Maximum Security PRISON Sentence For Stealing Weapons From A Marine | DJ Pannell
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Welcome back to Locked In with Ian Bick. On today's episode, we have DJ Pinnell coming from New Fairfield, Connecticut, right next to my hometown of Danbury, to tell his crazy story about how he was a teenager, and one night, him and his friends decided to rob a Marine to get his guns from them and sell them to other teenagers. In this crazy story, we hear about the night that he got arrested and charged, how he gets sentenced to life in prison,

to a youthful offenders prison in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and how he was in and out of prison throughout his 20s. By the end of his story, we figure out how and if he was able to turn his life around and get on the right track.

Thank you guys for tuning in to Locked In with Ian Bick. Thank you guys for week after week showing us continuous support. And if you could just do us one quick favor, hop on to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review. It does help us tremendously. And if you guys are listening and watching this on YouTube, give us a like, leave us a review, drop a comment, share to your friends. It helps us. All

All right, guys, that's all I got for you. Sit back, relax, and enjoy my interview with DJ Pinnell. DJ, welcome to the show today, man. It's great to have you. You're from like my hometown area, Danbury, Connecticut. We were just talking about how you started watching the podcast, listening to it on YouTube, and it inspired you to reach out to us to come on the show yourself and tell your story. Yep. Why the interest in like hearing other people's stories just out of curiosity? Yeah.

I've just I've been through the same thing and I like to hear what other people have gone through Compared to what I've been through. It's a oh man. I'm thinking about it right now makes me it makes me it makes me it makes me crazy because I used to be like a normal kid and I started getting in trouble when I was really young and

Can we take a break for a second? No, you're good, man. We'll ease right into it. It'll be good. Let's start at your childhood. You don't have to tell the whole story in one second segment. Let's just start in the beginning, where you're from and what your childhood's like, the early days, early life of DJ Pennell. I grew up in New Fairfield, Connecticut. I went to New Fairfield High School. I started doing drugs, and that's really what

Really what got me going down the wrong path. What's New Fairfield High School like? Because I went to Danbury High School. Is it similar? Is it smaller? I mean, Danbury High School is a huge school. And I think New Fairfield is one of our rivals, right? In sports. Yeah, I actually didn't get to play you guys. I played football in freshman year. Oh, you're a football player. Well, I tried.

I broke my wrist in the middle of the season, and that was kind of the end of that. Were you on the freshman team or varsity? Freshman and JV. So you were pretty good then that freshman year. Well, junior varsity coach saw me playing a couple games, freshman games, and he was like, yeah, we could probably use him. I got the nickname The Kid. You were called The Kid? The Kid, yeah. Whenever we were down and it was just like we needed something, the coach would say, throw The Kid in there.

And every now and then I would make a big play. - What position did you play? - Outside linebacker. - You know, I think I only went to like two high school football games. I was never really into that, into the sports. I was a theater nerd. I did the musicals every year. But I was a part of like, you know how we all have like the spirit teams or whatever that root for our home team. We were the Hatter Shooters, I think we were called.

And I just would do the tailgates, like all the burgers and the hot dogs and everything. And that's why I went to the game, but I was never really into sports. Yeah. You were the guy who set everything up, right? Yeah. I was party coordinator. Yeah. That was like how I got into the house parties and the club stuff down the road. Didn't you, weren't you guys called like the rowdy rebels or something? I forgot the name of it. Yeah. The rebels. The rebels. Okay. And was it a good football team? We were not so great. No, we were not so great. There have been good rebel teams, but,

My team was not so great. I think we won about half our games. Gotcha. And did you grow up with siblings? What was the family life? I grew up with two brothers. One of them passed. Oh, I'm sorry, man. The other is a couple years younger than me. And what about your parents? What did they do for work? My father and my family, we were talking about before, have a local electrical contracting business, supply warehouse. And my mother was a veterinary technician growing up.

So a lot of animals. Really? Did you guys have like a family pet? Oh, we had many, many pets. Dogs, cats? Lots of dogs, dogs, cats, everything. So how would you say like the childhood was in the younger years? Was it like you guys grew up middle class? Yeah, middle class. I had a great family growing up. I have no complaints. My parents worked very hard, you know, to provide for me and my brother, brothers. And that's what's crazy about like, you know, me getting into trouble. It's like I had no excuse.

What were like your aspirations? What did you want to be as a kid? I wanted to be like a rock star. A rock star. I haven't heard that one yet. When I was young. Yeah, I wanted to be a rock star. I always thought that would be cool. Who did you like idolize that wanted to make you be a rock star? Who did I idolize? When I was young, when I was really young, I liked seeing like the big, big hair metal bands, you know, like the Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses,

Guys running around on stage going crazy. Yeah. Stuff like that. Yeah. Playing like guitar hero, rock band, all that. I tried. Didn't really work out. I can't really play. Even fake instruments don't work out for me. Did you have hobbies during that age too? Big, big music fan, big sports fan. I'm a big, big Patriots fan. Big Patriots fan. How do you feel about Tom Brady leaving? That hurt. It hurt me right here.

But you got to get over it. You know, it's part of the game. You get traded. You just got to move on. Absolutely. So high school, that's when you said the drug use starts for the first time? Yeah, I started getting in trouble, you know, hanging out with the wrong kids. What kind of kids were you hanging out with? You know, the kids that were doing drugs, skipping school. You know, it's the things like that that are like the signs that you got to look for now because that's what started for me.

I started not going to class, skipping to smoke in the bathroom, leaving school completely. We were doing crazy stuff pretty young. Why do you want to hang out with those kids? What propelled you to be attracted to them? Because you came from a good family, so you knew that those weren't the kids to associate with. Yeah. It wasn't even so much hanging out with those kids. It was like I was that kid a lot of the time.

I was the bad influence, I would say, most of the time. You know, I was the kid that was like the one who was always getting in trouble. So... How would your friends describe you if they were here today at that time period? At that time? Yeah. Probably an asshole, you know, probably an asshole. Just because of the drug use or just because of everything? No, just because of my behavior in general, you know. I was not a nice person, you know,

I was always a troublemaker. You know, I would always just be rowdy and uncontrollable. You know, I would like to think I'm a much calmer person today. I've changed a lot. And, you know, compared to high school, especially high school, high school was like a really rough time as far as my behavior. Yeah. You know, I was just...

I was not willing to do the things that you're supposed to do at that age. I wasn't interested in education. You know, I love learning now. I love learning now. It's one of my favorite things to do. But back then I was not interested in sitting down and learning for six hours out of the day. I was not. Did your parents ever, you know, pull you to the side and try to talk to you, get you on the straight and narrow? Oh, absolutely. My parents tried thousands of times, put me in counseling, therapy. They tried, you know, I'm

Summer groups. My parents tried everything. Everything you could do at that time. And nothing worked? No, I was incorrigible. I was intentionally not doing the things they wanted me to do, it seemed like. Who were you closer to, your mother or your father during that time? My father, for sure. My father, yeah. Would you go to work with him and help him out? Oh, yeah. We would go fishing. Fishing was a big thing in my family. Camping.

you know normal stuff just normal normal family stuff so it must have been hard for them to see you start using drugs oh absolutely coming from that family oh yeah there was no no troublemakers in my family everybody you know a lot of college a lot of education a lot of successful people hard workers you know blue collar white collar

Was the idea of college like a lot of pressure for you at that time period? No, it wasn't even a thought. It wasn't even a thought. Not for me. Yeah. It wasn't even a thought. So you're just going with the flow. I was just going with the flow. I had no, I had no, I had no direction. I had no, no aim. Do you think there was a lot of pressure put on you to be someone? No. Not at all? No. Do you think things would have changed if there was pressure?

