Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - This Legal Loophole Sent Me To Prison!

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Ryan Richmond thought he was building a legal dispensary to help people, but after years of raids, prosecutions, and a controversial tax case that sent him to prison, he rebuilt his life and found a new path forward through entrepreneurship.⁣ ⁣ Ryan's link - ⁣ Check out his book here - https://caponeofcannabis.com/⁣ https://hempwell.com/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/caponeofcannabis/⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Shop my merch: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MatthewCoxCollection⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ Chapters: ⁣ 00:00 - Everything Changed⁣ 05:28 - Breaking New Ground⁣ 10:50 - Doors Kicked In⁣ 17:53 - Facing Decades Inside⁣ 28:43 - Refusing To Quit⁣ 35:45 - Under Constant Pressure⁣ 43:00 - Something Felt Off⁣ 47:09 - Time To Leave⁣ 01:14:18 - A Fresh Start⁣ 01:19:00 - The Hidden Tax Rule⁣ 01:26:18 - Targeted By Feds⁣ 01:32:12 - Day Of Reckoning⁣ 01:37:30 - Prison Reality⁣ 01:45:00 - Finding Purpose⁣ 01:52:00 - Life After Prison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Preferred. That was easy. In 2024, a woman walked into a boutique to buy a designer handbag. The price? $3,000. She bought it. The next day, the fashion house behind that bag was all over the news and not for positive reasons. She had to ask herself, did I just pay a premium for this label? How much is this bag actually worth? We wanted to know too. So join Chino, Melissa, and me as we talk with fashion industry expert K. K. Harris. on the We Fixed It Your Welcome podcast. Together, we'll call out things the fashion industry does right, and we'll propose some alterations too. That's what we do on this show. We fix things.

Companies in crisis, cultural tension points, if it needs fixing, we're on it. If you like this episode, you'll like them all. Catch this and other episodes of We Fixed It Your Welcome on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. They're rating me. They're season back. bank accounts. I'm the only American ever indicted or sent to prison for this pot tax.

In 2009, Michigan voters passed medical marijuana law, so they legalized medical marijuana. Right. I focused my time on the office leasing, commercial real estate. I started getting a lot of calls from guys that wanted to get into the medical pot industry. Right. And a lot of them really, just, you know, they seem like they didn't have much of a plan. And then one day I get a call from a, to them, it seemed like a gold rush, right? Like if you can get in, like they want to do it because they're thinking this is a guaranteed. Yeah. It's going to be a ton of money. Yeah, or like I'm in my parents basement. Like now I can start selling weed out. I'm already, I'm already growing 40 plants a month or 40, 40, whatever, you know. The best stuff ever. So, so I had a really good group that had

moved from Michigan to Colorado to Denver and they were when the our law passed to Michigan they said well we're going to come back and take our our wisdom and experience and so I was definitely interested you know it was outside of the norm of my normal lawyer doctor client so but were they they're just asking you to find what like a warehouse or or a like a farm or something or like retail space like where they could open the store and they could sell it. Oh, okay. So they're not talking about cultivating it there. They're saying, yep, we need a store, a storefront. So the problem is, like, even though the law passed, you have to go through the town and ask for, hey, can we open this or zoning approval?

Why? I mean, it is not, because they're not zoned for, you have to have special zoning or something? Well, it's always, aren't you just selling something? Yeah, technically, yes. But, you know, a lot of towns started right after the law passed. A lot of towns started saying we're putting in a moratorium on any type of business that sells medical pot. So even though it's legal, you can't, we're not going to open any of your store. So it kind of shuts it down. Yeah, you have to get an occupancy permit for any type of retail business. So then you have to put down what are you doing in the business. So a lot of our towns started just putting moratoriums up, no businesses like this for 90 days, 120 days. Right.

And, you know, every time I went to, I'm trying to preach before the city council or zoning, Board of Appeals, and pretty much not in our town. Good idea. While you were pitching, where they were like, are you stoned right now? I don't think they thought I was stone, but I think they definitely thought my clients might have been stone. So I tried everything to get the businesses through, and every town said not here. We like you or, you know, especially in Royal Lerner.

the town I did a lot of business and I had a lot of connections and it just wasn't going to happen. So I or come back in 90 days once the more, you're just not like they're just going to keep kicking the can down the road. Yeah, they either way. Yeah, they weren't going to have it in their towns. So I told the Colorado boys I'm out. Like I can't risk my reputation. You know, I've got employees. Like, and even if I do get a city, like I wonder if I'll even get a commission check from a landlord to get you in.

So I think by that point, they knew they needed somebody like me. And they said, well, what about investing in this, Ryan? And I thought, well, you know, it's legal. Like, we just need to get a town that's going to allow it, right? So they're saying, because you're bowing out, they're trying to give you an incentive to keep going and find a way. Yeah, I think they knew they knew the challenges. is they knew they needed somebody that's going to get that hurdle. You know what I mean?

Obviously, if you can't have a building, you can't sell. But they need you to find a place to make this work. So, yeah, they asked me to invest, and I put in, I guess, most of or all the money. And then. How much money? I say maybe like $30,000. Oh, okay. You know, so I put in the $30,000.

And I think now when I'm going to cities and landlords like this, Hey, I'm part of this, not some guys we don't know from Colorado. Right. You know, that's kind of the chain of command works, right? In the real world, like, now it's me. Yeah, I'm a local guy. You guys know me. I have a good reputation.

This is what we're not bringing in a pawn shop that's going to be selling stolen guns here. This is a legitimate place. Exactly. So like Ferndale, Michigan is really probably the most progressive city in Michigan. It's kind of a large gay gay. gay community. So I don't, maybe an interesting story about how that kind of came about. You know, in the 70s, a guy wanted to put in a titty bar in Ferndale and the city council

didn't let them. So he said, all right, well, I'm going to put in a gay bar to get you guys back. And then, and then it just turned into this really, you know, gay community, a progressive community. And so my, one of my clients was the largest portfolio or industrial landowner in Furndale. So I went to him and said, hey, Mike, can we put this business in your city? And I got approval through city council, the mayor.

And yeah, we became the first licensed pot dispensary in Michigan medical. And then I think the Detroit Free Press ran the cover medical, Pot takes root in Ferndale or, you know, so all kinds of catchy. So we were all over the news. And are you hoping that you would show that it's, that it's there and it's not causing problems? And then it would you be able to spread the business throughout. Yeah, like that was my thing.

Like I didn't want any like reggae or tie-dye. You know, I wanted, you know, so we named the place clinical relief, try to keep it as boring as possible, right? Yeah. And I think I told you earlier, you know, When I was in the National Guard, so I'd come home from college and spend one week and a month with mom. So my mother, most beautiful woman, like just amazing. It sucked growing up.

All my friends, you know, let me know how hot. She's in the mouth. Yeah, yeah. So I'd go one week and a month and stay with mom. But my mom always had lupus. She was always in pain. So one weekend I get there to her apartment, and she's crying. on the couch. And I said, you know, what's wrong, mom? What's going on? And she lets me know she's

been smoking smoking pot because her steroid injections only last a couple weeks and they don't let you get them every, but every 30 days. So she's like, my guy, I got a guy that's his phone's disconnected. My mom's got a plug. She's got a guy. Yeah. And I mean, she just broke down and told me. I mean, I called her crying on the couch. So like, and I said, well, you know, mom, I probably five, I'd score you some, right? I don't. I don't. But I know a guy.

So I, you know, after I got back off of guard duty that Saturday, I went to the old neighborhood and got her a bag. And she was very grateful. She said it wasn't as good as her guys. But, you know, I think like, so that memory always stuck in my head. like my mom wanted she didn't want to just get stone right she wanted like relief and there was so when I went into this that was kind of my demand like I wanted you know it you know unfortunately my mother passed away a few is that probably about five years after that so like I just I wanted a a safe place for people to get I didn't want right somebody else's mom like

my dude's not calling you know my dude's phones could disconnect it yeah and we don't want mom driving through a shitty neighborhood looking for. Exactly. So, like, that, you know, I wanted to build, like, something like that. And, you know, the press was, we had a lot of the press come through. We had mayors and city council from neighboring cities. What do you mean? Come through.

What do you mean? Just tour through, like, how this industry will look like. Because, again, we were the first dispensary. Nobody, nobody knew, you know, this, we were on the moon, right? They have a horror, in their mind, they have this horrible, vision of, what this is going to be. And you wanted to make sure that it, no, no, it's very clinical. It's exactly.

So what I didn't know kind of to that point, like on the opposite side, when this law was being passed, there was, and, you know, I write in my book, the no pot shot army. So literally we had a federal or state appellate judge who later became the state attorney general. he ran Michigan citizens protecting kids but their website was no potchops.com and him

all the sheriffs you know of course everybody that had the vested interest not to make one illegal they actually had the U.S. drugs czar for the White House come out and go around and tour and lobby against

you know voters voting for this medical Not a law. Right. So just staunch opponents from day one. So when they, you know, when they were speaking, they said, this law is going to make, we're going to look like California. We're going to have a pot shop on every corner. There's going to be more pot chops than Starbucks.

And there's nothing in this law that can stop all these pot chops from growing. So I knew that. And, you know, I wanted to be like, the clinical relief. I wanted to be boring. I wanted to be, you know, right. People with cards and old people. And, you know, I mean, I mean, obviously,

not everybody who's sick looks like they're old. I mean, but I wanted just a very clean image. So we didn't do any of the stoner branding. So we ran for, you know, we ran with the business, you know, very well received. We had people from, you know, our upper peninsula coming down. We had people from all over coming.

And then the sheriff struck back, the Mike Bouchard, this, can I say douchebag on me? Yeah. Oh, man, total douchebag. Yeah. So this guy, like, he decides that he's going to go around the mayor, the, even we had the local cops on our side. We had everybody, you know, we even had cops touring, like, well, maybe you guys want to put a safe here or anchor the safe. you know, a lot of just people were just trying to lend a hand, like tell us what to do. Him and the prosecutor in conjunction with the now state attorney general, this Bill Shudy,

they decide that they're going to rate us. You know, for as much publicity we had in the newspaper, we're going to be the test case. So they're going to raid us, make it, you know, public news. For what reason? just to say that the law never allowed for dispensaries. But I thought you got permission to get it. We got permission from the city. We got a license from the city.

