Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Decorated FBI Agent becomes Prison Inmate - Bob Lustyik

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Decorated FBI Agent becomes Prison Inmate - Bob Lustyik · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:00
  When your worst fear becomes your reality.
• 0:02
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy. Welcome to the Nightmare Success
• 0:05
  In and Out podcast, where we explore how to overcome your
• 0:08
  fears and nightmares that set yourself free.
• 0:11
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:13
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
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  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
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  There's some humor, but hopefully you can come away with
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  a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
• 0:27
  prisons you built up in your own mind.
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  All right, all right, all right. Welcome back, nightmare success.
• 0:34
  In and out, listeners. Well, folks, this is where you
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  come for what happens when your worst fear becomes your reality.
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  How do you adapt, survive, overcome, set yourself free?
• 0:43
  Don't forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, all
• 0:46
  that good stuff. Well, I've got something that's
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  a first for the nightmare success listeners.
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  I've never had an FBI agent on this show.
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  I have a decorated 24 year veteran of the Federal Bureau of
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  Investigation specializing in counterintelligence and
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  counterterrorism. He's the recipient of numerous
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  awards and accolades of having a positive impact on the national
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  security of the United States. But Bob ran into a nightmare
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  with the Justice Department where he ended up serving eight
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  years in prison, some of it in a maximum security prison.
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  How in the world does this happen to a guy that was
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  recognized for his heroics in the 9/11 tragedy in New York?
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  How could this happen? I can't wait to unpack all this.
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  This is an incredibly interesting story with Bob
• 1:36
  Lustick. And before we jump into that, I
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  Bob. Welcome in, my man.
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  How are you? I'm doing well, Brent.
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  Thanks for having me on. So you know, I was just blown
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  away, you know, when we talked the other day of your story and
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  and I want to give a shout out to Lynn SBO for connecting us
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  And. But you know, what's so
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  interesting about your story is, is that you were this guy, you
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  know, that you see in the movies that does all this stuff for the
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  United States of America. You know, you ride in, you know,
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  on the White Horse with a white hat and and save the day and and
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  then the world goes sideways and you survived it.
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  Which is really why it's so really fascinating for me to
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  talk to you because you've you've gone through it all.
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  But I want you to take us back a little bit, Bob.
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  I I think you grew up. Did you grow up in Sleepy
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  Hollow? Yes, I did.
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  Well, actually, the town over Tarrytown.
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  What is? The OK, take us back there,
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  'cause I know you you had quite, AI mean, you were an athlete.
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  You you. I mean, tell us, tell us a
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  little bit about your your world growing up as a kid.
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  OK, I mean basically it was your typical small town America.
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  I grew up in Tarrytown, went to Sleepy Hollow High School.
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  I I played lacrosse football and you know, we had good teams, we
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  had great athletes back then and I was lucky enough to go on to
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  college and play football. I I mean, I love our town.
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  I I still, I still live there. It's been still live there.
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  Yeah. Yeah it's still you know it's
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  been 61 years grew up with a siblings.
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  I have an older sister and a younger brother.
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  OK, so you're the middle. Yeah, I grew up on a dead end
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  St. We had 15 boys all the same age.
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  It was your typical small. Generation Next life.
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  Playing, playing sports all night, waiting for the ice cream
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  truck to come, sitting on the corner talking about the
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  beatings we got and you know it was, it was a great time.
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  I was, I was born with a cleft palate and I had 19 surgeries to
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  correct it. So.
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  Independent as a kid, wasn't it, Bob?
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  Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely Surgeries as a
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  kid, I would think that would be how long like when you would go
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  in for one of those surgeries was is it was it an in and out
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  thing or did you have to stay over and?
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  No, back then they they kept you, you know, And you know, the
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  things that are different today are, you know, your parents
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  couldn't stay with you. So I would watch my parents
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  leave through the parking lot for the night, knowing that I
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  would wake up that next morning, go into the operating room and
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  there wouldn't be anybody there with me, she said.
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  Weren't allowed back then. So you know that part of it was
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  tough for me and and you know, children are cruel.
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  So I got made fun of a lot. I was teased a lot, bullied a
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  lot. But then you know, one summer I
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  went back to school when I was like 5 foot 11185 lbs and it was
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  eighth grade and all of a sudden the bullying.
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  Stopped, changed. Yeah, I I I can identify that
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  'cause I was 6 foot one in 8th grade and that's like being 7
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  feet tall. You know that you can dominate
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  at six foot one or 511 when you're 7th or 8th grade.
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  It's it's true. I mean, the all of a sudden all
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  the guys that that had bullied me and you know, had made fun of
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  me were all of a sudden trying to be my best friends.
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  Yeah. So it was kind of funny.
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  So you end up having a you know a normal high school world and
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  and did really well in sports. I mean they still talk about it
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  when you look you up as as and I think you have a son that does
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  really well in in the. Sport, too.
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  My son. He's a yeah, Bobby's a
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  phenomenal athlete. He just qualified for the
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  championships in indoor track at his school.
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  Our our daughter still holds the New York State record for saves
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  in a career for high school lacrosse.
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  Wow. So that's cool.
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  Sadly, I never got to see her make one save.
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  Because you are away. Yes.
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  Yeah. So, you know, that was those are
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  the tough moments, but. But Baba, in taking you, so I'm
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  curious like because you you ended up, you went to college,
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  you played, did you play on a national championship team?
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  I played on a Division 3 championship team.
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  Yeah, but you guys won, right? You were like a full back and so
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  you experienced all. I actually played what they call
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  an H back, which is like half tight end, you know, they move
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  me around all over the place. Yeah.
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  So. So you experience all this, and
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  I I, I often say that, you know that playing sports gives you
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  the street smarts of life because you, you know how you
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  react in the locker room, how you, you know, work together as
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  a team. You know, I think that follows
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  you into whether you're in school or whether you're going
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  into, you know, a new environment with work or
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  whatever. But I'm curious because I've
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  never had anybody that has gone from college and then ventured
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  into the world of the FBI. How in the world does somebody
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  make that leap? That's a great question.
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  Well, I come from a law enforcement family, OK?
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  Believe it or not, for some time my father was ACO.
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  That's. That's bizarre, but we'll we'll
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  let that just sit for. Listen, I got a.
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  Bizarre story about that that's going to make you shake.
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  My uncle was the highest decorated state trooper in the
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  New York State Police and and there's actually like a statue
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  of them outside the Academy. My other uncle was a state
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  trooper as well. My brother is a retired police
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  officer. My sister was a nurse.
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  So we were raised to be civil servants.
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  I was watching TV when I was a small, a small boy, probably
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  7:00 or 8:00, and it was the FBI story with Jimmy Stewart.
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  My dad was watching it and I was spending some time with him,
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  which you know, didn't always happen because he was a hard
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  working guy. And that's when it hit me.
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  You know, I I said to myself, I'm going to, I'm going to be an
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  FBI agent because it was so at that age, so exciting to my
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  father and I just wanted to, you know, I wanted to be the best I
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  could for him to make him as proud as I could.
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  So I kind of geared everything from that, you know time
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  forward. That was in the back of my mind
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  and as I get older, I was a science major in college and
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  with the FBI When you apply there's like different
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  categories. So there's like diversified,
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  there's science, there's law and accounting and you're you're
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  measured up against the people that apply in each category.
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  So I took science to to minimize the.
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  Number of people. And then that coupled with my,
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  my athletic background, you know, ended up getting me in.
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  And it's funny, during the the interview, I had my championship
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  ring on, yeah, from college and most of the interview was about
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  the championship ring and how big and gaudy it was.
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  The the agents that were interviewing me wanted to try it
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  on and and so you know, like you like you were saying how sports
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  can transcend into life. I literally might have gotten
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  the job because I had that ring, that connection.
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  Yeah. So.
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  So you get into this because, I mean you just didn't get into
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  the FBI. You got into the stuff that
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  everybody's like fascinated with that that you know,
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  counterterrorism and and the and the spy stuff.
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  You know what? How does a person went?
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  How does that happen? How does that evolve?
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  Like the the FBI is such a big, huge conglomerate stuff.
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  But you go in, Bob is what? What age would you have been?
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  I was. 24 OK, so you roll in there 24 years old and you, you
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  go through the training and whatever.
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  When does it get into you taking the path into counter tourism
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  and spy stuff, So. While you're at Quantico, the
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  Academy, you you take different exams and how you're scoring
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  those exams is where they're going to place you when you go
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  out into the field after graduation.
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  I was lucky enough to be placed on a squad that was made-up of
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  mostly all older agents, and they're all seasoned veterans in
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  the counterintelligence world. And I walked into some really
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  good cases as a young agent. And to their credit, they
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  included me in the cases like immediately.
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  So I literally hit the ground running.
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  So I'm. Very early age, Yeah.
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  Well, you talk about you're like kind of like the Forrest Gump of
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  the FBI. You're around all the stuff, and
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  one of the stuff happens. It is true, I I was fortunate
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  enough to to work some great cases and have, you know,
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  success. I had some great partners.
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  We had some awesome confidential informants and we, you know,
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  tried some amazing techniques and a lot of times they paid
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  off. And, you know, so I had AI had a
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  really, really interesting and fun career.
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  OK, so you told me, Bob, that you met your wife and the FBI.