Probably not. Would it turn out the same way? I was all doing what I wanted to do. I wanted to hang out with the girls and get fucked up and do what I wanted to do, you know, all the time. So what's the first drug you try at that time period? I started smoking pot. Yeah, weed was the big thing. I was probably 12, 13 when I started smoking. What year is this?

1998, 1999. Born in '86. So probably about then. '88. Or '98, '99. So you start smoking weed. How does that escalate further? We would just always try and do it. You know, we were always trying to scheme to get some bud, you know, even at a young age. We were always scheming. It escalated in high school. You know, we started, you know, partying, you know, harder. More stuff becomes available.

Cars come into the mix. So now you're traveling now you're going to parties that are farther away. You're meeting different people so, you know, it turns into turns into you know beer and alcohol that you're stealing from your friends parents like your cabinet and then it's uh, you know, you got friends that are older that you can actually just have them go to the liquor store and then it turns into pills and

you know, it escalates. It escalates quickly in high school. - Isn't it crazy that all kids like do the same thing? I'm almost 10 years younger than you and we were doing the same stuff, stealing from the parents. And no one teaches you that. It just, it like comes with being that age. - Yeah, you go back to the 50s and kids were stealing out of their parents' liquor cabinets. - It's so wild. - Yeah, that's just a natural progression. - So you start doing pills. Like what kind of pills do you start doing? - I mean, back then in high school, Oxycontin was the big thing.

I know you're a little younger, but that was kind of like the beginning of the opiate epidemic for this area, I would say. And how did it make you feel when you took those? Was it like an escape or was it like, how does it start to develop? It made me feel great. I was one of the people that were, you know, instantly kind of hooked into it. A lot of people took them and didn't like them. I was hooked. I loved them immediately.

Why do you think that was? It was just a bad case of my body loving opiates. You know, it was some people, like I said, some people really don't take to them. And unfortunately, I did. And you're mixing that with alcohol, too, and other drugs? All the time. Is that safe to do? No, absolutely not. I do not recommend to ever mix alcohol.

uh, opiates with anything. Did you have any like near death experiences or overdoses or anything at that age? I'm very lucky. I have really, I've never overdosed. Okay. Did you have friends that were overdosing? Uh, yeah, I've had many friends overdose and passed away. At that, during high school? At that age, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Uh, the first person that passed away, uh, was in, in high school. And that wasn't like a wake up call or anything to say, I need to stop doing it?

Honestly, no, it didn't occur to me, you know, if I'm being honest with you. Yeah. No, it's all right to be honest. Yeah, yeah, no, it didn't. It didn't make me think it was going to happen to me at all. It was still, even though it was so close, it still felt far away. It wasn't like, I have to worry about that.

Which is crazy, you know, to think of now. So you think if you were older and that happened, that maybe would have been more of a wake-up call? Yeah, with the wisdom I have as a 37-year-old compared to a 14-year-old kid. No one has that, yeah. Yeah, no, it's...

It's almost like I didn't even care back then. You know, not that the friend was gone, but about the risk that came with it. Do you ever sell drugs in high school or are you just a user? I was mostly just a user. You know, I would sell things to, you know, help along between two friends. You know, like if one person needed something and I knew the person that had it, I would...

you know, middleman. - The connector. - The middleman, yeah, yeah. The middleman for some. - So when's like the first time then you start like committing like a crime? Is it in high school or is it when you get out of high school? - Committing a crime?

Like not the drug use, that's in itself, but maybe like, I don't know, going a little bit farther out with your friend group. I mean, I had a friend when I was young. Obviously, I'm not going to use anybody's names, but we were breaking into houses when we were like 12, 13 years old. Really? As a teenager? Oh, preteen. You know, you're 12, you're not even a teenager. But there was one house we broke into and, you know, they were on vacation. We knew they were gone and like we started the car in the garage and

Left it running, couldn't figure out how to turn it off. We just kind of freaked out and left it running. It was like exploring at that age. There was no nefarious intent behind it. We weren't in there to take anything. It was just like you're not supposed to be there.

Going into houses that were under construction. That was like a big thing I used to do when I was a kid. I used to love going to construction, you know, construction sites and exploring. You're not supposed to be there. You know, after hours, construction workers are gone and you're swinging off, you know, swinging off of stuff and, you know, just causing trouble as a youngster. And this is all because of the friend group that you were around? Yeah. Well, that's when I was really young, you know, doing that kind of stuff. But

uh things escalated in high school in high school um you know i got kicked out of high school you got kicked out yeah what year uh it would have been my second freshman year second you got held back held back yeah i never went so i didn't have anywhere near enough credits to to make it to the next you know to make it to sophomore

So second freshman year, I got in trouble and they kicked me out. That was it. They had it. They had enough. What did you do that drew the line for them? I got into an argument with a teacher and he sent me to the principal's office who they were, you know, very familiar with me. And I was just sitting there and the school resource officer made a comment to me, you know, just like a dumb comment, you know, like it wasn't even being funny.

Nefarious or whatever. He was just being stupid like oh, you know, what are you doing here? And I kind of told him to piss off and he made like another funny comment like oh don't make me use my gun And then I said the uh, I was so stupid. I said something along the lines of I would get to it before you would

And that's a no. You don't want to say that to a school resource officer. So it escalated and it turned into a shoving match. And again, you're not supposed to shove a school police officer. He got up and touched you first? No, no, no. It was definitely all my fault. No, absolutely.

Absolutely me. It seems like he instigated it, though, a little bit. No, it was me. It was definitely me. Yeah, it was definitely me. Yeah, but telling a 14-year-old kid you don't want me to use my gun? I don't know. Yeah, the way I'm saying it's not, you know, the full story. I was definitely, you know, the agitator in the situation. So you shoved him? Did he get, like, arrested? No, I didn't get arrested, thankfully. They expelled you just for that? Yeah, he was definitely kicked out. That seems a little harsh, no? It was a long line of suspensions and a...

What did your parents say to you when you get expelled? They knew it was coming. I mean, all of these things were, you know, the signs were all there. I was getting in trouble constantly. Police were always showing up at the house, even at a young age. So what happens next? You get expelled. What do you end up doing? What do you get into? Now I just have free time all the time. And, you know,

you know it's that's not a good thing when you're uh every kid's dream though yeah you would think that but my father you know first my father tried making me work you know if you're gonna sit around all day you're gonna you know you're gonna work bringing me to his job you know that only lasted so long because i'm interfering at that point with you know what he's trying to do at work while he's just trying to find for me to do so uh so then it just ends up being me

out on the streets, you know, running around with just freedom, hanging out with older people, doing things we're not supposed to do. The really big, like, event that kind of, like, snowballed everything as far as, you know, like, the criminal justice system and all that was we had a friend who knew somebody who had a bunch of firearms in the house.

and one of them being a fully automatic firearm. And we were so interested in these firearms. We wanted them bad. And I had somebody set up who was going to purchase them. So we went in to get them one night when these people were gone. And the owner of the firearms was a Marine, which is, you know, I'm looking back on it now, and even then it was crazy. You know, what if he was home and we're...

breaking into his house to try and take his guns from him. A couple of kids in your house, you know what I mean? Like, it's crazy. But, you know, we did that and we got caught and, you know, we all went down. And that kind of started the whole process because now you're in the system, you know, like now you're really in the system. You're not just getting caught for pot by a local cop. You know, now you're going to county. Now you're getting an inmate number, you know, which you're familiar with. You're

And, you know, now you're in it. How old were you when you guys decided to do this robbery? I was 16 or 17, and I was with other people that were...

