The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Interview With An Ex Dope Dealer & Lawyer Spent 17 Years In A Violent Federal Prison | #11

Episode Date: November 27, 2022

Ex gangbanger Chad Marks describes getting locked up for 17 years in an extremely violent federal prison, becoming a jailhouse lawyer, and then helping other inmates get released and win their appeals.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the dudes tries to stab me. And for real, bro, and I'm not making this shit up, I hit the kid and drop him. Thank God. He could have stabbed me, but he hesitated. And what happened to him, he dies. And that's why I call my book Blood on the Razor Wire. Many people have left their blood on the razor wire in federal prison. What's up, you guys?

Welcome back to The Connect. I'm Johnny Mitchell. As usual, make sure to like and subscribe, turn on notifications. Follow me on Instagram at Mr. Johnny Mitchell. You guys, let's get those Instagram numbers up. Follow me on Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show for all types of crazy bonus content that we can't show you on YouTube. And we're going to get into it.

You guys, this is an interview today with Chad Marks. He is an ex-drug dealer and gangbanger out of Rochester, New York. He spent 17 years in federal prison. He became a jailhouse lawyer. And he is out now, and he's working on appeals for a lot of other federal inmates. He has some wild stories. It was an amazing episode, so enjoy it. What's up, guys?

Let's take a minute to thank our amazing new sponsor, Mood, an online cannabis company that ships THC products to anywhere in the U.S. legally. You heard that right. Mood deals in Delta 8 and Delta 9 THC products, okay? And if you don't know, Delta 8 and Delta 9 are compounds, THC compounds found in actual bud, actual marijuana. But when they're broken down and put into things like vapes, flowers, pre-rolls, different kind of concentrates, gummies, you can ship them anywhere legally and they still get you fucked up.

So if you live in a state where pot is still illegal, you can get Mood to send you all of these different THC products. Right now, Mood is offering our viewers free gummies. That's right, you guys, click the link in the description, grab any pack of five count gummies and add code connect free at checkout. That's connect free. All you have to do is pay for shipping. But that's not all they're offering. On top of the free pack of gummies, you can use promo. code connect 20 that's c-o-n-n-n-ec t-2-0 in combination with the gummy code and get 20% off your first order you guys these are an amazing product they're exactly what we are trying to sell and promote here on the connect they are fucking the federal government this is an amazing loophole and they're

just amazing products head over to hello mood dot co and support them because they support the show all right let's get back into it all right chad marks what's up brother What's going on, man? How are you? Dude, I'm stoked. And I apologize again for the, you know, the technical issues. But it's wild to have you as the first episode of the Connect podcast. How did you, did you find me or did I find you? I reached out to you.

I've seen your YouTube channel was blowing up. And I'm like, hey, I need to reach out to this dude and see if he'll come on my channel. I think I will after this episode, man. I get a lot of people reaching out to me. Most don't have the charisma or the story, but yeah, I think this is going to be a fascinating one. So we'll just get into it. So you're from Rochester? Rochester, New York.

All right. And just let's start from the beginning. How old are you? How did you come up? How did you get your start in the game? And how did you fall? I guess we'll start with that. Okay, so I'm 44 years old, man, at the age of 24.

I was arrested by the feds, ended up in federal court. Eventually, I went to trial on a conspiracy case for crack cocaine. On 2-924C counts, a lot of people don't know what that is, but that's possessing guns and furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. They give you five for the first one, 25 for the second. Eventually, I go to trial, I blow trial, I lose, and I'm sentenced to 40 years. But how did all that start? So I grew up kind of poor.

My father was a drug addict. He left the house when I was three. my mother was pretty much a single mother. So everything was a struggle, man. I grew up in the hood. I grew up in the ghetto. But at the time I was 12, 13 years old, I'm like, man, I don't want to live like this. One of my friends was out there hustling petty hustler.

And he's like, look, maybe come over here, sell bags with us, do whatever. And that's kind of where it started. He tried to like play us. But I always had that mind, man, where I'm an entrepreneur, even as a young kid. Are we talking about selling pot at 13 or 12 or 13? Are we already up to selling krills crack? We're selling cocaine at the time, right? This is probably 1993.

Power. Biggie Smalls was the man. You're selling powder. Go ahead. You're selling powder. We're selling powder. Wow. Okay.

And how does a 12 or 13 year old, white kid, right, Irish kid in Rochester, you grew up in a black ghetto, I assume? Well, yeah. How do you, how does one just at 12 years old start selling powder cocaine? You know what I mean? Are you on a corner? like how are you how are you distributing it at that age okay so i'm going to tell you this is what it is right i got a friend he's my age his name's booper his mother's a prostitute his uncle's a drug addict and a pimp and they got a pretty much they got a crack house where it would be called a smokehouse

back then they're selling out of there people are getting high over there and it starts getting a little bit hot so his uncle's like look man i'm going to have you start selling bags next store you're going to pay these people 40 dollars a day and you're going to sell cocaine out of there. So he's selling cocaine out of there. He acts like he's a little more older than us, but really we're the same age. And I'm broke. So I'm like, yo, bro, I want to start, you know, helping out. What's up? He's like, oh, man, trying to play us. You know, like he's that dude. And really, he's not. So that's how it starts out where I'm just sitting in a spot with him. And they might give you $500 worth of the powder cocaine. You sell it and you make $70.

That's what we were getting back then. So we make $70 profit. That's how it started. And I started thinking within a month, man, I'm not going to be living like this, man. I'm not going to be working for these people at 12, 13 years old, making $70. So I started saving my little bit of money. I knew who their connect was. I'm like, hey, what's up? It was a dude named Bouncy. So I'm like, hey, what's up?

Bouncy, man, I'm trying to get eight ball. You know, I know the lingo. I know the terms. And that's how it started. And eight ball turned into a quarter ounce, a quarter ounce, turned into a half ounce, and then it took off from there. Back then we would buy 60s, two ounces, six grams. And then from there goes to a big eight, which is double that.

And that's just kind of where it started. but eventually at the age of 16, I'm arrested and I end up going to state prison. I do a two to six come home, and now the world has changed. Now it's no longer powdered cocaine. Everybody's smoking crack. So I get a little job when I get out of prison. That doesn't work out. I'm working there for like a month and a half, and I'm like, you know what?

I'm jumping back in the game. And that's what happened. And I jumped back in the game, started coming up. My best friend was Mexican and Irish. And he had some family down there in Texas. So we started going down to Texas and doing some things there. went to New York, did some things there, and started bringing stuff back and kind of blew up. I guess you could say to a certain extent. And eventually, man, I'm arrested by a federal

government. And was that a crack charge? So when they first arrested me, what they do was they charge us for crack cocaine, right? They charge us in a conspiracy for 50 grams or more crack cocaine, one count. But when they do the drug bust and they bust all the houses, they find three kilos, $219,000 cash and a couple weapons. They don't charge us with that yet. In federal court, they just charge us with that one count. So the one count I'm facing 10 to life. We start arguing back and forth, 10, 11 months, the case is going on. And they say, look, we're going to offer you a plea agreement.

