Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / 10yrs in prison for selling bath salts- Justin Smith
Transcript
- 0:01What happens when he works here? Becomes your reality.
- 0:04Hi. I'm Brian Cassidy.
- 0:05Welcome to the nightmare success.
- 0:07And Now podcast where we explore a, how to overcome your fears
- 0:11and Nightmares is set yourself free.
- 0:13We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
- 0:15Lebanon working with and others who survived their own
- 0:19nightmare. These stories can be inspiring.
- 0:22Sometimes sad, there's some humor but hopefully you can come
- 0:26away with a nugget of something that will help you knock down
- 0:28some of the prisons. You built up in your own mind.
- 0:33Welcome back nightmare success in and out listeners.
- 0:37I have got a another fascinating guest.
- 0:40I know you guys come here for the good stuff.
- 0:42What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
- 0:44How do you adapt survive overcome?
- 0:48Well, Justin Smith is one of those stories.
- 0:51Fascinating stories. Justin did 12 years ago since to
- 0:5612 years in prison for running the largest bath salts
- 0:58trafficking ring and And he'll walk us through that because you
- 1:02know, what is that? How is it illegal?
- 1:05He's wickedly smart. I was watching one of his
- 1:09earlier podcast. He was on as a guest on concrete
- 1:12and it's just, he has a way of knack of finding ways to get
- 1:18things done. Fascinating story.
- 1:20He's incredibly tenacious. He's doing incredible things.
- 1:24Now, today, with an app that he's created called contractor
- 1:28plus that will get into. This is an a Up for contractors
- 1:31that skyrockets productivity and profitability which is something
- 1:34that is needed out there for all those contractors are just kind
- 1:38of winging. It just trying to get by.
- 1:40So Justin Smith man, welcome in. Thanks for making time, Grant.
- 1:45Thanks for thanks for having me, man.
- 1:47It's an honor to be here. Well, I'll tell you, I, you had
- 1:50me locked in today. I was, I was doing my workout
- 1:54and I had my headphones in. Just listening to your story.
- 1:58Take us back a little That Justin, what?
- 2:01As far as you as a kid in Ohio, what was life like for you?
- 2:05Mom, Dad? Siblings with things normal.
- 2:09Well, I grew up in small, little rural town, called Louisville,
- 2:13South Central, Ohio population was like, 300.
- 2:17No, stop sign and no stoplights that's like a mile away.
- 2:20Stop Justin, really, it's my parents are from Buffalo
- 2:24Missouri and I think that's got like, 2,500 to 3,000 but 300
- 2:30bigger than 300. Yeah.
- 2:33Yeah, it was small as funny as a kid.
- 2:35I used to go door-to-door and I would sell things out of catalog
- 2:40to earn points to cash in for prizes, like and act like and
- 2:43Nintendo. Yeah.
- 2:44All right. Lanes like that.
- 2:46So even from a young age, I was, you know, I had that Hustler
- 2:50spirit always an entrepreneur from birth.
- 2:55I think a lot of things I just I think that half is done it
- 2:57because I read you say that I Brr, I dragged my little brother
- 3:01out, and we would grab stuff out of my parents closet, and bring
- 3:06it out, and have it as people drove by had little signs, that
- 3:09we're selling their stuff. Somebody well, the neighbors
- 3:12calls it. Hey, do you know your boys here
- 3:13have selling your stuff out of the driveway?
- 3:15All know, you didn't get permission.
- 3:17Oh man. Wow, yeah, sometimes you got to
- 3:21have, you know, your way about you.
- 3:22Thank you we got me beat, man. The sales letter hilarious.
- 3:30I love it. So you're an entrepreneur guy.
- 3:33And what's your, what's your school life?
- 3:35Like what are you in sports? What are you doing down in this
- 3:39little town. So I lived in walking distance
- 3:43to the Elementary School Louisville Elementary lived
- 3:48right next to a like an apple orchard like processing
- 3:51facilities to our Ally's that connected the house of always
- 3:54full of crates of apples. Wow.
- 3:56Ow. And I remember walking home from
- 3:57school every day, I'd always stop by.
- 3:59And they for a quarter. I think they give the kids a
- 4:01slushy. So would save, our parents would
- 4:04give us a quarter and we could get an apple cider slushy on the
- 4:07way home from school. It was a nice Community.
- 4:10Honestly, there was still a sense of community.
- 4:12I'd imagine they're probably still is, of course, it's
- 4:15changed a lot over the years. Yeah, but you know, just a
- 4:19little small town, hardware store, Feed Store, a couple of
- 4:22lumber Mills and a gas station. Grocery store.
- 4:27And that's all there was to it. There was your world.
- 4:29So as you as you go along here just and I know you went to
- 4:35college. Where did you go to college?
- 4:36You went down in Florida. I think.
- 4:38Yeah, so kind of fast forward and a lot there, but so I went
- 4:43to college in Florida. I'm going to want to fast
- 4:45forward a lie. What to tell me, what I just
- 4:47missed. Well, so man, so life growing
- 4:52up. My mother is a contractor.
- 4:54Okay has been my whole life Life.
- 4:56She's the dude. I have brains many more
- 4:58moderation. Okay, she is my mom is just
- 5:02amazing. I love her so much.
- 5:05She has been my inspiration for everything.
- 5:09Good that has ever come from any business.
- 5:13I've done, my mother has been a big part of that motivation.
- 5:16Well, her work ethic after three back surgeries and and and and
- 5:20you know, living a pretty rough life.
- 5:23Her work ethic is still impeccable to this very day.
- 5:26So I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.
- 5:30My father worked in a factory. He never really aspired for
- 5:34much. He was a good man.
- 5:35Though he treated my mother with respect and kindness.
- 5:38He was a strict man. My parents were in a gospel,
- 5:41bluegrass group called strings of Praise.
- 5:44So we grew up pretty religious around the age of 12 about 11 or
- 5:5212. I started like fixing computers
- 5:55I could take Apart, put them back together.
- 5:57I built my first computer for sale for profit when I was 12
- 6:01years old or maybe just turned 13 at 13 years old.
- 6:05I started a dial-up internet. Service provider I got this was
- 6:091998, 1999. If you look at Wayback machine
- 6:13on arxiv.org. Yeah, you can actually type in
- 6:15verta dotnet and see the website how close he is that.
- 6:19Do it? 13 years old.
- 6:21Here I am with a DOT a dial-up internet service, provider with
- 6:24customers, and My phone started, ringing off the hook.
- 6:28I was a one-man band. 3:00 in the morning.
- 6:32I was getting cold help. It's not working, something's
- 6:34wrong. It's moving too slow.
- 6:37I need help setting up. My can?
- 6:41It was crazy. So I actually had to switch to
- 6:43home-school, okay? Went to home schooling.
- 6:46Did an online schooling program? Go at your own pace.
- 6:49Brandon over-investment. Joy was there to witness the
- 6:51whole thing. Funny story, one person that I
- 6:54emailed in that mask Marketing was Bill Gates, Senior, not
- 6:59Bill, Gates Junior a microphone but it's father, the president
- 7:02and chairman of Planned Parenthood and he responded.
- 7:07He asked me how old I was I guess he could tell based on how
- 7:10I rotating. I don't know.
- 7:11Yeah. And he was just curious and he
- 7:14said, keep at it, you're going for kid, I showed my parents.
- 7:17I showed everyone this email from Bill Gates and I'm like, I
- 7:19can't believe Bill Gates responded to me, but uh, but
- 7:22yeah. So about a year, not even a year
- 7:24later. Nine months later dies.
- 7:26You came to the area, even in the rural area, everyone's
- 7:28everyone's, which the DSL and then shortly after cable, and I
- 7:32didn't know what I was doing. So it was my first stab at
- 7:35business, but we didn't lose money.
- 7:37No. So not bad, not bad at all.
- 7:41Um, and I've always been into music and it was an after Full
- 7:44Sail University and they had a business degree, they had a
- 7:47bachelor's in business so you get your Associates and
- 7:50recording Arts, you get your your bachelor's and music
- 7:55business and you get Your your Masters which is only an extra
- 7:5911 months, get your you get your Master's in entertainment
- 8:03business and law. So the whole thing cost me about
- 8:06120 Grand and took it was under three years.
- 8:09So I got a master's degree in under 3 years.
- 8:11Was Immortals. More people.
- 8:13Do that thing out there like that, that's crazy.
- 8:16Yeah, so the only reason it worked like that.
- 8:17So the only reason fulfills able to do that and maintain
- 8:20accreditation is because you actually go to school for eight
- 8:23hours a day. Okay.
- 8:23Yeah, four hours of lectures. Four hours of Live Lab.
- 8:28So when you're actually in the field doing it and you have to
- 8:30get an internship as part of the master's program, I got an
- 8:33internship at a record label called 111 records.
- 8:37The CEO of that company is Brava Shetty his name or he's the
- 8:43frontman of the boy band. LFO.
- 8:45Okay. I like girls who wear
- 8:47Abercrombie & Fitch. Take Ruth.
- 8:50Wish. Yeah.
- 8:51So he signed bands like The Spill Canvas Devin Li Mo who I
- 8:57believe has now passed a cancer. He was one of his bandmates and
- 8:59LFO. Actually, I believe you don't
- 9:02believe Brad's. The only remaining member both
- 9:05of the both of his bandmates have passed a cancer, okay?
- 9:10But anyhow, long story short, they responded to my email.
- 9:13They said, we don't really have any positions available but we
- 9:16really like you and your ambition.
- 9:18So let's do it. And this has become a pattern of
- 9:22yours. Justin just one after the other.
- 9:25Yeah, man. Then I didn't even as soon as I
- 9:28before I even had my Master's soon.
- 9:29As I got my bachelor's, I started working on some.
- 9:34I had some side clients website, clients and stuff.
- 9:37I applied for one job when I was working on my masters and I was
- 9:41almost through it. I've been with 111 for like a
- 9:43year and I applied for one job on Craigslist at a real estate
- 9:47company. And his realtor was top 30 under
- 9:5130, most brilliant man I've ever met in my entire life.
- 9:54I mean, just wow. And he he the one job as all I
- 10:01sent in my resume and he calls me, I think it was on a Friday
- 10:06or Saturday. I was on my way to the beach
- 10:07house, wearing a cut-off shirt, I'm covered in tattoos.
- 10:10I had a lip ring, I was wearing a bandana.
- 10:13I would just look like a punk kid and he says, I need you in
- 10:16my office right now for an interview.
- 10:18He said if you want this job you'll show up.
- 10:19I was like, listen man, I'm not presentable for an interview
- 10:21right now and he said, I don't care, I don't care.
- 10:23Don't worry about it. I don't care what you look like.
- 10:25I told At him. I looked like you said, I don't
- 10:27care. So I went into the office and
- 10:30there was a bunch of people in there and I was really nervous
- 10:32and he set me down at a computer.
- 10:34And he said, listen, I have a problem with this website and I
- 10:37can't, there's a bug and I can't figure it out if you can fix it,
- 10:42you're hired. Wow.
- 10:44Okay. Well problem problem.
- 10:46Number one, the website was in.net asp.
- 10:51Not my language about you. But thankfully, the universe had
- 10:56a plan, God had a plane, I figured it out and like a minute
- 11:01so very simple problem, fixed it.
- 11:04He hired me on the spot within three months, he had a side
- 11:09business called A to Z CDs where we were selling through
- 11:11fulfillment. By Amazon had like eight hundred
- 11:13products that we, they handled the Fulfillment for us.
- 11:17Amazon Advantage is what it's called and he had a side.
- 11:20Business with about 3 months, those guys running that
- 11:23business. Just weren't doing a good job
- 11:24though. He had like three or four
- 11:25people, four people running that business and it can be done by
- 11:28one person. So I looked at all the systems
- 11:30and I just from a just from, I'm like look man these guys,
- 11:33they're good guys. But Don't need it.
- 11:37All right, I can fix this business for you.
- 11:39I can make it more profitable and he's like, Justin.
- 11:44I'm going to give you permission to fire these people and take it
- 11:47over. But if you mess this up, It's
- 11:51your ass. Okay?
- 11:54I'm like so the next morning I had our bookkeeper cut them all
- 11:58their last paychecks and gave them their letters of
- 12:01termination and terminated mall. I system has everything hired,
- 12:06one person to handle fulfillment train them on all the processes.
- 12:10I handled the customer service. They handle the Fulfillment.