When they were campaigning against the ballot initiative, they said there's nothing in this law that stops it. But now that it's legal and actually in working place, they said, well, no, I don't think the law said that there was anything that allows for people to sell it. You can just have it. where you get it from you know yeah you just it's just gonna fall out of the sky so um they came in and they raided our place i mean just a massive raid like so i i wasn't in the dispensary as much i was working downtown detroit a lot so i remember that you know did you get a phone call did you how did you

know what happened well i was driving by and um there was just tanks and swat team and cars and like everything outside of the dispensary. So I went home. My home was being raided. All of my business partners, homes were being raided. They just kind of came in with a, you know, coordinated effort. And you know, I'll tell you about a lot more raids. I'll tell you about a lot more raids,

but the one thing I've noticed is these things always happen on a Friday. Right. Friday afternoon, because you're going to, have the most amount of cash in the store. And cops get overtime. They can work. And, you know, they can hold you through the weekend. Yeah.

So instead of the 24 hours, they're going to release you, they can now hold you through the weekend. So it happened at about, I think, 6.30 on a Friday night. I was driving by, just got a check on the store, just drove past. And I saw, like, tanks, literally a little tank. like SWAT teams and masks and skinners. I think they're armored personnel carriers, but they're not tanks.

But yeah, they have tracks and stuff. They looked similar, yeah. Yeah, it had. They didn't have a. It had the thing on the front. No. Like a battering ram? Yeah, like the little, like the tank.

Yeah, the thing on the front of it. And I can't see him bringing an Abram. Oh, my God. They went all along. They rolled through the building with their Abrams. Like I said, the sheriff's douchebag, total douchebag. So, you know, they were making a, point yeah they were going to make a total point they held press conferences after that um so

i didn't stop i just yeah looked over like yeah it looks like a you guys problem so i went to my house in yeah they were there same scene like just crap everywhere shit all over the yard they were tearing my going through everything and fortunately my wife was out of town so i'm like oh my god so So, again, I didn't stop and ask how they were doing. And so I went back to, I just turned my car around, and I went back down to downtown Detroit. And we have the tallest buildings are the rentists. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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BetMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Rent Center. Okay. There's a hotel on top. So I went to the ATM. I got some cash out because I don't want to... I'm not using my credit cards, right? And I don't know what's going on.

So I went down, got some cash out, went to the 70th floor, went all the way to the top. maybe so I could like see if they're coming up again on me and um stayed there and you know I had some friends that were lawyers and hey what's going on what do we what do we do I do I like come back to the county do I have a question real quick at this point did you like think that this was a possibility that this could happen or you just kind of like no shell shot up to this point I had no clue like I didn't know that I mean like I said said we had cops and we had politicians and nobody's saying hey by the way you know this is a possibility no they may rage you guys they may i mean you know this is 2010 at this point like so

i mean federally i mean i guess we always were you know the feds could come in but obama kind of put a moratorium right like raiding any medical places so but you know we were we were always a I guess that possibility, but like having our local cops or local sheriff kick indoors. Right. No. But again, I didn't realize how much they had lobbied against this law, how much they didn't like this law. Right. So when they came at us, it was going to be the test case.

They were going to come at us. They were going to prove in court that we weren't ever allowed to do this. And they were going to, you know, we had only been open, I think, maybe two months by point so now there was other other cities starting to open up and other places opening and actually we had opened a second location in Lansing in our state capital right so that was fine but we were in Oakland County which is I think up and new a couple years ago it's a it was the second or third wealthiest county in America so like

Oakland County just had the money. So all the strip clubs are on eight mile. Like eight mile, you've heard the movie eight mile, right? Yeah. So eight miles is the literal line between Detroit and the northern suburbs. So all the strip clubs are on this side of eight mile in Detroit. So the fact that we were in Oakland County doing this,

I think was a big thing. I had no idea. That was probably the biggest thing that, you know. So, you know, I get raided. You know, I'm at the hotel looking down. I'm like, they didn't come in the hotel. They didn't come and get me. So we went to court.

I turned myself in. A lot of the guys at the store, they were already arrested. They were in handcuffs. You turned himself out on Monday? Yeah, I waited so. Yeah, I had a good long weekend. And, you know, a few interesting things from that first raid. I had a friend of mine whose wife worked there, and he was a cop.

So the cop's wife worked there. She never got charged. And then the other person who had charges dropped that worked there as a bud tender. You know, do you follow baseball? Are you familiar with Mickey Lulich? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Colby is.

No, I'm not either. Oh, you're not? I just make it a face because that's kind of. kind of just a thing of people always ask Matt, like, do you know this guy? Yeah, Matt's always like, well, he, if you're from Michigan, you would know. But he was the MVP in the 1968 World Series. So the cop's wife was never charged, you know, go figure, right.

And then the daughter of Mickey Lulich, who's just kind of a celebrity, you know, 1968 Detroit Tigers celebrity, his daughter wasn't charged. So it was me, my business partners. I think there was about nine of us in total that were indicted, charged with manufacturing and distributing. Some of them, one of the store manager actually had a gun in the safe because the local police said, I would advise you to have a weapon. Have a weapon. So, and you know, like anytime you have a weapon and you commit a crime, that's that enhancement.

Yeah. So Tony, you know, all of us were looking at, I guess, 20 years, you know, they threw a big number out there. But Tony had that gun enhancement because the cops literally told them you should probably keep a gun here in case something happens. Yeah, okay. So I was going to say, to me, you could argue, you could probably argue that. The only reason I have a gun is because the cut, you know, and then try,

I want to bring the cop on the stand. They'll probably drop it. But yeah, I hear it say it. I mean, you know, there's, there's, well, there's not a lot of justice when you, when you go through a lot of these things. And it doesn't make sense, you know, when. So we were, we were charged. We, you know, they, they immediately came out with press conferences.

And the, the douchebag sheriff again, got on, you know, he's telling the, during his press conference, we had raided other places. There's alligators guarding the product. And this is, this is Michigan. This is an a Cheech and Chong film. Yeah. Implying that I was part of a Mexican drug cartel. Like, you know, just.

propaganda it's best. Like, yeah. And I'll say that was the last time I got rid of cable television in 2010. I just, when you know firsthand, like. That it's just, yeah, that the media is just regurgitating whatever the local or wherever the government tells them. Yes, yeah. So I'm just like, okay, so this is personal now.

I'm like, I drop cable. I haven't watched the news. I mean, people will tell you the news. So, I, it's funny because when I was, when I was locked up. and I was writing guys stories, I would order, of course, I'd have somebody on the street, you know, pull all the stuff on the Internet about them and their case. And I started realizing pretty quickly, like, there was a press conference on the third, you know, and they released, the federal government released, you know, 500 word,

a 500 word press release about the, about this arrest. And then on the fourth and fifth, the, you know, Whatever. The multiple newspapers came out with almost the exact same thing that the FBI or the, you know, U.S. Attorney's Office press release, release, they just rewrite it a little bit. Sometimes they'd convince it. Sometimes they'd add to it. Maybe they make a phone call to get a quote from the U.S. attorney, you know, or from an FBI agent or somebody else that's just going to basically prop up what they've already said. And then you start to realize, you know, You see that over and over again, you start to realize, like, these reporters aren't doing their, they're not doing any due diligence. They're not even checking. They're just taking exactly what the press release says, and they're running with it.

They just, they wrote a 500, 600 word or a thousand word article based on what the government told them, this is what's going on, and they didn't check anything. You don't know that what that, you don't know that's true. You'd think they would since there are so many examples of the government saying one thing And then a year and a half later, they're dropping the charges or reducing the charges, and you find that that's not exactly what happened. And then they knew what that wasn't what happened a year and a half earlier. They just wrote this to make it look as bad as possible.

You know, I got to talk to a lot of the media after that first raid, and I saw how the system worked, I stopped talking. But I would casually, not on the record, I would talk to a lot of the media. and I think the best statement I heard from one of the, holy shit. You know, I thought about moving that earlier. So you said you, you know, would occasionally talk to the meeting. So, you know, I didn't go on the record after that first raid. You know, I was on, I was proud to be on TV before that.

So a lot of the news coverage, and there's some of the footage even probably on my website or, you know, the Caponacanabas.com. So after I figured out how the system were going to stop talking to the media. But candidly, one of the reporters told me, he said, you know, we smoked more pot in college than you've probably sold year-to-date in your store. But if we don't, if we don't play the system or talk to the sheriff or listen to what he wants to tell us, we're not going to get the next story. Right.

So, you know, you're kind of a little blip in history. They're always going to listen to what the U.S. attorney says or the sheriff says, and they always want to keep getting that next, you know, they want the first coverage, right? Yeah, yeah. So the truth doesn't really matter. It's more of access to, you know. Yeah. So we go through the raid.

I'm no longer the white guy I was, you know, before. And, you know, who wants to work with a guy who's facing 25 years, right? Right. What was your bond? I had no bond. You're facing 25 years, but there's no bond. How dangerous are you? I mean, probably like a $10,000.

I don't think I had to pay anything. Oh, then it's a surety. Then it's basically it's, you know, it can be $30,000, but we're going to release you on your own. Yeah. Again, it was just a stunt. It was a political stunt. And I have a question before you get into kind of,

you're changing your mindset, is how involved were you? I know you're an investor. So you put up the 30,000, you helped them find the place. But how involved were you beyond that? Like are you going in and kind of managing the stores, hiring the employees? So after I invested the money, got the location, you know, helped with the buildout. I really was hands off. I was still running my commercial real estate company.

I had employees. I had. So it was kind of like my child. I would, you know, I obviously wanted it to do well. But my business partners, you know, they had set up dispensaries in Colorado. What, you know, what am I going to do? You know, I maybe I might have sold a bag in high school once. But, you know, other than that.

Yeah, you have no experience. No experience. So they ran everything. They hired, you know, they actually brought in like their parents, their retired parents to work the counter. The dad was a football coach. The mom worked as a dispens. or for the police department at Lake Orion.

Were they charged? They were all charged. Everybody was raided. Everybody at that store was charged and rated except the cop's wife and the major league baseball player's daughter. And I would, so they had surveillance. They had sent cops in there with fake IDs and then they had fake medical on a patient cards because you had to have a card and a driver's license. So they went through and made purchases

and used that as the evidence to, well, they're selling to us. Yeah, but you have a card. Yeah. So again, they just tried to really bastardize the law and the wording. So they had, they never caught me in the store because I was never there. Right. But they knew that I was part of it because I had spoken in the press, I was on the lease, you know, and the corporate paperwork. I was charged with conspiracy. Yeah. So conspiracy is probably one of the most bullshit laws out there, right?

