know but he was like that's Sean Marshall but that's still not enough to get a arrest warrant but it's enough to give them an idea something to look into so they they researched that they put my

name in the system they're like you know what he is on parole right now and this kind of it fits his MO. They're like, let's go ahead and put his mugshot in this lineup and take it back around to these businesses. So they do that. But it doesn't work to their benefits because they take it to all the banks and all these businesses and no one can definitively say like, yeah, that's that's this guy. There's a couple that are kind of questioning like this guy kind of looks familiar, but he had a, they were trying to frame a guilty man. So look, they go through this whole process, right?

And no one can definitively say like that Sean Marshall. There's a couple people that point to me, and they're like, that kind of looks like him, but he had a full disguise on. So that's still peeking their curiosity. The old school resource officer, now takes my mugshot in these bank surveillance photos to my old high school and has a conversation with the principal. And he asks him, he was like, who does this guy look like to you? And apparently, as the story goes, the principal is like, oh, that's Sean Marshall. So the police are like,

you know what? I think we have enough to at least question him. We don't have enough to arrest them, clearly right but we have enough to where we can pick them up and question them and that's exactly what they do they come and they uh that day they had a whole tactical unit and whatnot following me throughout the streets and ended up pulling me over in denver because i'm staying in denver at that time and at that time uh my girl and myself were in the car when they pull us over and uh i know when they pull up behind me they don't have any physical evidence like i'm not worried about that but what's going through my mind is that someone in my crew because there were seven of us right in this string of robberies that i was involved in there were seven people altogether so the first thing that's going through my mind

is someone got caught and is now trying to finger me and implicate me in these robberies so i'm like fuck who got caught fairly enough that's still yeah it's not you're not you getting caught saying Jimmy was with me. Not enough. So I'm panicking, right? I'm like, fuck. I'm trying to play out all the possible scenarios. The police are behind me.

And, yeah, we end up getting pulled over. And the last thing I tell my girlfriend is I'm getting out of the car. I'm like, baby, they don't know shit. Keep your mouth shut. We're good. Shut the fuck up. And I was like, I get out, surrender to the police, play the wrong. Role, long story short, bro, they end up taking me and my girlfriend to the precinct, and they end up getting her to connect me to a robbery, and it snowballs from there.

I end up confessing to my role in all of it, and they then at that point are now pressuring me to roll over on my accomplices. They're like, well, we know there's six other people involved in this. they're like work with us we'll work with you and i'm like no fuck off i'm not about to snitch on these my people just to save my own hide i was like i'm good so they're like pro you're about to go away for a long time you're on parole farm robbery and we're just arresting you for another string of robberies like you're done you have no wiggle room right now like you're either going to play ball with us or your life is over with and what as enticing as it is in that moment to just be like oh man fuck all right it's jim john and whomever i'm like i can't do it bro

the fiber of my being wouldn't allow me to roll over on my accomplices and i'm like i'm not doing it i've been like you have my cell phone i'll give you their phone numbers bro okay jimmy todd todd live with his mom bill fuck i just got out of prison we let can we spread this around oh so you're saying there's 30 years Jimmy can do two. I've got five in them. I couldn't do it, bro. I could not do it.

For the life of me, I couldn't. So they're like, bro, the difference between a fraudster and a guy that goes in a bank with a gun. They're like, what? I'm not even that close with Bill. Yeah. I don't really like Bill.

Be honest, will you? Oh, man. I couldn't do it, bro. I couldn't. And I think for me, the big thing was this. And this is what it boiled down to. the people that I would have been betrayed, they didn't deserve to be in prison. Like, granted, they were involved in these activities, but in my mind, they were misguided.

I had misguided them, and I felt a responsibility with that. The guilt that I felt throughout all those robberies and the reason why I was so careful about how it was victimizing people, like in that moment as I'm being interrogated, I knew I'd fucked myself, bro. And I knew that in the course of that, I had misled. a whole bunch of people and those people that were with me, they were just following my lead, bro. This wasn't a kid anymore. This wasn't little Sean that was following his gang affiliates

and OG's, you know, orders and footsteps. This was grown as Sean who had to be accountable for his actions. And I felt a huge weight in responsibility. And I was like, you know what? This is my fault. I need to take this. And I did. And what ended up happening is I ended up getting 45 years for that.

Yeah. 45 years. And the reason it came to that is throughout the trial. You pled guilty. I pled guilty. And what led to that is that initially the deal that was offered to me was like 30 to 65 years. And when the DA came to me during that whole sentence in phase, I'm like, bro, eat a dick.

I'm not, are you crazy? I was like, I didn't even kill anybody. Like, that's a life sentence. I was like, I'll take a 20-year sentence. I know I fucked up. I know I deserve to be in prison. But I was like, I'm not taking a 30 to 65-year deal. That's crazy.

And for months went back and forth with the DA. And the DA, all he kept saying is like, bro, if you don't roll over on your co-defendants, it's over for you. I don't give a fuck what you're talking about. And this is the only deal I'm putting on the table. I'm putting on the table. He was like, I know there are six other people involved in this. So you either play with me or you're done. And I still refuse to do it. And it got to a point

where my lawyer at the time was able to negotiate what they call a mediation session. And that's where a senior judge mediates between like the defense counsel and the prosecutor, kind of looks over the facts of the case and tries to help both parties come to. to a reasonable deal. And during the course of that session, you know, the senior judge more or less just kept a real with me. He was like, Sean, you're fucked. He was like, I'm not even going to sugarcoat this situation for you. He was like, right now, your feet are cemented into the ground and the DA is like a semi truck coming at you full speed. He was like, today you have a choice to make. You can either die in prison. He was like, because if you take it the trial, because I was adamant

about going to trial. I was like, if you're going to give me a life sentence, I might as well get because I was facing 100 to 400 years. That's how much they stacked those charges against me. Right. There were like 10 plus armed robbery charges, each carrying a 10 to like 32 year sentence on top of a simulated weapon menacing charge, whatever it was. So in all, had I taken my case to trial the way that they stacked those charges against me, because all those sentences would run consecutively with each other. Right. So going to trial and losing, I'm facing 100 to 400 years, right?

He was like, bro, the senior judge is telling me, like, you're either going to die in prison because that's what's going to happen if you get 100 years. He was like, even if you get the low end of that sentence, 100 years, you can't do that. You're going to die in prison. And he was like, granted, you can take chances on appeal and hope that something goes wrong during the course of this trial and that you can come back and get resentenced or get your case thrown out. But he was like, that's rare. He was like, that rarely happens. Right. He was like, so today, you have to make a choice. And I was like, today, he was like, today is the only time

there were this room, this session that we're having there. Like today is when you need to decide whether you're taking this deal or not. You can't meditate on this. You can't think about this for any substantial amount of time. This is it, buddy. What's your lawyer, man? My lawyer is like, Sean, take her the fucking deal. Because the DA, he comes back after these conversations. And he was like, I'll give Sean 45 years. If he's not going to play ball with us, 45 years is all I'm willing to give him.

But so my lawyers. Say it again. You have parole. So 45 years of violent 45 is what they tried to give me to plea to. On that, I would have had to serve 75% of it before being eligible for parole. So they're trying to get me to serve 30 years in prison before I'm even eligible to be a free man. And the judge said that during the session. He was like, your choice today is a matter of choosing between dying in prison or getting out to your grandchildren and living out your golden years.

Right. I was like, what type of choice is that? And he was like, that's the choice you have, my friend. And in that moment, I was like, you know what? Fuck it. Give me the 45 years. Signed off on the deal. And that, bro, is what started a crazy journey.

Because in the beginning of that sentence, because this time I'm sent to Sterling, which is another treacherous prison, one of the worst in Colorado. And this is 2008, very political, very violent. but I don't give a fuck. This time I got muscles. This time I've been to prison. I'm experienced. I know what prison life entails. I'm suicidal.

Don't give a fuck about much of anything. But what I just learned, the night of my arrest, I find out that I have a child on the way. So not only am I having to come to terms with this life sentence that I've just been given. I'm also wrestling with the reality that I have a kid on the way. You know my mom is as despondent as can be. Like her son twice now has thrown his life away for what? Because she knows that's not me. She knows the potential within me. So she's, I can only imagine what was going through her mind at that time. I

know we're not talking. There's a lot of distance between us. The only person that I'm really talking to at that time is my girlfriend. Um, but I'm suicidal, bro. Like, when I first go to Sterling, all I'm thinking about is either escaping, like literally escaping from prison. And I'd already tried in the county jail. I tried to escape. Um, but I'm, I'm now in prison. I'm like, I'm either killing myself or I'm finding the way out of here. That's the bottom line. like I'm not doing this sentence. I can't do the sentence. I'm not going to die in prison. And that first year or so that I'm in that prison, bro, those are my only thoughts. You know, I'm debating whether to kill myself. I'm looking for ways out. And finally,

I'm approached by this group of prisoners that are in there that are serving life. And they had already come up with this crazy escape plot. They're like, hey, bro, we know a way out of here. You're trying to, you're trying to join? And I'm like, yeah, what's up? And these dudes tell me this elaborate escape plot that they came up with. And it's six other individuals. And they had come up with this idea to hijack this canteen truck. There's this massive truck that used to deliver our canteen that used to drive onto the property. And they're like, bro, we're going to hijack the canteen truck. We're going to stage a fake fights where the officers respond, distract them. During that moment, we're going to go ahead, hijack

this canteen truck, take a guard hostage, drive this truck through this electric fence because this prison that we're at, it has an electric fence surrounding it. They're like, well, getting better and better. This is, Jesus. Crazy, right? Like, you're just racking up the charges. Now I've got a, now I've, yeah, hostage. I've got theft of the truck, hostage, and escape.

like ridiculous and probably attempted murder charges because who knows we were all willing to assault these officers or whatever was necessary to incapacitate them so the idea is to drive the truck through the fence and in the parking lot we're going to have another car parked where we have guns awaiting us we're going to have a change of clothes and then miles from the prison we had another getaway car parked uh with cash fake passports whatever all these fake identities That's this plan. And we start getting all the pieces together in order to actually execute it. And by the grace of God, bro, they unearth it. The prison officials unearth it before things are actually executed. And the reason they unearthed it is apparently the security intelligence officers at the prison had gotten word that these different races were mixing on the yard.

Now, mind you, Sterling is very political at that time. Like, you're not going to see whites kicking it with too many blacks. you're not going to see blacks, Mexicans. There's not a mixture of these different ethnicities. So our group had that mixture. You had some white supremacists in there. You had a couple of black guys that are gang affiliated. You had this little Asian dude. So the only time we would ever talk about this escape plot is when we're walking outside on the yard.

So they're taking note of that. They see this eccentric, eclectic group walking these laps around the yard. They're like, what the fuck is going on with that? And their first instinct is either a riot is about to occur or there's some type of drugs that are about to get introduced into the facility. So they get on the roof with these directional microphones and they begin listening to our conversation, taking pictures, the whole nine, building the case. And it gets to a point where they finally pluck us from general population and add sec us, meaning place us in solitary confinement. I spent years. I spent two plus years in solitary confinement behind that escape plot.

And the warden- Additional charges? Well, the warden didn't even bother charging me because I, of the seven of us that were involved in that, I was the only one that had daylight. And I remember the warden telling me, well, he told me two things. When I first got sentenced to solitary confinement, he said this. He was like, the warden that's going to let you out of solitary confinement hasn't even been born yet. I was like, Jesus Christ. And at that time, they could keep you a not solitary confinement for an indefinite period of time. Right. So I thought I was going to spend at least a

decade in solitary. The second thing he told me, he was like, I'm not even going to bother charging you. He was like, you're the only one in this group that even has daylight, and your daylight is 30 years from now. He was like, the rest of these dudes have life sentences. I'm not going to waste taxpayer money to try to criminally charge you for what? Not when you're just going to probably get a few years for conspiracy charges. He was like, I'll just put you in solitary for years, sit down and think about it for a little while. Bro, that's where I hit rock bottom. And it was in solitary confinement, bro, when I really had to come face to face with the demon that I'd become,

the monster that I had been acting as for years now. And I didn't like what I saw, bro. I really didn't. And the thing that really brought it home for me, I remember a visit of mine that I received. I had been in solitary for about a few months now. My mom and I were barely repairing our relationship. And my daughter had been born.

She's an infant. And my mom had brought my daughter up to see me. And in solitary confinement, there's no physical contact. You have these visiting booths. there's a plexiglass window separating you phones on other side of the window to where you can communicate with your loved ones. And I remember my mom coming into that booth. I'm shackled to this desk. And, you know, she's coddling my baby. And I just lied up seeing the two of them because my mom had always been my world, my rock. And then I'm seeing this little girl

that's now an extension of me. And I remember my mom placing my daughter down on this desk. and allowing her to try to call towards me. And she finally comes across that window, bro, and starts patting on it and trying to get to me. And in that moment, I broke down, bro. I broke down. And I immediately, I mean, instantaneously had some major paradigm shifts. Because in that moment, I finally felt the pain that my mom had felt

and losing me to the streets and feeling what that sense. separation from your child feels like. In that moment, I finally realized like the far-reaching effects of my choices and how the choices I was making weren't just affecting me. They were affecting my daughter. They were affecting my mom. And I was now realizing that because I think for so much of my life, bro, I know that for so much of my life, I thought the things that I was doing only affected my reality. There were rare moments where I really thought, that what I was doing was affecting my family or the shame that they were having lived with behind the choices I was making. And I didn't think that anything I was doing was really

harming anyone. But in that moment with my daughter, you start thinking well beyond yourself. You start thinking about the victims. You start thinking about this long list of people that you had hurt throughout the years to get to where you are. Right. And I was like, bro, I'm done. I can't keep doing this shit. And I made a vow to myself not only in that moment, but sometime afterwards, like, I can no longer keep contributing to the problem. Like, I have to start contributing to the solution. And even though I had thrown my life away and it accepted now that I could probably die, I would probably die in prison. I was like, you know what? That doesn't mean that I can't establish a positive legacy for myself. I can still

become an established artist. I can still become a man that my daughter can be proud of. I can still become a man that my mom can be proud of and the man that she raised me to be. And I can still go on to affect lives in a positive way. And I was like, even though I threw away my life, I can now devote my life to maybe helping to change others and maybe be that guy for the youth that my mentors were for me when I went to Lyman. That first time I went to prison. I was now one of those lifers like let me be that mentor for them let me use my life as an example for others let me use it as a cautionary tale and that began that journey grown and in solitary confinement I ended up writing my first book changing faces which ultimately was for my daughter because I thought she would never get to know me personally right and I wanted her through my own words to be able to see all that I am And that's why that book eventually came to be. It took me about two years to write.

