Latest / If I Knew Then What I Know Now / Episode 14 | The Story of Ezra | POWERFUL INTERVIEW

Transcript

Episode 14 | The Story of Ezra | POWERFUL INTERVIEW · If I Knew Then What I Know Now

0:32
SPEAKER_02: Hey man, I'm excited to be here today, boy.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: What are we at?
0:34
SPEAKER_02: Episode uh what?
0:35
SPEAKER_02: 14.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: 14.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Episode 14.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, y'all clever up.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: Let's get it.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: Episode 14, man.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: We got a special guest in the building.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: In the building.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: Um some of y'all may know him, some some of y'all may not, but after today, um, you definitely gonna know who he is before I introduce him, um, or let him introduce himself.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: The reason he is here today, man.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, you know, we on we own the gym here in Anderson.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, he came and signed up, got a membership at the gym.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: And um, I just, you know, recognize that he always just going up to everybody, just speaking to everybody, just dabbing everybody up, you know what I'm saying, just in good spirits, like just happy, bubbly, whatever the case may be, uplifting the gym, just got a great vibe going on in the gym.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: I said, bro, we gotta get we gotta get him on the podcast because he got a story too behind his life.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: He got a testimony that I just feel like it can it can really like help shape and mold some young people or even older people and turn them in the right direction, man.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Because once you hear his story, you know, you you wouldn't believe that he would be acting like that when you see him, you know what I'm saying?
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Or you wouldn't think that he would be on the type of bubbly friendly time that he on, you know what I'm saying?
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of people's situations go the opposite direction once you realize, you know, his background and you know what what what he went through and what he endured or whatever the case may be.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: But nevertheless, episode 14, man.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: Let's get it.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: Gotta introduce my boy, Mr.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: Ezra Prestley.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Come on, Wade.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: Ezra Presley, man.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Wade slow with the clouds, because Wavy's slow ain't running.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: I know you're in a word, in the words of words of Wade, uh, we got Mr.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Ezra in the house.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, Mr.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Ezra in here, but Erza, we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and let you take the reins, man.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: Real quick, you know what I'm saying?
2:23
SPEAKER_02: Just give a brief look.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: We ain't gotta be brief.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: You can you can spin it how you want to spin it, man.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: Just tell the people who you are and um tell a little bit about what's happening, uh everybody.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Hold on, y'all.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: My mic was muted.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: The whole time?
2:39
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't muted.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: It would just turn red.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we good.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: You you oh my bad, we back.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: Hey, y'all court.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Hey, y'all said I thought a little slow a little bit.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: Go ahead, go ahead.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: What's happening, everybody?
2:50
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, like like my man said, Um, my name is Ezra Presley.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Um uh first and foremost, I'm a man of God.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Want to get that out of the way.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a go.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, yes, sir.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Um basically, you know, I'm I'm from Anderson.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I claim Anderson, you know.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I was raised.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't born here.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I was actually born in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Orangeburg, but you look like you're from down there.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm the son of two HBCU grads.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: David and Diane Presley.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Y'all might know him around here.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Really, really good people, really uh good Christian people.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Um so uh they met at an HBCU where I was conceived and you know, brought forth whatever, whatever you want to call it.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh to push the story forward, um my father uh entered into the military, and um my mother got her master's degree at Clemson, so they had to migrate to the upstate of South Carolina.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: That's where we find myself here in Anderson, South Carolina when I was younger.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh I went to South Fant Elementary and Whitehall Elementary.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: White Hall Elementary, shout out to White Hall.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if y'all people know back in the day.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: So uh my childhood was uh it was pretty normal, pretty normal.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh had a really, really good childhood.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh great family background.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Um both my parents um were servers in the community, so to speak.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh my mom, she's a director of Share.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if y'all know it's a community action agency.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yeah, Moselle.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: I think it's on East Greenville Street now, 81.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh they pay people's light bills and rents and that thing.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: So you see what kind of people I come from.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: My parents always try to help people.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: My father is a 27-year vet in the military, retired lieutenant colonel.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, also went into the education system and became a principal and so on and so forth.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: So just a little bit of background.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: My father actually actually hired my wife.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: She worked in uh Nevin Forest.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: She still works in Nevada Forest, but he gave her her first job.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Mr.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Presley, I remember when um he had me, like really my first really like job job for real, was just at Westside High School.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: Me and Justin, um, just scanning books, helping him scan books.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
5:15
SPEAKER_02: Just taking all the books out of the classroom, man.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Mr.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Presley's good people.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: So y'all, y'all see I had uh really, really good parents.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Um I got two siblings, uh younger than me.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm the oldest of three.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh my middle brother's name is David.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of people might know him.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh we all play ball, sports in school.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh my baby brother is Justin.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, good, good guys, good kid.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, pretty much normal childhood came up, you know.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: We we played ball, we we we had fun.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: We had a a home where my parents made my home where it was very, you know, welcoming to be at.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: So we always had the parties and the sleepovers and all that stuff coming up.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: So we had one of those homes where you didn't really want to leave.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, so um I had a really good childhood, man.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: I can't, I have no regrets about that.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Um so to move forward, um basically uh I went to Westside High School.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Big West Hideo.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Meet Westside, I said.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Meet around, yes, sir Ski.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh Westside High School.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: So um I played ball, like I said, football, a ran track.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was in the gospel choir.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, go ahead and say something.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's another podcast.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: But uh, yeah, so uh so I was an all-around, all-around kid, you know.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Um I was in everything.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Had all um I was friends with everybody pretty much all through school.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, never singled anyone out.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, good, good dude.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: So um if we're gonna continue to move forward, um a little part of my childhood that kind of like, you know, shifted it, shifted the I say the temperature of it was uh when 9-11 happened, and back in 2001, everybody remembers that.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: I was like grade, I think.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I was like, something like that.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: So in that time, my father, who was a reservist at the time, a military reservist, army reservist, yeah, got activated to active duty.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So he left our family for a couple years.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And so in that time, that's was when I kind of had to take the lead of my household.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, subconsciously, I thought I was taking the lead.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: My mom still did her thing.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I was the oldest.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Um brother role.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: Did you feel like with him being gone, like you had to step up as the since you're gonna be able to get away from the other thing?
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I definitely felt like that.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Um how old was you?
7:43
SPEAKER_00: I was in I was in 11th grade.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I was in 10th grade and then so in my 11th and 12th grade year, he was gone.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: So you stepped in the role like kind of the protector, kind of.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: So um a lot of people say that's when I went bad, but I don't believe that.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Um we just had a little bit more freedom when my father was gone.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, growing up with a military father, it was very strict.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was going to say.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Um we had to be ready to go to school at 6 a.m.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: with our rooms uh clean and everything.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it had to be made flow.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about your room got inspected, all that.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: Um discipline, boy.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: One thing my father did all the time, and I'll never forget this.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, every morning as a family, we prayed together.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Which is I don't know uh how that is uh with anybody else's family, if that's normal or whatever, but that prayer, uh we're gonna, you know, talk later on, not to you know skip anything, but yeah, prayer fueled me for the rest of my life, uh, believe it or not.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: And those prayers is what you know made some changes in me later on in my life.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: But um boy, that's important, boy.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I always tell people like, you know, what you instill in your children, you know, at a younger age, it gotta come back.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
9:04
SPEAKER_00: So turn up a child on the way that they should go.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what the the Bible says train up a child in the way it should go, but the scripture continues to say not that he'll do it, or not that he'll follow what you said, but it will not depart from him, is what the scripture says.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Um we're just gonna keep that in mind.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Y'all just keep that as a mental note as we continue in this uh this podcast.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Um so basically, no bro, let me just say 6 a.m.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: Ready for school.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: 6 a.m.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: I've been like, daddy.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: But for a black starter, he said they had to get an inspection.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: We had to get an inspection of our room.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: You had to be ready to.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: If anybody knows, if y'all know my father, he he knows nonsense, but he never yelled.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: I never heard my father yell to this day.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm 40.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I never heard my father raise his voice.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: He just said what he meant, meant what he said.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: And y'all knew.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And we knew what it was.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
10:01
SPEAKER_00: So um but I had a great father, great, great, great parents.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Um moving forward, after my high school years, um like I said, I entered into the military actually.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Um I got their RTC scholarship um and I went to basic training in uh Fort Jackson, Columbia.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't know that, but um but that's what happened.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: So in this time I had a lot of lot going on inside mentally.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of adolescents and and and young adults have.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Um I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life because I had what they call a lot of potential.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Um I had straight A's all through school, I was an undergraduate, you can check it, this is all public record.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Um I had a lot of ex curriculars, like I did music, I did sports, I you know, I was a leader, um all those things.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: But all those things are what they call potential.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You gotta actually put in the work and do things with those those attributes.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Um but I had an attitude problem.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know where it came from, I wasn't taught that, but you know, some some kids are you know grow up differently.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: So when I got to basic, I felt like I it was easy.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: So the physical part wasn't nothing, you know.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: I was smoking all the PT tests and all that, but I had a problem with authority back then.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: And um I think it's basically because I felt like I I knew more or whatever the case may be.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: You know how teenagers are.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Um smelling yourself.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: I was smelling myself.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like they say.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: So what eventually happened is I got um I got kicked out of basic training in my sixth week, um, two weeks before I graduated.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Um for failure to adapt to, you know, military life.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: A lot of little incidents, I won't go into detail, happened during that time.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And um that was my first like uh, I guess you say time I got in trouble.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: I never got in trouble in school, never none of that, never suspended, never fights, none of that ever.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: When you was at when you was at Westside, oh you said Mr.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: Presley was gone.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, by the time you got like your junior senior year, he was he was gone.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: He was gone.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: But you still wouldn't even get into the city.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: I got a whoop about Henry Adair one time.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: He whooped you for real?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: If y'all don't know who Henry Adam is.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know Mr.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Adair now.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Mr.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Adair.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, hope you're gonna do that.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Mr.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Adair, like uh what's uh Eastside High principal?
