The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Shot Caller For Nazi Low-Rider Prison Gang Confesses To His Life Of Crime, Prison Violence

Episode Date: November 3, 2024

Former prison gang shot-caller Ronnie Harrell reveals his journey from a life of violent crime and gang leadership within some of America’s most brutal prisons to personal transformation and advocacy. Ronnie, once a high-ranking member of the Nazi Low Riders and affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood, shares raw, first-hand insights into prison life, extreme violence, and the influence of gang culture. Now, after years of reflection, sobriety, and self-education, he is using his experiences to make a positive impact. Discover how he developed an educational program to help inmates reintegrate into society, reducing recidivism by inspiring change from within. Join us as Ronnie speaks on camera for the first time about his life, redemption, and his mission to deter future generations from following his path. 🔗 Support Ronnie’s mission against recidivism: Visit https://star223.org This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: PrizePicks! Download the app today and use code CONNECT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CONNECT Mando! Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code MITCHELL at https://shopmando.com! #mandopod Kalshi! Get in on the action and start trading on your favorite markets! Sign up at https://kalshi.com/connect. The first 500 traders who deposit $50 will get a free $20 credit! Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All cartels are scary, but they're scary because you just didn't know what the next minute was going to bring. You know you are sitting across from a guy that will wipe you out, your whole family, your dog, your goldfish, everything. And tomorrow, it's business as usual. Killers never feel bad about what they do. I pull in the driveway and moving vans, boom, right behind me. I knew right there. It's over. This man is Ronnie Harrell.

Ronnie has spent almost his entire life in prison, starting at California Youth Authority, graduating to maximum security state prisons and eventually the most brutal federal penitentiaries in the country. Ronnie is a lifer. He's seen it all. From running with the Aryan Brotherhood to shock calling for the Nazi lowriders, Ronnie was a general in a war that lasted for 30 years inside of the most savage prisons in America.

But he changed. He sobered up, started reading, and by the time he paroled, he had developed an educational booklet sanctioned by the California Department of Corrections for other inmates to use as part of their parole board. hearing. Ronnie's educational system has helped hundreds of inmates get out early, and now you can help too by donating to his charity, Star, speaking truth about recidivism, by visiting star

2023.org. This is the first time Ronnie is telling his story on camera. And for a bonus episode with him, head over to patreon.com slash the Connect show. A true OG, a veterano, I present to you, Ronnie Harrell, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. top. There's only one number one. And there's only one way somebody gets your number one chair. You're going to keep a knife in the feds or you're not going to, you're not going to last long. You're numb to the violence. If I send one guy and he can't do it, I'll send three. If I send three and they can't do it, I'll send five. You can't win. That's when I see lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on.

Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running. he pulls out a burner, shank, it's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Do you like being an Idaho? It's, uh, well, we're waiting. My mother-in-law dies. She leaves this million-dollar house to us. We're going to sell it. We're going to move. And to, uh, to me, I'd like to be in a spot to where if you can see your neighbor, you're too close. Oh, you want to be even more remote. Well, I'm not all the way, Kenner. foil hat, but I could wear one at a time or two, I guess.

Yeah, and that's where, but what a better place than Idaho for that. Yeah, Idaho, I know you could. I think we're looking at, okay, right now we're looking at this woodmill in Oregon. And I think the guy's just too old to work it. It's not too expensive. And it's got this ton of wood with it that's really, really, I mean, he cuts them into tables, right? And they're just bright reds and they're just perfect. And so I'm looking at trying to get it. And what I'm going to do is I got Oakland, he's sitting in Vegas right now in a, well, not in Vegas, but in Nevada.

I got Johnny Vaughn, the ex-brand out here in Victorville. I just dropped him off. I got these cats that I'm going to put down there and tell him maybe I go to work, but here's the thing. You're a long ways from dope. So I want you to clean up.

What part of Oregon is it? It's in, man, it's just an hour and a half from my house in Idaho. So it's right there in Southern Oregon. Oh, so you're like southeast Oregon. Yeah. Oh, so you're remote. Yes.

I'm from Oregon. I've never even been to that part of the, state. Right, right. You know, because it's way, it's almost like, yeah, it's kind of not Oregon in a way. It's, it's like just no man's land. A lot of European kindred there. That's their, that's her spot. I ran into a lot of those cats while I was locked up. I was like, what's EK? I was so cute, wasn't I? I was like, excuse me, sir, what is that EK tatted on your ankle? And I'd be like, Jesus, this fucking tourist, because I was a tourist in the system. And being around guys like you was fascinating. It was

because you could have been my uncle. I really loved and felt like this kinship with these OGs, these lifers. And so that's kind of why it's a treat to have you here because it actually brings me back to some of the

fonder times that I was in prison because guys like you were so inspiring to me because they told me, hey, go follow your dreams. Like you've got potential. They really like believe. in what I wanted to do when I got out,

which was to move to Hollywood and get into show business. Okay, so there was a cat, a friend of mine. He lived right out here. So he lived in L.A. His name's Paul Kelly. He hung with Eddie Nash and all them. And Paul Kelly was, he's probably dead now. But the Laurel Canyon Massacre, they took him.

When they found Eddie Nash not guilty the first time, they said the books aren't closed on Paul Kelly because everybody was saying Paul Kelly, Paul Kelly, Paul Kelly. But anyway, so he was a good friend of mine out here, and I'd done some things with him running guns and doing all of that. And he was the one I looked up to, you know? And Paul Kelly was like this. There was no scam too small.

If he could net 10 cents a week for 30 years, we're doing that scam. Yeah. That was him. And he'd have so many of these little nickel and dime scams going on that he was killing it. Yeah. and all under the radar. Nobody cared.

Right. They learned about this scam, but what are they taking? Come on. You know? Yeah. And I was a kid, and he said,

kid, do you want to come with me? We have this thing on some Tiffany lamps. I didn't know what Tiffany lamps were. I told him, Paul, come on.

That's what you're going to feed me, lamps. You know, doing everything for you, now you're going to offer it. He goes, look at score of the lifetime. I said, yeah, all you old cats,

you're doing this Tiffany. I said, I'm good. And then later on in life, I learned what Tiffany lamps were. Are they about? What are they? I don't even know. They're very, very expensive lamps. You know, very high elegant, high, and it was an inside job and they were all going to make millions. And I could have been set real good on the deal. But I just was dumb, stupid. So you're from Lakewood, which is basically Orange County, right on the border of Orange County, L.A.

Yeah. But there, yeah, there does seem to be a lot of gangbanging down in Orange County. Yeah. Did you grow up in that culture or who brought you? What was childhood like? grew up in that. I, uh, I was in foster homes doing all that. I eventually made it back to my dad, but by then he felt so guilty about what happened that I had, I was controlling things through the manipulation. What happened? What happened to you? Well, me going to foster homes while he was in the army, my mom acting a fool. And it just grew up, once you start thinking wrong, the way you think is all based on that wrong thinking. It's corrupt thinking. And you start, once you start learning that you can manipulate somebody because they did something to you and feel bad,

about it, you control that person. So they didn't have any parenting. They were just felt guilt. No. And bending to your will. And that's what I would do with anybody and everybody. I rebuilding this in the foster home. So my cousins used to jump on me.

I went to live with my dad, started running the streets, went back and whipped my cousins. A whole lot of different stuff. I didn't forget what people did to me, you know, as growing up and whatnot. But eventually it all leads to YAA, Nazi lowriders, the whole gang train. And it's a process that you never see coming. It comes at you like this, like this. And you don't know that life itself is brainwashing you. By the time you hit prison, if you've been through YAA and that whole living thing,

by the time you hit the penitentiaries and the real brainwashers and manipulators get a hold of you, you're prime. You're fucking prime for their get down and they look and spot cats like that. It's like the military in a way. like the military. They're going to, but they're training you to get down in a different way. So you went to Youth Authority. That's what Y.A is in California. You were how old? Oh, man. Well, it was probably 14. What'd you go down for? That time I went down for, as ironic as it is, disobeying a court order. They ordered me into a program, and I accepted to get out from whatever it was, so they dismissed the case that I had. I went in the front door of the program, out the back door,

not to be seen again until they apprehended me. And then the judge, well, I can't re-initiate this case. I made a mistake of dismissing it. But what I'm going to do is you disobeyed my order. So I'm going to give you this two years for that. So I went in for that. And then somewhere in the middle of all that, I went in the military. And come back and it was already in the mix of the Nazi lowriders for going to the military.

Oh, wow. So I ended up getting honorably discharged from the military early. When that happens, I'm out. And the military, I got strung out real bad. What are we talking? On drugs. Dope. Heroin, meth, anything that would come through, taking pills,

Lily F40s, the whole nine yards, right? The old Reds, sick and all. So I got strung out. So when I came out of the military discharged, I needed to feed that habit. And I knew just how to do it with a gun and directions to whatever connection was in the area. And that was my lick right then.

I just started hitting connections, hitting connections. And then I discovered that connections will tell on you just as quick as anybody else. But I justified it. This is our game. This is our laws. This is what we're doing. You know what I mean? So it's not society's rules.

We're playing by. I don't have to play by their rules because I'm not playing in their area. I'm playing with everybody that grew up like I did, drug dealers, all that. We have our own set of rules. So as long as I'm not stealing the purse down the street, robbing the house of the guy that works for a living. and I'm in the game and I'm just taken from the game, then I justify it. Today's episode is sponsored by PrizePix.

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PICs app. Prize Picks. Run your game. So you're hitting dope scores. Yeah. Robbing drug dealers. Yeah. Constantly. And then they tell on me. Yeah. That's nothing new. I met a lot of guys locked up for robbery. And I'm like, wait, you can, drug dealers can call the cops. And they can. Yeah, they got on speed dial. Yeah. The quicker than anybody else, you know what I mean? So, yeah, that all goes down. I end up in the joint. For robbery. Yeah. But I don't just go to any joint. They send me to Solidadad. I touched down there and a black cop's giving me, giving me grief, right? I'm sorry, how much time was your first stretch?

Okay, so they give me four years. But like I said, it doesn't turn out that way. You end up doing a lot more. I lost a few years because the cop was giving me grief in Soled there in Central and I'm a young kid fresh out of YA and so I bounce it off my cellie. So we stabbed this guy. Isn't this what we do? And he's like, nobody likes his cop. He's like, that's exactly what we do. So they got me the knife And I went at him in the hallway Even the white cops there didn't like him His name was Garnett

Officer Garnett Black cop Anti-white Everybody was racist back then It's just what you were It's how you did time You didn't fall into that You didn't walk no mainline

So Two white cops jumped in When I was getting beat down by the cops And pulled me out He said we got him Cuffed me up Took me to Owing Put me in there

And said that's it If they come for you in here We're not here we don't work in here. But fuck that dude. Wow. I'm like, all right. Now I'm in O-wing as a kid.

I still don't know how all of this prison stuff goes, but I'm going to figure it out. You can believe that. I'm sitting in O-wing, and the black dude's in the cell next to me. Stay up late at night, but they don't just stay up. They bang on the bed and they do rap.

Just like on the streets. Yeah, I'm getting mad. I mean, I am pissed, so I send the kite down. I don't know how to make a bomb. I ask how you make a bomb. I get the kite back. Boom. Okay, so it gives me the instructions how to make this bomb.

Back then, you could get matches. They give you matches. You scraping the sofa off, chest pieces, stuff it full of everything. First you make the wick out of a zigzag, wet it, put the sofa on it, roll it up. Now I got a little wick sticking it in the end of the chest piece, out the hole. Pack it full of all this sulfur. And then your Levi's, your pants had zippers on them back then. You burn them, get all the metal.

up razor blades, pack it in there at the end. So I got this thing. It looks good, man. I'm loving it. I'm like, oh, yeah, look at this bomb. As soon as they've done banging and they lay down, I'm going to bomb them. I put it over on the bars. I reach around. I light it. And the bomb goes off. Boom, all the window shake inside the unit and all of that. And what the bomb did, the sulfur did, was it turned the metal red hot. And all that red hot metal, like a projectile, landed on the floor. The noise woke the dudes up. They jumped up and all I did was give him a hot foot. What's a hot foot?

There's a red hot things. They were dancing in the cell. The cops came and got them and moved them because they knew that it was just going to be progressive. But that was my first experience with a bomb. They got bigger, better, and more deadly after that. Making bombs. Was that common in California state prisons back then? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. With the thing, remember, you know, from, I just know this from literally not blood and blood out. American me, they walk by somebody cell and they, they light them on fire. Yeah, that's a thing, too. I mean, you can get, because you know, you mow yards, you do this and that, you may get a little bit of gas each time. You can get that.

A thing people were doing in San Quentin on the shoe yard was they would come out and they would have like baby oil, they would have hair gel. They would have all this stuff mixed up and they put a stinger in it and get it bubbling. So it's almost like a napalm. And then they would throw it in the dude's face. Spring weekends are all about family, sunshine, and evenings on the patio. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local Total Wine and More to grab a great bottle to share. With such a wide selection and the lowest prices, it's easy to find something

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Then they send me to Folsom. And when I get off the bus in Folsom, right? Folsom was a weird thing back then, old Folsom. Like they had Jericho's Mile, which was the yard. And it's a big deal. They had this track around the yard for filming Jericho's Miles. So when the yard opened every morning, everybody'd step on the yard and step off, you know, just the thing. And they bring you in there and they were bring you into the lieutenant's office back then.

And the first thing, lieutenant would say two questions. You got any enemies? Who's your next to Ken? They didn't lead me to the lieutenant's office. They led me to the barbershop. His, DeCop Garnett's brother worked there. And that was, this was getting ready to go down. They put me in the chair.

They surrounded me. They're telling me, what are you here for? I tell them all, a shoe program. They go, for what? I said, I don't know, a few years probably. They said, okay, look, this is how it works here. This is Folsom. You fuck with the bull.

You get the horns. You get the horns. You go to the hospital. That's where you're going. And they pulled the pen. And the chair went, whoop, straightened right out. And they beat the bark off of me. Wow.

So I went to the hospital. The cop had picked me up from the hospital a few weeks, months later, tried to bring me to shoe. Before I'd even get there, they'd put him in the shower. And he'd knock me up again, right? Eventually, I got lucky, and this redneck white cop came and got me, and I had a piece. I was just going to hit the cops that time.

Somebody had already told him I had been. Because they knew he was a cool cop. He said, look, I'm taking you back. That shit's not going to happen. But I'm going to leave. You get rid of what you got. And I'll come back and get you. But you're not going to stab nobody while I'm walking you.

So he takes me back there. They tell him, put him in the shower. He goes, I'm not putting him in the shower. And if any of you don't like it, we'll be in the parking lot. So he brings me to the cell. He goes, I'm off for the next two days. You've got to make it through that. My cell is next to Danny, Aaron Brotherhood, on one side.

And I got Joe Morgan on the other. this is where I experienced one of my first crosses that I get put in a cross. Who is Joe Morgan? Joe Morgan's pig leg. He was one of the original cats in the Mexican Mafia. Okay. So he was a shot caller, big guy.