It's an autobiography. I was going to say, is that a memoir? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a memoir that really details like all those masks. That's why I called it changing faces, because throughout my life, I've worn so many different masks, literally and figuratively. And I really take people on that journey where they see all the transformations. But it was in solitary confinement where I began to truly dissect.

myself and it was through writing that book that that process happened because i had to really reflect back on my life bro and really understand why i had done all the things that i had done or why i had taken the paths that i had taken and uh yeah i spent about two years writing that book and it was very cathartic because it did help me really understand myself my motivations and also the future and what could be in my potential. And from that point forward, man, it just set me on this very positive trajectory. I went on to write another book,

to mentor various people throughout the system, teach various classes while in prison. My art skills, I dealt deeply into that and really honed those and became a skilled painter and got to a point where I was now what my art mentor was to me back then at Lyman. You know, I was versed with various mediums. And 10, 12 years into that sentence,

I had found peace with my circumstance. Like, I knew, it was probably it for me. I didn't want to accept that reality, but I came to terms with that. I finally owned my choices. I own the consequences of that and I took full accountability of my life. And with that freedom, it allowed me to function very peacefully in prison, very constructively, even though I was in the depths of hell because I was at Sterling, Buena Vista. Like I had only done time at these hard, crazy, crazy, penitentiaries, but in these dark hell holes, I was somehow managing to be a light to my peers. And 12 years into that sentence, organizations started hearing about my name and some of the positive things that I'm doing. And there was a particular lawyer that came across my name, Kristen M. Nelson of the Sparrow Justice Center. She had taken an interest in me and initially just reached out to me out of curiosity because she had kept hearing.

my name in various circles and eventually wrote me a letter. And she was like, hey, I don't know if I can represent you, but I at the very least want to talk to you and just kind of pick your brain, would you be going to meet me? I was like, absolutely. We end up meeting each other. And within minutes of that meeting, Kristen is like taking it back and just kind of in awe. And one can't believe that I'm still in prison because she's seen how much I've grown and moved beyond the darkness right but she's just doesn't mean a whole lot to the system it doesn't at all but in her eyes she's tripping just on the surface of it the sentence that i'd received she was like you got 45 years for robbery she was like murderers are serving less time than that

she was like many murderers in colorado are serving half of that time she was like this is not justifiable and she was like i'm going to get you out of prison and she made good on not. I mean, that's nice. You know, that's nice to hear, but I mean, you know, that's, yeah, okay, great. But did you really, what did you think when she said it? Did you think, was that like hope or were you just like, it was hope? And after looking into her name a little bit, because she's renowned. Like, she helped Brian Stevenson establish E.J.I. She's, she's had quite the career on death row out in Alabama. ended up coming out here

and doing some extraordinary things and establishing her own organization so in doing that research like I had a little bit of hope I was going to say that's such an impossible task yeah I know how shitty the system is and clemency that's something that's so rare there's only a select few people

throughout time that have ever gotten that so my problem with you getting clemency is that keep in mind what the governor is being shown that while in prison he took part in planning an escape. Like this guy may have, you know, had the staff not been able to for, you know, thought that that conspiracy he may have tried to escape. Like, you know, they tend to not, you know, guys that go to prison say, hey, I got 45 years, I'm going to go ahead and just make the best of it.

And they follow the rules. but the guys that go there and then they get in trouble the whole time. They're like, yeah, you're a lost cause. So the escape thing doesn't sound good. Not at all. Not at all. And that was something that even Kristen was worried about

when first arguing my case. Because she knew there were things in my, man, I have a long history, but my jacket is fucking thick. And it's violent. So it's not like this kid just did a little bit of things when he was young. Like my whole jacket is,

some pretty extreme stuff. And then the fact you add to that, that wall in prison, not only the first time, like, I'm violent. I'm fighting people. I'm harming them in some pretty extreme ways. And then the second go round, I'm trying to escape from prison. I had actually grabbed a guard during that escape from attempts in the county jail that we didn't even talk about. Like very violent history, bro. So I know that on paper, anyone that's looking at that, especially the governor's office, it's a wonder to me that they even took it anything Kristen was saying seriously. Like, no, this dude, get the fuck out of here. This dude's a minister to society. I'm not about to get this dude another chance to fuck you talking about. And that's probably what the initial thought was. But there were so many people that had gotten behind me throughout the years. We're talking about correctional officers that had written letters of support, character reference letters. Like, that's unheard of, bro. And there was more than 10 of them that had written one for my clemency packet.

You had these big organizations that I had connected with DUPI being one of them. And I'm helping them produce a podcast. Like the change is inarguable. Like there's nothing they can point to to refute that this change is real. And even though they have all this dark stuff that they can point to on my past, there are like, there's no justifiable reason why this dude. is still in prison. Well, you'd also

know by the time they went for the clemency, you'd also had a long span. Ten years. Yeah, okay. Yeah, 10 years had passed because I got, I was at SIG for that escape stuff in 2009 and spent two years in isolation

and we're now at 2020, 2021, and these conversations are being had. So it's a whole decade that has passed since this escape plot. It's a decade almost of positive maturation and they see all this mentorship and growth and all these positive strivings they're like this is real like he could be faking this but that's a hell

of a fucking fraud plus it's a hell listen it's a hell of a lot of time you already spend it's not like you were in six months and they gave you fucking clemency bro it's not like you didn't already do a chunk of time so by this time what is it 12 14 years in the governor's office is now seriously considering whether to release me. And at one point, his representative comes and visits me at the prison to kind of fill me out, bet me, ask pertinent questions. And then, yeah, not too long after that, I'm getting a call from the governor's office. It was December 22nd or so of last year.

I'm getting the call from the governor's office. And they're like, Sean, you're going home. And January 31st of 2023 is when I was released after having served 14 years on that 45-year sentence. And what's crazy is, had I not received clemency, I would have had to serve another 20 years or so before I was even eligible for parole. That's nuts. Crazy. Crazy. Bro, you know, I was like laying there thinking, like, you don't even think, like, you don't even think, like, you must be still.

And it hadn't even been a year. You're still, listen, you're still walking around in a day's, right? Oh, absolutely. Every day is surreal right now, bro. This is beyond my wildest imagination, especially all that I've achieved thus far. It took me six months before, you know, around 3.30, you start feeling uncomfortable because it's 4 o'clock count. I mean, I don't know what it is in the state, but you had to be, you know, standing in your cell at 4 o'clock for count, like about 3.30, 345 for about 6. months I felt like I need to be some like I felt anxious like I'm I need to get I didn't even

know where I need to get I know I'm not in prison I need to get somewhere like I need to listen the first six months I kept thinking they were going to come knock at the front door and be like listen we fucked up I would honestly for the first three months I'd have been like I knew you I knew it I knew you that's why I didn't unpack my shit I knew it was too good to be true yeah that's why my stuff still in boxes I knew it I didn't get rid of my sweat I still got sweats. Oh, man, you must be going through it right now. It's crazy, bro, but it's a good feeling.

And the difference between now and back then is that humility piece of it. Yeah. You know, you hit it on the head when I was talking about that release the first time. I was too prideful. Now, I had been humbled. God humbled me in some remarkable ways. This go around, bro. And, you know, coming out into the free world this time, like, I'm taking it.

taking it one step at a time, I'm trusting in myself. I'm trusting in God. I'm trusting in this path that I'm on and I'm just looking at my North Star and allowing that to guide me through life. And I'm just enjoying the journey and everything that comes with it. Yeah. They're going to get me all upset. Oh, yeah, I'm serious, bro. I get all fucked up. you know 13 years like hmm yeah that's you know and and you know it is listen like I'm a narcissist bro it's so hard for me to be humble and appreciative you know like I have to constantly remind myself like hey you get a hold of yourself bro you're lucky to be here yeah you know it's tough like it's um but definitely the humble because you know listen I'm anything but humble

so it's it's it's tough like i keep having to remind myself of that because otherwise i'd be a lunatic that's the hardest part that humility yeah yeah that's good bro that's a good that's a good story thank you brother you know and it's still continuing this is the newest chapter i mean where are you working uh right now well i tattoo full time okay i'll also work at a place called the Denver Dream Center and the beauty of what I get to do here. I mean, we do a lot of community engagement and we help the city in various ways from feeding the homeless. We work closely with the Denver Police Department in various ways, but the piece that I enjoy most about what I'm able to do is the youth mentorship.

And then we also have an internship program that we offer up to guys that are in how halfway houses and that are transitioning out of prison. And we literally get a walk side by side by these individuals as they're reintegrating back into society. We get to help better that transition, offer our resources to them and give them the guidance that they truly need to be successful. And that's what I do part time. And it's another thing that keeps me humble because seeing that, seeing the desperation of some of these guys, because while I'm an anomaly in the sense that I'm very blessed, bro, the support system that I have and the opportunities that have been presented to me post-prison, it's rare. Most of us that are coming out of

incarceration, especially after having served that much time, it's scarce resources, bro. It's not a lot out here for them. And unless they really took it upon themselves to grow mentally, to acquire the skills and resources to be successful, like it's a very hard fucking journey. And I see that every day. I see the desperation. And when you see that and when I see where I could have been or where I could be, it's a constant reminder of how I need to count my blessings. I need to count my blessings and I need to pace myself and I just need to appreciate what's in front of me because it's not something that many are afforded. Yeah. Well, I mean, one, you know, now I understand, And you understand, I didn't realize you just gotten out.

Yeah. Like, I thought you'd been out for a few years at least. So I remember when I looked at your Instagram page on the tattoos, I thought, man, you don't have anything on here. He's got, he got maybe 20, 30 tattoos. Like, that's it. And they're all good. They're all great tattoos.

But I was like, boom, boom, done. It's not makes sense. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I guess there's what is. It's probably, I don't know, if it's 20 or 30. Then not a lot, but there's not a lot on Instagram. Go to my Facebook, though, because all my posts are on Facebook. So you'll see a whole bunch more on there.

But the point is, like, I'm just, it's still old school. Still old school. My daughter gives me shit behind that all the time. Like, you're old, man. Nobody uses that. Yeah. Yeah, and the mural's great. You know, I saw, I, I just saw one thing where there was a mural, one post where there was a mural.

But that was great. yeah thank you um okay yeah this this is this is all making more sense now um yeah so okay tat did you the tattoo thing your um you are you actually mentoring anybody or are you just work there for now no absolutely so so much of what we do involves mentorship so We just had a program this summer that we ran for the youth. And there was a handful of kids that we got to work closely with, teach them art skills, give them the life lessons and impart the wisdom that I wish I would have had imparted when I was their age. Because the target group was 13 to 17 at risk, involved in all the wrong stuff. So we got to work with these kids for about eight weeks, get them painting, get them.

getting teaching them the life skills and just pouring into them loving them trying to guide him so that's just an aspect of piece of what we do here at the dream center like that's all we're about community we're about building relationships is that where you are right now yeah that's where i'm at currently okay yeah well um so listen if you send me your your uh you send me like your links to your social media and to the Dream Center? Yes, sir. To the Dream Center, you know, I'll put that in the description

box. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a good story. Thank you, my brother. Yeah, that's a good story because it's actually got a decent ending. You know, I mean, I know you're saying it's not ending, but you know, if you had to end it, walking out of prison is a pretty good ending.

Absolutely. Especially after the grave I dug for myself. Because, you know, this is a true testament to like God's mercy, bro, because I don't deserve to be out here. Yeah. The lives that I destroyed, the path that I once walked, I left a lot of destruction in my wake, bro. And I think that's why I came to terms with the reality that I could potentially die in prison. Because I was like, you know what? I did a lot.

I've done a lot. And I do need to sit my ass down. The system already made the decision that you're supposed to do minimum 30 years. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's not like you say. And the worst thing is I used to always say the best thing about being in prison was that I put me there.

I knew guys that like shouldn't have been there. Like that would have been the worst. You didn't even do anything and you ended up in or you got a sentence that was so overly, you know, harsh for what you did. Because I knew guys that were the prosecution's coming in offering them three or four years. And they go, they're like, fuck you. I didn't do anything. I was being scam too

and went to went to trial and got 17 years like damn you shouldn't even be here so that's the worst at least I deserve to be there you know what I'm saying you're in the same situation

and you're like you put you there yeah I can't even bitch yeah I can't even I can't even point to somebody to be like that guy's an asshole that guy I'm that guy so yeah you got me all upset bro um but listen i i i'm i'm i'm kind of a pussy so i want you to feel that you know

it's just um all right man this is listen this is a good story thank you brother um yeah i i definitely definitely send me the social media links and uh any if you can give me a photo or something well we can talk about that let me let me wrap this up is there anything else you want to say are you good you feel good i just appreciate Yeah, absolutely. I just appreciate you taking the time to sit with me and to get this story out there. I'm not a big one. It's crazy because I'm constantly telling my story through various ways, through literature, through these podcasts, through interviews. And it's interesting because I never like to do that. Like, I've never been one to just put myself on a pedestal or highlight my journey.