If you don't take the plea, we're going to supersede you. I'm like, okay, I don't take the plea agreement. Now the government supersedes me with all the other charges. Now it's 16 counts. The mandatory minimum goes from 10 to 40 years. The judge cannot give me any less than 40 if I go to trial and lose. I'm getting ready to go to trial. I said, hey, look, man, tell them I'll take 17 years.

That's the point that it got to. They said, no, 27. I said, man, I can't do 27 years. I only been alive. I'm only 24 years old at the time of my arrest. I'm not going to do 27 years in federal prison. So they come back and say 25. I told them, man, let's roll the dice.

I go to trial. I get convicted. And the judge sentences me to the 40-year federal mandatory minimum. Did you have a paid lawyer? Did you have a good lawyer? Or did you have a dump truck? Here's the best part. I had one of the best lawyers in my city.

It cost me $40,000 for a lawyer and I got 40 years. Isn't that kind of ironic? Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, you hate when that happens. You spend a bunch of money on a lawyer and, you know, you still get flushed down the toilet. So I'd happen to a lot of dudes. Did you feel like, were you advised to take the original plea agreement of 10 years? Well, really, the plea agreement back then, that was the mandatory minimum.

The plea was 11 to 14. Right. I tell the lawyer, look, check this out, right? I'll take the 11 to 14. But see if you can get the two points off for the gun, because then if I go to federal prison, without a gun enhancement, I could end up getting a year off.

He's like, well, let me look into it. Let me see what's going on. He never looks into it. And the government just says, you know what? We're tired of it. And they bang me. But that's because he had a death penalty case that was going on.

He was too busy with that case. And he wasn't concerned with my case. So that's what ends up happening. That's crazy. That is a very easy fuck up. but one that costs you, you know, an extra decade of your life. Now, I want to go back really quick to state prison. Where, when you originally got locked up, you were 16 years old.

And what did they bust you with? So when I'm 16, I get busted selling bags out of a house. I have an assault second degree. That was pending. And then I get busted in a house. Well, we're probably doing about, we're probably selling about two ounces of night in dime bags, right? That's a lot of, you know.

That's a lot of transactions in dime bags, you know? Yeah, I mean, hey, I'm going to keep it real. Back then, I was a petty hustler, you know what I mean? Right, right. I was just a young kid, man. Coping 62 was bagging them up and selling bags. And were there other white cocaine or crack dealers in your neighborhood, or was it, you know, like, tell me what did that look like? I mean, there were some, not many.

We thought only black people sold crack, truly. Like, I've never met a white crack dealer. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, Total Wine and More is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler.

And with everything that goes into summer, it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total Wine and More. Your Memorial Day, Made Easy. Shop Total Wine and More in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. drink responsibly must be 21. Well, this is the deal, right?

I mean, when I eventually was selling crack, back then it was powder cocaine when I got busted back then. But when I started selling crack, I mean, my whole team was pretty much all black dudes, right? I'm the head of the drug organization, you know, according to the government. Sure, sure. But all my workers were black dudes, kids that I grew up with, all my friends. Were there other white crack dealers in my neighborhood?

There was one other dude that they called White Boyd Boys. Rick, not the guy that they did the documentary on, but another dude, pretty well-known dude where I'm from. And me, like, when you talk about white crack dealers in my city, it's either me or Rick. Right. I mean, now it's much different. I mean, there's white crack dealers, Spanish, black. Right. I mean, everybody's hustling. Right, right. So they took you down, they busted you on powder. You got a two to six, and you did, what prison, where were you at in state prison? Okay, so my first prison, I end up going to Wyoming Correctional Facility, get a little jammed up over there. My best

friends, my co-defendant, all right? So we're there. He ends up getting in a fight with this dudo for a basketball magazine, and they jump us. I ended up getting stabbed in the face. They stabbed me in the face. They hit him four or five times. That night, he ends up going to one hospital. I go to a different hospital. I get stabbed

a couple of times in the back. And he goes to he ends up getting transferred to Cassackie. That night, this is Christmas Eve, brother, Christmas Eve, 1996. I leave Wyoming Correctional facility, which is in upstate New York, and they send me to Attica. I'm about, I'm 17 now while I'm doing my time. I'm 17 years old walking into Attica State prison. Right, right. As soon as we get

there, it's, you know, it's brutal, man. You want to know if I was scared or nervous? Is it like California prisons where everybody immediately, you know, if you're on like a level four yard or even a level three, you immediately click up with your ethnic group and then basically put in work. Is it kind of like that there? It's not like they're in state prison, but it's like that in federal prison. In state prison, it's more of wherever you're from. Like if you're from Rochester, it don't matter if you're Spanish, black, white. We're like a gang.

And honestly, we were more like the tougher gang out of New York, right? Buffalo had their gang, you know, the Bronx. But New York City, of course, they're tough. They come together. But Rochester was like a gang, and we were known for violence. Did, I mean, without, you know, incriminating at all, did you, I mean, did you witness staff? Did you witness killings? Was that sort of thing going on when you were at Attica?

Well, when I was at Attica, man, I seen, I was actually there only probably about 90 days. And then he sent me over to Comstock. I've seen these two dudes having a little knife fight over there on the weight pit. One of the dudes picked up a weight, hit the dude with the weight. I didn't have a lot of experience at Attica with violence. But when I got the federal prison, I was in the most dangerous federal prison in the country, Big Sandy. I've seen people murdered in prison. That's really interesting because, you know, most people,

people think of federal prison as actually being nicer and safer. I was in a very violent state prison. I was in, you know, and I know that violence in California, state prisons is rampant, right? People are getting stabbed up every day. You know, because the feds have more money. You'd assume it's a bigger, people are there longer. Supposedly it's supposed to be nicer.

So, but I guess not, I guess it just depends where you're at, right? Because you can go to some of these federal prisons for white collar criminals that are hitting golf balls and eating Hogandah's ice cream, you know. cream, you know. Well, well, let me, let me correct that a little bit for the people, right? State prison in New York couldn't hold a match to federal prison. All the federal prisons, pretty much unless you're at a camp or a low, are dangerous places. Violence is at an all-time high. I was actually in prison with that dude, Stanford, right? White-collar criminal,

stole all that money, had the banks all over the country. I was with him, dude. They brutalized him in a county jail. They were extorting him in USP Coleman. It's definitely not a place that anybody wants to go. They're not playing tennis in there. They're not eating steaks. Right. You're not having a great time. It is viciously violent.