I mean, when they talked to him, Mr. Morgan, you know, he can get you killed. He never has to move or nothing, just look at you in a way. Wow. And he goes to bodyguards. So I get crossed up. There was a guy that was with me and Tracy, right? I'm sorry.

crossed up, it means that somebody kind of puts you in a position to where you could get hurt. They trick you, kind of, you know? What happened was, the dudes on the first row,

they're all PC. So the first thing I got told when I got there was those dudes next down there, they're all checked in, use them, you know, it's cool,

but that's it. So you know, I'm like, okay. So a guy named, guy belonging to psycho, he just messed up, got hit,

and almost killed him. he knew me and Tracy and we went out on a yard full of blacks and we knew we had to fight and me and him got off and we fought together like that we had each other's back but he's down there so he hollers up to me right on the tier says hey uh I got these 13 bags of oranges and they're hitting us tomorrow will you hold them for me here's a deal those oranges are coming up they're not going down that's a whole bunch of wine they're not coming down so I get them and I squeeze them put him up for wine and he hollers up after they hit the first tier and asks me to send them back and I tell him what oranges he goes ah because I got you so that night I hear him holler to Joe's neighbor which is one of their hangarounds and sends him a kite I still don't know who Joe is I have no clue I'm just a youngster so Joe hollers down hollers over to me has a cellie actually that's how he did everything and says hey you got those oranges I tell him I ain't got no oranges for you, dude.

I got nothing for you. Right after I said, I got nothing for you, it was like, bam, bam, bam, all these lines are hitting in front of myself with kites, right? And it's all inmate big boss. Mexican mafia, big boss. Be cool, youngster. What are you doing, youngster big boss, right?

I'm like, fuck. I don't worry about him. I got to worry about every Mexican on the tier after him. Right. Luckily for me, Danny was from Lakewood, my homeboy, and he's in the cell next to me, So he sends me a kite. He's got an idea of some of what's going on.

He goes, what's happening. I write it all down to him. This is what went on. This is how it went down. I can't send those back even if I wanted to. I'd be down there with him. He goes, I got you. And then Morgan himself hollered over.

He goes, hey, yester. He goes, we're good. He goes, I know. I's all right. I certainly sent him half the whine when I got done. Here you go, brother. You know, boom. And that sells.

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They got nothing coming. Right. You make them think they got something coming. You know, you make them think you're good with them, but you're not. If you ever get next to them and you can get them and you don't get them, you'll be down there with them. You've got to get them. Yeah. But you just don't talk shit to them.

You don't, you know, none of that right there. It's all about you're down there. You're supposed to know what time it is. You know? Right. And if you're not down there, you're supposed to know what time it is. So. So now you're here in Folsom, locked up with between the guys.

the brand on your left side. You got a lame on your right side. How does this form into you joining a gang? Well, I got put on the AB yard that time. So I'm seeing a lot of what's going on, right? I'm seeing guys

pull knives out of their ass, leave it next to the toilet, another guy picking it up, whacking dudes. I'm watching the cops, shoot the guy in the head, shoot the warning shot in the air afterwards. I'm watching this whole dirty game. I'm just a kid. It's the Y-A kid,

Y-A baby. And I'm seeing why that cop just killed that dude because he'd no warning shot, shot him in the head, then he shot in the air. Funny thing, too, is this all went down on the yard one time and I'm sitting down. You're supposed to be down, and I'm down. And I watch this fucking lizard run down the wall across the cement,

right up my pant leg. And I jump up. Ow! Right next to me. Boom. Get down. I'm going to go back down. I still haven't found that lizard.

But you pooped it out later. Yeah. So they're still beating me up. These cops are regularly, you know. For what you did to that black cop regularly. And I get a kite from Joe himself. And he's telling me a youngster there's buses. The courts had just ordered all a Folsom Shoe to be single cell because the cells were so small.

So they were taking a lot of busloads of people and they were moving them over to San Quentin. And Joe had got at me. By then I know I'm personal friends with them. We're good, you know. And he tells me, hey, they're going to kill you here. So, you know, that's the thing. They're going to get you in a position where they can shoot you and get away with it. And you're dead, you know.

Right ones are going to set you up. There's buses going to San Quentin. You need to try to go there. I didn't know it. I was on the bus the next day. What did you do to get on the bus? Nothing. I was already on it.

So when I hit Quentin, it was like a big old relief. I mean, Quentin was dangerous. But here was their policy. The cops had a segregated chow hall. They were playing the game too. If you could get it into your cell, you could have it because they don't do cell searches. Wow. Yeah.

And that's just how it was. You might see them. Account time they roll by real quick. And then you might see this female CEO. She'd come by with the axe handle and check your bars every day and just walk through. And that's it. So you could really bid there. Oh, man.

And it's a dangerous place. Quentin was, man. So was Folsom, too. They were both. They were just a different style. What was Quentin like? Quentin was, I'll tell you. So the top tier was death row. Okay.

I was in the East Block Bayside. And the other side was all death row. The top tier on my side was death row. And then there was old MCU in the back management control unit. Youngsters aren't aware of those now. And then it was shoe. And let's put it this way. Guys get and walk to the shower by the cop.

Bam, dude throws a bomb out of the cell, pipe bomb. It doesn't go off. The cop puts the guy in the shower, comes back and makes the cardinal sin and picks it up. The bomb goes off. Oh, boom. This cop is running, and he's got cops chasing him. He's yelling, they got me, they got me, they got me. And he's hitting the back stairs running down the tier this way.

The cops are trying to trap him. He's like a cat on the loose, right? Is he on fire? No, just the bomb. He just freaked out. When the bomb went up, his hand screwed up. he thought it was, you know, meant for him. He didn't know what meant for him or the guy he put in the shower.

But yeah, they finally eventually caught him and got him out and got him cooled down. But it wasn't meant for him. And then another guy on the second tier, I was down in the first tier, guy gets stabbed on the second tier. They throw him on the gurney. And there was a policy in Quentin. If you got through it, because all ex-Vietnam veterans were the medical and all that. They get you to medical alive.

You were probably going to live. So they running down, running down the back stairs, they get just about in front of my cell. and somehow this Mexican was out on the tier, had a knife, he jumped off the fucking, before they had the mesh and all that, this was way back in the 80s. He jumped off the tier,

and I swear that knife hit that guy's chest before his feet hit the ground, and then he just started going at it until he got shot. And yeah, it killed him. The guy on the stretcher is dead. And then another guy, the AB hits him, and he's got like 100 holes in him.

He's just, he's done. He's not going to make it. and he's on the stretcher and he's not long to live and they pull him out of the cell. And the last thing he does is tail. Reaches over and he grabs the sergeant's pant leg and he tells him, watch him, Sarge, he's got a knife and dies. So the inmates were truly running the prison. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're running the prison.

The cops, okay, so they're not running the cops. This is the thing, right? The cops are doing their get down, their thing. and as long as you're not getting at them, you're not stabbing them, you're not doing that, they can care less. Right.

So, meaning they could basically kill with impunity as long as you weren't touching the cops. And in San Quentin, there was so many murders and stuff going back to court that Tamal, California, for almost two years, told San Quentin,

don't send us any more court cases. We're not taking them. So that was murder for hire, murder for free, murder for everything. We're not even a prosecutor. No, it's a sport. It was what it was. You get out there and just, you had a little bit of a problem with somebody. It was a big problem for them, you know.

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Did you ever have to put in work like that? I, uh, yeah, I put, I put in work on, on several things. Okay, so fast forward. I'm on the East Yard, and I got the keys. Okay, so I take and I give all the skinheads on the bottom tiers on all the unit, the keys to the units on all the bottom. I take all the NLR and they give them the keys to the top. I'm collecting the kitties.

I'm doing all of that. But they're putting these chesters on the yard. They're telling me who they are, and I'm whacking them. I'm doing it. I'm getting away with it because they want me to get away with it. You know, so I'm cutting them. I'm doing all of that myself. And Junior, one of the skinheads, comes at me.

And he goes, Ronnie, he goes, why are you hitting all these dudes yourself? Well, you know what? I'm not going to ask anybody to do anything that they don't know I'm willing to do myself. So he goes, listen, man. He goes, all the heads. He goes, you got our muscle whenever you need. I already had the ride, you know, but he goes, you got our muscle whenever you need it. That was a unity that's sometimes rare.

Sometimes the heads and the NLR bump heads. in there. So it was rare, but it was because of how I did that. And then Junior eventually moved in with me. Another thing was how I ran the yard. So everybody did their kitties, and I got kicked the stuff that was going to Palm Hall. Any drugs, anything can mean I get that. It goes back.

Common knowledge. It doesn't matter. It goes back to Palm Hall. And the fellas in there that are doing time for whacking some child molester so that other guys can go home, they're getting theirs. and I'm going to make sure of it. But not everybody has money. You know what I mean? So back then you could get the old 60s of,

I'm getting a brainlock, suit of fed for colds and a cold setup. So anybody that wasn't getting money, I'm telling them, hey, you get these 60s, man. You send them cold setups to me. And I'm taking all this Sudafed out of the cold setups because it's a fetterin. and I'm putting in baby powder things.

So I ended up with about five and a half pounds of a fetron. So I'm going to get out and throw a batch. That's how I'm getting getting on my feet right when this violation's done. I got it in there. But then somebody hit the yard from Fontana and tells me Ronnie, and he's a cook. He goes, I want to try to throw that here because they got flares back here. I can get some phosphorus. He goes, I can get everything I need, I think.

And was he successful? I don't know because he goes, here's what I'll do. I got a brand new BNW at home. at my mom's, you can have it. He goes, just let me have that suit fed you got. And so he was going to attempt to cook up meth in prison. In prison. In San Quentin?

No, this was in, this was in Chino. This was fast forward. Okay, okay. So let's go back to San Quentin where you basically are now becoming an adult. You're surrounded by this kind of horrendous violence. How were the gang segregated back then? I didn't know a Nazi lowrider. That's what NLR means when he says that.

Yes. I didn't know they were in. state prison. They were in YA, but this was prior to them actually, see, the NLR started in a funny way. When you go to YA, right, in YTS it started to become a little bit of a gang, but at first it

was this. You drove up somewhere, they asked you, are you a biker, a surfer, a stoner, or a Nazi lowrider. And Nazi lowrider was a guy that he's a white guy, but he kind of low rides. So, you know, don't get us fucked up with the Mexican get down, but we like all that. Yeah. Like, you know,

You look half Mexican. You look Chicana. Right. Your dress like it. You got your tats like it. You say homie like it. Yeah. And I got the, I got the pendletons and all that in my trailer right now.

And I drove down and pulled behind me. But that's all there. I mean, I'm trying to get away from my talk with my hands. I just met a guy in Vegas, right? He's diamond dog breeder. Okay. And he's got a nice breed. And he's giving me the breeding rights to a probably a $5,000.

dog, champion bloodline. He's giving it to me. Two thousand of my own money. It's going to the nonprofit. And he's giving me breeding rights and he's going to get with me on trying to get some. Because I don't see why somebody incarcerated a veteran that's mobility impaired can't get a purebred. I want, you know, a lot of them say to me, hey, Ryan, that's great what you're doing. You're getting a dog. They'll help me get out of a chair that'll help me do all of that. But I can't protect my own family and my house eater. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, ability impaired. I want a dog that will do something for me too.

So these dogs are smart. They're trainable for mobility impaired. And they're also trainable as really good guard dogs. So that's my goal. And I want these guys to have champion bloodlines where they know they can't breed them, you know. So that's what I'm going to do with it. But they'll get that champion line. They'll get that good dog.

They know that if somebody comes in their house before they could even get out of the chair being impaired, their home and family at least is going to be protected as much as that dog can do. You know, let me tell you, them dogs can do a lot. Now, you're in the 80s in San Quentin, are you recruited by, like, what is the difference between the brand and the NLR and how they operated at least then in California prisons? And who did you go under? Who did you get with? Okay, so I was with NLR, but like I said, it was a fad, you know, you hung with NLR. You were a low rider. That was your get down. So what happens is that brand all gets hit Rico. They get made one of the five that gets slammed in the shoe.

And they need a tip, a group, to run the main lines for them. They're drugs, they're everything, right? Like, you know, the MA, everybody knows. The feds know everybody knows. The serenials, the MA got that. That's right. I mean, New West of Familia running the Northern Mexicans or the new structure, whatever they got going on is going on.

That's happening. So, and this is all common knowledge. Yep. But the brand never, you know, they ran the woods and everything, but they never had that kind of stronghold. Well, when they grabbed the ride, they did. The NLR is the ride? Yeah. I love that.

They did. So when they grabbed the ride, they had that. They had that control. They had that. The problem was that the NLR got out of control. They're up and down the Department of Corrections. They're getting into it with cops everywhere, unnecessary killings, all of that. and they got the feds coming down on them

and Fox News said they had about 1,500 members and that's a good-sized group. AB never had that many. They never had more than 100, really. And that's because every one of the ones they got were intelligent and brutal, you know. They never came, they never had to go and fix one of their hits because they did it ugly.

Right. And so the NLR became that tip, but then they thought they could, they could go against the AB. come on my thing was this if you're going to go against that tip you need to put a gag out order on the whole NLR that they can't even speak to them do you got sheer numbers and you can annihilate a tip just by sheer overwhelming them but no trust and believe they're not stupid they're going to split the NLR in half they're going to turn them against each other and then

they're going to bring the skinheads in on it to help annihilate them ironically right now in the prison system, California NLR doesn't really exist in California. It exists everywhere else. You're not going to go to a penitentiary in the feds that they aren't there. Most of your states. Just like the AB, they started in Cali State prisons, commit RICO crimes, and then now they're in the feds. Which amazed me because when the feds were hitting NLR with a RICO act, I thought it should have been Deco Act for disorganized crime. Because they just, the NLR was like this. The concept was this. Every Nazi low rider should have the ability to be a shot caller. Every Nazi low rider should be able to take the keys to a yard in a minute and know what they have to do and know

what the right thing is to do, know how to set the kiddies up, know how to get them, know where they have to go, know how to move everything from from shoe to shoe to prison to prison. And that's the way it was supposed to be. So what it ended up being, though, is you'll have pockets of organization like an NLR in California could have went anywhere organized a group of NLR there hit the lick they wanted to hit and then the organization as far as being organized go just spreads apart again and they're all doing their own thing it didn't really come real organized until the feds came in right once the feds were going to hit them with organized crime they first thing they had to do was organize them right so they put them all in the shoe they

There's as many as they could get validated in the shoe. Yeah. And they begin organizing hierarchies, this and that, and assigning this and doing that. And they just, they know what they're doing. And then they recode. Okay. So the feds actually made them a better, stronger, more organized gang when they put them all together in the shoe. The feds did everything it took to be able to justify calling them an organized criminal organization.