Yeah. But I was part of it, but I was never, you know, I was never delivering or selling weed or undercover videos. Well, it doesn't know like you were doing anything illegal anyway. So why wouldn't you be, you know, according to what, yeah, what it appeared that the law said. Yeah. At the time, you know, their interpretation of the law is what's making it illegal.

Yeah. Your interpretation says it's legal. Well, the voters said it was legal. Right. They just figured, you know, let's change this through case law. Let's, if we can get Ryan and this crew convicted, then we can get rid of this law, right? Then everybody would be too scared to, they'll be too scared to open a store because these guys just got 10 years apiece or 20 years apiece, right? Yeah, they didn't like the positive press that we were getting.

You know, like, I think the last guy, they wanted. was a guy like me. They wanted a guy long dreadhead. So I'm facing 25 years and, you know, who wants to work? You know, obviously the Michigan Supreme Court, my client's not going to work with me anymore and any of my respectable clients. Right. You know, it was cool when I was the first guy to open, but once you get arrested and now

they rate the press release, everybody just, you know, looks at you different. Right. You probably know, Matt. So I, you know, I had to, my business started drying up. You know, I, you know, employees of mine weren't getting the leads. I wasn't feeding them, you know. So my commercial real estate business started just drying up. And I said, screw it, you know, if they're going to call me a drug dealer,

if the sheriff's going to call me Mexican drug cartel, right. I'm going to be the best goddamn pot cartel member I can be. So I just, I went all in. I, you know, I started opening. I found a new business partner. So after this, the Colorado guys, we just, they went their direction. I went my direction. And I found a business partner.

But you're still preparing to fight this charge. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're in court going back forth on that. And you're just, I'm like, screw it. It's bullshit charge, right? Right. So I'm like, I'm not going to, they want it. I think the whole.

point was to get me to stop right yeah so why stop right fuck them did you open up another i mean did you reopen that store no we opened um the next county over um so by this point everybody's opening on the south side of eight mile right okay so everybody's in detroit where it's safer i mean it's not safer but it's safer from the law right and i just kept thinking back to my mom like, you know, especially back then Detroit was old. It's still parts of it are pretty scary. Performance Auto Group's 37th annual sale event is back. Now for three days.

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Driven by Performance Auto Group. I didn't want my mom like driving in. I didn't want your mom or anybody's mom driving to. All right. So I opened in Warren McComb County. It was probably five, 10 miles from the original place in Ferndale. It was the county line was here. It was 50 feet into the next county.

So, you know, kind of like the porkies model, like he opened, you know, he was just put it in the right place. So we opened up the next county over in McComb, but it wasn't Detroit where everybody else was. Because I just, you know, I have a passion about what we were doing. I wanted people's moms to be safe and wanted to be in the suburbs. So I opened it up with one of my cousins, high school football buddies. these. The student didn't smoke. You know, it was like, we were like the absolute worst guys to get in the business, but probably better than potheads, like, you know, starting a business up. So, and then when you start a dispensary, people will come, they'll bring you. So you don't, you know,

there's no problem. We never had to grow our weed. I mean, people are just coming with it. The suckers, the brownies, you know, all of this. So we open there. We have a, Lansing location. We start opening up in different communities. Just on the outside, the border of Detroit. We never were in Detroit like most of the dispensaries at that time. Some of the businesses would last a week. Some will last a month.

Some last a few years. But the same town because we were in, you know, we were in, you know, the white suburbs. Yeah. you know like that in our fucking town you know so we'd get doors kicked in we get doors smashed in we what do you mean who's doing that um local police so they're they're raiding the places again they were raiding places um you know and and then sometimes we just opened back up like hey screw it bring it you know because we've already got this big case like unless you're going to bring the state attorney general and the feds like screw it we're ready right um so we just kept opening it up

and up and up and again I'm still kind of working from behind the scenes so my partner Jake he's getting like 60% of the money he's doing the day to days you know leadership hiring managers is he getting arrested periodically sometimes he is sometimes I would you know really yeah you know I mean we we had a lot of employees that would like they might have work they might work for a week but we had a lot of great ones that were like screw this like they just saw how corrupt it was. Right. What's your wife saying at this point, as is evolution, is she just, if you want to say, like, is she like, oh, man. So during this period, my wife is way more sane and stable than I am.

But I think, you know, she's seen the hypocrisy in it. You know, and this is before we had our kids. Right. So she's seen the hypocrisy. I'm just saying, hey, you know, the world's going to change. I mean, it's a new law. We're going to give law enforcement time to accept the reality, right? But this is coming. Like, it's not, you know, legal. Not going away. Right.

We just need to get past this hurdle. Yeah, aren't there more and more states are passing it? So it's like at some point, like, you guys can keep kicking the doors, but, you know, it just got passed in South Carolina. It just got passed in. Yeah. Ohio, it just got past it. You know, I don't know what states it got passed in.

But, you know, they're saying, like, it's like you guys can keep. Yeah. You know, it's, the other thing is, like, it's not like it's ice. It's not like there, it's not like these are ice labs. You know, I mean, it's who's, nobody's, nobody's getting stoned and robbing six banks. You know what I'm saying? Or, well, look, you know, what our courthouse is built on. You know, you go and, you know, you got granite on the fucking bathroom walls and the, you know,

the granite behind the oak and the judge's room. And so they, you know, historically, seven. 70% of that courthouse is funded by marijuana arrest or you know what gets Johnny arrested hey I smell weed car right and then that's a gateway to get in and get another arrest or oh I smell we on you or what are you guys doing so no is huge it's very very lucrative for for the status quo right right so I think we were a threat to that like oh now you're you know they're just seeing their reality kind of disintegrate all of their funding, all of their reasons for stops, or let me look through

your car, I smell weed, or you smell like. It's a free get around a search warrant. Yeah. I smell some weed, hop out of the car. I'm going to need to search. Yeah, so weed to them is a huge deal. I mean, to the average American, it's not like a big deal, right? Everybody's seen or smoked or tried it at some point.

But to police, it was, and in some states, it still is a huge deal, right? Um, having it illegal is a huge benefit is what you're saying. It lets them circumvent the law. And, you know, some of the studies say like 70% of that courthouse has built off of, you know, in some direct or indirect way. We're getting rated constantly, you know, and you know what, doing the math, you know, 10 years later, it was every 26 days on average for about three and a half years. We had an arrest. I had a door kicked in. And I don't mean just like a knock and talk, like a real fucking battering ram or Ryan's going to the weekend jail or a raid or taking our money.

So, you know. I have a question. Like for you to put up with this, I understand, you know, that you're saying it's the right thing to do, you know, being in the right area so people can acquire it that actually need medical. pot and the whole thing. I get that. But, but listen, and I've tried to explain this to my wife over and over again, you know, good intentions are wonderful. But if a business cannot be, cannot sustain itself, it goes under. You know, like, yeah, like you're, you're not a philanthropist, right? Like, you're not throwing money into a losing cause. You've got to be making, are you making enough money that I can pay for a new door? Like, you can kick the door every day. I'm making so much money.

I'm just going to keep replacing the doors. Yeah, I mean, you know, once you, as long as you stayed open, somebody's going to come in tomorrow and buy iPodic. Yeah. Am I bankrolling? No. You know, you got the lawyers and you got the, you know. But it's at least sustaining itself and then some. Definitely sustaining itself.

So, but yeah, it's not the windfall. It's not a windfall at all. You're not having to work at Starbucks to make the, no, make payroll. No, no. So as long as you open the door. My wife and I had to go work at Starbucks. just to make ends meet. No, I, you know, I was very fortunate.

My wife always maintained a job, and I had different sources of income coming in, you know, passively. So I was fine. And I just knew the long game. Like, if we can just keep opening the doors and I'm stubborn, like, you know, I'm just, you know, like, you tell me I can't do something. I'm going to fucking do it, right? So how many of these, how many stories did you have at the?

I mean, we, probably had about eight to ten not running at all at the same time like one would get shut down so certain cities would be no not here or kicking right away and you know the same mentality all around the border of detroit like you know it's detroit is really like segregated like it's it really is like the detroit's from the sixties and it's just this the border is protected so like it was like we're like us and them you're like you know you're bringing bringing your black over like i hate to say it that way but every community we worked on the other side of detroit because we weren't in like the posh posh gosh we weren't like in the naples right but yeah but we were close enough not that they

could come in and grab it and go yeah yeah but it wasn't in dangerous detroit right yes so we were in these kind of in those dangerous thing you had to deal with was the local cops oh my god yeah that was about it. Yeah, we've never got robbed. We never had employees stealing. I mean, you know, who knows? Maybe they took a joint or something, but we had a great team. But yeah, the cops, the ones that were there to protect us. So the store that we opened in Warren, right after the Ferndale raid, that became our longest sustaining store. That was kind of the flagship. So we open there immediately. City inspector comes and cops come in.

At this point, I'm not asking cities for permission. I'm like, I'm just going to do this. Right. You know, and you deal with it, right? Yeah. So we come in and start getting raided, getting shook down, but nothing like we had experienced in Oakland County. We, a lot of harassment.

and then one day, a very well-known kind of, you know, I get to meet a lot of famous friends when you start the first pot shop. You don't realize. You're popular. Yeah, you don't realize how many people smoke pot, right? And they want to meet you. So this guy, his family had one of the biggest restaurants in Michigan for generations. And he came in town, hey, you know, how's it?

Are they giving you a rough time? I'm like, well, yeah, they are. Yeah, they are. So he said, you know, I'm friends with the police chief in the city. Maybe you want to just give some donations. I'm like, okay. If that's what's going to, if that's going to help. Yeah, I mean, they're taking donations.

So maybe if I give it to them, I don't have to replace the door. Yeah, or the glass cabinets or, you know, yeah. So we start giving to the Warren Fraternal Order of Police. Well, we don't write checks. Right. you know, there's a cruiser that comes by and picks up cash. In an envelope? I don't know if we do it in an envelope, but yeah, like I always, can I have a receipt or, you know, like.

No, no receipts? No receipts. No receipts. No, then so. But it helps. I mean, we get. Legally, I think that's how it's supposed to be done, be honest. That's legally, I think that's.

Yeah. I mean, I was cool with the arrangement. So we did that and we'd still get like the local Yahoo cops that would come into that place. Um, we had different task force. Everybody has the drug task force team, right? Yeah. I mean, that's like the total A team. Like I'm, I don't know if you've talked to guys that have dealt with drug narcotic task force teams.

I mean, I, I know guys that have been arrested by and investigated by them, yes. The most corrupt system, they have no oversight. There's no, like, they're like literally an A team that can just go around. They're self-funded. So we would have different, we would have. the Detroit Task Force. We'd have different counties like come in where they're not supposed to be and just, oh, we're going to take some of that, you know.

