I Was In PRISON With MCLOVIN | Billy Johnson
01:13:28 Share

Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much?

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details.

The land down under has never been easier to reach. United Airlines has more flights between the U.S. and Australia than any other U.S. airline, so you can fly nonstop to destinations like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Explore dazzling cities, savor the very best of Aussie cuisine, and get up close and personal with the wildlife. Who doesn't want to hold a koala? Go to united.com slash Australia to book your adventure.

My name is Ian Bick, and you're tuned in to Locked In with Ian Bick. On this week's episode, I have Billy Johnson, a.k.a. Facebook Billy, who spent time with me at the Oxford Prison Camp in Oxford, Wisconsin. Make sure you like, comment, and subscribe. Enjoy Locked In with Ian Bick.

We all make mistakes, experience failure, and fall down in life. But if you decide to get back up and use it as fuel to your fire, you can choose to not let it define you. You can make it through to the other side and turn it into an opportunity. I went from owning a popular nightclub when I was 19 years old to becoming a federal inmate by the time I was 21. Join me, Ian Bick, as I interview people from all over the country who have experienced the rock bottom of the American justice system.

Billy Johnson. What's up, buddy? Welcome to Locked In. Feels good. It's great to have you here. You are our first guest that not only was in physical prison with me, which is like a whole interesting story our viewers are going to love. So many. So many.

And you were in a federal prison camp. Right. That we haven't had anyone come on and talk about that before. And you were in a federal prison medium and low security. That's right. So it's going to be awesome to get that perspective. I took the tour, man. I took the tour.

Awesome, man. I like to start kind of from the beginning and kind of look at the time before I met you in physical prison. So what was your past life like? What were you doing growing up? Where are you from? What's your family like? Born in South Carolina. Family moved to Florida when I was young. Great, great upbringing. Father was military, police, fire department, like the true all-American meat and potatoes dad. Yeah.

I've got an older brother. We were a close-knit family. We never went without pats on the back and belts when we were out of line. Just everything that really was just a picture-perfect relationship.

upbringing. Lived in Florida for a while, really came up in Arizona, lived in Arizona 20 years. That's where I was junior high, high school and post high school, college. And that's kind of where everything took the downturn. And how to take the turn? Just just partying, you know, in high school, smoke a little pot, drink, smoke cigarettes, really had a hard time staying focused. I was more worried about the world and what was going on. And to just I mean, I got through school barely. I

I just wanted to be a little more wild. College, did radio, and that's, you know, it was partying. We were partying sex, drugs, and rock and roll three days a week, and we got paid for it, man. Some of the hottest clubs in North Scottsdale in the early 2000s, which was the heyday for my generation for music and fun, and it kind of went downhill from there. So you're using drugs, you're partying, you're having a great time. At what point do you get addicted to these drugs? Yeah.

from the rip really, um, early twenties doing cocaine drinking. Um, but I was still functioning cause at that point it was still a party. It was a Friday, Saturday thing. We'd bump and go and, and have a good time. And then I found less expensive ways to continue to get high and it kind of took over, you know, took my toll and lost relationships with friends, had a relationship with a girl that stood by me for three years and

You know, I just, I destroyed it. I let the drugs destroy it. And what type of people are you like hanging out with? Are they criminals or are they just addicts, junkies? It just, it started as just your, your regular, you know, blue collar people. And then of course, as the life progressed, it was, it was addicts. It was pretty much anybody, man, that was, was getting high and, you know, really. And where's your family in all this? Are they trying to help you, your parents? I wasn't living at home at the time.

I'd see my folks and I'd lie to them about what I was doing for work. Sometimes I'd stay there for a couple days, couch surfing. I was in a bad relationship there for a couple years with a chick and it was just the same thing, just drug filled, dirty, nasty apartments, horrible areas, cheap.

you know, but that fix was always, was always number one for a lot of years. Do you think if anyone tried to jump in and help you, you would have that, that would have saved you or not really? Oh no, I was, I was so in it and I was in that life and it was kind of, I kind of enjoyed the life, the fast pace, the adrenaline, um, really is what it was. I was, I was, I was in that life. I was feeling like a rockstar cause I was

I was always insecure. You know, growing up, I was, you know, kids are mean and I was always picked on. My ears and my teeth have been the same size since I've been six. So maybe it was the insecurity and I kind of found something where I fit in and I could be, I don't know, the man, like the rockstar guy. But deep down inside, I just, you know, I hated it. What's the craziest thing you had to do to get that fix? Stealing criminals. We do, you know, we did checks, we did credit card fraud things, you

So you guys are just doing whatever to get high. Whatever it was, man. I mean, my hands were in so many things. It's almost kind of scary when I look back on it now, like how close I really came so many times to going away for a long time. But that eventually ends up happening. Ended up happening. How much do you end up getting sentenced to? How much time? I got 70 months. My guidelines were 57 to 71. The judge gave me 70 months and he racked the gavel and told me to write him a letter when I got to prison so he knew how I was doing. Now, why did you get indicted on this case?

Well, we left Phoenix and my dad wanted to retire in a small town that he was in from in Northern Michigan or Southern Michigan. Went out there and I tried getting clean.

working at a bar, met some people that were using and fell right back into it. And I found out like, Hey, how much are you guys paying for this? This is crazy. Um, I've got people, I can get it cheaper and just went right back into it. And so we had the genius idea to send meth out in the mail. You sent meth through the mail, through the mail. We had sent little bits to people and I'd heard stories about how great it was and people were doing these things. So we packaged up quite a bit and had it delivered to a

turned out you my co-defendants house and they did a controlled delivery, you know, state police kicked in the door, the whole thing. This is your first time ever selling drugs? No, no, no. This was, this was what caused my, my indictment. This was 2014. I was 34 at the time. So this was supposed to be like your big deal. Like this was the big deal in my new place. I was going to be the guy before that. It was just, you know, it was small time stuff and I was just living that drug fueled life through my twenties and into my thirties. So early thirties, police kick in the door,

interviewing us, take everything from us. And the postal inspector comes in and lets everybody know that, oh, state, this is done. The feds are picking this up. We're going to indict these people. Let them go. The feds are going to come with an indictment. Did you know that there was such thing as postal inspectors? Because I had postal inspectors in my case and I didn't know what the fuck postal inspectors were. The rumor mill, rather than thinking realistically, I was told, oh, there's only one postal inspector on the East Coast, one on the West Coast. And

They never check any packages. Well, it wasn't the postal inspectors, man. They were checking packages at the airport and the dog hit on it. I mean, just simple everyday things that they do that we don't think is, you know, we're getting away with it.

every single day how much money were you supposed to make from this deal if it went according to plan a few grand so that's it you risked everything for a few grand for for this particular one yeah just just a few grand what's going through your mind at the time uh just trying to get high wow trying to get high and be the man really show off a little bit for this group of people that i just met and you know trying to just push my insecurities down and

Really? So you're just high all the time at this point? High every day, smoking meth, just doing it, man. Just reckless. Did you have any like near death experiences at all? Were you almost overdosed? Yeah, I did actually at one point. Before this all happened, I was in Arizona, bad relationship. And I had a headache. We were just, I was arguing, this chick and I were just arguing and arguing and arguing. And she was a, she was a pill head. She loved pills. And she had

Always had them in a purse and what I thought were Excedrin were OC 60s and I took a few of them and realized what they were and spent four days in a hospital in Kingman, Arizona. Had me an ICU, Narcan me, the whole thing.

in a observed room. I remember one time I actually woke up and the nurse was pounding on my chest, telling me to breathe. Wow. And that wasn't a wake up call. You just went right. Like you left the hospital and let me get some more meth. No, it will pretty much. Well, my justification at the time was, Oh, I don't do pills. And that was just a mistake. So it's cool. Yeah. But eventually, you know, before I got, before I got arrested, arrested, it was,

But we'll get into that. Now, and the people around you, they're influencing you to do these things too. Everybody was getting high. Did I associate it with everybody was getting high? And by this point in time, I didn't have a sober friend. The people that I knew that were sober, I'd lost touch with, gotten older, fell off.

really what it was. So you get arrested, you get 70 months just about, and was that through a plea deal? Did you go to trial? What's like the process? Well, when the feds came into the house that day, when we got busted and they let us all go because the feds were going to supersede the state indictment because it was the state police that raided the house. So they basically took the handcuffs off me and they said, you're not going to jail today, but you're going to go to jail sometime. So don't go anywhere.