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  She was there too. So in your field of stuff that
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  would be obviously highly classified, is a husband and
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  wife able to talk about any of the stuff that goes on at?
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  Work in general terms, Yeah. You know, honestly, coming home
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  after a 10/12 hour day, it's not like she wanted to hear about my
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  cases because she had her own thing going on.
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  I'm not going to get into what she was doing, but you know, at
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  that point you just want to be a normal family.
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  Sure so. And what is that like?
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  I mean I I've never run into somebody at at you know, my
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  girls played sports and but you know you've got this normal
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  looking family that's three kids that get going to school.
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  But the two parents are FBI agents.
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  Is that just like a normal thing that comes up on the sidelines
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  where you're talking or what? How does that work?
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  It's. It's kind of funny because, you
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  know, we would go to parties and you know, the guys that the
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  women would go off and the men would stand around and the men
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  would be bitching about their jobs, All the markets going down
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  or houses aren't selling or you know, whatever it was.
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  And I would sit there and I would be barely standing because
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  I had just done like a three day surveillance sitting in the back
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  of a van or or I had just, you know, debriefed A recruitment
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  who is a foreign counterintelligence officer or
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  an Intel officer that we had flipped and it had gone on for,
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  you know, hours or you know, whatever the case may be.
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  And and you know, I would just sit there and they'd they'd be
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  like, yo, Bob, how's how are things going with you?
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  And I'd be like, Oh yeah, good. Everything's good.
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  Yeah, yeah. Good.
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  It's all. Good.
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  And that that was it. That was it.
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  So you know, you didn't, you didn't really talk about what
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  you were doing, and a lot of times you blatantly lied and
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  they asked because they wanted something.
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  So you just made something up because they weren't going to
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  believe the truth anyways, You know, so.
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  True. Yeah.
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  Well, so you get into this world, you start doing well.
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  I mean you know if you look you up you you you did really well
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  in the FBII mean you were one of the guys that made an impact and
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  and you know for the safety and service of what happens with
• 15:45
  that, you were one of those guys that did that you you helped
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  protect the United States and and and did good things.
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  How many years was it I guess it was 24 years that you you were
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  in for 24 years is when did your nightmare begin with what you
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  and I talked about? Was it after you retired or was
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  it during the time that you were in?
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  No. So, So what happened was towards
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  the end of my career, our son was at that age where he was
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  starting to play like Little League baseball and I had
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  seniority. So I took a transfer to a small
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  office in White Plains, NY so that I could get home at a
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  reasonable time and, you know, so I could coach or I could go
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  to be more normal. Yeah, I wanted to.
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  I wanted to be there for him. Sure.
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  And it was probably the biggest mistake I ever made, one of the
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  biggest mistakes in my life, because I had gone from being
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  like the guy and, you know, working the great cases to an
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  office that really had nothing going on.
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  There aren't many spies and white planes, and there were a
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  heck of a lot of them in New York City.
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  So my career kind of really stalled and I knew I was going
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  to retire soon and I wanted like one last big hurrah.
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  And you know, to your listeners, this is where the problem arose
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  is I let my ego take over my my personality.
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  And I needed to go out. Yeah, I wanted to go out with a
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  bang. I wanted to be, oh, look, there
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  he goes, riding off into the sunset with a great case.
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  So I had met an individual named Michael Taylor who is pretty
• 17:56
  famous or infamous. However you want to you know I.
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  Looked him up once. You talked to me about it.
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  He is very much. And he became, you know, he
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  became a confidential informant. I can say that, you know, right
• 18:09
  now, because it's in all the court documents and he was
• 18:15
  helping us. We were targeting a certain
• 18:18
  individual in a terrorism case and he was helping provide us
• 18:23
  with the information. He had a a network of sources
• 18:26
  that was really, really impressive.
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  And you know, people kind of wonder why I don't sit here and
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  just trash the guy. And the main reason is the guy
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  is like a legitimate hero. And yeah, we had a a situation
• 18:45
  that went bad. But I'm not here to judge him.
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  He did what he felt was right and you know that's on him.
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  I wouldn't have. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have
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  played it that way. But, you know, it's not up to
• 18:57
  me. So we had, we had this case
• 19:02
  going on and he came to me one day and he said, hey, my
• 19:07
  company, which was a private security firm, we're going to
• 19:14
  get indicted for basically contract fraud during the Iraq
• 19:23
  War. And you know, he said I can't
• 19:28
  work with you guys anymore, you know, unless you could help me
• 19:32
  out. So I went back, I talked to my
• 19:36
  boss and you know, he was like, you know, really, there's
• 19:40
  nothing we can do. But we can't lose this guy.
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  So, you know, string him along. Which is which, by the way, was
• 19:46
  your job right? You were counter intelligence,
• 19:50
  counter terrorism. Right.
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  So as a counter Intel guy, I mean, I was used to manipulating
• 19:56
  the sources all the time. So I kind of just did what I
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  knew and told him. Don't worry about it, you know
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  we'll. We'll take care of things.
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  I got you. You know, let's just keep doing
• 20:09
  this. And basically during some of the
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  stuff that was going on, you know, he said, hey, you know,
• 20:18
  you're really good at this. You should come work for me when
• 20:20
  you retire. And I was like, Oh yeah, that
• 20:24
  sounds great. But I knew I was never working
• 20:27
  for him. And he said, you know, I'll give
• 20:30
  you a real nice salary, but if I go to prison, there's not going
• 20:34
  to be anywhere for you to really work.
• 20:36
  And I was like, OK, don't worry about it, you're not going to
• 20:38
  prison. And it just kind of rolled
• 20:43
  downhill. And it's funny because I was
• 20:46
  sitting at the kitchen counter once and I was talked to my wife
• 20:50
  about it. And my wife said, Nah, something
• 20:55
  don't smell right, Bob. And I said, no, I got this, you
• 20:59
  know, he's believing me. I got this.
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  And she said, no, I don't like this.
• 21:03
  You better get rid of this guy. And my ego wouldn't let me hear
• 21:09
  what she was actually saying. And I kind of just shrugged her
• 21:13
  off and said, I'm Bob Lustig, the greatest FBI agent in New
• 21:19
  York. Like I catch spies, right?
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  You know? And in my head and decorated.
• 21:25
  For it. Yeah, pounding on my chest and
• 21:28
  and I got 180 months. So.
• 21:31
  So if I had listened to her, none of this would ever happen.
• 21:36
  Well, before we get in, 'cause I want to go, I want to walk into
• 21:40
  how it happened and how you survived it.
• 21:42
  But before we do, I want to recognize our show sponsor.
• 21:47
  Naimer's Success Podcast is sponsored by the White Collar
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  Start here White Collar support group.
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  They're a great group. OK, so, so Bob, you know all of
• 22:28
  us that have been through that there's a moment when something
• 22:32
  happens. When what was your moment when
• 22:34
  you uh oh holy shit. When I was called one morning I
• 22:45
  had AI had a day off and I got called in and they said you got
• 22:52
  to come in and I said no I'm off today and I had an acting
• 22:56
  supervisor at the time and she said no you you got to come in.
• 22:59
  I don't know what's going on. So as I left my house, because
• 23:07
  I'm in tune to stuff, I noticed the car two blocks down that
• 23:14
  didn't belong there and the engine was running.
• 23:19
  And I was kind of, you know, didn't didn't look right to me.
• 23:25
  So I drove down the street and I came to a stop light and I saw
• 23:30
  that the car was behind me. So now I was really concerned
• 23:36
  that like, I don't know what's going on, like this is bizarre.
• 23:40
  So with my training, what I did was I lost him, I double backed
• 23:47
  and I ended up following him and we came to a light and I pulled
• 23:51
  up alongside him and the guy was panicked.
• 23:56
  And he was a an officer of the OIG, the office of Inspector
• 24:05
  Generals, He was one of their investigators and he was one of
• 24:08
  the case agents and he was following me because they were
• 24:13
  searching my house that morning. So they called me into the
• 24:16
  office and the SAC was there and he said, Bob, look, I don't know
• 24:22
  what's going on, but I got to take your gun and your badge.
• 24:25
  And I was like, what? What are you talking about?
• 24:30
  And he said, look, I don't know what it is, but we're going to
• 24:34
  give you a ride back to your house.
• 24:37
  So I came back to the house and they were the the OIT agents.
• 24:45
  Probably 25 of them were searching my house.
• 24:49
  They literally left with nothing.
• 24:51
  Was anybody there besides? You, my wife and two kids.
• 24:54
  So. Your kids were there, OK?
• 24:56
  And you know, that was that's when the oh shit moment
• 25:02
  occurred, because I had no idea what was going on.
• 25:06
  So what were you thinking? What were you thinking?
• 25:08
  Like what was going through your mind?
• 25:10
  I had no idea. Like, I absolutely had no idea
• 25:14
  because in my mind, I wasn't doing anything wrong with
• 25:19
  Michael Taylor. You know, a street agent, a
• 25:25
  street agent can't get somebody off an indictment.
• 25:29
  I would have had to have fooled 40 upper management guys,
• 25:35
  including NUSAS and US Attorneys in order for something like that
• 25:40
  you were stringing. Him along to to keep him in the
• 25:42
  fold, right? Yeah.
• 25:43
  And you know, unfortunately, it all went, it all went so.
• 25:50
  What happened? Like what happens next?