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: That's Mr.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Adair for West High.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: I hope y'all know who Mr.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Adair is.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: So I was I can't even remember what class I was acting up in or whatever.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: They called Mr.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Adair to the office, and my father was working at the school as a counselor at the time.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Not as counselor.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: So back then, Mr.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Adair would do had the little paddle in his office.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if nobody remembered that.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: What?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: So I got a paddling before.
12:58
SPEAKER_02: We're talking about high school now.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: High school.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about elementary, middle.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: I was getting into one of the uh getting into one of the teachers or whatever.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm in the class, so they was like, well, Mr.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Adell asked your father if he can give you a paddling.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh and my father said, Yeah.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, so Mr.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Adale gave me three licks that day.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: But it's legendary, but you don't got it in the principle.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: He probably put all authority in them licks.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: Hey, boy.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Come on for the father, so I love Adell to this day.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: So A Dell good dude.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: That's a legendary story, but I ain't never heard nobody say they got a whoop about it.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I got a whooping by Mr.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Adair, Henry A.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Dell.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but when I got kicked out of the army, that was the first time I actually got in trouble.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that that's a caveat to what you're gonna see down the road.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, the reason um my testimony is a little unique, um, because a lot of people have the same, you know, sort of stories of rags to riches or incarceration to freedom or whatever you may call it.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: But most of those stories start off with humble beginnings, um single parent homes, urban city background, you know, the street all the way through, being homeless, so on and so forth.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't have any of those.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So the uniqueness of my situation is I had what you would call a good upbringing.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: However, regardless of your upbringing, the decisions you make at that period can change the trajectory of your life in a split second.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: That's true.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Always remember that the decisions you make.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: So always try to make good decisions in your life and always have a lot of thought when it comes to your decisions making.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: But uh, let's keep going.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't want to go off on a tangent.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: No, you can do it.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you walk in this thing, bro.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: You really you really going through, you know, the type of stuff we have.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: You was going through.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you just going, you can't.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: This is my first time doing this to uh audience too.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell, but like your 77 episode.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: I know you talked.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: I did have a question though.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: I and I I and I thought about it as because you know, you came up with the with a sharp upbringing.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, your dad was, you know, real strict.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: He kind of military man, he led y'all to, you know, have your rooms made up, be up on time, be proficient.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: In the military, like they have, I guess they would have some of them same kind of structures.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, did you see any similarities there?
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Like, why how what made it difficult?
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you know, like I think, I think basically what made it difficult for me is I really didn't want to do it.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Let me backtrack a little bit.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: My parents wanted me to go to school, right?
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: I had to plot all these colleges.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I got in.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Texas AM, South Carolina, uh, all the small schools around the area.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: My grades were good enough for that.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: SAT's good.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Y'all can check the records.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Um But I was in this this this mindset that I didn't want to, I wanted to buck on what they wanted.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I was I don't know what I was what was wrong with me.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Or you know, I'm not saying it was something wrong, but I didn't know why I was acting the way I was acting.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to go against the grain.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: I was being a contrarian.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Um and so this is what they wanted.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: So I went behind them and did something different.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: I went and got a recruiter.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't even know you did it.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even know that I was signing into the military.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: So people, people from the outside believe, like, oh, his dad's in the military.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you look like it may be.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: That's why he's doing it.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: That never happened.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't want you to go to the military.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: He never said it.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: He never encouraged it.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: He didn't push it.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Never pushed that.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: So even like even listening to you earlier, even listening to you earlier, like I'm I'm like everybody else.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: Because if I thought, oh, he went to the military because his dad.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Wow, wow.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: So that's a good idea.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: True story, I went into the military secretly.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: So I got the recruiter right.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: This is no lie.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I signed up.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And I was 18.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So I could sign up.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: I turned 18 in December.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And so I was old enough.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're 17, you got to get your parents' permission.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: So I went and signed up behind their back.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Awards day.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Y'all remember awards day when everybody's seniors get their awards or whatever at school.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: The army came to awards day, y'all.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Abel Hart Drunk.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: How you feel in that moment, bro?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Hey, look.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: How did you feel, boy?
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm first of all, I was I was arrogant.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was him.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Let's not get it twisted.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: I had a little popularity in high school.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm not putting on.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: You can look it up.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: So I thought I was him already.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: So that happening was just fueling me.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, okay, okay.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: So um, so I'm sitting there, and so they start, they get up to the front, and they got the check.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: The RTC scholarship check for like 40 bands.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: So they said, yeah, and our recipient this year for the RTC scholarship uh will go to Ezra Presley.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: The crowd goes wild.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Mom and daddy like.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: But mom and daddy, like, wait, what?
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that had to be like shocked.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: So I get up, you know.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: I walk up there.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: And I got these 40 bands.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: I got the 40 band.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: And I got these 40 band.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what comes with the 40 band.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I wanted to do for real.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to go against what they were saying.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: You know that's how we did as kids, you know.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: We kind of bucked on our parents.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: I definitely did.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I know.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: So that reason being, once I got into basic, I was in there like, how the world I'm gonna get out.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be here.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: So I did a little stuff to, you know, book the trend.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: My father actually helped me not to get a dishonorable discharge.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: That I missed.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: With his rank and him knowing the powers that be, and he was over everybody on the base at the time.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: He was able to talk to my first sergeant and give me a chapter 11.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: You see, I know what I'm talking about.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: It's paperwork.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: A chapter 11 discharge, which is a general discharge and a failure to adapt.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: So it don't go, because you get a dishonorable discharge, it's hard for you to move forward in the future.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: It's like a bad rap.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: That's like a bad rap.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, people won't hire you, so on and so forth.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: I just learned something new.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Chapter 11.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: Never heard of that.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Damn, bro.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Y'all want me to keep going?
19:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, keep on.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: Keep unraveling.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Keep unraveling.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep moving forward.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: So after that, my they made me stay in this place called Golf Company.
19:50
unknown: Okay.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: So I had to stay there for two weeks.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Now I only had two weeks to graduate.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Basically.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: They made me stay there in golf company.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: That's like where the disciplinaries go.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: They made me stay in that little company.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: It's another form of my punishment.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Y'all see how it's showing.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: See, see, one thing gotta do, if he wants you, he'll keep getting you little signs all the way through.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of times we don't pay attention to them.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And that was another sign.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Look, when you do such and such, it can happen.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Boom.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: I ain't paying attention though.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard-headed.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: I was one of them.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: A lot of I was hard-headed with my parents, I was hard-headed with God.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And so um, I watched my my squad graduate in front of me before I got released.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: So upon release, uh you were there.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: You're supposed to be two weeks.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: How long they end up keeping you?
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Just two weeks.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: As soon as two weeks was over, I got released.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Got out of there.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: So I got to watch them walk over the stage.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Look, you didn't get to do this.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: We going to AIT.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Woo woo woo.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: I even talked to some of them like later on in life, and they done retired and everything.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: I would have been retired out of the military, by the way.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um because I was 18.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: So um fast forward when I uh got picked up by my mom.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: They got me enrolled in school.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Just like that, because it happened to be in August.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Like right before school started in September.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Um I went to Columbus State University.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if y'all know what that said.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: That's in Columbus, Georgia.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh nice little school.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I went there.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: I went there for about uh a year.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to be closer to home.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was cool in Columbus.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Columbus is a nice place.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: It's like maybe Atlanta without without all the traffic.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: It's it's cool, it's nice, it's got everything.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Um so it's kind of like Greenbelt.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: So left there and I transferred to USC Spartanburg, okay.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, which is now USC Upstate.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: I was the first class to change USC Spartanburg to USC Upstate.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: So I went there for two years.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: And while I was there, I did the school thing.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: I roommate with my best friend, Mitch Marsh.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: We were roommates.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: He ended up being a Navy.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: He in the Navy now.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: He's finna retire from the Navy, by the way.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Mitch, my best friend.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I went to school for about two years.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I quit.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to do school anymore.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I was sick of school.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And while I was coming out, I had got recruited by a marketing company called Smart Circle.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Buddy of mine that played basketball for Anderson University, Lil Ryan, called me one night.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: He was like, look, this is a crazy job.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Woo woo woo.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Good opportunity.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: We can get money.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: You ain't got to do no more schooling.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Good way to get paid, good way to have a career.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: All we doing is talking and doing what we do.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: We get to travel, blase, blase, and you're gonna make a lot of money.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, all right, whatever.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: So I said, I'll think about it.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: So later on that night, um, I got a call from his supervisor and him on three-way.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: So they like, look, man, this is it.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: This is they locked me in.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: So I had to go out to, at the time it was Florence.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I went out, they came and got me.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, moved me out to Florence, and well, I had to do this training for like a month for smart circles.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: This is marketing trainer.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: So it was like a marketing company who marketed like uh Visio products, DirecTV, stuff like that.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: So I remember, I don't know if y'all remember how DirecTV used to set up little booths and kiosks in like Sam's Club and Walmart and Target and Best Buy.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: That was us.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
24:02