And so I jumped on Facebook and started chatting up this chick that lived in Idaho and I packed a bag and I went to Idaho. You left the state. Left the state. You were on the run. Gone, done. Middle finger of the world. I'm out, bro. Like I'm done. This is the end of 2013. You're never going to catch me. I'm going to go to Idaho. And how old are you at the time? I'm 33. Okay.

Yeah. 33. And was this your first time ever arrested? No, I had done like some, some overnights and a couple of weeks stints for, but nothing major, nothing major. I'm doing drugs. I didn't have insurance in a vehicle. I get pulled over, get a ticket, wouldn't go to jail.

or wouldn't pay for it and I'd end up going to jail for like failure to appear or something. I did like 30 days one time for a bunch of failure to appears for some cities in Arizona. - So you weren't like this big time drug dealer. It wasn't like your intent to become like this kingpin or anything like that. - And honestly dude, I was no good at selling drugs. I got high on my own supply. I was no good. - You're not the first drug dealer we've heard this from. - I was no good. And I mean everybody's, oh you can sell drugs, make money. No bro, 'cause as soon as you have a bag, everybody that wants to get high is there. I'll help you out, I'll get you this.

cool. Like what's a broken TV going to do me, you know, like the crazy tweakers will bring you crazy stuff to try to trade for dope, man. It's just, it's not a good life, but it's the drug dealers that don't do their own drugs that are making the killing and feed off of people like you. Exactly. They're the, they're the, I don't know, man. It's, I wasn't good at it. I was not good at it. You fled the state. What happens next? I'm living with this chick.

Uh, it doesn't work out obviously. Cause I'd met her on Facebook and those never work out. They never work out. Right. Um, so I'm back and forth and I'm, uh, between there and Phoenix for a bit. And I settled back in Phoenix cause I knew everybody. I lived in Arizona for, for a long time. Um,

Doing dope there. The same kind of thing, but it's a downward spiral. And my dad calls me and says, hey, Bill, two cops showed up with a warrant for your arrest with a postal inspector. What's going on? And my heart sank. He didn't know you got arrested at this point. I had no idea. Nothing ever came back to them. He was dealing with, my mom had a lot of health issues at the time.

And he was kind of, you know, he's caught up in that and he was just retired and I wasn't staying at home much. And I'm like, no, dad, I got no idea what's going on. I hung up the phone and my heart sank. And I remember I cried and I just went wide open with, uh, with the usage at that point, we were couch surfing, we were staying in nasty motels, um, stealing copper. Like we were at that point, I was too afraid to live, too scared to die. I was, you know, I was in the pills, I was in the heroin, I was in the meth, whatever it took to numb that pain and just to hide that.

I did it. It's a full-blown junkie at this point. Full-blown junkie. Five months straight, hard, hard, hard, harder than I've ever been before. How long did it take for the law to catch up with you and for them to catch you? Kind of a cool story, actually, how I got caught. I'm actually, I'm really happy that it happened. I was homeless, strung out at a Burger King in South Phoenix with a friend of mine. And we had a hundred bucks between us that we just borrowed from her mom.

And we're sitting there and I got a napkin and I wrote, God, can I get some help, please? And I put it in the window of the Burger King. And we got a cheap room. We was like four of us in this little one bedroom, like we're sleeping on the floor. And the cops came in the next day doing a warrant sweep because it was just a nasty hotel. And that's what they did. And they were looking for this chick who rented the room.

And I mean, I've got a warrant. I'm wanted by the feds. I'm 140 pounds. And I'm like, take me to jail. I'm done. Let's go. And I mean, by this point, I was starting to get sick from not having the drugs. I was...

I was, I was done, dude. I was, I looked horrible. I keep my mugshot on my Instagram as a reminder for, uh, for me and for anybody else out there. So you felt relief when you got caught that day? Total relief. And it wasn't, I didn't think I was going to go away like I did, man. I mean, I had no idea what I had to store. How hard was it for you to get clean from that point to going to prison? Like, did you have any side effects those first couple of weeks in prison? I was so sick. Anybody that does any kind of opiate go through withdrawal. And I was, it's the worst flu ever.

You've ever had in your life and it lasts for weeks. Can the prison do anything for you? Or are you just sitting there like the dying inside? I, um, I detox in Maricopa County jail. And if anybody has heard of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the toughest sheriff in the nation, um, his jail suck, bro. Two meals a day, um,

I let them know as soon as I came into intake, listen, I've been doing meth. I've been doing heroin. I've been alcohol, the whole thing. And they kept me in medical for 72 hours on a mat just so they could watch me. And I'm shivering, nauseous diarrhea, throwing up the whole thing, dry heaves. It's horrible. And they're giving me like some aspirin and water and they monitor to make sure I don't go into Caesars. And then they send me to a, to a pod and I was still sick for two weeks.

Until the feds came and got me. And then you take a plea deal right away? No, no, no, no. I was, they had to extradite me. It was almost a year before I got, just waiting in County waiting. Well, a few weeks in Maricopa County and then the feds picked me up and I did a week in the federal facility in Southern Arizona. And then they put me on the plane and they sent me to Oklahoma for two weeks and

And then- Oklahoma sucks. Four times I've been through there. Yeah, so you were on Con Air. Con Air, shackled the whole thing, black box the whole deal. Because I saw the judge and they just were going to extradite me. So I had no security level. So they put me in the back on the inside, the whole thing. So I didn't actually get back to face my charges for like five weeks, six weeks. And by that time I had put a few pounds on, I wasn't sick. And the reality of

of what I had done was starting to set in. And what's going through your mind when that reality hits in? First question I asked, the feds give a bail, you know, can I get out of here for a bit? After you just tried to run away. I've got 11 failure to appears for traffic violations thinking they're going to give me a bail. And so I get back to Michigan and

where my case was originally. And they send me, I do the initial hearing, they take me to jail and they send me down for the bail hearing. And my parents show up and my mom had early onset Alzheimer's as a result from a head injury from a motorcycle accident they were in. And by this time she had like no idea who I was. She wasn't talking much. And so seeing my parents there in court when I'm facing these charges, it crushed me, man. And at that point it was just like, who have I become? What did I do? And you just

As you know from being locked up, like you look back on your actions. And as an addict, you slowly devolve into this person that you never thought you would be because you lose all track of time, days, weeks, months, they all run together. And so what seems like a few months is really just years. And you don't realize how far you've come until you're actually able to be taken out of that situation and look at, oh shit, like...

This is real, you know? I wonder if your parents were almost like relieved in a sense though, when they saw you, cause you're looking healthier, you know, you're off the drugs. I knew they were. And it killed me, man. Like I was always really close with my parents. We rode motorcycles, we camped, we fished, family vacations. Like we did all the stuff together. And then through using, I kind of got away, but I would still always make time. I still always check on mom, make sure dad was all right.

a lot of sentimentality because they were going through some financial times. So anytime I had extra cash from, from my hustle, I'd always break them off. Like, Oh yeah, I got a picked up a, a good remodeling, you know, bathroom remodeling job. Dad, here's a couple hundred bucks. And in reality I was doing, you know, credit card fraud and all kinds of other stuff. No. And we don't really think of it at the time, but sometimes going to prison removes us from negative situations that, you know, could bring us down an even worse path. And we think like in the moment, wow, it's prison. This is terrible. Um,

It can't get any worse, but we don't really think sometimes it could get worse. And that kind of saves us and puts us on a path that we would in a positive way that we would never expect before. Absolutely, man. It saved my life, bro. And it wasn't it wasn't two weeks later that I was sitting in the in the four man cell sitting.