I'd rather just do and allow my actions to speak volumes but I feel like this is I've come to understand this is a necessary part of my journey because in us telling our stories

in us reflecting back on some of these past mistakes like we could potentially be helping save lives bro you don't know who you're going to touch exactly and I wish that again I can't

said enough, I wish we had people like us when I was younger, when I was making those critical decisions. And that's the only reason I highlight the story is not to glorify because most of the shit that I've done in my life, I'm not proud of. And I wish I could take it all back, a lot of it. I appreciate how it's molded me into who I am now, but I'd have to step on a lot of people to get where I'm at. And for that, like, there's just a regret and shame that I'm going to constantly have to live with because of that. So I just try to use this story as much as I can and try to use it as a cautionary tell. So people can see the realities of the criminal life and a lot of the decisions that come

with that or the gang life or the violent life that I once led because it's a dead and road. No matter how you look at it, no matter how much the thrills and highs, may feel good in the moment, the shit doesn't last. It never does. Right. And there's only two things that are promised to those that want to devote themselves to that path. It's either imprisonment or the grave. And that's the bottom one. Hey, if you like the video, do me a favor, hit the subscribe button, share the video, check the description box for any of the social media links for Sean and the Dream Center. Also, I'm sure there's probably a way to donate money. You should probably do that. And I really do appreciate you guys watching. See you. I grew up. I was actually

born in Washington State. My parents moved back here when I was about three. My dad was from Washington State, farm boy from Washington State. My mom ironically worked for the FBI. Nice. And they met up around D.C. when my dad was in the service and she was working for the FBI. So at about three years old, we moved out here so she could take better care of. of her mom and been in South Carolina ever since most of that time. Not your typical guy that you might have on a show like this because I grew up with great parents, you know, solidly middle class. Never saw my dad drunk. You know, mom might have a dackery and get giggly, but that's about it. Right. But I was just different. You know, I grew up and was curious about all the bad

things you know i was curious about drinking i was curious about drugs i was i wanted to be a tyrant to some degree right something in me is wired that way um even now as i'm trying to do better in life it's still just kind of wired yeah yeah that way i always look at things with an angle about how i can lead the system yeah so that's what how it started out you know yeah we were talking about that earlier and we were just saying like you know do you ever think about it like so i'm like i think about fraud every day constantly it's just and we talked about this some because um i did ardaf while we were in prison which is okay me too the residential drug abuse program for those who don't know and uh we actually talked about that how how some people are just wired differently and their mindset is

geared more toward criminality and getting around the rules you should have brought your book i don't have it published oh okay for me it was more about just completing it completing a project because I was one of those guys that I've been an idea guy all my life. I've had so many ideas and tried so many different businesses but I was never able to have the focus to get all the way

through it. Right. What did you think? I'm sorry. Just so we don't get off thought. What did you think of Ardap? I thought if you're willing to go into Ardap and admit that you're the one that's causing most of your problems, then it's a fantastic program.

That's, bro. Listen, fantastic. You know, it's funny, like, it's funny because, like, 80% of the people that graduate are like, you know, oh, I fake my way through. And you did. No doubt you did. But the people that really work that program and have to really look at themselves and say, hey, I'm a scumbag. I put myself here. Nobody else did.

Because everyone, you know, there's so many people that are blaming somebody. Yep. So, you know, that you put yourself here and you really look at it and you really say I've got to make some fundamental changes. Like, I had a program the other day where, I mean, a podcast the other day where I was saying, I think everybody should have to take that program. Like, before you get out, you should have to take that program. I agree. I agree.

I think that there should be some kind of program, even if it's not necessarily Ardap, you know, something that addresses how you perceive the world because how you perceive the world is different than most people do. Ardab wasn't even about drugs. To me, it's almost, it's really just about criminal thinking. It really is. Or whatever, you know, thinking errors are. I can't remember the terminology. We had terminology for all that. That's great. Listen, Jess does it all the time. She'll say stuff to me. She'll go, oh, super optimism. Oh, she'll make these little,

she'll make these little, little comments. I'm like, don't, don't do that. She's like, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you're, you're awfulizing, you know? You're awful. Man, brings back some memories. I had even heard any of that in so long. That's just, yeah, if you read this, you'll die laughing because you know what I did? I actually pulled a bunch of my, my RSAs so like every once in a while I'll throw an RSA in there oh yeah listen like they're like like I wasn't trying to get the year off right I was trying I only went in the program to stay in Coleman so I literally did seven months one time six months so I did over a year and something dropped out every time before just to stay at Coleman but you

learn so much about yourself if you're willing to do the work you do yeah know, but you've got to be willing to do the work. You really do because a lot of guys, they do go through there and fake it. But if you're willing to work on yourself, you have every tool available to be able to do that. And when we got towards the end, in phase three, I became a senior guide. And did you guys have senior guides? Yeah, yeah, they called them. You had like mentors and you had Big Brothers. That's what they called. It's all the same thing. Everyone has a little, they'll have a little different terminology, but it's the same exact thing. Yeah. So when, you know, I became a senior guide and I had to give a seminar. And at the very opening of my seminar and everyone that I gave after that, I would tell everybody say, look, you have an opportunity that nobody else in the world has, most people in the world anyway. You have the opportunity to take nine months and work on you. And you have all the tools at your disposal to help you do that. So if you don't take this opportunity, it's just because you don't want to. On the street, that's 100.

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

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

change was so noticeable yeah it's yeah it's definitely it's definitely um mind altering yeah i mean yeah and and people see it you know they recognize you know it's like it's like they say about people with uh you know some mental illnesses that uh take medication your loved ones can always tell when you go off your medication yeah they're the first ones to be able to notice So it's the same kind of thing. But, yeah, Ardap was really how I got to where I am now because I came, I became a senior guide. So for the third phase, which was the last three months of the program, you know, I was helping people. And I remember one of the, what they call them, DTSs is the drug treatment specialist.

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

a problem yeah you're giving them to me yeah a problem not because you're trying to help me yeah not because you're trying to help me so got up there met the dude he's a biker from Detroit was a gang member in one of the biker clubs in Detroit but me and this guy hit it off like nobody's business

we're still in touch now. He's out. I'm out. I've seen him since we've been out. Squirrel, what's up? He, uh, but he and I had some really good talks. And he was in our debt for the right reason. And he wanted to do things differently. Yeah. And that was where I kind of got, said, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to be able to go out here and help other people. Because one of the things that I was plagued with all my life was I always struggled with jobs. You know, I'd work a job for a year and a half, get pissed off at management and quit. it because it was just hard for me. I always wanted to do my own thing. So, um, shit, man. No, so you like, you enjoyed helping him. It was the first time that you, I get what

you're saying. Yeah. You were, you liked helping him and you and it felt good and you felt like it was right for you. Yeah. So that, that's the path I've decided to go down now and that's, that's where I'm at. Um, I spent 45 years being, you talked about being selfish and, and just caring about yourself, I was the same way. I wrote my story up for something. I think I've described myself as a taker. Yeah. And that's really what I was. I just, whatever I could get something from somebody, I would do that. So I made the decision pretty much in our adapt to spend the rest of my life being a different kind of person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's, you know, it's funny. It's, it's just life in general. And we'll get into all that. But so I can, we can get, we'll just get through

this and jump back because we kind of jumped ahead. But the, the truth is, is that, you know, is that in prison, I definitely learned purpose. Like to me, I had no, my purpose was just getting everything I wanted. Right. You know, that was my purpose. And that, you know, I went to prison and then I realized, well, I really enjoy, you know, I enjoy writing. I enjoy talking to other people. I enjoy talking about, you know, what they've gone through.

And I do, I, and I enjoy that. And unfortunately, the, the things and the people that I find the most interesting are the people that have done, you know, that are, are, or are, or involved in criminal activity. Right. But also having gone through that whole thing and learning, I also realized that, like, I can't be, like, if you're doing, if you're doing dirt, you know, like, I can't be around you. Like, if you did it and you got, and interesting stories, like, to me, you're, you're an

interesting person now. You've had some experiences as a result of, as a result, you know, to the, the guy who, you know, worked a regular job. Right. And has, you know, have a wife and two kids. You know, I wish I could have been that guy. And I'm not knocking that guy. Like I have, I know guys that will knock that guy like, oh, yeah, he's not happy.

He's not. Yeah, but I, he probably is happy. He is, like, I wish I had been that guy. It didn't work out. But I always find the guys that had done crime interesting. But the truth is, if somebody was currently doing crime, like, I don't want to be around you. Like, like, you did it. You went through it.

You learned something. You moved on. Like, that's an interesting person to me. Sure. But the people that get trapped in it and can't ever move forward. Right. Well, now you're. you're just stuck in this rut and, and, you know, if you're lucky, you, you figure it out.

And if you don't, well, then you end up dying in prison or, you know, or you end up, you know, you end up on the street or something. Like, it's, it's never going to work out to your advantage. No. And I think there's, there's always those two kind of people in the world. You know what I mean? There's, there's the people that have gotten locked into that lifestyle. I think that a lot of them have gotten there because they just honestly don't know any better. You know, they, they weren't raised with any kind of manners. They weren't raised with any kind of morals. They just don't have that. I had a sally one time right before I got out. He'd been locked up for 24 years for manufacturing meth. Right. Okay. During the conversations we had, he told me,

I can't wait to get out there. I'm going to start cooking meth again. And I'm going to party hard, one good time before I come back and basically die in prison. Oh, listen, I didn't know, I don't know that guy, but I know 50 or 100 guys that are exactly like, like literally, you're listening to this guy work on his next indictment. Yeah. It's like, you are right now working on your, you haven't made it on the street. You're already working on your next indictment. You're already working on it. Yep. So those guys are out there and most people never meet them.

No. No, because they're always in prison. Yeah. They'll make it out for six months to a year and they'll go right by that. out of the halfway house if they make it out of the halfway house we have one guy show up at the halfway house and within two hours to be in there he was in the bathroom smoking meth made it three days i think i think they sent him by i hate the laugh because it's you know it's really not but i don't know what else to do you know i can't cry about it's like i don't know the other person but it's just like what do you what are you fucking thinking bro like how good is that drug i don't know i don't want to find out no you know but uh yeah they're definitely out there and you know i work in recovery work I'm a certified peer support specialist, which is like kind of like a low level, entry level counselor type person. Basically, what they do is they use their life experience that they've overcome to help support others that are going through the same kind of stuff.

Yeah. So I've seen this. And one of the things that we talk about a lot is how until somebody's ready, there's nothing you can do for them. You can't plant some seeds, let them know that you're there when they're ready. Yeah. But until they're ready, they can't do anything. It was the same way with me. I was drinking every day.

I was waking up and drinking every day. Everybody tried to talk to me. My parents, they tried to talk to me and my friends tried to talk to me. But until I was ready to do it, nobody was going to get through. Well, let's go back to, so you were, let's go back to, you know, the genesis of that, which was, you know, you were in school, you went to high school. Would you go to high school? South Carolina somewhere. Upstate, South Carolina, Spartanburg area, Greenville, Spartanburg is just, you went to high school.

towns up there um went to high school was constantly in trouble um you know not big trouble just more shenanigans and a lot of it just being lazy and not wanting to do my work right um it's actually really interesting because i uh i got awarded an award on senior awards night because i was in the deca club which was like business club basically and they had competitions and i ended up going out to san Jose california to compete in the national competition because i'd done so good at the district and state right okay so senior award night comes around i get an honorable mention and a little award for going and doing that next night was graduation i didn't graduate on time i didn't have all my units i didn't have all my credits i ended up having to go to night

school to get my diploma to be able to to do that but um i've all i've always known not in an arrogant way that you know i'm i'm a smart guy but i'm stupid in a lot of ways too or at least was yeah so So, um, no, I get on the same way. Yeah, I did that. Sometimes I'll work diligently on something for weeks and weeks and weeks and super focused. The problem is, is typically when I do that, I disregard everything else that's keeping me going. That's always been a problem for me. Right.

No, and I can totally get that. So got out, 1990, I graduated, went into the army. My brother had been in the army. My dad was in the army. So it just seemed like a thing to do, try to make things right, go in the Army, do this. I remember my parents being a bit surprised that I made it through basic training. They were so happy when I made it through basic training. But I ended up screwing that up.

You know, I ended up. Were you still drinking at that time? Or were you big drinking? I wasn't really doing it that much at that time. I was 19, so it was just beginning. Okay. But I went to Germany in the Army, ended up getting caught up in some shit there. and um got kicked out of the army um what was what they had a we were in communications i was

in a communications division and over in the barracks at that time they had these what they called USA direct telephones any button that you press would get you a an AT&T operator and then you place either your correct your collect call or your credit card call well being in communications we figured out there was a little knob down there that you could switch And if you switch that knob, it would dial direct. Okay. And so we did that. And when I got called in, you know, I'm 19.

I don't know what the world's really like. So I told them how it was done at the MPs or whatever. And so because that happened, they blamed it on me, gave me the rat for it, kicked me out of the army. Okay. So was it an honorable dish or dishonorable or was it just? It's like right in the middle. There's honorable. and mine was other than honorable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it wasn't quite general, but it was, so anyway, I missed out on all veteran benefits and whatnot, so. But the bigger point is that this was a life pattern of just, you know, going a year or two. Yeah, I would go a year or two and be able to keep my shit together. And then being the key self-sabotage, I would just blow it all up for no particular reason.

Right. So you go back to the States. So what happens? Come back to the States. fall in with my same old friends we're out partying all the time this and that and the other always having that criminal mindset

we were always looking at stuff you know how can we do this how can we do that about three years after I got back maybe two and a half three years after I got back me and a buddy of mine ended up doing a burglar at a restaurant that we worked at or he worked at so I got in trouble for that

did a little probation it was the first real trouble out ever been in. So, um, it wasn't too bad, but got a little probation. Um, did that. And then so, yeah, you did, you did the burglary. I mean, you didn't turn yourself in. Like, the cops arrested you that did, did you get caught the middle of the burglary or just something led to you? No, it led to us because they figured it out pretty quick. Yeah, they did figure it out pretty quick. There was some things said. And I think we'd been drinking that night actually when we did the burglary. So it was pretty sloppy and whatnot. Right.

So, oh, I know, I know a guy who broke into a guy's house. Yeah. Stole his wallet, went and used all of his wallet, used all of his credit cards, broke back in the house to put the wallet back and left his ID in the guy's house. Like, yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. You know, like we were talking about, adrenaline gets going. You get all excited. You get, you know, you just, you just fuck up.

Yeah. Yeah, you do. So we did on that one. We got busted and whatnot. and it wasn't too long after that it was that was about 92 93 I think and I just kept partying you know party doing everything drinking pot acid used to love acid did a lot of acid back then that was in my book there's a little bit about that that um all the acid use and whatnot but anyway so about 1995 I was with this girl and I kept throwing this idea

at her of robbing bank. Neither one of us wanted to work. We wanted to just keep partying. So, 1995, November and December, 1995, I finally convinced her to jump in on a bank robbery. So we talked about this, like the genesis of that idea was point break. That was, that was as much of an inspiration for me to do that as anything else was. I must have watched that movie 20 times, can quote you all kinds of stuff.

It's a great movie. It really is a great movie. I feel mad. Like, Connor has no idea what point break is. Even if he does, he only knows the new version, which is nothing compared to the old one. Wow. You know, with Keanu Reeves, bro, when he was like. Patrick Swayze.

Yeah, young. Yep. What was the other guy? Was it Nick? What was it Nick Nolte? Gary Busey. Gary Busey, yeah. Gary Busey was his partner in there.