Now, why is that, do you think? Why do you think federal prisons are more violent than state prisons on the whole? Okay, so I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you why. This is why they're more dangerous than state prisons. You know, back in the day, they would bring in all them rich people and, you know, people that were like had class. But when they started cracking down, they started bringing in crack dealers, gun-toters, bank robbers. Washington, D.C. doesn't have a prison system.

So they all go to federal prison. Right. And people are, you know, people are poor. People are hungry, man. People are trying to hustle. People are trying to steal. People are trying to extort. I had a cellmate from New York, had 25 years.

I had him Oliveari, mob guy. He stabs the cop. The cop takes a gallon of wine. He says, hey, man, I'm about to stab this dude. And I talk about that in my book. And I'm like, yeah, right. He's like, no, I'm about to go stab him. And he went down there and stabbed the cop.

my first, you know, one of my first things at Big Sandy, which was the most dangerous federal prison at the time in the system, these guys, there's a black dude and a Mexican, and they tag up on this other Mexican from Texas, right? You're like, what? Because usually it's not like that. Right. They're beating this dude with the law, and the cops shoot the guy that's getting beat with the law. They shot the wrong guy. Wow. They shot him on accident. And they kill him? Did they kill him? Do they kill him? No, they didn't kill him. But, at Big Sandy, I had got involved in something man with a dude named Ace that was from, he was from Ohio.

He had like 300 years bank robber. I get into an incident with him. They jumped me a little bit because I'm telling him, hey, I'm not going to be a part of the car. You know, he's like, look, our shot caller is the dude from the movie, the town with Stevie Burke. Stevie Burke goes to the hole. Things get out of control over there. You know, people are kind of like looking up to me a little bit as a leader.

They're looking up to him as a leader. And it was kind of like a power struggle that I didn't want to be involved in. So anyway, we end up getting into it. I fight four or five of them dudes out there on the compound. He tries, one of the dudes tries to stab me. And for real, bro, and I'm not making this shit up. I hit the kid and drop him. Thank God.

He could have stabbed me, but he hesitated. I don't think he really wanted to stab me, man. I think he was faking for the car. Yeah. I hit him. The knife drops. I could shoot you over the shot. I probably got the shot in here somewhere.

And his other boy throws a knife down the drain because all the cops are coming. Well, a year later to the day, that same dude, ace, he's out there on the yard. they're jumping him now. They're stabbing him. He pulls out a knife. He starts stabbing one of the other dudes, and they shoot him from the gun tower with an AR-15. They shoot him through the back, blow his guts out of his stomach, bro. Yeah. And the nurse is there trying to push his guts back into his stomach and wipe the dirt off. And what happened to him? He dies. And that's why I call my book, Blood on the Razor Wire. Many people have left their blood on the Razor Wire in federal prison. Wow. Yeah. And they said in the Fed's, when the riot kicks off, they give you one warning shot,

pow, and then everybody's got to hit the dirt, and the next one could kill you. Well, I mean, I think it's a little bit more than that. They might fire two or three warning shots. They got this thing that comes on about getting on the ground, and they say it in Spanish. Quest the same on Tuso or some shit like that. And if you don't get down, they will definitely shoot you.

They have no problem shooting. Yeah, yeah. I've heard, you know, sometimes COs, I heard this from an OG. He said that the COs, if they have a beef with each other, they'll actually use a prison riot as an opportunity to, like, shoot another CO. I thought that was kind of wild.

You know what I mean? Like if a CEO was, like, breaking up. This was at, you know, this is back in the 80s in, like, Folsom, right? These ultra-violent, you know, mayhem-style riots that would kick off, you know, this old head I knew Rodney. He said one of the CEOs was trying to break up a fight that was turning into a riot. on the yard and the other CO shot the CEO.

And there was rumors that. I've never experienced that. What did, so you got out of state prison. You paroled, you did, you, they maxed you out? Did you do your full six or did you get, did you get paroled? Did you get out early? So this is what happens. I do two years. I make my first parole board. I get out. I'm out for a little while. Catch a violation. I go back. I do another two years. Get out. I'm home 14 months. I'm only home 14 months, and that's when I catch the federal cakes.

Wow, that's how quickly it happens. And what were you, did you have a family at this time, or what was going on in your personal life? So my personal life was, I had a girlfriend. I ended up getting married to her. And eventually, man, I go to prison. We didn't have any children, any of that stuff. I go off the federal prison. They start talking to, you know, big numbers and pretty much tell her she has to go on with her life.

Go on with your life. Live your best life. I'm going to prison for the rest of mine. And eventually, you know, part of my story is I do get out. We reconnect. We get remarried and we got two 10 and a half month old boys right now. Amazing. Now, when you got hit with 40 years, did you assume you were done?

Like, what was your mindset of the time? I mean, when I get hit with the 40 years, and this isn't the prologue in the book, too, you might want to check it out. When he sentences me to 40 years, man, you're broken. You're like, wow. You start thinking like, damn, my life's over with, right? and then you start thinking, man, I got to start doing my own legal work. I got to do something because no one's going to fight for my life like I am.

Right. And eventually that's what I did. I spent a lot of my time in the law library. Right. I learned the law. Many people refer to me as the lawyer or, you know, I was one of the best jailhouse lawyers in the whole federal system. I actually wrote the compassionate release motion that everybody's winning out. I wrote the first one.

I wrote for a guy out of Texas named Conrado Cantoo. So, you know, thousands and thousands of people are getting out on it. that. That's unbelievable. Now, how many, were you just at Big Sandy? Or what was the journey like? Start from the beginning of your stretch, your federal stretch. Okay, so I've been to a couple federal prisons, right? You can be in a place four or five years and they'll pack you up, move you, you get jammed up, you do something, you've committed an assault. They'll pack you up, transfer you. If you get assaulted, they'll transfer you. So I started out in Big Sandy. Eventually, I end up leaving Big Sandy by getting that little incident with Ace in the Ohio East Coast car. And when I say a car,

That's what it is over there. They call them cars, but really their gangs. And what was Big Sandy like in terms of, you said that was pretty violent? Just go into that. Like, what do you recall? Was it over, was it just gangbanging? Was it over drugs?

Tell us about the drug traffic in prison and kind of go into that. Yeah, I mean, there's always problems over anything in federal prison. I used to say people make up reasons to stab people, right? Yeah. So, I mean, are there problems there all the time? I mean, there's stabbings. all the time. Would you just be a beef over a television?

It could be a beef over, you know, a drug dead. It could be, I've seen a lot of issues when people get drunk. People get drunk in federal prison and get tough. Right. And then people end up dying. Did you, uh, did you carry a shank around with you for protection? Every single day. Right, right, right.