Which was horrible. I mean, four men in a, literally you're locked in the cell, four men, you've got a TV and a shower and a toilet in there with a sheet hung up. So anytime anybody's shitting or pissing or farting, you're smelling it. It's like right there. Just kind of thinking back on that and, you know, one phone call a week to my parents to, you know, because that's all we could afford. I mean, they were hurting for cash. I wasn't, you know, can't ask them for money.

Yeah, absolutely. Now you get sentenced. Do you think you would have got less time had you not ran and went on the run? No. Did they use that against you? No, with the feds, they have a, they've got sentencing guidelines and I had had, like you were talking about in one of your other shows, you know, they, they use, you know, even uncharged things against you. The feds don't lose, man. I mean, it's the United States government when they want you, they're going to win.

So they had brought up like the misdemeanor driving on suspended license. I had a misdemeanor shoplifting charge. So they'd stacked all those. So my guidelines were,

57 to 71 months. And I'm like, all right, cool. Maybe we'll get the low end. Maybe he'll give me the sixties, you know, never had a felony charge before. I've stayed out of trouble, like all 10 months that I've been in jail. Um, and no, that didn't, he gave me the max. He gave me one month shy of the max. And he said, send me a letter, send me a letter.

Did you ever send him a letter? No, no, no, no. We got a, he had a great, that judge had a great nickname. He, he said he would retire when he gave out like a million man years of incarceration. He'd been on the bench like 20 years. He was just a hardcore old school judge, man. Yeah. What prison do you go to after you're sentenced? They send me to Gilmer, West Virginia. And you go to a low, a medium? I go to, start out at a medium. Why was it a medium that you got sent to?

Grand Prairie, who, which is like the headquarters for the BOP, where they do all the classification and paperwork. They didn't do their job. They didn't verify my education. Um,

none of that stuff so when you have you know education and job experience things like that those help you when they classify you for less risk more risk however they do it so they had me with medium points they didn't verify the fact that i graduated high school that i had college education my ties to the community anything like that so they sent me to a to a medium a step down yard guys that have been doing had done 20 years and still had 20 years left to go and here i am just a

skinny, I call myself young, my thirties. I got hair down to my shoulder. So I hadn't cut it in two years. Completely lost, completely lost. What's a medium federal security prison like for this white kid in his early thirties? That's, you know, just coming off of being a junkie. What's that like for you? Scary, scary as shit, man. Scariest fucking day of my life. Really? Conair,

three stops, drop us at an airport on the bus for six hours, shackled the whole thing. It's cold. It's November. We didn't get to a unit till like two o'clock in the morning. And they put me, it's very political, very, very, very political. And they put me in a, in a cell with people that weren't on the same kind of time as me. And so instantly, like you're up the next day, you got to go see your counselor or,

You got to change cells, got to find your people, got to get your JNC so they know what you're in for. Make sure you're not a sex offender or anything like that. And then your people come up. You're like, Hey, you know who you run with, who you want to sit with. Great. Yada, yada, yada. Here's some toilet paper. Here's a pair of shoes. We need to see your paperwork. You got 10 days to get the paperwork in. I'll show you how to write it. Here's mine. Make sure you're good.

And it's, oh, okay. What do you need to see? Well, we need to get your PSI in. Well, you can't. We'll let you send that in. Oh, there's a way to get it. And so they push you. And then people push up on you to see if you're tough. So if your people go to war with somebody else, they want to make sure that you're there. And who are your people in prison? At that point, I was...

I didn't know who to sit with. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I told him, I'm like, listen, you're like, I don't, I'm not on racist time. I'm not on gang time. I'm not on drug time. I'm in for a small time drug thing. They screwed up my points. I'll beat a low in six months. And so I just sat with the white guys. And how did you survive like those six months to a year to get to the low? I stayed to myself. I worked out in my cell. I'd hit the yard, do some jogging, but I didn't, I had a few friends that we cook with, but I didn't, I didn't click up with anybody because there were

There were people there that were like me that didn't want to get involved in any of the hustles. They didn't want to gamble. They didn't want to do drugs. They didn't want to do anything. They just wanted to do their time and go. And the older heads, the older guys that were doing time, that ran the yard, they knew that. And they just, you know, they left me alone. I didn't get in any fights. I didn't do anything stupid. I just...

I did my time. Now, if you go into these higher security prisons in the federal system with that mindset of staying out of the way, is that acceptable or do you have to be involved with something and guys have to, you know, check you and get you involved with certain things or are they just going to leave you alone? Well, it really depends on the, I guess on the, on the unit, the unit that I was in was, was pretty chill. A lot of the older heads were, were in that unit and they, you know, they left me alone and

My unit job was I was the recycling orderly. So when they would call for hot trash, I'd take the soda cans out of the recycling bag and take it outside and drop it off. And I could type and I was educated and they saw that. So if people needed something type legal paperwork typed up,

or a couple of guys had business plans. They were wanting to do businesses when they got out. I type it for him. I go to library, you know, they give me the, we had typewriters and they, you had to buy the ribbon and buy the correction tape. And so they have all that. And I'd spend a day in the library typing up these things for these guys. And it was cool. Cause I mean, unfortunately a lot of the people in the prison system, they're not, they don't have the education. Is that, is that higher of a security level? They don't have education.

education. A lot of them are getting GEDs. I had one kid I would help him study for GED. And they saw me kind of giving back, but I wasn't gambling. I wasn't doing drugs, but it's all there. I mean, people coming up, you want to get high, you want this, you want that. No, I'm cool, man. What's the sleeping situation like in a medium prison? We had three-man cells. Three men. Which was, they had passed a law, the feds did, because of the size of the cell, they were only allowed to have two people.

But they still had three people in there. So we had two bunks on one side, a bottom top bunk on the other, and then lockers. And they were eight by, you know, 10 by 10s. And you had a toilet right there.

and they would lock you in at 9 o'clock at night, and they'd pop the doors at 5.30 for breakfast, and they'd lock you in for the 4 o'clock count for an hour. Wow. And then on weekends or fall count, they'd lock you in at 10 for an hour in the morning. Now, they had, it wasn't called like prison gangs on the East Coast. It's like prison cars. Right. Is that what it was? Yeah, it was your car. You know who your car with. You wanted to... Can you explain what that is? Your car is just your people. If you're...

Um, if you're on gang time, that would be your car. If you're on Michigan time, Ohio time, New Jersey time, whatever it was, that was your car. That was your people that you rode with. Um, that's who you'd sit with. That's who you'd work out with. Um, if they had beef with another car, you know, that's who had your back and that's who's, who's back you had. But you were just staying out of the way, not getting involved with them. No, I didn't do that. I didn't, I didn't want to because I knew, um,

I was scared, man. Honestly, don't put that out there. I was scared. I didn't want to mess around with anybody. I didn't want to get stuck because you hear the prison stories and you get there like it's real. Like I saw some nasty fights, dude. What's the craziest fight you saw? Two dudes actually got into a sick fist fight in the middle of the unit at count time at night over a stamp, one stamp. And it was two tiers. And the cop was locking down at the top, was literally making the rounds, locking the people in the cells, and

And they went at it. And he just, he looked down and he pressed the button, he pressed the deuce button on his radio and yelled for everybody to lock down and just kind of kept doing, like he didn't even want to get in the middle of it. And they went at it for a few minutes. And, you know, the cops came in, maced everybody, so the whole unit smelled like mace and

Everybody was coughing and hacking for a week. But I mean, I've seen some good ones, dude. Are you dabbling with any drugs? No, I am completely 100% clean. So you've been clean since the day you got arrested? March 4th, 2014. That is crazy. Just hit the nine mark. You see a lot of addicts that go to prison because the prison system has so many drugs in it that they're just right back to doing it. It's easier to get...

stuff in prison than it is on the street. Was it just a mental thing for you that I know I can get it in prison, but I don't want to be that person anymore? I was done. By the time I got arrested, I was ready to be done. I wanted my life back, dude. Do you think you needed to get that much time in prison to change as a person? I want to say no, but I really don't know. I knew I needed help.