I feel bad. dad for you, bro. Like the new movies, there's nothing compared to the old movie. It's a great movie. There were great movies came out in the 80s and 90s.

The dead presidents. They're wearing the mask. They're doing the robberies. Like, listen, I'll bet you that movie got thousands of banks robbed. Thousands of them.

It made bank robbery look so fucking sexy. Yep. And it did. You know, that's what all those movies did. Yeah, right up until everybody starts getting shot

and killed and falling out of plane. and just fucking yeah people always forget that they do forget that i love crime movies i always forget about the part when they go to jail for fucking 20 years well you know that's not going to happen at me that happens in the in the in the in the in the in groups they call that playing the tape all the way through yeah you got play it through all the way to the end not just the good parts too so i've suffered from super optimism yeah i suffer some super optimism as well you know i never wanted to face the consequences of what i did but i was like i can do this i can do this i'm smarter than them i'm better than Yeah, me too.

That's what all of us think, isn't it? Yeah, right up until the judge says fucking 26 years. Yeah. Then it's like, I was off. I somewhere. I have time to think about it now. Yep, somewhere I got off on my path. So, yeah, we were just hanging out, partying all the time.

And she was working a little bit here and there. But, you know, money runs out. And we didn't have anything. And we kept talking about it late night drug fuel conversations. And after about a week, she was like, Okay, let's do it. I'll drive the car. You're going to go and do everything.

So, okay. So went by Walmart and got a devil's mask and put it on and had her pull up to the bank. I thought about all this all the way through. You know, I planned it and thought about it. I watched Point Break about 20 more times and realized you couldn't go into the vault. You just had to stay at the drawers up front, you know, kill time at the vault. um so we we talked about it for about another four or five days and then we went and did it and the first one we did um how did you know what bank did even rob like did you i lived in this apartment

complex and across the street there was a bank that had a unique setup it was just the perfect setup there was privacy fences on three sides of the bank and then on one side of it was a shopping center. And then it was at a big intersection where the roads crossed like this. There was a little shopping center right here, a convenience store right here, and the bank was right here with three privacy fences around it and a residential area behind it. I'd been looking at it. Ever since I moved into the apartment, I was like, that'd be a great bank to Rob. So we went and did that. And she dropped me off. She pulled up to the convenience store that was at the corner, killed 15, 20 seconds, because I'd already timed it all out.

how long it was going to take me to do everything, you know, unless something went awry. And so then I ran through the shopping center to the other road, and she pulled up perfect timing, picked me up, and we will get out of there. Well, you missed the bank robbery part. What, have they didn't, you went in the way you went? I wasn't going to talk about all that. No, I was going to say, you're, so, wow, it's, I haven't really recounted it, I guess. in really specific terms, you know, since then.

So forgive me if I'm a little slow sometimes. No, I, I'm just curious. Like, you know, and we've talked about this, you know, off. Like, this is, you know, I've talked to guys who do podcasts and they're always like, like I've had guys actually say, well, I don't usually want to talk, talk to the guests, you know, before the podcast. And it's like, really, because I'm like, oh, I always thought, oh, that's rude. You're being a jerk or whatever.

But the truth is is that, like, we had a great discussion. Sure. about adrenaline, about like, you know, going in. Like, and that's what I'm wondering about is, is like, like going up to, like, me walking into a bank with fake credentials and everything. I have a certain, you know, the whole thing, you know, you, the adrenaline, you walk in. I know certain things. I mean, I'm just wondering, like, were you, did you think about changing your mind?

Like, were you, when you're walking towards that bank, are you just like, like, tunnel vision? That's it. Okay. So it's like. Tunnel vision. um i'm doing this and that's it yep yep i had uh i had tried to do it a couple times myself and honestly pulled up in front of the bank and was just like tried to psych myself up whatever no just can't do it um so i think it was having somebody else involved maybe that that pushed me

to go do it um so we pull up she had went in uh maybe four or five days earlier to just do something fake to see if they had a security guard or not. So we knew there wasn't a security guard. So I didn't have to worry about that. It's a fairly small bank. There was like maybe two, three tellers. I don't remember because I had tunnel vision the whole time. So two, three tellers, you know, one person in the office, something like that. Um, got my devil's mask on. I got, I got a hoodie on so that I can cover myself up completely had on dishwashing gloves, actually, because the vinyl gloves weren't that big of a deal yet. You know, you get in the boxes that they've got now. Right. Um, so I had dishwashing

gloves because they would grip money good um i wanted to have everything covered so i wouldn't leave any hair dna anything like that um this is like funniest thing is i used to beby gun are you overall an unloaded baby gun i knew i was going to shoot anybody i didn't want to hurt anybody but i know i know a guy that that that used a uh use a pellet gun and fired the pellet gun in the middle of the robbery he said he was his adrenaline he was yelling people weren't getting down fast enough. He goes, so I pulled the trigger and it ricocheted off the ceiling and hit a woman in the in the calf and she screamed, ah, I've been hit. And she falls down and he said, he panics and runs out of the bank. Never got any money. He's like, oh, my God, I shot her. It's like,

how did you think you shot her? You had a pelican. It's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't seeing straight. You can't think when you're doing that. I mean, it all is a blur. I mean, it really is. You know, at that time, I was 23 years old. I've been watching point break. You know, I go in like a gangbuster, got this gun, devil mask. I'm all hooked up.

I go over, vault the counter, just go straight over the counter. Right. And start waving the gun around. I think I had a pillowcase at the time to put the money in. Billy's up a money, blah, blah, blah, blah. Did that jump back over the counter and was gone. You know, were you worried about die packs or anything like that? Not really.

Um, I had a friend of mine, one of the guys that I got in trouble with during the burglary, um, we had talked about doing a whole lot of things. And his mom was actually a bank teller. Okay. So when we started getting into doing some of this kind of stuff, he started talking to his mom and asking questions to find out, you know, what was what. So we knew about what die packs look like. They're, they're a little bit thicker and they're heavier than a regular stack of money. So I knew kind of how to identify them. But, you know, but. But mostly I just wanted to see if I could do it, I think, at that point. So went in there, vaulted the counter, had him fill the bag up, got out. That's that when you said tunnel vision, that was really about the best way to describe it. When you start going in there, that's your sole mission. And in my mind, you've got to get away. Yeah, yeah. So if there's a pile of shrubs or whatever out there, you're going through that shit.

Yeah. so you're going through over under yeah yeah yeah no matter what uh and i've also come to the conclusion that fear will outrun anger yeah if somebody's mad at you and they're chasing you and you're scared of them you're probably going to run faster than they are because you're going to get that adrenaline going so well when you go in the bank i mean like like the it's just a bunch of tellers like they immediately just go in the drawers and just start handing it over the money right away like that nobody puts up a fight nobody says anything nobody just runs nothing they just They kind of stand there in shock.

They stand there in shock for a second. So you kind of have to prod them along. You know, tell them, do it now. You know, put it in here. So because they'll just stand there in shock until you guide them. And they're trained. I mean, they're like they're, they're, they're trained to don't give the guy any or just give them the money immediately.

It's not your money. Give it to them. Get them out of the bank. Like they wanted to get you out of the bank before something happens to us, customer or. Right. And that was one of the things that I found out from that friend of mine who talked to his mom was that they are trained to,

do whatever. In fact, one of the ones that I did, I carried in a walkie-talkie with me and I told them, I said, don't hit the alarm. I got a police scanner and I'll know if you do. I didn't know it until later after I got arrested and everything. When I looked at the paperwork, I found out that they did not hit the alarm. Right. They waited until I left and called 911. So if I would have gotten to do any more, if I would have had that knowledge, I would see if I could make them look like a chicken or something, you know, just something out the wall just to see. So, um, so you got the money and you're out of the bank. Out of the bank.

We'd take off. We'd found a route that would get us quickly to another town. And her friend worked as a bartender in Appleby's. So we said, we'll get there as quick as we can. Right. And then she'll swear we were there the whole time at Appleby's hanging out. So we did that and, uh, went had a couple drinks just for appearances. And then we went back out of the car and started looking at everything.

what year was this in 1995 November of 95 great because there's no it's not like there's cameras on right now there's cameras just everywhere everywhere I mean they can walk around they can do a small perimeter and find somewhere where they've got your tag number somebody some yeah some business someplace has a tag number something yeah but back then we didn't have to worry about that you know they weren't even they weren't even on the outside of the banks um so I had her pull right up to the front and drop me off at the door um so we got home and we went through the money and we had $5,000. Yeah, yeah.

I heard that like the average bank robber gets $3,500. Like that's the average or something like that? It's not very high. No, I mean, that was, that was, I heard that, by the way, I heard that before I even went to prison. I don't know if it's higher now, but five grand. Yeah, got five grand. I was mad as hell. Not going to lie.

I'm like, man, we just robbed a bank. We got $5,000. You're looking at like, with a gun because it doesn't matter that it's a pellet gun. At that time, it did. Oh, it did? Yeah, the law had changed since then. So it was like seven years like minimum you're getting set like just for a gun. Yeah. Back at that time, it was just counted, I think, as a weapon. But it wasn't considered a firearm because it has to be propelled by an explosion.

Right. So yeah, we're mad as hell. You know, we got $5,000. That goes pretty quick in any kind of world. And if you're party in it, it goes even quicker. Yeah. So a month to the day, a month, December 7th, 1995, we found another bank we were going to do. and this girl's down she is down for anything bro that's yep she was because she's robbing the bank she's she's probably thinking no no i'm just driving the car no no you're getting charged bank robber conspiracy to rob a bank the way they've got it turned is a hand in one is a hand in all yeah so if you have anything to do with it you're all the way in but yeah she was she was as dumb as i was so so we ran through that party and you know just that's not an exciting story at all. So we found the second one and we went to do it and it was set up a little bit

differently. So there was a big parking lot for a grocery store and a couple of little stores beside it and there was a couple of trees over there. So she was going to go parking the parking lot and I was going to hit the bank and then go over to the parking lot and get in the car. Went into this bank. Same way. I think I had a little bit of supervaluer. villain in me and wanted to be notorious so I wore the same devil's mask as I did in the first one. Nice. Um, so yeah. Make sure there's a link. Right. You got to do that because it does see it does seem cool to have a theme. You know, it does. You know, I wanted to be the Joker or something. In the movie, it's in the movie version is cool. But in reality, it's like, yeah, I really want to do this vastly

difference. Right. They catch me for one. They got me for one. Yeah. Yeah. So. But I get it. I'd have done the same fucking thing. Yeah. You know. So did that, went in, did the same exact way, had, you know, the mask, hoodie gloves, had the BB gun, vaulted the counter like I did before and jumped over the counter and told them fill the bags up. They fill the suitcase or the pillowcase up and I thought about that $5,000 and I said, this ain't right. Where's the big money? Right. Where's the other money? Well, as it turns out, the, they've got a top drawer, which is the till, like you'd have a grocery store or something.

Yeah. There's a drawer underneath it. This got all the banded money where they can refill their drawer. So I was like, yeah, put all that in here too. So they put all that in there. I take off out of there. And there was, as I run out the back door of the bank and go this way, I ran by the drive-thru. And there was a woman in the drive-thru sitting there gawking at me.

So I ran up to her car and I tapped on the window. And I was like, you've got to go. And she just looked at me and I said, go and she beat feet out of there i still don't know to this day if that's the the person that followed us but somebody followed us from the bank um went back to a friend of mine's house that i was staying with at the time dropped my car off and got her car switched everything over went to her house to do all the count of the money so we get back there and i took all the money into the bedroom and was sitting they're starting to go through it and count it had pencil and papers right everything now i'm all

excited you know yeah this is going to be a lot better than five thousand dollars yeah you know all that i get started with it it's a great big pile in bed and i'm all happy and whatnot and she comes walking there and she's like hey baby there's a cop car outside who i was like just one she said yeah i said okay well if it's just one that's fine and she said uh now there's two shit you know so well sweetie you're going to have to take this money and go out there and just admit what you did. So, of course, being the... I'm going to put money on your books.

I'll stay out here. I'll stay out here and take care of you. Exactly. Yep. So we said, you know, we're just sitting there stunned for a moment. And her sister lived next door to us. There's family land and all that. So we get a phone call and it's her sister.

And she's like, there's people from the FBI over here saying that y'all robbed a bank and need to come outside. Which I already knew once we knew there was two cops out there, that's, it's over. You have to, you have to admit, like, even when things were going wrong in my case, there was still this little part in me that said, it's a coincidence, it's not, they're not going to figure it out. It's not like, it's up right up until you hear the voice and they say it, it's like, then it's just like, there's just, makes it real. It's so real. It's like suddenly. It's so real.

There's just, at least before there was a 1% chance. Yeah. That sliver. Well, my philosophy when I planned these things was always that if I can get away from the bank, you'll be all right. I'll be fine. Yeah, but now you've got this money with bands on it. Yeah, that wouldn't, that didn't mess us up.

I mean, there was. I would think the bands could be tracked back to that bank or something. Like, I mean, I would think something I would be concerned. Well, we got caught on that one. Yeah, yeah. No, no, that's what I mean. I'm saying, like if you're, I thought. you were trying to say that I figured even if they caught me when I was away from the bank,

I could still say that wasn't me, but not if they've got the bans on the money. I'm still thinking I got what you're saying. Okay. Yeah. Um, so you know, they asked you to politely come out. They ask us to politely come out. I go and look out the window and by that time there's like 10, 12 cop cars out there and they're all behind their cars with guns out because they think we've got a gun because I had a BB gun. Yeah. So they think we're armed and dangerous and that's when i decided i wasn't ready to die yet i wasn't going to run out there and a hail of bullets because that was my idea was fuck it i'm not going to let him take me alive um yeah that's that's that's a bunch of macho bullshit so the what was it sundance uh what's name the sundance

bouch cassidy it sounds it's beautiful it's a it's very romantic it is yeah yeah only if you get to leave that theater afterwards okay that definitely helps so we sit there for maybe three or four minutes and like what are we going to do what are we going to do well stupidly we hide the hide the money and mask and everything under the bed and they'll never find it there right this is here when we got here we've been set up yeah right um so we go out and surrender you know and that was really all we could do um they charged this with two banks um i got 63 months i guess so five years got into the federal system in 96 and it was a completely different federal system back then too they were they were kind of phasing out the club fed days right you know so it's still kind of

sweet yeah but not as sweet as it was maybe five or ten years earlier um so that was the first time yeah um back in 95 and 96 um didn't do much in there really just you know where'd you go uh so spent most of it at Butner up in North Carolina. I signed up just to kind of break my time up to go to the drug program, and they sent me to Lexington, Kentucky for that. Was that Ardap? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay.