So we would have a couple, there was one particular raid. The store calls and text me, hey, Ryan, we're getting rated. Not uncommon things. So I get the text. I'll be there in a few minutes. Right. Pull my suit coat on. I drive over there.

And this wonder. particular raid really looked weird. It was like a rusted out Michigan State police fan. It didn't look like the normal like we're here to. So it was part of this Detroit narcotics team. And they went in there and, you know, I, I'm calling my lawyer on the phone and I said, hey, Neil, Neil Rockine, I'll throw him out. Man, he was awesome. One of the best criminal defense lawyers you can get in Michigan. So I said, Neil, I don't know what. what's going on, this doesn't look legit. I'm going in. Don't, don't fucking do it. Don't fucking do it. I said, have my wife get the bail money. Like, I got to go in.

It's my people, right? Then something looks off about this. So I walked in with my phone, and I said, can I see a warrant? What agency are you with? Who fuck are you? You know, they got their ski mask. The one guy puts a ski mask on,

and all my employees are zip tied in the back and who called the fucking lawyer? Who called the fucking lawyer? And I'm, they're like, who the fuck are you? I go, warrant. You know, and they thought I was a lawyer. Yeah. And I'm like, let me say the lawyer.

Let me see the warrant. Yeah. All right, boys, wrap it up. They throw all the weed and whatever money and they throw it in this truck and they fucking take off. Well, it turns out that, they had hit up other dispensaries doing this. Well, eventually they would get caught.

They would go, they served like 10 years in federal prison. So they were in Pennsylvania. Is this a legitimate, or this is just a crew of guys that? A crew of the drug team that was going around, get in all of the Detroit dispensaries. And then said, well, let's go up to the suburbs and hit Ryan's place. and just there to take and steal money. And they're not filing police reports or anything.

They're just stealing it. A lot of times there wasn't police reports, but this was especially shady crew. Yeah. They were, so a few of those guys actually ended up going to federal prison, you know, and by the same federal judge I would be in front of.

Right. She had sent them to prison. So she's not opposed to sending guys to prison? Yeah, I think that's, part of their job, right? So Warren was, you know, a lot of the towns, it was just the same raid, same things. We, but Warren was really our flagship.

We had kind of had that police protection there. We were able to operate there. We'd get taxed. We'd have occasional raids, but that funded other cities we'd start in or other cities we got raided in or, you know, or lawyers or, you know, what, it was, It was the most stable thing we had. Right.

So behind the scenes was the county prosecutor, Eric Smith, the elected official, right? Right. And, you know, we were, we had no idea. Like, where all of this money was flowing through, like, you know, the county share or the county prosecutor is the top cop, right? They're the number one cop and everybody, you know. So, well, where is this corruption coming from?

always at the top, right? So years later, after I got out of the industry, Eric Smith would find himself in federal trouble. He actually went to, what's the place? Terry Ho? Terahut. Terahut. Yeah.

He got sentenced to, I think, two years for stealing police asset for forfeiture funds. No. The same money that, you know, he was taking for me. I'm not going to sit here and let you talk. bad about the government that there's corruption in the government untrue well untrue guess who was judge was this federal judge who you're the same federal judge that I had in the same federal judge that sent some of the shady cops for so you know they they went to jail for like stealing money my money right I went to jail for not well allegedly not paying tax on

the money they stole so you know i'll get into that but you know it so eric smith is just not the douchebag sheriff from oakland county let us run but he was just as corrupt stealing from behind the scenes um so we're you know we're running we're doing dispensaries where you know some of them are doing great some were a day some of them are months some of them are a couple years right but most of them really didn't have much of a shelf life they didn't last too long um So I've, you know, I've just had enough. Like my partner and I are going back and forth.

Like he does all the day to day and I'm just like, I can't, I can't fucking do this anymore. Like this is too much. And Jake needed the income. You know, he, he, you know, he made 60% of the money. That was like his gig. Yeah. And I was the bank. Like, so every time we need more money, like I had to put it in and it just wasn't worth it to

me at that point. I wanted to be, you know, heroic and. save everybody's mom and allow them at medical pod. But, you know, that day just never got closer, right? Like, I'm like, man, the fucking state's still fucked up. Like, it's... You figured by this point, how many years is this been? It had been about three years.

Yeah, you figured by this point they were going to let up. Yeah, like, something's got to change, right? And I'm just like, you know, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Like, I'm just, I'm done. And so I kind of, like, start walking back from everything. and well then they decided to have one more big final raid. It was, you know, by this point we had different little warehouses where we would grow. We tried growing.

We were horrible growers. We fucked up so many plants and money there. But we had a warehouse that was adjacent to our dispensary that was in the county, or Oakland County, the one we were originally in. and we would we would make the brownies or you know the we'd store some product there or we had ovens we bought out like an old

pizzeria so we had a little deep fryers or whatever the stoves so I've got a cousin of mine again who I'd met my partner Jake through who would play in the football team with them again not a not a positive smoker um just he wants he wants in on it you know right and you guys are making money i'm like well

the truth is you know yeah it's not a fucking you know we we were we are easy money we were always we were always quiet about how we did things like you know i wasn't telling my friends and family i'm getting raided every day where my wife and i try to keep things secret um and the reality was i'm not making any money you know jake's making money's going to work every day doing the work but me i'm not so gary's like i want to start growing i want to start growing in um one of my my father-in-law's rental houses i said man you probably suck at weed growing weed like but whatever i love you i'll help you out right right just talk to jake and he'll buy whatever you got and you know we paid too much for his crappy weed right so he's growing weed well that remember the cop

The cop's wife that worked at the first dispensary? Yeah. Doty. Yeah. Officer Doty. He's part of the Gary and Jake's little high school crew. He says, now, well, after that first raid, Doty gets a promotion. Now he's on the Narcotics Task Force team.

So he was just a, you know, street level cop. Now he's a drug cop. Right. I'm not saying that tied anything, had anything to do. do with us, but it was pretty odd. It was pretty odd. So now he's a drug cop and Gary's growing and Holly. Um, and Gary gets a call one day from Doty. Hey, um, they can smell your house. Like, you better get everything out of there right now. So he's given, tipping off his buddy like they're about to rate him. Right. So he calls Jake, my partner, hey,

I got to keep these plants going. Can I move them somewhere? Yeah, bring them down to my warehouse. Brings them down to the warehouse, drives them down there in his minivan. And guess what happens? We get raided again. At the warehouse?

At the warehouse. So they're all Gary's plants, but now they're in our warehouse. They raid Gary. They say, you know, Gary's like right away, hey, my best friend's, right so we got them in handcuffs they'll let the handcuffs off of them give them the cell phone

and dody says i'll be there in five minutes drives out and now gary's name is nowhere on anything okay and now it's convenient now it's all my stuff so this is again back in that original oakland county so then that kind of triggers like the the world war two of raids because world war three coming right and so they they raid my house they raid the dispensary they raid rental homes any paperwork they had oh he must be growing in every rental house so they're like literally just going to my tenant's houses like we know he's grown wheat here you know it's just a tenant there so they raid jake's house my house every house and gary gets charged with nothing all these plants are now ours right because when you're over a hundred plants it's federal or some you know so we get like

enhanced charges and um so i go to you know my lawyers like you guys are a lot of trouble with this one i don't know what i can do so i go to gary hey man can you i don't want to get doty in trouble i'm like dude i'm fucking yeah i'm gonna fucking go to jail um because i yeah for yeah i was going to say first of all you you it's your stuff and secondly I go to fucking trial I promise you that it's fucking coming out that it's your shit and that your buddy got you off like trust me it's gonna it's gonna be bad you don't want me to go to fuck that's what I'd be like you don't want me to go to trial well I didn't want to play that card but in you know the truth doesn't really matter fucking head straight off but the truth doesn't matter in cases anyways as you know right well I mean I think in

federal court when you're when you're where you start bringing if that's something they would immediately be like uh that's what offer you a deal. It's like, let's talk about a deal. Well, yeah, what, the 20 years isn't good, 10, 10, nothing. Let them, let me, I want to put some new evidence in. Then it'd be, you know, probation, you take a plea. Well, I, I never took a plea. I've been offered probably about 30 of them through my career there as a, even in the federal, I went to trial. So I, I, I don't like please. Okay. I, I, I, I, maybe eventually, he'll take one but so we go through we're going this is a state case we go through the start the

trial process oh shit and like i'm like gary can you i i won't testify against toady i'm like dude i've you've known me my entire life you live with me in college for a year like we you're fucking what he's not going to get in trouble cops never get in trouble like just tell the truth tell my so he agreed to tell my lawyer what happened but he wasn't going to testify. Well, lawyers can always record conversation, right? So he laid it all down, how he got tipped off.

And so, oh, man, you should have seen Neal's eyes just light up all over. We got these fucking prop cops, right? So, but, you know, you still have to go through, like, the trial, and, like, you to get all the officers to testify and stand or the pretrial or the probable cause. Yeah, lock in their bullshit story. So they go on, I think they call it the Brady list now. Like, now they're like a certified lying fucking cop.

Yeah. So he gets to them, oh, so what happened? Oh, yeah, we walked to the door. We saw a gentleman just walking by. Oh, okay. So he wasn't there delivering. Oh, you didn't tip off your friend, you know. So, and I'm sitting through this and my co-defendant Jake,

he had a big mouth. So I didn't really tell Neil's like, don't tell. Jake what we're doing. Yeah. I was like, okay. But it was pretty cool, like, watching this whole thing unfold and like a little Perry Mason bit, you know, like... No, and they're locking themselves into a lie. Oh, Neil fucking loved it. I mean, I wanted to be done.

I was like, why don't we just tell them right away? But we had to drag it on another six months to go through all of this. And, but, you know, he ended up frying their asses, but, I mean, that raid, we probably, I mean, because every time they're raiding me. Yeah. They're season bank accounts. Yeah. I mean, so I, you know, my old tenure, I probably lost about a million dollars. Like, the money I made versus, you know, it netted out to be about, I think I'm about 900,000 right now.

Because I'm still paying lawyers right now. So sometimes they give you some of the money back, but. No, no, that's not typically how it works. Because, yeah, asset forfeiture is probably just as crazy as conspiracy laws, right? Right. You literally have to sue the money back. Like it's Ryan Richmond versus $150,000 or it's just the most corrupt system. So even though they end up dropping all the charges, they need.