And that's the, one of the issues with the federal justice system is sentencing disparities. Because if my case would have stayed a state case, I would have gone to county jail. They would have sent me, you know, would have sent me to drug court. I would have probably done like six, nine months in county jail, got a trustee job, couple months probation. I would have been home. But the guidelines with the weight, it was literally, it was an ounce of meth, which was short, by the way, it wasn't even a full ounce. It was short. Five years, mandatory minimum.

because of the size versus a state case where it would have been six months, nine months, something like that. But maybe you never know if you got a state case, you could be back out there. And that's the, you know, that's the backside of it is you don't know. So did I, did I need to do some time? Did I need help? Absolutely. I did. Did I need to spend five years in federal prison? I don't know. How long did it take you to get to a low security prison after the medium? It was nine months. You get reclassified nine months.

And then they sent me back through Oklahoma for two weeks to Lexington, Kentucky, Medical Center Lexington for the drug program for RDAP. What's the drug program? Residential drug program. Everybody in the drug program stays in the same housing unit. It's you've got the prison, like the institution rules. And then you've got the RDAP rules, which are, I don't want to say stricter, but it's a lot more confined. And there's a lot of stigma. People are like, oh, the RDAP program is a snitch program.

it's where I was, I can't count for all of them, but where I was, it was different, man. It was small. There were a hundred people in the program. We had three phases, a lot of self-reflection. It taught me, it kind of opened my eyes about things. I mean, you'd see guys that have been down for, for 20, 25 years for, for drugs and murder. And they're telling their story at the end of their, their thing, just breaking down, just bawling, talking about their kids, how they had shot their friend on accident, you

Just a lot of real shit that was talked about. And it was kind of a safe space, but they monitored it. And if you were out of line, they'd pull you down to what they called the honesty room, which was where all the, the, the RDAP counselors, the dappers, and you'd have like the, the mentors, the program there. And they talk to you about it. They'd ask you about it. What you want to do. They'd make you do like what they call them learning experiences. So you had to actually write out like what you did, what happened, the consequences, what you've learned by it.

So it was, it was a nine month program. It was, um, I mean, it was, it was intense. Now it's very strict though, too. Like you can't get in any type of trouble. No trouble at all. Um, and no, no side hustles. Like, I mean, in prison, everybody, everybody has a side hustle and RDAP, if you get caught side hustling, you're done. You're not, you know, iron, iron in somebody's clothing for, for two or three bucks a week. You're not, you know, if you get caught cleaning rooms or doing your own laundry, we weren't even supposed to break bread with anybody else. Like we couldn't cook up with our people.

Now, what are the perks of the RDAP program that makes guys want to follow these rules so strictly? You get a year off your sentence and six months halfway house. Which essentially takes off a year and a half. Year and a half of your time. You're getting out early. So if you got three years, you can get out and maybe a year with good time or anything like that. And also where I was at Lexington, my unit, it was clean, dude.

Like it was a lot of these older Lexington's a hundred years old, man. It was a state hospital, a federal medical center. It was run by the public health service or a lot of like drug experiments. It's got a, it's got a deep, dark history and it's disgusting, man. I mean, you got a thousand, 1200 people there. It had a, it was a medical center. They had a, one of the wings had its own, uh, pharmacy. You'd see guys, you know, doing the Thorazine shuffle, people dying of cancer and F4. I mean, it was a disgusting place, but my unit was super clean. Um,

Beds were always made. Showers were clean. So, I mean, it was, I had a one-man room with a door on it. That's perfect. It was, I mean, it was a great way to, really, it was a great way to do time. So, you finished the program and then you get sent to a prison camp after this? They put me to camp. Which camp was this? Oxford, with you. Oxford, Wisconsin. Love it. So, I go back through Oklahoma for the fourth time and...

Oklahoma transfer station is... Yeah, you got to give people an explanation of how bad Oklahoma... You never went through Oklahoma, did you? I did to get to Wisconsin. I spent Christmas and New Year's there. And when I say that was the worst experience of my life, and I did six months in the shoe. So for me to say that Oklahoma City...

was the worst and you have all those cartel guys there you have it just it was so bad like it was terrible when you get to con air when they when they load you up for transport when you're leaving your institution they call you out early they go through r d they line you up they belly chain shackles if you're higher security they put that black box on you and if nobody knows the black boxes

Picture handcuffs and you've got the chain between the handcuffs. They put a hard plastic-y metal box in between those handcuffs so you can't move them back and forth. There's no dexterity there. You can't do anything. So you're stuck. And if you're really high security, they shackle you in so your handcuffs, like you're stuck like one above another. So you can't move at all. They put you on the bus. They take you to the airport. They call you out on the tarmac.

where you're going off the bus and they line you up and they're pulling prisoners off this old beat up, super ratty airplane. And they put you on, it's got federal marshals. They're lined up around the plane with guns and you're side by side. It's a completely full plane. And you go, you could go one stop. You could go directly to Oklahoma. You could go make four stops on your way there. And they put you back on another bus, people going to different institutions. But when you're going to Oklahoma, you get on the plane, they fly you

And it lands and you taxi to the other side of this runway and it pulls up to the jail and that's it. You're off the jail. You're off the airplane. They pull you out single file. They unchackle you. They unhandcuff you and they make the announcements, crazy announcements. If you're part of this gang, this gang, this gang, if you're affiliated with this, um, come to the front of the plane because there's like active gang wars going on, like real shit smash on site. These people will stab you up if they see you from another gang. Um,

And people are calling each other out. I was on a, going to Oklahoma the last time and some dudes on the plane and he sees a sex offender from one of his other yards and he's screaming out, I got paperwork on this piece of shit. He's a chomo. He's a toucher. Just calling them out. I mean, they're trying to fight you on the plane, the whole thing. And it's just designed to make you feel uncomfortable. Like you get off that plane. It's like a term. The terminal is the prison cell. The terminal is the prison. And they have you in the, like the basement or whatever. You get stripped out and you're in, we were in yellow jumpsuits and, um,

you're waiting there for hours because they have to process like 100 or 200 guys. Yeah, a couple hundred people and they've got three planes that come in. I remember we got in at like nine o'clock. I didn't make it to the unit till two or 3 a.m. The last time I got there, we were late and we had to do the four o'clock count. BOP has a four o'clock count every single day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And...

We're on the jetway. They can't, the marshals can't turn us over to the prison system yet because they've got to, they've got to do the count. So we're on the jetway. So we've been on this airplane, which they give you like one quick bathroom break with no door on it. So if you got a shit, you're, you're out of luck. There's turbulence. You're bouncing around with your ass hanging out. And so we're on 200 inmates. We're on this jetway and we've got to piss. Like we've got to use the bathroom. There's a hundred and they won't let us in the institution. And they can only take like four at a time to unshackle you when the count clears, which is at five o'clock.

And then they heard 150 people in these cells with one toilet. People are shitting and pissing everywhere. It's, it's disgusting. It is literally the worst environment in you. These cells are,

Big concrete brick buildings with a stainless steel toilet. And you have to shit in front of everyone. Shit, piss, and everybody knows what stale urine smells like. You'd multiply that for 20 years. Now, eventually you do make it to the camp. Make it to the camp. Probably one of the best prison camps in the prison system. It was. Besides like Otisville. Right. You make it to the camp and you do your time, that little bit of time. And then I come along.