- 12:13A worked out. Six months later, I was running
- 12:16the entire business, the real estate business and the the I
- 12:20just wasn't that rage where he did Justice.
- 12:23I mean, this all happened 23, 23 years old, 21, and Donald show.
- 12:29Yeah, I was, I was about 22, years old, running the whole
- 12:32show Scott. Actually, our business got to a
- 12:35point where he was able to move out of the city.
- 12:38He moved to Tampa, then he moved to Miami.
- 12:40He was living in a penthouse, he was living the life and he paid
- 12:44me really well but and and gave me Equity.
- 12:50He gave One percent, one percent of the equity and and I, what,
- 12:55you know, what, that something else I'd like to mention a lot
- 12:57of people get offended by that. Like, even instrumental people
- 13:00that are like, get they get offended by 1% but they don't
- 13:03understand math. Like, do you understand 1% of
- 13:07your ability of a lot exotically heel?
- 13:10So when people are negotiating for 10%, I have a couple people
- 13:13on my team right now. It's always wanting more.
- 13:15They're like I deserve more and you know what they're doing
- 13:17good, they're doing good, one of them in particular.
- 13:20But it's like, I know I can't afford to give them that much
- 13:24common stock, right? Maybe they could get options on
- 13:28top of the common thought, Grant, I've given them already
- 13:30and, you know, but it's just not realistic and people need to, I
- 13:34think they need to educate themselves, a little bit more
- 13:36about how that really works. So, but long story short, we
- 13:41grew that company. When I joined they they just
- 13:43started the property management division.
- 13:45They were managing maybe a dozen rentals over the preceding five.
- 13:50Years, we grew to over 800 properties under management all
- 13:54single-family homes. Lot of frame, condominium lot of
- 13:57property. A lot of property.
- 13:58It was a big, big deal and we did it with two rental leasing
- 14:01agents and one property manager. So, Justin doing all that, I got
- 14:08to ask you how in the world did you end up in the best salt
- 14:12deal? You know, what got got was, I
- 14:18won't say his last name out of respect for him, but got was
- 14:23definitely the most brilliant man.
- 14:25Like, when he walked in the room, he commanded attention.
- 14:27He was, he was brilliant. I don't understand.
- 14:32Like the level, the level of energy in the level of
- 14:34Brilliance of this guy who just like wow, like the having having
- 14:38Jeff as a role model early early in life are having mentors.
- 14:43Yeah. Yeah.
- 14:44Haven't got to look up to like I emulated him and his behavior.
- 14:48The way he wrote his emails, the way he talked to clients the way
- 14:50he did, I emulated everything he did because I saw the results of
- 14:54it. Yep.
- 14:55And but something happened and I don't know.
- 15:00I don't know. I still don't understand it.
- 15:03Brent, I don't understand it but what I know is after a few years
- 15:07the business is doing really well.
- 15:08We're really Frugal. We have a little Warehouse in
- 15:11the ghetto. We're Cheap and our investors
- 15:15like they appreciate that. We're going to have five lines
- 15:18under rugs and stuff like you know and and it worked so why we
- 15:22didn't need a big fancy Penthouse office downtown,
- 15:25right? We didn't need it, we could
- 15:27afford it, we could afford to buy our name on the side of the
- 15:29building. We almost did it, but why?
- 15:31Yeah, so and you know, that when you're building a brand and
- 15:35building a business, especially a local area, local brand, maybe
- 15:39it's worth it, but everything has a cost and everything has a
- 15:41benefit you have to weigh those things right?
- 15:43Is it It really worth it. Is that where the money is best
- 15:46allocated right now? Yep.
- 15:48So he comes back from Miami. I saw him at that point.
- 15:51The last year I think I saw him three times the whole year
- 15:53course, I was up. Till 2:00 a.m. emailing them
- 15:55every night. Ron in the business I was his he
- 16:00called me v.p. operations, gooo whatever you want to call it.
- 16:03I was operations guy on top of the web developer and the
- 16:07customer service for the other bit of everything.
- 16:10So and we launched we had launched prior to that, we had
- 16:13Lon Handyman Division, and that grew to our most profitable
- 16:17division. We were subbing out so much work
- 16:19and maintenance and carpet cleaning, and like it was
- 16:22ridiculous. We made more money off of once.
- 16:24We brought that in-house and hired our own team and aren't
- 16:26got our own Fleet of vehicles. We ended up making more money 3
- 16:30times more than what we do. She has saw September cells are
- 16:34doing and that type of situation you control everything.
- 16:38Yeah exactly. You can control everything.
- 16:41You handle all the scheduling you know it's all Isabel at that
- 16:44point, right? So it's a lot less stressful.
- 16:47Exactly. Every time something changes,
- 16:49you don't have to call five different people.
- 16:51It's, it's all handled, right? So, it made a lot of sense to
- 16:55bring those processes internal and it and it made us more
- 16:58profitable. Well, he comes back to Orlando
- 17:01out of nowhere and he sets down, I have the Lazy Boy recliner in
- 17:06my office and he says, down in the recliner next to my
- 17:08Workstation. He said, hey Justin, let's go
- 17:11for a drive. That, okay, and we're driving
- 17:15downtown, and we go buy this building.
- 17:20And this building was 37, North Orange Avenue, the old engine
- 17:24built a hotel, Walt Disney and Henry Ford.
- 17:27It actually stayed there and he said you liked this building.
- 17:31I said, yeah, why? And I'll tell you something
- 17:33interesting about this, it's really weird.
- 17:36I said yeah. Why and he said because that's
- 17:38where your new offices for now. It's just you and me we're on
- 17:41the seventh floor. I want you to negotiate a lease
- 17:45on the top two floors. We want the top two floors of
- 17:4810th and 11th floor and we build it out with kind of 10-year
- 17:51lease. Do whatever we have to do and
- 17:53over the next two to three months will rehab that and build
- 17:56it that's art. That's going to we're going to
- 17:57move our whole team there except for the handyman division.
- 18:00At the Scott. How much is this gonna cost?
- 18:03And he said, don't worry about it, we're making money.
- 18:06And so, we did that, that's what we did.
- 18:09And but what's interesting about that I said something was
- 18:12interesting about that. Me and Spencer declare one of
- 18:14our rental leasing agents was downtown.
- 18:16We'd go out for a drink, wine down, Wednesday and stuff after
- 18:18work. Meet the ladies.
- 18:21So, so we, we were out and walking by the building and we
- 18:26stopped and looked in the lobby of this old fancy.
- 18:29Everything was like brat like look gold like look very fancy.
- 18:32And you know and you know historic and I said man what
- 18:36It'd be cool if we had an office in this building and we were
- 18:38like, he said, yeah, we both agreed not long after that God
- 18:43arranged that's an officer. Now ain't feeling it was
- 18:46unbelievable. I was kind of shocked but so we
- 18:50built that out. We moved our whole business into
- 18:52that building started doing some crazy stuff over.
- 18:55Like Scott was just not the the shots he first.
- 18:59I had a nice office floor to ceiling glass windows three
- 19:02months and of end of that move. He moves me to the ground floor
- 19:06with the rest of Team, he's like you're the operations guy.
- 19:08You need to be on the ground with everyone else.
- 19:10My ego is like no, but I let it, I said you know what?
- 19:17If it's in the best interest of the business, I'll do it.
- 19:19So I did it. And then he seemed a little bit
- 19:26off from what you were used to with him, man.
- 19:31The way I see it. If it wasn't for me, we would
- 19:33have never been like, I do, There's nothing like what we
- 19:37rode or what we deserve, what we think we deserve, and what we
- 19:40and what life has in store for us?
- 19:43Yeah, aren't always an alignment.
- 19:45And I think practicing acceptance over what we can't
- 19:49control and just making the best plan, our cards, the best we can
- 19:53like, we were dealt those cards. We can't change those cards man.
- 19:56Right. So we just got to play them to
- 19:58the best of our ability. We know the odds if you're
- 20:01smart, you know, the odds. Play them right man and keep
- 20:04your hand close, but, you know, hindsight's 20/20.
- 20:08Yeah. The some lessons, the heart of
- 20:10the best lessons. I've learned the hard way, so
- 20:15Scott Damon 11 morning. Well, he came in one morning and
- 20:25an infinite happened where bag of Adderall fell out of his suit
- 20:29jacket on someone's desk. It wasn't mine and there was a
- 20:32rumor mill, everyone was talking about it.
- 20:35Make it, brought it to me like Justin, something's wrong Scott,
- 20:37you got to help him. So I didn't know what to do.
- 20:40So I talked to him about it. He denied it lied to me.
- 20:44And so something, he was basically working working so
- 20:47much that he was using Adderall speak not as its intended use,
- 20:51he was misusing it. Yeah.
- 20:52And so, but it was it was, it was like, it was, it was hurting
- 20:57him. Like it was causing him to act
- 20:59in a way like you may be able to stay up longer and you may, you
- 21:02may be able to get more work done, right?
- 21:05the quality of your work like you're like you're so like what
- 21:09goes the reason people believe in you and the reason people,
- 21:13the reason people Are given us their business is because they
- 21:17know it's in good hands, right? And start started the week in
- 21:22the fabric of of his integrity and his personality.
- 21:26So long story short, one morning, I come in early.
- 21:30I'm usually the first one there and there's there's a Brian's
- 21:34not a computer, he's the Fulfillment guy prayed as he CDs
- 21:37the whole top floor around one of the corners.
- 21:39One of the Wings was 48 of these CDs and there was one computer
- 21:42there, the ship station and everything and Glaring, and I'm
- 21:46talking like 6:00 in the morning, man, whose early.
- 21:49So I walk over there and there's all these news paper cutouts on
- 21:53the table and it's all like Wiccan witchcraft stuff.
- 21:57And I'm thinking what? And I look at the computer and
- 22:02there was an email that it just went out to all of our biggest
- 22:04investors. So going back going back.
- 22:07Justin, you get you get, let go that day.
- 22:09You've been very successful. The guy flipped out on you.
- 22:13What are you thinking? Well, I didn't get a severance
- 22:18so it was just flat-out. Done got fired.
- 22:21I started looking for, I did some freelance work on, its I
- 22:25believe it's called up work. Now, at the time was, what did
- 22:30it used to be? Yeah.
- 22:35So used to be called something else, they acquired that other
- 22:37company. So I started taking jobs on
- 22:41there. I got some video production,
- 22:42gigs, I got some SEO gig. I have a little fun.
- 22:46Project with my friend in India, Roshan we had started.
- 22:51I don't know if you remember, Dollar Shave Club.
- 22:54Oh yeah, billion dollar acquisition.
- 22:57So they had a video that went viral.
- 22:58So there was a few things that happen.
- 23:00But basically I have some savings, I was making good
- 23:03money, right? And I had a little bit of
- 23:06savings at least, and I got some video production and web
- 23:11development clients. I got to, I got a vein doctor,
- 23:15not a Punta Gorda and I believe that contract paid 65 thousand
- 23:20dollars. And I subbed out a lot of the
- 23:24video work for like 10 grand. So I might have walked away
- 23:27after taxes with like 25k and then I got a life coach and and
- 23:33we did some some website and video production work for them
- 23:37and that carried me for a A while, but I knew that wasn't
- 23:40going to be it. Well, I had a colleague, a
- 23:45friend who owns some smoke shop, okay?
- 23:48And so this guy wanted he the top selling product and all of
- 23:54his stores was fight. They sold more volume and B,
- 24:01more revenues generated from selling spice than any other
- 24:03product than all the other products combined and his smoke
- 24:06shop. Oh, and I'll end and all of his
- 24:09locations. He had multiple locations, so,
- 24:12and then You know, everyone calls it K2 because that was the
- 24:16that was the brand that got most established, which K2.
- 24:19I mean in prisons was just an absolute nightmare.
- 24:22I'm sure it still is. But I saw some really, really
- 24:25call it K2 in prison, but it's not actually K2.
- 24:29K2 was a brand, it was a company, a legal company really
- 24:33registered company of corporate a c-corporation and, and they
- 24:39were importing this stuff legally there.
- 24:42They were Not controlled substances, right?
- 24:45Hey, were they were controlled. It was some gray area.
- 24:48There is what's a lot of people don't know this.
- 24:50I didn't know this. At the time there's What's
- 24:52called the federal analog act. The federal analog act states
- 24:56that any substance that produces a similar, like mind-altering
- 24:59effects, they can charge you with the nearest related
- 25:01substance and then of course they use the marijuana
- 25:04equivalency table and they come up with this magic.