Did you, uh, and how about boots in the shower, which I always think is funny. But, you know, I tell people when the riot was on, when the beef was on, even in state prison, we used to take our boots to the shower, just in case. something kicked off. So in Big Sandy, if you're white, right? Everything's racially segregated in federal prison, probably much like the West Coast. Yeah. So if you're in the white car, I mean, that was mandatory.

You're going to walk to the shower with your boots. You're going to have a dude with you at, you know, that's how it was back then. You've got a dude with you. He's standing point. All the showers have gates on them. So you open the gate, you go in the shower with your boots, put on your shower shoes, jump in the shower. The dude's standing out in front.

He's probably got a knife on him. I always kept my knife with me in the shower. outside of the shower. And, you know, you come out and walk back to your cell. He stands point while you're out there changing. And then he might go to the shower. And now you're the point, man. So everything's racially segregated and everybody has to be, you know,

and I don't know racial shit, bro, but that's just what it is. That's how it is. Now, what if you, so everybody's strapped. Let's just assume everybody's strapped or the bodyguard they got with them is strapped with a shank. The guards must know this. Of course they know, but they're scared. I mean, I was in Big Sandy, and almost every cop that worked there was pretty much just, you know, hoping they get out of there in eight hours. And, you know, that might sound far-fetched to people, but that's really the life that we live inside a maximum security federal prison.

So there really was, you know, I had a buddy who was in the feds. He said they're starting to put, what do you, what you would call it, metal detectors around certain areas of the prison. But I, so essentially there's very little regulation when it comes to, carrying your shank around. Like there's really not going to be guards stopping you everywhere you go patting you down. They can't. It's crazy you talk about that because in my book and one of my chapters, I talk about how we're going to the yard. A dude goes over and unplugs the metal detector so we can all walk through with our knives because we had a little beef. We had something that was going on with a white supremac game that we were getting ready to get into it with. And we were all suited

and booted, ready to go. The cops know that you got a knife. There's cops that will pat you down and feel a knife just on camera and let you ride, bro. They're not trying to take your knife. Right. Are there other cops there that will take your knife and lock you up? Of course. Right. But a lot of them are just trying to do their eight hours, man,

and get out of there and get out of there alive. Were you, at least at the beginning, were you involved in doing dirt, putting in work for your car or, you know, your set for Rochester? When I walk in there, right, the first thing you do is the white dudes approach you, hey, where you from? this is what it is. You've got to have your paperwork. You get 30 days, how much time you got. But they already kind of know that you're coming. And the cops will pull up your PSI for them right in

the office. You want to see what it is? There it is. The case manager. People will just pull up your stuff, right? So as soon as they check you out, man, they give you a knife. And the first knife I got was a piece of plexiglass. And I'm like, man, I probably need a bone crusher in here. I need a piece of steel. So eventually I end up getting a piece of steel. Have I put in work? Of course. You have to put in work. If you don't put it in work, your ass is out of there. And they want you to, they want to see you do that. But I was from the East Coast. And, you know, my cellie was Adam Oliver. He was like the second in command of the car. The boss of the car was Stevie Burke, one of the dudes from Boston that, really the town. He's not with them guys around. Let me stop you

there. Who was he in the town? Which character was he portrayed in in the town? I think Stevie Burke was the dude when they were in the flower shop. When, when, when they killed the dude in the flower shop. That was supposed to be him. I think that's Stevie Burke. Steve Burke ended up with like four or five life sentences. Gotcha. Gotcha. For bank robbery. For, yeah, bank robberies, armed bank robberies. Right. You know, the trucks and all of that stuff. Right. So anyway, he's the shock caller, bro. He's pulling the strings over there, you know? Right. And they're like, look, man, this is what has to happen. We had an incident on a baseball field. And this kid, Luke, you know, we're playing baseball and he invites, he gets mad about a play or something. He invites everybody to his, to his midsection. And I'm like,

man, what did you say? And we get in a little disagreement. He goes to say something, bro, and I crack him. If not, guess what? It's probably going to be a race ride in there because he just disrespected people. Right. Another time that I had put in work was one of our homeboys. He's drunk. He's out on the tier talking shit. He's using the N-word. And the blacks come to Stevie, and they're like, look, this dude's got to go. If not, it's going to be a big situation. So that's what we do. We go in the cell. We get a dude to hold it down. I put on some gloves. I go in there. And I think I write about that in the book. and I blast them first and we're in there. I mean, we demolish this dude, man.

But that's important because it stops, it stops it stops it for becoming a larger issue, right? 100%. I mean, something like that could become a race ride. So we're going to stop it. And it's not that we're white and we're going to go beat up our own people to please other people. But this is how the system works. I mean, he was out there disrespecting people.

He was drunk. And sometimes I feel like when dudes get drunk, they say shit and they really know what they're saying. But they're going to try to blame it on being drunk. I didn't realize what I'm. doing. He knew what he was doing. So we beat him up. He gets down to the bottom of the stairs, all bloody, and he looks up there, and he's like, look what you white bitches did to me. And I'm like, you know, we used to joke around about it. I mean, to laugh about it now in hindsight,

but my boy kicks him in the ass and he starts running away. And he runs to the cops. They take him, never see to do it again. But yeah, man, we did, we did some bad things. And, you know, sometimes I regret some of the stuff that I did. But you have to do what you have to survive in federal. Well, you can't imagine 40. years, it's like you have to become an animal in many ways. So I can't even imagine. But, well, I can't imagine. You know, I've been locked up with dudes doing all day times five, right? So it's pretty horrifying. Now, when people would get shanked and killed, you know, it's, what was, were they usually caught? Were the perpetrators usually arrested and recharged? Can you actually get away with a prison

stabbing? Like, do you hit somebody with a blind spot? Or is it pretty much the people doing that kind of shit already lifers that have nothing to lose? Well, I'll give you a couple examples, right? This is the deal. If you, back then, when you stab people in federal prison, you might go to the hole for 30 days, right? The guy that gets stabbed, he disappears, he goes to the hole, they transfer them. Sometimes you sit in a hole for a year to get transferred in federal prison. So as long as you didn't kill a dude, they didn't really charge you. Then they came up with this thing called the SMU, the special management unit. So now when you start a hole, you start a hole, you're stabbing people and you start becoming a problem. What they do is they send you to the smooth.