What's your first impression of me when you meet me at the prison camp? Mick Lovin. Now, I had that name before I even got there, but you were the first person at the camp to call me Mick Lovin before I said what my name was. Because you look like him, man. We're like, here's this nerdy white kid. Total suspect, man. Total suspect. But you knew sex offenders couldn't get to a camp. Yeah, sex offenders couldn't get to the camp. Well, before I got to the camp, when I did my last two weeks in...

Oklahoma they sent me to MCC Chicago terrible too I hated that place to get to Oxford you have to go from Oklahoma to MCC and then from there you take the bus to there uh met a met a buddy of mine actually in Oklahoma too that we rode out with and my first prison tattoo on the 23rd floor MCC by a guy who's doing 27 years right now for smashing grabs um yeah get to the camp I'm

Settle in. Totally different time than what I'm used to, man. There's no moves. It's open movement. You can do what you want. What's the dorm setting like at the camp? How many inmates are there? When I get there, there's 80. Camp's built for 200. There's 80 people there. Four-man rooms, there's only two people there. I've got two jobs. I got a great job in the kitchen. I'm the camp driver, so I can...

I take the keys to the minivan at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and inmates that are working at facilities a mile away, I got to pick them up or one of the administrators or the cop has to come up from the main institution, they call me if it's raining or snowing, I got to take them around.

There's dogs there. There's a dog program. We're playing softball. We're playing volleyball. It's crazy. Now, the camp's so small that when a new inmate comes, it's always like a big deal. Totally. What was like the talk about me? Like not knowing my name, but just like that new person that was coming on the campus. Just wondering who this new kid is. And where I came from, where I started going to prison is when a new person hit the yard, man, you had the greeters would go out, would talk to them, check their paperwork, do their whole thing. Well, camps are...

primarily white collar criminals, short time guys, bank fraud, wire fraud, things like that.

And so for me just to, I mean, they dropped me off the bus. Like here, throw that stuff in the dumpster and walk in. We're like, we're not, I mean, we're not handcuffed. We're not shackled on the bus. It's crazy. Everyone else that's going the medium shackled, but at the camp, you're not, I was shocked. I was, it was nice to not be shackled. I'm like, I'm standing outside, bro. Like I'm out actually like I'm in the parking lot of the camp without a guard around. Now, when I'm introduced to you at the prison camp, it was like the first couple of days. Right. You're introduced to me as Facebook Billy. Yeah.

I want to know why you got the prison nickname Facebook Billy. All right. Not one of my finer moments in prison. Contraband is everywhere. And at the camps, it's wide open. And I had this genius idea to get a phone. Now with RDAP, I got a year off. Stipulations being if you got a 100 series shot or a higher fence shot, you'd lose that year.

Well, I've got a phone and I'm flicking up with people. Like I had just lost my mom a few months prior to that. I wasn't able to go to the funeral. I'm dealing with my own things, not making excuses, but I was, you know, I was in a pity pot, man. I had, you know, I couldn't say goodbye to the woman that gave birth to me and raised me. And that was, you know, that hit pretty hard. And I'm, I'm sending pictures with people and I'm on social media and I take a picture of myself in my bunk and I send it to some friends. I've got this genius idea. I'll just post it as my profile picture. I mean, nobody knows. Fuck, I'm in prison, dude. What's going on? Um,

And the very next day I'm working in the kitchen and I made this awesome pasta salad and I, the guard wanted one. So I gave him one. And as I'm walking to the, to my room, they page Billy Johnson. They never used my first name. And whenever you get paid to the office, it's never a good sign. Out of nowhere. It was a Friday and I walked back and he turns the monitor, this computer monitor on and there's that picture of me. He's like, where's your phone? I'm like, what the. Do you give them the phone? Oh no.

He closes the door, gets on the phone, comes back in and he gets on his office phone and he opens the door. He's like, where's this phone at? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. So they go in and they wake up my celly and they tear my entire room apart. I had this phone a week, a week. How much did you pay for the phone? 500 bucks. Totally destroyed. So pissed off. And of course the camp, everybody's poking fun. Everybody's talking shit. Got rid of the phone. I get a 100 series shot.

guilty because I mean there's no denying it it's a picture of me did they take you to the shoe or you were still out uh no I stayed on the unit they they wrote the shot and then they rewrote it and then I went to dho and I tried to fight it and I lost that year because I got that 100 series shot now normally when you get a 100 series shot you lose 33 days a good time commissary restriction I lost a year plus two months halfway house so 14 extra months I spent for making one stupid stupid choice

Just being reckless. People get careless. They get complacent. And we see it all the time. People just being stupid. But I got that name actually from one of the guards because I was a camp driver. I didn't lose my job, nothing like that. But he actually paged Facebook Johnson to the office. And at that point, it stuck. They wrote a song about me and they hung it on the bulletin board. Even the kitchen cops were talking shit about me. You were a camp legend, man. I know. It was...

It was crazy. All right, let's get into it. Contraband at the camp. What's that like? What's coming in and out of the camp? And what's like the price range? Pretty much everything and anything you want. Price depends on who's going to hustle it in for you. I was working out every day.

Cause I mean, I went into prison, I was 145 pounds, man. I was sucked up scrawny. I think I could do like seven pushups. And when I met you, you were all jacked up. I was, I was, I was getting it in, you know, but I mean, that's all we did. We get up, we work out, we take a nap, we run three miles, you know, be doing burpees. It was just stupid. Like what am I to work out? And it was like, Oh, you're never going to do it on the street. Well, you know, it's cool. I just passed the time. But so I would get, uh, I had protein powder, uh,

We were getting stuff from the kitchen. I think I still actually owe you two bucks for eggs. I got some macros I'll give you. Yeah, I remember I was just... I didn't need the money, but I was just like so... Like it was fun. Like I was just loading up onions, peppers. And they didn't care. You know, I mean, it's... I mean, they...

We were so low security at that point. We didn't have fences. We had dogs. We had vehicles. I got yelled at actually one time. We had a big 4th of July, our rec party, because they do rec events just for things to do as recreation-sponsored events.

And we had five on five volleyball tournaments. Cause we had a sand volleyball court there. And I was the camp driver on the weekends and I got the key from the guard. And I'm like, Hey, you know, in case they page me, I need the van key. Cause we're gonna be out here playing volleyball. I pulled the van over by the volleyball court and we turned the music on and we got busted for that. I got yelled at because the officer of the day came by to do her weekend walk and walked right up on us with music blaring. There's like 30 of us playing volleyball. I got yelled at for that. Everybody talks should be about that too. All the cops. What's your prison hustle at the camp?

I was in the kitchen. So when I first started, I, you know, onions, bell peppers, eggs, things like that. So people could cook because we were trying to, I mean, you know, throw that in a rice bowl and that was it. And for the most part, the, you know, the kitchen cops were cool with it. You know, if you want to take a couple eggs out, you know, you could. And there was kind of a give and take there with the officers because if the medium went on lockdown, you know,

We would have to go back in the institution. We would have to make lockdown bags. So we'd work, you know, 14 hours a day, which we had to do. There were two lockdowns downstairs when I was there. I went for one and they're like, all right, guys, you know, skeleton crew, we've got to go down there and make lockdown bags. And what they mean by lockdown bags is there's 1500 inmates behind the fence of the medium. When you're on lockdown, you're only given one hot meal every three days and a shower every three days.