- 25:07It's a magical formula that determines how long you're
- 25:09supposed to do in prison. Well, so I figured out what the
- 25:15chemical was at the time. Kate, the chemical K2 with the
- 25:18company. K2 mr.
- 25:19Nice guy and all the big Distributors.
- 25:21All the big manufacturers, the all they're doing is they're
- 25:24taking lose to leak. Damn jnana.
- 25:26And and if I'm saying that, right, and marshmallow, two
- 25:29different kinds of herbs that are legal totally legal.
- 25:32And smokable won't like kill your lungs are nothing.
- 25:34They don't taste great but and they buy it in bulk, they buy
- 25:37like truckloads of the stuff and then they would they would
- 25:42basically take One gram of pure cam are at the time, it was
- 25:45called jwh, 18, and that turned in that kept changing and will
- 25:49explain that in a second. But so, it kept changing to
- 25:52skirt the law. So but basically they were
- 25:57putting this. So you take U-turn one gram of
- 26:00pure cam, jwh, 18 and you, you spray that on approximately 10
- 26:08grams of loose leaf and then you sell these But you sell this
- 26:13loose leaf by the gram and the Hedgehog.
- 26:15The retail value is 25 dollars, twenty to twenty-five bucks.
- 26:19So, you're turning one gram. Now, a kilo gram of Jade
- 26:24objective jwh, 18 with $1500. And when you buy 100 of them,
- 26:29you can get it to 12:00. so, that's what we did.
- 26:35We started, I started, I bought. I think the first time I bought
- 26:395 kilos, And no, I take that back.
- 26:45I bought three kilos about three kilos.
- 26:47The first time, I remember that first shipment was so nervous.
- 26:50When I came to the door. They required a signature.
- 26:51I was, I was terrified. Had it shipped right to my
- 26:54house? What is it?
- 26:55Wait. 3 Kg yeah, Graham what is it?
- 27:00Three thousand grams? Has a kilogram is 1000. 1000
- 27:05Grand. Got it like 1006 technically but
- 27:07it's about 1,000 Grant. So so that you know 1 kg turns
- 27:15into 10,000 retail, ready products?
- 27:18Well at and they're selling it on the shelves at 20 at least
- 27:22twenty dollars a pack. So huge margins.
- 27:24Oh my goodness. Yeah.
- 27:26So 10,000 times $20, well, the interesting thing to just at
- 27:31this time and that's not an illegal product, and you're just
- 27:35figuring out how to get it distribute it and probably
- 27:40lowball it to enter Mark. Well yeah, I was only getting
- 27:43paid a dollar. Yeah.
- 27:45Okay. A dollar, a gram.
- 27:47So for finished product, so if we finish the product and
- 27:52Phillip and let them know the dog G.
- 27:54But, but, you know, one, In terms of 210 grams of finished
- 27:57products on basically turning 15 hundred dollars into 10,000.
- 28:01Right? Right.
- 28:03So it was still good money. Those margins are ridiculous.
- 28:06Sure. So then it sounds now that's not
- 28:10what the DEA arrested me for though and that we.
- 28:15So the stores Distributors, we all got notified from the FDA
- 28:20thing. People, it is believed that
- 28:23people are ingesting the substance and you miss you.
- 28:26Using it as a drug test and there and it's causing
- 28:29intoxication and can potentially, it's not tested.
- 28:32So it could potentially cause a life-threatening or life, you
- 28:34know, like they made it sound like really, they ain't I right.
- 28:38Let me tell you something, though.
- 28:38In the early days, the pure Kim. That would go on this chemical.
- 28:42I tried it. I'm not I don't I'm not into
- 28:44drugs. I don't even like pot, but it's
- 28:46but but it's, I tried it just understand what it was and we
- 28:50didn't know what we were doing. So we just took the pure
- 28:52chemical and put it in a bowl and took a hit of it.
- 28:56And I felt like I smoked weed. Yeah, they just felt like we'd
- 29:00since but I think we that's what it.
- 29:02That's what it because the cannabinoid, because before they
- 29:05had to keep altering it and altering it and Alternate.
- 29:07Yeah, initially they nailed it. It was a weed, like, hi it just
- 29:11didn't last as long, right? I like we might keep you eye for
- 29:14a couple hours or an hour long, but but this stuff would
- 29:18probably keep you high for 30 minutes. 45 minutes were you
- 29:21buying this stuff from Justin? From China, getting it from
- 29:24China? No, yes.
- 29:26I'm getting it from a company called can szotek, you know, I
- 29:30did some research and I I've always suspected that it was a
- 29:35Honeypot for those who don't know, what a honey pot is.
- 29:38It's basically when the government runs a sting
- 29:40operation, they set up a business and on foreign soil and
- 29:44they distribute drugs. A lot of times alongside with
- 29:47like the CIA does this stuff. A lot of times they'll do it
- 29:51alongside with drug cartels and Mafia and criminal organizations
- 29:55and On trees, they'll even give them free rein in through the
- 29:59u.s. just so they can knock off. They don't want to cut the head
- 30:01off the snake, they keep cutting.
- 30:03They keep cutting down the little guy, right?
- 30:05Because that because it's a they've created a pipeline to
- 30:08prison. And this, no, this is my belief.
- 30:10But if you look at the media, I went to entertainment business
- 30:13school and I know that ASCAP and BMI, right?
- 30:1690% of the music, the hits, the radio, if not more.
- 30:19So all this rap music that's talking about, you know,
- 30:22demoralizing women and and talking about using drugs and
- 30:25it's too. Talking about the, you know,
- 30:27that, you know, women are hose and all all this nonsense that's
- 30:32stuff that filth is coming by design, by the people that own
- 30:35that own in entertainment industry.
- 30:38Yeah. So, they're creating this
- 30:40pipeline to prison and then they create the solution to the
- 30:43problem they created. Write the solution is more
- 30:45prison, right? So From Kennedy forward, the
- 30:51Clinton Administration, boomed. I mean, even if it just it's
- 30:54been crazy. Nixon 1969, 1970.
- 30:58When they waged a war on drugs and stated the DEA.
- 31:02If you look before that drugs were were criminalized, were,
- 31:06were basically a taxable event. It was handled with a tax stamp,
- 31:11so they weren't going to put you in cuffs and throw you in prison
- 31:14for it. If we look at Prohibition in the
- 31:17affect the prohibition, you go all the way back to alcohol,
- 31:19prohibition. Inert.
- 31:20The first provision was opium, because we brought all the, I
- 31:23read that book strangers from another sure.
- 31:25That's a great read. By the way, about how we
- 31:27mistreated Asian people. People that came from China and
- 31:31and and and you know we would we went over there ran ads in the
- 31:36newspapers, brought them over here, promised them a dollar a
- 31:39day, which was 10 times more than they were making are more
- 31:41than that. And they thought, well, I'll be
- 31:43able to send money home to my family.
- 31:44I'll be able to live a good quality of life and I'll be able
- 31:47to return to my family wealthy. They're like, of course we want
- 31:50it, but then they get over here in the cost of living, so high,
- 31:52and the work, they're doing back work in their manually, building
- 31:55our railroads and their mining are their mining.
- 31:57All of our tunnels and our for our roads, in our rail system,
- 32:00they're doing all the back-breaking work.
- 32:02That students be above Americans, right?
- 32:04Americans are too good for that. We're not going to do that.
- 32:07So do it still hasn't changed. So so this those guys got hooked
- 32:15on opium. Yeah.
- 32:16Saying there's going to bring you back to where You start
- 32:20getting this from China. And the you yeah I'm sure the
- 32:25way that you think is I got to get more of this and soon as you
- 32:28probably figured out some some way to get more.
- 32:32Yeah. And I want to turn the Thousand
- 32:34to ten thousand. Yeah.
- 32:35Once you turn 1,000 to 10,000, I want to turn 10,000.
- 32:38How long did it take for you? Justin to get to a point where
- 32:41you were making a lot of money immediately.
- 32:46So about within a, within a couple of weeks after placing
- 32:50the first order, I placed an order Of 10 kilos and then
- 32:57shortly after was I was introduced.
- 33:01We of course, they kept changing the chemical would have to
- 33:02liquidate everything quickly. It was like a race to try to
- 33:06sell it. It was crazy, but we would
- 33:10communicate like, when, when things were going to get
- 33:13scheduled and then they would just move it like one carbon
- 33:15molecule to the left or right, or whatever, change it and call
- 33:18it something else. Chemically.
- 33:19It's something else that I can't say, it's the same thing.
- 33:22Very similar, but not the same interesting.
- 33:24Oh but then we started dealing with synthetic Molly and that's
- 33:28what I got indicted for. So they sold them in the stores
- 33:32just like the spice just like the K2.
- 33:35They sold in a little foil bag with a smile face on it.
- 33:38That said Happy Time bonsai tree, fertilizer whatever and
- 33:43not for human consumption was stamped on the bag to little red
- 33:46pills in it $25 and it contained between 100 and 200.
- 33:52A g about 100 milligrams per pill but 100 mg of substance
- 33:56called methylone or VK MDMA which was an analog.
- 34:03That wasn't scheduled either. So and then that became over the
- 34:07years, it's changed. I don't know, probably change
- 34:08the. I don't even know what it is
- 34:09today, but I'm sure they're still producing the crap.
- 34:13So, anyhow, that's where the real money was because we it was
- 34:18a little bit more. Per kilo is like sixteen
- 34:20Seventeen, fifty perky, but we would end up.
- 34:24I could just wholesale the kilo to the people manufacturing,
- 34:26this stuff at ten thousand dollars a piece, and they buy
- 34:29100 at a time. I couldn't get 100 at a time.
- 34:34I couldn't get 100 at a time. So what I ended up having to
- 34:36doing is go and getting these little Spanish, bodegas, these
- 34:39little places that wouldn't require lease agreements and
- 34:42wouldn't they would just let me pay him, six months, rent in
- 34:44cash up front and then I'd have stuff delivered to these places.
- 34:49Until there's some until there's a seizure in custom, if a
- 34:52package gets held up in customs then or if if the delay is
- 34:56unusual, like if it's more than four days or three days So the
- 35:02first step is you familiarize yourself with the mail delivery
- 35:04guy. You make sure you the same guy
- 35:07order, Catholic order books order some things and make sure,
- 35:09you know, who your delivery guy is.
- 35:12So, so when it's not that person, if they ask you to sign
- 35:17the second step is waived. The signature requirement ask
- 35:21you to thought, sometimes on International packages, they'll
- 35:22still ask you to sign even when you've waited, there was a very
- 35:26quiet If they ask you to sign, make a judgment call, but your
- 35:31normal delivery guy probably fine, you know, of course, be
- 35:34looking down the road have look out that people make sure you're
- 35:37safe, make sure, but but familiar.
- 35:41So that's the first of it. If you have a package that that,
- 35:44you know, we would never ship more than 10 kilos in a box.
- 35:47But either because there's a custom, even if this wasn't
- 35:49scheduled as the drug, and I'm sure you're probably asking your
- 35:54attorney, you know, my alright. What what what Sand pants gray
- 35:59area and that it these things quickly become scheduled.
- 36:02Okay? And, and it's frowned upon
- 36:06heavily and be careful. He advised me not to do it,
- 36:10okay, but my attorney said, don't do it.
- 36:12And what do you make in a month now?
- 36:14Selling this stuff too much, too much, I mean, 200 too much to,
- 36:21where it's scary that you're thinking.
- 36:22I got, I don't know what, I'll boy, what am I gonna do more
- 36:25than I know what to do it. So I convinced myself If that I
- 36:28would, I would save up three million dollars.
- 36:31And, and once I had the three million liquid, I would fund all
- 36:38the businesses that I my marketing agency, the recording
- 36:41studio. So, what I started doing was in
- 36:43parallel, as this money was coming in instead of saving it.
- 36:46I started building businesses. I got an office building.
- 36:49I I put a recording studio in there.
- 36:51I put I bought over a million dollars worth of gear for that
- 36:53studio. We, I mean, we went, we want to
- 36:56build a studio in town. Down.
- 36:57Yeah, smart. Go to building other businesses
- 36:59but I wasn't thinking like well I'm gonna have to answer where
- 37:02all this stuff came from now that all the material stuff,
- 37:04like you buys you by the consoles.
- 37:06And you know and eighty thousand dollar SSL console, you know,
- 37:09like you you don't have to answer for that stuff because
- 37:11you paid cash for it, right? But as long as the person, you
- 37:13bought it from school with that, right?