Now, when you say handling the kitty, can you explain that? Okay. If you were, okay, so say I'm in Chino. right and have the keys and this is just how it went down so i'm in sycamore i got the keys bam to the i have put keys in every unit all right people back in palm hall abs back in ball hall they're slammed right dudes that did hits child blesses just that they're back there slammed okay so you would come in and the whites have to be quicker more organized better stronger faster than the rest of the groups because our guys that come in they're not coming in out of street gangs

people are coming into Chino, white guy's looking like Bill Gates. You could have them fix your computer, but don't give them a knife. So I just, you got it, you got to, we got to whip them into shape

so that I know this guy next to me is willing to stab when it happens. And everybody else has to know that too. So we work with what we got and how it goes. So I would, you come, you get in a cell and I tell you,

hey, oh me, look, so you know, I'm just a messenger. Okay, so what I'm about to tell you, don't get mad at me. It's the process. It's the way it goes.

down. If you got any drugs, keister, any tobacco, anything like that, get on the toilet, get it out, give it to me. I'll give you back what you can have. That's the way that works. Don't think you can secretly hide it from me, because the minute you take it out anywhere here and try to get rid of it, I'm going to know when you're done. I'm not going to stab you. I'm just a messenger, but somebody's going to want to, and I'm here to tell you they will. And I would just break it all down. And I'd say, this is how it works. You go to store. anything over $20, you're kicking in 20% to the kitty. Go for 100, I'm going to give you a list for 20.

You're not going to give me a list or tell me what you think it should have. I'm going to give you a list and you're going to get it. Again, I'm just a messenger. If you don't want to get it, that's fine. Somebody that does get the kitty and pay to it, it's going to want to stab you. And I'm here to tell you they will. Okay, so a kitty is basically gang dues. It's not really because it doesn't just go to gang.

So when that happens, when you, you also when you go out to shower, so you just got there, the kitty, when you don't have nothing and you just get there and you come out and you're going to shower, the guy that has the unit kitty is going to have shower shoes, shampoo, soap, all of that out in front of the cell. So everybody can use that. Also, I'm going to come by twice a day. I'm going to put a cigarette on your bars, a cup of coffee for you and cigarettes, a cup of coffee for your celly twice a day. That all comes from the kitty. That's what I mean. It's like union dues. It's like union dues. It's almost like an insurance policy.

or something, right. And it's either taken through extortion or you get down with us. But either way, you're kicking in. There is no getting down. It's not an option. Yeah, here's the thing. You're not going to win. I make that clear what I'm telling people. You can think all of this. You can be as big as you want. If I send one guy and he can't do it, I'll send three. If I send three and they can't do it, I'll send five. I'll send a big guy in to tackle you, wrap your legs up and hold you down on the ground while the other three stab you. You can't win. You don't have to like it. I may not. like it, but whatever it is, you're going to do it. It's just the way it is. Did you ever have to take things there? To that point? Oh, sure. Absolutely. There's guys that tested it.

You know, and then everybody else got to see what testing it looks like. Okay. And you're doing that to maintain order, to make sure everybody eats and to... Yeah. If you don't... To exert your own power or else the other gangs are going to take it from you. If you don't, then white guys are going to store that are giving us to 20 percent. They're giving it back to white. but now they're just going to get mopped up in the hallway and have everything took from them.

So you know what? 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Right. It buys you protection. It kind of does, even though that's not the way it's looked at. That's not what's said. It's still the outcome. Yeah.

Whether you take the bumpy road, the smooth road to get to a destination, you're still in the same place. Fascinating. Okay. So you're now, you're in San Quentin doing, you got a six piece now. Yeah. now I got six. Did you get out? I did.

And this is where it all comes in. So I've been toying with AB then. You know, and there's guys Blinky Griffin. He just passed away. Old school AB. You hear people talking and they talk all these guys now. But like Dean Lakey, he told, Bobby Butler, he told,

but these were old guys. Ronnie Harpo, Harpo, vicious. These guys were all back in the beginning. Did you ever meet like Michael Thompson or Barry Thompson? Barry Mills. And personally. And this is what happens. Okay, so I get out and the fellow's come to me and said, hey, we need you to do a favor for somebody.

They came to you on the street. No, they came to me before I got out. We needed to do a favor with somebody. Well, now I've been kicking it with these dudes. They've been giving me this here or there. I kind of, half of me feels obligated. I need to do this. I've been getting everything from these guys, you know.

A little piece of me scared that if I tell them know what might happen after I've been kicking up with them through this whole term. anybody says they're not, it is a liar. So there's a piece of that too. So it just seemed easier just to do what I was being asked to do. Okay. And that's all I'll say about what I was being asked to do and everything. I had no idea who this was being done for. Until I get arrested for the first time in the feds in the 90s.

So I'm in the feds. Hang on. Take us to how you got to the feds. Okay. So you came home. Did you have a plan your first time you got parades? I came home and I did what needed to be done, right? And it died.

So that whole thing now is it's done. It's good. Good on you, youngster. I'm going back on violations, violations, violations. And this is for dope? Yeah. You're a tweaker, right? Yeah, everything was dope at the time.

And I ended up getting a federal beef. I got a federal beef, go to the Fed for the first time for dope. Okay. So tell us about that, how you got, was this when you were dealing with? with the Mexicans? No. We haven't got to that point. Yeah, we haven't got that.

This is after another point. Okay. But yeah, so I get caught up in a federal sting. I end up in the feds. For meth. For meth. Okay. And now is it it's crystal.

It's, no, it's biker dope at this point still, right? Yeah, at that point, people are still cooking. I'm cooking. The whole, everybody I know is cooking. My mom's cooking. We're all chef boy RDs at that point. Grandma's cooking. Yeah, everybody.

Yeah, the dog's out there doing his thing with the dog food. Everybody's doing something, right? So, I'm getting took down. I go to the Fed. heads. But because of who I am, right? I'm not going to go to little small prisons or this and that. I'm not going to go to mediums. I'm going to USPs, United States penitentiaries. And I wind up in Atlanta, Georgia. And this is where I know, and this is where it all happened with Gotti, too. This is where I find out who I did the favor for. This was Barry Mills.

That's who the favor was for. I never. renew it. He did. Youngster. Boom. All right. So Barry Mills can make anybody, now look, Barry Mills was, he's, he's been in the state, but he was, he was federal at this point. He's running the federal thing, but make no bones about it. The feds were going to dictate to California what they could or couldn't do. You know, Bobby Crane, New York, when he had Quentin, wasn't being dictated to by nobody, you know. Barry Mills became who he became in the feds, you know, if he said it in the feds, it was golden, it went, you know. And he famous like I think they killed a D.C. Black.

They went to war with the D.C. blacks, right? That was kind of my out too. But here, so I'll go with the Gotti thing, right? So I keep my mouth shut my ears open. It's just what I'm instructed to do. I know I'm with the big boys now. Okay. So are you with the brand officially?

No. No, I'm just getting my boots laced up at this point. I'm getting, I'm getting shown things. And he wants me to see. I got out and did this guy a favor that he needed done. And they had nobody else at the time that was getting out to be able to do it, that they trusted. You made a piece of prison history.

You touched a guy for Barry Mills. Right. Well, founder of the Aryan Brotherhood. Right. Well, one of the founders. Yeah. But so Barry, John had just got knocked out, really, basically, got hit and stunned and beat up. And that was right before I got there.

So Barry's telling me just listen and watch. So I'm going with him. And boom, him and Mac, Big Mac. So John had hired them. to get the dude, whack the dude, whacked the dude that put hands on him, black dude. And he paid to have that done. So, yeah, boom, he pays.

The dude gets got, but he doesn't get killed. Now, people say, well, John never paid again. I got some news for you, because here's how it went down. Mack got on one side, Barry got on another the next month. And they tell John, hey, the money didn't get there. John goes, yeah, I did. You already told me it got there. They go, oh, no, John.

that's every month. You got it all wrong. Wow. You're going to pay every month. Okay, so John's making a decision now, not just for him, but every other guy that's in his small car at the time, how they're going to get treated on that yard, how that's going to happen. Now, people think it's wrong for a guy to say, okay, if you got it, to pay it, but that's not wrong. Sometimes that's smart. Sometimes you kick the ball down the road so that you can then deal with it at a different time.

Right. You know, and that's what he had to do. Because he would have got annihilated on that yard. Right. Because it's not just Barry, Mac, or Titi, or any of these guys. It's not just them. They're not even going to be the ones that come for you. It's every white guy on that yard that star-struck by the brand.

They want to put in and work for them, and they're gnawn at the bit. They're not hurting for guys to get to go stab people. They got it hemmed up that way. So John knows all this. He's not a stupid guy. I didn't get to worry it to that being stupid, you know. Nobody knows how that story would have played out in the end or why he even chose to pay because he ended up dying of cancer. Right.

You know, but. So even for a hit gone wrong that didn't get the job done, he still had to pay the A.B. every month. Yeah, he still got to pay for the hit because they're not done making the hit yet. We might have missed you here, but guess what? The next spot will get you. So you're paying every month. And we're sorry about your mistake, but we've already started putting work. in so you're going to pay.

Wow. You know? Or we can just go ahead and send you home right now. Yeah. You know, so it's basically how it went. And yeah, he did get, and that's extortion in the way you look at it. Of course. You know?

John Gotti himself. Yes. The Teflon Don was getting shaken down by a bunch of fucking bald crackers from suburban California. Yeah. Wow. And that's how it happened. And I'm going to tell you this right now.

When you look at it, if you put yourself in the seat of everybody in that, move, right? Because I've done that. I've put myself in the seat of Barry Mills. What if I was him and I was doing this? And what if I was John and this was happening? I would have done the same thing. I would have paid them dues. At a later date in another place, I might have tried to clean that up in a different way. But for that moment, and not just for me either, you kick it with me. You're one of my guys. I got a rope around you. You're one of us. You know, I got to worry about you too because you're going to pay the price for my decisions at that point as well. So I just sit myself in all these little positions and this was all part of my grooming,

all part of my learning on stuff, you know, and that was a big one. And Levinworth, the Italians sit me down and I was kind of kicking it with him. I was fascinated by the language and we got a rope around this one. He's one of ours. He's one of us. I mean, it dawned on me that these Italian guys could really sit there and have an English, plain English, conversation in front of you. You think they're talking about one thing and they're talking about the guy that's going to

take you in the car right now is killing you yeah you know they could just do that it's fascinated by you learn a lot the code is incredible yeah now uh just just so we don't jump ahead because every bit of this is fascinating how long were you at usp Atlanta for about a year and a half okay how long of the stretch do you have in the feds at this point i did four years at that point but it wasn't uh at that point in the feds it wasn't a uh we have to give you 10 or we have to get the matrix on the whole thing There was parole then. Yeah. There wasn't mandatory members like there are now.

Exactly. And, you know, they still had co-ed prisons where the guys were allowed, warm fuzzies. There was a lot of things still going on. The things changed when they got the Matrix and they got the whole sentencing guidelines and all that where judges were locked in and you were going to get what you were going to get. Well, what did you, so you're coming up being groomed at USP Atlanta first by guys like Barry? Yes. By the other. Okay.

And what was that like? What was that prison like? What were the USPs like in the 80s? The USPs basically haven't changed much. They're dangerous places. You don't get to walk wrong. You only get to do that once, and you never have to worry about it again.

You know, the USPs are dangerous. And if you take California prison system as dangerous as it is on them level four yards and you take all the gunners out, that's what you got in the feds because you don't have gunners in the building, you know? Um, the feds are at dangerous, the United States penitentiaries are dangerous, vicious places. And, uh, I mean, I got hit there.

I got hit by the Aztecs. Wow. Um, where? It was in, uh, uh, uh, McQuary, Kentucky. They hadn't had a body yet. And the warden said he's not locking down for anything until they have a body. Well, the Aztecs and the northerners are on the yard. The Aztecs worked out by my cell every, every day.

So they'd come, they'd work out. And I knew they all have to have a knife. on them. It's their bylaws. That's what they have to do. And they put all their knives right there when we were friends. Well, my cellie owed one of them, owed one of them 10 stamps. Just 10 stamps. My neighbor, Randy, Colorado A.B, owed them $1,500. So who are they going to hit? They're going to hit my celly because they want to let Randy know, we'll hit this dude over 10 stamps. You better pay us. So they're going to hit my celly. Well, their dude, shooter, he's talking to me. they're all up there and I'm up there by myself

and this is where my hot head and my mouth gets the best of me. He's talking to me with all this stuff and you know so finally I tell him you know what shooter? Fuck you and your knife. Let's go. Let's get in there right now. Let's get it. So we step in the cell and I see a shadow he's pulled his knife out. He's coming after me

but I grab his hand and flip him over on the bed and I'm getting him. I'm hitting him but I left his seven partners right there at the door with knives and they got a rod. I feel the rod hit me like four times. bam, bam, bam, right? So they get me four times with the rod. I let go of his hand, I grab his, and he hits me twice with a rod. Boom, boom.

I could feel I knew they got my spleen and something else probably. So they drag him out and they leave. Cat from Tennessee comes in and says, what do you want me to do? I told him, go here, go here, get a knife, come back. I want you to tie me off. I'm running through these Mexicans on my way out. His eyes, he goes, you need to run through medical. And he takes off.

So I'm in there by myself, and I'm thinking, man, I'm getting woozy. If I let myself go out here, I'm going to die. I already know it. If I play hard and just try to bleed it out, I'm going to bleed it out. So I go down the stairs, the telecop, look, man, I fell on my knife. He goes, yeah. Coming down the stairs?

I told him, yeah. He goes, how many times you fall on it? I said, oh, about six. He goes, can you make it to medical? Can you walk? I told him, I insist on it. But I didn't make it. I wound up on a helicopter.

I woke up flying over the Kentucky Mountains on the way to Tennessee. So then the Florida car. So you collapsed on your way there? Yeah, I fell out, yeah. Wow. So you were really leaking. Yeah, I was doing, I was leaking pretty good. Matter of back, the warden thought I was going to be the first body. And what, did they touch in Oregon?

Or how did you, how did they save you? Oh, this was, in Kentucky. They flew me to the trauma room in Tennessee. And it was my spleen. And they took care of that and everything. And the next day took me back, put me in the hole. It was, it was what it was. I mean, and he just missed my heart. Wow. So, so then, and that was my own fault. I didn't need to

say anything right then about all of this, you know, I'm just a hot head. I still ain't learned everything and didn't know how to keep my mouth shut. Patience. Right. So now the Florida car that night says, we're getting the Aztecs in the morning. There's only 15 of them. We're smashing them out, and Ronnie's coming back, and they're all getting off the yard. But there's a lot of northern Mexican's off the yard and they got a treaty with the Aztecs. So all the whites on the yard tell the Florida car, no, we're not doing that. Florida car tells them, fuck you, we're doing it. You don't have to.

So the whites got the Florida car at dinner. They didn't want a big old ride on the yard just over one guy. I could just be transferred out. It was the smart call. But Florida was like, no, fuck that. We're not letting that happen. Because I came in with that whole car. and then they all start coming in the hole

because at dinner all the woods on the yard jumped the Florida car which is like 12 dudes you know and they got down and they come in and they say we tried Ronnie and we all got shipped together oh yeah that's wild so you're and this is your first federal stretch still no that was my second one oh okay hold on so let's go back

because there's so many pieces of your life we're just how we do it we move through chronologically so you got the Leavenworth after USP Atlanta no Levinworth didn't come till later I went home from Atlanta. Super old. Yeah, but I'm on a weird dynamics. I'm on a federal and a state parole.

That's very difficult to do. I wound up killing my federal number on state violations. So that all got taken care of. So now the feds are done. Now I'm back in the state, still going. Violations. The way the state's work is this. You might have four years, but you get out and you run.