• 25:51
  Like when something like that happens, you know in a in an
• 25:55
  organization like the FBLA, what happens now?
• 25:57
  Like what? What is the next thing that
• 25:59
  happens to you, Bob? You know they they've taken your
• 26:02
  badge and your your gun and and so how long does this whole
• 26:05
  process last for you? OK, so they searched my house
• 26:11
  and I went and and found myself an attorney, which, like an
• 26:20
  idiot, I actually took a recommendation for an attorney
• 26:26
  from Michael Taylor. OK.
• 26:30
  People that want to say, oh, I was the greatest
• 26:34
  counterintelligence agent in the world, that was the most idiotic
• 26:38
  move I ever made. I mean and.
• 26:42
  Or was he a good attorney? I'm not going to mention his
• 26:47
  name, but but literally, if you look at the news from yesterday,
• 26:52
  it was a supervisor of SAC from the FBI that you know, was
• 26:59
  selling information to a foreign government and he made like
• 27:03
  $300,000 and he got 28 months. So, yeah, OK And we, we were in
• 27:16
  contact with the the OIG and the, the Public Integrity unit.
• 27:24
  They're the, the legal aspect of this, that we're handling the
• 27:28
  case. And I told my lawyer, I said,
• 27:32
  look, if I'm getting indicted and I'm going to get arrested, I
• 27:38
  want to turn myself in. I don't want to put anybody in
• 27:41
  jeopardy. I don't want any agents having
• 27:45
  to drive early in the morning to come get me where they might get
• 27:48
  into an accident. I don't want, you know, the fear
• 27:51
  of anybody maybe pulling a trigger when they shouldn't.
• 27:54
  Want to make it easy? Yeah, I mean, it is what it is.
• 27:58
  I figured I believed in the system and I said whatever's
• 28:02
  going to happen, they're going to see that I'm right and it's
• 28:05
  all going to go away. But I don't want anybody put in
• 28:08
  danger, right? So my lawyer said, yeah, that's
• 28:11
  a great idea. And then he went away for the
• 28:14
  weekend, knowing that they were going to arrest me.
• 28:22
  He went away for the weekend and he knew they were going to
• 28:24
  arrest you that that weekend. Yeah, that's what I heard later
• 28:27
  on from some of the people involved.
• 28:30
  Yeah. OK, Yeah.
• 28:32
  So I didn't learn that for, you know, a decade later?
• 28:35
  Sure. So, you know, 25 US Marshals
• 28:43
  with the OIG showed up on my street and they actually, and
• 28:51
  this is one of the more horrific things that occurred, they did a
• 28:54
  felony car stop on our car and I wasn't in it.
• 29:02
  So they threw my 7 and 10 year old into the driveway at machine
• 29:08
  gun point and dragged my wife away.
• 29:12
  Oh man, I was in the backyard planting tomato plants and I
• 29:19
  heard my wife screaming. So I came around the corner of
• 29:23
  the house and there were five guys there with, you know, MP
• 29:28
  fives. One had an AR15, I believe.
• 29:31
  They're all screaming different commands.
• 29:34
  Get on the ground, hands up, stand up, turn around, do a
• 29:38
  cartwheel like it was like, ridiculous.
• 29:39
  They were all screaming at me and I had a shovel in my hand
• 29:44
  and apparently they thought I was going to be like some kind
• 29:48
  of like Jason Bourne kind of guy.
• 29:53
  And I just said, look, I'm going to drop the shovel.
• 29:57
  I'm going to turn around, I'm going to get on my knees, I'm
• 29:59
  going to lay down. And I went into like, you know,
• 30:02
  a rest mode. And they they cuffed me up and
• 30:07
  they took me down to the Manhattan, you know, the the MCC
• 30:14
  where I spent two nights and then I was released on a two and
• 30:24
  a half million dollar bond. So Bob you that's that's quite a
• 30:32
  start. I mean that's that's, I just
• 30:37
  can't even imagine the and it's. Got the.
• 30:40
  Fear and the scare. Scared and and all those
• 30:43
  different things. It was stress, everything all at
• 30:45
  once. So you get released.
• 30:52
  Do you 'cause I'm thinking to myself, you know, when I was
• 30:55
  listening to this story, we talked earlier and, I mean, I
• 31:00
  would feel like you had the, like the this desperate feel to
• 31:02
  go talk to your boss and with whomever else and say, you know,
• 31:05
  this kind of, don't we all kind of know what we were doing here,
• 31:08
  and this is what I was, is what I do.
• 31:12
  Did you get the opportunity to have those conversations?
• 31:15
  No, no, no. Actually what happened was the
• 31:20
  last time I was in the FBI office was three days after my
• 31:24
  house was searched. I went into the office and they
• 31:32
  said, look, you can go on administrative leave and then
• 31:36
  when you win this thing, you'll get all your money back, you
• 31:40
  know, back pay. And I said I got my time in, I
• 31:44
  was already 50. I was eligible for retirement
• 31:48
  and I said no, I'm going to retire right now.
• 31:51
  I retired on the spot. So you retired on the spot,
• 31:56
  which would have given you the benefits of whatever that is at
• 32:00
  at you're 50 years old. So Bob, 'cause I know that the
• 32:08
  result of this, it's got to be so strange for you. 24 years in,
• 32:14
  you're on the other side of this world and all of a sudden you're
• 32:17
  on the other side of the fence. What's, how are you coping with
• 32:24
  that? What are you thinking?
• 32:25
  How are you like? Because that's a whole different
• 32:28
  you've you spent your world doing all these things with the
• 32:31
  FBI and now the FBI and the Justice Department.
• 32:34
  You're looking at each other, you know, over the table and
• 32:37
  they're on different. Sides, Yeah, it was.
• 32:44
  It was a harrowing experience for me.
• 32:47
  I was so worried for my children and my wife and my mom.
• 32:54
  I I was terribly embarrassed. Sure, I was completely confused,
• 33:02
  but I was still believing in the system.
• 33:05
  Right. Well, because you were part of
• 33:06
  the system. And you know, what I learned is
• 33:11
  that truth and justice are very rarely in the in the courtroom
• 33:17
  at the same time. You know, so it was it was quite
• 33:23
  a shock for me. They they revoked my bond on the
• 33:27
  most ridiculous reason ever, which was basically I wasn't
• 33:33
  allowed to talk to anyone. No witnesses, no potential
• 33:36
  witnesses. Matter of fact they wouldn't
• 33:38
  even let me talk to my lawyer on the phone.
• 33:40
  I had to do it through a third party, which, you know, it's
• 33:46
  against the Constitution. And there was a friend of mine
• 33:52
  who was out of the country when I got arrested.
• 33:57
  And he came back and he came to my house and it was in my
• 34:01
  driveway and I was like, look, he's like, what's going on?
• 34:04
  I said, look, I got arrested. You can't be here.
• 34:07
  You know, I'm. I'm not allowed to talk to
• 34:09
  anybody. You're going to be my main
• 34:11
  witness because he was the the owner and operator of a company
• 34:18
  that the the OIG felt was set up to like solely funnel money to
• 34:25
  me in some grandiose idea that they had.
• 34:32
  And this guy was the owner and operator and he, you know, he
• 34:37
  would be able to get on the stand and knock that leg right
• 34:39
  off the table. So they took me, they took me
• 34:45
  back in the court and they said, hey, he talked to a a potential
• 34:48
  witness. And my lawyer was like, yeah,
• 34:51
  our witness. And the judge said, yeah, it
• 34:54
  doesn't matter. And they they remanded me right
• 34:57
  then and they put me in a supermax out in Utah.
• 35:04
  For a while. Yeah, I was.
• 35:06
  I was in solitary confinement for, I think, 17 months maybe.
• 35:14
  Yeah. Maybe it was longer.
• 35:16
  Yeah. And that was, that was a
• 35:18
  terrible experience. I mean, while I was there, I
• 35:23
  learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself.
• 35:26
  You know, a funny story about it is one day I'm in my cell and I
• 35:30
  hear, like, voices. I hear like, hey, hey.
• 35:33
  And I'm like, wow, I'm losing it already.
• 35:36
  It was like a week. I said, this is terrible.
• 35:38
  Like, I'm, I got one of my, so I went to bed and I woke up The
• 35:44
  next morning I hear voices again and I'm like, and it's like
• 35:48
  coming from the sink. So I go over and I'm like, hello
• 35:56
  and I hear a voice and he's like, empty the water out of
• 36:01
  your toilet. So what?
• 36:04
  What your listeners may not understand is like the toilet
• 36:07
  and the sink are one piece. One unit, right?
• 36:09
  Yeah, the one unit in a cell. So I take my cup and I empty the
• 36:13
  water head in the toilet. And sure enough, that's where I
• 36:16
  learned that, like toilets or cell phones in prison.
• 36:20
  And I literally started talking to the guy who was below me.
• 36:25
  His name is Matt. Never saw him, never learned his
• 36:30
  last name, never heard from him ever since.
• 36:32
  But the guy, like, saved my life.
• 36:34
  He, like, literally schooled me on prison and what I was going
• 36:40
  to be going through. And it was at that point that I
• 36:44
  started to realize that a lot of the men that I met along the
• 36:49
  journey were better men than I worked with.