SPEAKER_02: Um Bobby trying to avoid them people.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: I see him in a girl store.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: Bobby going the other way.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: So I was doing that.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: I was doing that.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: So that was I was pretty good at that.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: I used to be part of a team where we just went and fixed markets and, you know, fire everybody there, hire new people, show them how to sell the product, you know.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I was good at that.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: That's what I went to school for.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Business marketing.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, so and I had a gift for Gab.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So that was fun for a little while.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So I was doing that.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: However, the same problem I had for these last few years with authority, I still had that problem.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: It never changed.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Even though I got it the punishment and whatever, I never changed.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And um, so I ended up getting to the supervisor, the same one that recruited me about promotion.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, I'm getting paid the same thing.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing all this work, I'm doing the work I'm supposed to do.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Woo woo woo woo.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: When I'm gonna get my own market and make the real money.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, oh man, you're gonna do it.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Woo woo woo.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: I got you.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Just give me a few more months.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I need you to go down to Anderson.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: I ain't been to Anderson in a while at the time.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I need you to go back to Anderson and help that market down there.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna move y'all to Greenville, put your office up there, and I need you to fix the Anderson market.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, I ain't trying to go back home.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: I've been going from home.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: You wanna go back?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm telling you, it's gonna be easy.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: You know the people, you know the community.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: You should be able to woo-woo woo, get it up and running.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna give you a market in Jacksonville, Florida.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: That's why I really wanted to go.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And so um, I said, Alright.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: That seemed like the worst idea ever.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: But I did it.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: So when I came back home, whenever you come back to Anderson, you feel like you get stuck back in Anderson.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: At least I did back then.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: Basically, when you had a taste of the outside life.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: You feel like I'm back here.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: And y'all know how Anderson is.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: We got everything.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: We ain't got nothing but a lot of restaurants.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: A lot of restaurants.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: You want to get fat?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Come to Anderson.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: You want to eat.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: If you want to eat.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Food ain't eating all that, but they got a lot of different kinds.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Everything to eat.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: But now, now that I'm older, I love Anderson.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, but if it's for different reasons.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so uh I came back to Anderson.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I started working.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm not feeling it.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Um I end up getting into it with the bossman again, and I end up quitting.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: But now I'm at home.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: I had met a met a girl.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go in all that, but we end up um supposedly making a child.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get into details about that either, because that's another another podcast.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: But it's a little complicated.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, long story short, um I quit my job, so I had a good little savings built up.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: So we we lived in uh the overlook.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: It's a little apartment complex up there near the interstate, like over the room.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: I used to live there.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And um, so everything was pretty good for a little while, and but I didn't get no job.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm just coasting off your savings.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm just coasting off my savings.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, I don't know if I can say this on this podcast.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I know it's G.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Go say it, bro.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Go say it, bro.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: You good.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: During this time, I was a pot head.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: I smoked a lot of marijuana.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, so and I did music.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: I rapped and sang.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: So uh at the time I was I was doing music, and um, but I'm really not doing nothing.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, when you get to smoking all day, every day, you you really pushing all your priorities to the side.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: That's all your life is about.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: And so um, so I'm in the studio one day with uh this person.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: I ain't even gonna put their name out there, you know, but I was in the studio with the with the guy that that I looked up to as a as a really good friend, right?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And we in the studio, and when you get to smoking and you're in the studio, what you get to doing?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: You get to pillow talking, yeah, pillow talking, yeah.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And I ain't talking about on no no female type type.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about you low.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Guys are starting to, you know, yeah.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm venting.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Man, I need to get some bread.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Woo-woo woo.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't really want none of these jobs.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: I ain't making the same money I was making before.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to, you know, I was kind of, you know, prideful.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to go down, make less money to move back up.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to do that.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to make the kind of money I was making.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: So this conversation right here is gonna go back to what I said earlier.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: The decisions you make, the critical decisions you make can change the trajectory of your life in a split second.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Remember that.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: If I don't say anything else.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Um so we in the booth, we blowing, and my man was like, look, man, I know a way you can get some money real quick.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, ain't that hard.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I don't know if you want to do it or not, because this ain't your MO, but this is how you can do it.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: So later on, he told me my answer kind of shocked him.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, what is it?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: So he told me what it was.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: This is the answer that shocked him.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: I said, when we gonna go?
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: He ain't expect you to say that.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: He did not expect me to say that.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: So uh I don't know how much of this I'ma say, but I'ma y'all got me out here.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Nah, yeah, yeah.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you feel comfortable saying, you ain't gotta say, you know, whatever you want to say.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: You ain't got no feelings over here.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: So he told me when we was gonna go.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: So the first time that I went, um, I don't know, but I do know.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell y'all.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Um I grew up in a church.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's another caveat to my story that I I didn't, I don't think I said, but I grew up in the church.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: We went to church on Sundays, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, Bible study.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: I did all that.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: I sung at church.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a church, but I wasn't saved.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: See, that's a there's a difference between those two.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Um not to preach at y'all, but you agree.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: So you're talking to a person who grew up in the church, right?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: This is coming from that person.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: So I knew the forces at B.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: So in this time out I'm blind to, it's the enemy working too.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: So our first time is nine o'clock in the morning on a random day.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, we see the spot, we done scoped everything out, and me and another guy are going in.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a um it's a check cashing place.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: So for some reason, I never get high, I never drink to go do this kind of stuff.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: When I go to work, I go to work.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And one thing about me, anybody tell you if I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna give it 100%.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent, you always can be like, well, Iz gave it all he got.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And um, but that plays a big role in what I do now too.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, but so we're coming down the road.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: This is broad daylight, y'all.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Broad daylight.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: So for some reason, I'm not scared at all.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: You ain't got no fear.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: No fear.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Never did this a day in my life.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: First time.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: So I got a I got a dog on.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: I got a I got a piece on me.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Big joint.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: So we walking down the uh, what's the name?
32:17
SPEAKER_00: The dude with me acting like he's scared, but he's supposed to be the experienced person.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: What the world is going on?
32:25
SPEAKER_00: So I take over.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: I take the lead.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Don't know what I'm doing, but just going off what I feel like is right, my instinct.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Running to the door, boom.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: There's a female there.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: And her first reaction when she sees me is she screams.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'm David Presley's son.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: We don't do a lot of yelling.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: So I always felt like that would be the best way to approach most situations.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Especially stressful ones.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Just be calm.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: So I was.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, check this out.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Calm down, first and foremost.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: With the tool on them.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Look, this is not yours.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: And nobody's gonna hurt you.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: All you gotta do is open that safe.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: It takes two minutes.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: I get this money, I'm out of here.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: I got kids.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: I do too.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go back to them, then you're gonna do what I say.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: She calmed down.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, I feel like I was in a movie just now.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: She opened the safe.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: I got the bread.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: We took off.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: So when I come out of the the place, I meet the car, the getaway car, boom, we get in the car, we gone.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: Man, this is.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to I'm having a moment, like a real, real moment, because and I mean to cut you off, but because I'm I'm I'm in, I'm in, I'm a I'm a manager at Big Bank of America.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: So I've been, I used to work for Always Money.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: And like you're it's it's is a it's like a cross paths thing because I was her.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: I got robbed too.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: So I've been there, like I've been, I've been her.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: And like the guy that robbed me was just as calm as you are.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like one of them, I don't know how I'm feeling.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: Like I feel weird.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm just sitting looking at this, like, oh man, like you didn't experience it.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: I've experienced it.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: So like it's like it's it's we always tell our side of the story, but I've never heard it from different perspective.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: So it was like, man, like you know what I'm saying, like you know how they feel versus how we feel, but uh, I mean I can tell my different different days, but I I've been in one of those situations.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: So uh we get in the cars, we we get back.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: So once we get in the car and we get away, that's when I get scared.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Whole time now I'm in the car, I'm getting praise.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh my boy, you gangster boy, you the you the you the real woo woo woo woo.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: So, but they don't know inside.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: I am scared to death.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know why.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: But I messed up or no, yes, everything, yeah.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's don't get it twisted.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Everything was legit.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Just take uh uh the town mixed with takers, yeah, and and and then you know what I'm talking about.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no games, yeah.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: In and out, quick, boom, ten minutes, tops.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: So we get to the crib and we open up the bread.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know what the expected amount should be.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: So this is my first time.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: It took me a probably it took us eight minutes tops.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: It happens very fast.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And so once we opened the money and we started counting it, we ended up with$33,000.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: That was my first tape.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they split that three ways.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: That's$11,000 in eight minutes.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: I was hooked.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Like hair run.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm getting chills since talking about it.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a man of God now.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, me too.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, so I can only imagine.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: That fueled 1,000, eight minutes.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: That fueled me for the next 18 months or so.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: That was my new job.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: So um, there's many, plenty of stories I could tell woo, but I'm not gonna do that because I don't want to glorify the situation.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: What I did was wrong.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, so fast forward, and your next question was the night it happened, or the night I was arrested, or the day I was arrested.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh this went on for a while, and I had stacked money.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: I was straight.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: It was good, it was it was alright.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: And I had quit doing it.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: I had even prayed about it.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Lord, me and my girl and my baby, we gon' we done with this kind of life.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to, I'm gonna go get a job, a regular job.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm done, I'm out.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm out.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Because um, I was just done.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was fed up.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm done with it, and a lot of other stuff happened, but I ain't gonna get into that.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: But I was done.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, the Bible also says you reap what you sow.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, God shall not be mocked, is what it says.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you will reap what you sow.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: So I had sowed some bad seed.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: So I gotta reap that.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: Everybody get it get it different ways, okay?
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, you just pray for God's mercy in those situations.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, so um the time went on, and the guy that brought me in got arrested.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: They came to his crib, blase blase, they arrested him.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: So being a friend that I was, I came and visit him.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't put yourself in the situation.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: That right there was probably the the most, well, that wasn't the most, but it was one of the key components to to the the feds putting things together.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Putting two together.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Um they watching stuff like that.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I visited him um a couple of times.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: Um but I still didn't they didn't never bother me or nothing like that.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: So a few months went by, and it was on my mother's birthday April 15th, excuse me, April 17th.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna kill me.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: My grandma's birthday, April 15th.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: April 17th, yeah.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: My mama called me uh and say, uh I need y'all to meet me at such and such right now.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is what you got going on?
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: So we get to the little place we meeting her at.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: Get my car.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: So we got in the car.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting in the front, my girl sitting in the back.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to really bring her into it, but she's my co-defender as well.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, okay.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: But that's a whole nother story.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: That's that's like a Bonnie and Clyde type thing.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: I can tell y'all about that later.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, yeah.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Um great person too.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: The realest person I know.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so um we get in the car, and uh, Corey, you know my mama.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: So uh my mama up and she was like, now what I'm gonna ask y'all, y'all better tell me the truth.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Alright, what's up?
39:41
SPEAKER_00: What is this about uh some robberies?
39:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you're talking about, Ma.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: You dripping.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: So my girl sitting back there not saying nothing, just stuck quiet.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: I said, why you back there looking guilty?