Yeah. It was, I'm not even sure if they called it Ardap back then, but it was something. Okay. It was an intensive residential drug program. All right. So I went up there, didn't like it, purposefully pretty much flunked out, just messed with the DTSs and after we're like, yeah.

get out here so went back to butner and finished it up there um got out met a girl got married um bought a house was doing great everything's fantastic um for about seven years and i think it was that that memory of prison that kept me on the straight and arrow for a little while try to build something and then one day about 2007 i was just like this isn't what i want i'm leaving left her um gave her the house said I'm I'm out so I went off and that started a whole another spade of just partying all the time you know jumping into this relationships whatever I was good for 16 years and that's how long it stuck with me I guess and then I got into another situation with the girl and what were you doing for work at

this time like warehouse work menial general labor right stuff really you know um Like I said before, I always had a problem with the job because I knew that they were just using me to make money for themselves and get themselves rich. And I always thought enough of myself to think you should be the guy up there at the top that's you. Then you got to work and work your way up there. You do. You really do. Or you hit the lottery or you have to have a rich family member. Rich parents will help.

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

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

Do an RSA. I can't remember what it stands for. What is our rational self-analysis? Rational self-analysis. I remember doing those damn things all the time. Good Lord. But that's what a lot of people need. They just need you have to stop for a minute and think about what you're doing.

Normal people do that. Like they don't necessarily need it. you know, fuckups need that. Like, I need that because I'll take the shortest route. And, but like a normal guy who's lived a good life and has and his thought processes are normal, he just naturally does it. So he doesn't understand how you came to your, your, you know, analysis of the situation, you know, because you immediately snap or I snap or I immediately say the first thing where these guys are, are a normal person. It's like, well, I want, I'm going to say this, but if I say this, this will happen, then that'll happen and this will happen. But if I do this, then this is that.

And that's what I want to happen. So I'm going to do this. Yeah. I don't do that. Well, I do now. But normally it's, fuck it. Let's fake it. Let's change this.

Let's fix this. Let's do this. Call so-and-so. I'll verify the employment. Like, I immediately go fraud. I immediately think this is the easiest, quickest way to get what I want. And it's guaranteed. Yeah.

Even though it's not. No. I think it is. Yeah. It's the same thing. It's the way it works in your head. Yeah. One of the things that I always said to some of my guys in R-Dap and stuff was if you worked as hard,

at trying to do something legitimate as you did at trying to do dirty shit then you'd probably be successful at it because you work very hard to be in a criminal and you keep it yeah and you get to keep it nobody gets to come along and take it you don't have to look over your shoulder you don't have to go to prison you don't have to disappoint your family none of that stuff so um

so not all of that 16 years was a struggle there was some of it that was good but I still had this mindset of just I really don't know how to explain it other than just being a negative angry person you know every little thing that would come my way that didn't go my way it was terrible and it would spiral into just being a miserable thing and i had this one girlfriend that i had after i after i left my wife we were together for about a year and on our final big breakup um she just kept taunting me she was trying to get me to hit her and she said you know what you're going to do you're

going to die miserable alone and unhappy and man that shit hit me you know i was like damn you're not happy you're you're almost never happy something can always be better you always find something wrong with shit so that was one of the big things that i worked on you know in the second time and i finally got it turned around but yeah a lot of people just like i said before you know there's two different kinds of people there's people who don't understand okay why don't you understand the hard work pays off i just don't think that way we don't think the same yeah so i trudged along and and and managed to survive but that's really all i was doing was surviving um being a taker like i said before you know just just um reaping the reaping the benefits of

what my people who loved me had done and borrowing money and staying at couches and everything else um just being a user and a taker all right so i was living at my parents house because they've got an r v and we're gone and i met this girl and ended up moving her in with me and a couple of kids and having a child and that's when everything really changed for me in a couple of ways because in the first way that it changed me was it made me want to be this good person but I never wanted that much responsibility in my life as having a child so it kind of drove me a little bit insane at the same time and her and I fought constantly we were together for five and a half years and out of all that time we probably actually lived together maybe a year and a half two years

the rest of the time we fought so much that I couldn't stay there or we'd just fight all the time um had all kinds of arguments just constantly the pressure being a dad couldn't find a regular good job because i couldn't stop drinking long enough to be able right i think the last year that i was out i i went through four jobs because i'd show up drunk so and they'd fire me they don't like that no they tend not to yeah so i was at a point where i i didn't want to live anymore you know um like we were talking about before i i told one of my best friends when i was 30 that if my next 30 was going to be like the first i didn't want to live them i was just that miserable of a person inside and everything so at

45 in the situation i was in i was i was pretty much ready to kill myself um i was just that low right but i had this daughter my only child and how can i do that to her you know um so in my mind I think I had to do something to dramatically change the course of my life. Suicide wasn't going to be it. Didn't have any money. Screw it. I'm going to rob banks again. Threatened her with that a few times.

And then I finally made good on it. I was like, you know, couldn't work, couldn't stop drinking, couldn't do any of that. Screw it. I'm going to go back to what I know. I did it back in 95, so I've learned lessons from it. Right. Maybe I'll be better at it this time. so um started looking for banks found it the first one i found was in my hometown and the layout

was really good i was doing it by myself i didn't have a driver this time so you know i made sure i did things like parked far enough away from the bank that cameras wouldn't see my car but you could still get to it but i could still get to it and there was some kind of sight line something breaking up the sight line you see what i'm saying so like so i get the other side of something and then go away yeah so the tellers don't run outside and say he was in a blue ford exactly yeah no tags no cameras no nothing just far enough away to where i can get to it quickly because what i always figured when i was doing them was a minute a minute or less door to door from the time i laid my door to the time i get back and that's about what it takes yeah um so i parked on another street and

I remember when I was running to the bank, didn't have my mask on yet because I wasn't close enough. And I just stopped. And I stood there for a minute. I was like, Justin, are you really going to do this? I was like, fucking A right. I am. And ran in there. Didn't use a gun this time.

Didn't use anything. Still had a mask on, hoodie gloves, all that. I think I took a grocery bag because I didn't really care. But having learned from the last one, I just went in there. I said, well, you don't have to say much when you go on with a mask and gloves in a bank. They kind of know what's already going on. So, um, but I'd go up with the bags and I would hand each of the tellers a bag. All these are small banks.

I never want to anything because yeah, you don't want to have eight tellers that you got to manage with one person. So I went in, I handed them bags. I said, fill them up with money. I want the bottom drawers and the top drawers both. Yeah, yeah. Not just getting those top drawers again. Um, did that. and said, don't give me any diepacks and don't give me any tracers.

Right. And at that point, they're still standing there looking at you kind of blank. So I was like, do it now. And that'd get them moving. So while they're filling the bags up, I do a loop around, you know, just spin around in the bank to make sure nobody else is making any kind of moves or anything. Right. And I take off. And seconds later, I'm sprinting back to my car as hard as I can go.

Jump in the car, take off and go, pass a cop on the way. right he keeps on going i keep on going like okay i'm good i mean no like even though you didn't have a gun and you didn't make a threat you didn't anything they they just handed over the money yep okay that's what they're trained to do no i i mean i know guys have robbed them with bang i mean rob people are with a note um but i also knew a guy who he said he said i have a i have a weapon giving the money and the woman said let me see the weapon and he's so he shows the weapons and she's like fuck and she just you know she's a veteran yeah she's she's been robbed before maybe many times yeah she was kind of like let me see the weapon you know because he's got no math

he's like hey give me all the money and the thing and she says let me see and he goes I got a weapon she's let me see it and he's like oh okay you're good we're good we're good she's got bigger balls and half the convicts I know oh so and so you you you're gone got out of there um called her and was like meet me at a certain spot handed her her a band with $2,000 and she's like, oh, my God, I didn't think you were really going to do it. I was like, yeah, I did. Yeah. So ran around doing what I do, you know, party and doing all that for a while.

I think we got 17,000, 18,000 out of that one. That other one where we got busted on before back into the 90s. Oh, yeah. How much was that? 22. Okay. 22 and some change. So figured out that was the trick.

so that was half of my logic going into this with a foggy drunk brain is oh you can do it better this time you know what you're doing so you're professional now i'm professional now yeah so did that got away fine scot-free um you know how money is if it's easy come it's easy go yeah so that shit went quick yeah um so about another month later um ironically i went and hit the bank that i hit the very first time because it still had those three fences around it it still had the same setup so this time it's because i didn't have a driver i just pulled into the residential area behind the bank it's middle of day everybody's at work i just pulled in somebody's driveway and there was a big enough hole in the

in the privacy fence that i could squeeze through it and i already scoped it out busted in there went in no gun no note i didn't want to leave anything behind right i didn't need a note and like i said when you got a mask and everything they know what it is so went in that one did it went just fine um got away 20 000 or so off of that one nice so that was about average 20 to 22 23 um ended up doing four before i got before i got caught got caught on the fourth one how did that how that happened somebody followed you or yep oh okay yep and i heard about it from a guy in jail actually well i knew kind of what went on but it was it was funny the way it happened i pulled out of the bank went in you know about the same kind of thing had the sight line broke up pulled out of the bank and took

off and i was going to go up the road take a left and take another left and get on the highway so i go up here and i take a left and i see this car behind me i'm like okay so i go up a little bit farther and i turn again and the car turns again as well so that's bad so i'm like okay I'm going to keep an eye on him for just another second, and then I'm, then I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to have to do something. Yeah. So I pull across the road instead of turning right. And as I pulled across the road, he came behind me. And that's, oh, shit, what am I going to do?

Is this just a regular person or this is a police officer? Yeah, he was in a little Hyundai something or another. Came out of a pawn shop that was close by. And just happened to see you running or just happened to pick up on what was going on. So I'm going to follow this dude. Yep. And call 911. one. So after I got across the highway and started going down the road, I had blue lights behind

me. I knew at that point it was over. So I panicked and tried to run and crashed. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Look, I just robbed a bank 45 seconds ago. I'm still running from the cost is the least of my problem. Yeah, that's the least of my problems. So I get blue lights behind me You know, I stomp on it and end up crashing into a tree. I was going to say, you know, that we talked about the dip-pikes. I knew a guy who robbed the bank with someone else, like actually took a hostage to get them in the bank, got a bunch of money, put it in there. It was a blue dye pack, had it in, they had it like in a bag, and they were driving in like a stolen vehicle. And he's like, man, we're going like 50, 60 miles an hour.

and we're driving and the die pack goes off and he said you have no idea how much he said how it blows apart he said blue apart and he said the windshield straight blue he so i'm i'm covered halfway in blue he's covered all in blue he said the windows are completely he said we're literally driving rolling the windows down trying to look out he said it's that bad he said i finally had to stop and we ran he's we're running down the street completely blue covered yeah like it's it's it was he said it, and it stains, and it was over. Yep. So I definitely, I can't imagine being drive, trying to outrun the police.

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

Yeah. And it will definitely do that. That's where the tunnel vision came from. I mean, I remember specifically after that first one running to get to her car. And literally, I couldn't see anything in my peripheral vision. It was all just right in front of me, what I've got to do right now. So what, so the cops chase you, you'll lose control and rack or? Yeah. They, they started chasing me. I wasn't really going fast. I was trying to figure out what to do, trying to calm my mind down. Because I still got the adrenaline just going. I'm like, you got to stop and think. This person. following you what are you going to do blue lights behind me shit hit the gas tried to make a turn that i knew i couldn't make right you know no matter how badass anybody says they are when you're right in the middle of that shit it's hard to think so stomped on the gas tried to make a turn i couldn't make it was actually a little building i crashed into crashed into the building cops come running up guns all that yeah whatever fuck off did you get you get out and

or they drag you out or the car or did you get out and immediately just no he came over to me um i was sitting there like well i mean i i hit a building at like 45 miles an hour oh okay so you weren't you're in bad shape yeah well i wasn't in bad shape but i was stunned you know at least airbag popped all that kind of stuff so i'm just kind of sitting there and he's next thing i know i got a gun in my face yeah all that so um yeah my fear you know my fear to me that the whole out trying to outrun the police, you know, to me, I'm already thinking, well, eventually they're going to catch me. And to the truth is, I'm probably better off pulling over and trying to get out on my own because

I may end up getting shot, you know, I, these guys, their adrenaline's going. They think I've got a gun. If they think I've got a gun, then I end up getting shot. Right. You know, so to me, I mean, I've known guys who have been chased by the cops, and they're literally like just hit the brakes and hit the brakes, you know, pulled the emergency break and jumped out of the car just as soon as it was done with their hands in the air. air, you know, and immediately dropped down on the ground because they were like, look, I mean, like, they'll shoot you in the car. Like, they can always say, I thought I saw a gun. I thought this. Some of the cops are super, I don't want to use the word vigilant, but they're just overly enthusiastic about possibly putting a bullet in somebody's head, you know, and you're just wrong the bank. You're running for the police. He's in fear. You know, and they're just going to take advantage of the situation, you know, not that all cops are bad, but sometimes you've got to, all you

need with one dickhead end up with a fucking bullet in your head and that's all it takes and there's plenty of them out there yeah because yeah so did that um was standing there and one of the cops was really cool to me he's like you smoke he said you smoke and i was like yeah he said go a cigarette for you a jail like yeah that'd be great so i'm standing there he moved the cuffs around to my front and gave me a cigarette and i'm sitting there smoking it and something that my girlfriend had said to me earlier that day. She's like, just please come home to me today. And in my drunken, stupid mind,

I'm like, I gotta get home to her. So, I shot her run. What are you doing? I'm drunk. I'm not, you know, I'm drunk, adrenaline, whatever it is. So I run up to this one cop and I knock him down. He rolls down a hill. I find out later, he broke his freaking ankle. Oh, my God.