• 36:53
  And I started to see things in a different light because I was
• 37:00
  part of the system and it was, you know, hey, you did the
• 37:03
  crime, you do the time. And then all of a sudden I met
• 37:08
  these guys and I realized, you know, there are so many people
• 37:14
  that are incarcerated in our country that are unjustly there
• 37:20
  or could have had a much lighter penalty or much lighter
• 37:26
  sentence. But we just like to give out
• 37:30
  time, right? Knowing how how awful that
• 37:34
  affects everything. Yeah.
• 37:36
  A domino effect. Right.
• 37:39
  And Bob, you're you're you know I was thinking about your dad
• 37:43
  being ACO and your mom and and all this it was happening what
• 37:48
  what was going on on that side of the world with your parents
• 37:51
  and. Well, my dad, I'm getting dark.
• 37:56
  You need more light. It's the light went out there.
• 38:02
  Hang on one SEC. OK.
• 38:07
  There we go. All right.
• 38:08
  That better. Bob's back.
• 38:10
  Yeah, here I am. For those watching on YouTube
• 38:13
  and Spotify, the light just went out.
• 38:15
  But now we got Bob full on. Now we're good.
• 38:18
  My dad was gone and at the time of my arrest he had already
• 38:23
  passed away. He passed.
• 38:25
  Away OK. My mother was confused.
• 38:32
  I'm. Sure.
• 38:34
  And she also believed in our lawyer and believed in the
• 38:39
  system. And we had a whole.
• 38:43
  Family of law enforcement people.
• 38:46
  And I mean, she had been like, to my, like, award ceremonies,
• 38:50
  sure. Like, you know, for lack of a
• 38:54
  better way to describe it, my partner and I had one like Law
• 38:57
  Enforcement Officer of the Year, and my mom was there, you know,
• 39:02
  in attendance and now she was like in court looking at me in
• 39:07
  shackles with like an orange jumpsuit on, you know, so.
• 39:13
  It had to be terribly confusing to.
• 39:14
  Her. Yeah, Yeah.
• 39:16
  And I mean, it was hard to turn around and see her there.
• 39:21
  And your. Wife, you know you.
• 39:22
  We talked about both of our wives before we got on, about
• 39:26
  how the strength of them and how they weathered the the nightmare
• 39:31
  with you. How?
• 39:34
  How was she holding up? Well, my mom and I have a
• 39:38
  special relationship because being born with a cleft palate,
• 39:42
  you know, you have to go to AI was going to doctor's
• 39:44
  appointments like 2-3 times a week.
• 39:47
  And she was the one taking me. And for a lot of the time she
• 39:50
  didn't drive. So we would take public
• 39:52
  transportation and you know, she put up, she pulled up with a lot
• 39:59
  in my childhood and, you know, really is heroic.
• 40:06
  And after my arrest, she stood, stood right by me and never
• 40:13
  wavered. And she really helped my
• 40:16
  children, our children, and really helped my wife.
• 40:19
  And you know, it's another another thing that I learned was
• 40:24
  how strong she was. And how committed she was to her
• 40:28
  family. I mean, I always knew it, but
• 40:30
  when you go through this, you see it in a whole nother light.
• 40:33
  It's like a whole nother level. And you know, she was there.
• 40:37
  She was right there. She wanted to be involved in
• 40:40
  every decision she helped out financially.
• 40:46
  And you know, she's she's been great.
• 40:50
  So your wife, did she stay employed with the FBI or was she
• 40:54
  out of the FBI by then? She had left the FBI before,
• 40:58
  before that happened. So, you know, being out in Utah
• 41:06
  was tough because I couldn't get any visits.
• 41:09
  No, you were a long way. You were all the way across the
• 41:11
  country. Yeah, and I was still believing
• 41:14
  that I was gonna win, bond and get back out, or it was gonna
• 41:20
  work out and I was going home a free man.
• 41:24
  But I kept going to court and I kept losing.
• 41:29
  And such I I shouldn't even laugh.
• 41:33
  I mean that because the only reason I laugh at is it's it's
• 41:36
  when, when. And I think you and I might have
• 41:40
  talked about this, but one of the guys that was on the show,
• 41:43
  Jason Rochelbach, I always bring this up because it's such an
• 41:45
  analogy that seems so appropriate.
• 41:47
  You can go, you see it's like your your beer softball league
• 41:51
  team getting the opportunity to play the LA Dodgers.
• 41:56
  You can play them, but it's not really going to turn out too
• 41:59
  well for you can get on the same field, but but they're going to
• 42:02
  beat you because there are a lot more.
• 42:06
  They're professionals and and they know the book and the and
• 42:09
  the chapter and verse of how this all goes down.
• 42:12
  So Bob, you you start going to all these different hearings and
• 42:17
  realize that nobody's coming to to your defense that you thought
• 42:23
  would probably be there. But I can't imagine that you
• 42:28
  would have ever have thought that you were going to get 180
• 42:30
  months. No.
• 42:33
  And 120 months is 10 years. So 180 months is, is, is longer.
• 42:38
  That's one of the things about sentencing too, is that, you
• 42:41
  know, they say those in months and you kind of have to think,
• 42:43
  OK, sixty months, That's 180. It's a terrible time to do math.
• 42:47
  It's a. Horrible time to do math because
• 42:49
  you're in shock. Yeah, you know, I I couldn't
• 42:58
  believe it. I could.
• 42:59
  I I just couldn't believe it when when I heard my sentence.
• 43:04
  My new lawyer who had been and I think.
• 43:07
  If I remember right, your Bob, your your charge was the honest
• 43:10
  service charge and it was it. Was obstruction obstruct
• 43:15
  justice? Yeah, yeah.
• 43:18
  So anyway, all that goes down, you get 180 months, which is I
• 43:23
  can't even imagine what that is to swallow, 'cause I I I lost my
• 43:28
  breath at 60 months. Were were you being held that
• 43:35
  whole time between, you know, the time you were in solitary,
• 43:39
  Max, to the time that they sentenced you?
• 43:42
  Were you never released to be out?
• 43:46
  Well before you, you were finally sentenced?
• 43:48
  It's interesting because, you know, my defense was I was doing
• 43:53
  my job. Right.
• 43:55
  So they had to let me out towards the end because I needed
• 44:03
  to look at discovery and it was all classified.
• 44:06
  So I had to be allowed to go into a skiff right Now.
• 44:12
  Granted, they manipulated what was in the skiff when I got
• 44:16
  there because it was down at DOJ in Washington, DC But the judges
• 44:26
  in Utah realized, well, we got to let this guy out or, you
• 44:30
  know, he's not going to be able to see his discovery.
• 44:35
  And my whole case came down to what they call a SEPA hearing,
• 44:40
  which is confident Confidential information, Procedural Act.
• 44:44
  It was whether or not they were going to let me talk about my
• 44:48
  job in a courtroom. And the judge actually asked the
• 44:53
  prosecution, well, it looks like I'm going to let Mr. Lustig talk
• 44:57
  about it. What are you going to do?
• 44:59
  And they said we're going to drop all charges.
• 45:02
  So I was pretty confident that if she that's a good that's.
• 45:06
  That's that's a really good response.
• 45:09
  Yeah, the judge ruled him my favor.
• 45:11
  I'm, I'm going home. So a couple days later we had
• 45:14
  the hearing and she made the ruling that basically, you know,
• 45:21
  you can read the whole thing, but basically it comes down to
• 45:23
  everything. In my hand was the property,
• 45:25
  United States government. I wasn't allowed to talk about
• 45:27
  it. So really, you couldn't do it.
• 45:30
  You couldn't have a defense. Right, basically and because.
• 45:33
  Everything was classified that that you were looking at.
• 45:36
  And the irony? And talking about and talking
• 45:38
  about your job is all classified in the United States government
• 45:41
  property. Right.
• 45:42
  So the irony to that was like you had mentioned like how I
• 45:47
  felt when there wasn't anybody there coming to my side.
• 45:50
  Yeah, when the gavel went down and that was her ruling and they
• 45:55
  were starting to like, Take Me Out of the courtroom again, I
• 45:59
  watched like the assistant director of the FBI, the head of
• 46:03
  national security for the CIA and, you know, a couple other
• 46:07
  big guys look at me and like, kind of wave goodbye and walk
• 46:11
  out of the courtroom. And I was like, wow, OK, I see
• 46:14
  how this is going to go down. And on a battlefield.
• 46:18
  I still thought, well, I'll be able to talk around it and, you
• 46:23
  know, while I'll get my my point out there.
• 46:29
  But then things just deteriorated with my attorney.
• 46:33
  I found out he was basically like extorting my wife without
• 46:37
  me knowing. So just all went from bad to.
• 46:41
  Worse. Yeah.
• 46:42
  To prison. Like a perfect storm.
• 46:44
  I mean even the. And these things are perfect
• 46:47
  storms. You know when you go and you
• 46:49
  unravel them back. I I've talked to so many
• 46:54
  different people that have gone through this and it it that's
• 46:57
  something that's almost comes up Bob.
• 47:00
  Almost. Those words.
• 47:01
  Exact words. The perfect storm.
• 47:03
  Because all the things have to line in place for all the
• 47:05
  dominoes to fall the way they're supposed to fall.
• 47:09
  And you know when you look at that and and I I couldn't
• 47:16
  believe how everything was just kept getting worse.