So you're stuck in a cell for two years. You mess around over there. You get sent back. Have I seen people murdered? When I was in USP leave. I've seen people murdered. There was a dude that, and since you're from, you know, the West Coast, here's one. Dudes from California. They get in a little issue. They're like, yo, bro, you got to go up top. That means you have to go to PC, protective custody. They send dude up top. Dudes in the hole. And in federal prison, they don't give a shit if you live or die. They go down there. and tell him you got to go back out there. And he's like, man, I checked in. I can't go back out there. They said, you're going back out there. Hold on. Who said that? The guards, the guards said

you're going back out there? Yeah, the administration tells you, you got to go back to population, big dog. You're not going to protect the custody. You've got to go. Why would they do that? You've been down here 30 days. We don't think you're in danger. So we're sending you back out, but really you're in danger. Right. So they send this kid out, right? His name's Lairdard Dog. They call him Lairdaw. They send Laird dog out. The Lairdaw makes a knife in the hole. He goes out there. His homeboys press him. And dude's got like, like 90 days left. He presses him and he tells him, hey, look, you're going, you're

out of here. You can't stay here. He's like, man, I'm not going nowhere. I'm staying. Now his pride's on the line, right? The image you project is the image you have to protect. So he pulls out a knife. They start beefing. He stabs him. Dude jumps back, puts his hand up like, oh, you, oh, you stab me? And I think we're going to see a fight, right?

20 seconds, man, I've seen that dude die. He falls, boom, on the ground. Yeah. Dawn, life's over. He had like 90 days left to go home. That was one of, that was something ambitious that I had seen, you know, at Lewis P. Lee. Yeah. I've seen the Nortagnos hit a bulldog, right, Fresno Bulldog. They hit him on Halloween. I'm out on the yard, early call. You know, most people aren't going outside. They're going to Chow. I'm out there walking around,

just got some bad news from home. This is 2009 Halloween, walking around the yard. And I see dude, and he's full of blood. I don't even really see the incident. I just see him full of blood. He's like, man, help me, man. Help me. And I'm like, man, I can't. I can't help you. I can't help you, man. Just keep walking, man. Go to the cop. Tell him you got to go to medical. This kid lived in the cell next door to me. And they had hit him probably 20, 30 times, bro, hit him in the face. He ended up living. But that was another vicious incident. Yeah. We had a kid named Mario. He's from Washington, D.C. Mario's playing cards. Everybody's drinking. Dude from Virginia starts getting mad. He's losing his money. He's drunk.

He stands up and pulls his shirt up, you know, like dudes in the street. So I put that knife in you. Mario's from Washington, D.C. This kid's from Virginia. The DC car, they got the numbers. They're pretty tough dudes, and they handle their business. And they're the car that you really don't want to mess with because there's just so many of them, right? So dude's faking like he's got a knife. Mario really has a knife.

He's running the poker table. He jumps up and he starts stabbing the shit out of this dude. And the dude's like, please, man, don't kill me, man. Don't kill me. And Mario says, it's too late for that. And you can see the blood, bro, it was all black, right? You're looking at like black blood. Yeah.

And I knew I said, this dude was dead, man, and he died. and Mario eventually was sentenced, I believe, to life. It was a death penalty case. They were seeking the death penalty for him, but I think he ended up with life. Right. So that's usually what happens. If you kill somebody in prison, generally they're going to give you another life sentence. If you didn't already have one.

100%. If you kill them, you're hit, man. You're going to prison for the rest of your life. And what's, you mentioned your cellie stabbed that CO in the neck. What ended up happening with that? Did the CO survive? And what do they do with your cellie? My cellie stabbed him like,

I think nine times. They end up taking him to trial. So he had, I believe he had 20 years in the state, 11 in the Fed, so he's got 31 years. He's going to see the light of day. Well, they end up giving him a cop out, I believe, for 25 years. Adam ends up with another 25 years in federal prison. So now he's never getting out. Yeah, so he's doing like 50, basically.

He's done. Pretty much he's done, man. Yeah, that was, you know, I saw, that's why I asked you when you get 40. I mean, you know, in the state prison, even where I was at in Oregon, you know, if you had more than 15 years, your odds of coming home reduced by like a huge amount because, you know, you're going to overdose or you're going to get killed or you're going to have to put in work and you're going to catch a life sentence. So, yeah, it's a dubious thing for sure when you're in those high-level security, you know, high-security prisons. Now, what I'm fascinated

by is the corruption in federal prison. You know, did you, uh, did you know, uh, did you know, uh, Did you talk about that really quick, if you would. Talk about the guards. You know, I assume they were complicit in bringing a lot of the dope in, a lot of the cell phones in, et cetera. Did you see stuff like that going on while you were down? 100%, man. I mean, it happens all the time. They just ended up giving the head cook.

I think they gave him 18 years from Big Sandy. He was bringing in the pack, right? There was another dude from Detroit. I'm not going to say his name specifically. But he had the CO and the case manager on. his wing. I mean, they're bringing in heroin. They're bringing in whatever you needed. Right. That's why I first seen a cell phone back then. Yeah. I was like, wow, man, you know, seeing these, you know, these new phones. And I'm like, you know, it was nice. It was nice to be

able to see something like that. Right. But of course, there's corruption. Not everybody. But there's always a few select people. You know, I had an incident where we had a dude where he was cool with my celly. He acted like, hey, you know, joking around my celly. And this isn't a maximum security prison. And usually you don't do that in federal prison. But the cop was kind of all right. started telling my sell he his personal business you know he he was going to school to be a probation officer or a parole officer he couldn't pay his tuition so honestly i told my cellie well man shit dude's sharing his personal information see what's up so he talked to him and you know we ended up sending him some money yeah and truth be told the dude stole our money he got scared and never sent the

money back and honestly like we threatened them we did all kinds of shit and eventually i ended up in the hole after that and ended up getting transfer um But we were present. He robbed me and he robbed the Dominican kid that was getting big money on the compound. I was just trying to get them to bring in tobacco. I mean, there's big money in tobacco in federal prison, right? Sometimes more than you would think, you know, for other drugs like heroin and shit like that.

That's because they outlawed cigarettes. Dumbest thing they could have done, and it's the same in the state prisons. They made tobacco illegal and now they just got this whole new racket for us to enjoy, you know? Sure. How much would you pay? How would you get the tobacco in? Would you have a guard bring it in? Well, that's what we were trying to do.

We were trying to get that guard to bring it in, right? Like one Class A cigarette, one Newport in prison back then was $30. You could sell one new port for $30. Wild. Wild. And what kind of drugs? What were you guys, what was your car specifically moving? Heroin, meth? Okay, so me personally, I wasn't selling any heroin, right?

But, you know, the car would do that. Like Stevie Burke would try to get a couple grams, whatever, and do what they had to do. The main drug of choice now in federal prison is K2. They're spraying the shit on paper or sending it in on legal work. I mean, listen, the prison administration already knows this shit. We're not snitching on no one. Of course not. They know what's going on.