That time you ran doesn't count. Wow. okay so then they get you so when you're running it's its own kind of incarceration you can't do nothing you're on to run you're fucked up you might as well stay high all the time so you don't have to go to sleep because you know when you go to sleep they're going to get you so you're trying to stay up 30 40 as long as you can you're just going to run it out till they get you and uh whatever you can do so they get you they take you in you go in they violate you they give you six months so that counts off of the parole the four years of parole then you get back

out you're on the run again because you just can't stop doing dope you're strung out like a research monkey and it's what it is it's psychological it's physical it's you know the whole nine yards so it just they just turn these little beefs into these big long stretches of fucking up your life and uh it is just the way it was and the way it is so i'm doing that and uh i end up robbing this connection now i meet the guy he's in uh realto and he's a doctor and he's messing with some cartel dudes, he's doing this and that. And I'm meeting. The first thing I think is I'm robbing this dude,

taking him down, man. He's going down. I'm taking everything he's got. Now my mind with my criminal thinking, you know, and it starts to think that I'm justifying it. I know he's a little in debt with the cartel. I'm telling myself where he's not going to pay.

Bam, I can get this dude. I can take care of that. I all did it all just to help him now. Now I'm doing the due to favor. I'm going to give this much to these guys and they're going to not be on him. And he's, it's really, really I'm doing him a favor by robbing him. So I turned what I'm doing into doing them a favor psychologically. And that's how you start to justify things.

You're numb to the violence now. It doesn't matter. You know, you see a guy get, what do you call him, the zip ties? See a guy get one put on his neck pulled tight. He's out there just, oh, on a handball. court and everybody, you just walk away, step over his body and keep on step and you just push away from it, you know? You witnessed stuff like that.

No, I've seen it happen in Coleman. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. So for you to rob a square on the outside is nothing. It's nothing. He's a doctor. He's dealing. He's mixed up.

And not only is it nothing, I would justify things in a way that he needed me to do this. I was the guy that was going to save his life. So you were going to rob him, sell his dope and pay off his debt? Take the money. The Rolex is there. Everything. out of his deal and give the money twice what he owed to these cartel dudes, and they're not going to whack him. And he's going to be all right. And really, the only chance he has of making

it through the next week is if I rob him. You know, of course. Sure. You know, surely, I'm, I should be awarded a medal for this. Yeah. So this is what you tell yourself. And this is how you're thinking goes in any situation. You know, people will say it's, no, they just haven't recognized it. They haven't evaluated what they're doing, you know. start evaluating how your your thoughts going, right? It's a corrupt thinking. It's a corrupt process and it feeds on itself. Pretty soon it becomes the only way you think. Everything has to be done for the benefit of everybody else. Funny how you're the only one on top, but you know, it's just, it's just weird. And you don't see it when it's happening. You don't see it after it's

happened. You don't see it until you really get into something that starts pointing things out and you start to evaluate, well, when I think back, I did do this. You not necessarily be a gang member either to have corrupt thinking, criminal thinking and corrupt process, you know, just about anybody can sit back and say, yeah, well, I do justify things. So there's a denial process involved. And all my thinking was done like that. I can, I'll sit right now and look you in the eye and tell you, I never did nothing that didn't have to be done. Everything I did in life, even though I went to prison for it, I had to do it. I saved those guys.

You know what I mean? No, I made money. I did this and that and I was living good and I was on the run and I was going back and forth to prison doing all that. I was in the game. Living good is certainly one way to look at it. I wouldn't. An outsider looking at that life wouldn't say you're living good. Right.

But it depends on how you're weighing what looking good is. You know what I mean? Living good or looking good. At that point, looking good. was you got everything. You're on the run. You're going to go to prison. You're going to lose it all.

But right now, I got pounds of dope. I got these cars. I got this and that. I got all the jewelry, the gold chains, all the things that are going to give the attention that's going to take me back to prison. I got. I'm loving it.

You know what I mean? And at the time, that's my thinking. So you went rob this guy. Yeah, I robbed him. I pistol whipped him. Did some things to him. Did some bad things to him. and got shot in the leg on the way out.

Somehow, because somehow he got out of his duct tape, had a gun in his house, and I was at the sidewalk, and he got a good one off. He hit me in the leg here, came out, like, boom. And then my partner, he's sitting there with a gun, looking froze up, and I tell him, hey, man, shoot that motherfucker. So he turns to light him up.

And we leave, and I'm in the car. The dude's in the, not still right in the front seat. The other one's driving. And I tell him, give me your belt. Boom. So I take his belt. I tie a tourniquet around my leg and to give me the guns.

I throw them out of the window. And I tell him, boy, where are you going? He goes to the hospital. So you might as well drop me off to the parole office. Are you out of your fucking mind? No, you go to high desert. So we shot out there. I got all the loot.

I'm the one I had it all. What'd you get? Probably a couple hundred thousand dollars, a bunch of dope, Rolexes, you know. I took $5,000 bundle out, and gave it to Homeboy because there was other things

that I didn't prove of that went on. Took another $5,000 out, gave it to him. the rest, you know, and went to the hospital, told him that I was in a neighborhood I shouldn't have been at, heard a shot, felt my pant leg go like this, and somebody shot me. I shouldn't have been there. Cops took the report and they left. Then one of the guys that was with me gets busted in Walmart with a shotgun, and he tells. Everything goes down. Now I got the FBI, Rialto PD, homicide and everything. They're hymining up my house. And as people leave my, in my mom's fat,

People leave, they're gaffling them up, question them about me. Well, they get this chick Veronica, she leaves, and they put her in this van. Just about the time that happened, I had somebody go, take some money and go rent me this Mustang, souped up Mustang, boom, I get it, I'm going to take off to Vegas. And I'm ready to leave out. I should have just went out then, but I didn't. This chick tells me, hey, Ronnie, can you take me to the store to get some diapers for my kid? I tell her, yeah, I'm on my way out, so just come out, jump in.

And that's that. And we go, she goes in, gets diapers, gets back in the car, and I'm driving. I'm looking in the mirror, and there's this truck behind me. And I tell her, hey, look, when we get to your house, I'm hardly even going to stop. So they're on me right now. Raltopedi, I know it, the feds, it's all, I don't know what this is happening about, whether it's something else they're looking for me for, gang stuff, or what it is. But I know they're on me.

So I said, when I get there, you get out quick. She goes, they're not on. I said, yeah, they are. They're not on you. they're all over me. So we get there, she gets out, runs up to her porch. Now there's a little car behind me. I zip down, this is in Victoryville, and I go in up.

There's a diesel truck coming. I'm in this Mustang, which gets it, you know. So the diesel truck comes. I jump in front of it and punch it. Well, this guy in this little fast-ass car he had goes behind it, and he's on me. Okay? So I'm on the freeway now going the wrong way against traffic. whoa, whoa.

And they try to, they know I'm getting off of the next off ramp. They know it. And I do. I flip it around sideways. I'm coming back out. They got a van with Veronica in the back

this way. They got another car that way, right? So you know what I do. I ram them. I punch it and I ram right between both them cars. That Mustang spins around and it gets stuck in park.

I can't get it out. They yank me out. The news is there. They rough me up a little bit. So I got that home invasion. and I wait a year, and after a year violation is up, I take a deal, right? But part of the deal is they give me 28 years, let me out for 90 days on a Vargas waiver to get my affairs in order before I go do this 20 years. And if I come back, I only get 16.

Oh. Now you got some thinking to do. No. There's no thought at all. Yeah, what am I talking about? Yeah, 90 days. Yeah. To me, 90 days.

days is a head start. Okay. So that's how that went down in my mind. The whole courtroom was laughing. You know, this guy, this is kind of time and let him go for 90 days. Come on. Everybody knows what I'm going to do. That is a fascinating kind of experiment that the justice system. I mean, they can't do that. I doubt they really do that anymore. Yeah. It's called a Vargas waiver. A Vargas waiver. And that's a state law. Yeah. And it's basically saying, hey, look, can you be a good boy? Like, we're giving you 90 days to to think about to, they're almost tempting you. Like, yeah, go make a run for it. So you're in there.

Even though it's a year, you're a drug addict. Yeah. You're strung out. All you care about is they're telling you you can get high. You can run for 90 days and you can stay high for 90 days. You can do all of that. And if you can run for six more months, you can stay high for nine months. You're good to go.

All you got to do is just sign. Well, you know what I'm signing? I couldn't sign fast enough. So then I get out right from the gate. So by this time, my first wife, she's living in Vegas, and she's hooking, okay? And she's making a lot of money. I didn't even know how much. I didn't like it, you know?

So I get there to Vegas and she makes a deal with me. He said, look, here's the deal. When you make as much money as me at what you're doing, I'll quit. Good deal, right? until she goes out, the magic convention's in town, she goes out, she's gone not even a full hour, she comes back, gives you $5,000 and goes back out because there's too much money to be made. And that month, she probably brought in $200,000. Now I'm thinking, yeah, she's never quitting.

I don't have a snatch. I can't make this kind of money. I'm in Vegas. It's not going to happen. And eventually she winds up. And they're using condoms or all of that. She's not getting nobody's kid. She ends up with my kid to be born.

I got her now. But she comes back and she tells me, we're going to lose everything. Now, ironically, though, I got a backup. How, though? I'm going to tell you, I got a backup, though. I got to back up to when I was in the county jail for that year. Because something happened that fits into this. And there was a Pisa who had molested a kid in the high desert.

And all the Southern Mexicans were waiting for this guy to show up, Wherever he showed up, it was all bad for him. So just so happens at night, I get a Paisa Selli. Okay. I step out and the Serenios tell me, hey, Ronnie, find out about that dude. I tell him all right. So he heard it. As soon as I go in, he hands me his paperwork.

Boom. Who he is. And he's got a little bit of a drunk driving charge and this and that. But they're harassing him because they suspect he's involved in something bigger. They put a hold on his mouth. money, they've done all of this, they're screwing his phone calls up. I go back out, I tell him, yeah, it's not him. I come back in and I tell him, well, what do I call you?

He goes, you can call me, Nino. So I'm all right, you know, here's a shopping list. I don't you put 20 bucks. I think it was 20 the first time. Put $20 list, $20 list, put it on there, get what you want. You know, that's good. I said, look, man, if you don't do this, you're going to be using my stuff. So do this, use your own stuff.

Don't worry about it. It's all right. So he does. The next time store comes out of the package stuff, same thing. I get him stuff. Give it to him to him. They got to let him go. He's getting out.

He goes to court. He's getting out. And he tells me, he gives me his phone number. He's in Brownville, Texas. He goes, uh, you ever need any help? You call me. Wow. Tell him, okay.

I don't know this dude's get down yet. So she comes in pregnant. She goes, we're going to lose everything. I said, no. I said, look, I can do this thing. Right? No, but the only guarantee. if I start doing this is that I'm going to prison.

And here's all I'm saying. If I go to prison, my little girl, when she's born, doesn't start calling somebody else dad and all of that. I already know what you're going to do. You're going to fuck the neighbor before the fucking inks dry on the arrest report. The magician, right. I already know what's going on. There's a lot of money in fucking magicians.

Yeah, exactly. So she says you got to do what you got to do. But yeah, it's okay. So I call Nino. I needo's going to hook me up I got to go to Brownville, Texas I hook I get into Victorville and get in the mix with this chick there

and I start moving stuff to Hawaii it's small scale I build one ounce into six pounds but it's just and here's here's what happens there she's dealing with a Pisa the Pisa backstabs or cuts her out and he's dealing directly with me but you know what my mindset is

if he'll do it to her he'll do it to me because he's her friend so that's what I call Neon know again and I tell him hey I need I need some help I'm gonna come out there now I got a little cash capital work with so are you moving product out to Hawaii by the way I'm doing it FedEx yeah so I'm taking a I'm taking a big when I'm doing the six pounds I'm taking a big round glass deal right and I'm taking that colored sand you can't x-ray through sand so I got all this different colored sand so I'll put

some on the bottom and I'll take the dough open we'll wrap it up in dryer sheets we'll do all of this stuff get it all wrapped up for the smell coffee everything else you Anything you read about, I put it on there. Put it down in the middle on top of that sand on the bottom and then start pouring this colored sand so it looks like sand dart in this jar. Wow. And we get it all the way up, bam,

seal it, rolling it up in bubble wrap, put it in there, sending it over, getting it FedExed overnight. Wow. And it's going out there. When I was doing 25, I was doing five mailings of five pounds each. And a different addresses. Sometimes vacant houses where there nobody was,

but I would put in there that it doesn't need to be signed for. They leave it on the porch if no one's there. So you're making a lot of money. That must be a huge markup. I'll tell you. Okay. So now, that's how it came in. So this is so fast forward now, I'm calling going out to meet Nino.

Nino hooks me up with Juarez cartel. Let me tell you something. Those are some scary dudes. You know, all cartels are scary. But they're scary because you just didn't know what the next minute was going to bring. You sit in there in a room with them and you didn't know what that next minute was going to do. to, Nino trusted him. That's Nino.

I'm the white guy in the room. I did my deal with him, but I didn't think I could ever show up with a couple hundred thousand and leave with it. You know, I was just going to, I ended up in a hole burnt on fire. So that was that,

and I explained that to Nino. So, Nino's like, he fucks with all, even these cartels are worn. Nino's a guy that's fucking with everything. Nino tells me,

well, we'll hook you up again, man, and just go, and it's closer to home, closer to California. you, we talk to this guy. So I call, I talk to him, and I go out, and that's mutual con.

Well, you were in Mexico? No. No, I was meeting with them in San Diego. Okay. They're going to do business with me. They're still sketchy. I mean, I'm getting the same vibe as I got from this war as deal. But maybe they would have done good business.

Who knows? You know, it could have all been me. You know what I mean, a foreign area with foreign dudes, and I'm the only not foreign here, and it could all go bad. And if it did, so what? I think the first time for as they're concerned. So the mutual con, though, there's more going on. I get a call that says that some guy out of Norwalk, Mexican Mafia,

the MA and Mutual Khan were coming together. They were going to do this big deal, right? And money going back and forth. And, you know, I read paperwork on it, too, afterwards, where it looked like they were both triumphant trade each other, right? Big old thing on the court case. But I got warned and told, hey, you know, it's all bad. It looks like it's all bad.

Don't deal with it right now. like okay so that's all well known too that's out there those cases are done so uh um that happens so I'm like okay I'm done with them Sinola all right

and whether it was just the guy or the organization I felt comfortable with the dude so I told him I said look man I'm paying 4,500 a pound he goes yes said I'm going to give you 7,000 per pound

all right We don't have to tell nobody. That extra is for you. He's going, wow. He said, well, nothing. It's only me and you that know about it. They don't have to know nothing. Okay.

So I said, I don't want to touch dope no more. I got these two women. I'm going to introduce you. They're my runners. They'll pick it up from you. They'll pay you. They'll give you the cash. Then the two runners would bring it to the guys that package it and melt.

All I would do is move money here and there. Yeah. So I set it up that way. The minute, the first time he took that money and kept that extra to himself, I own that dude. Yeah. His whole bloodline depended on me never saying nothing to those dudes about what he was doing. Where were you meeting with him? Well, I would have them meeting Victorville.

Here's the way it would work. I would call and say, I need 25 pounds. Okay. It would come over on a backpack. And I knew this was true, too, because the dope sometimes we still have ants in it. Wow. I didn't charge no extra for that. And answer free.