• 47:21
  I I learned that you know the prosecutor the public integrity
• 47:25
  unit had been under investigation like 8 months
• 47:29
  prior to my case because one of their main you know AUS.
• 47:35
  As had gotten caught making up evidence in in another case
• 47:41
  where they were going after Senator Stewart from Alaska.
• 47:44
  I. Remember.
• 47:46
  That and and when the FBI agent that was working the case blew
• 47:51
  the whistle on the guy on the AUSA, he unfortunately took his
• 47:55
  own life. So I was the next FBI agent in
• 47:59
  their sights and you know, the whole revenge factor was.
• 48:03
  There hot commodity. Yeah.
• 48:05
  And you know, I had that aspect of it.
• 48:09
  I had the aspect of, you know, having an attorney that was
• 48:14
  provided to me by the guy who ended up, quote, UN quote
• 48:17
  ratting on me. And, you know, there was that
• 48:21
  mistake. I was out of money.
• 48:25
  You know that that means that decisions have to be made, you
• 48:30
  know, a lot differently. And then there was, then there
• 48:34
  was my idiocy, my beliefs still in the system.
• 48:40
  I'm probably the only guy you'll ever have on this show.
• 48:44
  Not only that's an FBI agent, but that was stupid enough to
• 48:47
  plead open. I went into court and I said I'm
• 48:53
  going to change my plea to guilty because my lawyer says
• 48:56
  I'm going to get 21 months. I'm already done that.
• 49:01
  And you know, I'm ready to. I'm ready to get this over with.
• 49:04
  I don't want to spend any more money.
• 49:06
  I don't want the government to spend any more money.
• 49:08
  You know, let's just get this done and it didn't work out so
• 49:11
  well. Oh, you got 180 months.
• 49:14
  Well, where did they send you, Bob?
• 49:16
  Where'd you go once they sentenced you?
• 49:18
  Well, you know, it's funny because they.
• 49:20
  The other thing I was going to ask you, which is kind of an
• 49:23
  obvious question, you know, you're not probably going in
• 49:26
  Anonymous to prison. You're an FBI guy and people
• 49:31
  know things when you get to prison.
• 49:33
  So I can't even. You're going to have to let me
• 49:36
  know what what happened. Like how?
• 49:38
  How did it happen when you know you finally get to where you're
• 49:41
  going? Well, out in Utah I went from
• 49:49
  Supermax and then there was a suicide on our on our in our
• 49:59
  pod, in the Supermax pod. And you know, it just looks
• 50:05
  sketchy. So before they, the
• 50:08
  investigators should come in and interview us, they removed all
• 50:12
  of us from Supermax and they stepped me down to a Max and I
• 50:17
  was in there with like mostly gang members and myself, you
• 50:22
  know. So I was fortunate enough that
• 50:27
  all my days of working out for athletics, you know, I'm, I'm a
• 50:33
  relatively big guy. I mean, I had won a couple
• 50:38
  natural bodybuilding shows when I first got out of college.
• 50:42
  I'm an avid weightlifter. So in prison, you know, that
• 50:48
  helps. That's a good thing.
• 50:49
  Yeah, but you know, and I'm also, you know, I'm not the most
• 50:52
  attractive guy. I don't, I don't look like a
• 50:55
  runaway from a fight. So that helps too.
• 50:58
  And I think that being being in the FBI where like 80% of the
• 51:08
  guys that you're walking around with were put there by the
• 51:10
  company you work for, it's a pretty dangerous, it's a very
• 51:15
  dangerous. Environment I would think yes.
• 51:17
  But what I learned was because I work counterintelligence, nobody
• 51:25
  cared. They.
• 51:27
  They 'cause you weren't on the criminal side.
• 51:30
  And it wasn't that. I don't even know how they would
• 51:32
  have acted if I was, but they judge me for who I am rather
• 51:37
  than where I came from. You know work wise and.
• 51:42
  Don't you think that's something that's really interesting
• 51:44
  though, Bob, about prison? Because they'll say, you know,
• 51:48
  those people say, well, you know these guys this and that.
• 51:50
  It's like, but I think that however you are on the outside,
• 51:55
  whatever person you are on the outside and you don't change,
• 51:59
  but you go into prison as the person you are, that's how
• 52:02
  you'll be treated. So if you were somebody that got
• 52:05
  along with people and were able to kind of move around and and
• 52:08
  and be a liked person, people who could get along with people,
• 52:13
  that's how you are in prison. It's a very primitive
• 52:15
  environment. It's about respect.
• 52:16
  It's about how you treat others, how you get along with others,
• 52:19
  what you can do for them, what they can do for you.
• 52:22
  And I I think it's interesting that you say that, Bob, because
• 52:25
  you went in as all people listening the decorated FBI man
• 52:31
  into a Max prison from a supermax to Max to whatever, And
• 52:38
  they were like, OK, I I'm, I'm all right with Bob.
• 52:41
  Yeah, you know, I did. I mean, I did have a couple
• 52:44
  moments that were, you know, where I had to handle tested,
• 52:48
  had to handle business when I finally went through the diesel
• 52:53
  therapy and ended up in my spot. I want to explain diesel therapy
• 52:58
  for those down in the Cayman Islands.
• 53:00
  That is where they put a prisoner on travel.
• 53:05
  And you can go to Oklahoma, transfer, so you go to a lot of
• 53:08
  different places, but you could just travel for a long time if
• 53:11
  they want you to, and you can get lost in the system if they
• 53:14
  want you to. And it's one of the worst ways
• 53:17
  to serve your time as a prisoner, because there's
• 53:19
  nothing you can do about it. I I was actually fortunate
• 53:24
  enough to ride Con Air 8 times. That's a lot.
• 53:27
  Yeah. So.
• 53:30
  That's a lot of bus rides. It's a lot of chains.
• 53:33
  That's a lot of cold days on tournament.
• 53:36
  Standing in the rain, standing in the heat, there's.
• 53:39
  Really. Nothing.
• 53:39
  There's really nothing more dehumanizing than being
• 53:41
  shackled. No.
• 53:44
  It's, it's it, it's, it's wherever that is in your mind is
• 53:47
  that this has to be the worst that I can feel about myself
• 53:51
  being shackled with, you know, to my waist and my ankles and
• 53:54
  all this stuff hanging and it's like and when.
• 53:57
  You're out in a supermax out in Utah.
• 54:00
  They put a bar between your ankles and when you get your
• 54:08
  hour of rec time every other day, they don't take them off.
• 54:14
  So you literally walk around like a a dog pen with your
• 54:19
  shackles on. What's your wife thinking when
• 54:25
  she hears 180 months, 'cause I know you told me.
• 54:27
  You said, listen, this is a long time, you don't have to hang
• 54:30
  around with this. I I I don't want to feel like
• 54:33
  I'm the wait. And what was her response?
• 54:39
  I mean, she was devastated. And you know, like I told you,
• 54:43
  we're we're on a visit. And I said, honey, you know, I
• 54:46
  don't expect you to do this. You know, like I screwed up.
• 54:52
  I don't want to ruin your life. I don't want to.
• 54:54
  You're you're a beautiful woman. You know, life goes on.
• 54:57
  You know, just treat me like I died.
• 55:01
  You know, move on. Take care of the kids.
• 55:03
  Meet someone. And she said to me, I don't, I
• 55:07
  don't want another husband. I need a wife.
• 55:09
  And it was true because she was doing everything.
• 55:13
  She's doing all the work. She had to go get a job.
• 55:16
  She had to, you know, run the household.
• 55:18
  Not that she wasn't doing it anyways, but I mean she was
• 55:21
  alone. She was alone and her fears and
• 55:26
  this is another thing that people, people neglect.
• 55:28
  Brent, what happens to the families of the people that get
• 55:35
  incarcerated? For example, my wife was
• 55:38
  terrified to go anywhere because God forbid something happened to
• 55:43
  her, what was going to happen to the kids?
• 55:46
  And she lived in that fear day in and day out and the pressures
• 55:53
  like that, you know, the mistakes that I made that we
• 55:58
  make. We go to prison and we lift
• 56:04
  weights, get 3 hots and a cot, take craft classes and our
• 56:12
  families are left to the storm. Right.
• 56:16
  And and you know, in our system, it's it's the people on the
• 56:21
  outside that end up having the hardest time.
• 56:25
  Sure they're. Doing their prison time.
• 56:27
  Yeah, I mean, they're the ones that end up in prison.
• 56:31
  We go physically, but they stay there emotionally and mentally.
• 56:35
  How did you handle yourself in prison?
• 56:37
  Like you're. I'm sure you worked out.
• 56:40
  Probably had a prison job. How'd you handle hard days in
• 56:43
  prison? So, so just to to go into like
• 56:47
  what you had asked me just prior, so I went.
• 56:49
  I ended up with Danbury, so I I. Got all the way over on the
• 56:54
  other side of the world again, yeah.
• 56:56
  I got, I got off the bus alone and SIS met me coming in and
• 57:03
  they said, hey Bob, look, don't tell anybody where you were, you
• 57:07
  know, Nobody's going to know. Nobody's going to know.
• 57:11
  And you got to be careful, You know, you run into any problems,
• 57:15
  you know, let us know. And I I knew what was going on.
• 57:20
  So they walked me across the the compound and they unlocked the
• 57:27
  the dorm that I'm going into and the first inmate there turns
• 57:31
  around and yells, hey, the FBI guy's here.