They're stopping people from getting mail now. You know, people are getting it in on legal mail. So I've been in places where an eyelash, the size of one of your eyelashes was $5. And it was rocking these dudes, man. For 20, 30 minutes, these dudes are, I've seen people on the ground. I've seen people vomiting. I've seen people run through the unit screaming, ah,

going crazy, right? So you get a, imagine getting a sheet of this, right, from the street, and you're paying two grand in the street. What are you making in prison? You could be making $15, $20,000 off a sheet of paper, man. Right.

And, you know, there was some allegations that it was bug spray, that they were actually putting rad on there, mixing it with some other shit. And that's what these people were making. Wow. And, you know, to see that, I was just like, that was the new crack.

That was the prison crack. Right. People are stealing. People are doing. things that they wouldn't normally do. Dudes are going without soap, without deodorant, without toothpaste, so that they could get high. I've seen people sell their Thanksgiving trades,

their Christmas trades, so that they could smoke K2 or dues, Tucci, whatever they want to call. Was there cash? How did drug dealers take payment? Was it cash or was it mostly trading for giving up your canteen or whatever? So it would work different, right? I mean, when you're doing big things like that,

in federal prison, the currency is stamps. So a lot of times people want stamps. but I would take 100 books of stamps that are worthless on the street. They're dirty. They're beat up. I couldn't put them on an envelope, right? But that's what the currency is. So let me say I got $100 in stamps, $5 a book.

I might tell you have your family send me $450, $400 or send it to my wife. A lot of times they did a lot of green dot. You remember when the green dot was out? Yeah. And then the federal prison system did something for about a year. I guess it was like a pilot program. They started allowing us from federal prison to Western Union. Union money. So you might, I might be able to Western Union, your girl, $100.

I'm just going to send $100. Boom. Tomorrow I'll send another $100. And you can go check your computer. Let me see your computer. We got email and shit like that. They'll look on my computer. Yep, that's there. Okay. Now here, I'll give you your stamps or here. You guys have email in there? There was email in there? What do you mean? Yeah, in federal prison, we got computers, right? And we have what's called the CoreLink system. So we can email. I can email my family. It was a way for communication. Wow. They're just now getting tablets the last week or two. They're bringing in

tablets now. But we had MP3 players. We could download music. You had to pay for it, obviously, like a dollar 15 a song, a dollar 30 a song. But we had them computers. I can email my wife, email my mom, email my grandma, email my lawyer, email your family. Hey, so-and-so lost his email privileges. He just wants you to know. So we did have that email system. I assume they're reading your emails like they would mail, right? They say they're reading them, but I mean, can you really read? Who the hell can read 10,000 emails at one prison in one day? You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Are there... I mean, the federal bureau of prisons, like that...

Sorry, are there undercover cops in posing as inmates? Or is it something more of where it's just inmates will be working for them, working for the cops? Well, I'm not going to say there's undercover cops because I never really knew if there was or not, but... I mean, like, I did in a video four days ago on my channel, like, Rayful Edmonds, he was out of Washington, D.C. He was a dude that was setting up the cartel. dudes while he was in prison, you know, and making, making big money. I mean, this guy was at one point selling, you know, 100 keys a month. So now he's in prison. He hooks up with the Colombians. And he's bubbling right from Louisburg. And, you know, I did that video and talked about what

happened. And it was like 20 different people ended up with life sentences out of it. But dude was bubbling right from prison. Did you see any of that were you, did you know, or did you know of any, you know, cartel guys in the feds that were still working off the phone? Well, I mean, I was with you know the Felix Ariano brothers, you know the doctor? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I was with the doctor. We were together in Raybrook. And they're out of just for the listeners at home. Those are the guys out of Tijuana. They were the head of the Tijuana cartel. So I was there, I was there with him, right? I was in FCI Raybrook. I ended up making it to a medium, which was also dangerous. They called it a mini-penetentiary. I was over there with him. I was with a lot of, I mean, a lot of dudes that you'd be like, wow,

I was with the mafia cops. Actually, Steve Carra Capital. was my sally for like six or seven days. He was in USP Victorville. They ended up letting him go. They said, look, we're not going to do nothing to you, but you're not going to stay here. You can't stay here. One of our homeboys from the East Coast had the car.

He was an A-B, but from Boston. And he ended up letting him, you know, leave the compound. And he came to the prison that I was at. We were cellies for like five or six days. And he ended up moving out, moving in with his own people. But, you know, people could say he was a cop, but that dude was a stone cold killer. And he was a cop so that he could further the mafia's

business. Right. Right. Fascinating. So now you're, let's, I guess, moving, you know, towards, when did you start, when did you start going down to the law library and start educating yourself? Like, tell me about that. So that kind of started in the county jail when I'm like, man, I got to learn how to do this stuff. I wasn't super serious about it. I thought, hey, I paid 40 grand for a lawyer. I'm going to be all right. But when I started feeling like the lawyer didn't give a shit after he got the money, not answering calls, I figured, hey, man, I better to start working on this stuff, you know. So I spent a lot of time doing it in the county jail, but didn't really grasp it right away. And eventually I would go to federal prison,

working on my case, working on my appeal. Even though I'm involved in that stuff, I would still go to the law library at night. Even though I'm involved in prison business, the car's business, I would spend, you know, night times in the law library, seven, usually seven to nine at night. Back then, you didn't get recall until about nine o'clock. So I would spend my time down there, I started learning the law. And then eventually I end up in USP Coleman. And we get locked down. And I'm kicking up with this kid from Tennessee.

He's got a crack case. He's got a jailhouse lawyer helping him in another unit. He gets a reply while we're locked down. Sometimes they lock you down for 30 days, 60 days, 180 days. And he's like, hey, man, I really need your help. You're always in the law library. I can't respond to this.

I don't know how. So I'm like, look, man, you know, I don't really, you know, trust myself to do other people's legal work. He's like, please, man, help me. I'll give you whatever you want. So I'm like, all right, bro. I'll give it a shot. So I do his stuff. I charge him $30 and soap and deodorant, right? 30 bucks. I write his stuff and win. We come off lockdown. He tells everybody I won. He's going home.

And then what happens is this other guy comes to me. He's a Colombian guy that's doing a bunch of armed robberies down in Miami. You know, they're doing them carjackings and robbing people, right? They'll be plotting on you. You're a dope dealer. They're plotting on you. They pull you out of the car, take you to the house. They end up with 10 keys. I do his stuff. I do his 2255 is post-conviction motion. and I win it. Once I won that, man, it was off to the race as a guy named who I'm working on his case still to this day, of Daris Mazzio Black out of Detroit. He was a dude that was Angie Martinez's boyfriend.

They found like 100 kilos on the tour bus that was going down to Arizona. He had a face transplant. He went to Mexico to get a face transplant, but he ends up getting busted. He ends up with life. Nick Cannon was his best friend. He was connected to some big people in California. But anyway, I ended up working on his case. We didn't win.