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Give it out of the wood.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: Giving it away.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: So she said, well, I'm just gonna tell y'all.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Donnie Blessing just came to my office and he said, There's a warrant out for your arrest.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted to tell me first because he didn't want them to catch me on the street and they and they shoot me and kill me.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And um, whatever.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: Donnie Blessing, if you listening.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: But uh, she said, I kicked him out of my office.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: I was like, for real.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: So uh she said, Well, I'm gonna get you a lawyer.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: I just need y'all to just stay out of sight, lay low.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: Mom Duke's a gangster too, by the way.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Don't y'all, don't y'all ever forget it.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Your mama is the realest person you're gonna be around.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: For real.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Your mama.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Mom duke's like that.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: For real.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: So my is the best.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: She's little and she's sweet and all that.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: She's been right for her son.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Fact.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: So uh Miss Diad.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: So we get out the car.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm scared.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Because I've never been in this situation before.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: I ain't never been arrested, never been in trouble with the law, none of that.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: So I never put those consequences with my crimes.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: I used to say, I used to pray every time I go out to do one, uh, Lord, just let me get back home.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: That was my prayer.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Money or no money, just let me get back home to my family.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: That was always my prayer.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: And he answered that every time.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: There was times I could I was supposed to be killed.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: There was even times that the officers were supposed to kill us.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Man, so amazing.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: So I'm amazing how even in moments like that, like, you know, he still shows his grace.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: He always shows his grace.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: And and um, so what I like to say about that is I know y'all know the um the metaphor of the clay, um, and how he reaches down into the Maori clay to get us.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes when we in that Maori Clay and he got our hand, we'll be struggling back with him and trying to stay in there.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
42:02
SPEAKER_00: So it'd be a struggle back and forth.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: But the one thing he never does is let go.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: So always remember that even if you're in there where you think you're in there, he ain't gonna let go if you his.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
42:14
SPEAKER_00: And he never let me go.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: That's good, bro.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, so fast forward, so uh I'm thinking everything's um gonna blow up, you know.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to do, what how to run, how to hide.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Um there was times I was thinking about going to Costa Rica.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: It was just all it was insane.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: It was the worst time of my life.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was moving around, but one morning I was at her house, and they really didn't have much evidence.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have any evidence on me, physical, period, at all.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I'll tell y'all about that later.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: But um, so we in her neighborhood, very nice neighborhood.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: She went to Hannah.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know what kind of neighborhood she's in.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: She's Caucasian.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: In Costa Rican.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: So, hold on, y'all.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: This is my uh feed phone.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: I gotta take a picture.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, right?
43:09
SPEAKER_00: Let y'all know it's real.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: On the podcast.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: But the camera ain't there.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Get that on there real quick.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: Get that little clip on there.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: He said, gotta let you know it's real.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh I um so I'm at her house one one one morning, and um she always is cooking, uh, she was making a little food for um the baby.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And in pajamas, you know, we chilling.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: And we see a car that never seen before go down the drive or go down the um road in front of the house.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Man, what kind of car is that?
43:46
SPEAKER_00: She was like, I think that's them.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, nah, that ain't them.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: But when I think about it, that car do not belong.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's an old Toyota Camry.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Mm in a neighborhood where all houses are seven hundred and up.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: No.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: I've never seen this car before.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you either worker or you visiting.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: You ain't gonna be there.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: So um the car comes back up and then it pulls up the driveway really fast.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: So she said, I'm gonna go out and meet them.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: She walks outside, barefoot, pajamas, and I run upstairs.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Upstairs, I can see over the uh front porch from the upstairs window.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what they did to her out there.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: All I know is she never came back in.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Because I can't see that side of the house.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: That house is the house is hooked to the garage on that side.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: So I can't see what's going on.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'm upstairs and I can see the two agents on the front porch like looking into the windows, but they can't see anybody and they like shaking their head like he ain't in there.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: And they on their way back down the stairs to leave.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: My baby cry out.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: They stop.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: Turn around.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: They like he in there.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: So um they start by beating on the door, and her mom stays there too.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And her mom gets up and she goes to the door.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: She's she's a cripple.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: She's uh disabled.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh she she crutches to the door and she, I guess she talks to the officer, the detective, or whatever he is, and um she yells out, Ez, they're from New York.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: There's something, somebody talking about a felony.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: They're from New Jersey.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: About a felony?
45:38
SPEAKER_00: I say, Oh no, no way, mama.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: So I all she had to say was I wasn't there.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: But that's neither here nor there.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: It's not her fault.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fact.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: So I go downstairs.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: When I come out, uh my girl got a dog.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: It's a rottwaller, her name was Raina.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Huge German Rottweiler, huge.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: And she loved me to death, but she don't like guns.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: So Raina going crazy.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: She's in a screened-in uh garage, like carport area, and she in there going crazy.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: She's hitting the uh screen because the officer is standing there with his with his with his gun drawn and the dog going crazy.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: Get your dog, man! Yeah.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, look, I'm gonna just be honest with you.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: She probably gonna grab your arm before you know what I'm saying, you able to pull that trigger.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: So I would suggest just you put the gun up, let me grab her, put her in the house, and then we can, you know, do what we need to do.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: So he did that, and I got the dog, put the dog in the house.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: I come out.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Um they had agents all in the back.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: The the the way the house is set up, there's a house behind it on the other side, it's like a cul-de-sac, like a wraparound.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: So the house is on the other side, their cars all out there, agents all over there in that yard.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: And and the agents all in the front.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Probably I don't know how many.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: But he was like, oh man, we thought you was gonna run.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, why would you think that?
47:13
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
47:14
SPEAKER_00: So I get in the car, and um, we go to we go to Anderson County jail.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: So um, at the time, this is the state.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: So uh the feds, I was on the feds radar, but the feds had told my lawyer prior to this.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: I skipped over that, but he told the feds told my lawyer, call my lawyer.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: ATF.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Call my lawyer and was like, look, we ain't ready to get them yet.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: So uh just lay low and we'll let you know when we're ready for them.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the feds, they don't play.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: If they want you, they're gonna come get you.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: They uh they ain't doing all that with the Anderson County people doing.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: So he was like, but we can't tell you what Anderson County is gonna do.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: They might, you know, jump the gun because they want to arrest so bad.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they did.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's why they arrested me first.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: And um, so I get in the cars, um, some little Jeep or whatever.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: Ain't no police cars anywhere.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: So I go to I go to jail.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, I get into there, and I'm thinking in my head, I ain't never been to jail, but I know I can get a bun and get out.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I ain't worried about none of that.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: You ain't even thinking about that.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's all I'm thinking.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: They ain't got no evidence on me.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: We ain't talking.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: So we finna be out tomorrow morning at the latest.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: So I get into the little holding, the little um intake area, and it's me and my girl.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: She in there barefoot, they didn't let her get no shoes.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: So she in there, tough as nails, just sitting there chilling.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, everything gonna be okay.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see the judge.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna give us the bond.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: My mom and them gonna take care of, we ain't gotta worry about none of that.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Alright, cool.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: So they called us back there.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: They called her first.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: The judge denied her bond.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: So she came out, never seen her cry before.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: We had been talking for a little while, never seen her cry.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: She's tears are coming down her eyes.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what the world going on?
49:15
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, why you ain't got no shoes?
49:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm yeah, I'm flanking now.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: You know that type of time.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: So she was like, they they denied it.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, denied it?
49:23
SPEAKER_00: What?
49:23
SPEAKER_00: What you mean?
49:25
SPEAKER_00: So I go in there after her.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: He ain't even let me get out, nothing.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: He ain't even asked me no questions or nothing.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: He just said, Yeah, you're bond denied.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I done made it in mind what they want to do.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they never knew what they was gonna do.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm like, what is going on?
49:41
SPEAKER_00: So this is our first night in jail.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: So they separate us, they take her to the women's side, they take me to the uh violent pod.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if y'all know anything about the county jail, but they got like different pods.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they do.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm in the violent pod.
49:55
SPEAKER_00: It's 23 in one lockdown.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: Dudes who been locked up know what I'm talking about.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: So uh my first night, my first week actually, I ain't never been in no situation, but I ain't no I ain't no punk.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: Put it like that.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
50:14
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm on the type of time, like, it is what it is.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Because I've never been to jail, so I don't know what to expect.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: All I know is I'm ready.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: My hand's ready, I'm ready for whatever.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for whenever.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: So, but it wasn't like that at first.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: So um, I get in there, I got the meme mug on, whatever.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: So um I get in there and I'm in there with an old man who actually knew my mama.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so but I'm in that, I'm still that mad mode where I'm just mad at everybody, the world.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: This is my first night.
50:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: First week or so.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: I ain't eat nothing.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: When they sent that, when they sent the food through the flap, man, ain't nobody I wouldn't dare eat it.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: They sent me a they sent two trays through the flap, like a dog flap.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: You ever had dogs?
51:06
unknown: Yeah.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: You ever seen dogs in the kennel?
51:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they sent them.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: They got like a little hole.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
51:10
SPEAKER_00: That's if the dog like bite, you know what I'm saying?
51:13
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go in there.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what they got.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Flaps.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: He brought food through a flap.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't dare eat it.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: He was like, no.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: So the first week, about three or four days, all my trades went to him.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: OG living it.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, he ain't good.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: He just he just keep encouraging me.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, yo, young brother, you'll be out of there soon, baby.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: But he's like about keeping him in the food.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: So I'm chilling.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: I go to uh I see uh I see my lawyer uh for the first time.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: I had a uh I had a state lawyer, my daddy's frat brother.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: Um cool dude off the chain.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: Um my my father's a capper, by the way.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: He's uh uh that's his fraternity.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: Um so you're a pretty boy type dude.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: That's my lawyer was I'm like, oh man, who is this dude?
52:07
SPEAKER_00: He got the he got the iPad before dudes had iPads, you know what I'm saying?
52:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, most people got briefcases, he got the iPad.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: Everything up, you know what I'm saying?
52:16
SPEAKER_00: Who is this dude, man?