But so we get packed up. So what would happen is I'd call him, tell them I need it. It'd take the next day for it to get there. I'd go to the money. And this is what I went down for. So I'd go to the motel, right? Bam. I'd tip the dresser over.

I'd put all the money underneath there. Dresser back over, plus my runner's money. And I bought them both Lincoln, Eddie Bowers' expeditions, right? So hooked them up. So they were all legal and the insurance paying all that. And the two women would go. I would tell them where the motel was. Leave the key at the office desk.

I'd say, look, I got these two females come in. I'm going to go get something to eat. Give them the keys when they get here. Tell them just to wait for me. Oh, yeah, okay. Give them $20. Bam. I'd leave.

And they would go get the money and everything. Then I would call Nino and say, it's this room. Boom. And he would go there. So he would make sure nothing went south with my runners. So Nino was basically... I mean, not Nino. Not Nino.

He's out there. Not Nino. You're connected. Yeah. Yeah, mixed up with his name. For the connect, it was getting the extra money. And that was part of a whole payment. Right.

Make sure that everything went right. Right. And did you have to, because Nino's the guy who introduced you to all these cats. Did you have to kick him anything? No. He just did it on the strength. Well, it really wasn't on the strength when you think about what I did for him too. I did for him in the county jail.

You think it's a small thing, right? I don't know this guy. I'm getting him store. I'm helping to make it through that miserable couple of weeks. He's going to be in there. I'm helping him out. out. And you let the other Mexicans know, like this guy's cool. Don't touch him. He's not the one. Yeah, he's not the guy. You know what I mean? They were just waiting for the one guy.

Sure. So yeah, so he's just, I was paying it forward. They're not even knowing it. Right. And he was too. So that was Nino. Nino was a good guy. And he still is. He's probably still in Brownsville. I got his number. I just never call him. Wow. Okay. So Sinaloa was doing this thing and I was doing with this guy. And he was making sure it all went right. You're buying meth for seven thousand a pound. What are you selling it in Hawaii for? 32. Wow. Whoa. That's over four times, buddy. It's four and a half times your money.

And I got the paperwork. I didn't bring, I should have brought it. I got the paperwork. It didn't matter if you were buying an ounce. You were buying a pound. You're buying 10 pounds. It's 32,000 a pound. Wow.

So, and I'm doing them 25 pounds a week. Okay. So there's a lot of money. But half of that money stayed in Hawaii. And the other half, my sister's husband at the time, tell on me. And the other half would come to me. It's still a lot, okay? When you do the arithmetic on it, it's so.

comes out to about, I don't know, 85,000, I mean, $850,000 every time you move to 25. Wow. All right. So half of that is mine, $425,000 profit. So every week. Every week. And it's coming, we hollowed out VCRs, okay? Stacking the money in it.

And then Melanie's VCRs. And I'd pull up, one time I pulled up, there's over a million dollars on my porch. I'd tell I bring a car, there's over a million dollars on that porch right now, and nobody knows it. Yeah. You know, go in and start opening them up. throwing people money and telling them count $10,000 bundles for me. I'd getting it all stacked up and everything. At the end, I was trying to order one of the money counters.

It was a little difficult for me to find one of those. I didn't have a business. I didn't do that. So I was looking for those. So what I ended up doing was just weighing it. You know, and I'm weighing the money, and it worked out pretty good that way. Never more than a bill off, give or take, you know, but rarely even that. And are you sucked up at the time, or are you clean?

Oh, no, I could turn sideways and disappear like a, like, a sci-fi movie. Yeah. A little stick. Just a little breeze. In the beginning of all of this, I wasn't using, okay? And as long as I wasn't using, it was all good. The last month I started using and started making mistakes.

Because when they took me down, I wouldn't have went down if I wasn't using because some things happened. FedEx. Okay, so twice before there was a problem with the delivery. And I called FedEx and send it back and resent it. Whoa. Yeah. Balzy.

And it worked. So this third time, why not? I just don't know that somebody's in jail telling on me. So they called to have me send it back and they're going to follow it back. Then they call my number. Now, I've never given them my phone number at FedEx. So they do. So I call to the.

house where everything gets smelled from and I tell them hey uh did you guys leave my phone number with FedEx and one of the dudes in there tweaked out goes oh yeah were we not supposed to I bet normally I'd have shut everything down right then would have never went back to nothing it would have been done but because I was spun I didn't wow at that house I had three houses in Vegas I had the one in Summerland million dollar home I had another one that was like 750 grand and it was the dope house and then I had another 12 bedroom ranch property over by Lake Mead. So the drug house I had found out

had the DA of Las Vegas living across the street and two doors down. So I'm like, fuck, I chose this one to turn into a drug house. So I'm going to get rid of it. Well, in Vegas, there's one money that's always good. It doesn't matter about the economy or nothing. One people's money is always good, and that's the hookers and the pimps.

They're always got money because the worse the economy to get, the more stressed out people get, the more they need to relieve it. And they're always making money. So I'm going to sell it. So I have a couple people in the car with me, my escalate, and I'm pulling in to the drug house. And she tells me, Ronnie, there's somebody in this house.

I said, oh, that's all right. I think it's my packagers. I pulled in the driveway and moving vans, boom, right behind me. I knew right then. It's over. So they let her go. They got me handcuffed in a chair right there on the garage by the driveway. And there was a box of chronic weed.

I don't know about 10 pounds. I don't smoke it, but everybody I know does. So they're always asking me for weeds. So I just went and bought 10 pounds, so I'd have to keep pying it. Had it there, and I had a MAC 10 on top of it. And I'm sitting there looking at the box. I'm sweating.

DEA goes, oh, you're worried about that? He goes, no, no, this is the least of your worries. And he kicks it to his partner. I never heard about it again. And he goes, you can thank your brother-in-law. He goes, because you were all the way under the radar. We didn't know anything about you. So what happened?

Your brother-in-law in Hawaii? He got busted in Hawaii. Yeah. And then he told. Wow. Sent him back to me. So then, and this is tough too, because you're handcuffed, you're in their car. You're listening to feds with your phone.

Now they got your escalate. They got your phone. They got you. They're calling people on your phone and they've been surveilling you and shit. And they're calling them and they're acting like you and getting them to make drug deals. And you got a couple stupid friends that actually drive down and get cuffed up. So you're like, there's nothing you can do. You're just like, fuck, you know, and they're putting them in the car.

It's almost like when they're doing a sting with these hookers, you know. Yeah. And you're watching that. And they kept me, when they took me to jail that time in Las Vegas, they put me in solitary. They didn't let me no phone calls, no nothing, about 10 days. I'm in there in solitary. And I know. And my phone wasn't in my property.

And I know what they're doing. They're out there trying to work this phone. They're trying to work this escalades, which I always drove from my, and when I'd go, if when I was at first when I was picking it up I'd go get this dope and I just put it between the two seats stacked on the fucking console and everybody's like why don't you hide that? Why?

There's 10 pounds of dope here. You think I can hide that? If they get honest I stand a better chance you're putting it in the wind. What year is this? This was in when all this went down This was in, see I went in, I fell in 2000 on the robbery,

got out with Nino and all that going on. So it was 2001. Okay. To 2003. I was on the run until he finally took me down. And I was doing it in Vegas, man. I had a, I had my car lot guy. You know, he, I had the Escalade Ext, I had the BMW.

They're all new. The Escalade was sitting on 24-inch basso spinners, all low-ridered out. I had a Hummer H-2. I had the Mitsubishi Montero Limited. I had the, what, the little fast cars? It was a fast thing. I didn't have recognized it. Maserati?

No. I went down to buy it. a, it wasn't a Pantera. I went down to buy a Lamborghini Kuntash and this thing was sitting next to Accurray NSX. It was sitting next to it.

I thought it looked better. I just liked it. So I told him how much is this, man? And he goes, that's the down payment of that one. I said, I'll take this. Wow. You know, I ended up wrecking that thing, no, quick, too. I only had it about two days.

So now you've got a Fed case case for the meth. Yeah. And then you've got the robbery that you're on the run for in California. In California. But see, California don't put a hold on me. They let me do all that federal time. I do all that fucking time.

I'm getting out of Leavenworth and I'm thinking I'm going home, man. I've got no hold, no nothing. I'm beating this. Yeah. So I have dressouts and everything sent in. They let me walk down the steps. Leavenworth touched the parking lot like freedom, cuffed me up, took me to the county jail. from the county jail flew me back to Rialto

and then they gave me 28 years and didn't give me no credit for the federal time. Wow. They waited all those years on you. They did it dirty, man. Okay, so let's get back to the feds real quick and then we'll move up to this bid where you eventually changed your life.

So what were they charging you with on the meth? Was it just meth or was it a CCE? Was it anything more serious? I was the number one dude on the indictment. Okay. So, and my brother-in-law was telling, I ironically was only facing 12, 12 and a half years. My brother-in-law was facing 20-something years because he had had a cultivating case in Hawaii. And they could double it for the case that he had, the prior he'd had, they could double it up.

I see. Right. But he ended up, I ended up getting the most time. He ended up getting eight years. And it initially started with another informant when you read it. he was buying from him for him. And he ended up getting four years. And I got 12 and a half years.

So by the time it was all done, I just ended with 42 years, by the time it was all done with the California time and the Fed time, the 42 years to do. Okay. You only had 12 and a half in the feds, even though you had fed points already.

Yeah. Where do you go first? And what was that stretch like? That was all penitentiaries. And now, but now it's different. Now I got a little prestige. Right. Now I know the get down.

I can walk to walk, talk to talk, and carry the knife and do all of that. But I'll tell you, the penitentiaries in the feds where they just got Whitey Bolzer, Hazleton. Okay, so I'm in Hazleton. Everybody's got a knife. You're going to keep a knife in the feds, or you're not going to last long. You need one. So I had one. It's made a thick glass, and it's ground down at each end like that.

It's got a leather sheath that goes in, and it's just a thick piece of glass. It's just ugly. It's bad. And I got that. I got it right here. The Mexican before me is obviously. obviously got a metal knife. They're running yard.

But everybody going out to the yard, going through the metal detector. It's ringing. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. The cops just, what can they do? Everybody's got a fucking knife, right? The cops are just looking. Every now and then they'll tell a rookie,

hey, check him out. And the rookie will go to check him out, and the little Mexican before me, tells him, what, you want this? Cog goes, I don't want it. And he pulls me over to search me. The other cop, the white cop, he hits it. And he goes, he knows this the knife.

He goes, take off, man. You need that more than I do. It's just the way Hazleton is. you know. Wow. Did you ever have to use it? Yeah, you're going to use your knife in the feds, you know. Did you use it in self-defense or was it a, was it part of the NLR?

Was it part of discipline? By the time the feds things happened, I wasn't in a position where I had to make bones. Sometimes, though, I would step on it. Like, if I bring you back a minute, so we're at, we're at Lancaster, Pennett, the Pennsylvania, level four yard, just opened up. We're all out there. I was discussing hitting this white Crip on the yard, okay, because they're not going to walk the yard. I got a laundry bag right there, and when it first opened up, there was rocks everywhere.

So I hear dudes are kind of he-on. They kind of, this dude don't want to do it. That dude don't want to do it. So I just started putting rocks in the laundry bag, and I'm timing this dude that comes around. So he gets around over here, and I just come up from the side with that deal and come off the curb. Wow. It wrapped around, splitting me, hit the ground. I went back, dumped the rocks out, set back down.

I said, okay, let's go to the next topic. And I just got sick of hearing what was going on. But your mindset was that. When they're grooming you to kill somebody, they don't tell you you're going to think about it later in life. You're going to feel bad about it later in life. You know, that's part of the whole giving back thing right now. You know, you've done things to people that, you know,

you think this guy had it coming, but who are you? to decide. You think I'm going to do this thing to this guy and it's it's it's over. It's over. You know, what's done is done. But no, it's not. This guy's got a mother, brothers, sisters, kids. There's a ripple effect that reaches out so far, you know. And then this kid he has grows up and has kids, but she never forgets this and it has effect on that next generation. And you don't think about these, you're groom not to think about it. You're in this game. But later on, nobody told you that later on, you're going to think about it. And if you don't think about it later on when you get right and feel bad about it,

guess what, you're an animal. Yeah. And I don't think you need to be out in society. Right. You know? How many killers did you meet in there that were like you had just been groomed and just were or high on dope or, you know, swept up in the life versus real incorrigible people that just killed and felt nothing, no remorse?

And here's the thing. You know the difference. You have people that are in prison for murder, but they're not killers. Right. They did what they did. Whatever happened happened. You know, they had a really bad night. Somebody got killed.

Those aren't killers. When you sit down and you're across from a killer, you know it. He don't have to tell you. You don't have to ask nothing. You know you are sitting across from a guy that will wipe you out your whole family, your dog, your goldfish, everything. and tomorrow it's business as usual. Those guys just have a look about them. Were you a killer?

No, I was caught up in a deal. You know, I was caught up in it. And I know I wasn't a killer because killers never feel bad about what they do. You know, I feel bad about everything in life I've done that was unjustifiable, that I justified. Anything and everything that I've done, I relive and replay the motion picture of my history and my life. And I feel it. I feel bad knowing that there's family members of guys I may have had stabbed that are out there, knowing that I had that done.

So you were looked at in prison, not as a killer, but as a boss, it seems like. If that's how you put, you have the keys. You're controlling it. And yeah, yeah, you're up there. It's an elite crew. And the problem is that it's lonely at the top. Because let's say you're the number one guy. There's only one number one.

And there's only one way somebody gets your number one chair. You got to vacate that chair. So if I'm number two, and I have a thirst for number one, my position is this. I got to get rid of you so I can have that chair. I got to watch you. I got to make sure that when you make that mistake, I'm around to see it. I got to make sure that if you don't make a mistake, I can possibly make it look like you did. I got to do what I got to do because I want that spot.

Nobody's happy with number two. Did you ever have a number two plot to take your spot? Everybody. Everybody. It's just when you're in that thing, okay, so I'll tell you a story. Junior on the yard that I moved in the cell with the skinheads, NLR got validated in California, right? So we're all on the line.

They slam it down. Bam, I got the keys at the time. For whatever reason, I'm not validated. They come through and they're, They lock all right up. They put them in Palm Hall and then across from Paul Hall. They're in Cyprus. And I can still go back and talk to them.

So I'm running everything out there, kitties and all that, reassigned keys. Well, the heads decide that we're not out there no more. They want the keys. So they get Junior to come talk to me because Junior was my celly and we were close and all of that. And he sits down and I'm sitting in the dorm in Madrown. But they had jumped the gun. They had validated these. these dudes early and they weren't supposed to lock them up yet.

So they had to let them all back out the next week. Junior's sitting there and he's telling me, well, you know what, Ronnie, nobody's out here no more. I told him, look, if I'm out here, the ride's out here. The whole car is out here. So if there's one of us, we're all out here. And I'm looking over his shoulder and here comes gangster, Maurice, and here comes bam, bam, and they're all lining up in the window because they're kicking them all

out of the hole right now. Nobody knew they were coming, and they're just lining up. And I tell Junior, I said, hey, homie, turn around because you got really, really impeccable timing. Try to hit me for the keys. And he turned around. He's seen all the NLR on the window. He goes, man, he goes, they're going to try to hit me. I told him, no, brother, I'm going to talk against it.