And eventually, you know, I end up getting out of prison. He ends up calling me about two years ago. So we're working on it now, getting ready to submit some stuff. And hopefully we win. But it's a very, very tough case. So you began. But that's how my legal career in federal prison started. Since then, I've probably got out over 100 men and women, bro.

I'm both sides. Just just, just, just, just, just. Just. Just. Just. Right. Right. So you're submitting.

Go into that. So, so it's not necessarily you're just finding loopholes. to get their cases tossed, you're writing compassionate release letters. What is that exactly? So a compassionate release motion, this is what happens, right? This is how I end up getting out. I had 40 years.

Donald Trump passes the first step back. He changes the law. He puts the discretion back in federal judge's hands, right? Before federal judges were tied up, they couldn't do anything. They had to go by the chart. This is what I got to give you. So now what the first step back says

is if the judge finds that there's extraordinary and compelling reasons, he can reduce a sentence for whatever he wants to. If the sky is blue and he feels that it's extraordinary and compelling, he can do that. So I started writing them compassionate release motions. I wrote my own. I filed it. Eventually, John Gleason, who was the guy that prosecuted John Gotti.

He becomes a federal judge for 22 years. He steps off the bench so he can help people. And he takes my case. Everybody thinks I'm going to be the first case to actually win for 924C stacking, which is five years for a gun, 25 for a second gun, on top of whatever you get for the drugs. That's how I ended up with the 40 years. And, you know, your listeners should check this out. I get 10 years for crack cocaine.

I get five years for a 12-gauge shotgun and 25 years for a 22 rifle, all to run wild. So Trump changes that. He says, you don't get the second 25 years for a second gun. That was meant as a recidivitist enhancement. You went to prison, didn't learn your lesson, got out, and did it again. So now it's only five and five. So eventually the judge reduces my sentence to 20. He gives me five for the first gun, five for the second, and 10 for the,

for the cocaine conspiracy. And did you use that, I guess, retraction of the original law by Trump? Did you put that in your letter, in your compassionate release letter? Like, here is why I should be let out. Is that like something you put into? 100%. I had like a 30-page motion. And that's what we argued. We argued this was an extraordinary and compelling reason. One, Congress changed the law under the first step back, right? Although they didn't make it retroactive. They said, hey, this law is wrong. But it's only going to apply to people that get arrested today. Not all the people that are in prison suffering. So we said, although they didn't make it retroactive,

this is an extraordinary and compelling reason to reduce my sentence, Judge. And on top of that, my rehabilitation. Eventually, I did change my life. I became a jailhouse lawyer. I got a college degree. I did over 100 rehabilitative programs in prison. So I kind of changed my life. When I got to an FCI, a medium security prison,

I started to turn my life around. I taught leaders breed leaders. I mean, I did a lot of stuff. So now, eventually, I went that motion. I get out, I start a paralegal company. Proal officer tells me, you've got to have, you know, you've got to have a job. Yeah. I said, man, I work for these people for 15 cents an hour for the last 17 and a half years. I am the job. Yeah. I'm starting this company and he's kind of giving me a hard time, but eventually I put it together, right? Freedom fighters, paralegal and prison consultant firm.

And since then, yeah, like I said, I've got numerous people out while in prison, but since I've been out, I helped my boy Jimmy Romans. He had life for marijuana in the feds. I got Jimmy Romans out. I just did a case for a guy named Billy Brimer out of Boston, well-known bank robber, just got his sentence reduced. But the guy started the G-Shine Bloods in New York City. Chazzy Glenn, one of the originators, two murders in that case. He's got life. I make an argument on his case about him only being a young man, 21 years old. His brain is different. It was like a 40-page motion. The judge reduces his life sentence to 30. So now he'll be out in about three or four years. Wow. And I imagine you're just going to be, as Merrill,

starts to become basically legal everywhere, you're going to have your hands full, because there's still probably a lot of dudes locked up doing decades or life sentences for pot, specifically. I mean, 100%. I mean, I'm working on some of them cases now trying to get them dudes out through compassionate release. Right, right. And yeah, that's, what an insane 20 or 30 years of the drug war, man, just watching people's lives flush down the toilet as children.

Like when you're 21 You're like I was My parents were paying my cell phone You know what I mean Like they were I was in college I was a child

You know But you know A guy from Rochester You know He's sentenced like he is Like he's fucking El Chapo You know And there's thousands of people

That were like that So It's I don't know And this is why you talk to a lot of inmates They love Trump Because Trump specifically the one who started to roll back all of those draconian mandatory minimums.

If he would have did some bigger things on clemency, I think that, you know, he should have went big on clemency at the end. Yeah. I think that he would have pulled in some people, you know. A lot of formerly incarcerated people, some people might not believe this, but a lot of formerly incarcerated people that are allowed to vote are voting Republican, man. Sure, sure. Well, look, it was Biden, it was Biden in the 90s who really teamed up with Hillary. Clinton to pass the super predator bill and those crime bills. It was Clinton was the one that really bloated.

Yes, Nixon began the war on drugs in the 70s Republican. Reagan under pressure turned the heat up, but it really wasn't until the 90s and the Democratic-controlled government that started giving out these huge, huge sentences for drugs. So a lot of people don't know that, but they're starting to know it now, and they're starting to wake up to the bullshit.

Did a lot more than that, man. When they did the 1994 crime bill, they did a lot of other stuff. They took away your right to habeas corpus, right, that the forefathers implemented in the Constitution, bro. They took it away and said, you got one year. So two years from now, you find that, hey, my constitutional rights were violated.

You can't get back into court. They also took away, you know, funding, college funding for people. If your mother lived in the housing projects and you had a felon, you couldn't go, you had a felony conviction. You couldn't go live there. So what happens when a dude gets out of prison?

He's got nowhere to live. He's got no money. Can't go to his mother's house. What is he going to do? He's back in the game. That's all he knows. He don't even have a place to live. Can't go get a college education.

Can't get a grant that he can, you know, a loan that he can pay back. He's not entitled to any of that shit. And that's some of what they did back then in 1994. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing how the culture is swung the other way, you know. Now, what's your plan moving forward? What do you have going on these days?

Obviously, your paralegal business is keeping. keeping you busy. You're selling your book. Are you able to travel or, you know, what's next? Oh, I mean, I do, we do some travel. I actually went on a cruise man to Bermuda not too long ago. Amazing, huh? My plans, bro, for real, are I'd like to put a reentry house together in my city where I'm at, right? I mean, that's one of my plans that costs money to do that type of stuff, but definitely want to stay on that track. I got the YouTube channel, you know, blood on the razor wire TV. For real, it's a violent, you know, we talk about some violent stuff on there, but we,

always got a message because the mission, the mission statement is to save kids from life and prison, premature death through our stories and experiences. Too many young kids are dying out on the streets, man. Too many young kids are getting involved in the drug game thinking they're going to blow up. And next thing you know, they made $3,000 or $4,000 and now they got a 40-year sentence in federal prison and can't read a rack. I had plenty of dudes from New York City, man, that couldn't read their own mail. And I don't mean to just focus on New York City, but, you know, there were dudes that couldn't

even read Iraq. You're 30 years old. all they knew was mad. You know, I started teaching GED classes in there, and that's the way I taught kids in class. They knew the drug game. You take two quarters and put it together. What do you got? You got a half.