52:17
SPEAKER_00: First thing he tell me, look, check this out.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Your girl gonna tell at the gate.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you that now.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: No.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
52:24
SPEAKER_00: I ain't trying to hurt your feelings, nothing, but your girl gonna tell.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna be the first one to drop.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: So what you need to do is get ahead of it.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: I get you like five years.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is tell everything.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: And I get you like five years.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, bruh, I ain't telling nothing because I ain't did nothing.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying, bruh.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: And she, you don't know her like that.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: Alright, that's what you want to do.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's what you want to do.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: Alright, alright.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: So I come back, I already know in my head, I'm not getting out.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: Not no time soon.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: The way he's talking, he's scared to death.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: So the flap opened up.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: Little meal came through the flap.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: I think it was chicken, uh, chicken patty.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: OG over there looking happy.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: I say, OG, uh, he had gotten both trays out.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, OG, let me get my tray, man.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: He was like, what?
53:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let me get my tray, bro.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need to eat that.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm finna be in here for a little bit.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, uh, oh, okay.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: He was sick.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: So hurt.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: Hurt, feelings hurt.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: He was hurt.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: You were hurt.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, he was gonna get both meals again.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: So I started eating.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: And so I made up in my mind, like, okay, now what I'm gonna do.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: Every, every everything I go through, been in, I could adapt.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: So this is what it is.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make the best of it.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: So I started working out.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
53:48
SPEAKER_00: I started working out, and and just, you know, trying to get my mind focused on how I'm gonna get out of here.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: What I'm gonna do, what I need to get for the lawyer, what the kind of money I need to get.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm I'm already trying to problem solve.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
54:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: Never once did I say, Lord, get me out of this.
54:06
SPEAKER_00: Never.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: At first.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: Never.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: Never I didn't even think about him.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: That's just show you where my mindset had then gone so far.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at this time.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: The enemy will take over your mindset.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says uh it said you must renew your mind.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul said we must die daily.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: See, we gotta die daily adhere to our nature.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't play daily.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: And because the enemy will take over your mind till you ain't even thinking like you.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: You thinking like somebody totally different.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm in the worst trouble of my life and I'm not thinking about God at all.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
54:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I ain't even meet no more.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: So um time went on.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so this is before we get sentenced.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: So months go by.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: I find out uh my co-defendant told told on us.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: And um, I didn't believe it at first because he was the person that brought me in, he was supposed to be my friend, uh, whatever.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we ain't even gonna get at no energy, but it is what it is.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: I wish him the best.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: He knows who he is.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: Um so my lawyer's gonna tell me, um, hey man, I can't prosecute your case no more, man.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: It's it's about to go federal.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, what?
55:21
SPEAKER_00: What's that mean?
55:22
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh the feds are about to pick it up, man.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh I only can do state cases.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: What?
55:29
SPEAKER_00: So the state dropped our case and the feds picked our case up.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: Reason the feds picked our case up is because of what they call interstate commerce.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: So once you move or do any kind of crime over and move over, move money over state lines, that's called interstate commerce.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: You can't you're affecting the interstate commerce.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: So if I take something from a federally insured place, that's money that's been coming around the whole United States.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: So that's commerce that's moving that I'm affecting.
56:01
SPEAKER_00: So um it went federal because the state couldn't prosecute us.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: There was not enough evidence.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: We would have end up if I would have state state, I would have never met y'all on this podcast.
56:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: Because I never would have gone to prison.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:14
SPEAKER_00: The Feds is a whole different animal.
56:17
SPEAKER_00: And in my case, I had did so many of these.
56:22
SPEAKER_00: Um my initial federal indictment had 22 counts.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: Just to let y'all know where we at.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: How many you did, yep.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, so not to glorify to none of that.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: So they were basically able to trace back and say, this is 20 something.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: We know that you done been involved in at least 20 of these.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: Based off the information that was given to them by my co-defendant, this is how they go through.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: And okay, we gotta get y'all on that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, down, down one, whatever.
56:50
SPEAKER_00: So on and so forth.
56:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, to be in all honesty with y'all, the numbers probably higher.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but not to lawyer value.
57:04
SPEAKER_00: But um, so anyway, it goes federal.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: Now I got a new lawyer, a federal attorney, a federal appointed attorney.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: The worst.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: First thing he said when we get, because when you go to federal court, it's ain't it ain't like going to Anderson Court County Courthouse.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: The federal courthouse is a totally different thing.
57:22
SPEAKER_00: It's dead serious.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: Dead serious.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: It even looked different.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: The wood looked different.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: Wall, everything looks different.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: What in the world I'm at?
57:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: Man, I got my indictment.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: This is this is what's gonna, this is what the the the time I got scared for real, y'all.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, right.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: When you get your indictment paper, it says who you are and who you going against, who you being defended by.
57:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: So normally a person who gets locked up, it'll say your name versus such and such.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: Corey versus you.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:54
SPEAKER_00: Or you versus BP or whatever the person people you're going against.
57:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what mine said when I got federally indicted?
58:01
SPEAKER_00: Ezra versus the versus the state.
58:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: Ezra Presley versus the United States of America.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, that's that's wow.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: My daddy military.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: Ain't no way I can beat them.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: Right.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: What?
58:14
SPEAKER_00: That's I bet.
58:16
SPEAKER_00: If a federal inmate gets indicted, you are not an enemy of the United States.
58:20
SPEAKER_00: Not the state of South Carolina, all of the whole country.
58:24
SPEAKER_00: That versus you.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: You did all the way out the gate.
58:27
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: So that right there put a different kind of fear in you.
58:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
58:31
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't know what they they like.
58:33
SPEAKER_00: You like man.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: I know I ain't this bad.
58:36
SPEAKER_00: I know I ain't this bad.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: Look, I know you need to look something, but putting me on there with Scoffe.
58:44
SPEAKER_00: So um, but it wasn't, I don't know how I adapted to it mentally, but I did.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's crazy how our mind works.
58:54
SPEAKER_00: We we we go back to what we know.
58:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: And you ever heard the saying, go for what you know.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
59:01
SPEAKER_00: Go for what you know.
59:02
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
59:03
SPEAKER_00: So I was always raised by a strong-minded person, and that's how I was all the time.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: So even through that, I kept my composure.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: I was always the same every day.
59:13
SPEAKER_00: Anybody gonna tell you?
59:15
SPEAKER_00: They tell you by E, because that's what they call me back there, E.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, E worked out, E did this, you know what I'm saying?
59:22
SPEAKER_00: Period.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: Every day, same.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: So um, um, long story short, we get too uh close to getting sentenced or going to trial, because we're going to trial.
59:33
SPEAKER_00: He asked me, don't be the last man standing, but that was the first thing he said to me.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: I was ready to fire him then, because he wanted me to tell.
59:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:39
SPEAKER_00: I ain't telling.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: Right?
59:42
SPEAKER_00: So we get close to trial, and um it's five of us on my indictment.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: It's five of us in my conspiracy.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh so the last two is me and my girl.
59:54
SPEAKER_00: And so um they came to me with uh a plea agreement for zero to thirty, zero to thirty-two, excuse me.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: And zero to thirty, and uh um, it's up to the judge's discretion.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: So I don't have to tell, I just have to admit to two counts in front of the judge.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: I can basically, Judge G.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: Ross Anderson is uh the oldest standing judge, was the oldest standing judge.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_00: He's dead now, my judge was.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: He was 96 at the time of my judgment.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: Man, yeah.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which in itself is already a whole nother podcast.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: The courtroom was named after him.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: The courtroom is named after him.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: When he came out, he got an oxygen tank and a wheelchair, and he appeared from the back.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_00: He got a Janet Jackson earpiece right here when he's talking sound like God.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's who that's who's my judge.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: 90s, bro.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, today you standing in front of me.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: He already.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how many millions of years he done gave out to brothers.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: I want to say the N-word, but I don't know how y'all podcast.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so nah, no, you're fine.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: But God.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so that was my judge.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: And um, so he was he was fair though.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: He I ain't gonna say he was, he was, I'm not saying he'd always been fair, but he was fair to us.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: So um the plea was because they didn't have any evidence on me, but they had cell phone pings from my girl, and they was like, they're gonna give me life and give her 20 years if we didn't sign a plea.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: So um my original time would have been in a man, in uh what we have is a statute sentence.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: So uh if y'all can look this up, um federal law states with a statute sentence of robbery, you have seven years already mandatory minimum for brandishing a weapon.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: Five years if you just got a weapon, seven years of brandishing a weapon and commissioning a violent crime.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: That's my charge.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: Um every robbery, subsequent robbery after that, is 25 years consecutive.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: So with 22 counts, starting with the sell, how much time I had.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: Come on, y'all.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_00: 22 22 times 25, right?
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're talking about 500 life.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's basically it, yeah.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_00: It's if you don't sign.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes, if I don't sign a plea.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: So the plea I didn't have to actually physically sign.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: I didn't write anything.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_00: So you can never say I wrote nothing down.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: Never.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: I agreed that I would plead guilty to these two counts for uh her to get only three years sentence.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: And so um, and they say they're gonna give us a bond.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: So I had to put my hand up and say I robbed such and such, whatever, in front of him.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: And um, but anyway, so uh no never told on anybody, anybody who's watching this and want to look it up, no.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: But um, but that's how it went.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: And so uh the judge gave her 36 months and gave me 192 months.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: In the federal system, they go by months.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: Um so I got 192 months, which is 16 years, which is half of the 32.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, which was I guess my deal or whatever.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_02: How old were you at the time?
1:03:37
SPEAKER_00: I was 27 years old when I went to federal prison.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_02: 27.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_00: I am now 40.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_00: And I just was released in February.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this year.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm still in about because I'm still in home confinement, but.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_00: But you home.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: But you was 27.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_02: You was 27 when this happened.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_02: You said they gave you 16?
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: And I did 13.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: You did 13.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, out of the 16.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_02: And you just got out, you said February.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: After it's all done in December, I'll be free.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: That'll be 13 years, eight months.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_00: So almost 14 years.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: So, um Wow.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_02: And so they gave if if if if you're allowed to say, so they they gave her the three years because of the what you agreed to do, right?