- 37:15But but you're going to raise some eyebrows spending money
- 37:19like that? Yeah, so now so I got to a point
- 37:24where I told myself that but What really happened?
- 37:29What where it all went South? Well, first of all, I should
- 37:32have never done any of it. And I know that now because I'm
- 37:35smart, I'm capable of building websites and getting clients
- 37:38and, but I didn't believe in myself and I was afraid of
- 37:41hearing. No, I was afraid of rejection
- 37:43and that was that was, that was, that was routed from earlier in
- 37:46life. Yeah.
- 37:47Like, when I was a kid, you know, I got made fun of as a
- 37:49kid, like I said, I was had a hard time, like socializing with
- 37:52other people so but you had a good run business-wise, I mean
- 37:56from did replied. Yes.
- 37:57Yeah, because I poured everything when other kids are
- 37:59out playing and doing. So I'm working on computers and
- 38:02I learned, you know, I so that's that made me who I am.
- 38:08So long story short, they China schedule Works different than
- 38:13America's week. We have an emergency schedule.
- 38:15Say it once. They realize something's hurting
- 38:17people or something, could hurt people or could I say hurt.
- 38:21If you use like a scientific dose to get a mind-altering
- 38:26effect, a safe mine. There is such thing as a safe.
- 38:28Mind-altering effects. Otherwise doctors wouldn't
- 38:32prescribe medication? Sure.
- 38:34You know what I mean? So, there is such a, there's a
- 38:36way to enjoy MDMA. There's a way to enjoy
- 38:39marijuana. And there's also a way to maybe
- 38:43not with marijuana, but with other drugs, there's also a way
- 38:46to hurt yourself. Sure.
- 38:48And take too much and have a heart attack or a stroke.
- 38:51So, but if you're drinking water, and you're being
- 38:55responsible, and you do the research, Search and you weigh
- 38:58out a safe dose. A dosage that's deemed safe by
- 39:02the community, then nothing. Bad is going to happen to you,
- 39:05but the problem is is not everyone smart like that.
- 39:08Not everybody does everybody want to push their?
- 39:10They take it and they feel good or they take it in 45 minutes
- 39:13later they don't feel enough that they take more and then 40
- 39:1630 minutes later, they feel good but they want to feel even
- 39:18better so they take more and then they're not drinking water.
- 39:24Sorry, I'm talking too much but I'm not drinking water and
- 39:28hydrating their body well now they die.
- 39:31Yeah. Oh yes, it can be dangerous and
- 39:34and that's the thing that when you have a doctor that
- 39:36prescribed something they educate you on the proper dose.
- 39:39They tell you how much to take in when to take it with food and
- 39:41water and, you know, and that's, and that's why there's licenses,
- 39:45and that's why there's there's a system in place to protect
- 39:49people. Protect people are protect the
- 39:51profits of the medical Monopoly, you decide, but what?
- 39:54Ever. So I digress, but long story
- 39:59short, long story short, long story short that what what
- 40:04sealed my fate was a China schedule.
- 40:07Is once a year January 1st, they update their schedule, they
- 40:10don't do it in the middle of the they don't worry about not, they
- 40:12don't care what what American or what American consumers putting
- 40:15in their bodies, right? They probably liked the idea of
- 40:18messing us up. Yeah, I mean, I don't know,
- 40:20that's not fair to China. I have some friends in China,
- 40:22they don't, they don't wish us ill will.
- 40:24Don't think so like it. The conservative mindset here in
- 40:27America is like China is trying to poison us.
- 40:29They're putting poison in our drywall on our dog food.
- 40:31So I like man it just I had a we imported over 5,000, caskets a
- 40:36year from China and I had good relations with the people that
- 40:39we did business was so, you know, there's a genuinely care
- 40:42about you, right? I mean, yeah, that's what I'm
- 40:44saying. I've never witnessed anything
- 40:46like, I've never. So I think the conservative
- 40:49mindset of China. I think it's the Doom and Gloom
- 40:51media that's created that, and I think it's not real.
- 40:54Sorry, I don't wear in a bad position right now because of
- 40:57that narrative. And, you know, hopefully it
- 40:59pulls itself back from the cliff on both sides because, you know,
- 41:02both kind of agree cause a lot of harm to each other.
- 41:05It's so sad, it's so sad. But you know what?
- 41:08I think we're at this point in human evolution where We've
- 41:12evolved to a point where as human beings all of our
- 41:16differences, aside religion. Economic status, socioeconomic
- 41:24status, geography location. I think these things were
- 41:28starting to realize as like a species that were all Co
- 41:31inhabitants of the earth. And and we need to stop thinking
- 41:35about these invisible lines. That we call borders than these
- 41:37flags. That divide Us in these
- 41:39religions that divide us and instead this just be human
- 41:41beings and let's look out for one another.
- 41:44I don't care if you're from China, or if you're from India
- 41:46or from Ecuador, I don't care. You're my brother and I want to
- 41:50Treat you? I want to treat you like you're
- 41:51my brother, you're my sister regardless of your conditions,
- 41:54or your environment, or your geography.
- 41:56Yeah. And I think think you would
- 41:57think we were you would think that we were getting there in
- 42:00the 21st century, but you've got Russia.
- 42:03That's invading. Ukraine is something that you
- 42:04would see, probably what you thought you'd see in the 40s.
- 42:07So it's a shame, it's insane, Ukraine Russia.
- 42:13Lee stands like knock it off. Knock it the fuck off.
- 42:17Exactly it. It's time to do this.
- 42:20It's time for us to do something about this, but it's not going
- 42:23to change on its own and you can't change it from inside the
- 42:25system. I agree.
- 42:26You can't join become a politician and changes Ron.
- 42:29Paul tried that. He said, I tried.
- 42:31It doesn't work. Exactly.
- 42:33God. It's a mindset.
- 42:35It's the belief, the belief that changes everything.
- 42:39If we all can get aligned on this belief, then the world will
- 42:43change in our favor in this Direction.
- 42:45That's a big step, but I mean, we need to start walking that
- 42:48way for sure. So anyway, You know, so I want
- 42:50to get back to when your nightmare happened.
- 42:55Like how did it happen? What was going on before?
- 42:57It happened? On China had to liquidate
- 43:01January was in December. They had like, I don't know.
- 43:06Maybe 300 kilos. Roughly, I don't know it. 200.
- 43:11Yeah. 300 good bad. What ended up being loved is
- 43:14like 284 kilos. That was remaining.
- 43:21In their inventory and I said, well just send it to me on
- 43:24consignment. I'll pay you within a week and
- 43:26are all, you know, I gave him. I think 100 Grand up front or
- 43:29something, it was whatever. So and I said, I can, I said, I
- 43:35can take 100 of them off of your hands.
- 43:37Now, here's the thing, I communicated with pgp, which is
- 43:39pretty good privacy, it's encrypted.
- 43:42So that means all of my emails were encrypted back and forth,
- 43:46and that's why it goes back to me saying, I believe, it can,
- 43:48szotek may have been a honey pot because They the only way to
- 43:51read those emails as if you have both of our private keys and
- 43:54only way they got my private key was by seizing my laptop.
- 43:58The only how did they get their private key Interpol?
- 44:01Didn't give it to him. Interpol wasn't even on to him,
- 44:05they were still in business 54 years into my sentence.
- 44:09So it really really really makes me question that I don't see any
- 44:16other possibility. It's simple math, but regardless
- 44:18of that. So they send this large
- 44:20shipment. I broke it into 10 kilo grams
- 44:24per box. I think some, we went a little
- 44:26extra just because we had so much and I sent it to like 20
- 44:29different addresses and about a dozen of them.
- 44:33I controlled, the other people didn't even know who I was.
- 44:37It was someone that / cured them like college students is, hey,
- 44:41can I have some juice? A stone like hey, I'm going to
- 44:43be out of town. Can I have something a package
- 44:45that they're they didn't ask anything.
- 44:47So So I they see what they seized.
- 44:54A lot of it came through a lot of it, they didn't catch and
- 44:56Customs but What They seized was 284 kilos.
- 45:02And the mail. And they were all most of the
- 45:07majority of. It was all going to addresses
- 45:10that they already knew I control.
- 45:11They've been watching me for a year.
- 45:13I didn't even know it. So They exercise.
- 45:18The raid on all my properties simultaneously.
- 45:21They rated the recording studio. They were raided my house, early
- 45:25early in the morning. I wasn't even awake yet.
- 45:29Kick the door in smoke-filled. Are people came in.
- 45:34They put a military boot on the side of my head.
- 45:36I'd held me to the ground zip. Tied my hands.
- 45:39I'm naked did the same, you know?
- 45:42It was just anything else in your place when that happened.
- 45:45Yeah, me and my The time, well, so what's going through your
- 45:50mind to go through that? It was so embarrassing, so
- 45:52humiliating. And what were you thinking?
- 45:54Dustin is that, you know, they I mean obviously this has got to
- 45:57be a jolt, you know, you're dead, you're dead asleep and I
- 46:00knew what I was. I knew what I was doing was
- 46:02wrong. Brent.
- 46:02Yeah, I knew what I was doing was wrong but I thought I
- 46:06remember I was of all places. I was sitting on the toilet like
- 46:10a month before that and I felt that guilt that shame that I
- 46:14talked about earlier. I felt that Our moral compass
- 46:17man. Like if you listen to it it will
- 46:20guide you right? But it's hard temptation is it's
- 46:25hard at the temptation of money is very, very, very hard.
- 46:28You think the temptation of drugs is hard?
- 46:31The temptation of money is insane.
- 46:33So I felt that though, some it was like God, the universe,
- 46:39whatever you want to call, it was telling was showing me the
- 46:43way and I did, I suppress it. We're like a Like a few hours.
- 46:47I felt like, okay, I'm not going to do this anymore, I'm done.
- 46:50And then the next day it's like well as usual, I got to make
- 46:54money, right? So When that happened, anyhow,
- 46:59the DEA had that evident they have that email where I said, I
- 47:04can handle a hundred of them at least.
- 47:06Yeah. It was encrypted.
- 47:08I don't know how they had it but my lawyer didn't know.
- 47:10The crazy thing about the feds is they can have everything, you
- 47:14know, anything you've ever written.
- 47:16Anything you've ever sent as an email, anything?
- 47:18You've ever done, social media? All not of, it's encrypted.
- 47:21I know. But I'm just, I'm just saying
- 47:23it's it amazes me. What is available?
- 47:27Shayla below and how they get to things that you're not supposed
- 47:31to think that they could ever get to it.
- 47:33Blow title 3, give them access to that stuff.
- 47:35Sure. So if they have enough evidence
- 47:38to believe, you're doing something illegal, they conjure
- 47:40a grand jury. And they, the grand jury decides
- 47:44whether or not they have enough reasoning or, you know, to but
- 47:48beyond the reasonable suspicion that you're guilty, then they
- 47:52get them the judge or magistrate grant them a title three,
- 47:55warrant that title three, they don't have.
- 47:57To go kicking your door right away.
- 47:58They can put trackers on your cars.
- 48:00They can they can set and watch you from binoculars.
- 48:03They can take pictures, they can from helicopters, they can spend
- 48:06millions of dollars tracking future tracking felon before
- 48:09they to build a cake, right? They listened to all your phone
- 48:12conversations. If they've got them, they start
- 48:15watching all your emails. They read all your chat.
- 48:18They look at your browsing history, you know.
- 48:21They know what kind of formula they know everything.
- 48:23Yeah. And and So and then once they
- 48:28know once they wait for that big moment so they're so like five
- 48:31kilos tinkas. Okay, thank you, Lana.
- 48:34We're only going to be able to give him so we're going to give
- 48:36them two years to that like not on its way.
- 48:38They see that email I'll take 100 Bam.
- 48:44It's all over. That's all they needed.
- 48:45Was that email for conspiracy charge.
- 48:47I didn't even need possession of the substance.
- 48:49You don't even need have it. You don't even need to be caught
- 48:51with it, all that need that email saying that you wanted it.
- 48:55Yeah, there's a lot of people walking around in the federal
- 48:57yards and conspiracy. I agree.
- 49:01There's a lot there are listen though.
- 49:03I knew what I was doing wrong. Yeah.
- 49:05All right. And what was going on was wrong.