Okay, so let's now convert that into money. Yeah. Let's say, you know, we got $200 plus $200. What is it? And that's how I would teach people. Man, I got a bunch of dudes their GED. You know, I help. Yeah.

Yeah, we were talking before the podcast about, you know, when you grow up and you get some years under your belt, you really see that there's, you really see that there's, in general, way more money to be made, especially nowadays for a young man from the ghetto, even without an education like yourself, usually you make way more money in the legal space, doing something legal. I think the odds of ascending to getting rich in the drug game are very low. I got very lucky. I was involved in a racket, pot, shipping it all over the country. that was a very special time. I think the cocaine and the crack bubble of the 70s and 80s,

that was a very brief special time. I think now, you know, young people don't realize you don't make that much money. When you count the time in prison you're going to do and getting jacked and maybe shot, you really don't make that much money selling drugs, you know? You've got to get to a... You know, you've got to get to a...

You have to get to the point where you're wholesaling it, And if you're from Rochester, if you're from Buffalo, if you're from Baltimore, if you're from, you know, you name it, Russ Bell, USA, you're probably not going to last long enough to get to that place. You know what I mean? 100%. I mean, you might end up losing your life out there trying to get rich. Yeah, yeah. So it's inspiring, dude. Well, look, plug everything right now.

But, you know, I'm fascinated. I can talk to you for, you know, three days about all this shit, man. But yeah, go ahead and plug the book. Plug your channel. Tell everybody where they can find you, your Instagram, all of that. Okay, so as far as the book goes, blood on the razor wire takes you inside, you know, some of the most dangerous maximum security federal prisons in the country. You can get it on Amazon.

I got my YouTube channel, Blood on the Razor Wire TV. Like I said earlier, the mission is the safe kids from life and prison at premature death in the streets. We talk about some violent shit. I've interviewed former federal judges. like the judge that went to the White House to meet with Trump with Kim Kardashian. I interviewed him. I interviewed DEA agents that are actually agents now. Former prison guards.

I've interviewed former, you know, gang members, current gang members. I actually interviewed Troy Kell. Troy Kell was from the Gladiator Days on HBO. He has not done an interview since HBO. It's been over 20 years. That was a vicious, vicious, you know, video. That's what opened the market to prison, to the prison genre of that. Now, I'm not familiar with that. What is that? What is Gladiator? So Gladiator Days is a documentary about Troy Kell who he ends up killing a black dude inside the unit. And, you know, there's some racial tension, whatever. He goes to prison out of Las Vegas for committing a murder. And in prison, he commits another murder. And they end up putting him on death row. That was kind of like what opened society's mind to prison. Right. This was the video. And that was like in 2000, 2001. And things took off from that.

people became interested in prison content. Oh, wow. So I interviewed him. He hasn't, he hasn't done an interview since HBO. He felt like HBO screwed him over and painted their own narrative, but they showed a video in there. Is he on death row still? Currently on death row, yeah. Oh, wow. So, yeah, they don't execute a lot of people. He's actually housed on death row in Utah. In, for on, on the federal level or on the state level? On the state level. He catches a murder when he's like 16, 17 in Nevada. He's so wild in Nevada. They say, we're transferring you. They contract him. out to the state of Utah to serve his sentence. While he's in Utah, he ends up killing that dude.

Bonnie Blackman inside the unit. Viciously, viciously stabs him. You should check out Gladiator Days. So, you know, we do stuff like that. I got some content on my channel where, you know, there's a guy that brutally murders another dude in USP Polon, one of the most dangerous federal prisons in the country. I actually played the video footage in that video. So, you know, we're doing big things over there. The Instagram is Chad Marks 102. You can check me out on there. I should change it to blood on the razor wire. But, you know, stop by. Check out the channel. You might like it.

You can check out the book on Amazon. It's sold out on the first day. So I promise you won't be disappointed. I do have the audio book. I've been independently selling it, which I should put it up. But I narrate my own book as well, and I think people will be interesting. Yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to read it.

That's amazing. And, you know, congrats on your freedom, man. It's like, it's making me tear up. you really see the human potential in stories like yours. You know what I mean? And I just think the whole system, man, it's a trap, you know? And hopefully in a century we'll look back on this as, you know, like a brief dark time, you know? 100%.

And, you know, let me tell you this so, you know, it was devastating for me, you know, and I don't glorify or glamorize my life or the things that I've done. I've done some bad things to people, but I've changed my life. I turn my life around. And in fact, the other day, I ended up interviewing. You're going to probably be like, what? I ended up interviewing the dude that started my case, man. A kid that I looked up to, he wore a white around me.

I mean, there were years, for years, I wanted to just do some bad things to this dude. This was the guy that got you locked up in the feds or the original state case. The guy that got me locked up in the feds. So I see him. I see him one day when I first get out, tell him, bro, you're a piece of shit. And pretty much just ridicule this dude. And then I see him the other day. waving people down to try to get a jump. He's 120 pounds, drug addict. And I get out of the car.

He's like, oh, man, I don't. I said, I don't want no problems, man. I just want to talk to you. I ain't going to do nothing to you. He's like, please don't hurt me. I said, bro, you said that on the wire that you wore on me. Don't say that to me. I'm not here to hurt you. And we talk. He's like, I've been watching your YouTube channel. He's like, I'd like to do an interview and apologize for what I've done, man. And I'm like, man, listen, if that's what you want to do, we'll do it. I sat down and I did that interview with him. So I think it's pretty interesting, man, for people to check that out. That's fascinating. Yes, you must, you must, must, must check out Chad's YouTube channel. And, you know, you ever come to L.A. or I'm in Rochester, man. We've got to get up,

you know? 100%, man. I'd like to meet you in person. And again, man, I appreciate you bringing me out. I got 85,000 subscribers. Your YouTube channel's taken off. You know, you're very interesting dude. You tell some, you know, pretty good stories. And, you know, you've been through some experiences yourself. So I definitely appreciate you bringing me on, man. You got it, Chad. We'll talk soon. Okay, buddy. I appreciate you. Thank you, bro. Congrats on all the success and congrats on your freedom, man. Thank you. And congrats you for all the things you're doing.

You got it, buddy. Take care. You too. All right.