1:04:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_02: How long did your uh code defending get?
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, he was supposed to get lesser sentence.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: One of them got seven, but the one that did the telling, I'm thinking he was gonna get way less.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_00: They caught him in a lie.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_00: So they end up giving him the same thing and gave me.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: So he just got out too then.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: Got the same thing.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_00: We got a little bit before me, because he went in a little bit before me.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the same thing.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: That's what they that's what they best we wanted.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_00: So you say it was five of y'all, so all five of y'all ended up getting locked up?
1:04:49
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_00: The the first girl who told, his his girl didn't get nothing.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_00: He got out of there.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was the first person who told.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_00: Then he told after her.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_00: And then the last three of us didn't say nothing.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's that happened.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, I can't even remember the date anymore.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: My people know the date, but um it was like April, your mama's birthday when you, you know, they first booked it.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_00: My mama's 50th birthday the day I got that a warrant came out for my arrest.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: It was like 15th, April 15th, or something like that.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: April 17th.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: April 17th.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: 2013.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_00: April.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_02: April's birthday.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: April 17th?
1:05:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: So from April 17th, it was like 2001.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: What?
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: What year was that?
1:05:37
SPEAKER_02: 2013.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_02: 2013?
1:05:38
SPEAKER_02: So April 17th, 2013, when you got in the back of that Jeep outside the house on 81, went to Anderson County, never got out since that day until February of 2026.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: This year.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_02: Facts.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_02: Off that one, made the second decision.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_02: Off that one and second trickled into The behaviors that you know that you that you started to display.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even know it was that long.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know it was 13.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, like he said, I know his I know his people too.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: Like my mama started working with his mama.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_02: So that's how we started linking up, and I knew I was um he was older than Justin, like he said.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: So I was kind of closer to Justin.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, I didn't really I wasn't really around Ezra like that.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah um or David like that for real.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_02: But I was hanging out with Justin, but that's how I knew, knew who Ezra was, and Ezra was and knew kind of like the story that was going on.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: But um Dang bro, like my my next question would just really be just to touch on, I guess, you know, you ain't gotta go through all the prison stories, but like, you know, just like some stuff that kind of like stuck out to you during that time.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_02: Like, what did you what did you experience?
1:06:51
SPEAKER_02: What did you see?
1:06:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, like you said, you're a man of God.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_00: So like well I I can go through that.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_00: Um uh prison, I know people, a lot of people say, but prison changed me.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_00: Um I thank God that I went.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, which is kind of crazy to think about, and you know, just anybody normally saying that.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: But I think um, and I don't even listen to you little rappers, but uh Kodak said something like uh you gotta go through the darkness to get to the light or something, Kodak said, Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
1:07:28
SPEAKER_00: Little crazy flawed dude.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_00: But uh he was absolutely right.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes you gotta go through some stuff.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
1:07:39
SPEAKER_00: Um they know they use the the metaphor with the pressure with the diamonds and so on and so forth, but um affliction brings um like the like God uses affliction to bring you to a higher, you know, a higher calling or a higher higher blessing or whatever you are you're supposed to be getting or you're supposed to be receiving or you supposed to be doing, yeah.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_00: God will send you through affliction first because you have to have that to be able to handle whatever's coming next.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_00: So I think David said it like the waters of affliction helped me know his steps, or I can't remember the exact verses in Psalms.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 119, if y'all want to look it up.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_00: Um but that's what the that was what prison was for me.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_00: But the beginning of federal prison, federal prison for one, y'all, is not no day count.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, federal prison and everybody, and shout out to my my my guys in federal prison right now behind the walls.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_00: Man, big ups to y'all.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_00: We love y'all brothers, we think about y'all, man.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lot of good, good people that are in federal prison right now.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_00: And they're going through it.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_00: But they strong, they're smart.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: Man, I met some of the smartest guys, met some of the most uh I'm talking about, don't get it twisted, cold gangsters, millionaires, um, whatever you can think of is in federal prison.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_00: And unlike state prison, federal prison is not just secluded to your Pacific area.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_00: Federal prison is the whole entire country.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_00: And people from around the world.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:09:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, anybody, anybody in that prison.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_00: Anybody that's against the United States can be in federal prison.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, which one was you at?
1:09:39
SPEAKER_00: So I was in uh another blessing.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_00: God guided me the whole time.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to go to Bittysville Medium, right?
1:09:48
SPEAKER_00: Because federal prison set up like you got the camps, the lows, the mediums, then the penitentiary, the pen.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_00: So the pen is the highest level.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: That's the most dangerous, the most you feel what I'm saying?
1:10:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_00: Don't get it twisted.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_00: You can get it in all of them.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's just the pen is bad.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: They get they behind the door, they lock down a lot more.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot going on.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_00: Officers getting killed.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_00: It's turn.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: It ain't no, it ain't daycamp, like I said.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_00: And um, but the thing about federal prison is a lot more politics than it is in state prison.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_00: State prison, it don't get it, they they get it in too, but it ain't like federal prison.
1:10:28
SPEAKER_00: Federal prison, when you come to federal prison, you have to be with somebody.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:10:35
SPEAKER_00: When I was coming in, it's a little different now.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_00: They're starting to mix it up now.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_00: But when I was coming in federal prison, you had to have your paperwork.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that, if you told, they gonna know.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_00: They really gonna know for you get there.
1:10:47
SPEAKER_00: Dudes gonna look you up.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_00: And that right there can change the trajectory of how you move into.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:10:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, it can get bad.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_00: You know.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you have to be with your car.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_00: So they split up in cars.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_00: So if you're from South Carolina, you from Belton, yeah, you with the South Carolina car.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_00: And depends on where you are.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_00: If you're on the West Coast, you're gonna be in with a the South car.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: So because it might be you from South Carolina, Georgia, all y'all might be together, but then West Coast, because it's a lot less than.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_02: So they put you out with who y'all was with, you know, like wherever you're.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_00: You gotta get with who you with.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_00: They don't put you nowhere.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, okay.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, like some officers will, you know what I'm saying?
1:11:27
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so you're gonna be with guys from South Carolina, Georgia gonna be with Dez, North Carolina be with Dez, Florida, Louisiana, so on and so forth, DC, however.
1:11:38
SPEAKER_00: And then it even goes even deeper.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, you got the Puerto Ricans, you got the Mexicans, you got the white boys, you got the Bloods, you got the Grips, you got the GDs, you got it's a million different groups.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_00: It's the most political thing.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_00: You think politics out here with Democrats and Republicans?
1:11:58
SPEAKER_00: Ain't no way to prison.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_00: Go to the prison.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna say.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_00: You can't even sit at a certain table if you ain't a certain person.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
1:12:05
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a lot of politics.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_00: And that kind of structure gives you a whole different mindset.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of respect.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_00: They don't play the disrespect.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_00: Like little stuff that out in the world that we don't do, because I'll be having trouble with it now.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm still a little burnt out.
1:12:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_00: But like jumping in a conversation, disrespectful.
1:12:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_00: Walking in front of somebody, not saying, excuse me, disrespectful.
1:12:32
SPEAKER_00: Those kind of things get you stabbed in prison.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: With your head knocked off.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
1:12:38
SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, yep.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_00: But those things also teach you certain kind of discipline and how to carry yourself and move.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: As a man.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_00: And um, and one thing about me, I already had discipline.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:12:53
SPEAKER_00: Now I might show it all the time, but it back here had to come out.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_02: You remember that 6 a.m.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_02: Getting ready to school, and they clean, they rules, right back, came back.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_00: So, and I'm a likable person.
1:13:07
SPEAKER_00: So I never really had no, because dudes would just hate you for the hate you, but they ain't like females though.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be some reasons.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
1:13:15
SPEAKER_00: But in prison, uh, it showed me a lot, like it's it's almost like college with a little bit of more, you know, negative connotation to it.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
1:13:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_00: You get to see people from different perspectives.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
1:13:29
SPEAKER_00: You get to see how they live over here and how they live and how they talk.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_00: And the crazy thing is the the accents and the dialects, once you done been in prison like I was, you start like I don't even talk like I'm from Anderson as much as I did before I left.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_00: Is that makes sense?
1:13:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it makes sense, it makes sense.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_00: Because I got a mixture of I hung out with dudes from Atlanta, I hung out with dudes from DC, I hung out with dudes from Florida.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_00: So you pick up the lingo and how they talk and stuff like that.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: It's all like just gonna get mashed together.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_00: You can tell when somebody got some time in.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: Because they'll be saying all like, what the world we from?
1:14:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we just go crazy.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_00: All over the place.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you might have a southern draw, but you might say a little slang that somebody from DC say, or somebody from whatever say.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's another part about it.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh, like I said, the discipline part, the respect part.
1:14:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, the the camaraderie is is is man, I met so many good guys back there that I still to this day consider friends.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_00: When I was home, I had a lot of associates.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_00: Um I had a few good friends.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_00: Like I can still call my friend today, because those are dudes that checked on me while I was back there.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
1:14:44
SPEAKER_00: I got those dudes.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_00: I had some good dudes.
1:14:46
SPEAKER_00: I ain't gonna front.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_00: That looked out.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: That looked out.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_00: I had my family.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_00: I have the most amazing family, my parents, my brothers.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: If you ever see them dudes, them the best dudes ever.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_00: My book stayed straight.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_00: They visited me, all of that, the whole nine.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, what city and state were you in?
1:15:06
SPEAKER_00: I was in North Carolina.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_00: I was in Buckley, North Carolina.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_00: I stayed at that compound the whole time.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_00: Because it's got five prisons on that same compound.
1:15:12
SPEAKER_00: I just moved the one that R.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_00: Kelly at um right now.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, for real?
1:15:16
SPEAKER_00: Dang.
1:15:17
SPEAKER_00: A lot of a lot of uh, you're gonna meet a lot of celebrities.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_00: I was locked up with Bernie Madoff and uh Peter Gotti, uh, the unibomber.
1:15:27
SPEAKER_00: Um you remember the movie Captain Phillips?