15, 16, and 17. There was like five of us. And what was the intention? Did you guys want to use it to harm someone or are you guys doing it just- No, the intention was to sell. I had somebody that we were going to sell them to. Oh, you were going to sell these guns. Yeah. I already had somebody set up. Wow. I already had a buyer. It was going to be a lot of money? Yeah. I was going to be a significant-

For us at the time, significant. So how does a group of like 16-year-olds break into a Marine's house? Like wouldn't you have it locked up, the guns and like anything? He's a Marine. Yeah, you would think so. And it was out in the open? No, I mean, they were, you know, in closets and normal locations you would keep your guns. They weren't in gun safes or anything. They were all basically, you know, easy to access places.

But we just, you know, kicked the doors in. You kicked the doors in. A group of you guys just kicked it in. Yeah. We knew that they were gone for the evening. And we just, we went in and took everything. Took everything that was worth something of value.

And how do you guys get caught then if he's not home? Oh boy, this is the really funny part. You know, now, now it's funny. It's not, it's not funny. It's never funny in the moment. It's not funny as they're, as they're rating you and they're, you know, kicking your door in. But, um, the, the house was actually a neighbor's house. So one of the people that we were doing it with, there was five of us. It was a neighbor. It's one of those people. And what happened was, pardon me.

What happened was there was a little trail in between the two houses, right? So that's the little trail we use to kind of slink over there. One of the people dropped an item that was taken on the trail. So that led the police to the neighbor's house. And that kid folded immediately. As soon as there were police there saying, you know, we think you have something to do with this gentleman's house being robbed. He just, like a ton of bricks, went down, pointed us all out.

and just told them from beginning to end what went down. They had the whole story front and back within 15 minutes of them being at the house. Wow. Yeah, it did not work out very well. So how long was this after the robbery? Was this like next day?

That they went to his house? Yeah, that they went to his house. This was when they came home that evening. Oh, and then he reported the guns are gone. Yeah, they were out at dinner. Okay. And then he came home at whatever time, 10, 11 o'clock, noticed his house was in complete disarray, reported it.

Your friend's not the smartest to rob his own neighbor. No. He's got to be looked at as the first suspect. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I didn't know their relationship, so I didn't know if he would have looked at him. But the fact that... And he's also the one that dropped it, the item. It was a Discman. Okay. Yeah.

If you even remember what those are. What, the floppy disks? No, with a CD, a CD player. Okay. A personal CD player. Yeah, yeah. I used to have one. Yeah. I love that thing. I'd listen to the Maroon 5 CDs on it. And he dropped it right in the middle. So it was like, you know, obviously we got to go talk to this kid. Yeah. And he didn't have any of the firearms. Actually, he had one. He had a, there was a little revolver.

And then they got that very quickly. And me and another person had the other two. We had them wrapped up in plastic, buried in the woods. Did they get the guns? Like you guys told, he said the locations, everything. Well, he told them that we had the other two. So me and my other friend, I'll call him MS, were at his house. I was living with him at the time. And we were playing, I want to say like Madden 2003 on PlayStation 2, I'm guessing.

and we're sitting there and i have a blunt hanging out of my mouth and all of a sudden i see a police officer at the window who's like right here the window's right here three four feet away and i just see him peering in and i'm just like they're just hanging out of my mouth like a like a mechanic in a in an old horror movie and um then i just hear i hear banging on the front door and that's just like that's it you know and they just they come in they come in hard and slam us on the ground

you know i got the gun to the back of my head and they're screaming at us telling us you know we're going to jail where are the guns blah blah blah like i said we had them wrapped up and we had them buried in the woods across from the house one of them wasn't even assembled yet it was still you know in pieces the bolt was still unassembled and everything we hadn't even had a chance to to even like mess with them yet we didn't get to play play with anything yet yeah and uh

My friend at the time, MS, said he was going to kill himself. I guess he thought that was going to help him get away. You know, maybe they'll take me to the hospital and I won't have to go to jail. And, you know, that was it. I'm sure the cops are taking this extremely seriously. Oh, yeah. It's a couple kids with armed guns. You guys could have been like shooting up a school or anything. Yeah, they had no idea. Yeah, they had no idea. They had no idea what we were trying to do with these things. They raided us like...

Like you would see on any YouTube video. Did this make it into the papers at all? Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. During that time? Oh, yeah. Your family was probably devastated by this. They were pissed. What's your first conversation with them? My first conversation is from the county jail. And what did they say? Like, what the fuck, DJ? Yeah, they're pissed. They're pissed. I had a, at the time, I think it was a quarter million dollar bond. And they put the house up to get me out.

And they let me sit for a few days, purposely. My father was like, "You know, we're gonna teach him a lesson." They got me out and my father told me, "You don't have to worry about the bondsman. You don't have to worry about the police. You don't have to worry about court. If you don't show up for court,

I'll fucking kill you you know because he's putting the house up to get me out yeah I'm curious what your I know you said that you know you you want to make the sale for money but you didn't really need money could you couldn't you have went to your parents like what's your motivation to do this it was still money yeah you know we would have got you know about 10 grand for him so but

But couldn't you have just went to your parents or worked or done something? Oh, if I asked my parents for that kind of money, they would have. They wouldn't have done it? Oh, absolutely not. No. So you understood the concept of money at that age, like wanting to. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I had jobs. You know, we worked.

And still, this was the quick way. But it's not like you were a kid that was starving. You didn't rob. No. Yeah, you did this just because you wanted more money. And the rush. And it was fun to do, and it was bad, and it was, you know. Now, are you and all the guys you did this with at county together, or did they split you up? Not in county. We were split up. But when I was finally sentenced, one of my co-defendants who –

told on me and everybody. They actually put him in the same block as me. They put the snitch in the same block. Yeah, at Manson, at MYI. They put him in. We were in G. We were in GA. I was in one, and he was in six. And he came walking down the unit, and I started screaming out into the unit, you know, excited to tell everybody what this dude had done.

you know, did to me, how he threw me under the bus. And what'd they do to him when he started screaming? They didn't do anything to him that day, but they did a lot of mean stuff to him. They would walk by him while he was on the phone and click his calls off. This is MS, if anyone knows MS. People that know me, they all know who I'm talking about. They would fuck his haircuts up, you know, intentionally. You know, whoops, zzzz.

That actually happens in prison? I mean, no one ever like did anything to hurt him or anything. It was never anything serious like that. Because it's a child jail, right? Yeah, but, you know, that's actually where I saw a lot of the more serious things was at the youth facility, MYI in Connecticut. You know, people say that, but...

myi was where a lot of the you know the crazy shit happens well and yeah we'll get into that um the county jail where is that in connecticut like you got arrested yeah they brought you from new fairfield to bridgeport yeah so i went from um the new fairfield police department to bridgeport county who picks you up like state troopers or who transports you oh that time i've been arrested so many times i get uh

I get them confused. That time it would be, you know, the local cops will book you in and then, yeah, the local cop will bring you to county. And then they'll drop you off. When you're at the local police department, because I remember when I got arrested at Danbury Police, you don't get stripped out or anything, right? No, not like at county. Yeah, I mean, it was just pat down.

Pat your shit down, get you into like boxers, flip your stuff out. Not like counting. They take mug shots, I guess. Yeah, you get your picture, you do your prints on the, now it's an electrical machine. I used to still have to do it on the ink blots when I was younger. When I was there, it was ink blots too back then. Really? Yeah, in 2016, even the feds, it was ink.