So we had a big meeting on the yard. But what I didn't know is that Junior had been up and down the hallway talking shit about Nazi lowriders. And they all knew it. So we were talking. And I still tried not to get him. hit. So not only that, they're taking one of my other old cellies, Angel, they're going to have him hit Jr. Right. So I just go, and the feds are filming this through the window in the library, right? They got it all on film with this whole meeting going on, right? So here's what I did. I said,

look, man, I said, what facility this is at? That was in Chino, the guidance center. Real political place because everybody comes in on violations. And when that circle. So I tell them like this, I got one cellie, going to hit another cellie over all of the stuff right here. and I did like this. I said, I'm done with this. Like that on the thing, it's just to walk away, right? And I was talking against the hit. And I said, I don't want to be here when it happens.

I don't want to be near it. There are two cellies. So maybe that was the start of my feelings. I don't know. Right. So juniors on the yard and angels cold trawling him. I'm ready to cut him. And I go to the baseball diamond.

sit down. What does Junior do? He comes over and sits down right next to me. It puts him in the perfect position to get hit. And Angel goes over and, whoops him, cuts him pretty good in the throat. When he does it, Junior gets up and he goes, that's a good one. He goes, oh, man, he goes, huh, that's a good one. And he started to get on Angel and right then all the, you know, Arches got on. I mean, wow. Fucking, it is what it is. They finish him?

No, he didn't get killed. He probably wished he would have. Now, it's so crazy how deep the prison politics are in California. It's like government. Literally, it's like government. Yes.

Now you're in, you got a 12 and a half to do in the feds. 85% now, no parole. No parole. 85% ugly. So, you're now in your 30s and you've been putting in work.

Oh, no, I'm older than that. But you're almost 40. Yeah. You're born in the early 60s. So you're now an OG and you're known. So what position do you take is the NLR now in the feds where at every facility you go to or how does that work? NLR is there. And now though I'm looking at six.

looking at well I'm looking at NLR becoming A-B looking at being a part of both liaison I'm looking at all of that so I'm doing the time there when I say six this later happened too there's six letters that get involved here later on that is that what do you mean by that

well there's two different tips NLR split NLR and then that ran with the AB and then the other half was NLR FTB which was fucked a brand so yeah you had six letters there so you know some guys were sixers they were fighting them

which is a fight you couldn't win, even though there were so few. They could have been overwhelmed, but just by numbers, but they weren't going to get out thought, not with what the NLR was doing. And then they also got Peanine involved. And it just,

if the whites could stay united, they could have a stronghold, like other tips and stuff, other races, you know, but we're so busy trying to survive and then survive our own politics, and it's just crazy. It's crazy.

California prison system's crazy. So, but when you're in the feds, I'm asking who did you decide to, where did you end up going? Oh, I was, okay, so at Lewisburg, so Ziggy, AB and Bobby Ray Shields AB, right? They're both putting people in. We're putting work in. We're getting put up for the brand. We're getting put in, okay? Boulder had put a rock on his neck.

I could have got the rock. I was in. We're all in, but then it turned out that Ziggy was working with the feds. Okay. And I hadn't tattooed nothing on me at this point, but I'd put the work in. I got blessed. Everything has happened. They put a freeze on it.

They said, oh, hold on. Anybody that Ziggy had anything to do with is on hold. Now, this is that out that I tell me about, that you don't really often get a chance to step back. Hmm. Okay. But when that happened, me, Steve Early from Texas, it's the... Syndicate? No, no, no.

One of the Texas gangs, one of the Texas white gang. But Steve really, he stepped back too. Me and him were talking just like this. And I'm saying, well, you know what? Nobody dies of old age. Everybody's got, they're getting killed. And not by other people. The guy that's killing them, they call their brother.

Right. You know, I'm telling them, hey, I wish I, and goose. I wish I'd never got mixed up in any of that right there. It's just really a bad tip. And no retirement for him. And so I stepped back. You know, and I told everybody, hey, look, you know, I put the work in. And that's done.

but this whole put me on hold after I've already been blessed and everything. I'm not cool with it. I'm just stepping back. And that was cool because they were removing everybody that Ziggy had a part with. Because here's the thing, right? Say Ziggy put in five dudes, him and Bobby Ray. Bobby Ray don't know what's going on with Ziggy, but say they put in five dudes. Ziggy's working with the feds.

Which one of them are working with the feds? Yeah. You wait until it's too late to find out. Right. Their mindset is no. they ended up even though they pulled everybody's rock at the time they ended up backing up and they gave a ghost they gave uh they gave uh they gave bolderhead a couple of the dudes that they they reinstated on everything right when they everything played out which is a smart move to do because you just can't figure out who's the one or you know what everybody stepped back so but then also it's when i made my smart choice right there that's when the whole change started to happen so that and that's when you took a step back from gang life. Yeah, kind of.

Okay. Because then things started going with the whole NLR war and all of that. Like Kansas, I made all of the Kansas Odinist. I flipped them all in NLR. Because when they took me from Leavenworth, they took me to the county jail. I get to the county jail. Hold on, can you explain that a little more? I didn't really understand that.

That's what I'm going to do. I get to the county jail. And when I go in there, some crips from California, they're robbing these white dudes when they go to store. And there's no real gang in Kansas in the prison system. The white gang is the odinist. So it's a gang and their religion. So I tell one of the odinist dudes, I said,

hey, homie, can you have all the white dudes come in here after lunch yourself? He had a bigger cell. They all come in there and I tell them, hey, look, here's the deal. If we stand up with these dudes right here, this is going to stop. They're not going to want to get locked down all the time. A couple of us might take weapons. One or two times it's all going to stop.

I know, and I'm telling you this how it is. So if you tell me you'll step up and fight and take the weapon, I'll go out there and serve notice to them right now. And they all were like, yeah, yeah, whether they would or not, who knows. I just went up to the Crips, going from California. I told me, here's what it is. You take another anything from another white dude going to store. It's a riot.

We're getting it, period. And you may win. Doesn't matter to us. We're going to do it every time. First time you take something. So every time that happens, we're going to have a riot. We're going on a lockdown. So whatever else you've got going is going no more.

They go, Ronnie, we were just doing it because they were letting us. So it put a stop to it. So the Odinus came to me and they said, hey, Ronnie, look, we want to separate our religion from a gang. You know, we're wondering about this in our LR. I told them, well, separate, become NLR for Kansas. they go okay so what's the bylaws I go that's a beauty of NLR make it up as you go along

right and so when I left there I had flipped that whole little get down right there in Kansas and then they flew me back to Rialto wow so you were you did how much time off the feds I did all of it

you did all 12 and a half yeah what was how many penitentiaries were you in I was in that stretch I was in Victorville USP Coleman one, Hazleton, Macquarie, just about all of them. Lewisburg, I was in just about all the, all the countries. What was the worst of the USPs?

They're all, okay, so I can tell you stories from each and every one of them that like in, if you go to Terrehope, right? These two, two Aryan nations guys, they're running around in, uh, Timmy and Jeremy. They're telling guys, they don't want to be there. you need to get off the yard. You know you go out of the yard we'll cut your fucking head off. And they got box cutters. So,

dudes are getting off the yard. Jesus. I guess the cops are going to come get him that night, but they didn't go get them in. So the last guy, right before lockdown, they said,

if you're still here after count, we can cut your fucking head off. After count, the dude was still there. So Jeremy would get on him. It was right outside of him. So he'd get on him. He'd start cutting him with that box cutter.

And the cop would tackle him. Bam. And as soon as he tackled him, Jimmy'd get up and get to whacking him. until they took the head all the way off. And that happened right in front of your cell? Yeah, yeah, I watched him cut that guy. At first it was a big blood-curdling scream.

One of the black guys goes, please don't do that. Please stop. Oh, my God. And they just took his head off, you know. Again. It was a black guy that killed or another white guy? No, it was another white guy. And that seems to be most of the violence in federal prison.

It's amongst the races themselves. Amongst the races themselves. Yeah. They're regulating their own, conditioning their own. You know, it's better like this. like say you screwed up with the Mexicans, right? Rather than the Mexicans just going and getting on you, because if I see a white guy getting jumped by so many Mexicans,

I'm jumping in, so we're other white guys. So now it's a riot. So if you come to me and this guy's, and you got faith that if you come to me with what this guy did and I weigh it all out and he needs to be regulated, discipline, stabbed, whatever needs to happen, you have faith that I'm going to make that happen. I'm going to make that call.

We're going to do it ourselves. You don't have to. That keeps because if it's not involved, When you start involving different races against each other, you start having locksdowns, drug money starts slowing down the whole deal. Were you, well, tell us about that. Were you involved in drug trafficking while you were doing your federal stretch? So, yeah, the whole stretch, the whole thing. And when I left the feds, I went to the state.

I was in Lancaster, right? I went back to Lancaster. So I'm going to Sea Art. And I got a phone. I made my cell. I started Googling Lancaster prison. I look at it. My cell, he works in PIA.

And he tells me, man, he goes, PIA, we're soap. We make the chemicals. When you go out at the back, when I go there, we got, he's telling him how he works out, right? They got this little workout area in between all these big barrels, blue barrels, right? Blue barrels. And he goes, yeah, they're bright blue. Well, okay, I can Google that. And I'm listening.

And all I'm thinking is this spot they got hidden in the middle of these barrels sounds pretty good for a drone. Now look down, you can see out my window, there's two big water tanks. So at night, I take Google Earth And I get a look at Lancaster I get a look at PIA I get a look at the blue barrels And I said call somebody up Set my thing up

He sits between the two big water tanks And he flies in whatever I wanted But I was mad at the time I was mad because the blacks were selling heroin To the whites that were strung out And they were just giving them little smears And just taking all their money Yeah

So you know what I brought in Weed because I wanted to get all that money back from the blacks. Right, because they smoke weed in there. They love the weed. And I wouldn't give no bulk deals, and I would never flood the yard, and I would break it out on visiting days.

So it looked like it came in that way, and I would just, and I could have got anything I wanted, because what would happen is the drone would drop shit at night in the spot. How much weed would they drop? Like, if I wanted to bring in a pound for two weeks, I'd bring it a pound, it'd be gone. You send it to the other yards, and... A pound of weed.

Yeah. in a prison. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and go through. And it'd be gone with me chipping it off, like, to the anthem mound. I'm not selling, you're not going to come buy 25 caps at a discount for me. No, you just come buy the caps. I send it over to other yards. So how many people does it take to help you to move a pound in prison?

Because you can't keep any of that on you. It's, yeah, you've got people in every building. You're sending it over because my celly worked in PIA. That's where he would get it. And I had the painter that would go to all the yards, right? The painter would, he would go and he would get it from my celly and he had a false bottom on his cart so he could pass right through the cop station. Come to my cell, paint, drop everything off, go to the other yard paint, drop everything off. So I had that going on.

Matter of fact, I got it in my wallet. My job was the secretary for the men advisory council, which man I could walk everywhere. All I had to do is yell out my door to the cop. Hey, open the door. He'd open the door. My office was up there by the office. So I was to go between for the cops when there was issues and the convicts. Wow.

You know, so I was the secretary for the IAC. So I could just walk anywhere I wanted. You were hiding in plain sight. In plain sight. And moving, major dope right there. I was getting all the money back. How are you getting paid? Because this is state prison.

How do they, I know in the feds they pay with stamps. How do they pay in the state? Yeah, the feds are with stamps. And there's a lot bigger picture, too, when you start messing with the mob in the feds because they're controlling the economies, just like the Jewish bankers would. You know, with stamps. I've watched them pull stamps off of the yard just by controlling the economy to make the price go up and stay stable. We just had a guy Louis Ziskin.

He was a Jewish Ecstasy Kingpin. He did that at, well, at all the USPs he went to, he would buy up all the stamps to regulate the price. And regulate the price in the economy. Yeah, see all that going on. So in Lancaster, so you're going to pay, it doesn't, you're going to do bank to bank. You can have people picking up money if it's large amounts. You can have it sent to your books and funneled that way. You can do PayPal.

You can do, there's just a million ways to get money. Okay. So you didn't have cash on you? No, no, no, no. I have my phones and I ended up leaving that phone with my celly. So this is where I met my wife. This is where things start to change. Okay.

They get this new law. It's called the Big Six rolling, which means at any point you got for violence on another number, they couldn't use against you. Well, I had thousands of points for all the stabbings and all that stuff from my history that all had to come off. I didn't know about this. I get called to the counselor's office and he tells me, Ronnie, you're a, you're level two now.

I told him, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, big six rolling. All these points came off, handed me the paper where he goes, you go into classification next week. We're going to send you to the three yard in Ironwood first and let you step down because we're not just going to jump you to a two yards. You're going to get overridden there and then you'll go to a two. I tell him all. I said, put them back on.

He goes, what? So I got all this going on. I said put my points back on, man. I'm not trying to go nowhere. Right. Yeah, he goes, and I've done it to work that way. We have to.

So, but ironically, the next drone I was having landed, my partner wrecked it in the fence. That's why I say that all this is known. It's all old hat. Wow. Can you tell us a little bit more about the big six? This is a California ruling? Yeah, what it was was that,

say you had a history on old numbers. You had stabbed people done all this violence, cop stabbings, and all of that. There were a certain amount of points you get for each one of those. to where guys would get a new case and they'd go back and they'd get up with thousands of points. Right. Because of stuff not now, but then.

Right. That happened in the prison system. Yes. Okay. So everybody was just getting maxed out for thousands of years. Now they're all up on these with all these points and stuff. So the big six said that no longer could they use those old number stabbings and violence and all that to put points on your new case. And do you think that was because the max level yards, the four yards were just,

getting overcrowded? Or what do you think the reason behind that was? They're trying to switch to give guys a chance to work their way out. To me, I think this, period. I'm not a fan of prison. I'm not, but you know what? It's needed. Society needs prisons.

Society needs cops. Society needs all these things. You don't have a society without them. Law. You have to have it. And you may be in the game going, yeah, I don't need no stinking cops, badges. We don't need no stinking badges. You may be doing all that, right?

You're a liar. because you know and I know that the minute you leave, you got a mom, you got kids, and the only thing really protecting your family from having some animals running in there and raping them and doing what they do is sometimes in cops. You know, you've got family members that you know, I got an aunt that I know in a minute. If somebody did something wrong, she would call them,

and you know what, nobody holds that against her because that's who she is. Right. So society needs that. And we need to quit thinking that we're not a part of society, that we have this separate society. but so yeah so I'm I believe in all of that I'm not a fan of the police when they come to get me right but when they're stopping something from happening to my daughter my mother or somebody like that you know what I'm their biggest cheerleader that's right stop it from happening so my thing is this though I think every sentence should just be this bam as long as it takes oh you did this bam as long as it takes as long as it takes for you to come back to me and show me that you're somebody different If that takes you a year, it's on you. If it takes you 10 years, it's on you.

But I'm sentenced you to as long as it takes to be somebody productive and different. And that's just what I believe. Well, this six law, it's, or, you know, ruling, it seemed to work for you. Yeah, it set me on it. And it's weird. It set you on a course, right? Yeah, it did. And this is when I meet Chris.