So I'm like, they're just, they're going crucify me um but i tell you what matt when it all comes down to it when i landed in that jail cell i passed out for like hours when i finally came to the first emotion that i really felt was right it's over yeah yeah now i can try to rebuild from here um it wasn't exactly relief but it was there was a sense of i can't yeah yeah it's over destructive life like i was i've got to do something different um and that's where i started trying to live for my daughter and said okay you got to figure out a different way to do shit and this is your opportunity to do that so i got you know jail was jail was 10 times worse than it was in 95 95 96 there wasn't a lot

of gang activity the feds wasn't that big a thing back then no no the feds were they were still looking at basically bank robbery mobsters like like more high I don't want to say high brow but you know you know more sophisticated types of crimes as opposed to now where it's basically almost like a state prison yeah um it's a big state prison it's just a big state prison I mean if they decide they want to get you for seven grams of coke or meth or whatever they're going to get you with seven grams and lock you up for 10 years yeah so the the the people that I met in prison the first time as opposed to the people that I met in prison the second time was so vastly different. And I remember when I got out the first time, one of the things that I said often was I met a higher caliber of person in prison than I did outside of prison. You know, we knew guys in there that, you know, they were smuggling opium from Afghanistan. You know, another guy that was, he was on the run for seven years in Columbia before he finally got arrested and thrown in a Colombian prison and they extradited him. So it was just, I met a lot of good people under that time. This time was completely different.

There was all the gang activity. there was all these people that run around just on dumb shit all the time were you in a medium or i started out in medium yeah okay started out at beckley west virginia did you end up in a low ended up at a low at ashland kentucky um got got nervous as hell because the first time i talked to my attorney she's like you know they're probably going to career criminal you over this um you didn't know what that was i was like okay all i know is that means a shitload of time yeah so I was like just flabbergasted. And I was like, well, she said,

well, I got to check it out thoroughly to make sure, but you're looking like that. So, and you know how public defenders are. They'll talk to you once every month or two, maybe. Yeah, yeah. So I'm sitting here for weeks just bugging out, thinking I'm going to prison for 20 years. As it turns out, the way it works is that 15 years

from the last time you were incarcerated for a crime. Right. 15 years is the cutoff for whether it's career criminal. Oh, okay. So they can't use those crimes against you for the purposes of career criminal. Now, I had five years of supervised release when I got out back in 2000. Had I violated and gone back to prison for at any time, for any amount of time, it would have counted. Yeah.

And I would have been career criminal. But because that didn't happen. And like I said, I did learn a little bit from the first one. So I didn't use a weapon. I didn't threaten anybody, any of that. um i got 45 months nice um i did a plea deal i had four banks i did a plea deal they dropped two of them in exchange for the guilty plea for two of them so i got counting for two bank robberies and got a 45 months in it did 35 months yeah and that was okay so yeah i knew a guy who

robbed a couple of or i think he brought three banks with a with a note he got uh roughly basically like 30 i want to say 36 months might have been 40 40 months but roughly the same amount of time sounds about right i mean and when you tell people out in the feds that are just getting in and stuff they're like why the hell didn't i rob banks instead of selling drugs yeah or listen counterfeiting too is it it's another one that you these guys that can counterfeit like they they tend to get very little time for something that to me has could have huge a huge potential as long as you're not using a weapon listen the moment you start using a weapon they have an issue with anything yeah with anything but see here's the thing about counterfeiting because of course you know

at 23, I'm in prison. I'm still fairly criminally minded. Right. So I'm going through the Sentencing Guideline Manual, you know, the book they used to decide. And I'm looking for what's got the least amount of time. And counterfeiting was it. Yeah. But what I learned later on was that the feds will actually take it and they'll count each bill as a charge.

They can. They'll stack it. But if you take a plea, you know, typically you can take a plea, you know what I'm saying? But if you, like, go to trial, oh, no, you're done. Like, that's just now we have the opportunity to really. just destroy you like we can give you 30 years you could have taken three years now we're gonna give you 30 yeah because you passed 500,000 worth of fucking money like every every dollar bill is is it possibly a three-year charge yeah so um man um oh gosh uh gosh

I talked to a guy the other day though actually Chad Marks yeah he actually I think got 40 years he actually went to I mean he actually went to trial it's like you're guilty Like, what are you doing? You're guilty. He's like, I thought this, I thought that, you know. But, yeah, he got 40 years for something that he probably could have gotten, you know, 10 or 15 for something like that. I don't know, Chad, well, but we've, I've seen his post on Facebook a good bit.

He's very active in the, in the community with trying to help people out now. Yeah, yeah, he's, and he's a nice guy. Like, he's genuinely like, well, I talked to him before we did the podcast for like 20 minutes. And just seems like a nice guy who was telling me all the different things that he's doing. and he's like look you know he got clemency or is i don't know it's it's it's i want to say clemency but it's i don't think it was it was basically what i think they modify they knock off time off your sentence they modify it so there's another name for it but right anyway um or was it the second chance act because of no no anyway whatever the point is is that he got out

he did like 17 years and now he runs a legal he runs a consulting firm he also runs a he also runs a what do they call it um it's like a legal he does legal work for for for people um and he's doing some great work from everything i've seen because i've seen him getting some people off yeah well he and this other guy uh that was on 60 minutes like they've won like sorcery in front of the the supreme court like they've done stuff that like career lawyers who've been doing it 20 years don't do and these and he's doing great work but then again he also had 16 years to hone his craft or no 17 years to hone his craft i mean god's sakes yeah because you have to find something to do with your time yeah you know it's one thing's we obviously said i'm sure

you've heard it you know everybody has got their own way of doing time yeah some people you know go grab a bible some people exercise um some people do legal work and hang out in the law library all the time well that's what i said was um you know i i i didn't want to play i didn't want to join a softball league you know i didn't want to learn how to be a uh a uh a chef you know because they have the culinary arts class they had culinary arts so i didn't want to be a chef or chef i don't want to be i didn't want to join a softball league you know i didn't want to play handball i didn't so i didn't want to learn to play the guitar so you know what i was like all these things that listen to her guys that are amazing in there that like my god like this guy is phenomenal

and then they join bands and they're they're amazing but i you know i just started realizing i started talking like i would talk to someone like you and you hear their story maybe bits and pieces and then one day you cut maybe even you hear it in a two hours they tell you their whole story because they have plenty of time so they they drag it out they tell you every little instance and then by the end of it like if you can keep me you know like wow i mean like like like boziac when i talked to him we talked for like two hours or so in the cafeteria and i mean the like at the end of it i was like bro we got to we you got to write this down like we we got to do something with this is a great story it's it's the same thing and it's the same thing and it's the same thing. And then, you know, the problem is you meet so many guys like that, but nobody can write their stories. Like, they can't write their stories. It's very difficult to write your own. You wrote your own story. You know, it's hard. It's tough. It's hard to see you as you truly are. So what happens is people write their stories, they become like a, like a superhero. And it's like, yeah, but that's not really you. You're really, like, as I was writing my story, I kind of

started to realize, I'm a dickhead. Like, this is not really, if I had to rewrite it multiple times to kind of go back and realize you know you made your sound self on like a super villain but the truth is you know this was stupid you this your dickhead here you don't mention that you were scared of death and that's what i was about to come out of my mouth was i was scared to death the whole fucking time yeah um yeah but the amount of talent in there is amazing i met so many talented people in there charismatic good people you know they just they're wired differently yeah and we know boziac and i were talking about this the other day uh boziac's a guy that i do um um um others i do uh other podcast with and we were talking about we were answering questions and one of them

was like what programs would be good and we talked about ardap he and i had talked about art app you and i talked about art app but the problem is is like because you know recidivism is ridiculous like that it's through the roof and well but you're you're so set up to fail when you get out yeah and and i'm not saying that a lot of these guys aren't they're just not putting enough effort in um but also like there's no one i think everybody should have to take an ardap tile either programs something inside or out i mean you could scale down art app so it was just about behavior modification because a lot of it's just ardaq really 95% of it is behavior modification so some type of a program like that there should be more of an incentive to take the program and pass it you know a year okay

but you go through hell for that year and if you could you could give everybody that year and then people go to art out maybe they get two years so there should be more of an incentive and then when people get out like i got lucky i got out i had like three 400 dollars to my name right so i had a little bit of money only because i wrote books and i got lucky and was able to actually get a book deal a couple book deals while i was incarcerated and i i was a part of an option of one of my books so that money was basically gone by the time i got out sure luckily while i was incarcerated after going going to Walmart and spending $300 of my money that I paid, you know, of my own money. Right. Luckily, a few weeks later, the option hit again. And I got a nice little chunk of

money. I was able to buy a new, a Jeep. And, you know, and get a year's worth of insurance. And I had enough money. I remember I had $1,000 left over. And I thought, there's $1,000 I'm putting it aside in case anything breaks on the cheap. But I saw so many people would go they have their family would come in they would give them a bunch of money they would you know they would they would they would help them they'd come visit them they've got a place to stay they've got everything and with their first paycheck they're buying a hundred and fifty dollar pair of nikes yep and it's like your family gave you a chunk of money you your brother-in-law got you a job you're everybody pulled together and with the first bit of money you got you spend it on

a $150 pair of fucking Nike's, you're coming straight back to prison. Like, and they do, because their mindset is, I still want to be a baller. I still want to impress anybody. I still want, as I cry, broke all the time. Yep. Everything I bought,

do you know, I don't think I bought that's not true. That's not true. The only thing I don't buy at Ross or Marshall's, um, the only thing I don't buy is these t-shirts. because I buy these t-shirts at Target

because I really like the way they fit and you can get two for I think 26 bucks so they're like 13 bucks apiece to me that's a lot of money for a t-shirt. Everything I buy is at Ross, Marshalls, Bells, everything. I'm exactly the same way. If you give me a million dollars right now,

I can't imagine spending. I used to buy blue jeans that were two, three hundred bucks for a pair of blue jeans. I still have blue jeans. I still have blue jeans that I bought in Walmart three years ago. And I'm glad. Yeah.

I mean, I was actually, when I was riding down here, I had a buddy come with me and we were talking, you know, just about your story and a little bit and stuff. And one of the things that occurred to me, I was like, I wonder how that is to live the way you lived, you know, you had an exorbitant amount of money. And then to get out here and not have that, it had to be kind of tough. And you, you know, I get it. It would be different if it was, the difference is it's not like I was still out and lost it. Right. When I went to prison, you know, that, so by the time 13 years goes by, and you get out of prison after 13 years of me, all the money I use, I spent on Quarlings, so I could write stories, print them out, email them to people to put into Word, and then send them back. Like, I had a whole process down.

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

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

Gotcha. For I hustled certificates. Ah, yeah. But getting out here, I think after going through ARDAP and being so humbled. that even now I get out and I have those moments where I want to buy a new vehicle and I can afford that and it's like bro what are you doing

you've got a brand new car like I bought a I got a little Jeep compass to me I would say it's a chick's Jeep I got a little chick Jeep everything works the AC works the the brakes work it's got Bluetooth that's magic to me isn't it everything so so I just have to keep telling

being trying to be humble and you could ask my girlfriend it's hard she's constantly looking at me i'll say something and she'll look at me and i'll be like fuck like you're right you have to be thankful and humble and have to remind myself over and over and over again to do it yeah because naturally i you know naturally i i i want to be driving i want to drive a i want to drive a hundred thousand dollar car i want to live in a half a million dollar house which in florida is a million dollar house anywhere else. I was going to say in Florida, that's a shack, isn't it? No, no. In Florida, half a million that's like a million, money goes far in Florida. Really? As long as you're not on the coast.

Ah, look, you see what we are. Like this house, no, I get that. It's probably worth, I think these things are, this is selling for like, this is like a $300,000 house. Okay. But, bro, this house is huge. It's a brand of a year and a half old. Okay. Now, you know, somewhere else in California, it's probably worth $2 million. Right. So I'm saying, you know, I just have to constantly be humble and, and try and be thankful for what I have. And I think that's something that prison and ARDAP put into me because I had a friend named Pete who used to say, and everybody's heard me say this,

you know, you cannot go to prison with the same mindset that you had prior to prison, go through prison and get out with those same thought patterns and not expect to go back to prison. You really can't. Right. We were talking about that earlier. You know, definition of insanity.

Yeah, yeah. Keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Right. It's the same thing. Look, you drank that whole time. You happened to stay straight, but only out of the fear of going to prison. And then you finally got to that point, same issue you had before. Start robbing banks, go right back to prison.

What did you expect? Of course you're going to go back to prison. Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed in my mindset. Nothing had changed in my personality. And, you know, it goes back to what I was talking about with recovery until you're ready to do that. Right. And whatever it takes to you.

get you to that place where you're ready to do that you're not going to do it so well so you're but now you got out you're you're you're starting you've started it but you're still doing the groundwork for um for a reentry program phoenix reentry yeah is that the exact name phoenix phoenix reentry resources resources is actually what it is um when we were in our app i don't know if you guys had to do this or not but you had to be a part of a committee of course of course so i had a random mind. Let me tell you a quick story about Ardap right quick because you were talking about how you kept dropping out of Ardap or something. Yeah, I dropped out twice. Okay. So let me tell you how I got into Ardap because because I was in for robbing banks, no matter whether I used

a gun or not, it was considered a violent offense. They don't want to give you one year off. They wouldn't give me my one year off. So I've been at Beckley for about two years and my custody level dropped to a low. So they put me in for a low. And when I got designated, they designated me for Oakdale, Louisiana. It was S-E-I Oakdale. I was like, where the hell is Oakdale? Right. I had to look it up and find out it was in Louisiana.

So they've got me designated to go there. I talked to my mom. She's like, Justin, that's 800 miles away. Yeah. We're not going to be able to bring your daughter to see you. Yeah. You're going to miss that. So I'm sitting here brainstorming.

You know, I'm talking to everybody. They're like, well, if you get a shot, it'll kill your transfer. I'm like, eh. The R-DAP coordinators have almost as much power as the warden's right and the one that we had um at beckley i had had interactions with him he seemed like he was one of the only people there that at least acted like he cared whether he did or not he acted like it right so i snagged him going across the compound one day and i said look and i went and basically fed him this whole line about family acceptance and whatever

blah, blah, bah. I need to be in R-DAP. I need to be in this R-Dap, whatever. He starts getting on the phone and making arrangements to get me into R-Dap. And it ended up the morning, one Monday morning, I was on the call-out to go to R&D to pack out to go to Oakdale. And I was on the call-out to go over to move to the R-Dap building. So everybody's kind of freaking out a little bit, figuring out what to do with me. This guy stayed on the phone all day to get me, to be able to stay in that art app program so i just thought it was funny when you were talking about that earlier i meant to mention that but uh no no you're it's the same thing you're lucky to end up on a bus man you ain't even kidding you ain't even kidding because i very seldomly do they they uh

stop a transfer they have to make the phone you know they have to go to um shoot what is it um grand prairie grand prairie thank you got to go to brent grand prairie get somebody even on the phone there is hard for even for them so you got lucky but that was the same thing i was supposed to be It hadn't gone through, but they were saying, we're going to transfer you. And I said, oh, no, no, no, I'm going an ARDAP. Can't do that? So I go over there immediately talk to Dr. Smith, which was the Ph.D woman that runs the program, you know, that you're saying there, coordinator. You're called it.