- 49:13They bust down your door Justin they take you probably in the
- 49:17most embarrassing way there's probably people all over the
- 49:20place in front of your playlist. Yeah they clothed me they
- 49:23actually closed me first so they clothed me you get water from a
- 49:28set. They actually I asked them to
- 49:30set out some some food and water for my dog, they did that.
- 49:36Okay they actually did that but they destroyed the house they
- 49:40kicked. In all the interior doors they
- 49:41busted Some clothes, some like cabinet doors, they destroyed,
- 49:45they destroyed my home but I mean it is what it is.
- 49:49I knew I was playing with fire all right you know it's stupid
- 49:53for it would be a lie to say that I knew that their I didn't
- 49:56think that there would be any repercussions for my action.
- 49:59I knew there very well could be did you get arrested and
- 50:03released on bail or not? Take you in and that was it once
- 50:08I was in jail I was in jail. That's but which actually helps
- 50:13shorten the sentence. I mean, didn't shorten it.
- 50:15It just starts the clock early so remanded into custody.
- 50:23Did seven months before in for my truck jail and a County Jail,
- 50:30how it was supposed to be four months but but there was there
- 50:35waiting on another case out of Tampa.
- 50:38And there were some other cases of Some significance with the
- 50:41related substance and they were waiting on the DEA toxicology
- 50:44lab, the judge didn't want to sentence me until they knew that
- 50:50stuff. Well, that ended up it was a
- 50:53different substance. It was like you'd alone or
- 50:55something. It wasn't even the same thing I
- 50:56had. But this oh, they were waiting
- 50:58for the thing that you had though.
- 51:00Justin was relatable to the same effects you could have if you
- 51:04took ecstasy? Yeah, that's correct.
- 51:07Yeah. So what so You get lined up
- 51:11here, you get an attorney walk us through what's going on like
- 51:19hired, a private attorney and and the attorney said, listen,
- 51:26don't don't agree to any, they want you to admit, to what
- 51:29you've done, it's called a proper, they want you to come in
- 51:33and proper. They want you to tell them what
- 51:36you've done. And once you to, you know, tell
- 51:38them who was involved and they want you to tell them everything
- 51:41from top to bottom. And if you're willing to do
- 51:42that, they're willing to cut you a deal and I said, well, what
- 51:46would that entail? And he said, it could entail.
- 51:50It just depends on what they know about your operation.
- 51:53He said, I don't know that yet and I said we'll figure that
- 51:56out. So he brought me the next
- 51:58meeting. I think, was a few days later.
- 52:00He brings me some evidence that they had against me and it was
- 52:03those emails and he said, Justin I'm the fifth best trial lawyer
- 52:09according to ABO or whatever in the state of Florida. and, I
- 52:15like you, but you didn't make a mistake.
- 52:18You made a series of bad decisions.
- 52:21You knew what you were doing and like, and they know that and
- 52:24they have evidence, they have too much evidence against you
- 52:27and if we go to trial, although trials, not truly about guilt,
- 52:31it's not truly about. If you know, it's really not,
- 52:35it's about, it's a game first. You have voir dire, jury
- 52:38selection, you eliminate people, you think of you against you,
- 52:41and it's all in the car that is so.
- 52:42But, you know, even though it's not really about guilt like Like
- 52:45the guilty. People walk free from trial that
- 52:47does happen and and and non-guilty people get convicted,
- 52:51that's Riley. I know a couple guys that are
- 52:53definitely not guilty that are in prison right now.
- 52:55Yeah. And so he said if you go to
- 53:00trial this evidence here alone it's going to be a very hard.
- 53:04Even if the jury like feels bad for you it's going to be very
- 53:07hard. For the chances.
- 53:11The odds are just non your favor man.
- 53:13Like if I can't tell you as your lawyer I can't tell you what to
- 53:17do. But I can tell you what I would
- 53:20do if I was in your shoes. I would accept as fast as I
- 53:25possibly can. The reality that the next decade
- 53:30or better, maybe five years. If you tell them, if you admit,
- 53:34what you did, you tell them how you did it.
- 53:36Tell him who you ordered it from.
- 53:38If you admit it and you say you're guilty, you might get
- 53:42five years in prison. I said, How likely is that
- 53:45outcome? He said it's pretty likely, but
- 53:47he said he said I can't guarantee anything though.
- 53:50You know, they can give you up to Auntie.
- 53:54So if you're going to try, you're looking at hundreds of
- 53:59years because they stack all the charges.
- 54:00So give it a can stack it on something that's not scheduled.
- 54:04Oh, I didn't know that one on an analog.
- 54:06The max is 20 years. Okay.
- 54:07That's that that's news to me. Yeah, so so anyhow, long story
- 54:12short. I talk to my family.
- 54:14I talk to everyone and we decided I'm just going to plead
- 54:19guilty, and I'm going to just say anything about this before
- 54:23it ever happened. I kept everything quiet.
- 54:27So, you were times, you were living that life and regular
- 54:29life. Yeah, I can have everything
- 54:32pretty quiet. There were there were a couple
- 54:34of like, what was the like, what was the time period Justin?
- 54:36Like from you starting that business to when you get kicked
- 54:40in the door? I'm out.
- 54:42Well it was they kick my door and 2000. 14 early, January
- 54:4913th, I believe 2014. So the time for when I started
- 54:54would have been lost my job in 2012.
- 54:58So just shy of two years, maybe two years.
- 55:01Is that? Okay about two years so they I
- 55:09came to terms with it and you know I was sentenced to 150 one
- 55:14month's the the judge and I had it's funny, Lee Read's Godfather
- 55:20and South a development. He came and spoke as a character
- 55:22witness and he pleaded to the judge like like I know what goes
- 55:27it was bad. I don't know what the bunch of
- 55:28when we talk about this in my office is how they sentence.
- 55:30You is 120, months is 10 years. So you were sentence over 10
- 55:34years? Yeah exactly.
- 55:37Well the joestar. He only read served in the naval
- 55:40Reserve, the same years, my judge did, and I have the same
- 55:43judge that sentenced Lou Pearlman.
- 55:47So so very strict but very, by the book.
- 55:52So he, he said, he thanked lie, you know, they both went to
- 55:57Yale. They both served in the naval
- 55:59Reserve. I thought I was close enough to
- 56:01his inner circle that it would have an impact hehe.
- 56:06Thanks Lee. Read for coming to the meeting.
- 56:10But he is coming to the sentencing hearing but he said
- 56:14Lee, unfortunately the guidelines call for 151 months
- 56:19and that's exactly what he's going to get.
- 56:23Commandant custody. So my heart dropped.
- 56:28It will heat. The judge asked me if I had
- 56:29anything I wanted to say. And and I said, yeah, I do my
- 56:35lawyers. Like no, don't don't.
- 56:36He can increase your sins. Don't say anything.
- 56:37I said, no, I want to say something.
- 56:39And I got a little teary-eyed. And I said, listen, I said I
- 56:44know what I did was wrong. I know I'm gonna have to pay the
- 56:46price but this is not a reflection of who I really am.
- 56:52And It's important to me that everyone in this room knows that
- 56:57and he said, Justin, regardless of who you are, what you did
- 57:02speaks volumes to your character.
- 57:05You're going to prison, man. So I went to prison and prison
- 57:11wasn't so bad. Prison wasn't great.
- 57:14I mean we're without our families, our fans, our family
- 57:16say the biggest price, I feel like yeah absolutely but you
- 57:20know it gave me an opportunity to feel like it's what I needed
- 57:24man. Like at that point in my life, I
- 57:26needed a timeout. I needed to like recalibrate and
- 57:28like come to come to my senses and come back to my core and and
- 57:35and educate myself. You know, it gave me an
- 57:37opportunity to read Over 500 book.
- 57:39Yeah, I read a book A Week. Yeah I read more than a book
- 57:43like there was a point when I threw me in the hole under cell
- 57:46phone under suspicion of having a cell phone okay and they left
- 57:51me in the hole for four months. So that's our August 15th from
- 57:56August 15th to December 15th because they couldn't find the
- 57:58phone and sis came and asked me. Where's the phone at you going
- 58:02to tell? Yes.
- 58:03Is the Elliot sis is the investigative unit inside the
- 58:07prison. They are the police of the
- 58:09prison basically, right? Exactly.
- 58:11Lee. So they said, tell us where the
- 58:13phones at take the charge or you're both going to get a shot.
- 58:16Well, we both knew my celly was the head orderly.
- 58:19And he was a good guy and he's like, dude, like you got to fall
- 58:21on, you got to take the fall here, man.
- 58:23You got to take this charge. I was like, man.
- 58:25I'm getting ready to go to a camp.
- 58:26Yeah, I'm not falling on nothing.
- 58:28Yeah, I'm not admitting to anything, you're crazy.
- 58:32He's like, so, you're going to let me sit in the hole.
- 58:34I was like, did you ever use the phone?
- 58:36Have you ever used it? Yeah.
- 58:38Okay. Then setting the whole will be
- 58:39will make it will be okay. In the coast to coast every
- 58:42night. We read all the time, you know,
- 58:45I was crushing them, book man, knocking them down.
- 58:49But, uh, so December 15th came to couldn't give me a phone
- 58:54shot. They came knock on the door and
- 58:56said, Smith need your thumbprint.
- 58:58You're going to Pensacola. I said what he said.
- 59:02You got your leaving on a Greyhound in the morning.
- 59:04It's where my dad was in Pensacola really who when was
- 59:08your dad there? Well he would have been he went
- 59:09to Mary and first he had a 10-year Since so.
- 59:12He okay, he got out. Let's see.
- 59:18Dad got out at the beginning of covid.
- 59:21March 17 2020. So he would have been there
- 59:25probably after you because I think he went to Pensacola like
- 59:28in 2019. Probably 2010.
- 59:32He went there for our depth From Marion, he went and 2019 I
- 59:37believe. So, yeah, he would have been
- 59:39there after me. I was at Big Sandy.
- 59:40Okay, bye then. But so we did our tap at the
- 59:43same place though. Yeah, I did it under dr.
- 59:46Profit. Yeah.
- 59:47And let me tell you something, the prison system has a lot of
- 59:50growing to do. Like if they really want to care
- 59:52about re if they really cared about re-entry and they really
- 59:56Public Safety and and giving people like a solid foundation
- 1:00:01to walk on when they get out. Yeah.
- 1:00:03So that they don't Reoffend. Yeah and come back.
- 1:00:06Then they would do a whole lot more in the way of re-entry and
- 1:00:09I feel like the Trump Administration or at least Jared
- 1:00:11Kushner cared a lot about that business.
- 1:00:13But his dad went to prison, you know, for two years but
- 1:00:16bureaucracy gets in the you know, they passed these laws and
- 1:00:21and and then bureaucracy gets in the way and it doesn't get
- 1:00:24implemented. The b0p doesn't take it
- 1:00:26seriously. They don't get the budget or
- 1:00:27they can't allocate the funds. So it's long now.
- 1:00:29But they're not even though they're not obeying the Lord not
- 1:00:31interested. Well, then in prison for
- 1:00:33breaking the law. All then right, you know, it's
- 1:00:35yeah they're not interested. They don't care about Billa
- 1:00:38tation or are or our care about our re-entry know, it's about
- 1:00:42punishment and, you know, going back where I think you were
- 1:00:45going is is our depth really does try to create its rational
- 1:00:50thinking cognitive-behavioral, I'm a Believer man.
- 1:00:54So it's, I'm a Believer. Yeah.
- 1:00:55I think I think that actually, that program should probably be
- 1:00:58in the high schools. I mean, there's nothing even can
- 1:01:01even children's book, 30 be debased, Book.
- 1:01:04Yeah. And like when I if I'm ever
- 1:01:07fortunate enough to have children, yeah, I would
- 1:01:10definitely Implement that at a very young age.
- 1:01:12It's all it does. All it is and it's frowned upon
- 1:01:14in prison because it's like all their snitching on each other.
- 1:01:17You know. Come on, man.
- 1:01:18No, we're holding each other accountable.
- 1:01:20Yeah. All right.
- 1:01:21Is that telling the community? What someone else did sometimes?
- 1:01:25Yes. But my rule how I handled that
- 1:01:29you're supposed to confront and level with someone assertively
- 1:01:33and and talk to Them if I confronted and leveled, you
- 1:01:37leveled with you and if I confronted you and leveled with
- 1:01:40you and you didn't like throw up a fight or get nasty with me and
- 1:01:44you talk to me like a man and we were able to process that and
- 1:01:47work that out together. I wouldn't take it to the
- 1:01:49community, right. I would put you on the docket
- 1:01:52because I don't think that's any of the communities business.