Okay. Chris Curtis, who's been on this show? Yeah, he's part of my, me and him got the nonprofit now. And he does Orange County. the dark side at risk youth because I started the recidivism thing you know the veterans life skills program the universal life skills program uh the the star speaking truth about recidivism because the truth is it doesn't have to be like it is that's the truth right truth is if you start putting the right stuff in play in prisons you can change people and they won't come back and i'm living proof of it right

and so is Chris so but Chris is doing at risk youth you know what the best way to stop somebody from coming back to prison is from recidivism never start Never start. You get them at a young enough age to where they don't go to prison in the first place. You don't have that recidivism. So I want to hit it from all angles. Well, let's talk about this course now. Right. So you don't want to get class down because you got such a good thing with the drones and the weed. Right. But how do you, they force you to go there. That's the one thing they do. They will not let you stay in prison. As much as it seems like they want to keep you there. Yeah. When it's your time to go, they kick you out. They kick you out. So I get shipped. to Ironwood. Okay. And get to Ironwood,

and I ain't there long, a couple days. What happens is this Mexican mafia dude, boxer, he's there, all right, and he told on a lot of people, and he knows me,

knows who I am. And I go to a medical one day, and I'm standing there's like the next day or two days after I got there, and I'm standing in medical, and there's boxer standing right there. He tells me, Ronnie, what's up?

I'm telling, what's up, boxer? Tell him, look, homey, I, your thing is your thing, your people's your people. I'm cool, I'm not here for that. He goes, yeah, okay. Bam, he left. The next morning they came, told me, pack your shit, put me on a van,

transferred me to High Desert that quick, right? But then I'd already step back. I'm trying to leave the gangs alone. I'm trying to get out. I want to get out. There's got to be a way. Even though I got all this time left. I get to High Desert, right?

He had me moved. So now I'm at High Desert. I'm on the yard. Chris Curtis is there, and he's the inmate advisory council. He's the Mac. He's the one with the representative for the whites. But he's not, he's working out. He's not, you know, I'm kind of going to, I'm kind of going to bump him for this, you know.

And what I do is I try a little manipulation move. And I go around and I get all the white signatures that could vote him out that I could get. And I get enough to at least be able to hold an election to do it. And then I don't go to the people to have that done. I just go to him. And I say, look, homie, I got all these signatures. So we have a vote to get you removed or you could just step back. It's not personal.

you know, I don't take it personal. He was like, kind of am. Sure, sure. It does seem a little personal. Why were you trying to have him removed? Because I wanted the spot. What did his spot carry? And I didn't know him at the time, you know.

And you could run around and do things that I was going to push back on the cops and try to get privileges and do things that Chris couldn't do as a lifer because he had to go to board. And, you know, and Chris tells me, you know, and I didn't know how he was going to, where he was going to go with this at the time. because he tells me, I kind of am taking it personal. You know, I'm thinking, oh, wow, here we go. You know, you're not a little dude. I'm thinking, okay, we're going to have to fucking go with this.

Then COVID hits. COVID hits. We end up in a unit together. No mac reps are existing anymore, this and that. And they have an election. Okay, so I won the election. He didn't run. But by this time, I'm standing at the door.

Me and him were talking and we're talking about what we really want to do, you know, talking about getting out, talking about doing the right thing. And I'm telling him, yeah, he goes, no, I know it was. personal now he knows it's not now he knows i just want to i want to push the administration to do the right thing so he's comfortable and cool with it and uh besides that it's a fucked up advantage to have and i didn't play that card because of this advantage i really didn't think of it until recently in hindsight i put chris in a position that in order to do something and act on the way he was feeling he had to give up his chance to go home you know which is fucked up you know and uh what

year is this by the way this is in whenever COVID first hit okay obviously 2020 so you're on a 20 i just want to remind people you're now serving a 28 year stretch consecutive yeah in 2020 so still had a lot left right you you what did you think at this point did you expect to die in there did you expect to get out an old feeble man like what what were you trying to accomplish besides just living a more chill life that did involve the gang bang in i had thought about both of those some guy and old man in prison just both. I just didn't think I was getting out.

And if I did get out, I wasn't going to be in no condition to live life. You know, what was the point? At that point, just keep me in. But I had met the wife I have now, okay? And she was like... Where did you meet her?

Okay, so I've known her in my whole life, all right? Off and on, been together. And she's went her way, and I've went mine, and we've done things. And we find our way back to each other. And I fucked up a lot. She didn't. You know, she does good.

So me and her connect again. We reconnect. And she's not about the nonsense. She's like this. Hey, I don't mind. I'll take care of you. I'll do all of that while you're in here. You won't do without.

The things that you have now, you'll still have. But you don't get to land drones. You don't get to stab people. You don't get to do anything that isn't the next right thing. that's the thing that's what I'm asking you do so you want to you want to be with me then this is how we're going to do it said okay so

before I do anything I ask myself is this the next right thing and if it ain't with new thinking not with criminal thinking because you can justify just about anything if you want to with new thinking and if it's the next right thing I don't do it and so I get transferred

out of high desert now to Solidad level 2 CTF North It's a three yard that turned into a level two, and I'm there. And I start writing programs. I write the Veterans Life Skills program. I write all this stuff. And there's a lot of child molesters on this yard that I don't know about until in hindsight.

And at the end, but there was this one who had the run of the yard with all the staff, the free people, this Jenny Nestler comes in under a program. She was like, she's with these child molesters backing them up, you know. and she with this Mark, Mark Wade did some crap in Riverside to some kids. It was a sick thing. I find out in hindsight. After I write all my programs and I do all this, all these child molesters that nobody knows

are with this Jenny Nestler. They come together. And then Ron Self does the Veterans Healing Veterans and he got out of San Quentin. They come together and I watch them try to take his program from him. I watch them lie. and I know they're lying and say sexual harassment with Jenny

and do all of this stuff. And I told him, look, Keron, I know, I think it's bullshit. You write this program, you build it, and they try to take it from you. I'm going to write a declaration for you that says straight out. You didn't do any of this, you know, and I'll sign it and do it under perjury. Well, that week they sent the dogwoman Salmon to tell me,

don't write that. Because if you do, you're going to lose your dog, you're going to lose your programs. You're not going to get out like you think you are. And all of that. It was available. threat. She said she was just looking out for me. Maybe that too. It was probably a little bit of both. They're going after self. They're trying to take something that he built. But this is a new me.

I'm doing the next right thing. So I asked my wife, I'm like, look, it turns out all this is going on, this Jenny Nestler has opened the door for all these sex offenders and child molesters I didn't even know about. And she's like one of them. And she's doing it and she's attacking people that aren't sex offenders. I don't quite get it. Who is this woman? She comes in doing groups. and stuff and she was part of Ron Self had hired her and she ended up trying to take his program from her. Okay, so she's like an outside independent contractor? Independent crime.

She's out of the Veterans Transition, or VTC Veterans Transition Center right there in a, by solidad. Okay. And then, and what does this have to do with sex offender? She's trying to rehabilitate them or? No, no, no. I thought maybe at first whatever was going on, but it didn't turn out that way. She's, there's some weird dynamic going on. it was between her, this Sergeant Dyer who had died.

So when I start learning about all of this, right, I start bucking back on these dudes. When I help Ron, Jenny Nestler turns against me. She gets with them and they lie and say that I threaten staff. But you know what? It just so happened. I was keeping all this evidence, the threats to be cool or this and that. Because I had a feeling something was going to happen. So they lie and said that.

well when they said that they put me in the hole to investigate here comes squad i got all this proof that i didn't say nothing that that i was getting set up and they wanted to take my book they wanted to take my programs and take over all of that pretty soon squad comes back and tells me yeah you know we're going to let you out man because it's bullshit so right on he said just keep doing the next right thing so they've been listening to my calls too so they knew everything that was going on because they listened to all their phone calls all of it so they let me back out but you know what, I don't get back out. Now these guys get wind that I'm getting back out. One of them goes up and says that I hit him in the mouth one day outside of the gym and seven witnesses. So they

write me up again, put me right back in the hole. Now they're going to transfer me. So I get transferred. I get to New Folsom. The lieutenant comes in. He looks at everything. He goes, this is bullshit. He goes, you can look at this and see. He goes, the only reason you're here is because it was easier to transfer one than seven. He goes, so I'm going to dismiss this right up and everything. And he dismissed everything and wrote it up in a way it didn't hinder me getting out.

So I was already put up and waiting on court to resentence me. Well, the judge that recensed me... Can you tell us about that? Why were you up for resentencing? Because they passed the law that if you were a veteran of the United States military

and you're the veteran and they didn't take it into account when you were sentenced, then they had to take you back to court and take it into account. count now. Okay? But here's the thing. That opens a floodgate because now when they do that, they're resentencing in you. That means that every new law that's in play that says a prior right here has to be dismissed, a gun enhancement has to be dismissed comes into play. Wow. So you're watching

people literally go from 30 years down to two. You know what I mean? Ronnie, I think we can all say, you served our country honorably. Yes. Let's go ahead. Let's keep saying that. Wow. So this is really, I mean, And this is like you got two wins right there with the six law and now with this resentencing law. Yep. And I didn't stop. We get to full some trying to put my programs in play there. I wrote the book, The Inside of Psychopedia Self-Help. And it's like 10 books in one.

It starts with denial management and all the stuff I learned along the way. I went to college, kept a 4.0 and I'm taking psychology and everything. So the book is off the hook. It gets you there and it gets you there. And you know that I don't just know how to deal with something from behind the desk. I know from living it I have the experience So the book's great

And what my thing is this is Dudes that are in prison You see about these programs Not everybody gets a shot at them programs They're limited space So if you got a homie And you can home me up and get in there Then you can do the stuff it takes to go home

But if you don't guess what Sorry about your bad luck Do the time So is the Are these programs like Do you have to go get them certified By the prison And saying like

Okay if you come complete this, this can be used in front of the parole board as, uh, you know, it can be used as a factor in, uh, granting you parole by the board. Is that it? My book, my book is designed to be written in. You know, it's on Amazon. I tell people, don't go to Amazon. You can go on my website and you can get the address. You can order it. I, Amazon wants $85 for it. I let it go for 50. And those books, I just send them in. Like if I get a thousand books, I'll bring them to a prison yard to award approval and hand them all out. Now, the beauty of these books is this.

And I tell people, if you got a certificate, I don't know what you did to get it, whether it came out of your wallet, if you forged it in some office somewhere, if you earned it, I don't know if you really changed. Okay. So if I'm looking at, say, my book and you sent the board, I'm the board member, and you sent me that book with a certificate, and I open up anger management. Guess what? I get to read your process. Get to read what it was like when you got mad. I got to, I get to read how, let's just use this as an example, like say your count to 10. I got to read how you use your count to 10 to calm down, to not respond the way you used to.

So now I'm a board member with all these certificates and I get the inside knowledge of what was going on in your head while you were making the change. Wow. And I can look at you. I can really get in your head. And I know exactly how you got these certificates now because I'm looking at the way you earned them. Right. So it really helps people go home. Wow.

And the thing is this, you send them. They say people were saying all the time, well, board already has their mind made up before they get in there. And I'm telling, well, then that means you back up the clock. Get them what they need when they're making the decision. Don't wait till the last minute to try to help them decide. Right. Get this book to them prior to you going to board and let it make the difference then.

You want to make the difference when the difference counts. Yeah. And it's at that point. How far ahead can an inmate send the board, all of this stuff? They get attorneys. So they send them to their attorneys. can get in there. Okay.

So it's easy to get there. And in me, I sent all my stuff to court. Okay? I had thousands of pages of everything, certificates, college and everything. Yeah.

The books that I wrote, the programs, letters from people saying that, you know what, they knew I was ready. And I sent them in, inmates that have changed because of my program

that got out and are successful. And I sent that to the judge. Well, I had a judge that's hard-nosed. He's the hammer. It's what they call him. And he don't believe in none of these new laws.

To hell with that. And I had a DA that was the same because I had a gang charge at every one of my charges. The DA has always bucked me getting out earlier or anything. And the judge was like this. He was like, man, he goes, I look at all this. And I don't like these new laws and I'm not going to sentence you under them. There's only one that I have to follow.

The rest of it, I'm not going to. We're going to fight this all the way. He goes, but if not you, who? You know, he goes, I can't justify this. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this amount off. for one of the new laws that an enhancement or something had to come off. There was no way around it because I'm taking that off.

How much time was that? I can't recall. I know that it brought the, let's see, so I'm at like 44 years. It brings it down to 22 years. So they took off 22 years. 22 years was what came off on it. So, but that was, here's how it worked. He took that time off and then that sentenced me to 22 years.

But he said, and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take that federal time that you didn't get credit for. and I'm going to run it concurrent, which gives you credit for all that time, which means that when everything's combined and you add the good time, you end up with 27 years on a 22-year sentence, have a good day to let me down. So what does that mean? That means that I had a 22-year sentence.

I had credit for 27 years done, and I was getting out. Negative 5. Yeah, the negative 5 ate up the parole, so I had no paper. Oh, my God. That's unbelievable. Folks, that is penitentiary math. That is criminal, that's the criminal justice system. Yeah.

They throw around years of your life like it's a math problem. Yep. Wow. A funny story on the last thing that happened. I'm in there. CDCR fucks up the mathematics on my time and tells me, no, you still owe us six years. I'm going, what? How do you get sent in 22?

You got 27 credit and I owe you six? I said, that's fuzzy math. My wife's freaking out. I tell her, look, I got a couple of Sacramento people's emails, and I notice a pattern in these emails. They do them a certain way. I said, can you get, and it's using their name. I said, can you get me the name of everybody that works in Sacramento, the director of corrections on down? She goes, I'll see. I'm on the tablet. So she gets them all. She sends them to me, and I start crunching the names and putting together these emails. I tell her here, try this one. This one. I randomly pick three and tell me if they go through. And they did. So we blanket bombed. You know, all of Sacramento telling them you're going to get sued.

If I do a day extra, this is what's going on. Of course. So that next day, they were all over it, but they had one interest. Who gave me everybody's email? Yeah. I thought I cracked that little code. Nobody gave them to me. I built them, put them together.

And so they weren't anything that AW for the warden, the associate warden, calls my wife and says, look, it looks funny. I'm looking at it, looks screwed up. He goes, look, I'm going to have him out of here Monday morning. So just come on down. So she's in the parking lot in New Folsom on Monday morning. They don't let me out.

They're still doing fuzzy math. Now I only owe him four years or three years or something. This is the inmate's worst nightmare. Yes. So I go to the cop. I tell him I'm on a hunger strike. Yeah. Bottom line.

I'm not eating. I'm not drinking. He goes, well, I have to come take your food. I said come take it, eat it. I don't care what you do with it. I'm on a hunger strike. Then my wife calls the. warden and tells the warden, yeah, I'm getting ready to contact the news. And he's like,

why is that? She goes, well, my husband's in the prison right now on a hunger strike. And I'm out here with my dog and we're both on hunger strikes. I asked a guy, I asked a hardened lifer about that, or he was life on the installment plan. Like, what if you're, what if you're allowed to get out and they just don't let you out? This happens in dictatorships. You know, the Soviet Union, famously you'd be in the gulag, right? Stalin's gulag. And you do your 10 years at hard labor, and then they'd say, well, now you have another 10. So these kind of nightmares, even in democracies, but he said what you do is you get a hold of the feds and they send the marshals down.