Well, wait a minute. So the police are giving depositions locking themselves into testifying. I understand. Yeah. So how does that, how does that end up getting the case? Does that case get dismissed? That one did. Yep. So, you know, I'm still going through the first case, the clinical relief case.

Right. Through the, that ended up taking seven years. So the, and this is just trial number 20 of, you know, you know, we skipped through a lot of stuff. I mean, but this was, you know, just another court appearance, another case. Most of the charges would either get dropped right away or if we agreed to shut down and leave town. Okay, we're not going to charge you guys. So this one, you know, the cops lie in stand. They, you know, they implicate themselves.

Neal's got the recording of Gary saying all of the stamming stuff. And then he shares it with the prosecutor behind the scenes. So the prosecutor doesn't know that this guy might not be on the stand in two days. Yeah, they, he doesn't know. He's believing what the narrative, the police write up. And again, they wanted me. They wanted us. They wanted to stop us, no matter what.

So, prosecutor hears it. Okay, yeah, this sounds shady as shit. Drop all charges. Don't give the money back again. And I think that raid just, you know, that was my wife's now pregnant. They come in with AR-15's done her head.

And now, not just her head, my fucking, you know, newborn, my child's head, right? Yeah. So I'm like, I'm done. Jake, I'm out. You can take the business, you can take the employees, you can take the cash register, you can take it all. So I leave and I just give them the entire business. Another interesting thing during that raid that popped up was they're, you know, they've raided warehouses, houses,

they're kind of multi-jurisdictional task forces. Right. But they're all at the Warren dispensary, the McComb County sheriffs, the Montgomery, the city of war, Warren. City of Warren is the third largest city in Michigan. So that's where we operated. And again, these border towns, eight mile, they border eight mile. So it's very racist. You know, like it's us versus them. So the city of Warren has never had a, up until this point, they've never had a black police officer, the third largest city in Michigan, right? Right. The Department of Justice actually sued them years earlier to like, hey,

fucking higher, like a black guy. Right. So we, you know, and we record, sometimes they'd steal the recordings or the videos,

the camera footage. Sometimes they'd forget about it. This time they forgot about it. So we've got, I think Steven Spielberg set up the camera and that sound because it was like perfect. So you've got the top brass.

They're like, oh, let's go hang out this dispensary. Let's check these little fuckers out. We've got the narcotics. team we've got the city police chief the county sheriffs everybody's there and um one of the officers just starts going i fucking hate inward i hate fucking hate inward i hate they stink those little stinking inward just weird bizarre like you know i mean i mean we grew up around probably racist parents grandparents right but like this was just like it never heard it anything like

especially like in a workforce like I'm like what the fuck is this guy talking about so this is a police officer this is a police officer talking around all of the brass all everybody's on this footage and oh they stink they they they they sell weed they in words love they bring in more in words to our town fuck these motherfucking inward lover like just bizarre right like a tyrant like Like Hillbilly Hitler, I wrote in the book. So I go, okay, I can use this to maybe get some of my money back. Like some of my, you know, and now at this point, they're dipping into like my money, not like business money. Like now they're going into Ryan's savings and, you know, the wife's savings.

And so I go in, I, you know, tell my lawyer I've got it and I, he goes, don't go to. talk to the police. I'm like, okay, Neil, because I rarely ever listened to him. Right. So I walk right into the drug team commander, um, this captain, I walk right into their office and said, hey, you. Oh, hey. I go, yeah, you. I go, you don't like black people, do you? You know, like, oh, what do you mean? I go, you know what the fuck I mean? I go, you don't think we had video and audio there and just his eyes laid up and I go I just want to go home to my kids you know it wasn't him who said it but right I go I've been in a lot of workplaces I don't let I've no never you know personally I don't agree with what you guys were saying but I wouldn't ever allow

that in any workplace right you just let that that's what happens I just want to go home to my kids every day you know though every cap you know I just just doing my job right right I said well you're going to give me some of my fuck money. Well, I can talk to the, I can talk to the asset forfeiture profit. You better talk fast before this thing goes up on YouTube. Yeah. TikTok for that, my TikTok account. Well, I think, you know, I think they took like 100,000 that one from my bank account,

let alone the store cash. Right. They get back like 20,000. Oh, we'll do 20,000. I'm like, okay. Remember, I would think that you'll do 100,000. Like I listen this is I already got it timed on my fucking on my TikTok account. It's gonna be released tomorrow morning if I don't if I'm not counting out cash.

Yeah, I mean I I tried to do whatever like so again I you know they've never hired a black officer. This is the Department of Justice. Well, they had hired a black police officer. I didn't know a law of this was going on. So I quit the business. I'm done. I've got no. Jake's running the store.

he's got 100% of the business the raids like triple down on me just my home my business my office every time we go to my office I'd like see things moved around or like the hell they were looking for this video oh of course yeah and I'm like yeah like I'm just gonna leave it like right here right you know and to the point that now my my son's born and my wife and are like let's just get out of town so we We sold her house. She had some work days banked up, and we just moved up north. We have a house on the lake up north.

We move up north, and just, it was just so, I didn't understand why they were coming at me. Well, they warrant had hired a black police officer, the Sheila Watson. Well, she had quit a couple months before this raid. sexual, well, it wasn't, racial discrimination. They called her the guerrilla group. The guerrilla glue gorilla.

The officers called her my little slave girl. The guy that I had pointed out. What year was this? This was 2015, 2016. Jesus. This is not. So she's got a lawsuit. I don't know this during the same time as all this is going.

on so of course they want this fucking video in like should i go talk to her lawyer say hey i got something for i didn't know any of this so right so you got to remember remember eric gardner or the guy i can't breathe or the selling the loose cigarettes in st louis um i think it was in new york like the guy was selling the cigarettes and the cop choked the guy the black guy that was selling cigarettes eric gardner i think his name was All right. So they, it was, it was big in the, in the news. I think they added on video, like, I can't breathe.

I can't breathe. The guy says. Right. And I just remember thinking from that, like, the guy who took the video, he got trumped up charges. Like, he, you know, I'm sure he was selling drugs or doing something. Right. You know, the guy who supplied the video to the world. Yeah.

I mean, this was everywhere on the, you know, YouTube, TV, and he got just slammed, like, extra charges and they made up charges. So, like, I'm like, first, I don't think this video has any place in society. I mean, it's horrible. But I just kept thinking back, man, if I, like, you know, to your point, like, if I try to strong arm this to get my money back or release it, I'm just going to, I might get shot. I might fucking, I might die. I mean, because it was that big of a deal. and then I started getting lawyers calling me. By this point, lawyers talk.

They got big mouse, right? So I get a call from like a lawyer, like, hey, you got this video I heard about. I'm like, how do you know? Because I haven't, the only person I told was the cop. I'm not. Like, I just, then the media started calling me. Like, hey, you know, we're doing this thing about, you know, I've heard you might have a video.

I'm like, I don't know. I have a comment, but what do you mean? What are you talking about? So that, you know, this is in war, and I've got a rental house there. I get this, like, have you ever, you were in real estate, right? Have you ever had just like, hey, we're going to do an inspection in one week, come there and meet the, you know, you do your, they're standard. You follow your yearly.

Right. You know, so to me it was odd. It was like, hey, next week, we need you. to meet at your house over here in Warren, we're going to do an inspection. I'm like, weird. Yeah. So I'm out of the business. I'm not thinking anything of it. I'm not sharing this video. Well, I go there and nobody's there. I'm hanging out with the tenant, her kid and her mom live there. And it's like, well, it looks like they're not coming. Sorry to waste your time, you know. So I walked to my car and, you know, khaki pants.

pole a shirt like fucking cop right you know clip on phone hey you Ryan you're yeah you got videos you're you're sharing with people you're you're telling things you shouldn't be telling right you got videos that have no place I go I don't I took Neil's advice and I just shut the fuck up I'm not going to say right so he says to me he goes you know people go missing all the time and people always believe leave the cops. And he wasn't like some, you know, I've met every caliber of cop. Like he was definitely like leadership or, like he was just, you know, like I don't know,

man, that scared the shit out of me, Matt. Like that. And that, that's, after that happened, that's actually when my wife and I just left town and we moved up north. Like, I can't even be in, can't even be a landlord anymore. I can't even be, you know, but I, knew it was that video. So never, never released it or never called back the media, never did anything.

They certainly, it would have helped the Sheila's case. She ended up winning her case, but. You want to give us the video? Well, how much more? No, no. You know, it's under lock and key. I mean, there's a lot of stuff on, I think we just started doing like the YouTube and Facebook or the.

Instagram. So there's a lot of videos that I've slowly put on there. I don't know. Maybe that one will see the light of day, but. I don't know why I wouldn't. You know what I'm saying? To me, that the moment, that, that to me would be the, that would shine the light on you and then they'd never touch you.

Like to me, at the moment that they'd be terrified. You're saying, or I think that the one thing that police, the one thing the FBI loves is to bust local cops. Yeah. and bust up corruption. The FBI was actually founded to combat political corruption and corrupt and corruption in general. So the last thing the local cops want is for a huge FBI investigation to come in. And they know that, but they also know that average people are just terrified of them. They're terrified of getting arrested. They're terrified to go and they're terrified

that something might happen to them. But the moment that tape comes out, you immediately have the light have the national spotlight on you and they'll they'll run like cockroaches well i mean yeah i think well you know they went from zero to one black officer well guess who their police and chief chief police is now i don't know a black guy okay so they they made sure they made a a good hire right um i don't know we'll see what the video i mean you know we're this is 10 years behind me now you know um but it just highlights like through all of this, my money was taking. My, you know, we got actual video now of raids being, you know, well, we have multiple

raid videos we did publish to the site at Capone of Cannabis.com. So we put a few up there, but, but yeah, I mean, the world sucks. I mean, you know, it's racism as a reality, especially in Metro Detroit. It's, you know, that eight miles is a real line. It's not, you know, it's, you know, and we live that. We live that firsthand, you know. we, you know, racism exists. Now by this time I'm out, like the video footage starts dying down or like the,

I think the cops know I'm not going to release it. So they've backed away. My wife, when I get bored up north, so we've moved back to Metro to Detroit, go back to work. And, you know, I'm definitely not going to get back into the pot business again. Right. But, you know, when I was, when I had the dispensaries, I was, I've always just tinkered with things started. You know, since I was a little kid, I was, I've always been an entrepreneur. I had a company, I took my chemical warfare suit, the activated charcoal.