It was ink on the pad. It wasn't electronic. I'm very lucky. I've never actually gotten in any trouble with the feds. Um, I was almost in trouble for that, but the feds didn't take the case. Yeah. This could have been a federal case. Absolutely. Yeah. But I was lucky. It was all state. It was state the whole way. Okay. So you go to County, you get bailed out. Are you getting into more trouble after you get bailed out? Um, this time I think I was actually kind of behaving on bond, uh, for this case. Um,

I didn't get in any more trouble on bond for this one. But you got sentenced to jail time. Yeah, I got sentenced to, my first offer was like 17 years. Just for the- It came back, yeah. It was the first, you know, the first offer is always, you know, it's always way up there. They always know you're not going to take it. Yeah. It's always just to get a conversation started. And I guess that's always kind of like the, to kind of-

to know what level you're playing at. The first number is always kind of, that's the impression I've always got. You know, it's kind of how serious do they want to take it? - Yeah, absolutely. - It's always like, yeah, I always kind of figure you're going to get around maybe 30% of what their first offer is. Maybe, ish. They offered me 17 years, my first offer, and we absolutely told them to, you know, sit on it.

I'm not taking 17 years. That's crazy. And you have a paid lawyer or public defender? At this point I did. I had a paid lawyer. Shout out Jeff Jowdy. You had Jeff Jowdy. He was my lawyer too. So, you know, Jeff Jowdy was the man. Wow. That's so crazy that we had the same. He just did my state cases. Jeff Jowdy was the man.

Jeff Joudy walked into the courtroom and told them what was going down on numerous occasions. Yeah, he's good. I mean, I remember when I first met him, he's like, all right, these are your cases. You could combine these two. Here's the money. That's it. And then he took care of everything. Yeah, Joudy hooked me up, man. He was great. And I was an uncooperative kid. I wouldn't even talk to my lawyer.

Like I was under the impression that, you know, you don't tell, you don't talk to anybody. So he was pretty, he was a fairly new lawyer at that time. I guess. I mean, I don't know when he started practicing, but. Cause he's not that old. This was, I'm going to say like 2003. So it stretched out a few years. Yeah. This case went on for like two and a half years, maybe. Yeah. So what do you end up getting? What's the final deal? My final deal I took.

four years to serve with five years probation and seven suspended. Wow. So I had to go in and do four. And when he came down and told me, this is the one, you got to take this. Because there was like five or six other offers in between that. And I was like, is this the one? Is this...

this is the one i gotta lay it down you know it's the one i'm taking and he was like yeah i think this is it is there any thought of trial at all no no absolutely not they would have smoked me and given me 30 years and i'd still be there what were the actual charges by the way oh i had the three counts of possession of the firearms one of them being automatic

He got all three of those charges dropped. This is how Jowdy was the man. Because there was an error in some type of the fingerprinting process. So at that point, they had no evidence to directly connect us to the firearms. Me specifically. I don't know about the other guys. So I didn't have to actually take those charges and keep them on my record, which was a blessing. Burglary, second. Larceny, second.

And then all the other stuff they tack on, criminal trespassing. So these are all felonies. Criminal mischief. Most of them are, yeah. Most of them are felonies. So you take this plea deal and then when you get sentenced to it, do they take you right away, right then and there? Yep. They just handcuff you. It's right then and there, yeah. That's a big difference between state and federal because federal...

you get to self-surrender. You have a sentencing day, yeah. Yeah, you have a sentencing day, this and that, then you self-surrender. Yeah. So this, they hauled you right away. Yeah, I mean, the guards are standing behind you, the whole proceeding. Is your family there like crying? My, who was there? You know what, I don't even think, I've had so many sentencing dates that I get them all confused. Yeah, I think my mother was there, my father was at work. I wouldn't expect him to be there for something like that. You know, he's got to go to work.

Comes to your son. He didn't come to that? He would have if I wanted him to, but it's not something I really want you to be there for anyway. Yeah, but you're like, what are you, 19 at this point, 20? Yeah, about that, 18, 19. How did it make you feel that all your friends are probably in college and there you are going to jail? Because I felt that same way. Yeah, that didn't really start to bother me until I was sitting in jail, prison, you know, once I'm sentenced and I'm concurrently living there

Life while they're concurrently living a better life at the same time, you know it for us And I know you understand this it feels like time kind of freezes. I

because nothing changes for you really, you know, but everything continues to, you know, change outside. Yeah. So you come home, you know, 90 days later and things are very different. Yeah. So did you have girlfriends or anything during that time period? When I went in for that one, I had a girlfriend, but I kept telling her, listen, I'm going away. Excuse me. So, you know, best not get too attached.

And she just didn't believe me because she kept seeing me go to these court dates where I kept telling her, listen, today might be the day. Today might be the day. And it didn't happen for, you know. Years. Yeah, basically, while I was talking to her, maybe eight to 10 months later.

So she was just like, man, listen, you're not going. And then one day it did happen. And it was like, you know, okay. That's the craziest thing about the state systems is like, you know, someone gets arrested, it goes on for years and there's so much misinformation. Yeah. But there's so much misinformation that goes out there too. Like,

the news will publish like how much time they're facing. It's not actually that because they just stack up all the years. Yeah, and they always, you know, people don't understand the difference between consecutive and concurrent. Yeah, and the news isn't even explaining that either to people. They're just saying so-and-so got arrested on these charges facing...

100 years in prison. That's what they did to me. And then they'll end up getting two years. Yeah. I'll run into people that still think, aren't you still in prison? Yeah. And once you got another 38 years to go. Yeah. And I'm like, because it said I was facing 120 years or whatever. And there's no clarification. There's no follow-up. Yeah. Especially federal. I mean, the federal numbers are just... Oh, it's out of control. The whole thing needs to be just like redone. I agree. I agree that there are some people that are incarcerated for things that

It still gets me aggravated to see the numbers that people get for some crimes.

And then I compare it to what I had to do. You know, you see people that get arrested for things with kids that get, you know, minimal, minimal time, two years or something. I'm seeing a lot of the local cases in Connecticut, like Bethel, Danbury, New Fairfield. Some of these guys, three to five years. Yeah, it's insane. That's what I got. These kids are at sex with a minor. You didn't hurt anybody. Nobody got hurt. I don't understand. Like there's so many cases coming out of Bethel lately, Bethel, Connecticut. Yeah.

I've been reading in the news because I'm always reading the news times. Worst newspaper ever, by the way. But they refused to do like a follow-up article on me just to like say the good we're doing this and that. That's the media for you. I read something the other day, like a guy from Bethel or whatever, you know, three to five years. It's fucking crazy for a sexual assault with a minor and stuff. I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. I don't understand how they...

how they justify, you know, the sentencing for a lot of crimes. Yeah. If there's no violence or clear-cut victim, I mean, I don't even think jail or prison should be an option for a lot of things. You know, if you're a money guy, if you get in trouble for some type of money thing, you know, unless it's a lot of money, I don't think you should be taking up a bed.

you know i think it depends on the situation yeah definitely restitution some type of plan i don't know but you there's just a lot of things that there's literally hundreds of thousands of people that are sitting in county jails and state facilities and federal lockups and you know you name it yeah it just shouldn't be there it should be home working you know contributing to you know the taxes that are instead of costing money instead of costing 50 000 a year

I think that's how much it costs for an inmate in the state of Connecticut. It's about 50 grand a year just to sit your ass on that bunk and take up space. So instead of costing money, if you're there for shoplifting or whatever stupid things that you didn't really hurt anybody, you'd be out working. You're contributing to...

taxpayer money instead of sucking it up yeah before i got sentenced i was working at whole foods and got i was giving my whole paycheck to restitution yeah and you know we thought that would look good with the court this and that and i still got three years yeah i don't care so you stop it's not about the money they don't care like the feds will tell the victims

investors, whatever you want to call them and say, hey, you know, we're going to recover your money. But once trial's over, they got a conviction. They don't give a fuck about anyone. Yeah, that's it. You're just another case file. Exactly. There's no follow up. There's no updates over time. You know, that's just the truth about the system. So they bring you to prison for this four year sentence. Where do you go? Is it an adult facility?