- 1:01:55We already handled that as men and that's how the that's how
- 1:01:58the program really should be. Shouldn't be seeing some snitch
- 1:02:01Squad now. Now, on the flip side, if I In
- 1:02:04front, you rationally and and reasonably assertively and you
- 1:02:09get nasty with me and you're not receptive to it.
- 1:02:12I'm going to pull you up, right? I'm going to pull you up.
- 1:02:15You can call me a snitch if you want.
- 1:02:16I'm pulling you up. Yeah.
- 1:02:18Because that's the program is designed and that's the only way
- 1:02:20you're just gonna have to learn the hard way brother, so but the
- 1:02:24program helped me tremendously. It helped me realize I was
- 1:02:28before before our tap Something that happened.
- 1:02:32I would feel emotions. All this crazy stuff about what
- 1:02:35happened. And then I would take action
- 1:02:38because of it and it was all on autopilot.
- 1:02:40Like I was just doing this stuff without you evaluating the
- 1:02:43quality of my cognition my thinking and all it really does
- 1:02:48is it breaks down those thinking patterns and helps you build
- 1:02:50more healthy pattern? That's it's healthy for Ridley.
- 1:02:53That's the program. Yeah, you recognize your
- 1:02:55thinking patterns and your behavioral patterns and then you
- 1:02:58react the way that you should act instead of right, right?
- 1:03:02That you can kind of visualize the outcome, what the outcome
- 1:03:05would be. Had you stopped?
- 1:03:08And thought about it before you acted.
- 1:03:10Yep. I believe there's a book to be
- 1:03:13written about CBT based leadership and businesses.
- 1:03:18Maybe I'll write that book. I don't know, maybe so, but
- 1:03:20yeah, why not? Yeah, I think that it can, it
- 1:03:25can definitely have an impact. We actually implemented it in
- 1:03:28our Friday morning. We have an in-cab meeting every
- 1:03:30Friday. Yeah.
- 1:03:31And we've implemented bits and pieces of the morning meeting
- 1:03:33from our tap and our company meeting.
- 1:03:35You have some other number. No no we don't.
- 1:03:40We don't recite, it's not like coltish, we don't recite the
- 1:03:42pledge or nothing. Maybe that's the next baby,
- 1:03:45that's the next step once a really good feeling.
- 1:03:48Yeah, we talked about what we did right?
- 1:03:50What we accomplished what we could have done better and I
- 1:03:53tell you this the Jess tonight, I was like you as like a lot of
- 1:03:58guys, you know, it's the only place you can go to get a year
- 1:04:00off. Off.
- 1:04:01But I remember them when we were doing our Readiness statements
- 1:04:03and we were in the small cold band room and we were, you know,
- 1:04:07is like 40 degrees in there and it's freezing and you had to do
- 1:04:10these Readiness statements. You know what you done?
- 1:04:12How you feel about that? How who you heard or whatever
- 1:04:15those things were that you wrote one of the guys big Burly guy
- 1:04:19gets up and he gets all broken up.
- 1:04:23I mean guys don't really cry in prison but Rygaard apps a little
- 1:04:27different. He breaks up.
- 1:04:28It's about the first time that it's really Hit him what it all
- 1:04:32has happened. And he's verbalizing.
- 1:04:34He can't get it out. So Kimberly Jones stands up, and
- 1:04:39literally stands right beside him and reads, his Readiness
- 1:04:42statement for him. And in that day and that cold
- 1:04:45band room, I was thinking, wow, this is maybe a little bit
- 1:04:48different than what I thought it was.
- 1:04:51A little bit different isn't like the rest of the crowd that
- 1:04:54it's in, like the rest of the prison.
- 1:04:56But that not really opened my eyes though just in case.
- 1:04:59The one thing that b0p definitely got.
- 1:05:01Right? Yeah.
- 1:05:02But they're neither 9 with it, you know, they do have it right
- 1:05:05as a program, you know, some of the people that are in the
- 1:05:08program can kind of mess it up. And that's the that's kind of
- 1:05:10the there's some good people don't know where they're getting
- 1:05:12it wrong and they made it a drug program and a bit of a re-entry
- 1:05:17program, it's a really should be a re-entrant colonies to be.
- 1:05:21Everyone should have to go through it.
- 1:05:22Yep. Or should be able to go through
- 1:05:24it. Everybody gets the opportunity
- 1:05:26to join the re-entry program. I agree with that and get the
- 1:05:29benefits out of it. Get the benefits out of it.
- 1:05:32I meant to ask you though is you were going into prison.
- 1:05:37What were your thoughts walking in?
- 1:05:39Because you'd been in county, jail for seven months.
- 1:05:42We you? Because there's a big difference
- 1:05:44between the county jail and prison.
- 1:05:45I mean, in prisons a lot better in County Jail.
- 1:05:47What county jail? Someone took food off of my tray
- 1:05:50and I had to fight. That's a tender got thrown in
- 1:05:52the hole. I got I got messed up like,
- 1:05:54yeah, or four big dudes, jumped on me.
- 1:05:57Yeah, and there's some do they don't fight fair in County, Jail
- 1:06:00mang? They throw you all in together.
- 1:06:03Got through in the hole and county jail.
- 1:06:05And I was in the hole with crazy people.
- 1:06:06Like a dude. Dylan toothpaste and eating my
- 1:06:08toothpaste and other dude was like, was like crapping in his
- 1:06:11hand and smearing it in the van. There's nothing.
- 1:06:14And I'd have to kick on the door and asked to be moved to another
- 1:06:16cell like, like I'm gonna kill this guy.
- 1:06:19Yeah, scary side. Scary stuff, man that but were
- 1:06:22part of it, but rolling into prison.
- 1:06:24Yes. Oh, I had enough Insight from
- 1:06:27people that had come through the jail that I'd ask questions
- 1:06:31from. I hadn't had enough Insight that
- 1:06:34I knew it was going to be a better place.
- 1:06:35Yeah. And that is I knew that I didn't
- 1:06:38have anything to worry about. I knew it was going to suck
- 1:06:41because the next 12 years of my life with absolute well 10, you
- 1:06:45know, what's going to be pretty rough.
- 1:06:47But but I knew that look the clock is already ticking and
- 1:06:53it's going to be better. The food's better.
- 1:06:54The the living environment better federal prisons have a
- 1:06:58see. It's okay man, you're going to
- 1:06:59be okay. You're not going to a
- 1:07:01maximum-security Penitentiary where you have to have a knife.
- 1:07:04We just don't have within I see 11 worth Yeah, yeah, II heard
- 1:07:09I'm sorry man. I'm sorry that sucks.
- 1:07:11But that's you know, you're not really suck but you know what,
- 1:07:15you get used to that too. You would you have fan, they
- 1:07:17give you things that we had fans.
- 1:07:19You could buy fans from the commissary but I my point on
- 1:07:21that is that regardless you can adapt to anything and yeah.
- 1:07:26Yeah, there were some very hot nights but maybe there was a
- 1:07:30mini hot. Nice.
- 1:07:30As I thought there was going to be, you know, maybe there was
- 1:07:33maybe only eight to ten hot nice.
- 1:07:35It were so uncomfortable but the rest of them you know we figured
- 1:07:37It out, you know what, we can. And like you said, we can't
- 1:07:39work. We can adapt to anything.
- 1:07:41We think we even the things we think we aren't capable of, we
- 1:07:44are. Yeah.
- 1:07:45And when you're forced, when you have no other option.
- 1:07:48Yeah, it's easier. It's easier because you don't
- 1:07:51have an option, you know you what are you going to do about
- 1:07:54it? I gotta take a crap in front of
- 1:07:5520, people in County Jail. There's no, there's no privacy
- 1:07:58in your. You say.
- 1:07:59When you got to take a crap, you got to sit on a toilet and let
- 1:08:01and other people like they're not like purposely staring at
- 1:08:03you, unless they're nuts, which there they are not to But but
- 1:08:08you just got to get comfortable. Like if your pee shy, you won't
- 1:08:10be by the time you get out of the time, you get out Downey.
- 1:08:14So you know what? I knew, what I was going into,
- 1:08:15but they put us in a dog catcher and they took three of us.
- 1:08:19I believe they drove us to Coleman.
- 1:08:22And so for what? People don't know what a dog
- 1:08:26catchers, it's like a truck that has like a divider down the
- 1:08:28middle, they like shackle, your legs and your arms and
- 1:08:31everything. And then they put you in you set
- 1:08:34in this really uncomfortable, steel, like all.
- 1:08:36Bunched up, I'm a tall guy. So it's like you know I'm all
- 1:08:39bunched up in about an hour and a half.
- 1:08:40Later we got there. They took us into Rd.
- 1:08:42I set in a tank for like eight hours waiting to get processed.
- 1:08:45They handed by after dinner it was it was already dark,
- 1:08:50everyone was locked down. And the in the dorms they handed
- 1:08:55us a bedroll and told us what dorm to go to and you get your
- 1:08:59bedroll and you walk to your dorm and when you get there,
- 1:09:02people pull up on you. They ask you for your basket
- 1:09:04where you came from. Asking for your paperwork, they
- 1:09:06ask you, you know, they they they looking with, oh yeah.
- 1:09:10Yeah. They let you know what, what,
- 1:09:11what to do, what not to do. They ask you've ever done and
- 1:09:14never been to prison and you know what, like there's a good
- 1:09:17group of guys and they're going they look out like they bring
- 1:09:19your shoes. They bring you some shower
- 1:09:20slides. They bring you some Like
- 1:09:22everything, all you resent, you can go to commissary.
- 1:09:24And I think that's unbelievable. Because that's exactly the
- 1:09:27opposite of what I thought before.
- 1:09:29I entered prison I thought you know you see these things on TV,
- 1:09:32you know, they'll get a rape you they're going to beat you up
- 1:09:34there. Going to do now that kind of
- 1:09:35stuff could happen in the county jail.
- 1:09:36If you stay there long enough but the prisoner you're entering
- 1:09:39the world where everybody's living.
- 1:09:41It's their life and they're our guys, they just immediately come
- 1:09:45help you. They actually give you stuff
- 1:09:47together, very giving. Yeah, you're not going to be
- 1:09:50able to go to commissary for You know, five days.
- 1:09:52So here's yeah. Here's your your shower shoes.
- 1:09:55Here's this. Here's that and you know, I had
- 1:09:57people bring me things and tell me you don't have to get it
- 1:09:59back. Yeah they said they said I do
- 1:10:01not expect anything back. You got a blown things ahead of
- 1:10:05you, if you want to do something, if you want to get me
- 1:10:07something back, you can you don't have to?
- 1:10:09Yeah, weird, what's weird? Justin is after you've been
- 1:10:12there a while you are then one of the people that's helping the
- 1:10:15new guy that coming in which is that's when yeah.
- 1:10:18That's when it's really a weird Pay It Forward.
- 1:10:21Yeah. I felt an obligation to pay for
- 1:10:23it. I wanted to, you know there's a
- 1:10:26lot of good people in prison. Yeah and everybody makes
- 1:10:29mistakes some some worse than others.
- 1:10:33My Take with pretty stupid man. What I did was really dumb for
- 1:10:38such a smart guy. I've really was really I was
- 1:10:41really really stupid. Well I mean I think one of the
- 1:10:45things that you can look at on that as you'd had some really
- 1:10:48good success, with the things you've been doing since you were
- 1:10:5013 years old, you also looked at this as an opportunity to make a
- 1:10:54lot of money at a very early age and a lot of money.
- 1:10:58An early age is very It looks good and it feels good and, you
- 1:11:05know, that's how things can be. Like you said, you can hit down
- 1:11:07a wrong path. That doesn't make you a bad
- 1:11:09person. But, you know, after you've gone
- 1:11:12through what you've gone through, I think it's
- 1:11:14interesting what you're doing now, because you're putting
- 1:11:16those pieces back in, but I want to go back to what you're
- 1:11:19getting in that time period, you get six months to the door.
- 1:11:24What are you thinking? Are you starting to think what,
- 1:11:27you know, how am I putting myself together to get out
- 1:11:29because re-entries to, I didn't know, I You know, it took months
- 1:11:32to the door. You didn't know.
- 1:11:35No, I didn't know. First step act put me out.
- 1:11:38I had no clue. I got a big Rod.
- 1:11:41I got a huge surprise. Like thank you Trump
- 1:11:45Administration. Thank you, Jared Kushner.