1:15:30
SPEAKER_02: The Unibomber sound for the.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_00: No, R.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_00: Kelly was in the he's in the he's at the FCI one.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_00: That's like the uh the the they got a lot of predators over there.
1:15:41
SPEAKER_00: I went over there.
1:15:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:15:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a different thing.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_00: Got it, got it, different different guys, yeah.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_00: The Unibomber, um the uh blind chic, uh I said Peter Gotti, that's Gotti brother.
1:15:55
SPEAKER_00: Um like the African dudes from that robbed the ship, the pirates from Captain Phillips.
1:16:03
SPEAKER_00: I was there with them.
1:16:04
SPEAKER_02: The people that was in the dude that was like, I'm the captain now?
1:16:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_00: I started with him.
1:16:11
SPEAKER_02: Look at me, sure.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_02: Look at me, sure.
1:16:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm the captain now.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: Man, y'all remember that?
1:16:16
SPEAKER_02: Y'all remember that movie?
1:16:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was locked up with I'm the captain now.
1:16:20
SPEAKER_02: Wait, you gotta put that in the clip.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_02: You gotta put that in the clip.
1:16:23
SPEAKER_02: What time frame what time is it?
1:16:26
SPEAKER_02: One of the what did it say?
1:16:27
SPEAKER_02: One what?
1:16:28
SPEAKER_02: 115.
1:16:28
SPEAKER_02: Remember at 115 to put at 115 put the I'm the captain now.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_02: You gotta throw that on that.
1:16:37
SPEAKER_02: You was in there with him?
1:16:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was in there with a lot of dudes.
1:16:40
SPEAKER_00: I remember one time um I'm on the I'm on the elevator because I was at the hospital at FMC.
1:16:45
SPEAKER_00: That's I wanted to get back to that.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was supposed to go to Bennettesville Medium.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_00: However, my co-defendant went sentence first.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_00: He went to Bennettesville Medium.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, medium's behind the door.
1:16:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
1:16:57
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean by that?
1:16:58
SPEAKER_02: Behind the door?
1:16:59
SPEAKER_00: When I say behind the door, they got the medium, highs, and pins, they all behind the door.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_00: The door closes.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_00: The door closes.
1:17:05
SPEAKER_00: You go inside the door and it gets locked.
1:17:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
1:17:08
SPEAKER_00: Like slinged.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you can't get out.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_00: You can't get out.
1:17:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the lows, some of them, most of them now, are open dorm.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_02: So you just walk in and out.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_00: So you like in a little cube.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying, with a little wall.
1:17:22
SPEAKER_00: You can walk around in it.
1:17:23
SPEAKER_00: You and another person.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_00: But somebody can walk in there.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, somebody can walk right in there.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_00: But you could also walk out of there.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was in an open dorm.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_00: So what happened?
1:17:32
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to go to the medium, Bennett's medium.
1:17:36
SPEAKER_00: He went first.
1:17:37
SPEAKER_00: He put what they call a separate teeth on me.
1:17:40
SPEAKER_00: Meaning he didn't want to be in the same prison as me.
1:17:43
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_00: Usually when somebody do that, tell on you they don't want to be a good one.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:17:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, I would have never done nothing to him.
1:17:54
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm over there.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's another story.
1:17:57
SPEAKER_00: That's because of one thing, too, and I'm gonna tell y'all about that when we encapsulate the whole thing.
1:18:03
SPEAKER_00: Um so I got sent to Butner Medical Center, the hospital, as a worker.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_00: The work the hospital is an administrative low, so it has every level.
1:18:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:18:18
SPEAKER_00: Ping all the way down to camp.
1:18:19
SPEAKER_00: So anybody could go there.
1:18:20
SPEAKER_00: But I was in the cadre, which is a work unit, that's a low unit.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_00: So that was a blessing.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_00: I got to put got put there.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_00: When I walked in, they seen me, they was like, man, I don't know who you know.
1:18:33
SPEAKER_00: But uh, boy, you got blessed getting to come here with your crime and your time.
1:18:37
SPEAKER_00: You ain't supposed to get to come here.
1:18:40
SPEAKER_00: Man, he had me the whole time.
1:18:42
SPEAKER_00: Whole time.
1:18:43
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about that just a real quick second.
1:18:46
SPEAKER_00: Um uh I was sentenced in 2014.
1:18:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, but on May 12th, 2014, um I'm gonna go back to the county days.
1:19:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was sitting in the room with the same old school dude, and I was in the county remember, I said, I ain't think about God or nothing.
1:19:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:19:12
SPEAKER_00: Um we in the bed one night, and old school had said, um, hey man, hey young brother, uh I'm like, man, what's up, man?
1:19:21
SPEAKER_00: I ain't really trying to talk tonight in my head, that's what I'm saying.
1:19:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what's up?
1:19:26
SPEAKER_00: What's up, OG?
1:19:27
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to get in your business or nothing, but uh man, God set you down for a reason, man.
1:19:33
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to tell you something, man.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, you listen to him.
1:19:37
SPEAKER_00: So at first I kind of like just brushed it off.
1:19:40
SPEAKER_00: That's just something old people say, but that night I couldn't go to sleep.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and I knew what he said was real.
1:19:51
SPEAKER_01: Was real.
1:19:53
SPEAKER_00: And I tossed and turned all night.
1:19:56
SPEAKER_00: And I want to go back to the scripture we said at the beginning.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, train up a child in the way it should go.
1:20:02
SPEAKER_00: So when he is old, it will not depart from him.
1:20:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not like you're gonna do it, like I said before.
1:20:10
SPEAKER_00: But it won't depart, it'll still be in there.
1:20:12
SPEAKER_00: That's why we gotta instill that into our children and our youth.
1:20:15
SPEAKER_00: Um the right morals, the right values, how to walk, how to live.
1:20:19
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:20:20
SPEAKER_00: And little did I know it was still in me.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_00: And um the night, the next night, not that night, the next night, it just overwhelmed me to the point where I just straight up talked to him, just like I'm talking to you.
1:20:36
SPEAKER_00: Hey man, well, what is it then?
1:20:38
SPEAKER_00: What you want from me then?
1:20:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:20:40
SPEAKER_00: You got me in here now.
1:20:41
SPEAKER_00: What's up?
1:20:41
SPEAKER_00: What you want?
1:20:45
SPEAKER_00: What you want?
1:20:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:20:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, you done did it your way for 27 years.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_00: This was your way got you.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_00: How about come try mine?
1:21:00
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
1:21:01
SPEAKER_00: So um that night I got up, got on the floor, cement floor, and I cried out to God um by myself, wasn't loud, wasn't no immaculate, uh, miraculous.
1:21:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you went you went past now to follow.
1:21:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, didn't strike down, and wasn't no lights going or nothing.
1:21:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it was it was just me and him.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_00: And I there was no distraction, it was no nothing.
1:21:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I just poured my heart out and I was like, I'm sorry, I was wrong.
1:21:36
SPEAKER_00: And show me what I need to do.
1:21:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, whatever you want me to do, I'm gonna do it.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_00: I gave Satan 100%, I'm gonna give you a hundred.
1:21:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
1:21:46
SPEAKER_00: Straight like that.
1:21:48
SPEAKER_00: And I prayed uh the sinner's prayer of anybody out there who who would like to accept Christ, and basically you recognize Jesus as your Savior.
1:22:04
SPEAKER_00: Um you believe he died and rose on the third day.
1:22:07
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_00: And Romans 10, 9 said, You confess your sins, then you will be saved.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's exactly what I did.
1:22:16
SPEAKER_00: And from that moment forward, mind you, I got sentenced after this.
1:22:21
SPEAKER_00: This happened on May 12th.
1:22:24
SPEAKER_00: May 12th, 2014.
1:22:27
SPEAKER_00: And it there's an old person in my life, this is her birthday.
1:22:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know if you was praying for me on that day or whatever, but yeah, this was on your birthday, by the way, whoever this is.
1:22:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say that.
1:22:40
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, yeah.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_00: Um I got saved on that night.
1:22:44
SPEAKER_00: And um I got sentenced after that.
1:22:48
SPEAKER_00: So after I prayed that, I got sentenced like a couple months later.
1:22:52
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm thinking, now I'm walking.
1:22:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:22:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:22:54
SPEAKER_00: You know when you first get saved, you decided and you want to tell everybody.
1:22:59
SPEAKER_00: I was holding Bible study.
1:23:01
SPEAKER_00: You only get one hour out.
1:23:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:03
SPEAKER_00: So I go out there and I do the little prayer card with the guys, a little Bible study, standing a little circle, you know what I'm saying?
1:23:09
SPEAKER_00: So my mind, oh yeah, you doing all this, boy.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_00: I gonna see you out of here, boy.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_00: And I walked in that courtroom on Citizen Day, I already knew it.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm finna go home.
1:23:21
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:23:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm finna get some something small, property, served, or something like that.
1:23:25
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm finna do something right now in this moment.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do something right now in this moment.
1:23:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_00: Man.
1:23:33
SPEAKER_00: About passed out.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_00: First of all, I'm I'm smart.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm smart.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm a nerd on the low.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I knew exactly what 192 months added up to be.
1:23:43
SPEAKER_00: Instantly.
1:23:44
SPEAKER_02: And when he said it, he was like, wow.
1:23:46
SPEAKER_02: 16 what?
1:23:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:50
SPEAKER_02: What?
1:23:51
unknown: Yeah.
1:23:52
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm gonna be 40.
1:23:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:54
SPEAKER_00: Plus.
1:23:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:55
SPEAKER_00: That's my whole 30s gone.
1:23:57
SPEAKER_00: Over with.
1:23:58
SPEAKER_00: Prime.
1:24:01
SPEAKER_00: But that's when he really showed me who he was over the years.
1:24:06
SPEAKER_00: And that was the best decision.
1:24:09
SPEAKER_00: You remember the decisions we were talking about?
1:24:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:24:11
SPEAKER_00: That decision has changed the trajectory of my life drastically.