So you're making bologna sandwiches for 1,500 people times three per day. So you're 15 hours a day. You're on a slicer. You're throwing two pieces of bread, two pieces of cheese, two pieces of bologna in these paper bags so the entire institution downstairs can eat. So the guards were cooler with us and they gave us a little more leeway. And that's kind of the relationship that we had had with a lot of them.

to where they would look the other way. Now, we had some assholes that were just there just to ruin our day. They would come in, want to tear up your cell, they'd want to tear up your room, they'd want to get in your space, really just to flex.

Now on the topic of prison kitchen guards, there was a point in time when we were both at the camp that word got out that a prison kitchen officer was pretty much, you know, sexually harassing me and, you know, inappropriately touching me. I'd love to put him on blast right now too. What, what happened? What was the rumors going around the camp? Like what was going through everyone's mind? He would wake you up extra early and,

He was the only one that would try to like be your friend, make sure like everybody else he would shake down. He's like, here you go. You know, here's an extra, you know, you want to take this? You're good. And he was a super cop too. He was super cop. Shine the flashlight in your eyes at five o'clock in the morning for count just to wake you up. Like he was an asshole. And then the investigation popped and you were like, this is, you know, this is bullshit. This is happening. He's way out of line, way out of pocket. And they sent him downstairs and then you left and they brought him back up. I actually think he was because you left the day before me.

And I think he was back up like that day. And people used to see him staring at me in the chow line. Like it was obvious that he was a weirdo, bro. Super weird. And he looked the part of being a weirdo too. Like that man, if he was an inmate, he would have been labeled as a sex offender, like from, from the get go. And that's cool, man. Like, I mean, if that's his, if that's his, if that's his preference, you know, if he wants to, if that's the life he's going to live, cool. But you don't cross that line, man, to put people like that in that situation. That's just, you know,

know it's none of my business who you want to go home with as long as they're not a kid male female whatever but what's the craziest thing you saw at the prison camp during your time there just people running and hustling um what do you mean by running you're running for bags and describe that process running for contraband people taking off uh after count middle of the day running into the woods getting things coming back and it happens it happens at every camp um i had a partner of mine that

uh in one of the other camps made a dummy which it happens all the time because you'll see i see in the news like oh you know inmates walked away from this camp but they made a dummy and he had it in his bunk because he snuck out to see you know spend the night with this girl in the hotel and the cops found out it was a dummy at like two in the morning like people would do it they'd take off i never did but they'd you know they'd run out to get a bag they go see their girl um come back i saw that you can see it in the middle of the day pretty crazy stuff we had a guy sneak out

And they called an early count. They caught it on the camera. They called an early count. He tried to sneak in, shoved a whole bunch of food through one of the windows and they caught him. But we had all this food floating around our wings. So we had I mean, we got to get rid of the evidence. Right. So we're smashing. We're smashing pizza and fried chicken. I mean, everybody's eating good. I mean, you got to get rid of it. So I remember the first week I got there, like I'm going down the hall and there was a bag. It's always a big ordeal when a bag was coming into the camp because everyone's looking out, everyone's getting tipped out.

with fast food and stuff. And I walked past a cell and cause at the camp, it's okay to really be nosy. Cause no one's like going to shank someone. It's not, it's not okay, but it happens. You got the older guys that are just looking around and I look in and everyone's just eating McDonald's. And I was like, what the fuck's going on here? But then eventually it was a custom thing. We were eating deep dish pizza. We were eating, um, Chinese, um,

I think we smuggled in fucking sushi one time. Like it was just crazy. Oh yeah. No, we had, um, I actually had a cop give me a piece of shrimp. That's awesome. I was walking by one of the cool cops. Um, if anybody was there at the camp, they know exactly who I'm talking about. He had shrimp, like a, like a shrimp, like a cocktail shrimp platter. And I'd been down for almost five years. I'm like, is that shrimp? He's like, Oh, go away.

And as I go to turn, he throws in like a little fridge or he's like, Johnson. I turn around. He gives me one. He's like, don't say anything. I'm like, oh, I got the shrimp, dude. And we had we had Culver's. People were drinking, smoking, whatever. I actually there was a at the camp. There was another inmate who he and I had a similar build and he was a smoker. And I had gotten up one morning and I like I just got up and I was walking to the chow hall because a lot of times people,

I was like, when they had, you know, breakfast pastries to always be, you know, leftovers in there, you can kind of walk in the chow hall and grab a pastry. And I walked by and the cop goes, Hey, what were you doing down there behind the tree? I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? Like I just rolled out of bed. Well, I can run the camera back and see. I know. I'm like, I literally like I, my bed is still hot, bro. Run the camera back. And, um,

I mean, they were doing stuff like that. Now, eventually like the prison or like every six months would conduct these prison wide shank that shakedowns. Right. What's that process? What's it look like? Whenever they do training and get recertification because the training center was back there and we all worked in facilities and we mowed the grass out there. So the whole place is usually empty five months a year or five out of six months. And then you'd have they'd have training out there where they're jumping through hoops and

you know, recertifying everybody. And once that was done, we knew that there was going to be a camp wide, you know, shakedown. So everybody would get rid of their stuff. We'd be all set and they'd come in and they'd come in by like the van loads and you'd have the dental people. You'd have like the education staff from downstairs that you never saw, but all of a sudden they had a belt on and they were ready to go and they would tear us up and they'd come into your room. They'd pat you down. They put everybody in like the gym or the visit hall, whatever it was. And they would,

tear up your house like crazy, ripping sheets off of beds. Sometimes they wouldn't find anything. Sometimes they'd find things. Sometimes you'd have stuff in your locker that you

shouldn't have but they really you know some of them didn't care they'd be like whatever these are campers let them fucking be you know and they were hauling out trash bags full of contra left and right now at the higher security prisons there they make alcohol like hooch whatnot i'm sure you saw that all the time but at the camp inmates aren't doing that no what are they drinking at the camp everything and where are they getting it from people dropping off the bags man it was and it's just like full-blown bottles of alcohol wide open

Wide open. And it was... Camps were initially set for white-collar criminals, people that were going to be older people. Ponzi scheme guys that were... Wow, shooting at me. Bernie Madoff type of characters, people that stole money, you know? Where they could sit and they could do their time. And where we were, our camp was...

had like the fence line from what I read like the fence line would come up to the track bocce ball was there they'd never call you until 10 o'clock count where we were it was you know when lights when the sun went down they'd call us in and so it would just

you had a mix of people and it was, it was wide open. I remember when they would, you'd do like the random breathalyzers and guys would like, if they got a bottle in or stuff like, say it was a holiday night and guys are, they got the bottle of vodka and guys would get called in and some guys would get popped and they would go to the shoe for that. Absolutely. I mean, it was always on a weekend and you'd know, you know, and you just, they'd call count and they'd, they'd be gone. As soon as they clear count, somebody would take off and they'd come back at night and you'd see it all the time. But I mean, everybody was, everybody was hustling too. It was,

with the camp we had more freedom we had um the lala you know the library was there we didn't need to check out books we could take what we wanted and everybody had a thing whether they were you know cooking like you um i was i made granola bars billy bars and we were i mean we would get so bored sometimes at the camp where we did i mean you could only exercise so much you can only play so much volleyball you can only watch so much tv we had four wings and i lived on wing three and i called it third street lived on it was that was the end of third street it was a cul-de-sac and uh

I forget who I was talking to, but we're just like, yeah, you know, we did the third street merchants association. We were like the homeowners association. Right. And everybody on the wing had a hustle. I made bars. My celly made pillows. Somebody had a store. Somebody had a, um, a ticket. Uh, my neighbor had chip city, which he just stored out just chips, shout out chip city. Um, there was a blackjack table in one of the rooms that we took for some money a few times, um,

I mean, we just find things just to pass our time. I mean, idle hands are the devil's workshop and we would just be stupid and silly just to pass the time and have fun, man. I mean, there wasn't a... We made the best of it. I mean, it sucked. I lost my mom. I couldn't go to her funeral. I lost a handful of people, like close friends that died.