The first place I went was Bridgeport County, and I went to the YO block, Youthful Offender block, which is just, it's set up the same as the adults. It's just kids that are under the age of, it changes all the time. I think at this point it was either, I think it was 21. So if you're 21 or under, you could be in this block. And it was scary. It was all plexiglass and black.

I was in a cell by myself and that was my first time being locked up other than just being in like the town lock up. You know, you're just sitting in the cell downstairs. It's no big deal, you know? Yeah. And I don't care what anybody says, man. That shit is scary. I don't know anybody in there. I don't know how anything works.

There's no orientation. What are you wearing? Are you in like a jumpsuit? No. At this point, it was... They were just like scrubs. They were just tan...

tan scrubs with like the elastic waistband, the little pocket right here. You had an ID that you would clip to like the V right here. You always had to have your ID shown. So the classic prison look that one could expect. The classic prison look, yeah. The classic prison look. And what are some of the other charges of the guys, the youths that were around you? There was a lot of drugs. I was only in that unit for a couple of months. Not even a couple of months. I was only in that unit for a couple of weeks.

uh because i was sentenced and then i went up to um went up to myi and i started my my real time that's a real prison with adults my manson uh my manson youth institute so you're a young white kid that goes into prison what are they saying to you how are they treating you do they think you're someone that's not there for what you're actually there for no i never really had any issues like

Nobody ever checked my paperwork. Nobody ever came up to me and was like, you know, other than just casually asking, what are you in for? Nobody was ever like, you know, I need to see what you're here for. I never saw anybody walk in and attack the first biggest, toughest guy. That's like the biggest misconception I always hear. I've never seen anybody do that. I've never seen anybody just walk into the room and, you know, scout someone out and, you know, set it off on them.

So now when you say that and you hear people because you watch the content and you hear people that say that, do you think they're not telling the truth or do you think you've just never seen it? I've personally never seen it. I mean, that's just always the thing that you always hear.

I mean, we get a ton of comments from people that have been to prison that watch the clips and they're like, no way I've been to prison before. This doesn't happen. I've never seen it personally, but I can only give my personal experience. And I've seen people walk in and get into altercations pretty quickly, but I've never seen anyone walk in with the intent of just knocking the block off of the tallest dude in the unit. So no one fucked with you, which was... No, I mean, nobody ever really tried to intimidate me to...

Just intimidate me anytime I was ever involved in any type of altercation it was

because it would have been an altercation regardless. Do you think it was the way you presented yourself though? Because like I feel like me and you are the same age but we presented ourselves in two entirely different ways which would lead to more problems for me and less problems for you. Yeah, how so? I think that like I wasn't like a confrontational type person. I feel like if someone called you something or anything like that, you're gonna stand up for yourself whereas I wasn't really that type of kid.

Well, I didn't want to fuck my parole up just like anybody else. But I never had the issue really. Any fights that took place were because of

because of an issue. Like there was a reason for the altercation. Now you mentioned there's a lot of bad shit you saw at this prison. Oh, MYI was nuts. What are you seeing at these youthful offender places? Yeah, MYI, I feel like it was because everybody there was young. So there's a lot of immaturity and there's a lot of like

People there that want to prove themselves. There's a lot of kids there with 60, 70 year sentences that are for all. 60 or 70 years? Oh, there's kids there with life, life, life, you know, quadruple life. Really? Kids? Kids. 13, 14 years old. Were they justified? I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know their cases, but I just know that there's, at one point I was the tier man for, it was a unit.

So it was A had like one unit at this time was like, it always, they always switched the blocks around. But at this point it was seg and like high security. And, and one of them was a very young block. So anyone in that block was like 16 and under and had all crazy charges. That whole wing was kids that were just crazy.

gone. You know, these kids are never coming home. They're all murderers and rapists and broken people, people that are never going to see the light of day ever again. And I used to have to work in there mopping up and down the tier and they'd be asking me to slide things to other cells. And I'm, and they used to tell me, listen, you can't, you can't, you can't help them trade anything. You can't, not even once. It's not like they're cool and they let you.

In that unit, you can't do that, period. If you get caught, you know, sliding a kite for a guy or whatever, that's it. You're fired. They'll, you know, raid your cell, whatever, and that's it. So these guys would literally be 13 years old, 12 years old. Kids, they'd look like they're literal children, like babies,

And they'd be telling me that they're going to, you know, find me when I get out and burn my house down and murder my whole family if I don't grab a soup from 3Cell and bring it over here for them. Wow. Crazy. Yeah, insane. Now, at this facility, are you guys locked down all day? How does it work? 23 and 1. So that one, you're locked in your cell 23 hours a day. Yeah, 23 and 1, just like the big boys. That hour, where do you go? So it's set up like,

Every unit from above, if you were looking at it from like a map, it kind of looks like an X. And there's like the entranceway and then there's A, B, and C wing. So you would come out of your cells into either, if you're just having like a mini rec, they would just allow you into your little section only. You know, you'd have the big metal tables with the little circle stools and

a couple of phones, or if you were having a bigger wreck, like they always decided how they wanted to do it, then they would open all of the units and you could go into the other units to use their phones, sit on their tables, just so you had more space. You weren't mixing with the other units. You were just in their blocks while they were still locked in their cells. And do you get a TV in your cell? If you buy one. So 23 hours a day lockdown for four years, pretty much? Well, I was only there for...

uh until i turned you know 21 and then you got to go to it yeah and then i went i call it going up the way going upstate i just i can't imagine that's any way to live like if you're on a short sentence like that and you didn't go to that is that really necessary a 23 hour a day lockdown like what does that achieve i mean they didn't have at that time they didn't have another facility for people of that age if you were that age you went to that facility and then if you were like a lower level he went to a lower level unit like you went to

It was A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J. There was no K cottage. They were called cottages. Like A, B, A and B were like the bad ones. A and B were like intake. So when you first came in and they got to kind of watch you for a month, make sure you're not crazy. Make sure you don't have problems with anybody. And then there's like the wing I was telling you about. Then there's high security. Then there's SAG. Then there's the gang unit. Those are all in A and B. Then like...

C, D, and E would just kind of be regular units for just regular inmates that are just kind of level three, four, whatever. And then you'd have the kitchen unit and then you would have the, what's the drug program called? Tier four. Tier four.

right does that sound familiar i wasn't in states tier four was the drug program i think it was like a six month you would do it and it would look good for your parole and so like depending on who you are what you did what your level was what you were trying to do if you were on medication that would kind of determine what unit you went to at that facility until you turned old enough and then they would uh

Put you on the ice cream truck and ship you up the way. You're not the first person that said the ice cream truck. That's so funny. Well, it looks like a big ice cream truck. Wow. So how helpful are the staff? Are they trying to help? Because you guys are kids. This is a defining period in your time. It's a prison. It's a jail. I've heard a lot of stories about how it is today that they get snacks. They all get TVs in the cell automatically. You don't have to buy one. Like the state just has one in the cell.

and that it's like a lot more like that they're treated more like children. It was for all intents and purposes a prison. I saw no difference between that and, you know, going up to Osborne. No. Do you think it helped shape you into the person you're in now, you are now? Like do you think you needed to go to prison to become this person? That's something I think about a lot because –