• 57:34
  And it was like, OK, here we go. And for people that don't know
• 57:41
  the rules of prison, 'cause there are a lot of them.
• 57:44
  If you're a sex offender or you're someone who cooperated or
• 57:48
  you're a cop, you're not allowed places like you're not allowed
• 57:51
  in the TV room, you're not allowed in the weight room.
• 57:56
  There's certain things you can't do well.
• 58:00
  My first couple nights I had to handle the whole TV room thing
• 58:07
  and and you know, there were a bunch of guys that wanted me
• 58:11
  out. I knew it was time I said no,
• 58:15
  you know, we went and you know, handled it and they didn't
• 58:19
  realize like that. I knew how to handle myself.
• 58:23
  So I was, you know, it worked out well for me.
• 58:27
  I got to go to the TV room. And you're welcome into the TV
• 58:31
  room. And you know, funny, my first
• 58:35
  time in the weight room, I believe it was a Jamaican gang.
• 58:40
  That was like, they had that hour in the weight room when I
• 58:43
  walked in and their shot caller came up to me.
• 58:46
  It was big dude, dreadlocks. And he said, yo, What Car you
• 58:49
  ride in? And I was like, now I had been
• 58:53
  in like Supermax Max and like, there wasn't like prison talk
• 58:59
  really where I was, you know? So I was like kind of a fish.
• 59:03
  I was kind of new to it. And he was like, I said, I don't
• 59:06
  know what you mean. He's like, yo, What Car are you
• 59:08
  in? And I was like Chevy Tahoe
• 59:12
  because that's what my wife was driving.
• 59:14
  And they all just broke out laughing.
• 59:17
  And one of the guys is like, yo, that's the FBI dude.
• 59:21
  And and he was like, yo, you're the FBI guy.
• 59:23
  And he's and somebody said, yeah, that's the spy catcher.
• 59:27
  So like they had read all the articles on me and everything.
• 59:31
  And. And the CE OS had told them all
• 59:34
  this stuff. So I started to work out.
• 59:36
  The guy let me work out and then, you know, like my first
• 59:41
  workout, I said, yo, I got to do this.
• 59:43
  So I just started benching like 350.
• 59:47
  For rent now I was. I knew that, like, this is how
• 59:51
  they were going to judge me, you know?
• 59:53
  So I just it was probably the best workout I ever had in my
• 59:56
  life. And then it spread across the
• 59:58
  compound. Yo, this guy.
• 1:00:00
  This guy's for real. Yeah, he's he's he's strong, so
• 1:00:04
  he may not be the that's. What I mean about it, it's an,
• 1:00:07
  it is a primitive. It's one of the most primitive
• 1:00:09
  environments you'll be in. But you it's it's incredible.
• 1:00:13
  I think is what you can adapt to.
• 1:00:17
  I mean, you you adapted to two years in solitary confinement as
• 1:00:20
  supermax. I mean, that's that's crazy
• 1:00:25
  nuts. And you survived.
• 1:00:26
  You were talking through a toilet and and that guy saved
• 1:00:30
  your life. He really did.
• 1:00:32
  These are things that I find fascinating from the standpoint
• 1:00:37
  that you can be at the top of your game speaking to thousands
• 1:00:40
  of people at the FBI being awarded something, and you can
• 1:00:44
  be talking through a toilet and a supermax and you're still Bob.
• 1:00:50
  Well, you know, and and that's a great point, Brent, I I was told
• 1:00:56
  by my family, by my children, you know, don't let it change
• 1:01:00
  you. Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  Don't become prison, Bob. And you And you can't.
• 1:01:03
  You know you can't. I mean, sure.
• 1:01:05
  I came home, excuse me, I came home partially, you know,
• 1:01:12
  institutionalized. You know, there's rules. 4:00 I
• 1:01:16
  kept standing by my bed. My wife said, what are you
• 1:01:18
  doing? You know, it's a big.
• 1:01:19
  Deal we can't miscount. I line my shoes up underneath
• 1:01:24
  the bed. You know, things that, like you
• 1:01:27
  have to do every day. Yeah, don't even think about.
• 1:01:31
  I had a tough time, you know, with our son because when I left
• 1:01:34
  he was a little boy. When I came home, he was a man
• 1:01:37
  and, you know, I was trying to. How did you handle all that,
• 1:01:40
  Bob? Because, I mean, you you had all
• 1:01:42
  these things that, you know, you were talking earlier about your
• 1:01:44
  daughter, you know, winning, all these different things and
• 1:01:46
  you're in prison. There's nothing more
• 1:01:48
  emasculating than than that, than the idea, like my daughter
• 1:01:53
  one state while I was in prison playing tennis and I it was just
• 1:01:56
  like it made me feel so far removed from the real world that
• 1:02:01
  I couldn't be there. Like there's Times Now where I
• 1:02:04
  just sit and think when I'm sitting with the family, it's
• 1:02:06
  like, God, I'm so thank God I'm here.
• 1:02:08
  You know I'm here, 'cause when you're not there, you feel it so
• 1:02:11
  deeply. But what for you, with your kids
• 1:02:14
  being younger and you having all that time, 8 years, a long time,
• 1:02:18
  How did you deal with that? It was.
• 1:02:22
  It was, it was very difficult. But you know, God's delay is not
• 1:02:28
  his denial. And I live by that motto.
• 1:02:34
  I I had to keep faith, whether it was faith in, you know, God
• 1:02:40
  or it was faith in myself and my family.
• 1:02:43
  And I never lost hope. And that's the thing that I was
• 1:02:49
  wanting to get to, because I I knew you were going to say it.
• 1:02:52
  Hope. If you lose hope, that's when
• 1:02:55
  you stop adapting. That's when you stop surviving.
• 1:02:58
  As long as you have hope. And I think that goes for
• 1:03:02
  anybody that's in prison or outside of prison, if you have
• 1:03:06
  hope, you can always take action and move towards what you want.
• 1:03:09
  When you lose hope, that's when things get to be as dark and as
• 1:03:14
  ugly as it can be because you've given up.
• 1:03:16
  You know you're you've become victimized and you're in a fetal
• 1:03:18
  position. I agree.
• 1:03:21
  And and and the sad thing is, is our system, our justice system
• 1:03:26
  is set up to make you lose hope because they want you to lose
• 1:03:31
  hope in the courtroom. And how they do that as they
• 1:03:34
  bully you by, you know, saying hey, if you go to trial we're
• 1:03:38
  going to break you off when you lose.
• 1:03:41
  Like people in in our country don't realize.
• 1:03:44
  I didn't realize if you go to trial and lose they can like
• 1:03:47
  double the time. You know like that's that's not
• 1:03:52
  a fair that's not a right for to a fair trial.
• 1:03:56
  That's called bullying and the idea of enhancements they're so
• 1:04:01
  arbitrary. I had an offense level 15 and it
• 1:04:07
  ended up with 38 I I never got any money.
• 1:04:13
  I just because somebody said they were going to offer me a
• 1:04:16
  job with a salary of $200,000 that was a 10 point enhancement
• 1:04:21
  right there. Like that's that's the craziest
• 1:04:24
  thing in the world. I I couldn't believe that would
• 1:04:27
  stick when I was standing there in court.
• 1:04:30
  You know your lawyers tell you don't say anything, don't say
• 1:04:32
  anything. What you want to do is stand up
• 1:04:35
  and go wait a minute, What the fuck is going on exactly?
• 1:04:39
  What are we doing here? Like and.
• 1:04:44
  So so Bob, because I I wasn't in prison at the time, when you you
• 1:04:51
  went through the CARES act and everything were you following
• 1:04:55
  along on this. Did you know that you qualified
• 1:04:58
  to to get out and and like what was the procedures of like when
• 1:05:03
  this started being talked about to when you feel like you were
• 1:05:06
  close to the door that you might be able to go home?
• 1:05:09
  Well, First off, I was at Danbury at a low, but I had a
• 1:05:14
  public safety factor on me for greater severity.
• 1:05:19
  It was for like kidnapping and interrogation.
• 1:05:26
  So I was never allowed to go to a camp.
• 1:05:29
  They told me that. And the ironic thing is, I got
• 1:05:33
  along better with the inmates than I did with the higher ups
• 1:05:37
  in the BOP. Because I actually had a couple
• 1:05:40
  of moments where they were like, hey, listen, you're you're just
• 1:05:43
  91912054. You ain't no Superman anymore.
• 1:05:48
  And I was like, whoa, like, I'm cleaning toilets.
• 1:05:50
  Like I made the CEO. Telling you that.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah, like the captain. Like I made sure that I, like
• 1:05:57
  humble myself because number one, I wanted to become a better
• 1:06:01
  person. I knew that was the mistake I
• 1:06:03
  made, was let my ego win. And #2, I wanted to show people
• 1:06:09
  I'm humble, like, and I mean, it was rough in the beginning.
• 1:06:12
  They would throw feces at me. They would, they would go all
• 1:06:16
  over the floor because they knew I was cleaning it.
• 1:06:19
  And eventually all that ended and and the guys started, like
• 1:06:24
  embracing me. I mean, at the end of my time at
• 1:06:27
  Danbury, I was the head of recreation.
• 1:06:30
  I set up all kinds of leagues. You earned it.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah, like I I I seriously and and that was my goal.