Uh-huh. And I made a bag out of it. So we started no smell.com or no smell like, like, so you couldn't smell the weed. women loved it because you know nobody wants to smell like right bag so i had that company and then i started messing around with like CBD you know every CBD is like huge now right but back then nobody really knew what hemp was like it was like it was like you made sandals out of it right or hippies yeah yeah you can make clothes out clothing yeah so like i i started messing around um selling okay i'll sell us to humans and maybe sell some to

the dispensary try to sell it on online. But just Google really shut down, like, any advertising for that. So I kind of shut down the CBD business. I was even on, what's his name? Sanjay Gupta, like on his, I did a podcast. Okay. You know, or not a, it was a podcast or radio show or whatever he was doing back then.

Yeah. So. There's a podcast. That's what podcasts typically were audio. Now it's kind of audio video. Yeah, yeah. I don't think we called it a podcast, but yeah, it was a radio stick or whatever. So did that.

And so I've got the CBD company that I had and really stopped doing it. There wasn't really any option to sell it anymore. You know, I didn't have a dispenser. I couldn't market it online. So my wife and I had a cat that her grandmother had given us or dropped on our doorstep because she was always rescuing anything, people, cats. So Ginger was, Ginger and Jack.

Ginger was just left outside in the Michigan winter. Day one, like we had all over teeth removed, like her hair was falling out. That's horrible. Just, you know, bad story. So I think about maybe a year after that, we go to the vet and, you know, the vet says, hey, we've got to start thinking about comfort, right?

Right. You know, one of those talks. And I said, hey, Well, let me take her home tonight, you know, and I didn't tell her. I got some fucking weed or CBD back at the shop or the house. So I'm like, I'll start giving her the CBD. And to our surprise, like, she just started getting better and better. And I said, you know what?

Maybe I got something here. So I, you know, I said, maybe I can sell this to pets now. And by this point, you know, CBD and hemp are starting to become popular. It's kind of mainstream. So I started a hemp well, and it's just a all pet brand. Right. And so we were like one of the first to get in this pet CBD space. Started going, you know, I cold call.

I'm not afraid to ask permission or just afraid to open up shop, right? So, I mean, we got into like all the big pet stores and online. and became like the first real pet brand with this hemp. So, you know, looking back, I think when the government wants you, you know, they're going to get you. It doesn't. They're going to find a way. There's, there's too many laws. Yeah.

And you're breaking a federal law pretty much every day doing something. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, they say that way if they want to charge you, they can just charge you. Yeah. You know, my mom used to put my dad's pills, you know, they have the, I've said this before, the, The little pill thing says Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then at the beginning of the week, you break down what your pills are, and you put them all in that little thing. That's a federal law.

You just broke the federal law. Oh, because you're handling somebody's? No, no, because you're removing it out of the labeled container, placing it in a non-label container, and now you've broken a federal law, and now you're basically you're dispensing pills. You're transporting non-labeled pills. Now, would they charge you for that? Probably not. But if they wanted you bad enough, they'll be.

charge you, even though every old couple out there is breaking their pills up doing that. Yeah. You know, there's just, there's always some law that you're breaking that, because the laws are written so vaguely, they can hit you for anything they want. Hopefully you have a good U.S. attorney. He's like, yeah, that's not what the spirit of the law meant. But you could also have an asshole. Yeah, more likely, an asshole, yeah.

Right. So, you know, this is, you know, I'm well out of America. you know, start selling the pet stuff. And, but I think, you know, that five years or four years, whatever, I made a lot of enemies, right? Right. All those prosecutors had tried to prosecute me when we'd end up winning, cops I messed with, the attorney general, who was my main nemesis,

they never could get a conviction from me. Tried, you know, 20 times, you know. A lot of the employees would. take little plea deals or we pay off but never got a conviction in any of the trials had been through in state courts the big one the case the clinical relief the first test case they were going to do we went all the way up to the michigan supreme court we were ready to go to trial like this is bullshit you know we had full approval and um so by this time now michigan is legalized like recreational weed like or you know you don't need a card right just smoking now so not

it's legal and like what jury is going to like convict me of selling to like grandma right so they eight years on that case the the state eventually drops the charges in that very first raid right so we went to the michigan state or michigan supreme court who was ironically my client before i got into right um so all of these charges passed us you know we're we're we're you know, made some enemies. Yeah, made some enemies, but you feel like it's all behind you? I think it's all behind me, right? You know, now I'm in, now I'm kind of in the national spot like now,

like the first guy to start a CBD company for pets. Right. You know, again, it's, I don't, I don't want to say, like, the CBD attack the pharmaceutical industry, but it's definitely like, it's not, the government still doesn't like it, right? You know, even though it's federally illegal, it goes against somebody's interest or agenda. So now I, you know, and I got on the spotlight.

I had one of, I had a partnership with a pretty famous rapper for a minute. I won't say, but something dog. So like, again, I just think I'm like, like getting in the spotlight, right? Like people are like, well, let's go after Ryan. So, you know, and what happens next is the IRS comes. We're going to audit you. Okay. So.

I mean, this is just income, right? Like, you're paying, are you paying on your income? So, yeah, I mean,

or what I have, like, my records are sparse to non-existor, right? I gave my partner, Jake had ran all the books. He'd out of the quick books.

And the reality is, I didn't make anything, right? Right. So, you know, especially 2014, my last year in the business,

literally that final raid that happened in November, like taken everything. So we're, my wife and I were trying to guess like, remember one time we were, we'd sold the boat. We're like, oh yeah, we probably don't have the title. You know, like literally every document's taken from our lives. So we did what we could, you know, violent taxes and whatnot. Well, in marijuana, they call it 280E of the IRS Internal Revenue Code.

So it's the biggest issue facing the medical marijuana. or industry in America. So you go to, you see a dispensary, you've got lines out the door, right? You're thinking, man, this guy's fucking millionaire, right? Well, 280E says if you're dealing a Schedule 1 narcotic, which is a Schedule 1, it's just like acid or heroin? It's, what's the big one you get in trouble for now? No, yeah.

It's just as dangerous as, no. So if you schedule. Per the IRS code. No, per the federal government. It's a Schedule 1 drug. Okay. So cocaine, Schedule 2 and, like, you know, Tylenol, Schedule 5. Or, you know, I...

Yeah. But it's the most dangerous. It's still in that Schedule 1 category. It's no medical value, and it's highly addictive, they say. Okay. So if you're trafficking in a Schedule 1 drug, you can't take any deductions. So no rent, no payroll, no marketing. you can't take a single deduction, you have to pay tax on that.

So all of these dispensaries now, they're effectively paying what a 75% tax rate, right? So if I'm making, if I make $10,000 a week and my employees cost me $4,000 and my rent cost me $1,000, and the lights, electric, all the other junk cost me another $1,000. And so my profit at the end of the week is $4,000. I should be paying taxes on $4,000. What you're saying is that the federal government is saying, no, no, you're paying taxes on the $10,000. Yeah, you can't take any of those deductions off.

So they put that in the 80s to kind of deter like crap and dealers, right? Right. From filing taxes? Yeah. So is that a big problem? So they've never, they've never used it to, they've never used it in history. Because most, they're not, they're not.

Paying taxes. Yeah, they just slam them with big fines and arrest, you know, when they get arrested for moving, what, 20 keys or whatever. So the government really never used this law until all of these dispensaries started popping out. Right. And now it's their biggest, you know, they just, you know, I think I'd start with, you know, they used to kick indoors. They used to raid you and arrest you. And just the suit and the badge just keeps changing the right. Right.

So when they would, you know, crack your head open in the 70s for smoking a joint, put you in jail. In my era, the medical would asset forfeiture. They tried to take your money. Now it's civil. Now they're putting the IRS out there. That's the new power going against the Maryland industry. So I had never heard of this tax code while I was operating. you get audited.

I get audited. And then now there, I say, I go, I'm sitting there with the IRS guy who's just a little prick, this little fucking guy. John. Right. Yeah, yeah. John. Hi. So I say, you know, I'm like, I got nothing for you, man.

You can read about me in the paper. You can ask every cop in fucking in southeast Michigan, you know, like, I have nothing. You're going to have to ask, and he's asking questions about where'd you grow or who'd you buy from. I'm like, I didn't buy anything. Like, I never dealt with the vendors. I know, you know, you'd have to ask my partner, Jake. And he's like, I know what was all you, you're a little fucker. I know what was all you.

I'm like, literally, like, I'm still wear a fucking suit. I never dealt with, you know, I don't know. I know what you're asking me. I just don't know how to answer it. Like, you'd have to ask Jake. He ran with the business. I don't talk to, I haven't heard from Jake. now Jake's not answer hey Jake can you help can you get some documents can

can your CPA anything can you provide can you help help help me please yeah I bring in a lawyer I bring in a CPA a guy who worked for the IRS you know more more legal fees right all this guy's gonna be a problem I don't know what's going on I was like there's nothing I can literally do right I go all I can tell you is I lost this much money and I I don't know I you can ask Jake he's got Quickbooks he's he ran with the business he's he's probably still operating somewhere with it you know and so Jake gets an immunity deal or proffer or whatever that yeah yeah so he testifies that he was never involved well he starts talking to the you know the IRS cops or

whatever and like oh yeah I just worked their part-time I I didn't I don't know I was doing a logistics company all they were selling there right and then I'm like so then his story just kept evolving it all the way up to the day of he testified at my trial so like so you get indicted so I eventually get indicted he so the reason for my indictment was because now Jake said he was not an he was just an employee he worked there part-time he made 60% 60 plus percent so all that money that he was a partner with well that's that deductible to Ryan so that's a lot of money over the years you know right so well you didn't pay tax on that money that your employee Jake made I go he made more than me like right he's my

partner he's file his tax or terms owner relief choices like you know we had own joint bank accounts together who couldn't be more clear as day right um but again i think when they want somebody they're going to do whatever it takes right so jake kept changing a story finally so they indict me for tax evasion the only american in history to have been indicted under this 280 of the pot they call it pot tax. Okay. The only American ever indicted or sent to prison for this pot tax. So, you know, I've got nothing.

I've got, so I, you know, I've had state lawyers. I'm like, well, federal is a little different than state court, right? Yeah. You know, so I'm like, who do I hire? Like, fuck. Are you familiar with Kwame Kilpatrick? Yeah. The Detroit governor?

Yes. You should get him on here, but. Well, yeah. So he, you know, big corrupt mayor from Detroit, right? So I'm looking for, and I don't know why I found a guy that used to be a U.S. attorney. He had prosecuted, he did political corruption cases. So he prosecuted Kwamey. And the last client or the last customer, you know, defendant he put in jail before he came

private lawyer, Eric Smith. Okay. So he put it on his website, I prosecuted Kwame, and, you know, I meet with a guy and I'm like, how I could have prosecuted Kwame. You know, like, tell me about Eric Smith. Like, you clearly know how corrupt he was. Like, man, he's the crux of a lot of my money, you know, all this. Man, this guy was a turd, this balada guy, Michael.