I don't know if I really needed to go away for that long for the things I did. Some prison was warranted. I should have went away. I should have been taken away from society for a little while. I was a little dangerous. I wouldn't say I was dangerous to society. Like you didn't have to, none of my neighbors were ever worried about me doing something as far as I know. You know, I don't think anybody was ever really like,

Worried about me being around necessarily, but you know I had to go away and pay for you know my troubles that I caused but Was it like worth it? Did it make me who I am today? Yeah for sure Absolutely, if I didn't go through the things that I went through, you know, then I would probably still be doing illegal things I used to get in trouble

I would break the law every day, especially when I was involved with opiates. I was a walking felony. I was committing felonies. When you saw me, I had either just committed a felony, I was in the process of committing a felony, or I was on my way to commit a felony 24 hours a day. If I was sleeping, it was only to take a break from committing more felonies. So having to go in and out of jail,

And eventually it beat it out of me. There wasn't one sentence that I would say taught me a lesson. It was all of them together just beat it out of me. I do not want to go back. Is there stuff that you think about to this day that maybe keeps you up at night from those experiences in jail and prison? No, I wouldn't say so. You kind of try to compartmentalize it and leave it in the past? I mean, I kind of have to just look at it as...

As that was the environment I was in, I fortunately never had to do anything crazy to protect myself. I never had to stab anybody. I never had to do anything like that. But I did see some bad things happen to people. And I'm lucky that nothing bad happened to me because there were a couple of times where we did things that really negative consequences could have came out of.

In prison? Yeah, but just the way, you know, the way things worked out, be it luck or, you know, intervention from third parties, nothing bad ever happened. What was the worst thing you saw happen to someone in prison? Oh, God. Just off the top of my head, I got a couple. When I was at the MYI, the Manson Youth Institution, the way the unit is set up, as you're walking into the back of the unit,

it gets a little thinner at the back. Like the end of the hallway kind of tightens up. So if you pop the cells at the back of the unit and you have the doors open completely, there's a blind spot behind those two doors where there's probably about the size of, I'm going to say maybe three or four telephone booths back there where the cameras really can't see anything. And they took this kid and they kicked him in the face with the, um,

I don't know if you've ever seen the work boots. With the steel tower? No, they're not. There's no steel in them. They're just black work boots. But the rubber soles on the bottom are thick and they're heavy. And if you start, you get to stomping on somebody with one of these, it's going to hurt. And they peeled like the skin from like his temple all the way across his forehead to his other temple, just kind of peeled down. Like one of them just kind of stepped on his face and it just kind of ripped the skin down off of his face.

And they just kind of left him sitting there. And nobody said or did anything for maybe about 10 minutes. And this kid just kind of sat there unconscious, just kind of like moving. What did he do to deserve this? I have no idea. It just happened. I have no idea. He was in my block and I had no idea what happened. When you heard about this or saw this happen, are you thinking like this could very well have been you? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. There was another time at Cybulski, which is a minimum security in Enfield. There was a bunch of guys playing cards at a table down at the end of the hallway. And there was one guy, I called him Mr. Larson. This is not his real name. But if you know the name Mr. Larson...

Can you think of what that's from? Does that bring up any memories in your head from a movie or something? Mr. Larson? No. What is it? Happy Gilmore. I never watched it. No? No. Okay, there's a character from Happy Gilmore. His name is Mr. Larson. And he's like six foot five. He's just a giant, just a giant. And he threatens one of the guys in the movie. And then they have to hit the ball off of his foot. And he threatens one of them. He says to him, you know, I'll be waiting for you in the parking lot.

uh people that know the movie you'll know who i'm talking about this guy looked just like this guy he was just a giant freak he was you know six four six six two hundred and you know whatever pounds his hands were like baseball mitts they were all playing cards at a table and uh my understanding of what happened was somebody farted at the table right a fart

Everybody farts, right? But as you know, in jail and prisons, there's an extra etiquette that comes with it. You have to, you know, excuse me, you have to have your manners, especially in a facility. You can't just be farting, walking by people. People will get fucking stabbed over something like that. So one of these guys, I'm going to call him the little guy, farted. And the big guy got mad and these guys got to, you know, yammering at each other.

The little guy started walking away aggressively, like the walk when you're going to go grab something. You know, I'm going to go grab my gun from my trunk, walk. And he came walking back with a cup of bleach. And the tall guy, Mr. Larson, saw it. And this little guy threw the cup of bleach at him. And thank God for Mr. Larson, he saw it. So he picked up his chair. You know, the plastic chairs that they have in all the facilities are just big plastic injection molded chairs. Picked it up and blocked it.

These guys proceeded to fight for, I'm going to say, in all actuality, in real life time, these guys probably fought for five minutes because the COs hit the button. They all came running in.

None of them wanted to jump in and intervene because there was blood smeared all over the walls. They were both completely covered in blood. There was blood all over the floors. Mr. Larson had the little guy in a headlock, and he was just taking those baseball mitt hands, and he was just mashing this dude's face into just pieces.

At the end of it, he wasn't even conscious. He was holding up this limp body, just hitting him. And then the COs finally convinced him to stop. And he just dropped him and then just went to his knees and let them do their thing. But that guy beat him so bad over a fart and over the disrespect that comes with a fart.

And that always, that always really, like, that's the one I think of first. That's crazy. Yeah. There was another one where, I don't know how the bunk beds that you guys have in the feds are. Are they just all metal? For the most part, some, like, in the holdover detention centers, they're all metal with a metal bottom. But, like, we had springs in, like, the camp one. Those were nice. They were comfortable when you have springs. It's a metal frame with the springs. I never saw springs. Yeah. But, yeah.

This one guy, I don't know if he got pushed or if he got punched, but he got somehow forced backwards and the knot on the back of your head where your spine meets your head hit the bunk right here. And I think that dude died. I think that that guy accidentally killed that guy because there was a puddle of blood underneath it that...

I think in total volume was actually more than the other fight. Because the other fight, it was all spread around, you know, because they were dragging each other on the walls and everything. This guy just hit the back of his head and just opened up something serious and just laid there and it just leaked. And it was-- I've never seen a color of blood like that. I witnessed somebody get shot in the face and I did not see this color of blood come from that.

So I think this guy died and we never got to find out what happened to him. You know, they just they call a code. They get him out of there. They get out the guy who did it.

you never know what happens. This is so much like traumatic shit to see at that age. 20, 21, 22 years old. Yeah. It was crazy. I mean, I wasn't even really seeing stuff like that. And I'd see some fights. I saw guys get his finger bitten off. This was at a minimum security too. That one was at, um, that was at Cybulski as well. That's scary. That was at Cybulski as well. I saw another guy, uh,

Did you guys have Kobe adapters? I don't know what a Kobe adapter is. A Kobe adapter is you would order it on the commissary and it was the electric block that you would use to keep your Discman plugged in or your radio plugged in. It was just a box that would plug into the wall and it had a switch for the voltage and you could adjust the voltage to power your Discman, to power your radio. No, we didn't have that. And it was just a...

Like a power brick. But it was heavy. It was about the size of a softball and it had the two prongs. Well, I watched a guy whip one of those at somebody and the prongs stuck in the side of his head over, you know, some kind of debt, something stupid, I'm sure. People do crazy shit in prison. People do crazy shit, yeah. People get crazy over stupid things. And I found myself getting caught up with it because if you did something to me today here, if you stole...

something worth literally 75 cents from me, I wouldn't give a fuck. Ian stole my, you know, my, I don't know, my air freshener. It wouldn't bother me for a minute. But even a hundred bucks. And there you have to care. Yeah, even a hundred bucks in the real world. I mean, a hundred bucks, I feel like I might be a little, I might be a little. But you're not losing your freedom. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna. You gotta think about it. Blow my top over, you know, it's gonna be nothing more than a verbal, what the fuck, can I have my money back, please? Yeah.