And there's nothing you can do. Like my dad had a heart attack when I was in prison. There's nothing I could do. I think that's the worst feeling of being in prison. Not only like you suffer through that, like FOMO, the fear of missing out when you see your friends, especially when you have access to cell phones and stuff and you could see what's going on in the world.

And then when incidents like what you're talking about happen, that shit just fucks you up because you're confined there. You can't do anything. You can't just like race home. Like you're feeling that pain within you and you're just stuck. Totally. And I mean, I didn't have that phone for like the first year. And I was trying to play by the rules. I was trying to do the thing, but I just, I fell back into it. And it bit me in the ass. And I'm glad it did too, because it was, you know, sometimes you got to get that check, man. You got to get checked.

But I didn't have a lot of money, man. My job paid $35 a month. My dad would sometimes send me 50 bucks a month if he had it. He was on a fixed income, you know, Social Security, the VA stuff, taking care of mom. She was in hospice care. So he would go feed her breakfast and lunch every day. They were married 53 years before my mom passed. And they knew each other six weeks to the day, bro. Like they had a love.

And so I'm dependent. We had email, but it was like a buck a minute. It was 50 cents a minute or something you had for your true links you had to use. So I would call home like every couple of days. Well, my dad, who was, you know, 79 when he passed away, so it was like, it was mid seventies, not the most technologically guy, you know, advanced guy. I think he had a flip phone up until like the last few years I was in. He referred to text messaging as a piece of shit. So like me trying to explain to him how to email me in prison was just way out of line.

So, I mean, if something were to happen, I mean, you wouldn't know. I mean, the only time they'd call into the prison, why, did somebody die? No, all right, cool, bye. And they'd hang up. Like dads in the hospital, you know, kick rocks. Unless somebody's dead, they're not going to let you know. You've got to find out on your own. Were there any celebrities you were in the prison camp with? At the camp and at the low. I was at Lexington with Struggle, Struggle Jennings, rapper, super good dude. We chatted a little bit.

He's doing amazing things too. And then at the camp, well, Georgie P, George Papadopoulos was my neighbor for two weeks. Do you ever get to talk to him? Yeah, I was there when he came in because he was my neighbor and we were actually, his cellies, he and I were cooking up. I talked to him a little bit.

But he, I mean, he did 14 days. He was hanging out in the library talking to one of the other guys. And I remember when he was in the library, we were all trying to snap pictures of him with cell phones, sell them to TMZ. Somebody kept trying to steal his ID and I think sell his, uh, his ID to TMZ. Wow. I didn't realize that. And then there was like always news vans outside when he first got there. They, they pulled us in. Uh, they pulled everybody in the gym and they're like, listen, we all know who's going to be here. It's been all over the news. Um, don't go out front.

And it was kind of funny. When you hit a prison yard or compound, you go through A&O, admissions and orientation. So they walk you through. They give you your clothes. You go through medical. And it usually takes time. And when you're at the camp, because we're like the afterthought, it would take a regular camper two weeks to go through A&O. When he hit that unit, dude, his A&O was done in a half a day because they knew he had the hotline. And they wanted to make sure he was... I mean, they put him with...

In a back corner cell with two dudes. One was a head orderly. And they just, I mean, they made sure like he was set super nice. He's like, Oh yeah, everybody's here is so great. They're shaking my hand. I'm like, dude, cops don't shake your hand, bro. Like, that's just weird when the wardens do it, like the AW would come in and do it.

I never, dude, the only time we saw the AW was when we had the food strike. And he was there like twice or three times that week for when George Papadopoulos came in. Dude, shaking his hand, the whole thing. Like he came up and yelled at, no, I didn't even think, I think we had like the captain came up when we had the food strike when they took all of our stuff away for,

That lady being stupid. Yeah. I think these prisons just, they don't want the extra heat on them and there's so much pressure on them. Cause he had the hotline, like he worked for the president. Like you make one phone call there. Everybody's done. I mean, imagine if something happened to him there. So there's just like a whole different level. Oh yeah. And they definitely put thought into that when they're putting a prisoner like that in there. Oh yeah. Now over the course of your five years, you deal with a lot of prison staff, uh,

A lot of counselors, case managers dealing with them with the RDAP program when you're finally ready to go home, everything like that. What's your view on them? Are they helpful? Are they not helpful? I've had some really, really cool ones and some that were just worthless. Didn't want to do anything. Union protected. They just, they didn't care. RDAP, it seemed like the DAP counselors were there. I mean, they were all psychologists, psychiatrists. There was one there that was super, super cool,

the lady that was actually, she was my, my primary. Uh, she's, you know, she was sweet lady. She, she passed away. A lot of rumors surrounding that, but, uh, it just, I mean, some were cool, man. Some of the cops were really cool. Even the cops hated the sex offenders, no matter where you were. When I got on the bus, the medium, the Lieutenant was there. He's like, listen, man, it's a good institution. It's a new institution. Um,

Child molesters are protected. If you're a sex offender, sorry, but you know, you're, we gotta be nice to you, but we don't like you. So be careful. You're gonna have to check in right away. Like, cause they're going to come for you. Yeah. You would have guards that would report who's a sex offender and who's a snitch. And that was, that was another thing too. Like,

If people stuck to themselves, they didn't want to click up. They're like, oh, I know he's suspect. He's got to have bad paperwork. There were guards there that would tell you. They're like, no, dude, he's fine. Or, you know, he's no good. And I saw a couple of them at the medium that didn't want to go. And they'd be dragged out of the cells. They're like, listen, you've got to go now or they're going to rip your fucking face off, dude. Like there's going to be nothing left of you. I mean, these are dudes that, you know, like kill cops for fun and they're coming after you.

So you really need to go. It's in your best interest, you know? It's scary, dude. So out of this whole prison experience, you finally make it through. You do pretty much the five years, right? A month shy of five, yeah. A month shy of five. And if you hadn't been on Facebook, you would have gotten out earlier. Yep. But I don't think I would have been in the situation that I'm in now if that wouldn't have happened. So...

I don't want to say it's a blessing in disguise. So you get out and I think we did get out the same day, four years ago in January. You got out the day before me. It wasn't because, but we both, we've stayed in touch and every year you message me saying happy, happy free day. Happy free day. And you're one of the few guys from the camp I've stayed like in touch with regularly. We have each other on Facebook, Facebook, Billy's back to Facebook.

Uh, what did you start doing when you got out? Like, how did you cement yourself in and knowing that you did not want to go back into drugs or crime or what, what did you do? Oh, I, I hit the, uh, had to go to the halfway house in Grand Rapids. I'd never done Grand Rapids learning to move again in a whole new thing. I'm going to,

major commercial kitchen stacking boxes of granola bar factory riding three buses each way it's fucking january it's cold it's horrible they put me on home confinement i get a factory job and i get promoted and doing that and i'm kind of loving it people are giving me chances like nobody gave me anything dude like my dad picked me up and took me to the halfway house he's like this is it bill like here's 37 this is it and i

I did it, man. I walked in. I was still on the GPS tether. When I got the job in the factory, I'm like, I just want a chance to put me out there. I'm going to work six days a week because I've got nothing. And one of my buddy calls me and said, hey, I want to buy a hot sauce company. And I'm like, cool. I mean, let's buy a hot sauce company. And so he gets some things together. We get some people. He buys a hot sauce company. It's a part-time gig, Grand Traverse Sauce Company, Traverse City, Michigan. And

And it's a part-time thing, man. I'm working five days a week in this office. I'm driving three and a half hours North to make hot sauce with my best friend. Barely making any money. It's pre COVID January of, uh, you know, December, 2019, January, 2020, the whole thing COVID hits. So we're struggling. We're struggling. We're struggling. They started opening up Northern Michigan, uh, doing some farm markets. We're gaining some traction. We're going to make this full time. So I quit my factory job and we found a house in a Traverse city. We became roommates, really good friend of mine. Um,