• 1:06:37
  Like my goal was to to show these, to show everyone that,
• 1:06:41
  hey, the Bob that you see is the Bob that's real.
• 1:06:45
  I'm not the Bob who opens up his credentials and knocks your door
• 1:06:48
  down like that's not who I am. And a funny anecdote is they
• 1:06:55
  were, I was setting up hockey equipment one night because they
• 1:06:58
  were playing at a floor Hockey League, believe it or not, and I
• 1:07:02
  was in charge of setting it up. So I put on the goalie equipment
• 1:07:06
  and like I had said earlier, you know, I grew up on a dead end.
• 1:07:08
  We played every sport. I was always the goalie in
• 1:07:10
  street hockey. Well, I'm making all kinds of
• 1:07:13
  saves. So it's like the guys come up to
• 1:07:17
  me and one of the guys is like, hey, you know, you want to be
• 1:07:21
  our goalie for the Christmas tournament.
• 1:07:24
  And I was like, you're a Gambino crime family member, and I'm an
• 1:07:29
  FBI agent. Like, I don't think that is
• 1:07:33
  going to mesh well. And he was like, no, no, we want
• 1:07:36
  you to be our goalie. So during this tournament,
• 1:07:40
  Brent, the FBI agent, was the goalie for the mafia guys like
• 1:07:45
  the organized crime guys. And we're going to the finals.
• 1:07:51
  And I'm in my recreation booth and the CEO comes up to me and
• 1:07:56
  he's like, I can't believe we're doing this, Bob, I was like,
• 1:07:59
  what do you mean? He's like they got 140 grand on
• 1:08:02
  the game. And I was like, I was like,
• 1:08:06
  what? So I immediately reached up and
• 1:08:10
  grabbed like a three hole puncher and smashed my hand and
• 1:08:15
  looked at the CEO and said I need to go to medical.
• 1:08:18
  So he took me to medical and he's a great guy and he like
• 1:08:22
  really helped me out. He made sure that they like, put
• 1:08:25
  a cast on my hand. Wow.
• 1:08:27
  So that I could like bow out of the tournament, you know, saving
• 1:08:33
  face and not having, you know, my family.
• 1:08:36
  If they win without their goalie.
• 1:08:38
  Yeah, they actually ended up winning.
• 1:08:40
  Yeah, ended up good for everybody.
• 1:08:43
  Then yeah, so. So yeah.
• 1:08:46
  Or I was afraid like I let in a couple sucker goals in my.
• 1:08:49
  Family. No, no, I totally get it.
• 1:08:51
  I mean, there's there's, you know, playing sports in prison.
• 1:08:54
  It can get crazy. Oh man, listen it it really.
• 1:08:57
  Was it was a different kind of basketball they played in there
• 1:09:00
  too? So yo, yeah, but I was good at
• 1:09:03
  prison basketball, 'cause I grew up, you know, like, no bone, no
• 1:09:07
  foul. Yeah, that was my rule, right?
• 1:09:09
  Right. So you can bleed.
• 1:09:10
  You're OK. So back to Hope.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, well, I, I, and I don't mean to digress, but I I wanted
• 1:09:20
  to be an example to guys to never give up because they can't
• 1:09:26
  keep us forever, right? And when you get out, you can be
• 1:09:32
  who you want to be, and it's up to you while you're in to decide
• 1:09:38
  who that person is going to be. That's getting out, right?
• 1:09:41
  And you have to think about how you're going to get up those
• 1:09:44
  steps to to reach that level. So I really I taught classes, I
• 1:09:49
  mentored, I did whatever I could.
• 1:09:53
  And then one day I wrote up a request to the judge saying the
• 1:09:59
  reason I have a public safety factor is because of my job.
• 1:10:03
  And the judge said, yeah, you can't hold that against him.
• 1:10:07
  They removed it and four days later I was at a camp.
• 1:10:10
  Wow. Wow.
• 1:10:13
  Yeah. So, so how much time did you get
• 1:10:15
  to do at the camp level? I guess I was in the camp like
• 1:10:19
  2-2 years and a little bit of change and it was as COVID was
• 1:10:24
  hitting. We were.
• 1:10:26
  Watching it on TV, we were getting tested like crazy.
• 1:10:31
  The medium across the street was getting decimated by it.
• 1:10:37
  I mean, guys were like, I think guys were actually passing away
• 1:10:40
  and they just weren't letting anybody know.
• 1:10:42
  I mean it was terrible over there across the street from us
• 1:10:46
  and you know you're you're 9 inches away from the guy you're
• 1:10:50
  sleeping next to. I mean it's not like you have a
• 1:10:52
  lot of space in a in a camp. It was like bunk beds just lined
• 1:10:56
  up, you know, And I had no idea what my quote, UN quote, pattern
• 1:11:02
  score was. My my case manager called me in
• 1:11:08
  and he said, hey, look, why don't you write this up?
• 1:11:10
  I think you're eligible. Like, you're like the ideal
• 1:11:14
  model inmate. So I wrote it up and in classic
• 1:11:22
  horrible BOP form, how they let us know was they would get a
• 1:11:26
  list and they would get everybody in the cafeteria and
• 1:11:29
  they would read out the names of the guys that were going home
• 1:11:33
  and it was like it was just a terrible.
• 1:11:37
  And the CE OS, of course, because it's me.
• 1:11:41
  And you know, I got along with everybody from both sides.
• 1:11:49
  They called out all the names. And then then I just put my head
• 1:11:53
  down because I knew I wasn't going home.
• 1:11:55
  And then they said, Oh yeah, by the way, Lustic, I forgot to
• 1:11:57
  call your name. Oh my.
• 1:11:59
  God, So I get on the phone and I tell my wife, I'm like, honey,
• 1:12:04
  you're not going to believe this, but I'm coming home and
• 1:12:06
  she's like, shut up. Like you've said this a million
• 1:12:09
  times and because every appeal I filed I thought I was going to
• 1:12:15
  win and I said no March, March 18th, I'm coming home.
• 1:12:24
  And then four days later they said Oh yeah, we made a mistake
• 1:12:29
  you guys aren't going home. I had to call them back and I
• 1:12:32
  had to say, honey, I don't think I'm coming home now your.
• 1:12:37
  Poor wife. Luckily she hadn't told the kids
• 1:12:39
  yet. And then sure enough, 10 days
• 1:12:42
  later they called me in and they said yeah, no, you're going
• 1:12:46
  home. And I ended up going home June
• 1:12:49
  4th, 2020 on home confinement. My out date is August 2025 so I
• 1:12:58
  have about 17 months to go. So what's it been like getting
• 1:13:02
  out, you know, after serving all that 8-8 years and getting in
• 1:13:06
  your your kids are growing eight years older and what what was
• 1:13:11
  what was it like, Bob, for you to enter back into society?
• 1:13:15
  I when I processed out of the medium and I walked out and I
• 1:13:23
  saw, you know, I don't, I don't want to get emotional.
• 1:13:27
  I saw my family in the car and my kids ran out to me.
• 1:13:33
  I didn't think I was going to be able to stand.
• 1:13:35
  I thought for sure I was going to pass out.
• 1:13:38
  I mean, it was a feeling like none I've ever had in my life.
• 1:13:41
  And I still can't describe it. It was like, I mean, you know
• 1:13:45
  what it's like? When?
• 1:13:46
  You're in there and all this stuff is going on.
• 1:13:48
  You feel like a ghost. It's like you're there but no
• 1:13:53
  one can see you. And the only time you learn
• 1:13:55
  about it is like on a visit or on a 15 minute phone call and
• 1:14:01
  it's kind of like you want to touch them but you can't, you
• 1:14:05
  know it's like agony. It's it's like being a ghost.
• 1:14:09
  And all of a sudden they were in my arms where actually I was in
• 1:14:14
  their arms. And we were getting in the car
• 1:14:17
  and we were driving home. And the ride home we drove
• 1:14:21
  across the Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge that when I left, what's
• 1:14:27
  called the Tappan Zee Bridge and it was made out of metal.
• 1:14:30
  And now it was like a piece of artwork.
• 1:14:32
  It was a whole new bridge. And I drove through my town and
• 1:14:35
  they were all new buildings and everything was new.
• 1:14:39
  And I I remember I walked into a grocery store for the first time
• 1:14:43
  and the colors in the print. Sensory overload.
• 1:14:47
  Right. It was unbelievable for me,
• 1:14:49
  Brent. I mean, I was like, Oh my God,
• 1:14:51
  this is amazing. My wife's like, you don't even
• 1:14:54
  like Peppers. Why are you, like, running
• 1:14:56
  around screaming about the Peppers?
• 1:14:58
  I was like, they're green or yellow.
• 1:15:00
  They're red. That's.
• 1:15:01
  Real colors. Yeah, and and it was just all
• 1:15:04
  like overwhelming and in a happy way, though, you know, like in
• 1:15:11
  a, in a in a in a way that. Just almost rediscovering the
• 1:15:14
  world again. Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  And so it's like being a newborn.
• 1:15:17
  You know, It was like being a newborn.
• 1:15:20
  But there's also a lot of negative that comes with it
• 1:15:22
  because, you know, one time, unfortunately, my son reached
• 1:15:27
  across my plate at the dinner table And like, you know what
• 1:15:30
  that means? Like, and I, like, jumped ugly
• 1:15:34
  before I realized, oh, my gosh, this is my son.