But in there, it's like somebody steals a soup from you. You can't let everyone find out that somebody just stole the soup from you because now you're fish. Now you're the target. Now everyone has you as weak or whatever. So it's like you have to give things value and importance in there that don't have really much importance. Like a stamp in there, you know, a stamp is 47 cents or whatever it is.

but in there it's it's money and if somebody steals your stamps you know you gotta handle it you gotta do something about it yeah it's crazy now were your parents supporting you financially in prison or were you hustling in prison in the beginning um they were sending me they were sending me money and stuff for that sentence they sent me a bunch of money

As I got older and I got in more trouble and went back for other things, they stopped sending me as much. You know, they get tired of it when you're 25, you know, 30 years old, you're still getting in trouble. But for that sentence, yeah, I had a fair amount of cash on the books and it was nice. I was living the prison baller lifestyle, as they say, going 50 deep every week. You know, I always had money for...

We were smoking weed. We were, I was hustling too though. We had a, um, we had a smuggling operation that was second to none. A smuggling operation. Yeah. It involved another CO. Um, so we could get whatever we wanted in. How would that work? And what were you getting? Uh,

- Drugs mostly, drugs, Game Boy Advance games. We had the Game Boy Advance at the time. So the little cartridges. - 'Cause they're smuggling in Game Boys into prison. - No, just the cartridges. - Oh, just the cartridges. - 'Cause you could get the Game Boy Advance on commissary. - Really? - Yeah, you don't- - No, we didn't have that. - The feds have tablets now. - Yeah, I heard about that. They didn't have it when I was there. - Me neither. - So you guys were getting this stuff just smuggled in, were you selling it or were you just- - Oh yeah. - So how much money were you making?

It depends because we would smuggle in different things. And how did you get the CO on board? So my friend, I'm going to call him bro champ. That's a good one. My buddy bro champ. He knew this guy from the street.

So they had a relationship on the outside previous to this. So he approached me one day because I was the tier man in this dorm too. You know, you just mop and stuff. So while everyone's on count and they're up on their bunks, I'm mopping the bathroom, I'm cleaning out the shower stalls, I'm moving around. I can get to places at times that people normally can't get to. So that's important.

So I also had access to different closets, locked closets, you know, so I could again get to things that, you know, most people can't get to. So we had an operation where whatever we could bring up to the parking lot and hide in a certain spot, this officer, I'll call him Officer D, let's call him Officer D. Trying to think of something funny to rhyme with his name, but I couldn't think of anything.

He would go out and he would pick it up from the parking lot, bring it in. And then when he was working our block, which was for that rotation for, I think they worked for six month rotations. He was on my block. So I would see him five days a week.

So then he would bring the items into a little closet where there were rolls of toilet paper stacked up. He would put it on the third roll from the left, four up. He would stuff whatever we had inside that roll. And then I would go in there during my little, my little tier man job. And he would tell me, you know, third from the left, four up, whatever. As we're like talking, as I'm cleaning his little garbage bag and I would just go into the closet and

grab it, put it in my pocket and just go on about my day. Wow. And this was worth it enough for him to risk his job to do this? Oh, well he would do it. I forgot to mention, he would do it all for an eight ball of crack cocaine. That's it. So this is just a cracked alcohol. Yeah. Whatever we could fit in that pack of cigarettes or two.

he would bring it in for an eight ball of crack cocaine. - That's crazy. The man risked his job, freedom, everything. - He risked his job, yup. Oh, now I remember. He was a prostitute guy. He used to get a prostitute and crack every weekend. That was like his little freak. - You guys would hire him a prostitute on the- - Oh, I had nothing to do with that. I don't know where the prostitute came in. I just know that he liked to get crack and a prostitute and get funky on the weekend. So we provided the hard.

Bro Champ would take care of that. I would have somebody that would be coming to visit me. I would have them go pick up someone else to visit my other friend, and then they would curry all this stuff together and leave it in the spot. And then we would have our little visit. And then the next day, I would see Officer D, and we would...

give him the little nod, he would give me the little nod and I would go grab the stuff. This is literally like a TV show right now. It was so easy. It was so easy. And it really sucked when he moved off the block because then it was really hard to do because he wasn't working the unit. So the only way he could really come into the unit and see me was if he was a rover.

And how is it going to look if a rover walks into a block and walks into an inmate's fucking cube and hands him something? What's a rover? Oh, just an officer that... That roams around? Just, yeah, he roves around. He's just constantly walking through the hallways, you know, moving paperwork back and forth. Just the...

You know, the gopher. Anyone that needs anything, that officer is roaming the hallways. Yeah. So they're there to help out, I guess. So how much time do you do on the four-year sentence? Do you do the whole four years or do you get out early? Well, I was on track to get out early. I was actually released to a halfway house in Waterbury, Connecticut. That's where I was too. I was at the one and it was named after a tree. Elm Street, Elm maybe? Yeah.

Cedar? I don't know. But I was actually in SEG. And in state facilities, you cannot be released onto parole or a halfway house if you have an active Class A ticket for 120 days. Class A ticket is like fighting, drugs, spitting out a CO. Class A is like the highest level ticket. And you had a Class A ticket? I was literally in the ticket block. So you go to SEG, the SHU, add SEG, whatever...

We called it the shoe or the hole. Yeah, segregated housing unit, whatever, the hole. You go to the hole for however long, and then you have to go to the ticket block after the hole until your ticket clears. Then once your ticket clears, you can shoot back out to general population or whatever. So I had a Class A ticket. I was actually in... I had two... I went to SEG twice on that sentence. One was for fighting, one was for a dirty urine. I think that one was for a dirty urine. So I was literally in the ticket block. I had...

80 something maybe 90 days left on my 120 days till my ticket cleared the halfway house called me and the unit manager calls me out of my cell says hey go down to the AP room you got a phone call I'm like phone call I ain't got no phone call I get down there and they're like hey this is so and so halfway house we're gonna come get you

We're gonna release you, you're gonna come stay here, get a job and all that. And I'm like, I'm in the ticket block. What are you talking about? You're gonna come get me. They're like, don't worry about that. We're gonna come get you. You wanna come or not? And I'm like, fuck yeah, I wanna go. So they came and picked me up. I gave all my shit away. They came and picked me up. I was at this halfway house for like 25 days. I start talking to them about parole. I'm like, listen, I got parole coming up in a couple of months. I'd like to get parole and move to my house.

So this guy starts making phone calls, right? The guy who runs the halfway house. I guess those phone calls triggered the fact that somebody was not supposed to have let me out because I have an active class A ticket. I should still be in the ticket block, not a fucking halfway house. You know, I'm supposed to not be released for another three months at a minimum. So they called me back in and they were like, you know, hey DJ, can you come into the office? I walk into the office, there's like a dozen COs

And they're like, hey, do me a favor. Put your hands behind your back. You haven't done anything wrong. You're not in trouble. And I'm like, well, if I haven't done anything wrong and I'm not in trouble, I'm not putting my fucking hands behind my back. You know what I mean? That's a sucker move right there. So then they all kind of tense up. All right. You know, I'm not fighting a dozen COs.

So they said they were remanding me to custody is what they called it. That's their fancy terminology. We're remanding you to custody without prejudice is how they said it because you didn't do anything wrong. There was a paperwork error. Somebody fucked up and we were not supposed to release you. So they sent me back to they sent me to Hartford County or New Haven County. I've been in it for two and a half years at this point.

and I'm sitting in fucking county jail. - Yeah, they never should have moved you 'cause you would have been at your other spot. - I lost all my property. I had like 30 CDs. You know how hard it is to get like a real street CD in jail and unedited. - I wouldn't experience that.