- 1:11:48Yeah, thank you. Kim Kardashian.
- 1:11:51Thank you everyone who went out there and actually recognized,
- 1:11:55there was something a problem that needed fixed and put your
- 1:11:57best foot forward to doing something about it.
- 1:11:59Thank you, it made. We may have not gotten
- 1:12:03everything out of it that you that you, that the law and
- 1:12:06States, we should have, but it made a big, big impact.
- 1:12:11And it gave people a lot of good people and opportunity and it
- 1:12:15gave them hope for a better tomorrow.
- 1:12:17The thank you, you know? So so about nine months or a
- 1:12:23year into my sentence, the DEA toxicology report came back on
- 1:12:27the substance. I actually had and I got a big.
- 1:12:31I got that was my First big surprise in prison.
- 1:12:33So they told me that the substance I had was less than
- 1:12:36half as potent as the substance. I had been charged with, okay?
- 1:12:40And as a result, they couldn't like the because they they said
- 1:12:45that my drug was equipped. The marijuana equivalency table
- 1:12:48is messed up and he's changed. That's something.
- 1:12:51I think it came about in the Reagan Administration, like
- 1:12:53change that shit because it's terrible.
- 1:12:55It's not but the math doesn't make sense, right?
- 1:12:58But but, but they said one gram of what I was equivalent to 500
- 1:13:03grams of marijuana. All right, how do you go?
- 1:13:07So anyhow, they said they came back the d8x toxicology report
- 1:13:11sent to the courts and to my judge and our, to my lawyer and,
- 1:13:16and let them know that into the bo P.
- 1:13:19Let them know that that basically went to the judge, I
- 1:13:24guess in the judge ruled on it, but basically, because it wasn't
- 1:13:27as potent as they thought it was, they couldn't base it on
- 1:13:30one to 500. Okay, so they reduced it to 1,
- 1:13:33to 250. Yeah, now when they reduced it
- 1:13:37to 1 to 250, I thought well, that's half so I should get half
- 1:13:40the time, right? That's what I was thinking.
- 1:13:43Nah, the difference between one to two hundred fifty, one, to
- 1:13:46500 was a little over three years.
- 1:13:48I think it was three years and six months.
- 1:13:50Okay. It's still three years old,
- 1:13:52still nice. It was still a very, I didn't
- 1:13:54know it's coming. So I'm like, I'm good.
- 1:13:57You just gave three years. Yeah, and then our tap actually
- 1:14:01got me another Other year. All right.
- 1:14:02So and and yeah. So and then time served already
- 1:14:06had counting towards my sins and then a year of halfway house and
- 1:14:11home confinement and then the first step Act was earned good
- 1:14:15time credits. And I'm out the door and this.
- 1:14:18Hello you have that. How long were you at?
- 1:14:20I did just shy of 6 years. Wow, okay.
- 1:14:24So expecting to do ten years, I was, I was very, very, very
- 1:14:29happy. I'm happy with that outcome.
- 1:14:31That's mister But yeah. So I you know I read a book I
- 1:14:36stumbled upon a book most of what I read was nonfiction every
- 1:14:39now. And then I have to read a
- 1:14:39fiction book just to keep things interesting.
- 1:14:42But I read a lot David. I read a lot of fiction and and
- 1:14:46prison just because who do you like Ray Lewis family?
- 1:14:49Yeah, yeah. I also like Greg Iles if you
- 1:14:53ever read Greg I'll haven't read any.
- 1:14:55I'll he's awesome. Well, congrats on a gigantic.
- 1:15:00Well, he's an attorney. Just kind of like a Grisham deal
- 1:15:02but he right. It's about that could do
- 1:15:04churches Mississippi, which is where he grew up and it's just,
- 1:15:10he writes 800-page books. But I had everybody reading Greg
- 1:15:13Iles because he's is sles. Yeah, okay, I'm for checking
- 1:15:18out, you said it, you said it christian-based, no, no.
- 1:15:21Oh, it's not, it's okay. He's an attorney and author and
- 1:15:27it's just, it's good stuff. Good stuff a drag them out,
- 1:15:31800-page book that the big commitment in the World but is
- 1:15:34but you can get in prison doing good.
- 1:15:37That's what do I have to? I'll just have to definitely
- 1:15:39check it out and you check your book out as well.
- 1:15:42I will. So yeah.
- 1:15:44So I stumbled on this book by David Rose, David Rose is
- 1:15:47president of the New York Angels Association ornate, New York,
- 1:15:51Angels Group, whatever they call themselves, basically a
- 1:15:54Syndicate of angels where they do the due diligence.
- 1:15:57So that as individual Angel Investors, you don't have to do
- 1:16:00all that and make risky bets. You just put your money into a
- 1:16:03Syndicate. All the due diligence is handled
- 1:16:05by a team or a panel that's appointed and you make pretty
- 1:16:10pretty smart bed. You know what I mean?
- 1:16:11So, they Place their money. They allocate their fund based
- 1:16:15on where they believe it's going to produce a return.
- 1:16:17And so anyhow, he wrote a book called the startup checklist and
- 1:16:22it's like the 25 steps. You must take to start a
- 1:16:25scalable high growth business. And what's it called?
- 1:16:29It's like it's called the startup checklist by David Rose.
- 1:16:33And He covers everything all the simple stuff that you don't
- 1:16:35learn in Business Schools, like you learn the basics like how to
- 1:16:38setup you learn all that in business school but he breaks it
- 1:16:40down in a way where it's like. Okay, this is why you need to go
- 1:16:43with a Delaware, c chord. This is why you need cap table
- 1:16:46management software. This is why you need to
- 1:16:49structure your Define and structure, your different
- 1:16:52classes of stock. This is how you should treat
- 1:16:55equity and between shit between co-founders.
- 1:17:00This is how you should do it. Do stock grants this.
- 1:17:03Is the authority, your by law should give the board at this
- 1:17:06stage of the business. At this stage of the business at
- 1:17:07this stage of the business, you know, like Siri say Justin
- 1:17:11before you got out of prison. Oh yeah, so I read that probably
- 1:17:16right when I got the Big Sandy. So after I completed our tap, I
- 1:17:20got in your home transfer, okay? And I was the captain's orderly
- 1:17:24on the compound that are tap so I got the place I asked to go
- 1:17:28to. That's awesome.
- 1:17:29That doesn't usually. Oh yeah, it doesn't.
- 1:17:31They actually they tried to Designate me somewhere else.
- 1:17:35I asked for Big Sandy for a reason because I, you know, what
- 1:17:38the reality is. So I asked for big candy for a
- 1:17:41reason and they tried to send me to Morgantown and I went
- 1:17:44straight to the captains office, huh?
- 1:17:46So and they made it happen. That's awesome though.
- 1:17:49But here's the thing. I attribute a large part of My
- 1:17:54Success to our tap and to having gone through this experience and
- 1:17:59prison, although it's such a negative thing and such a bad
- 1:18:02thing that I did. It's opened so many doors for me
- 1:18:05in my life that I would have never been opened.
- 1:18:07Had I not went and it gave me the confidence as a man to open
- 1:18:12doors for myself or to ask because the worst that can
- 1:18:15happen is someone says no as you don't ask, the answer is always
- 1:18:18no, right? So in the worst that happens is,
- 1:18:21Or just right where you are. You know nothing changes it so
- 1:18:24lose anything right? Fear is false evidence appearing
- 1:18:28real and I love that acronym. I love it too.
- 1:18:33So you so I read this book and I said, you know what?
- 1:18:35Like of course I had a phone. Now, I completed our tap
- 1:18:38already, that's if I was really rationally thinking if I was
- 1:18:42evaluating not thinking, I wouldn't have had a phone so I
- 1:18:44will admit that. I'm sorry, dr.
- 1:18:45Profit, I'm sorry, man. But look, I had to do what I had
- 1:18:49to do to get right. You know, I didn't get caught so
- 1:18:54kind of caution here by the way that happened and that would
- 1:18:57have cost me the year. It would have cost me good time.
- 1:18:59It would have cost me a lot of things.
- 1:19:00Right? I knew the risk, but I also knew
- 1:19:03the reward. I calculated the risk and the
- 1:19:04reward and I was very smart about how I use the phone.
- 1:19:09I wasn't, I wasn't dumb about it be, you know, but the time when
- 1:19:14most people in prison have phones they're like talking to
- 1:19:17girls or, you know, their family, maybe their children. or
- 1:19:21what, you know, their families or their like talking like five
- 1:19:24different girls, trying to get them to put money on their books
- 1:19:26or whatever, that nonsense I just Your, I wasn't trying, I
- 1:19:31was building a business. So I set up a Delaware
- 1:19:33c-corporation, I, you know, nine months before I got released, I
- 1:19:40retained a law, firm of Business Law Firm, I got cap, table
- 1:19:45management software. I got my co-founder to recruit
- 1:19:48people in India and start and start getting people to work for
- 1:19:51equity and start getting our beta build.
- 1:19:54I had, I had our beta R beta launch six months before my
- 1:19:57release date. Wow.
- 1:19:59And so I built a business, a scalable high-growth software
- 1:20:05business Than I Was Eighteen thousand users from the confines
- 1:20:09of federal prison. Well, what a story.
- 1:20:12So, when you walk out, when you walk out of there, Justin,
- 1:20:15you're walking right into that, because I know that there's some
- 1:20:18things in probation, you know, I know my part of my supervision
- 1:20:22was is, I can't start a business or my own business until I get
- 1:20:29off, you know, supervisor ways but you can actually I think you
- 1:20:31can ask for that and have it altered to your your?
- 1:20:35Yeah you can you can you can have you can ask for permission.
- 1:20:38Yeah probation is all about permission.
- 1:20:40Here's the deal with probation. Yeah, that was part of it.
- 1:20:42Like you're not supposed to work for yourself because you need to
- 1:20:46answer to somebody. They want to.
- 1:20:47They want to have like it went to have a supervisor.
- 1:20:50So, you know what I did? I went to work in a warehouse,
- 1:20:52okay? And I work 10 hour shifts, five
- 1:20:54days a week and then I came home.
- 1:20:56And I worked another five, six hours.
- 1:20:58There's no other business. I love that.
- 1:21:00And I'd love a few hours a day. Yeah.
- 1:21:02And you know, and and I sacrifice.
- 1:21:05Yeah. The time with family and others,
- 1:21:07I made. Thanks not easy.
- 1:21:08I mean, building a business is not an overnight success ever.
- 1:21:12It's always about, you know, putting in what needs to be
- 1:21:16done, your plan, your structure, consistency of being able to
- 1:21:20grow something. And what you did, I love what
- 1:21:23you just said, you did what they told you to do.
- 1:21:26You did attend our warehouse Nice job.
- 1:21:30And then you went up. Did your other job.
- 1:21:32You're working two jobs. I did a burn the candle, but
- 1:21:35then for about a year. Yeah.
- 1:21:37So and my probation, I was transparent with my probation
- 1:21:40officers. Well, he knew that I had a
- 1:21:42business, he knew how I kept him, updated with the growth, he
- 1:21:44always asked about it, he cared about it.
- 1:21:47Brent, Willoughby, he was, that's a, he's a heck of a man.
- 1:21:50I hope that more people in the federal probation system are
- 1:21:53like him. I don't know what it's like for
- 1:21:55everyone, but he is a good. That's a good man.
- 1:21:57I actually had Good probation officers to.
- 1:22:00So yeah, I would agree with you on that.
- 1:22:01That's not all you're really looked out for me.
- 1:22:04He recommend he even made connections for me.
- 1:22:07He recommended like I would go to an event where there's where
- 1:22:12this high-profile business people in judges and lawyers
- 1:22:15and, and athletes, like professional athletes and people
- 1:22:18that congregate at these events and he got me in that Circle.
- 1:22:22It's like he really he tried to facilitate my growth and that
- 1:22:26right there man. That's a I think.
- 1:22:28You think that all of them are like that?
- 1:22:30No. But I think he probably saw a
- 1:22:34Drive in you and he wanted you to fulfill.
- 1:22:37Whatever that was. It was my judge thought too.
- 1:22:40So I they transferred my judge I was sentenced in Orlando.
- 1:22:43They transferred my case to Columbus and I got judge
- 1:22:46Algernon, marbly. And I was a little worried and
- 1:22:50because I, you know, but couldn't be worse than a 90 year
- 1:22:53old judge is tough on drugs. But I had three years of
- 1:22:56supervised release after a year after 12 months.