1:24:16
SPEAKER_00: From then on, I had the best prison bid that you could ask for.
1:24:22
SPEAKER_00: I always was good.
1:24:23
SPEAKER_00: I always was healthy.
1:24:26
SPEAKER_00: Um I never was in any kind of altercation physically.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_00: The whole, now you talking about somebody who was a who who don't play when it comes to that kind of stuff, but disrespect none of that.
1:24:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:24:42
SPEAKER_00: Never got in one.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_00: You can ask anybody.
1:24:46
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't that I was scared and wasn't talking, I was in everything.
1:24:49
SPEAKER_00: I was around.
1:24:50
SPEAKER_00: I was out there.
1:24:50
SPEAKER_00: I played every sport, everything.
1:24:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:24:53
SPEAKER_00: I was in.
1:24:54
SPEAKER_00: I I I bid it.
1:24:57
SPEAKER_00: Never got in one.
1:24:59
SPEAKER_00: I got close, but he was always there.
1:25:03
SPEAKER_00: He always provided for me.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_00: Um even when we got in standoffs with the Mexicans before with knives, where it's gonna be an all-out race war.
1:25:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:25:14
SPEAKER_00: He stopped it.
1:25:16
SPEAKER_00: Um God was always there.
1:25:20
SPEAKER_00: Every turn.
1:25:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I never um there were, you know, you gonna have nights where you're lonely or nights where you're feeling down and you want to go home, you miss your family, woo, woo, woo.
1:25:30
SPEAKER_00: That's that's natural.
1:25:32
SPEAKER_00: Um But I always felt like he was with me.
1:25:35
SPEAKER_00: Um He protected my family.
1:25:39
SPEAKER_00: Um Everything was just good, man.
1:25:42
SPEAKER_00: I can't I can't tell y'all like there's some stories that I won't tell y'all, but it's nothing that it that me physically happened to me that God wasn't there holding me.
1:25:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure the whole time.
1:25:58
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
1:25:58
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:26:00
SPEAKER_00: And um that's the best thing.
1:26:04
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I first got locked up, all I kept hearing was dudes talking about who was the realist.
1:26:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm the realist, I'm the realist.
1:26:11
SPEAKER_00: I ain't gonna never tell.
1:26:12
SPEAKER_00: Woo woo woo woo woo woo.
1:26:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was seeing them left and right, dropping like flies, telling and doing this and doing that, and I and I always was that was my who was real?
1:26:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:26:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is that?
1:26:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
1:26:26
SPEAKER_00: And I found out who the realest was.
1:26:28
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
1:26:29
SPEAKER_00: You know when I found out who the realest was, y'all remember the story where Jesus was uh was uh writing in the sand?
1:26:35
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:26:35
SPEAKER_00: And the and the and and the and the all the leaders came and brought this lady talking about she was caught up in adultery and she'd have been with seven different people and did this and did that.
1:26:44
SPEAKER_00: Woo woo woo woo woo.
1:26:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what should we do with her?
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: Now the Bible says we supposed to stone her.
1:26:51
SPEAKER_00: The realest, I don't, the realest nigga in it.
1:26:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:26:56
SPEAKER_00: But it's Jesus Christ.
1:26:59
SPEAKER_00: He got on the floor, he rolled in the sand, looked back, he said, Whom without sin cast the first stone?
1:27:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what he said.
1:27:09
SPEAKER_00: When he looked back, everybody was gone.
1:27:11
SPEAKER_02: He was there, he was the one standing there.
1:27:13
SPEAKER_00: He was still standing there.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_00: And he told the woman, where your accusers at?
1:27:22
SPEAKER_00: They left.
1:27:23
SPEAKER_00: All right, but go and sin no more.
1:27:27
SPEAKER_00: That's the realest, isn't it?
1:27:28
SPEAKER_00: That's the realest.
1:27:29
SPEAKER_00: You already know.
1:27:30
SPEAKER_00: That's the realest.
1:27:31
SPEAKER_00: You got travel to you.
1:27:41
SPEAKER_02: God will stick with you through some stuff.
1:27:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, man.
1:27:45
SPEAKER_02: He will, man.
1:27:46
SPEAKER_02: Man, this has been this has been amazing, bro, and I really appreciate it.
1:27:49
SPEAKER_02: But we can but we can sit and talk for three more hours.
1:27:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm still like this, it's been good, man.
1:27:59
SPEAKER_02: So like it.
1:28:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, we always ask uh the question we always ask is, you know, if you knew then what you knew now, you know, how would how would, you know, I can't ask a question right now.
1:28:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm so messed up.
1:28:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm so I change.
1:28:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:28:15
SPEAKER_00: If I knew what I knew now, I wouldn't change anything.
1:28:20
SPEAKER_00: Because what God has for you, it is for you.
1:28:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:28:26
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I went through what I went through is to help someone else.
1:28:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:28:31
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:28:31
SPEAKER_00: And their experience.
1:28:32
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:28:33
SPEAKER_00: Always remember you was put here with your gifts and your your callings.
1:28:36
SPEAKER_00: Not for you, for everybody else.
1:28:40
SPEAKER_00: Always remember that.
1:28:41
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'll leave with y'all.
1:28:43
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
1:28:44
SPEAKER_02: Man, your life has been a true example, you know, to how God can use someone to help someone else.
1:28:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, even us in here listening to you today, man.
1:28:52
SPEAKER_02: There's been so many positive, powerful nuggets that you've given us.
1:28:55
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
1:28:55
SPEAKER_02: That you shared with us, man.
1:28:57
SPEAKER_02: And you got a true testimony on your life, man.
1:28:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm so, I'm so glad I got to.
1:29:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, seeing you around the gym, but so glad I got to at least sit down and talk with you, man.
1:29:04
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
1:29:05
SPEAKER_02: So that's what it is.
1:29:06
SPEAKER_02: And I knew it was something that was just drawing me to ask.
1:29:08
SPEAKER_02: I was like, man, because I had to.
1:29:10
SPEAKER_02: Because he was telling me about it.
1:29:10
SPEAKER_02: I thought about it at first.
1:29:11
SPEAKER_02: I said, man, I want to ask Eric, but I was like, nah, man, he might not even want to come on there and talk about it.
1:29:15
SPEAKER_02: Because you know, you just got out for real.
1:29:17
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
1:29:18
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, I'm like, everything, everything good, man.
1:29:21
SPEAKER_00: I came home.
1:29:22
SPEAKER_00: I've been home, y'all.
1:29:23
SPEAKER_00: Seven months.
1:29:24
SPEAKER_00: Came home in February.
1:29:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, seven months, right?
1:29:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:29:27
SPEAKER_00: Seven months.
1:29:28
SPEAKER_00: He blessed me with a job.
1:29:29
SPEAKER_00: I got a good job.
1:29:31
SPEAKER_00: I got a brand new truck.
1:29:33
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
1:29:33
SPEAKER_00: Come on now.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm super fly like I always did.
1:29:36
SPEAKER_00: That ain't never changed.
1:29:38
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:29:39
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
1:29:40
SPEAKER_00: I got a lady.
1:29:41
SPEAKER_00: You feel what I'm saying?
1:29:43
SPEAKER_00: I got a beautiful family that, you know, always supports me.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling y'all, if you go, if you choose him, man, every it says seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and everything else will be added unto you.
1:29:56
SPEAKER_00: Facts.
1:29:57
SPEAKER_00: And this is coming from somebody who's been to prison, then did the street thing, then did the good boy thing, then did all that.
1:30:04
SPEAKER_00: Try Jesus.
1:30:05
SPEAKER_02: Try Jesus.
1:30:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_00: Tell us.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, ain't nothing to do with that.
1:30:08
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to God.
1:30:11
SPEAKER_02: Try Jesus.
1:30:18
SPEAKER_02: All social media platforms, man.
1:30:20
SPEAKER_02: Ezra, if you want to tell the people they can feel you.
1:30:22
SPEAKER_00: My uh my uh Instagram is C-A-G-N-R eight.
1:30:27
SPEAKER_00: That's car ain't got no roof.
1:30:29
SPEAKER_00: Eight.
1:30:33
SPEAKER_00: Coming soon.
1:30:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start putting up workout videos on there.
1:30:36
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
1:30:36
SPEAKER_00: I gotta get one with you in, bro.
1:30:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give y'all the prison burpees and all that.
1:30:40
SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to work outs.
1:30:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, keep y'all healthy and shape.
1:30:43
SPEAKER_00: This is for all the guys who work and got families and everything.
1:30:46
SPEAKER_00: You ain't got time to be in the gym two hours like Cory and 30 minutes of hit training.
1:30:51
SPEAKER_00: I got you.
1:30:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:30:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ezra.
1:30:55
SPEAKER_02: Nah, man.
1:30:56
SPEAKER_02: Ezreal, bro.
1:30:56
SPEAKER_02: We appreciate you for real, but it's been a blessing, man.
1:30:58
SPEAKER_02: I pray to God, you know, whoever watched this podcast, man, y'all really learned something from what took place today, man.
1:31:03
SPEAKER_02: This is a living, living, breathing testimony of the power of God right here, man.
1:31:09
SPEAKER_02: Y'all ever be y'all be wanting proof.
1:31:11
SPEAKER_02: Y'all be asking for proof.
1:31:12
SPEAKER_02: Y'all be wanting signs.
1:31:13
SPEAKER_02: This is your proof.
1:31:14
SPEAKER_02: This is your sign, man.
1:31:15
SPEAKER_02: Watch this episode in its entirety.
1:31:17
SPEAKER_02: And I promise you, man, you're gonna get something from it.
1:31:19
SPEAKER_02: Tell me you're gonna be blessed.
1:31:20
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna be blessed for sure.
1:31:21
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, bro.
1:31:22
SPEAKER_02: Hey man, we thank you, bro.
1:31:22
SPEAKER_02: We appreciate you.
1:31:24
SPEAKER_02: If you don't believe in God, you're going to hell.
1:31:32
SPEAKER_02: Nah, nah, yup, yup.
1:31:34
SPEAKER_02: Yep.