That's so crazy. You could order CDs from the commissary, but they were always censored. Yeah. So I had a CD book with like 25, 30 unedited, uncensored CDs that, you know, I paid good money for. Lost all of them, lost my TV, lost all my clothes. I had all custom, you know, um,

All my clothes were fitted to me. Like it took literally years to build up all this stuff, all the little contraband items I had, like just so much stuff. And now I'm sitting in county with basically like a fresh bid. And they didn't let me out for like another 10 months or so. So you did about three years on that sentence? I did like three and a half. Now you get out, you just go back into getting in trouble? I completed the parole.

I did about three and a half off of the four. Years? Yeah. No trouble? Not enough to... Okay, go back. What about drug use? Didn't do any drugs while I was on parole. Were you working? Mm-hmm.

It was the model parolee. So you were trying to get your life together. I was trying to get off parole. Okay. You knew the system, how to work it. Yeah, I was trying to get off of parole. Once I was on probation and I had a little more wiggle room. You have a little more wiggle room, but the hammer's a lot bigger because I had seven suspended. So it was just, I just kept getting in trouble, you know? What kind of trouble are we talking about? At one point I got a couple of assaults. And then I would have to go back.

I ended up altogether doing like another, you know, maybe two years, two and a half years. So you lost your whole 20s basically to in and out of prison or probation. Even more so because besides the, I'm going to say about five and a half years incarcerated, I had to spend another maybe two years in other facilities to get my mental health in order. Okay. So yeah, my 20s basically. Were your parents supportive throughout the way?

on your journey through the system? They were pretty supportive. Did they ever like say, we're done, walk away, like cut you off? Not completely. Like, you know, they wouldn't send me money after a certain point, which is completely understandable. You know, I'm grown at a certain point. You shouldn't be enabling. You know, I get that.

Um, you know, they were supportive to a point. Yeah. You know, they would pick up the phone if I called. Yeah. But they weren't exactly coming to bond me out anymore. That wasn't happening. How do you look at those years now? Because it seems like a big chunk of your life, man. A waste. I look at, you know, where I could have been and where I'm at now. You know, right now I have a beautiful girlfriend and an amazing son and it's like...

The things I could have already had to, like, be able to give them would have been so nice to have. Could have already had a house. Could have already went to school. Could have already, you know, could be working on my dream car right now. I should be saving up for, you know, my Porsche right now. You know, I'm not. I'm not saving up for my Porsche right now. What year did you finally...

you know, say I'm going to change my life. I'm going to focus on getting things on track, put this behind me. Probably coming up on about four and a half years now. And what was the mitigating factor? What set you to do that? My father passed away about that time. And that was probably like the straw that broke the camel's back because just that was just like the last miserable event

Where it was just like, I'm done giving in to like the misery. Does that make sense? Like the final piece that could break you in a way. Yeah, like when my father passed away, he had cancer and it got him and it got him real quick. He didn't find out about it until about a month before he died. So it was very fast. He went from, you know, not feeling well to passing away in about a month. And I was just like, you know what? I need to...

I need to do something with myself. I need to fix. I need to fix this for my family because if I get in more trouble, if I pass away from something, if I fuck around and kill somebody driving under the influence or something like that, that's it for me. I'm not getting any more chances. The judicial system is not giving me any more chances. That's for sure. If I go in with a jaywalking ticket,

You know, it's a problem. They want to give me probation for a jaywalking ticket. You know, it's crazy. So about four and a half years ago, yeah. It's crazy how like things that happen to us on that level are what takes us.

to having to open up and see, and not everyone realizes it too. Some people still continue and it doesn't end well, but it's very lucky that you were able to see that for what it was in that moment and change. What were some of the steps you made after that when that happened to really get things on track and have the life you have now? I really started to focus on, on,

staying clean and surrounding myself with the right people, I had to get away from some of the bad people. And once you eliminate shitty people in your life, everything gets easier. You know, like I had no positive influences. I had no one I could look to and like ask for advice.

that would give me, like, real honest advice. Any advice I would probably get from any of the people I had around me at that time would have been self-serving in some form or another. You know, it would be them trying to get something out of me or, you know, let's go get in trouble, let's go rob somebody, let's go, you know...

Just do things that are not good. The people I used to hang out with a lot of the time were not good people. So you surround yourself with positive people, guilty by association. You know, if you surround yourself with winners, you're going to be a winner. You surround yourself with losers, you're going to be a loser. And, you know, once you change that mentality, the good things start coming into your life. You found your girlfriend. You have a son now. You have all these things. It's incredible fast things.

really good things started happening for me. - And you've been clean from drugs? - For about four and a half years. - That's awesome. - I don't have an actual date. It's like March, March, my father passed away a couple of weeks after his birthday. So it's like March, 2019. - Yeah. - I'm not good at math.

It's about four and a half years, four years. Now, if you could go back in time and, you know, back to your teenage years and just, you know, be that older figure to your teenage self and have a conversation with him, what would you say? Oh, I would tell my older self to not touch the opiates. That would be the one thing for sure. Opiates have caused more pain in my life than I can even begin to tell people.

Opiates for sure. I would tell myself to leave the pills, leave the pills alone. And that would have saved you all the trouble? No, that would have saved me a lot of trouble. It would have saved me the most impactful trouble. But also maybe you needed that trouble to have the life you have now. I guess. Yeah, in a way. In a way you're right because I would not be where I'm at with the people I'm at right now if...

Those things did not happen the way that it happened. What's your next plans? What do you, what do you, what do you, what's like the five-year plan? Five-year plan is to make sure that my son is, you know, healthy and raised right. Really just expand on, on continuing the positivity. I'd like my own, like my own home soon enough.

maybe a little longer than a five-year plan. That might be a 10, 15-year plan. But I'd like to own a house soon enough. That's on the list. Continuing to work on yourself. Maybe keep finding your peace and whatnot. Yes, definitely continue to find my peace. Like when we were talking before, gaming has been a big relief for me. I never really had anything to put my energy into before. Now, after a long day at work,

you know, if I find some time to like veg out, I throw the headphones on and it's just like, I don't think about causing trouble like I used to. I used to just like seek out trouble. Like,

I look back at some of the stuff we used to do and it just shocks me because there's no way I would do that shit today. - It's amazing how much your mindset's changed, man. Like I'm sitting here listening to talk to you for the last hour and a half and you're not the same person that you started out with. I mean, none of us are, but just to witness that and see that, it just, it's so interesting. My final question for you, man, is,

What's your message? The people that are watching this, that are tuning in, that are taking the time out of their day to hear your story. And it's an inspiring story. What do you want the message to be that they get from this episode? Man, the message I would want to give to people would be, I mean, it's a corny message, but don't do drugs. You know, don't do drugs. Drugs are bad.

There's a lot of dangerous shit out there right now. The fentanyl was not really a huge thing back then. It's a big thing today. And unfortunately, people are dying left and right that aren't even opiate users. This fentanyl stuff is in... They're putting it in everything. So my message would be, you know...

Just stay away from all of that shit because it's just death. It's death now. You get involved with that stuff, you just die. Absolutely. I've lost dozens of friends. It's not going to stop anytime soon. DJ, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. I appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you. Excited to stay in touch and see how you grow with your beautiful family and reach the goals you want to and keep working on yourself. Thank you. Awesome, man. Have a good one. Appreciate it, Ian.