Just a, I don't think they ever really, especially when they retouching. from the US attorneys I don't think they really leave you the office right now no like the guy was like well we could plea and I go I told you the second I held you the check in front of you and said I'm taking a stand I'm willing to testify I'm going to trial right I didn't do anything wrong and nothing the guy didn't do anything for like six months a year and then I'm like what's going on are you calling every I've shared this whole story that I've told you today, are you calling this guy,

or you look following up with this? Are you trying to get any evidence? He didn't do anything. He tells me, well, you know, I like recording things, right? And I knew something was going on. So I went into his office and I said, what's going on? Like, you know, he goes, oh, man, your case is too political for me.

I can give me my money back then. Yeah, your case is too political. and I just don't, you know, I've got a new practice here. And I think he was like, he was like 55, had a new set of kids, a new wife, you know, kind of. So I'm like, it's fucked up. So he sends a letter to the judge like, oh, breakdown in communication, you know, like, it was like it was my fault.

Right. So I'm like, hell. And I call him back. I said, why don't you tell the judge like what really, because now the judge thinks I'm like trying to stall and delay the trial. And I said, you know, I recorded when you said that. He goes, I'd watch out what you say.

You know, I still got friends of the U.S. attorney's office. I'm like, here we go again, right? Fucking, right. So, like, the judge is like, you're delaying. You've got, like, two weeks to get a lawyer, and we're going right to trial. So I get, I'm like, man,

how do you even start interviewing or, you know? So I get, like, this guy who was, he did, like, they call him D-Day, because he was born on on D-Day? A D-day. Okay. But he's in, you know, he's pretty prominent in our area.

Like, he literally probably knows where Hoff is buried. Like, he's connected to the mob and, you know. So I just hire them, him and his partner quick. I'm like, okay, whatever, write him 100 grand. Do you get your money back from the first douchebag? Fuck no. Yeah, you ever get money back from a lawyer? No.

No. No. So these guys are all right, but they suck. They were old. He's a dinosaur D-Day, right? Yeah, yeah. And then I find out, well, D-Day's been to federal prison. Right.

I'm like, what? Don't you have to, like, disclose that? You know, I should have looked more, but I had to look. You know, the judge is like, you got to, we're going to trial. So I didn't really do my due diligence. So he went to, I don't know, you. pull him up one of the big mobsters from Michigan. He probably literally probably killed Hoffa,

one of the part of this crew. He went to prison with Jaconi, Jackaloni. I don't know. I don't know. If you did the mob stuff, you'd know him. But yeah, he does. So he went to jail for extortion. My lawyer went to jail for extortion in tax evasion.

in tax evasion. Okay. So I'm like, what the fuck, man? Don't you have to tell me that, you know, you went to jail for this? Federal prison? He goes, well, who better to represent you than somebody that went to prison

for tax evasion? I'm like, oh, man, I'm fucked. I'm so fucked. You know, right? Like, they asked the judge for an extension. Like, we need time. We just got this case.

Right. The other guy had like a year and a half and, you know, didn't give us anything. We don't have anything. No. Mr. Richmond's delaying this trial, we're going forward. And a black judge, I think she looked at me like instantly, like, oh, this white guy from the suburbs, like, you know, tax evasion, you're always guilty, right?

Yeah. Okay. So we go to trial, and it was horrible. It was like, I don't know if you went to trial in yours, but it's, yeah. Fuck, no, guilty of sin. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're guilty or not. you you don't win.

Yeah. I said, I said, it's like if you're, if you're guilty, you're 100% going to be found guilty. And if you're innocent, you got probably a,

what, 60, 70%? I think it's 90. No, I'm saying if you're innocent, you have probably a 60 or 70% chance of being found guilty, even if you're innocent

in federal court. Well, I think the numbers are like 93%. Even if, you know, 93% of folks lose, or lose that trial. Well, they have a 97% conviction, right? But that's including people that plead guilty.

Gotcha. Well, so I remember the first day of trial. One of the lawyer comes up to me, goes, would you want to be one of those jurors? And the whole side of, you know, their side of the wedding party, the government is all the IRS agents. Like, oh, wow, somebody's going to trial. Right. So he goes, would you want to be a juror going against the aisle? IRS. And I'm like, I'm fucked.

All right. I'm fucked. And you guys had nothing prepared and, you know, they're stumbling through the motion, you know. But I think going through all of this or especially my testimony, like they didn't present any slides or evidence or like, hey, here's Jake's signature. You know, they did a few things like, here's Jake's signature on the bank account. Like, and then they never challenged one. single motion like the constitutionality of should Ryan be in jail for this weird law right and

was something that's legal now medical right so they're just horrible lawyers um but i think when i took the stand i got to tell the judge like man right and had every guy in the world like tried to raid me and you know the u.s attorneys like any chance he could tell the jury what city i'm from I'm like, oh, this guy's from Bloomfield or, you know, like, just, it's such a stage, you know. I mean, they roll in all the carts that, you know, or don't have anything. They've all this paperwork. And it's just theater, right? So, you know, my old partner gets up there.

He lies through his fucking teeth. Oh, yeah, I wanted to be Ryan's. Now his story is I wanted to be Ryan's partner. And he wouldn't let me. He said it would be safer for me and my family. And I'm like, oh, man, I wanted to be. to kill that guy like just right you know and i'm just it was just surreal it was like the weirdest thing but i'm still thinking i'm going to win you know i i get the truth but it doesn't matter man you know

so one of the things that the government they they charged me with tax evasion for each of the years i was in um and then you know you get corrupt endeavor or some weird charge like right administration of justice or something, you know, that goes kind of in tandem with that. And then one of the charges was lying to a government official. Because I told John, my douchebag IRS agent, that you have to ask Jake. Right. I can't answer it. So they said I lied to him because I said that Jake was my partner.

Right. And Jake's saying he wasn't your partner. So that was a lie. Right. So the jury found me like innocent of. a couple of the tax evasion years. They found that I was telling the truth that Jake was my partner, that I didn't lie to a government agents.

So I got like three of the charges or, you know, not guilty, but they're going to get you on something, right? Right. What did they get you on? Tax evasion. Okay. So all that money that Jake made and I didn't deduct, all the money that Eric Smith stole, that I didn't deduct, all the money that.

money that the shady cops took that it wasn't able to deduct right and I didn't have now this point you know after all the lawyers I mean I'm like upside down 800000 right um so because I was the only American high times did an article last month on me had the only American sent to prison for the pot tax right so because of this goofy fucking law you know I was found guilty But I think like the judge like through the trial like okay, maybe Ryan's not he's a shitty lawyers, but maybe he's not as bad as I thought. So I think my guidelines were like the government of course wants to put you in there forever, right?

Right. So seven and would they want to give you like eight years or something. And that's what the guidelines would have been. And she gave me two years. So in, you know, two years is really what, 11 months, right? Yeah. With a good time and halfway house. Yeah, the first step and all of this.

So I went to, I got to go to Morgantown in West Virginia. And on the first day, did you just punch the biggest guy you saw? Oh. Well, the first day. It's a camp, right? Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know. So I'm driving, my wife and I drive to prison, which is weird.

You drive yourself to jail. And, you know, I'm driving through D.T. Detroit and I see fucking lawyer billboards in medical or marijuana billboards and I'm like just this is fucking just surreal right right so I'm driving literally driving myself all the money the you know the lawyers took and all now weed's legal and I'm going to jail for you know going to the same place that Eric Smith is was he there well I federal prison he was at a different camp and then the shady drug cops went to I think they went to like a higher up because they had over 10 years or they got like 12 years or something right yeah so that's to go to a camp I'm sorry to a low they have to go to a low

you went to a camp yeah I went to a camp so I go to West Virginia and you know I get in I go through the intake and you know they look up your butt and do all you know all this stuff right and the guy's looking through my file and he goes oh military police I probably wouldn't say anything about if I were you, they don't take kindly to cops in here. But I don't give a fuck you piece of, you know, and they, and, you know, and then it was, it was about the nicest thing they said, and then it just was, you know, cops are, or guards or they're not, they're not good people. Well, they're doing more time than we were, right?

So some of them are there, okay, but, but yeah, it was like a camp, you know, all the things I was worried about, like open showers and that really didn't happen. and some guy gave me a slippers. My first day said, here, you don't want your feet to get pregnant. So, you know, he gave me the sandals. I haven't heard that one. That's good.

So, I mean, you know, most of the people were great there. I mean, you know, a lot of guys that, you know, a lot of drug dealers, right? Yeah. I mean, so, like, I found myself hanging out more with, like, the drug dealers. Because at least that was honorable or, you know, and at the end of the day, I was a drug dealer with a lobbyist. phone number of myself, you know. And I think they kind of thought it was cool that I was a,

your patio, how can I start selling? How can I get a dispensary? Well, you probably can't because you're a record. So yeah, I did it. It was horrible. I was away from my kids. I mean, you know, we'll find out how much I'm going to fuck them up in 10 years, right? But, you know, I did my time.

I read a lot. I wrote the book, you know, wrote most of my book while I was there. And William Shakespeare did it right. I never had a cell phone. I never did any of the stuff. All the contraband and stuff these other guys are doing. Yeah, I just wanted to get out. So I, but I'd always, like, I'd write, like, 50 pages and then mail it because I didn't

want to have, like, a shakedown or, like, you know what I mean? and I was waiting for like a little shootie or the cops from back home to come in and laugh at me or you know I just but honestly when I was at that camp and I was sitting there it was probably the first time

since that very first raid that I felt like I'm not looking over my shoulder like even still sometimes like I'll pull into my warehouse or office and like are they here or when I pull into my neighborhood I'm still like are the cops here like right

So it was like the first time in a decade that I was like, wow, I'm, it was kind of peaceful. Like, what can they do to me? What worse things can, I'm here. I'm protected by cops now. So from that, from that aspect, I felt like some solace. I felt safe in there, like, but I was ready to get out. So I, you know, you hear everybody's stories in there. I mean, I was in the TP, I was a part of the Indian tribe.

So we got to go build a fire. The Pris Indians? Well, you know, we were the Chokoha Nation. But it was, I liked it. I mean, it was good. You know, we got to build a fire. We got to smoke out of a peace pipe while they're arresting guys for smoking new ports, you know. And it was sweat lodge.