• 1:15:38
  Like. And then that's when I realized,
• 1:15:40
  wow, I'm, I am institutionalized because you learn these rules in
• 1:15:45
  prison and if you don't abide by them, you don't survive, right?
• 1:15:49
  So after eight years. You got a little bit to rub.
• 1:15:54
  Off. Yeah, you did.
• 1:15:55
  So you know, it took some time. It took some time.
• 1:15:58
  And what helped me was my community saw the Bob that they
• 1:16:07
  knew before I left. And for me, they just embraced
• 1:16:13
  me. And all of a sudden I was a
• 1:16:16
  Little League coach again and I ran the youth basketball league
• 1:16:20
  and I was helping young young men from the inner city get
• 1:16:25
  college scholarships to play football.
• 1:16:28
  Because, you know, one of the things I learned when I was in
• 1:16:31
  there, and I'm sure you saw it too, Education or lack thereof,
• 1:16:36
  is one of the reasons why most of those young men and I figured
• 1:16:41
  if I could get a ball in their hand to replace a gun or a drug
• 1:16:44
  in their hand, then maybe they would get the opportunity to get
• 1:16:47
  an education. And then when they got out, they
• 1:16:50
  would re educate the rest of their friends, their family.
• 1:16:53
  And perhaps we could change things a little bit before it
• 1:16:57
  occurred. Prison Reform has to occur
• 1:17:00
  before prison. For sure.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah, And so that's what I made my goal.
• 1:17:05
  My goal was to to make sure that, like I did whatever I
• 1:17:09
  could to make sure that no one ended up in a situation like I
• 1:17:13
  had. I love it by using your
• 1:17:15
  experience and everything that you've gone through.
• 1:17:16
  I saw somewhere they'd written up you'd you'd jumped in some
• 1:17:19
  really cold water recently. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:22
  So I I I raised money for, unfortunately, a young boy in
• 1:17:27
  our town that has inoperable brain cancer.
• 1:17:31
  And she had a single mom and you know, she they needed funds.
• 1:17:35
  She was down at St. Saint Joseph's down in in
• 1:17:41
  Louisiana. And his family, you know, they
• 1:17:47
  were hurt for money. So I went out and I worked with
• 1:17:52
  this foundation in town called the Galata Foundation, which is
• 1:17:55
  an amazing foundation. And they let me, you know, raise
• 1:18:00
  money just for this young man. So I dove myself into the icy
• 1:18:04
  Hudson River, but raised enough money, you know, to make a.
• 1:18:10
  Difference. You know.
• 1:18:12
  That's what I love about your story though.
• 1:18:13
  Bob is you. You've gone through like you
• 1:18:16
  know the guy in Shawshank, you know he, he swam through a a
• 1:18:21
  pipe of shit to get to the other side to his you know they want
• 1:18:26
  to Neo. And you've you've made it to the
• 1:18:28
  other side. You haven't lost yourself.
• 1:18:30
  You're still Bob. You're still doing good things.
• 1:18:33
  They didn't take that goodness out of you.
• 1:18:35
  They didn't take your brain. And I I think you know there's
• 1:18:39
  going to be continued good things that for you after you've
• 1:18:42
  survived this event. I as far as, and I know you're
• 1:18:45
  you're doing some speaking too, 'cause I saw that you're you're
• 1:18:49
  on the the speaker Bureau thing. But I want to ask you, Bob, you
• 1:18:53
  know, after going through all of it, 'cause it's so much that
• 1:18:57
  you've gone through in the number of years that you've gone
• 1:19:00
  through it. What do you think's your biggest
• 1:19:03
  take away from all of this? Well, there's a couple things.
• 1:19:11
  One, it's, you know, don't judge others.
• 1:19:17
  Take the time to judge yourself. And if you can judge yourself
• 1:19:22
  and you can correct what you see that needs to be corrected, then
• 1:19:26
  you don't need to judge anyone else because the people around
• 1:19:30
  you are going to follow your Follow your example I.
• 1:19:34
  Love that. The the other thing is don't
• 1:19:39
  don't ever give up on yourself and don't ever give up on any
• 1:19:44
  kind of goal or dream that you might have.
• 1:19:47
  You're you're always going to run into hurdles, but you got to
• 1:19:50
  figure out a way to get either over it or around it or under
• 1:19:53
  it. You have to persevere.
• 1:19:56
  You know, I always say it's like CPR you.
• 1:20:00
  You have to have like a commitment.
• 1:20:02
  You have to have perseverance and you have to have resistance.
• 1:20:06
  You know you got to, you got to stay committed in what you want
• 1:20:09
  to do. And you know in prison that's
• 1:20:12
  really important. You got to persevere to reach,
• 1:20:17
  you know your goal, whatever your goal might be.
• 1:20:20
  Every day you have a different goal in prison, and you have to
• 1:20:23
  strive to get there. And then you have to resist the
• 1:20:27
  temptations, like at a camp where there were so many.
• 1:20:31
  Or you have to resist the people that don't want you to succeed
• 1:20:34
  because they've already labeled you a convict or a felon or an
• 1:20:37
  inmate. And now you're home and they're
• 1:20:39
  like, oh, look at him, He's a felon.
• 1:20:41
  You know, the world doesn't want to help us.
• 1:20:44
  So you have to resist giving into that.
• 1:20:48
  You have to resist giving up on yourself.
• 1:20:51
  And if you could do that CPR and you can do that daily, then
• 1:20:56
  you're going to be able to reach the goals that you want to
• 1:20:58
  reach. You know, I want to write.
• 1:20:59
  I want to finish a book that I'm writing.
• 1:21:01
  I want to, I want to go out and I want to speak to law schools
• 1:21:04
  and let them know, hey, I was on this side and I ended up on that
• 1:21:08
  side. And let me tell you how it went,
• 1:21:10
  you know, because maybe then, you know, our federal
• 1:21:14
  prosecutors will have a little more heart.
• 1:21:17
  What people don't understand is the government is driven by
• 1:21:20
  statistics and FBI agents can get like a raise or like a cash
• 1:21:25
  bonus by how many arrests he makes.
• 1:21:27
  Things like that. That takes all the heart out of
• 1:21:30
  it, takes all the humanity out of it.
• 1:21:32
  So I want people to understand we we're human.
• 1:21:37
  People that were incarcerated, We're not animals.
• 1:21:39
  We're human. And almost all of them are
• 1:21:41
  coming home. Yeah, we're coming.
• 1:21:43
  Yeah, we're coming home and and give us a chance.
• 1:21:48
  Give everybody a chance and don't as an as someone coming
• 1:21:53
  home from incarceration. Don't give up on yourself just
• 1:21:56
  because someone acts like they might have.
• 1:21:58
  Change their mind by being who you were before you went in, or
• 1:22:02
  the best improvement of yourself.
• 1:22:06
  I love that, Bob. Things will change.
• 1:22:09
  That's a great, that's a great way to end it.
• 1:22:11
  And we've got this, the game going into 300 prisons across
• 1:22:14
  the United States and you just gave them a great message.
• 1:22:16
  I love it. You gave a great message to
• 1:22:17
  anybody. It doesn't matter if you're in
• 1:22:18
  prison or not. You got to keep believing.
• 1:22:20
  Don't lose your hope and stay consistent with it.
• 1:22:23
  Keep taking action moving forward.
• 1:22:24
  It's it's all it's all there and and don't let somebody else tell
• 1:22:29
  you you can't do it. No, I had, I had an old guy real
• 1:22:32
  quick. I had an old guy who who was who
• 1:22:35
  was in for a long time. And I said to him, you know, how
• 1:22:38
  do you do it? How did you do 28 years?
• 1:22:41
  And he said, Bob, when you're going through hell, just keep
• 1:22:46
  going. Keep going and speed up.
• 1:22:48
  Get through. It there's a door.
• 1:22:49
  There's a door on the other side.
• 1:22:51
  You're going through hell. Just keep walking.
• 1:22:53
  Just keep going. Get through it.
• 1:22:55
  I want to make a shout out to Homestead Financial.
• 1:22:58
  Let's me use this great podcast room and if if you got a home,
• 1:23:02
  home, mortgage, need your guys, Greg.
• 1:23:04
  After you have. If you're looking for a book out
• 1:23:06
  there because Bob's getting ready to write a book.
• 1:23:09
  But go ahead and buy mine while you're waiting for Bob's book to
• 1:23:11
  come out. Nightmare success.
• 1:23:12
  You can get it on Amazon. Barnes and Noble.
• 1:23:16
  Like, subscribe, comment, leave reviews.
• 1:23:18
  I love all that. It helps the show.
• 1:23:20
  Go to brentcassidy.com. It's with Aty, not AD Lot DY, as
• 1:23:26
  I used to say when I was writing my emails back and forth from
• 1:23:28
  prison. Stay strong.
• 1:23:30
  I'll do the same. Bob.
• 1:23:31
  Man, you got such a great story. I love the way you tell your
• 1:23:34
  story. Thank you so much for being here
• 1:23:36
  today. Thanks so much for having me on
• 1:23:39
  and you know I really appreciate the time and and the love you
• 1:23:42
  gave me. I.
• 1:23:43
  Appreciate it. It's great Bob.
• 1:23:45
  I I wish the best for you Nightmare success in and out.