Yeah, they call it a DAPC. Right. Yeah, Dapsie. We threw RSA and did the same thing to me. I was like RSA. I ain't heard that shit in a while. So same thing. She got me in there.

And then, of course, six, seven months later, I drop out again. Yeah. And she just, no, because she thinks I'm there because I want the one year. Yeah, I never told anybody, right?

I mean, like my buddy Pete knows. I drop out because I figure I got the, I've got a management variable on me. Can't move me now. It's good for a year. Six, no,

about three months later, they called me and they go, okay, we're going to transfer you. And I went to a camp because I had like, listen, when I went to the medium, I had like three points.

I don't have any violence at all. It kind of surprised me when I heard you were even at a medium. Well, because I had, 26 years. Okay. The time. Right. So I was like, what are you talking about? You know, I was like, no, no, I got a management variable. She said, I know, but they're pushing people to go to camps. And so I'm going to call and have it removed. And I'm like, like, I didn't know it was that easy.

Like, you guys, many, it sounded like you couldn't remove it. And they were like, well, I mean, in this case, man, we got to be people to camps. You should have never, you should never have been the medium. You shouldn't even be here. And I was like, you know, you're as soft as cotton. No. You got your female counselor telling you, my God. And I was like, I was like, we can't do that. And she goes, I said, I'm supposed to go back to Ardap. She goes, you are? And I was like, yeah, I said, I've already had a meeting with Dr. Smith.

And I'm supposed to, she said next, she was, when? I go like next week. And she goes, oh, gosh, okay, well, I'll hold off then. I won't put it in right now. So hopefully you'll be on the call out next week. I said, yeah, definitely, immediately go back and send an email. Yeah. And sure enough, luckily a week later, I did get a meeting.

meeting. She said, okay, no problem. And a week later, she put me back in. But it was the same thing, transfer. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one of the things that you, you're learning there is, is you've got to work, you've got to work the system as much as you can. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they're not looking out for you. No, not at all. It's, it's a terrible whole system. I don't know if you've seen all the news stuff lately. It's just been. Oh, what with so much going on with, with the BOP and. Oh, they're falling apart. Oh, they are. I mean, it's, and you know, they can't, They're, my buddy Pete who said literally, he's like the most senior CEO, a correctional officer, the most senior, you're trying to use the correct, because I want to say cop, you know what I'm saying? Like the inmates, the inmates say cop, you know, oh, yeah, the cop's over here, the cop.

So the most senior correctional officer on the compound at the low is, has 18 months. You have to think the most senior before would have 20 years. Yeah. You know, there'd be five or ten guys that have, you know, 15 and 20 years there. Now the most senior ones, 18 months. He's like, literally, we're telling the counselors how things work. This is what you do. And they'll come to them and say, and say, hey, man, this is what's going on.

What, like, I'm not even sure, you know, like, I don't even know what. And he's like, well, fuck, if you try this, did you call so-and-so? Did you say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. It's like, Jesus, God, almighty. You know, you got inmates there have been there, 20,000. 35 30 years and they're like like they know the whole place they could run the whole place practically they could use a computer but that's how bad it is like in the the the budget is they're being

crushed by the budget and they have no budget they have this this nobody wants to work there that the guys are getting set like the the CEOs are getting are getting are getting COVID and then getting it again and then getting it again and then quitting their job like I'm done because it's so it's just everywhere in there it's so you know not that it's dirty because Coleman was super clean but the fact is how do you get rid of staff when you've got 180 guys living together you can wipe that place down every single day with peroxide or or bleach or whatever you want to wipe it down with you've got 180 guys you just can't get rid of the staff you just can't no you know the showers you know it's moist there's no you know it's like you know where's that there's no there's

really no happy medium between keeping them in from escaping and being able to have showers and toilets and sleeping in bunk beds. And, you know, it's just people just aren't meant to live like that. So it's a problem. No. And I kept up with a handful of guys that I was in there with, you know, some in the ARDAP, whatever. And there was guys in there that didn't go outside for a year and a half. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. You know, did not go outside. Yeah. You know, they're on lockdown all the time. The short staffing thing is making them basically because the one thing that was ubiquitous all the way across the BOP that I saw was nobody really wanted to do any work CEO wise. You go ask them to do something and that pisses them off. They didn't get a job. They didn't get a job as a CEO because they wanted to change the system, clean up.

Like I'll talk to cops who will say, you know, I genuinely when I got hired wanted to make a difference. Like I really thought you get a CEO job. You're like, I'm trying to kick back and make my 80 or $100,000 with some old. overtime. Yep. I don't want to do any work. I don't want to do any work. Right. So, yeah. And so they, now they put anybody on lockdown, like on the regular, you know, just for no particular reason. Y'all are getting a lockdown for the next week, two weeks. Well, I mean, because at this point, this is, they're still able to use COVID as an excuse. And, and, you know, this is the thing, whenever I talk about prison is that, you know, the truth is that I know, I know a lot of guys get in

there and they hate on the COs and they hate on the, you know, and look, but the truth is, it's like, listen, like, I probably, I met one or two people who are in prison who probably shouldn't have been there. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I've met five or six that shouldn't have been there for something. Now, almost everybody across the board shouldn't have gotten the time they got. Like, it's insane the time. Like, you know, okay, you broke the law.

You fucked up. You need five years. But they gave you 30. Your first offense. Right. Or even their second offense for something that's always minor. It's like, are you sick? So you had a gun that was at your house five miles away and they enhanced you because

they found a gun when they searched your house that you didn't bring to the drug thing. And now you got 15 years. Oh, yeah. It's like, holy shit. Like, you know, it's, it's there's, there's all kinds of reasons. But, you know, the, the truth is is that, look, 95% of the guys that are locked up, like, I don't want to live in my neighborhood. You know, they're just, they're, they, and, and not. so much because, not because they're criminals or they did something wrong, but because they're

in there. And like we talked about, they're, they're just plotting their next indictment. And to me, but also by the same token, the best people I've ever met in my life I met in federal prison. So you know what I'm saying? Like, where's that? Like, and that to me has to be there need to be programs. And these guys are going to fuck them up. They're going to fuck them up. Yeah, they're not, there isn't any government system that's going to work to try to fix this. But just like Ardap, look, it doesn't matter that you're right, half the guy, or 80% of the guys might be faking their way out. But to save the 20% is still save so much for overall, it saves the taxpayer so much money. They don't, if you do the math, that program more than pays for itself.

And it saves the taxpayer so much money. Absolutely. And what would save the taxpayer even more money is if these people, had some way to get themselves back into society in a decent way. Because the truth is, and this is what I was going to get at, and this is me just being a fucking narcissist, is that most guys are not going to have the savvy to set themselves up to be able to get themselves back on their feet, even with the halfway house. Because the staff at the halfway house doesn't want to help you.

They're making $10 an hour. They don't give a shit. They hate your, and they just hate you. Oh, yeah. They're doing everything to want to fucking make it as hard as possible. Dude, I had a dude made a statement and said that I hit him, that I punched him. Right. A halfway house staff.

Well, I cussed at him a little bit because he took my phone. Everybody had smartphones. You're right. Everybody. He took mine. And he showed me where they put the rest of the phones. And we came out of there and I was cussing him. You know, I was mad to my brand new phone.

And, uh, so you're not allowed to have it when you were there? No, the policy was that you could have a phone that couldn't get internet. Yeah, I mean, it's just like stupid. It's just stupid. It's like, what are you doing? Yeah, why you're going to try to get us back in the community, but you're not going to give us any access to be able to do it. I can't have my laptop. I can't have a smartphone or an iPhone or a cell phone or smart, whatever you want to call it.

You know, I can't have any of that stuff. I can't have access to this. It's the, the halfway house is worse than being in prison. And to me it was. It was more. they were on me more. If you're not mentally prepared for it, you're right.

Because it is, it's them giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Right. It's what they're doing. It's a test, pretty much. Yeah. But yeah,

this guy accused me of hitting him. So I get called up there by the head of the halfway house. I mean, what they're called. So for the next 10 hours, I'm like, shit, I'm going back to jail because this is somebody's lied on me.

Yeah. No doubt. And I said they're bugging out. 12, 15 hours later, within 24 hours he recanted his statement got to keep working there the whole rest of the time everything i'm like you try to get me sent back to prison you get to keep your fucking job yeah yeah so probably because there was a camera probably because somebody else wouldn't back up a statement not because he felt bad but probably just because there was a reason he recanted his

statement maybe you know where did you get hit was it on the camera where were you standing okay then the camera should have gotten or we talked to so-and-so he said he didn't hit you that or you know what i'm saying it's like it is that's a fucked up situation he had to But anyway, that's the kind of people we have to deal with in there. And it's the same way in prison. Guards are the same way. I mean, they know that you're disadvantaged. They have almost complete power over you.

So they take advantage of that. And they use whatever they want to do to you, they can pretty much do. Yeah. So. But you're absolutely right. There's a lot of people in there that have tried to go through that change of mind like you and I've had. You know, because obviously you went through it too. You got in there and I can't do this shit anymore.

Yeah. Let me live different. when you talk about the resourcefulness to be able to get to get their plan together and everything else they might be able to do that but the resources aren't really there for them to do that all right um you know you you can't even get a resume typed up in word document or anything you got to use a typewriter and put it on paper yeah um yeah yeah it's if you want to learn anything besides plumbing or construction you're you're just shit out of luck you can't get any of that stuff so But I believe that prison is a place that you're taking a time out. And if you're going to be able to get through to somebody and help them change their lives, that's the place to be able to do it because their life is pretty much on pause. So when I was in ARDAP and I helped my buddy squirrel out and that was when the light went on for me. And I said, I want to help these people that are in there that want to do better,

but they don't really have the resources to be able to do it. yeah um so when i got out almost immediately when i got out i started brainstorming about doing a reentry organization specifically for the feds um i took about a month off when i first got out and just kind of got acclimated i was fortunate enough my parents are like you know come stay with us and we'll try this again you know whatever and uh so i took a minute and i went up to a temp agency i remember because they said yeah we got a job it's okay that you got a felony we'll we'll get you to the job and everything i get up there and they pull up my background and they're like oh no we can't hire you i was like okay well that's fair enough you know they were nice about it and everything so i go

to drive away and they called me and they said you need to call this person at the justice resource center and said they work in a reentry division as soon as i heard reentry i was like really okay so i called i didn't get that person i got another another person that her and i sit there on the phone for like 45 minutes talking about reentry stuff um And that led me down, she didn't get me a job, but that led me down the path and introduced me to the whole reentry and recovery community up there in Asheville. Right. And she told me, she said, you need to become a peer support specialist. And without even asking what it was, I knew what it was.

And she told me it's somebody who uses their lived experience to be able to help others who are struggling with, you know, either substance abuse or mental health challenges or whatever. I came up with the idea of a phoenix one day when I was walking around the track in prison and I was like that's what I want to be I want to be like a phoenix you know I'm born 45 years of my life up I want to rise up out of these ashes and do something with myself so um I came up with with the phoenix idea um I had these five or six guys that I still talked to on the inside so I started up the newsletter and just started working on putting the pieces together you know I don't know anything about business. I don't know anything about any of it.

So it's taken a lot longer than it would for somebody else. But I've been out for two years, June 26, and I've been working on this since I've been out. It's the longest project that I've ever worked on. It's the hardest that I've ever worked on anything. And it's not, brother, that's not like, like what you're talking about doing is not easy. No. You know what I'm saying? It's not like you're, so it's, it's a lot of struggle with very little payoff.

You know what I'm saying? like you know until you you reach that finish line and even then it'll be a struggle yeah i mean i'm like i've got a lot going on right now so i'm i'm i'm war out but i know that if i push to the end of this it's going to be it's going to it's going to um there's a huge gap i mean we had a we had a book at beckley that was like that thick of reentry resources i sent out like 20 letters you know how i got back zero everything they've got got is outdated. Everything that they've got is broken. And they really don't care. They're not concerned about it. Does you guys have the computers? They had these reentry computers.

You go to the library, you get on this reentry computer, you can pull up supposedly resources. None of them are hooked to the internet. Yeah. So none of them are updated. It's useless. So what are the people doing there that really want to try to do something? If you're good and resourceful, you can find resources, but it'd be a lot better if they were available to them. Well, you know what's interesting now and now because of the COVID and stuff, like all, even all the stuff that is you could kind of manipulate to help you in some way, like getting a resume or something, that none of that's available now. So now you're in even a worse position to get out of prison. Now you're really screwed. And you get, and then the halfway house, like, okay, how much time do I get in halfway house?

People are like, oh, it's great. You get to work and live there for free. They're taking 30% of what I make. Yep. they're there plus you're paying your taxes so you end up you're basically working for less than half um yeah yeah because they take that 30% off you're gross not right right so i'm working for less and half so if i'm making you know whatever you're making 15 bucks an hour you're working for a lot now you're working for about six bucks an hour seven bucks an hour if you're lucky and so you know

you're trying to save that you're trying to ride drive the but even after i got a vehicle they wouldn't let me park it in the parking lot that took another two weeks so i had to have my buddy drive take keep my vehicle at his at his gym for a couple weeks like a vehicle sit in the parking lot for two weeks do you think that that's not an opportunity for somebody to steal the vehicle I don't I have PIP I don't have liability my car is stolen I'm done it's not finance I couldn't get financing because I wasn't allowed to get financing because I had to get permission to get financing and they said no you can't get financing you're in the halfway house we're not allowing you to get financing how am I supposed to buy a vehicle

Ask your family. My family's not helping me. They don't have money to help their convict brother who just got out of prison and lives in a halfway house. Like who would help me? Right. You know, like where are you going to stay? Where you can stay with your mother? My mother lives in a retirement community.

I can't stay with my mother. Like there are, you know what I'm saying? Like there was, I was in a really bad spot. I got lucky that an ex-girlfriend took pity on me and said, you can live in my spare room. And then when I was like, I can't do that, I'm not going to do that to you. I'm not going to do that to you. She was like, no, no, you'd be helping me. You'd be helping me.