- 1:23:00I petitioned, I wrote my own motion and heat of case Why I
- 1:23:04needed to be terminated early. I have a business with an office
- 1:23:07in Mumbai, and I need to be able to travel to India
- 1:23:10internationally without any problems and judge Algernon.
- 1:23:14My probation officer said I'm not going to object.
- 1:23:17I'm going to support your motion and the the prosecutor is not
- 1:23:21going to object either, but it would be unprecedented to get
- 1:23:25released in 12 months on a three-year.
- 1:23:27It's probably not going to happen, then like they want you
- 1:23:29to do two thirds. He's said at least I hate things
- 1:23:33to bit. If you don't ask, the answer is
- 1:23:34always no. So go ahead and submit your
- 1:23:36motion. So I wrote a motion submitted
- 1:23:38everything. Three days later.
- 1:23:40Judge, I was, and on marbly rules in my favor.
- 1:23:43Wow. And terminate, early early,
- 1:23:45termination of Probation, and he thanked me for he congratulated
- 1:23:50me on my business and my success and wish me the very best and
- 1:23:53said that he thought I was a prime example of the good that
- 1:23:56can come out of our Corrections correctional system.
- 1:23:59I love that, that was just to tell me.
- 1:24:03About contractor plus because I know that's a big passion of
- 1:24:07yours. So we started serving handyman,
- 1:24:09come to started back in the day, I wrote, just what I lost.
- 1:24:12You've taken all your experience and rolled it into a fantastic
- 1:24:16company. It solves problems.
- 1:24:18We I built this little tool called handyman estimator and
- 1:24:21with internal we didn't sell it or promoted or anything, it was
- 1:24:24just an internal, it was web-based that we had to use it
- 1:24:26on a tablet with a SIM card, but what it did was it eliminated
- 1:24:30double data entry and it eliminated us having to take.
- 1:24:33Pictures off of an SD card, put it in a computer and adding and
- 1:24:37typing up a manual estimate in QuickBooks and attaching the
- 1:24:40photos and sending it to the investor and getting an approval
- 1:24:43streamline that whole process. So I built that internally and I
- 1:24:46realized like hey if we're having this problem a lot of
- 1:24:49people are probably having this problem.
- 1:24:50Not realize there's like at the time there was no Solutions on
- 1:24:53the market. Now there are there's like
- 1:24:54there's 30 different solutions competing for a five billion
- 1:24:58dollar industry and the industry is growing at about 20%
- 1:25:02annually. So we're it's on On track to be
- 1:25:05a 25, 30 billion dollar industry by 2030.
- 1:25:07Wow, so it's still a hue even though there's I would say 20
- 1:25:11formidable competitors. There it's so fragmented, I
- 1:25:14would say, there's, there's trust me, there's room for
- 1:25:17everyone. But There's every all existing
- 1:25:21Solutions are solving problems within the organizational unit
- 1:25:25and that's just a field service management software Market.
- 1:25:27That's not the construction software Market which is
- 1:25:29separate that has a valuation of around 10 billion and is growing
- 1:25:33at like 8 percent. Now, if you combine those two
- 1:25:37together, we're looking at a fifty billion dollar market
- 1:25:39opportunity and the next 10 years.
- 1:25:42And then you've also got propped, act, like you've got
- 1:25:45your building them in yardi and apple.
- 1:25:46If people are dressing service servicing property managers,
- 1:25:49Now, we're not competing with those guys, but what we are
- 1:25:51doing is we're Bridging, the Gap between on one end of the
- 1:25:55market, your field service guys, your landscapers your handyman
- 1:25:57companies, your HVAC plumbers, electricians roofers, everybody,
- 1:26:02they need software to run their business, and to do dispatching,
- 1:26:06and to do billing, and invoicing, and estimating.
- 1:26:08And all of that, on the other end of the market, you've got
- 1:26:11your Builders, and your gcses, and your property managers and
- 1:26:14your master developers, they need compliance solutions.
- 1:26:17They need a way to streamline. An onboarding and compliance
- 1:26:20about and manage their subcontractor relationships
- 1:26:23without having to pick up a phone or manually editing, the
- 1:26:25Gantt chart or they every time something changes.
- 1:26:28Like for example, you're framing, guys can't get started
- 1:26:32until your foundation. Guys are done, right?
- 1:26:34Your foundation guys are a week late due to bad weather or
- 1:26:37whatever. Then everything else, everyone
- 1:26:42else all the other contingent phases phases of that project
- 1:26:45get delayed. And you might not, you might
- 1:26:46have to call 50 different people or email, 50 different people.
- 1:26:49With that update, there's no reason businesses should have to
- 1:26:52go through all that, all of those processes can be
- 1:26:55streamlined. So we're building subcontractor
- 1:26:59management and compliance. We automate everything from
- 1:27:01collecting a W-9, insurance licensing, having them sign an
- 1:27:05independent contractor subcontractor agreement,
- 1:27:07non-disclosure non-competes. We can even automate background,
- 1:27:12check if you want to do background, checks on your and
- 1:27:14all of that can be stored in a compliance Locker in one place.
- 1:27:17And we give this solution away to your Matt to the master
- 1:27:20developers and the big commercial GCS for free.
- 1:27:22Wow. And the reason is because our
- 1:27:25bread and butter is the SMB, contractors, the field service
- 1:27:28guys that have less than five employees, right?
- 1:27:30They need they need all that software to keep everything
- 1:27:32going. Yeah, no, the building that that
- 1:27:34I live in. It's what is it like, ten
- 1:27:37stories 11th? Or I don't know, whatever.
- 1:27:39So the building I live in, they, you know, it was managed by one
- 1:27:43big development company. They worked with an architect
- 1:27:46and engineering firm and they put it all together, but then
- 1:27:48they subdue. All out the GC, just pulled the
- 1:27:51permit and they thought about everything to hundreds of
- 1:27:54contractors. Well, those hundreds of
- 1:27:57contractors all use CRM, they all use something to run their
- 1:28:01business or if they don't, they probably, should they not
- 1:28:04probably? They definitely should though.
- 1:28:07So we're helping contractor systemize to unite their teams
- 1:28:10and press their clients and grow their business and we're
- 1:28:13facilitating that relationship between the mass of developers
- 1:28:17in the GC is in the people at this end of the Market with the
- 1:28:21SMB contractors in The Artisans that are actually swinging the
- 1:28:24Hammers and doing the work. I love it.
- 1:28:25So words resting things at the network level, the net instead
- 1:28:29of just solving problems inside the organizational unit awesome.
- 1:28:34How do you get contractor? Plus, how to get a hold of you
- 1:28:35guys, man. So you can pick up your phone,
- 1:28:38you can go to the App Store and you can type in contractor at
- 1:28:40the little red icon, it says contractor with the plus sign,
- 1:28:43just like the neon sign behind it comes up.
- 1:28:47Number one, you can go to contract.
- 1:28:49Look not app. It's contractor singular. +.
- 1:28:53A pee-pee and we're in both the app store's we are mobile first.
- 1:28:59So that means when you're out and about you can run your
- 1:29:01business from your phone, that's you.
- 1:29:03Now if you have a dispatcher you have people in the back in the
- 1:29:06office doing work. Our web panel has like reporting
- 1:29:09and a lot more functionality but our we're mobile first.
- 1:29:13In the sense that we care about usability and we want to make
- 1:29:17your life easier. So it's basically turn Icky and
- 1:29:20convenient. I think what you are doing is
- 1:29:23your story. I tell you that it is
- 1:29:25fascinating. You should you should write
- 1:29:28multiple books, you have different layers of it and I
- 1:29:32definitely plan on it. I for a long time.
- 1:29:34I felt like I needed to wait until my business had like a
- 1:29:38hundred million dollar valuation are billion if we reach unicorn
- 1:29:41status, and people are going to want to read my book.
- 1:29:43Absolutely. Especially if we do it without
- 1:29:45VC. Exactly.
- 1:29:47You did it your way. You know.
- 1:29:48What's your opinion? That, by the way.
- 1:29:50What's that people say? It's impossible to reach unicorn
- 1:29:55status without working with late stage Venture Capital firms.
- 1:29:59And I disagree, why don't you write?
- 1:30:01I don't believe that I think that especially if you have the
- 1:30:05imagination and the know-how to continue to duplicate and grow
- 1:30:13the thing. The thing that you get in with
- 1:30:14the venture capitalist is that they can really change the
- 1:30:17culture of your company. Because they want different
- 1:30:20things than you do and those things can be the things that
- 1:30:23actually devalue what you're doing and that they scare me.
- 1:30:27It's very intoxicating to have them chase you because they have
- 1:30:32a lot of money and it looks like it's a quick deal and and but
- 1:30:35there's so much that's a attaches to it that I think is
- 1:30:39scary. I want to ask you, I meant to
- 1:30:42ask you, Justin because I kind of slid past it all these things
- 1:30:46that you've gone through your whole life Journey, what do you
- 1:30:50think your biggest takeaway out there to give to the listeners?
- 1:30:56Well, if you can learn. So from from my experience, if
- 1:31:00you can learn things without, if you can learn without having to
- 1:31:05go through trials and tribulations, if you can learn
- 1:31:08from other people's mistakes, like my mistake.
- 1:31:13Do it. If you're listening to this
- 1:31:14right now, and you're selling drug or you're doing something
- 1:31:17that's gray area, whether it's something as simple as like
- 1:31:20stamping, a notary seal that doesn't belong to you or
- 1:31:22whatever. It doesn't matter.
- 1:31:23What it is. If it's if you know right here,
- 1:31:27if you know that it's wrong. Don't do it.
- 1:31:31Stop walk away, discipline yourself to do the right thing.
- 1:31:35Because when you do the right thing, the right outcome will
- 1:31:39ensue by doing the right thing. Now, it might not, it's not,
- 1:31:43it's never when it's never on our timeline is, never, when I
- 1:31:46want it, it's never immediate. It's never right?
- 1:31:49Sometimes it is, but most of the time, it's it's out of my
- 1:31:52control, but all I can control is me.
- 1:31:56I can't control anyone else around me.
- 1:31:57I can't control my employees. I can't control.
- 1:32:00People in my friends, I can control my family, I can't
- 1:32:03control my sexual partners, I can't control if any of that or
- 1:32:08romantic Partners, I should say, but I can't control anyone else
- 1:32:11but myself, right? So no that, no, that the only
- 1:32:16person in, the only thing you have control over in life, is
- 1:32:18you and your actions and do the best that those are, that's the
- 1:32:22cards you were dealt, do the best you can to play those
- 1:32:25cards, the best you possibly can and don't learn things the hard
- 1:32:28way, man. Because if you're out there
- 1:32:29doing something stupid, if Selling drug.
- 1:32:31If you're doing look, it's not a matter of.
- 1:32:33If it's a matter of when your life is going, you don't have to
- 1:32:37go through that. You can skip all of that and you
- 1:32:40can get you can live a successful Life Style without
- 1:32:43having to go through those trials and tribulations.
- 1:32:46So that would be 11, it's good stuff, we'll end it there
- 1:32:50because that's just, that's a great.
- 1:32:52Great, you can live by that and and if you do live by that we'd
- 1:32:57have a would have a much nicer place to live.
- 1:33:00Live in speaking of a book, I wrote One, dimer, success.
- 1:33:05Loyalty, betrayal Life Behind Bars.
- 1:33:07Adapting. Finally Breaking Free.
- 1:33:09Go out and get it in Amazon Barnes & Noble.
- 1:33:13Walmart, where were you want to buy your order, your books.
- 1:33:16I love all the stuff comments likes on social media.
- 1:33:20Hey, if you got time, leave a review on Apple that helps the
- 1:33:23show grow feeds their algorithm. I love that it's easy to do.
- 1:33:27Just scroll down the page and it says write a review.
- 1:33:31Is Owen. And wanted to say a shout out to
- 1:33:35a de novo. I'm on the the adobo platform
- 1:33:38and 200 prisons across the country now, and For Those
- 1:33:43Behind The Wall, go to your Discovery section and find type
- 1:33:46in Nightmare success in and out. Glad to be a part of that.
- 1:33:49As I used to say back when I was writing my e-mails back Encore
- 1:33:52links, stay strong. And I'll do the same nightmare
- 1:33:56success in and out. Thank you Justin Smith.
- 1:33:59If my next book, thanks for Having me.
- 1:34:02Been great.