That can happen if it goes that far. I went on the hunger strike. My wife went on the hunger strike in the parking lot. The AW came out and he goes, please don't call the news, right? And it was a lieutenant that deals with communications with society or whatever. Don't call the news. We're looking into this. It's still fucked up.

We know it is. Just hold on. Don't go nowhere. I don't call the news. Give me your word on that and tell your husband to eat something. She goes, all right, man. So how about you eat a dick and let me out,

you fucking faggots? Exactly. And it's going through my mind. One more thing. A lot of guys at that point can be so frustrated, they do something that justifies what the CDCR is doing to them.

That's right. Yeah. Now, who's making those decisions? Who are the people like doing the math trying to keep you in there? Who are those bureaucrats in the Department of Corrections? They have time computation people. and apparently not too bright.

Sure. They're crunching numbers, and I call it fuzzy math. So here's the way it worked. They went from the six years, down to the four years, down to the three years. Then at 530 that night,

they let me out. They said, but you still got parole. So I wrote this appeal up, the 602. When I walked into the Riverside parole office, I handed it to my parole officer. I said, look, I'm appealing this whole thing right here. Yeah.

So he faxes it over to the main people in that area. And then he goes, you still got to report. I'm living in Idaho under the radar. I ain't telling him. I'm just driving back and reporting because that's where I got to live. So I go back to report and he comes out. He goes, I got some good news for you.

I know, what's that? He goes, you're discharged. You don't need to be here. Cool. But man, they fought me on that the whole way. You can't be right. You're an inmate. You're a convict.

How could you do math better than nuts? Yeah. And you have to fight for yourself and you have to keep your cool. Yep. Yeah, you got to not panic. Wow, that's unbelievable, man. And now I'm out paying it forward. My thing is this, right?

I'm not going to lose on this. Right now, me and Chris are both in this nonprofit. Star2023.org. It's got everything on there. Everything that's been put into it has come out of our pocket, mainly mine. A pocket of a guy that's unemployed. My wife bankrolls a lot of it. We're not getting donations.

People aren't donating. It's just whatever's happening. We're kind of blackballed in the prison where they build a wall around getting grants, the ones that are established. And you have to go through that. but I spent my life tearing down walls. I'm not going to quit and give up. Can you explain to us exactly what this nonprofit does for the inmates?

Yeah, I have the book. I gave the encyclopedia self-help book, profits and everything 100% to the nonprofit. I just have to generate sales because it's published, self-published. I don't have anybody to market for me or nothing or to get it out there to do it. And it's really a prison book. So how are you going to market that? So I got to work on donations.

I get the donations. I buy the books. them to the yards, I hand them out to these guys. A lot of guys can't afford them. Wow. They can't afford the program. So I hand them out. Chris, and I also have the universal life skills program. It's in Solidad North right now. It's in Stockton Medical Facility, and I'm getting ready to open it up at the women's prison in Chow Chowice, or Chuck O'Walla, whichever one, I'm going with Ron Self of the veteran-tilling veterans. We're getting ready to open it up. I have the top dog pets for vets. So the guy in Vegas, the diamond, blue diamond or black diamond, diamond, uh, uh, uh, uh,

kennels is getting ready. He's, I got the dog coming from him. And I mean, this is a champion bloodline dog. So some of these, it's, it's the vets that are mobility impaired that we get these to. Yeah. So we'll have them trained in prison. They'll come out to them and they'll have a, they'll have a pure bread champion bred bloodline dog.

That's great. So you have the people, you have the inmates working with these dogs, training them. Yes. That helps their programs. Yes. And then you, you donate them to vets. Yes. And they go to vets.

Well, it's a, it's, uh, it's, uh, an order. The vets are first, mobility impaired, first responders, ambulance, fire department, police, whatever. They're next. General public. And then if none of them get one of these dogs, then the inmate that trained it has an option. Yeah. And the family of that inmate. So, yeah, it goes down that step.

And then there's that. And then there's Chris's does the Orange County of the Dark Side. So we take the Encyclopedia Self-Help, Orange County the Dark Side. Both of those go into the prison to where these guys can, can. read Chris's story they're relating to what's going on that you know what this guy's been there and done that me and him both were in there thinking we were never getting out yeah never say never you know especially not now and i know guys that are locked up watch this show it's like you know if there's a time to clean your act up and really even if you got decades to do i mean look at all

these people we've talked to that we're doing life literally had life without parole or three strikes and they got out yeah they got out early like really early yeah so i want people to change too, not just get out. The old me would have just wanted everybody out through the gates home, but I don't care if you're black, white, Mexican, Chinese, in between, got parked Doberman Pinscher. I don't care. None of that matters to me anymore.

I'm completely blind to all of it. I want to help you get out. I want to help you change. I want to help you get out and be the guy you can be, you know? And look, I can reach into my pocket right now. I've been out six months. Yeah. Okay? And there's ways. I don't want to really put my name on it all,

but there's ways to get credit cards on. I've got to pay these things so I don't have the money to it. I'm limited, but my credit's sitting at a $780 right now, and I can get all of these. They give them to me. I don't use them. I should love having them. It feels good.

You know what I mean? It feels good to know that if I ever had to and I was in trouble, I could get in here. Coming down today, I used a little bit on the credit cards. I'm going to have to do some creative finances to pay for it because I wanted to buy the homeless that I know in California there's a lot of them. There's a lot of people that are on.

charged with. I bought them tents, eight-man tents to give out and other stuff to give out. So I put it on some of these credit cards and whatever happens happens. You know what I mean? If I go down, I'm going to go down doing a good thing. But people may be watching this saying, well, why should I donate to a bunch of convicts and prisoners and I was a victim of a crime? Well, guess what? People go back to prison. It means they created another victim of another crime. so you don't have to do anything for convicts or you don't have to do anything for any of that if you don't want to

but you know what you can do it for the victims the ones that haven't been made victims yet do it for them and then you've got the guys that are out there that are watching this during the game they're doing this or that well you know what do this for you

donate pay it forward because you want my programs in there because when you're trying to get out early it's going to be me that's helping you that's right how many emhs do you think you've helped so far in four years one and a half years it's hard to put a number on it uh how many books have you given out and people that's a better question

i've bought all the books myself so i've given out about 500 but this all come out of me in my wife's pocket wow uh i've had one fifty dollar donation but i haven't been on any shows with any real big forums i've been cutting my teeth on the small stuff yeah and they love it it's good they like you know people like i mean they like the story of nino oh one more thing because this is interesting this is going to probably, I'll probably put this in my next book. The Nino thing. But I didn't get a friend that tells me, hey, Ronnie, we can go to Aruba. And I can get Coke pretty cheap there. And I was just watching a thing on 2020 about Aruba and how Coke is there and how the whole island was floated on cocaine with the

Peruvians and the Colombians. And he's hooked in with the Columbians. So we get there, got our old ladies with us, about a couple hundred thousand dollars, right? We want 50 keys of coke. They're 2,000 apiece. So we're sitting there. in the diva village waiting like we're on vacation. We got all this fucking money right there on the beach. And they're not showing up.

And finally I just call the Colombians. I tell them, here's where my mouth gets me in trouble again. Just like in the feds, I tell them, fuck you, fuck Columbia, fuck your mamacita, fuck all that.

If you don't like it, I'm in this room at the diva village. Let's come get some. Hang up the phone. I look at my friend. I tell him it's probably a mistake. But give the money to this.

the old ladies, give the phone, come take off down the beach. If I don't call, go ahead and take a phone a plane home. I'm not going to call because it's over. So, we're watching Blow on the TV. Dude goes to Mexico. He don't know nobody.

But he finds his dude with weed and he ends up on a mountain of it. Next thing you know, he's with Pablo Escobar. He don't know anybody. He's just shaking hands, asking people, can I get this? You know where I can get that? I cut TV off. I tell my friend, I said, hey, we don't need to deal with the Columbia. 20 minutes just said or 2020 just said the whole island is built on cocaine you see he just went and started shaking hands let's pull a blow you go what do you mean to ask around let's just go ask

all right so uh we had some mac tins in there too he went and bought those you can get anything you want in a rupert right in the back streets so we're walking I got a guy in a Panama hat we're asking people you know we can get 50 keys you know we can get 50 keys we're just asking cats and the guy in the Panama hats following me and I'm thinking man This is probably interpool right here, and we've got our throats. And who cares at this point? I'm so tired of this old thing, I tell my friend, go get me an outfit and get me some dope off the street, some coke.

If I'm going to jail, I'm going high. So he gets all that. Bam, when I go in the bathroom of the bar, here comes old Panama. I'm ready to slam this dope. And I tell him, look, I'll go with you, no problem, but I'm doing this. He tells me, no, no, no. He goes, what do you need? Go ahead.

He kind of wants me to see me do it, right? So I do it. He goes, what do you need? I tell him 50 keys. I can help you. Gives me a card for somebody at a casino. He tells me, go over there, give this to him. So I do.

Dude takes me in the back room, gives me a blackjack dealer, has me and my partner playing blackjack while we're waiting on him. Dude comes back. The casino guys and says, go to this store. So we're in the Jeep, get the money, go to the store, and here, homeboy comes. Well, little Panama hat guy. And he's got all these motorcycles with these long rear-ins.

drag bike type stuff they're all going around them right i'm going yeah look at his crew man they're fucking everywhere they pull us out they take us into this there's a trees that went in a circle and inside the trees two houses they pull us in there and you got dudes right there with a bench and he's got a kea coke up there and kea coke it's stamped it's got a pee with a circle around it you know and he cuts it open bam and tom hold on i get that outfit a little bit of water i slam it it's pure coke We're getting him a 2,000 a key. Okay. That's almost unheard of.

And I tell him, well, look, say I get to 200, 300, 400 keys, man. Can you guys handle that? And he walks me to the second house. It's hollowed out. It's nothing but coke. Wow. Florida ceiling. Boom, boom.

I'm like, how in the hell does this happen? Only on TV, right? Right. But now I'm stuck. It's a thing. So I said, okay, so we'll see you in Vegas. He goes, what do you mean? I said, the Coke, right?

The Colombians were going to get it over there for us. He goes, oh, no. He gets, you get up the 400 keys. We'll get it over there for you. But this is on you. He goes, but I can help you. Calls the head of airport security. So this guy comes down.

He's going to give us these suitcases. All right. So they've got little bottoms you put everything in and hold six keys in there. And we get everything hooked up, 50 keys of Coke on all these fucking suitcases. But we just give them to him. Pay him. And he puts them on it because you go through customs in Aruba. You don't go in it in the U.S.

So you go through U.S. customs in Aruba. Once you're through customs, you get off the plane in Vegas, you just walk down and get your luggage. Wow. So he's airport security. My luggage ain't going through customs. It's going right on the plane. I'm going, why, I just fell into all this.

I pulled a blow, right? And we go back and we turn the 50 keys into 100 keys and sell it for $19,000 a key. Wow. Paying $2,000. $1.9 million. A lot, yeah. It got so crazy it was like blow. Was this during your meth run?

Yeah, I was during everything. Well, Ronnie, this was a great story to tell in the middle of the episode. not at the end. We're trying to plug donations for prison reform. But we will talk about that on the Patreon. We're going to get more into the grimy stuff. We're going to switch over to Patreon. But for anybody like that just to sum up what you guys are doing for inmates,

you've created these self-help encyclopedias in which the inmates fill out. These are large books. These are like training courses, basically. That they have to do the homework on, fill out. and it's helping inmates who then present that to the parole boards for early release. Yeah, it's not just helping them for early release. It's helping them become better people.

I have the only gun. I went to gun when I went to college, right? So I'm taking the psychological courses. I'm taking psychology. I'm doing everything in college. Doing pretty good at 4.0. And I'm doing that. And I'm looking at this gun rehabilitation thing because guns become an addiction.

You become addicted. There's a power you have when you have a gun in your hand. You can take a guy that's four foot three and. is tall, give him a gun and send him in a room, he's God. He walks in there, he's controlling everything. He's the guy, he's not small. Not no more, he's got a gun. And you get addicted to what the gun does for you.

So I went at guns in this course as if it was an addiction. I want to deal with why you get a gun, how you justify having to have one, but why are you really getting one? What's causing you to want to feel like, how can you accomplish being that 10 foot tall guy without the gun? That's what we want to figure out. figure out how we make you 10 foot tall without having to have a gun. Because there's a way to do that.

It's great. Of course. And so it's got the only gun course in it. So the donations come in. They buy these books. We deliver them. And then the books sell the profits that come on the books go right back to the program. Right.

Because there's dogs. There's, I go in like when I leave here, I'll be going into Solidad, CTF prison to go in and see on one of my groups that just started up there. And I'll sit in on it and we'll do some things there. Right. And so I'll go in back in. I'm waiting trying to get a brown car, which will allow me to go to all the prisons.

Okay. But this all takes money, and I can't keep pulling it out of my pocket. So if you could donate $50, just $50 to your program, this gets you a couple of books that are getting to inmates and covers your overhead. Yes. And I'm certainly going to make a donation. I believe in it, and I'm trying to pay it forward. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And I want to make people different people. And I, you know what the best way to rehabilitate is? the best part of everything is helping somebody else. And this is what I discovered. When I helped somebody become somebody different, somebody better, and I see their daughter treat them better, I see the way their family reacts to it,

that's the best I all ever have. I don't use drugs. I was just at a house where people were using drugs. I stepped out on the porch. I didn't want to be a part of it. And they all understood. They said, yeah, well, you're getting a look at what you don't want to do anymore.

That's right. Yeah, and you're getting a look at what you can do. Right. You know, so, I mean, You pay a forward is the universal law. If you want to gain, you must give. Yes. It's all in equation to what you give.

And that's why I'm encouraging people, if you don't know how to give, that donating to this good cause is one of those things. And it all starts with your mind. It does. Mindset. And here's the thing, too, is that no donation is too small. If you're a $5 donation guy or you know what, you get enough $5 donation guys, I can help quite a few people.

So it's not too small. No donations too small. No donations too large. You do what you could do. You do what you're comfortable with. And it's star 2023.org. Star 2023. Star 2023.org.

Yeah. And it's got addresses if you just want to mail. You can mail a cash donation. It doesn't matter. If you do a big donation, it's 100% tax deductible. I put the EIA number on your receipt and everything. If you want a receipt, you could ask me for it and call and ask for it. And it's 100% of your, it's 100% tax deductible of 60% of your AGI, just a gross income.

And that carries over for, I think, three years. So you can break it up. And you can get all that money back. So you're choosing who your tax dollars go to at that point, not Uncle Sam. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Donate. Don't pay taxes.

Donate to, you know, your cause. Star 2023. Link will be in the description. Ronnie Horell, what an amazing journey. And congratulations, my friend, on, sobriety, on freedom, on your new life. Thank you, sir. Truly, it is touching.

So we're going to talk more over on Patreon. Patreon.com slash the Connect show. Ronnie Hirel, once again, thank you for a one-of-a-kind life story that you've just shared with us. I appreciate you, man. It's not over yet. No. Damn right. It ain't.

Take care. All right.