It's like, stop. Like, I'm not helping you. Like, I'm paying you like $600 a month and you're throwing in food. I'm going to eat you out of that $600 and fucking tea it. Right. You know, listen, it got so bad. She finally came to me after a month or two. And she's like, listen, I wasn't anticipating coffee.

You drink a lot of coffee. And I was like, oh, man. I was like, well, how much? I'll pay it, I'll pay it. But it was the same thing. When my car broke down on probation, my car broke down, I live like four miles to a bus stop. I'm not saying I can't walk that in the mind. I could take an hour and walk that.

I could get dropped off there and walk back. That's like two couple hours. Assuming the bus is run on time, I could drive the bus for another hour and a half to where I worked. That's fine. I could spend an extra five hours a day. so that I could go work eight hours. I could do that. You're right.

It's not impossible. But I'll tell you what it doesn't do. It doesn't make me not want to commit fraud. So the fact is when my vehicle broke down and I went to my probation officer and I had $1,000 that I could get a new vehicle for, she said you can't finance anything. And I was like, why? She said, well, you have a financial crime and we don't feel comfortable letting you finance anything. And I was like, I said, I don't have a car.

She's always going to figure something out. I said, I don't have anything to figure out. My figuring it out is let me go buy a brand new vehicle, which I can afford because I have the pay stubs for. And luckily, I didn't listen to you people. And I went and got three credit cards when I was in the halfway house, which I got secured credit cards because I knew this moment was going to come something. So luckily, I didn't listen to you, and I can do it, but you have to give me permission. We argued for two weeks before she finally said, I'll let you spend $300 a month on a new vehicle. I said, then I'll have to get a used vehicle.

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

I spent $375 bucks. she was furious furious and I was like and I was just gambling that she wasn't going to violate me for an extra 75 bucks but she could have

she could have absolutely so I'm saying everything is against you yeah I mean you can't get people don't want to rent to you if you've got felonies oh yeah that that list that they put out in prison

of all these companies that hire felons yeah they'll hire a felon if it's 710 15 years old but they're not hiring you straight out of prison. It's not going to happen. Yeah.

So, well, look, I mean, you know, it's obvious. The government's failed us in a lot of ways. Right. You can, you know, look, here's the problem. It's that could you make it? You could make it. But it would take, it would take someone who is extremely resourceful, manipulative, and someone that is super humble and super appreciative.

I mean, you would have to change your mindset so fundamental. And the truth is, by the time you get out of prison, you're probably pretty fucked up. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some of that, yeah. Right. So if you haven't had some kind of a life-altering experience inside prison to get you your head right, you got a long road ahead of you. And probably you're just going to get re-incarcerated. I mean, the way it works now, you almost have to be like the perfect candidate to turn your life around to be able to really do it.

Right. You know, all those things you said, resourceful, smart, driven, humble, all those things have to be there. But there's a lot of people that are falling through the cracks just because it's so freaking hard to do. Not a lot of it, bro. It's what is recidivism? That's a massive. 60, 70. That's not cracks.

That's people falling into a swimming pool. And there's like, it's not like a little. There's, it's, it's really a few people, the people that are falling through the cracks are the ones that are succeeding. Because almost nobody succeeds. If you look at recidivism, it's fucking outrageous. It's nuts. Absolutely it is. And I've seen people who have gotten out who seem like they were going to do the right thing.

They were going to do right thing. And then one or two things go wrong. And the next thing you know, they're like, they're in such a jam. And what do they do? They go, they rob a bank or they do something like that. I know guys that rob banks while they were in the halfway house. Yeah. Within a few months.

Yeah. I've heard of that. guys we jess and i knew a guy that literally would was telling people in the halfway house that he was going to start he was going to do heroin he's like i don't know how long i'll be on supervised release he is because i mean i'm going to go back to heroin i mean i i i just i love it and i this and i that he died a year later year later we got she got uh notified by a mutual friend that said hey remember so and so yeah boom here's his obituary it's you know he didn't have nobody ever talked to him He got in trouble for like stealing it, using company credit card.

He ended up getting like 14 months or something ridiculous. Didn't go to ARDAP, didn't get this, didn't get that, got three months a halfway house, put him back home. He's back on fucking heroin. Boom, he's dead. Yep. I'm not saying that's the BOP's fault or anybody's fault but his own, but I'm saying you could have certainly, oh, and by the way, this guy, he was an engineer. So he made over a hundred and something thousand dollars a year. he had a, it's not like he was a guy that, that, that didn't, didn't contribute a lot to society.

This was an upstanding guy. Yeah. I've met guys from NASA. I've met lawyers. I've met doctors. I've met all kinds of super smart guys that end up in federal prison because they just, they did something slightly stupid that in another country would have probably just gotten your probation. Yeah. Said they get five years, 10 years.

They get back out. Everybody's left them. It's over. They're rebuilding their whole life. Yeah. Got to rebuild your whole life. I mean, and it's true. It's, I think what I meant was you've got a, there's a good portion of them now, I think that they don't know any other way.

Yeah. You know, so you have to start at a fundamental level of retraining them how to live. Yeah. And I think I never want to leave anybody behind, but certainly there's some people in there that are trying that are trying a little harder than others. You know what I mean? They're really trying to do something with themselves while they're in there. And then you've got others that they jump in there and they jump straight into the dope game in there. Yeah.

Because a lot of people that haven't been in prison, they don't understand. It's just like in society in there. It's just like it is out here. You can't have booze unless you can get it smuggled in, you know. Yeah. Those kind of things. But it's just a regular society. So people jump into it there.

They never, they never leave that. They're not ready to move on from that mindset, I guess is what I'm getting at. So, but the people that are, they're still hard press for real. resources. They're hard pressed for, there is no planning going into them getting out. Yeah. Like you said, the halfway house doesn't really do anything. Yeah. The advice of the halfway house and probation officer, my probation officer, my advice to, you know, react like me, myself to society was you're smart guy. You'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. Like, okay. Yeah, and I'll admit, I'm probably smarter than the average bear. But what about the

average bear? What about the average bear? Yeah, you're saying? Like, what do you know? Like, and luckily, for me, I didn't, I don't think much about that because I'm solely thinking about myself, but now that things are going okay, now it's like, well, no wonder the average guy keeps coming back. And that's why. You're saying, figure it out. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. My probation officer was awesome. She came out the first time she told me, she said, look, I'm not here to try to set you up.

I'm not going to try to surprise you and trap you unless you give me a reason to. I want to see you succeed. and by every count, her and I had a great relationship all the way through it. So I think the, and I've dealt with state probation officers too. And there seemed to be a little bit of a difference there, you know, to me. But so anyway, while I was in ARDAP and I was able to help people, I was actually a senior guide through the last three months. And then they asked me to stay over as a mentor and teach classes. So I stayed over and taught classes.

And that was just what I had a passion for. You know, I always had a problem with a regular job before in a corporation or something, trying to make somebody else rich. Here's something I can do and actually contribute to society and help. So let me look at going that path. I got out. I got a job at some plastic injection molding, whatnot. Worked on getting my peer support specialist. Did the work.

Went an intern for Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness, which is where I work now. And did some volunteer work for them. and got an opportunity to go to work full-time for them. And I'll tell you what, the difference that it made when I went from that corporate, you know, whatever job to this job was monumental. I mean, it was, you're not going to make somebody rich now. You're going to try to help people. Right. And that just made me happy in a way that I'd never, never had before.

And that fueled me just pushing harder on Phoenix because I want to be able to help the guys in there. and I know enough about how the system works to possibly be able to really do that. So I brainstormed with a bunch of people. I've talked to a lot of people on Facebook and connected with groups, you know, from people from FAM and a couple of the other groups that are out there. And I've got a newsletter that goes in to the federal prison. But the project that I'm really excited about is Sunrise is the company that I work for. they're a peer-led organization

which means that it's all peer support specialists that run it. It's all people with this lived experience. So the person who's struggling, they're able to relate to that person because they've kind of been there. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's not somebody with a doctorate degree

that's never been struggled for anything telling them what's what and they're not going to believe them. So you get a better chance to connect with them. There are these peer-led organizations all over the country. So what I'm working on doing is building a database of peer-led organizations and the contacts with the people there in every

city that's got a halfway house right so wherever there's a halfway house i'm in contact with these guys in prison i can put them in touch with a person with a phone number at this peer-led organization when they get to the halfway house okay then they've got a a local access to the resources and everything they've got somebody that they can connect with then understand because they've been there. They'll know about jobs. They'll know about all the resources that are available to them. Right.

Basically what the halfway house is supposed to be doing, but they don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's plugging them into that network. And the other big thing that it does is, you know, when you get out of prison, you're like, okay, what are I going to do now? A lot of people just fall back to their old friends, their old ways, which puts them right back in the same thing. Yeah.

They get out and get introduced to this kind of organization. It's people that truly care. they're in recovery too they're going to invite you to go do things they're going to replace that social element as well in a lot of cases you know not every time yeah but in a lot of cases they're going to replace that social community that you had and that's going to make it getting down that path so much easier right so that's the the big thing that i'm pushing on the project now but there's so much more i mean i've talked to a lot of life coaches um out there on facebook there's some good groups for those i had a great response for people who were willing to

volunteer their time to have conversations with inmates that were still in prison and help them with life coaching and planning what they were going to do when they get out. So we've got that. I've got a college professor that I know who's willing to help me write some correspondence courses, not necessarily for a degree, just to be able to get the knowledge of how to do basic bookkeeping for a business. Right. Because that's one of the things about people that are in prison as well is they're not really of an employee e mindset yeah they're more wanting to go work for themselves at least a lot of them yeah i can't tell you how many people came to me can you help me write this business plan right you know yeah but they just don't have the knowledge to be able to do it

that's actually a hustle in there i know guys that we're charging guys like a hundred were they a hundred bucks 200 bucks to ride business plan it was like what are you doing everybody's hustling in there aren't they where you do it everybody they listen to every business plan that somebody i came they'd be, man, that is a good idea. That's a good idea. And they go, man, can you write up a business plan? Yeah, man, it's like a hundred bucks. Give me a hundred bucks in commissary or a hundred, you know, you do one or two of those a month. And it was basically his business plan was the same basically over and over. It was just horrible. People are just horrible, just praying on people. Oh, yeah. You're in there with a bunch of criminals. What do you expect, so.

But I got a ton of ideas, you know, for what can be done with this thing. But I think the big thing is just I try to catch people about a year before they get out or so yeah and uh get them connected with with resources in their area and then start helping them develop a plan you know but a little bit down the road really the way I sum it up the best is I want to revolutionize rehabilitation in prison right I want to be able to offer them the resources they need to be able to be successful when they get out and have to the easiest thing well easiest one of the things would be good is to actually be able to go in like every once a year or something to multiple prisons and kind of give a presentation or explain like that'd be the perfect thing to try and get to them so that they know

it's available because the staff's not going to help but you know if they were allow you to come in and have that conversation and the other thing is you know what I mean guys so luckily in Florida they have what's called the flow bus and that is the where they allow you to get your driver's license do you know how many guys I know that we're getting out of prison that are going you're going to the halfway house and you don't have an ID you don't have a driver's license and I was like why didn't you go to the flow bus bro I did I put in for it twice and they canceled the last minute this time and the other one was full and then I had I owed this much money on back parking tickets so they would I had to pay that off well that was 800 bucks and I couldn't get it paid off so I couldn't get my driver's license

I could get an ID but it was like like you would think that they would have something set up the government have something set up to say, listen, we're quashing this guy's $800. He's been locked up 12 years. Drop it. Like, let's get him a driver's license. Let's get them that, like, it's all on you. It's all on you. And I get it.

I get that it's your fault that you're there and I get that whole thing. But the truth is that these are guys who have a lot of these guys have never had a job. They don't know how to fill out paperwork. The anxiety is overwhelming. and the staff doesn't want to help. And so they get out. There's no help. They feel more comfortable going to a drug deal than they do filling out paperwork to try to get a fucking driver's license.

Somebody needs to be able to help in some way. It leaves them hopeless. I mean, it leaves them hopeless. And that's right. It's just a cycle. Yeah. It's like me. I was hopeless.

I turned to crime to solve my problems. That's what people are going to continue to do unless you get them some kind of avenue to be able to reenter society. Right. You know, and it was tempting for me to. jump in there and jump into the legal fight of, you know, squash mandatory minimums and conditions in jail and everything like that. Look, there's a lot smarter people that are doing that than me. And I'm going to leave that to them. This is a problem that I see that I can do something about. Right. And that's what I'm, that's, that's my jam. It makes me happy to do that because I'm

able to connect with guys that are where I used to be. They want to get where I am now. Okay. If you want to get where I am now, I'll help you. Yeah. Now, I'm not going to work harder at it than you're going to. Yeah, I was just thinking that a lot of these guys will, they'll take advantage. They'll be like, oh, well, you can you do this? Basically, they want you to give them, give, give, give, give, no. Or even just take up your time to talk to you.

Yeah. Because, you know, when you're inside, outside communications, a big deal. So even just having somebody to talk to would be a big thing to them. But I'm working on some kind of vetting kind of things, you know, to decide who, who really wants to change. you've got to show me, you know, that you're really trying to do this before I'm going to dump a bunch of effort into. But if you do that, I'll give you everything I got. Right. I've got a person that I've helped out in Salt Lake City.

They had their, was it the First Step Act credits, refigured, okay. She was in a halfway house. And at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, they said, your time has been recalculated. You have to be out of here by 4 o'clock. where am I going to go? They don't give a shit. We don't care, but you can't be here at four o'clock. Yeah.

So her and I worked a good bit that night, and we got her a hotel room. Yeah. So that she'd have somewhere to stay, and then we started working on trying to get her a plan together. So, you know, if that's the kind of organization I want Phoenix to be. My newsletter is completely interactive. I invite everybody that gets the newsletter. Email me back. You know, we'll start a dialogue as much as we can, and several people have done that.

that's showing me that you're really trying to do something right so um but going back in there or going in there and doing motivational speaking and stuff i would love to do that i'm waiting on the time limit before i can but that's that's something that i'll have in the works um coming up so i'm excited about it it's well let me know complete completing that book was a big deal and i got something completed now i want to get this all the way there and get it completed and be able to change people's lives.