And we grew and we grew and grew. And it was 12, 14, 15 hour days. He's in the kitchen. I'm running around selling sauce. We're driving all over Northern Michigan to farmer's markets, knocking on doors, doing tastings, product demos. And we start meeting some cool people to bring on the team. And it was two people three years ago. And now we have...

active markets going in three states. I'm working in Florida, which is my fourth state right now. I've got 17 people on the payroll. I have an amazing sales team. My production staff is great. My management staff is awesome. And we're doing it, man. And you've created this amazing life for yourself that you never had before. Never had before. This was me. This was my best friend. This was

we were, we were done with it. I needed to do something, man. Like, this is my, it's my comeback story. Like, this is all I've got is it's my child and taking it from a tasting two people in front of the store. Hey, you want to try some hot sauce too? We're shipping bottles to all 50 States. We're gifting military people in foreign countries. Um, we're on UK YouTube hot sauce channels. Um, but you know what the craziest thing about this is, is that

You would not be here in this position with this company, the successful company, if you were not a drug addict, if you never went to prison, you know, like everything in your life brought you to this point. It is, it is crazy to think about it like that. Like I've done a lot of shit things in my life and I'm still not perfect, man. I'm still struggle every day to try to be better than I was yesterday.

But yeah, if I hadn't gone down the road, I was in and put through the hard times, I wouldn't be here. And it's, you know, I see it with you too, man, because it's a grind. And anybody that's fallen on hard times, anybody that's made the mistakes, that's gone to prison, that's fucked up, it can be done. Nobody owes you anything but a chance. Fill out that application. Be completely honest with them. Yeah, I'm a felon. I did whatever I

Put me on the floor. Let me do this. I was stacking boxes at a granola bar factory. It was 16 hours a day I was out of the halfway house. Snow to my knees. I had no idea where Grand Rapids was. Southern Michigan, seasons change. There's no AC in the factory floor. I'm working six days a week building box trucks and step vans. Sweating. GPS tether.

If you want it, you get it, dude. But even if they're not giving you the chance, go out and create it. Exactly. You know, like I got lucky and got a great, you know, corporate job with Whole Foods when I got out and I grinded through that. And when I realized that wasn't for me, it's not like I could go say, hey, I need, you know, someone to invest in this idea I have. I had to go out and create it on my own. I took a risk.

you know, I hit the pavement and life has just came full circle for me. I went from promoting concerts and producing these shows with the biggest names in the country or in the world. And now I'm sitting here producing this podcast, producing the cooking show,

And it's just like everything in my life brought me to this point. I went to prison to meet all these connections and to get that experience that is so unique to my position because of my age, because of my background. And now here I am doing this. And that's just like, it's so crazy to think about. It's easy to come from a wealthy family and to be handed a business or get into a good college.

It's a lot harder if you start from literally negative, you know, you're coming out of prison, you have the whole world stacked against you. And to be able to take that and turn it into something, not a lot of people are doing that. I had, I mean, I had, I had some people take some chances on me, you know, take some risks. And that's all I asked them was like, listen, just put me to work one day. Let me show, let me show you what I could do. And that was what was told to me when I was talking to

To one of my supervisors like listen, you know, I could do this I can do these like actions bro words or nothing show me Do it so I did it and people would see that they're like, okay Well, maybe you know, we could do this and I mean I in this whole time of me from start from my early 20s till Literally about a year year and a half ago two years ago when my dad passed away I didn't have a lot of contact with any of my family because they saw what had happened. They saw the progression and so

the hard work now the grinding trying to be the best person that i can be they're accepting me back and grant cardone actually said it best he's like if you know if people aren't good don't have him around because he had a he had a rough life too i don't know if you follow grant cardone a little bit but there was a time in his life where he even said he's like my family shouldn't have been in my life because he was because of what he was doing the life he was living the drugs the whole thing and look at him now like he's

It's the grind, dude. If you want it, you can be whoever you want to be. You can do whatever you want to do. You just have to do it. Now, throughout this process of you building, you know, this successful new life for you, you experienced some loss. Your father passed away. Lose my father. Yeah. Two years after I got out. Do you feel like you were able to rebuild that connection with him and, and, and things on a positive note? I, I really do. Um, my dad and I were

We got close, man. We were so different. He was so stern and strict growing up, but I didn't respect the discipline. And when I got out now, he got to see me just grow this and just be a better person. And we would just take drives to eat. We're going to church together. We had a lot of fun. And then when I moved to Traverse City, he came up and we'd do dinner. Went to the casino one night and sat on these big, stupid overstuffed couches. And we're placing football bets. And dad's like, oh, I like that team.

Pick that one. He's not bad. He's not looking at lines or anything. And he hits on like an over, like a halftime over bet. He's like, I told you what I was doing. I mean, just, just little things like that, that, that we did just drives and food. And I used to see you post pictures all the time. And I was like, so happy that you got to have that relationship. We had, we had so much fun. Do you think it made him happy to see that you went from literally this bottom barrel junkie to becoming successful? Absolutely, man. It was, you know, we had my older brother and I,

and him together and we all went to church for Christmas service and we both got sick and dad was in the hospital and then they need to put him on the ventilator because he just wasn't he was you know 78 years old at the time almost 79 a lot of issues and I found out later after he had passed when I had his phone like he was texting you know the assistant pastor at the church like you know Billy knows what he's doing he was ready to be with my mom man I mean they were strong in our faith and he was he was ready to be with mom he saw me turn my life around and

Um, and he was done. He did his job to see that I made the right choice and he was there for me and it was his time to go and just let me take the reins. That's something, you know, like I think about every day cause my father's getting older. He's turning 78, 79 this year. And like, I'm so determined, like that's something that drives me cause I want him to see, you know, that I've been able to turn this around cause I, he's proud of me now.

But I want him to see like the full success. Like I want this to go full circle. Everyone gets paid back. I could pay him back for all the money and times he saved my ass, you know, put them on a beach somewhere, let them relax. So like, that's a, that's like such a, like a drive for me. Do you feel guilt that you lost that year, year and a few months of getting out early that could have been more time with him? Absolutely. I do, man. I mean,

I kick myself in the ass for just being the person I was and losing all the time that I spent with my family. Cause I mean, it's, it can happen in a moment's notice. I mean, I've, I've gotten phone calls from friends that I've known that have passed a really good friend of mine had a brain aneurysm done mid forties, love her to death, miss her every day. I mean, it can happen so fast. So you just don't want to take it for granted. You don't want to put yourself in a position to where you don't have that choice to be with those people that you love because it can go quickly, man.

Now I want to close out with this last question for you, Billy. What is your message to the person that's struggling with addiction, to the person that is at the rock bottom of their life and has no hope and doesn't see a future for them? What do you say to that person? If you haven't done it, don't start. And if you want help, there is a way to get better.

If you need 30 seconds of encouragement, you'd slide into my personal DM. I'll be a cheerleader for you. I'll let you know it's amazing. You can do it. Anybody can get clean. They just have to want it. But if you haven't done it, don't start doing it because it will destroy your life in a way that you have never thought of or could ever, ever imagine in any way.

Being in that life, being a drug addict, being homeless, stealing. Nobody wants to be that person. Just don't do it, man.

Billy, thanks for coming on Locked In, man. Pleasure to see you after all these years. It's been fun. You know, thanks for keeping in touch, man, throughout all this. And I'm so excited to see you grow. Excited to try out that hot sauce. Bring it. And yeah, man, just keep being you, Billy. Keep being that energetic, you know, person that I met back at the camp. And you're just awesome, bro. Perfect. Good times, brother. Thank you.