So it was like a. But yeah. I mean, I haven't built my TP lodge, you know, when I got, you know, I asked my wife, she wouldn't let me build one. Then I get out and I go to a halfway house in Detroit, the city I never wanted to open up in, right? And not the good part of Detroit, like the part of Detroit, the Detroiters say, right, this is a bad part of Detroit.

And this is the first time I'd ever, you know, I'm at a camp. I'm like literally one of my neighbors claimed to be one of Bernie Madoff's, like, co-defendants and the other guy was stole from his employer to do draft kings, you know, all the fantasy football batting. So now I'm at a halfway house where I had no idea

the amount of like chomos in the federal system and now I'm here with like guys who were at a maximum security and I'm mixed in at this halfway house and like like man I'm a little scared at this place like I didn't know, do you know what deuce is or like the hit the deuses what the roach spray they smoke oh no no are they it's it's uh like k2 right yeah or like they they do the roach spray like they spray it on a piece of cardboard and like the cardboard like they'll smoke it oh my god i like it just the drug use i didn't realize how much

ship goes on in prison like i was at my little peaceful summer camp right in morgan town um but i just wanted out of that i i just wanted out of that I wanted out of that place as quick as I could do my laundry and my clothes would get stolen. And then everybody wants a little piece of you. So they get paid when you're at the halfway house, right? So I eventually get out. I think I spent about a month there and then get out. And I do a home release or, you know, I got the income on it around.

Yeah. Home confinement. Home confinement, yep. I'm kind of past my prison state. And right now, well, as of about two weeks ago, the DEA and the Department of Justice, ironically, decriminalized medical marijuana. So marijuana that you smoke, right, your teenagers, that's still federally Schedule I, but they put people selling marijuana for medical reasons under a state license. that's now Schedule 3. Because it's Schedule 3, you can deduct it, right?

Against your taxes. So we put the case up before the Supreme Court. We went all the way for our appeal. We went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied to hear it. Right. This past winter. But now with this new descheduling,

we just submitted an appeal to get the conviction overturned. Yeah, I was just going to say. say maybe you could probably try and get a pardon like you seem like a perfect person for a pardon like I shouldn't have gone to jail to begin with I know yeah you know they can always make the argument that at the time it was illegal but that was a stupid law yes yeah again with you know if you're going to allow someone to run a business and you have to allow them to run a successful business you have to tax them just like every other business yeah I mean if I'm sure Donald's listening so if you're there I would love a pardoned Donald I know he probably puts this on just for

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But yeah, I mean, I believe in America. I was a soldier. I still stupidly probably have some confidence, but, man, most of it's shattered at this point, so we'll see what the judge does, you know. Right. Well, it's common sense. It makes sense, but, you know. And you're still running the, where's the treats?

Because I want to give my dog one of these treats. Does this have, what is it, does it actually have stuff? in it? Can I give this to my pit bull? Yeah. I have a pit bull. Yeah. So I have an adorable pit bull, by the way. Awesome. So he can be an asshole. He can be an asshole. But for the most part, he's a good dog. Yeah. No, um, hempwell's the company. Um, it's just like any other, we have a full line. I, I don't know how much I brought here for you. But we do products for dogs, cats, birds, horses. Well, what is, what is this? What is this? So, what is this? So, is this for pain? Yeah, this would be like a treat.

Aks in discomfort. Yeah, like a pain, you know. So we have a calming product category. So that's, you know. Do we have that? Because that's what I need. Yeah. This dog is like, this dog is six months old.

Yeah, I'll get you some of that. Yeah. He's a real, he could be a real jerk at times. Yeah. And he doesn't follow me around like he does my wife. He just, I mean, she can't go anywhere. You just hear her yelling constantly. Like, what?

Stop! All the time. And then he'll come downstairs and he'll jump on the. couch and he just wants to lay right on your lap and get right in your face when you're watching TV or anything you're doing. So I need something that needs to calm down. We'll get, I'll get something mailed out to. We'll hook you up. Thank you. He's a real jerk off. But yeah, people love their pets, don't I? I mean, more than their kids, I feel like I, I know. I know that I love that the John Wick. There's a TikTok where the guy said, you know,

I, when I first saw John Wick, the first movie, he's like, And I thought, all of this, this guy's killed like 13,000 people in this fucking movie because someone shot his dog. He's like, at that time, I thought, this is the dumbest, this is the dumbest concept of anything I've ever, any movie I've ever heard. And then I got a dog. And I realize, makes perfect sense to me. I would kill 100,000 people if they tried to harm my dog. Yeah. And like, that's how I feel, even though my dog's kind of a jerk sometimes.

Oh, yeah. It would be so sweet. I would hate for him to be in pain. But he does need to calm down. Yeah, definitely calm me like people. Either they got a hyper dog or a lot of folks don't walk their dog enough. They just want it to. It's like riddling, right?

They just want their kids to go over there. But hip and joint, like as they get older, you know, unfortunately, though, I think a lot of our products, just like when I started giving up, my cat CBD, right? We don't really address the issue until we walk out of the vet's office or or your doctor says, hey, by the way, you got prostate cancer. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, maybe I should start eating good. You know, it's too late by that. So, you know, unfortunately, like, we love what we do, but, you know, we get a lot of sad calls every single day. Like, oh, my dog's this or what do you got for that? I'm like, I don't know. So it's great. I mean, we're helping kind of like I was helping mom with the medical pot.

I'm up in phytto with, you know. Hip, hip displacement. Hip dysplasia. Yeah. Is it dysplasia? So, yeah, it's all supplements. So we, in, you know, hemp seed oil and hemp seed powder is just an amazing, you know, that's not a plug for better health, but it's just a plug for hemp seed.

You know, everybody talks about CBD or the wheat or the flour. It's, but the hemp seeds are actually just an amazing. amazing products. So we put that in all of our supplement lines and some of the products have CBD in there as well. What about the book? Oh yeah, what you're horrible at self-promotion by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't believe it. Yeah. So when I was down, you know, we have a, we get a lot of time to read. When I was down for 11 months. That's not even worth unpacking. Well, you know, I, I, I, I, I think, you know, people look at you different when you're arrested or raided.

Oh, yeah. Man, I mean, and to me, and I'm still to me, I'm like, man, I'm fucking innocent. I don't know how to tell this to you. Right. And, you know, we've been here about a couple hours, right? So I don't know if you maybe understand it better, but it's not a one-minute conversation with people. Yeah. So it was like the only way, you know, the only way I'm ever going to explain my story is to write a book.

So wrote Capone of Cannabis. because when I went to, when I was going through the appellate courts, the Supreme Court, my appellate lawyer said, well, you're Al Capone. You know, they never got Al Capone for boot lagging or murder, right? Right. He went down for tax evasion. So, you know, Stu had represented me in a lot of the state cases when we went to the state Supreme Court.

He goes, yeah, they couldn't get you any of those charges to ever stick. So they brought in the tax man. And so he was kind of, you know, inspiration for the title. So Capone of Cannabis is the book. You know, sell it on our website, Caponecannabis.com. Amazon. We're in Barnes & Noble, a bunch of booksellers, independent booksellers. Who did the, is that an AI generated?

No, it's one of my designers we had. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, I wrote it quick. I didn't know a lot of things. We've redone it a couple times, like the ISBN number. Like, I just, I didn't know. So I got the free one, and then I went back and got a real, you know.

So now it's starting to get in distribution. We just had the book design and the layout redone. So I don't even have my author copies of that. This is the original first round draft. So, yeah, I wrote you a little note in there. I'll leave you a copy of the book. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, it goes a little deeper than the story here. You know, we didn't talk about like the CIA connections. So, you know, everybody wants to talk like deep state, you know. Right. I just kind of lump it all in the word CIA, right? Because it sounds better. But one of the special prosecutors on my case, he did my boring little IRS case, right? Right.

One of the special prosecutors they brought in did January 6th rioters. He did. He works in the violent and organized crime unit. He does 60 to Life motorcycle gangs and murders, but he was brought in on my little boring IRS case, right? We had, like I said, the drugs czar came in and lobbied immediately. He works for the Hudson Institute now, which is kind of like the RAND Corporation or like, you know.

All right. What's that guy, John, Curricacu? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great guy. I saw him on your show there. But, yeah, I just try to make, try out of piece a lot of this, like little bits and slivers of that I had. So what we had uncovered through some of the discovery was there was a federal task force when the voters passed the Michigan marijuana law, Operation Michigan Pot Shops. so a federal task force was put together to crush it.

Kind of same way, you know, disinformation that, you know, the CIA playback's been doing for years. Right. You know, so we found out, you know, the book will go into a little bit more of that, the back channels. And when I was walking the track endlessly in Morgantown, there was actually a cop there.

He had heard that I was a cop. Well, for two years in the National Guard, right? So he confines in me He was like law enforcement I was like oh okay I didn't tell him I really wasn't a cop But I was like tell me more And he's he's telling me

He worked for the department of army Or some weird branch It didn't make sense to me But what he did it And then he worked through like these Joint Task Force For like drug units in Alabama So meaning the government can't listen to your phone call unless you're like CIA or overseas.

So they would listen to phone calls. And then they would, his job was he hated Obama. He was just one of these right-wing Trump guys, right? But he said the one thing I really respect about Obama, at least he wanted to bring a national police force together. Like just come out of the open. because we're doing all the shit spying on people. So he would, his job was to spy on people.

And then, oh, they're going to be moving the cocaine at 2 o'clock. And, you know, he would call the Tampa Bay Police Department. Yeah, Matt Cox is in a blue car driving down I-75. And so he would tip them off with this kind of wiretap. illegal wiretap. Right. And then the Tampa Bay Police would be like, oh, that's great because we get the bus.

We get all the money from it. And then there's this whole profit sharing. The feds get 30% goes to the fed, 70% goes back to whoever arrested. So he was really famous. He could send it to the local police, the county police, or, you know,

Hillsborough County or whatever county we're here. And so he's hearing about my case. And he goes, oh yeah, you had a handle it, you're an operative, trying to just kind of piece together a lot of the discovery because everybody's bringing in their paperwork to, you know, or you could look it up on PACER. Right. So just, you know, trying to uncover like what was going on behind the scenes. So the boy points out a little bit more of that as well. You can get the, uh, learn more about the book at Caponeof Cannabis.com. Or you could find us on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or

hempwell, you can find us at hempwell.com. And, you know, we're online. We're in a lot of the better pet stores. So we're pretty much everywhere with that. But find more information at hempwell.com. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. Do be a favor, hit the subscribe button.

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